iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 4h

"Yeah, sorry your kid died or whatever. What do you think about my chandeliers?"

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Trump on his meeting with Gold Star families: "I invited them out to check out the new helipad, check out the new ballroom, and check out the new helicopter"

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 3h

One thing I find endlessly funny about the rise of AI is that it has revealed that there is a large number of people who believe that the reason they wrote essays at school or university is their teachers were desperately waiting for them to provide a definite answer to “Lear: what’s up with him?”

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Dr Dean Burnett @drdeanburnett.bsky.social · 11h

Hey, you know what *did* take ages to write, and used 0% AI? My various books www.hive.co.uk/search/keywo... They've been nicked and used to train various AI engines, and cost me a lot of earnings in the process, so if you like your info 'direct from source', please consider purchasing one.

hive.co.uk

dean burnett search results

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Dr Dean Burnett @drdeanburnett.bsky.social · 16h

"By using AI, tasks like essays that used to take hours can be completed in minutes!" Sure, like how if I arrive at the gym and immediately go for a shower, my workout is done in record time. And if I throw my sandwiches straight in the bin, I can finish my lunch in under 10 seconds.

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 3h

Trump shouts out Russ Vought and then says, ominously, "we have some big surprises coming up in a few weeks, right Russ? He's gonna be one of the important people in the history of our country."

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 2h

This is the first OMB Director who, when you hear the President mention his name, you start pondering what illegal abuses of power will be coming soon. My guess: some systemic bribery efforts as well as punishments to blue states.

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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 4h

COOK POLITICAL: “.. We now estimate Democrats will pick up between two and six seats -- squarely within the range of four seats they need.” @cookpolitical.com www.cookpolitical.com/analysis/sen...

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Ryan Goodman @rgoodlaw.bsky.social · 9h

On the left: President Trump false claims of violent crime in Chicago (as prelude for laying a pretext) On the right: Most recent official stats showing Chicago success in back-to-back years of historic reductions in violent crimes

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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 6h

ITHACA, N.Y. (AP) - Cornell says ex-deputy attorney general Sally Yates will lead review of university's handling of sex assault claims.

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Hugo Lowell @hugolowell.bsky.social · 6h

SCOOP @wired.com: Abdul El-Sayed is out with a new paid digital ad in the Michigan Senate race attacking Mike Rogers for helping expand government surveillance, seeking to tap into voter anxieties about tech and Flock cameras weeks before the midterms

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Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social · 3h

JUST IN: Judge Joseph Laplante (GWBush/NH) refuses to block NH state law deleting student IDs from approved list to obtain ballot, but partially blocks broader SecState guidance that student IDs can't be used as part of the registration/voting process. Doc: www.documentcloud.org/documents/28...

documentcloud.org

NHStudentIDVotingOrd100626

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Angry @angrystaffer.bsky.social · 5h

I’m loving the “well akshually he didn’t REALLY mean let Iran take out Los Angeles and San Diego” excuses today. Cool. Explain the assholes in the crowd who thought it was fucking hilarious. Deplorables wasn’t strong enough.

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Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

That is between me and my shadow.

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Moby Dick @mobydickatsea.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

all this is both foolish and unnecessary

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phillip crymble @phillipcrymble.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Stanley Plumly

OCTOBER TREE

IT stands yellow
in front of the house,
probably ten feet higher,
maple, I think—the full leaf
wide as an open hand.
It is the only yellow
on the block, and so thick with itself
rain may not finally
reach its inward body,
nor wind lie down inside.

The upstairs windows
cut it into sections,
some yellower than others,
some burning off
into a flat flame.
But like the movement
in all still things
it is alive beyond such changes,
and even in darkness
has presence, window
by window.

STANLEY PLUMLY

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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 7h

JON STEWART: “So in the FUTURE we WILL use A.I. to cure diseases… but right now it’s mostly murder, surveillance, and surge pricing for the McRib — What a trade! I’m getting the sense you guys might be full of shit.”

