New post from Derek Davison ✉
Daily List: A collection of curated international headlines and important stories from around the world. 🌍
List compiled daily by Foreign Exchanges.
Recent Updates
Transportation Highlights: April 3rd, 2025 📰
New post from Blake Aued ✉
Daily List: Current headlines for transportation developments in the United States. 🚄
List compiled daily by StreetsBlog USA.
DOGE Cuts Undermine Tariff Strategy 📰
New post from Paresh Dave, Louise Matsakis – Wired ✉
Content Summary: President Trump claims import taxes will strengthen US manufacturing, yet his administration reduced funding for MEP(Manufacturing Extension Partnership) centers aiding domestic firms just before imposing new tariffs.
Trump’s Tariffs Stun Markets 📰
New post from Ben Meiselas – MeidasTouch Network ✉
Content Summary: Donald Trump’s chaotic press conference announced global tariffs that sent markets spiraling, and included bizarre claims—like calling 1789 America’s wealthiest era—while framing his reckless policies as economic “liberation,” sparking widespread alarm over his dangerous incompetence.
Redefining Crime as Terrorism 📰
New post from Ken Klippenstein ✉
Content Summary: The Trump administration seeks the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, labeling his killing of a CEO as terrorism, reflecting a broader trend of politicizing anti-corporate crimes by framing them as terrorism to justify harsher punishments.
Susan Crawford Wins Wisconsin Supreme Court Election 📰
New post from MeidasTouch Network ✉
Content Summary: Pro-democracy Judge Susan Crawford won Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race, flipping Trump-voting counties and securing a liberal majority, countering efforts by Trump, Musk, and right-wing media, signaling growing pro-democracy strength ahead of 2026 elections.
Transportation Highlights: April 2nd, 2025 📰
New post from Blake Aued – StreetsBlog USA ✉
Content Summary: Transportation Secretary Duffy will travel to Washington to advocate for cutting funding for environmental and equity initiatives. Republicans want more money for highways in the next infrastructure bill, even as nationwide local updates continue to show successful transit development.
World Roundup: April 1st, 2025 📰
New post from Derek Davison – Foreign Exchanges ✉
Content Summary: The World Roundup Newsletter covers daily international events, today’s update includes: Middle Eastern conflicts in Syria and Lebanon, Israel’s Gaza campaign, US airstrikes in Yemen, Myanmar’s earthquake and aid crisis, China’s tech ambitions, South Korea’s impeachment ruling, African tensions in Algeria and South Sudan, European conscription in Russia, and US policy controversies in El Salvador and Haiti.
Media Defers to Government Secrecy 📰
New post from Ken Klippenstein ✉
Content Summary: Klippenstein criticizes the media’s deference to government secrecy, exemplified by Jeffrey Goldberg’s delay in reporting on classified Signal texts until receiving presidential approval, arguing that journalism should prioritize public interest over bureaucratic classification rules, which are often misused to suppress transparency.
Trump Ends Bipartisan Museum and Library Funding 📰
New post from Paresh Dave, Louise Matsakis – Wired ✉
Content Summary: Despite bipartisan backing, President Trump successfully cut funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which provides funding to libraries and museums nationwide.
Thousands of Jobs Cut at CDC 📰
New post from Leah Feiger, Makena Kelly, Kate Knibbs – Wired ✉
Content Summary: Thousands of CDC employees were notified early Tuesday they were subject to a reduction in force, impacting scientists focused on critical health programs like preventing HIV and lead poisoning.
More Information on Deported Innocent Man 📰
New post from Sonny Bunch – The Bulwark ✉
Content Summary: The Trump administration wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran with protected legal status, to a brutal prison in El Salvador, defying court orders and immigration laws, while officials falsely labeled him a gang member and dismissed due process, undermining the rule of law.
ICE Wrongfully Deports Legal Immigrant 📰
New post from Tim Miller – The Bulwark ✉
Content Summary: The Trump administration wrongfully deported a legal immigrant with no criminal record to a Salvadoran prison, despite his protected status, with ICE calling it an “administrative error” but failing to rectify it. Elected officials are urged to act.
DOGE Demands Federal Payroll System Access 📰
New post from Tim Marchman – Wired ✉
Content Summary: DOGE insisted on complete access to a US Department of the Interior system managing Supreme Court paychecks, and when senior staff questioned the request, they were placed on leave.
