I’m old enough to remember Walter Cronkite’s signoff: “And that’s the way it is… According to my friend Elmer, who thinks that Brezhnev and Mao are lacing his Rice Krispies with strychnine.” bsky.app/profile/bgru...

They had to go Obama era just to find a crowd shot that wasn’t just a sea of phones. But if you zoom in you can see the Obama sign to the left of “with.”

I cannot emphasize enough that the attempts to anthropomorphize an algorithm is a fundamental act of journalistic malpractice and an intentional act to shield the people responsible for this. It's fucking shameful.

Excellent coverage of how this isn't a new problem on X. The best piece I've seen on this issue so far. Please take the time to read it.

Jack Smith's deposition must be bigger news "There is no historical analog for what..Trump did..[H]e was free to say he thought he won..He was even free to say falsely that he won..But..he was not free to..violate federal law and use knowingly false statements..to target lawful government function"

Christofascism on the move

The other issue here is she doesn’t want to do any hard work — she wants to look smart. And when Trump doesn’t give her an easy way to do that, she decides that he’s inscrutable and unworthy of scrutiny. Rewarding low-level punditry has completely warped the incentive structure for the press.

Please read. www.startribune.com/mn-daycare-f...

The majorities FDR commanded (& which the Dems held into the 80s) scared the bejeezus out of the American right. The tragedy of that New Deal coalition is that it required caucusing and compromising with Southern segregationists. An FDR-ish politics that's truly inclusive would be a thing to behold.

Yes. We can.

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com Zohran Mamdani “is part of a long tradition in New York City that has framed itself as seeking to reclaim the democratic community of the city from wealth, power and greed,” Kim Phillips-Fein writes.

i had the honor of interviewing Wells while I was still working at io9! I think the whole thing turned out great and Hi Martha!! Thanks for being such a gem and a wonderful writer and taking the time to chat. 🫰

This is a brilliant line that should make a lot of folks…in both parties…very uncomfortable. Yes. Good.

Donald Trump and the Republican Party know that they are likely to be voted out of power in November 2026. The tools they are counting on to prevent this are the same ones being deployed by the largest technology companies: big data sets and vast computing power.

They're going to *throw out* one-of-a-kind NASA archives?! Not even a year since the Inauguration & we're already at the 2nd-time-as-farce version of the burning of the Library of Alexandria.

Can the staff or some rescue/steal/whatever all of this?

For the past 15 years, the fact-checkers at PolitiFact have sorted through hundreds of statements by politicians to name the "Lie of the Year." This year, the editors dubbed 2025 the "Year of the Lies." https://to.pbs.org/4jhVQRk

For those who prefer video: m.youtube.com/watch?v=lR-b...

Jack Smith in just-released House Committee interview … about Trump: “The attack that happened at the Capitol … does not happen without him. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit” youtu.be/1NOVLkzycPI?...

The notion that Donald Trump can direct the DOJ to investigate Jack Smith regardless of whether Smith committed any crime should make everyone in America ill

It’s not even “are these people racist?” It’s “do these people have any beliefs at all besides white supremacy?”

POLITICO: “House Republicans decided to publicly release the transcript of special counsel Jack Smith’s Dec. 17 closed-door deposition on New Year’s Eve — while most of Washington was tuned out for the holiday…” www.politico.com/news/2025/12...

just want to remind folks that pushback and public outrage stopped them from closing the CDC library. i bet pushback will stop them here, too

Health insurance premiums are increasing across the board starting in January 2026, but North Carolina has additional looming threats to access to affordable health insurance.

It’s hard to fathom the tragedy of another Kennedy-this time Tatiana Schlossberg-dying at such a relatively young age But it’s unimaginable to comprehend what she felt, while cancer was stealing her life, as she watched her cousin cut research that might’ve saved other victims of malignant diseases

The U.S. government has officially replaced experts with viral videos. "DHS said Tuesday that it's freezing all federal child care payments to the state of Minnesota in the wake of a viral video that alleged widespread fraud at child care facilities across the state." www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

I work happily for a digital only news organization. But I still consider this a tragedy. When I saw the film "Spotlight" 10 years ago and they showed the presses rolling in the penultimate scene, I wept.

Trump spent $40B bailing out Argentina.

