“Land of the free.”
#USA #fascism #palestine #israel #genocide https://tech.lgbt/@ronaldtootall/114184978261243534
Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president
This is what democracy looks like when there’s no democracy.
#turkey #erdogan #imamoglu #democracy #fascism
“Like most bullies, the regime can be constrained only if everyone stands up to the bullying – including you.
First, if you are considering a trip to the United States, please reconsider. Why reward Trump’s America with your tourist dollars?
Spending by non-Americans in the United States is a significant source of tax revenue and a major “export” of this nation. There’s no reason for you to indirectly support Trump’s economy.
Trump is setting the US on a path to educational authoritarianism
Jason Stanley
Read more
Many international travelers concerned about Trump’s authoritarianism have already canceled trips to the United States. You might do so, too.
Last week, the US president threatened a 200% tariff on European wine and alcohol after calling the European Union “one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World”.
Why reward this bellicose rhetoric? Many Europeans are already skipping trips to Disney World and music festivals.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/18/us-trump-boycott
"If art is the establishing or breaking of aesthetic rules, then AI art, as practiced by the right, says that there are no rules but the naked exercise of power by an in-group over an out-group. It says that the only way to enjoy art is in knowing that it is hurting somebody. That hurt can be direct, targeted at a particular group (like Britain First’s AI propaganda), or it can be directed at art itself, and by extension, anybody who thinks that art can have any kind of value. It can often be playful – in the way that the cruel children of literary cliché play at pulling the wings off flies – and ironised; Musk’s Nazi salute partook of a tradition of ironic-not-ironic appropriation of fascist iconography that winds its way through 4Chan (Musk’s touchpoint) and back into the countercultural far right of the 20th century."
https://newsocialist.org.uk/transmissions/ai-the-new-aesthetics-of-fascism/
From Chris Ingraham
@cingraham.bsky.social
NEW: Minnesota Republican state Senator Justin Eichorn, co-author of the "Trump Derangement Syndrome" bill that just made headlines, was arrested yesterday in Bloomington for allegedly soliciting sex with a 16-year-old girl.
“It’s not a revolution; it is a nightmare of twisted monopolistic privatisation and the idiotic inefficiency that comes alongside that.”
Written about SpaceX’s Starship but could have easily been written about capitalism in general.
#ElonMusk #fascist #piece #of #shit #SpaceX #USA #fascism #capitalism https://wandering.shop/@CliftonR/114171068887376852
“I don't care what the judges think. I don't care what the Left thinks. We're coming”
– No, not some historic Nazi, just White House border czar Tom Homan
https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/Politics/live-updates/donald-trump-second-term-119864095
Via @Bssr4
"People are fleeing Austin, #Texas in droves. The city lost -13,500 ppl to outbound migration in 2024.
The biggest drop the city has ever experienced.
This outmigration has now caused Austin's #housing market to collapse. With home prices down 19.5% over the last two+ years.
Some of these ppl leaving Austin head to the suburbs like Williamson & Hays County, others are going back to CA & NY."
-N Gerli
It's hell living in TX -many ppl are fleeing the fascist state.
#Fascism #RedStates #USPol
"We're not stopping. I don't care what the judges think. I don't care what the left thinks. We're coming."
~ ICE Director Tom Homan
#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #ICE #Homan #courts #RuleofLaw #SupremeCourt #JohnRoberts #PresidentialImmunity
/6
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3lklgjbbqio2w
"The Rule of Law, a centuries-old institution believed by some experts to be necessary for the functioning of democracy, was reportedly in critical condition at a Washington, DC hospital today, having been found bleeding and semi-conscious in a back alley behind the White House."
~ Lewis Grossberger
#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #courts #RuleofLaw #SupremeCourt #JohnRoberts #PresidentialImmunity
/6
https://grossbergerbulletin.substack.com/p/rule-of-law-spotted-in-er-on-life
"Trump will contend that anyone acting on his orders is protected by his presidential immunity, and if any court, including the Supreme Court, says otherwise, Trump will pardon anyone who is found to have broken the law or is declared in contempt of court. In an authoritarian state, contempt for the law comes down from the top, and that is exactly where we find ourselves today."
#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #courts #RuleofLaw #SupremeCourt #JohnRoberts #PresidentialImmunity
/5
"It is apparent that Trump plans to take the position that the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity allows him to do anything he wants so long as it is an official presidential act."
#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #courts #RuleofLaw #SupremeCourt #JohnRoberts #PresidentialImmunity
/4
"We have arrived at a place that I think it's safe to say the founders never contemplated. Donald Trump has crafted for himself a form of absolute rule by twisting the rule of law the founders thought they were writing into the Constitution."
~ Lucian K. Truscott
#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #courts #RuleofLaw #SupremeCourt #JohnRoberts #PresidentialImmunity
/3
https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/how-trump-plans-to-get-away-with
"Trump and Musk are treating judges as if they have no right to constrain them. Yet that’s precisely what judges are supposed to do if they find that the executive branch has exceeded its authority.
