Author: sauer@technologists.com

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Jay Kuo: The Emperor Has No Claws

Trump is but a paper tiger in the very places he asserts he can act with impunity

On Wednesday, during a cabinet meeting, Donald Trump declared he has the “right to do anything I want” because “I’m the President of the United States.”

It was a telling summary of not only his state of mind but where we find ourselves as a nation: teetering on the brink of autocracy and fascism. Some argue we are already plunged deep into it.

But as many commentators have urged, we must watch what Trump does, and not get sucked into what he says. And when we zoom out a bit and examine strictly what he has tried to do, ignoring his constant lies and bluster, there’s quite a different picture than the monarch who can do anything he wants.

The markets understand that Trump’s word is not worth much. His constant threats and inevitable retreats on tariffs have led to the “TACO” presidency, because Trump really does “always chicken out” in the end.
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Today, I want to discuss four significant constraints upon the man who believes he can do anything simply because he is the President of the United States. These are powerful forces that act every day to limit his options and rein him in. I want to lay them out plainly, not only to give us some basis for hope that we can survive his second term (however long or short it winds up being) but also to highlight where we should focus our own attention and lend our support.
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RNS: First day of school in DC: Armed troops, terrified families, missing parents

What happens in the nation’s capital will have repercussions for the whole country and what comes next.

The first day of school often brings a mix of excitement and anxiety. Kids reconnect with friends and wonder what their classes will be like. Parents feel familiar pangs of pride and loss as they watch their children growing up. And teachers prepare to help new groups of students cooperate and learn together for another year. As the mom of two teenagers, now a freshman and a senior in high school, I’ve looked forward to the first day back to school every year with gratitude and joy.

But this year was tougher. This year, the first day of school in our home of Washington, D.C., included military troops in our streets and families so filled with fear they decided to keep their kids home. It included parent-led patrols on school routes and educator training on responding to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. It included difficult conversations with children, trying to explain the unexplainable. A few days before school started, a family whose kids have attended school with my sons since kindergarten was torn apart when the father was surrounded by agents and detained on his way to work. “So, where is he?” my son asked. I have no idea.
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Heather Cox Richardson: The Nineteenth Amendment

…as right-wing Christian nationalists supported by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth are calling for an end to women’s right to vote, it seems crucial to remember the history of the drive for women’s suffrage in the United States of America
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Jennifer Rubin: The Police State is Here

Miles Taylor: Trump installs czar to oversee U.S. elections

Conspiracy theorist hired for top U.S. “election integrity” job, hinting at broader White House plans to hijack 2026 vote
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status_: WIRED for the Moment

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We’re witnessing, in real-time, a profound consolidation of power and collusion among political and tech elites—the ruling class of this country, and the world – wherein the tools and technologies that this industry has built, and continues to build, can now be deployed in service of an authoritarian regime. What happens when Trump decides he’s not so hot on TikTok’s algorithm showcasing Democratic candidates ahead of the midterms? Or when he really sinks his teeth into this notion of “woke A.I.”? How about when the Department of Homeland Security decides it needs even more surveillance power over American citizens?
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Bulwark: Paying Too Much for Energy? Dems Say Blame the GOP

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But the party increasingly sees political opportunity in centering its message on rising energy prices. As electricity bills are spiking around the country—rising twice as fast as the rate of inflation—Democrats have started to weave the issue into more of their ads and talking points, believing it’s an effective way to tar a president who reneged on his commitment to lower prices.
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Democracy Docket: Advocates File Immediate Legal Challenge to Texas Gerrymander

Hours after Texas lawmakers approved a new gerrymandered congressional map Saturday morning, Texans asked a court to block it.

The plaintiffs*, a group of Black and Latino Texans, filed an amended complaint in an ongoing challenge to the electoral districts Texas drew in 2021. The amended complaint alleges that the new map violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment by diluting the voting power of Black and Latino communities.

It also argues that the redistricting violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause “because it unnecessarily and unjustifiably considers racial and partisan demographics as part of a voluntary, mid-cycle redistricting,” and because it is “malapportioned” in violation of the principle of one person, one vote.

