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  1. Has anyone seen the sun after it sets? President Trump says he will get the answers, assigning the few remaining scientists in the administration to solve the mystery. Hypotheses will be screened to ensure the answer aligns with the Trump doctrine. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

    #trump20 #science #repression

    theatlantic.com/newsletters/20

  2. Has anyone seen the sun after it sets? President Trump says he will get the answers, assigning the few remaining scientists in the administration to solve the mystery. Hypotheses will be screened to ensure the answer aligns with the Trump doctrine. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

    #trump20 #science #repression

    theatlantic.com/newsletters/20

  3. Has anyone seen the sun after it sets? President Trump says he will get the answers, assigning the few remaining scientists in the administration to solve the mystery. Hypotheses will be screened to ensure the answer aligns with the Trump doctrine. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

    #trump20 #science #repression

    theatlantic.com/newsletters/20

  4. Trump 2.0 sau một năm: Biến động ở Mỹ và trên thế giới. Sắc lệnh hành pháp tái cấu trúc liên bang khiến 154k công chức nghỉ việc và 150k công ty sa thải. Nhập cư thắt chặt, visa khó hơn, DACA bị ảnh hưởng. Tranh luận và thách thức pháp lý vẫn tiếp diễn. #Trump20 #ChinhTriMy #NhapCu ift.tt/xesJ6q3

  5. This transfer of power in Virginia matters more than others I’ve seen

    For the first time in my life, I watched a new Virginia governor take the oath of office–not only because my schedule was mercifully free and allowed me to camp out on the couch at noon Saturday, but because the stakes for my state’s leadership are much higher now.

    Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) begins her term as Virginia’s 75th governor at a much different time for the commonwealth and the nation than the last time a Democrat was sworn in as governor in front of the Capitol designed by Virginia’s second governor, Thomas Jefferson.

    Gov. Ralph Northam (D) had to deal with the lies, cruelty, bigotry, and incompetence of Trump 1.0, but Spanberger faces even more of that–compounded by Trump’s newfound enthusiasm for trying to punish particular states he deems disloyal.

    At its lightest, this takes the form of clumsy, oafish attempts to yank federal funding, threaten federal investigations or undo federal approvals of projects. In Virginia, we’ve seen such examples as the unsuccessful attempt to intimidate George Mason University president Gregory Washington out of office and the groundless bid to stop construction of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project that a federal judge turned aside Friday.

    At its worst, the entire country has witnessed the murderous thuggishness of ICE agents in Minneapolis who seem to take tactical inspiration from the secret police of Third World dictatorships.

    And over the last year, the two elected officials in Virginia best positioned to contest these abuses of power, former Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) and former Attorney General Jason Miyares (R), either did nothing or cheered them along. Youngkin in particular appeared to think that his heel turn from maintaining a measured distance from Trump to embracing so much of a MAGA agenda would set him up well in future elections; the choices of Virginia voters in November suggest that is a delusional hope.

    Hours into her term, Spanberger put some distance between herself and Youngkin’s smiling mediocrity: One of the first 10 executive orders she signed rescinds the EO of her predecessor that had directed state law-enforcement agencies to divert their time and resources to assist ICE operations.

    That is a good start, and I expect more from the first Democratic governor I’ve seen take office with a Democratic majority in both houses of the General Assembly. These elected representatives have a great deal of work ahead, starting with unfinished business from the last four years in Richmond and now including finding ways to repair the damage that Trump has inflicted on our state.

    #AbigailSpanberger #GlennYoungkin #GovernorSpanberger #ice #OldDominion #Richmond #Trump20 #Virginia #VirginiaDems #VirginiaGeneralAssembly #VirginiaPolitics

  6. This transfer of power in Virginia matters more than others I’ve seen

    For the first time in my life, I watched a new Virginia governor take the oath of office–not only because my schedule was mercifully free and allowed me to camp out on the couch at noon Saturday, but because the stakes for my state’s leadership are much higher now.

    Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) begins her term as Virginia’s 75th governor at a much different time for the commonwealth and the nation than the last time a Democrat was sworn in as governor in front of the Capitol designed by Virginia’s second governor, Thomas Jefferson.

    Gov. Ralph Northam (D) had to deal with the lies, cruelty, bigotry, and incompetence of Trump 1.0, but Spanberger faces even more of that–compounded by Trump’s newfound enthusiasm for trying to punish particular states he deems disloyal.

    At its lightest, this takes the form of clumsy, oafish attempts to yank federal funding, threaten federal investigations or undo federal approvals of projects. In Virginia, we’ve seen such examples as the unsuccessful attempt to intimidate George Mason University president Gregory Washington out of office and the groundless bid to stop construction of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project that a federal judge turned aside Friday.

    At its worst, the entire country has witnessed the murderous thuggishness of ICE agents in Minneapolis who seem to take tactical inspiration from the secret police of Third World dictatorships.

    And over the last year, the two elected officials in Virginia best positioned to contest these abuses of power, former Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) and former Attorney General Jason Miyares (R), either did nothing or cheered them along. Youngkin in particular appeared to think that his heel turn from maintaining a measured distance from Trump to embracing so much of a MAGA agenda would set him up well in future elections; the choices of Virginia voters in November suggest that is a delusional hope.

    Hours into her term, Spanberger put some distance between herself and Youngkin’s smiling mediocrity: One of the first 10 executive orders she signed rescinds the EO of her predecessor that had directed state law-enforcement agencies to divert their time and resources to assist ICE operations.

    That is a good start, and I expect more from the first Democratic governor I’ve seen take office with a Democratic majority in both houses of the General Assembly. These elected representatives have a great deal of work ahead, starting with unfinished business from the last four years in Richmond and now including finding ways to repair the damage that Trump has inflicted on our state.

    #AbigailSpanberger #GlennYoungkin #GovernorSpanberger #ice #OldDominion #Richmond #Trump20 #Virginia #VirginiaDems #VirginiaGeneralAssembly #VirginiaPolitics

  7. This transfer of power in Virginia matters more than others I’ve seen

    For the first time in my life, I watched a new Virginia governor take the oath of office–not only because my schedule was mercifully free and allowed me to camp out on the couch at noon Saturday, but because the stakes for my state’s leadership are much higher now.

    Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D.) begins her term as Virginia’s 75th governor at a much different time for the commonwealth and the nation than the last time a Democrat was sworn in as governor in front of the Capitol designed by Virginia’s second governor, Thomas Jefferson.

    Gov. Ralph Northam (D.) had to deal with the lies, cruelty, bigotry, and incompetence of Trump 1.0, but Spanberger faces even more of that–compounded by Trump’s newfound enthusiasm for trying to punish particular states he deems disloyal.

    At its lightest, this takes the form of clumsy, oafish attempts to yank federal funding, threaten federal investigations or undo federal approvals of projects. In Virginia, we’ve seen such examples as the unsuccessful attempt to intimidate George Mason University president Gregory Washington out of office and the groundless bid to stop construction of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project that a federal judge turned aside Friday.

    At its worst, the entire country has witnessed the murderous thuggishness of ICE agents in Minneapolis who seem to take tactical inspiration from the secret police of Third World dictatorships.

    And over the last year, the two elected officials in Virginia best positioned to contest these abuses of power, former Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R.) and former Attorney General Jason Miyares (R.) either did nothing or cheered them along. Youngkin in particular appeared to think that his heel turn from maintaining a measured distance from Trump to embracing so much of a MAGA agenda would set him up well in future elections; the choices of Virginia voters in November suggest that is a delusional hope.

    Hours into her term, Spanberger put some distance between herself and Youngkin’s smiling mediocrity: One of the first 10 executive orders she signed rescinds the EO of her predecessor that had directed state law-enforcement agencies to divert their time and resources to assist ICE operations.

    That is a good start, and I expect more from the first Democratic governor I’ve seen take office with a Democratic majority in both houses of the General Assembly. These elected representatives have a great deal of work ahead, starting with unfinished business from the last four years in Richmond and now including finding ways to repair the damage that Trump has inflicted on our state.

    #AbigailSpanberger #GlennYoungkin #GovernorSpanberger #ice #OldDominion #Richmond #Trump20 #Virginia #VirginiaDems #VirginiaGeneralAssembly #VirginiaPolitics

  8. This transfer of power in Virginia matters more than others I’ve seen

    For the first time in my life, I watched a new Virginia governor take the oath of office–not only because my schedule was mercifully free and allowed me to camp out on the couch at noon Saturday, but because the stakes for my state’s leadership are much higher now.

    Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) begins her term as Virginia’s 75th governor at a much different time for the commonwealth and the nation than the last time a Democrat was sworn in as governor in front of the Capitol designed by Virginia’s second governor, Thomas Jefferson.

    Gov. Ralph Northam (D) had to deal with the lies, cruelty, bigotry, and incompetence of Trump 1.0, but Spanberger faces even more of that–compounded by Trump’s newfound enthusiasm for trying to punish particular states he deems disloyal.

    At its lightest, this takes the form of clumsy, oafish attempts to yank federal funding, threaten federal investigations or undo federal approvals of projects. In Virginia, we’ve seen such examples as the unsuccessful attempt to intimidate George Mason University president Gregory Washington out of office and the groundless bid to stop construction of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project that a federal judge turned aside Friday.

    At its worst, the entire country has witnessed the murderous thuggishness of ICE agents in Minneapolis who seem to take tactical inspiration from the secret police of Third World dictatorships.

    And over the last year, the two elected officials in Virginia best positioned to contest these abuses of power, former Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) and former Attorney General Jason Miyares (R), either did nothing or cheered them along. Youngkin in particular appeared to think that his heel turn from maintaining a measured distance from Trump to embracing so much of a MAGA agenda would set him up well in future elections; the choices of Virginia voters in November suggest that is a delusional hope.

