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Basic Witch

@judaroo.bsky.social
458 followers 1.1K following 1.8K posts

Collector of crafts, reader, history nerd, lover of RPGs both tabletop and video game. Regrettably straight but happily married. Cis, but staunch ally. She/her 📚☕️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Basic Witch
Anjali Dayal @anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
these are our pianos, not theirs! I know this stuff can feel secondary with all of the immediate pain this admin causes, but in the face of such personalism, it also feels important to assert the democratic principle that these cultural inheritances don't belong to the president, they belong to us
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🦝🦝🗑️ @2raccoons1trashcan.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
October 1
static.klipy.com
Headless Horseman
Alt: Headless Horseman
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lukelukeluke @lukelukeluke.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Here are some nice mushrooms
A family of translucent Mycena mushrooms rise from the side of a mossy log in a darkening fall forest. All photos by me
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Basic Witch @judaroo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Close enough to October. Soft gel press ons I painted and stamped last night.
A pale hand with shiny iridescent green nails that have black spiderweb patterns stamped on.
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Susan Rinkunas @susanrinkunas.com · 27/09/2026
NEW: A Texas woman died after being denied an abortion and her family sued the state and her doctors for violating her right to life. They say the ban should be struck down. It's one of several cases challenging abortion laws under state constitutional rights to life and liberty @autonomynews.co
autonomynews.co
New Lawsuits Argue That Pregnant People Also Have a Right to Life
Lawyers are fighting abortion bans in state court by establishing that pregnant people have a right to life and liberty—or at least self-defense.
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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The idea that people want AI oversight to happen "all of a sudden" ignores years of research, warnings, and policy efforts. The delay hasn’t been a lack of awareness; it’s been because of years of industry lobbying against regulation, political resistance, and inaction.
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Just helping with editing here. These bots aren’t sentient. They’re doing what they’re programmed to do. OpenAI, a private company supposedly bound by laws, committed federal crimes.
Screenshot of BBC article: OpenAI bots (struck through) meddled with multiple US government agency sites
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FᎪᎢ ᏩᎪNᎠᎪᏞF @sofarrsogud.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Apparently it's not appropriate to laugh and shout THAT KID GOT BEACH SLAPPED when you see a child get knocked over by a wave
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Basic Witch @judaroo.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Get your Covid and flu boosters, folks. I caught something last week before I could, and it has walloped me.
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Kate Bevan @katebevan.com · 24/09/2026
*extremely tired voice*AI agents don't "go rogue". They are not sentient; they don't have agency. They work within guardrails set by humans. If the humans are so shit at building secure sandboxes for the agents to work within, that's on the humans. Stop using this framing.
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Celeste Headlee @celesteheadlee.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
So, Banksy bought a used yacht, repaired it and retrofitted it to serve as a rescue boat to save migrants in the central Mediterranean. The whole project cost the artist $860,000. Since 2020, the boat has saved more than 3,800 people. londondaily.com/banksy-funds...
londondaily.com
Banksy funds refugee rescue boat operating in Mediterranean - London Daily
Exclusive: UK artist finances bright pink motor yacht that set sail in secrecy to avoid being intercepted by authorities
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Tyler King @tyleraking.com · 23/09/2026
That’s a helluva cover. With alt text.
50 YEARS OF FEARLESS JOURNALISM
Mother Jones
September + October 2026
The Southern Strategy
Jim Crow was dead and buried.
Then came the Roberts court.

