It is just unequivocally really really relay good that we did not nominate someone who holds a view that is representative of 5% of the Democratic Party electorate on an issue that is only increasingly divisive.

#StupidSuez@diplomatofnight.com · 1h ago

Senator is actually one of the jobs where your views on foreign policy matter most and it's a genuinely incredible thing that the Democratic candidate for Michigan is someone who wants to end aid to Israel, Egypt and the UAE and not a mindless drone who wanted to give Netanyahu another $20B.

I mean this sincerely: I think pro Israel people really need to begin internalizing that this is not a fringe opinion anymore and in fact is very statistically likely to be the average view of any brown Democratic candidate for office or any candidate under the age of 50

Todd Blanche’s Department of Justice continues to let criminals off the hook so long as they’re loyal to Donald Trump. Trump already gave insurrectionists clemency, now he’s wiping their records clean. It doesn’t get more un-American than this.

The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · 18h ago

A federal judge agreed to dismiss the seditious-conspiracy case against the leader of the Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, and seven other members of the extremist group who planned to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The media and the establishment Dems treat this guy like the grim reaper because for them, that's exactly what he is. Even normies have been trained to know that all politicians are bought and paid for and the DNC likes that because it gives them some latitude to do a little corruption, just less.

The Wall Street Journal@wsj.com · 17h ago

New York City’s business elites are long accustomed to direct access to City Hall, where even Democratic mayors felt the need to court the city’s wealthiest and most influential corporate leaders. That access is getting shredded by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Indeed! As the UCB research I cited here shows (contra Searchlight et al.), while climate change is not a *top* issue for voters, climate action is actually a *winning* issue. Especially when the world is on fire. www.transitiontimes.net/tt-12-a-fail...

TT#12: A Failure to Communicate

Most media organizations are still failing to make the critical link between climate change and the wildfires, record heat, and other climate disasters we are witnessing, but a few are getting it righ...

transitiontimes.net

Leah Stokes@leahstokes.bsky.social · 3h ago

El-Sayed, Lawrence and McKinney all won progressive campaigns in Michigan last night by talking about climate and clean energy like it was a kitchen-table issue — because skyrocketing energy bills and endless wildfire smoke matter to people.

Giving Trump more “usable” nuclear weapons would be like giving matches to an arsonist. We must make it harder for Trump to go nuclear, not easier. The Pentagon’s new plan is insane.

NEW: Dozens of ads containing video and other child sexual abuse material ran across Meta’s social media platforms, including some as recently as yesterday. @mattburgess1.bsky.social has the scoop: www.wired.com/story/meta-r...

Meta Ran Ads That Contained AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Imagery

More than 50 offending image and video ads were published across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or Threads, according to Meta’s ad library data. Some ran as recently as this week.

wired.com

Also ironic that post-“Free Speech absolutism” the solution continually put forward to “regain trust” is to adhere to the politically correct opinion in the denotative sense of the word

noam@noamchompers.bsky.social · 3h ago

i do get the handwringing about how academia relates to the public, but fundamentally, any proposal that involves academics not saying what they earnestly believe, even and especially when it is at variance from public opinion is a nonstarter for me

This is the kind of stuff that is infuriating even to normal people who actively do not care about politics. Just say a thing is a thing. Yes, Obama won. Yes, Trump won. Yes, fucking Joe Biden won. Just because Trump is the most fragile, insecure narcissist on the planet you can just tell the truth.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2h ago

holy shit -- Schiff ties Trump's judicial nominees in knots by asking them who won the 2016 before *before* asking them who won in 2020, which results in them sounding like election deniers about Trump's victories!

Took them less than 24 hours to go full on xenophobia and Islamophobia. They are quick to the trigger…

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 5h ago

JD Vance: "We don't want the next administration, whoever -- god forbid you're gonna have President El-Sayed in three years ... "

The world’s in a gangsterish state, with Trump, Putin & Xi turning dependencies into protection rackets. That’s a dilemma for candidates to be next UN Sec. General. How to defend basic norms without crossing the veto-wielding bullies of the Security Council? My column economist.com/internationa...

Al Capone would recognise today’s world order. That’s not good

In a gangsterish age, the UN needs an ultra-pragmatist as secretary-general

economist.com

I know it sucks, but Dems have got to be prepared to inherit a munitions-and-readiness hole that is going to be expensive to fill, but which will need to be filled. Hardly the only such hole, but it will be a big one.

Secretary of Defense Rock@sodrock.bsky.social · 3h ago

Who knew ridiculously long deployments and demanding op tempos run a ship and crew into the ground!

The US is one big conspiracy-generating country. This one keeps making up new stuff that is blatantly false. Gates did participate in some discussions with officials during the pandemic, but that doesn´t mean he had any official role or had decision-making authority. 1/6

And right on time, another Trump court pick -- Anna St. John, up for a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit -- will only say Biden was "certified" president in 2020. Blumenthal: Was the Capitol attacked on Jan. 6? St. John: "I want to be very careful with my language...."

Former J6 federal prosecutors are begging senators -- mostly GOPers, but a handful of Dems are in there, too -- to stop confirming election deniers to lifetime federal courts seats. “Please stop poisoning our courts." www.huffpost.com/entry/live-u...

