iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Three things that concern me, on a scale that I won’t divulge: 1. the thing where adults won’t watch or read things about “bad” people 2. All the first person genre fiction marketed as adult fiction. sorry. 3. The way that the people who we need to win don’t seem to want to win

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NPR @npr.org · 09/10/2026

Christa Pike's botched execution in Tennessee was not the first to go wrong on Frank Strada's watch. Before he took charge of Tennessee's prisons, Strada oversaw three botched executions in Arizona. n.pr/4e4P0gD

n.pr

Drugs in jars, bags of cash: Tennessee ignored warnings from Arizona's botched executions

Christa Pike's botched execution in Tennessee was not the first to go wrong on Frank Strada's watch. Before he took charge of Tennessee's prisons, Strada oversaw three botched executions in Arizona.

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Alex Hall Hall @alexhh.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I thought I had seen it all, but this is an astonishing new low, putting the US in the company of Iran, Afghanistan and N Korea. I abhor the death penalty. The idea that kids, including my own, might see such an execution shocks me to the core. Abhorrent, barbaric, sick, warped, cruel and twisted.

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Butlerian Jihadist of House Dornick @shimminykricket.blacksky.app · 08/10/2026

Harvard just dropped a study AI productivity in software engineering and it found the average increase in productivity from using Claude code is.....zero and for exactly the reasons you'd think fion.ac/jellyfish.pdf

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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Horrifying: Arizona Democratic congressional candidate Bernadette Greene-Placentia was raped by a man after he knocked her out. Another man approached her to do the same. “She began swinging her foot at him. ‘Not even worth it,’ she heard the man say as he moved away.”

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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Ryan Stauffer @ryanswx.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Haha, this fucking sucks.

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Monzo (Dirtbag Leftist) @nequalone.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Dr. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social offers a very rationale view of AI risk. These companies are creating malware that they are releasing on the network. @hcrichardson.bsky.social @theyoungturks.bsky.social @kylekulinskishow.bsky.social @emmavigeland.bsky.social @krystalball.bsky.social

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 06/10/2026

4/ Fernando Vasquez, an 18-year-old citizen, was on break from work when agents chased and handcuffed him, then put him in their truck. After realizing their mistake, the agents left the teen alone in the woods, with no way to get home. Then they threw his ID out of the truck.

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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

If you’ve read about TN this week, please take a moment with this piece if you didn’t read it when we published it: It’s an investigation into the execution team Alabama has put together. It’s officers with a history of violence who choose each other. Eye-opening to what happens in executions.

boltsmag.org

In Alabama, Prison Guards Accused of Violence and Misconduct Carry Out Secretive Executions - Bolts

As Alabama keeps details around the death penalty hidden, an investigation into its execution team raises questions about how incarcerated people are treated in their final moments.

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hammancheez but spooky @hammancheez.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

at what point do elected officials in some country decide these people are Taking The Piss and show them what actual laws can do to their freedom of movement and finances

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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

NEW: It's that time of year: time to launch my annual guide to November's elections! I guide you through over *650* interesting elections, & why they matter. Judges, AGs, govs, mayors, lawmakers, AGs, county & school boards—plus many (many) ballot measures. Oh, & Congress. Explore & bookmark!

boltsmag.org

Your Cheat Sheet to the 2026 General Elections - Bolts

Congressional races will take center stage on Nov. 3, but they’re just the tip of what to watch. Prosecutors and governors, attorneys general and sheriffs, school boards and mayors, utility... Read Mo...

