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Reposted

Dr Lindsey Fitzharris

@drlindseyfitz.bsky.social

Memphis writer Dan Conaway, who helped found the @dailymemphian.bsky.social & comes from a century of local journalism, has just been censored by his own publication.

Here’s the column they wouldn't run.

Please consider writing:
barnes@dailymemphian.com
mcashiola@dailymemphian.com

Stand with Dan.

"Family and friends," he said, "then home – where you live, your neighborhood, your town, your city – then your state, then your region, then your country."
My father was explaining to me when I was 11 or 12 why he went to war when he didn't have to. He was driving me to Boy Scout camp, and we had some time to talk. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, he was an engineer, and his company had government contracts that could keep him here. At almost 33, he was also getting long in the tooth for war. My mother would also have me tell you he also had two small children, my brothers, one eight months, and the other five.
He joined the Navy a week after Pearl Harbor.
"Those are the priorities in the order of priority," he continued. "But if your country is threatened, really threatened, everything flips. If your country, this country, falls, everything in that lineup falls, everything in that lineup is at mortal risk."
"So, I'll know when it's country first?"
"You'll know," he answered.
Last week, I shared the mayor's plan for peacefully enduring, if not gaining, from the National Guard presence in our city.
That was last week.
This week changed everything.
This week, the president called an extraordinary meeting. He and the secretary of defense addressed a room of some 800 generals and admirals called from their command posts around the world to hear the president's words in Virginia.
He told our country's top brass their attention would soon be turned inward. That they would be commanding military operations in our cities against the "enemy within." Further, he said that they should hold military training exercises in our cities.
Never mind what Secretary Hegseth told them. His message was as empty as his suit. He basically told them they had to shave and lose weight.
The Commander in Chief told them their enemies are Americans, and that their field of battle would be Democratic cities. The great power and might of America's military would be turned toward its own.

Toward here, people. Not here in general terms, here in very specific terms. Memphis is an official battlefield.
"Family and friends," he said, "then home – where you live, your neighborhood, your town, your city ..."
As the rest of the world rages, the president told his top military leaders that we will disengage from the protection of our interests and those of our allies and attack the political enemies of our president, root out the "radical left," crush "the woke," seal our borders against mighty Venezuela, and reduce blue cities and states to whimpering vassals of the federal government.
The president who would be king.
Before this week, he commanded the justice department to intimidate and threaten, even indite, his political enemies including a former director of the FBI, and DA's in Georgia and New York.
A president can't do that. Not just because it's blatantly personal and political. Not just because it's abuse of power, petty, and childish.
Because most if not all of what he's doing is straight-up, in-your-face, unconstitutional. It is, in fact, just the latest additions to the long list of unconstitutional that defines the dangerous actions of this man.
You know this is wrong. No what-about this or that. You know this is wrong. No bemoaning the awful state of something or somewhere. You know this is wrong.
Nothing excuses this. Nothing.
Now, he has openly told the military that anyone in America that challenges him is the enemy, and where they live the new front.
The National Guard deployed here will be unarmed and have no power to arrest. They are a camo-covered smokescreen, eye candy for the cameras disguising what will really be going on, click bait for the internet.
We now know that Trump and his minions are sending hundreds of ICE agents and FBI agents to Memphis, not to mention a small army of Justice Department prosecutors and investigators. The mission is to arrest, prosecute, incarcerate/deport as many people as possible.

Pam Bondi, U.S. Attorney General, was here this week to tell us that, along with Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, and Stephen Miller, Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff. Not to mention, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, looking very much like he was waiting to be told wat to do, bless his heart.
Here, ready to rumble.
Who wasn't here or invited was Steve Cohen, the duly elected Democratic representative in Congress of all the people who will be in that rumble.
Republicans should be every bit as alarmed as Democrats – every American should – because every time Trump stomps on the Constitution, he leaves that boot print on every one of us.
Or, as the very first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, famously put it, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
Due process and habeas corpus are becoming quaint reminders of a once proud nation of constitutional laws and justice.
What happened in that room in Virginia this week, and what happened out at Shelby Farms give us more than a hint of what could follow the National Guard to Memphis.
"So, I'll know when it's country first?"
"You'll know," he answered.

