#software for law department

[feedbaylenny]

Man's child pornography arrest: 'More charges are expected' when encryption defeated

(As originally published, Thu, January 18th 2024) THE VILLAGES, Fla. (TND) — A tip about a man uploading child pornography led to his arrest on a possession charge but authorities say “more charges are expected.” According to Sumter County detectives in Florida, “The image uploaded appeared to be a child under the age of 10.” They investigated and early last Wednesday, Jan. 10, served a search…

[political-us]

The Dow is on track for its worst April since 1932—the bleakest year of the Great Depression. Nearly a century later, markets are once again facing economic turbulence on a historic scale.

Trump's approval rating drops to 42%, the lowest it's been since he became president, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

A cutting-edge microscope at Harvard Medical School could pave the way for major breakthroughs in cancer detection and aging research—but its progress is now at risk. The scientist who created the software to analyze its images, 30-year-old Russian-born Kseniia Petrova, has been held in immigration detention for two months. Arrested in February at a Boston airport, Petrova is now detained in Louisiana, facing possible deportation to Russia, where she says she fears imprisonment for protesting the war in Ukraine. Her case highlights the tension between immigration policy and the U.S.'s reliance on global scientific talent.

The Department of Homeland Security denied Mahmoud Khalil permission to be present for the birth of his first child, which took place Monday at a hospital in New York. Instead, Khalil had to experience the moment over the phone from Jena, Louisiana—more than 1,000 miles away from his wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, who delivered their baby boy. The case has sparked criticism over DHS's handling of family and humanitarian considerations.

The White House is considering policies to encourage more Americans to marry and have children, including a potential $5,000 “baby bonus,” according to The New York Times. The proposals align with a broader conservative push to address falling birth rates and promote traditional family values. Other ideas on the table include reserving 30% of Fulbright scholarships for applicants who are married or have children, and funding educational programs that teach women about fertility and ovulation.

A group of Venezuelan migrants facing removal under a broad wartime authority challenged the Trump administration’s deportation process at the Supreme Court, arguing the notices they received don’t meet legal standards. The ACLU, representing the migrants, said the English-only notices—often given less than 24 hours before deportation—violate a recent Supreme Court ruling requiring enough time for individuals to seek habeas review.

The Education Department announced it will start collecting student loan payments from over 5 million borrowers who are in default. This means it will begin taking money from federal wages, Social Security checks, and tax refunds. This move comes as pandemic-era protections for student loan borrowers continue to wind down.

Tensions are rising within the Arizona Democratic Party as the state party chair is at odds with the governor and U.S. senators. In response, officials are considering shifting 2026 campaign funds to local county Democrats.

​The U.S. Department of Commerce has announced substantial tariffs on solar panel imports from four Southeast Asian countries—Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia—following a year-long investigation into alleged trade violations by Chinese-owned manufacturers operating in these nations. The tariffs, which vary by country and company, are as follows:​

Cambodia: Facing the steepest duties, with tariffs reaching up to 3,521%, due to non-cooperation with the investigation.

Vietnam: Companies may face duties up to 395.9%.​

Thailand: Tariffs could be as high as 375.2%.​

Malaysia: Duties are set at 34.4%.​

Senator Adam Schiff is urging the National Archives to investigate the Trump administration's use of Signal and similar messaging apps. He emphasized the need for NARA to reach out to every federal agency involved to make sure all relevant records are preserved. This comes amid growing concerns over transparency and potential violations of federal recordkeeping laws.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Edward Helmore at The Guardian:

Donald Trump and administration officials have threatened CNN over what they said was its promotion of a new app that allows users to track and try to avoid Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents. Speaking to reporters in Florida on a trip to visit a new Ice detention center in Everglades, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”, the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, said her department and the Department of Justice were looking at prosecuting CNN over its reporting on the app, called IceBlock. “We’re working with Department of Justice to see if we can prosecute them,” Noem said, “because what they’re doing is actively encouraging people to avoid law enforcement activities and operations. We’re going to actually go after them and prosecute them. What they’re doing is illegal.” Trump joined in, saying the news network – a frequent target of his ire – should also be prosecuted for what he said were “false reports on the attack on Iran”, referring to the leak of a Pentagon assessment that suggested US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and had probably only set the program back by months. “They were totally obliterated,” Trump countered. “Our people have to be celebrated, [and] not come home to, ‘What do you mean we didn’t hit the targets?’”

CNN defended its reporting of the app through a spokesperson, saying: “This is an app that is publicly available to any iPhone user who wants to download it. There is nothing illegal about reporting the existence of this or any other app, nor does such reporting constitute promotion or other endorsement of the app by CNN”. Noem’s comments came hours after Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, also criticized CNN for its reporting on the IceBlock app. “It’s disgusting,” Homan said during an appearance on the rightwing commentator Benny Johnson’s internet show. “I can’t believe we live in a world where the men and women in law enforcement are the bad guys. It’s already a dangerous job.” Homan had been asked about the app, which was created to report sightings of Ice agents in any given area. Software developer Joshua Aaron recently told CNN that he had launched the app “when I saw what was happening in this country”.

The Trump Regime’s fascistic war on the media expands to threats to prosecute CNN over its reporting on the ICEBlock app that tracks the activities of ICE goons.

See Also:

HuffPost: Trump Allies Want DOJ To Investigate CNN, Rising App That Tracks ICE Movements

Daily Kos: Noem wants to hunt down people who warn others about nearby ICE agents

[mariacallous]

If you’ve rented an apartment in the US in the past several years, you may have had the sense that the game was rigged: Prices creep up not only at your building but at others throughout the city, seemingly in lockstep. A new civil lawsuit brought by the US Department of Justice today alleges that in many cases it’s not just in your head—and that a single company’s algorithm is to blame.

That company is RealPage, a Texas-based firm that provides commercial revenue management software for landlords. In other words, it helps set the prices of apartments. But it does so, the DOJ alleges in its lawsuit, by effectively helping its clients cheat; landlords feed rental rate and lease terms into the system, and the RealPage algorithm in turn spits out a suggested price that enables coordination and hinders competition.

“By feeding sensitive data into a sophisticated algorithm powered by artificial intelligence, RealPage has found a modern way to violate a century-old law through systematic coordination of rental housing prices,” deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco said in a statement.

RealPage’s reach is broad. It controls 80 percent of the market for software of its kind, which in turn is used to set prices of around 3 million units across the country, according to the DOJ. It already faces multiple lawsuits, including one from the state of Arizona and another in Washington, DC, where RealPage software is allegedly used to price more than 90 percent of units in large apartment buildings. RealPage’s algorithmic pricing first gained broader attention when a 2022 ProPublica investigation detailed how the company’s YieldStar software works.

The DOJ civil lawsuit, which was joined by the attorneys general of eight states, is a significant escalation in legal action against the company. It’s also a first for the DOJ, according to officials speaking on background during a call to discuss the complaint. While the government had previously filed criminal charges against an Amazon seller for algorithm-enabled price-fixing, this is the first civil action in which the algorithm itself, the Justice Department official says, was effectively the means of the violation.

The complaint itself quotes RealPage executives allegedly acknowledging anticompetitive aspects of its product. “There is greater good in everybody succeeding versus essentially trying to compete against one another in a way that actually keeps the entire industry down,” one RealPage executive allegedly wrote.

RealPage has repeatedly denied any allegations of antitrust violations, going so far as to publish a six-page digital pamphlet that claims to tell “the Real Story” about its products, along with an extensive FAQ page on a dedicated public policy website. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “Attacks on the industry’s revenue management are based on demonstrably false information,” one section of that site reads. “RealPage revenue management software benefits both housing providers and residents.”

“We are disappointed that, after multiple years of education and cooperation on the antitrust matters concerning RealPage, the DOJ has chosen this moment to pursue a lawsuit that seeks to scapegoat pro-competitive technology that has been used responsibly for years,” said Jennifer Bowcock, senior vice president of communications and creative at RealPage, in an emailed statement. “RealPage’s revenue management software is purposely built to be legally compliant, and we have a long history of working constructively with the DOJ to show that."

The DOJ disagrees. “Algorithms don’t exist in a law-free zone,” said Monaco in a press conference to discuss the case. “Training a machine to break the law is still breaking the law.”

In this case, the complaint alleges that those algorithms consistently drove rental prices upward. “RealPage’s software tends to maximize price increases, minimize price decreases, and maximize landlords’ pricing power,” said the DOJ in a press release. RealPage also doesn’t just recommend prices; in many cases, it actively sets them.

“RealPage actively polices landlords’ compliance with those recommendations,” said US attorney general Merrick Garland in today’s press conference. “A large number of landlords effectively agree to outsource their pricing decisions to RealPage by using an ‘auto-accept’ setting that effectively permits RealPage to determine the price a renter will pay.”

The DOJ also claims RealPage has created a “self-reinforcing feedback loop” with its data intake and pricing recommendations structure that also gives it an alleged monopoly in the apartment revenue management software industry. Any competitor who plays by the rules, the DOJ claims, is at a distinct disadvantage.

The Justice Department has spent the past several years staffing up with technologists and data scientists, better enabling them to “interrogate the code,” as multiple officials described the investigative process. While this is the first major algorithmic collusion case, DOJ officials suggested it would be far from the last.

[lightwing-s]

𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐎 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄𝐑

pairing: dick grayson x fem! reader

summary: as an intern at the police department you should know how to separate work from personal life, but when officer dreamy comes after you, you can't help it but mix them together

rating: 18+ (MDNI)

word count: 6,2k warnings: unprotected sex, cum eating, handjob (f receiving), slight overstimulation, a lot of pinning for each other

a/n: i gave up proof reading halfway because i was sleepy, so it might be okay at first and then become messy. sorta base on my experience working at a police precinct earlier this year, but not faithful (at all) to reality.

reblogs and interactions are always appreciated ! ♡

⌜masterlist⌟ ⌜requests⌟

Jumping off the last step down the bus, you rush into the streets, swerving through the crowds, bumping against people, getting sworn at by some, and somehow managing your way through the busy mess that was Gotham’s early mornings.

The headphones glued to your ear were the only thing trying to distract you from all the chaos that was the start of your day, but as the shuffle merged bossa nova into 2000s punk rock, you felt your body react and jump into a faster pace on your way to work. Within each step, the Greek columns of the old imposing building of the Gotham City’s Police Department grew bigger in the horizon, letting you know your commute was close to its end.

Beep beep, your watch announced the start of your shift. Damn it, you were late again. Trying to speed up your steps, you felt your calves start to burn, but the building soon was right in front of you, a couple of steps separating you both.

“Good morning, Yn.” greeted one of the officers, as you passed by him in a rush, as you made your way up the large steps without somehow managing to trip as he was bound somewhere else, already deep into the rash routine of being a police officer at the country’s most dangerous city.

Bursting through the doors, you look around to see if your supervisor, officer McCaffrey, was anywhere near. He hated you and had been on your ass since you started arriving a bit later than you were supposed to, a move further away from the precinct ruining your commute times.

