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Mostly Monday Reads: Mercy Me!
“This was the plan all along. Authoritarianism has arrived and is on full display. Can’t wait to hear the “this is what I voted for” crowd crying when they are executed on the streets protesting the confiscation of their guns. But hey, there are no men in women’s sports!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Yet another start to a week in the cruel and vulture-ridden world of Donny J. His obsession with his own self-interest continues to plague the country with problems we don’t need, didn’t ask for, and most of us know they ruin our way of life. The most ridiculous aspect is that all these grudges have evolved into bizarre legal actions, which have been disrupting nearly every process and institution that we rely on. Today, stocks are falling because Trump just has to have someone to blame for his rotten economy.
Richard Nixon FAFO’d with the Fed back in the 1970s and learned exactly how international financial and monetary markets are massively disrupted by politicians meddling with these markets. This is a journal article that you can read if you’d like. (How Richard Nixon Pressured Arthur Burns: Evidence from the Nixon Tapes, Burton A. Abrams, Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 20, no. 4, Fall 2006.)
A more updated analysis can be found at NPR. This is from February 2025. “What happened when Richard Nixon wanted more control over interest rates? This is a tale of a president pressuring the head of the central bank for political reasons. Burns fights it, then capitulates, and it lays the foundation for later inflation.” I lived through this as I was actually studying to be an economist. It has significantly shaped many of my perspectives on why politicians should refrain from certain functions. I can also offer testimony that everyone — including me at one time — who has worked for the Fed holds Fed independence as a sacred trust to the American People.
Whether the Federal Reserve raises, lowers or maintains baseline interest rates is one of the most important economic decisions it makes. And that decision is made outside of presidential control, at least theoretically. Kenny Malone and Mary Childs from our Planet Money podcast had the story of what happened when one president wanted more control over interest rates.
MARY CHILDS, BYLINE: In 1971, President Richard Nixon began secretly recording basically everything.
KENNY MALONE, BYLINE: Thirty-three years later, virtually all of those tapes were publicly available.
BURTON ABRAMS: Well, everyone else was interested in Watergate. I was interested in monetary policy.
CHILDS: Economist Burton Abrams drove down to the National Archives.
ABRAMS: They were available on reels, and then you had to put on earphones and try to make out the garbled conversations that existed.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RICHARD NIXON: Arthur, how are you? (Inaudible).
CHILDS: Arthur, how are you? Nixon says to Arthur Burns, chairman of the Federal Reserve.
MALONE: Nixon was one year away from reelection, and unemployment had been rising.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NIXON: So this will be the last conservative administration in Washington.
MALONE: This will be the last conservative administration in Washington.
CHILDS: Nixon seems to tell his Fed chair to let more money flow through the economy, which generally helps unemployment but risks inflation.
MALONE: Arthur Burns seems to push back and also seems to tap on the table to make this point.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ARTHUR BURNS: I don’t want to see interest rates exploding (inaudible).
ABRAMS: Burns is making an appeal to Nixon that he doesn’t want to stimulate anymore. He’s still holding out. Yep.
MALONE: So I assume Nixon is not super jazzed about that meeting.
ABRAMS: No, so I suspect that behind the scenes, pressure is still to give Nixon the monetary policy he wants.
MALONE: According to Arthur Burns’ personal diary, he was warned that White House operatives had their bayonets out for him and that Nixon was threatening to pack the Fed board and completely take control.
Economist Mark Zahn explains it all. This is from ABC. “Stocks fall after Trump’s DOJ opens criminal probe into Fed Chair Powell. Powell rebuked the probe as an effort to undermine the Fed’s independence.” It’s not nice to fool your major donors. We continue the Magical Misery tower with whatever this brand of “conservatism” claims to be. Republicans only want the government out of business when it suits them.
Stocks slid in early trading on Monday hours after reports that the Department of Justice had opened a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell centered on the central bank leader’s remarks to Congress about an office renovation project.
Powell, who was appointed by Trump in 2017, issued a rare video message rebuking the investigation as a politically motivated effort to influence the Fed’s interest rate policy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 290 points, or 0.6%, while the S&P 500 fell 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 0.3%.
Gold and silver — safe-haven assets often seen as a hedge against the stock market — moved higher on Monday.
The selloff on Monday also appeared to include reaction to a social media post from President Donald Trump advocating for a 10% cap on credit card interest rates for one year. Shares of several major banks fell in early trading.
The DOJ’s criminal probe follows a monthslong influence campaign undertaken by Trump as he has frequently slammed the Fed for what he considers a reluctance to significantly reduce interest rates.
The criminal probe appears to center on allegations of false remarks made by Powell about a renovation of the Fed’s headquarters during a congressional hearing in June.
Trump has repeatedly denounced Powell for alleged overspending tied to the central bank’s $2.5 billion renovation project. The Fed attributes spending overruns to unforeseen cost increases, saying that its building renovation will ultimately “reduce costs over time by allowing the Board to consolidate most of its operations,” according to the central bank’s website.
Federal law allows the president to remove the Fed chair for “cause” — though no president has ever done so. Powell’s term as chair is set to expire in May, but he can remain on the Fed’s policymaking board until 2028. Powell has not indicated whether he intends to remain on the board.
It’s sincerely hypocritical to me to watch a convicted and well-known lifetime felon try to trump up charges on some of the most ethical government servants we’ve ever had. Powell has released a statement through the usual Fed channels.
I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy. No one—certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve—is above the law. But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure.
This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress’s oversight role; the Fed through testimony and other public disclosures made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President.
This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.
No rational, studied, normal economist would disagree with his statements. However, sell-outs for money, power, and greed will always pop up to empower evil intent.
ICE is now using AI to make human hunting easier for them thanks to Palantir.#FuckICE #ICE #Palantir #Pinks #ProudBlue #Resist
— SaltyBitchables (@saltybitchables.bsky.social) 2026-01-12T16:19:11.238Z
ICE continues to be a rogue organization with no respect for the law or for human life. Judd LeGume’s blog’s Popular Information has some great perspectives on the ICE Raids today. The inhumanity of their actions shows intent, organization, and planning. “Kill, smear, cover-up.”
“The known facts do not support the official federal government narrative of Renee Good’s killing. Now, in an unusual move, the federal government is excluding state law enforcement from the investigation.
Initially, the FBI and Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) agreed to conduct a joint investigation of Good’s death. This is standard procedure. But this agreement was quickly rescinded. The BCA says it has lost “access to the case materials, scene evidence [and] investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation.” As a result, the BCA believes it will not be able to conduct a thorough investigation that will ensure “accountability and public confidence.”
Instead, the investigation will be led exclusively by the FBI, which is run by Kash Patel, one of Trump’s most partisan supporters. Patel wrote a series of children’s books that referred to Trump as a “king.”
“What are you hiding?” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison asked. “I mean, if you feel that you’re — that the ICE agent operated within the law, then let there be an investigation so that that can be revealed.” Ellison said that the federal government was undermining “a fair, transparent investigation” by excluding state investigators. According to Ellison, the FBI investigation “will look simply like a whitewash… covering up… what could well be nefarious, bad activity.”
“Let’s call a spade a spade,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said. “Kristi Noem watched the videos and doesn’t want an impartial investigation because she knows her narrative about domestic terrorism is bullshit.”
After an officer-involved shooting, it is standard protocol for the officer and witnesses to remain on the scene to be interviewed. Further, nothing should be removed from the scene. But in this case a video shows “several agents, including the agent who opened fire, get in their vehicles and drive off, apparently altering the active crime scene.”
ICE policy requires “officers and agents… to activate body-worn cameras at the start of enforcement activities and to record throughout interactions.” But no body cam videos have been released.
Since the federal government has asserted control over the investigation, it has selectively leaked evidence to ideologically friendly publications. A 47-second video of the incident, for example, was shared with Alpha News, a right-wing outlet in Minnesota. It was then amplified by Vance. It was released by the DHS the next day.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced she was conducting her own investigation and urged the public to submit evidence directly to her office. Vance told reporters on January 8 that Ross has “absolute immunity” for Good’s killing. Moriarty said that is not true.
Moriarty revealed that federal law enforcement removed Good’s vehicle from the scene before state investigators could examine it. Good’s car is a key piece of evidence because it could help definitively establish if Ross was struck in any way.”
Joyce Vance warns us in her SubStack that “Tonight’s column is far longer than I like to run, perhaps the longest one ever. But please don’t give up on it. Although I’d planned to write about developments we expect this week in various lawsuits, these are the times we live in. The situation with ICE is critical right now. I’ve packed a lot of information you’ll need this week as the situation in Minneapolis develops into this post, but don’t feel like you have to read it all at once.”
We head into the coming week in an unsettled moment where the administration has blood on its hands. It would have been fair for the administration to call for time to investigate what happened in Minneapolis the morning Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent. But that’s not what ICE’s leadership, the DHS Secretary, or the White House has done. They blamed the victim. They criticized her for exercising her rights as an American citizen. They called her a terrorist. None of this suggests the administration has good intentions. Vice President Harris told us this would happen and now it has.
Sunday morning, CNN’s Jake Tapper showed DHS Secretary Kristi Noem video of the mob attacking the Capitol on January 6.
Tapper: “I just showed you video of people attacking law enforcement officers on January 6. Undisputed evidence, and I just said, President Trump pardoned all of them. You said that President Trump is enforcing all the laws equally. That’s just not true. There’s a different standard for law enforcement officers being attacked if they’re being attacked by Trump supporters. We just saw that.”
Trump’s September 2025 Presidential Memo titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” (NSPM-7) spelled this all out. It divides the country into good guys and bad guys. If you’re for Trump, you’re a good guy. If you’re against Trump, you’re a domestic terrorist. The rules that apply to the two groups are different. Attack the police in support of Donald Trump (January 6), and you get a pardon; stop to watch what an ICE agent is doing, and it’s a death sentence.
Trump attributed the need for NSPM-7 to dramatic increases in “Heinous assassinations and other acts of political violence.” He cited “the horrifying assassination of Charlie Kirk” and called out people who “adhered to the alleged shooter’s ideology, embraced and cheered this evil murder while actively encouraging more political violence,” as the justification for the memo. He also cited the 2024 murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and “the 2022 assassination attempt against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh” as further justification, along with the two assassination attempts on his own life and what he calls “riots” in Los Angeles and Portland that were a “1,000 percent increase in attacks on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers since January 21, 2025, compared to the same period last year.” He also wrote that “Separate anti-police and ‘criminal justice’ riots have left many people dead and injured and inflicted over $2 billion in property damage nationwide.”
Trump claims the recent “political violence is not a series of isolated incidents and does not emerge organically.” He says it’s the “culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes, and prevent the functioning of a democratic society.” No evidence is offered to support this. But that doesn’t seem to matter in the rush to a conclusion: “A new law enforcement strategy that investigates all participants in these criminal and terroristic conspiracies — including the organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, funding sources, and predicate actions behind them — is required.” Although at first this seemed targeted toward civil society and civil rights groups that advocated and litigated on behalf of Americans and their rights, now, it seems to be turned against anti-ICE protestors who are doing nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights.
This list is horrifying.
NSPM-7 identifies “common threads animating this violent conduct” as:
- anti-Americanism;
- anti-capitalism;
- anti-Christianity;
- support for the overthrow of the United States Government;
- extremism on migration, race, and gender; and
- hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.
If you have any of these tendencies, or if the administration believes you do, one of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) is directed to investigate you.
There are about 200 JTTFs across the country. They are the nerve center of the federal government’s efforts to ensure potential acts of terrorism are detected before they can be committed. Agents and prosecutors from federal and state agencies meet to review cases and ensure nothing important is swept aside. The work can be intense and urgent. Now, Trump has ordered that the JTTFs “shall investigate” an exhausting laundry list of potential infractions committed by people who oppose his views. In Trump’s view, Americans exercising their First Amendment and other rights are violent domestic terrorists.
But it’s all one-sided. Just like Noem’s failure to recognize the crimes committed by January 6 defendants in the question from Tapper that we started out with tonight. It’s all a thinly veiled mechanism for criminalizing innocent behavior by anyone who opposes this administration. Hence the characterization of Good, who was unarmed when she was shot and killed by a law enforcement officer, as the “terrorist.”
I have one more topic today that I find horrifyingly short-sided and cruel. This is all in the name of keeping women out of the workforce. This is from AXIOS. It’s reported by Emily Peck. “Trump funding freeze could stretch child care to a breaking point.”
Child care providers, already under financial strain, face their greatest test yet as the Trump administration imposes new rules and restrictions on funding.
Why it matters: Federal money underpins the entire industry — vital to millions of parents trying to manage work and family, across all income levels.
Driving the news: A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the administration from freezing more than $10 billion for five blue states, claiming widespread fraud.- The administration, meanwhile, is also asking all states to provide more information to justify and support spending on care, a requirement that some state officials and advocates say is onerous and could delay funding.
The big picture: Even before the freeze, states were scrambling to make up for the loss of pandemic-era child care funding.
- “There hasn’t been a full-on collapse, but it’s just been a kind of slow-moving deterioration,” says Matthew Nestler, an economist at KPMG who tracks the sector.
Zoom out: Child care providers, mainly small businesses on tight margins, are struggling to stay afloat.
- Wait lists for child care are growing in some states, and prices are rising — that often means a parent needs to make a tough choice, and could leave the labor market entirely. Typically, that’s mothers.
- So many workers depend on child care that any policies that reduce investment in the sector have big knock-on effects for the entire economy, Nestler says.
Zoom in: Colorado froze new child care enrollments in some counties last year because of state budget constraints, coming on top of the pandemic pullback.
That’s been devastating for Westwood Academy, a preschool and child care center in Denver, where two-thirds of kids, about 20, were on federally subsidized tuition at the start of 2025.
Now, the program is down to just four of these kids, says RB Fast, who started the center in 2022 when pandemic funds were flowing. Last year, the center lost about $70,000. (Typically, she turns some profit.)
She’s planning to open a second center in a wealthier suburb, where she’ll charge $2,200 a month for a full-day toddler care. In her current center in Denver, she charges $1,747.
The upshot: “High quality child care is increasingly becoming a luxury good,” she says.
In Indiana is facing similar struggles.
It’s hard to look daily at all the things this regime is doing to make our lives worse-off. Many are focused on harming the least and most vulnerable among us. I know all these grudges Trump holds impact his actions as does his level of greed, need for attention, and seemingly needless compulstion to be cruel.His brain is fed by the likes of Stephen Miller and some backward notion that life was better in previous centuries. But, the man has serious mental issues and personality disorders. Why don’t so many of his followers see that? Why doesn’t the Republican Party do something? They’re empowering the worst in humanity to destroy everything this country has every stood for.
The struggle continues.
What’s on your Reading, Action and Blogging list today?
#FartusDeportUs #Repeat1968JohnBuss #AmericanRoulette #EnemyListsAmericanStyle #FederalReserveIndependence #ICE #JeromePowell #RichardNixon #StockMarketsPlunge #TrumpCutsChildcareSupport
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Mostly Monday Reads: Mercy Me!
“This was the plan all along. Authoritarianism has arrived and is on full display. Can’t wait to hear the “this is what I voted for” crowd crying when they are executed on the streets protesting the confiscation of their guns. But hey, there are no men in women’s sports!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Yet another start to a week in the cruel and vulture-ridden world of Donny J. His obsession with his own self-interest continues to plague the country with problems we don’t need, didn’t ask for, and most of us know they ruin our way of life. The most ridiculous aspect is that all these grudges have evolved into bizarre legal actions, which have been disrupting nearly every process and institution that we rely on. Today, stocks are falling because Trump just has to have someone to blame for his rotten economy.
Richard Nixon FAFO’d with the Fed back in the 1970s and learned exactly how international financial and monetary markets are massively disrupted by politicians meddling with these markets. This is a journal article that you can read if you’d like. (How Richard Nixon Pressured Arthur Burns: Evidence from the Nixon Tapes, Burton A. Abrams, Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 20, no. 4, Fall 2006.)
A more updated analysis can be found at NPR. This is from February 2025. “What happened when Richard Nixon wanted more control over interest rates? This is a tale of a president pressuring the head of the central bank for political reasons. Burns fights it, then capitulates, and it lays the foundation for later inflation.” I lived through this as I was actually studying to be an economist. It has significantly shaped many of my perspectives on why politicians should refrain from certain functions. I can also offer testimony that everyone — including me at one time — who has worked for the Fed holds Fed independence as a sacred trust to the American People.
Whether the Federal Reserve raises, lowers or maintains baseline interest rates is one of the most important economic decisions it makes. And that decision is made outside of presidential control, at least theoretically. Kenny Malone and Mary Childs from our Planet Money podcast had the story of what happened when one president wanted more control over interest rates.
MARY CHILDS, BYLINE: In 1971, President Richard Nixon began secretly recording basically everything.
KENNY MALONE, BYLINE: Thirty-three years later, virtually all of those tapes were publicly available.
BURTON ABRAMS: Well, everyone else was interested in Watergate. I was interested in monetary policy.
CHILDS: Economist Burton Abrams drove down to the National Archives.
ABRAMS: They were available on reels, and then you had to put on earphones and try to make out the garbled conversations that existed.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RICHARD NIXON: Arthur, how are you? (Inaudible).
CHILDS: Arthur, how are you? Nixon says to Arthur Burns, chairman of the Federal Reserve.
MALONE: Nixon was one year away from reelection, and unemployment had been rising.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NIXON: So this will be the last conservative administration in Washington.
MALONE: This will be the last conservative administration in Washington.
CHILDS: Nixon seems to tell his Fed chair to let more money flow through the economy, which generally helps unemployment but risks inflation.
MALONE: Arthur Burns seems to push back and also seems to tap on the table to make this point.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ARTHUR BURNS: I don’t want to see interest rates exploding (inaudible).
ABRAMS: Burns is making an appeal to Nixon that he doesn’t want to stimulate anymore. He’s still holding out. Yep.
MALONE: So I assume Nixon is not super jazzed about that meeting.
ABRAMS: No, so I suspect that behind the scenes, pressure is still to give Nixon the monetary policy he wants.
MALONE: According to Arthur Burns’ personal diary, he was warned that White House operatives had their bayonets out for him and that Nixon was threatening to pack the Fed board and completely take control.
Economist Mark Zahn explains it all. This is from ABC. “Stocks fall after Trump’s DOJ opens criminal probe into Fed Chair Powell. Powell rebuked the probe as an effort to undermine the Fed’s independence.” It’s not nice to fool your major donors. We continue the Magical Misery tower with whatever this brand of “conservatism” claims to be. Republicans only want the government out of business when it suits them.
Stocks slid in early trading on Monday hours after reports that the Department of Justice had opened a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell centered on the central bank leader’s remarks to Congress about an office renovation project.
Powell, who was appointed by Trump in 2017, issued a rare video message rebuking the investigation as a politically motivated effort to influence the Fed’s interest rate policy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 290 points, or 0.6%, while the S&P 500 fell 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 0.3%.
Gold and silver — safe-haven assets often seen as a hedge against the stock market — moved higher on Monday.
The selloff on Monday also appeared to include reaction to a social media post from President Donald Trump advocating for a 10% cap on credit card interest rates for one year. Shares of several major banks fell in early trading.
The DOJ’s criminal probe follows a monthslong influence campaign undertaken by Trump as he has frequently slammed the Fed for what he considers a reluctance to significantly reduce interest rates.
The criminal probe appears to center on allegations of false remarks made by Powell about a renovation of the Fed’s headquarters during a congressional hearing in June.
Trump has repeatedly denounced Powell for alleged overspending tied to the central bank’s $2.5 billion renovation project. The Fed attributes spending overruns to unforeseen cost increases, saying that its building renovation will ultimately “reduce costs over time by allowing the Board to consolidate most of its operations,” according to the central bank’s website.
Federal law allows the president to remove the Fed chair for “cause” — though no president has ever done so. Powell’s term as chair is set to expire in May, but he can remain on the Fed’s policymaking board until 2028. Powell has not indicated whether he intends to remain on the board.
It’s sincerely hypocritical to me to watch a convicted and well-known lifetime felon try to trump up charges on some of the most ethical government servants we’ve ever had. Powell has released a statement through the usual Fed channels.
I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy. No one—certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve—is above the law. But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure.
This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress’s oversight role; the Fed through testimony and other public disclosures made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President.
This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.
No rational, studied, normal economist would disagree with his statements. However, sell-outs for money, power, and greed will always pop up to empower evil intent.
ICE is now using AI to make human hunting easier for them thanks to Palantir.#FuckICE #ICE #Palantir #Pinks #ProudBlue #Resist
— SaltyBitchables (@saltybitchables.bsky.social) 2026-01-12T16:19:11.238Z
ICE continues to be a rogue organization with no respect for the law or for human life. Judd LeGume’s blog’s Popular Information has some great perspectives on the ICE Raids today. The inhumanity of their actions shows intent, organization, and planning. “Kill, smear, cover-up.”
“The known facts do not support the official federal government narrative of Renee Good’s killing. Now, in an unusual move, the federal government is excluding state law enforcement from the investigation.
Initially, the FBI and Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) agreed to conduct a joint investigation of Good’s death. This is standard procedure. But this agreement was quickly rescinded. The BCA says it has lost “access to the case materials, scene evidence [and] investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation.” As a result, the BCA believes it will not be able to conduct a thorough investigation that will ensure “accountability and public confidence.”
Instead, the investigation will be led exclusively by the FBI, which is run by Kash Patel, one of Trump’s most partisan supporters. Patel wrote a series of children’s books that referred to Trump as a “king.”
“What are you hiding?” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison asked. “I mean, if you feel that you’re — that the ICE agent operated within the law, then let there be an investigation so that that can be revealed.” Ellison said that the federal government was undermining “a fair, transparent investigation” by excluding state investigators. According to Ellison, the FBI investigation “will look simply like a whitewash… covering up… what could well be nefarious, bad activity.”
“Let’s call a spade a spade,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said. “Kristi Noem watched the videos and doesn’t want an impartial investigation because she knows her narrative about domestic terrorism is bullshit.”
After an officer-involved shooting, it is standard protocol for the officer and witnesses to remain on the scene to be interviewed. Further, nothing should be removed from the scene. But in this case a video shows “several agents, including the agent who opened fire, get in their vehicles and drive off, apparently altering the active crime scene.”
ICE policy requires “officers and agents… to activate body-worn cameras at the start of enforcement activities and to record throughout interactions.” But no body cam videos have been released.
Since the federal government has asserted control over the investigation, it has selectively leaked evidence to ideologically friendly publications. A 47-second video of the incident, for example, was shared with Alpha News, a right-wing outlet in Minnesota. It was then amplified by Vance. It was released by the DHS the next day.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced she was conducting her own investigation and urged the public to submit evidence directly to her office. Vance told reporters on January 8 that Ross has “absolute immunity” for Good’s killing. Moriarty said that is not true.
Moriarty revealed that federal law enforcement removed Good’s vehicle from the scene before state investigators could examine it. Good’s car is a key piece of evidence because it could help definitively establish if Ross was struck in any way.”
Joyce Vance warns us in her SubStack that “Tonight’s column is far longer than I like to run, perhaps the longest one ever. But please don’t give up on it. Although I’d planned to write about developments we expect this week in various lawsuits, these are the times we live in. The situation with ICE is critical right now. I’ve packed a lot of information you’ll need this week as the situation in Minneapolis develops into this post, but don’t feel like you have to read it all at once.”
We head into the coming week in an unsettled moment where the administration has blood on its hands. It would have been fair for the administration to call for time to investigate what happened in Minneapolis the morning Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent. But that’s not what ICE’s leadership, the DHS Secretary, or the White House has done. They blamed the victim. They criticized her for exercising her rights as an American citizen. They called her a terrorist. None of this suggests the administration has good intentions. Vice President Harris told us this would happen and now it has.
Sunday morning, CNN’s Jake Tapper showed DHS Secretary Kristi Noem video of the mob attacking the Capitol on January 6.
Tapper: “I just showed you video of people attacking law enforcement officers on January 6. Undisputed evidence, and I just said, President Trump pardoned all of them. You said that President Trump is enforcing all the laws equally. That’s just not true. There’s a different standard for law enforcement officers being attacked if they’re being attacked by Trump supporters. We just saw that.”
Trump’s September 2025 Presidential Memo titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” (NSPM-7) spelled this all out. It divides the country into good guys and bad guys. If you’re for Trump, you’re a good guy. If you’re against Trump, you’re a domestic terrorist. The rules that apply to the two groups are different. Attack the police in support of Donald Trump (January 6), and you get a pardon; stop to watch what an ICE agent is doing, and it’s a death sentence.
Trump attributed the need for NSPM-7 to dramatic increases in “Heinous assassinations and other acts of political violence.” He cited “the horrifying assassination of Charlie Kirk” and called out people who “adhered to the alleged shooter’s ideology, embraced and cheered this evil murder while actively encouraging more political violence,” as the justification for the memo. He also cited the 2024 murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and “the 2022 assassination attempt against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh” as further justification, along with the two assassination attempts on his own life and what he calls “riots” in Los Angeles and Portland that were a “1,000 percent increase in attacks on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers since January 21, 2025, compared to the same period last year.” He also wrote that “Separate anti-police and ‘criminal justice’ riots have left many people dead and injured and inflicted over $2 billion in property damage nationwide.”
Trump claims the recent “political violence is not a series of isolated incidents and does not emerge organically.” He says it’s the “culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes, and prevent the functioning of a democratic society.” No evidence is offered to support this. But that doesn’t seem to matter in the rush to a conclusion: “A new law enforcement strategy that investigates all participants in these criminal and terroristic conspiracies — including the organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, funding sources, and predicate actions behind them — is required.” Although at first this seemed targeted toward civil society and civil rights groups that advocated and litigated on behalf of Americans and their rights, now, it seems to be turned against anti-ICE protestors who are doing nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights.
This list is horrifying.
NSPM-7 identifies “common threads animating this violent conduct” as:
- anti-Americanism;
- anti-capitalism;
- anti-Christianity;
- support for the overthrow of the United States Government;
- extremism on migration, race, and gender; and
- hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.
If you have any of these tendencies, or if the administration believes you do, one of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) is directed to investigate you.
There are about 200 JTTFs across the country. They are the nerve center of the federal government’s efforts to ensure potential acts of terrorism are detected before they can be committed. Agents and prosecutors from federal and state agencies meet to review cases and ensure nothing important is swept aside. The work can be intense and urgent. Now, Trump has ordered that the JTTFs “shall investigate” an exhausting laundry list of potential infractions committed by people who oppose his views. In Trump’s view, Americans exercising their First Amendment and other rights are violent domestic terrorists.
But it’s all one-sided. Just like Noem’s failure to recognize the crimes committed by January 6 defendants in the question from Tapper that we started out with tonight. It’s all a thinly veiled mechanism for criminalizing innocent behavior by anyone who opposes this administration. Hence the characterization of Good, who was unarmed when she was shot and killed by a law enforcement officer, as the “terrorist.”
I have one more topic today that I find horrifyingly short-sided and cruel. This is all in the name of keeping women out of the workforce. This is from AXIOS. It’s reported by Emily Peck. “Trump funding freeze could stretch child care to a breaking point.”
Child care providers, already under financial strain, face their greatest test yet as the Trump administration imposes new rules and restrictions on funding.
Why it matters: Federal money underpins the entire industry — vital to millions of parents trying to manage work and family, across all income levels.
Driving the news: A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the administration from freezing more than $10 billion for five blue states, claiming widespread fraud.- The administration, meanwhile, is also asking all states to provide more information to justify and support spending on care, a requirement that some state officials and advocates say is onerous and could delay funding.
The big picture: Even before the freeze, states were scrambling to make up for the loss of pandemic-era child care funding.
- “There hasn’t been a full-on collapse, but it’s just been a kind of slow-moving deterioration,” says Matthew Nestler, an economist at KPMG who tracks the sector.
Zoom out: Child care providers, mainly small businesses on tight margins, are struggling to stay afloat.
- Wait lists for child care are growing in some states, and prices are rising — that often means a parent needs to make a tough choice, and could leave the labor market entirely. Typically, that’s mothers.
- So many workers depend on child care that any policies that reduce investment in the sector have big knock-on effects for the entire economy, Nestler says.
Zoom in: Colorado froze new child care enrollments in some counties last year because of state budget constraints, coming on top of the pandemic pullback.
That’s been devastating for Westwood Academy, a preschool and child care center in Denver, where two-thirds of kids, about 20, were on federally subsidized tuition at the start of 2025.
Now, the program is down to just four of these kids, says RB Fast, who started the center in 2022 when pandemic funds were flowing. Last year, the center lost about $70,000. (Typically, she turns some profit.)
She’s planning to open a second center in a wealthier suburb, where she’ll charge $2,200 a month for a full-day toddler care. In her current center in Denver, she charges $1,747.
The upshot: “High quality child care is increasingly becoming a luxury good,” she says.
In Indiana is facing similar struggles.
It’s hard to look daily at all the things this regime is doing to make our lives worse-off. Many are focused on harming the least and most vulnerable among us. I know all these grudges Trump holds impact his actions as does his level of greed, need for attention, and seemingly needless compulstion to be cruel.His brain is fed by the likes of Stephen Miller and some backward notion that life was better in previous centuries. But, the man has serious mental issues and personality disorders. Why don’t so many of his followers see that? Why doesn’t the Republican Party do something? They’re empowering the worst in humanity to destroy everything this country has every stood for.
The struggle continues.
What’s on your Reading, Action and Blogging list today?
#FartusDeportUs #Repeat1968JohnBuss #AmericanRoulette #EnemyListsAmericanStyle #FederalReserveIndependence #ICE #JeromePowell #RichardNixon #StockMarketsPlunge #TrumpCutsChildcareSupport
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Finally Friday Reads: Shutdown or Meltdown?
“So, not even two months. Here we are.” John Buss, @repeat1968, @johnbuss.bsky.social
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’ve always been an opponent of letting the US Government shut down. As an economist, I know what kind of misery that creates for many people as well, as the possibility of a government default, which could haunt us for many years. My worry is real, but this situation is unique, and typically, the party that tries to shut the government down takes the political heat. I understand what he’s worried about. If we default on debt we become a risky debtor. If we shut the Government down, the weakest among us will suffer needlessly. Default has incredible consequences for the Social Security trust fund, the strength of our dollar, and if anyone will ever buy a US t-bill or t-bond now or ever. That includes war bonds if we ever need them again. I don’t like it, but a default would be unbelievably destructive to the country’s future. I hate that we’re in this position.
How it played out this last night and this morning pitted Schumer against many of his most strong-willed colleagues. Schumer’s support even earned him a pat on the head from #FARTUS. Trump’s always one to take advantage of a bad situation. He interpreted the move as support of the Doge Bulldozer moving through government agencies and policy. That was something one of my Canadian friends from way back in my Fired Dog Lake days predicted. I’d like to read your thoughts on that because I’m unsure how it will be received by folks outside Beltway machinations.
Let’s review what’s out there in the Press and Social media about the move that separated many Democratic senators from the leader. This is from AXIOS as proffered by Andrew Sollender. “House Dems go into “complete meltdown” as Schumer folds”.
House Democrats erupted into apoplexy Thursday night after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he would support Republicans’ stopgap government funding measure.
Why it matters: House Democrats feel like they “walked the plank,” in the words of one member. They voted almost unanimously against the measure, only to watch Senate Democrats seemingly give it the green light.
- “Complete meltdown. Complete and utter meltdown on all text chains,” said the member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer sensitive details of members’ internal conversations.
- A senior House Democrat said “people are furious” and that some rank-and-file members have floated the idea of angrily marching onto the Senate floor in protest.
- Others are talking openly about supporting primary challenges to senators who vote for the GOP spending bill.
Driving the news: Schumer said in a floor speech Thursday that while the GOP measure is “very bad,” the possibility of a government shutdown “has consequences for America that are much, much worse.”
- “A shutdown would give Donald Trump the keys to the city, the state and the country,” Schumer said.
- The comments likely clear a path for at least eight Senate Democrats to vote for the bill — enough for Republicans to overcome the upper chamber’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.
Zoom in: All but one House Democrat voted against the bill earlier this week, in large part because it lacks language to keep the Trump administration from cutting congressionally approved spending.
- “There were many battleground Dems in the House … that were uncomfortable, semi-uncomfortable, with the vote,” said one House Democrat. “The Senate left the House at the altar.”
- House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), in remarks to his House colleagues at their annual retreat Thursday, lauded them for standing up to President Trump by voting against the bill, according to multiple sources.
- When he praised House Democrats’ votes, he received a standing ovation. When he mentioned Senate Democrats, members booed.
What we’re hearing: House Democrats’ text chains lit up Thursday night with expressions of blinding anger, according to numerous lawmakers who described the conversations on the condition of anonymity.
- “People are PISSED,” one House Democrat told Axios in a text message.
