David Neal

Dream the impossible dream; a better world is possible

NYT Front Page, Aug 7 1965: Johnson signs voting rights bill, orders immediate enforcement; 4 suits will challenge poll tax

Today we celebrate the Voting Rights Act's 60th birthday! While the VRA has been dramatically weakened in the past 15 years, it remains among the crown jewels of the Civil Rights Movement. Understanding why it's so vital requires understanding its history and context. Time for a birthday thread...

i have been thinking a lot about how the entire concept of “the deal” is antithetical to transparency, fair play and rule of law, as larry notes. the deal is necessarily nonstandard, ad hoc and dependent on the whims of the dealmaker

I guess she’d aged out. But still seems to fit a certain pattern.

A guy whose fraudulent university was shut down is telling the Ivy League what to do.

A guy whose businesses went bankrupt multiple times is telling the Fed what to do.

A guy whose best friend was a child sex trafficker is telling the DOJ what to do.

That it’s all the same guy is pretty wild.

the voting rights act is, in its entirety, obviously constitutional under the 15th amendment, which gives congress broad and proactive authority to stop racial discrimination in voting. and you know it is obviously constitutional because roberts has had to invent entire new doctrines to gut it.

The media coverage of the dismissal of the BLS commissioner as another “wild time in Trumpland” shows that the media is more committed to entertainment than news. Any reputable news organization should report what the BLS does, why it is important, and why its work should not be politicized.

When Trump uses $1 billion of our hard-earned money to buy himself a gold-plated gift, he reminds us all of how he has shredded the Constitution’s two Emoluments Clauses, which he violated from the first day of his first term.

For over a year and a half, the Israeli government has repeatedly used weapons supplied by the U.S. to indiscriminately kill people in Gaza, violating American and international humanitarian laws.

Now, they are using hunger as a weapon of war. As Pope Leo said, it is barbaric.

Opinion | José Andrés: People of Good Conscience Must Stop the Starvation in Gaza

“There is no excuse for the world to stand by and watch two million human beings suffer on the brink of full-blown famine.“

Gaza is starving. Where are the American Jewish leaders? A fear of being labelled antisemitic still deters American Jews and Jewish institutions from taking a position that is morally correct.

The mass starvation & killing of Palestinians in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli gov’t is a chillul hashem, a desecration of God.

Jewish leaders who criticized Zohran Mamdani for three words he doesn’t use should raise their voices loudly here as well.
forward.com/opinion/7575...

Protesters in Tel Aviv took to the streets carrying flour bags and pictures of malnourished children from Gaza, calling for the end of the war on Gaza and the hunger.

#protest #TelAviv #Gaza #hunger #IsraelGazawar #Israel

WU-TANG FOREVER 👐🏽

Aid Groups Blame Israel’s Gaza Restrictions for ‘Mass Starvation’

The distance between what is in happening Gaza, fully backed with US dollars and political support, and the reaction of American politicians who by and large just don’t seem to care or support it is just completely brain-breaking.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/w...

Every day. It’s just the same story every single day — IDF massacres starving people at food sites they set up with US money and support.

Anyway, I know it's not news that Trump is hypocritical, but here's my story reminding people that MAGA world insisted that the Biden admin sending impolite notes to Facebook was the greatest threat to free speech, but are completely silent on Trump calling up Murdoch and demanding he kill a story

CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump – a deal that looks like bribery.

America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.

Watch and share his message.

One of the first things Vladimir Putin did on becoming president was take over NTV, the TV channel that hosted a satirical puppet show because he didn't like the Putin doll and how he was portrayed. He arrested NTV's owner and only released him when he signed the channel over. #Colbert

Colbert will be all right, maybe even better off. The world's his oyster and I'm sure MSNBC and Netflix will come calling. He could stand up the biggest late night YouTube channel in days. But they are just torching the Late Show, an institution, solely to appease a dictator. And that fucking sucks.

The stakes of the 2026 election could not be higher, & I need YOUR help to fuel this people-powered campaign. Here are some ways you can support my reelection campaign:
💸 Consider contributing to my campaign if you’re able
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TRUMP on EPSTEIN in 2002: “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
nymag.com/nymetro/news...

The secret to Baltimore's extraordinary year This April, Baltimore saw five homicides.

1. We interrupt this programming for some LEGITIMATELY GOOD NEWS

Violent crime in Baltimore has PLUMMETED to historic lows

How did the city do it?

Baltimore adopted a comprehensive set of "woke" policies, treating violence as a public health issue

The Supreme Court should preserve the status quo until legal questions are resolved and explain the disposition of cases for the public. They are abdicating basic principles of equity and failing to fulfill their institutional role. They aren’t pretending to try. There isn’t even the veneer of law.

Once got scolded on here by a fancy lawyer for saying this is an illegitimate Supreme Court, but I don't know what else you'd call it when they keep rubbing their lawlessness in our face.

Are We About to Have Labor Camps in the United States of America? If you think that’s far-fetched, then you really haven’t been paying attention to what the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have been up to lately.

An astonishing figure in this piece:

Last year, the U.S. budgeted $12.8B for new affordable housing.

This country is now poised to spend $45B on immigrant detention centers.

That's nearly *four times* as much on cages as on homes—in the middle of a devastating housing and homelessness crisis.

Thread on the ethical scandal at the New York Times

one of the stranger phenomena in American life is that hate is supposed to flow in one direction (rural people get to hate urban people, Republicans get to hate Democrats) and if the hate goes the other way people pretend as if this is very upsetting.

this isn't hyperbole or caricature! It's a straightforwad, accurate characterization of what he said.

"The problem with AI isn't that it can do your job. It can't. The problem with AI is that your MBA-brained boss's boss doesn't know how your job works and thinks AI can do your job at fractions of a penny on the dollar, and hears the siren song of 'maximize shareholder value'."

MBA-brain is real.