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He is making no secret of his strongman ambitions

Are we sleepwalking?

Eviscerating the federal government and subjugating Congress; defying court orders and delegitimising judges; deporting immigrants and arresting protesters without due process; chilling free speech at universities and cultural institutions; cowing news outlets with divide-and-rule. Add a rightwing media ecosystem manufacturing consent and obeyance in advance, along with a weak and divided opposition offering feeble resistance. Join all the dots, critics say, and America is sleepwalking into authoritarianism.

I don’t think sleepwalking is the right word, on account of how we’re not asleep. It’s more that we’re helpless. We would stop him if we could, but we can’t.

The 45th and 47th president has wasted no time in launching a concerted effort to consolidate executive power, undermine

… Read the rest

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He is making no secret of his strongman ambitions
By Ophelia Benson, March 22, 2025

Are we sleepwalking?

Eviscerating the federal government and subjugating Congress; defying court orders and delegitimising judges; deporting immigrants and arresting protesters without due process; chilling free speech at universities and cultural institutions; cowing news outlets with divide-and-rule. Add a rightwing media ecosystem manufacturing consent and obeyance in advance, along with a weak and divided opposition offering feeble resistance. Join all the dots, critics say, and America is sleepwalking into authoritarianism.

I don’t think sleepwalking is the right word, on account of how we’re not asleep. It’s more that we’re helpless. We would stop him if we could, but we can’t.

The 45th and 47th president has wasted no time in launching a concerted effort to consolidate executive power, undermine

… Read the rest

Archives
Bad Moves
Articles
Flashback
In Focus
Latest News
Letters
Notes and Comment Blog

He is making no secret of his strongman ambitions 

Are we sleepwalking?

Eviscerating the federal government and subjugating Congress; defying court orders and delegitimising judges; deporting immigrants and arresting protesters without due process; chilling free speech at universities and cultural institutions; cowing news outlets with divide-and-rule. Add a rightwing media ecosystem manufacturing consent and obeyance in advance, along with a weak and divided opposition offering feeble resistance. Join all the dots, critics say, and America is sleepwalking into authoritarianism.

I don’t think sleepwalking is the right word, on account of how we’re not asleep. It’s more that we’re helpless. We would stop him if we could, but we can’t.

The 45th and 47th president has wasted no time in launching a concerted effort to consolidate executive power, undermine

… Read the rest
Shared realities 

What I’m saying.

What I’m saying. It’s not a “belief” or an idea or a claim, it’s just basic reality, without which we wouldn’t even exist. It’s a shared reality that women and men exist, and another shared reality that there are physical differences between them. … Read the rest

Reversing truth and ideology 

What is belief, what are views, what is a concept?

From The Times:

As a scientist at Porton Down developing technology to secure Britain’s defences, Peter Wilkins never imagined he would be considered a threat because of a belief in biology.

But when he stated his gender-critical views and support for the concept of immutable sex, Wilkins was reported for his “ideology” and labelled by colleagues as transphobic, “sad and pathetic” and “a rubbish employee”.

It’s all so weird. What is a “belief in biology”?

Knowing that men are not women is not a belief, it’s just awareness of an obvious and ubiquitous reality. Humans come in two sexes; one of each is required for the manufacture of all … Read the rest

Newborns welcome in the pool 

Erm…

As a few thousand people are pointing out, it’s not really a brilliant idea to send babies and toddlers and young children off to a swim night that’s “inclusive” of adults. It looks more like procurement than like jolly splashy fun with your friends.

… Read the rest
That $400 million shoulda been HIS 

Waaaaaa Columbia wouldn’t give him $400 million waaaaaa it’s not fair.

Columbia needed to expand, which is tricky in Manhattan. Trump wanted Columbia to buy a patch he had more than two miles away. He wanted Columbia to pay $400 million for it.

As the discussions dragged on, many people from Columbia grew frustrated with their dealings with Mr. Trump. Still, the two sides set up a meeting in a Midtown Manhattan conference room with the intention of moving a transaction forward.

A few trustees and administrators arrived with a report prepared on their behalf by a real estate team at Goldman Sachs, which attended every meeting between Columbia officials and representatives of the Trump Organization. It outlined what the

… Read the rest
Don’t mention the war 

Bahahahahaha Trump the salesman. Oh hai allies, we’re selling you dud fighter jets, you’re welcome.

… Read the rest

A brief and tumultuous tenure 

Another small item from the Horror Files:

The Trump administration has sidelined a senior Defense Department spokesman, defense officials said Thursday, ending a brief and tumultuous tenure in which he clashed with colleagues and journalists who cover the Pentagon, and aggressively defended the agency’s purge of government-produced content recognizing the contributions of minorities in the military.

He’s a bit too aggressive for the spokesy thing, but he’s not gone, he’s just moved.

Ullyot’s removal followed an uproar Wednesday over the Pentagon’s removal of an online article about the military background of Jackie Robinson, who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in 1947, after serving in the U.S. Army. As news of the

… Read the rest
Even a rudimentary understanding 

The Washington Post offers a refresher course on due process:

The man President Donald Trump put in charge of taking a chain saw to federal agencies showed once again this week that he lacks even a rudimentary understanding of the government he is dismembering.

“This is a judicial coup,” Elon Musk proclaimed, reacting to the growing list of federal judges who have moved to halt the Trump administration’s headfirst plunge into lawlessness. “We need 60 senators to impeach the judges and restore rule of the people.”

How did this guy pass his citizenship test?

As the framers wrote in the Constitution, it is the House, not the Senate, that has “the sole power of impeachment.” And the

… Read the rest
Capital punishment for harming Musk’s biz 

At least Trump is paying attention to the important stuff.

