The agency was in the midst of a probe into the billionaire's equipment at the time of Musk's assault.

Donald Trump has securing Canada’s resource wealth on his mind, and “one of the easiest ways of doing that is absorbing our country. And it is a real thing.”

Trump and Israeli officials have not said how they would respond if Palestinians refuse to leave. But Human Rights Watch and other groups say the plan, if implemented, would amount to “ethnic cleansing,” the forcible relocation of the civilian population of an ethnic group from a geographic area.

Elon Musk’s DOGE henchmen are helping him make his most terrifying power grab yet.

Why Democrats and the media are struggling to capture the insanity—and danger—of the new Trump administration.

Elon Musk has vowed to unilaterally cancel hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of government grants after apparently gaining access to review the US Treasury’s vast payments system, a move that prompted the sudden resignation of one of the department’s most senior officials.
The world’s richest man, who bankrolled Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and was tasked by the president with running the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, boasted on his social media site X that he was “rapidly shutting down . . . illegal payments” after a list of grants to Lutheran organisations was posted online.
The threat came after Musk appeared to confirm on Saturday that DOGE had access to the Treasury system, which disperses trillions of dollars each year, including social security payments.

Trump claimed that he had changed Obama’s criteria for hiring air traffic controllers with greater diversity — when in fact he left it unchanged. Moreover, he decried the fact that FAA hired controllers with a range of disabilities that he listed at the news conference. But that program was launched during his first term.
The June 2019 webpage for the Aviation Development Program (ADP) — also now removed but still visible on the Wayback Machine — said the program “provides an opportunity for Persons with Targeted Disabilities (PWTD) to gain aviation knowledge and experience as an air traffic control student trainee.” The announcement said the program was conceived when an air traffic manager met a quadriplegic student who had assumed he would never qualify to be a controller because of his condition. The FAA stressed that participants must meet the same qualifications as any other air traffic controller student.

Trump lost. That is, if all legal voters were allowed to vote, if all legal ballots were counted, Trump would have lost the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia. Vice-President Kamala Harris would have won the Presidency with 286 electoral votes.

"“Had we not done that [stopped Houston from sending out ballots], Donald Trump would’ve lost the election”"

"The crucial statistic is that not everyone’s ballot gets disqualified. One study done for the United States Civil Rights Commission found that a Black person, such as Maj. Turner, will be 900% more likely to have their mail-in or in-person ballot disqualified than a white voter."

when breaking the law is so common, we don't even bother

"That he broke the law is obvious. He didn’t give 30 days’ notice. He didn’t provide any “substantive rationale.” He didn’t provide any reason at all. He just did it. And he told reporters Saturday that it was all fine. “It’s a very common thing to do,” he said. Once he says that, we know that basically every Republican, and Fox News and Sinclair and the rest of the propaganda chamber, are going to say the same thing. Lindsey Graham on Sunday hilariously admitted that “technically, yeah,” Trump broke the law but Graham wasn’t losing any sleep over it."

Searching code is an important part of every developer's workflow. We're trying to make it better.

Trump has ordered declassifying of documents regarding the JFK assassination and more. Schumer says do UFOs

For the first time, scientists have measured the shape of an electron in solids, opening the door to advances in quantum materials.

This discovery pushes back the known date of European hominins by half a million years and establishes Grăunceanu as the oldest confirmed European evidence of hominin activity.

they use this phrase "the sex that produces the large/small reproductive cell" which is being criticized because the fetus doesn't produce reproductive cells at conception, so it doesn't work for the first ~6 weeks. afterward, it seems like it does a better job of fitting people into a sex binary, since exceptions to this classification are rarer than chromosomal aberrations, it would seem.

Andrea Stroppa, a confidant of Musk who has connected him with far-right Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, was reported by Italian media to have posted the clip of Musk with the caption: "Roman Empire is back starting from Roman salute".

The Roman salute was widely used in Italy by Benito Mussolini's Fascist Party, before later being adopted by Adolf Hitler in Germany.

Stroppa later deleted his post, Italian media said. He later posted that "that gesture, which some mistook for a Nazi salute, is simply Elon, who has autism, expressing his feelings by saying, 'I want to give my heart to you'".

On Jan. 7th, Greenblatt appeared before Knesset's Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs to encourage further censorship initiatives that the Israeli government could take on.

