X | Our private research universities are not actually purely private. They are designed to be both a cryptic soft extension of the state (e.g. national security, priming the prosperity pipeline with blue sky research, truth adjudication, etc.), which is also oppositely intended as an independent check on the state and state power in times of abuse as well. This tacit and quiet knowledge, which used to be held at the AAU and the relevant professors, has been mostly lost. So 'overhead' or 'indirect costs' is not actually overhead at all. It is supposed to be cryptic state support based on research merit to avoid political pressure to fund 3rd tier universities at the same level as Princeton.
So the whole system was designed back in the Vannevar Bush era but without leaving the esoteric knowledge with modern academicians. It's a disaster. It was a quiet game which worked brilliantly to serve the nation and its population until lunatics started to get a foothold in the research universities. This is why when you audit this stuff, you see waste. It wasn't ever intended to be what it appears to be: this was the USG paying to have a totally ELITE and EXCLUSIVE quasi-private, quasi-public resource. Think Manhattan project. Think The Jasons. Think winning.
And, despite my deep dislike of how @realchrisrufo has acted towards me, his point is spot on. If the elite U.S. universities are so confused as to think that they are truly 100% private and that they should be allowed to destroy their role of ELITE service to the nation which built them up with federal dollars, that is a moment to remind them of the "Endless Frontier" agreement. First the USG welched on the agreement with the Mansfield Ammendment and Dole Bayh and then IMMACT90. Then the universities welched with DEI. BOTH parties need to get back to the quiet agreement, or the whole thing will just fall apart. And the US research achipeligo is a *MAJOR* part of american greatness which we seem to be about to destroy because we can't figure out how to do this.
[And for those of you who seem to believe that quiet and tacit agreements are always bad, so that the Manhattan Project should have been academic and totally open because 'Sunlight is always the best disinfectant!!', I highly encourage you to use the comment section to complain again about elitism, gatekeeping, Fauci, experts, science, government and credentials. I get it. You can't stop to listen...or think. I totally get you. Looking forward to your vitriol. Just make sure to remind me repeatedly that markets are always right, all tax is theft, DEI is poison, and that Trump and Elon know exactly what they are doing at all times.]
radiolab | This is the story of a few documents that tumbled out of the secret archives of the biggest empire the world has ever known, offering a glimpse of histories waiting to be rewritten.
Just down the road from a pub in rural Hanslope Park, England is a massive building — the secret archives of the biggest empire the world has ever known. This is the story of a few documents that tumbled out and offered a glimpse of histories waiting to be rewritten.
When professor Caroline Elkins came across a stray document left by the British colonial government in Nairobi, Kenya, she opened the door to a new reckoning with the history of one of Britain's colonial crown jewels, and the fearsome group of rebels known as the Mau Mau. We talk to historians, archivists, journalists and send our producer Jamie York to visit the Mau Mau. As the new history of Kenya is concealed and revealed, document by document, we wonder what else lies in wait among the miles of records hidden away in Hanslope Park.
CNN | After the White House argued, repeatedly, that there was no
classified information in the now-infamous group chat of national
security officials, The Atlantic published it.
CNN reporters annotated the entire chat, which included Hegseth’s description of F-18s and drones preparing to strike targets, which anybody listening in would have known were to occur in Yemen since the name of the chat included the word “Houthi.”
The White House and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth continued to argue, even after release of the chat, that the information wasn’t classified, but only sensitive.
Multiple experts advised on CNN Wednesday that people should not get sidetracked by whether or not the information was classified.
What’s below are the assessments of:
Kimmitt and Sanner both appeared on CNN Wednesday, and I subsequently followed up with Sanner on the phone.
CNN has reported that sources within the Pentagon believe that the information shared by Hegseth, which detailed when, to the minute, US fighters and drones would strike Houthi targets, was clearly classified.
Whether it was technically classified is beside the point, according to Kimmitt.
“I think everybody’s missing the relevant issue,” he said, noting that Hegseth has the authority to declassify Pentagon information.
“If he says it’s not classified, it’s not classified,” Kimmit said. But “the fundamental question that we should be asking is, ‘Should it have been classified?’ And the answer, of course, is yes.”
“I think we’re watching a lot of bob and weave, instead of just making this simple,” said Sanner, who added that the rule of thumb is that anything that shouldn’t be put into an unclassified email should be treated as classified material.
“Another really easy way to look at this is, ‘If I’m sitting in Moscow or Beijing, would I be happy to get this information and think that I’ve gotten something really interesting?’” she said. Obviously yes.