One man has put 340 million people at risk of losing this democracy. Just as surely as he's made the Oval Office look like a bad imitation of royal chambers at Versailles, just as surely as he's made the majority of both house of Congress look like lackeys waiting to empty the king's chamber pot, just as surely as he's turning the Constitution into a Mara-a-Lago doormat, just as surely, he's coming for us.
You're right, Dad. I know.
I'm a Memphian, soon under siege.
(Lt. Frank E. Conaway Sr., 1943)

October 4, 2025 at 6:28 PM

Reposted

Atul Gawande

@agawande.bsky.social

STAGGERING: This new study of 133 countries is the first to estimate the impact of all USAID’s work. In 2 decades, it has saved *92M* lives. Current cuts, if not reversed, are forecast to cost up to *14M* lives thru 2030. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

July 1, 2025 at 2:23 PM

Reposted

Amanda Litman

@amandalitman.bsky.social

Zohran Mamdani’s win has inspired over 3400 young people to raise their hands to run for office just since Tuesday. It’s now @runforsomething.net’s biggest candidate recruitment moment since the election.

A new generation of leaders is here.

June 28, 2025 at 1:29 AM

Reposted

Matt Lardie

@mattlardie.bsky.social

It was a good day to live in Durham, NC.

June 14, 2025 at 5:48 PM

Reposted

Rick Wilson

@therickwilson.bsky.social

Stephen Miller, Tom Homan, Kristi Noem and a whole lot of ICE/DHS types is will discover a Strange New Respect for habeas corpus and the rule of law when the 2029 Truth and Reconciliation Commission arrests them for human trafficking, conspiracy, kidnapping, and child abuse.

May 10, 2025 at 4:49 PM

Reposted

Paul Krugman

@pkrugman.bsky.social

So let me get this straight: masks are bad and un-American if worn to fight a pandemic, but good if worn by people claiming to be government agents when they kidnap people off the street

May 10, 2025 at 3:06 PM

Reposted

Philip Ball

@philipcball.bsky.social

This rightly outspoken editorial from @nature.com reminds me how little we seem to be hearing now from those folks who condemned Nature for "taking sides" in the US election. Odd, that.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Trump 2.0: an assault on science anywhere is an assault on science everywhere

US President Donald Trump is taking a wrecking ball to science and to international institutions. The global research community must take a stand against these attacks.

www.nature.com

March 11, 2025 at 7:53 PM

Reposted

Science Friday

@scifri.bsky.social

In a small trial, nearly half of pancreatic cancer patients who received an mRNA vaccine had no signs of relapse after three years.

Dr. Vinod Balachandran from @mskcancercenter.bsky.social joins us to discuss the results and what they could mean for cancer treatment.

A Vaccine For Pancreatic Cancer Continues To Show Promise

In a small trial, nearly half of pancreatic cancer patients who received an mRNA vaccine for the disease had no relapse three years later.

buff.ly

February 21, 2025 at 7:41 PM

Reposted

Mark Joseph Stern

@mjsdc.bsky.social

North Carolina Republicans just took the final vote on this massive power-grab, muscling it through the House over the governor's veto. That's the ballgame. A HUGE change in how the state government operates, giving Republicans much, much more power. andersonalerts.substack.com/p/sb-382-fin...

Prevents Gov.-elect Josh Stein from appointing members onto the State Board of Elections by transferring that authority over to Republican Auditor-elect Dave Boliek.

Makes the State Highway Patrol an independent agency and requires Stein to get the General Assembly’s approval for a five-year appointment

If a Supreme Court or Court Appeals vacancy emerges, Stein must fill it from a list of recommendations provided by the political party of the departing judge, thus preventing him from filling a potential GOP vacancy with a Democrat.

Removes the seats of Wake County Superior Court Judge Bryan Collins and Forsyth County Superior Court Judge Todd Burke. Collins and Burke have ruled against election law changes that GOP lawmakers have put forward over the years.

Prohibits Attorney General-elect Jeff Jackson from participating in lawsuits that undercut actions taken by the General Assembly. The bill says Jackson “shall not, as a party, amicus, or any other participant in an action pending before a state or federal court in another state, advance any argument that would result in the invalidation of any statute enacted by the General Assembly.”

Prevents Lt. Gov.-elect Rachel Hunt from chairing committees on energy issues. The bill also eliminates the Energy Policy Council, which has been chaired by the lieutenant governor.

Prevents Democratic Superintendent of Public Instruction-elect Mo Green from appealing decisions made by the Charter Schools Review Board.

Reduces the timeframe voters can “cure” their provisional ballots from nine days to three days. Provisionals tend to favor Democratic candidates and proved essential to Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs’ efforts to overtake the lead of Republican Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin.

December 11, 2024 at 10:29 PM

Reposted

Marc Elias

@marcelias.bsky.social

North Carolina will be sued.

Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · Dec 2

The North Carolina General Assembly’s GOP supermajority just approved a hugely corrupt power grab, seizing authority from the governor and the courts to prevent any meaningful check on legislative abuses. Authoritarian stuff. A very dark day for democracy in NC. amp.newsobserver.com/news/politic...