G. A. Nesse

Spicy opinion: aesthetics requires Rupert Murdoch to be thrown off the Fox News headquarters, lest we will lose an important part of permanent art (should he die naturally). We. Are. Running. Out. Of. Time.

Lawyers Are Quoting $1 Million in Fees to Get Pardons to Trump One pardon recipient recalls the president telling him, ‘You’re cleaner than a baby’s bottom.’

Yep, we're at the "Selling Pardons" stage now. Tell me again how the law is supposed to stop all this before everything is either on fire or we're blown to bits? I mean martial law is just a step away, only "their" law will matter.

The law has become a sick joke.

www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

*Looks around at current events*
"What f'king timeline did I emerge in?"

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." -Tyler Durdin, or so I heard

When you were trying to dodge the inevitable aging, but then stress from contemporary politics.

YouTube video by Phil Ochs - Topic Love Me, I'm a Liberal

Phil Ochs giving us a lesson on "safe logic" and liberalism (sorry it's a bit salty for some of you):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cdq...

YouTube video by UnAmericanBandstand Woody Guthrie~ All You Fascists Bound To Lose

Here is the obligatory follow up: One of the original anti-fascists:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwcK...

YouTube video by DeadKennedysVEVO Dead Kennedys - Nazi Punks Fuck Off (In Studio)

I would like to direct you to a true classic in punk music. A defining song, that has since excluded the complete "douchcabobs".
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzHL...

YouTube video by Vision Video - Topic Normalized

I would like to start a music appreciation thread, though I have few friends on this side of the social media. The theme is simple: that which is salient to our times. This video is dedicated to the Christian Nationalists.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3si...

Seems particularly relevant today... 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 #transphobia #feminist #biology #womensrights #transrights #transrightsarehumanrights #transwomenarewomen #transmenaremen #nonbinarypeoplearevalid

Concentration camps and genocide used to be out of fashion. Now, they are outsourced.

"Rule of law" is ultimately just a phrase to describe the standard sort of moral agreement that exists within any complex society. I will abide by limitations on my actions so that we can live together, so that we can flourish together. There's nothing to enforce it but law. And that amounts to act.

It's become obvious that the supreme court cannot serve as a check to the Trump administration. It's dubitable whether federal courts can as well. This is a failure of the system. If there is a fix, then it won't be simply a matter of a new president.

No Nazi took themselves to be evil. No white supremacist believes themselves to be in the wrong. Mao, Pol Pot, and Hitler believed they they were taking the right acts.
We'd like to believe we are past those stages in history, but that is self-deception. We can never escape history. We are in it.

So we find ourselves in those pre-WW3 years wondering whether we can personally do anything about our current predicament. Like the rest, I hope this is just misplaced fear. Like many others, I wonder if my inaction isn't part of the slide into fascism.

So now that it's apparent that SCOTUS is imponent, who will we pass the potato to?

Big Tech fines just got political, whether the Commission likes it or not By delaying expected announcements on fining Apple and Meta, the bloc’s Digital Markets Act is being dragged into the global trade war.

More than two weeks have passed since the European Commission’s self-imposed deadline to finalize its cases against Apple and Meta for breaking the EU's digital laws.

The longer the wait, the more speculation grows that the timing is being dictated by trade tensions with the US.

Dr. Richard Youle was fired today. He is an eminent scientist who has done important work on brain diseases like dementia and Parkinson’s.

Musk and Trump are stopping NIH research into cures, for diseases from cancer to Alzheimer’s. Americans did not vote for this.

The End of College Life If they persist, Donald Trump’s attacks on universities will destroy a cornerstone of American life.

The Trump administration’s attacks on universities could upend the undergraduate experience, @ibogost.bsky.social writes. Your kids may not have the chance to “go to college” like you did: theatln.tc/JWHmqOIA

Hungary’s Orban extends dominance through university reform | CNN Hungary’s parliament passed legislation on Tuesday setting up foundations to take over the running of universities and cultural institutions in a move critics say extends the ideological imprint of th...

Thinking about the power of boards of private university trustees to choose all their successors and Orban's move to lock in control by creating his own board that would run universities and appoint its own successors.

Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act: Notes on Preserving the American Republic A short time ago former US Attorney Barb McQuade posted this passage...

Drop everything you’re doing and read this piece. It’s that good and that important.

“We’re in the midst of an authoritarian takeover of the US gov’t… [but it’s] not yet an
accomplished fact.”

-@joshtpm.bsky.social
1/5

Whatcom food banks will be hurt by loss of USDA funding | Cascadia Daily News Federal government axes food purchasing program, additional food assistance funding in question

The USDA cutting of a local food purchasing program will result in roughly $180,000 less funding coming into Whatcom County food banks for purchasing this year. And an unclear future for funding of another program could make matters worse.

Where do the legal cases against Trump's executive orders stand? President Donald Trump's agenda has partially stalled in court as judges pause major policy rollouts around immigration, spending and social issues, but his administration has notched some important wins as it seeks to dramatically shrink the federal bureaucracy and cut foreign aid spending.

I had some high(er) hopes for this article, but it was still informative.
www.reuters.com/world/us/whe...

You made it here, good job. I think.

Everything you need to know about Trump's tax cuts.

Evolutionary Biologist Lynn Margulis on the Spirituality of Science and the Interconnectedness of Life Across Time, Space, and Species “The fact that we are connected through space and time shows that life is a unitary phenomenon, no matter how we express that fact.”

“The fact that we are connected through space and time shows that life is a unitary phenomenon, no matter how we express that fact.”

Evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis, born OTD in 1938, on the spirituality of science and the interconnectedness of life

This is what House Republicans voted for tonight.

Another reminder that we have socialism for the rich, harsh capitalism for the rest.

Musk Scandal at USAID Takes Ugly Turn, Putting Starving Kids at Risk Two U.S. nonprofits that manufacture a treatment sent by USAID to help severely malnourished children abroad say the process is in chaos. This isn’t what Marco Rubio said would happen.

Awful news --> Delivery of therapeutic food assistance to nearly 400,000 severely malnourished kids abroad is suddenly in doubt due to Trump-Musk firings at USAID, two manufacturers of the product tell me.

"Starving children are waiting," one says.

New from me:
newrepublic.com/article/1919...