Tessera

Alexander Howard

@digiphile.bsky.social

Dad, writer, cyclist, citizen, cereal dilettante. Advocate for freedom of information, open governance, & democracy. Lover of the Oxford Comma, hater of hubris. Recovering journalist. Trying to move carefully, & fix things. https://civic-texts.ghost.io

8715 Posts19686 Follower 1277 Folgt

Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 21h ago

“If we reduce the complaints, we reduce the discrimination”

Task & Purpose@taskandpurpose.com · yesterday

Army ends anonymous reporting for harassment complaints trib.al/oQU93m2

Justin Ling @justinling.ca · 20h ago

Holy shit. www.wired.com/story/a-civi...

This past May, a twin-engine Beechcraft King Air medevac plane took off from Roswell, New Mexico, and headed west to the town of Ruidoso to pick up a patient. It shouldn’t have been a challenging flight for the two pilots and two nurses aboard. The temperature was 69 degrees; the sky was clear. The 60-mile journey normally takes a half hour, at most.

But once airborne, the plane ran into trouble. At the White Sands Missile Range that night, US military personnel were conducting a GPS jamming exercise that left the King Air pilots—and anyone else within hundreds of miles—unable to use modern navigation systems. Forced to revert to older technology, ones that they rarely if ever use, the medevac pilots got disoriented and crashed into the side of a mountain. There were no survivors.

Harry Litman @harrylitman.bsky.social · 2d ago

In other words, going from a constitutional right (Roe) to a constitutional state by state decision (Dobbs) to a constitutional rule of no abortions. What is the DOJ/legal underpinning for that? There isn't one. Ladies & Gentlemen, your lawless soon-to-be AG. www.politico.com/news/2026/08...

Blanche assures anti-abortion supporters that Dobbs will be ‘permanent in every single state’

The acting attorney general made the remarks during a private call with faith leaders.

politico.com

Alexander Howard @digiphile.bsky.social · 2d ago

“The @nytimes.com has been tracking abortion laws in each state since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which ended the constitutional right to an abortion.” www.nytimes.com/interactive/... I saw an echo of American history on the map.

Alexander Howard @digiphile.bsky.social · 5d ago

I have a joke about Prometheus that fires an audience up, then leaves them gutted

Prof. Joey "Barely a Footnote" Neilsen@joeyneilsen.bsky.social · 5d ago

I have a joke about the Sirens but I'm not sure anyone should listen to it.

Alexander Howard @digiphile.bsky.social · 5d ago

I met a vixen and her kit tonight. The pup took dinner to go. 🦊

Alexander Howard @digiphile.bsky.social · 5d ago

It seems federal prosecutors found themselves trying to go upstream without a legal paddle in attempting a vindictive prosecution of a former Olympian athlete who’d committed no act of vandalism. The fault lies with a corrupt, inept President who deflects the buck to stop with anyone but himself.

Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray”@ryanjreilly.com · 5d ago

BREAKING: The Trump administration has moved to drop its felony Reflecting Pool case against a former Olympic canoeist, admitting their allegations against David "Davey" Hearn don't hold water.

Heidi Blake @heidiblake.bsky.social · 2w ago

Andrew and Tristan Tate have been arrested in Miami on new charges of rape, trafficking, and child pornography. Here's my @newyorker.com investigation into how they built a vast empire of sexual exploitation in plain sight. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Andrew Tate’s Empire of Abuse

How the defining figure of the manosphere built a fortune—and became a political force—by systematically exploiting women.

newyorker.com

Alexander Howard @digiphile.bsky.social · 6d ago

@carriejohnsondc.bsky.social reported on the first ever hearing of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court in the United States: www.npr.org/2026/07/30/g... The public would benefit from the Court happlying the US Web Design Standards: designsystem.digital.gov to its new website: www.atrc.uscourts.gov

Alien Terrorist Removal Court holds its first-ever hearing after 30 years

Congress created the Alien Terrorist Removal Court in 1996 to make it easier for the Justice Department to use classified evidence to deport people from U.S. soil.

npr.org

Alexander Howard @digiphile.bsky.social · 6d ago

☕️ ☠️ 🐛 Always love to start the day with morning coffee and a toxic caterpillar on my foot. I flicked the Hickory Tussock Moth caterpillar (Lophocampa caryae) off & washed my foot. No pain so far. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Onwards.

