Introduced last week, Iowa's librarian criminalization bill has already made it to the House floor.
Activity tagged "extremism"
In the wake of the anti-trans legislation by the Trump Administration, Wikipedia stands as a reliable source for information on trans topics.
I will never stop covering the harm done by Trump’s anti-trans orders, but there is already so much of it. I learned in the first Trump term how to separate the personal from the professional, at least when on deadline. But once the draft is done, and edits are in the can, and I’m laying in bed at night trying to fall asleep, it all comes back to me: Do I need to plan for a quick getaway if some Trump lackey decides the loudmouth tranny journalist needs to go? How do I prevent myself from burning out again like I did during the first Trump term? How do I deal with the guilt of not being able to cover everything? These are the thoughts that haunt me when I’m not pouring myself into work or whatever movie or video game I’m playing to distract myself. ... I worry about the future of my community, but there’s no time for that now. There are too many stories to write.
A coup is underway in the United States, and we must stop pretending otherwise. The signs are unmistakable and accelerating: in just the past 48 hours, Elon Musk’s DOGE commission has seized control of Treasury payment systems and gained unauthorized access to classified USAID materials, while security officials who followed protocols were removed. Career civil servants across agencies are being systematically purged for having followed legal requirements during previous administrations. The president openly declares he won’t enforce laws he dislikes, while Congress watches in complicit silence. This isn’t happening through tanks in the streets or soldiers at government buildings—it’s occurring through the systematic dismantling of constitutional governance and its replacement with a system of personal loyalty to private interests. Those who resist are being removed, while those who enable this transformation are being rewarded with unprecedented control over government functions. The time for euphemisms and careful hedging has passed. We are watching, in real time, the conversion of constitutional democracy into something darker and more dangerous. To pretend otherwise isn’t prudence—it’s complicity.
Trump’s Project 2025 ghostwriters
Exposed PDF metadata from the Office of Personnel Management reveals that Heritage Foundation-linked Trump devotees are writing policies at federal agencies.
Elon Musk and the right’s war on Wikipedia
The world's richest man has joined a growing chorus of right-wing voices attacking Wikipedia as part of an intensifying campaign against free and open access information.
The drumbeat of legal threats signals a potentially ominous trend for journalists during Trump’s second term in office. Litigation is costly and time-consuming. Most news organizations will look to settle rather than face months—more likely years—of discovery and depositions, plus significant legal fees.
“It is both conscious and unconscious. Journalists at smaller outlets know very well that the costs for their organization to defend themselves could mean bankruptcy. Even journalists at larger outlets don’t want to burden themselves or their employees with lawsuits. It puts another layer of influence into the journalistic process,” [Anne Champion] said.
Perhaps the CJR editors decided it went without saying, but it feels worth mentioning that — if Trump’s appointments go as planned — he will have the entire judicial branch to bring to bear on journalists, not just his wacky lawyer neighbor.
The trail isn’t just a path through the woods, it’s a society organized around some of the best and most characteristically American virtues: spontaneous helpfulness, neighborly concern for a stranger, collective work for the common good. These virtues aren’t restricted to the trail, I’ve seen them all over the country. I’ve lived in Massachusetts, Maine, Virginia, Washington, D.C., San Francisco. I’ve driven across the country several times. Everywhere, people are friendly. If you need help, someone will help you. I’m sure we can all think of exceptions, but they are exceptions—we’re famous around the world for our outgoing cheerfulness and willingness to drop everything to help someone we just met. These aren’t just “small town virtues.” I’ve watched half a dozen New Yorkers, all unknown to each other, convene an impromptu colloquy on a busy sidewalk to determine the optimum route for a lost tourist to reach his destination. In Union Station in D.C. I saw an elderly woman fall and cut her face, and a dozen passengers hurrying for their own trains stop to help her. Everywhere, as individuals, this is how Americans act. In Maine, there’s a lake camp just off the trail where the owner feeds hikers every morning. For $12, he’ll make you eggs, sausage, coffee, juice, and a stack of twelve pancakes, if you can eat them all. If you can’t eat them all he’ll give you a ziplock bag to take the leftovers. If you can’t pay, or don’t want to, he’ll feed you anyway. He has a fund of money from other hikers who’ve paid extra just for this purpose, but he says it never gets any smaller. He doesn’t do this for money. He doesn’t get anything out of it but extra work, along with a little company in the morning. He had a son in the military who died, but he doesn’t like to talk about it. When you go inside the camp building you pass a huge Trump 2024 flag hanging on the wall outside. It’s tempting to imagine that the person who would feed a group of strangers every morning just because they’re camped at his doorstep and hungry is somehow different than the person who would vote for concentration camps. But they’re the same person. We’re all the same people. How can we reconcile living our lives with such openness, such abundant kindness, but governing ourselves with such fear and hate? I don’t know. It’s another clear, chilly day in America. I guess I’ll keep walking.
The enemy of control is information. Book bans (historically book burning), data purges, the wiping of websites and logs are all common acts by those who seek to re-write and overwrite a history that does not support their actions. Knowledge, history, community discourse and our recorded narratives are all critical elements to a free and participatory society.