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Kate

@katastrophe98.bsky.social
1.4K followers 1.2K following 2.2K posts

She/Her. Environmental scientist. Aspiring worthwhile human being. Solidarity is the only way. South Jersey. Yes…it’s the best state.

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Reposted by Kate
Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 10h
A whole political movement should be stood up against this arrogant and sociopathic bullshit www.politico.com/newsletters/...
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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 13h
major democracies electing far-right populist governments
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Chicago Tribune @chicagotribune.com · 04/10/2026
Immigrants including refugees, human trafficking survivors and people who’ve been granted asylum but don’t have green cards are losing their Medicaid coverage under provisions of HR1, also called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
chicagotribune.com
About 9,300 immigrants in Illinois to lose Medicaid this week because of One Big Beautiful Bill
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I don’t think everyone realizes how bad things are for US science: For the fiscal year that just ended, the Trump regime withheld $1.4 billion from the National Science Foundation’s research budget, which is about 1/5 of its primary research budget.
nytimes.com
National Science Foundation Diverted $1.4 Billion in Science Funds Mandated by Congress (Gift Article)
The move, affecting about one-fifth of the National Science Foundation’s primary research budget, is the latest sign of how the White House is asserting more control over grants.
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Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
My list has always been Hegseth, Miller and Vought. All three are have encouraged “high crimes and Misdemeanors” that go to the balance of separation of powers.
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Eric Lipton NYT @ericlipton.nytimes.com · 03/10/2026
JUST POSTED: Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have pushed a multibillion oil deal with Russia as part of peace talks that will bring profits to their family business partners. A new front for Trump-era conflicts of interest. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/u...
nytimes.com
U.S.-Russia Talks on Ukraine Now Involve an Oil Deal Tied to Trump Allies (Gift Article)
President Vladimir V. Putin brought up a sale of Russian energy assets with President Trump’s envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, pushing a deal that raises new questions about conflicts of inter...
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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Endless corruption.
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dan sinker @dansinker.com · 03/10/2026
You'd think that the Democratic party would be making hay over their opposition's biggest donor fighting to let his bot keep making revenge porn.
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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
"The current level of political animosity is exactly what one would expect to see if an extremist faction attempted to rescind the hard-earned rights of the vast majority of the country’s citizens." There are not enough exclamation points to convey how I felt reading this paragraph
Screenshot of article which reads: From this perspective, the “both sides” frame falls apart. The prob-
lem is not that the parties are divided. The problem is the existential 
threat that a reempowered ethnonationalist strain poses to pluralistic 
U.S. democracy writ large. The current level of political animosity is 
exactly what one would expect to see if an extremist faction attempted 
to rescind the hard-earned rights of the vast majority of the country’s 
citizens. The only way to re-oppress most of a country is to use anti-
democratic and authoritarian tactics. And the only way to oppose those 
tactics is to push back as a population and clearly reject them. This is 
the argument happening in the United States, and its pathology is not 
anger—it is the movement to undermine a generation of rights.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Similarly, people keep asking me if immigration will get much better if Democrats retake Congress and the answer is "probably not." ICE is largely insulated from Congressional pushback (the 2026 budget reconciliation bill funded them through 2029) and hearings and subpoenas can only do so much.
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Kate @katastrophe98.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I just want all these innocent boys to tell me what they thought “free pussy” meant. That’s all. Explain it to me like I’m 5.
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Matthew Gertz @mattgertz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
They're holding up a major escalation in Iran and a crackdown on abortion until after the midterms to limit political damage. To the extent that the last two years have been a right-wing smash-and-grab operation, the next two will be worse.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Renee Good's death was a moment where the pro-ICE movement lost standing by demanding people ignore the evidence of their own eyes. Reality mattered. So they will reshoot it as fiction.
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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 01/10/2026
Man, imagine you're minding your own business, getting kind of drunk with your friends at a picturesque brewery in Maine, when suddenly John Roberts walks by and you get to start heckling him. Must have felt incredible. That's the dream. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/01/u...
