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Flock's surveillance technology records & tracks every car that comes into view & then an AI algorithm catalogs the make, model, color, license plate number, bumper stickers, & even scratches. www.aclu.org/campaigns-in...
Get The Flock Out
Automatic license plate reader (ALPR) companies like Flock Safety are quietly trying to build a nationwide mass surveillance system. If there are Flock cameras in your city, they are tracking, logging...
aclu.org
The real power & the real danger of Flock does not come from the cameras alone. It comes from artificial intelligence. AI is what transforms a photograph into the building blocks for a suspect society. www.counterpunch.org/2026/07/16/w...
While the Political Circus Distracts Us, Flock Builds the Digital Police State
While Americans remain transfixed by the political circus—cheering for their preferred party, jeering at the opposition, obsessing over every manufactured
counterpunch.org
Hegseth can pump himself & his troops w/ as many hormones as he likes, but absolutely nothing is going to make the former Fox News host qualified for his job as defense secretary. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Pete Hegseth wants testosterone for his soldiers. Finally, some gender-affirming care | Arwa Mahdawi
The defense secretary has announced a screening program for troops. Get ready for a high-T Department of War
theguardian.com
Platner’s candidacy was the product of an approach to politics built around the idea that progressives will come to power once they’ve caught enough lightning in a bottle. They won’t. The left is going to have to build power in America brick by brick. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Graham Platner was an unforced error – the left has lessons to learn | Osita Nwanevu
Many imagined his buff, gruff and tattooed traits would help him connect with working-class men. But this logic was flawed
theguardian.com
The gaudy-looking golden smartphone Is a shoddily-repackaged phone by Chinese manufacturer HTC, the HTC U24 Pro, a 2 year-old & mid-tier Android phone, w/ a cheap coat of gold coloration, confirming once & for all tRump is selling an entirely Chinese smartphone. futurism.com/advanced-tra...
Teardown of Trump Phone Reveals Incredibly Embarrassing Secret
A recent teardown by repair company iFixit confirmed that Trump Mobile's T1 smartphone is an almost entirely unmodified Chinese phone.
futurism.com
ICE has detained more than 6,200 children nationwide, some as young as two years old. Each arrest inflicts lasting psychological harm. Even children who simply witness such actions internalize the idea that safety is conditional. www.counterpunch.org/2026/06/12/i...
ICE: the Mental Health Emergency We Can No Longer Ignore
Last fall, families in Wilder, Idaho gathered for horse races when helicopters and armored trucks suddenly descended. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
counterpunch.org
The event is billed as “free”, but in reality it appears to be an occasion for many complex transactions for tRump to further his economic & political control, reward members of his inner network & deepen his influence over them. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Welcome to ‘the Claw’: the White House fighting cage captures Trump era rot | Sidney Blumenthal
The 154ft-tall structure for the UFC Freedom 250 gives Trump a chance to to put the government out to the highest bidder
theguardian.com
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on & he’ll empty his pockets for you”. - LBJ www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Trump calls me ‘crooked as hell’. That’s rich coming from him | Representative Ilhan Omar
Trump and Republicans are not interested in combating fraud and corruption. They are interested in ransacking the public good for their own profit
theguardian.com
As corrosive as the corruption is the impunity w/ which the corruption is committed. Impunity, the expectation of unaccountability, is not only a stance. It’s a tactic. It breeds cynicism & popular cynicism is a necessary ingredient of autocracy & kleptocracy. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Trump’s corruption leaves us cynical – and complacent | Judith Levine
Impunity breeds popular cynicism, and cynicism undergirds autocracy
theguardian.com
Under the 2nd tRump administration, Ebola response teams have been suspended & health centers & medical supplies, particularly crucial w/ a virus spread through touch, w/ supportive care the only treatment, have been dramatically cut back. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...
US is ‘simply choosing not to stop’ Ebola outbreak after massive public health cuts, experts say
Hundreds of cases reported in the DRC after USAID has been dismantled and key scientific research canceled
theguardian.com
Unfortunately, for the taxpayers who will eventually have to absorb whatever money is paid out to the tRump Crime Family, those who will sign off on any deal w/ the tRumps are best understood as lackeys & yes-men. www.counterpunch.org/2026/05/15/t...
The Trump Tax Man Goeth
That the Trump lawsuit is frivolous is beside the point, just as it was when the former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn sued the U.S. government for $50 million for “malicious prosecution” and...
counterpunch.org
This outrageous event makes a mockery of a core constitutional tenet of American life, the separation of church & state, essentially promoting a particular flavor of white evangelical protestantism as state-sponsored religion. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Trump begins branding America's 250th anniversary as a Christian celebration
“We welcome Jesus into this place!”
motherjones.com
tRump dropped his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS on Monday in exchange for a settlement deal to launch a $1.8 billion fund to pay claims made by his friends for purported unfair prosecution. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Trump just gave himself a $1.8 billion slush fund to reward his friends
We don't know whether there was a settlement deal or what was in it—and that's the problem.
motherjones.com
DONUTS USED TO BE SQUARE UNTIL THEY CUT THE CORNERS OFF FOR POLICE OFFICER SAFETY.