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Alan Elrod @aselrod.bsky.social · 10h

I think it’s important to explore these comments and the political dimensions of male supremacy because the GOP is clearly becoming *more* hospitable to these views as it becomes more authoritarian. There is a generation of young men coming up in this. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-illusion...

You might ask why it's worth dredging up all these bilious comments. But these are coming from major media figures on the American right. Moreover, Hanania has, as I noted in a recent column, ingratiated himself with mainstream media outlets and even writes regularly at the Boston Globe. As fraternity members at one of America's major elite universities, the young men in question are well-positioned to become leaders in their chosen fields and even elected officials. The networked effects of both Ivy degrees and fraternity membership can be considerable.
Consider the Young Republicans group chat messages that leaked last year, featuring dehumanizing jokes about rape and homosexuality. In those messages, exposed by Politico, they glorified mass rape as a tool of conquest:
"The Spanish came to America and had sex with every single woman."
"Sex is gay"
"Sex? It was rape."
"Epic"

This was a chat for Young Republicans, the future of their party. And it reflects dynamics we see across American society, and especially online and on the right, of young men being drawn to a culture of male supremacy and rape enthusiasm. As I wrote then, "In the context of sex, [male supremacy] comes down to a wholesale rejection of sex as a consensual act for the enjoyment of both parties."

As I noted here at Liberal Currents last year, rape is integral to authoritarian politics. Mussolini was a rapist. Francisco Franco imposed a hardline Catholic dictatorship in Spain in which women were expected to serve the nation by serving their husbands. Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Soviet NKVD during World War Two, leveraged his position to engage in serial rape on a prolific scale. As Ruth Ben-Ghiat observed in her book, Strongmen, "The strongman would be nothing without bodies to control." And authoritarianism offers up these bodies to its most dedicated foot soldiers, a point on which Beria serves as a good reminder.

Yes, in this case, we are talking about the control of women's bodies. But that doesn't mean the male form doesn't enter into it. In fact, it's the male body that retains its specialness. This fixation moves, sometimes rapidly, from obsession to revulsion. We see that in the language of incels like Nick Fuentes, who has proclaimed that
"dating women is gay, having sex with women is gay. And having sex with men is gay." And we see that preoccupation in Walsh as well. When one commenter asked if the Cornell fraternity brothers should be considered "whores," Walsh replied, "Yes, and gay. But they aren't rapists. That's the point here."

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Alan Elrod @aselrod.bsky.social · 17h

One of the most heinous examples is Matt Walsh suggesting that, actually, Jane Doe raped the frat boys because they were also under the influence. I thought it bore a certain resemblance to some of Andrew Johnson’s comments on slavery. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-illusion...

But Walsh isn't satisfied with victim blaming. He goes so far as to assert that, given the consumption of drugs and alcohol, the fraternity boys couldn't possibly be held responsible themselves:

I'm not kidding when I say that the Cornell frat guys should file a counter suit accusing the woman of raping them. According to her own testimony, some of the men were drunker than she was. By her logic, and the logic of her supporters, they were even less capable of consent. She was the rapist in that case. There's no way out of our current madness except by holding feminists to their own standards.

When I read Walsh's comments I see a level of male supremacism that leaves my jaw on the floor. It also reminds me of a quote from President Andrew Johnson delivered to Frederick Douglass when pressed about protecting freed slaves:

If I know myself, and the feelings of my own heart, they have been for the colored man. I have owned slaves and bought slaves, but / never sold one. I might say, however, that practically, so far as my connection with slaves has gone, I have been their slave instead of their being mine.

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Alan Elrod @aselrod.bsky.social · 17h

I wrote about the Cornell rape case, specifically about how MAGA responses to it highlight the male supremacism on the American right. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-illusion...

liberalcurrents.com

The Illusion of Consent: A Rape at Cornell and the MAGA Right

For the new right, when a man is accused of rape, he is first and foremost a victim of feminism.

