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David Dayen

@ddayen.bsky.social
87K followers 610 following 9.5K posts

Executive editor, The American Prospect. Author, Chain of Title and Monopolized. Tips at ddayen-at-prospect-dot-org or Signal at ddayen.90

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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 7h
Nowhere in the Trump account legislation does it allow auto-enrollment or say anything about enrollment procedures at all, just so you know the way that John Roberts will justify his 6-3 decision blocking auto-enrollment of kids into Medicare
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Brett "Solidarity 2026" Banditelli @banditelli.org · 8h
If we can auto enroll every child into Trump accounts we can auto enroll every child into Medicare is the easiest layup of 2029.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 8h
Sooner or later, after exhausting all other possibilities, everyone realizes that the only smart way to do public benefits is with auto-enroll www.washingtonsun.com/whitehouse/t...
washingtonsun.com
Trump Is Preparing to Auto-Enroll Every Child in a Trump Account
Few Americans have set up Trump Accounts on their own.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 9h
The Senate spent its final days before the election eliminating labor rights for a subset of workers who are disproportionately young Black men. For the win! Here's a rundown of the Protect College Sports Act, which mostly restores the NCAA cartel to limit athlete compensation:
prospect.org
Union Busting Comes to Campus - The American Prospect
The Senate-passed Protect College Sports Act is really an anti-labor bill meant to restore the NCAA cartel at the expense of the athletes.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 10h
The case won't be argued until December, and a ruling might not be issued until June 2027. Flights can resume until judgment. Damn.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 10h
The Young Guns have matured, and now kill with spreadsheets www.axios.com/2026/09/29/e...
axios.com
Eric Cantor, former House leader, named PhRMA president and CEO
Cantor becomes the public face of an innovative industry that will face rising scrutiny if Democrats take the House.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 11h
OK now I like the Trump ads because every dollar spent on ads during a 3:30 showing of the Kelly Clarkson Show is a dollar not spent by Customs and Border Protection abducting people www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
wsj.com
Exclusive | Homeland Security Money Financed Pro-Trump Television Ads
White House calls the spots public-service ads, but critics argue using taxpayer money for campaign-like messaging may violate federal law.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 15h
Happy pub day to @lindsayowens.bsky.social for her highly-anticipated book Gouged, about all the sophisticated strategies companies now use to separate you from your money. Hal Singer reviews: prospect.org/2026/09/29/o...
prospect.org
Battling an Army of Price-Setters - The American Prospect
Lindsay Owens’s new book details all the ways that corporations seek to maximize profits at your expense.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 15h
The story of out-of-state consultants homogenizing Troy Jackson is more complicated, Bob Kuttner reports. It was Jackson's own close aide, BJ McCollister, who encouraged him to use Chuck Schumer's team, because McCollister's consulting firm stood to make a fortune from ad placement.
prospect.org
Chuck Schumer Neuters Troy Jackson - The American Prospect
Can the populist Maine Democratic Senate nominee take back his own campaign?
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 15h
OpenAI’s unlawful incidents are piling up. I’m not talking about the models; I’m talking about what its executives are accused of doing to obtain the data to create the models. AI is following its master down a road of deceit. And we don't have the will to hold those responsible accountable.
prospect.org
Why Is Sam Altman a Free Man? - The American Prospect
OpenAI’s models aren’t “going rogue” from their creators as much as they are mimicking them.
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Bryce Covert @brycecovert.bsky.social · 16h
I do wish it was more of a big deal that Congress, as per its Constitutional powers, appropriated money for federal programs and the Trump administration refused to spend it until it lapsed www.newsfromthestates.com/article/trum...
newsfromthestates.com
Trump administration revokes $810M approved by Congress for refugee aid and more
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has, once again, infuriated lawmakers from both political parties by using a controversial maneuver to cancel funding previously approved by Congress.
