Brian Contreras
@_B_Contreras_
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Covering AI and social media for @Inc . Formerly @latimes . I have a Ratatouille-type situation in which a critter on my scalp writes tech articles
Brooklyn
Joined June 2018
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Some personal news: later this month, I'm moving to NYC to join the tech coverage team at
@Inc
! My focus will be the same powerhouse industries I covered for the L.A. Times in recent years: AI and social media.
Send me your tips, your source ideas, your bagel recs!
News:
@_B_Contreras_
is joining Inc. as a staff reporter, where he will be covering AI, creators and social media, and tech startups. He comes to us from the Los Angeles Times where he was the Times' first-ever artificial intelligence beat reporter.
Prior to that, he wrote
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Sen. Blumenthal: "Will you commit to ending finsta?"
Facebook global head of safety Antigone Davis: "We don't actually do finsta..."
Blumenthal: "Finsta is one of your products or services..."
Davis: "Finsta is slang."
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Not long ago, these five young Latinos were working typical service-industry jobs: at theme parks and catering companies and Walmarts.
Today, they share a $2.2 million home high in the Hollywood Hills, making TikToks full-time.
Meet the Familia Fuego.
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Well, unfortunately I'm among those who were laid off by LAT today, among many other brilliant and dedicated colleagues both inside and outside our union. If you're looking for a tech reporter with experience on the AI or social media beats, I'm at briancontreras42 'at' gmail
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@vijaya
Hi! My name is Brian; I’m a tech reporter with the L.A. Times. We're working on an article about how Twitter employees feel about the company's sale to Elon Musk, and I’d love your perspective! Please reach me at brian 'dot' contreras 'at' latimes 'dot' com if you're interested.
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I went to the crypto-themed burger joint in Long Beach. They said they weren't accepting crypto.
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@kenklippenstein
I wrote about this a few weeks ago for
@latimes
. Trump's page has always been up, and accruing comments from his fans and trolls -- even though he himself remains banned.
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Subtitles are wildly unpopular in film. So why do they show up everywhere on TikTok?
The answer is more complicated than you might think. It involves a little bit of psychology, a little bit of business theory, and a whole lot of activism.
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Comedy is changing, and TikTok is a big part of the reason why.
“Stapleview” — a new sketch show staffed with some of the biggest names in the app’s homegrown comedy scene — offers a sneak peak of where the industry may be headed.
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Starting a summer position with the
@latimes
DC bureau today! If you have a story pitch or an interesting perspective on COVID, protests,
#election2020
, tech regulation, etc. my DMs are open!
(Also accepting scoops about goings-on in my basement, where I'll be working)
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✨ PLEASE SHARE WIDELY ✨
Are you in high school, college or young adulthood and have changed life plans or lifestyle in response to climate change? Want to talk to the L.A. Times about it?
DM me here or reach me at brian.contreras 'at' to chat!
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New from me, for the L.A. Times: a look inside the often-costly conservation work that goes into America's public lands, and a new bill that would inject billions of dollars into their expansion and maintenance.
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We're walking out tomorrow because management refuses to work with us in good faith to craft a buyouts proposal that could save jobs and money.
Instead, they're using the threat of layoffs to try to gut the contractual protections that allow people to build a life + career here.
📢DON’T CROSS THE LAT GUILD DIGITAL PICKET LINE
To support us in our walkout, we ask you not to
1) Click on LAT stories
2) Engage with LAT brand accounts on social media
3) Open LAT news alerts
Or otherwise engage with LAT content from midnight to 11:59 p.m. Jan. 19
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If you’re an OnlyFans user whose content will be affected by the site’s new ban on sexually-explicit content, I’d love to chat! DM me here or reach me at brian.contreras
@latimes
.com — especially if you’re California-based.
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👻 My latest, just in time for Halloween 👻
Jeb! Bush is a ghost trapped in meme purgatory, cursed to haunt the dark corners of the internet forever — or at least until Trumpism stops needing its favorite boogeyman.
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OnlyFans is banning the sex workers who helped make it a national brand — and it's hardly the first to do so. From LiveJournal to Tumblr to Pornhub, this is just the latest battlefield in the internet’s long-running love/hate relationship with porn.
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“It’s definitely challenging” being a high-profile Latina influencer, said Alexia Del Valle, one of the members of the all-Latino content house. “But it’s also special, because it’s giving us an opportunity to represent where we come from."
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In the 2+ months since Israel's bombardment of Gaza began, Palestinians have used social media to share messages of grief and anger — farewells they know could be the last thing the world hears from them before they die.
These are some of their stories.
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The algorithm figured out that these women were pregnant. Then things got scary.
My latest for the L.A. Times...
(1/12)
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Money can buy you a lot of things. A sense of humor isn’t one of them.
I spoke with eight comedians about why Elon Musk’s “jokes” are so grating to so many people:
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Help! My boat can only carry one passenger at a time, but I have to cross this river with my fox (fully vaccinated), chicken (partially vaccinated, recovered from Covid-19 in the past 270 days) and cabbage (unvaccinated, negative pre-boat ride test result)
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Trump has been kicked off Facebook, and he might never come back.
But in his absence, fans and critics alike are turning his ghost town-like profile page into a makeshift memorial, full of arguments, trolls and memories.
My latest for
@latimes
:
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I read the Facebook leaks so you don't have to.
The big take-away: thru 2020, employees were concerned that FB wasn't ready to handle election misinfo targeted at Latinos.
Yet those internal concerns didn't translate into outside cooperation
W/
@maloym
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Headed off to Fisherman's Wharf for a nice big sourdough bread-bowl of chowder 👍
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I hope Susan Rice gets the veep nod so I can finally pull some cred for my 2 years in the trenches of the JRC beat
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Shout out to the Spotify dev who put in enough extra effort to turn the progress bar into a lightsaber for all the Star Wars soundtracks, but not enough extra effort to stop it from also doing that on the unrelated Wilco album "Star Wars"
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I FOIA’d the classified portion of Ned’s School Survival Guide. Some of the interrogation methods Ned outlines clearly violate the Geneva Convention
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Within the span of a year, the Super Bowl went from all-in on crypto to almost entirely crypto-free. What happened?
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STOP hating on Drake. He is important representation for people like me (annoying)
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🤖 Have you ever failed a Captcha? Did it make you question your humanity? I would love to talk: brian.contreras
@latimes
.com 🤖
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People forget that I'm a hand model
Popular apps, such as Clubhouse, have become increasingly popular because they allow psychics to connect with a wide variety of people at one time.
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Half of LA County is Latino, but Latinos are severely underrepresented in the
@latimes
newsroom. Now,
@latimes
is preparing to layoff 19 Latino journalists, setting us back yet again. We refuse to go backward.
@LATLatinoCaucus
#Siempreadelante
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Posted up in the Amazon Dot Com reviews section for Aztec Death Whistles, hanging out with the worst husbands in the world
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New from me for
@sciam
: Could the Taylor Swift deepfake debacle lead to stronger AI regulations? And if so, what would they look like?
"Do women have to be as famous as Taylor Swift to get these explicit AI images to be taken down?” one victim asked me.
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All the most canceled TikTokers should move in here and make a hype house that the UN has to formally condemn
No one wants Osama Bin Laden family's Bel-Air mansion — even after $2M price cut
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Showing admirable self-control by thinking of a good tweet but incorporating it into the article I am being paid to write instead of posting it here for free. Sorry
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Intergenerational wealth is when my parents let me use their Netflix
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got a tiny black eye in the tiny mosh pit at the tiny desk concert 🤘😔🤘
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Oh, you love Brian's reporting on the intersection of tech and policy? Name one of his articles.
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Excited to "report" (haha) that I'll be doing a recurring feature for the Times called 'Poll Position,' up through election day.
This first edition explores Biden's strength in red states, the Collins race in Maine, and a partisan split on RBG's seat.
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Now they've got this coronavirus in the news. You heard about this? “Coronavirus.” Hey, here's an idea -- wake me up when there’s a damn Michelob Ultravirus!
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I was peeling a banana over the sink and dropped it and it fell perfectly vertical down the drain like some sort of Charlie Chaplin sight gag :/
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War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Flushable wipes are NOT flushable.
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✨ Please Share ✨
I'm a reporter looking for 18- to 29-year-olds whose relationship with politics has changed thanks to the pandemic. If you've moved to another state and re-registered to vote there, are volunteering with an all-online campaign, or something else, let's chat!
