No Joke

One of Donald Trump’s many failings, not only as a President, but as a human being, is his utter lack of a sense of humor. He can’t take a joke.

Jimmy Kimmel’s offhand comment about Charlie Kirk’s killer — that he was part of the MAGA crowd —may have been in poor taste, but it was clearly covered as free speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution.

And it was part of a humorous riff, which is what Kimmel is paid to do.

If only from his many years on his reality TV show, Trump should understand these things, but he doesn’t and he can’t.

Were he not occupying the highest elected office in the land his inadequacy wouldn’t really matter.

But he does, so the joke’s on us.

As David Remnick of the New Yorker has noted, “Historically, autocrats are a mirthless bunch. Augustus, Napoleon Bonaparte, Tsar Nicholas I, Francisco Franco, and countless others––they all cracked down on satirists.”

At least when it comes to hating humor, you can now add Trump’s name to that list of some of the worst tyrants in history.

HEADLINES:

• Judge rejects Trump’s New York Times lawsuit for being ‘decidedly improper and impermissible’ (CNN)

• ‘Dangerous as hell’: Cruz blasts FCC’s Jimmy Kimmel takedown (Politico)

• Armed man detained at site of planned memorial service for Charlie Kirk (WP)

• U.S. attorney resigns under pressure from Trump to charge N.Y. AG Letitia James (NPR)

• In Pressuring ABC Over Kimmel, Trump May Have Crossed a Constitutional Line (NYT)

• An Escalation in Every Way (Atlantic)

• Kimmel’s suspension is the latest display of Trump’s growing power over the US media landscape (AP)

• Jon Stewart's Post-Kimmel Primer on Free Speech in the Glorious Trump Era (The Daily Show)

• 'We are all Jimmy Kimmel': What late night hosts are saying about Kimmel's suspension. (NPR)

• How Donald Trump’s Culture-Wars Playbook Felled Jimmy Kimmel (New Yorker)

• The political mood feels like 9/11 again (Nate Silver)

• Soros Gives $10 Million to Newsom Redistricting Fight (NYT)

• Following Kirk's assassination, Republicans sour on the direction of the country, new AP-NORC poll finds (AP)

• House GOP passes stopgap funding bill ahead of shutdown deadline, setting up critical test for Senate (CNN)

• Trump and Xi make progress on TikTok deal, plan to meet in South Korea (Reuters)

• Estonia says 3 Russian fighter jets entered its airspace in ‘brazen’ incursion (AP)

• The ‘blob’ is back — except this time it stretches across the entire North Pacific (CNN)

• Scientists May Have Found Signs of a Hidden Universe on the Ocean Floor (Popular Mechanics)

• Meta Accused of Torrenting Porn to Advance Its Goal of AI ‘Superintelligence’ (Wired)

• OpenAI won’t say whose content trained its video tool. We found some clues. (WP)

• A robot programmed to act like a 7-year-old girl works to combat fear in hospitals (ABC)

• What AI’s Doomers and Utopians Have in Common (Atlantic)

• Casio is about to start selling a furry AI-powered pet robot in the US, as it bets on loneliness (Sherwood)

• Report Finds Majority Of Fumbles Recovered Within First 48 Hours (The Onion)

MUSIC:

Neil Young-Only Love Can Break Your Heart - live 1974 (YouTube)

If Big Media Caves

A great journalist, Ben Bagdikian, warned us about the dangers of media monopolies back in 1983, when I was still early in my career.

The corporate overlords at ABC’s parent company who yanked Jimmy Kimmel off the air for his comments about the Charlie Kirk assassination don’t give a damn about the freedom of the press.

Their concern is maximizing the profits they can make off people like Kimmel, and protecting their market share into the future.

So of course they bent under the pressure from Trump’s lackey at the FCC, a wannabe named Carr.

When the Founders wrote the U.S. Constitution, they did not envision a world where a handful of global corporations could exert control over what the rest of us see or hear.

