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helping organize crowdsourced information about the 1/6 Capitol attack. mostly now at: @capitolhunters.bsky.social also: @capitolhunters@mastodon.social
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Jun 5 4 tweets 2 min read
Howard Lutnick, our Sec. of Commerce, shows a disconnect from material reality that will make Americans die. A weather forecast cannot be "automated" or MADE AT ALL without data. And Trump is cutting the satellites and weather stations that provide that data. 1/ Lutnick, who is in charge of NOAA and its National Weather Service, seem to think that if you say "web" and "cloud" and "computer" and "AI" then by some magic knowledge appears. But weather forecasts depend on MEASUREMENTS. Which Lutnick is cutting. 2/
kcci.com/article/propos…
May 30 4 tweets 2 min read
Since Frank Luntz is defending Elon Musk, a recap: Luntz, like Roger Stone, was one of "Arthur's boys", mentored by Arthur Finkelstein, the dark lord of negative campaigns who (tho gay and Jewish), pushed homophobic far-right extremists - and gave us Orban, Netanyahu, & Trump. 1/ It was the Jewish Arthur Finkelstein who created the antisemitic George Soros conspiracy, to propel Victor Orban to power. Anything to get his clients elected. Everything Luntz says now is shaded by that history. 2/
buzzfeednews.com/article/hnsgra…
May 30 14 tweets 5 min read
Exactly as predicted, now that DOGE has scraped all your personal data from government agencies, it is being given to Peter Thiel's Palantir. It was always going to be Peter, who dreamed of dictatorship for decades, patiently built up his "political project" to seize power. 1/ Image The NYT doesn't say HOW it was decided to give Palantir all your personal data, only that it was a no-bid contract directed by "Elon Musk's DOGE". (DOGE was always a project of Peter's too.) But Thiel had installed a protege to do just this. 2/
nytimes.com/2025/05/30/tec…Image
May 29 6 tweets 3 min read
NOTUS: RFK Jr's big "Make America Healthy Again" report cites non-existent studies and looks written by AI. These people now say they will override scientists to determine what is and is not "gold-standard science". Brace for public health disasters. 1/
notus.org/health-science… Trump is waging war on knowledge. Trump's Executive Order of last week was a bid to seize control of the science agencies, under the pretext that most science data is falsified: "a reproducibility crisis". It's projection - accuse others of what you do. 2/
whitehouse.gov/presidential-a…Image
May 27 7 tweets 3 min read
Today Trump froze ALL student visa applications. Let's be clear on what this is - it's an attack on knowledge. About half the graduate students who power U.S. research are foreign. (Compare dark blue & dark red in chart.) No students = no advances in science, medicine, tech. 1/ Image Politico missed this point today, writing that revoking student visas would hit universities because "many... rely heavily on foreign students for funds". What it hits most is research: those visas go mostly to PhD-student researchers working in labs. 2/
politico.com/news/2025/05/2…
May 19 8 tweets 3 min read
CBS' 60 Minutes is airing a puff piece about weapons maker Anduril, a company backed by Peter Thiel, whose CEO is Matt Gaetz's brother-in-law. Let's remember that both the exec producer of 60 Minutes and the CEO of CBS recently quit saying they were losing editorial control. 1/ Palmer Luckey, Anduril CEO, is eagerly promoting it - it's not going to be hard-hitting. Ask why CBS, facing a bs lawsuit by Trump, is airing a promo for a wanna-be defense contractor deeply tied to the people now tearing apart the federal government. 2/
npr.org/2025/05/19/nx-…
May 11 8 tweets 3 min read
Everyone's talking about the bribery part of Trump's gift of a $400M superluxury airplane from the Emir of Qatar but no one's covered the security risk part. Trump will be doing private meetings in a vehicle provided by a foreign government. 1/
abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump… Is it likely Trump's folks can effectively sweep that plane for listening devices? Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff just walked into a meeting with Putin using a Russian intelligence officer as his translator. They're not the sharpest pencils in the box. 2/
May 9 4 tweets 2 min read
Ed Martin just got named Trump's "Pardon Attorney" (plus Associate Deputy AG). He does know the subject - in 2020, Martin brokered a pardon for Michael Flynn in exchange for Flynn's speaking at Stop the Steal rallies. Martin knows how to cut a pardon deal. 1/ Image This 2023 thread covers the story. Nov. 4, the day after the election, Ali Alexander spun up Stop the Steal with Ed Martin as a top recruit. Nov. 7, Martin reaches out to the White House with a deal: pardon Flynn and he'll help with "base-rallying". 2/
May 6 8 tweets 4 min read
Trump just declared Harvard ineligible for all grants and the NYT botches the story. It's not that "Harvard.. relies on federal money..[for] its projects". It's the federal government that relies on Harvard for its projects. Harvard provides services for you, the taxpayer. 1/ Image The NYT's phrasing is as dumb as saying gosh, your plumber relies on your money for HIS plumbing projects! What happens is the federal government puts out a call for research in some area, on YOUR behalf. Individuals then submit proposals to do that work. Just like plumbers. 2/ Image
May 5 6 tweets 2 min read
Reporters: yes, alt-right gadfly Ivan Raiklin says crazy stuff, but what's most interesting about him is the backstory, how he was groomed to be an influencer. Because Raiklin is of Russian origin: parents are Russian emigres, brother a Russian scholar, wife a Russian teacher. 1/ Ivan Raiklin could have been on a list since his summer in Moscow in 2002. His brother Ben would be known from his PhD ("Stalin’s Documentary Filmmaking Industry, 1926-1946"). And Ben's insecure little brother, an officer in the National Guard, would be such a tempting target. 2/
May 1 5 tweets 2 min read
Stephen Miller confirms what anyone who studies Jan 6 knows: Trump's government wants to control education and impose a national 'patriotic' curriculum. It was OBVIOUS this was coming: Trump promised this in 2020 in exchange for support for his coup. But pundits ignored it. 1/ This account first called it in 2022. THE DAY BEFORE THE ELECTION Trump set up a commission on patriotic education. The people who led it - from Hillsdale & Claremont - then wrote his election-fraud lawsuits, arranged fake electors. They met on Jan 5. 2/
Apr 23 6 tweets 3 min read
Our new Navy Director of Communications watched the action at the Capitol on Jan 6 for Breitbart News. Her worst post might be this one: she flippantly captioned a video of people attacking the North Doors: "Things got a lil sporty here". To her it was a joke. Video tk. 1/ Image Here's Wong's video of the attack on the North Doors. She can claim she was just a reporter, but her caption shows that she thinks an attack on our Capitol and officers is funny. @SECNAV: is this the message you want to send to the troops, who swear to uphold the Constitution? 2/
Apr 22 12 tweets 4 min read
It's clear by now: we WILL lose US democracy without a civil society pushback. Today the universities finally rose up, bluntly denouncing "undue government intrusion". The coalition is is now top-heavy with establishment heavyweights. Summary follows. 1/
theguardian.com/us-news/2025/a… Who signed? Let's start with the Ivies. Status-worship is gross, but it matters that they're nearly all leading now:

* Ivy: Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Penn, Brown
NOT Columbia, Dartmouth
* Ivy-plus: MIT, Duke
NOT Stanford, Univ. of Chicago
2/
Apr 21 4 tweets 2 min read
When Trump's goons threatened Harvard it was clear what would happen: first PR, then lawyers. Harvard has now filed suit, solo against 8 government agencies. Two main points: 1) government did not follow procedure, 2) government cannot dictate speech. 1/
harvard.edu/research-fundi…Image As you'd expect, Harvard has also put out a smooth letter explaining their lawsuit. It starts by outlining the 5 attacks Trump has made on Harvard. Then pivots to defending research. Then thoughts on antisemitism - giving Trump an offramp he could take. 2/
