Terry Pratchett bears witness at the American Visionary Art Museum.

Omg

This post on what happened with the Senate today is worth your time. The Senate side is most interesting, but here's how the White House issued threats. www.semafor.com/article/05/2...

Total disaster: the House cancels Friday votes. Folks are leaving to catch their planes. Trump finally pissed off the Senate too much. Kind of amazing THIS is their line

I don't know, man, I think we're all going through a lot and none of us needs to walk outside and see this right now

Slush Fund Follow my work and writing on Substack: nickanderson.substack.com For @contrariannews.org

UC Berkeley Law creates new AI policy that bans AI for "conceptualizing, outlining, drafting, revising, translating, or editing any work submitted for credit" or exams because "thinking remains the sine qua non of good lawyering (and of a quality legal education)." That's what I'm talking about.

NYT: "no one has ever thought of teaching ranching at university" Every ag school: um, would you like to meet our cows NYT: "No, not like that. More romantic. More dilletante. Ugh, we're not /farmers/."

there’s no fucking entry point for them! it all requires homework! you have to have seen all of a cartoon show that started airing before they were toilet trained to understand it!

“.. it goes without saying that those who wish to benefit from this traffic must also pay their share,” he said in Farsi, through an interpreter .. @bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

When did the motto of the United States get changed from "E Pluribus Unum" to "We Don't Give a Fuck About You Unless You're a Billionaire"?

Whatever your thoughts about The Boys' finale, it made Elon Musk mad, which the show's creator and cast think is hilarious.

For Courts of Contempt, our deep dive into New York City's judicial system, we had to obtain hundreds of pages of court transcripts. Turns out, that part of the process proved nearly impossible. And if it was hard for us, imagine if you're incarcerated. Reporter Allie Conti explains why that is.

oh

Wow, the Supreme Court's third and final decision is Hamm v. Smith, a case about the execution of mentally disabled people—but the court simply dismisses it as improvidently granted. Thomas and Alito dissent. Count this as a win—the 8th Amendment survives. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

I guess we see why all the moron Dems are behind a big tax cut for the rich!

In a piece talking about how corrupt Todd Blanche currently is, Glenn Thrush engages in a WHOLE LOT of retconning of Blanche's pre-Acting days, pretending he wasn't already doing outrageous things. Blanche literally ordered the kidnapping of Newark's Mayor. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/u...

i finally read that Vulture 'Feed is Fake' article about paid clippers, virality and all that and, discourse aside...what's really sticking with me is how many people have adopted the same Tech Company 'you're about to get left behind if you don't immediately pivot to whatever i'm selling' line.

Again, this Trump IRS thing is not a “settlement” or a “deal” or something with any legal basis at all. It’s pure corruption; colluding with his Acting AG to loot the Treasury; pay off his mob; and preemptively immunize himself and his heirs against investigation for fraud.

Kind of feel like we especially don’t need fancy law explainers at the moment. “Can the president just take money when he wants?” A third grader could answer this. A Yale law prof is likelier to write the wrong answer so their 2L can work for Alito

Fact check: true.

He promised to release his tax returns as soon as there were no more audits pending, and now there are no more audits pending.

Racism is real, but race is fake. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/15/u...

“I suspect this was not the show Colbert imagined doing when he started it in 2015. But then these are not the times many of us imagined we’d be living in.” www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/a...

"ChatGPT, the most heavily used AI service, gave wrong information in 46% of its answers, including making up an expenses scandal, giving inaccurate replies on voter eligibility rules and getting the date of the election wrong by two months." www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

I’m glad he was here with us, here at the end of all things [giftie] www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/a...

We live in a time dominated by deeply unserious people making deeply unserious arguments in support of tragically serious results that serious people would have both avoided and known to avoid.

Imagine banning protein shakes within 2000 feet of the gym that’s what this is

HEAD OF TEETH

Blanche is a donkey and of course the professor knows more than me, but this is somehow hilariously unfair to Roy Cohn. He was an actual demon who dedicated his life to making American life worse and did so, to the point where he was literally already Trump's Roy Cohn. This is just the next guy up.

Another way of thinking about this is that in less than a year, ICE and CBP already spent 1/3 of the funding they got in OBBBA which can be spent through September 30, 2029, suggesting an absurdly high burn rate.

The “abandonment of the working class” isn’t about economic policy, it’s about social hierarchy. The inability to grasp the connections between the two leaves wonks thinking that “solving” the economic policy question will be enough when we see plainly what animates critical voting blocks. Wake up.

The Islamic Center of San Diego has a fundraiser for the families of the three heroes who died protecting the children inside. May their courage and sacrifice be remembered. goodbricks.org/campaign/ics...

I want people to read this and then ask yourself which one of these people you think is teaching a 'soft science' and which one is teaching economics and ask yourself if maybe being a professional cheerleader for capital is like growing up only having played tee ball.

a funny thing about the US coal industry is that O'Reilly Auto Parts, a company that is *never* mentioned in national political discourse, employs more people than the ENTIRE US coal industry

CHOOSE. ENOCH.

I wrote this! Hooray seniors! defector.com/wow-americas...

Three selfless men, likely, saved the lives of over a hundred children.

Great read and right where I am with AI. Providing solid examples of why AI sucks resonates with people who are just accepting all of this at face value.

C’mon man. No one can live like this.

YOU CANNOT GRIND THE BONES OF YOUR ENEMIES INTO DUST TOMORROW IF YOU DO NOT HAVE SOMETHING TO EAT.

The whole thing is just theater now, everyone either paid or frightened into mounting a 1:1 scale global immersive performance for an audience of one. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

OK Policy's Carly Putnam will be speaking at this panel on Thursday (noon, CST) to talk about the work being done in Oklahoma to address raising the minimum wage. Register today! us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Between 250,000 and 300,000 Washington Post readers canceled their subscriptions in the immediate aftermath of Bezos's decision to slant their editorial coverage to favor Trump right before the 2024 election.

Quote with a fictional band that is not Spinal Tap.

Psychosexual breakdown happening at the Tucker Carlson merch store

There are reasons the U.S. Constitution doesn’t give the president the authority to go to war on a whim. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/20/u...

I agree with Charlie here. John Williams' scores for the Star Wars prequels are not only magnificent on their own terms, they constitute a sort of stealth rewrite of the trilogy that feels like the work of a historian drawing connections between different periods.

terrible. 20 years ago, the internet was full of hobbyist blogs and forums. over time, these have been replaced by paywalled substacks and private discord channels, each a walled garden. google's decision to prioritize AI just makes it less likely people will create free, public info