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Kausik

@kausikdatta22.bsky.social
518 followers 856 following 1.4K posts

Dipping my toes in the azure firmament. Opinions mine & mine alone. Usual disclaimers apply, of course. He/Him, distinctly Brown, human to cats.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Kausik
Return of the Cmonstermacques @cmonmaque.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Very happy to see Abdul Al-Sayed try to bridge the gap between the Muslim and Black communities in Michigan by reminding both groups of the iconic black leaders who were also Muslim. Leaders like Malcom X, Muhammed Ali and of course Barack Obama.
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Jon Ossoff @ossoff.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
This is a sitting member of Congress who called for immigrants to be executed by throwing them to their deaths out of helicopters. Mike Collins personally amplified neo-Nazi propaganda online. It's disqualifying for a member of Congress and for a candidate for the U.S. Senate.
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Abdul El-Sayed @abdulelsayed.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
The wealthiest in our country should pay their fair share into Social Security. Scrap the cap!
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Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof @evanbernick.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
read that sentence. it is a description of political persecution. anyone giving this the time of day as a serious legal case is a fool.
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The Wall Street Journal @wsj.com · 14/10/2026
The federal investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar aims to build a case to strip her of her U.S. citizenship and ultimately deport her, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the probe on.wsj.com/4zBOcZ9
on.wsj.com
The federal investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar aims to build a case to strip her of her U.S. citizenship and ultimately deport her, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the probe
Authorities have subpoenaed members of the Democratic congresswoman’s family as part of a broader look at their immigration paperwork.
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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Ohio's early in-person voting has drawn nearly four times as many voters as it did at the same point in the 2022 midterms, according to data from the Ohio secretary of state's office.
ms.now
Ohio early in-person voting nearly quadruples from 2022 midterms
Nearly 195,000 Ohioans have voted in person as of Oct. 13, compared with about 50,000 at the same point in 2022. But mail ballot requests are down as Ohio’s closely watched Senate and gubernatorial ra...
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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 15/10/2026
And Biden didn’t start a war with Iran that disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and sent gas prices soaring. But sure, let’s compare.
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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 15/10/2026
We need to set the record straight about this because right wingers are trying to compare $5 gas under Biden to gas prices under Trump. Yes, gas hit $5 under Biden. For about 10 days in June 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Then prices came back down. #BlueWaveIn20Days
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NBC News @nbcnews.com · 14/10/2026
BREAKING: Justice Department issues subpoenas in investigation into progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar’s immigration status, including to members of her family.
nbcnews.to
DOJ issues subpoenas in probe of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s immigration status, including to family members
The subpoenas were sent just days before federal agents searched the progressive ‘squad’ member’s home.
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Joshua G. Schraiber @jgschraiber.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
This is straight up, plain and simple authoritarianism. This is the canonical impeachable offense
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Ilhan Omar @ilhanmn.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.
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camofarc.bsky.social @camofarc.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
This is ICE/CPB/DHS in comprehensive detail. TY @vermontgmg.bsky.social
doomsdayscenario.co
Trump's Tyranny, Part I: ICE's Reign of Terror
A look at life in the very un-ordinary of times
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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
BREAKING WSJ: The Trump admin's investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar is aimed at building a case to strip her of her U.S. citizenship and ultimately deport her, according to U.S. officials and other people familiar with the probe.
wsj.com
Ilhan Omar Investigation Aims to Build Case for Stripping Her Citizenship
Authorities have subpoenaed members of the Democratic congresswoman’s family as part of a broader look at their immigration paperwork.
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HuffPost @huffpost.com · 15/10/2026
A government watchdog agency found that ICE’s body-worn camera policy is outdated.
huffpost.com
ICE Refuses Watchdog Guidance To Use Automatic Body-Worn Cameras
ICE Refuses Watchdog Guidance To Use Automatic Body-Worn Cameras
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Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
This is illegal and (a) it’s not even close to defensible and (b) shouldn’t be tolerated.
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NPR @npr.org · 14/10/2026
A federal judge ruled late Tuesday that President Trump cannot ban news organizations from covering him at the White House because he does not like the nature of their coverage - at least, not until the matter goes to a formal trial. n.pr/4yNJpn9
n.pr
CNN, MS NOW and Politico prevail against White House — for now
A federal judge ruled late Tuesday that President Trump cannot ban news organizations from covering him at the White House because he does not like the nature of their coverage - at least, not until the matter goes to a formal trial.
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Brian Stelter @brianstelter.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
"The Pentagon has named one of its own public affairs officials to run the publication Stars & Stripes, and he will keep his Pentagon job while doing it. This places a single official inside both the office that shapes the military's message, and the newsroom charged with covering it independently"
military.com
Pentagon PR Official Takes Over Stars and Stripes Months After Editor, Publisher Kicked Out
Christian Devine, an executive director and principal adviser in the Pentagon's public affairs office, was appointed weeks after terminations.