- Several members — including moderates — have begun voicing support for a primary challenge to Schumer, floating Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) as possible candidates, three House Democrats said.
- One lawmaker even vowed at the House Democratic retreat to “write a check tonight” supporting Ocasio-Cortez, said the senior House Democrat.
- Another Democrat told Axios the ideation has gone a step further: “There is definitely a primary recruitment effort happening right now … not just Schumer, but for everyone who votes no.”
More gossip and speculation at the link.
Schumer himself appeared on Chris Hayes last night as well as wrote an Op-Ed for the New York Times. “Chuck Schumer: Trump and Musk Would Love a Shutdown. We Must Not Give Them One.”
Over the past two months, the United States has confronted a bitter truth: The federal government has been taken over by a nihilist.
President Trump has taken a blowtorch to our country and wielded chaos like a weapon. Most Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, have caved to his every whim. The Grand Old Party has devolved into a crowd of Trump sycophants and MAGA radicals who seem to want to burn everything to the ground.
Now, Republicans’ nihilism has brought us to a new brink of disaster: Unless Congress acts, the federal government will shut down Friday at midnight.
As I have said many times, there are no winners in a government shutdown. But there are certainly victims: the most vulnerable Americans, those who rely on federal programs to feed their families, get medical care and stay financially afloat. Communities that depend on government services to function will suffer.
This week Democrats offered a way out: Fund the government for another month to give appropriators more time to do their jobs. Republicans rejected this proposal.
Why? Because Mr. Trump doesn’t want the appropriators to do their job. He wants full control over government spending.
He isn’t the first president to want this, but he may be the first president since Andrew Jackson to successfully cow his party into submission. That leads Democrats to a difficult decision: Either proceed with the bill before us or risk Mr. Trump throwing America into the chaos of a shutdown.
This, in my view, is no choice at all.
Emptywheel (a friend from my Fire Dog Lake Doays) wrote a scathing piece on the situation. It indicates how desperately we need the Democrats in Congress to get their acts together. It isn’t easy dealing with chaos, but it’s even worse if you contribute to it. “Democrats Have to Stop Making Political Decisions with an Eye Towards 2026.” I’m unsure if that’s all they’re thinking about or if they’re just running around like chickens with their heads caught up.
I’ve been out of pocket as events moved towards today’s cloture vote on the dogshit continuing resolution Republicans have written. It’s not yet clear whether seven Democrats (in addition to John Fetterman) will join Chuck Schumer — who has said he’ll vote for cloture — in helping Republicans pass it, or whether a Democrat will buy some time.
It’s clear that Schumer’s excuse only emphasizes that there are no good options. He says if there’s a shutdown, Republicans will only reopen those parts of government they want. In the face of the shuttering of USAID and dismantlement of Department of Education, that seems like a futile worry.
Among the best arguments I’ve seen against a shutdown, laid out but dropped here by Josh Marshall, is that a shutdown would provide Trump a way to halt legal proceedings by deeming those lawyers non-essential.
I was told yesterday that a major driver for Dems was the fear that a shutdown would slow down or stop the various court cases against DOGE. Honestly, that sounded so stupid to me that I was skeptical. But this afternoon I heard it from other key directions. I don’t know if it’s the biggest driver but just on the basis of what I heard I get a sense that it’s a major one. That seems so wrongheaded, so lawyer-brained, that when I got the final piece of the puzzle in front of me and realized this was a real thing, it was hard for me to even process.
Schumer described it this way in his speech yesterday:
Justice, and the courts, extremely troubling, I believe. A shutdown could stall Federal court cases, one of the best redoubts against Trump’s lawlessness, and could require a furlough of critical staff at the courts, denying victims and defendants alike their day in court, dragging out appeals and clogging the justice system for months and even years.
I don’t think this is lawyer-brained at all. Trump could simply call the lawyers engaged in these suits non-essential, stalling legal challenges in their current status, and then finding new test cases to establish a precedent while judges were stymied.
In both Phoenix, where a reduction in force affected all the people running the courthouse, and in the Perkins Coie lawsuit, where a hearing the other day reviewed all the Executive Branch personnel, from Marshals to GSA, who keep the courthouse running, the Executive’s ability to limit the Judiciary via manipulation of facilities and staff has already become a live issue. Here’s how Beryl Howell described the way in which Trump’s attempt to exclude Perkins Coie from federal buildings could be enforced via Executive branch personnel.
THE COURT: I just want to make sure because we, in the judiciary — we’re the third branch. We are not the executive branch. We are not subject to this guidance. But our landlord, and all of the federal courthouses around the country is GSA —
MR. BUTSWINKAS: GSA.
THE COURT: — General Services Administration. And the people who do the security at our front doors, all across the country in federal courthouses, are DOJ-component employees from the U.S. Marshals Service or court security officers. So they are all executive branch employees.
Meanwhile the court cases are making progress. Just this week, we’ve had two judges order reinstatement of all the people fired, grant FOIA status to DOGE, and grant discovery to Democratic Attorneys General (plus in one of the two reinstatement cases, Judge Alsup ordered a deposition from an OPM person involved in the firing). As of this week, DOGE now has to answer for its actions in the courts.
Imagine, for example, if a shutdown made it easier for DHS to keep Mahmoud Khalil in Louisiana for the duration of a shutdown, even if they simply said moving him back to SDNY (or New Jersey) is not a priority. There are other cases where the government is being ordered to pay back payments; a shutdown would make such recourse unavailable to anyone who has not yet sued. In the financial clawback cases (where EPA and FEMA seized funds already awarded), a shutdown would give the FBI time to try to frame the case against plaintiffs they’re pursuing, while the plaintiffs get no protection in the meantime. A key flaw was revealed in the lawsuit against Perkins Coie in the hearing the other day (which I’ll return to); if given the time, I would expect Trump to try the same trick against another law firm, fixing that flaw, in an attempt to eliminate any anti-Trump legal teams in the country.
So the concern that a shutdown would eliminate one of two sources of power is real.
I’m agnostic about whether a shutdown brings more advantage than risks.
The rest of her essay argues that everyone is far too interested in the midterm elections.
(snip)
One thing I am absolutely certain of, however, is that Democrats on both sides of this debate are framing it in terms of 2026. Those justifiably furious at Chuck Schumer are thinking in terms of primaries against any Senator who supports cloture. They’re demanding a filibuster so that elected Democrats, as Democrats, be seen wielding some power, so the party doesn’t look feckless to potential voters. Those afraid of a shutdown are discussing electoral consequences in 2026. Polls are measuring who would be blamed in the polls.
This mindset has plagued both sides of Democratic debates for two months, with disastrous consequences.
Democracy will be preserved or lost in the next three months. And democracy will be won or lost via a nonpartisan political fight over whether enough Americans want to preserve their way of life to fight back, in a coalition that includes far more than Democrats. You win this fight by treating Trump and Elon as the villain, not by making any one Democrat a hero (or worse still, squandering week after week targeting Democratic leaders while letting Elon go ignored).
Either way, this is an untenable situation.
Today is another day of the country finding out none of this is normal. NBC News has a running thread on every crazy thing on deck for the Beltway today. “Government shutdown live updates: Senate to vote on funding bill today; Dr. Mehmet Oz faces confirmation hearing. President Donald Trump will deliver remarks at the Justice Department, a frequent target of his and his allies’ government weaponization claims.” Have I mentioned I have a TV, but it’s been sitting in a box for nearly three years? I just don’t have the stamina to set it up and watch all this craziness on a big screen.
Reality TV stars and swindlers are about all Trump has to offer up these days.
Hassan grills Dr Oz about promoting a bunch of scam "medical" products on TV, including "raspberry ketones." She notes that "it seems to me you are still unwilling to take accountability for your promotion of unproven snake oil remedies to millions of your viewers."
The only good news I found today was this.
Judges order Trump to rehire thousands of fired federal workers.
Two federal courts are ruling that the firings of probationary federal workers were improper and that tens of thousands of those employees must be immediately reinstated. The Trump administration is calling the ruling absurd and unconstitutional and is vowing to fight back. NBC’s Garrett Haake reports for “TODAY.”
It seems we are fully reliant on the Judiciary Branch to stop the destruction of our Government and democracy. It’s not like we didn’t warn people, either. This is in Fortune, as reported by the AP. ” The Trump administration must bring back thousands of federal workers fired by Elon Musk’s DOGE, judge rules.” The Judge really read the riot act to the Federal attorney also.
A federal judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to reinstate thousands—if not tens of thousands—of probationary workers let go in mass firings across multiple agencies last month, saying that the terminations were directed by a personnel office that had no authority to do so.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco ordered the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, the Interior and the Treasury to immediately offer reinstatement to employees terminated on or about Feb. 13 and 14 using guidance from the Office of Personnel Management and its acting director, Charles Ezell.
Alsup directed the agencies to report back within seven days with a list of probationary employees and an explanation of how the departments complied with his order as to each person.
The temporary restraining order came in a lawsuit filed by a coalition of labor unions and organizations as the Republican administration moves to dramatically downsize the federal workforce.
The White House and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Alsup expressed frustration with what he called the government’s attempt to sidestep laws and regulations governing a reduction in its workforce — which it is allowed to do — by firing probationary workers who lack protections. He was appalled that employees were fired for poor performance despite receiving glowing evaluations just months earlier.
“It is sad, a sad day, when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” he said. “That should not have been done in our country.”
Opinion: 3 ways DOGE challengers could win court cases from CNN
It’s the day before my favorite holiday, The Ides of March. For those who don’t know, if I could go back in time and eliminate before they came into power, it would be the baby that became Julius Ceasar. They offed him too late to help history. So, there’s likely a few folks walking around the White House right now that should Beware the Ides of March. Nipping the Roman Empire in the bud would have definitely put us farther away from the Dark Time Line.
Here’s tomorrow’s version of the Ides of March.
Donald Trump has suggested that the US should buy Gaza, will get Greenland “one way or another” as well as the Panama Canal, ignited a new trade war, floated the annexation of Canada, and hired the world’s richest weirdo (who also happens to be the world’s richest man) to fire tens of thousands of federal employees. And that’s just one country.
Romania’s leading presidential candidate was arrested after winning the first round of elections with the assistance of Russian bots, showing that Putin is determined to mess with all his neighbors. Look for the Moldovan election in a few months; Russia is sowing chaos with energy sabotage.
Germany’s most successful far-right party since World War II just had a record-breaking result after the the US basically endorsed them. And don’t be fooled by Friedrich Merz’s lack of flair: The Europeans are about to try to build an independent defense, give the American abdication.
China’s DeepSeek has upended the AI market, throwing Silicon Valley into full-blown panic mode. And it will soon dominate the renewable energy market and have just been given a monumental soft-power gift the US abdication of 80 years of global leadership of the free world.
Tara Palmeri writes this on her blog, Red Letter. “Fear and Loathing in the West Wing. Inside the revolt against Elon Musk…”
The tolerance for Elon Musk inside of the White House is wearing thin, as they deal with the fallout of his calamitous interview with Larry Kudlow when he touched the third rail – entitlements. Even though Trump’s staffers are terrified of Musk, they know that if you try to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, you die, politically speaking.
“It’s no longer simmering resistance, people are fucking furious,” said a source with knowledge of the situation.
“Medicaid is not just for Black people in the ghetto, these are our voters,” said a Republican operative close to the White House.
Even before the interview, I’m told that the White House communications team was adamantly against letting Musk do the interview with Kudlow, even though he’s a former administration official and ally. They know that FOX News is a network that their older, white working-class voters watch closely and this was a rare televised interview for Musk, not the same as getting high with Joe Rogan.
Now they’re playing cleanup. Sure, they sent out a “Fact Check” memo from the White House highlighting that his words were garbled when he said he’s looking at the “waste and fraud in entitlement spending,” not entitlements all together. But then Musk went further, falsely claiming in the interview that Democrats use entitlement programs to attract illegal immigrants into the country so that they can add them to their voter rolls. It doesn’t help that earlier this month, Musk referred to Social Security as “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”
You can even see Kudlow shifting around uncomfortably during the interview.
Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung denied that there was an issue. “We love [Musk] doing media,” he said, pointing to his joint interview with Trump on Sean Hannity.
As promised, I want to share the ins and outs of my reporting process with you, so I first reached out to Trump’s personal pollster John McLaughlin after I learned about the meltdown over Musk’s interview to ask if he’s been polling Musk’s response in the interview. And I was shocked to learn that McLaughlin has not polled Musk at all, even though he’s clearly a political liability to the President. McLaughlin has been polling Trump for decades and was one of the main pollsters alongside Tony Fabrizio on the campaign. He said the last poll that he conducted that even remotely touched on Musk was about DOGE in November 2024 and it did not mention Musk by name.
“No one has asked us to do that poll,” McLaughlin told me.
Well, the public polling shows that the numbers for Musk – what some would call Trump’s heat shield – have been in free fall since Trump took office, with more than 53 percent of people having an unfavorable opinion of Musk, according to a new CNN poll. But surely Trump’s political operation, which to be fair is an impressive one, would want to know if Musk was starting to become a liability. No political consultant in Washington trusts public polling. They’d probably trust the opposition party’s polling over public polling. So that leaves me to believe that they are afraid of Trump’s appendage or it’s because Musk just donated $100 million to Trump’s political arm, which just so happens to be run by Trump’s other pollster Fabrizio. When I asked Fabrizio if he’s conducting polls on Musk favorables, he didn’t get back to me.
Regardless, I’ve heard that the White House is aware that Musk’s numbers are “dog shit,” according to a source. “
More at the link.
Just one more thing to ruin your weekend and I’m sorry but it’s story that needs telling. This is from The New Republic. “Trump Gives New Orders to U.S. Military on Panama Canal Takeover, Donald Trump is moving forward on his plans to seize the Panama Canal.”
The Trump administration has asked the U.S. military to draw up options for retaking the Panama Canal.
President Trump has been pushing for retaking the canal since December, and repeated his desire in a joint address to Congress last week, without any elaboration. The rest of the Trump administration hasn’t attempted to explain what he means, either.
The military is drawing up options, according to NBC News, that range from a closer partnership with the Panamanian military to soldiers seizing the Panama Canal by force, according to unnamed officials. The use of force depends on how much Panama’s military is willing to work with the United States, the officials told NBC News.
The commander of U.S. Southern Command, Admiral Alvin Holsey, presented the different strategies to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth earlier this week. The plan to use military force against Panama will only be considered if posting additional U.S. military personnel does not accomplish Trump’s goal of “reclaiming” the canal, the officials said.
Right now, the U.S. has more than 200 troops in the country, including Special Forces units working with Panamanian units to combat internal unrest. Trump claims China has troops in the canal, which Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino denies, as does China. In February, Panama decided not to renew an infrastructure agreement with China, drawing criticism from the country toward the U.S.
One tin soldier rides again.
So, I just want to watch a few more Star Wars movies and eat the tabouli I made last night. We’re seriously in trouble, and I don’t see Captain America out there anywhere, or Wonder Woman, or any of the other Super Heros we could use right now. At least it’s almost crawfish season.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
#Repeat1968JohnBuss #ChuckSchumer #Doge #FARTUS #governmentShutdown #JudgeOrdersRehireOfFederalWorkers
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Finally Friday Reads: Shutdown or Meltdown?
“So, not even two months. Here we are.” John Buss, @repeat1968, @johnbuss.bsky.social
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’ve always been an opponent of letting the US Government shut down. As an economist, I know what kind of misery that creates for many people as well, as the possibility of a government default, which could haunt us for many years. My worry is real, but this situation is unique, and typically, the party that tries to shut the government down takes the political heat. I understand what he’s worried about. If we default on debt we become a risky debtor. If we shut the Government down, the weakest among us will suffer needlessly. Default has incredible consequences for the Social Security trust fund, the strength of our dollar, and if anyone will ever buy a US t-bill or t-bond now or ever. That includes war bonds if we ever need them again. I don’t like it, but a default would be unbelievably destructive to the country’s future. I hate that we’re in this position.
How it played out this last night and this morning pitted Schumer against many of his most strong-willed colleagues. Schumer’s support even earned him a pat on the head from #FARTUS. Trump’s always one to take advantage of a bad situation. He interpreted the move as support of the Doge Bulldozer moving through government agencies and policy. That was something one of my Canadian friends from way back in my Fired Dog Lake days predicted. I’d like to read your thoughts on that because I’m unsure how it will be received by folks outside Beltway machinations.
Let’s review what’s out there in the Press and Social media about the move that separated many Democratic senators from the leader. This is from AXIOS as proffered by Andrew Sollender. “House Dems go into “complete meltdown” as Schumer folds”.
House Democrats erupted into apoplexy Thursday night after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he would support Republicans’ stopgap government funding measure.
Why it matters: House Democrats feel like they “walked the plank,” in the words of one member. They voted almost unanimously against the measure, only to watch Senate Democrats seemingly give it the green light.
- “Complete meltdown. Complete and utter meltdown on all text chains,” said the member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer sensitive details of members’ internal conversations.
- A senior House Democrat said “people are furious” and that some rank-and-file members have floated the idea of angrily marching onto the Senate floor in protest.
- Others are talking openly about supporting primary challenges to senators who vote for the GOP spending bill.
Driving the news: Schumer said in a floor speech Thursday that while the GOP measure is “very bad,” the possibility of a government shutdown “has consequences for America that are much, much worse.”
- “A shutdown would give Donald Trump the keys to the city, the state and the country,” Schumer said.
- The comments likely clear a path for at least eight Senate Democrats to vote for the bill — enough for Republicans to overcome the upper chamber’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.
Zoom in: All but one House Democrat voted against the bill earlier this week, in large part because it lacks language to keep the Trump administration from cutting congressionally approved spending.
- “There were many battleground Dems in the House … that were uncomfortable, semi-uncomfortable, with the vote,” said one House Democrat. “The Senate left the House at the altar.”
- House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), in remarks to his House colleagues at their annual retreat Thursday, lauded them for standing up to President Trump by voting against the bill, according to multiple sources.
- When he praised House Democrats’ votes, he received a standing ovation. When he mentioned Senate Democrats, members booed.
What we’re hearing: House Democrats’ text chains lit up Thursday night with expressions of blinding anger, according to numerous lawmakers who described the conversations on the condition of anonymity.
- “People are PISSED,” one House Democrat told Axios in a text message.
- Several members — including moderates — have begun voicing support for a primary challenge to Schumer, floating Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) as possible candidates, three House Democrats said.
- One lawmaker even vowed at the House Democratic retreat to “write a check tonight” supporting Ocasio-Cortez, said the senior House Democrat.
- Another Democrat told Axios the ideation has gone a step further: “There is definitely a primary recruitment effort happening right now … not just Schumer, but for everyone who votes no.”
More gossip and speculation at the link.
Schumer himself appeared on Chris Hayes last night as well as wrote an Op-Ed for the New York Times. “Chuck Schumer: Trump and Musk Would Love a Shutdown. We Must Not Give Them One.”
Over the past two months, the United States has confronted a bitter truth: The federal government has been taken over by a nihilist.
President Trump has taken a blowtorch to our country and wielded chaos like a weapon. Most Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, have caved to his every whim. The Grand Old Party has devolved into a crowd of Trump sycophants and MAGA radicals who seem to want to burn everything to the ground.
Now, Republicans’ nihilism has brought us to a new brink of disaster: Unless Congress acts, the federal government will shut down Friday at midnight.
As I have said many times, there are no winners in a government shutdown. But there are certainly victims: the most vulnerable Americans, those who rely on federal programs to feed their families, get medical care and stay financially afloat. Communities that depend on government services to function will suffer.
This week Democrats offered a way out: Fund the government for another month to give appropriators more time to do their jobs. Republicans rejected this proposal.
Why? Because Mr. Trump doesn’t want the appropriators to do their job. He wants full control over government spending.
He isn’t the first president to want this, but he may be the first president since Andrew Jackson to successfully cow his party into submission. That leads Democrats to a difficult decision: Either proceed with the bill before us or risk Mr. Trump throwing America into the chaos of a shutdown.
This, in my view, is no choice at all.
Emptywheel (a friend from my Fire Dog Lake Doays) wrote a scathing piece on the situation. It indicates how desperately we need the Democrats in Congress to get their acts together. It isn’t easy dealing with chaos, but it’s even worse if you contribute to it. “Democrats Have to Stop Making Political Decisions with an Eye Towards 2026.” I’m unsure if that’s all they’re thinking about or if they’re just running around like chickens with their heads caught up.
I’ve been out of pocket as events moved towards today’s cloture vote on the dogshit continuing resolution Republicans have written. It’s not yet clear whether seven Democrats (in addition to John Fetterman) will join Chuck Schumer — who has said he’ll vote for cloture — in helping Republicans pass it, or whether a Democrat will buy some time.
It’s clear that Schumer’s excuse only emphasizes that there are no good options. He says if there’s a shutdown, Republicans will only reopen those parts of government they want. In the face of the shuttering of USAID and dismantlement of Department of Education, that seems like a futile worry.
Among the best arguments I’ve seen against a shutdown, laid out but dropped here by Josh Marshall, is that a shutdown would provide Trump a way to halt legal proceedings by deeming those lawyers non-essential.
I was told yesterday that a major driver for Dems was the fear that a shutdown would slow down or stop the various court cases against DOGE. Honestly, that sounded so stupid to me that I was skeptical. But this afternoon I heard it from other key directions. I don’t know if it’s the biggest driver but just on the basis of what I heard I get a sense that it’s a major one. That seems so wrongheaded, so lawyer-brained, that when I got the final piece of the puzzle in front of me and realized this was a real thing, it was hard for me to even process.
Schumer described it this way in his speech yesterday:
Justice, and the courts, extremely troubling, I believe. A shutdown could stall Federal court cases, one of the best redoubts against Trump’s lawlessness, and could require a furlough of critical staff at the courts, denying victims and defendants alike their day in court, dragging out appeals and clogging the justice system for months and even years.
I don’t think this is lawyer-brained at all. Trump could simply call the lawyers engaged in these suits non-essential, stalling legal challenges in their current status, and then finding new test cases to establish a precedent while judges were stymied.
In both Phoenix, where a reduction in force affected all the people running the courthouse, and in the Perkins Coie lawsuit, where a hearing the other day reviewed all the Executive Branch personnel, from Marshals to GSA, who keep the courthouse running, the Executive’s ability to limit the Judiciary via manipulation of facilities and staff has already become a live issue. Here’s how Beryl Howell described the way in which Trump’s attempt to exclude Perkins Coie from federal buildings could be enforced via Executive branch personnel.
THE COURT: I just want to make sure because we, in the judiciary — we’re the third branch. We are not the executive branch. We are not subject to this guidance. But our landlord, and all of the federal courthouses around the country is GSA —
MR. BUTSWINKAS: GSA.
THE COURT: — General Services Administration. And the people who do the security at our front doors, all across the country in federal courthouses, are DOJ-component employees from the U.S. Marshals Service or court security officers. So they are all executive branch employees.
Meanwhile the court cases are making progress. Just this week, we’ve had two judges order reinstatement of all the people fired, grant FOIA status to DOGE, and grant discovery to Democratic Attorneys General (plus in one of the two reinstatement cases, Judge Alsup ordered a deposition from an OPM person involved in the firing). As of this week, DOGE now has to answer for its actions in the courts.
Imagine, for example, if a shutdown made it easier for DHS to keep Mahmoud Khalil in Louisiana for the duration of a shutdown, even if they simply said moving him back to SDNY (or New Jersey) is not a priority. There are other cases where the government is being ordered to pay back payments; a shutdown would make such recourse unavailable to anyone who has not yet sued. In the financial clawback cases (where EPA and FEMA seized funds already awarded), a shutdown would give the FBI time to try to frame the case against plaintiffs they’re pursuing, while the plaintiffs get no protection in the meantime. A key flaw was revealed in the lawsuit against Perkins Coie in the hearing the other day (which I’ll return to); if given the time, I would expect Trump to try the same trick against another law firm, fixing that flaw, in an attempt to eliminate any anti-Trump legal teams in the country.
So the concern that a shutdown would eliminate one of two sources of power is real.
I’m agnostic about whether a shutdown brings more advantage than risks.
The rest of her essay argues that everyone is far too interested in the midterm elections.
(snip)
One thing I am absolutely certain of, however, is that Democrats on both sides of this debate are framing it in terms of 2026. Those justifiably furious at Chuck Schumer are thinking in terms of primaries against any Senator who supports cloture. They’re demanding a filibuster so that elected Democrats, as Democrats, be seen wielding some power, so the party doesn’t look feckless to potential voters. Those afraid of a shutdown are discussing electoral consequences in 2026. Polls are measuring who would be blamed in the polls.
This mindset has plagued both sides of Democratic debates for two months, with disastrous consequences.
Democracy will be preserved or lost in the next three months. And democracy will be won or lost via a nonpartisan political fight over whether enough Americans want to preserve their way of life to fight back, in a coalition that includes far more than Democrats. You win this fight by treating Trump and Elon as the villain, not by making any one Democrat a hero (or worse still, squandering week after week targeting Democratic leaders while letting Elon go ignored).
Either way, this is an untenable situation.
Today is another day of the country finding out none of this is normal. NBC News has a running thread on every crazy thing on deck for the Beltway today. “Government shutdown live updates: Senate to vote on funding bill today; Dr. Mehmet Oz faces confirmation hearing. President Donald Trump will deliver remarks at the Justice Department, a frequent target of his and his allies’ government weaponization claims.” Have I mentioned I have a TV, but it’s been sitting in a box for nearly three years? I just don’t have the stamina to set it up and watch all this craziness on a big screen.
Reality TV stars and swindlers are about all Trump has to offer up these days.
Hassan grills Dr Oz about promoting a bunch of scam "medical" products on TV, including "raspberry ketones." She notes that "it seems to me you are still unwilling to take accountability for your promotion of unproven snake oil remedies to millions of your viewers."
The only good news I found today was this.
Judges order Trump to rehire thousands of fired federal workers.
Two federal courts are ruling that the firings of probationary federal workers were improper and that tens of thousands of those employees must be immediately reinstated. The Trump administration is calling the ruling absurd and unconstitutional and is vowing to fight back. NBC’s Garrett Haake reports for “TODAY.”
It seems we are fully reliant on the Judiciary Branch to stop the destruction of our Government and democracy. It’s not like we didn’t warn people, either. This is in Fortune, as reported by the AP. ” The Trump administration must bring back thousands of federal workers fired by Elon Musk’s DOGE, judge rules.” The Judge really read the riot act to the Federal attorney also.
A federal judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to reinstate thousands—if not tens of thousands—of probationary workers let go in mass firings across multiple agencies last month, saying that the terminations were directed by a personnel office that had no authority to do so.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco ordered the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, the Interior and the Treasury to immediately offer reinstatement to employees terminated on or about Feb. 13 and 14 using guidance from the Office of Personnel Management and its acting director, Charles Ezell.
Alsup directed the agencies to report back within seven days with a list of probationary employees and an explanation of how the departments complied with his order as to each person.
The temporary restraining order came in a lawsuit filed by a coalition of labor unions and organizations as the Republican administration moves to dramatically downsize the federal workforce.
The White House and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Alsup expressed frustration with what he called the government’s attempt to sidestep laws and regulations governing a reduction in its workforce — which it is allowed to do — by firing probationary workers who lack protections. He was appalled that employees were fired for poor performance despite receiving glowing evaluations just months earlier.
“It is sad, a sad day, when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” he said. “That should not have been done in our country.”
Opinion: 3 ways DOGE challengers could win court cases from CNN
It’s the day before my favorite holiday, The Ides of March. For those who don’t know, if I could go back in time and eliminate before they came into power, it would be the baby that became Julius Ceasar. They offed him too late to help history. So, there’s likely a few folks walking around the White House right now that should Beware the Ides of March. Nipping the Roman Empire in the bud would have definitely put us farther away from the Dark Time Line.
Here’s tomorrow’s version of the Ides of March.
Donald Trump has suggested that the US should buy Gaza, will get Greenland “one way or another” as well as the Panama Canal, ignited a new trade war, floated the annexation of Canada, and hired the world’s richest weirdo (who also happens to be the world’s richest man) to fire tens of thousands of federal employees. And that’s just one country.
Romania’s leading presidential candidate was arrested after winning the first round of elections with the assistance of Russian bots, showing that Putin is determined to mess with all his neighbors. Look for the Moldovan election in a few months; Russia is sowing chaos with energy sabotage.
Germany’s most successful far-right party since World War II just had a record-breaking result after the the US basically endorsed them. And don’t be fooled by Friedrich Merz’s lack of flair: The Europeans are about to try to build an independent defense, give the American abdication.
China’s DeepSeek has upended the AI market, throwing Silicon Valley into full-blown panic mode. And it will soon dominate the renewable energy market and have just been given a monumental soft-power gift the US abdication of 80 years of global leadership of the free world.
Tara Palmeri writes this on her blog, Red Letter. “Fear and Loathing in the West Wing. Inside the revolt against Elon Musk…”
The tolerance for Elon Musk inside of the White House is wearing thin, as they deal with the fallout of his calamitous interview with Larry Kudlow when he touched the third rail – entitlements. Even though Trump’s staffers are terrified of Musk, they know that if you try to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, you die, politically speaking.
“It’s no longer simmering resistance, people are fucking furious,” said a source with knowledge of the situation.
“Medicaid is not just for Black people in the ghetto, these are our voters,” said a Republican operative close to the White House.
Even before the interview, I’m told that the White House communications team was adamantly against letting Musk do the interview with Kudlow, even though he’s a former administration official and ally. They know that FOX News is a network that their older, white working-class voters watch closely and this was a rare televised interview for Musk, not the same as getting high with Joe Rogan.
Now they’re playing cleanup. Sure, they sent out a “Fact Check” memo from the White House highlighting that his words were garbled when he said he’s looking at the “waste and fraud in entitlement spending,” not entitlements all together. But then Musk went further, falsely claiming in the interview that Democrats use entitlement programs to attract illegal immigrants into the country so that they can add them to their voter rolls. It doesn’t help that earlier this month, Musk referred to Social Security as “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”
You can even see Kudlow shifting around uncomfortably during the interview.
Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung denied that there was an issue. “We love [Musk] doing media,” he said, pointing to his joint interview with Trump on Sean Hannity.
As promised, I want to share the ins and outs of my reporting process with you, so I first reached out to Trump’s personal pollster John McLaughlin after I learned about the meltdown over Musk’s interview to ask if he’s been polling Musk’s response in the interview. And I was shocked to learn that McLaughlin has not polled Musk at all, even though he’s clearly a political liability to the President. McLaughlin has been polling Trump for decades and was one of the main pollsters alongside Tony Fabrizio on the campaign. He said the last poll that he conducted that even remotely touched on Musk was about DOGE in November 2024 and it did not mention Musk by name.
“No one has asked us to do that poll,” McLaughlin told me.
Well, the public polling shows that the numbers for Musk – what some would call Trump’s heat shield – have been in free fall since Trump took office, with more than 53 percent of people having an unfavorable opinion of Musk, according to a new CNN poll. But surely Trump’s political operation, which to be fair is an impressive one, would want to know if Musk was starting to become a liability. No political consultant in Washington trusts public polling. They’d probably trust the opposition party’s polling over public polling. So that leaves me to believe that they are afraid of Trump’s appendage or it’s because Musk just donated $100 million to Trump’s political arm, which just so happens to be run by Trump’s other pollster Fabrizio. When I asked Fabrizio if he’s conducting polls on Musk favorables, he didn’t get back to me.
Regardless, I’ve heard that the White House is aware that Musk’s numbers are “dog shit,” according to a source. “
More at the link.
Just one more thing to ruin your weekend and I’m sorry but it’s story that needs telling. This is from The New Republic. “Trump Gives New Orders to U.S. Military on Panama Canal Takeover, Donald Trump is moving forward on his plans to seize the Panama Canal.”
The Trump administration has asked the U.S. military to draw up options for retaking the Panama Canal.
President Trump has been pushing for retaking the canal since December, and repeated his desire in a joint address to Congress last week, without any elaboration. The rest of the Trump administration hasn’t attempted to explain what he means, either.
The military is drawing up options, according to NBC News, that range from a closer partnership with the Panamanian military to soldiers seizing the Panama Canal by force, according to unnamed officials. The use of force depends on how much Panama’s military is willing to work with the United States, the officials told NBC News.
The commander of U.S. Southern Command, Admiral Alvin Holsey, presented the different strategies to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth earlier this week. The plan to use military force against Panama will only be considered if posting additional U.S. military personnel does not accomplish Trump’s goal of “reclaiming” the canal, the officials said.
Right now, the U.S. has more than 200 troops in the country, including Special Forces units working with Panamanian units to combat internal unrest. Trump claims China has troops in the canal, which Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino denies, as does China. In February, Panama decided not to renew an infrastructure agreement with China, drawing criticism from the country toward the U.S.
One tin soldier rides again.
