iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Alan Wessman

Bosphorus Observer @yoruk.bsky.social · 11h

Trump has been hiding his Russian diesel deal for over a month: the deal was announced yesterday, but it was likely agreed when Witkoff and Kushner visited the Kremlin on 5th September. While Trump was signing the Lindsey Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 on 18th September,…

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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 10h

The ship of diesel Putin sent Trump left on September 22. September 23 is when Trump's invite to G-20 was announced. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

theguardian.com

‘We hope he’ll accept’: US invites Putin to G20 summit at Trump golf club

Invitation announced by Marco Rubio is likely to raise concerns from Ukraine and EU countries

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Roman Sheremeta @rshereme.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Trump’s deal with Putin is illegal. In 2022, the US Congresses passed the Ending Importation of Russian Oil Act, explicitly prohibiting the import of russian energy resources into the United States. Legally, Trump is not allowed to make a deal with Putin.

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UNITED24 Media @united24media.com · 13h

⚡️ By easing sanctions on Russian diesel, US is handing Moscow a multi-billion-dollar lifeline to patch its budget holes and fuel its war. Opening the door to global energy markets doesn't just fund the destruction of Ukraine—it feeds a military pipeline that directly undermines US interests.

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TheValuesVoter @thevaluesvoter.bsky.social · 15h

Ukraine is not bombing Russian oil facilities for fun. They’re bombing them because Russia invaded Ukraine for no reason, daily launches attacks on civilians in Ukraine and is killing women, children and old people for no reason. And the Russian oil is how Putin pays for all of this. That’s why.

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Block Club Chicago @blockclubchi.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The Trump administration has denied Illinois’ request for disaster relief — again. The state sought FEMA’s help after days of severe weather in and around the Chicago area in August. FEMA granted Indiana’s request for help with the same storm. buff.ly/P3ElxRb

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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

“Illegally detaining and brutalizing a racial minority until they agree to flee the country” isn’t immigration enforcement, it’s ethnic cleansing. There’s no legal standard here - these people meet the standard! What differentiates them is not their legal status but their race and color.

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Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

July 31: Russia is sharing intelligence with Iran to launch assaults on US troops October 9: Trump is doing a diesel deal with Russia (which can now use that money to provide intelligence to Iran in launching assaults on US troops)

Donald J. Trump O @realDonaldTrump

a I have just concluded a highly successful discussion with President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, wherein it was agreed that Russia will immediately supply over 300,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel to the American and Global Marketplace, another 500,000 Tons during the month of November, and 1,000,000 Tons immediately thereafter. Additionally, based on the condition of their Diesel Refineries, Russia will then deliver, within a short period of time, 3,000,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel. Between our TOTAL CONTROL of the Strait of Hormuz, and this great announcement on Russian Energy, Diesel Prices for Americans and, indeed, the World, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST! Lower prices for Americans, especially our Great Farmers, Ranchers, and Truckers, is my Greatest Priority. This is a very big and important announcement. Additionally, it must be understood, that Iran will not have a Nuclear Weapon! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP 117 ReTruths 323 Likes

Oct 09, 2026, 2:46 PM

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Chris Ingraham @cingraham.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

300,000 tons of diesel is something like 2.25 million barrels, which is considerably less than what the U.S. goes through in a single day (~4.0 million barrels). I assume he chose the bizarre unit of "tons" rather than the more familiar barrels to mask this fact.

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Reposted by Alan Wessman

Yael Schacher @yaelschacher.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The “voluntary departure” orders are an absolute scandal. You detain someone illegally. Conditions are terrible. So then DHS deprives them of a hearing with an immigration judge or even a credible fear screening (after expedited removal order) by having them sign all their rights away to DHS

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Reposted by Alan Wessman

Dr. Wendy Bohon @drwendyrocks.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Early information from USGS PAGER suggests that more than 30,000 people may have been exposed to severe shaking, and more than 1 million people may have experienced strong to very strong shaking. earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/...

Map showing the location of the earthquake marked by a star with different colors, indicating the level of shaking. Warm colors indicate more shaking and cool colors indicate less

Modified Micali intensity scale, showing the number of people exposed to different intensities of earthquake, shaking

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Members of Congress cannot be impeached. They can be expelled from Congress by their own colleagues, but impeachment is for executive and judicial officers. In reality, the consequence for refusing the duty to impeach when it’s clearly required, is for citizens to vote them out at next election.

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

No idea why that person came in with guns blazing, but their immediate hostility merited an immediate block of that account. Feel free to do what you like on your own part regarding them, but I’m not going to tolerate that behavior and I don’t want you to catch flack because my post attracted it.

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Reposted by Alan Wessman

Yael Schacher @yaelschacher.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Emphasizing: people I am speaking to are strong and have tremendous spirit. But they have been devastated. They mostly entered the U.S. legally, worked for several years, were detained (frequently illegally), arbitrarily deprived or denied status, treated brutally, and dropped here with nothing.

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Under a normal administration that was respectful of the freedom of the press, this would most likely have indicated serious flaws in the reporting process that compelled the outlet to pull the story for the sake of journalistic integrity. But with this regime, it could be censorship instead.

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Reposted by Alan Wessman

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The American Dream is amazing: within just a few years you can go from being the child of Cuban immigrants to the great-grandson of Spanish settlers.

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Reposted by Alan Wessman

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Your regular reminder that the job of an ICE officer is dramatically safer than the job of a regular cop, such that not a single ICE deportation officer has been killed in the line of duty since 1949 (and that was actually a stabbing inside an INS jail in Hawaii, not street enforcement).

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

There’s no information in the story about the chain of command for this committee or from where it derives any investigative authority. Is it under DOJ? Treasury? IRS? Office of the President?

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Reposted by Alan Wessman

William Snyder @profsnyder.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Redacting the signatory might be unprecedented. I've never seen or heard of the like.

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Folks, if you’re seeing this, please consider a donation to my campaign for a seat in the Utah House. I’m a reform-minded independent candidate who wants to end the domination of a corrupted supermajority and restore ethical governance. electawessman.com/contribute/

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Defying a subpoena issued by Congress can itself be an article of impeachment, and doesn’t need investigation since it would be self evident.

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Adding to this: it’s not just that the Constitution allows for impeachment; it COMMANDS it upon the commission of treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors by federal office holders. The word “shall” is a command, not a plea.

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Reposted by Alan Wessman

Brandon @ CrucibleOfThought @crucibleofthought.com · 09/10/2026

Livestreaming Hasan's execution would violate Army policy. "No person under the age of 18 shall witness the execution." (Army Regulation 190-55, "Procedures for Military Executions", paragraph 2-5.a.10.b) api.army.mil/e2/c/downloa...

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Reposted by Alan Wessman

Mark Jacob @markjacob.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

If you‘ve studied history, you know what Trump and his fellow fascists are doing in Minnesota. They’re calling Somali Americans “garbage” and “enemy combatants“ because fascists need to create enemies and foment hate to excite their sick supporters.

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Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

This is Nazi rhetoric, full stop. It's not only a call to instigate a race war in the United States, but it's reminiscent of historic European justifications used to incite pogroms against Jews. People who say things like this are incredibly dangerous, as there is nothing they won't eventually do.

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Reposted by Alan Wessman

Sean Casten @seancasten.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

God wants Mike Johnson to dedicate his life to lawn care. Who are you to thwart God’s will, America? #Vote

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Reposted by Alan Wessman

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

When you offer a bare bones, factual description of what Guilfoyle has been up to, it sounds absolutely insane. But here we are: America's government under the Trumps. People of Greece, if you are listening, we are sorry. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/stop-paper...

Here is what happened: the former girlfriend of the President’s son asked an aspiring Republican politician for $100,000 to settle her credit card bill right before her Senate confirmation for an Ambassadorship, which she seems to have been awarded as a break-up present from the Trump family. (The son has since married, with the celebrations partially financed by a Russian oligarch with ties to Putin). She had previously received $300,000 from the donor for what seem to be largely unfulfilled promises of political favors.

As Ambassador to Greece, she has been pushing other countries to do business with an oil-and-gas lobbyist who has been attending her official meetings, and suggesting that the US could bring down the Greek government any time they wanted.

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I’ve Hoid of that sort of thing before

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Reposted by Alan Wessman

Butlerian Jihadist of House Dornick @shimminykricket.blacksky.app · 08/10/2026

The average increase on code volume after the adoption of agentic AI studying 700 firms is 4,000 additional lines of code per programmer. The advantage of junior engineers writing code without the use of AI is senior engineers had to spend less time on code reviews.

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

It’s best understood as the manifestation of an attitude that principles are subordinate to power and popularity.

