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Mastodon Follow Pack Directory 1.7
Follow entire groups of accounts listed below or simply click on accounts to view their profile page and follow them from there.
This directory includes notices, instructions and follow pack directory listings.
Notices
NOTIFICATION NOTICE: If you receive this federated WordPress blog post in your Notifications, your account may be included in one or more packs.
OPT-OUT NOTICE: If your account is listed in any Follow Pack and you do not want it to be, please message @[email protected] and refer to the pack from which you would like your account removed.
BRIDGE ACCOUNT NOTICE: Packs that include accounts that bridge outside the Fediverse will be identified with a special notice.
REPLIES ON MASTODON SPAM NOTICE: Replies include all named accounts. To avoid spamming, please edit any replies to remove addresses you do not intend to send the reply.
Follow Pack Instructions
Download the pack .csv file and import into Mastodon to follow all accounts:
– Click on a FollowPack .csv file link to download
– Click on Preferences (gear) icon on bottom right
– On mobile or narrow desktop click top right “hamburger” button
– Click Import and Export >>> Import
– Import type dropdown: Select “Lists” (NOT “Following list”)
– Verify that ‘Merge’ is selected (IMPORTANT)
– Click Browse… button >>> Select “[file name] – list.csv”
– Upload >>> ConfirmFollow Pack Directory
ASTRONOMY & SPACE
Pack: Astronomy
Criteria: Selected accounts that post regularly on astronomy and space.
Size: 60
List: Astro
Admin: https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigrationClick to download Astronomy-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRA5Aef7KPIlw6unflo2V1DairG-4B7SNgko3Rs3WScj-2BXSqVeksf_-_qmhWdly69jOm8oju6a6Co/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@65dBnoise, @AkaSci, @apod, @astrobin_iotd, @astrocamp, @AstroHyde, @astrokiwi, @astroland, @Astromeg, @astron, @astronomerstel, @AstronomieNL, @astroptere, @badastro, @benknispel, @bibianaprinoth, @coreyspowell, @CosmicRami, @cosmos4u, @cplberry, @crawfordsm, @dburke, @dstndstn, @ec_euclid, @elizabethtasker, @evilscientistca, @franco_vazza, @fraser, @GravityGrinch, @hannorein, @hausderastronomie, @hfalcke, @IRAP, @JohnBarentine, @kellylepo, @LIGO, @markmccaughrean, @megschwamb, @mpi_astro, @mpi_grav, @mpsgoettingen, @nasa, @NSFVoyager2, @OJ_Astro, @PhilStooke, @pomarede, @rubymoonbeams, @setiinstitute, @skrishna, @spacegeck, @starstryder, @startswithabang, @sundogplanets, @telescoper, @thomasconnor, @vicgrinberg, @VRubinObs, @weltraum, @mustapipa, @emilydoesastro*************************
AV GEEK
Pack: AVGeek
Criteria: Selected accounts that post regularly on aviation.
Size: 31
List: AVGeek
Admin: @rpmikClick to download AVGeek-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQwIpsX88KPWBfCW0WxpdqfFzg6QUII8k5baqVbdReu3E4H-Hu-eCSZwZMzjDYLvPZM4Isa70XAFQ5d/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@ai6yr, @AirlineReporter, @alexf24, @aligorith, @andybrwn, @AstroHawk, @[email protected], @Aviation_Librarian, @clemensv, @CosmicTraveler, @cvvhrn, @elanhead, @ErrolNZ, @[email protected], @gb0n, @hypeav, @ikluft, @JetTip, @JohnOCFII, @jp, @mancavgeek, @midendian, @ottergoose, @photoJDL, @photoJDL, @[email protected], @rpmik, @thebaldgeek, @TheSnoopySnoop, @User47, @[email protected]*************************
BRAZIL FALANTES
Pack: BrazilFalantes
Criteria: Selected Brazilian accounts.
Size: 43
List: BrazilFalantes
Admin: @augustoccClick to download BrazilFalantes-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSix8DugkdH9Q4cK663XToZ1hCcPmuPqBva0s2Q6Jh6RdnKZtParEjiHsEF156yVk5mpjh4SbCNUlPj/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@dudagc@mstdn.social, @ACarolaRodrigues, @adolfoneto, @alexmelo, @alter, @althieme, @Bruiserzinha, @CaetanoCosta, @caironoleto, @cajuuh, @caparica, @d_nho, @diegopds, @duran, @evaristoramosarte, @fabiocosta0305, @faconti, @felipesiles, @gfpreger, @gutocarvalho, @jimi, @kianda, @kiff, @lffontenelle, @liaamancio, @malcontato, @mari, @msmelo, @not_that_barb, @paulohrpinheiro, @pensadorlouco, @Pitico, @rafael, @retinadesgastada, @Roneyb, @sergiovds, @Tati, @tiagojferreira, @Valdemar1986, @vitordelucca, @vitu, @wag, @[email protected]*************************
CLIMATE
Pack: Climate
Criteria: Selected accounts that post regularly on climate change and climate science.
Size: 40
List: Climate
Admin: https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigrationClick to download Climate-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRDIriRmHiv7LNZcvSvCpWlSZEvBTrEATlcOkEAZYz9_vbeYLFz3gFtsatI9pwi4o2ozHFQoFQoXXtj/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@AlaskaWx, @allochthonous, @andrewdessler, @Bellingen, @bethsawin, @breadandcircuses, @CelloMomOnCars, @ClimateNewsNow, @Climatologist49, @clive, @CopernicusEU, @ct_bergstrom, @davidho, @douglasvb, @DrEvanGowan, @drsimevans, @GeraldKutney, @greeneralia, @gwagner, @helenczerski, @IcooIey, @janrosenow, @jphuston, @MichaelEMann, @petergleick, @PeterRu, @rahmstorf , @ProgGrrl, @Ruth_Mottram, @ScientistRebellion, @seaice, @SheDrivesMobility, @Snoro, @steve, @W_Lucht, @whatzaname, @weatherwest, @WmOrcutt, @wolfgangcramer, @ZLabe*************************
CYBERSECURITY
Pack: Cybersecurity
Criteria: Selected accounts that post regularly on cybersecurity, hacking and digital threats.
Size: 50
List: Cybersecurity
Admin: https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigrationClick to download Cybersecurity-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vT1kwhmiytfhp6vhsE1bKGrigQBHgeNhRaPjIjem4vgl5ejviQhsuh1RR39P49mAtFDPKEqmuouG8nq/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@adamshostack, @adulau, @Ange, @botconf, @briankrebs, @catsalad, @charlesmok, @circl, @cryptax, @decalage, @deviantollam, @drwhax, @eff, @Em0nM4stodon, @ericfreyss, @evacide, @F_kZ_, @fr0gger, @futex, @GossiTheDog, @hacks4pancakes, @hasherezade, @haveibeenpwned, @jerry, @josephcox, @justicerage, @kimzetter, @malwaretech, @mattblaze, @metacurity, @nopatience, @petersuber, @qutluch, @r00tbsd, @SecurityWriter, @Sh0ckFR, @SheHacksPurple, @shellsharks, @shodan, @spaf, @SteveD3, @SwiftOnSecurity, @talossecurity, @tychotithonus, @virtualabs, @VirusBulletin, @Viss, @volatility, @williballenthin, @zackwhittaker*************************
HUMOR
Pack: Humor
Criteria: Selected accounts that post regularly jokes and humor.
Size: 60
List: Astro
Admin: https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigrationClick to download Humor-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQ–hRKJff-OrgWcqc0U41Oh2v-1bcAlkD_4VO_tH0y5VmiAtlT3Y5JygUjm8R8wUm5529Rr8hwuIzC/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@abnormalmemery, @AbsoluteMemery, @dadjokes, @Daily_Twerk, @DailySBMemes, @funhouseradio, @humortimes, @johnnyd_cm, @kittencaboodle, @LaffGaff, @lowqualityfacts, @MarkoTheComic, @newsthump, @nicbest, @rooniecomics, @s8n, @sushvee*************************
INFOSEC PRO
Pack: InfosecPro
Criteria: Curated list of people “identifying” as information and cybersecurity people. See https://github.com/cstromblad/infosec_mastodon/blob/main/README.md for a full description of the methodology and criteria used for inclusion.
Size: 143
List: InfosecPro
Admin: https://mastodon.online/@[email protected]Click to download InfosecPro-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQZmhqzGFSp-UoamD7l1jJGZDWC2TVXuNXS3g-kHLhm8wOkixnLzujDj5KxASEPWy-BuwCQLkNfG6nk/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@_dm, @againsthimself, @agent0x0, @albinowax, @AlesandroOrtiz, @alethe, @amuse, @andreamm, @andygreenphd, @atoponce, @barbie, @bascule, @bittner, @bknudtson, @bluecat, @bogo, @brynet, @catileptic, @catsalad, @charlesdardaman, @chetwisniewski, @chetwisniewski, @ChocolateCoat, @ChrisJohnRiley, @christophetd, @CommieGIR, @Crudge, @darkoperator, @Dave_von_S, @DavidJBianco, @Dcuthbert, @decalage, @dhw, @dmnk, @dostalcody, @dragosr, @droe, @eljefedsecurit, @enoclue, @epixoip, @ewj, @fj, @Folini, @ForiamCJ, @Foxboron, @fsmontenegro, @fullyabstract, @g0tmi1k, @gcluley, @glennpegden, @Gorka, @gynvael, @hal_pomeranz, @HalvarFlake, @hatr, @hdm, @helma, @hughsie, @Imlordofthering, @insiderphd, @itm4n, @itspeterc, @Janterpstra, @jaybeale, @john, @JohnTimaeus, @jomo, @JosephMenn, @jrenken, @jschauma, @jtk, @jullrich, @kennwhite, @kevincollier, @kravietz, @krelnik, @lattera, @lcamtuf, @lennyzeltser, @liampomfret, @ljrk, @lkarlslund, @LukaszOlejnik, @mainframed767, @maldr0id, @markschultz, @matthew_d_green, @MrMeritology, @mttaggart, @nasko, @nono2357, @nopatience, @nw, @patrickcmiller, @paulasadoorian, @percepticon, @pgl, @phretor, @pixelnull, @PrivacyDigest, @psiinon, @quaithe, @raptor, @redford, @reitinger, @rene_mobile, @ret2bed, @RGB_Lights, @ric, @robert, @ryanc, @ryanc, @sawaba, @Schuldberg, @securestep9, @Secvalve, @seecurity, @sharedsecurity, @Sikorsky78, @SonarResearch, @spacerog, @stevenseeley, @sundhaug92, @Tarah, @tek, @teksquisite, @thegrugq, @theJoshMeister, @timcappalli, @tomchop, @troed, @tsudo, @tweedge, @vanhoefm, @vcsjones, @vinoth, @volt4ire, @williballenthin, @WPalant, @xabean, @Xavier, @xntrik, @z_edian*************************
LEGAL
Pack: Legal
Criteria: Selected accounts that post regularly on the law, criminal justice and other legal matters
Size: 31
List: Legal
Admin: https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigrationClick to download Legal-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQlxhRYLmA_OW_JrK_y0B5WXI3ENc4nj84XWA8CsDL4m5Z1WybynqcmZjAnFVMnn95tIvhjudI30VWo/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@1br0wn, @alysondecker, @andreamm, @andrew, @annmlipton, @AustinB, @austinkocher, @bespacific, @chargrille, @chrisgeidner, @cmorris, @copyrightlately, @D_J_Nathanson, @davidallengreen, @design_law, @drrimmer, @evacide, @FrankPasquale, @heidilifeldman, @icymi_law, @karlauerbach, @KProfsBlog, @lawfare, @LeftistLawyer, @LeslieBurns, @molly0xfff, @pdxlawgrrrl, @petersuber, @SteveBellovin, @Teri_Kanefield, @trabern*************************
MISCELLANY
Pack: Miscellany
Criteria: Selected accounts that post regularly on a varying and wide range of topics.
Size: 46
List: Miscellany
Admin: https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigrationClick to download Miscellany-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSdl9t0EDx6igJi7TXyOutp2LedZvtMNnE2m0pxfcEWXVJVUL1uZn4z6Z_OcEbaEYFVjda9d1Lw8UJl/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@Alice, @amydiehl, @AnneTheWriter1, @augieray, @billyjoebowers, @Catvalente, @chris, @clive, @CStamp, @dansinker, @Daojoan, @donni, @emilymbender, @ErickaSimone, @flexghost, @futurebird, @GhostOnTheHalfShell, @godpod, @grimalkina, @hildabast, @inquiline, @jalefkowit, @jawarajabbi, @jaykuo, @jessamyn, @karlauerbach, @kims, @Lana, @lowqualityfacts, @luckytran, @mattblaze, @mcc, @mckra1g, @mekkaokereke, @MostlyHarmless, @paninid, @peterbutler, @RickiTarr, @rysiek, @skeletor, @skinnylatte, @SmudgeTheInsultCat, @Strandjunker, @strypey, @tess, @VeroniqueB99*************************
MOSTLY DOGS
Pack: MostlyDogs
Criteria: Selected accounts that post mostly dogs and some cats.
Size: 60
List: MostlyDogs
Admin: @moxxiClick to download MostlyDogs-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSsBqVEiKBn8QQKG94q31P48wgATL8pvLCWGwoZXipT1OuVx455h3rDgy0a75CTuue5YRdYmap9idJO/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@amyfou, @bark_maul, @DerPitcher, @DogWatson, @effies, @flicka, @hopper, @howisyourdog, @huskify, @iris, @ixi, @JoergBM2, @JulietAndJones, @kotetsu, @LisaKalayji, @lumi, @masayuki60, @michaelmeckler, @moxxi, @nicegnome, @PaulaTheSausage, @pieceofthepie, @reggie, @rexi, @Saltywavedog, @simmagolda, @sunguramy, @theclementinecorgi, @TheDoodletons, @thisistheworldofollie, @tykesitsfunny2*************************
NEWSLETTERS
Pack: Newsletters
Criteria: Selected Mastodon accounts who also publish a non-Substack newsletter or blog.
Size: 8
List: Newsletters
Admin: https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigrationClick to download Newsletters-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQ724vJjsQ4RP0KAywj4yhsJ06N9LsVargAapcrepQeqjoWZi9BmARnKOYPA1-LXrp7udY0qYqy-iiD/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@caseynewton, @dangillmor, @Daojoan, @democracydocket, @kissane, @molly0xfff, @pluralistic, @wendysiegelman*************************
OPEN SCIENCE
Pack: OpenScience
Criteria: Selected accounts that post regularly from the Open Science Community on Mastodon (https://germanrepro.github.io/Mastodon-OpenScience/).
Size: 110
List: OpenScience
Admin: https://fediscience.org/@rupdecat, https://nerdculture.de/@rmrahalClick to download OpenScience-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQrNf9konejxz71w-_DZ4THfRXLmGtt9W1YyaGhZOySwMaQ_ImiTPKVQa5PeWETBKZsU5Tg7j-rVxZV/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@aeryn_thrace, @allysonlister, @antikemagie, @askopenscience, @Bibliothecaris, @brembs, @cark, @Centre_Mersenne, @CharlesO, @chartgerink, @christof, @clementaubert, @cnsyoung, @da5nsy, @danielskatz, @datacite, @Datendealerin, @david_colquhoun, @dcanalitica, @dstephenlindsay, @dylanvanassche, @dylanwre, @egonw, @EJWagenmakers, @ElenLeFoll, @ElineVG, @EMarinus, @enroweb, @EuroMathSoc, @EvoMRI, @flavioazevedo, @floe, @FORRT, @forschungsdateninfo, @FrederikAust, @fresseng, @fuzzyleapfrog, @GermanRepro, @gin, @GuidoScherp, @hardyschwamm, @hauschke, @HeidiSeibold, @HelmholtzOpenScienceOffice, @hildabast, @HughShanahan, @hye, @ignactro, @improvingpsych, @jcolomb, @JeffreyRStevens, @jesper, @joerglohrer, @joeroe, @JohannesBreuer, @joshmoore, @jscaux, @juancommander, @julsraemy, @kbroman, @kevinmoerman, @kirk, @ktoddbrown, @kuf, @LeaMariaFer, @leonido, @lgatto, @lnnrtwttkhn, @LudwigHuelk, @Luke_Drury, @MalikaIhle, @marind, @MarkHanson, @MarkRubin, @matherion, @meliimming, @mob, @mostlyphysics, @MsPhelps, @ndporter, @nicebread, @oberman, @OpenScienceNL, @owlyph, @paul4kant, @pcirr, @petersuber, @philipncohen, @prereview, @PublicKnowledgeProject, @re3data, @ReproducibiliTeaGlobal, @researchsoft, @rmounce, @rmrahal, @rob_models, @rupdecat, @saraemilyburke, @SarahHLib, @schochastics, @smirandafield, @SusannAuer, @thofel, @Tontrug, @tullney, @twm, @uwuttke, @veit, @wendympatterson, @zuphilip*************************
SCIENCE
Pack: Science
Criteria: Selected accounts that post regularly on Science.
Size: 49
List: Science
Admin: https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigrationClick to download Science-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQCFmo86nezpwPhO4b0t9GpueZAjyqn6XTnbYiMuGq6CuSWIZzNnFYDOoozDlhVcDtdmA3cSn0u1XMq/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@[email protected], @Adrenochrome, @AkaSci, @BG_Grace, @bojacobs, @BorisBarbour, @BorkLab, @brembs, @CarveHerName, @ChemistryViews, @coreyspowell, @davidho, @drmambobob, @eLife, @etschopp, @firefoxx66, @furqanshah, @futurebird, @GrrlScientist, @j2bryson, @jby, @JenLucPiquant, @johncormier, @justinmponcet, @KnowableMag, @LingLass, @llewelly, @luckytran, @MarcAbrahams, @markwitton, @memerman, @miekeroth, @mike, @mok0, @mpi_grav, @PaoloViscardi, @PeerCommunityIn, @PeterFalkingham, @physics, @rahmstorf, @rewildingmag, @RSPB, @Ruth_Mottram, @ScienceAlert, @ScienceDesk, @Sheril, @STCmicrobeblog, @weatherwest, @ZLabe*************************
TRANSIT&URBANISM
Pack: Transit&Urbanism
Criteria: Selected accounts that post regularly on Transit and Urbanism.
Size: 49
List: Transit&Urbanism
Admin: https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigrationClick to download Transit&Urbanism-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSmigGLmwHF5gg8eRmzdxuLTG8Fga3_niqoxcdRulfSbuH7AoPVjWGAvRsoV4iuRNFBgUKrEpU2Nzns/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@Alon, @Andres4NY, @BenRossTransit, @bikegridnow, @BMWSB_Bund, @capntransit, @CelloMomOnCars, @citylab, @cityobs, @danielbowen, @davidzipper, @enobacon, @ggwash, @gwagner, @heartlandurbanist, @IndyPedCrisis, @Iragersh, @JasonThorne, @kkavee, @mattcaff, @mobileharv, @[email protected], @notjustbikes, @ohtheurbanity, @OlivierRazemon, @paige, @parkingreform, @PedestrianError, @pedestrianist, @reece, @rivoluzioneurbanamobilita, @shifter, @sub_urban, @TheOverheadWire, @TheWarOnCars, @tmstreet, @urbanistorg, @waeiski*************************
US POLITICS
Pack: USPolitics
Criteria: Selected accounts that post regularly on US Politics.
Size: 57
List: USPolitics
Admin: https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigrationClick to download USPolitics-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSK9Jj_AwwHOFnoHnkYFeM8F2FVQ5n9dyo-GrNT8NvWHRkaKQL9V7f2KblNGXFjyXLY-gBz5T29e8Kk/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@AnarchoNinaWrites, @anneapplebaum, @atrupar , @austinkocher, @benroyce, @bjmendelson, @blogdiva, @Brandi_Buchman, @briankrebs, @carnage4life, @cathygellis, @charlesgaba , @courtcan, @dangillmor, @dansinker, @darnell, @davetroy, @DemocracyMattersALot, @dworkin, @eloquence, @evangreer, @gleick, @GottaLaff, @heidilifeldman, @indivisibleteam, @inthehands, @jaykuo, @jeffjarvis, @JuliusGoat, @KimPerales, @kims, @knittingknots2, @lawfare, @LindaCollins11, @lolgop, @mattsheffield, @mckra1g, @mekkaokereke, @molly0xfff, @Nonilex, @Npars01, @palafo, @pbump, @Pineywoozle, @QasimRashid, @rbreich, @skykiss, @StillIRise1963, @TheJen, @timkmak, @TomWellborn, @tzimmer_history, @velshi , @w7voa, @wdlindsy, @wendysiegelman, @z_everson*************************
US POLITICS BOOSTERS
Pack: USPolBooster
Criteria: Selected accounts that boost and post a lot of US Politics content.
Size: 25
List: USPolBooster
Admin: https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigrationClick to download USPolBooster-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQRbos9d6LHWT9_vqZSRuxiDWXMeSzc0mN16L_bz4eEZi-KtBkvv7KCQGVr8nXPoyjccvF26b3XtXhv/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@Americanist4u, @blogdiva, @Catawu, @courtcan, @dannotdaniel, @DemocracyMattersALot, @futurebird, @Hey_Beth , @inthehands, @Jessicascott09, @JonChevreau, @katrinakatrinka, @Lazarou, @lolgop, @lupus_blackfur, @NewsDesk, @Nonya_Bidniss, @Npars01, @Pineywoozle, @PJ_Evans, @Remittancegirl, @rightardia, @soc_i_ety, @TCatInReality, @TonyStark*************************
US POLITICS MEDIA
Pack: USPolMedia
Criteria: Selected media accounts that post coverage of US Politics.
Size: 34
List: USPolMedia
Admin: https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigrationClick to download USPolMedia-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTAnZ4TuG716HNsSf4VmLDNPvFn_bAdc8Bq3J9eMPWnW6XKOIol-wZnYj2-ZrFj28zNQQ1fwxgtHURj/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@19thnews, @404mediaco, @AssociatedPress, @Bellingcat, @BNONews, @bolts, @coloradosun, @crooksandliars, @csmonitor, @damemagazine, @DemocracyNow_Headlines_rss, @freedomofpress, @Grist, @igd_news, @indybay, @Inoreader, @MotherJones2021, @msfreepress, @NewsDesk, @npr, @podnews, @ProPublica, @RollingStone, @TeenVogue, @TexasObserver, @TheAtlantic, @TheConversationUS, @TheSeattleTimes, @theverge, @TucsonSentinel, @UnicornRiot, @uspolitics, @vanityfair, @VOANews*************************
US POLITICS THREADS
Pack: USPolThreads
Criteria: Selected accounts that post about US Politics from Threads visible on Mastodon.
Size: 20
List: USPolThreads
Admin: https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigrationSPECIAL THREADS NOTICE: Following these Threads accounts could lead to your information being shared with Meta as per their privacy policy.
Click to download USPolThreads-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTKAP6T49TEB6Fk9ebBBtIAlaQUkuAtfAdtld78KPDW0VQLZ9o5enoE29MWH09TvI8Mmk9XwQgMaMPr/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@adamparkhomenko, @brianstelter, @bulwarkonline, @chris, @gtconway3, @jbouie, @jefftiedrich, @jerilryan, @jojo.fromjerz, @joyannreid, @keithedwards, @lorakolodny, @[email protected], @meidastouch, @mollyjongfast, @newrepublic, @personality_of_colt, @rudepundit, @stonekettle, @therobarcher, @wonderofscienceofficial*************************
WEATHER
Pack: Weather
Criteria: Selected accounts that post regularly on weather.
Size: 60
List: Weather
Admin: @ai6yrClick to download Weather-list.csv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQG_Xr1yoogcxupTstRynN_KIpcccv5p7fnmaqHJ59xI1x3CGYZxoed70ggV8YAU5xNISvksYWdS3HE/pub?output=csv
Accounts (click to view profile):
@ai6yr, @AirlineReporter, @akrherz, @AlaskaWx, @austinburkeswx, @bretthoover, @chswx, @Climatologist49, @copacetic_vibe, @DeniseGutzmer, @geravitywave, @GWESOfficial, @ianlivingston, @IdahoFireInfo, @ikluft, @ingalls, @jared, @jreineron7, @kathhayhoe, @lckrohjr, @LexMAWeather, @mattlanza, @MichaelEMann, @nadocast_bot, @nadocasthail_bot, @nadocastwind_bot, @nwstornado_bot, @paulknightly, @petergleick, @philbaker1, @rahmstorf, @robmayeda, @rpmik, @RustyMehlberg, @rustywx, @Ruth_Mottram, @rvaweather, @spann, @srmullens, @stormdig, @technodad, @theeyewallwx, @User47, @WeatherGoddess, @weathermatrix, @weatherwest, @wxstory_bot, @ZLabe, @zoom_earth*************************
Revisions
11/20/2024 Rev. 1.0: Published
11/21/2024 Rev 1.1: Astronomy2 Pack Added
11/24/2024 Rev 1.2: Consolidated Astronomy packs, Added accounts to USPolitcs, USPoliticsBoosters and Miscellany Packs
11/29/2024 Rev 1.3 Added to Astronomy, Miscellany and USPolitics packs. Added CyberSec and Legal packs
11/29/2024 Rev 1.4 Added InfosecPro pack
12/2/2024 Rev 1.5 Added to Cybersecurity and USPoliticsBooster packs.
12/3/2024 Rev 1.6 Added Science, Open Science and Transit&Urbanism Packs
12/22/2024 Rev. 1.7 Added AVGeek, BrazilFalantes, Humor, MostlyDogs, Weather. Added accounts to Climate______________________________
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CW: Scientists in the Natural Applied Sciences - Long List to Scroll!
