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gatorspader.bsky.social

@gatorspader.bsky.social
420 followers 907 following 163 posts
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Reposted by @gatorspader.bsky.social
Aaron Fritschner @fritschner.bsky.social · 19h
[SENATOR ERIC SCHMITT]: So you’re telling me under oath that you’ve never spoken with an Attorney General nominee? [JACK SMITH]: No, I don’t think— [SCHMITT]: WELL THEN *unveils poster* please explain this picture of you with Matt Gaetz! [SMITH]: That is Media Matters senior fellow Matt Gertz
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Anna Kramer @annackramer.bsky.social · 23h
On Sept. 19th, OMB gave Customs and Border Protection $20 million. The next day, CBP awarded an ad company a contract for $20 million for a “national media campaign.” On Sept. 23rd, Trump ads start running on national tv as "paid for by U.S. government."
washingtonsun.com
CBP Got $20 Million for a ‘Media Campaign.’ Lawmakers Say It Was a Misuse of Funds.
The administration started running Trump-focused national ads that have come under ethical scrutiny for using taxpayer funds.
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Evan Urquhart @evanurquhart.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Definitely click through on this story for the quotes from the Third Way spokesperson, who AGREED Democratic candidates should NOT adopt Republican language on trans issues. I was floored - even tried to get Billie to put it in the headline. This is not just analysis, these quotes are news.
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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 29/09/2026
Wrote about the decline and fall of SCOTUSblog, which used to be the single best resource for Supreme Court stuff, and (thanks to some intervening crimes committed by its co-founder) is now a weird platform for conservative pundits to talk about what a good job the conservative justices are doing
slate.com
It Was the Essential Home of Supreme Court News. Now It’s a Joke. What Happened?
How high-stakes poker brought down a pillar of Supreme Court coverage.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
When they get back in power, Democrats need to go all-in on higher education. We need a campaign of reinvestment in public universities across the country that makes the Morrill Land-Grant Act look like nothing by comparison *and* a GI Bill of Rights-style program of tuition grants.
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Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin @ecmclaughlin.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
You have to wait until the sixth paragraph of this piece before you learn, in the New York Times reporting on the murder of THEIR OWN EMPLOYEE, that the victim was a trans man who had been abused for being trans by the in-laws who murdered him. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/28/u...
nytimes.com
Couple Accused of Killing Their Son-in-Law in Bay Area Park (Gift Article)
Jonathan McKinsey, an engineer who worked in the games department for The New York Times, was fatally shot Saturday in a San Francisco suburb. The police have accused his parents-in-law, both 76.
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BeshearStan @beshearstan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
God I love Angie Nixon. I hope she wins
Now @AshleyMoodyFL. Why would I want to abolish the police when I want you arrested and in jail for stealing $10 million from sick kids? BFFR
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Katelyn Burns @katelynburns.com · 28/09/2026
For my newsletter this morning, I found a small glimmer of political hope for trans people in the US and wrote about it: www.burnsnotice.com/we-may-have-...
burnsnotice.com
We May Have Just Seen the Tides Turn on Trans Rights
Some conservative PACs have backed off from running anti-trans ads. Is this a sign of what's to come for trans people?
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Chaz Nuttycombe @chaznuttycombe.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
All of our remaining forecasts are about to come out and we'll have a tally going but I believe we're looking at DEMs gaining 325 - 400 state legislative seats nationwide. In 2018 they gained 309. Ds may get a majority of state legislative seats and chambers if they slightly outperform our forecast
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 26/09/2026
Does my Speak-n-Spell feel pain when I type O-U-C-H? The jury is out. Philosophers and neuroscientists say that's fucking stupid, but I called a guy from the Center for Pretending that Household Electronics Are Sentient and he said there's no way to know for sure.
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Project Salt Box @projectsaltbox.com · 25/09/2026
BREAKING: Citing increased arrests, ICE is seeking modular detention and virtual courtroom units for about 50 field offices. The draft it posted appears to have originated from a GEO Group account.
projectsaltbox.com
ICE seeks ‘modular’ detention units for 50 field offices, saying increased arrests have exceeded its space
A request for information seeks ready-made detention, interview and courtroom units, with no limits on how many people the units would hold or for how long.
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teamhamiltonhq.bsky.social @teamhamiltonhq.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Meischa was Roger Marshall's patient. This is her story.
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G Elliott Morris @gelliottmorris.com · 25/09/2026
The entire US politics and news industries spend a large chunk of their waking hours on a platform designed to inflate the importance of that 18%. It's a big problem, and why you get stuff like Tammy Duckworth saying she's against impeachment because she wants to "find a compromise" on USAID $
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Jeff Lazarus @jlazarus.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This is Nazi rhetoric. Not similar. Not Nazi-like. It’s straight up lebensraum.
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Evan Sutton @evansutton.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
So Elon Musk can't attend at the launch of a product he's been hyping for a decade because he's... "with the president." His Super PAC has spent $17M for the GOP in under a month. Every reporter who credulously repeated that he was "done with politics" or "stepping back" should resign in disgrace.
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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Raskin made a holy shit observation on MS Now this afternoon: Since taking office, Trump has made a million dollars per hour for himself. Every hour, he has made more than twice the president’s annual salary.
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Gaius (from Tribunate) @gaius.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
“But trans issues don’t poll well” There’s a decline in support for trans rights because a Nazi billionaire is funding a hate campaign since he can’t accept his daughter’s transition. No prominent Democrats counter this messaging so all people get is negativity and hate 24/7
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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The nearly decade-long case of Crystal Mason, who was sentenced to 5 yrs in prison over a voting error, will end with an acquittal The wife of the current district attorney, who fought to keep her conviction in place, asked Crystal if she would consider voting for him
theguardian.com
Texas woman triumphs as court upholds acquittal in voting error case
Crystal Mason has spent nearly a decade fighting conviction for casting provisional ballot that ultimately wasn’t counted
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Liberal Currents @liberalcurrents.com · 24/09/2026
"A future liberal administration will need to juggle a million priorities at once… They also must work to deter future misbehavior by bringing legal consequences upon those within the government who have engaged in naked corruption, and upon the outside firms and individuals who facilitated it."
liberalcurrents.com
On the Practical Case for a Book of Grudges
If we're going to set this right, a comprehensive list is needed.
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Claire Zagorski, PhD, MSc, EMT-P @clairezagorski.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I hate it so much. This can happen to you too. A year ago, almost everyone doubted this would happen. I had faculty at other schools telling me I was hysterical. (Irony!) Watch for the installation of right wing figureheads without an academic background. Watch for assaults on faculty governance.
BREAKING NEWS
UT cuts all Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies courses from core curriculum
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 24/09/2026
So this story is WAY wilder than I thought The Trump post I flagged this morning because it includes Natalie Harp is actually based on the Getty photo you can see below. But there is one key difference -- MONICA CROWLEY'S FACE HAS BEEN EDITED TO LOOK LIKE NATALIE HARP'S WTF is going on here?
Getty pic of Xi and TrumpTrump TS post featuring the mentioned edit of Monica Crowley's faceoriginal pic image of MonicaTrump TS post which shows Natalie's face where Monica's is on the original. very weird
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Ryan Goodman @rgoodlaw.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
From 16,000 to 185 to Zero: Trump’s Claims of Illegal Voting in Nevada Fizzle. "The state sent a strongly worded rebuke to the federal government: Every single person on the list was a lawful citizen."
nytimes.com
From 15,000 to 185 to Zero: Trump’s Claims of Illegal Voting in Nevada Fizzle
It was the Trump administration’s latest stumble in its effort to find proof of widespread noncitizen voting, despite decades of evidence that it is extremely rare.
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Matt Ford @mford.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Ezra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?” Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...
So the message of this research out of China, where you were seeing a lot of kids using A.I. to help them, was that when they were using the A.I., they were getting things done faster. But it turned out that the skills they were learning were not holding, that their actual personal performance, at least in the way we traditionally measure it, was degrading.

What do you think when you hear that?

The last part — I completely agree. Try to get a kid to do long division right now. The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Doing square roots, my goodness. Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter?

That’s my question for you.

Yeah. I don’t think it does. I don’t think it does.

But there must be some set of skills that matter.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe not those. We’re going to discover new ones. Just maybe not those.

There are a lot of skills that don’t matter. My first confession, I actually don’t know my address.And I ——

I don’t really believe that to be true.

It’s completely true. Janine will tell you and Lori will tell you.

One day I had to pump gas — it was a few years ago. They needed my ZIP code, and I panicked. I didn’t know my ZIP code. I don’t know my telephone number. I forget these things. I can live with it.

But let me take the other side because I don’t want to fall into a thing where, because some skills can be safely offloaded ——

Yeah.

I also can’t get anywhere without a mapping system now. Never could, frankly. But I’m a big reader. And one of the skills I really value, one of the capacities I have that I really value is an attention span formed on physical books.

You’re a big reader. I’ve read about the kind of reading you do. And there is, prior to A.I., a lot of concern and noticing among college professors and others that the way people use the internet has probably shortened attention spans.
Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.

Yeah. Well, I think that we’re going to lose some finer intellectual dexterity, but we’re going to be better systems thinkers.

Today’s engineers are far better systems thinkers than I was when I graduated from school. But I was a much better transistor thinker.

What do you mean by systems thinker?

They think of large systems. Today’s computers have trillions, hundreds of trillions of transistors in them. When I first graduated from school, the first chip I worked on had 200 transistors. I knew every one of them by name. No engineer does that today. Most engineers now work well above the transistor, well above the functionality, and they’re cobbling things together to do things.

