@cdarwin@c.imI’m Derek Tran -- a veteran, small business owner, son of Vietnamese refugees, and the only House Democrat in SoCal that national Republicans are targeting in 2026.
This fight is personal for me.
My parents came to America after the fall of Saigon,
determined to give their kids a better life.
That’s the promise they carried with them.
I wore the uniform, and now I serve in Congress,
to make sure that promise is protected.
It was never my plan to r…
@fanf@mendeddrum.orgfrom my link log —
Writing C with indent-based syntax similar to CoffeeScript or Python, via Guile.
https://sph.mn/computer/guides/c/c-indent.html
saved 2026-02-14
@jake4480@c.imResident Evil Showcase for Requiem set for January 15 #ResidentEvil
@rberger@hachyderm.ioHopefully some how, someway, we'll have a future and it will be like Star Trek.
Speaking of which I am really excited to find out that Thomas Jane, who played Joe Miller in The Expanse, my other favorite Science Fiction TV, will be playing Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in the final episode of Series 5 of Star Trek: Next Generation!
Unfortunately even though its in production now, it won't be shown for at least 1 years from now (Season 4 is supposed to come out some time this year).
#StarTrekSNW #TheExpanse
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3230854/characters/nm0005048/?ref_=tt_cst_c_10
https://screenrant.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-ending-alex-kurtzman-thomas-jane-bones-perfect/
https://screenrant.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-bones-thomas-jane-spinoff-good-news/
@rer_c@lepoulsdumonde.comPériode : en soirée
Dates : du lundi 5 au vendredi 30 janvier (sauf samedi et dimanche).
Le trafic est interrompu entre Juvisy et Paris Austerlitz :
- Dernier départ de Juvisy Š 22h29.
- Dernier départ de Paris Austerlitz Š 22h36.
Un service de bus de remplacement est mis en place, avec desserte des gares intermédiaires.
Les horaires du calculateur d'itinéraire tiennent compte des travaux.
Motif : travaux sur le réseau ferroviaire.
@cdarwin@c.imAt least 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are on board with Trump’s new military alliance.
They are calling it the America’s Counter Cartel Coalition.
Latin America’s top right-wing leaders are involved,
including El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele and Argentina’s Javier Milei.
They met in Florida for the event, on March 7.
The United States has promised to use lethal force to destroy cartels and narco-traffickers in those nations.
Kristi Noem,…
@jake4480@c.imart by Daniel Warren Johnson
#FuckICE
@cdarwin@c.imDarren Woods is known mostly as the chairman of ExxonMobil,
the largest U.S. oil company.
On Friday, however, he made noise in a different sphere by placing an obscure financial term into the political lexicon:
"#Uninvestible."
That's how Woods described Venezuela
—more specifically, Venezuela's oil industry.
His remark came during a meeting of s…
@rer_c@lepoulsdumonde.comPériode : en soirée
Dates : du lundi 5 au vendredi 30 janvier (sauf samedi et dimanche).
Le trafic est interrompu entre Juvisy et Paris Austerlitz :
- Dernier départ de Juvisy Š 22h29.
- Dernier départ de Paris Austerlitz Š 22h36.
Un service de bus de remplacement est mis en place, avec desserte des gares intermédiaires.
Les horaires du calculateur d'itinéraire tiennent compte des travaux.
Motif : travaux sur le réseau ferroviaire.
@cdarwin@c.imThe use of cryptocurrency in sales of human beings for prostitution
and scam compounds
nearly doubled in 2025,
according to a conservative estimate.
Many of the deals are happening in plain sight.
https://www.wired.com/story/crypto-funded-…
@jake4480@c.im @cdarwin@c.imThere are a couple of other tricks you could try if have any doubts that the voice you are conversing with might not be human.
You could, for example, ask it to scream.
Many Al-voice programs struggle to speak outside the normal range, unless they have been specifically trained to, said Nicoletti.
I asked ChatGPT to do it and it told me it couldn't.
