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Waxwing

@waxw.ing
1K followers 1.5K following 436 posts

Techy luddite working to create democratically accountable digital infrastructure. Surveillance, Sociology, Digital Justice, Programming, Social Movements, Infosec

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Reposted by Waxwing
jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 09/10/2026
right. this isn’t a somber public execution to show people what it means for the state to murder someone. this is a celebration of violence for its own sake. the fact that the nidal hasan is helpless and infirm is no doubt part of the appeal. bsky.app/profile/spir...
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Gwen C. Katz @gwenckatz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Things Gavin Newsom has vetoed this week: -A ban on secretly recording people with smart glasses -A ban on ICE agents working for the state government -A ban on websites selling your data -A bill giving native tribes more say over water rights -A bill protecting transgender healthcare providers
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404 Media @404media.co · 30/09/2026
BREAKING: The Trump administration is using a grant program from the 1980s to force cities around the US to funnel their ongoing collection of Flock, Axon, and other ALPR data into large federal surveillance centers that fall under the White House’s jurisdiction, 404 Media has learned
404media.co
How Cities Are Forced to Funnel License Plate Data to a Massive Federal Surveillance Program
How the federal government built a massive database of license plate reader data through an anti-drug trafficking program.
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Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
A rich person can never be held accountable. Therefore, a rich person must never make a societal decision
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Adam Becker @adambecker.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
@aoc.bsky.social just put out a great statement on AI. Refreshing to see a major politician on the left nail this. "Silicon Valley billionaires want us to believe that Al robots will destroy humanity. But the biggest threat to humanity are the tech oligarchs themselves." 🎯
Charles,

Last weekend, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, one of the largest Al companies in the world, publicly asked his industry to slow down Al development.

Shortly after, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAl, followed suit. Then Elon Musk.

This all came days after an Anthropic researcher quit, citing his belief that this technology could wipe out humanity and that Al companies are "gambling with our lives."

For years, people have warned that generative Al could slip out of our direct control.

Those safety concerns must be taken seriously.

And this is why I have advocated for strict safety standards on how Al is built and deployed, public oversight over this technology, and using existing laws to hold these companies accountable when they cause harm.

But I want to draw your attention to another reality: Right now, the U.S. economy and our financial futures are riding on Silicon Valley's bet that Al will soon be immensely profitable and pay off. And that bet isn't looking good.

The formula for a profitable business isn't complicated: make more money than you spend. But the biggest Al companies aren't doing that. They are spending hundreds of billions per year on data centers, chips, and other costs while their ability to make revenues that exceed their already-immense sunk costs are unclear. Experts estimate that these Al companies will require another $600 billion of debt just to financethemselves in 2026 alone. That is more than the entire budgets of the U.S. Departments of Justice, Transportation, & Education combined.
Meanwhile, despite almost every single one of these companies not turning a profit & having sunk billions of investor dollars in development of data centers & other infrastructure, Al companies are also on a spending spree of hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying & dark money in our elections.
It would be one thing if we were discussing a few private companies with a poor business model. But last year, virtually all stock market gains - 80% - rested entirely on just a handful of Al companies.
That tells us two things:
1. Nearly the entire U.S. economy outside the Al industry is relatively stagnating and faring poorly & the gains from these few companies are disguising it; &
2. Millions of people's retirements - including their pensions, 401ks, & investments - are potentially exposed to this risk.
That's why these Al companies' dubious financial positions matter to working people.
These companies argue that debt is necessary. They'll tell you that building transformative technologies requires upfront capital, & that massive borrowing today will pay off in generating unprecedented prosperity tomorrow.
But this is not the typical debt that startups take on while they build out a company. We are talking about billions going on trillions of dollars leveraged with no indication that these companies will be able to recoup these funds profitably. And they are increasingly looking to the government as their source of cash.
In an effort to hide their debt, tech companies have been relying on "circular financing" where tech giants like Google, Amazon, & Microsoft give billions to Al startups like OpenAl & Anthropic, only for those startups to hand that money right back to buy Al processing power.
In other words, these Al companies are luring in new investors by making it look like their financials are healthier than they really are.What's even worse is that retirement & pension funds are key to supporting this illusion.
When the Al companies issue bonds to raise more money, your pension funds & retirement accounts are some of the biggest buyers. When Musk's Al business went public, it became part of index funds where millions of Americans invest our savings. Many Americans don't even know that their retirement investments are tied up in these companies at all.
From Big Tech's perspective, that's a feature, not a bug. By tying our futures to their reckless gambling, Al billionaires are trying to make themselves too big to fail. They think they can take such dangerous risks because we will bail them out if things go wrong.
Sound familiar? This scene is dangerously reminiscent of the rampant speculation, corruption, & broken incentives leading up to the 2008 financial crisis that plunged millions of working class Americans into financial chaos that we never fully recovered from.
It is no accident that these warnings from Altman & Amodei come months-if not weeks-before these companies were meant to go public.
When companies go public, they have to be more transparent about how they are doing financially. And after a waiting period, they typically have to let private investors-like their own employees-sell their shares.
The New York Times recently confirmed that OpenAl has postponed going public for this very reason. They are in no rush for the truth about their finances to come out.
But the moment these oligarchs began to seek our public tax dollars & public contracts while exposing their companies to public pension funds & investments, they opened themselves to public accountability & scrutiny.
Silicon Valley billionaires have rigged the game & are attempting to shift their financial risk to working people: If they're right about Al's potential, they reap the profits. If they're wrong & the bubble bursts, they are setting up the American people to pick up the tab.
Heads, they win; tails, we lose.We can stop this, and we shouldn't play their game. Together we can address both the economic and safety threats of unrestricted Al development and prevent financial chaos and stabilize market risk.

