The Braindump Blog

And now she wants to start her own social network. Yes, Liz Truss stood up at a crypto conference - where else? - to announce her plans to launch a new social media platform because blah blah something something free speech deep state blah blah.

Clearly being literally the person in charge of the whole of Britain wasn’t enough to dampen the faux-I’ve-been-silenced complex her ilk have. And her solution? Well, one more place on the internet where people can shout the N word to their heart’s content I suppose. How novel. So unprecedented.

No word on how Trump feels about this competitor to his own personal dumb wannabe Twitter, the appallingly named ‘truthsocial’.

Our disastrous and incompetent ex-Prime Minister Liz Truss re-emerges to provide an absolutely terrible opinion in the Telegraph.

Trump has been proven right about pretty much everything.

Obviously, in line with her previous Telegraph ramblings, her primary purpose in writing this nonsense, beyond just simple flattery, seems to be once again an effort to blame everyone else except herself for not understanding how great her disgraceful policies of yesteryear actually were.

I know only too well how policies can be traduced and the markets weaponised against people who are trying to change things. The 2022 Mini-Budget was a sensible package of tax freezes, spending restraint and supply-side measures, including fracking, which would have generated economic growth (and was smaller in scale than fiscal announcements before or since).

A huge amount of hysteria was generated, making it very difficult to get messages across. Ultimately, Conservative-in-name-only MPs, the economic establishment and their allies in the media contributed to so much turbulence that the policies could not be implemented. I was blamed for failures that were actually the Bank of England’s: it has since admitted that two-thirds of the market movement was its responsibility.

Once again showing that the MAGA folk exhibit the exact same behaviours they falsely ascribe to their more liberal enemies but in the opposite direction, I see that the little boys have got all over-excited about “pronouns”. You know, words like “he” and “she”.

And literally those ones, we’re not even talking exclusively about ones that the average Trumpy sycophant may never have encountered before their last viewing of an overdramatic Fox News report.

Soon after the new administration clocked in, federal government workers were literally banned from mentioning their pronouns in email signature blocks.

“All employees are required to remove any gender identifying pronouns from email signature blocks ,” instructions to State Department employees read, in an email they received Friday.

Oh, and they should be eradicated from official forms too:

The instructions to medical staff at some Veterans Affairs facilities also articulated how references to gender would have to be excised on forms: “The use of GENDER is not allowed on any form. We can only use SEX, and there should be only 2 options — MALE and FEMALE.”

More recently, it turned out that it’s apparently not enough that the remaining government employees are to have their at-worst-harmless email signatures censored and silenced. Non-government journalists aren’t supposed to use them either. Well, not if they want the White House to respond to their questions anyway:

On at least three recent occasions, senior Trump press aides have refused to engage with reporters’ questions because the journalists listed identifying pronouns in their email signatures.

Why? As if it wasn’t obvious. But it’s sometimes hilarious to hear what exactly they think they’re scared of.

“Any reporter who chooses to put their preferred pronouns in their bio clearly does not care about biological reality or truth and therefore cannot be trusted to write an honest story,” Ms. Leavitt, the press secretary, wrote in an email.

The thought of sitting down at my professional job and writing a sentence like that just blows my mind. Of course the same could be said for a lot of official communiques these days.

Steven Cheung, the White House communications director had the following to say, apparently with no irony whatsoever.

If The New York Times spent the same amount of time actually reporting the truth as they do being obsessed with pronouns, maybe they would be a half-decent publication.

TIL: Microsoft Windows does not include country flag emojis. Somewhat unbelievable I only just noticed.

The Atlantic recently revealed one of the more unbelievable examples of the rabid and revealing incompetence of the current high-ups in the US administration.

It turns out at least some of the VIPs use somewhat-but-should-be-more popular messaging app Signal to plot their military strikes. As well as chat about how much they hate Europe and share impossibly cringe-inducing streams of emojis.

How do we know this? Trump’s National Security Advisor Michael Waltz accidently invited one of the world’s more famous journalists, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, into a Signal chat group called “Houthi PC small group.”

PC probably means Principals Committee:

The term principals committee generally refers to a group of the senior-most national-security officials, including the secretaries of defense, state, and the treasury, as well as the director of the CIA

…

in my many years of reporting on national-security matters, I had never heard of one being convened over a commercial messaging app.

