Tootfinder

"US President Donald Trump said he would fire the head of the agency charged with publishing some of America's most closely watched economic data, after a weaker-than-expected jobs report stoked further alarm about his tariff policies.
In a post on social media, Trump - without evidence - accused the commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, of manipulating jobs figures for political reasons."
Newspeak is rampant in American Politics

I’m rambling, and struggling to figure out the heart of what I’m getting at.
It’s something about how maybe we should view the fecklessness of Democratic politicians the OP laments not as the •source• of the problem, but as the inevitable result of failing to form anti-fascist coalition, and to make that coalition into the other major political party in this country.
I feel like there’s something useful in there, something maybe strategically helpful that gives us a sense of agency. And man do I hate grand political cynicisms that rob us of our sense of agency.
/end

“What is political agency?” is an interesting text about how to approach political activism that has impact. I also learned something about garlic preserved with honey. https://write.as/conjure-utopia/what-is-political-agency

What is political agency?
What is political agency? Agency is the faith that your actions will have an impact on the world. Ideally, the impact you want to have. T...

Dame Stella Rimington, the first woman to head MI5,
has passed away.
The Daily Express obituary highlights her trailblazing career.
Appointed director general in 1992, she was globally recognized as the first female head of an intelligence agency.
Rimington joined MI5 in 1967 as a part-time typist at the British High Commission in New Delhi,
transitioning from what she described as a “bored housewife”.
Throughout her career, she confronted Russian spie…

Press Review - Serious mood and fewer perks: Silicon Valley enters its 'hard tech' era
PRESS REVIEW – Tuesday, August 5: As the plastic pollution summit begins in Geneva, Libération highlights the little-known but devastating scourge of plastic pellets ravaging the planet. Also, Silicon Valley’s shift into a new “hard tech” era reflects a changing political climate; former CNN journalist Jim Acosta sparks controversy after interviewing an AI avatar of a school massacre victim. And, the press pays tribute to Stella Rimington, the first woman chief of MI5.

The IRS said in a new court filing that clergy and houses of worship should be allowed to make political endorsements,
-- abandoning an 71-year-old tax policy that banned the mixing of religion and politics.

Nonprofits should be allowed to make political endorsements and not lose their tax exemption,
the IRS said in the court filing.
Religious congregations, the filing said, are like families and communication between them should not be deemed “participation” in a ca…

IRS: Churches should be allowed to make political endorsements
Since 1954, the IRS has banned nonprofits — including congregations — from participating in political campaigns. The agency now says political endorsements by churches should be allowed.

On Thursday, the Trump administration issued an executive order
🆘 asserting political control over grant funding,
-- including all federally supported research.
The order requires that any announcement of funding opportunities be reviewed by the head of the agency or someone they designate,
💥which means a political appointee will have the ultimate say over what areas of science the US funds.
Individual grants will also require clearance from a political appo…

New executive order puts all grants under political control
All new funding on hold until Trump administration can cancel any previously funded grants.

Participatory AI: A Scandinavian Approach to Human-Centered AI
Niklas Elmqvist, Eve Hoggan, Hans-J\"org Schulz, Marianne Graves Petersen, Peter Dalsgaard, Ira Assent, Olav W. Bertelsen, Akhil Arora, Kaj Gr{\o}nb{\ae}k, Susanne B{\o}dker, Clemens Nylandsted Klokmose, Rachel Charlotte Smith, Sebastian Hubenschmid, Christoph A. Johns, Gabriela Molina Le\'on, Anton Wolter, Johannes Ellemose, Vaishali Dhanoa, Simon Aagaard Enni, Mille Skovhus Lunding, Karl-Emil Kj{\ae}r Bilstrup, J…

Participatory AI: A Scandinavian Approach to Human-Centered AI
AI's transformative impact on work, education, and everyday life makes it as much a political artifact as a technological one. Current AI models are opaque, centralized, and overly generic. The algorithmic automation they provide threatens human agency and democratic values in both workplaces and daily life. To confront such challenges, we turn to Scandinavian Participatory Design (PD), which was devised in the 1970s to face a similar threat from mechanical automation. In the PD tradition, tech…

A generation of scientific talent is at the brink of being lost to overseas competitors by the Trump administration’s dismantling of the National Science Foundation (NSF), with unprecedented political interference at the agency jeopardizing the future of US industries and economic growth, according to a Guardian investigation.
The gold standard peer-reviewed process used by the NSF to support cutting-edge, high-impact science is being undermined by the chaotic cuts to staff, programs a…

An email sent by the US Social Security Administration (SSA) that claims Donald Trump’s major new spending bill has eliminated taxes on benefits for most recipients is misleading, critics have said.
Jeff Nesbit, who served as a top SSA official under Republican and Democratic presidents, posted on X: “The agency has never issued such a blatant political statement. The fact that Trump and his minion running SSA has done this is unconscionable.”
The reconciliation bill – which the p…

Confirmation of an investigation into Jack Smith comes after Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, a Republican,
requested last week that Smith be investigated for
“unprecedented interference in the 2024 election”.
The Hatch Act,
a federal law passed in 1939, limits certain political activities of federal employees.
Trump, along with other prominent Republican lawmakers, have argued that Smith’s investigations into Trump amounted to illegal political activity.
Smi…

Paul Ingrassia—a 30-year-old former right-wing blogger and newly minted lawyer who was admitted to the bar in 2024—is Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Special Counsel.
Ingrassia has called Jack Smith a “disgusting man,” accused him of “election interference,” and said he should be jailed.

Office of Special Counsel launches investigation into ex-Trump prosecutor Jack Smith
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal agency, is investigating former special counsel Jack Smith for alleged political violations of the Hatch Act