Tuesdays Headlines Follow the Playbook 📰
New post from Blake Aued – StreetsBlog USA ✉
Content Summary: A collection of headlines of current pro-transit actions happening across the U.S., along with new updates on the usual roadblocks the Trump Administration poses to successful transit.
Fixing America’s Rail Gridlock 📰
New post from Nolan Hicks – StreetsBlog USA ✉
Content Summary: The Marron Institute at NYU released a report proposing solutions to overcome the stagnation in America’s intercity rail development.
Political Chaos and Musk’s Schemes 📰
New post from Ron Filipkowski – MeidasTouch Network ✉
Content Summary: House Republicans display “Wanted” posters targeting judges opposing Trump, while Elon Musk funds a Wisconsin judicial election, faces protests, and faces personal scandals, as Trump hints at a third term and global trade shifts away from the U.S.
Site Updates 3/31/25
We’ve been slowly adding pages and improvements, and now have also set up a method for getting news articles relayed here. Here’s the updates in order:
Development Updates
- ✅ Another CSS Upgrade: More small CSS improvements around the site, including fixing the Login page on most browsers.
- 🤖 Content Bulletin Tool (“The Content Bulletin, posted by RebelAuthor”): In an effort to get eyesight on current events here from trusted sources, I’ve built a bot that can relay newly posted articles to the timeline. Hopefully, overtime, we can curate a list of solid independent sources to keep viewers up to date on current events.
Content Updates
- 📗 New Page: Active Resistance – A new page for tracking current organizing efforts: Including protests, demonstrations, and boycotts that align with our Platform
- 📗 New Page: Resources – A new page for compiling relevant progressive resources for learning about anti-authoritarianism, digital privacy, ethical consumerism, outreach, and voting.
- 📗 New Page: Current U.S. Reproductive Rights – A new page of member submitted data on current reproductive rights for all 50 U.S. states..
If you’re interested in adding information to our site in any of the above pages or on the timeline, sign-up and contribute!
Please visit the Site Dev Notes page for a full list of what’s being worked on.
Site Updates 3/4/25 📰
Reporting in on some important work going on behind the scenes.
Development Updates
- ✅ Another CSS Upgrade: Reworked look, still buffing out some problems with the login and registration menus.
- 🟨 Profile Picture Temporary Fix: Fediverse provided avatars now get a default color instead of a missing person icon, we’re still trying to integrate avatar’s found on the Fediverse and have them appear on our site.
- 🟦 New Feature: Post Reactions, this is new and currently only works for logged in users. We will need to decide what reactions will appear and what won’t, you may notice them changing.
Content Updates
- 📗 New Page: Website Tutorial – This page teaches new logged in users on how to post to the timeline!
Please visit the Site Dev Notes page for a full list of what’s being worked on.
Firefox Compromised: User Data for Sale 🪧
Seems like Firefox is no longer committed to not selling user data. As seen in the Firefox changelog from a couple days ago, any affirmations that Firefox does not sell your data have now been scrubbed from their website.
This is incredible unfortunate news to me as it’s been my browser of preference for the past several years.
Ongoing Testing Notice
Doing a quick notice to new members: Just be aware that you may see some posts being created and deleted sporadically as we test certain features with the timeline. We’re really trying to trick out the site with every bell and whistle we can think of.
Soft Launch
Maintenance mode on the website is deactivated moving forward, as it’s blocking several Fediverse features we hope to get working in the near term. This effectively soft launches RFAN to the world. We will continue to compile resources on this website, check out my Current Launch Plan post as it’s still representative of what we’ll be focusing on to get started!
Current Launch Plan
We’re aiming for a public site deployment on February 1st. On this date, all updating of the site will just be live and ongoing. Overall I think we’re running into more problems with portions of the site disabled for maintenance, especially with our Fediverse connection. Here’s some of what we’ll be prioritizing leading up to February:
- Building out RF’s Platform, in recent days and in recent discussions we’ve figured out that making this site a resource would be the most immediate impactful thing to get done. I aim for this site to be people’s go-to for explaining current issues. I think we’ve all run into the problem of “I wish I could effectively explain [example]” to a friend or a family member.
- Various site functionality fixes, we have a few bugs we’re trying to buff out. But they’re bugs people can tolerate. I’ve added a new page listing bugs we’re aware of. We also need to get more people on the site to find out if there’s bugs we haven’t run into yet.
- Creating a channel on the RF Hub that relays our Fediverse posts into our Discord.
