After the biggest day of protest of the second Trump presidency, when millions of people rallied in more than 1,300 cities and towns across the country, Ezra Levin addressed thousands of faithful progressive activists.

For the previous few months, as Trump reclaimed the White House and Democrats struggled to oppose him, the drumbeat of opposition had steadily grown. Protest was back in the air. Democrats were finding their way. And it was because of activists like them, Levin told the crew gathered on a weekly organizing call for Indivisible, the progressive movement that started during Trump’s first term.

The day of the Hands Off protests, 5 April, was an “inflection point” in the movement against Trump, the Indivisible co-founder and co-executive director said.

. . .

Indivisible, a progressive grassroots organization with a national office and thousands of offshoots in cities and towns around the country, grew out of a Google Doc created by Levin and his wife, Leah Greenberg, when Trump won in 2016. At the time, the document suggested progressives use the Tea Party tactic of constituents pressuring their members of Congress to derail Trump’s agenda.

Now, more than eight years later, the organization has matured and formed a critical flank of the opposition, using its millions of members across the country to quickly spin up town halls, rallies, educational events and protests. Since Trump won in November, progressive activists have launched or restarted more than 1,200 chapters, reigniting a level of activity the organization hasn’t seen since the early days of Trump’s first term.

. . .

Spruce trees don’t just react to solar eclipses—they anticipate them, synchronizing their bioelectrical signals hours in advance in a display of forest-wide coordination.

This discovery reveals a level of intelligence and communication in trees that rivals animal behavior. Remarkably, older trees lead the charge, hinting at environmental memory being passed down through the forest.

Trees That Predict the Sky

A groundbreaking international study has found that spruce trees not only respond to a solar eclipse but also anticipate it by synchronizing their bioelectrical signals hours in advance, creating a coordinated response across the forest.

Published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the study shows that older trees display a stronger early reaction, suggesting they hold decades of environmental memory and may play a role in signaling younger trees about upcoming events.

These findings add to growing evidence that plants are active, communicative members of their ecosystems, capable of complex and coordinated behaviors similar to those observed in animal groups.

. . .

I am the rare person who thinks Trump’s authoritarian push has not, yet, gone as far as it might as quickly as I imagined.

I think that for two primary reasons. First, I expected far more violence than we’ve seen, both from jack-booted thugs and from Trump’s terrorists. While ICE has definitely done horrible things and wielded unnecessary violence, they have thus far limited their targets to people who are or look like they are migrants or those who’ve defended migrants’ due process. It doesn’t make what they’ve done right. It makes that violence an entrée.

That may change if Trump’s budget authorizing 20,000 more immigration cops–which should be viewed as a wholesale shift in the United States from law enforcement to policing–gets passed by the Senate. That may change as Trump and Stephen Miller continue to gin up violence targeting judges. That may change as Trump’s rubes begin to lose their livelihoods and need someone besides Trump to blame. But thus far, Trump has not wielded the kind of violence he has tested in the past.

The other thing I expected to happen more quickly was a solidification of an alliance with the great authoritarians of the world — the Middle Eastern autocrats who had been bribing Trump in plain sight throughout the Biden term, Russia, which had partnered with those same autocrats in Putin’s effort to destroy the United States, and eventually China. Such an alliance would leave Europe — already undermined by the Orbanist project — as the rump defender of once dominant Western ideals.

. . .

We should expect to see more instances where Trump takes sudden actions that empower authoritarianism. And as he proceeds, he will look for ways to start chipping away at democracy where it remains.

A cryptocurrency investor was arraigned in Manhattan criminal court on Saturday morning and charged with kidnapping an Italian man and then beating and torturing him for several weeks, allegedly to extract cryptocurrency passwords.

The 37-year-old crypto investor, John Woeltz, was arrested on Friday after allegedly torturing the man in a swanky home in the upscale Manhattan neighborhood of Soho. The victim reportedly escaped the five-story home on Friday and sought help from the police, who later arrested Woeltz.

According to the New York Times, the police found Polaroid photos inside the home that documented the weeks-long torture.

Woeltz and two accomplices allegedly detained and tortured the 28-year-old man in the home Woeltz had been renting for roughly $30,000 a month. The alleged victim told the police he arrived in the US on 6 May, when he was kidnapped by Woeltz.