Scientists in the Natural Sciences - Applied Sciences
• Published (not necessarily in field)
Please Message for Additions, Deletions or Edits
Agricultural Science
Birge, Traci @TraciInFinland
Bommarco, Riccardo @bommarco
Cardinael, Rémi @remicardinael
Ehlers, Melf-Hinrich @Melf
ETH Zürich @crop_science_eth
Finger, Robert @robertfinger
Hepworth, Craig @floridafruitgeek
Kniss, Andrew R @AK
Lynch, Megan @ml
Malek, Žiga @zigamalek
Morris, Ed R @Edrmorris
Nordquist, Rebecca @renordquist
Parent, Essi @essi
Plieninger, Tobias @plieninger
Rodriguez, Carolina @CRodriguez
Schulze, Christoph @qris
Schwerdtner, Ulrike @UliSchwerdtnerBiophysics
Bagley, Bryce Allen @babagley
Batalha, Natalie M @nbatalha
Benedetti, Fabrizio @scienceFab
Bonsma-Fisher, Madeleine @mbonsma
Delpierre, Julien @JulienDelpierre
Dmitrieff, Serge @dmitrieff
Etienne, Jocelyn @jocelyn_etienne
Giorgino, Toni @giorginolab
Haase, Albrecht @neurophysics
Kennard, Andrew @askennard
Michieletto, Davide @dmichiel
Lew, Matthew D @lewlab
Meesters, Christian @rupdecat
Meyer, Carola @carbonwoman
Neher, Richard @richardneher
Plested, Andrew @andrewplested
Popescu, Gabriela K @PopStarLab
Rowland, David James @drdrowland
Sadoine, Mayuri @MayuriSadoine
Schwarz, Ulrich Sebastian @UlrichSchwarz
Tyka, Mike @mtyka
Wallace, Mark I @markianwallaceGitHub Biophysicists
Biotremology
López Díez, Juan José @TremonetaClimate Science
Brettschneider, Brian @Climatologist49
Campbell, Micheline @michcampbell
Cobb, Kim @coralsncaves
Gironella, Fritzi G @fagg
Gleick, Peter @petergleick
Gowan, Evan J @DrEvanGowan
Hawkins, Ed @ed_hawkins
Hayhoe, Katharine @kathhayhoe
Ilyina, Tatiana @TatianaIlyina
Karmalkar, Ambarish @akarma
Labe, Zach M @ZLabe
LeGrande, Allegra Nicole @atthenius
Marelle, Louis @louismarelle
Mottram, Ruth @Ruth_Mottram
Pollice, Robert @robpollice
Rahmstorf, Stefan @rahmstorf
Thoman Jr, Richard L @AlaskaWx
Van de Velde, Jorn @jornvdvClimatology
Barnes-Keoghan, Ian @ibk
Dupont, Claire @Cladupont
Lucht, Wolfgang @W_Lucht
Wagner, Gernot @gwagner@ClimateMigration Follows & boosts Climate Science experts
Engineering
Aldrich, Chris @chrisaldrich
Barba, Lorena A @labarba
Berry, Carlotta A @drcaberry
Ellison, Doug @doug_ellison
Gill, Kevin M @kevinmgill
Hale, Steven J @drstevenhale
Hashemi, Nicole @NicoleHashemi
Hulse, Daniel @Daniel_Hulse
Hurkat, Skand @skandhurkat
Kruger, Justin D @jdavidnet
Subramanian, R @subu_caps• AeroSpace Engineers
Cothern, Kyle @Risknc
Dubos, Gregory @astroptere
Ellison, Doug @doug_ellison
Hutt, Jason T @jathhutt• Chemical Engineers
Krawczyk, Paweł @kravietz
McNeill, V Faye @vfmcneill
Meekins, Benjamin H @meekinslab• Environmental Engineers
Haas, Charles @ProfCharlesHaas
Parent, Essi @essi
Scriven, David @David_Epithet
Walker-Franklin, Imari @calimari• Software Engineers
Brooker, Marc @marcbrooker
Emir, Burak @burakemir
Famelis, Michalis @mfamelis
Hubbard, Philip @philiphubbard
Mueller-Roemer, Johannes S @JSMuellerRoemer
Pavlic, Theodore P @tedpavlic
Ralph, Paul @paulralph
Sacerdote, David @dsacer
Santander-Vela, Juan de Dios @juandesant
Zaslavsky, David @diazona• Systems Engineers
Bean, Keri @PlanetaryKeri
Reck, Rebecca M @RebeccaEE
Santander-Vela, Juan de Dios @juandesant
Van Bossuyt, Douglas Lee @douglasvbFedi.Directory Engineering
Trunk EngineeringEnvironmental Science
Brander, Susanne M @smbrander
Büchau, Yann @nobodyinperson
Feldwick, Mark @MarkIngs
Glückler, Ramesh @rglueckler
Gusmão, Felipe @fgusmao
Hart-Davis, Damon @DamonHD
Jehn, Florian Ulrich @florianjehn
Jones, Oliver AH @Dr_Oli_Jones
Killam, Daniel @dantheclamman
Mann, Michael E @MichaelEMann
Manuel, Ivan Ruiz @IvanRManuel
McKinney, Zeke J @ZekeMD
Osborn, Mark @MicrobialLife
O'Shea, Bethany @DrBethRocks
Parent, Essi @essi
Pomeranz, Justin PZ @PZ_ecology
Pyle, Greg @gregpyle
Ruiz Manuel, Ivan @IvanRManuel
Sigmund, Gabriel @GabrielS
Sims, Kerry @DrKerryS
Sultana, Farhana @farhanasultana
Tate, Brandon K @brandontate
Torkelson, Jaclyn @DesertAndReef
Walker-Franklin, Imari @calimari
Weintraub, Michael N @mnweintraub
Zourek, Leonard @leonardzourekTrunk Environmentalists
Environmental Toxicology
Feldwick, Mark @MarkIngs
Hammer, Sjúrður @sjurdur
Pyle, Greg @gregpyle
Reichman, Suzie M @SuzieReichman
Whitehead, Andrew @andrewwhiteheadEpidemiology
Alwan, Nisreen A @nisreen
Bassani, Diego G @dgbassani
Bastian, Hilda @hildabast
Basu, Arindam @arinbasu1
Baxter, Nancy @enenbee
Bazaco, Michael @MCBazacoPhD
Bergstrom, Carl T @ct_bergstrom
Bolker, Ben @bbolker
Borrell, Luisa N @lborrell
Chiong, Winston @winstonchiong
D'Angelo, Nico @nicod
Fagherazzi, Guy @gfaghe
Feldman, Ryan @EMPoisonPharmD
Fontenelle, Leonardo Ferreira @lffontenelle
Funk, Sebastian @sbfnk
Ghafari, Mahan @mghafari
Gonsalves, Gregg @gregggonsalves
Handel, Andreas @andreashandel
Hernan, Miguel @MiguelHernan
Hill, Edward M @EdMHill
Hyde, Zoë @DrZoeHyde
Jamal, Alainna J @alainnajj
Kinney, Gregory L @mycotropic
Kline, David @DavidKline
Kucharski, Adam @adamjkucharski
Ley, Sylvia @sylvialey
Meesters, Christian @rupdecat
Mekaru, Sumiko @Sumiko_Mekaru
Moss, Rob @rob_models
Murray, Eleanor J @epiellie
Newman, Kira L @KiraNewmanMDPhD
Pearce, Neil @nepearce
Peiper, Nicholas C @doctorpipes
Polis, Chelsea B @cbpolis
Salemi, Jason L @JasonSalemi
Schrom, John @johnschrom
Sesay, Cecirahim @cecirahim
Smith, Tara C @aetiology
Tennant, Peter WG @pwgtennant
Thelwall, Simon @simonthelwall
Tobin, Martin D @martin_tobin
Wakeham, David @wakehamAMR
Wallace, Katrine @EpidemiologistKat
Walsh, Michael @EpiDoctor• Genetic Epidemiology
Hodcroft, Emma @firefoxx66
Meesters, Christian @rupdecat
Retchless, Adam C @adamr
Tobin, Martin D @martin_tobin• Wildlife Epidemiology
Shriner, Susan A @SusanAShrinerFedi.Directory Epidemiology
Evolutionary Science
Albert, Victor A @PlantEvoGenomics
Anderson, Chris @c_n_anderson
Arnold, Sarah EJ @sejarnold
Aylward, Frank O @foaylward
Barber, Matthew F @bioBarber
Barker, Michael S @MikeBarker
Benham, Phred M @TheSaltySparrow
Bergstrom, Carl T @ct_bergstrom
Blazanin, Michael @mikeblazanin
Bolker, Ben @bbolker
Clarke, John T @jclarkepaleo
Constantinides, Bede @bede
Corman, Victor Max @vmcorman
Davison, Angus @snailman
Débarre, Florence @flodebarre
Delph, Lynda @LyndaDelph
Eisen, Jonathan @phylogenomics
Enquist, Brian J @bjenquist
Fisher, Diana O @Diana_mammalecology
Ghafari, Mahan @mghafari
Gogarten, Jan F @communities
Grau-Bové, Xavier @xgrau
Gregory, T Ryan @TRyanGregory
Hakala, Sanja @SanjaHakala
Hancock, John M @jmhancock
Hartberg, Yasha @yasha
Iwaniuk, N Andrew @brainsevolve
Jarochowska, Emilia @Emiliagnathus
Kane, Emily A @TheKaneLab
Katzourakis, Aris @ariskatzourakis
Kellie, Dax J @daxkellie
Kennard, Andrew @askennard
Knell, Robert J @robknell
Knudson, Alexander H @Knudson_H
Koene, Joris M @jkoene
Kovács, Ákos T @EvolvedBiofilm
Kristensen, Nadiah Pardede @nadiah
LeBoeuf, Adria @Adria
Leighton, Gavin M @GMcLeanLeighton
Lenski, Richard @RELenski
Louvel, Guillaume @GullumLuvl
Lukas, Dieter @DieterLukas
McCutcheon, John @mcsymbiont
Meuthen, Denis @DenisMeuthen
Moreau, Corrie S @CorrieMoreau
Neher, Richard @richardneher
Nelson, Chase W @chasewnelson
Osmond, Matthew @mmosmond
Ralph, Peter L @petrelharp
Schreiber, Sebastian @SebastianSchreiber
Ross-Ibarra, Jeffrey @jrossibarra
Schürch, Roger @schuemaa
Sheard, Catherine @sheardcat
Shropshire, Dylan J @ShropshireJD
Simon, Alexis @alxsim
Slotte, Tanja @tanjaslotte
Sponheimer, Matt @spon
Stajich, Jason @hyphaltip
Strepsipzerg, Max Aubry @StrepsipZerg
Szala, Anna @anna
Tzovaras, Bastian Greshake @gedankenstuecke
Vlieger, Leon @inqbiol
Warrington, Miya H @MiyaWarrington
White, Rhys Thomas @Rhys
Yoder, Jeremy B @jbyFedi.Directory Evolutionary Biology
FoodScience
Hammann, Simon @simonhammann
Kupferschmidt, Kai @kakapeGenomics
Albert, Victor A @PlantEvoGenomics
Aninta, Sabhrina Gita @sagitaninta
Bayer, Philipp @PhilippBayer
Benham, Phred M @TheSaltySparrow
Breitbart, Mya @virome_girl
Clare, Elizabeth L @ProfBatGirl
Coassin, Stefan @stncsn
Constantinides, Bede @bede
Davison, Angus @snailman
Eisen, Jonathan @phylogenomics
Fisher, Simon E @ProfSimonFisher
Friedberg, Iddo @iddux
Gebhard, Christian @basepair
Grau-Bové, Xavier @xgrau
Gregory, T Ryan @TRyanGregory
Guhlin, Joseph @josephguhlin
Gunter, Chris @girlscientist
Hamilton, Bruce A @bahome
Hancock, John M @jmhancock
Johnsson, Martin @mrtnj
Katzourakis, Aris @ariskatzourakis
Kieser, Silas @silask
Konda, Prathyusha @prats
Lenski, Richard @RELenski
Louvel, Guillaume @GullumLuvl
MacLean, Dan @danmaclean
McCutcheon, John @mcsymbiont
Mäklin, Tommi @themaklin
Maurizio, Paul L @paul
Meesters, Christian @rupdecat
Mutalik, Vivek K @vivek_mutalik
Neher, Richard @richardneher
Nelson, Chase W @chasewnelson
Pembleton, Luke W @lwpembleton
Phinney, Brett S @UCDProteomics
Porter, Teresita M @DNAdataPhile
Racimo, Fernando @FerRacimo
Ross-Ibarra, Jeffrey @jrossibarra
Salter, Susannah J @zannah_du
Schuster-Böckler Benjamin @bensb
Stajich, Jason @hyphaltip
Tobin, Martin D @martin_tobin
Viñuela, Ana @AnaVinuela
Vlieger, Leon @inqbiol
Walmarth, Phillip A @pwilmart
White, Rhys Thomas @Rhys
Yoder, Jeremy B @jby
Zakour, Nouri Ben @genomissGitHub Palaeogenomicists
Library & Information Systems
Brown, Leah @leahdriel
Chalifour, Joshua @owlyph
Cockett, Rowan @rowan
Costas Comesana, Rodrigo @rodrigocostas
DeRosa, Robin @actualham
Deschaine, Anne @aehdeschaine
Dudek, Jonathan @jo_dudek
Eickhoff, Carsten @carsten
Fedorak, Lisa @FedorakIndexing
Gerdes, Thomas @ThomasGerdes
Goldberg, Julie @Julie
Hauschke, Christian @hauschke
Hedreen, Rebecca @delibrarian
Horton, Laurence @laurencehorton
Karcher, Sebastian @adam42smith
Keegan, Brian C @bkeegan
Levine, Kendra K @kklevine
Macgregor, George @g3om4c
Monnin, Jenn @msjennmo
Nazarovets, Serhii @serhii
Nyhan, Kate @kdnyhan
Odell, Jere D @jaireeo
Ramshaw, Veronica @verolynne
Schomberg, Jessica @schomj
Seifried, Rebecca M @rmseifried
Shirazi, Roxanne @roxanneshirazi
University of Groningen Library @Bibliothecaris
Ward, Kestrel @KestrelSWard
Wuttke, Ulrike @uwuttke
Ziegler, Sophie @SophieTrunk Librarians
Medicine
Alwan, Nisreen A @nisreen
Argyropoulos, Christos @ChristosArgyrop
Bakke, Håkon Kvåle @BakkeHK
Barber, Carolyn @cbarbermd
Barnkob, Michael B @mikebarnkob
Basu, Arindam @arinbasu1
Baxter, Nancy @enenbee
Bhattacharyya, Roby @roby
Briscoe, Joshua @jcbriscoe
Casas Ciria, Francisco Javier @cientounero
Corman, Victor Max @vmcorman
Crystal, Ruth Ann @catchthebaby
Delaney, Brendan C @bcdelaney1
Feldman, Ryan @EMPoisonPharmD
Flores, Anthony R @pedIDDoc
Fontenelle, Leonardo Ferreira @lffontenelle
Funk, Sebastian @sbfnk
Gebhard, Christian @basepair
Halama, Niels @halama_immuno
Jamal, Alainna J @alainnajj
Johansen, Michael @mike_johansen
McKinney, Zeke J @ZekeMD
Mohr, Emma @Mohr_lab
Newman, Kira L @KiraNewmanMDPhD
Nguyễn, Bích-Mây @bicmay
Pollara, Gabriele @gpollara
Schwartz, Ilan S @GermHunterMD
Steinbach, Daniel @danielsteinbach
Stone, Judy @drjudystone
Tomasson, Michael H @tomasson
Topolsky, Ivan @dryak
Trebach, Joshua D @jtrebach• Critical Care
Barthélémy, Romain @rombarthelemyFedi.Directory Health and Medical
followlists.online Anaesthetist/Anesthesiologist Critical Care
followlists.online Infectious Diseases & #IDMastodon
followlists.online Medical AI
GitHub Medical AI
Trunk MedicineNeuroScience
Agrawal, Niket @niketagrawal
Aly, Mariam @mariam
Barbour, Boris @BorisBarbour
Bellec, Pierre @pierre_bellec
Brembs, Björn @brembs
Cardona, Albert @albertcardona
Case, Sami @samilcase
Chiong, Winston @winstonchiong
Desrochers, Theresa M @DesrochersLab
Duvelle, Éléonor @elduvelle_neuro
Elsilä, Lauri @laurielsila
Garside, Danny @da5nsy
Gellersen, Helena M @helenagellersen
Hall, Megan C @ScienceisWhere
Haun, Andrew M @amhaun
Hoffman, Kari L @karihoffman
Hofmann, Ulrich G @kraweel65
Hyseni, Fjola @fjola
Iwaniuk, N Andrew @brainsevolve
Jékely, Gáspár @jekely
John, Yohan J @DrYohanJohn
Kachlicka, Magdalena @mkachlicka
Kanev, Jacob @jkanev
Karashchuk, Lili @lili
Karmarkar, Uma R @uma_karma
Leterrier, Christophe @christlet
Lindsay, Grace W @Neurograce
Miller, Earl K @ekmiller
Moleman, Peter @MolemanPeter
Negwer, Moritz @moritz_negwer
Ngiam, William XQ @will_ngiam
Olsen, Rosanna @RosannaOlsen
O’Mara, Shane @shaneomara
Popescu, Gabriela K @PopStarLab
Schultz, Simon R @neuralengine
Seuntjens, Eve @EveSeuntjens
Sinha, Manisha @manisha
Sutterer, Matthew J @mjsutterer
Thakur, Dhananjay P @dhananjaythakur
Timberlake, Ben @ByBenTimberlake
van Bree, Sander @sandervanbree
Wu, Wayne @attninactionGitHub Neuroscience
Pharmacology
Bartos, Piia @piiabartos
Case, Sami @samilcase
Elsilä, Lauri @laurielsila
Faradilla, Meutia @meutiafaradilla
Feldman, Ryan @EMPoisonPharmD
Konrad, David @dbkonrad
Moleman, Peter @MolemanPeter
Rutz, Adriano @adafede
Wilkins, Justin J @justinwilkinsPharmacometrics
Smith, Mike K @MikeKSmith
Wilkins, Justin J @justinwilkinsPhysiology
Caspar, Kai R @nomascus
Glazier, Amelia @ameliaglazier
Hoffman, Kari L @karihoffman
Olson, Christopher R @ChristophROlson
Schumacher, Michael A @schumacher
Tomasson, Michael H @tomasson
Umbers, Kate DL @kateumbers
Wayne, Nancy L @nancylwaynePsychiatry
Anderson, Chase TM @ChaseTMAnderson
Briscoe, Joshua @jcbriscoe
Eckert, Anna-Lena @eckertal
Lam, Raymond W @DrRaymondLam
Lee, Kangjoo @kangjoolee
Reeder, Michael @admin
Turban, Jack L @jackturban
Urgelés, Diego @urgelesfollowlists.online Psychiatrists
Scientific Computing
Eickhoff, Carsten @carsten
Frost, Jarvist Moore @Jarvist
Jambor, Helena @helenajambor• Computational Biology
Andreani, Virgile @Armavica
Argyropoulos, Christos @ChristosArgyrop
Bahlai, Christie @cbahlai
Carpenter, Anne E @DrAnneCarpenter
Clark, Chase M @chasingmicrobes
Fagherazzi, Guy @gfaghe
Gatto, Laurent @lgatto
Gómez-Dans, José @jgomezdans
Hauck, Judith @jhauck
Hill, Edward M @EdMHill
Hoffman, Kari L @karihoffman
Hubbard, Philip @philiphubbard
Hyseni, Fjola @fjola
Jarosz, Wojciech @wjarosz
Jessen, Walter @wj
John, Yohan J @DrYohanJohn
Kanev, Jacob @jkanev
Kedzierska, Kasia Zofia @kzkedzierska
Kucharavy, Andrei @andrei_chiffa
Louvel, Guillaume @GullumLuvl
MaClean, Dan @danmaclean
Mendes, Pedro @gepasi
O'Donnell, Cian @cian
MacLean, Dan @danmaclean
Meesters, Christian @rupdecat
Mendes, Pedro @gepasi
Moore, Jason H @moorejh
Moss, Rob @rob_models
Ross, Noam @noamross
Scott, Eric R @LeafyEricScott
Sinha, Manisha @manisha
Stévant, Isabelle @IsabelleStevant
Stowell, Dan @danstowell
Viscownti, Alessia @alesssia
Winkler, Tilo @twinkler• Climate Modelling
Easterbrook, Steve @steve
Ilyina, Tatiana @TatianaIlyinaFedi.Directory Data Visualisation
Soil Science
Cardinael, Rémi @remicardinael
Moorberg, Colby J @ColbyDigsSoil
Schymanski, Stanislaus J @schymans
Schwerdtner, Ulrike @UliSchwerdtnerTaxonomy
Brabant, Craig @mutillidae
Brignoli, Gino @gino
De Vivo, Mattia @mdv
Hobern, Donald @dhobern
Musetti, Luciana @DrLu_Musetti
Plazi Species @plazi_speciesToxicology
Feldman, Ryan @EMPoisonPharmD
Trebach, Joshua D @jtrebachVeterinary Medicine
Firth, Clair @Buxton_Vienna
MacPhee, Daniel J @dmacphee
Mekaru, Sumiko @Sumiko_Mekaru
Nordquist, Rebecca @renordquist
van Vlie, Arnoud @dutchscientist
Voss, Sarah J @Sarah_J_Voss
Wakeham, David @wakehamAMRMore extensive lists on Mastodon can be found exploring the following
Fedi.Directory - Science & Humanities
find.sciences.social - Find Academics on Mastodon
GitHub - Academics on Mastodon Lists
TrueSciPhi - Curated science, philosophy, and mathematics lists covering podcasts, Mastodon, and Bluesky
Trunk - allows you to mass-follow a bunch of people(Click to access Formal, Natural (Life & Physical) & Social Sciences)
-
CW: Scientists in the Formal Sciences - Long List
Scientists in the Formal Sciences
• Published (not necessarily in field)
Please Message for Additions, Deletions or Edits
Artificial Intelligence (#AI)
Amsch, Jesper @jesper
Aspuru-Guzik, Alán @aspuru
Bittremieux, Wout @wout
Carpenter, Anne E @DrAnneCarpenter
Delaneey, Brendan @bcdelaney1
Ehsan, Upol @upol
Fagherazzi, Guy @gfaghe
Guest, Olivia @olivia
Guha, Rajarshi @rguha
Honnibal, Matthew @honnibal
Isert, Clemens @clemensisert
Kramer, Roban H @roban
Lieto, Antonio @antoniolieto
Mamo, Nicholas @memonick
Marquetand, Philip @marquetand
Miller, Tristan @Logological
Mohan, Shiwali @shiwali
Molinari, Julia @serenissimaj
Moore, Jason H @moorejh
Pavlic, Theodore P @tedpavlic
Sinapayen, Lana @lana
Tyka, Mike @mtyka• Machine Learning
Azencott, Chloé-Agathe @cazencott
Bayer, Philipp @PhilippBayer
Caufield, Harry @jhc
Cerisara, Christophe @cerisara
Grøftehauge, Morten K @drgroftehauge
Hunt, Emily Lauren @emilydoesastro
Ji, Yangfeng @yangfeng
Lehmann, Jens @jenslehmann
Saphra, Naomi @nsaphra
Stowell, Dan @danstowell
Uruñuela, Eneko @eurunuela
Wildani, Avani @avani
Wu, John F @jwuphysics• Natural Language Processing
Cerisara, Christophe @cerisara
Honnibal, Matthew @honnibal
Ji, Yangfeng @yangfeng
Kasprzik, Anna @SemAntiKast
Miller, Tristan @Logological
Saphra, Naomi @nsaphra
Scheffler, Tatjana @tschfflrFedi.Directory Machine Learning
GitHub Artificial Ingelligence
Trunk Machine Learning & Artificial IntelligenceCategory Theory
Capucci, Matteo @mc
Emir, Burak @burakemir
Grossack, Chris @hallasurvivor
Lama, Vishal @vishallama
Milewski, Bartosz @BartoszMilewski
Virgo, Nathaniel @NathanielCheminformaticians & Computational Chemists
Aspuru-Guzik, Alán @aspuru
Berger, Raphael JF @rjf_berger
Berka, Karel @caco3
O'Boyle, Noel M @baoilleach
Cavalleri, Matteo @physicsteo
Colombo, Giorgio @lab_colombo
Coudert, François-Xavier @fxcoudert
Cramer, Christopher J @ChemProfCramer
Croft, Anna K @annakcroft
Gaita-Ariño, Alejandro @agaitaarino
Garcia-Sosa, Alfonso T @ATGarciaSosa
Guha, Rajarshi @rguha
Henry, Andrew H @bspahh
Hernandez, Rigoberto @EveryWhereChem
Hoyt, Charles Tapley @cthoyt
Huang, David Z @davidzhuang
Isert, Clemens @clemensisert
Keller, Bettina G @BettinaKeller
Lieto, Antonio @antoniolieto
Margraf, Johannes @margraf
Marquetand, Philip @marquetand
O'Boyle, Noel M @baoilleach
Probst, Daniel @skepteis
Rajan, Kohulan @Kohulan
Rutz, Adriano @adafede
Walsh, Aron @lonepair
Willighagen, Egon @[email protected] / @[email protected]Fedi.Directory Molecular Dynamics
GitHub Cheminformaticians and Computational ChemistsCognitive Science
Beaudoin, Luc P @LucCogZest
Boehly, Thibault @thibhly
BDe Baene, Wouter @wdebaene
Fisher, Simon E @ProfSimonFisher
Guest, Olivia @olivia
Haroz, Steve @sharoz
Jones, Steven J @Unampho
Lieto, Antonio @antoniolieto
Uruñuela, Eneko @eurunuelaComputer Science
Adams, Jane Lydia @janeadams
Andreani, Virgile @Armavica
Aubert, Clément @clementaubert
Barba, Lorena A @labarba
Buttfield-Addison, Mars @TheMartianLife
Cabanela, Juan E @Juan_Kinda_Guy
Canonne, Clément @ccanonne
Cheplygina, Veronika @DrVeronikaCH
Clouston, Ranald @RanaldClouston
Dautenhahn, Nathan @daut
Easterbrook, Steve @steve
Eberl, Manuel @pruvisto
Feliciani, Thomas @thofel
Fiesler, Casey @cfiesler
Fredericks, Erik M @mrdoktorprofessor
Fressengeas, Nicolas @fresseng
Fraga, Eric S @ericsfraga
Hancock, John M @jmhancock
Heinemann, Christian @chrxh
Hubbard, Philip @philiphubbard
Jarosz, Wojciech @wjarosz
Jones, Shawn M @shawnmjones
Kasprzik, Anna @SemAntiKast
Kurniawan, Kemal @kmkurn
Latour, Anna LD @anna
Martens, Chris @chrisamaphone
Menczer, Filippo @fil
Page, Andrew J @andrewjpage
Ralph, Paul @paulralph
Regehr, John @regehr
Riveni, Mirela @mirela
Schubotz, Moritz @schubotz
Steinegger, Martin @martinsteinegger
Taylor, Michael P @mike
Vanderplas, Jake @jakevdp
Varma, Akshar @aksharvarma
Virgo, Nathaniel @Nathaniel
Viscownti, Alessia @alesssia
Weber-Wulff, Debora @WiseWomanFedi.Directory Computing
Fedi.Directory High Performance Computing
Fedi.Directory Networks
Fedi.Directory Quantum ComputingData Science
Albers, Casper J @caal
Angst, Mario @mario_angst_sci
Berens, Philipp @CellTypist
Bonsma-Fisher, Madeleine @mbonsma
Breuer, Johannes @JohannesBreuer
Brooker, Marc @marcbrooker
Butler, Jessica E @JessButler
Cardoso-Silva, Jonathan @jonjoncardoso
Charpentier, Arthur @freakonometrics
Cocks, Greg @GregCocks
Dalla Riva, Giulio Valentino @gvdr
Eddelbuettel, Dirk @eddelbuettel
Fagherazzi, Guy @gfaghe
Fijten, Rianne @riannefijten
Gómez-Dans, José @jgomezdans
Gray, Jonathan WY @jwyg
Greer, Phil J @pgreer
Grøftehauge, Morten K @drgroftehauge
Haas, Marcel R @harcel
Haroz, Steve @sharoz
Hyde, Elaina @AstroHyde
Jessen, Walter @wj
Kedzierska, Kasia Zofia @kzkedzierska
Keegan, Brian C @bkeegan
Kline, David @DavidKline
Kramer, Roban H @roban
Krispin, Rami @ramikrispin
Lindsay, Grace W @Neurograce
Mahmoudian, Mehrad @Mehrad
Matthews, Paul @paulusm
Mathieu, Edouard @edmat
Mekaru, Sumiko @Sumiko_Mekaru
Meys, Joris Fa @JorisMeys
O'Donnell, Cian @cian
Peltzer, Alexander @alex_peltzer
Pierce, Benjamin Franklin @BenFPiercePhD
Scherer, Cédric @CedScherer
Schwarze, Alice C @aliceschwarze
Seibold, Heidi @HeidiSeibold
Sinha, Manisha @manisha
Sochacki, Paul @RebelGeek99
Steinbach, Daniel @danielsteinbach
Stevance, Heloise F @sydonahi
Stevens, Abigail L @abbie
Tennant, Peter WG @pwgtennant
Thomas, Rachel L @math_rachel
Van de Velde, Jorn @jornvdv
Waterhouse, Robert @rmwaterhouse
Weissgerber, Tracey L @T_Weissgerber
Zakour, Nouri Ben @genomissDecision Theory
Byrd, Nick @ByrdNick
Dechaume-Moncharmont, François-Xavier @fxdm
DeWitt, Eric EJ @eejd
Hui, Yong Xin @yongxinhui
Kramer, Roban H @roban
Redish, A David @adredishGame Theory
Bergstrom, Carl T @ct_bergstrom
Capucci, Matteo @mc
Rowlett, Peter @peterrowlettInformation Technology
Callahan, Brian Robert @bcallah
Wright, Bryan @catselbowTrunk Information Technology
Information Theory
Aldrich, Chris @chrisaldrich
Bergstrom, Carl T @ct_bergstrom
Brown, Leah @leahdriel
Delaneey, Brendan @bcdelaney1Logic
Clouston, Ranald @RanaldClouston
Emir, Burak @burakemir
Grafe, Friedrich Wilhelm @Wilhelm_Grafe
Grossack, Chris @hallasurvivor
Lama, Vishal @vishallama
Pearce, Gareth R @GarethRPearce
Uckelman, Sara L @doctorlogic
Wenmackers, Sylvia @SylviaFysica
Zach, Richard @rrrichardzachMathematics
Artigiani, Mauro @m_artigiani
Baez, John C @johncarlosbaez
Berger, Raphael JF @rjf_berger
Bolker, Ben @bbolker
Capucci, Matteo @mc
Chambert-Loir, Antoine @antoinechambertloir
Charpentier, Arthur @freakonometrics
Colquitt, Daniel J @danielcolquitt
D’Agostino, Susan @susan_dagostino
Devlin, Keith @KeithDevlin
Escardó, Martín H @MartinEscardo
Garcia Moreno-Esteva, Enrique @Egarcia
Gowers, Timothy @wtgowers
Griffith, Sarah C @sc_griffith
Kahle, Thomas @tomkalei
Hill, Edward M @EdMHill
Joshi, Nalini @monsoon0
Lindsay, Grace W @Neurograce
Milewski, Bartosz @BartoszMilewski
Pagel, Christina @chrischirp
Phan, Christopher @chrisphan
Ramello, Simone @ramellus
Rowlett, Peter @peterrowlett
Schwarze, Alice C @aliceschwarze
Segerman, Henry @henryseg
Small, Michael @Small
Strogatz, Steven @stevenstrogatz
Tao, Terence @tao
Thomas, Rachel L @math_rachel
Vatter, Vincent @VinceVatter
Wright, Colin @ColinTheMathmo
Xavier, Somen @somenxavierFedi.Directory Mathematics
TrueSciPhi Mathematicians
Trunk MathematicsMathematical Biology
Aldrich, Chris @chrisaldrich
Allen, Benjamin @plektix
Etienne, Jocelyn @jocelyn_etienne
Maclaren, Oliver J @omaclaren
Plank, Michael @MichaelPlankNZ
Ralph, Peter @petrelharp
Schreiber, Sebastian @SebastianSchreiber
Yates, Kit @kityatesNetwork Science
Dalla Riva, Giulio Valentino @gvdr
De Domenico, Manlio @manlius
Jensen, Lars Juhl @larsjuhljensen
Riveni, Mirela @mirela
Virgo, Nathaniel @NathanielNumber Theory
Chambert-Loir, Antoine @antoinechambertloir
Garcia Moreno-Esteva, Enrique @Egarcia
Lama, Vishal @vishallama
Litt, Daniel @littmathProbability
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas @nntaleb
Varma, Akshar @aksharvarma
Wenmackers, Sylvia @SylviaFysica
Whelan, John T @jtwsmaStatistics
Albers, Casper J @caal
Apiolaza, Luis A @ojala
Betancourt, Michael @betanalpha
Bolker, Ben @bbolker
Borrell, Luisa N @lborrell
Butler, Ken @nxskok
Charpentier, Arthur @freakonometrics
Dellago, Christoph @CHHDellago
Donnachie, Ewan R @ERDonnachie
Eddelbuettel, Dirk @eddelbuettel
Falk, Markus @falk
Fijten, Rianne @riannefijten
Greer, Phil J @pgreer
Harrell Jr, Frank E @f2harrell
Honner, Patrick @phonner
Hunt, Emily Lauren @emilydoesastro
Jenkins, James S @ProfDoubleJ
Kline, David @DavidKline
Kuhn, Max @topepo
Mackinnon, Sean P @spmackinnon
Marcum, Christopher Steven @csmarcum
Meys, Joris Fa @JorisMeys
Montenegro-Montenegro, Esteban @montenegro
Moss, Rob @rob_models
Schork, Joachim @StatisticsGlobe
Schwarz, Ulrich S @UlrichSchwarz
Tanaka, Emi @emitanaka
Viechtbauer, Wolfgang @wviechtb
Wang, Steve C @SteveWang251
Weissgerber, Tracey L @T_Weissgerber
Whelan, John T @jtwsmaSystems Theory
Allbright, Jef @jef
Roberts, Pauline @systemspractitioner
Wahl, Christian @chrwahl
Wildani, Avani @avaniMore extensive lists on Mastodon can be found exploring the following
Fedi.Directory - Science & Humanities
find.sciences.social - Find Academics on Mastodon
GitHub - Academics on Mastodon Lists
TrueSciPhi - Curated science, philosophy, and mathematics lists covering podcasts, Mastodon, and Bluesky
Trunk - allows you to mass-follow a bunch of people(Click to access Natural (Applied, Life & Physical) & Social Sciences)
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I've recently migrated a few (small) sites from #MkDocs (no longer maintained) to #Zensical, which went very smoothly.
It also motivated me to write a small Markdown extension for including source code for #Python functions, classes, methods, etc, similar to the `:pyobject:` option in reStructuredText's `literalinclude` directive:
https://includepy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
(I'm aware of the snippets extension, which has many more features, but requires adding markers to the source files)
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I've recently migrated a few (small) sites from #MkDocs (no longer maintained) to #Zensical, which went very smoothly.
It also motivated me to write a small Markdown extension for including source code for #Python functions, classes, methods, etc, similar to the `:pyobject:` option in reStructuredText's `literalinclude` directive:
https://includepy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
(I'm aware of the snippets extension, which has many more features, but requires adding markers to the source files)
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I've recently migrated a few (small) sites from #MkDocs (no longer maintained) to #Zensical, which went very smoothly.
It also motivated me to write a small Markdown extension for including source code for #Python functions, classes, methods, etc, similar to the `:pyobject:` option in reStructuredText's `literalinclude` directive:
https://includepy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
(I'm aware of the snippets extension, which has many more features, but requires adding markers to the source files)
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I've recently migrated a few (small) sites from #MkDocs (no longer maintained) to #Zensical, which went very smoothly.
It also motivated me to write a small Markdown extension for including source code for #Python functions, classes, methods, etc, similar to the `:pyobject:` option in reStructuredText's `literalinclude` directive:
https://includepy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
(I'm aware of the snippets extension, which has many more features, but requires adding markers to the source files)
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CW: Reproducible research
Reflecting on ~3 years of #InfectiousDisease #Epidemic #modelling for COVID-19, I'm trying to herd various fuzzy ideas into a clear narrative about how research software engineering (#RSE) can support #Reproducibility and #ResearchQuality (in computational fields, at least). Particularly when timelines are tight.
The essence is: mistakes will be made; how can I detect them as early as possible, fix them, and ensure they don't happen again?
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Rob Horning writes:
It seems to me that #language #models, maybe by definition, are automated versions of #structuralism, in that they construct a synchronic, weighted matrix of language’s possibilities that is forcibly detached from history — a model of la langue that can generate an infinite number of paroles. And some structuralists, like some “#AI” advocates today, were eager to marginalize human #consciousness as a unique constitutive force — thus you find Claude Lévi-Strauss declaring in La Pensée sauvage that “the final goal of the human sciences is not to constitute man but to dissolve him.”
Structuralism seems to want to reveal this “hidden art in the depths of the human soul” and “divine from nature” how and why certain things and concepts are associated.
Lévi-Strauss claims that:👉 the universe signified long before people began to know what it signified; no doubt that goes without saying. But, from the foregoing analysis, it also emerges that from the beginning, the universe signified the totality of what humankind can expect to know about it. What people call the progress of the human mind and, in any case, the progress of scientific knowledge, could only have been and can only ever be constituted out of processes of correcting and recutting of patterns, regrouping, defining relationships of belonging and discovering new resources, inside a totality which is closed and complementary to itself. 👈
Viewing the universe as a closed totality suggests that #time itself is meaningless, an unfolding of a pre-existing and #unalterable pattern that humans try to fathom but can’t change.
It seems as though this vision animates the claims and the fears of the companies working to impose language models on us as the apotheosis of general intelligence.
https://open.substack.com/pub/robhorning/p/neo-structuralism?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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Episode 257 is now live! Rob Biernacki breaks down his competition mindset: a rejection of the “alpha” tropes we see all over social media.
Listen now by subscribing to the BJJ Mental Models podcast on any of the major podcast services. Alternately, follow the direct link to this episode in the @bjjmentalmodels bio, or by visiting this URL: https://bjj.plus/257
#bjj #jiujitsu #brazilianjiujitsu #gi #nogi #grappling #martialarts #ibjjf #adcc #bjjmentalmodels
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@MatthewToad42 @rob_cornelius @breadandcircuses
Ok, I appreciate that perspective. Either way, the approach is the same -- build sustainability and the capacity of regeneration at the community level. That's where policy meets the individual. That's where production happens, and production is the game no matter what else. So... accomplishing that goal serves both of these representational models of the future. Heck yeah.
#SustainableLifestyle
#SustainableCommunities #TransitionTowns -
🚀This morning at #FOSDEM2025, our won Rob Van Kranenburg was on stage spotlighting Disposable Digital Identities!
In the session “We need Disposable Digital Identities for a more secure and resilient digital society”, Rob and the team explored:
🔑 The evolution from traditional identity models to Disposable Identities for privacy-first, secure interactions.
#DigitalIdentities #OpenSource #SelfSovereignIdentity #DisposableIdentities #MartelInnovate #FOSDEM
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With the ongoing improvement in AI and machine learning models, as well as adaptive, programmable workflows in environments like Python/Jupyter, ComfyUI, Blender and Unreal Engine, it is a productive time to look at new approaches in heritage visualisation and digital conservation.
Main Entrance, Photogrammetric Model (2024). Image Source courtesy Dave Killick 2021-22.Over the last 20+ years I have accumulated an extensive database of images of the Cape Denison heritage site, including extensive external and internal imagery of Mawson’s Huts.
This database includes not only my own photographic, video and audio documentation, but also the work of many other expeditioners to the site, courtesy of the first-rate people of the Mawson’s Huts Foundation, Australian Antarctic Division and IPEV. I am especially grateful to Rob Easther, who facilitated my two trips to the site, and also enabled me to work with members of other teams to generate structured image sets suitable for photogrammetry. Rob was a wonderful man who I admired greatly and counted as a friend – sadly he passed away in February 2024. Deservingly, he actually has an island in Antarctica (humorously) named after him – Easther Island. I also want to acknowledge Bruce Hull (formerly of the AAD) for employing me to document the site in 2006/7 and providing access to many documentary materials. This led to my first work for fulldome: ‘Frozen in Time’ (2008).
As a consequence of these opportunities and connections, I have a database containing imagery from about 2002 to 2021. These are largely unordered collections – though with enough coverage to enable the assembly of multi-year sets that can be used for partial 3D reconstruction. Photogrammetry typically doesn’t work well with non-contiguous data (both spatial and temporal), but with masking it is possible to work around many registration issues. It’s a bit of a kludge, but seems to be working. The creation of masks is typically very labour-intensive, but fortunately I am now able to semi-automate the processing of thousands of files using AI text-vision models like SAM/SAM2 and Florence-2. Semantic segmentation and masking can also be semi-automated using locally installed private LLM systems like Ollama/llama3.2. ‘Semi-automated’ means ‘fragile’ – still requiring the human-in-the-loop. Combining these with other opensource processors like COLMAP, SuperSplat, NerfStudio, one can imagine a future ‘agentive’ workflow for dealing with large unordered image collections – similar to the approach griptape.ai is developing, but without the reliance upon external paid APIs. Interesting times indeed!
Over time, I’ll post a few works-in-progress here, including photogrammetric and gaussian splat reconstructions, which will ultimately lead to a full 3D reconstruction in Unreal Engine. It’s been a long time coming, but the objective I’ve held for many years is now within sight. Credits for photographic sources are listed at the bottom of the page.
The quality of reconstruction varies due to the quality and source of the underpinning materials – for instance, some image sets from 2002 were shot on a digital camera at 1600 x 1200 px resolution; later ones at 5472 x 3638 px – so the resolution is quite variable. This broadly matches the development of digital camera technology over the last 20+ years. Interesting possibilities arise with ‘up-rezzing’ source images using generative AI models, at the risk of introducing confabulated detail. It’s a trade-off between digital ‘accuracy’ and novel possibilities for generative reconstruction. Of course, I am aided by having personal experience of working at the site and witnessing its changes over many years.