- Creating some RFAN specific graphics, and communicating these out to the RF network of Discord servers as internal recruitment.
- Getting more people signed up!
Another Fediverse Bug Fix
Looks like media that was uploaded to the site was also being pushed to Mastodon. This has been deactivated.
We Have Liftoff
Welcome to the Rebel Federation Action Network!
Whether you’re viewing this message board through the RF website, Mastodon, or another Fediverse client, I’d like to thank you for setting aside the time to do so. The RF Command has put a lot of work into the procurement of this platform, and it means a lot to us that you’re even reading along.
About Me
My name is Twitchy. I joined the Rebel Federation in 2013, back when it was still organized around an MMORPG, and the mission to “fight the good fight” was through an effort to rid the game of toxic communities who endangered its players through hacking, doxing, etc. I found resonance with this mission and the community aiming to fulfill it, becoming one of its most active members during this time, and participating in whatever way I could to help them achieve this mission.
I reached a leadership position in 2015, by which time greater threats began to pose, and the question of what it meant to be a member of our community. I used this position to help expand the Federation to other platforms, where the mission continued—and broadened in scope over time—to strengthen the security and integrity of the online spaces we have a presence in.
By 2019, the Rebel Federation evolved into a multi-platform community. I became its first active “Administrator” (now joined by others), where I took on (and continue to hold) the responsibility of seeing to the fulfillment of this mission to the best of my abilities.
Where We’re At
During my time as an RF member from 2013–2015, I took it upon myself to learn various ways individuals can discover your information for malicious use. This led me to embark on a journey of my own to learn more about how user information is digitally stored in the first place, and how larger entities like corporations can use this data maliciously, too. From there, I began advocating for stronger digital consumer privacy protection on a broader scope, and started voicing my disdain for how companies used my data by taking my privacy into my own hands.
Those who have been paying close attention recently may have been able to observe a daunting trend: online spaces and social media platforms have been increasingly becoming less safe. Elon Musk has turned Twitter “X” into an alt-right playground rivaling 4chan’s lack of moderation, and Meta platforms is seemingly attempting to head in the same direction by removing fact-checking in favor of community notes. Meanwhile, the CEOs of these platforms continue selling their users’ data in an attempt to enrich themselves even more.
We’ve reached the late stage of capitalism, and with each enshittifying blow the providers of these products continue to land on their users, decentralized, non-profit communication platforms as the path forward becomes ever clearer.
Our Response
In acknowledgement of our mission and response to this massive problem being faced around the world, we’ve developed the Rebel Federation Action Network. RFAN aims to provide its users with a trustworthy, ad-free communication platform where not only will they not have to worry about trolls and fake news hogging up their feed—they’ll learn how to recognize and resist future encounters.
As part of the Fediverse, RFAN is decentralized! Users will be able to interact with the Action Network without actually having to use it directly. (Hello from Mastodon!) This also means that if RFAN should ever temporarily go offline for any reason, its content will still be available on other Fediverse platforms like Mastodon.
The Rebel Federation Action Network additionally aims to teach its members how to recognize and resist fascism. It’s without question that the lack of proper moderation across centralized communication platforms—and perhaps even the willful neglect thereof—has given rise to far-right, oppressive, and fascist ideologies gaining significant traction. We believe it’s important for people to understand how to recognize these ideologies, and minimize the impact they have on the lives of themselves and others.
For more information about RFAN, visit https://action.rebelfederation.com/getting-started/.
Quick Status Test
Test post from an account that seems to definitely be working.
Fediverse Connection Now Active
Information regarding what the Fediverse is and what it means for our site.
This previously wasn’t something we’ve brought up much in introducing this site to some of you, mostly because we weren’t sure it was going to work at all. But, after a very successful (and easy) test run, our timeline and all member accounts are being mirrored to any Fediverse connected network.
If you’re unfamiliar with what the Fediverse is, it’s most easily explained by exploring the website https://fediverse.party/. It’s a collection of individual servers that make up social media networks being ran independently. There’s been a lot more talk about decentralized and federated platforms as alternatives to places like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook after the recent TikTok ban drama in the United States. This is part of the reason why this site was created in the first place, there has to be better alternatives than allowing Meta platforms to mine our data for profit.
As an example, many of the apps on the Fediverse mirror major social media sites. Mastodon is an alternative to Twitter and Pixelfed an alternative to Instagram. Now, both of those sites now have something incredible in common: All members who post there can post to our timeline here. As we post here, all of our content is automatically generated to a profile that is viewable on other Fediverse platforms. When comments respond to us on those platforms, they also appear here, and when we respond here, those same comments appear instantly on those other sites.
