#Jesuit Science

[jamesgraybooksellerworld]

Two huge Books by Gaspar Schott

Physica Curiosa, Sive Mirabilia Naturæ Et Artis Libris XII. Comprehensa, Quibus pleraq;, quæ de Angelis, Dæmonibus, Hominibus, Spectris, Energumenis, Monstris, Portentis, Animalibus, Meteoris. and Technica curiosa, sive Mirabilia artis, libris XII “Gaspar Schott, German physicist, born 5 February, 1608, at Konigshofen; died 12 or 22 May, 1666, at Augsburg. He entered the Society of Jesus 20…

[lindahall]

Orazio Grassi – Scientist of the Day

Orazio Grassi, an Italian Jesuit mathematician and astronomer, was born May 1, 1583.

read more...

[eternal-echoes]

“[The Jesuits] had contributed to the development of pendulum clocks, pantographs, barometers, reflecting telescopes and microscopes, to scientific fields as various as magnetism, optics and electricity. They observed, in some cases before anyone else, the coloured bands on Jupiter's surface, the Andromeda nebula and Saturn's rings. They theorised about the circulation of the blood (independently of Harvey), the theoretical possibility of flight, the way the moon effected the tides, and the wave-like nature of light. Star maps of the southern hemisphere, symbolic logic, flood-control measures on the Po and Adige rivers, introducing plus and minus signs into Italian mathematics-all were typical Jesuit achievements, and scientists as influential as Fermat, Huygens, Leibniz and Newton were not alone in counting Jesuits among their most prized correspondents.”

- Jonathan Wright, The Jesuits: Missions, Myths and Histories (London: HarperCollins, 2004), 189.

[claudiosuenaga]

John Dee e a teia Iluminada | Live com André de Pierre e Claudio Suenaga | Lançamento da Enigmas 32

André de Pierre e Cláudio Suenaga falam sobre o polímata e ocultista John Dee, um dos fundadores da ciência moderna e do próprio mundo moderno, e o poder das sociedades em todos os tempos, a exercer uma influência significativa na esfera sociopolítica.

➡️ Canal de André de Pierre: https://www.youtube.com/@AndredePierre

➡️ Revista Enigmas: https://revistaenigmas.com.br/

➡️ Torne-se o meu Patrono no Patreon e tenha acesso a matéria completa sobre John Dee, bem como centenas de conteúdos exclusivos: https://www.patreon.com/posts/78137752

➡️ Ou inscreva-se gratuitamente e tenha acesso a todos os meus posts públicos: https://www.patreon.com/suenaga

➡️ Toda a minha rede aqui: https://linktr.ee/suenaga

➡️ E-mail: claudiosuenaga@mail.com

✅ Adquira "Encuentros cercanos de todo tipo. El caso Villas Boas y otras abducciones íntimas", meu primeiro livro traduzido em espanhol, na Amazon:

Amazon.com (envios a todo o mundo desde os EUA): https://amzn.to/3Lh93Lb Amazon.es (envios a todo o mundo desde a Espanha): https://amzn.to/3LlMtBn Amazon.co.uk (envios dentro do Reino Unido): https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/es/Cl%C3%A1udio-Tsuyoshi-Suenaga/dp/B0BW344XF1/ Amazon.de (envios dentro da Alemanha): https://www.amazon.de/-/es/Cl%C3%A1udio-Tsuyoshi-Suenaga/dp/B0BW344XF1/ Amazon.fr (envios dentro da França): https://www.amazon.fr/-/es/Cl%C3%A1udio-Tsuyoshi-Suenaga/dp/B0BW344XF1/ Amazon.it (envios dentro da Itália): https://www.amazon.it/-/es/Cl%C3%A1udio-Tsuyoshi-Suenaga/dp/B0BW344XF1/ Amazon.co.jp (envios dentro do Japão): https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/es/Cl%C3%A1udio-Tsuyoshi-Suenaga/dp/B0BW344XF1/

✅ Adquira aqui meu livro "As Raízes Hebraicas da Terra do Sol Nascente: O Povo Japonês Seria uma das Dez Tribos Perdidas de Israel?" https://www.lojaenigmas.com.br/pre-venda-as-raizes-hebraicas-da-terra-do-sol-nascente-o-povo-japones-seria-uma-das-dez-tribos-perdidas-de-israel

