⚡ Zelenskyy: "Each dollar for oil from Russia is money for the war. More than 110 tankers of Moscow’s ‘shadow fleet’ are currently at sea. (...) This is $10 billion—a resource that is directly converted into new strikes against Ukraine."
🔗 united24media.com/latest-news/...
"Alligator Alcatraz" already has a bad reputation for its poor treatment of immigrants. But often, things at the facility allegedly get even worse. Things like reports of beatings and confinement while exposed to the elements. It never stopped.
I'm not joking when I say mRNA technology is more important than "AI" and it's a tragedy we're throwing billions into one while our government is aggressively defunding the other.
For the kind of work I do, verification that applies the same standards to allies and adversaries, that scrutinises power on whichever side it sits, this worldview is structurally hostile. Symmetric verification becomes part of the cultural pathology the document wants reined in.
Opening text of a thread by Palantir from X Because we get asked a lot. The Technological Republic, in brief. 1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation. 2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible. 3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public. 4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.
Palantir put out a 22-point summary of their CEO's book The Technological Republic. It's pitched as a defence of the West, but if you read it through the VDA framework, verification, deliberation, accountability, what it's actually doing looks rather different.
twitter-thread.com/t/2045574398...
One explanation for violations in the Iran ceasefire is that all sides are deliberately breaking the truce to gain a strategic advantage, and are subsequently retaliating to deter each side’s breaches
Because we get asked a lot. The Technological Republic, in brief. 1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation. 2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible. 3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.
4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software. 5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed. 6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost. 7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commi
8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive. 9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret. 10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed. 11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.
12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.l. is set to begin. 13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet. 14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war. 15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese
Ein Softwareunternehmen ruft öffentlich zur Errichtung einer neuen Weltordnung auf, garniert mit Positionen, die man nur rechtsextrem nennen kann.
Diese Software hat in deutschen Behörden NICHTS verloren.
Victor Ray is not pulling punches here. 🎯
These type of institutions are mushrooming across public institutions in GOP-controlled states. None has an academic need. Few have student interest. They are symbols of political conquest and sites of clientelism.
"At NASA, the Science Directorate alone is looking to shed nearly 1,000 employees, or more than 40% of that workforce." www.govexec.com/workforce/20...
This week, after DOJ civil rights chief Harmeet Dhillon partied with Jan 6 organizers, she was met days later with a lawsuit asking for communications between her agency and election deniers. Meanwhile, blue states are "Trump-proofing" their elections.
www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
right. i don't think you necessarily need government experience to be "experienced" here. plenty of fields have transferable skills! a skilled union negotiator could make a pretty good diplomat, for example. but you have to have something! bsky.app/profile/3fec...
the funny thing about sending jd vance out to do sensitive diplomatic negotiations is he has literally no experience. like, none whatsoever. he doesn't even have related experience in lawmaking or some executive role.
🧵 The Canadian federal government’s 2025 budget has allocated:
More business tax breaks including for fossil fuels sector
$925 million for AI
$81.8 billion over 5 years for military
However, this comes at the expense of cultural heritage.
Parks Canada, which includes responsibility for many national museums across Canada, is “...ceasing or reducing lower priority activities, such as library services,” according to the budget.
These cuts include the removal of the Register of Historic Places, and closure of the Parks Canada Library. Individual parks and historic sites will see an impact, with some facilities being closed to visitors, e.g., the interpretation centre at the Battle of the Châteauguay historic site.
Priorities! Rather than focus on ending—and winning—a war, Trump attended a UFC bout. This is not a serious man or a serious commander in chief.
NEW FOIA Files newsletter is out!
On April 1, the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel publicly released a bombshell 52-page opinion. It said that the Presidential Records Act is “unconstitutional” and that Trump “need not further comply with its dictates.”
🧵
www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...
Vance and his staff have been working their media contacts like crazy this week.
Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.
Ukrainian drones now strike deeper in Russia. Serhii Okhotnik’s drone designs keep Ukrainian soldiers safe, trading Chinese Mavics for a Ukrainian design.
man, things are pretty stressful, huh
Screenshot of a tweet by Marc E. Elias stating that with his popularity declining, Donald Trump took steps to gain control over U.S. elections, promoting a Democracy Docket segment. The image shows Trump shaking hands with another man on an airport tarmac, with a vehicle and staff visible in the background.
The work Marc Elias and Democracy Docket is doing is vital.
What a beautiful moment.
on top of all the national stuff going on I've been doing some work in high-poverty local schools and you just come home and want to cry. these children, they need so much more than we've been able to give them. the ICE surge crushed our schools and it's going to ruin so many kids' chances
Vought has in fact written about his belief that the president is an elected dictator.
Oliver Shulz is the other soldier, charged w/murder for the killing of an unarmed man, which was captured on camera & shown in a 4Corner documentary. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...
I've said it before and I'll say it again. This ends in arrests, prosecutions and lengthy prison sentences or it never, ever ends.
The law is clear—the DOJ must release *ALL* of the Epstein Files.
You do not get to pick and choose. End the cover-up. Release the files.
I feel like this is maybe not the combination of traits we want in the guy running the biggest AI company in the world