Rolling Stone: "Trump’s fascistic fantasies about making his enemies — from Democratic lawmakers to late-night hosts — suffer aren’t just a distraction ... They’re part of the very real authoritarian project he and his administration have been actively carrying out for the past six months ..."
Susan Glasser: I could hardly bear to watch the “highly choreographed onslaught,” as the BBC somewhat delicately put it, but the scene did have one benefit—as a reminder of how explicitly Trump has ... defined the goal of his Presidency as a sort of racial-justice quest for white people.
NPR’s Steven Inskeep: “If I understand this correctly, the US president has launched a trade war against the world, believes he can force the EU and China to meet his terms, is determined to annex Canada and Greenland, but is powerless before the sovereign might of El Salvador. Is that it?”
“The Trump administration’s decision to order the banning of certain books from the U.S. Naval Academy’s library is a case study in ideological censorship, alumni and academics say.”
"Americans as individuals seem suddenly willing in larger numbers to 'meet the moment.' More and more people are acting as they might sometime be asked, 'What did you do, when it mattered?' And they’ll have an answer."
"Watching Trump’s Rose Garden performance yesterday, it was hard to believe what I was seeing: flawed economics, inaccurate history and cockamamie calculations used to justify the most wrong-headed and damaging policy decision in decades. Trump's “Liberation Day” was more like ruination day."
A great organization. Good for them to have your talent.
What does it say that a scholar of fascism is leaving the US right now? Said Stanley: “Part of it is you’re leaving because ultimately, it is like leaving Germany in 1932, 33, 34. There’s resonance: my grandmother left Berlin with my father in 1939. So it’s a family tradition.”
“Nobody should be disappeared from the streets of Somerville — or anywhere in America,” Jessie Rossman, legal director of the A.C.L.U. of Massachusetts, said.
"At the White House, Governor Mills was not only reinforcing the rule of law in the face of an authoritarian who is working to shatter that principle; she was standing up to a bully who claims to be protecting women and girls but who has bragged about sexual assault ..."
“We shouldn’t be afraid to talk and to debate just about anyone. But Steve Bannon espouses hatred and anger and even at some points violence, and I don’t think we should give him oxygen on any platform — ever, anywhere.”
"If there’s one truth Donald Trump seems to have absorbed in his seventy-eight years, it is that there are advantages to lying all the time—foremost among them that no one knows when you’re bluffing and when you actually mean what you say.
Millions will suffer ... the seventh measure targeting Cuba in one month, has international consequences; for decades tens of thousands of Cuban medical professionals have been posted in around 60 countries, far more than the World Health Organization’s workforce.
The arrest appeared to be among the first known actions under Trump’s pledge to deport intern'l students who joined protests against the war in Gaza last spring. His administration has claimed participants forfeited their rights to remain in US by supporting Hamas, a terror org.
... "it’s about America’s alliances in general. To bend other countries to his will, Trump has suspended military aid to Ukraine, publicly hectored world leaders, threatened to withdraw U.S. troops from Europe and pulled out of international groups like the World Health Organization."
"It was for a similar impoundment of congressionally appropriated funds for Ukraine, holding them back until Zelensky agreed to tilt the 2020 election by smearing Joe Biden, that the House of Representatives impeached Trump in 2019. ...Trump chose to repeat that performance, in public this time ..."
sure did
"Trump referred to what he calls the 'Russia, Russia, Russia hoax' that Russia had worked to elect him in 2016. That effort, though, was not a hoax: the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 released an exhaustive report detailing that effort."
"The bravest person in the world — who may well eventually be hanged from a lamp post by invading marauders for his historic, heroic attempt to save his besieged nation — did not bend. ... he reduced the president ... to a frothing, sullen tub of a bully who had been exposed for what he is."
Remember disgraced former Republican Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin's adopted-then-abandoned son who was sent away to abuse in Jamaica? @dyetter.bsky.social has an excellent followup interview with him.
kentuckylantern.com/2025/02/28/i...
"U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered the Office of Personnel Management to inform certain federal agencies that it had no authority to order the firings of probationary employees, including at the Department of Defense."
"... now that so little apparently stands in his way. Will he ... investigate and imprison political enemies? Or ... use the ... military to crack down on political dissent at home, given that he’s fired top generals and wants to replace them with others willing to profess loyalty to him ... ?"
"Make no mistake: This order transforms federal spending by taking it away from Congress, where the Constitution placed it, and moves it to the individual who sits atop the Department of Government Efficiency."
"We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans' sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services. We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE's actions," the anonymous staffers write.
"The White House Correspondents’ Association, a group representing journalists who cover the administration, has long determined on its own which reporters would participate in the daily pool."
“If the USAID is stupid enough to send condoms to a Palestinian terrorist group, he claims, it deserves to be dismantled. If recruiting people other than white men to work in the airline sector compromises safety, such programs should be eliminated. …” and on and on
"Danielle Sassoon, a conservative lawyer recently promoted by President Donald Trump, said dismissing the case would set a 'breathtaking and dangerous precedent.'"