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Liz Szabo @lizszabo.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Helen's death is a huge loss for health journalism and anyone who cares about infectious diseases, which she covered better than anyone else in the profession. Helen Branswell, whose reporting on public health drew acclaim, dies at 69 www.statnews.com/2026/10/13/h... via @statnews.com
statnews.com
Helen Branswell, whose reporting on infectious diseases and public health drew acclaim, dies at 69
Helen Branswell, STAT's infectious disease reporter who earned the respect of experts and public health officials with her accessible, prescient dispatches, has died at age 69.
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Truthout @truthout.org · 13/10/2026
Mike Rogers, Abdul El-Sayed's Republican opponent for U.S. Senate, was caught on a leaked audio mocking voters' concerns about rising costs. “Oh my gosh, coffee went up,” Rogers says on tape, “You know, horror!”
truthout.org
Leaked Audio Features Michigan GOP Candidate Mike Rogers Mocking Voters’ Affordability Concerns
Rogers minimized worries about rising costs due to Trump administration policies as “derangement.”…
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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
I went through the WHO Disease Outbreak Notice about the pneumonia of undetermined aetiology in Siberia. SPOILER ALERT: Russia is lying. About what is less clear but I have some ideas 👇 rasmussenretorts.substack.com/p/the-plague...
rasmussenretorts.substack.com
The Plague That Never Wasn’t
Is it a lab leak? Is it a bioweapon? Is it even plague? Who knows! But if it was a lab leak, Darya Shipilova didn’t know about it.
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Mr. Dan Zak @mrdanzak.com · 13/10/2026
Since his first trip to Moscow in 1987, Trump “has loudly repeated Russian propaganda … Upon returning from that trip, he took out full-page ads in three newspapers, attacking American alliances ... For nearly 40 yers, he has been saying much the same thing.” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1...
theatlantic.com
Trump’s Message to Ukraine Is Now Crystal Clear
The president’s actions over the past 72 hours look like an effort to force Kyiv to surrender.
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Oliver Willis @owillis.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
So I looked into what ads Elon Musk is actually running online with all that money he’s spending on the midterms. The star of those ads? AOC. AOC. AOC. And more AOC. Why is Elon Musk so obsessed with AOC? www.dailykos.com/stories/2026...
dailykos.com
Why is Elon Musk so obsessed with AOC?
Musk is spending hundreds of millions in an effort to preserve the GOP’s congressional majority.
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The Editorial Board @editorialboard.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Evangelicals do not have a monopoly on the meaning of the Bible. In fact, this argument can be and should be thrown back at them, given that so many elite evangelicals say things to suggest they have not read the Bible. www.cnn.com/2026/10/13/p...
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Oliver Willis @owillis.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
This ad Elon Musk is running in Michigan against House candidate William Lawrence says if he wins we will have a Congress of 435 AOCs Promise?
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Bat Krown 🦇🎃 @katbrownwrites.com · 13/10/2026
The irony that the BBC blurred out the Protect the Dolls slogan on a Strictly contestant’s tshirt for their social accounts as “political” but will happily dedicate a two-part doc to the woman who uses her billions to fund lawsuits to persecute transgender people www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...
bbc.co.uk
Two-part documentary on J.K. Rowling announced by BBC Factual and BBC Scotland
The documentary will use her life as a lens through which to explore three decades of profound social, political and technological change
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News for 38 Year Olds @newsfor38yearolds.com · 13/10/2026
How many ways can the Trump administration clamp down on international researchers? STAT News www.statnews.com/2026/10/13/health-…
statnews.com
How many ways can the Trump administration clamp down on international researchers?
STAT News
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The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 12/10/2026
President Trump posted a fabricated quote from Denzel Washington on his Truth Social page, the actor’s team confirmed. In the quote, Washington purportedly says he has “never met anyone braver, smarter, or who cares more about America” than Trump.
washingtonpost.com
Trump posts a made-up quote from Denzel Washington praising him
The actor’s team confirmed that the quote is fabricated.
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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
1. Trump’s new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia is a prolific user of Truth Social where she regularly promoted Pizzagate and QAnon conspiracies, accusing elites in the Democratic Party and Hollywood of running child sex rings and eating people.
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Max Berger @maxberger.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
And yet, every single Democratic member of Congress and every progressive organization (except @indivisible.org) still uses X as their primary method of breaking news. The pro-democracy movement really needs to boycott X.
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The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 12/10/2026
A judge blocked the midterm campaign ads, but Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin says the money spent on them is gone for good. trib.al/9OAYKjZ
trib.al
Don’t Expect to Get Reimbursed for Trump’s Illegal Ads Anytime Soon
A judge blocked the midterm campaign ads, but Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin says the money spent on them is gone for good.
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Adam Schwarz @adamjschwarz.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Zelensky: "When our strikes reached Yandex’s data centers, it suddenly became a little easier to breathe on many social media platforms. A lot of people noticed it. There was less hate, less division, and fewer provocations... It’s pretty clear where those bots were coming from."
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Jessica Wranosky @jessicawranosky.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
This is elder abuse, and it needs to go to court.
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scott daGHOSTtino @scottdagostino.ca · 12/10/2026
Everyone’s mad at Danny Trejo for signing on to Ben Shapiro’s pro-ICE movie but now his son reveals how Shapiro’s team tricked an old man into doing this 😡
For anyone seeing this shit with my dad...