@jake4480@c.imMan, this song. Twisted Teens 4 lyfe
#GarageRock #garage
@cdarwin@c.imClearly, Pam Bondi's performance was strategic.
It was part of her goal of deflecting attention away from Trump and the fact that his name appears more than a million times in files related to Jeffrey Epstein that were released by the Department of Justice, according to Raskin.
She beclowned herself and perhaps it worked.
Most headlines were a variation of the Daily News’: “Bondi shouts down Democrats in hearing on Epstein files release delays.”
At one point, t…
@jake4480@c.imAfter watching live videos of Twisted Teens I love them even more
#GarageRock #garage
@cdarwin@c.imAs Trump threatens Iran, Venezuela, Mexico, Greenland and more,
renowned historian Alfred McCoy says the United States is
“an empire in decline,”
following a predictable pattern
of militarism abroad and political instability at home
as it loses power and influence on the world stage.
“American politics become increasingly contorted and irrational,”
says McCoy.
“I think the thing to do is to realize that we are an empire in decline, …
…
@cdarwin@c.imIn an effort to crack down on nations it views as promoting terrorism,
the Trump administration has been carrying out a campaign of seizing tankers carrying oil,
-- a move the president has repeatedly characterized as a financial boon for Americans.
But there’s a problem.
The seizures have put the U.S. government in a financial bind.
The ships are highly expensive to maintain.
And the Trump administration cannot legally sell their oil without a judge’s p…
@jake4480@c.im♫ Top 5 artists of the Last.week: Ahkatari (14) twisted teens (12) Dillon & Paten Locke (9) place on earth (5) Slik Jak & Vincent Pryce (5). #myweekcounted 54 Scrobbles with Lastfm #music via @…
@cdarwin@c.imTrump’s brutal ICE detention facilitieshave been blasted as “concentration camps.”
This is a freighted term
— summoning more than a century of deplorable history.
But experts in the field have no hesitation in using these words to describe the network of facilities that the federal government is using to literally warehouse tens of thousands of immigrants
— men, women, and even children
— snatched out of their communities by masked federal agents.
The ac…
@cdarwin@c.imDr. Marthe Gold, a NASEM member, is calling for the removal of RFK Jr.
Join the fight for science by vitising
https://standupforscience.net/impeach-rfkjr
to contact your rep and demand they support the articles of impeachment against RFK Jr.!
@jake4480@c.imMultiple Ecco the Dolphin games in development, new website launched #EccoTheDolphin
@cdarwin@c.imThe Montana Plan uses the States authority to define what powers corporations get
-- and stops giving them the power to spend in our politics.
Montana can do it,
and your state can too!
Learn how!
https://montanaplan.org/
@cdarwin@c.imTrump says ‘help is on its way’
as he urges Iranians to
‘keep protesting’ and ‘take over’ their institutions
US president cancels meetings with Iranian officials ‘until senseless killing of protesters stops’
Trump says countries doing business with Iran face 25% tariff on US trade
China threatens to retaliate over Trump’s 25% tariff on countries trading with Iran
@cdarwin@c.imRussian generals say all goals of the war will be achieved.
Russian economists say despite the pressure the economy will outlast Ukraine’s.
Even Russian fan-boy Donald Trump says that Russia is much stronger and Kyiv has no cards left to play in the war.
Hearing only reassurance,
it is little wonder that President Vladimir Putin sees no reason for real concessions on Ukraine.
From the vantage point of the Kremlin, the war is going according to plan.
@cdarwin@c.imJared Kushner, one of the U.S. government’s chief negotiators in the Middle East, is trying to raise more money for his private equity firm from governments in the region.
Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has spoken with potential investors in recent weeks about raising $5 billion or more for
"Affinity Partners", his investment firm,
Kushner’s fund-raising is expected to stretch on for the better part of this year.
The efforts show the blurring of the lin…
@cdarwin@c.imThe Trump administration ordered the restart of a Santa Barbara oil pipeline shut since the 2015 Refugio spill -- invoking emergency powers under the Defense Production Act.
California officials say the move defies court orders and state oversight.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state will sue.
