“A government shutdown could draw precious attention to the regime’s worst outrages and persuade more Americans that they have a viable alternative. It could even help Democrats gain enough power to do more than yell and scream about it.” open.substack.com/pub/harrylit...

“When historians look back on this moment in American history, the date that may stand out to them is . . . Sept. 15, when [VP Vance] promised that the federal government would use the assassination [of Charlie Kirk] to begin cracking down on leftist organizations.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/o...

The very label “mind-ALTERING” drugs assumes a specific baseline. This fascinating feature by the author of the forthcoming book, “The Frenchmen” — a great read about the French philosophers who changed American culture — is eye-opening and mind-bending but sober: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/21/b...

“No doubt the spirit and energy of the world is what is acting in us, as the sea is what rises in every little wave; but it passes through us; and, cry out as we may, it will move on. Our privilege is to have perceived it as it moved.” — George Santayana, “Skepticism and Animal Faith” (1923)

Hobart, New York: where the REAL Supreme Court holds court . . .

“The idea that speech or thought contrary to the government line could trigger punishment is the dream of autocrats. Eventually, it makes enemies of everyone.” www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

This victory for freedom of artistic expression and the 1st Amendment was clearly right and will very likely be upheld on appeal . . . but the struggle will probably be over a stay of any injunctive relief, and if it’s stayed then irreparable harm will occur anyway. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/a...

Agreed! In today’s Supreme Court, Jimmy Kimmel would have an extremely strong First Amendment claim against Trump’s FCC for pressuring Disney and ABC to censor fully protected commentary by firing Kimmel. Either 8-1 or 9-0. www.politico.com/news/magazin...

Exactly right!

And remember: it’s not just corporations, it’s wealth however packaged that drives politics — — unless effectively constrained by law as made by and for ordinary people, not just the wealthy or the elite

Havel’s insight must never be forgotten. Tim Snyder kept it alive. Asha Rangappa has reinvigorated it

Lest we forget: This is what justice in a constitutional republic looks like! Trump’s plot to overturn the 2020 election included calls to hang Pence, parallel to Bolsonaro’s calls to kill his opponent. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/w...

Thank heaven Jennifer Rubin left the Washington Post, where Jeff Bezos would’ve refused to run so forthright an endorsement of Justice Sotomayor’s irrefutable refutation of six of her colleagues and her scathing but totally warranted takedown of Justice Kavanaugh! open.substack.com/pub/contrari...

OK, I’ll admit it: Envying Brazil its seemingly principled Supreme Court wasn’t on my bingo card. Like, not ever. apnews.com/article/braz...

WTF? Does “the right way” to “practice politics” include lying re factual matters (eg saying Black Women have too little brainpower to be “taken seriously”)? Mourning Kirk’s murder & defending his right to make his wild claims doesn’t excuse praising his political MO www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/o...

“This is a moment . . .for restraint, rather than cycles of vengeance or the suspension of civil liberties, as some urged on Wednesday.” To blame the assassin, as we must, isn’t to absolve those whose violent rhetoric set a tone that encouraged violent action. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/o...

“The deference and latitude that Congress and the Supreme Court have granted the executive will not necessarily snap back as soon as a new president is in office; dismantled institutions and discarded habits will not magically reconstitute themselves.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/o...

Calling this “the Trump era” is just a catchall for whatever is happening and an explanation for none of it. We need a bigger . . . concept www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/o...

Maybe Trump and at least some Trumpettes lack a fully operational “reality signal” in their neural networks. Not kidding! www.scientificamerican.com/article/newf...

I’m with Robert Reich and Ezra Klein: Don’t cooperate with the fascists by giving them the votes they need to keep their corrupt and tyrannical regime running and violating people’s rights as they entrench their power: open.substack.com/pub/robertre...

The 3-justice dissent was right:“We should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, [we] dissent.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/u...

“Older people are much less likely to commit crime than the young. They are also much more expensive to lock up.” So much for long sentences, much less lifelong sentences, as crime-reduction measures! www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/o...

Justice Breyer was right to come to Judge Young’s defense; Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were wrong to impugn Judge Young’s integrity or his fidelity to Supreme Court precedent. They were badly out of line. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/06/u...

“I love the smell of deportations in the morning … Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” Trump’s post reads. www.cnn.com/2025/09/06/p...

