Invoking the legacy of Walter Cronkite, Acosta said the late journalist would be “spinning in his grave” over CBS’s recent Trump coverage, before adding that he wished Cronkite could rise from the dead and “choke the living sh*t” out of Dokoupil ... open.substack.com/pub/beinglib...

Worth reading through to the end of this (paywall-free) link. But if you just want the biggest takeaways, I've excerpted mine below. I know Minnesota, very well. What I know makes me see that Trump, Noem, and Stephen Miller really, REALLY don't.

It's gross diplomatic incompetence, how Trump is pushing our longstanding natural allies & economic partners into closer ties with our biggest rival. But these chickens will take years to come home to roost, and I sincerely don't think Trump cares much what happens to the USA after he's gone.

ICE has recently bought the capability of monitoring the location histories of entire neighborhoods worth of phones. The data is likely harvested from apps that sell your data, which filters up through data brokers and eventually to companies that sell to ICE: www.404media.co/inside-ices-...

Interesting US housing statistic: As anxiety about housing affordability mount, the share of unmortgaged homes has increased 20% over the last 15 years, from ~32% to ~40% Suggests the true root problem may be inequality, not "affordability?"

@nytimes.com article on something that could stoke further US economic "malaise" over coming months. Article states energy assistance directors group "expects four million accounts to be shut off this year."

From @torstenslok.bsky.social: "... the US economy remains incredibly resilient ... the upside risks to growth and inflation are significant ... a data-dependent Fed would come to the conclusion that it should not cut interest rates next week."

Trump national security strategy: Make Europe White Again. "Over the long term, it is more than plausible that within a few decades ...certain NATO members will become majority non-European" "the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure" www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

WSJ article today on potential investment opportunities in commercial real estate "... if the AI rally slows, or slumps, property could eventually go from being unpopular to a place where investors want to shelter."

*Please* take advantage of gift link, then READ ALL of it! Title is clever & engaging, but it does not capture the essence of the article: the discussion of churlish behavior of Trump admin figures is only an appetizer to serve the main course, about how WE collectively need to act to counter this.

Elon Musk's poison hall of mirrors from @cwarzel.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

It's only a matter of time before this geodata gathering to formulate theories of "pattern of life and movement" is integrated with the extensive secret NSA data gathering about US citizens that Edward Snowden exposed 15 years ago. I'm willing to bet its already happened.

I'm an American who has pride about the "idea" at the foundation of my country, even if it's always been an "imperfect Union" (Lincoln). Why I was literally crying by the 9-minute mark of this. I hope non-subscribers can view this? There was no option for "gift link" as there is for text articles.

A terrific AFP fact check uses reverse image searches to expose how a White House video took scenes from Florida, Texas, South Carolina and Nebraska and lied that they showed "Chicago is in chaos." factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

This!

The ICE Officer, Greg Bovino, who got a US Attorney in California fired with a phone call to the WH, is now leading his troops through downtown Chicago, looking for people who look illegal. chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

55 years of data supports that "summertime" temperatures in US are persisting later into the year, and how this is upsetting established patterns for schools, farming, etc. Even those who won't admit that climate change is man made should be able to at least acknowledge it exists & is a problem?

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙼𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝙿𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚛𝚗𝚜 𝚒𝚝𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚠𝚊𝚛, 𝙼𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚃𝚛𝚞𝚝𝚑 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚕𝚒𝚎𝚜, 𝙼𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝙻𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 & 𝙼𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝙿𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚢 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚟𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚕, 𝚗𝚘𝚛 𝚍𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚞𝚕𝚝 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚛𝚢 𝚑𝚢𝚙𝚘𝚌𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚢: 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚋𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚎𝚡𝚎𝚛𝚌𝚒𝚜𝚎𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚍𝚘𝚞𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚔 𝙶𝚎𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚎 𝙾𝚛𝚠𝚎𝚕𝚕, 𝟷𝟿𝟾𝟺

Oops, link: (... and aside: why doesn't bluesky let you post an image AND a link?)

