#ELB: BREAKING: “Trump fires all Election Assistance Commission members, leaving agency unable to act” (This is going to be a BFD if Trump Tries to Assert the EAC’s Powers over the Federal Voter Registration Form) https://electionlawblog.org/?p=157199

New in PN: Trump's red-baiting won't work "With capitalism failing so many Americans, it’s not enough for Trump to just shout 'Commies!' and assume the votes will follow -- especially when, in all his corruption and greed, he is the living embodiment of capitalism's worst version."

readers would’ve been better served with this in the lede, but i appreciate that it’s not very subtle

it’s not like it would make me any more sympathetic to them, but a decade ago, these same billionaires would have at least tried to argue that their wealth allowed them to create jobs and tax revenue and bolster the economy and they don’t even really bother with the attempt now

have you considered showing a backbone and openly opposing a deal that's going to be immeasurably harmful for markets, consumers, and labor

Extremely telling detail from this WSJ piece about Platner's demise: "Women on the campaign told Platner he was being managed by advisers who treated them unfairly and didn’t value their ideas," with one telling him point-blank "Hey, you have a very sexist, misogynistic staff."

Starting to think the New York Post is trying to get this trans woman killed. Also, not sure why it was necessary to include a pre-transition photo of her from high school. nypost.com/2026/07/07/u...

Solar's sharp rise continues. As of April 2026, global solar capacity now exceeds 3 terawatt. 1 gigawatt → 1 terawatt: 20+ years 1 terawatt → 2 terawatt: 33 months 2 terawatt → 3 terawatt: 19 months

Folks, a *very* exciting announcement: The Downballot has just published updated 2024 presidential results by congressional district for every state with a new map this year! That's 10 states in all, covering a full one-third of the House. Please dive in!

The Seth Rich conspiracy theory was perhaps the saddest and most grotesque saga I’ve seen come out of the right-wing media in my 19 years at Media Matters. And as the 10th anniversary of Rich’s murder approaches, the conspiracy theorists are back. www.mediamatters.org/benny-johnso...

If Elon and the other companies planning mega constellations have their way, in 10 years there will be 100x to 1000x as many satellites as you see here. Video would be like headlights on an LA freeway.

I lived through the "books are dying" discourse of the mid-aughts.* I'll live through the "reading is dying" discourse of now. Reminder that book sales are up overall in 2026.** 😘

Man, nobody could build a shithouse like the WPA.

Fantastic detective work from @michaeldpress.bsky.social - tracking down the forged letter used to fake an old provenance for recently looted cuneiform tablets! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

The state of our local media. Al.com publishes an op-ed from our idiot senators taking credit for construction projects whose funds were secured and allocated by Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and does not inform the readers of this, nor that the authors voted against said act.

“His most recent piece for the student paper, which was published last month, criticized what he described as discriminatory hiring practices in academia biased against white men” well knock me over with a feather

it once again bears repeating: that platner is even a candidate is because this guy, who was run out of Pittsburgh for recruiting/managing multiple candidates accused of DV/SA, who himself has allegations against him, recruited platner he should be blacklisted until the end of time

The GOP pivot to Cold War Era communist panic right as DSA candidates are winning is a really good reminder that “anti-communism” and the 1950s Red Scare were really just meant to undermine the New Deal and the American left.

Amazing how DeSantis' Stop WOKE Act was the center of our political universe for a time (and we were told the right had won the argument) yet now that it's suffered a crushing defeat, everybody has moved on. Good writeup of DeSantis' loss from @victorerikray.bsky.social: www.ms.now/opinion/flor...

Holy moly. Nice one @regret.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/madiso...

Andreessen. King. McMillon. Mankiw. @colbylsmith.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/b...

All the greatest hits.

Damn.

the biggest positive story on climate is that it doesn’t seem to matter how much of the world is run by reactionary fascists: the rise of solar is unstoppable

the final reckoning between AI hype and reality is upon us. buckle up.

