Joan McCarter
@joanmccarter.com
Political writer, politician haranguer, senior pet caretaker, gardener
Cough…John Roberts did this…cough
Eric Lipton NYT@ericlipton.nytimes.com · yesterdayWhat an odd moment in United States history. A U.S. president is running an overtly political camaign advertisement, right before midterm elections, paid for by the U.S. government. Trump appears to believe he is immune from any kind of legal limit. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/27/u...
After a long day at the aquarium, the otters help tidy their toys away. Payment is made promptly and entirely in ice cubes.
What amazes me is that some version of this story runs in every election cycle, and no one ever bothers to look up past iterations to see that it's not new or particularly rare.
NPR@npr.org · yesterdayIt's rare for Democrats to make religion a centerpiece of their campaigns. But this midterm election cycle, a number of candidates for Congress are doing just that.
More and more people are saying it, in veteran progressive operative circles: none of us know who Evan Barker is.
Jeff Hauser@jeffhauser.bsky.social · 3d agoSame! She was the from on a fundraiser invite, once. No other appearance in my inbox, which dates to 2005.
There is no Republican "split" with Trump. It's catnip for access media, but the desperate ploy to align with the supermajority of voters who can't stand the president is tissue-thin. The same people saying the Iran war needs to end voted yesterday to keep it going. #Realtalk here.
Republicans Had 690 Days to Oppose Trump - The American Prospect
They’re trying to cram all the opposition into the last 40 before the election.
prospect.org
There is something so unbelievably bleak about an article that calmly walks readers through how to navigate being laid off after 50, losing your health insurance, and somehow surviving the years until Medicare. What a broken country.
Laid Off After 50, and No Health Insurance? Here’s What to Consider. (Gift Article)
At best, older workers will struggle to find health insurance that bridges the years before they qualify for Medicare at age 65.
nytimes.com
For the uninitiated: This is a _huge_ problem with LLMs and with Google's push to reduce every search to a single LLM answer: The answers are ridiculously hackable. You don't need to be a nationstate, companies and individuals can do it to.
Prem Thakker ツ@premthakker.bsky.social · 6d agoNEW: Israel is paying for a new website to seemingly influence AI chatbots to spout out pro-Israel answers, per foreign agent documents. It's barely been a month and the site has already churned out 110+ articles.
NEW: @apnews.com confirms that ICE has begun electronically "disappearing" people in the agency's custody who have final orders of removal. As of last week, anyone jailed by ICE with a final order of removal will NOT appear in the ICE Online Detainee Locator System, making them effectively vanish.
AP Exclusive: ICE hides locations of thousands of detainees with final removal orders
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stopped publicly revealing where it is holding most detainees who are subject to final deportation orders, in a move that has made it harder for lawyers an...
apnews.com
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · last wk.Stay tuned for more on this from mainstream reporting hopefully later today, but Bob's got the gist of it; last week, it appears that ICE began disappearing people from the Online Detainee Locator System the moment they get a final order of removal. Yes, this is as deeply screwed up as it sounds.
Hunter Lazzaro gives the Arch de Trump a name more appropriate to its role as sniper nest and drone launcher. www.unchartedblue.com/donald-wants...
Donald wants a Sniper Arch with sightlines to the Lincoln Memorial, and reporters really, really need to ask why
Pretend a Twitch streamer said it if that'll help you get in the mood, press corps.
unchartedblue.com
"This election is about the threat of trans kids" is the worst possible messaging for Dems yet so many candidates are leaning into it. No voter will flip R->D over it. Low-info voters read this as "you're focused on bullshit that doesn't affect me" while the base reads this as "you're an asshole."
Adam Bonin@adambonin.bsky.social · last wk.Incredibly disappointing ad from Mary Peltola (D-AK) saying she neither supports "kids getting surgeries to change genders or men in girls bathrooms." Yes, flipping the Senate is essential and can stop bad laws and bad judges from happening, but she can do it without my support from the lower 48.
Critical information on Prop 1. These deaths are preventable. If a woman wants to die for her pregnancy, it should be her decision alone, not the legislature's. #Idaho
ProPublica@propublica.org · last wk.ProPublica’s analysis of CDC data found that the rate of deaths involving ectopic pregnancies has nearly doubled. The spike alarmed many experts. One said it should “be a never event.”
Well, shit.
MondoAB@mondoab.bsky.social · last wk.Industrial use ⬆️ "The amount of freshwater on earth is seriously declining, reports the World Meteorological Organisation. Last year rivers carried 36% less water than usual and glaciers lost 400 gigatons of ice. Reserves of groundwater are also shrinking in most places." phys.org/news/2026-09...
Did they ask respondents if they had had COVID? Cuz there are millions of us out here with that pesky virus hanging around, sapping us every day.
Wajahat Ali@wajali.bsky.social · last wk.
i'm not over Alito saying we shouldn't count ballots that are mailed on or before Election Day but arrive shortly afterwards bc they can “radically flip” the “apparent outcome” cannot stress enough that, until all ballots are counted, there's no outcome to flip! ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/alito...