    Hours into her term, Spanberger put some distance between herself and Youngkin’s smiling mediocrity: One of the first 10 executive orders she signed rescinds the EO of her predecessor that had directed state law-enforcement agencies to divert their time and resources to assist ICE operations.

    That is a good start, and I expect more from the first Democratic governor I’ve seen take office with a Democratic majority in both houses of the General Assembly. These elected representatives have a great deal of work ahead, starting with unfinished business from the last four years in Richmond and now including finding ways to repair the damage that Trump has inflicted on our state.

    #AbigailSpanberger #GlennYoungkin #GovernorSpanberger #ice #OldDominion #Richmond #Trump20 #Virginia #VirginiaDems #VirginiaGeneralAssembly #VirginiaPolitics

  9. This transfer of power in Virginia matters more than others I’ve seen

    For the first time in my life, I watched a new Virginia governor take the oath of office–not only because my schedule was mercifully free and allowed me to camp out on the couch at noon Saturday, but because the stakes for my state’s leadership are much higher now.

    Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) begins her term as Virginia’s 75th governor at a much different time for the commonwealth and the nation than the last time a Democrat was sworn in as governor in front of the Capitol designed by Virginia’s second governor, Thomas Jefferson.

    Gov. Ralph Northam (D) had to deal with the lies, cruelty, bigotry, and incompetence of Trump 1.0, but Spanberger faces even more of that–compounded by Trump’s newfound enthusiasm for trying to punish particular states he deems disloyal.

    At its lightest, this takes the form of clumsy, oafish attempts to yank federal funding, threaten federal investigations or undo federal approvals of projects. In Virginia, we’ve seen such examples as the unsuccessful attempt to intimidate George Mason University president Gregory Washington out of office and the groundless bid to stop construction of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project that a federal judge turned aside Friday.

    At its worst, the entire country has witnessed the murderous thuggishness of ICE agents in Minneapolis who seem to take tactical inspiration from the secret police of Third World dictatorships.

    And over the last year, the two elected officials in Virginia best positioned to contest these abuses of power, former Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) and former Attorney General Jason Miyares (R), either did nothing or cheered them along. Youngkin in particular appeared to think that his heel turn from maintaining a measured distance from Trump to embracing so much of a MAGA agenda would set him up well in future elections; the choices of Virginia voters in November suggest that is a delusional hope.

    Hours into her term, Spanberger put some distance between herself and Youngkin’s smiling mediocrity: One of the first 10 executive orders she signed rescinds the EO of her predecessor that had directed state law-enforcement agencies to divert their time and resources to assist ICE operations.

    That is a good start, and I expect more from the first Democratic governor I’ve seen take office with a Democratic majority in both houses of the General Assembly. These elected representatives have a great deal of work ahead, starting with unfinished business from the last four years in Richmond and now including finding ways to repair the damage that Trump has inflicted on our state.

    #AbigailSpanberger #GlennYoungkin #GovernorSpanberger #ice #OldDominion #Richmond #Trump20 #Virginia #VirginiaDems #VirginiaGeneralAssembly #VirginiaPolitics

  10. How to Save a Democracy – The Nation

    Politics / Authoritarian Watch / January 2, 2026

    How to Save a Democracy

    Looking at how the Trump administration fits into a pattern of authoritarian governance can empower people to think about how to best resist the country’s slide to autocracy.

    By Sasha Abramsky

    Demonstrators rally against President Donald Trump during a protest, dubbed “Resist the Dictator,” to mark President’s Day on February 17, 2025, in New York City. (David Dee Delgado / AFP via Getty Images) )

    As year two of Trump 2.0 gets underway, my column will be shifting focus. For the past year, I have been writing on the corrupt and cruel acts being carried out by the US government. I will continue to look at these actions but will now analyze them through the lens of rising authoritarianism.

    My column, previously titled “Hiding in Plain Sight,” is now “Authoritarian Watch.” Each week, I will chronicle Trump’s push to reshape the United States as an autocracy. I will be talking with, and writing about, scholars, activists, legal theorists, politicians, elections officials, and others who are charting—and in many cases resisting—the Trumpian assault on democracy.

    By looking at how the actions of the Trump administration fit into a pattern of authoritarian governance developed by governments around the world and across the decades of modern history, my aim is to empower readers to think big picture about what this moment means and how to best resist the slide to autocracy.

    Trump, Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, JD Vance, Elon Musk, and the other horsemen of the authoritarian apocalypse like to paint their political triumph as inevitable. Yet there is nothing God-given in this trajectory. Poll after poll has shown that most Americans oppose the key elements of their agenda. If Trumpism wins, it will not be because of its enduring popularity; it will be because the opposition remains fragmented. If, by contrast, Trumpism as a project is ultimately consigned to the trash can of history, it will be because in 2026 that opposition found its sea legs and successfully pushed back against the new authoritarians. My hope is that “Authoritarian Watch” will help shape this conversation.

    When a regime embraces the cult of the strongman and the notion that illegality is not illegal so long as the strongman orders it, it is to that leader that all loyalties must be attached. In such a regime, all politics is personal, and the public good is inevitably sacrificed to the private profit of a political and economic elite. When this happens, the government becomes little more than a mafia state, a place where all concepts of the public good are shredded and where the might of the state is channeled for the private benefit of its leaders. In 2025, that is what we witnessed in the United States.

    Current Issue, January 2026 Issue

    It is difficult to think of another year in US history so thoroughly besmirched by a sitting president and his henchmen as 2025. In the first year of his second presidency, Trump has governed like a mob boss—ordering his underlings to carry out one illegal or immoral act after another, ensnaring them in a web of actions ranging from the venal to the war criminal that ensures him their loyalty. Trump demands that his ring be kissed and shows his followers the consequences should they eventually refuse to kiss it.

    By wielding the presidential pardon, Trump can keep his cronies out of prison and in the halls of power—but he will only do so long as they swear fealty to him. Through his willingness to use the full force of the government—its regulatory agencies, its Justice Department, its security apparatus, its powers of taxation, tariff-imposition, and auditing—against his enemies, Trump has demonstrated the vast costs that people and institutions who are seen to cross him can be made to pay. And in this environment where the honorable people have long since headed for the exits, those who remain in Trump’s circle are the dregs—the opportunistic, the feckless, the most willing to put morality to one side.

    Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, for example, has soldered his fortune to Trump’s by ordering—and publicly glorying in—the assassination of civilians. In embracing the sadism of indiscriminate ICE raids as well as the illegal deportation of hundreds of Venezuelans to the supermax CECOT prison in El Salvador, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has similarly tied her future to that of Trump. Attorney General Pam Bondi has also sacrificed her integrity on the altar of the MAGA leader by turning the Justice Department into both a vengeance machine for the president and a protection agency, using its discretion to steer investigations away from Trump—including by censoring the Epstein files. Tom Homan, the scandal-plagued border czar who reputedly accepted a bag full of cash in a sting operation shortly before the 2024 election, knows that the moment he crosses Trump he becomes vulnerable to prosecution. RFK Jr. has so thoroughly demolished large parts of the country’s public health infrastructure that, were it not for Trump’s patronage, he’d have been run out of town months ago. And the list goes on. At every level, Trump has coopted government officials, military leaders, cabinet secretaries, and intelligence analysts to his sordid and vicious agenda.

    The Nation Weekly

    Fridays. A weekly digest of the best of our coverage. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You may unsubscribe or adjust your preferences at any time. You can read our Privacy Policy here.

    For the past year, I have documented this ugly moment. Throughout these long months, Trump has repeatedly sought to punish political rivals. He’s demanded that the DOJ conjure up absurd criminal charges against individuals and has financially penalized cities and states whose leaders don’t do his bidding. He has ritualized humiliation as a modus operandi in his wars against immigrants, transgender Americans, proponents of diversity, academic and legal organizations deemed not sufficiently MAGA, scientists seeking to raise the alarm around climate change, public health officials, and labor organizers.

    In 2025, Trump busted through a range of anti-corruption barriers, enacted by Congress over the past century to protect the republic from leaders interested in wielding vast political power to secure equally vast private wealth. He stopped enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and started to solicit “gifts” such as Qatar’s donation of a luxury jet to serve as the next Air Force One and arrange pay-to-play dinners at which investors in Trump meme coins gain private access to the Trumps. It should be no surprise that allegations are now doing the rounds that donors can reputedly pay six-figure sums to lobbyists close to Trump, favored organizations, and Trump-affiliated political action committees to start the ball rolling on individual presidential pardons.

    Trump’s actions, against which his cabinet and the GOP leadership in Congress have pushed back not a whit, have made previous episodes—such as the 1920s Teapot Dome Scandal—in which presidents and their cabinet secretaries have traded political favors and protection for cash, look like nickel-and-dime operations.

    It’s tempting to think of the Trump’s second term as simply an endless firehose of crude statements, brutal actions, corrupt practices, denigrations of other democracies that have historically been America’s close allies, and endorsements of the wackiest conspiracy theories circulating on the Internet. At times it can come off as little more than a malignant form of chaos.

    Continue/Read Original Article Here: How to Save a Democracy | The Nation

    #Resistance #AssaultOnDemocracy #AuthoritarianWatch #Columnist #ElonMusk #HidingInPlainSight #HowToSaveADemocracy #JDVance #January22026 #Resist #ResistTheDictator #SashaAbramsky #StephenMiller #SteveBannon #TheNation #TheNationWeekly #Trump #Trump20 #TrumpAdministration
  11. How to Save a Democracy – The Nation

    Politics / Authoritarian Watch / January 2, 2026

    How to Save a Democracy

    Looking at how the Trump administration fits into a pattern of authoritarian governance can empower people to think about how to best resist the country’s slide to autocracy.

