Solutions To Integrating Factors Differential Equations

 The problems again:

(1) Solve:  x²y dy – xy² dx – x³y²dx = 0

Solution:

Factor to obtain:: xy(xdy – ydx) – x² y²  dx = 0

Now, multiply by (x^{- 2}  y^{- 2}):


(x dy – ydx)/ xy – x dx = 0

Then by applying the property of the differential:  d(ln y/x):

d(ln y/x) – xdx = 0

Integrating:: ln(y/x)  =   x²/2 +   c

Or:

y / x  =  c  exp (x²/2)  or:    y =   c x  exp (x²/2) 


(2) Solve:  x (dy/dx) - 3y = x²

using any method for integrating factors:

Solution:

x (dy/dx) - 3y = x²

 Put the equation into the form: dy/dx + Py = Q

Then: dy/dx – 3y/x = x

So: P = (-3/x) and Q = x


Therefore:

r = exp(ò Pdx) = exp (-3 ln x) = 1/ e ³lnx = 1 /x³

Whence:

(1/x³) y = ò_x (x /x³) dx + C = -1/x + C


So: y = -x² + Cx³

Trump's "Golden Dome" Fantasy - Yet Another Colossal Waste Of Money That Rivals Reagan's Star Wars Boondoggle

 

 Trump's Golden Dome fantasy is $175 b boondoggle- Where Is DOGE?

It really seems, when it comes to the Trumpites, past is prologue. And by that I mean an ever metastasizing dark age, dark past, now overwhelming present culture and scientific  advances. As well as reason, end common sense.

The preference then is for regression not progress. We see it in the attacks on the universities, the most recent Harvard. As if the country can afford the wanton destruction of its brainpower – and letting it flee to China or the EU.

We also saw at the outset of Dotard’s reign, the first target of DOGE was US Aid, and for what? To save maybe $12 million. Meantime, the Trumpites are prepared to send the nation’s deficits soaring to over $36 trillion by passing a reckless tax cut that will only benefit the richest. Estimated 6 figure returns for the upper 0.5% and a couple hundred for the hoi polloi – most of whom voted for Trump hoping for better breaks.   But now they will likely get their couple hundred in tax cuts but lose their Medicaid, their 'Meals on Wheels', food stamps and more – to appease the oligarchs.

Adding wasteful insult to the existing financial injury of a looming trade war, idiotic tariffs, and soaring bond yields – we have the spectacle of $175 billion to build a “Golden Dome” missile defense system for the U.S.  But make no mistake that this is a Dotard pipe dream, a fantasy no different than Ronnie Raygun’s Star Wars (SDI or strategic defense initiative) malarkey.

Point of fact: Since April, The U.S. has been asking defense contractors for information on space-based interceptors to knock out incoming missile threats, as the Pentagon explores Trump's ill-advised Golden Dome incarnation.

But the idea of mounting rockets, or lasers, to satellites so they can shoot down enemy intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) as they lift off is not new - it was part of a loopy, short-sighted initiative devised during the presidency of Reagan. It represents a huge and expensive technological leap from current capabilities. It is also a mindless boondoggle and waste, which will be no more effective than Ronnie’s Star Wars bollocks.

Nor any more effective than the THAAD missile shield that emerged under Bush Jr and Obama.  THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Defense)  -  had only been "successful" because of GPS finder beacons attached to the warheads of the dummy targets.  We've actually known about this tomfoolery or fakery the past 25 years or so.  Reuters was the only news agency that got wind of the initial 'Defense Week' story back then  and revealed the fix. The wire service quoted a Pentagon official who "conceded that real warheads in an attack would not carry such helpful beacons". Gee thanks much, Roscoe! I'm sure I'll sleep better at night now, supposing maybe you guys secretly planted beacons on the North Korean warheads.

As for the Dotard 'Golden Dome'  version of a missile shield, the so-called notice arrived compliments of the Missile Defense Agency and U.S. Space Force – both of which are holding a series of meetings to discuss space-based interceptors. It’s all a waste of time and brain power, friends.

