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Lorien

@fine-weather.bsky.social
75 followers 122 following 19 posts
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Reposted by Lorien
Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Lot of issues here but one part that sticks out in light of the almost-attacked-a-Chinese-ship story today: people with very important jobs where lives are at stake have bought the hype and outsourced their whole brains to AI. We're going to see more and more of this. www.cnn.com/2026/09/18/p...
In the past year, the Defense Department has rapidly made Maven a cornerstone of the US military apparatus. Several former senior US military officials now work for Palantir, including some with high-level security clearances in Centcom’s Tampa headquarters. Their role is to keep the software functioning inside secure military environments. Some Centcom personnel expected Maven to flag stale information or inconsistencies in the underlying intelligence assembled for potential targets, the officials said. It’s not clear why they had such expectations.
The intelligence report, circulated across the US military this spring in the midst of the war with Iran, immediately set off alarm bells: A Chinese ship in the Middle East was transporting components of a nuclear weapons program.

The US military swung into action with plans to intercept the vessel, according to four sources familiar with the episode. According to two of the sources, armed members of the US military were preparing to board the ship. Military planes were in the air, one of those sources and another source familiar with the incident said.

It was only just before the planned operation that officials dug deeper into the report put together by a special operations command analyst and found it had been generated with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) — and that a chatbot the analyst had used inaccurately identified the material the ship was carrying. CNN was not able to learn what the misidentified cargo was.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
The timing is damning. Less than 24 hours after the briefing was submitted in his appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, the Board overturned Mr. Serrano's torture protections, despite extensive evidence. Five hours later, he was on a deportation flight, with the Ecuadorean media tipped off.
Then, at 4:06 p.m. on Aug. 27, the Homeland Security Department filed its written argument to the immigration appeals board, court records show.
At 3:12 p.m. the next day, a panel of three appellate immigration judges unanimously reversed the lower court, saying they did not find it likely that Mr. Serrano would be tortured in Ecuador.
The judges said that the physical harm suffered by Mr. Glas did not qualify as torture because it had not been shown to have been “intentionally inflicted with the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering.” They also noted that the Ecuadorean government had not been proven responsible for the deaths of the other suspects in Mr. Villavicencio’s assassination.
The judge who wrote the opinion, Keith Hunsucker, has close ties to the Trump administration. For several months, he served as the acting chief judge for the immigration court system.
Mr. Hunsucker did not respond to a request for comment.
Within five hours of the appeals board ruling, court records show, Mr. Serrano was on a plane back to Ecuador, where his arrival was broadcast online. Mr. Noboa said that Mr. Serrano was being held in El Encuentro, a prison modeled after El Salvador’s notorious CECOT detention center.
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BookDude #BookSky 💙📚 @radicalgrammar.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Unlike school teachers, U.S. lawmakers get paid during the entire 7-week recess. Since 1983, funding for congressional pay has been classified as a permanent. This means their salaries do not rely on annual budget approvals and are not stopped by congressional schedules or government shutdowns.
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David Rothkopf @djrothkopf.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Important thoughts from @ilangoldenberg.bsky.social
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Reuters Legal @legal.reuters.com · 16/09/2026
Global energy markets face a lengthening period of tight supply and price volatility as the industry's ability to offset disruptions from the Middle East is dwindling, senior executives from Shell and Equinor said on Wednesday.
reut.rs
Energy market shock absorbers weakening, Shell and Equinor warn
Global energy markets face a lengthening period of tight supply and price volatility as the industry's ability to offset disruptions ​from the Middle East is dwindling, senior executives from Shell and Equinor said ‌on Wednesday.
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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
“A series of impeachments would destabilize the Trump administration…This works best if Trump himself is not impeached. Democrats can claim they’re merely going after government corruption by underlings, not fighting the will of the great and good American people.” open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
open.substack.com
Impeach Them. All of Them.
Hegseth is only the beginning.
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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Usually, autocrats need to dissolve the legislatures themselves, by force, to cow opposition & cement their unaccountable authority. In the US, the autocrat's sycophants in the legislature dissolve it themselves
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Reuters Legal @legal.reuters.com · 30/04/2026
The US Supreme Court blocked a Louisiana voting map with a second Black-majority district, undermining a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. Subscribe to The Daily Docket: reut.rs/4dsTnQ1
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Simon Rosenberg @simonwdc.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
GOP going all in on fiery racism and rancid white supremacy now. Hoods are off. They are just going for it. Not sure this is going to play out as they hope.
