Saturday Covfefe: The Government Would Like a Word About Your Post

Federal dossiers, institutional fear, and five stories getting buried beneath the next outrage.

Some of this week’s biggest stories barely made a ripple. They should have set off alarms, but at this point, the fire alarm would never stop ringing. Pour the coffee. Here are five things worth knowing before the next outrage buries them.

1. The Tired_Thumb Surveillance of Dissent

Say something mean about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) online and there’s a decent chance that a federal contractor is already building a dossier about you. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has spent $258 million (a tiny 57% bump from the Biden years) on an army of analysts, including Amivero, a small Virginia firm that scored an $8 million contract, who then subcontracted to Guidehouse. Their teams scrape Instagram, Facebook, X, Reddit, Discord, even Snapchat (your snaps aren’t private either), hunting for "threats." What counts as a threat? Using the phrase ACAB "all cops are bastards," or pretty much any hint of a side eye could make you a target. Definitely don’t post after ICE shoots someone in cold blood.

Welcome to the Trump police state era.

Take Tired_Thumb, the Reddit user who mentioned an ICE agent’s home state after news outlets already reported it. Six months, two subpoenas, and a grand jury later, the feds still don’t know who he is and haven’t filed a single charge, but they’re still trying! Or Paigelynne Gonyea, a poll worker cornered at her voting site by agents waving a folder with her birthdate, address, and an airport surveillance photo, over an Instagram post she can’t even find anymore.

Putting my former DHS hat on: THIS. ISN’T. NORMAL.

DHS blames an "8,000% increase" in death threats. Sure, some of that’s real. But civil-rights lawyers keep asking: if these are real crimes, where are the charges? Mostly what’s getting flagged is people being annoyed online, who are still protected by that pesky First Amendment. Nothing chills speech like a home visit and a letter saying your post “may” be illegal, no court required.

🕵️ The Surveillance State Wants Your Reddit Comments (WSJ)

2. Big Law’s Surrender Tour

Remember when President Trump began targeting law firms with executive orders?

Some refused to back down. Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, and Jenner & Block fought the administration in court and won early injunctions. Veteran attorney Abbe Lowell, who has represented clients across the political spectrum, including Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, and Hunter Biden, left Winston & Strawn to launch Lowell & Associates, a boutique firm representing individuals and institutions facing what the firm describes as politicized investigations and government actions.

Others made a different calculation.

Take Paul Weiss, once the firm of the Scottsboro Boys and Brown v. Board, the firm that reunited migrant families during Trump’s first term and put chairman Brad Karp on magazine covers for "standing up to the White House." This time, Karp didn’t fight. He rushed to the Oval Office and folded within days, agreeing to $40 million in free legal work for Trump-approved causes. Trump then rewrote the deal on Truth Social anyway, tacking on a "no DEI" pledge Karp never agreed to and a fabricated quote claiming Karp admitted "wrongdoing." Karp’s own email to partners: "He changed the agreement... and came up with a completely false quote...My god."

The fallout was brutal. Over 100 firm alumni called it "a craven surrender." Partners quit in waves, including litigator Karen Dunn, who wanted to sue in protest and got overruled. Then in January, the Epstein files revealed Karp hadn’t just represented Leon Black, he’d personally advised Epstein on discrediting his own accusers. His own partners pushed him out months later.

Moral of the story: fold for Trump, and you don’t just lose your spine. You lose your firm too.

⚖️ How Paul Weiss Folded (NY Times)

3. US Gov Advice on Hackers Breaching Water Systems: Try a Password

Hackers have hit water utilities in at least 12 states, and two weeks in, the government still can’t get facilities to set a password. Acting Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) director Nick Andersen told reporters at the Black Hat cyber conference this week that his agency is still finding programmable logic controllers, the tiny computers running pumps and valves, sitting wide open on the public internet with no password or the factory default. "We’re not making ourselves hardened targets," he said, which is putting it mildly given some utilities lost remote control entirely and had to run pumps by hand.

