Issues You May Know, 2 May 2025.
A list of things you might want to know about - or write your reps about.
The tech tycoon fueled bulldozing of the National Parks system under the Trump regime.
The mass firing downsizing team headed up by former hacker gang type youth employees is taking over the entirety of the U.S. National Parks.
Fodor's Travel - DOGE Is Now in Charge of U.S. National Parks - Apeksha Bhateja | April 24, 2025 The Interior Department has come under the control of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). This means that the tech mogul’s team will be able to make changes to more than 400 national parks in the U.S. and over 500 million acres of federal land. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum signed an order to give control to DOGE executive Tyler Hassen
The comments section on the Fodor's Travel included a troll comment praising DOGE with the typical bogus claims of getting rid of waste, and the replies pretty clearly demonstrated how that claim isn't going to fly with National Parks, which are beloved to people across the political spectrum. Only mega tycoons and moguls who can buy their own vast estates disregard the popularity of public parks, forests, and game lands.
johnschoonover3203: "Grow up and stop drinking the Trump Kool-Aid. The only things he and Musk care about is money and power. The fact that there are millions and millions of Americans who love our national parks and the connection with nature that they provide is of no consequence whatever to them. And there is obviously very little "mismanagement" in the National Park Service, as evidenced by the way they have kept our parks open and functioning on a shoestring for years. They need more money, not less, and more employees, not fewer."
Cancer treatment books shouldn't be written with a chatbot.
This shouldn't even have to be said.
Pivot to AI $119 Springer cancer treatments book: ‘As an AI language model …’ - David Gerard 12 April 2025 – (video) $119 Springer cancer book: ‘As an AI language model ...’ Pivot to AI Apr 12, 2025 Peter Purgathofer looked over “Advanced Nanovaccines for Cancer Immunotherapy” by Nanasaheb Thorat, published in March by Springer Nature. On page 25, he found why we pay Springer the big bucks: [hci.social] "It is important to note that as an AI language model, I can provide a general perspective, but you should consult with medical professionals for personalized advice." Springer was selling this book for $119 to $160. Others say the rest of the book reads a lot like sloppy LLM cut-and-paste. Some of the references don’t say what they’re cited as backing — in a manner that looks a lot like how LLMs generate citations.
My letter to reps:
We need penalties for people using chatbots to write scam medical books like the one recently being sold recently by Springer that had telltale AI text on page 25, and professionals reported read like sloppy chatbot stuff. This is not just fraudulent but could cost people's lives and health when it's being used for medical texts.
Please feel free to copy or repurpose for your own letters to reps.
Hallucinating chatbot healthcare tech tools hopped up on medical conference hype. What could possibly go wrong? AI hype is so normalized that of course tech tycoons and private equity think that healthcare should run on hype filled apps and downsizing staff. Chloe Humbert Aug 04, 2024
Unqualified Trump nominee was pals with the weird Hitler mustache guy and ghostwrote propaganda attacking judges.
UPDATE: U.S. Attorney nominee pals around with little Timmy Hitler - Fight the Fire Apr 26, 2025 By Sam Bellamy He’s especially memorable for once sporting a Hitler mustache and for frequently spewing antisemitic remarks to former co-workers, including lamenting that the Nazis didn’t “finish the job” of eliminating Jews. Martin has appeared at numerous events with little Timmy in recent years, including two last summer at Bedminster. At an August soiree, Martin presented an award to Hale-Cusanelli, calling him an “extraordinary leader.” But in an interview published Thursday in the Forward, a Jewish publication, Martin couldn’t seem to apologize enough for his association with the extraordinary Nazi. He’s clearly worried he’ll lose U.S. Senate approval for his nomination because of his friendship with the man.
ProPublica The Untold Story of How Ed Martin Ghostwrote Online Attacks Against a Judge — and Still Became a Top Trump Prosecutor by Jeremy Kohler and Andy Kroll April 24, 2025, 5 a.m. EDT ProPublica obtained previously unreported documents filed in the case that show Martin had bought a laptop for Gray and that she subsequently offered to “happily write something to attack this judge.” And when she did, Martin ghostwrote more posts for her to use and coached her on how to make her comments look more “organic.” “That is not justice but a rigged system,” he urged her to write. “Shame on you and this broken legal system.” “Call what he did unfair and rigged over and over,” Martin continued. Martin even urged Gray to message the judge privately. “Go slow and steady,” he advised. “Make it organic.” Gray appeared to take Martin’s advice.