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Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 30/09/2026

Jesus Christ Cornell

What use was it to bring the writer and activist Chanel Miller to campus in the spring just for fraternity brothers to scroll, bored, on their phones as she movingly shared her experience as Emily Doe, the victim of Brock Turner? As I wrote at the time, I was floored and dismayed as I sat in the audience with one of my brilliant undergraduates; we heard Miller’s shattering account of being sexually assaulted by Turner behind a dumpster at Stanford University after a fraternity party. Her talk was riveting, and there was so much to learn from it. And yet many of the male students who hailed predominantly from fraternities — 15 percent of each chapter was required to be in attendance — were so tuned out that Miller commented ruefully: “You know, this has been my hardest gig, because they didn’t turn down the house lights. I’m not sure how you professors do it, because it’s so hard looking out at this sea of mildly disgruntled faces. I mean, I’m sure you’re all very moved, but …,” Miller smiled. The implication being, it didn’t seem like it, from her angle.

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Phillips OBrien @phillipspobrien.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Russia has one enormous strategic advantage of which it is taking advantage. It can daily attack civilian targets--hospitals, universities, markets--knowing that while Ukraine can do the same, the Ukrainians are too humane to do so.

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The Xylom @thexylom.com · 28/09/2026

A group led by formerly incarcerated women spent years advocating for those trapped inside prison walls during Texas’ hot summers. This week, a federal judge ruled that the state must air-condition all Texas prisons by the end of 2029. This story was first published by @19thnews.org.

thexylom.com

The ‘Lionesses’ Who Sued To Get Air Conditioning in Every Texas Prison — And Won

A group led by formerly incarcerated women spent years advocating for those trapped inside prison walls during Texas’ hot summers.

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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

For people sharing the above without context, I'm critiquing by analogy all the things women are asked to do to be safe in reply to a guy normalizing rape culture. Special bonus from @sorayachemaly.bsky.social's new essay.

Sanday is perhaps best known for identifying cultures as “rape prone” and “rape free.” Based on her study of more than 150 tribal societies, she identified what makes a society or culture “rape prone,” “rape free,” or something between the two. It still may come as a surprise to some that “rape free” is even a possibility. She found that in rape-free cultures, women have far more authority, status, safety, and freedom. When a woman says no, a man stops, an idea that many people struggle to think men are capable of. If a man proceeds to rape, he might, for example, be exiled. Rape-prone cultures, on the other hand, treat rape as an entitlement in a system that revolves around masculine contests and hierarchies.

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After her decades-long global ethnographic studies, she turned her sights on American college campuses, studying roles, initiations, party behaviors, hazing, gender attitudes, pornography, male bonding rituals, and more across institutional settings — Greek systems and also athletics. She compiled her findings into an influential book, Fraternity Gang Rape,first published in 1990 and rereleased in 2007, with ongoing work in between. In it, she described how and why some fraternities are rape-prone while others are rape-tolerant or rape-free. She found that fraternity gang-rape shows recurring patterns in which a group of men targets one “party girl,” typically a woman who is already vulnerable.*

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Dr Robert Bohan @robertbohan.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Irish President, Catherine Connolly, welcomed Gazan students to Ireland at her official residence Áras an Uachtaráin. She called out the horror affecting their country.

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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 25/09/2026

I have blamed The agents That hacked Your website And which You probably Reasonably thought I controlled Forgive me I am rich And unaccustomed To taking responsibility

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Carol @cgrose.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I saw The Story at the National Theatre last night. Fabulous acting and engaging from beginning to end. Love that the NT has plays about messy, complicated women (Electra/Personna) running concurrently. www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/s...

theguardian.com

The Story review – thrilling drama of race, truth and the pursuit of headlines

Letitia Wright plays the ambitious young reporter seduced into cutting corners with contentious reporting in a brilliantly kinetic production

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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.blacksky.app · 24/09/2026

this is so neat, and definitely worth taking advantage of I went to the Met a few times some years back upon learning about the 'Met Under 40' program, where folks under 40 got discounted tickets to shows on selected nights, and it was really cool!

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HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

September 23, 2026 Yesterday, William Turton, Avi Asher-Schapiro, Molly Redden, and Kirsten Berg of ProPublica published a blockbuster story reporting that the anti-corruption group of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating Senator Susan Collins for engaging in a pay-to-play scheme….

heathercoxrichardson.substack.com

September 23, 2026

Yesterday, William Turton, Avi Asher-Schapiro, Molly Redden, and Kirsten Berg of ProPublica published a blockbuster story reporting that the anti-corruption group of the Federal Bureau of Investigatio...

