"Trump's disappearing of Mahmoud Khalil should be a warning for us all. If Trump has his way, Kahlil will be just the first of many. …
This episode is the latest in what the left warned would be Trump’s anti-democratic crusade were he to be re-elected. What New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg calls the 'Greatest Threat to Free Speech Since the Red Scare.'”
~ Todd Beeton
#Trump #MahmoudKhalil #FreeSpeech #authoritarianism
https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/mahmoud-kahlil-trump-detention
"BREAKING: A U.S. district judge just ruled that thousands of fired probationary federal workers must be reinstated. This is a huge win for federal workers and The Contrarian’s own Norm Eisen was on the front lines. Hear his thoughts just moments after leaving court now."
~ Contrarian and Norman Eisen
#Musk #Trump #FederalGovernment #workers #firings #resistance
/1
nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpq8hqyxd8htzl2t2p039hhvuzhjsrmfxc6nueff5ldamrdr6wz2eesq5ttcs The long string of numbers and the recent sign-up date are always dead giveaways of toxic trolls. I'm hitting the mute button now.
"President Trump opened a used-car lot outside the White House today, explaining that his business venture would not interfere with running the federal government, since there is hardly any left."
As Lewis Grossberger says, no one is surprised. /s
#Musk #Trump #Tesla #FederalGovernment #destruction #firings #economy #StockMarket #billionaires #EconomicElites #TaxCuts
https://grossbergerbulletin.substack.com/p/trump-opens-used-car-lot-outside
"One of the strangest dynamics of modern politics is that the richest man in the world chooses to get his information from grifting ignoramuses on social media."
Anyone with an ounce of intelligence understands that, when making decisions, good information is like intellectual gold dust."
~ Brian Klaas
#Musk #Trump #SocialMedia #disinformation #misinformation
/1
https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/knowingness-and-the-politics-of-ignorance-deb
"It’s Sunday, and Trump is saying we all need to 'shut up.' Seriously. He just posted a headline that reads: 'Shut up about egg prices—Trump is saving consumers billions.'
First, he is causing consumers to lose 'trillions,' not 'save billions.' Trump has tanked the markets, causing trillion-dollar losses to 401(k)s and pensions."
~ Ben Meiselas
#Musk #Trump #RFKJr #chaos #destruction #economy #firings #EconomicElites #billionaires #TaxCuts #PriceofEggs
/3
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/trump-demands-we-shut-upwe-get-louder
"He has also gutted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which forced companies engaged in fraud to repay billions of dollars to consumers.
Second, how dare he! Trump ran a fraudulent campaign on the premise that he would bring down prices (which were already going down under Biden) on day one and that he would make a peace deal in Ukraine before he even took office—or in 24 hours."
#Musk #Trump #chaos #destruction #economy #firings #billionaires #TaxCuts #PriceofEggs
/4
"It’s Sunday, and Trump is saying we all need to 'shut up.' Seriously. He just posted a headline that reads: 'Shut up about egg prices—Trump is saving consumers billions.'
First, he is causing consumers to lose 'trillions,' not 'save billions.' Trump has tanked the markets, causing trillion-dollar losses to 401(k)s and pensions."
~ Ben Meiselas
#Musk #Trump #RFKJr #chaos #destruction #economy #firings #EconomicElites #billionaires #TaxCuts #PriceofEggs
/3
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/trump-demands-we-shut-upwe-get-louder
"On Friday night, employees at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—about 80,000 of them—received an email offering them a buyout of up to $25,000 if they resign and giving them a deadline of March 14 to respond. Also as of Friday, nearly 230 cases of measles have been confirmed in Texas and New Mexico, and two people have died."
~ Heather Cox Richardson
#Musk #Trump #RFKJr #chaos #destruction #HHS #measles
/1
nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpq8hqyxd8htzl2t2p039hhvuzhjsrmfxc6nueff5ldamrdr6wz2eesq5ttcs We all belong to a society in which we're embedded and which sustains us. We have obligations to that society because it sustains us. The choice not to vaccinate children is not just a choice that affects parent and child. It affects all of society.
It goes without saying that I'm glad to remember that I survived being pulled out into the GULF OF MEXICO once at Padre Island, when I got into a fierce current against which I had to fight with all my strength to make my way back to shore.
¡VIVA EL GOLFO DE MÉXICO! SIEMPRE!
#GulfofMexico
/9
When I was growing up and my family planned summer vacations, our parents predictably gave us sons a choice: the mountains? Or the GULF OF MEXICO?