Not seeing his growing bald head anywhere around, you jump ahead and find your way to your desk, stacked with piles and piles of papers, old cases handed to you to be typed and launched into this new software funded by Mr. Bruce Wayne.

Interning at a police station wasn’t exactly a part of your meticulously drawn up plan to get into law school, as law enforcement was on the far bottom of your list of possible careers to choose for your future. However, from day one you were surprised by how much you enjoyed working at the department, by how much you enjoyed the people, both your co-workers and, weirdly, the criminals you got to meet on a daily basis. 

Sometimes it was too much, juggling school work and the internship, plus all the side hustles you had to take just to make it through college without starving to death. But it all had its good sides. Sometimes, some really good ones.

Placing your bag over the pile of cases, you were about to go around your desk and sit down on the rather uncomfortable chair to start typing those damned cases away, when the rough voice of the main antagonist of this current season of your life reached your ears. 

“Miss, Ys,” your supervisor called. Rolling your eyes, you forced yourself to remain still, a lot of effort put into not throwing your head back in defeat as you turned around to meet face of your tormentor for the first time that day. “Thought you started your program at…” he dragged himself out, looking at his clock. “Exactly fifteen minutes ago.”

“Hello, officer McCaffrey.” you forced out a smile while greeting him. “Well, I was here fifteen minutes ago, you must have missed me.”

You confidently tried to lie, hoping the time spent with suspected criminals had taught you something, but being sure your face must have told him the opposite of what you meant. “I’m pretty sure I looked all over for you.”

“Are you sure?” you feigned innocence when trying once more.

“Miss Yn, this is a serious institution and if you’re not going to cooperate by doing your job properly I’m sorry to inform you that…” 

“You won’t need it, Christian.” a deeper voice cut your supervisor off as he started to scold you again. The voice, a tone you could easily identify from how much you’d heard it and dreamed of it in the past few months. “I stopped Miss Yn outside for a talk. I did not think there would be any problem.”

Sounding much more confident in his lie than you did, you were sure you could’ve fallen for it if it wasn’t of you he was talking about.

“Officer Grayson, Miss Ys has got a job to finish, she doesn’t need to go around having conversations with what I imagine are busy policemen.” officer Tormentor replied, not even caring to turn around and face the other voice’s owner, disdain covering each and everyone of his words.

“We were just discussing a case, it’s not that big of a deal. Right, Yn?” Officer Grayson called you by your first name along with a wink, the remaining energy left from not rolling your eyes at officer McCaffrey earlier keeping you from melting at how sweet your name sounded coming out of his mouth. 

McCaffrey finally turned to face your white night in a white button-up, only his back in your line of view now as you were still paralyzed in your spot, the image of Officer Grayson trapping your attention from anything else in the precinct.

“Dick,” your supervisor continued, the name sounding off of him like an annoyance. ”You’re not supposed to share confidential information with the students.” He told him bitterly.

“Aren’t they here to learn about our job, Christian?” Officer Grayson replied, the same annoyance playing on his tongue, but at the same time full of an uplifting fun only Dick Grayson could master and that you were sure only annoyed Christian more.

Facing the sudden silence between you three, you noticed Officer Grayson’s eyebrow raising, challenging his fellow officer to complain about you one more time.

“Sure, but…”

“I was doing just that, making sure Yn’s internship actually brings some value to her future.” Grayson cut him once more. “No sensitive information was shared, just the look of an investigation through a detective’s eye. And even so, miss Yn is one of the most competent interns we’ve had in a while and I’m sure she would’ve been able to keep any information she might’ve gotten. I’m sure talking with actual officers is much more beneficial than typing old cases into a system.”

Silence overcame you three again, Grayson’s words having a certain impact on you. Your shoes, stained and in desperate need of a wash, suddenly became interesting as you lowered your face to hide the burning red on your cheeks. The insides of your lips were chewed on, stopping the smile from spreading on your face.

Finally looking up, your eyes briefly met Officer Grayson’s, but you moved away quickly, afraid of what they might’ve done to you. 

Officer McCaffrey opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, his mind certainly trying to muster a comeback to Grayson’s defense of you but clearly failing to do so. His eyes moved from you to his coworker, and you wondered what was going through his head.

Whatever it was, it would never live up to Officer Dick Grayson. He just never would.

“Very well,” McCaffrey finally spoke, turning to face you with a displeased expression. “Get on with your typing.”

Turning on his heel, McCaffrey walked away from the two of you, the hardness of his hips making his walk look funny and with the bald spot growing in his head the both of you let out a soft chuckle.

Resting your butt on the desk behind you, the need of formality gone with your supervisor, you took this time to eye up the man left with you. 

That man didn’t have a bad looking day, showing up like a greek god every single day at work. He wore his usual white button-up shirt, rolled up to his elbows and exposing his thick forearms, built effortlessly at the gym - you were sure -, and decorated with veins you secretly wanted to map with your fingertips. 

He wore gray pants today, a color he often varied with either dark blue, black or beige, but the latter, thankfully, becoming rarer with each passing day. It didn’t compliment him, making his look rather boring in your opinion, nor did it match well with any of his shoes, probably more expensive than anything you owned. 

His badge and gun hang on his hips, held on the black belt made of the most sophisticated leather in the world, or so you’d bet. He seemed to take good care of himself, as not only his skin glistened like a glazed donut, but he exuded a strong woody smell, following him along to every room he entered.

However, the lack of a tie and the untidy hair signaled to you he might’ve been just as late as you were. And still, he looked majestic. The highlight of your long hours at the precinct.

“Hello, officer Grayson.” you greeted him shyly. You certainly should not have spent too much of your days simply just watching him go on about his work, but it was a habit you had created and that was hard not to do, his simple presence was enough to overwhelm you.

“Good morning, Yn. Haven’t had an easy morning, I see?” he raised his eyebrow at you this time, a playful smiling playing on his face. 

“You too, right?” slipped out of your mouth quicker than you’d wished, almost slapping your face out of sheer frustration.

His head bent to the side, a question forming on his eyes, eyebrows furrowed, but soon returning to the playful expression you were used to. “I see your detective skills have been improving.”

“I-I just noticed you’re not wearing a t-tie like you usually do and your hair seems messy, that’s all.” you said without pausing for air and his smile only seemed to grow.

“Relax, Yn,” he dragged out. “I just had to stay up till late last night. What’s your excuse?”

“Commuting has been hell. I just moved to a new apartment.” you told him, nodding for absolutely no reason. He didn’t seem pleased with your answer, eagerly waiting for you to continue. “At the Amusement Mile.”

“Amusement Mile?!” he exclaimed. “That’s basically on the other side of the city.”

Yep, you worded, or not. You were not sure.

“And really dangerous, Yn.” he sounded worried. “Make sure to not leave too late, okay?”

“I’ll try.” you replied, but he still didn’t seem pleased. “I promise?”

You were not sure what kind of tone this conversation had. You and Officer Grayson had always been friendly, as he always came by your desk to wish you a good day or night, to bring you coffee as he did with his coworkers, or to ask you about how classes were going and if the internship wasn’t getting in the way of your studies.

It all sounded friendly to you, as if he only saw you as a younger sister or something like that. Sadly to you, that seemed to be a reality. But today, the friendliness sounded less friendly, for some reason, or maybe they were just the voices of hope playing with your mind.

“Good, I’ll have to work now, and I think so do you. Having fun with typing?”

“It really could be worse.” You joked, bringing out a laugh from him, filling your ears and making your heart pump faster.

“Have a nice day, Yn.” 

“You too, officer.” you eagerly replied, watching as he too walked away from you.

Finally sitting down on your chair, you let out a huge sigh, Officer Dreamy, as you kindly nicknamed him to yourself, stuck in your head. You knew it was inappropriate to harvest a crush on a superior at work, but gosh was it hard to.

“And Yn?” his voice startled you. 

“Hmm” you managed to hum as you found his head poking out from behind a wall.

“Call me Dick.”

Lights went off one by one around you, as you still sat on your desk, files of cases long forgotten, while you typed in a class project you were due very soon. 

As life worked conspired to put you down, your laptop had given up on you, deciding that the smokey life was the way to go now and simply choosing not to work ever again. So, you had to stick around the precinct or the library till the wee hours of the night if you wanted to get any uni work done.

“Yn” a voice called you, starling you out of your seat. “Still here?”

Officer Grayson, looking as tired as you must have looked, made his way to your desk. In his hands, some papers you’d come to know were cases he took frequently to study at home.

“I have to finish an essay.” you informed, voice almost not making it out, as you had neglected your health and hadn’t gotten a single sip of water all day.

“What happened to your computer? I remember you bringing one before.”

“Decided to give out smoke signals, I guess.” you joked, managing to steal a smile from him. “It broke, and I’m too broke to fix it, so I have to stay here if I want to finish this essay tonight.”

Your eyes itched from the extensive exposure to the computer lights, your back also causing you discomfort. But you still had work to do, so there was no way you were leaving any time soon, and quickly you returned your attention to your essay ignoring, for once, your favorite male presence in the precinct as you didn’t want to miss the peak of energy and creativity you had gotten to.

As you typed unaware of his lingering presence, Officer Grayson stood by your desk for a while, watching as you swiftly typed word after word of your homework. “You aren’t going to stay here till too late, right?”

“I’m not sure.” you moaned, rubbing your eyes with the palm of your hands. “I really have to finish this but I’m not even close.”

Returning your gaze to him, you found his eyes and they bore into your, making your breath get caught up in your throat and your heart to skip a beat. You wanted to focus on your school work and go home, get some much needed sleep before starting your routine all over again, but Dick’s mere presence  pushed away all your academic thoughts.

It was like his body irradiated an energy, a gravity field, that pulled you in from wherever you were. That trapped your attention, leaving you breathless even though you hadn’t run, leaving your head heavy as the most painful headache, leaving you completely, deeply, under his spell.

As you focused on him, you noticed the bags forming under his eyes and his much messier hair, as if he had, and he did, spent hours running his fingers through it as an attempt to concentrate. His clothes were ruffled, and you swore his belt seemed to have been loosed at some point during the day. 

To you, he was like a painting at an art gallery. Exquisite, expensive, beautifully breathtaking… and forever unreachable.

On a scale from one to ten, you were minus forty in the levels of importance inside the department. Nobody really cared for the interns. They were nice and all, but they knew they wouldn’t last long, so why bother connecting, why bother giving them too much attention. And yet, officer Grayson would come over to you, every single day, saying his “his” and “goodbyes”, wishing you a good morning, a good night, a great weekend.

He was truly a being out of this world. A gentleman amongst mere humans, too kind, too sweet for this world, for this city. You often wondered how the hell did he, the son of a billionaire, end up working with the police, and the answered you always came up with was that he must have been the only truly good and altruistic person alive, opting to care for the people instead of being a pretentious heir like many others.

If he had looked over at your computer screen, he’d have found a soup of words that together made zero sense, as your mind couldn’t only write Dick Dick Dick Dick, in both meanings of the word.