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John Gibbons 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🇪🇺 @thinkorswim.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Never mind AI ending humanity in a decade, the real story here is white collar crime of the century: the biggest heist of intellectual copyright of millions of people, organisations ever seen - all to feed the Frankenstein AI monster created by tech broligarchs. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

motherjones.com

AI exec: We may have pulled off “the largest theft of labor in human history.”

Documents from our lawsuit reveal how tech leaders talk when they think no one is listening.

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Mannie T'Chawi … (the “T” is silent) @mannietchawi.com · 23/09/2026

This story is a great example of when @prisonculture.bsky.social speaks on picking something to focus on, organize around it, and keep at it! You don’t have to do it all, but what you do, could make all the difference.

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Byline Times @bylinetimes.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

An apocalyptic worldview – blending racial hierarchy, genetic “optimisation” and even climate-driven population culling – circulated inside the elite, founder-linked networks shaping Silicon Valley (and the AI industry) today. @nafeez.bsky.social bylinetimes.com/2025/12/05/h...

bylinetimes.com

How Epstein Channelled Race Science and 'Climate Culling' Into Silicon Valley’s AI Elite

The Epstein files expose how racial hierarchy, genetic “optimisation” and even climate-driven population culling circulated inside Big Tech circles

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Carol @cgrose.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Vent: Why--again--can I not copy and paste from one part of a word document to another? This was a straightforward task for decades. What is wrong with the people at this company? Can't add reliably in excel and can't copy and paste in word. Please can I have the old tech back!?

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Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

We need to do better by these high school students, who are being offered generative AI everywhere they turn while also being told not to use it, while also not even getting the "bare minimum" of discussion about how LLMs work, why the school has the policies it has, etc.

text that says "require a more expansive curriculum on AI and its problems. Anything would be helpful. Even an assembly would be helpful because people do not know anything about what AI does to them, or the environment. This is a BARE MINIMUM"

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾

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Adam Becker @adambecker.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

@aoc.bsky.social just put out a great statement on AI. Refreshing to see a major politician on the left nail this. "Silicon Valley billionaires want us to believe that Al robots will destroy humanity. But the biggest threat to humanity are the tech oligarchs themselves." 🎯

Charles,

Last weekend, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, one of the largest Al companies in the world, publicly asked his industry to slow down Al development.

Shortly after, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAl, followed suit. Then Elon Musk.

This all came days after an Anthropic researcher quit, citing his belief that this technology could wipe out humanity and that Al companies are "gambling with our lives."

For years, people have warned that generative Al could slip out of our direct control.

Those safety concerns must be taken seriously.

And this is why I have advocated for strict safety standards on how Al is built and deployed, public oversight over this technology, and using existing laws to hold these companies accountable when they cause harm.

But I want to draw your attention to another reality: Right now, the U.S. economy and our financial futures are riding on Silicon Valley's bet that Al will soon be immensely profitable and pay off. And that bet isn't looking good.

The formula for a profitable business isn't complicated: make more money than you spend. But the biggest Al companies aren't doing that. They are spending hundreds of billions per year on data centers, chips, and other costs while their ability to make revenues that exceed their already-immense sunk costs are unclear. Experts estimate that these Al companies will require another $600 billion of debt just to finance

