Here's a particularly juicy nugget I found in my reporting . . .

This absolutely correct point isn’t getting enough attention. This framing of government services as public goods, & the moral and practical failure of alternative approaches that value only what is profitable & leave public goods unacknowledged, should be at the forefront of our politics right now.

It’s not “losing money” any more than air traffic controllers or public highways or street lights or fire departments are “losing money.” It is a government service. It’s not SUPPOSED to make money. It’s supposed to reliably deliver to anywhere in the US, even the unprofitable places.

If you have brown skin even a birth certificate is not enough to avoid deportation. This is what the 14th amendment was intended to stop.

Oh man, this a terrible story. Also, I quite like Ashley's music. It's quite a different vibe, and if you haven't heard his stuff I recommend listening.

“The Constitution of the Roberts Court is not color-blind. It is a Constitution that permits discrimination on the basis of race, but forbids alleviating discrimination on the basis of race.” Such a good @adamserwer.bsky.social piece. www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

This gets to a more fundamental problem: the justices are unwilling to confront what's actually happening. Trump is attempting to create an internal federal police force to use on Democratic-led cities and whose only oversight is Whiskey Pete and Republican governors.

On DOGE’s watch, federal spending did not go down at all. It went up. But is still led to cuts that closed offices, canceled programs and deprived people of food, medicine and other aid. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/u...

Exxon has a new plan to sell more fossil fuels: stick carbon capture on massive gas-fired power plants for AI and brand them as climate friendly. Critics say that's a dangerous fiction. Thrilled to have @emorwee.bsky.social as my editor on this one! www.exxonknews.org/p/exxon-prom...

"Get the principals on camera" is such a telling phrase here, because it tells us that for Weiss there's no world in which the victims of these horrific actions can actually be seen as the subjects of the story: They're background noise, and the people who matter are the ones sending them.

Petrostate politics. This is what happens when you embrace the "energy dominance" of fossil fuels. Remember, too, that the Abundance bros embraced Burgum. When Burgum was appointed, Yglesias said he was "a totally solid pick who'll do good things." And he wasn't alone.

This Yglesias piece in the NYT is horrifically bad. Almost every "fact" it cites is provably false. At best it is cocktail party banter from a pundit who knows nothing of energy. At worst, it was cut/paste from oil industry talking points. So, a rebuttal: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/o...

Amid the debate about the experience of white guys in media and the academy I’ll just say that gender, racial, and religious diversity, in my experience, tend to make intellectual conversations much more interesting, far ranging, and deep. We can’t lose that progress.

Full body high from @themountaingoats.bsky.social show. No Children. This Year. A bunch of deep cuts like International Small Arms Traffic Blues. All of the songs from the new album sounded absotlutely STELLAR live. The band was so tight and Darnielle was so infectiously joyous

Brutal but effective public health messaging from New York Public Health. The CDC is compromised. They’re no longer a reliable source of information. They push anti-vaxx & anti-science grift. Get your vaccines. Wear a respirator. Clean the air Get public health advice from experts, not RFK Jr

There is always something to be done, and that something makes a difference. That is what optimism is: choosing to believe that you can continue to make a difference, and doing so, as much as you can.

New from me for the @wired.com Politics Newsletter. I broke down how the push to combine data across the government in the name of immigration enforcement has lots of possible unintended consequences, not just for undocumented immigrants, but for everyone. www.wired.com/story/dhs-da...

Quite so: "The way to combat a corrupt deal is to repudiate it — loudly, constantly and on a bipartisan basis .... Anything less by the leaders of either party will only harden and justify Americans’ deteriorating faith in government and the justice system." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/o...

My full write-up: In a dramatic series of overnight developments, the Trump administration took extraordinary steps to try to re-detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia within hours of his court-ordered release, but a federal judge stepped in and blocked the move. talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...

I was upgrading the quality of a WW1 image and came across this. 🗃️

My colleague reviewed a paper for the journal Climate and discovered it has been written by AI (citations that didn’t exist). Not only did the journal keep the paper, they asked her to re-review it. We are so cooked.

"Permitting reform deregulation proponents ignore that #NEPA was designed to safeguard the health and wellbeing of communities in which these projects are sited." @weact4ej.bsky.social #Storymap

From the @wsj.com chief foreign correspondent

at a certain point we will move beyond the "war crimes" debate, since there is no war, and into a "murder" debate that asks not just whether these are individual murders but whether they are widespread & systematic attacks on civilians and thus constitute crimes against humanity.

There is no sight that more efficiently puts the lie to immigration “court” than the common sight of children “representing themselves.” Children too small to climb into the chair, children in pajamas who don’t know where they are, children not yet old enough to speak.

“This irresponsible and purposely misleading guidance will lead to more hepatitis B infections in infants and children.” Read our full statement by AAP President Dr. Susan J. Kressly: www.aap.org/en/news-room...

Lesson one: Yes, you can do a lot of things if you break the law. Lesson two: Doing something is not the same as doing a good thing - it is harder to build than it is to destroy. Trump has built nothing like the TVA. His lawbreaking is not "freeing the stuck wheels of bureaucracy."

the primary thing that TPUSA provides to young conservatives is a blueprint for weaponizing the abject cowardice of university administrators against individual teachers and instructors, and university admins should take a long look in the mirror and think about what that says about them

Trump will deport an Afghani living in the US with Temporary Protected Status if he is *accused* of stealing $1000. But he’ll set a white dude free who was *convicted* of stealing $1.6B from American citizens to go commit more crime. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/u...

Yep, one of the biggest drivers of the elite panic around “wokeness” was the increasing prominence of Black people and particularly Black women in their fields and we’re seeing that coalition rewarded with the targeting of Black workers.

Humans will NEVER colonize another planet. Never. If we can’t even agree to do the minimum to keep Earth habitable, there’s no way in hell we’ll cooperate to make another planet habitable.

A Fox News poll this week found Obamacare is more popular than Trump, either party and congressional leaders. Only 3 points below Fox's all-time high for the law reached in 2023 static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/...

We have a political problem, not a tech problem. What I think is happening is that the tech-optimists are looking for the thing that will bring the FF industry on board (spoiler: continued fossil fuel use) so they can bypass the political issue. Won't work and we're wasting time on make believe.

This is pretty amazing. This guy just won a solid victory in Bucks County, PA, one of the most important swing counties in the country, by *explicitly and deliberately* making his race *all about* nationalizing ICE raids. Confirms the point about this now being a winning issue for Dems.

This is unbelievably ignorant, or worse. Example: Benefits of just Clean Air Act ozone and particulate matter regulation alone exceed costs by a factor of 30: $2 trillion in benefits to $35 billion costs, over 30 years. This represents material benefits of many kinds! www.epa.gov/clean-air-ac...

Pittsburgh in the 1940's. That clock is not quarter to midnight, it's quarter to noon.

“Helsinki hasn’t registered a single traffic-related fatality in the past year…Citing data that shows the risk of pedestrian fatality is cut in half by reducing a car’s speed from 40 to 30km/hr, city officials imposed the lower limit in most of Helsinki’s residential areas & city center in 2021.”

Deeply ashamed just because you were soliciting a convicted child predator for advice on cheating on your wife my pressuring a younger colleague into sleeping with you while sneering at her and her work? Gosh Ross Douthat better write another piece decrying woke culture

One of the best cross-examinations I've heard started with: "Sir, can you describe what you're apologizing for?" That seems appropriate here.

Imagine escaping the literal Nazis, making it to America, living three quarters of a century there making your life, and then this:

The DOJ ordered US Marshals to the house of the pardon attorney who refused to sign off on a pardon to give Mel Gibson back his guns. Big law firms told her they supported her but did not want to be seen representing her. This is the use of government-sponsored fear to silence dissent.

This is some horrifying predatory shit.

No secret that I'm a huge @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social fan. This piece is tough, important, and excellent. www.meditationsinanemergency.com/how-big-shou...

(I am not making this up, though it sounds impossible) www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2...

The plan: take money from insurers, give it to people, then have people give it back to the insurers.

I continue to believe that the Trump *campaign* successfully convinced quite a lot of people that mass deportations did not mean mass deportations; that it meant targeted enforcement against “the bad guys.” The problem for the Trump *administration* is that no one believes that anymore.

The only person who has been seizing private companies through the power of the state is Trump.

The magnitude of the Democrats’ win yesterday shows the rhythms of US democracy are still very much alive. The race against authoritarianism is clearly not lost yet.

i want to repeat this: mamdani and spanberger have run similar campaigns tailored to their respective electorates and it is maddening to watch political journalists attempt to create some broad contrast where none exist