Moonloop

But unlike traditional media like movies, newspapers, books, and broadcast, the Internet presents a unique medium of communication that has, until now, been able to resist that control.

Though that has never discouraged the government from trying.

The government relies on private institutions to engage in that self-censorship. And to do it, they anchor their self-censorship goals in vulnerable communities (typically, kids).

We've seen this with movies, for example, where private industry controls the content ratings, not the government.

We often think about censorship in terms of Orwellian censorship -- the government telling us explicitly what we can and cannot say or read.

But throughout history, Orwellian censorship is rare because it's impractical for the government. Self-censorship has always been the preferred method.

If we zoom out from Discord, what we are seeing are companies and regimes coalescing around an inevitable solution that simply bans kids from the Internet.

Australia is already piloting this. South Africa is considering it. Europe and the U.S. are flirting with it.

Important 🧵

How Trump's ICE Is Locking Up Longtime Texans with Paths to Legal Status The case of one Houston man, nearly deported to India after a quarter-century here, shows what happens when prosecutorial discretion is abandoned.

“Why are we creating rules or laws, then not giving people the opportunity to use them?”

In Texas, people who were considered too important to their families and too unthreatening to the nation to be deported, are now low hanging-fruit even if they have Congress-created pathways to legalization.

Rule vote postponed amid tariff backlash Live updates and analysis from POLITICO’s Congress team.

This is interesting, the House has been routinely blocking votes to negate individual tariffs, which Democrats have the right to call, through procedural trickery. But some Republicans have had enough, and the extension of the trickery may now end, with tariff votes sure to follow.

AIPAC had planned to back a candidate named Jason Friedman in an IL House race but in a move that can only be called flagrantly antisemitic, they have rejected him as "too obviously aligned." So they are throwing their money behind a Black woman who doesn't have a history of commenting on Israel...

The party of free speech strikes again.

Didn't he say this about the end of 2025

Trump's Stablecoin USD1: Binance Holds 87% After Founder's Pardon World Liberty Financial's founding document describes the company as "pioneering a new era of Decentralized Finance." Its flagship stablecoin is anything but.

Trump pardons billionaire.

Billionaire’s company helps people buy $4.7 billion of Trump’s crypto.

Your family struggles to get by. Trump’s family cashes in.

This is why primarying people matters. Suddenly everybody involved in this race is in a firm spine contest.

Tom Malinowski says that if AIPAC tries to back a candidate in the June primary against Analilia Mejia, he'll encourage all his supporters to vote against whoever AIPAC throws out there

Both Conyears-Ervin and Friedman benefited from an unusual arrangement whereby AIPAC held online fundraisers for them without listing the donor pages. Screenshots of these fundraisers are available below. The fundraisers are only accessible with a direct URL, and most of them have been taken down, though they have been archived. (Here’s a Conyears-Ervin fundraiser, and here’s one for Friedman.) The donations are not listed as bundled by AIPAC, but as individual contributions given directly to candidates. It allows AIPAC to coordinate donors to their favorites while keeping its name off campaign finance disclosures. As the Prospect has reported, three of its preferred candidates in Illinois have shared hundreds of prior AIPAC donors: Fine in IL-09, Melissa Bean in IL-08, and Donna Miller in IL-02.

The unlisted fundraising websites refer to the “Pro-Israel Network,” and the pages say they were paid for by “Online Fundraising PAC,” which has only raised $5,000 this election cycle from a single donor, Benjamin Genet, who has previously contributed to AIPAC. AIPAC gave directly to Online Fundraising PAC in 2022 and 2023. The fundraisers do not use ActBlue, the largest fundraising platform for Democratic candidates, but Democracy Engine, which Bloomberg described in 2023 as “offering a workaround” to business and lobbying groups to direct campaign cash. This is technically legal but it tends to obscure who powerful groups have decided on to carry their message in Congress. The Conyears-Ervin spokesperson said that the campaign had no role in organizing the online fundraisers, but as a candidate she has “attended online events organized by supporters.”

Friedman now may leave the race, sources indicate, despite leading in fundraising. Both he and Conyears-Ervin benefited from unlisted fundraising pages that coordinated pro-Israel donors.
Conyears-Ervin paid $30,000 last year to settle city ethics charges. prospect.org/2026/02/10/a...

A Fourth Candidate in Illinois Gets the AIPAC Boost - The American Prospect Melissa Conyears-Ervin is benefiting from a reported $2.8 million in super PAC ads.

NEWS: a 4th Illinois open-seat House race is seeing big outside money from AIPAC, this time a $2.8 million ad buy for Melissa Conyears-Ervin, the Chicago city treasurer. AIPAC switched sides from Jason Friedman, who had raised 3x as much money as anyone in the race.
prospect.org/2026/02/10/a...

900,000 times I can forgive, but

If you want to understand how far-reaching the corporate rot in media is, read this gutting piece about the fall of Oregon Public Broadcasting.

