MAGA attacks global warming; MAGA empowered to censor the internet

The NYT reports (not paywalled) that federal funding cuts are on the verge of putting a top environmental science journal out of business: “Environmental Health Perspectives, widely considered the premier environmental health journal, has announced that it would pause acceptance of new studies for publication, as federal cuts have left its future uncertain. For more than 50 years, the journal has received funding from the National Institutes of Health to review studies on the health effects of environmental toxins — from “forever chemicals” to air pollution — and publish the research free of charge. Scientific journals have long been a target of top health officials in the Trump administration. In a book published last year, Dr. Martin A. Makary, the new commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, accused journal editorial boards of “gate-keeping” and publishing only information that supports a ‘groupthink narrative.’”

The NYT quoted Dr. Brainworm (RFK Jr), secretary of health and human services, as directly threatening medical journals with federal prosecution: “I’m going to find a way to sue you unless you come up with a plan right now to show how you’re going to start publishing real science.” By ‘real science’ Brainworm means pseudoscience, crackpottery, lies, etc.

The only thinking that MAGA elites are capable of is MAGA's kleptocratic, authoritarian, propaganda, demagoguery, lies, crackpottery, etc. MAGA elites are definitely going to get lots of innocent people killed and species disappeared. But no worries about corpses for MAGA elites, they can and will blame Biden, Obama, Hillary, Benghazi, Hunter’s laptop, DEI, etc., etc. 

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports about an authoritarian law that passed congress. The law is sold to the public as cracking down on NCII (non-consensual intimate imagery) such as revenge porn and sex photos that people did not want posted online. All of that is just fine.

But the problem, as is usually the case, the law is intentionally sloppy. It hands djt a weapon to control, or try to control, a broad swath of content on the internet he dislikes. For example, satirical memes mocking Trump will probably be flagged as “intimate imagery” under the Act’s sloppy definitions. Even if that is blatantly false, it would cost a small fortune to prove that in court. Almost all House and Senate Democrats voted to support this monstrosity of slop. The EFF writes:

The House of Representatives passed the TAKE IT DOWN Act, giving the powerful a dangerous new route to manipulate platforms into removing lawful speech that they simply don't like. President Trump himself has said that he would use the law to censor his critics. The bill passed the Senate in February, and it now heads to the president's desk.

The takedown provision in TAKE IT DOWN applies to a much broader category of content—potentially any images involving intimate or sexual content—than the narrower NCII (non-consensual intimate imagery) definitions found elsewhere in the bill. The takedown provision also lacks critical safeguards against frivolous or bad-faith takedown requests. Services will rely on automated filters, which are infamously blunt tools. They frequently flag legal content, from fair-use commentary to news reporting. The law’s tight time frame requires that apps and websites remove speech within 48 hours, rarely enough time to verify whether the speech is actually illegal. As a result, online service providers, particularly smaller ones, will likely choose to avoid the onerous legal risk by simply depublishing the speech rather than even attempting to verify it.

The safeguard for criticism of djt, MAGA elites and MAGA authoritarianism is to not post any derogatory images of anything, especially djt or MAGA elites. If there is no image, the law does not reach it. In theory.

That theoretical constraint does not prevent people from making false, bad-faith claims. Claims under this law forces the platform owner of the accused content to take it down or go to court and spend thousands of dollars defending legal content that could be taken down for nothing. There are no penalties for people making false or frivolous claims under this law. There is no explicit language in the law that excludes text-only content from being flagged as illegal. 

In the case of this blog, Google would have to take down content someone flags under the take-down law or decide the flag was wrong. Google, sure as death and taxes, is not going to spend one penny checking to see if one of my blog posts is legal or not. Google will go to court to defend any of my blog posts. 

Worse yet, maybe our MAGA Republican USSC will say congress did intend to include text-only “intimate criticisms”, whatever that concept might mean. Regardless, this law looks like another weapon in MAGA’s campaign to equate legitimate dissent with illegality. Time will tell how this plays out. With some luck, maybe MAGA won’t abuse this too much. It will be very tempting for trolls.

Q: If any of my content gets flagged and Google takes it down, should people start flagging content on MAGA propaganda sites like Faux News, Breitbart, The Federalist, The Heritage Foundation, etc.?

News bits: Dictatorship poll; American police state rising; Another impeachment? Nah!; Misc.