“A-hem.” he coughed breaking your awkward stare competition. “I have to get going, Yn. Please don’t stay up too late, and message me when you get home.”

“I don’t have your number.” you mindlessly blurted out.

“I have yours,” he stated, catching you off guard. “I’ll text you. See you tomorrow?” he asked, seeming actually interested in a positive answer.

“Uh-huh.”

“See you, then. Goodbye, Miss Ys.”

“Goodbye, officer.”

It was past midnight when you eventually turned off your computer and headed out of the police department. Sleepiness weighs your body down, making each step a harder task than it should've been.

Saying your goodbyes to the officers working the night shift, many of those telling you to be careful as they feared the dangerous Gotham nights would turn you into one more of its victims, you made your way down the large set of steps, an activity much easier than climbing them in the morning.

As you step into the sidewalk you’re embraced by the darkness. The cold breeze hitting you, making you wrap your jacket tightly around your body, a shield from the freezing weather and the demons of the night. Your bag is glued to your hips and your eyes scanning the area for any strange movement.

You’re glad some of those police officers had been kind enough to teach you how to realize some signs before anything bad happens, applying it to your everyday life as you could never be sure of your surroundings in this city.

When you turned right on the first corner, a moving shadow had your neck hairs up and a shiver running up your spine. Your fight or flight instincts overcoming you as your steps grew faster and faster.

“Yn, wait!” you heard the shadow owner scream, your heart skipping a beat before your mind could make up the situation. It took you a while to figure out who the scream belonged to, the fear blinding your senses and preventing you from forming any type of judgment, but something in you clicked and upon turning around it everything was all made clear.

“Officer Grayson?” you questioned, confused by his appearance as he had gone home almost two hours earlier. He now wore a pair of dark gray or black sweatpants, the faint light hindering your perception, a black t-shirt and a thick overall to shield him from the cold. The tips of his hair dripped with a few droplets of water, and even in the darkness you could make up his red nose gifted by the freezing weather. 

He looked cozy, huggable, like a plushie pillow you hugged to go to bed. This look on him made your chest warm up and you swore you wouldn’t need a jacket soon.

“Why are you following me? Why are you here?”

“I’m sorry if I scared you, Yn. I thought it’d be better if I didn’t scream, but maybe I was wrong,” he apologized, rushing the words out of his mouth.

“I just didn’t expect to see you here.” you smiled, unable to hide the joy from seeing him again. Your smile made him feel less bad for scaring you, but his eyes still looked into yours like he apologized for it. 

“I didn’t get your text.” he said, his statement confusing you a little. “That you were going home?”

Oh, that! It was your turn to feel bad, your cheeks, if possible for him to see, painted red but not from the coldness.

“I was expecting your text and didn’t get it, so I showered and came here to see if you’d gone home and I found you still in your computer. I was waiting for you to come out.”

YOU WERE WAITING FOR ME?!, you wanted to scream, his words making your head spin, trying to work out the reason why they came out of his pretty lips. The idea of him waiting for god knows how long till you finished your essay making you dizzy.

“It didn’t feel right letting you go home alone at this hour.” he continued to explain, seemingly aware of the questions inside your head. “So I came back after taking a shower to pick you up.”

HE CAME BACK. HE WENT HOME. TOOK A SHOWER, A SHOWER HE PROBABLY, DEFINITELY, TOOK NAKED. AND CAME BACK TO PICK ME UP????

Oh lord, your head was truly spinning and you hoped you weren’t dizzy enough to end up falling and making a fool of yourself. No single sentence was merged in your mind, your lips blurting out whatever overcame them without any filter: “The subway isn’t empty.”

He chuckled at your silly response and reaching for his coat’s pocket, he picked up his car keys, shaking them in front of your eyes. “Are you declining a ride home? Thought you’d love to ride in a Porsche tonight.”

At the sound of “Porsche”, you let out an excited giggle. You always wanted to find out what car Dick drove, a man’s choice of vehicle being a way into understanding his lifestyle and tastes, and not only were you finding out now but you were also getting to ride in it with him.

“I think it’s an offer I can’t really let pass.”

Showing you the way to his car with his head, he let you walk past him, and when you did his hand met your waist as he guided you in its direction. 

It was like you entered into another reality when you crossed the Police Department’s doors, meeting an Officer Dick Grayson that you always dreamed of but never expected to become a reality.

The warm touch of his hand on the small of your back gave you shivers along with a sense of safety not even a room full of police officers had given you. It was different, somehow, in a way you found hard to explain, but that made your heart beat nervously, your breathing to get hectic and your stomach to take turns.

Soon, the silvery car was beside you and the man opened the passenger door for you with his free hand. You thanked him and slid inside the car, the warmed leather seats a comfortable welcome after hours spent on the painful cheap chair by your desk, and when he closed the door you took the few seconds until he was sat beside you to at least try to recollect yourself.

Richard John Grayson isn’t just giving you a ride, he came all the way from his home to do so. You didn’t know where he lives, but it couldn’t be too close. He went out of his way to do that for you, and what that meant frightened you a little.

The warmness of the seats couldn’t compare to what his touch had made you feel. As his hand slid off of your skin you let out a low moan you hoped he didn’t have the time to listen to, already missing the feeling he had given you.

It made you both afraid, nervous and excited, and you couldn’t help the smile from spreading on your lips, even when biting down on them or chewing the insides of your cheeks. You sat still, spine straight and hands resting on top of your bag laid up on your lap, while he calmly walked to the driver’s side, the opposite reflection of how he made you feel.

“Amusement Mile?” he looked at you for confirmation, the engine of the car warming up. Your eyes were glued to his every movement, admiring every single breath he took.

You simply shook your head to answer, biting on your bottom lip in contemplation.

“It’s gonna be a long ride, so make yourself comfortable.” he told you before continuing. “And I almost forgot…”

Reaching for something behind your seat, you felt his breath on your neck, sending more shiver up your spine, a recurring thing tonight. “I got you some soup. To warm up.”

“Wow. Thank you, officer.”

“Yn?” he called you and you hummed, letting him continue. “What did I tell you to call me?”

“I’m sorry.” you apologized, remembering the moment you’d shared earlier. “Thank you, Dick.”

“Perfect.” 

Turned just enough to face you, it was his time to bite on his lip, the sight sending your hormones to overdrive. 

The ride was mostly silent, as you both felt comfortable in just each other’s presence. You drank your soup and he drove carefully to not make it spill. He left his playlist on shuffle and you commented on a few surprising tunes.

“I didn’t take you for a reggaeton kind of guy.”

“Hey, I appreciate the sounds of many different cultures!”

 And faster than you had wished for, you two were parked by your front door.

“Thank you, offic… Dick, really. I would have taken at least double the time to arrive by subway, so I really cannot thank you enough for this, you really didn’t have to.”

“Nonsense, I’m always here to help, and I wouldn’t sleep well knowing you could be in danger.”

For the 1000th time tonight, your cheeks grew scarlet and you avoided Dick’s eyes. The yawn coming out of you the perfect getaway from the situation you didn’t not know how to handle.

“I better get going, or else I’m just gonna take a nap before having to go back to the precinct all over again.” you sent him a smile before opening the door, but before you stepped outside you felt his hand touch you again, this time reaching for you tight.

“If you want to, I can pick you up tomorrow morning.” his thumb lightly drew patterns in your jeans, and you could feel a hit of sweat on the palm of his hands and the spot on your tight grew humid.

“It would be asking for too much.”

“No it wouldn’t.” he didn’t wait for you to finish. “I’d love to.”

He had your full attention, his eyes trapping yours in a drunken haze. The air around you got thicker, warmer, too hot, as if the winter night was just a mere illusion outside the car. You had sat back in your seat, not sure if the door was open or closed because only him mattered now, only his eyes drifting from yours to your lips, only his tongue moistening his own, only the slow movement of his head getting closer to yours.

You wouldn’t remember the next few seconds even if described to you in the smallest details, you just remember meeting his lips halfway. At first, a hasty kiss, your lips barely moving but already igniting you with an electric feeling. His teeth pulled on your bottom lip, causing a moan to escape off of you.

His hand went to your neck and the kiss deepened, his tongue immediately sliding inside your mouth, playing with yours as your hands found his waist in search for balance, even though you remained at your seat.

“We shouldn’t be doing this.” you cut the kiss, your own mind betraying you with the words that flew out of your mouth. “But I really want to.”

“I don’t see why we shouldn't,” he said, connecting your lips once again. 

He sucked and nibbled at your lips, certainly leaving small bruises on it, but who were you to complain. All night, your anxiousness tried to get the best of you, but his kiss and his touch held you hostage in a passionate haze.

“It’s dangerous to be on the streets this late.” he told you between kisses.

“We can go upstairs.” you offered, wanting to extend the moment as much as you could.

“I wouldn’t wanna bother your roommate.”

“I don’t have a roommate.” you informed, eyes meeting his once more in search of confirmation.

Kissing where your neck met your ears, he whispered. “I’ll park the car.”

“You can leave it right here.” you moaned, desperately wanting to move things inside. He chuckled, pulled you in for another kiss and then quickly jumped out of the car. He followed you as you climbed the stairs to your floor, managing to control himself and stay far enough as to not throw you against the walls and fuck you right then and there, but the gentleman inside of him held him together and he anxiously watched you unlock your apartment door.

You threw your bag somewhere, and walked inside your home aimlessly. You didn’t bring many guys over, so you always struggled to figure out what to do at this point.

“Yn.” you heard Dick calling, spinning on your heels to meet him. 

Throwing his key on a table, he came over to you without wasting time, hands grabbing your face and smashing your lips together for a hotter, wetter, dirtier kiss.

His tongue sucked you yours as your hands traveled on his chiseled torso, sliding inside his shirt for the full experience. You scratch the skin with your nails and he quivered under your touch. “Fuck.” he let out, pushing you against the head of the sofa.

Wrapping your arms around his neck, you shortened the distance between your bodies even more and his hands moved down your body, from your back to your ass, to your tight where he grabbed and entangled them around his waist. He placed you on top of the sofa, magically not letting your lips grow apart.

You could feel the bulge on his pants hardening with each touch, so you lowered one hand to cup his member in it’s entirety, but not managing to get a hold of half of it. Shit. You tried to pull at his waistband, but he pushed your hand away. “I’m not wasting time.” he said, taking you off of your seat. “I need to be inside you.”

Shit, shit, shit, shit. The thought of his words becoming a reality soaking your panties more than they already were, as you had to grind on his clothed crotch to get the friction, the sensation you so desperately needed. You wanted him inside of you now, not a minute later.

“Your room?” he asked.

“First door to the right.” you said, gasping for air between his kisses.

With ease, he walked to your bedroom as if he knew you home by heart, and as if he didn’t carry a girl but just a stuffed toy. His only struggle came at the door handle, but reaching behind you you managed to open it up for him, a group effort for a group pleasure.

