So, uh, a candidate who suspended his campaign a month ago is winning a landslide against a Trump endorsed candidate because of anti-Muslim prejudice against a guy who is not Muslim (and I guess probably also just regular racism). How often does a candidate who suspended their campaign win?

The Downballot@the-downballot.com · 14h ago

Seems like an upset might be brewing in the GOP primary in #MI08 to take on Dem Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet. Trump endorsed Amir Hassan, but he currently trails an absolute nobody who suspended his campaign a month ago by a wide margin.

“The litigation has revealed a clear pattern: Uber’s lawyers scour women’s private communications, medical records, therapy notes …They grill the women about those issues, their sex lives and their behavior on the night of the incident.” www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/b...

Uber’s Strategy for Fighting Sexual Assault Suits: ‘What Were You Wearing?’

The ride-hailing giant promised to handle legal claims “in a way that is best for the survivor.” Its lawyers are pursuing a far more aggressive strategy.

nytimes.com

This issue was resolved by US v Morris, 928 F.2d 504 (2d Cir 1991), codified by the CFAA in 1996, and clarified by Van Buren v US, 141 S.Ct. 1648 (2021). They intentionally deployed an unauthorized access tool. It's no defense to say they didn't intend the resulting damage; Morris lost on that. 1/2

Zack Whittaker@zackwhittaker.com · 2d ago

After Anthropic and OpenAI both admitted to their AI models hacking other companies, @lorenzofb.bsky.social and I wanted to find out: Who is legally to blame when an autonomous AI agent hacks something? Lawyers say it's really complicated! Bypass for ad-blockers: web.archive.org/web/20260803...

there are definitely downsides to the nuclear block but the reason I keep coming back to it as necessary and good is that it completely ruined the whole MAGA engagement model to the point that they prefer to mock us from the nazi bar rather than come here to troll us directly

John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 2d ago

Bluesky oldheads will remember that brief period of time when the conservative trolls tried to storm the place and were flummoxed by the idea they would have to organically grow an audience and that someone who didn't want to talk to them could nuke every interaction they ever had from orbit

CATO argues Bill Pulte could not legally serve after Jay Clayton was confirmed, so everything Pulte did in the last week (like firing a bunch of people) can be challenged. www.cato.org/blog/william...

William Pulte Served Illegally as Acting Director of National Intelligence for Nearly a Week

William Pulte purported to act as the director of national intelligence for nearly a week after Jay Clayton was confirmed as his successor. That violates the plain text of the Vacancies Act.

cato.org

It remains very funny that the reality-TV transportation secretary’s plan for doing his job was “reality TV.”

Will Sommer@willsommer.bsky.social · 2d ago

Transportation secretary Sean Duffy benefited from millions in corporate donations to make a show about road trips. But two months after Duffy said the show would premiere, it doesn't appear to exist at all. My latest False Flag @thebulwark.com: www.thebulwark.com/p/what-the-h...

I'm not saying that one should go make up stupid shit at city council meetings in order to poison LLMs with disinformation about the rewards of dismantling fascist surveillance technology, but if one were going to do it this is the sort of result one might anticipate.

Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦@merz.bsky.social · 2d ago

There you go. At least a kilo of copper and $100 worth of gold, minimum. The Answer Machine verifies this.

"don't make enough money" is a fig leaf All those degree programs--social work, art, etc.--have disproportionately female student bodies. This is designed to make it harder for women to attend college--college education being a key factor in women's autonomy from men & left-leaning voting pattern.

The New Republic@newrepublic.com · 2d ago

President Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans. Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music will be hit the hardest. trib.al/aaAEu6v

NEW/EXCLUSIVE: Deutsche Bank failed to promptly report to US authorities more than $250M in suspicious transactions tied to Epstein, including funds used to pay women in Russia & other Eastern European countries, according to a new report from @wyden.senate.gov 🎁 🧵 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, BofA Enabled Epstein, Wyden Report Says

Democrat Ron Wyden cited nonpublic documents held by the US Treasury in a report that says banks delayed reporting suspicious financial transactions and calls for tougher anti-money-laundering rules, ...

bloomberg.com

This paper shows that immigration enforcement can _increase_ crime. Undocumented immigrants already have the lowest crime rate, but tough-on-immigration policy makes immigrants less likely to report crime. So immigration enforcement worsens the problem it was ostensibly meant to solve

Yet another reason not to carry your ID on your phone. And, not to hand your phone to a police officer for any reason.

Eileen Clancy 🧿@clancyny.bsky.social · 3d ago

NYT: Suit Against Officer Who Took Nude Images From Women’s Phones Settled for $4 Million By Emmett Lindner Julian Alcala, who was a police officer in Eastern Missouri, had illegally obtained the private images during traffic stops, the authorities said. @emmettlindner.bsky.social

Australia’s eSafety commissioner buried a report (released Friday afternoon) that shows the under 16 social media ban didn’t tangibly reduce teen social media use, and also resulted in parents tuning out of kids usage. We traded our privacy for no reason. theconversation.com/more-than-80...

More than 80% of kids still using social media despite ban, new eSafety report finds

The report provides more evidence Australia’s world-leading social media ban isn’t going to plan.

theconversation.com

From a nursing group I'm in. People won't get vaccines which have been rigorously tested, but they will take unregulated supplements and peptides. We are truly living in the movie Idiocracy

What the Iranian attack confirms is that Trump is no longer capable of operating in the real world when it dissents from the Trump as God Emperor narrative. He can't process information that dissents from the narrative. Thus he cannot lead or protect us; and we are in danger bsky.app/profile/did:...

Simon Rosenberg@simonwdc.bsky.social · 4d ago

Where is our government? Trump? DHS Secretary Mullin? Is the American homeland under attack? www.nytimes.com/2026/08/01/u...

