USDA website blames "Radical Left Democrats" for shutdown
usda.govSimilar to other sites https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45434146
To what extent is this administration concerned with breaking laws?
Not in any way, but I think it's still important to be noisy about the violations as they happen
It's likely a violation of the Hatch Act for non-POTUS/-VEEP members of govt to dis "Democrats", which is why "Radical Left" (sans Democrats) was the messaging used previously.
Are "radical left" viewpoints a legally punishable crime?
Yes, it’s illegal and not free speech. As per the President[1]
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/19/trump-no-longer-fre...
I see. Isn't President Trump said to have brought back free speech to the USA?
He did, but this isn’t free speech. The other speech that agrees with him is free speech. It’s a very simple set of diagnostic criteria
it’s free if you pay.
It moved from a one-time payment to a subscription model, along with pardons. Giuliani takes 50% for a "platform fee".
He's said to have done that by himself and some of his supporters. It's a lie, but they're saying it.
Baffling article. This is an EU publication (owned by a Berlin based multinational conglomerate), and the EU commission went after criticism of politicians, which frankly is a lot more serious than what is happening in the US.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/in-eu...
Now why would I say this is about killing criticism of politicians? Well, here is an example of a person who used the right to be forgotten, who was in fact instrumental in creating it in the first place, as well of one of the first ever people to use it. I'm not going to elaborate further on the owners of this publication, except to say one is an EU billionnaire who made a LOT of money making academic papers inaccessible, and is also a user and supporter of this right to be forgotten.
The person who was in charge of EU at the time was Jose Manuel Barrosso, an extreme leftist Portugese politician, a law professor (with a very bad reputation when it comes to attacking students, including physically beating one into the hospital), betrayed communism, joined the PSD (Portugese Social Democrats), suddenly forced through heavy austerity after promising the opposite, then when he and his party had become deeply unpopular, forcing through the EU constitution against voter wishes, then abandoned his position as prime minister and his party to become president of the EU commission. If you look at the circumstances surrounding Portugal and the EU constitution effort and failure, obviously he was "compensated" by the EU and the EPP to directly go against voters' will to the advantage of the EU, and rewarded with the position of EU commission president. This person, who started out as a violent Maoist suspected of murder, EU commission president, ending his career as "non executive chairman" of Goldman Sachs, after they got some serious help from the commission when he was EU commission president, in 2008. For "some reason" he and, Neelie Kroes, the person who threatened us social media companies into accepting the right to be forgotten (remember? Google and Facebook refused to globally implement the right to be forgotten and this was the start of social media companies and the "monster fines" that are being levied every few years now). There was a whole fight.
As a student and assistant, he actually supported the massacres of the cultural revolution. On track to become a professor, he cheered on and demonstrated in support of Mao and the CCP massacring academics in China. This is also when he was involved as a leader in demonstrations ... demonstrations in which several people were killed.
Let's just say some of the details of this person's political career (and, frankly, academic career) could be criticized. Except he "has a right to be forgotten" (he clearly focuses on his student time). From a Maoist suspected of inciting murder, to EU commission president, to chairman of the board of Goldman Sachs ...
The EU criticizing the US about political name calling? Please.
I mean, I still agree what Trump's doing is bad, but the situation in the EU is much worse. Wait until you check out what this whole situation is leading to.
> … the EU commission went after criticism of politicians, which frankly is a lot more serious than what is happening in the US.
Disrespectfully, in absolutely no way is any constraints on free speech in Europe worse than what the current President in America is doing when he states that speech against him is illegal
Your entire comment is grasping at straws trying to justify the insanity going on in the US
no
Only when they incite to commit a crime.
So that's different from Patriotic, Constitutional conservative view points! Thanks for explaining!
HN becomes reddit and that's unfortunate.
It's pretty self evident at this point that the president has dementia.
Listening to that speech he made to the captive audience of military generals a couple days ago it's painfully obvious that he's deteriorating rapidly. He sounded bad last year, and this year he sounds like he's ten years older. He sounds like he's had a few mini-strokes and I would not be surprised if he had a major one soon.
I was wondering if it was just me noticing a severe and rapid decline from that speech. If I didn't know better I would have assumed he was drunk.
It's wild to go back and watch him in 2016 as a comparison. His manner of speech has always been so bizarre that it's easy to forget that it's not just him "being Trump", there's also a very obvious and severe decline since then.
Meanwhile, all the people who were screaming "Dementia Joe" every two minutes from 2021 to 2024 seem to be conveniently silent this time...
To be scrupulous, Washington Post ran a Philip Bump analysis article on Trump's Age Problem last summer. I think the media believes it has therefore examined all possible angles, implications and ramifications of Trump's decompensation already. No need to belabor the point.