Michael Sims
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peltast1.bsky.social
Michael Sims
@peltast1.bsky.social
Concerned citizen. Politics / USA / Canada / Tech / Civil Liberties. Veteran. Not on anyone's team except for good governance. Parasocial relationships are the bane of humanity. You are the cavalry you've been waiting for.
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There are videos of large trees collapsing. Sometimes they emit loud cracking sounds for hours as wood fibers take the full weight, fail, the tree settles a millimeter, the next fibers fail, and so on.

The USA is making the exact same sounds.
Reposted by Michael Sims
OU has put the professor here on administrative leave:
November 30, 2025 at 8:23 PM
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it’s so weird to look around and realize like, tech and media are materially worse than a decade ago
November 30, 2025 at 5:30 AM
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Senator Kelly is correct.

Plus a Public Service Announcement:

KEY section of Department of Defense's Law of War Manual is 18.3.2.1.

The VERY rule on the "requirement" to refuse illegal orders gives as its paradigmatic example of what is "clearly illegal:
"orders to fire upon the shipwrecked."
November 30, 2025 at 4:35 PM
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Props to the protestors who the New York Times credits for foiling ICE’s intended raid in Chinatown earlier today.

So many people are showing they know what it means to be New Yorkers!
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/n...
Several Arrested as Protesters Block Federal Agents in Manhattan Garage
www.nytimes.com
November 29, 2025 at 11:32 PM
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The past decade has seen grave threats and unmistakable decline. But the past few days and weeks reveal that we have entered in a new and more perilous chapter here in the U.S. It must be a call to a new kind of action. My latest. open.substack.com/pub/davidrot...
We Have Descended into Utter Madness
A new sense of urgency is needed. Our national crisis has grown much more acute.
open.substack.com
November 29, 2025 at 10:18 PM
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Former US military lawyers speak out:

"The Former JAGs Working Group unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both."

Statement on Media Reports of Pentagon “No Quarter” Orders in Caribbean Boat Strikes

1/2
November 29, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Reposted by Michael Sims
Murder is an offense under Article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. With respect to civilians, they have to contend with the federal criminal laws punishing murder on the high seas (18 U.S.C. § 1111) and conspiracy to commit murder outside the United States (18 U.S.C. § 956).
Stephen Miller’s Wife @katiemiller : “Can you cite the statute that makes the boat bombings illegal?”

@bakarisellers.bsky.social : “The due process
clause in the constitution.”
November 29, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Reposted by Michael Sims
An issue we're seeing at all levels of university is that many students are simply refusing to do *anything*. They aren't reading the syllabus, aren't following assignment guidelines, aren't engaging with material, ignoring deadlines. And this might seem like old news, but it truly has ramped up.
November 28, 2025 at 10:15 PM
US President threatens to shoot down civilian airliners flying over Venezuela
November 29, 2025 at 2:04 PM
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I cannot even begin to express my rage at this lie

reading this through me back into my pandemic EMT life, attempting to resuscitate a child experiencing a cardiac arrest secondary to COVID while a father says “we heard that the vaccine was riskier than COVID for kids” and a mother wails in agony
NEW: The F.D.A. announced in an internal memo that 10 children died "because of" the Covid shot. Other experts want to see proof.

“This is a profound revelation,” Dr. Prasad's memo said. “For the first time, the U.S. F.D.A. will acknowledge that Covid-19 vaccines have killed American children.”
F.D.A. Attributes 10 Children’s Deaths to Covid Vaccines
www.nytimes.com
November 29, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Reposted by Michael Sims
Trump not knowing who he pardoned, if he pardoned them, or that they are a crypto CEO who just gave his family a $2 billion deal and then received a pardon, is a way bigger controversy than Biden and an autopen.
November 28, 2025 at 10:53 PM
If any lower officer had given such an order (to kill a random group of unarmed civilians from a country the US is not at war with), they would spend the rest of their lives in the Leavenworth penetentiary, and so should Hegseth.
Exclusive: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave an order to “kill everybody” in the first strike on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean. After two men survived, the mission commander ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions, according to two sources.
Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order to kill all crew members in the Sept. 2 strike on a suspected drug boat. Navy SEALs fired a second missile.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 28, 2025 at 7:31 PM
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Beyond depraved: "Hours after her detainment, court documents obtained by ABC News show that a federal judge ordered the government not to remove the 19-year-old from the U.S. and not to transfer her outside of Massachusetts. But Lopez Belloza was deported to Honduras the next day."
November 28, 2025 at 6:36 PM
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Trumpism and Trumpists are incompatible with American culture and traditions and should be purged.
November 28, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Yes. Supposed journalists get angry at you when you say they're just stenographers for Republicans, but if the shoe fits...
The true journalism scandal is a pathological liar can’t ask for better propaganda than a headline that’s just what he said as if it’s true and the entirety of the story is just his quote with zero context or explanation or skepticism, all published under the name of an established news brand
November 28, 2025 at 1:11 PM
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An annual reminder:

The cognitive & emotional toll of staying in contact with abusive family can be both significant & difficult to recognize.

There's a kind of social contract that abusive parents have violated. You owe them nothing. Nothing.

Thanksgiving doesn't change that.
November 27, 2025 at 3:07 AM
Reposted by Michael Sims
I found this terribly sad. A young woman with her life ahead of her, and she becomes one of the last American victims of the Long War.
November 28, 2025 at 2:07 AM
Dozens of major media outlets watch this happen and none report it.
Q: Officials say the suspect in the DC shooting was vetted & it came up clean

TRUMP: He went cuckoo. He went nuts. There was no vetting

Q: Actually, your DOJ IG says there was thorough vetting of Afghans. So why blame Biden?

TRUMP: You're just asking questions because you're a stupid person
November 28, 2025 at 2:08 AM
Reposted by Michael Sims
So, if we have the story right so far, an Afghan translator that helped US forces in Afghanistan was going to be deported to Afghanistan and killed there, and instead decided to shoot a couple of WV guardsmen who were illegally occupying Washington DC.
November 27, 2025 at 4:06 PM
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They like Trump and want to help him
“Biden Asylum Cases” is NYT’s framing for a story pegged to a man who got asylum 3 months into the Trump administration

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/27/u...
November 27, 2025 at 11:32 PM
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In the richest city in the richest country on the planet, the thing we can’t afford is to forget those who are left hungry.
November 27, 2025 at 9:50 PM
Surprisingly, Elon Musk is a fraudster and double-crosser in all of his other businesses as well.

nashvillebanner.com/2025/11/25/b...
Local contractor employees stop Music City Loop work - Nashville Banner
Willie Shane and his crew walk off the Music City Loop project, citing safety concerns and payment issues with The Boring Company.
nashvillebanner.com
November 27, 2025 at 9:25 PM
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Personally, I think it's a bad thing when people in the government post AI images without disclosing that they're AI.

Image on the left is something RFK Jr. posted today. Image on the right is a photo from 2024.
November 27, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Reposted by Michael Sims
Commit this to memory: those who place themselves above the law's reach are beyond the law's protection
November 27, 2025 at 7:19 PM