✅ Adquira os meus livros em formato e-book em minha loja no Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/suenaga/shop

[theodoreangelos]

The Jesuit Church, also known as the University Church, dedicated to the Assumption of Mary, Vienna, Austria Jesuitenkirche oder auch Universitätskirche, gewidmet Mariä Himmelfahrt, Wien, Österreich Église des Jésuites de Vienne ou Église de l'Université, dédiée à l'Assomption de la Bienheureuse Vierge Marie, Vienne, Autriche Церковь иезуитов или Университетская церковь переосвящена во имя Успения Девы Марии, Вена, Австрия @ Campus Academy of the Austrian Academy of Sciences Since 2022, a new research mile stretches from the main building of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) via Sonnenfelsgasse and Bäckerstraße to the former Postsparkasse. Campus Akademie der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (ÖAW) Campus Académie de l'Académie autrichienne des sciences Кампус Академия Австрийской академии наук

[shotbyshe]

Words of the Day

antiquity:

Ancient times, especially the times preceding the Middle Ages.

The people, especially the writers and artisans, of ancient times.

The quality of being old or ancient; considerable age.

jesuit: a religious order of priests and brothers founded by Ignatius Loyola in the 16th century. They seek to find God in all things and serve the greater glory of God and the good of all humanity.

implacability:

Impossible to placate or appease.

Incapable of being pacified; inexorable.

Incapable of being relieved or assuaged; inextinguishable.

censorious:

Critical.

Apt to blame or condemn; severe in making remarks on others, or on their writings or manners.

censure: An expression of strong disapproval or harsh criticism.

wanton:

Lascivious or promiscuous. Used especially of women. (i find this part interesting)

Exciting or expressing sexual desire.

Marked by unprovoked, gratuitous maliciousness; capricious and unjust.

parlance:

A particular manner of speaking; idiom.

Speech, especially a conversation or parley.

Conversation; discourse; talk; diction; phrase.

[rhapsodynew]

The story of the first Led Zeppelin concert recording

Led zeppelin is a diamond of Rock music- the purest water

The first ("known to science") Led Zeppelin concert recording appeared back in the period when not everyone could even immediately remember their name, and the team's debut record has not yet been released. On December 30, 1968, Led Zeppelin opened for the Americans from New York, Vanilla Fudge, who were at the peak of their popularity that year.

The venue was Gonzaga University in the American city of Spokane (Washington State), it is, remarkably, considered Catholic, and named after a saint named Aloysius Gonzaga of the Jesuit Order, the patron saint of youth and students. If they only knew what Led Zeppelin's lyrics might be about! A concert was held in one of the buildings on campus, to be precise, in the John F. Kennedy Pavilion (built in 1965). By the way, it was cold sub-zero weather outside.

This is what John F. looks like. The Kennedy Pavilion is equipped.

And so inside in 1965.

The cheapest concert ticket cost three dollars (now, and the most expensive - five

The setlist of the performance was as follows:

"Train Kept A Rollin'"

"I Can't Quit You"

"As Long As I Have You"

"Dazed And Confused"

"White Summer"

"How Many More Times"

"Pat's Delight"

As you can see, of the seven tracks, only three will be released on the debut album in just two weeks. Such a number of "non-album" tracks speaks to the level of musicians who enjoyed live performances rather than playing a standard set of songs.

The concert was recorded by the simplest amateur method on a cassette, so the recording quality is far from ideal, and sometimes you can even hear a hell of a mess.

A very funny story is also connected with this concert - Led Zeppelin was named Len Zefflin in an advertisement. One can only guess why the band's name has been distorted so much.

That's how you imagine American students waking up with a hangover and asking,

"Well, how was Len Zefflin yesterday?"

[blueiscoool]

A Lost Frans Post Painting Found in a Barn Sells for Over $7 Million

A grimy old painting recovered from an attic or a barn that turns out to be priceless: Fans of Antiques Roadshow will recognize the thrilling trope but also appreciate just how rare an occurrence it actually is.

In 1998 George Wachter, chairman and co-worldwide head of Old Master paintings at Sotheby’s, heard about a painting that had been pulled out of, well, a barn attic. “It was filthy, black, dirty,” Wachter tells Robb Report. “You could hardly see it.”

