Richard Stallman

Richard Stallman's Political Notes -

Trump’s militarization of the DC police - 2025-08-31T02:39:57+00:00

The wrecker may be planning to send soldiers into US cities on election day in 2026, to ensure that his urban supporters find it hard to vote.

This would go with his order for states to eliminate voting by mail. Eliminating that would make it harder for many marginailzed citizens to vote. Democratic states will cite the Constitution to reject the order, but I can imagine that Republican-controlled states wlll eagerly take up this opportunity for additional voter suppression.

Trump's national guard DC beautification - 2025-08-31T02:39:57+00:00

National guard troops sent to Washington DC are being used for cruelty against US citizens (homeless ones) as well as non-citizens.

Alberta book bans - 2025-08-31T02:39:57+00:00

Right-wing movements in parts of Canada are imposing restrictions on schools and libraries to keep children ignorant about many aspects of sex. Among the books to be banned is 1984

FEMA staff on leave after Trump critique - 2025-08-31T02:39:57+00:00

Greg Palast writes about helping to rescue people from the wreckage caused by Hurricane Katrina. FEMA was debilitated at the time because Dubya and the Republicans did not treat it as a priority. FEMA employees recently published an open letter warning Americans that the sabteur in chief has weakened FEMA, and this could turn the next disaster into a super-disaster.

Whitehouse fund withholding over gender idealogy - 2025-08-31T02:39:57+00:00

The bully demands states delete mention of trans people from their sex education curricula, or he will deny them the funds for sex education. Republican-ruled states will rush to obey, and I see no way of stopping them. But what about state governments that disagree? It is foolish to yield to such bullying, because the extortionist will still have the threat in hand and will demand more, more and more. A better response is a counter-threat. For instance, how about adding the case of E Jean Carroll and Trump to the sex education syllabus? That example could be used to clarify various aspects of the issue of varieties of forced sexual acts and how they might be prosecuted.

beaver burrowing concern - 2025-08-31T02:39:57+00:00

Breed beavers intelligent enough to understand why they should not mess with a dyke?

Controversial migration amendment - 2025-08-31T02:39:56+00:00

Australia is trying to abolish it's counterpart of the US concept of "due process of law", as regards deportation. Australia has a long history of flat-out cruelty to people who are looking for asylum.

US border agents detaining firefighters - 2025-08-31T02:39:56+00:00

The deportation thugs arrested firemen for deportation from the site where they were fighting the largest wildfire in Washington State.

CDC officials resign in protest - 2025-08-31T02:39:56+00:00

The CDC is in chaos after being attacked by crazed, corrupt Republican officials. They tried to fire the newly confirmed head of the CDC, Susan Monarez, but she says they lack the authority to do so — that only the saboteur in chief can do it. Apparently she believes that the magat officials who fired her are at odds with the leader they serve. I can't see how to make sense of this situation. There is no one in it that I can presume to be loyal to Americans and to rationality.

Trump's surveillance tech - 2025-08-31T02:39:56+00:00

*How Student Protesters and Immigrants Became Targets of Trump’s Surveillance Tech.*

New generation of Democrats unhappy with political establishment - 2025-08-29T08:39:50+00:00

* A new generation of Democrats is deeply unhappy with the entrenched political establishment. So they’re going to try to take it over.*

I support this movement. Instead of the DCCC, which supports plutocratist Democrats, I donate to the Progressive Congressional Campaign Committee, which helps progressive Democrats get elected to replace plutocratist Democrats.

PFAS levels in blood of women that had miscarriages - 2025-08-29T08:39:49+00:00

* Research tracking about 200 women found those who had at least two miscarriages had higher levels of [PFAS] in their blood.*

I have mixed feelings about this effect. On the one hand, I don't wish a miscarriage on anyone. On the other, this is a bad time to be born and it is almost certainly going to get worse.

English boy whose memoir inspired Oliver Twist - 2025-08-29T08:39:49+00:00

On the 19th century poor but capable English boy whose childhood memoir inspired Oliver Twist.

