iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Other states besides Texas with voter registration deadlines over the next 7 days: Arkansas, Arizona, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Indiana , Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, South Carolina.

0220174

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 6h

A fuckup so dumb even NYT homepage/headline writers have no choice but to describe it accurately

As Jack Smith Testifies, a Senator’s Accusation of Perjury Falters

A Republican eager to prove the former special counsel was dishonest appeared to instead demonstrate his own confusion over basic facts.

782419379

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Meredith Rose @mrose.ink · 12h

So, fun fact: ever since 1994, and Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" campaign stunt, Congress has had a SERIOUS problem with subject-matter expertise and institutional memory. It's why Congress has such a deep and complicated relationship with lobbyists. 1/

518057

Reposted by Barb Cummings

KJZZ Phoenix @kjzz.org · 10h

An Arizona tour company is suing the federal government, arguing that the higher fees being imposed on international travelers at national parks are unlawful and bad for business.

kjzz.org

Arizona tour company sues U.S. government, calls international tourist fees unlawful

An Arizona tour company is suing the federal government, arguing that the higher fees being imposed on international travelers at national parks are unlawful and bad for business.

064

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Sleestak @sleestak.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

and behold a pale horse. and the name that sat on him was death. and hell followed with him

2757031335

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Nash @radiodeadair.com · 28/09/2026

All it took was getting kicked out of the White House press room and suddenly CNN remembers that "lie" is a word.

434541895

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Marine Le Pen is in a strong position to win the French presidential race next spring, unlike anything we've ever seen in past election cycles. Today, she's up 14% & up 38% in a poll against 2 candidates who are, seemingly at this stage, her most likely runoff opponents. www.rtl.fr/actu/politiq...

4926696

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Alex Burness @burness.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Daniel has eyes on literally every county in every state, so you should trust the curation here and bookmark this:

010334

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Dr Katie Twomey @k2mey.eurosky.social · 28/09/2026

This is quite cool. My university is the first organisation in the world to force Microsoft to allow us to turn off copilot summaries in Word 365, after a backlash against it from staff (including, very vocally, me). That cannot have been easy for our heroic IT people so hats very much off to them!

895373910

Reposted by Barb Cummings

George Pearkes @peark.es · 28/09/2026

Table stakes for the next Dem President should be tearing up every single 287(g) and throwing them in the trash.

541072

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Judd Legum @juddlegum.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

1. Jay Feely, a former NFL kicker and a GOP candidate for Congress in Arizona, has made “protecting women’s sports” a centerpiece of his election campaign. So I reviewed years of Feely’s podcast appearances to see what he actually thinks about female athletes. 🧵

461535558

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Maggie Harrison Dupré @mharrisondupre.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

NEW: Justin Brown, a cofounder of the AI slop empire Brown Brothers Media, has deep ties to convicted sex criminal and Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell promoted Brown's failed social media platform Ideapod -- which is still a publisher in BBM's portfolio: futurism.com/artificial-i...

futurism.com

You Know Those Three Brothers Who Buy Struggling News Sites and Turn Them Into AI-Powered Content Farms? It Turns Out One of Them Has Extensive Connections to Ghislaine Maxwell

Ideapod, a cornerstone brand of Brown Brothers Media's AI empire, has deep ties to convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

8367143

Reposted by Barb Cummings

James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The GOP cut funding to the IRS because *audits work* and they fundamentally don't believe rich people should have to play by the rules.

Line chart titled "Revenue per audit," subtitled "In-person audits, 2010-2014." It plots average revenue and average cost per audit by taxpayer income percentile, poorer to richer, from the 0–5th percentile to the top 0.1%. Source: Boning et al. 2023, "A Welfare Analysis of Tax Audits Across the Income Distribution."

Across the bottom half of the income distribution, revenue and cost track closely, both around $3,000–$6,000 per audit. Above the median, revenue pulls ahead of cost: about $10,000 vs. $5,000 near the 90th percentile, and about $17,000 vs. $8,000 at the 95th–99th. At the top, revenue jumps to about $31,000 for the 99–99.9th percentile and about $90,000 for the top 0.1%.

273294769

Barb Cummings @rahirah.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Running a homebrew Pathfinder 2e game for my wife so we can learn the system. I think today is the first time we've spent more time actually playing than looking shit up. Progress!

