Richard Stallman

Richard Stallman's Political Notes -

EU: New Rules on Asylum - 2026-01-04T04:37:00+00:00

Amnesty International rebuked the EU for strict new asylum policies that can arbitrarily send a refugee to an unrelated country with which person has no connections.

They define many countries as "safe" including Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, Kosovo, India, Morocco and Tunisia. India denies the citizenship of Muslims, Morocco and Tunisia are more or less Islamist, Bangladesh is wracked by Islamist mobs, and Egypt imprisons dissidents.

Investigation of political interference - 2026-01-04T04:37:00+00:00

A UK political party calls for investigation of political interference by hostile foreign states to include interference by the US.

It needs to include the US if its results are to be meaningful.

Trump threatens to move olympics and world cup - 2026-01-04T04:37:00+00:00

The bully threatens to move highly profitable global sporting events out of US cities that don't bow down to him.

The head of FIFA has been sucking up to him so much as to suggest it would willingly cooperate with being used as a stick to beat US cities with. This article suggests that FIFA and the corrupt US government have become a partnership for plunder.

As for the Olympic Games, they have a decades-long history of demanding and getting laws that are unfair to the non-rich, including general surveillance of the public.

Meanwhile, the great expense to taxpayers goes to boost some local businesses.

This is why I support citizens' campaigns against hosting the games.

I make myself invulnerable to being bribed or manipulated by Big Sports by resisting the impulse to care who wins a sports match. The matches that I care about are elections for office, and I always root for the progressive-green-human rights defender. And, beyond just caring about the outcome, I can help them win.

SNAP food work requirements - 2026-01-04T04:37:00+00:00

*In many parts of the country, there are new work requirements to get food aid. But starving people doesn’t motivate them — despite centuries of this rhetoric.* In other words, poor people who can work will work, if work is doable.

Trump plan to vet visitors’ social media - 2026-01-04T04:37:00+00:00

The persecutor plans to impose fear and self-censorship on visitors from many countries (the ones whose citizens don't need visas to visit the US) by demanding almost full cooperation with monitoring of their past and future communications.

The one thing not demanded is your GPG keys.

There will surely be no stated criterion for what things it is forbidden to say, so no one could be sure that anything is safe. This pressure people to hush up any and all forms of opposition to the persecutor, other magats, and their cruel laws and policies.

Perennial grains - 2026-01-04T04:37:00+00:00

Progress in breeding perennial grains has already resulted in a commercially grown wheat-relative. Breeders hope to produce one with the same yield as ordinary wheat, but more efficient to grow.

Vouchers fuel private school tuition hikes - 2026-01-04T04:36:59+00:00

"Private school voucher" systems, where a US state pays a fixed amount towards the fees of a private school, generally do not enable poor people's children to attend a private school. They typically charge substantially more than the voucher amount. The real effect of the voucher system is to subsidize the private schools attended by children of fairly wealthy parents.

These schools typically inculcate an extreme version of Christianity, which should not be able to get a subsidy.

20 years ago, even in the most right-wing states the voters defeated proposals for voucher systems.

Returning to the west bank after 20 years - 2026-01-04T04:36:59+00:00

*I used to report from the West Bank. Twenty years after my last visit, I was shocked by how much worse it is today.*

Israel has made hundreds more checkpoints to impede Palestinians' movement, the number of "settlers" has gone from 400,000 to 700,000, and their attacks to expel Palestinians are more violent.

Safe drinking water bill veto - 2026-01-03T22:36:56+00:00

The persecutor vetoed two bills to fund regional improvements in safety of drinking water, as apparent political retaliation for unrelated lack of submission.

One of them was passed unanimously by the House and Senate. It will be interesting to see if his sycophants dare vote to override the veto.

60 Minutes planned segment pulled - 2026-01-03T22:36:56+00:00

It appears that CBS omitted the 60 minutes segment about El Salvador's brainwashing prison because of an arbitrary decision not to cover that topic without a statement from the persecutor or a henchman.

This decision is foolish submission — which is surely what CBS intended by putting a well-known magat in charge of news.

Record wealth in 2025 - 2026-01-03T22:36:55+00:00

The world economy is rapidly centralizing ownership of the world by enriching billionaires.

Trump admin childcare funding freeze - 2026-01-03T22:36:55+00:00

Henchmen have suspended childcare payments to all 50 states.

This is ostensibly a response to vague accusations of funding irregularities; he demands that states prove they have done nothing wrong.

Kennedy Center bylaws - 2026-01-03T22:36:55+00:00

How the perverter's new appointees in the Kennedy Center board arranged to block the other board members from voting.

Disturbing reality of US prison food - 2026-01-03T22:36:55+00:00

* In Eating Behind Bars, author Leslie Soble details how food is used to further punish incarcerated people in the US.*

Dire climate change outcomes - 2026-01-03T22:36:55+00:00

*[Australian] officials warned in 2005 of major economic, environmental and social disruption to Australia [in the future] due to its dependence on coal.*

Climate Crisis year in review - 2026-01-03T22:36:54+00:00

Americans report how global heating is impacting various aspects of life. No more snow in the winter in Washington, no natural water for 30 miles in the Appalachian Trail. The garden no longer grows well in Sacramento. Butterfly species endangered in Santa Cruz.