In the coming days and weeks we will post more content about what our project is to help viewership in the Fediverse connect with us.
TLDR: Our Federation is going to get a whole lot bigger, because action.rebelfederation.com is now a node in the Fediverse.
Fediverse Test with Maintenance Mode On
Another specific use-case test, posting while the main feed isn’t available.
Fourth Fediverse Test Post
This a test post to see if posting from our site’s home feed will work as intended. If this message works correctly, it will be added to the Fediverse, and be searchable on Mastodon.
You may see this message several times as we test this.
Site Subdomain Update
Posting a general notice: The subdomain has been updated from membership.rebelfederation.com to action.rebelfederation.com. If you run into any dead links or things not working, please log them under this post so I can fix them.
Site Personnel Launch 1/20/25: I…
Site Personnel Launch
1/20/25:
Updated 1/22/25
I am now actively recruiting membership to the site, if you’re reading this, welcome! The RFAN site is not live yet, but will be deployed after an extensive update to the WordPress registration form that’s in progress [1/22/25, now completed!]. But we are ready to start adding content. The following content libraries we’re looking to get started on:
- Create lists for brands and services to avoid who donated to Republican/MAGA candidates and causes. Some documentation like this exists online already, but we should have the most up to date lists people can share with their friends. We should also list brands and services that help progressive causes. This could be one page or multiple pages.
- Blogroll/wiki for federated, open-source, and decentralized social networks and online resources.
- Lists of progressive candidates, organizations, and non-profits.
- Documentation on major political issues, debunking common MAGA propaganda/Project 2025 policy. Ideally, we start to build an actual Platform for the RF.
To start, I’d like to ask all new members to post an introduction to the main timeline. Just a little about yourself, your background with activism if you have any you’d like to share, and which specific issues are important you/what you’d like to work on the most.
Site Development Notes II Site…
Site Development Notes II
1/12/25 Status Report:
More progress has been made on the website, including CSS upgrades and back-end house cleaning. Next steps:
- Adding more pages that support how Members engage with and contribute to the site, what I have now is too general.
- Need to decide if the site should be fully setup to be private or public. I’m leaning towards a join application system. But it’s also possible to have the entire site just be public where only members of the site can contribute to the feed. Unlike Facebook, the entirety of the home feed would just be out there.
- For the join application system, I’m thinking that folks would either fill out a survey or just require a “sponsor” to be added, where a sponsor is anybody who is already a Member of the site.
Documented Bug Notes
- Sometimes while typing something long, the post editor can bug out, and the user can’t scroll up and down to see full contents. Just have to ctrl + A the content, refresh the page, and paste into a reset editor.
- Inconsistent fonts due to CSS bugs depending on browser.
- Notification CSS colors may be off on some browsers.
Ideas for types of Action…
Ideas for types of Action Content:
- Weekly Action, something bite sized anybody can do, updated weekly with a new objective via the “Assignment” page.
- List of retailers, shops, etc, that support progressive agendas. Lists of the same that supported Project 2025 as documentation.
- Contact information/how-to page for sending correspondence for local, state, and federal levels.
- Effective communication/talking points on specific policies wiki, for both learning about topics and getting better at communicating topics.
- Debate Posts, posts where a controversial topic can be discussed to establish a firmer position for the community.
Ideas for Utility Content:
- Inline HTML tutorial page for using this site.
- Changing Gravatar/WordPress profile info tutorial page.
- Privacy Policy page specific to this site.
More to be added.
Debating on adjusting this project’s…
Debating on adjusting this project’s name and operational structure to better convey it. Instead of it being a general membership resource, classifying this as a Division would more appropriately allow this space to focus on specific priorities without redefining the entirety of the Rebel Federation at large– and it still gets to be a membership resource as a Division.
I just think this would work best with people who specifically understand what collectively organizing is and are electing to contribute to it. Over time this could become a more general resource for members.
One tentative name could be:
Rebel Action Network – RAN
action.rebelfederation.com
Site Development Notes
As of 12/9/24:
Site is deployed with an experimental and discontinued WordPress theme that supports micro blog posting. Anybody with a RF Website account would be able to post here. Currently reskinning the site as a start, some features may be hard to see.
All posting updates in real time, no refreshing needed.
