Emily -Abolish ICE- PhD 🎓

The person who’s asking these questions is just a sea lion

Sea lion

My name is Marisa Kabas, and I'm an independent journalist who publishes The Handbasket. I'm reaching out about a matter that involves your team and that continues to trouble me. In June of last year, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and I filed a FOIA lawsuit against the DC Metropolitan Police Department to compel them to release body camera footage from the March 17, 2025 DOGE raid on the US Institute of Peace. What followed was months of back and forth with their lawyers, arguing why it was in the public interest to release the un-redacted footage in its entirety. Though tiny segments were handed over, that wasn't enough: We wanted all of it.  On February 18, 2026, a DC judge ruled in our favor, and your reporter Mark Segraves sent a kind note of congratulations that day. Then on Monday, March 2nd, the footage was handed over to me and excitedly announced I'd received it and would be reviewing it in the coming days and sharing what I learned. When Segraves emailed me this past Thursday asking for my phone number, I didn't think much of it. But when he called me just before 2pm on Friday to let me know NBC4 Washington would be airing a segment at 5pm, I grew concerned.  Segraves said he'd obtained some of the footage via a FOIA request that week after he heard the footage had been released to me. He said he'd credit the work of RCFP and me, but it was little comfort. I asked if he'd known the day before when he emailed me for my number, why didn't he tell me then? He didn't have a good answer for that. He acknowledged all the hard work I'd done getting this footage released. I asked him if he could hold the story until Monday, to which he replied that he's "not just a blogger" (implying that that's all I am, presumably) and that he'd have to check with his editor. I said fine. Nearly an hour later he called back to say his editor refused to hold the story, but that they were happy to interview me via Zoom to add to the package, and I said I would.

What followed was two hours of furiously writing and posting clips of the footage to Youtube so I could get something published before the 5pm broadcast, and in the midst of that, recording a quick Zoom interview with a person who was about to take credit for my work. At 4:59pm ET, The Handbasket published a piece titled "Police body cam footage shows DOGE knew Institute of Peace was private property during raid." Then I tuned into NBC4 Washington via your website to catch the broadcast, and my instinct to rush to get something out first was proven right.  "It's a story you're seeing first on News4," your newscast began. "For the first time we're getting an inside look at what happened the day the Trump administration took over the US Institute of Peace. News4 obtained more than four hours of police body camera video from that day." What followed was more than six minutes of clips and commentary from Segraves, but it's not until six minutes and 21 seconds into the piece that he mentions my name (mispronounced though he asked for the correct pronunciation on Zoom), "The Handbasket blog," and the RCFP's foundational role in bringing this footage to light. I was angry, but didn't feel there was much I could do. Then I saw the version NBC4 posted to Instagram and TikTok—the video itself made ZERO mention of the RCFP or my work, only briefly acknowledging it in the written caption on Instagram, and not even bothering to do that on TikTok. An average viewer with no background on the case is lead to believe that this footage was released because of your efforts. When I saw that, I decided I couldn't let this go. It's difficult to explain what it's like to spend nearly a year working on a story only to have another reporter and outlet surreptitiously take credit for it; months of work and personal risk only to have another reporter lying in wait to swoop in. What NBC4 did was immoral, unethical, and to be frank, just truly sucked.

I just sent this email to the news director at NBC4 Washington about the unprofessional and disrespectful way they handled publishing the body camera footage of the DOGE raid on the US Institute of Peace that was obtained via my FOIA lawsuit:

How Congress can restore the independence of US science Members must go beyond reinstating US government research spending and re-establish decentralized governance at the National Institutes of Health and other agencies.

The most impt change at #NIH and to US science this year is bigger than grant cancellations— it’s how the agency is governed.

For 75 years NIH has been largely independent of presidential control. That’s changed this year. New piece from me and @nataliebaviles.bsky.social in @nature.com
🧪

I keep reading that a new study IDs 3 ADHD “biotypes,” but the descriptions just sound like what is already said/known w/ either AD or H predominating or proportionally similar?

Here's a lovely photo of my fabric art spirits. There are six of them. The one on the far left is a white spirit with a gray face, seven black eyes, and a grinning mouth full of five sharp teeth. She has two twirly white wisps coming out of her head. She's sitting on a small pink chair. Next is a black spirit with a gray face, large round golden eyes, and purple lips. She's covered with embroidered purple flowers. She has two black twirly wisps coming out of her head. Next is a green spirit with a red face, large twinkly yellow eyes, and an open mouth with two sharp teeth. He has two green antennas with red veins. He's covered with embroidered red flowers. Next is a pair of ghosts. One is white with a gray face, twinkly black, and an open mouth full of teeth. She's covered with pink flowers and yellow markings. She has two twirly white wisps. Standing on her head is a tiny white ghost with a gray face, pink flower eyes, and a little frown. She has two little arms. Next to them is a black spirit sitting on a chair with a gray face, twinkly red eyes, and a little frown. He's covered with white, yellow and purple stars of various sizes. He has two black wisps embroidered with a line of white stars. There's green fur in the background of the spirits, and they're on a galaxy print fabric.