    By Sasha Abramsky

    Demonstrators rally against President Donald Trump during a protest, dubbed “Resist the Dictator,” to mark President’s Day on February 17, 2025, in New York City. (David Dee Delgado / AFP via Getty Images) )

    As year two of Trump 2.0 gets underway, my column will be shifting focus. For the past year, I have been writing on the corrupt and cruel acts being carried out by the US government. I will continue to look at these actions but will now analyze them through the lens of rising authoritarianism.

    My column, previously titled “Hiding in Plain Sight,” is now “Authoritarian Watch.” Each week, I will chronicle Trump’s push to reshape the United States as an autocracy. I will be talking with, and writing about, scholars, activists, legal theorists, politicians, elections officials, and others who are charting—and in many cases resisting—the Trumpian assault on democracy.

    By looking at how the actions of the Trump administration fit into a pattern of authoritarian governance developed by governments around the world and across the decades of modern history, my aim is to empower readers to think big picture about what this moment means and how to best resist the slide to autocracy.

    Trump, Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, JD Vance, Elon Musk, and the other horsemen of the authoritarian apocalypse like to paint their political triumph as inevitable. Yet there is nothing God-given in this trajectory. Poll after poll has shown that most Americans oppose the key elements of their agenda. If Trumpism wins, it will not be because of its enduring popularity; it will be because the opposition remains fragmented. If, by contrast, Trumpism as a project is ultimately consigned to the trash can of history, it will be because in 2026 that opposition found its sea legs and successfully pushed back against the new authoritarians. My hope is that “Authoritarian Watch” will help shape this conversation.

    When a regime embraces the cult of the strongman and the notion that illegality is not illegal so long as the strongman orders it, it is to that leader that all loyalties must be attached. In such a regime, all politics is personal, and the public good is inevitably sacrificed to the private profit of a political and economic elite. When this happens, the government becomes little more than a mafia state, a place where all concepts of the public good are shredded and where the might of the state is channeled for the private benefit of its leaders. In 2025, that is what we witnessed in the United States.

    Current Issue, January 2026 Issue

    It is difficult to think of another year in US history so thoroughly besmirched by a sitting president and his henchmen as 2025. In the first year of his second presidency, Trump has governed like a mob boss—ordering his underlings to carry out one illegal or immoral act after another, ensnaring them in a web of actions ranging from the venal to the war criminal that ensures him their loyalty. Trump demands that his ring be kissed and shows his followers the consequences should they eventually refuse to kiss it.

    By wielding the presidential pardon, Trump can keep his cronies out of prison and in the halls of power—but he will only do so long as they swear fealty to him. Through his willingness to use the full force of the government—its regulatory agencies, its Justice Department, its security apparatus, its powers of taxation, tariff-imposition, and auditing—against his enemies, Trump has demonstrated the vast costs that people and institutions who are seen to cross him can be made to pay. And in this environment where the honorable people have long since headed for the exits, those who remain in Trump’s circle are the dregs—the opportunistic, the feckless, the most willing to put morality to one side.

    Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, for example, has soldered his fortune to Trump’s by ordering—and publicly glorying in—the assassination of civilians. In embracing the sadism of indiscriminate ICE raids as well as the illegal deportation of hundreds of Venezuelans to the supermax CECOT prison in El Salvador, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has similarly tied her future to that of Trump. Attorney General Pam Bondi has also sacrificed her integrity on the altar of the MAGA leader by turning the Justice Department into both a vengeance machine for the president and a protection agency, using its discretion to steer investigations away from Trump—including by censoring the Epstein files. Tom Homan, the scandal-plagued border czar who reputedly accepted a bag full of cash in a sting operation shortly before the 2024 election, knows that the moment he crosses Trump he becomes vulnerable to prosecution. RFK Jr. has so thoroughly demolished large parts of the country’s public health infrastructure that, were it not for Trump’s patronage, he’d have been run out of town months ago. And the list goes on. At every level, Trump has coopted government officials, military leaders, cabinet secretaries, and intelligence analysts to his sordid and vicious agenda.

    The Nation Weekly

    Fridays. A weekly digest of the best of our coverage. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You may unsubscribe or adjust your preferences at any time. You can read our Privacy Policy here.

    For the past year, I have documented this ugly moment. Throughout these long months, Trump has repeatedly sought to punish political rivals. He’s demanded that the DOJ conjure up absurd criminal charges against individuals and has financially penalized cities and states whose leaders don’t do his bidding. He has ritualized humiliation as a modus operandi in his wars against immigrants, transgender Americans, proponents of diversity, academic and legal organizations deemed not sufficiently MAGA, scientists seeking to raise the alarm around climate change, public health officials, and labor organizers.

    In 2025, Trump busted through a range of anti-corruption barriers, enacted by Congress over the past century to protect the republic from leaders interested in wielding vast political power to secure equally vast private wealth. He stopped enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and started to solicit “gifts” such as Qatar’s donation of a luxury jet to serve as the next Air Force One and arrange pay-to-play dinners at which investors in Trump meme coins gain private access to the Trumps. It should be no surprise that allegations are now doing the rounds that donors can reputedly pay six-figure sums to lobbyists close to Trump, favored organizations, and Trump-affiliated political action committees to start the ball rolling on individual presidential pardons.

    Trump’s actions, against which his cabinet and the GOP leadership in Congress have pushed back not a whit, have made previous episodes—such as the 1920s Teapot Dome Scandal—in which presidents and their cabinet secretaries have traded political favors and protection for cash, look like nickel-and-dime operations.

    It’s tempting to think of the Trump’s second term as simply an endless firehose of crude statements, brutal actions, corrupt practices, denigrations of other democracies that have historically been America’s close allies, and endorsements of the wackiest conspiracy theories circulating on the Internet. At times it can come off as little more than a malignant form of chaos.

    Continue/Read Original Article Here: How to Save a Democracy | The Nation

    #Resistance #AssaultOnDemocracy #AuthoritarianWatch #Columnist #ElonMusk #HidingInPlainSight #HowToSaveADemocracy #JDVance #January22026 #Resist #ResistTheDictator #SashaAbramsky #StephenMiller #SteveBannon #TheNation #TheNationWeekly #Trump #Trump20 #TrumpAdministration
  12. 2025 in review: doing my small part to document an experiment in national self-harm

    I had thought that 2017’s introduction to President Trump’s chaos, corruption and cruelty would be an adequate preparation for the 2025 sequel that American voters ordered up in a vote that I may never be able to understand fully. I was wrong.

    That foolish choice has given us “this moral slum of an administration,” to quote noted liberal squish George F. Will: fascism-curious contempt for Constitutional limits on presidential power, trampled human rights at home and abroad for the sake of a racist and isolationist agenda, a pointless ransacking of useful government agencies that among other costs has probably left hundreds of thousands of people dead overseas, economically and scientifically ignorant policies like up-and-down tariffs and ordering obsolete coal power plants to stay online while trying to strangle offshore wind power, the most openly corrupt White House in history, and a cringe-inducing cult of personality that invites comparisons to North Korea.

    I also did not expect so many Republicans to hold their political manhood cheap and sign off on even the stupidest ideas of their Dear Leader, which is how we now have a Confederacy-whitewashing, war-crime cheerleader lording over the Department of Defense and a science-denying quack hijacking the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Nor did I predict that we would see so many tech CEOs not only nod politely but grovel for favor before this administration.

    (To judge from the beatings that Republican candidates have received in elections this year–in particular, in the state of my birth and in the state of my choice–many Trump voters also didn’t expect this state of affairs and can no longer endorse it.)

    My own lot this year seems strikingly easy: I haven’t had to learn what tear gas smells or tastes like, had my job DOGEd out of existence, or seen friends or family members thrown into a foreign gulag. Nor have I had a single client ask me to go easy on this administration in a story or edit my copy to ensure that I would.

    I have had the usual struggles of freelancing, both in the sense of managing my time and in terms of managing my client relationships (I did much better at selling to Fast Company but once again dropped the ball with AARP). But I learned a lot, found purpose in sharing what I learned even when it was bad news, and had some fun along the way–including rides on such interesting modes of transportation as a Zoox robotaxi, Arc and Candela battery-electric sport boats, and the USPS’s duckface Next Generation Delivery Vehicle.

    Out of the hundreds of stories I wrote this year, these 10 stand out to me as I look back at my own 2025.

    • In February, I returned to a topic that I’ve been covering since 2018 in a post for PCMag documenting 8K TV’s embarrassing lack of appeal to consumers who smartly value price above resolution specifications.
    • After years of meaning to tee off on Venmo’s horrible privacy settings, I finally wrote that piece in April for Fast Company–in the process, learning that even privacy professionals can miss some of that payments app’s data-leaking defaults.
    • In June, I made my first appearance in the Virginia Mercury to write about Richmond’s overdue recognition that ceding online tax prep to Intuit and its ilk in 2010 was a dismal failure. It feels great when you see a gap in news coverage of where you live, then fill it yourself.
    • In a July post for PCMag, I broke down how the GOP’s fossil-fuel fetishists were killing off the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits for clean-energy purchases–and how many states still had not put in place their own mechanisms to claim some of these expiring incentives.
    • I wrote a great many posts about Trump announcements, and each time I tried to provide useful context to help readers judge them independently. Among all those, I particularly like the unpacking of Trump’s “AI Action Plan” that I did in a post later in July for PCMag.
    • Sitting down to talk to some managers of the Black Hat cybersecurity conference’s network for PCMag yielded a small lesson about the need for a little empathy in information security.
    • In September, I returned to Berlin’s Stasi Museum for the first time since my 2018 introduction to it and had to point out to PCMag readers how I now saw uncomfortable parallels with certain aspects of American politics today.
    • Reporting a story for Worth magazine published online in September about the energy use of AI data centers opened my eyes to how certain AI providers don’t want to talk about where they get the electricity for these sprawling facilities or how they plan to avoid stiffing existing ratepayers in the process.
    • I spent more time than I expected finding people willing to talk about how the Trump administration’s indifferent and sometimes inept approach to cybersecurity is weakening the nation’s defenses, but that piece finally ran in Fast Company in October.
    • Also in October, Fast Co. ran my longest story there yet about how Amtrak’s NextGen Acela remains stuck on previous-generation infrastructure–and how high-speed rail projects throughout the U.S. have been held back by an unwillingness to steal the best practices of other countries.