Senator Adam Schiff is trying to slow down the nomination process for obvious reasons.
Politics Former federal prosecutors for D.C. sign memo opposing Ed Martin as D.C. U.S. attorney By Updated on: April 28, 2025 / 6:13 PM EDT / CBS News His nomination has been a flashpoint of controversy since the beginning of the Trump administration. Martin lacks any prosecutorial experience, served as an advocate in the "Stop the Steal" movement denying the 2020 election results, worked as a defense lawyer on Jan. 6 Capitol riot cases and fired some of the lawyers who prosecuted Jan. 6 defendants. Senate Democrats have blasted Martin's selection, with Sen. Adam Schiff, a first-term California Democrat, calling Martin unqualified and dangerous for the role of U.S. attorney. Schiff has placed a hold on Martin's nomination, seeking to slow down the confirmation process. Schiff and other Senate Democrats have also requested a confirmation hearing be held for Martin's nomination, which — if approved — would be the first confirmation hearing for a U.S. attorney nominee in 40 years.
My letter to reps:
Ed Martin was pals with the weird Hitler mustache guy and ghostwrote social media propaganda attacking judges. This person is clearly unqualified and shouldn't be voted for by anyone.
Please feel free to copy or repurpose for your own letters to reps.
Conspiracy theories about immigrant truck drivers based on the MCMIS database similar to VAERS database anti-vax conspiracy fictions.
No, millions of foreign truck drivers aren’t flooding into the U.S. (American Trucking Associations) Mar 12, 2025 A smattering of media reports has advanced a dubious claim that millions of foreign truck drivers have flooded into the U.S. in recent years, displacing American workers and jeopardizing highway safety. The basis for the claim is an analysis of federal data that purports to show 1.68 million commercial driver's license (CDL) holders added to the U.S. driver pool between 2016 and 2024. While the originators of the claim do not explicitly source their data, all indications are it comes from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS). This analysis is deeply flawed on two levels. First, the CDL data in the MCMIS database includes more than just Class A CDL holders operating heavy-duty tractor-trailers. It also includes Class B CDL holders for vehicles like buses, limos, and various utility vans used by cable, plumbing, and construction companies (many of which require employees to obtain CDLs for safety and insurance purposes, even though not required by law). To claim or insinuate the additional CDLs added over the last decade are all for the tractor-trailer driver market is incorrect. But even more to the point, a glaring problem with the MCMIS database is that it is self-reported and subject to massive data entry errors.
This story is about a right-wing conspiracy about CDLs based on misinterpreting things on the MCMIS database. and it really reminds me of how anti-vax conspiracy fictions use the VAERS database to mix up data that doesn't show anything like what they say.
You're using VAERS wrong Debunk the Funk with Dr. Wilson Premiered Dec 21, 2021 Dr. Wilson: "This is a system that anybody can report adverse events to, and while doctors are required to report serious adverse events following vaccination to this system anybody can report anything to it. Even if the event clearly had nothing to do with the vaccine or didn't happen at all. For example, events reported to and documented by the VAERS database have in the past included things like getting a bald spot, getting a nosebleed, being turned homosexual, and even being turned into the Incredible Hulk."
And now Trump plans to make federal policy based on the trucker conspiracy theory, while RFKJr is making federal policy based on anti-vax bullshit.
The New Republic - Malcolm Ferguson / April 28, 2025 Trump Prepares to Sign Order Inspired by MAGA Conspiracy Theory Donald Trump’s next order will hit the trucking industry. “Establishing English as the official language will not only streamline communication but also reinforce shared national values, and create a more cohesive and efficient society.”
This sounds creepy and we all know what it sounds like, what doesn't make sense is why conservative Republicans are ok with it.
RFKJr called chronic illness "injuries" to invoke what has become a conspiracy anti-vax right-wing buzzword term.
RFK has never seen an adult with "full blown" autism - David Pakman Show Apr 27, 2025
David Pakman played a clip of RFKJr making inappropriate statements as usual, and noted the word "injury" being used being odd, but didn't spell out why he used that word, when it's obvious to anyone paying attention anti-vax misinformation and the online milieu of anti-vax activists. "Vaccine injury" is a buzzword term used in these social media circles.
