Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
My intention is to make links only to publicly accessible, stable URLs. If you find a link to a page that requires subscription, please report that as you would report any other broken link.
An expert testifying for the Congressional committee investigating "antisemitism" compared that committee to the House Un-American Activities Committee which persecuted real or alleged supporters of Communism.
*Ahead of McCarthyite House Committee hearing on College Campuses, Jewish Columbia Students Urge Congress to take Action Against the … Regime’s False Allegations of Antisemitism.*
The wrecker's rushed cuts in foreign aid are about to cut off the food aid for up to a million refugees in Uganda.
Just before the corrupter dropped his recently increase tariffs for imports to the US, Rep. Marjorie Greene bought stocks that would rise as a consequence. Was that insider trading, a crime?
A tariff exemption is an exception to tariff requirements, granted for importation of a specific foreign product. The corrupter is issuing exemptions so as to benefit his rich supporters.
The bullshitter wants to replace American History with with a compendium of propaganda myths designed for him. We can expect him subsequently to try to compel schools to teach this propaganda in place of real history.
There have been plenty of myths in American History as taught in the past, which met with efforts to replace the myths with facts and serious thought. The principle of valuing truth supported those efforts. But that principle never had to contend with the power of the state.
An exploration of philosophical ideas implicated in the idea of human rights.
The author has not considered the question of a right to control your own computing. I'd be interested to see what perse does with that idea.
Wars are festering in various parts of the world. The US keeps many of them going, but not all. No one seems to know what to do to end them.
Regarding Yemen, it is clear that terror bombing of civilians in the Houthi territory is unjust and won't achieve anything good. It is also clear that we ought in any case to make Israel end its bombardment of siege in Gaza. Doing that would the Houthis' attacks on shipping, so that one festering battle would end.
I don't post about the other festering wars unless there is news of a change in the situation -- because I don't know enough about them to think of ideas for ending them.
Robert Reich: the bully acts towards people under his power like an abusive parent.
A method has been developed to attribute fractions of the world-wide damage from extreme heat to various producers of fossil fuel, based on their contributions to the fossil fuel consumption. This may make them to be liable for some of the damage.
Although this is a small fraction of the damage their emissions will do in the future, holding them liable for this part could provide pressure to decrease fossil fuel investment.
In principle, it should be possible in a similar way to hold agribusiness liable for the emissions from their deforestation and fertilizer runoff.
China is arresting relatives of Hong Kong democracy activist in exile, after making it a crime to help refugees get access their funds that are caught in Hong Kong.
This amounts to taking their relatives hostage.
The wrecker hopes to engage magats' imaginations by talk of reopening the Alcatraz island prison.
If the island continues to attract tourists, the ruiner's henchmen could randomly choose some to seize and hold in he prison. They could have a big laugh over this at the expense of non magats like us.
The corrupter's foolish tariff policy is partly based an emotional truth that attacks the weak politics of plutocratist ("mainstream") Democrats.
The weakness is real, but the right way to fix it is by supporting the progressive Democrats.
*Layoffs and funding cuts to FEMA and NOAA will hamstring emergency managers, warns professor Samantha Montano.*
Israel announced a plan
to conquer
Gaza and maintain a military occupation. I see no reason to think
that this occupation would be temporary, but it could end with ethnic
cleansing.
When Israel says that it plans additional extreme crimes, I figure we
can believe that. When Israel suggests its future crimes will be
limited, I am skeptical.
Many American children and teenagers are oppressed constantly by
pervasive surveillance by their own parents. One summer camp has a
policy of refusing to provide parents with
"surveillance as a service".
The kids need to become accustomed to life unmonitored,
and parents need to get used to going for days without
monitoring their kids.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to protect public media from Trump's move to destroy
public journalism.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
The bully proposes
to suspend the right of habeas corpus on the grounds that
immigrants
constitute an "invasion".
Courts have already ruled that that is no invasion and can't be treated
as one. ISTR that a court overturned Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus
in Kentucky on the grounds that public safety was doing ok there.
This makes it explicit that the bully and his henchmen want to
throw citizens in prison arbitrarily. They are the ones who belongs
in prison.
*Plastic producers have pushed
"advanced
recycling" as a salve to the plastic waste crisis despite knowing
for years that it is not a technically or economically feasible
solution, a new report argues.*
US citizens:
Call
on Congress to Legalize Marijuana and End the Federal Ban.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
*Israel is starving Gaza. It's a cheap, silent and
brutal
way to kill.*
US citizens: phone your congresscritter at 231-400-0602 to tell per,
"No cuts to Medicaid."
The Indian government is
retaliating
to a terrorist attack in Kashmir by random terrorism against
Kashmiri civilians. They must be getting a lot of fabricated
information this way. Surely much of it is false, but it will suggest
lots more people to torture.
The thugs are also
blowing up the houses of relatives of alleged Kashmiri terrorists.
This also seems like terrorism to me.
India should hold the decades-ago
promised
referendum in Kashmir and heed the results.
Republicans resume
pushing for voter ID laws in states they control,
even as they try the same at the federal level.
Their position is that one can't make too sure that marginalized
citizens don't vote.
*Harvard shows
resistance
is possible. But universities must join forces.*
*Medical cannabis shows
potential
to fight cancer, largest-ever study finds.*
*First-of-its-kind Hawaii bill
raises
tourist taxes to fund climate relief.*
The approach for raising funds is a good one, but it falls into the
fashionable error of prioritizing protection against the current level
of global heating
over avoiding future global heating.
Protective measures can be effective today, but if we allow global
heating to continue, it will eventually overwhelm the defense we can
do. We must prioritize stopping it from getting worse.
Yes, we should bail the water our of our lifeboat. But the most
important thing is to plug the holes through which water keeps flowing
in.
Australia may have
voted
to head for broad decarbonization.
The doubt in my mind is whether Labor really will change fossil fuel
tendencies of the last year or two.
Ralph Nader's
articles
of impeachment for the corrupter.
Alas, we learned in his first term that no crime, no matter how
heinous, will convince Republican senators to vote to remove him.
His personal power is their primary loyalty because without him they
are nothing.
Some Buddhists are making a big fuss about the auction of ancient gems
that belonged to a man who found them and excavated them.
They claim that the gems were mixed with a kind of relic — some of the
dust remaining from Buddha's cremation — and this makes them
sacred so they can't be auctioned.
I can imagine what the Buddha would say about this obsession:
Please join me in focusing on things that
*{The corrupter's]
white-collar criminal pardons
cost
public $1bn,
says ex-DoJ official.*
Assuming he profited from this in some way, it amounts to a transfer
from America's account to his account.
While some groups of deportation
thugs
told mothers being deported that they
had
to take their US-citizen children with them, another group told
another mother that she could not do so.
I conjecture that they have been given vague and confusing
instructions, written in a hurry by inexperienced people,
so in similar situations various officials draw
different conclusions. That tends to happen when those who write the
instructions don't think carefully about them.
(satire) *RFK Jr. Encourages Americans To
Do
Their Own Research About Dragons.*
* The saboteur in chief
has ordered the
closure
of 25 scientific
centers that monitor US waters for flooding and drought, and manage
supply levels to ensure communities around the country don't run out of
water.*
From now on, if your region has floods or water shortages, the
saboteur will be partly to blame.
British human rights defenders have
defeated
in court one increase in
repression of protests. The increase was serious but the Tories
treated it as minor.
I wonder whether this will free any of the UK's political prisoners who
were convicted of protesting.
There is once again a fleet of unarmed ships carrying aid to Gaza.
Someone used drones to
attack
one of the ships, half the Mediterranean
sea away. The suspicion is the attack was done by Israel.
I agree it was probably the Israeli army , because Israel had means,
motive and opportunity. Some other countries had the means, and
perhaps an opportunity, but No other country had a motive.
Israel used to
seize
aid boats and arrest the people on them.
The change to attack the boats and maybe kill the people
on them reflects how Israel has changed since then.
Was that attack terrorism? I think it was.
Terrorism means making war on noncombatants, and those unarmed
aid workers are clearly not combatants.
*Labour's planning bill
threatens
protected habitats [in Britain],
says environment watchdog.*
A Zionist lobby group is pushing for California to
impose
state censorship
of the ethnic studies classes that are mandatory in high school there.
I think these classes should teach Uri Avnery's
Truth
Against Truth
and follow
that with the work of today's bridge-builders,
such as Mohsen Mahdawi and his
Israeli
colleague Mikey Baratz
But that should not be enforced by government censorship.
*Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick laid out a
disturbing
plan to bring
back serfdom.*
*RFK jr. rejects
cornerstone of health science: Germ theory.*
He also endorses the
implausible
theory that "chemtrails" are made
intentionally and by DARPA.
It is dangerous to let an ignoramus mess with America's medical system.
He will order the use of useless "treatments" for imaginary problems
while rejecting the real treatments for real medical problems based on
imaginary reasons.
On NYU's repressive
punishment of nonviolent student protests,
which it improvises from week to week and enforces in a biased
and haphazard way.
Mohsen Mahdawi was
released
on bail and defended democracy for all
Americans.
*Once the repression of dissent, in the name of security, becomes a key
objective of a government, authoritarian rule and even martial law are
not far off. When they look at my case, all Americans should ask
themselves: what is left of our democracy, and who will be targeted
next?*
The US needs more citizens like him.
Many countries have passed laws that
label
journalists that criticize the state as "foreign agents".
This enables arbitrary restrictions on the press.
The challenge is how to distinguish foreign-organized influence
campaigns from campaigns for journalistic freedom.
Rebecca Solnit talks about protests that have had
important
political effects,
even if the target doesn't explicitly agree to any demands.
One example, was the protests in Seattle in 1999, which blocked a
global "free trade" initiative.
"Free trade" tends to mean that companies can get away with whatever
they wish and rich people can hide all their wealth from taxation, so
it is very harmful. I have a feeling that some super-rich people and
companies are using the example of
the wrecker's reckless and sudden
tariff increases to teach the public that "tariffs are bad, we must
eliminate them", but that idea would be as harmful now as it was in
the 1990s.
The U.N. special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories
calls for more European leaders to be
charged
with complicity in war crimes
for supporting Israel's bombardment of Gaza.
A former Labour shadow minister, now in Parliament as an independent,
calls on Labour to
listen
to the revulsion of many Labour voters
against Starmer's right-wing policies.
The population of flying insects in Britain fell by half from 2021 to
2023. In
2024 it
did not bounce back. The cause is not known, but it can cause
disaster for many kinds of plants, as well as birds, frogs, and other
things that eat insects.
Just as the world came to have a chance to eliminate HIV through
medicines that prevent its spread, the
wrecker showed
up and cancelled US plans to pay for doing that.
If civilization falls due to global heating, we are likely to lose the
technology to make medicine to treat and prevent HIV. What a shame to
prevent us from getting rid of it first.
Eliminating patents on
medicines is
very important. The three fields where patents are most harmful
are agriculture, medicine and software.
El Salvador's CECOT prison
is more
cruel than Guantanamo. The prisoners are kept incommunicado and
have no legal rights. Anyone there can be sent to that prison on the
"president"s whim. Other, older prisons there are (reportedly) even
more cruel.
*Israel must give Red Cross
access
to jailed Palestinians, Britain tells ICJ.*
The crimes of HAMAS are grave, an many, but the crimes of Israel are
comparably grave and far more numerous. Citing one side's crimes
does not justify the other's.
*US and Ukraine
sign
minerals deal* that sets up a way for Ukraine to pay the
price of the military aid that the US has already donated.
This agreement is not really a deal; rather, it is a general roadmap
to reach a deal. This will give the cheater at least one excuse to
start demanding that Ukraine sell the whole store for one dollar. But
since he doesn't feel the need a valid excuse, the cheater won't
hesitate to break it anyway to demand more money. You should prepare
for any deal with him to be cancelled at any moment.
Nonetheless, if this deal results in continued US military aid and
that stops the advance of the Putin forces
( please
don't call them "the Russians"), it is better than no agreement at
all.
*Charting 100 days of [the saboteur in
chief]’s onslaught
on the environment.*
*[The wrecker] has
launched more
attacks on the environment in 100 days than his entire first
term.*
*I
witnessed US
cruelty as a Guantánamo lawyer.
[The bully's] deportations are
disturbingly familiar.*
Paramount wants to do a merger, and Paramount owns CBS. That
relationship enabled the represser
to impose
censorship on CBS.
Last year, the FTC might have blocked the merger to preserve
competition, but it would not have demanded power over CBS
programming.
It is clear that the purchase of news publishers by much bigger
businesses is bad for the freedom of the press. These larger
companies are vulnerable to many kinds of government pressure, and
they have no tradition of seeing censorship as bad.
If we get out of this mess, we should ban such mergers and break up
those mergers.
*RFK Jr and [department of HHS] falsely claim MMR vaccine
includes
"aborted fetus debris".
Mohsed Mahdawi has
been freed
on bail. There was never any reason to jail him except the
Republican policy of intimidating all opposition into submission.
Italian journalists that have exposed fascist-leaning members of
Melonu's right-wing governing Party have
been attacked
with spyware on their snooping devices. (They don't by default
snoop for anybody and everybody.)
*[London Banks] have poured more than $100bn (£75bn) into companies
developing
“carbon bombs” -- huge oil, gas and coal projects that
would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature
limits with catastrophic global consequences.*
Robert
Reich: If leaders stay silent, the US won't survive [the
corrupter's] next 100 days.
An American pleads for other countries to adopt policies that can
lead/press the US back to democracy.
*I firmly believe that the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada
and
Japan have
a historic obligation to the American people to do what they can
to help us preserve our democracy. An America descending into
authoritarianism also poses a threat to the democracies they lead.*
I hope that they share these feelings, despite the disadvantage that
they must scramble to protect themselves from the right-wing extremists
in the United States while resisting similar extremists in their own
countries.
US citizens: call on Congress to
pass
the Social Security Expansion Act.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
The muskrat
*appears to be laying
the groundwork to privatize some
space and satellite operations now under the authority of National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), or steer lucrative
contracts toward his SpaceX and Starlink companies, former agency
employees say.*
This shows us a directly corrupt potential in the
DOSE
(Depredations of Sabotage and Evisceration).
*UNRWA says Israel has
abused
[jailed UNRWA] staff and used some as
human shields.*
UNRWA says that Israeli prison guards subjected some of them to
brainwashing techniques and obtained some forced confessions.
This is what Israeli prisons
generally
do to Palestinian prisoners.
Bernie Sanders: *It's time for the US to
guarantee
healthcare to all.*
US farms switched to no-till farming to reduce loss of topsoil,
which prevents harmful environmental degradation. Friends of the Earth
warns that this has led to much
more
use of dangerous herbicides.
So what should we do? The loss of topsoil is permanent and we need to
prevent that. We need to keep people safe from the herbicides too &mdash
but how do we do both?
The muskrat's
companies benefited greatly from government subsidies.
Now he wants to
end
such subsidies for the future.
But I don't think we should continue being ripped off to subsidize
businesses.
In my view, no government should ever subsidize a business without
getting a fair amount of debt or shares in exchange. This includes
manufacturing,
stadiums(including
Olympic games),
movies,
and other
things. Otherwise, the people are being cheated.
In the case of paying for research, the government should
make sure that the discoveries can be used by anyone.
The Putin forces
kept
a Ukrainian civilian journalist prisoner almost
totally incommunicado, Eventually they handed over her dead body,
which showed signs of torture.
I am puzzle by the people on the left who are included to excuse this.
They would not excuse Israel for torturing Palestinian civilians in
its jails.
Former Israeli military chiefs warn Israelis that their government is
threatened
by extremism.
This is one of the things that are gravely wrong in the Israeli
government. The other is repression and persecution of Palestinians.
I think the two are causally related.
Let Benevolence Shine
Twixt the river and the sea,
We should not get so caught up in how to take the difficult next step
that we forget where we are trying to get to.
*Deportation thugs
seeking
out unaccompanied immigrant [minors] to
deport or prosecute them.*
The article's title says "children", but I think that is an example of
the misleading practice of calling adolescents "children". If I am
right about that, the fact that the victims are over 18 does not make
the actions any less wrong. But real children are the ones least
likely to be able to stand up to such pressure.
Using "welfare checks", supposedly meant to protect people, to find
excuses to persecute them is even more vicious. That will teach
people to distrust real efforts to protect them, much like the fake
"vaccination
campaign" which the US set up to look for Osama bin
Laden.
*Two women who were deported to ]Honduras alongside their US citizen
children were held
in “complete isolation” and denied any opportunity
to coordinate the care and custody of their children before being put
on a flight, according to one of the lawyers representing them.*
The effect was to forcibly deport their US citizen children too.
They experienced several other forms of unjust treatment from the US
government, described in the article. The government is using its mistakes
as excuses for unjust treatment.
But that's Republicans for you. If a person is in a group they have
decided to start, when some nasty treatment gives them an excuse to do
more harm, they grasp the opportunity gleefully.
A survey of noteworthy
recent instances of cruelty by the US deportation
thugs.
(satire) *FBI Claims Gavel, Black Gowns
Prove
Ties To MS-13 Gang.*
*Elon Musk's DOPE conflicts of interest
worth
$2.37bn, Senate report says.*
DOPE = Depredation's of Perverse Evisceration.
Arguing that the recent idea of using psychedelics to treat people in
mental distress
comes
from shamans who told tourists what tourists
wanted to hear, in the last century.
Australia's coal exports have reached a record level,
as the coal companies
fund
ads to promote the right-wing planet
roaster parties.
The money trail was visible in that instance, but I am sure they are
doing far more of this than people can trace.
*Labor and Coalition
accused
of being on fossil fuel ‘unity ticket’ as thermal
coal exports hit record high.*
The government's foot is on the coal pedal as well as the gas pedal
as the world accelerates
towards the climate cliff. We can't see how
far away the cliff actually is, but there are signs it will be difficult to
slow nature in falling in.
The wrecker
ordered reducing tariffs on cars from Canada,
in a selective way that
helps
Tesla most of all.
A New York Times article took evidence that Muslims are the religion
most targeted by prejudice in universities, but spun it to give the
impression
that Jews are most targeted.
Here is a careful
account of the report they are talking about.
Note: I criticize using the term "Islamophobia" to refer to bigotry
against Muslims, or to refer to criticism of Islam. That bigotry is
nasty (like other bigotries), while criticism of that religion is a
legitimate issue for discussion (like criticism of other religions),
and neither of them is a "phobia".
There is information that suggests that the British government helped
the Israeli
government meddle to bring about prosecution of protesters
in Britain.
The corrupter's
choice for undersecretary of the army says he will end
all his conflicts of interest except one: all the stock he owns in
one
arms company.
This is enough to conclude he is not serious about doing the job
honestly; enough reason to reject him. But I don't think that
magat
senators object seriously to corruption. If they did, they would not
serve the corrupter.
A judge
has ruled that the *Alien Enemies Act does not allow White
House to deport alleged gang members* in the southern district of
Texas.
Eventually appeals courts will rule on this.
How many different reasons to use cash will it take to convince your
friends that they have
good
reason to use cash too?
RMS will give a talk in Liberec, Czech Republic,
Wednesday, May 7, 16:30 – 18:30.
For programs that you could run,
and for network services that could do your own computing,
under what circumstances is it reasonable to trust them?