    AI figured in much of my coverage and played an even larger role in my side hustle of moderating panels at conferences. That technology may be eating away at the underpinnings of my industry, but in the short term it has been a boost to my traveling on other people’s money.

    This year, those trips and the ones I bankrolled myself introduced me to four new airports and one country, also taking me farther east from home than I’d ever traveled before. I liked seeing new places, making new connections there, and running into old friends along the way, but as ever I especially liked coming home after each of these often-tiring adventures.

    (You can see a map of those flights after the jump; just looking at that may make you feel tired.)

    I created the map below at the Great Circle Mapper site, following the instructions Tiffany Funk first shared in 2016 at the One Mile At A Time blog. The predominant shade of blue represents flights on United Airlines and codeshare and same-itinerary flights on Azul, GOL and Lufthansa; other colors, some of which may be difficult to differentiate, represent Alaska Airlines and Lufthansa (other hues of blue); American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Swiss International Air Lines, and Turkish Airlines (various shades of red); Qatar Airways (burgundy); and TAP Air Portugal (green).

    #2025InReview #abuseOfPower #AI #businessDevelopment #businessTravel #conferences #freelance #freelancing #Trump #Trump20 #yearInReview

  13. 2025 in review: doing my small part to document an experiment in national self-harm

    I had thought that 2017’s introduction to President Trump’s chaos, corruption and cruelty would be an adequate preparation for the 2025 sequel that American voters ordered up in a vote that I may never be able to understand fully. I was wrong.

    That foolish choice has given us “this moral slum of an administration,” to quote noted liberal squish George F. Will: fascism-curious contempt for Constitutional limits on presidential power, trampled human rights at home and abroad for the sake of a racist and isolationist agenda, a pointless ransacking of useful government agencies that among other costs has probably left hundreds of thousands of people dead overseas, economically and scientifically ignorant policies like up-and-down tariffs and ordering obsolete coal power plants to stay online while trying to strangle offshore wind power, the most openly corrupt White House in history, and a cringe-inducing cult of personality that invites comparisons to North Korea.

    I also did not expect so many Republicans to hold their political manhood cheap and sign off on even the stupidest ideas of their Dear Leader, which is how we now have a Confederacy-whitewashing, war-crime cheerleader lording over the Department of Defense and a science-denying quack hijacking the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Nor did I predict that we would see so many tech CEOs not only nod politely but grovel for favor before this administration.

    (To judge from the beatings that Republican candidates have received in elections this year–in particular, in the state of my birth and in the state of my choice–many Trump voters also didn’t expect this state of affairs and can no longer endorse it.)

    My own lot this year seems strikingly easy: I haven’t had to learn what tear gas smells or tastes like, had my job DOGEd out of existence, or seen friends or family members thrown into a foreign gulag. Nor have I had a single client ask me to go easy on this administration in a story or edit my copy to ensure that I would.

    I have had the usual struggles of freelancing, both in the sense of managing my time and in terms of managing my client relationships (I did much better at selling to Fast Company but once again dropped the ball with AARP). But I learned a lot, found purpose in sharing what I learned even when it was bad news, and had some fun along the way–including rides on such interesting modes of transportation as a Zoox robotaxi, Arc and Candela battery-electric sport boats, and the USPS’s duckface Next Generation Delivery Vehicle.

    Out of the hundreds of stories I wrote this year, these 10 stand out to me as I look back at my own 2025.

    • In February, I returned to a topic that I’ve been covering since 2018 in a post for PCMag documenting 8K TV’s embarrassing lack of appeal to consumers who smartly value price above resolution specifications.
    • After years of meaning to tee off on Venmo’s horrible privacy settings, I finally wrote that piece in April for Fast Company–in the process, learning that even privacy professionals can miss some of that payments app’s data-leaking defaults.
    • In June, I made my first appearance in the Virginia Mercury to write about Richmond’s overdue recognition that ceding online tax prep to Intuit and its ilk in 2010 was a dismal failure. It feels great when you see a gap in news coverage of where you live, then fill it yourself.
    • In a July post for PCMag, I broke down how the GOP’s fossil-fuel fetishists were killing off the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits for clean-energy purchases–and how many states still had not put in place their own mechanisms to claim some of these expiring incentives.
    • I wrote a great many posts about Trump announcements, and each time I tried to provide useful context to help readers judge them independently. Among all those, I particularly like the unpacking of Trump’s “AI Action Plan” that I did in a post later in July for PCMag.
    • Sitting down to talk to some managers of the Black Hat cybersecurity conference’s network for PCMag yielded a small lesson about the need for a little empathy in information security.
    • In September, I returned to Berlin’s Stasi Museum for the first time since my 2018 introduction to it and had to point out to PCMag readers how I now saw uncomfortable parallels with certain aspects of American politics today.
    • Reporting a story for Worth magazine published online in September about the energy use of AI data centers opened my eyes to how certain AI providers don’t want to talk about where they get the electricity for these sprawling facilities or how they plan to avoid stiffing existing ratepayers in the process.
    • I spent more time than I expected finding people willing to talk about how the Trump administration’s indifferent and sometimes inept approach to cybersecurity is weakening the nation’s defenses, but that piece finally ran in Fast Company in October.
    • Also in October, Fast Co. ran my longest story there yet about how Amtrak’s NextGen Acela remains stuck on previous-generation infrastructure–and how high-speed rail projects throughout the U.S. have been held back by an unwillingness to steal the best practices of other countries.

    AI figured in much of my coverage and played an even larger role in my side hustle of moderating panels at conferences. That technology may be eating away at the underpinnings of my industry, but in the short term it has been a boost to my traveling on other people’s money.

    This year, those trips and the ones I bankrolled myself introduced me to four new airports and one country, also taking me farther east from home than I’d ever traveled before. I liked seeing new places, making new connections there, and running into old friends along the way, but as ever I especially liked coming home after each of these often-tiring adventures.

    (You can see a map of those flights after the jump; just looking at that may make you feel tired.)

    I created the map below at the Great Circle Mapper site, following the instructions Tiffany Funk first shared in 2016 at the One Mile At A Time blog. The predominant shade of blue represents flights on United Airlines and codeshare and same-itinerary flights on Azul, GOL and Lufthansa; other colors, some of which may be difficult to differentiate, represent Alaska Airlines and Lufthansa (other hues of blue); American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Swiss International Air Lines, and Turkish Airlines (various shades of red); Qatar Airways (burgundy); and TAP Air Portugal (green).

    #2025InReview #abuseOfPower #AI #businessDevelopment #businessTravel #conferences #freelance #freelancing #Trump #Trump20 #yearInReview

  14. 2025 in review: doing my small part to document an experiment in national self-harm

    I had thought that 2017’s introduction to President Trump’s chaos, corruption and cruelty would be an adequate preparation for the 2025 sequel that American voters ordered up in a vote that I may never be able to understand fully. I was wrong.

    That foolish choice has given us “this moral slum of an administration,” to quote noted liberal squish George F. Will: fascism-curious contempt for Constitutional limits on presidential power, trampled human rights at home and abroad for the sake of a racist and isolationist agenda, a pointless ransacking of useful government agencies that among other costs has probably left hundreds of thousands of people dead overseas, economically and scientifically ignorant policies like up-and-down tariffs and ordering obsolete coal power plants to stay online while trying to strangle offshore wind power, the most openly corrupt White House in history, and a cringe-inducing cult of personality that invites comparisons to North Korea.

    I also did not expect so many Republicans to hold their political manhood cheap and sign off on even the stupidest ideas of their Dear Leader, which is how we now have a Confederacy-whitewashing, war-crime cheerleader lording over the Department of Defense and a science-denying quack hijacking the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Nor did I predict that we would see so many tech CEOs not only nod politely but grovel for favor before this administration.

    (To judge from the beatings that Republican candidates have received in elections this year–in particular, in the state of my birth and in the state of my choice–many Trump voters also didn’t expect this state of affairs and can no longer endorse it.)

    My own lot this year seems strikingly easy: I haven’t had to learn what tear gas smells or tastes like, had my job DOGEd out of existence, or seen friends or family members thrown into a foreign gulag. Nor have I had a single client ask me to go easy on this administration in a story or edit my copy to ensure that I would.

    I have had the usual struggles of freelancing, both in the sense of managing my time and in terms of managing my client relationships (I did much better at selling to Fast Company but once again dropped the ball with AARP). But I learned a lot, found purpose in sharing what I learned even when it was bad news, and had some fun along the way–including rides on such interesting modes of transportation as a Zoox robotaxi, Arc and Candela battery-electric sport boats, and the USPS’s duckface Next Generation Delivery Vehicle.

    Out of the hundreds of stories I wrote this year, these 10 stand out to me as I look back at my own 2025.