. . .

A vacation lodge known as the Wagon Box Inn in the tiny town of Story, Wyoming, has emerged as an unlikely hub of rightwing ambitions to reorient US politics and culture.

Events held there since it opened, and others planned for this spring, have brought together figures from the so-called “dissident right”, political figures backed by reactionary currents in Silicon Valley, and proponents of the “network state” movement.

The dissident right is a term that describes rightwing intellectual currents that go beyond and even attack mainstream conservatives for their perceived concessions to liberals on issues like race, feminism and LGBTQ+ rights. Network state proponents envision a network of extra-national communities that exist beyond the control of nation-states.

. . .

Reverse diasporas

Srinavisan is an entrepreneur and investor formerly associated with companies including Andreessen-Horowitz and Coinbase. (That company’s current CEO, Brian Armstrong, is another outspoken booster of network states).

For more than a decade, Srinivasan has advocated a radical anarcho-capitalist vision in which like-minded people can “exit” and place themselves beyond the legal and economic reach of nation-states in parallel, networked special economic zones.

His ideas are often couched in vituperative attacks on his perceived enemies, including academics, government employees and the media.

. . .

Precious scientific papers once belonging to wartime codebreaking genius Alan Turing – rescued from an attic clear-out where they faced destruction – are set to fetch a fortune at auction next month.

The incredible archive, tipped to rake in tens of thousands, includes a rare signed copy of Turing's 1939 PhD dissertation, Systems Of Logic Based On Ordinals [PDF]. Experts reckon this manuscript alone could go for between £40,000 and £60,000 (c $54-$81,000).

Also among the finds is Turing's legendary 1937 paper, On Computable Numbers [PDF] – dubbed the first-ever "programming manual" and introducing the world-changing concept of a universal computing machine.

The papers, originally gifted by Turing's mother Ethel to his mathematician pal Norman Routledge, vanished from public view and were stashed forgotten in a family loft after his death.

. . .

A heartfelt letter from Turing's mother is also included, describing how she spotted her son's genius early, despite school bullies and skeptics. "I have today sent by registered post 13 of Alan's off-prints," it reads. "I have had some requests to write a biography of Alan... I have masses of material because from the time he was about 6 I spotted a winner – despite many detractors at school – and kept many papers about him."

Spencer said: "This fascinating letter is a golden thread that neatly ties up and seals the authenticity of everything being offered."

. . .

Since before reaching the Senate, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said loudly that our economic system is rigged. By the rich. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) concurs. You thought the people doing the rigging would stop there? Oh, child.

Democracy Docket describes the newest rigging succinctly (emphasis mine):



This MAGA tweak does not just apply to court orders going forward. Chemerinsky adds, “It would apply to all temporary restraining orders, preliminary injunctions, and even permanent injunctions ever issued. By its terms, it applies to court orders ‘issued prior to, on, or subsequent’ to its adoption.”

. . .

Of course if signed into law, the provision will be challenged in court. Trump will lose. He will appeal. And appeal again, all the way to SCOTUS. At this point, it would be foolish to predict what the outcome of that case would be. By then, Trump’s grip on the reins of power may have tightened through threats, arrests, and intimidation to the point that a majority of justices may fear crossing him. But even if SCOTUS does slap down this encroachment on judicial powers, Trump and his henchmen will be free to violate your rights with abandon.

God bless America.

In 2024, too many people cared more about the price of eggs than this and they either stayed home or voted for Trump.

The Supreme Court that made it possible is supposed to save us now?

Via the xitter: (see the link above if you want to visit the xitter.)




Better carry your papers with you if you look Latino. Another one:



He was released after they finally let him show his papers.



I hope these stories are percolating through the Hispanic communities and people are hearing about it. It should chill anyone in this country who looks vaguely Latino. Or MIddle Eastern. Or Asian or Black for that matter. White too if you’re trying to return to the country from a foreign country. When you think about it, who can’t they roust on suspicion of being a foreigner?

ICE is a rogue police agency that’s been given license to literally detain anyone they choose. Being a citizen is no protection. Carry your papers. Who knows when some armed thug in jeans and a face mask will come up on you and demand them.

Even the Nazis wore uniforms.