Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?

The manifesto makes a straightforward case that government and Silicon Valley power must be fused in order to defend Western values - which are superior to others - with hard rather than soft power. For many, this sounds like techno-fascism.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/palantir-w...

Power without accountability: The Palantir manifesto The problems with our tech philosopher kings

New, from me: Take the Palantir manifesto seriously, if not literally.
It reveals that our tech philosopher kings want public money, but without public accountability. This creates a dilemma for governments unaligned with its techno-fascist vision. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/palantir-w...

Screenshot of a tweet by NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman (@astro_reid) describing filming an "Earthset" from space, comparing it to watching a sunset at the beach from "the most foreign seat in the cosmos." He notes he captured a cell phone video while fellow astronaut Christina Koch (@Astro_Christina) used a Nikon with a 400mm lens for professional shots, with Vic Glover (@AstroVicGlover) and Jeremy Hansen (@Astro_Jeremy) watching from window 3.

Continuation of Reid Wiseman's tweet, describing how he used an iPhone with 8x zoom to capture Earth rising over the Moon's surface through the docking hatch window, noting the view is uncropped and uncut and comparable to what the human eye would see. The image shows Earth as a small bright crescent peeking over the dark, cratered lunar surface against the blackness of space.

The most amazing video ever taken on an iPhone.

It’s not media cluelessness – it’s cowardice and complicity But there’s another word starting with “C” that describes some journalists: courage.

Journalists might've once had the excuse that the didn’t realize how bad MAGA extremism would be. But they can't plead cluelessness now. What’s left are cowardice, complicity and courage. Pick one.
My Stop the Presses newsletter.

Interesting @markjacob.bsky.social point here: Why not more stand-alone stories with heds like "Trump Is Dismantling Democracy"?

"Such a headline would be easy to support with facts that the NYT and other major media report in isolation every day. They’re simply afraid to hit the total button."

Trump STUNNED as SHOCKING Defeat Sends CHILLING Warning YouTube video by Katie Phang

What can we learn from Peter Magyar’s stunning win over Viktor Orbán & deploy here in the US?

Prof. @kimlanelaw.bsky.social joins me for an incredibly fascinating conversation about how Magyar secured his victory & what’s next for Hungary.

This is a must-watch episode!

youtu.be/kpOxCH6npws?...

Not just blatant racism from that rep’s verbal 🤮, he’s actually exhibiting low IQ with such garbage

The FBI Director Is MIA Kash Patel has alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.

On multiple occasions Patel’s security detail had difficulty waking him because he was seemingly intoxicated, according to info supplied to DOJ and White House officials. A request for “breaching equipment”was made because Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors

Joe DiGenova Back in the Criminal Frame YouTube video by emptywheel

The biggest reason it is insane that Todd Blanche put Joe DiGenova in charge of criminalizing investigations into Russia.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fABt...

Ossoff: "How does American politics really work? It's coin operated. Money goes in, favors come out. It's been running on secret money, corporate money, billionaire money ... all of this gave rise to a depraved president who exploits this rot to empower and enrich himself"

'Bell removed Romeo and Juliet from his syllabus because “in Act III, Romeo and Juliet have sex, and that falls under this very broadly defined sexuality [topics ban].” He also didn’t teach about Joan of Arc this semester.'

What an actual lack of freedom of speech looks like in universities. 3/3

Faculty Defect From Texas Publics, Citing Censorship Fed up with the state’s censoring of Plato, Joan of Arc and Romeo and Juliet, humanities professors are leaving Texas public institutions in pursuit of academic freedom.

'Texas A&M philosophy professor Martin Peterson is leaving the university after administrators told him in January that he couldn’t teach Plato’s Symposium in his philosophy class; they said the ancient Greek philosopher’s work violated the system’s restrictions on gender and sexuality content.' 1/3

The Week Ahead We seem doomed to another week of war news.

This morning, just after 8 a.m., Trump had a long ramble on Truth Social that concluded, “if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!” That’s our start to the week ahead.
open.substack.com/pub/joycevan...

DOJ demands Detroit-area 2024 ballots, escalating election scrutiny DOJ official Harmeet K. Dhillon wrote that she is seeking ballots to investigate election law compliance. Democratic state officials call the request baseless.

Breaking WaPo:

The Trump Justice Department is now demanding all ballots from the 2024 election in the Detroit area — a highly unusual move that comes shortly after prosecutors seized 2020 ballots in Georgia and obtained 2020 election records in Arizona.

Weird how they never do this in areas where Trump won!

DOJ Office of Civil Rights seem very focused on districts with a lot of Black voters.

Gonna spend the next two years spamming every elected Dem about the concept of "damnatio memoriae." Chisel his name off every inscription. Build over the various Trump Towers like they're Nero's Golden House. Remove him from physical memory, not to forget but as a sign of disrespect to the man.

I have seriously lost track of how many times we've completely obliterated Iran's military and how many times Trump has reopened the Strait of Hormuz.

Exclusive | U.A.E. Asks U.S. About a Wartime Financial Lifeline Emirati officials have spoken with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about accessing dollars if the Middle East conflict drags on.

UAE asking for financial help bc Trump has fucked things up so badly.

www.wsj.com/world/middle...

In the same manifesto, Palantir's owners argued that we need a national military draft, that soft power is over, and that we were too hard on Germany and Japan after World War II. I don't think that company should be allowed to exist anymore.

Syrian Billionaires Needed a Favor in Washington. They Invoked the Trump Name.

NYT INVESTIGATION: As the Trump administration & Congress last year moved to repeal sanctions on Syria, the Qatar-based family that most stood to benefit was privately negotiating a real-estate partnership with Jared Kushner and proposing a Trump golf course in Syria www.nytimes.com/2026/04/19/u...

It is likely that Trump's Iran catastrophe will lead to some kind of compensation for all the countries the US has screwed (which is all of them). We would do well now to lay groundwork for seizing assets of the Palantirs and Musk fortune that enabled Trump's rise and invasion.

The Trump Organization has said no such Syria golf course is under consideration. But the golf course plan became part of the sanctions repeal lobbying effort, The Times investigation found.

Me: Writes a book documenting in detail how #SCOTUS’s approach to emergency applications shifted in the mid-2010s, and why those shifts are problematic without regard to the results.

SI: But a 6-3 Court once vacated part of a Fifth Circuit stay in a specific Texas abortion case. So checkmate, libs!

The only way we unfuck our country is through a puritanical anti-corruption drive. We need to rip out a vast substrate of corrupt elites and marginalize an even larger contingent of mere incompetents and cowards.

Ppl need to be terrified of the white-collar criminal laws of the United States again.

If Dems retake either house, they must launch an investigation into this. There's no easier way to highlight the corruption of this era and to establish that Dems are committed to fighting it.

Pretty sure @wyden.senate.gov and Maxine Waters would be the chairs to do it.

Trump continues to crater. New NBC poll has his approval down to 37-63, which is 26 points underwater.

Crucially, 50% disapprove *strongly.* Has any other president had half the country strongly disapproving?

www.nbcnews.com/politics/don...

Interesting bit from a speech Cory Booker gave yesterday at the Michigan Democratic Women's Caucus in Detroit: (Full speech here: www.c-span.org/program/camp...)

To escape authoritarianism, somebody's going to have to come up with an inspiring vision of what the country could be and motivate people to help make it happen. I'm guessing a bitter indictment of people whose support you're asking for may not help with that.

Todd Blanche Puts Dmitry Firtash's Onetime Lawyer In Charge of Criminalizing the Russian Investigation - emptywheel The biggest reason Joe DiGenova is a wildly inappropriate person to lead an attempt to criminalize the Russian investigation is his past efforts to get paid by Russian-backed Ukrainians to do the same...

Todd Blanche Puts Dmitry Firtash's Onetime Lawyer In Charge of Criminalizing the Russian Investigation

emptywheel.net/2026/04/19/t...

NEW: Justice Dept demands Wayne County, Michigan turn over all ballots, ballot receipts & envelopes from 2024 election

"This request is as absurd as it is baseless,” said Michigan Atty General Dana Nessel

State says letter cites allegations that are “incorrect and not credible"