The Daily Show - Pizzagate: Are Democrats Harvesting Children’s Blood? - Jordan Klepper Fingers the Conspiracy Jul 10, 2023 Elise Wang: that's what really struck me about pizzagate it was the first time that i really saw this where you could see there was already this this theory about a pedophile ring being run by the clintons and it was kind of a theory in need of specifics and so they went out seeking specifics and they decided basically randomly that comet ping pong was going to be the place and then it started this sort of multimedia propaganda campaign where people they got people to call and harass as matt was saying um they got people to flood the the yelp reviews and the google reviews and people to go and harass the proprietor and then this sort of culminated in the guy who drove up from north carolina to self-investigate but that wasn't really the the story the story was that then people talked about it that then it was in the national media for like 48 hours like a whole week and it was not only in the media their theory was in the media and i went back to the message boards afterwards and they were just beside themselves with joy over this like it was not a it's not at all about oh our guy was arrested whoops or huh he didn't really seem to find anything um it was not about that it was about the media exposure and then there were sort of further suggestions well how can we get them to keep denying it so they keep saying it so people keep googling it and when i was seeing that i was like oh this is something else this is this is a kind of savvy media campaign that i think most of us at that point were not totally familiar with now we know if you mention something you have to be very careful what what sort of buzzwords you mentioned because it will sort of feed the conspiracy theory monster
It drives engagement, probably because there's some money sloshing around anti-vax misinformation. Content creators learn what words to use (and not to use) in order to engage the attention of an audience which sometimes includes the troll farms which are paid to boost certain topics.
Axios - The global business of professional trolling. By Sara Fischer, Apr 13, 2021 Professional political trolling is still a thriving underground industry around the world, despite crackdowns from the biggest tech firms. Why it matters: Coordinated online disinformation efforts offer governments and political actors a fast, cheap way to get under rivals' skin. They also offer a paycheck to people who are eager for work, typically in developing countries. "It's a more sophisticated means of disinformation to weaken your advisories," said Todd Carroll, CISO and VP of Cyber Operations at CybelAngel.
At any rate there's a reason RFKJr doesn't remember people with autism from back in his day, and PA state Rep Abigail Salisbury explained that:
Salisbury: Defending Those on the Spectrum - Pa. House Video Apr 23, 2025 Auto-transcript: Rep. Abigail Salisbury: "He spoke recently and he said he's never met someone his age who has, quote, full-blown autism. I'm not sure what full-blown autism is, never seen that in the DSM-5 as a diagnostic criteria, but presumably he means someone who has more of a life impact than I have. Well, sir, there's a reason why you didn't see them when you were growing up. Because you're closer to the age that my father was, if he were still alive today. than you are to my age. There's a reason you didn't see them. It's because they were placed in institutions and chained to radiators. They were not allowed to go to public school. You wouldn't have seen them in the schools that Kennedys went to. And we all know how that family resolved someone who had a neurological difference, and they ended up in such a facility for the rest of their lives. You wouldn't have seen people with quote, full blown autism in public because they were deemed disappointments to their family and they were hidden away. They were taken away at a young age and they were placed in institutions. so that people didn't have to interact with them. So I'm sorry you didn't see them in your day-to-day life, but they were there and they were suffering in cold, miserable places because people didn't think that they were good enough to get services or to be allowed to stay with their families who you say that they destroyed."
Weird constituent treatment by Tennessee Republican.
The story that Kristi Burke tells about Rep Diana Harsbarger's staff constituent contacts is just so outside what could be considered or should be considered normal.
This is how Harshbarger’s (TN-1) staff treats constituents Jezebel Vibes Apr 28, 2025
This story about calling the office and having people disguising their voice somehow is just beyond… And this is the same rep that called Al Green "boy" recently.
Brazen White GOP Rep Refuses to Apologize for Racial Insult William Vaillancourt Tue, April 22, 2025 at 6:47 PM EDT A white GOP congresswoman who called Texas Rep. Al Green “boy” didn’t apologize for her comment Tuesday and instead claimed that the senior Black lawmaker is “blowing it out of proportion.” More than 24 hours after an interview clip of her using the word in reference to Green gained attention, Tennessee Rep. Diana Harshbarger finally responded on social media. “The weather is warming up, so naturally, the snowflakes are starting to melt!” Harshbarger wrote on X, reposting the clip of her interview with Tennessee religious group F.A.M.E. Ministries.
The American president shouldn't be able to take envelopes full of cryptocurrency from moguls and foreign agents attempting to curry favour.
