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Lotta Cooties

@sabrinacostello.bsky.social
2.1K followers 5.4K following 404 posts

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Reposted by Lotta Cooties
TheBossRoss 🧶 @thebossross.bsky.social · 10h
A New York state law known as the "voluntary intoxication loophole" potentially prevents individuals accused of rape from being prosecuted if the alleged victim willingly consumed intoxicating substances before the incident. (Wikipedia) It's 2026 and victim-blaming is still strong.
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 22h
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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Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 22h
Dark thread. Since we watched Musk literally push a "protect the Boers" button in real time with Grok, we now know people or companies could theoretically pay their way into putting a thumb on the scale for Grok/Claude/ChatGPT. This is why the AI stans want you to believe it's thinking
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Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 22h
If your goal is to push people to a product or service (or ideology!), you need to establish that AI is coming to these conclusions on its own, and therefore more trustworthy than someone with an obvious agenda. Chatbots can be leaned on by their owners, but most users don't know that.
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Austin Kocher, PhD @austinkocher.com · 9h
Local police do a growing share. ICE had more than 2,500 287(g) agreements as of Sept. 15. One Texas stop by deputies and state troopers ended with a U.S. citizen born in Denver deported to Mexico. He was later let back in.
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Austin Kocher, PhD @austinkocher.com · 9h
Nearly 50,000 ICE arrests in July, a monthly record in Deportation Data Project data, with fewer of the visible raids that defined last year. 🧵 www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
theguardian.com
Gone in 90 seconds: an ‘invisibilized’ ICE is arresting more people than ever
After public backlash, the Trump administration changed its tactics from ‘siege’ to ‘soft feet’. Now, ICE is everywhere
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hammancheez but spooky @hammancheez.bsky.social · 17h
Yall wanna see a 2 hour old highland cow
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 19h
This ICE flight has landed in Ghana, a possible third-country removal. Immigrant passengers onboard have been shackled for at least 18 hours.
An FR24 map showing N59JE landing in Accra
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Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ @padresj.bsky.social · 7h
$3 billion less in exports. $15 billion more in imports. That's a $29b trade deficit in 2024 & a $47b trade deficit in 2026. Even by his own metrics, which again do NOTHING for farmers, Trump has NOT made life better for farmers by cutting the deficit in half. ... In fact, he grew it by 62%
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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 7h
Bellingcat's won 3 awards at the Online Journalism Award, two for Agents of Chaos, our collaboration with @calmatters.org and @evidentmedia.org calmatters.org/investigatio...
calmatters.org
Agents of Chaos: Border Patrol’s year of unchecked force
A visual investigation shows how five agents moved from city to city, with their tactics becoming more brazen at each stop.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 13h
During a sworn deposition on Monday, Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) declined to answer repeated questions from one of his ex-wife’s lawyers about whether he pushed a girl down a staircase during high school.
motherjones.com
In a sworn deposition, Rep. Max Miller was silent on staircase assault allegation
"If the incident never occurred, why are you afraid of answering the question?" asked his ex-wife's lawyer.
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James Downie @jamescdownie.bsky.social · 13h
Reposting this to raise alarm and save humanity.
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J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 13h
questions, striking questions about hearing aids, fatigue, cognition, and even mobility supports like wheelchairs and scooters." "the data gap was particularly glaring for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, potentially missing 75% of [that] population, according to a recent...
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J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 13h
Out of sight, out of mind - the Trump regime is trying to erase disabled people. "With this redesign, roughly 25,000 households will receive a mailed questionnaire — a slight drop from past surveys....The proposed changes include reducing 482 questions to 150... 🧵 www.statnews.com/2026/10/01/c...
statnews.com
As CDC redesigns annual health survey, it removes questions about disabilities
Proposed changes to the federal government’s health survey would undercount Americans with disabilities, advocates say.
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WCVB NewsCenter 5, Boston @wcvb5.bsky.social · 13h
Residents push back against Amazon's drone delivery plans in Mass. town | Click on the image to read the full story
wcvb.com
Residents push back against Amazon's drone delivery plans in Mass. town
Westborough residents voiced concerns about Amazon’s drone delivery proposal, citing safety, noise, privacy and property values.
