It’s surprisingly hard to convince otherwise reasonable people to take lightning danger seriously. When I was at Princeton, I had to argue MORE THAN ONCE with the rest of the astrophysics dept softball team that we shouldn’t be waving metal bats around in an open field when we could hear thunder 😑

Did they just napalm the national mall?

"This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.” – Albert Einstein

Maga taking shelter in the National Museum of African-American History And Culture!

Mourners marched across the Mississippi to the federal building carrying coffins for every migrant that has died in DHS custody.

Jeff Reinbold, CEO of the National Park Foundation refused to give Congress Freedom 250 contracts and promised donors anonymity. The House report alleges wire fraud, federal bribery, and conflict of interest. Seven senators have demanded documents. Criminal referrals have not been ruled out.

Happy Fourth of July, New York City

Wow. This is great

Maybe having competent, experienced, nominally civic-minded people running the country was, on balance, a good thing?

For the 250th, the BBC asked me and somebody named @hcrichardson.bsky.social about the territorial expansion of the U.S. Here's what we had to say: www.bbc.com/news/article...

[email protected] invited historians to weigh in on the meaning of our history and to assign a letter grade for the state of US democracy. I gave a D: "Close to failure, but with still enough time in the term to claw back to a poor, but passing, grade." www.politico.com/news/magazin...

When Mark Zuckerberg was told Insta & Facebook could pinpoint the second a pre-teen or teen girl deleted a photo of herself & that they could capitalize on that moment of insecurity by flooding her with beauty ads he said, "Wow, that's cool." There's a reazon Zuck rhymes with fuck.

Or delete your meta account. That would be the better thing to do.

Or, and just hear me out here, everybody personally bans all Meta apps & properties for their role in the fracturing of American democracy. It would be a patriotic thing to do this Independence Day.

(might've been Larry Ellison's son in the end)

Aw. Bless the Zucker and his freedom of speech zucking about. Hey, at least he's consistent in his principles across the platforms he owns.

Oh it's definitely a war on info now

I told y’all that Threads sucks from the beginning. I feel vindicated. 😁

While a fact will do nothing for this woman's cortisol levels, I'm glad to read that nine of 10 US Americans disagree with these creeps. bsky.app/profile/coli...

Omg this is a true terror of a photograph. That poor woman.

Vance has been talking about this for some time now. This was my response this past fall in @nytimes.com (gift link:) www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/o...

at the start of trump's first term, he ordered a study on the fiscal impact of the refugee program instead, it revealed that the refugee program's ROI was significantly positive, in excess of $100 billion it was made public for less than 24 hours before trump yeeted it into the sun

I’m so excited for this to be over 🥲

The moral of this story is Give What You Can to the Internet Archive, monthly if possible. A thread for our age:

Happy 4th and happy 250th, America! 🇺🇸 Marched in the Jay parade yesterday — great seeing so many of you out. I’m proud to be an American, and proud to fight for the America we deserve: working families over special interests, officials who answer to the people, not their party.

Yeah!!

ATTENTION: someone in your neighborhood is afraid of fireworks.

CSPAN is airing John Adams and Thomas Jefferson impersonators as if they’re in an actual debate and is treating the whole thing like it’s real. Thrilling. Absolutely thrilling.

Okay. Never mind. The Felon is talking.

Gentle Reader, I struggle to describe the C-SPAN callers this evening. Maybe you should hear them for yourself. www.c-span.org/liveEvent/?A...

HIV dramatically increases the risk of HPV-related anal cancer, data show www.cidrap.umn.edu/hivaids/hiv-...

we're just celebrating the American cultural tradition of giving everyone in the world PTSD from attack aircraft noises

It just keeps getting stupider and more wasteful, all to stroke the ego of one corrupt manbaby.

MA Congressman Stephen Lynch did a good job on CNN today representing Dems, but he needs to correct something he said. He said that the “far left” and Democratic Socialists don’t believe in ‘democracy’ any more. That is categorically untrue. The issue is capitalism NOT democracy. 🇺🇸 @lynch.house.gov

NATO is the most important military alliance in the totality of human history. Putin's top objective has been to smash it. Trump is his agent in this process.

Missing alt-text: Medicare for all College for all Housing for all 32 hour work week Tax the rich Green New Deal Free Palestine Sounds good to me

It's good Trump and Hegseth didn't carry out this insanity, which would and will fail with costs beyond even the horrors we've seen thus far. It's also horrific the the Saudis have far more say on our foreign policy than Congress.

🧊✈️ HONDURAS ⛓️🌎 😲 A GlobalX jet (tail: N277GX) departs Jacksonville, trafficking chained humans to San Pedro Sula 🇭🇳

No, it's not American, it's Mafia, OG NYC Mafia does this kind of crapo, ya'll. Those of us living in moral and decent America know about cheap-ass protection rackets and thuggish extortion. Yet, we allow Trumposhenko to do exactly those kinds of things w/ OUR tax monies.

Self-identified MAGAs are unevenly distributed across the map. Results from @pellcenter.bsky.social's Voice of Value poll shows, of the #AmericanNations regions they're most concentrated in the Deep South, and starkly so when you look at only white respondents. www.nationhoodlab.org/the-geograph...

Fascinating study of Catholic ideas & practices. Key point. Rad Trad MAGA Catholics, the Leonard Leos, Opus Dei & Supreme Court, etc are losing the culture war. Their only way to victory is by force - stack the courts, rig the elections, use force. www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/the-purist...

IMPEACH CONVICT REMOVE

The prison is run by GEO Group, which has a profit incentive to put off repairs and do everything as badly (cheaply) as they can. If GEO Group executives were being hauled before Congress - or, better yet, arrested - then they'd have incentive to do better.

It is seriously alarming how many of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people are just screamingly mentally unwell in deeply toxic, dangerous ways.

“When an American registers to attend a Freedom 250 event—a celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday paid in part by taxpayer dollars—the name, location, and phone number they provide are deposited into a partisan data operation…run by Brad Parscale, the President’s longtime digital strategist.”

Janet Mills is living her best life. #mepolitics www.midcoastvillager.com/news/all-you...

The always-excellent @ddayen.bsky.social drills down on Susan Collins's corruption, with striking details we weren't aware of (or didn't remember) that sure make it seem like she tailored legislation to benefit Daffron's firm and steer money into its coffers. #MEpolitics 1/X

the baroque absurdities the US health "system" devises to avoid normal universal care are honestly impressive

Remember: The real freeloaders in this country are the rich — not the poor or immigrants or any other group of people vilified as scapegoats. The richest 1% evade over $160 billion in taxes every year. The United States literally has yacht and private jet tax deductions. Hello?