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 28/09/2026
IT'S OFFICIAL. The progressive members of the Chicago City Council (looking at you, @andrefor40th.bsky.social) stopped ICE's cruelest, most notorious charter airline, Omni Air International. news.wttw.com/2026/09/28/f...
news.wttw.com
Firm Set to Buy Chicago’s Parking Meters Sells Airline That Carried Out Deportations
More than a dozen progressive members of the City Council said they would not vote in favor of the deal unless the firm sold Omni Air, threatening the completion of the deal involving the city’s 36,00...
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Thanks to California's top-two system there are eight Dem-on-Dem House races in November. I went to two of these districts: one, a dem socialist against a scandal-plagues incumbent; another the race to replace Nancy Pelosi where she has taken a personal interest. prospect.org/2026/09/28/c...
prospect.org
The House Districts Where Democrats Are Still Fighting Each Other - The American Prospect
California’s Democrat-on-Democrat races mirror left-vs.-center primary battles we’ve seen across the country.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Kate Wilson is the socialist mayor of Seattle, and she's up against a aggressive moneyed class, a moderate city council, and a vocal base unafraid to be critical. Still she is making some gains. Chance Phillips went to Seattle to check things out. prospect.org/2026/09/28/o...
prospect.org
Socialist in Seattle - The American Prospect
A year after her election, Mayor Katie Wilson wants to upgrade housing and transit in the Emerald City. But moderate councilors and divisions within her own base are undermining her.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
We're going to be getting competing rulings on Missouri's congressional midterm map until approximately 2039. It's likely the Supreme Court will just end this, but it's an own-goal for Missouri's lawmakers, writes @gurleygg.bsky.social. prospect.org/2026/09/25/a...
prospect.org
After Missouri, Mid-Decade Redistricting May Die a Natural Death - The American Prospect
Republican gerrymandering in the state might be too shameless even for the Supreme Court.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
William Cohan wrote the book nobody wanted: peering inside the head of Leon Black, the Epstein buddy co-founder of Apollo. It reads more like stenography than reporting, writes Helaine Olen in this review. prospect.org/2026/09/25/o...
prospect.org
Leon Black Is Not Very Interesting - The American Prospect
Unfortunately, author William Cohan thinks the ousted Apollo co-founder is fascinating enough to quote him at length, while neglecting the impact of private equity predators.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The imminent landlord bailout, a settlement of litigation over the COVID-era eviction moratorium, is dominated by affiliates of Starwood Capital, a private equity firm that itself received direct and indirect federal assistance during COVID. Zachary Groz reports. prospect.org/2026/09/25/p...
prospect.org
Private Equity Landlords Double-Dipping in Imminent Bailout - The American Prospect
Companies like Starwood Capital Group, which benefited greatly from financial assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic, want a federal bailout on top of that.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
There is no Republican "split" with Trump. It's catnip for access media, but the desperate ploy to align with the supermajority of voters who can't stand the president is tissue-thin. The same people saying the Iran war needs to end voted yesterday to keep it going. #Realtalk here.
prospect.org
Republicans Had 690 Days to Oppose Trump - The American Prospect
They’re trying to cram all the opposition into the last 40 before the election.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
"Paid for by the U.S. government" Using other people's money for his own ends is normal for Trump; this time it's our money platform.adimpact.com/viewer/74bb6...
platform.adimpact.com
The Country He Loves
US Government · Election Advertisements
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
After @gillianbrockell.com reported that ICE was violating a court order to stop third-country removals, a lawsuit cited her reporting and a judge, agreeing with the case, demanded that ICE not move a detainee to send them to a third country. We get results. prospect.org/2026/09/24/j...
prospect.org
Judges Reject ICE’s Underhanded Attempt to Maintain Third-Country Removals - The American Prospect
An appeals court made clear deportation flights to third countries must stop immediately, but flight data showed ICE may be violating the order.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Labor leaders went directly to voters to hold deep conversations that informed a contract with working America . Bob Kuttner talks to those who crafted the agenda. prospect.org/2026/09/24/n...