140

Reposted by Barb Cummings

@NewsJennifer (Jennifer Schulze) @newsjennifer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I think it’s fair to say that the student journalists at Cornell are braver than the news networks who just gave up on their WH pool ban even though CNN is still being denied access. www.cornellsun.com/article/2026...

cornellsun.com

EDITORIAL | Cornell Won’t, We Will

The Editorial Board demands that Cornell stops protecting the alleged Chi Phi rapists through the University's opaque sexual assault policies.

342459754

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Shiv Ramdas Mens Rice Activist @nameshiv.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

there is a certain undercurrent of something that can only be described as puritanism on this site, where understanding a bad thing must mean you're into that thing because apparently the only way to battle bad things is to yell loudly they are very bad someone else better fix them but not like this

1344663

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 27/09/2026

Women trying to succeed in Silicon Valley AI and effective altruist spaces are reporting feeling serious social pressure to attend sex parties - where people have reported being sexually assaulted, like below. Events like Aella’s “Slutcon,” which is happening again this weekend.

Ann Pierce
@itsannpierce
20h
I am disheartened by this as well. I already lost a bunch of followers for agreeing with @tautologer, but it's saddening to see local nerdy women being caricatured as Karen-like outsiders and getting pushed out of the scene. This is exactly why you hear so few concrete, names-attached stories of sexual harrassment and assault. I'm told there is a history of discrediting these because the "slut normalization" thing is top priority and these stories get inconveniently in the way of spreading this ideology.
I got roped into attending last year's Saturday Slutcon party because so many local and out-of-town friends were there (to echo sentiments @tautologer expressed about "slut events becoming central to the larger scenes). Mostly I hung out with people I knew and that was great. But in the course of my 3-ish hours there, there were 2 times my "no" was not accepted by a man I didn't know, and I was physically pushing a huge guy off of me who was rubbing his penis on me, who continued to do it despite my physical force against him, and after I finally wriggled away from him, told him I wanted to dance alone etc., he came back and did it again.
This was scary and bad, but it didn't even cross my mind to report this because one of the other people who didn't accept my "no" earlier in the night was the bartender (an officially sanctioned authority at the event), and I knew the event was organized exclusively by women into CNC (who are vocal about how rapey behavior turns them on), so I figured this sort of thing would just get me laughed at. And anyway, I heard there were a lot of other incidents like it. Later though, someone encouraged me to report this story to the organizers, and despite my embarrassment I did, so *they know* that this and other incidents happened. This is why they cut the Saturday night party this year and created a larger training program for the flirt girls - *because* of things like this last year. Yet the narrative bein…

People who haven't been to Slutcon are saying "it's just group therapy," "it's just innocent flirting." But the environment is much like a sex party in that many people are nude, there is making out and sex acts happening out in the open. I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect that every nerdy girl who likes rationalist bloggers or is into EA/AI safety should automatically be comfortable with this! That if she's not, there's something wrong with her, we don't want her in our scenes, etc.
Not to mention, it's explictly an event *for men*, where men are the clients and the "flirt girls" are the product. Last year I overheard an exchange where a man felt "led on" by a flirt girl and was trying to get her punished/kicked out. (A dynamic that seems inevitable in this context!)
Anyway- it does sound like they've upped their consent education a lot this year, are more organized, and that's good! As I've told my friends who are attending: I hope they have fun!
I heard several accounts last year of women who had no problems and really enjoyed the event. That's great!
Just... can we live in reality about this? There are real reasons why male-female sexual dynamics are tricky.
Encouraging autistic men who can't yet read body language to go around asking to see womens' boobs is maybe a bit ill-advised. Maybe not everyone should be/identify as a slut; maybe it's not for everyone.
And yeah, filtering the Bay Area Al safety scene down to only women who are super comfy with this eliminates *most* women - including many of the really smart, nerdy, weird women who've been in the larger scenes for years. What a loss for humanity.
I absolutely understand why people with a minority sexuality would want to create belonging, would want to create spaces for people like themselves. But why do it like this/at this cost?

