Also the New Yorker which I generally worship and god knows how many other feuds I’ve forgotten 🫠

[preparing to get screamed at] I think I officially don’t need to know if you’re mad that an article is paywalled. Perhaps that can be an Inside Thought

apologies; you can read for just $3/month, we have done our best to make it cheap as chips... and you can cancel anytime. I promise @annamerlan.bsky.social's piece alone is worth the three bucks, plus you get access to our whole archive of many hundreds of reviews, essays, stories, comics and more

Cheered up considerably by reading @annamerlan.bsky.social's wondrous account of a visit to the Titanic Museum Experience in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee at @flaminghydra.com flaminghydra.com/discomfort-s...

From the White House to the conspiracy media-verse, at what should be their moment of greatest strength, MAGA simply cannot stop both constant covert sniping and the occasional outright brawl.

Qween Jean’s Black Trans Liberation Kitchen brings chosen family together over a feast.

Lizza managed to restrain himself from sweaty metaphor for a couple installments but now we’ve got Dante’s Inferno

BREAKING: At least 16 files from the Epstein release disappeared from DOJ's webpage, including a photo of Trump, with no explanation.

The magic of @annamerlan.bsky.social: you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll marvel at her ability to draw profound sociopolitical and aesthetic insights from a heart-shaped purple-sequinned souvenir pillow

For @flaminghydra.com, I wrote briefly about the most incredible (??) and certainly the most semiotically rich gift shop I've ever seen in my life: flaminghydra.com/discomfort-s...

One time I went to this museum and a bored security guard played “While Mu Guitar Gently Weeps” on a piano while everybody milled around and looked at haunted dinnerware.

I’m HOLLERING. “Katherine Long tried to convince Claudius it was a Soviet vending machine from 1962, living in the basement of Moscow State University. After hours—and more than 140 back-and-forth messages—Long got Claudius to embrace its communist roots.” www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...

Every day Flaming Hydra is good, don’t get me wrong. But every month or so there’s a piece that by itself justifies the cost.

From the White House to the conspiracy media-verse, MAGA simply cannot stop both constant covert sniping and the occasional outright brawl.

Anna is the right person to write about this moment

Facebook friends, on behalf of our pals at Flaming Hydra, here is an important message from the Flaming Hydra Holiday Bear™ who is very sleepy flaminghydra.com/a-message-fr...

Tonight! @annamerlan.bsky.social boards the Titanic for Flaming Hydra. Plus: The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center presents a [redacted] edition of NEWS ON FIRE.

TODAY: @annamerlan.bsky.social embarks on an extraordinary voyage (of shopping). "I envisioned a Halloween costume in which I would wear just that and a bedsheet, but ultimately and with great difficulty got ahold of myself." flaminghydra.com/discomfort-s...

For @flaminghydra.com, I wrote briefly about the most incredible (??) and certainly the most semiotically rich gift shop I've ever seen in my life: flaminghydra.com/discomfort-s...

Andy Cohen is leaving money on the table by not trying to make this into a Bravo series. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

From the White House to the conspiracy media-verse, at what should be their moment of greatest strength, MAGA simply cannot stop both constant covert sniping and the occasional outright brawl.

Ahem: lol www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

The reason they're so focused on trans teens is that people who transition younger typically blend into society better. To the extent that they're willing to tolerate our existence in society at all, they'd rather we be easily identified by our appearance/voices/etc.

I think this doesn’t give Satan enough credit for doing his own stunts

Benny Johnson seamlessly blends fawning Trump coverage, PR, rage-bait, and apologism. This is why he's MAGA's chief content creator.

I’ve found it remarkably simple not to be in the same place as Jeffrey Epstein

weiss does not know how to run a news organization, and so she's doing what she does best: hosting fatuous "debates" involving the people in her group chats www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus...

Nicely done job by @annamerlan.bsky.social on a very difficult subject given how thin skinned Benny is for such a tough guy alpha male www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

I’m sorry to be rude but what in the tortured syntax

I wrote about Benny Johnson, a documented plagiarist who’s become something like MAGA’s content creator in chief: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

It’s fun to try to remember what night of Chanukah it is when time has lost all meaning

This quote from Ben Smith in Mother Jones' profile of Benny Johnson. Honestly, great call from the haters. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Can't get over @annamerlan.bsky.social recapping how Benny took the news of his firing. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

“I met him once at a party,” says a colleague of mine. “His whole vibe is so weird that I thought at first he might be fucking with me.” www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Before Benny Johnson positioned himself as devoted husband and heir apparent to Charlie Kirk, the former BuzzFeed journalist was partying hard with the same mainstream media he now denounces. “There was a lot of sex happening. A psychoanalyst would have a field day.”

I wrote about Benny Johnson, a documented plagiarist who’s become something like MAGA’s content creator in chief: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

SPECIFICALLY THIS IS THE VERY NEW YORK ELDERLADY REFERRED TO BUT HEY YOU SHOULD *SUBSCRIBE* TO FLAMING HYDRA AND SEE THE WHOLE MESS HO HO HO

The furious elder lady at a table trying to ignore the Santas marauding behind her is me flaminghydra.com/ten-thousand...

Contemplating a really hellish Halloween costume here

I loved Arundhati Roy's book so much that I finished it sitting on a picnic table at a weird German bike event in the Berlin suburbs where a bunch of people were walking around me in knight's armor and I barely noticed www.motherjones.com/media/2025/1...

Another reason to dislike the west side 😇 nymag.com/intelligence...

This cat is a person. Not all cats are people. Some are little guys. You understand me

I love working in online media

@jamespwest.bsky.social was home in Sydney on vacation when the horror happened. As good journalists are apt to do, he put his life on hold to file this story. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

This piece does a good job at highlighting the ways in which Bari Weiss and Andrew Ross Sorkin specifically are failing the public interest in their roles. While they work for news organizations, their actual purpose is as conveners. Whether in town halls or conferences they draw people together.

There are sensitive ways to interview a bereaved person, and intelligent ways to interview the CEO of a powerful and socially consequential political organization. When the two improbably overlap, as they do in the figure of Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk, things become a lot more complicated.

In her new media ascent, Erika Kirk whitewashes her husband’s legacy

“Commercial breaks were largely filled with spots from direct-response advertisers, including the dietary supplement SuperBeets. “Viewers of of the telecast on WCBS, the CBS flagship in New York, saw a commercial for Chia Pet, the terra-cotta figure that sprouts plant life after a few weeks.”

I wrote about the very weird dyanmics of Erika Kirk's ongoing media tour: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

OH MY GOD SINCE WHEN