prospect.org
The New Union Way to Build Progressive Power - The American Prospect
A deep canvass of union members produces an agenda that can rally working families.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The Trump administration is setting up a fake deadline in the middle of the lame duck session to force clearance of warrantless spying again, despite blowing its own statutory deadline to declassify a potentially damning FISA court opinion. @jamesjbaratta.bsky.social has more.
prospect.org
Trump Administration Ignores Statutory Deadline to Declassify FISA Court Opinion - The American Prospect
The director of national intelligence appears to be withholding an explosive court opinion that could give lawmakers all the more reason to meaningfully reform surveillance law.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I'm fine with being mad at the desiccated husk that is the California political establishment for settling the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger challenge, but Hal Singer is right, this all started with the pay-to-play Trump vivisection of antitrust enforcement. prospect.org/2026/09/24/p...
prospect.org
The Paramount Settlement Started With Trump - The American Prospect
The media conglomerate’s sweetheart deal is just the latest consequence of Trump’s interference in federal antitrust enforcement.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
What is the law really prospect.org/2026/09/23/i...
prospect.org
ICE Is Trying to Ignore Court’s Decision Striking Down Third-Country Removals - The American Prospect
Immigration officials want to send a Peruvian man to the Central African Republic within hours, court filings show.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This "project" is mostly what @gillianbrockell.com has been doing by herself for years without institutional support. Proud to have her part of the team at @prospect.org. www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontli...
pbs.org
The Deportation Project: Major Stories from Partners | FRONTLINE | PBS | Official Site | Documentary Series
A joint investigation into the Trump administration’s use of third-country removals.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
What happens when state lawmakers try to regulate AI? The industry works as hard as it can to avoid liability for anything. On Organized Money, we talk to state Rep. Javier Mabrey and David Seligman, a public interest attorney, to find out how this unfolded in Colorado.
organizedmoney.fm
What Do AI Giants Really Want?
All the money in the world, and absolutely no liability.
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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 22/09/2026
"Let’s call it Angell’s dilemma. It doesn’t matter how obviously insane wars are; some politicians will always be stupid enough to start one." prospect.org/2026/09/22/i...
prospect.org
War Has Never Been More Irrational - The American Prospect
Yet right-wing leaders like Trump and Putin keep starting them.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Among the countless numbers of Trump-dismantled agencies, the Education Department's Office of Civil Rights might not get that much attention. But it was the primary tool policing schools against discrimination, and its loss is bad for students. prospect.org/2026/09/22/e...
prospect.org
This Office Was the Best Defense Against Discrimination in Schools. Trump Destroyed It. - The American Prospect
The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights once resolved issues before they became yearslong investigations.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
From a think tank analyst to Robert Reich's podcast to the Montana ballot & the Hawaii legislature: an idea to leverage state corporate charters to ban corporate money in politics. It's a novel idea that the Supreme Court may not want to touch. @jamesjbaratta.bsky.social has the story.
prospect.org
Can the States Stop the Corporate Domination of Our Politics? - The American Prospect
States giveth corporations the right to exist, so the states can taketh away their political spending power—or at least, Hawaii and Montana are trying.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Here's our story on Rob Bonta's disappointing settlement of the Paramount-Warner Bros merger. Just an awful decision. prospect.org/2026/09/21/b...
prospect.org
Bonta Gives Up on the Paramount Case - The American Prospect
Why would California AG Rob Bonta settle the Paramount–Warner Bros. lawsuit when he’s winning?
