I'm happy with the week I had and the work I put in. There's one more piece of mine coming tomorrow and maybe another newsletter piece Sunday but thank you all for helping me launch my new newsletter. burns-notice.ghost.io

“Salt in the wound is Trump’s favorite flavor.” That kicker is still a kick in the gut, five years and a second Trump administration later.

This is one of the excellent points @tinavasquez.bsky.social makes in her @theflytrapmedia.com piece about Kristi Noem. DHS can barely buy a fucking drink at the bar. the-flytrap.ghost.io/ice-barbie-k...

Roger Severino wrote the Health and Human Services chapter of Project 2025 and was once thought of as the worst potential pick for HHS secretary. This is the awesome piece that I read last year (oh gosh it was only last year) where I learned about him, his wife, and their whole awful deal.

hey for anyone who's not already aware: the new episode of @cancelmedaddy.bsky.social featuring feat. @kattenbarge.bsky.social is really really really worth listening to: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE3E...

you wanna: - fund anti-fascist, feminist journalism - hang out with some total weirdos - hear about some BIG NEW PLANS from the Flytrap So how about: grab a discounted Flytrap subscription ASAP (w/a free gift sub for a bud!) and join me + Flytrap cofounders for a virtual hang this evening >>>

Donald Trump rode the escalator in the right way. by Ezra Klein

If you’re unfamiliar, “refrigerator mother” was a theory that kids became autistic bc their mother was cold & unloving.

But let's not forget what this is about: It's about strengthening the journalism they both do. Here's the episode that will provide a take that you won't find from legacy newsrooms.

We have been hit especially hard by the youtube viewership issue, so if you could watch and leave a comment, you'd be a hero to me.

It's a very good night to watch 3 smart women talk about current events.

The best part of this tweet from January is she limited who could reply to it

I've been vocally, publicly, on the side of shame since 2021, when people said not to shame people for breaking covid rules. The alternative to shame is criminilization which... has problems and often doesn't work for stuff like this

New Cancel Me Daddy now out on YouTube! We were lonmg overdue in getting @kattenbarge.bsky.social on the show but we had a really thoughtful discussion about the free speech threats of this last week.

Trump & RFK's attack on Tylenol is part of an emerging campaign within the right to valorize “natural” pregnancy & motherhood—to the point it corrodes women’s health & safety. Under this campaign, pregnancy & motherhood are seen as women’s natural states. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The “debate me bro” grift economy isn’t a good look on you, @ezraklein.bsky.social. And my formerly preeclamptic ass isn’t afraid of you, not after waking up in an MRI machine ~12 hours after giving birth. You ever want to debate me, bro? Your abstractions have nothing on my—our—lived experiences.

When I developed severe preeclampsia by week 34 of my pregnancy, my OB-GYN didn’t give a fuck. You better believe I asked my new OB-GYN how hard she’d fight the hospital lawyers to save my life at, say, 15 weeks or if she’d go “nah, you’re not preeclamptic enough” or “septic enough” for an abortion.

Ezra’s journalist wife survived harrowing pregnancies—the subhead of her essay (linked below) is “my pregnancies could have killed me, but at least I chose them.” @ezraklein.bsky.social—you value choice in your house, but not for the unhoused? Uninsured? Undocumented? For Black and brown women?

Someone please make sure to send my body to Ezra Klein, c/o The New York Times, if I die of sepsis in a hospital parking lot because too many doctors are already more afraid of providing abortion care than spending a night in jail.

My professional assessment is that Ezra Klein is a moron @jezebeldotcom.bsky.social

The @washingtonpost.com story on Tylenol & autism leaves out a MAJOR 2.5M sibling-controlled study of children in Denmark, which "found no evidence that acetaminophen use during pregnancy was associated with children’s risk of autism, ADHD or intellectual disability." jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

As CNN offers daylong saturation coverage of the podcaster’s funeral, I went back and checked to see how CNN covered Melissa Hortman’s memorial on 6/28, where Walz spoke and Biden/Harris attended. It got about four minutes during the hours it was happening—less than Jeff Bezos’s wedding that day.

In a single attack Israel murdered nearly three times as many journalists as were killed in the Charlie Hebdo massacre. This is a state terror attack. They have now killed nearly 250 journalists in two years. More than Putin has killed in 20 years. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

So um. This is what's been up with me for the last year. I hate hate hate asking but very much appreciate your support. www.gofundme.com/f/fund-me-if...

Does anyone, uh, know what that means It was already up to individuals??

There are so many people who are hustling so hard to get a job in journalism and could only dream of landing a staff gig at Vanity Fair even in the best of times/without having an affair with a Cabinet official… some people just have it super easy I guess!!

Anyway! There's the RFK affair that had her fired by New York in disgrace as well ... and it's an example as I often see of mediocre white/cis folks who fail upwards ...

I am sighing in broke freelance journalist ... who's formerly BuzzFeed News' Deputy Features Editor and suffice to say has applied to every job I could plausibly do for oh ten years ...

Journalists:

Mt Pleasant in DC has been doing this too! Someone with a 3D printer has been making whistles for the neighborhood alert teams. www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

Trading Lawson for Nuzzi is basically where we are as a culture right now

HSI is part of ICE—same agency, allegedly different duties but I do not and would not trust any federal agent to not snatch our neighbors. www.ice.gov/about-ice/hsi

DC Peeps, you know what to do!

Keep your constituents safe @cmfrumin.bsky.social.

I just spotted two uniformed Homeland Security Investigations agents walking with several MPD cops at the intersection of Idaho Ave and Wisconsin Ave NW. Could be going to Starbucks or Giant. Could be doing God know’s what. Spread the word throughout Ward 3 D.C.

In case you thought Republicans’ interest in DC was anything more than gutter racism

A propos of nothing, there are plugins for web browsers that will remove the AI "overview" from Google searches. This is the one I use in Chrome: chromewebstore.google.com/detail/bye-b...

a key reason they see an opening for such a blatant speech crackdown is that they already did one to Palestinian and anti-genocide activists and it got enthusiastic bipartisan approval

Netanyahu loved October 7th because it gave him the opportunity to launch a never-ending war and thus stay in power indefinitely. Trump loved Kirk being killed because it gave him an opportunity to justify all his worst authoritarian impulses. To fascists, tragedy is opportunity.

Loyalty is one of the best parts of DC. It is the happiest place in this entire city. And they ship! Order now to support a queer-, woman-, and Black and Asian-owned bookstore

again, it is an especially great time to support & buy books from the wonderful team at @loyaltybooks.bsky.social: loyaltybookstores.com

“so bill kristol, who follows you on a social media site called bluesky - “ “I’m sorry who follows me on what now”

☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️

this just doesn't cut it. kimmel didn't merely "face some criticism," the head of the FCC publicly demanded that he be punished! and ABC obliged! it's a total dereliction not to make that clear in your headline www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/b...

it is really important for news outlets to be clear (unlike the nyt here) that Kimmel was suspended not because of some grassroots backlash but because ABC caved to threats from the head of the FCC

Literally everything about this

Becoming increasingly clear we’re gonna have to build a parallel infrastructure for all the media we really love. The reason all of this is happening under the color of law is hyperconsolidation, dissent being traded straight up for merger approval, or fear of harassment.

I hope people realize that when you do this kind of stuff it diminishes any conversation about the reality of what we’re seeing right now and how to deal with it.

I can’t believe they’re gonna make me defend the guy who made the misogynistic Man Show