David Cantwell

Trump govt did not reverse these firings out of goodness or self-owning a "mistake." They would have been happy to get away with it. This reversal is the result of strong opposition. We undercut our own power when we give them the credit. Resistance matters. And remaining cuts are still devastating.

“The way I see it, unless we each conform, unless we obey orders, unless we follow our leaders blindly, there is no possible way we can remain free.”

Major Frank Burns

Goldman: “We estimate that seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims increased to about 235k for the week ended October 4th, by combining the Department of Labor (DOL)’s pre-released seasonal factors with this afternoon’s release of state-level claims.”

The campaign against “antifa” is about establishing a beachhead for further attacks on speech and assembly rights. We see that today in the effort to preemptively label No Kings protesters as “terrorists.”

Dominion Voting Systems sold to company run by former Republican election official Dominion Voting Systems, which sued Fox over its reporting on the 2020 election, has been sold to a seemingly new election company run by a former GOP election official.

Dominion Voting Systems sold to company run by former Republican election official abcnews.go.com/US/dominion-...
Dominion Voting Systems -- the voting machine company at the center of false 2020 election fraud conspiracy theories -- has been sold to Republican,
John Poulos

In an intellectually honest world, all the people and pundits lauding Kirk would apologize for being wrong. They would say, “I’m sorry for falling for bad faith arguments. I believed them without listening to others. I was a rube.”

But we don’t live in an intellectually honest world.

they can see the polling

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems... SIMON: What? SHAPIRO: ...Or saying... SIMON: You imagine that? SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over. SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level. SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this. SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

The real news in this is the first sentence. “It is not exactly clear what UNC plans to use the faculty workload report for…”

I would argue that it is very clear. I have, in fact, argued that it is very clear.

Workload report shows breakdown of time UNC faculty spend teaching, researching It is not exactly clear what UNC plans to use the faculty workload report for, but some professors are confused about how the data was calculated.

“the average percentage of time that all faculty spend on teaching is 28 percent.”

As an adjunct, i spent — let me see, oh yeah — 100 PERCENT of my time on teaching.

www.dailytarheel.com/article/univ...

Nothing. You need to know nothing about Zach Bryan, ever.

Travis Kelce, wearing a newsies hat and a shirt that seems to be pattered on a motels wallpaper, and Patrick Mahomes, wearing a red checkered vest made out of an Italian restaurants tablecloth

I love them both but Travis and Patrick look like they’re running a traveling medicine show in the Great Depression

Important piece from @brianbeutler.bsky.social One feature of conservatives’ refusal to provide any reasoning in emergency docket orders is it allows to see which way the political winds are blowing when they finally rule on the merits & adjust outcomes as needed

open.substack.com/pub/brianbeu...

i’d day this nails the South as well

Turn It Up - 10/07/25 Earworms, obsessions, recommendations

Lots of new music from Marshall Crenshaw and Cardi B, Joe Ely and Lauren Lovelle and more, + a ton of reading recommendations. Time to "Turn It Up" (or in the case of the Swift track, down) at No Fences Review w/ @charleshughes2.bsky.social

Everybody Hurts Charles on 5 new versions of the R.E.M. classic

"So hold on.
You're not alone.
Now it's time to sing along."
My friend @charleshughes2.bsky.social with a beautiful reflection on covers of #EverybodyHurts.
It resonates with me as a #survivor of #suicide (among other things) and as just a human in this world.
open.substack.com/pub/nofences...

Everybody Hurts Charles on 5 new versions of the R.E.M. classic

New at No Fences Review: perhaps it's no surprise that "Everybody Hurts" has made a recent resurgence. I talk about five fantastic recent versions of it, and what songs like this do for us now or any time. Please share and subscribe. (w/@cantkill.bsky.social)

Thread

It seems clear—I think to everyone, now—that a false and illegal invocation of the Insurrection Act is coming before the end of the year. Media outlets should be telling us how they will prepare for this potential Treason. State governments should be telling us. Activists should be developing plans.

Project 2025 co-author Russ Vought is leading the charge to weaken Social Security benefits.

Oh, and they’re planning to use AI to determine eligibility.

Republicans want to leave Americans sicker, poorer and struggling to live with dignity.

Pretty clear Stephen Miller, Noem, Hegseth and Trump are trying to provoke a Civil War at this point. What's interesting is they want to do it now, because even though they're unpopular, they seem to believe this is the most popular they'll be ever again. We can't let them win.

BREAKING: The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 100-page opinion -- says it is unequivocally, lopsidedly easy to determine that the Trump administration's view of birthright citizenship is wrong.

www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

The government is in full shutdown and the Republicans are refusing to call the House back into session.

Want to know why?

Because we have secured the final vote on releasing the Epstein Files and they don’t want it out.

Call GOP and tell them to swear in @adelitaforcongress.bsky.social.

Everybody Hurts Charles on 5 new versions of the R.E.M. classic

"Everybody Hurts" is a song that never goes out of style, one we need now and will keeping needing. @charleshughes2.bsky.social on all the new versions, for No Fences Review

Hundreds of celebrities relaunch a McCarthy-era committee to defend free speech The Committee for the First Amendment first launched in the 1940s, when the House Un-American Activities Committee accused Hollywood actors, directors and writers of being communists or sympathizers.

I know it’s tempting to roll our eyes whenever celebrities ‘take a stand’ or do activism - see Gal Gadot’s Imagine video - but the fact is, this is more of a stand than most of Congress is willing to take. It’s easy to mock, but more prominent should be doing this

We simply have to become more serious people and less self-serious persons. I swear.

So many hot takes about who will win/lose the shutdown, but so little discussion about what's at stake. The stakes here are whether Congress makes the law or the president can rule by diktat. Everything else is commentary.

“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them, and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like. And, you all know Russell Vought. He’s become very popular recently because he can trim the budget to a level that you couldn't do any other way. So they're taking a risk by having a shutdown. Because of the shutdown, we can do things medically and other ways, including benefits. We can cut large numbers of people. We don't want to do that, but we don't want fraud, waste and abuse.”

👀 Just Now -- President Trump in the Oval Office said a government shutdown gives his administration the power to cut benefit programs, which include Social Security and Medicare.

www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Fuckin yikes, man

Kaleb Horton RIP A farewell to my friend Kaleb Horton, a great writer who died unexpectedly this past weekend.

A farewell to my friend, Kaleb Horton, a great writer who died unexpectedly this past weekend.