BorealisNinja (Mariah)

John Oliver (on right) gestures with his hands as he speaks. On left, a ProPublica headline from December 15, 2025 reads: “Trump Officials Celebrated With Cake After Slashing Aid. Then People Died of Cholera.” An article excerpt below says: "... turning rows red, yellow or green every few seconds, never asking a single question.”

1/ On yesterday’s @lastweektonight.com about USAID, John Oliver cited several of our investigations.

First up was our reporting about how DOGE operatives had arbitrarily cut aid programs, in some cases by literally clicking through a spreadsheet: propub.li/4cCsSKP

Optical illusion of a woman bent over some papers. Her sunglasses are pushed up and she is wearing a hair band so the top of her head looks exactly like a Muppet face

Sorry I know the world is in a terrible fix but I've been laughing at this for ten minutes now

tweet from Mark Meador @MeadorFTC on Mar 5 People who argue that age verification requires collecting and retaining massive troves of personal data are not operating in good faith. They're just paid by people who want to prey on your kids.

Trump's FTC Chair posts that people opposing age-verification surveillance are just shills being "being paid by people who want to prey on your kids."

The lengths this administration goes to delegitimize dissent is staggering.

The Rage at OpenAI Has Grown So Immense That There Are Entire Protests Against It Protestors gathered outside OpenAI's headquarters on Tuesday, calling on the public to stop using its AI chatbot.

"What OpenAI is doing in terms of building legal mass surveillance technology for the government... is frankly, insane."

I occasionally see humor posts I made to Usenet via Delphi passed around as memes. Before that I was on WWIVnet and telnetted into MUSHes.

There are still people on Al Gore's internet who remember when it got pictures.

Do not speak to us of the deep magic, witch. We were there when it was written.

Minneapolis video game livestream raises $250K for rent aid during ICE surge Podcasters from MinnMax and Giant Bomb, two video game media outlets, played games for eight hours during their “ICE Out” livestream.

Before the charity stream began, content creators from @minnmax.com and @giantbomb.bsky.social weren't sure what number to aim for — maybe $30,000 or $50,000.

Within 15 minutes, they raised $58,000 for local food pantry VEAP. Within an hour, $100,000.

Best thing I've seen today.

CLAIM: It's not a crime to party with mr. epstein

FACT CHECK: True! Many people who partied with epstein have escaped justice

DHS Hunts Down 67-Year-Old U.S. Citizen Who Criticized Them in Email The Department of Homeland Security is using a little-known tool to go after its critics.

Floored by this story. A man wrote a pollite email to a federal prosecutor objecting to the deportation of an Afghan seeking asylum. DHS responded with an administrative warrant to get the man's info from Google, then visited his home to intimidate him.

PORTLAND MAYOR WILSON:

“.. To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave. … you have lost all legitimacy and replaced it with shame.”

@politico.com
www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

So which politician is calling for the dismantling of the probably illegal database that ice & this government is collecting biometric data of protesters?

Screenshot of an X.com post by The Associated Press (@AP) stating that dozens of immigrant families protested for better treatment behind fences at a Texas detention facility, where a 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy and his father were sent after being detained in Minnesota. Below is a video thumbnail showing a crowd gathered outdoors along a fenced walkway; many people wear bright blue or red outerwear, and some hold signs.

After being held in two of them as a boy, I fought for decades urging America to never again build concentration camps and put human beings in them. It breaks my heart to watch this happen twice now in my own lifetime.

How Trump is Building a Violent, Shadowy Federal Police Force Trump’s DHS appointees have dismantled civil rights guardrails, protected agents’ anonymity and encouraged them to wear masks, threatened groups that stood in their way, and overwhelmed legal challeng...

“Supercharging this law enforcement agency and at the same time you have oversight being eliminated?” said a former DHS official. “This is very scary.”

(Published Oct. 2025)

ICE detains family seeking emergency care for child at Portland hospital The Venezuelan parents and their 7-year-old daughter entered the U.S. legally.

they went to an emergency room seeking help for their 7 year old child.

ICE arrested the 7 year old and her parents.

the family is here legally.

www.oregonlive.com/portland/202...

THEY TRIED TO GET A WARRANT TO CRIMINALLY INVESTIGATE THE WOMAN THEY SHOT DEAD

"Oh my gosh, it was so nice to see you! Have a lovely day, fuck ICE!"
"Oh you too hon! Stay safe in that traffic, fuck ICE!'

- two older Minnesota ladies, bidding farewell after the protest

Once again 90% 🤜🏻🤛🏾 of my Short Stack infosec lists on Mastodon and BlueSky are activism, tech ethics, and human rights posts and I'm very proud of you all. I just really wish more people got the things you do:

- everything is political
- nobody is coming to save us
- action that matters is hard

Are you ready for tomorrow? If rallying at Target Center to say "ICE OUT OF MINNESOTA" after marching through downtown is on your bingo card, please familiarize yourself with what is and isn't allowed inside the arena.

Jack Smith: "My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted. The rule of law is not self-executing. It depends on our collective commitment to apply it."

Man the implication that somewhere deep in our brain there is a “see tiny people all over the place” button and a mushroom can press it, that’s deeply unsettling.

the lack of support for Indigenous and Native voices here on Bluesky has really made me step away from the platform for those efforts.

*pokes the bear*

Baldurs gate 3 is better than Expedition 33

Lieu: "How scared are Republicans of talking about the Epstein files? They are so scared that they literally are calling Jack Smith ... Republicans would rather talk about the criminality of Donald Trump than about his associations with Epstein and his pedophelia ring."

We Found More Than 40 Cases of Immigration Agents Using Banned Chokeholds and Other Moves That Can Cut Off Breathing Civilians have had apparent seizures. One had his eyes roll back. Another had ribs broken. “I felt like I was going to pass out and die,” said a 16-year-old citizen put in a chokehold. The government ...

Videos show dozens of incidents of immigration agents using life-threatening tactics.

In nearly 20 cases, agents appear to use neck restraints that the Department of Homeland Security prohibits unless there is a threat of deadly or serious harm.

We keep talking about the midterms as if we're very sure of the issues that are going to decide them, but I think about where the country was a month ago and where it is now, and I honestly can't begin to (and don't want to) imagine the world we'll be living in come November.

Security folklore of the morning is that no one should share URLs on Signal because it exposes IP addresses and people should use QR codes instead. Please don’t do this! QR codes are much less secure. If you’re concerned about link security, turn off link previews which you can do in Signal settings

I need people who don’t live in the Twin Cities to stop telling people not to join massive Signal groups right now. People are doing it. They’re going to keep doing it. Give them good advice about it.

The actually practical advice is don’t say anything to 1000 strangers you wouldn’t say in public

ICE just reported its fourth in-custody death of 2026. It’s only January 10.

Uruguay’s Renewable Charge: A Small Nation, A Big Lesson For The World Uruguay built a power grid that runs 99% on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. Here’s how its bold energy overhaul became a global model.

“Uruguay did what most nations still call impossible: it built a power grid that runs almost entirely on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. The physicist who led that transformation says the same playbook could work anywhere—if governments have the courage to change the rules.”