Similarly, as the conditions at the site are very variable, creating a representative 3D model is quite challenging. For instance, photographs taken in 2006 (Simon Mossman) reveal the Huts to be almost entirely entombed in ice (yes, ice, not snow), whereas conditions in 2021 (Dave Killick) revealed the structure to be almost standing free from the surrounding rocks.
Mawson’s Huts – iced-in. 2006. Photo courtesy Simon Mossman.Mawson’s Huts, Photogrammetric Reconstruction 2024. 2021 image source courtesy of Dave Killick.Mawson’s Huts, Photogrammetric Reconstruction 2024. 2021 image source courtesy of Dave Killick.Similarly, the interior of the main hut has had massive amounts of ice removed over the years – thanks to ongoing conservation expeditions by the Mawsons Huts Foundation – transforming its appearance – and revealing many of the treasures previously entombed within. I hope to eventually be able to create a gradual ‘reveal’ demonstrating the amazing conservation work that has been undertaken by the talented archaeologists, materials conservators and heritage carpenters who have worked there.
Of course, it would be wonderful to be able to return to the site myself with a very high quality full-frame or medium format camera and shoot everything at 100-200 megapixels, or in lieu of that, to have team capacity to do the job in a technically correct way.
https://youtu.be/WFI99d96qX4?si=VW9cXExx37AGekUH
In addition to my own extensive materials (2006/7 and 2009/10), I’m very grateful to for the photographic work of Adrian Welke (2002), Simon Mossman (2006), Chris Henderson (2009/10), Sally Hildred (2016), and Dave Killick (2021). I’m always on the lookout for more – so if you’re reading this and have some good photographic documentation – please drop me a line. Hopefully, in future expeditions we can arrange a thorough photogrammetric survey. In the meantime, I’ll keep plugging away with what I have, figuring out new ways of doing things with it – that’s half the fun.
https://www.petermorse.com.au/2024/11/reconstructing-mawsons-huts-antarctica/
#antarctica #gaussiansplat #gsplat #mawsonSHuts #photogrammetry #visualisation
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Hi, I'm a #VentureCapitalist and my job is to make sure we can rob you and call it "free market" in the same breath.
Why do data tracking and canvasing with your own servers, when you can save on the cost of processing by letting people pay for expensive GPUs and electricity to do the work for you/?
We call this model the schmuck model.
Not all ‘open source’ AI models are actually open: here’s a ranking
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02012-5 -
These outrageous acts of socioeconomic cleansing (see thread linked below) give the lie to all the mendacious claims that evictions of poor people’s encampments are about public health, safety, or “environmental impacts”. Even those that are exemplary models of minimizing those impacts are being evicted all over the country to appease landlords and upper-middle-income gentrifiers who have many times more detrimental effects on the local community and global ecology.
This is not about public safety, the environment, or even “quality of life”. It’s about maintaining extortionate housing prices and propping up the system of rentier capitalism by comprehensively criminalizing the mere act of existing anywhere, in any way whatsoever, without paying the banks and landlords their monthly pounds of flesh and engaging in the consumer economy at a level that the wealthy consider “respectable”.
There is simply no conceivable moral justification for this legalized neo-feudal protection racket, where if you don’t keep making skyrocketing extortion payments every month, the landlord / “property investor” class sends a band of sadistic psychopaths with guns to rob you of your belongings and displace you from your home by violent force.
This is happening practically everywhere and every day across the entire USA. And it’s not going to stop until people of conscience start organizing in large numbers to say, “No more! We won’t be forced to pay rent to live on the earth where we were born!” Every time these thugs show up for another round of evictions against the most marginalized people in this country, they need to start finding themselves faced with overwhelming resistance, including support for elements willing to engage in vigorous, forceful self-defense if necessary. That’s the only way we’re going to keep these crimes against humanity from continuing to accelerate.
This is, for me, on an equal footing with the climate and ecological emergency as the most urgent domestic problem in the US today, and it is inextricably intertwined with all the others. If we have no right to exist (and no, something we have to purchase is not a right - it’s a commodity), then none of our other rights count for a goddamn thing. This country’s unhoused people are on the front lines of one of the most crucial and urgent social justice struggles of our time, and need a hell of a lot more solidarity than they’re currently getting. Let’s all step up!
https://social.coop/@mlncn/110436188668525614
#Housing #HousingJustice #SocialHousing #Homeless #Houseless #Unhoused #RentStrike #RightToExist #PropertyIsTheft #Capitalism #SimpleLiving #Police #Minneapolis #Minnesota
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Eleven players were signed by the Premier League's "Big Six" clubs from "other 14" clubs this summer — not just Isak, but Norgaard, Eze, Joao Pedro, Enciso, Kerkez, Trafford, Ait-Nouri, Cunha, Mbeumo, Kudus.
https://nytimes.com/athletic/65921…
Between 2015/16 and 2021/22, such deals had slowed to a trickle. In 2017/18 there were just two: Riyad Mahrez (#LCFC to #MCFC) and a 38-year-old Rob Green (#HTFC to #CFC).
What's changed? Some will immediately scream "PSR!"
But that's a little too easy and convenient an explanation because
a) financial regulation was introduced in 2013
b) (this surprised me) the "Big Six" have contributed a far smaller share of Premier League spending in recent years than they did in the pre/early-PSR period.(And if, like me, you're inclined to view it as a "Big Six Plus One" (#NUFC) now, then yes you lose the sale of Isak from that list of 11, but you also add the signings of Elanga, Wissa and Ramsey.)
PSR has certainly been a factor in
a) reinforcing the established order — bad
b) leading clubs to pursue more sensible, sustainable business models — good
but there are bigger factors, which relate to the concentration of wealth and talent in the Premier League — undeniably good for the Premier League, undeniably bad for football further afield -
Eleven players were signed by the Premier League's "Big Six" clubs from "other 14" clubs this summer — not just Isak, but Norgaard, Eze, Joao Pedro, Enciso, Kerkez, Trafford, Ait-Nouri, Cunha, Mbeumo, Kudus.
https://nytimes.com/athletic/65921…
Between 2015/16 and 2021/22, such deals had slowed to a trickle. In 2017/18 there were just two: Riyad Mahrez (#LCFC to #MCFC) and a 38-year-old Rob Green (#HTFC to #CFC).
What's changed? Some will immediately scream "PSR!"
But that's a little too easy and convenient an explanation because
a) financial regulation was introduced in 2013
b) (this surprised me) the "Big Six" have contributed a far smaller share of Premier League spending in recent years than they did in the pre/early-PSR period.(And if, like me, you're inclined to view it as a "Big Six Plus One" (#NUFC) now, then yes you lose the sale of Isak from that list of 11, but you also add the signings of Elanga, Wissa and Ramsey.)
PSR has certainly been a factor in
a) reinforcing the established order — bad
b) leading clubs to pursue more sensible, sustainable business models — good
but there are bigger factors, which relate to the concentration of wealth and talent in the Premier League — undeniably good for the Premier League, undeniably bad for football further afield -
Eleven players were signed by the Premier League's "Big Six" clubs from "other 14" clubs this summer — not just Isak, but Norgaard, Eze, Joao Pedro, Enciso, Kerkez, Trafford, Ait-Nouri, Cunha, Mbeumo, Kudus.
https://nytimes.com/athletic/65921…
Between 2015/16 and 2021/22, such deals had slowed to a trickle. In 2017/18 there were just two: Riyad Mahrez (#LCFC to #MCFC) and a 38-year-old Rob Green (#HTFC to #CFC).
What's changed? Some will immediately scream "PSR!"
But that's a little too easy and convenient an explanation because
a) financial regulation was introduced in 2013
b) (this surprised me) the "Big Six" have contributed a far smaller share of Premier League spending in recent years than they did in the pre/early-PSR period.(And if, like me, you're inclined to view it as a "Big Six Plus One" (#NUFC) now, then yes you lose the sale of Isak from that list of 11, but you also add the signings of Elanga, Wissa and Ramsey.)
PSR has certainly been a factor in
a) reinforcing the established order — bad
b) leading clubs to pursue more sensible, sustainable business models — good
but there are bigger factors, which relate to the concentration of wealth and talent in the Premier League — undeniably good for the Premier League, undeniably bad for football further afield -
#Nevada rancher cites ‘shroud of #secrecy’ at #LithiumMine
By Scott Sonner, Associated Press
Published Friday, Oct. 29, 2021RENO — “A Nevada rancher suing to block construction of the largest lithium mine in the U.S. says the government’s #environmental assessment of the project relies on a baseline set by a consultant for the #mining company with a conflict of interest that trivializes potential harm to water resources and #wildlife near the #Oregon line.
“Bartell Ranch LLC wants a U.S. judge to order the Bureau of Land Management to provide documents, contracts and internal communications with all third-party consultants the agency used to reach its conclusion that #LithiumNevada Corp.’s mine won’t affect threatened species or significant scientific, cultural or historic resources.
“The ranch filed a lawsuit in February challenging plans for the #ThackerPass mine it says would rob the ranch of its precious water rights.
“The case has been consolidated with lawsuits subsequently filed in U.S. District Court in Reno by conservation groups and tribes alleging the mine would destroy critical #SageGrouse habitat and damage sacred tribal lands that were the site of a massacre in the 1860s.
“The bureau hired its own independent consultant, ICF International Inc., to prepare the scientific foundation for a 2,700-page environmental impact statement required under the National Environmental Policy Act.
“‘But it includes 1,300 pages of studies on groundwater pumping that established the models and baseline created by Tyler Cluff, a hydrogeologist in Reno for Canada-based Piteau Associates, according to the motion the ranch’s lawyers filed last week.
“They say Cluff currently is serving as an expert for Lithium Nevada in a separate water right protest proceeding in which he’s relying on much of the same data and work he did for the mine’s final environmental impact statement.
“’This unusual relationship between a third-party contractor for the NEPA analysis, Piteau, and LNC suggests that Piteau was not working for BLM on the FEIS in a neutral and independent capacity, but rather, was working directly for #LNC,' the motion states.
“Piteau didn’t respond to emails and phone messages seeking comment.
“The ranch’s lawyers say they’re seeking an order to obtain the documents because the bureau and Piteau have refused their requests to collect data at Piteau’s test wells and monitoring locations or turn over field data. They say it’s created a 'shroud of secrecy' over the basis for the mine’s approval.
“'The entirety of the water resources analysis appears to have been entrusted to Piteau Associates, who appears to have worked mostly, if not exclusively, at the direction of LNC,' the motion said. It said the bureau didn’t verify Piteau’s field work and 'simply assumed it was reliable.'
“Bartell’s own hydrogeologist strongly disputes the baseline water quantity and quality, and forage conditions.
“'Piteau could have inputted faulty data into the models to generate a particular baseline and model outcomes to benefit their employer LNC,' it said. 'BLM’s decision to trust the NEPA process to parties like Piteau who may have a financial stake in the approval of the (mine) raises the specter of bad faith.'
“The new filing seeks to add the field studies and samples to the court’s administrative record, which currently contains Piteau’s final reports and analysis 'but excludes nearly all drafts and communications from Piteau.'
“'The environmental baseline is so insufficient that actual baseline conditions are hidden.'
“The bureau has until Nov. 5 to respond to the latest filing.
“A Justice Department lawyer representing the agency said in an email to the ranch’s lawyer last month the bureau wasn’t provided any field reports and 'relied on those contractors’ baseline reports, which are included in the EIS.'
“'BLM has the expectation that contractors with appropriately credentialed staff will provide accurate data and conclusions in a professional manner,' Leilani Doktor wrote in the email attached as an exhibit to the ranch’s motion.
“Lithium Nevada said in its latest filing last week that 'BLM fully analyzed and ensured compliance with water quality standards and appropriately adopted adaptive management.' It said earlier that the bureau conducted a comprehensive review based on its 'experience and expertise,' public comment and 'extensive data collected ... over years in coordination with state and federal environmental agencies.'
“Doktor said the bureau considers the documents sought by the ranch 'internal and deliberative' material exempt from the administrative record. Third-party contracts are exempt because they 'are not materials considered during the decision-making process.'
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2021/oct/29/nevada-rancher-cites-shroud-of-secrecy-at-lithium/
#WaterIsLife #ConflictOfInterest #CulturalGenocide #EnvironmentalRacism #CorporateColonialism
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The Enemy Doesn’t Know How Many We Are: A Proposal for Building An Insurgency
For many decades the movement for liberation in the United States has been on the back foot. Overwhelmed by the struggle to survive, many find themselves and their groups reacting to the brutality of the state through programs like Cop Watch, ICE Watch, and demonstrations or encampments. These initiatives are important, even essential, but always in response to the violent overtures of institutionalized racism. They can mitigate a rough situation, help people in a one-off crisis or show solidarity, but no recent attempt has presented a way to win the war against humanity waged by the US government. Taking example from diverse insurgent forces, this text will look at how to adapt effective organizational models to support an anarcho-communist revolution. Armed with this knowledge and committed to see a revolution through, a nascent movement would have the capacity to build a force that can overturn the state and capitalism while constructing liberatory communities of the future.
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A Proposal for Building An Insurgency
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Contents:
Dedication
Revolutionary pledge
Introduction
The US state is currently at war with its own population, those in the global south and leftist factions
The fight will be won
Rebellions
An insurgency is needed to succeed
What does it take to build an insurgency?
- political and social organizations
- fighting forces
- political education
- revolutionary culture
- material considerations
- strategic timing
Who would support an insurgency
Why an insurgency would succeed in the US
How to start building an insurgency
Until we meet
Further reading
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Dedication
Embarking on this historical mission, it is imperative to pay respects to those who have come before us, fought the most difficult battles and paved the path of struggle with their fortitude. Without them the proposals put forward in this text would not exist, nor the potential of liberation. Specifically we acknowledge Russell Maroon Shoatz, Safiya Bukhari, Carlos Marighella, Lucy Parsons, Kuwasi Balagoon, Lorenzo Orsetti, Yahya Sinwar, Sekou Odinga, Dedan Kimathi, and the many others unnamed for the sake of space, and all those whose names we will never know because they were so brave.
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Revolutionary pledge
“Positions are seldom lost because they have been destroyed, but almost invariably because the leader has decided in his own mind that the position cannot be held.”i
This observation opens up a world of possibility based on the sheer will not to be deterred. Unlike the paid mercenaries of a state army, liberation forces are gifted with a deep motivation for the struggle. As a guerrilla commander in the KurdishHPG once noted, there can be a successful action with just one fighter if they have the will and determination to succeedii. Fighting a battle is first and foremost a mental feat, and the trials people in the movement face against the armed henchmen of the United States have hardened the resolve of brave political actors. The possibilities that spring steadfastness underpins the following text. This text lays out a strategy for fighting an asymmetrical war against a much better armed and more technologically advanced enemy. The war of the small against the mighty will be won by fortitude and determination.
.Introduction
For many decades the movement for liberation in the United States has been on the back foot. Overwhelmed by the struggle to survive, many find themselves and their groups reacting to the brutality of the state through programs like Cop Watch, ICE Watch, and demonstrations or encampments. These initiatives are important, even essential, but always in response to the violent overtures of institutionalized racism. They can mitigate a rough situation, help people in a one-off crisis or show solidarity, but no recent attempt has presented a way to win the war against humanity waged by the US government.
There are many examples of oppressed people throughout history overcoming their oppressors or colonizers, but not many with a long standing anarcho-communist result. On the other hand, there are a lot of far left groups that currently exist that mean well and have excellent analyses but could benefit from strategic direction in order to become revolutionaries. The question for all those on the side of humanity: how to win the war that has been launched against communities of color? How to effectively overthrow the state? How to organize towards a liberated society? Taking example from diverse insurgent forces, this text will look at how to adapt effective organizational models to support an anarcho-communist revolution. Armed with this knowledge and committed to see a revolution through, a nascent movement would have the capacity to build a force that can overturn the state and capitalism while constructing liberatory communities of the future.
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The US state is currently at war with its own population, those in the global south and leftist factions
The US was built on human misery, from the slave trade to the genocide of indigenous people. This foundation has seeped through its ideology. With its mentality of domination, the US wants to obliterate its adversaries rather than see people live with dignity or according to revolutionary principles. The COINTELPRO attacks against the Black Panthers and the bombing of the MOVE headquarters line up squarely with its support of the far right in Central and South America. The weight of this reality can be read on the faces of people and felt in day to day interactions: people have to accept the brutality of the United States to live here.
The state makes its war against people of color clear through the development of Cop Cities, the blatantly racist judicial system, routine torture in state and federal prisons, its brutal reaction to uprisings and the military tactics and equipment they bring into city police departments.iii The United States views not only people of color as enemy combatants but those on the left who fight for marginalized people. The legacy of the Red Scare and the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti is alive and well, and visible in the inability of the left to counter ICE raids and police executions. The question isn’t if the movement should start a war with the state. The war is already here. Instead the question is if people of conscience who live under this regime decide to fight back.
Fighting back allows people who have historically been oppressed to fully realize themselves through revolutionary struggle. Contrary to what US propaganda espouses, people are not individualized, separate entities. Everyone rises or falls together. When the state tortures someone in prison, bulldozes families in Palestine, or when a person walks past someone sleeping on the street, pieces of their shared humanity are shaved off. The only way to gain them back is through collective struggle: stopping the perpetrators of violence by fighting back with and for others.Commenting on the self-sacrificing action that HPG fighters took against Turkish Aerospace Industries, one writer noted “It is not an exaggeration to say that the only way to truly live is to wage a continuous struggle.”i
Similarly, Wayne Pharr, a Black Panther Party member, who participated in the firefight against police when they raided the BPP office in Los Angeles, explained how he felt in that moment, “I felt free. I felt absolutely free. I was a free negro. I was making my own route. You couldn’t get in, I couldn’t get out. But in my space, I was the king. In that little space I had, I was the king.”v In this moment the historical degradation by the US was overturned when Pharr and his comrades picked up their guns and shot back.
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The fight will be won
It is infinitely possible to win this war that has been launched by the US against the population, and humanity in general. What does it mean to win? Winning in this text is defined as: destroying the state structure and capitalism and replacing them with liberatory and egalitarian ways of existing as a society. The organization of a liberated community holds just as true today as it did in revolutionary Spain or the Korean People’s Association in
Manchuria: self-governance through a federation of councils, production by collectives, personal property held by use rather than private property, defense militias structured according to and defending revolutionary values, resources distributed appropriately amongst the population, expropriation of the enemy class: turning the assets of the enemy into the collective wealth of the new society and prohibiting them from rising and exploiting again.
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Rebellions
Rebellions and uprisings do not have the capacity to change people’s day to day reality. For example, after the Ferguson Uprising, the police returned with a vengeance. With the state empowered and the movement on the back foot, many of the key participants died in suspicious circumstances, presumably executed by the state. There wasn’t sufficient advancement on an organizational level to expel the police from Ferguson, and defense was not commensurate with any of the gains. There are countless examples in the US of rebellions that are an important expression of dissatisfaction, but without organization, people cannot force the state to permanently retreat and create a new reality in their communities. Even a rebellion that overthrows the regime in power does not go far enough. In 2011 Tunisian President Ben Ali left at the behest of protesters but the entire government structure remained, with remnants of the old regime in power. Even though gains were won, such as dismantling the secret police and women’s rights, the same fundamental political structure persisted. Likewise in Egypt, President Mubarak fled in response to uprisings, but after a few shifts in power, an American puppet president, El-Sisi took power. These uprisings of the Arab Spring unseated leaders, however without concerted reorganization of society, a transformation was impossible.
It is essential to formulate the struggle not as a reform of or rebellion against the current system, but as a revolutionary movement with clear goals and outcomes. The state must be completely dismantled and social structures have to be rebuilt from the basis of liberatory values.
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An insurgency is needed to succeed
Using armed force and social organizations, the goal of an insurgency is to make it impossible for the state to govern its territory, and through political, social and economic organization, effect a liberatory change within that territory. This starts with guerrilla warfare, political polarization, the mobilization of local support, and develops as partisans replace state and capitalist functions with their own.
The objective of an insurgency is to permanently eliminate the state and create long-lasting liberation. This change should replace a capitalist economy with a collective one, change a federal representative government to locally-centered self-governance, remove an exploitative social ethic and instill one that values all members of society and shift from poisoning the land and water to protecting the environment. Fighting forces and political-social organizations are built up simultaneously to, on the one hand, develop liberatory self-governance and collective economies, and, on the other, protect political gains while destroying the state.
Anti-colonial Guinea Bissau shows what an insurgency looks like in practice. Resistance forces built up parallel political and social organizations for years to develop popular support for the struggle. The revolutionary African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) party initiated educational systems, roving hospitals that served fighters and local people and barter bazaars. Amilcar Cabral, the founder of the PAIGC and an agronomist, taught people how to grow food to sustain themselves while also feeding the fighting forces, who would help work the fields with the people. The intertwined growth of revolutionary social organizations and fighting forces made for a complete social transformation within the liberated zones in rural areas that were entirely resistant to Portuguese colonizers. What characterizes an insurgency and differentiates it from a rebellion is that 1) war is waged for abolition of the state, 2) social organizations for self-governance, justice, education, medical care, and other important social projects are built up simultaneously with the war effort, and 3) revolutionary forces work to transform society in the areas they hold.
The remit of an anarcho-communist insurgency is to build a society that is driven by the self-governance of the people. Through the process of engaging in self-governance, people become collectively-minded, self-actualized and responsible for their entire communities. It is ideologically consistent and strategically important to facilitate this type of social organization because: an insurgency is a war for the population. If people agree with the political project, they will want to participate and help the fighters. A salient example is the bank tellers who drove Black Liberation Army (BLA) fighters to Chicago from New York overnight when they needed to hide out, or people from local neighborhoods who would give BLA members their guns if they lost theirs during a firefight.vi This would not have happened without community support and a certain level of organization created by aboveground groups. An insurgency has been described by counterinsurgent experts as 20% military and 80% political;vii another way of articulating the famous Clausewitz quote, “War is a continuation of the policy by other means.” Without people supporting the insurgent forces, it is impossible to have a struggle, and people will support if insurgents are creating sustainable means for true liberation.
This text lays out how the comprehensive process of building an insurgency is integral to engaging many people with a range of capacities and abilities in the revolutionary process, increases the development of all people and creates new economic and political systems, all while materially supporting revolutionary fighters.
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What does it take to build an insurgency?
There are six main fields to consider: 1) political and social organizations 2) fighting forces 3) political education 4) revolutionary culture 5) material considerations and 6) strategic timing.
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1) Political and Social Organizations
Political organizations are expansive assemblies of political actors. Political organizations set up armed factions and social organizations and create the ideological and strategic foundation for both, which, due to this connection, follow consistent political objectives.
Political organizations also set up the means for people to administer their own regions. This self-governance can happen through, for example, neighborhood councils, which form the basis for bottom-up style administration. The council is a forum people can use to coordinate to meet their needs, designating groups to handle that work.
Social organizations are responsible for the production and distribution of resources and the creation of infrastructure. Organizations can include food production, hospitals, schools, construction and activities can range from mediating conflicts to providing medical care and education to producing necessities. These organizations are structured in an egalitarian manner and are based on revolutionary perspectives. They displace those of capitalist businesses and the state.
Effective examples of such political organizations had been developed by the DTK in Northern Kurdistanviii. There were neighborhood councils, conflict resolution bodies, and youth and women’s groups. These bodies made the government of the Turkish state less relevant, as Kurdish people would, for example, utilize DTK mediation over state courts.
Self-governance structures and social organizations create the means for people to feel engaged in day to day life, have determination over their environments and create a material impact. Participation allows for a fundamental shift in values from alienation and competition to looking out for other community members. The well-being of the entire society becomes the responsibility of each person. This reflects the political tenets of the movement, creates collectivity and elicits engagement in revolutionary society and its defense.
In Chiapas the healthcare system was developed after significant and lengthy discussions with many different parts of the population, incorporating their knowledge, outlooks and concerns. For example, traditional healers were initially hesitant to share their methods but the proposal to care for the greatest amount of people possible convinced them. The final result was an overwhelmingly successful healthcare system tended by volunteer health providers, who administer traditional and Western medicine at regional hospitals. The hospitals serve community members, who, in turn, support the healthcare providers.ixx
Social organizations also serve the needs of the armed struggle, intertwining the livelihoods of the fighters and the local community. The fruits of this work are exemplified by Hezbollah. Hezbollah had created armed and social components: welfare, schools, hospitals, supporters with rocket launch rooms in Southern Lebanon. They demonstrated that they care about people’s well-being, giving credence to Hezbollah’s armed defense of the region. The ‘Israeli’ pager attacks on Hezbollah members were thus viewed as attacks on the whole population, bringing much of society, even political opponents, together in support of the organization. Immediately following the incident, one prospective eye donor, a taxi-driver named Hussein, explained his motivations to a local broadcaster. “How can I continue to see while they have been blinded?” he said. “The eye that I will donate will protect the nation.”xi
When people participate in the process of building and running social organizations, they are actively eroding the state’s administrative control. Local people become fighters without ever picking up a gun. An insurgency mobilizes support by normalizing revolutionary social organizations so that regular people use them to, for example, go to the doctor, get food and clothes, become educated, etc. Regular people become political partisans when they participate in self-governance as in the neighbor councils and grandma-run food distributions that cropped up during the Estallido Social uprising in Chile. Or, for example, in Barcelona during the Spanish revolution, neighbors were empowered to physically block bailiffs from entering their neighborhoods to conduct evictions.xii
In essence, the battle for administrative functions is what will determine if the state remains in a region or if the insurgent will be successful. Both the insurgent and the state will win legitimacy if people participate in their social organizations. If people call the police when they have a problem, they are strengthening the state, if they call revolutionaries, they strengthen the insurgency.
If the relationship is strong enough, the enemy’s attempt to undermine social organizations will be unsuccessful. The Zionist regime enters Tulkarm Refugee Camp in the West Bank of Palestine to destroy infrastructure to try to erode the support base of the resistance. Al-Quds Brigades reports that the effect is the opposite: “Once the raid is over, many people check in on us and express their gratitude that we are safe. When they look at the destruction of the camp, they just say, ‘better to lose your wealth than lose your children.’”xiii
Starting the armed struggle and ultimately maintaining a territory is based on the consent of the people in it. Truly liberatory political and social organizations are the key. If people agree with what revolutionaries are doing, they will participate in the self-governance of their neighborhoods and protect the guerrillas, if they disagree, they won’t sustain the insurgency.
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2) Fighting Forces
“The urban guerrilla’s weapons are inferior to the enemy’s, but from the moral point of view, the urban guerrilla has an undeniable superiority.”xiv – Marighella
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Guerrilla Struggle
The goal of fighting forces is to demoralize the enemy and win popular support. The armed work of an insurgency starts with guerrilla units. Due to flexibility and mobility, the guerrilla has the ability to launch attacks anywhere and disappear. Hidden amongst the population, the insurgent chooses when and where to attack, making their attacks unpredictable.
The tactical advantage is with the insurgent at this stage. The state must prove that it can retain order, whereas the insurgent only has to challenge the authority of the state. The state has to spend a lot of money to protect its assets and chase down insurgents, but insurgents can launch effective attacks very inexpensively at targets which are plentiful and in the open.
Time is on the side of the insurgent. An insurgent force can be assembled long before a single bullet is fired.xv Fighters can prepare for years or decades, striking only when the time is right. The EZLN built its forces for over ten years before attacking the state, presenting revolutionary ideas to villagers and systematically recruiting fighters. Taking time to build armed groups concertedly and growing slowly in qualitative force allows for the development of politically aligned and well-trained guerrillas, ready to take action when the time is right.
Guerrilla units are small groups consisting of only a few people, who independently launch attacks to harass the enemy. They are self-contained cells that pick their own targets, but are connected to other units through the guerrilla code, political objectives and allegiance to the overall mission. There is a role for each member of a guerrilla cell, and these roles should overlap in case one person is captured or killed. They can be assembled into columns or sections for larger attacks like ambushes if the conditions are right.
The purpose of the guerrilla forces is to make it impossible for the state to govern (by overextending the enemy, controlling the pace of the fight, for example), defend the population (by attacking state forces who brutalize people), survive (by planning attacks wisely, evading capture, setting up secure infrastructure), support political initiatives, and eventually to take and defend territory.
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Beyond theGuerrilla Struggle
Building of social organizations, the solidarity of the population and the strength of fighting forces will allow guerrillas at a certain point to establish bases and expel the state from their strongholds. Insurgent-controlled areas are those where revolutionary organizations and values prevail and the state no longer has control through administration or force. At this point the guerrilla struggle continues in new areas that are now contested, partially governed by the state.
The transition between hit and run guerrilla warfare and the security of a liberated area necessitates a delicate balance. Forces are needed to both defend the area and to contest regions beyond that territory. For revolutionary fighting forces to drive out the state and maintain a liberated territory, there needs to be a higher level of coordination, strategy and organization.
If we look at the example of the Great Dismal Swamp Maroon, it becomes clear that it is difficult to maintain an island of liberated land within enemy territory. Formerly enslaved people who escape plantations took refuge in the forbidding terrain of the Great Dismal Swamp. Here armed groups would coalesce as needed to coordinate on raids, defend their territory and free other enslaved people. At first the Maroon was impossible to broach by enemy forces due to impassible geography, but eventually the state developed the land, making it no longer functional as a refuge.
The state was able to destroy the territory because its economic and administrative structure remained intact. An insurgent movement needs to push the state’s administrative structure into disarray otherwise the enemy will be able to challenge a liberated area through means beyond armed force.
On the other hand, it is not feasible to go to war outside a liberated area without sufficient protection for that region. The Shinmin Prefecture was an anarchist region in Manchuria comprised of 2 million people. The Korean Anarchist Federation had established self-governing institutions such as mutual banks, workers cooperatives, and liberatory education. Their local militia was supplemented by guerrilla fighters and the region supported guerrilla attacks against imperial Japan in Korea from 1929-1931. However these attacks drew the ire of the Japanese, who sent their agents to infiltrate and assassinate key figures and without sufficient defense of the territory to support the guerrilla actions abroad, an invasion was the death blow.
The Great Dismal Swamp was strong on defense, while the Shinmin Prefecture was more focused on destroying their enemies abroad. Both regions had the problem of being stand alone territories where 1) the guerrillas were not hidden within a enemy-administered populations 2) the insurgents were not able to achieve the balance between defense and attack and 3) the growth of liberated territories was not commensurate with balanced defense and offense.
What is also clear from these examples is that forces defending a territory cannot maintain a guerrilla characteristic and expect longterm existence. A different formation is needed to defend a liberated area. The defense of a territory must be sufficient, and include an offensive component to challenge the terrain of the enemy. Offensive actions and their range must be chosen wisely so as not to generate more enemies than a liberated area can handle. There needs to be a high level of strategic coordination between guerrillas and defense forces of a liberated area.
While at the current moment it seems the movement is some time off from taking and holding territory, it is important to consider the structure and participation in the defense of a territory even during the nascent part of building guerrilla forces. More complex forms of organization and coordination are needed. There can be a strong connection between fighters and councils on a local level, tying defense to political will, but there also needs to be a means for fighting forces working together across broad swathes of geography, and much more concerted coordination in terms of strategy, tactics and logistical support. As fighting groups are trained and built, so should the organizational apparatus that will sustain the fight past the guerrilla stage. This stage is very advantageous tactically for the insurgent, but also the most precarious.
Holding territory can be dangerous while the state is still powerful. The guerrillas can ebb and flow from regions, establishing bases when it is politically and militarily feasible, and ceding it temporarily so as not to get into a head-on fight. Often making a stand does not play to the strengths of an insurgent force. When temporarily ceding territory, informants, sleeper cells and political organizations can remain in place to coordinate with returning guerrillas and make it hard for the state to truly regain a foothold.
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3) Political Education
Insurgencies thrive by being able to address grievances that the state will not. Anarcho-communism presents a range of salient proposals for nearly every facet of life, from collective self-governance to justice to ecology, but there will be strategic moments when putting one or two of those points forward will have the strongest, most wide-spread appeal. Picking the right points to center on at the right times is essential for rallying people toward the cause. For example, the height of the George Floyd Uprising would not be the right time to focus on ecology. The rallying point(s) can change depending on current events and can even be different for different segments of the population. An essential factor is that the points chosen should not be ones the state can fix; they must last the duration of the insurgency.
Propaganda and media serve the important role of isolating the state from the people, making it clear that the hardships people suffer are the unnecessary effects of the US government and capitalist economy. They also work in tandem with revolutionary school curriculum to reinforce a revolutionary narrative.
Revolutionary schools have the important role of helping people understand the role of the state and capitalism, familiarizing people with the history of resistance and building skills that are relevant and useful for a revolutionary society. All subjects taught in these schools are oriented towards creating a better society for all people. For example, Zapatista education provides knowledge about agronomy which helps people in Chiapas become self-sufficient. Or Black Panther schools recounted the history of the United states from the perspective of their communities.
It is impossible for people to get behind a cause when they don’t understand the basic political spectrum. People in the United States are heavily propagandized and most have received poor education. It is essential to build up people’s political understanding and inform them about the histories of oppression and resistance. Political education can take place through multiple mediums such as revolutionary schools, mass propaganda and the guerrilla struggle itself.
Organizing can work as propaganda to draw clear battle lines and create conditions for the struggle. For example, to demonstrate the necessity of guerrilla struggle, revolutionaries can launch a community campaign. Black Liberation Army founder, Dhoruba Bin Wahad, has suggested calling for community control of the police, which is a logical proposal to help solve their rampant murders of black and brown people. However it is a request that the state will never meet. The proposal functions to organize communities of opposition on a local level and the intransigence of the state demonstrates the necessity for revolutionary defense forces to step in.
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4) Revolutionary Culture
A fundamental cultural shift is essential for revolutionary work in the US. Political and social organizations and fighting forces embody this culture, creating goodwill within local communities.xvi
Revolutionary culture requires a collective approach to the struggle. Political actors should be selfless, stand up, steadfast, hold true to their word and show respect for themselves and those who are most disadvantaged in bourgeois society. These qualities are fundamental for achieving a society where every member cares for and is responsible for all the others. The welfare of those who are the most vulnerable become the obligation of all. A leftist revolutionary movement demonstrates a commitment to life and community.