Poll data from a Feb.-March poll indicates that some Americans are starting to wake up to the threat of a djt dictatorship. The portion of Americans who say they agree that djt is a "dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy" is shown below:

At least most Dems and Indeps are awake, while the vast majority of Repubs are still asleep. Unfortunately, most White folk are still asleep too. Presumably more people will wake up as time passes. Will it be enough, soon enough? I don't know. Maybe it's already too late.

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A Rolling Stone article, Trump Issues Executive Order Ramping Up American Police State, increases protections for law enforcement officers accused of abuse and crimes. In essence, djt is prodding police forces to be aggressive by shielding them from accountability for alleged misconduct. djt's EO includes (1) free legal assistance to police officers accused of wrongdoing, to protect them from what MAGA deems "unfair" accusations and mistreatment by state or local authorities, (2) provides more "excess military and national security resources" and enhanced federal backing for officer training, higher salaries, and improved benefits, and (3) authorizes prosecution of state and local officials who "illegally prevent" law enforcement from doing their jobs, specifically targeting officials who promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs that MAGA falsely claims hinder police work or public safety.

I take this as evidence that in the three-way authoritarian MAGA wealth and power game, a corrupt djt dictatorship is starting to look like it will be dominant over the other two MAGA wealth and power contenders, corrupt billionaire plutocrats-corporations and corrupt Christian nationalist theocrats. The power struggles will be interesting to watch.

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An April 18-21 poll indicated that ~52% of likely voters somewhat or strongly support impeaching djt. The data was ~84% of Democrats, ~55% of Independents, and ~20% of Republicans. Chances of another pointless impeachment go-around? My estimate: in the House, ~0.3% and in the Senate ~0.1%. In my opinion, not at all likely.

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Dr. BrainWorm (RFK Jr) proposes getting rid of the federal Narcan distribution program that successfully reduced overdose deaths. Interestingly, BrainWorm used to be a heroin addict. Apparently, he thinks overdosed people should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, just like he used to do when he overdosed. In 2024, the government distributed 282,500 Narcan kits. CDC data shows ~24% drop in overdose deaths for the 12 months ending September 2024.

This sounds like a good way to get rid of those darned drug addicts. 👍

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The Independent summarizes djt's first 100 days. His accomplishments include triggering over 200 lawsuits, 142 executive orders, 24 days golfing, 5 bills signed into law, chaos in the stock market, and writing 1,614 fine screeds on his social media site Lies Antisocial, which amounts to about 16 per day. 

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In police-related news, NBC News reports that after killing an unarmed man, the Texas deputy told his fine colleague: 'I just smoked a dude'. It took almost two years, and a federal lawsuit, for smoked dude's mom, Wendy Tippitt to see the police video that showed the fatal shooting of her 29-year-old son. According to a dashcam video, the smoked dude was not armed or aggressive toward the unaccountable deputy.

I just can't wait of the police to be unleashed in all their splendor and unaccountable violent fury. Why doesn't djt issue as EO to unleash the police? . . . . . Oh, right, he did. 👍 Never mind.

djt threatens news media for shielding confidential news sources

CONTEXT

By now, it is quite clear that djt and MAGA elites intend to subvert and drain as much power** as possible, as fast as possible, from all public and private individuals, groups and institutions that stand in opposition to kleptocratic tyranny. No significant source of real or potential opposition is off limits. The threat now explicitly includes USSC justices who cross djt and his 100% weaponized MAGA DoJ. 

** Power consists mostly of (1) legal and constitutional protections, norms and policies, (2) access to courts for redress of grievances, and (3) free and fair elections. All three are now under ferocious authoritarian MAGA attack. 

In MAGAland politics, the threat of kleptocratic tyranny is primarily in the form of some combination of a corrupt djt dictatorship, corrupt plutocracy and corrupt Christian nationalist theocracy**. So far, a corrupt US military junta seems unlikely. However, if djt fires Pete drunk as a skunk Hegseth and replaces that idiot blunderbuss with a far more intelligent and ruthless MAGA defense secretary, then maybe a corrupt military junta could also be a significant part of the MAGAland tyranny mix. But we are not there yet. 👍

** As I have said many times now, the CN theocratic movement is not primarily a religious Christian movement. It is a wealth and power movement run by cynical, corrupt CN elites. They have bamboozled rank and file supporters and sympathizers into a false belief that the their goal is merely an innocent effort to defend traditional Christian values and fight off the victimization and horrific persecution of American Christians. The whole CN thing is a gigantic, cynical theocratic lie.

That context is where this post is coming from. The institution under attack here is the professional news media, but not MAGA news sources like Faux News.

☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️ 

This 4-page DoJ document is from MAGA thug Pam Bondi (US attorney general) dated April 25, 2025. Here, she declares war on news reporters by revoking previous DoJ protections for reporters who protect their confidential news sources from prosecution. The first paragraph and footnote 1 read as follows:

Safeguarding classified, privileged, and other sensitive information is essential to effective governance and law enforcement. Federal government employees intentionally leaking sensitive information to the media undermines the ability of the Department of Justice to uphold the rule of law, protect civil rights, and keep America safe. This conduct is illegal and wrong, and it must stop. Therefore, I have concluded that it is necessary to rescind Merrick Garland’s policies precluding the Department of Justice from seeking records and compelling testimony from members of the news media in order to identify and punish the source of improper leaks.¹ I am also directing the Office of Legal Policy to publish new regulatory language in 28 C.F.R. § 50.10 to reflect the rescission of those policies.

¹ All policies inconsistent with this memorandum and the accompanying regulation are hereby rescinded, effective immediately. See, e.g., 28 C.F.R. § 50.10 (2022); Merrick Garland, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Memorandum, Use of Compulsory Process to Obtain Information from, or Records of, Members of the News Media (July 19, 2021), https://www.justice.gov/ag/page/file/1413001/download.

Key points:

• Federal prosecutors can now use subpoenas, court orders, and search warrants to compel the production of information and testimony by and pertaining to members of the news media. When reporters refuse to comply, they will be prosecuted and jailed for obstruction.

• Bondi's memo says that the “Justice Department will not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people.” The scope of that goes beyond classified information to include disclosures that challenge administration policies or show illegality, corruption or incompetence in djt’s administration. 

• The alleged rationale is to safeguard “classified, privileged and other sensitive information.” That is a much broader set of government secrets than existing federal criminal law protects. Existing federal law focuses primarily on making it illegal to share classified information, not on covering the ass of a corrupt, incompetent and/or anti-democracy president or government.

• The vague phrasing in Bondi’s memo implicitly calls for much more than just restoring past reporter protections under Biden. Bondi says that federal prosecutors “will continue to employ procedural protections to limit the use of compulsory legal process to obtain information from or records of members of the news media.” However, the memo doesn’t describe the protections. Given the routine cynical mendacity of MAGA elites, one can reasonably presume “procedural protections” for reporters will usually be somewhere between trivial and non-existent. Probably mostly non-existent.

Believe it or not, we are in an all-out war of corrupt, brutal MAGA authoritarianism against our democracy, rule of law, civil liberties and all people, groups and institutions that stand in defense of those ideals. MAGA and djt in particular hate anonymous sources of inconvenient information. They  constantly attack anonymous sources of inconvenient information as politically motivated, liars and frauds. News from anonymous source is dismissed as things like fake news or books, defamatory fiction or bullshit. MAGA is almost always just fine with anonymous sources that reveal information that is convenient or good for MAGA or djt. Treatment of anonymous sources by djt and MAGA

elites is a cynical, calculated duality of public denunciation of and attacks on unnamed informants in critical reporting, while enthusiastically amplifying favorable anonymous leaks (example 1, example 2, example 3, example 4).  

We really are in a real war. This is not a fever dream of some deranged crackpot.

Q: Are we really in a real war, or is this just a fever dream of some deranged crackpot, e.g., me?

Democracy pulse check -- we’re in very deep trouble, right now

NPR reports:

Hundreds of scholars say U.S. is swiftly heading toward authoritarianism

A survey of more than 500 political scientists finds that the vast majority (78%) think the United States is moving swiftly from liberal democracy toward some form of authoritarianism.

In the benchmark survey, known as Bright Line Watch, U.S.-based professors rate the performance of American democracy on a scale from zero (complete dictatorship) to 100 (perfect democracy). After President Trump’s election in November, scholars gave American democracy a rating of 67. Several weeks into Trump's second term, that figure plummeted to 55.

“We've slid into some form of authoritarianism,” says Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard, and co-author of How Democracies Die. “It is relatively mild compared to some others. It is certainly reversible, but we are no longer living in a liberal democracy.”

Kim Lane Scheppele, a Princeton sociologist who has spent years tracking Hungary, is also deeply concerned: “We are on a very fast slide into what’s called competitive authoritarianism.” 

