Trump & Russ Vought proposed a rule to take every federal grant in America hostage. They don't care about making our tax dollars work better—they just want them to work for Trump. Well, Democrats BLOCKED their corrupt rule, and I'll be fighting to kill it permanently.

I’m never not fascinated to see people talk about living without AI like it’s clean water or electricity, and not just… how we were all living 4 years ago. I’m not even caught up on my *podcasts* from 4 years ago.

Exclusive: Senate inquiry suggests Trump administration softened kratom and tobacco policies in quid pro quo. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is at the center of a new investigation launched by Sen. Ron Wyden. www.statnews.com/2026/08/05/s...

Senate inquiry suggests Trump administration softened kratom and tobacco policies in quid pro quo

The Senate investigation includes RFK Jr. as well as the heads of Reynolds American and kratom company Botanic Tonics, asking for written responses and documentation by Aug. 31.

statnews.com

NEW: DHS wants to pay private contractors bounties to hunt down people who already left the country, photograph their homes, and demand money. It told them leaving the US would wipe out fines. It was the pitch for self-deporting. Experts tell WIRED this is a pointless escalation of tactics.

DHS Is Hiring Bounty Hunters to Find and Photograph Deported People’s Homes Abroad

Homeland Security told immigrants that leaving the US would wipe out fines it claims they owe. Now it wants private investigators to find them in their home countries and collect.

wired.com

More than 40,000 Utahns are now in danger of losing healthcare thanks to Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Every member of Utah’s congressional delegation — Senators Mike Lee and John Curtis, and representatives Burgess Owens, Celeste Maloy, Mike Kennedy and Blake Moore — voted to pass it.

Medicaid work requirement could leave 40,000 Utahns without healthcare

As the Trump administration presses forward with Medicaid work requirements, state officials estimate more than 40,000 Utahns could be subject to losing health coverage.

sltrib.com

Our Head Start programs are impactful & life-changing for our babies. But Trump wants to eliminate this essential program, lower its quality standards, & deny our most vulnerable children a first-rate early education. Trump should keep his grubby little hands off Head Start.

NEW: Meta reviewed, approved, and ran more than 50 ads containing AI-generated child sexual abuse material across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads. They ran for nine months. Some were live this week. After WIRED asked about them, researchers found ~30 more

Meta Ran Ads That Contained AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Imagery

More than 50 offending image and video ads were published across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or Threads, according to Meta’s ad library data. Some ran as recently as this week.

wired.com

Can’t give up something I haven’t used, done, or taken, but if it were suddenly banned, I — a tired old introvert — would throw a huge goddamned party that’s for sure and you’d all be invited

Charlie Stross@cstross.bsky.social · 9h ago

My answer is LOL ROFL (dickbrain) The terminally AI-pilled can't even *imagine* some people have *never* asked stochastic parrots to cheat at their job for them.

Repurposed fire hydrant

"A.i." is a tool of exploitative capitalism, not a leveler or equalizer. Its function is fraud and exploitation, not liberation.

Your public library is a socialist trap. Your city or statewide university is a socialist trap. Your fire department is a socialist trap. Your public school, even though you don't have children, is a socialist trap. Dude. Shut up.

USA TODAY Opinion@usatodayopinion.usatoday.com · 2d ago

Opinion: Mamdani's idea may sound appealing, but it's NYC taxpayers who will take the hit, subsidizing discounts they may never even use.

This law firm was just awarded a $150 million/year contract to lead representation of unaccompanied minors through immigration proceedings. Seems really bad!

Corey Rayburn Yung@coreyryung.bsky.social · 19h ago

In addition to having no experience in immigration, their website shows Ilya Shapiro (!) and disgraced former law prof Joshua Wright (!) as Senior Counsel. I don't think this massive contract was awarded to give immigrant children effective, zealous advocacy. burkegroup.law/our-team/

This New York Times article, which ran a week before Christmas last year, didn’t get the attention it deserved. It detailed Trump and Epstein's predatory behavior toward women – “a game of ego and dominance” in which “female bodies were currency.” Here’s a gift link and a thread. 1/6🧵

‘Don’s Best Friend’: How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women (Gift Article)

The president has tried to minimize their friendship, but documents and interviews reveal an intense and complicated relationship. Chasing women was a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were cur...

nytimes.com

Do we have a "made without genAI" badge or digital sticker that science communicators and artists can use so people know that our work is for humans by humans?

