Philip Gourevitch

Crying at this

Imagine a group of 5-year-olds playing a board game. The rules are clear, the goal is fair, and one child edges ahead — until, suddenly, another child starts losing. That’s when the trouble begins. “He cheated!” the losing child yells. “I’m the winner anyway!” he declares. And then, like clockwork, he flips the board. In the world of kindergarten conflict resolution, we expect this kind of behavior. We chalk it up to development. We teach better sportsmanship. What do we do when the president of the United States behaves this way? On Friday, President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the nation’s workaday scorekeeper of employment, wages and productivity. Why? Because the data didn’t make Mr. Trump look good. The statistics were inconvenient. So the president didn’t just challenge the findings; he fired the statistician. That’s not governing. That’s board flipping.

Janet Yellen's husband & Econ Nobel Laureate George Akerlof:

"...when presidents flip the board, it’s not just a game that ends. It’s the pieces of democracy that get scattered to the floor."
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/o...

Trump’s Tariffs Are Making Money. That May Make Them Hard to Quit.

wel yes, they are taxes

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/b...

A British crow is asking passersby if they're alright.

*she* feels cheated??! — she played the whole damn country straight down the drain… inexcusable

heckuva job donny

Of the last 51 million jobs created, 50 million were created by Democratic Presidents

The murder rate in Tampa, where Benny lives, is nearly triple that of New York City

University sidelines scientist who exposed toxic metals in Lake Maurepas The SELU scientist who discovered alarming levels of toxic chemicals in Lake Maurepas was abruptly removed from her research position without explanation.

A university scientist who discovered alarming levels of toxic chemicals in a lake in southeastern Louisiana was abruptly removed from her research position this week without explanation

Zimbabwe's HIV Medicine Black Market is Flush with Sex Workers and Asian Cash Legally purchasing PreP and PEP pills from private pharmacies can be expensive for sex workers, who are required to submit to expensive medical tests on top of purchasing the pills.

As USAID pulls out of Zimbabwe, only sex workers can afford lifesaving HIV medication😕😕😕
www.thexylom.com/post/zimbabw...

All the pundits who criticized Biden for his preemptive pardons should be ashamed of themselves. He knew exactly who Trump is

A Fish Falls From the Sky and Sparks a Brush Fire in British Columbia Officials say a flying osprey dropped its catch, which then struck power lines, causing sparks that ignited dry grass.

A small brush fire and power outage in British Columbia started on Wednesday when an airborne fish struck power lines, according to fire officials.

God is in his heaven
And we all want what's his
But power and greed
And corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there ever is

Bob Dylan
Blind Willie McTell
Aug 1, 2025 Jones Beach

Opinion | How Trump's ‘antisemitism’ deal with Brown University actually endangers Jewish students The agreement, the latest between the Trump White House and major universities, raises pertinent issues about who is protected and who is not.

Good piece by @emilyctamkin.bsky.social on the incoherence of the Trump administration's strategy of effectively requiring DEI for Jews and banning it for other minority groups. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

an alarming report even by the alarming standards of these alarming times — 🧵

BREAKING: We're suing ICE for unlawfully targeting and arresting people who show up to court for their immigration hearings.

Opinion | The Trump Economy Stumbles The President has his new world tariff order in place, but jobs and growth don’t look so good.

“The tariff tax increase in dollar terms at Mr. Trump’s current rates will be close to $360 billion a year. That’s among the largest tax increases in recent history.” www.wsj.com/opinion/dona...

Jeannie Seely, Who Pushed Boundaries and Broke Hearts at the Grand Ole Opry, Dies at 85

RIP to great singer, song-writer, Opry star, and trailblazer for women, Jeanne Seely… also a fine DJ in her later years; always was glad to catch her Sunday show on Willie’s Roadhouse on XM — she played good country songs, but I’d stay tuned just to hear her talk:
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/a...

Trump keeps saying he wants to fire the fed chair because he won’t lower interest rates, the he gets job numbers that give the Fed cause to do so and he fires the person in charge of those numbers. The only consistency is his furious unreality and commitment to destroying all trust in institutions.

Map with arrows showing drones

Massive Ukrainian drone attack on Russia.

#explodey

Trump Says He’ll Fire Labor Statistics Head After Weak Jobs Data President Donald Trump said he was directing officials to fire Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, hours after a report showed US job growth cooled sharply over the l...

Trump says bad news means he’ll shoot messenger

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Okay, *now you can start to worry about data being manipulated.

FLAG: Trump just directed his team to fire the Commissioner of Labor Statistics over the latest jobs numbers reports.

Holy shit

New York Public Media Will Lose At Least $57 Million in Federal Funds Nearly $50 million will come specifically from public radio and TV stations, including rural ones that rely heavily on federal money.

New York’s public radio and TV stations are facing major blows to their budgets after Congress approved a bill that cancelled over $1 billion in federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

MORE on Trump’s economy… Sounds weak when you put it like that!

amazingly good news

"When the first of August came round, the Professor realized he had pleasantly trifled away nearly two months at a task which should have taken little more than a week."

--Willa Cather, 1925 and timeless

E-bike brought by drone allows Ukrainian soldiers to escape.

www.n-tv.de/politik/E-Bi...