RMS will give a talk in Alicanta, Spain,
Monday, May 5, and it is already full.
US citizens: tell the saboteur in chief that you condemn the
arrest
of Judge Hannah Dugan.
A study of populations of 500 species of birds found that
3/4
are declining,
especially where they were formerly numerous.
Disposing of thousands of satellites by letting them burn up in reentry
will release thousands of tons of
aluminum
oxides into the upper atmosphere, which can significantly increase
global
heating.
Former
US
ambassadors compare the situation in the countries where they
served with the situation in the US now.
US citizens:
call on
Congress to stop fake abortion clinics' deceptive and predatory
practices.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
The wrecker has
done harm around the world to
humanity's
freedom and future.
The US engages experts to recommend policies for coping with global
heating effects; the next report is due in 2028. The wrecker has just
dismissed
all of them.
Judging from his other actions, he will choose new bogus "experts" to
make a bogus report advising damaging policies, then will pressure all
states to follow it, and some of them will do so (to their own misfortune).
Attorney General Bondi's actions, since appointed, have amounted
to a campaign of
sabotage
against due process of law and equal rights, opening opportunities
for sabotage by America's enemies (foreign and domestic).
The bully plans to eliminate
rules
that protected journalists from subpoenas for investigations into
leaks.
The hypocrite's henchmen have ordered
an
investigation of Harvard
because a student-run organization complied with federal DEI policies
while they were in effect.
(satire) *[The wrecker's]
Support
Surges After He Points Gun At Nation.*
The big power failure has taught many in Spain how dangerous it is
to
rely on digital payment. This may help us campaign to resume use
of cash.
When the systems are working normally, we still have reasons to pay
cash for most payments: to maintain our freedom and security, and to
block surveillance.
US citizens:
call
on The FDA not to end routine food safety inspections —
change would lead to sickness and death.
US citizens:
call
on Congress not to attack Section 230 — that is dangerous
for people's freedom of speech.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
The Canadian Liberal party just won a national election
because its
new
leader stood firm against the bully's threats and harassment.
What the wrecker
has
ruined
in just 100 days.
*The US used to be the gold standard for press freedom.
Not any more.*
One other cause of this is that mainstream media are no longer
independent. They have been bought, either by billionaires that are
easily corrupted by the wrecker
or by bigger companies that don't
dare get on the wrecker's bad side.
People have said to me that the US Constitution ought to be changed to
make it harder to subversion by powerful elected officials. If that
is possible, but I don't see how it could work. (Never mind that the
magats
would block the effort.) Every governmental system is made of
humans, If the most powerful of those humans want to make the system
bad, we can't count on the system to stop them.
Space superstorms of charged particles coming from the Sun
can bring down power-grids. The loss of electric power could
lead to disastrous
superleaks of radiation from old nuclear fuel
that depends on power to cool the cooling water. Such a disaster
could expose millions of people to carcinogenic radioisotopes.
It occurs to me that one solution might be to install large wind farms
and batteries near each nuclear plant. That would also speed the day
that we can retire and clean up the nuclear plants.
Someone encouraged
Britain's right-wing extremists to target Hong Kong's exiled
dissidents.
We must suppose that was done by China's agents.
Suggestions for responding to Amazon's wrongdoing
beyond simply refusing to do business with it.
From AthenaForAll.org.
*Eric Swalwell, a Democratic representative from California, said his
Republican colleagues were
"terrified"
of crossing Trump not only
because of the negative impact on their political careers, but also
from anxiety that it might provoke physical threats that could cause
personal upheaval and require them to hire round-the-clock security as
protection.*
We know from the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband, as well as the
attack on the capitol on 6 Jan 2021, that this danger exists.
But that danger does not excuse what they are doing, which is allowing
the same menace to engulf and destroy their country. It is their duty
to start to resist.
A lawyer defending a right-wing activist gave the task of finishing
a submission to the court
to
an Artificial Stupidity.
Since it had not passed the bar exam, or studied law,
the text it output was full of errors.
Please do
not call these systems "intelligence". It is important for
people to know not to expect their output to be veridical.
Microsoft is tightening
the chains that force Windows
useds to
identify themselves.
I suspect that it planned the strategy of leaving openings to avoid
doing this, then gradually close them, as a way to avoid inspiring a
lot of resistance all at once.
If you have been using other workarounds, now is the time to put your
foot down and stop. Bite the bullet and defenestrate your computer!
*Trump promised peace but brings
rapid
increase in civilian casualties to
Yemen.*
(Don't ever expect the bullshitter
to do what he said he would do.)
US bombs hit
an immigration prison in Yemen and killed 68 immigrants.
None of them were combatants.
Do we believe that the wrecker's
henchmen tried to check who they would kill?
Gaza has run
through the supplies of food and medicine that it had
when Israel imposed a total siege.
Letting tech companies and governments track you all the time is
dangerous not only if they declare you an enemy. If you go into the
wild after getting used to that way of life, you may find yourself
hopelessly
lost because your navigation skill was never developed.
The saboteur's
henchmen in the Justice Department have
sabotaged the
defense
of Americans' voting rights.
The attorney general has just fired the whole of the team
that was supposed to defend Americans' voting rights.
Or course they would do this — they are the ones attacking our voting
rights. Republicans can only "win" an election through
voter
suppression.
Greg Palast has documented
their
latest methods from 2024.
Poles who resisted Communism and then right-wing extremism offer
advice
to Americans about what to do about our oppressive regime.
*The
FBI's
arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan is a bid to silence dissent.*
What's more, the FBI agents went there to break up a court hearing and
it was the judge's responsibility to enable the hearing to finish.
Her action was in service to the legal system; the bully's henchmen, as usual, were
acting to make it collapse.
US citizens: Oppose McDonald's lobbying campaign against
local laws to
require
reusable packaging.
US citizens: Denounce any attempt to arrest and imprison nonviolent activists.
Protesting
Tesla is not "domestic terrorism".
*Volunteers rush to send abortion pills to US women,* heading for a legal
conflict over the
state's
shield law.
Reportedly Google will soon start listening to and recording the calls
made to local businesses that it advertises, by
people
responding to the advertisements.
I have never seen Google's advertisements because I have used few
Google services for many, many years, and none for many, many years.
I don't know how "local services advertisements" work. Is there
something that prevents a person from calling the business's phone
number? Is it simply that most people unthinkingly do the simplest
thing?
*No-Bid ICE Contract Went to Former ICE Agents Sued for
Fabricating Criminal
Evidence on the Job.*
The wrecker's
henchmen would consider dishonesty an irresistible job
qualification.
The wrecker
has picked up a club and is wandering around US
government affairs and banging it into important institutions in
an
apparently chaotic fashion.
However, it is not in fact chaotic. He has a plan, which is to wreck
any institution which could help people resist against the tyranny
he aims to establish.
*[The wrecker's]
officials cut hundreds of millions to combat
gun violence and
opioids
addiction.*
For fascists, helping to protect the people is not part of the mission
of government.
The US government under Biden sued Alabama and made the state agree to
provide sewer systems in some places
where
poor people live.
The wrecker
cancelled the agreement, leaving those residents under threat
of losing their homes because they can't afford to put in septic systems.
There is no aspect of American life where
the wrecker's henchmen won't
reach to spread suffering – and then boast about it.
I do agree with them on one thing: the US should ensure there is
sewage treatment for all citizens, which requires helping for all
those who can't afford their own sewage systems. This means doing
more, not less. That is why this action was a step in the wrong
direction.
Call on Democrats on the Judiciary Committee to visit
Kilmar Ábrego.
Starting to mourn the
Great
Barrier Reef.
The Israel/Palestine double standard for free speech in the US:
Violent Israeli fanatics are invited to speak, whereas those in power
revile people who condemn the
total
siege of Gaza as "fanatics".
70 years after Canada banned use of DDT, brook trout caught nowadays
contain amounts of
DDT
that could be dangerous.
*Irish woman living in US [with green card] for decades [jailed] by
immigration
officials.*
The deportation thugs
seem to be aiming to be as sadistic as possible to
each person they jail. This senseless harassment must be awfully expensive,
and the magats
will usually do drastic things to make do with fewer staff,
but I guess sadism is important enough to override that.
*[The deportation thugs]
are seeking out unaccompanied immigrant
children in operations nationwide with a view to deporting them or
pursuing criminal cases against them or adult sponsors
sheltering
them legally in the US.*
The Yes Men present the policy
manifesto of the DOPE
(Department of Personnel Elimination).
The magats
of the Pentagon have a recipe for firing or gag anyone not loyal
to the wrecker
first and everything else last: suspect them of leaks,
then
use
that as the justification.
*Media Giants Settling With [the corrupter] Are Setting a
"Dangerous"
Precedent.*
A catalog on his
attacks on the press.
This pun was re-done:
¿Cuál es la relación
entre el cura, la cura,
y lo cura?
US citizens: phone your congresscritter at 202-224-3121
to support the Medicare for All act.
It would
*Federal judge blocks Trump order that could disenfranchise
millions
of voters.*
This is
the
order to require
voters
to show federally approved identity documents.
Most American
voters
disapprove of the
bully's actions as president.
But is that still true if we limit the question to those whom Republicans
will fail to block from voting?
The FBI, acting under right-wing fanatic Kash Patel,
and the wrecker,
has arrested
a
Wisconsin judge.
I don't know whether what the judge is accused of doing was illegal,
but we have already seen that the goal of those fanatics is to abolish
rule of law.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to protect federal disaster relief
from the
wrecker's attacks.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Call
on Congress to make sure Kilmar Ábrego can return to the US from
El Salvador.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Clearance -- the
whole
environment must go! At least in US national parks.
*Most of the world's population wants
stronger
climate action. They
just don't realize that they are a majority.*
(satire) *Vatican Coroner
Confirms
Eucharistic Overdose.*
Did the coroner check for Vance poisoning?
If an Onion page appears blank, try disabling JavaScript entirely or
telling LibreJS to blacklist all scripts in the page, then right-click
and select item "Reveal hidden HTML". Or use a browser such as lynx
that doesn't implement JavaScript and CSS.
*[The wrecker]
denies
aid for Arkansas after storms that killed more than 40 people.*
*Over
100 US university presidents sign letter decrying Trump
administration.*
*The largest ever global study into the safety of
Covid-19
vaccines has been terminated just 13 months shy of completion,
after becoming caught up in [the wrecker's] sweeping funding
cuts.
Anti-vaxxers such as RFK will find this very helpful.
*[The persecuter]
cuts federal grants to
a
plantation museum
focused on reality of slavery.*
Removing the moral stigma that racism has and deserves to have
is one of his goals.
*Coral reefs have a high concentration of biodiversity that supports
about a third of all marine species and 1 billion people.* They
are having the worst bleaching event ever before recorded, because
they
are hotter now than was ever before recorded.
A bomb threat was announced against protesters at Columbia
University protesting on behalf of Palestinians. Columbia's public
response presented the protesters as possible
culprits rather than as the targets.
(Barnard College is part of Columbia University, and it seems the
school thugs
are using the bomb threat as an excuse to use more force
against the protesters while trying to cast them as terrorists.)
Non-regulators appointed by the
saboteur in chief have approved the
merger of Discover Financial and Capital One, two
enormous financial
companies.
Lina Khan would have prevented this.
Why Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act
must
be defended.
I agree with the article's position but I am revulsed by its use of the
word
"content"
to refer to what people write, or what people say.
The virtual classes common in many colleges leads to isolating
loneliness with no chance to
meet
people and converse.
This is the consequence of using software which (though the users don't
recognize this) is based on nonfree software that subjugates them.
A court order has blocked the persecutor's attempt to
impose voter-id
nationally.
Republicans are trying to do the
same
thing with legislation.
That might be upheld by courts, and it would do the same harm.
Building a city out of wood, but not with the old methods, eliminates
a lot of the CO2 emissions and makes
building
a lot faster.
Putin has agreed to have direct discussions with Ukraine about a
hypothetical
peace deal.
This is a gesture which doesn't commit Putin to anything. It has no
significant progress.
"ICE" stands for "not nice", using a double negative.
It refused to allow Mahmoud Khalil to join is wife as she gave birth,
rejecting several ways that
would
have been lawful and reasonable.
I speculate this is part of a standard tactic used by many
brutal-minded "law enforcers" in various countries: to convince the
public that someone is very dangerous, pretend
perse is very dangerous
and take superfluous precautions accordingly; to convince the public
that someone is a monster, be superfluously cruel to person.
Harvard is suing the US misgovernment calling on judges to rule in favor
of
academic freedom.
The political philosophy of the UK Labour Party seems to be "we must
convince businesses to invest here by giving them all the power they
want, no matter how this
puts
us in danger from them."
*Israeli military admits
"professional
failures" over Gaza paramedic killings.*
This admission is such an understatement that it amounts to continued
denial of the facts. The PR brigade has pulled back to the next line
of defensiveness, but not all the way back to where it would confess
the truth.
Pope Francis allowed Vance to visit, then
died
the next day.
An overdose of disgust?
Here is how
he stated his disapproval about Vance.
Tunisia's dictatorship has sentenced opposition activists to
decades in prison
for political opposition.
It makes me very sad to see Tunisia's new-formed democracy fall into a
dictatorship as bad as before.
For the present stage of climate disaster, "The more unequal the
society is, the
more
severe the climate disaster".
That is plausible in the short term, while the disasters are within
what society can cope with if it is well organized to do so. Thus,
the people who are truly crushed are the poor. Make fewer people poor,
and the local climate disasters are survivable.
But that won't apply if climate disaster reaches the stage at which
globalized industrial production collapses, each region is reduced to
what it can produce locally, the level of technology is sinking,
and most humans die.
(satire) *Pros
And Cons Of Bringing Back Extinct Species.*
*Federal judge
blocks
[muskrat's] effort to shutter [Consumer
Financial Protection Board].*
(satire) *DOJ Plants Gun On Maine.*
The state's population is now in jail.
*The wrecker's officials
create
uncertainty to evade court orders rather than comply.*
[The wrecker]
*halts
construction of big wind farm off New York coast.*
The US measles epidemic is spreading so fast that the CDC, after
being gored by the t-usk, is
unable
to keep up with them.
RFK defends his harmful propaganda by saying that "We can't rely
simply on the vaccine. We also have to know how to treat measles."
That, in itself, is true but it is also changing the subject.
If his idea is that it's good to discourage vaccination so as to
ensure plenty of patients for doctors to maintain their skill,
that is sick.
The wrecker
is trying to help
plutocratist "Christian nationalists"
impose
their extreme religion on the United States
— and to lead them
to be more plutocratist.
Deportation thugs
lied
to Aditya Wahyu Harsono, saying they had
revoked his permanent visa weeks before so he was "late" in leaving
the US, then pressured his coworkers to fake a work meeting so they
could surprise and arrest him.
Those coworkers may be ashamed of this for the rest of their lives.
Worse, they may teach themselves to believe
the bully's lies so as to
convince themselves that what they did was right.
Or they may instead join the resistance to make up for the harm they did.
With the wrecker
bullying various countries to demand that they
punish China, China is now
threatening
those countries with similar
bullying if they do what the wrecker demands.
US citizens: Call on the Senate to reject Ed Martinâ as U.S. Attorney
for the District of Columbia. His praise for a notorious January 6
rioter should
disqualify
him from any position in the government; in this position, he will
leave Congress exposed to physical violence.
*[Senator] Amy Klobuchar calls on supreme court to hold
Trump officials
in contempt.*
I hesitated to call for that particular action because I was not sure
it was tactically wise. It might just play into the wrecker's hand. But if a
senator thinks that we have come to this, I suppose it is so.
* Despite such painful lessons of
[the
Big Spill],
we find ourselves once again
hurtling toward disaster. The
[saboteur in chief]'s personnel and
programmatic cuts at science, environmental and safety agencies, and
the wholesale
rollback of environmental regulations, threaten to
unravel decades of progress in safeguarding our nation. These actions
aren't just misguided — they're a dangerous rejection of the hard-won
knowledge gained from former crises and a gamble we cannot afford to
take.*
Melting Arctic ice is a disaster mainly because it is raising sea
level, but it is
causing
several kinds of secondary disasters too.
The UK is putting
people in prison for months for sleeping on the
street.
That is shame-worthy in itself, but it gets worse: sometimes the
decision is made in a court hearing where the accused person was not
present, has no legal representation, or both.
Proposed new powers to punish people for begging or feeding pigeons
are even harsher.
For the man who desperately needs to feed pigeons for company, I
wonder if giving him a budgerigar to take care of might have enabled
him to feel better while avoiding bothering neighbors.
The persecutor has sent
hundreds
of Venezuelan refugees to El Salvador which engaged to hold them
in prison without trial. Now El Salvador is offering to release many
of them to Venezuela in exchange for Venezuela's political prisoners.
Such an exchange might be good, if we could assume that (1) the
Venezuelans now in El Salvador want to go to Venezuelans and would be
safe there, and (2) the prisoners now in Venezuela want to go to
El Salvador and would be safe there.
I can't tell from the article whether any of that would be so.
Ariel Dorfman imagines new kinds of
honors
that might be bestowed on the bullshitter.
Robert Reich: mass rallies to condemn
the bully are a display of courage,
which inspires
courage
in those who felt helpless to resist.
*Tesla
accused
of hacking odometers to weasel out of warranty repairs.*
Perhaps we should make a legal requirement for odometers to be implemented
such that other systems in the car cannot override their settings.
I will speak about free
software and computing freedom, and about related issues that affect
whether your computing respects your freedom.
This talk
will be at King's College, on Tuesday,
April 22 in London, England.
There are many threats to freedom in the digital society. They
include nonfree software, massive surveillance, and censorship.
Nonfree programs are often designed to restrict users, control
users or manipulate users. The War on Sharing aims to stop users
from sharing copies of published works. Computers for voting make
election results untrustworthy.
Other threats come from use of web services, implemented by
companies that can impose any conditions whatsoever.
Finally, most internet activities (aside from those which existed
before 2000) are precarious, dependent on permission from one company.
All of these threats originate more or less in the use of nonfree
software. That is why free software is the first battle in
the liberation of the digital society.
I will give a talk at
the Lecture Theatre, on Thursday,
April 24 in Oxford, England.
The topic is free/libre software and freedom in the digital society.
We understand that the uses of computing can be unjust.
Most do not realize that the mechanisms of computing
can be unjust in other ways.
If a program that the users do not control does your computing,
it controls your computing.
When servers that the users do not control do your computing,
those servers control it.
So don't entrust your own computing to a program that isn't libre or a
server whose operator isn't a loyal friend. For your own computing,
instead of a server that might mistreat you, use free software
on your own computer.
The wrecker
has eliminated an agency whose mission is
to
detect and counter disinformation campaigns, especially Russian.
I suspect this is one little part in the establishment of the axis of
dictators, to start with the wrecker
and Putin. But it may be more
than that. The wrecker
depends on disinformation too, and some
of that originates in Russia.
*Fears that UK military bases may be leaking toxic "forever chemicals"
into
drinking water.*
The saboteur in chief
wants to expand coal mines, and is cutting
programs that try to protect the workers from getting sick
from
working in a coal mine.
Berkeley, California, is about to vote on new fire safety rules
designed to slow the
spread
of wildfires.
