When Democrats fought to extend the Florida recount in 2000, Republicans blanketed the airwaves with this stuff, even printing up Sore/Loserman signs that mimicked the Gore/Lieberman campaign. It was very effective! Trump *is* a sore loser and he *is* throwing a sad tantrum. Call it out like that!

The NYT focus group stuff really should be grounded with the understanding that most people don’t have beliefs about public policy like you or I might understand them. You should think about it in terms of if someone asked “Why did you buy this soap brand?” You come up with post hoc justifications

The opponents of the Bay Area transit funding measure say that the agencies should simply launder capital grant funding (e.g. BART Silicon Valley) to pay for operations. And we call these people "policy wonks?" sfstandard.com/2026/07/16/b...

Telling people they're required to buy tickets using an app to ride transit when both of the main ways people pay for transit are not working is ridiculous. I know in practice they probably won't enforce it but this is such bad optics.

It barely passed and only because people got mailers every week saying “Stop Trump Cuts, vote yes on ER” with a snarling picture of the president on it. There was no anti campaign at all. I voted no but I accept the results since LA city turnout was higher because the mayor race was competitive.

Democrats had the speaker of the California Assembly, Willie Brown, 40 years ago. He is still married to his wife too!

This AP story is going to be a Frontline documentary. Will Lyman is going to narrate her life (derogatory). apnews.com/article/roma...

Jesus fucking christ, hit by three seperate cars, none of which bothered to stop

Nothing from local government officials about shelters for this, even recommending that seniors and those with health conditions get a ride to the library so they can breathe filtered air for a few hours.

one thing about all the tech overlords going Full Fash is that it makes it really easy for Dems (especially local Dems) to put themselves on the side of banning data centers, which poll somewhere in the vicinity of cancer

What? An "AI" company violating the copyright and intellectual property rights of individual creators who neither licensed nor gave permission for the use of their work? That's so unusual and has never once happened before!

My public comment career has now gone to the next level since on Friday morning I will be testifying to the IRS regarding the definition of “reporting period” for purposes of calculating gambling wins and losses, and the 90% loss limitation.

One sign fewer people are listening to the radio/the economy is getting worse is @knxnews.bsky.social is running public service announcements during drive time, not just late in the evening. On weekends I have heard more of the "spoken help wanted ads" during breaks.

Fully acknowledging that I am a freakish policy wonk deeply out of touch with the mainstream, I do not think that litigating the proper role of AI in society at local land use hearings is likely to produce good policy that maximizes social benefit while minimizing externalities.

my most authoritarian belief is probably that I'm basically fine with passive automated surveillance in public spaces especially wrt to cars. I think the backlash to speed cameras and automated license plate readers is mostly stupid given the clear public safety benefits.

The Politiplot videos are all AI generated, please stop sharing them

So far the only politician who could figure out how to do this. While I'd prefer they call him out for the pure evilness that he perpetrated on this country and people across the world, this is the best we can really hope for.

Graham having just come back from Ukraine is going to prompt some fun speculation especially if we’re not identifying COD more specifically than “sudden illness”

Americans are forced to wonder: is AI *too* good???

This attack — painting someone as a rapacious vulture because they have money in an index fund — is extremely common and we need to develop a shorthand to educate low-info voters on it

the tattoo should have been an antisemitism scandal, but instead the antisemitism scandals have all been about Israel, because the ADL has simply stopped caring about the interests of American Jews.

Congratulations to SBLA’s San Gabriel Valley reporter Chris Greenspon for winning the American Society of Civil Engineers #ASCE Metropolitan LA Branch Excellence in Journalism award

I thought they hated Marxism

I think the Democrats have to promise to expel him from the senate George Santos style, or at the very least deny him committee slots, were he to get elected. That way people can vote for an empty vessel which actually may be more popular than Susan Collins.

At the very least, I would force all sports books to take all comers just like the prediction markets do. Don’t cut people off because they found an edge.

RIP NYT pitchbot. how do you satirize this?

In 1986 the state moved to means testing college, with the Cal Grant. Somewhat perversely because of return to aid (inclusionary college tuition?) 40-45% of every added dollar is returned back to low income students to cover increases for them.

It’s because we means test college now, although we do it in a ham handed way so parents may pay 5.64% of stock assets, but if they own horses or a boat which is used for fishing, that doesn’t count. thecollegeinvestor.com/60044/famili...

Finalfuckingly

A hacker could already launch a driverless vehicle into oncoming traffic or send it off an overpass. It is driverless after all and the occupants have no control over the situation.

Himpathy is the WaPo using this photo of Graham Platner as he's poised to exit the race over alleged forcible rape.

There's not a liberal America. There's not a conservative America. There's the Howard Jarvis States of America.

I just had to speak out about this

FTR this is Lyndsey Fifield, the original woman from the NYT profile in May. This is also a form of rape.

Meanwhile offside has 3D modeling of the ball and the parties involved.

The chuds in Murrieta apparently have put on the agenda to ask their colleagues to use taxpayer dollars to draft a "local control" ballot initiative in the 2028 statewide election. murrieta.legistar.com/MeetingDetai...

That was really special - many Ds who passionately went on record denouncing Cuomo in 2021 then walked it back. A credibility shredder for their wing.

Voters are going to have the chance to eliminate CEQA for almost everything except industries and high speed rail with Proposition 45. That kind of argument won’t cut it.

Pausa de Humiliacion

the us team right now

Does Collin County, Texas have the most cities named after peoples' names? Allen, Anna, Celina, Josephine, Lucas, Melissa, Murphy, Parker, and Wylie.

perhaps we should view nazi tattoos as disqualifying from here on out. i kind of assumed we'd already view them as disqualifying but was unpleasantly surprised so maybe from here we could all agree not to downplay nazi tattoos since they seem pretty indicative of broad disregard for human dignity

I look forward to Platner Discourse, Bluesky's most aggravating discourse, ramping up shortly. It's like Maine decided that nominating the human equivalent of Senor Spielbergo's Mr. Burns film was a winning strategy.

Chris Geidner is getting harassed for the sin of having said something nice about Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, because saying anything nice about her apparently is no longer permitted here. And that, in a nutshell, is the Bluesky experience.

Wall Street Journal gift link on the US government trying to overturn a sporting decision www.wsj.com/sports/socce...

Direct hit from Dupont Circle.

Trumps America is service member karaoke night going along with a bunch of fireworks.