Soon afterwards, a bunch of the ne’er-do-wells that are busy diminishing the stature of America overnight joined:

One minute later, a person identified only as “MAR”—the secretary of state is Marco Antonio Rubio—wrote, “Mike Needham for State,” apparently designating the current counselor of the State Department as his representative. At that same moment, a Signal user identified as “JD Vance” wrote, “Andy baker for VP.” One minute after that, “TG” (presumably Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, or someone masquerading as her) wrote, “Joe Kent for DNI.” Nine minutes later, “Scott B”—apparently Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, or someone spoofing his identity, wrote, “Dan Katz for Treasury.” At 4:53 p.m., a user called “Pete Hegseth” wrote, “Dan Caldwell for DoD.” And at 6:34 p.m., “Brian” wrote “Brian McCormack for NSC.” One more person responded: “John Ratcliffe” wrote at 5:24 p.m. with the name of a CIA official to be included in the group. I am not publishing that name, because that person is an active intelligence officer.

The principals had apparently assembled. In all, 18 individuals were listed as members of this group, including various National Security Council officials; Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Middle East and Ukraine negotiator; Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff; and someone identified only as “S M,” which I took to stand for Stephen Miller. I appeared on my own screen only as “JG.”

They then went on to discuss their top secret plans to attack the Houthis alongside their strong loathing of Europe. Oh, and the fact that JD Vance probably doesn’t agree with Trump quite as much as he pretends to.

Goldberg understandably started off rather sceptical that the group was real rather than some weird AI prank or whatever. I mean, it does feel way too good to be true. But when he saw the military plans that were discussed actually taking place in the real world, there was no more doubting it.

The participants subsequently of course denied everything, except (somewhat to my surprise) that the message chain was real. Denying things that there is incontrovertible evidence for is of course no obstacle to the current administration.

Here we go:

Nobody was texting war plans. And that’s all I have to say about that.

says Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.

No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS

says Waltz.

At 11:44 a.m. eastern time, Hegseth posted in the chat, in all caps, “TEAM UPDATE:”

The text beneath this began, “TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.” Centcom, or Central Command, is the military’s combatant command for the Middle East. The Hegseth text continues: “1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)” “1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)”

Goldberg somewhat reluctantly reprints, proving the lie - whilst remaining very conscious of the potential national security issues inherent if he was to reveal some even more damaging content. But as they say even about the released bits and pieces:

If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests—or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media—the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds.

Anyway, let’s get back to the ludicrous response to this potentially catastrophic breech from Trump’s people.

There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal group

says Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence.

It wasn’t classified information.

says Donald Trump.

My communications, to be clear, in the Signal message group were entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information.

says John Ratcliffe, director of the CIA.

OK then, so I suppose they’d be OK with the Atlantic publishing the full exchange? Maybe Goldberg was playing it a bit over-cautious and this was nothing more than a public discussion they meant to humiliate themselves by typing into Twitter but accidentally hit the wrong app’s icon.

Apparently not.

Per the White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt:

yes, we object to the release.

In the original reporting of the incident Goldberg deliberately held back a lot of information he felt would be too classified to be responsibly reported on. Including:

One more person responded: “John Ratcliffe” wrote at 5:24 p.m. with the name of a CIA official to be included in the group. I am not publishing that name, because that person is an active intelligence officer.

Goldberg wrote.

The information as published recently appears to me to be of such a sensitive nature that, based on my knowledge, I would have wanted it classified

agreed Republican Senator Wicker.

The in-chat hilarity / horror continued.

We are currently clean on OPSEC.

writes Hegseth. Au contraire:

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans

headlines famed reporter of one of the most famous publications in America.

This was intended to be a an [sic] internal and private deliberation amongst high-level senior staff

said the White House Press Secretary. Deliberation hey? Well, it must have been Very Serious and Important I’m sure.

👊🇺🇸🔥

wrote Waltz, in said “deliberation”- a triptych of emojis that is surely now destined for the annals of memeolgy / my email signature.

Witkoff continued the thoughtful foreign policy discussion:

🙏🙏💪🇺🇸🇺🇸

Oh, and the usual suspects got all hot and bothered by Europe again.

I just hate bailing Europe out again

sighed JD Vance, supposedly confidentially.

Hegseth continued the bantz.

VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.

Ugh.

So why was Goldberg invited to this top secret chat? It turns out that it was probably neither a deliberate act of government transparency or particularly incompetent example of double-agenting by one of the MAGA faithful.

