Author: sauer@technologists.com

curated citations to news sources

Vanity Fair: The Godfather Presidency: How Donald Trump’s Governing Style Mimics the Mob

Forget the comparisons to fascists and autocrats. The most accurate model for understanding the transactional tough guy in the White House is the politically connected underbelly of 1970s and ’80s New York real estate.
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It was amid this disruption that Raskin got a glimpse of how the new regime was going to work. The tutelage came from a Republican colleague whose name Raskin was protecting and who likewise had been worried, he confided to Raskin, until rescue had come. Raskin’s impersonation went like this: “We’ve got this guy ‘Joe’ who’s been in the forestry service as a firefighter for nearly two decades, and he’s a loyal Republican. He’s always supported me, and he just got sacked. He had some promotion and was in the probationary period.” This was also the case, said Raskin, for “hundreds of people that I represent.” The Republican legislator reached the White House—something few Democrats are able to do—and asked for help. “Their answer was, ‘Here’s the phone number of the guy you need to talk to in Musk’s office.’ ” Start to finish—legislators reduced to supplicants; sources whose names weren’t being revealed—the episode was appalling to Raskin, who saw the partisan cronyism as an assault on the professional civil service and the rule of law.
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Sarah Jones: After Trump’s Economy Shrank More Than Expected, Karoline Leavitt Gaslights the Country

Karoline Leavitt announced that the Trump economy is “booming!” when just four days ago, red flags were raised about the Trump economy contracting even worse than expected.

The job of Donald Trump’s press secretary might not seem like an easy one, but when you really consider what it takes, it’s very easy. One must simply be willing to lie about any and everything at every moment.
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And so on Monday, Karoline Leavitt announced with the confidence of a seasoned liar, that the Trump economy is “booming!” when just four days ago, red flags were raised about the Trump economy contracting even worse than expected, with the first GDP drop in three years being a sharper and worse decline than expected.
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NY Times: G.O.P. Bill Adds Surprise Tax That Could Cripple Wind and Solar Power

Wind and solar companies were already bracing for Congress to end federal subsidies. But the Senate bill goes even further and penalizes those industries.
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But the latest version of the Senate bill would go much further. It would impose a steep penalty on all new wind and solar farms that come online after 2027 — even if they didn’t receive federal subsidies — unless they follow complicated and potentially unworkable requirements to disentangle their supply chains from China. Since China dominates global supply chains, that measure could affect a large number of companies.
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Renewable energy companies say that they have been shifting away from Chinese components and toward using domestically made parts, but that the new restrictions are so opaque it could be tough for many businesses to prove they are in compliance.
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Bill Nelson: In the Quest to Shrink NASA, Trump Forgets National Security

Mr. Nelson, a former Democratic senator from Florida, was the administrator of NASA from 2021 to 2025
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The Trump administration’s proposal to cut NASA to the bone — including a nearly 50 percent reduction in science funding — jeopardizes the country’s pursuit of discovery and undermines capabilities that are essential in an era when rivals are advancing in terrestrial and extraterrestrial arenas. Far from a bold vision for American leadership, the administration has presented Congress with a blueprint for falling catastrophically behind on space exploration just as China and other nations are surging ahead.
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But this isn’t just about the race to shape humanity’s future as a multiplanetary species. It’s about threats that are already here, as we witnessed over a year ago at Langley. In places like Ukraine and the Middle East, we’re witnessing the dawn of autonomous drone strikes as a new paradigm of war — launched from hidden compartments, capable of punching through even the most sophisticated air defenses. Against this backdrop are reports of Chinese-owned companies purchasing farmland near U.S. military bases — at least 350,000 acres in 27 states — raising urgent questions about espionage and threats not just to military installations, but also critical systems like energy grids. A strong civilian space program doesn’t just advance technologies needed to detect these threats, but also helps ensure supremacy over the skies and in orbit.
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SCOTUSblog: Supreme Court sides with Trump administration on nationwide injunctions in birthright citizenship case