In the notice, they supposedly asked companies to provide specific information on actual or conceptual "space-based interceptors" that would knock out ICBMs during the "boost phase" - the initial slow and predictable climb through the Earth's atmosphere. (Current defenses are only able to target enemy missiles as they travel through space.)

The Pentagon said it is also interested in concepts capable of "post-boost, early midcourse, or midcourse intercept that show a path to boost-phase intercept, including kinetic and non-kinetic effectors, sensors/seekers, and fire control solutions."

Give me a break.  Didn’t these geniuses figure out the inherent chuckle factor when Bush Junior tried to advance them?

Guess not.

According to Tom Karako, a weapons and security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies:

“This notification would seem to confirm the near likelihood that both space sensors and space-based interceptors will be a key component of Golden Dome's forthcoming architectural plans, which will probably emerge in the coming weeks," 

The MDA has established multiple delivery timelines for Golden Dome, with the earliest capabilities expected by December 31, 2026, and additional capabilities phased through 2030 and beyond.

The “industry engagement” was supposedly held in Alabama over multiple days from April 30 to May 2. It emerged amid growing hysteria about advanced missile threats from Russia and China, as well as regional powers such as North Korea and Iran. Hypersonic weapons, which can maneuver at speeds exceeding Mach 5, pose particular challenges to existing ground- and sea-based interceptor systems that target enemy missiles during the portion of their flight path when they have the greatest maneuverability and can most effectively evade missile defenses.

In truth, the Space Horizons Research Task Force already knows all it needs to, i.e. that what's being proposed is merely a resurrection of the old Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which was never proven workable or even remotely feasible.  It depended upon incorporating space-based interceptors as well as powerful lasers mounted on satellites to take down Soviet ICBMs.   

The  most devastating exposure of this missile defense con (which likewise applies to the ‘Golden Dome’ hooey) appeared in the May, 1987 issue of Physics Today and was entitled "APS Directed Energy Weapons Study (Executive Summary)".   Versions of it  subsequently appeared in other journals, including the Reviews Of Modern Physics, e.g.

https://journals.aps.org/rmp/abstract/10.1103/RevModPhys.59.S1

The study basically took apart the 'Star Wars' rubbish piece by piece  with no fewer than 26 major  deficiencies identified on everything from the weaknesses of the proposed lasers to shoot down the incoming missiles (too weak by several orders of magnitude) to the problem of identifying the targets "at sub-micro-radian resolution"  in the boost phase  to "lack of precision tracking via active sensor systems" and the ease with which any missile  interceptor design can easily be thwarted, say by use of dispersal of million of reflecting, metallic decoys. 

Even two years earlier, in an article  appearing in the June, 1985 issue of Physics Today (p. 34, 'The Strategic Defense Initiative Perception Vs, Reality'), the SDI was dismissed as a "political PR promotion scheme".  In other words, it was created purely to pump up defense budgets and enrich all those contractors who'd be manufacturing the components of this farce. As the author (Wolfgang Panofsky) pointed out:

"What is frightening at this time is the blatant salesmanship, which does not focus on SDI';s military merits but which appeals to economic self interest."

Adding:

"There exists at this time no technical basis that justifies expanding research and technology programs in ballistic missile defense beyond a program of limited experimentation ...and studies of an objective rather than promotional manner."

Nor is there any basis now for expanding an analogous research and technology program. There is absolutely NO assurance, zero,  that anything different will be achieved with this Golden Dome codswallop.  But the Trumpers’ brainiacs are prepared to piss away over $175b to try to prove a bullet can still hit a bullet – even one moving at 17,000 mph.

 See Also:

Trump: Golden Dome will cost around $175B, be 'fully operational' in three years | DefenseScoop

And:

Brane Space: A New "Space Force"? One Of The Dumbest Ideas Since Reagan's "Star Wars" - But NOT Dotard's

Looking At The Connections Between Fractals, Bifurcations, Order & Disorder

 Some investigations- using computer simulations, disclose interesting properties associated with what we term ‘strange attractors’.  These are deemed "strange" because they have a fractal structure, often with non-integer dimensions.  They are also associated with chaotic behavior in a system. 

