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Master Plan podcast

📰 Overview & Context

The Lever is an independent, reader-supported investigative news outlet founded by journalist David Sirota. Its mission is to expose the corruption and corporate influence underlying American politics, economics, and media.

🕵️ What They Cover

The Lever focuses on deep-dive reporting across a range of urgent topics, including:

• 🏛️ Political corruption & dark money
• 💵 Corporate power & regulatory capture
• 🌎 Climate change & environmental justice
• ⚖️ Judicial influence & Supreme Court rulings
• 🗳️ Campaign finance & electoral integrity
• 📺 Media narratives and truth distortion

Their journalism has sparked congressional inquiries, driven national conversations, and informed millions of readers seeking accountability from those in power.

🧠 Overview & Context

In this article, Greenpeace USA unpacks the historical significance and enduring impact of the Lewis Powell Memo, a 1971 document written by future Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. The memo served as a strategic call to arms for American corporate interests to actively influence media, education, politics, and the judiciary.

Greenpeace describes the memo as a corporate playbook for dominating democratic institutions by reshaping public discourse and policy to favor business interests — laying the foundation for today’s concentrated wealth and corporate influence in U.S. politics.

Overview & Context

📅 Published: ~4 weeks ago (June 2025) • 📍 Source: Dissent in Bloom on Substack

This Substack post reveals that Pro V&V, a federally accredited voting machine lab, quietly approved major hardware and software changes to ES&S machines used across more than 40% of U.S. counties—labeling them as “de minimis”—just before the 2024 election, bypassing public review and full testing.

🔍 What It Reports

• Changes included new ballot scanners, printer adjustments, firmware updates, and deployment of a new Electionware reporting system—all approved without transparency.
• After the election, Pro V&V’s website went dark, raising concerns over accountability.

⚠️ Why It Matters

• These updates were not appear minor—they were structural enough to qualify as a stress test of the election system, per watchdogs like SMART Elections.
• Rockland County, NY voters filed affidavits claiming votes were altered or missing after casting ballots.
• A resulting lawsuit has moved into the discovery phase, spotlighting vulnerabilities in election certification and oversight.

Citation

Dissent in Bloom. (2025, ~June). The Machines Were Changed Before the 2024 Election. No One Noticed. Retrieved from https://dissentinbloom.substack.com/p/the-machines-were-changed-before
OpenAI. (2025). Summary generated by ChatGPT (GPT‑4). Retrieved from chat.openai.com

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Overview & Context

In April 2021, Whitney Webb uncovers the little-known military and intelligence provenance of Facebook, tracing its roots back to DARPA-backed projects and connections to U.S. defense agencies.

🔍 Core Insights

• Facebook’s technology was initially developed through DARPA and intelligence-contractor funding, intended for government data and surveillance applications.
• Many of its early developers and architects had deep ties to U.S. military-industrial institutions, foreshadowing its role in surveillance capitalism.
• The report traces how this tech-to-state lineage laid the groundwork for using Facebook’s systems in public opinion management and behavioral influence operations.

🧭 Why It Matters

• Reveals Facebook isn’t just a social platform—it’s an outgrowth of empire tech with embedded state functions.
• Highlights growing concerns over data privacy, algorithmic governance, and Facebook’s influence on politics and global information flows.
• Frames Facebook as part of a broader gov‑corp technate ecosystem, where tech platforms and public-sector powers co-evolve.

📚 Citation

Webb, W. (2021, April). The Military Origins of Facebook. Unlimited Hangout. Retrieved from https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/04/investigative-reports/the-military-origins-of-facebook/
Summary generated by ChatGPT (GPT‑4).

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Overview & Context

📘 The Network State is a 2022 book by Balaji Srinivasan, entrepreneur and former CTO of Coinbase, proposing a vision for creating digital-first nations—or “network states”—built around online communities, shared values, and blockchain-based governance.

🌐 Core Concepts

• Startup Societies: Begin as internet-based communities with aligned moral visions.
• Proof of Concept: These groups must demonstrate real-world coordination, including crowd-funding, land purchases, or infrastructure.
• Network State Formation: Through diplomatic recognition and physical presence, they evolve into full-fledged sovereign entities.

💸 Techno-Political Philosophy

• Embraces crypto technologies for identity, currency, voting, and enforcement.
• Views legacy institutions as obsolete or corrupted; proposes exit over reform.
• Ties personal sovereignty to digital autonomy, surveillance resistance, and decentralization.

🧠 Ideological Significance

• Builds on traditions of libertarian secessionism, techno-utopianism, and accelerationist thought.
• Promoted heavily in Silicon Valley, particularly among Web3, effective accelerationism (e/acc), and post-political thinkers.
• Related to broader movements like The Dark Enlightenment, Neoreactionary thought (NRx), and techno-feudal visions of governance.

“A network state is a digital community that is capable of collective action, has a moral vision, and eventually gains diplomatic recognition.” — Balaji Srinivasan

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🧠 Overview & Context

In this September 6, 2024 article for The Nation, Jeet Heer draws a direct line between Lewis Powell’s 1971 memo, the Project 2025 agenda, and the contemporary plutocratic influence over the Supreme Court. Graves, a constitutional scholar and former Senate counsel, argues that today’s right-wing judicial power grab is a decades-long project rooted in Powell’s call for business elites to aggressively shape law and public opinion.

Overview

• Title: The Rise of Social Media as a DIY Alert System for ICE Raids
• Author: Jason Koebler
• Published: June 12, 2025
• Outlet: WIRED

This article explores how communities—especially immigrants and activists—are using social media platforms to track and respond to ICE raids in real time.

Context

• ICE raids have intensified under the Trump administration, particularly in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco.
• Federal authorities have become more secretive, using unmarked vans and plainclothes agents.
• In response, local residents have built decentralized alert networks using tools like:
  • WhatsApp
  • Instagram Stories
  • Signal
  • Google Docs

Why It Matters

• These tools function like grassroots emergency systems.
• They allow people to:
  • Warn neighbors of ICE activity.
  • Mobilize protest and legal observers.
  • Document and archive incidents for public accountability.
• Activists compare the systems to mutual aid networks—quick, localized, and trusted.

Broader Implications

• The rise of algorithmic enforcement by ICE mirrors growing concerns about automated government surveillance.
• The public’s counter-response—through peer-to-peer technology—shows how decentralized systems can protect civil liberties.
• The situation raises urgent questions about:
  • Digital privacy
  • State power
  • The ethics of surveillance

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🎙️ Radio Atlantic – Techno-Authoritarianism – The Ideology Behind Silicon Valley Power

Original Podcast: Radio Atlantic, The Atlantic, 2024
Summary by: ChatGPT (OpenAI GPT-4), June 2025

🧠 Overview

This episode dives into the ideological divide in Silicon Valley, revealed by the public drama around OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. While that story isn’t the focus, it acts as a window into a deeper conflict: the rise of a techno-authoritarian worldview—a belief that unelected tech elites should shape society more than democratic institutions.

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Overview & Context

🎥 The Scheme is a 35-part YouTube playlist by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D‑RI), in which he delivers a meticulous exposé of how right-wing donor networks have strategically “captured” the U.S. Supreme Court.

Across these Senate floor speeches, Whitehouse outlines how dark money, legal front groups, and political operatives have worked to reshape the federal judiciary—particularly the Supreme Court—to advance ideological goals that repeatedly fail through legislation or public opinion.