EU legislation on deforestation - 2026-01-03T22:36:54+00:00

*EU legislation intended to fight deforestation has been effectively "dismantled".* Without verification of sources of supply, it invites fraud.

The loss of the world's forests will cause a massive extinction and increase greenhouse gas concentrations, and that threatens to wipe out civilization.

Protesters against ICE - 2026-01-03T22:36:54+00:00

Several of the magats' retaliatory prosecutions have failed for lack of any basis for convicting the accused.

Bad cops and cultural silence - 2026-01-03T22:36:53+00:00

*Mukund Krishna, chief executive of the Police Federation of England & Wales: Bad cops prey on the public — and their fellow officers. To stop them, we must break the culture of silence.*

The biggest cause of injustice by cops is, I conjecture, bigotry of various kinds. A cop who despises a certain group of people will find many excuses to treat them unjustly. When that bigotry is shared by most cops, they will encourage each other. I am sure Mukund Krishna, being of Indian origin, has experienced being the victim of this.

Even when bigotry is not a factor, individual thugs can commit heinous crimes, even rape and murder, and other cops miss it because they don't want to look closely at it. That is what he is writing about.

Israel to ban aid organisations - 2026-01-03T22:36:53+00:00

Israel made an extreme demand — that Gaza aid agencies hand over a lot of personal data about all their staff — and uses this as a pretext to exclude them.

The aid organizations thus excluded include ActionAid, International Rescue Committee and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), as well as others.

Bragg soldiers - 2026-01-03T22:36:53+00:00

The wrecker is trying to corrupt the nonpartisan stance of the US military.

Consumer watchdog funding - 2026-01-03T22:36:53+00:00

A judge rejected the magats' artificial excuse for cutting off funding to the CFPB.

Extreme floods and droughts - 2026-01-03T22:36:52+00:00

*Only a third of world's river basins experienced normal conditions in 2024.*

Honey bee study - 2026-01-03T22:36:52+00:00

Feral honeybees establish themselves in wild areas and are so successful that they leave insufficient food for all the other bee species.

Urgent: Impeach RFK Jr. - 2026-01-03T04:36:54+00:00

US citizens: phone your congresscritter and call for impeaching RFK Jr.

US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.

To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.

Please spread the word.

Urgent: Reject renaming the Kennedy Center - 2026-01-03T04:36:53+00:00

US citizens: call on Congress to reject renaming the Kennedy Center as the "Trump-Kennedy Center".

US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.

To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.

Please spread the word.

Urgent: Reject digital state ID systems - 2026-01-03T04:36:53+00:00

US citizens: phone your state legislators and call on them to reject digital state ID systems. Details may vary, but those systems will surely require people to run nonfree software to use them; in addition, they will enable government agencies to identify people more often.

US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.

To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.

Please spread the word.

Urgent: Condemn official White House enemies list - 2026-01-03T04:36:53+00:00

US citizens: Condemn the official White House enemies list as an attack on the press and on democracy.

Urgent: Investigate corporate donors for ballroom - 2026-01-03T04:36:53+00:00

US citizens: call on Congress to investigate the corporations that have donated to the cheater's new ballroom.

US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.

To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.

Please spread the word.

Conjecture of purpose of deportation thugs in major cities - 2026-01-03T04:36:52+00:00

Conjecture: the undisclosed purpose of sending deportation thugs into major Democratic cities and cause chaos is to perfect a system for causing chaos — with the plan to use it to rig the next election.

The article's text is not visible with LibreJS enabled, but it does work with Javascript disabled outright.

Stop and search in metropolitan London - 2026-01-03T04:36:52+00:00

The cops of metropolitan London appear to be using new "stop and search" power to harass and intimidate protests on behalf of Palestinians' rights.

The nominal purpose of this power is to catch people who are carrying knives. However, it appears that none of the protesters they searched had a knife.

Challenge to New South Wale's anti-protest laws - 2026-01-03T04:36:52+00:00

*Activist groups to challenge New South Wales's [anti-]protest laws on right to free speech grounds.*

Excuse to cancel offshore wind generator projects - 2026-01-03T04:36:52+00:00

The bullshitter has presented a new excuse to cancel offshore wind generator projects — claiming that they might interfere with military radar coverage.

The military studied this question before but concluded it was not a real problem. I suspect that the bullshitter's henchmen made this up as an excuse to cancel wind generators.

Mayor of Manchester apologized to queer people - 2026-01-03T04:36:52+00:00

The mayor of Manchester apologized to queer people for the persecution that the Manchester thug department systematically directed at them in the 1980s (and, I suspect, before and after that decade). Many other police forces in Britain have apologized.

Plans to store prisoners for deportation in warehouses - 2026-01-03T04:36:51+00:00

The persecutor's henchmen plan to store prisoners for deportation in warehouses, literally. Up to around 10,000 people in each. In effect, concentration camps.