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Jon B. Wolfsthal @jonatomic.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
I think they call this a policy failure “Since eight years ago when President Trump pulled out of a nuclear deal with Tehran, Iran has accumulated 22,000 pounds, or 11 tons, of enriched uranium.” www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
nytimes.com
How Iran Accumulated 11 Tons of Enriched Uranium
Two months after the United States began a war meant to prevent Iran from ever building an atomic bomb, the fate of its stockpile of enriched uranium remains a mystery.
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St. John Barned-Smith @stjbs.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
NEW: ICE facilities’ medical staff repeatedly failed to diagnose critical illnesses and misdiagnosed patients, @kolyncheang.bsky.social and I found, during a six month investigation that we have just published. www.sfchronicle.com/projects/202...
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Frieder Dengler @friederdengler.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
"Until he realizes" is key
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Matt Cameron @mattcameron.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again" is the single most evil thing that a U.S. president has ever said in public and it's not even close
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Congress is in recess right now
Trump promising to wipe a civilization off the face of the earth
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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 07/04/2026
Armeggedon is terrible, but our only other option was a black woman
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Anjali Dayal @anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
"Donald Trump must be removed from office" is the correct response to all of this
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Senate Judiciary Democrats 🇺🇸 @judiciarydems.senate.gov · 02/03/2026
BREAKING: Credible whistleblower discloses that FBI forensic experts were ordered to stand down from processing the scene where Renee Good was killed, because Kash Patel did not want Good referenced as a “victim” in the warrant.
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ceej @ceej.online · 28/02/2026
a tweet from the “department of war” calling the start of ww3 “OPERATION EPIC FURY”
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
WOW. 19 people, all who were imprisoned and mistreated in a foreign prison at the direct command of the United States, are brave enough to say “We are innocent, and we will endure more time imprisoned to prove that.” I can only admire the enormous courage such a move takes.
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The Editorial Board @editorialboard.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
Trump’s self-serving made-for-TV war with Iran. Taking a page from Netanyahu’s war-crimes playbook. A THREAD.
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Kai Ryssdal @kairyssdal.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
So let’s think about this. A private company refused - on principle - to yield to the government’s demands. The government then cancelled its contracts with the company and has set about destroying it
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Leia🇨🇴🇺🇸 @theswprincess.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
www.themarshallproject.org/2026/01/29/i...
themarshallproject.org
Children in ICE Detention Skyrocket in Trump’s Second Term
With a six-fold jump in children in detention, advocates allege harrowing conditions are putting kids’ lives at risk.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
Again, there is one constitutional mechanism for solving problems like "The president threatens to nationalize & overturn valid elections." For the previous 45 presidents, it would have been used already. Everyone is just kidding themselves at this point & pretending there are other solutions.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
👇🎯 Today in top-notch political science under competitive authoritarianism
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🎃 Imani Gandy Corn 🎃 @angryblacklady.blacksky.app · 30/01/2026
Bondi directed federal agents to arrest four journalists. Georgia Fort, Don Lemon, Jamael Lundy, and Trahern Crews. All Black. All doing their jobs.
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Ken Tremendous @kentremendous.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
Wild that there was an open lane called "what if we just explain things clearly to people?" and he's the first one to ever fill it
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RogueResistanceKnitter 🥄🐸 @rogueresistknitter.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
👀MAINE RESIDENTS👀
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Just another Bill @justabillwaiting.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
That 30% is awful close to the 27% crazification factor kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/10/lunc...
kfmonkey.blogspot.com
Lunch Discussions #145: The Crazification Factor
John: ... I mean, what will it take? That last speech literally made no sense . It was crazy drunken bar talk! Islamic radicals are lik...
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Jonathan W. Gray @elmcitytree.blacksky.app · 26/01/2026
Ta-Nehisi has a way of clarifying things. So good to read him today. It’s in Vanity Fair but I got past the paywall by using Apple News.
apple.news
“The Homeland” Is War on America: The Blood-and-Soil Nationalism That Killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti — Vanity Fair
In the time following 9/11, even conservatives voiced skepticism of the proposed Department of Homeland Security, writes Ta-Nehisi Coates. Now, Trump seeks to cleanse, purge, and expand this so-called...
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Lauren Turek @laurenfturek.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
Sharp as ever from @mcsweeneys.net: A Message from Your Federal Overlords
mcsweeneys.net
A Message from Your Federal Overlords
“Even as videos emerged that contradicted the government’s account, the Trump administration was in a race to control the narrative around the kill...