The order escalates a fight over whether federal authority can override California regulators blocking Sable Offshore’s plan to restart the pipeline.
@cdarwin@c.imScarcely a week ago, U.S. warplanes and drones were streaking across the Caracas night sky to deliver a swift end to the reign of the Venezuelan strongman Nicolšs Maduro.
The extraordinary display of kinetic violence delivered a stunning reminder about the reach of the world’s most powerful military—and symbolized the start of a new chapter for the man who commands it.
Donald Trump has been emboldened.
The president and his advisers believe that the strike both reignited …
@cdarwin@c.imLauren Boebert is vulnerable -- she's is in Congress because of just 𝟱𝟰𝟲 𝘃𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀
And now she's spreading a sinister conspiracy that 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗛𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗺 𝗝𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘀 “𝗥𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻”
-- Democrats 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 be killed as a result! Here's why:
Her theory is based on the ideas of Holocaust denier David Icke,
who claims that Jews and powerful people across the globe are disguised reptilians working to 𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺.
👉 When your enemies are inhuman it is …
@cdarwin@c.imEver since the Supreme Court shattered campaign finance law with its decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010,
Americans have been told there are only two ways to stop corporate and “dark” money in politics:
Amend the U.S. Constitution
or wait for the court to undo what it has done.
👉That is flat wrong.
Citizens United held that government may not regulate a corporation’s right to spend money independently in elections.
But the …
@cdarwin@c.im @cdarwin@c.imObservers have spent two weeks trying to discern the “aims” of Trump’s war on Iran,
and therefore what might constitute a victory or defeat.
His every bizarre utterance about his war “plans”
— including wildly conflicting declarations that Iran has surrendered and the war must be expanded to defeat the regime
— immediately move markets.
The evident fact, though, is that Trump is completely nuts, and that he’s “governing” the country
— and has now taken th…
@cdarwin@c.imUnder Donald Trump, the E.P.A.
plans to stop tallying gains from the health benefits caused by curbing two of the most widespread deadly air pollutants,
fine particulate matter and ozone,
when regulating industry, according to internal agency emails and documents reviewed by The New York Times.
It’s a seismic shift that runs counter to the E.P.A.’s mission statement,
which says the agency’s core responsibility is to protect human health and the environment, env…
@cdarwin@c.im‘No fascist USA!’:
Baltimore marches against ICE
https://therealnews.com/baltimore-marches-against-ice
@cdarwin@c.imThe only job I know of that has a higher risk of death than climbing Everest is being president of the United States.
45 men have held that job.
Four were killed in office.
That’s a one in 11 chance of dying in office of the presidency
@cdarwin@c.imAfter surveillance backlash
Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety
Following mounting pressure and a questionable Super Bowl ad,
the Amazon-owned company walked back its plan to integrate with the controversial
law-enforcement technology company.
https://www.theverge.co…
@cdarwin@c.imThe S&P 500 fell 1.5 percent on Thursday, as concerns grew about oil prices rising amid the prolonged conflict in the Middle East.
The Stoxx 600, a Pan-European index, fell 0.6 percent.
Stocks in Asia, where countries import vast quantities of oil and gas, slumped broadly on Thursday. Major benchmark indexes in Japan closed just over 1 percent lower, while Taiwan fell about 1.5 percent. The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong fell a little less than 1 percent.
@cdarwin@c.imInside the administration, some officials are growing pessimistic about the lack of a clear strategy to finish the war.
But they have been careful not to express that directly to the president,
who has repeatedly declared that the military operation is a complete success
htt…
@cdarwin@c.imFrom where I was sitting Wednesday, it looked like
the attorney general pretty much dared the House Democrats to impeach her.
Here’s how the New York Daily News put it, summarizing the AP’s coverage of her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee:
"Attorney General Pam Bondi launched into a passionate defense of President Donald Trump Wednesday
as she tried to turn the page from relentless criticism of the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epste…
@cdarwin@c.imTailings dams
– repositories of mining waste that is often toxic and stored under water
– litter landscapes around the world.
Often, they hold huge quantities of poisonous, harmful material .
