Totally predictable, and yet still incomprehensible. I suppose Trump gets something out of whipping up his supporters and lying about what happens... but I really can't stress how absolutely bizarre it is to see a party jump at the chance to publicly blast the judge's clerk.

I go back to the BBS days, and I've never seen anything like Twitter in 2023. It's not even "awful comment section on local newspaper." Twitter's algorithm actively thwarts you from finding reliable information on the timeline, in replies, and when you search for keywords / accounts.

If you've never watched Aussie Rules Football, you've never watched real football. Dear Old Collingwood forever... www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtXt...

"In a ‘City Too Busy to Hate,’ New Attention to an Overlooked Race Massacre"...I'm sick of NYT's running stories on things that historians have focused on for the past 30 years and calling them overlooked. Not just insulting to historians, it's insulting to readers.

I have a feeling that we'll have a lot of company at Bluesky soon!

My first Buffett concert, a half century ago.

Trump's deranged followers think that he is the all powerful Wizard of Oz & nothing can stop him. But Fani Willis just threw a bucket of water on him. He cancelled his press conference.

Coming back from Ireland to the US next month, but we haven't told Loki that they don't allow dogs in pubs in the states.

He’s heaving, because he got midnight arraigned in Georgia.

Kenneth Chesebro advocated the false elector scheme, saying he based it on Larry Tribe's scholarship. Tribe devastates his argument here: https://www.justsecurity.org/87498/kenneth-chesebros-misrepresentation-of-laurence-tribe-scholarship-in-his-efforts-to-overturn-the-2020-presidential-election/

New on UNC Press Presents Podcast via New Books Network: Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey discusses CROSS-BORDER COSMOPOLITANS: The Making of a Pan-African North America. Stream/subscribe, or listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify Podcasts, Stitcher https://ow.ly/a4X050PsWBA

Climate change in Ireland is turning us into a rain forest. It was the hottest June ever recorded and the wettest July every recorded.

Would you have marched in the streets if Trump had blocked certification of Biden's win? If so, Jeff Clark's plan was to have the US Army shoot you.

Because all those pesky forms and laws have derailed children from working in US mines and industry for far too long, Arkansas is now letting children work without permits! Sigh...Progressive Era 1916 Keating-Owen Act, then Congressional action in 1924, finally Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938...

Need a good cry? Watch/listen to Patrick Dexter's tribute to Sinead O'Connor-Nothing Compares to You. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eViCgmLKteY&ab_channel=PatrickDexterCello

Why can't I have oysters in August in Ireland, like I usually do? Ocean water in Kerry is 4F higher than usual, because the Gulf Stream runs off the coast. Palm trees in the yard. But the heat is moving the Gulf Stream, & eventually it will get colder. Ireland could be Iceland. Climate connects us.

In my 20s, I stole Black lawn jockeys, broke them up on the street in front of peoples' houses, and ran. If they wouldn't break, took them home, and put them under my house. Never got caught.

Waiting for Conor Friedersdorf to weigh in on the professor who was investigated for criticizing a Republican politician

Texas A&M suspended a professor after a student accused her of criticizing Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick during a lecture

Republicans are like “it’s called the Transatlantic Slave Trade” because of the important trades people learned, also, we don’t like the word Trans being in there

New mood I am capricious

And how long can they be?

Just thinking about how for years, I'd think, "Why do people become Elon reply guys? Do they think that if they kiss his ass enough, he'll just give them money?" and then it turned out that... actually happened.

Uh oh.

To reiterate two banal points: 1) The First Amendment has nothing to say about content moderation on social media. Nada. Zilch. 2) For a large well-funded site, trust & safety has to be a priority. It should not be left to developers to do when they have time. Hire people to do it specifically.

People know @adamserwer.bsky.social is always great but he’s especially great on this. He blasts Clarence Thomas’s entire intellectually dishonest argument.

Three days of howling winds, blinding rain, and 55 degree temps in an Atlantic storm on Ireland's Beara Peninsula. Loki has to be pushed out the door to pee. He's had enough.

I Blocked You Over There And Can’t Remember Why And May Accidentally Follow You Here: A New Social Media Sequel

The full moon rising over our mountain in County Kerry looked so close last night. With 16 hrs & 40 minutes between sunrise and sunset and 4 hours of full moon, our "nights" are about 3 hours long. photo Ben Kiernan

Apropos of nothing, a reminder of JFK’s successful Harvard application essay

Welcome to a new season of Cisterhood of the Unraveling Rants, starring Jordan Peterson.

You won’t want to miss this collection offering the latest history of the American South (myself included). Thanks to Scott Stern for a great review in The New Republic! https://newrepublic.com/article/173396/south-begin?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=SF_TNR

Hey folks: Kevin has been kind enough to provide a lengthy list of historians on Bluesky. Give a follow! We live in times that have an extra-special need of historians who can help us understand how the hell we got here, and how we can do better.

Jesse McReynolds, Bluegrass mandolin maestro, has died. Jim and Jesse's album-Berry Pickin'- Chuck Berry covers is my favorite southern history bouillabaisse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jXGHWWq3mo&ab_channel=ScottJohnson

i... cannot

"A vale of humility between two mountains of conceit."

I have some news…. https://thedig.howard.edu/all-stories/civil-rights-lawyer-sherrilyn-ifill-appointed-inaugural-vernon-jordan-endowed-chair-civil-rights

Cricket is the most boring game in the world. I've been a saint for 5 days, cheering Australia on for my Ozzie husband. They won the Ashes. But he just told me this isn't THE Ashes. It's the first of 5 tests (5 day games) of the Ashes. No more sainthood for me.

I think it's adorable that Britain's big scandal right now is that their former PM threw a party. my dudes, our guy kept nuclear war plans in the shitter. top that

I once spent an evening debating law student Josh Hawley. I was giving a talk on the history of affirmative action; he was leading 3 other Fed. Soc. guys to interrupt me. The "manhood" vibe was nowhere to be seen. It was all awkward little boy. Finally succeeded in making him sit down & shut up.

One reason "why" is because the COVID vaccine showed the immense power of years-long government investment into academic scientific research. The tech bros simply could not square that fact with their rigid libertarian ideology; it broke their brains so badly they became antivax.

Happy to be here. I mainly post on politics, history, the US South, Ireland, and my dog Loki.