The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday night kept in place a block on President Donald Trump’s efforts for massive firings and agency restructuring across the federal government, saying a far-reaching executive order signed in February went way beyond his constitutional authority and that the potential harm caused by the terminations warrants the hold while legal challenges continue to play…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
“But truth’s a menace. Science is a public danger.” (Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, 1932). Huxley’s “World State” promotes stability and social harmony over scientific progress. According to the dystopian World State, science is a threat that challenges existing beliefs, which leads to “questioning the established order.”
2025 – America Decommissions Science
The decommissioning of government-funded science appears to be a directive calling for: “Decommission but leave just enough of a shell to make it appear to be operational.”
In reaction to deep budget cuts, America’s most respected science journal, Nature, reports, “Trump Proposes Unprecedented Budget Cuts to US Science,” May 2, 2025: “Huge reductions, if enacted, could have ‘catastrophic’ effects on US competitiveness and the scientific pipeline.” Excusez-moi! What about Making America Great Again?
Or is America’s premier science journal “making stuff up about competitiveness?” Here’s where science becomes a nuisance by exposing haphazard wussy illogical policy decisions that serve to diminish the economy, unless, of course, Nature is erroneously making stuff up, but nobody can Make America Great Again by undercutting ‘competitiveness’. That’s backwards, not forwards.
Looking forward: “Federal funding for basic scientific research delivers demonstrable returns on investment. A recent economic impact study found that every dollar invested in federal biomedical research funding generated nearly $2.56 in economic impact, supporting more than 400,000 jobs and catalyzing nearly $95 billion in new economic activity nationwide in 2024. Economists have also found that government investments in scientific research and development have provided returns of 150% to 300% since World War II.” (The Science Coalition)
Science Budget Cuts Will Target US GDP, Down!
Over the past 50 years, science research and development (R&D) have contributed significantly to economic growth, with estimates ranging from one-quarter to one-half of the total growth (Source: Association of American Universities). Sorrowfully, the Trump administration budget cuts, as well as proposed additional cuts, to federally funded science research are certain to cut GDP growth, based upon 50 years of statistics.
Indeed, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists picked up on the damage caused by outrageous, unnecessary budget-cuts to science: “Decommissioned, Retired, Paused: The Weather, Climate, and Earth Science Data the Government Doesn’t Want You to See,” May 20, 2025: “On May 12, the Unidata program paused most of its operations due to a lapse in funding from the National Science Foundation… Shuyi Chen, a professor of atmospheric and climate science, told the Bulletin that virtually any university faculty member who teaches oceanography, atmospheric science, or climate science uses Unidata for research and educational purposes. But it’s not just researchers, in the United States and abroad, who depend on Unidata. These are also tools used for weather forecasting and preparing for extreme events, like floods, winter storms, hurricanes, and wildfires. She also has had students go on to work in the insurance industry, many of whom use Unidata for risk analysis.”
But Unidata is only one of many data sources vastly cut by the new administration. NOAA recently announced that it is retiring the Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database, which has tracked the damage from floods, hurricanes, and other large disasters since 1980. Twenty-two other NOAA data products have likewise been retired or decommissioned over the past month.
The DEI Sham
The Trump administration has made radical reductions in staffing and funding in U.S. science-related agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (the nation’s crown jewel of healthcare research) and the Food and Drug Administration. The elimination of key NIH programs based on concerns about DEI will severely damage effective solutions for health research. It is bone-headed.
“Over the past two decades, the NIH has, as the Trump administration decries, prioritized expanding the scope of populations considered in the research it funds. It did so for very good, evidence-based reasons.” (“The Trump Administration’s NIH and FDA Cuts Will Negatively Impact Patients,” Brookings, May 14, 2025).
The key to effective healthcare research has universally moved away from discoveries and treatments based upon restricted, homogeneous sample populations that disregard diversity of populations; rather, recognizing DEI for its value proposition as previous discoveries/treatments based upon narrowly defined homogeneous samples once introduced to the real world proved to be inadequate, hence the term “efficiency effectiveness gap.” DEI makes research much more effectively broad reaching and profitable.
“DEI is not some free-floating ideology that considers a range of backgrounds, treatment differentials, and geographical gaps as ends in themselves. In practice, the NIH infrastructure shifted toward a prioritization of conditions and approaches that evidence indicated were more likely to close the gap between technological development and effectiveness in practice,” Ibid.
America’s Crippled Interior DoD
Cuts to agencies within the United States Department of Health and Human Services such as FDA, CDC, and NIH are cuts to the “interior department of defense” much as the Pentagon is the Department of Defense against foreign attack. Yet, the Pentagon budget at $850 billion hasn’t seen a foreign invasion since Pearl Harbor (1941). Meanwhile. the department of interior defense, where budgets are being heavily slashed at FDA, CDC, NIH met the challenge of 103,000,000 Americans hit by Covid-19 with 1,200,000 deaths five years ago by performing a “medical miracle,” orchestrating/funding a vaccine within one year to save millions of lives. Previously, the record time to bring a vaccine to market was four years for the mumps outbreak in the 1960s
Indeed, interior department of defense agencies should be on the same budgetary footing as the Department of Defense for the Pentagon. Yet the budget for the nation’s interior department of defense, NIH, FDA, CDC is unbelievably slashed. For example, the largest most important of the three agencies for internal defense, NIH’s budget for 2025 was/is $48.5billion but Trump proposes cutting to $27 billion for 2026. This is the “crown jewel” of biomedical research in America. Former NIH employees, anonymously, claim the next pandemic or epidemic will be the disaster of all disasters. Meanwhile, the Pentagon ($850 billion), twiddling its thumbs, patiently waits, and waits, and waits for the next “Pearl Harbor.”