Dick let go of your legs, letting your feet hit the floor once again. His hands were quick to find the hem of your shirt, tugging at it before you broke the kiss to allow him to pull it over your head, your bra being ripped off your skin not much later. His shirt and sweatpants flew behind him too in just a few seconds, and he soon had you pinned on the bed, hands trapped by his on top of your head.

Dick had an urgency in him you’d never seen before, more used to his calm demeanor. He grunted on your ear as he sucked on your neck, leaving marks you knew you wouldn’t be able to hide at work, and he grinded his clothed dick on your bare pussy.

“You don’t know how much I’ve been wanting this.” he groaned, one hand grabbing tightly at your boob. “Some days beside you were pure torture.”

You couldn’t imagine an Officer Dreamy having dreams about you, just like you did with him, but from the sound of it, he had plenty. All you could do was moan out his name, his mouth doing magic on your neck as his hands finally reached where you needed him more.

Rubbing slowly at your clit, you tried humping it, wanting it faster, wanting release, but his movements remained slow, torturous. 

“D-dick.” you cried out his name, begging him to speed up his touch.

“Say it again, darling. Say it.” he requested. “Let my fucking name slip out of your dirty little mouth.”

“Dick. Dick, please!” you obeyed, little the silly little slut you were for him. If your friends or coworkers found out about this, they’d be very disapproving, they’d tell you it was wrong to fuck your superior, but fuck it, fuck him you will.

He moaned loudly in your ear and his movements gained speed. He rubbed at your clit harshly, making it bruise, but the pain only added to the growing sensation on your core. He lowered his head and his lip grabbed your nipple, and his sucks were enough to bring you to the edge.

“You came so hard for me, darling.”

Moving away from your skin, setting your hands free, he admired your cum glistening on his hands before bringing them to his mouth and licking it off his finger. “I knew you’d taste fucking delicious.”

This idea of him wanting to fuck you for so long did wonders to your ego and booted any confidence you still had. The man you so desperately wanted for so long had wanted you as desperately for just as long. Your heart beat so fast you were sure he could hear it, but you wanted him too, no secrets lying between you two anymore.

Without you noticing, his boxers were gone and his hard dick bounced on his crotch, the rosy tip, dripping with precum, staining his stomach. Lining up outside your entrance, rubbing his tip on your clit just to tease you a little more, his eyes met yours. They trapped you as they did inside the car, but now they didn’t stare at you with simple desire. It burned, it consumed him and needed to find a way to release it. And his way was you.

With no warning, he thrusted into you, his size ripping you open and you let out a scream as you prayed your neighbors were heavy sleepers. Dick, as soon as his member was fully within you, let out a guttural groan, the sexiest moan you’d ever heard come out of a man.

“F-fuck you’re so tight.” he moaned. “Just like I imagined.”

Lying on top of you, he met your lips, he wrapped your fingers in his and slid your hands to the top of your head again. His thrusts were fast, hard, reaching you deeper and deeper, taking out of you a scream louder than the other, only muffled by his mouth that refused to leave yours.

You wrapped your leg around his waist, wanting him to go deeper, if it was even possible, so consumed with lust that all logic melted out of your mind.

It wasn’t a fuck, it was love making, sensual and nearly animalistic love making, and the idea of it made the butterflies in your stomach go feral just as you were. If he loved you or not, even it was even something else more the pure lust, was a discussion for later, but he fucked you like no one else did, and you only hoped it was a sign he was not like the others. That he wasn’t just a single page in a large book.

The wet sound of your skins meeting each other filled the room, but only because your mouths were glued together, all sound not allowed to make it out.

“You’re taking me in so good, aren’t you Yn?”

“Yes, y-yes. You’re filling me so good.” you cried back.

“Are you gonna come on my dick, Yn? Are you gonna let me feel you coming?” he teased, nearly as desperate for your orgasm as you were.

“Yes.” you replied, louder than you’d wished. With a few more thrusts, you came all over his hard dick, your body shaking ferociously, reaching a high you’d never reached before. “Uuh, yes!” you screamed, as he continued to pump into you, his own orgasm imminent.

“I’m gonna come, Yn.” he announced, thrusting once more before taking his member out of your pussy and stroking it up and down with his hands. His milky load hit your belly, painting you in sin, as your tongue extended out for a little drip of it.

Exhausted, Dick threw himself on the bed beside you, both your breath audibly out of pace. Your body was covered in sweat, your bed sheet sticking to your back as you tried your best to recollect yourself.

“Officer McCaffrey would be so disappointed.” you joked, getting a loud laugh out of the man beside you. Crossing his arm over your waist, he pulled you closer to him, kissing the wet baby hairs at your temple.

“Wanna disappoint him again?” he asked, turning your face to meet your eyes, his new found favorite thing to look at.

“All night?” you asked in return.

“All fucking night.”

It was safe to say you were late for work again the next morning, and would be late a few more times, as Officer Dreamy would gladly keep you up for as long as you wished.

[xtruss]

Who Is Helping DOGE? List of Staff Revealed

- Feb 14, 2025 | Newsweek | By James Bickerton, US News Reporter

DOGE head Elon Musk speaks in the Oval Office at the White House on February 11, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty

list of 30 employees and alleged allies of Elon Musk's newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been published by ProPublica, an investigative news outlet.

Newsweek reached out to Musk for comment via emails to the Tesla and SpaceX press offices.

DOGE, a U.S. government organization which, despite its name, doesn't have full department status, was created by President Trump via an executive order on January 20 with the aim of cutting what the new administration regards as wasteful spending. Musk, a close Trump ally, heads the body and has been given special government employee status.

Musk has called for sweeping cuts to federal spending, suggesting it could be reduced by up to $2 trillion per year out of a 2024 total of $6.75 trillion, according to U.S. Treasury figures.

This ties in with Trump's pledge to "drain the swamp," a term his supporters use for what they believe is a permanent left-leaning bureaucracy that holds massive power regardless of who is in the White House.

DOGE has already recommended that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) be closed down, with its functions transferred to the State Department. In a recent interview, Trump said he wants DOGE to go through spending at the Departments of Education and Defense.

On February 8, a federal judge imposed a temporary restraining order blocking DOGE employees from accessing the Treasury Department's payment system, resulting in Musk calling for him to be impeached.

A White House spokesperson told ProPublica: "Those leading this mission with Elon Musk are doing so in full compliance with federal law, appropriate security clearances, and as employees of the relevant agencies, not as outside advisors or entities."

The 30 DOGE employees and associates reported by ProPublica, which labeled them Musk's "demolition crew," are listed below.

Not Even DOGE Employees Know Who’s Legally Running DOGE! Despite all appearances, the White House insists that Elon Musk is not in charge of DOGE. US DOGE Service employees can’t get a straight answer about who is. Photograph: Kena Betancur/Getty Images

DOGE Employees And Associates

Christopher Stanley, 33: Stanley was part of the team Musk used to take over Twitter, now X, according to his LinkedIn profile, serving as senior director for security engineering for the company. The New York Times reports he now works for Musk at DOGE.

Brad Smith, 42: According to The New York Times, Smith, a friend of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, was one of the first people appointed to help lead DOGE. He also served with the first Trump administration and was involved with Operation Warp Speed, the federal government's coronavirus vaccine development program.

Thomas Shedd, 28: Shedd serves as director of the Technology Transformation Services, a government body created to assist federal agencies with IT, and previously worked as a software engineer at Tesla.

Amanda Scales, 34: According to ProPublica, Scales is chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management, a government agency that helps manage civil service. She previously worked for Musk's artificial intelligence company Xai.

Michael Russo, 67: Russo is a senior figure at the Social Security Administration, a government agency that administers the American Social Security program. According to his LinkedIn page, Russo previously worked for Shift4 Payments, a payment processing company that has invested in Musk's company SpaceX.

Rachel Riley, 33: Riley works in the Department of Health & Human Services as a senior adviser in the secretary's office. ProPublica reports she has been "working closely" with Brad Smith, who led DOGE during the transition period.

Nikhil Rajpal, 30: According to Wired, Rajpal, who in 2018 worked as an engineer at Twitter, is part of the DOGE team. He formally works as part of the Office of Personnel Management.

Justin Monroe, 36: According to ProPublica, Monroe is working as an adviser in the FBI director's office, having previously been senior director for security at SpaceX.

Katie Miller, 33: Miller is a spokesperson for DOGE. Trump announced her involvement with the new body in December. She served as Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary during Trump's first term.

Tom Krause, 47: Krause is a Treasury Department employee who is also affiliated with DOGE, according to The New York Times. Krause was involved in the DOGE team's bid to gain access to the Treasury Department's payments system.

Gavin Kliger, 25: Kliger, a senior adviser at the Office of Personnel Management, is reportedly closely linked to Musk's team. On his personal Substack blog, he wrote a post titled "Why I gave up a seven-figure salary to save America."

Gautier "Cole" Killian, 24: Killian is an Environmental Protection Agency employee who researched blockchain at McGill University. Killian is also a member of the DOGE team, according to Wired.

Stephanie Holmes, 43: ProPublica reports that Holmes runs human resources at DOGE, having previously managed her own HR consulting company, BrighterSideHR.

Luke Farritor, 23: Farritor works as an executive engineer at the Department of Health and previously interned at SpaceX, according to his LinkedIn account. He won a $100,000 fellowship from billionaire tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel in March 2024.

Marko Elez, 25: Elez is a Treasury Department staffer who worked as an engineer at X for one year and at SpaceX for around three years. The Wall Street Journal reported that Elez was linked to a social media account that had made racist remarks, but Musk stood by him after he initially resigned.

Steve Davis, 45: Davis is a longtime Musk associate who previously worked for the tech billionaire at SpaceX, the Boring Company and X. According to The New York Times, Davis was one of the first people involved in setting up DOGE with Musk and has been involved in staff recruitment.

Edward Coristine, 19: Coristine is a Northeastern University graduate who was detailed to the Office of Personnel Management and is affiliated with DOGE. He previously interned at Neuralink, a Musk company that works on brain-computer interfaces.

Nate Cavanaugh, 28: Cavanaugh is an entrepreneur who interviewed staffers at the General Services Administration as part of the DOGE team, according to ProPublica.

Unmasked: Musk’s Secret DOGE Goon Squad—Who Are All Under 26! The world’s richest man doesn’t want anyone knowing his right-hand people who are disrupting government. — Josh Fiallo, Breaking News Reporter, Daily Beast, February 3, 2025

Akash Bobba, 21: A recent graduate from the University of California, Berkeley, Bobba works as an "expert" at the Office of Personnel Management and was identified by Wired as part of Musk's DOGE team.

Brian Bjelde, 44: A 20-year SpaceX veteran, Bjelde now works as a senior adviser at the Office of Personnel Management, where he wants to cut 70 percent of the workforce, according to CNN.

Riccardo Biasini, 39: Biasini is an engineer who now works as a senior adviser to the director at the Office of Personnel Management. He previously worked for two Musk companies, Tesla and the Boring Company.

Anthony Armstrong, 57: Another senior adviser to the director at the Office of Personnel Management Armstrong previously worked as a banked with Morgan Stanley, and was involved in Musk's 2022 purchase of Twitter.

