Piatto Delgatto
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piattodelgatto.bsky.social
Piatto Delgatto
@piattodelgatto.bsky.social
1.2K followers 2.1K following 7K posts
Mathematician at large, legal news enthusiast, he/him.

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piattodelgatto.bsky.social
Piatto Delgatto @piattodelgatto.bsky.social · Apr 24
Another day in the ketchup mines
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
snowden.st
Currently dorking out over this graph about child mortality with my brother. Just mind boggling to take in.
chart of child mortality in history, roughly 48% for all societies across the globe…until the 20th century, where it plummets to 4%
December 2, 2025 at 5:00 AM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
bcfinucane.bsky.social
"Maximum lethality, not tepid legality"

The U.S. Secretary of Defense boasting mere days after the start of the maritime killing spree.

For some reason, the administration's claims that its boat strikes are lawful are not particularly convincing.

www.war.gov/News/News-St...
www.war.gov
December 2, 2025 at 12:14 PM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
bgrueskin.bsky.social
NYT:
Five officials told us that Hegseth had nothing to do with the second strike

Washpost (which broke the story 2 days ago):
“This is ‘protect Pete’ bullshit,”
and
“It’s throwing us, the service members, under the bus.”
At the White House on Monday, Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, read a statement that said Mr. Hegseth had authorized the Special Operations commander overseeing the attack, Adm. Frank M. Bradley, “to conduct these kinetic strikes.” She said that Admiral Bradley had “worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.” According to five U.S. officials, who spoke separately and on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter that is under investigation, Mr. Hegseth, ahead of the Sept. 2 attack, ordered a strike that would kill the people on the boat and destroy the vessel and its purported cargo of drugs. But, each official said, Mr. Hegseth’s directive did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile turned out not to fully accomplish all of those things. And, the officials said, his order was not a response to surveillance footage showing that at least two people on the boat survived the first blast. Admiral Bradley ordered the initial missile strike and then several follow-up strikes that killed the initial survivors and sank the disabled boat. As that operation unfolded, they said, Mr. Hegseth did not give any further orders to him. Her scripted remarks at a news briefing elicited a furious backlash within the Defense Department, where officials described feeling angry at the uncertainty over whether Hegseth would take responsibility for his alleged role in the operation — or leave the military and civilian staff under him to face the consequences. “This is ‘protect Pete’ bulls---,” one military official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations, told The Post. Leavitt’s statement “left it up to interpretation” who was responsible for the second strike that killed the two survivors, a separate military official said, imploring the White House to provide clarity on the issue. One official said of Leavitt’s statement, “It’s throwing us, the service members, under the bus.” Another person said some of Hegseth’s top civilian staff appeared deeply alarmed about the revelations and were contemplating whether to leave the administration.
December 2, 2025 at 2:32 AM
piattodelgatto.bsky.social
King of the tree.
Big cat occupies key strategic Christmas tree position, surrounded by area denial devices.
December 1, 2025 at 10:43 PM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
radiofreetom.bsky.social
Hot off the keyboard and gifted:

Hegseth has to go.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
Pete Hegseth Needs to Go—Now
A man with such contempt for the military should not run the Pentagon.
www.theatlantic.com
December 1, 2025 at 9:21 PM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
robertscotthorton.bsky.social
Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune
December 1, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
chrisgeidner.bsky.social
BREAKING: Full Eleventh Circuit will rehear the challenge to Florida’s anti-drag law, vacating an earlier 2-1 panel opinion that blocked the law.

Due to the fact that no court has stayed the district court’s order, as of now at least, the law remains blocked during the en banc rehearing.
In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventl Circuit No. 23-12160 HM FLORIDA-ORL, LLC, Plaintiff-Appellee, GOVERNOR OF FLORIDA, et al., Defendants, SECRETARY OF THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL REGULATION, Defendant-Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 6:23-cv-00950-GAP-LHP USCA11 Case: 23-12160 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 12/01/2025 Page: 2 of 2 2 Order of the Court 23-12160 Before William Pryor, Chief Judge, Jordan, Rosenbaum, Jill Pryor, Newsom, Branch, Grant, Luck, Lagoa, Brasher, Abudu, and Kidd, Circuit Judges. BY THE COURT: A petition for rehearing having been filed and a member of this Court in active service having requested a poll on whether this appeal should be reheard by the Court sitting en banc, and a majority of the judges in active service on this Court having voted in favor of granting rehearing en banc, IT IS ORDERED that this appeal will be reheard en banc. The panel's opinion is VACATED.
December 1, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
gregsargent.bsky.social
News --> The commander who oversaw Pete Hegseth's alleged killing of two boat bombing survivors is now likely to come in and face questions from the House Armed Services Committee, ranking Dem Adam Smith tells me.