A Brief History of Sam Alito’s Delusional Obsession With Voter Fraud
His conduct in several recent cases suggests that Alito is deep in the right-wing conspiracy theory weeds.
ballsandstrikes.org
The fact that Bezos needs to piss and also the fact that he commands an army of hundreds of thousands of workers who are prohibited from pissing really supports my hypothesis that billionaires don't really believe that other people are *real*.
Today, we announced positive results from our Phase 2 signal finding ADDRESS-LC trial evalulating bezisterim for the treatment of neurological symptoms associated with #LongCOVID. Read: investors.bioviepharma.com/news/news-de...
Genuinely an insane paragraph from Sam Alito. “Voter fraud is real and scary and we have to stop it, so the fact that implementing Trump’s mail ballot rule will disenfranchise millions is legally irrelevant.” Brain melted. A right-wing podcaster in a robe. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...
And then it was when the unhappy king (Whose wrongs in us God pardon!) did set forth Upon his Irish expedition
If you are wondering what kind of BS the USPS could pull to stop ballots (maybe especially from Democratic counties) from being mailed, if the Supreme Court allows the rule to go into effect for 2026, get out your microscopes....
Rick Hasen@rickhasen.bsky.social · 3w ago#ELB: USPS Rejects Florida County’s Mail Ballot Envelope Design over Return Address Being 0.014 of An Inch Too Close https://electionlawblog.org/2026/usps-rejects-florida-countys-mail-ballot-envelope-design-over-return-address-being-0-014-of-an-inch-too-close/
Trump's massive surveillance state and attacks on our civil liberties wouldn't have been possible without the PATRIOT Act. Watch this prescient warning from Russ Feingold, the only Senator to vote against its passage after 9/11.
Over six months, we tracked the appearance of child sexual abuse material on X. We found images from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's database, which is considered one of the most highly vetted and which many tech companies block on upload. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/11/t...
Elon Musk Has Pledged to Rid His Platform, X, of Child Sexual Abuse, but It Persists
Reviews by the Canadian Center for Child Protection and The New York Times found that explicit images of children remain on the social media site owned by Elon Musk.
nytimes.com
Not to brag, but our product has been foldable since 1828.
Culture Crave 🍿@culturecrave.co · 2y agoApple is aiming to release a foldable iPhone in 2026 📱 (via WSJ)
Kickstarter to create a documentary about the Egyptian Theatre & its history in Boise. Support if you can! @kickstarter.com www.kickstarter.com/projects/jel...
Preserving the Egyptian Theatre Legacy
Help preserve 100 years of cultural history at Boise’s Egyptian Theatre with this one-hour documentary project.
kickstarter.com
good thing this was screen-capped because there's a 100% chance Collins and her team are on the phone to @pressherald.com editors screaming about this now that's a hallmark of her tenure, yelling over accurate coverage, hoping media will back down (and they often do)
danny@dabbs346.bsky.social · 3w agoEven the Portland Press Herald says Susan Collins' attack ads are full of shit #mesen #mepolitics www.pressherald.com/2026/09/09/s...
“Under the law, both the person who pays the supplemental income and the person who receives it are liable. The Trump Justice Department might decline to enforce the law, but the statute of limitations is five years. Trump’s term ends in a little over two years.”
Dan Diamond@ddiamond.bsky.social · 3w agoTrump gave $45,000 cash gifts to Natalie Harp and two other close aides, per financial disclosures. Washington Post exclusive from @aaronschaffer.com and Cat Zakrzewski
Excellent, disturbing reporting from Sarah Kliff. Seems like, among other horrifying things, this lawsuit abuser left a placenta in a woman and then charged her twice to remove it.
Eric Umansky@ericumansky.bsky.social · 3w agoAn OB-GYN sued (often low-income, uninsured) patients for owing as little as $114. He charged them 18% interest. And oh, he had many of them *arrested* if they didn't follow through. That OB-GYN? Republican Senator Roger Marshall www.nytimes.com/2026/09/08/u... Insane story by Sarah Kliff
As you surely suspected, and @attackerman.bsky.social confirms, ICE and CBP are ridden with sex criminals & child abusers.
The Sex Criminals and Child Abusers of ICE and CBP
Rape. Domestic violence. Epstein friendship. It's all tolerated by our valiant homeland-security apparatus. PLUS: COINTELPRO 2026
forever-wars.com
In #nature and #science news from #Idaho … 🔬=💪 🙂 1. From @boisedev.com - boisedev.com/news/2026/08... 2. From @boisestatepublicradio.org - www.boisestatepublicradio.org/science-rese...
The point of “tax the rich” policies is not to end the budget deficit. Its purpose is to make American society fair. As we’ve long said, the purpose of a progressive tax system is to make sure all citizens feel “equally jilted” by taxes.
Cato Institute@cato.org · 3w agoThere are not enough high-income Americans to finance the current federal budget deficit, let alone fund additional spending or tax cuts. Check out the math from Cato's Adam Michel. https://ow.ly/6HQA50ZIhNW
