Alternative facts 2.0. Alternative math.

Echelon Insights Donald Trump’s job approval stands at 42% approve, 57% disapprove Democrats lead on the 2026 generic congressional ballot, 50-44 Voters disapprove of the US military operations against Iran, 42-51, while 50% say US and Israeli geopolitical interests are usually aligned 51% of Democrats say Hasan Piker's views are antithetical to the views of most Democrats and party leaders should say so

[Ask If QPartyID = 2. Democrat OR QPartyLeanView = 2. Democrats] 21. [QPikerContrast] Hasan Piker is a popular progressive online streamer who has hosted Democratic politicians. He has said “America deserved 9/11”, Hamas is better than Israel, and bemoaned the collapse of the Soviet Union because it made America’s global power uncontested and resulted in humanitarian crises. Based on what you know about Hasan Piker, which of the following statements do you agree with most, even if none are exactly right? [RANDOMIZE SCALE 1-3, 3-1] (n=525) His views are antithetical to what most Democrats believe, and party leaders should say so 51% Even if I disagree with some of his views, he reaches new audiences and helps Democrats defeat the MAGA right 21% I agree with his views, and he's an asset to the Democratic Party 9% Unsure 19%

This is so funny. Echelon Insights, a right-wing rag operation, is showing numbers that are way higher than the average for Republicans, which is natural. However, the Piker question piqued my interest, so I decided to look at the polling question. No one on this team should ever have a job again.

The bravery, community, love, kindness, cohesion, and unity that's come out of such darkness in Minneapolis is astounding. Read this whole thread. Heroes aren't born; they're made.

Bloomberg: volatile lithium prices and advances in technology mean sodium batteries are providing a credible alternative for automakers and the energy sector.

For years, I was prescribed Lithium for bipolar disorder. My copay was only $15 per month, and I should've been selling those bad boys to EV manufacturing CEOs on the street-corner for a huge markup. Alas. Now they want Sodium? Easy--just have to figure out how to remove the chloride from my salt.

Detroit News: Michigan Rep rips fellow Democrats for "troubling" convention behavior

Congresswoman McDonald-Rivet is a genuine enigma to me. I can't tell if she's a Blue Dog, a New Dem, or something different entirely. When she was a state Senator, she was one of only two Dems who pushed back on my bills to make free school breakfast and lunch permanent.

But somehow every day I get emails that I meet all the qualifications for an on-site senior government affairs director position in California or Louisiana.

It's funny because I don't use LinkedIn AT ALL. My profile doesn't list my BA, my JD, or my soon-to-be MPP. It doesn't have either of my board chair positions listed, nor my volunteer experience, and it only has the job I ended in 2022 and the job I started in 2022 on it. The rest is just blank.

Couldn't agree more. And setting off the parenthetical after mentioning Cursor just makes this even more sloppy.

Politico FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Inside Grindr’s political power play: Grindr, the LGBTQ+ dating app, has ramped up its political presence in Washington as it seeks to flex its influence muscles on a range of policy priorities. The app’s ambitions have grown since Trump’s return to office, having poured $1.6 million into its influence operation since registering to lobby federal lawmakers a year ago, Playbook’s Irie Sentner reports.

Grindr Director of Government Affairs job listing on LinkedIn. It was reposted one week ago because it's been posted for months before this.

The fact that this is a "scoop" in late April is funny. I must have gotten 8 notifications on LinkedIn over the past 3 months that my work experience made me a good match for the several lobbying positions for which Grindr was hiring. This specific position has been pushed to me at least 3 times.

Systemic Racism in the United States An overview of system racism in the United States.

I wrote about the history of systemic racism in US government, and I hope you'll take a look.

open.substack.com/pub/momentum...

NYT Breaking News: Elon Musk's SpaceX struck a deal with Cursor, an AI start-up, that could lead it to buy the company for $60 billion.

This is a good example of why you need proper staffing and not constant layoffs at news outlets. An editor should have flagged the dangling antecedent here. To what is the "it" in this sentence referring? What "company" is being bought?

