Day archives: March 27th, 2025

Angelo Carusone on tracking Project 2025 and right-wing media

PBS News: “Project 2025, the conservative policy project, became a flashpoint during the presidential campaign. Angelo Carusone of Media Matters studied the 900-page document and spoke with Geoff Bennett for our series, On Democracy, where we hear a range of perspectives on how government should function, what led to this moment in American history and …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Congress, Government Documents, Health Care, Housing, Internet, Legal Research, Social Media

Internal White House document details plans to fire employees across US agencies

Washington Post – no paywall – “Federal officials are preparing for agencies to cut between 8 and 50 percent of their employees as part of a Trump administration push to shrink the federal government, according to an internal White House document obtained by The Washington Post that contains closely held draft plans for reshaping the …

Subjects: Climate Change, Economy, Education, Environmental Law, Financial System, Government Documents, Health Care, Legal Research

The Subtle Resistance of Dictionary.com

The Contrarian: “There’s something pretty interesting happening on Dictionary.com and its sister site, Thesaurus.com. Scroll down to the example usages of a given word and you’ll see what I mean. Among the example sentences for “democracy” at time of publication: “It seems this 248-year-old experiment we call American democracy may very well rest in the …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Education, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Cops Used the Shoplifting Panic to Buy Tons of New Equipment

The “crime panic” was a myth. But an analysis by The Appeal shows the narrative helped local police buy facial recognition software, drones, license plate readers, social media surveillance tech, and more. “Retail theft has dominated headlines, earnings calls, and political rhetoric for the last few years. Television news shows loop seemingly endless clips of …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, E-Records, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media

Trump Hits Smithsonian With DEI Censorship – will remove ‘improper ideology’ from such properties

Executive Order Restoring Truth and Sanity to American Histor. March 27, 2025. By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1.  Purpose and Policy.  Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Education, Government Documents, Knowledge Management

The Five Pillars Of Trumpian Repression

Via Lawfare – Benjamin Wittes has categorized the authoritarian moves by Trump so far, and they fall into similar themes as the above “autocratic legal playbook”: attack on the government’s own power to spend money; internal retributions and restructurings within government itself—most importantly, in the power agencies: DoD, FBI, and DOJ; the overt creation of …

Subjects: Censorship, Congress, Government Documents, Legal Research

Global Science in Danger

SciElo in Perspective By Jan Velterop – “Recently, the government of the United States of America (USA) has frightened the scientific community—not just in the country but globally—by censoring terms used in scientific communications and funding proposals. as well as forbidding researchers to communicate with one another, particularly with foreign scientists. A partial list of …

Subjects: Censorship, Climate Change, Education, Government Documents