Once a symbol of dystopian nightmares, these words now echo in schools, hospitals, and homes: targeting immigrants first, and the rest of us next… People of a certain age will remember the old black-and-white movies, The Twilight Zone, and countless Cold War-era dramas set in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. In scene after chilling scene, people in uniform approach random pedestrians and bark, "Papers, please." Those who hesitate — who don't have their documentation in order, who look "out of place," or simply fail to comply fast enough — are dragged away. Vanished. Disappeared into the gulag or the prison camps, never to be seen again. It was always framed as national security. Public order. Protecting the homeland. But what it really was, in both Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR, was authoritarianism dressed up as bureaucracy.

The dismantling of American democracy isn't a secret conspiracy. It's a public spectacle—and it's accelerating… When Harvard, one of America's oldest and most revered institutions of higher learning, stands defiant as the federal government freezes billions in funding simply because it refuses to knuckle under to authoritarian demands — like gutting DEI programs and turning faculty into immigration informants — we're no longer playing the usual game of politics. This is the open throttling of academic freedom, part of a larger, deliberate campaign to silence dissent, centralize power, and erase democratic norms.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Just a reminder that today there will be protests all across the country themed around “No Kings!” — Is Trump Helping Putin Defeat Ukraine? — Our government used to keep track of lies and disinformation coming from Russia. Marco Rubio just shut that agency down. — Can Trump really fire Fed chair Jerome Powell as he claimed yesterday? — Idaho Republicans gave families $50M for private schools — and scrapped $30M used for public education..say what?!? — JD Vance says if Brits can’t use the N-word and slurs against gays in public venues, they can’t cut a trade deal with America. — Did your miscarriage tissue have a dignified funeral at a state approved facility? If not, get ready for jail if Republicans have their way. — Crazy Alert! The GOP has adopted new family values: you can now DM offering to inseminate women you don’t know! — Wisdom School: Nature's Medicine: Can Forests Calm Inflammatory Conditions? — Hunter in a Farmer’s World: ADHD: What One Anonymous Good Deed Does Every Day — Geeky Science: Why the position you sleep in could shorten your life?

A virus needs its host: The Republican Party has provided the platform, the protection, and the power that allowed Trump’s assault on democracy to flourish... We’ve spent years watching Donald Trump attack our democratic institutions, inflame divisions, and corrupt the public discourse. But focusing solely on Trump misses the larger, more disturbing reality: Trump isn’t acting alone. He’s a dangerous pathogen that found the perfect host in today’s Republican Party, an organism already compromised and eager to be infected. The evidence of this dangerous symbiosis is alarming and immediate. Just days ago, America crossed a threshold that should chill every citizen who still believes in the rule of law.