themselves in 2026 alone. That is more than the entire budgets of the U.S. Departments of Justice, Transportation, & Education combined.
Meanwhile, despite almost every single one of these companies not turning a profit & having sunk billions of investor dollars in development of data centers & other infrastructure, Al companies are also on a spending spree of hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying & dark money in our elections.
It would be one thing if we were discussing a few private companies with a poor business model. But last year, virtually all stock market gains - 80% - rested entirely on just a handful of Al companies.
That tells us two things:
1. Nearly the entire U.S. economy outside the Al industry is relatively stagnating and faring poorly & the gains from these few companies are disguising it; &
2. Millions of people's retirements - including their pensions, 401ks, & investments - are potentially exposed to this risk.
That's why these Al companies' dubious financial positions matter to working people.
These companies argue that debt is necessary. They'll tell you that building transformative technologies requires upfront capital, & that massive borrowing today will pay off in generating unprecedented prosperity tomorrow.
But this is not the typical debt that startups take on while they build out a company. We are talking about billions going on trillions of dollars leveraged with no indication that these companies will be able to recoup these funds profitably. And they are increasingly looking to the government as their source of cash.
In an effort to hide their debt, tech companies have been relying on "circular financing" where tech giants like Google, Amazon, & Microsoft give billions to Al startups like OpenAl & Anthropic, only for those startups to hand that money right back to buy Al processing power.
In other words, these Al companies are luring in new investors by making it look like their financials are healthier than they really are.

What's even worse is that retirement & pension funds are key to supporting this illusion.
When the Al companies issue bonds to raise more money, your pension funds & retirement accounts are some of the biggest buyers. When Musk's Al business went public, it became part of index funds where millions of Americans invest our savings. Many Americans don't even know that their retirement investments are tied up in these companies at all.
From Big Tech's perspective, that's a feature, not a bug. By tying our futures to their reckless gambling, Al billionaires are trying to make themselves too big to fail. They think they can take such dangerous risks because we will bail them out if things go wrong.
Sound familiar? This scene is dangerously reminiscent of the rampant speculation, corruption, & broken incentives leading up to the 2008 financial crisis that plunged millions of working class Americans into financial chaos that we never fully recovered from.
It is no accident that these warnings from Altman & Amodei come months-if not weeks-before these companies were meant to go public.
When companies go public, they have to be more transparent about how they are doing financially. And after a waiting period, they typically have to let private investors-like their own employees-sell their shares.
The New York Times recently confirmed that OpenAl has postponed going public for this very reason. They are in no rush for the truth about their finances to come out.
But the moment these oligarchs began to seek our public tax dollars & public contracts while exposing their companies to public pension funds & investments, they opened themselves to public accountability & scrutiny.
Silicon Valley billionaires have rigged the game & are attempting to shift their financial risk to working people: If they're right about Al's potential, they reap the profits. If they're wrong & the bubble bursts, they are setting up the American people to pick up the tab.
Heads, they win; tails, we lose.

We can stop this, and we shouldn't play their game. Together we can address both the economic and safety threats of unrestricted Al development and prevent financial chaos and stabilize market risk.

We must make it clear now that should the Al bubble pop, Congress should not bail out Big Tech.

And across our federal agencies, we have the authorities and tools to hold Al companies and their leaders accountable for releasing dangerous, unvetted, and defective products. We must not wait.

Silicon Valley billionaires want us to believe that Al robots will destroy humanity.

But the biggest threat to humanity are the tech oligarchs themselves.

It's time we hold them accountable.

Thank you for reading.

In solidarity,

Alexandria

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

As former Labour minister Tom Watson joins Palantir, please read this devastating exposé by @petergeoghegan.bsky.social & @lucasamin.bsky.social of how the company, with Peter Mandelson's help, wormed its way into the UK government to sell its dire & dangerous products. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

lrb.co.uk

Peter Geoghegan and Lucas Amin · ‘This looks absolutely rubbish’: Palantir and the NHS

A decade ago Palantir was largely unknown in the UK. It now holds public contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds...

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Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

My mom had polio when she was five. She was living on a US military base in Japan (1947). Four kids on the base died. She was the only survivor.

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Nicolas Hénin @nicolashenin.net · 17/09/2026

Nice campaign by the Norwegian Consumer Council about the declining lifespan of products. Enjoy!

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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 16/09/2026

What a lovely conversation I had with you all and a breath of fresh air. thank you for having me.

