Megan Stifel

The Justice Department's last-second letters about noncitizen voting contain people with no history of voting whatsoever, and they're moving so fast they sloppily sent one county the wrong list of names.

No obvious legal authority supports a pre-emptive effort to block the certification of Alaska’s Senate election if the Republican incumbent narrowly loses. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/23/u...

Unfortunately the tech company ethos has developed into a model of move fast and create bad risks then hope for regulators to do wrist slaps or courts to find ways to dismiss cases. Maybe finally this strategy will start to fail.

Darren Beattie literally ran this exact narrative playbook in 2020. With Mike Benz. Beattie got it onto Fox then via Tucker. SIO exposed how it worked. Ask the lying influencers pushing this bs what color the 2020, 2022, and 2024 Color Revolutions were.

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...

At intersection of law-nerdishness and all-things Elizabeth Holmes: Here's the court of appeals opinion rejecting her challenges to the convictions. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

I built an AI Community Notewriter. And here's why I think X's Community Notes is going to fail when election rumors about "rigged machines" and "illegal voters" start flying. agentsofinfluence.substack.com/p/i-built-an...

Steve Witkoff to Putin: “You talk so much about President Trump being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that. I commend you, and I thank you.” Sickening!

I want to be extremely clear on this point: Over the next few weeks, you are going to hear dozens of stories like this from both sides. They will, unless you hear someone who knows what they're talking about say otherwise, be the result of machine and human error. 🧵

Today, we are announcing a huge new project in development: The Dark Money Illuminator. You can search any nonprofit to see: - Funders - Directors and officers - Groups it’s connected to You can also explore/search nonprofits by assets. And it’s going to be FREE! Donate to support this project

A cryptic #SCOTUS ruling from Monday ought to spark two conversations: one about providing for more effective (and conclusive) resolution of cases in which more than three justices are recused; and one about insulating against the ethical effects of the justices’ extrajudicial commercial activities:

A major ruling that dwarfs the lame $18 billion Facebook settlement with most U.S. states. New Mexico admirably held out. If you forgot the Cambridge Analytica scandal and Zuck’s duplicitous performance before Congress this ruling will refresh your memory. apnews.com/article/face...

HAPPY AGENTIC AI PEACE DIVIDEND DAY TO ALL WHO (unwillingly) CELEBRATE Thread of today’s security shitshow, feel free to contribute…

Neil Bush, brother of George W. Bush and son of George H.W. Bush, has posted a political message on Facebook for the first time, saying he voted for James Talarico for US Senate over Ken Paxton. Bush says he isn't just opposing Paxton, he has come to admire Talarico.

"With a seeming flick of a switch, Musk has the power to alter the course of a deadly conflict. " Nobody should have that kind of power www.wsj.com/world/ukrain...

Over public dissents from Justices Thomas and Alito, #SCOTUS *denies* the Trump administration’s request for emergency relief in the transgender federal prisoner medical care case—leaving in place lower court rulings requiring the continuing provision of care for gender dysphoria.

Rough estimate - likely over 1.3 million internet exposed hosts vulnerable to #PHP2Shell For all PHP: `host.services.software.product: "PHP"` ( 2,574,043 results) platform.censys.io/search?q=hos... @censys.bsky.social query: gist.github.com/silascutler/...

EXCLUSIVE: The purchase of several airplanes by the Department of Homeland Security during then-Secretary Kristi Noem’s tenure is tied to an “ongoing criminal law enforcement investigation.” Via @markalfred.bsky.social of @washingtonsun.com: www.washingtonsun.com/legal/kristi...

Great news and a great victory!

Reposting from the weekend in case you were busy having a weekend.

"A full assessment of the record in the East Potomac case sure seems to suggest that the problematic behavior has come from the government, and not from Judge Reyes. The real-world stakes may be modest. But the institutional stakes are substantial—and they’re growing by the day." Me in "One First":

As the midterm election draws near, public confusion about how the Trump administration may use the military has heightened. Placing troops at the polls is illegal, but more steps can be taken to abate some of the alarm, writes @danmaurerlawprof.bsky.social, Steven J. Lepper, and Marc Koblentz.

