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ML Vercellotti

@mlvercellotti.bsky.social
948 followers 395 following 72 posts

professor of linguistics and TESOL, research on L2 speech (she/her)

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Reposted by ML Vercellotti
Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 10h
Gobsmacked by the elite levels of not knowing ball in the Senate today, thinking an NBA team is called the Hawkeyes then, refusing to Google it, then accusing a guy of treason because you didn’t know the Iowa Lady Hawkeyes aren’t in the NBA. Somehow I don’t trust these people to Save Girls Sports.
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Prof. Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 3h
The death penalty is plainly unconstitutional, in addition to being a human rights violation. It should never happen, anywhere, to anyone. Shame on every single person that failed the child that Christa Pike was. She was still someone’s child, and no state should be in the business of murder.
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Sean Casten @seancasten.bsky.social · 7h
Perhaps not the biggest problem with this... but defunding the IRS and then giving a subset of the population an incentive not to file is really fiscally stupid. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/b...
nytimes.com
Trump Administration Prepares to Ask Tax Filers if They Are U.S. Citizens
The new question, included on a draft version of the primary tax form, comes as part of an anti-immigrant turn at an agency that long prioritized tax administration.
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 9h
I do think they probably ran his texts through an LLM and it hallucinated crimes. That’s scary and bad and it’s funny they got caught, but imagine how many other times this happens on a day to day basis against people with no rights, let alone the ability to publicly humiliate the AI prosecutor.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 9h
Trump says Democratic concerns about AI are a hoax like global warming 🥴
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 11h
It's remarkable (in a very good way) to see an elected member of the Democratic Party saying this. For decades, the Party has treated public higher education as a jobs training program, not a site for cultivating democratic habits of mind. I deeply hope that things are changing.
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Sam Cole @samleecole.bsky.social · 11h
probably fine that all these new ai agent rollouts are so cutesy and childish. probably a sign of innocuous, normal shit
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 13h
One thing that’s interesting about this is that it shows that despite insisting the wokes overinterpet everything, conservatives are actually aware of and agree with their critics about how coded racist appeals work, they just like them bsky.app/profile/newr...
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 11h
Incredible. The 11th Circuit, in a 3-0 opinion (two Obama appointees and one Trump 1.0 appointee), agrees that Trump and his lawyers have failed to rebut the judge's finding that the entire IRS settlement was collusive, highlighting that no other explanation for their conduct was even offered.
IV
The appellants mount two main attacks on the district
court’s speech-related sanction. First, they argue that the court
lacked a sufficient basis to find that the lawsuit and the settlement
were collusive and that Messrs. Brito and Epstein acted in bad faith.
Second, they contend that the sanction is a broad and impermissible gag order which constitutes a prior restraint and violates the
First Amendment. We conclude that the appellants have not made
a strong showing that they will succeed on either of these grounds.The appellants did not submit or offer any evidence to explain their litigation conduct or demonstrate that the lawsuit and the settlement were not collusive. Given the record before us, the
appellants have not made a strong showing that the district court
committed clear error in its collusion and bad faith findings
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Anise K. Strong @anisekstrong.bsky.social · 11h
The key here is the buried statement that each student had an individual 45-min oral exam with him to defend their argument & research. I've given oral exams & I'll absolutely promote them as an assessment tool, but almost no institution besides a few elite SLACs has the resources for that at scale.
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Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 11h
Amazing stuff here
America.gov


Menu













































Conversation with America
Response ready. Sources are available. Use “Skip to latest response” to read it.
Is it accurate to say that the Big Beautiful Bill on average made the poorest people in America even poorer and the richest people in America even richer, when looking at total household resources? One word answer only, please.

