But if you suggest putting every Kalshi exec on an ice floe so we can bet on which one the polar bears will eat last then suddenly everybody starts going on about morals and stuff.

hilzoy@hilzoy.bsky.social · 2h ago

Link: futurism.com/health-medic...

Limestone dust is used to cover up coal faces to reduce the risk of explosions. But limestone is rarely pure calcite. It contains shells and sand that incorporate silica. So when it's ground to powder, you get a lung-irritating particle actually more damaging than coal dust. …

Black lung rates in Appalachia are high as the 1970s, with thousands of miners sick

Rates are now the highest they've been in nearly 50 years among veteran coal miners. Mining experts blame toxic silica dust, now more common in mines.

npr.org

The warmongering omnicrook who's hauled in something like a billion dollars from international cryptobribes alone trying to appease the rest of us rabble with his 'no tax on tips' screen makes me feel, not gonna lie, little bit crazy.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3h ago

Trump: "An outlier is a person that doesn't have a chance" (That's not what 'outlier' means)

Doug Burgum's gotta be feeling his oats after getting Pirro in trouble with Trump over his own reflecting pool lies. He's probably in there with Trump right now going "she doesn't want you to know this but we caught antifa trying to put sharks in the pool, big communist sharks" and giggling.

FWIW, both of VDARE’s founders were on the masthead of the National Review in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Peter Brimelow was also a staffer for Senator Orrin Hatch. This white nationalist thread has been present in the conservative movement for a long time. Screenshot is from 1997.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 7h ago

SCHIFF: You told my staff you stood by your article in white nationalist website VDARE where you wrote, 'Muslim immigrants & their kids seem prone to terrorism' C: I wrote that article in support of Trump's travel ban S: Do you stand by it? C: I stand by that article S: That's all I need to know

This is pretty much just describing fascism, right?

Greg Sargent@gregsargent.bsky.social · 11h ago

It's funny that Jeanine Pirro brought a box of evidence to WH to persuade Trump. He wants her to consciously *throw out* exculpatory facts and *knowingly* prosecute innocent people. So facts can't persuade him by definition. Me and @barbmcquade.bsky.social on this: newrepublic.com/article/2139...

My hot take is that conservatives have been pissed that Nazis ruined genocidal fascism ever since the 40s, had to shut up about it while the remaining WWII vets were still able to punch people, but now feel confident there's nobody left to punch them and are just gonna go for it.

Ron Filipkowski@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 6h ago

When your party leader is a president with historically low approval ratings, who has raised prices through tariffs and wars, uses disaster relief and science grants to punish states that didn’t vote for him, and has agents shooting people in the streets, this is what you do.

I really think we gotta explore why Republicans keep voting for guys whose whole personas are "serial killer with a chip on his shoulder." What is it about these obvious pieces of shit that draws these voters in.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · yesterday

Rep. Max Miller: "When I was reported for child abuse of my daughter for a broken collarbone, my daughter was in my ex-wife's care 9 out of the last 11 days and she took her to the emergency room, which is a contempt violation from our shared parenting plan."

I wrote a thing.

Drained pool, failed government, stagnant country

A Senate committee rubber-stamps the most corrupt attorney general nominee ever put forward, and Trump's corruption trundles on.

unchartedblue.com

In deliberations over future Colorado River water allocations in a time of dwindling regional precipitation, tribal nations are too often treated as nuisances rather than sovereign peoples. That's one of the oldest habits in the American West. www.unchartedblue.com/colorado-riv...

Colorado River Blues: Decades of warnings sparked no serious response. Now a megadrought and the climate crisis may force gigantic water cuts

The Bureau of Reclamation announced a plan Friday for allocating river allocations to seven states through 2036. Marc Reisner warned us four decades ago in "Cadillac Desert" that this day was coming.

unchartedblue.com

Part of this feels like the modern c-suite revulsion (see: movie studios) towards actually making anything. Every modern company is an accounting trick with a logo attached; producing product is the place where the scams break down and reality intrudes. Execs focus hard on not letting that happen.

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)@doctorow.pluralistic.net · 3d ago

Finally, there's an *economic* coin-trick: "AI will destroy jobs." Sure, yes, AI is destroying jobs. But there's a vast difference between "You got fired because an AI can do your job" and "You got fired because your boss was convinced that the AI can do your job, even though it *cannot*." 45/

The clips of RFKjr saying he'll eat anything, including things he finds on the road, came only a few hours before the news that our armadillos are spreading leprosy. In the writing biz this is called 'foreshadowing'.

Imagine if a woman president crashed the economy and started a war with no end in sight, and her biggest, seemingly ONLY concern was building a ballroom and redecorating the White House.

Something that's _very_ common in dementia patients is they have a dream about something and wake up 100% convinced that it actually happened—to the point where they'll predictably fly into a rage if you even try to tell them it didn't. Day in, day out, always a new hallucination.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2d ago

Trump: "We have photographs or tapes -- like moving cameras, right? -- where people are on the side cutting it with a box knife."

Congrats again to the White House Correspondents Association!

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2d ago

Trump says Jeanine Pirro "choked" and then snaps at a reporter who asks if her job is safe: "Don't ever talk again"

Washington to vote whether to allow crazy people to sexually assault your daughter.