Repeating the obvious: That’s $850 billion to prevent the next Pearl Harbor versus $48 billion (soon dropping to $27 billion) for NIH interior defense against diseases.
Already, the NIH has $2.4 Billion in canceled and frozen grants and contracts, fired 1,200 employees, plus induced retirement and resignations from a yet unspecified number. The Trump administration’s 2026 Budget proposes a 37% further cut to the agency. Meanwhile, over 3,500 jobs at the FDA have been eliminated, and the administration has hinted at further restructuring of the agency. The former head of the FDA claims the FDA ‘as we know it’ is gone for good.
Eureka! Ninety-three years since Huxley’s epigram, “Truth is a menace. Science is a public danger” resurfaces in full living color in the year 2025, as America’s interior department of defense for healthcare is ironically crippled, and the country reverts to principles espoused in literature on the heels of the Roaring Twenties (1920-29) at the doorstep of the Great Depression (1929-39) in a time of indecisive decisions, once again, history repeating itself. How’d that work out?
The post Science Decommissioned! first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
A Republican senator has dismissed her constituents’ concerns that the GOP’s sweeping cuts to Medicaid could kill people by saying that “we all are going to die” in a comment on Friday. As Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst answered a question about the GOP’s cuts in a town hall, constituents concerned over the future of crucial lifesaving programs yelled, “people are going to die.” “Well…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Eight months after U.S. President Donald Trump publicly called for a policy of “remigration” — a term that’s become a rallying cry among far-right groups in Europe and sparked comparisons to ethnic cleansing — the U.S. State Department said Thursday that it plans to create an office devoted to the project, with refugee aid resources diverted to Trump’s rapidly accelerating mass deportation…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The White House’s keystone health report outlining its agenda for Americans’ health is riddled with artificial intelligence “hallucinations,” with fabricated citations and broken links reflective of the administration’s embrace of non-scientific approaches to public health. An analysis by The Washington Post uncovered numerous citations in the “Make America Healthy Again” report with the…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
We speak with esteemed historian scholar Ellen Schrecker about the Trump administration’s assault on universities and the crackdown on dissent, a climate of fear and censorship she describes as “worse than McCarthyism.” “During the McCarthy period, it was attacking only individual professors and only about their sort of extracurricular political activities on the left. … Today…
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Tom Morello at Occupy Wall Street (CC photo: David Shankbone)
This week on CounterSpin: Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé and…Oprah? They’re among the entertainers in Trump’s ALLCAPS sights for, it would seem, endorsing Kamala Harris in the election? And/or maybe saying something unflattering about him or his actions—which, in his brain, and that of the minions who’ve chosen to share that brain, constitutes an illegal political contribution to his opponents, wherever they may lurk.
At a moment when politicians who swore actual oaths are throwing over even the pretense of democracy, or public service—or basic human decency—many of us are looking to artists to be truth-tellers and spirit lifters; to convey, maybe, not so much information as energy: the fearless, collective, forward-looking joy that can sustain a beleaguered people in a threatening time.
There’s a deep history of protest music and music as protest, and our guest is very intentionally a part of it. Tom Morello is a guitarist; part of Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave, Prophets of Rage and The Nightwatchman, among many other projects. His music has always been intertwined with his activism and advocacy for social, racial, economic justice; so we talk about the work of artists in Trumpian times with Tom Morello, this week on CounterSpin.
Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent press coverage of the embassy shootings, a lawmaker’s arrest and commencement protests.
This post was originally published on FAIR.
Earlier this year, as President Donald Trump was beginning to reshape the American government, Michael, an emergency room doctor who was born, raised, and trained in the United States, packed up his family and got out. Michael now works in a small-town hospital in Canada. KFF Health News and NPR granted him anonymity because of fears he might face reprisal from the Trump administration if he…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
For just $61 billion, Canada can get in on Donald Trump’s latest scheme: a space-based North American missile defense system that Trump has called the “Golden Dome.” Trump posted the amount of money he would expect Canada to pay on his Truth Social account on May 27 — the same day that King Charles was in Ottawa to read the Speech from the Throne to open a new session of Parliament.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is threatening to upend negotiations between the US and Iran by potentially attacking Iranian nuclear facilities.
The report said that the threat from Israel led to a recent tense phone call between Netanyahu and President Trump and a series of meetings between senior US and Israeli officials in recent days.
Trump was asked by reporters on Wednesday if he warned Netanyahu against attacking Iran during a phone call last week, and said, “Well, I’d like to be honest. Yes, I did.”
“It’s not a warning. I said I don’t think it’s appropriate.
The post Netanyahu Threatening To Upend US-Iran Talks By Attacking Iran appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Janine Jackson interviewed Erin in the Morning‘s Erin Reed about transgender care “questions” for the May 23, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Washington Post (5/11/25)
Janine Jackson: Washington Post and Amazon owner Jeff Bezos was clear in saying that only certain ideological presuppositions would be acceptable from here on in, when the paper canceled a prepared endorsement of Kamala Harris for president, and canceled a cartoon critical of Donald Trump, and a number of other things. And that sound you heard was many people moving the Washington Post from one place to another in their brains.
But the Post is still the leading daily in the lawmaking place of this country, and what they say has influence on people who have influence. So when the Post editorial board described a report on trans healthcare from the Health and Human Services Department—now headed by Robert F. “I don’t think people should be taking medical advice from me” Kennedy Jr.—as “thorough and careful,” that was going to have an impact.
