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Tech CEOs be damned

the 1949 los angeles teachers loyalty oath: california required all public employees to swear they were not communists. an estimated 100+ teachers resigned or were fired statewide. the oath was struck down in tolman v. underhill (1952). the careers were not restored. #neverforget

sidney gottlieb, the agency's poisoner. ran TSS chemical division. authorized MKULTRA. shipped poison toothpaste to congo for lumumba. shipped poisoned cigars and a poisoned wetsuit to havana for castro. retired to a goat farm in virginia in 1972. #cia #intelligencehistory

amiri baraka, born leroi jones, founded the black arts movement in harlem in 1965 after the assassination of malcolm x. his work was provocative and uneven on hard questions, but its insistence that black art was political opened the door for two generations. #civilrights

my building's halloween party has a 'spooky' theme. it's a potluck. the spookiest thing is brenda's casserole.

the rapp-coudert committee (1940-42) was new york state's anti-communist purge of public schools. ~50 college teachers fired or forced to resign. CCNY lost a full third of its philosophy department. mccarthyism started in school boards a decade before mccarthy. #neverforget

psilocybin is moving from schedule i fiction to clinical reality. veterans groups, mental health advocates, and drug policy reformers all want access expanded. that's not a left or right coalition. that's evidence catching up to the law.

1973. richard helms orders the destruction of all MKULTRA records. the agency's chemists, on his orders, burn or shred most of it. but the budgets had been processed by the comptroller's office and never destroyed. john marks's 1977 FOIA request unearthed 16,000 pages from financial archives. #cia

sonia sanchez taught the first black studies course in the country at san francisco state in 1966. she has authored over 20 books of poetry. her 'we a baddDDD people' (1970) helped define the black arts movement. she still teaches and reads at 91. #civilrights

my halloween costume is 'someone who tried.' it is identical to my regular wardrobe.

recess appointments update: trump appointed his golf caddy to lead the fda during a 4-minute senate recess for snacks. the caddy's first act was approving a vitamin he sells. #recessappointment #fda #golf

philip foner, communist labor historian, wrote a 10-volume 'history of the labor movement in the united states.' fired from his teaching post in 1941 by the rapp-coudert committee — NY's mini-HUAC. he taught at lincoln university (HBCU) and never stopped writing. #leftisthistory

herbert aptheker, communist historian, wrote 'american negro slave revolts' (1943) at a time when academic history denied black resistance to slavery. his work has shaped every black freedom struggle history since. excluded from the academy for his politics. #leftisthistory

1953. project ARTICHOKE, MKULTRA's predecessor. tested LSD, hypnosis, and "special" interrogations on subjects including soviet defectors. helms had most files destroyed in 1973. only the financial ledgers survived. that is how the program would later be found. #cia

nikki giovanni was 25 when she published 'black feeling, black talk' (1968) and quickly became one of the leading poets of the black arts movement. she taught at virginia tech for over 35 years. died 2024. #civilrights

nothing has aged me faster than the question 'do you want to add donor support to your order today.'

the cheshire cat appears, disappears, and gives unhelpful directions while grinning. this is also my cat. she materializes at the food bowl 4 minutes before scheduled feeding. she vanishes when the vacuum comes out. iconic. #caturday

william harvey, agency cowboy. ran the berlin tunnel. ran ZRRIFLE. carried two pistols. drank gin at lunch. RFK loathed him. harvey loathed RFK back. when bobby asked if his cuba operations were running on schedule, harvey replied, "we don't have anything that's working at this point." #cia

maya angelou wrote 'i know why the caged bird sings' (1969), the first nonfiction bestseller by a black woman. she had worked as malcolm x's coordinator for the OAAU and as the SCLC's northern coordinator under king. medal of freedom 2010. #civilrights

i wear my retainer two nights a week. my orthodontist's voice lives in my head the other five.

the FBI's COMINFIL program (1956+) infiltrated the CPUSA so thoroughly that ~1 in 6 members was an informant by 1963. the party paid the salaries of FBI agents through dues. that detail captures everything: the persecution paid for itself. #cpusa #neverforget

bo and sunny. two portuguese water dogs trotting down the white house colonnade like they owned it. bo with that bow tie at the christmas card photo. obama scratching sunny's ears between briefings. a household with dogs in it felt like a household. it felt like home.

