I wish I could tell people like me, who first came to Bluesky and felt pummeled by performative scolding, that now it feels a lot less like that and a lot more like that brief window when Twitter was pretty good: useful, occasionally ridiculous, a place to discover new thinkers & writing

You hate to see it. www.status.news/p/ms-now-cro...

They’re trying to run the Kilmar Abrego Garcia playbook with a five year old boy in a bunny hat because nobody can find peace if they embarrass the Trump administration publicly. Normal people didn’t like it with Garcia and they really aren’t going to like it for Liam.

"It was never about adjudicating [Judge James] Boasberg’s behavior; it was about making splashy headlines and fueling right-wing attacks on the judiciary without regard to whether DOJ’s specious charges would withstand meaningful scrutiny."

been saying this

"One year later, tariffs 'whipping' some Fayetteville small businesses" share.google/PhKS3ig5y6x7... "I had to go get money out of a savings account, money that I had saved from six or seven years ago. You know, it was retirement fund money that I'm just trying to hold on"

It’s really weird for some corners of the media to do a whole “the Epstein files are a moral panic that has gone too far” thing when no one has faced any sort of punishment and doesn’t sound like they’re going to.

“I do not think that 50 year old men should be having sex with 16 year old girls. But “

WTF? I'm a 50 year old man and as far back as I can remember, including when I was in high school it was *obviously* wrong and fucked up for older men to be targeting high school girls. People claiming it's somehow normal are trying to cover for predators. This isn't some new way of thinking.

New -- ACA talks are OVER and the immigration enforcement talks are off to BAD start Sen. Britt called Dems' asks "ridiculous," prompting Sen. King to text her: “What is it you think is ridiculous?" Britt says Dems waited too long to start negotiating www.semafor.com/article/02/0...

I want to reiterate that this shit is nuts. A federal invasion of state-run elections, an intelligence community invasion of federal law enforcement, a White House invasion of a criminal investigation, and a president’s insane treasonable sore loser obsession all rolled up and muddled together.

When MAGA talks about "Western Civilization", they mean white people. Murray is incensed that a mythical character hatched from a swan egg is portrayed by a dark-skinned actor. In his world, western civilization, including the entire Roman Empire, was populated exclusively by white people.

NEW: Records reviewed by WIRED show DHS’s facial recognition app (Mobile Fortify) isn’t designed to actually "verify" identity—despite DHS claims and its agents relying on its matches to support probable cause in the field.

It's not a moral panic. Delusions about satanic sex abuse rings in daycares, that was a moral panic. Salem witch trials also fit the bill. Epstein is about specific known people who are either directly implicated or at least suspiciously in his orbit for one guy who really was raping kids en masse.

"When a government mouthpiece complains that it would be too difficult to follow the commands of the Constitution in a given context, that's a dead giveaway that the government is already violating (or planning to violate) the commands of the Constitution in that context."

I have zero bandwidth to develop the idea, but the last decade has given rise to a gulliblity style, where a source’s statement is treated as the story regardless of whether it’s true or plausible. It creates stories that are technically true but functionally misinformation. You see it everywhere.

NEW: The top Trump-appointed proseutor in MN says his office is dropping "pressing priorities" to manage crushing immigration workload. His short-staffed office is doing constant overtime and bouncing between contempt hearings. The bleak assessment: www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

Immigration agents have shot a dozen people since Sept--yet police are often skipping any investigation. After agents near Chicago killed a man, an officer asked if chief who would investigate. The answer: “You’re not going to investigate a federal officer”

this is, indeed, Jeff Bezos' real legacy

So the Washington Post has tossed most of its health reporters -- 8 of 13. At a time when public health is being undermined by those in power.

There's a significant difference between being mentioned in passing in the Epstein Files and being a willing associate of a convicted child trafficker. Not every allegation in the files is true, but if you're palling around with Epstein after his initial conviction there's really no excuse for that.