“The president’s commissioning of the U.S. military to kill alleged drug smugglers adds a terrifying dimension to this misuse of the armed forces for law enforcement purposes.” thehill.com/opinion/judi...

Trump’s bid to blackmail SCOTUS into giving him the tariff powers he wants regardless of the law is really a bid to get the case rerouted to the Court of Claims while he keeps violating the Constitution and laws of the United States. I wouldn’t bet against him here. www.politico.com/news/magazin...

Removing a dictatorship is much harder than preventing one. substack.com/@garrykaspar...

Yesterday more than 1,000 current and former Health and Human Services employees called on RFK Jr to resign in a letter to him and to members of Congress. Sad that disease and death won’t persuade Trump to fire him. Only harm to Trump’s political power would do that. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

32 USC § 502(f)(2) would violate Article IV of the Constitution if applied to support deployment of un-federalized out-of-state National Guard troops into a state that didn’t want those troops there, as with Trump’s proposed use of the Texas National Guard to invade Illinois

This is a terrifying but unfortunately realistic description of how well coordinated and effective the demolition of law-based democratic institutions and norms has been — and how far from an effective counterforce the fragmented and disjointed resistance has mounted www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/o...

THE FALL OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION is a masterpiece. Driver has written an unflinchingly fair, absolutely brilliant analysis of a vital issue you might think you understand but almost certainly don’t. Read it if you care about America’s future: tinyurl.com/4uznd4cc

Trump will do all he can to “fix” the 2026 and 2028 elections to secure MAGA victories by every method he can muster, however blatantly illegal and unconstitutional, whatever the courts might say. If every eligible voter shows up, we can overwhelm his schemes. Otherwise, our way of life is doomed.

“Today, as the government calls on tens of thousands of reservists to participate in the cruel reoccupation of Gaza City, I implore my fellow soldiers: Refuse to report. Thousands have already stopped showing up. . . . This is the time to speak. It is your duty.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/o...

WWII ended 80 years ago today, as Japan surrendered on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

This federal judge understated the matter when she called “surprising” the government’s attempt “to remove minor children from the country in the wee hours of the morning on a holiday weekend.” She was right to issue a temporary restraining order. www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08...

RFK Jr must be fired. He’s too deranged and full of himself to leave voluntarily. So it’s vital to convince Trump that keeping Kennedy around drains his own political power and thus his personal wealth by so visibly endangering the health of everyone in the U.S. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

In recent public remarks about deploying the National Guard to Chicago, Donald Trump said: “I have the right to do ANYTHING I want to do. I’m the president of the United States.” Not even a King has that right. Certainly no president. Who knew a non-drinker could be so drunk with power?

Bringing unity through music, pianist Jeffrey Biegel's 21st century initiative joins 60+ orchestras in all 50 states for Peter Boyer's "Rhapsody in Red, White & Blue". It nourishes our souls, and I encourage orchestras to join this evolving historic moment. propulsivemusic.com/news/2024/01...

Putin did more than eat Trump’s lunch in Alaska. He ate Trump for lunch and swallowed him whole. The losers? Ukraine, the EU, NATO, and the United States of America.

Did you know the great final two verses of Pete Seeger’s classic “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” antiwar song — the ones in which the soldiers went to graveyards, and the graveyards to flowers — were added by singer, songwriter, and folk music archivist Joe Hickerson, who died Aug. 17 at age 89?

Trump 2.0 looks a lot like Xi’s state-directed “capitalism” in China 🇨🇳 www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/o...

70 years ago today, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, was brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days earlier. When you see “MAGA,” realize THAT was the America Trumpers are saying was “great.” I want a GREATER America than that. We all should.

Dr. William Foege, 89, who helped end smallpox in the 1970s, recently wrote: RFK Jr.’s “words can be as lethal as the smallpox virus.” And his actions are more lethal still. He’s waging war on America. That’s an impeachable offense. He must be removed from office. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/h...

“It is more than hypothetically possible that Mr. Trump, when frustrated, will try to compel the obedience of state election officials by throwing the weight of the executive branch against them.” Constitutional limits on his power don’t mean anything to him. Scary!! www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/o...

Trump appointed Judge Thomas Cullen slams “this concerted effort by the executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it as both unprecedented and unfortunate.” It wages an unconstitutional war against the entire federal judiciary. Bad! www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/u...

Lisa Cook is right not to resign. Trump’s attempt to fire her without cause is flatly illegal. www.nysun.com/article/i-wi...