He was booked on a film, it's not pro-ice, it's not overtly pro anything. His agent described it as "a complicated story about a complicated time, where everyone looks bad except you, the hardworking Mexican shop owner who just wants peace.”

He jumped at the idea of playing a good guy.

About 2 weeks into shooting everyone, including us, found out Ben Shapiro was involved.

My 82 year old dad has never heard of Ben Shapiro, I had to explain to him who that is, and what kind of guy he is.

My dad contractually can't bad mouth him, the film, or walk away without being sued for breach of contract. He couldn't even release the statement he wanted to.

It's fucked up. He's handcuffed to this stupid project, and swaths of people have instantly turned their back on him without knowing any of the facts.

Ben Shapiro got Mexicans to abandon one of their heroes, got his own name to the top of google's searches, and made us look like angry fools lacking any nuance. He wins.
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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 08/10/2026
Vote early and in person, folks. If you're in a "vote by mail" state and can deliver your mail-in vote directly rather than relying on USPS this year, do it. Otherwise get it into the mail at the earliest possible date. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
democracydocket.com
The Postal Service is slowing delivery. Will your mail ballot be affected?
Democracy Docket mapped the affected zip codes.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Updated this piece on the difference between civic tech and DOGE to reflect new reporting on how DOGErs are monetizing their connections to Silicon Valley. This is the worst example: the DOGErs who blocked USAID life-saving aid have a $1.4B defense startup. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/doge-vs-ci...
Let me give just one example. DOGErs Luke Farritor and Gavin Kliger were DOGErs. Farritor had a tech background, but failed an interview to be hired by the US Digital Service. They quickly amassed extraordinary power despite a lack of government experience. They also chose to kill people. I’m not exaggerating. The Washington Post reports that Farritor and Kliger overrode orders to keep life-saving aid from USAID flowing. They literally flipped the switches in a kill chain.

Several times, USAID managers prepared packages of these payments and got the agency’s interim leaders to sign off on them with support from the White House. But each time, using their new gatekeeping powers and clearly acting on orders from Musk or one of his lieutenants, Farritor and Kliger would veto the payments — a process that required them to manually check boxes in the payment system one at a time, the same tedious way you probably pay your bills online.

So what are they doing now? Making money. Kliger was chief data officer of DOD and is joining the wave of tech firms moving into the defense business, where a willingness to build kill chains is a plus, not a minus. From the Washington Post, which detailed a wave of DOGE-based start-ups:

The start-ups include a host of firms focused on cybersecurity and defense technology, as well as ventures dedicated to helping businesses across America deploy artificial intelligence tools. Among the largest is Cathedral, an AI-enabled cybersecurity firm, founded by Gavin Kliger and Luke Farritor. Valued by investors at $1.4 billion, Cathedral aims to sell to both corporate America and government agencies, including the Pentagon, according to a person familiar with the business, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the firm has not made its operations public.
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Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Here is Trump's "policy" about investigative steps before an election: 1. If you are a Republican, there is never a time when such steps are permitted. 2. If you are a Democrat, there is never a time when such steps are forbidden. If legacy media is suggesting anything else, they are lying.
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Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof @evanbernick.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
what the blue fuck is that second sentence. No remotely honest person would deny that Columbus brought genocide and colonization in his wake.
In more recent decades, the controversy
has been over Columbus himself. Indigenous groups and other activists have rejected the narrative that Christopher Columbus, the Italian navigator, was a great explorer, saying he brought genocide and
colonization in his wake.
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𝕊𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕖 𝔾𝕦𝕣𝕝 @sundaedivine.lol · 12/10/2026
Ukraine just did more to clean up American elections than Congress has done in twenty years.
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
After years of championing "free speech," Texas lawmakers have enabled a dramatic rise of censorship in Texas universities, banning concepts, canceling courses and closing departments seen as "woke," and even using AI bots as censors. All in the name of freedom. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1...
In other professors’ syllabi, the bot flagged the Pulitzer Prize–winning play Angels in America by Tony Kushner, essays by the Mexican American MacArthur genius grant recipient Sandra Cisneros, and materials related to a class about the Holocaust (that professor was told to drop material regarding Nazi persecution of LGBTQ people).