Alexander Howard @digiphile.bsky.social · last wk.

Today, I learned that using a “duress code” to wipe a phone after law enforcement or border patrol demand access may violate a statute in the USA. Scrubbing devices before travel won’t run afoul of this law, but as soon as there’s a demand for access, deletion would. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/28/u...

A U.S. Citizen Deleted His Phone’s Data. Now He Faces a Felony Charge. (Gift Article)

Federal prosecutors charged a man returning to the United States with obstruction because he gave them a passcode that erased his smartphone during a customs search.

nytimes.com

Alexander Howard @digiphile.bsky.social · 2w ago

💡“…government keeps treating digital as a brick: something that can be picked up, put into a department, renamed, separated from the bricks next to it & moved again.”— @bm.wel.by “But digital government is the mortar.” 🧱An “AI Minister” in a Cabinet or an “AI Czar” in a White House is brick laying.

Benjamin Welby@bm.wel.by · 2w ago

By popular* demand I have added my many words to all the other bits and pieces reflecting on the end of DSIT. *@semanthicc.bsky.social and one other said they were waiting to hear my take.

Mark Lemley @marklemley.bsky.social · 2w ago

I can't believe we're back to this. This is an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. IP laws can be enforced against illegal streaming. Seizing and shutting down an entire website because some of the content on it is infringing is not authorized by the law. www.justice.gov/opa/pr/unite...

United States Seizes More than 1,000 Internet Domains Used to Illegally Stream World Cup 2026 Matches

The Department of Justice announced today the successful seizure of more than 1,000 domains that were engaged in the unauthorized streaming of matches in the FIFA World Cup Finals in violation of U.S....

justice.gov

Alexander Howard @digiphile.bsky.social · 2w ago

“For now, there’s little research to indicate that contagious cancers are circulating among people. But it’s conceivable that one will surface someday, said Elizabeth Murchison, an expert on transmissible cancers at Cambridge.”— @carlzimmer.com www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/s... Not just a fish story.

Deep in This Lake, a Contagious Cancer Is Spreading (Gift Article)

Transmissible tumors have been reported in a handful of animal species, but never before among fish. Is it possible in humans?

nytimes.com

Ian Bassin @ianbassin.bsky.social · 2w ago

If this isn’t a sign that our system of both government and finance has jumped a shark, I don’t know what it. A mockery of capitalism and democracy all wrapped up in one move. When history is written these will be the blaring warning signs we foolishly didn’t heed. www.wsj.com/finance/stoc...

How Wall Street’s Bots Are Cashing In on Trump’s Truth Social Posts

Traders who already monitor the president’s pronouncements with automated systems can pay for an ultrafast feed. At least five firms have signed up.

wsj.com

Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 2w ago

oh, and adequately fund publicly-owned media, which is a firewall against authoritarianism in every country where funding and support is healthy

America’s Three Media Crises and How to Fix Them

University of Pennsylvania media scholar Victor Pickard explains why a robust system of public media is essential to strengthening American democracy.

newrepublic.com

Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 2w ago

Dems need to fund real journalism, embrace antitrust, restore media consolidation limits, create new media ownership diversity requirements, and completely reshape our media literacy standards taking a page from Finland, which starts teaching kids to recognize propaganda starting at THREE YEARS OLD

Alexander Howard @digiphile.bsky.social · 2w ago

🎩 @midcoastvillager.bsky.social for this headline: “After an Odyssey of a Primary, Democrats Get to Troy” www.midcoastvillager.com/news/after-a... Did you write it, @alexseitz.bsky.social? ⛵️🗣️🗳️ NB: “We have shown the nation that Maine can organize an open & inclusive political election in 10 days.”

