Working with the fantastic @danettechavez.bsky.social at AV Club to explore tech and culture's increasingly fraught relationship! my first piece is about the wonderful streaming service our government provides. I'm celebrating by watching Frontline.

The great American state fair being stupid Trump bullshit does legit make me sad, if I’m being honest. A lot of the 250 stuff does. This could have been a really cool and special thing and literally any normal president would have pulled it off.

genuinely crazy to watch these people freak out over what is essentially 21st century new dealism

I polled* a group of people about data centers. They don’t fit neatly into a political party. Most of them would be considered working class if that label applied to anyone other than white men. All of them had a clear anti AI argument. *some cousins and folks at a cookout.

this week on catfished

Anti-Prime Day starts…NOW! 🥳 Today through 6/26, enjoy free standard shipping site-wide, all while supporting local, independent bookstores.

(not mine)

i think this might actually kill him, lol

All personal connections aside, I think the single biggest reason I am currently so obsessed with the Reflecting Pool debacle is that it's such a simple failure, with a straightforward cause, and Trump can't argue his way out of something so blatant to the eyes of anyone who looks at it.

This is what I meant when I wrote that the World Cup is the best kind of nationalism. Yes, nativists try to co-opt it, but they can’t do so without celebrating a guy named Folarin Balogun who’s scoring for the US thanks to birthright citizenship open.substack.com/pub/timhirsc...

The three players in this photo: 1. Nigerian heritage, grew up in England, and is only a citizen thanks to birthright citizenship. 2. Born + raised in Holland, has a dad who immigrated to the US from Suriname. 3. Said he wanted to “make people who look like me proud” while playing on Juneteenth

I very badly want to go down to the Reflecting Pool and collect a bunch of this to make an art project with (seriously). If any of you end up with some, DM me.

Who could have possibly predicted.

Why data center protests matter.

this is my favourite insult of 2026

“Hey, Norton! … Ain’t that your dog attackin’ the president?”

How much of Weezer‘s career is just them wishing they had written the riff to “U-Mass” before the Pixies?

as always, here’s @timmaughan.bsky.social. www.vice.com/en/article/b...

Just another day in New York City, greatest and most insane metropolis on earth:

🧡🧡🧡

sorry, found this on my hard drive and laughed for six minutes

I wrote about U.S. policy on Afrikaner "refugees" and how a similar kind of coddling has crept into politics across the board.

NEW: The author of a new book on the spread of digital surveillance tools has fairly dire warnings: "We live under the surveillance as if we were all guilty." We asked you Bolts readers to ask him questions—and he did! I, for one, learned a ton:

How FIFA Scammed American Fans And Got Away With It

exactly the right response

"phones are part of a sprawling, growing parallel politics of surveillance, climate extraction, wealth inequality, and authoritarianism" Absolute fire and truth.

Robert Zemeckis’s 1980 flop “Used Cars” really is the kind of comedy they don’t make any more — because no one is redeemed, and no lessons are learned.

So, I’m guessing Travis Knight was a fan of Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw the TV Glow.” #MastersOfTheUniverse is a delight. Just a joy from beginning the end about being the man you choose to be.

This ongoing series of threads within threads is one of the best things currently on comics Bluesky.

introduce yourself with 10 artists you’ve seen live Nick Cave & the Bass Seeds Elvis Costello Tori Amos Neko Case Father John Misty Ol’ 97s The White Stripes Jonathan Colton Pixies Tom Waits

the hungry observatory

🔥 @jessicatarlov.bsky.social: “Massie’s district was Trump +35, they only won by 10 and spent $35 MILLION… nobody was at Gallrein’s party. This was about outside💰. Trump’s (not compelling) platform is ‘I want to get rich, I don’t care that you’re poorer’ - That’s what last night told me.”

"The Paw Patrol exists in an empty, liminal space, where their soulless forms leave no footprint and cast only the most fleeting of shadows. They communicate with humans while other creatures can not. They are idols of crass police state commercialism and I hate them, especially the cop thug Ace."

Steelers, longing for a quiet death, willing to wait for Aaron Rodgers:

The Friday roundup is here! With links to the podcast. Also, I wrote about today's decision by the Supreme Court of Virginia, Russians who've come to accept the corruption in their society, and how critical it is that we keep the ability to replace our leaders.

this is accurate

This cannot be reformed.

To celebrate Star Wars day I write up what lessons you can learn from Han Solo when wanting to play a character who really doesn't want to go on this adventure, thank you very much.

Star Wars

😳

#comicsky #comicbooks #comics #Marvel #MarvelCoverOfTheDay If you see this, post one of your favorite Marvel comics covers

these focus groups are just further anecdotal evidence for my view that trump is is understood as a totem for wealth and prosperity. these people are genuinely bewildered that he isn’t, and might in fact be a human being with ulterior motives

i also remain amazed at how, all these years later, conservatives are still angry and aggrieved that barack obama extended empathy to a black teenager who was killed for no reason. shows you what is in their hearts.

people who got here on Monday: *takes drag on cigarette* yeah, there was no Media tab. pure chaos. scrolling for days. Oldheads know.

An estimated 3,000 people killed themselves over the last 20 years because they couldn't handle all the questions The Devil Wears Prada just left unanswered, but sure, enjoy your new movie I guess, it's all about you🙄

The Reconstruction Congress faced a hostile president, impeached him, and sidelined him as a political force. It then turned its constitutional vision into the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. @jamellebouie.net believes Democrats should study that playbook.

"...assembled in their finery to fête and network with the authoritarians strip-mining American society, rolling back rights & civil liberties, & rounding up demonized minorities into literal concentration camps, & who will return unscathed to their stations of power over the rest of us tomorrow" 🤬