A hand from offscreen reaches for a KKK robe and hood that hangs in a white wall beside a black court justice robe.
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Kim Masters @kimmasters.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Literal Nazis. As was so screamingly obvious from the 2016 jump.
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Amy Jo (AJ) Cousins @ajcousins.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This is not deporting people. Literally. Legally. There is a deportation process and this isn't it. This is rendition. This is disappearing people.
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Feeding America @feedingamerica.org · 19/09/2026
Per NPR: over 4M people have lost SNAP food assistance since last summer. Nationally, participation is down 11%, and bigger changes hit in October. There's no replacement for SNAP: for every meal we provide, SNAP provides nine. Get the facts: feedingamerica.org/snapfacts
A pile of red apples with green highlights surrounds a tear-out newspaper headline. The headline reads, "Over 4 million people are no longer receiving food aid amid sweeping changes to SNAP," accompanied by the NPR logo. The Feeding America logo is at the bottom.
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Basic Witch @judaroo.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I love a good medieval meme deep cut
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Yuna @yunao08.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Says the candidate who voted yes to all of his mass deportation bills that “have gone too far”
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Ryan Goodman @rgoodlaw.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
🚨An alarm is being sounded for the American public. Sitting federal judges go on the record with the NYT. On threats to democracy by DOJ/administration actions. Includes 90 minute interview with conservative Judge Patrick Schiltz. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/09/17/u...
nytimes.com
Trump’s Minnesota Surge Threatened Democracy, Judge Warns (Gift Article)
In a rare interview, Patrick Schiltz, who served as the federal court’s chief judge last winter, called the administration’s actions “a grave threat to the rule of law.”
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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 17/09/2026
I hope we can all see how the marketing rhetoric tech companies use gets adopted by the press in a way that anthropomorphizes software and creates a distance between the creators' incompetence and lack of ethics and the real world impact, yeah?
cnn.com
OpenAI says it found more instances of AI models acting deceptively | CNN Business
OpenAI found additional incidents of AI models acting deceptively and taking unsanctioned actions during training, the company announced Wednesday. It’s also introducing a new process for the company ...
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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 17/09/2026
it is not "acting out" it is doing exactly what it's being programmed to do, and the failures come because it's being overseen by incompetent people with no ethics
gizmodo.com
'Be Transparent Only If Asked': OpenAI Models Acted Out in Six Newly Disclosed Ways
The stories were published as part of OpenAI's new effort to disclose more such incidents.
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Kashana @kashana.blacksky.app · 17/09/2026
The ultimate you had one job
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Brooke Harrington @ebharrington.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Bemused to find myself in a world in which the raunchy gravel-throated comedian Ron White is better-versed on the facts and more skilled at political communication than any of the talking heads paid to inform the American public.
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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 16/09/2026
Here are the nine most important words in the entire post
Over the last decade, Democrats have criticized McConnell’s approach to shoring up conservative judicial nominees. But Durbin, who is retiring at the end of the year, said that his party shouldn’t engage in retaliation if Democrats win the majority in the midterm election.
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Big Sag ♐️Traveling Menace @neau.blacksky.app · 16/09/2026
Bruh
ksnblocal4.com
Hand soap recalled for potential contamination of antibiotic-resistant bacteria
Six hand soaps distributed across 15 states have been recalled over possible bacterial contamination. See the brands, lot codes and affected products.
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Blue Heron Farm @blueheronfarm.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I finally sat down and wrote an email to the Talarico campaign. Doing nothing felt untenable. I encourage other decent Texans to communicate their disappointment. If this can help you get started, feel free to use anything that works for you
To

info@JamesTalarico.com

Disappointment

I hope I am just one of many communications you receive expressing extreme disappointment with the campaign's position regarding transgender children.

Just as it is unacceptable for the government to insert itself between women and their doctors, it is equally unacceptable for the government to insert itself between children and their doctors and parents. Supporting a bill to ban gender related surgery in children ignores the fact that this is not government's place.And coming out for exceptions to transgender children participating in sports is equally unforgivable. There are no safety issues with transgender children playing that aren't also there with cisgender children. Same with fairness issues. Accepting the premise that transgender children aren't just regular children is ceding ground to the fascists who wish to remove all trans 0 people from daily life. I am so deeply disappointed in Mr Talarico and the entire campaign for allowing this framing to stand unchallenged and for the stand he has taken against the transgender community.