The piece, headed “Good Questions About Transgender Care,” really raised deeper questions about corporate news media and their role in the world we have, and the world we need today.
Erin Reed is the journalist and activist behind Erin in the Morning. She joins us now by phone from Gaithersburg, Maryland. Welcome to CounterSpin, Erin Reed.
Erin Reed: Thank you so much for having me on.
Scientific American (5/12/22)
JJ: An idea can be utterly discredited—evidentially, scientifically—but can still have resonance for people who just feel like certain things are true. The Post, well, first they point out that this HHS report is “more than 400 pages, including appendixes,” so you’re supposed to sit up straight. But the message is that the HHS report is a review of the existing literature on best practices around healthcare, and that it’s “careful” and “thorough.”
I feel like when anti-trans media is cartoonish, it’s almost easier to bat away. But when something like this comes from a paper of record, it makes it more difficult. So let me just ask you, what are you making of this Post editorial?
ER: Yeah, so a little bit of background. This HHS report was produced specifically because the science on transgender healthcare has been so clear for so long. There’s been repeated study after study, coming out in the most prestigious journals, showing the positive impact of transgender healthcare on those who need it. And so the HHS report was put out in order to give cover to organizations that want to oppose transgender healthcare.
And that’s what we got with the Washington Post editorial page, where the editorial board basically endorses the report. It goes through the report and says that it’s a great report, essentially, and that it raises great questions about transgender healthcare and more.
Washington Post (5/1/25)
Whenever I read something like that from the Washington Post editorial board, though, and then I see how that same board and how that same paper treats everything else that RFK Jr.’s healthcare team puts out—for instance, vaccines, autism, fluoridation in water and more—there’s this double standard whenever it comes to transgender healthcare. The paper is willing to point out the lack of science behind this particular department’s positions under RFK Jr. for all of these other things, but it seemingly ignores that whenever it comes to transgender people.
JJ: And yet they refer to—they’re scientistic. They say that this report “concurs with other systematic reviews.” They give all the gesturing towards the idea that this is science here—and yet it’s not.
ER: And the report itself was anonymously written. They didn’t release any of the names of the people who worked on the report; however, they left the EXIF data in. And so you could actually see the person who compiled the report, and it was Alex Byrne, is the one who’s on the EXIF data in the PDF.
And what that says is that they’re not using experts here. Alex Byrne is a philosophy major. That’s not somebody who’s ever worked with gender-affirming healthcare, and not somebody who’s ever worked with transgender people.
Erin Reed: “What we have is another example of the relentless pseudoscience coming out of this healthcare department under RFK Jr.”
We are seeing these attacks on transgender healthcare using these mechanisms, like the RFK Jr. healthcare department, trying to dictate what science is by fiat, trying to say that it doesn’t matter what the studies say, it doesn’t matter that all the medical organizations and the people that work with transgender people say that this healthcare is saving lives. We are going to dictate what is science and what is not.
I read the whole 400-page report. I read all of anything that comes out about transgender healthcare, because that’s my job; I’m a journalist covering this topic.
And the report, if you read it, it’s not a scientific document. It’s not something that has new information. It’s not something that studies transgender healthcare, it deadnames historical transgender figures, it calls transgender healthcare a “social contagion.” And it advocates for conversion therapy of transgender people, explicitly so, in many instances.
And so I don’t think that what we have is a good scientific document that raises important questions on transgender healthcare, like the Washington Post editorial board claims. Instead, what we have is another example of the relentless pseudoscience coming out of this healthcare department under RFK Jr.
JJ: Part of that involves relabeling, and you just mentioned conversion therapy. And I think a lot of listeners will say, “Oh, I’ve learned about what that means. It involves telling queer people they’re not queer, they’re mentally ill.” But the Post has something to say about how—or maybe it’s the report itself—how, Oh, no, no, no, this isn’t conversion therapy. What’s going on there?
ER: Yeah, so the original report advocates for something known as “gender exploratory therapy.” And I have done a lot of investigations on this particular modality of therapy that’s being promoted by people on the anti-trans right.
Erin in the Morning (12/20/22)
So gender exploratory therapy, it sounds good. It sounds like something that we want. Like of course, if somebody is transitioning, we would love for them to have a good and open environment to explore their gender identity. And that is what we have right now.
But that’s not what gender exploratory therapy is. Gender exploratory therapy is a very kind-sounding name for a repackaged version of conversion therapy.
Essentially, what this modality of therapy does is, let’s say you’re a transgender youth. You’re 14, 15, 16 years old, and you are considering transitioning. What they will do is, they will take you, and they will try to blame your gender identity on anything other than being trans, repeatedly. They’ll go from thing to thing to thing to thing.
And the important point here is that these therapists will never approve your transition. They will never write a gender-affirming care letter for you. They explicitly won’t do that. If you go to the website of the Gender Exploratory Therapy Association, you’ll find that this group has filed amicus briefs against transgender bathroom usage in schools, or that this group has filed amicus briefs against transgender participation in sports like darts. We see that this is not a neutral sort of modality.
The closest comparison that many of your listeners will probably understand is crisis pregnancy centers, where they’ve used this name “crisis pregnancy centers” to try to say that if you’re seeking an abortion, that this is a good clinic to go to. But if you know anything about crisis pregnancy centers, the way that they work is by delaying abortion until it’s no longer feasible. And that’s the exact same way that GETA works, and that’s what we see being promoted by this report.