While tailings dams are theoretically built to last for ever, more extreme weather driven by the climate crisis has changed the risk profile of many structures.
Flooding, intense rainfall and other weather extremes mean that many of them are more unstable, according to ex…
@cdarwin@c.imIt is less than the price of a Super Bowl ticket
(with even a nosebleed seat costing at least $4,000).
Still, at $1,500 per person for dinner, served by the chef whose restaurant has been named the best in the world four times, it may give pause to even the most dedicated food enthusiasts
h…
@cdarwin@c.imThe "Social Security Expansion Act", introduced by Sens. Bernie #Sanders and Elizabeth #Warren
—along with its House counterpart, introduced by Reps. Jan #Schakowsky and
@cdarwin@c.imThe source of bad data was a Department of Homeland Security tool called the
"Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements," or SAVE.
Once used mostly to check immigrants’ eligibility for public benefits,
SAVE has undergone a dramatic expansion over the last year at the behest of Donald Trump,
who has long falsely claimed that millions of noncitizens lurk on state voter rolls, tainting American elections.
At Trump’s direction, DHS has pooled confiden…
@cdarwin@c.imSince November, a total of 35 people across California have been poisoned by mushrooms,
leading to three people receiving liver transplants
in addition to the three deaths.
Health officials in Sonoma County reported the latest death last week.
Michael Stacey, Sonoma’s interim health officer, attributed the cases and deaths to
an extraordinary boom in the prevalence of death cap mushrooms (Amanita phalloides),
noting that in an average year the state sees…
@cdarwin@c.imRichard Kahn, and Epstein's long-serving lawyer Darren Indyke,
are the sole executors of Jeffrey Epstein's estate,
-- controlling all his wealth and possessions.
Although hardly household names,
the pair now hold control over compensation owed to survivors
and the secrets contained in the documents still held by the Epstein estate
- which, upon request, have been released to the House Oversight Committee.
As part of its investigation into Ep…
@cdarwin@c.imMeta aims to introduce
facial recognition to its
smart glasses
while its biggest critics are distracted,
according to a report from The New York Times.
In an internal document reviewed by The Times, Meta says it will
💥launch the feature “during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.”
The document is from last May and reportedly describes …
@cdarwin@c.imIn my January 23, 2026, “The Universe” column,
I wrote about some of the biggest bangs the universe has to offer:
exploding stars, hiccupping magnetars, stellar disruptions and colliding black holes.
These all deserve deeper dives,
but perhaps black holes deserve one most of all because, technically speaking,
they do provide the deepest dive you can physically take.
They also make very big bangs indeed, with their collisions rapidly releasing almost inco…
@cdarwin@c.imThe Justice Department is coming under intense scrutiny from members of Congress in both parties
for allegedly cataloguing the search history of lawmakers who have gone to review the unredacted Epstein files.
Why it matters:
It's a fresh and high-octane scandal for Attorney General Pam Bondi at a time when she is already facing bipartisan heat over her handling of the Epstein matter.
"There is no bottom for the Trump administration," House Minority Lead…
@cdarwin@c.imOn TikTok and Instagram, young people are diving into the joys of Chinese culture – from drinking hot water to playing mahjong – all under the banner of “Chinamaxxing”.
On the Chinese internet, however, the US is losing its decades-long grip on soft power, and is instead being replaced by a darker trend: "the kill line".
The kill line is a dangerous place to be.
In gaming, the term refers to the point at which a player’s strength is so depleted that one more blo…
@cdarwin@c.imThe Trump administration is backing off a rule aimed at stopping commercial space companies from leaving rocket bodies in Earth’s orbit,
a practice that experts say could threaten public safety and telecommunications.
The Federal Aviation Administration first proposed the measure in 2023, under the Biden administration,
in hopes of curbing the growing junkyard of debris circling the planet.
It would have required companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX to safely remove suc…
@cdarwin@c.imPete Buttigieg and Robert Reich have highlighted our plan to
✅ defeat Citizens United:
“Interesting things are happening across the country…
Montana is trying to address this through attention to what a corporation can and can’t do,
because that’s actually decided at the state level.