Moguls are polluting communities to print cryptocurrency while providing no power to the grid, some even get tax breaks or at least are promoted by politicians. And now the moguls – because who else could afford it (other than agents of foreign nations) – are bringing envelopes full of this "asset" to basically attempt to bribe Trump and members of his family.
CNBC - Trump dinner for meme coin buyers prompts senators to demand ethics probe Published Fri, Apr 25 20252:57 PM EDTUpdated Fri, Apr 25 20256:34 PM EDT MacKenzie Sigalos Ari Levy “President Trump’s announcement promises exclusive access to the presidency in exchange for significant investment in one of the President’s business ventures,” the senators wrote on Friday, in a letter shared with CNBC. The value of the coin surged by more than $100 million after the announcement, raising concerns that Trump and his family are personally profiting from their political influence, the senators wrote. “This latest action raises grave ethics and legal concerns, including the severe risk that President Trump and other officials may be engaging in ‘pay to play’ corruption by selling presidential access to individuals or entities, to include foreign nationals and corporate actors with vested interests in federal action, while personally enriching the President and his family,” the senators wrote.
The Majority Report show has a video explainer on the deets on the crypto meme coin being a vehicle for bribery. Trump's Pay-To-Play Crypto Presidency The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder Apr 26, 2025
And it seems like they're not even being honest about the project within itself, from what I heard on Molly White's newsletter podcast.
Citation Needed Issue 82 – E-moluments - As Celsius victims detail their devastation even under the weak crypto regulations of the past, the Trump administration continues to dismantle those same rules while he pumps his personal memecoin with promises of private access - Molly White 24 Apr 2025 Trump is continuing to enrich himself through his various crypto projects, most recently attempting to pump the price of his TRUMP memecoin by enticing the top 220 holders with invitations to a private dinner with him at his Washington, DC golf course. The top 25 of those receive an “Exclusive Reception before Dinner with YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT!” and a “Special VIP Tour”. It’s worth noting that this weakens Trump’s claim that the memecoin is not a security, as the SEC’s February statement exempting memecoins from its authority describes tokens with “limited or no use or functionality” and “lack of utility, other than for entertainment or other non-functional purposes”.19 By using the TRUMP token to gate access to an event with the president, Trump and his team have essentially morphed the token into a “utility token”.
My letter to reps:
The American president shouldn't be able to take envelopes full of cryptocurrency from moguls and foreign agents attempting to curry favour.
Please feel free to copy or repurpose for your own letters to reps.
PBS on the chopping block even after promising to abandon civil rights in service to Trump.
NPR - PBS shutters DEI office February 11, 2025T Headshot of Chloe Veltman Chloe Veltman "In order to best ensure we are in compliance with the President's executive order around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion we have closed our DEI office," the public broadcaster said in a statement shared with NPR via email.
Curious how doing some racism just to appease Trump never seems to actually help any of these institutions.
The New Republic - Malcolm Ferguson / May 2, 2025 Trump’s War on “Woke” Finally Hits NPR and PBS Donald Trump is gutting the federal funding of the two media outlets Republicans have long whined about. This order is more symbolic than anything, as both NPR and PBS receive most of their funding from independent sponsors. And yet the order would limit funding to rural areas in particular, as those stations receive the most of the sliver of government funding that NPR and PBS receive.
📍Note: Don't make content out of someone who's engaging in stalking behaviour. It's not going to do anything productive or effective. Feeding the trolls maybe gets you clicks, but rewarding stalkers with attention is dangerous. Just don't do it, it's not worth it.
Tech assisted fraudulent stuff is a reality.
404 Media - The Age of Realtime Deepfake Fraud Is Here Joseph Cox · Apr 28, 2025 at 9:00 AM The bearded man, however, doesn’t really exist. Instead, he is a realtime deepfake created by a fraudster, likely to lure the woman as part of a romance scam and have her send money. Someone filming the interaction captures what is really happening: a young Black man is sitting in front of a laptop and webcam, and software is then automatically transforming his appearance to that of the much older white man and feeding that into Skype, all live. Other realtime deepfakes from fraudsters include a Black man making himself appear as a white woman, and many cases of scammers being able to hold objects during the live call without breaking the illusion. One deepfake scammer even included an American flag in the background of their live video call.
Look after your seniors, since widowed elders are the most targeted market for a lot of these scams because they're considered vulnerable, not tech savvy, and with enough wealth to make the effort worth it for the scammers.
Bald eagle at White Deer Lake in Pennsylvania.
