🚨Communications shutdown in Iran is on-going 🚨

Iranian people have been cut-off from communicating with the outside world for over 50 hours.

#IranProtests2026 #IranDigitalBlackout

A screenshot from the official Mozilla blog that reads: Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software. Firefox will remain our anchor. It will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions.

Mozilla has a new CEO and he just announced that Firefox will evolve into a modern AI browser. This is a good example of how management doesn’t understand its own user base and why they go out of their way to install Firefox on Windows, Android, iOS and other devices blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/l...

To my friends from LiveJournal I still think about you Wonder if you finally quit, Do you still speak to your mom? I remember when you went to Japan How you swore you'd never forgive him. I can't remember to take my meds but I remember you wanted to live on a houseboat. It's a strange intimacy, all of us unspooling across decades of internet space Like balls of yarn leaving a trail behind us of everywhere and everyone we've ever been I hope you got your houseboat. I hope you got everything. -Hayley DeRoche

♥️

I refuse to drop the honorary Skype card from malicious content though.

On February 20, 2025, Chris Young, a senior member of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team met with the USADF leadership team, including me, at headquarters. Young explained that he was there to introduce DOGE to the Agency. He also announced that two software engineers would be assigned to the Agency to modernize the Agency’s IT systems and create efficiencies in our operations. During discussions, I stated to Mr. Young that modernizing our IT systems and databases was welcome news and that we fully supported the mission of

using technology to create a more efficient workforce. Mr. Young spoke about his experience in Africa as a child of missionaries and stated that he has seen first-hand the many problems that USADF is trying to address. He mentioned that due to the urgency of responding to the President’s Executive Order aimed at USADF, the two engineers would come to the Agency the next day on February 21st. 4. On February 21, Ethan Shaotran, Jacob Altik, and Nate Cavanaugh arrived at USADF. Shaotran and Cavanaugh introduced themselves as IT personnel from GSA. Altik stated that he was a lawyer from the White House Personnel Office. They explained that we needed to immediately sign a memorandum of understanding for their detail assignment. 5. Once the MOU was signed, Altik explained the true purpose of the meeting, which was to provide USADF leadership with DOGE’s interpretation of the “minimum presence and function” required by USADF’s statute. DOGE read the statute to mean: 1) only the USADF Board and President/CEO are statutorily required, 2) only one or two grants funded by private sector partnerships are required, and 3) all other personnel/employees therefore needed to be eliminated under the Executive Order. 6. Altik stated that his next step was to present a RIF plan (where all USADF staff would be fired) to the board for approval by Monday, February 24. Altik threatened that if the Board didn’t approve the plan, the Board would be dismissed.

Chilling details from a lawsuit against DOGE by USADF about how much of a lie DOGE's "IT modernization" is (the best way to describe it is if someone comes from the cable company and then says because he's in your house, he's allowed to do a home invasion) storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

A nonsensical threat to:
One of the most important advances in biotechnology of our time, already being used to successfully treat refractory cancers, enable genome editing, develop vaccines for infectious diseases for which there are none, treat autoimmune diseases, and more.

Share the media.
The news is compromised.
We're starting to boil over.

Trump at the DOJ: "I believe that CNN and MSNDC, who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat Party. And in my opinion, they are really corrupt and they are illegal. What they do is illegal."

'If You Don't Fight, You Can't Win': Federal Employees Want Chuck Schumer and the Democrats to Grow a Spine Splinter is your home for news and opinions that challenge power in our political and economic system that's becoming more unhinged each and every day.

NEW: I heard from a *bunch* of federal employees tonight with more backbone that Chuck Schumer. Spread the word!

"Shutdowns suck, but what we’re experiencing is something much much worse and now is the moment to stand against it or you’re abdicating your duty as an elected official.”

AOC: It is almost unthinkable why Senate Democrats would vote to to hand the few pieces of leverage that we have away for free when we've been sent here to protect social security, protect medicaid, and protect medicare.

Republicans’ partisan spending bill turns the federal government into a slush fund for Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

It’s unthinkable that any Senate Democrat would hand them a blank check by voting for cloture.

Lol tell it to USAID

Brooklyn, it is time to go yell at Chuck Schumer

Individual Border Patrol agents knew they were doing this, and a supervisor signed off on it.

“Johns Hopkins has bet very heavily on a century and a quarter of partnership with the federal government. If the federal government decides it doesn’t want to know things anymore, that would be bad for Johns Hopkins and devastating for Maryland.”

There is a real, genuine 1st Amendment crisis in the United States right now.

