Offensive Bak

12 23 capt bak

1/17

aha: you need sci suppress, press suppress to hide harm of dereg; all offense are ANTI-TRANSPARENCY/ DEMOCRACY

"idiota" in gk someone too stupid to understand commonality/ relationship

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SEE ACADEMIC SUPPRESSION / STUDENT SUPPRESSION

SEE VOTER SUPPRESSION

SEE LEGAL SUPPRESSION [SLAPP, RICO]

SEE ACTIVIST SUPPRESSION

SEE EDUC SUPPRESSION CRT BS etc

SEE SCIENCE SUPPRESSION

SEE PRESS SUPPRESSION

union suppression

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aha 12 23

was powell level playing field ever legit true? when why was line crossed? see crypto

suppression is often about reputational damage, deprive actor of agency/voice

evil b/c it is often about using/twisting the rules of a domain or laws to reduce power of opponents

do we need a new category = DEFENSIVE? NOTE RIGHT JIU JISTSU CANCEL CULTURE AND CO-OPT DEFANG “FAKE NEWS” NOTE ATTACK ON ALL DISINFO AGY/ORGS preemptive? defense from defense?

ACADEMIC/ STUDENT SUPPRESSION BUILT ON PINKO PROF FOUNDATIONAL MYTH AND STRICK fR. desantis takes lead/furthest takeover of college, threaten teachers/librarians refuse to clarify rules b/c can’t be done legitimately because the bnogeyman is not real, plus it takes work, plus vague generates useful fear?

ACTIVIST SUPPRESSION: INGREDIENTS: LIBERAL MEDIA MYTH; PAID PROTESTORS LOWEST MOTIVE greenpeace and scientists make & on climate? kids so strict fr again; foundational myth Commies eg Green New Deal

voter suppression of kids so strict fr again , ppl of color NOT REAL AMERICANS gaining demographically, boosted by Dem import Great Replacement.

Legal suppression just about power imbalance (and maybe ctr attack as CRM and greens used law to good effect (indeed for Big Green FOUR so successsful it became primary strategy?). // bribery converts $ into laws, legal suppression stops activists from going/filming animal agriculture but fear of bankrupty RICO greenpeace CBS tobacco Corps; SLAPP contaminated eggs? tort reform liberal ambulance chasers collective lawduit (climate , class action lawsuit good for racism/ sexism and bad products when did that stop, Walmart beat women time ran out?)

Union suppression: right to work, collective esp worker organize = commie (contract is sacred, real men stand up alone individually atomistic thatcher no society); greedy lazy workers need strict FR CEO to tell them what to do and make them productive.

Judicial suppression: new/ provisional) Horner NotEPA has no wins? significant delay? of?

Foundational myths: liberal media and profs brainwash (both commies?) which explains why our ideas are not popular/accepted/law

strict father is also foundational/baked in? we old white men who have power deserve to have it, and crucial that we maintain our power (by any means necessary) because the alternative is catastrope: commie takeover...welfare state where lazy young POC will not work...regulation will strangle economy nanny state green police

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NO LNX

Only one thing is going to stand in Trump's way — and he knows it

Thom Hartmann April 28, 2025

It didn’t happen in some shadowy back alley or under the cover of night.

It happened in broad daylight — in the heart of an American courthouse.

Federal agents, acting without even the decency of a signed warrant, stormed into Judge Hannah Dugan’s courtroom on Friday morning and dragged her away like a common criminal. No warning. No legal process. No respect for the law she had spent a lifetime upholding.

But they made sure the cameras were there, so America could see what they were doing. Because this was not about justice. This was about terror.

This was a warning shot aimed directly at the beating heart of America’s judiciary:

“Fall in line — or you’re next.”

In that moment, the world’s oldest democracy lurched closer to the edge of authoritarian rule. In that moment, America became a little less free — and a lot more like the nightmare Vladimir Putin always hoped we’d become.

The FBI arrested Judge Hannah Dugan last Friday without even having a legal arrest warrant; this is as outrageous and police-state illegal as an administration can get.

And Pam Bondi’s performance Friday — after her federal agents swarm-raided this county judge — wasn’t staged for the general public.

The real audience was a very small, select group: America’s judges.

Their message is very simple: “P--- us off, judges, and you could end up in prison, too.”

Trump has already pacified the Article I branch of government — Congress — and now he’s in the process of pacifying the Article III branch, the Judiciary.

There are only 3 branches to our government: cowing both Congress and the nation’s Judiciary will leave only the president in charge of the entire country under all circumstances in all ways.

Nothing and nobody else will be able to stop him, short of a military coup (and he’s already decapitated the senior leadership of the military) or unending demonstrations in the streets (demonstrators who may soon face live ammunition).

That is called dictatorship. Real dictatorship. Vladimir Putin-style dictatorship where you are punished for the smallest deviation from orthodoxy and can find yourself in prison or sued into bankruptcy if you dare speak out in public.

It appears more and more every day that Putin is Trump’s mentor, if not his handler. Trump is doing everything he can, with help from a South African billionaire, to destroy the historic American infrastructure (which has been an example for the world for 250 years) and turn us into the newest member of the dictators club, joining Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Hungary, North Korea, and the rest of the fascist and authoritarian world.

To get there, now that they’ve pacified every single Republican member of Congress (most recently, Don Bacon criticized Trump’s schizophrenic tariffs; a day later he started talking about retiring), they only have to seize control of the Judiciary, and then nothing except We The People will stand in their way.

Nothing. Will. Stand. In. Trump’s. Way. Except We The People. And he knows it.

Look at the striking parallels between Putin’s strategies and Trump’s actions:

From installing Trump’s loyalists in the military and the federal police agencies of the Department of Justice and FBI, to his open threats against freedom of the press, to the GOP’s efforts to rig elections and purge voters, Trump’s subversion of US democracy looks eerily familiar.

He’s taking pages directly from the autocrat’s handbook.

Trump has openly quoted and praised autocrats like Putin and Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán, who has presented his leadership in speeches to the GOP and CPAC as a model of an “illiberal” state.

Trump’s not hiding his admiration for dictators; he’s flaunting it. And now he’s putting the final stages of their script into action.

Trump’s movement toward authoritarianism follows “a known playbook. It’s unfolded in many other countries,” as journalist Anne Applebaum notes. “These are democratically elected leaders who characterize themselves or describe themselves as deserving of no opposition. So I am the true Hungarian, or I am the only real American.”

In a mere matter of weeks into his presidency, Applebaum says, Trump and his allies “have managed to push America into that space somewhere between (no longer) democracy and full-scale autocracy.”

The speed is shocking, but it shouldn’t be surprising. It only took Hitler 53 days to completely end democracy in Germany. Others, like Lukashenko, Orbán, Putin, Mussolini, Duterte, El-Sisi, and Erdoğan took longer (none longer than two years), but you could argue that Trump has been working at this project for 9 years now.

Harvard professor Steven Levitsky, who studies how democracies slip into authoritarianism, warns that we’re heading toward what experts call “competitive authoritarianism”: regimes that “constitutionally continue to be democracies” with regular elections and legal opposition, but where “systematic abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition.”

Make no mistake about what’s happening: Trump and his allies are methodically working through a four-step process to establish complete autocratic control, which will turn America into a one-man dictatorship.

