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agnotologist.bsky.social

@agnotologist.bsky.social
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News Eye @newseye.bsky.social · 8m
🚨BIG STORY This is the graph of online activity for German far-right party, AfD. It’s collapsed after Russian data centres were hit by Ukraine. It what might be the smartest attack yet, Ukraine is taking out election-interfering Russian bots. No wonder Trump is having a tantrum ahead of midterms…
AfD activity showing an 86% drop from the in the last week after the Russian data centre hit
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Joel Elliott @bubbanoze.bsky.social · 22m
"Don’t be someone else’s hype man if you don’t understand what you’re hyping. " Source: @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social
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Social Media Lab @socialmedialab.ca · 11/10/2026
"'You're Russian now': Ukrainians raised in Crimea share how Russia trained them to become future soldiers. They say indoctrination began at school with military training, erasure of Ukrainian language, identity." www.cbc.ca/news/world/u...
cbc.ca
Trained to be future soldiers, these Ukrainian youth work to get other kids away from Russian indoctrination | CBC News
Three Ukrainians who grew up in occupied Crimea describe how Russia trained them to become future soldiers for its war on Ukraine, including school classes on how to handle weapons — part of a larger ...
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Al Jazeera English @aljazeera.com · 10/10/2026
Hurricane Simon strengthens to Category 4 off Mexico’s Pacific coast aje.news/58caf2
Hurricane Simon strengthens to Category 4 off Mexico’s Pacific coast
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854
Taxing Entrepreneurial Wealth: Evidence from
Norway, 2021-2025
Marius A. K. Ring
WORKING PAPER 35854|
DOl 10.3386/w35854
ISSUE DATE October 2026
Whether imposing higher taxes on business owners adversely affects business activity by constraining investment and inducing capitalist flight is a central question in the ongoing debate on how to tax the ultra wealthy. To shed new light, I exploit a series of related Norwegian reforms during 2021-2024 that increased dividend tax rates, removed migration-related capital gains tax loopholes, and nearly doubled the effective marginal tax rate on business wealth. These reforms spurred international debate and, allegedly, an "exodus" of Norwegian billionaires (Financial Times,
2023). While I document clear effects on migration, these responses are concentrated among the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution and mostly confined to 2022 and 2023. My results indicate that at most 100 individuals left due to the reforms. I find no evidence of significant outmigration or reduced inflows of startup founders or inventors. I estimate that absent any outmigration, wealth tax revenues would have increased by 75% from 2021 to 2024. Reform-driven outmigration lowers the revenue gain to 71.5%. My findings further show that outmigrating owners' firms remain economically active and do not reduce investment. In a broader set of analyses, I examine whether business outcomes are affected, regardless of whether owners outmigrate, since firms may reduce investment both due to liquidity constraints or distortions to owners' savings decisions. I compare firms owned by Norwegian individuals subject to the wealth tax with firms owned by foreigners and other tax-exempt entities. By merging historical ownership data from Orbis with the Norwegian shareholder register, I perform these analyses on both Norwegian and foreign-domiciled firms.
Across settings, I find no evidence that Norwegian-owned firms pay out more dividends or invest less after the reforms,…
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AFP News Agency @en.afp.com · 09/10/2026
🇪🇹 🇪🇷 Ethiopia and Eritrea have each accused the other of starting a war of aggression as an internal Ethiopian conflict threatened to escalate into a regional war. ➡️ u.afp.com/SCiS
Members of the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) gather in front of Mekelle Alula Aba Nega International Airport on October 6, 2026.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 09/10/2026
A federal immigration agent shot a man in the Bronx on Thursday afternoon, the latest of nearly two dozen such shootings in the past two years.
motherjones.com
DHS shoots New York man with five-year-old in car
Federal agents surrounded and fired into the man's vehicle, reportedly with a young child inside.
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
DOJ “has hastily hired a new crop of 130 people -- some w/ criminal records, minimal experience, tarnished work histories, hyperpartisanship and downright bizarre public statements.” @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/10/06/u...
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The Associated Press @apnews.com · 09/10/2026
BREAKING: Isaias strengthens into a Category 3 hurricane as it moves toward the U.S. Gulf Coast.
bit.ly
Isaias strengthens into a dangerous Category 3 hurricane on track toward the US Gulf Coast
Isaias has strengthened into a powerful, Category 3 hurricane as it surges toward the U.S. Gulf Coast.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 09/10/2026
NEW: Records show Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has taken nearly 1,000 trips during his tenure, costing $3.3 million in security. We could only connect 138 of those trips and $553,000 in security costs to state business. with @texastribune.org
propublica.org
Ken Paxton’s Security for Travel Cost Taxpayers Millions. Just 1 in 6 of His Trips Had a Stated Business Purpose.