Rather it seems like Waltz saved Goldberg’s contact details to the wrong contact in his iPhone. He overwrote Trump spokesperson Brian Hughes' number with Goldberg’s. So when he tried to invite Hughes he accidentally invited Goldberg.

Waltz still isn’t taking much responsibility of course:

He also suggested on Fox News that Goldberg’s number had been “sucked” into his phone, seemingly in reference to how his iPhone had saved Goldberg’s number.

Yep, magically “sucked” I’m sure. That said, it might be one example where - if the claim that it was prompted by an iPhone autosuggestion is vaguely true - Apple’s AI mishaps ended up being a force for good. Well, a certain type of good.

Trump of course randomly generated some of his standard phrases when in reaction to this. We started off with “I don’t know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of the Atlantic”, followed up by a chaser of “The interest in the massive breach of national security is nothing more than a “witch hunt”. And the Signal app itself “could be defective”.

Signal is of course not defective. It’s constantly recommended by the folk that know these things as being a super secure way of communicating. It is a great option for messaging privately and securely; in fact my favourite. But no technology can be all that secure when you explicitly invite internationally famous journalists who have not joined the cult of adoring you, and hence you regard as your mortal enemies, to your chat.

Other interesting bits and pieces include:

At least some of these folk would seem to be using their personal phones rather than any secured government equipment, or at least that’s what Special Envoy Witkoff’s comment reads like to me:

“I only had with me a secure phone provided by the government” but then explained that the reason he did not make any comments in the chat until after returning to the US was “because I had no access to my personal devices until I returned from my trip”.

But her emails, etc. etc.

And also the nature of this chat group might not be meeting the legal obligations regarding retention:

The messages in the Signal chat were set to be automatically deleted in under four weeks. The Federal Records Act typically mandates that government communication records are kept for two years.

Never let it be said that the Trumpistas are not creative in their cruelty.

The Trump administration has moved to classify more than 6,000 living immigrants as dead, canceling their social security numbers and effectively wiping out their ability to work or receive benefits in an effort to get them to leave the country.

📚Finished reading Hillbilly Elegy by J D Vance.

Yes, this is the famous autobiography of the current US vice-president, JD Vance. It is difficult, probably impossible, for me to read it outside of the context of the obsequious horrors he has gone on to do or support since. Nonetheless, I felt compelled to see if his book would help me understand what made him into the person that he became today.

At the time of its release the book generated some favourable commentary about its realistic portrayal of the oft-overlooked White working-class life in some quarters. Other people believed it did little else but engage in poverty-porn and reinforce negative stereotypes.

A good fraction of the book is the experiences of his child and young adult-hood. He does appear to have grown up in very economically and socially challenging circumstances. His parents did not provide him with anything remotely approaching the childhood we should want for all of our youngsters. Instead: desertion, drugs, threats, violence. A fairly largely proportion anyone’s list of potential adverse childhood experiences are on show here.

He was largely saved by his grandparents. They had their own struggles but, particularly his grandmother, became a positive role model in his life. He ended up doing very well at school. He later joined the Marines which he attributes with giving him a sense of discipline and responsibility. Next up he goes to Ohio State University and then to one of the pinnacles of American educational privilege - Yale Law School.

So, a classic rags-to-riches story.

That he expects everyone else to be able to replicate perfectly.

Yes, in between the slightly horrifying anecdotes we have constant infusions of “poor people are all lazy” and “underprivileged people should just have tried harder”. It’s the classic right-wing view, often to be found from those who did somehow make it from a deprived background into the bastions of elite privilege. I get the intuition, especially if you believe you did it yourself. The only problem is that that belief is basically never true.

Nonetheless if we discount the repeated humble-bragging, it’s clear to see he believes that he has power and status entirely basically because he…um…tried hard. So the only reason that every American doesn’t go to Yale Law is because they didn’t try as hard as him and, what’s more, they should have.

At times he comes so close to drawing what I see as the correct conclusions from his life experience that it’s painful to watch him retreat back into his tedious and predicatable rhetoric. I mean, part of the reason he was able to go to Yale Law was because of the Veterans Affairs “Yellow Ribbon” program whereby the state funded half his tuition. And Yale Law funded the other half due to his poverty-stricken background.

“The truth is, if it was not for the Yellow Ribbon Program I would not be going to law school.” he said, before leaving that fact out of his autobiography.

But the Yale Law funding side of things did make it in:

Yet the financial aid package Yale offered exceeded my wildest dreams…

In my first year, it was nearly a full ride. That wasn’t because of anything I’d done or earned — it was because I was one of the poorest kids in school. Yale offered tens of thousands (of dollars) in need-based aid. It was the first time being so broke paid so well."

Need based aid! Wow! Such DEI! So much affirmative action. Its a version of the same policies that are now pure anathema to him and the administration he’s part of.

I mean this days, his past actions would presumably have got him fired based on what Politifact’s interviewee reports:

Burke told PolitiFact that Vance served on the Yale Veterans Association, which Burke called “an affinity group that is considered a DEI group” and said it “was doing DEI work to increase veteran enrollment.”

Later he makes a big show and dance of the time when his grandma’s medical bills went up to the point that she couldn’t afford them. That’s a traumatic, potentially damaging or deadly, time for anyone so afflicted to be sure. All to common a US experience from what I understand. My genuine deepest sympathies to you all.

However, the conclusion he reaches from that is not, as you might expect from the rest of his book, that his grandmother didn’t try hard enough - that she deserved to die an agonising death because she is too poor to afford medical care. That she brought it on herself by not managing to get into Yale Law.

Instead, like a hero, having recently received his first big lawyer’s check, he swoops in to fund it for her, immensely proud that he could do so. Presumably blind-sided by his own glowing magnificence enough not to have noticed the rank hypocrisy of providing financial medical aid to his grandmother whilst despising the very existence of state programs like Medicaid that provide assistance to other people’s grandmothers. The grandmothers who don’t have sons lucky enough to have affirmative-actioned themself into the Ivy League.

The book cuts off well before his “Trump is Hitler” phase let alone his “Trump is the Greatest” phase. But we all know what happened next.

📚 Want to read: Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.

…a once-in-a-generation, paradigm-shifting call to renew a politics of plenty, face up to the failures of liberal governance, and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life.

I’ve had a thought circulating in the morass of my brain for a long while that so much of the scarcity we feel, especially that surrounding the basics of what is needed to live a subjectively good and effective life, is avoidable.

We could have ‘enough’. Rather, our struggles are a product of our societal structures, or sometimes even a deliberate policy, usually designed to further the ends of others.

Hopefully this book will help sense-check and formalise my currently fairly vibe based take on the subject.

In their great unwisdom, Amazon recently decided to remove the feature that allowed you to download the Kindle books you’d purchased from them via the web. You could then remove the DRM from the downloaded books so that you could use them on non-Kindle devices or back them up in case Amazon ever decided to permanently remove them from your Kindle or you lose your Amazon account. Obviously you should only have done this if DRM removal Is legal in your jurisdiction of course. Hmm.

Anyway, there are still (much less convenient) ways to download your books if you have either an older Kindle - although I hear if your Kindle is the black-and-white type then your covers and images. might all come out as monochrome as they are on your Kindle if you go this way - or access to a Windows computer, which preserves the colour. But the previous method I used to to remove the DRM doesn’t work any more.

However the file-liberating geniuses out there have figured that you can still remove the DRM, freeing your purchased files, if you try a slightly different method that involves an old version of the Windows Kindle software, Calibre and an extra plugin.

Here’s a description of how to go about it.

Install Calibre, along with the following two plugins.

• DeDRM plugin - current version is 10.0.9. Installation instructions in my previous post
• KFX Input plugin - current version is 2.22.0. You can install this from inside Calibre by going to Preferences -> Plugins -> Get new plugins -> Search for KFX -> Select to install “KFX Input”

Download Kindle for PC - but the trick here is it must be version 2.4.0 (70904). A current link to the right version is this. Newer versions won’t work.

Download the batch file disable_k4pc_download.bat from here - discussion about that starts here. It will create a file so as to prevent Kindle for PC auto updating. May or may not be strictly necessary.

Install the above Kindle for PC version as per usual. I turned off internet connectivity whilst doing this although that might not be essential, I’m not sure. The main point is that don’t want to give the software a chance to update itself to a new version from which you won’t be able to remove the DRM from your books. As soon as it was installed I went to Tools -> Options and turned off “Automatically install updates when they are available without asking me”.

Then run the file disable_k4pc_download.bat.

Turn internet back on and sign into Kindle for PC with your Amazon account as usual.

