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James Barnes

@jrbarnes.net
171 followers 358 following 23 posts

Follow my posts from the Fediverse: bsky.app/profile/hachyderm.jrbarnes… Donate to your local bail fund: bit.ly/localbailfunds PFP by the talented: vellumoth.carrd.co He/him | Ally 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧🖤

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by James Barnes
Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 19h
this really is impeachable for any president, but really grotesque coming from a regime that cut life-saving development aid because they said it was not efficient
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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 16h
The White House accord on AI that was signed by all the big tech oligarchs today misspells United States as “Unites States.”
Document signed by Trump, Sundar Pichai
Google
Dario Amodei
Anthropic
Mark Zuckerberg
Meta

Greg Brockman
OpenAl

Elon Musk
XAI

Jensen Huang
nvidia “Unites States”
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Dan of the Year @downwithdan.bsky.social · 17h
When you have no concept of how people engage with music
nicksaraev ~
@nicksaraev
X.com
I am not joking when I say this.
Spotify, Apple Music, and streaming in general is over.
Al music is now very, very good. You just don't know yet because all Al music circulating today is from ~2-3 generations ago.
Suno v6 pro et al has solved infinite personalized music.
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Lindsay Owens @lindsayowens.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"Gouged" is OUT! I started this book angry about all the ways corporations are ripping us off. I finished it hopeful, because once you know how they're doing it—you can start to fight back. Thanks to everyone who has been part of this. Now go read it.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 29/09/2026
Jack Smith: "Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation ... rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 election, he engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power"
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 29/09/2026
Jack Smith: "History teaches that the rule of law is rarely destroyed all at once. It's often weakened by attacks on the institutions and the public servants sworn to uphold it. Since January 2025, we have witnessed precisely such an effort."
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David Gilbert @davidgilbert.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
SCOOP A Pentagon influencer called liberal women a "pestilence" who will end western civilization. He's also: • Praised dictators like Franco and Pinochet • Said people without kids should not be allowed vote • Called immigrants "semihuman savages" www.wired.com/story/a-pent...
wired.com
A Pentagon Influencer Called Liberal Women a ‘Pestilence’ Who Will End Western Civilization
Kurt Schlichter was part of a task force rooting out so-called woke ideologies at the military’s war colleges. He has called to bar childless adults from voting.
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Jaz @jaz.sh · 27/09/2026
Okay so I've built a new Atlas, this time it lets you explore the conversations on Bluesky over the past 7 days graphically. It should update every ~6 hours and help you navigate the information environment that exists on here. I've learned a LOT about what people do here today... atlas.jazco.dev
atlas.jazco.dev
Atlas
A living map of what Bluesky is talking about: the past week's conversations, grouped into topics and regions and rebuilt every six hours.
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Jason Coward @drumshaman.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The sunrise at Molas Pass this morning did not disappoint. #Photography #Landscape #Nature #Outdoors #Colorado #Fallorado #Sunrise #SunriseSunday #Stunday #Mountains
A mountain valley at sunrise, with a small pond reflecting a vivid pink, purple, and orange sky, surrounded by evergreen forest, golden autumn aspens, and rugged mountain peaks.
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Shadowmac Photography 📸🇨🇦 @shadowmacphotos.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Autumn Shores - Chilliwack Lake, British Columbia 🇨🇦 #Autumn #Travel #BlueskyArtShow #Landscapephotography #Stunday #NaturePhotography #Wind #Colours #ChilliwackLake #BritishColumbia #Calm #Camp #Tranquility #Scape #Peaks #Photography #YourBCParks #PanoPhotos #Panorama #ShareCanGeo #Earth #Canada
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Reposted by James Barnes
404 Media @404media.co · 28/09/2026
Human contractors are reviewing Copilot users’ prompts and uploaded images, 404 Media has learned. The contractors are also bombarded with users’ requests for sexual AI images. @evystadium.bsky.social has more. Sccop here by @josephcox.bsky.social: www.404media.co/humans-readi...
