This is incredible content, it's the same "it's cheaper if you cook / I'm too tired from work to cook" discourse from BlueSky except literally no one posting actually cooks or has a real job, so nobody has any standing to argue either side and yet they're far nastier about it.

huck mason@tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 7h ago

for reasons that only make sense if you're insane, a TPUSA kid complaining about burrito costs on xitter has the GOP's biggest divas going for each other's throats.

Genuinely shocked. But good!

The Hill@thehill.com · 2h ago

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) says he will vote against acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination to serve in the role permanently, putting more pressure on Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to limit GOP defections on the high-profile nominee.

Hmmm, an interesting argument, but I prefer to re-interpret every election as validating my prior beliefs about electability! 🙃

Deva Woodly@devawo.bsky.social · 11h ago

I’m telling you this as a political scientist. The person who is electable is the one who is elected. This can and does change over time. Any and all speculation about “electability” is either puffery or anxiety and is often both.

There are no trans women in the WNBA. There are no trans women NCAA basketball players. Hell, who knows if there are even any trans girls playing HS basketball.

Razzball@razzball.bsky.social · yesterday

Did we ever find out if the A is for Asshole?

So far by my count he’s wrecked the rose garden, the east wing, and the south lawn. When he eventually leaves office, will there be a blade of grass left on the site?

Dan Diamond@ddiamond.bsky.social · yesterday

Scoop: Trump has ordered workers to redo weeks of work on his planned White House helipad new WaPo photos show how past work was removed over weekend Trump is contemplating changes to White House lawn's slope, raising bigger Qs about project and cost

This issue was resolved by US v Morris, 928 F.2d 504 (2d Cir 1991), codified by the CFAA in 1996, and clarified by Van Buren v US, 141 S.Ct. 1648 (2021). They intentionally deployed an unauthorized access tool. It's no defense to say they didn't intend the resulting damage; Morris lost on that. 1/2

Zack Whittaker@zackwhittaker.com · 2d ago

After Anthropic and OpenAI both admitted to their AI models hacking other companies, @lorenzofb.bsky.social and I wanted to find out: Who is legally to blame when an autonomous AI agent hacks something? Lawyers say it's really complicated! Bypass for ad-blockers: web.archive.org/web/20260803...

I agree with Edsall: Dems should try to win without the support of women, minorities, LGBTQ people, leftists, or people who need/support social services and/or are concerned about gun violence. Surely there's enough rich white straight male reactionary centrist columnists for an electoral majority!

Larry Glickman@larryglickman.bsky.social · yesterday

From Tom Edsall’s column. I wish he had specified what he means by “wedge-issue attacks.” I’m also not sure what it means to say that Dems have been “vulnerable” to these things for 60 years. Presumably, he is suggesting that backlash politics has, on balance, harmed the Democrats.

public libraries ftw

The richest person in the world, an avowed white supremacist, today again posted "the next step is getting rid of 'source code' entirely and just making an efficient binary directly with AI" because he has no idea how anything works, not even the basics of industries he is in.

Great exhibit of how toxic masculinity is bad for men too. How does it help him to be this angry about random (and possibly imaginary) people who recall his appearance 19 years ago in one of his many popular films?

Dan of the Year@downwithdan.bsky.social · 2d ago

He will never understand that being "the fat guy from Superbad" is infinitely better than being "the martial arts chud nobody likes"

They think they're being clever eugenicists by saying that people with "underlying health issues" don't matter, but >75% of U.S. adults have a chronic condition (including 60% of age 18–34). So what they're really saying is "nobody matters, it's okay if everybody dies from inadequate regulation."

The New York Times@nytimes.com · 2d ago

Breaking News: Two deaths in Michigan have been linked to cyclospora. Both people who had the parasite also had underlying health issues.

Time to add another formerly respected institution to the garbage pile, this time @aau.edu, which just worked with the Trump admin to endorse resegregation in high education, embedding MAGA fraudsters as faculty, and banning student expression. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

My take on COVID "lockdowns" (really, state and local decisions in the face of a killer plague) is that yes they were bad for children and this is an additional reason why it was morally repugnant when huge segments of the population refused to help with social distancing. Shame on you all.

They got what they paid for

Shipwreck@shipwreck75.bsky.social · 3d ago

Behind the scenes, Gulf countries are frustrated with what they see as a lack of a clear strategy from the U.S. as the war drags on, subjecting their territories to frequent Iranian attacks, people familiar with the matter said.

BRB, gonna get a panel of experts in criminal law and domestic abuse to "think about that" and whoa that was quick they're all holding up signs that say "AYFKM?"