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Kevin Morris @kevintmorris.bsky.social · 7h

Hey hey -- it's publication day! Couldn't be more excited for this to be out in the world. press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

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The Slowdown @slowdownshow.org · 6h

“You’ll want to listen to this poem more than once, letting it lap at you like water, letting it rise around you like smoke from a beach bonfire, letting it sing to you like an aria,” @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in today's encore. Read “Bonfire Opera” by Danusha Laméris: bit.ly/3TDJP0k

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 05/10/2026

El-Sayed on Fox: "There is this argument you try to make often is that the best way to take this problem on is more war. How has that worked out for us? The war in Iraq which this channel spent years and years pressing -- has that made us safer? Are we more safe because of the war in Iran?"

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

This starts with her aggressively trying to link him to the Muslim Brotherhood. I'd like to see someone turn the tables on this. "You're Christian, right? Did you support Timothy McVeigh? Did you agree with Dylann Roof? Or Eric Rudolph? Robert Lewis Dear? No? Even though you share their religion?"

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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 05/10/2026

The SPEAKER implies. The LISTENER infers. The DUDE abides.

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David S. Bernstein @dbernstein.bsky.social · 22h

This is being passed around as a total misrepresentation of what he said. Trump was saying - as he often does - that costs for Americans are a small price to pay for preventing Iran from getting nuclear missiles. He was saying ‘let them take out LA or SD’ as an example of what could happen then…

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TPM @talkingpointsmemo.com · 13h

Despite her recent statements, she has, over the past year and a half — through the Trump administration's countless illegal impoundments, funding freezes and pocket rescissions — done little to actually rein the executive branch in.

talkingpointsmemo.com

Susan Collins Voted to Confirm Russ Vought. Is She Having Second Thoughts?

In recent weeks, as the Office of Management and Budget Director Russ...

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Ginny Hogan @ginnyhogan.bsky.social · 13h

we’re ready for ya, JD!

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Christopher Hale @christopherjhale.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Pope Leo XIV’s top ally in Washington Cardinal Robert McElroy has told Catholics to convert the politicians who tolerate Trump’s war on immigrants “or replace them.” He was met with a standing ovation.

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 12h

White supremacist cops take a minority citizen, drive him out to the woods as a threat, and leave him there. No, it's not Mississippi in the 1930s, why do you ask?

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 12h

The government *still* isn’t tracking how often immigration agents detain U.S. citizens. We are. 500+ Americans have been handcuffed, held at gunpoint or held against their will in Trump’s second term. Our tally is almost certainly an undercount. THREAD (content warning: violence) ⬇️

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 11h

Article 1 is Congress. The presidency comes second, in Article 2, and explicitly requires the president to faithfully execute the law as passed by Congress. But that structure implies that the president can break laws without consequence. Or, well, at least this one can. -Sam Alito, paraphrased

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 11h

it is actually worth reading the entire op ed. it is Alito condescendingly explaining that yes, his “originalism” is made up bullshit that is *superior* for being made up bullshit apple.news/ACn4mQ2uDS7C...

apple.news

Opinion | Justice Samuel Alito: Even Originalists Make Mistakes — The Wall Street Journal

An interpretive method disciplines the decision-making process, but it doesn’t free judges of the need to exercise judgment.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 11h

i also read his op ed on originalism in the WSJ and i would love to know how presidential criminal immunity emerges from the structure of the constitution, especially when the literal authors of that constitution insisted that a president could he tried and even straight up executed

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 11h

one funny thing about Alito is he is constantly fuming over his critics. just a big blubbering baby.

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Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 12h

Justice Alito devotes an entire chapter of his new book to the emergency docket—and to responding to people like me (“the most prolific academic critic of the emergency docket”). As I explain over at “One First,” it … didn’t go well: www.stevevladeck.com/p/256-so-une...

