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Lily Raff McCaulou

@lilyrm.bsky.social
374 followers 729 following 72 posts

I’m a journalist in Bend, Ore. I also teach and advise student journalists at a community college. She/her.

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Lily Raff McCaulou @lilyrm.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
How student journalists broke the news everyone is talking about: www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/n...
nytimes.com
Students at Cornell Daily Sun Pursued Sexual Assault Case for Two Years (Gift Article)
The student newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, covered the allegations of rape at a fraternity party since they were first made in 2024 and led the reporting on the case.
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Eric Lipton NYT @ericlipton.nytimes.com · 27/09/2026
What an odd moment in United States history. A U.S. president is running an overtly political camaign advertisement, right before midterm elections, paid for by the U.S. government. Trump appears to believe he is immune from any kind of legal limit. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/27/u...
nytimes.com
A Trump 2024 Campaign Ad Returns, Now Brought to You by the Government (Gift Article)
The ad, which ethics experts said could violate federal law, shows Mr. Trump vowing to “expel the warmongers” from the government and fight the “deep state,” even as he wages a war with Iran.
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Oliver Darcy @oliverdarcy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Scoop: The anonymous source behind a POLITICO story that the White House is now using to justify a ban on the outlet was none other than JD Vance himself. Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/white-hous...
status.news
The Source Behind The Ban
The anonymous source behind one of the stories the White House cited to justify banning POLITICO was none other than Vice President JD Vance, Status has learned.
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
"The disappeared*" was a term for those the military dictatorship in Argentina imprisoned/tortured/murdered during the dirty war. *"detenidos-desaparecidos" (detained-disappeared)
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Nieman Lab @niemanlab.org · 18/09/2026
"Largest theft of labor in human history." A "doom loop" in the making. An "existential threat" for publishers. Court records show what Microsoft and OpenAI actually thought about AI training buff.ly/dilrt1D
buff.ly
“An astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions”: Court records show what Microsoft and OpenAI actually thought about AI training
Would you call large language models training on an internet's worth of content "an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions"? Or perhaps you prefer the "largest theft of labor in human…
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Mark Agee @markagee.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
"NPR sat down with this solar calculator and asked it to explain this poem about God"
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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 15/09/2026
if you're a reporter "barred from recording video" by the government, you goddamn better record video
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Lily Raff McCaulou @lilyrm.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Okay so now the stock market *wants* the fed to hike rates?
Screenshot of the Wall Street Journal’s homepage: Stock Indexes Rise More Than 1%. Bond yields fluctuated and stocks rallied, with investors signaling they like the idea of a Fed rate increase to tamp down inflation.
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Justin Joque @jjoque.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
oh man I feel real bad for Anthropic, it really sucks when you work super hard on something and then someone just takes it without permission to train an LLM
cnbc.com
Chinese AI labs secretly used millions of Claude exchanges to train their models, Anthropic says
Anthropic said it detected unauthorized efforts by China-based AI labs including Alibaba and Moonshot AI to use its Claude models to help improve their own AI systems.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Republicans who see Canada as an enemy has leapt up this year, similar to how Republicans’ approval of Putin shot up in 2016. Virtually no anti-Canada US constituency before this year, and virtually no pro-Putin constituency before 2016. Out of nowhere. Now millions say that’s their position.
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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
reminder that this is what auto supply chains in North America currently look like. Random parts can cross the US/Canadian border half a dozen times www.wsj.com/business/aut...
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
New from 404 Media: we solved which AI company is buying massive shipments of rare books, scanning and destroying them to train AI. We put an Apple AirTag in a rare book, followed it. It ended up at an Amazon facility. Its logo is a dinosaur ripping through a book www.404media.co/we-tracked-a...
404media.co
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
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Tina Smith @smith.senate.gov · 13/08/2026
The White House normally gets $2.5 million a year for maintenance. Trump’s team has allocated $875 million.   That’s 350 years’ worth of the usual budget spent by a single administration.
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Spencer Ackerman @attackerman.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Gambling apps partnering with news organizations are the natural endpoint of horserace journalism. What’s the point of a horserace if you can’t bet on it
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Django Wexler @djangowexler.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Gooooood question. This is how prediction markets are supposed to work, by harnessing the wisdom of crowds! Like say you live next to a kid with cancer and happen to hear he's involved in a new clinical trial. A month later, you notice he's not looking so good. bsky.app/profile/joar...
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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
FLAG: Trump gets to keep tax immunity for himself, his sons, and the Trump Organization under the new 'deal' struck by Todd Blanche. The new order also reaffirms that Trump won't have to pay any taxes he might have owed the IRS.
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
PENTAGON: Anyone got any ideas? @cnn.com www.cnn.com/2026/08/03/p...
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Julie K. Brown @jkbjournalist.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
New: Andrew and Tristan Tate are facing sex trafficking and child porn charges. Yet Trump world had a party for them. open.substack.com/pub/jkbjourn...
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Hoodlum 🇺🇸 @nothoodlum.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Thomas Massie: “It’s ironic that we control the House, Senate, Supreme Court, and the White House, and we’re yelling ‘election fraud’? We won all the damn elections.”
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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
when someone shows you their nazi tattoo, believe them
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Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
It‘s just insane to me that a sitting president has made MORE THAN A BILLION DOLLARS peddling fucking fairy dust with no intrinsic value beyond his stature and power AS president, and it’s not treated as the biggest corruption scandal in American history.
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
If you are wealthy, I think you should spend more money on clothes. There's no pride in buying clothes for the lowest possible price, as this puts downward pressure on garment worker wages and increases the likelihood of exploitation.
JD Vance tweets: "She bought a $50 dress for $8.75. America: meet your next director of the federal budget!" 

