This doesn’t seem to be getting enough attention. The Silicon Valley social contract forced on the public by Obama and then Trump and then Biden (minus Lina Khan) and now Trump was straight forward: We will let these bros become the richest people in human history and in exchange they will develop a tech industry that makes the U.S. dominant for a century.

They did the first part, then built monopolies to try to keep out competition rather than continue to innovate at a top level, and then got out-competed by Chinese companies in both AI and social media. They are the losers we always thought they were — and now so are we. Now they’re gonna spend $500B gobbling up energy in Texas to build a product China is making for $5B and giving away basically free. Lemme know how that goes.

Meanwhile the Texas grid breaks when it gets cold.

IDF is now openly acknowledging the 5 journalists they incinerated were indeed operating as journalists, but the IDF believed their work was “combat propaganda.”

The IDF is entitled to its opinion and is free to engage in media criticism, but deliberately killed 5 journalists because you don’t like their work is terrorism, barbarism, a crime against humanity, and should be prosecuted immediately So the @nytimes can drop the he said/she said pretense here since both sides acknowledge they were indeed working as journalists

🚨Major investigation just dropped at @DropSiteNews in partnership with a consortium of independent European news outlets. A major player in global journalism is primarily bankrolled by the U.S. State Department, we can reveal. Story to follow in next post: Read it here

As @rafat notes, there are still some outlets doing strong print journalism dropsitenews.com/p/occrp-budget…

🚨 Today at @DropSiteNews--in collaboration w/TI Brasil--we're publishing text messages sent by the US-backed attorney general, a rise star celebrated in Time magazine by Samantha Power, that show her using the powers of her office to undermine the party of Rafael Correa /1 For instance, in one message sent to Ronny Aleaga, who says he had an "intimate relationship" with Salazar despite being political adversaries, she says she is delaying the prosecution of a right-wing official so as not to help the left in the elections dropsitenews.com/p/ecuador-left…

Fun 🧵on the power of reporting:

Back in the summer of 2018, Minnesota AG Lori Swanson was surging toward the nomination for governor, polling well ahead of Tim Walz and another candidate.

@rmc031 was spending the summer there and picked up on a scandal the MN press had failed to uncover The short version is Swanson for years had been deploying her govt staff for campaign and personal stuff. It was a really hard story to nail down and to write in a way that got across what a true scandal it was. She pulled it off, the MN press picked up on it, Swanson flailed and flamed out

It's reported that Trump's attempted assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks made a $15 donation to "Progressive Turnout Project PAC" on January 20, 2021.

I've reported on this PAC and its Mothership before: It's one of those scammy firms that blasts peoples inboxes relentlessly 🧵

https://twitter.com/rpyers/status/1812351799682277445

Here's an example of one I found in my inbox:

Biden’s campaign manager and his deputy campaign manager both sent long emails to close groups of supporters trying to help people cope with the exposure of the lie the campaign has been telling everybody.

The short version: hey, everybody knew he was old. Shut up and vote. I would post them here but what’s the point

1/ There is a lot of manufactured confusion around these ceasefire proposals, but what happened is fairly simple:

On 5/29, Israel’s war cabinet approved an offer for a ceasefire that was transmitted to Hamas. Netanyahu only agreed to it under extreme pressure, and over the opposition of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who are not in the war cabinet.

On 5/30, Hamas rejected it, saying no to talks unless Israel stopped its assault. Here’s their statement: On 5/31, Biden grabbed the Israeli proposal, which Netanyahu had been happy to see rejected by Hamas, and made it fully public, cleverly but accurately calling it the Israeli proposal. Which it is. But Netanyahu hates it.

So now Netanyahu is walking back from it while Hamas is responding “positively.”

🚨Update: Israel offered to evacuate Dr. Hamawy and others from the hospital but refused to allow new medical aid workers to replace them. Five volunteers accepted the offer but Dr. Hamawy refused, insisting on staying with his patients.

He sends this comment through a colleague:

“There is a palpable gloom and foreboding that had set in at the hospital. The children and staff are asking for everyone by name. All the Americans and Brits left. That can’t be a good sign.” The medical missions rotate in and out every two weeks. The missions have insisted they not be evacuated until the new rotation is able to come in. Israel is refusing. More than a dozen international medical workers remain at the hospital.

Upward of 20 American doctors are trapped at the European Hospital in Gaza, facing extreme dehydration, at least one is on an IV drip. This is a developing situation…

Story with @Hind_Gaza theintercept.com/2024/05/13/raf… The State Department tells me it is “working around the clock” and coordinating with Israel and Egypt to evacuate the doctors.

