Five corporations control 90% of the US media market. Airlines merged from 12 major carriers in 1980 to 4 today. Four giants control 80% of meat processing. The evidence of corporate consolidation is everywhere. It means more power for them and less freedom for you.

People are always like what’s something you miss from the past and one of mine is antitrust laws

After the arrests of powerful men across the world, you might be asking why the US has so much trouble holding its leaders accountable for lawbreaking. Since Nixon, all three branches of government have worked hard to ensure they can break the law with impunity www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

this is the way www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

BREAKING: Judge Patrick Schiltz in Minnesota threatens criminal contempt, if necessary, to address ICE noncompliance in an order calling out U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen's response to Schiltz's earlier questions about noncompliance with court orders. "ICE will comply with this Court's orders."

application for this phd closes on 10 Feb

The Olympics said don't boo Vance but as Vance is incredibly boo-able, it had to happen

Journalist @ariberman.bsky.social says the FBI raid on election offices in Georgia is part of a "concerted effort" by the Trump administration to interfere in this year's midterms. https://www.democracynow.org/2026/2/2/fulton_county_georgia_election

Check out this Rolling Stone article featuring a quote from PSA President Craig Callender about AI and fake academic citations:

Trump challenged his critics to name one economic metric that got worse over the last year — and so I did: Job growth in the United States has got *much* worse after he returned to power.

It was just last week, remember, that the FBI raided a Washington Post journalist’s home and seized her phones in connection with a leak investigation. This administration views journalism as a crime. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/u...

It’s just unfathomable to me that people think it makes sense for any law enforcement to be masked and anonymous. Police officers operate under risks and don’t wear masks. Judges & prosecutors, the same.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been dissolved, ending its 58 years as the primary funder for PBS, NPR and local TV and radio stations

As always, if you’re a federal worker or someone in tech and you want to talk, you can find me on Signal with a non-work phone at Vittoria89.82

The US Is Funding Fewer Grants in Every Area of Science and Medicine. A quiet policy change means the government is making fewer bets on long-term science. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Craig Clark, 79, calls himself the "Tech Fairy." Clark spends his time refurbishing old laptops and giving them away for free to people who need them. n.pr/48ihZvq

Pro-tip: the people zip-tying kids or shoving the elderly down stairs are never the good guys.

Here’s the CBS News report about ICE making bogus 911 calls and filing false police reports in Chicago. ht: @mikenellis.bsky.social

SenatorWarnock just broke it down: health care is on the line. A Chatham County, GA. family once paid $559/month for coverage—now it’s $2,100 after GOP subsidy cuts. Quadruple the cost just to stay insured. #TrumpsHealthCareShutdown #USDemocracy #Voices4Victory

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker explains what he believes is Donald Trump's real goal in normalizing a military presence in U.S. cities by dressing ICE and Border Patrol agents in military gear. Watch:

To be absolutely clear on what just happened here, Trump ousted this veteran career prosecutor *precisely because* he would *not* cook the facts to bring a corrupt prosecution against one of Trump's leading enemies. To Trump, refusing to prosecute his foes for fake crimes is a firing offense.

NEW FOIA Files SCOOP: The FBI redacted Trump’s name—and the names of other prominent public figures—from the Epstein files under two privacy exemptions before DOJ & FBI concluded “no further disclosure” of the files “would be appropriate or warranted.” www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

Public media is really special. Shame, shame, shame on this regime and its campaign to make everyone scared, obedient, and stupid. They are stealing from all of us and from our futures. Despicable.

"The rule of law is not a given in this Nation, nor any other. It is a precept of our democracy that will endure only if those brave enough in every branch fight for its survival. Today, the Court abdicates its vital role in that effort." —Justice Sotomayor

House Republicans voted to cut funding for NPR and PBS.

Philly local tv station reporting that a man allegedly posed as an ICE agent in order to rob a car repair business office. How many other criminals might be getting this idea right now, given that actual ICE agents are refusing to show IDs, warrants, badges?

NYT: "I Came to Study Aging. Now I’m Trapped in ICE Detention" Kseniia Petrova "is a Russian scientist who works in a lab at Harvard Medical School. She told her story through a Times Opinion editor, Alex Ellerbeck, over multiple calls from an ICE detention center." A 30 y.o. who erred at Customs.

Trump memecoin makes Page One: @nytimes.com @ericlipton.nytimes.com

People who never read books now in charge of books.

Could you imagine the response if a democratic president said they didn’t know if they had to uphold the Constitution? How fast would the articles of impeachment be drawn ? 20 minutes at the most

So are laws not real anymore? I feel like all the scoops from the past 2 months show that Republicans don’t have to follow laws but everyone else has to?

🚨 SCOOP: DOGE just cut millions in Labor Department grants to support getting women into manufacturing & construction jobs & tackling gender-based violence & harassment at work. It may be illegal since some grants were mandated by law. New @motherjones.com: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

So Republicans aren’t following the laws that they want everyone else to follow…

NEW: Whistleblower records show that the NIH axed research grants – even after a federal judge blocked the cuts with an injunction. www.propublica.org/article/trum... 🧵

Salt Lake City, Utah, and Boise, Idaho, adopted official Pride flags on Tuesday in response to state laws barring the display of any nonofficial flags at schools and government buildings.

Breaking: NC Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin just conceded the election - six months, and three rounds of vote tallies, after he lost. Our office led the legal defense of this election, pushing back against an effort to throw out tens of thousands of lawful votes.

The first lady publicized the $MELANIA coin in a Truth Social post on Jan. 19, hours before her husband was inaugurated for a second term, and two dozen digital wallets bought $2.6 million of the tokens in the two and a half minutes before her post went live, reported the Financial Times.

Party of 'family values' doesn't care at all about families www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

NEW: The Great Lakes hold 95% of all the surface freshwater in the United States. Severe cuts have decimated the NOAA Great Lakes lab. Scientists worry they’ve lost the ability to protect the public from toxic algal blooms, which can kill animals and sicken people. My story for @propublica.org

There are real people hurt by HHS cuts. Imagine losing your child to a horrible disease, working tirelessly to make sure other families don't have to experience that, and then - at the last minute - all your work to save children and families is suddenly gone just to score political points.

I've just found a clip of a wild bald eagle being weighed and can't stop laughing XD

Doug Bowser: Diversity is important to Nintendo “We always want to attract the best talent we can and retain that talent. We also believe it’s important for that talent to be diverse in terms of their backgrounds, their experiences, and their understandings" nintendoeverything.com/nintendo-on-...

Liz Oyer, the Justice Department’s recently fired pardon attorney, made a staggering claim on social media this week: President Donald Trump’s pardons of people convicted of white-collar crimes have cost Americans $1 billion.

Part of the populist project of undermining expertise is to convince "regular" people that the research done by highly trained scientists is the same as the research they can do by following recommended YouTube videos down into a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and snake oil pitches.

Woman sues LAPD over SWAT raid allegedly triggered by confusion over similar name

If you work for the FAA, and you were forced to sign an NDA that prohibits post-employment disclosures of anything other than classified information, please call a lawyer. NOW.

It is SO unusual for the Supreme Court to issue an order this late at night and honestly incredible only Thomas and Alito noted their dissents. Also fascinating that SCOTUS rushed out the order before Alito could finish writing his dissent. That basically never happens! Again—majority seems pissed.

The NYT when someone wants to kill higher education