We must make it clear now that should the Al bubble pop, Congress should not bail out Big Tech.

And across our federal agencies, we have the authorities and tools to hold Al companies and their leaders accountable for releasing dangerous, unvetted, and defective products. We must not wait.

Silicon Valley billionaires want us to believe that Al robots will destroy humanity.

But the biggest threat to humanity are the tech oligarchs themselves.

It's time we hold them accountable.

Thank you for reading.

In solidarity,

Alexandria
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
There are already articles circulating trying to rewrite history and say America was great after 9/11 and united and thoughtful and just a reminder that that period was marked by intense and insanely racist hatred, paranoia, and a frothing desire for unhinged violence and oppression.
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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 08/09/2026
prepare for a dramatic ramp up in bipartisan xenophobia and a lot of hollow lip service for privacy and national security
karlbode.com
Auto Giants Want Congress To Ban Cheap Chinese Electric Cars To 'Protect Consumer Privacy'
U.S. anti-China tech protectionism is a hot mess that pays empty lip service to consumer privacy and national security.
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Dean Baker @deanbaker13.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Very good piece on how the shit is about to hit the fan as the AI companies have to start paying for data centers when they come online in a big way, starting next year www.groundbrkr.com/p/the-teaser... Hopefully, even brain-dead billionaires can see this coming.
groundbrkr.com
The Teaser Period: Why the AI Boom Is Hitting a Reset Wall
Trillions in compute commitments come due in 2027–2028. The Reset Wall reveals how the AI boom breaks, and when.
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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 19/08/2026
I don't think people understand the extent to which this has been a decade plus long billionaire funded campaign (obviously Thiel is involved). We've tried to ring the alarm about these eugenicists but it is too easy for them to get parroted by the mainstream media. bylinetimes.com/2026/08/18/t...
bylinetimes.com
The Peter Thiel-Linked Race Science Network that Penetrated Cambridge University and Targeted Jason Arday
The media's coverage of the academic's life was fuelled by the campaign of an established far-right network
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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Many people say because of unions, laws etc it's impossible to discipline bad cops. But many tools to discipline and punish cops exist, they are just deployed exclusively against whistleblowers and honest cops so corrupt cops can drum them off the force
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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Interesting choice for the Zoom background by Flock's CEO
Screenshot of Flock CEO Garrett Langley with a framed headline on the desk behind him that reads 'Snitching-ass startup raises $10 million to privatize the surveillance state.'
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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 17/08/2026
I wrote about how anti-China U.S. tech protectionism is stupid, corrupt, incompetently implemented, and normalized by a shitty press
karlbode.com
U.S. Anti-China Tech Protectionism Is Sloppy, Corrupt, And Stupid
U.S. efforts to ban Chinese tech are driven by corruption, crafted by incompetent zealots, and normalized by a shitty corporate press.
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Jen Taub @jentaub.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
“A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it would replace, according to a new preprint study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health.” ysph.yale.edu/news-article...
ysph.yale.edu
Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year, Yale Study Projects
A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it
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WA Whistles @wawhistles.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Wake up, Seattle! In the last month, ICE has arrested people in Maple Leaf, Sodo, CID, West Seattle, South Lake Union, Queen Anne, Wallingford, Wedgwood and at University Village. www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...
seattletimes.com
As Seattle sees surge in ICE arrests, residents, advocates on edge
Amid a reported surge of immigration arrests across Seattle, residents are starting to see detainments closer to home.
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WA Whistles @wawhistles.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
July was ICE’s busiest month yet in the Puget Sound region. It’s a stealthy surge, without the helicopters or smoke grenades of Chicago and MN. But the surge is real, with real people taken every day. Each red pin is someone’s family member, neighbor, coworker, loved one.
Screenshot from iceout.org (People Over Papers) showing community ICE reports in the Seattle-Tacoma-Everett region from 7/1-2026-7/31/2026. 

