Jozef Imrich, name worthy of Kafka, has his finger on the pulse of any irony of interest and shares his findings to keep you in-the-know with the savviest trend setters and infomaniacs.
''I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.''
-Kurt Vonnegut
One Nation, the Senate GOP’s primary dark money group, is producing propaganda masquerading as journalism
Two watchdog offices inside the Justice Department are tasked with investigating misconduct
Both have seen significant staff departures under Trump, partly from efforts to shrink government
Complaints to one watchdog hit a 20-year high while investigations hit a 20-year low
Reuters – “In one courtroom after another, federal judges have accused U.S. President Donald Trump’s Justice Department of an extraordinary spate of misconduct, including making false statements, failing to comply with court orders and improperly using the legal system to harass political opponents. Such rebukes might be expected to trigger a flurry of activity within the department’s two internal watchdogs tasked with policing the government’s most powerful law-enforcement agency.
But shrinking staffs and fears of political retribution have largely sidelined the offices, limiting new investigations into the administration, according to Reuters interviews with four former DOJ staffers and a review of department employment and investigations data. Nearly half the workforce at the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) has left during Trump’s second term, while about 17% have departed the Office of Inspector General, government records show. Many retired or took buyouts the administration offered to shrink the federal workforce, according to the records and three people familiar with the departures. The number of new OPR investigations has declined to a 20-year low even as misconduct complaints soar, the review found.
The government watchdogs are “afraid of doing any watching,” said one former DOJ official who left last year. Details of the watchdogs’ diminished staffing and declining investigations have not previously been reported. OPR investigates misconduct by department lawyers while the inspector general probes waste, fraud, abuse and other wrongdoing departmentwide.
OPR does not disclose who it investigates and the inspector general conducts much of its work in secret. But the four former DOJ employees said the staff departures and the slower pace of investigations make clear that they are not adequately addressing the surge of allegations facing the department. Justice Department spokesperson Kiersten Pels said OPR “remains committed to ensuring accountability for all DOJ attorneys” and rigorously investigates misconduct allegations.
John Lavinsky, a spokesperson for the DOJ Inspector General, said the office is committed to independent oversight and does not “avoid investigations or reviews that are difficult or controversial.”
factcheck.org
FactCheck.org: “Every election cycle since 2010, we have published profiles of some of the many outside groups trying to influence who gets elected to Congress and the White House. Today, we’re launching our latest Players Guide with write-ups of eight of the biggest spenders so far for the 2026 midterms.
Each profile has information about the individuals who run the group, the people funding the group, the group’s political leanings and motivations, and how the group is spending the millions it has raised. If the group has been around for a while, we note its spending during the prior election cycle for comparison.
During the last midterm cycle, outside groups collectively spent $2 billion on independent expenditures, which are advertisements and other communications that expressly advocate for or against candidates for office, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks money in politics. The total was double that amount for the 2024 presidential cycle.
The eight groups we’re starting with this time include the Senate Majority PAC, which is trying to help Democrats retake control of the Senate, and the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is working to keep Republicans running the House of Representatives. We also highlighted Fairshake, a pro-cryptocurrency super PAC that backs or opposes candidates based on whether they appear to be for or against policies favorable to the digital currency industry..”
"I believe the Wests Tigers approached the Pope (C8) to play five-eighth next year," reports Peter Miniutti of Ashbury. "He respectfully declined the offer giving the excuse that not even God could save them."
Monetizing the full gamut of reality, platforms have opened Pandora’s box. Basic tenets of liberal society—democratic integrity and respect for human life—are being corroded. Regulators need to step in. - The Walrus
Donald Trump’s sons are building a skyscraper in the Caucasus with a company co-owned by an oligarch who has shady ties to Russia.
Trump Tower Tbilisi, a 70-story luxury apartment complex planned for the capital of Georgia, a former Soviet republic at the far reaches of Eastern Europe, is the latest jewel in the first family’s $2.7 billion property empire. Eric Trump, 42, posted an AI rendering on X in May, gushing that it “marks our first project in the region” and that “we are so excited to bring it to life!”
Craig Silverman, Indicator: “The universe of OSINT tools is constantly expanding. There are many tool lists, Start.me pages, and GitHub repos that try to catalogue and categorize them. You could spend hours going from one toolkit to the next, comparing what they suggest and trying to get a sense of which tools are most cited.