Keenan D. Kmiec, 45: Kmiec is a lawyer who works as part of the Executive Office of the President. He previously clerked on the Supreme Court for Chief Justice John Roberts.

James Burnham, 41: Burnham is a general counsel at DOGE whose involvement with the Musk-led body was first reported by The New York Times in January. He previously worked as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Jacob Altik, 32: A lawyer affiliated with the Executive Office of the President, Altik previously clerked for D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Neomi Rao, whom Trump appointed during his first term.

Jordan M. Wick, 28: Wick is an official member of DOGE and previously worked as a software engineer for the self-driving car company Waymo.

Ethan Shaotran, 22: Shaotran is a former Harvard student who Wired listed as one of several young software engineers working to analyze internal government data at DOGE.

Kyle Schutt, 37: Schutt is a software engineer affiliated with DOGE and worked at the General Services Administration. He was involved in the launch of WinRed, a Republican fundraising platform that helped raise $1.8 billion ahead of the November 2024 elections.

Ryan Riedel, 37: Riedel is the chief information officer at the Department of Energy and a former SpaceX employee.

Adam Ramada, 35: Ramada is an official DOGE member, according to federal records seen by ProPublica. Ramada previously worked for venture capital company Spring Tide Capital. E&E News reported he had been seen at the Energy Department and the General Services Administration.

Kendell M. Lindemann, 24: Lindemann is an official member of the DOGE team who previously worked for health care company Russell Street Ventures, founded by fellow DOGE associate Brad Smith, and as a business analyst for McKinsey & Company.

Nicole Hollander, 42: Hollander works at the General Services Administration. She was previously employed by X, where she was involved with the company's real estate portfolio.

Alexandra T. Beynon, 36: Beynon is listed as an official member of DOGE, according to documents seen by ProPublica. She previously worked for therapy startup Mindbloom and banking firm Goldman Sachs.

Jennifer Balajadia, 36: Balajadia is a member of the DOGE team who previously worked for the Boring Company for seven years. According to The New York Times, she is a close Musk confidant and assists with his scheduling.

[mtnman451]

Leftist's, Liberals and Democrats: It's All Perfectly Legal

grownoutandabout

First off, Trump did NOT create a new agency. That’s the lie the media is pushing because they know most people are too lazy to actually read the executive order. What Trump did was repurpose an existing agency—the United States Digital Service (USDS)—which was originally created under Obama to “modernize government software.” He renamed it the United States DOGE Service and kept the same acronym. Why does that matter? Because repurposing an existing department that already has funding means Congress has no say in it. No approval needed. No funding battles. Perfectly legal. Now, let’s talk about how Trump and Musk are executing this legally. First, DOGE’s mission is covered under 44 USC Chapter 36, which governs federal IT modernization. That’s what the original USDS was already supposed to be doing—Trump just made sure it was being done correctly instead of as another bloated bureaucratic disaster. Second, Trump invoked 5 USC 3161, which allows for the creation of a temporary organization within the federal government. That’s right—temporary. DOGE’s core audit team (led by Musk, originally including Vivek Ramaswamy) is legally structured to exist for 18 months. That means it’s not a new administrative agency—it’s a temporary oversight body. That’s not some shady loophole—it’s literally federal law. Now, here’s where it gets even better. The executive branch has full authority over executive agencies. That’s just how the Constitution works. Under the Take Care Clause (Article II, Section 3), the President is required to ensure that laws are faithfully executed. That means if agencies like USAID or OPM are mismanaging funds, Trump has every right—no, the constitutional obligation—to intervene and restructure them. And that’s exactly what DOGE teams are doing by embedding within each agency, conducting audits, and identifying waste. For the people screeching, “But Congress has oversight!”

I posted this because THIS is the best explanation of what President Trump has done and done completely inside the Law!

Thanks and ALL the credit goes to grownoutandabout

[welcometoqueer]

U.S. Recount Updates/News:

Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race will officially go to a recount. GOP candidate David McCormick is leading incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey by less than 0.5% in the vote total, triggering an automatic recount under state law.

Furthermore,

Election and cybersecurity experts sent a formal letter to Vice President Kamala Harris urging a recount in key states, citing potential breaches in voting machines and the fact that voting systems were breached by Trump allies in 2021 and 2022.

https://freespeechforpeople.org/computer-scientists-breaches-of-voting-system-software-warrant-recounts-to-ensure-election-verification/

Cited evidence within the footnotes include:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/08/15/sidney-powell-coffee-county-sullivan-strickler/

Additionally,

The Nevada Secretary of State issued a violation notice regarding election security. A police report has been filed after evidence emerged indicating that Nevada officials may have removed 26,902 ballots from their reported mail-in ballot totals.

[ID:

Three images.

The first is a statement regarding a recount being triggered in the Pennsylvania Senate race. It reads:

“Unofficial Results in U.S. Senate Race Trigger Legally Required Automatic State Recount

Harrisburg, PA — Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt announced today that unofficial results in the Nov. 5 general election race for U.S.

Senate have triggered a legally required statewide recount.

Senator Bob Casey and Dave McCormick have vote totals within the one-half of 1 percent margin that triggers a mandatory recount under state law.

As of today, the unofficial returns for the U.S. Senate race submitted by all 67 counties show the following results for the top two candidates:

Robert P. Casey Jr. - 3,350,972 (48.50%)

David H. McCormick - 3,380,310 (48.93%)

Once counties finish counting their ballots, they must begin the recount no later than Wednesday, Nov. 20. They must complete the recount by noon on Nov. 26 and must report results to the Secretary by noon on Nov. 27. Results of the recount will not be published until Nov. 27.

The Department estimates that the recount cost will exceed $1 million of taxpayer funds.

This is the eighth time the automatic recount provision has been triggered since the passage of Act 97 of 2004. In the four cases in which the recount was carried out, the initial results of the election were affirmed. Those recounts and the costs for each were as follows:

2022 primary: Oz vs. McCormick, Republican race for U.S. Senate, $1,052,609.

2021 general: Dumas vs. Crompton, Commonwealth Court, $1,117,180.

2011 primary: Boockvar vs. Ernsberger, Democratic race for Commonwealth Court, $525,006.70.

2009 general: Lazarus vs. Colville vs. Smith, Superior Court race, $541,698.56.

For more information about the legally mandated automatic recount procedures, see the Department's directive on this topic (link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com).

Update on outstanding ballot totals

As of this afternoon, county election officials reported there are 60,366 uncounted provisional ballots and 20,155 uncounted mail-in and absentee ballots. That 80,521 total includes all ballots for which county boards of elections have not yet made a final resolution regarding their validity or eligibility to be counted.

As of the issuance of this release, the Department's election returns page [link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com] reflects the unofficial totals that counties have reported. These numbers will change beginning Thursday morning, Nov. 14, as counties continue to canvass provisional ballots and otherwise count ballots. These changes are unrelated to the recount.”

The second image depicts the first page of a formal letter addressed to Vice President Kamala Harris from election security experts urging an election recount in key states. It reads:

“November 13, 2024

The Honorable Kamala Harris

The White House

Office of the Vice President

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W.

Washington, DC 20500

Dear Vice President Harris,

We write to alert you to serious election security breaches that have threatened the security and integrity of the 2024 elections, and to identify ways to ensure that the will of the voters is reflected and that voters should have confidence in the result. The most effective manner of doing so is through targeted recounts requested by the candidate. In the light of the breaches we ask that you formally request hand recounts in at least the states of Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. We have no evidence that the outcomes of the elections in those states were actually compromised as a result of the security breaches, and we are not suggesting that they were. But binding risk-limiting audits (RLAs) or hand recounts should be routine for all elections, especially when the stakes are high and the results are close. We believe that, under the current circumstances when massive software breaches are known and documented, recounts are necessary and appropriate to remove all potential doubt and to set an example for security best practices in all elections.

In 2022, records, video camera footage, and deposition testimony produced in a civil case in Georgia' disclosed that its voting system, used statewide, had been breached over multiple days by operatives hired by attorneys for Donald Trump. The evidence showed that the operatives made copies of the software”

(The page cuts off here).

Below there are footnotes with cited evidence for grounds to request a recount.

“No. 17-cv-02989-AT (N.D. Ga. filed Aug. 8, 2017).

1. Emma Brown, Jon Swaine, Aaron C. Davis, Amy Gardner, "Trump-allied lawyers pursued voting machine data in multiple states, records reveal," The Washington Post, (August 15, 2022). Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/08/15/sidney-powell-coffee-county-sullivan-strickler/

3 Kate Brumback, "Video fills in details on alleged Ga. election system breach," The Associated Press, (September 6, 2022). Available at: https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-technology-donald-trump-voting-92c0ace71d7bee6151dd33938688371e

The third image is an excerpt of the Election Security Violation Notice issued by the Nevada Secretary of State. It reads:

“ELECTION INTEGRITY VIOLATION REPORT

The information you report on this form may be used to help us investigate violations of Nevada election laws. When completed, mail, email, or fax your form and supporting documents to the office listed above. Upon receipt, your complaint will be reviewed by a member of our staff. The length of this process can vary depending on the circumstances and information you provide with your complaint. The Office of the Secretary of State may contact you if additional information is needed.

INSTRUCTIONS: Please TYPE/PRINT your complaint in dark ink. You must write LEGIBLY. All fields MUST be completed.

SECTION 3.

COMPLAINT IS AGAINST

Please detail the nature of your complaint. Include the name and contact information (if known) of the individual, candidate, campaign, or group that is the subject of your complaint. Your complaint must also include a clear and concise statement of facts sufficient to establish that the alleged violation occurred. Any relevant documents or other evidence that support your complaint should be listed and attached. You may attach additional sheets if necessary.

On 11-8-24, the mail ballot accepted list deleted 28,320 ballots from Clark County. At this same time, Sam Brown lost his lead. These ballots were accepted on 11-7-24 and then on 11-8-24 for the first time since 10-16-24 and reporting began, ballots were deleted from 2 counties. Washoe and Clark.

See ATTACHED.”

/end ID]

[meret118]

The cogent documentary, “Surveilled,” now available on HBO, tracks journalist Ronan Farrow as he investigates the proliferation and implementation of spyware, specifically, Pegasus, which was created by the Israeli company NSO Group. The company sells its product to clients who use it to fight crime and terrorism. It is claimed that Pegasus was instrumental in helping capture Mexican drug lord, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman. However, there are also reports that NSO’s products are being used to target journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents.

. . .

Farrow: I put up a piece in The New Yorker this week. It was fascinating to talk to experts in the privacy law space who are really in a high state of alarm right now. The United States, under administrations from both parties, has flirted with this technology in ways that is alarming. Under the first Trump administration, they bought Pegasus. They claimed they were buying it to test it and see what our enemies were doing, and The New York Times later sued them for more information and found really persuasive evidence that the FBI wanted to operationalize that in American law enforcement investigations.