You can then right-click and download any book. They will download to somewhere on your disk; by default your Documents folder in a subfolder called My Kindle Content. You should then be able to add them to Calibre as normal (the Add Book option) and DRM will be stripped. At least for most books; apparently some special ones remain impervious to this.

The main issue I have with the above is that Kindle for PC doesn’t seem to be able to find or open any books shared with you via the Amazon Household feature. I’m not sure if there’s any way around this at present other than logging in as the person who shared them with you.

📺 Watched Adolescence.

This 4-part drama is somewhat sweeping the world by storm, at least the small part of the world I inhabit. It’s a very moving, powerful and relevant series that follows what happened after a (fictional) 13 year old boy is accused of committing murder.

The acting is quite incredible, especially considering that this is the actor portraying the boy concerned, Owen Cooper’s first acting role. That is so astonishing I almost can’t believe it’s true.

Each episode has been shot in real-time, all essentially done in the same shot. We see what happens to the characters in real-time, learn what they learn, perhaps feel something of what they would feel. This means that the episodes tend to be situated in a single area; in one case almost a single room. This takes nothing away from their gripping, compulsive nature.

I don’t have the knowledge to confirm, but it comes across as a pretty realistic depiction of the real-life processes that would be involved. And, harrowingly, importantly, a commentary on some of the aspects of modern society - especially contemporary online culture - that can lead to the type of tragic events concerned that we should all take something away from.

Parts of the US are going to have at least the same sort of labour shortage problems as we in the UK do post-Brexit if they carry on putting immigrants off coming to work in the US, let alone the whole forcibly deporting anyone who looks a bit foreign cruel and unusual strategy.

Well, except that Ron DeSantis and his Florida posse have got a novel idea to solve the issue.

The galaxy-brained idea is to…drum roll…promote formerly-illegal child labour. Who needs those woke 20th century laws preventing five-year olds working their statutory 25 hour days down the mines?

From CNN’s write up:

The state’s legislature on Tuesday advanced a bill that would loosen child labor laws, allowing children as young as 14 years old to work overnight shifts. If the new law is passed, teenagers would be able to work overnight jobs on school days

Previously-popular DNA analysing company 23andme has filed for bankruptcy.

On the basis that no-one really knows what’s going to happen to it next, various organisations - including California’s Attorney General and the NYT’s Wirecutter - are advising that customers should probably download and delete their (very sensitive) data. It’s a shame given the potential for good such a collection had, but totally makes sense to do given today’s world.

From the aforementioned AG’s site:

To Delete Genetic Data from 23andMe:

1. Consumers can delete their account and personal information by taking the following steps:
2. Log into your 23andMe account on their website. 
3. Go to the “Settings” section of your profile.
4. Scroll to a section labeled “23andMe Data” at the bottom of the page. 
5. Click “View” next to “23andMe Data”
6. Download your data: If you want a copy of your genetic data for personal storage, choose the option to download it to your device before proceeding.
7. Scroll to the “Delete Data” section. 
8. Click “Permanently Delete Data.” 
9. Confirm your request: You’ll receive an email from 23andMe; follow the link in the email to confirm your deletion request.

To Destroy Your 23andMe Test Sample:

If you previously opted to have your saliva sample and DNA stored by 23andMe, but want to change that preference, you can do so from your account settings page, under “Preferences.”

To Revoke Permission for Your Genetic Data to be Used for Research:

If you previously consented to 23andMe and third-party researchers to use your genetic data and sample for research, you may withdraw consent from the account settings page, under “Research and Product Consents.”

I find it quite disgraceful that 23andme hasn’t reached out to its customers about this at all as far as I can tell. Indeed they’re still selling their service, currently promoting the always-weird-to-me Mother’s day sale in case you want to expose your mum to the risk. Outside of the bankruptcy, I can’t imagine why it would ever be a good idea to buy a relative a 23andme kit, unless of course they specifically asked you.

📚 Finished listening to You by Caroline Kepnes.

This is the book behind the TV show “You”. And, at least from my slightly distant memory of the show, it’s pretty much the same story presented in the same style in a different format. So here again, our protagonist narrates his thoughts and dreams as he instantly falls in love with, and becomes ever more dangerously obsessed by, a young lady who visits his bookstore.