So instead of working it at the ‘speech’ side of the equation,
💥they’re working at the
‘what is a corporation’ side of the equation.” --Secretary
@cdarwin@c.imThe Pentagon used a secret aircraft
💥 painted to look like a civilian plane
in its first attack on a boat that the Trump administration said was smuggling drugs, killing 11 people last September,
according to officials briefed on the matter.
The aircraft also
💥carried its munitions inside the fuselage,
rather than visibly under its wings, they said.
⭐️The nonmilitary appearance is significant,
according to legal specialists,
👉because the …
@cdarwin@c.imImmigration agents have put civilians’ lives at risk using more than their guns.
An agent in Houston put a teenage citizen into a chokehold,
wrapping his arm around the boy’s neck, choking him so hard that his neck had red welts hours later.
A black-masked agent in Los Angeles pressed his knee into a woman’s neck while she was handcuffed;
she then appeared to pass out.
An agent in Massachusetts jabbed his finger and thumb into the neck and arteries of a young f…
@cdarwin@c.imA federal appellate court ruled that
the Trump administration must remove California National Guard troops from Los Angeles by Monday.
The decision upheld a lower court order that halted the mobilization that had roiled the nation’s second-largest city for six months.
The ruling late Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit substantially upheld a district court decision from earlier this week
that found the federal government had illegally prolonged t…
@cdarwin@c.imThe thing you need to understand about the Right is that
they are absolutely fine just plain burning down higher education
if taking it over ideologically doesn’t work.
They’re perfectly happy reducing it to ashes.
-- Ken White ("Popehat")
https://bsky.app/profile…
@cdarwin@c.imThe acclaimed Theodore Payne Foundation Wild Flower Hotline,
founded in 1983,
offers free weekly online and recorded updates
— posted each Friday from March through May
— on the best locations for viewing spring wildflowers in Southern and Central California.
New reports are released every Friday, March through May.
Call 818 768-1802 ext 7 to hear weekly recorded wild flower reports, narrated by Tom Henschel.
@cdarwin@c.imA recent survey by the American Jewish Committee, a nonprofit, found that
91 percent of American Jews say they feel less safe in the United States in the wake of high-profile attacks last year,
including the arson attack at the home of Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro,
and the killing of two Israeli Embassy aides last spring outside a Jewish museum in Washington.
More than half said that they had changed their behavior out of fear.
@cdarwin@c.imWhile Trump and Kushner both have envisioned wealthy resort concepts,
most of the international community wishes to see Gaza rebuilt as a livable home for its 2.1 million Palestinian residents.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to control half of the Gaza Strip,
and has said it will forbid reconstruction on the half overseen by Hamas until the group disarms.
Two former Doge officials were dispatched to the region as planning for postwar Gaza ramped up this fall.
One…
@cdarwin@c.imNearly 13 months into Trump’s second term, the most terrifying attribute of his regime is its utter contempt for the United States,
and how blithely willing they are to destroy our nation and its people (let alone other nations).
With most of the Trump Show
— which began in 2015
— now in the rearview mirror,
and his mind and body rapidly decaying before our eyes,
one might think Trump would be thinking about the “legacy” he will be leaving behind in a few …
@cdarwin@c.imThe City of #SantaBarbara released the design for an upcoming public street art project, which will transform the corner of State and Carrillo streets into a vibrant display inspired by Mixtec and Zapotec weaving patterns.
The project is part of Bloomberg’s Asphalt Art Initiative, which selected the city as one of 10 cities in North America to receive a $100,000 grant for a public street art pr…
@cdarwin@c.im @cdarwin@c.imTrump can only afford to lose the support of four Republican senators in a vote for a new #Fed chair
-- which means #Tillis and #Murkowski’s vows not to support any nominee until the case against Powell is resolved carry significant …
@cdarwin@c.imThe three leading Democratic contenders facing off for #Illinois' open Senate seat on Tuesday have
✅ vowed to extensively reform or eliminate U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
-- a reflection of how the killings of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota earlier this year have elevated immigration as a top issue for the party in this year's midterm elections.