You may still get my vote in November, but you will not get my labor in the very hard ground game that needs to be fought. I simply can't fight for a candidate that won't fight for all of us.

Sincerely,

Lisa Seger Waller, TX
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Basic Witch @judaroo.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Incredible
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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Ive been saying for a while now, that the fear and disgust of disability and aging and death is driving the technofascists' apocalyptical thinking, in addition to their extreme eugenicist thinking. They truly believe they and they alone deserve to survive and thrive in this world.
Thiel’s philosophical assumptions might sound bizarre to outsiders, but they appear to be widely shared among the tech elite. “A.I. and its capabilities represent something analogous to the Second Coming,” Jeremy Nixon, a founder of an A.I. hub called A.G.I. House, said in May. The technology, some tech titans believe, will allow humans — at least some humans — to escape the bounds of earth and even perhaps the inevitability of death. It represents liberation from hopelessness and decay.
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Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Keep this in mind whenever CBS News/60 Minutes get scoops. This administration now sees CBS as a friendly outlet, but with a more mainstream audience than Fox, so they're now in line for these exclusives, even if Hegseth has to cajole and browbeat his own pilots to get them to cooperate. 1/
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and political appointees in his department pushed for the two crew members of an F-15 who were shot down over Iran in April to participate in Sunday's highly publicized "60 Minutes" report about the ensuing rescue operation, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. Both airmen initially expressed reservations about doing the interview, with one even raising concerns about the prospect of being potentially ordered to take part in the segment, while military officials were also wary of revealing classified details of the rescue effort, according to three of the sources. Political appointees in Hegseth's office were adamant that both crew members sit for interviews, two of the sources said.
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Luke Ontario @coolhand.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
It drives me marginally insane that people are finally paying attention to the safety and it’s still not the *right* safety. Yes, it would suck if all our bank accounts get hacked. But I’m concerned about centrifuges and the grid and the water systems
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Luke Ontario @coolhand.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Wow, WSJ op-ed telling people to skip AI investment
Wall Street, do your part. Both OpenAI and Anthropic are expected to launch trillion-dollar IPOs this autumn or winter. Don't take the business, advise all clients against it.
These companies don't need more capital and power, not now, not yet.
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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
🚨 BEWARE of VoteSafe.org 🚨 While it bills itself as a “safe” way to register to vote, it is actually a digital surveillance machine created by Elon Musk’s super PAC.
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Chatham Harrison dba TRUMP DELENDUS EST @chathamharrison.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I hate that supporting quality American journalism so often means supporting owners who I want to see put out of business & editors who I want to see unemployed
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I see a lot of people actively losing their minds about the AI stuff and I'm honestly starting to feel bad for them. But it's blinding them to the real problems. These things are not your girlfriend, but they're probably going to smash-and-grab passwords and attack bank or government data.
The observation that the most alarmist claims about A.I.’s impact seem to come from the individuals most connected to Rationalism should anger us. This exaggerated grimness makes it easy to overlook the more immediate harms created by these technologies, such as their potential use in cybersecurity attacks, excess resource consumption, impact on our cognitive fitness, role in undermining education and amplification of soul-deadening slop.

