“The message was unmistakable: They wanted us to go away,” survivors said in a joint statement. “We are not going away.”

Gabe Ortíz@tusk81.bsky.social · yesterday

“Tillis’ snubbing is particularly nasty given … he made a big fuss about not voting for Blanche’s confirmation unless he met w/Epstein survivors. Blanche did eventually meet w/survivors, but it did not go well, as survivors reported he told them to ‘get to the point’ and to talk to the FBI instead.”

I detailed much much more of the call here (hmu for a copy)

Todd Blanche Is Claiming That He Can Ban Abortion In Any State

As he fights to be confirmed as attorney general, Blanche is trying to appease Christian-right groups with wild legal theories about restricting abortion.

newrepublic.com

Jay Willis@jaywillis.net · 8h ago

Dying at the right-wing activists that (1) held a call with Todd Blanche in which Blanche made a lot of anti-abortion promises, (2) said "uh this is off the record" like doing so would magically ward off journalists, and then (3) UPLOADED IT TO THEIR YOUTUBE CHANNEL www.politico.com/news/2026/08...

Many of us have been saying… Refusing to write with/by AI is absolutely a necessary “act of resistance against an ever-dumber world” (not to mention against the tech companies and powers that want to make us pliable, unthinking slaves)

Opinion | I’m Begging You: Never Write With A.I. (Gift Article)

It’s bad for your brain and worse for democracy.

nytimes.com

Hard conversations are also grounding conversations that help you find words, name emotions, and prepare for action. Like the conversation with Omar El Akkad, this interview with Claudia Rankine took my breath away. Asked me questions that I've been thinking about, but in a more alive way.

David Naimon@davidnaimon.bsky.social · 3d ago

Don't miss Claudia Rankine's return to Between the Covers to discuss her powerful new book TRIAGE Audio⚡: milkweed.org/between-the-... @graywolfpress.bsky.social

Honest to God 🤦🏻‍♀️

Ian TB@iantb.bsky.social · 3d ago

Well, crowdsourcing a war plan is certainly a first: www.cnn.com/2026/08/03/p...

If useful, here's my attempt to process my feelings about how I feel sadly kinda — or rather very — sick from all this AI fascist nonsense as an academic. 😶‍🌫️ I'd be pleased if even one person finds something useful because there's something to be said for processing this all together, so, um, enjoy?

Anxiety

Reasoning (and crying) my way through fascist AI-induced anxiety.

olivia.science

An Atlanta-area police chief accessed Flock cameras 500 times to track the movements of his ex-girlfriend and her teenage daughter. At least 50 cops have been similarly charged with misusing Flock "including to stalk women without their knowledge or consent"

How rogue officers turned a nationwide camera network into a tool for stalking

Flock’s array of license-plate cameras was built to fight crime. But at least 50 law enforcement officers were charged with or accused of misusing it and other systems.

wapo.st

Going to do a thread, using some of my own (incl. older) work, to clear up some of these relevant concepts. Hope it helps builds conceptual hygiene and immunity to hyped claims about “AI” capabilities. 1/🧵

Iris van Rooij 💭@irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 5d ago

In my work, as in theoretical computer science, we distinguish between (exact) algorithms, heuristics (no guarantees), and approximation algorithm (approx. guarantees) Clear distinctions is relevant in many contexts, for instance this one in cognitive science link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Great reporting from @emilybregel.bsky.social about a gay man who’s been in the US since he was four, imprisoned in a “hotel” in Equatorial Guinea since April. He says he’s being denied soap and toilet paper in retaliation for filing a complaint w African Commission. 1/ tucson.com/news/local/b...

Arizona man languishes in African hotel after third-country deportation

A 30-year-old man, Ahmed Soliman, is confined in a decommissioned hotel in Equatorial Guinea after being deported there by ICE without warning. He faces the threat of return to Egypt, where he may fac...

tucson.com

Prosecutors charged an LAPD officer with felony eavesdropping for making secret recordings of his colleagues’ racist, sexist and homophobic comments on the job

LAPD officer who recorded colleagues' racist comments charged with felony eavesdropping

Los Angeles County prosecutors on Friday charged an LAPD officer with felony eavesdropping for making secret recordings of his colleagues' racist, sexist and homophobic comments on the job.

latimes.com

Let’s not forget that this illegal Reflecting Pool indictment was also overseen by Todd Blanche. He could have stopped this at any time, but he was a corrupt and willing accomplice to this fraud upon the court. How can any decent person possibly vote for this man as AG?

This is righteous work. ♥️

jessamyn@librarian.bsky.social · 5d ago

I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful

The State Department said ​it takes "full responsibility" for "hastily" altering and then presenting a map of Africa at a global AIDS conference that mislabeled every single country it highlighted. An analysis by Reuters found a watermark in the map image that suggests it was made with OpenAI.

THIS. "Seven out of the eight groups took the conscientious objector option and decided not to use generative AI. In their essays, students expressed deep concerns about cognitive dependence, environmental impact, racial and gender bias, misinformation, academic integrity, and worker exploitation."

Anna Kornbluh@annakornbluh.bsky.social · 6d ago

"Students anted to know what their classmates thought rather than what a large language model produced; they wanted to wrestle with difficult readings+complex ideas. They didn’t want to outsource any of this effort to gen AI. They wanted to do the work.” www.insidehighered.com/opinion/care...

Ameaka Fatima Nkempu, a Johns Hopkins University researcher in public health, was detained by ICE while boarding a domestic flight. She says she is Cameroonian in a Medium article that she authored. As of Thursday morning, the ICE Online Detainee Locator did not list where she was being held.