In September, the Department of Homeland Security (D.H.S.) signed a two-million-dollar contract with Paragon, an Israeli firm whose spyware product Graphite focusses on breaching encrypted-messaging applications such as Telegram and Signal. Wired first reported that the technology was acquired by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—an agency within D.H.S. that will soon be involved in executing the Trump Administration’s promises of mass deportations and crackdowns on border crossings. A source at Paragon told me that the deal followed a vetting process, during which the company was able to demonstrate that it had robust tools to prevent other countries that purchase its spyware from hacking Americans—but that wouldn’t limit the U.S. government’s ability to target its own citizens. The technology is part of a booming multibillion-dollar market for intrusive phone-hacking software that is making government surveillance increasingly cheap and accessible. In recent years, a number of Western democracies have been roiled by controversies in which spyware has been used, apparently by defense and intelligence agencies, to target opposition politicians, journalists, and apolitical civilians caught up in Orwellian surveillance dragnets.

Now Donald Trump and incoming members of his Administration will decide whether to curtail or expand the U.S. government’s use of this kind of technology. Privacy advocates have been in a state of high alarm about the colliding political and technological trend lines.

“It’s just so evident—the impending disaster,” Emily Tucker, the executive director at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law, told me. “You may believe yourself not to be in one of the vulnerable categories, but you won’t know if you’ve ended up on a list for some reason or your loved ones have. Every single person should be worried.”

[misfitwashere]

April 11, 2025

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 12

READ IN APP

On April 4, Trump fired head of U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) and director of the National Security Agency (NSA) General Timothy Haugh, apparently on the recommendation of right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who is pitching her new opposition research firm to “vet” candidates for jobs in Trump’s administration.

Former secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall wrote in Newsweek yesterday that the position Haugh held is “one of the most sensitive and powerful jobs in America.” Kendall writes that NSA and CYBERCOM oversee the world’s most sophisticated tools and techniques to penetrate computer systems, monitor communications around the globe, and, if national security requires it, attack those systems. U.S. law drastically curtails how those tools can be used in the U.S. and against American citizens and businesses. Will a Trump loyalist follow those laws? Kendall writes: “Every American should view this development with alarm.”

Just after 2:00 a.m. eastern time this morning, the Senate confirmed Retired Air Force Lieutenant General John Dan Caine, who goes by the nickname “Razin,” for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by a vote of 60–25. U.S. law requires the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to have served as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chief of staff of the Army, the chief of naval operations, the chief of staff of the Air Force, the commandant of the Marine Corps, or the commander of a unified or specified combatant command.

Although Caine has 34 years of military experience, he did not serve in any of the required positions. The law provides that the president can waive the requirement if “the President determines such action is necessary in the national interest,” and he has apparently done so for Caine. The politicization of the U.S. military by filling it with Trump loyalists is now, as Kendall writes, “indisputable.”

The politicization of data is also indisputable. Billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) claims to be saving Americans money, but the Wall Street Journal reported today that effort has been largely a failure (despite today’s announcement of devastating cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that monitors our weather). But what DOGE is really doing is burrowing into Americans’ data.

The first people to be targeted by that data collection appear to be undocumented immigrants. Jason Koebler of 404 Media reported on Wednesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been using a database that enables officials to search for people by filtering for “hundreds of different, highly specific categories,” including scars or tattoos, bankruptcy filings, Social Security number, hair color, and race. The system, called Investigative Case Management (ICM), was created by billionaire Peter Thiel’s software company Palantir, which in 2022 signed a $95.9 million contract with the government to develop ICM.

Three Trump officials told Sophia Cai of Politico that DOGE staffers embedded in agencies across the government are expanding government cooperation with immigration officials, using the information they’re gleaning from government databases to facilitate deportation. On Tuesday, DOGE software engineer Aram Moghaddassi sent the first 6,300 names of individuals whose temporary legal status had just been canceled. On the list, which Moghaddassi said covered those on “the terror watch list” or with “F.B.I. criminal records,” were eight minors, including one 13-year-old.

The Social Security Administration worked with the administration to get those people to “self-deport” by adding them to the agency's “death master file.” That file is supposed to track people whose death means they should no longer receive benefits. Adding to it people the administration wants to erase is “financial murder,” former SSA commissioner Martin O’Malley told Alexandra Berzon, Hamed Aleaziz, Nicholas Nehamas, Ryan Mac, and Tara Siegel Bernard of the New York Times. Those people will not be able to use credit cards or banks.

On Tuesday, Acting Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Melanie Krause resigned after the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security agreed to share sensitive taxpayer data with immigration authorities. Undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes, in part to demonstrate their commitment to citizenship, and the government has promised immigrants that it would not use that information for immigration enforcement. Until now, the IRS has protected sensitive taxpayer information.

Rene Marsh and Marshall Cohen of CNN note that “[m]ultiple senior career IRS officials refused to sign the data-sharing agreement with DHS,” which will enable HHS officials to ask the IRS for names and addresses of people they suspect are undocumented, “because of grave concerns about its legality.” Ultimately, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signed the agreement with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.

Krause was only one of several senior career officials leaving the IRS, raising concerns among those staying that there is no longer a “defense against the potential unlawful use of taxpayer data by the Trump administration.”

Makena Kelly of Wired reported today that for the past three days, DOGE staffers have been working with representatives from Palantir and career engineers from the IRS in a giant “hackathon.” Their goal is to build a system that will be able to access all IRS records, including names, addresses, job data, and Social Security numbers, that can then be compared with data from other agencies.

But the administration’s attempt to automate deportation is riddled with errors. Last night the government sent threatening emails to U.S. citizens, green card holders, and even a Canadian (in Canada) terminating “your parole” and giving them seven days to leave the U.S. One Massachusetts-born immigration lawyer asked on social media: “Does anyone know if you can get Italian citizenship through great-grandparents?”

The government is not keen to correct its errors. On March 15 the government rendered to prison in El Salvador a legal U.S. resident, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whom the courts had ordered the U.S. not to send to El Salvador, where his life was in danger. The government has admitted that its arrest and rendition of Abrego Garcia happened because of “administrative error” but now claims—without evidence—that he is a member of the MS-13 gang and that his return to the U.S. would threaten the public. Abrego Garcia says he is not a gang member and notes that he has never been charged with a crime.

On April 4, U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis ordered the government to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. no later than 11:59 pm on April 7. The administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which handed down a 9–0 decision yesterday, saying the government must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release, but asked the district court to clarify what it meant by “effectuate,” noting that it must give “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

The Supreme Court also ordered that “the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.”

Legal analyst Joyce White Vance explained what happened next. Judge Xinis ordered the government to file an update by 9:30 a.m. today explaining where Abrego Garcia is, what the government is doing to get him back, and what more it will do. She planned an in-person hearing at 1:00 p.m.

The administration made clear it did not intend to comply. It answered that the judge had not given them enough time to answer and suggested that it would delay over the Supreme Court’s instruction that Xinis must show deference to the president’s ability to conduct foreign affairs. Xinis gave the government until 11:30 and said she would still hold the hearing. The government submitted its filing at about 12:15, saying that Abrego Garcia is “in the custody of a foreign sovereign,” but at the 1:00 hearing, as Anna Bower of Lawfare reported, the lawyer representing the government, Drew Ensign, said he did not have information about where Abrego Garcia is and that the government had done nothing to get him back. Ensign said he might have answers by next Tuesday. Xinis says they will have to give an update tomorrow.

As Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor recently warned, if the administration can take noncitizens off the streets, render them to prison in another country, and then claim it is helpless to correct the error because the person is out of reach of U.S. jurisdiction, it could do the same thing to citizens. Indeed, both President Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt have proposed that very thing.

Tonight, Trump signed a memorandum to the secretaries of defense, interior, agriculture, and homeland security calling for a “Military Mission for Sealing the Southern Border of the United States and Repelling Invasions.” The memorandum creates a military buffer zone along the border so that any migrant crossing would be trespassing on a U.S. military base. This would allow active-duty soldiers to hold migrants until ICE agents take them.

By April 20, the secretaries of defense and homeland security are supposed to report to the president whether they think he should invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to enable him to use the military to aid in mass deportations.

—

[wisteriagoesvroom]

gax + corporate/law vibes + ‘The powerpoint was steadily taking over their relationship, something that Max was not willing to stand for.’

gax?? gax!!

power (you make some points): a gax ficlet

rated m, ~1.2k words now also readable on ao3

author babble:

bear in mind i wrote this before i knew more about the Gax Lore i.e. karting together, actually being nice to each other blablabla. you could also just retrofit the vibes and hopefully they still work. anyways!

will throw this up on ao3 when i’m not sitting bleary eyed in an airport

————

If there was one thing that Max Verstappen wouldn’t tolerate, it was George Russell having the monopoly on good PowerPoint presentations. Max had won all four years of debate in College, as well as the dubious title of “most radical deployment of Google Slides templates” at his MBA, and he was not about to be usurped by the other guy in his department who actually knew how to use an animate transition.

“You missed an indent there.” Max says, pointing at the monitor. Yellow and red lights wink at them from the outside, as if to say: you’re both in your mid-twenties, quit wasting it on a computer screen at 11pm on a Wednesday, maybe?

Max is not staring, very determined not to look at his teammate’s facial expression. But George is almost certainly rolling his eyes right now.

“Was coming back to that, alright?” George huffs back. Max is very professional most of the time. But something about how wound up George is, how insanely pedantic he is about everything from semicolons to coffee cup placement for the Directors to taking insanely detailed minutes that nobody except Max reads after the meetings – well. What is it that Nietschze once said? We hate in others what we most identify with about ourselves. Or was that from Twitter? Max does not really use Twitter except to look at Bloomberg News updates and cat videos, so he does not know. And anyway Nietzsche never made a six figure salary.

“It would just be easier if you would let me do it.” Max says.

“Fuck right off, mate.”

“Oh, wouldn’t you like me to.”

“Not now.”

“Just share the link to this. I’ll do it.”

“We agreed to take turns on this.”

“Yes, Russell. But sometimes, the rules are meant to be bent.”

George swivels his chair to Max, then. Fully attempts to pin him with his gaze, commencing an awkward stare-off that lasts way too many seconds and makes Max once again realise that George’s eyes remind him of the expensive fish tank he saw at the Partners’ sushi dinner once. Max doesn’t think those same fish were the ones they ended up eating. But he does remember that dinner because it was the one where the Partners had dangled the promise of a huge promotion if they could help carry the company merger across the line successfully. The problem is, there was only one spot.

George’s distracting aquatic orbitals aside, fortunately, Max (i) never backs down, and (ii) has been told that he has the dead-eyed emotional stare of a robot missing an empathy software upgrade sometimes.

And clearly, the powerpoint was steadily taking over their relationship, something that Max was not willing to stand for.

Max leans back in his chair, stance all mock-relaxed. “Do you want to be out of here before midnight, or not?”

“We’re expensing the Ubers either way, so it doesn’t make a difference to me, mate.”

Fine. If George is so hyperfocused on The Tasks that he’s forgotten the fun part of being Questionably Close Coworkers, so be it.

