@vaughncrossca
Social Historian, Pre-21c Tech History, American Religious History, History of SexRaceReligion in the US Bible Belt; 6th-Generation Alabamian; Anti-Trump 1989+ “All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie” - WH Auden, “Sept 1, 1939”
DAY AHEAD: Concerns of a “pernicious, real life version” of the movie ‘Groundhog Day’… as another probe of 2020 election results,
youtube.com/shorts/B-L1v...
If No One Sees the Marker, Did January 6 Really Happen? #CivilWarMemory open.substack.com/pub/kevinmle...
If you’re roughly my age, it’s wild to reflect on the optimism for the future Americans felt when Obama was elected — young Americans spontaneously took to the streets to celebrate! — and contrast with what we face today. The falloff over the past 18 years is hard to process.
Godspeed.
This is the most corrupt administration in U.S. history. I’m glad Kristi Noem was fired but Pam Bondi is even worse. We need to end government corruption wherever it exists.
A purpose of the war on Iran might well be to provoke a terrorist attack inside the United States. This would provide Donald Trump with a pretext to try to cancel or “federalize” the coming Congressional elections.
snyder.substack.com/p/the-desire...
There were a billion reasons to be #NeverTrump but I think the biggest one to me was always that while no one should have the nuke button, this particular person especially should not have it.
Chris Murphy: "I think it's likely the United States that carried out this attack on this school. I think it's unforgivable under any circumstances, but the fact this was one of our first targeting decisions speaks to the incompetence of our leadership at the Dept of Defense."
This is the man Senators who present themselves as serious human beings are going to rubber stamp into the office of Director of Homeland Security. Show some self-respect and some love of country and vote no.
Pam Bondi subpoenaed by US House in Jeffrey Epstein investigation
I love everything about this! The conviction that a major figure was not struck by a bolt of lightning but worked to understand the system he would ultimately critique and help dismantle. The scholarly sleuthing rare books — all of it. 😎🤓
www.science.org/content/arti...
"DHS has been “systematically obstructing” investigations by withholding records, Inspector General Joseph Cuffari said in a letter released Tuesday — hours after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem faced withering bipartisan questioning at a Senate hearing."
9/9. The case is in the DOJ archives. Read it before they delete it.
8/9. The larger lesson is that you cannot allow someone who profits from and enables foreign electoral operations to use them as a pretext to compromise US voting.
6/9. Trump and allies rewarded the Iranians and the Russians and the Chinese by punishing the US researchers who discovered all this and abolishing the agencies that tracked it.
3/9. The Iranians pretending to be Proud Boys hacked data and then threatened Democratic voters.
4/9. The Iranian operation in 2020 was designed to help Donald Trump get elected.
How to understand war with Iran? We must get away from propaganda. Facts suggest two interpretive frameworks: a foreign war as a mechanism to destroy democracy at home; and a foreign war as an element of personal corruption by the president of the United States.
snyder.substack.com/p/why-attack...
Modern tyranny is terror management.
I wrote this essay in April 2025 and updated it in November. I'm posting it again now because my fear of this scenario has continued to grow.
"The Next Terrorist Attack: And What Comes After"
snyder.substack.com/p/the-next-t...
The “big picture” here, to use Axios lingo, is that for a year team Trump has destroyed important counter-terror tools and diverted counter-terror personnel to immigration enforcement.
And that Patel, Noem, & Gabbard have no qualifications and are riotously incompetent.
www.axios.com/2026/03/02/i...
Those of us in the trenches with curricula of #greattexts #coretexts #history sadly recognize these old battles - and the motives behind them. Worth watching the whole exchange.
While American troops were in harm’s way, Trump was wining and dining political donors at Mar-a-Lago.
The Trump SCIF (Sloppily Curtained Info Fort) will soon be for sale in the Mar-a-Lago gift shop:
"See history - as it happens: The Gold Mar-A-Lago membership includes unique access to the invasion peep-show"
Releasing the Epstein files is about justice.
No one is above the law.
That’s why Rep. Massie and my effort is breaking through.
Read Sarah Fitzpatrick’s authoritative reporting of how we did this.
www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
User Chris: What was the core difference why you think the DoW accepted OpenAI but not Anthropic Sam Altman: I can't speak for them, but to speculate with the best understanding of the situation. *First, I saw reporting that they were extremely close on a deal, and for much of the time both sides really wanted to reach one. I have seen what happens in tense negotiations when things get stressed and deteriorate super fast, and I could believe that was a large part of what happened here. *We believe in a layered approach to safety--building a safety stack, deploying FDEs and having our safety and alignment researcher involved, deploying via cloud, working directly with the DoW. Anthropic seemed more focused on specific prohibitions in the contract, rather than citing applicable laws, which we felt comfortable with. We feel that it it's very important to build safe system, and although documents are also important, I'd clearly rather rely on technical safeguards if I only had to pick one. *We and the DoW got comfortable with the contractual language, but I can understand other people would have a different opinion here. *I think Anthropic may have wanted more operational control than we did
I saw some folks asking what the difference was between what OpenAI signed with the DoD and what Anthropic said they wanted, and Sam more or less admits here the key point: OpenAI's deal requires them to trust the NSA. Anthropic's contract had real safeguards.
The question facing Trump-supporting Evangelicals in 2026 is whether they’ve so internalized a MAGA political identity that no amount of wrongdoing can shake it.
John Fea: 'Beyond Transactional'
www.commonwealmagazine.org/fea-trump-ev...
Trump has no strategy to help the Iranian people build a legitimate state—in fact, he’s dismantling tools that could have helped promote civic engagement and build a united opposition in Iran, @anneapplebaum.bsky.social argues. theatln.tc/k99IcIzV