In addition, the plaintiffs argue that the new redistricting “intentionally destroy[ed] majority-minority districts and replac[ed] them with majority-Anglo districts.” This was done, the plaintiffs charge, “explicitly because of the racial composition of those districts.”
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Rolling Stone: Thanks, Trump: ICE Just Gassed a Public School Into Submission

PORTLAND, Ore. — Donald Trump’s forces have tear gassed a public school into submission. Or at least into fleeing its longtime campus.

The local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) complex in Portland has become a near-nightly flashpoint this summer for local activists demonstrating against the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign — marked by masked agents snatching law-abiding non-citizens from court houses; Home Depot parking lots; garment factories; taco trucks; and city streets.
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – August 21, 2025

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Last night, just before midnight, Trump cheered on the Texas Republicans and called for Florida, Indiana, and other states to do the same thing. He also called for Republicans in the state legislatures to “STOP MAIL-IN VOTING” and “go to PAPER BALLOTS before it is too late.” “If we do these TWO things,” he wrote, “we will pick up 100 more seats, and the CROOKED game of politics is over. God Bless America!!!”

The president of the United States is openly admitting that his party cannot win a free and fair election.

Instead of appealing to voters with popular policies, he is calling for rigging our elections so that his party cannot lose. This appears to have been the plan all along. In July 2024, Trump told an audience of evangelical Christians that if they voted for him in November, “in four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)

Thom Hartmann: The Authoritarian’s Secret Weapon: They Never, Ever Leave Voluntarily

Every gerrymander, purge, and press attack tightens the screw — until the system is locked and the tyrant holds the only key…

Jay Kuo: The Redistricting Wars

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Rebecca Solnit: On Not Surrendering in Advance, or During, or At Any Point Thereafter

A friend of mine reminded me that the word encourage literally means to instill courage; we can do that or its opposite with how we speak, with what we say, with how we show up. It’s not the only work we can do during this emergency, but it’s an important part of it. It’s a big part of how we express a spirit of defiance, of resoluteness, how we act with the knowledge that emotions and attitudes are contagious, be they fear or courage, strength or weakness, kindness or cruelty.

Which is why it makes my head explode – picture this head as a volcano and these words as lava – when people surrender in advance verbally, which they do all the time about politics. There’s a lot of “I believe that we will lose” on social media and in the news. One way it shows up is when journalists report on some of the rubbish spewing from the mouth of the geriatric clown/felon we have to call president as though his every utterance had the weight of law, as though words will become actions, as though the actions will succeed, as though they will not be met with opposition, as though they believe he will win.

The current case in point is: a few days ago, after the latest installment of his periodic ritual submission to Vladimir Putin, Trump said Putin told him to go after mail-in ballots. Now first of all, if one of the world’s most dictatorial dictators gave a president of the United States advice on attacking democracy, that should have generated a lot of heated headlines and screaming politicians urging outrage in ways that have the power to put him on the spot and maybe make him walk it back.
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Dean Blundell: Trump Didn’t Arrange An “Historic” Peace Summit – Europe Forced Its Way Into the Room

And it took less than 12 hours for Trump to walk it all back on Fox News.
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Monday (Aug 18): In front of the cameras and a wall of European flags, Trump flirted with U.S. participation in security guarantees for Ukraine—even leaving the door cracked to some U.S. role “on the ground” after a deal. Europeans called it movement; markets called it noise; Moscow recoiled.

Tuesday morning (Aug 19): On Fox, Trump walked it back, giving his “assurance” there would be no U.S. troops and shifting the burden to Europe. In the same media swing he reprised the blame-shifting—saying the war really started over NATO and Crimea, and urging Zelenskyy to “show flexibility.” That’s the classic Trump pattern: say whatever looks strong in the moment, then retreat to a pro-Kremlin frame once the pressure’s off.

Translation: Europe’s decision to pack the Oval Office was the only way to get Trump to mouth the words “security guarantees.” The instant that the United Front left town, he reverted. Exactly as expected.
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