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Anything inconsistent with this view would not be published, according to his statement.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."

Consumers are planning a one-day economic blackout on Feb. 28. Here's what to know.; USA TODAY, February 26, 2025

 Betty Lin-Fisher, USA TODAY ; Consumers are planning a one-day economic blackout on Feb. 28. Here's what to know.

"Consumers are preparing for a 24-hour economic blackout on Friday, one of several boycotts planned by groups of consumers or activists to protest what they call corporate greed, companies that have rolled back their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and President Donald Trump's efforts to eliminate federal DEI programs since taking office.

On Friday, those groups are encouraging consumers to not spend any money anywhere for one day. If they have spend, they are encouraged to buy from a local business. 

Why do organizers seek a spending boycott?

The organizer of the boycott goes by TheOneCalledJai on Instagram, but his real name is John Schwarz. He told USA TODAY he started the “bold” idea because the time was right and people are frustrated with what he calls corporate greed and other frustrations.  

Professors have told USA TODAY that boycotts can be successful in shaming a company into reversing decisions or taking action, but they don't always work. There needs to be clear actions outlined, they say. But consumers do like being able to take action against something they feel strongly about."

Jeff Bezos is muzzling the Washington Post’s opinion section. That’s a death knell; The Guardian, February 26, 2025

 Margaret Sullivan, The Guardian ; Jeff Bezos is muzzling the Washington Post’s opinion section. That’s a death knell

"Owners and publishers of news organizations often exert their will on opinion sections. It would be naive to think otherwise.

But a draconian announcement this week by Jeff Bezos, the Washington Postowner, goes far beyond the norm.

The billionaire declared that only opinions that support “personal liberties” and “free markets” will be welcome in the opinion pages of the Post.

“Viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others,” he added.

The paper’s top opinion editor, David Shipley, couldn’t get on board with those restrictions. He immediately – and appropriately – resigned.

Especially in the light of the billionaire’s other blatant efforts to cozy up to Donald Trump, Bezos’s move is more than a gut punch; it’s more like a death knell for the once-great news organization he bought in 2013...

What is clear is that Bezos no longer wants to own an independent news organization. He wants a megaphone and a political tool that will benefit his own commercial interests.

It’s appalling. And, if you care about the role of the press in America’s democracy, it’s tragic.

“What Bezos is doing today runs counter to what he said, and actually practiced, during my tenure at the Post,” Martin Baron, the paper’s executive editor until 2021 and the author of the 2023 memoir Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos and the Washington Post, told me in an email Wednesday.

“I have always been grateful for how he stood up for the Post and an independent press against Trump’s constant threats to his business interest,” Baron said. “Now, I couldn’t be more sad and disgusted.”...

This outrageous move will enrage them. I foresee a mass subscriber defection from an outlet already deep in red ink; that must be something businessman Bezos is willing to live with.

He must also be willing to live with hypocrisy.

“Bezos argues for personal liberties. But his news organization now will forbid views other than his own in its opinion section,” Baron pointed out, recalling that it was only weeks ago when the Post described itself in an internal mission statement as intended for “all of America”.

“Now,” Baron noted, “its opinion pages will be open to only some of America, those who think exactly as he does.”

It’s all about getting on board with Trump, to whose inauguration Bezos – through Amazon, the company he co-founded – contributed a million dollars. That allowed him a prime seat, along with others of his oligarchical ilk."

Post owner Bezos announces shift in opinions section; Shipley to leave; The Washington Post, February 26, 2025

 Washington Post staff , The Washington Post; Post owner Bezos announces shift in opinions section; Shipley to leave

"What readers are saying

The comments express strong disapproval of The Washington Post's new focus on "personal liberties and free markets" in its opinion section. Many readers perceive this shift as a move towards right-wing ideology and a departure from the paper's tradition of diverse and critical opinion pieces. There is a widespread sentiment that this change undermines journalistic integrity and stifles free speech, leading numerous subscribers to cancel their subscriptions in protest. Show less

This summary is AI-generated. AI can make mistakes and this summary is not a replacement for reading the comments."

Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, just sent out this email of total submission.; The Ink, February 26, 2025

 The Ink; Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, just sent out this email of total submission.

[Kip Currier: Nail by nail by nail by nail, the three richest persons on the planet -- Elon Musk (Twitter/X), Jeff Bezos (Amazon/Washington Post), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta/Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp/Threads) -- are erecting barriers to information and solidifying control of their versions of information. 

Note what Bezos, in part, wrote today: 

"We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We'll cover other topics too, of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others."

Point 1: Bezos's prior conduct tells us that he will decide how the two pillars of "personal liberties" and "free markets" are defined. That's censorship of ideas and free expression.

