So at the risk of maybe overreading this and making an educated guess, I think I can guess what specifically Wyden is talking about.

I think it's about use of AI (LLMs) by FBI to surveil American communications without a warrant

esp after secret fisa court expresses concerns about fbi data pulls from NSA data that includes U.S. citizen comms.

Voting on spy powers at 2am will definitely help with trust in the government!

Trump “I did that” pointing up (image taken from his very stable genius solar eclipse event in which he stared directly into the un-eclipsed sun overhead, with no eye protection, pointing upward at it, in characteristically very stable genius Trump fashion.)

Ho-lee hell in a hand-basket. 👀

Every powerful tool is dangerous in the wrong hands.

That’s neither a dismissal of the need for caution, restraint, regulation with regard to access to powerful tools — nor a diminishment of the risks that cut both ways.

I’m more acutely aware how “horseshoe” politics are exploited by anti-democracy propagandists—who leverage far-left as useful idiot tools equally as much as far-right

L/R extremes both lean into post-truth identity politics to self-sort into entrenched factions…voluntarily dividing, being conquered

Paging @birdingfella.bsky.social .

(I’m checkin this out, too, btw. Thanks for the recommendation, @skwinnicki.bsky.social !)

Who me? Yes Me—Who? Jesus, no.

Would you believe…
…Red Cross Jesus Doctor Who?

I’d argue Ds need to change that party fundraising structure in terms of centralized donor $ intake / allocation to “most-critical nat’l races” — instead give D candidates (& voter/donors) more say in where their own campaigns’ donations go

But that’s a whole other convo w its own array of context

Dems Double Down on Fundraising From SpaceX and Palantir Lobbyists By Donald Shaw Published on Mar 20, 2025 - 4 min read DCCC Charles Schumer Hakeem Jeftries DOGE SpaceX Palantir Charles Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries speak at a press conference to introduce legislation designed to combat DOGE by preventing unlawful access to the Treasury Department's payment systems. (Phote by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) SUMMARY Senate Democrats have joined their House counterparts in fundraising from the top lobbying firm for the Trump and Musk-tied companies. They've done it again. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has taken in another $1.3 million from lobbyists at Invariant-the bipartisan firm representing Trump-friendly companies SpaceX and Palantir—according to a new FEC filing. Hot on the heels of the $2.5 million it took from the same group of lobbyists in January, this latest haul shows House Democrats' campaign arm is more than comfortable cozying up to the very corporations thriving under the administration they say they are fighting. Invariant, the highest-paid lobbying firm for both Elon Musk's Space and the Peter Thiel co-founded Palantir, has now bundled nearly $4 million to the DCCC since the beginning of the year. And it's not just House-side Democrats raising money from the firm. According to a post on LinkedIn, Invariant hosted a fundraiser for the Senate Democratic leaders last month as well, where its cadre of lobbyists likely helped to bundle big bucks for leadership members like Chuck Schumer or potentially the Kirsten Gillibrand-led Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).

Context is crucial on a platform w/ 300 character post-limits…forcing shorthand, brevity, omission

My post responded to the preceding thread specifically referencing D leadership

And…D leadership DO play an outsize roll in D campaign fundraising—D party donated $ centralization = wholly unlike Rs

…Something tells me you stopped reading after the first few words, incorrectly assumed I was critiquing D leadership—rather than the systemic problem created by Rs & their corrupt Justices who’ve betrayed constitutional law, corrupted campaign/election/antitrust regs to favor Rs, oligarchs, fascism

Also the uncomfortable reality: Dem leadership is beholden to campaign $ of private/corp./foreign lobby…who prefer GOP deregulation, regressive tax policy that cannibalizes budgets & civil society to redistribute wealth upward

But SCOTUS media & election regulation gutting makes more $ necessary

You have a point

OTH: scolding the scolder is kinda also purity-policing with its own participation-chilling effect on those who feel it “counts more” to be out-in-it to be counted

Guess I’m a twice recursive scold in this circular scolding squad

We’ve created an orouborous of purity-policing

Didn’t say anyone had to be an intellectual to understand this.

Sociological studies consistently show: approx 1/3 of every population—across all cultures—gravitate toward Black/White binary thinking, [over]simplified answers, & authoritarians who provide them

It is not—has never been—unique to US

My point: these are the 1/3 of the population who’re drawn to oversimplified answers, black-&-white thinking, authoritarians etc

The takeaway is not that 1/3rd of the population is entrenched fundamentalists—they’re just not reached by nuance or intellectualism…and change in approach can reach them

…And when you look at actual weekly church attendance and knowledge-of / proficiency-in passages from biblical text, the number of truly fundamentalist Christians is actually quite low, much lower than that 38% figure suggests.