Putting aside the ideological slant of the new rules, the bot, like many large language models, seems to “hallucinate,” or make mistakes. The AAUP lawsuit lists texts banned for their “sex-based ecofeminist framework” and “gendered ecofeminist frameworks.” These phrases might sound persuasively like academese, but the academics behind the lawsuit had never heard of them; these concepts “do not exist,” the complaint says. Matthew Pehl, a history professor at Tech, told me that he knew several people who’d received reports from the system that were “plainly written by an AI that had hallucinated content or confused content from one class to another.”
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Bradley P. Moss @bradmossesq.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
We used to have rules against doing this so close to an election.
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Oliver Darcy @oliverdarcy.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
New: @nataliekorach.bsky.social has behind-the-scenes reporting on ABC News' error-riddled story on Donald Trump Jr., which has caused a firestorm at the network. The details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/abc-news-d...
status.news
ABC’s Deletion Debacle
Status has learned new details about the chain of events that led to ABC News’ publication of its error-riddled Donald Trump Jr. story, which casts doubt on claims it was published prematurely, as fru...
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Guardian US @us.theguardian.com · 09/10/2026
New report on economic cost of anti-immigration campaign projects 8.6% reduction in retirement payments by 2034
theguardian.com
Trump immigrant purge could cut social security for Americans by $2,000 a year
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
The takeaway from Bo French suggesting Asian students are “foreigners” and the tepid GOP response is that the Trump-era Republican Party is increasingly explicit about its belief that the only good immigrants, and the only real Americans, are white. (Gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1...
The Afrikaner policy is illuminating, because it proves the catch-22 facing nonwhite immigrants: If you are poor, you are a moocher, and if you are gainfully employed, you are taking a job from a hardworking American. The only way to be a good immigrant is to be white and Christian.

Bo French, who is running for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, has taken this idea a step further, suggesting that the only way to be an American is to be white and Christian.
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Julia Serano @juliaserano.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
NEW ESSAY on last week's deluge of Dems embracing anti-trans positions. let's stop fixating on trans ppl & instead recognize that Dems have a cisgender problem. pls share! Medium (friend link): juliaserano.medium.com/on-democrats... & Substack (no paywall): juliaserano.substack.com/p/on-democra...
juliaserano.medium.com
On Democrats Who Cave in Response to Anti-Trans Attack Ads
and more importantly: a response to all the cis people responding to the way that trans people are responding to said Democrats’ responses
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Charles Gaba ✡️ @charlesgaba.com · 08/10/2026
🚨🚨🚨 Republican Healthcare Disaster Update: Up to TWELVE MILLION Americans have *already* lost healthcare coverage since Trump returned to power: acasignups.net/26/10/08/rep...
acasignups.net
Republican Healthcare Disaster Update: Up to TWELVE MILLION Americans have already lost healthcare coverage under Trump 2.0
Last month I ran a detailed analysis of the most comprehensive, up-to-date effectuated enrollment data for Medicaid, CHIP, Medicare & ACA exchange healthcare coverage changes since January 2025 (when ...
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Pro-rape parties want the assaults to continue and the victim to be further terrorized and that's not even unusual, I regret to say, but it would be super-nice if Letitia James would investigate and prosecute whoever's doing this.
cnn.com
Cornell’s Jane Doe is ‘terrified’ after death threats and a swatting incident, her lawyer says | CNN
One month ago, the woman now known to America as Cornell’s Jane Doe was living in New York City and trying to break into the hotel industry, her lawyer says. Now she’s facing threats and hiding out at...
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Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Are your grocery bills any lower? Are you in danger of missing your mortgage payment because of your sky-high gas bill? Those health care bills keeping you up at night? The rotting old man has no solutions, so here’s his usual racist bullshit blaming immigrants for all of your problems.
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Elizabeth Taylor @elizabethtaylor47.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I've talked about this before, but it is very hard when you see how moral red lines are drawn, and the complete gutting of trans people's civil rights is entirely within an accepted norm and barely remarked upon even by many progressives.
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Lee Hurley @hleehurley.com · 08/10/2026
You probably think this is a touch of hyperbole. If you do, that just tells me not only are you not paying attention, you are actively ignoring all the trans people this has happened to. This is life in the UK as a trans person in 2026.
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MC Squared @mcsquared.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Tying health insurance to employment makes workers easier to exploit, bc when you get fired you don’t just lose your job, you might also die or go bankrupt…
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