But they were familiar with oppression and censorship, so they enshrined the First Amendment as the law of the land.

What is happening in 2025 is the coming together of a monopolized media landscape with a rogue President seeking authoritarian power. This is an exceedingly dangerous mixture.

As we watch the media titans cave under Trump’s pressure, our hopes to preserve our democracy dwindle. It may all happen quickly now — the collapse of our constitutional freedoms.

The question is how will the vast majority of Americans who believe in free speech react? If they generate enough pressure, through protests, boycotts and the like, the monopoly media titans will reverse course and resist Trump.

Otherwise, the slide toward authoritarianism will accelerate.

HEADLINES:

• America is at a dangerous crossroads following the Charlie Kirk shooting (BBC)

• Americans have 400 days to save their democracy (Guardian)

• The Constitution Protects Jimmy Kimmel’s Mistake (Atlantic)

• Trump cheers comedian Jimmy Kimmel's suspension for on-air Charlie Kirk remarks (Reuters)

• Trump’s moves against media outlets mirror authoritarian approaches to silencing dissent (AP)

• Jeffries condemns Kimmel shutdown, demands FCC chair ‘resign immediately’ (Politico)

• Trump suggests pulling TV licenses from critics (Axios)

• Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension reverberates beyond late-night TV (WP)

• Reactions to ABC’s Pulling of ‘Kimmel’ Reflect America’s Broad Divisions (NYT)

• A Beautiful Day for Saying Nothing (Atlantic)

• 2 hosts down, 2 to go? (Politico)

• Trump and his allies use Kirk’s killing to punish speech (WP)

• Judge blocks deportation of Guatemalan children (NBC)

• 11 N.Y. Officials Arrested Trying to Access ICE Detention Cells (NYT)

• ICE seeks hundreds of new offices across U.S. as agency expands (WP)

• Trump suggests U.S. troops could return to Afghan base over China concerns (NPR)

• Unprecedented: Trump has pulled the US out of its UN human rights review (The Hill)

• Democrats voice fears of violence over Charlie Kirk vote (Axios)

• Medical experts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are declining to talk publicly about vaccine safety because they’re afraid of becoming the targets of violent threats stemming from baseless conspiracy theories about vaccines, former top agency officials said. [HuffPost]

• Western States Issue Their Own Vaccine Recommendations to Counter Kennedy (NYT)

• UC Berkeley professor warns of 'unprecedented crackdown' on academic freedom (NPR)

• University of California students, professors and staff sue the Trump administration (Berkeleyside)

• ‘I love you too!’ My family’s creepy, unsettling week with an AI toy (Guardian)

• I built a business plan with ChatGPT and it turned into a cautionary tale (ZDNet)

• Nation Grateful To GOP For Protecting It From TV (The Onion)

Vaccine Madness

Note to readers: The Trump administration is directly threatening freedom of speech and freedom of the press. I know that I am a minor figure with a small audience but I will continue to speak out against the destruction of the cornerstones of our democracy as long as I am able. The ability to do that in Trump’s America can no longer be taken for granted. The situation is deteriorating rapidly and I fear that difficult times for all of us lie ahead.

Watching the Congressional hearings with the former CDC director ousted by RFK Jr. was a stark example of how much damage the Trump administration is doing to the American people, especially the most vulnerable.

Kennedy’s baseless crusade against childhood vaccines is already killing children and the toll will grow exponentially if he is allowed to continue to wreak havoc on our health system.

Make no mistake about it — those at risk are you, your children, and your grandchildren.

Vaccines save lives; the science is clear and irrefutable. But the controversies surrounding the Covid vaccines during the pandemic have allowed conspiracy theorists like Kennedy to sit up unfounded fears among parents who do not understand science and have fallen victim to anecdotal reports of adverse effects among a few children.

Those who would exploit those fears now hold almost complete political power in America.

There’s a lot to be worried about: Trump’s fake “emergencies” to justify sending National Guard troops into cities; Trump’s vicious mass deportations of peaceful, hard-working migrants; Trump’s threats to terrorize his political opponents and destroy freedom of speech; Trump’s meddling with the Fed and tariff-driven assault on our economy; Trump’s deregulation of the environment, and many, many more threats to our democracy.

So at least when it comes to the health of the most vulnerable among us. we must not remain silent. To contact your own Congressional representatives about protecting childhood vaccines, click on these links for your personal contacts in the House or the Senate.

HEADLINES:

• ABC Pulls Jimmy Kimmel Off Air for Charlie Kirk Comments (NYT)

• ‘Censoring you in real time’: suspension of Jimmy Kimmel show sparks shock and fears for free speech (Guardian)

• An Escalation in Every Way (Atlantic)

• Autocracy Anyone? (Mark Fiore)

• Trump Threatens ABC Reporter Who Asked About DOJ Criminalizing Free Speech (Democracy Now)

• Team Trump launches 'biggest assault on the First Amendment' in modern US history (Alternet)

• In Charlie Kirk’s name: Trump officials signal move to limit free speech (Financial Times)

• Ex-US health official warns of RFK Jr’s risk to public health: ‘We’re going to see kids dying of vaccine-preventable diseases’ (Guardian)

• Trump Administration Live Updates: Ex-Officials at C.D.C. Tell Senators How Kennedy Is Risking Public Health (NYT)

• RFK Jr. 'wanted blanket approval' for changes at CDC, fired director testifies (NPR)

• Ousted CDC director says Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to change childhood vaccine schedule (MSNBC)

• Monarez: I tried to hold ‘the line on scientific integrity’ (Politico)

• Fed approves quarter-point interest rate cut and sees two more coming this year (CNBC)

• The Limits of Political Neutrality in a Divided Nation (NYT)

• Trump asks the Supreme Court to give him total control over the US economy (Vox)

• Sales of heavy trucks are falling like the U.S. is headed for a recession (CNBC)

• Trump’s mass deportations bring a new wave of family separations (WP)

• Federal judge overturns part of Florida’s book ban law, drawing on nearly 100 years of precedent protecting First Amendment (The Conversation)

• Prosecutors say alleged Charlie Kirk gunman wrote: ‘I had enough of his hatred’ (WP)

• Foreign disinformation about Charlie Kirk’s killing seeks to widen US divisions (AP)

• Top congressional Democrats rejected a short-term Republican plan to fund the government until November, raising fears in the U.S. Capitol about a costly government shutdown ahead of a funding deadline at the end of the month. [HuffPost]

• Israel's closure of crossing to Gaza's famine-struck north prompts aid group warning (Reuters)

• Trump Isn’t Interested in Competing With China (Atlantic)

• Navalny’s widow says new lab evidence proves he was poisoned in prison (WP)

• 120 land and environmental defenders killed or disappeared in Latin America last year, report finds (AP)

• ‘I have to do it’: Why one of the world’s most brilliant AI scientists left the US for China (Guardian)

• Why AI Cheats: The Deep Psychology Behind Deep Learning (Psychology Today)

• Tom Cruise Buys Fitbit To Help Him Get 10,000 Daily Stunts (The Onion)

The Ghosts of Balkh

(NOTE: I published the first version of this essay in 2021 right after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan. It appears in an anthology published by Journal of the Plague Years. This week the Taliban has cut off Wi-Fi access for many Afghans.)

This week for me and many others who love Afghanistan has been a struggle. It's difficult to express our feelings about the situation in English; it would be much easier in Dari. That language encourages the intimacy of connection and the pain of loss in ways it is awkward to do in English, as wonderful as our language is in other ways.

English is a language of the brain; Dari is a language of the heart.

When you encounter a friend in a village in Afghanistan, you both stop where you were headed to embrace, hold hands and inquire about each other's heart, body, mind, family, and so on. It can be a long list and if you've not met recently, these greetings may take a while.

