Until I was in my mid 20s I had a near photographic memory and as a student in high school I would study something a few hours before the test and regurgitate whole paragraphs verbatim. As a result I’m always very anxious about *unwittingly* lifting something I read. Because of that…

I appreciate @natecohn.bsky.social & Eve Washington's NYT piece pointing out that random simulations of nonpartisan districting tend to produce many minority opportunity districts, perhaps as many as we have now. But although the subhead comes close, the authors do not ever quite say the key point—

Should be a bigger part of the story.

"So you agree RFK Jr should resign?. You're a pharmacist, Buddy. You know better than this." -- damn -- Auchincloss is not playing around with Rep. Carter

Buttigieg on Duffy: "I love roadtrips. I love America. I actually took a taxpayer-funded roadtrip lasted about 7 months. It was in Afghanistan. This is something very different. To make roadtrips unaffordable & then go around celebrating your own roadtrip is actually why people are frustrated about"

Over two-thirds of the vote in: @nbcnews.com projects nobody will crack 50% and that Julia Letlow advances to a runoff. Still no call from our Decision Desk on who will make the second spot in the runoff, though Fleming is currently ahead. Cassidy’s Senate career hangs by a thread.

In Louisiana, raising the mandatory judicial retirement age from 70 to 75 has failed by 50 points, if you want another data point for how voters feel about the gerontocracy problem.

RESULT: Louisianans was voting on a constitutional amendment today that’d have made it easier to “reclassify” civil servants in a way that made them fireable. Voters just rejected that amendment (the AP has called).

Thousands are marching in Selma calling for a full restoration of the voting rights act.

Some very good news out of a Texas federal court: Alex Jones doesn't have standing to appeal a Bankruptcy court order that placed InfoWars' assets in state receivership, meaning they can be licensed or sold to us. More to come, obviously, but we're almost there.

NEW: The health official who led the public response to the Hantavirus outbreak has little background in public health and previously was a penile implant specialist who hosted a podcast where he questioned the 2020 election and compared the Biden administration to Nazis. www.cnn.com/2026/05/15/p...

Also, please follow @pascalsabino.bsky.social as a form of credit! He has a lot more stories to tell (that you may reread in the NYT one day apparently without any credit). (You may have just read his story on Whittier: boltsmag.org/california-i...) And read his story on Tennessee!

🚨 The NYT appears to have taken a great feature story written by my colleague at Bolts about a west Tennessee county & the VRA, & essentially rewritten it. (Same frame, similar hed, overlapping sources.) Without a single mention, credit, let alone the a hyperlink buried somewhere.

Oh.

There's lots of ways to help. Here's just one. secure.actblue.com/donate/vrast...

🚨 Recent court decisions should make it clear how vitally important JUDGES are. 5/19: GA: Miracle Rankin 5/19: GA: Jen Jordan --Donations go directly to the candidates --Nothing goes to me Donate today! secure.actblue.com/donate/state...

And these SC rural districts are relatively cheap in campaign finance terms. $70k worth of spending is on the high side.

This guy’s opponent, incumbent Rep. Mike Burns, sponsored a bill that would make women who had abortions eligible for the death penalty. The district is pretty darn near the heart of South Carolina’s measles country. #scpol #ncpol

We need help/money to get the messaging out that there is real choice on the ballot in SC this year.

Even if we can just flip the 16 seats held by the SC Freedom Caucus, it would break the R supermajority & remove much obstruction to progress.

Just thinking out loud: 1 way to throw a wrench into the SC redistricting mess, would be to help fund the 124 Democratic candidates for the SC House of Representatives. We have someone running (including ME) in EVERY district & if we can flip 1/3rd of the R's seats, we would have the majority.

[Correction: This article was revised at 5:45 p.m. ET on May 13, 2026, after the Cleveland Clinic clarified that Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not operate robotic hands on a heart surgery patient.]

I have to believe this went down very differently than described academic medicine involves a lot of teaching newcomers, but always in the service of improving patient outcomes a patient on heart-lung bypass would never be left like this, and the Cleveland Clinic surgical staff know this

ARTEMIS laist.com/news/eaton-f...

This is why the midterms are critical. If we vote in a Democratic Governor a lot of this can be fixed. The primaries are KEY here. Two Dem candidates are running together to unseat two incumbents on the GA Supreme Court. This primary right NOW is the only time to vote for them for 6 yrs.