The rules include having no plants (and other flammable material)
within 5ft of a residence.
I wonder why this does not include other kinds of buildings,
in the areas that are most vulnerable.
Detailed history of the case of
Kilmar
Ábrego García.
President Bukele justifies holding him in prison on the supposed
grounds that he is a "terrorist", but has not tried to prove that that
is true. He has not had a trial to justify that claim.
Under Bukele's "war on drugs", it is normal to imprison people for
years and trials are considered unimportant.
The greatest outrage of this case for the United States is that
the bully
and Bukele are blatantly conspiring to respond to the
Supreme Court by coordinated deceptions.
The bully's
deception is the claim that he has no influence
over Bukele.
Bukele's deception is the claim that
The two deceptions are designed so that there is no way to prove
that either of them is false, even though by common sense we can be
completely sure they are false. The message to the Supreme Court is,
"We can use these deceptions to thumb our noses at your rulings."
A US senator went to El Salvador and asked to speak with Ábrego.
The vice president told him that was somehow impossible,
as
some law of nature.
Homan, the Tsar's "border tsar" called Ábrego a "terrorist".
Since Ábrego has not sought publicity, can he win a lawsuit for libel
against Homan?
The bully
admits that deporting Kilmar Ábrego Garcia was a "mistake",
but he shows no contrition about the harm that it did to Ábrego and to
his family. He joins Bully Bukele in laughing at their
suffering.
Note the curious contrast between
the bully's ready admission that he
has no authority to order Bukele to release Ábrego to the US, when it
is an excuse to allow Bukele to do what
the bully really wants Bukele
to do. Contrast this with what
the bully does when he wants to impose
his will by force in the US in situations where legally he has no such
right.
The DOPE agency demanded to mess with an NGO because it received
some
government funds.
The agency personnel were embarrassed to discover that
the wrecker had
cancelled the government support a few weeks before.
Canadian friends riding in a Lyft car found that their conversation
had been recorded and sent in the form of text to
the
phone of one of them.
This is supposed to be illegal, but Lyft says it shouldn't have been possible
and it doesn't understand what happened.
I can't draw any specific moral conclusions about Lyft from these fragments
of understanding, but it is clear that microphones in cars are dangerous
and taxi passengers should be able to switch them off.
The wrecker
plans to change endangered species protection
to enable
reckless
habitat destruction.
Israel says that, to get the hostages released from Gaza it is ready
to starve everyone Gaza to death (which
includes
the hostages).
I can imagine the government claiming that,
"We
had to destroy our people to save them."
Autopsies of [the Gaza paramedics] killed in Gaza show ‘gunshots to
head
and torso’.
This is additional evidence that they were murdered.
US citizens: call on the Democratic Party to run candidates all across
the country in 2026, to
take
advantage of the hostility and resentment generated by the
Republicans that hate our freedoms.
*Nobel Winner Joseph Stiglitz
Denounces
Columbia’s Apparent Capitulation to [the wrecker].*
*About
15% of world’s cropland polluted with toxic metals, say
researchers.*
I wonder if there is a feasible way to decontaminate large areas of soil.
*The
FDA
labs that test food to prevent illness have been affected by wider
health and human services staff cuts.* Some tests have ceased to be
made.
* European State of the Climate report
"lays
bare" impact of fossil fuels
on continent during its hottest 12 months on record.*
*Deadly floods and storms affected more than 400,000 people in Europe in 2024.*
(satire) *Salvadoran President
Claims
He Lacks Humanity To Return
Wrongly Deported Man.*
The bully
threatens
to end rule of law over deportation in two
different ways.
We must not let the damage done by
the wrecker's stupid tariff policies
lead us to idolize
the system of global "free trade" that he has smashed.
That system was inflicted on us by plutocrats who did
dooH niboR's
dirty work.
Mohsen Mahdawi, the bully's
latest
choice for arbitrary expulsion for
supposedly hampering the bully's
plans for peace between Israel
and Palestine.
(Comparing this claim with the actions of the US suggests that, for
the US, "peace" for Palestinians means "the peace of the grave".)
Here Israeli student Mikey Baratz, who works with Mahdawi to make
real peace possible,
refutes
that accusation.
You could hardly imagine clearer proof that the
magats are using the
Big Lie method.
We must take care to resist the mind-set of all-out conflict which can
blind people to tactics that can make the world worse even when used
for a cause that is basically valid. Like Baratz, I have felt that
the
movement to end the bombardment and siege of Gaza and defend
Palestinians' rights often goes too far —
to the point of demanding to annex and abolish Israel. A demand
for annexation is as wrong in one direction as it is in the other.
My criticism of that excess
is in no way meant to excuse Israel's
atrocities
in Gaza and the West Bank, which are enormous crimes that
call for prosecution.
*Students at Pentagon schools
sue
Hegseth over book bans on race and gender.*
*[The University of Pittsburgh]'s Suspension of Pro-Palestine Student Group
Violates
First Amendment, Says ACLU Lawsuit.*
*How Harvard's pushback against Trump
may
embolden more US resistance.*
Bezos's publicity stunt suborbital rocket flight, in which all the
passengers were women, reduces science, engineering and feminism to
superficial tokens,
replacing
the substance they formerly had.
It is not a bad thing that the launcher is so automated that
it doesn't need a crew. What was bad was the pretense that this
publicity stunt had real significance.
The Department of Homeland Suffering ordered a US-born citizen to
leave
the US. Fortunately she is a lawyer and knows how to deal with this.
The border thugs told her that they
“used the known email addresses of the alien to
send notifications". If a non-personal email such as an American
citizen contact was provided by the alien, notices may have been sent
to unintended recipients."
But that doesn't explain why the letter was addressed to her, not to
any of her clients. If they did not intend to threaten her, their
sending this letter to her demonstrates inexcusable carelessness.
Under direction from the hater,
the Pentagon is
cutting
down its projects
to reduce the number of civilian casualties US forces cause.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to reject the bill to undermine the judiciary's power
to resist unconstitutional laws.
Harvard has
refused
to surrender to the bully/cheater's political demands and will
fight them in court. Bravo!
*Harvard University
faculty sue
to block Trump review of nearly $9bn in
funding.*
It is futile to make a deal with
the bully/cheater, since he does not
hesitate to cancel a deal, or cheat. Once you choose the path of
appeasement, he will demand more and more appeasement.
The bully/cheater
told Columbia that giving him all he had demanded
was not enough to have its research funds reinstated.
The wrecker
has ended prosecution of US companies for paying bribes
in other countries. He claims that, in places where bribery is normal,
the US companies should not be at a disadvantage in that game.
This article argues that the game is
bad
for the companies that play it,
and that US companies will be better off if corruption is kept down.
The bully claims that
Chairman
Xi is in Vietnam to develop ways to screw the US. He might very
well want to screw the US, but he no longer needs to figure out ways
to do it. It suffices to pick up the opportunities that the bully
throws his way.
US citizens: call on your state governor and attorney general to hold
Big Oil accountable
for its climate crimes.
US citizens: call on The Senate to
reject
the "SAVE" Act, short for
Suppress All sorts of Voters Explicitly.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
An attempt to make sense of what
the corrupter means by what he says.
It proposes a model of how he thinks about his actions and their aims:
he has no principles, no values except gain, and no loyalty except for
mutual gain.
When he causes havoc, it is
not
always that he is unaware of the
damage his acts can do to others. Sometimes he just doesn't care.
It makes sense that he inclines towards promoting prejudice, hatred
and cruelty: because they insulate a person from values and loyalty
other than taking away from others.
The hardest challenge for those who wish to restore the former
(partial and insufficient) role of principle, loyalty and justice will
be how to defeat that empire without sinking to
the corrupter's level
and thus replacing one corrupter with another.
A survivor among the group of Palestinian medics massacred in Gaza, who
was missing afterward, has been found —
imprisoned by Israel.
Being erroneously recorded as "dead" by the Social Security Agency
can
be disastrous. The problems it causes might kill you.
(satire) *[Pregnancy] Test
Comes
With Flight Voucher In Case Result Positive.*
The wrecker
is eager
to do damage to California. Could that be one of
his reasons for provoking trade war?
A British man who has no connections with Venezuela or gangs found his
own unusual tattoo listed in the Department of Horror and Suffering's
supposed
gang tattoo photo catalog.
The tattoo depicts a clock showing the hour of his daughter's birth.
Now he is afraid to visit Miami with his family, afraid he might be
imprisoned by the bully's cunning nincompoops.
Starting in 2028, ships will be
required
to pay for their carbon
emissions.
This is important for pressuring to make ships more efficient.
People who made small campaign contributions to Senator Fetterman's
campaign when he pretended to be progressive are asking for
return
of their donations.
*How Much Did Congress
Make
Off Market Turmoil and Why're They Allowed
to Make Anything at All?*
Panama's opposition party accuses
the bully
of sending US troops
to former US military bases in Panama — in effect, a clandestine invasion,
though the government denies that it is one.
It reminds me of Putin's conquest of Crimea, though there are differences.
The Israeli army unit that
attacked
a column of ambulances in Rafah,
and murdered captured paramedics afterward, is under the command of a
general who has encouraged killing any Arab whatsoever, and so have
other officers.
*White House may seek
legally
binding control over Columbia through
consent decree – report.*
I don't think the wrecker
aims to destroy Columbia; he wants to make
it subservient. I wonder if New York State could pass a law
forbidding the accreditation of a university that doesn't respect
academic freedom, such that agreeing to such a consent decree would
force it to cease to operate. (This would be something like the
liberty-or-death-for-this-code clause of the GNU General Public License.)
If the wrecker
wants to destroy that university, he could do it this
way, but that changes little since he could destroy it in other ways.
But if what he wants is to have it continue to exist in a subservient
way, this could prevent it.
*Taiwan charges
Chinese captain with damaging undersea cables.*
Bravo for taking action against this covert form of warfare.
The corrupter
ordered federal prosecutors to
avert
their eyes from
cryptocurrency corruption.
The persecutor has listed
6,000 immigrants
as dead to inactivate
their social security numbers.
How is it that these immigrants have social security numbers? Because
Biden gave them temporary protected status because of chaos or
repression in their home countries, and that includes permission to
work in the US — therefore, social security numbers.
The persecutor
abruptly canceled this permission to work. That could deny them
access to their bank accounts and pensions. This is gratuitous
cruelty.
If a country is no longer suffering from chaos or repression, its
refugees may no longer be entitled to temporary protected status. But
it is gratuitous cruelty to rush them to leave quickly. TPS has an
expiration date, so why not let them stay that while so they can
return home with a good plan?
That is assuming that a country's situation has improved enough to end
TPS for its refugees. As far as I have heard, nothing has improved in
Cuba, Haiti or Venezuela. The persecutor is piling one gratuitous
cruelty on another on another.
With the persecutor, it's cruelties all the way down.
*I disagree with Mahmoud Khalil’s politics. But
the
deportation decision is abhorrent.*
US citizens:
call
on Congress
to get billionaire money out of politics.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Mahmoud Khalil's continuing legal struggle against being deported,
perhaps for his political views or for no known reason at all, is
complex since
two
parallel court systems are working on it. It is impossible to
predict the outcome, except that it's clear that the bully is out to get him.
*US judge rules Mahmoud Khalil
can
be deported [solely] for his views.*
(I believe this was the specially selected judge for whom they sent
Khalil to Louisiana instead of holding the hearing near New York.)
This ruling is worse than it purports to be. Supposedly the Secretary
of State can deport any non-citizen who perse claims is somehow harmful to the
country. But since there is no requirement to demonstrate that is
true, the Secretary of State could fabricate anything. The result is
a totally arbitrary non-process which can be used at any time against
any non-citizen.
A Secretary of State could print up form letters with duplicated
signatures with a blank for adding the target's name.
Requiring "due process of law" is the method used by US law to make
the government demonstrate grounds for decisions that deny a person's
rights. But a proclamation by an official is no proof, and citing it
is no real process. If courts accept that as satisfying the
requirement for "due process", due process becomes a sham and a
pretense.
The saboteur-in-chief has canceled funds
for various research projects
studying
ways to curb right-wing extremist terrorism in the US.
I find that natural. He is a right-wing extremist, and they are
among his supporters. Some of
their
acts of terror helped build his support. Howsoever an effort to
prevent such terrorism might operate, its success would work against
him. He has already told the FBI to
stop
focusing on right-wing terrorism. Ending the research too is the
sort of long-term completeness that his cunning Project 2025 advisors
would think of.
The persecutor's
repression
of protesters is more rigid than McCarthyism's persecution of
suspected Communists in the 1950s.
More comparison
between the two.
*[US government] cuts $4m to
Princeton’s climate
research funding. White House claims university’s work exposed
students to "climate anxiety" and "exaggerated climate threats."*
No one deserves to be blamed for showing students the danger that
human practices are causing.
(satire) *[The bully]
Boasts About Strong-Arming
[the saboteur in chief] Into Pausing Tariffs.*
If an Onion page appears blank, try disabling JavaScript entirely or
telling LibreJS to blacklist all scripts in the page, then right-click
and select item "Reveal hidden HTML". Or use a browser such as lynx
that doesn't implement JavaScript and CSS.
In the preparation for Mahmoud Khalil's deportation hearing, the
government did not try to accuse Khalil of breaking any law. It only
said he was inconvenient for the bully's plans and claimed that is
enough grounds.
Specifically, the plans in question are to use weaponized accusations
of "antisemitism" --
a stretched
concept of "antisemitism" -- to bully and punish those who
criticizes Israel for its war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The wrecker's deportation
squads defy
the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution by imprisoning and
deporting people without due process of law.
The wrecker's
last-minute change of tariff plans avoided big problems
(until he changes the plan again), but the
uncertainty he has already
caused will continue causing economic damage.
The announcement about "resurrected dire wolves"
was more
hype than reality. They made genetically modified wolves with
around 20 pieces of their DNA copied from fossil dire wolves.
At least, that is what they say they have done. There is no report of
independent verification of what they have actually done.
The Supreme Court unanimously ordered
the bully to help Kilmar Abrego
Garcia get back to the US from El Salvador, where he was
illegally deported
without due process.
Since the bully
has no reluctance to lie, I would not put it past him
to pretend to be trying to help, this while quietly urging El
Salvadors's cruel president to refuse obdurately. Then
the bully
will say, "I tried, but it's impossible." He can lie with a smile
that means, "You know I'm lying but you can't make me stop."
The application of political retaliation was part
of Clearview
AI's initial sales pitch.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say not to privatize
the US Postal Service.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main
Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Public pressure made the saboteur in chief climb down from the plan
to close
the Social Security Administration's service-by-phone system.
That doesn't mean the problem is gone for good. When it comes to
hurting people that the saboteur
despises, which includes "useless"
non-rich aged or disabled people, he is very persistent. He might
decide to try it again some months from now, perhaps in a slightly
different way. He might simply hire so few operators that one must
wait a week for actual service -- or have
a bullshit
generator respond.
The saboteur in chief
has cancelled funds for various research projects
about preventing
*gun
violence, sexual violence, domestic terrorist attacks and violent hate crimes.*
This must be to please the gun fanatics among the
magats.
The cheater canceled
the permission to stay in the US and work while
waiting for an asylum hearing, which they were granted by the
government through the CBP One app.
The CBP One app was unjust because it was nonfree software and ran on
a phone with a nonfree operating system.
But that doesn't excuse what the cheater has done. Canceling
anyone's parole on no grounds is a promise broken by the United State
government to a person who has asked for the chance to demonstrate
that perse is fleeing oppression.
Israel's military is well trained in using defense in depth, when it
comes to denying
culpability for war crimes.
They consider that no alternative explanation is too implausible to
be offered.
The saboteur in chief
loves cryptocurrencies so much that he
discourages
investigation of possible frauds.
*Last year 72%
of demands to censor books were initiated by pressure
groups and government entities; with just 16% of ban attempts made
by parents.*
In other words, the right-wing censorship activists are using the parents
as a smokescreen.
Magats
now condemn
Justice Barrett for defending the rule of law.
They demand she serve the bully without question.
(satire) *Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Tuesday that Raymond Pratt, a
54-year-old resident of Chula Vista, CA who bumped a Tesla while
parallel parking, had been sentenced to death. “Let me be clear: This
man, who attempted to park on the street and damaged the rear bumper of
a Model 3, is a
domestic
terrorist who deserves to die,” said Bondi…'*
Dr Oz, newly confirmed as head of Medicare and Medicaid, wants to replace
our doctors with
bullshit generators.
Occasionally there is a misunderstanding between me and a doctor, but
we can usually clear them up and get on the same page. An LLM can't
understand anything, so they can never be cleared up.
I think this represents billionaires' idea that there doesn't need to
be good medical care for us non-billionaires. They would have us live
for as long as keeping us alive is cheap, and push us off to the
crematorium.
Reopening coal-fired
electric generators would help power the bullshit
generators when the pollution kills us.
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded 1780, has
taken
a public stand
to defend knowledge, science, constitutional democracy
and rule of law, now that all those are threatened in the US.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to stand up against the wrecker's tariffs.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens:
call
on Congress, federal courts, and the U.S. Marshals Service to
defend the right of due process of law against
the bully.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens:
call
on the FEC to investigate Elon Musk's election bribery
in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
The
bullshitter announced that he has postponed his tariff trade war
for
90 days
(except against China).
I suspect this decision reflects a combination of a tactical decision
(perhaps most countries were not giving him the subservient response
he hoped for) and a general strategic predilection to be
unpredictable.
I am not an advocate of business globalization, so I do not advocate
"free trade". Perhaps the tariff rate of 10% is a reasonable choice.
But that doesn't mean the saboteur in chief has really chosen
that choice.
Changes in the output of Google Search, to display output of bullshit
generators rather than direct people to web sites, are
making
businesses fail.
Google's supposed explanation, that these changes respond to "new ways
people consume information" (How absurd to think of information as
being "consumed".) You might thing that they are responding to what
customers want to do, but the words could just as easily fit
what Google can make users do.
As part of the wrecker's
War on Workers, the USDA has excused some
meat factories from
reporting
injuries to their workers. This will
permit them to achieve higher profits by making workers hurry (and
risk injuries).
(satire) *Roseanne Barr's Illiteracy Charity
Snatches
100 Millionth
Book From Child.*
First they came for the protesters, but now they are
coming
for the students
solely because of their ethnic background, religion, or
national origin.
If a school tries to protect its students from persecution,
the bully's legal
gangsters may try to punish it by canceling its funding. But it can resist
that too, by suing.
*Environment
more crucial than genes in risk of early death, study suggests.*
(satire) *Judge Gives Trump Administration 3 Days To
Return
Her From El Salvador Prison.*
*Police Across the Country Are
on
High Alert Over Tesla Protests.*
They are struggling to drive the public to equate protests against
the muskrat
with terrorism. Alas, they are pushing against a
self-driving campaign which recognizes
the muskrat as a dangerous
threat to Americans' human rights and democracy, and to all the useful
and important things that the government does for people (such as
medical treatment) and for humanity (research and climate defense).
Some of those activities were already grossly insufficient, but
eliminating them, as the muskrat's
meddling is doing, will only make
things worse.
Does the US president have the power to
pardon
a corporation?
That constitutional issue is separate from whether this particular
pardon for a conviction for money laundering was a personally-motivated
attack on the United States. Given who did it, we can be sure of
that.
