Law Firm Bends in Face of Trump Demands; The New York Times, March 20, 2025

Michael S. Schmidt, The New York Times ; Law Firm Bends in Face of Trump Demands

[Kip Currier: This law firm's capitulation and transactionalism epitomizes the definition of craven: 

contemptibly lacking in courage; cowardly

It's also a terrible precedent to set for the rule of law, the legal profession, and democracy.]

[Excerpt]

"President Trump and the head of the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP have reached a deal under which Mr. Trump will drop the executive order he leveled against the firm, Mr. Trump said on Thursday.

In the deal, Mr. Trump said, the firm agreed to a series of commitments, including to represent clients no matter their political affiliation and contribute $40 million in legal services to causes Mr. Trump has championed, including “the President’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, and other mutually agreed projects.

It’s unclear how the money will be used to help the task force. The firm, Mr. Trump said, also agreed to conduct an audit to ensure its hiring practices are merit based “and will not adopt, use, or pursue any DEI policies.”"

The Authoritarian Endgame on Higher Education; The New York Times, March 15, 2025

The Editorial Board, The New York Times; The Authoritarian Endgame on Higher Education

"When a political leader wants to move a democracy toward a more authoritarian form of government, he often sets out to undermine independent sources of information and accountability. The leader tries to delegitimize judges, sideline autonomous government agencies and muzzle the media. President Vladimir Putin of Russia has done so over the past quarter-century. To lesser degrees, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey recently have as well.

The weakening of higher education tends to be an important part of this strategy. Academic researchers are supposed to pursue the truth, and budding autocrats recognize that empirical truth can present a threat to their authority. “Wars are won by teachers,” Mr. Putin has said. He and Mr. Erdogan have closed universities. Mr. Modi’s government has arrested dissident scholars, and Mr. Orban has appointed loyal foundations to run universities.

President Trump has not yet gone as far to impede democracy as these other leaders, but it would be naïve to ignore his early moves to mimic their approach. He has fired government watchdogs, military leaders, prosecutors and national security experts. He has sued media organizations, and his administration has threatened to regulate others. He has suggested that judges are powerless to check his authority, writing on social media, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

Mr. Trump’s multifaceted campaign against higher education is core to this effort to weaken institutions that do not parrot his version of reality. Above all, he is enacting or considering major cuts to universities’ resources. The Trump administration has announced sharp reductions in the federal payments that cover the overhead costs of scientific research, such as laboratory rent, electricity and hazardous waste disposal. (A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order against those cuts.) Vice President JD Vance and other Republicans have urged a steep increase of a university endowment tax that Mr. Trump signed during his first term. Together, these two policies could reduce the annual budgets at some research universities by more than 10 percent."

Trump, Zelenskyy and the war on truth; Index on Censorship, February 24, 2025

Sarah Dawood , Index on Censorship; Trump, Zelenskyy and the war on truth

"The news this week has been dominated by the growing feud between Donald Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which has culminated in possibly irreparable relations between the presidents.

What started with a meeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin on the war in Ukraine (from which Zelenskyy was excluded) ended in a stream of disinformation coming from the leader of the world’s largest economy. Trump made several spurious claims chiming with those regularly churned out by Putin’s propaganda machine.

Among these were that Zelenskyy is a “dictator without elections”, that Ukraine is to blame for Russia’s 2022 invasion, and that Zelenskyy’s approval rating in Ukraine has plummeted to 4%, all of which closely mirror the Kremlin’s narrative. In response, Zelenskyy said that the US president is “trapped” within a Russian “disinformation bubble”.

Trump’s comments have been debunked by many world leaders, including Keir Starmer, who immediately came out in support of Zelenskyy as a democratically elected leader, and asserted that it is normal for presidential elections to be suspended during wartime (as happened in the UK during World War Two).

This exchange indicates a drastic reshaping in the geopolitical relationship between the USA and Russia, and indeed the USA and its key allies – but it also indicates a worrying affront to access to truthful information, the normalisation of false realities, and an acceptance of the suppression of free speech.

In what is often deemed Putin’s “war on truth”, the autocratic leader’s regime is notorious for crackdowns on journalism and free information. As well as blocking access to almost all social media websites and international news sites in Russia, his government has banned independent news outlets, with media now under government control. In doing so, he has been able to control the narrative of the war for his own citizens.