 For example, two merging regions of plasma interact over a large distance to form one single magnetic configuration. Leaving out all the details of the computational plasma physics, a strange attractor for such a budding, complex sunspot field might appear as depicted in Fig. 1a, with the linear axes representing spatial (x, y, z) coordinates.

A sketch of the merging fields, as they might appear confined to two dimensions, including field lines and directions as well as the separatrix, is shown in Fig. 1b. The separatrix is analogous to an equilibrium position or barrier between the two contrasting fields. The region with counterclockwise oriented field lines on the left might be called ‘basin of attraction 1’ and the counterpart on the right ‘basin of attraction 2’. At the position where the competing fields are precisely neutralized lies the ‘neutral point’.[1]

The actual matching sunspot region might appear as in Fig. 2 (which I photographed using a 200 mm aperture Cassegrain telescope in November, 1980). 

It clearly shows is that self-organized and magnetically complex plasma systems can arise out of a background of chaos. Plasma itself is chaotic with ions, currents interacting in many random variations. But magnetic fields can order these.

A much more elaborate diagram, associated with many generically complex physical processes, from polymer growth and collapse, to origin of solar flare conditions and filaments near coronal loops-arches is plotted with control parameter 'lambda' (Greek letter l) along the horizontal axis, and some state variable 'Zeta' along the vertical, is shown in Fig. 3.

One might correctly refer to it as depicting multiple bifurcations but each characterized by different periods. Thus, the sort of doubling in the first (left) portion of the diagram is similar to that shown in the basic bifurcation diagrams. (See links at bottom)

Beyond that, however, we now see at least two more additional doublings of stable solutions – each displaying bifurcation from the one preceding it. Beyond the obvious bifurcations lies a chaotic region, mostly grey. However, a few successive bands of ‘order’ emerge within it against the chaotic background. More intriguing, if one magnifies portions of this chaotic domain, small regions displaying self-similarity appear. For example, exhibiting the sort of period splitting visible in the larger map. One may rightly conjecture that whatever systems reside within these bands, say persistent solar flare regions[2], or a replicating proto-cell, it emerged from chaos to exhibit self-organization.

Many other examples abound: a normally functioning cell suddenly becomes malignant; the molecules/particles of a liquid- initially with random arrangements - suddenly assume an orderly, lattice-type of structure when the liquid freezes (e.g. when water turns to ice); elementary atomic ‘magnets’ originally distributed randomly, suddenly become oriented in the same basic direction - creating magnetism in a ferrous material. In each instance, the system has undergone a transition from a more disordered state, to a more ordered one. Bifurcation has occurred, setting the evolution of the system on a fundamentally different path from what it was earlier.

In the evolutionary sphere, specific combinations of amino acids probably contributed to system state change leading to a pre-biotic cell or protenoid.[3] One could view the transition from non-reproductive- non-growth to replicating-growing states as a ‘symmetry breaking’ in the organic molecules that yield a very primitive living cell. Once formed, the cell possesses all the attributes of life including reproduction. At this stage, replication and further evolution can occur.


In one particular simulation, using macromolecules with specified monomers of a given initial size, I obtained the results summarized in Fig. 4. The tendency observed was for smaller length units to evolve to greater length polymers, as if the longer length had been preordained by selection. In the (Juliabrot fractal) model I used, entropy was expressed as a function of length and some partition function, Zeta (z). Longer lengths prevailed because the difference in free energy was heavily weighted in that direction with entropy taken into account.

In the model depicted, an iterative mapping was set up with z’ (new value) = z² + k, where z = x + iy, and k = a +bi, with i= Ö(-1).   A conformal mapping was then performed where w = f(x + iy). The entropy S/k = ℓ ln (z), obtained for smaller lengths (ℓ << L) and S/k = (L+ ℓ) ln (z) for larger.

