This is a good time to watch the movie «wag the dog» if you haven’t already.

Uday and Qusay confess.

By who? When? How?

Remind me of a toddler with his hands deep in the cookie jar.

“Wagner was never just a private army. It was a recruitment and influence infrastructure. Parts of that infrastructure are still operating, only now the battlefield extends far beyond Ukraine.”

You’re on social media, so this should concern you.

The U.S. government has been asking platforms like Meta for user data.

You don’t have to be paranoid to see the problem. You just have to be paying attention. If you’re online, this includes you.
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Mamdani: "$5.4 billion is a very steep mountain to climb ... We want to work with Albany to raise personal income taxes by 2% on the 33,000 New Yorkers earning more than $1 million per year and to raise corporate taxes on the most profitable corporations."

Jason Brodsky @JasonMBrodsky X.com @N12News in #Israel is reporting that the White House has indicated to Israel that the talks with #Iran's regime have reached a dead end, and it will be difficult to move further along the path of negotiations because the Iranians will not agree to what Trump wants. From mako.co.il Last edited 1:31 PM • 2/17/26 • 3.7K Views

TELL TOENCE OSINTdefender ® @sentdefender X.com Major fighter movements by the U.S. Air Force towards the Middle East are currently underway this morning, with 3 KC-46A "Pegasus" Aerial-Refueling Tankers, ROMA01/02/03, currently up over the Northeastern United States, supporting the transfer of 12 F-22 Raptors with the 1st Fighter Wing stationed at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia to RAF Lakenheath in Europe. While 6 KC-135R Stratotankers and a KC-46A Pegasus, CLEAN21/22/23/31/32/33, are preparing for the crossing of 12 F-16CJ with the "Swamp Foxes" of the the South Carolina Air National Guard's 169th Fighter Wing from McEntire Joint National Guard Base to Naval Station Rota in Spain.

In addition to the crossing of at least 24 fighter jets from the United States to Europe, 4 KC-135 Stratotankers from bases in Europe, LAGER12/13 and LAGER10/14, are actively in the process of towing 12 F-16C Fighting Falcons with the 31st Fighter Wing at Aviano Air Base in Italy and 12 F-16CJs with the 52nd Fighter Wing at Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany, to air bases in the Middle East. United States - Air Force: figh ROMA02 8762 United States - Air Force ★✕ flightreder24 N/A KISR ★ United States - Air Force flightreder24 MCF N/A TAMPA NOT AVAILABLE BGR N/A NOT AVAILABLE CHQ N/A NOT AVAILABLE Boeing KC-135R Stratotan... N/A NIA Boeing KC.135R Stratotan.. N/A REGISTRATION 57-1493 SOMEINCAL 26.025ft 21-46095 26,800 f REGISTRATION 59-1475 32.000 ft ROMA01 8762 CLEAN22 Air Force N/A Unked states - Air Force N/A N/A NOT AVAILABLE NOTARATTA WRI N/A CHQ N/A CHANIA NOT AVAILABLE AIRCRAFT Boeing KC-46A Pegasus N/A Boeing KC-46A Pegasus N/A AIRCRAFT Boeing KC•135R Stratotan.... ETA N/A HERATON 15-46069 BAROMETRIC ALT. PERRATO 18 46044 RIGHTONI 63-8008 27,000ft ROMASZ] Last edited 6:37 AM • 2/17/26 • 652K Views

OSINTdefender ® @sentdefender X.com The movement of more than 40 U.S. Air Force fighter aircraft coincides with the movement of a U-2 out of the United Kingdom and the recent arrival of 2 E-3 Advanced Early Warning & Control aircraft in the United Kingdom as a stop over on their way to the Middle East. The presence of a U-2 enables the data links of F-22s and F-35s to freely communicate with each other while the E-3 coordinates in the background and monitors for foreign movement.

⚠️ Israeli media reports the White House has indicated to Israel that negotiations with Iran have reached a “dead end.”

Significant movements of US military assets into the Middle East continue.

The platforms can juice the algorithms to help anyone they think will help them get richer and more powerful. Elon's doing it with X. Mark is almost certainly doing it (more subtly) on Meta platforms. And chatbots can do it with insane results. We need real guardrails on algorithmic manipulation.

I'm a little confused here because I got asked about this on my tax forms and.. this bill didn't pass? It's sitting in committee.

So AFAICT the only thing that exists is an IRS definition for a new type of IRA and a "promise" from private investors to put 1G in them. Which, lol. Ok.