Records show the Texas attorney general has taken nearly 1,000 trips during his tenure, costing $3.3 million in security. We could only connect 138 of those trips and $553,000 in security costs to sta...
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🎃GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE🎃 @golikehellmachine.com · 07/10/2026
average bluesky politics-knower: horseshoe theory isn’t really a thing german political parties: we would like to announce the horseshoe initiative
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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
They’re all crooks. Some are just dumber than others.
wsj.com
Exclusive | ‘Honey Please’: Kimberly Guilfoyle Pushed Donor to Wire $100,000 to Her Amex Account
Text messages with a MAGA ally show Guilfoyle seeking funds and offering access to top administration officials before becoming ambassador to Greece.
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Melissa Gira Grant @melissagiragrant.com · 07/10/2026
reading this, recalling how quickly the killing of Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman slipped out of the news
phoenixnewtimes.com
Congressional candidate is raped while repairing her campaign signs
Embarrassed, she initially didn’t want to report attack. Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office's investigation is ongoing.
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WIRED @wired.com · 07/10/2026
America PAC’s approach has been unusual: for every dollar it has spent supporting GOP Senate candidates, it has spent almost three dollars attacking Democrats.
buff.ly
Elon Musk’s America PAC Is Quietly Funding November’s Most Consequential Elections
America PAC’s approach has been unusual: for every dollar it has spent supporting GOP Senate candidates, it has spent almost three dollars attacking Democrats.
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I spent a year watching school administrators do their jobs—and interviewing the students most impacted. I spoke to @thecut.com in a long-form Q&A about what I saw. Mainly, a system designed to protect perpetrators and punish victims in each and every case.
thecut.com
The Reason Why Colleges Still Fail to Address Sexual Violence
The “Cornell Seven” case highlights what’s wrong with Trump’s Title IX rules — and how the system was always designed to fail.
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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I am struck that the political theory of MAGA in Trump 2.0 is the GOP can win without sound or moral government if everyone throws red meat to the cameras as the occasional bribe. You see it with Trump, Patel, Hegseth, all of them. Anyway, Trump's approval is at, like, -23, so...no luck on that.
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
NEW: In March the White House released an FY27 budget request that zeroed out the National Science Foundation's directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). For months it was unclear what would happen. Now, with FY26 over, the damage to SBE is coming to light. My reporting:
science.org
‘Complete devastation’: How NSF gutted its social sciences research
Agency body that funds sociology, linguistics, and archaeology studies in U.S. gave 90% fewer new grants this year
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 05/10/2026
for a minute @hurricanexyz.bsky.social has been saying that Legend of the Galactic Heroes is his favorite piece of political theory and now that I am 15 hours into the series I get it. i’m totally Yang Wen-li-pilled.
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The Citizen Lab @citizenlab.ca · 05/10/2026
Citizen Lab's @rondeibert.bsky.social is quoted in the @theguardian.com about Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s increasing influence on AI dominance. www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...
theguardian.com
Fixer, financier, spymaster: how the UAE’s Sheikh Tahnoon is setting his sights on AI dominance
The long read: The Emirati royal is increasingly influential on the world stage. Some see him as a visionary. Others compare him to a Bond villain. Who is he?
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Social Media Lab @socialmedialab.ca · 05/10/2026
We worry about foreign interference by state actors in an election, but what about platform interference? For the most part, we hand-wave incidents of intereference away & memory-hole them. "On Eve of Brazil Elections, Meta Content Moderation Decisions Raise Questions"
techpolicy.press
On Eve of Brazil Elections, Meta Content Moderation Decisions Raise Questions
Two recent moderation decisions—while later reversed—have raised concerns about the company's policies and practices, writes Laís Martins.
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Ian Carrillo @iansociologo.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
In other Bolsonaro family news: Carlos (Jair's son) was elected senator, Michelle (Jair's wife) was elected senator, and Jair Renan (Jair's son) was elected as federal deputy.
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Mr. Dan Zak @mrdanzak.com · 04/10/2026
A Haitian man legally immigrated to Ohio, then was given an ankle monitor bc Trump withdrew his status. He threw himself in front of truck. The trucker, who voted for Trump, is haunted. “Pierre was doing what he was supposed to do. We did not do right by him.” www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
theatlantic.com
A Reckoning in Springfield
A truck driver out on his route confronts what the country has become.
