UnderpantsWeevil

The radical libertarian city builders of the tech-bro set have an audacious new proposal: They want to convert Guantánamo Bay, host to the infamous prison, into the high-tech charter city of their wildest imaginations, which will double as a “proving ground” for migrants seeking to enter the United States. The Charter Cities Institute, or CCI, which has lobbied the Trump administration on setting up so-called freedom cities in the U.S, suggests the president take advantage of Guantánamo’s special legal status to convert the controversial detention camp into “a beacon of 21st-century prosperity.”

Artificial Generalized Incompetence

On Friday, president Donald Trump had signed an Executive Order, Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy, directing severe cuts to IMLS, which provides resources to museums and libraries in all 50 states and territories, calling for it to be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law” within seven days. Staff had already been reduced, said the employee, due to steps like the termination of probationary employees.

Word quickly got out Thursday morning on a whistleblowers’ channel on Reddit. “The Institute of Museum and Library Services is being raided by DOGE and the new Acting Director (also somehow DepSec of Labor) Keith Sonderling with the express intent to shut it down,” wrote one anonymous poster. “Sonderling was sworn-in in the lobby of the office building and they are proceeding with quickly and quietly dismantling the agency. There are Department of Homeland Security personnel present—to bully a bunch of civil servants who administer grants to museums and libraries.”

Ross Glick, a pro-Israel activist who previously shared a list of campus protesters with federal immigration authorities, said that he was in Washington, D.C., for meetings with members of Congress during the Barnard library demonstration and discussed Khalil with aides to Sens. Ted Cruz and John Fetterman who promised to “escalate” the issue. He said that some members of Columbia’s board had also reported Khalil to officials.

“This unfolded very quickly because it was obvious,” Glick said in an interview Monday.“Everybody was upset,” he recalled of his meetings on the Hill. “The guy was making it too easy for us.”

"Indivisible is urging people who are scared to call their member of Congress, whether they have a Democrat or Republican, and make specific procedural asks," Greenberg said.

"Our supporters are asking Democrats to demand specific red lines are met before they offer their vote to House Republicans on the budget, when Republicans inevitably fail to pass a bill on their own."

Sponsor: Rep. Carter, Earl L. "Buddy" [R-GA-1] (Introduced 02/10/2025)

Committees: House - Foreign Affairs; Natural Resources

Latest Action: House - 02/10/2025 Referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on Natural Resources, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, has said that any immigrants who pose “public safety and national security threats” will be targeted for deportation first. Rhetoric that paints America’s 45 million immigrants as “threats” to public safety is a key Republican strategy to drum up support for mass deportations. One of the first bills passed by the Republican House in the new Congress was the Laken Riley Act, after the 22-year-old nursing student who was killed in February 2024 by a Venezuelan man who had entered the country illegally. The bill would require any undocumented person or DACA recipient arrested for burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting-related offenses to be detained, even if they are ultimately never charged with a crime.

"CPS will continue to protect our students and their families in alignment with the Illinois TRUST Act and Chicago's Welcoming City Ordinance," one school official said.

Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates called the situation "unprecedented" at a news conference Friday afternoon.

After receiving the text for the ad quoted above, a representative from the advertising team suggested AFSC use the word “war” instead of “genocide” – a word with an entirely different meaning both colloquially and under international law. When AFSC rejected this approach, the New York Times Ad Acceptability Team sent an email that read in part: “Various international bodies, human rights organizations, and governments have differing views on the situation. In line with our commitment to factual accuracy and adherence to legal standards, we must ensure that all advertising content complies with these widely applied definitions.”

After more than two years undercover, he’d been growing rash and impulsive. He had feared someone was in danger and tried to warn him, but it backfired. Williams was sure at least one person knew he was a double agent now, he said into his phone. “It’s only a matter of time before it gets back to the rest.”

In the daylight, Williams dropped an envelope with no return address in a U.S. Postal Service mailbox. He’d loaded it with a flash drive and a gold Oath Keepers medallion.

It was addressed to me.

The documents laid out a remarkable odyssey. Posing as an ideological compatriot, Williams had penetrated the top ranks of two of the most prominent right-wing militias in the country. He’d slept in the home of the man who claims to be the new head of the Oath Keepers, rifling through his files in the middle of the night. He’d devised elaborate ruses to gather evidence of militias’ ties to high-ranking law enforcement officials. He’d uncovered secret operations like the surveillance of a young journalist, then improvised ways to sabotage the militants’ schemes. In one group, his ploys were so successful that he became the militia’s top commander in the state of Utah.