A Love Letter To America I love America. You’re so fucked up. But I love you. You’re built upon a beautiful and preposterous idea: that ordinary people—you and I—can govern ourselves. Together. Not through superior intelligence. Not through noble birth. Not through accumulated wealth. But through the messy, difficult, glorious work of reasoning together when no one has final answers […] https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/13/a-love-letter-to-america/

Furloughed Employees Sue Administration For Adding Partisan Wording To Their Out-Of-Office Messages Here comes more pathetic, childish bullshit from an administration that has made petty bullshit its brand. The just completed government shutdown caused problems everywhere. The Trump administration knew its refusal to compromise on the budget bill was going to hurt it, so it did everything it could to reshape the narrative, even as it somehow […] https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/13/furloughed-employees-sue-administration-for-adding-partisan-wording-to-their-out-of-office-messages/

Judge Orders OpenAI To Give Lawyers 20 Million Private Chats, Thinks ‘Anonymization’ Can Keep Them Private A federal magistrate judge just ordered that the private ChatGPT conversations of 20 million users be handed over to the lawyers for dozens of plaintiffs, including news organizations. Those 20 million people weren’t asked. They weren’t notified. They have no say in the matter. Last week, Magistrate Judge Ona Wang ordered OpenAI to turn over […] https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/13/judge-orders-openai-to-give-lawyers-20-million-private-chats-thinks-anonymization-can-keep-them-private/

Daily Deal: MagStack Foldable 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Station with Floating Stand MagStack is the perfect on-the-go wireless charging station that also transforms into a floating stand for smartphone FaceTime or video playback while charging. This 3-in-1 foldable design featuring 3 wireless charging spots, enables charging for up to 3 devices simultaneously, including iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods Pro, AirPods with Wireless Charging Case, other Qi-compatible Android phones, […] https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/13/daily-deal-magstack-foldable-3-in-1-wireless-charging-station-with-floating-stand-8/

GOP Threatened To Keep The Government Shut Down If 8 GOP Senators Couldn’t Profit From Being Investigated Last night the House passed, and then Donald Trump signed, the funding bill that reopened the government after the longest government shutdown in history. Amazingly, the Republican’s sketchy demands to fill their personal bank accounts with undeserved taxpayer money almost scuttled the deal. But, don’t worry: those Senators got their corrupt boondoggle and they plan […] https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/13/gop-threatened-to-keep-the-government-shut-down-if-8-gop-senators-couldnt-profit-from-being-investigated/

Sinclair Broadcasting Posts Huge Quarterly Loss After Jimmy Kimmel Censorship You might recall that right wing propaganda broadcaster Sinclair Broadcasting recently tripped over its own ass after working with the Trump administration to try and censor Jimmy Kimmel for criticizing the President. The flood of outrage at the Disney/FCC/ABC collaborative effort ultimately forced the company to retreat and put Kimmel back on the air. Even after ABC […] https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/13/sinclair-broadcasting-posts-huge-quarterly-loss-after-jimmy-kimmel-censorship/

RFK Jr.’s FDA Is Now Also In Turmoil Over Corrupt Drug Regulator While we’ve talked quite a bit about the horror show that is RFK Jr.’s position as Secretary of HHS, most of the focus of those posts has been around what is happening at the CDC. And for good reason, too. The ongoing measles outbreak, the quick hiring/firing of Susan Monarez, and all the anti-vaxx bullshit […] https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/12/rfk-jr-s-fda-is-now-also-in-turmoil-over-corrupt-drug-regulator/

Trump Administration Still Trying To Send Kilmar Abrego Garcia To Anywhere But Where He Wants To Go For all its talk about trimming down government spending, an untold amount of money has been blown just to keep one person from getting one over on the Trump administration. That man would be Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He became the poster boy for the regime’s bigotry when he fought back against his sudden deportation to […] https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/12/trump-administration-still-trying-to-send-kilmar-abrego-garcia-to-anywhere-but-where-he-wants-to-go/

Techdirt Podcast Episode 438: Saving Democracy From Fascism Support us on Patreon » Three years ago, Mike Brock joined us on the podcast to discuss a decentralized web project, and more recently we’ve published several cross-posts from his Substack about the horrifying goings-on in American politics and media. Today, Mike joins the podcast once again for a far-ranging conversation about the state of democracy […] https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/12/techdirt-podcast-episode-438-saving-democracy-from-fascism/

Cowardice And Capitulation At Cornell On Friday it was announced that my alma mater, Cornell, had caved to the Trump administration and agreed to a “deal” the federal government had offered them to get back the funding it had illegally cut off from Cornell as part of its authoritarian efforts to bully top universities into submission. This capitulation came just […] https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/12/cowardice-and-capitulation-at-cornell/