Most intense heatwave on record - 2025-08-29T08:39:49+00:00

*Heatwave that fueled deadly wildfires was Spain's "most intense on record."*

Flunky in charge of Federal Housing Finance Agency - 2025-08-29T08:39:49+00:00

The flunky that the bully put in charge of the Federal Housing Finance Agency is using his power to threaten opposition officials with charges of crimes.

It is not absolutely impossible that the charges are valid. But when someone makes false accusations habitually, as the bully does, an accusation from him or his henchman is not worth taking seriously.

If he has a valid case to make, I suppose we will see it eventually. Unless and until proved, we should dismiss it.

Egyptian officials in New York beat two Gaza protesters - 2025-08-29T08:39:49+00:00

*Egyptian Officials in New York Beat Two Gaza Protesters on Video. The NYPD Arrested the Protesters.*

I suppose the Egyptian thugs have diplomatic immunity, so the NYC thugs could not have arrested them. The way the system is supposed to work is that the US government would expel those thugs, or threaten to, and thus keep their violent tendency within bounds.

Alas, the bully won't permit that — he prefers the tyrannical government of Egypt in which thugs can beat or kill anyone who criticizes the state.

Equality feels like oppression to those accustomed to privilege - 2025-08-29T08:39:49+00:00

Nick Clegg, British former "centrist" politician, afterward worked for Facebook. He reports a general attitude of self-pity among the rich executives. "It is a cultural thing, through from Elon Musk's chainsaw-wielding stuff to any Silicon Valley podcast. If you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."

Global heating effects on international tourism - 2025-08-29T08:39:48+00:00

Global heating effects are starting to interfere with mass international tourism, which is a substantial contributor to global heating.

Bully backtracked on freezing billions in education funding - 2025-08-29T08:39:48+00:00

The bully had to backtrack from freezing billions in education funding to various states that responded by suing.

Parents in DC scared to bring children to school - 2025-08-29T08:39:48+00:00

Some parents in Washington DC are scared to bring their children to school, scared that the deportation thugs will use it as an opportunity to seize them to deport them,

Teachers say the school department has given them no help or guidance.

I walked to school when I was 6 years old, in a much bigger city with a higher crime rate, and crime did not come near me. The schoolchildren of DC could walk to school on their own just as I did, if our society permitted parents to permit them to do so — if it had not started persecuting parents who let their children do anything without supervision.

Ukraine war is about democracy - 2025-08-27T20:40:02+00:00

*[The bully] needs to understand what the war in Ukraine is really about. It's not about NATO or the Soviet Union. It’s about democracy.*

I think the bully already understands that, but he wants to do away with democracy.

Urgent: Costco pharmacy mifepristone - 2025-08-27T08:40:00+00:00

US citizens: tell Costco’s Board of Directors and CEO Ron Vachris: Don’t cave to extremists. Allow your pharmacies to carry mifepristone nationwide now.

Here's how to make the actionnetwork.org letter campaign linked above work without running the site's nonfree JavaScript code. (See https://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html for why that issue matters.)

First, make sure you have deactivated JavaScript in your browser or are using the LibreJS plug-in.

I have done the next step for you: I added `?nowrapper=true' to the end of the campaign URL before posting it above. That should bring you to a page that starts with, "Letter campaigns will not work without JavaScript!"

They indeed won't work without some manual help, but the following simple method seems adequate for many of them, including this one.

To start, fill in the personal information answers in the box on the right side of the page. That's how you say who's sending the letter.

Then click the "START WRITING" button. That will take you to a page that can't function without nonfree JavaScript code. (To ensure it doesn't function perversely by running that nonfree code, you can enable LibreJS or disable JavaScript by visiting that page.) You can finish sending without that code By editing its URL in the browser's address bar, as follows:

First, go to the end and insert `&nowrapper=true'. Then tell the browser to visit that URL. This should give you a version of the page that works without JavaScript. Edit the subject and body of your letter. Finally, click on the "SEND LETTER" button, and you're done.