A strong stance agai…
@cdarwin@c.im @cdarwin@c.imOver the past year, the biggest victories against Trump have come
not from the elites or institutions,
but from college kids and office workers, cat ladies and Uber drivers.
When Trump tried to censor Jimmy Kimmel, it was the pumpkin latte drinkers whose ire forced ABC to bring him back on.
When the president sent National Guard troops to terrorize cities like Portland, D.C., Los Angeles and Chicago, people who still wear skinny jeans turned off Netflix, inflated the…
@cdarwin@c.imDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Monday that Elon Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot #Grok will be integrated into Pentagon networks,
including classified systems,
as part of a broader initiative to
💥incorporate AI technology across the military.
Speaking at SpaceX headquarters in South Texas, Hegseth said Grok will go live inside the Defense Department this month …
@cdarwin@c.imDonald Trump has reversed Joe Biden’s legal offensive against #crypto,
debuting his own token, $Trump, before his inauguration,
and rolling back government actions against the industry, which heavily supported him during his bid for the presidency.
Celebrities have likewise returned to hawking cryptocurrency projects or launching tokens of their own.
Celebrities in the crypto realm …
@cdarwin@c.imTrump is Putin’s
demented little lap dog.
https://bsky.app/profile/georgetakei.bsky.social/post/3mgnsi56yxi2i
@cdarwin@c.imCalifornia Statewide Ballot Initiatives 2026
25-0029A1 - Expands Liability and Imposes Duties on Rideshare Companies RE: Sexual Misconduct Imposes stricter background check requirements on rideshare companies and expands their legal liability for incidents of sexual assault or misconduct committed by drivers.
25-0018A1 - Requires University of California to Provide Downpayment Home Loans to Certain Staff Mandates the University of California system create a home loan assistance p…
@cdarwin@c.imChina could emerge a winner from Trump’s global energy shock
The disruption caused by the war on Iran may reveal that years China spent preparing for a global energy crisis have left the country and its economy better positioned than most to endure a long-term hike in the cost of oil and gas.
Through massive stockpiles of crude oil,
an aggressive push into electric vehicles
and huge investments into coal, renewable power and battery storage,
Beijing has worked …
@cdarwin@c.im @cdarwin@c.imMeta has announced plans to discontinue support for end-to-end encryption for chats on Instagram after May 8, 2026
https://thehackernews.com/2026/03/meta-to-shut-down-instagram-end-to-end.html?m=1
@cdarwin@c.imThe Department of Government Efficiency ( #DOGE )
tagged Jewish themes as “#DEI” (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) in ChatGPT
when searching for federal humanities grants to cancel last year,
according to a class-action lawsuit.
The methodology contributed to the cancellation of National Endowment for t…
@cdarwin@c.imRE: https://c.im/@cdarwin/115884691724308951
"If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it's uninvestible, and so significant changes have to be made."
-- ExxonMobil Chairman Darren Woods
@cdarwin@c.imTrump threatens to
revoke citizenship
of naturalized immigrants
convicted of fraud
In a long winded speech today, Donald Trump threatened to
🔥“reverse citizenship of any naturalized immigrant from Somalia or anywhere else who is convicted of defrauding our citizens”.
He spent a portion of his remarks in Detroit today heaping invective on the Somali community throughout the country, particularly in
@cdarwin@c.imPalantir co-founder #Peter #Thiel has donated 👉$3m to a California lobbying group advocating AGAINST a proposed wealth tax that would target billionaires in the state.
The seven-figure contribution comes as several ultra-wealthy tech moguls have left or threatened to leave California over the tax.
Thiel, worth so…
@cdarwin@c.imWall Street decries the government putting its thumb on the scale
— except when the thumb belongs to Trump
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-attacks-free-markets-wall-street-1235498727/<…
@cdarwin@c.imEighty years of peaceful world order are under unprecedented harm,
thanks to the
"wrecking-ball politics"
led by Donald Trump.