Making the swamp smell even worse, the tRump Crime Family have managed, through crypto & other means, to increase their wealth by an estimated $4bn since tRump won a 2nd term. We should probably call tRump’s Washington not a swamp, but a colossal cesspool. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Trump didn’t drain the swamp. He turned it into a cesspool | Steven Greenhouse
The president’s second term has been full of donors seeking access, favors for billionaires and apparent conflicts of interest
theguardian.com
The Republicans have no instinct for separation from Trump, no will to stage an intervention, no ability to muster an ultimatum. They have been complicit in their captivity, co-conspirators in their demise. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Republicans would rather self-destruct than save themselves from Trump | Sidney Blumenthal
As the president’s popularity withers, the party has no will to stage an intervention against him
theguardian.com
The war is not ending. The administration is trying to fool the public, especially the investors, into continuing to assume that the global supply of oil will be restored to pre-war levels, thus bringing down gas prices & dodging a recession. www.alternet.org/iran-war-unw...
The war Trump promised to win is unwinnable — and his team knows it
Axios published an exclusive story last night that accomplished what the president needs most: the public impression that the Iran war is ending and that everything's going back to normal. Read it her...
alternet.org
Modern generative AI systems are getting good at finding & exploiting vulnerabilities in software & that has ramifications for cybersecurity: on both offense & defense. Attackers will use these capabilities to hack vulnerabilities in systems of all kinds. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
How dangerous is Anthropic’s Mythos AI? | Bruce Schneier
The system’s power is comparable to others – but it still has frightening implications for the future of hacking
theguardian.com
What’s happening right now is probably the swiftest disenfranchisement of Black folks since Reconstruction, due to disenfranchisement by racist gerrymandering. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
‘This is not democracy’: voting rights activists shocked by speed of US states moving to stifle Black voters
Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and other southern states stun residents with all-out charge to redraw congressional maps to favor white voters after supreme court ruling
theguardian.com
When adjusted for inflation, global worker pay declined 12% between 2019 and 2025, the equivalent of 108 days of free work during that time period. In comparison, CEO compensation increased by 54% between 2019 & 2025. www.theguardian.com/business/202...
CEO pay soared in 2025, 20 times faster than workers’ pay
Analysis finds real wages fell 12% since 2019, with inequality widening in the US beyond global levels
theguardian.com
A beautiful nation may turn ugly w/ alarming speed, for destruction is easier than construction. Becoming ugly requires far less effort than becoming beautiful. www.counterpunch.org/2026/04/30/t...
The Aesthetics of Authority: How Power Makes Nations Ugly
Nations are judged not only by what they do, but also by what they make us see, and what they force us to feel. Nations are not merely political or economic constructs. They are aesthetic phenomena th...
counterpunch.org
The ballroom is not just the tRump’s peculiar obsession, but a symbol for much of the character of tRump 2.0. The unprecedented corruption. The destruction of checks & balances. The sheer desire for vandalism. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
A ballroom bunker is a perfect symbol for Trump 2.0 | Jan-Werner Müller
The edifice suggests a Silicon Valley-style desire to protect the president from national crises of his own making
theguardian.com
tRump’s speech about vermin & others like it & the current Trump/Jesus memes are provocations, what child therapists call attention-seeking behaviors. For tRump, they’re a shell game, misdirection that hides vicious programs & policies. www.counterpunch.org/2026/04/24/h...
How Fascism Works Now: A Note about Trump as the Healing Christ
The image of a youthful Donald Trump, laying his hand on the forehead of a sick or dying man has by now been interred in the meme graveyard. By the time you read this, another will have taken its plac...
counterpunch.org
The pope called for peace. tRump felt betrayed, aggrieved & victimized that the pope would not kneel at his throne. As Trump floundered in the strait of Hormuz, the pope’s condemnation was especially damning & humiliating. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Trump cannot bear the judgments of Pope Leo | Sidney Blumenthal
The political gap between US evangelicals and Catholics is widening. And Trump won’t tolerate authority outside his own
theguardian.com
Party leaders are stuck in an anachronistic time warp, severely out of touch w/ or contemptuous of what most Demos currently believe about Israel. Whether clueless or disingenuous, top Demos keep insisting that the reality is not reality. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Why are Democratic leaders still ignoring voters on Israel? | Norman Solomon
Decisions at the latest Democratic National Committee meeting emphasized the disconnect between the party’s leadership and its base
theguardian.com
The president is exempt from many of the basic ethics rules that apply to other federal officials, leaving him free to use the power of the presidency in ways that directly benefit him & his family. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...
How Weak Federal Ethics Laws Enable Presidential Profiteering
Lackluster laws and barriers to enforcement clear many paths for the wealthy to get money to the president.
brennancenter.org
The tRump administration has touted a series of peace deals that, examined more carefully, are premature, non-existent, or largely a function of snake oil showmanship. www.counterpunch.org/2026/04/13/n...
Negotiating With Bombs
Ophir Falk, foreign policy adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu, put the matter succinctly when answering a question from National Public Radio about whether the Israeli prime minister supported Trump’s peac...
counterpunch.org