The good news is that we’ve done the heavy lifting for you. Indicator analyzed more than 12,000 tools recommended by 19 public OSINT toolkits. We checked which tools are suggested the most and built a top 50 list. (There are actually 57 on the list, because several tools tied at the cutoff, and we kept all of them rather than break the ties arbitrarily.) We gathered the data from OSINT Navigator, the free app Indicator built in collaboration with Tom Vaillant. It aggregates data from 19 popular OSINT toolkits and makes it searchable from one interface.
Enter a query like “How do I find the owner of a website” and Navigator will list the relevant tools, the sources that recommended them, and summarize your options in an AI-generated response. Navigator is powered by an ever-growing, open dataset that checks for new and removed tools each week across the 19 toolkits.
You can learn more about Navigator and view the list of 19 toolkits here. One bit of good news is that all of the most-listed tools are free or have a free version. Many offer a paid tier with additional queries or results, but you can often get good value from the free option. That likely helps explain their popularity. (Though some freemium tools have very limited free tiers.)..”
Under Trump, 90% of ambassador nominations have gone to political supporters
“More than any other president in recent history, Donald Trump is relying on wealthy donors and political loyalists rather than career diplomats to fill ambassadorships, a Washington Post analysis found. The position of U.S. ambassador to Egypt has been held by a career diplomat for decades. But in June the Trump administration proposed a change, nominating a political donor and lawyer who provided legal representation to rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Nick Oberheiden, 48, has no formal diplomatic experience.
Born in Germany, he has no public link to Egypt, either. However, his law firm has defended clients aligned with the administration, and he has donated roughly $1.3 million to political committees that have supported President Donald Trump’s reelection, according to a Washington Post analysis of ambassador nominations and campaign finance data.
The nomination illustrates how Trump — more than any president in recent history — is relying on wealthy donors and political loyalists to fill ambassadorships at U.S. embassies worldwide, The Post’s analysis showed. It comes as the president has overseen a broader shake-up at the State Department, marking a shift away from apolitical norms that have guided American foreign policy for decades, former diplomats and other observers say…”
See also The New Republic – How Donald Trump Made the World Safe for Kleptocrats. “The president is no stranger to corrupt self-dealing. But his second term in office has been about cutting rogues from all over the world in on the action…”
Aristotle first popularized the word thousands of years ago, pointing out that an oligarchy — which literally means “rule of the few” — is indeed all about a small number of individuals steering a given country, nation, or empire. But even then, Aristotle added, it wasn’t just about the number of individuals that mattered, but also about how much wealth they controlled. In order to have an oligarchy, a state had to be run not just by the few, but by the wealthiest few.
The other part that’s made “oligarchy” such a tricky thing to define is that, for centuries, oligarchic figures tended to operate out of sight, or by playing down their impact on politics. Not always, necessarily; the so-called “robber barons” of the Gilded Age — oligarchs by another name — were front and center in American society in the late 19th and early 20th century. But by and large, oligarchs tended to downplay their influence, and even their wealth.
Since they could operate as the powers behind the throne, they tended to keep themselves (and their wealth) out of the spotlight, making it even trickier to nail down who an oligarch actually is, or what oligarchy looks like when it’s taken over a democracy. Those two factors — the difficulties in defining “oligarchy,” and the struggles in identifying oligarchs themselves — made analyzing the topic, let alone writing a book about it, an uphill battle
Tax officials have alleged that one of the companies in the sprawling corporate structure behind Jon Adgemis’ Public Hospitality Group submitted more than $1 billion in spending as part of a sham arrangement that resulted in it receiving almost $80 million in GST refunds.
The business dealings of Public Hospitality and Adgemis are being scrutinised in a special examination in the Federal Court. The examination was handed documents from Australian Taxation Office reviews that alleged one entity, JAGA Group Constructions, had claimed spending of $1.05 billion and $78 million in GST refunds between March 2021 and July 2024.
The Tax Office has become aware that malware installed via dodgy links has affected some practitioners and has provided assurance that its systems remain secure and resilient and have not been compromised.
The Tax Office has implemented additional security measures and controls following its becoming aware of “fraudulent activity targeting the systems of a small number of tax professionals”.