And when you really stop and think about it, what is it that matters more in life than expressing how we feel about each other?

Money? Fame? Power? Possessions? Accomplishments? Awards?

I don't think so.

In Dari you are able to say "my heart loves your heart" in a way that does not imply romantic love but does capture how much you truly care for each other. It doesn't sound odd at all.

Meanwhile, in America all too often our encounters start with "How are you?" And end with "Fine. You?"

In fact it is so unsatisfying to me that I try, and I know this is weird, to adapt something of Dari rituals when talking with my American friends. Each person is made of specific qualities I value, so despite the limitations of our language, I always try to say what I mean and to mean what I say.

Especially when I say "I love you," that is exactly how I feel.

***

As an aggregator of the news, one of my main goals is to locate what is hopeful about otherwise crushing developments if I can, but in the case of Afghanistan right now this is difficult.

Some news reports suggest that the Taliban have fundamentally changed, but I doubt that. They say they will extend amnesty to government workers, respect the rights of women, and preside over a peaceful transition of power, but those are empty promises until we see proof.

Meanwhile, there is plenty of historical precedent for what usually happens when guerrilla forces assume power, and that record is soaked with the blood of innocents.

Sadly, Afghanistan has been criss-crossed by conquerers throughout its recorded history. Just to mention a few of the empires that resulted: Alexander the Great and his Macedonians, the Greco-Bactrians, Kushans, Indo-Sassanids, Kabul Shahi, Saffarids, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Kartids, Timurids, Hotakis and the Durranis.

In their oral histories, Afghans most often bring up the Mongol invaders, starting with Genghis Khan in 1221. And they talk about him and others as if they are still around the next bend.

For example, just north of the town of Taloqan is a magnificent landmark known as کوه بز سیاه, which translates as Black Goat Mountain.

While riding in the back of a truck from Khanabad packed with people, goats and chickens fifty years ago, I spoke with a man who recounted stories that have been passed from father to son over the past thousand years.

"When they rode in last time, the Mongols cut off the heads of a million people," he said, repeating an account that I had heard many times before.

"And they will be back. Just on the other side of Black Goat Mountain there are hundreds of thousands of Mongols waiting to return."

I guess he was referring to the peaceful Uzbek population of Takhar Province, living in what has long been a poor agricultural area.

A few hundred miles to the west of Takhar, during a visit to Mazar-e-Sharif, I heard similar tales about the Hazara population living in a nearby isolated valley. "They will ride in here soon, so watch out."

Nearby are the ruins of Balkh, a legendary city in the pre-Mongol era, with some of the most ghostly remains I have ever visited. Somewhere in my boxes in storage may still be the shards of pottery I collected at the site, which appeared to be many centuries old.

Balkh is where historians confirm that Mongol hordes did in fact decapitate many residents when they struck, and if the eerie winds whistling through the area are not the voices of those long dead, my imagination must have betrayed me.

Among Afghanistan's intractable problems is the stark reality that it less an actual country than the cobbled together homeland for at least seven major tribal groups. Besides the Uzbeks and the Hazara, there are the Tajiks, Pashtus, Turkomans, Baluchis, and Nuristanis.

Plus four or five smaller groups, most notably the Kochi, who are nomads.

The name of the country means "Land of the Afghans," which is what the largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns, call themselves. That name leaves every other group out, which complicates matters immensely.

My point here is that Afghanistan has plenty of internal problems without outsiders like the British, Russians and Americans getting involved. No foreign occupier ever stays for long anyway, because the local people simply won't tolerate them.

And once the foreigners leave, the Afghans get back to business as usual. What that means is inter-ethnic competition and violence.

So as of August 2021, after decades of operating as a guerrilla army, the Taliban have to figure out how to somehow govern what many believe to be an ungovernable land. Not only are the traditional tribal loyalties an issue, the big cities, especially Kabul, have modernized over the past 20 years and millions of men and women are now educated.

