"As I wrote before the Inauguration, we are a #Niemöller Nation now. First they came for Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Then they came for “home growns.” Then they came for you.
We need to know what happened to #KilmarAbregoGarcia. We need to know if he’s still alive or whether we are already seeing the first #DeathCamp in action."
https://www.mind-war.com/p/first-they-came-for-kilmar-abrego
#Trump #GOP #ElSalvador #Bukele #Republican #Fascism #Authoritarianism #Politics #USPol #USPolitics #News #US #USA
Has anyone else been feeling nauseous about submitting their tax returns to a government led by criminals, profiteers, and incompetents?
#authoritarianism #corruption 
The #TeslaTakedown Shows How We Can Make #Oligarchs Feel the Pain
The “#Tesla #Takedown” #protests reveal a major vulnerability of the #TrumpRegime.
Sunjeev Bery
April 13 2025, 6:00 a.m.
"On April 5, vast crowds of people took to the streets across America to oppose the policies of the Trump regime. The nationwide Hands Off protests felt like a collective decision to stop doomscrolling and start coming together against our country’s lurch toward authoritarianism. The next step is to turn the crowds, speeches, and witty signs into a powerful force with a clear and systematic plan for breaking Trump’s dark vision for our future.
"While Trump possesses the formal authority of the federal government, history is full of examples in which an angry public can bring all of that crashing down by moving from passive acceptance to active opposition. At present, the path to that decisive future may seem hard to discern. But there are already networks of resistance that have shown early signs of success, and the 'Tesla Takedown' movement stands at the top of that list.
"By protesting Tesla dealerships across the U.S., the grassroots campaign has ripped a hole in the wealth of Trump’s most supportive oligarch: Elon Musk. In doing so, the movement has demonstrated that America’s financial and corporate elites are far more vulnerable than they would have us believe. Tesla Takedown organizers have described a powerful surge of activism that combines deep opposition to both Musk and Trump with a sense of community and even joy. 'There’s this bond of being with people who share your love of democracy, decency, and the rule of law,' said retired Colby College history professor Elizabeth Leonard, who organizes Tesla Takedown protests in #WatervilleME.
"Thanks to the Tesla Takedown movement and the broad anti-Musk revulsion that activists have channeled, Musk’s political and commercial fortunes appear to be in decline. He is still the world’s wealthiest man, but he has lost his air of invincibility and increasingly looks like a stumbling buffoon. His political intervention in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race backfired spectacularly, with a state that previously voted for Trump in 2024 by a 1 percent margin electing the Democratic Supreme Court candidate by a whopping 10 percentage points. Tesla stock has dropped some 40 percent since the start of the year, erasing $135 billion in Musk’s wealth. And following Musk’s toxic interventions in U.S. politics, Trump has reportedly said that Musk will be stepping back from his public White House role.
"Through its victories, the Tesla Takedown community has revealed a major vulnerability of the Trump regime. Many of the oligarchic elites who back Trump’s agenda get their wealth from the very public whose broad interests Trump is now attacking. Tesla, #Amazon, #Meta, and other companies depend on the American populace for their profits, even as their owners have lent their support to Trump’s unpopular right-wing agenda, which is squeezing the material wealth and rights of the American people. When activists connect these dots through compelling campaigns, they can hold Trump’s oligarchic enablers directly accountable by draining their wealth.
Tesla itself is now in a downward slide that could mark the early stages of an death spiral — or at least a significant reassessment by investors who have treated Tesla as something far bigger than simply a car company. Sales continue to decline across the U.S. and Europe, with 2025 first quarter numbers showing a 13 percent drop. Meanwhile, major Chinese electric vehicle competitor BYD reported a 60 percent increase in sales during the same period.
In response to the anti-Tesla backlash, Musk embarked on a dubious right-wing outreach strategy that will only further alienate his original climate-conscious customer base. First, he had Trump turn the White House into a Tesla dealership. Then came the public support of #RightWing voices, including #MAGA supporters, #WhiteSupremacist #Proud Boys, and militia groups. It seems '#Swasticar' is no longer just a meme.
"The success of the Tesla Takedown movement opens the door to the question of what comes next. Can the movement take on more of Musk’s wealth — including #SpaceX? Can protesters leverage their momentum to go after a wider range of targets, including the other oligarchs who have backed Trump? Will the anti-Musk community translate its ability to capture headlines into direct pressure on the political system itself? By broadening the attack on Musk’s interests and targeting more Trump-supporting oligarchs, the Tesla Takedown movement can help bring an end to Trump’s authoritarian policies."
cc: @teslatakedown
Read more:
https://theintercept.com/2025/04/13/elon-musk-tesla-takedown-protests/
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/ezYM9
#USPol #BadDOGE #Oligarchy #ElonMusk #Fascism #Authoritarianism #Coporatocracy #Kleptocracy #Resistance #FundLibrariesNotSpaceX
#Harvard professors sue #Trump administration over funding cut threats
by Katie Cole, April 14, 2025, #WBUR
"The Harvard chapter of the American Association of University Professors sued the Trump administration Friday over what they call an 'unlawful and unprecedented' attempt to use federal funding cuts to restrict #FreeSpeech.
"The #DepartmentOfEducation announced in late March that it would review $8.7 billion in federal grants and contacts given to Harvard, alleging that the school failed to prevent #antisemitic discrimination on campus.
"The Trump administration then unveiled a broad set of demands on April 4 the university must agree to in order to keep getting federal funding, including cutting all diversity, equity and inclusion programming, and modifying any programming and departments that 'fuel antisemitic harassment.' The administration gave Columbia University a similar set of demands in March, which the school agreed to.