Baltimore Banner@thebaltimorebanner.com · 6d ago

ICE detains Hopkins public health researcher as agency expands airport arrests

Finished reading this piece and then (literally) opened a text from her campaign asking me to help her commercial stay on aif by donating. I responded "Support trans rights or get my name off your list." 🤬

Erin Reed@erininthemorning.com · 6d ago

1. In the aftermath of forcing the Ohio Progressive Caucus to delete criticism of Amy Acton for calling trans girls "boys," progressives were promised a meeting with Acton. Now, we have learned she didn't show up, and kicked trans people out of the meeting. Subscribe to support our journalism.

"In just four months, the borough’s four police officers have pulled over and checked the status of dozens of motorists — mainly commercial truck drivers — and turned over 32 arrestees to ICE" important @willbunch.bsky.social dispatch from area where I grew up www.inquirer.com/opinion/moun...

This quaint Pa. borough is a ‘speed trap’ nabbing immigrants for ICE | Will Bunch

Police in Mount Holly Springs, a tiny borough in central Pennsylvania, have turned over 32 immigrants to ICE since March.

inquirer.com

"Don’t let the tech industry’s most nefarious boosters impoverish how you understand who and what humans are; what they are capable of (time, energy, resources, and bandwidth-permitting); and the sorts of lives they deserve to live. ...

Dr Surekha Davies, Historical Monster Consultant (she/her)@drsurekhadavies.bsky.social · last wk.

No, it's not okay to use genAI for research- or writing-adjacent activities. Those actions are also part of writing and thinking and research! Don't fall for the con of genAI boosters. Hang onto your humanity. 2/ buttondown.com/surekhadavie...

literally impeach him just for this

Murshed Zaheed@murshedz.bsky.social · last wk.

“Trump has rejected disaster aid for Democratic-run states at the highest rate in the 47-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.” Right now people in blue states are basically paying federal taxes as if they’re colonized territories of red states. www.politico.com/news/2026/03...

All the clips and headlines from this hearing are engaging and chilling.

Marie 🇨🇦@pawbaby2.bsky.social · last wk.

Silencing someone’s counsel mid-hearing isn’t oversight…it’s a chairman rigging the room. Fauci pleads the Fifth and his own lawyer gets thrown out for trying to speak up. If this is how “oversight” works now, the process is definitely broken. #USDemocracy #Pinks apple.news/A11PBcFX2QvC...

Where fiber history meets Pride. This is a large piece (10x28') of one of the two original 30x60' pride flags, the only known surviving section of either. They were designed, hand dyed and sewn by a community of queer artists. The colors are slightly different from most rainbow flags today.

Long-Lost Fragment of First Rainbow Pride Flag Resurfaces After Four Decades

The brilliantly colored banner—now on view in San Francisco—flew on "Gay Freedom Day" in 1978

smithsonianmag.com

"The attached list contained 3000 English-language titles organised by ISBN number, ranging from books on fairytales and folklore to technical manuals and science texts."

Alexander Chee@alexanderchee.bsky.social · last wk.

‘Anthropic described the project as “our effort to disruptively scan all the world’s books” in an internal memo, which noted “we do not want it to be known that we are pursuing this project”.’

much thanks to @jessgrose.bsky.social for highlighting scienceimpacts.org in her column, which documents the regional economic impacts that result from the deliberate defunding of American science, led by @joshuasweitz.bsky.social and @asinclair.bsky.social

SCIMaP - Impacts of Federal Cuts to Science and Medical Research

Developed by an interdisciplinary research team, this website shows how funding cuts reduce economic activity and employment nationwide

scienceimpacts.org

www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/o...

Opinion | Trump Is Bending History to His Will. He Will Fail. (Gift Article)

The Trump White House and its history police want us all to live in their chosen bubble, immune from instability or perceived disorder.

nytimes.com

Half the planet is having a massive fight about how to correctly interpret an Ancient Greek poem but go ahead, close some more humanities departments.

You don’t want hands free driving, you want trains. You want trains you want trains you want TRAINS

NEW: Do Democrats funded by AIPAC pay an electoral penalty in a general election? We find that a Democrat funded by AIPAC performs significantly worse against a Republican than a Democrat who “rejects all outside financial support from industry groups and PACs.”

While volunteers helped @txfreedomread.bsky.social track book removals from Tx schools after SB12 & SB13 were passed last year, I made a spreadsheet of the classic & acclaimed books that were banned from individual districts in 2025-2026. You won't believe it. open.substack.com/pub/franklin...

More Than 100 Classic and Acclaimed Works of Literature Removed from Texas Schools Last Year

Was your favorite book banned from a Texas school district in 2025-2026?

open.substack.com

Solidarity is the antidote to fascism, and anyone can do it! This article has some great examples. "More and more people in communities are using organizing strategies to build powerful civic homes that can be containers for people-driven collective action." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

How do we defeat authoritarianism? By building a sense of belonging | Julie Fernandes and Katrina Gamble

Eighty-five million Americans are disaffected and less likely to vote, our survey found. Our democratic revival depends on a sense of community

theguardian.com

"An engineer’s success is revealed as a perfect, finished product. Natural selection, meanwhile, has produced a beautiful panoply of imperfect compromises. For example, many of our lower spines still carry the legacy of living on four legs, resulting in chronic back pain.

Gary McFarlane@garym6942.bsky.social · last wk.

In the era of information overload, what can we learn from owls about filtering knowledge in favour of wisdom? atmos.earth/ecological-w... #ecology #conservation #science #SciChat