In the pre-publication galleys to his new book, So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country, Justice Alito spelled my last name inconsistently. This is, I suspect, the pettiest possible point on which to open in discussing a Supreme Court justice’s new memoir, and I would never have mentioned it except for the fact that inconsistency turns out to be the organizing feature of the chapter in which I (“the most prolific academic critic of the emergency docket”) repeatedly appear.

The central inconsistency of Chapter 8, which is devoted to the emergency docket, is structural: Rather than tackle the subject holistically (as one might expect in a book), Alito mashed together the speech he gave five years ago at Notre Dame Law School with a “postscript.” The former was deeply flawed even at the time (among lots of other things, Alito repeatedly insisted that there was “nothing new” about the Court’s behavior on emergency applications during the first Trump administration and COVID); and the latter tries to move the goalposts away from the specific phenomena to which critics like me have actually objected.

The result is to leave readers with a disjointed, inaccurate, and misleading sense of what the debate is even about—to say nothing of how the Court’s own behavior since September 2021 (including Alito’s) has only further undermined the already-flawed claims Alito made back then. Somewhere between the galleys of Alito’s book and the final product (which hits bookstores today), someone apparently figured out that my last name should be spelled the same way (and correctly!) throughout. The other, more significant inconsistencies were, apparently, harder to fix.

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Hillary Rodham Clinton @hillaryclinton.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Trump's economy in two headlines.

CNN Business: The US economy added just 29,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2%.

ABC News: Households will pay more for energy because of Trump's policy changes

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Anna Bower @annabower.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Among the more notable documents is a redacted version of a report produced by Cornell’s disciplinary hearing panel. It sheds additional light on the university’s investigation and summarizes the panel’s findings. Here’s a link to the doc: www.documentcloud.org/documents/28...

documentcloud.org

John Doe v Cornell University Hearing Panel Decision and Report

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Anna Bower @annabower.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I got really annoyed that so many stories about the "Cornell 7" case don't link to the underlying court documents. So I compiled the key filings from Jane Doe's civil suit and from a separate suit brought by one of the accused. Read them here: annabower.substack.com/p/read-the-c...

annabower.substack.com

Read the “Cornell 7” Documents

I compiled key court filings from Jane Doe’s civil suit and a separate suit brought by one of the accused. Read them on Slip Opinion.

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Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Judge Stadtmueller, a Reagan appointee in Wisconsin, orders the release of an ICE detainee in part because of the "systemic rigging of bond hearings against detainees." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

BREAKING: The Trump White House has blocked Politico from accessing Air Force One on Monday to carry out its pool responsibilities.

ms.now

White House blocks Politico from Air Force One

The news outlet was supposed to travel with the president to Nebraska on Monday.

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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Job creation numbers: "The blue columns point to Biden’s presidency, while the red columns point to Trump’s..." www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

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Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Judge Gary Brown, a Trump appointee in New York, rebukes ICE for arresting two people erroneously — including a U.S. citizen — and later claiming "mistaken identity." "ICE agents falsified official records," he says. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

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Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 05/10/2026

NEW: After unlawfully firing FBI agents that worked on Trump cases, Patel's FBI is arguing that the reason they can't release Epstein redaction training videos featuring agents is because "assignments to cases are not by choice." Read my latest: www.muellershewrote.com/p/exclusive-...

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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

"Driver-volunteers go to homes to drop off diapers, baby formula, toilet paper, groceries... "Drivers switch routes and cars, write addresses on paper, and carry a water bottle so they can drop the paper in water and obscure the addresses if stopped... kansasreflector.com/2026/10/02/t...

kansasreflector.com

Trump's immigration sweeps leave southwest Kansas communities looking for way forward • Kansas Reflector

DODGE CITY — Southwest Kansas communities reeling from President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown — which included random stops to check status — are looking for ways to recover as fear continues ...

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Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

JUST IN: Trump trying to re-delay argument in repeatedly delayed 11th Circuit appeal on release of Jack Smith's Mar-a-Lago docs report. Lawyers for Trump's ex-co-defendants say they have scheduling conflicts with Nov. 2, urge Jan. 2027. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...