Creators: Instead of Being Down About Trump, People Are Rising Up

If the barrage of MAGA nuttiness and raw meanness is getting you down, ponder this passage from the classic novel, “Don Quixote”: “It is not possible for the bad or the good to last forever … and since the bad has lasted so long, the good is close at hand.”

Of course, the good only comes when fed-up people openly rebel against the bad. And, sure enough, President Donald Trump’s awful tyranny is revving up a majority movement for the common good.

Soaking in self-delusion, tyrants start sipping their own bathwater, thinking it’s champagne. So, today’s Washington MAGA moguls, drunk on narcissism, are imperiously rigging the rules so their clique can grab more wealth and power from the rest of us. Maybe they thought we commoners wouldn’t notice … or care. But we did and do, so the rebellion is on and gaining steam with nationwide protests and a surge in grassroots populist defiance.

Predictably, Trump & Co. is now resorting to the same losing tactic that panicky despots always fall back on — deploying police and military to subjugate the people. He has commanded the Army and Marines to shut down public protests. Then, posturing as a “strongman,” this 1960s draft dodger spent 45 million of our tax dollars to stage a made-for-TV, Stalin-style military parade on his birthday, letting him strut around as warrior-in-chief.

These are not shows of strength, but pathetic confessions of personal insecurity and presidential weakness. Sad. Don Quixote was right — the good is close at hand. So, to all of you in the growing democracy movement, keep pushing, push harder, push further! Thanks to you, we’re getting there. And we’ll get there sooner rather than later.

https://www.creators.com/read/jim-hightower/06/25/instead-of-being-down-about-trump-people-are-rising-up

New York Times: Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans

The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work with the government, spreading the company’s technology — which could easily merge data on Americans — throughout agencies.

In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.

Mr. Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since. But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan. In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm.

The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work across the federal government in recent months. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. (This does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent.)

Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies — the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service — about buying its technology, according to six government officials and Palantir employees with knowledge of the discussions.

The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies, the government officials said.

Be very afraid! If you value your privacy, an all-knowing, all-seeing government database is the last thing you want.

https://archive.is/4DyVk#selection-659.0-689.326