Category Archives: authoritarianism

AI Is Telling People What They Want to Hear?

Posted on Saturday 16 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Tom Tomorrow on “defunding the police”; The unreliability of AI, with an example of John Scalzi; An essay about how the future will be mundane; Several links on Trump’s meeting with Putin in Alaska; Slate’s handy summary of people in … Continue reading →

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No Policies, No Principles, Just “Deals”

Posted on Friday 8 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

And Threats. And Extortion. And Lies. A quote from Bertrand Russell; Trump wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize, while making wars worse and threatening countries around the world; Heather Cox Richardson on the motives behind the idea of changing … Continue reading →

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Their Make-Believe World

Posted on Wednesday 6 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Trump’s tantrum; His own version of reality; Assaulting reporting, statistics, and the historical record; Ordering an independent office to become as big a liar as he is; Every accusation is a confession; The “Russia Hoax” is whatever he says it … Continue reading →

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Undermining and Discrediting

Posted on Saturday 2 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

More about Trump’s firing of the head of Bureau of Labor Statistics, with responses at Slate, from David Brin, The Atlantic, PolitiFact, Heather Cox Richardson, and Robert Reich; How Trump is now extorting UCLA; How Trump had references to his … Continue reading →

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The Outright Denial of the Scientific Consensus About Climate Change

Posted on Wednesday 30 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Trump’s EPA now denies the worldwide scientific consensus about climate change; The history of Trump’s fake history; How Trump wins by suing institutions for absurd amounts and settling for relatively trivial amounts; How Europe took Trump for a ride; Robert … Continue reading →

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More Items from the Authoritarian Playbook

Posted on Sunday 27 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

About the conservative agenda concerning colleges, and education; Charlie Kirk thinks you don’t need college; just watch YouTube videos, especially his own online courses; Education Secretary Linda McMahon admits her political motivations for dismantling her department; Brief items about a … Continue reading →

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Now It’s Concentration Camps

Posted on Wednesday 2 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Concentration Camps, and Republican salivation to send 65 million immigrants to the alligators; Trump thinks brain scans measure IQ; American science’s brain drain; How societies maintain national myths to survive. – – – What’s next? Dungeons and shackles? Do Trump … Continue reading →

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Implications

Posted on Tuesday 1 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Do justices not foresee consequences? Heather Cox Richardson on the big beautiful bill; How JD Vance reveals the administration’s true motivations; cruelty is the thing; Jonathan Chait on Republicans’ “incomprehensibly reckless plan”; Robert Reich on conservatives’ animosity to empathy (never … Continue reading →

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Trump and MAGA’s War on California

Posted on Saturday 14 June 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

News today: Trump’s parade, No Kings demonstrations, and a dress-up cop shoots Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota; Charlie Warzel on the surfeit of information and how the right can invent via AI narratives to its advantage; Similar gaslighting about Alex Padilla; … Continue reading →

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It’s Not Even About Deportation

Posted on Friday 13 June 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

The Alex Padilla incident, and the threat to “liberate” Los Angeles from its lawfully-elected leaders; Trump always thinks protestors are paid demonstrators; why cannot he conceive that people disagree with him on principle? And bonus items! – – – Because … Continue reading →

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