    • In February, I returned to a topic that I’ve been covering since 2018 in a post for PCMag documenting 8K TV’s embarrassing lack of appeal to consumers who smartly value price above resolution specifications.
    • After years of meaning to tee off on Venmo’s horrible privacy settings, I finally wrote that piece in April for Fast Company–in the process, learning that even privacy professionals can miss some of that payments app’s data-leaking defaults.
    • In June, I made my first appearance in the Virginia Mercury to write about Richmond’s overdue recognition that ceding online tax prep to Intuit and its ilk in 2010 was a dismal failure. It feels great when you see a gap in news coverage of where you live, then fill it yourself.
    • In a July post for PCMag, I broke down how the GOP’s fossil-fuel fetishists were killing off the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits for clean-energy purchases–and how many states still had not put in place their own mechanisms to claim some of these expiring incentives.
    • I wrote a great many posts about Trump announcements, and each time I tried to provide useful context to help readers judge them independently. Among all those, I particularly like the unpacking of Trump’s “AI Action Plan” that I did in a post later in July for PCMag.
    • Sitting down to talk to some managers of the Black Hat cybersecurity conference’s network for PCMag yielded a small lesson about the need for a little empathy in information security.
    • In September, I returned to Berlin’s Stasi Museum for the first time since my 2018 introduction to it and had to point out to PCMag readers how I now saw uncomfortable parallels with certain aspects of American politics today.
    • Reporting a story for Worth magazine published online in September about the energy use of AI data centers opened my eyes to how certain AI providers don’t want to talk about where they get the electricity for these sprawling facilities or how they plan to avoid stiffing existing ratepayers in the process.
    • I spent more time than I expected finding people willing to talk about how the Trump administration’s indifferent and sometimes inept approach to cybersecurity is weakening the nation’s defenses, but that piece finally ran in Fast Company in October.
    • Also in October, Fast Co. ran my longest story there yet about how Amtrak’s NextGen Acela remains stuck on previous-generation infrastructure–and how high-speed rail projects throughout the U.S. have been held back by an unwillingness to steal the best practices of other countries.

    AI figured in much of my coverage and played an even larger role in my side hustle of moderating panels at conferences. That technology may be eating away at the underpinnings of my industry, but in the short term it has been a boost to my traveling on other people’s money.

    This year, those trips and the ones I bankrolled myself introduced me to four new airports and one country, also taking me farther east from home than I’d ever traveled before. I liked seeing new places, making new connections there, and running into old friends along the way, but as ever I especially liked coming home after each of these often-tiring adventures.

    (You can see a map of those flights after the jump; just looking at that may make you feel tired.)

    I created the map below at the Great Circle Mapper site, following the instructions Tiffany Funk first shared in 2016 at the One Mile At A Time blog. The predominant shade of blue represents flights on United Airlines and codeshare and same-itinerary flights on Azul, GOL and Lufthansa; other colors, some of which may be difficult to differentiate, represent Alaska Airlines and Lufthansa (other hues of blue); American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Swiss International Air Lines, and Turkish Airlines (various shades of red); Qatar Airways (burgundy); and TAP Air Portugal (green).

    #2025InReview #abuseOfPower #AI #businessDevelopment #businessTravel #conferences #freelance #freelancing #Trump #Trump20 #yearInReview

  15. 2025 in review: doing my small part to document an experiment in national self-harm

    I had thought that 2017’s introduction to President Trump’s chaos, corruption and cruelty would be an adequate preparation for the 2025 sequel that American voters ordered up in a vote that I may never be able to understand fully. I was wrong.

    That foolish choice has given us “this moral slum of an administration,” to quote noted liberal squish George F. Will: fascism-curious contempt for Constitutional limits on presidential power, trampled human rights at home and abroad for the sake of a racist and isolationist agenda, a pointless ransacking of useful government agencies that among other costs has probably left hundreds of thousands of people dead overseas, economically and scientifically ignorant policies like up-and-down tariffs and ordering obsolete coal power plants to stay online while trying to strangle offshore wind power, the most openly corrupt White House in history, and a cringe-inducing cult of personality that invites comparisons to North Korea.

    I also did not expect so many Republicans to hold their political manhood cheap and sign off on even the stupidest ideas of their Dear Leader, which is how we now have a Confederacy-whitewashing, war-crime cheerleader lording over the Department of Defense and a science-denying quack hijacking the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Nor did I predict that we would see so many tech CEOs not only nod politely but grovel for favor before this administration.

    (To judge from the beatings that Republican candidates have received in elections this year–in particular, in the state of my birth and in the state of my choice–many Trump voters also didn’t expect this state of affairs and can no longer endorse it.)

    My own lot this year seems strikingly easy: I haven’t had to learn what tear gas smells or tastes like, had my job DOGEd out of existence, or seen friends or family members thrown into a foreign gulag. Nor have I had a single client ask me to go easy on this administration in a story or edit my copy to ensure that I would.

    I have had the usual struggles of freelancing, both in the sense of managing my time and in terms of managing my client relationships (I did much better at selling to Fast Company but once again dropped the ball with AARP). But I learned a lot, found purpose in sharing what I learned even when it was bad news, and had some fun along the way–including rides on such interesting modes of transportation as a Zoox robotaxi, Arc and Candela battery-electric sport boats, and the USPS’s duckface Next Generation Delivery Vehicle.

    Out of the hundreds of stories I wrote this year, these 10 stand out to me as I look back at my own 2025.

    • In February, I returned to a topic that I’ve been covering since 2018 in a post for PCMag documenting 8K TV’s embarrassing lack of appeal to consumers who smartly value price above resolution specifications.
    • After years of meaning to tee off on Venmo’s horrible privacy settings, I finally wrote that piece in April for Fast Company–in the process, learning that even privacy professionals can miss some of that payments app’s data-leaking defaults.
    • In June, I made my first appearance in the Virginia Mercury to write about Richmond’s overdue recognition that ceding online tax prep to Intuit and its ilk in 2010 was a dismal failure. It feels great when you see a gap in news coverage of where you live, then fill it yourself.
    • In a July post for PCMag, I broke down how the GOP’s fossil-fuel fetishists were killing off the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits for clean-energy purchases–and how many states still had not put in place their own mechanisms to claim some of these expiring incentives.
    • I wrote a great many posts about Trump announcements, and each time I tried to provide useful context to help readers judge them independently. Among all those, I particularly like the unpacking of Trump’s “AI Action Plan” that I did in a post later in July for PCMag.
    • Sitting down to talk to some managers of the Black Hat cybersecurity conference’s network for PCMag yielded a small lesson about the need for a little empathy in information security.
    • In September, I returned to Berlin’s Stasi Museum for the first time since my 2018 introduction to it and had to point out to PCMag readers how I now saw uncomfortable parallels with certain aspects of American politics today.
    • Reporting a story for Worth magazine published online in September about the energy use of AI data centers opened my eyes to how certain AI providers don’t want to talk about where they get the electricity for these sprawling facilities or how they plan to avoid stiffing existing ratepayers in the process.
    • I spent more time than I expected finding people willing to talk about how the Trump administration’s indifferent and sometimes inept approach to cybersecurity is weakening the nation’s defenses, but that piece finally ran in Fast Company in October.
    • Also in October, Fast Co. ran my longest story there yet about how Amtrak’s NextGen Acela remains stuck on previous-generation infrastructure–and how high-speed rail projects throughout the U.S. have been held back by an unwillingness to steal the best practices of other countries.

    AI figured in much of my coverage and played an even larger role in my side hustle of moderating panels at conferences. That technology may be eating away at the underpinnings of my industry, but in the short term it has been a boost to my traveling on other people’s money.

    This year, those trips and the ones I bankrolled myself introduced me to four new airports and one country, also taking me farther east from home than I’d ever traveled before. I liked seeing new places, making new connections there, and running into old friends along the way, but as ever I especially liked coming home after each of these often-tiring adventures.

    (You can see a map of those flights after the jump; just looking at that may make you feel tired.)

    I created the map below at the Great Circle Mapper site, following the instructions Tiffany Funk first shared in 2016 at the One Mile At A Time blog. The predominant shade of blue represents flights on United Airlines and codeshare and same-itinerary flights on Azul, GOL and Lufthansa; other colors, some of which may be difficult to differentiate, represent Alaska Airlines and Lufthansa (other hues of blue); American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Swiss International Air Lines, and Turkish Airlines (various shades of red); Qatar Airways (burgundy); and TAP Air Portugal (green).

    #2025InReview #abuseOfPower #AI #businessDevelopment #businessTravel #conferences #freelance #freelancing #Trump #Trump20 #yearInReview

  16. 2025 in review: doing my small part to document an experiment in national self-harm

    I had thought that 2017’s introduction to President Trump’s chaos, corruption and cruelty would be an adequate preparation for the 2025 sequel that American voters ordered up in a vote that I may never be able to understand fully. I was wrong.

    That foolish choice has given us “this moral slum of an administration,” to quote noted liberal squish George F. Will: fascism-curious contempt for Constitutional limits on presidential power, trampled human rights at home and abroad for the sake of a racist and isolationist agenda, a pointless ransacking of useful government agencies that among other costs has probably left hundreds of thousands of people dead overseas, economically and scientifically ignorant policies like up-and-down tariffs and ordering obsolete coal power plants to stay online while trying to strangle offshore wind power, the most openly corrupt White House in history, and a cringe-inducing cult of personality that invites comparisons to North Korea.

    I also did not expect so many Republicans to hold their political manhood cheap and sign off on even the stupidest ideas of their Dear Leader, which is how we now have a Confederacy-whitewashing, war-crime cheerleader lording over the Department of Defense and a science-denying quack hijacking the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Nor did I predict that we would see so many tech CEOs not only nod politely but grovel for favor before this administration.

    (To judge from the beatings that Republican candidates have received in elections this year–in particular, in the state of my birth and in the state of my choice–many Trump voters also didn’t expect this state of affairs and can no longer endorse it.)

    My own lot this year seems strikingly easy: I haven’t had to learn what tear gas smells or tastes like, had my job DOGEd out of existence, or seen friends or family members thrown into a foreign gulag. Nor have I had a single client ask me to go easy on this administration in a story or edit my copy to ensure that I would.