🚨BREAKING: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp called for lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional and legislative maps for 2028, adding Georgia to the growing list of southern states poised to wipe out majority-Black districts before the next presidential election. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

👀PRESUMPTION OF IRREGULARITY 1/ In the administration's ongoing effort to force Rhode Island Hospital to turn over the private health data of trans kids, Judge Mary McElroy rips it a new one: "DOJ has proven unworthy of trust at every point in this case." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

174 judges!

The president is negotiating against his own administration to shake down taxpayers for $10 billion. The corruption meter is flashing red and sounding the alarm. ca.news.yahoo.com/doj-consider...

Breaking News: The Justice Department is said to be considering settling a lawsuit President Trump filed against the IRS over the release of his tax returns.

Full story up now on the #ncga budget deal "framework," including details on raises, tax cut delays, constitutional amendments and when this thing might actually become law: www.wunc.org/politics/202... #ncpol

Advocates call on NC to reintroduce bathroom restrictions for transgender people. NC Values Coalition urged state lawmakers to ban transgender women from using women’s bathrooms in K-12 public schools and universities. (Via @kyleingram.bsky.social) www.newsobserver.com/news/politic... #ncpol #nced

“I’m disappointed in that Ethics has not been fair in the media, and that the media is guilty of being tabloid media and just spreading gossip, unfounded and often in conflict, but I very look forward to cooperating with the Ethics investigation” -Edwards #nc11 #ncpol www.cnn.com/2026/05/12/p...

👇

BREAKING: The South Carolina Senate quashed an effort to redraw the state’s congressional maps to dismantle the state’s sole Democratic district, represented by longtime Rep. Jim Clyburn. Full story to come.

@indivisiblegconc.bsky.social, the story made WRAL! #ncpol Mom: "You crossed a line when you attacked a child and attacked teachers. You don’t deserve to be on a Committee for Education when you talk to children like this and think so lowly of teachers." www.wral.com/news/local/g...

Shame on Foxx. Insulting children won't encourage civic participation. #ncpol

This comparison of Trump—ailing, sunsetting, obsessing over monuments to himself—to the ancient emperor Ozymandias is so good. From @virginiaheffernan.bsky.social, on our pod. Check out this exchange: newrepublic.com/article/2102...

Real wages are falling.

My best photographs of 2025, a short thread. A tobacco hornworm on one of its favorite foods, a garden tomato plant (Texas, May 2025). This one makes the cut because it is more aesthetically pleasing than I was aiming for, somehow.

@robertgarcia.house.gov reminding Americans that we have only received half of the Epstein Files from the Trump DOJ and many of the documents produced so far are illegally redacted.

There were many others using these two as shields and cover. That also needs to be made clear.

Relevant to the folks who think white supremacy in policing (& all other parts of the legal system) will be solved primarily by diversifying who the cops are. 👇

Evidence for person-to-person transmission of Andes hantavirus has existed for nearly 30 years. The Epuyén outbreak included infections after brief indoor exposure without physical contact — entirely consistent with respiratory aerosol spread. 2/ www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

OUR NEW BMJ editorial: Andes virus should reset WHO’s default approach to airborne risk. 🧵 1/ For severe pathogens with person-to-person transmission, the starting point should be precautionary airborne protections — not waiting for definitive proof after spread occurs. www.bmj.com/content/393/...

part of me believes that if every American could have a gap year in which they experience functional mass transit, including high speed trains, it would transform the way we get around in this country inside a generation

“Why, this district isn’t conservative at all, in fact, it’s 47 percent Black!” Man, you had ONE job and it was NOT SAYING THAT

Genuinely funny that Alito just wrote a whole opinion making clear that the only thing Republicans have to do to gerrymander Black people out of electoral existence is say "this is about politics, not race," and then this genius is like CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW MANY BLACK PEOPLE ARE IN THAT DISTRICT??

one in five. about 3 million people www.notus.org/healthcare/a...

AP: Whirlpool, which makes KitchenAid and Maytag appliances, reported last week that revenue dropped nearly 10% in its most recent quarter and said that the war has caused a “recession-level industry decline″ that has undermined consumer confidence.