Terrorize Congress: Trump’s already largely succeeded here. Republican lawmakers now march in lockstep with his agenda, afraid to oppose him even when their consciences scream otherwise. The V-Dem Institute already warns that Trump’s actions are “extremely worrying” for American democracy.

Terrorize the Media: Trump has, as The Washington Post writes, “relentlessly attacked the free press, another pillar that allows democracies to stand above authoritarian regimes,” as political scientists have noted. “He has echoed the worst dictators in history, calling journalists the ‘enemy of the people.’” With help from Elon Musk and other billionaires, he’s creating a media and social media environment where truth itself is under assault. And last week his administration threatened to arrest journalists and charge them with treason, an offense for which they could be executed.

Terrorize Judges and Lawyers: What we witnessed Friday with the raid on a county judge and the arrest of a retired judge earlier in the week is just the beginning. The final step in this process will be intimidating the Supreme Court, and if Trump’s minions can first terrorize the entire federal judiciary, it will be much easier to terrorize members of the Court itself, just like Putin and Orbán have done. This follows dangerous cracks in democracy’s pillars that experts have been warning about.

Terrorize Citizens: Once the above institutions are captured and there’s no more Constitutional opposition to Trump, the final phase begins: crushing individual dissent through fear, persecution, and potentially violence. This is the playbook Malcolm Nance detailed in his work analyzing Putin’s strategies to undermine American democracy and has already started against immigrants and student visa holders. If history tells us anything, American citizens will be next.

Most of this is already in place; time is running out fast.

Trump and his fellow fascists know their time is running out because elections are coming in a handful of months and their popularity is already crashing. They are at maximum power right now, and it is already beginning to decline.

This is another reason why they are pushing so hard to frighten judges, so they can implement the final destruction of any Constitutionally-based opposition to Trump’s one-man rule.

If Trump can consolidate authoritarian rule as quickly as some other historical dictators did, the complete (albeit hopefully temporary) end of American democracy could happen very rapidly, possibly even in the next few weeks or months. The window for action is closing fast.

But there’s still hope, because we’re still We The People. As long as our protest movement continues to grow and demand a stop to the damage Trump and Musk are doing to our democratic republic, we may be able to slow or even stop this anti-American cabal and reclaim our republic.

Our protesting in the streets and reaching out to legislators may encourage resistance within the media and courts, and might even inspire a handful of Republicans to stand against this wannabe dictator.

When democratic institutions fail, the last line of defense has always been citizens willing to take to the streets. Ukraine provides the most powerful recent example of how a determined populace can rescue democracy from Russian-inspired authoritarianism.

During Ukraine’s Euromaidan protests in 2014, over half a million people joined demonstrations in Kyiv to defend democracy against creeping authoritarianism. Those protests ultimately ended Viktor Yanukovych’s Russia-backed puppet regime (and kicked out its Russian-funded American advisor, Paul Manafort, who later became Trump’s 2016 campaign manager) and became known as the Revolution of Dignity.

Ukrainians stood firm in the streets despite violence and intimidation, and their courage changed history.

Ukraine’s later Orange Revolution similarly empowered ordinary citizens to engage in mass protests, with some lasting continously more than two weeks. This peaceful revolution successfully defended Ukraine’s democratic aspirations against Russian influence and showed the world that people power can overcome autocratic manipulation.

Putin fears democracy, particularly at his doorstep like in Ukraine and the Baltic states. He knows that democracy is contagious, and any spread near Russia, he believes, poses an existential threat to his autocratic rule. That’s why he invaded Ukraine, and that’s why he spent millions on social media trolls to support Trump’s election and his assault on our democratic institutions.

As Ukrainian historian Hanna Perekhoda warns, “If we let Russian authoritarians win, it will mean that the authoritarian forces also in our countries, in the U.S., for example, will grow stronger.”

If this assault on the Courts (and the implied intimidation of all judges including those on the Supreme Court) succeeds, and the media continues to bow down, the only thing left will be us in the streets.

The time for half-measures, “very strong letters,” and polite political disagreement has passed. We are watching in real-time as our 250-year experiment in democracy is being dismantled by a would-be dictator taking his cues from — or, at least, modeling his presidency on — Vladimir Putin.

This is not hyperbole. This is not partisan exaggeration. This is the stark reality facing our nation today. Fascism and dictatorship are at our doorstep.

Just last week, it was reported that Trump has now deported three American citizens, including a child taking cancer therapy.

Not content to just pull student visas and ask them to leave the country, Trump’s goons have been imprisoning students for writing OpEd articles for weeks. And now they’re show-arresting judges.

The arrest of Judge Dugan is not an isolated incident; it’s part a broader strategy to intimidate the judiciary and consolidate power.

When judges are arrested for upholding the principles of due process, the very foundation of democracy is at risk. This moment demands vigilance and action from all who value the rule of law.

The preservation of our democratic institutions depends on our collective response to such unprecedented challenges.

Buckle up, America. Democracy itself is on the line, and if the courts fall, we’ll be its last defenders.

NOW READ: Behind the 60-year Republican plot to destroy American democracy

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yikes trump = offense = fascism

AN 12 23 thom 3

if Trump is re-elected, he’d be America’s 47th president, so he’s named the plans for his second term “Agenda 47.” At best, it’s a dystopian nightmare: at worst it means ending our current system of American government; aligning the US with Russia and other autocratic nations; and the USA leading the charge against democracy and in favor of authoritarian, strong-man forms of government across the world.

Over at his website, Trump lays out the details of his governing agenda, complete with short videos promoting each of the steps he plans to take. They, and his many statements about future plans, include:

Part of Agenda 47, Trump says, is “finishing the job” he started as president between 2017 and 2021.

Just two hours after he and Pence were sworn into office, they removed all mention of LGBTQ+ issues from the White House website.

Two days later, his State Department deleted former Secretary of State John Kerry’s apology to the nation for the “Lavender Scare” government persecution of gays and lesbians during the McCarthy era 1950s and early 1960s. A month later, Trump’s Justice Department announced they’d no longer defend the civil rights of trans kids.

His Education and HUD offices both withdrew their court defenses of queer people, particularly students and those in homeless shelters, and his Secretary of State refused to mention to the Russian Foreign Minister the detention and brutal executions of gay men by Russian soldiers in Chechnya. On May 4, 2017 Trump signed an executive order letting the DOJ ignore claims of illegal discrimination against queer people and women throughout every single one of the nation’s federal agencies.

In September, 2017, Trump’s Secretary of Education, billionaire Betsy DeVos, officially ended that agency’s Title IX guidance requiring schools to do something about sexual harassment, including sexual violence, against women and LGBTQ+ kids. In response to a question from the media about the change in policy and gay men, Trump said that his Vice President “wants to hang them all.”

In January of 2018, Trump rolled out the “Division of Conscience and Religious Freedom” at HHS, which would backstop people who wanted to use the excuse of “deeply held religious beliefs” to justify explicit discrimination against queer people and women, or to simply to make life difficult for government agencies.

All of this is just the beginning. The Human Rights Campaign has documented page after page of anti-queer policies put into effect by Trump that will be resurrected and put on steroids in a second term.

In the Agenda 47 section of his website, Trump explains how he’s going to use our schools and colleges to indoctrinate young Americans in rightwing ideology. He explicitly says:

“When I return to the White House, I will fire the radical Left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist Maniacs and lunatics. We will then accept applications for new accreditors who will impose real standards on colleges once again and once and for all.”

Any colleges that continue to teach “under the guise of [racial] equity will not only have their endowment taxed, but through budget reconciliation, I will advance a measure to have them fined up to the entire amount of their endowment.”

In other words, just like Viktor Orbán did in Hungary and Putin did in Russia, he’s going to bankrupt the nation’s schools and colleges if they continue to teach the true history of America and promote egalitarian values. As Trump notes at his website:

“[W]e are going to get this anti-American insanity out of our institutions once and for all.”

Back in the 1970s, Richard Nixon said he was going to use “impoundment” to strip funding from agencies his donors didn’t like, claiming that, even though Congress had appropriated budgets for them, he could, as head of the Executive Branch, simply “impound” the money and refuse to spend it. His plan to remake the federal government was interrupted by Watergate.

In 1974, Democrats in Congress got together and passed legislation outlawing this and Jerry Ford signed it into law. But Trump’s lawyers apparently think they can get it overturned through their appointees on the courts or even, if they can take both branches of Congress, through new legislation. As Trump says on his website:

“I will use the president’s long-recognized Impoundment Power to squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for massive savings.”

Since the fossil fuel companies, banks, refineries, anti-union big employers, and their billionaires who fund the GOP hate all of these agencies, it’ll be a bonanza for them.

Not so much for working people, retirees, and those of us concerned about a livable future environment for our kids and grandkids, though.

First, he wants to make it illegal for the federal government’s security services to notify social media platforms about Russian disinformation and other foreign efforts to swing elections, since nearly 100% of those efforts are coming from authoritarian countries in support of Trump and against democracy.

“I will ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as “mis-” or “dis-information,” Trump proclaims on his Agenda 47 website.

He also wants to force social media to carry his buddy Putin’s trolls’ lies and attempts to pit Americans against each other, and limit the companies’ ability to label or block lies and propaganda. As Trump puts it:

“I will ask Congress to send a bill to my desk revising Section 230 to get big online platforms out of censorship business.”

In Hungary, one way Viktor Orbán got rid of actual news media and replaced the ownership of all the nation’s major radio and TV networks, websites, and newspapers was by changing the libel laws so that public figures (like Orbán himself) could sue for libel when they thought they were treated unfairly.

They then sued company after company, commentator after commentator, reporter after reporter, into bankruptcy.

Orbán’s rightwing buddies could buy the media properties out of bankruptcy which is why now virtually all the media in Hungary is like Fox “News,” broadcasting suck-ups to Orbán and criticism of “liberals,” immigrants, and gays 24/7.

Trump wants to do the same here in the US.

When Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury came out with some unflattering characterizations of Trump in it, the then-president said:

“We are going to take a strong look at our country’s libel laws so that when somebody says something that is false and defamatory about someone, that person will have meaningful recourse in our courts. And if somebody says something that’s totally false and knowingly false, that the person that has been abused, defamed, libeled, will have meaningful recourse.”

Simply reporting on what Trump’s up to could bring lawsuits that would bankrupt even the Times or the Post, and, like in Hungary and Russia, pretty much end the existence of a free and independent press in America.

Trump has promised to pardon the January 6th insurrectionists who tried to murder the Vice President and Speaker of the House (and whose actions led to the death of four police officers), and put into place a national “stop and frisk” law that upends the 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

It would also — like Duterte in the Philippines who executed over 10,000 people during his reign of terror — authorize the federal government to immediately execute anybody convicted of trafficking in drugs without further due process or appeals.

Republicans in Texas have already pioneered using vigilantes to hunt down women who’ve had abortions and the people who’ve helped them. Expect these vigilante-enforced laws to spread across the country with a second Trump administration, with groups like the Proud Boys and III Percenters becoming the modern-day equivalent of the old west’s 19th century bounty hunters.

In a flashback to Hitler’s “work camps” that preceded the death camps by five years, Trump’s also proposed building concentration camps around the country to house “millions” of undocumented aliens and his political enemies. As he noted in a speech on Veterans’ Day this year:

“We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” adding that Russia isn’t a problem. Instead, he said, “the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”

Presumably that means people like me and you, who would oppose his fascist agenda.

Way back in 1881, a man named Charles Guiteau thought he’d properly bribed President James Garfield by giving the president, during an in-person visit in the White House, a speech he’d written for Garfield to use. Garfield was polite but didn’t offer Guiteau a federal speechwriter’s job, which provoked a murderous rage: shortly thereafter, Guiteau met Garfield’s train and shot him twice, killing him.

The explicit and institutionalized practice of exchanging gifts and personal loyalty for federal jobs dated back to the presidency of Andrew Jackson (1829-1837), arguably the second-most depraved president in American history behind Trump (which is probably why Trump hung his picture in the Oval Office; Jackson’s favorite nickname for himself — given him by the Cherokee he slaughtered — was “The Indian Killer”).

Jackson had elevated the practice of bribing the president — himself, at the time — to get federal jobs into an art-form: it was called the “spoils” or patronage system and was insanely corrupt. It was also, by Garfield’s presidency in 1881, routine.

After Guiteau failed to gain his “spoil” or “patronage” from Garfield and killed him, President Chester Arthur oversaw the writing and passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883.

It separated all those government jobs from the administration in power, turning federal workers from patrons of the president into permanent bureaucrats, whose first loyalty was to the nation instead of the guy who happened to be in the White House at any particular time.

It also explicitly outlawed bribing the president for a job. The goal, which it accomplished and has held for 140 years, was to end corruption in the bureaucratic branches of the federal government.

Donald Trump wants to functionally end the Civil Service system and replace the top levels of the nation’s 2.7 million federal workers with people loyal exclusively to himself.

He tried to do this in the last months of his presidency through an October 21, 2020 executive order, Schedule F, (which Biden reversed on his first day in office) that reclassified those workers out of their Civil Service jobs and into political appointee positions, doing the same work but now entirely dependent on the good will of the president to keep their jobs.

The next Republican administration will almost certainly put Schedule F back into force, reestablishing the 1829 spoils system for the federal government, and ending any possibility that people in the government will push back against Trump the way they did during his presidency.

The Department of Justice was established by President Ulysses S. Grant after the Civil War, in part to enforce federal laws protecting the rights of people who’d recently been freed from slavery.

After Richard Nixon tried to use it against his enemies (and his Attorney General, John Mitchell, went to prison for his efforts), Congress in 1978 passed the Ethics in Government Act which put a wall of separation between the DOJ and the White House.

Trump has explicitly proclaimed his intention to tear that wall down and go farther than Nixon ever imagined in using our armed investigative services for personal revenge and harassment of people he perceives as his enemies.

He wants the nation’s premiere police agencies to become his own personal enforcers, and has already said they will be hunting down “liberals,” Black Lives Matter protest participants, and Joe Biden, his family, and members of his administration.

He wants to imprison them, as well as the prosecutors and judges who have been participating in the effort to hold him to account for the crimes he committed over the past 7 years.

This politicization of law enforcement has been a first-order and primary feature of every authoritarian or totalitarian regime that’s risen to power over the past few hundred years, worldwide. It’s always one of the first things fascist leaders do when they seize power.