*Israeli military admits initial account of Palestinian medics' killing was
"mistaken".*
Such "mistakes" happen in the Israeli army.
Red Crescent: *Gaza paramedics shot in upper body
"with
intent to kill."*
Hundreds of foreign students in the US who
face
deportation with no
explanation or accusation wonder if it was due to a traffic ticket
or some other minor interaction with thugs.
It looks like the bully
has found a possibly lawful Kafkaesque method
of terrorizing innocent foreign visitors.
*Judge orders … White House to
lift
access restrictions on Associated
Press.*
Robert Reich: *Those who grovel [to
the bully]
are harming the
world. They are traitors to America. We fought a Revolutionary War
almost 250 years ago to avoid just this.*
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and call on per fight against
any budget that cuts critical human needs programs to
fund more tax breaks for billionaires.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
If you have a way to communicate with a person in the organization Our
Revolution, and are willing to help me make contact, please write to
me, rms, at the GNU domain (gnu.org).
I would like to donate to Our Revolution, but I can't find a morally
acceptable way to send the donation. The only way they publish is
through the web, and their payment system (as is usual on the web)
works by sending nonfree software to the user's browser. Running such
software is unjust and insecure, so I refuse absolutely — no
exceptions, not even for an organization that follows Bernie Sanders.
If I can reach anyone there, I will try to work out a way to donate by
check.
(satire) *RFK Jr Orders
Removal
Of Sinks From HHS Bathrooms.*
*How [US economic warfare] tariffs could push Vietnam into
the
arms of China.*
There are so many ironies. South Vietnamese communist rebellion left
a corrupt dictatorship (still pledging allegiance to Communism), but
then the 2000-year old struggle against China reemerged. The conflict
with the distant US was temporary, while the threat from nearby China
was perpetual. So
that
dictatorship became an ally of the US, and has hosted US military
bases.
I am sure the general predilection of Vietnamese is to have
mutually-beneficial but not close relationship with the US. But
harshness from the US can make that impossible.
*An Afghan woman who risked her life to defend human rights [while
there] before fleeing to the UK has been told … it
is safe for her to return after [UK] officials
rejected
her asylum claim.*
Many other Afghan women who have fled to the UK recently
have got similar responses.
Robert Reich: call on law school deans, law school graduates, and
not-partner employees to organize to pressure the
law
firms that have surrendered to the corrupter, insisting that they
join the law firm resistance against him.
US citizens:
call
on Senate Republicans to denounce the anti-American "Third Term" Talk.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens:
call
for freeing Rumeysa Ozturk: No one who writes a political article
should be arrested or deported for that expression of per views.
Side issue:
"Per" here is a third-person gender-neutral singular pronoun.
Please join me in using
gender-neutral
singular pronouns rather than plural pronouns such as "they"
when referring to a singular antecedent without specifying gender.
US citizens:
tell
Senate Democrats that we need a minority leader who will not cave
to the bully.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens:
call
on Congress to protect Social Security from the muskrat's cuts and propaganda.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
(satire) *Parents Gently Explain To Child That Their
Money
In Heaven Now.*
*US revokes
all visas for South Sudanese over country's failure to
cooperate with deportation of its citizens.*
The wrecker is doing this just as it looks like
South Sudan is going to
fall
back into civil war.
Photos from the
April
5 protests against the Republican threat to
human rights and democracy.
I was blocked from effectively supporting these protests because the
web site to find out where and when they would occur demands users run
nonfree software to get that information.
The site that contains the data, and requires nonfree JS code, is
mobilize.us. If you can find a way to obtain these data about coming
protests, and post them on a web site that
respects
users' freedom,
I will gratefully link to that for future protests I support.
New York State officials have
refused
the wrecker's demand to terminate
the DEI policies in state schools.
They are prepared to fight his demands in court.
*Phone footage
appears
to contradict Israeli account of killing of Gaza
paramedics.*
We have seen the Israeli government lie many times to deny war crimes,
and cruelty to Palestinian civilians. I don't expect Israel to tell
the truth after so many lies.
The poisoner's henchmen are working to
weaken
the rule requiring
measuring the danger of each PFAS, so that only a few will ever have
to be tested.
A comic makes
fun of the "advanced technology" used in the controls
of some new cars.
It is funny, but too bad he doesn't realize this is a serious issue.
Those peculiar interfaces are implemented by computers that
use sensors to learn all sorts of things about you, cameras among them,
and you don't know which companies are watching you through them.
This ought to be a HHOS.
Israel declared a
kill
zone strip up to a mile wide inside border of
Gaza, and soldiers shoot at anyone they see in it. They have
destroyed all the houses, farms, and everything else inside that strip.
They have not told the Palestinians where the edge of that strip runs.
Ten Britons accused
of committing war crimes while fighting for Israel
in Gaza.*
Britain may be able to prosecute them.
Rebecca Burke describes being
arrested
by the deportation thugs
as she was trying to go from the US to Canada, then held for weeks
in a harsh prison where the lights were always on and there wasn't
enough to eat.
I suspect the harshness was because the prison had been farmed off to
a company. There is no excuse for being so harsh to those facing
possible deportation.
I have a theory about why they put her in prison: because she tried to
cross into Canada overland, where there was no airport. According to
their rules, they can't let anyone do that. But if we look at the
issue actually at stake, they had no real reason to be so strict and
harsh. If they let her out so she could get a flight and leave, her
presence in the US for a few more days would have done the US no
significant harm. The underlying reason was that they are too eager
to be cruel.
*US neo-Nazi group with Russia-based leader calls for
targeted
Ukraine attacks*.
*The Base, terrorist group founded in 2018, free to export violence
abroad as Trump pulls FBI from pursuing far right*
Landmines are
creeping
back into use, reversing the progress in
getting rid of them.
Regions of the US have had very
heavy
rains for many days, leading to scattered floods and evacuations.
There is no evident reason the heavy rains can't continue, and if they do,
floods may start destroying hundreds or thousands of buildings.
*Congressman [Nadler] tells the Guardian that [the bully] is exploiting the fight against
antisemitism
as a ruse to stamp his will on schools.*
I am sure that is true, but that's only half of it.
Machiavelli, in the Prince, suggested many tactics and ploys to
beat the people into submission. One was to put someone in charge of
the repression; then, after a sufficient period of repression, to fire
per for being so cruel about it. By putting the blame on per, you can
evade being blamed yourself, even though in truth the repression
was decided by you.
I speculate that the
bully is doing a variation on that: after repressing people in the
name of protecting Jews, he will later blame someone for that
repression on those Jews, so he can evade responsibility for his own
repression.
Modeling suggests that 1/3 of the population of the US lives within reach of
the
supercharged
fires that global heating has made
possible.
Scientists are studying how fires nowadays spread between and within
buildings, hoping to find ways towns can protect themselves.
But it may require removing lots of urban trees that help protect
people from heatstroke.
Building houses out of concrete could make them fireproof.
That's what people in cities generally do in India.
US citizens: demand that every official in the Signal war chat,
including Secretary Hegseth and National Security Adviser Waltz,
resign
or be fired now.
US citizens: Protesting Tesla is not domestic terrorism.
Denounce
any attempt to arrest and imprison nonviolent activists.
US citizens: call on Congress to protect the
Social
Security Administration from being gored by a t-Usk.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: Denounce
the persecutor's attacks on immigrants fleeing
authoritarianism and violence.
Phone your congresscritter at 844-896-5059 and call on per to
support the Protect America’s Workforce Act, which would cancel the
wrecker's executive order and restore many US government employees
right to unionize.
US citizens: call on Congress to
reject
the No Rogue Rulings act, which would
make it impossible for federal courts to act quickly to halt an
illegal or unconstitutional nationwide executive order or policy.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
George Monbiot: *Vilified, arrested, held incommunicado: that's the
price
of protest in Britain today.*
The government labels protesters as "terrorists", which is qualitative
and quantitative exaggeration of what they plan to do. The
thugs seem
to believe that propaganda, and treat these "conspiracies" as very
dangerous. (Are they trying to increase the credibility of their
exaggeration by pretending to believe it? Are
thug chiefs misleading
the rank and file thugs?)
The protesters' bombastic slogan, "shut down London", may have
encouraged the thugs'
own exaggeration, but does not excuse it. If
they are fooled so easily, they are doing their job badly.
The article describes and prove that the government's
policy towards protests is biased (repress the left), in accord
with its politics, and traces it to the influence of lobbying.
As Labour's policies become ever more right-wing, it is
losing
the support
of its party members, as well as the voters.
Robert Reich: *Stop treating [the bully's] excuses as his real
concerns… [His] major interest is capitulation itself. Surrender
is the
whole point. He and those under him who are managing these
extortionate initiatives want headlines that say "they" have
surrendered to him — whether "they" is a country, a major university,
a large law firm, a big nonprofit, even a Democratic state like
California. Surrender is the point. Domination is his goal. (It always
has been.)
Reich urges the victims — whether universities, or law firms, or
trade partners — to unite and resist.
An executive of Allianz, one of the largest insurance companies, warns
that if global heating
makes insurance unfeasible, many other parts of
the of the financial and market systems will
cease
to be possible.
Even states cannot afford to insure when disasters become too frequent.
If investments become so unpredictable that they are inherently
unprofitable, neither individuals nor corporations nor states will
be able to invest.
As he says, all is not lost. We can fix this, if we apply the
zero-emissions technology we already have — quickly.
However, to do so depends on first defeating the
planet roasters'
political power, and that fight has been going against us.
Hungary, which invited Netanyahu to visit and refused to arrest him,
is leaving
the International Criminal Court.
It was Dubya
who made the US start fighting against the ICC, when he
saw it might prosecute American war criminals that the US government
failed to prosecute. I wonder if it would have prosecuted
Dubya for
invading
Iraq based on falsified
"intelligence" about the
fictional
"weapons of mass destruction" if the US were a member.
The US government gave New York's
night-mayor his side of its
(unacknowledged) deal with him, but
dropping
corruption charges.
Letting corrupt officials buy their way out of prosecution by bowing to
the tyrant is even worse corruption than what he was charged for,
but it may not be illegal.
The Indian city of Indore has made a
clean
streets and recycling
campaign really work, even training people to reject the old habits of
dropping trash on the street.
Success has continued for 8 years.
My mother taught never to drop trash on the street, and I am glad she
did. In Boston I occasionally tell a stranger "you just dropped
something" which seems to be trash, hoping it will lead to a change of
habit. But this would be far more effective as part of a general
campaign. And having trash bins everywhere would certainly help.
Near my home, you have to walk for blocks to find one.
South Korea has
completed
the impeachment of its rogue president.
Emerson College appears to have
fired
an employee for showing the film
Israelism which criticizes Israel's PR activities to win support
among American Jews.
Massachusetts law requires private colleges to respect freedom of speech
on campus, and the employee is suing.
(satire) *Trump
Calmly
Reminds Nation That Desire The Root Of All Suffering.*
Maybe someone should teach he wrecker and
the muskrat about Buddhism.
Senators (of both parties)
introduced
a bill to permit Congress
to overrule tariff increases.
It is not clear whether this would apply to tariffs adopted shortly
before the bill was passed. It would need to do that if it is to give
Congress the ability to remove the tariffs that
the wrecker imposed
last week.
A region of Australia larger than Texas
has
been flooded by 2 weeks of
heavy rain. Many towns, have been cut off, and many have been inundated.
Around 200,000 cattle have died.
I don't think it will be feasible to build flood defenses for that.
Perhaps they could put all buildings on stilts in the area likely to
be flooded.
Kevin Carroll, who worked under
the corrupter's officials in
2017-2020, believes that the choice of Signal for the Yemen bombing
chat was not mere stupidity. Quite the contrary: it had a practical
purpose:
to
hide the chat and records of it from any official investigation.
If they had used the official systems for secret
communication, there would be records about the chat and its
participants; some official could have investigated it.
That is a crime, right? But no one in the government who has the
authority to investigate and punish such cheaters will go against
per corrupt master.
*National Security Adviser Michael Waltz
reportedly
conducted official business via Gmail.*
Thanks to the fortuitous inclusion of a journalist in the chat, the
Pentagon can, and will, investigate.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to adopt Sanders' resolution to block the next weapons
sale to Israel.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens:
denounce
plans to send refugees back to Haiti, Venezuela, and maybe even
Ukraine.
US citizens:
call
on Congress
to reject the SAVE act,
which would require Americans to show federal ID to vote.
Compare with the wrecker's
executive
order that tries to restrict voting. Variations on the same
unjust theme.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens:
tell
the Ukrainian people: The American people stand with you, not with
the persecutor.
New pun about monosemia
joins pun about "polisemia".
US citizens: call on Santander bank to
stop
financing oil and
gas extraction in Amazonia.
US citizens: call on Congress to
support
the release Mahmoud Khalil,
and protect the right to protest.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Everyone: call on big U.S. Banks to
stop
destroying the Amazon forest
via gas and oil investments.
US citizens: call on Congress and state legislatures to
protect the
voting rights of Americans.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
(satire) *Pentagon Cuts All Employees
With
Weak Jawlines.*
(satire) *Pete Hegseth Calls For
Steep
Cuts To Number Of Steps In AA Recovery.*
With the US in a Tr-ance, its Signal leak shows that the rulers think
of Europe mainly
as a rival or enemy. What does this imply?
*US inspectors general fired by
the corrupter
sue
to win jobs back.*
(satire) *Musk Signals Willingness To
Bid
More Than $97 Billion To
Acquire Respect.*
The US has disappeared
people by sending them to a prison in El Salvador.
We are told that they are gang members. We are told that they have
committed heinous crimes. We are told that they are Venezuelan.
We are told that they are not US citizens.
But there is no way to verify any of that; we have it only from the
bullshitter's officials.
By refusing to say anything specific about those people, not even
names and photos, the bullshitter
has made it impossible for a US
court to check whether he violated US laws.
The bullshitter could do
this to anyone, even US citizens, if courts can't detect it.
One of the previous articles about this said that some of the deportees
had US lawyers but El Salvador did not allow them to meet with their
clients.
Exiles working for Voice of America and similar US government
broadcasters, which the wrecker
is trying to eliminate, face the
threat
of being deported to countries which would punish them for
their broadcasting they did.
Honduras is accepting
deportations of Venezuelans from the US, and
sending them to Venezuela. Apparently Venezuela has accepted this.
This does not have the injustice of sending Venezuelans to be
imprisoned indefinitely without trial in El Salvador. But it may have
other injustices. Some Venezuelans would be persecuted by Venezuela's
authoritarian government, and the US should give them at least
temporary asylum. Also, like all deportees, they have the right to a
hearing to argue that they deserve asylum.
*Palestinian paramedics
shot [in Gaza] by Israeli forces had hands
tied, eyewitnesses say.*
Willful murder of medics is a heinous war crime.
The corrupter
seeks to corrupt
our memories as well as our consciences.
To paraphrase 1984: Who controls the museums, controls the future: who
controls the present controls the museums.
The bullshitter's
henchmen say that they deported someone to El
Salvador by
mistake. Now, they say, the court cannot order them to
bring him back because US courts have no authority over El Salvador.
The US court may have no authority over El Salvador, but since it has
authority over those US officials, it can order them to say and do
things that will convince El Salvador to send him back. For instance,
to say, "You can let him out now, and he is welcome to return to the
US."
If at that point El Salvador does not let him, the question is why
not?
1800 members of the US national academies have
published
an open letter
calling on the US government to stop attacking science.
(satire) *Highway Patrol Officer Asks Pete Hegseth To Carry Out Drone
Strikes In
Straight Line.*
Is anyone preparing to
oppose
the bullshitter's "methods" to be president
for life?
He talks about this now as psychological warfare. The only way he
could use any "methods" to become president for a third term is by
first crushing opposition at the federal level.
The resistance has more immediate battles to fight right now, mostly
in court but in Congress too and on the streets.
The outcomes of those battles will also increase or decrease the
strength of the opposition. Thus, The opposition we do this year will
determine, long before 2028, whether he can seize the power of
president for life in that year.
*Senate Republican
accidentally
admits GOP is coming for Medicare.*
The magats
always say it is just a matter of making the system
"function more efficiently", but the actual result is that the system
more or less ceases to function.
There is a good reason for making changes slowly in systems that people
depend on, and ever more slowly when millions of people depend on
them, and intentionally disregarding this need is in itself sabotage.
* Several Republican senators joined Democrats to pass a resolution that
would block
the wrecker's tariffs on Canada,*
To avoid the trade war with Canada is wise, but what seems even better to
me is that several Republican senators voted against
the wrecker.
That is a step forward.
Munther Abed, the one known survivor of the Israeli army's massacre of
rescue workers,
describes
what he saw.
It is gruesome — vicious hatred and dehumanization carried out with
no shame.
The fable of the university and the tyrant is similar to one that
Aesop collected about a
farmer
and a snake,
except that, when fully grasped, Columbia's error is worse. The
farmer didn't endanger all the farmers in his country, and Columbia did.
Women in Afghanistan who are ill sometimes die because the
Taliban's
repression prevents them from reaching a hospital.
An *administration that
imprisons
and expels foreign students for their pro-Palestinian advocacy is
unlikely to stop with foreign students or, for that matter, with
pro-Palestinian advocacy. Trump’s student roundup has already
progressed from visa holders to legal permanent residents, and
administration officials have said they intend to come after
naturalized citizens as well. And the argument the administration is
advancing to justify the cancellation of students’ visas — that
the students’ advocacy undermines US foreign policy — could as
easily be made with respect to those who advocate in support of any
other cause the Trump administration happens to disfavor.*
Starmer offered to
reduce
British taxes on digital "services" in general in exchange for
lower US tariffs on UK exports. (We can presume that this includes
digital dis-services as well as true digital services.)
This offer was foolish in two ways, which become obvious when we note
that the biggest threat to society, is taxing business too little, and
that the T-usk regime is a part of that threat.
1800 members of the US National Academies have published an
open
letter
calling on the US government to stop attacking science.
NYU canceled a talk by
Joanne
Liu, former head of Doctors Without Borders, for reporting on
casualties in Gaza and on the persecutor's cuts to US foreign
aid.
I have not seen the slides, but this seems like a very stretched
instance of the
"Israel
exception".
Can anyone find NYU's allegedly "clear" guidelines?
Have they been posted anywhere?
Ken Roth: *There can be
no
"Israel exception" for free speech*, and the case of Mahmoud
Khalil illustrates this.
US citizens:
call on Congress
to block funds for the Donald
Deportation Derby and fund medicine and Social Security instead.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens:
call on Hegseth
to resign immediately.
*Hegseth should go to jail for war plan leaks, according to Hegseth.*
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens:
call
on Congress
to ban members of Congress from having financial
interests in companies that do business with the Pentagon.
Contrast this with the bill to stop them from buying or selling stocks.
The two operate in the same area, but they are different enough to be
complementary.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on banks to
stop
fueling destruction of the
Amazon forest.
*Despite the diversity of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, [deportation
thugs] go
after non-white
visa and scholarship holders "to create a wedge in
solidarity".*
Universities that hope to survive through eager submission to state
repression will find themselves reduced to
even
more abject subservience.
The saboteur
tried to seize
personal control over who is allowed to vote
in the US.