Revolutionary culture runs counter to acculturation in the US, which has indoctrinated people to act against their self-interest. People are socialized from a young age to distrust their neighbors, turn their backs on people in need and look out for themselves before anyone else. This may be the hardest aspect to overcome for developing an effective movement in the US.
The evidence of US culture permeating the movement lies in the thousands of failed political groups, the constant fractures and insurmountable conflicts between comrades, people using the movement to fundraise or do research for their careers, individuals demanding social credit for their revolutionary contributions, an ideological emphasis on isolated, personal initiatives to drive political work and political groups whose policy it is to instrumentalize people in order to achieve their goals.
It is important for people involved in revolutionary work to shed the alienating and competitive ways that have been forced on people by the US regime, in order to build effective collaboration and trust. Cooperation and trust are the bedrock of the the movement, holding it together through difficult situations, and demonstrating the types of relationships that unite a liberatory political project. When people join the movement, they will be acculturated to cooperating with each other.
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5) Material Considerations for Success
Infrastructure requirements include access to and control over communications, food, finances, arms, transportation, means to disseminate information and the ability to supply resources to insurgents and the population.
Logistic and communication networks, independent of the state, serves fighting forces and the population. They are set up with the consideration that the state will try to surveil and disrupt, fully understanding that removing pipelines of resources and information is a good way to incapacitate the insurgent force.
Arms and tactics training are key. This can happen with a supportive army. For example, in 1982 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) set up a training camp in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon in response to ‘Israel’s’ invasion.xvii Many insurgent groups such as PFLP, Hezbollah, Asala, the Red Brigades and the PKK trained there.Armed training can also happen within the army of the enemy state. Many of the great militants of the Black Liberation Army, like Kuwasi Balagoon were trained by the US army.
Intelligence on state capacity, enemy figures in key position, arsenal and plans of action is essential. Infiltration of the police and armed forces can be established prior to the initiation of the armed struggle and provide pertinent information. The state has contingency plans for crises and responding to attacks, which are readily available. Insurgents use this information to set traps to use their own plans against them.
An important part of a revolutionary insurgent struggle is that it intends to build a different economic system. This alternative system begins at the outset of a struggle as a way of circulating resources to those who are participants. However money will certainly be necessary. Funding can be planned well in advance of the beginning of the armed struggle, diversifying sources and obscuring where they are held. Funding can come in the form of external support, draining that of the enemy, and community support.
With these factors in mind, it is clear why an analysis of multiple insurgencies suggests that the likelihood of success will increase based on 1) the remoteness from the center of the counterinsurgent’s power 2) the ability for the insurgent to move across an international border 3) international alliances and 4) a local administrative vacuum. In consideration of the physical demands of an insurgency a temperate climate and a spread out population add an advantage.xviii While all these conditions may not necessarily be met in every case where political organizations form, they are useful to consider when launching a struggle.
6) Strategic Timing
An insurgency has the tactical advantage of being able to wait, building up sufficient forces and popular support and striking at a time and location of its choosing. Training and organization can be developed to a high degree before the armed struggle begins.
A crisis or weakening of the state is helpful for launching an insurgency. For example, anti-colonial insurgencies didn’t succeed before 1938, when World War II weakened European states. The insurgent can wait for a moment when the US is tied up in military conflicts and has exhausted its resources, or is lacking popular support. A war on its own soil against an external enemy could, for example, provide the right conditions. Or engaging in multiple armed conflicts abroad would weaken the US state and diminish its international standing, creating an opening for the insurgent.
Strategic timing does not just refer to selecting an appropriate time for the initiation of armed action, but also choices made throughout the conflict.
Once armed action begins, it is important to keep up the pacing and pressure. The state will have the strongest chance of stamping out an insurgency during the initial period, the guerrilla struggle, due to functioning administrative control. To quash an insurgency, the state needs to arrest guerrillas, regain the trust of the population and instate compliant leaders through elections. For this work the state depends on pre-existing civil structures like the police, non-profits, local representatives and social services. This administrative power is very effective at stifling rebellions. The momentum of the George Floyd Uprising was successfully derailed by coordinated civil actions including elected representatives speaking out at marches, legal proceedings being issued against Derek Chauvin and city-to-city coordinated police action against demonstrators.xix
It is important for the insurgent to make the state’s civic bodies unable to function, drawing the conflict into a military terrain. The US Army Marine Counterinsurgency Manual confirms: “Controlling the level of violence is a key aspect of the struggle. A high level of violence often benefits insurgents. The societal insecurity that violence brings discourages or precludes nonmilitary organizations, particularly [administrative proxies of the counter-insurgent]”, which the Manual identifies as, “diplomats, police, politicians, humanitarian aid workers, contractors, and local leaders.”xx The guerrilla, Carlos Marighella confirms, “The role of the urban guerrilla, in order to win the support of the population, is to continue fighting…heightening the disastrous situation within which the government must act.”xxi
Marghiella also emphasizes that, “keeping in mind the interests of the people,” during this process is essential. The insurgent must precisely balance the need to combatively overwhelm the administrative capacity of the state with the need to maintain the goodwill of the population. During the early stages, the insurgent can control the pacing and tenor of the fight and can time it to best suit the social and strategic conditions at each moment.
However launching the armed attack is not just about watching and waiting for an opening, but creating the conditions for the struggle to flourish. It is essential to undermine US civic institutions, eroding popular faith in them, sowing dissent within their ranks and drawing people toward revolutionary social organizations. Increasing distrust in US civic bodies is not a difficult proposal. With dissatisfaction already quite high, insurgent social organizations have fertile ground to grow.
The considerations about strategic timing demonstrate that an insurgency requires a lengthy investment of time. From comprehensive training and research to creating the ideal social conditions for the armed struggle, it is a longterm commitment on the part of the insurgent.
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Who would support an insurgency
In counterinsurgency theory the population is broken down into a perhaps overly simplistic, yet useful, formula: an active minority on the side of the state, an active minority on the side of the insurgent, and a large group of people in the middle that want to go about their daily lives with reasonable stability. Victory will theoretically tilt in favor of the side that can provide the better life.xxii
Currently, without an institutionalized left, and with the lack of general political understanding, the politics of the center produce an acceptance for a brutal and degraded life. It is impossible to talk about a war for the population without acknowledging that the political tenor in the US is by and large extremely right wing.
The question is how to move people further to the left. Part of the answer lies in the armed struggle itself. Armed action from the radical left moves the center further left. It galvanizes people, forcing them to take sides and it creates a new pole of far left politics. When the seriousness of the demands is expressed by the requisite force to achieve it, it is more convincing than rhetoric.
This precedent is reflected in the boom in membership in the Black Panther Party following their armed protest on the floor of the California state Capitol. It can also be observed in the public assistance for armed struggle groups in the 1960’s-1980’s, and the support of radicals in the US for the events of October 7th in Palestine.
Furthermore, during uprisings, sympathy for radical change becomes far more widespread. The George Floyd Uprising elicited support from many sectors of society. Both potential political actors and unpoliticized people were won over by the widespread demonstration of popular sentiment and the virulence of the uprisings. As demonstrators began challenging the police, support for their initiative grew and acceptance of the police fell dramatically.
Being very clear and open about armed struggle can quickly bring in participants. In Chiapas, the EZLN started their work by explicitly building a guerrilla force and clearly expressing their intention to initiate an armed struggle to potential supporters. This drew people towards the struggle by demonstrating a commitment to success and means for people to effect a material change within their communities. There already exists an impetus to take armed action against colonial adversaries, like Willem van Spronsen’s attack on ICE. These public displays demonstrate a groundswell of popular sentiment that could be organized into a cohesive force.
While armed action pushes prevailing opinion further left, armed action complemented by social organizations becomes a thoroughly convincing force. Social programs indicate the genuine intention of political actors to better people’s lives and facilitate people joining the effort.
The combination of armed struggle and social organizations counteract the feeling of helplessness that the state wants to project on people. In the US, there are many communities that are targeted or sidelined by the state, but no one wants to accept a victim role. In fact, this is a dynamic that helps the state control people, and also one that the non-profit industry preys on. Creating an alternative where people can live with dignity, cultivating a culture of respect and creating the capacity to win is key for building self-actualization through struggle. The genuine self-sufficiency of revolutionary communities is an attractive proposal to people who have historically been oppressed.
One of the greatest examples of US brutality is the prison system. It is also the most concentrated population of politicized people in the country. This legacy is thanks to prison organizers like the Nation of Islam, George Jackson, the Black Panthers and incarcerated members of armed struggle groups like the United Freedom Front and the Black Liberation Army. The teachings of comrades from previous generations set the stage for continued work in this vein and for prison uprisings like Attica, Lucasville, and the Vaughn Prison Uprising and the multitude of prison strikes set in motion by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak and many others. People locked up and terrorized daily by the state forces understand the force required to stop them. The proliferation of George Jackson style study groups in many prisons today, some named after him, is testament to this continued political legacy.
Many of those organizing inside would like to participate in movements on the outside but have to deal with the very real problem of securing housing, food, etc. once released. The infrastructure inherent in building an insurgency has the capacity of creating a support structure for these militants, as well as counteracting the state’s intention to rob people of their means of survival. In revolutionary Spain, for example, it wasn’t just liberated fighters reuniting with the battalions who broke open prisons; many people they had politicized joined as well.xxiii
People in prison are an acute example of people who support an insurgency, but there are many others who are routinely terrorized like young people of color, migrants, people lacking money and resources and politicized young people. An insurgent strategy offers a path towards stability and respect.
It is clear is that through an insurgent struggle not everyone will shift further to the left or change their views. While armed leftist action brings the political center toward the left, it also serves to further entrench elements of the right in its anti-social positions. There will always be the minority that supports reactionary objectives. There are two points to consider: Balkanization and suppression.
A common misconception in revolutionary work is that the entire territory of the US needs to be liberated. This is a difficult proposal given many people’s right-wing views and vastness of the geography. A more realistic idea is akin to the proposal of the Republic of New Africa to section off a part of the South – a Balkanization of the territory occupied by the United states.
There remains the question: how protect the movement from actors with a right wing political ideology. First, getting people to sympathize and participate in the movement will create fewer enemies. While there is a right-wing political bent currently throughout the US, this should not be considered a static fact. It is important to consider that the many communities that vocalize right wing views didn’t always do so and do so now because of concerted propaganda efforts on the part of state actors. Being a proactive political movement means engaging in activities and messaging that will effect a change in this failing perspective. Yet it is important to note at this point that reactionaries should not be the focus of efforts. Propaganda efforts can be far reaching enough that they happen to reach right wing people, driving a wedge between those who are deeply racist, xenophobic, etc, and those who actually care about others.
The ideologically hardened right wingers are essentially enemy combatants. Whether they are currently active is not so much a question. If allowed to remain in a territory, they may be or could become agents of the counterinsurgent. They must be thoroughly disabled and removed from liberated territories. It is important to begin considering how to deal with these factions from the perspective of an abolitionist movement. Complete annihilation is essential.
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Why an insurgency would succeed in the US
The strengths of the US become its weaknesses in the face of an insurgency.
The US is hubristically proud of its military might. Military spending far outpaces any other nation, with its spending in 2020 amounting to the same as the next nine highest nations. Equipment and tactics developed in the military are deployed in local police departments as well. From SWAT teams to the FBI to the Department of Homeland Security to militarized police, local residents are bombarded with highly technological and militarized state force.
Within the dynamics of asymmetrical warfare, these are the conditions where the insurgent has the advantage. A more technologically advanced and equipment-laden enemy is too cumbersome to counter guerrilla fighters. Complex apparatuses become a hindrance and the top-down structure can’t pivot quickly enough. Even the Marines agree, “A modern military force capable of waging war against a large conventional force may find itself ill-prepared for a ‘small’ war against a lightly equipped guerrilla force.”xxiv Meticulously recorded videos of the resistance in Palestine show fighters emerging from tunnels to plant bombs on tanks that are not equipped to counter such a close and agile combatant. The modern military is weighed down by its own equipment and structure. Tanks become lumbering death traps. The tactical advantage is with the fighters who don’t have their assets in the open and have the ability for evasion. An insurgent has the capacity to remain invisible on its home terrain and arise at unexpected points to attack and quickly disappear.
An insurgency is cheap for the insurgents, while it is expensive for the state. To appear in control, the state must do its best to stamp out fighters, which takes a great deal of resources, manpower and equipment. Insurgents can use cheaply made weapons to precipitate a great expense for the state. For example, drones made from styrofoam are able to evade detection or tiny drone boats in the Red Sea can damage an aircraft carrier many more times their size and cost. Handmade explosives have the capacity to destroy a tank. Small, cheap and effective devices make it difficult for the counterinsurgent to avoid attacks.
Counterinsurgency doctrine of the Army and Marines is considered to be the most forward thinking treatise on this type of military strategy. Even with lessons learned from military debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US doctrine still demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding about the motivations of an insurgent. Given the extreme lack of empathy for people’s lives, it is seemingly impossible for military strategists to fathom that others may be driven by genuine concern for their fellow humansxxv. The lack of compassion for the people coupled with a misreading of their adversary makes it difficult for the institutions of the US state to respond appropriately to challenges.
For example, in Afghanistan, US soldiers stationed in Restrepo held a weekly meeting with local elders meant to create connections to win them over and solicit their help routing out insurgents. When questioned by an elder about someone they detained, the soldier in charge became frustrated and finally exclaimed, “You’re not understanding that I don’t fucking care!”xxvi This poignant example illustrates the overall military culture, not to mention US culture, that demonstrates a fundamental disinterest in effective counterinsurgency tactics, even when they are in its best interest.
For its own sake, the counterinsurgent should not respond to guerrilla attacks with overwhelming force, as it risks alienating people and driving them further from its cause.
For example, Safiya Bukhari astutely noted that the New York Police Department made her a member of Black Panther Party. Bukhari was a middle class college student who got involved in the movement after she was arrested for defending a Black Panther from police harassment. She learned from this episode that she had no rights, which galvanized her to join the Party and eventually the Black Liberation Army.
Trump’s execution of Michael Reinoehl in cold blood when he was on the run for shooting a fascist, South Carolina bringing back the firing squad for ‘legal’ executionsxxvii, the popularity of the shooting of a healthcare CEO, the impunity of police to shoot people of color, masked ICE agents tearing families apart, all show that the US state is dead set on losing the war for the population. The overriding indifference of the US government to recognize the humanity of people, particularly people of color, within its borders creates a situation where people want to rid themselves of its hegemony.
The oligarchic nature of the US state, coupled with massive wealth disparity creates the potential ground for class war.xxviii The US’s dependence on capitalist infrastructure further exacerbates its problems. This is a major issue for the state in the face of internal armed struggle, and a huge field of potential for the insurgent. Without a social safety net, the population in the US is vulnerable to natural and economic catastrophes. This is quite apparent with the supply-chain disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic or the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Even day to day social problems, like lack of access to medical care, are severe, creating questions about the state’s ability to administer its population.
The very existence of an insurgency necessitates the development of functional and revolutionary supply chains – a direct challenge to the administration of the state. This is understood by US government and the reason why it felt threatened by Black Panther Party breakfast program, ambulance services, health clinics and education programs. Yet its policy of deprivation continues, creating a need for what insurgents have to offer.
Currently, western civilization is catapulting itself towards impending demise. The failure of Ukraine to gain the upper hand against Russia despite the US pouring money into the conflict and the success of the Axis of Resistance against ‘Israel’, particularly Ansar Allah’s defeat of the US Navy, demonstrate that Western military might is waning. The rise of anti-colonial, anti-West movements in the Sahel and West Asia would not have been possible without this weakening. The BRICS alignment is forcing the West to reckon with a new geopolitical order. Seemingly grasping at straws to try to retain its dominant position, the US has been threatening to start a plethora of wars without clear ability to succeed. Furthermore, internal politics in the US have never been more contentious and divisive. With the rise of fascism, and it’s conspiracy-prone base, those who care about people and approach social organization logically are looking for alternatives. The perfect conditions for an insurgency are amassing: the US is waning as a global power, it hosts a wildly divided population and has no plan in place for people’s survival.
The potential success of an insurgent struggle is greater now than ever before. The global order will look very different in the span of a few years to decades. The fall of the brutal hegemony of the US could lead to a restructuring of political and economic relations around the globe. It would be ideal if new forms of society had a liberatory characteristic and to do that comrades in the US can start laying the groundwork for an insurgency.
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How to start building an insurgency
The first step is to set up political organization(s). Members should be aligned in terms of ideology, strategy and, most importantly, around revolutionary rather than radical or reformist goals.
Participants can form either one large organization or facilitate a network of aligned groups. The choice between a network or organization depends on the dispositions of those involved and currently existing formations. Political groups should agree on a structure for their organization and roles of the members, while networks should agree on how organizations will communicate effectively with each other and roles of each group. Both should agree on revolutionary outcomes, codes of behavior, political outlook and ways of measuring success
The political position of this proposal is intended for the revolutionary left, following an anti-capitalist and anti-colonial perspective. Political groups should be fully committed to the destruction of the United States and its racist history and culture. The guiding question that should inform debates is: what would improve the lives of those who have been and are currently most disadvantaged by white supremacist American society: people of color and those who lack money and resources?
Political organizations can focus their work on building militant, political and economic infrastructure. To do so they should start developing social organizations and fighting forces. There are two ways to start: 1) identify the material needs of an insurgency and comrades with the skills to create those organizations and 2) take stock of groups and resources that already exist that could be aligned to further develop the strategic goals.
While social organizations can be based on the skills and abilities of current members, they shouldn’t be exclusively determined on that basis. Consideration should be given to needs of the fighters and needs of community members. For example, some basics needed to support an insurgency include: logistics and infrastructure, communication networks, sources for food and goods for living, community decision making bodies, medical care, and revolutionary education. Likewise, political organizations can consider the acute needs of the people in their areas.
Political education is a foundational aspect of developing the struggle because propaganda and classes can bring in new comrades. Political classes about revolutionary struggle and ideas can attract people who would like to join the political organization, and practical workshops can give them the skills to build out social organizations. Classes and schools can be both for potential organization members and for broader society.
The intention for the social programs is that they should be of far better quality than those of capitalist society. For example, food should be more delicious and wholesome; medical care should be more preventative, caring and accessible; classes should be conducted with the highest level of preparation and research, showing respect for all involved.
There are many revolutionary projects that exist currently that translate well to an insurgent strategy. Food distributions can expand their operations and be further developed to become supplied by comrade farms, for example, increasing self-sufficiency. Conflict resolution groups could be made available to the public to create a body for justice outside of the court system. Medics could receive further training to help build out community health programs and provide medical care for fighters. Always resist the temptation to work with nonprofits. They are structurally aligned with the state.
Even though much groundwork needs to be done before fighting forces start their work, it would be ideal to recruit and train as many people as possible and as early as possible to be ready to act when the time is right. To do this correctly requires a lengthy process. A few members of political organizations can be tasked with doing this. It is important to keep a separation between fighting forces and social organizations.
Building out the fighting forces must be done with the highest level of discretion. Only comrades who are well known to the recruiter should be invited to participate. Comrades with combat experience can train others. This can happen at ranges but also it will be useful to find and utilize surreptitious training areas. A training program for skills and study can de developed to make sure fighters have the skills they need to do actions and resist entrapment. These skills should be practiced regularly.
Many nighttime affinity groups currently exist whose structure and actions mirror that of a guerrilla unit, as a guerrilla warrior doesn’t have to wait for orders to be able to make decisions.xxix They are relatively independent, politically well-versed, conduct hit and run strikes, are fluid and flexible, secure because they don’t necessarily have to know who comprises other groups and able to produce their own propaganda materials. These groups can be a source of fighters.
It is important however to note the differences between nighttime groups and a developed guerrilla struggle. The extensive tunnel networks in Gaza and Vietnam, for example, could not have been constructed without major coordination and organization. Fighting forces need to decide on a secure structure and a means for coordination from the start. Guerrillas don’t need to necessarily know who is in other cells but should have a way to communicate. There should also be a way to communicate between political organizations and fighting forces that should includes ways of determining a greater war strategy. Its important from the outset to also develop plans for sizing up formations in the later stages of the struggle.
Field Marshall DC counsels: “In organizing self-defense groups… the most important consideration is whether or not the person to be incorporated into the group understands fully that what he or she is doing is the right thing to do.”xxx Those who hold guns and are fighting the state should embody the most stand up characteristics of a revolutionary. Fighters should be motivated by the political outcomes, embody what it means to be a political actor and carry a full commitment to the struggle because, just like all political organizations, fighting forces should be a prime example of their own liberatory politics. This is conveyed by how guerrillas treat each other and the people, the types of actions taken and the messaging around actions. Independent motivation is also important because guerrilla units need to act without direction, deciding their own missions and developing their own propaganda.
Finding resolute and committed revolutionaries to become guerrillas is essential, but also the act of participating in revolutionary war builds the characters of those involved. “[T]o be an assailant or terrorist is a quality that ennobles any honorable man because it is an act worthy of a revolutionary engaged in armed struggle against the shameful military dictatorship and its monstrosities.” (Marighella) The sheer engagement in fighting back against the brutal state, and the motivation of love for oppressed people, is enriching for the participants. Even more so, through the participation in collective armed action, fighters develop qualities such as steadfastness and circumspection, which are ideal qualities for people participating in a revolutionary society. The necessary collectivity of an armed unit increases the fighters’ collaborative spirit and ability to think about the whole.
Selflessness is an important quality for a revolutionary, but it is not to indicate a rush towards death. The next sentence that follows the opening Marighella quote for this section is, “Thanks to it, the urban guerrilla can accomplish his principle duty, which is to attack and survive.”xxxi This is not just pragmatic, being that there are far less insurgents than there are of the enemy, but more importantly, it reflects a value system spread throughout all the insurgent forces and organizations. The well-being of the overall community must be synonymous with fighting prowess. Revolutionary culture is a culture of life.
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Revolutionary Culture
The tenure of revolutionary work is presented to the greater public through the culture of political actors. Revolutionary culture should be built on a foundation of participants who are humble, genuine, true to their words and share a longterm commitment to the political struggle. This culture should permeate every activity of a political organization.
All members should be clear, open, honest and hold themselves to the highest standards in terms of their treatment of others. It is important for all political actors to evaluate their motivations: are they doing political work for the sake of their ego, do they have insecurities or are they dealing with mental health challenges? There is role for everyone in developing an insurgency and it is essential that everyone is very honest with themselves and others about their abilities, limitations and personal challenges to know what their role should be. This self-knowledge is essential. Marighella suggests that, “[Guerrilla warfare] is a pledge which the guerrilla makes to himself. When he can no longer face the difficulties, or if he knows that he lacks the patience to wait, then it is better for him to relinquish his role before he betrays his pledge.”xxxii
In order to begin developing revolutionary culture collectively, it is important to forge agreements on expected behaviors of comrades towards each other and towards the public, their commitments to the organization, what qualities to look for in people who want to join and the process and expectations for people leaving the organization.
Collectivity may be atypical for anyone who was acculturated in the US, but active steps can be taken to develop this skill and set a new standard for revolutionary work. Look to members who did not grow up in the US for advice on this matter. They will often have a better model for sociability. Conduct active listening workshops where members practice hearing each other out on matters that don’t have high stakes.
A forum for discussing and resolving disagreements is essential. Conflicts can be headed off by principled critique/self-critique sessions, and handled after the fact by mediation teams, for example. Any critique that is issued should come from a place of trust, commitment and belief that the other member is also committed and open to change.
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Funding
In the beginning stages multiple and diverse sources of funding should be established. Political work may be supported through monetary and in-kind donations, self-sustaining projects, international funding, kidnapping, extortion and expropriation of the enemy class.
Social organizations can be sustained through donations of the participants and supporters. For example, a school or collective kitchen can take sliding scale or monthly donations.
Comrade businesses can have a dual use of making money for comrades but also, when needed, offering logistical support. For example, companies that use trucks or warehouses will one day be useful for storing and moving materiel. Members who have a clean record can apply for a Federal Firearms License in order to sell arms for their livelihood but also offer a friendly place for comrades to acquire them at cost.
Social organizations can be developed for self-sustainability like growing food, producing clothes, building internet mesh networks, weapons or fuel production. As the US economy continues its downward trajectory, these resources will be necessary not just for supporting the fighters but for broader society.
International support can be sought. Ideologically close allies are ideal for trade and funding. There are many enemies of the US who would be eager to support an insurgency in the US but this must be weighed out with the potential of becoming their proxy.
Kidnapping, extortion and expropriation can be used with caution. They should have the dual purpose of putting pressure on the enemy while also gaining funds. These endeavors should be undertaken in the safest way possible, when the odds are stacked in favor of those doing the actions. It is important not to get too many fighters caught up by activities that should support the growth of the insurgency. For example, digital bank robberies are safer and potentially more lucrative than ones in person or extortion can be based out of another country to decrease the risk.
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Summary
- Decide on the goals, commitments and community agreements of the political organization(s).
- Determine organizational structure, means of communication and a plan for growth.
- Create a plan for developing revolutionary culture and conflict resolution.
- Assign specific duties to each member, making sure these duties overlap.
- Develop a method for bringing in new members.
- Develop a metric for measuring success.
- Develop a multi-pronged fundraising strategy, with proposed expansion for different stages of the struggle.
- Identify existing social organizations and decide which essential ones need to be developed.
- Develop a plan for recruiting and training fighters.
- Decide on a structure for units.
- Decide on a means for secure communication.
- Develop a means to confer between political groups and fighting cells on political direction and strategy.
- Decide what issues to focus on for widespread propaganda.
- Develop social organizations.
- Members with key skills and knowledge start building agreed upon social organizations.
- Assigned members speak with already existing projects about joining forces.
- Offer political education for potential new members and/or the public.
- Develop a comprehensive educational program.
- Have a clear system in place for new members to join.
- Recruit fighters.
- Develop a training regimen and assign members to carry out this program.
- Put material needs in place: safe houses, armories, training areas, workshops.
- Develop a plan for weapons procurement.
Until we meet
Setting out to build an insurgency in the US from the current state of the movement might seem like a monumental task but it is important to keep some precedents in mind.
Every organization and every armed struggle had to start from nothing. Many began in even less favorable conditions and with much less support. Know that it is possible to fight through extreme adversity when our organizations are strong, and always remember that it is possible to create the best conditions for the movement.
The situation in the US makes it ripe for political change. The US is flailing politically and economically. People are searching for solutions for basic survival and want to see the development of a capable struggle. Concerted and functional organization creates confidence in people and an insurgency has the capacity to turn a sustainable and humanizing society into a reality.
The tides of political change have been decisively shifting within the last 20 years. The veneer of civil society has eroded, making activism essentially useless. Where previously many on the far left have vocalized a more tempered political vision, now they are taking their cues from the most serious insurgent forces like the Resistance in Palestine. The fact that this is one of the last Western colonial bastions materially connects our struggles, giving political actors psychological fortitude and demonstrating how to fight a more militarized enemy. People in the movement in the US are no longer presenting themselves as radicals, but as revolutionaries, a fundamental perspective necessary to transform a wavering movement into a solid and impenetrable insurgency.
We are never too few and it is never too late to start building. Our determination and steadfastness will lead to our success.
This text is written with love for fellow revolutionaries and belief in our collective capacity. Though many will never know who wrote this document, we convey our respect for everyone who chooses this path.
See you on the battlefield!
Written with love by Sofia Valencia
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Further reading
Warfare Manuals
The Art of War, Sun Tzu
On Organizing Urban Guerrilla Units, Field Marshall D.C.
Handbook for Volunteers of the Irish Republican Army
On Guerrilla Warfare, Mao Tse-Tung
Guerrilla Warfare, Che Guevara
The Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla, Carlos Marighella
The Life and Death of the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front, Max Res
Experiences in the Struggle
My Life in the Black Panther Party, Field Marshall D.C.
Maroon the Implacable: The Collected Writings of Russell Maroon Shoatz
Democratic Autonomy in Northern Kurdistan
The Fire and the Word: A History of the Zapatista Movement, Gloria Muñoz Ramírez
Mau Mau From Within a book by Karari Njama, Donald L Barnett
The War Before: A True Life Story, Safiya Bukhari
Counterinsurgency
The Other Side of COIN Kristian Williams
Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, David Galula
Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam, John A. Nagl
The U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, David Petraeus
Warfighting, US Marine Corps
Theory
The Philosophy of the Urban Guerrilla, Abraham Guillen
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Further reading
iUS Marine Corps. Warfighting, 2018. iiThe People’s Defence Forces (Kurdish: Hêzên Parastina Gel, HPG) iiiWilliams, Kristian. The Other Side of COIN: Counterinsurgency and Community Policing, 2011. ivAxîn, Tekoşin. Understanding the self-sacrificial fighters marching to victory and changing the course of history, 2024. https://anfenglishmobile.com/features/understanding-the-self-sacrificial-fighters-marching-to-victory-and-changing-the-course-of-history-76052 vNelson, Stanley. Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, 2015. viBlack Liberation Media. Soldiers Stories, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1Tz0ZEiprQ vii Galula, David. Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, 1964. pp 63.viii TATORT Kurdistan. Democratic Autonomy in Northern Kurdistan, 2013.
ix Villarreal, Ginna. Health Care Organized from Below: The Zapatista Experience, 2007. https://www.narconews.com/Issue44/article2502.html
x Warfield, Cian. Understanding Zapatista Autonomy: An Analysis of Healthcare and Education, 2014. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/cian-warfield-understanding-zapatista-autonomy
xi Abouzeid, Rania. Are Israel and Hezbollah Headed Toward an “Open-Ended Battle”? 2024. https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/are-israel-and-hezbollah-headed-toward-an-open-ended-battle?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us
xii Ealham, Chris. Anarchism and the City, 2010. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/chris-ealham-anarchism-and-the-city
xiii Hanaysha, Shatha.‘Our freedom is close’: why these young Palestinian men choose armed resistance, 2024. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/10/our-freedom-is-close-why-these-young-palestinian-men-choose-armed-resistance/
xiv Marighella, Carlos. Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla, 1969. xv Galula, David. Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice,1964. xvi Tse-Tung, Mao. On Guerrilla Warfare, 1937. xvii Ali, Mohanad Hage. Hezbollah and Syria From 1982 to 2011: Power Points Defining the Syria-Hezbollah Relationship, 2019, pp. 3-8. xviii Galula, David. Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, 1964. xix Schoots-McAlpine, Martin. Anatomy of a counter-insurgency: Efforts to undermine the George Floyd uprising. 2020 xx Petraeus, David. The U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, 2006. pp 54. xxi Marighella, Carlos. The Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla, 1969. xxii Galula, David. Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, 1964. pp 53. xxiii The Iron Column. A Day Mournful and Overcast, 1937. https://files.libcom.org/files/Uncontrollable-A_day_mournful-read.pdf xxiv US Marine Corps. Warfighting, pp 2-7. xxv Petraeus, David. The U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, 2006. pp 27-28. xxvi Hetherington, Tim and Sebastian Junger. Restrepo, 2010. 40:58. https://watchdocumentaries.com/restrepo/ xxvii Sottile, Zoe, Devon M. Sayers, Michelle Watson and Ryan Young,. South Carolina inmate executed by firing squad for first time in US since 2010, 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/07/us/brad-sigmon-south-carolina-firing-squad-execution xxviii Galula, David. Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice,1964. xxix Devillé, Jozef. No Friends but the Mountains, 2018. 13:30. https://vimeo.com/257718365 xxx Field Marshall D.C. On Organizing Urban Guerrilla Units, 1970. xxxi Marighella, Carlos. The Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla, 1969. xxxii Marighella, Carlos. The Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla, 1969.https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=23059
#anarchism #anarchocommunism #antiColonialism #antiImperialism #burkinaFaso #communism #counterinsurgency #guineaBissau #insurgency #palestine #resistance #revolution #westernHegemony
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Using AirPods as a Hearing Aid (Revised)
I posted a link to an article earlier about what we can do to prevent dementia.
https://mstdn.social/@garry/110004588618144618One thing that was news to me is that there is a link between poor hearing and dementia. And one thing that many people don't know is that you can use AirPods as a hearing aid. It takes a few minutes to set up but can make a world of difference.
I spent a lot of time some years ago working with very loud sound while producing music with pro level headphones. Subsequently my ability to hear sounds at 1,000 Hz and above was greatly reduced. Amongst other things this meant that it was difficult to hear consonants in speech, effectively making me partially deaf.
I got a pair of AirPod Pro earbuds and set them up for my personal hearing needs. Later that day I went for a walk in my local woods and literally gasped out loud at hearing the birds I'd been missing for some years!
The way you set them up is buried deep in the Settings, so it's not surprising that not many people know about it. Here's where you need to go. You need to have the AirPods connected to your iPhone or iPad.
Settings
Accessibility
AirPods
Audio Accessibility Settings
Headphone Accommodations
Custom Audio Setup
Headphone Audio CustomisationYou run through a couple of hearing tests, one for voice volume levels and one for best music settings. After the tests you should see a volume slider. It's important to move that to wherever you need it. Hearing sounds at all frequencies is great, but I found that I wanted a slight volume boost to enhance conversations. Some people might want to turn it down if it's enhancing the sound too much.
After this you should be good to go, but you can always set it up again. And maybe make a note of where the settings are. (Why can't we bookmark particular settings, Apple?)
"A few points to note:
1) If you can get an audiogram (from a free hearing test?) you can input that at an early stage of the setup. I didn't have one to test but I imagine that it speeds up the whole process.2) This process worked for me, but I'm not an audiologist, so it's your decision whether to go this route.
3) Here's the list of devices it works with, and the news is good for anyone with any of these devices:
AirPods Pro (1st and 2nd generation)
AirPods (2nd and 3rd generation)
AirPods Max
Apple EarPods (with 3.5mm Headphone Plug or Lightning Connector)
Powerbeats
Powerbeats Pro
Beats Solo Pro
Beats Fit ProI tried it with the EarPods that came with my iPhone XS and they weren't recognised for some reason. Maybe it's only with newer models.
