Andy Franklin

I'm a network systems admin just hangin out.
Mastodon: @[email protected]

[Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600]

What would happen if the US stopped changing their clocks (no more daylight savings)? Fun article about the topic: https://t.co/gfUBrr90i3

[Mallory McMorrow @MalloryMcMorrow]

One billionaire family controls the bridge that carries 25% of all U.S.–Canada trade.

The good news? There's a brand new public bridge right next door (and Canada paid for the whole thing).

The bad news? Donald Trump won't let it open.

Here's the story:

For more than a decade, Michigan and Canada worked together to build a new public crossing right next to it — six lanes over the Detroit River, named for a Canadian-born Red Wings legend, built by thousands of union workers. Canada paid the entire bill. Michigan co-owns it. It's finished. It’s a shining example of international cooperation and collaboration, with a tremendous return for both sides: more jobs, faster trade, and lower costs.

So why isn't it open?

Because the Moroun family, who own the rival Ambassador Bridge just up the river, doesn’t want the competition. They spent years and tens of millions of dollars trying to stop any competing international crossing from being built or opening. They lost. So they went to the White House instead.

In January, Matthew Moroun gave $1 million to a pro-Trump super PAC. Then the billionaire called Trump's Commerce Secretary and, just hours later, Trump suddenly attacked the same publicly owned bridge he praised in his own first term and threatened to block it.
Then, the day before the June 12th ribbon-cutting, the opening was called off indefinitely.

It's corruption so flagrant it would be laughable if it weren't so damaging.

Trump is screwing over Michiganders for the interests of billionaires — holding a finished, publicly owned project hostage to protect one donor's toll booth.

So a finished bridge sits closed, Michiganders keep paying the higher tolls, cars and trucks cost more, and a billionaire family keeps its monopoly.

Mr. President: stop playing games. Open the damn bridge.

[Jesus Freakin Congress @TheJFreakinC]

🚨BREAKING: ICE agents are now threatening to violently assault U.S. citizens for the crime of sitting in their own car, in a parking lot…

Yes. Literally that.

ICE agents are now claiming U.S. citizens are not allowed to be in the same parking lot as them.

In the video, you can hear an agent approach a person sitting quietly in their car and announce that he is ICE, and that other ICE agents are also in the parking lot…

Then the agent immediately issues what he calls his “one and only warning.”

The person responds, “I was just on the phone.”

The agent responds, “No. No you’re not.”

The agent then escalates to a direct threat of violence, saying���

“This is your one and only warning. I catch you here again, I’m yanking you out of that fucking car because you’re taking pictures on your little GoPro.”

So, to be clear… a U.S. citizen is being threatened with assault not for impeding, not for interfering, not for committing any crime…

…but for having a dash cam.

The agent then adds, “If anything happens to our vehicles, or anybody in here, I’m coming straight for you.”

Then more threats…

“I will yank you out of that fucking car, and I will fucking put charges on you.”

Charges for what? He never says. Because there are none.

And then he admits the quiet part out loud…

“I’ll put you in the fucking domestic terrorists app.”

A federal agent threatening to label a U.S. citizen a “domestic terrorist” for sitting in a car while having a dash cam.

And then the agent illegally orders the U.S. citizen to “get the fuck out” of the parking lot and tells him he is not allowed to return.

To break that all down… an ICE agent used intimidation, retaliation, and threats of violence against a U.S. citizen for exercising their First Amendment rights, and existing in a public space.

And then banned the U.S. citizen from returning to the public space.

So, just to be absolutely clear…

The Trump administration is conditioning the public to obey masked federal agents, without questions and without rights.

[Harry Sisson @harryjsisson]

Trump claimed he cut Epstein off in the early 2000’s but these new Epstein emails prove he was still hanging out with him in 2017, 2018 and even 2019. Trump’s whole lie just got completely exposed.

[Gavin Newsom @GavinNewsom]

Just going to leave this one here.

[Protect Kamala Harris ✊ @DisavowTrump20]

🚨NEW: Michigan Democrat Mallory McMorrow, who is running for the U.S. Senate, slams the proposed government shutdown deal: “Americans can’t afford this deal. Democrats can fight AND win. A promise isn’t a deal. Don’t settle.”

RETWEET if you stand with @MalloryMcMorrow!

[Arnold Schwarzenegger @Schwarzenegger]

My plan would restore power to the people and restore confidence in our democracy.

74% want Election Day to be a holiday.
75% believe gerrymandering is a major problem.
83% support requiring an ID to vote.

Get to work, Congress. Give the people what they want and need.

[Victor Shi @Victorshi2020]

Let me get this straight: The same Supreme Court that ruled colleges CAN’T use race in the admissions process has just ruled that law enforcement officers CAN use race to conduct raids and detain people. You can’t make this up.

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

🚨 BREAKING: Trump’s pick to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics, EJ Antoni, just floated the idea of suspending the monthly jobs report until it’s “corrected.”

Translation: they want to stop publishing the country’s most closely watched economic report right as job numbers are falling — because bad news for them is bad news for Trump’s midterm narrative.

Silencing data isn’t “correction.” It’s censorship. And it’s a move straight out of the authoritarian playbook, if you can’t change the reality, hide it from the public.

[Roman Sheremeta 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @rshereme]

A sobering message from a history teacher:

I’ve spent years teaching American and international government — from strong democracies like the UK to authoritarian regimes like russia and China.

But lately, the most alarming lesson comes from home.

1/n

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

We are very grateful to the United States for all the support. I’m thankful to President Trump, Congress for their bipartisan support, and American people. Ukrainians have always appreciated this support, especially during these three years of full-scale invasion.