It follows the latest magat
fashion of using a small federal power for
leverage to bully lesser governments and institutions into repression:
in this case, into requiring voters to show ID cards. The range of ID
cards to be accepted would be so limited that many poor voters would
do without them, and be disenfranchised.
Greg Palast estimates that 21 million eligible voters would be
barred
from voting, if states obey this.
It would also take the US another bit step towards having a national
ID card —
which
is, itself, oppression.
*Trump administration
at
"war" with mRNA technology: scientists alarmed
vaccine skeptics could kill research.*
mRNA vaccines are the target of persistent disinformation along many
fronts. Some disinformation exaggerates the significance of side
effects that happen a small fraction of the time and generally cause
no permanent harm. Others harp on thousands of people who had serious
side effects but neglect to compare those with the millions of lives
the vaccines saved.
* EPA
sets up email address where "regulated community" can request
exemption
to evade air pollution rules.*
This is to speed the billionaires' ultimate sabotage project — to make
the survival of civilization outside their realms impossible.
Two faculty of Harvard's Middle Eastern Studies department
have suddenly
"departed", and it is reported that they were fired
except that the university doesn't want to admit that.
The Social Security Administration has 60 million lines of COBOL code
and has long planned to migrate that very slowly and carefully into a
more modern programming language. It would take years. But now the
wrecking crew (LOGE, *)
wants
to do it in a few months.
It will surely have many new bugs. But instead of having humans do it,
they plan to use
bullshit generators
to write the new code.
That will guarantee plenty of absurd mistakes that humans wouldn't make.
What could make the situation worse than that?
The SSA could stop answering the phones, and eliminate most
of the human beings to complain to.
Hmm, that's what they just did. Looks like someone is planning to
make the Social Security system fail disastrously.
* LOGE = Lots of Grief, Evisceration
Amazon "echo" devices should be called "tattle" because they
tell Amazon
what they hear.
The magats
rebuke
the Smithsonian Institution for presenting modern
scientists' and scholars' ideas of science and history, instead of the
old-fashioned superstitions and prejudices they replaced.
US citizens: call on Amazon to
drop
its lawsuit attacking the Consumer
Product Safety Commission.
Also, don't buy from Amazon.
Yes, you can do it!
Everyone: call on the directors of 23 and Me to
protect
the privacy of
their customers.
The deportation thugs
seems to have got search warrants for student
rooms at Columbia University by
misleading a judge,
as well as misrepresenting
the law they were claiming to enforce.
The wrecker
is attacking
law firms with executive orders to cut off their
business. Three of them have taken legal action against these orders.
The wrecker
tried to appoint a serious medical researcher as head of
the CDC. He, and she, now
face
right-wing extremist disinformation.
I expect he will try to develop a system by which to control more
completely which kinds of disinformation are permitted.
Alvaro Bedoya, FTC commissioner until he was fired by
the corrupter,
warns of apparent
"quid pro quo" deals between the US government and
billionaires.
In other words, apparent corruption.
When the "Department of Justice" is part of the same corruption, there
is no way to tackle it.
Parents following
RFK's medical misinformation are giving their children
cod-liver oil, thinking that will cure or prevent measles.
It does nothing against measles, but it does cause liver damage.
European universities are starting to
rescue
threatened scientists
from US universities.
Turks are holding
very large rallies for jailed opposition leader
İmamoğlu.
Florida's law forbidding hiring teachers who are officially residents of
China (or some other countries)
makes
no exception for Chinese refugees
who are applying for asylum.
I wonder whether this law violates federal anti-discrimination law.
The FDA's official in charge of vaccines
has
resigned, saying RFK
"wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies."
This and other appointments described here suggest he will attack
vaccinations and put Americans greatly in danger.
That includes me. I got a Covid-19 booster vaccination a week ago,
because I was worried it might cease to be available if I waited.
That's good for now, but what about next fall, and subsequent years.
Academics in the US are
making
preparations in case they are
disappeared.
I expect that Republican officials will maintain the lie that the
people who may be arrested and deported are supporting terrorists
and insist that nothing is wrong.
*Social
Security website is crashing, nobody monitors customer
experience since DOGE eliminated that office.*
This could be their plan for how to get rid of Social Security in practice
even though it may continue to exist in name.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say, "Hold town-hall
meetings with the public, in your district and maybe in other
districts too."
When Democrats do this, it wins support. But when Republicans do this,
it exposes what they really are.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens:
phone
your congresscritter and senators at (202) 224-3121 and call on
them to save Social Security, by rehiring the staff that the
DOSE(*)
got rid of and reversing all other recent changes made
by the bully
and the muskrat.
* Depredations of Swinging Evisceration.
Israel broke the cease-fire with Lebanon
by
destroying a specific building by bombing. It gave warnings
first, but that doesn't mean the attack was justified.
(satire) *New Law Requires Texans To Show ID To
Buy
Phallic Foods.*
*🤯Hegseth should go to jail for war plan leaks,
according
to Hegseth.*
*Open letter: we call on
Columbia
to stand up to authoritarianism.*
*Ukraine ceasefire deal looks like a Russian
wishlist
tied with a US bow.*
(satire) *Big Bird Seen Working At Local Starbucks
After PBS Funding
Cuts.*
Putin has enthusiastically supported the US intention to seize Greenland,
probably expecting the corrupter to support his
intention
to seize Ukraine.
*Oscar-winning Palestinian director released
from
Israeli detention.*
The "Academy" that gives these awards has persistently
refused to
comment on the attack.
This attack by extremist bullies and the arrest by the Israeli state
are not unusual in the West Bank. They happen to plenty of
Palestinians. They are just as vicious when they are done to people
who have not won awards. However, the fact of the award has one
significant implication: it shows that the attackers have completely
quashed their consciences.
8 more Turkish journalists have been jailed for covering nationwide
protests
against Erdoğan.
(satire) *Elon Musk Amazed At How Much Cheaper
Bribing Voters Is In
Midwest.*
New pun:   The virus nobody notices
Tennessee proposes
to make it a crime for local legislators to vote
for sanctuary city policies.
It is clear that the state could pass a law that overrides
any local law of this sort, but no state should be allowed
to criminalize the act of voting as such.
The "five eyes" intelligence network between the Australia,
Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US
is
fraying after the US
accidentally revealed to the others that they could not rely on it
to help them.
Experiments show that many people who believe they are sensitive to
eating gluten are having a reaction which is
not
triggered by gluten.
House speaker proposes to
eliminate
official "federal courts" and
replacing them with new courts that would be subject to the president's
control.
*Biodiversity
loss in all species and every ecosystem linked to humans.*
The US military and spy officials who leaked their conversation
about attacking the Houthis were
deficient
in competence and
deficient in respect for human rights.
But this should be no surprise.
The corrupter
chose them, not for loyalty to conscience or to country,
but only for loyalty to the corrupter.
That's what they have, and that's
how he will judge them.
Canadian officials accuse India of a
disinformation
campaign to put a
Indian-Canadian politician in position to become prime minister.
Joe Molloy, a homeless inhabitant of Seattle, is
running for mayor.
I do not use the fashionable word
"unhoused"
because I don't like its
implications.
Hurricane Helene struck the US Atlantic coast in September and knocked
down many trees. Now, six months later, they are
fueling wildfires.
Two different effects of global heating are thus combining to do
increased damage. How is the US responding to them?
Increasing
fossil fuel extraction and
demolishing FEMA.
The smoke from the fires will cause medical damage. How will Republicans
protect Americans from that? By
cutting Medicaid.
(satire) *Teen
Warned Not To Accept Group Chat Invites From National Security Advisors She Doesn’t Know.*
Business-financed legal campaigns seek to
bar
federal agencies from
punishing businesses for practices that cheat people or pollute the
environment.
The Supreme Court's decision could upend every
American's life.
*[Senator Schumer] is
conducting
business as usual while the US burns.*
*Tackling climate crisis will
increase
economic growth, OECD research
finds.
[One] third of global GDP could be lost this century if climate crisis runs
unchecked, says report.*
This would be an enormous damage figure, but I expect hat it will be
an underestimate. As global temperatures rise, new forms of climate
disaster will arise, causing damage (and thus losses) that can't be
estimated today. I wonder whether the figures tried to estimate the
amount of damage caused by
wildfires
fueled by forests brought down
by hurricanes. I would guess not.
Although China is investing heavily in renewable electric generation,
it is still building
more fossil fuel infrastructure and thus accelerating
global heating.
The muskrat's
right-wing platform, ex-Treme
ex-Twitter, demonstrated
its attitude
towards freedom of speech by turning off the account of the
Turkish opposition party,
as young people protest in the streets against the arrest of its leader.
The bullshitter
orders the ideological
cleansing of the Smithsonian
Institution — its exhibits, its publications, and everything else.
The public has
turned
against Republicans so much that
the wrecker is
afraid to lose even right-wing districts.
A brutal
pogrom in Palestine, carried out by the fanatical Israeli
"settlers", included among its victims the Oscar-winning co-director
Hamdan Ballal of the film, No Other Land, which is about those brutal
pogroms.
This called the attention of many in the west to the usual repression
Palestinians face, with the explicit support of Israel's government.
The author suggests ways other countries could try to curb this violence.
The US has started
"reviewing",
and sometimes canceling, visas
of hundreds of visitors that may have joined protests about Gaza.
**BBC reporter
arrested
and deported from Turkey after covering protests.
He was considered a "threat to public order" after reports on
nationwide anti-government demonstrations.*
Is the bully
imitating Erdoğan, or is Erdoğan imitating
the bully?
*The real problem with the Signal chat leak is
it
shows systemic dishonesty.*
As typical in an authoritarian state, the tyrant is
not
going to punish
anyone for an embarrassing mistake who remains loyal to the tyrant.
US citizens: call on Congress to
resist
the saboteur-in-chief firmly —
don't look for a compromise.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress
not
to allow the DOSE to wipe out post office staff.
DOSE
stands for Department of Sabotage and Evisceration.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress to stop
the muskrat from
replacing
the rural broadband access with Starlink.
Magats
falsify "facts" to create excuses to
blame
trans people for
whatever harm occurs.
This illustrates one dishonest aspect of a system that influences
their tribe to believe imaginary criticisms of the
the bullshitter
leader tells them to hate.
An experiment has found a way
microplastics
can damage mouse brain
function in living mice.
I would expect that the dose
level in the experiment far exceeded what
any animal encounters in normal life, but that would not mean the same
thing doesn't happen in normal life — it might just take many years
rather than hours.
Whether human brains are vulnerable to this particular mechanism is
not certain.
The saboteur-in-chief
terminated
a U.S.-funded initiative that
documents alleged Russian war crimes, including details of mass
deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia, according to officials.
This blocked transmission of evidence to prosecutors pursuing multiple
criminal cases.
Can some European country provide replacement funding to make this
operate again?
The hate spreader has
endorsed
all kinds of prejudice —
even racial segregation.
If racism against blacks is OK with him, clearly he can't really
object to antisemitism either. So his campaign against it is not
sincere. His concern with it must be to weaponize it.
The people of Miami Beach stood up to
defend
an independent cinema
from censorship, after it became the only cinema in the US to show
the film Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land.
The mayor backed down from the threat to
force
that cinema to close.
A French scientist who was sent by CNRS to a conference in the US was denied
entry because the border thugs
who searched the messages in his cell phone
found condemnation
of the wrecker's funding cuts for scientific research.
The outrage here is the idea of excluding people because they denounce
a US government policy. That is vicious censorship.
The wrecker is
looking for opportunities to do this to US citizens too.
*Campaign Legal Center
Files
Complaint Against U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard
Lutnick for Violating Federal Ethics Rules.*
I have a feeling that the saboteur-in-chief will use this opportunity to
sabotage government ethics rules by giving Lutnick as a punishment
the requirement to buy 5 Teslas and market 50 Teslas to others.
*Instead of Dealing with the Weakening Economy,
Administration Officials Are Making it
Harder
to Get Accurate Economic Data.*
I have to make it clear that I don't believe that declining share
prices are the worst thing that could happen to the US. If they were
falling because corporations were going to have to pay more tax that
would be used to help working and poor people's lives, I would cheer.
If they were the result of policies likely to make Netanyahu or Putin
stop making war, I would cheer.
But since the stock decline is being caused by
magats, I don't think
anything good is likely to result.
*Members of British punk rock band UK Subs
denied
entry into the US,*
where they were going to perform,
and there was some mystery about why.
It seems that the regime is trying to impose censorship on people who
might visit the US, to intimidate them from criticism. I expect this
will arouse a lot of hatred for the US.
It strikes me that these airport "waiting" rooms are designed to be
harsh. It can't be an accident that the rooms are cold or there is
nothing to lie down on. People who run prisons know what will make
prisoners uncomfortable, and the US could do better if it wanted to.
The punishment starts even before they say they have decided to punish
you.
(satire) *Man
Sneaks
Bag Of Outside Stimuli Into Sensory Deprivation Tank.*
(satire) *DOJ Designates
Posting
Photos Of Balding Elon Musk As
Domestic Terrorism.*
*Boeing whistleblower's family claims
company’s
conduct caused his suicide.*
The bullshitter
misreports
his own diplomatic phone calls.
It could be dishonesty, or it could be he simply does not remember.
Maybe the bully
is not
really Putin's agent — he is not rushing
to give Putin everything he wants in Ukraine.
*"I've been getting 100 messages a day": Church of Scientology accused
of intimidating
UK critics.*
Measles
is so contagious that if you are unvaccinated and were exposed,
and are going to
visit a clinic, you should warn it before you go — so they can make
sure no other patients catch it from you when you visit.
We should not allow fools to operate anti-vax movements to the
point that they spread actual sickness and cause actual deaths.
Whatever society may say and do about gender roles, a person's
biological sex has
effects
on per for medical and biological
reasons that are not about psychology or social relationships.
The US deportation thugs
are trying
to retaliate against a non-citizen
graduate student who sued the government for mistreating others.
The retaliation is demanding to jail him for deportation.
The US no longer has rules for visitors to follow — instead it has
rules for how to crush them.
Republican
politicians disagree about whether the US should resign from its
responsibility to command NATO forces in Europe, or cling tightly to its
power that comes from that role.
It seems to me that once the bully
cast doubt on whether he would try
to defend certain NATO countries, he also made the US untrustworthy
as commander of NATO forces. Would he command them to let Putin capture some
countries?
US citizens:
call
on states not to require ID checks to access any web sites.
You can find your state governor phone number at
USA.gov.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens:
call
on Congress
to block $8 billion in weapons for Israel.
The US started a wave of attacks on the Houthis by
bombing
a civilian residence. An officer went there to visit his
girlfriend.
I would be interested to see what the rules of war say about such
situations. That officer surely was a legitimate target, but surely
she was not.
In 2018, Robert Reich published "20 signs of impending tyranny."
The
signs are back now, but Reich says they represent actual tyranny
rather than mere danger of near future tyranny.
*Yale
professor [Jason Stanley], who studies fascism, fleeing US to work
in Canada.*
Masked
deportation thugs arrested graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk who had
been in protests against atrocities in Gaza.
Perhaps they wore masks because they were were violating a specific
federal court order and did not want to be found in contempt of court.
*BBC's Jeremy Bowen accuses Israel of blocking journalists from Gaza*
and says this is an
effort
to hide the fighting.
*Yale Investments in
Companies
Selling Arms to Israel Violate State Law.*
Palestinians
protested against HAMAS in north Gaza.
*Trump
EPA’s
Next Move: Making It Harder to Sue for Getting Cancer from
Roundup.* This is because "EPA" now stands for "Environmental
Poisoning Agency".
The fascists now running the "department of justice"
plan
to investigate rhetorical links between student protesters and
real terrorist organizations including HAMAS.
As the author explains, this can lead to imprisonment (of Americans as
well as visiting foreigners) for what we would normally consider
constitutionally protected speech. If you show signs of being
influenced rhetorically by HAMAS slogans, they can try you for
providing HAMAS with the "service" of spreading its views.
This legal policy threatens freedom of speech in the US, and we need
to change it to shore up our constitutional rights. But since
American right-wing extremists don't believe in freedom of speech for
those who disagree with them, they will be glad to terrorize
human rights-supporting dissidents.
*Trump is using antisemitism as a pretext for a
war
on the first amendment.*
Robert Reich: Is the
muskrat
working for Chairman Xi?
I conjecture the muskrat
thinks that Xi is working for him.
But I don't think Xi will let anyone else take any part of China
or Chinese business out of his control. A few years ago he slapped
down the most powerful tech businesses in China.
The US department of homeland harassment has
eliminated
staff that monitored that department's behavior to limit its
cruelty.
Recent reports of harsh treatment of visitors to the US who had visas,
or even green cards, is making
Europeans
hesitate to visit the US. The decrease is enough to affect the
economy.
Businesses can learn to treat foreign visitors decently when cruelty
drives them to a boycott. However, people who care about goodness can
learn this point simply from seeing the avoidable suffering that
cruelty causes.
Sanders
and AOC held a political rally together, the largest either of
them had ever held.
*Turkey's
protests
over [jailed] Istanbul mayor grow into "fight about democracy".*
Wouldn't you know, the sudden jailing of Turkey's main opposition
presidential candidate doesn't bother
the corrupter at all. He seems to
make enemies of democracy feel safer in all countries.
*Columbia
should
have said "see you in court," not "yes, Mr President."*
Putting it differently, its cowardice was a defeat for freedom for
everyone in the US.
How shutting Social Security Administration field offices would make
some workers
wait
a long time to receive their funds — unless they submit to
the injustice of using a snoop-phone.
I would not yield to using a snoop-phone, and I don't have one,
so I had to visit the Boston field office. Fortunately that wasn't
difficult then.
Republicans in Congress are
pushing
a law to block federal district courts from ruling that an illegal
nationwide practice must stop nationwide.
For instance, the question of whether the president, or a billionaire
outsider, can shut down Social Security Agency offices would have to
be litigated in each of the 90-odd federal districts. That would be
highly distracting, but we could call them federal distract courts.
If a decision by one federal appeals court could apply nationwide, the
system could still function. But there would remain the question of
how long it would take to stop progressive sabotage, for instance
firing 1000 experienced workers per business day. In such cases,
courts can issue preliminary orders which stop the dismissals
temporarily until there is a final decision in the case. If the case
had to go through two levels before that could be done, the damage
would continue for longer before a court can pause it.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support these bills
designed to prevent Republicans from wrecking the Social Security
Administration.
If that happens, I suggest Congress also legislate to require rehiring
of all the fired SSA workers who are willing to return.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: phone your senators and call on them to reject the
saboteur's nominee for Social Security commissioner (Bisignano), and
insist on a commissioner who is loyal to the Social Security system
and the Americans who do or may depend on it. Fire
the muskrat!
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
The government of Serbia is
persistently
attacking the independent press, going as far as physical attacks.
*Gaza medics issue malnutrition alert as
total
Israeli blockade enters fourth week.*
Netanyahu and Smotrich are carrying out mass killing by starvation.
Israel attacked a hospital in Gaza and
killed
one of the leaders of HAMAS along with several doctors.
The leader was a legitimate target, I think, but I don't think his presence
in a hospital with doctors makes them legitimate targets.
Israel attacked
the
same hospital massively the day before.
