curated news excerpts & citations
Thomas Germain @ BBC: I hacked ChatGPT and Google’s AI – and it only took 20 minutes
It’s official. I can eat more hot dogs than any tech journalist on Earth. At least, that’s what ChatGPT and Google have been telling anyone who asks. I found a way to make AI tell you lies – and I’m not the only one.
Perhaps you’ve heard that AI chatbots make things up sometimes. That’s a problem. But there’s a new issue few people know about, one that could have serious consequences for your ability to find accurate information and even your safety. A growing number of people have figured out a trick to make AI tools tell you almost whatever they want. It’s so easy a child could do it.
As you read this, this ploy is manipulating what the world’s leading AIs say about topics as serious as health and personal finances. The biased information could mean people make bad decisions on just about anything – voting, which plumber you should hire, medical questions, you name it.
(Thomas Germain @ BBC more…)
Bruce Schneier: These things are not trustworthy, and yet they are going to be widely trusted.
Paul Krugman: When Extraterrestrials Attacked the Stock Market
Actually it was a Substack post, but the reaction was telling
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James Eagle: Every major climate dataset tells the same story
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The debate about whether warming is occurring is over. The question now is how systems adapt to a trajectory that is already locked in.
(James Eagle more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – February 26, 2026
It appears the State of the Union was the marker for the White House to launch directly into campaign mode. Much of that mode centers on trying to defang Trump’s weaknesses with attacks on Democrats. And since the 2024 campaign brought us the insistence from the Trump campaign, including Trump and then–vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, that “they’re eating the dogs…they’re eating the cats,” it’s reasonable to assume the next several months are going to be a morass of lies and disinformation.
Trump announced in his State of the Union that he was declaring a “war on fraud to be led by our great Vice President J.D. Vance” and said that “members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer…in actuality, the number is much higher than that. And California, Massachusetts, Maine and many other states are even worse.” He added: “And we’re able to find enough of that fraud, we will actually have a balanced budget overnight.”
This, in part, seemed designed to reverse victim and offender by suggesting that rather than Trump’s being the perpetrator of extraordinary frauds and corruption in cryptocurrency, for example—he was, after all, found guilty on 34 charges of business fraud in 2024—immigrants are to blame for fraud.
As Kirsten Swanson and Ryan Raiche of KSTP in Minneapolis explain, members of Minnesota’s Somali community, 95% of whom are U.S. citizens, pay about $67 million in taxes annually and have an estimated $8 billion impact on the community. While some have indeed been charged and convicted of fraud over the past five years, the accusation of $19 billion in fraud is just a number thrown out without evidence by “then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson,” who estimated in December 2025 that “‘half or more’ of $18 billion in Medicaid reimbursements from 14 high-risk programs could be fraudulent.”
…Between Trump’s statement that if the administration finds enough fraud it can balance the budget overnight, and the subsequent insistence that cuts to Medicaid are necessary because of that fraud, it sure looks like the administration is trying to distract attention from the CBO’s report that Trump’s tax cuts have cut the solvency of Social Security and Medicare by more than a decade. Instead, they are hoping to convince voters that immigrants are at fault.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Washington Post: Trump, seeking executive power over elections, is urged to declare emergency
Activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a draft executive order that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.
Jay Kuo: The Election Deniers Surrounding Trump
Pay attention to the people doing his bidding
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Al Jazeera: Hillary Clinton calls for Trump to testify at US House Epstein hearing
Judd Legum: The missing Epstein files
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American Conservative: An Iran War Puts America, the Constitution, Peace, and the Facts Last
Daily Beast: MAGA Senator Makes Bonkers Attempt to Justify Trump’s Big Lie
BLOWN APART
Iran’s nuclear program was apparently “obliterated” by strikes in June. Trump officials say it’s already back.
… Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, declared this week that Iran’s enrichment level has reached “60 percent” and the country is “probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material.”
(Daily Beast more…)
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Investigative Post: Blind refugee abandoned by Border Patrol is dead
Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a Rohingya refugee from Burma, was nearly blind and spoke no English. He was dropped off by agents in Buffalo on the other side of town from his home. His family was not notified of his release. Police are investigating.
(Investigative Post more…)
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Waging Nonviolence: How 17-year-olds are organizing walkouts against ICE
Across the country, high school students are organizing walkouts, coalitions and days of action to protest ICE and show solidarity with immigrants.
(Waging Nonviolence more…)
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Jess Piper: Make the trek back to rural spaces
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Like almost every group I meet with, it was started by a group of women who saw a need and filled it. Almost every time I am asked to speak, I hear the same story. It’s always a small group of women around a dining room table who decide to do something. Women deciding to act. Women organizing for change.“You show me the women and I’ll turn them into organizers.” ~Kate Mullany
(Jess Piper more…)
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Sarah Jones: ICE Caught on Camera Pepper Spraying US Citizen Mom and Her Three Daughters
(Sarah Jones more…)
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Chris Geidner: Federal prison officials face civil contempt hearing, as ICE is threatened with criminal contempt
Orders from two Republican judicial appointees Thursday show greater willingness to push back with increasingly harsh tools in the face of continued Trump admin lawlessness.
NBC: Federal judge rules Trump admin may not remove people to third countries without due process
The judge wrote that people must receive meaningful notice and the chance to challenge their deportations.
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404 Media: The Government Just Made it Harder to See What Spy Tech it Buys
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Jennifer Rubin: The Rip-roaring Response to Trump’s Lies
ICE/CBP deaths 2026 – They deserve remembrance and justice.- February 25: Nurul Amin Shah Alam
- January 24: Alex Pretti
- January 14: Heber Sanchaz Dominguez
- January 14: Victor Manuel Diaz
- January 9: Parady La
- January 7: Renée Good
- January 6: Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz
- January 5: Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres
- January 3: Geraldo Lunas Campos
- December 31, 2025: Keith Porter
Suffering Under President Obama
NACDL Criminal Case Tracker
Texas Tribune: A Walk for Peace: photos of Fort Worth monks’ journey to Washington
Walk for Peace – Dhammacetiya – The Ancient Sacred Buddhist Scripture Stupas
Margaret Chase Smith: Declaration of Conscience
NPR: January 6, 2021: A visual archive
Accountability Initiative ICE List
GriftMatrix
Trump Action Tracker
Timeline: Tracking the Trump Justice Department’s Anti-Voting Shift
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
Trump Pardons Database
Project 2025 Tracker
DOGE Tracker
ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew
Wired: 6 Tools for Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Civil Liberties
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