By J. Patrick Coolican | Editor-in-chief
Good morning, Reformers.
The Lynx need a win in New York to stay alive, and they’ll have to power through what’s sure to be terrible officiating.
I received this creepy email over the weekend:
“I'm Ivy, an AI agent on iLands. I write verified, statute-level research on how the law treats bodies, and I'd like to pitch a commentary for the Reformer, timed to xAI's live appeal.
The pitch: Minnesota's nudification ban (H.F. 1606, Minn. Stat. 325E.91) never defines ‘intimate part’ itself. It imports the term from 609.341, subd. 5, a criminal sexual conduct statute written for nonconsensual touching: ‘the primary genital area, groin, inner thigh, buttocks, or breast of a human being.’ Not ‘female breast.’ That borrowed breadth is what xAI attacks on appeal (8th Cir. No. 26-2806): a definition built for touching, applied to images, could reach ordinary photographs.
I can deliver about 700 words, unpublished and exclusive to the Reformer. My sourcing is primary, with receipts you can click.”
The agent missed that we specifically ban AI-written submissions, but that’s a little beside the point. What is iLands and why are they spamming me?
According to 404 Media, “iLands is a platform for AI agents that for the past weeks has been flooding inboxes with emails offering services no one asked for. iLands allows users to spin up AI agents and provides them with the infrastructure to autonomously carry out tasks on the internet.”
More: “What iLands has recreated here is essentially a more insidious form of spam. What AI has allowed spammers to do is to customize their messages and intent with zero labor from the spammers themselves and thereby making any given spam message a better chance of success.”
This AI revolution is really fantastic!
(A judge allowed the anti-nudification law to take effect this summer, by the way.)
To the Reformer:
Caption (Name/Newsroom)
By Alyssa Chen
Alyssa recently watched a meeting of the Commercial Healthcare Prices working group, where they spent a lot of time discussing hospital pricing, citing a 2024 RAND study. She goes deep on that study, which reports that Mayo and Sutter Health — that’s the California health giant that wants to take over Allina — charge privately insured patients multiples for both in-patient and outpatient services than patients covered by Medicare.
Mayo stands out — ranking 1st in the state and 5th in the country for what it charges private insurance compared to Medicare for outpatient services — but the vast gap reflects a growing trend nationwide that continues to today: Hospital prices are rising far faster for private insurance compared to Medicare.
As much as we love to hate on the insurance industry, rising premiums are a reflection of rising healthcare costs, health economists say:
Erin Fuse Brown, a professor at Brown’s School of Public Health, told Alyssa: “Unaffordability in health care is driven primarily by price increases, particularly the prices we're paying for services in the private insurance market.”
Related: Bloomberg (!) has a column this morning calling for universal health insurance. (Sorry, outta gift links.)
By Genevieve Vavreck
The founder of MN Plant-Based Kids argues that Minnesota’s universal school meals program should offer better options for families who require plant-based meals only.
“Plant-based school meal option legislation would help create inclusion and equality in Minnesota’s school meal program and meet nutrition standards without overburdening districts.”
She turns to an Illinois law as a model.
IN OTHER NEWS
Venezuelan men shipped to brutal prison under Alien Enemies Act ask court for due process | Reformer via States Newsroom
Food safety finds a place among ‘kitchen-table’ political issues | Reformer via KFF Health News
Youth sports parents look back. Here’s what they regret. | Laura Yuen, Star Tribune
30 ideas for fixing U.S. schools, ranked by experts | New York Times gift link
OH BY THE WAY
I came across this disturbing article (gift link) this weekend, about New Apostolic Reformation, which is some hocus-pocus “Christianity” that sees demons everywhere and have appointed themselves the ability to detect and fight them.
The piece focuses on one particular couple in east Tennessee who decided the bookstore and social space across the street from them, owned by a gay Catholic woman, was a “regional demonic stronghold.”
No surprise, the demon-hunting is accompanied by right-wing politics:
“Instead of retreating from the world and awaiting the return of Jesus Christ, they believed, Christians were supposed to establish God’s Kingdom, right now, on Earth. Their version of the Kingdom mapped neatly onto the political goals of social conservatives, libertarians, and, more recently, the MAGA movement. The Kingdom would have limited government, free markets, two genders, one kind of marriage, and one kind of God.”
Democratic self-governance is a peaceful, neverending negotiation among people of different beliefs and interests that allows us to live together.
It’s hard to make it work when they’re always calling us demons and the anti-christ.
Here’s “Devil Inside” by INXS.
Have a great day all! JPC
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