The Plug is BACK, baby (also expect a little bonus soon)! In today's episode, @palma.ltd tells us a chilling tale about a California public utility providing its customer data to cops in order to take down "illegal" marijuana growing operations. Enjoy: www.patreon.com/posts/033-sm...

You can listen to this episode wherever fine podcasts are found, but you can also join our Patreon and subscribe/listen for the low price of GRATIS: 🕳️: www.patreon.com/posts/030-ha...

Today, Josh gives us the skinny on RCV, its practical ramifications for political campaigns, the state of its implementation in Calif., and how we can use RCV to democratize local government 🕳️🕳️🕳️

It's old hat now, but an overlooked reason for progressive candidates' success in the NY mayoral race is how RCV let NYers transfer their vote to another candidate without weakening the position of their own favorite While it wasn't the decisive factor, RCV DID have an effect on the race 🕳️🕳️🕳️

🚨🕳️🚨NEW DRAIN🚨🕳️🚨 We're joined by Josh Rosa, volunteer for @betterballotsac.bsky.social to talk about local and state-wide efforts to bring in Ranked Choice Voting to California in a huge way 🕳️🕳️🕳️ Listen: www.patreon.com/posts/030-ha...

It's a new one! 🕳️ We talked with @ic.institute about their latest California poll, which found: - 71% of residents say the state would be better off with special autonomous status within the U.S. - 44% would vote for a ballot measure for peaceful, legal secession www.patreon.com/posts/029-ne...

Rumor has it our executive director is going to appear on The Drain again in a couple of weeks. 🤫

Hey I don’t know what log you crawled out from under but if you observe the leadership of the party broadly seems to be more concerned with a fake crisis of antisemitism in america instead of the MANY other actual real crises they HAVE BEEN ignoring for DECADES, in addition to the ones in my OP. 😄

If the GOP reconciliation bill passes, ICE gets through FY2029: - $45 billion for detention, on top of the current annual budget of $3.4 billion - $14.4 billion for transportation and removal, on top of the current annual budget of $750 million - $8 billion for hiring/retention - Billions more.

Every single centrist dem with their panties in a bunch over Zohran would rather talk about a mayoral primary election result instead of: • $1T cuts to federal welfare spending • federal thugs disappearing people from their homes • the impending end of birthright citizenship It makes me sick.

Wild fact: The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was more popular among Iraqis than the U.S. military invasion of California is among Americans today

🕳️💦🕳️ THE DRAIN IS BACK 🕳️💦🕳️ 🔓🤑🔓FREE EPISODE:🔓🤑🔓 Apart from touching on ICE we also ask the question: why the hell is Ro fucking Khanna the only California representative formally opposing American intervention in Iran? Should compromised representatives be primaried? Link in the quoted post:

🚨🚨BUDGETWATCH is BACK🚨🚨

More info about California's donor state status: ic.institute/donor-state

We probably should all stop going to work pretty soon. At what point do we stop bluffing general strike calls?

Governor @gavinnewsom.bsky.social has been lurching to the right ever since he started eyeing a 2028 run for the White House. Meanwhile, Democrats are courting Elon Musk after his public fallout with Trump Today we look at the inevitability of a Musk-Newsom alliance www.patreon.com/posts/131166...

[trying really hard to rap about being connected] i want to be tied up

Two years ago a group of activists in Atlanta were trying to stop the construction of Cop City. Now, they're facing the biggest RICO case in US history. We talked with friend/defendant @priscillagrim.bsky.social to get the details, and to learn how you can help: www.patreon.com/posts/drain-...

Literally the most fun I have ever had listening to a podcast about our state budget! Like this post if you want @yeshelloitskempa.bsky.social and @palma.ltd to make BUDGETWATCH a regular segment on their podcast 😁

The latest! Palma and Kempa are diving deep into @governor.ca.gov's state budget decision-making. Facing a $12 billion deficit, Governor Newsom wants to cut Medi-Cal for undocumented residents, close his fifth prison, and give Hollywood more tax credits. We discuss: www.patreon.com/posts/130011...