So, I just want to watch a few more Star Wars movies and eat the tabouli I made last night. We’re seriously in trouble, and I don’t see Captain America out there anywhere, or Wonder Woman, or any of the other Super Heros we could use right now. At least it’s almost crawfish season.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
#Repeat1968JohnBuss #ChuckSchumer #Doge #FARTUS #governmentShutdown #JudgeOrdersRehireOfFederalWorkers
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I remember the scratch & sniffs that #Hustler_Magazine used to have, lolz. They were actually fruity and/or perfumey, not what one might expect, but they were indeed a pretty kewl gimmick to raise interest in #smut magazines for pre-teen boys of the seventies
I actually met #Larry_Flint a few times coming in&out of the elevators in his building. There was a huge, like 15' high statue of #John_Wayne mounted on a steed outside the front doors of the building, and that was on a huge pedestal - so, way larger than life.
Flint's wheelchair really was made out of glimmering gold, or at least all gold plated, and he was always accompanied by imposingly huge bodyguards. After a few times of meeting him coming and going I took the opportunity to say "Hi Mr. Flint!", and he kindly responded. It was pretty kewl.
Sadly, we lost that great icon of #pr0n almost five years ago, after a long life of accomplishments and an entertainment empire he was succeeded by.
The man was a legend, and protector of the #First_Amendment too - a case which stemmed from a cartoon in Hustler Magazine depicting "Moral Majority" leader Reverend #Jerry_Falwell as having lost his virginity to his own mother in an outhouse. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and he won; it was a great day for the freedom of speech, contrasted with the Biden era "Ministry of Truth" that he appointed #Nina_Jankowitz to head; that was short-lived, only a week or two until that despicable #Orwellian institution was dismantled - at which point she went straight to #Merry_Olde_England to work with their insidious institutions of censorship like Ofcom and others... ergo, what we have here today, where even looking at some social media posts, or appearing as if you're engaging in silent prayer to your deities, can land you in prison if you live in the UK. Talk about #Thought_Police!
But at least people in France will be able to send British inmates scratch & sniff stamped letters, right?
The #croissant is iconic of Frenh influence the world over, and small, traditional French bakeries here in the states usually form lines around 6:30 each morning so folks can get them still hot from the oven. That heavenly aroma of freshly baked croissants. Yum!
NOTE: If my unabashed candidness has offended anyone, please feel free to file a complaint against me at the link I've included above, as I've been trying for a few months now to get #Mark_Rowley to extradite me to the UK following his threats to do so. He's a fricken' pussy, #Kier_Starmer too, and so is (literally) #Shabana_Mahmood.
⛵
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I remember the scratch & sniffs that #Hustler_Magazine used to have, lolz. They were actually fruity and/or perfumey, not what one might expect, but they were indeed a pretty kewl gimmick to raise interest in #smut magazines for pre-teen boys of the seventies
I actually met #Larry_Flint a few times coming in&out of the elevators in his building. There was a huge, like 15' high statue of #John_Wayne mounted on a steed outside the front doors of the building, and that was on a huge pedestal - so, way larger than life.
Flint's wheelchair really was made out of glimmering gold, or at least all gold plated, and he was always accompanied by imposingly huge bodyguards. After a few times of meeting him coming and going I took the opportunity to say "Hi Mr. Flint!", and he kindly responded. It was pretty kewl.
Sadly, we lost that great icon of #pr0n almost five years ago, after a long life of accomplishments and an entertainment empire he was succeeded by.
The man was a legend, and protector of the #First_Amendment too - a case which stemmed from a cartoon in Hustler Magazine depicting "Moral Majority" leader Reverend #Jerry_Falwell as having lost his virginity to his own mother in an outhouse. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and he won; it was a great day for the freedom of speech, contrasted with the Biden era "Ministry of Truth" that he appointed #Nina_Jankowitz to head; that was short-lived, only a week or two until that despicable #Orwellian institution was dismantled - at which point she went straight to #Merry_Olde_England to work with their insidious institutions of censorship like Ofcom and others... ergo, what we have here today, where even looking at some social media posts, or appearing as if you're engaging in silent prayer to your deities, can land you in prison if you live in the UK. Talk about #Thought_Police!
But at least people in France will be able to send British inmates scratch & sniff stamped letters, right?
The #croissant is iconic of Frenh influence the world over, and small, traditional French bakeries here in the states usually form lines around 6:30 each morning so folks can get them still hot from the oven. That heavenly aroma of freshly baked croissants. Yum!
NOTE: If my unabashed candidness has offended anyone, please feel free to file a complaint against me at the link I've included above, as I've been trying for a few months now to get #Mark_Rowley to extradite me to the UK following his threats to do so. He's a fricken' pussy, #Kier_Starmer too, and so is (literally) #Shabana_Mahmood.
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By Carcharodon
15 years ago, on May 19, 2009, Angry Metal Guy spoke. For the very first time as AMG. And he had opinions: Very Important Opinions™. The post attracted relatively little attention at the time, but times change and, over the decade and a half since then, AMG Industries has grown into the blog you know today. Now with a staff of around 25 overrating overwriters (and an entirely non-suspicious graveyard for writers on permanent, all-expenses-paid sabbaticals), we have written more than 9,100 posts, comprising over seven million words. Over the site’s lifetime, we’ve had more than 107 million visits and now achieve well over a million hits each and every month. Through this, we’ve built up a fantastic community of readers drawn from every corner of the globe, whom we have (mostly) loved getting to know in the more than 360,000 comments posted on the site.
We have done this under the careful (if sternly authoritarian) stewardship of our eponymous leader Angry Metal Guy and his iron enforcer, Steel Druhm, while adhering to strict editorial policies and principles. We have done this by simply offering honest (and occasionally brutal) takes, and without running a single advert or taking a single cent from anyone. Ever. Mistakes have undoubtedly been made and we may be a laughing stock in the eyes of music intellectuals, socialites and critics everywhere but we are incredibly proud of what AMG Industries represents. In fact, we believe it may be the best metal blog, with the best community of readers, on the internet.
Now join us as the people responsible for making AMG a reality reflect on what the site means to them and why they would willingly work for a blog that pays in the currency of deadlines, abuse, and hobo wine. Welcome to the 15th Birthdaynalia.
Thou Shalt Have No Other Blogs!
Steel Druhm
AMG and me
I stumbled into the world of AMG Inc. by chance, one day in early 2010 and just never got around to leaving. To put a finer point on it, I’ve been slaving in the AMG salt mines so long, even the extremely sabbaticalized Happy Metal Guy thinks my mind is gone. Over time, I’ve evolved from unpaid assistant to the Founding Overlord Himself to become site overseer and brvtal enforcer of deadlines, and morale (still unpaid). The journey has been a wild one, full of moments I’ll always cherish. It’s also introduced me to a collection of loveable oddballs I care about, even though I want to murderize them most of the time (you would too if you had to deal with their outrageous bullshit daily).1
The site and the extensive work that goes into it have provided me with a satisfaction that my real job often lacks, and even helped me find my soulmate. In short, AMG means the world to me and that’s why I’ve given so much of myself to this little blog these last 14 years. Looking back, I regret nothing (except the staff’s penchant for wildly overrating complete garbage) and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. Thank you to the writers past and present who helped make the site possible, and thanks to the readers who make it worth the effort, even though most of you are woefully deficient in the good taste department. Here’s to 15 more years of this burning shitshow of a trainwreck!
AMG gave to me
As I’ve been a part of AMG since the early days, it’s nearly impossible to come up with just three albums the site gave me because it’s given me so many. Instead, I’ll enumerate the biggest non-musical gifts AMG has bestowed upon me over the years.2
Madam X // Be My (Pri)Mate / Down with the Steelness – The best thing AMG gave me by far was the chance to meet my best friend, soulmate and life partner, Madam X. She had read some of my early reviews for AMG and by chance, we happened to run into each other on a now-defunct Facebook metal fan page. She reached out to discuss my reviews and get some recommendations, we started chatting, and the rest, as they say, is history. I’m the luckiest guy in the world to have her and, since she lived in South Africa and I in New York, I highly doubt we ever would have found one another were it not for AMG. For this reason alone, I’ll cherish this little blog until my rusty metal heart explodes in my hairy ape chest. Fun fact: I never had a girlfriend that liked metal, and now I have a wife who listens to stuff that’s so extreme and out there, I end up sounding like my parents and saying shit like “This isn’t music, it’s just crazy noise!” Life is funny sometimes.
The Sadistic Pleasure that Comes from Unicorning Kvlt Strangeo Bands // You Axed for It – One cold, gloomy day back in February 2015, I was reviewing a cold, gloomy release by Danish doom/death act Dwell. Their Vermin and Ashes album didn’t especially thrill me, and I was annoyed that they had opted not to include a band photo in the promo materials. Sure, I get it. They wanted to be dark and mysterious. Who doesn’t? I searched online for a suitable image of them but there were none to be found. I became quite vexed. Where the inspiration came from I cannot say but I decided to bestow upon them a bright, mega-cheesy unicorn image, in place of the non-existent band shot. As I contemplated how the vomit of rainbow colors clashed with the murky gray malaise of the album cover, it looked so wrong that it felt so right! And so a blog protocol was born. Send band photos or face extreme unicorn judgment!
The Joys of Initiating Unsuspecting n00bs into the AMG Meatgrinder // Taste the Skull Pit, Poser – When I joined AMG back in its embryonic, protoplasmic stage, there was no probationary period or brutal abuse (aside from assigning me metalcore albums). Things changed as the blog grew and we started bringing on new writers. Soon, a system of impressment, indoctrination and re-education was put in place, and ruthlessly weaponized in service of internet “fame” and “glory.” Each carefully selected wannabe writer, eyes glistening with the ghosts of their past, would serve a tumultuous probationary term, working in complete isolation under the iron thumbs of AMG management. If they somehow survived this experiment in terror, they would be cast into the general population in the Skull Pit, with a besotted cadre of jaded, glassy-eyed veteran staffers. That’s when the real initiation would begin! Imagine Lord of the Flies mixed with The Hunger Games and The Devil’s Rejects, and you get the general idea. Through ritualized humiliation, unreasonable deadlines, and confrontational teaching methods, we slowly transform these sniveling amateurs into barely functional hack reviewers. Believe in the system or be buried by it me.
I wish I had written …
White Wizzard – The Devil’s Cut Review. Yes, the infamous review that’s hung around our necks like a rotting albatross ever since it saw the light of day in 2013. Had I been tasked with doing the review, I would have given it the rating it truly deserved, which is a big, fat, greasy 3.0. Just like the album that came before, and the one that followed. Now, I have nothing against White Wizzard and I enjoy the retro 80s metal style they play, but let’s face it, nothing they ever did came anywhere near a 5.0 (whether in its “Perfect” or “Iconic” guise). My common sense, real-world review would have spared us all a great deal of embarrassment, as well as saving the effort and bleach it took to scrub the office down after the First Grand Sabbaticaling. If only…
I wish I could do over …
Amon Amarth – Sutur Rising Review. As a relatively new reviewer, I got the unexpected chance to weigh in on a new Amon Amarth platter, while I was at the peak of my feverish AA fanboyism. This proved a deadly combination and, before my better angels could caution restraint and moderation, I stamped this thing with a 4.5, and got the album cover tattooed on my dog. With time (and much hobo wine), I realized that I let the moment get the better of me. Despite the presence of a few killer cuts like “War of the Gods” and “Destroyer of the Universe,” Sutur Rising is far from Amon Amarth’s best work. I dutifully submitted a groveling apology in a Contrite Metal Guy piece and tried to move on with my life. 13 years on, this one still stands as my biggest rating misadventure and a source of bitter regret. I blame society (AKA: you, the reader).
I wish more people had read …
Retro-spective Review: Hall Aflame – Guaranteed Forever. The side project of Metal Church’s Kurdt Vanderhoof, Hall Aflame saw but one release in 1991. But what a party this thing was and still is! Adopting a style somewhere between The Cult and The Four Horsemen, Hall Aflame roar through a collection of wildly catchy, burly rockers, making for a highly replay-able album, with only occasional reminders it’s made by the brain behind Metal Church. Cuts like “Shake the Pain,” Child of Medicine,” and “Money” are absolute monsters, and “Another Heartbeat” is one of my favorite songs of all time across all genres. The hugely ass-kicking vocals by completely unknown (then and now) frontman Ron Lowd alone are worth the effort it will take to track down this rare gem. The world continues to sleep on this killer, as evidenced by my retro-spective review scoring exactly ZERO comments. Don’t let this injustice continue. You need to hear this thing, especially with the recent news that Vanderhoof is releasing the long-awaited (by me at least) follow-up in May. You have my word as a Viking ape that satisfaction is Guaranteed Forever.
AMG is Now a Good Capitalist! In this gap-filler post from 2015, I posited the concept of AMG building a merch empire based upon goods of questionable quality (see our branded Uni-Friend and Sabbatical Sausage Maker pictured above). It got reads but, since I found the concept amusing, I wanted MOAR clicks. I credit this piece with motivating me to finally get a batch of actual AMG t-shirts printed up for the undeserving staff. If you see someone wearing one of these rare treasures and kill them, you take their place in the Skull Pit forevermore. It’s just like The Santa Clause, but much, much worse.
Dr. A.N. Grier
AMG and me
Back in the day, we’d be lucky to get two reviews a day at AMG. This led to me refreshing the site every few hours hoping for a bonus review for the day.3 I was obsessed with the writing and these gems I would never have found otherwise. Before I began writing here, I would do that regularly from 2010-2011. One morning I left the lab of my failing start-up and walked into my office to do some work. The post that morning wasn’t a review. Instead, it was instructions on how to apply to be an AMG writer. Without thinking—because I’d been up for roughly 40 straight hours—I submitted a review of 1349’s lackluster Demonoir. Weeks later, I was a n00b in these decrepit halls. And I’m still here regretting that decision, almost ten years to the day since I submitted my first review. It’s funny, now that I’ve gathered everything for this piece, that I found those early days the fondest of times. Those days when I still loved the writers, the readers, writing about metal, and well… music. Now I’m a broken soul, stalking the halls as a sex-depraved ghost,4 avoiding eye contact with Steel because his ape eyes make my pants tight.
But, in all seriousness, it’s been a wild ride and it’s odd to be one of the lucky few who have contributed to two-thirds of AMG’s existence. I’m proud to have kept the output so rounded, delivering correct scores and takes, and providing X-rated content for the younger generations. So, join me in celebrating AMG’s birthday, as I travel back to those early years when I became part of the family and discovered records that shaped the man known, for today at least, as Dr. All. Nostalgic. Grier.
AMG gave to me …
Mors Principium Est // Dawn of the 5th Era – As a n00b, Angry Metal Guy‘s review of Mors Principium Est’s Dawn of the 5th Era made me realize two things: I needed this band in my life and never release an album in December. Thankfully, AMG caught it (while everyone else was busting their asses to write their year-end lists) because it’s a stunning achievement. From that point on, I consider myself one of MPE’s biggest fans. That continuation of the At the Gates sound results in incredible performances and riff after massive riff. Not a single song on this album goes stale and I’ve been listening to it regularly for ten fucking years. I can never seem to find a melodeath group whose entire catalog I march through from beginning to end.5 But MPE is one of them. And, because you might be wondering, … And Death Said Live is their best album.
Voices // London – Back in 2014, I ranked an album I never reviewed. Weird, right? Not only was it a great album, but it was one of my favorite reviews from the illustrious Jean-Luc Ricard, who opened his thoughts with: “If you’re anything like me, you’re super awesome.” Still makes me laugh my ass off. Beyond that, Ricard conveyed the absolute nightmare that you experience when you listen to London. Though Akercocke has since reunited, Voices was an incredible substitute, which takes you through a journey that, somehow, Ricard was able to describe; because I sure as hell can’t. I was doing an oil change on my truck the first time I span it. Never have I taken so long to do that work but I constantly found myself staring off into space, literally frightened by the sounds erupting in my ears. The band has never been able to top London, but that’s OK. It’s one of the beautiful aspects of music—it’s permanent and will be there forever when you need it.
Trials // This Ruined World – When I joined AMG and worked side-by-side with Dr. Fisting, we hit it off. I love the guy and consider him a close friend (though he might not feel the same). When I found out that he started a band called Trials, I had to check it out. With two decent albums under his belt, 2014 saw the release of Trials’ best—and final—album, This Ruined World. I was hooked. And to imagine that without knowing about this band or this person, I might never have experienced his work in Bear Mace and the (to me, at least) incredible Black Sites. Though I don’t return to Trials often, mostly because I can’t pull myself away from Fisting‘s current work, I have a special place in my heart for This Ruined World. It introduced me to a fantastic musician and a good friend.
I wish I had written …
Origin – Omnipresent Review. When you join the crew, the hope is that you get to write that review for a big band. Those bands you grew up with, that released something at that point in your life, or which have such popularity that every other site overrates them. But, at AMG, you kinda have to earn that. Unless it’s, somehow, a popular dungeon synth group; you can just have that. So, when my most-anticipated album of 2014 dropped, I wanted it. But, there wasn’t a chance in hell I would get my hands on Origin’s Omnipresent. I bet you didn’t know I liked tech death, much less Origin. But, I do. I just know there are other, more qualified writers to cover that material. Thankfully, our wise and wonderful Kronos scored it correctly and wrote a fantastic review that describes it perfectly. Since then, I haven’t been as enamored with their material (mostly because this place has turned me into a hateful prick), but that album holds up and still gets many a spin.
I wish I could do over …
Resumed – Alienation Review. I remember when the review for Resumed’s Alienations was published. It was Thanksgiving 2014 and I was already six sheets to the wind when I realized what I was reading: the first double review in AMG history. It wasn’t a record that merited a double but Steel fucked up and double-booked it, thereby unintentionally beginning a trend. Though I couldn’t believe I wasted my time on this thing6 and subjected myself to uncalled-for ridicule, it started one of our most popular segments. Hell, it even led to our Unsigned Band Rodeö pieces. So, for better or worse (and by worse, I mean that year’s burned turkey), we can thank this worthless piece for contributing to AMG lore.
I wish more people had read …
Thine – The Dead City Blueprint [Things You Might Have Missed 2014]. In the process of writing the review for The Deathtrip’s stellar 2014 release, Deep Drone Master, Metal Archives led me to a release we never received. In walks Thine, a progressive rock outfit led by the same person who convinced Aldrahn to come back from retirement to front Deep Drone Master, not to mention drummer Dan Mullins, who returned for My Dying Bride’s newest release. Representing my first ever Things You Might Have Missed piece, I continue to return to this band’s swansong release: it’s beautiful and engaging, and is everything I ever wanted from an album of this caliber. My unpopularity as a n00b, combined with the new year beginning and everyone moving on to January releases, meant no one seemed to care. But I cared. I care so much, in fact, that I’m dropping Thine’s name again, in the hope that Bandcamp credits will be put to good use. You’re welcome.
Dr. Fisting
AMG and me
As a reader of the site’s earliest incarnation, the first thing that stood out to me was that AMG’s writers were clearly educated. Even back then, the reviews were extremely well-written. I don’t mean just in terms of spelling and grammar, but being able to express ideas coherently. If you’ve ever visited any other metal-related sites, you know that these qualities are rare. More importantly, AMG was clearly an independent operation, with no reliance on ad revenue or cozy relationships with record labels. This meant the site was free to post brutally honest reviews, which occasionally resulted in battles against the metal media’s narrative and even the fans themselves. I always enjoyed when some huge band would put out a half-assed album that got rave reviews everywhere else, and then the AMG writeup would take a well-deserved shit on it.
When I started writing for the site a couple of years later, I did my best to uphold those standards. Eventually, as my life and priorities changed, I chose to step back from reviewing to focus on other things. But it was an honor to ride with these guys for as long as I did. I got to review some fantastic records, talk shit about some terrible ones, and make some friends that I am still in contact with to this day.
AMG gave to me …
Pain of Salvation // Road Salt Pt. 1 – I don’t remember if I discovered this record from reading the site or from The Angry One Himself sending it to me (“here, you’ll like this”), but Road Salt Pt. 1 was a complete game-changer. At a time when I was completely bored of “modern metal” and its trappings, I related strongly to PoS’s new direction, in which chug riffs and rapping were replaced by analog ’70s tones and memorable songs. This record was in heavy rotation in the Fisting household, and became a significant influence on my own music.
Satan // Life Sentence – Having missed out on Satan’s original run, I was unaware of their comeback album until the AMG review heaped praise upon it. Lucky for me it did because Life Sentence is full of intelligent lyrics, clever riffs, and memorable hooks. The band has since made three more records, all of which have been varying degrees of excellent. More importantly, discovering Life Sentence sent me on a path to revisit the band’s earlier works, including the highly influential Court in the Act.
Anacrusis // Screams and Whispers – Anacrusis is another band I was completely oblivious to during their lifespan, but discovered much later via Grymm‘s excellent retrospective writeup. This album is incredibly ambitious for its time (1993), pushing thrash metal into new and more introspective territory. There are hints of industrial influence, occasional goth-y keyboards, and some very angular guitar work, even by 1990s standards. This is a classic record from metal’s lost years, and more people should hear it.
I wish I had written …
King’s X – Three Sides of One Review. Not to suggest that Huck didn’t do a fantastic job on the review, because he absolutely nailed it, but King’s X has held a special place in my cold black heart for many years. I should’ve been there for this. There is no good reason why I didn’t do this review (or the related Angry Metal Primer) other than my own laziness and poor time management. Life gets in the way sometimes. I wish I could do over … I regret nothing.
I wish more people had read …
Various reviews of Voivod and Failure albums. As several readers noticed, I made it a personal mission to preach the virtues of Voivod and Failure. I consider both bands to be absolutely brilliant and worthy of greater attention (particularly Failure, whom I suspect most AMG readers are unfamiliar with). I don’t know how many people read those reviews, but whatever that number is, it needed to be more.
#2024 #AMGTurns15 #AmonAmarth #Anacrusis #BlogPost #BlogPosts #Failure #HallAflame #KingsX #MorsPrincipiumEst #Origin #PainOfSalvation #Resumed #Satan #Thine #Trials #Voices #Voivod #WhiteWizzard
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A National Day of Atonement
Robert Jensen
One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting.
In fact, indigenous people have offered such a model; since 1970 they have marked the fourth Thursday of November as a Day of Mourning in a spiritual/political ceremony on Coles Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, one of the early sites of the European invasion of the Americas.
Not only is the thought of such a change in this white-supremacist holiday impossible to imagine, but the very mention of the idea sends most Americans into apoplectic fits — which speaks volumes about our historical hypocrisy and its relation to the contemporary politics of empire in the United States.
That the world’s great powers achieved ‘greatness’ through criminal brutality on a grand scale is not news, of course. That those same societies are reluctant to highlight this history of barbarism also is predictable.
But in the United States, this reluctance to acknowledge our original sin — the genocide of indigenous people — is of special importance today. It’s now routine — even among conservative commentators — to describe the United States as an empire, so long as everyone understands we are an inherently benevolent one. Because all our history contradicts that claim, history must be twisted and tortured to serve the purposes of the powerful.
One vehicle for taming history is various patriotic holidays, with Thanksgiving at the heart of U.S. myth-building. From an early age, we Americans hear a story about the hearty Pilgrims, whose search for freedom took them from England to Massachusetts. There, aided by the friendly Wampanoag Indians, they survived in a new and harsh environment, leading to a harvest feast in 1621 following the Pilgrims first winter.
Some aspects of the conventional story are true enough. But it’s also true that by 1637 Massachusetts Gov. John Winthrop was proclaiming a thanksgiving for the successful massacre of hundreds of Pequot Indian men, women and children, part of the long and bloody process of opening up additional land to the English invaders. The pattern would repeat itself across the continent until between 95 and 99 percent of American Indians had been exterminated and the rest were left to assimilate into white society or die off on reservations, out of the view of polite society.
Simply put: Thanksgiving is the day when the dominant white culture (and, sadly, most of the rest of the non-white but non-indigenous population) celebrates the beginning of a genocide that was, in fact, blessed by the men we hold up as our heroic founding fathers.
The first president, George Washington, in 1783 said he preferred buying Indians’ land rather than driving them off it because that was like driving ‘wild beasts’ from the forest. He compared Indians to wolves, ‘both being beasts of prey, tho’ they differ in shape.’ Thomas Jefferson — president #3 and author of the Declaration of Independence, which refers to Indians as the ‘merciless Indian Savages’ — was known to romanticize Indians and their culture, but that didn’t stop him in 1807 from writing to his secretary of war that in a coming conflict with certain tribes, ‘[W]e shall destroy all of them.’
As the genocide was winding down in the early 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt (president #26) defended the expansion of whites across the continent as an inevitable process ‘due solely to the power of the mighty civilized races which have not lost the fighting instinct, and which by their expansion are gradually bringing peace into the red wastes where the barbarian peoples of the world hold sway.’ Roosevelt also once said, ‘I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.’
How does a country deal with the fact that some of its most revered historical figures had certain moral values and political views virtually identical to Nazis? Here’s how ‘respectable’ politicians, pundits, and professors play the game:
But when one brings into historical discussions any facts and interpretations that contest the celebratory story and make people uncomfortable — such as the genocide of indigenous people as the foundational act in the creation of the United States — suddenly the value of history drops precipitously and one is asked, ‘Why do you insist on dwelling on the past?’
https://www.counterpunch.org/2005/11/21/a-national-day-of-atonement/
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A National Day of Atonement
Robert Jensen
One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting.
In fact, indigenous people have offered such a model; since 1970 they have marked the fourth Thursday of November as a Day of Mourning in a spiritual/political ceremony on Coles Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, one of the early sites of the European invasion of the Americas.
Not only is the thought of such a change in this white-supremacist holiday impossible to imagine, but the very mention of the idea sends most Americans into apoplectic fits — which speaks volumes about our historical hypocrisy and its relation to the contemporary politics of empire in the United States.
That the world’s great powers achieved ‘greatness’ through criminal brutality on a grand scale is not news, of course. That those same societies are reluctant to highlight this history of barbarism also is predictable.
But in the United States, this reluctance to acknowledge our original sin — the genocide of indigenous people — is of special importance today. It’s now routine — even among conservative commentators — to describe the United States as an empire, so long as everyone understands we are an inherently benevolent one. Because all our history contradicts that claim, history must be twisted and tortured to serve the purposes of the powerful.
One vehicle for taming history is various patriotic holidays, with Thanksgiving at the heart of U.S. myth-building. From an early age, we Americans hear a story about the hearty Pilgrims, whose search for freedom took them from England to Massachusetts. There, aided by the friendly Wampanoag Indians, they survived in a new and harsh environment, leading to a harvest feast in 1621 following the Pilgrims first winter.
Some aspects of the conventional story are true enough. But it’s also true that by 1637 Massachusetts Gov. John Winthrop was proclaiming a thanksgiving for the successful massacre of hundreds of Pequot Indian men, women and children, part of the long and bloody process of opening up additional land to the English invaders. The pattern would repeat itself across the continent until between 95 and 99 percent of American Indians had been exterminated and the rest were left to assimilate into white society or die off on reservations, out of the view of polite society.
Simply put: Thanksgiving is the day when the dominant white culture (and, sadly, most of the rest of the non-white but non-indigenous population) celebrates the beginning of a genocide that was, in fact, blessed by the men we hold up as our heroic founding fathers.
The first president, George Washington, in 1783 said he preferred buying Indians’ land rather than driving them off it because that was like driving ‘wild beasts’ from the forest. He compared Indians to wolves, ‘both being beasts of prey, tho’ they differ in shape.’ Thomas Jefferson — president #3 and author of the Declaration of Independence, which refers to Indians as the ‘merciless Indian Savages’ — was known to romanticize Indians and their culture, but that didn’t stop him in 1807 from writing to his secretary of war that in a coming conflict with certain tribes, ‘[W]e shall destroy all of them.’
As the genocide was winding down in the early 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt (president #26) defended the expansion of whites across the continent as an inevitable process ‘due solely to the power of the mighty civilized races which have not lost the fighting instinct, and which by their expansion are gradually bringing peace into the red wastes where the barbarian peoples of the world hold sway.’ Roosevelt also once said, ‘I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.’
How does a country deal with the fact that some of its most revered historical figures had certain moral values and political views virtually identical to Nazis? Here’s how ‘respectable’ politicians, pundits, and professors play the game:
But when one brings into historical discussions any facts and interpretations that contest the celebratory story and make people uncomfortable — such as the genocide of indigenous people as the foundational act in the creation of the United States — suddenly the value of history drops precipitously and one is asked, ‘Why do you insist on dwelling on the past?’
https://www.counterpunch.org/2005/11/21/a-national-day-of-atonement/
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A National Day of Atonement
Robert Jensen
One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting.
In fact, indigenous people have offered such a model; since 1970 they have marked the fourth Thursday of November as a Day of Mourning in a spiritual/political ceremony on Coles Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, one of the early sites of the European invasion of the Americas.
Not only is the thought of such a change in this white-supremacist holiday impossible to imagine, but the very mention of the idea sends most Americans into apoplectic fits — which speaks volumes about our historical hypocrisy and its relation to the contemporary politics of empire in the United States.
That the world’s great powers achieved ‘greatness’ through criminal brutality on a grand scale is not news, of course. That those same societies are reluctant to highlight this history of barbarism also is predictable.
But in the United States, this reluctance to acknowledge our original sin — the genocide of indigenous people — is of special importance today. It’s now routine — even among conservative commentators — to describe the United States as an empire, so long as everyone understands we are an inherently benevolent one. Because all our history contradicts that claim, history must be twisted and tortured to serve the purposes of the powerful.
One vehicle for taming history is various patriotic holidays, with Thanksgiving at the heart of U.S. myth-building. From an early age, we Americans hear a story about the hearty Pilgrims, whose search for freedom took them from England to Massachusetts. There, aided by the friendly Wampanoag Indians, they survived in a new and harsh environment, leading to a harvest feast in 1621 following the Pilgrims first winter.
Some aspects of the conventional story are true enough. But it’s also true that by 1637 Massachusetts Gov. John Winthrop was proclaiming a thanksgiving for the successful massacre of hundreds of Pequot Indian men, women and children, part of the long and bloody process of opening up additional land to the English invaders. The pattern would repeat itself across the continent until between 95 and 99 percent of American Indians had been exterminated and the rest were left to assimilate into white society or die off on reservations, out of the view of polite society.
Simply put: Thanksgiving is the day when the dominant white culture (and, sadly, most of the rest of the non-white but non-indigenous population) celebrates the beginning of a genocide that was, in fact, blessed by the men we hold up as our heroic founding fathers.
The first president, George Washington, in 1783 said he preferred buying Indians’ land rather than driving them off it because that was like driving ‘wild beasts’ from the forest. He compared Indians to wolves, ‘both being beasts of prey, tho’ they differ in shape.’ Thomas Jefferson — president #3 and author of the Declaration of Independence, which refers to Indians as the ‘merciless Indian Savages’ — was known to romanticize Indians and their culture, but that didn’t stop him in 1807 from writing to his secretary of war that in a coming conflict with certain tribes, ‘[W]e shall destroy all of them.’
As the genocide was winding down in the early 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt (president #26) defended the expansion of whites across the continent as an inevitable process ‘due solely to the power of the mighty civilized races which have not lost the fighting instinct, and which by their expansion are gradually bringing peace into the red wastes where the barbarian peoples of the world hold sway.’ Roosevelt also once said, ‘I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.’
How does a country deal with the fact that some of its most revered historical figures had certain moral values and political views virtually identical to Nazis? Here’s how ‘respectable’ politicians, pundits, and professors play the game:
But when one brings into historical discussions any facts and interpretations that contest the celebratory story and make people uncomfortable — such as the genocide of indigenous people as the foundational act in the creation of the United States — suddenly the value of history drops precipitously and one is asked, ‘Why do you insist on dwelling on the past?’
https://www.counterpunch.org/2005/11/21/a-national-day-of-atonement/
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A National Day of Atonement
Robert Jensen
One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting.
In fact, indigenous people have offered such a model; since 1970 they have marked the fourth Thursday of November as a Day of Mourning in a spiritual/political ceremony on Coles Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, one of the early sites of the European invasion of the Americas.
Not only is the thought of such a change in this white-supremacist holiday impossible to imagine, but the very mention of the idea sends most Americans into apoplectic fits — which speaks volumes about our historical hypocrisy and its relation to the contemporary politics of empire in the United States.
That the world’s great powers achieved ‘greatness’ through criminal brutality on a grand scale is not news, of course. That those same societies are reluctant to highlight this history of barbarism also is predictable.
But in the United States, this reluctance to acknowledge our original sin — the genocide of indigenous people — is of special importance today. It’s now routine — even among conservative commentators — to describe the United States as an empire, so long as everyone understands we are an inherently benevolent one. Because all our history contradicts that claim, history must be twisted and tortured to serve the purposes of the powerful.
One vehicle for taming history is various patriotic holidays, with Thanksgiving at the heart of U.S. myth-building. From an early age, we Americans hear a story about the hearty Pilgrims, whose search for freedom took them from England to Massachusetts. There, aided by the friendly Wampanoag Indians, they survived in a new and harsh environment, leading to a harvest feast in 1621 following the Pilgrims first winter.