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Roger Parloff @rparloff.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
In her last hours as DHS Secy, Noem's agency bought 5 planes from a donor at markups. In all, DHS gave $900M in contracts to that donor’s companies during her term. One plane had electronic bidets, 2 bedrooms, bar, wine chiller, a manta-ray skin table. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/04/u...
nytimes.com
Kristi Noem’s Agency Gave Her Donor a Lucrative Contract Just Before She Left (Gift Article)
The Homeland Security Department signed a multi-million dollar agreement to buy five aircraft from a company owned by a political contributor of the secretary on her last day, documents show.
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
i regret to inform you that people have absolutely lost it www.404media.co/someone-tort...
404media.co
Someone ‘Torturing’ LLMs in a Robot Prison Has Triggered the Dumbest Debate in AI Yet
The "AI Torture Chamber" has opened an upsetting and absurd window into the effective altruist obsession with "model welfare."
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Erin Keane @erinkeane.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I was raised by a nurse with an associates degree and a steel mill electrician. I am not denigrating the value and dignity of blue collar work when I ask how many elite national media staffers are raising future bricklayers themselves. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1...
theatlantic.com
Time to Consider Becoming a Bricklayer
College degrees hold less value, while jobs in the trades are booming.
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
the humans who moderate chatbots say they're inundated with people trying to generate nonconsensual nudes: www.404media.co/humans-readi...
404media.co
Humans Are Reading Copilot Prompts — And They're Horrified
Human contractors are reviewing Copilot users’ prompts and uploaded images, according to internal documents obtained by 404 Media. The contractors are also bombarded with users’ requests for sexual AI...
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Extreme Temperatures Around the World @extremetemps.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
EXTRAORDINARY HEAT WAVE IN CHINA China is living one of the most extreme heat events in its climatic history. End of September and it's worse Than summer. Temperatures up to 39.2C and 16 more records of September High Minimums pulverized. Deadly heat will increase next days. Kudos:Jim Jiang
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The Alternate Histoween 🎃 @althistorian.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Happy Stanislav Petrov Day. Today we celebrate the life of a man who saved billions by not believing a computer. May we all learn this valuable lesson.
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AFP News Agency @en.afp.com · 24/09/2026
CNN, MS NOW and Politico were allowed back into the White House on Thursday, six days after being banned by President Donald Trump, after a federal judge ordered that the journalists have their access restored. u.afp.com/S9Sc
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MeidasTouch @meidastouch.com · 23/09/2026
Quite the shot of Trump disembarking from Marine One last night. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
BREAKING: Some CNN staff have been unable to gain access to the White House. CNN reporter Betsy Klein and a photojournalist were denied access to the White House grounds in the 6:00 a.m. hour. There was no reason provided for the refusal. www.cnn.com/2026/09/24/p...
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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
BREAKING: A POLITICO reporter was denied access to the White House Thursday and his press credentials confiscated after a judge ordered the Trump admin to immediately restore access for news organizations that Trump banned.
politico.com
POLITICO barred from White House after court ruling restoring access
The Secret Service confiscated a POLITICO reporter's press pass Thursday morning despite a federal judge’s decision hours earlier that a media ban appeared to violate the constitutional due process ri...
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PBS News @pbsnews.org · 24/09/2026
The president of Iran told the United Nations General Assembly his country won’t bend to U.S. intimidation. Masoud Pezeshkian spoke one day after President Trump threatened to escalate the war from the same stage. to.pbs.org/4hJZ2G8
to.pbs.org
At UN General Assembly, Iran's president responds to Trump's 'annihilation' threat
The president of Iran told the United Nations General Assembly his country won’t bend to U.S. intimidation. Masoud Pezeshkian spoke one day after President Trump threatened to escalate the war from th...
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Social Media Lab @socialmedialab.ca · 24/09/2026
Could we please at least bring back the food inspectors? "Nearly 170,000 Pounds of Raw Meat Recalled Nationwide Due to Fake USDA Labels" www.delish.com/food-news/a7...
delish.com
Nearly 170,000 Pounds Of Raw Meat Recalled Nationwide Due To Fake USDA Labels
Here’s what you need to know.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 22/09/2026
Sen. Susan Collins helped steer millions in federal defense contracts to Navatek, whose CEO illegally funneled thousands of dollars to her campaign. The FBI sought to launch a probe and was eyeing Collins and other lawmakers. Then Trump gutted the unit in charge. THREAD 🧵
Martin Kao, CEO of defense contractor Navatek, poses next to Sen. Susan Collins for a photo. Collins is holding a model of a boat in her hands. Behind them is a large sign with the Navatek logo.
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Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The polls are so bad that a pro-ICE Kansas Republican is now preemptively begging ICE to not shoot one of his constituents now that they're active in his state
When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement. Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone, and working together keeps officers and residents safe.