    I have had the usual struggles of freelancing, both in the sense of managing my time and in terms of managing my client relationships (I did much better at selling to Fast Company but once again dropped the ball with AARP). But I learned a lot, found purpose in sharing what I learned even when it was bad news, and had some fun along the way–including rides on such interesting modes of transportation as a Zoox robotaxi, Arc and Candela battery-electric sport boats, and the USPS’s duckface Next Generation Delivery Vehicle.

    Out of the hundreds of stories I wrote this year, these 10 stand out to me as I look back at my own 2025.

    • In February, I returned to a topic that I’ve been covering since 2018 in a post for PCMag documenting 8K TV’s embarrassing lack of appeal to consumers who smartly value price above resolution specifications.
    • After years of meaning to tee off on Venmo’s horrible privacy settings, I finally wrote that piece in April for Fast Company–in the process, learning that even privacy professionals can miss some of that payments app’s data-leaking defaults.
    • In June, I made my first appearance in the Virginia Mercury to write about Richmond’s overdue recognition that ceding online tax prep to Intuit and its ilk in 2010 was a dismal failure. It feels great when you see a gap in news coverage of where you live, then fill it yourself.
    • In a July post for PCMag, I broke down how the GOP’s fossil-fuel fetishists were killing off the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits for clean-energy purchases–and how many states still had not put in place their own mechanisms to claim some of these expiring incentives.
    • I wrote a great many posts about Trump announcements, and each time I tried to provide useful context to help readers judge them independently. Among all those, I particularly like the unpacking of Trump’s “AI Action Plan” that I did in a post later in July for PCMag.
    • Sitting down to talk to some managers of the Black Hat cybersecurity conference’s network for PCMag yielded a small lesson about the need for a little empathy in information security.
    • In September, I returned to Berlin’s Stasi Museum for the first time since my 2018 introduction to it and had to point out to PCMag readers how I now saw uncomfortable parallels with certain aspects of American politics today.
    • Reporting a story for Worth magazine published online in September about the energy use of AI data centers opened my eyes to how certain AI providers don’t want to talk about where they get the electricity for these sprawling facilities or how they plan to avoid stiffing existing ratepayers in the process.
    • I spent more time than I expected finding people willing to talk about how the Trump administration’s indifferent and sometimes inept approach to cybersecurity is weakening the nation’s defenses, but that piece finally ran in Fast Company in October.
    • Also in October, Fast Co. ran my longest story there yet about how Amtrak’s NextGen Acela remains stuck on previous-generation infrastructure–and how high-speed rail projects throughout the U.S. have been held back by an unwillingness to steal the best practices of other countries.

    AI figured in much of my coverage and played an even larger role in my side hustle of moderating panels at conferences. That technology may be eating away at the underpinnings of my industry, but in the short term it has been a boost to my traveling on other people’s money.

    This year, those trips and the ones I bankrolled myself introduced me to four new airports and one country, also taking me farther east from home than I’d ever traveled before. I liked seeing new places, making new connections there, and running into old friends along the way, but as ever I especially liked coming home after each of these often-tiring adventures.

    (You can see a map of those flights after the jump; just looking at that may make you feel tired.)

    I created the map below at the Great Circle Mapper site, following the instructions Tiffany Funk first shared in 2016 at the One Mile At A Time blog. The predominant shade of blue represents flights on United Airlines and codeshare and same-itinerary flights on Azul, GOL and Lufthansa; other colors, some of which may be difficult to differentiate, represent Alaska Airlines and Lufthansa (other hues of blue); American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Swiss International Air Lines, and Turkish Airlines (various shades of red); Qatar Airways (burgundy); and TAP Air Portugal (green).

    #2025InReview #abuseOfPower #AI #businessDevelopment #businessTravel #conferences #freelance #freelancing #Trump #Trump20 #yearInReview

  17. Traditionally, workers have struck back against abuses by the ruling class with the ultimate weapon at their disposal: the general strike.#GuestColumns #Premium #trump20
    Lane County workers must organize for their immigrant neighbors
  18. Traditionally, workers have struck back against abuses by the ruling class with the ultimate weapon at their disposal: the general strike.#GuestColumns #Premium #trump20
    Lane County workers must organize for their immigrant neighbors
  19. Traditionally, workers have struck back against abuses by the ruling class with the ultimate weapon at their disposal: the general strike.#GuestColumns #Premium #trump20
    Lane County workers must organize for their immigrant neighbors
  20. Traditionally, workers have struck back against abuses by the ruling class with the ultimate weapon at their disposal: the general strike.#GuestColumns #Premium #trump20
    Lane County workers must organize for their immigrant neighbors
  21. Trump 2.0 vs. the US Constitution, annotated – CNN

     

    Trump 2.0 vs. the US Constitution, annotated

    How the 47th president-elect is pushing the boundaries of the founding document

    By Zachary B. Wolf, Curt Merrill and Way Mullery, CNN

    Published: January 18, 2025

    Unlike any other president, Donald Trump has tested the words and ideas in the literal text of the US Constitution, from the Preamble through the 27th Amendment.

    There are multiple passages he has said or suggested he will ignore or reinterpret.

    The president-elect wants to end birthright citizenship, even though it’s in the 14th Amendment. His pledge to use “impoundment” to save money runs afoul of the idea that the legislature has the power of the purse. He has mused about ending the federal income tax, groused about the Senate’s role in confirming appointees and joked about staying in power after his second term ends. But the Constitution is clear in what it does and does not allow.

    As he enters the White House a second time, it’s worth reading the Constitution, again, with a highlighter, and through the lens of Trump’s promises and his plans.

    Read the United States’ founding document along with us — from top to bottom — or use the dropdown menu to skip ahead to a specific article or amendment.

    Editor’s Note: The article link shows a list of the U.S. Constitution, annotated by section or part, re: Trump 2.0. I could not include that link box in my re-posting. Use on the CNN page. Below is the truncated beginning on the text…

    We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

    – Congress –

    Section 1

    All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

    Section 2

    The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

    The framers, by design, put the Congress and the House first in the Constitution because they wanted the legislature to drive the government. That’s not how things feel with today’s gridlocked Congress and powerful presidents.

    For another line-by-line deconstruction of the Constitution with input from across the political spectrum, check out this one from the National Constitution Center.

    No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

    Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

    This reference to enslaved Americans being referred to as 3/5 of “free Persons” for counting purposes — a compromise between the northern and southern states at the time of the writing of the Constitution — was overwritten by the 13th and 14th Amendments. Also, Native Americans are now taxed and thus counted for apportionment.

    The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

    When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies. The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

    Trump is the only president in US history to face two impeachments, and the only impeached president to win a second term. He is unlikely to face impeachment so long as Republicans control the House, which they will at least until January 2027.

    Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

    Continue/Read Original Article Here: Trump 2.0 vs. the US Constitution, annotated – CNN

    #2025 #America #Annotated #CNN #DonaldTrump #Education #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Politics #Resistance #Science #Trump #Trump20 #TrumpAdministration #USConstitution #UnitedStates

  22. Trump 2.0 vs. the US Constitution, annotated – CNN

     

    Trump 2.0 vs. the US Constitution, annotated

    How the 47th president-elect is pushing the boundaries of the founding document

    By Zachary B. Wolf, Curt Merrill and Way Mullery, CNN

    Published: January 18, 2025

    Unlike any other president, Donald Trump has tested the words and ideas in the literal text of the US Constitution, from the Preamble through the 27th Amendment.

    There are multiple passages he has said or suggested he will ignore or reinterpret.

    The president-elect wants to end birthright citizenship, even though it’s in the 14th Amendment. His pledge to use “impoundment” to save money runs afoul of the idea that the legislature has the power of the purse. He has mused about ending the federal income tax, groused about the Senate’s role in confirming appointees and joked about staying in power after his second term ends. But the Constitution is clear in what it does and does not allow.

    As he enters the White House a second time, it’s worth reading the Constitution, again, with a highlighter, and through the lens of Trump’s promises and his plans.

    Read the United States’ founding document along with us — from top to bottom — or use the dropdown menu to skip ahead to a specific article or amendment.

    Editor’s Note: The article link shows a list of the U.S. Constitution, annotated by section or part, re: Trump 2.0. I could not include that link box in my re-posting. Use on the CNN page. Below is the truncated beginning on the text…

    We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

    – Congress –

    Section 1

    All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

    Section 2

    The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

    The framers, by design, put the Congress and the House first in the Constitution because they wanted the legislature to drive the government. That’s not how things feel with today’s gridlocked Congress and powerful presidents.

    For another line-by-line deconstruction of the Constitution with input from across the political spectrum, check out this one from the National Constitution Center.

    No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

    Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

    This reference to enslaved Americans being referred to as 3/5 of “free Persons” for counting purposes — a compromise between the northern and southern states at the time of the writing of the Constitution — was overwritten by the 13th and 14th Amendments. Also, Native Americans are now taxed and thus counted for apportionment.

    The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

    When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies. The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

    Trump is the only president in US history to face two impeachments, and the only impeached president to win a second term. He is unlikely to face impeachment so long as Republicans control the House, which they will at least until January 2027.

    Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

    Continue/Read Original Article Here: Trump 2.0 vs. the US Constitution, annotated – CNN

    #2025 #America #Annotated #CNN #DonaldTrump #Education #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Politics #Resistance #Science #Trump #Trump20 #TrumpAdministration #USConstitution #UnitedStates

  23. Trump 2.0 vs. the US Constitution, annotated – CNN

     

    Trump 2.0 vs. the US Constitution, annotated

    How the 47th president-elect is pushing the boundaries of the founding document

    By Zachary B. Wolf, Curt Merrill and Way Mullery, CNN

    Published: January 18, 2025

    Unlike any other president, Donald Trump has tested the words and ideas in the literal text of the US Constitution, from the Preamble through the 27th Amendment.