Where it goes is not exactly unpredictable. Not much of a spoiler to say that the story contains sex and violence, perhaps a little more graphically than necessary. Shades of the classic “women as perpetual victims” genre and a couple of other tropes are on display. But, to be fair, the girl in question here is integral to and features throughout, the story, and the first / second person narrative style that made it so compelling to me probably makes this unavoidable. It’s not like the guy doing the talking is presented as either a reliable narrator, let alone a sympathetic character.

It’s the sort of thriller that’s all the more chilling for being somewhat plausible. If nothing else, the story might encourage folk to lock down their Facebook a bit.

As regular as these shocks to the system have become, one or two still catch me by surprise.

I did not see the whole “King Charles is going to offer membership of the British Commonwealth” to Trump. Nor, given his infamous distaste for most useful global organisations, would I have expected Trump to want it. It turned out he probably does.

My best guess is he got confused and thinks that this will make him King of the UK, Canada et al. It’s hard to imagine this is something the American public or their founding fathers would have been great fans of given, you know, the vibes of the events of 1776 and the whole “Revolutionary War” thing.

More predictably, given his deep infatuation-for-now with Elon Musk, he recently an extremely weird press conference about how great Teslas are and how he loves paying full price for them - during which is was revealed that not only can’t he drive but as far as I can tell he has no concept of how to use a car in general. There goes Sleepy Donald, a less charitable person might say. Well, someone did the time he fell asleep during a National Prayer Service.

Anyway this particular stunt entailed turning “the White House lawn into a Tesla Showroom” as NBC correctly reports. Imagine the QVC shopping channel, but it’s the US president.

Senator Chris Murphy’s very appropriate response?

Just because the corruption plays out in public doesn’t mean it’s not corruption

Should that not be enough possibly illegal and definitely immoral boosterism for his pal, Trump’s Attorney General Pamela Bondi announced that from hereon in anyone who “attacks” Tesla property - and there are plenty of protests that might by some definitions be categorised in ways adjacent to that - is now to be classified as, wait for it, a domestic terrorist.

I of course have no idea if such events would technically fall under that classification or not - but even if so, note not “car lots in general” or “any defacement”, but rather attacks “on Tesla property”.

So far at least 3 people are being charged as such, which would result in prison sentences between 5 and 20 years. In these cases it sounds like they were going rather above and beyond the typical protestor - Molotov cocktails were involved - but if this works out for the Trumpistas it feels likely the reach might expand a little further.

In any case, the whole merely-domestic-terrorism thing isn’t nearly extreme enough for Trump’s protectionism towards his new favourite brand of the very products he himself hated approximately 5 minutes ago. Let’s never forget him lumping electric cars in with his shopping list of things he wished would “ROT IN HELL” at the end of 2023.

Included also are World Leaders, both good and bad, but none of which are as evil and “sick” as the THUGS we have inside our Country who, with their Open Borders, INFLATION, Afghanistan Surrender, Green New Scam, High Taxes, No Energy Independence, Woke Military, Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Iran, All Electric Car Lunacy, and so much more, are looking to destroy our once great USA. MAY THEY ROT IN HELL. AGAIN, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Anyway, times change, and now he’s started issuing not-so vague threats to deport anyone who vandalises Teslas to El Salvador, presumably under a similar law he abused to unconstitutionally send suspected Venezuelan gang members to a foreign jail without any known evidence or due process.

In 2025 besotted-Trump speak:

I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20 year jail sentences for what they are doing to Elon Musk and Tesla

Trump’s explicit view is that the current vandalisation of Teslas is in fact worse than what happened during the January 6th insurrection. The insurrection. Where people died.

What else? Well, there’s the French scientist who was turned away from entering the US to attend a scientific conference seemingly because when the immigration officers went through his phone and laptop they saw text messages that were critical of Trump. He was surprise-detained in the US for a day and then sent packing back to France, minus his work laptop and mobile phone

Said the French minister of Higher Education and Research, Philippe Baptiste:

“This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher’s phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policy,” the minister said.

The US authorities reportedly said the messages “could be qualified as terrorism”. As far as I know we don’t know what the messages actually said, but unless there was a detailed plan of action regarding another assassination attempt, it’s kind of hard to believe that is likely to be true by any reasonable standards. The FBI declined to press charges after all.

The French foreign ministry obviously can’t do anything about the refusal of entry but said that it “deplored the situation”. France is now going out of its way to welcome with open arms US scientists who understandably feel the need to leave their home country in order to continue their important work.

A day after the French researcher was reportedly expelled from the United States, Baptiste posted a photograph on X, showing a virtual meeting with an American researcher who, along with “several dozens” of others, had decided to take the university up on its offer.

“We need to continue to propose new solutions to welcome the researchers who need or want to leave the United States in the near future,” the minister wrote.

…

“Research is being chain-sawed in the United States!” said Baptiste.

Finally for now, there was the attempt by Minnesota senators to classify “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, a phrase previously used simply as an insult against anyone who someone decides is over-reacting negatively to Trump’s terrible words and deeds, as a mental illness.

Let the text of Bill SF 2589 speak for itself.

A bill for an act relating to mental health; modifying the definition of mental illness; adding a definition for Trump Derangement Syndrome

Subd. 28. Trump Derangement Syndrome.

“Trump Derangement Syndrome” means the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump. Symptoms may include Trump-induced general hysteria, which produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald J. Trump’s behavior. This may be expressed by:

(1) verbal expressions of intense hostility toward President Donald J. Trump; and

(2) overt acts of aggression and violence against anyone supporting President Donald J. Trump or anything that symbolizes President Donald J. Trump.

So there we go, it seems if you speak badly of Donald Trump you’re either mentally ill or a terrorist who needs locking up in whichever random country will take American money to do so. Take your pick.

🎶 Listening to Critical Thinking by Manic Street Preachers.

This is the band’s 15th album over the astonishing period of 33 years. They’re still going strong, and still very political. Much of it comes across as a thoughtful critique of the experience of modern life, and a mix of a call to resist it, albeit with a certain amount of resignation that it is what it is.

Perhaps they’re also getting a bit existentially old and tired. But their music isn’t. I hope they keep on going, and if it in any way inspires a new generation to resist the less desirable aspects of modern life, so much the better.

🎶 Listening to Brat by Charli XCX.

I’m sure everyone will have heard this album. It was an absolute sensation last year, and created a whole swathe of “Brat whatever” memology. It was of course the Brat summer. Even Kamala Harris' doomed campaign (remember when we had hope?) surfed the wave.

On my first listen it didn’t really impress me. But as the week went on I found myself bits and pieces of its songs re-entering into my mind, unsolicited. So I gave it another go, and another, and another, so I guess I’m well and truly sucked in.

And I’m not alone - it’s currently sitting at a “Universal acclaim” score of 95 on Metacritic. As well as the catchy pop hooks, I think it has a depth that isn’t immediately obvious on a first background listen.

📺 Watched Russia - A Thousand Years of History.

Part of my probably vain attempt to understand the grand history of what led us to the catastrophic place we’re in today. Everything from the creation of the state known as Rus over a thousand years ago, through the era of the Tsars, the revolution, ending with the rise of Putin.

The documentary aired in 2021 so obviously there is some important future-history that we’ll need a new documentary about after the next thousand years.

Trump releases the last batch of previously classified government documents relating to the JFK assassination.

Looking forward to seeing what, if anything, any anyone find in this somewhat unmanageable bunch of PDFs. Surely some of the conspiracy-inclined folk will give it a go.

The dark timeline continues forthwith as the Trump administration explicitly defies the order of a judge, whilst claiming that they’re doing no such thing for reasons including “it doesn’t count because the judge spoke his decision instead of writing it down”. . The story here is that the US deported hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador without any signs of due process having taken place, no chance to have their cases heard, to appeal the claims that they are violent criminals. Some reportedly claim that they are in fact not event part of the gang that is the supposed motivation for their removal.

We seem to have no sense of what evidence, if any, there is for this. To legally justify this they used the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 , a law which is typically intended for and only used during times of war. It was last used in World War 2.

In any case, they were bundled onto a plane. Judge Boasberg found that this is potentially illegal and order the plane to turn back. The Trump administration didn’t like this and simply ignored the order. The folk concerned are now in El Savador’s “notorious mega-jail Cecot” after have being paraded around for the cameras.

Why El Salvador as opposed to, for instance, at least Venezulea? Well, the US has decided to pay El Salvador $6 million to imprison 300 of these people for at least a year. Strong vibes of the disgraceful British Rwanda plan here. Except that the US actually did it, seemingly in contravention of their own law.

