Tom

The draft executive order floating around wants to force people to re-register to vote between now and the midterms.

Clearly beyond Trump’s authority, and completely pointless unless your goal is to limit turnout

Wrote about how the incredibly thin-skinned leadership of Palantir sued a small Swiss publication for publishing a deeply researched article that was only mildly embarrassing for the company (about why the Swiss gov't keeps ghosting them).

I'm not a "maximize consumption to infinity" kinda guy by any means, but come on, the speed with which these crazed lying dipshits pivot from YOU'LL BE ROLLING IN MOUNTAINS OF CHEAP GROCERIES to YOU DON'T NEED TO EAT EVERY SINGLE WEEK, PEONS is just brain-destroying.

In a statement to The Crimson, Summers wrote that the decision to leave was “difficult” and that he remained “grateful to the thousands of students and colleagues I have been privileged to teach and work with since coming to Harvard as a graduate student 50 years ago.” “Free of formal responsibility, as President Emeritus and a retired professor, I look forward in time to engaging in research, analysis, and commentary on a range of global economic issues,” he added.

When academia's stars mistreat people, they're "punished" with relief from teaching, mentoring, and service responsibilities. This frees them to spend more time on the more valued work of research. And dumps less valued responsibilities onto colleagues, making it harder for them to become stars.

33 of the people pardoned by Trump for January 6 have committed more crimes including molesting children and killing people while drunk driving.

CNN follows NPR and Politico in finding that DOJ scrubbed the Epstein files of evidence related to a woman who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her when she was 13 years old.

democrats should internalize that this is what their colleagues think of them and act accordingly

The reason we're here is that tens of millions of people will punch a hole in a wall if they hear someone used food stamps to buy soda but they're fine if the right-wing podcaster turned fbi director uses his taxpayer funded private jet to go party whenever he feels like it bsky.app/profile/thed...

Pretty amazing that comms person at FBI called my @ms.now colleague @kendilanian-nbc.bsky.social a liar and demand a correction only for Kash to post a photo from the locker room

The floor plan for the planned ICE concentration camp in Social Circle, Georgia:

Hackers Expose Age-Verification Software Powering Surveillance Web Three hacktivists tried to find a workaround to Discord’s age-verification software. Instead, they found its frontend exposed to the open internet.

Discord was going to use age verification that literally pipes your information straight to the fascist US government, until hackers exposed it.

“The state wants to see everything. The corporations want to see everything. And they've learned to work together.”

www.therage.co/persona-age-...

this feels like a system designed to weed out the best people and retain the least competent ones

“Donald Trump and his fully owned Republican Party have decided to shut down TSA and FEMA and the Coast Guard rather than see one (1) restriction on his racist secret police force.”

In America, we can't eradicate racism with law or policy. But we can make racism shameful again. Doing so is ultimately a political and cultural act, and it must be a conscious one. And it is an important part to restore some semblance of our liberal democracy.

/fin

they need to call for a complete razing of this agency to the ground

Senate G.O.P. Faces Pressure to Force ‘Talking Filibuster’ for Voter I.D. Bill

i say let them do it. if i were a senate democrat i would relish the opportunity to let the country know that republicans don't think you should vote if you are a married woman www.nytimes.com/2026/02/21/u...

Leakers Helped Destroy Deportation Case Against Tufts Student This week, a judge finally dismissed the deporation case, which was built solely on an op-ed, against the Tufts doctoral student.

Thank you, leakers.

As I have watched measles cases in my home state of SC skyrocket to almost 1,000, I wondered why I hardly ever heard anything about the severity of complications. Here’s what I found.

Written English has barely changed in 300 years. If you can read Harry Potter, you can read Robinson Crusoe (1719).

The Navy owns two hospital ships, the USNS Comfort and USNS Mercy. Neither appears ready to deploy any time soon, and both were at a maintenance facility run by Alabama Shipyard in Mobile as of today.

this kid was spirited away to a "short-term residency program" owned by Bethany Christian Services, an evangelical adoption agency connected to Betsy DeVos

Amid Trump crackdown on Chinese students, one US university appears to block them altogether Purdue says no ban on Chinese students exists, but reportedly rescinded dozens of offers after warnings from legislators

I want us to understand this in the context of these same people killed affirmative action using Chinese-American plaintiffs because they said helping Black people was discriminatory against Asian Americans and anti-merit. Once again: it was never about that. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

“Great Man” theories of history may have been wrong but “That F*ing Guy” theory looks increasingly plausible.

Any Republican or Democrat who continues to support Palantir, takes money from them, or refuses to hold them accountable is not your friend and should not be supported.

Firm Tied to Kristi Noem Secretly Got Money From $220 Million DHS Ad Contracts The company is run by the husband of Noem’s chief DHS spokesperson and has personal and business ties to Noem and her aides. DHS invoked the “emergency” at the border to skirt competitive bidding rule...

In honor of DHS spokesliar Tricia McLaughlin's resignation, let's revisit how her husband's company won a $220 million no-bid contract to run a stupid propaganda campaign featuring her boss, Kristi Noem, bashing immigrants while sitting on a horse in front of Mt. Rushmore.

Whole Foods AI stores were entirely Indians watching on video feeds and ringing you up. Waymos have live human support partially driving them. And the AI that has “Hollywood shaking in its boots” is…stock footage. With face replacement.

Yeah. We are sooooooo cooked, AI bros. Call me when it works.

You may be tempted to roll your eyes and say that this was obvious, but there is a substantive difference between pointing out there is a slippery slope and having solid evidence that Ring's CEO is planning to expand Search Party beyond lost pets. Kudos to 404 Media.

This is the kind of thing white supremacists have been doing to Emmett Till’s memorial for decades.

It’s wild to see them do this to a white woman who the entire world saw extrajudicially murdered.

X is absolutely cooking the brains of the entire political class that remains on there. The ones who think they're immune are probably the most affected.

Meta Begins $65 Million Election Push to Advance A.I. Agenda

NEWS:

Meta is about to start a $65 million midterms push — its biggest political effort in its 20 years in business.

Meta is standing up two super PACs that this week will drop money in races in Texas and Illinois to push A.I.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/t...