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Musicology Duck @musicologyduck.bsky.social · 17h
this doesn’t actually make any sense
The Kennedy Center has held used Steinway piano sales in the past, so AlterNet reached out to Jenny at Steinway in Washington D.C. to ask if the sale was happening again this year. She explained that it would not, as the Kennedy Center had closed.
She said the shop owner intends to retire and close, so they're selling all their pianos at a heavy discount. With the Kennedy Center closed, the shop is also moving all the Steinways to offer for sale. AlterNet asked why the Kennedy Center would need to sell everything, and she made it clear that it was because it was "closed." She
referred all other questions to the Kennedy Center.
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The Xylom @thexylom.com · 14h
In 2003, the U.S. military bombed Iraq’s national seed bank in Abu Ghraib, effectively eliminating hundreds of varieties of indigenous seeds adapted to growing in the drought-prone desert climate. A year later, U.S. law prohibited Iraqi farmers from seed saving. (First published in 2025 by Prism)
thexylom.com
Saving Iraq’s Seeds, One Garden at a Time
Comprising a diverse range of backgrounds and ages, the collective fosters a space for voices of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian seed stewards from the Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) region…
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Aren Aizura @incommensurati.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
President Cunningham herself is arguing that “headwinds” necessitates doing less with less — that UMN simply cannot be a comprehensive research university any longer. They *want* program cuts and fewer tenure-line faculty. I don’t think the public understands just how radical her vision is.
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David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Austerity doesn’t work. Instead, it creates a death spiral, where reduction in services leads to reductions in revenue, which lead to reductions in services, which leads to reduction in revenue, which leads … you get the idea. H/t UKHE
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David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
“Cutting this much from the university budget will mean that some of the core functions of the university will be lost. It’s not possible to just do more with less — to work smarter, to trim around the edges. We’re going to have to do less with less.” Gift link: www.startribune.com/umn-cuts-sta...
startribune.com
Perry: What we lose if the U cuts $225 million
"Austerity doesn’t work. Instead, it creates a death spiral, where reduction in services leads to reductions in revenue, which lead to reductions in services, which leads to reduction in revenue, whic...
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Betty C. Jung @bettycjung.bsky.social · 14h
Five people should be alive now rasmussenretorts.substack.com/i/215029745/... @angierasmussen.bsky.social Five measles deaths have occurred this year in Pennsylvania. That brings the death toll for this measles outbreak to eight people, at least four of them children no older than six.
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Freedom of the Press Foundation @freedom.press · 19h
Almost as important as Trump's press ban is where he announced it: Truth Social, which he owns and uses to post official government business. Now, he’s selling early access to those posts as a subscription service to anyone who pays $100k/month. More in this video by @adamrose.bsky.social:
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Brett "Solidarity 2026" Banditelli @banditelli.org · 18h
This isn't surprising. A mega gas station, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, has been profiting off his death 26 miles away for decades. Positive: one of the few places you can buy pistachios that aren't feeding the Resnick family's right wing anti-worker empire. blackwells-corner.com/shop
James Dean’s Last Stop
James, his along with his racing mechanic Rolf Wütherich, was on his way to Salinas via Paso Robles for a race. Unfortunately, just 26 miles from Blackwells Corner, at the intersection of Highway 46 and 41, the legend met with a car crash, and passed away shortly after.
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 19h
Redlining never left.
nytimes.com
Amazon Settles Lawsuit Over Claims of Slow Deliveries to Low-Income Areas
The tech giant will refund $7.25 million in Prime membership fees to affected customers and pay an additional $1 million to settle the suit brought by the District of Columbia.
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 19h
Wow. I hadn't actually read the NYT story yet when I wrote this. But what actually happened to Jane Doe is the exact kind of thing that I'm talking about in this thread.
nytimes.com
Statement Written by Police in Cornell Assault Case Omitted Her Claim She Was Raped
Documents obtained by The New York Times show that the campus police at Cornell University sent a condensed statement to a prosecutor, who then declined to bring charges.
