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#partisan

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#GiftArticle

The #Trump admin has handpicked which #news #media outlets can participate in the presidential #PressPool, & on Tues it eliminated a slot reserved for reporters from independent newswires.

In the briefing room, ofcls have made room for a new cohort of more #partisan attendees, like #RightWing podcasters, who ask less-adversarial questions than traditional #journalists.…

#FourthEstate #journalism #democracy #FreePress #propaganda
nytimes.com/interactive/2025/0

The New York Times · How the Trump Administration Is Changing the White House Briefing RoomBy Ashley Wu

Powerful and sad — "... a story about America, this vast country that has the word 'united' in its name. 'E pluribus unum' – out of many, one – is the principle that formed this nation. But today, the U.S. is a divided country, completely at odds on fundamental issues. A place where the president and his supporters are in a hostile faceoff against those who did not vote for him. Where vengeance has been prioritized over cooperation."
spiegel.de/international/world
#partisan #US #UnitedStates #USpol

DER SPIEGEL · Trump's America: A Family Rent AsunderBy Julia Amalia Heyer

"Become a partisan, not partisan. The noun, not the adjective."
#JoanMastodon #TTJ

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partis

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtil,

"Still the night and full of starlight,
And the frost burned on the land;
Do you still remember how I taught you
To hold a revolver in your hand?

A girl. a sheepskin and a beret.
In her hands she holds a gun,
A girl with her face as smooth as velvet
Keeps watch of the enemy’s caravan.

An aim, a shot right on the target,
Her small pistol had reached its mark,
An auto filled high with ammunition
Her shot had stopped it in the dark.

At dawn she crept out of the woodland,
With snowy garlands in her hair.
Encouraged by her little victory
For our future freer heirs."

00:00/03:46
#ScienceUnderSiege: The Orlando Research Conference Fallout

Something alarming is happening in the #ScientificCommunity, and it’s not getting the attention it deserves. A recent #NIH-backed #neuroscience conference in #Orlando turned into a disaster. Research sessions were canceled after being mistaken for “#DEI” initiatives, and funding was pulled.

One session on the diversity of afferent firing in the cochlea (how nerve cells transmit sound) was targeted because people saw the word “#diversity” and assumed it was political. #MAGA hat-wearing attendees reportedly vandalized posters.

The nescient reaction of the MAGA hat-wearing attendees to the word “diversity”—mistaking a scientific discussion on neural firing patterns in the cochlea for a political agenda—exemplifies a dangerous blend of #ignorance and ideological rigidity. Their inability to differentiate between linguistic context and #partisan buzzwords not only disrupted legitimate research but also underscored the broader issue of anti-intellectualism undermining scientific progress.

Worse, researchers discovered their already earned funding was revoked, postdoc opportunities disappeared, and the conference felt like a #funeral for the field as careers crumbled in real time.

Meanwhile, the NIH was banned from attending due to a new administration-imposed blackout on communications and travel, delaying critical #research on #Cancer, #HeartDisease, and #Diabetes.

#Science depends on open inquiry—but now, #political interference is gutting #research. This isn’t just about one conference. It’s a direct attack on scientific progress. If we don’t stand up now, what’s next?

🔬 Science must remain free from political control.

#ScienceUnderAttack #ResearchMatters #SaveScience #FreedomOfInquiry #ScienceNotPolitics #AcademicFreedom

"These #partisan #witchhunts and #firings need to stop. Congress creates independent agencies and insulates #civilservants from partisan firings for a reason.

If this week’s actions become the new normal—and #partisanship becomes the only criteria for holding a position in a #federalagency—then our financial markets will be more volatile, our consumer products more hazardous, our skies more dangerous, and our civil liberties and constitutional rights less secure."

theguardian.com/commentisfree/

The Guardian · Trump fired me. Now it will be easier for the government to spy on AmericansBy Guardian staff reporter

On the U.S. Supreme Court
—Chief Justice John Roberts and his Republican majority have spent decades systematically dismantling the guardrails of American democracy.

Itself the product of unprecedented norm-breaking
—encouraged by a fifty-year special interest campaign designed to weaponize the judicial branch
—it is the Roberts majority that has hastened our endemic institutional collapse.

We can draw a straight line, for example,
from the Roberts Court’s 2010 #Citizens #United decision, which invalidated Congress’s bipartisan campaign finance limits on the farcical premise that independent expenditures could not be corrupting,
to the imminent shadow presidency of erratic mega-billionaire Elon Musk, Trump’s biggest outside spender. 

Citizens United set the stage for the proliferation of political nonprofits and the establishment of #Super #PACs,
giving oligarchs like Musk a megaphone loud enough to drown out ordinary voters.

