Responding to Chris here but in general to many: I came up with this description of the problem about two years ago: Covering Trump is like asking Herbert Morrison to broadcast the Hindenburg disaster every day. “Once again, Phil, I have to go with ‘oh, the humanity.‘ Back to you.”

The final day

German poets loved the Rhine River because of its sublimity — its wild nature, its dangers, and its mysteries. 🗃️🧵

Nostalgia for the past combined with cynicism about the future is an especially deadly combination!

It happened. It finally happened. One of the old cables I keep in a drawer today turned out to be one we urgently needed for something. TODAY IS MY DAY

#earlymodern #maritimehistory

Here it is, the final regular #ScholarSunday thread of 2025, my 255th thread of great public scholarly writing, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, please share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all! 🗃️ blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...

It’s the “season of love and giving”…but this year, doesn’t it seem more like a “season of fear and taking”? Like many of you, I’ve been saddened by the human impact of draconian government budget cuts and how angry many housed Americans are at unhoused Americans. 🧵 1 of 9

Former NSA employee (16 years) with a pro tip for you. Released controlled document on the left, Epstein on the right. See the difference? In real redactions, some words, headers, and bits will almost always still be visible, but especially classification headers. These documents are UNCLASSIFIED

The Epstein file is the only thing Trump has ever taken his name off of

In honor of me being mad on the internet, and also needing to feel like other people share my values: Tell me about the class you didn't want to take in college that ended up bending your mind or being otherwise "useful" in your development as a person

High Dog Winter Count, [documenting 114 years of a Teton Dakota band’s history from 1798-1912] [North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum, State Historical Society of North Dakota.

They booked a bunch of 14 year old models to come to a Mar A Lago party, told them to dress sexy and tried to ply them with alcohol.

NB: When I, a professor of law, profess that an act is unlawful, I am not doing it to inform the lawbreaker, but rather to inform you, the reader. So the question “what, like you think he cares?” is inapposite. The question is whether *you* care. I think you should, which is why I bother.

Plot twist, they are mostly solar farms being started before the Admin takes away the clean energy tax credits.

Somebody tell the Ottomans!

OK, this is just a "Donald said he wanted to be on TV" thing.

Back in 1903, Charles Urban made an icky little movie about cheese mites (which are what they sound like). It was a sensation, and it essentially invented the genre of grossout cinema. What does our desire to be grossed out tell us about ourselves? 🗃️ worldhistory.substack.com/p/cheese-mit...

It's so funny when people idolize Roman aristocrats like Cicero, Caesar, and Sulla, because reading the primary sources about them makes it clear they were catty bitches who insulted each other by gossiping about the shame of a rival's grandpa owning a rope-making business and a bakery

I'm not sure if people realize the murder strikes are taking place across a large region. It's quite staggering. www.newsweek.com/map-us-strik...

Trump's Reiner post is maybe the best possible example of his lack of both object permanence and empathy (other people aren't real when they leave the room and also if they don't like me they deserve to suffer), a combination that probably shouldn't have control of the nuke codes

utterly incapable of grace

🗃️

The Hetch Hetchy Valley was a stunning part of Yosemite National Park.

YEEEEESSSSSSS

We shouldn’t permit the President to get away with professing to know nothing about the consequential decisions he’s making.

Once again, LLMs can’t believe reality is real.

Gordon Chang's Ghosts of Gold Mountain is a great book. During the winter, the Chinese workers built caverns under the snow to live in while they tunneled through the Sierras. Unbelievable courage.

It’s a famous photo — driving of the “golden spike” that connected the final segments of the transcontinental railroad. But the image mostly omits one of the groups that was most crucial in making that moment possible — Chinese railroad workers. 🧵🗃️

The desperate hands of the global south seek to take back an overheated world. Seriously, what's next? The McHamburglar trophy in gourmet cooking? The Pol Pot Human Rights medal? The Jeffrey Epstein childcare grant? The Vladimir Putin democracy fellowship? The Weinstein-Cosby feminism prize?

This is the most horrific trophy I’ve ever seen. It looks like a cursed object found in a desert crypt.

Funny someone seems to have clipped the "Therefore I will...." portion of this tweet.

This is the story tonight. Every Dem who was in that room should be telling us what they saw.

the entire point of what they're doing now is try to make you forget that the first strike and in fact all strikes on boats with alleged drug traffickers on them ARE ILLEGAL IN THE FIRST PLACE

Who among us hasn't pulled the "suddenly realize we dozed off so quickly look to the side to pretend we were awake the whole time" move?

Yes, this is worth listening to. In my very long memory of public affairs, have never heard a public statement by a "president" (a) more alarming in mental health terms, and also (b) more overtly racist and hate-filled. Watch carefully the sycophants around Trump as he rants. They *all* know...

I've been saying for the better part of a year that Trump is on a mission to decriminalize corruption. To make it the legal equivalent of jaywalking. I feel that more strongly now than I ever had.

The stories leading on The New Climate @medium.com homepage today, are... [1/4] medium.com/the-new-clim...

One must imagine Ulysses S. Grant dreaming of his ballroom

What would convince Americans that it was necessary to preserve faraway lands that they’d never seen (and likely never would)? And what would persuade people to actually visit these remote locations? 🧵🗃️

Imagine showing a petrol engine to someone who had only known electric vehicles, and trying to convince them to switch to petrol. No-one would choose the dirty, noisy, less efficient, more expensive vehicle. This isn't 1910, hostage to gender insecurity. We can just choose the better tech.

Every single congressional Democrat needs to be out there, right now, insisting that Pete Hegseth resign right now and announcing that he will be held accountable for committing war crimes. If you do not demand accountability here and now, they will only become more emboldened.

attempting to describe the vibes of the moment. have yet to do better than: "imagine watching a documentary reenacting the burning of the Library of Alexandria set to the soundtrack of 'Yakety Sax'"

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Poorest man in the world

Man, whatever's in those files, it must be pretty horrible

I don't see why we need to have a "should we sack the coach" conversation every after every disappointing result. home form of the squad is very weird but we're still top ten in the Premier League and unbeaten in the Champions League, some of y'all sound like we're still points away from relegation

In the 19th century, Americans idealized wilderness, which they defined as natural areas without people in them. The issue with this, of course, was that the “wilderness” areas that they wanted to turn into national parks had people in them. 🗃️🧵

The gentlest, firmest, weapon for us to use in the culture wars, from Goethe: "A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul."