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Kate
Kate
@katastrophe98.bsky.social
She/Her. Environmental scientist. Aspiring worthwhile human being. Solidarity is the only way. South Jersey. Yes…it’s the best state.
1.3K followers1.2K following2.2K posts
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I emailed Patrick Healy, assistant managing editor for standards and trust at NYT, to ask why their story about a House report with new details of rape allegations against the President of the United States included neither those details, nor a single use of the word "rape." archive.is/1s9AM
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I am old enough to remember when politicians felt the need to hide behind euphemism and obfuscation. As frustrating as these obfuscations were I hope it is becoming clear to all that they were an advance, historically speaking
RFK: "There's five hundred million Arabs in the world. And yet they don't produce science. They don't win the Nobel Prize. They don't win the Fields Prize. They don't win the Wolf Prize. They don't produce literature."
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Kavanaugh stops in action: ICE tackled a non-verbal kid near his school, left him with injuries requiring surgery, and then left the scene when they realized he wasn't the person they were looking for www.independent.com/2026/10/23/i...
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Via @stephenjcaruso.bsky.social, who really should post here more than there, I'm counting $8.52M from Jeffrey Yass to try to preserve a GOP state senate majority in PA (candidate giving, SRCC, and State GOP) and another $1.1M to stanch the bleeding in the state house, where Dems lead 103-100.
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A single billionaire megadonor is propping up the Republican effort to stop Dems from flipping Pennsylvania’s Senate and gaining full control of government—to a much greater degree than Elon Musk is doing it at the federal level
Via @stephenjcaruso.bsky.social, who really should post here more than there, I'm counting $8.52M from Jeffrey Yass to try to preserve a GOP state senate majority in PA (candidate giving, SRCC, and State GOP) and another $1.1M to stanch the bleeding in the state house, where Dems lead 103-100.
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NEW: The group behind Cornel West's 2024 ballot push was wholly funded through Elon Musk's dark money network, according to Sludge's review of tax documents. readsludge.com/2026/10/26/m...
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The Grand Old Rape Party
NEW: "Donald Trump was an active participant in Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women during the mid-to-late 1990s," per new House Judiciary Dem report. Report has new allegation that Trump raped a 24-year-old and then promised the victim a visa & NYU admission, demanding she stay quiet.
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The long-serving strongman leader of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, has conceded defeat in an election that pitted him and his right-wing party against a diverse student-led opposition movement that spent two years protesting his government.
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your yearly PSA: want to do something positive wrt the ecosystem while saving yourself a bunch of time and effort? skip the bagging and just rake leaves into a pile wherever convenient (bonus points if you do it under a tree). www.nps.gov/articles/000...
It’s not hard to be on the right side. I especially appreciate calling out how cynical a play it is.
Kansas Dem Sen. nominee Adam Hamilton on trans rights: “I don’t think we should take a small group of people and bully them, pick on them, and hurt them. I understand one thing really clearly when it comes to transgender people, and that is Jesus told me I was to love my neighbor as I love myself”
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Replying to @andycraig.bsky.social
What happens to these criminals will determine whether, at some point in the near future, some not-huge number of years down the line, this country is a liberal democracy or else has a consolidated authoritarian regime and/or collapses into civil conflict. That's not hyperbole, it's what's at stake.
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JUST POSTED: Today at The NYT we are publishing a major investigation into how President Trump used his executive powers to expose millions of Americans to greater cancer risks. A six month-long investigation built on more than 10,000 pages of FOIA records. Read it www.nytimes.com/2026/10/24/c...
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JUST POSTED: A Russian energy giant has secretly moved to acquire a position in a massive Alaska gas project. Its part of talks between Witkoff/Kushner & Putin. But CEO of US company resigns after learning of Russian money in the project. A wowzer of a story. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/23/u...
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this is fucking appalling. i already knew james dolan (who owns the knicks and madison square garden) was a douche but this is next-level. www.nytimes.com/athletic/771...
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MAJOR UPDATE: Shortly after this published, I obtained another document confirming this will be a removal flight only. If carried out, it would be the largest third-country removal to Africa so far: 25 people to Eq. Guinea, 30 to Burundi + 100 to Central African Rep. prospect.org/2026/10/21/i...
SCOOP: I've obtained documents showing an ICE flight is scheduled to land Thursday or Friday in Equatorial Guinea -- where Ahmed Soliman is still imprisoned and seriously ill, despite a federal judge ordering his return to the US more two weeks ago. prospect.org/2026/10/21/i...
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Translation: If the government turns on him, he's finished.
"Almost none of his net worth is held in cash. Nearly all of it is **unrealized equity** in companies he still runs, and he draws no salary. His wealth is not money he extracted and stored. It is the market’s estimate of promises he hasn’t yet kept." fortune.com/2026/06/23/e...