4) Airpods Pro 2 cost £248 currently in the UK. That's a fair amount of money. Hearing aids that actually work typically cost between £500 and £3,000, and that's just for one. You usually get a discount for two, but it's still a lot of money. Cheaper to get an audiogram and the AirPods.
5) It should be obvious that you need to use the AirPods in Transparency mode for this to work. You can, of course, listen to music in Transparency mode, and you should find that you can turn the music up or down without affecting the volume of the sounds around you. Now, if Apple would just add extra sensitivity for the sound of ebikes and scooters...
6) Dr Rob (@PapaBear) reminded me that you can use Live Listen (sometimes jokingly referred to as Espionage Mode), which is where, say, you put your iPhone in the middle of a desk during a meeting, or right in front of the TV. You can read about that here:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/airpods/dev85c352340/web7) I'm going to repeat the warning that Apple (and every other manufacturer of such audio devices gives you, slightly revised for the context: Listening (to anything through AirPods) at high volumes can damage your health.
8) Paul (@beerbaking) suggested a way of using a Shortcut to access the Settings without having to dive down one level at a time.
Open the Shortcuts app, tap Add Action, tap URL (you can search for it first), enter prefs:root=ACCESSIBILITY&path=AUDIO_VISUAL_TITLE/AXPAEnableSpecID (perhaps copy and paste to avoid mistakes) in the field with the paperclip icon, tap Open URLs under Next Action suggestions, tap Done. Tap the new Shortcut to try it. You can then long-press on the Shortcut to Rename it. You can also long-press, tap Share, then tap Add to Home Screen for a one-tap solution that avoids going back into the Shortcuts app every time.
I hope you find this information useful. And especially that it keeps some of you from worse hearing loss, let alone dementia.
There are a couple of articles you might be interested in:
Study: AirPods Pro are this close to being full-fledged hearing aids
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/11/study-airpods-pro-are-this-close-to-being-full-fledged-hearing-aids/Apple AirPods getting new health features in the next few years
https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/03/12/apple-airpods-getting-health-features-in-the-next-few-years#Apple #AirPods #HearingLoss #HearingAid #DeafAid #audiogram
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CNN Defamed Darya Dugina As A “Disinformation” Agent To Discredit Her Multipolar Legacy
CNN Defamed Darya Dugina As A “Disinformation” Agent To Discredit Her Multipolar Legacy
Far from being forgotten, Darya will go down in history as a Russian hero, especially after President Putin posthumously awarded her the Order of Courage. It’s precisely because of her de facto canonization as one of the emerging Multipolar World Order’s secular saints that CNN decided to defame her as a “disinformation” agent in order to discredit her indisputably influential legacy.
The assassination of journalist Darya Dugina by a Ukrainian terrorist in late August proved that the US’ information warfare campaign against Russia has dangerous consequences for its innocent targets. That declining unipolar hegemon and its Western vassals (which in this context also includes the fascist puppet regime in Kiev) are dedicated to literally destroying the lives of those who speak out against them, first through fake news and then through targeted killings that are subsequently justified on that false basis exactly as Kiev’s Ambassador to the Vatican recently sought to justify Darya’s. A special hatred is reserved for people who share different paradigms for interpreting the ongoing global systemic transition since it’s those who stand the greatest chance of waking up the Western masses.
Darya was among those who passionately spread her multipolar worldview to whoever had the interest in listening. She was a rising political star her homeland upon the time that her life was abruptly ended by that dastardly terrorist attack, but her killing only served to raise global awareness of the causes that were so dear to her and can therefore be described as extremely counterproductive in hindsight. Far from being forgotten, Darya will go down in history as a Russian hero, especially after President Putin posthumously awarded her the Order of Courage. It’s precisely because of her de facto canonization as one of the emerging Multipolar World Order’s secular saints that CNN decided to defame her as a “disinformation” agent in order to discredit her indisputably influential legacy.
Rob Picheta, who describes himself as a journalist for CNN Digital in London, published a hateful screed on the front page of their site about how “Darya Dugina’s death provides a glimpse into Russia’s vast disinformation machine — and the influential women fronting it”. The purpose behind his piece was to mislead his targeted Western audience into thinking that she was nothing more than a propagandist whose sole role in life was to spew easily discredited “disinformation”. To that end, he quoted a Ukrainian-based member of the Atlantic Council – which is financed by Western governments and was thus designated by Russia as a foreign agent – as well as the similarly US Government-financed Russian “expert” Kamil Galeev who’s infamous for sharing a treasonous and pro-terrorist thread on Twitter.
The simple points being pushed in his piece are that Darya was supposedly one of her country’s rising disinformation agents, had allegedly meddled in the French elections, and that other women like her are nothing but puppets. It’s very heavily implied upon reading between the lines that her assassination therefore wasn’t entirely all that bad since Picheta misrepresented her as a legitimate target due to her active role in articulating a particular version of multipolarity, which he smeared as “imperialist”. In other words, he misogynistically removed all agency from Darya and the other Russian women who he disagrees with to independently arrive at their own political opinions, objectified them as being part of some global conspiracy coming from the Kremlin, and thus implied that it’s alright if they’re killed.
“What’s Dishonestly Smeared As ‘Russian Propaganda’ Is Just The Multipolar Worldview”, however, though those like Picheta who are committed to reversing the US’ declining unipolar hegemony can’t countenance that it’s possible for people to simply have a contrarian opinion. This is entirely due to their belief in the discredited supremacist view of Western Civilization as “exceptional”, which correspondingly also implies that its models will “inevitably” spread across the world since they’re supposedly the best and most effective ones that could ever be conceived by humanity. Those like Darya and the vast majority of humanity across the Global South who disagree with this hateful innuendo that Caucasians are superior in all respects are branded as “conspiracy theorists” and “enemies”.
This observation confirms that Darya and the billions of others like her actually play polar opposite roles than those that were maliciously ascribed to them. She and the vast majority of humanity aren’t “conspiracy theorists” who Picheta implied are legitimate targets of terrorist attacks on the supposed basis that their contrarian views are “dangerous” and “imperialist”. In reality, it’s he and his peers who participate in the US-led Western Mainstream Media’s (MSM) objectively existing disinformation ecosystem that are the bonafide conspiracy theorists whose work is genuinely dangerous and imperialist since it aims to put a target on the back of every one of their political opponents. That said, neither Picheta nor his colleagues deserve to die like he so disgustingly implied about Darya and hers.
The very fact that CNN would publish Picheta’s hateful and misogynist piece, not to mention on the front page of its website, shows how desperate the MSM has become to discredit Darya and her multipolar legacy. Kiev’s assassination of this rising Russian visionary turned her into an eternal martyr of the emerging world order that’s systematically dismantling the US’ declining unipolar hegemony. More people across the world are aware of her insightful work than ever before, including Westerners whose minds will be liberated from the MSM’s propaganda upon reading more about the views of this famous Russian journalist. It’s precisely this outcome that scares the US the most, yet all efforts to defame Darya like CNN’s latest high-profile one will only further solidify her multipolar legacy.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
7 Courses in 1 – Diploma in Business Management
#alexanderDugin #geopolitics #multipolarWorldOrder #multipolarity #russia
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CNN Defamed Darya Dugina As A “Disinformation” Agent To Discredit Her Multipolar Legacy
CNN Defamed Darya Dugina As A “Disinformation” Agent To Discredit Her Multipolar Legacy
Far from being forgotten, Darya will go down in history as a Russian hero, especially after President Putin posthumously awarded her the Order of Courage. It’s precisely because of her de facto canonization as one of the emerging Multipolar World Order’s secular saints that CNN decided to defame her as a “disinformation” agent in order to discredit her indisputably influential legacy.
The assassination of journalist Darya Dugina by a Ukrainian terrorist in late August proved that the US’ information warfare campaign against Russia has dangerous consequences for its innocent targets. That declining unipolar hegemon and its Western vassals (which in this context also includes the fascist puppet regime in Kiev) are dedicated to literally destroying the lives of those who speak out against them, first through fake news and then through targeted killings that are subsequently justified on that false basis exactly as Kiev’s Ambassador to the Vatican recently sought to justify Darya’s. A special hatred is reserved for people who share different paradigms for interpreting the ongoing global systemic transition since it’s those who stand the greatest chance of waking up the Western masses.
Darya was among those who passionately spread her multipolar worldview to whoever had the interest in listening. She was a rising political star her homeland upon the time that her life was abruptly ended by that dastardly terrorist attack, but her killing only served to raise global awareness of the causes that were so dear to her and can therefore be described as extremely counterproductive in hindsight. Far from being forgotten, Darya will go down in history as a Russian hero, especially after President Putin posthumously awarded her the Order of Courage. It’s precisely because of her de facto canonization as one of the emerging Multipolar World Order’s secular saints that CNN decided to defame her as a “disinformation” agent in order to discredit her indisputably influential legacy.
Rob Picheta, who describes himself as a journalist for CNN Digital in London, published a hateful screed on the front page of their site about how “Darya Dugina’s death provides a glimpse into Russia’s vast disinformation machine — and the influential women fronting it”. The purpose behind his piece was to mislead his targeted Western audience into thinking that she was nothing more than a propagandist whose sole role in life was to spew easily discredited “disinformation”. To that end, he quoted a Ukrainian-based member of the Atlantic Council – which is financed by Western governments and was thus designated by Russia as a foreign agent – as well as the similarly US Government-financed Russian “expert” Kamil Galeev who’s infamous for sharing a treasonous and pro-terrorist thread on Twitter.
The simple points being pushed in his piece are that Darya was supposedly one of her country’s rising disinformation agents, had allegedly meddled in the French elections, and that other women like her are nothing but puppets. It’s very heavily implied upon reading between the lines that her assassination therefore wasn’t entirely all that bad since Picheta misrepresented her as a legitimate target due to her active role in articulating a particular version of multipolarity, which he smeared as “imperialist”. In other words, he misogynistically removed all agency from Darya and the other Russian women who he disagrees with to independently arrive at their own political opinions, objectified them as being part of some global conspiracy coming from the Kremlin, and thus implied that it’s alright if they’re killed.
“What’s Dishonestly Smeared As ‘Russian Propaganda’ Is Just The Multipolar Worldview”, however, though those like Picheta who are committed to reversing the US’ declining unipolar hegemony can’t countenance that it’s possible for people to simply have a contrarian opinion. This is entirely due to their belief in the discredited supremacist view of Western Civilization as “exceptional”, which correspondingly also implies that its models will “inevitably” spread across the world since they’re supposedly the best and most effective ones that could ever be conceived by humanity. Those like Darya and the vast majority of humanity across the Global South who disagree with this hateful innuendo that Caucasians are superior in all respects are branded as “conspiracy theorists” and “enemies”.
This observation confirms that Darya and the billions of others like her actually play polar opposite roles than those that were maliciously ascribed to them. She and the vast majority of humanity aren’t “conspiracy theorists” who Picheta implied are legitimate targets of terrorist attacks on the supposed basis that their contrarian views are “dangerous” and “imperialist”. In reality, it’s he and his peers who participate in the US-led Western Mainstream Media’s (MSM) objectively existing disinformation ecosystem that are the bonafide conspiracy theorists whose work is genuinely dangerous and imperialist since it aims to put a target on the back of every one of their political opponents. That said, neither Picheta nor his colleagues deserve to die like he so disgustingly implied about Darya and hers.
The very fact that CNN would publish Picheta’s hateful and misogynist piece, not to mention on the front page of its website, shows how desperate the MSM has become to discredit Darya and her multipolar legacy. Kiev’s assassination of this rising Russian visionary turned her into an eternal martyr of the emerging world order that’s systematically dismantling the US’ declining unipolar hegemony. More people across the world are aware of her insightful work than ever before, including Westerners whose minds will be liberated from the MSM’s propaganda upon reading more about the views of this famous Russian journalist. It’s precisely this outcome that scares the US the most, yet all efforts to defame Darya like CNN’s latest high-profile one will only further solidify her multipolar legacy.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
7 Courses in 1 – Diploma in Business Management
#alexanderDugin #geopolitics #multipolarWorldOrder #multipolarity #russia
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CNN Defamed Darya Dugina As A “Disinformation” Agent To Discredit Her Multipolar Legacy
CNN Defamed Darya Dugina As A “Disinformation” Agent To Discredit Her Multipolar Legacy
Far from being forgotten, Darya will go down in history as a Russian hero, especially after President Putin posthumously awarded her the Order of Courage. It’s precisely because of her de facto canonization as one of the emerging Multipolar World Order’s secular saints that CNN decided to defame her as a “disinformation” agent in order to discredit her indisputably influential legacy.
The assassination of journalist Darya Dugina by a Ukrainian terrorist in late August proved that the US’ information warfare campaign against Russia has dangerous consequences for its innocent targets. That declining unipolar hegemon and its Western vassals (which in this context also includes the fascist puppet regime in Kiev) are dedicated to literally destroying the lives of those who speak out against them, first through fake news and then through targeted killings that are subsequently justified on that false basis exactly as Kiev’s Ambassador to the Vatican recently sought to justify Darya’s. A special hatred is reserved for people who share different paradigms for interpreting the ongoing global systemic transition since it’s those who stand the greatest chance of waking up the Western masses.
Darya was among those who passionately spread her multipolar worldview to whoever had the interest in listening. She was a rising political star her homeland upon the time that her life was abruptly ended by that dastardly terrorist attack, but her killing only served to raise global awareness of the causes that were so dear to her and can therefore be described as extremely counterproductive in hindsight. Far from being forgotten, Darya will go down in history as a Russian hero, especially after President Putin posthumously awarded her the Order of Courage. It’s precisely because of her de facto canonization as one of the emerging Multipolar World Order’s secular saints that CNN decided to defame her as a “disinformation” agent in order to discredit her indisputably influential legacy.
Rob Picheta, who describes himself as a journalist for CNN Digital in London, published a hateful screed on the front page of their site about how “Darya Dugina’s death provides a glimpse into Russia’s vast disinformation machine — and the influential women fronting it”. The purpose behind his piece was to mislead his targeted Western audience into thinking that she was nothing more than a propagandist whose sole role in life was to spew easily discredited “disinformation”. To that end, he quoted a Ukrainian-based member of the Atlantic Council – which is financed by Western governments and was thus designated by Russia as a foreign agent – as well as the similarly US Government-financed Russian “expert” Kamil Galeev who’s infamous for sharing a treasonous and pro-terrorist thread on Twitter.
The simple points being pushed in his piece are that Darya was supposedly one of her country’s rising disinformation agents, had allegedly meddled in the French elections, and that other women like her are nothing but puppets. It’s very heavily implied upon reading between the lines that her assassination therefore wasn’t entirely all that bad since Picheta misrepresented her as a legitimate target due to her active role in articulating a particular version of multipolarity, which he smeared as “imperialist”. In other words, he misogynistically removed all agency from Darya and the other Russian women who he disagrees with to independently arrive at their own political opinions, objectified them as being part of some global conspiracy coming from the Kremlin, and thus implied that it’s alright if they’re killed.
“What’s Dishonestly Smeared As ‘Russian Propaganda’ Is Just The Multipolar Worldview”, however, though those like Picheta who are committed to reversing the US’ declining unipolar hegemony can’t countenance that it’s possible for people to simply have a contrarian opinion. This is entirely due to their belief in the discredited supremacist view of Western Civilization as “exceptional”, which correspondingly also implies that its models will “inevitably” spread across the world since they’re supposedly the best and most effective ones that could ever be conceived by humanity. Those like Darya and the vast majority of humanity across the Global South who disagree with this hateful innuendo that Caucasians are superior in all respects are branded as “conspiracy theorists” and “enemies”.
This observation confirms that Darya and the billions of others like her actually play polar opposite roles than those that were maliciously ascribed to them. She and the vast majority of humanity aren’t “conspiracy theorists” who Picheta implied are legitimate targets of terrorist attacks on the supposed basis that their contrarian views are “dangerous” and “imperialist”. In reality, it’s he and his peers who participate in the US-led Western Mainstream Media’s (MSM) objectively existing disinformation ecosystem that are the bonafide conspiracy theorists whose work is genuinely dangerous and imperialist since it aims to put a target on the back of every one of their political opponents. That said, neither Picheta nor his colleagues deserve to die like he so disgustingly implied about Darya and hers.
The very fact that CNN would publish Picheta’s hateful and misogynist piece, not to mention on the front page of its website, shows how desperate the MSM has become to discredit Darya and her multipolar legacy. Kiev’s assassination of this rising Russian visionary turned her into an eternal martyr of the emerging world order that’s systematically dismantling the US’ declining unipolar hegemony. More people across the world are aware of her insightful work than ever before, including Westerners whose minds will be liberated from the MSM’s propaganda upon reading more about the views of this famous Russian journalist. It’s precisely this outcome that scares the US the most, yet all efforts to defame Darya like CNN’s latest high-profile one will only further solidify her multipolar legacy.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.
7 Courses in 1 – Diploma in Business Management
#alexanderDugin #geopolitics #multipolarWorldOrder #multipolarity #russia
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Finally Friday Reads: Page Not Found
“The National Divorce is a difficult time for all of us.” John Buss, repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
It seems uniquely American to be focused on the drama between two rich narcissistic men when so many things are going sideways in this country and this world. It’s embarrassing and depressing.
The current zeitgeist appears to be privileged, cis white men trying to get rid of their small penis energy by displaying a hypertoxic version of masculinity. The entire White House has a Lord of the Flies vibe about it. The press has totally gotten carried away with the narcissistic displays of abuse, seemingly jolting between adolescent bouts of testosterone overdose, middle-life crises complete with bright red Teslas, and male menopause.
Meanwhile, a coterie of women display Lady Macbeth levels of ruthlessness, ambition, and descent into madness and body dysmorphia with their clownish plastic surgery. This is a mad court worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy with policies worthy of a Sinclair Lewis novel. The level of ignorance on display is beyond description. I can’t believe the news all day yesterday was obsessed with the madness of Yam Tits and Musk. Let’s focus on the damage they’ve done and leave them to their latest reality show.
I think political cartoonists have a better take on this ordeal than any media outlet. Then there’s the silent majorities in Congress, saying nothing, and doing anything but the people’s business. Not since the Iraq war have I seen more shock and awe. They governed during Watergate. Are they all afraid of the cult that serves Yam Tits? Maybe we should flood their offices with copies of the Constitution with Sharpie instructions saying DO YOUR JOB!
I’m sitting here wondering if I should even start in on all the mainstream media articles and coverage about Musk and Trump. Way to feed two men with obvious narcissistic personality disorder and a side of antisocial personality disorder.
Right now, I’ll start with ProPublica, which has reliably searched out stories worthy of Upton Sinclair or Nellie Bly. Once again, our own government is doing wrong by our veterans. It’s quite sad. “DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to “Munch” Veterans Affairs Contracts. DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to “Munch” Veterans Affairs Contracts. We obtained records showing how a Department of Government Efficiency staffer with no medical experience used artificial intelligence to identify which VA contracts to kill. “AI is absolutely the wrong tool for this,” one expert said.” This bit of investigative journalism is by Brandon Roberts, Vernal Coleman, and Eric Umansky.
The more I know about AI, see its use, and am forced to sit in seminars to learn the Purdue way of dealing with it, the more I want to write a sci-fi book where their programs go mad. I do not trust bros with personality disorders, likely on the spectrum, to think with real human insight. It makes me long for Isaac Asimov.
As the Trump administration prepared to cancel contracts at the Department of Veteran Affairs this year, officials turned to a software engineer with no health care or government experience to guide them.
The engineer, working for the Department of Government Efficiency, quickly built an artificial intelligence tool to identify which services from private companies were not essential. He labeled those contracts “MUNCHABLE.”
The code, using outdated and inexpensive AI models, produced results with glaring mistakes. For instance, it hallucinated the size of contracts, frequently misreading them and inflating their value. It concluded more than a thousand were each worth $34 million, when in fact some were for as little as $35,000.
The DOGE AI tool flagged more than 2,000 contracts for “munching.” It’s unclear how many have been or are on track to be canceled — the Trump administration’s decisions on VA contracts have largely been a black box. The VA uses contractors for many reasons, including to support hospitals, research and other services aimed at caring for ailing veterans.
VA officials have said they’ve killed nearly 600 contracts overall. Congressional Democrats have been pressing VA leaders for specific details of what’s been canceled without success.
We identified at least two dozen on the DOGE list that have been canceled so far. Among the canceled contracts was one to maintain a gene sequencing device used to develop better cancer treatments. Another was for blood sample analysis in support of a VA research project. Another was to provide additional tools to measure and improve the care nurses provide.
ProPublica obtained the code and the contracts it flagged from a source and shared them with a half dozen AI and procurement experts. All said the script was flawed. Many criticized the concept of using AI to guide budgetary cuts at the VA, with one calling it “deeply problematic.”
Cary Coglianese, professor of law and of political science at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the governmental use and regulation of artificial intelligence, said he was troubled by the use of these general-purpose large language models, or LLMs. “I don’t think off-the-shelf LLMs have a great deal of reliability for something as complex and involved as this,” he said.
Sahil Lavingia, the programmer enlisted by DOGE, which was then run by Elon Musk, acknowledged flaws in the code.
“I think that mistakes were made,” said Lavingia, who worked at DOGE for nearly two months. “I’m sure mistakes were made. Mistakes are always made. I would never recommend someone run my code and do what it says. It’s like that ‘Office’ episode where Steve Carell drives into the lake because Google Maps says drive into the lake. Do not drive into the lake.”
Though Lavingia has talked about his time at DOGE previously, this is the first time his work has been examined in detail and the first time he’s publicly explained his process, down to specific lines of code.
Further technical information can be found in this follow-up article at ProPublica. “Inside the AI Prompts DOGE Used to “Munch” Contracts Related to Veterans’ Health.”
Sahil Lavingia, who wrote the code, told it to cancel, or in his words “munch,” anything that wasn’t “directly supporting patient care.” Unfortunately, neither Lavingia nor the model had the knowledge required to make such determinations.
“I think that mistakes were made,” said Lavingia, who worked at DOGE for nearly two months, in an interview with ProPublica. “I’m sure mistakes were made. Mistakes are always made.”
It turns out, a lot of mistakes were made as DOGE and the VA rushed to implement President Donald Trump’s February executive order mandating all of the VA’s contracts be reviewed within 30 days.
ProPublica obtained the code and prompts — the instructions given to the AI model — used to review the contracts and interviewed Lavingia and experts in both AI and government procurement. We are publishing an analysis of those prompts to help the public understand how this technology is being deployed in the federal government.
The experts found numerous and troubling flaws: the code relied on older, general-purpose models not suited for the task; the model hallucinated contract amounts, deciding around 1,100 of the agreements were each worth $34 million when they were sometimes worth thousands; and the AI did not analyze the entire text of contracts. Most experts said that, in addition to the technical issues, using off-the-shelf AI models for the task — with little context on how the VA works — should have been a nonstarter.
Lavingia, a software engineer enlisted by DOGE, acknowledged there were flaws in what he created and blamed, in part, a lack of time and proper tools. He also stressed that he knew his list of what he called “MUNCHABLE” contracts would be vetted by others before a final decision was made.
Even the word “munchable” makes these guys sound like 7th graders. I don’t even know what to say about the University of Michigan. I was a 7th grader when anti-Vietnam War protests picked up, but I don’t recall anything like this.
However, all over our institutions are in the service of racist and xenophobic Big Brother. (I really wish I could stop using references to dystopian literature, but sadly, it works.) This is from The Guardian. “University of Michigan using undercover investigators to surveil student Gaza protesters. Revealed: security trailing students on and off campus as video shows investigator faking disability when confronted.”
The University of Michigan is using private, undercover investigators to surveil pro-Palestinian campus groups, including trailing them on and off campus, furtively recording them and eavesdropping on their conversations, the Guardian has learned.
The surveillance appears to largely be an intimidation tactic, five students who have been followed, recorded or eavesdropped on said. The undercover investigators have cursed at students, threatened them and in one case drove a car at a student who had to jump out of the way, according to student accounts and video footage shared with the Guardian.
Students say they have frequently identified undercover investigators and confronted them. In two bizarre interactions captured by one student on video, a man who had been trailing the student faked disabilities, and noisily – and falsely – accused a student of attempting to rob him.
The undercover investigators appear to work for Detroit-based City Shield, a private security group, and some of their evidence was used by Michigan prosecutors to charge and jail students, according to a Guardian review of police records, university spending records and video collected in legal discovery. Most charges were later dropped. Public spending records from the U-M board of regents, the school’s governing body, show the university paid at least $800,000 between June 2023 and September 2024 to City Shield’s parent company, Ameri-Shield.
Among those who say they’re being regularly followed is Katarina Keating, part of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (Safe), a local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. Keating said the surveillance has caused her to feel “on edge”, and she often looks over her shoulder since November, when she was first followed.
“But on another level it sometimes feels comedic because it’s so insane that they have spent millions of dollars to hire some goons to follow campus activists around,” Keating added. “It’s just such a waste of money and time.”
How’s this for government efficiency? The NYPD and ICE mistakenly arrest a Chilean woman on vacation in New York City. Police left her 12-year-old daughter on the street alone. This country is no longer safe from arbitrary arrest and detention by morans in law enforcement.
There appears to be a bit of a correction of the DOGE overreach in the Federal Government. This is reported in the Washington Post by Hannah Natanson, Adam Taylor, Meryl Kornfield, Rachel Siegel, and Scott Dance. That’s a lot of reporters for a lot of agencies. “Trump administration races to fix a big mistake: DOGE fired too many people. Across the government, officials are rehiring federal workers who were forced out or encouraged to resign.” Do you suppose all the Trump/Musk drama is just a distraction from the kind of news that’s falling off the front pages but should be screamed in front-page headlines? They fucked up folks! Let’s bury the lede!
Across the government, the Trump administration is scrambling to rehire many federal employees dismissed under DOGE’s staff-slashing initiatives after wiping out entire offices, in some cases imperiling key services such as weather forecasting and the drug approval process.
Since Musk left the White House last week, he and Trump have fallen out bitterly, sniping at each other in public over the cost of Trump’s sweeping tax legislation and government subsidies for Musk’s businesses. But even before that, the administration was working to undo some of DOGE’s highest-profile actions.
Trump officials are trying to recover not only people who were fired, but also thousands of experienced senior staffers who are opting for a voluntary exit as the administration rolls out a second resignation offer. Thousands more staff are returning in fits and starts as a conflicting patchwork of court decisions overturn some of Trump’s large-scale firings, especially his Valentine’s Day dismissal of all probationary workers, those with one or two years of government service and fewer job protections. A federal judge in April ordered the president to reinstate probationary workers dismissed from 20 federal agencies, although a few days later the Supreme Court — in a different case — halted another judge’s order to reinstate a smaller group.
Some fired federal employees, especially those at retirement age or who have since secured jobs in the private sector, are proving reluctant to return. So the administration is seeking work-arounds and stopgaps, including asking remaining staff to serve in new roles, work overtime or volunteer to fill vacancies, according to interviews with 18 federal workers across eight agencies and messages obtained by The Washington Post. A Post review found recent messy re-hirings at agencies including the Food and Drug Administration, the IRS, the State Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In some cases, the government is posting new online job listings very similar to positions it recently vacated, a Post review of USAJobs found
The ever-shifting personnel changes are yet another strain on a workforce already weary of Trump-induced uncertainty, said current and former employees, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
“They wanted to show they were gutting the government, but there was no thought about what parts might be worth keeping,” said one FDA staffer who was fired and rehired. “Now it feels like it was all just a game to them.”
Notice they just had to point out the Trump/Musk WWE event just to distract you for even a moment. It seems we no longer have caped crusaders but black-robed ones. This is from The Harvard Crimson. “Judge Blocks Trump Proclamation Banning International Students From Entering U.S. on Harvard Visas.” I’m just seeing Trump failures everywhere. No wonder they needed a new reality show season.
A federal judge granted Harvard’s request for a temporary restraining order hours after the University asked her to block the Trump administration’s Wednesday proclamation banning international students from entering the United States on Harvard-sponsored visas.
The order was issued just four hours after Harvard filed an amended complaint accusing the Trump administration of retaliating against the University by preventing incoming international students from entering the U.S. to attend Harvard.
U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs also announced that the court would extend the TRO first granted to Harvard on May 23 — one day after the DHS revoked Harvard’s eligibility to host international students — until June 20, the date requested by the University. Burroughs had already agreed to extend the TRO once before, following a May 29 hearing.
Thursday’s TRO will reinstate international students’ ability to enter the country to attend Harvard until a June 16 hearing scheduled by Burroughs — but the University will need to file for a preliminary injunction to extend its ability to host international students until the court determines its legality in court.
In the amended complaint, Harvard wrote that Trump’s proclamation was “a transparent attempt to circumvent the temporary restraining order this Court already entered against the summary revocation of Harvard’s SEVP certification.”
It argued that — without urgent action — the proclamation would have dramatic costs for admitted students attempting to enter the U.S. and subject current students to fear they would be arbitrarily deported.
Burroughs, in an order published well after working hours Thursday night, deemed that Harvard had made a “sufficient showing” that it would sustain “immediate and irreparable harm” unless a TRO was granted.
But both the TRO — and a future preliminary injunction, if Harvard seeks one and Burroughs rules favorably — are only provisional protections.
CBS shows that the Yam Tits Administration still thinks getting every little thing to the Supreme Court will solve all of its problems. Melissa Quinn reports that “Trump administration asks Supreme Court to allow mass layoffs at Education Department.
President Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to clear the way for it to continue with its efforts to dismantle the Department of Education and lay off more than 1,300 employees while a legal fight over the future of the department moves forward.
The Justice Department is seeking the high court’s intervention in a pair of disputes brought by a group of 20 states, school districts and teachers unions, which challenge Mr. Trump’s plans to unwind the Department of Education. The president signed an executive order in March directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to facilitate the department’s closure to the maximum extent allowed under the law.
As part of Mr. Trump’s pledge to get rid of the department, the administration canceled a host of grants and executed a reduction in force, or a layoff, that impacted 1,378 employees — roughly a third of the department’s workforce. Affected workers were placed on administrative leave and were to receive full pay and benefits until June 9.
Mr. Trump also announced that the Small Business Administration would take over the Education Department’s student-loan portfolio, and the Department of Health and Human Services would handle special education, nutrition and other related services.
In response to the lawsuits challenging Mr. Trump’s actions, a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked the administration from carrying out its layoffs, finding that the reduction-in-force was a unilateral effort to close the department, which would violate the separation of powers.
Okay, this is an update, and I just had to put it up
Oh, speaking of those delightful Republican Congress Critters, here’s a headline for you from The Guardian. “Republican senator employs aide fired by DeSantis over neo-Nazi imagery. Nate Hochman, staffer for Eric Schmitt, also peddled far-right conspiracy theories as experts decry rise in extremism.” Gosh, another Cis White Male Christian Nationalist for Adolf! What a surprise!
A staffer for Missouri Republican senator Eric Schmitt was previously fired from Ron DeSantis’s unsuccessful presidential campaign after making a video containing neo-Nazi imagery, and later peddled far-right conspiracy theories in a Marco Rubio-linked thinktank.
Nate Hochman’s job in the hard-right senator’s office, along with earlier Trump appointments to executive agencies, suggest to some experts there are few barriers to far-right activists making a career in Republican party politics.
The Guardian contacted Eric Schmitt’s office for comment.
Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told the Guardian: “Hochman’s position shows once again that there are no guardrails against extremists in the GOP nowadays.”
She added: “Racism, antisemitism and other abhorrent beliefs don’t seem to stop extremists from appointments with far-right politicians, including in the highest office of the presidency.”
Hochman, 26, has worked for Schmitt since February, according to congressional information website LegiStorm, a development that was first noted on political newsletter Liberal Currents.
He has also posted dozens of times to X to publicize Schmitt’s initiatives, media appearances, and speeches.
The Guardian reported last September on Hochman’s previous job at America 2100, an organization founded in 2023 as a thinktank. The organization was founded by Mike Needham, who served as Marco Rubio’s chief of staff from 2018 to 2023 when Rubio was a senator and who is once again his chief of staff at the state department.
In that and subsequent reporting, it was revealed that Hochman’s work for America 2100 was focused on producing videos, some of which targeted Haitian migrants in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, and others that rehearsed conspiracy theories about LGBTQ people and human rights organizations.
This was the latest in a string of scandals in the young operative’s political career.
In July 2023 he was fired from the presidential campaign of Florida governor Ron DeSantis after retweeting a pro-DeSantis, anti-Trump video.
As the Guardian reported, the video portrayed a “‘Wojak’ meme, a sad-looking man popular on the right, against headlines about Trump policy failures before showing the meme cheering up to headlines about DeSantis and images of the governor at work”, all to the tune of Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill.
Finally, it superimposed DeSantis on to ranks of marching soldiers and a Sonnenrad – a Norse symbol frequently appropriated by neo-Nazis.
As Hochman departed the campaign, Axios reported he had made the video but endeavored to make it “appear as if it was produced externally”.
The New York Times has a Guest Op-Ed up from two law professors about how the Trump administration is giving a loyalty test to anyone looking for a job within the Federal Government. How unconstitutional is that? “How to Stack the Federal Work Force With ‘Patriotic Americans’ Who Agree With Trump.”
The White House took a step last week that significantly undercuts the idea that federal employment should be nonpartisan. A May 29 memo from the Office of Personnel Management may seem technical, but the policy that it outlines has grave implications for how the government functions and creates an unconstitutional political test for federal hiring.
At heart, the new policy is about viewpoint discrimination: People applying for federal jobs whose views the Trump administration does not like will not be hired. This is the most recent of the administration’s actions to undermine the nonpartisan Civil Service and consolidate control over almost all federal employees in the White House.
In a densely worded, 12-page memo, Vince Haley, an assistant to the president for domestic policy, and Charles Ezell, the acting O.P.M. director, make fealty to the president’s agenda a criterion for hiring for most federal positions. Imposing such a litmus test for nonpolitical positions runs afoul of the nearly 150-year-old federal Civil Service law, the 1939 Hatch Act and the First Amendment.