I hear you, but adjacent polling of that 38% demographic also shows they disproportionately (to the other 62ish%) respond in the affirmative to questions like:
“Do you believe aliens may have built the pyramids?”
…suggesting more a lack of critical thinking than an adherence to fundamentalist belief

“He who does not know what he’s doing only faces enemies who do not know what he is doing either”

Or, in the words of Lewis Black, explaining Reagan’s popularity among anti-soviet GOP:
“When your enemy is psychotic, the only way to win is: you have to be *even more* psychotic”

…& thus we got MAGA

In Bruges reference ftw

Arguably, “humans in their present form” could be interpreted by a poll participant as the whole species—rather than the individual organism—which wd make 10,000yrs accurate: human civilization is ~10k yrs old
…That’d mean “humans’ previous form” = nomad hunter/gatherers—w/o agriculture, writing etc

I’d point out how squishy that definition of “creationist purism” is tho

“in their present form within the past 10,000 years” is very different from creationist dogma:
“God created man in his image”—along w Earth—6000yrs ago…humans only ever existed in present form…didn’t evolve from previous one

Of course there’s a clear plan — it’s just that 38% don’t mind that the plan was Russian and is wholly destructive to the US, to themselves, and even to Trump & his regime…nor do they care that even though they were instrumental to that plan, they, Trump, and his corrupt regime weren’t privy to it.

Of course there’s a clear plan — it’s just that 38% don’t mind that the plan was Russian and is wholly destructive to the US, to themselves, and even to Trump & his regime…nor do they care that even though they were instrumental to that plan, they, Trump, and his corrupt regime weren’t privy to it.

Left: Forbes You Tube Removes Alleged Russia-Funded Outlet Hosting Tim Pool, Benny Johnson Videos Updated Sep 6, 2024 TOPLINE YouTube took down multiple channels Thursday, including one owned by Tenet Media that hosted livestreams and segments from shows by right-wing pundits like Tim Pool And Benny Johnson and whose operations were alleged in a Justice Department indictment to have been funded by Russia. Right: [Credit to Jim Stewartson, excerpt from his SubStack] …mouthpieces Tim Pool and Benny Johnson are suddenly going into attack mode against Trump. [Tim Pool Twitter / X.com post screenshot] @Timcast DUDE what if it turns out it was TRUMP the whole time with Epstein and Democrats had NOTHING to do with it April 09, 2026 421 Retweets 6,751 Likes [Jim Stewartson] It is safe to say that when Benny Johnson is calling out your judgement in geopolitical affairs, Vladimir Putin is unhappy with you as well. [Benny Johnson Youtube Screencapture] THE BENNY SHOW [CC subtitle] “I think that Bibi Netanyahu should be banned from the White House as far as I'm concerned.”

Well well well…Looks like the 1 thing that finally turns MAGA voters against Trump…is the same Kremlin influence op that rallied MAGA voters to Trump in the first place

Recall whom TENET—Russian-funded media outlet indicted 2024, kicked off YouTube—was paying $millions to shill Putin/RU propaganda?

(At Left: bleat from Trump At Right: painting of “Saturn Devouring his Son” by M. Wefail. [a re-imagining of Goya’s painting by the same name, but featuring a terrifying head of Trump atop Saturn’s body, devouring a human figure which has an American Flag draped across its shoulders]) Text of Bleat from Trump: Donald J. Trump @reaDonaldTrump Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year. Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive Crackdown in Crime across our Country, with Murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900. We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future, and our Deputy Attorney General, and a very talented and respected Legal Mind, Todd Blanche, will step in to serve as Acting Attorney General. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP 4/2/26, 12:17 PM

Saturn devours the second of his children.

(Painting by M. Wefail: wefail.art/products/sat... )

Overcoming it is totally possible, but it’s a learned skill, requires a lot more cognitive processing, deliberate mental effort, delay of emotional reaction

…That’s increasingly hard to do in an increasingly fast-paced info space, so bad actors exploit it by flooding-the-zone & cognitive overload

💯 In-group/out-group is an easily exploitable achilles heel bc human animals have evolved to unconsciously lean into tribalism…& recognizing one’s own cognitive dissonance, biases, & hypocrisy—& those of one’s in-group—was not something naturally selected for in coding the “software” we operate on.