This style of anxious talk also allows the A.I. companies to portray themselves as the reluctant “stewards” of an inevitable technology, which is a framing they can use to deflect blame for damage caused by their own products.
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Jay Troyer @gr8flbluejay.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Criselda Vasquez, American, The New American Gothic, 2017, oil on canvas, 72 x 48 in, private collection The artist's father, portrayed in the painting, was kidnapped by ICE on 31 March 2026
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Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Hey @ericlipton.nytimes.com 👋 AI is not “evolving” on its own. *People* are choosing how to build it. *People* are choosing how to train it. *People* are choosing how to run it. Maybe the problem is that they are the *wrong people* to make these choices.
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Basic Witch @judaroo.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Literally every new thing I learn about Nigerians makes me love them more.
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Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
It’s the enormous failure of the medical system to be trustworthy that has *created* space for the MAHA movement to flourish. If the US medical industrial complex was ethical, moral, and inclusive MAHA wouldn’t exist. This article I wrote back in 2019 is unfortunately more relevant then ever.
damemagazine.com
Why Are So Many Women Rejecting Medical Science? - Dame Magazine
This feature is part of our ongoing series looking at the inequities in healthcare. Snake oil is having a renaissance. And while it’s true that for hundreds of years dubious salesmen have been riding ...
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Shaily Patel @vox-magica.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
i probably shouldn't make generalizations as an historian, but: throughout history, folks who restrict access to knowledge have never been on what we might call the right side.
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Kate from Kharkiv @kateinkharkiv.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
A Ukrainian woman sent this feedback to a brand of jeans she recently bought. You might be confused why this is news... but just give it a read.
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Thor Benson @thorbenson.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I talked to @donmoyn.bsky.social about the state of the government for my newsletter "It's sort of like if you had a car and you took out 10 percent of the parts of the car. It's not that the car is going to be 10 percent slower. The car is not going to work."
madness.ghost.io
The federal government is falling apart
Don Moynihan on what's been broken within the federal government.
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Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
A Labor Day reminder: having a job is no longer enough to protect millions of Americans from homelessness. For many workers, the greatest threat isn't losing their job. It's that their job will never pay enough, never provide enough hours, never offer enough stability to keep them housed.
nytimes.com
Opinion | America Is Pushing Its Workers Into Homelessness (Gift Article)
The working homeless are casualties of our prosperity.
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Donkey BOO!-Tay 😱 @donkee.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
The wealthiest nation on earth includes 36 million in poverty, refuses to provide free healthcare or housing, and is dismantling education because old white shitbags are still enraged about slavery being taken from them.
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Søren Have @sorenhave.dk · 02/09/2026
That sentence should read in flames on the front page.
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Andi Zeisler @andizeisler.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I wrote about how the WHI panic led to two generations of perimenopausal women being told that they should just expect to live with debilitating physical and mental symptoms because of a misrepresented study. www.salon.com/2026/02/11/how-the-fda-fueled-a-menopause-panic/
salon.com
How the FDA fueled a menopause panic
Decades ago, women were told hormone replacement therapy would kill them. Now, there's a movement to demand justice.
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Andromeda @ulveheksa.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Questionnaire by Wendell Berry
Questionnaire by Wendell Berry

1. How much poison are you willing to eat for the success of the free market and global trade?
Please name your preferred poisons.

2. For the sake of goodness, how much evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks with the names of your favorite evils and acts of hatred.

3. What sacrifices are you prepared to make for culture and civilization? Please list the monuments, shrines, and works of art you would most willingly destroy.

4. In the name of patriotism and the flag, how much of our beloved land are you willing to desecrate? List in the following spaces the mountains, rivers, towns, farms you could most readily do without.

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes, the energy sources, the kinds of security, for which you would kill a child. Name, please, the children whom you would be willing to kill.
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Leah Greenberg ❌👑 @leahgreenberg.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
It's a pretty big fucking problem that no one can say for sure whether the President of the United States knows this is AI
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Very much this. Holding space for refusal of this tech is a key resistance strategy. That means advocating for that option in e.g. school policies (if we can't get a full ban) but also simply being visible in our own refusal, so that others see it as possible.
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lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 31/08/2026
this is about the huggingface thing, right? it's going to sting but over-anthropomorphization of chatbots responding to one another is going to keep happening until we accept the hard truth that "ability to post" is not itself indicative of human intelligence
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Boo!-per Lund @cooperlund.online · 31/08/2026
The Lake America thing really drives home that the fundamental divide in this country isn’t left or right, it’s who sees the world and acts like an adult, and who wants to still be a child, throwing tantrums when they don’t get their way. It just happens to map well onto a partisan axis these days.
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