Washington Post 5-Minute Fix: Can Democrats win back the House?

Lol. Lmao, even. It's going to be an absolute bloodbath.

A Monetary and Fiscal History of the United States, 1961-2021 by Alan S. Blinder

7/
8. There's no doubt that Warsh will be confirmed, and Fed independence is dead. Upon his instillation, Trump runs the Fed.

6/
7. I was really curious what was going to come from Tillis. As a lame duck, he's kind of been a wildcard. At the beginning of his questioning, he explained why Trump's assertions that the Fed building renovation was inflated were wrong. But then he ended by saying that he strongly supports Warsh.

5/
6. The whole committee, and the world, seems to forget that Trump nominated Powell as chair at a time where he said he only hired "the best people." Trump has also made several comments over the past few months about how whoever nominated Powell was stupid.

4/
5. What scared me the most about Warsh's testimony was his clear love of AI, which he said actually stood for "American Ingenuity." He was asked, point-blank, by a REPUBLICAN, whether this would lead to loss of entry-level jobs, and he said no. This is wrong, and AI is bad and dangerous.

3/ Further, if I didn't know she was a Democrat, I would have thought Cortez-Masto was teeing him up with all her softballs.
4. This had the cadence of a Supreme Court justice hearing in that Warsh declined to comment on any current or future decision-making. He was quite effective at deflecting.

2/
3. I got countless news alerts, and there was verbiage used by Republicans, that the hearing was a "bloodbath" and that he was being "grilled" by Democrats. I didn't fully get that sense. The only non-impotent questioning came from Warren, Reed, Van Hollen, and Gallego.

1/ A few random thoughts on the Warsh confirmation hearing.
1. Warsh is qualified, polished, and knowledgeable. That cannot be argued.
2. It is quite clear, despite his assertions to Sen. Gallego and Sen. Alsobrooks, that he only got this nomination with the agreement he would slash interest rates.

Neil Patrick Harris as Barney Stinson in a suit

Toby Flenderson from the Office looking rough.

Happy Dooby Dooby Pot Stoner Day to all those of you who celebrate! The picture on the left is my friend Steven. The picture on the right is Steven after he tried just one marijuana.

I agree with this, and it's why it's odd that Rep. Haley Stevens, in a heated Senate primary, shot a video directly for AIPAC this weekend.

Another out-of-touch politician who read one abstract from a reform publication thinks you're too dumb to learn new words. This sounds exactly like the line of thinking that justifies using the r-word and flying the Confederate flag.

The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding by Osita Nwanevu

Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream by Megan Greenwell

I've seen a lot of people here starting lists of the books they're reading, so here's mine. Thread.

Bloomberg Article: "Under Trump, DOJ has been making errors in court, testing judges' patience." Sub-headline: the Justice department's corrections come amid growing judicial mistrust and fallout from president Donald Trump's reshaping of the agency to pursue his agenda. Beautiful graphic containing clips of many admissions of DOJ errors in court documents.

This graphic is absolutely prime.

I don't care how poisonous these are, I would eat them without a doubt.

Ábrego García has argued that if he is going to be deported, it should be to Costa Rica, which previously agreed to accept him. But Todd Lyons, the acting head of US Customs and Immigration Enforcement, said in a March memo that deporting Ábrego García to Costa Rica would be “prejudicial to the United States”. Ábrego García should be sent to Liberia because the US has spent government resources and political capital negotiating with the west African nation to accept third-country nationals, Lyons wrote.

This is one of the most craven statements I've ever heard.

CNN: one year in from dismantling of USAID, study projects that finish aid cuts child lead to 9.4 million deaths by 2030.

From President Trump's executive budget recommendation: the budget requests $35.6 billion for the Department of State and other international programs, a $15.5 bullion cut, or 30% below the 2026 enacted level.

While the president's budget recommendation doesn't mean much in practice, what you derive from its theories are telling. The article on the left was from February, and the exec rec was from yesterday.