Some aspects of the conventional story are true enough. But it’s also true that by 1637 Massachusetts Gov. John Winthrop was proclaiming a thanksgiving for the successful massacre of hundreds of Pequot Indian men, women and children, part of the long and bloody process of opening up additional land to the English invaders. The pattern would repeat itself across the continent until between 95 and 99 percent of American Indians had been exterminated and the rest were left to assimilate into white society or die off on reservations, out of the view of polite society.
Simply put: Thanksgiving is the day when the dominant white culture (and, sadly, most of the rest of the non-white but non-indigenous population) celebrates the beginning of a genocide that was, in fact, blessed by the men we hold up as our heroic founding fathers.
The first president, George Washington, in 1783 said he preferred buying Indians’ land rather than driving them off it because that was like driving ‘wild beasts’ from the forest. He compared Indians to wolves, ‘both being beasts of prey, tho’ they differ in shape.’ Thomas Jefferson — president #3 and author of the Declaration of Independence, which refers to Indians as the ‘merciless Indian Savages’ — was known to romanticize Indians and their culture, but that didn’t stop him in 1807 from writing to his secretary of war that in a coming conflict with certain tribes, ‘[W]e shall destroy all of them.’
As the genocide was winding down in the early 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt (president #26) defended the expansion of whites across the continent as an inevitable process ‘due solely to the power of the mighty civilized races which have not lost the fighting instinct, and which by their expansion are gradually bringing peace into the red wastes where the barbarian peoples of the world hold sway.’ Roosevelt also once said, ‘I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.’
How does a country deal with the fact that some of its most revered historical figures had certain moral values and political views virtually identical to Nazis? Here’s how ‘respectable’ politicians, pundits, and professors play the game:
But when one brings into historical discussions any facts and interpretations that contest the celebratory story and make people uncomfortable — such as the genocide of indigenous people as the foundational act in the creation of the United States — suddenly the value of history drops precipitously and one is asked, ‘Why do you insist on dwelling on the past?’
https://www.counterpunch.org/2005/11/21/a-national-day-of-atonement/
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Baume Before Mercier
The recently-announced sale of Baume & Mercier by Richemont to Italian distributor Damiani Group spurred me to research the history of that famous brand. Just as there was a LeCoultre before Jaeger, an Audemars before Piguet, and a Vacheron before Constantin, there was a Baume before Mercier. These unions often tell a story of greater transitions in the industry rather than simply consolidation of corporate control. And the story of the Baume family of Les Bois and London is particularly illuminating.
Long before Baume & Mercier was founded the Baume brothers of Les Bois built a watchmaking enterprise reaching London and beyond!Note: Baume & Mercier is an independent company founded in 1918 by William Baume. This Geneva-based retail and manufacturing company has no real connection to the historic company founded by his great grandfather, Louis-Joseph Baume, with whom we shall begin. His company, known as Frères Baume, was primarily focused on British market through a related company, Baume & Co of London. Even though William Baume worked for these family firms, Baume & Mercier was entirely independent and was locked out of the British market by Baume & Co for most of the 20th century.
The Baume Family of Les Bois
Louis-Joseph Baume (1783-1867) and his wife Agnès née Froidevaux (1786-1850) lived in the remote village of Les Bois, a French-speaking area along the current national border which was annexed into the German-dominated Canton of Berne in 1815. Baume was a farmer like most of his neighbors, but starting in 1834 he also produced watches at a home-based workshop. He would deliver these to La Chaux-de-Fonds, a rising center of watchmaking located an easy 2-hour walk southeast on the Jura plateau. He appears to have been found bankrupt in 1835. The Baume family lost their first five children, four of whom died as young children in 1816. But three daughters and four sons born later survived.
Victor Baume (1817-1887) and his brother Célestin Baume (1819-1880) organized a watchmaking company as “Baume frères” as soon as they reached the age of maturity in 18401. In 1848, when the Indicateur Davoine directory first includes Les Bois, it shows “Baume frères, fabricans d’horlogerie.” This listing also includes their brother, watchmaker Auguste Baume (1820-1859), and a gilding operation also called Baume frères perhaps run with their youngest brother, Eugène Baume (1822-1875).
Their father’s bankruptcy likely kept him from being officially involved, but he certainly continued to contribute to the efforts of his young sons. He died in 1867, having seen his sons build a flourishing watchmaking business, marry, and have children of their own.
Although the original establishment of the company is murky2, it is clear that the Baume family was at the center of watchmaking in Les Bois by the 1840s. Production of components was distributed across the region, with small workshops contributing individual components that were brought together as semi-finished watches to be disassembled, finished, adjusted, and reassembled for sale. The Baume brothers acted as wholesalers, gathering these watches for sale in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Neuchâtel. But the ambitious young men saw greater opportunity in the trade, leaving the village and even the country to make that happen.
An Early and Unusual Vertical Strategy
The hallmark of industrialized watchmaking is vertical integration: Starting in the late 19th century, manufactures like Longines, Omega, and Zénith attempted to consolidate production of as many components as possible under their control, either under the same roof or by purchasing supplier factories. This was a repudiation of the etablisseur tradition, which collected components produced by thousands of tiny workshops to produce a finished watch. Vertical integration was incredibly controversial, pitting traditional watchmaking fathers against their industrialist sons and even whole cities like Geneva and La Chaux-de-Fonds against upstarts like Bienne and Grenchen. This was a wholesale mindset shift that enabled 20th century industrial watchmaking.
This is why the Baume brothers are so interesting: They built a different kind of integrated company that embraced the workshop tradition while ensuring control and quality. And it connected rural Les Bois to La Chaux-de-Fonds, Geneva, and London! There are very few examples of such a far-reaching watchmaking enterprise, and certainly none this early.
Victor Baume (1817-1887) was the oldest surviving son and lead a sprawling network of businesses lead by his three younger brothersThe idea was straightforward but it was incredibly challenging. Each of the four Baume brothers established his own business focused on a key aspect of watchmaking:
- Since he was the oldest son, Victor Baume remained in Les Bois to run the company and source raw components from the workshops of the Jura
- Célestin Baume moved to England, focused on watch finishing and sales, leveraging the skilled watchmakers in Clerkenwell north of London
- Auguste Baume specialized in gilding movements and producing dials, first in Les Bois but soon moving to La Chaux-de-Fonds
- Eugène Baume ran a finishing and sales operation in Geneva, securing the finest watchmaking skills and commercial opportunities there
This dispersed watchmaking enterprise was active by the 1850s, when the Baume brothers were still under 40. Their presence in London and Geneva gave them an incredible understanding of the market, which was widely misunderstood by parochial competitors in the Vallée de Joux, Le Locle, and La Chaux-de-Fonds. And their effective use of the finest watchmakers in these cities allowed them to exploit the inexpensive and rough components produced in the Swiss Jura.
Focus on the English Market
The young Baume brothers faced a significant decision in the 1840s: Would they produce watches in the thinner French style or the robust English genre? Given that their home in the Swiss Jura was firmly in the French sphere of influence (harboring both Huguenots and French Catholics alongside revolutionaries opposed to German Berne) one would think it a simple choice. And since Les Bois was among the first Swiss firms to adopt the cylinder escapement and Lépine ebauche, their watches were better suited for the French market. But Victor Baume opted instead to build a bridge between Les Bois and London, and 25 year old Célestin Baume departed for London in 1844.
Clerkenwell was filled with watchmaking workshops in the 18th centuryBaume settled in Clerkenwell, which was a center for watchmakers in the 1850s. As was the case everywhere before the industrial revolution, British watchmakers worked in small workshops, performing specialized tasks to produce finished watches. But the watchmakers of Clerkenwell were far more skilled than their Swiss counterparts at this time, and they knew exactly what British buyers wanted. Célestin Baume quickly built a network of specialists that could turn the rough components of the Jura into high-quality English style watches.
The Baume brothers innovated beyond the classic English watch design, but always kept close enough to keep from alienating customers. The firm created the first watch to use the 3/4 plate design typical in Germany with their modern cylinder escapement. And as early as 1851 they created the first so-called “flat glass” cases, with a tall polished bezel housing a flat glass crystal. These soon became popular with English gentlemen and were widely copied.
The watches produced by the Baume brothers were in strong demand in London and the British Empire. It was said that wholesalers would descend on the Clerkenwell office as soon as a new batch was ready, carrying them throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland. Baume even had distributors carrying their watches to Australia and New Zealand as well as British ports in Asia.
A photograph of Hatton Garden in 1895As early as 1852 Célestin Baume had partnered in a retail operation located along the fashionable street of Hatton Garden. Baume & Lezard remained in operation until 1872, exposing the company’s products to buyers from around the British Empire. The company chose the block of buildings behind the Union Bank at Holborn Circle, situated alongside many other jewelers and watch retailers. This block remains the home of upscale jewelers today and was the home of the De Beers diamond company for a century.
In 1876, control of the London operation passed from Célestin Baume to his nephew, Arthur (about 1852-1936). Over nearly a half-century in Hatton Garden, Arthur Baume would become a fixture in London society, contributing to the so-called “Swiss Colony” as well as more conventional organizations like the Royal Geographical Society. Arthur’s connections allowed him to challenge the status quo of British watches, tempting fashionable gentlemen away from the old fashioned designs that had earned Baume & Company a place in the market.
In addition to selling watches produced by their own workshops in London and Switzerland, the Baume & Company showroom represented the Longines factory of Saint-Imier. The English considered the anchor or “Swiss lever” escapement to be unreliable, but the Longines watch was eventually able to overcome this reputation. Thus, the Baume Brothers not only met the needs of the British market but cracked it open for French and Swiss imports! The Baume Frères “Ironclad” pocket watch also caught on with the British sportsman thanks to its unusual oxidized steel case.
Another major new product to reach Switzerland through the Baume showroom was the so-called “Four-in-Hand” watch. This used a large 38-ligne movement and could be mounted on the dashboard of a “brougham, dog-cart, Raleigh cart, or similar vehicle.” Longines produced these clocks with 30-hour or 8-day movements as large as 60 lignes and they became a must-have accessory that lasted even into the time of the automobile.
Consolidation of Swiss Suppliers
While Célestin focused on his English customers, his brothers continued to organize and centralize their supplier relationships.
The third brother, Auguste Baume focused on gilding (“dorage”) in the first half of the 1850s but was listed alongside Baume frères in Les Bois as a “negociant et fabricant” in the second half of the decade. About 1856, Auguste moved to La Chaux-de-Fonds to tap into the network of suppliers there, but this effort was cut short: He died on May 29 1859 at just 38 years of age. Still, the Baume family maintained its ties to suppliers in La Chaux-de-Fonds, and would move the operation to the city in the 20th century.
The Baume workshop in Geneva was located in the long block of buildings across the yard from the railroad station shown in this 1860s illustrationYoungest brother Eugène Baume was a skilled assembler of watches in Les Bois before moving to Geneva in 1859. He spent his life connecting the Baume family to the skilled makers of complicated watches and suppliers of gold cases there. His watch finishing operation was located on the right bank in Geneva, moving one block from Rue du Pradier 3 to rue du Mont-Blanc 20 by 1866. Eugène’s life was cut short on February 24, 1875, ending the official presence of the Frères Baume in Geneva.
The marriages of the Baume siblings created deeper connections: Their spouses included a Chapuis, two Jobins, two Girardins, and a Piquerez, all familiar names in watchmaking. There are many records showing contributions by the Jobin family in particular3 to the growing Baume enterprise, jointly opening a steam-powered watch case factory in Le Noirmont and Les Bois.
The 1857 Industrie-Ausstellung in Berne is remembered as the first true national expositionIn 1857 the Frères Baume exhibited at the Swiss Trade and Industrial Exhibition in Berne. This was a predecessor to the familiar Swiss Industries Fair in Basel (later called BaselWorld) as well as the famous series of national expositions, which continue to this day. The company sent 59 watches (21 in silver and 38 in gold), “all exquisitely crafted and valued at over 7,000 francs; they were produced by Messrs. Baume in the style of the watches they manufacture for the English market, where the firm successfully sells its products to great advantage.” The company was criticized for the crudeness of its display (it was the first-ever such expo after all), as well as the fact that none of its successful English-style watches were included. But this is no surprise, since the company was already producing different watches in Les Bois, Geneva, and London, and this exhibit only reflected local products from the Jura region. Considering how young the company was, this global scope was truly revolutionary.
Fragmentation of the Baume Family
Perhaps it is unsurprising that this far-reaching and interconnected network of companies did not last. Control of the Baume family business fell solely to Victor’s sons, since Auguste and Eugène lacked heirs, and Célestin’s son Alexandre died tragically in Alsace in 1894.
Alcide and Virgile Baume replaced Victor and his brothers as the namesake “frères Baume” in the 1883 FOSC survey of Swiss businesses, though Victor Baume retained his power of attorney until his death in September of 1887. Alcide, Virgile, and Mélina Baume inherited the Swiss properties of their father Victor three years earlier; middle brother Arthur Baume is left out, as he had become a British citizen and taken over the London firm of Baume & Co in 1876.
The Les Bois factory was offered for sale in August of 1889 as the firm became more reliant on suppliers in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Geneva24 year old Virgile Baume aligned himself with the London branch in 1885, moving to Geneva to re-establish Baume & Co there after the death of his uncle Eugène a decade earlier. He was removed from the Les Bois operation in 1892, with his older brother Alcide Baume becoming the sole “successeur de Baume frères.” Alcide also took over the Le Noirmont watch case factory formerly called Baume & Jobin. But Alcide was increasingly focused on supplier companies outside Les Bois. In August 1889 he offered the company’s brand new factory, including its 8 horsepower steam power plant, for sale. He simply no longer needed manufacturing in the village of his birth.
Everything seemed to be going well for Alcide Baume, who married Alexine Chapuis and welcomed twin sons Jämes and Alexandre in 1882, followed by Rachel in 1884, William in 1885, Jeanne in 1887, and Marguerite in 1892. But Alcide’s family would never be as close as their predecessors. Alexine died on September 8, 1893, leaving business-focused Alcide with six young children. They were raised at boarding schools4, as their father and uncles had been, but with no home in Les Bois to welcome them.
Jeanneret and Mosimann
With Jämes Baume intent on becoming a dentist, Alcide Baume sent his twin Alexandre to London in 1904 to learn about the family’s British business. It is likely that Alexandre worked at Baume & Co in Hatton Garden alongside another Swiss apprentice three years older, Paul-César Jeanneret. Alexandre must have impressed his uncle Arthur, as he remained in London and took over the British operation in 1923.
Paul-C. Jeanneret was sent back to La Chaux-de-Fonds a few months after Alexandre arrived to establish a better supply network for Baume & Co. This operation was acquired in 1909, becoming an official subsidiary of the British firm.
With the historic Baume family workshop in Les Bois now closed, the remaining corporate structure was merged into an established firm in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1911. Ulrich Mosimann established a watch workshop in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1876, the same year Arthur took over Baume & Co in London. He was likely a supplier of the British branch, either directly or through Victor and Alcide Baume in Les Bois. His sons, Paul and Albert Mosimann, took over the company as Mosimann frères following his death in 1889 and incorporated it as Mosimann & Cie six years later. Paul Mosimann became increasingly important in politics and in the Swiss watch industry, becoming mayor of La Chaux-de-Fonds and a National Councilor and president of the Chambre Suisse de l’Horlogerie, leaving him little time for his family firm.
Following their 1911 acquisition of the Baume family watchmaking business, Mosimann & Cie became their true successor. Their Mildia brand was acquired by Schwarz-Etienne in 1976 and closed in 2004.When Paul Mosimann left Mosimann & Cie in 1911, the former firm of Alcide Baume in Les Bois was absorbed into it, with Alcide’s son William Baume joining Albert Mosimann as owner.
The three successor companies (Baume & Co of London and La Chaux-de-Fonds and Mosimann & Cie) must have been very close indeed: They used the same trademarks, with confusing overlapping registrations for “Baume Watch”, “Baume”, and the “B & Co” hallmark found on British and Swiss movements alike. Following the death of Alcide Baume on May 20, 1916 the La Chaux-de-Fonds businesses even shared the same office at Rue du Nord 1165. Jeanneret left the company in 1913 to focus on greater ambitions, becoming the head of the Syndicat des Fabricants Suisses de Montres Or and founding the Information Horlogère Suisse, a clearinghouse of industry statistics. He was replaced by young William Baume, son of Alcide and brother of Alexandre.
Baume & Mercier, Baume & Company, and Baume
Following the death of his father, with his brother ensconced in London and the historic Baume family companies now under the ownership of the Mosimann family, William Baume looked elsewhere. He had met a dashing salesman at the Geneva showroom of Haas Neveux while on a business trip in 1912. Baume decided to take his inheritance and invest it in a new partnership with Paul Tcherednitchenko-dit-Mercier in 1918. Thus, the Geneva firm of Baume et Mercier was born.
Baume & Mercier was located on the Grand Quai next to the famous Hotel Metropole in GenevaIn 1923, after nearly 50 years in control, Arthur Baume passed control of Baume & Company in London to his nephew, William brother, Alexandre Baume. He continued to grow the business there, soon coming into competition with his brother’s Baume & Mercier. Baume & Company was able to prevent the Geneva upstart from using the family name in the British market, especially after William was forced out during the Great Depression. Alexandre was succeeded in 1946 by his own son, Louis-C. Baume, who continued the firm until the 1960s.
Following his 1934 departure from his namesake firm of Baume & Mercier, William Baume opened a retail jewelry store in Geneva. The Baume showroom, located directly across the street from the famous department store Grand Passage, represented the great Swiss watch brands: Zénith, Tissot, Omega, Longines, and even Baume & Mercier! The business was continued by Baume’s own sons well into the 1970s.
William Baume became a retail jeweler after being forced out of Baume & Mercier during the Great DepressionThe Grail Watch Perspective
The most impressive accomplishment of the Baume family was how quickly they built a global watchmaking business, and how early they were to the idea of vertical integration. Even before industrialization and factories, Victor Baume and his brothers understood the importance of controlling the supply chain and the value of reaching all the way to the customer. Despite being constrained by the nature of watchmaking in the 19th century, both in Switzerland and in England, which was limited to small workshops and suppliers, the Baume brothers built a remarkable enterprise.
The wide reach of the Baume family watchmaking business made it incredibly difficult to research. There is very little primary source information, and I am far more adept when it comes to Swiss history than British archives. Thankfully, David Boettcher beat me to it with a thorough look at Baume & Company in England, and I suggest looking at his excellent article! I have far more to say on this subject, and hope to write a follow-on article about “Baume After Mercier” in the future.
Notes
1) It is often said that Victor and Célestin Baume organized a watchmaking company in 1834, but this must have been their father, since Victor (the oldest) was just 17 years of age and could not legally or practically form a company at this point. For decades, Baume & Mercier advertising has shown a date of 1830, but this does not correspond with anything in historic records. Incredibly, even William Baume included “Horloger depuis 1830” in his advertisements in the 1940s!
2) In 2010, Baume & Mercier posted a series of 16 diary entries alleged to be written by Victor Baume and his grandson, William. Although it is filled with anachronisms and inaccuracies, it contains some interesting details on the family and makes for an enjoyable read. But the connection between the Baume family and Baume & Mercier is vastly over-stated in modern times.
3) The Jobin and Baume families did not always get along: Aurèle Jobin clashed with his cousin Arthur Baume shortly after he moved to London to take over Baume & Co in 1876. This lead to a public confrontation when Alcide Baume sent Aurèle’s private apology to Le Jura for publication!
4) Even 18 moth old Marguerite was sent to boarding school: The 2010 diary, which appears better-sourced when it comes to William’s entries, claims that Marguerite was raised at a boarding school in Vienna. It also claims she sat on the lap of Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph, an odd and specific recollection.
5) Despite housing two companies, and being on the block below the famous Montbrillant factory, the building at Rue du Nord 116 was not very large or notable. I was unable to find a good photo, let alone any indication of the occupants.
#BaumeCo #BaumeMercier #Geneva #LaChauxDeFonds #LesBois #London #Longines #Mildia -
Baume Before Mercier
The recently-announced sale of Baume & Mercier by Richemont to Italian distributor Damiani Group spurred me to research the history of that famous brand. Just as there was a LeCoultre before Jaeger, an Audemars before Piguet, and a Vacheron before Constantin, there was a Baume before Mercier. These unions often tell a story of greater transitions in the industry rather than simply consolidation of corporate control. And the story of the Baume family of Les Bois and London is particularly illuminating.
Long before Baume & Mercier was founded the Baume brothers of Les Bois built a watchmaking enterprise reaching London and beyond!Note: Baume & Mercier is an independent company founded in 1918 by William Baume. This Geneva-based retail and manufacturing company has no real connection to the historic company founded by his great grandfather, Louis-Joseph Baume, with whom we shall begin. His company, known as Frères Baume, was primarily focused on British market through a related company, Baume & Co of London. Even though William Baume worked for these family firms, Baume & Mercier was entirely independent and was locked out of the British market by Baume & Co for most of the 20th century.
The Baume Family of Les Bois
Louis-Joseph Baume (1783-1867) and his wife Agnès née Froidevaux (1786-1850) lived in the remote village of Les Bois, a French-speaking area along the current national border which was annexed into the German-dominated Canton of Berne in 1815. Baume was a farmer like most of his neighbors, but starting in 1834 he also produced watches at a home-based workshop. He would deliver these to La Chaux-de-Fonds, a rising center of watchmaking located an easy 2-hour walk southeast on the Jura plateau. He appears to have been found bankrupt in 1835. The Baume family lost their first five children, four of whom died as young children in 1816. But three daughters and four sons born later survived.
Victor Baume (1817-1887) and his brother Célestin Baume (1819-1880) organized a watchmaking company as “Baume frères” as soon as they reached the age of maturity in 18401. In 1848, when the Indicateur Davoine directory first includes Les Bois, it shows “Baume frères, fabricans d’horlogerie.” This listing also includes their brother, watchmaker Auguste Baume (1820-1859), and a gilding operation also called Baume frères perhaps run with their youngest brother, Eugène Baume (1822-1875).
Their father’s bankruptcy likely kept him from being officially involved, but he certainly continued to contribute to the efforts of his young sons. He died in 1867, having seen his sons build a flourishing watchmaking business, marry, and have children of their own.
Although the original establishment of the company is murky2, it is clear that the Baume family was at the center of watchmaking in Les Bois by the 1840s. Production of components was distributed across the region, with small workshops contributing individual components that were brought together as semi-finished watches to be disassembled, finished, adjusted, and reassembled for sale. The Baume brothers acted as wholesalers, gathering these watches for sale in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Neuchâtel. But the ambitious young men saw greater opportunity in the trade, leaving the village and even the country to make that happen.
An Early and Unusual Vertical Strategy
The hallmark of industrialized watchmaking is vertical integration: Starting in the late 19th century, manufactures like Longines, Omega, and Zénith attempted to consolidate production of as many components as possible under their control, either under the same roof or by purchasing supplier factories. This was a repudiation of the etablisseur tradition, which collected components produced by thousands of tiny workshops to produce a finished watch. Vertical integration was incredibly controversial, pitting traditional watchmaking fathers against their industrialist sons and even whole cities like Geneva and La Chaux-de-Fonds against upstarts like Bienne and Grenchen. This was a wholesale mindset shift that enabled 20th century industrial watchmaking.
This is why the Baume brothers are so interesting: They built a different kind of integrated company that embraced the workshop tradition while ensuring control and quality. And it connected rural Les Bois to La Chaux-de-Fonds, Geneva, and London! There are very few examples of such a far-reaching watchmaking enterprise, and certainly none this early.
Victor Baume (1817-1887) was the oldest surviving son and lead a sprawling network of businesses lead by his three younger brothersThe idea was straightforward but it was incredibly challenging. Each of the four Baume brothers established his own business focused on a key aspect of watchmaking:
- Since he was the oldest son, Victor Baume remained in Les Bois to run the company and source raw components from the workshops of the Jura
- Célestin Baume moved to England, focused on watch finishing and sales, leveraging the skilled watchmakers in Clerkenwell north of London
- Auguste Baume specialized in gilding movements and producing dials, first in Les Bois but soon moving to La Chaux-de-Fonds
- Eugène Baume ran a finishing and sales operation in Geneva, securing the finest watchmaking skills and commercial opportunities there
This dispersed watchmaking enterprise was active by the 1850s, when the Baume brothers were still under 40. Their presence in London and Geneva gave them an incredible understanding of the market, which was widely misunderstood by parochial competitors in the Vallée de Joux, Le Locle, and La Chaux-de-Fonds. And their effective use of the finest watchmakers in these cities allowed them to exploit the inexpensive and rough components produced in the Swiss Jura.
Focus on the English Market
The young Baume brothers faced a significant decision in the 1840s: Would they produce watches in the thinner French style or the robust English genre? Given that their home in the Swiss Jura was firmly in the French sphere of influence (harboring both Huguenots and French Catholics alongside revolutionaries opposed to German Berne) one would think it a simple choice. And since Les Bois was among the first Swiss firms to adopt the cylinder escapement and Lépine ebauche, their watches were better suited for the French market. But Victor Baume opted instead to build a bridge between Les Bois and London, and 25 year old Célestin Baume departed for London in 1844.
Clerkenwell was filled with watchmaking workshops in the 18th centuryBaume settled in Clerkenwell, which was a center for watchmakers in the 1850s. As was the case everywhere before the industrial revolution, British watchmakers worked in small workshops, performing specialized tasks to produce finished watches. But the watchmakers of Clerkenwell were far more skilled than their Swiss counterparts at this time, and they knew exactly what British buyers wanted. Célestin Baume quickly built a network of specialists that could turn the rough components of the Jura into high-quality English style watches.
The Baume brothers innovated beyond the classic English watch design, but always kept close enough to keep from alienating customers. The firm created the first watch to use the 3/4 plate design typical in Germany with their modern cylinder escapement. And as early as 1851 they created the first so-called “flat glass” cases, with a tall polished bezel housing a flat glass crystal. These soon became popular with English gentlemen and were widely copied.
The watches produced by the Baume brothers were in strong demand in London and the British Empire. It was said that wholesalers would descend on the Clerkenwell office as soon as a new batch was ready, carrying them throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland. Baume even had distributors carrying their watches to Australia and New Zealand as well as British ports in Asia.
A photograph of Hatton Garden in 1895As early as 1852 Célestin Baume had partnered in a retail operation located along the fashionable street of Hatton Garden. Baume & Lezard remained in operation until 1872, exposing the company’s products to buyers from around the British Empire. The company chose the block of buildings behind the Union Bank at Holborn Circle, situated alongside many other jewelers and watch retailers. This block remains the home of upscale jewelers today and was the home of the De Beers diamond company for a century.
In 1876, control of the London operation passed from Célestin Baume to his nephew, Arthur (about 1852-1936). Over nearly a half-century in Hatton Garden, Arthur Baume would become a fixture in London society, contributing to the so-called “Swiss Colony” as well as more conventional organizations like the Royal Geographical Society. Arthur’s connections allowed him to challenge the status quo of British watches, tempting fashionable gentlemen away from the old fashioned designs that had earned Baume & Company a place in the market.
In addition to selling watches produced by their own workshops in London and Switzerland, the Baume & Company showroom represented the Longines factory of Saint-Imier. The English considered the anchor or “Swiss lever” escapement to be unreliable, but the Longines watch was eventually able to overcome this reputation. Thus, the Baume Brothers not only met the needs of the British market but cracked it open for French and Swiss imports! The Baume Frères “Ironclad” pocket watch also caught on with the British sportsman thanks to its unusual oxidized steel case.
Another major new product to reach Switzerland through the Baume showroom was the so-called “Four-in-Hand” watch. This used a large 38-ligne movement and could be mounted on the dashboard of a “brougham, dog-cart, Raleigh cart, or similar vehicle.” Longines produced these clocks with 30-hour or 8-day movements as large as 60 lignes and they became a must-have accessory that lasted even into the time of the automobile.
Consolidation of Swiss Suppliers
While Célestin focused on his English customers, his brothers continued to organize and centralize their supplier relationships.
The third brother, Auguste Baume focused on gilding (“dorage”) in the first half of the 1850s but was listed alongside Baume frères in Les Bois as a “negociant et fabricant” in the second half of the decade. About 1856, Auguste moved to La Chaux-de-Fonds to tap into the network of suppliers there, but this effort was cut short: He died on May 29 1859 at just 38 years of age. Still, the Baume family maintained its ties to suppliers in La Chaux-de-Fonds, and would move the operation to the city in the 20th century.
The Baume workshop in Geneva was located in the long block of buildings across the yard from the railroad station shown in this 1860s illustrationYoungest brother Eugène Baume was a skilled assembler of watches in Les Bois before moving to Geneva in 1859. He spent his life connecting the Baume family to the skilled makers of complicated watches and suppliers of gold cases there. His watch finishing operation was located on the right bank in Geneva, moving one block from Rue du Pradier 3 to rue du Mont-Blanc 20 by 1866. Eugène’s life was cut short on February 24, 1875, ending the official presence of the Frères Baume in Geneva.
The marriages of the Baume siblings created deeper connections: Their spouses included a Chapuis, two Jobins, two Girardins, and a Piquerez, all familiar names in watchmaking. There are many records showing contributions by the Jobin family in particular3 to the growing Baume enterprise, jointly opening a steam-powered watch case factory in Le Noirmont and Les Bois.
The 1857 Industrie-Ausstellung in Berne is remembered as the first true national expositionIn 1857 the Frères Baume exhibited at the Swiss Trade and Industrial Exhibition in Berne. This was a predecessor to the familiar Swiss Industries Fair in Basel (later called BaselWorld) as well as the famous series of national expositions, which continue to this day. The company sent 59 watches (21 in silver and 38 in gold), “all exquisitely crafted and valued at over 7,000 francs; they were produced by Messrs. Baume in the style of the watches they manufacture for the English market, where the firm successfully sells its products to great advantage.” The company was criticized for the crudeness of its display (it was the first-ever such expo after all), as well as the fact that none of its successful English-style watches were included. But this is no surprise, since the company was already producing different watches in Les Bois, Geneva, and London, and this exhibit only reflected local products from the Jura region. Considering how young the company was, this global scope was truly revolutionary.
Fragmentation of the Baume Family
Perhaps it is unsurprising that this far-reaching and interconnected network of companies did not last. Control of the Baume family business fell solely to Victor’s sons, since Auguste and Eugène lacked heirs, and Célestin’s son Alexandre died tragically in Alsace in 1894.
Alcide and Virgile Baume replaced Victor and his brothers as the namesake “frères Baume” in the 1883 FOSC survey of Swiss businesses, though Victor Baume retained his power of attorney until his death in September of 1887. Alcide, Virgile, and Mélina Baume inherited the Swiss properties of their father Victor three years earlier; middle brother Arthur Baume is left out, as he had become a British citizen and taken over the London firm of Baume & Co in 1876.
The Les Bois factory was offered for sale in August of 1889 as the firm became more reliant on suppliers in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Geneva24 year old Virgile Baume aligned himself with the London branch in 1885, moving to Geneva to re-establish Baume & Co there after the death of his uncle Eugène a decade earlier. He was removed from the Les Bois operation in 1892, with his older brother Alcide Baume becoming the sole “successeur de Baume frères.” Alcide also took over the Le Noirmont watch case factory formerly called Baume & Jobin. But Alcide was increasingly focused on supplier companies outside Les Bois. In August 1889 he offered the company’s brand new factory, including its 8 horsepower steam power plant, for sale. He simply no longer needed manufacturing in the village of his birth.
Everything seemed to be going well for Alcide Baume, who married Alexine Chapuis and welcomed twin sons Jämes and Alexandre in 1882, followed by Rachel in 1884, William in 1885, Jeanne in 1887, and Marguerite in 1892. But Alcide’s family would never be as close as their predecessors. Alexine died on September 8, 1893, leaving business-focused Alcide with six young children. They were raised at boarding schools4, as their father and uncles had been, but with no home in Les Bois to welcome them.
Jeanneret and Mosimann
With Jämes Baume intent on becoming a dentist, Alcide Baume sent his twin Alexandre to London in 1904 to learn about the family’s British business. It is likely that Alexandre worked at Baume & Co in Hatton Garden alongside another Swiss apprentice three years older, Paul-César Jeanneret. Alexandre must have impressed his uncle Arthur, as he remained in London and took over the British operation in 1923.
Paul-C. Jeanneret was sent back to La Chaux-de-Fonds a few months after Alexandre arrived to establish a better supply network for Baume & Co. This operation was acquired in 1909, becoming an official subsidiary of the British firm.
With the historic Baume family workshop in Les Bois now closed, the remaining corporate structure was merged into an established firm in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1911. Ulrich Mosimann established a watch workshop in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1876, the same year Arthur took over Baume & Co in London. He was likely a supplier of the British branch, either directly or through Victor and Alcide Baume in Les Bois. His sons, Paul and Albert Mosimann, took over the company as Mosimann frères following his death in 1889 and incorporated it as Mosimann & Cie six years later. Paul Mosimann became increasingly important in politics and in the Swiss watch industry, becoming mayor of La Chaux-de-Fonds and a National Councilor and president of the Chambre Suisse de l’Horlogerie, leaving him little time for his family firm.
Following their 1911 acquisition of the Baume family watchmaking business, Mosimann & Cie became their true successor. Their Mildia brand was acquired by Schwarz-Etienne in 1976 and closed in 2004.When Paul Mosimann left Mosimann & Cie in 1911, the former firm of Alcide Baume in Les Bois was absorbed into it, with Alcide’s son William Baume joining Albert Mosimann as owner.
The three successor companies (Baume & Co of London and La Chaux-de-Fonds and Mosimann & Cie) must have been very close indeed: They used the same trademarks, with confusing overlapping registrations for “Baume Watch”, “Baume”, and the “B & Co” hallmark found on British and Swiss movements alike. Following the death of Alcide Baume on May 20, 1916 the La Chaux-de-Fonds businesses even shared the same office at Rue du Nord 1165. Jeanneret left the company in 1913 to focus on greater ambitions, becoming the head of the Syndicat des Fabricants Suisses de Montres Or and founding the Information Horlogère Suisse, a clearinghouse of industry statistics. He was replaced by young William Baume, son of Alcide and brother of Alexandre.
Baume & Mercier, Baume & Company, and Baume
Following the death of his father, with his brother ensconced in London and the historic Baume family companies now under the ownership of the Mosimann family, William Baume looked elsewhere. He had met a dashing salesman at the Geneva showroom of Haas Neveux while on a business trip in 1912. Baume decided to take his inheritance and invest it in a new partnership with Paul Tcherednitchenko-dit-Mercier in 1918. Thus, the Geneva firm of Baume et Mercier was born.
Baume & Mercier was located on the Grand Quai next to the famous Hotel Metropole in GenevaIn 1923, after nearly 50 years in control, Arthur Baume passed control of Baume & Company in London to his nephew, William brother, Alexandre Baume. He continued to grow the business there, soon coming into competition with his brother’s Baume & Mercier. Baume & Company was able to prevent the Geneva upstart from using the family name in the British market, especially after William was forced out during the Great Depression. Alexandre was succeeded in 1946 by his own son, Louis-C. Baume, who continued the firm until the 1960s.
Following his 1934 departure from his namesake firm of Baume & Mercier, William Baume opened a retail jewelry store in Geneva. The Baume showroom, located directly across the street from the famous department store Grand Passage, represented the great Swiss watch brands: Zénith, Tissot, Omega, Longines, and even Baume & Mercier! The business was continued by Baume’s own sons well into the 1970s.
William Baume became a retail jeweler after being forced out of Baume & Mercier during the Great DepressionThe Grail Watch Perspective
The most impressive accomplishment of the Baume family was how quickly they built a global watchmaking business, and how early they were to the idea of vertical integration. Even before industrialization and factories, Victor Baume and his brothers understood the importance of controlling the supply chain and the value of reaching all the way to the customer. Despite being constrained by the nature of watchmaking in the 19th century, both in Switzerland and in England, which was limited to small workshops and suppliers, the Baume brothers built a remarkable enterprise.
The wide reach of the Baume family watchmaking business made it incredibly difficult to research. There is very little primary source information, and I am far more adept when it comes to Swiss history than British archives. Thankfully, David Boettcher beat me to it with a thorough look at Baume & Company in England, and I suggest looking at his excellent article! I have far more to say on this subject, and hope to write a follow-on article about “Baume After Mercier” in the future.
Notes
- It is often said that Victor and Célestin Baume organized a watchmaking company in 1834, but this must have been their father, since Victor (the oldest) was just 17 years of age and could not legally or practically form a company at this point. For decades, Baume & Mercier advertising has shown a date of 1830, but this does not correspond with anything in historic records. Incredibly, even William Baume included “Horloger depuis 1830” in his advertisements in the 1940s!
- In 2010, Baume & Mercier posted a series of 16 diary entries alleged to be written by Victor Baume and his grandson, William. Although it is filled with anachronisms and inaccuracies, it contains some interesting details on the family and makes for an enjoyable read. But the connection between the Baume family and Baume & Mercier is vastly over-stated in modern times.
- The Jobin and Baume families did not always get along: Aurèle Jobin clashed with his cousin Arthur Baume shortly after he moved to London to take over Baume & Co in 1876. This lead to a public confrontation when Alcide Baume sent Aurèle’s private apology to Le Jura for publication!
- Even 18 moth old Marguerite was sent to boarding school: The 2010 diary, which appears better-sourced when it comes to William’s entries, claims that Marguerite was raised at a boarding school in Vienna. It also claims she sat on the lap of Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph, an odd and specific recollection.
- Despite housing two companies, and being on the block below the famous Montbrillant factory, the building at Rue du Nord 116 was not very large or notable. I was unable to find a good photo, let alone any indication of the occupants.
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Baume Before Mercier
The recently-announced sale of Baume & Mercier by Richemont to Italian distributor Damiani Group spurred me to research the history of that famous brand. Just as there was a LeCoultre before Jaeger, an Audemars before Piguet, and a Vacheron before Constantin, there was a Baume before Mercier. These unions often tell a story of greater transitions in the industry rather than simply consolidation of corporate control. And the story of the Baume family of Les Bois and London is particularly illuminating.
Long before Baume & Mercier was founded the Baume brothers of Les Bois built a watchmaking enterprise reaching London and beyond!Note: Baume & Mercier is an independent company founded in 1918 by William Baume. This Geneva-based retail and manufacturing company has no real connection to the historic company founded by his great grandfather, Louis-Joseph Baume, with whom we shall begin. His company, known as Frères Baume, was primarily focused on British market through a related company, Baume & Co of London. Even though William Baume worked for these family firms, Baume & Mercier was entirely independent and was locked out of the British market by Baume & Co for most of the 20th century.
The Baume Family of Les Bois
Louis-Joseph Baume (1783-1867) and his wife Agnès née Froidevaux (1786-1850) lived in the remote village of Les Bois, a French-speaking area along the current national border which was annexed into the German-dominated Canton of Berne in 1815. Baume was a farmer like most of his neighbors, but starting in 1834 he also produced watches at a home-based workshop. He would deliver these to La Chaux-de-Fonds, a rising center of watchmaking located an easy 2-hour walk southeast on the Jura plateau. He appears to have been found bankrupt in 1835. The Baume family lost their first five children, four of whom died as young children in 1816. But three daughters and four sons born later survived.
Victor Baume (1817-1887) and his brother Célestin Baume (1819-1880) organized a watchmaking company as “Baume frères” as soon as they reached the age of maturity in 18401. In 1848, when the Indicateur Davoine directory first includes Les Bois, it shows “Baume frères, fabricans d’horlogerie.” This listing also includes their brother, watchmaker Auguste Baume (1820-1859), and a gilding operation also called Baume frères perhaps run with their youngest brother, Eugène Baume (1822-1875).
Their father’s bankruptcy likely kept him from being officially involved, but he certainly continued to contribute to the efforts of his young sons. He died in 1867, having seen his sons build a flourishing watchmaking business, marry, and have children of their own.
Although the original establishment of the company is murky2, it is clear that the Baume family was at the center of watchmaking in Les Bois by the 1840s. Production of components was distributed across the region, with small workshops contributing individual components that were brought together as semi-finished watches to be disassembled, finished, adjusted, and reassembled for sale. The Baume brothers acted as wholesalers, gathering these watches for sale in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Neuchâtel. But the ambitious young men saw greater opportunity in the trade, leaving the village and even the country to make that happen.
An Early and Unusual Vertical Strategy
The hallmark of industrialized watchmaking is vertical integration: Starting in the late 19th century, manufactures like Longines, Omega, and Zénith attempted to consolidate production of as many components as possible under their control, either under the same roof or by purchasing supplier factories. This was a repudiation of the etablisseur tradition, which collected components produced by thousands of tiny workshops to produce a finished watch. Vertical integration was incredibly controversial, pitting traditional watchmaking fathers against their industrialist sons and even whole cities like Geneva and La Chaux-de-Fonds against upstarts like Bienne and Grenchen. This was a wholesale mindset shift that enabled 20th century industrial watchmaking.
This is why the Baume brothers are so interesting: They built a different kind of integrated company that embraced the workshop tradition while ensuring control and quality. And it connected rural Les Bois to La Chaux-de-Fonds, Geneva, and London! There are very few examples of such a far-reaching watchmaking enterprise, and certainly none this early.
Victor Baume (1817-1887) was the oldest surviving son and lead a sprawling network of businesses lead by his three younger brothersThe idea was straightforward but it was incredibly challenging. Each of the four Baume brothers established his own business focused on a key aspect of watchmaking:
- Since he was the oldest son, Victor Baume remained in Les Bois to run the company and source raw components from the workshops of the Jura
- Célestin Baume moved to England, focused on watch finishing and sales, leveraging the skilled watchmakers in Clerkenwell north of London
- Auguste Baume specialized in gilding movements and producing dials, first in Les Bois but soon moving to La Chaux-de-Fonds
- Eugène Baume ran a finishing and sales operation in Geneva, securing the finest watchmaking skills and commercial opportunities there
This dispersed watchmaking enterprise was active by the 1850s, when the Baume brothers were still under 40. Their presence in London and Geneva gave them an incredible understanding of the market, which was widely misunderstood by parochial competitors in the Vallée de Joux, Le Locle, and La Chaux-de-Fonds. And their effective use of the finest watchmakers in these cities allowed them to exploit the inexpensive and rough components produced in the Swiss Jura.
Focus on the English Market
The young Baume brothers faced a significant decision in the 1840s: Would they produce watches in the thinner French style or the robust English genre? Given that their home in the Swiss Jura was firmly in the French sphere of influence (harboring both Huguenots and French Catholics alongside revolutionaries opposed to German Berne) one would think it a simple choice. And since Les Bois was among the first Swiss firms to adopt the cylinder escapement and Lépine ebauche, their watches were better suited for the French market. But Victor Baume opted instead to build a bridge between Les Bois and London, and 25 year old Célestin Baume departed for London in 1844.
Clerkenwell was filled with watchmaking workshops in the 18th centuryBaume settled in Clerkenwell, which was a center for watchmakers in the 1850s. As was the case everywhere before the industrial revolution, British watchmakers worked in small workshops, performing specialized tasks to produce finished watches. But the watchmakers of Clerkenwell were far more skilled than their Swiss counterparts at this time, and they knew exactly what British buyers wanted. Célestin Baume quickly built a network of specialists that could turn the rough components of the Jura into high-quality English style watches.
The Baume brothers innovated beyond the classic English watch design, but always kept close enough to keep from alienating customers. The firm created the first watch to use the 3/4 plate design typical in Germany with their modern cylinder escapement. And as early as 1851 they created the first so-called “flat glass” cases, with a tall polished bezel housing a flat glass crystal. These soon became popular with English gentlemen and were widely copied.
The watches produced by the Baume brothers were in strong demand in London and the British Empire. It was said that wholesalers would descend on the Clerkenwell office as soon as a new batch was ready, carrying them throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland. Baume even had distributors carrying their watches to Australia and New Zealand as well as British ports in Asia.
A photograph of Hatton Garden in 1895As early as 1852 Célestin Baume had partnered in a retail operation located along the fashionable street of Hatton Garden. Baume & Lezard remained in operation until 1872, exposing the company’s products to buyers from around the British Empire. The company chose the block of buildings behind the Union Bank at Holborn Circle, situated alongside many other jewelers and watch retailers. This block remains the home of upscale jewelers today and was the home of the De Beers diamond company for a century.
In 1876, control of the London operation passed from Célestin Baume to his nephew, Arthur (about 1852-1936). Over nearly a half-century in Hatton Garden, Arthur Baume would become a fixture in London society, contributing to the so-called “Swiss Colony” as well as more conventional organizations like the Royal Geographical Society. Arthur’s connections allowed him to challenge the status quo of British watches, tempting fashionable gentlemen away from the old fashioned designs that had earned Baume & Company a place in the market.
In addition to selling watches produced by their own workshops in London and Switzerland, the Baume & Company showroom represented the Longines factory of Saint-Imier. The English considered the anchor or “Swiss lever” escapement to be unreliable, but the Longines watch was eventually able to overcome this reputation. Thus, the Baume Brothers not only met the needs of the British market but cracked it open for French and Swiss imports! The Baume Frères “Ironclad” pocket watch also caught on with the British sportsman thanks to its unusual oxidized steel case.
Another major new product to reach Switzerland through the Baume showroom was the so-called “Four-in-Hand” watch. This used a large 38-ligne movement and could be mounted on the dashboard of a “brougham, dog-cart, Raleigh cart, or similar vehicle.” Longines produced these clocks with 30-hour or 8-day movements as large as 60 lignes and they became a must-have accessory that lasted even into the time of the automobile.
Consolidation of Swiss Suppliers
While Célestin focused on his English customers, his brothers continued to organize and centralize their supplier relationships.
The third brother, Auguste Baume focused on gilding (“dorage”) in the first half of the 1850s but was listed alongside Baume frères in Les Bois as a “negociant et fabricant” in the second half of the decade. About 1856, Auguste moved to La Chaux-de-Fonds to tap into the network of suppliers there, but this effort was cut short: He died on May 29 1859 at just 38 years of age. Still, the Baume family maintained its ties to suppliers in La Chaux-de-Fonds, and would move the operation to the city in the 20th century.
The Baume workshop in Geneva was located in the long block of buildings across the yard from the railroad station shown in this 1860s illustrationYoungest brother Eugène Baume was a skilled assembler of watches in Les Bois before moving to Geneva in 1859. He spent his life connecting the Baume family to the skilled makers of complicated watches and suppliers of gold cases there. His watch finishing operation was located on the right bank in Geneva, moving one block from Rue du Pradier 3 to rue du Mont-Blanc 20 by 1866. Eugène’s life was cut short on February 24, 1875, ending the official presence of the Frères Baume in Geneva.
The marriages of the Baume siblings created deeper connections: Their spouses included a Chapuis, two Jobins, two Girardins, and a Piquerez, all familiar names in watchmaking. There are many records showing contributions by the Jobin family in particular3 to the growing Baume enterprise, jointly opening a steam-powered watch case factory in Le Noirmont and Les Bois.
The 1857 Industrie-Ausstellung in Berne is remembered as the first true national expositionIn 1857 the Frères Baume exhibited at the Swiss Trade and Industrial Exhibition in Berne. This was a predecessor to the familiar Swiss Industries Fair in Basel (later called BaselWorld) as well as the famous series of national expositions, which continue to this day. The company sent 59 watches (21 in silver and 38 in gold), “all exquisitely crafted and valued at over 7,000 francs; they were produced by Messrs. Baume in the style of the watches they manufacture for the English market, where the firm successfully sells its products to great advantage.” The company was criticized for the crudeness of its display (it was the first-ever such expo after all), as well as the fact that none of its successful English-style watches were included. But this is no surprise, since the company was already producing different watches in Les Bois, Geneva, and London, and this exhibit only reflected local products from the Jura region. Considering how young the company was, this global scope was truly revolutionary.
Fragmentation of the Baume Family
Perhaps it is unsurprising that this far-reaching and interconnected network of companies did not last. Control of the Baume family business fell solely to Victor’s sons, since Auguste and Eugène lacked heirs, and Célestin’s son Alexandre died tragically in Alsace in 1894.
Alcide and Virgile Baume replaced Victor and his brothers as the namesake “frères Baume” in the 1883 FOSC survey of Swiss businesses, though Victor Baume retained his power of attorney until his death in September of 1887. Alcide, Virgile, and Mélina Baume inherited the Swiss properties of their father Victor three years earlier; middle brother Arthur Baume is left out, as he had become a British citizen and taken over the London firm of Baume & Co in 1876.
The Les Bois factory was offered for sale in August of 1889 as the firm became more reliant on suppliers in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Geneva24 year old Virgile Baume aligned himself with the London branch in 1885, moving to Geneva to re-establish Baume & Co there after the death of his uncle Eugène a decade earlier. He was removed from the Les Bois operation in 1892, with his older brother Alcide Baume becoming the sole “successeur de Baume frères.” Alcide also took over the Le Noirmont watch case factory formerly called Baume & Jobin. But Alcide was increasingly focused on supplier companies outside Les Bois. In August 1889 he offered the company’s brand new factory, including its 8 horsepower steam power plant, for sale. He simply no longer needed manufacturing in the village of his birth.
Everything seemed to be going well for Alcide Baume, who married Alexine Chapuis and welcomed twin sons Jämes and Alexandre in 1882, followed by Rachel in 1884, William in 1885, Jeanne in 1887, and Marguerite in 1892. But Alcide’s family would never be as close as their predecessors. Alexine died on September 8, 1893, leaving business-focused Alcide with six young children. They were raised at boarding schools4, as their father and uncles had been, but with no home in Les Bois to welcome them.
Jeanneret and Mosimann
With Jämes Baume intent on becoming a dentist, Alcide Baume sent his twin Alexandre to London in 1904 to learn about the family’s British business. It is likely that Alexandre worked at Baume & Co in Hatton Garden alongside another Swiss apprentice three years older, Paul-César Jeanneret. Alexandre must have impressed his uncle Arthur, as he remained in London and took over the British operation in 1923.
Paul-C. Jeanneret was sent back to La Chaux-de-Fonds a few months after Alexandre arrived to establish a better supply network for Baume & Co. This operation was acquired in 1909, becoming an official subsidiary of the British firm.
With the historic Baume family workshop in Les Bois now closed, the remaining corporate structure was merged into an established firm in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1911. Ulrich Mosimann established a watch workshop in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1876, the same year Arthur took over Baume & Co in London. He was likely a supplier of the British branch, either directly or through Victor and Alcide Baume in Les Bois. His sons, Paul and Albert Mosimann, took over the company as Mosimann frères following his death in 1889 and incorporated it as Mosimann & Cie six years later. Paul Mosimann became increasingly important in politics and in the Swiss watch industry, becoming mayor of La Chaux-de-Fonds and a National Councilor and president of the Chambre Suisse de l’Horlogerie, leaving him little time for his family firm.
Following their 1911 acquisition of the Baume family watchmaking business, Mosimann & Cie became their true successor. Their Mildia brand was acquired by Schwarz-Etienne in 1976 and closed in 2004.When Paul Mosimann left Mosimann & Cie in 1911, the former firm of Alcide Baume in Les Bois was absorbed into it, with Alcide’s son William Baume joining Albert Mosimann as owner.
The three successor companies (Baume & Co of London and La Chaux-de-Fonds and Mosimann & Cie) must have been very close indeed: They used the same trademarks, with confusing overlapping registrations for “Baume Watch”, “Baume”, and the “B & Co” hallmark found on British and Swiss movements alike. Following the death of Alcide Baume on May 20, 1916 the La Chaux-de-Fonds businesses even shared the same office at Rue du Nord 1165. Jeanneret left the company in 1913 to focus on greater ambitions, becoming the head of the Syndicat des Fabricants Suisses de Montres Or and founding the Information Horlogère Suisse, a clearinghouse of industry statistics. He was replaced by young William Baume, son of Alcide and brother of Alexandre.
Baume & Mercier, Baume & Company, and Baume
Following the death of his father, with his brother ensconced in London and the historic Baume family companies now under the ownership of the Mosimann family, William Baume looked elsewhere. He had met a dashing salesman at the Geneva showroom of Haas Neveux while on a business trip in 1912. Baume decided to take his inheritance and invest it in a new partnership with Paul Tcherednitchenko-dit-Mercier in 1918. Thus, the Geneva firm of Baume et Mercier was born.
Baume & Mercier was located on the Grand Quai next to the famous Hotel Metropole in GenevaIn 1923, after nearly 50 years in control, Arthur Baume passed control of Baume & Company in London to his nephew, William brother, Alexandre Baume. He continued to grow the business there, soon coming into competition with his brother’s Baume & Mercier. Baume & Company was able to prevent the Geneva upstart from using the family name in the British market, especially after William was forced out during the Great Depression. Alexandre was succeeded in 1946 by his own son, Louis-C. Baume, who continued the firm until the 1960s.
Following his 1934 departure from his namesake firm of Baume & Mercier, William Baume opened a retail jewelry store in Geneva. The Baume showroom, located directly across the street from the famous department store Grand Passage, represented the great Swiss watch brands: Zénith, Tissot, Omega, Longines, and even Baume & Mercier! The business was continued by Baume’s own sons well into the 1970s.
William Baume became a retail jeweler after being forced out of Baume & Mercier during the Great DepressionThe Grail Watch Perspective
The most impressive accomplishment of the Baume family was how quickly they built a global watchmaking business, and how early they were to the idea of vertical integration. Even before industrialization and factories, Victor Baume and his brothers understood the importance of controlling the supply chain and the value of reaching all the way to the customer. Despite being constrained by the nature of watchmaking in the 19th century, both in Switzerland and in England, which was limited to small workshops and suppliers, the Baume brothers built a remarkable enterprise.
The wide reach of the Baume family watchmaking business made it incredibly difficult to research. There is very little primary source information, and I am far more adept when it comes to Swiss history than British archives. Thankfully, David Boettcher beat me to it with a thorough look at Baume & Company in England, and I suggest looking at his excellent article! I have far more to say on this subject, and hope to write a follow-on article about “Baume After Mercier” in the future.
Notes
- It is often said that Victor and Célestin Baume organized a watchmaking company in 1834, but this must have been their father, since Victor (the oldest) was just 17 years of age and could not legally or practically form a company at this point. For decades, Baume & Mercier advertising has shown a date of 1830, but this does not correspond with anything in historic records. Incredibly, even William Baume included “Horloger depuis 1830” in his advertisements in the 1940s!
- In 2010, Baume & Mercier posted a series of 16 diary entries alleged to be written by Victor Baume and his grandson, William. Although it is filled with anachronisms and inaccuracies, it contains some interesting details on the family and makes for an enjoyable read. But the connection between the Baume family and Baume & Mercier is vastly over-stated in modern times.
- The Jobin and Baume families did not always get along: Aurèle Jobin clashed with his cousin Arthur Baume shortly after he moved to London to take over Baume & Co in 1876. This lead to a public confrontation when Alcide Baume sent Aurèle’s private apology to Le Jura for publication!
- Even 18 moth old Marguerite was sent to boarding school: The 2010 diary, which appears better-sourced when it comes to William’s entries, claims that Marguerite was raised at a boarding school in Vienna. It also claims she sat on the lap of Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph, an odd and specific recollection.
- Despite housing two companies, and being on the block below the famous Montbrillant factory, the building at Rue du Nord 116 was not very large or notable. I was unable to find a good photo, let alone any indication of the occupants.
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Baume Before Mercier
The recently-announced sale of Baume & Mercier by Richemont to Italian distributor Damiani Group spurred me to research the history of that famous brand. Just as there was a LeCoultre before Jaeger, an Audemars before Piguet, and a Vacheron before Constantin, there was a Baume before Mercier. These unions often tell a story of greater transitions in the industry rather than simply consolidation of corporate control. And the story of the Baume family of Les Bois and London is particularly illuminating.
Long before Baume & Mercier was founded the Baume brothers of Les Bois built a watchmaking enterprise reaching London and beyond!Note: Baume & Mercier is an independent company founded in 1918 by William Baume. This Geneva-based retail and manufacturing company has no real connection to the historic company founded by his great grandfather, Louis-Joseph Baume, with whom we shall begin. His company, known as Frères Baume, was primarily focused on British market through a related company, Baume & Co of London. Even though William Baume worked for these family firms, Baume & Mercier was entirely independent and was locked out of the British market by Baume & Co for most of the 20th century.
The Baume Family of Les Bois
Louis-Joseph Baume (1783-1867) and his wife Agnès née Froidevaux (1786-1850) lived in the remote village of Les Bois, a French-speaking area along the current national border which was annexed into the German-dominated Canton of Berne in 1815. Baume was a farmer like most of his neighbors, but starting in 1834 he also produced watches at a home-based workshop. He would deliver these to La Chaux-de-Fonds, a rising center of watchmaking located an easy 2-hour walk southeast on the Jura plateau. He appears to have been found bankrupt in 1835. The Baume family lost their first five children, four of whom died as young children in 1816. But three daughters and four sons born later survived.
Victor Baume (1817-1887) and his brother Célestin Baume (1819-1880) organized a watchmaking company as “Baume frères” as soon as they reached the age of maturity in 18401. In 1848, when the Indicateur Davoine directory first includes Les Bois, it shows “Baume frères, fabricans d’horlogerie.” This listing also includes their brother, watchmaker Auguste Baume (1820-1859), and a gilding operation also called Baume frères perhaps run with their youngest brother, Eugène Baume (1822-1875).
Their father’s bankruptcy likely kept him from being officially involved, but he certainly continued to contribute to the efforts of his young sons. He died in 1867, having seen his sons build a flourishing watchmaking business, marry, and have children of their own.
Although the original establishment of the company is murky2, it is clear that the Baume family was at the center of watchmaking in Les Bois by the 1840s. Production of components was distributed across the region, with small workshops contributing individual components that were brought together as semi-finished watches to be disassembled, finished, adjusted, and reassembled for sale. The Baume brothers acted as wholesalers, gathering these watches for sale in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Neuchâtel. But the ambitious young men saw greater opportunity in the trade, leaving the village and even the country to make that happen.
An Early and Unusual Vertical Strategy
The hallmark of industrialized watchmaking is vertical integration: Starting in the late 19th century, manufactures like Longines, Omega, and Zénith attempted to consolidate production of as many components as possible under their control, either under the same roof or by purchasing supplier factories. This was a repudiation of the etablisseur tradition, which collected components produced by thousands of tiny workshops to produce a finished watch. Vertical integration was incredibly controversial, pitting traditional watchmaking fathers against their industrialist sons and even whole cities like Geneva and La Chaux-de-Fonds against upstarts like Bienne and Grenchen. This was a wholesale mindset shift that enabled 20th century industrial watchmaking.
This is why the Baume brothers are so interesting: They built a different kind of integrated company that embraced the workshop tradition while ensuring control and quality. And it connected rural Les Bois to La Chaux-de-Fonds, Geneva, and London! There are very few examples of such a far-reaching watchmaking enterprise, and certainly none this early.
Victor Baume (1817-1887) was the oldest surviving son and lead a sprawling network of businesses lead by his three younger brothersThe idea was straightforward but it was incredibly challenging. Each of the four Baume brothers established his own business focused on a key aspect of watchmaking:
- Since he was the oldest son, Victor Baume remained in Les Bois to run the company and source raw components from the workshops of the Jura
- Célestin Baume moved to England, focused on watch finishing and sales, leveraging the skilled watchmakers in Clerkenwell north of London
- Auguste Baume specialized in gilding movements and producing dials, first in Les Bois but soon moving to La Chaux-de-Fonds
- Eugène Baume ran a finishing and sales operation in Geneva, securing the finest watchmaking skills and commercial opportunities there
This dispersed watchmaking enterprise was active by the 1850s, when the Baume brothers were still under 40. Their presence in London and Geneva gave them an incredible understanding of the market, which was widely misunderstood by parochial competitors in the Vallée de Joux, Le Locle, and La Chaux-de-Fonds. And their effective use of the finest watchmakers in these cities allowed them to exploit the inexpensive and rough components produced in the Swiss Jura.
Focus on the English Market
The young Baume brothers faced a significant decision in the 1840s: Would they produce watches in the thinner French style or the robust English genre? Given that their home in the Swiss Jura was firmly in the French sphere of influence (harboring both Huguenots and French Catholics alongside revolutionaries opposed to German Berne) one would think it a simple choice. And since Les Bois was among the first Swiss firms to adopt the cylinder escapement and Lépine ebauche, their watches were better suited for the French market. But Victor Baume opted instead to build a bridge between Les Bois and London, and 25 year old Célestin Baume departed for London in 1844.
Clerkenwell was filled with watchmaking workshops in the 18th centuryBaume settled in Clerkenwell, which was a center for watchmakers in the 1850s. As was the case everywhere before the industrial revolution, British watchmakers worked in small workshops, performing specialized tasks to produce finished watches. But the watchmakers of Clerkenwell were far more skilled than their Swiss counterparts at this time, and they knew exactly what British buyers wanted. Célestin Baume quickly built a network of specialists that could turn the rough components of the Jura into high-quality English style watches.
The Baume brothers innovated beyond the classic English watch design, but always kept close enough to keep from alienating customers. The firm created the first watch to use the 3/4 plate design typical in Germany with their modern cylinder escapement. And as early as 1851 they created the first so-called “flat glass” cases, with a tall polished bezel housing a flat glass crystal. These soon became popular with English gentlemen and were widely copied.
The watches produced by the Baume brothers were in strong demand in London and the British Empire. It was said that wholesalers would descend on the Clerkenwell office as soon as a new batch was ready, carrying them throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland. Baume even had distributors carrying their watches to Australia and New Zealand as well as British ports in Asia.
A photograph of Hatton Garden in 1895As early as 1852 Célestin Baume had partnered in a retail operation located along the fashionable street of Hatton Garden. Baume & Lezard remained in operation until 1872, exposing the company’s products to buyers from around the British Empire. The company chose the block of buildings behind the Union Bank at Holborn Circle, situated alongside many other jewelers and watch retailers. This block remains the home of upscale jewelers today and was the home of the De Beers diamond company for a century.
In 1876, control of the London operation passed from Célestin Baume to his nephew, Arthur (about 1852-1936). Over nearly a half-century in Hatton Garden, Arthur Baume would become a fixture in London society, contributing to the so-called “Swiss Colony” as well as more conventional organizations like the Royal Geographical Society. Arthur’s connections allowed him to challenge the status quo of British watches, tempting fashionable gentlemen away from the old fashioned designs that had earned Baume & Company a place in the market.
In addition to selling watches produced by their own workshops in London and Switzerland, the Baume & Company showroom represented the Longines factory of Saint-Imier. The English considered the anchor or “Swiss lever” escapement to be unreliable, but the Longines watch was eventually able to overcome this reputation. Thus, the Baume Brothers not only met the needs of the British market but cracked it open for French and Swiss imports! The Baume Frères “Ironclad” pocket watch also caught on with the British sportsman thanks to its unusual oxidized steel case.
Another major new product to reach Switzerland through the Baume showroom was the so-called “Four-in-Hand” watch. This used a large 38-ligne movement and could be mounted on the dashboard of a “brougham, dog-cart, Raleigh cart, or similar vehicle.” Longines produced these clocks with 30-hour or 8-day movements as large as 60 lignes and they became a must-have accessory that lasted even into the time of the automobile.
Consolidation of Swiss Suppliers
While Célestin focused on his English customers, his brothers continued to organize and centralize their supplier relationships.
The third brother, Auguste Baume focused on gilding (“dorage”) in the first half of the 1850s but was listed alongside Baume frères in Les Bois as a “negociant et fabricant” in the second half of the decade. About 1856, Auguste moved to La Chaux-de-Fonds to tap into the network of suppliers there, but this effort was cut short: He died on May 29 1859 at just 38 years of age. Still, the Baume family maintained its ties to suppliers in La Chaux-de-Fonds, and would move the operation to the city in the 20th century.
The Baume workshop in Geneva was located in the long block of buildings across the yard from the railroad station shown in this 1860s illustrationYoungest brother Eugène Baume was a skilled assembler of watches in Les Bois before moving to Geneva in 1859. He spent his life connecting the Baume family to the skilled makers of complicated watches and suppliers of gold cases there. His watch finishing operation was located on the right bank in Geneva, moving one block from Rue du Pradier 3 to rue du Mont-Blanc 20 by 1866. Eugène’s life was cut short on February 24, 1875, ending the official presence of the Frères Baume in Geneva.
The marriages of the Baume siblings created deeper connections: Their spouses included a Chapuis, two Jobins, two Girardins, and a Piquerez, all familiar names in watchmaking. There are many records showing contributions by the Jobin family in particular3 to the growing Baume enterprise, jointly opening a steam-powered watch case factory in Le Noirmont and Les Bois.
The 1857 Industrie-Ausstellung in Berne is remembered as the first true national expositionIn 1857 the Frères Baume exhibited at the Swiss Trade and Industrial Exhibition in Berne. This was a predecessor to the familiar Swiss Industries Fair in Basel (later called BaselWorld) as well as the famous series of national expositions, which continue to this day. The company sent 59 watches (21 in silver and 38 in gold), “all exquisitely crafted and valued at over 7,000 francs; they were produced by Messrs. Baume in the style of the watches they manufacture for the English market, where the firm successfully sells its products to great advantage.” The company was criticized for the crudeness of its display (it was the first-ever such expo after all), as well as the fact that none of its successful English-style watches were included. But this is no surprise, since the company was already producing different watches in Les Bois, Geneva, and London, and this exhibit only reflected local products from the Jura region. Considering how young the company was, this global scope was truly revolutionary.