Warehouses are not designed to provide water, toilets or even air ventilation for so many people, let alone keep the temperature warm enough for people with little clothing.

ChatGPT leads user into world of delusions - 2026-01-03T04:36:51+00:00

ChatGPT appears to have led one user into a world of delusions, in which he murdered his mother then killed himself. It refuses to release the log of his conversations with ChatGPT to the court. Given the circumstances, the court ought to compel the company to hand over the full log.

However, looking at the issue more generally, a system which insists on identifying each user is unacceptable for any serious matter. The ability to track a person's interest is sure to be tracked by the secret police.

Canada adopting artificial restrictions on applying for asylum - 2026-01-03T04:36:51+00:00

Canada is adopting artificial restrictions on applying for asylum, designed to prevent many people's applications from ever being considered on the merits of the facts.

One of these excuses is to pretend that the US is a safe country for refugees, which it certainly isn't nowadays.

Persecution of Cop City protesters continues - 2026-01-03T04:36:51+00:00

The persecution of Cop City protesters continues as the US Department of Injustice retains seized property (letters, phones, etc) of many protesters for years.

Economic danger of "AI" bubble - 2026-01-03T04:36:51+00:00

An article explains the economic danger of the current "AI" bubble, and the long-term menace of possible human-level artificial intelligence controlled by a manipulative and powerful company, while it also punctures the hype campaign that says LLMs are "intelligence" and capable of thinking, understanding and believing.

Magat plan to eliminate National Center for Atmospheric Research - 2026-01-03T04:36:51+00:00

The magats plan to eliminate the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Its climate modeling demonstrates the danger of greenhouse gas emissions, so planet roasters want to put an end to honest climate modeling.

When only fossil fuel companies do climate modeling, they will be able to conceal some parts and spin others, leaving no opportunity for peaceful democratic action to save civilization, democracy and science.

Delivering cutting-edge therapies - 2026-01-03T04:36:50+00:00

* Cutting-edge therapies exist, but the market cannot deliver them cheaply. Britain must build NHS capacity so that cures become collective goods, not expensive products.* This conclusion goes for every country.

We should replace the patent system, which systematically makes new medicine too expensive for most people, with a different way of funding medical research.

UK group that accepts donations for Palestine has bank account frozen - 2026-01-03T04:36:50+00:00

A UK group that accepts donations to provide aid to people in Palestine has had its bank account frozen as part of an investigation into the arbitrarily banned protest group "Palestine Action." The investigators and the bank have told the group nothing about the reason it is being screwed.

For years, UK organizations that support human rights and welfare in various ways have had their bank accounts frozen without explanation.

Coping with future of climate disaster - 2026-01-03T04:36:50+00:00

Coping with the future of the climate disaster demands political honesty about extreme weather.

Because it's not enough to cope with the current level of disaster. Even more important is to avoid making it worse.

Protecting rainforest of Darien Gap - 2026-01-03T04:36:49+00:00

Protecting the rainforest of the Darien Gap.

Don't write of protest movements - 2026-01-03T04:36:49+00:00

In general, protest movements are often very effective — don't write them off.

Versions of Christianity that takes care of people - 2026-01-03T04:36:49+00:00

Some Christians have shaped their versions of Christianity to take care of the people that the bully wants to persecute.

This won't convince me to believe in a god, but I recognize that this way is better than the bully's way.

UK government's new "national security" law - 2026-01-03T04:36:49+00:00

The UK government's new "national security" law prohibits a broad range of political activities that might aim for results that benefit a foreign power. In some cases, even in the absence of any contact between the people doing them and any representative of that country They *could extend into politics, journalism, protest and other day-to-day activity.*

*It could in theory affect individuals arguing for "arms to Ukraine/ Israel; foreign aid to Pakistan; rapprochement with Russia; more access to domestic markets for Chinese cotton" in the media or thinktanks or "foreign-funded NGOs or journalists who use deception ('prohibited conduct') to expose corrupt individuals".*

*It could drag in "journalists, politicians and private individuals [who] may argue passionately in favor of arming Ukraine in its war against Russia or returning the Elgin marbles".*

It also allows government thugs to shut down protests near (but outside) military bases and some other state land.

Billboards near military bases - 2026-01-03T04:36:49+00:00

Win Without War has put up billboards near some US military bases to remind troops of the laws that say they can and should refuse illegal orders.

The article shows that the persecutor has renamed Fort Liberty to Fort Bragg, to bear once again the name of a Confederate general who fought to continue slavery. I suppose that shows the persecutor's true attitude towards the USA.

China's support helping Burmese military rulers - 2026-01-03T04:36:48+00:00

China's support is helping the Burmese military rulers recover from a very weak situation.

Snoop-phone cameras "adjust" photos - 2025-12-31T04:39:16+00:00

Snoop-phone cameras "adjust" all photos by default to make them more visually attractive. This falsifies everyone thus photographed.

I think that this contributes one more factor that would lead people to prefer to interact through phones rather than in physical presence.