Lucian Pera

Columbia piece
The real scandal is that
1. Colleges and universities have inadequate cyber security leaving personal info open for fraud and abuse
2. Why did Columbia retain personalized applicant information? It should have been decoupled and anonymized, then purged as legally allowed.

Trump: “I never wrote a picture.”
Junior: “I’ve never seen him doodle.”

Reality: Trump has basically been a semi-pro doodler for decades, and has even sold them.

Talk about The Wire, Sopranos, Game of Thrones all you want, but the greatest US television program ever made is Sesame Street. It's not even close. 50+ years of treating kids across class, ethnicity, religion not as mini-consumers...but as citizens with a stake in this world.

Trump‘s recent diagnosis raises new questions about Joe Biden‘s health

🚨 Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former chief of staff, claimed in an interview with Al Jazeera that the President is named in Epstein files.
open.substack.com/pub/theintel...

And Jesus decided not to heal the 10 men afflicted with leprosy, for he did not wish to show toxic empathy.

#Satire

DOGE Put Free Tax Filing Tool on Chopping Block After One Meeting With Lobbyists A key operative from DOGE initiated plans to potentially kill Direct File, the free tax filing tool developed by the IRS, after offering assurances it would be spared from cuts.

SCOOP: DOGE moved to kill Direct File, the IRS's popular free tax filing tool, days after meeting with private tax filing software lobbyists.
www.wired.com/story/doge-d...

outrageous. you are responsible for the moral and ethical choices you make as a lawyer. the people you work for and against (and in this case, the public) have a right to know if you are conflicted.

cowardly and unethical, the whole thing.

Subject: Stop-Work Order for 1305M220CNWWR0059: NOAA Weather and All-Hazards Radio Maintenance Pursuant to FAR 52.242-15 Stop-Work Order (AUG 1989), effective immediately, the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Western Acquisition Division is hereby issuing a stop-work order for NOAA Weather and All-Hazards Radio Maintenance. This stop-work order is issued in accordance with implementation of Executive Order 14222. You are hereby directed, effective by close of business day on July 13, 2025, to cease services or materials related to these positions on the subject contract, to direct any subcontractors to comply with the contents of this stop-work order if/where applicable, and to otherwise minimize costs to the maximum extent practicable. This stop-work order shall remain in effect until you are notified otherwise by a U.S. Department of Commerce Contracting Officer. During the period of the stop-work order, please contact with any questions regarding the contents of this notice. Sincerely.

Unbelievable. Just days after the tragic flooding in Texas, NOAA is demanding that public TV stations remove equipment from towers that is critical for these stations to send weather alerts. Trump’s ideological crusade against public broadcasting will cost lives.

This is Rowling-level brain rot. I wish someone would write a feature listing all of the Nazi billionaire-whisperers.

“Massive announcement coming soon”

John Rich seems to have gotten Trump to make TVA abandon expansion plans in Cheatham County

Good news for sure— but where is this energy for Memphis, where Trump is rigging the TVA to let Musk’s xAI soak up resources and poison their air?

“Superman is too woke!”

Literally the first page of the first ever appearance of Superman:

@aoc.bsky.social
No caption needed.

Who is to blame for Hitler’s rise? His opponents.

Prof Skocpol making a crucial point here. The centralized police. And then the lawless quasipolice who guard the camps. Trump’s death bill moves the US towards those two thresholds, well known from Germany in the 1930s.
talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/criti...

Opinion | Don’t call it ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’ Call it a concentration camp. This facility’s purpose fits the classic model, and its existence points to serious dangers ahead for the country.

"The Nazis... imagined their targets would self-deport. Once the myth of self-deportation collapsed, they turned to more punitive measures. On Tuesday, Noem similarly noted the Everglades camp was meant to frighten immigrants into self-deporting. 'If you don’t,' she said, 'you may end up here.'"

Trump Is Coming for Your Citizenship Your citizenship won’t save you any more than Congress, or the laws, or the courts do.

"Zohran Mamdani was born in Uganda, but has lived in America since he was 7. He became a U.S. citizen in 2018. Donald Trump can’t just strip him of his citizenship, can he? The answer is kind of terrifying: It’s a definite 'maybe.'" And if him, anyone.

BURCHETT: “Trump told me there’s no windmills in China.”

REALITY: As @stephaniekelton.bsky.social points out, if Bumblin’ @RepTimBurchett would use Google he’d see they are the global leader in wind turbine installations.

Q: Has Burchett ever been right about anything?

(h/t @acyn.bsky.social )

In 2025, the US dollar fell 7.4% against a broad basket of global currencies, declining steadily from January through June. Other currencies mostly gained or stayed flat, highlighting relative USD weakness amid economic or policy shifts. (Semafor)

(1852) Frederick Douglass, "What, To The Slave, Is The Fourth Of July" Explore the speech "What, To The Slave, Is The Fourth Of July" delivered by Frederick Douglass in 1852, including full text and historical context.

Every Fourth of July, I read Frederick Douglass's important speech from that day in 1852 and ask my friends to join me. This year it hits even harder. "Your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery ... mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy." www.blackpast.org/african-amer...

Shelby County, Memphis quietly shut minority business programs due to state anti-DEI law This past legislative session, Tennessee lawmakers passed the "Dismantling DEI Departments Act," which barred the programs from existing.

Welcome to Tennessee, where women and minorities are....
www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/l...

This is insane anonymity.

Email from Social Security Administration saying "Social Security Applauds Passage of Legislation Providing Historic Tax Relief for Seniors." As if it were a MAGA campaign mailer.

More from Social Security making Trump talking points.

An email that appears to have come from the real Social Security administration.

Which until now had been considered a non-partisan federal agency.

Time for another look at 'The Origins of Totalitarianism.'

Ok, this is a compelling case for codification.

Coming in 2026: "Social Security Applauds the 'Death of the Social Security Act.'"

#Satire

Nancy Mace via Twitter: https://x.com/NancyMace/status/1940825505504313450 Did Hakeem Jeffries just say the Declaration of Independence reads like an INDICTMENT? Did I hear that right? 1:30 PM · Jul 3, 2025

She has not read the Declaration of Independence.

The evil that men do lives after them

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE.

This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined.

It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.