Tessera

@alexstephenson.me

The vast majority denied SNAP are denied for procedural reasons. Even 4 in 10 of those with NO INCOME in the previous year are denied, with 80% of those denied for *procedural reasons*, or, effectively, missing paperwork. And The One Big Beautiful Bill is making this so much worse.

Chloe N East (she/her)@chloeneast.bsky.social · yesterday

New from me @jasonbcook.bsky.social & @elizabethacox.bsky.social with CBPP on SNAP Administrative burdens can lead to procedural denials, where applicants are rejected not due to ineligibility, but because they are unable to navigate the complex processes www.cbpp.org/research/foo...

Roosevelt Institute @rooseveltinstitute.org · 10h ago

NEW: Prediction markets are exploding, and a growing legal fight is over a basic question: Are they gambling, or financial products? In a new explainer, @bradlipton.bsky.social shows how the push to put prediction markets under federal financial rules leaves major gaps in consumer protections. 🧵

How the Federal Rules for Prediction Markets Fall Short of State-Level Gambling Laws

Prediction markets increasingly resemble gambling but operate under far fewer protections. Brad Lipton explains what federal rules leave out and why state gambling laws offer a stronger baseline.

rooseveltinstitute.org

Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · yesterday

The government moving or hiding jailed people to avoid review by courts isn't some loophole in our habeas corpus rights. This government behavior has been considered a violation of the people's habeas corpus rights since at least the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_...

Jailors were forbidden to move prisoners from one prison to another or out of the country to evade the writ. In case of disobedience jailers would be punished with severe fines which had to be paid to the prisoner.[5][6]

Gillian Brockell@gillianbrockell.com · yesterday

This will make it nearly impossible to file habeas petitions, because attorneys won’t even know what federal district their client has been moved to to stage for their removal. Something like a third of all people in ICE custody. apnews.com/article/ice-...

Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · yesterday

Christ, these people are monsters. Just monsters. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 2d ago

The man ICE shot in Austin today is named Wilber Rafael Garces Perez. Per his lawyer, she and Perez’s family were run off of hospital property where he’s being treated and won’t even confirm he’s there because he’s “in ICE custody.” Actual criminals.

Federal immigration agent shoots and injures man in Austin, Texas

The person shot is in serious but stable condition, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said in a press conference.

npr.org

Congressman Greg Casar @repcasar.bsky.social · 2d ago

The horror has come to our city: ICE has shot a person in Austin this morning. As the facts emerge, I am demanding a full, independent investigation, immediate release of the body camera footage, and accountability for any ICE officer who broke the law.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 2d ago

First eyewitness accounts from this afternoon’s ICE shooting in Austin is here, from freelance reporter Emiliano Tahui Gómez.

Emiliano Tahui Gómez
@emilianotahui
X.com

Combined tweets, cutting tags and other such

Here in North Austin, where ICE agents appear to have shot an individual in his car. I spoke to two of the only witnesses.

Nedevia Bolaños and her husband, Carlos, own a business just off the intersection where the shooting happened. Shortly before 1 pm they says they heard what sounded like two gunshots. Carlos ran out first. A blue Toyota sedan and a black Escalade were stopped under the highway.

Combined tweets, cutting tags and other such

He said he saw an olive-skinned man, seemingly in his 30s, leaning backwards against his seat. A masked agent was standing outside the car. The agent refused to answer questions. Within a few minutes as many as 10 other ICE agents arrived.

Carlos asked the victim if he was ok. "Yes," the man said in Spanish, but he looked exhausted. Carlos asked why they had shot him. "Because I didn't stop."

Combined tweets, cutting tags and other such.

Bolaños ran up next. She said she continously asked the ICE agents about why they'd shot him and if they were going to render aid. They didn't answer her. It was an APD officer who later arrived and cut open the young mans shirt, revealing a deep hole between his shoulder blades. The ambulance arrived about 10 minutes after and carried him off. "I've never seen all this. Thank God I'm a citizen," Bolaños said in Spanish. "Or I'd be living like this. In a dream of terror."

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 2d ago

Capriglione is a state legislator and one of the most influential figures in the Texas GOP.

Anil Dash @anildash.com · 5d ago

David Heinemeier Hansson called for the extermination of Romani people, comparing them to animals. An entire roster of tech tycoons responded by each personally giving him $1 million for his open source software project, even though he’s already wealthy enough to have a personal race car team.

Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 4d ago

this would be yet another reason why normal people don’t trust tech tycoons to do the right thing

Anil Dash@anildash.com · 5d ago

Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 5d ago

Incredible how the press & everyone else has just totally normalized our lawless authoritarian president ordering the kidnapping of the leader of another country & now looting said country.

Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 5d ago

The potential agreement, which would allow the interim government of Delcy Rodríguez to access funding, is one of the first concrete results from a US-backed negotiation process. ft.trib.al/9Cwyzqe

Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 6mo ago

I knew that the Department of War shot a missile into a school & killed 175 civilians, mostly children. This is learned today: Secretary of War Hegseth had cut the teams assigned to prevent such tragedies by 90%. www.npr.org/2026/03/11/n...

After a series of fatal strikes involving civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, Congress directed the Pentagon to reduce civilian casualties as part of a 2019 law. During the Biden administration, the Defense Department created the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response initiative.

The civilian mitigation teams – cut by 90% by Hegseth – work with military commanders on target planning, and making sure that targets are actually military sites. The teams help come up with "no strike" lists, including religious and cultural sites and schools

Transactions on Machine Learning Research @tmlrorg.bsky.social · 6d ago

TMLR has faced a deluge of submissions, necessitating stricter desk rejection policies due to limited reviewer capacity Co-EiC Nihar Shah reached out to authors of 10 papers slated for desk reject. Could they answer questions about their *own* submission? medium.com/@TmlrOrg/ask...

Asking Authors About Their Own Papers

By Nihar B. Shah

medium.com

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · last wk.

CASTEN: Trump said 'we're taking in billions and billions from Venezuela.' Who is the 'we'? That suggests flows to US persons BESSENT: Again, this is one of the largest assets ever to go on the US balance sheets CASTEN: You can't testify whether or not they're flowing to US persons? BESSENT: No

Matt Henry 🥄@matthenry.fyi · last wk.

The US Web Design System is load-bearing infrastructure for thousands of government websites. It makes it easy for small teams with no resources (i.e. most .gov teams) to make usable, accessible websites that work for everyone. Today, it's as close as it's ever been to being replaced with AI slop.

Molly White @molly.wiki · last wk.

Here's my post on why the ethics provisions alone on this bill were a non-starter. Some Democrats seemed willing to pass the deeply flawed and industry-written bill if the ethics provisions could limit Trump’s grift, but negotiators were unable to find a version that satisfied both Dems and Trump.

Molly White@molly.wiki · last wk.

Newsletter: The supposedly “unprecedented” ethics restrictions in the industry-written Clarity Act exempt Trump’s crypto businesses and leave enforcement to his loyalists. Senators must vote no on cloture tomorrow.

AS @alexstephenson.me · last wk.

As far as I am aware not a single person from any of the major labs has endorsed Lina Khan's proposals.

Colin@colin-fraser.net · last wk.

Serious question, as far as regulations go, is anyone proposing something like “if your ai commits a crime you get in trouble similar or worse to the trouble you would get in if you yourself committed it”

Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · last wk.

the colours really underplay this....the light grey, dark grey and medium grey are fossil fuels.

Gas and Coal Will Fuel Most New Power Demand for Al
Incremental generation needed to meet data-center demand - chart showing rising coal and gas demand

Defector @defector.com · last wk.

Arch Manning, room full of dipshits, snicker about AI video of Steve Sarkisian slapping Holly Rowe: defector.com/arch-manning...

Arch Manning, Room Full Of Dipshits, Snicker About AI Video Of Steve Sarkisian Slapping Holly Rowe | Defector

Fair warning: This is a short blog post in which you are going to encounter exhausting behavior from some fellas who will leave you pining for the restoration of our culture’s sense of shame. Texas be...

defector.com

Rodger Sherman @rodger.bsky.social · last wk.

you probably don't need me to tell you this but I sought out this video and, like ... it's not like something else happens in the AI video that he might find funny. there are no jokes in the video. it's just his coach smacking Holly Rowe and her dropping to the ground, that's the joke

TW@twesq.bsky.social · last wk.

ok yeah to hell with this turd

Max Read @maxread.info · last wk.

i would like to have a lot fewer high-breathlessness low-details confessional letters/essays/tweets/resignations from big ai and a lot more specificity & transparency

Business Insider@businessinsider.com · last wk.

Daniel Selsam, an OpenAI researcher, said that "merely pacing the frontier more carefully will not adequately limit the long-term risk." https://bit.ly/4dwR4xx

Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · last wk.