Things were so dire even by April 2020 that I was covering clinicians having to use jury-rigged snorkel masks bc of a *shortage of ventilators* www.scientificamerican.com/article/snor...

Snorkeling Mask Apparatus Might Help COVID-19 Patients Avoid Intubation

The jury-rigged breathing aid, invented to deal with ventilator shortages, is now being tested as a kinder, gentler alternative to a tube in the trachea

scientificamerican.com

Dr. Lucky Tran@luckytran.com · 3d ago

I worked for New York’s largest medical center at the start of the pandemic. There were morgue trucks on the streets. They set up emergency medical tents in Central Park. Healthcare worker colleagues died. It is horrific that RFK Jr is on national TV lying that ICUs were empty.

This is a v specific kind of betrayal that I feel to my bones

socmot@socmot.bsky.social · 3d ago

I despise Substack and have previously said I will never read it (and I don't). But I will break my rule just for this eally disturbing piece of writing by Neko Case, who was / is in a band, The New Pornographers, who were supported by The Frames in 2002. nekocase.substack.com/p/in-what-fu...

I was banned by BlueSky (then apparently unbanned) for calling for the trial & death penalty for Ralph de la Torre, former CEO of Steward Health Care, a man directly responsible for the deaths of disabled Americans. I stand by my analysis - the full writeup is here: www.patreon.com/mattbc/posts...

Ralph de la Torre, Steward Health Care CEO, Is A Murderer (And I've Been Banned By BlueSky) | Shouldn't Need to Be a Lawyer by Matthew Cortland

nb. I have been suspended from BlueSky. Patreon — now with new, easier URL, ShoudntNeedToBeALawyer.com or ShouldntNeed.com — is the best pla

patreon.com

I think people have been taught to interpret "preexisting condition" as "someone who decided not to take care of themselves" rather than three-quarters of the US population

That's what taxes are, man. That's the definition of taxes. "You are subsidizing things you might never use" man shut the fuck up. My taxes currently subsidize like oil company exec private jets, you think I'm upset at low-income people eating inexpensive bananas?

USA TODAY Opinion@usatodayopinion.usatoday.com · 2d ago

Opinion: Mamdani's idea may sound appealing, but it's NYC taxpayers who will take the hit, subsidizing discounts they may never even use.

"15 deaths caused by...de la Torre [who] extracted hundreds of millions from EDs, ORs, &ICUs to buy luxury property, expensive vacations,&yachts." "His victims deserve justice." Cortland stated fact, called for justice (execution for murder), got banned shouldntneedtobealawyer.com/posts/ralph-...

Ralph de la Torre, Steward Health Care CEO, Is A Murderer (And I've Been Banned By BlueSky) | Shouldn't Need to Be a Lawyer by Matthew Cortland

nb. I have been suspended from BlueSky. Patreon — now with new, easier URL, ShoudntNeedToBeALawyer.com or ShouldntNeed.com — is the best pla

shouldntneedtobealawyer.com

Dr. Damien P. Williams has to go the way his blood beats@wolven.blacksky.app · 2d ago

Anybody at @moderation.bsky.app want to try to explain why they suspended @matthewcort.land, ANOTHER of the most prominent people out here fighting for disabled and marginalized people? Like… are y'all planning to suspend/ban literally every disabled legal scholar/policy worker out here, orrrr…?

Just so everyone knows, this is a tried-and-true mainstream media tactic. For progressives/leftist candidates, every election is a “crucial test” and any loss would serve as proof to the media that the latest left-side moment is at its end. Any win, though, just means it’s time to find a new test.

Politico@politico.com · 2d ago

Michigan will provide another crucial test of whether progressives can not only keep up their winning streak in safe-blue seats but also break through in battlegrounds crucial for control of Congress. The stakes for the Democratic Party are huge.

They're probably hoping you won't hear about this. But tomorrow in TX, Tarrant County officials meet to vote on a GOP plan to cut almost HALF of Election Day voting locations, plus 8 early voting locations, some of them on campuses. Not hard to guess why. fortworthreport.org/2026/07/30/t...

Tarrant County considers cutting 140 Election Day polling sites for November

County commissioners vote Aug. 4 on proposed reductions to the number of early voting and day-of sites for the midterms.

fortworthreport.org

It's our newsletter's One Year Anniversary! And RFK the Lesser is STILL waging a damaging campaign of absolute male bovine excrement against autistic people & their families. We will not ever let him off the hook, thanks to the eagle eyes of @ejwillingham.bsky.social: buttondown.com/TPGA/archive...

One year in, yet so much stays the same

It's the TPGA Newsletter's 1-year anniversary and here we are, covering The Lesser RFK yet again.

tinyurl.com

With this and the apparently permanent suspension of Link, I must infer that @moderation.bsky.app &etc want to rid the site of anyone who represents the disability community from a good-sized platform. There is a name for that.

Dr. Damien P. Williams has to go the way his blood beats@wolven.blacksky.app · 2d ago

Anybody at @moderation.bsky.app want to try to explain why they suspended @matthewcort.land, ANOTHER of the most prominent people out here fighting for disabled and marginalized people? Like… are y'all planning to suspend/ban literally every disabled legal scholar/policy worker out here, orrrr…?

Anybody at @moderation.bsky.app want to try to explain why they suspended @matthewcort.land, ANOTHER of the most prominent people out here fighting for disabled and marginalized people? Like… are y'all planning to suspend/ban literally every disabled legal scholar/policy worker out here, orrrr…?

ali alkhatib@ali-alkhatib.com · 2d ago

anyway, if you're looking for Matthew Cortland, you should sub to their patreon since they're a disabled lawyer evidently getting deplatformed from places.

ABC News reported that it obtained documents showing Ameaka had a work authorization permit until 2029 and had a pending asylum case. www.themirror.com/news/us-news...

ICE detains John Hopkins researcher at airport in 'extremely distressing' case

A Johns Hopkins University researcher was released from ICE detention after she was detained at Baltimore-Washington International Airport on Tuesday

themirror.com

· #AcademicSky · #EduSky · #SciSky · #AI · Scientists using LLMs will ‘do more, less well’, modelling study predicts

Scientists using LLMs will ‘do more, less well’, modelling study predicts

Research suggests that the combination of incentives to publish and the use of large language models will lead to more papers, but they will be less refined.

nature.com

"According to the Guidebook and another document obtained from the district via a FOIA request, “CPS AI Access Overview,” CPS is planning to give access to Google's general-purpose AI assistant Gemini to all high school students at the start of the 2026-2027 school year." are you fucking kidding me

Illinois Families for Public Schools@ilfps.bsky.social · 2d ago

Prioritize kids over computers! We’re calling on Chicago School Board candidates to commit to a "Pledge to Protect Human-Centered Education”—22 have signed on so far. Full Pledge, candidates who have committed, and why we must protect human-centered education in CPS: www.ilfps.org/pledge_prote...

Honestly, this is a more apt description for small towns that are being drained dry and emptied into straggling wastelands by downturn economics, shitty policies, lack of healthcare, jobs scarcity, and garbage treatment by the people for whom residents often vote.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2d ago

Trump: "Look at the blue cities. What do they have in common? They're all dirty. They're filthy dirty. Their streets are dirty. Their streets smell. Their storefronts are broken. Their trees are all gross. Everything about the place is dirty. It's really all of them."

Exclusive: We obtained a leaked playbook that Flock gives to cops to coach them on "how to speak to city council" to avoid getting their contracts canceled. Includes strategies like "own the narrative" by talking to mayor "before public comment periods" www.404media.co/own-the-narr...

‘Own the Narrative’: Leaked Flock Guide Shows How It Teaches Cops to Promote Its Tech

"This document shows a coordinated effort from Flock Safety to compel law enforcement agencies to convince our elected leaders to represent their interests as a company rather than the interests of co...

404media.co