R.NF

Summary

Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, Episcopal bishop at the Washington National Cathedral, directly confronted Donald Trump during his inaugural prayer service, urging him to show compassion for marginalized groups.

She criticized his policies on LGBTQ rights, mass deportations, and immigration, calling for mercy toward undocumented immigrants and children fearing family separation.

Trump dismissed the sermon as "not too exciting," while his supporters condemned Budde’s remarks as inappropriate.

Budde’s bold address marked the first public challenge to Trump’s agenda during his second term.

Summary

Elon Musk faced backlash after making a gesture at a Trump inauguration event resembling a Nazi salute, sparking condemnation in Germany.

Critics, including Jewish leaders and Chancellor Olaf Scholz, called the act provocative and linked it to Musk's support for Germany's far-right AfD party.

Musk dismissed the accusations, calling them baseless.

Legal experts noted the gesture could be prosecuted under German law if malicious intent is proven.

Critics stressed its troubling context given the far-right audience and Musk’s political affiliations.

Summary

Elise Stefanik, President Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to the UN, stated during her confirmation hearing that Israel has a "biblical right" to the occupied West Bank, aligning with far-right Israeli officials.

Stefanik sidestepped support for Palestinian self-determination, blaming their leadership for failures.

Her stance signals a shift from Biden-era opposition to Israeli settlements, with Trump lifting sanctions on Israeli settler groups and nominating pro-settlement figures like Mike Huckabee for key roles.

Stefanik also vowed to audit UN funding and block aid to Palestinian refugee agencies.

cross-posted from:l https://lemm.ee/post/53261204

I saw this on Al Jazeera first but it was largely just a video which a) nobody needs to see that and b) there was no real context, Israel shoots Palestinian kids a LOT, it could have been from before the cease fire.

This seems to confirm it is in breach of the cease fire, surprising nobody.

Edit Truthout tried to link to X for the video which naturally has been removed, so here's what I saw on Al Jazeera.

Warning: Blurred human body, adult male attempting to recover it being fired on.

https://aje.io/wcztyr?update=3454991

Feel free to remove this, mods, if it's too tangential to modern science, but I thought the community might find this early nature vs. nurture hypothesis amusing

There are many #Friendica fans, and for good reason. Once you get past the learning curve from the difficult UI, you get to appreciate the extra benefits of built-in #Bluesky, #Lemmy/#Piefed/#MBIN, #Tumblr, and #RSS feed integration. It also has #Diasporia integration and some other protocol integrations. Of course, it's also a #Mastodon alternative.

Nobody ever mentions Friendica as being a #Threadiverse app, but it has Groups, which is built-in Threadiverse capability. If you follow a Community on Lemmy/Piefed/MBIN, for example, it gets categorized as a group and is placed into a separate section for the groups you are part of. Then you can read and post in the Group (Community/Magazine) just like you would on a Threadiverse application. You can also create public and private groups.

And there is no need to use a Bluesky bridge if the Friendica instance you are on has the integration turned on.

Here's an excellent 5-minute video showing Friendica created by @[email protected] for those interested in seeing how it works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFGLRgnaeLc

Archived copies of the article:

• archive.today
• ghostarchive.org

Original:

The response itself is here:

... now do Snowden!

Summary

A coalition of 22 Democratic-led states, the District of Columbia, and San Francisco filed a federal lawsuit against Donald Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to noncitizen or temporary resident parents.

The suit argues the order violates the 14th Amendment and the 1898 Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

If upheld, the order could deny citizenship to over 150,000 children annually.

Additional lawsuits target other Trump orders weakening civil service protections and launching Musk-led government reforms.

There’s been some debate over the last year or so regarding Bluesky and how decentralized it really is. There has also been a growing fear that “enshittification is inevitable.” Or, worse, that an “evil billionaire” might take it over and ruin it the way other platforms have been ruined.

But I think it’s important to understand that Bluesky has, effectively, created a technological poison pill: by building on an open protocol, ATprotocol, the system itself can be rebuilt outside of Bluesky, but in a way where everyone can continue to communicate, and that creates incredible incentives that undermine any evil billionaires, and would actually punish Bluesky (or anyone else!) should they try to enshittify.

Just enjoying my new programmer socks in front of my Debian 12 Linux OS that looks like WindowsXP.

Summary

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), touted as a bold initiative to slash federal spending and dismantle bureaucracy, is a rebranding of the Obama-era United States Digital Service (USDS).

The renamed agency will focus on modernizing federal IT and reducing workforce inefficiencies, falling short of its initial promises to cut $2 trillion in spending.

Backlash has emerged, with unions filing lawsuits over concerns of corporate favoritism and lack of transparency.

Critics argue the initiative prioritizes wealthy interests while undermining federal employees and government accountability.

The response itself is here: