iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Tim Price @timprice.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Oh yeah that’s the good stuff

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Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

This is slightly out of my normal lane, and I could charge six (hell maybe seven) figure to deliver this message as a consultant, but I’m gonna do it for free. Because I’m ✨enraged✨ People in the think tank/policy/inside the beltway DC world have ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE how mad people are abt Cornell. 🧵

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franzel.bsky.social @franzel.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

It’s a fair question, but I think the more interesting one is, what does the code look like one year from now? Two years from now? Two years ago I didn’t think there was any chance we’d be where we are today

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franzel.bsky.social @franzel.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Yes absolutely. It’s also different when you’re working in a stable, mature code base versus a greenfield project. In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience it’s pretty easy to get lost trying to understand the code once you let the models just “do their thing” with a completely new project

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franzel.bsky.social @franzel.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

That’s one the key problems I see happening. Everyone atrophying skills with the best and brightest atrophying latest (or maybe not at all). But don’t see how we scale up in general in that situation

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franzel.bsky.social @franzel.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

In my (former) job, use of LLMs by senior techies sped up implementation, using models as if they were dev teams where you give the reqs. and design, then LLMs do the dev. It worked but you have the same scalability problems as before and you've added the problem: how do you get new senior people?

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Razzball @razzball.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Announcing the merger with Titanic footage is an incredible bit

David Ellison • @ellisonskyd... 2h
What once was the peak, is now just the beginning.
Paramount and Warner Bros. shaped over a century of culture. By combining them, we aren't rewriting history — we're equipping these iconic studios with a more powerful engine. Together, we are Skydance: a creative-first ho Show

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Somehow not everyone is aware of fact alluded to below. So one more time: John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett were all on GWBush 2000 'Florida Recount' team. (Which made GWB first prez in 112 yrs to 'win' after losing popular vote. Now they 'impartially' rule on our future.)

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Matthew Dowd @matthewjdowd.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

why isn't the answer, just stop all executions forever???

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Hannah Vardit @hannahvardit.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

i worry that men think being A Good Guy is dramatically and heroically intervening on behalf of an endangered woman and then being publicly rewarded on a grand scale when actually being A Good Guy is just usually saying, “hey man that’s not funny” or “wow that’s fucked up” and there is no reward

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Technology enthusiasts severely overestimate the average person’s desire or willingness or capacity to build and use AI agents. I understand some work roles that could mandate or encourage it but that is no way a tech revolution. Agents are best for structured, clearly delineated tasks.

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Lisa Guerrero @lisaguerrero.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Former NFL/NBA/MLB national network sportscaster here: Gambling has absolutely fucking killed sports. RIP

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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 28/09/2026

Two things worth considering dude by side, with AI in research:

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Grim Flandango @grimflandango.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

There’s a lot to unpack in this whole discussion but I want to say as an autistic man: How dare these grotesque fuckweasels suggest that this has to be the way because they’re ND?!? How dare you imply my brain is so broken I can’t be held to the most basic standards of human fucking decency?!?

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 27/09/2026

Women trying to succeed in Silicon Valley AI and effective altruist spaces are reporting feeling serious social pressure to attend sex parties - where people have reported being sexually assaulted, like below. Events like Aella’s “Slutcon,” which is happening again this weekend.

Ann Pierce
@itsannpierce
20h
I am disheartened by this as well. I already lost a bunch of followers for agreeing with @tautologer, but it's saddening to see local nerdy women being caricatured as Karen-like outsiders and getting pushed out of the scene. This is exactly why you hear so few concrete, names-attached stories of sexual harrassment and assault. I'm told there is a history of discrediting these because the "slut normalization" thing is top priority and these stories get inconveniently in the way of spreading this ideology.
I got roped into attending last year's Saturday Slutcon party because so many local and out-of-town friends were there (to echo sentiments @tautologer expressed about "slut events becoming central to the larger scenes). Mostly I hung out with people I knew and that was great. But in the course of my 3-ish hours there, there were 2 times my "no" was not accepted by a man I didn't know, and I was physically pushing a huge guy off of me who was rubbing his penis on me, who continued to do it despite my physical force against him, and after I finally wriggled away from him, told him I wanted to dance alone etc., he came back and did it again.
This was scary and bad, but it didn't even cross my mind to report this because one of the other people who didn't accept my "no" earlier in the night was the bartender (an officially sanctioned authority at the event), and I knew the event was organized exclusively by women into CNC (who are vocal about how rapey behavior turns them on), so I figured this sort of thing would just get me laughed at. And anyway, I heard there were a lot of other incidents like it. Later though, someone encouraged me to report this story to the organizers, and despite my embarrassment I did, so *they know* that this and other incidents happened. This is why they cut the Saturday night party this year and created a larger training program for the flirt girls - *because* of things like this last year. Yet the narrative bein…

People who haven't been to Slutcon are saying "it's just group therapy," "it's just innocent flirting." But the environment is much like a sex party in that many people are nude, there is making out and sex acts happening out in the open. I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect that every nerdy girl who likes rationalist bloggers or is into EA/AI safety should automatically be comfortable with this! That if she's not, there's something wrong with her, we don't want her in our scenes, etc.
Not to mention, it's explictly an event *for men*, where men are the clients and the "flirt girls" are the product. Last year I overheard an exchange where a man felt "led on" by a flirt girl and was trying to get her punished/kicked out. (A dynamic that seems inevitable in this context!)
Anyway- it does sound like they've upped their consent education a lot this year, are more organized, and that's good! As I've told my friends who are attending: I hope they have fun!
I heard several accounts last year of women who had no problems and really enjoyed the event. That's great!
Just... can we live in reality about this? There are real reasons why male-female sexual dynamics are tricky.
Encouraging autistic men who can't yet read body language to go around asking to see womens' boobs is maybe a bit ill-advised. Maybe not everyone should be/identify as a slut; maybe it's not for everyone.
And yeah, filtering the Bay Area Al safety scene down to only women who are super comfy with this eliminates *most* women - including many of the really smart, nerdy, weird women who've been in the larger scenes for years. What a loss for humanity.
I absolutely understand why people with a minority sexuality would want to create belonging, would want to create spaces for people like themselves. But why do it like this/at this cost?

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 26/09/2026

This is another great, approachable explainer on “the rationalist wackos who have managed to take over much of the AI industry, and who now have tons of money and political power.” www.iankduncan.com/personal/202...

iankduncan.com

Sex, AI, and the Apocalypse - Ian Duncan

How a community devoted to thinking clearly incubated salvation stories, abusive experiments, race science, and an affection for autocracy, and why that history matters now that its alumni are asking ...

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Aaron Huertas @aaronhuertas.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Good 🧵. This is Cleverest Little Boy syndrome. Smartest kid in class goes to college or enters the workforce and can't accept that they aren't the smartest anymore, leading to any number of strange rationalizations from reactionary politics to doomer rabbit holes.

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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Several men have been arrested on explosives charges after a major incident was declared near RAF Fairford which hosts USAF bombers involved in attacks on Iran.

bbc.co.uk

RAF Fairford: Men held under Explosives Act in major incident

A major incident is declared and villagers have been evacuated from their homes in Whelford near RAF Fairford.

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026

NEW: ProPublica’s Jake Pearson lost $10,000 mimicking the betting patterns of a problem gambler on DraftKings to test the company’s “responsible gaming” safeguards. One week in, he was invited to become a VIP — and faced little pushback as he spiraled.

propublica.org

I Deliberately Bet Like a Problem Gambler. DraftKings Made Me a VIP.

Amid growing public health concerns, operators like DraftKings have touted “responsible gaming” tools and prompts. But as I went off the deep end, I found they were no match for the incentives and pro...

