ICE is bigger and worse than ever, although the major media have stopped reporting on it. Not only is ICE’s reign of terror intimidating many undocumented immigrants and their families — preventing them from seeking the healthcare they need or attending school or going to court — but ICE is also sweeping into its maw many American citizens who are protesting Trump’s police state. Do not lose sight of this. More thoughts on how we should respond on my Substack (in my story).

“Donald Trump staged a hostile takeover of the US’s 250th anniversary celebration to enrich political allies, harvest voter data and promote Christian nationalist ideology, according to a congressional investigation released on Thursday. The interim report, “From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People Out of Their 250th Birthday”, outlines a web of alleged corruption, wire fraud and pay-to-play schemes orchestrated through a shadow corporation embedded within the National Park Foundation (NPF). The document was produced by Democratic staff of the House of Representatives’ natural resources committee’s oversight and investigations subcommittee. It has not been officially adopted by the committee. “Under President Donald Trump, this anniversary has been hijacked and perverted into a hotbed of corruption and self-enrichment,” it states, contending that the machinery built for a national commemoration was converted “into an apparatus for raising and spending money in service of the President’s ego, political ideology, and pet projects.””

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Trump hijacked US’s 250 anniversary to serve ‘political ideology and pet projects’, congressional report says

He will wriggle away from this, of course, but all the scumbags who did this for him can and should be held criminally accountable.

JULY 20th!!! The Guild is BACK with a Kickstarter for our Reunion movie! Please reblog if you love the show, we don’t want to pay the big platforms to reach our fans, screw that! Help us make an amazing 20th anniversary celebration! PLEASE!

"Really, we're just good friends."

Eliza Dushku & Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 3 (1998-1999)

“I’ve certainly stopped by the Reflecting Pool from time to time. I even lived in the nation’s capital for five years. It always seemed more or less fine: water, reflecting, no evident swampiness. I started googling at first and Google AI told me how this has really been a big deal for ages and no one had been able to fix the problems. But when I looked at the articles they were getting this from it was all stuff from the last month, with sections that were longer versions of the snippet I just showed you.”

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Trump’s New Leak in the Back Reflecting Pool Legend 

This is one of the truly insidious, deadly, and dangerous aspects of AI use in search results, and it’s entirely by design.

The oligarchs and tech fascists want to manipulate reality (or at least the public perception of reality) by substituting their ideological lies and false bullshit for actual facts. They tell the AI to ignore sources they don’t like, and to privilege those that they do, and this is what we get.

It’s *vital* that we teach kids (and reeducate adults, if necessary) to never use AI for this sort of information gathering. It’s so dangerous to let this happen without any pushback. 

Fuck AI. Fuck technofascists.