Erik Gunn

Denying quorum has been a Texas political strategy since 1870 Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

Texas Tribune: Denying quorum has been a Texas political strategy since 1870 www.newsfromthestates.com/article/deny...

According to Harvard, reports of an impending $500 million payment to the Trump administration are fake news from the White House. That would fit with the type of maximum pressure campaign that they are trying to run.

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

1/Kevin Hassett had long ago discredited himself as a scholar by parroting claims about the economy he knew to be false. Even so, parroting the lie about rigged statistics, is a new low. The academy should ostracize him the same way a fabricator of research should be ostracized.

Oh huh just like trans people have been saying for a decade

Both of those are arguably new media.

Donor List Suggests Scale of Trump’s Pay-for-Access Operation

The most corrupt White House in history. Here is an account of what people are paying, directly to a PAC called MAGA Inc, in order to meet the president, get pardons, change policy

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/02/u...

Still not sure I understand why such a huge component of performative manliness is being afraid of things that aren't particularly dangerous

Today, former Republican gerrymanders in states like Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia have been replaced by much fairer maps, thanks to a mix of favorable court rulings, referendums and legal changes.

Very odd to put Ohio & Florida among “fair” maps.

Ohio’s map was repeatedly struck down by courts as illegal gerrymander, and GOP just ignored the ruling till it ran out the cock.

Florida’s dismantled a Black-majority district that a court had ordered last decade. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/02/u...

Manning up doesn’t mean go work out. It means accept responsibility and historical precedent

Don’t get butthurt, I’m sorry you couldn’t find dates or whatever. You don’t what we have faced, you won’t know, you can’t know

This is what needs to happen

Loving hands are important, and that means loving other members of society your child terrorizes

Reporting the news is akin to intelligence work: develop a diverse network of reputable sources with access to relevant information, and triangulate what they tell you to get to what’s actually going on

Anyone who tells you otherwise is doing commentary or stenography. Or coding an LLM.

Key point: Friday's "disappointing" jobs report was not some outlier, much less a statistical blunder. It meshes reasonably well with the other data out there.

Supposedly the 3M Claw picture hangers are made of hardened steel, but magnets don't stick to them. What's up with that?

Lashing Out Over Russia and Jobs Data, Trump Displays His Volatile Side The president had been on something of a winning streak. But when faced with facts and foes that wouldn’t bend to his will, he responded with impatience and disproportionate intensity.

Trump’s firing of the labor statistics chief is described by the New York Times as a display of “disproportionate intensity.” Get serious, NYT. He’s not just throwing ketchup against the wall — he’s on an autocratic campaign of fraud against the American people.

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.

@unroll.skywriter.blue

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

I was wondering how this event was going to turn out, given how many GOP members of Congress have decided to skip in-person town halls entirely this year.

Big news in today's #jobs report are the revisions. The labor market is much weaker than originally reported the last two months. While payrolls grew 73k in July, May and June data were revised down a total of 258k to 19k and 14k, respectively, bringing 3-month average growth down to 35k.
#EconSky

Smithsonian’s removal of Trump from impeachment exhibit draws fire The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History removed an exhibit this month referencing President Trump’s two impeachments, according to the institution’s spokesperson — d…

Rewriting history is no longer "hyperbole" its here and the Smithsonian is doing it.

thehill.com/homenews/adm...

Outside the condo underground garage this morning

"Because the LLM cares more about keeping the conversation going, and reassuring and affirming the user, it will prefer plausibility to evidence, facts, and expert consensus. A past that makes too much sense: this is history as confirmation bias."

Another reason to avoid LLMs.

Blue whales are going eerily silent—and scientists say it’s a warning sign A six-year study off California’s coast shows how marine heat waves and noise pollution are silencing the ocean’s largest singers. Does saving the ocean start with hearing it?

Anyone have a bigass fish tank and a Klingon bird of prey?

There's a Major Publishing Slowdown at CDC's Flagship Journal Each MMWR article now requires clearance by the HHS secretary, sources said

There's a Major Publishing Slowdown at CDC's Flagship Journal www.medpagetoday.com/special-repo... via @kristinafiore.bsky.social @medpagetoday.bsky.social

👇🎯 And again, it is so because this One Special Boy is abusing domestic trade laws & blatantly violating our WTO treaty commitments, & everyone is just yawning & pretending it's totally normal & fine.

bsky.app/profile/mcop...

'Hell on Earth': Venezuelans deported to El Salvador mega-prison tell of brutal abuse Deported under a little-known wartime law, more than 130 Venezuelans were sent from the U.S. to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Now released, several tell NPR they endured beatings, sexual a...

"Hell on earth." Over 130 Venezuelans were deported from the U.S. under an obscure wartime law and held in a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Now released, several have told NPR they suffered beatings, sexual abuse, and long stretches of isolation. www.npr.org/2025/07/27/n...

Bet that ICE agent feels like a big man, doing what he does in this video

Texas gerrymandering is about racism.

Fewer districts for Black and Brown communities. More power for white Texans. It’s voter suppression by design, and it fuels voter apathy by making people feel like their voices don’t matter. That’s the point.

We are watching in real-time as an administration and an entire party attempt to cover up the single most notorious child sex trafficking ring in modern history in order to protect their leader being implicated in it

A Massive Health Care Shock Is Coming And there is little time—and maybe not enough will from Republicans—to avert it.

Here comes another big health care debate, with insurance for a few million more people at stake

And the clock is ticking www.thebulwark.com/p/a-massive-...