If you're in DC on Sunday, please stop by the teach-in on American history-- "In an authoritarian regime, one of the first things that is taken from the public is honest and credible information..."

Go David.

👀

We often say Congress has the power of the purse, a framing coming from the Federalist Papers. But to be technical, it is federal law that has the power of the purse. Appropriations bills are laws! Rather than a fight between branches, it's better to think of this as a question of the rule of law.

This should be party policy! 👇

The abortion pill is safe. But why should Trump let facts get in the way of his agenda? | Moira Donegan

"The review of mifepristone marks the second time in less than a week that the Trump administration has marshaled false medical claims and junk science in an effort to constrain the freedoms of pregnant women and curtail their access to relief," writes Guardian US columnist Moira Donegan.

The most incompetent administration in history. We handed the keys over to the absolute dumbest set of people imaginable. High school kids in model UN would do a much better job.

If someone from another country explained that their president could violate their constitution's plain text but that it was completely legitimate because lifetime judges who belong to political parties said he could on the "shadow docket," you would laugh at them because their country is primitive.

How would you be responding if you knew the people running your country were unleashing the full power of the government to prosecute, abduct, disappear, silence and intimidate whomever they want?

Today in my "Age of Hamilton & Jefferson" course we discussed Jefferson's belief that Americans need to be educated because only by understanding their nation & its history can they recognize threats & defend it

An educated public was a tool against tyranny.

Yup.
Thus current attacks on knowledge.

As CNN offers daylong saturation coverage of the podcaster’s funeral, I went back and checked to see how CNN covered Melissa Hortman’s memorial on 6/28, where Walz spoke and Biden/Harris attended.

It got about four minutes during the hours it was happening—less than Jeff Bezos’s wedding that day.

“Disney+ She-Hulk star Tatiana Maslany publicly canceled her Disney+ subscription and encouraged others to do the same.”

In setting in the West, the Sun may have crossed a Horizon

15/ tl;dr Take the money you're giving Disney and give it to people doing fearless journalism, fearless art, fearless stories.

I really think we should just napalm and pave the country and start over

We’d be in a much stronger position right now if mainstream Democrats had taken a common sense stand for First Amendment principles instead of piling on undergraduate standing up for Palestine.

Trump’s Ouster of Jimmy Kimmel Is Much Worse than You Think It Is Anna Gomez, the FCC’s lone Democratic commissioner, tells TNR that her boss’ move violates both the First Amendment and the Communications Act. Democrats must extract consequences.

NEWS --> Anna Gomez, the lone Dem on the FCC, tells me the Trump admin's pressure to oust Jimmy Kimmel may be unlawful as well as unconstitutional. FCC chair Brendan Carr may be committing censorship in violation of federal law.

That and much more in my new piece:
newrepublic.com/article/2006...

“ABC and CBS are making a serious miscalculation. Their servility to Trump will not earn them peace, only greater pressure.”

That’s the German professional association of journalists, @djv.de, calling on major US media to support their journalists instead of preemptively silencing them.

I've also registered for multiple protests and local orgs, fwiw bsky.app/profile/sky....

yeah there are examples (eg, singapore) of authoritarian governance harnessing capitalist gains, and many companies might even enjoy operating outside of a liberal democracy. but CEOs also know the regime can't credibly deliver the fundamental conditions: predictable rules & stable governance.

i guess this is a partisan take but i think its legal to criticize the president

For the class of people running things in this country, America was just a vibe, basically. All the rah-rah, chest-beating, flag waving stuff. None of them meaningfully believed in any of it. Just swept aside completely in the face of literal cartoon villainy. Minimal resistance. Whoosh. Gone.

RollingStone "Many of the people listed on the 'Charlie's murderers' website may have viable defamation claims," Barrientos tells Rolling Stone, noting that "many of the posts contained statements that could not be reasonably interpreted as supporting political violence" while others "only quoted Kirk's own words." He adds that the site, by collating personal data, "may have also violated anti-doxing laws that some states began enacting in recent years."

Civil rights attorneys say that people listed on the “Charlie’s Murderers” website—who were subject to death threats and in some cases lost their jobs—may have a case for defamation

This is the playbook, folks.

If you're not paying attention now and doing something about it, then you're going to have to sit down the rest of your life because democracy is being taken away.

Do not be quiet in this moment.

"I guess it would be wildly politically incorrect to point out here that in 1935 the Naz... — I’m sorry, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, because I don’t want to put $1 into Fetterman’s Nazi Swear Jar — shut down the cabaret act of popular comedian Werner Finck..."

Broadcasters who criticized Jimmy Kimmel have deals pending before FCC Nexstar wants to merge with TEGNA, and Sinclair is in the process of buying and selling TV stations — all of which require approval from the FCC.

Nexstar and Sinclair, the broadcast groups that threatened to pre-empt Jimmy Kimmel's late night talk show, both have pending business deals that require FCC approval.

Vader: we making that Death Star or what?
Palpatines: nah man, we bought the TV stations and like, everyone has just fallen in line, to be fair I’m a little disappointed, we don’t need to do any of that Sith shit and these swords are a massive waste of time..
Vader: no cap

Speak out loudly. The day we are too afraid to do so is when they will know they have won and will no longer fear more tyrannical action; that is the day that it is game over.

Pam Bondi deleted a government study showing that right-wingers commit more terrorism. The right cannot think coherently so instead of making their own studies, they censor legitimate ones.

But don't worry Pam, I saved it for you web.archive.org/web/20250911...