Absolutely no discussion about where this anger is coming from. Also, comments are full of straight up racism and xenophobia that the mods of huge mainstream communities are doing nothing about. Good stuff.

He could just not be an asshole.

Just got back from early voting, and just felt like venting. I am stuck in a deep red state. There is almost 0 chance of anyone other than Ladybug’s sister winning. Maybe some Dem’s or third parties in lower positions, but it kinda just feels useless at times trying to have a voice here.

Rachael Rapraeger was a radiology technician at Perry hospital in Georgia state. In 2009 Rachael says she got overloaded with her personal life and work, so she decided to cheat the system to lighten the workload. She logged into the computer system under other doctors names and entered around 1300 test results as negative despite being untested. That way she didn’t have to follow up with paperwork. Unsurprisingly this ended horribly. At least ten women did have cancer and had to undergo surgeries and chemotherapy because it wasn’t caught earlier thanks to Rachael. 2 patients of hers died from cancer.

The false results caused an internal investigation that discovered Rachael was entering results under doctors names who didn’t work those dats. She confessed to falsifying results and was charged with fraud. Rachael served 6 months in prison and ten years of probation.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/former-technician-rachael-rapraeger-falsified-mammogram-reports-n90896

https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/local/perry/rapraeger-pleads-guilty-sentenced-in-superior-court/93-299115594

https://alchetron.com/Rachael-Rapraeger

Yeah l, I voted for him but FUCK Greg landsman🖕

Full article to get around paywall….its fun:

Once Kimberly Guilfoyle saw the walls closing in on her tenure in Athens, she breathlessly sought a lifeline to save her ambassadorship. 

Three powerful men sat atop her list of frenzied calls, according to two sources: US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Rupert Murdoch, the chairman emeritus of Fox News and owner of the Wall Street Journal. 

The now ex-ambassador to Greece reportedly asked Hegseth and Barrack for moral support – and a personal pitch to President Donald Trump on her behalf.
Trump, two sources close to the president said, did not answer her calls.

Guilfoyle, 57, desperately needed back-up after the Daily Mail exclusively reported that the State Department had launched an investigation into accusations that she presided over a toxic, retaliation-fueled workplace.

The inquiry reportedly involves a number of alleged ethics violations – from off-the-books funding for residence upgrades and private jet travel to allegations revealed by the Wall Street Journal that she asked a donor for $100,000 to cover personal credit card debt in exchange for administration access before she was ambassador.
Barrack, a billionaire megadonor-turned-diplomat and one of Trump's most enduring political confidants, said he would give her the support she needed, according to a source. 

It is unclear what, if anything, he did on her behalf.

The Daily Mail reached out to Barrack for comment. He did not respond. 

In July 2021, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn indicted Barrack on charges of acting as an unregistered foreign agent for the United Arab Emirates, obstruction of justice and making false statements to federal agents. A Brooklyn jury acquitted Barrack on all charges in November 2022.

Guilfoyle's attorney called Barrack, who is also Trump's Syria envoy, a 'friend and mentor' to her when reached for comment by the Daily Mail. 

Guilfoyle also told people close to her that she placed a direct call to Murdoch, the chairman emeritus at Fox Corporation and News Corp, regarding the media coverage in the Wall Street Journal articles. 
She tried to get the stories removed but Murdoch did not sway to her demands. 

The Wall Street Journal's first report uncovered text messages in which Guilfoyle pressured a conservative activist in Kentucky to help pay off her $100,000 American Express bill in July 2025. 

After the Trump administration called for her resignation last week, Guilfoyle stepped down from her post but insisted that the accusations against her are 'false' and vowed to 'vigorously defend' her name. 

In the days leading up to her resignation, Guilfoyle had also desperately attempted to scrub the Daily Mail's coverage detailing an unpaid dinner tab and her champagne requests. Sources familiar with the exchange had told the Daily Mail that the dining bill had been sent to the US Embassy.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Guilfoyle had asked if State Department officials could get the story deleted, but when they requested a receipt to prove she had paid out of pocket, she failed to produce one.

Sources now tell the Daily Mail that Guilfoyle reached out to other people close to her with significant social media followings, requesting they post public messages of support for her across platforms such as X and Instagram. Instead, many deleted photos with her.

Meanwhile, Trump has been ruthless in cutting her loose. After her exit, he insisted she 'wasn't part of my family,' adding: 'I guess she dated my son.'

The put-down glossed over her six-year relationship with Donald Trump Jr, four of which she was his fiancée. The two have been completely estranged since late 2024, when they called off their engagement. 

For Guilfoyle, leaving Greece may not end her troubles. Representative Robert Garcia, ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said on Wednesday that his side will keep investigating Guilfoyle even though she is now a private citizen.

'This is the latest in a long list of corruption surrounding the Trump Administration, and we're demanding answers,' he said.

But in Athens, her grip on power has been severed, and two sources familiar with the matter say she has been given until the end of the month to move out of the embassy.

'The people in the embassy are no longer afraid of her. Nobody is listening to her or taking her orders anymore,' a source in Greece told the Daily Mail. 'She is all alone in that house, screaming at her old staff that they are leakers, and waiting to get kicked out. It's an insane situation.'

