🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social

Former CIA officer. Compulsive early adopter, AI entrepreneur, crypto enthusiast, amateur musician, world traveler. Слава Украïнi! 🇺🇦🌻

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

Things are going to get worse before they get better.

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

What I don’t really get is why Qatar, of all countries, is so borderline pathological about their own image management, but they clearly are, given their extensive lobbying and “other activities” like this

[Daniel Lubetzky @DanielLubetzky]

I’ve had this weight on me for a while and felt the need to share it once and for all.

Years ago, the CEO and co-founder of Semafor, a media publication, approached me. He presumably wanted me to consider investing, because he spent a significant amount of time boasting about all of his supplemental sources of revenue.

I was stunned when he bragged about getting an enormous amount of money from the government of Qatar. The pretense was that he was receiving these funds to “train journalists.” I don’t recall the precise amounts, but recall that he acknowledged that the cost to conduct this “training” was a tiny fraction of what he was getting paid - directionally it was something like getting paid $2mm to conduct a “media training” boot camp that would cost Semafor $50,000 to execute. I pointed out that it sounded like he was being bribed - that nobody with proper intentions would offer to pay something that was 20-100X off market - and no entity pretending to be a journalism outfit should accept stuff like that, as it would compromise him.

He insisted that wouldn’t happen. But over the course of many years, I’ve observed how Semafor continues to receive government sponsorships and perform all sorts of “trainings” and “conferences” in partnership with Qatar, while providing very complementary coverage to the government of Qatar. This is downright unethical - and particularly unbecoming of an outfit pretending to be “training journalists”! The problem doesn’t end with Semafor.

The government of Qatar has been buying off media, education and other groups, with reports of how it deployed billions of dollars in the US higher education system. All of us who care about ethics should demand an investigation into these practices. Regardless of whether legal authorities choose to look into this, we as the people and the consumers should admonish such egregious behavior and ensure we avoid “media” publications that are so compromised.

Countless journalists risk their lives every day to expose abuses in power. Semafor does a disservice to the profession by undermining trust.
@buildersmideast @BuildersMvt

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

As I was saying https://t.co/XH4NZCuaiY

[*Walter Bloomberg @DeItaone]

TRUMP SAYS HE DIDN’T TELL VANCE TO WRITE TO IRAN

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

They’re so hilariously bad at this

[Status-6 @Archer83Able]

"a short, intense military campaign after the midterms"

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

@EggerDC Such an own goal 🫠

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

I look forward to a congressional investigation into this and other such incidents

[Jim LaPorta @JimLaPorta]

Photos show Ukraine's Starlink was throttled during Russian strike that killed 5 in park
https://t.co/qJDRT7Uw4T

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

Great read here for espionage nerds.

[Filip Kovacevic @ChekistMonitor]

"How a #KGB Illegal Penetrated a Nuclear Power Plant Construction Company in West Germany"

My NEW article based on the Mitrokhin files.

The link: https://t.co/o9NcLKtaM4

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

Our tax code is so hopelessly, ridiculously complex that the best AI only gets an <11% pass rate. That’s the fault of Congress, not the AI. https://t.co/M28TWBMYqW

[Edward Lucas @edwardlucas]

The top-secret Russian nuclear weapons storage bunker in Kaliningrad has disappeared from Google Maps, along with the amusing reviews ("bad service, not coming back"). But there is an even better satellite picture of it here https://t.co/YSWXU7LH8F
In years to come it will be a tourist attraction, along with other imperial/colonial relics. #KG2050

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

Nobody who works at DNI should ever even be allowed to get close to a firearm, AYFKM 😂

[Dustin Volz @dnvolz]

Months into the job, spy chief Jay Clayton is trying to return his office to some of its roots, reshuffling or firing officials and halting projects he inherited from Tulsi Gabbard and Bill Pulte — including the buildout at headquarters of a firing range.
https://t.co/Ok2P58REWh

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

we 👏 don’t 👏 WANT 👏 Venezuela 👏 😭

[The Spectator Index @spectatorindex]

BREAKING: Trump says Venezuela could become the '51st state'

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

Totally normal for a former presidential candidate to [checks notes] sneak across the border in order to avoid being arrested… 🤔

[Polymarket Intel @PolymarketIntel]

Reports of Brazil's Flávio Bolsonaro is on a plane to the United States. An ally told Reuters he left Brazil after Sunday's runoff loss to Lula da Silva.