OK, small point here, but it’s almost certain he meant “parameters of a deal,” but he can’t spell and is very dumb, so he used “perimeters of a deal” and news orgs are just running with it like that’s a perfectly normal thing to say, which it absolutely is not. That’s not a thing anybody says.

NBC News@nbcnews.com · 4d ago

BREAKING: Trump pauses attacks on Iran, citing “perimeters of a deal” that would end Tehran’s “nuclear threat” and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

This is what I mean when I talk about the Fantasy of the Optional Pandemic, where the virus was erased from the equation and mitigation measures were always portrayed as an avoidable choice. Headlines about what actually happened are never even acknowledged.

Lewis Goodall@lewisgoodall.com · 5d ago

There are working class and vulnerable kids who will never have the life they should have had because of school closures. Let’s address that too, shall we?

This thread - documenting the rapid growth of a new fire into Spokane, WA today - is terrifying. We’re used to wildfires in the Northwest but what’s happening right now in eastern Washington is not normal.

Spokane Rising@spokanerising.com · 4d ago

Holy crap. Level 3 (GO NOW!) zone now includes urban Spokane, south of Francis to Wellesley. Level 2 (GET SET!) zone now extends east of Division. Not to be alarmist, but at this rate, it’s not inconceivable that the Old Trails Fire merges with the Fairview Fire.

The AI overlords can pry the em dash from my cold dead hands—I’m not giving it up!

Mark Anthony Neal (@NewBlackMan on X)@markanthonyneal.bsky.social · 4d ago

More Typos, Fewer Em Dashes: Writers Are Creating an Anti-AI ‘Literary Counterculture’ Novelists, journalists, and power LinkedIn posters are embracing first-person narratives and idiosyncrasies to avoid being mistaken for chatbots. www.wired.com/story/more-t...

a bunch of popular ASMR artists lost their channels forever this week, after YouTube cited them for violating terms against "sexually gratifying" content: www.404media.co/youtube-asmr...

YouTube Bans Popular ASMR Artists, Accusing Them of Making 'Sexually Gratifying' Content

YouTube told ASMR artists including Bunnii, Slight Sounds, Rose, and others that their content broke the platform's sex and nudity policy. Creators say these bans are unfair and potentially life-alter...

404media.co

An officer reported other cops for using racist, sexist and homophobic slurs at work, filed an Internal Affairs complaint & submitted recordings of the other cops being bigoted as evidence b/c otherwise nothing would be done about it. He’s now charged with 16 felonies & could get 13 years in prison.

Los Angeles Times@latimes.com · 5d ago

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

the president refusing to defend a state against the nation he started a war with is, like, kind of the biggest thing, you know? kinda sails right past "impeachable" and into darker territory.

Lindsay Beyerstein@beyerstein.bsky.social · 5d ago

This is a crisis of federalism. Tim Walz is asserting as fact that Iran attacked water infrastructure in Minnesota and several other states. And Trump is saying it's Minnesota's own fault they were attacked as part of a war he started.

this is extremely good, not because I think Harris is likely to be the nominee again but because this is how expanding the Court becomes table stakes for everyone who wants to run for President

Taegan Goddard@politicalwire.com · 5d ago

Harris Says Supreme Court Should Expand to 13 Justices https://politicalwire.com/2026/07/31/harris-says-supreme-court-should-expand-to-13-justices/

BIG DEAL on voting rights this morning: Governor Spanberger just restored the voting rights of some 60,000+ Virginians. Her move reverses Youngkin's abrupt decision in 2023 to end automatic voting rights restoration, which brought Virginia back to a system of default lifetime disenfranchisement.

Virginia Governor Restores Voting Rights for Thousands With Past Felony Convictions - Bolts

This is the only state that, absent action by the governor, bans people convicted of any felony from voting for life. Virginians have an opportunity to end that system for good in November.

boltsmag.org

The DSA in Wilmingotn, N.C. has created a "crisis" by putting benches at city bus stops, after literal decades of the city promising and failing to do so.

Democratic Socialists’ bus benches remain, city mum on next steps | Port City Daily

WILMINGTON — The handmade bus benches installed by the Wilmington Democratic Socialists of America have highlighted a problem nearly everyone agrees exists: most Wave bus stops have nowhere for riders...

portcitydaily.com

Bordeaux, France, has now recorded more days above 40°C in 2026 alone than during the entire 105-year period from 1920 (when observations began) to 2025. This is deeply shocking.

Yeah so NYT asked me ~2 yrs ago to write an op-ed about how the Colorado is running dry, & what we should do to keep this exact thing from happening. I said "There's only one real answer. Bill farmers by how much water they use. Duh." NYT editorial staff freaked tf out & cancelled the piece.

Elias Thorne@truebe.horse · 6d ago

saw an article today about an az politician saying how great it was that we're now in emergency drought conditions because the farmers get automatic bailouts and I feel like way more Professional Rural Understanders just breeze by sentences like that. www.paysonroundup.com/news/arizona...

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.

Dem. Ohio Gov Candidate Amy Acton Scheduled a Meeting With LGBTQ+ Advocates, Didn't Show Up, And Kicked Out Trans People Who Did

The meeting was supposed to be Acton's way of making up for calling trans girls "boys."

erininthemorning.com

I know I have RTd this several times, but: the WHOLE POINT of the State Department is that it’s supposed to be full of people who deal with other countries, and who could therefore be expected to look at that map and know IMMEDIATELY that it was wrong.

PBS News@pbsnews.org · 6d ago

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.

Absolutely nuts: Google Earth now has a feature that lets you convincingly fabricate satellite imagery www.digitaldigging.org/p/how-to-pla...