Oh, the Wa-Po quoted my piece at @thedispatchmedia.bsky.social about Pete Hegseth's garbage leadership at the Department of Defense (here: www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...) Kinda odd their link goes to an MSN repub of the piece rather than the original (here: thedispatch.com/article/pent...)

WSJ breaks significant news reporting that Mar-a-Lago’s spa *for years* regularly sent young staffers to Epstein’s home purportedly to give him massages, contorts its scoop to find a more flattering angle for Trump, and still gets an icy blast of a comment from Leavitt. www.wsj.com/us-news/trum...

Mike Johnson makes Christian identity the center of his politics. For Karoline Leavitt, it’s Christian and female identity politics. Stephen Miller’s all about identity politics. The podcasters who go on and on about men and masculinity? Identity politics. The main complaint is which identities.

1/ For nearly a decade, GOP lawmakers in NC have relentlessly stripped powers from the state’s Democratic governors – not just weakening their political opponents, but also harming everyday North Carolinians, advocates argue. 🧵👇 www.propublica.org/article/nort...

2/ In total, Republican legislators have attempted to seize some 29 boards and powers once controlled by Democrats – and succeeded in taking the majority of them, as we reported last week: www.propublica.org/article/nort...

3/ These seizures include not just the board running NC’s elections – which GOP lawmakers took 6 tries to control – but also other entities that manage the state’s utilities, university system, and environmental regulations. www.propublica.org/article/nort...

Aside from the sheer entitlement of a man who had a FORTY year career in Harvard and is whining about things changing, there is something about how much the pandemic has radicalized so many people. Simply being asked to mask seems to have broken some people’s minds entirely.

I wasn’t sure they were going to publish this. So good for them.

Poverty is a policy choice. Concentrated wealth is a policy choice. Inequality is a policy choice. None of it is natural or inevitable. Remember: We have the power to build a system that serves the many, not the powerful few.

And who was president in 2019? you guessed it: Trump.

Here in the Midwest, data centers threaten to suck up fresh water from our Great Lakes. Just one of may examples includes a Microsoft plant now under construction near Racine, WI that is expected to use upwards of 8 MILLION gallons a day. A day! That is not okay.

Every single time Trump has a meeting with Zelensky, Putin calls Trump the day before and Trump’s position in the Zelensky meeting then mirrors the Russian position. The talking points are the same, with all the same lies. It’s a simple playbook for Putin and it works every time.

Ask yourself: If Donald Trump was a Russian asset, what would he be doing differently? If your answer is “nothing,” then ask yourself this: If the US President is a Russian asset, what should *I* be doing differently?

New, from me: The NYT reporter who specializes in profiles of beleaguered right-wingers on campus went to New College...and found out that things were going ok! So let me explain some pretty massive errors of omission: 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-nyt-re...

Felon Trump’s move to dismantle the Dept. of Education isn’t about “efficiency.” It’s about stripping federal oversight, ending student protections, weakening public education while handing power to states & private interests. Support public education.

#BestOf2025, by @sandywestreporter.bsky.social : Attorneys and family preservation and child welfare advocates are increasingly alarmed that many women in vulnerable situations are at risk of losing their children to a privately run shadow foster and adoption system.

How Elon unloaded his cybertruck surplus. Mysterious donors gave a fleet of 10 of the vehicles – which have had a number of recalls – to the police earlier this year. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

At a time when transgender Americans are under attack at the federal, state, and local level, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) teamed up with the Manhattan Institute to support a lawsuit by Parents Defending Education targeting a school board policy protecting trans kids.

The influencers involved have denied knowing about the source of their funding and I don’t get to say otherwise without proof 🙂 www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

At least 11 congressmen from 1865-1871 were arguably not citizens under Trump's interpretation of 14th A, our research finds. Yet no one challenged their eligibility to serve. Why not? Obviously, b/c no one who drafted or ratified the 14th A shared Trump's view. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Trump says strikes are related to 'Christian genocide' but attacks on Christian farmers happened in different area https://aje.io/hlzsyu

In case you missed it: I’ve got a new (warning: somewhat intense) story on @npr.org about all the ways faith leaders have pushed back against the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign this year — including clergy directly confronting ICE agents and police. www.npr.org/2025/12/24/n...