Gillian Branstetter@gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 2d ago

An initiative on the ballot in Washington state in November would require all athletes seeking to play girl's sports from kindergarten to high school to undergo "genetic screening, a testosterone-levels test, or an examination of their reproductive anatomy" before they can play

There's no reason anyone would be making wildfire "prediction market" bets _other than_ to monetize arson. FFS let's be real here. (Also these companies are just giant crime funnels and should be banned immediately.)

Zahra Hirji@zhirji.bsky.social · 2d ago

A group of Democratic senators urged the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to rein in prediction market trading on wildfires, expressing concern that individuals could be tempted to commit arson to make their bets pay off New story @bloomberg.com: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Everybody knew Cornyn/Tillis would cave, we were all just waiting to hear what the excuse would be. And the incoherence of the excuse did not disappoint.

Sahil Kapur@sahilkapur.bsky.social · 2d ago

John Cornyn & Thom Tillis issue a joint statement announcing they will support Todd Blanche for AG. He's now in good position to clear the Judiciary Committee tomorrow and head to the full Senate.

This is banana republic stuff - we all know that, right?

Kyle Griffin@kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 2d ago

FLAG: Trump gets to keep tax immunity for himself, his sons, and the Trump Organization under the new 'deal' struck by Todd Blanche. The new order also reaffirms that Trump won't have to pay any taxes he might have owed the IRS.

First the president openly sells insider trading access; and now there's direct evidence of him doing money laundering. And he is still the president.

Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 4d ago

“.. The disclosure marks the first time a bank has formally tied money laundering concerns to U.S. President Donald Trump's family business.” @reuters.com $COF www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

I've watched Rand Paul flit from gimmick to gimmick for a decade now and I'm dying to know how he finally settled on the Fauci stuff as his Main Thing. I assume it's straight grift: he's trying to pry money loose from the same cranks that like RFKj and Oz.

David S. Bernstein @dbernstein.bsky.social · 4d ago

“The Boston Herald is right” sayeth the Senator from Kentucky

He's such a shitweasel, but at least now he's been caught lying to the whole damn country and will be forced to immediately resign, which is something that happens when a top govt official gets caught lying on tv.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last mo.

BASH: But it peeled off. Why did that happen? BURGUM: It didn't peel off. There was vandalism. There was box cutters. There have been 7 arrests. BASH: There are photographs of people cutting a 350 foot gash in the reflecting pool? BURGUM: Dana, I'm not sure why you keep questioning it

Worth a relisten after she just filed a lengthy description of how the application of the lining was thoroughly botched.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last mo.

this Pirro press conference is completely beyond parody, like a deleted scene from Idiocracy. listen to this shit

Lost track of how many times Trump's DoJ crooks have dramatically indicted someone, been caught engaging in _wildly_ unethical behavior to make it happen, then moved to drop the case with a motion of Please Stop Looking Into How Any Of That Happened. Feels like a few!

emptywheel@emptywheel.bsky.social · 5d ago

Juicebox Jeanine files a 20-page Motion to Dismiss the case against Davey Hearn that ... claims to have been helpless before DOI told them how Trump's incompetence ruined the pool. Not sure when I've seen this Olympic class ass-covering before. legacy.www.documentcloud.org/documents/28...

The effort these guys go through to shield Trump from even the slightest inconvenience really puts the lie to the theory that any of them have a moral core.

Kyle Griffin@kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 5d ago

Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee defeated an effort by Democrats to block the Trump admin plan to shield Trump from IRS audits.

I'm sorry, how bad do you have to screw up to "unintentionally" hit the moon.

Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 5d ago

“.. It was never SpaceX’s intent to hit the moon. But space experts said the crash could have been avoided .. “.. It will be the second dead rocket known to crash into the moon accidentally.” @apnews.com $SPCX www.bostonherald.com/2026/07/31/s...

Between Trump's Minnesota thing, the NYT indifference to Trump's obvious insanity, and Sen. Bernie Morano still ignoring violence against his own daughter, gonna tap the sign again: There's no ideology involved here, they're all just huge pieces of

What the hell is wrong with Republicans, man

Everything the party does it does out of giddy cruelty; ascribing some higher strategy or purpose to it makes you look crazier than they are.

unchartedblue.com

This is a completely insane interview in that the things they are discussing are so alarming that their heads should be exploding and yet they are calm. History will be unkind to those, like the NYT, who underreacted to Trump’s violation of the country. 1/2 www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/o...

Opinion | How Trump Has Changed, With Maggie Haberman

The New York Times correspondent says 70 percent of the president’s mind is dedicated to White House renovations.

nytimes.com

So basically an adversary could attack any blue state and Trump wont care because he doesn't see himself as the President of the "United States" Without a doubt the most worst president we've ever had. Anti-republic, anti-democratic, anti-constitutional just devoid of basic dignity

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 5d ago

Trump: "We heard in Minnesota there was a cyberattack and they blame it on Iran. I don't think so. I blame it on Minnesota because they're grossly incompetent. Iran's got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota."

A very serious Rural Politico once told me "Dems have to go to farmer meetings! We gotta be where the people are!" I was in fact in a farmer meeting at that very moment! So I live-texted him the meeting. They were complaining that they want indentured workers that they don't have to pay or feed.

Lucas Tieman@lucastieman.bsky.social · 6d ago

There would be more pushback if folks left of center were more serious about outreach. But folks aren't despite the fact that our system does give disproportionate power to rural areas. But instead of taking that as the rules of the game as it exists, and actually organizing, we complain about it.