In an apparent attempt to portray himself as a visionary like JFK, with his promise to send men to the moon and bring them back safely, Trump is promising to build “freedom cities” in his second term. The main feature he’s discussed is that people will get around in them in “flying cars.”

While it’s being portrayed as a goofy stunt designed to make him seem like an imaginative idealist, in fact there has been a movement among rightwing billionaires for some time to create cities that they basically run as little feudal fiefdoms, the same way the morbidly rich run their companies and their football teams.

Some libertarian billionaires assert that the only reason there’s never been a successful libertarian nation in the history of the world is because true libertarianism — government doing nothing but running the police, army, and courts and everything else left to private charity and business owners — “has never been tried.”

The ”freedom cities” could be a new libertarian experiment, or they may be the 21st century version of the old “company town,” where nobody has rights or protection of the law but is subject to the whims of the local billionaire owner. A group backed by Silicon Valley billionaires has already put forward what appears to be a plan to build a new city in California that they may or may not envision running along these lines. The group has so far purchased more than 53,000 acres of land, an area larger than the entire city of Beaumont, Texas, or Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Trump is also promising that he’ll end the brutal attacks against Ukraine on “day one” by simply turning the country over to his good friend, Vladimir Putin.

For the first time since World War II, this would legitimize a nation attacking another nation simply to seize their land, resources, and people.

It would greenlight China to do the same with Taiwan, and encourage every other tinpot dictator in the world to grab nearby territory that he wants. It would encourage war, and could very easily lead to a world war.

Abandoning Ukraine like this, along with Trump’s oft-stated preference to leave or end NATO and stop support for the UN, would lead the autocracies of the world — particularly Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and North Korea — to destroy the democracies in their sphere of influence, replacing those democracies with strongman autocracies.

The democratic experiment on this planet is only 250 years old, more or less, and this would signal a return to the way the world had been ruled for the 7,000 years prior to that: by kings, popes, mullahs, strongman warlords, and the morbidly rich.

Between Agenda 47 and Project 2025, Donald Trump and the rightwing billionaires who own the GOP have big plans for this nation, regardless of which Republican takes the White House next. They’re dead serious and far more well-funded than any of the groups that fight for and advocate democracy.

If you thought it can’t happen here, I have an old Sinclair Lewis book to share with you.

Triple check your voter registration, especially if you live in a Red state where the voter purges have already begun, and make sure everybody you know is registered to vote.

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takeover of courts by judges //

fascism? legis ~ courts

3 23

https://www.alternet.org/brian-kemp-republicans/

FL desantis , GA legis law to remove DA's ?! spkr? sponsor fake elector scheme??!

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an 7 22

it not quite clear what, exactly, former President Donald Trump was doing and privately saying inside the White House during the five long, violent hours when more than 2,000 rioters invaded the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.

It’s a key timeline that the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol is set to explore on July 21, 2022 during its latest – and possibly last – public hearing.

At the heart of the issue is Trump’s precise engagement, if any, with the rioters and several fringe nationalist militia groups, including the Proud Boys, Three Percenters and Oath Keepers, that stormed the Capitol.

Amy Cooter, a senior lecturer in sociology at Vanderbilt University, embedded with militia groups, mostly in Michigan, from 2008 through 2012. Knowing who these groups are – and how they have changed over time – makes it easier to understand the Jan. 6 attacks, Cooter said.

“Fifteen years ago, people thought of these groups as being niche, crazy people. That’s not really what I saw in my fieldwork – I saw people who were just more willing to be open about their political perspectives than maybe more mainstream Republicans were at the time. It seemed to me, both then and now, that their concerns resonate with a broad swath of the population,” Cooter said in a recent interview.

We asked Cooter to explain what drives these groups and their complicated relationship with Trump and the government.

What is your understanding of how Trump is seen by these nationalist groups?

Traditionally, militia groups have been very opposed to the federal government, regardless of whether we’re talking about Democrats or Republicans. However, with Trump, they really found sort of a mouthpiece. Not all of them truly liked him, but they really want somebody who speaks out against immigration and has a nationalistic and isolationist perspective. Trump gave them a sense of legitimacy. But there didn’t seem to be too many formal connections, as far as we know.

How does leadership and hierarchy work within these groups?

Many of these groups present themselves as top-down organizations with centralized leadership and then different state-level structures. But the degree to which that is reality varies enormously, especially with the Three Percenters but also with the Oath Keepers.

There are groups that kind of fit the stereotypical top-down model that make it easy to activate them for action. There are other groups who maybe were completely oblivious to this Jan. 6 plan.

What do you mean by activate? That sounds similar to language Trump used during a presidential debate in September 2020, to “stand back and stand by.”

Militias always see themselves as prepared for action. Usually, this means they’re prepared to defend themselves and their communities in the event of a natural disaster, or some kind of invasion. But as we saw leading up to Jan. 6, some of these groups were clearly planning more than just a defensive stance.

What was Trump getting from these groups, and what were they getting from Trump?

They get from Trump this idea that someone finally represents their interests, someone finally sees the state of the nation as they do, even though not all of them completely agree with him. They see it as an opportunity to push things in the direction that they would prefer.

I don’t think it’s much of an exaggeration to say that Trump sees an opportunity for a private army from them. In 2018, he pardoned the Bundy ranchers, who were arrested for arson on federal land. Not a lot of people paid attention to this, but that was a signal to these groups that he had their back and would expect them to have his back in the future.

I think that Jan. 6 is really kind of proof of that, that he has activated people who in some cases do have military or police experience.

How have you seen these groups evolve over time, since you began researching them?

Before Trump, there had been very clear-cut tensions between different groups. That boundary has broken down substantially, and most groups have been pushed more toward an extreme than used to be true – in no small part because of how Trump and others in his administration legitimized the core fears that different groups had about being invaded.

Since Jan. 6, the groups as a whole have declined in size. Many of these people were really surprised at how Jan. 6 played out and were quite embarrassed –or they were appalled that it didn’t go far enough.

Now, many people have taken a step back even from these groups altogether. But the folks that have stuck around continue to be quite radical, and probably even more radical than they were before. Especially thinking about what is going to happen with the midterm elections, we are going to see a lot of invigoration.

Amy Cooter, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Vanderbilt University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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aha: doh press suppression (and presumably all the OFFENSIVE suppressions) damage quality and quantity of info flow, thus impedes democracy (vs corruption and fascism) ~ MODERATION

aha: wapo and NYT are papers of record, nat'l institutional memory? ~ memory hole revisionist alt fact Earth2?

apparently not Joe and Greta's fault?!:

no lnx twt

These 5 ‘deeply malevolent’ things that Trump did to hurt Ukraine must not be forgotten: journalist

Alex Henderson March 01, 2022

With Ukraine now being invaded by Russian troops on orders from President Vladimir Putin, MAGA messaging on the crisis has ranged from praising Putin to blaming President Joe Biden for the crisis. One of the most ludicrous MAGA talking points is that Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine if Trump were still president.But liberal Washington Post opinion writer Greg Sargent, in a scathing column/listicle published on March 1, stresses that the things Trump did to hurt Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky when he was president must not be forgotten.