harvard.edu/president/news…Image
Apr 21 6 tweets 3 min read
The public needs to learn how Kristi Noem, a cabinet official with Secret Service protection, got her purse snatched with DHS badge, passport, maybe phone: now a security risk. If she'd asked the SS to stand down for privacy, we need to know who was she having dinner with. 1/ Image Either #1: Noem had an intimate restaurant dinner (on Easter?) she felt was so important she put US security at risk. Or, #2: Noem didn't ask the Secret Service to back off, and our elite agency let a purse-snatcher get within arm's length of a cabinet secretary. Or.. 2/
Apr 19 6 tweets 3 min read
The Trump admin now CLAIMS to have made a mistake. Not "acknowledges". Trump's clowns sent a letter signed by 3 government officials, got the predictable response (mighty Harvard swung into battle), tried to amplify and flopped, and so now are whining it's all Harvard's fault. 1/ Image The NYT article is pretty good. It repeats admin claims, but makes it clear that they're in chaos. They know they messed up and are scrambling. Predictably, Harvard had been negotiating, before that letter - but it sent them into battle. Unpaywalled link: archive.is/YsHpJImage
Apr 17 6 tweets 2 min read
A new attack on Harvard, another attempt to impose government control. Trump first tried with $: canceling researchers' grants, threatening taxes. Now an attack via visas: to deport ALL Harvard's international students (38% of PhDs doing lab research). 1/
thecrimson.com/article/2025/4… Trump's demand, again, is a classic from the fascist playbook: to force Harvard to monitor its students and report to the US government. This visa threat can't be countered with money. But Trump is missing one key issue. Many Harvard international undergrads are global elites. 2/
Apr 16 10 tweets 3 min read
Cannot emphasize enough how much of an own-goal it is to tell a university with a $53 billion endowment and a a giant PR team that you want to destroy them. Trump's goons blew it. Today's news is full of sympathetic profiles of crucial Harvard health research. Lawyers next. 1/ Image Fascist regimes have always managed to co-opt universities, which are timid and self-protective and can be gradually weakened. But Trump's idiots blew it last week with insane demands to set up a police state overnight. They forced Harvard to fight. 2/
static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/d…Image
Apr 14 4 tweets 2 min read
Just going to keep reposting this screenshot from Bukele's inauguration last year every time he lies in reporters' faces about how he can't return an innocent US resident. This is the guy who will be imprisoning US citizens next. 1/ Image Listen to what Trump says to Bukele, in this video posted by Bukele himself. At 7:29 Trump leans over and whispers: "homegrowns are next" - US citizens. And "you're going to have to build about 5 more prisons". Flagged by the NPR correspondent. 2/
Apr 12 8 tweets 4 min read
Trump defers to El Salvador's sovereignty but threatens Greenland. Why? It's not strange. Trump is deferring to Silicon Valley neo-fascists. They dream of seizing Greenland, but El Salvador president Bukele is their guy. He's their test case for a crypto-powered autocracy. 1/ Bukele branded himself the tech-friendly modern dictator: yes death squads, but also Bitcoin. Shred your old financial system and pay salaries in Bitcoin? Done in El Salvador. Spend taxpayer money on a national cryptocurrency reserve? Also El Salvador. 2/
time.com/6103299/bitcoi…Image
Apr 10 5 tweets 3 min read
The dreaded "I told you so" moment: for years this account has warned that Trump and his backers want to dictate what schools can teach, from K-12 and university. That they wanted to impose curricula. And now it's here: Trump is trying to seize Columbia, a private university. 1/ Image n Sep. 2022 I put it in a Twitter thread: that Trump had offered control over education as a quid pro quo for supporting his coup. Trump may not care about schools, but the people behind him do. They want to take away freedom of thought and speech. 2/