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The Trump administration will also likely continue to be barred from enforcing the order – which will not go into effect for 30 days – against the individual pregnant plaintiffs who had challenged it. But the court’s opinion, by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, left open the prospect of additional litigation in the lower courts about how much more the injunctions should be narrowed, as well as the possibility of class action litigation to challenge the order on behalf of groups of plaintiffs who were not part of the litigation before the court but would be affected by the order.
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Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, in an opinion that she read from the bench – a signal of her strong disagreement with the majority’s ruling. She stated that the majority had ruled that, “absent cumbersome class-action litigation, courts cannot completely enjoin even such plainly unlawful policies unless doing so is necessary to afford the formal parties complete relief. That holding renders constitutional guarantees meaningful in name only for any individuals who are not parties to a lawsuit.”
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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson filed a separate dissent in which she contended that the majority’s “decision to permit the Executive to violate the Constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an existential threat to the rule of law.”
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Sarah Jones: Pam Bondi Can’t Explain What Exactly She’s Doing to Ensure Our Safety

AG Pam Bondi expressed disbelief when told that ICE agents are wearing masks and she also doesn’t seem to believe that moving counterterrorism officials to immigration is endangering us.
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“I’m deeply concerned that the lack of identification during these activities is dangerous, both to the public as well as to the officers themselves,” Senator Peters said in a hearing on Capitol Hill. “The public risk being harmed by individuals pretending to be immigration enforcement, which has already happened. We’ve seen that happen, and these officers also risk being injured by individuals who think they’re basically being kidnapped or attacked by some unknown assailant.”

Peters tied this endangerment of the public to the broader lack of focus on national security under Trump, “So my question for you, Attorney General Bondi, is given the number of DOJ employees currently conducting immigration enforcement activities in support of DHS, how are you going to ensure that the safety of the public and the officers if they continue to not follow required protocol to identify themselves as law enforcement?”

Bondi pivoted to the officers’ concerns about being doxxed and threatened, which seems to suggest that she knows masking is happening, but then said she was unaware of it happening, but then agreed to look into the issue of ensuring proper identification.
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404 Media: Flock Removes States From National Lookup Tool After ICE and Abortion Searches Revealed

Flock, the automatic license plate reader (ALPR) company with a presence in thousands of communities across the U.S., has stopped agencies across the country from searching cameras inside Illinois, California, and Virginia, 404 Media has learned. The dramatic moves come after 404 Media revealed local police departments were repeatedly performing lookups around the country on behalf of ICE, a Texas officer searched cameras nationwide for a woman who self-administered an abortion, and lawmakers recently signed a new law in Virginia. Ordinarily Flock allows agencies to opt into a national lookup database, where agencies in one state can access data collected in another, as long as they also share their own data. This practice violates multiple state laws which bar the sharing of ALPR data out of state or it being accessed for immigration or healthcare purposes.
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The  Substack Post: Standing up for free speech, even at the border

Earlier this month, Alistair Kitchen—a writer based in Melbourne—was detained, interrogated, and sent back to Australia by U.S. border agents, evidently in response to articles he had published on Substack.

Kitchen, a former Columbia University student, had written firsthand accounts of the student protests that took place last year.

“Look, we both know why you are here,” a border agent at Los Angeles International Airport told Kitchen, according to his account of the incident for The New Yorker. “It’s because of what you wrote online about the protests at Columbia University.”

Border agents questioned him about his views on the Israel-Palestine conflict, combed through his phone, and pressed him about the details of his intended visit. He was held in a windowless holding room for hours, alongside other detainees, before eventually being put on a flight back to Melbourne.
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KTLA5: Masked men in U.S. Border Patrol vests take Santa Ana father after repeatedly hitting him

In a graphic video that has since gone viral on social media, about seven or more masked men wearing U.S. Border Patrol vests are seen violently detaining a father in Santa Ana before forcing him into the back of an unmarked car on Saturday.

The violent incident sparked protests in the following hours, and an online fundraiser was started through GoFundMe, where family members identified the victim as Tustin resident Narciso Barranco, a father to three sons who are all U.S. Marines.

One of his sons, 25-year-old Alejandro Barranco, told KTLA that his father was pepper-sprayed in addition to repeatedly being punched in the face during his detention. According to Alejandro, Narciso was picked up by alleged federal immigration officers while he was working as a landscaper at the IHOP on Edinger Avenue and Ritchey Street.
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Al Jazeera: Satellite images show damage from US strikes on Iran’s Fordow nuclear site

The US struck Iran’s Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear sites, escalating tensions with Iran.

NewsNation: Satellite photos: See before and after images of bombing at Iran nuke sites

Wired: What Satellite Images Reveal About the US Bombing of Iran’s Nuclear Sites

The US concentrated its attack on Fordow, an enrichment plant built hundreds of feet underground. Aerial photos give important clues about what damage the “bunker-buster” bombs may have caused.
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