Originally published at: A Week Of Cracking Down On Education And Free Thought - TPM – Talking Points Memo
Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender 
Much of what the Trump administration has done during the lawless rampage that has been its first two months has felt haphazard, reckless, at times almost random in nature — all of which, of course, is by design. It’s become well understood in the years since…
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Everything is projection …
Trump went on to allege that Biden didn’t know about the pardons or approve them and that therefore all the committee members would be “subject to investigation at the highest level.”
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Re: Columbia. A PRIVATE university. Could the administration not have rallied the alumni, the big donors, to kick in so that academic freedom could be preserved? Couid Columbia not made a big public deal out of this? Made some noise? Asked for help from private citizens? Even announced they were shorting the sports teams??
Instead, they rolled over and capitulated. This example, and the pathetic spectacles of those other college presidents testifying to Congress suggest that our universities are being managed by inarticulate bean counters who have no clue as to the value of a unitversity, or even, of education itself.
/rant
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Most were people between 25 and 45 years old and have children.
ETA:
Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post observed today that “the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ [is making] the federal government almost comically inefficient.” She wrote that Internal Revenue Service employees line up at shared computers on Mondays to submit their “five things I did last week” emails to DOGE while taxpayer service calls go unanswered. Federal surveyors at the Bureau of Land Management are no longer allowed to buy replacement equipment, so when a shovel breaks they can’t simply replace it; they have to locate a manager authorized to file an official procurement form and order one. Many have had to ignore their actual jobs in order to scrub words from official documents.
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So when does the purging of the intellectuals begin?
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Acting Social Security chief now says he won’t shut down agency after DOGE ruling
A judge blocked DOGE from accessing some sensitive data.
… … … … …
DOGE is more than stepping on the 3rd rail of politics. They’re smashing it with sledge hammers, melting the bits and doing their level best to destroy it
Readthe article at ABCnews
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The US also has a long tradition of anti-intellectualism so, once again, the Trumpists reach for power and find it in the nation’s Id. The penalties for stupidity and incompetence are much lighter there in that dark country too; lucky for them and unfortunately for us.
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According to a column at MSNBC by culture critic Rebecca Ritzel, the president has been proposing a slate of plays, including “Cats,” Camelot,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Hello, Dolly!” seemingly unaware that there are no touring companies presenting those plays from bygone days.
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On the subject of learning what’s up, there’s a web site where someone – presumably a critic – seems to be keeping track of the progress of Project 2025 as it tackles important chores like closing down any offices label as “office of civil rights” or “ombudsman” or the like. It’s searchable, so you can select your own horror movie or tragedy or what have you…
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Well the good news for those in the Trump administration is no matter what they do they will not have to worry… none of them could be remotely considered intellectuals.
In fact in the GOP Stupidity and incompetence is a requirement for holding higher office… it started with W
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DEI not going to the moon. Moon is whites only. White men.
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We’re finding out that we need a new national anthem, since we’re clearly not the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” We’re more like “the land of the slavish and the home of caved.”
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“The Anthem of the Watched”
(Still loosely to the tune of “The Star-Spangled Banner”)
O say can you see, through the smog and the screens,
What remains of the dream in this concrete illusion?
Once voices rang free, now we whisper in memes,
While we scroll through the lies in a trance of confusion.
And the sirens still wail, and the news feeds prevail,
And the watchers above never sleep, never fail.
So kneel to the flag, scanned and tagged by the state—
In the land of the tracked and the home of “too late.”
Chatgpt
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Yeah, that’s what we need. 67,000 more angry aggrieved racists with hefty bank accounts.
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Person appointed to lead the antisemitism task force is an antisemite.
Trump’s antisemitism chief shares ‘Jew card’ post from white supremacist
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Soooo maybe instead of having a gathering of students calling for a “protest”, they could call it a rally for _________? Can we bring back sit-ins, die-ins, and whatever kind of “ins” we can think of?
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Well, they’ve started with a bunch of policy wonks in the civil service, and they’re stripping the livelihoods and life purposes from quite a few researchers, scientists and otherwise…So they’ll probably just keep ramping up from there, right?
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I think we’ve substituted “incompetents” for “intellectuals” this time around.
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A new EO targeting lawyers who sue the federal government from the guy who routinely abuses the legal system on his own behalf. He name checks Mark Elias in the EO.
Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court – The White House
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“We want to get criminals out of our country, number one, and I don’t know when it was signed, because I didn’t sign it,” Trump said. “Other people handled it,
Oooh, did somebody use auto-pen?
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