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
In the age of technology, we all expect that every conversation will be recorded. But that isn’t true. A lot of records come from the recollections of someone in a position of power. And we know that investigators—including police and Title IX—severely overestimate the amount of false allegations.
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
All of this. I also want to add that, in my research, I found that a lot of “inconsistencies” in a victim’s story actually came from gender bias affecting investigators’ record keeping and interview methods.
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Senate Judiciary Democrats 🇺🇸 @judiciarydems.senate.gov · 21h
BREAKING: Another person has died in ICE detention, marking the 26th death in ICE custody in 2026.
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Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · 20h
🚨BREAKING: The Trump administration illegally changed a form used by overseas voters to register and request mail ballots just weeks before the midterms, Democrats argue in a new lawsuit filed Thursday. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
democracydocket.com
Trump admin quietly changed overseas voter form at 11th hour to disenfranchise Democrats, lawsuit says
The change is part of a Republican plan to make it more difficult to vote or outright disenfranchise a bloc of voters viewed as more inclined to vote Democratic, the DNC lawsuit argues.
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The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 19h
Kushner, who has been tasked with negotiating peace in Gaza, has a huge financial stake in one of the biggest backers of the Israeli military. trib.al/fFd9RFN
trib.al
Bombshell Report Exposes Jared Kushner’s Ties to Company Backing IDF
Kushner, who has been tasked with negotiating peace in Gaza, has a huge financial stake in one of the biggest backers of the Israeli military.
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Freedom of the Press Foundation @freedom.press · 01/10/2026
You can't protect press freedom by violating the First Amendment. This ruling is deeply troubling. It fails to confront the fundamental First Amendment problems posed by the so-called “independent” editorial board. Press freedom can't be imposed by government decree.
variety.com
Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Set to Close Next Week After Judge OKs Settlement With State AGs
Paramount is eyeing an Oct. 6 closing date for the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, after a judge approved its settlement with state attorneys general.
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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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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 01/10/2026
TRUMP: Did you see the story about my uncle? TIME: The one who taught at MIT? TRUMP: I have the highest of IQs. I have the highest.
Do you trust Sam Altman?

I like him. Do I trust him? Who do I trust? I like Sam Altman. Smart. Dario's smart. They're all smart. We're dealing with a very high level of IQ. Very very high level. That's a good thing. I like that. I like it. Did you see the story about my uncle?

The one who taught at MIT?

I have the highest of IQs. I have the highest. I'm fine, and I understand that stuff. You know, my uncle was at MIT for 41 years, and you know, I'm a—I believe in genetics, frankly, and I understand. I understand it much more than I think any president would, because I do have an ability on this. I have an ability on those things that were the new frontiers. 

What I've done is I've created, for instance, these massive plants have no—We have no electricity in our grid. These massive plants now are allowed to make their own electric—
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Austin Kocher, PhD @austinkocher.com · 01/10/2026
Refugees used to be the immigrants everyone agreed on. Matthew Soerens of World Relief and I talked about how the Trump administration came to ban persecuted Christians. Listen here: austinkocher.substack.com/p/president-... @matthewsoerens.bsky.social
Quote card. Matthew Soerens, World Relief: “I remember the first decade or so that I worked at World Relief, that was, like, the easy, safe category of immigrants that everyone agreed upon.” From the conversation President Trump Bans Christians Fleeing Persecution, austinkocher.substack.com
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maura quint @mauraquint.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Anyway I don't want to be accused of starting drama. I don't want to be assaulted, and I don't want to be a problem! So I leave and the men assume I'm tired or dull or maybe they don't care bc without me, they don't have to confront the creeps, they can claim ignorance and buy the bar another round.
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womensartbluesky.bsky.social @womensartbluesky.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Pink Cyclamen (1870) by Fidelia Bridges, US artist #WomensArt
Painting of a delicate pink flowering plant in a terracotta plant pot all against a sage green background
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 01/10/2026
Tennessee’s highest-security youth prisons are operated by a single private company. Former staff say they felt pressure to hide abuse and other serious incidents from the state and to handle medical emergencies without calling 911. with @wpln.bsky.social
propublica.org
He Suffered Abuse in a Private Youth Jail. The Company Never Reported It.