In general, -d F/ d(kT) = S/k where (dF) is the free energy difference. We can write, therefore: F2 – F1 = - kT[(L + ℓ)ln (z)- ℓln (z)] = -kT L ln (z), which is the free energy difference between polymers of length L and those of lengths L + ℓ

This sort of phenomenon, trivialized here in a simulated depiction, can apply in a real world sense to the alpha-beta transition in fibrous proteins or the helix random coil transition evident in solutions of nucleic acids and proteins. I suspect it can also apply at some level to a polymerization process leading to formation of protenoids which themselves are the likely precursors of coacervate microspheres, the most logical original life on Earth.


What does all this mean? Only that one needn’t postulate a supernatural agent to account for the apparent "order" of the cosmos. (And let us please bear in mind this order is not large in any way or pervasive, but confined to perhaps 0.000000000002% of the matter component of the universe, which itself is only 4% of the whole!) Whatever limited order emerges, therefore, can be explained entirely within the material-physical system, in terms of fields (electric, gravitational, magnetic) as well as matter per se.
--------------------

[1] In actual sunspot regions one is much more likely to trace the path of the ‘neutral line’, obtained from solar magnetograms.


[2] Indeed, one of the best examples is the dynamic spectrum of a large solar flare in which differing radiofrequency bursts- called Type I, II, III, IV appear. Amidst the background of the spectrum, the burst regions define what can be regarded as domains of ‘order’.


[3] Protein-like polymers formed spontaneously by heating dry mixtures of amino acids at temperatures over 150° C. The products, also called thermal proteins, range in molecular weight from 4,000 to 10,000 daltons.

See Also:

• Basic Statistical Mechanics of Order & Disorder

And:

• Basic Statistical Mechanics of Order & Disorder (2)

Mensa Intermediate Algebra Problem Based On The Unit Circle

 

The equation for the unit circle in Cartesian coordinates is:

x ²    +    y ²  =  1

Consider the coordinate pairs that satisfy the unit circle equation AND both x and y are rational. That is, they can be expressed as a quotient of two integers, e.g. (-1, 0), (0, 1), (0, -1) and (1, 0).

Are there a finite number of such ordered pairs. or infinitely many?  Prove your answer.

How Trump's Rambling West Point Speech Would've Been Received By My Dad (A WW II Army Vet)

 "Trump is a five time draft dodger, his father got a podiatrist who owed him a favor to say little Donnie had “bone spurs”. Trump has said soldiers were suckers and losers, and asked “what was in it for them?” while looking at a vast military graveyard. Any soldier that has taken the oath to support and defend the Constitution should not obey any illegal or unethical orders issued by this immoral lying traitor." - WaPo comment

The recent news (UK Independent) on Trump's West Point speech i.e

Trump gives rambling speech about trophy wives, golf and the ‘late great’ Al Capone in politically-charged West Point address | The Independent

Would have made my WW II vet dad puke his guts out.  I can imagine what dad - who fought in the Pacific  (and died in 2009) - would have said on reading that piece:

"What the hell is a damned draft dodger and convicted felon doing giving a speech at a service academy anyway?  How the hell did he even get elected being a damned felon? Praising Capone in the speech? He ought to be impeached just for that!" 

No doubt his ire would especially have reached boiling point after reading in the piece:

 "Last spring, he also made history by becoming the first criminally convicted former president.

“I was investigated more than the great late Alphonse Capone,” Trump told the West Point graduates. ... I went through more investigations than Alphonse Capone, and now I'm talking to you as president. Can you believe this?”

No, dad - who died sixteen years earlier- would never have believed Americans  could be so crass, short- sighted, self-serving and foolish to vote a felon into the highest office. No matter what he promised in an election campaign. He fought World War II under FDR's presidency so why would he believe people could descend to such a warped level?

  Dad after coming home in 1945.