In a competitive authoritarian system, a leader comes to power democratically and then erodes the system of checks and balances. Typically, the executive fills the civil service and key appointments — including the prosecutor's office and judiciary — with loyalists. He or she then attacks the media, universities and nongovernmental organizations to blunt public criticism and tilt the electoral playing field in the ruling party’s favor. (Does that sound quite familiar? It does to me)

Two points:

• How the hell can Harvard Poobah Levitsky, whom I actually respect (my review of his book is here), know if the MAGA authoritarianism we have slid into is “certainly reversible”? He can’t. No one can know with certainty how bad our political situation really is. Levitsky got this point wrong. The depth of MAGA’s grip on the minds of the true believers continues to strengthen according to polls. Those people are not going to stop supporting djt no matter what. MAGA is not “certainly” reversible. It is maybe reversible, maybe probably, but not certainly.

• The NPR article is based on an analysis by Bright Line Watch (BLW), where a score of 0 means complete dictatorship, and a score of 100 means ideal democracy. The BLW score of 55, puts the US political system well into anocracy (score range 50-69), hybrid dictatorship-democracy but closer to dictatorship than democracy. A different political system scoring system, Polity Watch, rates scores like this: Autocracy (dictatorship) scores at -10 to -6, anocracy is -5 to +5, while  democracy scores are from +6 to +10). After the July 2024 USSC decision that granted a president immunity from crimes committed in office, the Polity score dropped to 0, meaning the United States now falls squarely within the anocracy range (-5 to +5). The 2025 Polity score of 0 puts the US close to countries like Afghanistan (-1) and Uganda (-1). In other words, by both the BLW and Polity watch analyses, analysis the US is an anocracy, not a democracy.  The basis of BLW analysis is compared to the Polity Watch system:

Tracking America's descent into 

kleptocratic djt/MAGA dictatorship

Q: Since these two assessments were generated by experts[1] and their assessments constitute evidence that America is in a period of accelerating moral and political degeneration of its elites, should this kind of analysis be rejected as lies, false or socialist propaganda simply because they are experts conveying facts, truths and reasoning that are extremely inconvenient to djt, MAGA elites and their corrupt authoritarian wealth and power agenda?

Footnote:

1. Since about 2016, an important goal of MAGA’s pro-authoritarian, pro-corruption dark free speech, e.g., demagoguery, lies and slanders, has been to discredit experts, especially those who assert facts, truths and reasoning that are inconvenient to MAGA elites, essentially all of whom support corruption and authoritarianism. That is fact, not opinion. In his 2017 book, The Death of Expertise, expert Tom Nichols said distrust in experts and inconvenient knowledge has led America into a death spiral that “presents an immediate danger of decay either into rule by the mob or toward elitist technocracy . . . . and both threaten the United States today. . . . . the most disturbing aspect of the American march toward ignorance is not lack of knowledge per se but arrogance about that lack of knowledge.”

 

MAGA’s continuing anti-consumer attack

A federal appeals court has lifted its ban on djt almost completely gutting the CFPB (Consumer Finance Protection Agency. In Project 2025, the CFPB was a very high priority target for obliteration. Banks and financial institutions hated it because it protected consumers from predatory financial practices such as imposing high fees, which were often hidden. All of that is going to come back. As usual, the people most damaged will be low income households. The NYT reports (not paywalled) about how djt and MAGA elites were going to blow past the feeble, i.e., non-existent, protection the court initially said must apply. Once again, the court stopped the final obliteration of the CFPB: 

Two weeks ago, a three-judge panel from the federal appeals court in Washington lifted a freeze on firing employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, with some conditions. The judges, ruling on a Friday night, said that workers could be fired if agency leaders determined, after a careful assessment, that they were not needed to carry out the bureau’s legally required responsibilities. 

Within hours, Trump administration officials — working closely with Elon Musk’s associates at the Department of Government Efficiency — scurried to fire nearly all the agency’s employees. By the following Thursday afternoon, bureau leaders sent termination notices to nearly 1,500 employees, retaining barely 200 people, and ordered that the fired workers’ access to agency systems be shut down the next day.

A judge has again stopped the cuts for now. .... Firing so many workers at once, with no transition period, would destroy the bureau’s ability to operate, employees warned their bosses in emails, chat messages and verbal conversations, according to court records. Within days, critical technical systems would fail, enforcement lawyers would miss court deadlines and agency data that federal courts had ordered be preserved would be lost (which is exactly what kleptocratic MAGA elites want). (emphases added)

Workers could be fired if agency leaders determined, after a “careful assessment”?? Bwahahahahaha!! The only assessment that elite MAGA thugs conducted was to send out emails to the CFPB employees telling them YOU’RE FIRED!! That’s one heck of an “assessment.” 