The chief justice used to preside over a Supreme Court whose members were afforded more privacy and freedom than many other public officials. Once, years ago, Mr. Lipson and the chief justice found themselves up the peninsula from Port Clyde without a car, Mr. Lipson recalled in an interview. So he stuck out his thumb by the side of the road and a pickup truck pulled over. He and the nation’s top jurist hopped in the back and hitchhiked back to town.

Now, Mr. Lipson said, he is cautious about introducing his friend to strangers. This year, on an outing to nearby Monhegan Island, people recognized the chief justice as he walked by a brewery and started to chant: You should be ashamed.
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
For a long time I've wanted a sense of how trump has or hasn't interacted with chatbots (we know he posts a lot of slop sure). And this TIME anecdote about Grok arguably leading Trump into war is just extremely bracing
Since returning to office, Trump has marveled at AI’s capabilities. He is increasingly in thrall to the tech executives courting him. In December 2025, Elon Musk returned to the Oval Office for a clandestine meeting. Trump spent hours asking Grok, Musk’s AI chatbot, questions about his presidency and legacy, according to an official present. At the time, Trump was ordering missile strikes against Venezuelan boats he alleged were smuggling drugs into the U.S. He asked Grok how Venezuelans would react if the U.S. captured Maduro. According to the official present, the chatbot responded that Maduro was a repressive and deeply unpopular dictator and that many Venezuelans would likely celebrate his downfall. After Trump ordered the mission to seize Maduro, the following month, celebrations broke out in the streets. Trump, according to officials, came away thinking Grok was ingenious.
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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 01/10/2026
Hard to overstate just how much blood Elon Musk has on his hands, and how dismaying it is to see this legacy of violence and death swept under the rug because spaceships go zoom real good.
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Kate @katastrophe98.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Is anyone going to do anything about this?? JFC
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Washington Post Data Team @wpdatateam.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Since President Trump took over the Kennedy Center, the institution has borrowed everything its bank would lend it, dipped into money donors had given on the condition it never be spent and written off pledges from supporters who stopped paying. By @federicacocco.bsky.social & @naemas.bsky.social:
washingtonpost.com
The Kennedy Center was solvent when Trump took over. Then its finances collapsed.
The Post examined 15 years of the institution’s financial records to see why it went south after the president took over.
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Oliver Willis @owillis.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
the democrats who put themselves in a panic over hasan piker are the same democrats who push the party to be anti trans, and a generation ago were the ones saying we cant oppose the war in iraq these people are never right they doom the party they hurt america stop listening to them
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
This is the 59th death in ICE detention since Trump took office.
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 30/09/2026
This is the first @NYCHA property to receive investment through the Public Housing Preservation Trust — but it won't be the last. Public excellence must extend to public housing. Under our administration, it will.
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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Pretty clear to me there’s a very good case against this man for mass murder, and I’m saying that in as measured a fashion as I can. He’s order the killing of 234 people under no plausible war or legal justification. I am skeptical he will ever face legal accountability for til his but he should.
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Kate @katastrophe98.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
(of course, #notallmem) fucking men, man…
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Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The Trump regime’s Sept. 24 deportation flight to Haiti carried nearly two dozen former #TPS holders and six additional people whose asylum cases remain open: haitiantimes.com/2026/09/25/5...
haitiantimes.com
US deports 530 to Haiti in month since TPS ended
U.S. immigration authorities deported 39 people to Haiti on Thursday, bringing the number of total deportees to 529 since Temporary Protected Status ended, ONM said.
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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
These ads go in the same category as brazen, easily disproven lies after ICE killings. It’s not about persuasion. It’s a display of power. They could have passed them off as PAC-funded. They added “paid for by the U.S. government” because they want us to know they can break the law with impunity.
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Sam @samd.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
should be instructive for democrats that Magyar is living up to his promise to prosecute Orban officials for corruption and is continuing to poll extremely highly
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
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 · 30/09/2026
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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Gwen C. Katz @gwenckatz.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
That's a $96,318 fine for being raped.