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Reposted by Alan Wessman

Shambling Corpse of Randy Herman @randyhermanlaw.com · 07/10/2026

Holy shit, this woman was a school admin who came to Nashville to perform with a gospel choir. She was arrested for trespassing (charges later dropped). She was only in jail for 12 hours, during which time she was sedated, raped and beaten in the head, suffering a concussion.

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Reposted by Alan Wessman

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Chat is it good when an Ambassadorial nominee writes "Stop papering all these things. It’s really dangerous ... if you write an email or a text about, l’m gonna kill you cause I love you but you’re so out of control" to the man who paid her $300,000 to help resolve his tax issues with the IRS?

That same month, Guilfoyle sent a congratulatory note to Long after his confirmation as IRS commissioner. She attached a letter Deters had written outlining his tax dispute: “Don Jr. and I are very close with Eric Deters and his wife and I know he sent you a letter,” she wrote. “I am hoping I know how busy you are that you could give some time and attention to it.”

Two days later, Deters sent her a photo of a printed memo addressed to her: “I have paid you $300,000 over the years,” he wrote. “As of this memo, I have not received one favor. I am not naive or a sucker. I need results.”

In response, she told Deters to “stop papering all these things. It’s really dangerous.”

“Just call me on signal,” she wrote.

As for Long, she would call him the next day, she assured Deters. “I wrote him a very nice message. Told him how important it was that you’re close to me and to don.”

“Also very privately,” she continued, “if you write an email or a text about, l’m gonna kill you cause I love you but you’re so out of control.”

That afternoon she texted an update: Long had written her back.

“BOOM,” she added.

A week later, on July 3, she placed two missed calls to Deters’ phone, and sent him instructions on how to wire money to an American Express account.

“Your needing $100,000 urgent unfortunately is not going to work,” he wrote. “I can’t do this without getting a divorce.”

“I’ve been calling you for over a week straight,” she replied. “You could be here meeting with Billy Long.”

Long is now the U.S. ambassador to Iceland. Embassy officials there referred reporters to a State Department media office that didn’t respond to a request for comment.

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Refraining from dentist joke here

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Reposted by Alan Wessman

535 News @535news.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

For years, Hill reporters assumed he was a former House parliamentarian or staffer. He was a 19-year-old college student in England. Meet @ringwiss.bsky.social.

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Reposted by Alan Wessman

Ben Winslow @benwinslow.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

A split 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled the courts do have the authority to review asylum cases in a lawsuit filed by a Utah refugee from Rwanda and her son. This is a circuit split, so it could go to SCOTUS. #utpol #Utah

Before TYMKOVICH, PHILLIPS, and McHUGH, Circuit Judges.
_________________________________
PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge.
_________________________________
Agnes Mukantagara and her son Ebenezer Shyaka sued United States
Citizenship and Immigration Services in federal district court for terminating
Mukantagara’s refugee status. The court dismissed their suit for lack of subject-
matter jurisdiction. It relied on 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii), which bars courts
from reviewing immigration agencies’ discretionary actions. It held that
§ 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) applied to 8 U.S.C. § 1157(c)(4), the Immigration and
Nationality Act’s provision for terminating refugee status.
We held that 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) does not apply to Mukantagara
and her son’s suit. See Mukantagara v. Noem, 164 F.4th 765 (10th Cir. 2026),
vacated by Mukantagara v. Mullin, 181 F.4th 1088 (10th Cir. 2026). We
reasoned that the action Mukantagara and her son challenged was not
discretionary, though a related action was. See id. The government moved for
rehearing, and soon after, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Mullin v.
Doe, 146 S. Ct. 2121 (2026). Doe seemed relevant, so we vacated our opinion

and asked the parties to brief us on it. With that briefing and argument, we’ve
landed about where we started.
Section 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) doesn’t bar district court review of USCIS’s
termination of refugee status. Doe’s careful consideration of the words
“determination” and “decision” has refined our analysis, but it doesn’t
substantially change it. Termination of refugee status under § 1157(c)(4)
involves two decisions. The first is a mandatory, nondiscretionary decision—
whether an alien met the INA’s definition of “refugee” when admitted into the
U.S. The second is an exercise of discretion—the agency may choose to
maintain an alien’s refugee status even if that person didn’t meet the INA’s
definition of refugee when admitted into the country. Because Mukantagara and
her son challenge only the first decision, which is nondiscretionary,
§ 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) does not apply. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1291, we reverse judgment in favor of the government and remand to the
district court for further proceedings.
BACKGROUND

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Which hopefully changes the message from “do it because it will help you” and “do it because it’s advised” to “do it because you care about the vulnerable people around you.”