IMHO a lot of this is now a soft version of what has happened with Russia and Putin. The problem with "touch the stove" is that basic recognition of the sheer scale of Trump's screwups means a shattering of the assumptions needed to keep business as usual going. There's nowhere left to hide if

How it started / how it's going, Lena Wen edition. I appreciate the change of heart but I'd be substantially more sympathetic if it hadn't been breathtakingly in March of 2025 that Bhattacharya is utterly unsuited for the job.

a couple weeks late here but I really recommend this piece by @see-saw.fun on the Kings Road Merch Union in Minneapolis & major label union-busting (TLDR a merch warehouse was sold by Epitath to Sony, long-time workers/musicians unionized, now Sony plans to shut it down) see-saw.fun/minneapolis-...

“The more we learn about his rise and fall, it’s clear he was swooped up by outside consultants, disdainful of ‘the establishment,’ who chose him like they were casting a role, with little vetting.” www.signorile.com/p/make-no-mi...

Tolkien wrote a YA novel where the villain was Smaug, an evil dragon that hoarded wealth & polluted the earth. Everyone working in tech who loves that book & that author has missed its point. These are also the same people who assert that thinking about literature is a waste of time. 🤬🤬

Severe language loss did not block logical reasoning. Stroke patients matched controls on language-free puzzles, and MRI scans showed the brain’s language system was not engaged. doi.org/hb9xqq

The irony of the Vanderbilt and Yale reports is that they are self-refuting. These reports *are conservative activism* designed to remake the university while masquerading as disinterested scholarly assessment.

If you don't like Elon, the ETF industry has great news h/t @jc_paretsX $TSLA $SPCX

bluesky is being fucky but for those too lazy to click the link here is the meat of it: Salgado is driving, unmarked ICE vehicle follows, swerves, and tries to cut him off, and Salgado drives away. No indication that it's an ICE vehicle. Why would he pull over?

1/ I believe that part of the reason for Trump's unpopularity is the extent to which his focus his shifted from the first time priorities, such as "The Wall" and "Trump Tax Cuts", to things that self-evidently only benefit him, such as "The Ballroom", "The Reflecting Pool" and crypto-currency.

The White House has reconstituted the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which tracks climate change and produces the National Climate Assessment. The Trump version will focus on "positive" climate effects and be used to protect fossil fuel companies from lawsuits. www.politico.com/news/2026/07...

NEW: Our first report on the swing voters of the 2026 midterms finds that when they are asked which policies would make them definitely vote for a Democrat, the most selected option is “raise taxes on the wealthy,” followed by “create a Medicare for All health care system.”

A lot of people will view this thru the lens of our European allies — which is, it’s completely kooky & partisan — but the real target is the rising Latin American populists flying high on their newfound support by the USG as long as they fall in line on “drug boats”, deportations, “free speech” etc

Only one student enrolled in West Virginia University’s new Washington Center after GOP lawmakers mandated the creation of the program Lawmakers allocated around $3 million to the program in the last two years

As others have noted, the Platner Discourse™ really does show that Twitter is the place that's wildly out of step with reality, not this "leftist bubble"

New video from Houston TV station KHOU appears to show ICE cutting off Lorenzo Salgado's car minutes before an agent killed him: www.khou.com/article/news...

3 more arrested for thoughtcrime in Trump’s fascist state www.cnn.com/2026/07/08/p...

🧵 So Farage is preemptively attacking the Commons standards committee in what's a great example of the weaponisation of the Four Pillars of Disordered Doubt against institutional authority to avoid accountability. The sort of thing Russia did against the OPCW, or Trump does with "fake news media"

UPDATE: Given Trump's appeal notice, Judge Kaplan has now issued an opinion to back up today's earlier order that $5 million plus interest be disbursed to E. Jean Carroll. The conclusion: Trump "has been stalling this case for years. ... It is time for him to 'do equity' and pay the judgment."

Legislators: it’s the courts job to check executive branch corruption Courts: it’s up to voters to select legislators who will check the executive Legislators: it’s the courts job to chec-

Optimists once believed that universal literacy was inevitable. Now it seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history. “America…. isn’t illiterate. It’s postliterate.” @rosehorowitch.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

Normie Dems are demanding candidates with "fight"; ideology and hot button policy positions are far less important. It's worth understanding what they're saying. talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-res...

Every conservative pundit’s working overtime to try to make Platner’s sexual assault the face of the New Democratic Party and Donny can’t help but go “well hold on a minute, maybe she made it up”. What an incredible political specimen.