“With the Russian invasion of Ukraine getting more horrific,” Sargent writes, “Donald Trump and his allies are frantically erasing the truth about Trump’s relations with Ukraine. Trump absurdly claims that as president, he stood strong behind Ukraine and NATO, even as his spinners comically downplay his corrupt and deeply malevolent betrayal of our ally.”

Sargent continues, “The obvious rejoinder to this spin is that Trump got impeached for withholding military aid to strong-arm Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into manufacturing propaganda to help Trump’s reelection. This came even as Zelensky pleaded for help against Russian aggression, which the world is now witnessing unfold in all its horror.”

The columnist notes that when Trump was president, he repeatedly “aligned our interests with those of Russian President Vladimir Putin and against those of Ukraine, NATO and the West.” And Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman agrees. Vindman, who testified during House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry against Trump in November 2019, told Sargent, “Trump acted against U.S. interests with the consequence of aiding Russian interests.”

Sargent goes on to list and describe five examples of Trump doing things to hurt Ukraine. Trump, Sargent recalls: (1) “spread propaganda about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election,” (2) “ousted the well-regarded U.S. ambassador to Ukraine,” Marie Yovanovitch, (3) “froze military assistance to Ukraine,” (4) “withheld a White House meeting from Zelensky,” and (5) “turned Ukraine policy over to (Rudy) Giuliani.”

“All this has important forward-looking implications, now that Trump may run for president again,” Sargent explains. “As president in 2025, he’d be stewarding relations with Russia, Ukraine and NATO, but after this war has unfolded. Right now, we’re seeing extraordinary unity among the United States and its allies as it imposes harsh sanctions on Russia and otherwise tries to dissuade Putin’s invasion. Trump would almost surely rupture that.”

Vindman, during his interview with Sargent, warned that it will be great for Putin if Trump becomes president again.

“With Trump as president in 2025,” Vindman told Sargent, “we’re quite likely looking at a world in which Russia may have achieved its objectives and folded Ukraine back into its sphere of influence.”

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AHA: HORSEMEN MAP TO 5-6 OFFENSE DID NOT WORK B/C APPLE AND ORANGES BUT DID FIND THAT EVANG XIAN HAD ALL AND MOST INTENSE FORMS OF PHOBIAS EQ SATANISM QANON

// TO ?

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[[[sessions and trump and barr are the strict fathers? explains jeff's anti-pot jihad ~ hippie clinton godless pelosi bay area?

hmm dunno if story of metaphor/schema, both?

the duty of the strict father is to instill/enforce strict discipline/control/ sacrifice vs short term childish sinful hedonism; law and order, hierachy vs those uppity AA and women hippie antifa

capitalism built on myth/story /schema of spot transaction/barter, not found in real world?

aha: trump is just apotheosis: invis hand me vs we short vs long term: $ = winner, vs losers who deserve poverty, corruption/crony capitalism is natural inevitable outcome

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// metaphor; immune sys digestive sys goes on overdrive?

aha: reduction = retaliation = transaction [extraction is just a more extreme form where other has no power] INEQUALITY

terministic screen/tunnel vision limits to small number of visible things right here and now self-ish vs larger complex system/ long term; also zero sum

long term means more entities, more events thus more complexity (tho a story can simplify/screen/ change emphasis, make a pattern (even where none exists, eg qanon) thus meaning, which then acts as term screen filter to repell conflicting/anomalous/dissonance info ); but fills vacuum need, that previously would have been filled by experts/textbooks/teachers/leaders/pastors?

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aha: reduction = retaliation = transaction

terministic screen/tunnel vision limits to small number of visible things right here and now vs larger complex system/ long term

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/americas-enemies-perceive-weakness-in-donald-trump-foreign-policy-expert-explains-how-the-president-squandered-us-exceptionalism/

no lnx audio

c de v]]]

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820

aha/yikes 5-6 kinds of suppression = fascism?!

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/how-donald-trump-has-constructed-a-legal-infrastructure-of-fascism/

the debate over whether Donald Trump is a fascist is no longer confined to a narrow segment of the far left. It is now out in the open. Even mainstream columnists like the New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg and the Washington Post’s Ishaan Tharoor and influential Democratic politicians, such as Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, have come to use the “F” word to describe our 45th commander in chief.

Although it is an emotionally loaded and often misused term, fascism is as real today as a political and cultural force, a set of core beliefs and a mode of governance as it was when Benito Mussolini founded the Italian Fascist Party in 1919 and declared himself dictator six years later.

Nor is fascism a foreign phenomenon restricted to South American banana republics or failed European states. As University of London professor Sarah Churchwell explained in a June 22 essay published in the New York Review of Books, fascism has deep roots in the United States, spanning the decades from the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s to the rise of the German-American Bund in the 1930s, the ascendance of Depression-era demagogues like Huey Long, and the election of Donald Trump in 2016.

Churchwell’s article is aptly titled, “American Fascism: It Has Happened Here.” In it, she offers a working definition of fascism, noting that fascist movements, both past and present in America and abroad, are united by “conspicuous features [that] are recognizably shared.” These include:

"[N]ostalgia for a purer, mythic, often rural past; cults of tradition and cultural regeneration; paramilitary groups; thedelegitimizing of political opponents and demonization of critics; the universalizing of some groups as authentically national, while dehumanizing all other groups; hostility to intellectualismand attacks on a free press; anti-modernism [= SCIENCE/ACADEMIA]; fetishized patriarchal masculinity; and a distressed sense of victimhoodand collective grievance. Fascist mythologies often incorporate a notion of cleansing, an exclusionary defense against racial or cultural contamination, and related eugenicist preferences for certain ‘bloodlines’ over others.”

Anyone who has studied Trump’s campaign rhetoric or watched the brutality of federal law enforcement officers deployed against protesters in Washington, D.C., and Portland, Oregon, can plainly see the features at work.

But what about the legal structures that have permitted Trumpian fascism to take hold in a nation known for its resilient democratic institutions and traditions?

Like other fascists before him, Trump’s path to power was made possible not by outright violations of the law, but by fundamental flaws in existing law, embedded in Trump’s case in the U.S. Constitution and key federal statutes that were in place long before he descended the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his initial presidential bid.

These are the loopholes and voids in American democracy that were waiting for a would-be strongman like Trump to exploit. Although there are many such loopholes, Trump has benefitted from nine in particular.

1. The Electoral College...

aha: 620 part of GOP long game is to take out dem up and comers (trending in webodec is mostly gop?]

eg (also clinton, gray davis) turnipseed jumper cables?

ivy meerpol the nation 6/20

EG: How do you think Cohn was affected by the homophobic and anti-Semitic environment of Washington, D.C.?

IM: Do you know the story of Lester Hunt? He was a senator from Wyoming. Around the time that Cohn was in Washington, Hunt was a very popular Democrat. The Republicans, including McCarthy, were always trying to figure out how to get him out of the way, because he was powerful, beloved, and very progressive. At one point, Hunt’s son was arrested for propositioning a male undercover police officer for sex, and this was discovered by McCarthy and some other senators. They confronted Hunt, saying they’d go public with this story if Hunt didn’t pull out of his race for reelection. Hunt tried to stay strong and fight back, but they threatened again, and rather than face that kind of humiliation and the humiliation of his son, Hunt committed suicide.

