For those who are new, Joe DiGenova has spent the last 30 years baselessly accusing Democrats of committing crimes. If he is saying publicly the Trump administration pushed him out because he wouldn’t bring cases because there was no evidence, things are really bad.

Anna Bower@annabower.bsky.social · yesterday

Omg. When you’ve lost Joe DiGenova….

Crude flying this morning—Brent now above $104/bbl. Wheels coming off.

Trumpflation

Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 2d ago

“.. The Atlanta Fed calculates that as of May, a household would need income of $124,674 a year to afford a median-priced home … that is 45% more than the median household makes.” - Schwab

Mike McCready (lead guitarist for Pearl Jam) performing the national anthem at the NFL opener in Seattle was a pleasant surprise. #football

NEW: Our analysis found that from 2020 to 2025, the rate of deaths involving ectopic pregnancies nearly doubled compared with the previous six-year period. The uptick was steeper in states with abortion bans.

Ectopic Pregnancy Deaths Have Nearly Doubled. It’s Worse in States With Abortion Bans.

With prompt and appropriate medical care, experts say, people shouldn’t die from an ectopic pregnancy. Women in Texas and Oklahoma have sued over delays in care, which, coupled with our new analysis, ...

propublica.org

"Job postings and interviews with senior security officials at Anthropic show that the frontier AI lab is building out an extensive monitoring system to keep tabs on activists who oppose the rapid development of artificial intelligence."

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 3d ago

I’m old enough to remember people calling them the ethical ai company.

In total, researchers at the @ttp-updates.bsky.social have now found around 350 of these abusive ads. Many of the ads follow a similar pattern. They can morph an image of a child into an AI video of them involved in a sex act The ads then link out to ‘nudify’ apps on Apple and Google's stores

🧵New: Last month, researchers found 50 paid ads on Meta’s platforms that included AI-generated child sexual abuse. Meta said most of these ran before it rolled out new moderation AI. Since then, Meta has ran another 250+ of these ads. One used an image of a minor from a European royal family

Meta Failed to Catch Hundreds of AI Child Abuse Ads. Some Included Images of Real Kids

Images of real children—including a member of a European royal family—were used to create some of the 350 ads containing child sexual abuse. Lawmakers say they plan to investigate.

wired.com

Quite the sky over Arlington right now, Virginia Square area.

If Hitchcock made films today.

NEW: "...The code WIRED collected holds Flock’s user interface and shows both the network calls it makes and the answers it expects in return... Two notification systems are aimed at human beings." @dmehro.bsky.social's and my latest www.wired.com/story/flock-...

Flock tells cops sometimes its software can't tell its elbow from a doorknob, and if you use it, you're on your own. www.wired.com/story/flock-...

US debt is in worse shape than you think. That's because there's been a string of negative data surprises - like weak payrolls and weak retail sales - that should have pulled down the 10-year yield, but they didn't. A sign that risk premia are building... robinjbrooks.substack.com/p/us-debt-is...

the AI CSAM generator guy also wants to strip women of the right to vote don't promote, buy or utilize a single product or service that touches Musk

Justice Alito's delayed financial disclosure report for last year his been posted. Confirmation that, as of 2025, he's still holding on to oil & gas stocks ahead of the big climate change case being heard in October.

Under Biden, wages at the bottom of the distribution outpaced those at the top. Under Trump, wage growth has declined across the board, and the highest-paid are seeing bigger gains than the lowest.

Dolly squaring up on Mar a Lago

So, both the Russians, and the Pentagon are covertly hiring mercenary right wing US influencers to run malign influence campaigns against the US population. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Pentagon secretly installs military influencers in civilian roles

Conservative veterans with large social media followings have been hired by the Defense Department and are amplifying Pete Hegseth’s culture-war fights.

washingtonpost.com

Bessent’s bond-market battle “is starting to look like his boss’s war in Iran .. a tangled set of objectives, an underestimated opponent and an implausible path to victory. And like the conflict in the Middle East, we are all going to suffer ..” @katie0martin.ft.com www.ft.com/content/b9e7...

* PRESIDENT PEZESHKIAN SAYS IRAN SHOULD END WAR NOW THAT IT IS IN A POSITION OF STRENGTH AND WORLD ACKNOWLEDGES ITS VICTORY -- ISNA @reuters.com

NEW: Flock has said for years that its cameras "cannot track individuals." We found the code for its new AI tool. It's preloaded w/ prompts like "Find me witness" & "find relatives." One tracks visitors of multiple hotels, another if you visit banks after midnight. www.wired.com/story/flock-...

“A well-timed text to Harp can unlock access to Trump, giving well-known lobbyists and fringe figures alike an audience with the most powerful man in the world.” Great arrangement for US national security. Just great. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

How Trump’s Ever-Present Executive Assistant Became the Talk of Washington

Natalie Harp, a personal aide to the president, has become an object of fascination for both the left and right.

wsj.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Cwacomms@arlingtonva.us August 18, 2026 Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti Calls for Immediate Investigation After José Mejía Seriously Injured During ICE Encounter Read the full press release here: arlingtonva.us/oca-news

Personal heuristic: If the lead story on the NY Times website is about the bond market, things are not going well with the economy.

“.. The number of people worth at least $100 million whom the Republican president has appointed to his administration is more than four times the combined total under the three previous presidents ..” @apnews.com apnews.com/article/trum...

Fox News graphic claims falsely that the average price of gas one year ago was $4.13, lower than it is right now. It was actually $3.14!

How will they sneak Trump out of the White House?

Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 4w ago

* SENIOR IRANIAN OFFICIAL TO REUTERS: IRAN HAS DECIDED TO SHIFT ITS POLICY FROM DEFENSIVE TO A 'FULLY OFFENSIVE' ONE * IRAN HAS SET A DEADLINE OF A FEW WEEKS FOR FULL IMPLEMENTATION OF MOU BY U.S. - SENIOR IRANIAN OFFICIAL @reuters.com

"If things go wrong, tech companies will be paying an expensive tab for infrastructure that they can’t profitably use. These obligations could also lead increasingly indebted companies to have to borrow even more."

"Nine top tech companies had some $3 trillion of off-balance-sheet commitments mostly related to AI, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of footnotes in their most recent securities filings."

Why Big Tech’s AI Spending Is $3 Trillion Higher Than It Seems

Massive spending commitments for data-center leases and chips aren’t shown on companies’ balance sheets.

wsj.com

I can’t get over this. In recent years, Congress appropriated $2.5 million to an Executive Residence office account for White House repairs. Since Trump took office, he’s diverted $500 million to that account.