Fragmentation of the Baume Family
Perhaps it is unsurprising that this far-reaching and interconnected network of companies did not last. Control of the Baume family business fell solely to Victor’s sons, since Auguste and Eugène lacked heirs, and Célestin’s son Alexandre died tragically in Alsace in 1894.
Alcide and Virgile Baume replaced Victor and his brothers as the namesake “frères Baume” in the 1883 FOSC survey of Swiss businesses, though Victor Baume retained his power of attorney until his death in September of 1887. Alcide, Virgile, and Mélina Baume inherited the Swiss properties of their father Victor three years earlier; middle brother Arthur Baume is left out, as he had become a British citizen and taken over the London firm of Baume & Co in 1876.
The Les Bois factory was offered for sale in August of 1889 as the firm became more reliant on suppliers in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Geneva24 year old Virgile Baume aligned himself with the London branch in 1885, moving to Geneva to re-establish Baume & Co there after the death of his uncle Eugène a decade earlier. He was removed from the Les Bois operation in 1892, with his older brother Alcide Baume becoming the sole “successeur de Baume frères.” Alcide also took over the Le Noirmont watch case factory formerly called Baume & Jobin. But Alcide was increasingly focused on supplier companies outside Les Bois. In August 1889 he offered the company’s brand new factory, including its 8 horsepower steam power plant, for sale. He simply no longer needed manufacturing in the village of his birth.
Everything seemed to be going well for Alcide Baume, who married Alexine Chapuis and welcomed twin sons Jämes and Alexandre in 1882, followed by Rachel in 1884, William in 1885, Jeanne in 1887, and Marguerite in 1892. But Alcide’s family would never be as close as their predecessors. Alexine died on September 8, 1893, leaving business-focused Alcide with six young children. They were raised at boarding schools4, as their father and uncles had been, but with no home in Les Bois to welcome them.
Jeanneret and Mosimann
With Jämes Baume intent on becoming a dentist, Alcide Baume sent his twin Alexandre to London in 1904 to learn about the family’s British business. It is likely that Alexandre worked at Baume & Co in Hatton Garden alongside another Swiss apprentice three years older, Paul-César Jeanneret. Alexandre must have impressed his uncle Arthur, as he remained in London and took over the British operation in 1923.
Paul-C. Jeanneret was sent back to La Chaux-de-Fonds a few months after Alexandre arrived to establish a better supply network for Baume & Co. This operation was acquired in 1909, becoming an official subsidiary of the British firm.
With the historic Baume family workshop in Les Bois now closed, the remaining corporate structure was merged into an established firm in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1911. Ulrich Mosimann established a watch workshop in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1876, the same year Arthur took over Baume & Co in London. He was likely a supplier of the British branch, either directly or through Victor and Alcide Baume in Les Bois. His sons, Paul and Albert Mosimann, took over the company as Mosimann frères following his death in 1889 and incorporated it as Mosimann & Cie six years later. Paul Mosimann became increasingly important in politics and in the Swiss watch industry, becoming mayor of La Chaux-de-Fonds and a National Councilor and president of the Chambre Suisse de l’Horlogerie, leaving him little time for his family firm.
Following their 1911 acquisition of the Baume family watchmaking business, Mosimann & Cie became their true successor. Their Mildia brand was acquired by Schwarz-Etienne in 1976 and closed in 2004.When Paul Mosimann left Mosimann & Cie in 1911, the former firm of Alcide Baume in Les Bois was absorbed into it, with Alcide’s son William Baume joining Albert Mosimann as owner.
The three successor companies (Baume & Co of London and La Chaux-de-Fonds and Mosimann & Cie) must have been very close indeed: They used the same trademarks, with confusing overlapping registrations for “Baume Watch”, “Baume”, and the “B & Co” hallmark found on British and Swiss movements alike. Following the death of Alcide Baume on May 20, 1916 the La Chaux-de-Fonds businesses even shared the same office at Rue du Nord 1165. Jeanneret left the company in 1913 to focus on greater ambitions, becoming the head of the Syndicat des Fabricants Suisses de Montres Or and founding the Information Horlogère Suisse, a clearinghouse of industry statistics. He was replaced by young William Baume, son of Alcide and brother of Alexandre.
Baume & Mercier, Baume & Company, and Baume
Following the death of his father, with his brother ensconced in London and the historic Baume family companies now under the ownership of the Mosimann family, William Baume looked elsewhere. He had met a dashing salesman at the Geneva showroom of Haas Neveux while on a business trip in 1912. Baume decided to take his inheritance and invest it in a new partnership with Paul Tcherednitchenko-dit-Mercier in 1918. Thus, the Geneva firm of Baume et Mercier was born.
Baume & Mercier was located on the Grand Quai next to the famous Hotel Metropole in GenevaIn 1923, after nearly 50 years in control, Arthur Baume passed control of Baume & Company in London to his nephew, William brother, Alexandre Baume. He continued to grow the business there, soon coming into competition with his brother’s Baume & Mercier. Baume & Company was able to prevent the Geneva upstart from using the family name in the British market, especially after William was forced out during the Great Depression. Alexandre was succeeded in 1946 by his own son, Louis-C. Baume, who continued the firm until the 1960s.
Following his 1934 departure from his namesake firm of Baume & Mercier, William Baume opened a retail jewelry store in Geneva. The Baume showroom, located directly across the street from the famous department store Grand Passage, represented the great Swiss watch brands: Zénith, Tissot, Omega, Longines, and even Baume & Mercier! The business was continued by Baume’s own sons well into the 1970s.
William Baume became a retail jeweler after being forced out of Baume & Mercier during the Great DepressionThe Grail Watch Perspective
The most impressive accomplishment of the Baume family was how quickly they built a global watchmaking business, and how early they were to the idea of vertical integration. Even before industrialization and factories, Victor Baume and his brothers understood the importance of controlling the supply chain and the value of reaching all the way to the customer. Despite being constrained by the nature of watchmaking in the 19th century, both in Switzerland and in England, which was limited to small workshops and suppliers, the Baume brothers built a remarkable enterprise.
The wide reach of the Baume family watchmaking business made it incredibly difficult to research. There is very little primary source information, and I am far more adept when it comes to Swiss history than British archives. Thankfully, David Boettcher beat me to it with a thorough look at Baume & Company in England, and I suggest looking at his excellent article! I have far more to say on this subject, and hope to write a follow-on article about “Baume After Mercier” in the future.
Notes
- It is often said that Victor and Célestin Baume organized a watchmaking company in 1834, but this must have been their father, since Victor (the oldest) was just 17 years of age and could not legally or practically form a company at this point. For decades, Baume & Mercier advertising has shown a date of 1830, but this does not correspond with anything in historic records. Incredibly, even William Baume included “Horloger depuis 1830” in his advertisements in the 1940s!
- In 2010, Baume & Mercier posted a series of 16 diary entries alleged to be written by Victor Baume and his grandson, William. Although it is filled with anachronisms and inaccuracies, it contains some interesting details on the family and makes for an enjoyable read. But the connection between the Baume family and Baume & Mercier is vastly over-stated in modern times.
- The Jobin and Baume families did not always get along: Aurèle Jobin clashed with his cousin Arthur Baume shortly after he moved to London to take over Baume & Co in 1876. This lead to a public confrontation when Alcide Baume sent Aurèle’s private apology to Le Jura for publication!
- Even 18 moth old Marguerite was sent to boarding school: The 2010 diary, which appears better-sourced when it comes to William’s entries, claims that Marguerite was raised at a boarding school in Vienna. It also claims she sat on the lap of Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph, an odd and specific recollection.
- Despite housing two companies, and being on the block below the famous Montbrillant factory, the building at Rue du Nord 116 was not very large or notable. I was unable to find a good photo, let alone any indication of the occupants.
-
Laurel and Hardy Swansea centenary tour to celebrate city’s link with comedy legends
The centenary celebration, which includes screenings, talks and live performances, is being launched by the Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Society to mark a century since Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy first appeared together on screen. Organisers say Swansea will feature prominently in the tour’s historical material, thanks to the city’s role in the pair’s post‑war British tours.
Laurel and Hardy performed in Swansea on 22 September 1952, taking to the stage at the Empire Theatre on Oxford Street. The venue, once described as a “mecca” for live variety, regularly attracted the biggest names in entertainment. During their stay, the duo were based at the Mackworth Hotel on High Street, where they were often seen waving to fans from their balcony.
They were due to return to Swansea in May 1954, but the booking was cancelled after Oliver Hardy fell ill. It would have been one of their final UK appearances.
A black‑and‑white photograph of the former Empire Theatre on Oxford Street, once Swansea’s leading venue for variety and live entertainment.The Empire Theatre itself was a landmark of early 20th‑century Swansea. Built in 1900 by Moss Empires, it seated around 2,500 people across stalls, pit, dress circle and gallery. It stood next to the Carlton Cinema, now Waterstones, and hosted comedians, dancers, bands and circus acts until its closure in 1957. The building was demolished in 1960 and later replaced by a discount store.
The centenary tour will also highlight the renewed interest in the pair following the 2019 film Stan & Ollie, starring Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly, which charted their final UK tour and introduced a new generation to their story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqWb8GGkpuQ
Neil Brand, composer and silent film historian, said the duo’s appeal has endured because of the warmth and humanity at the heart of their comedy.
“Laurel and Hardy are still loved because they were the most human of clowns,” he said. “They were vulnerable, they were funny, and they were always on the side of the audience. That’s why people still respond to them today.”
Brand will bring his new centenary show, An Evening with Laurel & Hardy, to Swansea Grand Theatre’s Arts Wing on Saturday 14 March 2026 at 7.30pm.
Neil Brand said the Swansea date would be a highlight of the tour.
“I’m really looking forward to bringing the centenary show to Swansea. The Grand Theatre audience is always warm and knowledgeable, and this new production gives me the chance to share restored silent films, rare clips and the stories behind them. It’s a celebration of everything that made Stan and Ollie timeless, and I can’t wait to share it with Swansea in March.”
A spokesperson for the Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Society said the Swansea connection remained an important part of the duo’s legacy.
A black‑and‑white film still of Laurel and Hardy from one of their classic comedy features.“Swansea was one of the cities where Stan and Ollie were welcomed with real warmth. The Empire Theatre was a major stop on their British tours and the stories of them greeting fans from the Mackworth Hotel balcony have become part of local folklore,” they said.
The tour will include memorabilia, rare footage and talks from historians who have traced the pair’s movements across Britain. Swansea’s appearance in the programme is expected to draw interest from local film and theatre fans, as well as those who remember the Empire Theatre before its demolition.
The Empire’s history continues to fascinate researchers and nostalgia groups. Though long gone, it remains one of the city’s most fondly remembered entertainment venues, often confused with the still‑standing Swansea Grand Theatre but distinct in both design and purpose.
The centenary tour is expected to run throughout the year
Related stories from Swansea Bay News
Michael Sheen fronts explosive new BBC series on South Wales contamination claims
The actor investigates decades of chemical pollution allegations affecting communities across the region.Review: Our Town at Swansea Grand Theatre
A fresh staging of the American classic brings powerful performances and emotional depth to the Grand.Swansea Arena nears million milestone as star acts line up
The venue is closing in on a major attendance landmark as big‑name performers continue to draw crowds.Senedd pays tribute to Richard Burton on centenary of his birth
#EmpireTheatre #film #GrandTheatre #LaurelAndHardy #MackworthHotel #NeilBrand #silentFilm #Swansea #SwanseaGrandTheatre #SwanseaGrandTheatreSArtsWing #theatre
Politicians honour the Welsh screen icon with speeches marking 100 years since his birth. -
£50,000 Christmas gift gives Penllergaer church a new lease of life
A Victorian church at the heart of Penllergaer has received a £50,000 Christmas boost to help secure its future.
St David’s Church, built in 1886, has been battling failing gutters and water damage inside its stone walls. Plaster is flaking, and despite repairs to the slate roof, the building risked further deterioration as another harsh winter looms.
Now, thanks to the National Churches Trust and the Jane Hodge Foundation, urgent repairs will go ahead. The grant forms part of a £900,000 payout to keep churches across the UK open and in use.
Repairs to protect heritage
The funding will pay for new cast iron gutters and downpipes to direct water away from the building, alongside masonry repairs and repointing. The work will make the church watertight once more, preserving its stunning stained glass windows and ornate reredos for future generations.
Claire Walker, Chief Executive of the National Churches Trust, said:
The ornate Gothic door at St David’s opens into a space in need of care — with peeling paint and signs of wear. (Image: Rev John Gillibrand)A quiet corner of St David’s Church, where light filters through leaded glass and restoration is sorely needed. (Image: Rev John Gillibrand)Historic architecture meets modern utility — a corner of St David’s Church where leaded glass windows contrast with exposed pipes and storage units. (Image: Rev John Gillibrand)One of St David’s most cherished stained glass panels, depicting a central figure with children — a symbol of welcome and care. (Image: Rev John Gillibrand)Stained glass windows at St David’s Church carry messages of faith and heritage — now at risk from structural decay. (Image: Rev John Gillibrand)Water damage inside St David’s Church shows the impact of failing gutters and the urgent need for restoration. (Image: Rev John Gillibrand)The heart of St David’s Church — its nave and altar — framed by stained glass and vaulted beams, still serving the community. (Image: Rev John Gillibrand)“The National Churches Trust is delighted to support St David’s Church to enable urgent repairs. Not only will this protect important heritage, but it will help keep the building open and serving local people.”
A community hub
Rev Dr John Gillibrand, Vicar at St David’s, welcomed the grant:
“This is wonderful news for St David’s Church and the wider community. Our journey after the pandemic has been to tackle maintenance issues with our Victorian building, which has such a significant place in local heritage. We want it to be a place of peace and unconditional welcome in 2025 too. This is indeed a new lease of life.”
He praised the dedication of parishioners and highlighted the church’s close ties with Penllergaer Primary School, whose staff and pupils regularly attend services.
National Churches Survey 2025: Key findings
Church buildings are deteriorating
22% say their building has worsened in the last five years. 38% report roofs at risk, and only 61% now have roofs in good condition (down from 70% in 2010).Open for worship and community
80% hold weekly services, 42% are open daily, and 66% host music groups.Modern facilities
82% have accessible entrances, 73% accessible toilets, and 58% offer Wi‑Fi. 42% now accept contactless donations.Heritage treasures
49% have stained glass of artistic merit, 35% monuments of historic significance, and 27% fonts of artistic quality.Community support
76% host coffee mornings or toddler groups, 56% distribute food, and 34% support people facing anxiety or isolation.Volunteers and funding
83% rely on active volunteers, but 45% cite lack of time as a barrier. 77% depend on local giving, with 31% now using reserves to cover costs.Fear for the future
1 in 20 churches say they may close by 2030 — around 2,000 UK‑wide. Rural churches are most at risk.Read the full survey | Darllenwch yn Gymraeg
Rich history
St David’s was originally built as a chapel of ease to Llangyfelach, funded by John Dillwyn Llewellyn of the influential local family. Although Llewellyn died before completion, many of his relatives are buried in the churchyard.
The building has evolved over time, with additions in the 1930s and later extensions including a porch and organ chamber. Today, it is known for its highly regarded stained glass and a striking mosaic reredos dating back to the 1920s.
Services are usually held in English, with a monthly Welsh service reflecting its heritage.
Looking ahead
With repairs now funded, St David’s can continue to serve as a vibrant hub for worship, reflection and community life in Penllergaer.
Related stories: Penllergaer & local heritage
Community celebration for Penllergaer Postmaster
Villagers honour Matthew Tyrrell as he receives the British Empire Medal for service to his community.Penllergaer Postmaster named in King’s Birthday Honours
Recognition for outstanding dedication to Penllergaer village life.More news from Penllergaer
Latest updates from the village, including community projects and local events.#churchRepairs #heritage #JaneHodgeFoundation #JohnDillwynLlewelyn #NationalChurchesSurvey #NationalChurchesTrust #Penllergaer #StDavidsChurch #waterDamage
-
Destroying Autocracy – December 25, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ´em.
So folks, this is the final edition of Destroying Autocracy. Recently, I ran across a quote that fits with why I ran this project:
“I am absolutely convinced that only a small minority, a very small minority, among us, are seriously reached and profoundly moved by our propaganda of criticism, of doubt, of rebellion, of free investigation, of independent research. On the other hand, it is clear that our first interest lies always in seeking to increase this minority; to keep it, under all circumstances alive, active, refreshed. Our own happiness depends on it.
— Emile Armand”Thanks for following us. Now, on to what’s next.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is now the home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Destroying Autocracy, and Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum
Please copy and paste our handle into you favorite client to follow us. Original website content will start next week.
Featured Item(s)
I ran across these last week.
The Resonant Computing Manifesto
These are principles that should be implementing when developing for the Open Media Network.
Jan Wideboer writes:
Over the past few months, I thought a lot about Digital Sovereignty. I talked to experts, from analysts over legal experts to people running companies and public authorities. I tried to distill what is really at the core of the principle.
OCT – My Framework for Digital Sovereignty, Part 1
This is a good way to look at it.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
TechCrunch reports:
Stanford’s star reporter takes on Silicon Valley’s ‘money-soaked’ startup culture
TechPolicy shares:
Making the Digital Markets Act Developer-Friendly
The Guardian reports:
This is Europe’s secret weapon against Trump: it could burst his AI bubble
The Guardian view on Australia’s social media ban: dragging tech companies into action
MPs question UK Palantir contracts after investigation reveals security concerns
BleepingComputer reports:
Italy fines Apple $116 million over App Store privacy policy issues
Waterfox announces:
No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla’s Next Chapter
The Register notes:
Waterfox browser goes AI-free, targets the Firefox faithful
You don’t need Linux to run free and open source software
This is one you should read and take action on. 🙂
Airbus to migrate critical apps to a sovereign Euro cloud
Europe gets serious about cutting digital umbilical cord with Uncle Sam’s big tech
It’s FOSS reports:
Denmark Begins its Exit from Microsoft — and This is Just the Beginning
At least the enemies of privacy are slowly telling Microsoft to fuck off.
NextCloud shares:
The Republic of Serbia deploys Nextcloud for compliant, on-premises collaboration
Robert Riemann asks:
EU OS: Which Linux Distribution fits Europe best?
Hamish Campbell asks:
What Did We Learn from Web3, Crypto?
Signal has:
This was 2025 for Signal: strong growth and many new features
CoMaps shares:
CoMaps and its community at the end of 2025
Neutral
The Center for Democracy and Technology has:
TechPolicy Press reports:
The Path to a Sovereign Tech Stack is Via a Commodified Tech Stack
Platforms Report to EU Regulators Under DSA With an Eye on US Politics
Europe Tried to Take Control of Its Digital Stack in 2025. Where Does It Stand Now?
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
Krebs on Security reports:
Dismantling Defenses: Trump 2.0 Cyber Year in Review
Cory Doctorow says:
America’s collapsing consumption is the world’s disenshittification opportunity
Tech Dadu reports:
EU Prepares Wider Data Retention Rules, VPN Providers Could Be Affected
The Register reports:
Denmark takes a Viking swing at VPN-enabled piracy
Pariah States
And:
Amazon security boss blames Russia’s GRU for years-long energy-sector hacks
China, Iran are having a field day with React2Shell, Google warns
BleepingComputer reports:
France arrests Latvian for installing malware on Italian ferry
Denmark blames Russia for destructive cyberattack on water utility
DarkReading reports:
Russia Hits Critical Orgs Via Misconfigured Edge Devices
Dormant Iran APT is Still Alive, Spying on Dissidents
EuronNews reports:
Pro-Russian hackers claim French postal service cyberattack
Big Media
Ben Werdmuller asks:
Just for brain-dead people.
Nieman Lab’s Predictions for Journalism 2026
Journalists talk about the elephant in the room: our relationship with Big Tech
CyberCultural shares:
My 2025 Indie Web Report and Thoughts on the Open Web
404 Media reports:
Archivists Posted the 60 Minutes CECOT Segment Bari Weiss Killed
Big Tech
The Nerd Reich reports:
Tech Billionaires Flirt With the Guillotine
JD Vance’s Theo Bro Network: Silicon Valley Meets ‘God’
Futurism reports:
Professor Warns That the Wealthy Are Trying to Use AI to Seize Control of Everything
The Rebel Tech Alliance reports on:
404 Media reports:
Hack Reveals the a16z-Backed Phone Farm Flooding TikTok With AI Influencers
SuperBloom examines:
From Content to Interface: Rethinking Platform Transparency Through Design
Wanna-be Big Tech
Mozilla spouts techbro delusions:
Mozilla’s Next Chapter: Building the World’s Most Trusted Software Company
Fuck Firefox.
Pivot to AI has the reality:
Firefox browser falls to AI. What do we do now?
Zen, Waterfox, or LibreWolf, peeps.
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Register reports:
New React vulns leak secrets, invite DoS attacks
Poisoned WhatsApp API package steals messages and accounts
Krebs on Security reports:
Most Parked Domains Now Serving Malicious Content
DarkReading reports:
Attackers Use Stolen AWS Credentials in Cryptomining Campaign
BleepingComputer reports:
Microsoft 365 accounts targeted in wave of OAuth phishing attacks
Mullvad is:
Announcing GotaTun, the future of WireGuard at Mullvad VPN
Framasoft asks:
Qui suis-je et quelle est mon identité ?
404 Media reports:
Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves
Fediverse
Tim Chambres shares:
My 2026 Open Social Web Predictions
Ploum shares:
How We Lost Communication to Entertainment
The Social Web Foundation explores:
Implementing Encrypted Messaging over ActivityPub
Literally, awesome.
Connected Places has:
PeerTube announces:
Publish your videos with PeerTube for mobile!
It’s FOSS reports:
Decentralized YouTube Alternative PeerTube Adds Creator Mode
Holos shares:
ActivityPub for WordPress has:
Jose Murilo shares:
Museums in the Fediverse: Experiments with Tainacan, ActivityPub, and WebSocial
DeadSuperHerson says:
Ghost’s ActivityPub Integration Feels Half-Baked
I feel the same way. And it’s why I am running a backup of The Programmer’s Fulcrum on WordPress to keep Ghost honest. We’ll see where TPF ends up in 2027.
Mastodon shares its:
Piefed announces:
PieFed 1.4 is released – emoji, federated stackoverflow and AI content filters
Empathy Forward announces:
Fedify shares:
Fedify 1.10.0: Observability foundations for the future debug dashboard
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
Connected Places has:
ATmosphere Report 147 – Year’s end reflections
ATProto Community has:
Ændra Rininsland: Supporting and growing ATProto development in 2025 and beyond
I am going to check Leaflet out.
TechCrunch reports:
Bluesky launches a privacy-focused ‘Find Friends’ feature without invite spam
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Never stop fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Holos #Mastodon #Peertube #RSS #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=4242
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse -
Destroying Autocracy – December 25, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ´em.
So folks, this is the final edition of Destroying Autocracy. Recently, I ran across a quote that fits with why I ran this project:
“I am absolutely convinced that only a small minority, a very small minority, among us, are seriously reached and profoundly moved by our propaganda of criticism, of doubt, of rebellion, of free investigation, of independent research. On the other hand, it is clear that our first interest lies always in seeking to increase this minority; to keep it, under all circumstances alive, active, refreshed. Our own happiness depends on it.
— Emile Armand”Thanks for following us. Now, on to what’s next.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is now the home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Destroying Autocracy, and Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum
Please copy and paste our handle into you favorite client to follow us. Original website content will start next week.
Featured Item(s)
I ran across these last week.
The Resonant Computing Manifesto
These are principles that should be implementing when developing for the Open Media Network.
Jan Wideboer writes:
Over the past few months, I thought a lot about Digital Sovereignty. I talked to experts, from analysts over legal experts to people running companies and public authorities. I tried to distill what is really at the core of the principle.
OCT – My Framework for Digital Sovereignty, Part 1
This is a good way to look at it.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
TechCrunch reports:
Stanford’s star reporter takes on Silicon Valley’s ‘money-soaked’ startup culture
TechPolicy shares:
Making the Digital Markets Act Developer-Friendly
The Guardian reports:
This is Europe’s secret weapon against Trump: it could burst his AI bubble
The Guardian view on Australia’s social media ban: dragging tech companies into action
MPs question UK Palantir contracts after investigation reveals security concerns
BleepingComputer reports:
Italy fines Apple $116 million over App Store privacy policy issues
Waterfox announces:
No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla’s Next Chapter
The Register notes:
Waterfox browser goes AI-free, targets the Firefox faithful
You don’t need Linux to run free and open source software
This is one you should read and take action on. 🙂
Airbus to migrate critical apps to a sovereign Euro cloud
Europe gets serious about cutting digital umbilical cord with Uncle Sam’s big tech
It’s FOSS reports:
Denmark Begins its Exit from Microsoft — and This is Just the Beginning
At least the enemies of privacy are slowly telling Microsoft to fuck off.
NextCloud shares:
The Republic of Serbia deploys Nextcloud for compliant, on-premises collaboration
Robert Riemann asks:
EU OS: Which Linux Distribution fits Europe best?
Hamish Campbell asks:
What Did We Learn from Web3, Crypto?
Signal has:
This was 2025 for Signal: strong growth and many new features
CoMaps shares:
CoMaps and its community at the end of 2025
Neutral
The Center for Democracy and Technology has:
TechPolicy Press reports:
The Path to a Sovereign Tech Stack is Via a Commodified Tech Stack
Platforms Report to EU Regulators Under DSA With an Eye on US Politics
Europe Tried to Take Control of Its Digital Stack in 2025. Where Does It Stand Now?
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
Krebs on Security reports:
Dismantling Defenses: Trump 2.0 Cyber Year in Review
Cory Doctorow says:
America’s collapsing consumption is the world’s disenshittification opportunity
Tech Dadu reports:
EU Prepares Wider Data Retention Rules, VPN Providers Could Be Affected
The Register reports:
Denmark takes a Viking swing at VPN-enabled piracy
Pariah States
And:
Amazon security boss blames Russia’s GRU for years-long energy-sector hacks
China, Iran are having a field day with React2Shell, Google warns
BleepingComputer reports:
France arrests Latvian for installing malware on Italian ferry
Denmark blames Russia for destructive cyberattack on water utility
DarkReading reports:
Russia Hits Critical Orgs Via Misconfigured Edge Devices
Dormant Iran APT is Still Alive, Spying on Dissidents
EuronNews reports:
Pro-Russian hackers claim French postal service cyberattack
Big Media
Ben Werdmuller asks:
Just for brain-dead people.
Nieman Lab’s Predictions for Journalism 2026
Journalists talk about the elephant in the room: our relationship with Big Tech
CyberCultural shares:
My 2025 Indie Web Report and Thoughts on the Open Web
404 Media reports:
Archivists Posted the 60 Minutes CECOT Segment Bari Weiss Killed
Big Tech
The Nerd Reich reports:
Tech Billionaires Flirt With the Guillotine
JD Vance’s Theo Bro Network: Silicon Valley Meets ‘God’
Futurism reports:
Professor Warns That the Wealthy Are Trying to Use AI to Seize Control of Everything
The Rebel Tech Alliance reports on:
404 Media reports:
Hack Reveals the a16z-Backed Phone Farm Flooding TikTok With AI Influencers
SuperBloom examines:
From Content to Interface: Rethinking Platform Transparency Through Design
Wanna-be Big Tech
Mozilla spouts techbro delusions:
Mozilla’s Next Chapter: Building the World’s Most Trusted Software Company
Fuck Firefox.
Pivot to AI has the reality:
Firefox browser falls to AI. What do we do now?
Zen, Waterfox, or LibreWolf, peeps.
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Register reports:
New React vulns leak secrets, invite DoS attacks
Poisoned WhatsApp API package steals messages and accounts
Krebs on Security reports:
Most Parked Domains Now Serving Malicious Content
DarkReading reports:
Attackers Use Stolen AWS Credentials in Cryptomining Campaign
BleepingComputer reports:
Microsoft 365 accounts targeted in wave of OAuth phishing attacks
Mullvad is:
Announcing GotaTun, the future of WireGuard at Mullvad VPN
Framasoft asks:
Qui suis-je et quelle est mon identité ?
404 Media reports:
Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves
Fediverse
Tim Chambres shares:
My 2026 Open Social Web Predictions
Ploum shares:
How We Lost Communication to Entertainment
The Social Web Foundation explores:
Implementing Encrypted Messaging over ActivityPub
Literally, awesome.
Connected Places has:
PeerTube announces:
Publish your videos with PeerTube for mobile!
It’s FOSS reports:
Decentralized YouTube Alternative PeerTube Adds Creator Mode
Holos shares:
ActivityPub for WordPress has:
Jose Murilo shares:
Museums in the Fediverse: Experiments with Tainacan, ActivityPub, and WebSocial
DeadSuperHerson says:
Ghost’s ActivityPub Integration Feels Half-Baked
I feel the same way. And it’s why I am running a backup of The Programmer’s Fulcrum on WordPress to keep Ghost honest. We’ll see where TPF ends up in 2027.
Mastodon shares its:
Piefed announces:
PieFed 1.4 is released – emoji, federated stackoverflow and AI content filters
Empathy Forward announces:
Fedify shares:
Fedify 1.10.0: Observability foundations for the future debug dashboard
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
Connected Places has:
ATmosphere Report 147 – Year’s end reflections
ATProto Community has:
Ændra Rininsland: Supporting and growing ATProto development in 2025 and beyond
I am going to check Leaflet out.
TechCrunch reports:
Bluesky launches a privacy-focused ‘Find Friends’ feature without invite spam
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Never stop fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Holos #Mastodon #Peertube #RSS #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=4242
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse -
Destroying Autocracy – December 25, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ´em.
So folks, this is the final edition of Destroying Autocracy. Recently, I ran across a quote that fits with why I ran this project:
“I am absolutely convinced that only a small minority, a very small minority, among us, are seriously reached and profoundly moved by our propaganda of criticism, of doubt, of rebellion, of free investigation, of independent research. On the other hand, it is clear that our first interest lies always in seeking to increase this minority; to keep it, under all circumstances alive, active, refreshed. Our own happiness depends on it.
— Emile Armand”Thanks for following us. Now, on to what’s next.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is now the home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Destroying Autocracy, and Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum
Please copy and paste our handle into you favorite client to follow us. Original website content will start next week.
Featured Item(s)
I ran across these last week.
The Resonant Computing Manifesto
These are principles that should be implementing when developing for the Open Media Network.
Jan Wideboer writes:
Over the past few months, I thought a lot about Digital Sovereignty. I talked to experts, from analysts over legal experts to people running companies and public authorities. I tried to distill what is really at the core of the principle.
OCT – My Framework for Digital Sovereignty, Part 1
This is a good way to look at it.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
TechCrunch reports:
Stanford’s star reporter takes on Silicon Valley’s ‘money-soaked’ startup culture
TechPolicy shares:
Making the Digital Markets Act Developer-Friendly
The Guardian reports:
This is Europe’s secret weapon against Trump: it could burst his AI bubble
The Guardian view on Australia’s social media ban: dragging tech companies into action
MPs question UK Palantir contracts after investigation reveals security concerns
BleepingComputer reports:
Italy fines Apple $116 million over App Store privacy policy issues
Waterfox announces:
No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla’s Next Chapter
The Register notes:
Waterfox browser goes AI-free, targets the Firefox faithful
You don’t need Linux to run free and open source software
This is one you should read and take action on. 🙂
Airbus to migrate critical apps to a sovereign Euro cloud
Europe gets serious about cutting digital umbilical cord with Uncle Sam’s big tech
It’s FOSS reports:
Denmark Begins its Exit from Microsoft — and This is Just the Beginning
At least the enemies of privacy are slowly telling Microsoft to fuck off.
NextCloud shares:
The Republic of Serbia deploys Nextcloud for compliant, on-premises collaboration
Robert Riemann asks:
EU OS: Which Linux Distribution fits Europe best?
Hamish Campbell asks:
What Did We Learn from Web3, Crypto?
Signal has:
This was 2025 for Signal: strong growth and many new features
CoMaps shares:
CoMaps and its community at the end of 2025
Neutral
The Center for Democracy and Technology has:
TechPolicy Press reports:
The Path to a Sovereign Tech Stack is Via a Commodified Tech Stack
Platforms Report to EU Regulators Under DSA With an Eye on US Politics
Europe Tried to Take Control of Its Digital Stack in 2025. Where Does It Stand Now?
