Must read for every genX / elder millennial

Now-annual reminder that if you're at ALA and someone you don't know begins asking you weird questions about book bans and censorship...and they're wearing glasses...they may, in fact, be recording you.

If Trump stuck two french fries in his nose and said he's going to tell Westeros to invade Narnia, Fox would devote 10 hours a day to the Narnian threat and the New York Times would run articles headlined "President Considers Expanding Conflict Zone; Critics Raise Questions"

Every time Trump threatens to attack Iran he is violating the terms of his surrender. Here's the very first graph of the MOU he signed:

The important thing to understand is that none of the people who decided to support Trump have any agency whatsoever. They're not so much humans with free will, as chemical compounds that react poorly to perceived meanness.

Even if this wasn’t delusional, it would speak to 1) an organized left too incompetent to gain power with all this support in waiting, and 2) a sociopathic mass of non voters allowing fascism to proceed out of some kind of petulance masquerading as righteousness.

nothing in the US is getting better until we start start treating this kind of thing as what it is: a form of bribery

E Pluribus Unum, baby

The focus needs to be on protecting the rights of the humans depicted rather than rights of companies or organizations who own the rights to a person's digital identity due to a license or assignment. I suggest watching the Black Mirror episode "Joan is Awful" to see my concerns.

Pete Hegseth is ignoring a framework set in place by Congress and military boards to advance a racist agenda. He is engaging in viewpoint discrimination: refusing to advance candidates for relatively anondyne statements related to diversity, equity and inclusion, www.nytimes.com/2026/06/19/u....

Did the New York Times just BOTH SIDES Ken Paxton's sweetheart deal for a child sex predator. Yes, yes it did.

Because this is what freedom means. "Trump Administration Tells Federal Employees to Wear 'Freedom' Pins—Or Else." www.motherjones.com/politics/202... #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

folks when we find a guy who's saying a bunch of dumbass shit can we get back to blocking them instead of screenshotting them and talking about their dumbass shit? these losers are not worth our time & when we let them waste it we insult the revolution

its crazy how this guy has been out of office almost 10 years and we are just *now* beginning to see politicians who can, again, speak the language of American civil religion in ways that can grab an audience.

It’s been five years since Alex Jones lost InfoWars to the Sandy Hook families. As the verdict came down, he asked: “Do these people actually believe they’re getting any money?” He hasn't paid them a penny. Well, The Onion is going pay them anyway. The new InfoWars begins July 2nd at 8 p.m. ET.

there are still many, many reasons to be skeptical and worried because ICE is fucking evil and could pivot, but this is a MAJOR defeat for trump. even the reddest of red areas were like fuck no we don't want a concentration camp in our town. it became politically untenable bc people fought back.

i love that vance is like if you flipped the polarity on the most obnoxiously woke millennial imaginable

Maybe the Constitution should give a role to Congress in declaring wars and consenting to treaties

RFK Jr. says that HPV vaccine is “dangerous and defective”. A new study from England shows that HPV vaccines have reduced deaths from cervical cancer to ZERO for women aged 20-24. Significant reductions in older age groups were observed as well, though the latter have lower vaccination coverage.

He has a name and it’s Alexis de Tocqueville

The reality is that most non voters have even worse (in the sense of unworkable, incoherent) politics than the median voter

A publishing friend wrote me

Can a country’s insufficient emphasis on machismo make it lose a war? Who knows, never been tried. Can a country’s excessive emphasis on machismo make it lose a war? Happens constantly.

I think that masculinity/manhood distinction is probably pretty productive Like my WW2 vet grandfather might have recognized idk certain Andrew Tate behavior as “masculine” in a sense (though would have thought Tate specifically was a fairy) but as antithetical to manhood

For I was hungry and you took food access from children.

I know the focus in Maine has been on Other Things but let us all remind ourselves that Susan Collins is awful and needs to go

Looking at Aaron’s several clips from Vance’s interview with The View, it seems like the hosts did not do a perfect job, but a far far better job pinning Vance down than pretty much any hard-hitting news organization I’ve seen recently.

okay so let me get this straight: 1. successfully assist in a coup in venezuela, convince yourself you're invincible 2. start a war with iran assuming you will topple their government overnight 3. fail at doing that 4. demonstrate that iran can actually close the strait of hormuz (cont)

Requiring real names is just a way to tell political dissidents, members of persecuted communities, victims of abuse, etc., that they're not welcome on social media.

In a civilized country, these guys would all be on their way to The Hague

I'm actually more concerned about the half that isn't being paid by taxpayers, because that means it's being paid by people buying our government.

Gift link ;) www.theverge.com/tech/949259/...

no big deal, just elon musk saying he would've killed journalists at @theverge.com if he was, in fact, a killer

Everything about Vance is basically fake. He grew up in a middle class exurban family; used the GI Bill to go to a public university and then an Ivy League. He “wrote” a completely bullshit book about this and cashed a bunch of checks to buy a senate seat.

this is a *super short post* in which i urge us to reclaim 'free speech' in its broader public-interest, democracy-supportive meanings, rejecting the populist/maga right's bad faith cooptation. thx to the amazing team @knightcolumbia.org! i conclude with this:

How it started/how it’s going

I think it's funny that American leadership has used China as the Global Boogeyman for as long as I've been alive. And yet, they are actively letting China eat our lunch on tech that truly matters like electric cars and renewable energy.

It's OK to hate the people who voted for this.

This is modern conservatism in a nutshell -- it's OK if Americans have to pay a lot for this stupid war of choice, because the people that Americans hate will have to pay even more. No amount of suffering is bad as long as we know someone else is suffering worse.

I know, authoritarians try to destroy the very concept of truth, but the most likely explanation here is: the Trump admin is filled with careless dimwits who don't even know what it means to do a good job, they just flail around wherever urges or orders take them.

oh look, the trump "made in america" phone wound up being an overpriced two-year old Taiwanese-made knockoff pre-loaded with propaganda who could have predicted something so on brand

Journalists have a duty to tell the public that the president and his aides are seriously considering suspending habeas corpus *when it is happening* rather than saving it for a book rollout over a year later

You wouldn't know it from reading the Constitution, but it turns out we can have a war and a peace treaty without Congress being involved at all

Trump will be able claim credit for giving the Iranian Regime over 176 times more cash than Obama

In 1908 the Lancet called for an 18+ age limit on reading in bed for U.K. children.

That’s wild because I had a sergeant major go to the mat about how the official party at a gubernatorial inauguration couldn’t have military escorts (the governor was a democrat is the reason for selective enforcement). Anyway…

Is the Microsoft Office Ribbon causing people to have fewer children? A provocative new working paper explores the persistent drop in birth rates since Office 2007 was introduced nearly two decades ago.

yes, they will be talking about how it was among the greatest symbols of america’s collapse and the banality of evil