In less than two minutes of bidding, it sold Wednesday at the auction house with a hammer price of $6 million ($7.37 million with fees), a record for Frans Post, the Dutch Old Master who painted it some 359 years ago. (His previous auction record was $4.5 million, achieved at Sotheby’s in 1997.)

View of Olinda, Brazil, with Ruins of the Jesuit Church went on the block as part of the single-owner sale of Jordan and Thomas A. Saunders III’s impressive collection of Old Masters, which Wachter was instrumental in assembling. Despite the piece’s condition back in the ’90s, Wachter had a hunch about the oil on panel, and early in his collaboration with the Saunderses he encouraged them to acquire it. “I said, ‘This is a killer,’” Wachter recalls. “And so they trusted me because they couldn’t see it. It was jet black.”

The trio enlisted Nancy Krieg, who was the premier conservator of Dutch and Flemish paintings in New York, to restore it. First, she carefully “opened a tiny window” in the sky of the landscape, according to Wachter, “and it became blue and white, and it was just incredible.”

Krieg then gave the piece a thorough cleaning with cotton swabs and solvents, which revealed the charming pastoral scene visible today. “There was a little anteater in the corner, and all these animals running around and all the different kinds of figures,” Wachter marvels.

“It’s an art and a science, the process of cleaning,” says David Pollack, senior vice president and head of Old Master paintings at the auction house.

Prior to the sale, Sotheby’s placed a $6 million to $8 million estimate on the painting. Its value derives not only from its quality but also from its place in art history. While most 17th-century Dutch artists concentrated on familiar, local landscapes and the rising merchant class who formed their clientele, Post journeyed to Brazil, then a colony of the Netherlands. There he became one of the first European artists to take landscapes of the New World as his subject. He drew and painted what he saw there for several years—and continued to dine out on his adventures for the remainder of his career back in his hometown of Haarlem.

Pollack says Post painted View of Olinda, Brazil, with Ruins of the Jesuit Church, among many other works, from memory and/or sketches. “This would be one of his greatest,” he says.

Post was highly collectible even in his lifetime. “He was painting for a very open, ready market,” Pollack notes. “This was his calling card, these views of Brazil. And to have something on this scale certainly ranks it in the top tier, no doubt.” The panel measures 23 ¾ by 35 5/8 inches, which is on the large side for the artist.

Pollack says the painting, which is signed F. Post and dated 1666, moved through Parisian collections in the 18th century and was bought in the 19th century by the dealer Charles Simon for 160 francs, most likely on behalf of Cardinal Joseph Fesch, Napoleon Bonaparte’s maternal uncle, who had a voracious taste for fine art—and a budget to match. He acquired a reported 17,000 works of art, some the spoils of his nephew’s wars. (He bequeathed a thousand paintings to his hometown of Ajaccio, on the French island of Corsica, which formed the basis of Musée Fesch.)

The piece then ended up in a private collection in Connecticut. It’s unclear who exactly banished it to the barn or when—though Wachter speculates that “it had probably been there 100 years.” But eventually someone uncovered it and consigned it to a London gallery, from which Wachter arranged the sale to the Saunderses. After its makeover, the painting long hung in their Park Avenue apartment, where it held special meaning for Tom, who died in 2022. “Tom was obsessed by it,” Wachter says.

By JULIE BELCOVE.

[onion-souls]

Some things about Dune that just popped up during this watch:

So I love that there are these Jesuit witches and human computers, but they are explained through materialist fringe science; super-human conditioning, chemical alterations, and hypnotism. And then the setting still has psychic powers and the entire hyperspace infrastructure requires precognition. Not a flaw, just a funny worldbuilding quirk.

So ornithopters are always fun, luv me 0 mana flyers, but also, you can just slam antigravity technology on fat guys, and it seems like helicopter crashes are what always kill people in desert warfare, so

So that hunter killer drone operates on T-Rex rules, with sensors based on movement. The scene gets to show off Paul's badass training, and the primitive nature could be explained as it being a cheap, small drone... but the thing also requires there to be a human operator built into the walls, maybe a few dozen meters away. I mean, we have camera tech that's more useful than that, and remote control tech that's better

So in the book and the other adaptations, the Yueh/Leto tooth gambit relies on the Baron getting up close and personal to gloat. And he is still blocked that way in this movie. But this time, the tooth feels less like a gas than this insane instant death pulse wave attack. Leto used DARK PULSE. Like, people standing meters behind Leto's exhale dropped dead within a frame of like, two seconds. Strange mechanics.