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suppression disables moderation

evil as perversion: fox is crytpo news that attacks the "lamestream press"; 4 sis family charitable fdns is not a charity that benefits the poor or even the common good, but increases oligarch wealth and exports the jobs and shreds the safety net.

Defund aka defeat the left

aha: unions are collective action in the workplace/economic world, but class action is collective use of courts (legalvs economic power). both are under attack, defund the left. kochs undermine democ egvoter fraud BS to deprive we the ppl of political power, trifecta game over.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/bill-moyers-its-happening-before-our-very-eyes/

At 98, historian Bernard Weisberger has seen it all. Born in 1922, he grew up watching newsreels of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler as they rose to power in Europe. He vividly remembers Mussolini posturing to crowds from his balcony in Rome, chin outthrust, right arm extended. Nor has he forgotten Der Fuehrer’s raspy voice on radio, interrupted by cheers of “Heil Hitler,” full of menace even without pictures.

Fascist bullies and threats anger Bernie, and when America went to war to confront them, he interrupted his study of history to help make history by joining the army. He yearned to be an aviator but his eyesight was too poor. So he took a special course in Japanese at Columbia University and was sent as a translator to the China-Burma-India theater where Japanese warlords were out to conquer Asia. Bernie remembers them, too.

In time, we became colleagues on a series of broadcasts about the 20th century. As we compared the leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler in an episode titled The President and the Dictator, Bernie kept reminding the team that the most cunning demagogues “are never more than a few steps from becoming dictators.” Not surprisingly, the subject came up again when Trump was elected. No, we didn’t think he was Hitler, or the Republicans Nazis, but both of us acknowledged a deep unease over the vulnerabilities of democracy, which had led to Trump’s election in the first place. Inspired by Bernie and unnerved by Trump, I decided to take a deeper look at democracy under stress and began reading what is now more than a dozen books on Europe in the 1930s. The most recent is a compelling and chilling account of Hitler’s First Hundred Days, by the historian Peter Fritzsche – a familiar story revisited by the author with fresh verve and insight.

Hitler was a master of manipulation, using propaganda, violence, intimidation, showmanship, and spectacle — and above all, fear. By demonizing “the other” – Jews, social democrats and communists – Hitler won the hearts and minds of the masses, consolidating his power, and turning Germany into a one-party Nazi state.

i had just finished the book when I received a short email from Bernie, who had been watching on television the events following the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. He wrote, “All this open talk by Trump of dominance is pretty undisguised fascism. He’s inciting chaos to set the stage for the strong man to ‘rescue’ the nation.”

There was no doubt who would be Superman riding to America’s rescue. When Trump promised to end what he called “American carnage” – a crisis of “poverty in our inner cities, rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation, crime and gangs and drugs” — he did not ask for our help. He did not ask that we put our faith in each other or in our democratic values or even in God. Donald J. Trump would be our savior, the new Messiah — because “I alone can fix it.”

Bernie’s note triggered a recollection, sending me across the room to retrieve from a file drawer an essay written two years ago in The New York Review of Books by the American legal scholar Cass Sunstein. Reviewing three new books about ordinary Germans and the Nazi regime, he concluded: “With our system of checks and balances, full-blown authoritarianism is unlikely to happen here.”

I had admired Sunstein’s work for years and found reassuring his judgment that the rule of law would check a would-be tyrant. But many found that assurance disquieting.One dissenter was Norman Ravitch, emeritus professor of history at the University of California, Riverside. Responding to Sunstein, he wrote: “The normal concern of people of all sorts with their daily lives, family, work, leisure, and so on indicates that only those in certain areas of work and life could possibly notice the slow but relentless advance of authoritarian and totalitarian policies by the government. The Nazis knew how to appeal to people who did not have the ideological concerns but only normal human concerns. They knew how to conceal their real goals and how to make passive individuals active supporters.”

So does Trump. He understands that most Americans are concerned with little more than the economy, health care and jobs. They respond positively to politicians who promise action on these priorities, whether or not they know if those promises will ever be fulfilled. Ravitch pointed out that like Hitler and like Mussolini, Trump knows how to appeal to a variety of concerns with promises that can be both attractive and contradictory. Because no population is educated enough, sensitive enough, or ethical enough to see through the deception, “the danger is very great indeed. It may in fact be one of the chief weaknesses of democracy that democracy can lead to tyranny just as well or perhaps even more than other political systems.”

Two years have passed since that exchange between scholars, and in those two years Trump has doubled down. This president is no friend of democracy.

He has declared himself above the law, preached insurrection by encouraging armed supporters to “liberate” states from the governance of duly elected officials, told police not to be “too nice” while doing their job, and gloated over the ability of the Secret Service to turn “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons” loose on demonstrators — to “come down on them hard” if they get too “frisky.

He has politicized the Department of Justice while remaking the judiciary in his image.

He has stifled investigations into his administration’s corruption, fired officials charged with holding federal agencies accountable to the public, and rewarded his donors and cronies with government contracts, subsidies, deregulations, and tax breaks.

He has maligned and mocked the disadvantaged, the disabled, and people of color.

He has sought to politicize the military, including in his entourage the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs (dressed in combat fatigues), as his orderlies unleashed chemical fumes on peaceful protesters – all so that the president could use them as stage props in a photo op, holding up a Bible in front of a historic church, just to make a dandy ad for his re-election campaign.

He has purged his own party of independent thinkers and turned it into a spineless, mindless cult while demonizing the opposition.

He has purloined religion for state and political ends.

He has desecrated the most revered symbols of Christian faith by converting them to partisan brands.

He has recruited religious zealots for jobs in his administration, rewarding with government favors the electoral loyalty of their followers.

He has relentlessly attacked mainstream media as purveyors of “fake news” and “enemies of the people” while collaborating with a sycophantic right- wing media – including the Murdoch family’s Fox News — to flood the country with lies and propaganda.

He has maneuvered the morally hollow founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, into compromising the integrity of the most powerful media giant in the country by infusing it with partisan bias.

And because truth is the foe he most fears, he has banned it from his administration and his lips.

Yes, Bernie, you are right: the man in the White House has taken all the necessary steps toward achieving the despot’s dream of dominance.

Can it happen here?

It is happening here.

Democracy in America has been a series of narrow escapes. We may be running out of luck, and no one is coming to save us. For that, we have only ourselves.

--=

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/trump-supporters-have-little-trust-in-societys-institutions-heres-why-thats-disturbing/

https://theconversation.com/trump-supporters-have-little-trust-in-societal-institutions-131113

...Donald Trump has a history of disregarding advice from experts, including diplomats, military leaders, trade experts and scientists.

Trump is not alone in his distrust. Our unpublished research shows that people who support Trump have lower trust in societal institutions, when compared with supporters of leading Democratic candidates Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.

Trust ratings

We asked 930 U.S. residents via an online survey how much they trust six institutions that are key to a working democracy.

We chose three institutions that Americans perceive as liberal – journalists, professors and scientists – and three that conservatives either traditionally support or currently control – the police, the Supreme Court and the federal government. Each institution fulfills an essential role within a democratic society, but depends on the others to function properly.

We also asked participants to report how warm or cold they felt toward Trump, Warren, Sanders and Biden on a scale from 0 to 100.

