Astra Taylor and I wrote this book together because facing the monsters alone is just too scary. When we face them with friends, however, we don’t just get scared–we get mad, we get motivated, and we get organized.
[Vladimir Harkonnen voice] She who controls the information controls the president.
Why Natalie Harp is the most important, and powerful, person in Trump’s White House
YouTube video by Takes™ by Jamelle Bouie
youtu.be
They will infantilize her because blonde and baby fundie voice. they will appeal to the position’s gendered title (“secretary”) to make her seem weak & vulnerable. She is the most powerful person in any room that Trump occupies. She is the emperor’s clothes.
One of the smartest ideas I've seen in the last few years is instead of trying to find "the Joe Rogan of the left," buy up the news sites of defunct papers and put some money into providing local news coverage in rural areas.
Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 2d agoAt an invitation-only gathering in Italy, white supremacists mapped out strategies to target rural America while local press coverage vanishes www.confrontthehate.com/p/white-nati...
Throw sand in the gears of this regime however you can.
JJ in DC@jjindc.bsky.social · 2d ago“I know this is going to sound extremely radical, or crazy,” she recounted telling the woman, “but ICE is there at the gate, and they're looking for you."
this is a really underrated factor in the Natalie Harp media explosion yes, Ossoff hit exactly the right target, but a big reason she was the right target is that everyone else around Trump finds her incredibly weird and offputting and is very excited to talk shit behind her back
Ian Boudreau@ianboudreau.com · 3d agoAnyway it seems she has coworkers who are eager to anonymously share their stories with the press! So I imagine we'll be learning a lot more in the coming days
This is my husband’s first new academic year in a college town. He is losing his mind. “Who are all these people? Are they still coming?? This town can’t hold it all!”
there is no rhyme or reason to an entire “AI” department, much less an AI school. There is no curriculum, as such, because AI is not a school of thought. It has no theory, no method. It’s just a tool. Two or three courses, max, if someone is obsessed with it should suffice.
Analysis | When voters take to the polls in November, Republican candidates will be weighed down by President Trump. Democratic candidates will be weighed down by Wisconsin primary runner-up Francesca Hong.
researchmagazine.gwu.edu/great-data-g...
The Great Data Grab | GW Research Magazine | The George Washington University
From data brokers and advertisers to law enforcement and government agencies, countless actors can access our personal data. GW experts argue that stronger privacy protections are urgently needed in a...
researchmagazine.gwu.edu
Old men are very annoyed at a news cycle about how sad it is when old men crave the adulation of young women, even if it must be purchased for $150,000 a year.
Salome@salome-gongadze.bsky.social · 2d agowhat is it with ex obama people and misreading the room lol? this whole thing sparked a news cycle and endless earned media, feels like a slam dunk to me
Hey, guys, when the librarians get pissed about the destruction of books, it’s time to put those listening ears on. Because we are very comfortable with the idea that books are tools that can be retired. What’s happening right now is not that.
it was a generational fumble for the dems to pull back on letting coach tim, our gentle midwestern uncle, stand in front of a mic and express disgust and bewilderment at what an absolute grab bag of misfit freaks this admin is. this is weird! these people are fucking weirdos!!! it’s yucky!
FactPost@factpostnews.bsky.social · 4d agoTrump aide Natalie Harp spent a summer sleeping in the locker room at Trump's Bedminster golf club to remain close to him after she was denied a room.
I sincerely believe they could have ridden “They Weird, Yo” all the way to the White House.
molly conger@socialistdogmom.bsky.social · 4d agoit was a generational fumble for the dems to pull back on letting coach tim, our gentle midwestern uncle, stand in front of a mic and express disgust and bewilderment at what an absolute grab bag of misfit freaks this admin is. this is weird! these people are fucking weirdos!!! it’s yucky!
It really annoys me when we act like socialism or any collectivism is some strange alchemy only known to its high wizards. Marx SAW. He did not invent. People figure out collective action and class warfare by looking out their front door.
