President Donald Trump repeatedly promised Americans that taxpayers would not pay for his planned White House ballroom. Republicans are now advancing legislation that could direct $1 billion in federal funding toward the WH. theintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/trump-prom...

YOU GUYS this is amazing - tracks ICE flights in realtime - lets immigration attorneys download flight records for filings - helps organize observations to counter blatant ICE lies So much work went into this. Lives will change because of this. Fighting looks like many things & this is one.

BTS fans: time to buy up all the tickets 👍

Don’t put in the paper that I got mad about all the singers cancelling

So if the real beneficiaries of plantation slavery were those who bought and wore cheaper, more varied etc cotton fabrics does that imply the soul-searching by institutions about their involvement with slavery is a bit misplaced? This is an important point for thinking about who owes reparations…

today a friend who works in a STEM field said "averages delete information" and I'm gonna be thinking about this for a while.

we should have been pushing for free market drugs (no patent monopolies). Unfortunately the folks in economic policy debates are not very sharp.

“Corruption is more than a symptom of institutional decay, moral depravity, or political vulgarity. It is a central pedagogical & political mechanisms through which fascist politics takes hold, eroding democratic values & legitimating a culture of brutality, humiliation & civic abandonment.”

“Money is flowing into human genetic engineering. Since Tie arrived in New York last August some of the richest men in the world have begun investing in her rivals.” We’ve seen this story before and the damage “the richest men in the world” can do. Brace yourselves.

No matter how many excellent alternatives to cars a city provides, if a city allocates too much space for driving and parking, its public space will still be ruined. #CarsRuinCities

But technological change is not analogous to a natural phenomenon. How technology changes the world is shaped by institutions, consumer demand, regulation, management strategies and the balance of power in different workplaces. This is not an aspirational statement, it is a simple matter of fact.

Your weekend watch! Watch the Friends of the Bodleian Annual Lecture featuring Richard Ovenden OBE, Bodley’s Librarian, as he explores the deliberate destruction of knowledge throughout history and its urgent relevance today. https://youtu.be/TlKBAYH1KAc?si=whFJTfkNQAik4Ort

I've said here and there that fathers are rewarded for doing more than nothing, mothers condemned for doing less than everything. Also this from my pandemic-era essay: lithub.com/masculinity-...

The content of this story is upsetting. But also when will fathers spending time with their children stop being called 'babysitting.' Dictionary: "To take care of a child or children in the absence of a parent or guardian."

Hey folks- check out Scene on Radio for their latest on #media Previous seasons on Democracy and Capitalism are outstanding, and must listening. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

The government dictating what is studied or learned is a half-step from dictating what is thought

"This systematic review showed an increase in diff kinds of gender-based violence (GBV) during or after extreme events, often related to economic instability, food insecurity, mental stress, disrupted infrastructure, increased exposure to men, tradition & increased gender inequality." #OpenAccess

Nevermind about the cost of gas

Corporations spend more than $1.5 billion a year on union-busting. That’s $1.5 billion they could have spent on higher wages, better benefits, and improving workplace safety. Remember: if they weren’t so scared of worker power, they wouldn’t fight so hard against unions.

Evergreen:

Absolute hero

We're currently in a situation where a massive amount of work has been imposed upon us by the worst people. We have to deal with the consequences of their dishonesty & selfishness while our leaders enthusiastically & uncritically embrace the situation, yelling 'More! More!'. It's vexing.

Our entire economy is being artificially propped up by astrology for men: AI, crypto, sports betting, and prediction markets. It's an economy shaped entirely by male insecurity and lack of impulse control, and we'll all pay the price.

The fact that under neoliberalism capital is almost completely mobile across borders whereas labor is almost completely immobile is a core reason why capital has been able to hoard the profits from all the tech-drive productivity gains of the last half century.

Short answer: genocide, war crimes, and illegal land annexation. foreignpolicy.com/2026/05/26/i...

A new animated adaptation retools George Orwell’s allegorical novella as a vector for spreading God’s light. Horrifying, writes Travis Diehl. artreview.com/what-would-o...

This guy skipped Sunday school, for sure. And just to be clear, his God identifies as three people.