Minnesota alone had 30-plus systems targeted; Georgia’s Clayton County Water Authority, serving 300,000 people near Atlanta, had a pressure drop and boil-water advisory. Drinking water has stayed safe throughout, small mercy.

CISA’s own memo flagged tactics matching a known Iran-affiliated hacking campaign. Trump’s response, when asked directly: he doesn’t "think there was an Iranian cyberattack." Andersen, notably, says CISA isn’t touching attribution at all right now, just cleanup. No formal blame, no consequences, nothing. (Welcome to payback for an endless unnecessary war that Trump started…)

And Andersen’s fix for chronically underfunded utilities running on decades-old equipment? "A degree of personal responsibility." Cool, very reassuring for the water treatment plant with a skeleton crew and a 1990s server. The only actual backstop that exists right now is DEF CON Franklin, a volunteer program pairing hacker conference attendees with small rural utilities that has all of 21 utilities enrolled nationwide, out of roughly 50,000 community water systems in the country. Volunteers with laptops, doing the job the federal government won’t fund.

Tip of the white hat to them!

🔓 Your Water Utility’s Password Is Still “admin123” (NextGov)

4. The DNC Is Getting Ghosted

Some of the Democratic Party’s biggest donors are still writing enormous checks. They’re just no longer writing them to the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

The Soros family and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman have reportedly given the DNC nothing this cycle. Meanwhile, the DNC is carrying roughly $18.5 million in debt, with about $16 million on hand, while the Republican National Committee has amassed more than $128 million without debt.

No, the donors haven’t become Republicans. They’re bypassing the party establishment and putting money directly behind candidates they believe in, including Texas Senate candidate James Talarico and Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff. Having seen some prominent political consultants, and former DNC alumni, in action firsthand, I can’t say I blame them. There’s apparently even a new joke circulating among Democratic donors: DNC now stands for "Do Not Contribute." Ouch.

🫏 DNC: "Do Not Contribute" (WSJ)

5. It’s the Economy, Stupid!

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll has Democrats beating Republicans on the economy for the first time in nearly a decade, 37% to 36%, according to a survey of 4,505 adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 points. It’s razor thin, but Republicans have owned this question through Trump’s first term, all of Biden’s, and most of Trump’s second, so "tied" is basically a five-alarm fire for the GOP.

Here’s the data behind it: gas prices are up more than 25% since the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, over a dollar more per gallon, and Americans are noticing. Trump’s approval on cost of living sits at 23%, with 70% disapproving. On inflation: 22% approve, 70% disapprove. His overall approval dropped to 35%, down from 37% the month before and just a point off his term low.

It gets worse for the GOP on the generic congressional ballot: Democrats lead 42% to 37%, with independents breaking for Democrats by 12 points. Republicans are defending narrow majorities in both chambers with roughly three dozen competitive House races and eight Senate contests heading into November.

Trump’s response, posted to Truth Social before the poll even dropped: "My REAL Polling Numbers, not those made up by the Fake News Media, are the best they have ever been." Sure, Don.👌

📉 Dems Beat GOP on Economy (The Independent)

One Thing For Your Soul

Dave Bell usually spends Christmas playing Santa across Central Virginia. This July, he gave a stranger the gift of a lifetime: one of his kidneys.

Bell lost roughly 40 pounds to qualify as a living donor, then anonymously donated through the National Kidney Registry. His recovery, he reports, went "slicker than reindeer snot on a glass doorknob." But beneath the Santa jokes is something genuinely beautiful. Bell had two kidneys, decided he could live with one and the other should give a stranger another chance at life. "If we all made the world a better place," he asked, "what kind of place would this be?"

Apparently, the kind where Santa shows up for Christmas in July, and I’m here for it!

🎅 Santa Gave the Gift No Sleigh Could Carry (WRIC)

Have a wonderful weekend,

Olivia