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
Krebs on Security reports:
Dismantling Defenses: Trump 2.0 Cyber Year in Review
Cory Doctorow says:
America’s collapsing consumption is the world’s disenshittification opportunity
Tech Dadu reports:
EU Prepares Wider Data Retention Rules, VPN Providers Could Be Affected
The Register reports:
Denmark takes a Viking swing at VPN-enabled piracy
Pariah States
And:
Amazon security boss blames Russia’s GRU for years-long energy-sector hacks
China, Iran are having a field day with React2Shell, Google warns
BleepingComputer reports:
France arrests Latvian for installing malware on Italian ferry
Denmark blames Russia for destructive cyberattack on water utility
DarkReading reports:
Russia Hits Critical Orgs Via Misconfigured Edge Devices
Dormant Iran APT is Still Alive, Spying on Dissidents
EuronNews reports:
Pro-Russian hackers claim French postal service cyberattack
Big Media
Ben Werdmuller asks:
Just for brain-dead people.
Nieman Lab’s Predictions for Journalism 2026
Journalists talk about the elephant in the room: our relationship with Big Tech
CyberCultural shares:
My 2025 Indie Web Report and Thoughts on the Open Web
404 Media reports:
Archivists Posted the 60 Minutes CECOT Segment Bari Weiss Killed
Big Tech
The Nerd Reich reports:
Tech Billionaires Flirt With the Guillotine
JD Vance’s Theo Bro Network: Silicon Valley Meets ‘God’
Futurism reports:
Professor Warns That the Wealthy Are Trying to Use AI to Seize Control of Everything
The Rebel Tech Alliance reports on:
404 Media reports:
Hack Reveals the a16z-Backed Phone Farm Flooding TikTok With AI Influencers
SuperBloom examines:
From Content to Interface: Rethinking Platform Transparency Through Design
Wanna-be Big Tech
Mozilla spouts techbro delusions:
Mozilla’s Next Chapter: Building the World’s Most Trusted Software Company
Fuck Firefox.
Pivot to AI has the reality:
Firefox browser falls to AI. What do we do now?
Zen, Waterfox, or LibreWolf, peeps.
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Register reports:
New React vulns leak secrets, invite DoS attacks
Poisoned WhatsApp API package steals messages and accounts
Krebs on Security reports:
Most Parked Domains Now Serving Malicious Content
DarkReading reports:
Attackers Use Stolen AWS Credentials in Cryptomining Campaign
BleepingComputer reports:
Microsoft 365 accounts targeted in wave of OAuth phishing attacks
Mullvad is:
Announcing GotaTun, the future of WireGuard at Mullvad VPN
Framasoft asks:
Qui suis-je et quelle est mon identité ?
404 Media reports:
Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves
Fediverse
Tim Chambres shares:
My 2026 Open Social Web Predictions
Ploum shares:
How We Lost Communication to Entertainment
The Social Web Foundation explores:
Implementing Encrypted Messaging over ActivityPub
Literally, awesome.
Connected Places has:
PeerTube announces:
Publish your videos with PeerTube for mobile!
It’s FOSS reports:
Decentralized YouTube Alternative PeerTube Adds Creator Mode
Holos shares:
ActivityPub for WordPress has:
Jose Murilo shares:
Museums in the Fediverse: Experiments with Tainacan, ActivityPub, and WebSocial
DeadSuperHerson says:
Ghost’s ActivityPub Integration Feels Half-Baked
I feel the same way. And it’s why I am running a backup of The Programmer’s Fulcrum on WordPress to keep Ghost honest. We’ll see where TPF ends up in 2027.
Mastodon shares its:
Piefed announces:
PieFed 1.4 is released – emoji, federated stackoverflow and AI content filters
Empathy Forward announces:
Fedify shares:
Fedify 1.10.0: Observability foundations for the future debug dashboard
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
Connected Places has:
ATmosphere Report 147 – Year’s end reflections
ATProto Community has:
Ændra Rininsland: Supporting and growing ATProto development in 2025 and beyond
I am going to check Leaflet out.
TechCrunch reports:
Bluesky launches a privacy-focused ‘Find Friends’ feature without invite spam
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Never stop fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Holos #Mastodon #Peertube #RSS #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=4242
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse -
Destroying Autocracy – December 25, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ´em.
So folks, this is the final edition of Destroying Autocracy. Recently, I ran across a quote that fits with why I ran this project:
“I am absolutely convinced that only a small minority, a very small minority, among us, are seriously reached and profoundly moved by our propaganda of criticism, of doubt, of rebellion, of free investigation, of independent research. On the other hand, it is clear that our first interest lies always in seeking to increase this minority; to keep it, under all circumstances alive, active, refreshed. Our own happiness depends on it.
— Emile Armand”Thanks for following us. Now, on to what’s next.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is now the home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Destroying Autocracy, and Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum
Please copy and paste our handle into you favorite client to follow us. Original website content will start next week.
Featured Item(s)
I ran across these last week.
The Resonant Computing Manifesto
These are principles that should be implementing when developing for the Open Media Network.
Jan Wideboer writes:
Over the past few months, I thought a lot about Digital Sovereignty. I talked to experts, from analysts over legal experts to people running companies and public authorities. I tried to distill what is really at the core of the principle.
OCT – My Framework for Digital Sovereignty, Part 1
This is a good way to look at it.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
TechCrunch reports:
Stanford’s star reporter takes on Silicon Valley’s ‘money-soaked’ startup culture
TechPolicy shares:
Making the Digital Markets Act Developer-Friendly
The Guardian reports:
This is Europe’s secret weapon against Trump: it could burst his AI bubble
The Guardian view on Australia’s social media ban: dragging tech companies into action
MPs question UK Palantir contracts after investigation reveals security concerns
BleepingComputer reports:
Italy fines Apple $116 million over App Store privacy policy issues
Waterfox announces:
No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla’s Next Chapter
The Register notes:
Waterfox browser goes AI-free, targets the Firefox faithful
You don’t need Linux to run free and open source software
This is one you should read and take action on. 🙂
Airbus to migrate critical apps to a sovereign Euro cloud
Europe gets serious about cutting digital umbilical cord with Uncle Sam’s big tech
It’s FOSS reports:
Denmark Begins its Exit from Microsoft — and This is Just the Beginning
At least the enemies of privacy are slowly telling Microsoft to fuck off.
NextCloud shares:
The Republic of Serbia deploys Nextcloud for compliant, on-premises collaboration
Robert Riemann asks:
EU OS: Which Linux Distribution fits Europe best?
Hamish Campbell asks:
What Did We Learn from Web3, Crypto?
Signal has:
This was 2025 for Signal: strong growth and many new features
CoMaps shares:
CoMaps and its community at the end of 2025
Neutral
The Center for Democracy and Technology has:
TechPolicy Press reports:
The Path to a Sovereign Tech Stack is Via a Commodified Tech Stack
Platforms Report to EU Regulators Under DSA With an Eye on US Politics
Europe Tried to Take Control of Its Digital Stack in 2025. Where Does It Stand Now?
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
Krebs on Security reports:
Dismantling Defenses: Trump 2.0 Cyber Year in Review
Cory Doctorow says:
America’s collapsing consumption is the world’s disenshittification opportunity
Tech Dadu reports:
EU Prepares Wider Data Retention Rules, VPN Providers Could Be Affected
The Register reports:
Denmark takes a Viking swing at VPN-enabled piracy
Pariah States
And:
Amazon security boss blames Russia’s GRU for years-long energy-sector hacks
China, Iran are having a field day with React2Shell, Google warns
BleepingComputer reports:
France arrests Latvian for installing malware on Italian ferry
Denmark blames Russia for destructive cyberattack on water utility
DarkReading reports:
Russia Hits Critical Orgs Via Misconfigured Edge Devices
Dormant Iran APT is Still Alive, Spying on Dissidents
EuronNews reports:
Pro-Russian hackers claim French postal service cyberattack
Big Media
Ben Werdmuller asks:
Just for brain-dead people.
Nieman Lab’s Predictions for Journalism 2026
Journalists talk about the elephant in the room: our relationship with Big Tech
CyberCultural shares:
My 2025 Indie Web Report and Thoughts on the Open Web
404 Media reports:
Archivists Posted the 60 Minutes CECOT Segment Bari Weiss Killed
Big Tech
The Nerd Reich reports:
Tech Billionaires Flirt With the Guillotine
JD Vance’s Theo Bro Network: Silicon Valley Meets ‘God’
Futurism reports:
Professor Warns That the Wealthy Are Trying to Use AI to Seize Control of Everything
The Rebel Tech Alliance reports on:
404 Media reports:
Hack Reveals the a16z-Backed Phone Farm Flooding TikTok With AI Influencers
SuperBloom examines:
From Content to Interface: Rethinking Platform Transparency Through Design
Wanna-be Big Tech
Mozilla spouts techbro delusions:
Mozilla’s Next Chapter: Building the World’s Most Trusted Software Company
Fuck Firefox.
Pivot to AI has the reality:
Firefox browser falls to AI. What do we do now?
Zen, Waterfox, or LibreWolf, peeps.
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Register reports:
New React vulns leak secrets, invite DoS attacks
Poisoned WhatsApp API package steals messages and accounts
Krebs on Security reports:
Most Parked Domains Now Serving Malicious Content
DarkReading reports:
Attackers Use Stolen AWS Credentials in Cryptomining Campaign
BleepingComputer reports:
Microsoft 365 accounts targeted in wave of OAuth phishing attacks
Mullvad is:
Announcing GotaTun, the future of WireGuard at Mullvad VPN
Framasoft asks:
Qui suis-je et quelle est mon identité ?
404 Media reports:
Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves
Fediverse
Tim Chambres shares:
My 2026 Open Social Web Predictions
Ploum shares:
How We Lost Communication to Entertainment
The Social Web Foundation explores:
Implementing Encrypted Messaging over ActivityPub
Literally, awesome.
Connected Places has:
PeerTube announces:
Publish your videos with PeerTube for mobile!
It’s FOSS reports:
Decentralized YouTube Alternative PeerTube Adds Creator Mode
Holos shares:
ActivityPub for WordPress has:
Jose Murilo shares:
Museums in the Fediverse: Experiments with Tainacan, ActivityPub, and WebSocial
DeadSuperHerson says:
Ghost’s ActivityPub Integration Feels Half-Baked
I feel the same way. And it’s why I am running a backup of The Programmer’s Fulcrum on WordPress to keep Ghost honest. We’ll see where TPF ends up in 2027.
Mastodon shares its:
Piefed announces:
PieFed 1.4 is released – emoji, federated stackoverflow and AI content filters
Empathy Forward announces:
Fedify shares:
Fedify 1.10.0: Observability foundations for the future debug dashboard
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
Connected Places has:
ATmosphere Report 147 – Year’s end reflections
ATProto Community has:
Ændra Rininsland: Supporting and growing ATProto development in 2025 and beyond
I am going to check Leaflet out.
TechCrunch reports:
Bluesky launches a privacy-focused ‘Find Friends’ feature without invite spam
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Never stop fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Holos #Mastodon #Peertube #RSS #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=4242
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse -
Destroying Autocracy – December 04, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing in January.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start next month.
Featured Item(s)
Hamish Campbell writes:
ActivityPub is a shared vocabulary, a public language for moving meaning and connection across the open web. It gives you nouns and verbs, and the community defines the grammar through lived use.
This is why the OMN works with ActivityPub, a metadata and meaning layer, not a platform, flows, not silos. ActivityPub is the widely deployed 4 Opens protocol that treats publishing as a flow, a conversation.
Unlike the more vertical stacks (ATProto is a good example), ActivityPub doesn’t force a worldview. It doesn’t tell you, “this is how your network must be structured.” It doesn’t enforce hierarchy or lock you into one interpretation of identity, authority, or workflow. It’s a KISS path – here’s a shared language, verbs for publishing and receiving, express objects, updates, relationships. The rest is up to the commons.
This flexibility is exactly why the OMN can become a part of this flow.
Why the OMN works with ActivityPub – And why we need a bridge to p2p
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
DDEV has:
Power Through Blackouts: How DDEV Community Helped Me in Ukraine
TechPolicy Press shares:
How to Test New York’s Algorithmic Pricing Law
The EU’s Digital Omnibus Must Be Rejected by Lawmakers. Here is Why.
Singapore announced an:
Issuance of Implementation Directives to Apple and Google Under the Online Criminal Harms Act
The MIT Press Reader has:
The Secret History of Tor: How a Military Project Became a Lifeline for Privacy
The Guardian reports:
Irish authorities asked to investigate Microsoft over alleged unlawful data processing by IDF
Elon Musk’s X fined €120m by EU in first clash under new digital laws
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
After Years of Controversy, the EU’s Chat Control Nears Its Final Hurdle: What to Know
FSFE announces:
Opening the cage: the FSFE flies away from X (Twitter)
Better late than never and what anyone with any morality should do.
Signal announces:
Major expansion of Signal for Linux, announces AppImage
TechCrunch reports:
Chicago Tribune sues Perplexity
The Center for Democracy and Technology announces:
A Framework for Assessing AI Transparency in the Public Sector
Collabora announces:
Collabora Online now available on Desktop
Neutral
TechPolicy Press reports:
What the European Commission and Civil Society Both Get Wrong on the Digital Omnibus
Why Platforms Don’t Catch Climate Misinformation — and How to Change That
EuroNews asks:
Which European countries are building their own sovereign AI to compete in the tech race?
Numerama reports:
TechCrunch reports:
Mistral closes in on Big AI rivals with new open-weight frontier and small models
Wired reports:
The Age-Gated Internet Is Sweeping the states. Activists Are Fighting Back.
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They’re Doing
EDRi has:
Promises unkept: The EU-US Data Privacy Framework under fire
404 Media reports:
Flock Uses Overseas Gig Workers to Build its Surveillance AI
TechCrunch reports:
Pariah States
DarkReading reports:
Tomiris Unleashes ‘Havoc’ With New Tools, Tactics
DPRK’s ‘Contagious Interview’ Spawns Malicious Npm Package Factory
Student Sells Gov’t, University Sites to Chinese Actors
TechPolicy Press reports:
The Gulf’s AI Rise and the Risk of Entrenching Authoritarianism
The Register reports:
China using AI as ‘precision instrument’ of censorship and repression, at home and abroad
Big Media
Axios reports:
Fox News hires Palantir to build AI newsroom tools
Big surprise.
Nieman Lab reports:
Publishers will finally learn to truly value news creators
The OMN can greatly influence this trend.
The Ecologist shares:
‘We need a media consumers union’
This times 1,000.
Big Tech
The Guardian reports:
How big tech is creating its own friendly media bubble to ‘win the narrative battle online’
More than 1,000 Amazon workers warn rapid AI rollout threatens jobs and climate
Anti-immigrant material among AI-generated content getting billions of views on TikTok
The question isn’t whether the AI bubble will burst – but what the fallout will be
BleepingComputer reports:
Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out
Big surprise here. But, if you’re amoral enough to use it, you deserve all the privacy invading ads you get.
Google deletes X post after getting caught using a ‘stolen’ AI recipe infographic
Nature reports:
Major AI conference flooded with peer reviews written fully by AI
Wow.
404 Media reports:
Scientists Are Increasingly Worried AI Will Sway Elections
Current Affairs reports:
AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself
Time reports:
Court Filings Allege Meta Downplayed Risks to Children and Misled the Public
National Review reports:
Meta Researchers Privately Compared Instagram to Addictive Drug, Bombshell Court Filing Shows
Wanna-be Big Tech
OMG Unbuntu has:
Mozilla’s ‘Rewiring’ to AI – Saving the Web or Saving Itself?
Cybersecurity/Privacy
TechCrunch reports:
European cops shut down crypto mixing website that helped launder 1.3B euros
DarkReading reports:
New Raptor Framework Uses Agentic Workflows to Create Patches
Bleeping Computer reports:
Fake Calendly invites spoof top brands to hijack ad manager accounts
The Register reports:
Microsoft quietly shuts down Windows shortcut flaw after years of espionage abuse
Fediverse
Coywolf has:
Mastodon creator shares what went wrong with Threads and ponders the future of the fediverse
Ben Werdmuller shares:
Sean Coates explores:
The Fediverse and Content Creation: Monetization
Great and important stuff.
Ploum asks:
Is Pixelfed sawing off the branch that the Fediverse is sitting on?
Wouldn’t the fix to this would be to show a larger version of a user’s profile image with text posts?
Connected Places has:
FediForum shares:
FediForum/Fediverse Track at SFSCon, November 2025, in Bolzano, Italy
SVDJ has:
‘Stapje voor stapje de controle terugpakken’: hoe media hun publiek kunnen heroveren op Big Tech
Beautiful site design for a news website, btw.
Deemlog has a bizarre experiment:
Git as Federation Transport — Rethinking How Small Social Networks Talk to Each Other
Jose Murilo shares:
“Museus no Fediverso” – Apresentação do Ibram-Museus no 1º WebSocialBR
RSS
Planet Codigo has:
Mi solución RSS con software libre y autogestionado
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
TBD
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #Pixelfed #Roundabout #RSS #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #Threads
-
Destroying Autocracy – December 04, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing in January.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start next month.
Featured Item(s)
Hamish Campbell writes:
ActivityPub is a shared vocabulary, a public language for moving meaning and connection across the open web. It gives you nouns and verbs, and the community defines the grammar through lived use.
This is why the OMN works with ActivityPub, a metadata and meaning layer, not a platform, flows, not silos. ActivityPub is the widely deployed 4 Opens protocol that treats publishing as a flow, a conversation.
Unlike the more vertical stacks (ATProto is a good example), ActivityPub doesn’t force a worldview. It doesn’t tell you, “this is how your network must be structured.” It doesn’t enforce hierarchy or lock you into one interpretation of identity, authority, or workflow. It’s a KISS path – here’s a shared language, verbs for publishing and receiving, express objects, updates, relationships. The rest is up to the commons.
This flexibility is exactly why the OMN can become a part of this flow.
Why the OMN works with ActivityPub – And why we need a bridge to p2p
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
DDEV has:
Power Through Blackouts: How DDEV Community Helped Me in Ukraine
TechPolicy Press shares:
How to Test New York’s Algorithmic Pricing Law
The EU’s Digital Omnibus Must Be Rejected by Lawmakers. Here is Why.
Singapore announced an:
Issuance of Implementation Directives to Apple and Google Under the Online Criminal Harms Act
The MIT Press Reader has:
The Secret History of Tor: How a Military Project Became a Lifeline for Privacy
The Guardian reports:
Irish authorities asked to investigate Microsoft over alleged unlawful data processing by IDF
Elon Musk’s X fined €120m by EU in first clash under new digital laws
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
After Years of Controversy, the EU’s Chat Control Nears Its Final Hurdle: What to Know
FSFE announces:
Opening the cage: the FSFE flies away from X (Twitter)
Better late than never and what anyone with any morality should do.
Signal announces:
Major expansion of Signal for Linux, announces AppImage
TechCrunch reports:
Chicago Tribune sues Perplexity
The Center for Democracy and Technology announces:
A Framework for Assessing AI Transparency in the Public Sector
Collabora announces:
Collabora Online now available on Desktop
Neutral
TechPolicy Press reports:
What the European Commission and Civil Society Both Get Wrong on the Digital Omnibus
Why Platforms Don’t Catch Climate Misinformation — and How to Change That
EuroNews asks:
Which European countries are building their own sovereign AI to compete in the tech race?
Numerama reports:
TechCrunch reports:
Mistral closes in on Big AI rivals with new open-weight frontier and small models
Wired reports:
The Age-Gated Internet Is Sweeping the states. Activists Are Fighting Back.
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They’re Doing
EDRi has:
Promises unkept: The EU-US Data Privacy Framework under fire
404 Media reports:
Flock Uses Overseas Gig Workers to Build its Surveillance AI
TechCrunch reports:
Pariah States
DarkReading reports:
Tomiris Unleashes ‘Havoc’ With New Tools, Tactics
DPRK’s ‘Contagious Interview’ Spawns Malicious Npm Package Factory
Student Sells Gov’t, University Sites to Chinese Actors
TechPolicy Press reports:
The Gulf’s AI Rise and the Risk of Entrenching Authoritarianism
The Register reports:
China using AI as ‘precision instrument’ of censorship and repression, at home and abroad
Big Media
Axios reports:
Fox News hires Palantir to build AI newsroom tools
Big surprise.
Nieman Lab reports:
Publishers will finally learn to truly value news creators
The OMN can greatly influence this trend.
The Ecologist shares:
‘We need a media consumers union’
This times 1,000.
Big Tech
The Guardian reports:
How big tech is creating its own friendly media bubble to ‘win the narrative battle online’
More than 1,000 Amazon workers warn rapid AI rollout threatens jobs and climate
Anti-immigrant material among AI-generated content getting billions of views on TikTok
The question isn’t whether the AI bubble will burst – but what the fallout will be
BleepingComputer reports:
Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out
Big surprise here. But, if you’re amoral enough to use it, you deserve all the privacy invading ads you get.
Google deletes X post after getting caught using a ‘stolen’ AI recipe infographic
Nature reports:
Major AI conference flooded with peer reviews written fully by AI
Wow.
404 Media reports:
Scientists Are Increasingly Worried AI Will Sway Elections
Current Affairs reports:
AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself
Time reports:
Court Filings Allege Meta Downplayed Risks to Children and Misled the Public
National Review reports:
Meta Researchers Privately Compared Instagram to Addictive Drug, Bombshell Court Filing Shows
Wanna-be Big Tech
OMG Unbuntu has:
Mozilla’s ‘Rewiring’ to AI – Saving the Web or Saving Itself?
Cybersecurity/Privacy
TechCrunch reports:
European cops shut down crypto mixing website that helped launder 1.3B euros
DarkReading reports:
New Raptor Framework Uses Agentic Workflows to Create Patches
Bleeping Computer reports:
Fake Calendly invites spoof top brands to hijack ad manager accounts
The Register reports:
Microsoft quietly shuts down Windows shortcut flaw after years of espionage abuse
Fediverse
Coywolf has:
Mastodon creator shares what went wrong with Threads and ponders the future of the fediverse
Ben Werdmuller shares:
Sean Coates explores:
The Fediverse and Content Creation: Monetization
Great and important stuff.
Ploum asks:
Is Pixelfed sawing off the branch that the Fediverse is sitting on?
Wouldn’t the fix to this would be to show a larger version of a user’s profile image with text posts?
Connected Places has:
FediForum shares:
FediForum/Fediverse Track at SFSCon, November 2025, in Bolzano, Italy
SVDJ has:
‘Stapje voor stapje de controle terugpakken’: hoe media hun publiek kunnen heroveren op Big Tech
Beautiful site design for a news website, btw.
Deemlog has a bizarre experiment:
Git as Federation Transport — Rethinking How Small Social Networks Talk to Each Other
Jose Murilo shares:
“Museus no Fediverso” – Apresentação do Ibram-Museus no 1º WebSocialBR
RSS
Planet Codigo has:
Mi solución RSS con software libre y autogestionado
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
TBD
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #Pixelfed #Roundabout #RSS #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #Threads
-
Destroying Autocracy – December 04, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing in January.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start next month.
Featured Item(s)
Hamish Campbell writes:
ActivityPub is a shared vocabulary, a public language for moving meaning and connection across the open web. It gives you nouns and verbs, and the community defines the grammar through lived use.
This is why the OMN works with ActivityPub, a metadata and meaning layer, not a platform, flows, not silos. ActivityPub is the widely deployed 4 Opens protocol that treats publishing as a flow, a conversation.
Unlike the more vertical stacks (ATProto is a good example), ActivityPub doesn’t force a worldview. It doesn’t tell you, “this is how your network must be structured.” It doesn’t enforce hierarchy or lock you into one interpretation of identity, authority, or workflow. It’s a KISS path – here’s a shared language, verbs for publishing and receiving, express objects, updates, relationships. The rest is up to the commons.
This flexibility is exactly why the OMN can become a part of this flow.
Why the OMN works with ActivityPub – And why we need a bridge to p2p
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
DDEV has:
Power Through Blackouts: How DDEV Community Helped Me in Ukraine
TechPolicy Press shares:
How to Test New York’s Algorithmic Pricing Law
The EU’s Digital Omnibus Must Be Rejected by Lawmakers. Here is Why.
Singapore announced an:
Issuance of Implementation Directives to Apple and Google Under the Online Criminal Harms Act
The MIT Press Reader has:
The Secret History of Tor: How a Military Project Became a Lifeline for Privacy
The Guardian reports:
Irish authorities asked to investigate Microsoft over alleged unlawful data processing by IDF
Elon Musk’s X fined €120m by EU in first clash under new digital laws
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
After Years of Controversy, the EU’s Chat Control Nears Its Final Hurdle: What to Know
FSFE announces:
Opening the cage: the FSFE flies away from X (Twitter)
Better late than never and what anyone with any morality should do.
Signal announces:
Major expansion of Signal for Linux, announces AppImage
TechCrunch reports:
Chicago Tribune sues Perplexity
The Center for Democracy and Technology announces:
A Framework for Assessing AI Transparency in the Public Sector
Collabora announces:
Collabora Online now available on Desktop
Neutral
TechPolicy Press reports:
What the European Commission and Civil Society Both Get Wrong on the Digital Omnibus
Why Platforms Don’t Catch Climate Misinformation — and How to Change That
EuroNews asks:
Which European countries are building their own sovereign AI to compete in the tech race?
Numerama reports:
TechCrunch reports:
Mistral closes in on Big AI rivals with new open-weight frontier and small models
Wired reports:
The Age-Gated Internet Is Sweeping the states. Activists Are Fighting Back.
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They’re Doing
EDRi has:
Promises unkept: The EU-US Data Privacy Framework under fire
404 Media reports:
Flock Uses Overseas Gig Workers to Build its Surveillance AI
TechCrunch reports:
Pariah States
DarkReading reports:
Tomiris Unleashes ‘Havoc’ With New Tools, Tactics
DPRK’s ‘Contagious Interview’ Spawns Malicious Npm Package Factory
Student Sells Gov’t, University Sites to Chinese Actors
TechPolicy Press reports:
The Gulf’s AI Rise and the Risk of Entrenching Authoritarianism
The Register reports:
China using AI as ‘precision instrument’ of censorship and repression, at home and abroad
Big Media
Axios reports:
Fox News hires Palantir to build AI newsroom tools
Big surprise.
Nieman Lab reports:
Publishers will finally learn to truly value news creators
The OMN can greatly influence this trend.
The Ecologist shares:
‘We need a media consumers union’
This times 1,000.
Big Tech
The Guardian reports:
How big tech is creating its own friendly media bubble to ‘win the narrative battle online’
More than 1,000 Amazon workers warn rapid AI rollout threatens jobs and climate
Anti-immigrant material among AI-generated content getting billions of views on TikTok
The question isn’t whether the AI bubble will burst – but what the fallout will be
BleepingComputer reports:
Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out
Big surprise here. But, if you’re amoral enough to use it, you deserve all the privacy invading ads you get.
Google deletes X post after getting caught using a ‘stolen’ AI recipe infographic
Nature reports:
Major AI conference flooded with peer reviews written fully by AI
Wow.
404 Media reports:
Scientists Are Increasingly Worried AI Will Sway Elections
Current Affairs reports:
AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself
Time reports:
Court Filings Allege Meta Downplayed Risks to Children and Misled the Public
National Review reports:
Meta Researchers Privately Compared Instagram to Addictive Drug, Bombshell Court Filing Shows
Wanna-be Big Tech
OMG Unbuntu has:
Mozilla’s ‘Rewiring’ to AI – Saving the Web or Saving Itself?
Cybersecurity/Privacy
TechCrunch reports:
European cops shut down crypto mixing website that helped launder 1.3B euros
DarkReading reports:
New Raptor Framework Uses Agentic Workflows to Create Patches
Bleeping Computer reports:
Fake Calendly invites spoof top brands to hijack ad manager accounts
The Register reports:
Microsoft quietly shuts down Windows shortcut flaw after years of espionage abuse
Fediverse
Coywolf has:
Mastodon creator shares what went wrong with Threads and ponders the future of the fediverse
Ben Werdmuller shares:
Sean Coates explores:
The Fediverse and Content Creation: Monetization
Great and important stuff.
Ploum asks:
Is Pixelfed sawing off the branch that the Fediverse is sitting on?
Wouldn’t the fix to this would be to show a larger version of a user’s profile image with text posts?
Connected Places has:
FediForum shares:
FediForum/Fediverse Track at SFSCon, November 2025, in Bolzano, Italy
SVDJ has:
‘Stapje voor stapje de controle terugpakken’: hoe media hun publiek kunnen heroveren op Big Tech
Beautiful site design for a news website, btw.
Deemlog has a bizarre experiment:
Git as Federation Transport — Rethinking How Small Social Networks Talk to Each Other
Jose Murilo shares:
“Museus no Fediverso” – Apresentação do Ibram-Museus no 1º WebSocialBR
RSS
Planet Codigo has:
Mi solución RSS con software libre y autogestionado
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
TBD
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #Pixelfed #Roundabout #RSS #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #Threads
-
Destroying Autocracy – December 04, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing in January.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start next month.
Featured Item(s)
Hamish Campbell writes:
ActivityPub is a shared vocabulary, a public language for moving meaning and connection across the open web. It gives you nouns and verbs, and the community defines the grammar through lived use.
This is why the OMN works with ActivityPub, a metadata and meaning layer, not a platform, flows, not silos. ActivityPub is the widely deployed 4 Opens protocol that treats publishing as a flow, a conversation.
Unlike the more vertical stacks (ATProto is a good example), ActivityPub doesn’t force a worldview. It doesn’t tell you, “this is how your network must be structured.” It doesn’t enforce hierarchy or lock you into one interpretation of identity, authority, or workflow. It’s a KISS path – here’s a shared language, verbs for publishing and receiving, express objects, updates, relationships. The rest is up to the commons.
This flexibility is exactly why the OMN can become a part of this flow.
Why the OMN works with ActivityPub – And why we need a bridge to p2p
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
DDEV has:
Power Through Blackouts: How DDEV Community Helped Me in Ukraine
TechPolicy Press shares:
How to Test New York’s Algorithmic Pricing Law
The EU’s Digital Omnibus Must Be Rejected by Lawmakers. Here is Why.
Singapore announced an:
Issuance of Implementation Directives to Apple and Google Under the Online Criminal Harms Act
The MIT Press Reader has:
The Secret History of Tor: How a Military Project Became a Lifeline for Privacy
The Guardian reports:
Irish authorities asked to investigate Microsoft over alleged unlawful data processing by IDF
Elon Musk’s X fined €120m by EU in first clash under new digital laws
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
After Years of Controversy, the EU’s Chat Control Nears Its Final Hurdle: What to Know
FSFE announces:
Opening the cage: the FSFE flies away from X (Twitter)
Better late than never and what anyone with any morality should do.
Signal announces:
Major expansion of Signal for Linux, announces AppImage
TechCrunch reports:
Chicago Tribune sues Perplexity
The Center for Democracy and Technology announces:
A Framework for Assessing AI Transparency in the Public Sector
Collabora announces:
Collabora Online now available on Desktop
Neutral
TechPolicy Press reports:
What the European Commission and Civil Society Both Get Wrong on the Digital Omnibus
Why Platforms Don’t Catch Climate Misinformation — and How to Change That
EuroNews asks:
Which European countries are building their own sovereign AI to compete in the tech race?
Numerama reports:
TechCrunch reports:
Mistral closes in on Big AI rivals with new open-weight frontier and small models
Wired reports:
The Age-Gated Internet Is Sweeping the states. Activists Are Fighting Back.
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They’re Doing
EDRi has:
Promises unkept: The EU-US Data Privacy Framework under fire
404 Media reports:
Flock Uses Overseas Gig Workers to Build its Surveillance AI
TechCrunch reports:
Pariah States
DarkReading reports:
Tomiris Unleashes ‘Havoc’ With New Tools, Tactics
DPRK’s ‘Contagious Interview’ Spawns Malicious Npm Package Factory
Student Sells Gov’t, University Sites to Chinese Actors
TechPolicy Press reports:
The Gulf’s AI Rise and the Risk of Entrenching Authoritarianism
The Register reports:
China using AI as ‘precision instrument’ of censorship and repression, at home and abroad
Big Media
Axios reports:
Fox News hires Palantir to build AI newsroom tools
Big surprise.
Nieman Lab reports:
Publishers will finally learn to truly value news creators
The OMN can greatly influence this trend.
The Ecologist shares:
‘We need a media consumers union’
This times 1,000.
Big Tech
The Guardian reports:
How big tech is creating its own friendly media bubble to ‘win the narrative battle online’
More than 1,000 Amazon workers warn rapid AI rollout threatens jobs and climate
Anti-immigrant material among AI-generated content getting billions of views on TikTok
The question isn’t whether the AI bubble will burst – but what the fallout will be
BleepingComputer reports:
Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out
Big surprise here. But, if you’re amoral enough to use it, you deserve all the privacy invading ads you get.
Google deletes X post after getting caught using a ‘stolen’ AI recipe infographic
Nature reports:
Major AI conference flooded with peer reviews written fully by AI
Wow.