So you need to think much more about systems and interactions of systems. So some of the lower-level knowledge is gone.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 24/09/2026
MS NOW reports that their White House reproter was denied access to the White House this morning despite a court order demanding she have access
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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 24/09/2026
"No one on Bluesky thinks they’re interacting with a cross section of the population. But a lot of people on X do think that." talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/we-di...
talkingpointsmemo.com
We Didn’t Know Until This Day … Twitter Was the Echo Chamber All Along
Daniel Drezner says we are now in the Wile E. Coyote phase...
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Alan Elrod @aselrod.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
IMO it’s clear from Richard Hanania’s own words that he believes that rape, both statutory and violent, is the right of a certain kind of man. Elite men It’s appalling that this man is given a drop of ink or a second of interview time in our media. My latest: www.liberalcurrents.com/richard-hana...
liberalcurrents.com
Richard Hanania Doesn't Even Try to Hide His Male Supremacism
Hanania is a reminder of the dangers of rehabilitating extremist intellectuals.
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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 24/09/2026
Contact info for the Equality Caucus chair, Mark Takano. Melt the phone lines. DC (202) 225-2305 Local office (951) 222-0203
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Charlotte Garden @charlottegarden.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
OMG
Mr Albanese said he had a "frank" discussion with OpenAI's chief executive Sam Altman, saying the company took three months to notify the government of the breach and, when it did, the notification was in an email sent to the Services Australia public inbox.
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Meredith Shiner @meredithshiner.com · 23/09/2026
this administration illegally shut down federal agencies, impounded money from Congress, set up for-profit concentration camps and sent children there. They dismantled our public health infrastructure and children died of measles. Doing accountability for crimes against our Constitution is the work.
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Meredith Shiner @meredithshiner.com · 23/09/2026
I had not seen this clip where Tammy Duckworth advises Democrats to "not impeach anybody," "get back to work" and "allow" Donald Trump to "save face" and I would just like to remind the senator from IL that the federal government took 4,000 Chicagoans and murdered a 38-year-old father last fall.
c-span.org
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Oliver Willis @owillis.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
every single democrat in the senate voted to confirm marco rubio. every single one. from the most progressive to the moderates to the conservatives. every democrat. every last one.
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Ben Krimmel @benkrimmel.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Sean Manaea is wearing a "New York Is Love" Mets Pride shirt after pitching six solid innings to beat the Texas Rangers, the MLB's only team without a Pride night. Perhaps coincidence, perhaps not.
Image of Sean Manaea wearing a "New York Is Love" Mets Pride shirt.
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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
At her 22-week ultrasound, Amanda Jablonski learned their daughter had developed without a skull or a brain. There was no chance for survival, and every day Amanda stayed pregnant was a threat to her health and life. Under TN law, she was denied an abortion. www.wbir.com/article/news...
wbir.com
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Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
There is something so unbelievably bleak about an article that calmly walks readers through how to navigate being laid off after 50, losing your health insurance, and somehow surviving the years until Medicare. What a broken country.
nytimes.com
Laid Off After 50, and No Health Insurance? Here’s What to Consider. (Gift Article)
At best, older workers will struggle to find health insurance that bridges the years before they qualify for Medicare at age 65.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This seems like a pretty big deal: donors made illegal contributions to Susan Collins and then were awarded lucrative contracts after her office intervened with the Navy. An FBI investigation was dropped under Trump. www.propublica.org/article/fbi-...
To skirt campaign finance laws and conceal the source of the funds, Navatek planned to funnel the donation through a shell company. The CEO wanted assurance that Collins would know where
the money came from. Reed confirmed that she would, the executive said - and that Navatek would get its government contracts.
After the Corner Bakery meeting, Navatek's CEO, Martin Kao, sent an initial $150,000 to the Collins super PAC using the shell company. Two months later, he told Navatek executives that Collins committed to getting the company $32 million in naval contracts, according to an internal company email reviewed by ProPublica.
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Andrew Quemere @andrewqmr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
A couple went on a Fox News podcast and claimed the state of #Massachusetts took away their teen because they won't help the teen transition. But it's actually because the father was charged with beating and threatening to kill the teen and the mother was charged with witness intimidation.
wbur.org
Mass. parents' story about child's gender transition complicated by court records
Joseph Kutzko was charged with assaulting the child in January 2025, not long before the child was removed from the family’s home. Mother Arlene Kutzko was charged with witness intimidation in connect...
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Five corporations control 90% of the US media. Airlines have merged from 12 major carriers in 1980 to 4 today. A handful of companies control the pharmaceutical industry. Four giants control 80% of meat processing. The evidence of corporate concentration is everywhere.
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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Christ, these people are monsters. Just monsters. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
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Scott Nover @scottnover.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
BREAKING: TV pool will not be providing coverage of presidential events until further notice b/c of CNN's ban, pool chair and FOX News Washington Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton said. It's effectively a boycott by the fellow members — ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX: www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
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ndweiss @11tulips.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Borowitz!
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
So in addition to being a former clerk to SCOTUS Justice Neil Gorsuch, Mike Davis’ lobbying clients include Hewlett Packard and Walmart. Have the CEOs of those companies been asked to “disavow” and “sever their relationships” with Mike Davis?? He is a grotesque racist.
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Billie Jean Sweeney @billiejsweeney.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
A glimpse at how hateful transphobic propaganda is stoked on X. Prologue: A Finnish doctor and anti-trans campaigner co-authored a paper five months ago🧵
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Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
a lot of people act like there's a trade being offered where we give up trans athletes in sports and in exchange fascism is defeated forever
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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
"America’s mega-donors are overwhelmingly backing Donald Trump’s Republicans in this year’s race for Congress, as billionaires from Silicon Valley to Wall Street bankroll the party’s midterm push."
giftarticle.ft.com
US billionaires line up to bankroll Republicans’ election push
Ultra-wealthy overwhelmingly back Donald Trump’s party over Democrats as money floods into midterms race
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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
"Two men deported to Equatorial Guinea by the Trump administration were hooded, bound, beaten with guns and shoved down a flight of stairs recently by police officers at a remote hotel where Trump administration deportees are being held indefinitely..." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/18/w...
nytimes.com
A Central African Hotel Has Become a Nightmare Prison for U.S. Deportees
Witnesses say men were hooded and beaten in Equatorial Guinea. The autocratic government there is a partner in President Trump’s deportation program.
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Trump banning media outlets from the WH over their coverage is unlikely to affect their reporting much, but it is yet another example of how the right wing definition of “free speech” is that they can say what they want and you can say what they want. (Gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
theatlantic.com
Speak at Your Own Risk
Donald Trump’s attacks on the First Amendment
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David Darmofal @daviddarmofal.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Gold Statues and Staff Cuts: How Trump Has Disrupted America’s Parks Maintenance projects have been put off around the country and resources diverted to the president’s favored projects in Washington.
nytimes.com
How Trump Has Disrupted National Parks (Gift Article)
Maintenance projects have been put off around the country and resources diverted to the president’s favored projects in Washington.
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Dan Pizzuta @danpizzuta.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I don't really follow politics
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Riki Wilchins @rikiwilchins.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
@rikiwilchins.bsky.social NYT "Idaho lost 94 of the 268 physicians who were practicing obstetrics when the ban took effect, a 35 percent decline in the first two years. About half of Idaho’s 44 counties lack a practicing OB GYN."
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Charlotte Clymer @charlotteclymer.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
It's pretty damn impressive how much ground Mayor Mamdani has been able to cover after only nine months in office on a wide range of basic quality-of-life issues in NYC. I was reading through the numbers this morning, and they're kinda astonishing. (thread)
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