That's the assessment of European security experts who are getting set to host world leaders and diplomats at the pivotal
Munich Security Conference starting tomorrow.
Robert Kagan is a traditional conservative foreign policy scholar,
he calls himself a
"former Republican"
and his latest …
@cdarwin@c.imFederal authorities have opened a criminal probe into whether
two immigration officers lied under oath about a shooting in Minneapolis last month,
as all charges were dropped against two Venezuelan men.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons said Friday that
his agency opened a joint probe with the Justice Department after video evidence revealed
“sworn testimony provided by two separate officers appears to have made untruthful statements”
@cdarwin@c.imFormer Alaska representative
❤️#Mary #Peltola announced on Monday she is running for Alaska’s US Senate seat,
handing Democrats a major recruitment victory as the party battles to reclaim the chamber’s majority in this year’s midterm elections.
Peltola, who served as Alaska’s sole House member from 2022 un…
@cdarwin@c.imEyewitnesses say Iranian government forces have begun opening fire,
apparently with automatic weapons and at times seemingly indiscriminately,
on unarmed protesters.
Hospital workers say protesters had been coming in with pellet injuries but now arrive with gunshot wounds and skull fractures.
One doctor called it a “mass-casualty situation.”
Despite the communications blockade, a recurring image has made its way out of Iran:
rows and rows of body bags.
@cdarwin@c.im“I’m not paying my federal income taxes this year,”
Rachel Cohen declared in a recent Instagram video that received more than 140,000 likes.
The 31-year-old lawyer in Chicago plans to put the $8,800 she owes the federal government in a high-yield savings account instead.
She doesn’t want to fund wars in Iran and Gaza or immigrationagents detaining her neighbors, she said.
Many commenters said they wanted to do the same.
Others worried about her. “I’ve gotten a l…
@cdarwin@c.imThe "America Last" Trump administration is prepared to
waive the Jones Act to loosen shipping rules as the Iran war continues,
the White House said Thursday.
The 100-year-old statute requires goods shipped between U.S. ports to be carried on ships that are
U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged and U.S.-crewed,
and it limits the number of tankers domestic shippers can use.
"In the interest of national defense, the White House is considering waiving the …
@cdarwin@c.im“The are several stages to the escalation trap,” said Robert Pape,
a US historian who has studied the limitation of air power and has advised a number of US administrations.
“What we saw with the initial attack was tactically almost 100% success,” he said.
“The problem is that when that doesn’t lead to strategic success … you get to second stage of the trap.
“The attacker still has escalation dominance, so there is a doubling down,
which then moves up the escala…
@cdarwin@c.imA photograph taken during U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s combative appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday
suggests that the Justice Department has been tracking the search history of lawmakers who are combing through the unredacted Epstein files.
As Bondi launched into various tirades against lawmakers, photojournalists managed to snag a picture of her notes,
showcasing that her paperwork included the search history of Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washin…
@cdarwin@c.imVinay Prasad, the Trump administration’s top vaccine regulator at the Food and Drug Administration,
single-handedly decided to refuse to review Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine,
overruling agency scientists, according to reports from Stat News and The Wall Street Journal.
Stat was first to report, based on unnamed FDA sources, that a team of career scientists at the agency was ready to review the vaccine
and that David Kaslow, a top career official who reviews vaccines, eve…
@cdarwin@c.imJeremy Corbyn says the UK government is endangering pro-Palestine hunger strikers
Former UK Labour leader Cornyn has issued a statement in solidarity with Amu Gib, who is accused of participating in the Palestine Action break-in of RAF Brize Norton airbase this summer.
The action,
carried out in protest of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the UK government’s participation in it,
led to the proscription of the group under “anti-terrorism” laws.
Dozens of protesters h…
@cdarwin@c.imDescribed by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) as “a highly survivable command, control and communications center,” the Los Angeles Times noted that the Thursday landing by the aircraft—a militarized version of the Boeing 747—may have been its first-ever landing at LAX.