Meet my newest creations: the Gloom-Wilders. I designed and hand-sewed them, and I hand-embroidered all their flowers, stars, and markings. They're a family of spirits who live in a haunted woodland (haunted because they live there).

jeremycreature.bigcartel.com

Fuzzy memories and hard facts: An SC accuser's claims against Epstein, Trump examined An alleged victim of Jeffrey Epstein gave FBI agents true accounts of her time growing up in SC. Claims she made about Donald Trump remain unsubstantiated.

Breaking: SC newspaper verifies portions of Trump accuser's story. Textbook journalism. Local journalism. Support your local news outlets. www.postandcourier.com/news/epstein...

Middle East war live: Iran names Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader The 56-year-old cleric becomes the third leader of the Islamic republic after his father was killed in US-Israeli air strike

An Ayatollah Khamenei is Supreme Leader of Iran and oil is above $100 a barrel
www.ft.com/content/0b7b...

We have not had a day of peace since this admin took over.
Not a day.
It’s been death, destruction, and hate. That’s the legacy.

The Autism Science Foundation is leading the new I-ACC and has included autistic ppl across genders in its Healthy Engagement in Autism Research Dialogue. Its leadership has published calling for collaboration w/ autistic ppl. Yet no autistic women on I-ACC. 3/ www.broadinstitute.org/neurodevelop...

Watching Paralympics and it would be nice to have some professional commentary. Maybe treat these amazing athletes the same as their Olympic counterparts? Maybe it’s just because I’m watching replays..

I get yelled at for saying this but for many hundreds of years people went to university not to get diplomas or be employable but because immersion in the humanities was considered foundational to a good life, and school must return to its original purpose: the joy of learning.

A full moon sits in a blue sky over a golden sea of cattails half in shadow with the silhouette of the photographer visible where the sunlight takes over from the shadow

Me, just a shadow under the rising full moon

Two white ducks with stark black markings and heads reminiscent of buffalo swimming side by side

Buffles can’t help being cute

A brown snake with yellow stripe markings emerging from grass next to a gravel path

Handsome California king showing itself somewhat early

A great blue heron standing in a grassy field and looking straight at the camera (and me)

This great blue heron probably

“What?”

I realize I'm biased since these programs are literally built on the theft of my life's work, but I think we should sue not only the tech companies that are making LLMs but also the rich-ass fancy universities that are charging money to teach their students to use them.

A leafless tree with small redwing blackbirds studding its branches

Redwings settling in at sunset

A closeup image of a California tortoiseshell, a butterfly with black markings on a field of russet, bordered in brown-black with some yellow accents. The butterfly is resting on forest floor detritus.

Also, the air was full of butterflies

Two white women sitting on a stage in typical author-interlocutor arrangement on those damned high stools they always make us sit on for some reason. One woman is in bright pink with black side stripes on sleeves and pants legs and the other in a black dress.

A large old white barn with a high dark roof sits in a the middle of a misty green field on a hazy atmospheric afternoon against a backdrop of conifers silhouetted against a setting sun

Very Good Thing to get to see @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social in conversation with @npitchford.bsky.social as part of best-spent day in the place that most soothes my soul + finally walked to the end of a road in PRS and got this picture, after years of thinking abt doing that. A winning day.

Brain farts now cause autism apparently

So tired of this

Never early or exactly on time.

If smaller gathering, C.

If larger and gonna last awhile, D at the earliest.

Very Texan

Ruben Ray Martinez: Footage shows US citizen shot by ICE agent in Texas traffic stop The Department of Homeland Security did not disclose Martinez was shot by one of its agents until almost a year later.

Newly released footage shows an ICE agent killing Rubin Ray Martinez, 23, in his car in Texas.

"He was shot at point-blank range through his side window by an ICE agent who was in no danger."
www.bbc.com/news/article...

Yes yes it was such a great time to have hubs of good writing and information

We had a Mac 128K! It's a lifelong thing. I actually can't begin to say how disappointing genAI has been on so. many. fronts. (just worse than useless)and that's not even getting into the far more important effects on *gestures at the world*

The thing about me being a GenAI skeptic is that I am a third gen early adopter. My machine worker grandpa thought computers were the future and had an Apple IIE. I had two Geocities sites. Was on Facebook when it was still Harvard only. You know how hard you have to try to make me hate new tech???

I have a v similar situation. I adopt *so many things* early. I made personal websites for blogging in *1990s*. I am the opposite of someone who hates new tech. I am the person who ends up pushing back against tech panics. And in 2022 (I think), I took ChatGPT out for a spin. A *total* skeptic now

There is no surprise here.

Today's a great day to support some creators.

Writers and artists and creatives of all sorts: reply with a link to one of your works, if you'd like. And feel free to tell us about it.

Everyone: let's check through the replies and buy some creations and support some human beings.

Looks like the AI pulled some schematic of a mitochondrion (respiratory chain, "intermembrane" space, ROS, etc.) signaling to the nucleus of a eukaryotic cell and chose that to represent a bacterium! Good times.