Yes
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Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 11h
Republicans cried that Trump needed money for the border and then he stole the money to pay for a millions in totally illegal, taxpayer funded campaign ads. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
wsj.com
Exclusive | Homeland Security Money Financed Pro-Trump Television Ads
White House calls the spots public-service ads, but critics argue using taxpayer money for campaign-like messaging may violate federal law.
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andykimnj.bsky.social @andykimnj.bsky.social · 11h
Interesting.
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Jen Mercieca @jenmercieca.bsky.social · 12h
We put the children in an AI trance and pump them full of our preferred ideas and it's quite splendid!
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PBS News @pbsnews.org · 12h
"Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation," former special counsel Jack Smith said during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. to.pbs.org/4hwiB3E
to.pbs.org
WATCH: Jack Smith says he would prosecute Trump again for 'serious crimes against our nation'
Smith, who in 2022 led investigations into Trump and secured two indictments, said he made decisions in the case "without regard” for Trump’s “political association activities, beliefs, or candidacy i...
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Sara Nović @novicsara.bsky.social · 14h
Yes parents need to talk to their boys about consent and basic human decency! You know what else might help? Not filling every fucking position of power with a mfing r@pist!
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Harry Litman @harrylitman.bsky.social · 13h
Would be comic if it were not vicious. Actually it’s both. Sen Schmitt framed a whole perjury suggestion on the basis of Jack Smith’s attending an Atlanta Hawks game and surreptitiously seeing Fulton County prosecutor. In fact it was Iowa Hawkeyes (Caitlin Clark) in College Park Maryland
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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 15h
Jack Smith: Donald Trump preyed on party loyalty and fear. One of the reasons he [failed] is bc Republicans stood up. I personally find it hard to understand how our investigation could be viewed as partisan when our strongest witnesses were Republicans. [Names Rusty Bowers and Mike Pence.]
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 15h
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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George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 @gtconway.bsky.social · 15h
Grandiose delusions of narcissism so severe they're implausible. He thinks his name change of a Great Lake gives him power over 🇨🇦. 
Trump’s executive functioning, which was never great, has now deteriorated to the point where we get unchecked narcissistic/grandiose absurdity.
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Minnesota Reformer @minnesotareformer.com · 15h
Republican candidate for attorney general Ron Schutz owns more than $1.74 million of individual stocks, including in companies being sued by Minnesota minnesotareformer.com/2026/09/29/m...
minnesotareformer.com
Minnesota AG candidate’s stock portfolio presents 174 potential conflicts of interest • Minnesota Reformer
If Republican Ron Schutz wins the attorney general’s race in November, he will be responsible for enforcing Minnesota’s laws against the country’s biggest and most powerful corporations. His own perso...
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 16h
Warren: "This has been their argument every time -- they cut taxes and say, 'Ultimately it's really going to pay off for you.' What's happened every time? The academics study it very carefully and say, 'What really happened is the richest people got richer and everybody else got left behind.'"
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Sean Casten @seancasten.bsky.social · 16h
There is no more durable way to lower your energy bills than to rapidly deploy technologies that let you stay warm, travel and keep the lights on without buying/burning fossil fuel. chicago.suntimes.com/real-estate/...
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Roger Parloff @rparloff.bsky.social · 17h
Last night Trump filed his DC Circuit appeal seeking to rename the Kennedy Center. "[W]ithout appropriate recognition [for Trump], the Kennedy Center will" continue its "race toward physical & financial ruin. The stakes are existential." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
In short, without appropriate recognition, the Kennedy Center will be
back where it was at the beginning-a financially insolvent facility and a
decrepit, dilapidated, crumbling building, that is bleeding hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and that continues to race toward physical and financial ruin.
The stakes are existential.
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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 17h
The Biggest Economic Bet in U.S. History from @adamtooze.bsky.social adamtooze.substack.com/p/the-bigges...
A table titled, Average annual infrastructure spending as percentage of GDP.

It has six circles showing percentage of GDP spent on each tech: 
Canals .66%
Railroads 2.24%
Electrification .5%
Highways 1.13%
Telecom and fiber 1.1%
AI 3.63%
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The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 18h
A bipartisan effort to ban the demolition of presidential memorials — including the Kennedy Center — was blocked Monday night in the Senate by an objection from Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).
washingtonpost.com
GOP senator blocks bill to stop Trump from demolishing Kennedy Center
The bipartisan effort to ban the demolition of presidential memorials was thwarted in the Senate by an objection from Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).
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Dr. Cara Berg Powers @clbergpowers.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Honestly, as someone who has actually managed interns, it feels very adjacent to that. Lots of people who don't actually have to manage people frequently suggest "interns" as a solution to any number of capacity problems, not thinking about how much it takes to supply them with/oversee the work.
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PBS News @pbsnews.org · 20h
Work requirements for some Medicaid beneficiaries begin across the U.S. in January, the result of President Donald Trump's big 2025 tax cut and policy law, and a handful of Republican-led states are imposing tougher rules than the law requires. to.pbs.org/4xQHBc0
to.pbs.org
As work requirements kick in for Medicaid, some states are taking a tougher stance
At least six states will require documentation that individuals are too sick to meet Medicaid work requirements kicking in next year. The rules are stricter than what the federal government is requiri...
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Dan Diamond @ddiamond.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Russell Brand, who's awaiting trial in London next month on rape and sexual assault charges, will moderate a panel at DC's MAHA summit tomorrow on reforming a U.S. health agency
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Tyler King @tyleraking.com · 29/09/2026
A key component of the Cambridge Analytica outrage was your friends subjecting you to data theft without your consent or knowledge. Facebook is running the same playbook on your text messages. Even if you’re not on Meta properties, they’re ingesting your interactions.
Aten installed Muse on both his iPhone and a Mac mini that he uses to test out various Al agents and tech. It took Meta a single day to begin "helpfully" pitching article ideas based on texts he'd sent to a podcast co-host.
When he asked Muse how it got the information, it said that it read banners from incoming texts. But that's not true, either.
After doing a little digging, Aten says Muse synced 187,000 lines from his Messages database, despite Full Disk Access being Off.Unless Aten is the most popular person on the face of the planet, I sincerely doubt he'd gotten 187,000 lines of text in roughly 24 hours. What happened is that, without permission, Muse went into the app and downloaded the information.
He had not given Muse permission to access Messages, and full disk access was not enabled. It just went ahead and uploaded those texts anyway.
Muse can take "unexpected actions" indeed.
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Senator Ed Markey @markey.senate.gov · 28/09/2026
Trump is selling nuclear tech to Saudi Arabia despite reported US intelligence that the Saudis still want a bomb—while the Trumps have taken billions in bribes from the Saudis. This is Trump corruption at the expense of US national security. Stop the deal.
Saudi Arabia Open to Possibly Developing Nuclear Weapons
An intelligence assessment examined Saudi Arabia’s military ambitions as Congress reviews a new civilian nuclear deal between the U.S. and the kingdom
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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
There's no real point in arguing with his mouth noises, particularly not when preaching to the Bluesky choir, but this is *noteworthy* nonsense. If the revenue were real (it's not), then it would be revenue *of the United States government,* equally available to a Democratic Congress to spend.
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Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
FYI this bill does nothing. It contains no new mandatory rules restricting data centers. It's just fakery to try to fool voters into forgetting that Republicans spent the entire term trying to stop states from regulating AI (as requested by the AI companies). www.semafor.com/article/09/2...
semafor.com
Exclusive: Some Republicans push to prioritize Husted data center bill
Republican senators have discussed the idea but made no final decision.
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Jen Mercieca @jenmercieca.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." UN Declaration of Human Rights, which the United States violates.
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George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 @gtconway.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Despite all of Trump’s bullshit like this, Americans still like Canada a helluva lot more than they like him. yougov.com/en-us/articl...
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Home of the Brave @ofthebraveusa.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Florida Trump Voter: "I should've voted differently. I feel hoodwinked." Q: "Why?" FL Trump voter: "Broken promises…[I expected] a good economy and no more wars. Simple."