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Can’t Stop Twinkling 💕💚 @proftolson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Letting people get potentially tortured while you decide if it is actual torture is a hell of a position to take.
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Nigella Lawson @nigella.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Thank YOU. I believe profoundly that the only correct response to pleasure is gratitude rather than guilt
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Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Can’t do student loan relief. Can’t mandate vaccines. Can’t help home owners. Can commit human rights abuses.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
And once again, real harms imposed on real people must be set aside until after real damage is done in order to privilege the unproven right of Trump to impose those harms
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Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
#BREAKING: Over dissents from the three Democratic appointees, #SCOTUS grants a stay in the third-country removals case; clears way for Trump admin. to continue removing non-citizens without a full chance to litigate the conditions in those countries (while also taking up the full merits appeal).
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The future of Northern Ireland is reasonable people on both sides finding solidarity and a bit of craic.
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Dante Atkins @danteatkins.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
You can't get a better insight into how the right wing works than this Eric Schmitt/Jack Smith stuff. His team didn't know the difference between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Atlanta Hawks They spun an elaborate conspiracy theory around it They lined up all the MAGA podcasters about it.
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Kate @katastrophe98.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I see the only man with any sense of urgency about Donald Trump is testifying in front of an entire group of people who stuck their heads in the sand…again.
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Nolan Hicks @ndhapple.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
“Exclusive: ‘I have no one’: Inside a Texas immigration court where children fight to stay in the US” — www.cnn.com/2026/09/28/p...
cnn.com
Inside a Texas immigration court where children fight to stay in the US | CNN Politics
Migrant children as young as 2 are showing up at immigration courts nationwide, many without attorneys, to try make their case to stay in the US and avoid deportation.
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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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Simon Lester @simonlester.com · 29/09/2026
Interesting details on how the Iowa steel deal got done. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/28/u...
Mesabi executives have leaned on a Trump-world insider as the company has sought to expand its footprint in the United States. The company hired Jason Miller, a longtime Trump adviser, as its lobbyist, paying him at least $240,000 through his company SHW Partners, according to lobbying disclosure records. The government of India also hired Mr. Miller’s company, paying $150,000 per month for “strategic counsel, tactical planning and government relations assistance on policy matters before the U.S. government,” according to federal filings under the Foreign Agent Registration Act.
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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Good times for Ken Paxton and Roger Marshall
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Paul Voosen @voosen.me · 28/09/2026
New Horizons is now *three days away* from shutting off its two heliophysics instruments, simply because NASA has not provided the $2M in funding it had promised to the mission last year or this year. There is no science basis for shutting these off. Our earlier coverage:
science.org
NASA’s New Horizons mission may shut down two instruments over lack of funding
Decision risks “incalculable loss” of data from the edge of the Sun’s influence, scientists say
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Greatest trick AI leaders have pulled is convincing many people—especially influential people in govt, media, and business—that their software is intelligent, independent, yet never culpable. Humans build it, humans deploy it, but no one bears responsibility for the things that happen when they do.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Oligarchs. The word for very rich businesspeople directly connected to the top of the government and playing a role in high-level government functions is “oligarchs.” Way beyond lobbying, donating, and advisory councils. Trump brought them on his trip to China too. America has oligarchs now.
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
There are too many people in congress who would be happier doing this, and that's part of why our politics is so stupid bsky.app/profile/avit...
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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Wu on redistricting if Dems get control: "You do the exact same thing that they did to you until they say mercy" and agree to national, bipartisan reform.
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Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Grand scheme of things, stuff like this is small ball esp compared to all this gang’s other abuses and atrocities but: I’ll say it again, the broken windows theory of crime is wrong EXCEPT for political and business elites like these. Every failure to crack down hard on the little, hatch act…
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Kate @katastrophe98.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
If we ever want anything good we can’t let these people be part of polite society.
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