Even when we controlled for age, education, gender, ethnicity and ideology, Trump supporters had the lowest trust in the six institutions, at 3.75 out of 7 – at least 11.4% lower than anyone else we surveyed.

That means that the patterns we are seeing aren’t caused by fitting a particular demographic profile or having conservative beliefs. In fact, conservatives who do not support Trump had the highest trust in these institutions.

This suggests that there’s something about supporting Trump that shapes how much trust Americans have in the country’s core social and political institutions.

When we looked at each institution individually, we found that Trump supporters had significantly lower trust in journalists, professors and scientists – the more stereotypically liberal institutions – than supporters of the Democratic candidates.

[graf]

But the reverse was not true. Democratic candidate supporters trusted the police, the Supreme Court and the federal government as much as Trump supporters. The one exception was Biden supporters, who actually trusted the Supreme Court significantly more than Trump supporters did. A tower of trust

Although our sample was not representative of the U.S. population, we think that these findings provide valuable insight into the state of U.S. democracy.

We don’t yet know which comes first. Does being a Trump supporter lead to lower trust in societal institutions, does having lower trust in these institutions lead people to support Trump, or do both play a role?

If being a Trump supporter leads to low trust, this could be a result of Trump’s influence, given his apparent distrust in expert advice. If people who have low trust in these institutions are attracted to supporting Trump, then this is cause for concern, considering that previous research shows that politicians are more responsive to their supporters than they are to the general public.

Politicians have the trust of their supporters, and those supporters generally trust some institutions as well. That gives those institutions power to hold the politicians accountable. If the supporters don’t trust in institutions, they have less power to enforce accountability.

Research has shown that institutions are most efficient and effective when people trust them.

The interdependent nature of institutions means that if one becomes ineffective, the others will be affected as well. For example, if citizens lose trust in journalists, journalists will not be able to keep citizens informed. If citizens are ill-informed, they may not make the best decisions when voting or lobbying their democratic representatives, which in turn may decrease the effectiveness of the government.

Like a stack of Jenga blocks, each institution that is removed makes the whole stack less stable.

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AHA! THE SOLUTION IS TO RESTORE THE COMMONS

AHA: REDUCTIONISM KILLS/ ENSLAVES/ EXTRACTS

VS SYSTEMS HEAL, CONNECT, FREE

I/THOU VS I/IT

triggered by

wicked smart henry g

https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/our-culture-of-ignorance-has-made-possible-the-rise-of-a-terrible-new-political-blend-neoliberal-fascism/

The ghosts of a fascist past are with us once again resurrecting the discourses of hatred, exclusion and ultra-nationalism in countries such as the United States, Hungary, Brazil, Poland, Turkey and the Philippines. In addition, right-wing extremist parties are on the move politically in Spain, Italy, Denmark, Sweden and Germany. The designers of a new breed of fascism increasingly dominate major political formations and other commanding political and economic institutions across the globe.They have infused a fascist ideology with new energy through a right-wing populism that constructs the nation through a series of racist and nativist exclusions, all the while feeding off the chaos produced by neoliberalism.

Their nightmarish reign of misery, violence and disposability is legitimated, in part, in their control of a diverse number of cultural apparatuses that produce a vast machinery of manufactured consent. This reactionary educational formation includes the mainstream broadcast media, digital platforms, the Internet and print culture, all of which participate in an ongoing spectacle of violence, the aestheticization of politics, the legitimation of opinions over facts, and an embrace of a culture of ignorance. Under the reign of this normalized architecture of neoliberal ideology, literacy is now regarded with disdain, words are reduced to data, and science is confused with pseudo-science. Chris Hedges is right to argue that both the rule of law and the institutions that make democracy possible are being undermined.He is worth quoting at length:

The mechanisms that once made democracy possible have withered and died. We no longer have elections free of corporate control; real legislative debate; an independent press rooted in verifiable fact that lifts up the voices and concerns of the citizens rather than peddling conspiracy theories such as “Russiagate” or cheerleading for disastrous military interventions and occupations; academic institutions that vigorously examine and critique the nature of power; or diplomacy, negotiation, détente and compromise.Puffed up by self-importance, intoxicated by the ability to wield police and military power, despots and their grotesque courtiers are freed with the collapse of the rule of law to carry out endless vendettas against enemies real and imagined until their own paranoia and fear define the lives of those they subjugate. This is where we have come, not because of Trump, who is the grotesque product of our failed democracy, but because the institutions that were designed to prevent tyranny no longer function.

Ignorance has lost its innocence and is no longer synonymous with the absence of knowledge. It has become malicious in its refusal to know, to disdain criticism, and render invisible important social issues that lie on the side of social and economic justice. James Baldwin was certainly right in issuing the stern warning in “No Name in the Street” that “Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”

...

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theory hardball vs beanball

https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/how-republican-dirty-tricks-got-even-dirtier-the-gop-has-played-dirty-for-years-in-the-trump-era-theyve-pushed-even-further/

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aha, not sure how big a factor, but alt rt thug swarm death/rape threat, sci, press and academic suppress:

https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060094801

One scientist was called Climate Barbie.

Another was described as an "ugly fake scientist." A third had an erect penis drawn on her car window while she was in the field researching sea-level rise.

Such is the life of many female climate scientists in 2018.

All researchers face the risk of being criticized when speaking publicly about their findings. But women in the field describe being attacked based on their gender. They've endured insults, sexual taunts and degrading comments about their professional acumen. Most of their harassers use social media, email and the phone for their attacks. But there's a fear that it could become physical.

Threats of death, rape and other forms of violence have left a number of researchers feeling concerned for their safety. They worry about opening envelopes with handwritten addresses and answering phone calls from unfamiliar numbers. Anonymous emails that try to entice a response cause agitation.

"We get this additional layer of hate mail, and people, I think, find it easier to put us down because we are women, or feel like they have more right in telling us what is right or wrong despite our expertise, which is always frustrating," said Andrea Dutton, a geologist at the University of Florida and an expert on sea-level rise.

Dutton said she often hesitates to answer the phone after she's quoted in the media. The feeling can last for days, prompted by harassing attacks in the past from unfamiliar numbers.

One prominent researcher who has spoken about being harassed asked not to be quoted in this article. She worries it would trigger a new wave of trolling. Her concern goes beyond online attacks and hateful phone calls. She's worried for her safety.

The attacks aren't new. But some scientists say the harassment they're enduring is becoming more personal, increasingly sexist and less focused on their scientific conclusions. Some suggested that it coincides with rising societal tensions over gender and race, laid bare by President Trump's political rise.

"There is a huge underlying fear of change, and that's spawned the whole 'Make America Great Again,'" said Katharine Hayhoe,director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University.

"When was America great?" she added. "Back when women were in the kitchen and others knew their place, and so because of that, the whole climate change thing, the whole idea that humans could actually interfere with the planet's climate and that fossil fuels were the way that we got great way back in the day, that's what underlies all this, and that's why there is such a mix between gender and climate denial, because it's all coming from the same perceived threat to identity, and position and power and rights."

Online harassers have called her a "sad, little mediocrity," an "ugly fake scientist" and an "old thin-looking hag." They've gone after Hayhoe for sharing her climate research and for her outreach to the evangelical Christian community.