20643071103

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Ed @notdred.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Agreeing to do universal health care via incrementalism instead of shooting for giant legislation that will never pass is the greatest advance the American left could have hoped for

1655672

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 26/09/2026

This is another great, approachable explainer on “the rationalist wackos who have managed to take over much of the AI industry, and who now have tons of money and political power.” www.iankduncan.com/personal/202...

iankduncan.com

Sex, AI, and the Apocalypse - Ian Duncan

How a community devoted to thinking clearly incubated salvation stories, abusive experiments, race science, and an affection for autocracy, and why that history matters now that its alumni are asking ...

551849447

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Dan O’Sullivan @osullyville.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Today I saw the new 4 hour documentary Musk, directed by Alex Gibney. There were too many times to count that a sold out theater burst out laughing at Elon Musk, something he said or did, even sometimes just how he looked. I believe that is his worst nightmare come to life.

14194912187

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Faytuks Network @faytuksnetwork.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Latvia says its eastern border surveillance system is being deliberately sabotaged, with cables cut and equipment cabinets damaged along the Russian and Belarusian borders. Officials blame growing provocations backed by the "aggressor state"

421657

Reposted by Barb Cummings

ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026

Hey, ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson here. I’m taking over the account to tell you about my new story. For months, I posed as a problem gambler on DraftKings to test the company's "responsible gaming" safeguards. Spoiler alert: They made me a VIP — and I lost $10K. Here's how it all went down. 🧵

Selfie taken by ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson, a man wearing a backwards baseball cap and an orange T-shirt.

19595833513

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

She was an FBI agent. She started an investigation of the murder of Renee Good. Trump forced her to reclassify it as an ICE agent assault. She was then forced to resign. Her evidence confirms that a cover-up of the homicide has been undertaken, directed from the highest levels.

cnn.com

FBI agent who initially investigated fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis has resigned | CNN Politics

The FBI agent who initially began working with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to investigate the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good has resigned from the bureau, two sources familiar with...

281558899

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 25/09/2026

We had to wait for the....NEW YORK POST to write about this. Y'all know there is so much more where this came from but journalists don't want to dig and people are terrified to speak to any journalist seeing the type of reporting they've been doing

301752672

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Tom Scocca @tomscocca.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Do not carry a cold beverage in their presence. Politely decline any drinks or sweetmeats they may offer. Keep a plain iron nail in your left trouser pocket and a sachet or paper twist of coarse salt in your right shoe. Enter and leave your chair moving clockwise. Follow up with a thank-you note.

543301750

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 25/09/2026

America cannot have a multiracial, multicultural democracy if the United States Supreme Court is allowed to continue to exist in its current form

392135617

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Gwen C. Katz @gwenckatz.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Fuck ChatGPT flyers. The future is broadsheets.

A crowded broadsheet with way too many fonts. It says:
Forget ChatGPT Flyers
Say it with
Broadsheets
Unlimited fonts
Stretch them
Or cram a really long sentence into one line for no good reason
No whitespace
Mix capital and lowercase
Pointing hands
(They're called manicules!)
Don't be left behind
Broadsheets are the future

199181005064

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

It's disgusting watching people buying into the "Tucker Carlson is making sense?!" bullshit and it's probably time to wrap our heads around the fact that the people susceptible to this are unconsciously fascist curious and just need the ugly delivered to them in an "acceptable" package

24829200

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Michael Li (李之樸) @mcpli.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節)!

421023

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Andi Zeisler @andizeisler.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

A woman was drugged, raped, and sexually trafficked to members of a fraternity. Two of the men involved were expelled. Five were given the opportunity to mitigate suspension by *writing an essay.* The dozens of other men who knew this was happening and said nothing? You already know the answer.

cornellsun.com

EDITORIAL | Cornell Won’t, We Will

The Editorial Board demands that Cornell stops protecting the alleged Chi Phi rapists through the University's opaque sexual assault policies.

12431301280

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Stan Oklobdzija @stano.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Coming around to the idea that the biggest priority for Americans interested in keeping liberal democracy alive for the next several decades is whole scale reform of the Supreme Court and the judiciary. We can't afford to have Reconstruction 2.0 hampered by the SCOTUS like Reconstruction 1.0 was.

626562

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The mayoral discourse in Berlin continues to be *utterly* unhinged. If the AfD had topped the polls the narrative would be “finally the people have been heard!” but since the Left won, it’s all “Queer Islamofascists and Woke are trying to conquer us with, er, affordable rents!”

191013207

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Blue Heron Farm @blueheronfarm.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Why doesn't he rely on in his body's natural defenses?