He retweeted his wife, who showed that she purchased a $49.99 Old Navy dress for $8.75 after markdowns and coupon codes. On May 27, 2026, the Workers Right Consortium published an article saying: "Haitian Factory Making Old Navy, Hanes Remedies Illegal Firing of Pregnant Workers, Union Leaders

After engagement by the WRC with the brands Gap Inc. (owner of Old Navy) and Gildan (owner of Hanes), 14 women who were unlawfully fired have received remedy. Each of these workers received the equivalent of 22 months’ back wages and a commitment of priority rehiring from The Willbes, a garment factory in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, that supplies the two brands.

As the WRC previously reported, The Willbes carried out a mass layoff in 2024 that resulted in the firing of more than a dozen workers who, at the time of their dismissal, were pregnant or were union leaders. The dismissals occurred in violation of their protected status under Haitian labor law and, by extension, violated each of the buyers’ codes of conduct. The Willbes is a supplier of apparel to Gap for its Old Navy brand and to Hanesbrands, now a subsidiary of the Canadian apparel corporation, Gildan.

The Willbes unlawfully dismissed the pregnant workers and the factory union leaders when it shut down four of its production buildings and laid off more than 900 employees. While some of the workers affected by the layoff were allowed to transfer to jobs in the portion of the factory that remained open, five workers who were pregnant and nine who were leaders of the factory union were illegally denied the opportunity to keep their employment."
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Michael Schulman @michaelschulman.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Happy 100th birthday, Mel Brooks! Here’s some great advice he gave me back he was a wee lad of 95. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
You have some wonderful stories of basically getting away with stuff at the studios.

I’d learned one very simple trick: say yes. Simply say yes. Like Joseph E. Levine, on “The Producers,” said, “The curly-haired guy—he’s funny looking. Fire him.” He wanted me to fire Gene Wilder. And I said, “Yes, he’s gone. I’m firing him.” I never did. But he forgot. After the screening of “Blazing Saddles,” the head of Warner Bros. threw me into the manager’s office, gave me a legal pad and a pencil, and gave me maybe twenty notes. He would have changed “Blazing Saddles” from a daring, funny, crazy picture to a stultified, dull, dusty old Western. He said, “No farting.” I said, “It’s out.”That’s probably the most famous scene in the movie, the campfire scene.

I know. He said, “You can’t punch a horse.” I said, “You’ll never see it again.” I kept saying, “You’re absolutely right. It’s out!” Then, when he left, I crumpled up all his notes, and I tossed it in the wastepaper basket. And John Calley, who was running [production at] Warner Bros. at the time, said, “Good filing.” That was the end of it. You say yes, and you never do it.

