Radio Free America

when they say "take the country back," they're not talking about winning elections

@firefox.com Fuck off into the sun for joining the effort to shove AI slop down our throats.

Ahahaha my time has come!!! Let's do this!!! I'm a bit pressed for time rn, so I'll probably do a couple now, and the rest over the weekend (G-d willing). A lot of puzzle / thinky games, narrative-focused, queer stuff will follow (not every game is all of these, but some definitely are!)

How many pieces came out in the New York Times and the Atlantic accusing trans people of erasing the word woman. Here's the Trump administration literally banning the use of the word and not a peep.

Close enough

Shame on Ireland for joining with other states seeking to diminish ECHR rights such the prohibition on torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment at the same time that it seeks to be elected to the UN Human Rights Council www.rte.ie/news/2025/12...

"Elon’s entire incoherent free speech framework collapses into a single coherent principle: speech I like is protected, speech I don’t like should be punished. This is what happens when someone who never understood the actual principles of free speech tries to cosplay as a free speech absolutist."

wtf is a FIFA peace prize? that's like being an NFL laureate in physics

The onion just prints the news now

Forty years ago, 90% of media outlets were spread across 50 companies. Now, just 5 companies control 90% of the media market. This consolidation hurts consumers and helps oligarchs. 🧵

Capitalism abhors competition, vol. LXXVII

48 years. That's how long trans women have been eligible to compete in tennis.

Try to top that @theonion.com

i’m genuinely so convinced all of this has been a planned operation by the student and her mother (who is commenting on this publicly, and associated closely with the republican party), and big far right propaganda account going all in on it. this is designed to oust trans people from public life

Turns out it's not just America.

While the Irish budget runs with a vast surplus, desperately needed infrastructure projects get delayed or canceled.

Slop Evader is a tool from artist and researcher Tega Brain that lets you search the web for results exclusively before November 30, 2022—the day that ChatGPT was released to the public.

In the memo, “Nvidia also responds to claims that the ‘current situation is analogous to historical accounting frauds (Enron, WorldCom, Lucent) that featured vendor financing and SPVs [special purpose vehicles.)’” @barrons.com $NVDA @firstadopter.bsky.social www.barrons.com/articles/nvi...

"In her telling, racism and xenophobia seem not themselves objectively bad things that must be combatted, but a natural outcome that occurs when too many rights are given to immigrants and asylum seekers." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

"Among the reasons cited by analysts for the Social Democrats’ decline in Copenhagen were voter fatigue over the prime minister’s hardline policies on issues such as integration and immigration, which have partly inspired a newly unveiled asylum and migration policy in Britain."

Tenure is in many ways an extension of the axiom that those who it binds it does not protect and those who it protects it does not bind.

reminded of eric williams's observation about britain's relationship to its history with slavery. "British historians wrote almost as if Britain had introduced Negro slavery solely for the satisfaction of abolishing it."

The only thing that's interesting about Nuzzi is the story of how an amoral careerist with no interest in policy and abysmal ethics became an acclaimed national political reporter. But rather than tell that story, the entire media seems desperate to play a part in it.

I made you a flowchart: www.todayintabs.com/p/no-one-tru...

There's something very on brand for Dublin about this. Building something as a temporary stopgap, putting 'temporary' ("pro tempore") in the name, doing nothing more for 200 years, and then eventually going "OK lads let's just stick with this one cos we're clearly never going to build the other one"

"The United Kingdom is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal, sources familiar with the matter told CNN." www.cnn.com/2025/11/11/p...

If you're wondering how the Hungarian electoral campaign is going...

Funny watching Paul Murphy and John Clendennen on RTÉ the other day. Clendennen keeps saying "we need a debate about migration" to which Murphy says "okay lets have a debate", and then Clendennen just keeps saying "we need to have a debate". Its very clear what Fine Gael are trying to do here!

Happy 5th anniversary to the funniest thing that’s happened in the history of ever

Orbán is losing in Hungary and the elections are only 6 months away. Facebook and Google recently stopped political advertising, so the regime can't blanket everything in smears. Sensing this, Ringier cashes out and sells the largest newspaper (+portfolio) to Orbán. Capitalism+authoritarianism.

I'm almost sad I can't cancel this subscription again.

The cross-pollination between Orbanism and Trumpism will be researched for decades. Probably the best strategic move Orbán ever did: he was willing to support (with state cash) the roddrehers and tuckercarlsons after Trump was ousted. This earned him immense goodwill that's paying dividends now.

1. In the wake on Mamdani’s win, we’ll see a lot more far right anti-urban sentiment. Here’s a thread on its roots and evolution. The idea that the city is evil and corrupt, and the countryside innocent and pure, goes back a long way: to Theocritus in Alexandria, and to the Old Testament. 🧵

Note from my notebook (2016)

Oh so they are going all in.

They looked at the presidential election results and said: those spoiled votes look awfully attractive. Incredible stuff.

Another good piece of writing from @benfraser.bsky.social on how the story of #Aras25 has shifted to focus not on a left-wing victory, but on right-wing grievances. "If they wanted a right-wing candidate, they need only have followed the rules and nominated one."

fixed that for you

It's increasingly obvious that Labour's strategy - call it Starmerism, Blue Labour, whatever - has got it badly wrong. It has alienated the party's core vote while failing to win over those leaning to Reform. There was no shortage of people warning them they were getting it wrong either.

Ireland: overwhelmingly votes for an independent left wing candidate Irish Media: We must do more to help the far right!!

who creates the lively art and music scenes if the rent is too high? who makes cultural life? who serves you food or washes your dishes? who creates the fancy little restaurants that draw you to urban living? affordable housing is at the heart of what makes city life worthwhile.

The New York Times writes 21 paragraphs about the Warner Brothers sale without a single mention of the fact that this company has a 25 year history of disastrous mergers (AOL, AT&T, Time Warner, Discovery) resulting in endless layoffs and price hikes and shittier product

"There are no fixed definitions in a mafia state. Law is a plaything, evidence is an illusion, and as an Uzbek dissident explained to me twenty years ago in a way I now understand far better, 'Suspicious is the same as guilty.'" @sarahkendzior.bsky.social sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/inventing-...

Half the internet seems to be down thanks to the us-aws-east-1 outage Perplexity, Amazon .com, Signal all down (just 3 services I tried to use) When aws-us-east-1 sneezes, the whole world feels it indeed

What 55% inheritance tax does to a country. Relatively low inequality, decent public services.

“Political communication by mainstream parties plays a central role in the electoral success of the far right” How much more research do journalisten, politicians, pundits and strategists need before they finally change course?

goddamn is there anything Wikipedia editors can’t do www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/n...

Omg, the solution to CIA's Kryptos being discovered by someone becoming a subject matter expert, going on location, and finding the plaintext sitting in a vault several miles away is the absolute *perfect* ending to Kryptos. You couldn't write it. Just absolutely A+ www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/s...