JJ: Finally, in terms of media, who we know often or virtually always set things up in a “some say, others differ” framework, they’re quoting the Washington Post editorial and other outlets, acknowledging the place where they say ”critics have been scathing.”—this is the Post—”critics have been scathing about what they see as the report’s biases and shortcomings, but it makes a legitimate case for caution that policymakers need to wrestle with.”
And I would just ask you, finally, to talk about this media idea of somehow the truth is in the middle on issues. And then, also, Oh, all we’re asking for is caution. Who’s against caution? And, additionally, anyone who criticizes it is an activist and an interested party, other than these disinterested scientists and ethicists at the Washington Post.
ER: So I’m actually going to push back slightly and make an even broader point here.
JJ: Please.
ER: “Both sides” coverage and “the truth is in the middle” coverage and “giving both sides a chance to make their point,” that would be an improvement for what we have right now, with transgender reporting and reporting on transgender healthcare.
JJ: Absolutely.
Them (3/28/24)
ER: Because, let me tell you, whenever you look at the New York Times, whenever you look at the Washington Post, and the way that transgender healthcare is covered right now, the experts, the transgender people, the transgender journalists like myself, are not given the space to make their points. They’re not given the space to make the case for scientific healthcare, and for good treatment of LGBTQ people and transgender people.
But you’ll see the New York Times publish three-, four-page spreads attacking transgender healthcare, from people who have made it their job to attack transgender people. You’ll see the editorial board at the Washington Post explicitly advocate for a healthcare report done by the RFK Jr. healthcare team, targeting transgender people. And whenever it comes to the transgender people, and whenever it comes to the experts and the medical organizations and the Yale physicians, they’re written off as just activists.
And so this is not even “both sides” reporting. It’s not even “the truth is in the middle” reporting. These papers have taken a position on this, and it’s a position that’s not supported by the science. It’s a position that’s not being practiced, importantly, by the people who are giving out that transgender healthcare, who are treating transgender people, day in, day out, who see these patients and understand the impact that gender-affirming care has on their lives.
So I guess what I’m just really trying to say is, I wish they would platform transgender people. I wish they would platform the doctors. I wish they would platform the medical organizations, but they don’t.
JJ: It feels like you’re telling me what better reporting would look like, yeah?
ER: I’m trying.
JJ: Erin Reed is the journalist and activist behind Erin in the Morning. Thank you so much, Erin Reed, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
ER: Of course. Thank you so much for having me.
This post was originally published on FAIR.
Universities should ensure that their research output is “in sync” with Trump administration goals in order to keep their federal funding, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said on Wednesday, as scientists across the U.S. warn of dire consequences brought by the administration’s massive cuts. “Universities should continue to be able to do research as long as they’re abiding by the laws and…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The ghosts of Paul Weyrich, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, the OG’s (Old Guard) of the religious right are dancing these days. Since his inauguration, Trump has rewarded his religious right allies with executive orders creating a “Religious Liberty Commission” and a “Task Force to Eliminate Anti-Christian Bias.”
“Together they will put the force of the federal government behind the conspiracy theories, false persecution claims, and reactionary policy proposals of the Christian nationalist movement, including its efforts to undermine separation of church and state,” Right Wing Watch’s Peter Montgomery recently reported.
On May 1, members of the religious liberty commission were announced, and nearly all are ultra-conservative Christian nationalists with a huge right-wing agenda. The commission’s chair is Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and its vice chair is Ben Carson.
Right Wing Watch profiled several of the commission’s members:
Other commission members include Bishop Robert Barron, founder of the Word on Fire ministry; 2009 Miss USA runner-up Carrie Prejean Boller; TV personality Dr. Phil McGraw; and Rabbi Meir Soloveichik.
Montgomery noted that “Advisory board members are divided into three categories: religious leaders, legal experts, and lay leaders. The list is more religiously diverse than the commission itself; in addition to right-wing lawyers and Christian-right activists, it includes several additional Catholic bishops, Jewish rabbis, and Muslim activists.”
Notable new advisory board members:
Donald Trump claiming that he’s the front man for “bringing religion back to our country,” is as if the late Jeffrey Epstein claimed that he was working to end sex trafficking.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation called Trump’s religious liberty commission “a dangerous initiative,” that “despite its branding, this commission is not about protecting religious freedom — it’s about advancing religious privilege and promoting a Christian nationalist agenda”.
The post Welcome to the Inquisition: Trump’s Christ Nationalist Brigades Aim to Gut Church-State Separation first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
If one company or small group of people manages to develop godlike digital superintelligence, they could take over the world. At least when there’s an evil dictator, that human is going to die. But for an AI, there would be no death. It would live forever. And then you’d have an immortal dictator from which we can never escape.
—Elon Musk
The Deep State is not going away. It’s just being replaced.
Replaced not by a charismatic autocrat or even a shadowy bureaucracy, but by artificial intelligence (AI)—unfeeling, unaccountable, and immortal.
As we stand on the brink of a new technological order, the machinery of power is quietly shifting into the hands of algorithms.
Under Donald Trump’s watch, that shift is being locked in for at least a generation.
Trump’s latest legislative initiative—a 10-year ban on AI regulation buried within the “One Big Beautiful Bill”—strips state and local governments of the ability to impose any guardrails on artificial intelligence until 2035.
Despite bipartisan warnings from 40 state attorneys general, the bill passed the House and awaits Senate approval. It is nothing less than a federal green light for AI to operate without oversight in every sphere of life, from law enforcement and employment to healthcare, education, and digital surveillance.