The educated class wants nothing of the ancient ways. They want what all modern people want — a peaceful life, a better life. Will the Taliban throw all of that progress away and chop off the head of the modernizing society they've inherited? Or will they grow into the moment and embrace the future?

The ghosts of Balkh have been waiting a thousand years for the answers to those questions.

***

On Friday afternoon, my despair over Afghanistan was counter-balanced by an outing to a favorite spot with a friend. It was a slightly smokey day in the Bay Area from the distant wildfires but the smoke stayed high while we stayed low.

We stopped at a coffee house for a spell and then she drove us through an ancient tunnel to the edge of the bay where you can smell the salt in the air.

All of this reminded me how important it is to celebrate beauty and hope and the love of friendship even as we mourn the horror and sadness of the world around us.

At the end of the day, as the sun shrank to the west, the smoke stayed high, but down at the surface of the earth the air still smelled sweet.

HEADLINES:

• Israeli military begins its ground offensive in Gaza City as thousands of Palestinians flee (AP)

• A United Nations Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza and that top Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had incited these acts. (Reuters)

• ‘Alarming but not unexpected’: NYT lawsuit just latest example of Trump’s presidential lawfare (Guardian)

• The Irony of Using Charlie Kirk’s Murder to Silence Debate (Atlantic)

• JD Vance vows retribution on liberal institutions after Charlie Kirk killing (WP)

• Tyler Robinson charged with aggravated murder of Charlie Kirk, with prosecutors seeking death penalty (ABC)

• Kirkwashing: Right Sanitizing Charlie Kirk’s Legacy; Casting Him as Martyr is Preposterous (Daily Kos)

• Republicans keep using one dangerous word in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination, crafting a narrative of victimhood aimed at enacting retribution against their political opponents, HuffPost's Paul Blumenthal reports. [HuffPost]

• “Im not afraid of you!' - Cory Booker clashes with Kash Patel (BBC)

• 60 violations in 50 days: Inside ICE’s giant tent facility at Ft. Bliss (WP)

• The N.Y.P.D. Is Teaching America How to Track Everyone Every Day Forever (NYT)

• The Coming D.C. Crime Boomerang (Atlantic)

• Shave or Separate: New Pentagon Policy Limits Medical Waivers to 12 Months (Air & Space Forces Mag)

• Europe declares silent war on Russia — 2,000,000 tons of the ‘blue oil’ through a +400 mile pipeline (ECNews)

• Earth's ozone layer is healing thanks to international action, UN says (France24)

• Climate scientist discusses "chemtrails" conspiracy theories (Axios)

• Many sports fans are unhappy with how much it costs to watch their games, an AP-NORC poll finds (AP)

• Berkeley nonprofit has saved over 1.5 million acres of island forests and marine ecosystems (Berkeleyside)

• Kafka-land at UC Berkeley (Nation)

• Publishers Clearing House’s bankruptcy means ‘forever’ winners will no longer get paid (CNN)

• ‘Selling coffee beans to Starbucks’ — how the AI boom could leave AI’s biggest companies behind (TechCrunch)

• Report: You To Be Fired For Reading This Headline About Charlie Kirk (Onion)

 

Meddlers

First, some good news. Earlier this month, I reported on journalist Cami Dominguez’s story for KQED about photographs taken by children in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. We so often hear of the evils of social media, but then there is this — Cami’s story has some 34,200 “likes” on Instagram and 240 positive comments.

***

Every couple years, reports start appearing about attempts by foreign countries to influence the outcome of our national elections. They’ve become predictable; Russia, China, Iran — those considered our main adversaries — are launching disinformation campaigns designed to boost one candidate or the other.

Less publicized are the efforts by our friends like England, France, Germany or Israel, to do the same thing.

If a full accounting of the matter were to be done, it would document the fact that virtually any country of any size around the world has a major stake in the U.S. election, and acts accordingly. And the reason is obvious: We have by far the biggest economy in the world, the most advanced technology, the greatest wealth and the most feared military.