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
94 percent of Democratic voters in a recent survey support Medicare for All, and so do a majority of moderate and independent voters. It's why more candidates, even in swing seats, are running on it. Here's @whitneycwimbish.bsky.social with more. prospect.org/2026/09/21/m...
prospect.org
‘Stunning’ Level of Support for Universal Health Care: Jayapal - The American Prospect
Even more people want Medicare for All than did last December, a new poll shows.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The worst part of Bonta caving on the Paramount merger is that it's a big flashing signal to every other company that there is no antitrust enforcement in America and you can bully your way into getting whatever you want. It's a monumentally bad decision.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Cindy Holscher may hold the governor's mansion for Dems in Kansas. She's doing it by running against the Chiefs stadium deal, data center development, & Sam Brownback's disastrous tax cut, the legacy of which may net Dems a 3rd straight term in the Sunflower State. From @gurleygg.bsky.social.
prospect.org
The Brownback Brushback in Kansas - The American Prospect
Data centers and a stadium deal have set the table for a contentious governor’s race in Kansas, a state that has yet to recover fully from its disastrous mid-aughts tax-cutting “experiment.”
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
ICE removal flights have been at least temporarily halted after an appeals court ruling finding them illegal. But the Supreme Court has revived the flights twice using the shadow docket, and could do so again once the Trump administration appeals to them. @gillianbrockell.com reports.
prospect.org
Appeals Court Smacks Down Trump’s Third-Country Removal Policy - The American Prospect
Tens of thousands of people have been subjected to the cruel policy, but the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket” could soon bring it back.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
This week's spectacular blowback on Ed Sheeran for dropping Macklemore from his tour began as a show of power from a public spaces monopoly, composed of NFL owners & entities of & around Live Nation. But at the end of the day, the fans fill the seats, & they've rejected this modern McCarthyism.
prospect.org
Macklemore vs. Everybody - The American Prospect
The wokest rapper took on the NFL’s plutocratic ownership, the Israel lobby, and the Live Nation ‘flywheel’—and won.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Paramount's loud threats to relocate to Tennessee were all designed to pressure the AG to the negotiating table. The problem is that the merger is illegal and Paramount isn't really interested in making it legal through any structural means.
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Dan Nexon @dhnexon.net · 18/09/2026
Step 1: Slip Trump a copy of the 1951 Defense Agreement, but with the name changed. Step 2: Describe it in the most favorable light possible, since he won't read it anyway. Step 3: Trump goes on "Truth Social" and proclaims himself a genius negotiator.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
You didn't need "access" to understand this. Me, @prospect.org, Wednesday (left): Trump thinks slowing down AI will crash the economy prospect.org/2026/09/16/a... @nytimes.com, Friday (right): Trump thinks slowing down AI will crash the economy www.nytimes.com/2026/09/18/u...
It makes sense that Trump would ally with Wall Street, where doomer fears have barely registered a ripple. Trump’s entire economic philosophy can be summed up with the phrase “number go up”: He bases economic success on the state of the stock market, just as any high-volume trader would. Market investors need more deployment of AI so Nvidia can sell those semiconductors, Oracle can sell the data center servers, utilities can sell the power generation, and their stocks in those companies peak. It really is a “golden goose,” as Trump said, and though investors would likely find something else to hype in a slowdown—remember NFTs?—they don’t want to abandon what’s run the market up to current levels.President Trump made clear in the past week that he views fears that A.I. could lead to mass extinction as a “HOAX,” and that he sees opponents of data centers as people who “want to end up being backwards and poor.”

People who have discussed the subject with Mr. Trump in private say his outbursts are rooted in worries that if the artificial intelligence boom fueling the American economy slows down, the market could crash and recession could quickly follow.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
In my story this week, Matt Dunlap (running in northern Maine) talked about this. prospect.org/2026/09/14/o...
Other swing seats demand other priorities. Montana has had a housing crisis for years, and Sam Forstag can talk about finding his first apartment in Missoula for $300 a month, while his sister had to negotiate her landlord down to $1,500 a month some years later. Dunlap stressed that Maine is a big heating oil state, and that the stalled war in Iran is driving prices to uncomfortable levels. “I know people who sit under blankets during the day because they can’t heat their homes,” he said. “That’s when heating oil was $2.50 a gallon and now it’s $6.”