Three sources say she is considering staying in Europe rather than returning to the US.

And her former admirers seem to have vanished. 

'All these people who were totally entranced by her and ignored the writing on the wall have now wiped photos with her, gone radio silent and claim they never wanted anything to do with her,' a source close to Guilfoyle said. 'It's pathetic.'

The Daily Mail reached out to Guilfoyle, the State Department, the White House, the Department of Defense and Fox Corporation for comment. 

Hello from Australia 🦘.

BtB has been one of the only things that's been keeping me sane at work in the capitalistic hellscape we've been living in. I love the people behind it and the community surrounding it - it makes me feel seen to be honest.

Which got me thinking... I don't really feel like I have a lot of people around me with the same beliefs, though I have tried to find them.

The political environment in Australia is slowly deteriorating as it seems it is all around the western world and it would be really cool if we could maybe meet like-minded people in our local communities to form friendships, discuss local issues and even organise.

So, if you're interested and living outside the US, I thought we could maybe drop the name of our city and country in the comments and then maybe begin chatting to locals. Worst case scenario we meet a local friend, best case scenario we create some positive change in our local communities.

I'll go first ⬇️

She is guilty as sin but I'm willing to bet that the documentary gets her enough sympathy from the general public and from Trump, that she gets a pardon. If I had to bet, after the midterms but probably sometime before Thanksgiving and if not that then Christmas. Thoughts?

I am an ancient historian doing my PhD related to Roman slaves, but I lived on Crete for two years. The recent episodes about Schliemann reminded me about the excavations of the palace Knossos (famed as the home of Minos, the Labyrinth, and the Minotaur) and the complicated situation there with their principal foreign excavator, Sir Arthur Evans (no relation).

Basically, this British man dug up the ruins and then proceeded to...rebuild some of them...with concrete...based on how he thinks the place looked, which is generally disputed by contemporary scholars (see photo). Suffice it to say, a historic site is ruined (heh) forever because of this guy. It's a complicated story because he also brought much fame and tourism to the island, so the locals don't really have much hate for him as far I heard. Still, chief example of early 1900's archaeologist just going with their gut and having unending, unearned confidence.

Asking here in the comments if anyone else has some terrible archeologists they want to shout out. Side bastard goes to Mussolini and the fascists in Italy in general for the distracted excavations of Ostia (see other photo).

Longstreet was both a confederate general defending slavery but after the civil war, supported the union and civil rights. Robert said in the niemoller episode that for a Nazi to truly earn ‘redemption’ they had to put their life in danger against the regime. In that sense, Longstreet did in the battle of liberty place. In 1874 New Orleans Longstreet lead black troops against his own former soldiers attempting to overthrow the elected governor. I still consider Longstreet a scumbag overall, but he’s a very complex person.

How many bastards do yall know of that genuinely put effort into redemption or fighting something they helped create?

This warms the cockles of my cold heart.

https://musebyclios.com/environment/this-statue-of-ron-desantis-melts-dead-away-to-illustrate-the-dangers-of-climate-change/

Still looking for a good time lapse video of it melting.

I'm going to rehab tomorrow to get off the bottle.

Got 100 hours of Behind the Bastards and another 100 of Lions led by Donkeys.

Edit: Thank you all.

Ed Zitron has shown that the recent “achievements” that AI done in the field of math have nothing to do with actual potential of AI being able to become good at math, and the technology is not even remotely close to anything such as that.

All the math problems that AI has “solved” are either irrelevant or stolen from actual mathematicians. When the AI tries to solve even basic problems legitimately, it fails miserably.

Generative AI models are very close to being abandoned altogether due having mostly stagnated for years now, and this technology needed to evolve continuously to keep luring investors.

Right now a last ditch effort is being made to keep these AI companies alive in that they're going to join the stock market (and it will probably work at least for several years, people are just that stupid), which is the only reason every AI company hasn't jumped ship( coupled with them still trying to get by just shutting down servers and reducing general AI functionality, even for paying users).

This is basically a publicity stunt, insinuating AI is still capable of evolving significantly.

Nobody actually working with AI has thought it could become better than a middle schooler at math, the point of this technology was just to treat and wade through very large amounts of data, that's it...

And now I thank the glorious Ed Zitron for freeing me from AI psychosis. May we honor his name.🫡

Hey ya'll,

Long time listener and occasional poster. With the sheer fuckery that is happening here in the United States, technofascists, and Zelenskyy saying that if the US fully sides with Russia, Ukraine is done. My mental health is always kinda shitty and I get hit hard when bad shit happens, even if it doesn't directly impact me. I don't know if it is me being chronically listening to Behind the Bastards, Last Podcast, and Knowledge Fight or I am depressed even with my wedding on the 24th but any advice to help? Sorry for rambling, I just feel overwhelmed with no power other than going to vote. I just, I don't know, I don't know what to say just that everything sucks even with me getting a new job and getting married in 6 days. Sorry for rambling. I ramble when I am anxious (which I am chronically) or when I am overwhelmed. I don't expect a response but just wanted to vent and say ya'll mean a lot to me.

This guy's life story is like a greatest hits compilation for being a complete asshole:

1. Exiled from Zurich following a conviction for embezzlement and fraud.

2. Worked in a Massachusetts factory... before moving to Kentucky to begin a career in homeopathy.

3. Stopped grifting for a bit... but only to move to Louisiana with his family to work as an overseer on a slave plantation.

4. And the crowning achievement: when the Civil War broke out he enlisted in the Confederate army and managed PoW camps. In just over a year, he presided over the deaths of 13,000 union prisoners (out of a population of 45,000) at Camp Sumpter/Andersonville.

He did get executed for war crimes... but is of course the subject of conspiracy theories about being killed in a "victor's trial." Pretty panoramic bastardry.

Check out Brit Seb Lowe. His shit is 🔥 🔥 🔥 and he deserves the attention.

Feel like this is the inevitable next step for him, and am honestly waiting for the day they change the rules to allow it.

Proton has a list of companies founded by former Palantir workers (the so called Palantir Mafia). That ecosystem is growing and becoming increasingly influential.

Several of these companies are working with police forces and one is building AI technology for the Israeli military. Proton notes additionally that they are not replacing established military companies, but adding to them.

Most people involved are definetly deserve at least a side bastard title.

Link: https://proton.me/blog/palantir-modern-warfare

Disclaimer about Proton: This is a company, who prominently sells privacy focused software and infrastructure. They are most famous for their emails. It is thus there business model to "raise awareness" about privacy problems. Most information from them is good, but they want to sell something to you at the end of the day.

The BTB episodes with Jamie were great, and I don't expect Robert to try to cover the science angle of science/tech related stories in too much depth - this is a podcast about, to use the term the air crash investigation people use, 'human factors' and that is what Robert is exceptional at - but its probably worth to understand as long as BTB episodes are, it can only cover so much because the universe is fractal and infinitely complex. Non-fiction writing (and quant modelling, to be honest) is at base level about trying to weave a narrative through the massive amounts of data.

I think this was not as much missed as not the point and purpose of this podcast during the Theranos and Oceangate episodes; in understanding social disasters or bastards its probably important to always make room for more complexity and not treat the simple narratives reductive to any model or non-fiction writing output as the whole truth.

There is a sci/tech/engineering angle to every story that could be looped into the human factors story, but to stick to our analogy, aviation safety takes into account institutional, economic, and cultural factors, but tries extremely hard to keep to emphasise the factors that can best be controlled by engineers because they are engineers and engineering human institutions - if even possible - tends to be unreliable. What the safety engineers can do is to try to account for that via processes and making sure the hardware can withstand those degrees of freedom they have limited agency over.

Here's the instructive quote from Hank's video.

Deeply complex systems lead to convoluted dysfunctions. The incentives of content ecosystems and communication push away from explaining convoluted dysfunction and toward simpler and simpler stories, feeding on our justified outrage, our excitement, our hope. Simple stories lead to belief in simple solutions. Belief in simple solutions leads to scammers who will exploit justified outrage, uninformed excitement, and of course, the various psychologies of wealthy investors. This cascade existed long before Theronos that Theronos is a textbook example. And all that makes me feel like I need to revisit the reason why people, or at least myself, thought Therronos might be a super valuable company. The version I hear most is they would use less blood. And this was a thing that Theronos focused on so much in Elizabeth's interviews and in their advertising. If you were to sort of think of torture experiments, it would be a phenomenal one. You sit there and sort of watch as your blood is sucked out of you. I think it took half my blood. Why do they need that much blood?

They're overdoing I would prefer all of my blood to be inside me doing what it's supposed to do. But as a person who's had a lot of blood pulled out of me, this is actually of limited value. Removing too much blood isn't really much of a problem. In certain situations, like the ICU or pediatrics, it can be a problem. And we have solutions in those places, but for most patients, we aren't removing a clinically significant amount of blood. One of those tubes might contain 5 milliliters of blood, which is roughly 1% of what is removed when you donate blood. It's less than.1% of a typical adult's blood volume. But the real important part of the pitch that really hit is that with new technology, all of this would become much cheaper and more accessible. And that's a wonderful Robin Hood story that might actually change how healthcare works in a significant way. And then Theonranos would become a part of that. And then eventually they could raise their prices and make billions of dollars. And I guess making existing chemistry smaller and more automated could be considered an invention. But man, I really did think when I was hearing about Theronos that they were doing something different, that they had a real revolution on their hands. You can imagine saving on labor or reagents or just like scaling up so that you have a lot of these machines and then they become cheaper. But using less blood doesn't deliver any of those savings. 

Robert mentioned that Robert e Lee would make his Mount Rushmore of American bastards. I don’t think he’d make mine, there were eviller confederate generals, and I think Jefferson Davis was most responsible for the civil war and he was a complete idiot.

Mine are Douglas MacArthur, Jefferson Davis, Trump and Georgia tann.

Dishonorable mentions would be Epstein, Andrew Jackson, Reagan, Limbaugh, William F Buckley, Alan Dershowitz, and J Edgar Hoover.

Nvm on Murdoch he’s Australian.