The Bulwark@thebulwark.com · 3d ago

Rep. Max Miller: "These are incredibly serious criminal accusations. If these accusations were true, I would be in jail — I would be. My former wife would not have been offering to cook me dinner and inviting me to playgrounds. Think about that."

and GOD IS EMPTY JUST LIKE ME

This is a story about the President and several of his hand-picked appointees all committing crimes and blatantly lying to the public while stealing public funds and abusing the criminal justice system, but the NYTimes describes the situation like they're recapping a soap opera.

Larry Glickman@larryglickman.bsky.social · 3d ago

Another example of the problem with the fixation with Trump’s putative emotions: here a story about the Trump administration’s corruption, incompetence, and venality is framed as one about Trump’s “wrath.” www.nytimes.com/2026/08/01/u...

Not only did they absolutely beg for this, they made it so that “merit” was synonymous with being white so now you’re stuck with precisely the kind of moron who believes that. www.politico.com/news/magazin...

That's what business AI-adoption has looked like to me. Management wants a magic button to increase output >2x while cutting staff by >50%. The actual (and few) AI success stories are all "expert in the field is also computer-savvy and built a custom harness for a fractional productivity increase."

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)@doctorow.pluralistic.net · 4d ago

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: pluralistic.net/2026/08/01/d... 2/

After 20 years of legal practice while watching increase Republican lawlessness, my view is less abstract legal theorizing and more carving into a rock "if a proſecutour bringeth a cauſe without merit, then ſhall he ſerue the ſelfe-ſame ſentence which he ſought for the falſely accuſed."

Matthew Guariglia@mguariglia.bsky.social · 4d ago

I worry that most cynical among us, hopped up on 30 years of law and order rhetoric, will say "this is the system working: he didn't do anything wrong and now he's free." As if the terror and wide-scale publicity of an arrest and federal prosecution is not a horrible punishment in and of itself.

Among potential 2028 contenders, Newsom seems the most committed in trying to turn Trump's allies into his own allies, hence constantly kissing the assess of the worst people in the country, like this gift for the Ellisons. Bold strategy, Cotton, let's see how the Dem base likes that.

Murshed Zaheed@murshedz.bsky.social · 5d ago

when it comes down to it - @gavinnewsom.bsky.social bends the knee to big money and billionaires. This time he is bending the knee to billionaire monopolists - pushing for a media merger helping the right wing media project.

kamala and pete both on board, 13 is table stakes for 2028

Taegan Goddard@politicalwire.com · 5d ago

Harris Says Supreme Court Should Expand to 13 Justices https://politicalwire.com/2026/07/31/harris-says-supreme-court-should-expand-to-13-justices/

Like the hypocrisy and the open corruption, the naked, brazen lying is itself aspiring authoritarianism. They aren't lying to cover anything up. They're saying, "We know we're lying. You know we're lying. And we know you know we're lying. And there's nothing you can do about it."

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

whenever someone tells you that it's simply impossible for police to be charged with misconduct or criminal charges, you can tell they're wrong because some cops do get charged regularly — when they are whistleblowers or reformers prosecutors are actually extremely eager to help drum them out!

Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 5d ago

Prosecutors charged an LAPD officer with felony eavesdropping for making secret recordings of his colleagues’ racist, sexist and homophobic comments on the job

It's been a huge success in two aspects: (a) damage and (b) making SCOTUS and the federal courts majority lawless GOP partisans. They wanted a huge cultural and ideological shift in their favor too and got neither, but they don't really care because (b) locks it all in anyway until that's fixed.

Chris Hayes@chrislhayes.bsky.social · 5d ago

Something I think that underlies a lot of debates within the Democratic party and center-left right now is whether or not you think Trumpism has been successful as a political and ideological project. (Not, obviously, whether it's been good or not).

I can tell the bond folks the exact date Kevin Warsh will start advocating for major rate hikes to tame inflation: January 20, 2029

ryan cooper@ryanlcooper.com · 5d ago

"it’s clear that the bond market reaction wasn’t a judgment on the rate decision itself. It was, instead, a judgment on Warsh." paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-bond-m...

Indeed, and while tech usually scales, AI itself does not. Those same hyperscalers carry >$1.2 trillion in off-balance-sheet debt for data centers precisely because AI unit costs don't go down with scale (much less reach "near-zero"). AI requires hefty compute costs every single time it's run.

JW Mason@jwmason.bsky.social · 5d ago

It is certainly true that the tech sector enjoys increasing returns. But it is *not* true that this is a difference from "traditional production industries" - increasing returns are ubiquitous in manufacturing. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Quite telling how every argument for AI data centers is transparent bullshit. It creates no lasting jobs or population movement at all. Literally no reason for any place to allow it unless the community extracts massive perpetual cash payments in return.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 5d ago

Hassett: "Data centers are very good for towns bc they create so many jobs & bring people in with high incomes that can buy houses & stuff like that. So if you take a sleepy town that hasn't seen much in the last 30 years & put a data center there, there are gonna be a bunch of happy residents."