Timothy Spring

We tested AI models’ protections against creating election disinformation. The stark results show the dangers to democracy when technology companies are left to regulate themselves. bit.ly/4hZve8P

Beyond a new rape allegation, the @democrats-judiciary.house.gov report implicates current Attorney General Todd Blanche, stating he "may have engaged in criminal obstruction of justice while acting on a mission to protect Trump," referring to an interview with Ghislaine Maxwell. Seems like news!

Oliver Sacks on the 3 essential elements of creativity www.themarginalian.org/2017/11/09/o...

Sam’s closing argument. Election Day is November 3. Don’t forget to vote!

So Lula not only won, he basically doubled his margin of victory from 2022. I'm guessing he won thanks to voters who didn't love him, but were terrified to see Flavio given near-dictatorial power. It's going to be a messy next chapter for Brazil, but at least it'll be a fight, not a curb-stomping.

Our research team is doing real-time coverage of emerging news and rumors related to election integrity. We put out several outputs this week. Several of the rumors we covered are still percolating. Some of the stories may become seeds for conspiracy theories later in the cycle. Some highlights...

Bolsonaro-friendly mayors appear to be sabotaging public transport on Election Day. Buses aren’t running in Lula-friendly areas, flights and ferries mysteriously canceled. Traffic lights have gone out and people’s power cut in Salvador, indigenous people’s travel restricted

A step-by-step guide to blocking surveillance features on your smart TV:

Kudos to NBC New York for saying it without equivocation: "The US is to blame for the world falling behind in the fight against climate change."

With AI, fixating on apocalyptic scenarios ignores real-world problems involving the actually already existing AI. We have proven methods to address disruptive technology, but for anyone who opposes them, apocalyptic fantasies can be a useful distraction. My latest, in @liberalcurrents.com:

NEW, from Bloomberg News: “Elon Musk has now given more than $445 million in the current election cycle.”

🧵 Elon Musk has donated a staggering $369M to influence the 2026 elections, making him the largest individual political donor in modern US history. And yet, he continues to invoke George Soros as a shadowy force secretly manipulating elections and the world as we know it. Let’s take a closer look.

I don’t even have words for the Acton ad. Survivors live in fear of their abusers—or those who enable them—harming them again. And for good reason. Abusers offered that platform will take it, no matter how many years have passed.

It is rarely highlighted, but Russia controls less Ukrainian territory today than it did in March 2022. Having occupied roughly 27% of Ukraine at its peak, Moscow's control has dropped below 20%. It is a monumental strategic failure

Seen this story all day today. Every headline says "27 year old Minnesota man..." I have yet to see one with the headline that the man was Somalian. The most maligned and denigrated group in Minnesota www.goodmorningamerica.com/news/story/2...

Early into Trump’s second term, political appointees at DHS made an unusual request of its agency focused on cybersecurity: Secretly acquire a voting machine and hack it. The agency was directed not to alert the voting machine company if it uncovered flaws, contrary to its standard practices.

The easiest way to get a big scoop in journalism is to straight-up steal it from @marisakabas.bsky.social, as we've seen over and over from "respectable" outlets.

BREAKING WaPo: The Trump admin has not approved the transfer of interceptor missiles to Ukraine that are needed to protect the country from Russian missile and drone attacks — a delay that comes as Trump embraces Russia and slams Ukraine.

"I Believed American Healthcare Was the Best in the World. Then I Did the Math" Yale epidemiologist @Alison_Galvani anticipated a hefty price tag for Medicare for All. But she found that we are already paying more than enough right now to cover the cost of universal healthcare.

I’ve thought about how the industrialists in the early 20th century were so philanthropic…I mean maybe it was for status or ither self-serving reasons, but they did donate to universities and libraries and the arts. The tech bros do none of that. “Miserly” (and miserable) is exactly the word

There is no world in which a police officer should be justified in shooting at a parent accused of shoplifting diapers for their child. www.cnn.com/2026/10/19/u...

Zelenskyy briefed Pope Leo XIV in detail on the situation with Russian escalation and Russia’s constant strikes on Ukrainian cities and communities. “We are grateful that even during this difficult time for him personally, His Holiness remembers Ukraine and prays for our people,” Zelenskyy noted.

