Bryson Kisner

archive.ph/NE3X9 Archived!

“We wanted to rid ourselves of the fashions of historiography,” Burns summarized at one event, “and make a film that simply shows what happened.”

That’s not how history works though. You’re making an argument about what happened & what mattered even if you don’t realize you’re doing it. 🗃️

I can confirm the PBS Passport is a very good deal for $5/month or $2.50/month if you do yearly.

Thousands of hours of top notch content. NOVA is great. The new Ken Burns doc on Leonardo da Vinci is excellent.

You can sign up at the link below!

www.pbs.org/passport/lea...

When you’re definitely not guilty.

Defense Department to begin using Grok, Musk’s controversial AI Model Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up said its models are now available to federal agencies.

The U.S. Department of Defense will begin using Grok, the AI chatbot built by Elon Musk’s start-up xAI that came under fire just last week after launching into an antisemitic rant and invoking Adolf Hitler.

Their Water Taps Ran Dry When Meta Built Next Door

Some places will have to start rationing water - to enable AI slop.

"A data center like Meta’s, which was completed last year, typically guzzles around 500,000 gallons of water a day. New data centers [will] require millions of gallons of water a day"

Gift link:
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/t...

Texas Governor’s Office Says Its Emails With Elon Musk May Be, in Part, Too “Embarrassing” to Release to the Public We asked Abbott for his and his staff’s emails with Elon Musk and Musk’s companies. The governor’s office won’t turn them over, saying some contain “intimate and embarrassing” information that is “not...

We asked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for his and his staff’s emails with Elon Musk and Musk’s companies. The governor’s office won’t turn them over, saying some contain “intimate and embarrassing” info that is “not of legitimate concern to the public.” 🤔
@lmcgaughy.bsky.social @kutnews.bsky.social

Important piece you should definitely read

Exclusive: Hundreds at Alligator Alcatraz have no criminal charges, Miami Herald learns Descriptions of the Everglades detention center as a place for violent criminals tell only part of the story.

250 people detained in the Florida Everglades have no criminal convictions or pending charges.

Two weeks have passed since a Florida Highway Patrol officer arrested the Honduran immigrant client of Magdalena Cuprys of Cuprys & Associates. “He was stopped at a weigh station in Tampa because he owns a construction company, and he was required to stop for his truck to be weighed,” Cuprys told me. “The client had a valid Florida driver’s license. The patrol officer called Customs and Border Protection on him. The client called me, and the officer took the phone from him and spoke with me.” She asked why CBP was alerted. “I was advised that the client looked Hispanic, had a Hispanic name, and now they are collaborating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and CBP, and their orders are to call CBP any time they encounter anyone they suspect is an immigrant,” said Cuprys. “I asked if they would have followed the same process if it had been me driving, and the response was it depends if you look Hispanic.”

“It depends if you look Hispanic.”

From Forbes: www.forbes.com/sites/stuart...

Is this the first known death within the U.S. borders that we know that ICE has caused? There will be more. There will be blood.

On July 5, as floodwaters were starting to recede, FEMA received 3,027 calls from disaster survivors and answered 3,018, or roughly 99.7 percent, the documents show. Contractors with four call center companies answered the vast majority of the calls. That evening, however, Ms. Noem did not renew the contracts with the four companies and hundreds of contractors were fired, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter. The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8 percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the documents sho

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/c...

FEMA Didn’t Answer Thousands of Calls From Flood Survivors, Documents Show

"The lack of responsiveness happened because the agency had fired hundreds of contractors at call centers, according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal matters."

In Texas flood response, FEMA slowed by Noem’s cost controls | CNN Politics As monstrous floodwaters surged across central Texas late last week, officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency leapt into action, preparing to deploy critical search and rescue teams and li...

Kristi Noem delayed FEMA’s deployment of search and rescue teams to the Texas floods by more than 72 hours.

3 whole days. So many lives lost. No FEMA support.

Our federal government has services that save lives, but Trump gutted them and placed people like Noem in charge. These deaths are on them.

A "blue alert" from the state of Texas for an injury to a cop 250 miles away from where I live.

Texas can't adequately warn people about deadly floods, but it can immediately let me know that a cop got hurt 250 miles away from me.

And we are supposed to trust this technology with students' data??

Texas Plans Mid-Decade Redistricting After Pressure from White House Read more here.

NEW: The Texas Legislature will redraw its congressional map this summer, acquiescing to pressure from national Republicans to create a map that better favors the GOP.

From: @jenrice.bsky.social

*sucks teeth and glares*

Texas starved fund meant to reduce flood risk The state has identified more than $50 billion in flood control needs. But lawmakers have devoted just $1.4 billion to address them.

And today by Mike Lee (+Tom Frank + small contrib from me): TX has done little to address its flood risks, and prob can't expect much help from the federal govt. The state has identified $54 billion in flood control needs, but devoted just $1.4 billion to address them. www.eenews.net/articles/tex...

🗃️ This should be enough to give us (a long) pause about injecting AI into everything we do.

Outrageous. I am guessing he will get a "strong talkin' to" but censure won't be considered.

The Republican governor, who took a helicopter tour of the disaster zone, dismissed a question about who was to blame for the deaths, saying, “That’s the word choice of losers.” “Every football team makes mistakes,” he said. “The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who’s to blame. The championship teams are the ones who say, ’Don’t worry about it, man, we got this. We’re going to make sure that we go score again and we’re going to win this game.’ The way winners talk is not to point fingers.”

Today, in a fb group I'm in, a mom asked if anyone had her daughter's now-discontinued stuffy lost to the flood. To put in her coffin. Her baby's coffin

But our governor said our football team is having a winning season. Just a football loss that cost 100+ lives

www.kgns.tv/2025/07/08/h...

Today, a DOJ lawyer confirmed that the U.S. plans to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia if he’s released from pre-trial criminal detention.

The lawyer said the government won’t wait until Abrego faces trial.

Less than two weeks ago, a White House deputy press secretary decried that as “fake news.”

90 people dead. This is unbelievable. A national tragedy.

“The fundamental civic unit in this nation in ‘neighbor.’”

What a powerful historical insight from @jelaniya.bsky.social on the mystical power of proximity — to transcend political noise, and even sometimes smooth the deep neural grooves of race and caste.

Every decent journalist at NYT should leak everything all day every day