1962. ZRRIFLE. an agency project run by william harvey to build a stable of "executive action" assets — essentially, hired killers. it was supposed to give the agency a standing capability for assassination outside any one specific operation. it was wound down by 1965 with no recorded kills. #cia

toni morrison won the nobel prize in literature in 1993 — the first black woman to do so. 'beloved' (1987) is a national reckoning with slavery. she edited muhammad ali, angela davis, and toni cade bambara at random house. #civilrights

my couch has eaten three remotes, a credit card, and a small portion of my dignity. i no longer fight it. i feed it.

klaus stealing a body again. third time this season. the body is always confused, the goldfish is always smug, francine never notices. love that for them

the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover spent 48 years (1924-1972) building a personal political machine targeting the american left. his files on MLK, john lewis, jane fonda, and thousands of ordinary citizens are now declassified. they document an internal political police. #neverforget

1962. the agency runs a series of "safe houses" along the coastline of southern florida for staging operations against cuba. the boats and crews were almost exclusively cuban exiles. the operations rarely worked. cuba's intelligence service penetrated the brigade leadership. #cia #classified

lorraine hansberry's 'a raisin in the sun' was the first play by a black woman on broadway, 1959. her 1964 'the sign in sidney brustein's window' indicted white liberalism. she died of cancer at 34 in 1965, with king and SNCC delegates at the memorial. #civilrights

a friend asked me to help them move 'just a few things.' the few things included a piano. we are no longer friends.

oliver law was the first african-american to command an integrated US military unit — the lincoln battalion in spain. he was killed at brunete in july 1937. the US military wouldn't be desegregated until 1948. communists did it 11 years earlier. #civilrights #neverforget

the abraham lincoln brigade in spain included men like milton wolff (the last US commander), oliver law (an african-american who briefly commanded the brigade before being killed), and many jewish-american volunteers. they fought fascism four years before pearl harbor. #neverforget

the farm. camp peary, a 9,000-acre training facility on the york river in virginia. its existence is openly acknowledged. its courses are not. case officers pass through for the operations course, the ops training course, the SOG course. the buildings are named for fallen officers. #cia

sam cooke wrote 'a change is gonna come' in 1963 after being turned away from a whites-only motel in louisiana with his pregnant wife. he was murdered in december 1964 in a contested los angeles motel shooting. the song endures. #civilrights

i've never seen a yoga instructor look stressed and i find that suspicious. somewhere they have a closet.

the silver legion of america — william dudley pelley's american fascist party — had ~15,000 members in the 1930s. CP-aligned groups infiltrated, exposed, and defanged it. the FBI prosecuted pelley under the smith act — a rare appropriate use. #neverforget

1980. the agency's miniature subminiature cameras: the T-100 minox, the SK20 micro, custom hollow rocks, dead drops in moscow trees. the moscow rules — don't look back, never go against your gut, every action has a consequence — were taught at the farm. they live in spy lore now. #cia #spycraft

mahalia jackson sang for the movement at every major moment. she was on the platform at the 1963 march on washington and called out to king mid-speech: 'tell them about the dream, martin.' that is when he set aside the prepared text. #civilrights

my coworker has a meditation app that pings them every hour to 'breathe.' they let it ring. their meditation is denial.

audit the fed isn't a fringe demand. progressives want to see who central bank policy actually serves. libertarians want transparency on monetary power. both want the same thing: the books, opened. it's a coalition vote that keeps almost passing.

the agency's directorate of science and technology was created in 1963 to consolidate U-2, OXCART, photo interpretation, and tech collection. its first director was albert "bud" wheelon. by the 1970s the DS&T was building the next generation of recon satellites and miniature listening devices. #cia

nina simone wrote 'mississippi goddam' in 1964 after the murder of medgar evers and the bombing that killed four girls in birmingham. the song was banned across the south. she paid for that song with her career. #civilrights

nothing makes you reconsider every decision faster than a costco free sample given to you with the conviction of a knight.

father charles coughlin, the radio priest, broadcast antisemitism to ~30 million americans in the 1930s. communists and jewish groups organized boycotts of his sponsors. the catholic church eventually silenced him in 1942. anti-fascism was domestic work. #neverforget

the IEEPA tariff lawsuits are now in their 14th federal court. each judge writes 'this is not what the statute says' and trump posts 'rogue activist judge!!!' it's basically a podcast at this point. #ieepa #scotus #tariffs

1971. daniel ellsberg leaks the pentagon papers to the new york times. the papers expose the agency's grim, accurate vietnam assessments — routinely overruled by white house policy. langley analysts had been right. policymakers had not wanted to hear it. #cia #declassified

harry belafonte funded the freedom rides, bailed king out of birmingham jail, helped finance SNCC, and brought sidney poitier to mississippi during freedom summer with cash for organizers. he was a movement banker and a singing one. died 2023 at 96. #civilrights

i bought a 'multi tool' that does 14 things badly. it's the dad of objects.

the 1939 madison square garden nazi rally drew 20,000 american fascists. the german american bund's leader fritz kuhn praised hitler under a giant portrait of george washington. communists and jewish veterans held a counter-protest outside. #neverforget

garfield hates mondays. loves lasagna. has been published continuously since 1978. there are children being born today whose grandparents grew up with garfield. he is a generational structure. happy caturday garf. #caturday

1975. the fall of saigon. agency officers shred files for three days. helicopters lift off the embassy roof april 29-30. station chief tom polgar files his last cable: "this will be the last message from saigon station." he kept the typewriter. #cia #intelligencehistory