That’s great advice for life.

It is. Don’t fight them. Don’t waste your time struggling with them and trying to make sense to them. They’ll never understand.
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Brennan Center @brennancenter.org · 25/06/2026
At least 50 people have died in immigration detention since Trump returned to office, the deadliest period in ICE’s history. Yet Congress continues to give immigration enforcement agencies billions of dollars without requiring reform. bit.ly/4v1sMBH
brennancenter.org
ICE and Customs and Border Protection Budgets to Exceed $200 Billion
Without congressional action, the money will allow the Trump administration to carry out its immigration crackdown unimpeded.
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Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 22/06/2026
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
If you need a very last second Father's Day gift, a year's worth of The Onion delivered to your dad's house is $75 until the end of the night tonight. Remind your dad you're alive AND a disappointment through the mail every month for a full year. A frugal, living disappointment.
membership.theonion.com
Join The Onion
Don’t just read the news. Feel it. Be among the first to feel the news.
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Lily Raff McCaulou @lilyrm.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
All. Of. This.
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Craig Harrington @craigipedia.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
The Obama deal gave Iran their own money. The Trump deal gives Iran even more of their own money alongside $300 billion presumably from the GCC, as well as complete sanctions relief and a promise that the U.S. facilitate Iran's re-integration with the global economy.
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e.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 17/06/2026
this may well be the defining joke of our era theonion.com/guy-who-suck...
theonion.com
Guy Who Sucks At Being A Person Sees Huge Potential In AI
SAN MATEO, CA—After spending the past three decades of his life being totally unable and unwilling to engage in any meaningful way with the world around him, James Parker, a local guy who sucks at bei...
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Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Who knows if there will be a final agreement. But if there is, two things will be true at the same time: a) It's essentially surrender to Iran. b) We should be glad about it, because every day this insane, illegal war continues, we get weaker. 1/ Let me explain.
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JoJoFromJerz @jojofromjerz.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
So… Iran, a country whose military we’ve “destroyed”, was able to shoot down one of our Apache helicopters, during a “ceasefire”, in the middle of a war that isn’t a war, which is “two days” away from ending?
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David Kurtz @davidkurtz.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
The top line outrage here is so astounding that it bears repeating: Trump is using the powers of his office to settle not just political but private scores against someone adjudged by juries to be a victim of his sexual abuse and defamatory attacks. talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...
talkingpointsmemo.com
Trump Sics DOJ on Famed Victim of His Sexual Abuse
There Is No Bottom I wish I could say we have reached...
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Ida Bae Wells @nhannahjones.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Because this country likes to forget what it’s capable of, I take it as a duty to remind us. We sit at the brink of the largest decimation of Black political power since the fall of Reconstruction — a Second Redemption. And the end of Black political power means the end of democracy itself.
nytimes.com
The Civil Rights Era Is Collapsing Before Our Eyes
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 21/05/2026
NESTERAK: President Trump has granted clemency to numerous individuals who have stolen hundreds of millions in Medicaid funds. Can we expect any of these folks to be shown the same mercy? McDONALD: I'll take a different question
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FinTwitter @fintwitter.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
U.S. NATIONAL DEBT OFFICIALLY HITS $39 TRILLION, RISING BY APPROXIMATELY $5 BILLION PER DAY SINCE OCTOBER - REPORTS
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Mike Levin @mikelevin.org · 19/05/2026
This is atrocious. Donald Trump’s former personal criminal defense lawyer, now serving as Acting Attorney General of the United States, signed a one-page document in which the United States government “RELEASES, WAIVES, ACQUITS, and FOREVER DISCHARGES” Donald Trump, his sons, his businesses,
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Ryan Enos @ryanenos.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
I say without hyperbole that this is the most brazenly corrupt action in US Presidential history. That it does not immediately lead to impeachment is a dangerous sign of how far the rule of law has declined.
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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