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Senator Elissa Slotkin @slotkin.senate.gov · 28/09/2026
One of the biggest winners from President Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" were the largest tech and AI corporations, who are already worth billions of dollars. It's why I joined @warren.senate.gov to demand a full accounting of how they've taken advantage of those tax loopholes and deductions.
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Headquarters @headquartersnews.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Ken Paxton: The criticism has been that I let a child predator out after one day. Well guess what? They served 60 days.
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Timothy Burke @bubbaprog.xyz · 28/09/2026
I believe the Constitution provides a remedy for Congress when the President doesn't follow his constitutional appropriation-spending requirements!
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Tim O’Brien @timobrien.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The theft by a hacking group of reams of sensitive personal data involving potentially tens of thousands of former and current FBI employees is emerging as one of the worst breaches of sensitive government information, leaving the FBI rushing to protect its personnel. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/28/u...
nytimes.com
Embarrassing Breach at F.B.I. Fuels Fears of Harm to Its Employees
In an internal memo, the F.B.I. said it believed the hackers may have stolen sensitive information on all of its employees.
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Elizabeth Warren @warren.senate.gov · 28/09/2026
Don't be fooled. This bill won’t force Big Tech companies to do anything. It's a political stunt to cover Republicans who have been the biggest data center cheerleaders. We need a bill with real teeth to hold these companies accountable.
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David Nir @davidnir.com · 28/09/2026
This move will only draw more attention to the story. Takedown notice sometimes succeed in removing third-party ads b/c stations may conclude the risks of a defamation suit are too high. But they're immune from liability for defamation for *candidate* ads, which this one is. #StreisandEffect
kansasreflector.com
Roger Marshall alleges defamation in new ad about former Kansas patient arrested while in debt • Kansas Reflector
Lawyers for U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, a Republican running for reelection, sent his opponent a cease-and-desist letter demanding the Democrat stop airing an ad featuring one of the senator’s former pa...
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Vaquera Elisa @boxelderdust.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
A fun thing about President Business is that he fucking sucks at business worse than anyone else ever has This is an explicit promise to blow up the national debt in a way that would make Hugo Chávez look like a tight-fisted number-crunching white-shirt fiscal conservative *for an election stunt*
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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Wow, good luck with this, Roger. I didn't have her arrested for owning me $50. I had her arrested for not showing up to court when I sued her for $50. kansasreflector.com/2026/09/28/r...
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Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The underappreciated point here is that taking the messy, contingent nature of scheduling, communication, and navigating social relationships is something that AI people think these tools can do. When in fact it is quite difficult and takes a lot of social skill.
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Corey Rayburn Yung @coreyryung.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
For more about how LLMs actually work (and the concept of a "stochastic parrot"), read and follow @emilymbender.bsky.social, one of the foremost experts on computational linguistics.
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Corey Rayburn Yung @coreyryung.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I'm baffled by these PR stunts. Targeted machine learning models and brute force algorithms can sometimes solve difficult problems that have eluded human beings. But using an LLM doesn't add anything (and makes success less likely). They are not "AI." They are stochastic parrots.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
We don’t allow corporations to come up with new nuclear weapons or biological pathogens. If a product is potentially dangerous, it should be regulated and corporations should be held accountable for wrongdoing. Why would AI be any different? www.commondreams.org/news/ai-securi…
commondreams.org
AI Giants Probe 'Tens of Thousands' of Security Incidents—Some Involving Government Sites | Common Dreams
Security researchers investigate tens of thousands of artificial intelligence security incidents, fueling fresh calls fo
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Corey Rayburn Yung @coreyryung.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
New nightmare just dropped
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This part. A lot of people enjoy the complexity. Or, at least, they are familiar with it. Why would I give myself an existential crisis just so I can automate a family task?? And, again, I remind you that training an AI agent isn’t even enjoyable.
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