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Excited to drop this big, multimedia-heavy story — cowritten with
@MarVasMartinez
— on the Black influencers who have given up on TikTok and are heading elsewhere.
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What did you guys get as your
#1
health crisis on the CDC Wrapped? Mine was the COVID-19 global pandemic (novel coronavirus)
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The real “Jackass” is capitalism and/or socialism!! I dont care which one just please make this go viral
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Or might I suggest: AI beat reporter looking for work?
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To a lot of young people, hashtags have gotten cringe. But would you keep using them for $100,000?
#article
#news
#tiktok
#influencers
#viral
#economics
#business
#lat
#journalism
#media
#cringe
#cheugy
#money
#hypehouse
#trend
#famous
#style
#fashion
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If you're a Twitter employee who has thoughts on Elon Musk buying your company, my DMs and email are open 😅 brian 'dot' contreras 'at' latimes 'dot' com
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Not sure why all the Army stuff in DC right now is camo print. If they really wanted to blend in downtown they’d paint it to look like a $35 banh mi / tapas fusion place called like “Thistle & Crow” or “José Andrés Presents: Butterfish”
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In tech reporting we call these the "Big Four" (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and the Reddit forum for popular children's game "Among Us")
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Aspiring creatives who once would've gone straight into showbiz can now instead opt for a social media career.
Meet the film school grads who became TikTok and YouTube influencers:
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Was just rewatching and you can see the staffer to his right flinch (or start laughing?) when he asks lmao
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Really excited to reconnect with the recruiter from the sandwich place that, six years ago, didn't hire me
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In most cultures, the progression from one stage of life to the next is consecrated with a ritual or ceremony of some sort
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I'm so proud I get to work alongside this team of talented, incredible Latinos every day, and can show solidarity with them and the Guild's Latino Caucus in demanding that management bring even more on board! Latinos are almost half LA's population, but only 13% of our newsroom.
Today nearly 80 Latino staffers at the
@latimes
sent a letter to our owner and managers demanding a newspaper that truly reflects our community, which is half Latino, and gives equal opportunities to Latino staffers.
#SomosLAT
Read
@LATCaucus
letter here:
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@jennfranconews
Trump's page has always been up, and accruing comments from his fans and trolls -- even though he himself remains banned. I wrote about this a few weeks ago for
@latimes
.
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Working on some content (1) in my hype house (2) for the fans (3) 😜🤙
(1) transcribing an interview
(2) basement
(3) readership of the Los Angeles Times
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Elon Musk now owns 9% of the website you're reading this on.
...Why would he do that?
w/
@russ1mitchell
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For the latest Latinx Files newsletter, I wrote a little more about Facebook's misinformation problem (and also how I can't do the Cardi B "okurrrrrr" thing)🤘
🚨🚨🚨 Culo” made it into the newsletter, courtesy of
@_B_Contreras_
Latinx Files: Facebook's Latinx disinformation problem
@fidmart85
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Incredibly excited that this piece — the last big project I got to edit as outgoing Investigations Editor for the
@StanfordDaily
— is finally live! It's long, but 100% worth the read if you care about AI, research ethics, data privacy, or social justice.
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I was hanging out with the Haim sisters recently and they said they loved my opinions about politics, the economy, etc. Asked me to be the “Fourth Sister” in the Haim band but I had to decline (for tax reasons). Only in L.A., folks!
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So Ethan Hawke is starring in a new movie "The Black Phone." Well, good thing he's not a millennial! Or else they'd have to rename it "The Rose Gold iPhone" 😂😂😂
Every hour this tweet doesn't go viral I will desecrate a different UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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During the Obama years, left-wing activists tried to extract concessions from the White House through 'inside politics.' It didn't work — so they took to the streets instead.
Now, anticipating a Biden win, they're ready for history to repeat itself.