First, the military portions of what was shared clearly should not have been shared.
“If there are planes, trains automobiles, whatever, heading toward an attack, it is classified,” Sanner said.
And if Hegseth wants to declassify something, there is a process of documentation that should be followed, she said.
@jasmineforus MAGA can’t find any dirt so they have resorted to being outraged that I attended private school 🤯. I am me, unapologetically! GET A LIFE & start caring about how people are losing their jobs and our economy is tanking!
♬ original sound - Jasmine Crockett
▶️ Powerful video here: revealing the deep and dark corruption which has been fueling this disastrous proxy war from the first moment of its inception. Zelensky is a media creation - a puppet of the West, designed to empty Ukraine of its sovereignty, and ultimately its resources… pic.twitter.com/5xH0vbGool
— Patrick Henningsen (@21WIRE) March 1, 2025
EXCLUSIVE: @SecRubio on Canada, 51st State and the Hot Mic Moment
— Catherine Herridge (@C__Herridge) February 21, 2025
HERRIDGE: “In a hot mike moment, Canada’s prime minister said that absorbing Canada “is a real thing.” Is it a real thing?”
SECRETARY RUBIO: “Yeah, look, you know how that came about? President’s meeting with… https://t.co/t5BReWwOiR pic.twitter.com/ALZ8FSDCUx
eng.mil.ru | Report by Russian Defence Ministry on progress of special military operation (22 February 2025)
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.
In Kharkov direction, the Sever Group of Forces hit formations of two territorial defence brigades close to Izbitskoye and Volchansk (Kharkov region).
The AFU lost up to 40 troops, an armoured personnel carrier, an artillery gun, and an electronic warfare station.
As a result of decisive actions, the Zapad Group of Forces liberated Novolyubovka (Lugansk People's Republic).
Russian units hit manpower and hardware of four mechanised brigades, an assault brigade of the AFU, and a national guard brigade close to Topoli, Kondrashovka, Golubovka, Novay Kruglyakovka, Borovaya, Shiykovka (Kharkov region), Yampol (Donetsk People's Republic) as well as Serebryansky forestry.
The enemy's losses amounted to more than 200 troops, a U.S.-made M113
armoured personnel carrier, five motor vehicles, and five field
artillery guns, three of them manufactured by NATO countries. Three
electronic warfare stations and an ammunition depot were neutralised.
Units of the Yug Group of Forces took more advantageous
lines and positions. Russian troops engaged manpower and hardware of
four mechanised brigades, an airmobile brigade, two assault brigades of
the AFU, and foreign legion units near Seversk, Reznikovka, Slavyansk,
Vasyukovka, Kramatorsk, Novomarkovo, Belokuzminovka, Chasov Yar,
Stupochki, Konstantinovka, and Ulakly (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 220 troops, an infantry fighting vehicle, nine motor vehicles, and six field artillery guns including a U.S.-made 155mm M777 howitzer. One electronic warfare station and one ammunition depot were neutralised.
Units of the Tsentr Group of Forces improved the tactical situation. Ten mechanised brigades, a jaeger brigade, an airmobile brigade, two assault brigades, an assault regiment of the AFU, a marine brigade, and a national guard brigade near Shcherbinovka, Dimitrov, Krasnoarmeysk, Udachnoye, Uspenovka, Novoandreyevka, and Andreyevka (Donetsk People's Republic).
The enemy lost more than 375 troops, four armoured fighting vehicles
including a U.S.-made MaxxPro armoured vehicle, five motor vehicles, and
seven field artillery guns including a U.S.-made 155mm Paladin
self-propelled artillery system.
Units of the Vostok Group of Forces continued advancing
into the depth of enemy defences. A mechanised brigade, an air assault
brigade of the AFU, and three territorial defence brigades were hit near
Konstantiopol, Bogatyr, Burlatskoye (Donetsk People's Republic),
Temirovka, and Gulyaypole (Zaporozhye region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 160 troops, two tanks including a
German-made Leopard tank, three motor vehicles, and two field artillery
guns.
The Dnepr Group of Forces engaged manpower and hardware
of a mountain assault brigade of the AFU and two territorial defence
brigades close to Malaya Tokmachka, Shcherbaki, Lobkovoye (Zaporozhye
region), Sadovoye, and Dneprovskoye (Kherson region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 85 troops, six motor vehicles, an
artillery gun, three electronic warfare stations, and an ammunition
depot.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, attack unmanned aerial vehicles, Missile
Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces have engaged the
infrastructure of military airfields, strike drones stocking and
training sites, ammunition and fuel depots of the Ukrainian Armed Forces
as well as temporary deployment areas of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in
157 areas.