The decision turbocharged Trump’s rise, allowing his allies to flood the airwaves with disinformation and propaganda,
meanwhile trapping Democrats in a system of corporate-funded campaigns that has eroded their ability to represent the working class.

Three years later, in #Shelby #County v.#Holder, John Roberts completed his career-long vision quest to dismantle the Voting Rights Act,
invalidating its preclearance requirement for states with a history of racial discrimination.

Erasing the national consensus first achieved in the bloody crucible of the Civil Rights Era
and repeatedly reaffirmed by near-unanimous bipartisan Congresses, Roberts deemed racial discrimination a relic of ancient history,
declaring that “nearly 50 years later, things have changed dramatically.”

A flood of Republican state voter suppression laws followed, funded, and orchestrated by the same interests to which Roberts owed his majority.

“Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet,”
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg warned in her searing Shelby County dissent.

But soaking us was the whole point.
The downpour continues.

Final results for the 2024 House elections were tallied recently, and Republicans will owe a razor-thin 220-215 majority to the three seats the GOP flipped thanks to the North Carolina legislature’s brazenly partisan gerrymander,
a move blessed by the Supreme Court’s Republican justices’ 2018 decision in #Rucho v. #Common #Cause.

In that case, the Roberts Court
—so power-hungry that leading legal scholars have dubbed it the “Imperial Court”
—conveniently found that #partisan #gerrymandering,
-- a practice dominated by norms-be-damned Republican state legislatures,
-- presented a “political question” that was outside their purview to resolve.

couriernewsroom.com/news/alex-

COURIERAlex Aronson and Lisa Graves: How the Roberts Court Eroded Democratic Institutions and Brought Back TrumpFrom campaign finance to immunity, the Roberts majority has accelerated democracy's decline and empowered authoritarian forces.
Continued thread

The #US govt has regularly dispatched hundreds of monitors to voting locations…, aiming to protect ballot access, discourage improper #partisan #influence & act as a moderating force on political campaigns.

While the #DOJ has the #legal right to request access to polling sites, inflamed partisanship & ideological #extremism has contributed to greater resistance to such activities in some #GOP-controlled states….

#law #ElectionLaw #Election2024 #Republican #illiberalism #Vote #HarrisWalz2024

Continued thread

"In 13 states of the 33 states with supreme court #elections, the contests are #partisan, meaning the justices on the ballot are affiliated with the #Republican or #Democratic parties. In the 20 other states, the contests are #nonpartisan — the judges have no official party affiliation (although judges who are technically nonpartisan are sometimes strongly associated with one side or the other)."
washingtonpost.com/opinions/20

The Washington Post · You’ve got my vote, your honorBy Jim Geraghty

"In the aftermath of #Hurricane #Helene, #Trump has blasted the #Biden administration for its handling of the disaster...

But a review of Trump’s record... show that the former president was flagrantly #partisan at times in response to #disasters and on at least 3 occasions hesitated to give disaster aid to areas he considered #politically hostile or ordered special treatment for pro-Trump states"
eenews.net/articles/helene-isn

Continued thread

#LizCheney said a “broad coalition” is forming to support #KamalaHarris. Appealing to people who might not see themselves as Democratic voters or even supporters of #Harris, #Cheney implores the crowd to “set aside #partisan battles to do what’s right for this country” & “reject the #depraved #cruelty of Donald #Trump.”

#Jan6 #insurrection #extremism #Authoritarianism #Autocracy #Tyranny #Project2025
#ProsecutorVFelon
#law #WeAreNotGoingBack
#freedom #democracy #HarrisWalz2024

#Trump’s #SupremeCourt Trashes #StudentDebt #Relief. The conversion of the high court into a body of #opportunistic #partisan #hacks, courtesy of Trump’s 3 appointees, needs to be a bigger issue in the election. On Wednesday students with college debts lost again, thanks to the Trump Supreme Court. The Court refused an administration request to allow one of President #Biden’s several executive efforts to reduce or suspend debt to take effect, pending a lower court review. prospect.org/blogs-and-newslet

The American Prospect · Trump’s Supreme Court Trashes Student Debt ReliefToday on TAP: The conversion of the high court into a body of opportunistic partisan hacks, courtesy of Trump’s three appointees, needs to be a bigger issue in the election.
Continued thread

On Wed #StevenCheung said the employee “initiated physical contact that was unwarranted & unnecessary.” [wrong - you were breaking the rules & the #law]

Cheung also said the #Trump #campaign would release footage to support his claim but has not. They did, however, post a TikTok of the event on Wed — exactly what #military ofcls tried to prevent. The use of the footage marked a flagrant violation of the #law against #partisan actions at #MilitaryCemeteries, #Defense said.