Tuesday, October 7, 2025

Reading archive 2025-10-07

Tesla said it didn’t have key data in a fatal crash. Then a hacker found it.: The critical evidence was presented last month to a jury, which found the company partially liable for the 2019 crash in Key Largo, Florida.

The Taliban are reaching out — and some countries are responding: Anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe, concerns about militancy in Asia and acceptance that the Taliban regime is unlikely to collapse soon present a diplomatic opening.

His wife was dying, his federal job crumbling. It tested his faith — in God and Trump.: One federal worker was rejected three times from the administration’s early resignation offer. Would he blame the president he voted for? - "Brandon hit pause. Trump’s treatment of the federal workforce was clearly an error, he thought. The president had delegated authority to bad people, especially Musk and the young engineers running DOGE, who didn’t understand or care about the government and the people who made it function. But Trump had a lot to manage, Brandon thought. He probably didn’t know about everything Musk and DOGE were doing." [ed. note: "If the fuhrer knew!", or naive monarchism]

‘I escaped a Russian prison — only to end up in an American jail’: Dozens of Russian dissidents have been expelled from the US and forcibly returned to Russia with the co-operation of immigration authorities - "When the dissidents arrived in Russia, the Russian authorities were given documents relating to their asylum applications in the US. Those dossiers, outlining their political beliefs and criticisms of Putin, could be used to prosecute them back home, campaigners believe."

The Anti-Trump Strategy That’s Actually Working: Lawsuits, lawsuits, and more lawsuits

Ukraine’s Most Lethal Soldiers: From the front lines in Kherson, with a unit that kills Russians for points

Judge in Comey case is known for sparing but powerful remarks in court: U.S. District Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff, a former public defender nominated by President Joe Biden, has a reputation as a measured jurist.

To defeat the Texas gerrymander, Democrats need to go nuclear: It’s not enough for blue states to redraw their maps. Leaders need to hit the GOP where it hurts most.

It’s Time for Soft Secession: How blue states can use their economic clout to stand up to Trump’s agenda—starting with California. - "As my colleague Ari Berman has noted: 'In 1790, the country’s most populous state, Virginia, had 12 times as many people as its least populous, Delaware. Today, California has 67 times the population of Wyoming. Fifteen small states with 41 million people combined now routinely elect 30 GOP senators; California, with 39 million residents, is represented by only two Democrats.'

...

"Blue states could lure away techies, doctors, nurses, and electricians with relocation bonuses. We could institute tax and other incentives to pull new factories and data centers away from red states. We could selectively terminate professional licensing reciprocity. We could ease commerce between friendly states and make it difficult for unfriendly ones."

Eventually You're Going to Have to Stand for Something: On accepting the fascist offer and being better than Ezra. - "Klein has demonstrated his commitment to open discourse and public debate; first by having prominent hatemonger Ben Shapiro (friendship status uncertain) on to his podcast to chat for a couple hours about the need for unity; next, by having on his friend Ta-Nehisi Coates—who has written an excellent piece criticizing Ezra's Kirk piece—so Klein could talk at Coates for an hour about how we need to be practical to regain power, and how those practicalities are going to have to come at the expense of the humanity of some of our neighbors, and how having historical conversations about who in fact has been killing who is all a little too much of a downer. The fact of interview with Shapiro and the content of the interview with Coates exposed Klein's moral emptiness in ways that he should find deeply embarrassing.

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"This is the grain of sand at the center of the pearl of my ire, because 'we are going to have to live here with each other' is the exact premise that Republicans do not agree with any of us about, and while Klein in his remarks pays lip service to some of the recent proofs of this clear fact, his analysis of what to do about it he excises this reality entirely. In his mind, he and Kirk were just two guys, both trying to change the country for what they thought was good. It's a bond. Never mind that what Kirk thought was good was the American military in the streets of Chicago, and mass kidnapping in service of a white ethnostate, and the end of bodily autonomy for women and queer people, and so forth. In the Klein world, moral clarity about abuse is polarizing, and polarization, not abuse, is the problem to solve.

Should you brush your teeth before or after breakfast? What experts say.: There are pros and cons for both.

Three people found fatally shot in D.C. in three days: Three youths, one with a gun, took a moped in broad daylight on Capitol Hill.

Federal workers not entitled to back pay after shutdown, budget office claims: The government shutdown entered its seventh day Wednesday with no end in sight. The White House says a 2019 law doesn’t guarantee retroactive pay.

D.C. teacher aide on leave after allegedly putting hot sauce in autistic boy’s mouth: A D.C. teacher aide has been placed on leave after allegedly putting hot sauce in the mouth of a nonverbal autistic student.

Country singer Zach Bryan warns ICE will ‘bust down your door’ in new song: Bryan, a Grammy winner, upset some right-wing fans when he appeared to criticize U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a teaser of a new song.

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