my health insurance is gonna get cut off if i don't make a big payment. i need to save up $500 this weekend. please help if you can!

Is it? I’ve only ever heard about people claiming to be from a specific part of LA, since it isn’t even a real city but just a bunch of towns stitched together with freeways Do people even call themselves “Angelinos”? And isn’t basically everyone from somewhere else?

Born and raised here and yes, I’ve dealt with insufferable transplants who want to claim New York after going to college here too, but simply, you’re a New Yorker if you instinctively and exclusively call New York “home.” (All international immigrants are default New Yorkers.)

The sportsball has me verklempt

Finding unparalleled joy when I randomly remember the Elmo/Rocco feud

The way jungle primaries should have ranked choice so the rest of the country can be spared the most degenerate politics of California

I am always — always — stopped short in stories like this when it's mentioned that the fight for the VRA was only 60 years ago. Both my parents were born before the VRA. It was just not that long ago, and it's unforgivable that it's been killed www.nytimes.com/2026/06/05/o...

Temporarily un-lapsing as a Catholic to avoid using Microsoft Copilot

You simply do not need to continue defending a candidate like the sunk cost fallacy has you in a headlock

Maine! You have options! Join me in one of my final virtual town halls before the primary. Ask me your questions and hear about my platform and why I believe that I'm the best candidate to beat Susan Collins. See you there! #mepolitics andreaformaine.com

And you’ll notice that the leeway on these failings are all on the side of cishet white men who abuse or malign women and abandon or denigrate marginalized identities with their politics. Because white men are the only “real” voters whose needs must be met in a campaign.

Someone told me today that his comments about rape victims being responsible for their abuse were “ancient” and “irrelevant.” 🤬

An example of the ideal ballot for a Democratic Maine voter. Exceptional elegance and taste. 10/10 no notes

^^ Should have ID'd myself as a Maine voter. I voted early, ranked 1. LaFlamme 2. Costello 3. Mills and did not rank Platner.

One of the major reasons I was never in on Bernie is that his personnel choices are ass, and have always been ass. And that extends to so many of his endorsements! The exceptions are almost entirely political talents who would have succeeded without his attention (AOC, Mamdani).

All of this really really sucks, and makes me wish I’d had more resources 8 years ago to run more aggressive local candidate recruitment work in Maine.

You simply do not need to continue defending a candidate like the sunk cost fallacy has you in a headlock

I'm a subscriber to The Handbasket — you should be, too! You're supporting great, original independent journalism, and also giving your brain something constructive to focus on when you read it.

Think we can get 20 new paid subscribers by midnight 👀

Watching the game via posts and the noises my husband is making in the living room

::stares in Hegseth tattoos:: But the point is that nobody serving in government should have Nazi tattoos? And maybe none should be repeating Nazi rhetoric? Or excusing the atrocities of the Holocaust? Or rephrasing Nazi goals? Actually, full out rejecting Nazis should be everyone’s goal…

Truly a dark time for black people and superhero movies.

I don’t drink anymore but there’s a bottle of Veuve Cliquot that we were gifted for our wedding, and I’m setting it to chill as soon as I get the news. Oddly enough, it came up in conversation with my godfather today.

Getting an all white jury in a county that’s 50% Black was nasty work

Neo-Confederates took over in 1964, and the original Confederacy was the ideological predecessor to the Nazis. So it’s been underreported for more than six decades. Largely because white people don’t care.

Happy Pride 🏳️‍🌈

Going to do my best to unleash my chaotic bisexual energy for the next few weeks

My freshman history/sacred texts teacher is on sight, because they were in charge of the AP World History course and discouraged me from signing up by grabbing a prep book off the shelf, asking a random question, and then impugning my capacity when I got it wrong. I trained myself and got a 5.

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH 🏳️‍⚧️ 🏳️‍🌈

Since I do not like Platner at all and have little interest in defending him, my suggestion is to focus as much energy as possible on reminding Maine voters why they’re fed up with Collins and then saying that at least Platner won’t be that

Coco losing at Roland Garros has soured my whole day and I need some advice on floof to make myself feel better

I think the obvious thing about Platner is to get him into office with the explicit goal of setting him up for removal next term (during a POTUS cycle)

Donald Trump raped E. Jean Carroll

A war you don’t fight is just a massacre. Thinking about that for some reason because of the term “culture war.”

Fundamentally, a lot of modern work has been filled with bullshit tasks—reports that aren’t meant to be read, presentations that aren’t meant to be given, and gen-AI is capable of churning out those tasks. The problem is that those tasks were always unnecessary. Real work needs real thought.

I actually had a mental break through the first half of 2025 and have been dealing with migraines, brain fog and extreme fatigue since October 2025, and I have decided to stop writing rather than consider “using AI” to bridge the gap that my illness is causing.

It feels wrong somehow to have both the Knicks winning and a mayor that I’m actively proud of simultaneously as a New Yorker

This is why Trump has a stranglehold on the GOP Senate. It’s why there’s no point in trying to remove him via impeachment.

so like lemme weigh in on this as someone who is more financially comfortable than many in my generational cohort: everything I have gained seems precarious and temporary because I know the people with real money will take it all from me the second they get an opportunity and no one will protect me.

Can’t believe I’ve been married for 3 years today, the time has just disappeared

Oh yes oh yes oh yes oh yes oh yes they both oh yes they both oh yes they both reached for the gun the gun the gun the gun for the gun

Found this short from @gbhnews.bsky.social explaining Memorial Day's Black beginnings. #academicsky #blacksky

As I introduced my spouse to it, I had the horrifying realization that next year is the 25th anniversary of Chicago winning Best Picture

Your reminder that this starts Black American holiday season, as Memorial Day emerged from formerly enslaved people tending Union graves in South Carolina, Juneteenth is…Juneteenth, and July 4 became a Black holiday after the Civil War, while many white southerners rejected patriotism.

The first US pope doing this is such a based move (and the direct successor to the first American (continents) pope is also a *sign*)

I absolutely want to be in a bubble on social media why the fuck else would I use it? I’m a Black woman well-versed in US history I am going to have everyone else’s cultural baggage and perspectives shoved into my life every minute I am not actively resisting; I deserve some goddamn peace

And we all know why: because casting Lupita as an unparalleled beauty is a blatant rejection of the white beauty standard that is supposed to define femininity in the “Epic and Unyielding War for Western Civilization” If Helen can even be Black, then Blackness must be accepted as beautiful

Wild that the millionth interpretation of a 3000 year old epic poem that uses a diverse cast is getting this kind of reaction just because people really need to let their racism flag fly

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