Arkansas, where I grew up, is an inland state, half of which is mountainous, and which is also not too very far from the GULF OF MEXICO, particularly if one lives in the southern part of the state as my family did.
#GulfofMexico
/1
"Dozens of Consumer Finance Protection Bureau employees were terminated on Tuesday evening, sources tell WIRED. ... Sources tell WIRED that the CFPB’s enforcement division was hit hard, but it’s unclear how many employees were let go."
~ Makena Kelly, Dhruv Mehrotra
#Trump #Musk #coup #CFPB #ConsumerProtection #billionaires #WallStreet #banks #bankers
https://www.wired.com/story/dozens-of-cfpb-workers-terminated-in-after-hours-firing-blitz/
Looking at the rise to authoritarianism in the US, Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way note that "democracy is in greater peril today than at any time in modern U.S. history." And:
"U.S. democracy will likely break down during the second Trump administration, in the sense that it will cease to meet standard criteria for liberal democracy: full adult suffrage, free and fair elections, and broad protection of civil liberties."
#Trump #authoritarianism #democracy
/5
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/path-american-authoritarianism-trump
Kristin Du Mez notes that because her field of study is American evangelicalism and because large sectors of American evangelicalism are closely linked to authoritarianism, she has for some years now studied the rise of authoritarianism in US culture and political life, and sought to ring a warning bell about it.
#WhiteChristianNationalism #WhiteEvangelicals #Republicans #Trump #authoritarianism #cruelty #racism #WhiteSupremacy
/4
Political scientist Brooklyn Walker notes that scholarly studies including the General Social Survey find the following:
"Christian nationalism is strongly and positively correlated with both racial resentment and authoritarianism."
The three go predictably go together as a kind of unholy trinity, and that trinity is deeply enmeshed in Trump.
#WhiteChristianNationalism #WhiteEvangelicals #Republicans #Trump #authoritarianism #cruelty #racism #WhiteSupremacy
/3
Holly Berkley Fletcher reflects on the monstrously expensive "Jesus ad" some US Christians mounted for the Super Bowl:
"In my experience and in my study of American religious history, white American Christians have long expended more energy convincing themselves they are good—and by extension, deserving of power—than they have actually striving to be good."
#WhiteChristianNationalism #WhiteEvangelicals #Republicans #Trump #authoritarianism #cruelty
/1
https://hollyberkleyfletcher.substack.com/p/jesus-ad-christianity
"What happens when 80% of believers infuse an authoritarian movement with religious obligation? And when their political participation is enough to saddle a secular nation with the results?
Jesus Ad Christianity wants to have Jesus and ignore him, too. It wants to hide rotten fruit in beautiful Gospel boxes."
#WhiteChristianNationalism #WhiteEvangelicals #Republicans #Trump #authoritarianism #cruelty
/2
Holly Berkley Fletcher reflects on the monstrously expensive "Jesus ad" some US Christians mounted for the Super Bowl:
"In my experience and in my study of American religious history, white American Christians have long expended more energy convincing themselves they are good—and by extension, deserving of power—than they have actually striving to be good."
#WhiteChristianNationalism #WhiteEvangelicals #Republicans #Trump #authoritarianism #cruelty
/1
https://hollyberkleyfletcher.substack.com/p/jesus-ad-christianity
"It’s worth noting by the way that a lot of these people weren’t really willing to admit that Gaza was actually destroyed, that the hospitals, the buildings, the schools, the agriculture, they weren’t willing to admit that until it became convenient for them to say that so that they could say that the people should have to go to other countries."
#Israel #Gaza #AmericanJews #morality #Zionism #nationalism
/2
"This is what it means to worship a state, to treat a state as an idol. It justifies itself no matter what it does. This is the moral catastrophe that has been unfolding slowly in Israel and in the American Jewish community simply has now reached a new kind of crescendo in which Israel, with America’s help, destroys an entire society and then says, well, the place is destroyed, so you’d better leave."
~ Peter Beinart
#Israel #Gaza #AmericanJews #morality #Zionism
/1
"From encouraging his supporters to beat up protesters at his rallies, to invoking the possibility of 'Second Amendment people' attacking Hillary Clinton, to glorifying police brutality, to inciting an insurrection, to suggesting military leaders he doesn’t like should be executed, to mocking Paul Pelosi after he was assaulted by one of his supporters —"
~ Aaron Rupar
#Trump #violence
/1
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-shooting-butler-pennsylvania