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Sandhya Dirks

@audiosand.bsky.social
5.1K followers 2.1K following 2.3K posts

Journalist, audio documentarian, writer. English professor at Dartmouth, working on a doc about the end of civil rights. Previously: NPR race and identity correspondent, “alarmingly divisive" signal: sandhya_.96 Podcasts: On Our Watch, American Suburb.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Sandhya Dirks
Broken Historian @practicalnecromancy.com · 10h
One of my former students just witnessed this on Orange Line in the DC Metro - ICE/HSI abducting someone from the platform of Stadium-Armory. She was scared. She didn’t know what to do. She shouted “ICE is here!” to warn others. I’m proud she did that. And she bore witness.
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Liliana Segura @lilianasegura.bsky.social · 17h
In retrospect it feels damn near miraculous that Virginia ended the death penalty. ALSO: It never would have happened without the mass protests in the wake of George Floyd's murder. Here's what I wrote at the time. A rare good memory from an otherwise awful, traumatic era.
theintercept.com
The Long Shadow of Virginia’s Death Penalty
Virginia made history when it abolished the death penalty. But for those who were proximate to the state’s 113 executions, closure remains complicated.
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Liliana Segura @lilianasegura.bsky.social · 17h
One more thing about the death penalty before going offline. As disgusted as we should be by Trump's bloodlust, we should NOT lose sight of the CENTRAL role of Democrats in upholding, expanding, and enabling this system that seems to horrify so many people right now. It really cannot be said enough.
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 9h
This is awful. Put in a full-body straitjacket and then pulled up the air stairs by his wrists and ankles. The WRAP is regularly used on ICE flights to Africa.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 13h
SCOOP: On Thursday, the woman Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) has been dating for nearly two years was indicted by a grand jury on three criminal counts: grand theft, telecommunications fraud, and misuse of a credit card.
motherjones.com
Rep. Max Miller's girlfriend was just indicted
A grand jury formally charged Jaclyn Alatrash, the congressman's partner of nearly two years, with grand theft.
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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 12h
I was eager to put in entries for a prestigious journalism award for some of our Bolts team's wonderful work this year; they deserve all the love. The fee to apply for each 1 story is $500. The journalism sector should really rethink what it asks of small newsrooms to have any seat at the table.
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Nicole Foy @nicolefoy.bsky.social · 11h
What a strange story. California woman finds a man, allegedly drunk, sleeping on her lawn early in the morning & sends her dad out to move him. The man wakes up & allegedly assaults the (elderly) dad, who shoots him Turns out the man is off-duty ICE agent David Gonzalez abc7.com/story/off-du...
abc7.com
Off-duty ICE agent shot after assaulting 72-year-old man and his daughter at Fresno home, police say
Authorities say a woman found the ICE agent sleeping on her front lawn.
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Jamison Foser @jamisonfoser.bsky.social · 14h
Tim McVeigh killed 167 people in Oklahoma City but his name was "Tim," not "Nidal" so ...
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DC Council @councilofdc.bsky.social · 13h
This is clearly not acceptable
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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 12h
NEW from me: The National Association of Evangelicals (along with several other religious groups) are now joining the USCCB in condemning Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth’s plans to publicly execute Nidal Malik Hasan, also saying doing so promotes a “culture of death.” religionnews.com/2026/10/09/h...
Walter Kim, president of the National
Association of Evangelicals, told RNS that while he affirms the "need for justice" regarding Hasan's crime, "at the same time, a live-streamed execution by firing squad risks turning one of the state's most solemn responsibilities into a public spectacle, promoting a culture of death, rather than a culture that upholds the dignity of every human being."
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Shannon E French @sefrench.bsky.social · 12h
So tell me again why colleges and universities, who are supposed to care about their students’ actual learning and skill acquisition, are pushing AI down all our throats? Oh, right… money. news.berkeley.edu/2026/10/09/u...
news.berkeley.edu
Using AI for just 10 minutes erodes your ability to persist at hard things - Berkeley News
A UC Berkeley researcher co-authored a study that raises profound questions about how we interact with artificial intelligence in education — and daily life.
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Jessica Pishko @jesspish.bsky.social · 12h
Most people in the USA have been very willing to allow a great deal of state violence so long as they do not need to witness or experience it regularly. MAGA has used this to push the limit of how much violence the USA will tolerate. There is no reason to think the escalation will stop.
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 18h
US imposes sanctions on the international criminal court (ICC), hours after former judge Navi Pillay wins Nobel peace prize - live
theguardian.com
US imposes sanctions on ICC, hours after former judge Pillay wins Nobel peace prize - live
The ⁠ICC’s deputy prosecutor condemned the sanctions and said they would not halt the tribunal’s work
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 15h
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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Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · 17h
Hey Wikipedia, tell me about Francis Bellamy, the minister who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance that Linda McMahon wants school children to recite every morning.
Secretary Linda McMa... • • Follow ...
22h •
Not now, not ever.
AMERICA WILL NEVER BE A SOCIALIST COUNTRY
MAKE EDUCATION GREAT AGAIN
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22Bellamy was a Christian socialist, who
"championed 'the rights of working people and the equal distribution of economic resources, which he believed was inherent in the teachings of Jesus!"[6. In 1891, Bellamy was
"forced from his Boston pulpit for preaching against the evils of capitalism" [3] and eventually stopped attending church altogether after moving to Florida, reportedly because of the racism he witnessed there. '0! Francis's
career as a preacher ended because of his tendency to describe Jesus as a socialist. In the 21st century, Bellamy is considered an early American democratic socialist.""]
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Shannon Heffernan @shannonheffernan.bsky.social · 17h
A child was in the car when ICE recently shot a man in NYC. To give you a bigger picture of how immigration enforcement is affecting New York children, our story released yesterday showed how ICE arrests of children TRIPLED in NY state in 2026. www.themarshallproject.org/2026/10/08/i...
themarshallproject.org
ICE Has Arrested Twice As Many Children This Year
In total, more than 8,500 kids have been arrested by ICE in Trump’s second term.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 17h
Why would we let Anthropic decide this for us? If you ascribe to a moral philosophy or religion that disavows being mean to a toaster, that is fine. It is not however fine for a tech company to make, functionally, a moral law for a talking word toaster that is promised to rule us one day.
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Jon Seidel @jonseidel.bsky.social · 21h
Good morning. Federal prosecutors in Chicago filed partially redacted documents overnight in the "Broadview Six" case. The redactions appear to include the signature block (including the name) of one of the attorneys representing the United States government:
A partially redacted motion to seal a petition for order authorizing disclosure. One signature block on the document belongs to Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Walsh. The other signature block is redacted.The concluding page of a document in which "the United States respectfully requests that the court authorizes the disclosure of the unredacted Oct. 9, 16, 23 transcripts and related exhibits." The rest of the sentence is redacted. 

