Just to say… I just donated to Wikipedia due to a certain childish-seeming billionaire expressing his wish that I not do so because he doesn’t like that they focus on telling the truth.

https://www.propublica.org/article/ftc-investigating-microsoft-antitrust-cloud-computing

«At the time, many federal employees used a software license that included the Windows operating system and products like Word, Outlook and Excel. In the wake of several devastating cyberattacks, Microsoft offered to upgrade those license bundles for free for a limited time, giving the government access to its more advanced cybersecurity products. The company also provided consultants to install the upgrades.

Vast swaths of the federal bureaucracy accepted, including all of the military services in the Defense Department — and then began paying for those enhanced services when the free trial ended. Former sales leaders involved in the effort likened it to a drug dealer hooking a user with free samples, as they knew federal customers would be effectively locked into the upgrades once they were installed. Microsoft’s offer not only displaced some existing cybersecurity vendors but also took market share from cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, as the government began using products that ran on Azure, Microsoft’s own cloud platform.

…

Some of those incursions were the result of Microsoft’s own security lapses. As ProPublica reported in June, Russian state-sponsored hackers in the so-called SolarWinds attack exploited a weakness in a Microsoft product to steal sensitive data from the National Nuclear Security Administration and the National Institutes of Health, among other victims. Years before the attack was discovered, a Microsoft engineer warned product leaders about the flaw, but they refused to address it for fear of alienating the federal government and losing ground to competitors, ProPublica reported.

While the engineer’s proposed fix would have kept customers safe, it also would have created a “speed bump” for users logging on to their devices. Adding such “friction” was unacceptable to the managers of the product group, which at the time was in a fierce rivalry with competitors in the market for so-called identity tools, the news organization reported. These tools, which ensure that users have permission to log on to cloud-based programs, are important to Microsoft’s business strategy because they often lead to demand for the company’s other cloud services.

According to a person familiar with the FTC’s probe, one such identity product, Entra ID, formerly known as Azure Active Directory, is another focus of the agency’s investigation.»

I guess Microsoft will have to spend some money to bribe Trump.

«If I had to guess, I’d imagine the same 7-2 majority from Talevski holding together and ordering South Carolina to enforce the Medicaid Act. But this time, Barrett will write the majority opinion. In that opinion, she will tell the Republican Congress exactly what they have to do to amend the Medicaid Act in a way to allow the states to prevent women from using it to access contraception.»

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/supreme-court-planned-parenthood-contraception/

I really don’t like Christmas as an obligatory gift-giving occasion and source of stress. These are my last-minute donations in honor of family members. (Bunch of links coming; don’t know how many anti-spam triggers will get flipped.)

• Zoe Empowers — empowering orphans and vulnerable children, primarily in Africa, but also in India. I’ve been involved for years. These kids are a-ma-zing. (My mother-in-law and wife turned me on to this.) — https://zoeempowers.org/

• Haiti Reforestation Project — Empowering community development in rural Haiti. My sister has been involved for years. — https://haitireforest.org/

The two above empowerment efforts are 100% run (in-country) by indigenous staff. Zoe enters a community only by invitation, and they work with local community leaders to identify kids most likely to benefit. There’s a lot more, but this is a toot.

• Al Otro Lado — Immigrant services in California. My father-in-law, a retired Methodist minister, has been involved for years. — https://alotrolado.org/

• The Florence Project — same, but mostly Arizona. (This was my own choice.) — https://firrp.org/

• Brooklyn Community Housing and Services — because I got panhandled on the subway. (This wasn’t last-minute, but it was earlier this year, so I’m throwing it in.) — https://bchands.org/

https://www.propublica.org/article/jefferson-griffin-north-carolina-supreme-court-challenge-election-integrity-network

Republicans.

At this point, I’d expect a senior party member put his arm around this guy’s shoulder and say, “Son, it’s time to give it up.”

But, no. Because they’re all in. Cheri Beasley didn’t do this.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/12/counting-up-the-victims-of-genocide

https://news.usni.org/2024/12/21/u-s-super-hornet-shot-down-over-red-sea-in-friendly-fire-incident-aviators-safe

«The Super Hornet, assigned to aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), was flying over the Red Sea when guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg (CG-64) fired upon it, according to the CENTCOM statement.»

A career-limiting move, I believe some refer to this as.

«it’s incontrovertible that a billionaire who has a bunch of investments in China and wants to make more all of a sudden disrupted a normal congressional process that was going to restrict that investment with a bunch of lies from his media platform. And lo and behold, when the new funding bill emerged, the outbound investment feature was dropped. In fact, all traces of provisions related to China were removed from the bill.

Donald Trump preens as someone determined to “get tough” on China. But he’s empowered someone with serious business entanglements in China to seemingly serve as a barrier to any policies related to China over the next four years.

The current White House resident (remember him) picked up on this. In a statement, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre noted that “Republicans are breaking their word to support a bipartisan agreement that would lower prescription drug costs and make it harder to offshore jobs to China.” The prescription drug reference has to do with a major reform of pharmacy benefit managers, which was also taken out of the new bill.

So Donald Trump, alleged leader of the realignment of populist Republicans, scuttled a spending bill primarily to shield the richest man in the world’s investments in China and the profits of UnitedHealth Group, owners of the second-largest pharmacy benefit manager.»

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-12-20-government-shutting-down-elon-musk-factories-china/

Thank you, Mastodon, for turning me on to this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kay_Granger

Sic transit gloria mundi, I guess.