"The team found that the greater the proportion of enslaved people in a county in 1860, the bigger the mortality gap between Black & white people in the 2010s, even after controlling for common factors tied to health inequalities, such as rurality or pop. density" www.science.org/content/arti...
Slavery linked to mortality gap between Black and white Americans today
New study is among the first to quantify and explain slavery’s influence in contemporary U.S. health disparities
science.org
It’s a good, reasonable line of attack. Ossoff is good at wielding it. Keep going.
Anyway, your problem isn‘t finding the time to take notes. The problem is that taking notes is thinking and thinking has to be done by someone. women have been doing a lot of metacognition that looks like a task when it’s really thinking.
Then they have all the transcripts (and the ai token bill) but no sensemaking. so they make another app — a layer that will make sense of all the useless transcripts. But of course sensemaking isnt just pattern spotting. It’s interpretation. AI cannot do either because AI cannot be curious
Every time someone says "but how will we afford it?" I want to ask them how we are affording it now, and in many cases, the answer is that we aren't.
Jen Taub@jentaub.bsky.social · 5d ago“A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it would replace, according to a new preprint study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health.” ysph.yale.edu/news-article...
happy Election Day to those who celebrate! and it's, once again, a busy one. explore what we're watching! boltsmag.org/whats-on-the...
"Why should I be sympathetic to the sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln? They overwhelmingly voted for Trump. This is what they voted for." No, they didn't. Saying this shows just how much you don't know about how the military voted. It's absurdly inaccurate. (thread)
🧵Last wk I read a biography of a US figure whose activity was ~1820-1844 & WOW what a timely reminder that •mis/disinformation •press manipulation •big mvmts formed around weird/awful ideas •foul smear campaigns •gutter racism •political violence •blind eyes turned to sexual predation ain't new!
FWIW the Supreme Court is wrong, racism remains a constitutional problem, and everyone should continue to say so bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
The Originalism Trap: How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back
A rallying cry for a more just approach to the law that bolsters social justice movements by throwing out originalism—the theory that judges should interpret the Constitution exactly as conservatives ...
bookshop.org
FWIW this is why, in The Originalism Trap, I say it's imperative for us to reject the idea that the Court has a monopoly on constitutional interpretation we can push for an emancipatory vision of the Constitution instead of the Supreme Court's neoconfederate nonsense bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
The Originalism Trap: How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back
How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back
bookshop.org
Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie@audrelawdamercy.blacksky.app · 4mo agoyou already know Alito & Roberts hate the VRA but it wasn't enough for them to kill the crown jewel of the Civil Rights Movement Callais hollows out the promise of the Fifteenth Amendment in order to ensure that no other civil rights law gets the chance to live ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/alito...
There are a lot of vultures who used this story to relentlessly attack a Black man to build up their own platforms. There's a lot of influencers and so called journalists deleting a lot of posts and articles after this news broke. I fear none of them will learn a lesson from this.
Mark Chadbourn@chadbourn.bsky.social · 7d agoThis is awful.
This country will never again be the country some people thought it was.
Ohio Capital Journal@ohiocapitaljournal.com · last wk.Haitians living in Springfield, Ohio are being required to wear ankle monitors and turn their passports over to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ohiocapitaljournal.com/2026/08/14/h...
This is all 100% correct. What I want to ask them, from Haberman on down, is what do they think their job IS. Do they believe journalists have a responsibility to find and tell the truth to readers? Do they think journalism has a role to play in holding governments to account? Or just, nah?
I genuinely do not get ANY sense most of the U.S. mainstream establishment political reporters have ANY meaningful understanding of modern politics, authoritarianism, or how badly the information space has been decimated by agitprop
I will also say this. There is a real, authentic cohort of poor and working class people in higher education. They can speak to the complexities of being in and not of a class position without making broad, provocative generalizations. One day, someone should publish those people.