This is not innovation.
This is institutionalized automation of tyranny.
This is how, within a state of algorithmic governance, code quickly replaces constitutional law as the mechanism for control.
We are rapidly moving from a society ruled by laws and due process to one ruled by software.
Algorithmic governance refers to the use of machine learning and automated decision-making systems to carry out functions once reserved for human beings: policing, welfare eligibility, immigration vetting, job recruitment, credit scoring, and judicial risk assessments.
In this regime, the law is no longer interpreted. It is executed. Automatically. Mechanically. Without room for appeal, discretion, or human mercy.
These AI systems rely on historical data—data riddled with systemic bias and human error—to make predictions and trigger decisions. Predictive policing algorithms tell officers where to patrol and whom to stop. Facial recognition technology flags “suspects” based on photos scraped from social media. Risk assessment software assigns threat scores to citizens with no explanation, no oversight, and no redress.
These algorithms operate in black boxes, shielded by trade secrets and protected by national security exemptions. The public cannot inspect them. Courts cannot challenge them. Citizens cannot escape them.
The result? A population sorted, scored, and surveilled by machinery.
This is the practical result of the Trump administration’s deregulation agenda: AI systems given carte blanche to surveil, categorize, and criminalize the public without transparency or recourse.
And these aren’t theoretical dangers—they’re already happening.
Examples of unchecked AI and predictive policing show that precrime is already here.
Once you are scored and flagged by a machine, the outcome can be life-altering—as it was for Michael Williams, a 65-year-old man who spent nearly a year in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Williams was behind the wheel when a passing car fired at his vehicle, killing his 25-year-old passenger, who had hitched a ride.
Despite no motive, no weapon, and no eyewitnesses, police charged Williams based on an AI-powered gunshot detection program called ShotSpotter. The system picked up a loud bang near the area and triangulated it to Williams’ vehicle. The charge was ultimately dropped for lack of evidence.
This is precrime in action. A prediction, not proof. An algorithm, not an eyewitness.
Programs like ShotSpotter are notorious for misclassifying noises like fireworks and construction as gunfire. Employees have even manually altered data to fit police narratives. And yet these systems are being combined with predictive policing software to generate risk maps, target individuals, and justify surveillance—all without transparency or accountability.
It doesn’t stop there.
AI is now flagging families for potential child neglect based on predictive models that pull data from Medicaid, mental health, jail, and housing records. These models disproportionately target poor and minority families. The algorithm assigns risk scores from 1 to 20. Families and their attorneys are never told what the scores are, or that they were used.
Imagine losing your child to the foster system because a secret algorithm said you might be a risk.
This is how AI redefines guilt.
The Trump administration’s approach to AI regulation reveals a deeper plan to deregulate democracy itself.
Rather than curbing these abuses, the Trump administration is accelerating them.
An executive order titled “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” signed by President Trump in early 2025, revoked prior AI safeguards, eliminated bias audits, and instructed agencies to prioritize “innovation” over ethics. The order encourages every federal agency to adopt AI quickly, especially in areas like policing and surveillance.
Under the guise of “efficiency,” constitutional protections are being erased.
Trump’s 10-year moratorium on AI regulation is the logical next step. It dismantles the last line of defense—state-level resistance—and ensures a uniform national policy of algorithmic dominance.
The result is a system in which government no longer governs. It processes.
The federal government’s AI expansion is building a surveillance state that no human authority can restrain.
Welcome to Surveillance State 2.0, the Immortal Machine.
Over 1700 uses of AI have already been reported across federal agencies, with hundreds directly impacting safety and rights. Many agencies, including the Departments of Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services, are deploying AI for decision-making without public input or oversight.
This is what the technocrats call an “algocracy”—rule by algorithm.
In an algocracy, unelected developers and corporate contractors hold more power over your life than elected officials.
Your health, freedom, mobility, and privacy are subject to automated scoring systems you can’t see and can’t appeal.
And unlike even the most entrenched human dictators, these systems do not die. They do not forget. They are not swayed by mercy or reason. They do not stand for re-election.
They persist.
When AI governs by prediction, due process disappears in a haze of machine logic.
The most chilling effect of this digital regime is the death of due process.
What court can you appeal to when an algorithm has labeled you a danger? What lawyer can cross-examine a predictive model? What jury can weigh the reasoning of a neural net trained on flawed data?
You are guilty because the machine says so. And the machine is never wrong.
When due process dissolves into data processing, the burden of proof flips. The presumption of innocence evaporates. Citizens are forced to prove they are not threats, not risks, not enemies.
And most of the time, they don’t even know they’ve been flagged.
This erosion of due process is not just a legal failure—it is a philosophical one, reducing individuals to data points in systems that no longer recognize their humanity.
Writer and visionary Rod Serling warned of this very outcome more than half a century ago: a world where technology, masquerading as progress under the guise of order and logic, becomes the instrument of tyranny.
That future is no longer fiction. What Serling imagined is now reality.
The time to resist is now, before freedom becomes obsolete.
To those who call the shots in the halls of government, “we the people” are merely the means to an end.
“We the people”—who think, who reason, who take a stand, who resist, who demand to be treated with dignity and care, who believe in freedom and justice for all—have become obsolete, undervalued citizens of a totalitarian state that, in the words of Serling, “has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom.”
In this sense, we are all Romney Wordsworth, the condemned man in Serling’s Twilight Zone episode “The Obsolete Man.”