So the consequences of even slight changes in political direction in the U.S. are felt all over the world. This has long been true — reports of foreign meddling in our elections date back to the earliest days of the republic. In 1796, for example, a French agent released private information to the public to try and sway the election in favor of Thomas Jefferson. But the difference in our time is that globalization of the world’s economy since the 1990s has kicked election meddling into hyperdrive.

Americans started feeling the effects of globalization with the emergence of trade deals like NAFTA, and the loss of manufacturing jobs to countries with cheaper labor forces.

But it was only when Covid hit that the complexity of the global supply chains became apparent, as did our vulnerability to obtaining basic goods in a crisis. These are problems, much like the pandemic itself, that cannot actually be solved locally; they require global solutions.

Politicians can argue about the costs and benefits of globalization, but they are virtually powerless to slow it down, let alone stop it. They may be able to lessen the deleterious domestic effects with tariffs, quotas, subsidies and other protectionist moves. But these come with risks of their own and often go hand-in-hand with nativist, anti-immigrant, regressive political campaigns that prove self-defeating in the long term.

And they are essentially ahistorical in nature.

So it is natural that our fierce domestic debates over policy differences would be closely monitored around the world. Other countries’ entire political economies may rise or fall depending on which direction the U.S. takes.

These fundamental matters are in the end more significant than the surface ideological concerns that seem to drive foreign interference in our election cycles. In an inter-connected world economy, everybody has a stake in the game.

And the game starts here.

(From last September.)

NOTE: Sad news this morning. Robert Redford has died. In addition to what made him famous — film — he was a force for good on the environment.

HEADLINES:

• Robert Redford, actor, director, environmentalist, dead at 89 (CNN)

• Vance says 'left-wing extremism' helped lead to Charlie Kirk's killing (ABC)

• After Charlie Kirk’s killing, conservative evangelical leaders hail him as a martyr (CNN)

• After Kirk’s killing, a growing chorus of conservatives wants his critics ostracized or fired (AP)

• In an Era of Deep Polarization, Unity Is Not Trump’s Mission (NYT)

• ‘It was me’: Suspect in Charlie Kirk shooting appears to confess in Discord chat (WP)

• Behind the Curtain: Four ominous trends (Axios)

• Trump threatens to take over DC police again over immigration enforcement (AP)

• Trump Announces New Deadly Strike on Boat From Venezuela (NYT)

• A record number of congressional lawmakers aren't running for reelection in 2026. (NPR)

• Why 1 in 6 U.S. parents are rejecting vaccine recommendations (WP)

• G.O.P. Plan on Pesticides Faces Revolt From MAHA Moms (NYT)

• Inside the Very Expensive, Extremely Overwhelming, Engineered Fun of Theme Parks (Atlantic)

• The Washington Post Fired Me — But My Voice Will Not Be Silenced. (Substack)

• Hundreds of Google AI Workers Were Fired Amid Fight Over Working Conditions (Wired)

• AI extremists are peddling science fiction (WP)

• Desperate Kash Patel Asks Shooter’s Family If They Can Solve Any Other Cases (The Onion)

 

Monday Mix

HEADLINES:

• How the US right wing is taking over news media and choking press freedom (Guardian)

• Charlie Kirk’s murder and its aftermath are symptoms of a fragile democracy (WP)

• In an Era of Deep Polarization, Unity Is Not Trump’s Mission (NYT)

• Lankford: ‘Just believing differently than some other American is not illegal’ (The Hill)

• Kirk’s assassination is forcing politicians to make difficult choices about their safety (CNN)

• How Charlie Kirk’s social media machine rewired a generation’s politics (WP)

• Patel faces congressional hearings after missteps in Kirk assassination probe and turmoil at FBI (AP)

• Authorities uncover new details about Charlie Kirk shooting suspect (WP)