At 10am Judge Ana Reyes will begin an evidentiary hearing in the golf course case at 10am. I'll try to live-blog from the US Courthouse media room for @lawfaremedia.org . This is a case to stop Trump from converting a historic public golf course, open to all, to a Trump style championship course.

Invasion, mass murder, rape, kidnapping of children - all fine

There's no surprise companies that rushed to adopt AI in the workplace are having buyers remorse. Corporate leaders should have appreciated how desperate AI companies are for growth, so of course their claims about the wonders of their AI are exaggerated. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Danielle Citron @daniellecitron.bsky.social on accountability for AI. Builds on her work on strict liability for data breaches - an early piece called Reservoirs of Danger, which is also well worth reading. www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/a...

Gift article: some big donors to the White House ballroom were hoping their names and dollar amounts wouldn’t get out.

Those who would rule without consent rarely announce it. They start by making it harder to vote. This Saturday, No Kings returns with a call to protect democracy by voting early. And even in the reddest corners of the country, voters are responding.

Take a few minutes to watch this if you can. Former MAGA diehard comes face-to-face with Epstein survivor www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-zT...

🚨 NEW from IST: Hardware supply-chain security is national security, but securing complex bulk-power systems & other critical systems requires visibility into all components. Today’s policy memo argues for Hardware Bills of Materials as an essential foundation of real grid resilience. 🛡️ Read more:

"Some state and local officials say they are now taking preparations to defend their elections against what used to be a reliable ally: the federal government." www.nytimes.com/2026/10/15/u...

This is insane (also, & I wish I didn’t have to point this out, seemingly nothing to do with AI) www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/securit...

When my colleague @maxrn.bsky.social discovered fmr NYC Mayor Eric Adams had been hired to convince Wisconsin residents to allow a 150MW data center to be built at the site of an old paper mill, we had MANY questions. So Max headed to Wisconsin Rapids to answer them. His delightful dispatch here:

More searches, more trees, more ads. Vote 🇺🇸

1. Militant Scientologist Grant Cardone has jumped on a false story spread by two MAGA influencers claiming James Talarico was institutionalized for two weeks in Ohio. Cardone thanks one of the influencers for breaking the story, then adds, “whether it’s true or not.” Whether It’s True or Not!

The Trump administration wants to lift sanctions on a Russian company to benefit mostly Middle Eastern investors (who also happen to be Trump family business partners) www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/w...

Wrote this in 2015 about then candidate Trump’s revelation of Senator Graham’s unlisted cellphone number www.forbes.com/sites/daniel... Senator Cotton gets same abuse ten years later, link below

You may remember the breathless media coverage globally about an Anthropic employee recently after he tweeted AI will end humanity in a decade. Here are his prior tweets. Will these get mainstream coverage? futurism.com/artificial-i...

Nothing to worry about, just the attorney general of Texas and a possible future U.S. senator engaging in a conspiracy-fueled crackdown on pediatricians administering life-saving vaccines to vulnerable children www.nytimes.com/2026/10/05/h...

Trump calls for New York Times journalists to be arrested for reporting on empty seats at his rallies: “The New York Times, and many other Artificial Media Outlets, should be arrested for their dishonesty and disservice to our Country.” Trump wrote on Truth Social

Samuel Alito: We won't overturn Obergefell because it's engendered reliance interests. Jan Crawford: Well, many people had organized their lives around Roe v. Wade. Alito: No, they didn't. Women merely had an "abstract" interest in "ideas about the kind of society that they were going to live in."

The Trump administration is breaking a fundamental promise of political impartiality, Paul Rosenzweig argues:

Thread from my colleague @thomasberry.bsky.social: "Today I was in the Boston federal courthouse to watch the First Circuit’s arguments in two companion cases challenging the Trump administration’s treatment of Harvard University."

I don't mean to make waves or anything, but as a journalist, I am definitely opposed to the president talking about arresting journalists.