Jack Shafer
@jackshafer.bsky.social
I am easily found. Shafer.Writer@gmail.com
The latest edition of my (free) comics history newsletter is out! buttondown.com/howcomics/ar...
How Comics Were Sold (to Newspapers)
Hello from the next installment of newspaper comics history and lore! In this issue, I talk about the way in which cartoons were advertised to editors by...
buttondown.com
Exclusive: Ghislaine Maxwell was honored at a prestigious Clinton event years after sexual misconduct allegations surfaced www.cnn.com/2025/08/24/p...
Exclusive: Ghislaine Maxwell was honored at a prestigious Clinton event years after sexual misconduct allegations surfaced | CNN Politics
Years after she was publicly accused in civil lawsuits and the press of helping Jeffrey Epstein groom and sexually abuse minors, Ghislaine Maxwell was an honored guest at the prestigious Clinton Globa...
cnn.com
Penn & Teller reinvented magic. And stayed together for 50 years. I spent a couple days with them to figure out the secret. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/17/a...
Penn & Teller’s Greatest Trick: Making Us Think They’re Not Friends
nytimes.com
Terrific piece by @jackshafer.bsky.social about the many flavors and shades of Trump's corruption. Well informed by US history. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
Opinion | Trump’s honest graft
The president has turned himself into the central dispenser — and recipient — of economic opportunity.
washingtonpost.com
An event in Buffalo to launch a "Protect Local Journalism" campaign was postponed because of death threats to a local journalist. The threats began after Pulitzer winner Adam Zyglis drew a cartoon that some people didn't like (you can see it in the next post) 1/2 www.instagram.com/p/DL8JF1nyLA...
Holy cow. CNN used to hold the No. 1 position with the NYT and the WashPost battling it out for No. 2. Now the Times is first, CNN second, and the Post is ... 17th. pressgazette.co.uk/media-audien...
Top 50 news websites in the US: Top sites see steep traffic falls in May
Press Gazette lists the top 50 biggest websites for news in the US. Monthly updated top 50 listing based on data from Similarweb.
pressgazette.co.uk
Perhaps this signifies that after Trump departs he expects the country to revert from personalist rule to its previous status as a constitutional republic.
Michelle L. Price@michellelprice.bsky.social · last yr.President Donald Trump will control the so-called “golden share” under the U.S. Steel deal, according to SEC disclosures. However, control over those powers reverts to Treasury & Commerce Depts when anyone else is president, according to the filings: apnews.com/article/trum...
What's with this euphemistic language about Trump trying to "shift the ideological tilt of the higher education system" being repeated 2x by the NYT in 24 hours? And why call it a "bid" or "push"? Reality: He's using illegal tactics to try to *control* higher ed by dictating policies and personnel.
If missed, from me: at some point Trump is likely to try his "choke off federal funding until they surrender" racket on one or more of the fifty state governments. Here's what might happen then
California has a date with Trump in court
The Constitution limits his power to push states around
walterolson.substack.com
They say this and then in two years your AI girlfriend will keep steering the dinner conservation toward Squarespace discount codes
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · last yr.“Altman emphasized that modifying the model's output based on who pays for the ad would be ‘a trust-destroying moment’ for its users.” 🤷🏿♂️
hey @jackshafer.bsky.social, come back ... 👇
Maximillian Potter@maxpotter.bsky.social · last yr.This story is about 28 paragraphs long. The first 27 read like a press release from the regime’s propaganda office. The lede and point is buried in the very last paragraph. Remarkable. www.politico.com/news/2025/06... From Los Angeles to Washington, Trump leans in as commander in chief - POLITICO
The longstanding joke about xenotransplantation--it's the future and always will be--may soon lose all its punch. www.science.org/content/arti...
Can gene-edited pigs solve the organ transplant shortage?
With clinical trials imminent, hopes are rising high for the long-struggling field of xenotransplantation
science.org
The New York Times has found at least two more fake citations in the MAHA report. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/w...
White House Health Report Included Fake Citations
nytimes.com
NEW: A far-right political activist with a history of anti-gay rhetoric and promoting conspiracy theories about Barack Obama was fired from a senior leadership role at the Kennedy Center after CNN asked about his past comments. www.cnn.com/2025/05/29/p...
Far-right activist with history of anti-gay comments fired from leadership role at Kennedy Center after CNN investigation | CNN Politics
Floyd Brown, a far-right political activist with a history of anti-gay rhetoric and promoting conspiracy theories about former President Barack Obama, said he was fired from a senior leadership role h...
cnn.com
After 20-plus years, I’m leaving my staff job at Slate. In an industry where steady employment is … unusual … I’m so grateful to have had a long tenure at a great place with great people 1/4
In a long monologue in the Oval Office beside Canadian PM Mark Carney this afternoon, the President appears to say the trade "deals" his team are working on are not deals in the traditional sense, as they will not have to be signed. This is really significant! More in thread.
we can save money on the flyover by telling him they are only using 'stealth planes'!
I'm fine with Trump's June military parade if he follows his two dolls and five pencils logic and downsizes it to one tank, one soldier, and one aircraft flyover.
Actually, it's First Amendment behavior.
The Bulwark@thebulwark.com · last yr.Stephen Miller on Gov. J.B. Pritzker calling for mass protests: “His comments…could be construed as inciting violence…This war that Democrat governors and mayors are waging against federal law enforcement. I mean, this is nullificationist behavior. This is secessionist behavior.”
A senile king surrounded by rival factions of eunuchs
Exclusive | Trump Advisers Took Advantage of Navarro’s Absence to Push for Tariff Pause
The alliance between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick illustrates how fast things can change inside the White House.
wsj.com
In retrospect, it continues to seem like a really bad decision by the New York Times to push out Paul Krugman, their longtime columnist who won his Nobel Prize in the economics of trade and geography right before we have 4 years where trade policy is the #1 crisis in the country.
"If universities are not willing to stand up for the free speech and academic freedom of their students and faculty, then what, if any, values do they stand for?"
Ilya Somin@ilyasomin.bsky.social · last yr.In this post, I commend universities that filed amicus brief in AAUP case challenging speech-based deportations of foreign students, but also explain why this isn't adequate substitute for universities bringing a case of their own: reason.com/volokh/2025/...
i have argued before that MAGA is recapitulating antebellum pro-slavery ideas about citizenship and bodily autonomy. one thing i am also thinking about, when it comes to the rendition of people to a foreign gulag, is the way it is reminiscent of the kidnapping of free blacks for sale into slavery
Team Trump Is Gaming Out How to Ship U.S. Citizens to El Salvador
Donald Trump’s administration is talking internally about denaturalizing American citizens — and potentially sending some to El Salvador.
rollingstone.com
"Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland, has this great line, which is like, 'How absurd it is that 500 million Europeans are begging 300 million Americans for help dealing with 140 million Russians who can’t even handle 50 million Ukrainians?'” www.vanityfair.com/news/story/n...
Nick Denton on Betting Against Elon Musk, Aligning With Peter Thiel, and Selling That SoHo Loft
The former Gawker publisher has had it with America under Trump. As he prepares to move to Budapest, Denton talks Cybertrucks, Curtis Yarvin, and growing out of enfant terribleness.
vanityfair.com