The verbal and written attacks derive mostly from men. That's probably not a coincidence. Studies show that climate skepticism is a male-dominated perspective. Men are less likely than women to accept scientific conclusions about people being responsible for rising temperatures. And they're more likely to overestimate their knowledge of the issue.

Threats aside, some of the most frustrating attacks experienced by Hayhoe are those that denigrate her professionally. Some men talk to her like she's a "certified, Grade-A idiot," she said.

"These same men who are sending me all this stuff and telling me I know nothing, that I'm not qualified and that I'm ignorant, if I were one of the top cancer surgeons in the country, at the same level that I'm a climate scientist and they had cancer, I am sure that most but not all of them would be happy to have me operate on them. They wouldn't be challenging my credentials; they wouldn't be saying, 'I know more about natural cycles than you do.'"

Someone on Twitter called her "Climate Barbie 2.0." There were repeated hang-ups on her voicemail, something she finds particularly disturbing because she's worried the caller might be unstable. Are they angrily dialing over and over again? Other "pseudo-engagers," as Cobb calls them, have written to ask seemingly sincere questions about climate change. One of them called her "stupider than a cow" after receiving her thoughtful response.Public appearances on national television outlets, in particular, bring waves of hatred for scientists. Kim Cobb, a professor of earth and atmospheric science at Georgia Tech, recently appeared on national news programs to talk about the dangers of climate change. Now she's being called a liar over email.

Cobb said this is the reality for female scientists. She has learned to take the nastiness as an indication that her message is reaching people.

"This is a sign of your effectiveness," she said. "You have to take it that way, and when you take it that way, it can push you forward and give you the armor that you need."

Still, she has noticed a shift in the tone of her critics. After she tweeted recently about a bedtime conversation about climate change with her 11-year-old daughter, she was accused of making it up. Some questioned the existence of her daughter and told her she was guilty of child abuse.

The attacks on her motherhood are representative of the vitriol in recent years, she said. In the past, climate deniers would at least try to convince her of their findings.

Now there's mostly rage.

"I do see a shift toward a lack of substance sharing," Cobb said. "So much of the flak from the climate-denial community, I think, was in the form of trying to share graphs to show their point, trying to question you on the validity of the science. And a lot of that was very misguided, of course, but it was still pretending to be substantive, on the data, on the issues themselves. But it seems much of it today has turned completely to ad hominem attacks, these stream of emotionally laden insults with no substance whatsoever behind them, just trying to land one below the belt."

Women who research climate change aren't only facing the threat of harassment from strangers on the internet. A recent report shows that female scientists in academia are among the most at risk to face sexual harassment from their colleagues and superiors.

An analysis this year by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine highlighted high rates of workplace harassment for female researchers in sciences, engineering and medicine at universities. The report's authors noted that 58 percent of female academic faculty and staff experienced sexual harassment, making academia second only to the military (with 69 percent) in rates of workplace sexual harassment. They pointed to a number of factors that create an environment ripe for harassment, including a reliance on advisers for career advancement and a "macho" work culture.

Climate scientists do have some legal recourse against the most serious threats.

The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund is designed to protect researchers who are victims of harassment. The defense fund also directs scientists to other resources for workplace sexual harassment and offers counseling to help scientists respond to incidents that may be troubling but not illegal. The fund's executive director, Lauren Kurtz, said laws addressing online harassment are "behind the times." They tend to focus on bullying of children, not adult victims.

Reports from women since the fund was created in 2011 fall into two main categories.

Some complaints are similar to the types of harassment faced by men, but "there is a sense of a lack of cooperation on the part of the institution or difficulty raising the issue with their supervisor," Kurtz said.

There's also sexual harassment. The group received a complaint a few months ago from a climate scientist who reported "really odious rape threats" on Twitter.

Sarah Myhre, a paleoceanographer at the University of Washington, blames polarization on climate change for disproportionate threats against scientists compared with other disciplines.

"When you ask people, 'Do you believe in climate change?' what you're asking isn't 'What is your topical knowledge?' it's 'What is your tribalism?'" Myhre said. "Because it has been so hijacked in this partisan dystopic narrative, it leads to misogyny being used to discredit climate science."

One of the most visible climate scientists in the country, Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, said he sees a difference in how female colleagues are treated. Mann said he has been targeted by people who reject climate change for two decades. He has received death threats, has been mailed white powder, and was targeted by fossil fuel and conservative interest groups to be fired or imprisoned. Still, he sees an extra element of vitriol in the way women in the field are treated.

"I can tell you that there is a very large overlap between those who harbor conspiracy theories about climate science and those who express unenlightened views when it comes to matters of ethnicity and gender," Mann said. "In short, yeah — a surprisingly large number of climate deniers are misogynists. And so our female colleagues are at the receiving end of a particularly toxic brew of denialism, conspiratorial ideation and misogyny. It is most unfortunate and most disturbing."

Still, there seems to be an increasing public awareness of the harassment directed at female scientists, observers say. Those who have been harassed say they want more of their colleagues, especially men, to speak out about the problem. That's happening more and more, said Dutton, the geologist at the University of Florida.

"That's what we really need; it can't all come from us," she said. "It shouldn't have to be the victims; that's how we're really going to have change, when it's the other people calling out the bad behaviors, and I have started to see some of that.

"That's heartening."

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moderation/correction: the right to petition gov't for redress of grievances/harm is baked into OS/Const. SLAPP started as mere intimidation but Pringand C noticed that the targets were ppl/activists talking to or about the gov't (that is creating enough pressure to prompt action/regulation?]

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These five inter-relate: all having to do with citizens being able to get complete and accurate information in order to make the right decision and the ability to make that will known/enacted.

Activist Suppression: gunnoe, SHAC; Veggie Libel lowers standard of proof, gives objects[ and thus the corps that make them?] same protections as ppl; no longer malicious lying but mere negligence, so burden of proof shifted to defendant.
Press Suppression (see press supp 2 ggl doc) Greenwald, [elsewhere i do Rather, Akre, tobacco, Red Lion etc?]
Academic: Cronon (note hackademics, Nat Schol Ass, entine cry wolf? FIRE → PC] Singer discuss suit ~ Oreskes) Campus Watch, Professor Watchlist; Ward Churchill; BP demand prof email after article on Gulf Spill Woods Hole 50K pp; rw media will cherry-pick prof remark, set up of death threats; nat smokers alliance Pac Legal went after Glantz after he published whistleblower docs;
Science Suppression: overlaps with academic: University of Arizona :Hughes, Mann and Overpeck (ATI Schnare Horner)
Voter Suppression

academic suppression: pwl memo

Rebalancing three prongs:

Phase I: infiltration via STATS; two beachheads University of Chicago and GMU

Western Civilization/ heritage/ Great Books (u chic) AKA Dead White Males; trying to roll back multi-cultural incursions into the canon (worse case ethnic/community studies made illegal in AZ); rolls over into “safe spaces”?) BTW broadening the canon naturally broadens the demographic of teachers.
Economics (wonders for the free market, sometimes blended with law) Koch-ademia (incubators) Templeton, Art Pope;
Law Schools: GMU Schnare Horner E&E “legal clinic” defends polluters; Holocaust case; precursor Montana dude ranch for judges; Modern LEC RAGA

conservative legal movement that got its start in the 1970s

University of Chicago:

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