do think a lot of american politics is afflicted by a curse of "worse things aren't possible" when they actually are which has led to no less than three generations of political leaders who think the bottom can't fall out

distressing antebellum politics energy

how is this less assertive than Al Gore 26 years ago

oh my god -- Sean Duffy on Fox & Friends this morning announced that he spent parts of *7 MONTHS* (more than half a year!) on a roadtrip with his family to celebrate America's 250th anniversary

When news execs pressure their staff to use AI, they're telling them to be sloppy. AI is corner-cutting. There's a good way to use AI, and that's *hardly ever*. For broad research maybe, but never to generate something that you're cutting and pasting into a news report.

SWAN SONG FOR ORLANDO FLOCK (I tried a NYC tabloid hed here) www.orlandosentinel.com/2026/05/08/l...

Truly can’t believe the “grey hair” thing is still out there. No Kings 3 was absolutely flush with young people.

The three dissenting justices have the goods: "...today the majority has broadened the meaning of the word 'election,' as used in the Virginia Constitution, to include the early voting period. This is in direct conflict with how both Virginia and federal law define an election."

man I went to law school and believed the shit they spun out about the rule of law and the importance of norms and civil society and the values of democracy, blah blah blah on days like today, i feel like a sucker

Rep. Roger Williams on the SAVE America Act: "We want the right people voting"

that the virginia supreme court allowed the referendum to go forward - they could have stopped it - and then ruled this way really gives up the game the only difference between now and then is that the we know the result and they didn't like it

You see it wasn't a real vote because not enough people voted the way they didn't like bsky.app/profile/prop...

If you think about it, most election results are basically ties, and the courts should decide.

one thing i have been reflecting on is the real pressure among the professional commentariat to abandon racism (and sexism) as a analytical category for understanding to current moment, and the extent to which it came with real social consequences

Who knows but this seems like a potentially profound misread of the situation by the GOP, much like the more-radical-than-thou leftist scolds who are somehow still lecturing the center-left about how The Courts Won't Save You. The dem base of 2026 is a lot angrier than the dem base of 2017

It’s depressing how things that were seen as KKK-level racism when I was in college are mundane government policies and Supreme Court decisions today.

I think a lot of people are underestimating just how politically radicalizing this stuff is, when you see what the right is getting away with, including with the blessing of the Supreme Court majority

Huge. This is worth 3-4 seats for Republicans—basically equivalent to their possible post-Callais gains in the Deep South.

now thats an anecdote with a punch, from Gillian Tett www.ft.com/content/c0ae...

Oh, so there *are* some rules?

did the Virginia Supreme Court stop Republicans from gerrymandering the piss out of VA state and congressional districts in 2012 without asking the voters at all? they did not

America, 2026— 🚫 Redistricting because it's the will of voters ✅ Redistricting to suppress Black votes

FLASH: Virginia Supreme Court, 4-3, overturns redistricting referendum that could have netted Democrats 5 additional House seats. Doc: www.vacourts.gov/static/opini...

BREAKING: The Virginia Supreme Court has struck down the new Congressional maps passed by voters in April. Virginia will remain a 6-5 state. I have the ruling here: open.substack.com/pub/aaronpar...

This feels like the best one to me. The iPhone filter still feels too clearly sharp. Artificially aged like this, and I'm not sure someone who didn't know the context really could date this as 1965 or 2026.

Another quiet day in the ceasefire

Adam Serwer wrote this in 2018:

Q: Did you explicitly ask the Pope to stop his criticism of the Iran war? RUBIO: I'm not gonna discuss what I talked about with the Pope

Hoooooo boy is that not the way it works

Q: Why focus on all these construction projects right now? Trump: It's such a stupid question that you ask. You can understand dirt maybe better than I can, but I don't allow it. This is one of the worst reporters. She's a horror show.

U.S. President Donald Trump's motorcade drives on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool as it undergoes renovations, in Washington, D.C.-Reuters

This is a Newsmax anchor attacking unarmed TSA agents

It continues to be really really funny that the Trump admin has fallen into the same "look at the charts!" trap that the Biden admin did in the face of negative economic sentiment

This is maybe the most accurate and to-the-point headline about Trump that NPR has ever published. No both-sides nonsense or sanewashing, like NPR usually does. Just direct. www.npr.org/2026/05/08/n...

"big pharma was working on disease prevention and treatment" is good actually

It won’t even get covered really

This amazing image really captures the Tennessee fight and it's all over the internet. I am reposting it to encourage people to credit photographer Nicole Hester and the Tennessean.

Guardian reporting. Revealed: The Trump administration arrested the parents of at least 27,000 kids in seven months www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Florida won’t say how many people who paid for nursing credentials are, or were, licensed here, but the Orlando Sentinel found evidence it is likely hundreds.

Not since Reconstruction ended in the 1870s amid white-supremacist terrorism and voter suppression has Black electoral influence declined so suddenly in the American South. trib.al/huKmBtq

the fact that this photo looks like it could equally have been taken in 1968 kind of proves the point

In journalism school, they taught us the Jonathan Foster quote: “If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. It’s your job to look out the window and find out which is true.” US media have completely abandoned that core principle

This story is WILD. Juan Orlando Hernandez, the Honduran ex-president pardoned by Trump for narcotrafficking, seemingly caught on tape in dozens of conversations (if true), discussing plans with GOP and other figures to attack left-wing governments, and saying Israel paid for his pardon from Trump.

It’s staggering How swiftly states in the South can still move to stymie Black voters And how ready they were to do so

Multiple women serving sentences for nonviolent crimes at the minimum security prison where Ghislaine Maxwell is now serving time were punished for speaking to reporters about the special treatment Maxwell receives. At least two women were transferred to higher security facilities as punishment.

Just reminding everyone that Black political representation has material effects on policy. It’s so effective that the last time Black politicians were run out of office (Reconstruction), it was with violent force. They paid with their lives for their success. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Scoop: Two organizations that hold Paramount stock have sent a letter to the company's chief legal officer demanding to inspect records over concerns the Ellisons have agreed to compromise CNN to secure approval of its WBD merger. Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/paramount-...

Trump threatened to nuke Iran during the same press event where he called a woman reporter "baby" and a "bitch" and we'll all just supposed to continue on tomorrow as though any of this insanity is normal or acceptable

Some of us remember Trump absolutely losing his shit over Ebola and claiming Obama was bungling the response. Good times.