He vanished from public view Monday. He never appeared to hand his passport to federal police, as the Supreme Court ordered in a money laundering investigation against him. His passports were then cancelled. CNN Brasil reports federal police are searching for him.

His wife and two daughters are with him, per The Guardian.

Brazilian and Argentine media report he crossed into Argentina on foot before flying to the U.S. Argentine authorities have no record of his entry.

He plans to seek political asylum from the Trump administration, Metrópoles reports.

Still needs confirmation.

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

Not just him! Many such cases

[распад и неуважение @VictorKvert2008]

The main reason not to trust Russians, explained by Harry Truman.

“Do you trust the Russians?”

“No. Period.”

“Why?”

“Because they broke every agreement they ever made with me.”

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

If you prioritize protection of your vacation residence over your military production capacity AND your capital city, that suggests you aren’t really serious about winning the war

[Prof. Bonk 🇺🇦 Perverse & Unintended Consequences @actfast]

The distribution reveals the regime's true priority:

• Moscow (20 million citizens): 98 towers = 1 per 200,000 people.
• Valdai (<100,000 residents): 50 towers = 1 per 2,000 people. 10/

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

😳 oh well 🤷‍♂️

[The Assembly @InTheAssembly]

1.3 TRILLION erased from the Chinese stock market today 📉

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

are you twelve

[U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement @ICEgov]

Fake & Gay!

Moussa Diawara, the Malian national featured in this shockingly poorly researched @60Minutes report, now faces allegations of immigration FRAUD after his asylum application surfaced, revealing that he claimed to be a HOMOSEXUAL man who feared persecution in Mali.

Read more ⬇️

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

@HKRoySpyWriter @YouTube The tiny coffee cup and plates of burek at the beginning were [chef kiss] 😂

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

@HKRoySpyWriter Daj bože! 😆

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

@Ami_Marisol @cturnbull1968 @CynicalPublius Meal Team Six

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

🧐🤯🤨🤔

[Insomnia @insomnia_vip]

grok found every photo i “permanently deleted” from my iPhone

3 years of deleted photos and videos sitting in a hidden cache that any app with file access could read.

i plugged my iPhone into my MacBook to run a backup. had Grok doing a security scan at the same time. it flagged something i wasn’t even looking for.

a directory called PhotoData/Thumbnails with over 140,000 files. photos, videos, screenshots. every single one was something i deleted.

photos from 2023. 2024. 2025. photos i deleted the second after taking them. photos i went into Recently Deleted and hit Delete All on. photos i deleted three times because i wanted to be sure they were gone. all still there.

what was sitting in that cache:

- a photo of my passport i took for a visa application in 2023
- screenshots of my bank app with full account numbers
- private photos i sent someone and deleted the same night after a breakup
- a screenshot of my crypto seed phrase i took “for a minute” in 2022
- my ID and credit card side by side, deleted 10 seconds later

140k+ files in total. some at full resolution. all organized by date going back to 2021.

when you delete a photo on iPhone, iOS removes it from your camera roll and Recently Deleted. but it keeps a compressed copy in the Spotlight search cache. Apple never clears it. not after 30 days. not after a year. not ever.

i checked which apps had Files & Folders access. 21 apps. weather apps. QR scanners. PDF readers. a flashlight app from 2022. any of them could have been reading every “deleted” photo this whole time.

went from 21 apps to 3 in about two minutes.

the prompt i used is in the comments. takes 2 minutes. save it and send it to anyone with an iPhone

[🇺🇸🇺🇦Marc Johnson blogguero.bsky.social @BlogGuero]

@EggerDC Not like Scott is a blue collar icon, when was the last time he darkened the door of a Cheesecake Factory 🙄