Everyone debates endlessly whether or not culture influences politics but I swear to god being a kid in the 80s and watching Vietnam movies and reading Vonnegut made me hate war in my bones and once you hate war everything flows downstream from there. Then Stipe and Cobain etc finished me off

everyone got all upset I guess but I for one am mainly desolate about not getting to eat these delectable lookin shrimp

Chuck Todd: "I get it"

The new centrist Democrat group boosting Polymarket is really just the icing on the cake here.

WHAT happened when @kolatubosun.bsky.social, innocently mowing his lawn, came face to face with a beast in the garden. flaminghydra.com/issue-595/

This whole entire convicted sex criminal, leering at women with Jeffrey Epstein, on tape bragging about grabbing women's genitals, speaking out against 'godlessness'

Happy birthday!! to @ilanaslightly.bsky.social! I am celebrating by ordering her novel, BEINGS, Winner of the 2026 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Speculative Fiction. bookshop.org/p/books/bein...

Americans love a rerun. www.thehandbasket.co/p/haymarket-...

no kidding

Dear pundit class, hello there, I'd like to introduce you to this concept called 'representative democracy' It involves governing well enough that the people will vote to keep you in office; should you fail them, they'll vote someone else in, someone they believe will do a better job

The rot is very old, even though I lived through it I can hardly believe Wrote a little bit about the Reflecting pool fiasco at @flaminghydra.com flaminghydra.com/issue-594/

Read Maria Bustillos on the reflecting pool spectacle, and illuminating the oft-forgotten truth that MAGA was preceded by conservative talk radio, cheered by Republicans. A clutch @flaminghydra.com essay

Someone is going to have to write a "here's why Rahm sucks" piece in the national press, for the benefit of those in the national press who have no damn memories. Besides Laquan McDonald, here's an example: he is to the right of Pelosi, and his alleged acumen almost doomed the ACA.

Sad news. Such a huge presence of internet 1.0, r.i.p.

The C-suite bosses (whether in universities, newspapers, or movie studios) have no taste or intellectual sense at all, so AI slop looks 'fine' to them, and they are legit confused as to why people are so grossed out and don't want to buy it

They have a real strict firewall set up so it’s basically none of my concern. flaminghydra.com/weve-all-got...

Grimly amusing Dem machines think they deserve some sort of entitlement hierarchy. My entire life, everything has been moving backwards, politically, democratically, bureaucratically, judicially. You are all failures. You are presumptively part of the rot that must be removed down to the root.

In my opinion hardwood Democrats who don't want to be replaced shouldn't have sucked shit for so long without listening to everyone screaming at them about it. We need to see so many of them replaced in so many primaries. Every time it happens is cause for hope and should cheer people everywhere.

Challenge accepted ('really good' tbd) flaminghydra.com/issue-594/

The most extraordinary photos of the vanished 2000s and 2010s you ever saw, by @todseelie.bsky.social Eye-addictingly beautiful like always from this artist flaminghydra.com/bright-nights/

What it comes to mean is that the people never get to decide

I’ve never seen a political party so upset about the prospect of their own popular candidates winning elections

The most extraordinary photos of the vanished 2000s and 2010s you ever saw, by @todseelie.bsky.social Eye-addictingly beautiful like always from this artist flaminghydra.com/bright-nights/

Challenge accepted ('really good' tbd) flaminghydra.com/issue-594/

Stephen Miller clearly absolutely loves going on TV and I think he should be doing that more and more as election season approaches

Yet again Ted Cruz fails to choke on his own hypocrisy, baffling scientists

I'm gonna keep posting the fact that only $9 million (inflation adjusted) changed hands in Teapot Dome and it was the worst scandal in American history prior to Watergate until it stops being relevant.

Dems have to run on this hard. Do not let the RFK types try to spin what his own party just signed off on here. Actual Monsanto, the comic book villain of Adbusters days, was shielded from liability over poisoning Americans. I don't care if it's slopulism: this Supreme Court wants you dead.

She won.

"Centrists don’t fear bad government...They fear a left-wing that governs well. That’s the terrifying threat Mamdani poses to the status quo—and the massive opportunity his administration presents for all of those who want to transform it." Read the whole forum: hammerandhope.org/forums/mamda...

If moderates are enabling fascism they aren’t moderates. And that is the problem with Dem leadership. This is less of an ideological issue than one of rolling over and playing dead for Nazis.

The genAI wars are at least giving literary scholars a chance to make themselves heard. What constitutes 'quality' and 'authenticity'? What distinguishes the human? @jidesalawu.bsky.social has a fine analysis of the Commonwealth/Granta debacle at @flaminghydra.com flaminghydra.com/issue-593/

Good one on @flaminghydra.com from @lukeoneil47.bsky.social, not regretting my subscription

I love love love this thread Did I tell you how much I love this thread? Also, let me tell you, as someone who is currently in Geneva teaching students from around the world: they all freaking love love love Mayor Mamdani, they see him as a principled breath of fresh air who STANDS FOR SOMETHING

Look; Starmer completely destroyed the Labour Party to get rid of centre leftists like Mamdani. And he was ejected within 2 years. People want progress.

Is it magical realism, or just gibberish? The hill is talking; the bush is growling; the grove has a mind of its own. Every phrase is either hackneyed or hallucinatory, reaching for something beyond, something visceral. flaminghydra.com/the-ai-trial...

i do NOT have a southern accent btw flaminghydra.com/the-d-c-acce...

Over the weekend, I wrote about my long-ago inglorious days as a record store clerk for @flaminghydra.com: flaminghydra.com/a-brief-hist... (If you see the bonus photo of how my hair used to look at the time, I would prefer that we.....did not ever discuss it)

o please god

Here is @jidesalawu.bsky.social with fine analysis of the Granta / Commonwealth Prize fiasco, b/w fine new fiction by @lukeoneil47.bsky.social flaminghydra.com/issue-593/

Another rather wonderful World Cup themed postbox topper from Glasgow, this time on Great George Street in the West End. Last time I posted one of these a few days ago, Scotland went on to win their next match 1-0. Fingers-crossed it happens again! Come on Scotland! #scotland #noscotlandnoparty

VOTERS chose these candidates! Mamdani didn't choose them by himself!! Who is going to have to patch things up with whom?? justs incredible

Jeffries refusing to endorse Mamdani through the near-entirety of the 2025 campaign was a constant storyline in the summer and some of the fall—so one thing to note here is that his own disregard for building a relationship with Mamdani is part of what left him no leverage this spring.

The water lobbyists are panicking. They don't like what Andy Burnham is proposing. So they've already started pushing out PR pieces defending privatisation. But Andy Burnham can be bolder. His bid for PM must include a commitment to public ownership of Thames Water. 1/2

This is so good. It would be so good even if it didn't have a most remarkable photo at the end. But it does. flaminghydra.com/issue-592/

True. Please read, share, and support alternative media projects, which are growing fast and which, given enough support, will supplant the right wing propaganda mills in time Start with our journalist-owned cooperative. Subscriptions to our newsletter start at just $3/month. flaminghydra.com

Strange that the former DNC chair would mistype “Congratulations to today’s primary winners and to all candidates for a well-fought race. Again and again we prove that we are the DEMOCRATIC party. Our national organization is excited to work with you going forward” so badly

Lincoln Project, Frum, the Bulwark crowd, all of them want a) a platform to continue to sabotage rise of the (real) U.S. left, and b) a softer landing than they deserve, as 'former' Republicans

one of the most heinous atrocities of the last 150 years. up there with the worst dictators in history