iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ben Alpers @benalpers.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

You really have to include the Republican Supreme Court in this accounting. Garland was certainly incompetent. But the most competent AG in the world couldn't have overcome a Supreme Court willing to say that Republican presidents are above the law.

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Ben Alpers @benalpers.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Extremely teleological understandings of history can encourage powerful people to behave in deeply evil ways. See also, Stalinism.

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Ben Alpers @benalpers.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Democrats do not only need to "go all in" on higher education. The party needs a genuine reset on its understanding of it. The last three Democratic administrations contributed to creating the crisis that higher ed is facing today.

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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 29/09/2026

You will be able to set your watch by the frequency with which Musk sets his minions on people during this case, using their usual tactics of death threats and doxxing. And media will cover none of it.

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I may be invisible, but you're transparent. @invisiblelad7.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The whole commentary on "woke" is segregationist language made palatable by propagandists and adopting it does Rufos work for him.

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I Travel Like Sound Dog @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 29/09/2026

Fact that within a midterm cycle much of the Republican Party and the political apparatus around it dove into repealing segregation orders and debating the role of Indian people in public life is a huge indictment of the “woke went too far” idea but again acknowledging that means self reflection.

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BeshearStan @beshearstan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

God I love Angie Nixon. I hope she wins

Now @AshleyMoodyFL. Why would I want to abolish the police when I want you arrested and in jail for stealing $10 million from sick kids? BFFR

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I know Rahm Emanuel. I worked with him for years in the Clinton administration, and then when he was Obama’s chief of staff. Rahm Emanuel represents everything that’s been wrong about the Democratic Party for the last 30+ years. Be warned. robertreich.substack.com/p/the-rahm…

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Historian Jen @historianjenfl.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Andy Beshear has an entire chapter in his new book about backing the LGBTQ community and it's worth a read. He talks about how the anti-trans ads were tested in KY during his election and how vetoing anti-trans legislation didn't hurt his reelection campaign.

However the anti-trans ads had less to do with Kentucky and more to do with the fact that we were in an election. Terry Schilling, the head of the APP, decided to test the ads in our election to determine whether or not the issue could win votes for the Republican Party. Earlier in the summer of 2019, Scholling had partnered with a behavioral science firm to try to find a wedge issue that resonated with suburban voters. That's right. The anti-trans ads did not come out of some firmly held conviction but was a purely political stance. Their research landed on trans athletes, specifically trans women, competing in women's sports. They tested their theory in the 2019 Kentucky gubernatorial general election. Although I won, APP considered their test successful, because their research showed the ads delivered thirteen thousand votes for Trump Lite, which made the race tighter than anticipated.

You might hask how, in this political climate, I was reelected after vetoing the anti-trans bill. Because people respect authentic faith. The day I vetoed it, I explained my why. I said I believe all children are children of God and that I don't want people picking on these kids. I then countered their anti-trans ads with commercials talking about good jobs, healthcare, roads and bridges, public education, and

public safety. The result? The biggest win of my career. So don't tell me the Democratic Party should stop fighting for the rights of all people. Just explain your authentic why, and then get back to focusing on issues that touch all our lives on a daily basis.

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Ben Alpers @benalpers.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

This is all true. Though I think it's wrong to yada yada the Civil War itself, as this telling of American history from the mid-1850s to mid-1860s somehow manages to do.

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Jennifer Shin - WTAF @jennifershin.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Wakefield was a fraud who engaged in deliberate data falsification. Investigations revealed that he had altered patient medical histories, fabricated data, and reported false onset times. He lost his license to practice medicine in the UK in 2010. www.immunize.org/clinical/vac...

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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

once again the actual "story" behind Tilly Norwood is how the company's PR firm continues to get these stories placed in ostensibly legit outlets over and over despite zero demonstration of the supposed phenomenon being written about ("AI movie star Tilly Norwood") being real

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Bree (half of Kit Rocha) @mostlybree.kitrocha.com · 26/09/2026

I feel like I'm done blaming democratic consultants for the candidates going anti-trans. If that's your choice when the polls look like this, you're not pivoting to bigotry for expediency. You're doing it for love of the game. Or you're an idiot. Those feel like the two options.

a poll of top problems facing the country. #1 is inflation at 44%, #2 is Gov Corruption at 36% and #4 is the War with Iran at 21%

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R5_to_philly / R5Philly @r5-to-philly.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The original article was sloppy and headline clickbait Leaving it up and not addressing how it is misused (predictably from the start as noted immediately in responses) is irresponsible and inexcusable bsky.app/profile/r5-t...

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The Onion @theonion.com · 23/09/2026

USDA Replaces Food Stamps With One Giant Rutabaga To learn more about America's gaping wealth gap, head to youtube.com/politizane.

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Pema Levy @pemalevy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

One of the things I learned in writing this piece is that in 1873, a former confederate official asked SCOTUS to weaponize the 14th Amendment against biracial government. The court refused at the time. But in 2026, that's exactly what the Supreme Court did.

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Ben Alpers @benalpers.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

One of the many reasons why the Senate is the World's Worst Deliberative Body is the general willingness of Senators to automatically confirm their colleagues to posts like this.

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Hoodlum 🇺🇸 @nothoodlum.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

While waiting for Trump to enter the signing of the US-Denmark-Greenland agreement at the UN, they chose “Send in the Clowns” as the background music. Yes, it’s real.

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Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 23/09/2026

Political winds do not only flow from voters to politicians, they go in reverse as well. Democrats running ads like these signal to the general public and their voter base that this issue now has support by both parties, and that hating trans people is publicly acceptable. They do harm to us.

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Ben Alpers @benalpers.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

"Meta Muse can hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, without my ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic!"

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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

At least, at long last, Silicon Valley has invented a technology that can play fantasy football for me. #TheFutureIsNow

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Ben Alpers @benalpers.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I got a letter from the government the other day I opened and read it, it said they were suckers They wanted me for their army or whatever Picture me givin' a damn, I said, "Never"

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Josh Zingher @zingherpolisci.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The maddening thing is that Trump is just doing everything he campaigned on. Nothing that has happened should have come as a surprise. The entire information ecosystem was a bubble of delusion in 2024.

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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I should make fun of him again for this.

Bret Stephens: Last week, the longlists for the National Book Awards were announced. Among the 20 authors in the fiction and nonfiction categories, nearly all are straight white males. Most are also on the political right, some even on the far right. Remarkably, mainstream media outlets haven't reported this, perhaps because they don't think it's noteworthy. It's as if we were living in 1956 rather than 2026.
If you're scratching your head at this "news," well, it's because I made it up. Or rather, I inverted the particulars about the authors' identities and their political views to make a point: If today, as a reader, you recoil at the thought of a time in which minorities were systematically marginalized when it came to the literary world's public honors (and so much else), shouldn't you also recoil now that the ables have been almost completely turned? And if you object to the right's efforts to politicize the arts, won't you also object when the efforts come from the left?

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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

its odd that the political media hounds dems to constantly comment on every random statement hasan piker makes but don't do the same for Republicans of the top GOP megadonor two cycles in a row

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Ben Alpers @benalpers.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

To be fair, the media has been very accepting of huge amounts of misogyny and racism over the last decade. The media's own frequent rampant transphobia and its willingness to largely look the other way at all sorts of other slurs, too, have a symbiotic relationship to each other.

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Ben Alpers @benalpers.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Well, if it won't work with immigrants, surely it will work with trans rights!

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Ben Alpers @benalpers.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Incidentally this is yet another illustration of why negotiating with this White House is a waste of time...for leaders abroad or for Democrats at home.

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Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 21/09/2026

And lol at me ratioing the 60 Minutes X account over here in exactly 30 minutes. Turns out the Nazi bar censors ideas and materials that shed a bad light on the Nazi bar! bsky.app/profile/alex...

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Allred is a great example: his response was to raise the salience of the issue, proclaim loudly his opposition to "men in girl's sports," and then lose by 9 points. Dems simply do not get any benefit by doing this shit, it is pure foot-gun.

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

"This election is about the threat of trans kids" is the worst possible messaging for Dems yet so many candidates are leaning into it. No voter will flip R->D over it. Low-info voters read this as "you're focused on bullshit that doesn't affect me" while the base reads this as "you're an asshole."

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Ben Alpers @benalpers.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The illusion that trying to close the door behind one's own group's rights is the best way to preserve those rights is as old as it is vile and ineffective.

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Ben Alpers @benalpers.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

And if California slides into the ocean Like the mystics and statistics say it will I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill

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Ambassador Ken Fairfax (ret) @portlandken.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The accounting is in: In Oregon there are 111 data centers. The TOTAL number of people employed at data centers is just 2,630, or 0.1% of the labor force. Those 100 data centers consumer 23% of all electricity used in Oregon. Meanwhile, electricity rates skyrocket as more centers are built.

opb.org

Oregon data centers by the numbers: 111 facilities consume nearly one-quarter of state’s power, according to new report

A first-of-its-kind report details the footprint of the controversial facilities.

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