Trump’s message this morning is chilling evidence that Trump and Musk want to intimidate judges into backing their wanton destruction of the United States government."
~ Robert Reich
#Trump #fascism #authoritarianism #courts #RuleofLaw
/2
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trumps-further-descent-into-dictatorship
"Our federal courts form the last guardrail against autocratic rule in the U.S. And the Trump administration hates that about them. ...
Over the weekend, the White House crossed the line and defied direct court orders, no matter what it claims now and no matter how it tries to spin it."
~ Jay Kuo
I posted this Jan 3rd and I'm absolutely gob-smacked at how many people rush out to snitch (or simply comply, even OVERcomply)...
But I also see all you people out there forming alert networks to keep your neighbors safe, I see you running the Nazis out of your bar, I see you standing up and saying FUCK YOU, MAKE ME.
Well done. Keep going. https://brightgreenfutures.substack.com/p/fight-fascism-dont-be-a-snitch
The study of #folklore is very useful for understanding how popular narratives develop and spread.
And popular narratives are at the center of the modern #CultureWars . The technology is different, but the fundamentals are still similar.
All of the above then brings us to last night, when Trump attempted to declare all of former US president Joe Biden's outgoing pardons "void" based on the purported use of an autopen, and treating longstanding winger conspiracy arguments about why certain presidential orders signed by Democrats (and seemingly *only* Democrats) aren't legal because using said autopen means the president didn't officially sign them into law; a nonsensical theory that has no legitimate basis in law, and owes more to schoolyard games of Simon Says than any sort of official rule or policy.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/17/trump-biden-pardons-void
Trump makes unsupported claim Biden pardons are ‘void’ as he used autopen
"Trump made his claim in a post to his social media platform that used his abusive nicknames for Biden and members of the House January 6 committee, writing: “The ‘Pardons; that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen.
“In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!”
I'll be honest in saying that I don't think this is a great article by The Guardian because it spends way too much time proving that Trump's autopen argument is "wrong," and that there is nothing abnormal about the president automatically producing his or her signature as part of their official duties. After all, being wrong about the law has done little to stop Trump's fascist agenda so far, and given that this is a conspiracy argument that has repeatedly been deployed by the ultra-right reactionary "fringe" of the larger Republican coalition against former US president (and Democrat) Barack Obama, a simple one paragraph debunking and a greater focus on why this conspiracy argument has resurfaced now that this same ultra-right reactionary "fringe" has become the dominant force in GOP politics, would likely have been more productive. Furthermore, the Guardian repeatedly frames this as a "claim" by Trump, when Downmarket Mussolini's Truth Social post at least, clearly indicates that the president is trying to void Biden's pardons by fiat, over social media, in a very direct sense. Legally speaking Trump doesn't have the power to do that just because he's president, and social media posts aren't legal edicts, but that just brings us back to the fact that Trump being wrong about the law and trying to rewrite it via public proclamations against his enemies, hasn't really stopped him from turning his animosities into official policies so far during his second term in office.
Given Trump's own words as reprinted here however, it is abundantly clear that he's pursuing the autopen argument to allow himself to target members of the January 6th Committee that investigated his 2021 coup attempt, which in turn ties into both Downmarket Mussolini's quest to punish officials that brought accusations or charges against him, and his efforts to seize control of the Justice Department and use it as an instrument of authoritarian vengeance for those (completely legal) activities. Here too we find the previous pattern by which the regime turns unreality into official action occurring once again; the Heritage Foundation, the same fundie fascist thinktank that wrote the Project 2025 document we can now confirm lies at the heart of Trump's fundie fascist agenda, produces a report attacking the validity of Biden's pardons and pushing the autopen conspiracy argument, Trump then immediately repeats those claims to reporters on Air Force One before saying the courts will have to decide but he thinks the pardons are "null and void," and then early the very next morning Trump attempts to literally void the pardons via fiat in a Truth Social post with no mention of courts whatsoever. At this point, all we're waiting for is the larger Trump regime to begin acting as if Der Führer's ranty argument has the force of law and the unreality cycle of transformational autocracy is complete.
Can president Trump actually get away with this scheme? I don't have the slightest idea, but the aggressiveness with which he's pushing the autopen argument, and the speed with which his larger political movement as already laid the groundwork to give it a go, strongly suggests that Trump isn't just ranting and he means to actually turn this aggrieved conspiracy bullshit into a very real attempt to persecute and neutralize his political enemies through the force of law.
LAST DAY for public comments on anti-trans passport rules
Today (Monday) is the LAST DAY to public-commentc-protest Trump/Musk anti-trans passport rules.
You’ve got ’til 9PM CASCADIAN/PACIFIC or Midnight EASTERN time to make public comments against Musk and Trump’s hate.
There are THREE open public comment sections. If you use the ACLU’s site, it’ll cover all three. But if you want to do it directly, you can. Just do it all three places.
Here’s the ACLU’s comment relay site. It also links directly to the individual comments sections.
(she/her) 