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The Green Party of England & Wales @greenparty.org.uk · 14/09/2026

“If I didn’t have the job I have now, I wouldn’t have a job. I’d be unemployed.” Deputy Mayor of Hackney Dylan Law on the brutal reality facing young people trying to find work, on LBC’s Cross Question.

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shauna @goldengateblond.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

he did many of cher’s and dolly’s most glamorous gowns but what i will always remember most about bob mackie was this iconic look. and i think he’d be fine with that.

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Carol @cgrose.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Worthwhile reading for politicians, journalists, and people thinking about AI legislation in the UK.

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Holly Brewer @earlymodjustice.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Meanwhile, a devastating report from MIT about the corrosive effects of AI on education.

aiandeducation.mit.edu

Report – AI and Education

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Hassinator @hassinator.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

a great letter in the times today. perhaps worth sharing in these troubled times. #RNLI #heroes

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Straight talk time: Doomerism is BORING. It's the same fantasties rehashed over and over again, just louder each time. And with each iteration it seems that new audiences are being reached, and a new group of people needs to be talked down from unnecessary fear. >>

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

So how about this for a "pause AI" proposal: "pause credulous AI reporting". No more media about "breakthroughs" or "rogue agent swarms" or ... UNLESS and UNTIL that media demands the actual empirical evidence and/or focuses on the motivations of & harms by these companies.

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Dr Paul Dorfman @drpauldorfman.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

#AI needs power, so the industry went looking for ground where one in five live in poverty. The first #nuclear reactor designed to operate underground, drilled through the aquifer, on land where the Army still detonates waste explosives under federal permit. kansascitydefender.com/justice/inve...

kansascitydefender.com

NUCLEAR GUINEA PIGS: How a Small Kansas Town Became the Site of a Nuclear Experiment to Power AI

The first underground nuclear reactor in history is being drilled through the drinking water of Parsons, Kansas, to power AI data centers, after the safety rules that would have stopped it were rewrit...

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Byline Times @bylinetimes.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

James Orr. Peter Thiel. Race science. Tech authoritarianism. We've spent years tracing the networks behind Britain’s ‘Dark Enlightenment’. Help us launch an urgent new investigative project to follow the money and map how it operates. #LightUpTheDark subscribe.bylinetimes.com/lightuptheda...

subscribe.bylinetimes.com

#LightUpTheDark – Byline Times

Dark Enlightenment: The US Far-Right War on British Institutions Help Byline Times Fund aN URGENT New INVESTIGATIVE SERIES #LightUpTheDark What is the Dark Enlightenment? The extraordinary anti-DEI me...

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Gautham Rao (pronounced: Knicks in 5) @gauthamrao.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Here’s my op-ed on Chief Justice John Roberts whitewashed history of President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft. Roberts adoration of Taft’s “restraint” conveniently omits Taft’s racism, refusal to condemn lynching, and embrace of Lost Causism. That’s no accident. share.inquirer.com/IcPlmx

share.inquirer.com

Will the real William Howard Taft please stand up?

Chief Justice John Roberts penned an incomplete, but revealing, tribute to former President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft.

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

This was the point I emphasised about Palantir when I wrote about tech soverignty - their model is to make bits of the state dependent on them and them jack up the price. samf.substack.com/p/sovereignt...

samf.substack.com

Sovereignty for sale

Tech monopolies and the future of the nation state

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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

The Channel 4 exposé "will make it even harder for Reform to attract donors, legal or otherwise. And it has given the Labour government the best excuse it ever needed to take money out of British politics." New by me on @zeteo.com UK zeteo.uk/p/anti-forei...

zeteo.uk

Anti-Foreigner Reform UK’s Shocking Foreign-Funding Scandal Is a Wake-Up Call

‘We just don’t have British-resident donors,’ a top Nigel Farage ally told an undercover US reporter on camera. Isn’t now a good time to get big money out of UK politics?

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