Trump's covert surveillance of anti-ICE protesters is much worse than we thought. I dug into this and found that DHS agents secretly spied on over a dozen meetings of left-leaning groups, all protected by First Amendment. The details are unnerving. 1/ (new piece) newrepublic.com/article/2144...

Trump’s Secret Police Spying on Americans? It’s Darker than We Knew.

Court papers reveal that the Department of Homeland Security’s covert surveillance of anti-ICE groups is much darker than it first appeared. Welcome to Donald Trump’s America.

newrepublic.com

Last night, I read that godawful Tablet Mag piece so you don’t have to.

N.S. Dolkart, vice chair@nsdolkart.bsky.social · 10h ago

I’m sorry what

Good counterpoint to all the “Trump still has the juice, at least within his own party” articles. Not that he has no influence among Republican primary voters, but at least half those stories could be rewritten as “Trump guesses the winner correctly.”

The Downballot@the-downballot.com · 16m ago

Donald Trump's endorsement proved to be far from enough for scandal-plagued Rep. Cory Mills in Tuesday's Republican primary in central Florida. Trump also backed losing candidates for another Florida congressional district and for Wyoming governor.

Look who else got the memo.

Axios@axios.com · 2h ago

EXCLUSIVE: The Senate GOP campaign arm, in a private memo to top AI companies, warns that data center backlash is killing the party's chances of holding an Ohio seat. “If [Husted] loses and data centers get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice.”

Back when i was editor of @lonrec.bsky.social the BBC asked me during an interview if i thought the Elizabeth line would be Sadiq Khan's big legacy for London. i said: "no. it's ULEZ expansion." they looked at me like i had three heads. Every year though there's more and more proof I was right.

Caroline Russell@carolinerussell.bsky.social · 5h ago

ULEZ was never a crack down on people driving, always a push for better respiratory health. 🚗 💨 “Examinations of London schoolchildren before and after the introduction of the city’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) found a restoration of lung capacity […] stunted by exposure to pollution”.

It's a crazy time right now, and it's hard to know the right way to be Jewish in America sometimes, but there are some folks you look at by way of example and go, "Well I can cross that off the list, surely."

Judaism survived–painfully–for *centuries* without physical confrontation being a viable option. No one wants to go back to those days, but don't pretend violence is the only option.

N.S. Dolkart, vice chair@nsdolkart.bsky.social · 10h ago

I’m sorry what

So, there are vultures circling the Anthropic lawsuit, hoping to siphon from the fund that’s meant to reimburse authors for their stolen work.

Courtney Milan@courtneymilan.com · 9h ago

So TL;DR the judge very clearly said that he opposed giving any of the class's money to these people, who are not class counsel, and I agree with that completely. I'm not sure what they'll be seeking on appeal, but one of these goobers literally wanted to be paid $64K an hour.

Judge Alsup was like "and why are the publishers getting special input into this settlement? I wouldn't approve of that even if you ask, which you didn't, because that sounds shady as shit."

This thread is wild.

Courtney Milan@courtneymilan.com · 10h ago

The other law firms showed up and were like "Hi, everyone! We're here, and we've put on our billing trousers!" and then they expected the money to roll in.

I am going to do a new thread because I have now read the filings from the two law firms who are appealing and I have read the underlying order of the district judge that they are appealing.

Courtney Milan@courtneymilan.com · 12h ago

For those of you following along in Bartz v. Anthropic, I gave some guidance as to when we might see money, and said in that guidance that it all depended on whether there was an appeal. Semi-bad news: there is an appeal. Want to know who is appealing? Do you, do you?

Just taught my son the word Dote. “So, for example, you could say I “dote” on Mom.” “You DO dote on Mom! I don’t think anyone could ever dote on Mom more than you do.” That’s the idea, yes.

It's especially big if they call for an end to ALL ALPRs, and not just Flock's. Because Flock is awful, but there's no kinder gentler surveillance state that any vendor could provide.

Evan Greer@evangreer.bsky.social · 12h ago

Wow this is huge. Rhode Island's Governor just became the first (I believe?) in the nation to call for a moratorium on installation of Flock cameras and other ALPRs www.wpri.com/news/politic...

How is one supposed to “fight back” violently against the kind of antisemitic terrorism we saw at Central Synagogue? Who exactly are we supposed to start shooting, bro?

Joel S.@joelhs.bsky.social · 10h ago

The corollary to “Jews are only safe in a heavily militarized garrison state” is “Diaspora Jews who don’t violently fight back against antisemitism are a bunch of weaklings who deserve what is coming to them.” Which is “Tablet Magazine’s” position, apparently. www.tabletmag.com/sections/com...

