Hello
Northern Action's first newsletter
After the 2025 inauguration in the U.S. we set
up camp here at northernaction.org
to provide a base out of which to publish content.
We have been serving a growing number of small resistance organizations
with their digital communications.
We are working artists with coding skills that stretch back to the early days of the internet.
Our mission is to use simple, human-readable,
non-proprietary tech tools as much as possible ::: to resist
the big-tech chokehold on our creative expression &
community conversations.
"For the master’s tool will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change."
— Audre Lorde
We live under a powerful,
trans-national era of surveillance capitalism and
our channels of communication are clogged with the resource-guzzling, generative
production of AI text (a textmageddon mush of stolen
content filtered through potent confirmation-bias, opaque
algorithms controlled by a very small group of technocrats).
Neverthless, we harness the power of old-school, open-source
tools to resist. Even if this resistance is just a performance of
possibility ::: a hope left from the early days of the
world wide web ::: that we could share accessible tools
in order to communicate with each other. This vision also runs through
small, locally-owned newspapers, radion stations &
cable television. It is vibrantly alive in zines,
posters, hand-made protest signs, street performance & funky
potluck conversations. Northern Action throws its lot in with
these efforts ::: a grassroots solidarity.
We are grateful to work within a loose collaboration with other
writers, tech workers & activist organizations. They are
an invaluable part of this work.
We aren't slick & we aren't expensive. We don't sell
data to the highest bidder. We make hand-coded websites using
old-school, community-built standards. We own the means of our production.
We are just getting started.
Political Violence
It was a hard week ...
Reflections on the Death of Charlie Kirk
"Empathy in a not so empathetic time is not a sign of weakness — but of humanity"
from Let's Address This with Qasim Rashid
"Hannah Arendt once wrote, 'The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.'
"That quote has echoed in my mind as I reflect on the assassination of Charlie Kirk. We’ve seen a disturbing cruelty take hold in our politics. I want to be clear: I extend empathy to Kirk and I pray for his family, not because of who he is, but because of who I am. I do so not because I find a single redeeming quality in his personality or character. I honestly don’t. But instead, because I care about how we move forward as a country when violence has tragically and increasingly become the norm? This is not sustainable.
"I know this is hard. We saw the cruelty of the MAGA right when MN Democratic State Senator Melissa Hortman was assassinated in a targeted attack. To this day Donald Trump never bothered to condemn that political violence or extend his sympathies.
"Why have empathy for those who show none?
"It gets even more difficult to have empathy when you recall that Kirk once sneered, 'I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up new age term, and it does a lot of damage.' Moreover he falsely claimed 'guns save lives,' and even argued it was 'worth it' for some people to die from gun violence every year just so the Second Amendment could exist. He dehumanized immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ people, Black people, Palestinians, women, and more.
"Two things can be simultaneously true. I can detest what Kirk stood for and the hatred he spread and work ferociously to counter his hate. And, I can be sure to not allow Kirk’s injustices make me act like him. I will not allow his fear of the other infect my ability to see the humanity in every person.
"My standard is justice, always, and that will never change.
Just Another Day ...
September 12, 2025
from Heather Cox Richardson
"Since a gunman murdered right-wing activist Charlie Kirk at an outdoor event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, both social media circles and the political sphere have been alight with accusations that 'the Left' was responsible for the shooting. Prominent right-wing social media accounts called the Democratic Party 'a domestic terror organization' and declared 'WAR.' Billionaire Elon Musk posted: 'The Left is the party of murder.'
"Meanwhile, it was not clear the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was up to the task of finding the killer...
"Meanwhile, David J. Bier of the Cato Institute reported that one in five FBI agents have been diverted from their jobs to conduct immigration raids with Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
"Robinson [the gunman] appears to have admired the 'Groypers,' led by Nick Fuentes, who complain that more mainstream organizations like Kirk’s Turning Point USA are not 'pro-white' enough and have publicly harassed Kirk in the past.
"Allison Gill of The Breakdown explained that the rumors the shooter had engraved anti-fascist rhetoric on some of the bullet casings found at the scene turned out to be a misunderstanding of terms from the video game Helldivers2. The claim that he had used 'transgender ideology' was apparently a misreading of the headstamp 'TRN' that marks ammunition as the product of Turkish manufacturer Turan.
"Almost as soon as Robinson was identified, the tone of MAGA leader’s conversation about the shooting changed. Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC), who had used a slur to refer to the shooter as pro-transgender, posted on social media: 'We know Charlie Kirk would want us to pray for such an evil, and lost individual like Tyler Robinson to find Jesus Christ. We will try to do the same.'
"The day of Kirk’s murder, Russia sent 19 drones into Poland—some armed and some unarmed—testing the strength of the neighboring country.
"If the U.S. is weakening ties to traditional defensive alliances, it is attempting to flex its muscles by going after alleged drug dealers with a newly dubbed 'Department of War.' On September 2, Trump announced the U.S. had struck a boat he claimed was carrying drugs to the U.S., killing 11 civilians he claimed were 'Tren de Aragua Narco terrorists.' The administration posted a video of the operation online.
