That guy from that thing

I have a bipartisan bill that would make these protections ironclad. It passed the House unanimously (twice) and it was never taken up in the Senate. Now Trump is laying the groundwork to lock up reporters who don't rat out their sources who expose crimes by his administration.

A tricky thing about modern society is that no one has any idea when they don’t die.

Like, the number of lives saved by controlling air pollution in America is probably over 200,000 per year, but the number of people who think their life was saved by controlling air pollution is zero.

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.

Kurt Vonnegut man

March saw the third-highest number of layoffs in U.S. history, and 80% of them were caused by DOGE

This was before the tariffs

It's just...unbelievable

California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Salinas): "there are currently more kids with measles in Texas than there are transgender athletes in the NCAA. That's the epidemic we should all be worried about."

MAJOR EFFICIENCY WIN: the CFPB that’s returned over $21,000,000,000.00 to scammed americans now being dissolved to save every american $2.00 annually

The US Treasury Claimed DOGE Technologist Didn’t Have ‘Write Access’ When He Actually Did Sources tell WIRED that the ability of DOGE’s Marko Elez to alter code controlling trillions in federal spending was rescinded days after US Treasury and White House officials said it didn’t exist.

This is the most important story in the United States right now.

www.wired.com/story/treasu...

Jeff Stein & @JStein WaPo A federal worker sent me audio of a call that HR did today with staff about "deferred resignation" agreements offered by DOGE ... I think this is pretty well understood by now but helps confirm what many suspect The audio goes: Employee: Lets say I accept the agreement tomorrow - you were to rescind the agreement and they were to stop paying me on Friday ... we would have no recourse available? HR official: Yes... as the agreement is outlined that is absolutely correct 11:40 AM • 2/5/25 • 168K Views

If you work for the federal government and are tempted to take Musk’s “buyout” offer please know that you’re never going to see that money.

Knocked out by the new Heather Maloney album. She’s always great but Exploding Star is really something special. Sad but not despairing. Kind of perfect for me in this moment.

!!

We only have 5 seasons in the US on Max. We’ve been waiting for a sixth since 2022.

Feel like a talented headline writer could do something with this.

Compelling Mass Civil Servant Resignations Will Create Chaos Twitter is not a model for government reform

New, from me: Looking closer at the effort to induce mass civil servant resignations.
*The offers are not real buyouts
*Feds should read the fine print
*If mass resignations occur, it is really bad for the rest of us
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/compelling...

Donald Duck: Everything that we know and love is reducible to the absurd acts of chemicals, and there is therefore no intrinsic value in this material universe. Mickey Mouse: Hypocrite that you are, for you trust the chemicals in your brain to tell you they are chemicals. All knowledge is ultimately based on that which we cannot prove. Will you fight? Or will you perish like a dog?

I haven’t seen evidence of it — certainly no mention of it on HBO/MAX. Maybe on Britbox?

I’m morbidly fascinated by this turn from Google. They went from a stated objective of “organizing all the world’s information” to being a firehose of fuel on the “what is true?” bonfire consuming our culture.

America's richest 10% now hold 60% of the nation's wealth.

The bottom half of America? It holds just 6%.

Wealth inequality is eating this country alive.

"Here the numbers as they actually exist in the real world:

Transgender: 1 percent

Muslim: 1 percent

Jewish: 2 percent

Black: 12 percent

Live in New York City: 2 percent

Gay or lesbian: 3 percent"

If they're this divorced from reality I guarantee these folks cannot conceive magnitude of $1bn

Imagine Van Gogh, a man who history shows slowly self-destructing from his own inner battles and the doubts and insecurities his family and community projected on him. Imagine a young Van Gogh applying for an art grant. How would he be weighed? Would we ever have seen his world? Is it replaceable?

A really powerful and useful lesson from art history: Most famous artists were deeply flawed people.

Why does this matter? Because so many folks defend meritocracies by the assumption that optimal people produce optimal work but much of our best art came from people who weren't the "best" choice.

His side, her side, and the truth.

Yes…but, as I get older, it becomes more and more obvious how subjective morality is. Our notion of morality often feels intuitive. We yearn to see it enacted in the world but the effect of others living “morally” can be horrifying.