Trump’s Tariffs Are Damaging America’s Biggest Foreign Source of Screws www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/b... this headline really is everything.

My whole freaking life this country has been mainly governed by shitty right wing ideas, but most everyone thinks the problem is we're too polarized or too divided.

Kimmel’s suspension illustrates media censorship is a structural problem It's not just Trump. Corporate power muzzles speech. www.salon.com/2025/09/20/k... This neither new or accidental—nor was it inevitable—it is by design & intention that GOP billionaires now own/run every media conglomerate.

'We're not North Korea.' Newsom signs bills to ban warrantless immigration raids at schools and ban federal agents from wearing masks. www.latimes.com/california/s...

Regular reminder: I’m an American techie living in the Netherlands. Hit me up if you have question about the US->NL expat process or need a recommendation for an immigration lawyer.

The new American Dream is to leave America, expats say flip.it/EHVROP It’s not just expats. Seems relevant that fascism is all the rage basically everywhere..but the appeal of being richer & having healthcare somewhere you don’t speak the language isn’t hard to understand or relate to?

Please, Lord, Do Not Make Me Roll Hard for Jimmy Kimmel Apparently, the future of democracy hinges on late night’s blandest TV show slate.com/culture/2025... yeah, nothing is more digestible & unobjectionable & um less inspiring than milquetoast…but otoh it could be worse. It coulda been Fallon!

Trump signs "gold card" residency order, cuts price to $1 million www.axios.com/2025/09/19/t... given the costs of admin & that it’s $100k per year, it would literally be more cost effective to buy residency for h1b workers…. Also “extraordinary ability” visas will now mean nothing more than has💰

And medical professionals?

The SEC Drops Efforts to Recoup Funds From Trump Clemency Recipients Devon Archer, Trevor Milton & Carlos Watson, convicted in fraud schemes totaling 100s of millions of 💵, won’t be required by the US govt to pay back victims (but they can still sue) www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/u... 🤮 beyond corrupt

Trump signs proclamation imposing $100K fee for H-1B visa applications. flip.it/LaxcYb APPLICATIONS?! 100k per entry level tech role!? Yet another way to punch ourselves in the face?!? How many days till he’ll exclude various industries?!? For eg, hotels rely more on H2Bs, but managers get H1Bs!

US Democracy Might Be Stronger Than Trump flip.it/uGc_Gj It prolly is. But, while that’s great, it does not undo the damage, deaths or destruction of trust—nor is stopping our institutions, corps or his fellow criminal billionaires from bowing, bootlicking & plundering. Will accountability survive?

Trying to Silence Kimmel Will Backfire on Trump nymag.com/intelligence... as long as the most powerful folks speak loudly, free speech will prevail (& also, Kirk’s legacy will be his own utterly forgettable words). But now is not the time to be silent—especially for those with power & thus safety.

In 1983, 50 companies controlled 90% of the U.S. media market. That number is now down to 5.

I know we’re not supposed to laugh but that doesn’t mean I can stop

I find this extremely chilling: I spoke w a reporter this morning about Kimmel. (Reporter was / is great) They got back to me a short while ago to say they sought White House comment & WH demands to know first which experts they spoke with. I told reporter I'm happy to be quoted IN THE STORY but 1/x

Funny how Massie says these men were “included” in millions of pages of documents—not that anyone has accused them of anything. Massie could just share these names—it’s not like quite a few men with these exact bios haven’t already been mentioned in other already public Epstein court documents.

If you spent even one second of the last decade indulging the free speech claims made by the American right in earnest, I genuinely think you're lacking in intelligence. I do not think you have what it takes to deliver sound commentary on American politics.

Funny how Massie says these men were “included” in millions of pages of documents—not that anyone has accused them of anything. Massie could just share these names—it’s not like quite a few men with these exact bios haven’t already been mentioned in other already public Epstein court documents.

One positive thing that's happening is that the "let's meet in the middle" people are looking more and more unhinged in the eyes of regular people. My FedBook page which includes a lot of normies is on fire regularly. Folks are done.

it’s very funny to make a distinction between cancel culture and what this is, which is clear government supression of speech. cancel culture isn’t anti first amendment, but this specifically is! which is worse!

