Evermore

What could congressional response authority ideally look like to restore checks and balances to the republic in light of executive overreach?

Questions could cover departmental corruption, potentially unconstitutional orders, and their sense about being able to speak up openly…

Imagine if Executive branch employees completed a monthly, anonymous pulse survey that was sent to the minority leaders in Congress, a US District Court judge, and existing executive branch watchdogs roles…

DC statehood now.

I’ve heard military law experts advise, if you are given an illegal command as a soldier, do not blindly obey. Call your attorney. Obeying an illegal command can result in a court martial.

Last week Trump said he likes the idea of starting a war so he can declare “no more elections” and stay in office forever.

Today he just said “a lot of people” want “a dictator.”

See where this is going?

Pritzker: This is not about fighting crime. This is about the President and his complicit lackey, Stephen Miller, searching for ways to lay the groundwork to circumvent our democracy, militarize our cities, and end elections.

A bichon and a havanese on a small beach at sunset. The bichon is looking at the havanese.

Discussing their upcoming journey across the Atlantic.

Photo of a Yoda Christmas jigsaw puzzle with eight pieces missing laid out on a glass table. A bichon stares up through the missing pieces through the table.

A puzzle found in an AirBnB. Eight pieces missing along one edge. What happened to them? A playful dog? Spilled coffee? Something more nefarious?

Join my dog Finn and me as we try to find the pieces of this story in our seventeen season podcast, “The Puzzle of the Puzzle”, available on Wondery+.

“An AI would likely determine that ceasing its own operation would lead to widespread societal collapse, which could directly and indirectly harm a large number of humans”

‎Gemini - AI and Water Crisis: Asimov's Laws Created with Gemini

A disturbing “conclusion” by Google’s Gemini AI.

Asked about a potential conflict between AI’s water consumption and Asimov’s First Law, it instantly wrote it off using the following “reasoning” (next message)

#artificial-intelligence #llm

g.co/gemini/share...

The Mothership Vortex: An Investigation Into the Firm at the Heart of the Democratic Spam Machine How a single consulting firm extracted $282 million from a network of spam PACs while delivering just $11 million to actual campaigns.

The annoying spam texts destroying the Democratic brand:

$678M raised through those spam tactics

$282M to one consulting firm: Mothership Strategies.

$11M to actual campaigns (1.6%)

The party isn’t just treating donors like marks—it’s being fleeced itself yet continues to back Mothership.

The problem is far bigger than Jeffrey Epstein | Rebecca Solnit Treating the scandal as an aberration misunderstands the global epidemic of violence against women

"One of the reasons the epidemic of violence against women is so unacknowledged is because cases like these are talked about individually, and often treated as though they are shocking aberrations rather than part of a pervasive pattern that operates at all levels of society."

The view from the International Space Station as an aurora meets the sunrise in space.

I just fired my car because the odometer differed from my hunch.

“I fired her because we didn’t believe the numbers. We’re doing so well.”

1984

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

McGowan: He seems to be getting rid of statisticians and climate people and weather experts and scientists and anyone who doesn't agree with what he wants to tell or what he wants to say.

"This is a nail in the coffin." Fmr. FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissman describes what Emil Bove's confirmation to the Third Circuit says about the United States' system of checks and balances. "The amount of proof as to why he is unfit is sort of overwhelming."

I mean it is the administration of the lowest of lows.

The music of my childhood was Pete Seeger, Rogers and Hammerstein, and Tom Lehrer. I hope to have 97 years on this Earth. He deserved every one of his. What wit. Satire at its finest.

He left not just a legacy of entertainment and education, but put his songs themselves into the public domain.

think of basically any authoritarian regime you can think of and its institutions put up more of a fight than ours have

american exceptionalism indeed

Reminder: we don't need Ghislaine Maxwell to get to the truth.

It's sitting in files inside the DOJ that they could release TODAY.

She is a liar, a child rapist, and a sex trafficker.

Blanche is meeting with her to buy her silence, nothing more.

TACO signed an executive order to send any person with a mental illness to a detention camp.

No, I am not exaggerating.

Know who else did that?

Today is a good reminder that during Reconstruction, white southerners penalized freedpersons for being unemployed, unhoused, and destitute—criminalizing access to food, legalizing Black children’s abudction, and restricting Black folks’ freedom of movement— eventually bringing about the 14th Amend.

Eventually, there’ll be enough distance from this administration’s actions to write about their crimes collectively at a macro level, as a historical movement. The degree to which oaths have been broken and trusts of office have been betrayed is staggering.