404 Media worth subscribing to?

Points for candor, I guess: FIU's policy *explicitly* bans "free speech" indoors. Which is sort of like the rightwing college policy version of a villain named "Dr. Evil."

Climate change is literally canceling US independence Day celebrations. The July 4 parade in Philadelphia, the birthplace of American independence, has been canceled due to extreme heat. Heat waves aren’t new - what’s new is that climate change is making them hotter and more dangerous.

... that humanity could even produce such foolishness -- the erasure, I mean -- is evidence that as a species we should probably just turn out the lights and hand it all over to the roaches, who manage their affairs much more reasonably.

A really unpleasant professional anxiety that I’ve just realized I have is that I don‘t know how to think about collaborations now that I’m so mismatched with peers on acceptable AI use. I expected this problem with students but I’m shocked at how everyone in their 40s/50s is just casually using it

I mean, tbf I've seen better James Madison cosplayers

From a piece I built out of a Bluesky thread for The Chronicle of Higher Education: www.chronicle.com/article/my-s...

Earlier this week, Intelligencer ran a piece called "ICE Won." We definitely don't agree with the title, but its gist—that the normalization of federal police violence is accelerating—is proving accurate. ICE arrests roughly doubled in Chicagoland in June over May. Some more thoughts on that:

“Every day, Michael Geoffrey Asia spent eight consecutive hours at his laptop in Kenya staring at porn, annotating what was happening in every frame for an AI data labeling company.” www.404media.co/ai-is-africa...

I asked my creative writing students to anonymously share their thoughts about AI. www.chronicle.com/article/my-s...

I don’t know the story of this painting but not only is it obviously what it is but note they chose a depiction in which Lee appears to *receive* the supplication—the surrender—of Grant.

Hell yeah we are

Some updates on Trump’s arch at the Great American State Fair (repost with video this time. Sorry, it’s really hard to do video on Bluesky!!)

For all who'd vote for a rock over Collins & who had no use for Mills but insisted a serial liar w/ a Nazi tat isn't the best path, there's this: in five of six states strong D senate candidates run ahead of a generic ballot. In Maine, Platner's *9 behind* generic. But he's winning, so...

I'm on a mailing list for the Great American State Fair (G.A.S.F). Exciting events today! Season 24 runner-up of The Bachelor! A "Music of the Bible Takeover"! "Faith, Farms & Freedom," w/ Ag Sec Brooke Rollins! & this guy's going to prove his faith by singing in this sweater in 100 degrees.

I really can’t see what more acid could add

"Supreme Court Halts Trump Push to End Birthright Citizenship" & other variations of this headline (that's NYT) are incorrect. Court (narrowly) said no. There is zero evidence that Trump administration will stop pushing, and lots of evidence that it will continue.

Another forthcoming nonfiction title that given historian Kim Phillips-Fein's crucial past work could have once counted on widespread reviews. But there aren't widespread forums left. So my little bump to the promo campaign: I'm reading it now and it's revelatory. @wwnorton.com

I read an excerpt of this as well as some of Schiller's work, so I just pre-ordered my copy from my local Norwich Books. Which I mention because in the age of book criticism collapse we must do what we can to help debut authors, especially those who aren't catering to BookTok.

With a life expectancy, once they’re sent into combat, of literally minutes. The surrealism of Putin’s reduction of millions of bodies to disposable figments of his murder-minded imagination is impossible to overstate.

I think this is right, and it’s why I’m troubled by the way so many of us interpret polls or small victories — Carroll — or vast screw-ups — Iran — as evidence that we’re currently “winning.” So much longterm damage in so many areas is occurring. That’s not defeatist. It’s naming the fight.

I’m at my mom’s house, checking in on her. I took a walk and saw two trans inclusive Pride flags on her block here in Biddeford, ME. It’s hard to be far from friends tonight on Pride, but it helped to learn community is near—just one of the ways these flags work. Thanks to everyone who flies them.