It's still my favorite adaptation, one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen, and actually improves on the original in a couple of ways. But just some stray thoughts.

[quiltofstars]

"Magnificent desolation" // Enda Kelly

Click below to see a few craters identified and some info about them!

From top left to bottom right:

Clavius crater is named after Christopher Clavius (1538-1612), a Jesuit German mathematician and astronomer. He was one of the members of the commission that approved the Gregorian calendar.

Rutherfurd crater is named after Lewis Rutherfurd (1816-1892), an American lawyer and astronomer, and pioneering astrophotographer. He produced high quality photographs of the Sun, Moon, and the planets, as well as stars and star clusters. Notably, he was one of the founding members of the National Academy of Sciences in 1863.

Cysalus crater is named for Johann Baptist Cysat (c. 1587-1657), a Swiss Jesuit mathematician and astronomer. His most important work was on comets, particularly the comet of 1618, demonstrating that it orbited around the Sun in a parabolic orbit.

Moretus crater is named for Theodorus Moretus (1602-1667), a Flemish Jesuit mathematician who made significant strides in math, geometry, physics, optics, and theology.

[jamesgraybooksellerworld]

Two books on History, Myth & Science 1524 & 1678

Two Early Illustrated books, each which has depictions of Geographical changes, Technical inventions, and  Historical milestones.  646J. Werner Rolewinck.1425-1502 (With a continuation by J. Linturius and others from 1484-1514) Fasciculus temporum omnes antiquorum cronicas a creatione mundi usque ad annum christi M.ccccc.xxiiii subcincte complectens una cum multis additionibus : tam de gallia…

[lindahall]

Roberto Bellarmine – Scientist of the Day

Roberto Bellarmino, an Italian Jesuit and Cardinal, was born Oct. 4, 1542.

read more...

[eternal-echoes]

“Several of the great Jesuit scientists also performed the enormously valuable task of recording their data in massive encyclopedias, which played a crucial role in spreading scientific research throughout the scholarly community. "If scientific collaboration was one of the outgrowths of the scientific revolution," says historian William Ashworth, "the Jesuits deserve a large share of the credit.”

The Jesuits also boasted a great many extraordinary mathematicians who made a number of important contributions to their discipline. When Charles Bossut, one of the first historians of mathematics, compiled a list of the most eminent mathematicians from 900 B.C. through 1800 A.D., 16 of the 303 people he listed were Jesuits. That figure-amounting to a full 5 percent of the greatest mathematicians over a span of 2,700 years-becomes still more impressive when we recall that the Jesuits existed for only two of those twenty-seven centuries! In addition, some thirty-five craters on the moon are named for Jesuit scientists and mathematicians.”

- Thomas E. Woods Jr., Ph.D., “The Church and Science,” How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization

[mariacallous]

While the world is abuzz about the political prospects of the first American-born head of the Vatican, far more consequential may be that Leo XIV is also the first Augustinian pope. While not predictive, a better understanding of the Augustinian tradition provides greater insights into the potential direction that the new pontiff may lead the church and its 1.5 billion Catholics globally, as well as opportunities for domestic political activism at home.

The armchair opining about whether the new pope is politically conservative or liberal—while understandable—belies the difficulties of cramming faith-based motivations into a left-right spectrum of secular political ideologies. For championing the dignity of the poor and marginalized, his predecessor Pope Francis was lambasted as “woke” by the U.S. right, while heading a patriarchal church that subordinates women and decries abortion as murder invited scorn from the political left.

Such baseline tenets of Catholicism were unlikely to change regardless of who was chosen as pope. Within those broad political constraints, however, there is surprising latitude for maneuver. Leo’s position as a member of the Order of St. Augustine opens some interesting possibilities to inspire a broad-based, populist social movement that transcends denominational—and even religious—differences.

A young Robert Prevost joined the Augustinians in 1977, the same year he graduated with a mathematics degree from Villanova University, the “citadel of Augustinian education” that forged his Catholic identity. Following the conclave, the Rev. Peter Donohue, Leo’s friend and the current president of Villanova, appeared on the Today Show to explain how unusual it was for a member of one of the Catholic religious orders—the Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, and the lesser-known Augustinians—to become pope. “Francis was a Jesuit, but most of the popes have been what we refer to as diocesan priests … who have risen up the ranks in a diocese,” Donohue said, cloaked in the Augustinians’ black robes of poverty.

“So for a ‘religious’ to get elected, it is a little unusual because the focus is on community life and the focus is really on how we live our lives. As an Augustinian, our emphasis is—our charism is—building community. So I think it will be really important to him to bring that charism to what he does. He’s been very engaged in the charism of building community. So it will be an interesting ride, I’m sure,” he added.

Before becoming pope, Prevost spoke openly about his Augustinian motivations. Unsurprisingly, Leo’s papal motto and coat of arms expressly evoke those traditions. But what do Augustinians believe? And how might that translate to inspiration—if not leadership—in the political realm?

As a longtime political science professor at Villanova, I could give you the boilerplate explanation that Augustinians are inspired by the works of the fifth-century North African bishop St. Augustine of Hippo, whose Confessions and The City of God loom large in the theological development of modern Christianity; that the university’s motto is Veritas, Unitas, Caritas (“Truth, Unity, Love”); or that it seeks to provide a nondogmatic, welcoming, and friendly community of learning and humility, combining faith with reason and critical thinking.

Indeed, when Leo first spoke to the throngs in St. Peter’s Square about an open, forward-looking community of peace and charity, he may well have been thinking of Villanova. While far from perfect, the Augustinian community here is easygoing and informal, where even the brothers at the on-campus friary prefer to be addressed by their first names. (This is why old friends and colleagues who knew Leo before his appointment as cardinal refer to him as “Father Bob.”) For students and faculty, there are no purity tests—religious, political, or otherwise—for acceptance and inclusion.

The university calendar is punctuated by the St. Thomas of Villanova and Martin Luther King Jr. days of service to poor and marginalized communities, but the biggest (non-basketball) event on campus is the Villanova Special Olympics Fall Festival, the largest student-run Special Olympics event in the world, welcoming more than 1,000 athletes.

This should come as no surprise, as Augustine was among the earliest Christian theologians to meaningfully explore issues of human diversity and disability, celebrating all parts of humanity that contribute to the beauty of the whole. Published in A.D. 426, Augustine’s The City of God explores the diversity of races and ethnicities but also those with intellectual and physical differences, including transgender and intersex individuals. Here, too, Augustine celebrates the diversity of human existence as equal reflections of the beauty of God’s creation:

But whoever is anywhere born a man, that is, a rational, mortal animal, no matter what unusual appearance he presents in color, movement, sound, nor how peculiar he is in some power, part, or quality of his nature, no Christian can doubt that he springs from that one protoplast [Adam]. … For God, the Creator of all, knows where and when each thing ought to be, or to have been created, because He sees the similarities and diversities which can contribute to the beauty of the whole.

Consequently, among Catholic orders, Augustinians tend to be at the forefront of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. If anything, building such a community has always been the charism of the Augustinian order. So, while Leo’s position appears uncertain, LGBTQ+ Catholics range from “cautiously optimistic” to a hailing him as “great choice,” citing his vocal promotion of an inclusive synodal church, more open to the lay community.

Such communitas was evident in Leo’s recent message to Villanova graduates, that “peace begins with each one of us—in the way we look at others, listen to others, and speak about others.” He urged graduates not to succumb to the “war of words and images,” the othering that stokes divisiveness and hatred. For Augustinians, discrimination and exclusion based on race, national origin, gender orientation, or ability run afoul not only of biblical precepts of love and charity but of the glorious mosaic that is God’s human creation. And it is this fundamental equality of God’s creations that undergirds Augustinian beliefs in liberty and the universality of human rights as essential to promoting a more just and peaceful society that furthers human dignity.

Leo and his Augustinian traditions have appeared on the global stage at a significant juncture in world history, amid the ongoing erosion of democratic values and governance worldwide, including in the United States. As such, Leo’s Augustinianism may provide an antidote to the self-interested, closed-door, closed-heart, and closed-minded politics of U.S. President Donald Trump’s new Gilded Age.

In many ways, Leo is the anti-Trump. Trump admits that he is motivated by wealth and self-aggrandizement; Leo embraces serving others, humility, and spurning materialism, right down to the Augustinians’ black robes. Trump’s list of personal sins and amoral transgressions is as extensive as it is well known; perhaps Leo’s Augustinianism will appeal to religious conservatives uncomfortable with defending Trump’s morally indefensible actions. Augustinian thought imparts a moral resolve in speaking out against unjust racism, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, and the social hierarchies that posit particular groups as inherently superior or inferior to others.