I previously knew nothing about El Salvador’s President Bukele, but it seems he’s a wannabe Trumpster/Muskian, having tweeted “Oopsie… Too late” plus a laughing emoji in reaction to the US executive defying the judiciary. The post was proudly shared by the White House’s director of communications,

We await what comes next - and what will happen to the role of the judiciary under this scary new regime. The BBC summarises what was supposed to happen, but didn’t.

This incident has ignited fears that the White House is willing to openly defy a federal court order, setting it on a potential collision course with America’s judicial branch.

In America’s system of government checks and balances, federal courts in the judicial branch have the responsibility of reviewing actions by the president and the government agencies in the executive branch tasked with enacting laws passed by Congress. An order issued by a judge is binding - and noncompliance can result in civil and criminal sanctions.

Moving now to a totally different realm - but still potentially involving actions equally as illegal and contrary to the US constitution -Trump, via the usual weird ransom-note panic-post on his terrible social network, says he’s going to undo the presidential pardons that previous President Biden granted.

The claim here is that they were signed via a computerised pen - where “the individual’s signature is digitally recorded and stored and a robotic arm holding a pen or pencil creates a near-exact replica of the signature on paper” - rather than an actual pen, and that Biden didn’t know anything about them. The latter is ludicrous, the former is irrelevant.

…according to the U.S. Constitution, the President has no such authority to overturn his predecessor’s pardons, especially not based on the type of signature, legal experts say. “The Constitution doesn’t even require that the pardon be written, so the idea that the signature is by autopen rather than by handwritten signature seems not relevant to the constitutionality because Article II just says that the President has the power to pardon,” says Bernadette Meyler, a Stanford Law School professor and constitutional law expert.

The method of signing - autopen - has been used by other US presidents since the days of Truman. The Justice Department, under President George W Bush, has previously explicitly found this to be absolutely fine.

📚 Want to read Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams.

…exposes both the personal and political fallout when boundless power and a rotten culture take hold

She is, of course, referring to her ex-employer, Meta / Faceboook. The fact that the company tried to use legal shenanigans to stop the book being published just make it all the more irresistible.

AI coding assistant refuses to write code, tells user to learn programming instead.

Uh-oh, either Cursor developed AGI and the resulting robot decided it has something better to do with its time than doing our jobs for us, or else it leaned hard into parroting the very human traits of judginess and laziness.

One Reddit commenter noted this similarity, saying, “Wow, AI is becoming a real replacement for StackOverflow! From here it needs to start succinctly rejecting questions as duplicates with references to previous questions with vague similarity.”

Revealed: how the UK tech secretary Peter Kyle uses ChatGPT for policy advice.

‘Revealed’ is a dramatic word for discovering that an official uses ChatGPT for pretty mundane and mainstream things in the course of doing their job.

But this is an interesting precedent to set - that’s someone’s LLM chat bot interactions are subject to Freedom of Information Act requests under the right circumstances.

US Senator Chris Murphy details just some of the incredible amount of very corrupt seeming activities we’ve seen from Trump’s administration in the last few weeks.

Murphy condemned Trump’s normalization of pay-to-play politics, where billionaire donors dictate policy and taxpayer money is funneled into the pockets of the president, Elon Musk, and the corporate elite.

Of course it would be ridiculous to compare the UK’s current administration with the appalling ventures conducted by that currently lording over our poor American friends, but I’m not loving any moments where similarities feel evident.

It feels like Starmer’s government has recently copied a few of the vibes in making substantial cuts to aid programs - albeit not abolishing the whole idea that it should even exist - as well as expressing a desire to lay off a large number of staff working for the state.

Aid will be cut to 0.3% of the UK’s gross national income from the previous 0.5%, which it itself a recentish cut from 0.7%. This is the lowest value it has been for over 25 years, and contrary to the demands of the International Development Act 2016.

There could naturally be legitimate and good reasons for these UK policies - no-one should pretend Britain is in a particularly good place at the moment - but any echoing of Trump’s actions makes me even more suspicious than even usual. We have of course seen at least one British company trash their DEI type policies using the baseless excuse given by the horrific words of Trump et al.

Billionaires at Trump’s Swearing-In Have Since Lost $200 Billion

Donald Trump inadvertently improving economic equality a little via his incompetent crashing of the US economy, in this case the stock market.

Their associated companies lost $1.4 trillion in market cap.

Elon is down $145 billion which is amusing but the fact he still has over $300 billion left of course is not. These folk need another few trillion taking off them.