What would normally be presidency-ending scandals not even a blip on the radar

Daily

Pedro Sánchez calls for probe into tech giants over child sex abuse material Spanish prosecutors will be tasked with determining if X, Meta and TikTok should be investigated for illegal AI-generated images shared on their platforms.

The Spanish prime minister said social media platforms are “attacking the mental health, dignity, and rights of our sons and daughters” and warned the “the impunity of the giants must end.”

Now we're cooking.

www.politico.eu/article/spai...

Kenyan authorities used Israeli tech to crack activist’s phone, report claims Citizen Lab report suggests Cellebrite software was used to break into Boniface Mwangi’s phone while he was under arrest

Please read our latest on how Israel's Cellebrite is being used to break into the phone of a prominent pro-democracy activist. This time, in Kenya. Guess who else has access to this tool? (with Carlos Mureithi) cc @rondeibert.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

Major corporations bankroll political ad featuring white supremacist slogan Congressman Andy Barr (R-KY), who is running to replace Mitch McConnell in the United States Senate, released his first television ad earlier this month.

1. Major corporations — including General Motors, State Farm, JPMorgan Chase, Delta, and Microsoft — are bankrolling a political ad from Senate candidate Andy Barr featuring a white nationalist slogan.

Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared. ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis is the most detailed look yet into a rise in life-threatening complications for women experiencing pregnancy loss under Texas’ abortion ban.

Pregnancy became far more dangerous in Texas after the state banned abortion, according to ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis, which found the sepsis rate for women hospitalized as they miscarried in the 2nd trimester shot up by more than 50%.

(Published Feb. 2025)

I think it’s time for Democratic leaders to start saying “if you’re a pilot or ground crew involved in a deportation that was stayed by a judge, you’ll be held criminally liable for human trafficking.” Everyone involved in these flights should have that fear in the back of their minds.

Reuters: New Mexico lawmakers on Monday passed legislation to launch what they said was the first full investigation into what happened at Zorro Ranch, where the late U.S. sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is accused of trafficking and sexually assaulting girls and women.

This is wild.

41 DUI arrests by a Tennessee trooper. All dismissed. 22 drivers were completely sober.

He “resigned”. No explanation. No accountability. No apology. His personnel file doesn’t even mention the cases.

Police departments shouldn’t be in the business of shielding corrupt officers.
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Someone has sure already made this observation but the fact they can convert all those empty warehouses into prison camps means they could have converted them into housing, community centers, job training centers or, hell, libraries or schools all along. It’s always a matter of will not resources.

🎯
Societies who implement these things has declining abortion rates.
Reason: better education regarding reproductive health, cheaper and easier access to contraceptives and people feels safer having kids.

Right-wing Heritage Foundation’s own data shows fewer than 100 noncitizens voted since 1982 (!!!)

This is not a real problem. “The SAVE ACT is a Trojan horse to nationalize elections”: open.substack.com/pub/thiswill...

I’m not stressing. With his exquisite taste and unwillingness to pay, it’s probably going to be something in papermaché, coloured to look like marble with «gold» lacquer finish.
A little bit of heavy rain and it’s gone.

This is Bob Coveiro. He sat by his human's grave for 10 years until his own death in 2021. Pets were not permitted to be buried with humans, but he was given an exception. Now 5 years later, inspired by his loyalty, Brazil passed the Bob Coveiro Law allowing pets to be buried in family graves. 14/10

Franzi Schimmer captured this Grizzly bear in Brooks Falls, Alaska just floating along, tippy-tapping down the river, browsing the salmon.

Prior to hibernation, up to 40% of a bear's body mass is fat, which is less dense than water (~0.9 g/cm^2), so the murder-monster is also a floaty-boaty.

pretty stunning chart

👇👇👇👇

www.bostonglobe.com/2026/02/09/m...

(5/11) Walmart, Whole Foods, and Kohls are switching to electronic shelf labels that can display dynamic prices. Kroger deployed them with Microsoft AI—a setup a 2024 Senate inquiry warned could enable “surge pricing” via facial recognition. (Kroger claims it will only lower prices.)

Listening to Trump Admin officials, you'd never guess that the US stock market underperformed the rest of the world in 2025.

Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted child sex trafficker, gets gardening time, sports, therapy dogs, and spa products in prison.

Migrant children in custody are sleeping on concrete floors without enough food or clean water.

Our priorities are so fucked.