404 Media reports:
Scientists Are Increasingly Worried AI Will Sway Elections
Current Affairs reports:
AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself
Time reports:
Court Filings Allege Meta Downplayed Risks to Children and Misled the Public
National Review reports:
Meta Researchers Privately Compared Instagram to Addictive Drug, Bombshell Court Filing Shows
Wanna-be Big Tech
OMG Unbuntu has:
Mozilla’s ‘Rewiring’ to AI – Saving the Web or Saving Itself?
Cybersecurity/Privacy
TechCrunch reports:
European cops shut down crypto mixing website that helped launder 1.3B euros
DarkReading reports:
New Raptor Framework Uses Agentic Workflows to Create Patches
Bleeping Computer reports:
Fake Calendly invites spoof top brands to hijack ad manager accounts
The Register reports:
Microsoft quietly shuts down Windows shortcut flaw after years of espionage abuse
Fediverse
Coywolf has:
Mastodon creator shares what went wrong with Threads and ponders the future of the fediverse
Ben Werdmuller shares:
Sean Coates explores:
The Fediverse and Content Creation: Monetization
Great and important stuff.
Ploum asks:
Is Pixelfed sawing off the branch that the Fediverse is sitting on?
Wouldn’t the fix to this would be to show a larger version of a user’s profile image with text posts?
Connected Places has:
FediForum shares:
FediForum/Fediverse Track at SFSCon, November 2025, in Bolzano, Italy
SVDJ has:
‘Stapje voor stapje de controle terugpakken’: hoe media hun publiek kunnen heroveren op Big Tech
Beautiful site design for a news website, btw.
Deemlog has a bizarre experiment:
Git as Federation Transport — Rethinking How Small Social Networks Talk to Each Other
Jose Murilo shares:
“Museus no Fediverso” – Apresentação do Ibram-Museus no 1º WebSocialBR
RSS
Planet Codigo has:
Mi solución RSS con software libre y autogestionado
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
TBD
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #Pixelfed #Roundabout #RSS #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #Threads
-
Destroying Autocracy – November 13, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to and featured articles for each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start in 2026.
Featured Item(s)
Wrekage/Salvage writes:
Once you’ve seized the tools of political life to build communal power, it’s hard to forget what a hammer feels like in your hand.
Bonfire Networks is a tiny software org that has spent the past couple of years building a framework for communities on the open social web. At the end of last week, they released Bonfire Social, a microblogging app.
Like Mastodon, Bonfire Social runs on ActivityPub, but it takes differently opinionated approach to sociability.
(It has) features I (and many others) have been advocating for in Fediverse software for years, often while people explained at length that such things simply could not be implemented.
Most exhilarating to me, though, is that they aren’t just building another microblogging app. They’re making a toolkit for internet community software that is healthy and good and designed around real human needs from the start.
As they put it in their crowdfunding campaign, they’re making building blocks for communities on the open social web.
Total awesomeness that needs to blow up. We will cover (and support) Bonfire extensively on The Programmer’s Fulcrum.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Kyiv Independent reports:
Ukraine slaps new sanctions on Putin’s team and propagandist publishers
Radio Free Europe reports:
EU ‘Democracy Shield’ Aims To Counter Russian Disinformation
Open Web Advocacy has:
Tim Berners-Lee On Apple’s Browser Engine Ban and Web Apps
Ars Technica reports:
Google will let Android power users bypass upcoming sideloading restrictions
As they say, the proof will be in the pudding.
LibreOffice has:
The role of ODF in digital sovereignty (digital freedom)
Heise reports:
Office alternative from Germany by Ionos and Nextcloud is now available
Great.
Speaking of Germany, The Guardian reports:
ChatGPT violated copyright law by ‘learning’ from song lyrics, German court rules
Meta could face millions in fines for not signing content deals in Australia
Digital Rights Bytes asks:
Can the government read my text messages?
404 Media reports:
Judge Rules Flock Surveillance Images Are Public Records That Can Be Requested By Anyone
TechCrunch reports:
Wikipedia urges AI companies to use its paid API, and stop scraping
Brookings says:
Preach brother.
Poynter reports:
As independent newspapers disappear, a secretive alliance fights to save them
Neutral
Open Knowledge shares:
Open letter: Harnessing open source AI to advance digital sovereignty
The Ringer has:
How Catastrophic Is It If the AI Bubble Bursts? An FAQ.
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
404 Media reports:
DHS Gives Local Cops a Facial Recognition App To Find Immigrants
TechCrunch reports:
Why a lot of people are getting hacked with government spyware
Lawmakers warn Democratic governors that states are sharing drivers’ data with ICE
Euractiv reports:
EU’s red tape bonfire puts AI ahead of privacy protection
NOYB reports:
EU Commission internal draft would wreck core principles of the GDPR
The Guardian reports:
The EU has let US tech giants run riot. Diluting our data law will only entrench their power.
Tech giants vow to defend users in US as spyware companies make inroads with Trump administration
Freedom of the Press Foundation reports:
Kansas county pays $3M for forgetting the First Amendment
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They’re Doing
Tech Policy Press reports:
Global Internet Freedom Declines for 15th Consecutive Year
The Center for Democracy and Technology
Pariah States
BleepingComputer reports:
APT37 hackers abuse Google Find Hub in Android data-wiping attacks
BitDefender reports:
Russian hacker admits helping Yanluowang ransomware infect companies
The Register reports:
UK asks cyberspies to probe whether Chinese buses can be switched off remotely
Chinese spies told Claude to break into about 30 critical orgs. Some attacks succeeded
Krebs on Security reports:
Google Sues to Disrupt Chinese SMS Phishing Triad
Big Media
The Columbia Journalism Review has:
Editorial Independence Means Technological Independence
The Open Media Network peeps.
The Guardian reports:
EU investigates Google over ‘demotion’ of commercial content from news media
Big Tech
And:
Lies, damned lies and AI: the newest way to influence elections may be here to stay
The Register reports:
Big Tech’s control freak era is breaking itself apart
The Techno Anarchist Manifesto lists tools to help you avoid most of this AI horseshit.
Jesus.
Vivaldi has:
“A.I.” browsers: the price of admission is too high
GAD Insider reports:
Meta may read your DMs soon: Here’s what you need to know
Low Culture reports:
Digital colonialism: the new frontier of Latin American dependency.
A side effect of techno feudalism.
PC Mag reports:
Asking ChatGPT About Affairs or Abortion? Be Careful, Marketers Are Peeking at Your Prompts
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Register reports:
OWASP Top 10: Broken access control still tops app security list
IEEE Spectrum reports:
Your AI Agent Is Now a Target for Email Phishing. New tools can help thwart the attacks.
Like bitcoin, if you use this shit you deserve what you get.
DarkReading reports:
Orgs Move to SSO, Passkeys to Solve Bad Password Habits
GlassWorm Returns, Slices Back into VS Code Extensions
Check out VS Codium friends.
BleepingComputer reports:
Police disrupts Rhadamanthys, VenomRAT, and Elysium malware operations
Fediverse
Elena Rossini shares:
The rebellion will be federated – 2025 edition
A New Social has:
Bonfire explains:
Matters of care – why Bonfire maintenance comes first.
Comciencia has:
A comunicação da ciência no Fediverso
Laura Hargreves shares:
Growing My Own Little Fediverse: The Joy of Going Further Down the Rabbit Hole
Inside My Matrix: How I Reclaimed Messaging from the Cloud
TechCrunch reports:
Threads targets podcasters with new features, aiming to become the home for show discussions
BTW, fuck Threads.
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
Connected Places has:
ATmosphere Report 142 – more new apps
The Dabbler has:
Chicken Caesars: they’re messing with your Bluesky feed
TechCrunch reports:
Jack Dorsey funds diVine, a Vine reboot that includes Vine’s video archive
Hmm, this is built with Nostr.
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#activitypub #ai #autocracy #bigJournalism #bigTech #bluesky #bonfire #bridgyfed #democracy #fascism #fediverse #matrix #stopChina #stopIsrael #stopRedAmerica #stopRussia #supportUkraine #technoanarchism #technofeudalism #threads #xmpp
-
Destroying Autocracy – November 13, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to and featured articles for each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start in 2026.
Featured Item(s)
Wrekage/Salvage writes:
Once you’ve seized the tools of political life to build communal power, it’s hard to forget what a hammer feels like in your hand.
Bonfire Networks is a tiny software org that has spent the past couple of years building a framework for communities on the open social web. At the end of last week, they released Bonfire Social, a microblogging app.
Like Mastodon, Bonfire Social runs on ActivityPub, but it takes differently opinionated approach to sociability.
(It has) features I (and many others) have been advocating for in Fediverse software for years, often while people explained at length that such things simply could not be implemented.
Most exhilarating to me, though, is that they aren’t just building another microblogging app. They’re making a toolkit for internet community software that is healthy and good and designed around real human needs from the start.
As they put it in their crowdfunding campaign, they’re making building blocks for communities on the open social web.
Total awesomeness that needs to blow up. We will cover (and support) Bonfire extensively on The Programmer’s Fulcrum.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Kyiv Independent reports:
Ukraine slaps new sanctions on Putin’s team and propagandist publishers
Radio Free Europe reports:
EU ‘Democracy Shield’ Aims To Counter Russian Disinformation
Open Web Advocacy has:
Tim Berners-Lee On Apple’s Browser Engine Ban and Web Apps
Ars Technica reports:
Google will let Android power users bypass upcoming sideloading restrictions
As they say, the proof will be in the pudding.
LibreOffice has:
The role of ODF in digital sovereignty (digital freedom)
Heise reports:
Office alternative from Germany by Ionos and Nextcloud is now available
Great.
Speaking of Germany, The Guardian reports:
ChatGPT violated copyright law by ‘learning’ from song lyrics, German court rules
Meta could face millions in fines for not signing content deals in Australia
Digital Rights Bytes asks:
Can the government read my text messages?
404 Media reports:
Judge Rules Flock Surveillance Images Are Public Records That Can Be Requested By Anyone
TechCrunch reports:
Wikipedia urges AI companies to use its paid API, and stop scraping
Brookings says:
Preach brother.
Poynter reports:
As independent newspapers disappear, a secretive alliance fights to save them
Neutral
Open Knowledge shares:
Open letter: Harnessing open source AI to advance digital sovereignty
The Ringer has:
How Catastrophic Is It If the AI Bubble Bursts? An FAQ.
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
404 Media reports:
DHS Gives Local Cops a Facial Recognition App To Find Immigrants
TechCrunch reports:
Why a lot of people are getting hacked with government spyware
Lawmakers warn Democratic governors that states are sharing drivers’ data with ICE
Euractiv reports:
EU’s red tape bonfire puts AI ahead of privacy protection
NOYB reports:
EU Commission internal draft would wreck core principles of the GDPR
The Guardian reports:
The EU has let US tech giants run riot. Diluting our data law will only entrench their power.
Tech giants vow to defend users in US as spyware companies make inroads with Trump administration
Freedom of the Press Foundation reports:
Kansas county pays $3M for forgetting the First Amendment
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They’re Doing
Tech Policy Press reports:
Global Internet Freedom Declines for 15th Consecutive Year
The Center for Democracy and Technology
Pariah States
BleepingComputer reports:
APT37 hackers abuse Google Find Hub in Android data-wiping attacks
BitDefender reports:
Russian hacker admits helping Yanluowang ransomware infect companies
The Register reports:
UK asks cyberspies to probe whether Chinese buses can be switched off remotely
Chinese spies told Claude to break into about 30 critical orgs. Some attacks succeeded
Krebs on Security reports:
Google Sues to Disrupt Chinese SMS Phishing Triad
Big Media
The Columbia Journalism Review has:
Editorial Independence Means Technological Independence
The Open Media Network peeps.
The Guardian reports:
EU investigates Google over ‘demotion’ of commercial content from news media
Big Tech
And:
Lies, damned lies and AI: the newest way to influence elections may be here to stay
The Register reports:
Big Tech’s control freak era is breaking itself apart
The Techno Anarchist Manifesto lists tools to help you avoid most of this AI horseshit.
Jesus.
Vivaldi has:
“A.I.” browsers: the price of admission is too high
GAD Insider reports:
Meta may read your DMs soon: Here’s what you need to know
Low Culture reports:
Digital colonialism: the new frontier of Latin American dependency.
A side effect of techno feudalism.
PC Mag reports:
Asking ChatGPT About Affairs or Abortion? Be Careful, Marketers Are Peeking at Your Prompts
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Register reports:
OWASP Top 10: Broken access control still tops app security list
IEEE Spectrum reports:
Your AI Agent Is Now a Target for Email Phishing. New tools can help thwart the attacks.
Like bitcoin, if you use this shit you deserve what you get.
DarkReading reports:
Orgs Move to SSO, Passkeys to Solve Bad Password Habits
GlassWorm Returns, Slices Back into VS Code Extensions
Check out VS Codium friends.
BleepingComputer reports:
Police disrupts Rhadamanthys, VenomRAT, and Elysium malware operations
Fediverse
Elena Rossini shares:
The rebellion will be federated – 2025 edition
A New Social has:
Bonfire explains:
Matters of care – why Bonfire maintenance comes first.
Comciencia has:
A comunicação da ciência no Fediverso
Laura Hargreves shares:
Growing My Own Little Fediverse: The Joy of Going Further Down the Rabbit Hole
Inside My Matrix: How I Reclaimed Messaging from the Cloud
TechCrunch reports:
Threads targets podcasters with new features, aiming to become the home for show discussions
BTW, fuck Threads.
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
Connected Places has:
ATmosphere Report 142 – more new apps
The Dabbler has:
Chicken Caesars: they’re messing with your Bluesky feed
TechCrunch reports:
Jack Dorsey funds diVine, a Vine reboot that includes Vine’s video archive
Hmm, this is built with Nostr.
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#activitypub #ai #autocracy #bigJournalism #bigTech #bluesky #bonfire #bridgyfed #democracy #fascism #fediverse #matrix #stopChina #stopIsrael #stopRedAmerica #stopRussia #supportUkraine #technoanarchism #technofeudalism #threads #xmpp
-
Destroying Autocracy – November 13, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to and featured articles for each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start in 2026.
Featured Item(s)
Wrekage/Salvage writes:
Once you’ve seized the tools of political life to build communal power, it’s hard to forget what a hammer feels like in your hand.
Bonfire Networks is a tiny software org that has spent the past couple of years building a framework for communities on the open social web. At the end of last week, they released Bonfire Social, a microblogging app.
Like Mastodon, Bonfire Social runs on ActivityPub, but it takes differently opinionated approach to sociability.
(It has) features I (and many others) have been advocating for in Fediverse software for years, often while people explained at length that such things simply could not be implemented.
Most exhilarating to me, though, is that they aren’t just building another microblogging app. They’re making a toolkit for internet community software that is healthy and good and designed around real human needs from the start.
As they put it in their crowdfunding campaign, they’re making building blocks for communities on the open social web.
Total awesomeness that needs to blow up. We will cover (and support) Bonfire extensively on The Programmer’s Fulcrum.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Kyiv Independent reports:
Ukraine slaps new sanctions on Putin’s team and propagandist publishers
Radio Free Europe reports:
EU ‘Democracy Shield’ Aims To Counter Russian Disinformation
Open Web Advocacy has:
Tim Berners-Lee On Apple’s Browser Engine Ban and Web Apps
Ars Technica reports:
Google will let Android power users bypass upcoming sideloading restrictions
As they say, the proof will be in the pudding.
LibreOffice has:
The role of ODF in digital sovereignty (digital freedom)
Heise reports:
Office alternative from Germany by Ionos and Nextcloud is now available
Great.
Speaking of Germany, The Guardian reports:
ChatGPT violated copyright law by ‘learning’ from song lyrics, German court rules
Meta could face millions in fines for not signing content deals in Australia
Digital Rights Bytes asks:
Can the government read my text messages?
404 Media reports:
Judge Rules Flock Surveillance Images Are Public Records That Can Be Requested By Anyone
TechCrunch reports:
Wikipedia urges AI companies to use its paid API, and stop scraping
Brookings says:
Preach brother.
Poynter reports:
As independent newspapers disappear, a secretive alliance fights to save them
Neutral
Open Knowledge shares:
Open letter: Harnessing open source AI to advance digital sovereignty
The Ringer has:
How Catastrophic Is It If the AI Bubble Bursts? An FAQ.
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
404 Media reports:
DHS Gives Local Cops a Facial Recognition App To Find Immigrants
TechCrunch reports:
Why a lot of people are getting hacked with government spyware
Lawmakers warn Democratic governors that states are sharing drivers’ data with ICE
Euractiv reports:
EU’s red tape bonfire puts AI ahead of privacy protection
NOYB reports:
EU Commission internal draft would wreck core principles of the GDPR
The Guardian reports:
The EU has let US tech giants run riot. Diluting our data law will only entrench their power.
Tech giants vow to defend users in US as spyware companies make inroads with Trump administration
Freedom of the Press Foundation reports:
Kansas county pays $3M for forgetting the First Amendment
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They’re Doing
Tech Policy Press reports:
Global Internet Freedom Declines for 15th Consecutive Year
The Center for Democracy and Technology
Pariah States
BleepingComputer reports:
APT37 hackers abuse Google Find Hub in Android data-wiping attacks
BitDefender reports:
Russian hacker admits helping Yanluowang ransomware infect companies
The Register reports:
UK asks cyberspies to probe whether Chinese buses can be switched off remotely
Chinese spies told Claude to break into about 30 critical orgs. Some attacks succeeded
Krebs on Security reports:
Google Sues to Disrupt Chinese SMS Phishing Triad
Big Media
The Columbia Journalism Review has:
Editorial Independence Means Technological Independence
The Open Media Network peeps.
The Guardian reports:
EU investigates Google over ‘demotion’ of commercial content from news media
Big Tech
And:
Lies, damned lies and AI: the newest way to influence elections may be here to stay
The Register reports:
Big Tech’s control freak era is breaking itself apart
The Techno Anarchist Manifesto lists tools to help you avoid most of this AI horseshit.
Jesus.
Vivaldi has:
“A.I.” browsers: the price of admission is too high
GAD Insider reports:
Meta may read your DMs soon: Here’s what you need to know
Low Culture reports:
Digital colonialism: the new frontier of Latin American dependency.
A side effect of techno feudalism.
PC Mag reports:
Asking ChatGPT About Affairs or Abortion? Be Careful, Marketers Are Peeking at Your Prompts
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Register reports:
OWASP Top 10: Broken access control still tops app security list
IEEE Spectrum reports:
Your AI Agent Is Now a Target for Email Phishing. New tools can help thwart the attacks.
Like bitcoin, if you use this shit you deserve what you get.
DarkReading reports:
Orgs Move to SSO, Passkeys to Solve Bad Password Habits
GlassWorm Returns, Slices Back into VS Code Extensions
Check out VS Codium friends.
BleepingComputer reports:
Police disrupts Rhadamanthys, VenomRAT, and Elysium malware operations
Fediverse
Elena Rossini shares:
The rebellion will be federated – 2025 edition
A New Social has:
Bonfire explains:
Matters of care – why Bonfire maintenance comes first.
Comciencia has:
A comunicação da ciência no Fediverso
Laura Hargreves shares:
Growing My Own Little Fediverse: The Joy of Going Further Down the Rabbit Hole
Inside My Matrix: How I Reclaimed Messaging from the Cloud
TechCrunch reports:
Threads targets podcasters with new features, aiming to become the home for show discussions
BTW, fuck Threads.
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
Connected Places has:
ATmosphere Report 142 – more new apps
The Dabbler has:
Chicken Caesars: they’re messing with your Bluesky feed
TechCrunch reports:
Jack Dorsey funds diVine, a Vine reboot that includes Vine’s video archive
Hmm, this is built with Nostr.
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#activitypub #ai #autocracy #bigJournalism #bigTech #bluesky #bonfire #bridgyfed #democracy #fascism #fediverse #matrix #stopChina #stopIsrael #stopRedAmerica #stopRussia #supportUkraine #technoanarchism #technofeudalism #threads #xmpp
-
Destroying Autocracy – November 13, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to and featured articles for each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start in 2026.
Featured Item(s)
Wrekage/Salvage writes:
Once you’ve seized the tools of political life to build communal power, it’s hard to forget what a hammer feels like in your hand.
Bonfire Networks is a tiny software org that has spent the past couple of years building a framework for communities on the open social web. At the end of last week, they released Bonfire Social, a microblogging app.
Like Mastodon, Bonfire Social runs on ActivityPub, but it takes differently opinionated approach to sociability.
(It has) features I (and many others) have been advocating for in Fediverse software for years, often while people explained at length that such things simply could not be implemented.
Most exhilarating to me, though, is that they aren’t just building another microblogging app. They’re making a toolkit for internet community software that is healthy and good and designed around real human needs from the start.
As they put it in their crowdfunding campaign, they’re making building blocks for communities on the open social web.
Total awesomeness that needs to blow up. We will cover (and support) Bonfire extensively on The Programmer’s Fulcrum.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Kyiv Independent reports:
Ukraine slaps new sanctions on Putin’s team and propagandist publishers
Radio Free Europe reports:
EU ‘Democracy Shield’ Aims To Counter Russian Disinformation
Open Web Advocacy has:
Tim Berners-Lee On Apple’s Browser Engine Ban and Web Apps
Ars Technica reports:
Google will let Android power users bypass upcoming sideloading restrictions
As they say, the proof will be in the pudding.
LibreOffice has:
The role of ODF in digital sovereignty (digital freedom)
Heise reports:
Office alternative from Germany by Ionos and Nextcloud is now available
Great.
Speaking of Germany, The Guardian reports:
ChatGPT violated copyright law by ‘learning’ from song lyrics, German court rules
Meta could face millions in fines for not signing content deals in Australia
Digital Rights Bytes asks:
Can the government read my text messages?
404 Media reports:
Judge Rules Flock Surveillance Images Are Public Records That Can Be Requested By Anyone
TechCrunch reports:
Wikipedia urges AI companies to use its paid API, and stop scraping
Brookings says:
Preach brother.
Poynter reports:
As independent newspapers disappear, a secretive alliance fights to save them
Neutral
Open Knowledge shares:
Open letter: Harnessing open source AI to advance digital sovereignty
The Ringer has:
How Catastrophic Is It If the AI Bubble Bursts? An FAQ.
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
404 Media reports:
DHS Gives Local Cops a Facial Recognition App To Find Immigrants
TechCrunch reports:
Why a lot of people are getting hacked with government spyware
Lawmakers warn Democratic governors that states are sharing drivers’ data with ICE
Euractiv reports:
EU’s red tape bonfire puts AI ahead of privacy protection
NOYB reports:
EU Commission internal draft would wreck core principles of the GDPR
The Guardian reports:
The EU has let US tech giants run riot. Diluting our data law will only entrench their power.
Tech giants vow to defend users in US as spyware companies make inroads with Trump administration
Freedom of the Press Foundation reports:
Kansas county pays $3M for forgetting the First Amendment
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They’re Doing
Tech Policy Press reports:
Global Internet Freedom Declines for 15th Consecutive Year
The Center for Democracy and Technology
Pariah States
BleepingComputer reports:
APT37 hackers abuse Google Find Hub in Android data-wiping attacks
BitDefender reports:
Russian hacker admits helping Yanluowang ransomware infect companies
The Register reports:
UK asks cyberspies to probe whether Chinese buses can be switched off remotely
Chinese spies told Claude to break into about 30 critical orgs. Some attacks succeeded
Krebs on Security reports:
Google Sues to Disrupt Chinese SMS Phishing Triad
Big Media
The Columbia Journalism Review has:
Editorial Independence Means Technological Independence
The Open Media Network peeps.
The Guardian reports:
EU investigates Google over ‘demotion’ of commercial content from news media
Big Tech
And:
Lies, damned lies and AI: the newest way to influence elections may be here to stay
The Register reports:
Big Tech’s control freak era is breaking itself apart
The Techno Anarchist Manifesto lists tools to help you avoid most of this AI horseshit.
Jesus.
Vivaldi has:
“A.I.” browsers: the price of admission is too high
GAD Insider reports:
Meta may read your DMs soon: Here’s what you need to know
Low Culture reports:
Digital colonialism: the new frontier of Latin American dependency.
A side effect of techno feudalism.
PC Mag reports:
Asking ChatGPT About Affairs or Abortion? Be Careful, Marketers Are Peeking at Your Prompts
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Register reports:
OWASP Top 10: Broken access control still tops app security list
IEEE Spectrum reports:
Your AI Agent Is Now a Target for Email Phishing. New tools can help thwart the attacks.
Like bitcoin, if you use this shit you deserve what you get.
DarkReading reports:
Orgs Move to SSO, Passkeys to Solve Bad Password Habits
GlassWorm Returns, Slices Back into VS Code Extensions
Check out VS Codium friends.
BleepingComputer reports:
Police disrupts Rhadamanthys, VenomRAT, and Elysium malware operations
Fediverse
Elena Rossini shares:
The rebellion will be federated – 2025 edition
A New Social has:
Bonfire explains:
Matters of care – why Bonfire maintenance comes first.
Comciencia has:
A comunicação da ciência no Fediverso
Laura Hargreves shares:
Growing My Own Little Fediverse: The Joy of Going Further Down the Rabbit Hole
Inside My Matrix: How I Reclaimed Messaging from the Cloud
TechCrunch reports:
Threads targets podcasters with new features, aiming to become the home for show discussions
BTW, fuck Threads.
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
Connected Places has:
ATmosphere Report 142 – more new apps
The Dabbler has:
Chicken Caesars: they’re messing with your Bluesky feed
TechCrunch reports:
Jack Dorsey funds diVine, a Vine reboot that includes Vine’s video archive
Hmm, this is built with Nostr.
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#activitypub #ai #autocracy #bigJournalism #bigTech #bluesky #bonfire #bridgyfed #democracy #fascism #fediverse #matrix #stopChina #stopIsrael #stopRedAmerica #stopRussia #supportUkraine #technoanarchism #technofeudalism #threads #xmpp
-
Destroying Autocracy – October 09, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to and featured articles for each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start in 2026.
Featured Item(s)
Open Media Network writes:
A central thesis of Tolkien’s books is that evil provides the means of its own defeat. Sauron forged the One Ring that destroyed him. Shelob impaled herself on Sam’s blade. Smaug exposed his belly to Bilbo and revealed the weak point that brought him down. Tolkien’s world is full of this pattern: the seed of destruction lies buried inside the will to dominate. Power over others always carries its own undoing.
But there’s a second truth, less often spoken. Good must still act. The Ring did not cast itself into the fires of Mount Doom, it had to be carried, inch by inch, through the mud and terror, by two small Hobbits who refused to give up. Shelob could only fall because Sam held his arm firm when it would have been easier to drop the blade. Smaug was slain not by fate, but by the hand that fired the black arrow.
Even when evil weakens itself, the act of courage still has to be taken. The small people still have to step up. And there’s a third lesson here, one that feels painfully relevant to our time: good only loses when it surrenders to hopelessness. Denethor’s despair nearly doomed Minas Tirith.
Frodo would have fallen without Sam’s stubborn love. Bilbo’s small act of faith. In Tolkien’s world, hope is not naïve optimism, it’s an act of defiance.
Join us and become a hobbit in the Open Media Network.
Speaking of OMN, we have an announcement this week:
Announcing The Programmer’s Fulcrum, our retirement project
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Kyiv Independent reports:
The military branch behind Ukraine’s battlefield apps turns to weapons bureaucracy
Ukraine’s parliament backs creation of cyber forces in first reading
The Christian Science Monitor reports:
How Ukrainian drones are slowing Russia’s advance in the east
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
What Europe’s New Gig Work Law Means for Unions and Technology
Eiffair shares:
Its FOSS News reports:
Wikidata Launches Free Vector Database as Open Alternative to Closed AI Systems
NiemanLab reports:
Nonprofit news is growing strong — especially local nonprofit news, a new report shows
And the Columbia Journalism Review reports:
Heisse reports:
A defeat at the Supreme Court: Google must prepare changes to the Play Store
Nextcloud has:
Nextcloud vs Microsoft interoperability: how open source gets it right
Open letter to EU Member States on the proposed CSA Regulation or “Chat Control” law
Tuta announces:
Europe’s future is at stake: Open letter against Chat Control
Patrick shares the good news that pressure still works:
Citizen Protest Halts Chat Control; Breyer Celebrates Major Victory for Digital Privacy
404 Media reports:
Data Hoarder Uses AI to Create Searchable Database of Epstein Files
Help Us Investigate Book Bans and Educational Censorship Around America
Igalia announces:
Igalia, Servo, and the Sovereign Tech Fund
The Guardian reports:
You won’t believe what degrading practice the pope just condemned
Clever headline.
The Register reports:
Pro-Russia hacktivist group dies of cringe after falling into researchers’ trap
UK slaps ‘strategic market status’ on Google, unlocking power to pry open search
Burning Web shares:
Great Stuff.
Neutral
CyberCultural shares:
What the Internet Was Like in 2000
Homestar Runner 🙂
The Brookings Institute says:
The Guardian reports:
Poynter announces:
Poynter launches AI Innovation Lab to house its growing AI portfolio
CommonsDB is:
Exploring CommonsDB’s role in AI training data
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
TechCrunch reports:
ICE bought vehicles equipped with fake cell towers to spy on phones
Italian businessman’s phone reportedly targeted with Paragon spyware
Pariah States
The Kyiv Independent reports:
Russia’s digital Iron Curtain descends as Kremlin chokes remaining internet freedoms
IFTAS reports:
Coordinated Pro-Russian Propaganda Network Targeting ActivityPub and ATProto Services
Bleeping Computer reports:
Russian Hacktivists target critical infrastructure, hit decoy plant
North Korean hackers stole over $2 billion in crypto this year
The Columbia Journalism Review reports on:
DarkReading reports:
Chinese Gov’t Fronts Trick the West to Obtain Cyber Tech
China-Nexus Actors Weaponize ‘Nezha’ Open Source Tool
The Register reports:
OpenAI bans suspected Chinese accounts using ChatGPT to plan surveillance
The Columbia Journalism Review reports:
How Anti-Cybercrime Laws Are Being Weaponized to Repress Journalism
Big Media
FAIR reports:
MAGA’s Little Helpers: Sinclair, Nexstar and the Consolidation of Broadcast TV
Poynter reports:
Big Tech
404 Media reports:
Apple Banned an App That Simply Archived Videos of ICE Abuses
CNET reports:
The Hidden Dangers of the Digital ‘Yes Man’: How to Push Back Against Sycophantic AI
The Guardian has:
Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?
LitHub has more Cory Doctorow action:
How American Tech Cartels Use Apps to Break the Law
TechDirt reports:
And evidently make the law.
NOYB shares:
noyb win: Microsoft 365 Education may not track school children
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Tile’s Lack of Encryption Is a Danger for Users Everywhere
FBI takes down BreachForums portal used for Salesforce extortion
Fuck Salesforce, BTW.
Fediverse
Social Experience Design says:
Welcome to Social coding commons
Hamish Campbell has:
Live at c-base a #fluffy Fediverse conference
Riley Testut reports:
The New Stack reports:
Everything Big Starts Small: Building Open Social Web Apps
The Social Web Foundation has an:
Interview with John O’Nolan about Ghost 6
Connected Places has:
Fedify announces:
Fedify 2.0—the CLI now runs natively on Node.js and Bun, not just Deno
Go To Social announces:
We’ve just made the proper release of v0.20.0 of GoToSocial, aka Sinister Sloth
TechCrunch reports:
Alternative app store AltStore raises $6M, connects with the Fediverse
Mastodon is taking cues from Bluesky with plans for its own starter ‘Packs’
Mastodon has:
Community consultation: new Terms of Service (for mastodon.social and mastodon.online)
It’s cool to join Mastodon but not these two instances.
Trunk & Tidbits, September 2025
Terence Eden explores:
Getting started with Mastodon’s Quote Posts – technical implementation details for servers
NHAM announces:
NHAM Update Opus 10 (Fedi Music Television Edition)
Super awesome.
Castopod announces:
The Official Castopod Plugin Repository
RSS
InEssential explains:
Why NetNewsWire Is Not a Web App
Lighthouse has:
A deep dive into the rss feed reader landscape
Other Slightly Federated Social Media
Azhdarchid has:
TechCrunch reports:
Niko Mara-McKay goes into the nitty-gritty:
Bluesky’s CEO meltdown: How leadership continues to fail its most marginalized users
I have said from day one that Bluesky will become enshittified. But, ATProto has some potential.
And to be fair, some of the leaders of ActivityPub and its largest platform (who value growth over safety) are egotistical pissy ass fucks when they are even slightly criticized.
But we are all fighting technofascism so let’s try to work together on the protocols front at least. Its okay to have debates and disagreements with allies. But treat them like allies when doing so. If they are your friends you can even call them pissy ass fucks. 😉
Speaking of, A New Social announces:
Bounce from Mastodon to Bluesky
Why would you? Although maybe its works with Blacksky, Northsky, or Eurosky.
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#ActivityPub #AI #AltStore #ATProto #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Castopod #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #fluffy #GoToSocial #IFTAS #Mastodon #NHAM #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism