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Norman Hill

@rnhill.bsky.social
173 followers 189 following 55 posts

I aspire to be a polymath but perhaps am more of a dilettante. Am I retired? I say I'm in limbo. I used to be a unix/network sysadmin, math instructor, bar owner. Now I tutor math, volunteer, cook a little, play pool, and futz around in my woodshop.

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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
Our minds are our own. Thoughts are free. youtu.be/dbwQXVcbkU0?... www.facebook.com/share/p/1987...
youtu.be
Pete Seeger- Die Gedanken Sind Frei
YouTube video by roboticrickshaw
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
March 26, 2025 Will this be the straw? How's the camel? open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...
open.substack.com
March 26, 2025
Monday’s astounding story that the most senior members of President Donald Trump’s administration planned military strikes on Yemen over an unsecure commercial messaging app, on which they had include...
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
More of Trump's descent into dictatorship open.substack.com/pub/robertre...
open.substack.com
More of Trump’s descent into dictatorship
Two illegal firings that will increase prices for consumers and concentrate more power in Trump’s hands — unless the courts stop him.
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
THE LONGEST DAY EVER!!! Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/11/u...
nytimes.com
Republicans Quietly Move to Relinquish Power to Undo Trump’s Tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China (Gift Article)
House G.O.P. leaders tucked the provision into a procedural measure needed to pass a government spending bill.
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
It's the oligarchy, stupid. We've got our own set of oligarchs now. open.substack.com/pub/robertre...
open.substack.com
It's the oligarchy, stupid.
Friends,
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
How Musk is cancelling the U.S. government Remember this "when and if America ever wrests back control of our government"
open.substack.com
How Musk is cancelling the U.S. government
Friends,
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
"... the overall strategy is clear: Musk and his minions decided to summarily fire as many federal workers as they could without making any effort to find out what these workers do and whether it’s important." open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug...
open.substack.com
Our Government Is Experiencing a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly
Musk is moving fast and breaking important things
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
Today's letter focusses on foreign affairs February 16, 2025 open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...
open.substack.com
February 16, 2025
The sixty-first Munich Security Conference, the world’s leading forum for talking about international security policy, took place from February 14 to February 16 this year.
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
Trumpoleon Bonaspur open.substack.com/pub/stevebro...
open.substack.com
Trumpoleon Bonaspur
Make America Wear Rubbers Again
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Elad Nehorai @eladn.bsky.social · 16/02/2025
Wrote about this recently. I sincerely believe Musk wants to be emperor of the world, and no I don’t think that’s hyperbole.
msnbc.com
Musk’s quest for world domination takes shape in Britain and Germany
And to understand the larger narrative, we need to examine the strategy he has taken in the United States.
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HELL Kennedy @helenkennedy.com · 16/02/2025
Dear Democratic Party: why are you not screaming this from every rooftop? Why are you not holding press conferences with these poor fired people - putting a face on what the richest man is destroying?
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Ashley Kuckelman @ashleyvotesblue.bsky.social · 16/02/2025
Excellent description of today’s MAGA-Republican Party. They’re not capable of empathy or compassion. It’s all about the cruelty with them. They give themselves tax breaks while simultaneously cutting key benefits for the American people. It’s shameful and it needs to end.

Excellent description of today's
MAGA-Republican Party.

They're not capable of empathy or compassion. It's all about the cruelty with them.

They give themselves tax breaks while simultaneously cutting key benefits for the American people.

It's shameful and it needs to end.




Meme that reads: 

I don't know what word in the English language-- I can't find one-- applies to people who are willing to sacrifice the literal existence of organized human life so they can put a few more dollars into highly stuffed pockets.
The word 'evil' doesn't even begin to approach it.