Former J6 Prosecutors Beg Senators To Stop Confirming Election Deniers To Court Seats

huffpost.com

I'm not saying you can identify (some) abusers by their body language and communication style. But I'm not not saying it either.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6h ago

Rep. Max Miller on his ex-wife: "It's sad to see that the only person this affects is our daughter, someone I don't think she cares about very much"

BLUMENTHAL: Judge Cronan, you're already on the district court. Who won the 2020 election? CRONAN: Joseph Biden received the majority of electoral votes B: You have nothing to lose. You have a lifetime appointment, and yet you're unwilling to state the simple fact that Biden won the 2020 election

Today on Volts: What should local officials do when a data center comes calling? With Saleem Chapman, I walk through @climatecabinet.org's comprehensive blueprint: what to require of them before they're built and when they are running, so that they benefit communities, not just investors.

What should state policymakers do about data centers?

A conversation with Saleem Chapman of Climate Cabinet.

volts.wtf

Actually enforcing existing laws (Mamdani) vs. reactionary lawmaking that would make many things worse (Menin). bsky.app/profile/c-so...

Chris Sommerfeldt@c-sommerfeldt.bsky.social · 3h ago

Mayor Zohran Mamdani announces that New York City is issuing cease and desist letters to more than 40 retailers selling illegal e-bikes (generally, vehicles that can go faster than local speed limits allow). The targeted retailers include Amazon and Best Buy.

To my surprise, the @financialtimes.com published my response to Valdai Sam’s pathetic equivocations. 🇺🇦’s growing ability to resist russian aggression is not an obstacle to peace. The obstacle is russia’s belief that further violence may still deliver greater rewards. www.ft.com/content/bf6a...

Letter: A dangerous misreading of the state of the battlefield

From Andrew Chakhoyan, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

ft.com

BLUMENTHAL: Judge Cook, was the Capitol attack on January 6? COOK: I hesitate to use the word 'attack'

In the US, zero emissions buses accounted for only 5.6% of total new bus registrations in recent data theicct.org/publication/... US is absolutely falling behind on this metric, and things seem to be getting worse in recent months.

Warspitefella 🇬🇧🇺🇦@warspitefella.bsky.social · 12h ago

Electric Buses Point of no return - have gone from 12% to 56% of new city bus sales in Europe in just 6yrs Europe's 2035 target of 100% zero emission bus sales could be reached as early as 2028 Bravo Europe 🇪🇺!

the squirming Candeub does in this clip ... absolutely brutal

Nice oil tanker you got there. Sure would be a shame if it hit a mine, or if someone's drone just happened to fire a missile into it. Maybe you could pay this very reasonable "environmental fee" and we could see if that might make you feel safer. www.reuters.com/world/middle...

Proposed Hormuz deal would give Iran control of inbound traffic, sources say

A proposed deal between Iran and Oman would give Tehran control over ships entering the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, a senior Iranian source and two regional officials told Reuters, in one of th...

reuters.com

as noted yesterday, Trump has now come around to treating an Iranian toll system covering the Strait of Hormuz as a given. Hard to overstate the level of strategic failure. US started the war purely as a war of choice and ends up dramatically empowering Iran and given the Iranian govt big wins.

Bill Grueskin@bgrueskin.bsky.social · 4h ago

Reuters: Iran wants fees of 5%-7% of the price of cargo from ships using the strait; Oman wants 3%. "Making fees voluntary, at least nominally, could be a way out of the impasse, although an implied threat of Iranian attacks could mean shippers would be ​unlikely to risk transit without paying."

El-Sayed: "Mike Rogers is a guy who wants to put a data center in your backyard so he can make himself feel a little more manly by making an AI video ... he's a guy who went back to Florida so he could lick every single boot Donald Trump owns to bet for his endorsement."

"Professor Reddy had repeatedly been quoted as blaming the university’s financial woes on administrative bloat and bad real estate deals...'I should be able to use tenure in this way,' he said in an interview. 'This is what tenure is for. It’s within my professional competence as an economist.'”

Kathleen Bachynski@bachynski.bsky.social · 8h ago

Universities “are increasingly acting like other employers, finding “complicated and sometimes pretextual reasons” to fire employees, even those with tenure. “What we’re seeing at the New School is emblematic of the rising pressures on higher education as a labor market and as an industry”

It would be helpful to split this into separate poll questions. It’s reasonable to think vote counting will be (basically) accurate but our electoral system is unfair. How insightful is a poll where Democrats holding that view can only express it by giving the same answer as MAGA election deniers?

Andrew Daniller@adaniller.bsky.social · 3h ago

New: A narrow majority of Americans (55%) are confident that this November’s midterm elections will be conducted fairly and accurately – down from 61% ahead of the 2024 elections, 64% in 2022 and 59% in 2020. www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

"training in Marxist economics tends to give you a) a weird, unrealistic and largely useless theory of economics plus b) a clear understanding of how economics relates to political power. While a training in mainstream neoclassical economics only gives you the first of these."

rent, always rent

economics of the Zohranmarket

backofmind.substack.com

The AI framework excludes open models entirely, and doesn’t define what a ‘national security risk’ is. www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

Trump’s AI testing plan is limited and vague

And the details are hush-hush.

theverge.com