Trump on Friday escalated his administration’s threats against those who destroy Tesla vehicles, pondering on social media whether he should send them to a prison in El Salvador where officials last week sent more than 200 Venezuelan migrants who they allege are members of a violent gang.

Trump also wrote that people who vandalize or destroy Tesla vehicles — made by the company owned by Trump ally Elon Musk — could get lengthy jail sentences.

“I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20 year jail sentences for what they are doing to Elon Musk and Tesla,” Trump wrote on social media. “Perhaps they could serve them

… Read the rest
Following a meeting 

Erm…isn’t that called extortion? Isn’t it a crime?

Trump rescinds executive order after law firm agrees to provide $40m in free services

Donald Trump rescinded an executive order targeting a prominent Democratic-leaning law firm after it agreed to provide $40m in free legal services to support his administration’s goals.

The White House has targeted law firms whose lawyers have provided legal work that Trump disagrees with. Last week, he issued an order threatening to suspend active security clearances of attorneys at Paul, Weiss and to terminate any federal contracts the firm has.

But the president suddenly reversed course following a meeting between Trump and Brad Karp, the chair of the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, over the

… Read the rest
Rushing to tear apart 

Heather Cox Richardson writes:

It seems as if the Trump administration is rushing to tear apart as much as it can as opponents of its wholesale destruction of the United States government organize to stop them.

Today, members of the “Department of Government Efficiency” team showed up at the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which helps to fund libraries and museums across the country and whose elimination Trump called for in an executive order last week. They sent employees home, swore in a new acting director in the lobby, and proceeded to cancel contracts and grants.

So we can’t have libraries and museums? Why not?

Even as this dismantling was going on, District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander was

… Read the rest
Never mind Never mind 

I found a nice paperback The Best American Travel Writing 2010 in a Little Free Library a few days ago, and opened it yesterday evening all eager for the treat. Until I read the contents page.

Twenty one articles.

Twenty of them written by men.

One whole entire article out of 21 was by a woman.

Really dude? One?

Because women don’t travel? Because women can’t write? Because you forget that women exist? What? What’s the problem here?

The editor for this one was Bill Buford; the series editor is Jason Wilson. Wouldn’t you think one of them would have noticed? I would.

So I’ll be putting that book back in the LFB, or perhaps the recycle bin, unread.… Read the rest

A tumultuous week at Columbia 

From last week:

The Trump administration delivered an ultimatum to leaders of Columbia University on Thursday, threatening to end a portion of its federal funding unless the school implements strong controls over an international studies department and makes significant changes to student discipline standards and other university policies.

In a letter obtained by NPR dated March 13, federal officials from the U.S. Education Department, Department of Health and Human Services and General Services Administration demanded Columbia place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under “academic receivership for a minimum of five years,” requiring them to create a full plan to do so by March 20. The letter didn’t explain why this department was targeted for

… Read the rest
Scrambling to comply Scrambling to comply 

So “DEI” includes discussion of the Holocaust? I did not know that.

Articles about the Holocaust, September 11, cancer awareness, sexual assault and suicide prevention are among the tens of thousands either removed or flagged for removal from Pentagon websites as the department has scrambled to comply with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s order to scrub “diversity” content from all its platforms.

A database obtained by CNN shows that more than 24,000 articles could be purged, with many gone already. The scrub goes well beyond just the removal of images from the Pentagon’s visual database, known as DVIDS, and includes articles from across more than 1,000 websites hosted by the department.

The Pentagon previously said in a memo last

… Read the rest
Coils of razor wire 

I sometimes burble about the jaw-dropping beauties of Seattle and its suburbs, so maybe it’s time for a look at the other side.

A black metal fence, topped with coils of razor wire, surrounds Lam’s Seafood Asian Market in Seattle’s Little Saigon neighborhood.

The fencing, which cost $50,000, went up in summer 2023 to stop people from pitching tents and building fires in the parking lot after-hours and breaking into the grocery store and warehouse next door. Security cameras are mounted inside and out, so far costing $15,000 as more are added to cover every checkout lane and newly discovered blind spot.

 “This is the last thing we wanted to do,” said Teizi Mersai, Lam’s business operations manager, gesturing

… Read the rest
Monitored by counter-terror police 

Terrorism. Knowing men are not women is terrorism if you go public with this dangerous knowledge.

H/t Mostly Cloudy… Read the rest

Nobody else has any rights 

Institute of Peace violently invaded by the dictator.

Officials at an independent institute dedicated to promoting peace will ask a federal judge on Wednesday to block Trump administration officials and Elon Musk’s government cost-cutting team from mounting what they called a “lawless assault” against it.

The organization, the U.S. Institute of Peace, sued President Trump and others on Tuesday, asking the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia to intervene against what it said was an illegal “takeover by force.”

A standoff on Monday between the institute and Mr. Musk’s team ended when police officers helped evict staff members from the institute’s headquarters in Washington. That came after the White House has in recent days gutted the institute’s

… Read the rest
The fun kind The fun kind 

So many people having so much fun bullying women.

From men who are happy to see women pushed out.… Read the rest

Projection 

That’s quite the broad sweeping incloosive lie.

Not deprogram, not persuade, not silence, not rebuke, not contradict, not reason with, not quarrel with, not shout at, not remonstrate with, not convince, not turn around – but exterminate.

Jonathan Willoughby is a disgusting human being.… Read the rest

Hot girrrls love science 

Athel Cornish-Bowden alerted us to this gem.… Read the rest