Reminder that when House members like Chuck Edwards leave, the Ethics Committee just packs up their investigation and puts it away and we don't know all that happened. Its an accountability dodge and Ethics should required to release what it has

While we’re dinging Nolan, the dogfighting scenes in DUNKIRK have no leading fire

Sanjay Srivastava@sanjaysrivastava.com · 6d ago

What is an extremely nerdy/obscure/specific thing you hate with a white-hot wrath?

Can’t confirm the kill, but it seems from the evidence our dog killed a juvenile rabbit in the yard. We celebrate each other’s wins in this house, though.

I can’t believe I’m saying this but… Donald Trump is absolutely right about something. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/29/u...

Liked the odyssey but missed my favorite line: I swing my fiery sword I vent my spleen at the lord He is abstract and bored Too much Milk and honey

At least you didn’t do this

House Admin's Modernization and Innovation Subcommittee had a fascinating hearing on how Congress could move from building static websites where constituents find needles in haystacks to platforms that actively guide them to what they want to know about. All that's really missing is the $$$

No Longer Scraping By

How Congress Can Enable Better Constituent Information-Gathering in the AI Age

firstbranchforecast.substack.com

Senate Republicans blocked an extension of Haitian TPS last week. Ohio Senator Jon Husted declined to comment on the bill.

Catherine Rampell@crampell.bsky.social · last wk.

TPS for Haitians officially expires tomorrow. ICE is planning big operations, with Springfield, Ohio among the targets www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-hai...

Could Christopher Nolan just let someone like, I donno, Paul Schrader write a movie for him?

NYRB should do their own version of the Criterion Closet for their book publishing arm imo

“Members of Congress concerned about preserving the constitutional Separation of Powers should warn Vought and agency officials to reverse these lawless actions or else face consequences.” Our own Cerin Lindgrensavage & Georgetown's David A. Super on preserving Congress's power in the Trump era.

Congress rejected some of Trump’s proposed budget cuts. OMB is making them anyway.

President Trump and the Office of Management and Budget are accused of violating the separation of powers by attempting to unilaterally withhold funds that Congress specifically appropriated.

thehill.com

Also, that the secret to being a party leader is to be "a master at appearing to do one thing and doing something completely different." Shhhh! Nerd out with the real master of the Senate. firstbranchforecast.substack.com/p/interview-...

Interview: James Wallner

An insider look into how committee assignments in the Senate are made

firstbranchforecast.substack.com

FWIW, this is pretty much how the white evangelical right took over the GOP in many states beginning in the late 1970s…by recruiting friends from church to run for precinct captain.

Jon Green@jongreen.bsky.social · 2w ago

I get why it feels like this, but also, you and 3-5 neighbors could join your local (city/county) Democratic Party tomorrow and chances are they'd ASK you to run your precinct

If you love this you'll also love the images from John Wymer, who, in the late '40s and '50s, went around the District taking tons of street pictures as a hobby. His collection here is laid out on a Google Map so you can browse any part of the city to see how it looked decades ago.

Wymer's DC

Wymer's DC hosts an interactive story map which overlays historic images of Washington, DC onto Google Street View. Users can toggle between a mid-twentieth century photograph collection and modern im...

wymersdc.com

The 51st@51st.news · 2w ago

The District of Columbia Archives has released its largest digital collection of historic photos — showing new views of the city from 1947 through 1959. Find anything interesting? Let us know!

Second Redemption

Welsh rarebit@welshrarebit.bsky.social · 2w ago

We need a new label for the era that started with the Tea Party, something like The Great Reversal. It’s basically an effort to undo the outcome of the Civil War.

Most comprehensive piece on the problem and proposed solutions I’ve seen out there. I’m not sure about expanding the House to do PR, but I totally agree it’s on Congress to act.

The American Prospect@prospect.org · 2w ago

Attention is turning to an electoral alternative that could achieve a fairer and more inclusive politics: proportional representation, long dismissed as a fringe idea in the United States. prospect.org?p=141273

Makes one think about progress

Stephen Robinson@playtyperguy.com · 2w ago

I voted for the first time in 1992 so it annoys me when pundits like Yglesias urge a Clinton/Gore model for success. First off, while Clinton/Gore were more conservative on some key issues than Dukakis (death penalty, welfare) they didn't openly promote regressive views on culture.

When I worked in WaPo Opinions in 2017-2018, senior editors specifically told junior editors not to factcheck Marc Thiessen and other MAGA columnists, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to publish anything by them at all, and “we need them for intellectual diversity.”

John Carl Baker@johncarlbaker.bsky.social · 9mo ago

It’s very telling that opening your publication to MAGA “thought” requires a massive downgrade in quality control.

If we want to save democracy, we need to get it out of Washington DC. Here is a write up of our pilot local impact field hearings www.linkedin.com/posts/lorele...

#democracy #congress #civicinnovation #firstamendment #publicai #publicmemory #nationalparks #ruralamerica #data #congressionalmodernization #usda #citizenassembly #civictech | Lorelei Kelly | 13 comm...

This week we completed the first two pilots of a new democratic practice: Local Impact Field Hearings. Our first hearing took place at Effigy Mounds National Monument, where community members testifi...

linkedin.com

Okay this is overly general. It’s not “administration policies,” generally, it’s THE MASS TERMINATION OF EXISTING WORK PERMITS due to TPS terminations. That’s the imminent labor shock here.

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

Senior living facilities in the U.S. are in distress as immigrant caregivers are pushed out because of Trump administration policies.

That’s what Worse On Purpose is! I didn’t even know they had a blog until this article started making the rounds. ledger.worseonpurpose.com

There should be a “does private equity own this brand?” website

@laperry2.bsky.social · 2w ago

www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-cookw...

Is this story from 1976?

The Wall Street Journal@wsj.com · 2w ago

The kids are “Nixonmaxxing”: More than half-a-century after Watergate, conservative youth are discovering the aesthetic, and adopting the attitude, of the late president. 🔗 www.wsj.com/politics/ric...

Everybody eats in the second term

Seth Cotlar@sethcotlar.bsky.social · 2w ago

Rubio’s State Department just published a 100-page report identifying Cuba as the locus of Communist infiltration in the US since the 1960s. Absolutely bonkers shit. www.state.gov/wp-content/u...

My absolute sickest burn in high school involved this movie and my AP Euro teacher. The same teacher I ran into at a Virginia Historical Society garden party in grad school (I’d won an award) who forgot my name. (He was an alcoholic)

Colin McGowan@csmcgowan.bsky.social · 2w ago

The Odyssey (2026; dir. Christopher Nolan)

A platoon of national guard left their hotel and was on a grass little kid soccer field the county reserves for their use. They were warming up to play frisbee and I went over and said, hey, sorry, this is for kids, there’s a park a half mile away. The white guys were jerks about it

For this week, I dig into the history of socialism in America and the post-1968 Democratic Party to examine what's happening with Democratic candidates assuming the "democratic socialist" label. We're also false equivalency hunting re: a Tea Party/MAGA of the Left.

Red Alert

Democrats identifying as "democratic socialists" are marking party factional boundaries, not resurrecting Communism. History can help explain what's happening.

open.substack.com

The Odyssey's entire run at the Air and Space Museum's IMAX theater is sold out. What a flop.

I particularly like this quote www.vox.com/2014/7/8/587...