This method seems to work for letter campaigns that send the letters to a fixed list of recipients, the same recipients for every sender. Editing and revisiting the URL is the only additional step needed to bypass the nonfree JavaScript code. I'm sure you'll agree it is a small effort for the result of supporting the campaign without opening your computer to unjust (and potentially malicious) software.

Urgent: Abortion care for veterans - 2025-08-27T08:40:00+00:00

US citizens: call on Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins to protect access to abortion care for all veterans.

Urgent: Stop AIPAC money - 2025-08-27T08:39:59+00:00

US citizens: call on politicians to stop taking AIPAC money: demand your representatives reject AIPAC's right-wing billionaire brand of politics.

Danish zoo controversy - 2025-08-26T08:39:53+00:00

*Danish zoo asks pet owners to donate rabbits and horses (that need to be euthanized) to feed its predators.* Many predators can't eat much of anything except meat. Normally they eat the meat of animals that were raised only for that. It is less wasteful if they eat animals that lived for some other purpose and had to be euthanized for other reasons.

Detention of Mario Guevara - 2025-08-26T08:39:53+00:00

The ACLU accuses the US of keeping reported Mario Guevara in jail to silence him.

ICE's surveillance on wiretransfers - 2025-08-26T08:39:53+00:00

The US is tracking financial payments to find people to deport. The deportation thugs could do this with bank card payments, too. (The bully's henchmen can disregard and flatten privacy laws.) The targets do not have to be limited to people who entered the US without authorization. They could apply it also to people like Mahmoud Khalil, who are in the US lawfully but committed the "crime" of criticizing Israel's war crimes, or El Supremo himself.

It was first predicted in the 1970s that a widely used trackable digital payment system would be a tool for repression and tyranny. Nowadays we can see this in practice in China. The bully's order for all federal government departments to give all their personal data to the DOPE, and to Palantir, is preparing to use data mining to find anything the bully disapproves of, even if lawful or constitutionally protected, to generate an excuse to persecute.

The basic grass-roots way to resist this is to pay cash.

Renewable energy needs reduced by 2050 - 2025-08-26T08:39:53+00:00

Proposing solar power satellites again. In the 1980s, I was part of the L-5 Sociey, which campaigned for solar power satellites. It is too bad they were not built.

26 Countries demand press access to Gaza - 2025-08-26T08:39:53+00:00

27 countries, including UK, Germany and Australia, demanded that Israel open Gaza to foreign journalists. That is a start, but to make Israel do that, they will need to put pressure on.

Sanders and Greene urge US to end Gaza famine - 2025-08-26T08:39:52+00:00

*Marjorie Taylor Greene joins Bernie Sanders in urging US to end Gaza famine.* This is an amazing surprise. If Greene pushes for this alongside Sanders, it could make a big difference to the chance of convincing the persecutor. Alas, on the even more important issue of whether the US will have arbitrary rule or rule by democratic laws, Greene is still on the wrong side.

Fears on streets of Belfast - 2025-08-26T08:39:52+00:00

Gangs of violent racists in Belfast have switched from violent harassment of women to violent harassment of nonwhites. Racists are also ganging up to harass and threaten asylum seekers in London.

Anti-immigrant dragnet - 2025-08-26T08:39:52+00:00

Ecuadorian asylum seekers, rejected, were deported — after being held incommunicado in a secret location until the flight.

Light pollution concerns - 2025-08-26T08:39:52+00:00

*Light pollution causes urban birds to stay awake for a longer part of each day, study finds.*

UK Lawyers for Israel accused - 2025-08-26T08:39:52+00:00

*UK Lawyers for Israel accused of sending "vexatious and legally baseless" letters to silence support for Palestine.*

Refugeeism in the UK - 2025-08-24T20:40:27+00:00

*Far-right anger over asylum hotels is destroying the very idea of refuge — and that's probably the goal.*

Urgent: Military as "liberators" for US - 2025-08-24T20:40:25+00:00

US citizens: call on your state attorney general to keep the military off America's streets.

