Kate Sills
@katelynsills.com
2.1K followers 1.8K following 1.6K posts
Book lover, writer, gardener, hiker, farm kid, terrible skier. Software engineer. Atheist, anarchist, anti-authoritarian.
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I don't know why the press doesn't have his photo yet, but this is what Nikhil Rajpal looks like. I know him from Berkeley. He's part of DOGE, and if you're a government employee, you should not let him into your office.
Nikhil Rajpal ProPublica's Profile on Nikhil Rajpal, 30

Expert
Connected to: Office of Personnel Management
Musk link: Former Twitter employee
Rajpal is listed as an “expert” now working for OPM. An archived version of his personal website from 2018 lists his job title as an engineer at Twitter. Rajpal has extensive access to sensitive personnel data used by OPM, according to a source familiar with his role. Wired reported Feb. 5 that Rajpal also sought and was later granted access to data at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Wired magazine reported that he is part of the DOGE team.

 https://projects.propublica.org/elon-musk-doge-tracker/#Nikhil-Rajpal
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“I know I make people feel uncomfortable! That’s my entire brand.”

Climate Defiance interrupting a Cuomo presser in the best possible way.
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If the chief executive can fund the military without the consent of the governed, we no longer have a republic but a monarchy.

My point isn't that I oppose military pay - I think Congress should readily agree to it - but that Congress MUST NOT BE LEFT OUT OF THE EQUATION.
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The executive spending money on paying the military without congressional approval is "fall of the Roman republic" behavior.
The executive branch not spending the money that Congress has told them to spend is bad. The executive branch spending money on things for which Congress has not given them money is also bad (and, arguably, worse).
President Trump on Wednesday signed a memorandum expanding his administration’s authority to repurpose unspent federal funds to pay members of the military during the government shutdown, escalating his challenge to the authority of Congress on spending matters.
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“.. Journalists from the undersigned defense trade publications will not sign this new policy.”

Military Times
Defense News
Aviation Week
Breaking Defense
Defense Daily
Defense One
Inside Defense
USNI News.

@militarytimes.bsky.social
www.militarytimes.com/news/pentago...
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“.. Pentagon reporters in Arlington, Virginia walk out of the building carrying their belongings after turning in their press badges. Reporters from nearly every major news organization would not sign new rules viewed as an infringement on First Amendment rights ..”

@gettyimages.com
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It also doesn't have to be justified based on Article II war powers, which do not provide any justification for the current strikes in the Caribbean. In short, the Trump admin can keep doing their drug boat drone strikes through this if the military option starts getting jammed up 7/
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Which means no need for ongoing reporting to Congress, no 60-day clock, and none of those pesky "rules of engagement" that Hegseth hates that might keep military folks from carrying out an order, or dumb international law "rules" that get in the way 6/
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You have to understand that there is NO accountability for ICE even in theory. You can't sue an ICE agent. They won't be criminally prosecuted for violating your rights. They won't be fired. THE ONLY WAY TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM ICE IS TO RUN FROM ICE.
Here's another Kavanaugh stop in action. Agent says: "Why are you running?" Admitting that he had no cause to stop and tackle this boy.
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AOC: Trump should be having congressional leaders in the WH. Do you see that every day? No, you don't because they're playing golf and they're going to mar-a-lago and the Republicans in the house have been on vacation for weeks now
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Yesterday in the time it took for me to drop my son off at daycare (<5 mins) ICE showed up, kidnapped one of my neighbors, and left. I only saw them leaving the neighborhood.
They are quite purposefully less visible. Stops and arrests are happening in under 10 minutes mostly. They have been targeting construction crews and work vans, and are overwhelmingly focused in Wards 1 and 4. Here’s a video I took of FBI, CBP, HSI, and others with MPD in Petworth about 2 weeks ago.
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“The Defense Department has confiscated the badges of the Pentagon reporters from virtually every major media organization in America,” the Pentagon Press Association said

Oct. 15, 2025
PENTAGON PRESS ASSOCIATION
STATEMENT
Today, the Defense Department confiscated the badges of the Pentagon reporters from virtually every major media organization in America. It did this because reporters would not sign onto a new media policy over its implicit threat of criminalizing national security reporting and exposing those who sign it to potential prosecution.
The Pentagon Press Association's members are still committed to reporting on the U.S. military. But make no mistake, today, Oct. 15, 2025 is a dark day for press freedom that raises concerns about a weakening U.S. commitment to transparency in governance, to public accountability at the Pentagon and to free speech for all.
PPA
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Whatever your thoughts on Will Stancil, there are entire neo-Nazi group chats dedicated to him specifically because they believe that he as an individual must be destroyed for their movement to succeed. You should reach at least that level of hate by Nazis for me to take your resistance seriously.
There’s a reason Ezra Levin is on Trump’s enemies list, is being investigated by the government, while no one much cares about Talia Jane.
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This is almost literally what the English Civil War was fought over.
President Trump on Wednesday signed a memorandum expanding his administration’s authority to repurpose unspent federal funds to pay members of the military during the government shutdown, escalating his challenge to the authority of Congress on spending matters.
Trump Signs Memo Expanding His Authority to Spend Federal Money
The president gave Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wide authority to repurpose funds to pay members of the military without approval from Congress, which has the sole constitutional authority to decide federal spending.
nyti.ms
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Ro Khanna is so fucking stupid lmao.
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“For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.”

