BTC: "Neither one of you think that the Epstein files had anything to do with Trump turning on Thomas Massie?" Both: "No!" BTC: "Everybody watching is going to know how clownish all of this is, that you are both pretending like the Epstein files had nothing to do with this."

The MAGA victory lap on getting Massie out when they had to spend 35 million and won by 10 in a Trump 35 district seems misguided.  Trump has a 34% approval rating. He’s -18 with Independents and Democrats are up 11 for the midterms.

BREAKING: Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges, two law enforcement officers who clashed with Jan. 6 insurrectionists, have sued to block the Trump 'slush fund'. They're asking a federal judge to find the creation of the fund illegal and reverse any transfers that Treasury has made to DOJ to implement it.

MOULTON: I'm not asking you to talk about the Iran nuclear program. I'm asking you to talk about the English language. What's the difference between 'obliterated' and 'significantly degraded'? Are they the same? ADM COOPER ... MOULTON: Why did we start this war? Was President Trump lying to us?

Enormous congrats to my wonderful colleague Ava Kofman, who just won a National Magazine Award for this tremendous piece. If you haven't read it, now's your chance: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

💯

I was so sorry to hear of Barney Frank's passing. He was an impressive, courageous, and witty man. We debated at the American Jewish Committee in 2012, he making the case for Obama, me for Romney. I haven't taken a look at the video because I suspect he crushed me. www.c-span.org/program/publ...

RIP

Ken Paxton is making "an enemy of people of color, of women, at a time when Dems are turning those coalitions back in our favor. [He'll] fire up the constituencies Talarico needs to win." On the pod, @sawyerhackett.bsky.social is great on Trump screwing GOP in Texas: newrepublic.com/article/2107...

Barney Frank was one of a kind. Brilliant, acerbic, deep, one of the best legislators I have ever encountered. I was proud to have him as a friend. I will miss him. May his memory be a blessing

How the Bayeux Tapestry was displayed in the early nineteenth century.

Fuck it. Let's try.

Remember: it was like pulling teeth to get Republicans to fund the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund. But it took them no time at all to create a $1.8 billion Insurrection Slush Fund to pay off the legal fees of the January 6th rioters who beat cops. These are sick, corrupt people.

MELIUS: "AI better get its image in order into election season. Seven in ten Americans say they oppose a data center being built locally as AI is becoming a convenient scapegoat .. ".. the industry doesn’t need policy to become a bigger bottleneck than power availability or component constraints.”

Oh that’s fine then.

SORKIN: Why lay people off at the Post? Why fire people? BEZOS: The Post needs to be a profitable enterprise that stands on its own 2 feet S: Does it? Some people say it should be a trust BEZOS: Yes. It's a measure of its relevance. If people aren't paying for our product, it's not good enough

At the start of Donald Trump’s first (absurd, doomed) presidential campaign, Evan Osnos’s New Yorker piece on him had this great last paragraph. Its vision is finally coming true—Trump “left with the hardest core…drifting deeper into unreality.” Alas, that core’s now many tens of millions of people.

Bezos on the Melania movie: "By the way, it appears it was a good business decision. It did very well in theaters. It's done very well on streaming. People are very curious about Melania. So even though I had nothing to do with it, it appears the Amazon team made a very wise business decision."

Bezos on CNBC: "You could double the taxes I pay, and it's not gonna help that teacher in Queens. I promise you."

(Reuters) - The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is the beginning of a "systemic agrifood shock" that could trigger a severe global ​food price crisis within six to 12 months, the United ‌Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said on Wednesday. www.reuters.com/world/middle...

“A functional Congress would put a stop to this. It could claw back the money, or amend the funding statute, or, in the event of a presidential veto, sue. But we don’t have a functional Congress…”

HUD Secretary Scott Turner: "I'd tell the American people -- continue to stay faithful, because the president is focused on America and America only"

Reform UK know who their villains are. The Greens know who their villains are. Two years into his premiership, it’s still not clear who Keir Starmer thinks is standing in the way of the country he wants to build. ➡️ Watch Page 94, the Private Eye podcast: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaQ5...

They want $60 for an hour at the axe throwing place? For that money I can buy a case of beer and my own axe, and throw it at whatever I want until I'm arrested again

worst Twilight Zone episode ever

'What makes this love story fresh is the precise attention to the contemporary environment: the way characters live both in and out of the physical world' I Want You to Be Happy is the Guardian Book of the Day: www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

Robots can now dance exactly like a human. Specifically, me.

“.. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of total applications rose to nearly 10%.” @cnbc.com www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/r...

“Come on, man.” @cnbc.com www.cnbc.com/2026/05/19/t...

“.. U.S. gas prices rising right back to the early May high.” - Schwab ⛽️

We already knew the war has been a failure, with the nuclear material and regime still in place, the global economy now teetering. But this story—the hubris, the incompetence, the total U.S. deference to a cockamamie Israeli scheme—is just staggering. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/u...

Page One. @wsj.com

Heartbreaking scene from the famous 'Cat Hamlet' where all the characters come in, go out, want to be let back in, then go out again which is why it takes Hamlet forever to make his mind up what to do about Claudius, while Ophelia naps through everything, even her own death.

Watch the full episode of The Illegal News at The Bulwark and YouTube, or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts: lnk.thebulwark.com/49Xyk8C?utm_...

Worth remembering WHY Trump turned against Massie:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ed Gallrein wins Republican nomination for U.S. House in Kentucky's 4th Congressional District, beating incumbent Thomas Massie.

Nikita Khrushchev, New York, 1960, by Ronald Searle.

Susan Collins doesn’t understand how Trump could endorse someone who is unethical.

Cannes Jury Sneaks Off To Watch ‘Mortal Kombat II’

Since 2000 or so, Google search has been the primary tool I use to access information on the Web. Makes sense they would want to get rid of it

How many editors does it take to screw in a light bulb? Not sure about this wording: could read as meaning editors have sex in light bulbs! Also, do we really "screw in" UK light bulbs or use bayonet caps? Rewrite and bring it back in your own time, OK? Have you finished yet?

Health care is dominating job growth as other sectors suffer. This explains much of the gender gap in recent job growth. My @morningjoe-msnow.bsky.social Chart:

Not good.

Since Trump took office, the U.S. has added 559,000 net jobs for women — but lost 155,000 jobs for men.

Manufacturing, mining & transportation are bleeding workers—overwhelmingly hitting blue-collar men, one of Trump’s core voting blocks.   My @morningjoe-msnow.bsky.social Chart:

When you truly digest her poetry it changes how you look at everything

The poet and the speaker of the poem

Never seen in the same room at the same time

Beowulf was addressing the issue as delicately as he could

From an academic friend