This is not to say that Ukraine itself has been a bastion of free expression. As reported by Amnesty International, free speech restrictions in the country have increased since 2022, with 2,000 cases of individuals being charged, prosecuted or investigated for crimes such as “justifying Russian aggression against Ukraine”, including those who class themselves as pacifists.

But what Trump’s words do signal is a terrifying new world order where intentional mistruths are prioritised over fair, free and accurate information, not only by dictators, but by leaders who are meant to be upholding the principles of democracy."

Three billionaires: America’s oligarchy is now fully exposed; The Guardian, February 27, 2025

Robert Reich, The Guardian; Three billionaires: America’s oligarchy is now fully exposed

"One of the unacknowledged advantages of the horrendous era we’ve entered is that it is revealing the putrid connections between great wealth and great power for all to see.

Oligarchs are fully exposed and they are defiant. It’s like hitting the “reveal codes” key on older computers that let you see everything.

On Wednesday, Jeff Bezos, the third-richest person in America, who bought the Washington Post in 2013, announced that the paper’s opinion section would henceforth focus on defending “personal liberties and free markets”.

Anything inconsistent with this view would not be published, according to his statement. “Viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”

The Post’s opinion editor, David Shipley, promptly resigned, as he should have...

Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, bought Twitter in 2022, laid off everyone who was filtering out hateful crap on the platform, renamed it X and turned it into a cesspool of lies in support of Trump.

Mark Zuckerberg, the second-richest person, has followed suit, allowing Facebook to emit lies, hate and bigotry in support of Trump’s lies, hate and bigotry.

All three of these men were in the first row at Trump’s inauguration. They, and other billionaires, have now exposed themselves for what they are.

They are the oligarchy. They continue to siphon off the wealth of the nation. They are supporting a tyrant who is promising them tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks that will make them even richer.

They are destroying democracy so they won’t have to worry about “parasites” (as Musk calls people who depend on government assistance) demanding anything more from them.

When billionaires take control of our communication channels, it’s not a win for free speech. It’s a win for their billionaire babble."

Trump ends federal leadership program, cutting off key talent pipeline; The Washington Post, February 20, 2025

 Olivia George, The Washington Post; Trump ends federal leadership program, cutting off key talent pipeline

[Kip Currier: "So we do not lose heart." 2 Cor. 4:16.

Trump, Vance, Musk, and others in his circle want the American people to despair and believe that our government is irreparably broken. [Read/Listen to Ezra Klein's 2/7/25 New York Times interview with Kara Swisher "What Elon Musk Wants"] That we as a country, committed to the bedrock principle E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One), are irrevocably divided. That we are not indivisible, in contravention of our Pledge of Allegiance (one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all).

The damage being done every day by the Trump administration is tragic, uncharitable, and vengeful.

Yet, we must and will persevere as a nation. We must build stronger guardrails to protect against this kind of unilateral, monarchical destruction of federal employees, programs, and agencies that help people, provide deserved opportunities, strengthen our democracy and the free world, and present hope and information to those yearning for freedom and self-determination.

Take heart. We will rebuild our government when this regime has ended.]

[Excerpt] 

"The Trump administration ended the Presidential Management Fellows Program in a late-night executive order Wednesday, axing a decades-old initiative that has long been celebrated as a pipeline to draw talent into civil service careers.

The two-year, full-time fellowship brings recent graduate students into agencies across the government with pay, benefits, training and mentorship. It bills itself as “the premier leadership development program” and has helped thousands of graduates get into government roles since its founding in 1977.

President Donald Trump instructed the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to “promptly terminate” the program in the executive order, which targeted “elements of the Federal bureaucracy” that he had “determined are unnecessary.” The order also eliminated or dramatically diminished a handful of other programs and federal advisory committees, including the U.S. Institute of Peace, which works to prevent and resolve violent conflict, and the U.S. African Development Foundation, which invests in African grassroots enterprises.

“This is one of the most unsettling, tragic pieces of news yet,” said Sean O’Keefe, a member of the presidential management program’s inaugural class who went on to become the NASA administrator under President George W. Bush. “This is a firing of convenience. They are looking for a headcount reduction; there is nothing qualitative about this.”

How to Organize Our Way Out of the Trump-Musk Putsch; The Nation, February 19, 2025

EZRA LEVIN and LEAH GREENBERG , The Nation; How to Organize Our Way Out of the Trump-Musk Putsch

"For the millions of Americans now desperate to reclaim our democracy from the plutocratic vandalism of the second Trump administration, the main challenge before us is simple: We have to unify and fight back. This isn’t new and it isn’t rocket science—the one thing we know from historical fights against authoritarians is that success depends on a persistent, courageous, broad-based, and unified opposition. What that should look like and what that demands of each of us is the heart of the new movement to defeat a more disciplined and lawless Trump White House, but before we get to where we’re going, we have to start with where we are.

We run a national pro-democracy grassroots movement organization that’s been helping to marshal local volunteer groups against Trumpism for nearly a decade. Trump’s innovation in his second term is his strategic alignment with neoreactionary forces personified in Elon Musk. As one underground memo circulating in pro-democracy circles recently explained, the neoreactionary goal is “replacing the existing Constitutional system with a privatized state structure akin to a corporation, with a monarch-like figure at the top modeled after a CEO.” It’s no wonder that historians like Timothy Snyder and Heather Cox Richardson are raising the alarm about a boiling constitutional crisis...

A week after the election, we published Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink, an open-source handbook for building nationwide opposition to the coming authoritarian takeover. The first step: total opposition to Trump’s Project 2025...

We’re under no illusion that any senator or representative can summon forth the opposition on their own. It’s up to each of us to try, and learn, and improve, and build. Constituents should be organizing in their own communities as engaged neighbors, pro-democracy volunteers, and educators. Rank-and-file Democrats should be feeding off that energy and harnessing its power. And Democrats in leadership should be corralling their caucuses to produce a unified front with aggressive, creative tactics and messaging. Nobody has all the answers, and we’re all going to have to try, fail, go back to the drawing board, and try again.

These are frightening times, and frightening times call for active, courageous leadership. Musk and Trump are really seeking to annex the operations of the state to their pet vanity projects, bigotries, and conspiracy theories , but our enemy is not one or two men. Our enemy is apathy, cynicism, and fatalism; the pernicious, authoritarian-friendly belief that we are merely victims of world events rather than active participants in a global struggle for freedom and justice. Every time one of us—a family member, a community organizer, a representative, a senator—takes a step forward in this fight, a thousand pairs of eyes watch and learn. Courage is contagious.

Take that step, and steel yourself with the knowledge that you are the defender of a 250-year experiment in self-governance—a real-life pluralistic democracy, imperfect as it is, striving to be more perfect. Our predecessors deposed a brain-addled king; they crushed the violent insurrectionists of a slaveholding confederacy; they forced the robber barons to contend with workers and unions; they kicked the Nazis’ asses throughout Europe; they broke the back of the southern segregationist political bloc; they fought back against the terrorizing forces at Stonewall. We have planted ourselves in stubborn opposition to monomaniacal fascists of one form or another for a quarter of a millennium. No entitled reality-TV has-been backed by an addle-brained billionaire who cheats at video games is going to roll over us now.

We will not finish this fight, but we can each be damn sure to do our part while we’re here. Together, we are the opposition, and this is our republic—if we can keep it. This is the part where we keep it."

ABA condemns remarks questioning legitimacy of courts and judicial review; American Bar Association (ABA), February 11, 2025

American Bar Association (ABA); ABA condemns remarks questioning legitimacy of courts and judicial review

"Last week, the administration lost a pretrial motion in a federal district court, which halted government efforts to gain access to Department of Treasury records including private records of many, if not all, U.S. citizens.  

It is certainly not the first time an administration has not prevailed in a pretrial motion in one of thousands of cases it files or defends each year. There is no final judgment in this case and, in any event, the government can appeal in a manner it has done countless times over the years. The right to appeal is there for any party dissatisfied with a court’s decision. It is also the right of every American and the government to criticize a decision made by the courts.   

What is never acceptable is what was said by representatives of this administration, including the misleading assertion that judges cannot control the executive’s legitimate power and calls for impeachment of a judge who did not rule in the administration’s favor. It is also not acceptable to attack the judge making the ruling or try to interfere with the independence of the court.   

These statements attack the legitimacy of judicial oversight just because a court’s ruling is not what the administration wants in a particular case. It is a fundamental cornerstone of our democracy that the courts are the protectors of the citizenry from government overreach. All lawyers know that judges have the authority to determine whether the administration’s actions are lawful and a legitimate exercise of executive branch authority. It is one of the oldest and most revered precedent in United States legal history — Marbury v. Madison. This is a key principle that is taught in the first year of law school.  

These bold assertions, designed to intimidate judges by threatening removal if they do not rule the government's way, cross the line. They create a risk to the physical security of judges and have no place in our society. There have also been suggestions that the executive branch should consider disobeying court orders. These statements threaten the very foundation of our constitutional system.   

The ABA calls for every lawyer and legal organization to speak with one voice and to condemn the efforts of any administration that suggests its actions are beyond the reach of judicial review. We also call for condemnation and rejection of calls for the impeachment of a judge who did not rule in a certain way.   

This is not the first time we have called out criticism and efforts to demonize the courts. The ABA spoke last fall during the previous administration and called out comments from both sides.  

We recognize the potential risk to our profession, the ABA and our members, by speaking. But to stay silent is to suggest that these statements are acceptable or the new norm. They are not. And we will not be silent in the face of such words that are contrary to our constitutional system. They pose a clear and present challenge to our democracy and the separation of powers among the three independent branches. We will stand for the rule of law today as we have for nearly 150 years.  

The ABA is one of the largest voluntary associations of lawyers in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law. View our privacy statement online."

ESSAY: Home of the brave? Really? Who will stand up for democracy?; The Ink, February 18, 2025

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, The Ink ; ESSAY: Home of the brave? Really? Who will stand up for democracy?

"As I write this, there are scattered and inspiring examples of bravery all around us — prosecutors, judges, even the occasional lawmaker. But in the main, we are proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are not the home of the brave. We are a country full of people smilingly capitulating to a tyrant...

Collaborating. Exactly that. It is fashionable now. Bravery, less so.

It’s the media owners who are rejecting advertisements from the pro-democracy movement and letting go of cartoonists who challenge power and settling bogus lawsuits to protect their wider commercial interests, and trying to position themselves in the Dear Leader’s good graces. Why do they even own newspapers? Maybe they would be better off owning banks. Do they know what newspapers are for?...

Then there are the CEOs, who, five years ago, proudly positioned themselves as avatars of a new future of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and now purge those programs from their own companies. They have more power with the resources at their command than most people who have ever lived, but it is not enough to give them courage. They would sell out their own colleagues, make them feel less part of the team, in order to please a Dear Leader who would sell them out in a Wall Street second...

It is the university leaders who, instead of defending their faculty — one of the only bastions of protected thinkers who can actually tell the truth without fear because of tenure — are bending over backwards to please the wannabe autocrat. Campuses are now full of fear of a new McCarthyism. How does it feel to work for leaders who do not have your back?

Collaborating.

We are learning about ourselves as a country. We are learning who among us and around us is brave."

What if Trump Does Everything He's Promised -- and the People Don't Care?; The New Republic, January/February 2025

Steven Levitsky/Daniel Ziblatt,  The New Republic; What if Trump Does Everything He's Promised -- and the People Don't Care?

"And here we go again. President-elect Donald Trump wasted little time in signaling to Americans, through his Cabinet nominations and White House appointments, that he plans to move quickly to act on his most extreme promises. What kind of United States will we have in a year, or in four? How will the country and its democratic institutions change? What are the chances he doesn’t succeed? And what if he does—and an apathetic, exhausted, and inward-looking populace shrugs? We could think of no one better to ask these questions than Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, the Harvard scholars who were co-authors of the 2018 bestseller How Democracies Die. They spoke with editor Michael Tomasky on November 25. Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity...

Letvitsky: I have always looked back at periods of abuse like the internment of Japanese Americans and McCarthyism and wondered why so few people rose up against it at the time. Now I fear we may see something similar."

President Trump's Self-Described "Takeover" of the Center is an Attack on Creative Freedom; PEN America, February 8, 2025

PEN America; President Trump's Self-Described "Takeover" of the Center is an Attack on Creative Freedom

"In response to President Trump saying he is firing the Kennedy Center trustees and naming himself chair, Hadar Harris, PEN America’s Washington managing director, made the following comment:

“President Trump’s self-described “takeover” of the Kennedy Center is another salvo in his demonstrated attack on free expression. He is taking the unprecedented move of clearing out board members “who do not share our vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.” Presidents should not be dictating a singular view of culture. The cultural sector must remain free from political control; that is fundamental to protecting creative freedom in a democracy.”

About PEN America

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Learn more at pen.org."

‘In a real sense, US democracy has died’: how Trump is emulating Hungary’s Orbán; The Guardian, February 7, 2025

David Smith in Washington, The Guardian; ‘In a real sense, US democracy has died’: how Trump is emulating Hungary’s Orbán

"pitiless crackdown on on illegal immigration. A hardline approach to law and order. A purge of “gender ideology” and “wokeness” from the nation’s schools. Erosions of academic freedom, judicial independence and the free press. An alliance with Christian nationalism. An assault on democratic institutions.

The “electoral autocracy” that is Viktor Orbán’s Hungary has been long revered by Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” (Maga) movement. Now admiration is turning into emulation. In the early weeks of Trump’s second term as US president, analysts say, there are alarming signs that the Orbánisation of America has begun.

With the tech billionaire Elon Musk at his side, Trump has moved with astonishing velocity to fire critics, punish media, reward allies, gut the federal government, exploit presidential immunity and test the limits of his authority. Many of their actions have been unconstitutional and illegal. With Congress impotent, only the federal courts have slowed them down."

Timothy Snyder; The Logic of Destruction: And how to resist it, February 2, 2025

 TIMOTHY SNYDER; The Logic of Destruction: And how to resist it

"What is a country? The way its people govern themselves. America exists because its people elect those who make and execute laws. The assumption of a democracy is that individuals have dignity and rights that they realize and protect by acting together.

The people who now dominate the executive branch of the government deny all of this, and are acting, quite deliberately, to destroy the nation. For them, only a few people, the very wealthy with a certain worldview, have rights, and the first among these is to dominate. 

For them, there is no such thing as an America, or Americans, or democracy, or citizens, and they act accordingly. Now that the oligarchs and their clients are inside the federal government, they are moving, illegally and unconstitutionally, to take over its institutions.

The parts of the government that work to implement laws have been maligned for decades. Americans have been told that the people who provide them with services are conspirators within a “deep state.” We have been instructed that the billionaires are the heroes.

All of this work was preparatory to the coup that is going on now. The federal government has immense capacity and control over trillions of dollars. That power was a cocreation of the American people. It belongs to them. The oligarchs around Trump are working now to take it for themselves.

Theirs is a logic of destruction. It is very hard to create a large, legitimate, functioning government. The oligarchs have no plan to govern. They will take what they can, and disable the rest. The destruction is the point. They don’t want to control the existing order. They want disorder in which their relative power will grow...

The best people in American federal law enforcement, national security, and national intelligence are being fired. The reasons given for this are DEI and trumpwashing the past. Of course, if you fire everyone who was concerned in some way with the investigations of January 6th or of Russia, that will be much or even most of the FBI. Those are bad reasons, but the reality is worse: the aim is lawlessness: to get the police and the patriots out of the way.

In the logic of destruction, there is no need to rebuild afterwards. In this chaos, the oligarchs will tell us that there is no choice but to have a strong man in charge. It can be a befuddled Trump signing ever larger pieces of paper for the cameras, or a conniving Vance who, unlike Trump, has always known the plot. Or someone else...

Almost everything that has happened during this attempted takeover is illegal. Lawsuits can be filed and courts can order that executive orders be halted. This is crucial work.

Much of what is happening, though, involves private individuals whose names are not even known, and who have no legal authority, wandering through government offices and issuing orders beyond even the questionable authority of executive orders. Their idea is that they will be immunized by their boldness. This must be proven wrong.

Some of this will reach the Supreme Court quickly. I am under no illusion that the majority of justices care about the rule of law. They know, however, that our belief in it makes their office something other than the undignified handmaiden of oligarchy. If they legalize the coup, they are irrelevant forever.

Individual Democrats in the Senate and House have legal and institutional tools to slow down the attempted oligarchical takeover. There should also be legislation. It might take a moment, but even Republican leaders might recognize that the Senate and House will no longer matter in a post-American oligarchy without citizens."

‘The Librarians’ EP Sarah Jessica Parker On The Spread Of Book Banning: “It’s A Fear Of Children Having Information” – Sundance Studio; Deadline, January 25, 2025

Matthew Carey, Deadline ; ‘The Librarians’ EP Sarah Jessica Parker On The Spread Of Book Banning: “It’s A Fear Of Children Having Information” – Sundance Studio

"TITLE: The Librarians

Section: Premieres

Director: Kim A. Snyder

Logline: As an unprecedented wave of book banning is sparked in Texas, Florida, and beyond, librarians who find themselves under siege join forces as unlikely defenders in the fight for intellectual freedom on the front lines of democracy. Kim A. Snyder (Us Kids, 2020 Sundance Film Festival) takes us to an unexpected front line where librarians emerge as first responders in the fight for democracy and free access to information."