Urgent: BLS nominee unqualified - 2025-08-24T20:40:25+00:00

US citizens: call on the Senate to reject the bully's nominee to take charge of wrecking the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Urgent: US report denies climate crisis - 2025-08-24T14:39:53+00:00

US citizens: Stand with scientists against the new denialist US climate report.

Prime minister of Spain connecting current fires with global heating - 2025-08-23T08:39:57+00:00

Sánchez, prime minister of Spain, is connecting the current wave of fires with global heating. That is better than most governments dare do, but it is not sufficient.

Fires, floods, diseases and crop failures are symptoms of global heating. To focus on the symptoms rather than their motor is asking to lose! To cope with global heating will keep getting harder as long as we keep making the problem worse,

Sánchez should talk about the core of the job, not solely its edges.

(satire) Trump rushed to watch breast exam - 2025-08-23T08:39:57+00:00

(satire) *Trump Rushed To Walter Reed To Watch Breast Exam.*

US Secretary of Interior denounced renewable energy - 2025-08-23T08:39:57+00:00

At a conference on so-called "artificial intelligence", the wrecker's Secretary of the Interior denounced renewable energy and lauded "incredibly clean" coal-fired electric generators. The president of Google responded by cheering.

Medical subcontractors in privatized prisons - 2025-08-23T08:39:56+00:00

Privatized prisons' subcontracted medical subcontractors make extra money by not doing actual medical treatment — It's cheaper to make excuses. But some of them were sued and lost.

Whoever runs the prison should be 100% responsible for the quality of medicines provided to prisoners there. And that should be a government agency, not a business.

The end-Permian great extinction - 2025-08-23T08:39:56+00:00

The end-Permian great extinction wiped out nearly all life on Earth, after 300,000 years of super volcanoes had caused great but lesser disaster, when hot magma set huge underground fossil fuel deposits on fire. The resulting CO2 is what caused almost total extinction.

We are emitting CO2 much faster than the Earth can recycle it. By continuing that for a long enough time, we might cause another almost total extinction.

To cause an event at the usual level of mass extinction, like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, pterosaurs and trilobites, is much easier. Some mammals might survive after that.

Violence against US health agency workers - 2025-08-23T08:39:56+00:00

*US health agency workers accuse RFK Jr of fueling violence against them.*

Rhetoric of violent hatred tends to encourage a fraction of the public to hate the target. A fraction of them will go to the point of harassment. A fraction of them will commit battery. A fraction of them will inflict grave wounds or even kill.

I am sure the persecutor knows he is fomenting deadly violence against all his favorite groups to hate.

Federal court blocks law requiring ten commandments in classrooms - 2025-08-23T08:39:56+00:00

*Federal Court Blocks Texas Law Requiring Ten Commandments in Every Public School Classroom.*

A few years ago, this would have been so predictable as to attract little news coverage. That it merits news reports is a measure of how far Christian fanaticism has dragged the US away from basic human rights and its constitution.

Wildfire particulates danger update - 2025-08-22T14:39:55+00:00

*Wildfire smoke [is 14 times] more dangerous to health than [was] thought.*

Urgent: Limit broadcast channels one owner can own - 2025-08-22T02:39:58+00:00

US citizens: call on the FCC to preserve the limits on how many broadcast channels one owner can own.

Urgent: Protect access to abortion and contraception - 2025-08-22T02:39:58+00:00

US citizens: Protect access to abortion and contraception.

Urgent: Investigate and shut down abusive deportation prisons - 2025-08-22T02:39:58+00:00

US citizens: call on Congress to investigate and shut down abusive deportation prisons.

If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121

Capuchin monkeys keeping pets - 2025-08-22T02:39:58+00:00

In one band of capuchin monkeys, some males seize baby howler monkeys and carry them around, almost as pets. Alas, they have not come up with a way to keep the howler babies alive — for instance, food that can replace their mothers' milk.

This leads me to wonder how (and whether) male capuchin monkeys normally interact with baby capuchin monkeys. Do they have a paternal instinct?