The Apartheid Defense League is an anti-Palestinian hate group whose primary focus is right-wing, pro-Israel advocacy.

Greenblatt pushed for the State of Israel to consider the fight against antisemitism online and around the world to be another front (alongside Gaza, Lebanon, West Bank, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Iran) that the country must contend with.

“Capturing TikTok might seem less meaningful than holding on to Mount Hermon. Libelous tweets certainly might seem less deadly than missiles from Yemen. But this is urgent because the next war will be decided based on how Israel and its allies perform online as much as offline. Make no mistake, it’s real,” he said.

eJP - In the Knesset, ADL chief admits failure to extinguish the post-Oct. 7 ‘inferno of antisemitism,’ calls for new strategies
https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/in-the-knesset-adl-chief-admits-group-has-failed-to-combat-antisemitism-calls-for-new-strategies/

Of course, Greenblatt had no advice on encouraging censorship on Facebook or X because both of those institutions are already anti-Palestinian.

After Elon Musk boosted antisemitic conspiracies on X and denounced the ADL, he had to launder his reputation with corporate America. So, he suddenly became a pro-Israel fanatic and began regurgitating hasbara BS.

Relatively-recently, Wikipedia deems the ADL to be an unreliable source on the Israel/Palestine issue.

Democracy Now! - Wikipedia Declares ADL an “Unreliable” Source on the Israel-Palestine Conflict
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/6/21/headlines/wikipedia_declares_adl_an_unreliable_source_on_the_israel_palestine_conflict

There have been edit wars going on re: this issue for as long as Wiki has existed. Pro-Israel editors have long been coordinating edits on Wiki to present a pro-Israel narrative.

Some pro-Palestine editors might have begun doing the same thing - but recently, many such editors were busted for primarily ETIQUETTE-related reasons. Like being 'impolite' or something to a pro-Israel editor.

For this, the ADL recently celebrated:

https://x.com/ADL/status/1880363032179798081

The ADL and other pro-Israel groups are likely putting pressure on Wiki to take these actions. No such pressure has been applied to the many sock-puppet pro-Israel accounts that regularly edit-war on Wiki over this issue.

RE: META
META has long been censoring & penalizing pro-Palestine content and that which is critical of Israel. In fact, META discriminates against Palestinians and their supporters so badly that an internal audit by the company put out a report stating it hurts Palestinian human rights.

Based on the data reviewed, examination of individual cases and related materials, and external stakeholder engagement, Meta’s actions⁸ in May 2021 appear to have had an adverse human rights impact (as defined in footnote 3) on the rights of Palestinian users to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, political participation, and non-discrimination, and therefore on the ability of Palestinians to share information and insights about their experiences as they occurred. This was reflected in conversations with affected stakeholders, many of whom shared with BSR their view that Meta appears to be another powerful entity repressing their voice that they are helpless to change.

The Independent - Facebook and Instagram ‘violated Palestinian users’ rights by taking down posts, according to its own report
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/meta-facebook-instagram-palestinian-rights-b2173756.html

HRW even issued a follow-up report about META, concluding:

Human Rights Watch found that the censorship of content related to Palestine on Instagram and Facebook is systemic and global. Meta’s inconsistent enforcement of its own policies led to the erroneous removal of content about Palestine. While this appears to be the biggest wave of suppression of content about Palestine to date, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has a well-documented record of overbroad crackdowns on content related to Palestine. For years, Meta has apologized for such overreach and promised to address it. In this context, Human Rights Watch found Meta’s behavior fails to meet its human rights due diligence responsibilities. Despite the censorship documented in this report, Meta allows a significant amount of pro-Palestinian expression and denunciations of Israeli government policies. This does not, however, excuse its undue restrictions on peaceful content in support of Palestine and Palestinians, which is contrary to the universal rights to freedom of expression and access to information.

Human Rights Watch - Meta’s Broken Promises
https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/systemic-censorship-palestine-content-instagram-and
The Guardian - Meta censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, report claims
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/dec/21/meta-facebook-instagram-pro-palestine-censorship-human-rights-watch-report

META implemented a new policy called 'community engagement expectations' (CEE) - which bans discussions about politics. CEE violations can hurt performance reviews and sometimes lead to termination of employment.

[...] Under the CEE, which launched in 2022, discussions of armed conflict, war, or other political matters are banned inside the company; violations can hurt performance reviews and, in some cases, lead to termination.