Russian air defence systems shot down a Ukrainian MiG-29 aircraft, two
French-made Hammer guided bombs, two U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS projectiles,
and 58 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 656
aircraft, 283 helicopters, 44,190 unmanned aerial vehicles, 596
anti-aircraft missile systems, 21,698 tanks and other armoured fighting
vehicles, 1,521 MLRS combat vehicles, 21,948 field artillery guns and
mortars, and 32,033 units of support military vehicles have been
neutralised.
WaPo | Elon Musk, the head of the U.S. DOGE Service, announced Friday that he would rehire a staffer who resigned after he was tied to a social media account with a history of racist posts.
CTH | Yes, the Govt is in crisis, and just as sure as you are reading this, the administrators within the IC already have the solution ready to roll.”
♦ RESULT – “We will use advanced technology and non-partisan AI programming, to make the government more efficient and ensure this level of corruption and wasteful spending never happens again.”
Every dollar will be tracked, monitored and oversight will be transparent and available for everyone to see. Just ignore the part where the same efficiency system is monitoring your real ID, connecting your personage to the new govt and private sector interfaces, and click “I agree” on your next federal tax filing. Trust us Comrade citizen, the new technologically advanced DODGE approved govt system cares about responsible stewardship and you. Swear.”
The process starts by downloading government data to an AI enhanced database for review and filtration.
Good Stuff – […] Trump created DOGE through a day one executive order with a stated mission to cut government waste. Musk and his aides have assumed control of federal IT infrastructure as his team swiftly blitzes through departments and agencies. Trump, with Musk’s guidance, this week gutted the United States Agency for International Development and merged it into the State Department. The president has signaled he might try to eliminate the Department of Education by executive order next.
“They’re putting a shot across the administrative state’s bow,” Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, said last week of the mass federal buyout plan on his “War Room” podcast. “That’s DOGE signaling to you that they’ve got a plan of how to take the personnel down.”
[…] Federal employees who want to remain in the federal workforce were told in the “Fork in the Road” email they must return to in-person work, embrace new “performance standards” and be “reliable, loyal and trustworthy” in their work. The email also warned that most federal departments and agencies will be “downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force.”
On Tuesday, the buyout offer was extended to nearly all employees of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Some federal employees said they were alarmed at the short timeframe they were given to make their decisions.
“I have invested way too much time and energy and interest into my career to just say, ‘hell with it’ and leave when I only have, like, five to 10 years left before I retire,” one federal worker said. “I’m not taking the resigning bait. So, I guess I’ll essentially just ride down with the ship if they decide to get rid of us,” the worker added, though he acknowledged some less experienced colleagues might take the buyout. (more)
The streamlining and downsizing of government through the use of AI systems is a good thing, perhaps a very good thing. However, watch out for deployment into the DHS apparatus because that will give rise to the newly expanded Surveillance State.
Peaceniks don’t build bombs; and those who genuinely believe in liberty do not build nor support domestic surveillance networks that can be weaponized depending on who is in power.
JONATHAN TURLEY ON DOGE: THE TERROR ALERT IN WASHINGTON IS QUITE ASTONISHING
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) February 7, 2025
“You have people all over the Beltway breathing in paper bags right now because of the idea that they could bring in these people, and that they're going to think outside the box.
That's what Musk is… pic.twitter.com/vYF3vDML0t
pro publica | On President Donald Trump’s authority alone, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has been unleashed on federal agencies. Employees from Musk’s companies and those of his allies, as well as young staffers he’s recruited, are wresting authority from career workers and commandeering computer systems.
While some have been public about their involvement, others have attempted to keep their roles secret, scrubbing LinkedIn pages and other sources of data. With little information from the White House, ProPublica is attempting to document who is involved and what they are doing.
Musk’s team, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, has already thrown entire swaths of the federal government and its programs into disarray — programs that serve millions of Americans.
Musk himself has made no secret of his intentions, saying that DOGE is a “wood chipper for bureaucracy” and that he is “deleting” agencies.
wired | As one of his first acts after being sworn in, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) by reorganizing and renaming an existing entity, the US Digital Services (USDS), as the US DOGE Service. And while some have noted that this version of DOGE moves away from the sweeping vision of deregulation outlined in a November Wall Street Journal op-ed, it's a move that will give centibillionaire Elon Musk and his allies seemingly unprecedented insight across the government, and access to troves of federal data.