Progressive politics in the United States and elsewhere would do well to draw lessons from Leo’s Augustinian morality. More importantly, the Augustinian notion of a broad, inclusive, and diverse communitas of activists—working together for the common good—could inspire ever greater trust among Americans in one another and in their shared institutions, acting as a bulwark against the hatred, fear, and cynicism of the country’s present divided politics. Love, equality, justice, and trust: These are the foundations not only of the Augustinian community but of any community dedicated to the thriving and well-being of everyone in it.

Consequently, the biggest political opportunities with the election of a new pope may ultimately stem not from the fact that Leo is the first American pope, but that he is the first Augustinian pope.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Captain Crunch. http://Newsday.com/matt

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 21, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Apr 22, 2025

Yesterday, on Easter Sunday, Pope Francis performed his final public act when he waved to worshippers in St. Peter’s Square. He died today at 88. Born in Argentina, he was the first Pope to come from the Americas. He was also the first Jesuit to serve as Pope, bringing new perspectives to the Catholic Church and hoping to focus the church on the poor.

The stock market plunged again today after President Donald J. Trump continued to harass Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. The threat of instability if Trump tries to fire Powell, added to the instability already created by Trump’s tariff policies, saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average fall 971.82 points, or 2.48%; the S&P 500 dropped 2.36%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.55%. The dollar hit a three-year low, while the value of gold soared. Journalist Brian Tyler Cohen noted that since Trump took office, the Dow has fallen 13.8%, the S&P 500 is down 15.5%, and the Nasdaq is down 20.5%.

Hannah Erin Lang of the Wall Street Journal reported that “[t]he Trump rout is taking on historic dimensions.” She noted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average “is headed for its worst April performance since 1932,” when the country was in the midst of the Great Depression. Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments, told Lang: “It’s impossible to commit capital to an economy that is unstable and unknowable because of policy structure.”

The Trump administration announced on April 11 that it would withhold from Harvard University $2.2 billion in grants already awarded and a $60 million contract unless Harvard permitted the federal government to control the university’s admissions and intellectual content. Today, Harvard sued the government for violating the First Amendment and overstepping its legal authority under the guise of addressing antisemitism.

The complaint notes the “arbitrary and capricious nature” of the government’s demands, and says, “The government has not—and cannot—identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives, foster American success, preserve American security, and maintain America’s position as a global leader in innovation.”

University president Alan Garber explained that the freeze would jeopardize research on “how cancer spreads throughout the body, to predict the spread of infectious disease outbreaks, and to ease the pain of soldiers wounded on the battlefield.” He continued: “As opportunities to reduce the risk of multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease are on the horizon, the government is slamming on the brakes. The victims will be future patients and their loved ones who will suffer the heartbreak of illnesses that might have been prevented or treated more effectively. Indiscriminately slashing medical, scientific, and technological research undermines the nation’s ability to save American lives, foster American success, and maintain America’s position as a global leader in innovation.”

Harvard is suing the departments of Health and Human Services, Justice, Education, Energy, and Defense, the General Services Administration (GSA), the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, NASA, and the leaders of those agencies.

After news broke yesterday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had disclosed classified information on a second unsecure Signal chat—this one on on his unsecure personal cell phone—and his former spokesperson told Politico the Pentagon was in “total chaos,” and he fired three of his top aides, media articles today wrote that officials were looking for a new Secretary of Defense.

But Hegseth blamed the media for the exposure of his Signal chats, and Trump stood by Hegseth. According to Dasha Burns, Eli Stokols, and Jake Traylor of Politico, the president doesn’t want to validate the stories about disarray at the Pentagon by firing Hegseth. “He’s doing a great job,” the president told reporters. “It’s just fake news.”

While the visible side of the administration appears to be floundering, new stories suggest that the less visible side—the “Department of Government Efficiency”—has dug into U.S. data in alarming ways.

On April 15, Jenna McLaughlin of NPR reported on an official whistleblower disclosure that as soon as members of the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) arrived at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), they appeared to be hacking into secure data. While they claimed to be looking for places to cut costs, the behavior of the DOGE team suggested something else was going on. They demanded the highest level of access, tried to hide their activities in the system, turned off monitoring tools, and then manually deleted the record of their tracks, all behaviors that cybersecurity experts told McLaughlin sounded like “what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do.”