“The Obsolete Man,” a story arc about the erasure of individual worth by a mechanized state, underscores the danger of rendering humans irrelevant in a system of cold automation and speaks to the dangers of a government that views people as expendable once they have outgrown their usefulness to the State. Yet—and here’s the kicker—this is where the government through its monstrous inhumanity also becomes obsolete.
As Serling noted in his original script for “The Obsolete Man,” “Any state, any entity, any ideology which fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man…that state is obsolete.”
Like Serling’s totalitarian state, our future will be defined by whether we conform to a dehumanizing machine order—or fight back before the immortal dictator becomes absolute.
We now face a fork in the road: resist the rise of the immortal dictator or submit to the reign of the machine.
This is not a battle against technology, but a battle against the unchecked, unregulated, and undemocratic use of technology to control people.
We must demand algorithmic transparency, data ownership rights, and legal recourse against automated decisions. We need a Digital Bill of Rights that guarantees:
Otherwise, AI becomes the ultimate enforcer of a surveillance state from which there is no escape.
As Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, warned: “We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about. Your digital identity will live forever… because there’s no delete button.”
An immortal dictator, indeed.
Let us be clear: the threat is not just to our privacy, but to democracy itself.
As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the time to fight back is now—before the code becomes law, and freedom becomes a memory.
The post How AI and the Deep State Are Digitizing Tyranny first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff system has received firm pushback from a US federal court. Three judges on the US Court of International Trade have found that Trump’s tariffs:
exceed any authority granted to the president … to regulate importation by means of tariffs.
The ruling made it clear that it is not a comment upon the effectiveness of Trump’s tariffs, but instead on whether Trump had the legal power to apply trade levies. They said that Trump’s actions were
impermissible not because it is unwise or ineffective, but because [federal law] does not allow it.
The Guardian reported that:
The court ruling immediately invalidates all of the tariff orders that were issued through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law meant to address “unusual and extraordinary” threats during a national emergency.
Now, the US government has 10 days to issue new orders in line with injunction. However, Trump’s team have already begun the process of appeal, which could see the case taken to the Supreme Court.
White House spokesperson, Kush Desai, said:
It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency.
Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff for the White House said:
The judicial coup is out of control.
However, these remarks ignore the fact that such sweeping tariffs cannot happen legally without the approval of Congress. In attempting to use an emergency act to push tariffs through, the administration effectively attempted to bypass the law. On top of that, the three judges on the panel were in unanimous agreement – including a Trump-appointed judge.
As ever, the only metric by which the US government operates is to consider any opposition to it to be partisan, unfair, biased, and/or corrupt. However, as the attorney general of New York,
Letitia James, said:
The law is clear: no president has the power to single-handedly raise taxes whenever they like.
This injunction will mean Trump will have to operate his tariff system in a much slower manner. And, of course, the missing approval of Congress will have to be part of the process.
This lawsuit, amongst the many Trump faces, was filed by public interest law firm, the Liberty Justice Center alongside a number of small businesses. Ilya Somin, a law professor and co-plaintiff in the case, said:
If starting the biggest trade war since the Great Depression based on a law that doesn’t even mention tariffs is not an unconstitutional usurpation of legislative power, I don’t know what is.
The ruling from the judges further clarified:
The worldwide and retaliatory tariff orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA [International Emergency Economic Powers Act] to regulate importation by means of tariffs. The trafficking tariffs fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders.
The use of the emergency powers act, argued the Liberty Justice Center, created unnecessary uncertainty for small businesses and the market more broadly. Jeffrey Schwab, lead attorney for the centre, told CNN that the plaintiffs were looking for certainty:
They’re hopeful that these will be upheld by the appellate court so that they can continue their businesses with the certainty of what’s going to happen rather than the uncertainty of not knowing what the tariff rate is at any given time and whether it will change.
Schwab continued:
Obviously this is a very important case, not only because of the tremendous economic impact that it has on everybody, but particularly business and our businesses, but also because of the tremendous power grab that the administration is claiming here.
He can’t just assert unlimited authority to tariff whenever he wants.
Whilst Trump himself has not publicly responded to the tariffs ruling, the response from those in his administration follows a pattern of intimidation of judges. Trump evidently operates with a policy of shock and awe, flooding and overwhelming the American public, media, and judiciary with unconstitutional, ill-thought-out, and often chaotic policies. Public resource site, Just Security, tracks legal challenges to Trump’s orders. Their counter currently sits at a whopping 249 active cases, with just 10 closed.
It is becoming increasingly routine for judges to deliver rulings that demonstrate how and why Trump’s orders are illegal. And, it is just as routine for Trump’s cronies to insist that the judiciary is biased against them.
Former Republican congressman Charlie Dent summed up exactly what’s going on:
It appears the president is being beaten in court on a regular basis because many of his executive orders are legally and constitutionally questionable. His lawyers are trying to argue weak cases and that’s why they’re losing.
Legal experts and former judges have spoken out about the constant recrimination and allegations of bias streaming from Trump and his supporters as contributing to a culture of intimidation. Of course, the poorly planned, outright offensive, and hotch-potch policies are the point – In Trump’s reality any challenges of logic, law, or common sense are biased attacks, rather than assertions of fact and expertise.
America no longer has a functioning democracy, with a legal system under intense pressure to conform from a belligerent administration. If they were a country in the Global South, they’d invade themselves to install the missing democracy faster than you can say ‘oh look, is that some oil we can steal over there?’