This thread, I think, makes a good distinction. The conduct of the Trump administration is no longer surprising or shocking, but it still does, and should, shock the conscience: a phrase that refers not to the unexpectedness, but the brazen cruelty of the actions.

Asawin Suebsaeng@swin24.bsky.social · last wk.

Obviously the feds lie a lot no matter who is president but holy shit if it was at like an 8 before the trump Vance era has dialed it up to an 18 at least. I know u know this but: it is absurd the sheer degree that “assume their statements false until proven otherwise” is just standard operating…

Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · last wk.

RFK Jr. has decided to change the way measles deaths are counted at the CDC. As @drdebhoury.bsky.social says in this article by @melodyschreiber.com: “The change doesn’t make any sense”. It only makes sense if you’re RFK Jr. and you desperately need to manipulate data to hide your malfeasance.

Trump administration changes how it counts measles deaths amid Pennsylvania outbreak

CDC announces changes to how it reports measles deaths as Pennsylvania continues to confirm more cases

theguardian.com

Maladroithe @maladroithe.bsky.social · last wk.

I’m crying, if I weren’t Jewish I’d sincerely consider dropping in

Be gay do church.
(but like only if you want to no pressure)
((don't worry were gay too))
(I mean our priest isnt gay, a lot of people assume that she is but she's actually married to the mayor, that's kinda beside the point though, you dont have to be gay to come to church but a lot of us are)))
(but like she is really nice and cool and will talk about heated rivalry and we also have ice cream and tea and pop tarts and you could like come to beyond the bible study on thursdays at 8pm in the parish house or dinner on mondays at 5:30 in the parish house or like actual church which is sundays at 10:30 in like the church obviously and you could sing in the choir (C(you can actually get paid to sing in the choir if you want))))) but you don't have to or anything we just want you to know that like were here and stuff)))
(Ill(con onyone even reod this?))11
THE
Episcopal
CHURCH
were episco-pals! (get it? hehe)

Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · last wk.

Prior tech booms, even the NFT Moment, did seem to have more of a collective sense that an opportunistic normal person could cash in on them (and some did). Now, it *feels* like only the employees of a very small number of companies and their investors are actually *profiting* from the AI boom.

Roosevelt Institute @rooseveltinstitute.org · last wk.

The administration’s efforts to divide Americans have now entered childcare policy. Our fellow @jessicacalarco.com explains for @ms.now how redirecting childcare subsidies toward stay-at-home parents would pit mothers against each other instead of addressing the underlying childcare crisis:

Opinion | JD Vance’s new childcare proposal: pit mothers against each other

The plan reportedly championed by the vice president reallocates federal subsidies to subsidize stay-at-home parenthood.

ms.now

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · last wk.

The only person in public service who has consistently made 100% sense on issues of "AI," which is why they hate her so much.

Law enforcers already have authority to charge companies and their CEOs for creating and releasing dangerous, unvetted, or defective products. We shouldn’t let discussions about new legal regimes distract from the fact that there’s no AI exemption from laws already on the books — a point
@FTC
emphasized repeatedly during my tenure.

1. There is an extensive set of laws that govern dangerous and defective products. For example, releasing unvetted AI models or agents can violate consumer protection laws. Shipping flawed AI tools without implementing adequate measures to detect and stop rogue or defective AI agents can be an “unfair or deceptive” act or practice under the FTC Act (and analogous state laws). And some state AGs are already exploring holding AI firms and their CEOs criminally liable when their models participate in criminal activity.

2. Existing laws also prohibit “unfair methods of competition.” This covers instances where AI firms appropriate the competitively sensitive information of their customers, including through tracking their use of various tools. It can also cover instances where firms pursue dangerous behavior, aware that doing so may compel rivals to do the same.

As the Supreme Court has noted: “A method of competition which casts upon one's competitors the burden of the loss of business unless they will descend to a practice which they are under a powerful moral compulsion not to adopt, even though it is not criminal, was thought to involve the kind of unfairness at which the [unfair methods of competition] statute was aimed."

3. The highly concentrated and interconnected structure of these markets could be creating major risks and conflicts of interest. We had started investigating these partnerships and cross-investments across the stack (and released a preliminarily overview of some findings: https://ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-issues-staff-report-ai-partnerships-investments-study).