                               With New Guinea headhunter before Buna Gona battle

  Unlike Trump, who ran from service using the ruse of "bonespurs",  Dad volunteered as a nineteen-year-old and joined the Army  before Pearl Harbor. He then ended up fighting in the Battle Of Buna - Gona in New Guinea. He lived to relate his war experiences in a diary which I read from time to time.  One image he sketched is shown below :

What's noteworthy is while the so-called "commander-in-chief" is a pathetic whiner and grievance-filled-putz , e.g. from Washington Post:

"The president of the United States claims to be victimized by: Unfair (but unproven) political persecution via elite universities “dominated by Marxist Maniacs and lunatics.” Throngs of undocumented immigrants “of the worst order.” Court decisions that don’t go his way. Law firms at odds with what he wants to do. Media coverage that undercuts him. Mayors who don’t collaborate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And a Black Lives Matter Plaza created in June 2020 by a then-defiant D.C. Mayor Bowser as a symbolic rebuke of the first Trump White House."

Dad never wallowed in grievance and abject victimhood even after he contracted malaria in the New Guinea jungles.  Nor did PTSD from his war experience make him turn to drink or drugs on his return to the states.  He had a million excuses to become a self-centered  angry a-hole and bum but he didn't.  No, he manned up, sucked it up and worked hard for his family.  Even when down and out, he didn't grift like Trump, he worked harder to get us through hard times.

While Trump - felon and Capone praiser- dissed vets wounded or killed in wars as losers, i.e.

Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are 'Losers ... - The Atlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/

The presidents dad respected most (FDR, JFK) extolled service.  They also honored and respected the constitution, unlike Trump. Of course, Trump would  be calling him a "sucker" or "loser" just for getting malaria. By the way, if dad had been told Trump was planning a military parade - with tanks and choppers and hundreds of marching troops - he'd howl with scorn and disbelief.  

But let’s not forget Trump's new nickname:  TACO — "Trump Always Chickens Out" - a mocking label used by Wall Street investors that this coward always blinks when pushback occurs on his tariffs. The term was created in response to his pattern of announcing steep new tariffs on the United States' trading partners then backing down when opponents (like China – which holds most of our bond debt - stood their ground.

 But I suspect the label applies not only to his tariff policy but also to his foreign policy. What do you expect, as dad would ask, from a draft dodger? 

Today, however, is not a time to waste on posturing pretender presidents,  cowardly congress critters and a browbeaten U.S. media. I choose to focus instead on genuine heroes who put country before selves. 

See Also:

• Sketches, Drawings From My Dad's Pacific War Diary...

And:

Trump Was So Upset by Jimmy Kimmel’s Jokes His White House Staff Asked Disney to Censor Him - YouTube

And:

Donald Trump

Trump Diverts Military Valor to Himself

by Heather Digby Parton | May 29, 2025 - 5:38am | permalink

— from Salon

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Trump spent some time with the people he called suckers and losers of both the future and the past. He delivered the commencement address at West Point, and rambled on for a good hour reprising the trophy wives and yachts story he told the Boy Scouts back in 2017 and boasting about his felonies, saying, "I went through more investigations than Alphonse Capone, and now I'm talking to you as president, can you believe this?" This was his lesson in perseverance to the graduates: no matter how many crimes you commit, you too can become president.

He said he didn't have time to do the traditional handshake of the graduating seniors because he's dealing with important national security issues in Russia and China. Luckily, he is able to do that from the golf course where he was seen later that afternoon.

The next day, he delivered a Memorial Day address at Arlington National Cemetery in which he shared with all the people who were there mourning their loved ones that he was glad that he hadn't won his second term until now because he "got the World Cup and the Olympics." I'm sure that was very comforting.

» article continues...

And:

U.S. vets recoil at Trump plan to end Afghans’ deportation protection - The Washington Post

And:

Donald Trump

By Calling More Than Half the Country ‘Scum,’ Trump Is Raising a Bright Red Flag

by Thom Hartmann | May 28, 2025 - 5:24am | permalink

— from The Hartmann Report

U.S. President Donald Trump opened Memorial Day in the most disgusting way possible, not by praising our fallen heroes but by attacking Democrats. He wrote on his Nazi-infested social media site on Monday morning:

Happy Memorial Day to all, including the scum that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country through warped radical left minds…

When the President of the United States calls members of the oldest political party in the world and a former president “scum,” it’s not just another ugly outburst that embarrasses America before the rest of the world: It’s a warning sign. A bright red flag.