Tennessee’s highest-security youth prisons are operated by a single private company. Former staff say they felt pressure to hide abuse and other serious incidents from the state and to handle medical ...
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Elizabeth Spiers @espiers.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Now seems like a good time to say that the more I look at what doge did with USAID the more it looks like a straightforward eugenics project and Elon’s protests that he didnt know anyone might die seem doubly evil
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Jamison Foser @jamisonfoser.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
sure why not
Screen shot of the beginning of Palmer Luckey’s Wikipedia page, which identifies him as cofounder of another bullshit right wing company with a name that makes clear its founders read but did not understand Tolkien. Also there is a picture of him, about which I can only say “what the fuck”
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Alan Elrod @aselrod.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Unsurprisingly, Richard Hanania is doing rape apology coverage of the Cornell case with fellow wretch Michael Tracey
Richard Hanania @RichardHanania
X.com
Watch me discuss the Cornell rape controversy with Michael Tracey.
I think the lesson of this is that women do not want to have casual sex with men they don't know well.
They'll end up hating themselves, being hated by other women, and even seen with contempt by the men involved. This is why these situations turn bad.
Maybe she was assaulted, maybe not, either way it was a terrible decision to make.
Women need to be told the truth.
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The Associated Press @apnews.com · 01/10/2026
Pennsylvania health officials have reported a fifth measles-associated death.
bit.ly
Pennsylvania records a fifth measles death as the nation endures its worst year since 1991
Pennsylvania health officials have reported a fifth measles-associated death. The Pennsylvania Department of Health said Wednesday that the person was from Lancaster County and was unvaccinated.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
By popular demand:
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 01/10/2026
“Mayor Brandon Johnson's office confirmed it was contacted by OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, to inform the city that the company’s technology accessed information from an online ‘public facing’ database.”
nbcchicago.com
AI technology probed city databases, Chicago officials confirm
At least one major AI company’s technology targeted the city of Chicago’s computer systems, officials say
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Betty C. Jung @bettycjung.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Maternal depression tied to higher risk of special educational needs in kids www.cidrap.umn.edu/misc-emergin...
cidrap.umn.edu
Maternal depression tied to higher risk of special educational needs in kids
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Super Shoe @shoe.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Republicans at every hearing now
static.klipy.com
Arrested Development: Gob's Knife Magic
ALT: Arrested Development: Gob's Knife Magic
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Semafor @semafor.com · 30/09/2026
Visitors to the US are on track to drop by almost two million year-on-year. “We’re the only major country in the world losing visitation,” the head of the US Travel Association said. “It’s mind-boggling.” www.semafor.com/article/09/2...
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Betty C. Jung @bettycjung.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
More than 2 million new cancer cases caused by infections in 2024, study finds www.cidrap.umn.edu/hivaids/more... (HPV vaccine prevents cancer)
cidrap.umn.edu
More than 2 million new cancer cases caused by infections in 2024, study finds
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Kelcie Moseley-Morris @kelciemmorris.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
NEW: Amid ongoing lawsuits seeking to revoke nationwide access to abortion drug mifepristone, AGs in Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama have filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to strike down shield laws in states with abortion access.
stateline.org
Republican AGs sue abortion ‘shield law’ states in U.S. Supreme Court • Stateline
BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and the attorneys general in Arkansas and Alabama filed a lawsuit Tuesday in the U.S. Supreme Court, suing California, Massachusetts and New Y...
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This is another big story today. I was waiting on @kelciemmorris.bsky.social's report, excellent as always, as I knew she was on it. —>
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Brett "Solidarity 2026" Banditelli @banditelli.org · 30/09/2026
Matt Bruenig last week: The USPS and their workers unions are in a perpetual unfair labor practice war and it's slowing down the NLRB The USPS this week: *Fires up a new unfair labor practice generator*
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