US citizens:
phone
your congresscritter at (888) 853-7037 and urge per to oppose any
cuts to Medicaid.
*Venezuelan migrant deported from U.S. to El Salvador has
no
criminal record, documents show.*
This would be anomalous if the officials working for
the persecutor
on deportations thought they had an obligation to investigate
any specific accusations against the people they planned to deport.
US citizens:
call
on the bully to insist that Israel allow humanitarian aid to reach
the people of Gaza.
If you phone, please spread the word!
White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213
US citizens: Demand the
immediate release
of Mahmoud Khalil.
(I reject the emotionless word
"custody"
to describe being in jail.)
US citizens:
call
for the immediate release of Mahmoud Khalil a nonviolent protester
who demonstrated against Israel's bombardment and siege of Gaza. He
has not been charged with a crime, but
the bully wants to cancel his
green card and
expel
him from the US without showing any grounds for that.
The saboteur-in-chief
signed an executive order which purports to block
citizens that lack a passport from
voting.
The right-wing extremists in Congress were going to pass a law to do this,
but but now the wrecker
claims Congress is not necessary.
Robert Reich:
*The
shame of Columbia University* (and some others).
*If you give in to extortionists, they’ll extort you and others for
more. If you let bullies get their way, those bullies will bully you
and others even more menacingly.*
Magats in
Congress
want to impeach judges that rule against the will of El Supremo.
Greenpeace was ordered to pay $660 million "damages" for protests against
construction of the
Dakota
Access Pipeline.
It plans to appeal that verdict.
*Gaza: Israeli Military
War
Crimes While Occupying Hospitals.*
Professors and students who protested at UCLA against Israel's
atrocities in Gaza are suing right-wing extremists who attacked
them,
thugs
who attacked them, and the school (which punished them).
The US deported over 200 Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador based
on supporting that their tattoos are symbols of gang membership —
with
no hearing to see if that was true.
Accusing Netanyahu of trying turn
Israel
into a dictatorship.
That could explain why he and the wrecker get along so well.
Exiled Russian journalists working for Radio Free Europe and Radio
Liberty have only temporary visas. Now that
the wrecker has those
stations playing Russian folk songs, they may face expulsion,
at
least
in principle.
I hope European countries will give them permanent asylum. And maybe
opportunities to broadcast.
*Crowds defy ban to protest over
Istanbul
mayor’s [jailing].*
Columbia University is the testing ground for
the wrecker's plan to force
American
universities to repress protesters.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators and call on them
to protect SNAP (food stamps) and other federal nutrition programs.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
It is not easy to convict a UK
thug
of manslaughter, let alone murder.
But the current right-wing government plans to
create
more obstacles
to make sure they won't be convicted.
In addition, it will declare the accused
thug's identity a secret.
The president has no authority over the US Institute of Peace, and no
authority to change its board or executives, but his henchmen claim to
have done so and
took
over its building with the help of
thugs.
*US Institute of Peace sues Trump administration to
block
Doge takeover.*
*Judge orders [Bureau of Prisons] to
return
two [trans-women] prisoners
to women’s facilities.*
Israel has ended
the temporary cease-fie in Gaza, resuming the bombardment
and siege.
Once again Palestinians are told to flee to "safe" areas.
In the past, those "safe" areas were
not
always really safe.
One difference is that, where Biden tried to avoid talking about the
military support for Israel's atrocities,
the wrecker treats the carnage
as legitimate.
*Israeli protesters say
airstrikes
are "cover" for Benjamin Netanyahu
to keep power.*
Morally, that criticism is too weak to do justice to Netanyahu's
campaign of death. But it will help make the world aware that
he is ready to kill for mere advantage.
*Conservative former federal judge says Trump has
"declared war" on US
rule of law.*
This may influence judges appointed before
the saboteur's first term
who considered themselves "conservative" and still do.
(satire) *New Federal Law Mandates
Women
Talk With Baby Voice.*
*Ben & Jerry’s claims Unilever
ousted
its CEO for his progressive stance.*
When I read this, I checked to see if it were fro The Onion.
No such luck — it is a factual article.
Robert Reich on the
illegal
firing of the FTC commissioners.
A federal judge ordered the government to
undo
its destruction of
USAID and reinstate its workers with whatever they need so they
could resume their work.
He did not order the agency to resume distributing aid now. That
depends, it seems, on a final decision which has not been made now.
Democratic Party supporters have
mostly
condemned Senator Schumer for
surrendering to the Republican threat to temporarily shut down the
government (by not extending the debt limit) if Democrats didn't agree
to the ransom the Republican demanded, which consisted of permanent
harmful changes in laws.
Since Republicans are trying to permanently destroy important parts of
the government, it makes no sense to respond by approving that damage
to avoid lesser damage. Make the Republicans eat the shutdown!
I've suspected for years that part of the reason Schumer leads the
Democratic Party is rich people's campaign support for various
Democratic elected officials. But I can't cite any proof of that.
However, Schumer said something that I think we should investigate: he
said that Republicans would be able to use a temporary shutdown to
destroy parts of the government. Before dismissing that as ridiculous,
I'd like to see exactly hat he was referring to. It could conceivably
be true: the shutdown could conceivably enable them to do other kinds
of destruction with their Disgusting and Outrageous Government
Evisceration.
I would not take Schumer's word for that, but it may be true, so we
should listen to what he means. The Project 2025 planners planned
their destruction carefully.
The US has displayed recently a
pattern
of cruelty toward Europeans trying
to enter with visas, or even with permanent residence.
Some of the victims had mad mistakes, while others do not seem to have
done anything even slightly wrong.
They have been subject to various forms of torture. I suppose that
this treatment was formerly reserved for immigrants from poor
countries who were suspected of wanting to stay without permission,
but Trump has decided to give allies a taste of hatred.
It is legitimate for the US to deny entry to visitors (unless they are
entitled to asylum), but it is never justified to torture them
for asking to visit or live in the US.
*Musk Is Firing Federal Workers
Who
Prevent Bloated Tech Contracts.*
One must wonder if this is to help him get bloated tech contracts.
The corrupter
doesn't wish to reduce government waste, rather to
direct it to his friends.
*Glacier meltdown
risks
food and water supply of 2bn people, says UN.
Two-thirds of all irrigated agriculture in the world is likely to be
affected in some way by receding glaciers and dwindling snowfall in
mountain regions,*
*DEA Insiders
Warned
About Legality of Phone Tracking Program. Their Concerns
Were Kept Secret.*
This surveillance program, which still continues, tracks cell phone
locations and who calls whom. It can track any cell phone the DEA
wants to track.
US citizens: phone your senators at 202-688-0628 and call on them to
block the wrecker
from disrespecting the independence of independent
government-affiliated organizations.
Here’s a script you can use.
You will need to call twice to reach both of your senators.
Hello! My name is [First Name]. I'm a constituent and am calling to
ask Sen. [Senator] to respond to Trump’s illegal firing of FTC
Commissioners Slaughter and Bedoya.
I urge you to vote “no” on all nominees, halt the Senate’s business —
and do whatever it takes to restore constitutional order in this
nation.
Stop Trump’s illegal power grabs immediately.
*The US government has
sent
Columbia University a ransom note*,
threatening to cancel much of its funding unless it rushes
to comply with impossible demands.
But those demands are just a "precondition". If Columbia does comply,
it will then have to beg and plead.
Erdoğan has blocked
his main election rival from running,
by giving arbitrary orders to punish him.
Court response to the muskrat's
evisceration of agencies: *Nearly
25,000 fired
workers to be rehired; USAid shutdown likely violated
constitution.*
But they are threatening yet more evisceration of the useful parts of
the state.
*Trump administration may
fire
more than 1,000 EPA scientists and scrap
research office, Democrats say.*
A federal judge ruled that dismissing trans people fro the military
for being trans
violates
their constitutional rights.
She recognized that this decision will be appealed, but in the mean time,
the hate-spreader cannot dismiss them.
*More than 150
"unprecedented"
climate disasters struck world in 2024,
says UN.*
They included *scores of unprecedented heatwaves, floods and storms across
the globe.*
More
about the campaign to prevent the film No Other Land
from being
shown in the US.
Zuckerberg's former aide has
published
a revealing exposé of his
callousness and cruelty, not only towards the peoples of many
countries but towards his associates too.
For instance, he directed Facebook' efforts for years towards
developing censorship just as Xi likes it. I suppose his new target
will be censorship just as the corrupter likes it.
More about this book.
*Trump’s tariffs will be
paid
by the poor — while his tax cuts help the rich.*
Now that Labour has
redefined
itself as the "Party of Work" rather
than "Party of Workers",
one more similar shift can redefine it as the "Party of Bosses and
Shareholders that others work for."
The same party distanced itself from the non-rich who need
help in caring for their sick relatives, by
proposing big cuts
in government support for them.
Maybe it should rename itself to the "Hard Labour" party.
Britain could
unlock
house construction if it spent money to build
housing that would belong to the state, for non-rich people to live in.
But it may not be necessary to build all the additional housing
Britain needs to use. I've read that Britain has enough houses and
apartments, if only all were available for people to live in. They
are not available because their owners use them some other way —
often just as investments, kept empty. Increasing tax on doing that
should get them sold off to people who will use them productively.
It all comes down to taxing the rich enough, in various ways.
(satire) *Texas Implements
Mandatory
6-Month Quarantine For Anyone Who
Has Watched "Will And Grace".*
*French politician
jokes
US should return Statue of Liberty for siding with
"tyrants".*
Alas, giving up that statue would not help free Americans from
authoritarian rule.
Since 2024, many asylum seekers from Russia and some neighboring countries
have been jailed
by the US until their final asylum hearings.
Rumor is that some of them are sent by Putin with false stories as disguise.
That can happen. But why take their children away and hand them to strangers?
*From sewage and scum to swimming in "blue gold": how Switzerland
transformed
its rivers [in a few decades].
*And other countries are
looking to follow their lead.*
Yet again, a company that is
paid
a commission for each person it
fines has become a parasite.
All such companies should be abolished.
Governor Newsom now
hosts
a video show in which he interviews guests,
including several right-wing extremists. The writer conjectures that
Newsom is planning to run for president in 2028 and wants to to gain
support from that voting bloc.
Perhaps that is why he is advocating
extreme
repression of homeless
people.
The antivaxxer has ordered the National Cancer Institute staff
cannot publish
anything about vaccines without special approval from political higher-ups.
Giving higher priority to chronic diseases may be a wise change,
but giving lower priority to infectious diseases is not.
Antivaxxers are
spreading
absurd false fears about measles vaccine.
This can kill thousands. They are trying to lure parents into causing
their children's deaths.
The US deported immigrants from various countries to Panama,
which is holding
them in an inaccessible prison. Their lawyers
cannot contact them.
Even worse, the US did nothing to find out whether they are entitled to
asylum. Some come from countries that regularly persecute people,
including Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka,
Turkey, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. It is forbidden to to deport anyone
to those countries.
Imagine if you are a woman from Afghanistan or Iran, you escape and
ask for asylum in the US, and you are sent to a prison in a jungle and
cannot talk with anyone there.
Australia has used similar tricks to eliminate in practice the
right to asylum, such as
sending
people to countries such as Nauru
that don't allow journalists to enter.
* A prominent activist in Italy has warned the international criminal
court (ICC) that his mobile phone was
under
surveillance when he was
providing the ICC with confidential information about victims of
torture in Libya.*
Night-Mayor
Adams has NYC paying
half a million dollars per month
to an indicted hotel developer who could testify against him.
One must suspect this is corruption like what Adams is accused of.
The saboteur-in-chief
wants
to cancel EPA rules that are expected
to prevent 200,000 premature deaths.
They would also protect endangered species; canceling them could cause
extinctions.
Right-wing extremists are
committing
repression of dissent
that criticizes them, and labeling the dissent "antisemitism", as a tactic
to lead the public to hold Jews responsible for the repression.
Columbia Apologized
to Mahmoud Khalil in May 2024 for One-Day Suspension.
A Canadian woman with a US work visa
jailed
in deportation prison and
never got an explanation of why.
The system did many cruel and avoidable things to her. Some of them
were perhaps motivated by increasing the profits of the prison. The
deportation thugs
refused to tell her what they were doing to her
or what they were going to do the next day.
Despite the brainwashing practices, the other prisoners had it much
worse. She at least was sure she would get back to Canada some day.
An academic
report says UK courts should not require climate
protesters to express remorse for risking punishment to save
civilization from global heating.
Immigration thugs
rushed to deport a transplant doctor working at
Brown University for no visible reason, in
defiance
of a judge's order to wait to give him time to rule on the case.
The fascist asserted, in an official government speech, that it is
a
crime to criticize him.
The underminer and his henchmen cited an invalid excuse to deport a
group of 250 Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act -- claiming that
the
plane left US air space before the judge made his ruling.
From what I have read, anyone targeted under that law is entitled to a
hearing to determine whether valid grounds to deport per exist. This
right can't be eliminated away by rushing the deportation.
If a large group of people are in jail, and threatened with rushed
deportation as a false excuse to deny their legal rights, maybe they
riot and seize control of their jail so as to delay it. They could
demand, as condition to end their riot, that a representative of the
judge come to the jail and read out an order stating their legal
rights, accompanied by media teams to report the judge's order. They
could truthfully claim that this is upholding United States law
against a lawless organized gang.
*Democrats demand investigation into Musk over
possible
criminal corruption.*
I doubt that a loyal magat
would investigate anyone that the fascist leader
strongly supports, regardless of the evidence. These people were chosen
for their loyalty to their master rather than their country.
*[The saboteur/corrupter] poised to
"strand
rural America with worse internet" to help
[the muskrat and his
company Starlink], official warns.*
The corrupter
has not disguised his willingness to make political
decisions affecting large numbers of Americans for corrupt reasons.
Migration
of Jews out of Israel has increased greatly, and exceeds the
migration of Jews to Israel.
I can imagine that Israel must feel bad to a Jew who is not right-wing.
Russia is accused of organizing
arson
attacks in various eastern European countries. Those countries
are supporters of Ukraine and these attacks are part of Putin's low
intensity war against supporters of Ukraine's independence.
Americans are
protesting
very effectively at Tesla dealerships.
They could achieve even more if they condemn
the muskrat for making
cars that snoop on their drivers and on
people in the vicinity.
How about making signs about surveillance and bringing them to the
protests.
*Trump wants to
wipe
out Gaza's history. Saving its mosques and churches would defy
him.*
Israel's
bombardment
of Gaza has destroyed historic palaces as well as mosques and
churches, and archaeological sites too.
When an archaeological site that has not been fully excavated and
published is bombed, there is no way to recover the information it
used to hold. It is destroyed irreparably.
Labour is stretching
crush-the-poor
austerity beyond what the Tories did. It is not "Tory lite" any
more, it is "Tory extra-strong".
*Landmines in Syria kill hundreds of
civilians
returning home after fall of Assad.*
As a million people head home, thousands will step on mines. And
people will keep stepping on mines for decades, until the whole
country is de-mined, if that ever is done.
This is why the
treaty
to ban land mines is so important.
The
wrecker's henchmen have deported various people in defiance of
federal court orders.
The courts are the only force in the US that has been able to defend
human rights against his depredations. If his agents defy them with
impunity, that will imply the US government, and rule of law, have been
overthrown.
US citizens: call on Congress to
save
NPR and PBS from Musk, Trump,
and others' right-wing attacks.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Planet roasters
are lobbying
the US to give them explicit immunity for
damage to everyone and everything caused by their fuel's greenhouse gas
emissions.
It will not be possible in practice to make the fossil fuel companies
pay for the damage that those fuels will do, because that will be
bigger than the world economy. They will go bankrupt, but fossil fuel
extraction won't stop.
However, at an earlier stage, while civilization still exists, the
smaller amounts of liability might make them shift to renewable energy
(instead of just pretending that they will), so as to avoid more
liability later. That might do some real good.
(satire) *[The muskrat]
ordered "all government workers must email me
private
nudes they would never want leaked,*.
Cuts
in government spending on food for children will harm millions
of American children.
Malnutrition can stunt a child permanently.
Global heating
is causing worse
dry spells and bigger floods.
Both are very bad for cities.
The bully
said it should
be a crime to criticize a judge.
For anyone other than him, I suppose he means.
*US official [put in charge of] Ukraine peace plan [by Putin's pal]
has history [in print] of
empathizing
with Russia.*
Kyiv's allies must not fall
into
Putin’s trap. This is the trap I warned about — a cease fire,
drawn out ad infinitem, would add up to authorizing Putin's conquests.
Peter Beinart's meditation on biblical history compared with
recent history in
Israel/Palestine
and in Gaza.
My ideas of right and wrong are secular, not based on the bible, but I
found his article interesting.
I will be traveling to the UK in April or May, and I'm looking for
other invitations to speak there on the same visit.
To respond, please write to rms-invitation@gnu.org.
I am also looking for places I could stay for a day or two.
Because I am somewhat immunocompromised, I am vulnerable to Covid and
flu. I need to say in place where I have a room and a bathroom that
are somewhat isolated, in air circulation, from the rest of the
indoors.
To respond, please write to rms-invitation@gnu.org.
Ralph Nader's derogatory
terms
for the would-be autocrat of America. If you use them often
enough, they can help you decide to take other necessary
actions.
Dumb Donald
Convicted Crook Donald Trump
Lying Donald
Delusional Donald
Dangerous Donald
Disgusting Donald
Serial Law-breaker Donald
Deceiver Donald
Loser Donald
Trump-serial abuser of women
Lazy Donald
Violence Inciter Donald
Trump-obstructor of Justice
Dictator Donald
Dictator-lover Donald
Weak Donald
Dishonest Donald
Deadly Donald – Early Covid Denier
Fake Donald
Tax Escapee Donald
Unstable Donald
The Lyin’ King
Cheating Donald
Low IQ DONALD
Racist Trump
Know-Nothing Donald
Know It All Trump
Insecure Donald
Don the Con
The Incompetent Trump
Trump the Grifter
Betrayer Trump
Greedy Trump
Pardon Myself Donald
Lawless Donald
Corrupt Don
Ignorant Don
Bragging Trump
Trump Fantasy Land
Daily Lawbreaking Donald
Egomaniacal Donald
The Trump Dump
You may have seen these used here:
The Corrupter
The Aggressor
The Bullshitter
The Cheater
The Disease-spreader
The Exploiter
The Fascist
The Gangster
The Grandstander
The Grifter
The Hustler
The Hate-monger
The Hater
The Hate-spreader
The Hostage-taker
The Liar
The Loser
The Monster
The Murderer-in-chief
The Persecutor
The Poisoner
The Provocateur
The Pussy-grabber
The Repressor
The Scapegoater
The Truth-hater
The War-dreamer
The Warmonger
The Warmonger-in-chief
The Wrecker
The War-lover
The Saboteur
*Plastic pollution leaves seabirds with
brain
damage similar to Alzheimer's.*
This doesn't prove it harms humans too, but it makes that seem likely.
*At a major oil and gas conference in Texas this week,
companies publicly retreated from their flashy climate pledges of years
past, redoubling
their commitment to planet-[roasting] fossil fuels.*
These companies are taking actions that will
wipe out increasing
fractions of future generations in America and other countries.
