onfocus

According to ethics disclosure reports released by the White House, Miller owns between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in Palantir, Peter Thiel’s data and intelligence software company that has a several lucrative contracts with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to track data and conduct surveillance on undocumented immigrants. It’s a pretty clear conflict of interest from the man behind much of Donald Trump’s immigration policy, in an administration that is already rife with corruption.

Hateful sure, and also corrupt!

“We are witnessing something without precedent,” Bonica wrote. “[A] Supreme Court that appears to be at war with the federal judiciary’s core constitutional function.”

The coup is coming from inside the house.

Thomas’s world is one where reality barely exists. Mountains of research can be dismissed in favor of a handful of op-eds. Dozens of prominent organizations can be disregarded as in thrall to liberal ideologies, while fringe right-wing groups are treated as unbiased purveyors of truth.

Excellent description of how conspiracy world-view operates.

The pretense of making America safer has been discarded. America won’t get any safer, just as surely as it won’t get any greater under this president. For years, it’s been known that migrants commit fewer crimes than natural-born citizens. But with arrest numbers flagging after an initial, more-targeted surge, the administration made it clear it was time to hit the streets and round up any foreigners ICE might come across.

Mass deporting people was never about stopping crime.

“If you have somebody who’s expressing a high degree of hostility to the court, on whatever basis … the danger, of course, is somebody might pick up on that. And we have had, of course, serious threats of violence and murder of judges just simply for doing their work,” Roberts said during an appearance at a judicial conference.

Ah yes, the simple work of dismantling our constitutional democracy, enabling authoritarianism, and taking away the rights of Americans while taking lavish gifts from billionaires. Let's all calm down about all of this before someone gets hurt.

One week after 5 million Americans flooded the streets for a massive “No Kings” protest, with his approval rating heading underwater faster than the next climate-fueled flash flood, with his masked-secret-police deportation drive starting to alienate his own voters, with gas prices and 20-something unemployment starting to soar, and almost zero legislation despite GOP control of Congress, Trump showed that even a POTUS who hates canines can still wag the dog.

Only Will Bunch is allowed to tell the truth? And the Philadelphia Inquirer is the only independent newspaper left?

But for now, the data clearly show that Americans — across party lines — are very wary of another war in the Middle East and disapprove of the U.S. bombing Iran. These recent polls reveal a broad reluctance for military action, even among Trump voters.

It’s worth looking at a snapshot of public opinion before the consent manufacturing machine starts rolling. (Link to archive version because Substack continues to be the worst.)

At every stage, Trump and Miller have pursued things that an aspiring dictator in a declining state might do to stave off further decline. But those very same acts from a country with what had been the best economy in the world, currency hegemony, and unsurpassed scientific know-how have the opposite effect. They make the aspiring dictator weaker, first externally and then, as a result, internally.

This is a great point. Following the failing-country dictator playbook in a strong world power on-the-rise is having the opposite effect: weakening rather than strengthening their positions.

This video is a good introduction to the fediverse. I've been on Mastodon since 2018 or so and it's now the only social network I use. It doesn't have ads, has better privacy controls, and gives much better filtering and muting options. Mastodon lacks some polish in the signup and discovery features, but makes up for that in lots of other daily life ways.

After federal health officials made abrupt changes to US Covid-19 vaccine recommendations for pregnant women last month, there’s new confusion and uncertainty about who can get the shots — and some reports that patients were turned away when they tried to get vaccinated.

In the future, please vote for people who want other people to suffer less. Republicans are trying to make sure we are sicker through anti-science policies.

The world according to Stephen Miller is a cruel and callous one, in which America is strictly for unhyphenated Americans and those here “illegally” must be forcibly returned to the “failed states” where they were born. To Miller, the crumbling American heartland is being preyed on not by rapacious capital but by an invading army of gangsters, thugs, and terrorists waved in by coastal liberal elites—in other words, by exactly the kind of people he has always lived among.

Meet your shadow President.

The DeepMind CEO is dead-set that advanced AI models will bring about a renaissance in human existence. The “golden era” is only five short years away. “AGI can solve what I call root-node problems in the world—curing terrible diseases, much healthier and longer lifespans, finding new energy sources,” Hassabis said.

Someone needs to check in on the standard tech CEO ketamine dosage. I feel like it's dialed too high at the moment.