IMO the only way this country escapes MAGA/Project 2025 fever is if enough voters who chose him because they're too myopic to look beyond their own perceived personal circumstances, start to question their choice. From that POV perhaps there are "silver linings" to this looming economic hit

Long article challenging an "established" American story/myth, ignored by historians for > century. If I were a high school/undergrad history teacher I'd consider using this to instill idea that one must always be open-minded to at least question "facts" presented to us as "settled." [gift link]

Cutting to the chase of significance of this slide from Torsten Slok: Accelerating US debt levels should lead to a permanent 0.6% increase in 10yr interest rates over the next decade (new "baseline"). So mortgages etc. should increase even more, along w/ deficits. 10 year T-Notes are 4.39% right now

The US industries expected to see the most worker supply declines (and wage & cost increases) as ICE detentions & deportations continue. If immigration is totally shut down, US population will start to decline in 8 years. From Torsten Slok, Apollo Academy

Interesting stat: Almost 75% of US restaurant orders are for delivery or takeout. I wish they'd included stats from the past to understand the trend. I suspect if you go back 10-20 years it was quite a bit lower

As we all await the drop of "Liberation Day: The Return of #TACO" this week: Torsten Slok at ApolloAcademy.com has shared this graph showing that the rest of the world has not been sitting on their hands, the main exporter, China, has increased business with other countries, but reduced it with US

Much bluesky commentary is (rightly) focused on the near-term human cost of cuts (though many of them only really kick in after midterms) But there's also sobering long-term financial impact which may tie the hands of future leaders to undo the human damage as well as siphon capital from GDP growth

What am I worried about? -Safety of 30k US troops in the Middle East -cybersecurity (since CISA was recently gutted) & homeland security (as HLS focused on immigration) -Economic strength (oil prices and tariffs) -Allied assistance (we’ll need that now) -Domestic intell (leadership at FBI/DNI)

I just heard JD Vance make a textbook Orwellian statement on ABC News. Something like "Through use of overwhelming military force, we will achieve peace." I hope others call this disengenuity out. Someone with more impact than me More ideally, some within anti-war MAGA, they should hear this BS

From Torsten Slok @Apollo: Foreigners currently own 18% of US stocks. This is the flip side of our trade deficit. Foreigners selling goods to the US receive dollars in return, used to purchase US assets With smaller trade deficits there will be fewer dollars for foreigners to recycle into US assets

The military uniform is "a symbol of national service to all Americans, never a partisan emblem....Once it becomes a symbol of service to one party or one man—once it’s interpreted that way—public trust unravels." How do we fix it? New from @markhertling.bsky.social:

Marines are good people. But they don't have training in domestic police actions; exactly the opposite, as a whole they're our most capable warriors. The only way this makes sense is if the INTENT is to provoke a tragic escalation Trump/Miller/Hegseth are trying to make things *worse*, not *better*

Yet another pretty obvious Elon Musk SEC corporate violation. Convenient for him that he just neutered the Federal regulatory apparatus that would enforce punishment for his lies and securities law violations. I suspect (am betting on!) his upcoming Austin robotaxi event is also mostly BS.

Civil War historian and former Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust discusses origins of Memorial Day and its relevance to today's moment of democratic crisis (paywall free link)

So much Batsh%t Crazy in this article, I don't know where to start! How about: 'Nicole Shanahan, Kennedy's former running mate, wrote “With regards to [Casey Means] there is something very artificial and aggressive about them, almost like they were bred and raised Manchurian assets"' [gift link]

LOL, nice inside joke today (Saturday) in initial layout of New York Times Connections puzzle. To get the joke listen to last Saturday's SNL cold open @4min mark: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bico...

Big excerpt from new Foreign Affairs article, "How China Armed Itself for the Trade War." Gist: Trump admin has misread Chinese resolve, & 7+ years of prep for this moment Later it imagines a more constructive approach, but observers "The scope of a deal... has likely narrowed over the past month."

Final slide of 39, economic indicators tracked by Apollo Global Management. Presume will be regular series tracking impact of tariffs? Already showing up in housing sales, & they expect layoffs in trucking industry starting mid-May, w/ less to haul Full deck: www.apolloacademy.com/wp-content/u...

A paywall-free link surveying Trump's breathtakingly open corruption, from Steven Rattner (with a cute animation!) A lot of glee among the anti-Trump right now, that his approval rating is down to 41%. IMO that it's even still that high is alarming. Says a lot about my country, none of it good :(

Our cover this week.

The last day on which a majority of the Supreme Court’s justices had been appointed by Democratic presidents was May 14, 1969. One of the things we do in the legal academy is support our claims with facts.

Wisconsin: not for sale

Jeffrey Goldberg thinking he was being pranked and then realizing he was actually just in the war plans group chat is such a good microcosm of how it feels to be alive right now, everything seems fake until you realize it’s actually real and incredibly stupid

"Russia shares a land border with 14 countries. Only one has constantly remained an independent democracy through WWII and Cold War, and that is Finland. History has taught us that Russia respects only strength, and resolve."

Sounds legit. www.wsj.com/finance/curr...

literally every time I talk to friends