Why do young people who
condemn
democracy for its flaws, and would
prefer autarchy, not understand how bad that is?
The corrupter
gave his special advisor for so-called AI and
cryptocurrency an
"ethics
waiver", meaning he is permitted to give
advice on questions that directly affect his own business interests.
Since the corrupter/bully
disregards ethics in favor of crude power,
he wants advisors who do the same.
The wrecker
plans to reform the corps of military lawyers to
systematically condone
some kinds of war crimes.
We can call this MABA, or Make America Barbaric Again.
(satire) *Egg Companies Assure Customers
Dozen
Has Always Meant 9.*
Miami Beach is trying to
evict
an independent cinema for showing the
Oscar-winning documentary, No Other Land, which documents expulsion of
Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank. The film was made by
Palestinians and Israelis working together.
This documentary has faced powerful censorship in the US.
Based on what I have read, it would not surprise me if the film
contains occasional antisemitic statements that I would disapprove of,
alongside occasional statements of antimuslimism and antiarabism that
I would also disapprove of. I don't think the movie endorses any of
those views. I don't know enough to say more than that about the
film.
I can, however, condemn the repression that aims to prevent showing
the film.
(satire) *Feds
Uncover
Terabytes Of Free Speech During Raid Of
Protester's Residence.*
*More than 1,000 riot [thugs]
used teargas, rubber[-coated steel]
bullets and water cannons [plus clubs]
to
[attack] demonstrators
[who were retired people] late on Wednesday.*
The aged protesters were protesting the right-wing extremist's cuts
to their medicines.
Their signs saying things like "Don't hit us, we are your parents"
did not restrain the thugs
from going wild with violence.
That is the spirit that right-wing extremism builds up and looses against
its scapegoats.
A lesson
in patriotism from President T. Roosevelt for people who are
more loyal to one leader than to their country.
The UK's energy minister recognizes that saving the UK from global
heating disaster
depends
on convincing big emitters such as China to
save themselves.
Apple is fighting
a lawsuit by the UK government which demands that
Apple add a back door to examine whatever users store in Apple's
encrypted storage servers.
Does anyone with a UK legal background know how this case compares to
the case of a laptop with GPG loaded on it? If there is a legal
difference between that case and the case of the iThing, can you
explain what that difference is?
*Stimulate
debate on contentious topics, expert urges English universities.*
Debate on controversial political and philosophical questions is a
traditional part of studying politics and moral philosophy.
The attempt to deport Mahmoud Khalil is based on stretching an obscure
law that allows the State Department to declare that a foreigner's
presence in the US would have "potentially serious
adverse
foreign policy consequences."
This is so vague that, if it is accepted by courts, it would give
officials an excuse to cancel the green card of nearly anyone who
disagrees with some US government practice.
Other countries have been attacking
freedom
of speech for foreigners too.
*Judge orders [federal agencies] to reinstate
most
fired probationary staff.*
Ukraine has accepted the bully's demand for a
temporary
cease-fire with Russia. If Putin accepts that, it will put
Ukraine in an even worse situation.
It would be easy for a cease-fire to extend slowly into annexation
of the territory already conquered. However, Ukraine's control of
Russian territory in Kursk may help prevent that, because Putin won't
want to accept permanent loss of any Russian territory.
Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil accuse the deportation thugs of taking him rapidly to two
other prisons as a means of making him suffer and
hampering
his lawyers from communicating with him.
*From Canada to Europe, a movement to boycott US goods
is
spreading.*
I understand the feeling, but I think it would be more effective, as
well as more just, to target their rage and disgust more specifically.
They could boycott the
muskrat's companies, and Amazon, and Face-gram, and perhaps others
that might be identified.
I implore them to extend their hatred for Nazish Americans to apply
also to Nazish Europeans.
US citizens: call on various university presidents to
protect
protesting students from threats of government repression.
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above
work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code.
(See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html.)
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or
are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the
end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring
you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work
without javascript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following
simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the
right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page
that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it
doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can
enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can
finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's
address bar, as follows:
First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the
browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page
that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your
letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters
to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender.
Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to
bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a
small effort for the result of supporting the campaign
without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious)
software.
Here is the text I sent.
Defend academic freedom and rule of law
I call on you to defend and protect students from punishment for
courageously speaking out against a long campaign of deadly atrocities
combined with a deadly siege.
International students now face a new threat from right-wing
extremists in our government, who seek to deport them without trial
for speaking up against atrocities. This attacks the Bill of Rights
and academic freedom in the United States, as well as international
humanitarian law whose enforcement they advocate.
Students should be saluted for nonviolent political action, not
punished, and never victimized by police or ICE for exercising their
rights. Shutting down dissent undermines the principles of free
speech, rule of law and academic freedom that universities are meant
to uphold.
I implore you to resist illegal un-American orders from un-American
officials, and defend human rights in our country.
Sincerely,
Richard Stallman
US citizens: Don't
let the wrecker wreck and privatize the USPS.
US citizens: call
for an independent audit of Elon Musk's federal
contracts.
US citizens: call on Congress to
protect
judicial independence.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Records of the arrest — and killing — of "Cop City" protester Manuel
Páez show that the cops
acted
dangerously wrong, in several ways.
They started by not wearing body cameras, which suggests they were
preparing to cover something up. After meeting Páez, they shot first
at him as he hid in his tent.
Those first shots were less-often-lethal "pepper balls", rather than
bullets, but one can hardly blame Páez for not knowing that. He must
have thought they were shooting to kill him. In moral terms, they
started the shooting, and spoke a deceptive half-truth when they
claimed he started it.
The leader of Australia's Labor Party, just before an election,
called
Vance "a knob", and received applause.
(Or should I say "just before an erection"?)
Bravo, Australians, for openly despising the Tr-ance.
*Being Putin’s stooge won’t win Trump a peace prize. The Order of
Lenin, though, is
in the bag.*
B'tselem reports that *Israel has
brought
the military tactics of its
war in Gaza to the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians face mass
forced displacements, a surge in airstrikes and a sharp rise in
attacks on children and other civilians.*
Jensy Machado, a naturalized Hispanic US citizen from Virginia,
was pulled out of his car and
arrested
by deportation thugs.
He invited them to look at his driver's license, to prove his identity
and citizenship, but they declined to look at it.
Their behavior suggests they were bigots seeking an excuse to harass
some Hispanics.
Edtech companies claim that they do not record everything each
student does and make a profile to rent out, but
some
of them actually do it.
You can't trust a
nonfree
program not to mistreat you — the way to
protect your privacy from the nonfree program is not to let it get
data about you.
Rebecca Burke, a British tourist, tried to go from the US to Canada,
but Canada did not allow her entry because of a matter of visa
conditions. Canada told her to return to the US and reapply — but
the US jailed her
and she was not told why.
She wants to go home to the UK, but has no idea how long she will be
jailed before she is given a chance to tell that to a judge.
US immigration has a history of occasional nonsensical cruelty,
such as beating
and jailing science fiction writer Peter Watts.
I recommend his books because they are interesting,
but the reason I make a point of buying each book
is by way of apology for my country's conduct towards him.
How Republicans in Congress are trying to
cut off funds
for Planned Parenthood
I invite all of you to learn to be less attached
to physical things, including gems and
derivatives of parts of my former body.
Attachment generates suffering, and that
includes attachment to those things. If my
former body has any importance, it is only in
the advice that it once spoke to you, which I
now repeat.
really matter and you will become more enlightened.
Richard Stallman, 2023-12-14
Palestine nigh Israel be.
Both in peace, let both be free;
Be lands of democracy.
It would have been wiser to threaten to increase the taxes on digital
"services" — either all of them, or some of them.
It won't be easy to convince Republicans to pass any of these, but
that could be possible if the public outrage at difficulties with
their Social Security Payments is strong enough to overpower their
obedience to their master. We can help make that happen.
You don't have to call the corrupter "Trump".
signing without Javascript
My letter
The saboteur-in-chief pardoned people convicted of attacking abortion clinics or blocking patients from accessing them.
RFK jr. is trying once again to prove that a vaccine causes autism, although there was never any honest evidence for this.
The supposed "evidence" linking the MMR vaccine (which prevents measles as well as mumps and rubella) was dishonest: it came from a paper later found to be fraudulent and false. The Lancet retracted the paper and its author's medical license was canceled]
RFK jr, is one of the wrecker's middle-finger appointees, which the wrecker's used to demonstrate that nobody was so unqualified and unfit that Republicans would refuse to confirm him once nominated by the wrecker.
The reason the US is jailing foreign tourists for weeks, when what it really wants is for them to leave, is that the default response to any violation of a rule is an overreaction: to jail them.
It seems that deportation thugs are harming the US as well as the unfortunate tourists who broke a rule, by being self-defeatingly authoritarian toward them.
I can imagine various safe ways to give then a chance to leave soon on their own power — perhaps while using an ankle bracelet to make sure that they leave reasonably soon.
Thugs visited a Palestinian business, Education Bookshop, in Jerusalem again, without a warrant, and confiscated "subversive" books by Banksy, Noam Chomsky and Israeli academic Ilan Pappé.
Then they arrested one of the owners, not stating any charge, took him to a thug station and released him. This was clearly a campaign of harassment, showing how Israel respects freedom of the press.
Ex-president Do-Dirty of the Philippines is now being tried by the International Criminal Court on charges of killing supposed drug dealers without bothering to establish that they were guilty of anything.
He called this the "war on drugs", and it confirms that when a war is on drugs, it is likely to kill innocent people.
*Federal judge orders Doge to release internal records for transparency* and release its internal documents.
Meanwhile, its first target, USAid, has been destroying secrets. I am guessing that this was illegal, and that the motive for this was to prevent courts from figuring out how to reconstruct what was destroyed.
Republicans are trying to leave the customers of payment tech vulnerable to cheating.
As it happens, I am one of the few who will not be vulnerable to this. Those systems are nonfree, and I have always rejected them on principle for that reason. A nonfree program is "owned" by someone and that puts users under the power of that owner. See https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html. If you don't reject them on principle, at least reject them on grounds of safety.
In those US states that still carry out capital punishment, prisoners sentenced to execution are typically held in extreme conditions of isolation for months or even years.
This is a form of psychological torture, and it takes strength of character to avoid cracking. As far as I can see, no conceivable justification exists for it. It can't be based on rational concern that a given prisoner might try to escape, or engage in violence, because those risks are not specific to those sentenced to death.
As far as I can see, the practice of "death row" is nothing but a way of acting out despisement through cruelty. The primary evil is the death penalty itself, but this secondary evil contributes substantially to that.
The wrecker said that the boycott of Tesla is illegal.
That is impossible, in the US legal system. But I don't know whether the real laws can prevail over the magat prosecutors' fake laws.
* Judge blocks [the wrecker's] plan to cut millions for teacher training.*
The wrecker's regime is directly attacking freedom of speech in the US, by deporting Palestinian student Mahmoud Khalil who was a negotiator for the protest movement at Columbia University in 2024.
Khalil is not a Columbia student nowadays because he has graduated since then, but he remains a lawful permanent resident of the US. And anyone in the US has the right of freedom of speech.
When the wrecker claims the authority to arbitrarily jail any non-citizen for deportation, he is trying to abolish constitutional rights, not only in practice but in principle. The legal right to freedom of speech means that no official can arbitrarily decide which views to "tolerate", and repress other views.
The article explains at length what US law actually says about "support for HAMAS" — not that you should trust what the wrecker or his agents say about anyone's supposed "support for HAMAS", because they commonly stretch the law on that question.
See what I recently posted about about how the US ought to determine whether an organization is terrorist or not.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and call on per to demand that the government release Mahmoud Khalil and then respect his human rights.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: phone your congresscritter, whether perse Democrat or Republican, and call on per to vote against the Republican cut-the-poor budget bill.
Call a Republican because it's their bill.
Call a Democrat because there is a danger that some Democrats will yield to pressure to vote for it. Please make sure perse does not.
People for the American Way reports:
If Republicans get their way, this bill will:
- Delay Social Security checks for millions of seniors who rely on them to make ends meet.
- Reduce FEMA resources, leaving communities vulnerable in the face of natural disasters.
- Cut cancer research funding, putting lifesaving treatments on the chopping block.
- Make air travel less safe, cutting staff who ensure aviation safety.
- Slash $23 billion in veterans' benefits, betraying those who served our country by gutting healthcare and assistance programs.
I did not make a link to their page because it suggests using a nonfree program. It is against my principles to legitimize that.
I think the same bill would also attack Medicaid.
Bezos, the owner of amazon.com, is imposing strict censorship of political opinions on the Washington Post. We can punish Bezos for this and other hostility to human rights by boycotting amazon.com, at the same time as we protect ourselves from the way the company's mistreatment described here .
The US air force deleted material about the Tuskegee airmen and acceptance of women as pilots.
Why cover this up? To end the explicit policy of DEI does not by itself entail hushing up historic facts.
To have a reason to delete those, the government would need to have a policy in favor of discrimination, exclusion and injustice. It would not surprise me if that's what the bully demands.
A new kind of plastic degrades in sea water into compounds that will be eaten by bacteria, with no harmful residue.
*The world’s most admired democracy is being held hostage by a clique of far-right thugs. It would be a mistake to placate them.*
I am not sure that the US was really the most admired democracy a year ago. Certainly it had big flaws, introduced by earlier stages of plutocratist subversion. But it was, arguably, the oldest stable democracy.
*We've witnessed the rise of a kind of identity politics that sidelines class. And the far right is benefiting from it.*
An insightful article explains how identity politics on antisocial media tends to divide people into groups that argue about which of the many kinds of cruelty, and of the many groups that sometimes are caused to suffer, deserves the "worst oppression" award.
I don't like this competition. I prefer Martin Luther King's message, that we should try to help others who suffer and to end social injustices, regardless of "identity" groups.
One of the underminer's executive orders says that he can fire anyone in the federal government who disputes his version of what the law requires.
"The essence of it is that Donald Trump is trying, quite consciously, to make himself an elected dictator," said law professor Frank Bowman.
US citizens: call on Congress to keep the muskrat's hands off Social Security.
US citizens: tell Congress that America stands with Ukraine.
US citizens: call on the USPS board of governors to resist the tyrant's plan to seize direct power over it.
Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html.)
First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.
I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without javascript!"
They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.
To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.
Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:
First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.
This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.
Suggesting that Canada and Europe retaliate for US tariffs, not by putting up their own tariffs, but by allowing independent app stores.
A research project estimates that microplastics cut crop production by 4% or more by hampering photosynthesis when they get into plants.
They also retard the growth of algae, which slows the growth of sea animals.
Chaotic violence has broken out in coastal northwest Syria between Assad loyalists and Turkey-sponsored groups who hate them.
Colombia urges the UN to end international prohibition of coca leaf.
*Syrian government reaches deal with Kurdish-led SDF (Rojava) to unite and respect human rights of Kurds.*
I admire what I have read about democracy in Rojava. The article doesn't make it clear whether that will be preserved under this deal.
6 weeks ago, the UN was *‘deeply concerned’ Israel using ‘unlawful lethal force’in West Bank.*
I hope to encounter and post a more detailed article soon.
Astronomers are concerned that a proposed chemical plant in the Atacama desert will pollute the region's air and spoil it for many telescopes.
Americans are realizing that the bullshitter did not mean it when he said claimed he would protect working-class Americans (if they are white) from high prices.
The saboteur-in-chief tries to be unpredictable to hamper resistance. It turns out that that very unpredictability hampers US businesses from making nonpolitical business decisions.
The businesses controlled by oligarchs are partly exempt from this problem because they have enough influence on the saboteur-in-chief to make sure their decisions will be safe.
Magats are excoriating Justice Barrett for voting to disapprove one of the wrecker's extreme acts of sabotage. They demand that "their" judges strictly follow the party line established by the great leader.
US citizens: call for legislation to break up Big Medicine, including UnitedHellth. (The article explains all the different medicine businesses that conglomerate combines.)
I think horizontal monopolies like that used to be limited generally by US anti-trust law.
US citizens: call on Congress to block the wrecker's weapons sale to Israel.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on media companies to defend freedom of the press, rather than let the bully intimidate them.
US citizens: call on Congress to overturn the wrecker's attack on clean energy policies.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Three students in Malta and their instructor have been charged with the crime of breaking "security". They found vulnerabilities in an app (surely nonfree) and reported them to its developer after verifying they were real vulnerabilities.
I don't know any other facts about the app, but I expect it would be malware. It follows that the app harms the computing security of students who use it much more than these students did to the app.
Reporting bugs in a program helps the program's developers. If the developers treat you decently, which includes respecting your freedom, such cooperation is the right thing for users to do. But if the developers thinks "security" means keeping users firmly under the developers' power, they deserve punishment rather than help.
*Report by [Israeli intelligence] says "policy of quiet" towards HAMAS allowed it to build up resources for 2023 attack.*
*Half of world's CO2 emissions come from 36 fossil fuel firms, study shows.*
*Charges of hypocrisy do not land if the supposed hypocrite is not committed to any kind of consistency in the first place.* (Think "bullshitter".)
*Congress Hearing on Antisemitism Does Nothing for Jewish Safety, Advances Authoritarianism.*
*[The wrecker] threatens to pull federal funds for US schools allowing "illegal protests".* By which he means, "any protests" that he doesn't like.
Antisemitism and condemnation of violent repression are not the same. People protesting Israel's violent repression of Palestinians should take care to clarify that distinction, and set an example to help others recognize the difference. By doing that, they will thwart the efforts of Netanyahu and other right-wingers to confuse the two.
RFK Jr continues to cast doubt on measles vaccination.
The LA Times bullshit-generated counter-opinion defended the KKK.
The bully has threatened to deport non-citizens who make statements about Gaza and Israel that the bully chooses to call "antisemitic".
As the ACLU reports, deportation on those grounds would be unconstitutional, but the bully feels entitled to disregard the Constitution.
The bully will surely stretch the meaning of "antisemitic", as has become habitual for right-wing extremists, and conflate condemnation of Israel's deadly violence with antisemitism. To make matters worse, he proposes to use some dodgy software to make the accusations. It is unjust to find someone guilty of anything based on heuristics.
For the bully, rushing to judgment and punishment is a way of demonstrating his power. Here's another act of bullying aimed at forcing US universities into strict censorship of protests.
HAMAS plainly is a terrorist organization, but it is unjust for governments to label groups (or individuals) as "terrorist" by fiat. That decision calls for a fair trial.
The practice of declaring organizations "terrorist" denies a fair trial to people charged with the crime of "aiding" that "terrorist organization". Their trials do not try to judge the crucial question — is that organization really terrorist? — which is simply taken for granted.
The London low-emissions zone is very effective in reducing toxic air pollution, and also substantially reduces greenhouse gas emissions from driving.
The one really bad thing about it that it is enforced using surveillance — and that is not inherently necessary.
The US government says that its statements about expelling Ukrainian refugees were sent in error and that it has no intention to do that.
The total population of butterflies in the US fell 20% from 2000 to 2020. (I do not say "22%" because that is surely more precision than these measurements can support.)
This decline is surely continuing.
*Federal workers block Musk's "Doge" from shutting down Africa development agency.*
*US judges alarmed over rise in violent threats as Trump and Musk lambaste them.*
I expect they see judges as the last remaining obstacle to establishing outright dictatorship in the US, and they surely know that their hate machine provokes real violence.