[𝔗𝔯𝔲𝔱𝔥 𝔐𝔞𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔰 @politicsusa46]

Time for a history lesson.

From the 14th to the 18th century, portions of Ukraine were ruled by Lithuania, Poland, and Russia. In addition, Cossacks controlled a largely self-governing territory known as the Hetmanate. Most of Ukraine fell to Russian rule in the 18th century.

In 1922, Ukraine and Russia were two of the founding members of the USSR. They were then joint signatories of the treaty that terminated the Soviet Union in December 1991 as part of their Declaration of Independence.

It is worthy of note, during the era of the Russian Empire the Ukrainian language was banned and Ukrainian was not widely spoken until after independence. During the 1990s there was turmoil and unrest as a newly independent nation found its feet.

The west was very concerned about the political volatility and was desperate to remove the nuclear weapons they inherited from the USSR. In 1994, the US, UK and Russia were signatories to the Budapest Memorandum. In short, the agreement stated Ukraine would hand over their inherited nuclear weapons. In return, they received recognition of sovereignty from Russia, and the offer of security ‘assurances’ against future Russian aggression.

The Ukrainian government introduced political and economic reforms. This resulted in civil unrest culminating in mass protests in 2004, following the disputed general election. This became known as the Orange Revolution. The uprising was short lived and left the country divided along regional and ethnic lines.

In 2014 there was a further uprising, this time centered on Kyiv’s Independence Square. It led to the toppling of the government. The interim administration struggled to maintain control. As a result, the Russian Army occupied the Ukrainian autonomous republic of Crimea. Subsequently, Crimea declared independence from Ukraine and was annexed by Russia. The U.S. and UK reneged on the Budapest Memorandum, sighting an ‘assurance’ was not a ‘guarantee’. This was a betrayal.

It is correct that Zelensky was a comedian with no political experience when he announced that he would be running in Ukraine's 2019 presidential election. He like Trump was a TV personality, playing a school teacher who was catapulted into the presidency on the TV series, Servant of the People.

He was elected with a landslide 73% of the vote. Prior to the election Russian social media and internet services were put under sanctions in 2017 by former president Petro Poroshenko to protect people from companies “whose activities threaten information and the cyber security of Ukraine”.

As a result of recommendations from both Ukraine’s security service SBU and the Parliament’s Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence,
Sanctions were extended on May 14, 2020 for another three years not because the CIA ordered it, but as a result of a majority vote in Ukraine’s Rada (Parliament).

There had long been problems with corruption in Ukraine. In 2016, the respected measure of corruption Transparency International (TI) measured Ukraine as corrupt as Russia. Since then, Ukraine has made great strides combating corruption, with 11 consecutive years of improving its ranking in the index.

Despite persistent allegations of corruption against Zelenskyy, there’s no verifiable evidence to support these claims. He has served his country with distinction, polls showing his favorability rating at around 57%. Accusations accusing Zelenskyy of money laundering, have been fact checked and found to be false.

The disinformation is coming from hard right conspiracy theorists amplified by Russian troll farms. Zelenskyy is NOT a CIA plant, he’s just a president trying to do the best he can for his people. You only have to look at his face to see how he’s aged over the 3 years of the war. The toll it has taken is etched on his face for all to see.

The U.S. ranks 28th in the TI Index, behind most of Its European and Nordic allies, with Denmark 🇩🇰 holding the prestigious No 1 slot for least corrupt

[Javier Corrales @jcorrales2011]

All my life I have studied democratization and autocratization. My 1st field trip was to newly democratic Argentina. I then added autocracies to my portfolio: Cuba, Ven, etc. I think I can recognize the stages of transition to authoritarianism. Here are the boxes checked off.

[Kamala Harris @KamalaHarris]

Donald Trump has a real problem with the truth.

[NIU Athletics @NIUAthletics]

A MONUMENTAL WIN FOR THE HUSKIES

NIU beats No. 5 Notre Dame 16-14 marking the highest-ranked opponent beaten in program history

#GoHuskies | #TheHardWay

[Sean Wright @SeanWrightSec]

The Crowdstrike issue isn’t the null point or the coding issue. Yes that’s what actually caused the BSoD. But the actual issue is how that issue made it into a production environment. That’s the bit that needs to be answered to.

[SANS.edu Internet Storm Center @sans_isc]

Crowdstrike fix for blue screen issue
Workaround Steps:
1Boot Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment
2Navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory
3Locate the file matching “C-00000291*.sys”, and delete it.
4Boot the host

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

HOLY MOLY!!! President Biden just knocked his speech out of the park today.

You have to see this.

Biden got very real in his closing remarks:

“Let me close with this. I know I'm not a young man. I don't walk as easily as I used to. I don't talk as smoothly as I used to. I don't debate as well as I used to.

Well, I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. I know, like millions of Americans, when you get knocked down, you get back up.

I know what it will take to bring this economy to everybody. I know what it'll take to rally the world to stand up against Putin and defend freedom.

And I know what it takes to keep the world safe and free for the years ahead. Folks, I give you my word as a Biden, I would not be running again if I didn't believe, with all my heart and soul that I can do this job because, quite frankly, the stakes are too high.”

Wow.

This was a masterful speech.

[Nature is Amazing ☘️ @AMAZlNGNATURE]

This girl captured the COOLEST video of the meteor that fell in Portugal ☄️

[Buddy Rathmell @buddy7]

One of my friend's boys build a raft each summer and spend 4-5 days floating down the Susquehanna River.

They are college age now but started doing it in high school. Awesome tradition and they will never forget the memories.

The dads should borrow the raft at the end and spend a day or two on it ourselves.
https://t.co/bVv6lR2z5X