In this piece, I try to make sense of this horror:
newrepublic.com/article/2037...
Trump Boat Bombings Suddenly on Shakier Ground as Damning Info Emerges
Will Republicans give us a real investigation into Trump’s bombings, now that we just learned horrific new details about them? Or are they seriously going to fall on their swords for Pete Hegseth?
newrepublic.com
December 1, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
annabower.bsky.social
Leavitt: “The president has made it quite clear that if narco terrorists are trafficking illegal drugs toward the United States he has the authority to kill them”

[narrator voice]: He did not, in fact, have lawful authority to kill them…
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d
Q: Was the initial order from Hegseth to kill everyone and did that come from President Trump?

LEAVITT: I would reject that Hegseth ever said that. However, the president has made it quite clear that if narcoterrorists are trafficking illegal drugs toward the US he has the authority to kill them
December 1, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
ryanlcooper.com
"Fascists simply do not care about what is true. In a deep and fundamental way, it just doesn’t matter to them. You can see that even in how Musk set up his analogy. What he posted is not even the plot of The Lord of The Rings! It is the hobbits who ultimately save Gondor, not the other way around."
Even by a Strict Definition, Elon Musk Is a Fascist
He is weaponizing Tolkien to promote violence by ‘hard men’ against Asian immigrants
www.theunpopulist.net
December 1, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
emptywheel.bsky.social
Come for the description of Rahmanullah Lakanwa
feeling abandoned by the CIA.

Stay for the description of the entire group feeling abandoned by John Ratcliffe's attempt to disown the murder.

www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...
His unit mate said Lakanwal sought help in June from a CIA program designed to aid Zero Unit veterans with immigration issues. Rolling Stone reviewed a screenshot of the group chat in June where Zero Unit veterans shared information with a CIA representative about ongoing issues. Lakanwal posted messages asking for help. His last post went unanswered and was deleted by the chat’s administrator. Rolling Stone called the CIA representative in the text chat, who claimed it was a wrong number. A request for comment from the CIA was not returned. Lakanwal, according to an Associated Press report and confirmed by his unit mate, would swing from “long, dark stretches of isolation,” sometimes going weeks without speaking even to his family to “manic” episodes, during which he would take off on sudden, weeks-long cross-country drives, traveling to places like Chicago or Arizona. The Afghan Zero Unit community is tight-knit. At one point, during a trip to Texas last year, I watched as a group of veterans took over a shisha restaurant with more than 20 sitting at one table, laughing and smoking. Bonded by combat and the pain of losing their country, they are part of a lost generation of Afghans who believed America’s promise of democracy and sacrificed everything for it. But most of all Zero Unit veterans were heartbroken by Ratcliffe’s comments that they should never have been allowed to come to the United States because after fighting shoulder to shoulder with the CIA for almost 20 years, they are the next sacrifice on the altar of expediency. The only certainty in U.S. foreign policy from the last helicopter out of Saigon in 1975 to the Kurds after the Gulf War in 1991 to the 2020 Doha Accords and the Afghan evacuation in 2021, is that American loyalty comes with an expiration date.
December 1, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
rparloff.bsky.social
Today’s Third Circuit ruling that Alina Habba was unlawfully appointed casts doubt on AG Bondi's back-up theory for Halligan—the notion that Bondi could appoint her a “special atty” (under 28 USC § 515) who could do everything a US atty could. ...
1/4
December 1, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com
here's my take on Woke 2. the thing about Woke 1 is that it's born from the end of history era, when it was important to re-discover forms of oppression that had been denied or hidden. but this led to a [clears throat] hermeneutics of suscpicion, and ultimately paranoia and internecine factionalism
December 1, 2025 at 2:08 AM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
joshgerstein.bsky.social
BREAKING: 1st appeals court decision on controversial temporary US Attorney installations goes against Trump, 3-0. 3rd Circuit rejects bid to make Trump lawyer Alina Habba acting US attorney. Restrepo/ Smith/Fisher (Obama/GWB/GWB) Doc: www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
HabbaOpn120125
www.documentcloud.org
December 1, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
emptywheel.bsky.social
It is true that no one has grasped this scope.

But there are ways to deal with it.

First, track the way that Kristi Noem is converting it to personal grift, like her propaganda campaign.

Next, illustrate how this is a funding shift, from things Americans like to body snatching they hate.
equalityalec.bsky.social alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 1d
The news has entirely failed to grasp the unprecedented scope of the ICE and DHS budgets. Nothing like it in modern history. A galaxy of public/private surveillance and caging institutions for $100,000,000,000s unleashed on a public that will be forever changed. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...
ICE Wants to Go After Dissenters as well as Immigrants
The Trump administration is being open about its plans to violate Americans’ First and Fourth Amendment rights.
www.brennancenter.org
December 1, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
emptywheel.bsky.social
Read @juddlegum.bsky.social on the ties to RU and Ukrainian oligarchs Steve Witkoff is hiding.

popular.info/p/top-trump-...
What is missing from Witkoff’s federal disclosure One of the primary purposes of the federal disclosure form is to ensure that the filer is in compliance with the conflict of interest provisions of federal law. All forms must be reviewed by a federal ethics official within 60 days of filing. The federal official then signs the form, certifying that “on the basis of information contained in this report, I conclude that the filer is in compliance with applicable laws and regulations.” But while Witkoff signed his form on August 13, the version posted to the White House website remains unsigned. This is not an oversight. On November 17, Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) sent a letter to the White House Counsel and the Office of Government ethics noting that “no agency ethics official signed the form… even though the 60-day deadline for an ethics official to review his form passed in October 2025.” The Senators say the form “appears to have inaccurate or incomplete information.” One issue is that Witkoff’s form does not provide full transparency about what financial assets Witkoff currently owns.
December 1, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
donmoyn.bsky.social
Absolute debasement of academic standards
*student submits opinion in psych class
*gets bad grade
*instructor says she can make whatever arguments she wants but must draw on empirical sources
*student & Turning Point says her religious freedom & first amendment rights violated
*professor suspended
kissphoria.bsky.social gwen howerton @kissphoria.bsky.social · 2d
OU has put the professor here on administrative leave:
November 30, 2025 at 9:37 PM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
socialmedialab.ca
"Teens may have come up with a new way to detect, treat Lyme disease using CRISPR gene editing."

But the Trump administration cut the money (granted to pursue the research), claiming it fell under DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion www.cbsnews.com/news/teens-m...
Teens may have come up with a new way to detect, treat Lyme disease using CRISPR gene editing
To compete at iGEM, a sort of science Olympics, teens at a Georgia high school set their sights on finding a better way to detect and treat Lyme disease. Their approach uses CRISPR gene editing.
www.cbsnews.com
December 1, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
scottlincicome.bsky.social
"U.S. Steel-Nippon deal hinged on Trump having a say in future operations. How will he use that power?" www.post-gazette.com/business/pow...
"They realize[d] they sold their souls to the government to get the transaction done and they can't do anything about it."
December 1, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
the-episiarch.bsky.social
The new Ze Frank video reminded me about an adaptation found in some entomopathogenic nematodes - using both their own muscle power and static electricity, they can leap into the air and home in on their host, like an anti-insect surface-to-air missile
#Invertebrate 🧪
news.emory.edu/features/202...
Fatal attraction: Electric charge connects jumping worm to aerial prey
A tiny worm that leaps high into the air — up to 25 times its body length — to attach to flying insects uses static electricity to perform this astounding feat, Emory physicists have found.
news.emory.edu
December 1, 2025 at 3:01 AM
piattodelgatto.bsky.social
If youre a cat, Christmas tree water is the best water.
December 1, 2025 at 9:48 AM
Reposted by Piatto Delgatto
evanbernick.bsky.social
https://www.reddit.com/r/calvinandhobbes/comments/166rvc/january_17_1985_its_worth_a_shot/
November 30, 2025 at 10:52 PM
piattodelgatto.bsky.social
Since the Bible says that the square root of a^2 + b^2 is a + b, this grade on the calculus final violates my religious beliefs. God made it so that the equation √(a^2+b^2) = a + b.

I belive this with every fiber of my being.

Therefore my failure on the calculus exam discriminated against me.
November 30, 2025 at 9:54 PM
piattodelgatto.bsky.social
Win for, uh, people writing at a B1 level as college upper-classmen, I guess.
kissphoria.bsky.social gwen howerton @kissphoria.bsky.social · 2d
OU has put the professor here on administrative leave:
November 30, 2025 at 9:44 PM
piattodelgatto.bsky.social
Bond films, ranked:

1. Casino Royale (2006)
2. Living Daylights (1987)
3. Goldeneye (1995)
4. From Russia with Love (1963)
5. Dr No (1962)
November 30, 2025 at 8:46 PM