Once again, the sheer ruthlessness of morally rotted djt, MAGA elites and Project 2025 is crystal clear. They are authoritarian, cynically kleptocratic and deeply opposed to protecting democracy, consumers, workers, the environment, the rule of law, civil liberties, and honesty, transparency and competence in government, or even a meaningful existence of a democratic government.

Q: Are (1) rank and file supporters of all of this, whether they know or believe they are supporters or not, good, decent, honest people who are simply deceived, manipulated and betrayed, or (2) am I a fool who has been deceived, manipulated and betrayed by MSM and socialist propaganda, lies and slanders, or (3) is something else going on here and both rank and file supporters and me are right, wrong, or something else?

MAGA horrors on parade

Elite MAGA and djt horrors are coming fast and furious. They're deadly. Instead of lots of details, short descriptions are in order, at least for the time being for most of it. I need to avoid TL/DR.

Law & Crime reports: ‘Trump is spitting in the face of law enforcement’: President pardons ‘Lady Trump’ for spending slain officer charity funds on ‘rent, cosmetic procedures, and her daughter’s wedding’ --  djt granted a “full and unconditional pardon” to Michele Fiore, the former Las Vegas councilwoman also known as “Lady Trump,” who was convicted of “fleecing” the community out of about $70,000 in a scheme to defraud donors to a charity for a police officer who was killed in the line of duty, using the money she collected for plastic surgeries, rent, and her daughter’s wedding. Fiore, a former Republican gubernatorial candidate who was a justice of the peace when she was federally indicted on six counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, was convicted on all seven charges following an eight-day trial in October 2024. .... A White House spokesperson told The Hill that Trump issued the pardon because Fiore was allegedly targeted for prosecution due to her “outspoken conservative views.”

Pardoned corrupt, cynical elite MAGA thug Fiore

She stole 100% of the contributions to her "charity",

not 1¢ went to real charity

Comment: Here, djt is both spitting on law enforcement and openly lying to the American people. This shows he feels the same kind of cynical contempt toward the rule of law, the courts, American democracy and the American people. 

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Above the Law reports that one of DoJ's  Pam Bondi-style court filings was flat out lying about what the USSC ordered the DoJ to do about getting the illegally deported Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador: DOJ Makes Up Fake Supreme Court Quote About Deportation Hoping No One Notices -- The government’s response is basically “everyone knows the Supreme Court unanimously ordered us to ‘facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody,’ what this filing we’re signing as officers of the court presupposes is… ‘maybe they didn’t?'” .... For the record, the Supreme Court’s order reads: The order properly requires the Government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador. 

[The DoJ’s filing reads] “take all available steps to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the United State.” .... “United STATE”?!?! That’s an embarrassing “[sic]” in any circumstances but for the United States Department of Justice you’d think they’d get it right because it’s RIGHT THERE IN THEIR NAME. They put “emphasis added” on a quote that ISN’T IN THE USSC ORDER!

The highlighted quote is allegedly but falsely

claimed to be what the USSC said in its order to the DoJ

BTW, the DoJ continues to flaunt that order by stonewalling it

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Gizmodo reports that djt's MAGA DoJ is attacking Wikipedia for posting foreign propaganda: Trump DOJ Threatens Wikipedia’s Nonprofit Status Over Alleged ‘Propaganda’ -- Between scrubbing government websites of information about everything from vaccine efficacy to LGBT health matters and the ongoing war with higher education, the Trump administration seems to have has a problem with freely available information that doesn’t align with its particular ideology. That war on knowledge appears to have extended now extends to Wikipedia. Earlier this week, a Trump appointed attorney sent a letter to the Wikimedia Foundation accusing it of allowing the spread of propaganda and threatening its nonprofit status. [The DoJ's letter] accuses the Wikimedia Foundation of falling short of requirements to maintain that status because, he claims, Wikipedia is “allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda,” and “permitting information manipulation on its platform, including the rewriting of key, historical events and biographical information of current and previous American leaders, as well as other matters implicating the national security and the interests of the United States.” (edits added for clarity and accuracy)

Comment: MAGA elites are OK with allowing Russian propagandists to manipulate information and spread propaganda and permitting pro-MAGA or MAGA-approved disinformation manipulation on any platform. But inconvenient content, factual or not, is now being openly attacked by djt and his elite, morally rotted MAGA goons. People, this is deadly serious, real time democracy-killing dictatorship, not a fever dream or hallucination.