Students from North Carolina A&T can be seen marching back to their HBCU after voting on the first day of early voting in the state. The Guilford County Board of Elections voted to remove the school’s on-campus polling site. (video via Todd Simmons) greensboro.com/news/local/g...

Inside an ICE facility, women talked about the men whose 911 calls landed them there — the boyfriends or husbands who had beat them, choked them, threatened deportation. “I had suffered from domestic violence,” one woman said. “But the one who ended up in trouble was me.”

IRS refuses to publish report. Ahead of the midterm elections, the Trump regime is withholding detailed information that illustrates how King Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act hurt millions of Americans. The data from the IRS was originally scheduled to be released in July & updated in September.

a norwegian on Threads posted this and i just don’t know how much more clearly we can emphasize how much Americans are being ripped off by our system which is built to concentrate wealth at the top

We need an ANTI-FASCIST ECONOMICS which puts a floor under people's livelihoods and a ceiling on the extreme concentration of power and wealth. 🔗 Today I am launching my new YouTube channel: youtu.be/Wj_GdHSo7PU

I am entirely serious when I say that this should be seen as a moderate position. It specifically and surgically dismantles institutions that did not exist pre-9/11 and assigns their functions much as they were assigned pre-9/11.

Billionaires borrow against their wealth, pay a little interest & report zero income. While you pay taxes on every paycheck. The system is rigged but we can fix it by taxing what they actually earn each year & not a paycheck they never cut. #momsky#sheshed #momthevote

Does arresting the wife of an enlisted man and mother of four US citizen children, a person who’s been here since she was 6 years old, make our country great again?

Today would have been Michel Foucault's 100th birthday. In honor of his Centennial, and our own, we're offering a wide variety of free content related to the great philosopher on our blog. Books, chapters, & articles will be open access until Dec. 15, 2026. #DUP100 #Foucault buff.ly/H2nyiVZ

Remarkable outcome in Fox News' latest poll: 88% of U.S. voters say they are extremely or very concerned about corruption in government, beating every other issue including inflation www.foxnews.com/politics/fox...

Despite contributing to billion-dollar AI systems, Junbee makes less than minimum wage through Remotasks, a subsidiary of Scale AI. However, there’s little recourse for workers at foreign companies like Remotasks, and that’s by design.

Six days after ICE shot him in the Bronx, Oscar Belgal remains in MDC Brooklyn, and still hasn’t gotten surgery to remove the bullet in his neck. “He has experienced a loss of sensation in half of his face, as well as hearing loss in his left ear.” Gift link: www.nydailynews.com/2026/10/14/l...

[edit] The book Venn I am going to suggest: This is WHO: American Oligarchs by Andrea Bernstein + This is WHY: Caliban & Witch + This is HOW: Capital Is Dead by McKenzie Wark anyone you see missing in that formulation is in: Golden Gulag.

And yet gas-only cars constituted 77% of the new vehicle market in the US over that period. Has the US ever been this far behind the world average in new tech adoption for a major product type?

First, BASIRA is a great project (I'm on the board of advisors, so I'm not impartial). Second, here's an example of a manuscript that survives in its original chemise binding. It's a 15th-century copy of the Nova Statuta from England, a book containing parliamentary statutes.

torn between shock and disgust and amusement imagining the DoD getting orders to execute the same-day invasion of a major ally

Billions of dollars’ worth of contracts predicting oil would fall and the S&P 500 would rise were placed about 15 minutes before Trump announced a U-turn on Iran in a post on Truth Social. CFTC staff began to investigate...then were told to lay off. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Great video and so true. @sarahjones.bsky.social have you seen this?

I spoke a bit about Matthew Shepard over the weekend in person to some folks, but I didn't want to let the anniversary of his death — October 12, 1998 — pass by without giving a moment to him and his memory here.

I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.

Shannon didn’t switch sides today. She’s been working against the Democratic nominee since the summer. #mtpol FULL STATEMENT: alaniformt.com/pr-2026-10-12