My 12 and I went to the town opera house to see a doc about Bread & Puppet & hear Mohsen Madawi talk, then we went for a walk to see a neighbor’s garden lit up against deer, & now he’s cooking paper mache to make puppets while listening to Dylan—not my doing!—& I’ve never felt more Vermonty.

Proposal that we retire the word "reckoning" with respect to the U.S.

'From a window at night.' (1896) Towards the end of her life, Maria Yakunchikova wrote that her work from the late 1890s attempted to convey the fleeting preoccupations of other lives - 'the flashes of another world, the perception of which is blended into the landscape.'

Seen a few legacy media vids of Great American State Fair that do report on the almost surreal incompetence of it all but in doing so pan over booths promoting apocalyptic Christian nationalism without comment. Not because they’re for it! Because most reporters don’t get it.

Confederate flag flown at NC's Great American State Fair; removed after video emerges www.usatoday.com/story/news/u...

After federal agents shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, a New Yorker sent ICE's director an email in January comparing him to a Nazi. This week, DHS agents stalked him across New York. His home. A hotel. They gave his wife a letter warning of criminal prosecution. www.syracuse.com/news/2026/06...

I will critique journalism when it falls short; I will also uplift damn fine reporting. And Jude Joffe-Block is a fantastic reporter.

Take heart! The astonishing badness of the Great American State Fair and the reflecting pool is evidence that Trump has so inadequately consolidated power that underlings don’t fear him enough to do an even passable job. Stalin would have sent them to Siberia.

Woah. This thing is surreal.

Dear editors. I know who Lance Schroyer is so plz ask me to write something.

Social media delivers with a smart, informed thread that cuts through noise and reasonably encourages some actionable optimism around cooling and climate change.

One night the Reflecting Pool caught fire. Glowing a methanol green to coppery turquoise, observers thought offgassing must be the cause. But that was before the humming. Starting low, it ended in a high warble. Onlookers were then too busy singing along to worry. All hail algae! Source of our song!

Lobbying for, say, big tobacco, or even Lockheed pales compares to this .

Ruining animal photos by making AI cute animal images for clicks isn’t the evilest use of a godawful tech but it may be the most pathetic in a very competitive field. And given the environmental damage, it’s basically just like eating kittens.

I might watch the World Cup if it was this. Actually, every sport could be improved by this formula.

Machines like this have long been used in parking lots to control unhoused people. Escalation is predictable, and awful, and don’t imagine it stops here unless we stop it all together.

"The lawsuit also alleges that OpenAI knowingly stripped copyright management information from publishers’ work — including author bylines, copyright notices, and terms of use information."

This is next level "Man in a High Tower" shit. Welcoming Afrikaners with free Android Tablets, anti-Mandela slop, & the 1776 Commission Report co-authored by Charlie Kirk, which openly condemns civil rights & calls for "Christian instructors." www.nytimes.com/2026/06/23/u...

If you like me take pleasure from Trump failures, this account is a joy.

Mama Tried / Hollowpoint / "Ignorence is Bliss" / King Jesus. Pictures of words from a little drive-about

This is such an evident grift. For at least last 40 yrs there’s been a money-making niche for a youngish, conventionally attractive rightwing woman who’ll say, “akshually, as a woman I think we *shldnt* have human rights…” & a raft of men like Douthat who proclaim “well, if she says so!”

Thanks as always, Jeff.

helpful coverage from @elpais.com english.elpais.com/usa/2025-08-...

You think it’s gonna be a meet-cute but no, it’s really just about a mood

If you haven't read @jeffsharlet.bsky.social 's book about The Family you need to. It will scare the shit out of you.... Jeff has a bad habit of doing that TBH

That’d be Tom Suozzi, who, as @jonathanlarsen.bsky.social reports, lives at the subsidized C St prayer house of The Family, a mostly GOP organization committed to “biblical capitalism” & “infiltrating” Jesus—manly variety—into govt.

I think about a 1/4 of my TL right now is people reposting Vance on Nixon or Emmer spewing hate w/ comments that are either jokes or helpfully explaining that these remarks are bad. This formula is true most days.