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I just hired the M&M spokescandies at a bargain-bin rate to be in my entourage. The yellow one chauffeurs me around and the green one curb-stomps people who bump into me at the bar
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Sorry that this tweet is like 2 weeks late and sorta niche BUT — there's a direct line between the kids who tried to sink the Club Penguin iceberg by jackhammering it all at once, and the Reddit posters who tried to destroy Wall Street by investing in GameStop all at once
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If the Rams win today I’m gonna name my daughter “Superbowl Lvi” (short for Superbowl Olivia) 😇😇😇She’s 26, has a name already and hates my guts — but I have persuaded the county clerk to redo some documents behind her back
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I got my fortunes read by a Cameo psychic — and for $15 plus a 75-cent processing fee, so can you.
It's just one of the many ways in which this millennia-old tradition has gone digital during the pandemic.
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I did another TV spot, this time discussing the future of online content policy under the Biden admin! Check it out around the 10:15 mark here:
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If you spent the first two months of quarantine talking about how Shakespeare finished King Lear during the plague, you get the vaccine last. More time to work on those character arcs bro 👍
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Lots of stories about TikTok focus on the people who make it big on the app — who post so much, so well that they become fabulously wealthy and famous.
This is not one of those stories.
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So THAT just happened.... Apparently actor Will Smith slapped fellow celeb Chris Rock at the Oscars 😳 Unclear what precipitated the slap, but one thing is for sure — Twitter's going to have a field day with this one!! Let the meme-ing commence 😂😂😂
#oscars
#slap
#ChrisRockSlap
Actor Will Smith shocked the world Sunday night when he slapped presenter Chris Rock onstage at the 94th Academy Awards.
Here’s a rundown of what led up to the slap and the immediate aftermath.
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Stuffed-crust pizza just hit DIFFERENT when the lunch lady served it on one of these 😂😂😂
Please go viral please go viral please go viral please go viral please go viral please go viral please go viral please go viral please go viral please go viral please go viral please go v
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I probably got on a few watchlists reporting this story, so I sure hope people read it!
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Calmly sipping one (1) beer as I enjoy a relaxing night on netflix dot com
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Too many other people to name here who helped me build the career I have now.
@Kimbriell
and
@DavidLauter
for taking a chance on me as an intern out of college;
@benmuessig
who helped me pivot to biz writing;
@RFaughnder
and
@rverrier
for teaching me about entertainment coverage.
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Wanted to watch a horror movie every night of October, so I started with 'Cabin in the Woods' last night (great movie!) and then tonite I am dog-sitting alone overnight in an empty house so unfortunately the '31 Nights of Fright' have come to a premature end
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At parties, I'm always that guy standing in the corner with a ⚠️ floating over my head 😂😂😂 Try and talk to me if you want, but I’m just gonna tell you that Thieves have scattered 15 of my journal entries across the city
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For a porridge fan like myself, dried cranberries or even a dash of honey can be quite the tasty treat
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I took some AP classes in high school, so the Riddler’s mischievous puzzles would actually be quite easy for me
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RT if this vulgar little elf reminds you of your childhood!!! Or for any other reason!!!!!!!
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'Hbu' is a truly vile acronym. Two out of three letters are wrong?? Who approved this?!!??
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This is interesting because it raises the question of how strictly self-driving cars should follow the speed limit. The social contract says its acceptable to drive over, w/in a certain (inconsistent) range; but would Tesla be liable if it hard-coded that same violation at scale?
Tesla rolls out software update to let its cars’ cameras see speed limit signs
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If you like: ICE CREAM
You may be interested in: SCOOPS
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Vanishing ballots. Led Zeppelin songs. A Timothée Chalamet-themed campaign event.
In the age of coronavirus, young people are still getting out the vote — but it looks a little different than usual.
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The average medieval peasant saw only 3 or 4 funny dances a year — but thanks to Tik Tok, modern man can see upwards of 6 or 7 funny dances a year.
#progress
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Our Biz team was hit particularly hard. The folks Jeff names here are some of the best reporters / editors I know, and I'm excited to see where they all end up.
Sad to say I'm included in this layoff, and several members of my incredible team. The talent level of those who are leaving is sky-high, please read on if you want to make LAT's loss your news org's gain.
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Possibly the biggest response of the night at Warren’s two-word opening response to whether she has a plan to handle Mitch McConnell should she win the presidency but the Senate remains red: “I do.”
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“I believe that Kardashian is either a constituent or lives just outside my district, so I wish her well,” Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Northridge) said. “But in this case, she should have gotten some better legal advice.”
w/
@freddy_brewster
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