Trump’s angry response to a viral sermon should worry all Christians; MSNBC, January 22, 2025

Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons, senior director of policy and advocacy at Interfaith Alliance , MSNBC; Trump’s angry response to a viral sermon should worry all Christians

"Neither Budde nor her church should apologize for following Jesus. Despite President Trump and his allies attacking Budde, it’s important to recognize that her compassionate sermon does not represent some left-wing fringe of American Christianity. Budde’s words reflect the values held by a majority of American Christians — a fact that Trump’s divisive rhetoric seeks to obscure.  

“In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country,” Budde proclaimed. “And we’re scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families — some who fear for their lives.”

Trump and Vance might have been surprised to hear such a strong embrace of LGBTQ rights by a bishop, because the far-right evangelical and Catholic leaders who surround them are the chief purveyors of anti-LGBTQ hate. Yet they’re far from the norm. A strong majority of U.S. Christians — including Catholics and evangelicals — support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ individuals, according to the Public Religion Research Institute.

Bishop Budde’s Episcopal Church has been a leader within American Christianity and the worldwide Anglican Communion in advancing LGBTQ rights. Bishop Gene Robinson was elected the first openly gay bishop of a major U.S. denomination in 2003. Robinson’s election must not have rankled Trump too much, because in 2005 he married Melania in an Episcopal church in Palm Beach, and his son Barron attended a private Episcopal school during the first Trump administration. 

Bishop Budde also called attention to Trump’s executive actions targeting immigrants. 

“The people, the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants, and work the night shifts in hospitals,” she said. “They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues and temples.”...

Budde’s message was a reflection of Jesus’ call to love our neighbors, to care for the oppressed, and to seek justice for the marginalized. The fact that it’s gone viral across social media is proof that mainstream Christians are hungry for truth-telling, justice-seeking Christian leaders to step up at this critical moment for our democracy and our faith.

Followers of Jesus are going to have to endure the president labeling us the “Radical Left.” Denigrating and attacking the Gospel is necessary for him to push his authoritarian agenda forward. Yes, he will continue to surround himself with court clerics and wave the banner of Christian nationalism. But Trump’s outrage is evidence that, far from being a champion of “religious freedom,” he will treat any attempt to confront his policies in the name of Jesus as a challenge to his authority."

How Jeff Bezos can stop the bleeding at the Washington Post; The Guardian, January 17, 2025

Margaret Sullivan , The Guardian; How Jeff Bezos can stop the bleeding at the Washington Post

"More than 400 newsroom staffers at the Washington Post pleaded with the paper’s owner, Jeff Bezos, this week to do something about their beloved paper’s rapid – and very public – decline.

“We are deeply alarmed by recent leadership decisions that have led readers to question the integrity of this institution, broken with a tradition of transparency, and prompted some of our most distinguished colleagues to leave, with more departures imminent,” an extraordinary letter to Bezos read in part, as first reported by NPR’s David Folkenflik. It was signed by some of the Post’s most respected names, including the investigative reporter Carol Leonnig and the unofficial dean of DC politics writers Dan Balz.

I feel their pain and join their cause. I was proud to work at the Washington Post for six years, until 2022, as the paper’s media columnist. My ties to the paper go back much further; it was the Post’s Watergate reporting that piqued my interest, as a teenager, in journalism and (along with a whole generation of other young people) drew me into a lifelong career. I know and admire many reporters, editors, photographers, videographers, designers and others at the paper, and doubt I’ll ever give up my subscription...

Bezos may not care. The billionaire who bought the paper for $250m in 2013 has been in supplication mode to Donald Trump for months. One of the world’s richest individuals, Bezos seems more interested in palling around with the likes of fellow billionaire Elon Musk.

But let’s say he does care, for reasons that may span the spectrum from preserving his own place in history to defending press rights to improving the Post’s red-drenched bottom line.

What could he do, immediately, to stem the bleeding?

First, he should show up – soon – to hold a town hall with the newsroom, answer questions and take the heat. Do it on the record...

Second, he should clearly state – publicly – that he understands the importance of editorial freedom and pledge not to interfere with it. And he should communicate that he gets the importance of the Post’s history and mission, and that he will support it.