Max deploys the nuclear option.

He sticks his leg out, nudging the toe of his Pradas onto George’s slacks. And strokes his foot halfway up to a sensitive point on George’s thigh. Max may even flutter his lashes a little.

To his credit, George does not react. Merely swings his eyes like a lamp to Max’s face again. His hand does, however, goes still on the mouse.

“What exactly are you doing?”

“I don’t know.” Max feigns. He knows that George hates, more than anything, anyone getting dirt on his precious Ralph Laurens. But at least he has his attention now. “Was hoping we could move onto the more fun part of the typical evening activities. Maybe.”

“We shouldn’t be doing that again anyway.”

“George.”

“What?”

“That is not what you said the last, hm, fourteen times that we have done this, eh?”

“Who’s counting?”

“I thought you were the most careful of rule followers and data analysis, knapperd.”

George is a human being, but Max is almost certain the other man shakes himself like he’s preening right now.

“Well. It’s what the team likes me for, and it’s what I’ll keep doing.”

“Oh yes. Surely we must keep in mind the team. And the shareholders. They are very important.”

“Quite.”

“But should we tell them that you like it so much, George. When I do this.” Max says. Rising up, fully crowding George in, hands gripping the cool handles of the computer chair. Leaning in to nibble the side of George’s neck.

George swallows. Max watches his throat move.

Next, Max mouths the words onto the side of George’s jaw, stubble prickling his mouth. “And this.”

The click of the mouse continues steadily as Max moves his mouth to the shell of George’s ear. “And let’s not forget. This.”

Max tilts George’s face up fully, then. George’s face is flushed, eyes sparkling, all surprise at the sudden change of pace, but eager, too.

When Max seals his lips over George’s, George groans, and his hands shoot up to Max’s waist immediately. It doesn’t feel quite like winning a deal or a pitch does for Max, but the completion comes pretty damn close.

Max sweeps his tongue into George’s mouth. George opens willingly, like he always does. In the back of Max’s logical brain, a warning sign blares that the computer chair may not be able to support the weight of them both – because they spend a lot of time pretending they don’t work out together at the gym but Max knows exactly what George’s deadlift PB is and it’s pretty damn high for a scrawny looking dude.

And despite the keening protest of said chair, the two of them are both lost to it now. Max jams one knee between George’s legs, George nibbles hungrily at Max’s lower lip, Max thrusts his hips all needy, and maybe if Max is nice about it George might suck him off under the table, and–

Outlook chimes again.

“Blasted piece of shit.” George says, breaking away. His hands go still at Max’s waist. “Why we’re using G-Suite and Microsoft Office at the same time I will never know.”

George squeezes his eyes shut, as if making himself stop this is causing him physical pain. Maybe it’s that or the workflow incompatibility when George tries to move his custom Excel-Trello gantts into a third party API.

And Max won’t lie. He kind of likes it when George gets so irritated about these things. When he cares a bit too much. Because what is Max but exactly like that, too.

“Hazards of a merger, I guess. But without that, I would never have met you, no?”

George makes a noise like he knows what Max means. The other man straightens his shirt collar, and Max runs a hand through his hair. He’s been growing it out lately, because George had made a passing comment at the bathroom sink once about it looking good.

Sleeping with the person competing for the same Chief of Staff position is possibly the worst decision he could’ve made, and Max once dyed his hair platinum blonde. But, they’re stuck here together. Hell is a slightly more tolerable place when Satan’s right hand man looks this good. And knows his coffee order without asking.

Besides. Max is not bothered. He knows that the promotion is his. This is just a minor plot inconvenience.

Later, they will expense the uber back to George’s place, where Max will put his mouth on George’s arse, and give him a practical demonstration of the three different ways he’s learned to elicit pleasure from the male prostate.

George will whimper and whine the whole way through it, and after they’re both sated, they’ll both roll over to check their emails, barely concealing their smiles. They will pretend that what’s happening between them could be as clean as their zero-email inboxes. As if their connection is not violently seeping through containment.

All in the name of team bonding. For the firm. Yes.

(Or this is what they tell themselves, to maintain the illusion, anyway.)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Matt Davies

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 11, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Apr 12, 2025

On April 4, Trump fired head of U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) and director of the National Security Agency (NSA) General Timothy Haugh, apparently on the recommendation of right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who is pitching her new opposition research firm to “vet” candidates for jobs in Trump’s administration.

Former secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall wrote in Newsweek yesterday that the position Haugh held is “one of the most sensitive and powerful jobs in America.” Kendall writes that NSA and CYBERCOM oversee the world’s most sophisticated tools and techniques to penetrate computer systems, monitor communications around the globe, and, if national security requires it, attack those systems. U.S. law drastically curtails how those tools can be used in the U.S. and against American citizens and businesses. Will a Trump loyalist follow those laws? Kendall writes: “Every American should view this development with alarm.”

Just after 2:00 a.m. eastern time this morning, the Senate confirmed Retired Air Force Lieutenant General John Dan Caine, who goes by the nickname “Razin,” for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by a vote of 60–25. U.S. law requires the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to have served as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chief of staff of the Army, the chief of naval operations, the chief of staff of the Air Force, the commandant of the Marine Corps, or the commander of a unified or specified combatant command.

Although Caine has 34 years of military experience, he did not serve in any of the required positions. The law provides that the president can waive the requirement if “the President determines such action is necessary in the national interest,” and he has apparently done so for Caine. The politicization of the U.S. military by filling it with Trump loyalists is now, as Kendall writes, “indisputable.”

The politicization of data is also indisputable. Billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) claims to be saving Americans money, but the Wall Street Journal reported today that effort has been largely a failure (despite today’s announcement of devastating cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that monitors our weather). But what DOGE is really doing is burrowing into Americans’ data.

The first people to be targeted by that data collection appear to be undocumented immigrants. Jason Koebler of 404 Media reported on Wednesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been using a database that enables officials to search for people by filtering for “hundreds of different, highly specific categories,” including scars or tattoos, bankruptcy filings, Social Security number, hair color, and race. The system, called Investigative Case Management (ICM), was created by billionaire Peter Thiel’s software company Palantir, which in 2022 signed a $95.9 million contract with the government to develop ICM.

Three Trump officials told Sophia Cai of Politico that DOGE staffers embedded in agencies across the government are expanding government cooperation with immigration officials, using the information they’re gleaning from government databases to facilitate deportation. On Tuesday, DOGE software engineer Aram Moghaddassi sent the first 6,300 names of individuals whose temporary legal status had just been canceled. On the list, which Moghaddassi said covered those on “the terror watch list” or with “F.B.I. criminal records,” were eight minors, including one 13-year-old.

The Social Security Administration worked with the administration to get those people to “self-deport” by adding them to the agency's “death master file.” That file is supposed to track people whose death means they should no longer receive benefits. Adding to it people the administration wants to erase is “financial murder,” former SSA commissioner Martin O’Malley told Alexandra Berzon, Hamed Aleaziz, Nicholas Nehamas, Ryan Mac, and Tara Siegel Bernard of the New York Times. Those people will not be able to use credit cards or banks.

On Tuesday, Acting Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Melanie Krause resigned after the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security agreed to share sensitive taxpayer data with immigration authorities. Undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes, in part to demonstrate their commitment to citizenship, and the government has promised immigrants that it would not use that information for immigration enforcement. Until now, the IRS has protected sensitive taxpayer information.

Rene Marsh and Marshall Cohen of CNN note that “[m]ultiple senior career IRS officials refused to sign the data-sharing agreement with DHS,” which will enable HHS officials to ask the IRS for names and addresses of people they suspect are undocumented, “because of grave concerns about its legality.” Ultimately, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signed the agreement with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.

Krause was only one of several senior career officials leaving the IRS, raising concerns among those staying that there is no longer a “defense against the potential unlawful use of taxpayer data by the Trump administration.”

Makena Kelly of Wired reported today that for the past three days, DOGE staffers have been working with representatives from Palantir and career engineers from the IRS in a giant “hackathon.” Their goal is to build a system that will be able to access all IRS records, including names, addresses, job data, and Social Security numbers, that can then be compared with data from other agencies.

But the administration’s attempt to automate deportation is riddled with errors. Last night the government sent threatening emails to U.S. citizens, green card holders, and even a Canadian (in Canada) terminating “your parole” and giving them seven days to leave the U.S. One Massachusetts-born immigration lawyer asked on social media: “Does anyone know if you can get Italian citizenship through great-grandparents?”

The government is not keen to correct its errors. On March 15 the government rendered to prison in El Salvador a legal U.S. resident, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whom the courts had ordered the U.S. not to send to El Salvador, where his life was in danger. The government has admitted that its arrest and rendition of Abrego Garcia happened because of “administrative error” but now claims—without evidence—that he is a member of the MS-13 gang and that his return to the U.S. would threaten the public. Abrego Garcia says he is not a gang member and notes that he has never been charged with a crime.

On April 4, U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis ordered the government to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. no later than 11:59 pm on April 7. The administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which handed down a 9–0 decision yesterday, saying the government must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release, but asked the district court to clarify what it meant by “effectuate,” noting that it must give “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

The Supreme Court also ordered that “the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.”

Legal analyst Joyce White Vance explained what happened next. Judge Xinis ordered the government to file an update by 9:30 a.m. today explaining where Abrego Garcia is, what the government is doing to get him back, and what more it will do. She planned an in-person hearing at 1:00 p.m.

The administration made clear it did not intend to comply. It answered that the judge had not given them enough time to answer and suggested that it would delay over the Supreme Court’s instruction that Xinis must show deference to the president’s ability to conduct foreign affairs. Xinis gave the government until 11:30 and said she would still hold the hearing. The government submitted its filing at about 12:15, saying that Abrego Garcia is “in the custody of a foreign sovereign,” but at the 1:00 hearing, as Anna Bower of Lawfare reported, the lawyer representing the government, Drew Ensign, said he did not have information about where Abrego Garcia is and that the government had done nothing to get him back. Ensign said he might have answers by next Tuesday. Xinis says they will have to give an update tomorrow.

As Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor recently warned, if the administration can take noncitizens off the streets, render them to prison in another country, and then claim it is helpless to correct the error because the person is out of reach of U.S. jurisdiction, it could do the same thing to citizens. Indeed, both President Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt have proposed that very thing.

Tonight, Trump signed a memorandum to the secretaries of defense, interior, agriculture, and homeland security calling for a “Military Mission for Sealing the Southern Border of the United States and Repelling Invasions.” The memorandum creates a military buffer zone along the border so that any migrant crossing would be trespassing on a U.S. military base. This would allow active-duty soldiers to hold migrants until ICE agents take them.

By April 20, the secretaries of defense and homeland security are supposed to report to the president whether they think he should invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to enable him to use the military to aid in mass deportations.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[beardedmrbean]

Two high school graduates who say they can't read or write are suing their respective public school systems, arguing they were not given the free public education to which they are entitled.