Alexander Howard @digiphile.bsky.social · 2w ago

The 47th President of the USA remains a corrupt, craven liar who has no understanding of public service nor sacrifice. Trump brazenly uses Americans slain in his illegal war of choice as political pawns because he sees those who die as “suckers” & “losers.” www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

theatlantic.com
When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris, in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that "the helicopter couldn't fly" and that the Secret Service wouldn't drive him
there. Neither claim was true.
Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the
rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, "Why should I go to that cemetery?
It's filled with losers." In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as "suckers" for getting killed.

11:37
••I| LTE 79
theatlantic.com
Trump's understanding of heroism has not evolved since he became president. According to gources with knowledge of the president's views, he seems to genuinely not understand why Americans treat former prisoners of war with respect. Nor does he understand why pilots who are shot down in combat are honored by the military. On at least two occasions since becoming president, according to three sources with direct knowledge of his views, Trump referred to former President George
H. W. Bush as a "loser" for being shot down by the Japanese as a Navy pilot in World War II.
(Bush escaped capture, but eight other men shot down during the same mission were caught, tortured, and executed by Japanese soldiers.)
When lashing out at critics, Trump often reaches for illogical and corrosive insults, and members of the Bush family have publicly opposed him. But his cynicism about service and heroism extends even to the World War I dead buried outside Paris
—people who were killed more than a quarter century before he was born. Trump finds the notion of military service difficult to understand, and the idea of volunteering to serve especially incomprehensible. (The president did not serve in the military; he received a medical deferment from the draft during the
Var because of the
邸
alleged presence of be.
- in his feet. In the

theatlantic.com
On Memorial Day 2017, Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery, a short drive from the White House. He was accompanied on this visit by John Kelly, who was then the secretary of homeland security, and who would, a short time later, be named the White House chief of staff. The two men were set to visit Section 60, the 14-acre area of the cemetery that is the burial ground for those killed in Americas most recent wars. Kelly's son Robert is buried in Section 60. A first lieutenant in the Marine Corps, Robert Kelly was killed in 2010 in Afghanistan. He was 29. Trump was meant, on this visit, to join John Kelly in paying respects at his son's grave, and to comfort the families of other fallen service members. But according to sources with knowledge of this visit, Trump, while standing by Robert Kella's grave, turned directly to his father and said, "I don't get it. What was in it for them?" Kelly (who declined to comment for this story initially believed, people close to him said, that Trump was making a ham-handed reference to the selflessness of America's all-volunteer force. But later he came to realize that Trump simply does not understand non-transactional life choices.

theatlantic.com
Another explanation is more quotidian, and aligns with a broader understanding of Trump's material-focused worldview. The president believes that nothing is worth doing without the promise of monetary payback, and that talented people who don't pursue riches are "losers." (According to eyewitnesses, after a White House briefing given by the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joe Dunford, Trump turned to aides and said, "That guy is smart. Why did he join the military?")
Yet another,
ated, explanation concerns what
appears to be Trump's pathological fear of appearing to look like a "sucker" himself. His capacious definition of sucker includes those who lose their lives in service to their country, as well as those who are taken prisoner, or are wounded in battle. "He has a lot of fear," one officer with firsthand knowledge of Trump's views said. "He doesn't see the heroism in fighting." Several observers told me that Trump is deeply anxious about dying or being disfigured, and this worry manifests itself as disgust for those who have suffered. Trump recently claimed that he has received the bodies of slain service members
"many, many" times, but in fact he has traveled to Dover Air Force Bar
贝
fer point for the
remains of fallen servin mumbers, only four times

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2w ago

Trump on fallen US troops: "All of them said very strongly, 'We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.'"

Joanne Freeman @jbf1755.bsky.social · 2w ago

Here’s a gift link. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/20/u...

Faced With Piles of New Paperwork, People Are Losing Food Stamps (Gift Article)

Arizona’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program rolls have plummeted, offering a possible preview of national trends as states try to avoid new federal penalties.

nytimes.com

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 2w ago

Serbian President Vucic announced he’ll resign after 18 months of student protests. That’s Bangladesh, Nepal, Madagascar, Bulgaria, Hungary, and now Serbia, all in the past two years. Anti-corruption is the most potent force for positive political change right now. The US remains ripe.