Featured image via the Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
The detention of a leading human rights lawyer is part of a wave of repression sweeping the country under Nayib Bukele
The Trump administration’s agreement with President Nayib Bukele to detain US migrants deported to El Salvador without due process seems to have emboldened Bukele’s autocratic regime. Last week, in a troubling sign of escalating repression, Salvadorian police detained Ruth López Alfaro, a prominent Salvadorian human rights lawyer at Cristosal, an organization fighting for human rights in Central America.
Last year, the BBC recognized Ms López Alfaro as one of the 100 most inspiring and influential women in the world, describing her as “an outspoken critic of the country’s government and institutions” who “conducted a broad social media campaign to promote political transparency and public accountability overseen by the citizens themselves”. This year, on 18 May, Salvadorian security forces detained her at her residence on embezzlement charges and held her incommunicado from her family and legal representatives for more than 40 hours. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has expressed “deep concern” over reports of her enforced disappearance, and numerous human rights organizations have called for her release and protection of her safety and due process rights.
Noah Bullock is the executive director of Cristosal, a human rights organization based in El Salvador. Amrit Singh is a professor of the practice of law at Stanford Law School
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
Nvidia beat quarterly sales expectations as customers stockpiled its AI chips before fresh US curbs on China exports took effect, but the same restrictions will slice off US$8 billion in sales from the company’s current quarter, forcing it to offer a forecast below Wall Street estimates. Shares of the world’s most valuable semiconductor firm still…
The post Nvidia reveals sales hit from US export curbs on China appeared first on InnovationAus.com.
This post was originally published on InnovationAus.com.
Russian state media has taken a notable swing at US president Donald Trump in recent broadcasts, lampooning his perceived instability and questioning his mental fitness. The mocking tone reflects a broader narrative that has emerged in response to Trump’s combative rhetoric towards Vladimir Putin, particularly during a recent town hall where Trump danced around questions instead of answering them.
As Newsweek reported over the town hall event:
After two attendees fainted and required medical attention during the town hall in Pennsylvania on Monday, Trump suddenly informed the crowd that he would like to “not do any more questions” and instead “just listen to music.”
“Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” Trump said, before proceeding to stand awkwardly and sometimes dance on stage as music played for 39 minutes.
Olga Skabeyeva, a prominent host on Russia-1, highlighted this spectacle, suggesting it raised serious concerns about Trump’s cognitive abilities and fitness for leadership. The coverage has extended into a secondary commentary by US-based journalist Igor Naimushin, who noted the repetitive nature of Trump’s speech and erratic behaviour during the event:
Naimushin later pointed out that Trump has claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris instead has issues with “cognitive stamina and agility” before suggesting that he thought there was reason to suspect that Trump was mentally unfit.
“I have to acknowledge that the former U.S. president, and possibly future one, often keeps repeating himself during his speeches”… “He indeed gives a cause to doubt his mental abilities… He isn’t far behind the current President Joe Biden [in age]” Naimushin said.
This public mockery is not the first of its kind; Russian media has frequently ridiculed Trump, dubbing him “our Donald Ivanovych” in a previous broadcast during the impeachment era, indicating a perception of him as a figure of fun rather than fear.
Their strategy of highlighting Trump’s antics serves a dual purpose: to diminish the credibility of US leadership while reinforcing Russia’s own authority in global politics. When Trump threatens Putin, asserting he’s “playing with fire,” it only elicits laughter rather than concern.
The Russian perspective is clear: they view him as a leader too easily swayed by whim, lacking the resolve expected from a powerful nation.
The relationship between the United States and Russia has been notably strained, particularly under Trump’s administration. His inconsistent policy moves, such as imposing then retracting sanctions on China without tangible benefits, only serve to bolster the Russian narrative that Trump is indecisive and out of his depth.
Critics from various quarters argue that this indecisiveness is emblematic of a leader who prefers grandstanding over substantive action. Such wavering leaves the door open for stronger powers, like Russia, to exploit perceived weaknesses.
Additionally, Trump’s interactions with Canada offer a striking illustration of his foreign relations approach. His treatment of Canada, once a close ally, has turned sour to the point where many Canadians now view the US with suspicion.
These developments illuminate a broader trend in which Trump’s presidency has eroded long-standing alliances—a move that could have far-reaching consequences for diplomatic relations in an ever-complex global landscape.
While many Americans might express disbelief at Russian media’s portrayal of their former president, this mockery echoes sentiments that resonate within global discussions about US leadership.
There are fears that Trump, emboldened by his own rhetoric but often lacking in coherent strategy, is not just a source of amusement for the Russians, but a genuine threat to the international order.
Now, as he postures for attention, he seems to remain ensnared in a web woven skillfully by Putin, who is all too aware of Trump’s vulnerabilities.
Against this backdrop, the reverberation of Russian laughter might be more than mere mockery; it serves as a stark warning. The world watches closely, mindful that the implications of Trump’s presidency extend far beyond the borders of America, reshaping attitudes and alliances with each tweet and each bluster-filled speech.
In a time when global unity is paramount, the chaos of Trump’s rhetoric underscores a dangerous truth: the fragility of respect and the necessity of stable governance.
Featured image via the Canary
By Steve Topple
This post was originally published on Canary.