    There are multiple passages he has said or suggested he will ignore or reinterpret.

    The president-elect wants to end birthright citizenship, even though it’s in the 14th Amendment. His pledge to use “impoundment” to save money runs afoul of the idea that the legislature has the power of the purse. He has mused about ending the federal income tax, groused about the Senate’s role in confirming appointees and joked about staying in power after his second term ends. But the Constitution is clear in what it does and does not allow.

    As he enters the White House a second time, it’s worth reading the Constitution, again, with a highlighter, and through the lens of Trump’s promises and his plans.

    Read the United States’ founding document along with us — from top to bottom — or use the dropdown menu to skip ahead to a specific article or amendment.

    Editor’s Note: The article link shows a list of the U.S. Constitution, annotated by section or part, re: Trump 2.0. I could not include that link box in my re-posting. Use on the CNN page. Below is the truncated beginning on the text…

    We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

    – Congress –

    Section 1

    All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

    Section 2

    The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

    The framers, by design, put the Congress and the House first in the Constitution because they wanted the legislature to drive the government. That’s not how things feel with today’s gridlocked Congress and powerful presidents.

    For another line-by-line deconstruction of the Constitution with input from across the political spectrum, check out this one from the National Constitution Center.

    No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

    Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

    This reference to enslaved Americans being referred to as 3/5 of “free Persons” for counting purposes — a compromise between the northern and southern states at the time of the writing of the Constitution — was overwritten by the 13th and 14th Amendments. Also, Native Americans are now taxed and thus counted for apportionment.

    The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

    When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies. The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

    Trump is the only president in US history to face two impeachments, and the only impeached president to win a second term. He is unlikely to face impeachment so long as Republicans control the House, which they will at least until January 2027.

    Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

    Continue/Read Original Article Here: Trump 2.0 vs. the US Constitution, annotated – CNN

    #2025 #America #Annotated #CNN #DonaldTrump #Education #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Politics #Resistance #Science #Trump #Trump20 #TrumpAdministration #USConstitution #UnitedStates

  24. Trump 2.0 vs. the US Constitution, annotated – CNN

     

    Trump 2.0 vs. the US Constitution, annotated

    How the 47th president-elect is pushing the boundaries of the founding document

    By Zachary B. Wolf, Curt Merrill and Way Mullery, CNN

    Published: January 18, 2025

    Unlike any other president, Donald Trump has tested the words and ideas in the literal text of the US Constitution, from the Preamble through the 27th Amendment.

    There are multiple passages he has said or suggested he will ignore or reinterpret.

    The president-elect wants to end birthright citizenship, even though it’s in the 14th Amendment. His pledge to use “impoundment” to save money runs afoul of the idea that the legislature has the power of the purse. He has mused about ending the federal income tax, groused about the Senate’s role in confirming appointees and joked about staying in power after his second term ends. But the Constitution is clear in what it does and does not allow.

    As he enters the White House a second time, it’s worth reading the Constitution, again, with a highlighter, and through the lens of Trump’s promises and his plans.

    Read the United States’ founding document along with us — from top to bottom — or use the dropdown menu to skip ahead to a specific article or amendment.

    Editor’s Note: The article link shows a list of the U.S. Constitution, annotated by section or part, re: Trump 2.0. I could not include that link box in my re-posting. Use on the CNN page. Below is the truncated beginning on the text…

    We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

    – Congress –

    Section 1

    All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

    Section 2

    The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

    The framers, by design, put the Congress and the House first in the Constitution because they wanted the legislature to drive the government. That’s not how things feel with today’s gridlocked Congress and powerful presidents.

    For another line-by-line deconstruction of the Constitution with input from across the political spectrum, check out this one from the National Constitution Center.

    No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

    Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

    This reference to enslaved Americans being referred to as 3/5 of “free Persons” for counting purposes — a compromise between the northern and southern states at the time of the writing of the Constitution — was overwritten by the 13th and 14th Amendments. Also, Native Americans are now taxed and thus counted for apportionment.

    The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

    When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies. The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

    Trump is the only president in US history to face two impeachments, and the only impeached president to win a second term. He is unlikely to face impeachment so long as Republicans control the House, which they will at least until January 2027.

    Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

    Continue/Read Original Article Here: Trump 2.0 vs. the US Constitution, annotated – CNN

    #2025 #America #Annotated #CNN #DonaldTrump #Education #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Politics #Resistance #Science #Trump #Trump20 #TrumpAdministration #USConstitution #UnitedStates

  25. Trump 2.0 vs. the US Constitution, annotated – CNN

     

    Trump 2.0 vs. the US Constitution, annotated

    How the 47th president-elect is pushing the boundaries of the founding document

    By Zachary B. Wolf, Curt Merrill and Way Mullery, CNN

    Published: January 18, 2025

    Unlike any other president, Donald Trump has tested the words and ideas in the literal text of the US Constitution, from the Preamble through the 27th Amendment.

    There are multiple passages he has said or suggested he will ignore or reinterpret.

    The president-elect wants to end birthright citizenship, even though it’s in the 14th Amendment. His pledge to use “impoundment” to save money runs afoul of the idea that the legislature has the power of the purse. He has mused about ending the federal income tax, groused about the Senate’s role in confirming appointees and joked about staying in power after his second term ends. But the Constitution is clear in what it does and does not allow.

    As he enters the White House a second time, it’s worth reading the Constitution, again, with a highlighter, and through the lens of Trump’s promises and his plans.

    Read the United States’ founding document along with us — from top to bottom — or use the dropdown menu to skip ahead to a specific article or amendment.

    Editor’s Note: The article link shows a list of the U.S. Constitution, annotated by section or part, re: Trump 2.0. I could not include that link box in my re-posting. Use on the CNN page. Below is the truncated beginning on the text…

    We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

    – Congress –

    Section 1

    All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

    Section 2

    The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

    The framers, by design, put the Congress and the House first in the Constitution because they wanted the legislature to drive the government. That’s not how things feel with today’s gridlocked Congress and powerful presidents.

    For another line-by-line deconstruction of the Constitution with input from across the political spectrum, check out this one from the National Constitution Center.

    No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

    Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

    This reference to enslaved Americans being referred to as 3/5 of “free Persons” for counting purposes — a compromise between the northern and southern states at the time of the writing of the Constitution — was overwritten by the 13th and 14th Amendments. Also, Native Americans are now taxed and thus counted for apportionment.

    The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

    When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies. The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

    Trump is the only president in US history to face two impeachments, and the only impeached president to win a second term. He is unlikely to face impeachment so long as Republicans control the House, which they will at least until January 2027.

    Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

    Continue/Read Original Article Here: Trump 2.0 vs. the US Constitution, annotated – CNN

    #2025 #America #Annotated #CNN #DonaldTrump #Education #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Politics #Resistance #Science #Trump #Trump20 #TrumpAdministration #USConstitution #UnitedStates

  26. “Trump’s purge of Inspectors General is a blatant attack on transparency and accountability. This is corruption at its worst—removing the very people tasked with rooting out fraud in our government. #CorruptionGoneWild #Trump2.0 #NoOneIsAboveTheLawwww.wctrib.com/opinion/lett...

    Brian Wojtalewicz letter: Corr...

  27. “Trump’s purge of Inspectors General is a blatant attack on transparency and accountability. This is corruption at its worst—removing the very people tasked with rooting out fraud in our government. #CorruptionGoneWild #Trump2.0 #NoOneIsAboveTheLawwww.wctrib.com/opinion/lett...

    Brian Wojtalewicz letter: Corr...

  28. “Trump’s purge of Inspectors General is a blatant attack on transparency and accountability. This is corruption at its worst—removing the very people tasked with rooting out fraud in our government. #CorruptionGoneWild #Trump2.0 #NoOneIsAboveTheLawwww.wctrib.com/opinion/lett...

    Brian Wojtalewicz letter: Corr...

  29. CW: USPOL

    Boycott American Companies, Just Know That I A Good American!

    I can’t let DJT and Musk define who I am. I am a true American. I don’t stand for what the current POTUS is doing and how a non-American is destroying our country.

    It’s shameful, horrible, reprehensible. I see the outpouring of support around the world for Ukraine and our “leader” cozying up to the despot Putin.

    It’s nauseating and makes me want to leave this country. Though, I know that’s not an option and nor will I, unless I absolutely have to.

    I must stand firm in my beliefs. And fight. I just hope those who voted for this “POTUS” realize the error and will repent and find a way to get this guy out!

    I fear for what the United States will look like in four years after Trump 2.0. I really do. And I do fear for my family. I’m neurodiverse and so is my kid. RFK Jr.’s plans are terrifying as well.

    I’m beside myself to be honest.

    But I want you all to know that I don’t support the current administration. I am American, but I’m shameful of what our country is doing and not doing.

    Please stand firm in your resolutions. Hold the United States accountable for our actions.

    Ugh, I need to go puke.

    #ElonMusk #Rants #ShamefulPOTUS #trump #trump20 #Ukraine #USA #World

  30. CW: USPOL

    Boycott American Companies, Just Know That I Am A Good American!

    I can’t let DJT and Musk define who I am. I am a true American. I don’t stand for what the current POTUS is doing and how a non-American is destroying our country.

    It’s shameful, horrible, reprehensible. I see the outpouring of support around the world for Ukraine and our “leader” cozying up to the despot Putin.

    It’s nauseating and makes me want to leave this country. Though, I know that’s not an option and nor will I, unless I absolutely have to.

    I must stand firm in my beliefs. And fight. I just hope those who voted for this “POTUS” realize the error and will repent and find a way to get this guy out!