Both federal and state enforcers should be scrutinizing these opaque relationships and inter-dependencies. We are already seeing how these relationships could undermine accountability. For example, OpenAI could face liability given the Hugging Face incident, but Hugging Face being bought up by Nvidia means that we’re unlikely to see it file a lawsuit over this — given Nvidia’s strong incentive to see OpenAI continue full speed ahead.

4. As AI tools dramatically change the landscape of cybersecurity risks and hacks, all businesses should be doubling down on having core security protections in place. Firms that fail to invest in adequate data security measures or fix known vulnerabilities can also be breaking the law. A recent analysis showed that around 1/3 of Fortune 100 companies do not even have a way to notify them about security issues. During my
@FTC
tenure, we sued firms for poor data security practices and held CEOs liable when they were personally responsible.

https://this.weekinsecurity.com/dozens-of-americas-largest-companies-have-no-simple-way-to-report-security-flaws/

https://ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/10/ftc-takes-action-against-drizly-its-ceo-james-cory-rellas-security-failures-exposed-data-25-million

5. As policymakers consider new legal regimes, we should be looking to lessons from prior efforts to govern major sectors, such as banking and other networks, platforms, and utilities. Tools like structural separations, nondiscrimination, and supervision could be key, and there’s a rich history of what works and what doesn’t. But we can and must pursue any new efforts alongside enforcing existing laws.

Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · last wk.

Glad folks are appalled by photos of the "phone booth" cage under an awning, but pls understand: This IG report is likely part of a cover-up. Amnesty Int'l interviewed detainees EIGHT MONTHS AGO who said the cage was half this size (couldn't stand up), had no awning, w feet chained to the bottom.

Melissa Ryan@melissaryan.bsky.social · last wk.

America is being run by monsters. www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · last wk.

The DHS OIG finds that Florida's Alligator Alcatraz failed to meet SIX different categories of detention standards: - Medical Care - Food Service - Personal Hygiene - Recreation - Environmental Health and Safety - Special Management Units Report here. www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/defaul...

OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
We found the facility complied with Intake and Use-of-Force standards but did not comply with
standards related to:
• Environmental Health and Safety
• Special Management Units (SMU)
• Medical Care
• Food Service
• Personal Hygiene
• Recreation

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · last wk.

The OIG finds that each person detained at Alligator Alcatraz was in cells offering just 28 square feet per detainee, less than half than the 75 required. People could only leave their cells a few times per day, and were only allowed showers 3 times per week.

Key Finding 1: FSSF Did not Comply with Environmental Health and
Safety Standards
FSSF did not provide detainees with sufficient living space — less than half of what is required —
creating cramped conditions for detainees who spent most of their time in their housing units.
The lack of living space risks detainees’ well-being and may negatively impact their physical and
mental health. The applicable standards require at least 75 square feet of floor space per inmate
in dormitory8 housing units.9
At maximum capacity, the FSSF housing units provided 28 square
feet per detainee — well below the required minimum. Detainees spent most of their time in the
housing units; they could only leave their units for:
• mealtime (three times a day);10
• recreation (1 hour a day, 3 days a week);
• showers (three times a week); and
• medical reasons.

General Population FSSF’s general population housing consisted of eight windowless soft-sided structures, or housing pods, without views to the outside and a lack of natural light. Each soft-sided structure contained eight housing units surrounded by metal fencing on all sides, measured 39 feet long by 23 feet wide (897 square feet of floor space). The units were topped with metal fencing that was 9 feet high. Each unit contained three toilets, three wash basins, and four telephones. They were designed to hold 32 detainees (See Figures 2-7). Furnishings in the enclosures consisted of bunk beds with no common areas, seating, tables, or storage areas provided

Figure 4: Inside a Detainee Housing Unit; Observed January 21, 2026. The picture shows a row of bunk beds set up in a small interior space surrounded by chain-link fence. In the middle of the space is a set of three toilets, entirely open, with a low 3-4 foot high wall blocking full view (but the toilets would be entirely visible form people on the top bunks). Perched on the wall of the toilets is a large water jug.

Figure 5. Detainee Housing Unit Toilet and Washbasin Facilities;
Observed January 21, 2026

A close-up image of the toilet set-up, with the paint shown as already peeling. The toilets are standard prison toilets which are both toilet and sink.

Figure 6. Detainee Housing Unit Sleeping Bunks; Observed
January 21, 2026

A picture of the same cell, this time from near the toilets and looking out across the cell. You can see how there is zero privacy, and how each cell is surrounded by other chain-link cells.