Yet a UN vehicle heading to the European Hospital was fired on by the IDF today, killing its driver

https://twitter.com/gazanotice/status/1790013668978995698

🚨 Last week, we reported that AIPAC was using a "pro-science" group as a pass-through to take out Pramila Jayapal's sister in a Portland, OR congressional race.

There was serious pushback to that article, but we now have follow up reporting that is even more damning 🧵 First, I asked for staffers at 314 Action, the science PAC, to reach out. Several did. The operation AIPAC and 314 are running is bigger than Jayapal and will soon expand to target @CoriBush -- though under the name of a new shell PAC. One staffer said: “314 has turned its back on science in order to be used as a weapon against progressives by Zionists."

So the “stabbed in the eye” report, which sent genuine fear rippling through Jewish communities, for good reason, turns out to be bogus. Here’s the video, it’s a grazing at most by a tiny flag, and turns out the “victim” is a known right wing provocateur

https://twitter.com/davidklion/status/1782839252381762030

Send in the National Guard quick

https://twitter.com/zaidjilani/status/1782926074114170979

Don Lu asked about his role in pressuring Pakistan to oust Imran Khan. "These allegations, this conspiracy theory is a lie," he says at a hearing.

The entire audience erupts, calling him a liar. It's not a few protesters, the entire audience shouting him down. Lu shouted down

❗️❗️After two in depth investigations by The Intercept into a World Bank cover-up a child sex abuse scandal at a for profit school network in Africa, the World Bank has finally acknowledged wrongdoing.

WB head Ajay Banga in an email to staff apologized to the victims and promised an independent investigation.

This comes after the bank and its client spent the last year denigrating and dismissing our reporting. First story with @NehaWadekar is here theintercept.com/2023/03/23/bri…

Multiple NYT sources tell me that the paper is now cutting ties with Anat Schwarz after her social media history — “turn Gaza into a slaughterhouse” — was exposed. Her explosive article shaped public understanding of 10/7 yet the team at The Daily has still been unable to produce an episode based on it, after producers found it full of holes. Her social media history was first exposed here

https://twitter.com/zei_squirrel/status/1761249450998022442

Some fascinating politics underway in a Houston Democratic primary where the war in Gaza is becoming a central issue. This text message went out to a bunch of voters, claiming to be from Lizzie Fletcher boasting of her AIPAC endorsement and her strong support for “Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorists.” She does say that and is indeed backed by AIPAC, but she’s crying foul, saying her campaign didn’t send the messages.

The suggestion in her statement is that her opponent or an ally did it to highlight her link to AIPAC.

Her opponent Pervez Agwan denies having sent it.

But what’s remarkable about the whole thing is that none of what’s in the text message is untrue.

The White House just compared “anti-Israel protesters” — the phrase used by the Fox News reporter in his question — to the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville.

When it is no longer deniable what is being done in Gaza right now — I don’t know when that time will come, but it will — there will be a lot of people with an enormous amount to answer for.

To compare the people protesting that to Charlottesville is unhinged.

This NBC “fact checker” is on the one hand telling Zeynep that there is no “media censorship” while on the other hand accusing her of “Greenwaldian” behavior for simply saying we don’t know how the pandemic started.

Ben, do you not understand that using your position as a major… https://t.co/fx8RNDFFpWtwitter.com/i/web/status/1…

https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1686046923550031873

Zeynep’s willingness early in the pandemic to challenge orthodoxy changed our conversation and arguably saved a lot lives. Ben — @oneunderscore__ — should look that up, and aspire to it, not attack it.

The NYT was confronted with newly released messages from scientists coordinating about how to mislead its own reporter. A moment of truth for the paper.

The old NYT would defend its integrity by putting a new team of reporters on the story with a mission to follow the facts… https://t.co/giNHkQQO1wtwitter.com/i/web/status/1…

https://twitter.com/jamiemetzl/status/1681652470903087104

There are so many good reporters at the Times, but the editorial leadership has apparently given up

Biden is now picking a fight with Australia (after offending them by cancelling a trip there over the debt ceiling) by re-opening a case against Australian journalist Julian Assange even as the country calls for his repatriation The US, as you can see in the top left, is also suggesting that the Aussies are war criminals, and so might not be able to cooperate with our imperial forces, which operate only in the most ethical warring fashion.

This comes as we’re jockeying w/China for power in the region.

If you stumbled across this vicious post calling for the imprisonment of these bereaved parents, it’s worth reading this devastating @geneweingarten story first washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/maga…

https://twitter.com/darafaye/status/1663724953739591680

One of the things I’m most grateful for is that my kids are older now and I never did this, but it was always a fear of mine. I’m incredibly distractable, and I don’t think I’m inherently better than the people this has happened to.