AI is the Gyges' ring of student work: it offers perfect concealment of wrongdoing. If Glaucon is right, then everyone will use it to do injustice (cheat), & will be wise to do so. If Socrates/Plato is right, then doing so also harms the wrong-doer, whose soul will be malformed into misery by it.

I guess what I'm saying is that AI may turn some of our students into Gollums, & others into Sam Gamgees

Kevin Elliott@kjephd.bsky.social · yesterday

AI is the Gyges' ring of student work: it offers perfect concealment of wrongdoing. If Glaucon is right, then everyone will use it to do injustice (cheat), & will be wise to do so. If Socrates/Plato is right, then doing so also harms the wrong-doer, whose soul will be malformed into misery by it.

New polling! We can get so inured to the current political landscape that it's worth remembering that, while Trump was also unpopular in 2018, the economic backdrop looked *very* different www.cnn.com/2026/09/23/p...

Opinion Today@opiniontoday.bsky.social · yesterday

With President Trump at record unpopularity, Republicans are facing an even bleaker midterm political landscape than they did eight years ago, a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS finds. (@aedwardslevy.bsky.social) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/260923

Bonus for whoever wrote this chyron

“So much of what we’re living through right now ... feels like it’s driven by an explicit strategy of ‘we just do the crimes so quickly that we can’t be stopped and by the time the courts weigh in, they have no choice but to accept our crimes,’” writes @vermontgmg.bsky.social.

It's the accountability, stupid.

Doing crime

doomsdayscenario.co

Venezuelan oil is unusable sludge. The Greenland deal is NOT new. The Strait of Hormuz is CLOSED. Belarus says they've no potash to sell. China isn't buying soybeans they said they would. Saudi Arabia is under attack, Trump sitting it out. He is a distrusted deceitful disaster, despised globally.

Wrote it with Rob Smigel. And yes, it was pulled from reruns.

Michael Warburton@michaelwarburton.bsky.social · 3d ago

This aired just the once in 1998 on the live SNL show for which McKay wrote it. It was effectively banned as it never aired again. I wonder why. MEDIA-OPOLY

If you believe that gas and diesel prices are high in late September 2026 because of Biden and Zelenskyy, then you might be a Trump supporter. And a moron. Which is pretty much the same thing.

November needs to be a Blue Wave so big, so huge, that it reaches into territories beyond the blue and purple, so that it can reasonably be characterized as a voter revolt.

It’s not just weird; it’s delusional. HE. IS. PSYCHOTIC. If your grandpa said things like this, you’d take him in for a full neuropsychiatric workup. And it’s time the media starts interviewing psychiatrists and psychologists to talk about it. DO. YOUR. JOBS.

Chuck Todd@journalistct.bsky.social · 4d ago

If this is actually something being considered, seems weird to broadcast to the world where they can find a stash of weapons to target in DC. This is obviously some bizarre effort to wrap this arch idea into national defense

It's been three days since he said this, but I think it deserves an encore: “If we buy $2 billion worth of bananas from Brazil, we’re actually losing $2 billion. So if we stop eating bananas, we actually save $2 billion.” And this guy is in charge of the world's largest economy.

Joe Manchin remains an enormous piece of shit.

Opinion | Why Joe Manchin’s endorsement of Susan Collins is so infuriating

Does the former West Virginia senator really believe his old colleague will transform from credulous to courageous?

ms.now

National security expert here, and speaking strictly personally, what the f#ck???

It appears that Trump’s claim last week that he negotiated a deal between Putin and Zelenskyy to stop bombing energy infrastructure was just another lie to manipulate markets. Every hour of every day, Trump lies about everything.

When will the people who argued in April 2025 that Democrats should stay silent on immigration own up to being frankly just disastrously wrong about the politics of mass deportations? Their punditry basically bordered on enablement

Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 7d ago

Florida GOP Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar to Trump: "Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far ... The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today"

The NY Times is in “but her emails” mode regarding Abdul El-Sayed and Hasan Piker. Relentless and unfair. Where’s the big story about a Republican megadonor who is a white supremacist? Maybe NYT has heard of him. His name‘s Elon Musk.

ask and ye shall receive

Republicans don’t have a Nazi problem—they are the Nazi problem

A spate of recent revelations have shown the ideologies and their adherents are one and the same.

thehandbasket.co

Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 2w ago

I'm serious when I say I've lost track of all the recent revelations of literal Nazis working in high-level positions in Republican congressional campaigns and I would very much appreciate a journalist who took the time to detail as many of them as can fit into an article.