I'm closely following what's happening in SW Kansas and have been in direct contact with Secretary Mullin and local law enforcement as ICE executes warrants in order to keep Kansans safe.
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AP Stylebook @apstylebook.com · 23/09/2026
Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics.
apnews.com
https://apnews.com/article/openai-safety-ai-framework-089e75b95bc935af092da7b79d92706d
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Phillips OBrien @phillipspobrien.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Midweek update out (partly free). This is the week US weakness was brutally exposed. The US was too weak to fight the Houthis and Iran, will show its weakness during the President Xi's visit to America, and signed a humiliating deal with Denmark. phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/midweek-up...
phillipspobrien.substack.com
Midweek Update #29: The Week American Weakness Was Brutally Exposed
The US is too weak to fight the Houthis and Iran; The US has never been weaker vis a vis China; The New Greenland Deal Is Basically The Old Deal.
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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The first architect of the White House ballroom resigned after warning repeatedly that Trump was insisting on designs that violated fire and safety codes, the Washington Post reports. “I am the code,” Trump said www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...
By Sarah Blaskey and Jonathan O'Connell
In the weeks leading up to his resignation last year, the first architect on the White House ballroom clashed with President Donald Trump over design features that the architect believed violated building safety codes, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions and corroborating documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
James McCrery II withdrew from the project last October after warning repeatedly that Trump was insisting on a preliminary design that did not provide adequate emergency exit routes or fire-containment measures, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussions.
Trump brushed off McCrery's concerns, they said, and the president countered that no building codes apply to White House construction.
"I am the code," Trump said.
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Asher HELLbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I cannot express how concerning this is, and how worried I am that nobody has the political will yet to crack down on it before things get really bad
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MeidasTouch @meidastouch.com · 19/09/2026
NEWS: The Pentagon has announced mandatory low-testosterone screenings for male troops 30 and older, including screening for symptoms such as “reduced libido, loss of spontaneous morning erections, erectile dysfunction,” and other symptoms.
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The Associated Press @apnews.com · 19/09/2026
U.S. President Donald Trump will meet China's leader on Wednesday, with oil near $100 and Chinese stockpiles cushioning the Iran war's impact.
bit.ly
Oil prices are high but could be much worse. Trump has China's Xi to thank for that
President Donald Trump’s conflict with Iran has not led to the doomsday oil price spike many feared at the start of the war.
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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
"(...) no computationally tractable account exists to date for substantive and domain-general cognitive capacities (...) Moreover, there is no good reason to believe that such tractable accounts will be forthcoming via machine learning or otherwise" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
Combining Psychology With Artificial Intelligence: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? - Iris van Rooij, Olivia Guest, 2026
The current AI hype cycle combined with psychology’s various crises make for a perfect storm. Psychology, on the one hand, has a history of weak theoretical fou...
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 18/09/2026
RFK Jr. wants people to get sick. He wants them to get sick and he thinks it is a good thing if they die, since those who live will have "natural immunity" and emerge stronger and fitter.
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josh boo-erman 👻 @bosh.worstpossible.world · 17/09/2026
great thread that all @illconceivedpodcast.com babies will enjoy
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Micah @rincewind.run · 17/09/2026
the worst part about this is that a lot of the damage will be permanent by the time we can turn the research funding back on a lot of folks will have unsurprisingly and not unreasonably decided that they should leave this area of research because it will never be reliable what a huge waste
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National Newswatch @nationalnewswatch.com · 16/09/2026
Alberta government report pegs cost of separation at up to $170 billion over 5 years nationalnewswatch.com/2026/09/16/a...
nationalnewswatch.com
Alberta government report pegs cost of separation at up to $170…
National Newswatch: Canada's most comprehensive site for political news and views.
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American Meteorological Society @ametsoc.org · 16/09/2026
New research led by @miamirosenstiel.bsky.social using nearly three decades of airborne radar observations identifies four features that help storms align before they intensify. Learn more: bit.ly/3SWH4Xm
bit.ly
Hurricane Hunter data reveal early signs of strengthening tropical cyclones
Nearly three decades of airborne radar observations identify four features that help storms align before they intensify.
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Jamie Dupree @jamiedupree.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
House GOP leaders cancel votes on Thursday - sending lawmakers home later today until after the elections. That means the House can avoid a vote on the Hegseth impeachment plan from Rep. Thomas Massie R-KY.
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tejparikh.ft.com @tejparikh.ft.com · 13/09/2026
AI is getting smarter. Human intelligence, however, appears to be going the other way — at least among teenagers. My latest @financialtimes.com column. Falling global test scores underscore the importance of core knowledge, attention and mindset. as.ft.com/r/dce3c6c2-e...
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