Under federal law, about 4,000 federal jobs are filled by political appointees. These positions allow the president to appoint those who share his views and to remove those who do not support his policy priorities. Most remaining federal jobs are hired based on nonpartisan and objective assessments of merit, and the hiring criteria are tied to the job duties.
The recent memo would, in effect, dramatically expand that exception for political appointees to include everyone at what’s known as level GS-5 or above — a group that includes clerical positions, technicians for soil conservation and firefighters. The ideologies and views of these individuals should play no role in their potential hiring.
The policy announced in the memo requires every person applying for a position level GS-5 or above to submit four essays. One requires that the applicant address: “How would you help advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities in this role? Identify one or two relevant executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.” Another prompt: “How has your commitment to the Constitution and the founding principles of the United States inspired you to pursue this role within the federal government? Provide a concrete example from professional, academic or personal experience.”
Imagine that someone applying to be a secretary or a soil technician or a firefighter were to answer with: I believe the founding principles of this country were racist and I do not adhere to them. Or: I will perform my job to the best of my abilities and will follow federal law, but I do not see my position as political in any way.
It’s hard to imagine that those people would be hired. And yet, the Civil Service was created in the 19th century precisely to avoid such politically based hiring. The prohibition on political considerations in hiring was strengthened by the Hatch Act, which was enacted at the behest of conservatives who worried that too many Democrats had been hired to staff New Deal agencies.
One more Op-Ed from Dana Milbank at the Washington Post before I close. “They are not good at this. Nearly five months into Trump’s new reign of error, his administration’s mistakes are multiplying.
On May 29, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem released a “comprehensive list of sanctuary jurisdictions.” She was “exposing these sanctuary politicians” because they are “endangering Americans and our law enforcement in order to protect violent criminal illegal aliens.”
But it immediately became clear that the list of more than 500 states, counties and cities was riddled with errors: misspellings, cities and counties mistaken for each other, and places that don’t exist. Cincinnati became “Cincinnatti,” Campbell County (Kentucky) became “Cambell” County, Greeley County (Nebraska) became “Greenley” County, Takoma Park (Maryland) became “Tacoma” Park, while “Martinsville County” (Virginia) was invented. And so on.
Worse, scores of the “sanctuary politicians” she called out turned out to be leaders of MAGA counties and towns with no sanctuary policies on their books. Complaints poured in from Trump allies across the country. “You don’t have that many mistakes on such an important federal document,” said Pat Burns, the Trump-backing mayor of the right-wing stronghold of Huntington Beach, California, mislabeled as a sanctuary city. He told the Associated Press that “somebody’s got to answer” for this “negligent” behavior.
Good luck with that. The only answer was to disappear the list this week, leaving behind a “Page Not Found” error.
Such a massive screwup hadn’t happened since … well, the previous week, when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went to the White House and released his ballyhooed “Make America Healthy Again” report full of citations of studies that don’t exist, the product of AI hallucinations.
This, in turn, was reminiscent of President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff rollout, which targeted an island full of penguins and other unpopulated or sparsely populated corners of the globe — and raised taxes on most of the world based on a math error.
And these, of course, were on top of the “mistakes” that led Trump officials to share war plans with a journalist, to deport people protected by court order, to launch a destructive fight with Harvard University, to fire and then attempt to rehire thousands of crucial federal workers, to cancel and then reinstate various vital government functions, and to misstate, often by orders of magnitude, the alleged savings from its cost-cutting attempts.
Trying to make sense of any of this? Page Not Found.
It’s obvious Trump is not interested in the best and brightest. They give him facts and truth over what he wants to hear and do, and that’s not what his massive need for attention and ego-stroking requires. Oh, up to 4000 words, and I still have managed to do something other than cover the two biggest jerks in the world jousting for air and social media time.
As you know, my Dad bombed NAZIs. I’d like to think I’d be capable of doing something brave if I were called to duty. He made it back. Many others did not. I’d just like to close with a remembrance of D-Day. There are still some D-Day vets out there who returned to the field. This is from the AP. “D-Day veterans return to Normandy to mark 81st anniversary of landings.” I remember growing up in absolute awe of all the men and women I met in my life who helped free the world of Fascists. I do not understand why the country is failing to do that now.
COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France (AP) — Veterans gathered Friday in Normandy to mark the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings — a pivotal moment of World War II that eventually led to the collapse of Adolf Hitler’s regime.
Along the coastline and near the D-Day landing beaches, tens of thousands of onlookers attended the commemorations, which included parachute jumps, flyovers, remembrance ceremonies, parades, and historical reenactments.
Many were there to cheer the ever-dwindling number of surviving veterans in their late 90s and older. All remembered the thousands who died.
Harold Terens, a 101-year-old U.S. veteran who last year married his 96-year-old sweetheart near the D-Day beaches, was back in Normandy.
“Freedom is everything,” he said. “I pray for freedom for the whole world. For the war to end in Ukraine, and Russia, and Sudan and Gaza. I think war is disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.”
Terens enlisted in 1942 and shipped to Great Britain the following year, attached to a four-pilot P-47 Thunderbolt fighter squadron as their radio repair technician. On D-Day, Terens helped repair planes returning from France so they could rejoin the battle.
Let us forever be thankful for their service and sacrifice. May we also remember that we were not alone in these battles. We have allies. At least at this moment. This song by the Dropkick Murphys is about World War 1, but the sentiment is the same.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #DDay #ICEKidnappings #JudgesRuleAgainstTrump #TrumpAdministrationScrewUpsAndCrimes #TurningBackTheDogeDisasters
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Finally Friday Reads: Page Not Found
“The National Divorce is a difficult time for all of us.” John Buss, repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
It seems uniquely American to be focused on the drama between two rich narcissistic men when so many things are going sideways in this country and this world. It’s embarrassing and depressing.
The current zeitgeist appears to be privileged, cis white men trying to get rid of their small penis energy by displaying a hypertoxic version of masculinity. The entire White House has a Lord of the Flies vibe about it. The press has totally gotten carried away with the narcissistic displays of abuse, seemingly jolting between adolescent bouts of testosterone overdose, middle-life crises complete with bright red Teslas, and male menopause.
Meanwhile, a coterie of women display Lady Macbeth levels of ruthlessness, ambition, and descent into madness and body dysmorphia with their clownish plastic surgery. This is a mad court worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy with policies worthy of a Sinclair Lewis novel. The level of ignorance on display is beyond description. I can’t believe the news all day yesterday was obsessed with the madness of Yam Tits and Musk. Let’s focus on the damage they’ve done and leave them to their latest reality show.
I think political cartoonists have a better take on this ordeal than any media outlet. Then there’s the silent majorities in Congress, saying nothing, and doing anything but the people’s business. Not since the Iraq war have I seen more shock and awe. They governed during Watergate. Are they all afraid of the cult that serves Yam Tits? Maybe we should flood their offices with copies of the Constitution with Sharpie instructions saying DO YOUR JOB!
I’m sitting here wondering if I should even start in on all the mainstream media articles and coverage about Musk and Trump. Way to feed two men with obvious narcissistic personality disorder and a side of antisocial personality disorder.
Right now, I’ll start with ProPublica, which has reliably searched out stories worthy of Upton Sinclair or Nellie Bly. Once again, our own government is doing wrong by our veterans. It’s quite sad. “DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to “Munch” Veterans Affairs Contracts. DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to “Munch” Veterans Affairs Contracts. We obtained records showing how a Department of Government Efficiency staffer with no medical experience used artificial intelligence to identify which VA contracts to kill. “AI is absolutely the wrong tool for this,” one expert said.” This bit of investigative journalism is by Brandon Roberts, Vernal Coleman, and Eric Umansky.
The more I know about AI, see its use, and am forced to sit in seminars to learn the Purdue way of dealing with it, the more I want to write a sci-fi book where their programs go mad. I do not trust bros with personality disorders, likely on the spectrum, to think with real human insight. It makes me long for Isaac Asimov.
As the Trump administration prepared to cancel contracts at the Department of Veteran Affairs this year, officials turned to a software engineer with no health care or government experience to guide them.
The engineer, working for the Department of Government Efficiency, quickly built an artificial intelligence tool to identify which services from private companies were not essential. He labeled those contracts “MUNCHABLE.”
The code, using outdated and inexpensive AI models, produced results with glaring mistakes. For instance, it hallucinated the size of contracts, frequently misreading them and inflating their value. It concluded more than a thousand were each worth $34 million, when in fact some were for as little as $35,000.
The DOGE AI tool flagged more than 2,000 contracts for “munching.” It’s unclear how many have been or are on track to be canceled — the Trump administration’s decisions on VA contracts have largely been a black box. The VA uses contractors for many reasons, including to support hospitals, research and other services aimed at caring for ailing veterans.
VA officials have said they’ve killed nearly 600 contracts overall. Congressional Democrats have been pressing VA leaders for specific details of what’s been canceled without success.
We identified at least two dozen on the DOGE list that have been canceled so far. Among the canceled contracts was one to maintain a gene sequencing device used to develop better cancer treatments. Another was for blood sample analysis in support of a VA research project. Another was to provide additional tools to measure and improve the care nurses provide.
ProPublica obtained the code and the contracts it flagged from a source and shared them with a half dozen AI and procurement experts. All said the script was flawed. Many criticized the concept of using AI to guide budgetary cuts at the VA, with one calling it “deeply problematic.”
Cary Coglianese, professor of law and of political science at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the governmental use and regulation of artificial intelligence, said he was troubled by the use of these general-purpose large language models, or LLMs. “I don’t think off-the-shelf LLMs have a great deal of reliability for something as complex and involved as this,” he said.
Sahil Lavingia, the programmer enlisted by DOGE, which was then run by Elon Musk, acknowledged flaws in the code.
“I think that mistakes were made,” said Lavingia, who worked at DOGE for nearly two months. “I’m sure mistakes were made. Mistakes are always made. I would never recommend someone run my code and do what it says. It’s like that ‘Office’ episode where Steve Carell drives into the lake because Google Maps says drive into the lake. Do not drive into the lake.”
Though Lavingia has talked about his time at DOGE previously, this is the first time his work has been examined in detail and the first time he’s publicly explained his process, down to specific lines of code.
Further technical information can be found in this follow-up article at ProPublica. “Inside the AI Prompts DOGE Used to “Munch” Contracts Related to Veterans’ Health.”
Sahil Lavingia, who wrote the code, told it to cancel, or in his words “munch,” anything that wasn’t “directly supporting patient care.” Unfortunately, neither Lavingia nor the model had the knowledge required to make such determinations.
“I think that mistakes were made,” said Lavingia, who worked at DOGE for nearly two months, in an interview with ProPublica. “I’m sure mistakes were made. Mistakes are always made.”
It turns out, a lot of mistakes were made as DOGE and the VA rushed to implement President Donald Trump’s February executive order mandating all of the VA’s contracts be reviewed within 30 days.
ProPublica obtained the code and prompts — the instructions given to the AI model — used to review the contracts and interviewed Lavingia and experts in both AI and government procurement. We are publishing an analysis of those prompts to help the public understand how this technology is being deployed in the federal government.
The experts found numerous and troubling flaws: the code relied on older, general-purpose models not suited for the task; the model hallucinated contract amounts, deciding around 1,100 of the agreements were each worth $34 million when they were sometimes worth thousands; and the AI did not analyze the entire text of contracts. Most experts said that, in addition to the technical issues, using off-the-shelf AI models for the task — with little context on how the VA works — should have been a nonstarter.
Lavingia, a software engineer enlisted by DOGE, acknowledged there were flaws in what he created and blamed, in part, a lack of time and proper tools. He also stressed that he knew his list of what he called “MUNCHABLE” contracts would be vetted by others before a final decision was made.
Even the word “munchable” makes these guys sound like 7th graders. I don’t even know what to say about the University of Michigan. I was a 7th grader when anti-Vietnam War protests picked up, but I don’t recall anything like this.
However, all over our institutions are in the service of racist and xenophobic Big Brother. (I really wish I could stop using references to dystopian literature, but sadly, it works.) This is from The Guardian. “University of Michigan using undercover investigators to surveil student Gaza protesters. Revealed: security trailing students on and off campus as video shows investigator faking disability when confronted.”
The University of Michigan is using private, undercover investigators to surveil pro-Palestinian campus groups, including trailing them on and off campus, furtively recording them and eavesdropping on their conversations, the Guardian has learned.
The surveillance appears to largely be an intimidation tactic, five students who have been followed, recorded or eavesdropped on said. The undercover investigators have cursed at students, threatened them and in one case drove a car at a student who had to jump out of the way, according to student accounts and video footage shared with the Guardian.
Students say they have frequently identified undercover investigators and confronted them. In two bizarre interactions captured by one student on video, a man who had been trailing the student faked disabilities, and noisily – and falsely – accused a student of attempting to rob him.
The undercover investigators appear to work for Detroit-based City Shield, a private security group, and some of their evidence was used by Michigan prosecutors to charge and jail students, according to a Guardian review of police records, university spending records and video collected in legal discovery. Most charges were later dropped. Public spending records from the U-M board of regents, the school’s governing body, show the university paid at least $800,000 between June 2023 and September 2024 to City Shield’s parent company, Ameri-Shield.
Among those who say they’re being regularly followed is Katarina Keating, part of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (Safe), a local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. Keating said the surveillance has caused her to feel “on edge”, and she often looks over her shoulder since November, when she was first followed.
“But on another level it sometimes feels comedic because it’s so insane that they have spent millions of dollars to hire some goons to follow campus activists around,” Keating added. “It’s just such a waste of money and time.”
How’s this for government efficiency? The NYPD and ICE mistakenly arrest a Chilean woman on vacation in New York City. Police left her 12-year-old daughter on the street alone. This country is no longer safe from arbitrary arrest and detention by morans in law enforcement.
There appears to be a bit of a correction of the DOGE overreach in the Federal Government. This is reported in the Washington Post by Hannah Natanson, Adam Taylor, Meryl Kornfield, Rachel Siegel, and Scott Dance. That’s a lot of reporters for a lot of agencies. “Trump administration races to fix a big mistake: DOGE fired too many people. Across the government, officials are rehiring federal workers who were forced out or encouraged to resign.” Do you suppose all the Trump/Musk drama is just a distraction from the kind of news that’s falling off the front pages but should be screamed in front-page headlines? They fucked up folks! Let’s bury the lede!
Across the government, the Trump administration is scrambling to rehire many federal employees dismissed under DOGE’s staff-slashing initiatives after wiping out entire offices, in some cases imperiling key services such as weather forecasting and the drug approval process.
Since Musk left the White House last week, he and Trump have fallen out bitterly, sniping at each other in public over the cost of Trump’s sweeping tax legislation and government subsidies for Musk’s businesses. But even before that, the administration was working to undo some of DOGE’s highest-profile actions.
Trump officials are trying to recover not only people who were fired, but also thousands of experienced senior staffers who are opting for a voluntary exit as the administration rolls out a second resignation offer. Thousands more staff are returning in fits and starts as a conflicting patchwork of court decisions overturn some of Trump’s large-scale firings, especially his Valentine’s Day dismissal of all probationary workers, those with one or two years of government service and fewer job protections. A federal judge in April ordered the president to reinstate probationary workers dismissed from 20 federal agencies, although a few days later the Supreme Court — in a different case — halted another judge’s order to reinstate a smaller group.
Some fired federal employees, especially those at retirement age or who have since secured jobs in the private sector, are proving reluctant to return. So the administration is seeking work-arounds and stopgaps, including asking remaining staff to serve in new roles, work overtime or volunteer to fill vacancies, according to interviews with 18 federal workers across eight agencies and messages obtained by The Washington Post. A Post review found recent messy re-hirings at agencies including the Food and Drug Administration, the IRS, the State Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In some cases, the government is posting new online job listings very similar to positions it recently vacated, a Post review of USAJobs found
The ever-shifting personnel changes are yet another strain on a workforce already weary of Trump-induced uncertainty, said current and former employees, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
“They wanted to show they were gutting the government, but there was no thought about what parts might be worth keeping,” said one FDA staffer who was fired and rehired. “Now it feels like it was all just a game to them.”
Notice they just had to point out the Trump/Musk WWE event just to distract you for even a moment. It seems we no longer have caped crusaders but black-robed ones. This is from The Harvard Crimson. “Judge Blocks Trump Proclamation Banning International Students From Entering U.S. on Harvard Visas.” I’m just seeing Trump failures everywhere. No wonder they needed a new reality show season.
A federal judge granted Harvard’s request for a temporary restraining order hours after the University asked her to block the Trump administration’s Wednesday proclamation banning international students from entering the United States on Harvard-sponsored visas.
The order was issued just four hours after Harvard filed an amended complaint accusing the Trump administration of retaliating against the University by preventing incoming international students from entering the U.S. to attend Harvard.
U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs also announced that the court would extend the TRO first granted to Harvard on May 23 — one day after the DHS revoked Harvard’s eligibility to host international students — until June 20, the date requested by the University. Burroughs had already agreed to extend the TRO once before, following a May 29 hearing.
Thursday’s TRO will reinstate international students’ ability to enter the country to attend Harvard until a June 16 hearing scheduled by Burroughs — but the University will need to file for a preliminary injunction to extend its ability to host international students until the court determines its legality in court.
In the amended complaint, Harvard wrote that Trump’s proclamation was “a transparent attempt to circumvent the temporary restraining order this Court already entered against the summary revocation of Harvard’s SEVP certification.”
It argued that — without urgent action — the proclamation would have dramatic costs for admitted students attempting to enter the U.S. and subject current students to fear they would be arbitrarily deported.
Burroughs, in an order published well after working hours Thursday night, deemed that Harvard had made a “sufficient showing” that it would sustain “immediate and irreparable harm” unless a TRO was granted.
But both the TRO — and a future preliminary injunction, if Harvard seeks one and Burroughs rules favorably — are only provisional protections.
CBS shows that the Yam Tits Administration still thinks getting every little thing to the Supreme Court will solve all of its problems. Melissa Quinn reports that “Trump administration asks Supreme Court to allow mass layoffs at Education Department.
President Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to clear the way for it to continue with its efforts to dismantle the Department of Education and lay off more than 1,300 employees while a legal fight over the future of the department moves forward.
The Justice Department is seeking the high court’s intervention in a pair of disputes brought by a group of 20 states, school districts and teachers unions, which challenge Mr. Trump’s plans to unwind the Department of Education. The president signed an executive order in March directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to facilitate the department’s closure to the maximum extent allowed under the law.
As part of Mr. Trump’s pledge to get rid of the department, the administration canceled a host of grants and executed a reduction in force, or a layoff, that impacted 1,378 employees — roughly a third of the department’s workforce. Affected workers were placed on administrative leave and were to receive full pay and benefits until June 9.
Mr. Trump also announced that the Small Business Administration would take over the Education Department’s student-loan portfolio, and the Department of Health and Human Services would handle special education, nutrition and other related services.
In response to the lawsuits challenging Mr. Trump’s actions, a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked the administration from carrying out its layoffs, finding that the reduction-in-force was a unilateral effort to close the department, which would violate the separation of powers.
Okay, this is an update, and I just had to put it up
Oh, speaking of those delightful Republican Congress Critters, here’s a headline for you from The Guardian. “Republican senator employs aide fired by DeSantis over neo-Nazi imagery. Nate Hochman, staffer for Eric Schmitt, also peddled far-right conspiracy theories as experts decry rise in extremism.” Gosh, another Cis White Male Christian Nationalist for Adolf! What a surprise!
A staffer for Missouri Republican senator Eric Schmitt was previously fired from Ron DeSantis’s unsuccessful presidential campaign after making a video containing neo-Nazi imagery, and later peddled far-right conspiracy theories in a Marco Rubio-linked thinktank.
Nate Hochman’s job in the hard-right senator’s office, along with earlier Trump appointments to executive agencies, suggest to some experts there are few barriers to far-right activists making a career in Republican party politics.
The Guardian contacted Eric Schmitt’s office for comment.
Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told the Guardian: “Hochman’s position shows once again that there are no guardrails against extremists in the GOP nowadays.”
She added: “Racism, antisemitism and other abhorrent beliefs don’t seem to stop extremists from appointments with far-right politicians, including in the highest office of the presidency.”
Hochman, 26, has worked for Schmitt since February, according to congressional information website LegiStorm, a development that was first noted on political newsletter Liberal Currents.
He has also posted dozens of times to X to publicize Schmitt’s initiatives, media appearances, and speeches.
The Guardian reported last September on Hochman’s previous job at America 2100, an organization founded in 2023 as a thinktank. The organization was founded by Mike Needham, who served as Marco Rubio’s chief of staff from 2018 to 2023 when Rubio was a senator and who is once again his chief of staff at the state department.
In that and subsequent reporting, it was revealed that Hochman’s work for America 2100 was focused on producing videos, some of which targeted Haitian migrants in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, and others that rehearsed conspiracy theories about LGBTQ people and human rights organizations.
This was the latest in a string of scandals in the young operative’s political career.
In July 2023 he was fired from the presidential campaign of Florida governor Ron DeSantis after retweeting a pro-DeSantis, anti-Trump video.
As the Guardian reported, the video portrayed a “‘Wojak’ meme, a sad-looking man popular on the right, against headlines about Trump policy failures before showing the meme cheering up to headlines about DeSantis and images of the governor at work”, all to the tune of Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill.
Finally, it superimposed DeSantis on to ranks of marching soldiers and a Sonnenrad – a Norse symbol frequently appropriated by neo-Nazis.
As Hochman departed the campaign, Axios reported he had made the video but endeavored to make it “appear as if it was produced externally”.
The New York Times has a Guest Op-Ed up from two law professors about how the Trump administration is giving a loyalty test to anyone looking for a job within the Federal Government. How unconstitutional is that? “How to Stack the Federal Work Force With ‘Patriotic Americans’ Who Agree With Trump.”
The White House took a step last week that significantly undercuts the idea that federal employment should be nonpartisan. A May 29 memo from the Office of Personnel Management may seem technical, but the policy that it outlines has grave implications for how the government functions and creates an unconstitutional political test for federal hiring.
At heart, the new policy is about viewpoint discrimination: People applying for federal jobs whose views the Trump administration does not like will not be hired. This is the most recent of the administration’s actions to undermine the nonpartisan Civil Service and consolidate control over almost all federal employees in the White House.
In a densely worded, 12-page memo, Vince Haley, an assistant to the president for domestic policy, and Charles Ezell, the acting O.P.M. director, make fealty to the president’s agenda a criterion for hiring for most federal positions. Imposing such a litmus test for nonpolitical positions runs afoul of the nearly 150-year-old federal Civil Service law, the 1939 Hatch Act and the First Amendment.
Under federal law, about 4,000 federal jobs are filled by political appointees. These positions allow the president to appoint those who share his views and to remove those who do not support his policy priorities. Most remaining federal jobs are hired based on nonpartisan and objective assessments of merit, and the hiring criteria are tied to the job duties.
The recent memo would, in effect, dramatically expand that exception for political appointees to include everyone at what’s known as level GS-5 or above — a group that includes clerical positions, technicians for soil conservation and firefighters. The ideologies and views of these individuals should play no role in their potential hiring.
The policy announced in the memo requires every person applying for a position level GS-5 or above to submit four essays. One requires that the applicant address: “How would you help advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities in this role? Identify one or two relevant executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.” Another prompt: “How has your commitment to the Constitution and the founding principles of the United States inspired you to pursue this role within the federal government? Provide a concrete example from professional, academic or personal experience.”
Imagine that someone applying to be a secretary or a soil technician or a firefighter were to answer with: I believe the founding principles of this country were racist and I do not adhere to them. Or: I will perform my job to the best of my abilities and will follow federal law, but I do not see my position as political in any way.
It’s hard to imagine that those people would be hired. And yet, the Civil Service was created in the 19th century precisely to avoid such politically based hiring. The prohibition on political considerations in hiring was strengthened by the Hatch Act, which was enacted at the behest of conservatives who worried that too many Democrats had been hired to staff New Deal agencies.
One more Op-Ed from Dana Milbank at the Washington Post before I close. “They are not good at this. Nearly five months into Trump’s new reign of error, his administration’s mistakes are multiplying.
On May 29, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem released a “comprehensive list of sanctuary jurisdictions.” She was “exposing these sanctuary politicians” because they are “endangering Americans and our law enforcement in order to protect violent criminal illegal aliens.”
But it immediately became clear that the list of more than 500 states, counties and cities was riddled with errors: misspellings, cities and counties mistaken for each other, and places that don’t exist. Cincinnati became “Cincinnatti,” Campbell County (Kentucky) became “Cambell” County, Greeley County (Nebraska) became “Greenley” County, Takoma Park (Maryland) became “Tacoma” Park, while “Martinsville County” (Virginia) was invented. And so on.
Worse, scores of the “sanctuary politicians” she called out turned out to be leaders of MAGA counties and towns with no sanctuary policies on their books. Complaints poured in from Trump allies across the country. “You don’t have that many mistakes on such an important federal document,” said Pat Burns, the Trump-backing mayor of the right-wing stronghold of Huntington Beach, California, mislabeled as a sanctuary city. He told the Associated Press that “somebody’s got to answer” for this “negligent” behavior.
Good luck with that. The only answer was to disappear the list this week, leaving behind a “Page Not Found” error.
Such a massive screwup hadn’t happened since … well, the previous week, when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went to the White House and released his ballyhooed “Make America Healthy Again” report full of citations of studies that don’t exist, the product of AI hallucinations.
This, in turn, was reminiscent of President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff rollout, which targeted an island full of penguins and other unpopulated or sparsely populated corners of the globe — and raised taxes on most of the world based on a math error.
And these, of course, were on top of the “mistakes” that led Trump officials to share war plans with a journalist, to deport people protected by court order, to launch a destructive fight with Harvard University, to fire and then attempt to rehire thousands of crucial federal workers, to cancel and then reinstate various vital government functions, and to misstate, often by orders of magnitude, the alleged savings from its cost-cutting attempts.
Trying to make sense of any of this? Page Not Found.
It’s obvious Trump is not interested in the best and brightest. They give him facts and truth over what he wants to hear and do, and that’s not what his massive need for attention and ego-stroking requires. Oh, up to 4000 words, and I still have managed to do something other than cover the two biggest jerks in the world jousting for air and social media time.
As you know, my Dad bombed NAZIs. I’d like to think I’d be capable of doing something brave if I were called to duty. He made it back. Many others did not. I’d just like to close with a remembrance of D-Day. There are still some D-Day vets out there who returned to the field. This is from the AP. “D-Day veterans return to Normandy to mark 81st anniversary of landings.” I remember growing up in absolute awe of all the men and women I met in my life who helped free the world of Fascists. I do not understand why the country is failing to do that now.
COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France (AP) — Veterans gathered Friday in Normandy to mark the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings — a pivotal moment of World War II that eventually led to the collapse of Adolf Hitler’s regime.
Along the coastline and near the D-Day landing beaches, tens of thousands of onlookers attended the commemorations, which included parachute jumps, flyovers, remembrance ceremonies, parades, and historical reenactments.
Many were there to cheer the ever-dwindling number of surviving veterans in their late 90s and older. All remembered the thousands who died.
Harold Terens, a 101-year-old U.S. veteran who last year married his 96-year-old sweetheart near the D-Day beaches, was back in Normandy.
“Freedom is everything,” he said. “I pray for freedom for the whole world. For the war to end in Ukraine, and Russia, and Sudan and Gaza. I think war is disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.”
Terens enlisted in 1942 and shipped to Great Britain the following year, attached to a four-pilot P-47 Thunderbolt fighter squadron as their radio repair technician. On D-Day, Terens helped repair planes returning from France so they could rejoin the battle.
Let us forever be thankful for their service and sacrifice. May we also remember that we were not alone in these battles. We have allies. At least at this moment. This song by the Dropkick Murphys is about World War 1, but the sentiment is the same.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #DDay #ICEKidnappings #JudgesRuleAgainstTrump #TrumpAdministrationScrewUpsAndCrimes #TurningBackTheDogeDisasters
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Finally Friday Reads: Page Not Found
“The National Divorce is a difficult time for all of us.” John Buss, repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
It seems uniquely American to be focused on the drama between two rich narcissistic men when so many things are going sideways in this country and this world. It’s embarrassing and depressing.
The current zeitgeist appears to be privileged, cis white men trying to get rid of their small penis energy by displaying a hypertoxic version of masculinity. The entire White House has a Lord of the Flies vibe about it. The press has totally gotten carried away with the narcissistic displays of abuse, seemingly jolting between adolescent bouts of testosterone overdose, middle-life crises complete with bright red Teslas, and male menopause.
Meanwhile, a coterie of women display Lady Macbeth levels of ruthlessness, ambition, and descent into madness and body dysmorphia with their clownish plastic surgery. This is a mad court worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy with policies worthy of a Sinclair Lewis novel. The level of ignorance on display is beyond description. I can’t believe the news all day yesterday was obsessed with the madness of Yam Tits and Musk. Let’s focus on the damage they’ve done and leave them to their latest reality show.
I think political cartoonists have a better take on this ordeal than any media outlet. Then there’s the silent majorities in Congress, saying nothing, and doing anything but the people’s business. Not since the Iraq war have I seen more shock and awe. They governed during Watergate. Are they all afraid of the cult that serves Yam Tits? Maybe we should flood their offices with copies of the Constitution with Sharpie instructions saying DO YOUR JOB!
I’m sitting here wondering if I should even start in on all the mainstream media articles and coverage about Musk and Trump. Way to feed two men with obvious narcissistic personality disorder and a side of antisocial personality disorder.
Right now, I’ll start with ProPublica, which has reliably searched out stories worthy of Upton Sinclair or Nellie Bly. Once again, our own government is doing wrong by our veterans. It’s quite sad. “DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to “Munch” Veterans Affairs Contracts. DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to “Munch” Veterans Affairs Contracts. We obtained records showing how a Department of Government Efficiency staffer with no medical experience used artificial intelligence to identify which VA contracts to kill. “AI is absolutely the wrong tool for this,” one expert said.” This bit of investigative journalism is by Brandon Roberts, Vernal Coleman, and Eric Umansky.
The more I know about AI, see its use, and am forced to sit in seminars to learn the Purdue way of dealing with it, the more I want to write a sci-fi book where their programs go mad. I do not trust bros with personality disorders, likely on the spectrum, to think with real human insight. It makes me long for Isaac Asimov.
As the Trump administration prepared to cancel contracts at the Department of Veteran Affairs this year, officials turned to a software engineer with no health care or government experience to guide them.
The engineer, working for the Department of Government Efficiency, quickly built an artificial intelligence tool to identify which services from private companies were not essential. He labeled those contracts “MUNCHABLE.”
The code, using outdated and inexpensive AI models, produced results with glaring mistakes. For instance, it hallucinated the size of contracts, frequently misreading them and inflating their value. It concluded more than a thousand were each worth $34 million, when in fact some were for as little as $35,000.
The DOGE AI tool flagged more than 2,000 contracts for “munching.” It’s unclear how many have been or are on track to be canceled — the Trump administration’s decisions on VA contracts have largely been a black box. The VA uses contractors for many reasons, including to support hospitals, research and other services aimed at caring for ailing veterans.
VA officials have said they’ve killed nearly 600 contracts overall. Congressional Democrats have been pressing VA leaders for specific details of what’s been canceled without success.
We identified at least two dozen on the DOGE list that have been canceled so far. Among the canceled contracts was one to maintain a gene sequencing device used to develop better cancer treatments. Another was for blood sample analysis in support of a VA research project. Another was to provide additional tools to measure and improve the care nurses provide.
ProPublica obtained the code and the contracts it flagged from a source and shared them with a half dozen AI and procurement experts. All said the script was flawed. Many criticized the concept of using AI to guide budgetary cuts at the VA, with one calling it “deeply problematic.”
Cary Coglianese, professor of law and of political science at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the governmental use and regulation of artificial intelligence, said he was troubled by the use of these general-purpose large language models, or LLMs. “I don’t think off-the-shelf LLMs have a great deal of reliability for something as complex and involved as this,” he said.
Sahil Lavingia, the programmer enlisted by DOGE, which was then run by Elon Musk, acknowledged flaws in the code.
“I think that mistakes were made,” said Lavingia, who worked at DOGE for nearly two months. “I’m sure mistakes were made. Mistakes are always made. I would never recommend someone run my code and do what it says. It’s like that ‘Office’ episode where Steve Carell drives into the lake because Google Maps says drive into the lake. Do not drive into the lake.”
Though Lavingia has talked about his time at DOGE previously, this is the first time his work has been examined in detail and the first time he’s publicly explained his process, down to specific lines of code.
Further technical information can be found in this follow-up article at ProPublica. “Inside the AI Prompts DOGE Used to “Munch” Contracts Related to Veterans’ Health.”
Sahil Lavingia, who wrote the code, told it to cancel, or in his words “munch,” anything that wasn’t “directly supporting patient care.” Unfortunately, neither Lavingia nor the model had the knowledge required to make such determinations.
“I think that mistakes were made,” said Lavingia, who worked at DOGE for nearly two months, in an interview with ProPublica. “I’m sure mistakes were made. Mistakes are always made.”
It turns out, a lot of mistakes were made as DOGE and the VA rushed to implement President Donald Trump’s February executive order mandating all of the VA’s contracts be reviewed within 30 days.
ProPublica obtained the code and prompts — the instructions given to the AI model — used to review the contracts and interviewed Lavingia and experts in both AI and government procurement. We are publishing an analysis of those prompts to help the public understand how this technology is being deployed in the federal government.
The experts found numerous and troubling flaws: the code relied on older, general-purpose models not suited for the task; the model hallucinated contract amounts, deciding around 1,100 of the agreements were each worth $34 million when they were sometimes worth thousands; and the AI did not analyze the entire text of contracts. Most experts said that, in addition to the technical issues, using off-the-shelf AI models for the task — with little context on how the VA works — should have been a nonstarter.
Lavingia, a software engineer enlisted by DOGE, acknowledged there were flaws in what he created and blamed, in part, a lack of time and proper tools. He also stressed that he knew his list of what he called “MUNCHABLE” contracts would be vetted by others before a final decision was made.