The Drain is back! This week, we're cracking into BudgetWatch: each May, thousands of little deals are made in the warrens under the Calif. legislature to make adjustments to the year's budget – horse trading, pork barrels, virtue-signaling and the eternal deficit struggle...

Be on alert as it is likely that he has already been rehired.

I was hoping for feature parity between twitter and here, but I certainly didn’t expect it to happen via a regression there. Monkey paw theory is undefeated

news.engin.umich.edu/2025/05/the-... Let's point this at Obama

📢 Today, as El Faro celebrates 27 years of journalism, we launch our digital magazine, Central America Monthly. On the 15th of every month, El Faro English will provide deeper answers to pressing questions in our region. beta.elfaro.net/en/monthly/i...

Amazing first edition of El Faro’s “Central America Monthly,” packed full of superb reporting, the now-notorious interviews with El Sal gang leaders (English subtitles), a podcast episode, a deep dive into the Guatemalan genocide trial, and much much more. 👇👇

"Journalists Exposed Bukele's Ties to Gangs. Then They Had to Flee El Salvador to Avoid Arrest" via @democracynow.org and @elfaroenglish.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yIz...

you can't put the toothpaste back into the tube. and why would you want to? it goes on your teeth.

It’s going great over there lol

Your best friends are back! Kempa and I go through a particularly nasty “sex trafficking” bill with very little focus on helping teens escape abuse, and more focus on bashing gay culture and progressives who won’t toe the line. We also go deep into backpage history and lawfare on sex workers. 👇👇

BREAKING

Premium episode! We're covering lots of ground with this one, discussing the lore behind Max's deportation from Spain, Alec Baldwin's interest in a friend of the show, and attorneys who tickle defendants with walrus-like mustaches when whispering in the court room 〰️ www.patreon.com/posts/drain-...

The latest! We're discussing the wild new story in Rolling Stone about ChatGPT exacerbating people's bouts with psychosis, and how that dovetails with @gavinnewsom.bsky.social and California's disturbing lack of guidelines for big name learned language models: www.patreon.com/posts/128263...

I saw Gavin Newsom load a homeless family into a Waymo and shout, “the ocean please” into the steering wheel and then slap the back of it to send it off like a horse.

🚨 A reliable source in El Salvador told El Faro that the Bukele-controlled Attorney General’s Office is preparing at least seven arrest warrants for members of El Faro following an interview with two former gang leaders on their years-long relationship to Bukele. elfaro.net/en/202515/el...

If I sucked you off, would I get an “I Voted” sticker, too?

Nancy. Your coochie is my paradise.

Jerry Garcia played in Keith and Donna Godchaux’s band during the Grateful Dead hiatus in ‘75. One of the pearls of this period is this VERY loose funk instrumental based on chords by Hadi Al-Saadoon and David Kessler. This tune is fucking massive. youtu.be/WJS8Vgw7S8c?...

when that elder millennial hit you wit that rawr can i has cheeseburger that’s how you know you made it in and they feel comfortable being they genuine self around you

April ‘25

Creating a Sanctuary State for George Santos is now my political single issue I will vote on forever.

The creature is no longer bound by silly things like euclidean geometry or subatomic forces that make matter solid. The creature hath transcended the physical in search for scratchies. Become divine for the sake of a sublime belly rub.

The latest! We're joined by Coyote Marin of the Independent California Institute to discuss potential pathways for CA to achieve national sovereignty. As we discuss, things like this are often deemed impossible, until they're not Don't forget to follow @ic.institute www.patreon.com/posts/127743...

Our executive director had a great time recording a new podcast episode with @thedrain.bsky.social yesterday. It drops on Tuesday. 🙂

This thing starts with - no shit - 5 minutes of the most far-out Rhodes playing on the planet, the type of shit that would make Joe Zawinul crumple, before casually slipping into quite possibly the most lethal groove Fela ever laid down. Unreal. Powerful. open.spotify.com/track/05Lg3X...

Max is an incredible wealth of knowledge on El Salvador, so I got to kick back and let him work this week (back to California topics next week, I swear)