One more comment on the Post debacle: this hurts journalism broadly. Good journalists will go do something else. The rest will be fighting for fewer jobs and everyone will earn less. Fewer people will take up the career. The damage done is to the ecosystem, as well as the paper.

"A Kirkland & Ellis lawyer who helped Jeffrey Epstein avoid federal child sex crime charges in 2007 later invited him to his son’s bar mitzvah..." WTAF?!

A publisher who lays off a reporter whose pen is freezing because she's covering a frigid war zone while dodging missiles is not an editor you want to work for, in a more perfect world

The remarks from Tim Scott, chair of the powerful Senate banking committee, are a blow to US President Donald Trump, who is facing criticism for the justice department’s investigation of the central bank chief. ft.trib.al/HtntetV

LINK: www.justice.gov/epstein/file...

Boris Nikolic: When are you back in NYC? Epstein: 4th im in palm with all the trump boys. . fun Email from December 25, 2016.

Steps toward accountability. "Brad Karp is stepping down as chair of Paul Weiss and will be replaced by top deals lawyer Scott Barshay, after revelations about his relationship with child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein."

Georgia army veteran faces deportation after 50 years in U.S.: "Thank you for your service...should mean something"

Here's who the Washington Post just laid off.

Miller clumsily deployed an army of masked goons to commit crimes across the nation and, in the process, destroyed Trump's best-polling issue and sent his approval plummeting to an all-time low. But sure, this was a "rare misstep" and not part of a larger pattern of incompetence

"Every once in a while, you have to smile. Roger Ailes used to tell us that." Remember when Megyn Kelly helped bring Ailes down at Fox News for sexually harassing her? Now here she is referencing him approvingly to the vice president to defend Trump's misogyny. www.mediamatters.org/megyn-kelly/...

From 1982-2018, the Republican National Committee was barred from "ballot security measures" because of their record of using state actors to intimidate minority voters. (H/t @rickhasen.bsky.social) www.npr.org/2018/01/09/5...

Striking from new Quinnipiac poll: *Voters prefer path to legalization over deportations for most undocs by 59-34. Among independents it's 61-33 *Majority says Trump on immigration is making America less safe Again, there's broad rejection of the whole project, not just ICE tactics (see below)

“If I am killed doing this, throw my body at the White House, martyr the shit out of me & raise hell. Do not be sad. Do not think I would do anything differently. I would do it over & over again — this is too important to sit down & shut up and not do anything.” www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

ICE just released new detention statistics. As of January 25, 2026, ICE is detaining 70,766 people across the United States. www.ice.gov/detain/deten...

INBOX: Washington Post Ukraine Correspondent Lizzie Johnson announces that she has been laid off in the middle of a below-freezing war zone without power, heat, or running water.

Speaking of podcasts, I did one recently with @billybinion.bsky.social that was a lot of fun reason.com/podcast/2026...

Really nails the Bari Weiss Contrarian Pundit Complex: Rather than admit to a mistake, cry "cancel culture" and elevate inexcusable people, then call yourself a hero for "standing up to the woke mob."

"Look at me! Look at me! I'm so provocative!"

Nobody who's been incidentally mentioned or revealed to have had only trivial interactions with Epstein has suffered any consequence worse than being mildly embarrassed, at most, and they have been the focus of little if any media coverage.

The big tech founder whose 417-foot, $500 million superyacht needs a 256-foot, $75 million superyacht to "shadow" it -- because the bigger yacht lacks a helipad -- had to cut his paper's newsroom almost in half, for reasons

60 Minutes asks Republican Sen. Rand Paul if the FBI can be trusted to investigate the shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. He is calling for an independent review. cbsn.ws/4tbPUxL

I personally do not think some rich man should be able to buy an institution like this like a toy and then break it when he doesn’t want to play with it anymore. bsky.app/profile/benm...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington Post says one-third of its staff across all departments, not just the newsroom, is being laid off.

A staggering statement from former Washington Post editor Marty Baron: "This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world's greatest news organizations."