Hi. I wrote an essay about AI slop: How it feels like an invasive species for the internet. How its boosters describe building a future that’s devoid of craft. How frictionlessness can be nihilistic & how this stuff seems to leach part of our shared humanity out of the world. I hope you'll read it.

While we spectate on The East Wing being torn down, it isn’t just another hallway, it’s where Eleanor Roosevelt built the modern Office of the First Lady, where WWII bunkers were hidden, and where the public enters the People’s House. Erasing it is rewriting history.

Mary Trump said he’d burn everything down and she was right.

Dramatic photos show construction equipment tearing into the East Wing façade and windows, though the federal agency that oversees such projects has not approved President Trump's 90,000-square-foot, $250 million ballroom. n.pr/48AUON2

Trump take egg

i love "no kings" especially because its making the gop do a batshit crazy argument of "no actually we like kings"

Gavin Newsom: "Masked men. Jumping out of unmarked vehicles. People disappearing. No due process. No oversight. No accountability. People say I'm being hyperbolic. Bullshit. This is happening in America today."

Indigenous artifacts at Vatican Museums heading back to Canada after repatriation campaign https://www.europesays.com/2509779/ Open this photo in gallery: An Inuit kayak is inspected by Vatican staff in November, 2021. Indigenous groups…

This isn’t going to drive down prices. Republicans should end the shut down and get to work.

Donald Trump has destroyed the East Wing of the White House the right way. by Ezra Klein

University of Arizona becomes seventh US college to reject Trump’s ‘compact’

It makes sense to start this demolition during the government shutdown because the National Capital Planning Commission is shutdown. There’s no way they’d approve this. You know. If they’d been asked. Which they weren’t. #lawlessness

"I was handed... a bag of bath salts that would be 'charged' by the machines ... there was no receptacle [for the] bath salts. The idea was that they would gain their power through osmosis." @willsommer.bsky.social investigates a right-wing streaming platform funded by a healing scam. What a story.

Oh you're trying to say the cost of living is skyrocketing? Donald Trump can't hear you over the sound of bulldozers demolishing a wing of the White House to build a new grand ballroom.

This is who is paying for the destruction of the White House East Wing, per @wsj.com Altria Group Inc. Amazon Apple Inc. Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. Caterpillar Inc. Coinbase Global Comcast Corp. Hard Rock International Google HP Inc. Lockheed Martin Corp. Meta Platforms Inc. 1/3

Still appalled at how paltry and terrible the NYT coverage of the protests were and how nobody there feels any responsibility to address the criticism. This was not something that caught them off guard. This was many levels of decisions.

Republicans control the majority in Congress right now. No matter your political party, the idea that DOJ is outright lying or misleading federal judges should be a five-alarm fire for my colleagues. When will they act?

Lecturing active soldiers about being too fat while dropping standards so low for the ICE deportation force that a third of their recruits can't handle the easiest PT test I've ever heard of www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

American democracy today....

Fellow tinnitus sufferers: I was Googling, again, and randomly fell upon this Reddit comment and ... uh ... it actually worked? Or like, seriously reduced the ringing at least temporarily. np.reddit.com/r/WTF/commen...

REAGAN: “When someone says let’s impose tariffs, it may look like they’re doing the patriotic thing… but over the long run trade barriers hurt every 🇺🇸 worker.” 🇨🇦 Ontario just ran this👇🏽powerful ad using Reagan’s voice against Trump’s trade war during game 7 of the ALCS ⚾️

Over 170 Americans have been detained by ICE They have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents They have been held outside in their underwear One pregnant woman had the door of her home blown off while Kristi Noem watched Kavanaugh is dead wrong. And he doesn't care.

Look what they've done to our house.

My mom told me she’s losing almost 50 bucks if they don’t reopen the government before Nov 1st. I’m losing 107. Millions of us are losing our food money if the government shutdown doesn’t end. Why are the poor always the first to suffer when the rich don’t agree?

SCOOP: more than a third of new recruits at the ICE training academy have failed the personal fitness test -- so many that the agency has had to start pre-screening new hires to weed out what one official called "athletically allergic candidates" www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Holy shit. Game 7 between the Jays and the Mariners just ran an pro-free trade ad, targeted to American workers, decrying tariffs. The twist being that, if you don't catch it beforehand, Ronald Reagan is revealed as the speaker in the closing seconds. What PAC is this? The Province of Ontario.

Russell Vought, Trump’s OMB chief, famously promised to put career civil servants “in trauma” and cast them as public "villains." The Americans who showed up en masse on Saturday weren't buying his BS.

Russell Vought, Trump’s OMB chief, famously promised to put career civil servants “in trauma” and cast them as public "villains." The Americans who showed up en masse on Saturday weren't buying his BS.

And in 1924, Congress established the National Capital Planning Commission, which is conveniently shut down at the moment, along with the rest of the federal government. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...

At the age of 33, Trump acquired the Bonwit Teller store at Fifth and 56th in 1979. The Met asked him to donate two 15 foot tall Art Deco friezes from its facade. Trump agreed. Did he honor that promise? envisioningtheamericandream.com/2024/04/15/t...

Also calling destroying the building a renovation isn't gonna play well

The White House keeps making a big deal of the fact that the ballroom is privately funded but that’s one of the worst things about it. These people and companies are buying influence. None of this is okay.

In 1925, Congress felt it needed to pass a joint resolution to authorize Grace Coolidge to accept gifts of furniture

Everyone's focused on how idiotic Lindsey Halligan is, but don't sleep on the official response from Department of Justice spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre. It's just Mean Girls all the way down, if they'd written that script while huffing paint fumes.

This actually makes me even more mad that they somehow found a WORSE way to disrespect the East Wing.

The alt text hahaha

from the depths of a gorgeous planet

My jaw dropped when I saw this anti-tariff ad from the Mariner's game just now was from the government of Ontario. Wow.

According to Merkley, peaceful protesters were led three blocks before encountering a line of federal officers. Behind the officers were professional videographers. Merkley alleges pepper balls, flashbangs and tear gas were deployed to create chaos, making it appear as though a riot was occurring

Sen Merkley discussed an incident in Portland, recorded by Oregon Public Broadcasting, where a “fake riot" was staged “This is the first time I know of that federal government has faked a riot." Incident raises concerns about use of force and media manipulation to justify invoking Insurrection Act

vote for me and i’ll turn the white house into one of those trampoline & giant foam block places

Had to dig this up - a French company found that solar panels are a great way to improve yields on grapes that prefer shade. Wine and clean energy for all! (And I’m sure plenty of other crops would similarly benefit.) www.pv-magazine.com/2024/11/29/a...

And a *very* suspicious death. Women do not light themselves on fire. Ever.

You know it’s bad when this is like the 4th or 5th worst Republican scandal of the day.

EXCLUSIVE: One Saturday afternoon in October, my phone lit up with a notification. I glanced down at the message. “Anna, Lindsey Halligan here,” it began. So began my text exchange with the woman who is prosecuting the president's perceived political enemies. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/anna...

"It’s obvious the whole convo is off record. There’s disappearing messages and it’s on Signal. What is your story? You never told me about a story.”

#MEpolitics we can not let them get away with making voting more difficult in Maine! Please speak up...

The support from the VA literally saved my life. You shouldn't have to go to Iraq, fight in a pointless war, and watch your friends die to get decent healthcare.

Trump: "I'm allowed as you know as president, like 50% of the presidents have used the Insurrection Act. Everybody agrees you're allowed to use that and there is no more court cases, there is no more anything. We're trying to do it in a nicer manner, but we can always use the Insurrection Act."