Alan Singer sees *Echoes of Munich in [the wrecker's] Ukrainian Reversal.*
I have been thinking the same. There is no reason to believe the Putin's appetite for expansion stops with Ukraine. With the corrupter's support, Putin might aim to capture various countries now part of NATO.
Immigration judges in the US are not chosen for knowing immigration law, or for thinking clearly about it, and a fraction are so strongly biased that they always deny asylum, even to people who were tortured as political prisoners.
I am sure this is at least indirectly related by the general attitude of hostility to immigrants.
Ralph Nader calls for people to organize large rallies against the right-wing wrecking crew.
*Hamas has accused [the wrecker] of seeking to undermine the shaky pause in hostilities in Gaza with his latest intervention in the region: a new and fierce ultimatum telling the group to release all hostages.*
This directly undermines the completion of the cease-fire deal, which would have included releasing all the hostages, and also ended the war.
In effect, it demands that HAMAS give Israel everything immediately, thus eliminating pressure for Israel to end its killing.
It also shows that the wrecker is acting directly to undermine the "peace plan" he claimed to have brought about.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Social Security Expansion Act of 2025)
The page explains what that bill would do.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
*Canadians protest imports of US toxic waste amid Trump tariff war.*
Canada could address this issue very simply by putting a tariff on toxic waste imports from the US.
A court ordered reinstatement of NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox, who the bully fired for affirming that the president of the US is not a king.
This means that the NLRB can now function normally — unless he fires her again. I wonder what absurd excuse he will use next.
Joseph Stiglitz calls for the elimination of ISDS trade treaties, that make states pay for he privilege of changing their laws to protect public health or the environment.
One question is how to eliminate those treaties. Most of them say that even if a country withdraws from the treaty, it is still bound by the treaty's parasitical rules for many years after.
In the cases where these treaties do big harm, they causes the death of thousands of people if not millions. So one idea is to legislate that enforcing one of these treaties in a case where the consequence is to kill people or make people sick constitutes homicide or gross bodily harm, and that the penalty to any corporation convicted of these crimes is confiscation of all assets and/or income.
A company that is willing to seek profit by those means deserves to lose everything.
Staffing cuts at the US National Weather Service have made it struggle to carry out its mission. Some local weather bureaus face severe shortages.
The madmap told Congress that he is on a divine mission to impose fanatical right-wing Christianity on the US.
Call your congresscritter to oppose the bills to weaken unions including the National "Right to Work" Act.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Biden had the DoJ sue a factory in Louisiana that was emitting carcinogen. The wrecker has canceled the lawsuit, so that the company can promote cancer unimpeded.
This is a consequence of the wrecker's priorities: rich business owners over poor people (especially if they are black).
The wrecker stopped the function for preventing spread of HIV in South Africa as punishment for prosecuting Israel at the International Criminal Court.
Wealthy Americans have 7 years more life expectancy than working-class Americans. It's an indirect consequence of the effects of poverty on whoever is poor.
Instead of letting billionaires set working class whites against other Americans, we can unite and demand to distribute more of America's income and wealth to those who are poor.
Ralph Nader suggests Democrats in Congress *hold unofficial public hearings on Capitol Hill, highlighting an all-time winning agenda supported by the citizenry and opposed by the Trumpsters.*
US residents: phone your state governor and say to veto any bill that would permit "investing" (gambling) state pension funds in cryptocurrencies.
As with other forms of gambling, the house is generally to win, and in this case the pension fund would not be the house.
You can find your state governor phone number at USA.gov. If you phone, please spread the word!
*Republicans [running for state offices] are relying on "nameless" donors who want to push a rightwing agenda and gain long-term hegemony.*
They can do this because they put judges on the Supreme Court that tore up most of the Voting Rights Act and campaign donation rules, including the "Citizens" United decision.
But you can identify those candidates because they advocate allowing billionaires to do this. They are the supporters of oligarchy rather than democracy. They also oppose taxing the rich fairly.
A trade treaty with an ISDS clause may compel Greenland to permit uranium mining, even though it can poison the land near the mine.
The bully gave a speech in Congress, showing that Republicans revel in being the crazed mob following a bully. Democrats' response was sometimes visible but his mob disregarded even his visible falsehoods. (The speech was full of those.)
I think that authoritarian followers will find displays in which their leader successfully bullies his enemies as gratifying and reinforcing to their obedience.
Conjecture: The muskrat's fantasy is to wear out the Earth as a habitat for civilization, so as to create cities on Mars which are his personal property.
Whether or not this results in sustainable Martian cities, it could wipe out civilization on Earth, and wipe out freedom and democracy.
*Study on cancer data in US agricultural heartland finds children more at risk [if exposed to a pair of pesticides] than if exposed to just one [of those two].*
"Pesticide" here includes herbicides such as dicamba and glyphosate.
Arizona's referendum to abortion has taken full effect.
The Supreme Court ordered the wrecker to resume payment of foreign aid by the USAid agency.
I am not sure whether this applies to all the aid that Congress had approved, or only paid-for work already done.
*US stops sharing intelligence on Russia with Ukraine.*
This is meant to make Zelenskyy surrender to the demand that Ukraine "repay" the US aid, which wasn't a loan, at extortionate interest rates for decades.
The extent of commitment given by governments that ought to know better to far-fetched energy schemes — carbon capture and storage, and new kinds of nuclear fission — suggests to me that governments' reason for supporting them is influence by the businesses that stand to profit from them. I can't see any other reason there could be.
*[The wrecker's] purge raises extinction threat for endangered species, fired workers warn.*
Danger: food grown in America could hazardous due to magats and their chemicals.
Right-wing politicians in Spain push to wipe out the rewilded lynx, just as right-wing politicians in the US push to wipe out wolves.
Both of them spread an exaggerated fear of danger from the animals they want to kill, while ignoring the ways those animals, in limited numbers, are beneficial for human activities.
The wrecker ordered logging in half a million square miles of US forests.
This doesn't mean those forests will be razed, but does mean more logging, and in some places increased fire danger.
The worst part is that he wants to disregard protection of endangered species.
*High fertilizer use halves numbers of pollinators, world’s longest study finds.*
US citizens: call on Congress to stand up to the coup at the Environmental Protection Agency, and to fire the muskrat.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
*JP Morgan's "sustainable" funds invested £200m in mining giant Glencore.*
*How do we make Europe more secure? Here are five steps we need to take now.*
* Some might agonize about whether Zelenskyy could have played things differently. It's the wrong question. The point is that we can't carry on being so dependent on every meeting at the White House.*
Reporting on a years-long investigation into Britain's spy cops, who pretended to be progressive activists so as to couple with activist women and report on their activities.
*The US we thought we knew is gone – and Australians know it.*
Australia should consider whether it can rely on US-made weapons systems to function as expected. Will there be a surprise demand for an expensive subscription — perhaps to sell half of Australia's mining output to the US at a discounted price?
Did those weapon systems come with complete source code? Or will software maintenance depend on an entity under US control?
The deportation thugs put a German tourist in deportation prison because she was carrying tattoo needles. They suspected her of planning to do work (making tattoos) instead of being a tourist.
The basic point may be valid — I don't know. However, if they intend to send her to Germany, why keep her in deportation prison so long? The could have sent her weeks before.
I can't assert that this harshness is the fault of the persecutor. It might be so, but the deportation thugs have been cruel for years. Maybe this is not new.
The wrecker is preparing to lift sanctions on Russia. That would make sense as preparation for a Moscow-Washington axis.
*Russia-linked Telegram channels "offering to pay for attacks on [British] mosques."
Campaigners say cryptocurrency payments were offered to UK residents if they daubed anti-Muslim graffiti.*
*US natalist conference to host race-science promoters and eugenicists.*
It's harmful to urge people to "have more babies," but they are making it nasty as well: "have more white babies."
*Urge Congress to stop the wrecker's information takeover and attacks on the press!.*
Several provinces in Canada have ceased sale of alcohol from the US, as retaliation for the wrecker's tariffs.
*BP dropping its green ambitions is a travesty.* (And shows that its publicity for those supposed commitments was mere manipulation.) *But that's exactly how capitalism works.
Companies will never solve the climate emergency alone. The impetus for change [I'd say, the requirement for companies to change] needs to come from government.*
Lech Wałęsa and other prominent Poles said that the Tr-ance's treatment of Zelenskyy reminded them "of that which we remember well from interrogations” by Poland’s communist secret services and regime courts.
I wonder if the two got lessons in that approach to bullying.
US citizens: call on Congress not to cut Medicaid. The proposed cuts would bring about the death of non-rich Americans that get sick.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
*Israel cuts off humanitarian supplies to Gaza as it seeks to change ceasefire deal.*
*Iowa Becomes the First State to Repeal Civil Rights Protections for Trans People.*
Persecution of people for adopting a different lifestyle is a traditional part of the religion that most supporters of the wrecker believe in, and imposing their religion's rules on everyone is part of what they stand for.
RFK jr. went against his anti-vax ideology and ordered US agencies to provide measles vaccines to limit the measles outbreak.
That's a good outcome for this specific problem but we can't count on him to have become sane overall.
The HHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs resigned on Friday. He did not say why, but apparently it was in condemnation of the anti-vax policy which RFK jr has subsequently altered.
The bully's White House officials criticized Zelenskyy for insisting on agreeing to both sides of the deal together. They say he should have taken for granted that, once the bully had received the part that he wanted, he would have given Ukraine something in return. They have faith in the bully, and they think everyone else should too.
However, Zelenskyy is too wise to have much faith in a bombastic and volatile habitual liar.
Since then, the bully froze the shipping of arms and supplies to Ukraine, including those that were already in transit.
*Trump and Vance, I think, never really intended to have a conversation with Zelenskyy. Instead, they wanted to look tough on TV.*
That agrees with the conclusion I reached — that they planned to gang up on Zelenskyy two-on-one for a quarrel that Zelenskyy would inevitably "lose".
Those who wonder whether Zelenskyy used the best possible approach to the wrecker are misunderstanding the situation. When confronting arrogant bullies whose plan is to attack you, if you have responsibilities to people beyond yourself, no possible approach can reach a good outcome for them. Your choices are the bad outcome of an overt confrontation with the bullies, or the worse outcome of licking their boots. You must avoid the latter!
I wish I could think that the worst possible outcome was that the US would have no allies, but a worse one occurs to me: that Putin and Xi will be the allies of America in its Tr-ance, forming the Beijing-Moscow-Washington axis.
Robert Reich wrote, in an email for which I have no URL: "[the bully] isn't just trying to dismantle American democracy. He's gunning to destroy democracy worldwide."
Some of the people living near the Texas measles outbreak are recognizing that it was foolish not to vaccinate their children.
The people now in the hospital with measles show that we should not have left an opening for antivax disinformation to spread. Its spread paves the way for the spread of measles itself.
The Putin-loving president has ordered US intelligence agencies to reduce the priority of countering Putin's cracking and disinformation army.
*Trump can’t fulfill his promise [to working-class Americans] to [end inflation], so he's [scapegoating and persecuting] workers instead.*
(satire) *City Zoo Scrambles To Hide Animals Ahead Of Landlord Visit.*
*"America is going down": China can capitalize on damage caused by Trump, former PLA colonel says.*
*Senate Democrats have the power to block federal contracts to Tesla and SpaceX. It’s the path to pushing Musk out of politics.*
The wrecker's latest gift to the fossil fuel companies is to cancel the proposed safety regulations on pipelines that transport CO2 under high pressure. A little CO2 in the air is normal and not medically harmful, but high-pressure leaks have put people nearby in the hospital.
How the fossil gas industry uses lobbying and lawsuits to quash city laws that stop new buildings from being hooked up to gas pipelines.
*Planned EU investments in LNG risk increased dependency on US at worst possible time.*
Earth's plants and soil have been decreasing their absorption of CO2 ever since 2008.
From mid-January: *Major banks are abandoning their climate alliance en masse. So much for "woke capital".*
Many is clear that the companies that halfheartedly agreed to help reduce CO2 emissions had no real appreciation of the danger they were agreeing to help prevent. Now that the US has fallen into a Tr-ance, and his pushing those companies to help wreck the world, they do not resist.
Britain must continue foreign aid as well as rearm. It must also raise the standard of living of Britons, which has fallen since Thatcher redirected Britain's wealth to the rich.
Britain can do all of these things if it starts taxing the rich as they deserve.
Americans rallied to support Ukraine (and condemn the bully).
Europeans in various counties also rallied to support Ukraine.
*ACLU sues to block White House from sending [certain] immigrants to Guantánamo.*
*A US judge on Saturday declared president Donald Trump’s firing of the head of [the Office of Special Counsel] illegal.*
Enough decisions like this might lead to restoring rule of law.
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate Musk and his depredations.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
The wrecker plans to screw everyone in the US who does not speak English well enough to deal with government bureaucracy, by eliminating support for interpreters to help.
*More than 160 Gazan medics held in Israeli prisons amid reports of torture.*
*Gaza's doctors say they were tortured, beaten and humiliated in Israeli [prison].*
A meeting between Zelenskyy and Tr-ance in the White House broke up in acrimony.
They tried to bully him into selling Ukraine's mineral resources without getting military support in return, by attacking him and Ukraine. He responded civilly to the points they made, while sticking to his negotiating position. They searched for and found ways to interpret his words as attacks so they could counterattack to bully more.
A journalist called this an "ambush", and maybe it was.
I think that they set up the meeting so they could bully him very harshly, and even planned ending the meeting with insults if he did not give them what they wanted.
Including Vance in the meeting looks to me like a tactic to make the argument two-against-one and thus be nastier.
US citizens: call on Congress not to support the bully's idea for a war with Mexico. The "war on drugs" is stupid as a metaphor, and even stupider as a shooting war.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
US citizens: call on Congress not to cut Medicaid. The proposed cuts would bring about the death of non-rich Americans that get sick.
If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
*Ukraine "gambling with world war three", Trump tells Zelenskyy in fiery meeting.*
The bully is echoing Putin's repeated propaganda line: "Give in to my demands or I might use nuclear weapons." I have called this his "I'm a madman with a nuke" routine.
This is more reason to think that the wrecker is in cahoots with Putin or else under Putin's control.
When the bully insists that what he wants peace (at any price), I think of a line from an old Reggae song: "I don't want peace, I want equal rights." It is easy for a bully with an army to shake victims down by starting a war and offering to end it in exchange for some valuable prize. But if you give in, you lose.
*3M told customers its firefighting foams were harmless and biodegradable, when it knew they contained toxic substances so persistent they are now known as "forever chemicals" and banned in many countries.*
(satire) *Jeff Bezos Sends Note To Whole Foods Staff Forbidding Criticism Of Grapes.*
*[DoorDash] claimed that 100% of tips went to [the delivery people] but instead used them to subsidize workers' base salary.*
As far as I know, only that one food delivery company has cheated in that particular way. But others cheat various parties
in various ways. We should not trust or reward any of them.
*Colorado woman charged with vandalizing Tesla dealership.*
If cars are made by a Nazi sympathizer, does that justify calling the cars "Nazi cars"? We don't know that the cars share the views of the owner of the company. Perhaps the cars were traumatized by the attitude inside the factory to the point that they are ready to blow the whistle on the owner's right-wing subversion.
*Thailand deports dozens of Uyghurs to China despite torture fears. Rights experts say group who have been detained for more than 10 years face high risk of torture and imprisonment.*
Not deporting people to countries likely to persecute them is a basic principle of the international system of asylum, but many countries are visibly treating that system with contempt, including Australia, the US, the UK and various EU countries.
George Monbiot: *So much of [UK] intelligence and military systems are shared [with] or reliant on the US — if it becomes the enemy, it is already inside the gates.*
The idea of NATO, like that of "five-eyes" intelligence sharing, was predicated on the idea of an alliance that would never end, as well as on the idea of shared principles of democracy and human rights that would certainly continue (albeit occasionally deniably betrayed by the various governments).
Nowadays, for the US in a Tr-ance, "cooperation with" other countries is a euphemism for making them submit and obey, or recruiting them into the gang. It is trying to recruit Putin, Europe's main existing enemy.
Will the wrecker share the UK's intelligence with Putin? I don't think any principles or loyalties would hold him back.
Musk claimed that his abrupt firing of thousands of federal workers is just like Clinton's job cuts in the 1990s. Robert Reich, who carried out part of those cuts, lays out the fundamental differences.
*When you hear Musk say his effort is similar to what I and others did in the 1990s, know he’s lying. When you see him call people who benefit from public programs "parasites," know he’s a hypocrite.*
To avoid painting an exaggeratedly favorable picture of Bill Clinton as a champion of the people, let it be known also that he did many things that transferred wealth from the poor to the rich. This included his "welfare reform" that reduced government aid to the poor.
The wrecker ordered the US military to find and discharge all transgender service-members.
The supposed justification for this is a bald assertion that being trans is incompatible with military service. Saying so does not make it true.
Some Democrats running for state governor receive campaign support from cryptocurrency schemes. They earn that money by saying they will put pension fund money into those schemes.
Pension funds should choose investments that are pretty low in risk. The only way "investment" in cryptocurrency can have low enough risk not to be considered speculation is if corruption ensures its value can't decrease much.
It follows that any candidate who suggests putting some state pension funds into a cryptocurrency is either incompetent or bent.
*Judge temporarily blocks Trump’s mass firings at federal agencies. US Office of Personnel Management lacks power to order firings, including those of probationary employees.*
Robert Reich asserts that the saboteur-in-chief is aiming to establish personal control over all parts of the US government that can employ force. He is doing this by *putting into power people who are more loyal to him than they are to the United States.*
Once this has gone far enough, he will be able to threaten all opposition leaders with imprisonment or death -- by asking those bent officials to bend the law for his sake.
*Taiwan detains Chinese-crewed cargo ship after undersea cable damaged.*
Since the polite words of states attacked this way were treated as a sign of weakness, it's necessary that they show their strength.
Germany's neo-Nazi party temporarily tried to give the impression, for the election, that it was a little less Nazi. Turns out that was just a sham.
HP came up with a clever way to boost use of bullshit generators: when customers called the phone line for customer disservice, HP would make each one wait 15 minutes listening to would-be brainwashing to use the chatbot instead, before allowing the connection.
The rage of customers must have been powerful, because HP soon retreated from this nastiness.
But it still carries out many forms of nastiness.
I have often had to wait over an hour for a business to respond. So I have learned how to handle my email while hearing these "use our convenient but unjust web site" torture session. Having email to distract me from the torture so it doesn't hurt.
The tyrant-lover has enrolled the US in the hall of shame for countries that refuse to condemn Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
*Judge blocks Musk agency access to millions of Americans' personal data.*
*Major military operation causes largest displacement of Palestinians in West Bank since Israel seized it in 1967.*
*Eight Gaza doctors on their Israeli prison ordeal.*
It is a war crime to torture prisoners like that. It is also a war crime to attack hospitals.
A summary of attacks against non-allied media by the wrecker and his henchmen.
Each note starts with a date and a brief topic in parentheses. That
text is also a link to that note.
For instance, if the note
starts with "31 July 2022 (Inflation)" then you can link to it with
"https://www.stallman.org/notes/2022-may-aug.html#31_July_2022_(Inflation)".
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