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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I keep coming back to this clip against the background of AI companies infesting higher education. And I feel like I need to show this in class to students, for them to understand why not to trust these bastards
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Luke LeBrun @lukelebrun.ca · 26/09/2026
Tech companies suddenly decide they can, in fact, moderate content on their platforms after all
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026
Hey, ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson here. I’m taking over the account to tell you about my new story. For months, I posed as a problem gambler on DraftKings to test the company's "responsible gaming" safeguards. Spoiler alert: They made me a VIP — and I lost $10K. Here's how it all went down. 🧵
Selfie taken by ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson, a man wearing a backwards baseball cap and an orange T-shirt.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Once again, the Supreme Court prioritizes imaginary harms done to Trump by not allowing him to indulge in his conspiracy theories, as opposed to the very real harm done to citizens who may lose the ability to vote in this case.
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Bolts @boltsmag.org · 25/09/2026
Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins has long been known for his crusade against immigrants. “We cannot continue to absorb this population or we will end up in collapse like a third world county,” he said during his 2006 campaign for office.
boltsmag.org
 “We're Afraid on a Daily Basis”: How a Maryland Sheriff Targeted Immigrants Long Before ICE Raids Spiked - Bolts
Frederick County’s sheriff turned his office into a force multiplier for ICE before such collaboration became commonplace. As he again faces voters this year, the harm to immigrant communities is impossible to ignore.
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404 Media @404media.co · 20/09/2026
404 Media is revealing the name of Border Patrol's predictive policing units, which analyze financial data and have local cops pull people over. The people are not suspected of any particular crime. www.404media.co/a-secretive-...
404media.co
A Secretive DHS ‘Predictive Policing’ Unit is Analyzing Americans’ Financial Habits and Pulling Them Over
404 Media is revealing the name of Border Patrol's predictive policing units, which analyze financial data and have local cops pull people over. The people are not suspected of any particular crime.
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404 Media @404media.co · 17/09/2026
"Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions."
404media.co
‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft
"Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions."
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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 14/09/2026
hello you can not form useful policy coalitions with fascists they never actually support corporate accountability when it matters I feel like we've been over this
gizmodo.com
Bernie Sanders to Join Forces With Steve Bannon at ‘Pro-Human’ Conference
Strange times make for strange bedfellows.
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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 13/09/2026
You might ask: How can ICE levy a tax? What law gives legal authority for that? No law does; it is an illegal action. That is why the forthcoming proposed rule calls it a 'fee', which it certainly is not. I explain why on pages 5 and A-10, here—> www.rfberlin.com/network-pape...
rfberlin.com
Taxes on High-Skill Immigration: Demand and Supply Response in the International Student-OPT-Work Visa Pipeline
ROCKWOOL Foundation
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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 13/09/2026
This will devastate our research+innovation capacity, bedrock of the 21st century economy. 35% of *all* employed people in the US with STEM PhD degrees are both foreign-born *and* graduated from a US university. —> nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/292... Shutting them out is extremist folly.
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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 13/09/2026
Note that this is separate from and additional to the $100,000 tax on H-1B visas, which is the next step after OPT for about half of international students who want to stay and contribute to the US. The combined effect will be to make it practically impossible for most int'l students to stay.
federalregister.gov
Fee for Certain H-1B Petitions
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposes to establish a $103,265 fee, payable at the time of filing, for all H-1B cap-subject petitions, including those eligible for the advanced degree exem...
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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 12/09/2026
This colossal new tax will likely be charged to the university (!). Few universities — obviously — will pay. That will mean a collapse in access to OPT. That in turn will kneecap international enrollment at US universities, because the bridge OPT provides is a major reason students come—>
aeaweb.org
OPT Reforms and the Relative Supply of STEM Skills
(May 2026) - Since the late 2000s, reforms to the optional practical training (OPT) program have allowed international STEM graduates to work in the United States for up to three years after graduatio...
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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 12/09/2026
The US President's new proposal to tax international students has been approved by the White House for release this week. It's an unprecedented $100,000 tax on int'l grads who stay to work after graduation on Optional Practical Training (most grads do), a crucial bridge to remaining by any channel.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 13/09/2026
Abdul El-Sayed: "Weijia, with all due respect, this is the third time you've asked about a Twitch streamer ... their whole game is to make us fight culture wars so that we don't pay attention to the fact the president has made $2.2 billion ... "
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Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
JUST IN: A federal judge concludes that DHS leaders arbitrarily decided to cut FEMA staff by 50% even though it damaged the agency's ability to fulfill its mission — and leaders hid their comms about it on auto-delete Signal chains. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
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Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 11/09/2026
Just did a quick look around and I don't see very many headlines about the President of the US making people pledge allegiance to him personally while telling everyone to commit election fraud and "cheat like hell" to support his party. Seems like it should be a story?
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Stan Oklobdzija @stano.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
"Doctors, lawyers and engineers" is an international online Nazi trope. The "joke" is that non-White people are too stupid to be anything other than a criminal or someone who leeches social services. Read a Spanish newspaper about Ceuta, e.g., and you'll see "médicos y ingenieros" in the comments.
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Matt Negrin still host of Hardball on MSNBC @mattnegrin.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
if you're the abc news editor who wrote that the nyc mayor attending the 9/11 ceremony is attracting "growing criticism" solely because he's a muslim then you are the criticism you're writing about
ABC:
Mayor Mamdani says he'll attend 9/11 ceremony despite growing criticism
Mayor Mamdani says he will attend New York City's annual remembrance ceremony.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
See this chart? Workers’ share of the nation’s income is at the lowest it’s been since records began in 1947. Corporate profits’ share, on the other hand, is the highest it’s been since 1950. This is why we must build back worker power.
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Unprecedented corruption www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
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James Barnes @jrbarnes.net · 07/09/2026
Great day for a morning trail walk. More on Pixelfed: pixelfed.social/p/jbar/10026... #trails #nature #photography
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 06/09/2026
ProPublica spoke to dozens of people who had lived in homeless encampments when cities cleared them out in “sweeps.” We distributed notecards so people could tell us about the toll in their own words. ➡️ This is what they wrote:
Handwritten notecard. Prompt at the top asks: What object was most devastating for you to lose, and how have you been coping? Answer below: Dentures. Were thrown away and coping isn't somthing I can do. It’s made me feel ugly, unworthy, can’t go get a job with no teeth. So how can get off the streets until another pair can be made?
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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 04/09/2026
nice quote from Mandami comms person Emilia Rowland to the New York Times
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Daniel Ahmad @zhugeex.com · 04/09/2026
It takes you 20 paragraphs to get to the part of the article where they admit that Mamdani isn't paying the influencers and the reason they are posting videos of the stuff Mamdani is doing is because people are interested in watching it.
The mayor’s office says that it does not pay the influencers. Still, their proximity and access to a figure as popular as Mr. Mamdani can help increase their own social media following and, by extension, potentially put them in a position to attract paid content sponsorships from commercial brands. Some influencers said that when they feature Mr. Mamdani, the videos get more likes and viewers watch longer.
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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
it's insane they do this bend-over-backwards "critics say it raises questions" shit when the actual law just says "its illegal to put living people on currency"
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More Perfect Union @moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Google’s AI Mode is ripping people off, hitting shopper with prices that are an average of 21.6% higher — according to a new study. futurism.com/artificial-i...
futurism.com
Google's AI Mode Is Ripping Shoppers Off With Vastly Higher Prices, Study Claims
The same products are showing up as 21.6 percent more expensive on average in Google AI Mode compared to traditional search, a study found.