One of President Donald Trump’s top immigration officials was recently paid an undisclosed amount to consult for a major immigrant jail operator that is poised to profit from the administration’s fascist immigration crackdown, new reporting finds. Financial filings show that Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, consulted for GEO Group in the two years prior to his appointment in January…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The media, universities, the Democratic Party and liberals, by embracing the fiction of “rampant antisemitism,” laid the groundwork for their own demise. Columbia and Princeton, where I have taught, and Harvard, which I attended, are not incubators of hatred towards Jews. The New York Times, where I worked for fifteen years and which Trump calls “an enemy of the people,” is slavishly subservient to the Zionist narrative. What these institutions have in common is not antisemitism, but liberalism. And liberalism, with its creed of pluralism and inclusiveness, is slated by our authoritarian regime for obliteration.
The post Chris Hedges: Trump’s Useful Idiots appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
The Trump administration has put a pause on new student visa application interviews as it prepares to expand its surveillance of the social media activity of those seeking to study in the U.S., Politico reports, in the latest instance of the administration’s crackdown on immigrants and the left. The expected new guidance was announced to U.S. embassies and consulates in a cable sent Tuesday…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Dozens of the roughly 200 cryptocurrency traders who were invited to a private dinner held by President Donald Trump last week hold other crypto assets with symbology linked to far right ideologies, white nationalism and neo-Nazism, a government watchdog says. According to a recent report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), 50 of the invitees hold crypto assets…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Donald Trump’s Oval Office allegations of a ‘white genocide’ in South Africa were strongly rebutted by president Cyril Ramaphosa, highlighting misinformation’s danger around race and crime. Yet the majority of the right-wing Western media has failed to report on it – and those that did, have glorified it.
In a recent Oval Office meeting, US president Donald Trump made sensational claims regarding South Africa, asserting that a ‘white genocide’ is occurring against the Afrikaner minority.
This assertion was met with strong rebuttal from South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who pointed out that the majority of violent crime victims in the country are against Black individuals.
The encounter not only highlighted the dangers of misinformation but also underlined the ongoing dialogues around race, land, and historical injustices in South Africa.
Trump’s allegations, which drew from debunked conspiracy theories popularised by far-right groups, presented a distorted view of South Africa’s reality.
Recent statistics from South African police reveal stark truths: between 2020 and 2024, only eight out of 225 murdered individuals on farms were white farmers. This statistic contradicts the narrative of widespread and targeted violence against white farmers, instead illustrating that the majority of agricultural victims have been Black farm workers, further complicating the simplistic portrayal of victimhood.
During the meeting, Trump resorted to showing outdated video evidence that has been thoroughly dismissed as misleading. Among these was an image of a burial in the Democratic Republic of Congo, wrongly used as evidence for his claims.
The American publication that originally featured this footage admitted the mistake, yet Trump’s administration continues to perpetuate these inaccuracies. This indicates an alarming trend where narratives disconnected from actual data can influence international relations and perceptions.
Critics argue that such fabrications overshadow pressing issues within South Africa, including persistent inequality, crime rates, and a legacy of apartheid that continues to affect millions. In recent years, land reform, aimed at rectifying historical injustices, has become a priority for the South African government.
Proposals for expropriation without compensation have been presented, but they are subject to strict conditions and have yet to be enacted on a significant scale. Trump’s false claims distract from these complex realities, offering a dangerous oversimplification of issues that require nuanced understanding and dialogue.
Elon Musk, a prominent far-right amplifier, has once again amplified Trump’s claims, describing the South African government as “anti-white.”
However, this position has been soundly rejected by South African courts, which label the notion of a ‘white genocide’ as unfounded. The presentation of such ideas not only poses risks to diplomatic relations but also threatens to deepen divisions within South African society, undermining the efforts of reconciliation and healing from a troubled past.
In a climate where mistruths can easily circulate, the portrayal of South Africa as a land where white individuals are under siege distorts the narrative and masks the country’s more profound struggles with inequality, actual racism, and violence that predominantly affect the Black population.
The media and political narratives surrounding these issues are crucial, as they can directly impact the lives of millions and the global understanding of a nation still grappling with its history. Yet when most of the right-wing corporate media fail to even report the US president as peddling racist, far-right conspiracy theory, the impact is only worsened. It is worsened still when outlets like the Daily Mail amplify the conspiracy theory themselves.
Trump must be held accountable for his claims, especially those that can incite division and misunderstanding. Of course, it’s highly unlikely he will be.
Featured image via the Canary
By Steve Topple
This post was originally published on Canary.
NPR sued U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday over his recent executive order aiming to end federal funding for the outlet, a move that the lawsuit calls an illegal attack that “threatens the existence of a public radio system that millions of Americans across the country rely on for vital news and information.” Colorado Public Radio, KSUT Public Radio, and Roaring Fork Public Radio joined…
President Donald Trump on Saturday bragged to West Point’s graduating class that he has refused to cut Pentagon spending and touted his push for an annual military budget of $1 trillion, arguing that other programs should be on the chopping block instead. “Some people say, ‘Could you cut it back?’ I said, ‘I’m not cutting 10 cents,'” the president said of Pentagon spending during his…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Israeli soldiers have “systematically” used Palestinians as human shields during the 19-month assault on the Gaza Strip, The Associated Press reported Saturday, citing Palestinian civilians and members of the Israel Defense Forces who described engaging in the practice that is banned under international humanitarian law. “Orders often came from the top, and at times nearly every platoon used…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
When Sharon Wilson arrives on site at an oil and gas facility in Texas, it’s the smell that often greets her first. An odor similar to rotten eggs or a mechanic shop can come from toxic pollutants emitted during fossil fuel production, like hydrogen sulfide and benzene. But Wilson is also there to capture an invisible, odorless pollutant: methane, a potent greenhouse gas that can only be seen…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.