~ Noam Chomsky
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
open.substack.com
A House Divided Cannot Stand
An essay on the fire engulfing America, and its likely violent end.
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
Mostly scary but a few sprinkles of hope
open.substack.com
The Democracy Index
February 14, 2025
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
It's foolish to believe Elon without evidence. open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug...
open.substack.com
Elon Musk Is Faking It
The fraudster who cried “fraud”
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
Celebrate the heroes! open.substack.com/pub/robertre...
open.substack.com
Profiles in courage
Friends,
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max tani @maxtani.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
In a statement, AP editor Julie Pace said the White House told the AP if it did not align its editorial standards with Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, it would be barred from accessing Trump's executive order signing
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Joe Robertson @joro.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
1) Musk standing behind the Resolute Desk speaking for Trump is shocking & bizarre. 2) Musk's lazy inarticulate nonsense shows he has no clue at all. 3) His assertion that the people have no voice bc he dislikes contraints on himself is pure anti-democracy thinking.
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George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 @gtconway.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
This is a flat-out, clear-cut violation of the First Amendment.
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
"The executive branch must respect that Congress controls the nation’s money, [former Treasury secretaries] wrote, reiterating the key principle outlined in the Constitution: “The legislative branch has the sole authority to pass laws that determine where and how federal dollars should be spent.”"
open.substack.com
February 10, 2025
As soon as President Donald Trump took office, his administration froze great swaths of government funding, apparently to test the theory popular with Project 2025 authors that the 1974 law forbidding...
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
The text of a post by Francoise Von Trapp is in this note. The post and her account are no longer on Facebook. substack.com/profile/5967...
A photo I took of a crematorium in the Dachau concentration camp.
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
The end of law? open.substack.com/pub/robertre...
open.substack.com
The end of law?
The Trump regime is refusing to be bound by the federal courts. Where will this end?
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Sabotaging the Pax Americana open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug...
open.substack.com
Sabotaging the Pax Americana
Trump and Musk are making us distrusted, friendless and weak
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Josh Sternberg @joshsternberg.com · 04/02/2025
In 2016 the NYT ran multiple front page stories page about the grave national security risk of Hillary Clinton's server. Today's front page, and nary a mention of the successful "plutocratic coup" (said by a sitting House member) or "constitutional crisis (said by a sitting Senator) unfolding
Front page of the nyt
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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 02/02/2025
Saw a car with both MAGA and “I ❤️ the Constitution” bumper stickers and it’s like, you gotta decide.
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Katie Phang @katiephang.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
“Today, we find ourselves in the middle of a battle of our own, as good people are being walked out of the F.B.I. and others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and F.B.I. policy.” -- James E. Dennehy, NYC’s top FBI agent. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/u...
nytimes.com
Top F.B.I. Agent in New York Vows to ‘Dig In’ After Removals at Agency
James E. Dennehy, the highly respected leader of the largest and most important field office in the bureau, said in an email to staff that the F.B.I. was in “a battle of our own.”
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Kara Swisher @karaswisher.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
Btw let me reinforce this again when it comes to this crew: EVERY ACCUSATION IS A CONFESSION.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 02/02/2025
Jasmine Crockett: "The problem is that Americans thought it was okay to take a full fledged criminal and make him the President of the US and then they want to act aghast when he does criminal things. Let me tell you, we have a thug in charge of the US and if we don't wake up we may not have a US"
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Senator Patty Murray @murray.senate.gov · 01/02/2025
All of your most sensitive data and our country’s checkbook are in the hands of an unelected billionaire. This is the most corrupt administration in history and it’s putting our economy & government in serious jeopardy. It’s time to speak out and fight back. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/u...
nytimes.com
Elon Musk’s Team Now Has Full Access to Treasury’s Payments System
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Jesse Eisinger @jeisinger.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
NEW: The Trump admin told a US-funded aid group that gives food & medicine to starving children in Sudan to shut down. Children would die. They’re defying the order. But the aid world is in chaos. Brett Murphy & Anna Barry-Jester: www.propublica.org/article/trum...
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Laurence H. Tribe @tribelaw.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
Using the tragic plane collision over the Potomac that cost 67 human souls as an occasion to slam DEI hiring was obscene. There’s zero evidence at this point that an underqualified air traffic controller or pilot had any role in this crash.
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
act.commoncause.org/petitions/te...
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
Clearly illegal open.substack.com/pub/robertre...
open.substack.com
Clearly illegal
This isn't about cutting the size of government. It's about further concentrating power in Trump's hands.
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
The only thing he really accomplishes is to rile allies and destroy relationships. open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
"The New York Times describes Trump as leading “a global wave of hard-line conservative populism.” Rubbish. . . . Trump is leading a move to replace democracy with oligarchy." open.substack.com/pub/robertre...
open.substack.com
Trump's first week: The Real Story
Let it be known
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
Shocking! In North Carolina more training is required to cut hair than to give someone a tattoo. It's not a high bar since no training is required to be a tattoo artist here. www.wral.com/news/investi...
wral.com
North Carolina has no required training hours to become a tattooing artist. We asked why.
A concerned tattoo shop owner in Raleigh reached out to WRAL Investigates because she felt it was time to highlight an issue important to her craft.
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
What to do? Here are good suggestions. Let me know if you know if ways here in NC I can help. Take care of yourself! Be kind to yourself and others.
open.substack.com
What you can do
Ten ways to resist Trump II
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Heather Thomas @heatherthomasaf.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
So when all was said and done, the only country that opened it's prisons and sent crazy murderous criminals to prey upon innocent American citizens, was us.
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cmar0561.bsky.social @cmar0561.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
Here is Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde’s heartfelt plea to the convicted felon:
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
Vaclav Havel: The kind of hope I often think about (especially in situations that are particularly hopeless, such as prison) I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world.
The photos here are just illustrations, taken on a path in the woods near dusk in November, bare trees, leafy ground, meandering route.....
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Jon Cooper @joncooper-us.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
Just saying.
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
Distorting Trump's Language
open.substack.com
Distorting Trump's Language
MAGA's terminology is an inaccurate means of describing our state of affairs--together, we must reframe and rename our political vocabulary
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The Shallow State @ourshallowstate.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
Let's agree there definitely are some immigrants whose deportation should be highly prioritized.
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George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 @gtconway.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
It’s hard to think of a more disgraceful way to end a day of national disgrace.
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
open.substack.com
Of, For, and By the Billionaires
Musk and Silicon Valley moguls gain unprecedented power
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 19/01/2025
@blandyfisher.bsky.social Well, you didn't give your bsky handle in your meta farewell but at least you're not hard to find.
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Norman Hill @rnhill.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/15/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Are We Sleepwalking Into Autocracy? (Gift Article)
What we can learn from countries that have pushed back on threats to democracy.
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