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Yastreblyansky @yastreblyansky.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
This bit deserves its own investigation:
Indeed, AI technology itself is already affecting Congress’s normal workflow, and not for the better. Politico reported in August that the House Office of the Legislative Counsel—the lawyers who take members’ plain-language policy ideas and translate them into bill text—is facing “a flood of legislative proposals generated using artificial intelligence tools, many of them riddled with errors and shoddy language.”
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Obviously media bans are bad but I've been in the White House one time in my life and it hasn't stopped me from reporting on presidents, and it shouldn't (and won't) stop anyone else.
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Topshelf Thomas @frostyaf.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Killing the OTA can only be understood as part of the broad, long-running conservative effort to make everyone—including and especially elected officials—dumber and more reliant on the private sector.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I liked this the first time I read it when I wrote it. prospect.org/2026/09/14/p...
prospect.org
PAC Spending Reveals: Republicans Are Screwed in the Midterms - The American Prospect
The analysis shows that Republican-affiliated groups are spending in a number of seats that should be almost automatic wins for their party.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
There's been a lot of rumbling that it's too expensive to try to beat Republican Mike Lawler, whose seat (50-49 Harris in 2024) is in the NYC metro. So far, the main Democratic campaign PAC is being very tentative spending there, despite its winnable nature. @jamesjbaratta.bsky.social reports.
prospect.org
NY-17: Who’s Afraid of Mike Lawler? - The American Prospect
Cait Conley is leading the two-term incumbent in the polls, but on the airwaves, Lawler dominates. Why have Democrats been reluctant to spend as much as in other swing districts?
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Trump paid over $9 billion to federal employees to not work. The tax gap of what people owe but don't pay is so large the IRS stopped reporting on it. Trump's annual deficits are giant but there's a solution: approximately, "don't do stupid shit." @ryanlcooper.com has more.
prospect.org
Trump’s Debt Crisis Will Be Easy to Fix - The American Prospect
All that’s needed is the political will to staff the government and nudge up taxes.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
DOGE has been memory-holed, but the savagery of that time still lingers in legislation Republicans now have to explain away. In particular: one bill that put $500 billion in federal spending *per year* at risk. Several threatened House Republicans supported it. From me: prospect.org/2026/09/18/e...
prospect.org
DOGE Bills Could Come Back to Haunt Republicans - The American Prospect
One bill in particular would threaten $500 billion in federal spending every year. Several House Republicans in tough races supported it.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Exactly how it should work, Oregon strengthened its ban on the corporate practice of medicine, its representatives in Congress noticed this laboratory of democracy, and are now elevating the idea to the federal level.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Once upon a time, Congress had its own in-house think tank that would research and suggest remedies for technical problems politicians might not have a handle on. Might be a good resource now, ay? Here's @maxmoranhi.bsky.social on the long-lost Office of Technology Assessment:
prospect.org
What Congress Actually Needs to Do About AI: Staff Up - The American Prospect
In 1995, Newt Gingrich lobotomized Congress’s technical brain trust. It should be rebuilt.
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 18/09/2026
NEW: @amnesty.org says Ahmed Soliman & another man, Samson Birhane, had bags put on their heads, were beaten when arrested in Equatorial Guinea. They demand their immediate release. Both lived in the US since they were kids, ICE expelled them unlawfully. TAKE ACTION: www.amnesty.org/en/documents...
amnesty.org
Equatorial Guinea: Risk of torture for unlawfully detained men: Ahmed Soliman and Samson Birhane - Amnesty International
On 11 September, the Equatorial Guinea authorities unlawfully arrested Ahmed Soliman and Samson Birhane, accusing them of “breaking a mirror” at a hotel in Malabo, where the two had been arbitrarily h...
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I've now seen a Bill Hill (House candidate in Alaska) ad three times on streaming, and I think House Majority PAC bought the entire West Coast for the streaming service to pick up Alaskan households
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