Cornell Law School Professor William A. Jacobson, director of the Securities Law Clinic, told Fox News Digital the lawsuits signify a "much deeper problem" with the American public school system.

"I think these cases reflect a deeper problem in education. For each of these cases, there are probably tens of thousands of students who never got a proper education — they get pushed along the system," Jacobson said. "Unfortunately … we've created incentives, particularly for public school systems, to just push students along and not to hold them accountable."

President Donald Trump has railed against the Department of Education for "failing American students," a White House fact sheet published Thursday reads. The administration has suggested plans to eliminate the Department altogether, directing education authority to individual states.

"Since 1979, the U.S. Department of Education has spent over $3 trillion with virtually nothing to show for it," the fact sheet reads. "Despite per-pupil spending having increased by more than 245% over that period, there has been virtually no measurable improvement in student achievement: Math and reading scores for 13-year-olds are at the lowest level in decades. … Seven-in-ten fourth and eighth graders are not proficient in reading, while 40% of fourth grade students don’t even meet basic reading levels."

An appellate court judge recently sided with Tennessee student William A., ruling that the student was denied the free public education to which he is entitled under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

"William graduated from high school without being able to read or even to spell his own name," Circuit Judge Raymond Kethledge wrote in his judgment. "That was because, per the terms of his IEPs, he relied on a host of accommodations that masked his inability to read."

To write a paper, William would speak the topic into a speech-to-text software and paste the words into an AI app like Chat-GPT, which would then "generate a paper on that topic," Kethledge explained. William would then paste that text back into his own document and "run that paper through another software program like Grammarly, so that it reflected an appropriate writing style."

William, who has severe dyslexia, went through 12 years of public education with an individualized education program (IEP), never learned to read or write, and still graduated with a 3.4 GPA, according to court documents.

When William was in 9th grade in 2020, a special education teacher asked a school psychologist to "[p]lease take a look at William [A]. I am very concerned."

The teacher stated: "this kid can’t read," according to the suit.

The Clarksville-Montgomery County School System (CMCSS) in Tennessee, "knowing he cannot read, passed him right along, creating an artificial GPA of 3.41 by the end of eleventh grade putting William on a path to regular education diploma, even though he lacked basic reading skills," the original complaint reads.

CMCSS told Fox News Digital it does not comment on pending litigation.

"By March 2023, William could not consistently spell his own first and last name while signing his IEP. And in June 2023, William’s own writing sample illustrated he was unable to write more than 31 words in three minutes. He misspelled half the words, all of which were Kindergarten level sight words he had memorized," the lawsuit reads.

In a similar lawsuit out of Connecticut, a high school graduate named Aleysha Ortiz argues similarly that she went through years of public education in Hartford County with a learning disability and IEP without ever being taught how to read or write.

Ortiz not only graduated with honors, but she was also admitted into the University of Connecticut, according to the complaint.

Ortiz argues in her complaint that while her reading and writing skills were not properly addressed, she presented "younger than her age socially and emotionally" and was subjected to bullying.

Like William, Ortiz began using "assistive technology to help her read and write, and advocated for herself tirelessly in school," the complaint states.

"In May 2024, the Plaintiff reported to her case manager and PPT that she had been accepted and planned to attend the University of Connecticut after graduation," the complaint states. "She told them that she was concerned that she was not prepared for college and would not be able to obtain the accommodations she would need in college to be successful due to the Board’s refusal to permit proper testing."

Ortiz was concerned that her elementary-level reading and writing skills would "impact her ability to be successful in college," but "[t]t wasn’t until approximately one month before graduation that the [Hartford Board of Education] agreed to conduct additional testing that the Plaintiff had been asking for."

The Hartford Board of Education told Fox News Digital that it does not comment on pending litigation.

Hartford Public Schools also does not comment on pending litigation, but the school system told Fox News Digital in a statement that it remains "deeply committed to meeting the full range of needs our students bring with them when they enter our schools — and helping them reach their full potential."

Jacobson told Fox News Digital that "in fairness" to teachers and school districts, they are "caught between various forces pushing against each other."

"On the one hand, there's oftentimes money tied to performance. And if you fail students, if you don't advance them, that could affect the funding that the school district gets," he explained. "There are individual students who have parents who … want them not to fail. And so there's a lot of pressure there."

An increasing number of public school students have IEPs, meaning more students have individualized learning programs that teachers, who are already overwhelmed by national employee shortages, must accommodate by law.

"Obviously, it varies district to district," Jacobson said. "Some have perfectly good intentions. Some have maybe not good intentions and just want to go along to get along."

The Cornell Law professor added that while he does not see AI going anywhere in the future of education, "we've got to be very firm that AI does not end up actually dumbing down the students rather than informing the students, because you can become very dependent on it, and that's another problem, but it's one we can't ignore."

Additionally, Jacobson said, parents should be more focused on helping their children to read and write.

"I think parents would be better focused on helping their students and their children learn, rather than worrying about the next lawsuit," he said. "I realize that might be a little unrealistic, because we are in a culture of trying to cash in on lawsuits, but I think our energy should be focused on fixing the system and getting students properly treated, as opposed to: how are we going to sue the school district?"

Justin Gilbert, the attorney representing William A., told Fox News Digital that "[w]ith up to 20% of the students in the United States having dyslexia, William’s case reinforces the need for dyslexia-trained teachers."

"Most of us take reading for granted, but once we move outside the ‘reading window’ of the elementary school years, learning to read becomes much harder," Gilbert said. "That’s particularly true for students with dyslexia. William’s case is a reminder, though a tragic one, of the need for greater awareness of dyslexia in the public schools."

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Vittoria Elliott at Wired:

Elon Musk’s takeover of federal government infrastructure is ongoing, and at the center of things is a coterie of engineers who are barely out of—and in at least one case, purportedly still in—college. Most have connections to Musk and at least two have connections to Musk’s longtime associate Peter Thiel, a cofounder and chairman of the analytics firm and government contractor Palantir who has long expressed opposition to democracy. WIRED has identified six young men—all apparently between the ages of 19 and 24, according to public databases, their online presences, and other records—who have little to no government experience and are now playing critical roles in Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project, tasked by executive order with “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” The engineers all hold nebulous job titles within DOGE, and at least one appears to be working as a volunteer. The engineers are Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran. None have responded to requests for comment from WIRED. Representatives from OPM, GSA, and DOGE did not respond to requests for comment. Already, Musk’s lackeys have taken control of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and General Services Administration (GSA), and have gained access to the Treasury Department’s payment system, potentially allowing him access to a vast range of sensitive information about tens of millions of citizens, businesses, and more. On Sunday, CNN reported that DOGE personnel attempted to improperly access classified information and security systems at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and that top USAID security officials who thwarted the attempt were subsequently put on leave. The AP reported that DOGE personnel had indeed accessed classified material. “What we're seeing is unprecedented in that you have these actors who are not really public officials gaining access to the most sensitive data in government,” says Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “We really have very little eyes on what's going on. Congress has no ability to really intervene and monitor what's happening because these aren't really accountable public officials. So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world.”

[...] “To the extent these individuals are exercising what would otherwise be relatively significant managerial control over two very large agencies that deal with very complex topics,” says Nick Bednar, a professor at University of Minnesota’s school of law, “it is very unlikely they have the expertise to understand either the law or the administrative needs that surround these agencies.” Sources tell WIRED that Bobba, Coristine, Farritor, and Shaotran all currently have working GSA emails and A-suite level clearance at the GSA, which means that they work out of the agency’s top floor and have access to all physical spaces and IT systems, according a source with knowledge of the GSA’s clearance protocols. The source, who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity because they fear retaliation, says they worry that the new teams could bypass the regular security clearance protocols to access the agency’s sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), as the Trump administration has already granted temporary security clearances to unvetted people. This is in addition to Coristine and Bobba being listed as “experts” working at OPM. Bednar says that while staff can be loaned out between agencies for special projects or to work on issues that might cross agency lines, it’s not exactly common practice.

WIRED’s report on the 6 college-aged men between 19 and 24 that are shaping up DOGE in aiding and abetting in co-”President” Elon Musk’s technofascist takeover.

[mariacallous]

Following a White House edict effectively banning federal employees from disclosing their personal pronouns in email signatures, sources within multiple federal agencies say pronouns are now being systemically blocked across multiple email clients and other software.

WIRED confirmed various automated efforts with employees at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the General Services Administration (GSA), the US Department of Agriculture, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The employees spoke to WIRED on condition of anonymity, citing fears of retaliation.

Multiple agency directors sent emails over the weekend telling staff that, due to President Donald Trump’s executive order, their offices would be removing the pronoun capability from Office 365. Employees were told they’d also need to remove pronouns from their email signatures in order to comply with the directive.

A staffer at USAID says the formal deactivation of their ability to list pronouns occurred last week, in response to executive orders defining sexes issued by President Trump on his first day in office. A GSA staffer says pronouns were wiped from employees’ email signatures after hours on Friday and were also no longer visible in Slack, the workplace messaging app. At the CDC, there used to be a section for employees to share their pronouns on their Teams profiles, another workplace app. That field no longer exists.

Reached for comment, the White House transferred WIRED to OPM communications director McLaurine Pinover, who pointed to January 29 memorandum ordering agencies to disable all features “that prompt users for their pronouns.”

The ban on personal pronouns follows sweeping efforts by the White House to eliminate programs that encourage diversity and social justice within the federal government, as well as other references to “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in federal employees’ discourse.

In a striking example of the policy in action, an image surfaced last week of a wall being painted over at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Quantico, Virginia, academy due to it listing "diversity" among the bureau's core values. (According to an email from the FBI’s Office of Integrity and Compliance obtained by Mother Jones, the bureau no longer counts "diversity" among its core values.)

The Trump administration began a radical campaign last week aimed at inducing members of the federal workforce to leave their jobs ahead of threatened reductions. The effort is spearheaded by Elon Musk, leader of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a task force that has effectively seized control of several federal agencies and sensitive government systems with apparent clearance from the White House.

WIRED reported last week that Musk’s outfit had effectively taken over the Office of Personnel Management, the US government’s human resources department. In this and other efforts, it is employing inexperienced young engineers whose ages range from 19 to 24—many of whom, public records show, are former interns or have been affiliated with Musk-aligned companies.

OPM emailed federal workers on January 28 with a “deferred resignation offer,” sparking widespread confusion among federal workers. (DOGE’s own new HR chief was unable to answer basic questions about the offer in a contentious staff meeting last week, WIRED reported.) In an email to staff Sunday evening, OPM clarified whether the deferred resignation program complied with existing privacy laws. “Yes,” read the answer. “The deferred resignation program uses only basic contact information about federal employees, like name and government address, along with short, voluntary email responses. The information is stored on government systems. To the extent that the Privacy Act applies, all information relevant to the program is covered by existing OPM System Records Notices.”

Multiple agency sources told WIRED last week that several of Musk's lieutenants had been granted access to key computer systems controlled by the GSA, an independent agency tasked by Congress with overseeing federal buildings and providing equipment, supplies, and IT support across the government.