It appears Bill Cassidy is going to make every effort to ignore his own culpability for RFK Jr. on his way out the door. In case you need to be reminded, Cassidy was a key, if not deciding vote to confirm RFK Jr. to his current role as Secretary of HHS. Cassidy’s background is as […]
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The American academic research engine has long been the envy of the world. Generally well-funded, labs in the United States have been able to attract the best minds who generate breakthroughs and train the next generation workforce that powers the U.S. economy. But since the start of the […]
To lose one speech-suppressing SLAPP suit may be regarded as thoughtless. To lose two looks like you’re a censorial hack. Last month we wrote about how supposed “free speech warrior” Matt Taibbi (who spent years misrepresenting the work of people who study disinformation as inherently censorial, while getting pretty basic facts wrong) had lost his […]
Google didn’t invent full-text search of the Internet – that honor belongs to early pioneers such as WebCrawler, Lycos and AltaVista. But for the last 25 years or so, Google has been synonymous with online searching, providing the quickest and most effective way to find things online (although its results may be getting worse.) More recently, it has been adding […]
It’s no secret that Photoshop can be a bit dense when you’re first getting your feet wet with it. That’s why it pays to have a expert instructors show you the ropes. Led by a Photoshop pro, the Complete Photoshop Master Class Bundle will help you master Photoshop CC and become an expert—no prior experience […]
If federal officers are going to murder another person, it will likely happen here. Newark, New Jersey is the newest battleground for the administration, as Trump goes to war with his own constituents. The foundation was laid months ago, when ICE officers assaulted, arrested, and illegally refused to grant access to detention facilities to congressional […]
I’ve noted repeatedly how the Trump administration is going out of its way to not only destroy all oversight of the country’s shitty and predatory telecom monopolies, but to eliminate any and all systems that try to ensure that U.S. broadband access is actually affordable. This stuff often runs in parallel to the administration’s brutal […]
Cases of measles in American continue to rise. As of June 5th of this year, the official case count in the country stood at 2,030 confirmed cases. In 2025’s record breaking year for measles cases, the most we’d had in 3 decades, there were 2,288 confirmed cases. We’re going to speed right past that number […]
California lawmakers are again considering A.B. 412, a bill that would require AI developers to identify and disclose copyrighted works used to train generative AI systems. The problem this year is the same as last year: it’s practically impossible to comply with this law. The bill demands information that often does not exist, and cannot realistically be obtained. EFF […]
The more things change, the more they remain the same. That could be said of anywhere in this country, now that the Trump administration is trying to turn the clock back to 1940, if not 1840. But it’s especially true in Los Angeles, where law enforcement agencies have apparently learned nothing, despite being the ignition […]
Last month Terry Godier published a great essay on his website about “the boring internet,” discussing how the internet that many of us grew up with, the wonderful, empowering, exciting internet that moved power to the edges of the network rather than the center, is still there. It’s just hidden beneath enshittified commercial layers put […]
The 2026 Data Engineering Bundle has 7 online courses designed to help learners build skills that align directly with industry expectations. The focus is on practical tools and languages used by data professionals: Python for programming, Pandas and NumPy for data manipulation, foundational certification prep and specialized work with Databricks, an industry-standard platform for data engineering […]
The Trump administration has thrown billions at purging non-white people from this country. Most of that has ended up in the hands of ICE, which has — in turn — thrown hundreds of millions at a number of private companies offering bespoke and/or off-the-shelf surveillance solutions. The slide down the slippery slope began less than […]
On one hand, the Trump administration wants to destroy most corporate oversight, consumer protection, labor rights, and regulatory autonomy. On the other hand, the administration very much wants to abuse government power and wield regulatory oversight in all sorts of terrible ways that censor speech, stifle journalism, and enable corrupt cronyism. I’ve long noted how […]
Back in January of this year, RFK Jr. clearly strong armed the CDC into changing the childhood vaccination schedules in America to mimic those of Denmark. The public messaging was crafted to sound as reasonable as possible and amounted to a claim that America was going to revise vaccination schedules to match those of another […]
President Trump’s highly politicized appointment of an entirely unqualified acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) underscores why the government’s warrantless mass spying power must be reformed. Congress now faces a deadline of Friday, June 12 to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, an unconstitutional program rife with problems, loopholes, and compliance issues. Section […]
Support us on Patreon » The concept of “enshittification” has helped illuminate why companies and their products so often get worse over time, but the causes of this process are complex and multifaceted. In his new book Incorruptible, author Eric Ries presents a related but contrasting take on how good companies go bad, and how to […]
In the last three months I’ve had people forward me four separate examples of a CEO losing his or her mind over AI. What’s been striking to me is the similarity in each case: It would be an “all hands” email in which the CEO talks up how amazing LLM tools are and saying that […]
The Ultimate Python and Artificial Intelligence Bundle has 9 courses to help you take your Python and AI knowledge to the next level. You’ll learn about data pre-processing and visualization, artificial neural networks, how to use the Keras framework, and more. It’s on sale for $40. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated […]
Trump has loved “travel bans” since his first term in office. It has nothing to do with making America safer or better and everything to do with making America whiter. People were opposed to Trump’s blanket bans all the way back in 2017, when the heads of tech companies managed to collectively grow enough spine […]
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