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

If he’s usually an empathetic fellow, you could point out to him that being vaccinated is not just protection for himself but helps to bolster herd immunity which protects the community and especially those individuals who can’t be vaccinated even if they wanted to.

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Reposted by Alan Wessman

ProPublica @propublica.org · 06/10/2026

The government *still* isn’t tracking how often immigration agents detain U.S. citizens. We are. 500+ Americans have been handcuffed, held at gunpoint or held against their will in Trump’s second term. Our tally is almost certainly an undercount. THREAD (content warning: violence) ⬇️

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The way I see it, there is an onerousness to the latter that raises the cost and risk of filibustering, since mustering everyone to be present affects schedules, travel, etc. Plus, it then compels the parties to the debate to be in the same place/time for the debate—and perhaps that’s healthy.

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

My question is a genuine one, as it seems heavy handed to ban the product entirely if the problem is not inherent in the material itself but is in the lack of adequate protection for the laborers processing it.

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Is there something about artificial quartz that makes a ban more reasonable than regulating the workplaces in which it’s produced for the safety of the workers?

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I think autocorrect changed “bigot” into “big get”

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Reposted by Alan Wessman

KUER @kuer.org · 05/10/2026

Henderson doesn't know what the “end game” is for all of these efforts “because I am not creative enough, maybe — or devious enough — to think about what in the world the motivation could be.” #utah #utpol #elections2026 Produced in partnership w/ @utahnewsdispatch.com

kuer.org

Trump admin voting ‘gamesmanship’ keeps her up at night, says Lt. Gov. Henderson

Voting rights shouldn’t be ‘mucked around with’ for political gain, Utah's top election official said in a sit-down interview about her defense of voting rights leading up to the 2026 midterms.

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Is there enough ambiguity in the ballot language to mount a legal challenge? It seems a person could reasonably interpret it very narrowly (applying only to initiatives that explicitly create/increase a tax) or widely (anything that adds to the budget, thus requiring offsetting revenues).

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Add Vought to the list as chief usurper of Congress’s power of the purse

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Daniel Suitor @danielsuitor.com · 02/10/2026

Will is 100% right. Has happened to multiple clients of mine. One judge (not my case) has said that this isn't really release and ordered the person *actually* released. But it's forcing us habeas attorneys to win our cases twice (or more)

On September 9, 2026, Respondents permitted Pablo F. to exit the building where
he was detained, but he was immediately swarmed by four ICE officers and handcuffed as
soon as he stepped outside. (Doc. No. 25-3 at 4:48:45–4:49:26.)3
The officers drove him
to the back of the Whipple building and returned him to a holding cell. (Doc. No. 21 ¶¶ 8–
9; Doc. No. 25 ¶ 5.) During this encounter, officers dislocated Pablo F.’s shoulder. (Doc.
No. 21 ¶ 7.)4
Pablo F. now bringsthis Motion seeking to enforce the Court’s Order granting
the Petition.

Again, Respondents make no attempt whatsoever to support their assertion that
Pablo F. was released. Absent any such argument, the Court cannot agree that a reasonable
person would have felt free to leave when exiting the detention facility and immediately
being stopped by ICE officers. Likewise, absent some argument, the Court necessarily
concludes that Pablo F. was subject to restraints not shared by the public generally when
he took one step outside of the detention facility and was immediately stopped by ICE
officers who forcibly returned him to a detention cell. Because Respondents do not make
any legal argument that Pablo F. was ever meaningfully released from custody, the Court
grants the motion and orders Pablo F.’s release.6
6 To be clear, Pablo F. is not arguing, and the Court is not concluding, that an order of
release in a habeas matter renders unlawful any future arrests. Rather, the Court reaches
the narrow conclusion that because Respondents advance no legal argument in this case to
support their assertion that Pablo F. was released from custody, and because the
uncontested facts show that ICE officers immediately swarmed Pablo F. as soon as he
stepped out of the building, Pablo F. was not released from custody.

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Alan Wessman @alanwessman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Good thread for awareness, both in avoiding an insensitive memetic phrase and in remembering the truth of the tragedy.

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