Speaking to Accountants Daily, an ATO spokesperson said the scam involved malicious links embedded in inbound communications, such as job applications, CVs, and emails. The communications the ATO refers to do not relate to impersonation of its emails.
“When clicked, these links can install unauthorised software or malware on your device. Once compromised, third parties may gain access to tax agent systems, obtain client information, and potentially interact with the ATO through Online services for agents,” the spokesperson said.
“Identity information can be compromised in a variety of ways, including requests for information by malicious actors, phishing emails, large-scale data breaches, and individual device or home network hacking.
“The ATO continues to remain vigilant for new and emerging cyber threats. The ATO has put additional security measures and controls in place in respect of these agents and their clients.”
The Tax Office recommended that tax professionals maintain security practices, including exercising caution when opening emails, downloading attachments, or clicking on unfamiliar links, and shutting down computers at the end of each day.
Further, it said practitioners should regularly review and manage user access through Relationship Authorisation Manager (RAM) and Access Manager, promptly remove outdated, unnecessary, or inappropriate permissions, and monitor user access and privileges on an ongoing basis.
For tax practitioners who have received or engaged with these scam communications and believe their systems to be compromised, the ATO recommends that they report a breach by searching QC54173 on the ATO website or by calling the ATO’s client identity support centre on 1800 467 033.
“Early engagement can help minimise harm, protect client information, and support a timely resolution.
“The safety of taxpayers’ information is of the utmost importance to the ATO. If an individual sees unusual activity on their ATO account, it may be related to identity theft,” the Tax Office spokesperson said.
The acclaimed actor, who became a Hollywood star at 63, is often described as “bubbly”. She’s also one of our most intelligent and thoughtful performers who appreciates series like “Say Nothing” …
The phrase "Whatever you say, say nothing" is a famous Northern Irish cultural maxim and the refrain of a renowned 1975 poem by Nobel-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney. It reflects the guarded silence, coded sectarian identifiers, and caution used during the turbulent era of The Troubles.
"The IRA issued a statement, eloquently capturing the strategic advantage of terrorism: 'Today we were unlucky, but remember, we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always.'"
"Boston tapes were supposed to lie untouched, like bottles in a wine cellar, until some future date when the participants were dead..."
The Disappearance of Jean McConville: The narrative centers on the 1972 abduction and murder of McConville, a widowed mother of ten from Belfast who was wrongfully accused by the Provisional IRA of being a British informant
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The Price Sisters: The story tracks the radicalization and involvement of Dolours and Marian Price, two young sisters who joined the IRA and participated in high-profile bombings.
The Boston College Project: Much of the investigative material relies on oral history archives (the Boston Tapes), where former paramilitaries like Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price gave recorded testimonies about secret IRA actions, specifying roles and commands.
It was after stumbling upon the obituary for Dolours Price in 2013 that New Yorker investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe was compelled to write his bestselling book, Say Nothing.
Optioned into a TV show almost as soon as it was published in 2018, Keefe catalogued the stories of the Irish republican and IRA member, and the woman potentially "disappeared" by her, single mother-of-10 Jean McConville.
Say Nothing is deliberately truncated in its scope. Keefe never intended for the book, and now TV show, to be an exhaustive account of the period known as The Troubles – the decades-long violent sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland between Protestant unionists (otherwise known as 'loyalists' for their loyalty to the English crown) and Roman Catholic nationalists (otherwise known as 'republicans' for their desire to unify with the Republic of Ireland).
Countering the many informative yet dense books that exist on The Troubles, Keefe distilled the impacts of the conflict by focusing in on the lives of Dolours and her sister Marian, terrorists to some, freedom fighters to others; Jean McConville, whose family still live tarnished by unfounded allegations that she was an informant; and top IRA commanders Brendan 'The Dark' Hughes and Gerry Adams.
An astonishing feat of narrative non-fiction, Say Nothing reads more like a novel than a history book, and the TV adaptation is similar – treading rich and interesting ground by being a dramatisation of historical actors and key events that unfolded during The Troubles rather than a documentary. A steadfast allegiance to the truth characterises them both, largely informed by testimonies granted to the oral history undertaking, The Belfast Project.
The disappearance of Jean
Throughout The Troubles, 17 people "disappeared" without a trace. Their loved ones never found out what happened to them, whether they were alive or dead, or where their bodies were. The TV show starts, as the book does, with the abduction of Jean McConville at gunpoint by eight men and women, situating its primary sympathies with The Troubles' many victims, known and otherwise.
The TV adaptation underlines how young the two sisters and their peers were during this time. (Supplied: Disney+)
If the book is focused, the TV show narrows the lens even more. Bit players in Dolours and Marian's lives and swathes of background information are foregone in favour of a pulsating narrative that forges ahead at a breakneck speed, as the two find themselves taken to the extremes of a cause they believe in deeply.
Lola Petticrew is effervescent as the plucky and intelligent Dolours, fashioning their red hair into different styles as she evolves into disparate versions of herself – from pacifist to bank robber to bomb-maker to hunger-striker. Hazel Doupe is excellent as her dourer and more militant younger sister Marian – willing to go wherever Dolours leads her, and further.
If there is to be one criticism of the show, it's that there's not enough backgrounding of the discrimination that faced Irish Catholics, who were routinely denied jobs, housing, education, the right to vote and access to political positions of power. The politicisation of young disenfranchised Irish Catholics and their belief in the fairness of their armed struggle makes particular sense in this context.
As teenagers elsewhere in the world fall in love and while their time away doing not much at all, Dolours and Marian are fundraising for the IRA (read: robbing banks dressed as nuns), agitating to carry Armalite guns instead of being relegated to making food – roles traditionally performed by women in the IRA until the sisters came onto the scene – and working for Gerry's mysterious Unknowns task force.
The more visually immediate medium of television underlines how incredibly young the two sisters and their peers were during this formative period – Dolours and Marian were 21 and 18, respectively, when they joined the IRA.
Through casual asides in conversations, the show's tightly honed script skilfully conveys the sense of fatality and foregone conclusions instilled in many Irish Republican children from a young age. They grow up fantasising how they'll die – whether by firing squad or being hung for treason – while many of their upbringings are cloaked in the honour of belonging to a long lineage of men and women imprisoned or killed for their republicanism.
But despite all this, 1970s West Belfast is resurrected through pops of colour, meticulously observed fashion, a rollicking punk rock soundtrack and sweeping vistas of the city that disguise the turmoil happening underneath.
(L-r) Josh Finan and Anthony Boyle play young versions of Gerry Adams and Brendan Hughes. (Supplied: Disney+)
Montages of Dolours and Marian plotting and scheming alongside the charismatic Brendan (a rapscallion Anthony Boyle, sporting a fetching moustache identical to the real-life Hughes) and the morally vacillating Gerry (a reedy, inscrutable Josh Finan) are imbued with a sense of heady fun and light-heartedness, despite the severity of what they're planning.
The show expertly evokes the halcyon days of youth and the romance of radical politics, though it's careful to never romanticise the actions of the quartet, which in many cases lead to the deaths and injury of civilians.
The long shadow of history
Slowing down in what is effectively the second act of the show, Say Nothing catapults a decade forward as the characters move from moral clarity to moral ambiguity in their middle-age. An increasingly embattled Dolours, Marian and Brendan find themselves left behind by Gerry's negotiations of a peace process as head of the Sinn Féin party, and his categorical denial of ever having been in the IRA.
Their conviction in the violent acts they perpetrated in their youth is robbed retrospectively of its political justification, leaving them feeling remorse and guilt. Unfolding alongside this shared existential crisis is Helen McConville's dogged search for her mother, her grief an enduring testament of the IRA's untold violence.
Say Nothing is careful to never romanticise the actions of the group. (Supplied: Disney+)
You can't spoil history, but one of the most compelling qualities of Say Nothing lies in its marriage of a cold case murder with broader commentary about the psychological toll of violent resistance. Towards the end of the book, Keefe discovers who Jean's murderer is – a twist that's handled as masterfully in the show as it is in the source material.
Say Nothing is about a collective culture of silence, and the paralysis in not being able to grieve, reconcile the past with the present, and move forward.
The echoes and ruptures of The Troubles still reverberate through Northern Ireland today. Every episode of the show is bookended by a statement that Gerry Adams has always denied being a member of the IRA. Families continue to search for their disappeared loved ones. Long-held prejudices simmer.
By casting Petticrew and Boyle – two Northern Irish actors who grew up in the long shadow of The Troubles – and deferring to their lived experience, this faithful adaptation honours the complexities, nuances and contradictions of a state in crisis.