(And follow @ryanjhaas.bsky.social and @leahsottile.bsky.social’s new publication @thewesternedge.bsky.social which will be amazing bc they’re amazing)

Megyn Kelly just shouting “FOOTBALL IS OURS” at Piers Morgan about Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl show is the perfect example of this moment in time. Put it in a time capsule and send it out into space.

i think this more than anything is what miller wants. vast detention camps with all of the suffering and death that means.

As Trump presidency enters second year, his voters share hopes – and concerns Trump voters urge him to tone down the rhetoric and focus more on domestic issues, especially clearer pathways to legal status for law-abiding immigrants, healthcare reform, curbing waste and fraud, a...

one thing that will always be a mystery to me is the number of trump voters who basically thought they were electing george bush again reut.rs/3Mc4h4H

This is in Illinois' 7th congressional district.
Already AIPAC (through shell PACs and past donors) is in IL08 (supporting Melissa Bean), IL09 (supporting Laura Fine) and IL02 (supporting Donna Miller)

Just learned that AIPAC has now jumped into a fourth open seat House race in Illinois, backing Melissa Conyears Ervin with what has been described as a $2.8 million buy (around $500k a week).
This is straight up AIPAC, not a shell PAC, through United Democracy Project.

JUST IN: DOJ is trying to help Steve Bannon erase his conviction for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee. Motion has no career prosecutor on it, just signed by US Attorney Pirro. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Tomorrow I will testify before subcommittee of House Judiciary Committee against the proposed "Preserving a Sharia-Free America Act," which would authorize exclusion/deportation of all or most non-citizen Muslim immigrants. My written testimony posted here: reason.com/wp-content/u...

Case 1:25-cv-02463-JMC Document 55-1 Filed 02/09/26 Page 2 of 2 Secretary U.S. Department of Homeland Security Washington, DC 20528 DEPARTMEN Homeland Security MEMORANDUM FOR: FROM: SUBJECT: February 2, 2026 Todd. M. Lyons Acting Director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Rodney Scott Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection James H. Percival Il General Counsel Holly C. Mehringer Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Chief Financial Officer Kristi Noon at ar Secretary of Homelet Security Congressional Access to Alien Detention Facilities - Ratification of Access Policy and Use of Appropriations for Enforcement On January 8, 2026, I issued a new policy directing that requests by Members of Congress to visit an ICE facility be submitted at least seven days in advance of the visit.' On February 2, 2026, in Neguse v. ICE, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia temporarily enjoined DHS from enforcing that policy or otherwise requiring any plaintiff to provide advance notice before conducting oversight visits for a period of 14 days.? The court concluded that DHS's policy remains inconsistent with Section 527(b) of the Department's appropriation. It is odd that the court issued this decision given the appropriation containing Section 527(b) lapsed on January 31, 2026. As a result of the lapse, Section 527 is not currently in effect. Therefore, as of this date, I am issuing this new policy that is identical in substance to the January 8 access policy. The General Counsel will provide further guidance regarding the effective date of this policy in light of the court's order. ' This updated policy-issued as a result of the case against ICE-was directed to ICE. Neither CBP nor its policy has been involved in the case to date. In light of today's decision, however, I am also issuing that policy as to CBP. 2 Neguse v. ICE, No. 25-2463, Memorandum Op. at 9 (D.D.C. Feb. 2, 2026).

BREAKING: On February 2, Sec. Noem issued a memo asserting the lapse in appropriations for DHS meant there is no Sec. 527 — the provision protecting congressional oversight visits to immigration detention facilities — and she was issuing a new (third) policy requiring seven-day notice for visits.

This likely happened because a federal judge found that the termination of her student status was illegal and ordered it reinstated.

Authoritarian governments always go after universities first, b/c free inquiry produces critics. Canceling Harvard’s military education programs and dressing it up as “building lethality” is about keeping future officers away from independent centers of thought that might question Trump’s power.

Mark Hamer, #2 at DOJ antitrust, quits.

MAGA lobbyists are demanding that Trump's antitrust division settle the monopolization case against Live Nation/Ticketmaster. The top lawyers in the department don't want to do it. So now the #2 at DOJ Antitrust just quit.

a literal parking lot

Currently dialed into a community board meeting where a bunch of boomer NIMBYs are trying to argue this NoHo parking lot needs to be preserved and not turned into affordable housing.

god, NIMBYs are beyond parody. they must be politically crushed

Voss, Ana (USAMN) to me ~ I am no longer with the United States Attorney's Office.

NEW: Per her DOJ email, Ana Voss has left the Minnesota U.S. Attorney's Office.

Voss had been the civil chief in the office and her resignation and forthcoming departure was reported previously.

She was the other government lawyer at last week's big hearing: www.lawdork.com/p/the-minnes...