We've become numb to this stuff, but a president accusing a journalist of treason -- a capital crime -- for reporting on an ongoing war is not normal, and we should never accept it as normal.
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Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
This is esp worth reading in the context of red states constantly bragging that people are fleeing blue cities
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Eric Feigl-Ding @drericding.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
LET THIS SINK IN—the U.S. now has no confirmed CDC director, no FDA commissioner, no Surgeon General, an NIH director with no medical license, and the last Acting CDC Director was a George Bush speechwriter. In fact—the only doctor/scientist we have in the White House is… Dr Oz.
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OPB @opb.org · 08/05/2026
Until this week, much of the roughly 1,000-square-mile reservation has lacked reliable public transportation for decades. With the help of a state grant, there's a new bus route connecting remote communities, some for the first time.
opb.org
New bus route brings long-awaited service to remote parts of Warm Springs Reservation
Warm Springs Reservation locals get new public transportation route to Kah-Nee-Ta Hot Springs Resort and the community of Simnasho. The program is a 15-month pilot but locals hope it can stick around longer.
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 07/05/2026
Kind of surprised that this hasn't been bigger news. It's finals week for a whole lot of universities, and yet, Canvas (a learning/grading platform used by ~9,000 schools globally) is currently inaccessible because of a pay-or-have-your-data-leaked hack. www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-in...
insidehighered.com
“PAY OR LEAK”: Hackers Target Big Higher Ed Vendor
The criminal extortion group ShinyHunters breached Instructure last week. The hackers, who have also attacked individual universities, demanded the ed-tech giant pay up or face a data leak.
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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
“I live in constant fear that I will be subjected to further baseless detentions just for going about my daily life." On May 2, Leonardo Garcia Venegas, a Florida-born US citizen, was detained by ICE in Alabama for the third time (!) in the span of a year. And he's suing the federal government.
motherjones.com
ICE keeps detaining the same US citizen again, and again, and again. He’s fighting back.
“I only wish to live my life in peace,” Leonardo Garcia Venegas said in a declaration.
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Hamilton Nolan @hamiltonnolan.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
"Why are all the journalists laid off now" this is why. Pretty simple.
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Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Articles about Jared Kushner's diplomatic role with Iran that mention Kushner has received billions from the Saudi government (2/28-4/19): NYT: 5 of 58 WashPost: 1 of 43 WSJ: 0 of 40 AP: 0 of 26 CNN Wire: 0 of 18 NY Post: 0 of 17 Chicago Tribune: 0 of 4 LA Times: 0 of 4 Boston Globe: 0 of 2
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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 19/04/2026
Yes, the fact that I'm attending the White House Correspondents Dinner might SEEM like a supine gesture of complete deference to the insane dullard who demands total obedience from the press, BUT that's until you see the secret message I have on my pocket square
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Nick Budnick @nickbudnick.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
People who want to watchdog local committees should be aware that the Oregon Legislature recently passed a bill that gut your ability to do that. @tinakotek.bsky.social is mulling whether to veto it so reasonable tweaks can happen, which @spjoregon.bsky.social supports. More: tinyurl.com/mpuxf2e6
documentcloud.org
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Nick Budnick @nickbudnick.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Kudos to @tinakotek.bsky.social for listening to her own experts. They told her this bill would wipe out the fundamental expectation that Oregonians get to know the info leading to decisions by their government. Let's tweak existing law, not destroy transparency. @spjoregon.bsky.social #FOI
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Olivia Messer @oliviamesser.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Convincing women to go on the record by name when they’ve seen that it results in no change — and a lot of people won’t believe them — can take years. One of the named sources in a 2024 story of mine declined to participate in 2017. Eventually, her life and job enabled it. And he’s still in office.
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Leah Sottile @leahsottile.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Last week, a worker one of Amazon's Portland area facilities died on the warehouse floor. Employees were told to look away and keep working. A new story by @ryanjhaas.bsky.social for @thewesternedge.bsky.social - reporting this news first. www.thewesternedge.media/p/everyone-i...
thewesternedge.media
‘Everyone is Replaceable’: Death Rattles Oregon Amazon Facility
A worker died at Amazon’s Troutdale warehouse last week. Employees were told to look away.
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