joeybaker

FCC to eliminate gigabit speed goal and scrap analysis of broadband prices Analysis of broadband affordability deemed “extraneous” by FCC chair.

this captures the logical and legal incoherence of the Brendan Carr FCC.

It claims all the legal authority in the world to bully companies who aren't racist or feckless enough, yet somehow no authority to police things that actually matter to real people, like broadband affordability

Edward Teller is mainly famous as the "father of the hydrogen bomb". But he wasn't dumb. He was invited to speak in 1959 at a big party for the 100th birthday of the oil industry - a party put on by the American Petroleum Institute. Over 300 government officials, economists, historians […]

Billionaires used to try to hide the fact that they were buying elections, now they write thousand word essays proudly announcing it on social media.

Reminder: Nothing that ever helped the working class started with a billionaire buying an election.

Lol. One of Cuomo's biggest donors... ranked Lander first and more or less admits he donated to Cuomo as a bribe because he thought Cuomo would win and wanted to be inside the tent.

https://mastodon.social/@_Davidsmith/114433587185919582
https://front-end.social/@jensimmons/114467644732532644

It will be a minor note in the history of all this but the utter inability of Schumer to understand what's happening and to respond appropriately is historically bad in its own way

Former Google CEO Tells Congress That 99 Percent of All Electricity Will Be Used to Power Superintelligent AI In Harlan Ellison's disturbing short story "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream," a sentient superintelligence named AM has taken over the earth's resources and exterminated humanity after combining the powers of three US, Soviet, and Chinese supercomputers into one. A small group of survivors has been kept alive for AM's amusement, forced to roam the supercomputer's endless electronic innards that now cover the planet. It's a pretty grim setting, but evidently the one billionaire tech tycoon Eric Schmidt imagines for the future of humanity, if his comments in front of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce are […]

Ya know how LLMs “work” except when they “hallucinate”? That but Eric Schmidt.
https://futurism.com/google-ceo-congress-electricity-ai-superintelligence

Zuckerberg underscores TikTok competition as Meta fights monopoly allegations Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg emphasized Wednesday that his social media company faces stiff competition from TikTok, as Meta seeks to fend off accusations from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that i…

It never gets brought up as useful context in these stories, but Zuckerberg was caught using PR and lobbying firms to seed DC and the press with TikTok moral panics for years

The lesson for universities is you may as well fight back. You'll lose the money either way. The only question is whether you keep your dignity.

The precedent set here is the end of Congress, which I don't think Congress will even notice

Marine Le Pen verdict throws National Rally into chaos but could boost far right | Angelique Chrisafis Conviction is a huge blow to her party and harms her drive for respectability, while serving the victimisation narrative

You know what boosts the far right? Headlines saying the far right is boosted.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/31/marine-le-pen-verdict-throws-far-right-party-into-chaos-two-years-before-election

#brokenpress

Obviously it takes time, but 5-10 years is political speak for, “when the next folks are in charge”. It’s this:
https://mastodon.social/@hanse_mina/114197673925545642

If you were trying to run this country straight into the ground, would you do *anything* differently than what this administration has done so far?

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The Trump administration has sent an earthquake through the medical research community. The National Institutes of Health […]

Hanse Mina (@hanse_mina@mastodon.social) Attached: 1 image Western companies that "slammed the door defiantly" when they left Russia will not be allowed to buy back the businesses they quit for small amounts of money or fill niches that local businesses have taken, President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday. https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/putin-promises-tough-road-back-western-businesses-that-slammed-door-defiantly-2025-03-18/ #Ukraine #Russia #US #EU #UK #Putin

Credulously repeating Putin’s talking points adopts his world view. He needs the war to end soon so he talks as though it will and that he is the victor. #brokenpress
https://mastodon.social/@hanse_mina/114184002043787937

They claim they can snatch people up, put them on planes, and deport them to a country run by an authoritarian, where those people will be forced to work slave labor at an inhumane prison. All without due process, and in defiance of federal courts.

The hypotheticals are over. This is the nightmare.

It’s like watching Charlie Brown running to kick the football. After he put on a blindfold. That Lucy gave him. Then Lucy took the ball and went home. And still there’s ~~Chuck~~ Charlie running. https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4xepeetzgz3xn6ss2ty45ta5/post/3lkcmjqhkkc2c

The GOP has been replaced by MAGA. The DNC has capitulated, but doesn’t have a replacement, so we effectively live under one party rule. https://mastodon.social/@jeffjarvis/114154908533894440

I remember when Obama mildly criticized Fox News, the entire journalism world -- hey there, @jaketapper.bsky.social -- rose to its defense.

Now Trump is excluding the AP from briefings & all the other media quislings are lining up for their slop without a word of protest.

Nah. McConnell’s big insight was to play into the Democrats desire to be bipartisan and pretend to negotiate, while actually ensuring nothing got done.

The President as the main character is entirely up to the President to portray—or not […]

Ah, you see it's only a little light treason, nothing to get too worried about.

The US government is holding (hodling?) billions of dollars in seized cryptocurrency assets, and most of these funds just sit there forever. But imagine the impact and disruption to cybercrime organizations that could occur if the government was forced to spend just a tiny fraction of their […]

“but too small to sue” hasn’t really been tested yet. Historically, the legal departments of big media companies have been the defenders of democracy just as much as the journalists. Gawker proved lawsuits work as censorship. Seems like coming after the small guys is an obvious next move […]

"But the Constitution says he can't do that!"

I know, he knows. That's why he is trying.

Unitary executive theory (advanced by project 2025): make potus able to rule through decrees. The Enabling Act in Germany in 1933 did this, lead directly to deaths of ~50 million and burning 2 continents […]

yeah contrary to what Matt Stoller types say, this is the "antitrust reform" you can expect with trump

it will range from outright apathy toward consumer and market harms, to mob-like shakedowns of media companies that refuse to bend the knee

Congressional Report Accuses Jordan, Musk Of Weaponizing Gov’t To Silence Critics For quite some time now, we’ve pointed out how Jim Jordan has weaponized the government to suppress speech. Quite frequently, he seems to be doing this in coordination with Elon Musk. And yet, some…

“Because the Democrats tend to be inept and incompetent in explaining reality to people, Rep. Jerry Nadler released the report on New Year’s Eve where it basically got zero attention.”

JFC. I follow this issue obsessively and I didn’t even see this until now.

www.techdirt.com/2025/01/10/c...

A rough draft version of Ann Telnaes's cartoon that was censored by the Washington Post, leading to her resignation. It depicts Mickey Mouse flat on his face in front of a giant Donald Trump statue while multiple billionaires offer bags of cash toward the statue.

[Trump shit]

I feel very strongly that this cartoon by Ann Telnaes, formerly of the Washington Post, should be shared as widely as possible.

#USPolitics #USPol #Trump

https://anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-quitting-the-washington-post?triedRedirect=true

daringfireball-responsive.css GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

I was daring enough to do something about this. https://gist.github.com/joeybaker/1bfd054ae39e37618c10ff6a0250b873 Works great in Stop The Madness or a userscript.
https://mastodon.social/@siracusa/113671935033564635