The aircraft was carrying Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to Southern California as part of a nationwide “Arsenal of Freedom” tour,
which the administration has described as a
“call to action to revitalize America…
@cdarwin@c.imDonald Trump has bragged about building a political war chest exceeding $1.5 billion
— a staggering sum that he can wield at his whim to shape November’s midterms and the 2028 race to succeed him.
Trump’s stockpile
— which dwarfs any amounts raised by his predecessors in their second terms
— is not easy to precisely calculate
given that much of it is being collected by groups that aren’t required to file regular financial disclosures.
Current and former st…
@cdarwin@c.imThe Trump administration has burned through🔥 “years” of critical munitions since the start of the war with Iran,
said three people familiar with the matter,
fuelling concerns about the rising cost of the conflict and the US’s ability to replenish its stockpiles.
The rapid depletion of weaponry included advanced long-range Tomahawk missiles, the people said.
It is a “massive expenditure of Tomahawks”, said one person familiar with the US military’s use of munitions. …
@cdarwin@c.imIn 1405, Admiral Zheng set off from China with the greatest armada in history,
leading three hundred magnificent ships on a thirty year odyssey to distant lands as far afield as Africa.
Later that century, Columbus landed in the New World with three barely seaworthy boats.
Zheng’s armada, for all its grandeur, left virtually no imprint on the world
-- while Columbus changed the entire course of history.
Why?
The Patterning Instinct provides a new answer to…
@cdarwin@c.imThe Justice Department refuses to open a criminal civil rights investigation into the killing of a woman by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.
The decision to keep the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division out of the investigation into the fatal shooting of #Renee #Good marks a sharp…
@cdarwin@c.imUS plans to exploit Venezuela’s oil reserves could by 2050 consume 🔥more than a tenth of the world’s remaining carbon budget to limit global heating to 1.5C, according to an exclusive analysis.
The calculation highlights how any moves to further exploit the
South American nation’s oil reserves
– the largest in the world,
at least on paper
– would put increasing pressure on climate goals,
and risk plunging the globe further into climate catastrophe.
<…
@cdarwin@c.imAn ophthalmologist in Tehran has documented more than 400 eye injuries from gunshots in a single hospital,
as overwhelmed medical staff struggle to cope with the toll of an increasingly violent crackdown on nationwide protests by Iranian authorities.
Three doctors, in messages forwarded to the Guardian on Monday, described overwhelmed hospitals and emergency wings overflowing with protesters who had been shot.
Medical staff said the gunshot wounds were mostly concentrated …
@cdarwin@c.im @cdarwin@c.imXu Bo, a Chinese billionaire, was seeking parental rights to at least four unborn children,
and the court’s additional research showed that he had already fathered or was in the process of fathering at least eight more
—all through surrogates.
When called in for a confidential hearing in the summer of 2023,
he never entered the courtroom, according to people who attended the hearing.
The maker of fantasy videogames lived in China and appeared via video, speaking …
@cdarwin@c.imNorovirus, also known as the
“winter vomiting disease,”
is a highly contagious virus that causes vomiting and diarrhea from acute gastroenteritis, according to the CDC.
Gastroenteritis occurs when the stomach and intestines are inflamed
—and the health authority reports that norovirus is the leading cause of vomiting and diarrhea illnesses caused by acute gastroenteritis among people of all ages across the country.
🔥Cases of
@cdarwin@c.imLast July, Wilmer Chavarria, a naturalized U.S. citizen who lives in Vermont,
was returning from Nicaragua, where he had visited his mother and other relatives,
when he was detained by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston
for no apparent reason.
👉Chavarria was held for more than four hours and released only after he finally agreed to let the agents search his smartphone, tablet, and laptop computer.
T…
@cdarwin@c.imItalian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni remains confident, despite legal setbacks,
that the deportation facilities in Albania, promoted by her right-wing government, will function as planned.
Meloni pointed to an agreement within the EU on a tougher stance on migration.
The EU states recently agreed in Brussels to increase pressure on rejected asylum seekers and deport them more efficiently.
Return centres in countries outside the EU should also be possible in the future…
