Friday Nite Videos | April 18, 2025

Friday Nite Videos | April 18, 2025: 20 Lessons on Tyranny | John Lithgow. RFK Jr. Sparks Outrage With Autism Remarks. Palantir: The New Deep State. Chornobyl Scientist Warns of a Toxic Future. Appeals Court Warns of Trump 'Lawlessness.'

Bernie and AOC Electrify Democrats Who Want To Fight

Bernie Sanders and his apparent heir, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have drawn enormous crowds on their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. Sanders expresses confidence that anti-establishment anger could turn into something substantive for the left.

Trump Policy Poses Threat to Ukraine and Europe

Trump's plan for Ukraine seems to be reaching a tipping point. European states may soon be confronted with an entirely different war. They will either have to decisively support Ukraine or we could see an end to democratic Europe.

The Rise of End Times Fascism

The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them

How Your Brain Creates New Memories

New research reveals how, by following different rules in the process of learning, neurons can perform multiple functions in parallel. This may have implications for human health and society, including new ways to design artificial neural networks.

Now On Fast Track To A Historic Constitutional Clash

It looks like potential contempt proceedings in the Alien Enemies Act case and the Abrego Garcia case will be running in parallel, leapfrogging each other for the right to be the Supreme Court’s biggest test so far of the Trump II presidency.

Palestinian Student Detained in Vermont

He is widely known in the upper Connecticut River Valley of Vermont, where he has been based since moving to the United States more than a decade ago, as a spiritual man who grew up Muslim, a practicing Buddhist, and whose closest friends are Jewish.

Jewish Israeli in the US Standing Up For Palestine

I have committed the same acts they have committed, including publishing an article that calls the war in Gaza a genocide, participating in a protest against the genocide in Gaza... being vocal in general about the atrocities committed by Israel

The New McCarthyism Was Started by Liberals

Trumpism is only Bidenism carried to its logical conclusion. Joe Biden was in many ways heir to the militaristic liberalism of Wilson and Truman—especially visible in his efforts to revive the military Keynesianism of the Cold War.

Reader Comments & Tidbits, April 17, 2025

Reader Comments: First they came for Kilmar; We Should All Be Very, Very Afraid; New Resource: Immigrants And the Economy; Lots of Cartoons as we struggle to make the world better; and more
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Culture

books

‘Infinite License’

Omer Bartov The New York Review of Books
An Israeli-American historian of Holocaust and Genocide Studies covers the dynamic of a Jewish state that has thrived on Holocaust roots, how that legacy has been exploited becoming an apartheid state, a practitioner of genocide of Palestinians

film

Frantz Fanon’s Algerian Years on Film

An interview with Jean-Claude Barny Jacobin
In French-ruled Algeria, Frantz Fanon was a psychiatrist and an active member of the National Liberation Front. A new movie portrays his commitment to the anti-colonial struggle.

food

How To Fight Trump’s Attacks on Farmworkers

David Bacon The Nation
ICE is picking people up on warrants for detention across the country. ICE Director Tom Homan calls all undocumented immigrants criminals and therefore credible targets for deportation, no matter how many years they have lived in the country.

poetry

Thanksgiving Among the Almond Trees

Nels Goñi Christianson In the Black, In the Red: Poems of Profit $ Loss
California poet Nels Goñi Christianson describes two ways of celebrating Thanksgiving.

Labor

labor

Kentucky Unions Stand Up To Halt Deportation of Two Hundred Workers

Luis Feliz Leon Labor Notes
“The labor movement has an opportunity to strengthen our organizations and show that we fight for all members. If the Trump administration can get away with coming after immigrants and federal workers, they’ll keep coming for more of us.”

labor

What Is DOGE Doing to Social Security?

Monique Morrissey Economic Policy Institute
Social Security faces a long-term shortfall that would be easy to fix if Republican lawmakers listened to voters. Republican and Democratic voters alike support addressing the shortfall through revenue increases, not benefit cuts.

labor

Unions Without Strikes

Hamilton Nolan Working in These Times
Military with batons in the foreground. Striking workers in the background w Today’s labor movement has been built to rely on forms of power that are all going away.

Friday nite video

20 Lessons on Tyranny | Read by John Lithgow

Now, more than ever, we need the wisdom of our intellects, the patriotism of our citizens, and the passion and talents of those who still believe in the American experiment.

Palantir: The New Deep State

Specialists in surveillance, they’ve been hired by the Department of Defense, the FBI, ICE, and even Wendy’s. Now DOGE will likely hire Palantir as well.