Even the word “munchable” makes these guys sound like 7th graders. I don’t even know what to say about the University of Michigan. I was a 7th grader when anti-Vietnam War protests picked up, but I don’t recall anything like this.
However, all over our institutions are in the service of racist and xenophobic Big Brother. (I really wish I could stop using references to dystopian literature, but sadly, it works.) This is from The Guardian. “University of Michigan using undercover investigators to surveil student Gaza protesters. Revealed: security trailing students on and off campus as video shows investigator faking disability when confronted.”
The University of Michigan is using private, undercover investigators to surveil pro-Palestinian campus groups, including trailing them on and off campus, furtively recording them and eavesdropping on their conversations, the Guardian has learned.
The surveillance appears to largely be an intimidation tactic, five students who have been followed, recorded or eavesdropped on said. The undercover investigators have cursed at students, threatened them and in one case drove a car at a student who had to jump out of the way, according to student accounts and video footage shared with the Guardian.
Students say they have frequently identified undercover investigators and confronted them. In two bizarre interactions captured by one student on video, a man who had been trailing the student faked disabilities, and noisily – and falsely – accused a student of attempting to rob him.
The undercover investigators appear to work for Detroit-based City Shield, a private security group, and some of their evidence was used by Michigan prosecutors to charge and jail students, according to a Guardian review of police records, university spending records and video collected in legal discovery. Most charges were later dropped. Public spending records from the U-M board of regents, the school’s governing body, show the university paid at least $800,000 between June 2023 and September 2024 to City Shield’s parent company, Ameri-Shield.
Among those who say they’re being regularly followed is Katarina Keating, part of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (Safe), a local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. Keating said the surveillance has caused her to feel “on edge”, and she often looks over her shoulder since November, when she was first followed.
“But on another level it sometimes feels comedic because it’s so insane that they have spent millions of dollars to hire some goons to follow campus activists around,” Keating added. “It’s just such a waste of money and time.”
How’s this for government efficiency? The NYPD and ICE mistakenly arrest a Chilean woman on vacation in New York City. Police left her 12-year-old daughter on the street alone. This country is no longer safe from arbitrary arrest and detention by morans in law enforcement.
There appears to be a bit of a correction of the DOGE overreach in the Federal Government. This is reported in the Washington Post by Hannah Natanson, Adam Taylor, Meryl Kornfield, Rachel Siegel, and Scott Dance. That’s a lot of reporters for a lot of agencies. “Trump administration races to fix a big mistake: DOGE fired too many people. Across the government, officials are rehiring federal workers who were forced out or encouraged to resign.” Do you suppose all the Trump/Musk drama is just a distraction from the kind of news that’s falling off the front pages but should be screamed in front-page headlines? They fucked up folks! Let’s bury the lede!
Across the government, the Trump administration is scrambling to rehire many federal employees dismissed under DOGE’s staff-slashing initiatives after wiping out entire offices, in some cases imperiling key services such as weather forecasting and the drug approval process.
Since Musk left the White House last week, he and Trump have fallen out bitterly, sniping at each other in public over the cost of Trump’s sweeping tax legislation and government subsidies for Musk’s businesses. But even before that, the administration was working to undo some of DOGE’s highest-profile actions.
Trump officials are trying to recover not only people who were fired, but also thousands of experienced senior staffers who are opting for a voluntary exit as the administration rolls out a second resignation offer. Thousands more staff are returning in fits and starts as a conflicting patchwork of court decisions overturn some of Trump’s large-scale firings, especially his Valentine’s Day dismissal of all probationary workers, those with one or two years of government service and fewer job protections. A federal judge in April ordered the president to reinstate probationary workers dismissed from 20 federal agencies, although a few days later the Supreme Court — in a different case — halted another judge’s order to reinstate a smaller group.
Some fired federal employees, especially those at retirement age or who have since secured jobs in the private sector, are proving reluctant to return. So the administration is seeking work-arounds and stopgaps, including asking remaining staff to serve in new roles, work overtime or volunteer to fill vacancies, according to interviews with 18 federal workers across eight agencies and messages obtained by The Washington Post. A Post review found recent messy re-hirings at agencies including the Food and Drug Administration, the IRS, the State Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In some cases, the government is posting new online job listings very similar to positions it recently vacated, a Post review of USAJobs found
The ever-shifting personnel changes are yet another strain on a workforce already weary of Trump-induced uncertainty, said current and former employees, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
“They wanted to show they were gutting the government, but there was no thought about what parts might be worth keeping,” said one FDA staffer who was fired and rehired. “Now it feels like it was all just a game to them.”
Notice they just had to point out the Trump/Musk WWE event just to distract you for even a moment. It seems we no longer have caped crusaders but black-robed ones. This is from The Harvard Crimson. “Judge Blocks Trump Proclamation Banning International Students From Entering U.S. on Harvard Visas.” I’m just seeing Trump failures everywhere. No wonder they needed a new reality show season.
A federal judge granted Harvard’s request for a temporary restraining order hours after the University asked her to block the Trump administration’s Wednesday proclamation banning international students from entering the United States on Harvard-sponsored visas.
The order was issued just four hours after Harvard filed an amended complaint accusing the Trump administration of retaliating against the University by preventing incoming international students from entering the U.S. to attend Harvard.
U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs also announced that the court would extend the TRO first granted to Harvard on May 23 — one day after the DHS revoked Harvard’s eligibility to host international students — until June 20, the date requested by the University. Burroughs had already agreed to extend the TRO once before, following a May 29 hearing.
Thursday’s TRO will reinstate international students’ ability to enter the country to attend Harvard until a June 16 hearing scheduled by Burroughs — but the University will need to file for a preliminary injunction to extend its ability to host international students until the court determines its legality in court.
In the amended complaint, Harvard wrote that Trump’s proclamation was “a transparent attempt to circumvent the temporary restraining order this Court already entered against the summary revocation of Harvard’s SEVP certification.”
It argued that — without urgent action — the proclamation would have dramatic costs for admitted students attempting to enter the U.S. and subject current students to fear they would be arbitrarily deported.
Burroughs, in an order published well after working hours Thursday night, deemed that Harvard had made a “sufficient showing” that it would sustain “immediate and irreparable harm” unless a TRO was granted.
But both the TRO — and a future preliminary injunction, if Harvard seeks one and Burroughs rules favorably — are only provisional protections.
CBS shows that the Yam Tits Administration still thinks getting every little thing to the Supreme Court will solve all of its problems. Melissa Quinn reports that “Trump administration asks Supreme Court to allow mass layoffs at Education Department.
President Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to clear the way for it to continue with its efforts to dismantle the Department of Education and lay off more than 1,300 employees while a legal fight over the future of the department moves forward.
The Justice Department is seeking the high court’s intervention in a pair of disputes brought by a group of 20 states, school districts and teachers unions, which challenge Mr. Trump’s plans to unwind the Department of Education. The president signed an executive order in March directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to facilitate the department’s closure to the maximum extent allowed under the law.
As part of Mr. Trump’s pledge to get rid of the department, the administration canceled a host of grants and executed a reduction in force, or a layoff, that impacted 1,378 employees — roughly a third of the department’s workforce. Affected workers were placed on administrative leave and were to receive full pay and benefits until June 9.
Mr. Trump also announced that the Small Business Administration would take over the Education Department’s student-loan portfolio, and the Department of Health and Human Services would handle special education, nutrition and other related services.
In response to the lawsuits challenging Mr. Trump’s actions, a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked the administration from carrying out its layoffs, finding that the reduction-in-force was a unilateral effort to close the department, which would violate the separation of powers.
Okay, this is an update, and I just had to put it up
Oh, speaking of those delightful Republican Congress Critters, here’s a headline for you from The Guardian. “Republican senator employs aide fired by DeSantis over neo-Nazi imagery. Nate Hochman, staffer for Eric Schmitt, also peddled far-right conspiracy theories as experts decry rise in extremism.” Gosh, another Cis White Male Christian Nationalist for Adolf! What a surprise!
A staffer for Missouri Republican senator Eric Schmitt was previously fired from Ron DeSantis’s unsuccessful presidential campaign after making a video containing neo-Nazi imagery, and later peddled far-right conspiracy theories in a Marco Rubio-linked thinktank.
Nate Hochman’s job in the hard-right senator’s office, along with earlier Trump appointments to executive agencies, suggest to some experts there are few barriers to far-right activists making a career in Republican party politics.
The Guardian contacted Eric Schmitt’s office for comment.
Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told the Guardian: “Hochman’s position shows once again that there are no guardrails against extremists in the GOP nowadays.”
She added: “Racism, antisemitism and other abhorrent beliefs don’t seem to stop extremists from appointments with far-right politicians, including in the highest office of the presidency.”
Hochman, 26, has worked for Schmitt since February, according to congressional information website LegiStorm, a development that was first noted on political newsletter Liberal Currents.
He has also posted dozens of times to X to publicize Schmitt’s initiatives, media appearances, and speeches.
The Guardian reported last September on Hochman’s previous job at America 2100, an organization founded in 2023 as a thinktank. The organization was founded by Mike Needham, who served as Marco Rubio’s chief of staff from 2018 to 2023 when Rubio was a senator and who is once again his chief of staff at the state department.
In that and subsequent reporting, it was revealed that Hochman’s work for America 2100 was focused on producing videos, some of which targeted Haitian migrants in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, and others that rehearsed conspiracy theories about LGBTQ people and human rights organizations.
This was the latest in a string of scandals in the young operative’s political career.
In July 2023 he was fired from the presidential campaign of Florida governor Ron DeSantis after retweeting a pro-DeSantis, anti-Trump video.
As the Guardian reported, the video portrayed a “‘Wojak’ meme, a sad-looking man popular on the right, against headlines about Trump policy failures before showing the meme cheering up to headlines about DeSantis and images of the governor at work”, all to the tune of Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill.
Finally, it superimposed DeSantis on to ranks of marching soldiers and a Sonnenrad – a Norse symbol frequently appropriated by neo-Nazis.
As Hochman departed the campaign, Axios reported he had made the video but endeavored to make it “appear as if it was produced externally”.
The New York Times has a Guest Op-Ed up from two law professors about how the Trump administration is giving a loyalty test to anyone looking for a job within the Federal Government. How unconstitutional is that? “How to Stack the Federal Work Force With ‘Patriotic Americans’ Who Agree With Trump.”
The White House took a step last week that significantly undercuts the idea that federal employment should be nonpartisan. A May 29 memo from the Office of Personnel Management may seem technical, but the policy that it outlines has grave implications for how the government functions and creates an unconstitutional political test for federal hiring.
At heart, the new policy is about viewpoint discrimination: People applying for federal jobs whose views the Trump administration does not like will not be hired. This is the most recent of the administration’s actions to undermine the nonpartisan Civil Service and consolidate control over almost all federal employees in the White House.
In a densely worded, 12-page memo, Vince Haley, an assistant to the president for domestic policy, and Charles Ezell, the acting O.P.M. director, make fealty to the president’s agenda a criterion for hiring for most federal positions. Imposing such a litmus test for nonpolitical positions runs afoul of the nearly 150-year-old federal Civil Service law, the 1939 Hatch Act and the First Amendment.
Under federal law, about 4,000 federal jobs are filled by political appointees. These positions allow the president to appoint those who share his views and to remove those who do not support his policy priorities. Most remaining federal jobs are hired based on nonpartisan and objective assessments of merit, and the hiring criteria are tied to the job duties.
The recent memo would, in effect, dramatically expand that exception for political appointees to include everyone at what’s known as level GS-5 or above — a group that includes clerical positions, technicians for soil conservation and firefighters. The ideologies and views of these individuals should play no role in their potential hiring.
The policy announced in the memo requires every person applying for a position level GS-5 or above to submit four essays. One requires that the applicant address: “How would you help advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities in this role? Identify one or two relevant executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.” Another prompt: “How has your commitment to the Constitution and the founding principles of the United States inspired you to pursue this role within the federal government? Provide a concrete example from professional, academic or personal experience.”
Imagine that someone applying to be a secretary or a soil technician or a firefighter were to answer with: I believe the founding principles of this country were racist and I do not adhere to them. Or: I will perform my job to the best of my abilities and will follow federal law, but I do not see my position as political in any way.
It’s hard to imagine that those people would be hired. And yet, the Civil Service was created in the 19th century precisely to avoid such politically based hiring. The prohibition on political considerations in hiring was strengthened by the Hatch Act, which was enacted at the behest of conservatives who worried that too many Democrats had been hired to staff New Deal agencies.
One more Op-Ed from Dana Milbank at the Washington Post before I close. “They are not good at this. Nearly five months into Trump’s new reign of error, his administration’s mistakes are multiplying.
On May 29, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem released a “comprehensive list of sanctuary jurisdictions.” She was “exposing these sanctuary politicians” because they are “endangering Americans and our law enforcement in order to protect violent criminal illegal aliens.”
But it immediately became clear that the list of more than 500 states, counties and cities was riddled with errors: misspellings, cities and counties mistaken for each other, and places that don’t exist. Cincinnati became “Cincinnatti,” Campbell County (Kentucky) became “Cambell” County, Greeley County (Nebraska) became “Greenley” County, Takoma Park (Maryland) became “Tacoma” Park, while “Martinsville County” (Virginia) was invented. And so on.
Worse, scores of the “sanctuary politicians” she called out turned out to be leaders of MAGA counties and towns with no sanctuary policies on their books. Complaints poured in from Trump allies across the country. “You don’t have that many mistakes on such an important federal document,” said Pat Burns, the Trump-backing mayor of the right-wing stronghold of Huntington Beach, California, mislabeled as a sanctuary city. He told the Associated Press that “somebody’s got to answer” for this “negligent” behavior.
Good luck with that. The only answer was to disappear the list this week, leaving behind a “Page Not Found” error.
Such a massive screwup hadn’t happened since … well, the previous week, when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went to the White House and released his ballyhooed “Make America Healthy Again” report full of citations of studies that don’t exist, the product of AI hallucinations.
This, in turn, was reminiscent of President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff rollout, which targeted an island full of penguins and other unpopulated or sparsely populated corners of the globe — and raised taxes on most of the world based on a math error.
And these, of course, were on top of the “mistakes” that led Trump officials to share war plans with a journalist, to deport people protected by court order, to launch a destructive fight with Harvard University, to fire and then attempt to rehire thousands of crucial federal workers, to cancel and then reinstate various vital government functions, and to misstate, often by orders of magnitude, the alleged savings from its cost-cutting attempts.
Trying to make sense of any of this? Page Not Found.
It’s obvious Trump is not interested in the best and brightest. They give him facts and truth over what he wants to hear and do, and that’s not what his massive need for attention and ego-stroking requires. Oh, up to 4000 words, and I still have managed to do something other than cover the two biggest jerks in the world jousting for air and social media time.
As you know, my Dad bombed NAZIs. I’d like to think I’d be capable of doing something brave if I were called to duty. He made it back. Many others did not. I’d just like to close with a remembrance of D-Day. There are still some D-Day vets out there who returned to the field. This is from the AP. “D-Day veterans return to Normandy to mark 81st anniversary of landings.” I remember growing up in absolute awe of all the men and women I met in my life who helped free the world of Fascists. I do not understand why the country is failing to do that now.
COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France (AP) — Veterans gathered Friday in Normandy to mark the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings — a pivotal moment of World War II that eventually led to the collapse of Adolf Hitler’s regime.
Along the coastline and near the D-Day landing beaches, tens of thousands of onlookers attended the commemorations, which included parachute jumps, flyovers, remembrance ceremonies, parades, and historical reenactments.
Many were there to cheer the ever-dwindling number of surviving veterans in their late 90s and older. All remembered the thousands who died.
Harold Terens, a 101-year-old U.S. veteran who last year married his 96-year-old sweetheart near the D-Day beaches, was back in Normandy.
“Freedom is everything,” he said. “I pray for freedom for the whole world. For the war to end in Ukraine, and Russia, and Sudan and Gaza. I think war is disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.”
Terens enlisted in 1942 and shipped to Great Britain the following year, attached to a four-pilot P-47 Thunderbolt fighter squadron as their radio repair technician. On D-Day, Terens helped repair planes returning from France so they could rejoin the battle.
Let us forever be thankful for their service and sacrifice. May we also remember that we were not alone in these battles. We have allies. At least at this moment. This song by the Dropkick Murphys is about World War 1, but the sentiment is the same.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #DDay #ICEKidnappings #JudgesRuleAgainstTrump #TrumpAdministrationScrewUpsAndCrimes #TurningBackTheDogeDisasters
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Finally Friday Reads: Page Not Found
“The National Divorce is a difficult time for all of us.” John Buss, repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
It seems uniquely American to be focused on the drama between two rich narcissistic men when so many things are going sideways in this country and this world. It’s embarrassing and depressing.
The current zeitgeist appears to be privileged, cis white men trying to get rid of their small penis energy by displaying a hypertoxic version of masculinity. The entire White House has a Lord of the Flies vibe about it. The press has totally gotten carried away with the narcissistic displays of abuse, seemingly jolting between adolescent bouts of testosterone overdose, middle-life crises complete with bright red Teslas, and male menopause.
Meanwhile, a coterie of women display Lady Macbeth levels of ruthlessness, ambition, and descent into madness and body dysmorphia with their clownish plastic surgery. This is a mad court worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy with policies worthy of a Sinclair Lewis novel. The level of ignorance on display is beyond description. I can’t believe the news all day yesterday was obsessed with the madness of Yam Tits and Musk. Let’s focus on the damage they’ve done and leave them to their latest reality show.
I think political cartoonists have a better take on this ordeal than any media outlet. Then there’s the silent majorities in Congress, saying nothing, and doing anything but the people’s business. Not since the Iraq war have I seen more shock and awe. They governed during Watergate. Are they all afraid of the cult that serves Yam Tits? Maybe we should flood their offices with copies of the Constitution with Sharpie instructions saying DO YOUR JOB!
I’m sitting here wondering if I should even start in on all the mainstream media articles and coverage about Musk and Trump. Way to feed two men with obvious narcissistic personality disorder and a side of antisocial personality disorder.
Right now, I’ll start with ProPublica, which has reliably searched out stories worthy of Upton Sinclair or Nellie Bly. Once again, our own government is doing wrong by our veterans. It’s quite sad. “DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to “Munch” Veterans Affairs Contracts. DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to “Munch” Veterans Affairs Contracts. We obtained records showing how a Department of Government Efficiency staffer with no medical experience used artificial intelligence to identify which VA contracts to kill. “AI is absolutely the wrong tool for this,” one expert said.” This bit of investigative journalism is by Brandon Roberts, Vernal Coleman, and Eric Umansky.
The more I know about AI, see its use, and am forced to sit in seminars to learn the Purdue way of dealing with it, the more I want to write a sci-fi book where their programs go mad. I do not trust bros with personality disorders, likely on the spectrum, to think with real human insight. It makes me long for Isaac Asimov.
As the Trump administration prepared to cancel contracts at the Department of Veteran Affairs this year, officials turned to a software engineer with no health care or government experience to guide them.
The engineer, working for the Department of Government Efficiency, quickly built an artificial intelligence tool to identify which services from private companies were not essential. He labeled those contracts “MUNCHABLE.”
The code, using outdated and inexpensive AI models, produced results with glaring mistakes. For instance, it hallucinated the size of contracts, frequently misreading them and inflating their value. It concluded more than a thousand were each worth $34 million, when in fact some were for as little as $35,000.
The DOGE AI tool flagged more than 2,000 contracts for “munching.” It’s unclear how many have been or are on track to be canceled — the Trump administration’s decisions on VA contracts have largely been a black box. The VA uses contractors for many reasons, including to support hospitals, research and other services aimed at caring for ailing veterans.
VA officials have said they’ve killed nearly 600 contracts overall. Congressional Democrats have been pressing VA leaders for specific details of what’s been canceled without success.
We identified at least two dozen on the DOGE list that have been canceled so far. Among the canceled contracts was one to maintain a gene sequencing device used to develop better cancer treatments. Another was for blood sample analysis in support of a VA research project. Another was to provide additional tools to measure and improve the care nurses provide.
ProPublica obtained the code and the contracts it flagged from a source and shared them with a half dozen AI and procurement experts. All said the script was flawed. Many criticized the concept of using AI to guide budgetary cuts at the VA, with one calling it “deeply problematic.”
Cary Coglianese, professor of law and of political science at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the governmental use and regulation of artificial intelligence, said he was troubled by the use of these general-purpose large language models, or LLMs. “I don’t think off-the-shelf LLMs have a great deal of reliability for something as complex and involved as this,” he said.
Sahil Lavingia, the programmer enlisted by DOGE, which was then run by Elon Musk, acknowledged flaws in the code.
“I think that mistakes were made,” said Lavingia, who worked at DOGE for nearly two months. “I’m sure mistakes were made. Mistakes are always made. I would never recommend someone run my code and do what it says. It’s like that ‘Office’ episode where Steve Carell drives into the lake because Google Maps says drive into the lake. Do not drive into the lake.”
Though Lavingia has talked about his time at DOGE previously, this is the first time his work has been examined in detail and the first time he’s publicly explained his process, down to specific lines of code.
Further technical information can be found in this follow-up article at ProPublica. “Inside the AI Prompts DOGE Used to “Munch” Contracts Related to Veterans’ Health.”
Sahil Lavingia, who wrote the code, told it to cancel, or in his words “munch,” anything that wasn’t “directly supporting patient care.” Unfortunately, neither Lavingia nor the model had the knowledge required to make such determinations.
“I think that mistakes were made,” said Lavingia, who worked at DOGE for nearly two months, in an interview with ProPublica. “I’m sure mistakes were made. Mistakes are always made.”
It turns out, a lot of mistakes were made as DOGE and the VA rushed to implement President Donald Trump’s February executive order mandating all of the VA’s contracts be reviewed within 30 days.
ProPublica obtained the code and prompts — the instructions given to the AI model — used to review the contracts and interviewed Lavingia and experts in both AI and government procurement. We are publishing an analysis of those prompts to help the public understand how this technology is being deployed in the federal government.
The experts found numerous and troubling flaws: the code relied on older, general-purpose models not suited for the task; the model hallucinated contract amounts, deciding around 1,100 of the agreements were each worth $34 million when they were sometimes worth thousands; and the AI did not analyze the entire text of contracts. Most experts said that, in addition to the technical issues, using off-the-shelf AI models for the task — with little context on how the VA works — should have been a nonstarter.
Lavingia, a software engineer enlisted by DOGE, acknowledged there were flaws in what he created and blamed, in part, a lack of time and proper tools. He also stressed that he knew his list of what he called “MUNCHABLE” contracts would be vetted by others before a final decision was made.
Even the word “munchable” makes these guys sound like 7th graders. I don’t even know what to say about the University of Michigan. I was a 7th grader when anti-Vietnam War protests picked up, but I don’t recall anything like this.
However, all over our institutions are in the service of racist and xenophobic Big Brother. (I really wish I could stop using references to dystopian literature, but sadly, it works.) This is from The Guardian. “University of Michigan using undercover investigators to surveil student Gaza protesters. Revealed: security trailing students on and off campus as video shows investigator faking disability when confronted.”
The University of Michigan is using private, undercover investigators to surveil pro-Palestinian campus groups, including trailing them on and off campus, furtively recording them and eavesdropping on their conversations, the Guardian has learned.
The surveillance appears to largely be an intimidation tactic, five students who have been followed, recorded or eavesdropped on said. The undercover investigators have cursed at students, threatened them and in one case drove a car at a student who had to jump out of the way, according to student accounts and video footage shared with the Guardian.
Students say they have frequently identified undercover investigators and confronted them. In two bizarre interactions captured by one student on video, a man who had been trailing the student faked disabilities, and noisily – and falsely – accused a student of attempting to rob him.
The undercover investigators appear to work for Detroit-based City Shield, a private security group, and some of their evidence was used by Michigan prosecutors to charge and jail students, according to a Guardian review of police records, university spending records and video collected in legal discovery. Most charges were later dropped. Public spending records from the U-M board of regents, the school’s governing body, show the university paid at least $800,000 between June 2023 and September 2024 to City Shield’s parent company, Ameri-Shield.
Among those who say they’re being regularly followed is Katarina Keating, part of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (Safe), a local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. Keating said the surveillance has caused her to feel “on edge”, and she often looks over her shoulder since November, when she was first followed.
“But on another level it sometimes feels comedic because it’s so insane that they have spent millions of dollars to hire some goons to follow campus activists around,” Keating added. “It’s just such a waste of money and time.”
How’s this for government efficiency? The NYPD and ICE mistakenly arrest a Chilean woman on vacation in New York City. Police left her 12-year-old daughter on the street alone. This country is no longer safe from arbitrary arrest and detention by morans in law enforcement.
There appears to be a bit of a correction of the DOGE overreach in the Federal Government. This is reported in the Washington Post by Hannah Natanson, Adam Taylor, Meryl Kornfield, Rachel Siegel, and Scott Dance. That’s a lot of reporters for a lot of agencies. “Trump administration races to fix a big mistake: DOGE fired too many people. Across the government, officials are rehiring federal workers who were forced out or encouraged to resign.” Do you suppose all the Trump/Musk drama is just a distraction from the kind of news that’s falling off the front pages but should be screamed in front-page headlines? They fucked up folks! Let’s bury the lede!
Across the government, the Trump administration is scrambling to rehire many federal employees dismissed under DOGE’s staff-slashing initiatives after wiping out entire offices, in some cases imperiling key services such as weather forecasting and the drug approval process.
Since Musk left the White House last week, he and Trump have fallen out bitterly, sniping at each other in public over the cost of Trump’s sweeping tax legislation and government subsidies for Musk’s businesses. But even before that, the administration was working to undo some of DOGE’s highest-profile actions.
Trump officials are trying to recover not only people who were fired, but also thousands of experienced senior staffers who are opting for a voluntary exit as the administration rolls out a second resignation offer. Thousands more staff are returning in fits and starts as a conflicting patchwork of court decisions overturn some of Trump’s large-scale firings, especially his Valentine’s Day dismissal of all probationary workers, those with one or two years of government service and fewer job protections. A federal judge in April ordered the president to reinstate probationary workers dismissed from 20 federal agencies, although a few days later the Supreme Court — in a different case — halted another judge’s order to reinstate a smaller group.
Some fired federal employees, especially those at retirement age or who have since secured jobs in the private sector, are proving reluctant to return. So the administration is seeking work-arounds and stopgaps, including asking remaining staff to serve in new roles, work overtime or volunteer to fill vacancies, according to interviews with 18 federal workers across eight agencies and messages obtained by The Washington Post. A Post review found recent messy re-hirings at agencies including the Food and Drug Administration, the IRS, the State Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In some cases, the government is posting new online job listings very similar to positions it recently vacated, a Post review of USAJobs found
The ever-shifting personnel changes are yet another strain on a workforce already weary of Trump-induced uncertainty, said current and former employees, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
“They wanted to show they were gutting the government, but there was no thought about what parts might be worth keeping,” said one FDA staffer who was fired and rehired. “Now it feels like it was all just a game to them.”
Notice they just had to point out the Trump/Musk WWE event just to distract you for even a moment. It seems we no longer have caped crusaders but black-robed ones. This is from The Harvard Crimson. “Judge Blocks Trump Proclamation Banning International Students From Entering U.S. on Harvard Visas.” I’m just seeing Trump failures everywhere. No wonder they needed a new reality show season.
A federal judge granted Harvard’s request for a temporary restraining order hours after the University asked her to block the Trump administration’s Wednesday proclamation banning international students from entering the United States on Harvard-sponsored visas.
The order was issued just four hours after Harvard filed an amended complaint accusing the Trump administration of retaliating against the University by preventing incoming international students from entering the U.S. to attend Harvard.
U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs also announced that the court would extend the TRO first granted to Harvard on May 23 — one day after the DHS revoked Harvard’s eligibility to host international students — until June 20, the date requested by the University. Burroughs had already agreed to extend the TRO once before, following a May 29 hearing.
Thursday’s TRO will reinstate international students’ ability to enter the country to attend Harvard until a June 16 hearing scheduled by Burroughs — but the University will need to file for a preliminary injunction to extend its ability to host international students until the court determines its legality in court.
In the amended complaint, Harvard wrote that Trump’s proclamation was “a transparent attempt to circumvent the temporary restraining order this Court already entered against the summary revocation of Harvard’s SEVP certification.”
It argued that — without urgent action — the proclamation would have dramatic costs for admitted students attempting to enter the U.S. and subject current students to fear they would be arbitrarily deported.
Burroughs, in an order published well after working hours Thursday night, deemed that Harvard had made a “sufficient showing” that it would sustain “immediate and irreparable harm” unless a TRO was granted.
But both the TRO — and a future preliminary injunction, if Harvard seeks one and Burroughs rules favorably — are only provisional protections.
CBS shows that the Yam Tits Administration still thinks getting every little thing to the Supreme Court will solve all of its problems. Melissa Quinn reports that “Trump administration asks Supreme Court to allow mass layoffs at Education Department.
President Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to clear the way for it to continue with its efforts to dismantle the Department of Education and lay off more than 1,300 employees while a legal fight over the future of the department moves forward.
The Justice Department is seeking the high court’s intervention in a pair of disputes brought by a group of 20 states, school districts and teachers unions, which challenge Mr. Trump’s plans to unwind the Department of Education. The president signed an executive order in March directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to facilitate the department’s closure to the maximum extent allowed under the law.
As part of Mr. Trump’s pledge to get rid of the department, the administration canceled a host of grants and executed a reduction in force, or a layoff, that impacted 1,378 employees — roughly a third of the department’s workforce. Affected workers were placed on administrative leave and were to receive full pay and benefits until June 9.
Mr. Trump also announced that the Small Business Administration would take over the Education Department’s student-loan portfolio, and the Department of Health and Human Services would handle special education, nutrition and other related services.
In response to the lawsuits challenging Mr. Trump’s actions, a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked the administration from carrying out its layoffs, finding that the reduction-in-force was a unilateral effort to close the department, which would violate the separation of powers.
Okay, this is an update, and I just had to put it up
Oh, speaking of those delightful Republican Congress Critters, here’s a headline for you from The Guardian. “Republican senator employs aide fired by DeSantis over neo-Nazi imagery. Nate Hochman, staffer for Eric Schmitt, also peddled far-right conspiracy theories as experts decry rise in extremism.” Gosh, another Cis White Male Christian Nationalist for Adolf! What a surprise!
A staffer for Missouri Republican senator Eric Schmitt was previously fired from Ron DeSantis’s unsuccessful presidential campaign after making a video containing neo-Nazi imagery, and later peddled far-right conspiracy theories in a Marco Rubio-linked thinktank.
Nate Hochman’s job in the hard-right senator’s office, along with earlier Trump appointments to executive agencies, suggest to some experts there are few barriers to far-right activists making a career in Republican party politics.
The Guardian contacted Eric Schmitt’s office for comment.
Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told the Guardian: “Hochman’s position shows once again that there are no guardrails against extremists in the GOP nowadays.”
She added: “Racism, antisemitism and other abhorrent beliefs don’t seem to stop extremists from appointments with far-right politicians, including in the highest office of the presidency.”
Hochman, 26, has worked for Schmitt since February, according to congressional information website LegiStorm, a development that was first noted on political newsletter Liberal Currents.
He has also posted dozens of times to X to publicize Schmitt’s initiatives, media appearances, and speeches.
The Guardian reported last September on Hochman’s previous job at America 2100, an organization founded in 2023 as a thinktank. The organization was founded by Mike Needham, who served as Marco Rubio’s chief of staff from 2018 to 2023 when Rubio was a senator and who is once again his chief of staff at the state department.
In that and subsequent reporting, it was revealed that Hochman’s work for America 2100 was focused on producing videos, some of which targeted Haitian migrants in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, and others that rehearsed conspiracy theories about LGBTQ people and human rights organizations.
This was the latest in a string of scandals in the young operative’s political career.
In July 2023 he was fired from the presidential campaign of Florida governor Ron DeSantis after retweeting a pro-DeSantis, anti-Trump video.
As the Guardian reported, the video portrayed a “‘Wojak’ meme, a sad-looking man popular on the right, against headlines about Trump policy failures before showing the meme cheering up to headlines about DeSantis and images of the governor at work”, all to the tune of Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill.
Finally, it superimposed DeSantis on to ranks of marching soldiers and a Sonnenrad – a Norse symbol frequently appropriated by neo-Nazis.
As Hochman departed the campaign, Axios reported he had made the video but endeavored to make it “appear as if it was produced externally”.
The New York Times has a Guest Op-Ed up from two law professors about how the Trump administration is giving a loyalty test to anyone looking for a job within the Federal Government. How unconstitutional is that? “How to Stack the Federal Work Force With ‘Patriotic Americans’ Who Agree With Trump.”
The White House took a step last week that significantly undercuts the idea that federal employment should be nonpartisan. A May 29 memo from the Office of Personnel Management may seem technical, but the policy that it outlines has grave implications for how the government functions and creates an unconstitutional political test for federal hiring.
At heart, the new policy is about viewpoint discrimination: People applying for federal jobs whose views the Trump administration does not like will not be hired. This is the most recent of the administration’s actions to undermine the nonpartisan Civil Service and consolidate control over almost all federal employees in the White House.
In a densely worded, 12-page memo, Vince Haley, an assistant to the president for domestic policy, and Charles Ezell, the acting O.P.M. director, make fealty to the president’s agenda a criterion for hiring for most federal positions. Imposing such a litmus test for nonpolitical positions runs afoul of the nearly 150-year-old federal Civil Service law, the 1939 Hatch Act and the First Amendment.
Under federal law, about 4,000 federal jobs are filled by political appointees. These positions allow the president to appoint those who share his views and to remove those who do not support his policy priorities. Most remaining federal jobs are hired based on nonpartisan and objective assessments of merit, and the hiring criteria are tied to the job duties.
The recent memo would, in effect, dramatically expand that exception for political appointees to include everyone at what’s known as level GS-5 or above — a group that includes clerical positions, technicians for soil conservation and firefighters. The ideologies and views of these individuals should play no role in their potential hiring.