Point 2: Bezos will determine the parameters of "viewpoints opposing those pillars". That's also censorship of free speech.

Point 3: Bezos downplays the time-honored tradition of U.S. newspapers providing "a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views" by stating that "Today, the internet does that job." This is an abject abandonment of the historical role of one of the nation's foremost papers of record; indeed, the very newspaper that exposed the Watergate scandal that brought down the presidency of Richard Nixon. Bezos knows, too, that the internet is rife with misinformation and disinformation. A chief reason that readers seek out creditable, trusted news providers like The Washington Post is the expectation of fact-checking and responsible curation of opinions and facts. Bezos's statement amounts to disingenuous dissembling and the ceding of responsibility to the Internet and social media, which he well knows are highly flawed information ecosystems.

Point 4: Bezos states later that "freedom is ethical". But freedom always comes with ethics-grounded responsibilities. Nowhere in Bezos's statement does he talk about ethical responsibilities to truthfulness, free speech, accountability, transparency, the public/common good, constitutional checks and balances, or the rule of law, all of which are integral to informed citizenries and functioning democracies.

Bezos's actions and viewpoints are antithetical to free and independent presses like The Washington Post, as well as to the core principles of one of the world's oldest democracies.]

[Excerpt]

"Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, just sent out this email of total submission.

Bezos appears to have misread Timothy Snyder’s advice “Do not obey in advance” as “Obey in advance,” missing a couple words."

A college president offers a class in standing up to Trump; The Washington Post, February 18, 2025

 Opinion Perry Bacon Jr. , The Washington Post; A college president offers a class in standing up to Trump

"Many college presidents and deans are issuing mealymouthed statements, ending long-standing programs, removing content from websites and otherwise cowering in the face of the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education. Then there’s Michael S. Roth.

The president of Connecticut’s Wesleyan University wrote a piece in Slate that described some of the Trump administration’s rhetoric as authoritarian. He consistently reposts articles criticizing Trump’s decisions. He speaks and blogs firmly in defense of diversity, equity and inclusion, transgender rights and immigration.

Roth is demonstrating the kind of eloquence and resistance we desperately need from the leaders of not only colleges but also corporations, nonprofits and other organizations in the face of Trump’s onslaught against the rule of law, civil society and key American institutions."

Ronald Reagan narrated a short film in 1945 about the Tuskegee Airmen; Task & Purpose, February 20, 2025

MATT WHITE, Task & Purpose; Ronald Reagan narrated a short film in 1945 about the Tuskegee Airmen

"An Army film produced in 1945 on the Tuskegee airmen begins with footage of a fighter taxiing behind a narrator’s familiar voice.

“It’s morning,” says the unmistakable voice of then-Army captain Ronald Reagan, who always enjoyed his ‘morning’ metaphors. On screen, fighters take to the air. “Twenty miles from the enemy,” Reagan says.

The 10-minute Army-produced film is a kind of first draft of history on the Tuskegee Airmen, the famed World War II flyers who were in the news last month when the Air Force removed — and then partially replaced — videos on the unit from its boot camp. But the National Archives video on those airmen is worth watching, both for what it says and for what it doesn’t say. Along with some vintage footage of training, the film is narrated by future-President Ronald Reagan, back when he was an Army officer making films for what was then the War Department...

Perhaps Reagan’s most notable passage comes toward the end, when he firmly divides the world into two sides — the Axis powers versus the American way — and puts the segregation and racism behind the Tuskegee project squarely into the Axis’ camp. 

“Here’s the answer to Hitler and Hirohito,” Reagan says. “Here’s the answer to the propaganda of the Japs and Nazis. Here’s the answer: Wings for this man.” 

It’s almost as if the future President wanted to say that diversity is a strength."

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."

Actress Julianne Moore shares ‘great shock,’ claims her children’s book was banned by Trump Administration; Fox News, February 17, 2025

 Rachel del Guidice , Fox News; Actress Julianne Moore shares ‘great shock,’ claims her children’s book was banned by Trump Administration

"Actress Julianne Moore said in an Instagram post Sunday that she is in "great shock" over her children’s book being allegedly banned by President Donald Trump’s Department of Defense. 

"It is a great shock for me to learn that my first book, Freckleface Strawberry, has been banned by the Trump Administration from schools run by the Department of Defense," Moore said in an Instagram post. 

Moore, who won an Oscar in 2015 for her film, "Still Alice," published a children’s book in 2007 called, "Freckleface Strawberry," about a young girl who has freckles and learns to accept differences in herself and others."