One former Meta employee believes the CEE was largely a reaction to the Black Lives Matter protests and the 2020 US presidential election. “Before that, you could have a profile photo that says ‘Make America Great Again,’” the source says. But the turmoil such political expressions caused within the company led Meta to crack down.

“Whether it is an opinion or a fact shared, at our size—and again, with the diversity of our population—an opposing or seemingly neutral comment could trigger feelings of contention, sadness, anger, distraction and even grief,” Williams, the diversity chief, wrote in her message last month. Williams reminded workers that they are welcome to speak up externally, including on Meta apps such as Instagram or Threads.

WIRED - How Watermelon Cupcakes Kicked Off an Internal Storm at Meta
https://www.wired.com/story/meta-palestine-employees-watermelon-cupcakes-censorship/

META is also implicated in a WhatsApp 'leak' that has allowed the IDF to further target Palestinians.

Against the backdrop of the ongoing war on Gaza, the threat warning raised a disturbing possibility among some employees of Meta. WhatsApp personnel have speculated Israel might be exploiting this vulnerability as part of its program to monitor Palestinians at a time when digital surveillance is helping decide who to kill across the Gaza Strip, four employees told The Intercept.

The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2024/05/22/whatsapp-security-vulnerability-meta-israel-palestine/

This is all by design, since prominent positions in META are even held by Likud appointees like former Netanyahu advisor, Jordana Cutler, or former (and fired) Israeli government officials like Emi Palmor.

When META employees petitioned company execs about the findings of the BSR report, they were instead censored under the purview of CEE.

Human Rights Watch’s allegations validated concerns of the Palestinian Working Group, a years-old intranet forum at Meta, consisting of more than 200 staff, for discussing issues faced by Palestinian users, according to one of the sources. The group in December organized an internal letter to top executives with a list of demands aimed at making services such as Facebook and Instagram safe and fair for Palestinian supporters.

The letter drew over 450 signatures in a few hours before workers say the internal community relations team took down the petition and deleted emails soliciting support from workers’ inboxes. Akhter, one of the organizers, had her “system access” disabled for three months, she would later say on Instagram. She said the petition had been flagged for violating Meta’s community engagement expectations, or CEE.

WIRED - How Watermelon Cupcakes Kicked Off an Internal Storm at Meta
https://www.wired.com/story/meta-palestine-employees-watermelon-cupcakes-censorship/

RE: X/Twitter limiting the reach of pro-Palestine content
In the following video (not sure of the time-stamp), Elon Musk assures right-wing supporters of Israel that he will 'limit the reach' of pro-Palestine content.

https://streamable.com/hir3yw

The Forward
https://forward.com/culture/562411/elon-musk-ben-shapiro-twitter-antisemitism-jewish/

We find that the economic damages resulting from climate change until 2049 are those to which the world economy is already committed and that these greatly outweigh the costs required to mitigate emissions in line with the 2 °C target of the Paris Climate Agreement (Fig. 1). This assessment is complementary to formal analyses of the net costs and benefits associated with moving from one emission path to another, which typically find that net benefits of mitigation only emerge in the second half of the century. Our simple comparison of the magnitude of damages and mitigation costs makes clear that this is primarily because damages are indistinguishable across emissions scenarios—that is, committed—until mid-century (Fig. 1) and that they are actually already much larger than mitigation costs. For simplicity, and owing to the availability of data, we compare damages to mitigation costs at the global level. Regional estimates of mitigation costs may shed further light on the national incentives for mitigation to which our results already hint, of relevance for international climate policy. Although these damages are committed from a mitigation perspective, adaptation may provide an opportunity to reduce them. Moreover, the strong divergence of damages after mid-century reemphasizes the clear benefits of mitigation from a purely economic perspective, as highlighted in previous studies.

The correlation analysis showed a significant negative relationship between MPSVATQ and theta power index reflecting the executive control in the prefrontal region (r = −0.395, p = 0.007), this result was not observed by using theta power index of the resting-state EEG data. Furthermore, a significant negative correlation was identified between MPSVATQ and SCS outcomes (r = −0.320, p = 0.026). These results suggest that an increased tendency toward mobile phone short video addiction could negatively impact self-control and diminish executive control within the realm of attentional functions. This study sheds light on the adverse consequences stemming from short video consumption and underscores the importance of developing interventions to mitigate short video addiction.