328563

Reposted by Barb Cummings

🌬Breeze @cool-summer-breeze.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

This is the Stolen Neighbors Quilt. Each of the 11,000 squares represents a person taken by ICE in Minnesota.

121121475127

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Kashana @kashana.blacksky.app · 25/09/2026

He did it, this is the final boss level of white people going can I say it?

662676551

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Max Berger @maxberger.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

One of my most galaxy-brained takes is that politicians and political groups should talk more about workers’ share of national income. It's one of the clearest, simplest ways to describe how billionaires and corporate elites captured so much of the economy--and something policy can change.

axios.com

U.S. workers' share of national income falls to a new low

Labor's bargaining position has worsened markedly in the last half-decade.

27731262

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Michael Derby @michaelsderby.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

It's pretty astonishing nobody has broken the story of what's really going on here.

57860136

Reposted by Barb Cummings

weeder @weeder.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

God, grant me the courage to change the things I can and incredible new powers to change the things I can't.

63106392505

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Susan Rinkunas @susanrinkunas.com · 24/09/2026

Having déjà vu to “Roe v. Wade is settled precedent” coming from the mouths of Supreme Court nominees

21808389

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Mark Follman @markfollman.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

NEWS: My new investigation uncovers the horrific ChatGPT history of the Tumbler Ridge school shooter. OpenAI’s chatbot fueled the shooter's violent fantasies and plans up to the day of the massacre. Chats about guns, timing of attacks, becoming infamous, and more. www.motherjones.com/media/2026/0...

motherjones.com

ChatGPT helped the Tumbler Ridge school shooter focus on guns, tactics, and terror, our investigation reveals

OpenAI’s chatbot fed the shooter’s violent fantasies and planning up to the massacre.

421468805

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Effective 2025 federal tax rates paid by these corporations: Alphabet: 8.01% AT&T: 4.6% Meta: 3.57% General Motors: 3.09% Amazon: 1.37% Exxon Mobil: 1.31% Disney: -1.57% CVS Health: -3.88% Income tax rate paid by the typical American: 14.5% This is what a rigged system looks like.

536153297186

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Incredible. First Secretary Mullin claimed that DHS had identified 15,903 noncitizens on Nevada’s voter roll. Then DHS officials told a skeptical Nevada, no no no, that’s just people we flagged. Here are the names of 185 people we KNOW aren’t citizens. All 185 were citizens. DHS got 100% wrong.

When the Department of Homeland Security sent Nevada a list of 185 names last month that it claimed identified noncitizens who had been improperly allowed to register to vote, state election officials got to work.
On Tuesday, the state sent a strongly worded rebuke to the federal government: Every single person on the list was a lawful citizen.
"As for the 185 individuals, our records indicate that they were citizens," Greg D. Ott, a deputy attorney general in Nevada, wrote, according to a copy of a letter sent to Department of Homeland Security officials obtained through open records requests.
"You have provided nothing of substance to suggest otherwise."

Following the meeting, Ms. Vogt sent a clarifying email to Nevada officials. "I also wanted to be sure I clarified that we did not reduce the 15,903 to 185," she wrote. "We've manually reviewed some of the 15,903 and confirmed 185 are not U.S. Citizens."
Now, Nevada officials are saying even that 185 number is wrong. They also took issue with a letter D.H.S. sent them in early September, in which the agency reiterated its initial claims about nearly 16,000 noncitizens on the rolls and pressured state officials to review each case in a letter to Nevada officials in early September.

21188013840

Reposted by Barb Cummings

ProPublica @propublica.org · 24/09/2026

A maternity ward doctor donated his own blood during surgery to keep a pregnant patient alive. One woman gained fewer than 10 pounds over her entire pregnancy. Another collapsed and had seizures during labor. (Published Dec. 2025)

propublica.org

What I Saw at a Maternity Ward in Kenya After the U.S. Cut Off Food and Foreign Aid

Photographs tell a story of two mothers determined to help their babies gain enough weight to leave the hospital — only to face little to no food again.

361020550

Reposted by Barb Cummings

Henry @henrythedog.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I'll preface this by saying the poll was before the corruption story, and I don't think "all is lost!" or anything but here's my on the ground what is going wrong 1. lack of any positive message 2. Jackson using a personal story that echo's Trump 3. ground game in crisis

44615