And in fact Republican states like Utah and Ohio have retained their gerrymanders in open defiance of successful referendums demanding non-partisan redistricting

They think you're stupid.

The first epidemic of the 1918 flu in the United States occurred at the military’s Camp Funston, Kansas (later Fort Riley).

Infected soldiers headed to WWI battlefields carried the flu to Europe. Millions died

It’s not *vaccination* that weakens force readiness.

Hello, I updated my goal to account for donations that came in from PayPal and cashapp and I'm at 39% towards my rent covered. Thank you all so much! Shares are a huge help! #helpsky #mutualaid

ko-fi.com/kivabay/goal

Election now, elections forever Just a little something to read while waiting for VA results, with a treat at the end

As results roll in for the VA redistricting referendum, a few final thoughts about cash moneys, the fact that Dems are actually letting actual voters decide on whether they get new maps, and what comes next if Team Yes wins (...lawsuits. It's lawsuits.) open.substack.com/pub/statehou...

Prince passed away 10 years ago today.

RIP, your music lives on.

Matt Damon playing a 14th century French knight that looks like a third baseman for the Phillies. Mullet. Beard. Smells like horse shit, pine tar, and cigarette smoke.

Matt Damon while playing Odysseus who also looks like a third baseman for the Phillies. Long, skinny beard. Smells like horseshit, pine tar, and perhaps Mediterranean herbs.

Matt Damon playing a 19th century cowboy that looks like a third baseman for the Phillies. Mustache. Shaggy hair. Smells like horse shit, pine tar, and definitely chewing tobacco.

Every time Matt Damon takes on a period role he ends up looking like a third baseman for the Phillies.

I would submit that a gerrymander by politicians saying fuck the voters and one by voters saying fuck the politicians are two wholly different animals

This Data Center Is Getting a $77 Million Tax Break to Create One Job No other project in the country has gotten such a large subsidy to create so few jobs, according to watchdogs.

A New Jersey data center will reportedly receive $77 million in tax breaks — while only creating one permanent job.

One job, in exchange for higher utility bills, noise pollution, and potential groundwater pollution.

Is it any wonder communities are organizing to stop data centers?

Lawsuit: Blaze’s Crackpot Reporting Prompted a Wild, Unnecessary FBI Raid Quickly debunked reporting based on “gait analysis” was enough to get the feds to descend with a helicopter on a falsely accused J6 pipe-bomber’s home.

"Kerkhoff’s lawsuit provides startling new allegations about the befuddled the leadership of the FBI under Director Kash Patel. It also underscores the degree to which conspiracy theories have influenced official government action, even at the highest levels." open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...

Another data point for the "everybody is 12 now" theory. That's the billionaire CEO of the world's biggest and nastiest surveillance company who also just released a high concept technofascist statement. He and I are the same age. And I am, I cannot be clearer, an Old Man.

Bright magenta peony with pink tips on one side

Two peonies that are pink, red, and magenta throughout

Here you can look into one of these majestic peonies to see the yellow talons

Photo of the whole bush, you can see how every peony is different

But could these peonies be any more beautiful 🌺🌺🌺

Wowza

This is gonna be good. Sadly I will not be able to tune into Kash’s Save My Job presser.

Eugenics

Warsh hearing so far has been kind of frustrating. No one has asked the questions that seem most relevant to me:
1) is Trump's criminal investigation into Powell appropriate?
2) what would you do if Trump threatened retribution against you if he didn't like your actions/Fed policy decisions?

Donate to @iowahousedems.bsky.social & @iowasenatedems.bsky.social running in competitive districts here:

secure.actblue.com/donate/iablu...

Five Trump Scandals You’ve Probably Missed Swirling scandals—from the Pentagon to DHS to the IRS to the Labor Department—that represent basic betrayals of public office, trust, and confidence-in-leadership that should be the table stakes of go...

@vermontgmg.bsky.social on five Trump 2.0 scandals "that under any normal interpretation of democracy and American politics would be administration-shaking and yet there’s a good chance you haven’t even heard of at least three of them." www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/five-trump...

This is what Bezos came to the outskirts of DC for when nobody wanted him here & we tried to get him not to come?

I'm making one last push to let people know about this online talk -- sponsored by the British Library in conjunction with their current exhibition on fairy tales. The live stream starts at 7:30 tonight, but if you buy a ticket *before* the event you can watch it any time over the next 7 days.

This is glaringly obvious to everyone except for the faces of corporate media, who desperately want to walk a red carpet

Your regular reminder that cops don't actually justify their existence or enormous budgets by solving much crime.

Approximately 11% of all serious crimes result in an arrest, and about 2% end in a conviction.

And then there's this...

*nudge* I'm really sorry, but this situation has turned into a disaster and we're looking at losing the whole paycheck to the bill and the overdraft fees next week if things get any worse. So, I have to busk more obnoxiously than usual.

The Minnesota Star Tribune article on the utter failure of the police with the Hartmanns is roiling Columbine memories. Because the lesson we learned from Dave Sanders bleeding to death while everyone outside knew he was dying was “cops can’t fucking wait.”
We learned this, but cops are cowards.

SEN. @ossoff.senate.gov : “The faithless president depicts himself as Christ while he plunges the nation into wars of choice… Remember — While you pay more for everything, the First Family’s wealth is growing by billions. Because they’re crooks, and everybody knows it.”

A Forbes article about a father who killed eight children, with an embedded prediction widget inviting people to speculate on whether "Congress will pass new gun safety legislation before 31st December 2026"

ghoulish

The Florida Mass Shooter's Conversations With ChatGPT Are Worse Than You Could Possibly Imagine In the months before he committed a grisly mass shooting, Phoenix Ikner obsessively used Open AI's ChatGPT.

“The liability issue is intimately tied to the question on whether the chatbot encourages acts of violence by concretizing an action plan.”

Don’t just let it be terrible, LEAN INTO it being terrible, because no one’s going to see it.

I only bring this up because someone mentioned just this week that this trick is useful, but I *still* 30 years in, when stumped, write this on the top of the page.

Browsing this company's website and the only way I can describe what I'm seeing is imagine a school shooter was a management consultant