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Sooz Kempner @soozuk.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

There are no “legitimate concerns” about trans people. There aren’t any about women’s safety or fairness in sports or kids being kids or fucking toilets. If there were you’d have heard of them before 2018. I am a cis white woman so you have to listen to me or I’ll cry.

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Lauren Ashley Davis @laurenmeidasa.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

BREAKING 🚨 🚨 🚨 President Trump has rejected Iran’s proposal for a seven-day ceasefire and has told aides he expects to resume bombing Iran after the November midterms, U.S. officials said. FREE WSJ GIFT ARTICLE 🎁 www.wsj.com/world/middle...

wsj.com

Exclusive | Trump Rejects Iran Ceasefire, Expects Renewed Bombing After Midterms

The president is skeptical that Tehran will meet his demands.

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Remmelt 🛑 @artificialbodies.net · 25/09/2026

A hidden list of 100 abusers in Silicon Valley. Left unstated: some are abusing *men* Sam Altman used to date Peter Thiel, known for recruiting young men for sex (one died of suicide). Sam's sex parties are notorious for how hard they go, and the abuse. Three sources told me about this:

nypost.com

Silicon Valley ‘sex assault list’ with ‘over 100 ‘ names circulated, warning female tech workers of predators to avoid

“Some of them were very prominent names, you know? People who were famous investors. Businessmen who were in the scene”

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 24/09/2026

In the Rationalist scene, Sonia Joseph says she also encountered some real grade-A creeps who wanted to talk about things "like the age of consent is actually like way too high. Like relationships with young girls, like 12-year-old girls are actually normal."

Sonia says she considered herself outside of the rationalist community. She says she didn't like the way she felt and the way she and other women were treated by the community. For example, she met one rationalist who told her that he was the inspiration for the Voldemort character and the rationalist Harry Potter fan fiction.

JOSEPH: He would go on to say some pretty concerning things to me when we got dinner. Like you need to think from first principles. If you think from first principles, a lot of human society doesn't make sense. Things like the age of consent is actually like way too high. Like relationships with young girls, like 12-year-old girls are actually normal.

It's like a normal transfer of knowledge. Stuff that like, I found like very morally concerning. But I think if there's a stereotype or among like certain like libertarian spheres, which overlap with rationalist spheres, you can derive morality and a lot of things that we take for granted is like human rights become open for debate again.

BECKER: Eventually Sonia decided she had to get away from Silicon Valley, as she tells that she wanted some distance from some of the culty behavior. So she moved to Montreal, where she's now a visiting AI researcher at Meta and working on a PhD. She says many rationalist ideas have become well known in the past few years, but for her, they don't have the same appe

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Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The thing about all these genAI fuckwits like Jensen Huang constantly announcing in public that they don't know basic life skills, is that they are billionaires. They have outsourced *every single* hassle in life. They then attribute their soft babylike life to genAI and not their wealth.

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 23/09/2026

surprise! there really IS a sinister and deeply evil ultra-rich entity manipulating US politics with space lasers, and it’s not the Jews, it’s Elon Musk.

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Kathryn VanArendonk @kvanaren.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

this is not paywalls, fyi - this chart looks roughly the same for sites that have had paywalls since long before 2022. this is all former SEO traffic that has now vanished in exchange for ai search summaries

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PBS News @pbsnews.org · 22/09/2026

Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah is calling on the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate whether Donald Trump Jr. used his proximity to the presidency for financial benefit, after his recent wedding party was partially bankrolled by a Russian oligarch. to.pbs.org/4hjI4NE

to.pbs.org

Republican senator calls for probe of Trump Jr. after wedding party bankrolled by Russian oligarch

Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah wants the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate and subpoena Donald Trump Jr. after his wedding party was partially bankrolled by a Russian oligarch.