One signature block belongs to Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Walsh. The other is redacted.
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Omar Wasow @owasow.bsky.social · 17h
Watch the social construction of “Western” identity at work
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Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 18h
Status reports that ABC News deleted that explosive story about the Trump kids getting billions in federal contracts for their companies. ABC hasn't explained why they nuked the story, even as Trump has crowed about its deletion, sparking a firestorm behind scenes. www.status.news/p/david-elli...
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Reuven Blau @reuvenblau.bsky.social · 18h
"A cop facing misconduct charges in the 2024 death of a teenager experiencing a mental health crisis will dodge a disciplinary trial because the NYPD failed to notify the police oversight panel he had put in his papers to retire." — @gregbsmithnyc.bsky.social www.thecityreporter.nyc/2026/10/08/t...
thecityreporter.nyc
Tisch Blames ‘Human Error’ After Officer in Win Rozario Shooting is Allowed to Retire
Parents of the Queens teen killed during 2024 mental health 911 call accused Mayor Mamdani of ‘betrayal.’
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Pro-rape parties want the assaults to continue and the victim to be further terrorized and that's not even unusual, I regret to say, but it would be super-nice if Letitia James would investigate and prosecute whoever's doing this.
cnn.com
Cornell’s Jane Doe is ‘terrified’ after death threats and a swatting incident, her lawyer says | CNN
One month ago, the woman now known to America as Cornell’s Jane Doe was living in New York City and trying to break into the hotel industry, her lawyer says. Now she’s facing threats and hiding out at...
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Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 19h
Hard to overstate how much Hegseth's execution stream mirrors the U.S. military's traditional description of ISIS propaganda: broadcast killings designed to send a message, strike fear and create a social media spectacle. Will almost certainly be repurposed by online terror cells
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Sandhya Dirks @audiosand.bsky.social · 18h
this is another form of capture, capturing civil/ human rights language & law to end those rights. to claim victimhood for those who have more power, to say it oppresses them if they can not oppress those who are below them in their power hierarchies. the playbook is racial authoritarianism.
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A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
They’re live-streaming the execution of the person they think they can get away with doing that to first. It’s a test. If they can do that, they’ll expand the margins of permission.
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Sandhya Dirks @audiosand.bsky.social · 18h
the customer is never right -- late stage "capitalism" as pure fascism
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 20h
“Elgin Community College staff notified Flock in October 2025 that they wanted to cancel their contract and have the cameras taken down. Within a day, Heinrich said, Flock rejected the request and refused to uninstall the equipment on the basis that the company had not breached their agreement.”
wbez.org
To protect immigrant students, a Chicago-area college told Flock to remove its cameras. The company refused.
Elgin Community College resorted to covering the surveillance cameras with trash bags and zip ties. Public records show that federal immigration authorities have accessed Flock data at other Illinois ...
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Shannon Heffernan @shannonheffernan.bsky.social · 19h
Immigrant children and families are being kept in "blackbox" locations where relatives and lawyers can't find them. One mother said she was only granted two three-min phone calls and guards threatened to take her children if she told anyone where she was. www.themarshallproject.org/2026/10/08/i...
themarshallproject.org
ICE Is Detaining Children in Hotels Where Families and Lawyers Can’t Find Them
Families described constant surveillance, poor access to food and threats of separation if they told anyone where they were being kept.
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Brooke @brooklynmarie.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
timesofsandiego.com
Barrio Logan community gathers to remove racist graffiti from Chicano Park mural
The anti-Mexican graffiti is the latest in a string of similar hate-related incidents across San Diego in recent months.
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Ali Winston @awinston.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
The ICE agent seen brandishing an AR-15 at the scene of yesterday’s shooting in NYC’s Marble Hill has a record of lying, excessive force & getting caught by judges. He also goes by “Shooter Cuni” on social media, & posts the same gun he had on him today W/@dmehro.bsky.social @regret.bsky.social
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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