    I fear for what the United States will look like in four years after Trump 2.0. I really do. And I do fear for my family. I’m neurodiverse and so is my kid. RFK Jr.’s plans are terrifying as well.

    I’m beside myself to be honest.

    But I want you all to know that I don’t support the current administration. I am American, but I’m shameful of what our country is doing and not doing.

    Please stand firm in your resolutions. Hold the United States accountable for our actions.

    Ugh, I need to go puke.

    #ElonMusk #Rants #ShamefulPOTUS #trump #trump20 #Ukraine #USA #World

  31. CW: USPOL

    Boycott American Companies, Just Know That I A Good American!

    I can’t let DJT and Musk define who I am. I am a true American. I don’t stand for what the current POTUS is doing and how a non-American is destroying our country.

    It’s shameful, horrible, reprehensible. I see the outpouring of support around the world for Ukraine and our “leader” cozying up to the despot Putin.

    It’s nauseating and makes me want to leave this country. Though, I know that’s not an option and nor will I, unless I absolutely have to.

    I must stand firm in my beliefs. And fight. I just hope those who voted for this “POTUS” realize the error and will repent and find a way to get this guy out!

    I fear for what the United States will look like in four years after Trump 2.0. I really do. And I do fear for my family. I’m neurodiverse and so is my kid. RFK Jr.’s plans are terrifying as well.

    I’m beside myself to be honest.

    But I want you all to know that I don’t support the current administration. I am American, but I’m shameful of what our country is doing and not doing.

    Please stand firm in your resolutions. Hold the United States accountable for our actions.

    Ugh, I need to go puke.

    #ElonMusk #Rants #ShamefulPOTUS #trump #trump20 #Ukraine #USA #World

  32. CW: USPOL

    Boycott American Companies, Just Know That I A Good American!

    I can’t let DJT and Musk define who I am. I am a true American. I don’t stand for what the current POTUS is doing and how a non-American is destroying our country.

    It’s shameful, horrible, reprehensible. I see the outpouring of support around the world for Ukraine and our “leader” cozying up to the despot Putin.

    It’s nauseating and makes me want to leave this country. Though, I know that’s not an option and nor will I, unless I absolutely have to.

    I must stand firm in my beliefs. And fight. I just hope those who voted for this “POTUS” realize the error and will repent and find a way to get this guy out!

    I fear for what the United States will look like in four years after Trump 2.0. I really do. And I do fear for my family. I’m neurodiverse and so is my kid. RFK Jr.’s plans are terrifying as well.

    I’m beside myself to be honest.

    But I want you all to know that I don’t support the current administration. I am American, but I’m shameful of what our country is doing and not doing.

    Please stand firm in your resolutions. Hold the United States accountable for our actions.

    Ugh, I need to go puke.

    #ElonMusk #Rants #ShamefulPOTUS #trump #trump20 #Ukraine #USA #World

  33. CW: USPOL

    Boycott American Companies, Just Know That I A Good American!

    I can’t let DJT and Musk define who I am. I am a true American. I don’t stand for what the current POTUS is doing and how a non-American is destroying our country.

    It’s shameful, horrible, reprehensible. I see the outpouring of support around the world for Ukraine and our “leader” cozying up to the despot Putin.

    It’s nauseating and makes me want to leave this country. Though, I know that’s not an option and nor will I, unless I absolutely have to.

    I must stand firm in my beliefs. And fight. I just hope those who voted for this “POTUS” realize the error and will repent and find a way to get this guy out!

    I fear for what the United States will look like in four years after Trump 2.0. I really do. And I do fear for my family. I’m neurodiverse and so is my kid. RFK Jr.’s plans are terrifying as well.

    I’m beside myself to be honest.

    But I want you all to know that I don’t support the current administration. I am American, but I’m shameful of what our country is doing and not doing.

    Please stand firm in your resolutions. Hold the United States accountable for our actions.

    Ugh, I need to go puke.

    #ElonMusk #Rants #ShamefulPOTUS #trump #trump20 #Ukraine #USA #World

  34. The perfect metaphor for the U.S. Federal funding freeze is: does not know how to drive a stick shift, or some variation of not prepared to pilot the craft because they are simple people who can only imagine the world operating according to their simplicity.

    This is evidence for my thesis of "Worry, watch, remain alert and act, but be ready for laughs too" approach to #trump20

    I think we are also going to find out with #immigration and #deportations, as well as #tariffs

    That is all. #uspol

  35. The perfect metaphor for the U.S. Federal funding freeze is: does not know how to drive a stick shift, or some variation of not prepared to pilot the craft because they are simple people who can only imagine the world operating according to their simplicity.

    This is evidence for my thesis of "Worry, watch, remain alert and act, but be ready for laughs too" approach to #trump20

    I think we are also going to find out with #immigration and #deportations, as well as #tariffs

    That is all. #uspol

  36. The perfect metaphor for the U.S. Federal funding freeze is: does not know how to drive a stick shift, or some variation of not prepared to pilot the craft because they are simple people who can only imagine the world operating according to their simplicity.

    This is evidence for my thesis of "Worry, watch, remain alert and act, but be ready for laughs too" approach to #trump20

    I think we are also going to find out with #immigration and #deportations, as well as #tariffs

    That is all. #uspol

  37. The perfect metaphor for the U.S. Federal funding freeze is: does not know how to drive a stick shift, or some variation of not prepared to pilot the craft because they are simple people who can only imagine the world operating according to their simplicity.

    This is evidence for my thesis of "Worry, watch, remain alert and act, but be ready for laughs too" approach to #trump20

    I think we are also going to find out with #immigration and #deportations, as well as #tariffs

    That is all. #uspol

  38. The perfect metaphor for the U.S. Federal funding freeze is: does not know how to drive a stick shift, or some variation of not prepared to pilot the craft because they are simple people who can only imagine the world operating according to their simplicity.

    This is evidence for my thesis of "Worry, watch, remain alert and act, but be ready for laughs too" approach to #trump20

    I think we are also going to find out with #immigration and #deportations, as well as #tariffs

    That is all. #uspol

  39. CW: US Pol

    You Know The Country Is Messed Up When You Can’t Tell What’s Satire And Reality

    The Onion bought what’s left of Alex Jones’ Info Wars property. That’s great news. But what isn’t is Trump’s cabinet picks. They’re like something you’d read in the freaking onion.

    Ugh.

    And these people Trump picked aren’t just not qualified for the roles they are chose to fill, they have troubled pasts. Like AG-nominee Matt Gaetz who is under investigation for underaged sex trafficking.

    You can only wish you could make this shit up.

    This is going to be a long four years.

    #AG #cabinetPicks #MattGaetz #politics #trump #trump20

  40. CW: US Pol

    You Know The Country Is Messed Up When You Can’t Tell What’s Satire And Reality

    The Onion bought what’s left of Alex Jones’ Info Wars property. That’s great news. But what isn’t is Trump’s cabinet picks. They’re like something you’d read in the freaking onion.

    Ugh.

    And these people Trump picked aren’t just not qualified for the roles they are chose to fill, they have troubled pasts. Like AG-nominee Matt Gaetz who is under investigation for underaged sex trafficking.

    You can only wish you could make this shit up.

    This is going to be a long four years.

    #AG #cabinetPicks #MattGaetz #politics #trump #trump20

  41. CW: US Pol

    States Rights… This Is Gonna Get Interesting

    I think States Rights are going to be at the forefront of the national stage come Jan 20th when Trump 2.0 comes into office.

    The GOP has always said they are Pro-States Rights. But that’s only when it serves them. This should be interesting. To say the least.

    Republicans have touted that they are for small government, but are they really? I think it’s only when it serves their purpose.

    Democrats have never been small government. Or for as far as I know. But the Republicans have been, but they also have no problem being hypocrites to serve their purposes. I know lots of people who are for smaller government, who will flipflop on their own stance because they’re sheep and just blindly follow their party.​

    As a student of history. I was literally a History Major in college. I’ve never seen so much flip-flopping as I do with the Republicans. It’s disgusting.

    At least my friends who are Libertarians how their ground when it comes to telling people to “get off their lawns.”

    The next four years are going to be tough. As much as I want to think that Trump 2.0 won’t be bad, it will be. And it will be bad for all of us. Even the idiots who voted for him, because they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a Black/Indian-heritage American Woman.

    Our country is really messed up. And we’re paying for it now.

    #2024Elections #flipFlopping #gop #hypocrisy #PresidentElectDonaldTrump #presidentialElection #republicans #statesRights #trump #trump20

  42. CW: US Pol

    States Rights… This Is Gonna Get Interesting

    I think States Rights are going to be at the forefront of the national stage come Jan 20th when Trump 2.0 comes into office.

    The GOP has always said they are Pro-States Rights. But that’s only when it serves them. This should be interesting. To say the least.

    Republicans have touted that they are for small government, but are they really? I think it’s only when it serves their purpose.

    Democrats have never been small government. Or for as far as I know. But the Republicans have been, but they also have no problem being hypocrites to serve their purposes. I know lots of people who are for smaller government, who will flipflop on their own stance because they’re sheep and just blindly follow their party.​

    As a student of history. I was literally a History Major in college. I’ve never seen so much flip-flopping as I do with the Republicans. It’s disgusting.

    At least my friends who are Libertarians how their ground when it comes to telling people to “get off their lawns.”

    The next four years are going to be tough. As much as I want to think that Trump 2.0 won’t be bad, it will be. And it will be bad for all of us. Even the idiots who voted for him, because they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a Black/Indian-heritage American Woman.

    Our country is really messed up. And we’re paying for it now.

    #2024Elections #flipFlopping #gop #hypocrisy #PresidentElectDonaldTrump #presidentialElection #republicans #statesRights #trump #trump20