this is actually my fav part of this whole shitshow, where he argues that he needs to stay in office because of his record in fighting for the people of Ohio by....wait for it....supporting Ukraine and the ACA, both of which his party have been trying to end since day 1

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 21h ago

TAPPER: Hold on -- hold on, 'cause I'm not done with the list of women who have accused you of violence. Are all three of them lying? REP. MAX MILLER: Yes. And I'm not getting out of the race because in 2016, President Donald J Trump faced the most extreme allegations in the world ...

Drone warfare is making the skies more dangerous, even for airplanes far from the battlefield.

A Civilian Plane Crashed in New Mexico. Was the Military’s Tech to Blame?

Drone warfare is making the skies more dangerous, even for airplanes far from the battlefield.

wrd.cm

Trump forgets the word for video: "We have photographs, or tapes... Like, moving cameras, right?"

You have a literal Trump propagandist in Pirro look at the case and say, we have no case. Not that there is a doubt about prosecution, but that the guy clearly did not do what he was accused of. But in an authoritarian regime, thats not good enough. bsky.app/profile/atru...

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2d ago

Trump says Jeanine Pirro "choked" and then snaps at a reporter who asks if her job is safe: "Don't ever talk again"

Very cool we have an 80 year old president who proudly displays his ability to discern reality from the Oval Office, a condition worsened by a bubble of sycophants and his struggles with AI

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2d ago

Trump: "We have photographs or tapes -- like moving cameras, right? -- where people are on the side cutting it with a box knife."

Also note that Trump increasingly insists that reporters identify their outlets before he takes their questions. In this case it's a rightwing outlet, so he answers; but he undermines the White House effort to quietly pack the room with friendly questioners and sheild him from nonpartisan reporters

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2d ago

Trump won't call for Max Miller to resign: "I'm going to let the families figure that out ... it's accusations"

The top of the US govt abusing power with even trivial things *is* the story. Federal law enforcement warped around lies and assuaging one man’s hurt feelings. The cynical, above-it-all attitude of doesn’t matter, stop being hysterical, why not humor him for a bit is part of why we’re in this mess.

Ron Filipkowski@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 5d ago

So many sneering elitist journalists with snarky posts over the past months that the Reflecting Pool story was trivial. It was so trivial that the DC US Attny presented false evidence to a grand jury to indict an innocent man to please the President while they both lied about it.

Like the hypocrisy and the open corruption, the naked, brazen lying is itself aspiring authoritarianism. They aren't lying to cover anything up. They're saying, "We know we're lying. You know we're lying. And we know you know we're lying. And there's nothing you can do about it."

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last mo.

BASH: But it peeled off. Why did that happen? BURGUM: It didn't peel off. There was vandalism. There was box cutters. There have been 7 arrests. BASH: There are photographs of people cutting a 350 foot gash in the reflecting pool? BURGUM: Dana, I'm not sure why you keep questioning it

I used to do some work on the ethical use of satellite and drone imagery for aid and disaster response, and it is genuinely hard to express in words what a dangerous, stupid thing Google is doing by making it easy to use GenAI to create faked satellite imagery:

How to plant a nuclear plant in Iran

The question is: what on earth is Google doing?

digitaldigging.org

Narrator: They do not

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 5d ago

Hassett: "Data centers are very good for towns bc they create so many jobs & bring people in with high incomes that can buy houses & stuff like that. So if you take a sleepy town that hasn't seen much in the last 30 years & put a data center there, there are gonna be a bunch of happy residents."

We've gotta make the Monorail Simpsons episode required viewing for every city councilor in the country. Every single thing he says here is a lie. A Potemkin Village Imaginarium.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 5d ago

Hassett: "Data centers are very good for towns bc they create so many jobs & bring people in with high incomes that can buy houses & stuff like that. So if you take a sleepy town that hasn't seen much in the last 30 years & put a data center there, there are gonna be a bunch of happy residents."

Got a good job down at the Data Center. I work on the line, and it's hard work but it's honest and the wage is fair; my family and I are grateful for it. I rivet the word "absolutely" onto the little apologies that chatbots do when they misunderstand a prompt.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 5d ago

Hassett: "Data centers are very good for towns bc they create so many jobs & bring people in with high incomes that can buy houses & stuff like that. So if you take a sleepy town that hasn't seen much in the last 30 years & put a data center there, there are gonna be a bunch of happy residents."

Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 6d ago

The US president has said he has not decided whether he will allow Ukraine to produce Patriot surface-to-air interceptor missiles, casting doubt on whether Washington will agree to one of Kyiv’s top priorities. ft.trib.al/8v3D9Ba

✅ Touring Clacton ✅ Visiting local businesses ✅ Listening to constituents’ concerns ✅ Hi-vis vest Make your Vote Count! #VoteBinface #Clacton

This ONLY benefits the absolute worst people, businesses, and governments in the world to the detriment of the public.