December, 2020. Joy Reid: Have you ever heard of somebody getting a preemptive pardon who is an innocent person?
— MAZE (@mazemoore) January 20, 2025
Adam Schiff: No.
Today Adam Schiff got a preemptive pardon. pic.twitter.com/s83ghqk0rs
NYTimes | President Biden pardoned five members of his family in his last minutes in office, saying in a statement that he did so not because they did anything wrong but because he feared political attacks from incoming President Donald J. Trump.
“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics,” he said in his last statement as president. “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”
Mr. Biden’s action pardoned James B. Biden, his brother; Sara Jones Biden, James’s wife; Valerie Biden Owens, Mr. Biden’s sister; John T. Owens, Ms. Owens’s husband; and Francis W. Biden, Mr. Biden’s brother.
The White House announced the pardons with less than 20 minutes left in Mr. Biden’s presidency, after he had already walked into the Capitol Rotunda to witness the swearing-in of Mr. Trump before leaving the Capitol for the last time as president.
The pardons were a remarkable coda to Mr. Biden’s 50-year political career, underscoring the mistrust and anger that the president feels about Mr. Trump, the man who preceded and will succeed him in office.
Mr. Biden had repeatedly warned that Mr. Trump was a threat to democracy in America. But he also said that he believed in the rule of law, and was confident in the stability of the institutions of law enforcement. The pardons — like one that he did earlier for his son, Hunter Biden, threatened to challenge that assertion.
In his statement, Mr. Biden explained his action.
“I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics,” Mr. Biden wrote. “But baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety and financial security of targeted individuals and their families. Even when individuals have done nothing wrong and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage their reputations and finances.”
cbsnews | Why was the Santa Ynez Reservoir empty when the fires broke out?
The reservoir was taken out of service to "meet safe drinking water regulations," the DWP said in a statement. A tear in the reservoir's cover made the water supply subject to contamination, the Los Angeles Times reported, leading the agency to drain it in February.
"The water system serving the Pacific Palisades area and all of Los Angeles meets all federal and state fire codes for urban development and housing," the release said.
DWP representatives did not respond to further questions about the reservoir from CBS News. The agency's statement suggested that the fact the reservoir was empty for nearly a year was in part due to the process of contracting a company to carry out the repairs.
"To commission the support and resources to implement repairs to Santa Ynez, LADWP is subject to the city charter's competitive bidding process which requires time," the statement read.
The reservoir is intended to provide water storage "for domestic use and fire fighting purposes in the Pacific Palisades area" according to city documents.
DWP says that the agency is conducting its own investigation on its "water resiliency." But experts and officials agree that the extent of the wildfires would have put a strain on the city's water supply regardless of whether the Santa Ynez Reservoir had been full.
In his letter to DWP, Newsom wrote, "While water supplies from local fire hydrants are not designed to extinguish wildfires over large areas, losing supplies from fire hydrants likely impaired the effort to protect some homes and evacuation corridors."
David Freyberg, PhD, a hydrologist and water resources specialist at Stanford University, told CBS News in an email that while a full Santa Ynez would have had benefits, it's not clear how much impact it would have had.
"The reservoirs above Pacific Palisades were not designed to support fire-fighting at the scale of [this] fire," he wrote. "Water supply reservoirs are typically designed to cope with house fires, not wildfires."
He added that the situation has made it clear that larger-scale solutions are necessary.
axios | As devastating wildfires raged across Los Angeles County this week, firefighters battling the blazes encountered fire hydrants that had no water.
Why it matters: The dry fire hydrants sparked political outrage and illustrated just how unprepared municipal water systems are to combat the sorts of large-scale urban wildfires that have become more frequent with climate change.
The big picture: Fire hydrants running out of water isn't unheard of during severe wildfires, said Faith Kearns, a water and wildfire expert with the Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University. Similar instances were reported during wildfires in Maui, Colorado and Oregon,
Firefighters battling the Palisades Fire earlier this week encountered swaths of fire hydrants with no water after the three water tanks supplying the Pacific Palisades ran dry by 3 a.m. Wednesday, Janisse Quiñones, chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said at a press briefing later that day.
2025 is a mathematical wonder.!! pic.twitter.com/WsUfhKF4C9
— 𝗟 𝗼 𝗹 𝗹 𝘂 𝗯 𝗲 𝗲 (@Lollubee) December 30, 2024