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Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
Yesterday, I awoke to news of another ICE killing in MN. On Bluesky, the conversation was deeply critical of ICE. But I wanted to see how things were going on X. Surprisingly, the attempts there to blame the victim weren't getting as much traction as I suspected. So I wrote a thing.
open.substack.com
Another Killing on ICE
The right wing propaganda machine can’t spin the killing of Alex Pretti
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Abe Newman @abenewman.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
1/From Greenland to Venezuela to tariffs, Trump foreign policy baffles leaders and readers. Why? Because it is not about national interest but those of insider elites. To understand and manage, you have to name it: what @segoddard.bsky.social and I call neo-royalism. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | This Theory Explains Trump’s Baffling Foreign Policy
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Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
Patel is lying about the law as it is traditionally understood, as it is written. He’s telling the truth about law under Trumpism: you only have a right if they deign to acknowledge it; you have no right to do anything they don’t want you to do.
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Robert Farley @drfarls.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
Yes, It’s Fascism www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
theatlantic.com
Yes, It’s Fascism
Until recently, I thought it a term best avoided. But now, the resemblances are too many and too strong to deny.
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Marco Rogers @polotek.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
People already working hard to prove how perfect Alex Pretti was. To show he didn't "deserve" to be killed. But it's a trap folks. You're only feeding into a dynamic where people who are considered lesser get no protection. You don't have to be an Alex Pretti to deserve to live.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
Literally all of this is a lie. We are about to find out who is state media, because they will be the ones to parrot a justification for state-sanctioned murder.
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Nick Pettigrew @nick-pettigrew.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
The people who'll tell you today's murder victim in Minnesota shouldn't have turned up to a protest carrying a gun are the same people who said Kyle Rittenhouse was perfectly entitled to do the same thing.
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Jen Mercieca @jenmercieca.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
"If we are to meet our critical moment in history, we need to reckon with the reality that we are not up against adversaries we have seen before. We are up against end times fascism." www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
theguardian.com
The rise of end times fascism | Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them
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Jen Mercieca @jenmercieca.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
Words became weapons, positioning people as hate-objects for others. Political leaders refused to solve problems, but instead blamed the weakest among them for their collective fate. Conspiracy and distrust and hatred grew until no one felt safe and no one knew who to trust.
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David Rothkopf @djrothkopf.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
If you can’t admit Trump is a dangerous, lunatic moron, you’re part of the problem. My latest. www.thedailybeast.com/now-is-the-t...
thedailybeast.com
Now Is the Time to Admit It, America: Trump Is a Dangerous, Lunatic Moron
If you can’t see it now, you’re the problem.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
They need all protestors to be paid operatives because they cannot abide the possibility that somewhere in the world, people sincerely believe in standing up for others. It isn’t enough that they’ve chased all moral virtue from their own hearts. They want a world where no virtue exists in anyone.
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
This line graph illustrates the percentage change in agency staff levels from the previous year for nine major U.S. federal scientific and health organizations between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025. The agencies tracked include the CDC, Department of Energy, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. For the majority of the timeline between 2016 and 2023, the agencies show relatively stable fluctuations, generally staying within a range of +5% to -5% change per year. However, there is a dramatic and uniform plummet starting in the 2024–25 period. Every agency depicted shows a sharp downward trajectory, with staffing losses ranging from approximately -15% to over -25%. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows the most significant decline, dropping to roughly -26%, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the least severe but still substantial drop at approximately -15%.
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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
New— An American citizen boarding flight from Boston to Lisbon just now told me after showing boarding pass, every passenger stopped on jetway by two ICE agents demanding to take their photo. When passenger asked why, ICE threatened to detain them. If they said no photo, couldn't board/TBD detained.
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Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
They're not just doing tyranny, they're doing the *exact* things listed in the Declaration of Independence that the colonists accused the king of. It's surreal
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Chokely Carmichael🥋 @stewartcoles.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
Ah yes, the Kavanaugh stop. A brief law enforcement encounter that lasts a mere *checks notes* 25 days.
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
Make it viral.
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Kim Lane Scheppele @kimlanelaw.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
Here's a vicious attempt to destroy the rules-based international order since US funding is crucial to many of these institutions. The US wants to go it alone not realizing how much these international organizations do for us. Insanity amplified by arrogance. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...
whitehouse.gov
Withdrawing the United States from International Organizations, Conventions, and Treaties that Are Contrary to the Interests of the United States
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 07/01/2026
Trump: "I have just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis. It is a horrible thing to watch. The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting ... "
I have just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is a horrible thing to watch. The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense. Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital. The situation is being studied, in its entirety, but the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis. They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE. We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate!
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