The policy announced in the memo requires every person applying for a position level GS-5 or above to submit four essays. One requires that the applicant address: “How would you help advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities in this role? Identify one or two relevant executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.” Another prompt: “How has your commitment to the Constitution and the founding principles of the United States inspired you to pursue this role within the federal government? Provide a concrete example from professional, academic or personal experience.”
Imagine that someone applying to be a secretary or a soil technician or a firefighter were to answer with: I believe the founding principles of this country were racist and I do not adhere to them. Or: I will perform my job to the best of my abilities and will follow federal law, but I do not see my position as political in any way.
It’s hard to imagine that those people would be hired. And yet, the Civil Service was created in the 19th century precisely to avoid such politically based hiring. The prohibition on political considerations in hiring was strengthened by the Hatch Act, which was enacted at the behest of conservatives who worried that too many Democrats had been hired to staff New Deal agencies.
One more Op-Ed from Dana Milbank at the Washington Post before I close. “They are not good at this. Nearly five months into Trump’s new reign of error, his administration’s mistakes are multiplying.
On May 29, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem released a “comprehensive list of sanctuary jurisdictions.” She was “exposing these sanctuary politicians” because they are “endangering Americans and our law enforcement in order to protect violent criminal illegal aliens.”
But it immediately became clear that the list of more than 500 states, counties and cities was riddled with errors: misspellings, cities and counties mistaken for each other, and places that don’t exist. Cincinnati became “Cincinnatti,” Campbell County (Kentucky) became “Cambell” County, Greeley County (Nebraska) became “Greenley” County, Takoma Park (Maryland) became “Tacoma” Park, while “Martinsville County” (Virginia) was invented. And so on.
Worse, scores of the “sanctuary politicians” she called out turned out to be leaders of MAGA counties and towns with no sanctuary policies on their books. Complaints poured in from Trump allies across the country. “You don’t have that many mistakes on such an important federal document,” said Pat Burns, the Trump-backing mayor of the right-wing stronghold of Huntington Beach, California, mislabeled as a sanctuary city. He told the Associated Press that “somebody’s got to answer” for this “negligent” behavior.
Good luck with that. The only answer was to disappear the list this week, leaving behind a “Page Not Found” error.
Such a massive screwup hadn’t happened since … well, the previous week, when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went to the White House and released his ballyhooed “Make America Healthy Again” report full of citations of studies that don’t exist, the product of AI hallucinations.
This, in turn, was reminiscent of President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff rollout, which targeted an island full of penguins and other unpopulated or sparsely populated corners of the globe — and raised taxes on most of the world based on a math error.
And these, of course, were on top of the “mistakes” that led Trump officials to share war plans with a journalist, to deport people protected by court order, to launch a destructive fight with Harvard University, to fire and then attempt to rehire thousands of crucial federal workers, to cancel and then reinstate various vital government functions, and to misstate, often by orders of magnitude, the alleged savings from its cost-cutting attempts.
Trying to make sense of any of this? Page Not Found.
It’s obvious Trump is not interested in the best and brightest. They give him facts and truth over what he wants to hear and do, and that’s not what his massive need for attention and ego-stroking requires. Oh, up to 4000 words, and I still have managed to do something other than cover the two biggest jerks in the world jousting for air and social media time.
As you know, my Dad bombed NAZIs. I’d like to think I’d be capable of doing something brave if I were called to duty. He made it back. Many others did not. I’d just like to close with a remembrance of D-Day. There are still some D-Day vets out there who returned to the field. This is from the AP. “D-Day veterans return to Normandy to mark 81st anniversary of landings.” I remember growing up in absolute awe of all the men and women I met in my life who helped free the world of Fascists. I do not understand why the country is failing to do that now.
COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France (AP) — Veterans gathered Friday in Normandy to mark the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings — a pivotal moment of World War II that eventually led to the collapse of Adolf Hitler’s regime.
Along the coastline and near the D-Day landing beaches, tens of thousands of onlookers attended the commemorations, which included parachute jumps, flyovers, remembrance ceremonies, parades, and historical reenactments.
Many were there to cheer the ever-dwindling number of surviving veterans in their late 90s and older. All remembered the thousands who died.
Harold Terens, a 101-year-old U.S. veteran who last year married his 96-year-old sweetheart near the D-Day beaches, was back in Normandy.
“Freedom is everything,” he said. “I pray for freedom for the whole world. For the war to end in Ukraine, and Russia, and Sudan and Gaza. I think war is disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.”
Terens enlisted in 1942 and shipped to Great Britain the following year, attached to a four-pilot P-47 Thunderbolt fighter squadron as their radio repair technician. On D-Day, Terens helped repair planes returning from France so they could rejoin the battle.
Let us forever be thankful for their service and sacrifice. May we also remember that we were not alone in these battles. We have allies. At least at this moment. This song by the Dropkick Murphys is about World War 1, but the sentiment is the same.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #DDay #ICEKidnappings #JudgesRuleAgainstTrump #TrumpAdministrationScrewUpsAndCrimes #TurningBackTheDogeDisasters
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Finally Friday Reads: Page Not Found
“The National Divorce is a difficult time for all of us.” John Buss, repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
It seems uniquely American to be focused on the drama between two rich narcissistic men when so many things are going sideways in this country and this world. It’s embarrassing and depressing.
The current zeitgeist appears to be privileged, cis white men trying to get rid of their small penis energy by displaying a hypertoxic version of masculinity. The entire White House has a Lord of the Flies vibe about it. The press has totally gotten carried away with the narcissistic displays of abuse, seemingly jolting between adolescent bouts of testosterone overdose, middle-life crises complete with bright red Teslas, and male menopause.
Meanwhile, a coterie of women display Lady Macbeth levels of ruthlessness, ambition, and descent into madness and body dysmorphia with their clownish plastic surgery. This is a mad court worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy with policies worthy of a Sinclair Lewis novel. The level of ignorance on display is beyond description. I can’t believe the news all day yesterday was obsessed with the madness of Yam Tits and Musk. Let’s focus on the damage they’ve done and leave them to their latest reality show.
I think political cartoonists have a better take on this ordeal than any media outlet. Then there’s the silent majorities in Congress, saying nothing, and doing anything but the people’s business. Not since the Iraq war have I seen more shock and awe. They governed during Watergate. Are they all afraid of the cult that serves Yam Tits? Maybe we should flood their offices with copies of the Constitution with Sharpie instructions saying DO YOUR JOB!
I’m sitting here wondering if I should even start in on all the mainstream media articles and coverage about Musk and Trump. Way to feed two men with obvious narcissistic personality disorder and a side of antisocial personality disorder.
Right now, I’ll start with ProPublica, which has reliably searched out stories worthy of Upton Sinclair or Nellie Bly. Once again, our own government is doing wrong by our veterans. It’s quite sad. “DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to “Munch” Veterans Affairs Contracts. DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to “Munch” Veterans Affairs Contracts. We obtained records showing how a Department of Government Efficiency staffer with no medical experience used artificial intelligence to identify which VA contracts to kill. “AI is absolutely the wrong tool for this,” one expert said.” This bit of investigative journalism is by Brandon Roberts, Vernal Coleman, and Eric Umansky.
The more I know about AI, see its use, and am forced to sit in seminars to learn the Purdue way of dealing with it, the more I want to write a sci-fi book where their programs go mad. I do not trust bros with personality disorders, likely on the spectrum, to think with real human insight. It makes me long for Isaac Asimov.
As the Trump administration prepared to cancel contracts at the Department of Veteran Affairs this year, officials turned to a software engineer with no health care or government experience to guide them.
The engineer, working for the Department of Government Efficiency, quickly built an artificial intelligence tool to identify which services from private companies were not essential. He labeled those contracts “MUNCHABLE.”
The code, using outdated and inexpensive AI models, produced results with glaring mistakes. For instance, it hallucinated the size of contracts, frequently misreading them and inflating their value. It concluded more than a thousand were each worth $34 million, when in fact some were for as little as $35,000.
The DOGE AI tool flagged more than 2,000 contracts for “munching.” It’s unclear how many have been or are on track to be canceled — the Trump administration’s decisions on VA contracts have largely been a black box. The VA uses contractors for many reasons, including to support hospitals, research and other services aimed at caring for ailing veterans.
VA officials have said they’ve killed nearly 600 contracts overall. Congressional Democrats have been pressing VA leaders for specific details of what’s been canceled without success.
We identified at least two dozen on the DOGE list that have been canceled so far. Among the canceled contracts was one to maintain a gene sequencing device used to develop better cancer treatments. Another was for blood sample analysis in support of a VA research project. Another was to provide additional tools to measure and improve the care nurses provide.
ProPublica obtained the code and the contracts it flagged from a source and shared them with a half dozen AI and procurement experts. All said the script was flawed. Many criticized the concept of using AI to guide budgetary cuts at the VA, with one calling it “deeply problematic.”
Cary Coglianese, professor of law and of political science at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the governmental use and regulation of artificial intelligence, said he was troubled by the use of these general-purpose large language models, or LLMs. “I don’t think off-the-shelf LLMs have a great deal of reliability for something as complex and involved as this,” he said.
Sahil Lavingia, the programmer enlisted by DOGE, which was then run by Elon Musk, acknowledged flaws in the code.
“I think that mistakes were made,” said Lavingia, who worked at DOGE for nearly two months. “I’m sure mistakes were made. Mistakes are always made. I would never recommend someone run my code and do what it says. It’s like that ‘Office’ episode where Steve Carell drives into the lake because Google Maps says drive into the lake. Do not drive into the lake.”
Though Lavingia has talked about his time at DOGE previously, this is the first time his work has been examined in detail and the first time he’s publicly explained his process, down to specific lines of code.
Further technical information can be found in this follow-up article at ProPublica. “Inside the AI Prompts DOGE Used to “Munch” Contracts Related to Veterans’ Health.”
Sahil Lavingia, who wrote the code, told it to cancel, or in his words “munch,” anything that wasn’t “directly supporting patient care.” Unfortunately, neither Lavingia nor the model had the knowledge required to make such determinations.
“I think that mistakes were made,” said Lavingia, who worked at DOGE for nearly two months, in an interview with ProPublica. “I’m sure mistakes were made. Mistakes are always made.”
It turns out, a lot of mistakes were made as DOGE and the VA rushed to implement President Donald Trump’s February executive order mandating all of the VA’s contracts be reviewed within 30 days.
ProPublica obtained the code and prompts — the instructions given to the AI model — used to review the contracts and interviewed Lavingia and experts in both AI and government procurement. We are publishing an analysis of those prompts to help the public understand how this technology is being deployed in the federal government.
The experts found numerous and troubling flaws: the code relied on older, general-purpose models not suited for the task; the model hallucinated contract amounts, deciding around 1,100 of the agreements were each worth $34 million when they were sometimes worth thousands; and the AI did not analyze the entire text of contracts. Most experts said that, in addition to the technical issues, using off-the-shelf AI models for the task — with little context on how the VA works — should have been a nonstarter.
Lavingia, a software engineer enlisted by DOGE, acknowledged there were flaws in what he created and blamed, in part, a lack of time and proper tools. He also stressed that he knew his list of what he called “MUNCHABLE” contracts would be vetted by others before a final decision was made.
Even the word “munchable” makes these guys sound like 7th graders. I don’t even know what to say about the University of Michigan. I was a 7th grader when anti-Vietnam War protests picked up, but I don’t recall anything like this.
However, all over our institutions are in the service of racist and xenophobic Big Brother. (I really wish I could stop using references to dystopian literature, but sadly, it works.) This is from The Guardian. “University of Michigan using undercover investigators to surveil student Gaza protesters. Revealed: security trailing students on and off campus as video shows investigator faking disability when confronted.”
The University of Michigan is using private, undercover investigators to surveil pro-Palestinian campus groups, including trailing them on and off campus, furtively recording them and eavesdropping on their conversations, the Guardian has learned.
The surveillance appears to largely be an intimidation tactic, five students who have been followed, recorded or eavesdropped on said. The undercover investigators have cursed at students, threatened them and in one case drove a car at a student who had to jump out of the way, according to student accounts and video footage shared with the Guardian.
Students say they have frequently identified undercover investigators and confronted them. In two bizarre interactions captured by one student on video, a man who had been trailing the student faked disabilities, and noisily – and falsely – accused a student of attempting to rob him.
The undercover investigators appear to work for Detroit-based City Shield, a private security group, and some of their evidence was used by Michigan prosecutors to charge and jail students, according to a Guardian review of police records, university spending records and video collected in legal discovery. Most charges were later dropped. Public spending records from the U-M board of regents, the school’s governing body, show the university paid at least $800,000 between June 2023 and September 2024 to City Shield’s parent company, Ameri-Shield.
Among those who say they’re being regularly followed is Katarina Keating, part of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (Safe), a local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. Keating said the surveillance has caused her to feel “on edge”, and she often looks over her shoulder since November, when she was first followed.
“But on another level it sometimes feels comedic because it’s so insane that they have spent millions of dollars to hire some goons to follow campus activists around,” Keating added. “It’s just such a waste of money and time.”
How’s this for government efficiency? The NYPD and ICE mistakenly arrest a Chilean woman on vacation in New York City. Police left her 12-year-old daughter on the street alone. This country is no longer safe from arbitrary arrest and detention by morans in law enforcement.
There appears to be a bit of a correction of the DOGE overreach in the Federal Government. This is reported in the Washington Post by Hannah Natanson, Adam Taylor, Meryl Kornfield, Rachel Siegel, and Scott Dance. That’s a lot of reporters for a lot of agencies. “Trump administration races to fix a big mistake: DOGE fired too many people. Across the government, officials are rehiring federal workers who were forced out or encouraged to resign.” Do you suppose all the Trump/Musk drama is just a distraction from the kind of news that’s falling off the front pages but should be screamed in front-page headlines? They fucked up folks! Let’s bury the lede!
Across the government, the Trump administration is scrambling to rehire many federal employees dismissed under DOGE’s staff-slashing initiatives after wiping out entire offices, in some cases imperiling key services such as weather forecasting and the drug approval process.
Since Musk left the White House last week, he and Trump have fallen out bitterly, sniping at each other in public over the cost of Trump’s sweeping tax legislation and government subsidies for Musk’s businesses. But even before that, the administration was working to undo some of DOGE’s highest-profile actions.
Trump officials are trying to recover not only people who were fired, but also thousands of experienced senior staffers who are opting for a voluntary exit as the administration rolls out a second resignation offer. Thousands more staff are returning in fits and starts as a conflicting patchwork of court decisions overturn some of Trump’s large-scale firings, especially his Valentine’s Day dismissal of all probationary workers, those with one or two years of government service and fewer job protections. A federal judge in April ordered the president to reinstate probationary workers dismissed from 20 federal agencies, although a few days later the Supreme Court — in a different case — halted another judge’s order to reinstate a smaller group.
Some fired federal employees, especially those at retirement age or who have since secured jobs in the private sector, are proving reluctant to return. So the administration is seeking work-arounds and stopgaps, including asking remaining staff to serve in new roles, work overtime or volunteer to fill vacancies, according to interviews with 18 federal workers across eight agencies and messages obtained by The Washington Post. A Post review found recent messy re-hirings at agencies including the Food and Drug Administration, the IRS, the State Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In some cases, the government is posting new online job listings very similar to positions it recently vacated, a Post review of USAJobs found
The ever-shifting personnel changes are yet another strain on a workforce already weary of Trump-induced uncertainty, said current and former employees, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
“They wanted to show they were gutting the government, but there was no thought about what parts might be worth keeping,” said one FDA staffer who was fired and rehired. “Now it feels like it was all just a game to them.”
Notice they just had to point out the Trump/Musk WWE event just to distract you for even a moment. It seems we no longer have caped crusaders but black-robed ones. This is from The Harvard Crimson. “Judge Blocks Trump Proclamation Banning International Students From Entering U.S. on Harvard Visas.” I’m just seeing Trump failures everywhere. No wonder they needed a new reality show season.
A federal judge granted Harvard’s request for a temporary restraining order hours after the University asked her to block the Trump administration’s Wednesday proclamation banning international students from entering the United States on Harvard-sponsored visas.
The order was issued just four hours after Harvard filed an amended complaint accusing the Trump administration of retaliating against the University by preventing incoming international students from entering the U.S. to attend Harvard.
U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs also announced that the court would extend the TRO first granted to Harvard on May 23 — one day after the DHS revoked Harvard’s eligibility to host international students — until June 20, the date requested by the University. Burroughs had already agreed to extend the TRO once before, following a May 29 hearing.
Thursday’s TRO will reinstate international students’ ability to enter the country to attend Harvard until a June 16 hearing scheduled by Burroughs — but the University will need to file for a preliminary injunction to extend its ability to host international students until the court determines its legality in court.
In the amended complaint, Harvard wrote that Trump’s proclamation was “a transparent attempt to circumvent the temporary restraining order this Court already entered against the summary revocation of Harvard’s SEVP certification.”
It argued that — without urgent action — the proclamation would have dramatic costs for admitted students attempting to enter the U.S. and subject current students to fear they would be arbitrarily deported.
Burroughs, in an order published well after working hours Thursday night, deemed that Harvard had made a “sufficient showing” that it would sustain “immediate and irreparable harm” unless a TRO was granted.
But both the TRO — and a future preliminary injunction, if Harvard seeks one and Burroughs rules favorably — are only provisional protections.
CBS shows that the Yam Tits Administration still thinks getting every little thing to the Supreme Court will solve all of its problems. Melissa Quinn reports that “Trump administration asks Supreme Court to allow mass layoffs at Education Department.
President Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to clear the way for it to continue with its efforts to dismantle the Department of Education and lay off more than 1,300 employees while a legal fight over the future of the department moves forward.
The Justice Department is seeking the high court’s intervention in a pair of disputes brought by a group of 20 states, school districts and teachers unions, which challenge Mr. Trump’s plans to unwind the Department of Education. The president signed an executive order in March directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to facilitate the department’s closure to the maximum extent allowed under the law.
As part of Mr. Trump’s pledge to get rid of the department, the administration canceled a host of grants and executed a reduction in force, or a layoff, that impacted 1,378 employees — roughly a third of the department’s workforce. Affected workers were placed on administrative leave and were to receive full pay and benefits until June 9.
Mr. Trump also announced that the Small Business Administration would take over the Education Department’s student-loan portfolio, and the Department of Health and Human Services would handle special education, nutrition and other related services.
In response to the lawsuits challenging Mr. Trump’s actions, a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked the administration from carrying out its layoffs, finding that the reduction-in-force was a unilateral effort to close the department, which would violate the separation of powers.
Okay, this is an update, and I just had to put it up
Oh, speaking of those delightful Republican Congress Critters, here’s a headline for you from The Guardian. “Republican senator employs aide fired by DeSantis over neo-Nazi imagery. Nate Hochman, staffer for Eric Schmitt, also peddled far-right conspiracy theories as experts decry rise in extremism.” Gosh, another Cis White Male Christian Nationalist for Adolf! What a surprise!
A staffer for Missouri Republican senator Eric Schmitt was previously fired from Ron DeSantis’s unsuccessful presidential campaign after making a video containing neo-Nazi imagery, and later peddled far-right conspiracy theories in a Marco Rubio-linked thinktank.
Nate Hochman’s job in the hard-right senator’s office, along with earlier Trump appointments to executive agencies, suggest to some experts there are few barriers to far-right activists making a career in Republican party politics.
The Guardian contacted Eric Schmitt’s office for comment.
Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told the Guardian: “Hochman’s position shows once again that there are no guardrails against extremists in the GOP nowadays.”
She added: “Racism, antisemitism and other abhorrent beliefs don’t seem to stop extremists from appointments with far-right politicians, including in the highest office of the presidency.”
Hochman, 26, has worked for Schmitt since February, according to congressional information website LegiStorm, a development that was first noted on political newsletter Liberal Currents.
He has also posted dozens of times to X to publicize Schmitt’s initiatives, media appearances, and speeches.
The Guardian reported last September on Hochman’s previous job at America 2100, an organization founded in 2023 as a thinktank. The organization was founded by Mike Needham, who served as Marco Rubio’s chief of staff from 2018 to 2023 when Rubio was a senator and who is once again his chief of staff at the state department.
In that and subsequent reporting, it was revealed that Hochman’s work for America 2100 was focused on producing videos, some of which targeted Haitian migrants in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, and others that rehearsed conspiracy theories about LGBTQ people and human rights organizations.
This was the latest in a string of scandals in the young operative’s political career.
In July 2023 he was fired from the presidential campaign of Florida governor Ron DeSantis after retweeting a pro-DeSantis, anti-Trump video.
As the Guardian reported, the video portrayed a “‘Wojak’ meme, a sad-looking man popular on the right, against headlines about Trump policy failures before showing the meme cheering up to headlines about DeSantis and images of the governor at work”, all to the tune of Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill.
Finally, it superimposed DeSantis on to ranks of marching soldiers and a Sonnenrad – a Norse symbol frequently appropriated by neo-Nazis.
As Hochman departed the campaign, Axios reported he had made the video but endeavored to make it “appear as if it was produced externally”.
The New York Times has a Guest Op-Ed up from two law professors about how the Trump administration is giving a loyalty test to anyone looking for a job within the Federal Government. How unconstitutional is that? “How to Stack the Federal Work Force With ‘Patriotic Americans’ Who Agree With Trump.”
The White House took a step last week that significantly undercuts the idea that federal employment should be nonpartisan. A May 29 memo from the Office of Personnel Management may seem technical, but the policy that it outlines has grave implications for how the government functions and creates an unconstitutional political test for federal hiring.
At heart, the new policy is about viewpoint discrimination: People applying for federal jobs whose views the Trump administration does not like will not be hired. This is the most recent of the administration’s actions to undermine the nonpartisan Civil Service and consolidate control over almost all federal employees in the White House.
In a densely worded, 12-page memo, Vince Haley, an assistant to the president for domestic policy, and Charles Ezell, the acting O.P.M. director, make fealty to the president’s agenda a criterion for hiring for most federal positions. Imposing such a litmus test for nonpolitical positions runs afoul of the nearly 150-year-old federal Civil Service law, the 1939 Hatch Act and the First Amendment.
Under federal law, about 4,000 federal jobs are filled by political appointees. These positions allow the president to appoint those who share his views and to remove those who do not support his policy priorities. Most remaining federal jobs are hired based on nonpartisan and objective assessments of merit, and the hiring criteria are tied to the job duties.
The recent memo would, in effect, dramatically expand that exception for political appointees to include everyone at what’s known as level GS-5 or above — a group that includes clerical positions, technicians for soil conservation and firefighters. The ideologies and views of these individuals should play no role in their potential hiring.
The policy announced in the memo requires every person applying for a position level GS-5 or above to submit four essays. One requires that the applicant address: “How would you help advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities in this role? Identify one or two relevant executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.” Another prompt: “How has your commitment to the Constitution and the founding principles of the United States inspired you to pursue this role within the federal government? Provide a concrete example from professional, academic or personal experience.”
Imagine that someone applying to be a secretary or a soil technician or a firefighter were to answer with: I believe the founding principles of this country were racist and I do not adhere to them. Or: I will perform my job to the best of my abilities and will follow federal law, but I do not see my position as political in any way.
It’s hard to imagine that those people would be hired. And yet, the Civil Service was created in the 19th century precisely to avoid such politically based hiring. The prohibition on political considerations in hiring was strengthened by the Hatch Act, which was enacted at the behest of conservatives who worried that too many Democrats had been hired to staff New Deal agencies.
One more Op-Ed from Dana Milbank at the Washington Post before I close. “They are not good at this. Nearly five months into Trump’s new reign of error, his administration’s mistakes are multiplying.
On May 29, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem released a “comprehensive list of sanctuary jurisdictions.” She was “exposing these sanctuary politicians” because they are “endangering Americans and our law enforcement in order to protect violent criminal illegal aliens.”
But it immediately became clear that the list of more than 500 states, counties and cities was riddled with errors: misspellings, cities and counties mistaken for each other, and places that don’t exist. Cincinnati became “Cincinnatti,” Campbell County (Kentucky) became “Cambell” County, Greeley County (Nebraska) became “Greenley” County, Takoma Park (Maryland) became “Tacoma” Park, while “Martinsville County” (Virginia) was invented. And so on.
Worse, scores of the “sanctuary politicians” she called out turned out to be leaders of MAGA counties and towns with no sanctuary policies on their books. Complaints poured in from Trump allies across the country. “You don’t have that many mistakes on such an important federal document,” said Pat Burns, the Trump-backing mayor of the right-wing stronghold of Huntington Beach, California, mislabeled as a sanctuary city. He told the Associated Press that “somebody’s got to answer” for this “negligent” behavior.
Good luck with that. The only answer was to disappear the list this week, leaving behind a “Page Not Found” error.
Such a massive screwup hadn’t happened since … well, the previous week, when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went to the White House and released his ballyhooed “Make America Healthy Again” report full of citations of studies that don’t exist, the product of AI hallucinations.
This, in turn, was reminiscent of President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff rollout, which targeted an island full of penguins and other unpopulated or sparsely populated corners of the globe — and raised taxes on most of the world based on a math error.
And these, of course, were on top of the “mistakes” that led Trump officials to share war plans with a journalist, to deport people protected by court order, to launch a destructive fight with Harvard University, to fire and then attempt to rehire thousands of crucial federal workers, to cancel and then reinstate various vital government functions, and to misstate, often by orders of magnitude, the alleged savings from its cost-cutting attempts.
Trying to make sense of any of this? Page Not Found.
It’s obvious Trump is not interested in the best and brightest. They give him facts and truth over what he wants to hear and do, and that’s not what his massive need for attention and ego-stroking requires. Oh, up to 4000 words, and I still have managed to do something other than cover the two biggest jerks in the world jousting for air and social media time.
As you know, my Dad bombed NAZIs. I’d like to think I’d be capable of doing something brave if I were called to duty. He made it back. Many others did not. I’d just like to close with a remembrance of D-Day. There are still some D-Day vets out there who returned to the field. This is from the AP. “D-Day veterans return to Normandy to mark 81st anniversary of landings.” I remember growing up in absolute awe of all the men and women I met in my life who helped free the world of Fascists. I do not understand why the country is failing to do that now.
COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France (AP) — Veterans gathered Friday in Normandy to mark the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings — a pivotal moment of World War II that eventually led to the collapse of Adolf Hitler’s regime.
Along the coastline and near the D-Day landing beaches, tens of thousands of onlookers attended the commemorations, which included parachute jumps, flyovers, remembrance ceremonies, parades, and historical reenactments.
Many were there to cheer the ever-dwindling number of surviving veterans in their late 90s and older. All remembered the thousands who died.
Harold Terens, a 101-year-old U.S. veteran who last year married his 96-year-old sweetheart near the D-Day beaches, was back in Normandy.
“Freedom is everything,” he said. “I pray for freedom for the whole world. For the war to end in Ukraine, and Russia, and Sudan and Gaza. I think war is disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.”
Terens enlisted in 1942 and shipped to Great Britain the following year, attached to a four-pilot P-47 Thunderbolt fighter squadron as their radio repair technician. On D-Day, Terens helped repair planes returning from France so they could rejoin the battle.
Let us forever be thankful for their service and sacrifice. May we also remember that we were not alone in these battles. We have allies. At least at this moment. This song by the Dropkick Murphys is about World War 1, but the sentiment is the same.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #DDay #ICEKidnappings #JudgesRuleAgainstTrump #TrumpAdministrationScrewUpsAndCrimes #TurningBackTheDogeDisasters
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I just read a piece about #Palantir in the latest issue [June 2025] of the #DSA newsletter, "In These Times." A very timely piece indeed!
Palantir and American #TechnoFascism
"A new recruitment campaign appeared on the elite U.S. college campus last April. In schools such as Carnegie Mellon, Cornell and Penn, posters glued to bus stops, with black background, issued a disturbing warning: the time has come for reckoning for the West, before accusing most technology companies of not considering the national interest when they decide what should be built. On the contrary, Palantir, the defense contractor specializing in data analysis and responsible for this recruitment campaign, stated that he does not merely build technological products - to guarantee the future of the United States, but, in fact, to dominate.
"The implicit message of advertising reflects the conviction of Palantir's leaders, including founder #PeterThiel and Chief Executive Officer #AlexKarp, that Silicon Valley's real mandate is to consolidate the military supremacy of the United States and the West, a nostalgic reaction to the happy days of the Cold War and its merger between state, engineering and capital.
"In this version of technological #nationalism, the make America great again translates into an impulse for dominance, of course, against foreign adversaries but also against the "Woke capital," effeminate consumerism and a university system dedicated to social justice and diversity (the Palantir posters were published together with a new initiative that invites talented high school students to "judge the indoctrination" of higher education in exchange for a four-month Palantir scholarship).
"Palantir has strong reason to organize his recruiting career. Although critics retangled when their shares plummeted briefly after Trump's tariff announcement, Palantir's stock market capitalization currently exceeds $270 billion, more than triple its value last September. In addition, the company's ability to establish high-level contacts among national security personnel has generated a series of government contracts linked to the acceleration of #Trumpist #authoritarianism.
"Palantir has already collaborated with #ElonMusk's #SpaceX and the AI and robo robotor #Anduril (another tech company with the theme of The Lord of the Rings led by another #FarRight businessman) to begin building Trump's #GoldenDome, an American version of #Israel's Iron Dome air defense system. It is also working with Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (#DOGE) to create an app programming interface that will allow #HomelandSecurity to track tax data for more undocumented taxpayers to expel.
"In April, Palantir, who has long boasted of his collaborations with military, police and border agents, won a $29.8 million contract with #ICE to improve his #dystopian Immigration Lifecycle Operating System. That is, it is intended to provide molecular and real-time information on immigrants that the government seeks to monitor, arrest and expel. The company is preparing to review ICE's investigative case management system to better track target populations across hundreds of data categories, from eye color to tattoos, job management and social security numbers.
"Palantir's #fascist research and development does not stop at the borders of the United States: the company and Karp have proclaimed their ideological and material support for Israel, which carries out the genocide in Gaza. In January 2024, during an extraordinary board meeting in Tel Aviv, the company announced its strategic alliance with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, providing it with technology for war, possibly including its Artificial Intelligence Platform, sold as a way to incorporate language models-fueled chatbots into real-time decision-making processes in war zones. The company's leadership has made it clear that its conception of Western supremacy implies the uncompromising defense of Zionism abroad and far-right nationalism in the country.
"In all this, it has become clear that Palantir represents the alliance between the technology industry and authoritarian nationalism much more than Musk's clumsy Nazi salutes, sensationalist pronatalism or trolling 'dark #MAGA.' As technology academic Jathan Sadowski recently wrote, 'From the beginning, Palantir's purpose has been to provide... the ontological plan to fascism, helping his ideological objectives come true materially.
"In other words, Palantir is building the digital infrastructure to integrate the multiple forms of violence and state control on which contemporary #authoritarianism is based: from the software needed for mass deportations to AI used in wars against #ColonizedPeoples.
"But Palantir not only builds to dominate, he also wants to tell us why. Less than a month after Trump's inauguration, Karp published his book, The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, written with the head of Palantir's affairs, Nicolas W. - Zamiska. The book is a strange and prolific mix of neoconservative texts, pseudo-erudite reflections and corporate pamphlets (and apparently shows strong signs of possible use of artificial intelligence).
"In its attempt to unite the praise of Silicon Valley engineers with a strident demand for rearmament from the West, The Technological Republic draws a vision of the future in which the intuitions about creativity, taken from the study of swarms of bees or Jackson Pollock's paintings, are put at the service of ensuring a broad spectrum technological dominance. At the centre is the regret that a compact liberal elite has exhausted the moral courage and technological dynamism of the West just as it faces the revolution of artificial intelligence and emerging Chinese hegemony. After the vague rhetoric of the cultural war, it is not difficult to perceive Karp and Palantir's angry reaction to the #resistance organized by technological workers through campaigns such as '#NoTechForIce or #TechWorkersCoalition' to the project of building to dominate.
"Just as Karp has underlined his company's commitment to Israeli supremacy, so does his book speak of a 'left' chased by the spectre of #Palestine. The executive director of a company that reaps huge profits from surveillance and data extraction systems, aimed at expelling dissidents and undocumented people, Karp writes with contempt of those who want to remain anonymous during Israel's war camps in #Gaza. Quote a student who says, 'If I give my name, I lose my future.' With an astonishing lack of self-consciousness he comments: 'The protective veil of #anonymity could [...] rob this generation of the opportunity to develop an instinct for true mastery of an idea, of the reward of victory in the public square, as well as the costs of defeat.
"This is the same book that, in a variant of the conspiracy theory of cultural Marxism, Edward Said's Orientalism is the main culprit of the emasculation of an academic world built around Western civilization and, therefore, as one more factor in the hesitant technological supremacy of the United States. As Karp states, the book of the Palestinian-American critic has destabilized - a whole way of being an academic in the university establishment, has been the vehicle through which the academic world would be remade.
"The Technological Republic reveals that contemporary #TechnoNationalism and #TechnoMilitarism have nothing to do with building infrastructure for state control and violence, but also with the promotion of an indistinguishable ideology of those who try to sell you something. Palantir reaps benefits not only from the way fear of migrants, artificial intelligence, the upcoming wars waged by drone swarms, mobilizes the resources of governments, but also from speech and uproar. His company's stock market capitalization has quadrupled in the past year, far surpassing revenue-derived growth. This vacuum is filled with speculation, that is, with words and ideas about the future. The future Karp sells is one in which the alternative is ruin (China geopolitical supremacy) or (American) dominance. Behind all the complaints of The Technological Republic about the crisis of confidence in the West, what Karp really wants us to believe is in Palantir, that is, the old business of war, racism and repression marketed through a brilliant new interface."
[Original - in Spanish]
https://ficciondelarazon.org/2025/05/14/alberto-toscano-palantir-y-el-tecno-fascismo-estadounidense/#BigBrother #ICERaids #CorporateColonialism #Colonialism #Fascism #USPol #WorldPol