"From the start, legal specialists noted that the U.S. made the strike without legal authority. Trump simply claimed the power to kill men he claimed were a danger to the U.S., advancing the argument that drug smuggling is the same thing as an imminent military attack on the U.S. and thus the laws of war are in force.
. . .
Researchers Shift Tactics To Tackle Extremism as Public Health Threat
Researchers are framing increasing extremism, and people’s lack of awareness of it, as a public health issue
from the Minnesota Post
"Last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center documented 1,371 hate and extremist groups nationwide sowing unrest through a wide range of tactics, sometimes violent. Over the last several years, the group writes, the political right has increasingly shifted toward 'an authoritarian, patriarchal Christian supremacy dedicated to eroding the value of inclusive democracy and public institutions.'
"Researchers at American University’s Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab, or PERIL, say that in online spaces, 'hate is intersectional.' (For example, Pasha Dashtgard, PERIL’s director of research, explains, platforms dedicated to male supremacy are often also decidedly antisemitic.) Seemingly innocuous discussions erupt into vitriol: The release of 'A Minecraft Movie' prompted tirades against an alleged trend toward casting Black women and nonbinary people.
"The continued escalations drove staffers at PERIL and the Southern Poverty Law Center to approach the problem from a different angle: Treat extremism as a public health problem. Community Advisory, Resource, and Education Centers are now operating in Lansing, Michigan, and Athens, Georgia, offering training, support, referrals and resources to communities affected by hate, discrimination, and supremacist ideologies and to people susceptible to radicalization, with a focus on young people.
"The team defines extremism as the belief that one’s group is in direct and bitter conflict with another of a different identity — ideology, race, gender identity or expression — fomenting an us-versus-them mentality mired in the conviction that resolution can come only through separation, domination or extermination."
Harnessing Our Power to End Political Violence (HOPE-PV)
Ordinary people have always made it clear: together, we are powerful, and political violence ends here
from
"The HOPE guide is designed to help people across the United States counter political violence. It aims to empower individuals and strengthen communities to make political violence backfire against those who incite, threaten, and enact it.
"Community responses to political violence can both support victims and impose costs on those who incite and engage in abuse. We need to stand up to those who want to silence our voices, who try to deny us our rights, and who aim to bully their way into political influence through intimidation and violence."
The 'Backfire' Model
"The goal of the 'backfire' model is to make sure that when any kind of political violence takes place, perpetrators face high costs for their actions.
- Reveal
- Redeem
- Reframe
- Redirect
- Resist
Data on Political Violence
Political violence remains rare, but leaders can help prevent tragedy by condemning hate and defending democratic values
from Strength in Numbers
"There is a puzzle at the heart of this recent violence: Most Americans reject political violence in all circumstances, especially when you measure it carefully. The few who do support violence are typically isolated, sick, and, unfortunately, in America, also have easy access to weapons manufactured for the sole purpose of murdering people.
"So if support for violence is very low, why does violence appear to be getting more common — and more severe? I’ve taken a look at the evidence from social science, and much of the answer has to do with toxic rhetoric from our political leaders. Rising level of hate and affective polarization, exacerbated by social media, also play a role."
Indivisible’s Commitment to Nonviolence
From the start, we've been committed to non-violence as a guiding principle in everything we do: our protests, our organizing, and our advocacy.
from Indivisible
"We reject all forms of political violence and intimidation, no matter the source or the target. That’s not just a moral stance—it’s a strategic one. Movements that create lasting change do so by building trust, forging solidarity, and demonstrating discipline, even in the face of threats or attacks.
"Non-violence doesn’t mean backing down. It means standing firm in our values, channeling our anger and our hope into action, and refusing to become what we’re fighting against. We are up against a movement that feeds on fear and chaos. Our answer is a movement grounded in courage, solidarity, and the unshakable belief that a better, more just democracy is worth fighting for—together.
"Non-violence is our strength
"We are firmly committed to non-violence. That’s not just a moral stance—it’s how we build durable power. We reject political violence and intimidation in all forms. Our resistance is strategic, principled, and grounded in the knowledge that peaceful movements win."
Authoritarianism & the Police State
The Supreme Court Has Always Upheld White Supremacy
Receipts show the current Court's right wing extremist rulings are not aberrations, but manifestations of SCOTUS history—and that must change
from Let's Address This with Qasim Rashid
"This week the Supreme Court issued a ghastly ruling to hasten fascism in America. On a shadow docket 6-3 opinion written by credibly accused rapist Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump's ICE fascists can use ethnicity as a ‘relevant factor’ when furnishing reasonable suspicion to detain people, specifically citing Latino ethnicity. Notably, the Supreme Court made no mention of the ~600,000 mostly white Canadian and European undocumented immigrants in the United States.
"This same Supreme Court previously stopped Affirmative Action to 'ban targeting based on race.' Yet they continued to allow legacy admissions, allow white Afrikaaner "refugees," allow over-policing of Black communities, & allow bans on Afghan refugees and South Korean workers. Apparently it is okay to target based on race to give white people an undue advantage, or to discriminate against Black and brown people, but not to ensure Black and brown people have an equal opportunity.
"Meanwhile, I keep hearing comments alleging that this Supreme Court has now dishonored a once honorable Court. The truth is actually far worse than that. This Supreme Court’s extremism is not an aberration, but a manifestation, of Supreme Court extremism throughout U.S. history. The receipts are devastating and ignored by corporate media, but it is critical we shed this collective amnesia if we hope to move forward. Should Democrats ever retake the House, Senate, and White House, expanding the Supreme Court to uphold justice is not just wise, but critical to protect our Republic from total collapse."
Trump’s Deportation Hub: Inside the ‘Black Hole’ Where Immigrants Disappear
from the Guardian
"The isolated, Ice staging facility in rural central Louisiana has emerged as a hub of the Trump administration’s deportation machine. The center, which has operated since 2014, is run by the private corrections giant Geo Group. It is considered a 'black hole', by many lawyers, advocates and former detainees interviewed by the Guardian. Living conditions are deplorable, many former detainees have alleged, and there is almost no legal access to the center.
"A four-month Guardian US investigation into the Alexandria facility has revealed a pattern of alleged due process violations, previously unreported accounts of neglect and abuse, documented health emergencies and long stays, despite the center’s intended use as a short-term detention facility. It also found that the facility adopted a temporary and unexplained change to normal medical standards earlier this year that protect detainees’ welfare. Reporters relied on court documents, public records, internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) statistics, 911 calls and interviews with 10 people either formerly detained or deported from the Alexandria facility, or those with loved ones held there."
How the US Rightwing is Taking Over News Media and Choking Press Freedom
from the Guardian
"The US right has appeared to increase its influence on mainstream media in America in recent weeks, especially in television news which has been a major target of the Donald Trump administration.
"CBS News – once home to legends of US journalism like Walter Cronkite and Edward R Murrow – installed a Trump ally as its ombudsman, weeks after the family of Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men, and a friend of the US president, sealed control over Paramount, the owner of CBS.
"Now Paramount is reportedly looking to buy Warner Bros Discovery, the media behemoth behind CNN, which would potentially bring the influential news network under the roof of an increasingly Trump-friendly conglomerate.
"At the same time a long-running family feud among Rupert Murdoch and his children was settled with a deal that will assure Fox News – and other powerful media outlets run by the family – will retain their conservative bent."
I Stand With Korean Immigrants, Not Trump
from People Power United
"34-time convicted felon Donald Trump may have been elected the President of the United States of America, but he is no leader. In fact, almost 80 percent of people who call America home did not vote for Trump (People Power United). He disgraces the United States daily by clawing to power not to serve the people but to serve himself. Trump has been emboldened by the laziest and most corrupt Republicans in Congress, men and women who have abdicated their sworn duty to represent the American people. Instead of working to secure our borders with smart policy, stop drug traffickers and smugglers, and fix labor shortages that cripple industries, Trump and Republicans have weaponized ICE and DHS against our communities—targeting especially Korean and Latino immigrants who have come here seeking freedom, dignity, and opportunity.
"The Associated Press reported bluntly: 'Atlanta immigration attorney Charles Kuck, who represents four of the detained South Korean nationals, told The Associated Press on Monday that many were doing work that is authorized under the B-1 business visitor visa program. They had planned to be in the U.S. for just a couple of weeks and 'never longer than 75 days,' he said.' (AP News) South Korea has urged our government to guarantee that these skilled workers can return later, free from re-entry bans.
"Yet Trump's DHS has doubled down, boasting of the raid as if humiliating allies and terrifying immigrants were a victory."
Brett Kavanaugh explains that SCOTUS really IS doing racism
from Public Notice
"On Monday, the Supreme Court’s six conservatives legalized racial profiling, allowing ICE to snatch any non-white person off the street and lock them up until they 'prove' their citizenship.
"And they did it on the shadow docket, simply mumbling that the lower court’s order was 'stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought.'
"This was clearly a calculation by five justices that it was better to remain silent and be thought of as a bunch of racist hacks with no regard for law or precedent than to speak out and remove all doubt. But Justice Kavanaugh, channeling his inner Col. Jessup, refused to sign on to the plan.
"Kavanaugh began by accepting the government’s claim that one in 10 residents of LA is an undocumented immigrant. There is no citation for this figure, and there’s some evidence that it’s wildly inaccurate. But it undergirds Kavanaugh’s entire legal theory, so he wasn’t about to factcheck it!
"'Not surprisingly given those extraordinary numbers, US immigration officers have prioritized immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area,' he went on, noting 'the myriad ‘significant economic and social problems’ caused by illegal immigration.'
"That internal quote about immigrants causing 'significant economic and social problems' is actually dicta from Brignoni-Ponce, a decision which is five decades old. Recent data proves that immigrants greatly strengthen the US economy and commit crimes at significantly lower rates than native-born Americans — which is why only blood and soil nationalists say that stuff today."
Plane to Purgatory
How Trump’s deportation program shuttles immigrants into lawless limbo
from the Guardian
"44,000 immigrants, 1,700 flights, 100 days: a Guardian investigation of leaked flight data and government detention data reveals the inhumane journey of immigrants shuttled around and outside the US
The American Dictator
from Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance
"Tonight, we have the specter of an American president trying to take control of an American city for thinly veiled political reasons. Not for the first time, or even the second, but for the third. This time, Donald Trump lacks even the veneer of justification he asserted in Los Angeles, when he claimed anti-ICE protests were out of control. He lacks the unique status he holds in D.C. as the head of the National Guard, which gives him greater latitude to act than anywhere else in the country.
"'I love the smell of deportations in the morning,' Trump posted on Truth Social Saturday morning, an off-base reference to the famous line in the Vietnam film Apocalypse Now, 'I love the smell of Napalm in the morning.' 'Chicago about to find out why it’s called the DEPARTMENT OF WAR, followed by three helicopters. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker was quick to point out 'This is not a joke. This is not normal.'"
Stop Acting Like This Is Normal
from NY Times (Ezra Klein)
"In about three weeks, the government’s funding will run out. Democrats will face a choice: Join Republicans to fund a government that President Trump is turning into a tool of authoritarian takeover and vengeance or shut the government down.
"But the bill that passed back in March funding the government runs out at the end of this month. And so we’re facing the question again: Should Senate Democrats partner with Senate Republicans to fund this government?
"I don’t see how they can.
"Not a single argument Schumer made then is valid now.
"I want to be very clear about what I am saying here. Donald Trump is corrupting the government — he is using it to hound his enemies, to line his pockets and to entrench his own power. He is corrupting it the way the Mafia would corrupt the industries it controlled. You could still, under Mafia rule, get the trash picked up or buy construction materials. But the point of those industries had become the preservation and expansion of the Mafia’s power and wealth. This is what Trump is doing to the government. This is what Democrats cannot fund. This is what they have to try to stop."
Trump Is Building His Own Paramilitary Force
Interview with Radley Balko of The Watch
from Ezra Klein Show
"Radley Balko is a journalist who has written about policing and criminal justice for decades. He’s the author of 'Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces,' and he writes the terrific Substack The Watch, where he has been tracking the militarization and the escalation of law enforcement under Donald Trump.
"You’ve tracked internal policing for a long time. What is different about what we’ve seen over the past months of the Trump administration versus what we were seeing from them, say, five years ago?
"'What we’re seeing now are the tactics, operations and policies that, over the last 20 years, I refrained, or tried to restrain myself, from warning about because it would sound too unhinged.
"'I’ve warned for a long time about police agencies becoming too militarized, too aggressive and too us versus them. Militarized both in the sense of the equipment that they use but also in the mentality that they bring to the job. But it was always in response to a real threat. So it happened during the crack epidemic, which killed a lot of people. It happened again after Sept. 11, when you had these attacks on American soil. Homeland security started equipping police departments across the country with this military-style police gear.'"
Can Federal Troops Be Stationed At The Polls In 2026?
from Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance
"We start tonight with a look at an important law that prohibits the placement of federal troops at the polls in all but the most extreme emergencies. The bottom line: Trump will not be able to deploy federal or federalized troops at polling places, whether in an effort to intimidate voters or to use them to seize voting machines or for other purposes. This law is not a total inoculation from interference by a president who wants to violate citizens’ voting rights, but it’s one important part of a package of legal protections and strategies we’ll be exploring between now and the election, so we can develop a well-rounded awareness of our rights as Americans and voters."
Resistance Strategies
Immigrant Justice as Central to Anti-Authoritarian Resistance
A detailed analysis & deep dive into counter-strategies
from Scot Nakagawa (the Anti-Authoritarian Playbook)
"Research consistently shows that "xenophobia, anti-immigration sentiments, nativism, ethno-nationalism are, in different ways, central elements in the ideologies, politics, and practices of right-wing populism and Extreme Right Wing Parties." This isn't merely correlation - xenophobia functions as what scholars call "the vicious circle of xenophobia" where "anti-immigrant rhetoric and populist policies lead to adverse immigrant selection" creating a "self-reinforcing dynamic process" that accelerates democratic breakdown."
Upgrade Your Activism
The Evidence-Based Path from Protest to Power
from The Existential Republic
"Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan compiled rigorous data from 323 major resistance campaigns between 1900 and 2006. Their research revealed the specific mechanisms that transform moral outrage into political victory. They documented which tactics succeed, which fail, and most importantly, why.
"The difference between movements that change history and those that become footnotes isn't passion or righteousness. It's strategic competence. And strategy can be learned.
"Gene Sharp documented 198 methods of nonviolent action. Successful campaigns use dozens simultaneously. These include economic boycotts and strikes, tax resistance, alternative institutions, civil disobedience, social non-cooperation, and parallel governance structures."
This essay goes on to explore successful past resistance movements and their underlying strategies and actions.
Why Anti-Authoritarian, Pro-Freedom Forces Must Stay in the Fight Within Major Political Parties
from Scot Nakagawa (the Anti-Authoritarian Playbook)
"Whether we like it or not, the two major political parties control the levers of power in the U.S.—from the presidency to Congress to local governments. The parties determine policy, set legislative agendas, confirm judicial appointments, and decide whether democracy itself survives or is eroded further.
"Political Parties Are Vehicles, Not Religious Doctrines:
One of the biggest mistakes people make is treating political parties as fixed ideological entities, rather than instruments of power that can be reshaped.
"The Democratic Party isn’t a savior—but it is a battlefield."
What Worked Overseas
Field Lessons We Can Use Tomorrow
from Will Robinson
"From the Baltic Way to Serbia’s Otpor to Sudan’s professionals, effective movements ran on three things: parallel institutions, dignified rituals, and visible defections."
"Principles that travel
-
"Build a second civic spine. Poland’s Solidarity was not a protest but a network: workplace committees, strike funds, and an underground press that became 'a state within a state.'
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"Make culture the containeri. The Baltic Way (600 km human chain) and Estonia/Latvia’s Singing Revolution turned identity into strategy. Czechoslovakia’s keys made every participant a bell of liberation.
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"Engineer defections. Philippines, 1986: nuns handing flowers to soldiers produced a moral crisis for the regime. Serbia, 2000: months of student-led organizing split police and military loyalty. Soviet August Coup, 1991: refusal to fire collapsed the plot.
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"Train for nonviolence. Discipline isn’t vibes; it’s logistics—marshals, de-escalation scripts, clear run-of-show.
Palestine
Senators Say US is Complicit in Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza
Democrats Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley reach ‘inescapable conclusion’ after fact-finding trip to region
from the Guardian
"Two Democratic senators claim they have reached the 'inescapable conclusion' that Israel is acting on a systematic plan to destroy and ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza to force local people to leave, and they say the US is complicit.
"Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, both members of the Senate foreign relations committee, released their findings in a report on Thursday after returning from a congressional delegation to the Middle East where, they note, the destruction goes beyond bombs and bullets. They say they also found a systematic campaign to strangle humanitarian aid, which they call 'using food as a weapon of war'.
"'The Netanyahu government has gone far beyond targeting Hamas to imposing collective punishment on all the people of Gaza,' Van Hollen said at a Thursday press conference. 'What they’re doing, and what we witnessed, is putting those goals into action.'"
The Global Sumud Flotilla Is Making History
Corporate Media is ignoring the largest civilian flotilla to ever send aid to Gaza, with activists from 44 countries uniting to break Israel's illegal 18 year blockade
from Let's Address This with Qasim Rashid
"As we speak, on August 31, boats representing activists from 44 different countries are setting sail toward Gaza as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla. The Global Sumud Flotilla is the largest civilian maritime mission ever launched to break Israel’s illegal blockade. Coordinated by grassroots organizers, doctors, artists, seafarers, and solidarity activists across 44 countries, this flotilla is not just about carrying aid. It is a global, nonviolent response to the genocide of the Palestinian people—and it carries a message the world must hear: Israel’s illegal siege and blockade on Gaza must end.
"What we desperately need now is the power of a global movement towards peace and justice. Here are the three things you can do to get meaningfully involved..."
"Palestine Is Really the Center of the World"
Angela Davis on Gaza, Black-Jewish Solidarity & Trump
from Democracy Now
"Professor Davis, you've said that "Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world," quoting, of course, the late poet June Jordan.
"And so, it's a moment that is a bit difficult to digest, but I do think that even as we cry, even as we express solidarity amidst the suffering, we should recognize that this is a moment we've been waiting for, where people all over the world are recognizing Palestine as a litmus test and are recognizing that the people in the Sudan will — in Sudan will not be successful, people in Congo will not be successful, people in Haiti will not be successful, if they do not follow the leadership of the Palestinian people, who absolutely refuse to capitulate and genuflect to Zionism and to global capitalism and to racism."
Journalism & the Arts
How the US Rightwing is Taking Over News Media and Choking Press Freedom
from the Guardian
"The US right has appeared to increase its influence on mainstream media in America in recent weeks, especially in television news which has been a major target of the Donald Trump administration.
"CBS News – once home to legends of US journalism like Walter Cronkite and Edward R Murrow – installed a Trump ally as its ombudsman, weeks after the family of Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men, and a friend of the US president, sealed control over Paramount, the owner of CBS.
"Now Paramount is reportedly looking to buy Warner Bros Discovery, the media behemoth behind CNN, which would potentially bring the influential news network under the roof of an increasingly Trump-friendly conglomerate.
"At the same time a long-running family feud among Rupert Murdoch and his children was settled with a deal that will assure Fox News – and other powerful media outlets run by the family – will retain their conservative bent."
Global Press Freedom Suffers Sharpest Fall in 50 Years
from the Guardian
"According to the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), democracy has declined in 94 countries over the last five years and only a third have made progress.
"'Democracy faces a perfect storm of autocratic resurgence and acute uncertainty, due to massive social and economic changes,' Kevin Casas-Zamora, the secretary-general of the thinktank, said.
"'To fight back, democracies need to protect key elements of democracy, like elections and the rule of law, but also profoundly reform government so that it delivers fairness, inclusion and shared prosperity.'
"The International IDEA’s survey – the Global State of Democracy Report 2025 – is published annually and considered the most comprehensive of its kind, covering 174 countries and measuring democratic performance from 1975.
"The survey found that the freedom of the press had worsened in a quarter of the countries, marking the broadest deterioration since the beginning of the dataset."
Technology
Silicon Valley Enabled Brutal Mass Detention and Surveillance in China
from the AP
"The body camera hung from the top of the IV drip, recording the slightest twitch made by Yang Guoliang as he lay bloody and paralyzed in a hospital bed after a police beating with bricks.
"By then, surveillance was nothing new for the Yang family in rural China, snared in an intricate network based on U.S. technology that spies on them and predicts what they’ll do.
"Their train tickets, hotel bookings, purchases, text messages and phone calls are forwarded to the government. Their house is ringed with more than a dozen cameras. They’ve tried to go to Beijing 20 times in the past few years, but masked men show up and grab them, often before they depart. And last year, Yang’s wife and younger daughter were detained and now face trial for disrupting the work of the Chinese state — a crime carrying a sentence of up to a decade in prison.
"Yet the Yangs say they are not criminals. They are simply farmers trying to beg Beijing to stop local officials from seizing their 1 1/2 acres of land in China’s eastern Jiangsu province.
"Across China, tens of thousands of people tagged as troublemakers like the Yangs are trapped in a digital cage, barred from leaving their province and sometimes even their homes by the world’s largest digital surveillance apparatus. Most of this technology came from companies in a country that has long claimed to support freedoms worldwide: the United States.
"Over the past quarter century, American tech companies to a large degree designed and built China’s surveillance state, playing a far greater role in enabling human rights abuses than previously known, an Associated Press investigation found. They sold billions of dollars of technology to the Chinese police, government and surveillance companies, despite repeated warnings from the U.S. Congress and in the media that such tools were being used to quash dissent, persecute religious sects and target minorities.
"U.S. companies did this by bringing 'predictive policing' to China — technology that sucks in and analyzes data to prevent crime, protests, or terror attacks before they happen. Such systems mine a vast array of information — texts, calls, payments, flights, video, DNA swabs, mail deliveries, the internet, even water and power use — to unearth individuals deemed suspicious and predict their behavior. But they also allow Chinese police to threaten friends and family and preemptively detain people for crimes they have not even committed."
How Thousands of ‘Overworked, Underpaid’ Humans Train Google’s AI to Seem Smart
Contracted AI raters describe grueling deadlines, poor pay and opacity around work to make chatbots intelligent
from the Guardian
"'AI isn’t magic; it’s a pyramid scheme of human labor,' said Adio Dinika, a researcher at the Distributed AI Research Institute based in Bremen, Germany. 'These raters are the middle rung: invisible, essential and expendable.'"
Ice Obtains Access to Israeli-Made Spyware that can Hack Phones and Encrypted Apps
Trump administration contract with Paragon Solutions gives immigration agency access to one of the most powerful stealth cyberweapons
from the Guardian
"US immigration agents will have access to one of the world’s most sophisticated hacking tools after a decision by the Trump administration to move ahead with a contract with Paragon Solutions, a company founded in Israel which makes spyware that can be used to hack into any mobile phone – including encrypted applications.
"It means that one of the most powerful stealth cyber-weapons ever created – which was produced outside the US – is now in the hands of an agency that has repeatedly been accused by civil and human rights groups of violating people’s due process rights."
US Investment in Spyware Is Skyrocketing
from Wired
"The United States has emerged as the largest investor in commercial spyware—a global industry that has enabled the covert surveillance of journalists, human rights defenders, politicians, diplomats, and others, posing grave threats to human rights and national security.
"Another notable example of a new US-based investment in spyware is the late-2024 acquisition of Israeli spyware vendor Paragon Solutions by AE Industrial Partners, a Florida-based, national-security-focused private equity firm. Paragon made headlines last week when its one-year contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—first reported by WIRED in October 2024—was suddenly reactivated after a lengthy pause.
"Civil society groups described the move by the Trump administration as 'extremely troubling' and said it 'compounds the civil liberties concerns surrounding the rapid and dramatic expansion of ICE’s budget and authority.'"
DOGE Put Critical Social Security Data at Risk, Whistle-Blower Says
DOGE team members uploaded a database with the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans to a vulnerable cloud server, according to the agency’s chief data officer.
from NYTimes
"Members of the Department of Government Efficiency uploaded a copy of a crucial Social Security database in June to a vulnerable cloud server, putting the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans at risk of being leaked or hacked, according to a whistle-blower complaint filed by the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer.
"The database contains records of all Social Security numbers issued by the federal government. It includes individuals’ full names, addresses and birth dates, among other details that could be used to steal their identities, making it one of the nation’s most sensitive repositories of personal information.
"The account by the whistle-blower, Charles Borges, underscores concerns that have led to lawsuits seeking to block young software engineers at the agency built by Elon Musk from having access to confidential government data. In his complaint, Mr. Borges said DOGE members copied the data to an internal agency server that only DOGE could access, forgoing the type of 'independent security monitoring' normally required under agency policy for such sensitive data and creating 'enormous vulnerabilities.'"
Inspiration
Undaunted from the Bench
Sotomayor pulls back the curtain on MAGA Supreme Court hackery
from the Contrarian
"The six MAGA justices on the Supreme Court have obliterated the notion that they are impartial jurists bound by precedent. This week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor did a magnificent job stripping away the veneer of legitimacy they have tried to sustain. In dissenting from a widely criticized emergency docket decision running roughshod over the 4th Amendment and effectively greenlight racial profiling, Sotomayor let it rip
"She explained:
"'A Federal District Court found that these raids were part of a pattern of conduct by the Government that likely violated the Fourth Amendment. Based on the evidence before it, the court held that the Government was stopping individuals based solely on four factors: (1) their apparent race or ethnicity; (2) whether they spoke Spanish or English with an accent; (3) the type of location at which they were found (such as a car wash or bus stop); and (4) the type of job they appeared to work. Concluding that stops based on these four factors alone, even when taken together, could not satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of reasonable suspicion, the District Court temporarily enjoined the Government from continuing its pattern of unlawful mass arrests while it considered whether longer-term relief was appropriate.'"
"Instead of allowing the litigation to proceed, the Supreme Court leapt into the fray and—without briefing, argument, or explanation—summarily stayed the order. 'That decision is yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket,' Sotomayor wrote."
"'We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job.'"
University of Minnesota, Teamsters reach deal to end strike that threatened Farm Aid concert
from Minnesota Star Tribune
"The strike involving 1,400 custodial, maintenance, food service and sanitation workers represented by Teamsters Local 320 began Monday. The walkout affected university campuses and satellite locations around the state.
"Meanwhile, the organizers of the Farm Aid 40 concert announced that the show will continue as planned. Its organizers threatened to move or even cancel the show if a deal was not reached. Board member and performer Willie Nelson even reached out to Gov. Tim Walz during discussions.
"'Today’s agreement is a reminder of what can be achieved when people come together in the spirit of fairness and solidarity. We look forward to celebrating that spirit on September 20 — alongside farmers, workers, advocates, artists and fans — in a day of music and community that honors this shared history,' Farm Aid organizers posted on the social media platform X."
The Union Leader Fighting to Defend Federal Workers
For AFGE president Everett Kelley and his 800,000-odd workers, what was once a safe career choice has become a high-wire act.
from the New Republic
"It used to be that a government job was the very definition of bland security. Land a role with the feds, and you knew you’d be safe. Your duties wouldn’t be subject to the whims of some capricious new CEO; your benefits were unlikely to suddenly double in price; you wouldn’t get axed when your company was sold to a multinational corporation. Sure, the bureaucratic machine might occasionally lag, you might find yourself tangled in the proverbial red tape, but the private sector’s blithe, cold surprises were nothing you had to fear.
"Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, characterized the government’s unprecedented attack on its own as phenomenally 'aggressive,' 'adversarial,' and 'inhumane.' The largest union of federal workers in the country, AFGE represents some 800,000 federal employees across a wide range of fields. Public servants, Kelley told me, have been 'threatened everywhere you turn.' They have been called names. Their honor and their work ethic have been impugned.
"As government jobs went from being symbols of drab dependability to a metonym for all the pointless violence of Trump’s second term, Kelley’s union responded to the president 'with a battle cry,' he said. When the Department of Government Efficiency tried to 'optimize' the federal workforce by making mass layoffs, AFGE sued. When the Office of Personnel Management let go of thousands of probationary employees, AFGE sued. When Trump tried, in an executive order, to strip government employees of their collective bargaining rights, AFGE sued. When agencies affected by the order stopped withdrawing union dues automatically from paychecks, the union signed members up to its new dues system—100,000 in less than three months."
‘We have the people’
Bernie Sanders campaigns with Zohran Mamdani as New York mayoral race enters final stretch
from the Guardian
"Bernie Sanders campaigns with Zohran Mamdani as New York mayoral race enters final stretch.
"'What you are seeing now is an oligarchy with enormous economic power and political power in both political parties ...[and] they are afraid of Mr Mamdani becoming an example of what can happen all over the country … They are scared to death,' Sanders said to rousing applause."
ICE Agents in the Park Ave Neighborhood Spark Large-Scale Protest
from WXXI NPR News
"Federal immigration agents were seemingly forced to retreat from a roofing job site Tuesday in the Park Avenue neighborhood after being confronted by more than 100 protesters.
"The group shouted 'shame' and "Gestapo,' and applauded as agents in the ICE-led action drove a Border Patrol SUV away on four flat tires, which had been slashed.
"Roofing contractor Clayton Baker identified the man taken into custody by ICE as 'Chino,' one of his employees. Baker said the man has been in the United States for about 25 years and had legal documentation to work.
"'They took my best worker that's been working with me for 5 years, and just basically, ‘See you later,’ you know?' Baker said. 'He's a family guy, and he's got a baby on the way. He's never even had a speeding ticket that I know of. He goes to church every Sunday, and he pays his taxes.
"...as time went on — the whole ordeal lasted about four hours, advocates said — representatives with the Western New York Coalition of Farmworker Serving Agencies began urging the agents to move on, arguing that the workers weren't coming down, the arrests weren't going to happen and the crowd was only continuing to grow. The agents relented, they said, and they offered to help them leave, urging protestors to step aside.
"'The coalition is committed to standing alongside farmworkers, immigrants, and migrants to ensure dignity, fairness, and access to justice,' coalition executive director Irene Sanchez said in a news release sent out Tuesday evening. 'In moments like this, our role is to make sure people know their rights and to safeguard their due process under the law.'"
Ecologies
Wild Forests on the Chopping Block
Logging and mining could tear down 45 million acres of our national forests
from Environment Minnesota
"The U.S. Forest Service has formally begun to rescind the 2001 'Roadless Rule' which protects 58.5 million acres of wild areas in national forests across 38 states and Puerto Rico. USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins initially announced plans to roll back these forest protections on June 23 at the Western Governor’s Association Meeting. To begin the official process, the agency will post a 'Notice of Intent' to the Federal Register on Friday, at which point a 21-day public comment period will commence."
E.P.A. To Stop Collecting Emissions Data From Polluters
The data, from thousands of coal-burning power plants, oil refineries, steel mills and other industrial facilities, is the country’s most comprehensive way to track greenhouse gases
from the NYTimes
"The Environmental Protection Agency moved on Friday to stop requiring thousands of polluting facilities to report the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases that they release into the air.
"The E.P.A. proposal would end requirements for thousands of coal-burning power plants, oil refineries, steel mills and other industrial facilities across the country. The government has been collecting this data since 2010 and it is a key tool to track carbon dioxide, methane and other gases that are driving climate change.
"The Friday announcement followed months of efforts by the Trump administration to systematically erase mentions of climate change from government websites while slashing federal funding for research on global warming."
Mining Threats to the BWCA
A giant Chilean mining conglomerate wants to mine near the Boundary Waters, threatening this beloved destination
from Environment Minnesota
"Twin Metals, a mining company that is a subsidiary of the giant Chilean mining conglomerate Antofagasta, has long pushed to build an underground mine for copper, nickel and precious metals near Ely, just south of the Boundary Waters. Pollution from this mine, if it is ever built, would directly contaminate the water that runs into the Boundary Waters wilderness area.
"Mining of sulfide minerals can produce toxic pollution. These operations produce a sulfuric acid byproduct created when the minerals are exposed to air or water. This acid mine drainage decreases water pH, leeches harmful metals and can cause extremely damaging downstream effects. Specifically, acid runoff from sulfide-ore copper mining can harm fish and animals that live in or near the water, significantly degrade water quality, and cause toxic soil contamination."
Codifying the Rights of Nature
The Growing Indigenous Movement
from Geneva E. B. Thompson
"On May 9, 2019, the Yurok Tribal
Council passed a resolution
declaring the rights of the Klamath River and provided a legal avenue for
the Klamath River to have its rights adju-
dicated in Yurok Tribal Court. The Yurok
Tribe’s goal in passing the resolution was
to secure the highest protections for the
Klamath River in direct response to its
imperiled health
"For many indigenous nations, the advo-
cacy for a healthy environment is deeply
intertwined with the protection of traditional, historical, and cultural lifeways and
practices. This connection between the
environment and indigenous lifeways has
been in place since time immemorial and
will continue to be an important and sacred
connection well into the future.
"any Native nations
are finding that one remedy to regaining
cultural and ecological health, safety, and
security is to develop laws, policies, and
legal systems that will strengthen their ability to prosecute bad actors that continue
to commit ecological colonization and
genocide in ancestral territories."
US Taxpayers Will Pay Billions in New Fossil Fuel Subsidies Thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill
from Wired
"The Trump administration has already added nearly $40 billion in new federal subsidies for oil, gas, and coal in 2025, a report released Tuesday finds, sending an additional $4 billion out the door each year for fossil fuels over the next decade. That new amount, created with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act this summer, adds to $30.8 billion a year in preexisting subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. The report finds that the amount of public money the US will now spend on domestic fossil fuels stands at least $34.8 billion a year.
"The increase amounts to 'the largest single-year increase in subsidies we’ve seen in many years—at least since 2017,' says Collin Rees, the US program manager for Oil Change International, an anti-fossil fuels advocacy organization and author of the report.
"The US has been subsidizing fossil fuel production for more than a century. Many of the tax subsidies logged in the report—including a tax break passed in 1913 that allows companies to write off large amounts of expenses related to drilling new oil wells—have been on the books for decades.
"That cycle is continuing in the new administration. Fossil fuel companies spent millions of dollars getting Trump elected last year; one report from the advocacy group Climate Power puts the total number at $445 million. Those companies are seeing benefits as the administration pursues an aggressive deregulatory agenda, hobbles renewable energy projects and downplays the importance of climate change. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the president has taken to calling oil CEOs following their appearances on TV.
"'It’s no secret that Trump and the Republicans are on the side of the fossil fuel industry and very much vice versa,' says Rees."