• Chicago area residents mourn immigrant fatally shot after injuring ICE agent (Reuters)

• After Trump’s Cuts, ‘Crippled’ NPR and PBS Stations Must Transform (NYT)

• Rubio and Netanyahu meet in Israel to discuss Hamas war, Gaza City operation (ABC)

• On the Supreme Court’s Emergency Docket, Sharp Partisan Divides (NYT)

• NY Giants Players Horrified To Learn Uniforms Have Names On Back (Onion)

What Is and Isn't

“One way of thinking about science is that it’s a check against the natural human tendency to see patterns that might not be there. It’s a way of knowing when a pattern is real and when it’s a trick of your mind.” — Jason Fagone, The Woman Who Smashed Codes

In science, when we learn something new and useful in one field, it sometimes proves useful in other fields. 

That’s one lesson from the remarkable life and accomplishments of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, probably the greatest, yet least-known American codebreaker in history.

As a self-taught cryptanalyst, she deciphered enemy codes during World Wars I and II; in between, she helped the Treasury Department take down gangsters including Al Capone.

Journalist Jason Fagone’s book quoted above is an entertaining and informative biography of this extraordinary woman’s story, and there also is a PBS documentary series,  The Codebreaker, that is excellent.

Understanding the difference between patterns, real and imagined, can be applied to thinking about an entirely different matter than cryptology — and that is the endless conspiracy theories that pollute so much of our current public life.

From the claims by Laura Loomer and her ilk that immigrants were eating our pets to the anti-vaccination pronouncements by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to the utter nonsense fostered by many of the others around Donald Trump, a sizable portion of the public has been buying into baseless theories that are demonstrably false. The Kirk assassination has set off a whole new round of noise pollution.

And that is precisely what sets real journalism apart from the junk too many consume on Fox News and social media.

"So little was known in this country of codes and ciphers when the United States entered World War I, that we ourselves had to be the learners, the workers and the teachers all at one and the same time," Friedman once said of her work.

That is an accurate summation of the state of the ill-informed American public today. So little is broadly known of the facts in our society that we all need to become learners, workers and teachers at the same time. That’s why we desperately need to bring back as many real, honest journalism as possible to help us do what the codebreakers did — save our democracy from an unacceptable alternative — authoritarianism.

(This essay is heavily edited and updated from when I first published it two years ago.)

HEADLINES:

• Trump says he's ready to put 'major sanctions' on Russia if NATO nations do the same (NBC)

• NATO to bolster eastern flank after Poland downs drones (Reuters)

• 'We escaped certain death': Israel intensifies Gaza City bombardment, forcing families to flee (BBC)

• UN endorses two-state solution declaration that condemns Hamas (Reuters)

• People are losing jobs due to social media posts about Charlie Kirk (NPR)

• The New McCarthyism: Kirk Disciples Warn Critics to Mourn Him Properly or Else (Daily Kos)

• Workers are getting fired, placed on leave over Charlie Kirk posts (WP)

• ‘It’s unacceptable’: Inside growing concerns about Patel’s FBI leadership (CNN)

• FBI director draws criticism from the right over handling of shooting (WP)

• Patel faces congressional hearings after missteps in Kirk assassination probe and turmoil at FBI (AP)

• You don’t have to say something about every terrible thing (Silver Bulletin)

• E.P.A. To Stop Collecting Emissions Data From Polluters (NYT)

• Taliban claim an agreement reached with U.S. envoys on a prisoner swap as they seek better ties (CBS)

• Protesters demand release of former Berkeley worker, 73, detained by ICE (Berkeleside)

• Octopuses prefer to use different arms for different tasks, scientists find (Guardian)

• What a street-style photographer sees when she goes out in San Francisco (SF Standard)

• Outsiders Love Mocking Marin County. Now, It’s Laughing at Itself. (NYT)

• Pete Hegseth Buys Bar Round Of F-22 Fighter Jets (The Onion)