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BREAKING: Citing noncompliance concerns and highlighting problems with the declaration submitted Monday, Judge Hinderaker orders *daily* reports that include a declaration from someone with "personal involvement" in effectuating the court's order to facilitate a deported gay man's return to the US.
BREAKING: Lawyers raise questions of whether the Trump administration is in noncompliance with an October 6 court order to facilitate the return of a gay man from Egypt who the administration sent to Equatorial Guinea.
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Forbes has been tracking Trump's wealth since the early 80s. They described Trump's first year back in office as "the most lucrative year of [Trump's] life." And it's not even close. Trump is earning hundreds of millions more than he ever has.
JD Vance: "There is no person who hates the idea of people enriching themselves fraudulent over access to the government than Donald J Trump"
This is just….wow. Imagine being Zelenskyy and having to listen to these lickspittles trying to curry favor for future biz deals while Ukrainians are dying.
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff to Vladimir Putin today: “You talk so much about Trump being a humanitarian, you are a humanitarian also, sir. And I salute that. I commend you.”
The US government making deals with private companies owned by criminals and cutting out the government of the country they’re looting.
NEW: Trump’s mega Venezuelan oil deal, signed by Hegseth and Rubio, benefits an unknown group of investors and was intentionally crafted to keep the next U.S. president or future leaders of Venezuela from undoing it. @propublica.org saw the secret contract: www.propublica.org/article/trum...
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“The borrowing let Ellison keep his stock and avoid locking in taxable gains, and highlighted how billionaires often employ a strategy called ‘buy, borrow and die’ to retain their wealth without selling assets.”
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My brain cannot process this level of corruption. She was being paid $50 million to engineer a pardon from Trump *while working at the Justice Department* as a "Special Government Employee." And it worked. He got the pardon, and she got the money. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/20/u...
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They both did it, it was a joint effort, it’s one of the crazier things to happen in the national security space (which is really saying something) and every government should be scrambling to reduce dependence on—and as soon as possible get off—Starlink/shield or any Musk product, including the US.
BREAKING WSJ: Elon Musk ordered the slowdown of the military-grade version of Starlink that Ukraine relied on.
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this is how oligarchy operates. it’s not just billionaires dictating political choices, bad as that is. it’s his literal exercise of an authority that belongs with government. this should be his undoing but he exercises unaccountable power and trump allows it.
BREAKING WSJ: Elon Musk ordered the slowdown of the military-grade version of Starlink that Ukraine relied on.
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Good luck with your hurricanes and tornados to some of the poorest and reddest states in the country I guess….
BREAKING: Trump's head of FEMA just told states to prepare to handle disasters on their own. The Trump admin's disaster chief told state officials they must increase their financial reserves and emergency capabilities to handle most disasters on their own — without federal help.
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It is so important that European leaders acknowledge the truth as Kaja Kallas does here. Trump and the USG have been trying to force Ukraine to surrender for almost two years. There has been no recent pivot to Russia. It’s been a constant US policy www.euronews.com/2026/10/20/k...
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I'm not sure how much more blatant it can get that these guys are looting the federal government and then pointing over there and saying "look what THOSE BLACK PEOPLE ARE GETTING AWAY WITH!!!" bsky.app/profile/atru...
Stephen Miller claims Somali-Americans in Minnesota are "buying Mercedes, buying BMWs, they buy a nice house, all their kids fly first class all over the world" (This is a lie!)
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Today we launch the first episode of my podcast. I interviewed Whitney Mitchell, whose fiancé and caretaker Garrett Foster was murdered at a BLM protest in 2020. Foster's killer was convicted by a jury and given a 25-year sentence. Then Texas Gov. Greg Abbott pardoned him.
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wait wait wait. the Republican ratfucking dad and son are named "Tommy and Timmy Teepell." are you fuggin kidding me with this shit
Huge follow-up reporting to my scoop: The Guardian confirmed America Next—the conservative nonprofit founded by Bobby Jindal that was offering students $ to disrupt El-Sayed events—paid a firm registered to Tommy Teepell’s dad Timmy $250k for “canvassing and influencer marketing” against El-Sayed.
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look man. I realize we live in an era of repulsive politics but this is some low-down shit right here bsky.app/profile/eric...
Amy Acton's brother slams Vivek Ramaswamy featuring her estranged mother in a campaign ad. "This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core – a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants."
Aren’t these farmers just folks who got a government check the first go-around and decided they wanted a government check again?
“.. It was the second time in two years that the president authorized billions of dollars in bailout money for farmers harmed by his administration’s policies.” @nytimes.com #KSsen www.nytimes.com/2026/10/20/b...