Over the last nine months, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has run dozens of paid ads that include explicit AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and images of minors alongside sexually suggestive statements, according to details of the ads shared with WIRED.

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

This notion that they've done anything to improve DC in any way including re: crime is ludicrous. Ask anyone who lives in DC. They've done nothing, zero, bupkis.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3h ago

Blanche credits Pirro with transforming DC "into a place that we can all now walk around in after sunset" 😆

I wrote about the triumph of Doing Your Own Research and the stupid, nasty thing that is replacing some very recent history in real time. defector.com/were-just-go...

We're Just Going To Keep Doing 2020 Again Until All The Wrong Stuff Is True | Defector

In a bunch of ways, there is no real percentage in remembering what things were actually like during the worst years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond all the uncertainty and suffering and death, there...

defector.com

We got some quotes from @wyden.senate.gov about his wild report yesterday about banks withholding suspicious activity reports about Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking empire because they wanted to keep the lucrative relationship. Crazy conduct and Wyden has some good solutions for it.

Sen. Wyden Report: Banks Systematically Ignored Jeffrey Epstein’s Crimes - The American Prospect

The report shows how employees at Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, and JPMorgan helped to hide Epstein’s activities because he was a load-bearing part of their ‘wall of cash.’

prospect.org

WASHINGTON (AP) — Abdul El-Sayed wins Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Michigan.

"WASHINGTON (AP) — Donavan McKinney wins Democratic nomination for U.S. House in Michigan's 13th Congressional District." Shri Thanedar loses his primary.

Looks like a 10-15 point polling miss in Michigan regardless of who wins. And people have been writing a lot of electability takes using this data. It’s dangerous out there folks be safe

I have little to add to the chat, but I will say this: Those of us who spend a lot of time talking about politics overestimate how much other people care about, or are even familiar with, the labels we use to describe, denigrate, or celebrate candidates. Sometimes we’re high on our own supply.

Send this to your favorite self-impressed contrarian who says both parties are exactly the same

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 22h ago

Sen. Jim Banks refers to American citizens as "the babies of invaders" and compares them to Nazi spies and terrorists

Republican power grabs in Kansas and Missouri are going down in flames with 18-25% of votes reported so far. Missouri's Amendment 4 aimed to make citizen-initiated constitutional amendments practically impossible. Kansas' Amendment 1 was designed to flip the state Supreme Court to ban abortion

They got people dying in camps now and they’re happy about it. bsky.app/profile/joho...

Jonathan Howard@joho.bsky.social · yesterday

These guys are freaking out over their own imaginations again.

Early yet, but so far so good in Kansas

Carolyn Fiddler@cfidd.bsky.social · 24h ago

Some +other+ primaries in Michigan, and more than you maybe wanted to know about the Kansas ballot measure to upend judicial selection (which is already a little gerrymandered!) open.substack.com/pub/statehou...

Sunday: I’ll do a quick fact check of this insane RFK Jr interview Monday: Up to 40 lies & it was only a 3 min clip! Tuesday: Ready to defend my 2nd PhD thesis on fascist quackery That's why @saveamericamvmt.bsky.social & I are holding him accountable rasmussenretorts.substack.com/p/rfk-jr-is-...

RFK Jr is Asking to Be Proven Wrong Again So Here Are 40 Examples From Just One CNN Interview

He's just creating work for us at this point

rasmussenretorts.substack.com

Noted populist Steve Bannon just laughing there.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 20h ago

Bessent: "Here at the Treasury, I had $168 billion of tariff revenues that we're gonna have to refund. So when the Democrats scream, "Oh, the refunds should go back to the American people!', well, the American people had it, it was in the Treasury and it was paying down the debt."

It's subtle, but if you look closely you can spot exactly when SpaceX reported earnings today.

Depicting Jewish people with horns is a centuries-old, dehumanizing, antisemitic trope. Democratic Gov nominee Phil Weiser is outspoken about his mother’s birth in a Nazi concentration camp, his family members killed in the Holocaust, and the threat posed by antisemitism today.

like sorry, your brain is being cooked

Sharon 🪳🌹@sharonk.bsky.social · yesterday

like no, i don't think you're going to get people to sign on to centrism by being conspiratorial about progressives

Elon is talking about using robots to build a mass accelerator on the moon in support of an economy 1000x to 1 million times the current earth economy. It's a bad sci fi novel not an earnings call.