It tells us that something far more sinister than partisan posturing is afoot. Something our media has already decided to overlook in their perpetual effort to normalize the abominable.

» article continues...

Perhaps Hard To Believe: But Why Most Of Trump's Executive Orders Are Bogus As In Unconstitutional

                                                                        

                 "My executive orders ain't bogus cuz my signature is on 'em!"

Trumpers, and especially E.O author Stephen Miller, don't wish to hear the facts, but nearly all of Trump's Executive orders - issued in his first 100 days- are unconstituional. They'd rather loll in their delusional world that their man is accomplishing something when he isn't doing squat. Hence, they fancy  the mirage of action over actual executive effort and work. Like Trump - when he holds up each signed product in a leather binder, similar to a toddler who just completed a page in his coloring book. "Looky, Mommy! I  did do it! I did!"

But in Trump's case it's all performative, all theater. All make believe. By that I mean these glorified scrap sheets  have no force of law, none. Many Trumpies also believe the authority to write an executive order is conferred by the Constitution but this is not technically so. Let us reference the Wikipedia entry:

"There is no constitutional provision nor statute that explicitly permits executive orders. The term executive power in Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 of the Constitution refers to the office of President as the executive. They are instructed therein by the declaration "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" made in Article II, Section 3, Clause 5 or face impeachment. Most executive orders use these Constitutional reasonings as the authorization allowing for their issuance to be justified as part of the President's sworn duties, the intent being to help direct officers of the U.S. Executive carry out their delegated duties as well as the normal operations of the federal government: the consequence of failing to comply possibly being removal from office"

In other words, these more comport with a wish list based on appeals or pleas from a president to the legislative branch to formalize into law what he seeks to do. In Trump's case, most legal experts note these scribbles on fancy paper haven't even been vetted  by competent, qualified staff for internal consistency or by constitutional lawyers, for consistency with constitutional law.  Thus, they are at most :"executive actions" - or a lesser category to executive orders. The latter, then, have already been vetted.

Trump's signed action ("tweet")  back in 2017 -  based on staunching the flow of Muslim immigrants was clearly unconstitutional, for example. He declared with solemn bull toad authority that he was preventing people from "entering via terrorist nations", yet he didn't even name the nations of the 9/11 terrorists, including: Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab  Emirates.  The selective naming of his chosen 7 nations means there is no equal protection under the law for the selected nations' immigrants. It's like he's turning a blind eye to the sources of real terrorists. 

His more recent EOs in Trump 2.0 are equally misguided, misinformed and gibberish. A classic example was invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to justify rounding up Venezuelans - claiming they were member of an "invading" gang called Tren de Aragua. And while in this case a federal judge in Texas  ruled   that the invocation was unlawful, we are still awaiting the return of hundreds of Venezuelans from a Gulag in El Salvador.  But this is only one standout example of overreach, others include removing inspectors general from various departments, defunding museums and libraries, scrapping the Voice of America, cratering agencies, letting DOGE dismiss federal workers and trying to dictate to universities - like Columbia and Harvard- what studies and curricula are acceptable, and what professors are eligible to teach them.

Given all this, any constitutional lawyer worth his salt should be able to expose most of  Trump's signed papers in 2025 as not worth much more than a piece of his gold-lined toilet paper.

Thus, the key aspect for people to bear in mind here is:

"Executive orders are subject to judicial review, and may be struck down if deemed by the courts to be unsupported by statute or the Constitution."

Think about that when the orange reprobate issues another one.

See Also:

Donald Trump | Worker's Rights

Trump 2.0 at 100 Days: An Onslaught Against Workers

by Sarah Anderson | May 2, 2025 - 5:00am | permalink

— from OtherWords

Well, we’ve hit the 100 day mark of the second Trump administration. Donald Trump campaigned as a champion of working class voters. But straight out of the blocks, his policy choices have undermined workers at nearly every turn.

A recent fact sheet from the Institute for Policy Studies, Economic Policy Institute, and Repairers of the Breach rounds up the damage so far.