It’s simply unimaginable that CDC Director Dr. Erica Schwartz has just bowed to RFK Jr. and approved funding for an utterly unethical clinical trial that will withhold the birth dose of HepB vaccine in Guinea Bissau. It is to be conducted by researchers accused of academic misconduct.
rollingstone.com
CDC Is Moving Forward With a Previously Shelved Controversial Hepatitis B Vaccine Study
“It’s a wholly unethical trial, and it shouldn’t be allowed,” says Dr. Paul Offit of Guinea-Bissau study
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Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Umm, *I was the “somebody”! www.c-span.org/clip/house-c...
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Alexander Chee @alexanderchee.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
"In addition, the Target Corporation must stop offering their Bronx properties as private staging sites for ICE, in compliance with requests from New York officials. Target opening up large active retail parking lots for paramilitary activity is unacceptable and places the entire community at risk.”
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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 23h
Ms. Pillay led an investigation that determined that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza www.nytimes.com/live/2026/10...
nytimes.com
Nobel Peace Prize Live Updates: Navi Pillay, Former U.N. Human Rights Commissioner, Wins
Ms. Pillay, a South African lawyer, led an investigation that determined that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, a finding the Israeli government rejected.
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Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
This is Nazi rhetoric, full stop. It's not only a call to instigate a race war in the United States, but it's reminiscent of historic European justifications used to incite pogroms against Jews. People who say things like this are incredibly dangerous, as there is nothing they won't eventually do.
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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
“last year, Stephen Miller asked the bureau to allow agents to go undercover in his Virginia neighborhood's political activist group, several sources with knowledge of the matter told CBS News.” www.cbsnews.com/news/stephen...
cbsnews.com
Trump adviser Stephen Miller spoke to agents at recent FBI training on domestic terrorism, sources say
Stephen Miller spoke at a training session at FBI headquarters just days before prosecutors criminally charged a man with making disturbing calls and texts to his wife, sources told CBS News.
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Tim Marchman @timmarchman.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
NEW: The ICE agent seen wearing a hi-vis vest and waving around an AR-style rifle at the scene of the shooting in New York was a supervisor named Brenden Cuni, who has a history of alleged violence and lying in court. @dmehro.bsky.social, @awinston.bsky.social, and @regret.bsky.social report:
wired.com
ICE Agent at NYC Shooting Has History of Alleged Violence and Illegal Arrests
Brenden Cuni, an ICE supervisor, has been accused of excessive force and tackling a pregnant woman to the ground. Several of his arrests were later found to be unlawful in federal court.
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Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
NEW: Footage from Thursdays shooting shows an ICE agent in a construction vest brandishing a rifle. His name is Brenden Cuni. Federal judges have found multiple arrests involving Cuni unlawful. He has been accused of repeatedly Tasing a handcuffed man and tackling a pregnant woman in Minneapolis.
wired.com
ICE Agent at NYC Shooting Has History of Alleged Violence and Illegal Arrests
Brenden Cuni, an ICE supervisor, has been accused of excessive force and tackling a pregnant woman to the ground. Several of his arrests were later found to be unlawful in federal court.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 09/10/2026
“There was zero plan, except causing pain,” said one U.N. official about the Trump administration’s decision to stop funding the group with no notice or communication. “And that is not forgivable.” (Published Dec. 2025)
propublica.org
After Trump Officials Cut Food Aid to Kenya, Children Starved to Death
“Brutal and traumatizing”: Interviews and a trove of internal documents show government officials and aid workers desperately tried to warn Trump advisers about impending disaster and death.
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Brendan Gutenschwager @bgonthescene.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Police pushing anti-ICE protesters tonight in NYC
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
It's somehow utterly fitting of the right-wing populist program of "National Conservatism" that it has now culminated in Israel inviting antisemitic far-right activists to Jerusalem to proclaim that Holocaust guilt is over.
Tweet from National Conservatism: "Americans, on the right especially, are exhausted by efforts to use the Holocaust as a moral obligation to support Israel. 