The whole urban region is covered with map pins in red, yellow, and green. The pins stack on top of each other, making them impossible to count. Screenshot from iceout.org (People Over Papers) showing community ICE reports in the Seattle-Tacoma-Everett region from 6/1/2026-6/30/2026. 
Most of the urban region is covered with map pins in red, yellow, and green. In some places, the pins stack on top of each other, making them impossible to count. North Seattle, Bellevue, and Bothell have fewer reports than Tacoma, South Everett, and S King County. Screenshot from iceout.org (People Over Papers) showing community ICE reports in the Seattle-Tacoma-Everett region from 5/1-2026-5/31/2026. 

There are several dozen pins in red, yellow, and green — few enough to see each individual pin. South King County has the biggest cluster. There are no pins in Everett and only 1 in TacomaScreenshot from iceout.org (People Over Papers) showing community ICE reports in the Seattle-Tacoma-Everett region from 4/1/2026-4/30/2026. 

There are ~20 pins across the region, mostly green with a few yellow and red. Only one pin in Seattle. Biggest cluster in Tacoma-Federal Way area
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Dan McQuillan @danmcquillan.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Dumping Big Tech isn't just a matter of personal politics or even of tech sovereignty (which is a con anway) it's a matter of survival. Big Tech is the latest flag bearer for civilisation-ending extractivism and all the delusions about progress that keep us addicted to it.
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Waxwing @waxw.ing · 07/08/2026
Chinese invested in green energy, the US invested in AI. The US is cooked.
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
The silent agreement between the parties is to avoid actual issues that have supermajority consensus among voters and instead fight over wealth class-backed, think-tank designed wedge issues while corporate media communicates a 50/50 split, a need for moderation, and paints leftists as dangerous.
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Naomi Klein @naomiaklein.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
..that is not their real fear. Their fear is that the left will go on to win the general election, and, like Mamdani in NYC, prove that the left can govern. They are willing to throw the general election to Republicans by smearing the left and demoralizing the Dem base to avoid that outcome.
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Raider @iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Police in Winona Minnesota are stunned after EVERY SINGLE ONE of their Flock cameras were suddenly removed in a single night. The people don't consent to a surveillance state
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 05/08/2026
It’s not a guardrails problem but rather a fascism problem.
gpb.org
Analysis: More 'guardrails' needed to prevent police misuse of Flock cameras
Inappropriate use of Flock cameras by law enforcement officials have raised questions about how much surveillance is too much.
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
New: Police are being told to hide the fact that they're using Flock to pull people over and arrest them in both encounters with citizens but ALSO in their official police reports: www.404media.co/do-not-menti...
404media.co
‘DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE’: How Cops Are Trying to Hide Their Use of Flock
“DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE TO THE OCCUPANTS OF THE VEHICLE. DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE IN YOUR REPORT OR COMPLAINT."
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shanley @shanley.com · 31/07/2026
It is extremely important to remember that we could develop and maintain technology wayyyy differently than it is being done. And that we can radically change the model of how technology is built around here. We can fix this at a very fundamental level, at the very core.
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Micah @rincewind.run · 28/07/2026
there remains no subject on which elite consensus is so incredibly behind the voters than views of Israel and Bibi this is I think actually worse in punditry than in Dem electeds, who are at least starting to get the message via primary signaling
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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Jeffrey Epstein models Zuckerberg's Meta glasses. Spoof advertisements featuring the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein wearing Meta’s AI glasses have been installed at bus stops across London in a guerrilla campaign protesting against privacy risks. The activist group Everyone Hates Elon
thetimes.com
Spoof Epstein ads go up around London in protest against Meta AI glasses
The activist group Everyone Hates Elon targets smart glasses in a guerrilla campaign over privacy risks and non-consensual recording
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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
“This is thought to be the first known case in the United States where federal prosecutors have charged someone for the alleged destruction of data using a ‘duress’ password built into a phone’s software”
techcrunch.com
US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a 'duress' password during border search | TechCrunch
A U.S. citizen has asked a court to throw out the government's claim that he gave over a passcode to border authorities that wiped his phone's data, opening up fresh questions about a person's constit...
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404 Media @404media.co · 23/07/2026
It is rare for the public to see such a large list of ICE’s technology capabilities in a single document. 404 Media has published the whole document, called “ICE Wide Analytical Tools," here: www.404media.co/leaked-docum... @josephcox.bsky.social reports:
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shanley @shanley.com · 21/07/2026
If you are wondering about what is going on with the Network State and Kazakhstan, vcinfodocs has your back. We've been tracking activity there for a long time, and the Network State and tech fascism already have a stronghold there. www.vcinfodocs.com/status-of-th...
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Black Aziz Anansi @blackazizanansi.blacksky.app · 21/07/2026
Does anyone else not like conversing with people becauase you know that you're going to sound like a conspiracy nut by stating demonstrably true things about how society is moving?
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The Provost / سيدة الفتنة @msentropy.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
What connects the State Dept Cuba report, Trump’s “election interference” speech, the NSPM-7 domestic terrorism expansion, and the recent “Ministerial Summit on Political Violence” to the Iran War? In a word — fascism. “Be alarmed” isn’t enough. Get prepared. 1/11 www.state.gov/wp-content/u...
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Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Rubio’s State Department just published a 100-page report identifying Cuba as the locus of Communist infiltration in the US since the 1960s. Absolutely bonkers shit. www.state.gov/wp-content/u...
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
The thing that is ignored is how much the Democratic Party benefitted from the free labor of young Black activists and organizers during that election cycle. When some of us pointed out how disaffected those organizers were in 24, we were called wreckers and yelled at, lol.
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Digital Brain @yourdigitalbrain.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
South Korea built solar panels over highway medians and turned the space underneath into protected bike lanes. Clean energy + safe cycling, using infrastructure that already exists.
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molly conger @socialistdogmom.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
most murders are committed by someone the victim knows - a partner, neighbor etc. but in cases where there is no relationship between murderer & victim? the killer is a cop about a third of the time. if you are killed by a stranger, there is a 1 in 3 chance that stranger is a cop.
granta.com
Violence in Blue
‘One-third of all Americans killed by strangers are killed by police.’
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Adam P Knave @adampknave.com · 13/07/2026
Every time this tech comes around, we make it so no one wants to wear them outside, and that is good and correct and we must keep it up until it fades away yet again. And then th enext time? We do it all over again.
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Waxwing @waxw.ing · 13/07/2026
Listening to Seattle Nice podcast and once again amazed by @ericacbarnett.bsky.social's restraint in not punching David and Sandeep in the face
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Katie Tightpussy, Editor-In-Chief @katie.bzky.team · 12/07/2026
i'm halfway through season 1 of she-ra and i think i understand the show
meme: "How I defeated Fascism with the Powre of Love by darrow o'lykos