Serbian President Vucic says he will resign within weeks

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Saturday he would resign within weeks and the country will hold early presidential and parliamentary elections, following 18 months of anti-government prote...

reuters.com

Brooke @brooklynmarie.bsky.social · 3w ago

I cannot recommend n95 and kn95 masks enough. I've covered enormous wildfires multiple times throughout my career (southern california reporter) and they have saved my ass time and again. Remember, burning houses also means burning household chemicals

Fifty Shades of Whey@fiftyshadesofwhey.bsky.social · 3w ago

As the nation is engulfed by wildfire smoke, you should all know that there's a clear statistical link between exposure to drifting wildfire smoke and chronic respiratory, cardiovascular, and oncological (cancer) health problems. 🧵

Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 3w ago

NEWS: The Trump administration has activated a secretive and never-before-used legal process to quickly deport foreign nationals deemed to be “alien terrorists” or their immediate family members. w/ @joshgerstein.bsky.social www.politico.com/news/2026/07...

Alexander Howard @digiphile.bsky.social · 3w ago

🌅 ⛰️ Good morning from low tide from Downeast Maine, where I’m feeling grateful to be enjoying clear skies & clean air this morning, given the dystopian scenes I’ve seen downwind of wildfire smoke across the eastern USA. The impact of climate change is already here, just not evenly distributed yet.

Photo of mount desert island with clouds reflected in the clear waters of the bay, with ripples spreading across the surface.

Siobhan Mitchell, PhD @esiobhanmitchell.bsky.social · 3w ago

Wildfire smoke is getting worse every year. Studies show exposure can cause mitochondria dysfunction antioxidants that protect mitochondria can help in preclinical models🧪 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Nature Portfolio @natureportfolio.nature.com · 3w ago

Heritage diets are disappearing as food systems homogenize. A Comment article in Nature Medicine discusses the World Diet Initiative, which offers a framework to document heritage diets and investigate their health effects before they are lost. go.nature.com/3Tj8F4U 🍎📃 🏺 🧪

This is figure 1, which shows the narrowing window to study vanishing dietary diversity.

Matt Shipman (he/him)@shiplives.bsky.social · 3w ago

The CDC's parasite surveillance team dropped from 11 people to three people in 2025, complicating efforts to track down what's behind the largest Cyclospora outbreak in US history. 🧪⚕️🛟🔬 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

‘Explosive diarrhoea’ outbreak grips US: how researchers are hunting its source

Cases have hit record levels, and scientists are racing to pinpoint where the Cyclospora parasite entered the food supply.

nature.com

Alexander Howard @digiphile.bsky.social · 3w ago

🌎🐍🌍🐍🌏🐉

Anthony (Tony) J. Martin@ichnologist.bsky.social · 3w ago

Happy #WorldSnakeDay to all who celebrate! And a special shout-out to that all-time champion danger-noodle, Titanoboa from the Paleocene (~60 mya) of Colombia, represented here in a traveling display at the Dinosaur Journey Museum (Fruita CO), summer 2017. 🧪🪨🐍

Recreation of the largest known snake, Titanoboa, from Paleocene of Colombia, portrayed as a life-sized model curled around a large room, its head upturned to gravity-feed a hapless crocodile in its jaws, in front of a mural of a tropical rainforest; me (oldish white dude with gleeful expression) to the right as scale.

Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 3w ago

Big First Amendment victory in @thecoalition.bsky.social v Rubio. Congrats to my colleague @carriedecell.bsky.social and to the @knightcolumbia.org & @protectdemocracy.org legal teams! knightcolumbia.org/documents/d4...

Alexander Howard @digiphile.bsky.social · 3w ago

“John Adams warned, ‘Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.’” “Thus, whatever may be the Parties’ wishes, …they cannot alter the state of the facts or evade the rule of law.”

Judge Is A Big No On Trump's Slush Fund

Tonight: Long, but worth it.

open.substack.com

Joyce White Vance@joycewhitevance.bsky.social · 3w ago

Judge Kathleen Williams didn't just reject Trump's $1.776 billion "slush fund" deal—she dismantled it, step by careful step. It's one of the most consequential opinions of the year, and every page matters. I break down why. open.substack.com/pub/joycevan...