Staffers noticed that an IP address in Russia was trying to log in to the system using a newly created DOGE account with correct username and password, and later saw that a large amount of sensitive data was leaving the agency. Cybersecurity experts identified that spike as a sign of a breach in the system, creating the potential for that data to be sold, stolen, or used to hurt companies, while the head of DOGE himself could use the information for his own businesses. “All of this is alarming," Russ Handorf, who worked in cybersecurity for the FBI, told McLaughlin. "If this was a publicly traded company, I would have to report this [breach] to the Securities and Exchange Commission.” When the whistleblower brought his concerns to someone at NLRB, he received threats.

“If he didn’t know the backstory, any [chief information security officer] worth his salt would look at network activity like this and assume it’s a nation-state attack from China or Russia,” Jake Braun, former acting principal deputy national cyber director at the White House, told McLaughlin.

McLaughlin noted that the story of what happened at the NLRB is not uncommon. When challenged by judges, DOGE has offered conflicting and vague answers to the question of why it needs access to sensitive information, and has dismissed concerns about cybersecurity and privacy. The administration has slashed through the agencies that protect systems from attack and Trump has signed an executive order urging government departments to “eliminate…information silos” and to share their information.

Sharon Block, the executive director of Harvard Law School's Center for Labor and a Just Economy and a former NLRB board member, told McLaughlin: “There is nothing that I can see about what DOGE is doing that follows any of the standard procedures for how you do an audit that has integrity and that's meaningful and will actually produce results that serve the normal auditing function, which is to look for fraud, waste and abuse…. The mismatch between what they're doing and the established, professional way to do what they say they're doing...that just kind of gives away the store, that they are not actually about finding more efficient ways for the government to operate.”

On April 18, Makena Kelly and Vittoria Elliott of Wired reported that DOGE is building a master database that knits together information from U.S. Customs and Immigration Services, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Social Security Administration, and voting data from Pennsylvania and Florida. This appears to be designed to find and pressure undocumented immigrants, Kelly and Elliott reported, but the effects of the consolidation of data are not limited to them.

On April 15 the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Gerald Connolly of Virginia, asked the acting inspector general at the Department of Labor and the inspector general at the NLRB to investigate “any and all attempts to exfiltrate data and any attempts to cover up their activities.” Two days later, he made a similar request to the acting inspector general for the Social Security Administration.

Connolly wrote: “I am concerned that DOGE is moving personal information across agencies without the notification required under the Privacy Act or related laws, such that the American people are wholly unaware their data is being manipulated in this way.”

On April 17, Christopher Bing and Avi Asher-Schapiro of ProPublica reported that the administration is looking to replace the federal government’s $700 billion internal expense card program, known as SmartPay, with a contract awarded to the private company Ramp. Ramp is backed by investment firms tied to Trump and Musk.

While administration officials insist that SmartPay is wasteful, both Republican and Democratic budget experts say that’s wrong, according to Bing and Asher-Schapiro. “SmartPay is the lifeblood of the government,” former General Services Administration commissioner Sonny Hashmi told the reporters. “It’s a well-run program that solves real world problems…with exceptional levels of oversight and fraud prevention already baked in.”

“There’s a lot of money to be made by a new company coming in here,” said Hashmi. “But you have to ask: What is the problem that’s being solved?”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[memecucker]

It should be noted that this is an observation that has been made for centuries. Matteo Ricci described China as “atheistic” and by that he didn’t mean “they believe in False Religion” he meant “they don’t really care about religion and people openly admit they do these rituals and ceremonies out of a sense of tradition and not because they believe these gods are actually real”

which was actually a matter of importance because the typical Jesuit strategy for overseas missions was to emphasize commonalities between local religion and Catholicism and then point to Catholicism as being the more perfect/correct version of what people already believe (so like “hey we both agree the world was created by a god but don’t you think it makes more sense it was a monotheistic god because..” but that was not working at all in China because people didn’t care about questions of theology so instead Ricci switched things up to instead emphasize an cross-cultural exchange of secular knowledge such as science because it turns out talking about science was what actually helped him get his foot in the door in China because the people did not care about questions of “faith” or “god”