For the tens of millions of working parents who have missed a shift because a daycare provider called in sick, or quietly scaled back their careers because care costs more than their paycheck, the number is neither abstract nor surprising

“Often goes unnoticed.” It was ever thus.

Anthropic co-founder: "How can we ensure the gains of AI are shared globally? We do not have a mechanism for this." @lot49.com: "We have many. One is called taxes. Another is litigation... We also have the French and Russian Revolution as wealth-sharing models when nothing else works.." reg.cx/4nbD

This is good reporting and analysis, documenting what we’ve all been seeing and experiencing since the Iran “war” began — foreign/war policy by incoherent, self-contradictory, word-vomit social media posts Gift link:

“The climate debate has long focused on what people buy and consume. But equally important is the question of ownership: who owns and controls the assets that ultimately generate emissions?” – @cmohren.bsky.social of @wid.world #LSEInequalitiesBlog

“Significantly, the Court found that the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is fundamental for all other human rights, and that intergenerational equity should guide the interpretation of all climate obligations."

“Policymaking and decision-making in the US are suffering from a kind of institutionalized vacillation. “The repeated changes in positions — within a matter of hours you are faced with different, often contradictory and conflicting viewpoints. “This disrupts the process of any negotiation.” 2/2

from the moment it was founded activists and human rights watchdogs have warned that DHS was constructed to be an almost unaccountable private paramilitary force at the president's sole disposal.

Our government is for sale to the highest bidders at home and abroad. The US government is an active, ongoing, organized criminal enterprise. www.politico.com/news/2026/05...

These 8 Democrats voted to pass a national ban on trans teachers and mention of LGBTQ topics. Rep Henry Cuellar (TX) Rep. Don Davis (NC) Rep. Cleo Fields (LA) Rep. Laura Gillen (NY) Rep. Vicente González (TX) Rep. Marcy Kaptur (OH) Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA) Rep. Eugene Vindman (VA)

Good morning from Chicago City Hall, where the meeting of the City Council is underway. The main event: Will a majority of members of the City Council vote to rid the CPD of officers with ties to hate groups and far-right extremist organizations? Follow along, yes? @wttw.bsky.social

Who the fuck asked for this?

"The transatlantic slave trade built the modern world— its wealth, its institutions, and the global order that 52 countries chose to protect (by voting no). Ghana’s resolution didn't change that order. But it named it. And in international politics, naming s.t. is the first act of dismantling it."

Just because a place has been dominated by cars for as long as you can remember, doesn't mean the space is not capable or deserving of change. From car storage to a safely walkable plaza in Utrecht. 1969 x 2026.

Forbes: Eric Trump Is 10× Richer on Crypto Since Trump's WH Return As President Trump’s administration rolled out crypto policy in 2025, Forbes estimates that Eric Trump’s crypto-driven fortune climbed about tenfold to roughly $400 million. theintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/forbes-eri...

Otherwise known as Russia’s new game: why use military force when you can create internal rot? youtu.be/-q0kbywspDk?...

Trump clearly imagines the White House ballroom will be an eternal tribute to his greatness. Instead, it's shaping up to be a perfect symbol of his failures. It's likely never to be finished. But even if it is, it will be hideous and stink of corruption. www.salon.com/2026/05/20/w...

It would have been cheaper to give every Vietnamese person, North and South, ten thousand dollars in cash, than to fight the Vietnam War. But not half so much fun, eh dudes?

People love to talk about how great FDR was. Meanwhile the New Deal was deliberately structured to exclude Black people. The New Deal helped usher Irish and Italian immigrants into whiteness.

NEW: The top lawyer at the Treasury Department just resigned. Even though he clerked for Clarence Thomas, perhaps the $1.7B heist was probably too much. Also note the Times (right) and the WSJ (left) refer to it as a settlement. The judge found IT IS NOT A SETTLEMENT. 1/

Nine weeks later, the actual, physical, shortages of oil are starting to be felt. The US is NOT insulated from the resulting shocks just because of the quantity of oil produced in the USA. Crude oil is the most actively traded item on earth. When world prices rise, US prices rise. Buckle up!

#OtD 19 May 1933 Germany's Nazi government abolished collective bargaining – the principle of workers collectively negotiating with employers over pay and conditions. Instead, conditions were to be regulated by labour "trustees", appointed by Hitler stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9129...