I remain convinced the only reason Obamacare wasn’t repealed in 2017 is that Collins & Murkowski were certain McCain was a yes vote.

Grudgie the Whale@grudgie.bsky.social · 21h ago

Every fucking time.

Perhaps one of these days, Trump flunkies will learn how to disguise being a key source for a story. Today is not that day.

James Downie@jamescdownie.bsky.social · 21h ago

"Jeanine Pirro had had it up to here with Doug Burgum. The famously voluble U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia strode into the Oval Office late Monday with her future on the line and the interior secretary, whom she privately called an incompetent liar, in her cross hairs."

"Jeanine Pirro had had it up to here with Doug Burgum. The famously voluble U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia strode into the Oval Office late Monday with her future on the line and the interior secretary, whom she privately called an incompetent liar, in her cross hairs."

Inside the Oval Office Showdown Between Trump and Jeanine Pirro

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told President Trump that his interior secretary, Doug Burgum, had misled him with a self-serving cover story for his own mistakes.

nytimes.com

Susan comes out against Todd Blanche now that he's got the votes. So tiresome. (We called it: tinyurl.com/3bepafkz) #MEpolitics

"For decades, Ronald S. Lauder, the billionaire cosmetics heir and philanthropist, has been something like a one-man bank for Republicans in New York....Now, in the middle of another crucial midterm election year, Mr. Lauder, 82, appears to have abruptly closed his political checkbook."

Ronald Lauder, a Billionaire G.O.P. Backer, Closes His Wallet (Gift Article)

Ronald S. Lauder, a major funder of conservative political causes, has not given a single dollar this year to Republicans in his home state, and his super PAC has gone idle.

nytimes.com

Good answer.

Ron Skolnik@ronskolnik.bsky.social · 23h ago

El-Sayed: "I believe in equal rights to peace, dignity, and self-determination, for Palestinians and Jewish Israelis alike... If that’s 2 states, I’m for it. If it’s 1 state, I’m for that. If it’s this 'land for all' model, ... or whatever they decide." www.newyorker.com/news/the-new...

Read it here if you haven't yet. Today is the very best day of all days to read it for the first time. short-stories.co/@raybradbury...

There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury

The voice-clock sang, breakfast was ejected, but no doors slammed. The garage chimed and lifted its door to reveal the waiting car. The house sat alone in a city of rubble and…

short-stories.co

Adam Rawnsley@arawnsley.bsky.social · yesterday

Today, August 4, 2026, is the setting of Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” about a fully automated house continuing on after the family who lived there and the world around it died in a nuclear blast.

that's a long time to carry the deal financing huh *JUDGE SETS PARAMOUNT-WARNER BROS. MERGER TRIAL FOR MARCH 2027

in insane local news, the 26 year old director of a rocky horror production was arrested for sending threatening messages to himself in order to get the play shut down bc he didn’t want to deal with cast drama www.mynbc5.com/article/rock...

VT musical director of planned 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' created fake threats, police say

The director of a planned production of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" admitted to sending himself threatening texts that eventually got the play canceled out of safety concerns.

mynbc5.com

“The economics mapped on very cleanly in so much as falling GDP per capita predicted steeper rises in perfectionistic striving [fear of failure and others’ judgment], while rising income inequality predicted steeper rises in perfectionistic concern [extremely high standards].”

Ian Bogost@ibogost.com · yesterday

Imagine if the lesson we learned from the "everything wrong with kids is because of screens" blowback is not that some other, singular and tidy explanation is the cause, instead, but that the whole industry of singular, tidy, behavioral-scientific explanations for complex problems is, well, stupid.

Scoop: Trump has ordered workers to redo weeks of work on his planned White House helipad new WaPo photos show how past work was removed over weekend Trump is contemplating changes to White House lawn's slope, raising bigger Qs about project and cost

Trump orders changes to new helipad after weeks of around-the-clock work

Contractors have removed the granite seal that had begun to take shape in recent days, after the president complained about the slope of the White House Lawn.

washingtonpost.com