Trump started by illegally removing National Labor Relations Board Chair Gwynne Wilcox for allegedly favoring workers’ interests over employers. The NLRB cracks down on union busting and other abuses, but now it can’t function. A federal court ruled to reinstate Wilcox, but the Republican-dominated Supreme Court blocked this action while litigation is pending.

» article continues...

And:

Culture | Donald Trump

Trump’s Cultural Vandalism: Bullshit ‘War on Woke’ Will Trash The Country’s Museums and Libraries

by Bill Berkowitz | March 23, 2025 - 4:55am | permalink

Trump’s Executive Order Defunding Museums and Libraries Across the Country is Another Authoritarian Attempt to Control Culture

“They were careless people … They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
—F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Historically, authoritarian regimes have used cultural appropriation to consolidate power and control cultural narratives. Suppressing artistic expression, attacking the media and academia, banning books, destroying historical documents, saturating the culture with groupthink, are all part of an authoritarian’s supercharged playbook. Donald Trump, in his rush to eradicate and/or rewrite history and reshape America’s cultural institutions has, among other acts, named himself Chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and dismissed existing board members, appointing a new Trump-aligned board; rewritten guidelines for National Endowment for the Arts grants, emphasizing the need for so-called patriotic art; appointed a new head of the National Archives; and most recently signed an executive order to eliminate the agency that funds museums and libraries.

» article continues...

The Alien Enemies Act, Explained | Brennan Center for Justice

And:

Donald Trump

‘His Only Motivation’: Experts Say Trump Is an Empty Vessel — Except on This One Issue

by Ailia Zehra | May 21, 2025 - 5:28am | permalink

— from Alternet

Since his inauguration in January, Trump and his supporters have been targeting individuals and groups they view as political or ideological adversaries.

In an article published Tuesday, the New York Times featured the views of analysts who are concerned about where the United States is headed under the Trump presidency.

Paul Rosenzweig, who served as a deputy assistant secretary for policy in the Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush, told the Times that the impact of the president's action will never go away.

"The damage is permanent. Not because it cannot be fixed — it can be with effort. But rather because nobody will ever trust the United States again that something Trump-like won’t recur," he said.

» article continues...

And:

Donald Trump | Social Justice and Activism

Sunday Thought: Awakening the Sleeping Giant

by Robert Reich | May 18, 2025 - 5:10am | permalink

— from Robert Reich's Substack

Friends,

I wrote an earlier version of this piece shortly after the start of this horrific regime. The regime has become far more horrific since then — worse than I’d feared.

I mentioned then that a woman I didn’t know was about to pass me on the sidewalk and then stopped, turned toward me, and almost shouted, “It’s a fucking nightmare!”

Well, it has been a “fucking nightmare.”

But a “fucking nightmare” is not all bad if it awakens America.

America is like a sleeping giant whose passion for democracy and social justice is fearless, once awakened.

The giant doesn’t awaken easily, but a nightmare can do it.

» article continues...

And:

Donald Trump

Donald Trump: The Symbol of the Decline and Fall of Just About Everything

by Tom Engelhardt | May 17, 2025 - 5:25am | permalink

— from TomDispatch

I remember the phrase from my boyhood, listening to baseball games on the old wooden radio by my bed. A major hitter would be up and—bang!—he’d connect with the ball in a big-time fashion. The announcer in a rising voice would then say dramatically: “It’s going, going, gone!” It was a phrase connected to success of the first order. It was Duke Snider or Mickey Mantle hitting a homer. It was a winner all the way around the bases.

Today, though no one may say it anymore, somewhere deep inside my mind I can still hear it. But now, at least for me, it’s connected to another kind of hitter entirely and another kind of reality as well. I’m thinking, of course, about the president of these (increasingly dis-)United States of America, Donald J. Trump, and how, these days, his version of a going-going-gone homer is simply the going-going-gone part of it.

But no one reading this piece should be surprised by that. After all, in my own fashion, for the last 24 years here at TomDispatch, I’ve been recording the going-going-gone version of both this country and, as time has gone on, this planet.

» article continues...