Eliot Higgins@eliothiggins.bsky.social · 6d ago

Google Earth, a tool often used as a source of satellite imagery to verify photos and videos, has added a feature that allows you to alter satellite imagery with AI, for reasons. blog.google/products-and...

No way this could be abused

@henkvaness.bsky.social is shocked and has more details on this Google move www.digitaldigging.org/p/how-to-pla...

How to plant a nuclear plant in Iran

The question is: what on earth is Google doing?

digitaldigging.org

Eliot Higgins@eliothiggins.bsky.social · 6d ago

Google Earth, a tool often used as a source of satellite imagery to verify photos and videos, has added a feature that allows you to alter satellite imagery with AI, for reasons. blog.google/products-and...

Absolutely nuts: Google Earth now has a feature that lets you convincingly fabricate satellite imagery www.digitaldigging.org/p/how-to-pla...

Let me tell you, having chronicled Pentagon-style war game on attacking Iran nearly 25 yr ago, every single "surprise," "darkening turn," "narrowing option," spreading warfare," "rising casualties," "no easy exit," etc that comes drip-by-drip is EXACTLY why GHWB WJC GWB OBAMA BiDEN did NOT do this

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com Why do politicians, journalists and commentators treat Elon Musk’s “far-right racist radicalism as a sideshow rather than the core of his political, ideological and industrial project?” our columnist Jamelle Bouie writes.

Opinion | Why Do We Tolerate Elon Musk’s Racist Commentary?

Why does the owner of X get a pass for what he says and does there?

nyti.ms

less immediately scientifically preposterous (okay a bit less) lab related claims evolved and took more time to assess & eventually be shown to be incorrect, even though zoonosis never stopped being the best supported by evidence explanation. Early stuff included HIV inserts claims, PLA weapon, etc.

The reason it can look like this happened from the outside is there were a handful of insanely stupid lab leak claims very early on which were being circulated at the highest levels of government that were ludicrously wrong & were shut down (correctly) which is what you see during 2020 even as other

Surplus Cornbread@surpluscornbread.bsky.social · 7d ago

It's interesting how the media immediately went to "lab leak is crank" while scientists largely started with "damn, could be true." And those positions completely flipped. Of course the scientists flipped for good reasons. The journalists, not so much.

Hurling F-bombs at an 85-year-old scientist who won’t fight back doesn’t make you tough. Staying silent after your own daughter accused Rep. Max Miller of holding a gun to her head, pushing her against a wall, and fracturing your granddaughter’s collarbone makes you a coward.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last wk.

Moreno to Fauci: "Who the fuck did you think you were?"

Good intro to the topic by its leading scholar @rickperlstein.bsky.social if you're not familiar with the history of the Vietnam POW/MIA conspiracy theory and its role in US political history bsky.app/profile/robd...

Rob Delaney@robdelaney.bsky.social · 7d ago

www.thenation.com/article/arch...

All the Fauci stuff is a modern day version of the POW/MIA stuff after Vietnam - a way to try to rewrite the history of a huge failure of conservative ideology to be instead a story about how liberals and foreigners stabbed us in the back.

PBS spelled “cavalier” correctly even though the Department of Education cannot.

Seth Cotlar@sethcotlar.bsky.social · 7d ago

What “they” did to your kids. Remind me again, who was president in the spring and fall of 2020 when the majority of in-person school closures happened?

It was, in accelerated fashion, a parallel to how living through climate change is making Republicans far worse on emissions & pollution.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 7d ago

The Fauci hearing perfectly illustrated how living through a once in a century pandemic somehow made Republicans far worse on public health. God forbid we face anything like covid again during Trump 2.0. There will be no Dr Fauci around to try to talk sense to Trump.

Mark this well. A public servant who performed admirably in a crisis is being publicly persecuted, maybe prosecuted. Govt websites are being given over to propaganda. Fake medicines are being praised while lifesaving vaccines are lied about. Slanderous grifters cackle their triumph. Despicable.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last wk.

Fauci accuses Rand Paul of having an "unhinged obsession with calling for my prosecution" and of making "repeated slanderous comments," then says "although it pains me to do so... under advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the 5th Amendment to refrain from answering your questions."

This is just not sane. It’s a string of not-true things.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last wk.

Tuberville: "I'll be the governor of Alabama and I promise you we will find out if there's a possibility that we can bring him to Alabama to put him in front of a court and a jury to see if we can put this guy in prison. He killed millions of people, folks."

Republicans in Congress are fine with Trump unconstitutionally withholding evidence he participated in Jeffrey Epstein’s global pedophile ring—but they’re going off on an elderly doctor.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last wk.

Moreno to Fauci: "Who the fuck did you think you were?"