Lead change: The Democrat, Brandon Dukes, is now up 105 votes. The count is drawing to a close — but not quite over. If Dukes pulls it off, it'd be the 6th flip this year in a legislative election for Democrats (and 31st over 2025-2026).

There's a very close special election in Pennsylvania right now. It's for a state House district that Trump carried by 18%. The GOP nominee is up by just *20* votes (with 87% reporting).

BREAKING: It made the final cut. Congratulations, Michigan, you might have the best voting sticker of 2026.

Jen Rice@jenrice.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I am obsessed with this finalist in this year's Michigan “I voted” sticker design contest

The 5th seat—that's Ziegler's—is going to a head to a runoff and it'll be decided in November. This is one of six counties where I was watching school board races, so you can learn more in my guide (remember to check out @boltsmag.org!) boltsmag.org/whats-on-the...

FLIP IN FLORIDA: The Democratic-backed slate has flipped the school board of Sarasota County. This is a county of 400K that went for Trump by 18%. It's also where Bridget Ziegler has been on the school board. Dem-backed candidates just flipped 2 seats, adding to the 2 they already had (out of 5).

Hello, book people! I am the book content editor for Reactor Mag and I'm looking for sci-fi, fantasy, horror, romantasy, and speculative books coming out in 2027! If you have an adult or YA SFF/H book out next year (or publicist), share the link/info here!

I hate that this seems to be getting popular here as a repost, especially when links work. The original creator looks like Seungjaenim, has a bunch of these and they're very funny. They deserve the traffic. www.youtube.com/shorts/jVHYO...

Self-defence

YouTube video by SEUNGJAENIM 승재님

youtube.com

Pile Of Garbage@pileofgarbage.net · 2d ago

How to win at most all things:

Jim Crow north. www.detroitnews.com/story/news/p...

Insider: Mike Rogers wants cops to monitor Detroit election workers

The Detroit News obtained an audio recording of Michigan Republican Senate hopeful Mike Rogers calling for intimidation at Detroit polling precincts.

detroitnews.com

one fuckin muslim wins a senate primary and these clowns start acting like saladin's army is about to ride down from canada

Tom Joscelyn@tomjoscelyn.bsky.social · 2d ago

Muslims make up about 1% of the U.S. population. Many don’t want to “Islamify” anything. Christian Nationalist groups like Turning Point USA are hyping this phantom xenophobic threat as a pretext for their own extremist agenda.

And here's the best part: "Tehee but at least agriculture uses the water to make food!" Uh, you'd be surprised! Farmers are INCENTIVIZED TO WASTE WATER. To use more than we need, to grow thirsty crops in deserts, etc. A whole lot of that massive ag water use DOES NOT MEANINGFULLY GROW FOOD.

We really have to understand that decades of being told "Turn off the water when you're brushing your teeth!" was kinda bullshit. Folks we are failing to comprehend the SHEER VOLUME of water agriculture uses. ALL urban water use in the CO basin? Is ~1/3 of what the farms there use.

AI is godawful and its output contains more slop and toxic shit than a hog farm (high bar), but yeah it’s ag that’s draining the Colorado river etc.

Sarah Taber@sarahtaber.bsky.social · yesterday

The ag lobby really, really, really, really, really, really, really wants you to think AI is the reason reservoirs are going empty. It's not. It's agriculture.

The ag lobby really, really, really, really, really, really, really wants you to think AI is the reason reservoirs are going empty. It's not. It's agriculture.

Kent Lind@camasonian.bsky.social · 2d ago

We have data on this. The blue is all the non-ag human use:

Heads up, if twitch is using personal info like this on behalf of amazon's AI modeling, it's probably to take personal info primarily from chatters, not streamers. Please make sure you disable that new Gen AI training option on your twitch account. It's defaulted to 'on' and that's creepy as hell

Zach Bussey 🍁@zachbussey.tos.gg · 5d ago

Twitch updated its Privacy Notice. They added information on how it uses personal information to test and improve technology, including machine learning and AI. See the full document here: legal.twitch.com/legal/privac...

What’s the klutziest thing you’ve done? I was shrink sealing greek yogurt containers with a heat gun, lost my grip on it, and unthinkingly caught it between my thighs while wearing a pair of very ripped pants... Then had to milk cows for a few days with inner-thigh blisters.

N.S. Dolkart, vice chair@nsdolkart.bsky.social · yesterday

What’s the klutziest thing you’ve done? I was leaning against the kitchen wall complaining to my mom about my terrible week, except it wasn’t the kitchen wall: it was the pizza peel hanging from a hook, which dislodged the saucepan sharing that hook, which fell on my head with a loud BOING.

Anyway by 2034 I will teach horses to speak Mandarin using AI and have them placed in boardrooms across the country as corporate translators. I’m getting $700 billion in venture capital for this.