‘We’re like sitting ducks’: the right’s ‘war on woke’ has a well-tested playbook to take down academics; The Guardian, February 14, 2025

 Alice Speri, The Guardian; ‘We’re like sitting ducks’: the right’s ‘war on woke’ has a well-tested playbook to take down academics

"“The university talks about trying to defend academic freedom, but they’re at the whim of these boards,” said Letiecq, who played a recording of the death threat she received at a meeting with Burke and the GMU the board.

“We are totally under attack,” she added. “They have massive resources. And we’re like sitting ducks.”"

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."

See inside DOGE’s playbook for eliminating DEI; The Washington Post, February 15, 2025

 

Leslie Shapiro

, 

Daniel Wolfe

, 

Hannah Natanson

 and 

Chris Dehghanpoor

, The Washington Post; See inside DOGE’s playbook for eliminating DEI

"Documents obtained by The Washington Post detail step-by-step plans the U.S. DOGE Service developed to purge federal agencies of diversity, equity, and inclusion workers and offices. DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency, aims next to target hundreds of non-DEI workers and what they called “corrupted branches” of offices required by law, which protect civil and employment rights.

Reproduced below are selected portions of the documents, which were last edited in mid-January, and outline DOGE’s strategy from Day 1 to Day 180 of the administration. The plan is divided into three phases."

No Questions Asked: Public libraries build no-return collections for addiction and mental health support; American Libraries, January 2, 2025

 Aviva Bechky, American Libraries; No Questions Asked: Public libraries build no-return collections for addiction and mental health support

[Kip Currier: Kudos to the service-forward information professionals and public library systems that envisioned and brought to life these collections of barrier-free materials.]

[Excerpt]

"These patrons are participants in Read to Recovery, an SFPL program that has been providing free addiction recovery materials since spring 2023. The initiative is a way to quietly get thousands of books into the hands of people who need them, ensuring that barriers such as a lack of a library card or hold times don’t get in the way.

San Francisco isn’t the only city with a program like this. Other public libraries across the US are designating shelves with titles that address mental illness, addiction recovery, and other stigmatized topics—materials they intend to give away or don’t expect to see returned.

Brianne Anderson, youth services manager at Ames (Iowa) Public Library (APL), says she views these programs as an extension of libraries’ fundamental mission: making information accessible.

“Nobody has to ask questions, you don’t have to identify yourself in any way, and you can still get the information that you need,” Anderson says. “That’s how you build a welcome space.”

Stocking the shelves

At SFPL, staff members are trained to use Narcan to reverse opioid overdoses. But Horstin says, with the city in the throes of an addiction crisis, this isn’t enough.

“We can’t just administer Narcan and not do anything else,” [Doreen] Horstin [manager of San Francisco Public Library’s (SFPL) Park branch] says. “We’re all about books. That’s what we do. It’s still the number one service that we offer.”...

Anderson, Horstin, and Pickett agree that getting started doesn’t have to be complicated: Libraries can start a program just by adding more workbooks or setting aside a shelf. All say they hope other libraries follow their lead.

“It’s about helping people get the information they want,” Pickett says. “But it’s also about letting people know this is what we’re here for.”"

Top Ten Risk Management Exercises For Governing Boards of Libraries & Cultural Institutions During the 2025 Federal Shift; Western New York Library Resources Council, February 4, 2025

 Western New York Library Resources Council; Top Ten Risk Management Exercises For Governing Boards of Libraries & Cultural Institutions During the 2025 Federal Shift 

"Question:

Early 2025 has brought changes to stability of certain federal programs, funding, and governance. This instability is creating concern about access to grants, federal programs, and legal frameworks. What can our board do to address this?

Answer:

2025 has INDEED started off with a great deal of instability to federal programs, funding, and governance. In this answer, we’ll call this phenomenon the “2025 Federal Shift.”[1]

During such times as the 2025 Federal Shift, it is the role of a governing board to assess factors that could risk the achievement of an institution’s mission and develop plans to address them. This is a process called “enterprise risk management.”[2]

While confronting risk can be intimidating, it can also be empowering. And while not every risk can be avoided, it can often be mitigated.[3]

So, whether you’re on the board of a small public library or helping to lead a library within a large institution, now is a good time to inventory newly emerging risks and develop a response plan.

While the array of risks may seem infinite, below please find a chart of risks created by the 2025 Federal Shift. Following that is a chart of institution-specific risks.

Neither chart lists everything facing your institution, but these charts are provided to inspire the start of an orderly, meaningful, and impactful risk management strategy to assist governing boards in performing their fiduciary duties to their institutions.

Top Ten Risk Management Exercises

For Governing Boards of 

Libraries and Cultural Institutions

During the 2025 Federal Shift"