Third, he should dump his handpicked publisher, Will Lewis, from whom many of these problems originate. Lewis, a British journalist who hails from the world of Rupert Murdoch, is far from a paragon of journalistic excellence or good judgment. His appointment has been rejected by the body of the Post (and, eventually, by its readers); to put it mildly, the graft didn’t take. Recognizing that, and immediately beginning a search for a more suitable replacement, would be a huge – and essential – step in the right direction.

All of this should be transparent to the public, in keeping with how the Post has conducted itself for many years. It’s a core value."

The Washington Post’s New Mission: Reach ‘All of America’; The New York Times, January 16, 2025

Benjamin Mullin, The New York Times ; The Washington Post’s New Mission: Reach ‘All of America’

[Kip Currier: “Two things only the people anxiously desire — bread and circuses.” 

-- Juvenal, Roman satirical poet (c. 100 AD).

To think that The Washington Post was the newspaper whose investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein exposed the 1970's Watergate break-in and cover-up, resulting in the eventual resignation of Pres. Richard Nixon on August 8, 1974...

And to now see its stature intentionally diminished and its mission incrementally debased, week by week, at the hands of billionaire Jeff Bezos and hand-picked former newspaper administrators who worked for billionaire Rupert Murdoch-owned U.K. newspapers.]

[Excerpt]

"After Donald J. Trump entered the White House in 2017, The Washington Post adopted a slogan that underscored the newspaper’s traditional role as a government watchdog: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

This week, as Mr. Trump prepares to re-enter the White House, the newspaper debuted a mission statement that evokes a more expansive view of The Post’s journalism, without death or darkness: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.”...

The slide deck that Ms. Watford presented describes artificial intelligence as a key enabler of The Post’s success, the people said. It describes The Post as “an A.I.-fueled platform for news” that delivers “vital news, ideas and insights for all Americans where, how and when they want it.” It also lays out three pillars of The Post’s overall plan: “great journalism,” “happy customers” and “make money.” The Post lost roughly $77 million in 2023.

But many aspects of The Post’s new mission have nothing to do with emerging technology. The slide deck includes a list of seven principles first articulated by Eugene Meyer, an influential Post owner, in 1935. Among them: “the newspaper shall tell all the truth” and “the newspaper’s duty is to its readers and to the public at large, and not to the private interests of its owners.”"

New SUNY requirements to focus on civic skills and AI ethics; WHEC News10NBC, January 7, 2025

WHEC News10NBC; New SUNY requirements to focus on civic skills and AI ethics 

[Kip Currier: This is an intriguing development by the SUNY higher education system. It will be interesting to see how these efforts are assessed in future years (or even sooner, as I can imagine these general education requirements will likely catalyze spirited discussion about how to define -- and who gets to define -- "civic discourse", "healthy dialogues", and even "AI ethics").

Also, the end of the story notes that "AI assisted with the formatting of the story" and provides a link to learn more about how the news station uses AI. 

This is their policy, at present:

"News 10 NBC’S guidelines for using Artificial Intelligence

News10NBC uses artificial intelligence (A.I.) tools to help format some of our news stories from broadcast style to our digital print style. We do not use A.I. for research, content, reporting, or imaging. All news content that uses News10NBC’s A.I. resources is reviewed and approved in the News10NBC editorial process before publishing."

It's good practice, in terms of transparency and user awareness, that they do specify the current parameters of their use of AI.

A question to keep our eyes on:

• How might this policy potentially change as AI evolves? Or if/when economic circumstances change, which we know occurs. For example, if news organizations like this one decide to potentially downsize, at some point, and have to do more reporting with fewer human reporters and news staff.]

News story:

"The State University of New York (SUNY) system is set to introduce new general education requirements for its students.

These updates will add a civic discourse component to the core competencies of the general education curriculum. 

According to SUNY, this new requirement aims to ensure that “students gain the skills necessary to participate in civic life and engage in healthy dialogues in order to secure the future of our democracy.”

“SUNY is committed to academic excellence, which includes a robust general education curriculum,” said SUNY Chancellor King. “We are proud that every SUNY student will be expected to demonstrate the knowledge and skills that advance respectful and reasoned discourse, and that we will help our students recognize and ethically use AI as they consider various information sources.”

Additionally, students will be required to learn how to recognize and ethically use artificial intelligence. The new requirements are expected to start in fall 2026."