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Brennan Kenneth Brown ♾️ @brennan.day · 01/09/2026
Shopify, Stripe, Dell Technologies, Block, Cloudflare, Dropbox, Coinbase, OpenClaw, and TapTap. All companies that have given millions of dollars to a project run by a far-right white nationalist. Why are we okay with this? brennan.day/normalized-f...
brennan.day
Normalized Fascism in Open Source: $12 Million Given to DHH
Open source has become a safe harbor for far-right politics, from David Heinemeier Hansson's white-nationalist rhetoric and the Omarchy Foundation's $12 million in patron funding to so-called…
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 02/09/2026
There are endless studies showing this and also the financial and societal benefits of universal basic income and or housing-first policies but the U.S. never goes for any of it because it would require allowing the poor to receive benefits that the rich consider “undeserved”
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The Rocky Horror Picture Shōgun @mgobl.eu · 02/09/2026
What percentage do we have to hit before we can just say Americans, generally speaking? As in, “For Americans, generally speaking, a ‘minimal quality of life’ is out of reach,…” — 67 percent? 75 percent?
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Lev Parikian @levparikian.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
250 million birds flew across America last night, tracked by radar. Migration season is upon us, and it’s wilder than you could imagine. Birdcast’s live migration maps and forecasts (from Cornell Lab of Ornithology) are brilliant, and you can find them here. birdcast.org/migration-to...
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404 Media @404media.co · 28/08/2026
To get an idea of what we're dealing with when we talk about Flock, @jasonkoebler.bsky.social breaks down how the company paid researchers for a bogus study that the researchers themselves disavowed. Read the story from 2024: www.404media.co/researcher-w...
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Drew Scanlon @drewscanlon.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Hi Internet! I'm Drew and THIS IS MY FACE. If this GIF has ever brought you joy in the past, I humbly ask you to consider making a donation to the National MS Society. It would mean a lot to me and to those I know affected by the disease! Donate at blinkingguy.com
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Aida @aidap.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
This was document freely available and free to distribute. Lets preserve it the old fashioned way: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:eb3e6f89f9c71404643bc7b9bb6d74963017dda9&dn=Report_A_growing_threat_the_anti_rights_movement_in_the_UK_July.pdf Pop that into your friendly torrent program, no host to dmca.
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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 20/08/2026
I've never seen such an effort to censor a document as I have the Amnesty International report on gender critical groups because of JK Rowling. They removed the report from the Wayback Machine and now I got a DMCA strike on my Google Drive for having it. It was deleted and removed from my account.
A screenshot of an email viewed in dark mode with the subject line "Google DMCA Violation." The email from Google informs the recipient that they have received a notification under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that some of their materials allegedly infringe on copyrights. It explains the removal process, mentions that notice details will be posted on Lumen, warns against repeated violations, and lists one affected Google Drive URL at the bottomA nearly identical mobile browser screenshot of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. It shows a search for the same Amnesty International UK resources URL, resulting in the same message: "This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine."A mobile browser screenshot of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. A URL for an Amnesty International UK resources page is entered in the search bar, but the page displays the message: "This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine."
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dell cameron @dell.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
NEW: Flock has said for years that its cameras "cannot track individuals." We found the code for its new AI tool. It's preloaded w/ prompts like "Find me witness" & "find relatives." One tracks visitors of multiple hotels, another if you visit banks after midnight. www.wired.com/story/flock-...
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More Perfect Union @moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Palantir paid no U.S. federal income tax last year despite recording substantial profits. truthout.org/articles/pal...
truthout.org
Palantir Paid No Federal Income Tax. Its Global Tax Rate Is Just 1.4 Percent.
The infamous surveillance company paid $22.7 million in global corporate taxes while raking in $1.6 billion in profits.
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Eric Geller @ericjgeller.com · 13/08/2026
Trump tonight ordered the government to create a process that will let vetted companies hack cybercrime gangs. After years of debate about cyber privateers, this White House is going for it. Can't even begin to imagine all the legal questions this will raise. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...
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Worry Lines @worry--lines.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
🌼. #comicsky #webcomic #grief
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lowtax speedrun enjoyer @rickywlmsbong.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
this is a dead kennedys album cover
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