Thomas Paine, Common Sense
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“I’ve never done a bond or a habeas for a kid this young, ever." – U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns

"The boy remains trapped in a prison 500 miles away from home with an unhealed broken foot, sleeping on a concrete floor with an aluminum blanket, and crying to his mother on the phone."
NEW — I dug into the story of ICE abducting a 13-year-old boy in Massachusetts and moving him 500 miles across state lines without notifying his mother, local cop's complicity, and how the federal government's justification for such cruelty is already falling apart:
ICE took a 13-year-old they said had a gun. Local cops say he didn’t.
Now he's detained 500 miles away from his Massachusetts home.
www.thehandbasket.co
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Hey news people: I know you like to pretend this doesn't exist, but you need to pay attention to the Nazi drama on Twitter. Basically, it seems as if Elon just restored two major neo-Nazi accounts that were banned by his product head, and might be about to fire the product head for banning them
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JUST IN: Kansas Young Republicans were deactivated after a Politico investigation uncovered racist messages in a group chat among young GOP members.

Chair Alex Dwyer reportedly reacted to “Great. I love Hitler” with a smiley face and heart-reacted to a message about killing political opponents
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The health care premium increases Republicans are trying to force down our throats will be catastrophic. In my district, we’ll see over 400% increases – and next door in Rep. LaMalfa’s district, prices will go up over 500%.

Republicans need to reverse course and help us save health care.
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I put a lot of blame for the public discussion of inflation on media outlets, because this was visible during the campaign and pretty much all serious economists agreed that Trump’s proposals would spur inflation, but it was presented as a “political difference” rather than Trump being illiterate.
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I just checked and this is real. It's on Border Patrol's official Instagram (I don't see it on Facebook) and is being celebrated by Nazis on Twitter, as you can see in the screenshot.

The clip is just 13 seconds long too, so it's a very intentional thing. We've got a Nazi government.
Twitter account: Uncensored @HmanQuotes1945: Official border patrol Facebook page is posting with the banned lyrics of Michael Jackson's song.
"Jew me sue me... Kick me k*ke me."
Epic
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Should add really that if you're a smol newsletter bean who would dearly love to NOT be on Substack, then I will happily roll (and manage) a Ghost install for you for cost + a small maintenance fee.

I'll talk you through setting up your own mailgun and stripe. Do that and you keep ALL your revenue.
Okay, Ghost V6 integrated with Tinybird for analytics is pretty damn filthy.

Been running @theupfront.media on Ghost for a while as part of our "No Nazi platforms" stack. Very happy with it (and with our Germany-based email hosting instead of Google Business)

The technology you use is a choice.
In many instances, the choice of platform or technology that a publisher makes can no longer be seen as neutral. Nowhere is that more clear than in journalism in the 2020s.

We are proud that The Up Front and all of our supporting digital infrastructure (like our email servers, data storage and collaboration tools) are either self-hosted and managed, or use trusted third parties who have policies that align with our values.

We reject platforms and technologies where our use would represent tacit support for — or tolerance of — the views of their owners or major funders where we disagree fundamentally with those views and the impact they have on the world.

We’re very selective in the socials we operate: we’re on Bluesky as our network of choice and use its atproto as our commenting system, curating a community of thoughtful feedback on our work and elevating other voices. We also have a LinkedIn page, because we understand its importance for our industry audience.

Perhaps more importantly, we don’t use toxic socials like Instagram, Facebook, Threads or X, which drive really unproductive behaviour in media outlets, journalists, readers and companies.

We choose our technical backend and partners carefully, selecting independent European vendors rather than US-based Big Tech, for ethical reasons, for data privacy, and because we care about supporting the good parts of the digital sector in the same way we know our subscribers care about supporting the good parts of the media sector.
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It’s incredible that the VT State Senator wrapped up in this hasn’t resigned yet — every major GOP leader in the state has called for his resignation. Fixing democracy requires restoring shame to public life. And accountability. Lots of accountability. vtdigger.org/2025/10/14/v...