They are unmoved by accusations of anti-Semitism and any hardline approaches to disavow and shame Israel's critics.

— 
@L0m3z
 at NatCon Jerusalem."
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
The use of extremely online memetic aesthetics to support far-right political goals is like something out of Walter Benjamin’s nightmares.
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 25/07/2026
Lemme tell you about the angel of history being blown backwards into the future: The shackles these people have been put in are Hiatt brand, same company founded in 1780 to mass produce shackles for slaver ships.
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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 09/10/2026
Press conference in the Bronx after the ICE shooting - - @cndelarosa.bsky.social speaking
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Gwynne Hogan @gwynnefitz.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Here's what we know about the ICE shooting in Marble Hill, protesters are gathered outside NYP The Allen Hosptial, where the man who was shot was thought to have been taken. www.thecityreporter.nyc/2026/10/08/f...
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JezzabeauC #DomesticViolenceAwareness @jezzabeauc.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
theintercept.com/2026/10/08/i...
theintercept.com
ICE Agent on Scene of NYC Shooting Was Posing as Construction Worker, Eyewitness Says
A member of Congress at the scene confirmed to The Intercept that there was a child in the victim’s car when ICE agents shot at it.
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Luis.documents🧢 @luisdocuments.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
FBI agents are seen gearing themselves up in a local parking lot by McDonald’s across the NYPD 50th precinct W 236th street. Protests are still ongoing as the community is enraged over the shooting by ICE and nearly killing children in the vicinity.
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 09/10/2026
This afternoon in Marble Hill, a New Yorker was shot by an ICE agent in a residential neighborhood. Early reports indicate agents surrounded him and a 5-year-old child in his car before firing multiple rounds. We believe the child was physically unharmed.

This is an unconscionable and incredibly serious situation. I have called the President; when we speak I will demand that he ends all ICE enforcement actions in our city. I will not stand by while ICE agents terrorize our communities.

Our thoughts are with the injured New Yorker and his family tonight. We are praying for his recovery.

Get ICE out of our neighborhoods. Get ICE out of our hospitals. Get ICE off our streets. Get ICE away from our children.

Abolish ICE.
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Anna Merlan @annamerlan.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
The far-right's favorite "intellectual" says the quiet part out loud.
A tweet from Curtis Yarvin that says "what if Open AI solves the Jewish problem"
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