Chapter 1: The power of love
The first step in my journey was realizing that it is impossible to defeat fascism with the power of love
Chapter 2: The power of incredible violence
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Brett "Solidarity 2026" Banditelli @banditelli.org · 12/07/2026
Mamdani should declare a random Sunday Sacco and Vanzetti day just because.
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Alex @mplsalex.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
I want our next Dem president to bring back the WPA and just build infrastructure all across this country again. Build green energy, trains, housing, etc. We can have nice things (and nice bathrooms), but we have to invest in ourselves!
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WA Whistles @wawhistles.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
ICE is surging in the Seattle area. (Map shows activity in the last week) Do you have your whistle with you?
Map of ICE sightings from iceout.org, 7/1-7/8, showing Puget sound area between Fort Lewis and Marysville.
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Xan López @xanlopez.net · 08/07/2026
In my mind, this is one of the most important paragraphs of the last ~25 years. A lot of what's going on can be traced back to this rupture, and in this article, an assistant to G. W. Bush just... says it out loud. We are still living in their world.
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Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Facebook’s own researchers found that “64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools”, an internal report in 2016 found. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
'It let white supremacists organize': the toxic legacy of Facebook's Groups
Facebook has said it will no longer algorithmically recommend political groups to users, but experts warn that isn’t enough
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Look if you think it’s fine for Trump to corruptly get a red card revoked (or “suspended”) bc FIFA is already corrupt, maybe you understand the MAGA mindset better than you think. “All politicians are corrupt so it’s ok for Trump to be corrupt” is a very common maga rationalization
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Jiggety Jatters. The worst name. @jessefuchs.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
seriously, a very good piece, and one that dovetails pretty well with my standing favorite read on the subject
continuousvariation.com
A Short Note On Large Language Models
this post is about poetics considered geometrically, but does not have any actual math
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Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
People who spiral out overusing LLM chatbots are really just experiencing the kind of brain-damaging stream of unconditional validation that’s always been the norm for the hyper-wealthy, which explains a lot.
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Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
people need to go to jail over this, its the only thing the democratic party should be saying right now. all of them, in unison, no matter the question or topic, needs to be saying “insider trading is against the law”
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Centrist Democrats: "Nothing can be done except for more tax cuts. Also we love the police, the military and some wars. Also we will say 'kitchen table issues' twice a day. Vote for us."
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Jack Graham @timescarcass.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
USA, land of massacres. www.zinnedproject.org/collection/m...
zinnedproject.org
Massacres in the United States
Here is a list of some of the countless massacres in the history of the United States.
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Cascadia(PNW) @cascadiarevolting.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
There has been a massive uptick in ICE kidnappings in Washington State. We know why. Researchers at The University of Washington have been tracking these illegal kidnappings and the data that is helping ICE surveil and stalk people. This data is being shared with the feds. Mostly by local cops.
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