Trump has unilaterally made smuggling cocaine a capital offense punishable at will wo any warning or process, or any authority from, or need to report to, Congress. Military are operating under executive letters of marque and threatening the first war with a western hemisphere nation in 36 yrs. ugh

There will come a time when this administration will argue that whether a crime has been committed (or proven) is an unreviewable political question. We are creeping in that direction now. See harrylitman.substack.com/p/moment-of-...

See bigthink.com/high-culture...

when will administration's actions skirting at or over the edge of legality & constitutionality, causing hardship & threatening health & safety to so many here & around the world, be viewed in the context of history & the country's former ideals and aspirations, be seen as a slow coup?

Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o... There is no basis for this transactional mafia-style govt. Also, this "regulation" flouts/evades all procedural requirements: not based on any act of Congress nor complies w the Administrative Procedure Act.

What do a massive spectacle of a general meeting of generals and an explicit intent to make American cities the situs of armed war games and a demand that the military be politically incorrect remind peo people (including historians) of?

Why isn’t lead in NYT on peace plan for Gaza that Trump is to chair the temporary technocrat “peace” transition commission and that the redevelopment plan is Trump’s 2020 “Riviera” plan? It is all about Trump - a statesman would not glorify himself to make peace. This reality is unbelievable.

was there any earlier year when SCOTUS (a) so dramatically insisted that a president supersedes Congress and the courts and (b) worked its destruction of the separation of powers in such a shadowy way?

whether as a matter of law or common sense, no US president should use his office to threaten administrative suppression or violence against those who merely criticize his performance in that office. the first amendment is not a one-way street; is designed to protect dissent, not to embolden tyrants

How ironic would it be if someone did a button with TFG shouting "everyone in all the cities, we're coming for your g_ns!"?

Minor query. Based on the intrusion of Gemini into GMail, it occurs to me that one of the adverse consequences of AI may be that email writers will stop creating their own subject lines. Recipients may be left to sort through AI summaries, with adv conseq for lawyers and clients. Thoughts?

If the Senate confirms the wildly unqualified Emil Bove, it will be responsible for the even Trumpier and more lawless Supreme Court for which the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is potentially but a Bovean stepping stone. He is an antijudge extraordinaire www.nytimes.com/2025/07/16/o...

Perhaps part of the problem ids the presentation to the public of a picture confusing distance and time. When i look at a map of the US, i see locations as of when the map was made. but when we describe distances to celestial objects in light years we are describing present observation of the past1

Peter Balakian on the lessons modern readers can learn from Richard Hofstadter’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1964 book, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.

first, they came for the immigrants, and we said nothing; then they came for the librarians, ...; then ...

Finding Beauty in Midair www.nytimes.com/interactive/... Worthy relief

as proliferation of conservative/right wing educational institutions in US evidences, the first amendment does not require private institutions to avoid a particular ideological or philosophical or even political point of view; they are not required to be neutral, or to champion only govt policies.

this republican war should not be allowed to let the Trump- republican authoritarian agenda and budget sneak through in the shadows and smoke

selling pardons? just part of the privileges of kings and, once, popes. what can be next? selling pseudo-currency? selling secrets? selling unwanted people? public lands? states? entire professions? the suspenseful serial continues unabated...

Mmm When a headline about Trump says he “monetize(s) the presidency,” the headline about a head of another country would be more direct, and call it corruption. See www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/u...

I’ve yet to see a post or news item touting a brilliant, persuasive and accurate brief “written” by AI, much less one that didn’t result from massive human lawyer cite-checking, editing, correcting, and making strategic choices and clarifying logic and relevance.

apple.news/As-uIlmloQqS.... Edges into the realm of an emolument too far. PS Is this an "efficient" plane or an albatross the Quataris are unloading? The theoretical T library will undoubtedly lend the plane to T who will not pay for upkeep or registration.