"The lawsuit by the professors' group, filed in #Massachusetts federal court, alleges that the administration's federal funding review violates the #TitleVI of the #CivilRightsAct, which prohibits discrimination in programs that receive federal funds. The court filing says the law requires specific procedures to cut federal funds and that the Trump administration has not taken any of those steps.
"The group said in a press release that the administration's actions are in effort to create a chilling effect among universities and faculty to stop speech that the president does not like.
" 'Eliminating discrimination and protecting all students is important,' said Nikolas Bowie, a Harvard law professor and the secretary-treasurer of the school's #AAUP chapter, in a statement. 'But Trump is defying the Civil Rights Act, terrifying students, and illegally holding hostage grants for hospitals and scientific research so he can accomplish his real goal of punishing academics for our politics.'
"The lawsuit says that the actions by the administration have 'already caused severe and irreparable harm by halting #academic #research and #inquiry at Harvard.'
"This is the second suit that the Harvard AAUP chapter has filed against the Trump administration this year. The first was a joint suit with other chapters, including one from Columbia, over federal efforts to deport #MahmoudKhalil and students that engaged in #ProPalestinian #activism."
https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/04/14/harvard-aaup-trump-funding-cuts-lawsuit
#SilencingDissent #CharacteristicsOfFascism #Fascism #Authoritarian #Authoritarianism #BibiIsAWarCriminal #FreeMahmoudKhalil #FreePalestine #AcademicFreedom #FreeSpeech #TrumpIsABully #DEI #Erasure #Censorship
Timothy Snyder: #tRump: "Home-growns are next": Foreign #gulags for US citizens
#crime #maga #deportation #elsalvador #authoritarianism #us
https://snyder.substack.com/p/trump-home-growns-are-next
…More significantly, if the #Trump admin can defy court orders with impunity, & #Congress is unwilling to act, there is no reason for it to respect the constitutional rights of American citizens either. The Roberts Court will now have to decide whether to side with the #Constitution or with a #lawless president asserting the power to disappear people at will. This is not a power that any person, much less an American president, is meant to have.
The #Trump admin’s defiance of a #SCOTUS order is a new step into presidential lawlessness, in that it suggests that the admin will not abide by any court orders it does not feel like complying with.
To state the obvious, if the evidence against these men were ironclad, the Trump admin would not need to violate the #Constitution to put them in prison.
#Trump is already contemplating the possibility of deporting #citizens. Aside from numerous public statements to that effect, Trump told #Bukele, in an exchange posted on Bukele’s X feed, “Homegrowns are next. The homegrowns. You gotta build about five more places.” Loud laughter filled the Oval Office.
The crucial point here is that the #Trump administration’s logic means that it could do the same to American citizens—after all, if deporting someone under a protective order to a Gulag without so much as a hearing is a “foreign policy” matter with which no court may interfere, then the #citizenship of the condemned person doesn’t matter.
#Bukele has the power to free #KilmarAbregoGarcia & send him back to the #US on an American plane without “smuggling” anyone or anything. But neither side wants that outcome, & so they are both pretending that it’s the other’s responsibility. It’s a game both sides are in on.
“That’s not up to us. If they want to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane,” #PamBondi continued. #Bukele, for his part, called #KilmarAbregoGarcia a “terrorist,” saying to a reporter who asked if he would return him, “I hope you’re not suggesting that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States.” He added, “The question is preposterous.”
The bad faith of this exchange is obvious.
During an on-camera Oval Office meeting wit Salvadoran President Nayib #Bukele, whom the #Trump administration has paid to imprison immigrants deported from the #UnitedStates it claims without evidence are gang members, President Donald Trump deferred to Attorney General #PamBondi, who said the decision was Bukele’s.
“That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That’s not up to us,” Bondi told reporters.
The #ConstitutionalCrisis Is Here
#SCOTUS told the #Trump admin to “facilitate” the return of #KilmarAbregoGarcia from #ElSalvador’s infamous #CECOT prison. So far, the admin is pretending to comply while refusing to do so.
By Adam Serwer
“This matter is no longer just about deportations or undocumented immigrants. The Trump administration's defiance of a Supreme Court order is a new step into presidential lawlessness.”
#law #tyranny #authoritarianism
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/04/bukele-trump-court-order/682432/?gift=guxsrl_dAdXUP9zqbQPWxQO_Y7atv5TLspDPHJWYWqY
El Salvador 2025 feels like Poland 1940 — one man’s “order” is another nation’s silence. When democracy dies, it doesn’t scream. It’s told it’s safer this way. #ElSalvador #Authoritarianism #HistoryRepeats
Before the cameras started at the White House today, Trump said he wants to start sending "home growns" to el Salvador and that the dictator there needs to build five more prisons for them. Thanks a lot to all the people who didn't vote for Harris because she wasn't perfect. Here's where I heard this.
https://www.youtube.com/live/J88f0z7KlNo
#authoritarianism #Trump #Harris #uspol
As Jonathan V. Last reports, Trump has now just defied the Supreme Court:
"Trump met with Bukele.
Trump reiterated that he had no power to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States. Bukele said he had no intention of returning Bukele."
#Trump #courts #SupremeCourt #AbregoGarcia #authoritarianism #fascism #immigrants #deportations #Bukele
/1
Civilizations in decline are consistently characterized by a tendency towards standardization and uniformity. -Arnold Toynbee
#civilization #history #maga #fascism #authoritarianism
MINUTES AGO: This is El Salvador President, Marco Rubio and Trump talking about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a permanent resident who the U.S. Supreme Ct last week ruled needs to be returned to the U.S. Rubio: “no court in the United States has the right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States.“
#Trump #courts #SupremeCourt #AbregoGarcia #authoritarianism #fascism #immigrants #deportations #Bukele
I knew, the minute the whole ugly Guantanamo extrajudicial confinement thing came over the horizon, that we would only see more of this sort of thing