The government is openly retaliating against anyone with a viewpoint it doesn't like: Pro-Palestinian protesters, law schools teaching Black History, pro-immigration public service loan forgiveness seekers.

Dutch gov't taking "Netherlands first" approach with development aid The Dutch government will henceforth take a Netherlands-first approach with development aid, Minister Reinette Klever for Foreign Trade and Development Aid announced during a visit to Tunisia. She is ...

Too bad it is paired with shit like this tho nltimes.nl/2025/02/20/d...

Dems got tricked into banning TikTok and letting Republicans/Trump swoop in like heroes to save it while potentially delivering the influential app right into the hands of nefarious actors. This is the same thing. They are being tricked into destroying the open Internet. They're a party of rubes.

Trump administration backtracks on eliminating thousands of national parks employees Following a loud public outcry, and relentless media campaign from outdoors enthusiasts, the Trump administration has reversed course on a plan to eliminate thousands of seasonal workers at the Nation...

Following a loud public outcry about job cuts at the National Parks Service — and a relentless media campaign from outdoors enthusiasts across the country — it looks like the Trump administration has blinked.

via @jackdolan.bsky.social

Apple in 2016 | A Message to Our Customers | “…government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers…” A follower on Twitter reminded me of the message that Apple published in February 2016; the nature of British surveillance requests will probably prevent them sharing similar to the UK today, but t…

Apple in 2016 | A Message to Our Customers | “…government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers…”
https://alecmuffett.com/article/112421
#EndToEndEncryption #HomeOffice #apple #surveillance #tcn

Scatterplot titled “Empirical Evidence of Ideological Targeting in Federal Layoffs: Agencies seen as liberal are significantly more likely to face DOGE layoffs.” • The x-axis represents Perceived Ideological Leaning of federal agencies, ranging from -2 (Most Liberal) to +2 (Most Conservative), based on survey responses from over 1,500 federal executives. • The y-axis shows Agency Size (Number of Staff) on a logarithmic scale from 1,000 to 1,000,000. Each point represents a federal agency: • Red dots indicate agencies that experienced DOGE layoffs. • Gray dots indicate agencies with no layoffs. Key Observations: • Liberal-leaning agencies (left side of the plot) are disproportionately represented among red dots, indicating higher layoff rates. • Notable targeted agencies include: • HHS (Health & Human Services) • EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) • NIH (National Institutes of Health) • CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) • Dept. of Education • USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) • The National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE), despite its conservative leaning (+1 on the scale), is an exception among targeted agencies. • A notable outlier: the Department of Veterans Affairs (moderately conservative) also faced layoffs despite its size. Takeaway: The figure visually demonstrates that DOGE layoffs disproportionately targeted liberal-leaning agencies, supporting claims of ideological bias. The pattern reveals that layoffs were not driven by agency size or budget alone but were strongly associated with perceived ideology. Source: Richardson, Clinton, & Lewis (2018). Elite Perceptions of Agency Ideology and Workforce Skill. The Journal of Politics, 80(1).

The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. 🧵⬇️

Dozens of CFPB Workers Fired in After-Hours Blitz Some affected employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were notified with an email that addressed them as [EmployeeFirstName][EmployeeLastName], [Job Title], [Division].

I'm hearing now that *every* technologist CFPB hired to investigate Big Tech was fired this evening. That's somewhere between 70-100 people.

wired.com/story/dozens-of-cfpb-workers-terminated-in-after-hours-firing-blitz/

Authoritarian leaders in former Soviet bloc seize on Musk’s USAid crackdown Region’s autocrats join in persecution of agency that provided aid and helped to build up civil society in 1990s

Authoritarians ask Musk to turn over lists of USAID staff

The prime minister of Slovakia asked Musk to share information about NGOs and reporters who worked there.

In Russia, the state duma speaker said, if USAID is an enemy organization, Russia wants a list, "and we’ll hand it over to the FSB.”

"For the first time in US history, the federal government has moved noncitizens apprehended and detained in the US on civil immigration charges to the Naval Station at Guantanamo . . . And it is holding them incommunicado, without access to attorneys, family, or the outside world."

U.S. intelligence, law enforcement candidates face Trump loyalty test Candidates for top intelligence and law enforcement jobs were asked to give “yes” or “no” responses to questions such as: Was Jan. 6 “an inside job?”

Loyalty tests are a classic feature of the autocratic playbook

www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

They’re laying the groundwork to start ignoring court orders.

It could mean that the world financial system melts down when investors realize that Elon Musk may selectively default on US debt. Just saying.