We the people must never accept government threats to our freedom of speech. Efforts by leaders to pressure artists, journalists, and companies with retaliation for their speech strike at the heart of what it means to live in a free country. Last week, Jimmy Kimmel was taken off the air after the government threatened a private company with retaliation, marking a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation. In an attempt to silence its critics, our government has resorted to threatening the livelihoods of journalists, talk show hosts, artists, creatives, and entertainers across the board. This runs counter to the values our nation was built upon, and our Constitution guarantees. We know this moment is bigger than us and our industry. Teachers, government employees, law firms, researchers, universities, students and so many more are also facing direct attacks on their freedom of expression. Regardless of our political affiliation, or whether we engage in politics or not, we all love our country. We also share the belief that our voices should never be silenced by those in power – because if it happens to one of us, it happens to all of us. This is the moment to defend free speech across our nation. We encourage all Americans to join us, along with the ACLU, in the fight to defend and preserve our constitutionally protected rights.

A graphic listing the names of the more than 400 signers of the ACLU's letter condemning the federal government's retaliation against Jimmy Kimmel. For the full list of signatories, visit aclu.org/kimmel-letter-bk

Jimmy Kimmel was taken off the air after our government threatened a private company with retaliation, marking a dark moment for free speech in our nation.

More than 400 artists across our nation signed on to say: We refuse to be silenced by those in power.

The United States never has enough money to keep people alive at home but always has enough money to kill people overseas.

Major American cities now getting regularly "liberated" from their duly elected officials. The police state is consolidating fast and furious.

We're about 3 lines deep into the "first they came for" poem. It's not a very long poem, folks

🎯

What's even more disrespectful than hosting a townhall in someone else's district? Refusing to face the people that you represent 👍🏾

I feel like we need to keep saying this because it’s so insane: This is a legal U.S. resident who has been detained for over a month now for his political opinions.

Women, minorities fired in purge of NIH science review boards Scientists, with expertise in fields that include mental health, cancer and infectious disease, typically serve five-year terms and were not given a reason for their dismissal.

Thirty-eight of 43 experts cut last month from the boards that review the science and research that happens in laboratories at the National Institutes of Health are female, Black or Hispanic, according to an analysis by the chairs of a dozen of the boards.

1/4. On the White House’s theory, if they abduct you, get you on a helicopter, get to international waters, shoot you in the head, and drop your corpse into the ocean, that is legal, because it is the conduct of foreign affairs.

Everyone wants there to be a grand scheme behind all of this but the terrible truth is that extremely stupid people are in charge and they have a fanatical devotion to wrong, childlike concepts of society and economics cooked up by right wing radio hosts in order to sell tainted dietary supplements

Screenshot of the Atlantic Signal exchanges, including Michael Waltz saying "the first target - their top missile guy - we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend's building and it's now collapsed".

Not to be a wide-eyed naïf about such things but... am I right in thinking that they levelled an entire building to get to one guy and *that* is not controversial to anyone in the American media or political class, only that this information was recklessly shared in an unsecured chat?

Column | Under Trump, the authoritarian age comes into focus Authoritarian politics are ascendant. Actions by Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. President Donald Trump underscore the shift.

My latest

Under Trump, the authoritarian age comes into focus

Free to read.
wapo.st/41IQXsb

Wired is dropping paywalls for FOIA-based reporting. Others should follow As the administration does its best to hide public records from the public, Wired magazine is stepping up to help stem the secrecy

They're called public records for a reason. Starting today, WIRED will *stop paywalling* articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, becoming the first publication to partner with @freedom.press to offer this for our new coverage.

if you find yourself reluctant to support the guy at Columbia because you find some of the politics he espoused distasteful or even abhorrent, you should know that this is exactly the reaction that they hoped for in choosing him as a target for unlawful detention based on political speech.

27 religious groups sue administration over immigration enforcement policy 27 religious groups are suing the federal government in response to the Trump administration's policy giving immigration agents more leeway to make arrests at "sensitive locations" like churches.

27 religious groups are suing the federal government in response to the Trump administration's policy giving immigration agents more leeway to make arrests at "sensitive locations" like churches.

NEWS: Sources tell me that DOGE is setting its sights on the Department of Labor next. DOL workers have been ordered to give DOGE access to whatever they ask for—or risk termination.

“We’re supposed to stop everything we’re doing and do whatever the DOGE kids ask… It feels dirty and illegal.”

A good way to understand why wealth inequality is a problem is, if some idiot says "no regulations should exist" you just laugh at him, but if that idiot has $400 billion then it's an existential crisis for America.

Confirmed: Unions Squandered the Biden Years Welcome to single-digit union density.

This got buried in the news yesterday but union density falling into single digits is one of the most ominous milestones of the past 50 years, which have been defined by the inequality crisis. Imperative for this to be a big, big wake up call.
www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/confirmed-...

This matters. Not because I think Trump is capable of mercy or empathy towards these vulnerable groups. But because it is a public act of defiance.

Contrast that with all these other powerful people in this country signaling nothing but appeasement and obedience.

The Pentagon says AI is speeding up its 'kill chain' | TechCrunch Leading AI developers, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, are threading a delicate needle to sell software to the United States military: make the Pentagon

Let me just check in on the latest in AI and how it's making all our lives better...

Biden, Gaza & How Democrats Lost Foreign Policy Argument to Trump After Biden’s major foreign policy address Monday at the State Department, we go to Jerusalem and get an analysis of Biden’s foreign policy decisions in Israel and Palestine from Matt Duss, executive...

"The Party of War": Matt Duss on Biden, Gaza & How Democrats Lost Foreign Policy Argument to Trump

Democrats have become the party of war. Americans are tired of it In defending the militarist status quo, Democrats ceded the anti-war lane to Republicans. As they enter the political wilderness, it’s time to reckon with what they got so wrong

The most devastating appraisal of the 2024 DNC was delivered by Bill Kristol: “Leon Panetta quoting Ronald Reagan! My kind of Democratic convention.” He meant it as praise.

My piece on how Democrats lost the foreign policy plot, and can find it. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Lifeboat Capitalism Some burn, some drown, and some make money either way.

With each disaster, it is important to say: This is happening because it makes some people rich, and those people are planning to escape on their own lifeboat without you.
www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/lifeboat-c...

Democrats Will Regret Not Stripping Trump’s Dangerous War Powers Biden and Congress squandered a chance to end the legal underpinnings of the forever war. The president-elect will once again reap the powers afforded to him.

Despite the high stakes of war powers potentially reverting to Trump, Democrats spent the last four years doing little to rescind the power that the executive branch accrued since 9/11. They will come to regret their passivity.