If Biden or Obama had started a war that led to attacks like these on American bases—and then covered it up for months—the political backlash would eclipse Benghazi. One service member: "We're not defending these bases. We're just watching them get destroyed." www.cbsnews.com/news/new-pho...

New photos show widespread damage at U.S. positions caused by Iranian missile, drone attacks

The images were sent to CBS News by active service members under condition of anonymity.

cbsnews.com

The Macklemore thing is more proof that pro-Israel activists have just lost the ability to persuade. All it can do is browbeat anyone opposed to them. That doesn't work when you're -25 in public opinion.

The goal of this new right-aligned polling effort is to make it appear that Senate is slipping away from us. That our candidates are weakening, theirs strengthening. That's there no reason to invest and fight - all is lost. I talk more about all this 👇4/ www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/fake-polls...

Fake Polls, “Demoralization Operations,” And The 2026 Elections - A New Conversation With Tom Bonier

In elections across the country Republicans have repeatedly “flooded the zone” with favorable polls. With Trump’s new social media post it appears they are intent to do it again

hopiumchronicles.com

Once again, this was how the Economist characterized the American economy on Election Day in 2024. We had a country on the brink of stunning success, but the Republicans knee-capped it with trade wars and real wars of their own choosing.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last wk.

Mike Johnson: "We reminded voters of the disastrous effects of the years under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, what we inherited when we took this over last January. We had a country on the brink of ruin." 🙃

Trump stooges contend that, because Trump put the Kennedy Center into a financial crisis by slapping his name on the Kennedy Center, Trump's name must be slapped on the Kennedy Center to save it from a financial crisis.

Kennedy Center could close as early as Tuesday, warns of bankruptcy, documents show

Officials said the center is facing “certain fiscal collapse” within weeks, insist that adding President Donald Trump’s name may be the only way to avoid bankruptcy.

washingtonpost.com

Jared Kushner is not "on the other side of the aisle." He's not an elected official. He's not an administration official. He's the president's son-in-law and a private citizen. You do not, in fact, have to take meetings with relatives of the president. Some might even say you should *not* do that

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2w ago

Jeffries defends his meeting with Kushner: "I'm of the view that if we're going to be committed to actually solving problems on behalf of the American people ... they're are gonna be times that you have to speak with people on the other side of the aisle. Even people you strongly disagree with."

Yep 💥

Ohio

Nick Baumann@nickbaumann.bsky.social · 2w ago

NEW: Senate campaign staffer used Nazi soldiers as profile photo: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Watching Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and the only thing I know for sure is that every single ape in this movie is dying of tetanus.

Terrific analysis from @davidkurtz.bsky.social: "Trump just wants indictments. More than anything else, Trump is eager to stain his foes with indictments. What about actual convictions? That would be icing, but they are almost beside the point." morningmemo.talkingpointsmemo.com/p/10-thought...

10 Thoughts on the Abrupt Resignation of Joe diGenova

INSIDE: Joseph diGenova ... Todd Blanche ... Donald Trump

morningmemo.talkingpointsmemo.com

Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News@froomkin.bsky.social · 2w ago

"If you want indictments where there’s no evidence, you have an ethical problem," Joe DiGenova said. @emptywheel.bsky.social thinks the guy who wants those indictments is Aakash Singh, the drunk-driving Trump fanatic who Blanche just promoted. Sounds right to me. emptywheel.net/2026/09/11/t...

There should be wall to wall coverage of a sitting US Senator preaching lies about his political opposition to his audience whom chant back in refrain “He should be shot.” And just factually none of these Democrats listed said any of this stuff.

roterote@roterote.bsky.social · 2w ago

Ted Cruz: When Mamdani says he wants to seize the means of production, he means it. Crowd: HE SHOULD BE SHOT TC: When Abdul El-Sayed says he has an obligation to Sharia Law, he means it. C: HE SHOULD BE SHOT TC: And when James Talarico says he wants to dismantle capitalism, he means it. C: HSBS

Although I don't think there is currently any viable theory for Trump's $5k promise being criminal, it got me thinking whether he would have de facto immunity under Trump v. US if it was a crime. The promise itself is not an "official act." But the check would be.