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jim-bob-boy.bsky.social
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It's true that we are all going to die. But it is not true that we are all going to be re-elected. You know what to do.

The most widely visible change in how our government conducts itself may be the transformation of public information channels into unapologetic propaganda vehicles. See, e.g. www.whitehouse.gov/lab-leak-tru... Or this piece of shit: www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u... Who is countering this?

The Harvard filing is a thing of deadly beauty, bristling with independent points of attack on Trump's baseless action against foreign students. Harvard will win. Trump doesn't care. He has been on either side of 1000s of lawsuits and does not need to win them all. static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics...

So, yes -- I do think it would have been perfect had our new Pontiff elected to become "Pope Bob I". And I will note that we now know what style of pizza God likes.

Under RFK Jr., ‘MAHA’ means junk science like ‘survival of the fittest.’ www.theverge.com/health/66136... "Kennedy has made it clear that certain deaths are acceptable or even preferable to a world where every child is vaccinated." Yep. Dark Age 2.0

OH MY GOD this really is incredible.

I asked for a table comparing studies by Omar Wasow (2020) and Erica Chenoweth & Maria Stephan (2011) regarding protest tactics and efficacy. Guess what? Nonviolent protest consistently achieves positive change in societies around the world, and across decades.

If some malign actor had recruited and trained an agent to infiltrate and destroy public health research and administration in the US, that agent would look just like RFK Jr. And the destruction has just begun. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/u...

I bring this up because I wanted to know what parallels might exist between our present reality and that of fascist movements from the past. I looked up the history of Nazi policies regarding higher education and enforcement of ideology. One word came up: "Gleichschaltung". Coordination. 4/4

"Now they are told, thou shalt kill; and although they think it’s very difficult to kill, they do it because it’s now part of the code of behavior. They learn whom to kill and how to kill and how to do it together. This is the much talked about Gleichschaltung—the coordination process." 3/4

"The second step is the notion: 'Things must change—no matter how. Anything is better than what we have.' Totalitarian rulers organize this kind of mass sentiment, and by organizing it articulate it, and by articulating it make the people somehow love it." 2/4

My favorite (if that's the word) Hannah Arendt quotation is from a 1974 interview. www.transcend.org/tms/2017/02/... The first paragraph is so perfect, I could not find a way to trim even a word to make it fit into 300-character chunks. So: "Totalitarianism begins in contempt for what you have." 1/4

Harvard has told the Trump administration to get stuffed. Could this be the start of something profoundly hoped for? www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/u... Yes; I know I am quite the pest on this subject, but it bears some pestiness: a Democratic US Senate majority would be a wonderful gift to the nation. Susan Collins is among the spineless, and up in 2026. www.senate.gov/senators/Cla...

And if it is, do we not now live in a dictatorship? The US has seen hideous abuses of human rights in its past, but recognizing and correcting them has made us a stronger and more decent nation. May we now hope that Americans will reject the dictator at our head, and continue that tradition? (3/3)

This it it. If it would be Constitutionally forbidden for the legislature to punish Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor for no other reason than Donald Trump's lust for vengeance, can it possibly be Constitutionally permitted for Trump himself to do that thing through executive action? (2/3)