Firing Registrar of Copyright! As apolitical position as there is. Not only effort to benefit Musk & Wild West vision of AI - attack on both the Constitution and laws enacted through a legislative process that must include Congress, & attack on expertise, experience, competence, precedent

There was a notion that businesses should be open & transparent about cost - not so far as to reveal the proprietary stuff like wholesale cost or profit margin - but the add-ons like shipping and customs charges/tariffs. Current administration wants to suppress such info - not pro consumer!

when i experimented with the Lexis LLM on issues i've already researched, I found that it got some basic things right, had trouble going beyond the narrowed issue it first id'd, and created unsupported statements. the only thing it did well was construct sentences properly. it added almost nothing

it is an old strategy of the rich and powerful facing many lawsuits to either hire every likely lawyer whom opponents might seek to represent them, or to otherwise find ways to disqualify those lawyers from representing these opponents. Without lawyers, their claims of wrongdoing may never be heard.

Hypothetically, if a Republican President were to take actions which on their face are either dangerous gross negligence or deliberate sabotage, what should be the responsibility of Republican Senators? Representatives?

The Failed Ideas That Drive Elon Musk www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/o...

what % of eos are void for vagueness?

Given SCOTUS’ open-ended view of politics and the role of President, Trump assumes that he can issue unendingly executive orders & can say/do anything in them, risking only that a court might say the eo is unconstitutional and unenforceable. Rational courts will reach a point where it is too far.

Good god. There are so many things wrong with this - sells out the entire legal profession and looks like a mafia shakedown violating the constitution 6 ways to Sunday. And it’s not the slightest guarantee that T won’t issue the order again if the firm displeases www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/u...

The new administration is looking to cut federal funding for arts and humanities education. It’s not cost savings; it’s an attack on reason itself. 8 years ago - we was warned

@preetbharara.bsky.social In your recent discussion on Stay Tuned about the "unitary state" theory, you did not go into the implications at its extreme beyond ignoring courts and congress: that the executive can override civil service and union contracts, can cancel civil contracts, ignore treaties…

t has talked to p regarding, per NYT quote "dividing up certain assets". Ukraine - the new Poland? Any better analogy for big powers carving up a smaller country?

Important point - present policy is in support of corruption as well as control of thought, information, allegiance (anything but to the constitution), finances, health, history, mythology, education, politics

Does philosophy of history encompass the ethics and obligations of historians? what are they at this moment?

Historians: What is tyranny? Are we facing it at this moment? And if so what is the historian's duty? To record, to analyze, to decry, to identify, to recount the "lessons" of history?

Practical q: Assume by year x an AI is deemed by the business leaders of law to be better than most humans at reasoning, deciding, and writing legal and fact qs, and by year x+n from client interview to trial to judging AI replaces all. How will mistakes be identified and corrected? who would do it?

"found" art

musk springs surprise exam on federal employees, treating them like school kids. no way he can grade responses without AI. Perhaps he is using them as guinea pigs for an automation of autocracy?

Is there a deturing test where an AI is challenged to determine if text is really written by a human?

Even if a president should really have immunity from suit in criminal and civil cases, that wouldn’t apply to suits against him in his official capacity. Even if a President may lawfully do many things, the constitution does not make it lawful to sow chaos or sabotage government & constitution.

until further notice, should be presumed that all federal records (data & hard copy/paper) have been, or are in imminent danger of being, compromised, & that the compromise of sensitive, secret and private information could extend to foreign governments, hackers, criminal & terrorist organizations

Use This New Poster on Feb 17

Do current events mean that any plot a writer can come up with is plausible? Is question unique to this time? Or is fiction inevitably more believable than reality? Do writers self-censor, even without pressure, to avoid nasty ppl getting ideas the writers can imagine nasty ppl making real?

Query - Since the sciences originally evolved as subdisciplines within philosophy, how is philosophy, particularly as used in the philosophy of science, now defined in a way that isn't just a bit serl-referential?

the administration is engaged in the equivalent of book burning so the unitary executive may a minimal online and data library with history rewritten, data rendered unreliable or just disappeared, leaving ashes of silence

The New Croton Review welcomes submissions of unpublished fiction, nonfiction and poetry. No submission fee / no pay. For more info, visit: NewCrotonReview.com//25Q1/dc094d608739cc4f/call

The New Croton Review welcomes submissions of unpublished fiction, nonfiction and poetry. No submission fee / no pay. For more info, visit: NewCrotonReview.com//25Q1/dc094d608739cc4f/call

Is David French say reasonable, ethical people - and the constitution - face a whale? And does his “woe” mean he is given up on the social compact? www.nytimes.com/2025/01/26/o...