I just… what the fuck is even happening

Jarvis: I hate to say this to my friends here at CNN, mass media is dying, so they're taking the last of these vestiges of institutions that matter and they're trying to turn them into propaganda organs under threat from the head of the FCC

Update - I want you all to know, this is a significant sacrifice for my wife, who said, and I am quoting this verbatim, “now I can’t watch my international soccer matches on the shittiest fucking app ever made, that’s the whole reason we had that stupid fucking ESPN bundle”

#GOPCutsKillsEducation Republicans are cutting $12 billion in funding for Public Schools Call Your Congressional Representatives 202 224-3121 No cuts to Education

Trumpy Billionaires Ellison & Andreesen Close in on TikTok Takeover www.thedailybeast.com/trumpy-billi... & with that, every 🇺🇸platform & media conglom except Disney will be owned/run by totalitarian dictatorship-admiring Trumpsters How long till TikTok reverses its ban on political ads? #loligarchy

Internet Archive’s big battle with music publishers ends in settlement flip.it/.nyj3u omfg this is excellent news. Archive.org is too important & only more so with each passing day. Such a relief that the music companies somehow(!?h came to their senses…hope someone gets the scoop & writes a book:)

[me, a journalist who spends all day every day on a social media app where the discovery algorithm is personally controlled by its owner, captain birdseye] you know, a lot of people are talking about fish fingers, we should probably cover that

It's Signal. It's worth using. Good interview with @Mer__edith https://english.elpais.com/technology/2025-09-14/signal-president-meredith-whittaker-in-technology-its-way-too-easy-for-marketing-to-replace-substance-thats-whats-happened-with-telegram.html h/t #signal

Internet Archive’s big battle with music publishers ends in settlement flip.it/.nyj3u omfg this is excellent news. Archive.org is too important & only more so with each passing day. Such a relief that the music companies somehow(!?h came to their senses…hope someone gets the scoop & writes a book:)

US Colleges Are About to See a Big Decline in Applicants nymag.com/intelligence... what a fascinating data-filled book excerpt! & it doesn’t even address all the satellites campuses that opened in other cities & countries—or how reliant they are on international students who’ll now also be gone!

Back when I was a student, there were endless candlelight vigils for Biggie Smalls & Kurt Cobain at high schools & colleges… These events (& young folks grief) were endlessly mocked by the exact same folks mandating the performance of grief for a hate profiteer & firing folks who quote his words.

WHAT THE HELL

Scoop: Status has obtained the termination letter The Washington Post sent to @karenattiah.bsky.social, in which it informed her that she was being fired for social media posts "about white men." Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/karen-atti...

Kash Patel’s FBI puts two pounds of methamphetamine in the incinerator at an animal shelter, sending 14 people to the hospital, and exposing some 75 cats and dogs to the narcotic. www.bbc.com/news/article...

That & every US media conglomerate except Disney is owned (&/or run) by Trump donors. This is not an exaggeration. While it’s not excusable, it’s understandable why journalists prefer Substack & clickrage to allowing Murdoch, Bezos, Zaslav, Ellison etc choose what’s published with their byline?

No, they see it, but what everyone needs to understand is — in the flattened doom loop of money-power-influence, too many journalists have started to measure success by the ability to break free of the yesteryear ethics of journalism & become a “media leader” funded by pols or tech bros for coercion

I’m interested to see how the inevitable first amendment cases go … I think this is going to be very expensive for the public universities involved which sucks students, staff, and faculty in addition to the person who has been unlawfully fired

idk if you've seen this south korean editorial that ran a few days ago. google translate version scorched my eyebrows www.hani.co.kr/arti/opinion...

korean reporting is nightmarish on the conditions Korean workers were contained in

Kathy Hochul: Why I Am Endorsing Zohran Mamdani www.nytimes.com/2025/09/14/o... “Some will say Zohran Mamdani & I are unlikely allies: a mom governor from Buffalo & a 33-year-old assemblyman from Queens” 😖”Some” are racists??! How many times can she say she disagrees & it still count as endorsing?

Trump's stain on America may be permanent www.salon.com/2025/09/12/t... “may”?!?! #loligarchy

Trump’s ICE raids recall a painful past for these (& so many other) Americans: ‘I see myself in those children’ www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Gift! WSJ: Toxic Fumes Are Leaking Into Airplanes By Benjamin Katz, John West, and Andrew Tangel Doctors compare brain effects to concussions in NFL players. A WSJ investigation shows the problem is getting worse. @johnwest.bsky.social @andrewtangel.bsky.social

Butler and others targeted were given no info about the nature of the claims against them and the university suspended normal processes for reviewing complaints, they said: "That means allegations sent to the administration, even anonymous ones, were simply forwarded without having been adjudicated

Must read www.bostonreview.net/articles/a-g...

The fact that Matthew Dowd lost his job for pointing out Charlie Kirk’s hate speech, while Brian Kilmeade openly suggests we should euthanize the homeless and there is zero outrage, shows exactly what is terribly wrong with today’s political mainstream media.

JUST IN: Judge Chutkan orders the government to file a declaration that sets forth the efforts it has taken thus far to keep the plaintiffs in Ghana “from being removed to their countries of origin or other countries where they fear persecution or torture”

reposting with alt text because this feels incredibly significant. the right-wing disinfo machine means a lot of the people grieving Charlie Kirk never heard any of the things he said that would have tarnished his brand as Guy Who Just Wants to Have Dialogue Across the Aisle

Today people went around my neighborhood in north east London spray painting St George’s crosses onto people’s homes. Many of these houses have non British people living in them. This is getting very dark, very quick.