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 22/09/2026

Sen. Susan Collins helped steer millions in federal defense contracts to Navatek, whose CEO illegally funneled thousands of dollars to her campaign. The FBI sought to launch a probe and was eyeing Collins and other lawmakers. Then Trump gutted the unit in charge. THREAD 🧵

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

The lawyer for the Venezuelan man shot by ICE yesterday says he was discharged from the hospital and transferred to ICE detention while the bullet was still inside of him, and that in Pearsall he's not received any pain meds and was forced to sleep on the floor.

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Nafnlaus 🇮🇸🇪🇺🇺🇦 @nafnlaus.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Thankfully there is no oil crisis driving an inflation crisis driving restrictive monetary policy that can dry up borrowing and VC investment and risk collapse contagion inside this densely interlinked series of deeply leveraged companies. Wait, I'm being handed a note...

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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 20/09/2026

i hate it @wileyonlinelibrary.bsky.social, please kill this

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franzel.bsky.social @franzel.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I just binged it in one day this week! So good!

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Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

"All corners of academia will soon be flooded with AI-generated research....Maths and CS go first because their entire output is symbol manipulation...Biology comes later not because biologists are cleverer but because the rate-limiting step is physical" giorgio.gilest.ro/the-weimar-o...

giorgio.gilest.ro

The Weimar of knowledge – la bottega

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franzel.bsky.social @franzel.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Good morning, Womble! I binged The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins in one day, and now I’m onto Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

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Cheryl Rofer @cherylrofer.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

This is very good. At least four of these points have to do with the general safety points I mentioned yesterday.

backofmind.substack.com

13 theses on agentic AI and regulation

thinking out loud and showing traces of reasoning

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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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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 18/09/2026

Again, there is clear evidence a data center moratorium would peel far more votes away from the GOP than the 10-15 (not thousand, literally 10-15 total) who might switch over this same crowd’s demand to betray queer people. It’s malpractice that the party won’t ditch these professional losers.

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Tyler King @tyleraking.com · 17/09/2026

“A senior executive at Microsoft said A.I. systems built on the work of others will be seen as ‘an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions’ and possibly the greatest robbery of labor in human history, according to court documents unredacted Thursday in an ongoing Manhattan lawsuit.”

orlandosentinel.com

Docs in A.I. copyright suit reveal startling admission by Microsoft exec over ‘astonishing theft’

The admission appeared in a newly unredacted filing in the landmark copyright infringement legal battle playing out between newspapers like the Orlando Sentinel and tech companies Microsoft and OpenAI...

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Republicans, in their infinite wisdom, left a big gambling loophole in the Medicaid work requirements. I'm no fan of the gambling industry, but if you are on Medicaid and struggling to deal with the work requirements, taking a $580 bet on both sides of an outcome is one way of getting around them.

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capitolhunters @capitolhunters.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

After Jan 6, I said "this is the pivotal event, a chance for us to stop terrible things that are coming". And media punted. It was too embarrassing to take seriously: QAnon conspiracists, Groypers, anti-abortion freaks, MAGA cultists. Now those nutters are the party destroying our country. 1/

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Tom Joscelyn @tomjoscelyn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Please give our newly launched investigative research organization’s account a follow: @civildefenseinst.bsky.social We are digging into the extremist networks undermining our democracy and constitutional rights. Read our first reports and profiles here: civildefenseinstitute.org

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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I agree with @jvl.bsky.social. Dems would do well to conduct serial impeachments. First Heggy (if he is not convicted in Dec, after he IS impeached in House), then RFK. Then prioritize based on what will either gain support among Senate GOPers OR embarrass them. www.thebulwark.com/p/impeach-th...

thebulwark.com

Impeach Them. All of Them.

Hegseth is only the beginning.

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franzel.bsky.social @franzel.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I guess? I don’t think they WANTED to tank CBS News. But I don’t think it tanking is going to get Weiss ousted. At least not in this administration. Prove me wrong, Ellison!

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