John McQuaid

pierogi is speech, can't be compelled

In the 1950s, as atmospheric science was expanding in concert with nuclear testing, Congress appointed an Advisory Committee on Weather Control (mainly cloud-seeding), and while controversial, many people wanted to make it a reality. (Image: 1956 Washington Star story)

Sorry Nancy, the 33 1⁄3 LP format will not be introduced until 1948

So their very inauthenticity represents some deeper primal authentic America ... it's nonsense but it exerts a powerful hold on the political press

And of course the other source of legitimacy for bad actors in the eyes of news orgs is that they represent something authentic about the public that the media itself lacks/does not understand.

The entire model of mainstream political coverage depends on ascribing good faith to bad actors. Partly because it's "unbalanced" to call them out and partly because they have power – and in the US system the media operate on the assumption that power is legitimate, or just legitimating enough

I think people are missing something big. Trump's manipulation of the bureaucracy to manufacture pretexts for DOJ to prosecute his enemies is happening right now. It's actively underway. It's not theoretical. It's upon us.

Ironic that what's driving this right now isn't (primarily) vengeance but the need to create a distraction, FWIW a sign of political weakness.

The political press were eager to pronounce this story over and shift "the narrative" back to ... what? Precisely the opposite of the many "Biden in trouble" stories in which huge journalistic resources were expended to maintain that narrative

Curious why the political press (NYT, Politico et al) were so eager to pronounce this story over and shift "the narrative" back to ... what? The opposite of many "Biden in trouble" stories in which huge journalistic resources were expended to maintain "the narrative"

Stephen K. Bannon, a former White House adviser to Mr. Trump and influential leader of the MAGA base, said that the dynamics were shifting in part because the reporting in the story seemed “phony,” and because the paper decided not to show Mr. Trump a copy of the letter. “The Murdochs’ bizarre assault on the president galvanized his base because of both content and process,” Mr. Bannon said. “Now we are united as Trump goes on offense — against the Murdochs, the courts and the deep state.”

Vice President JD Vance, who had previously called for the Epstein files to be released but said nothing amid the backlash to the Justice Department decision, bashed the Journal article. “Where is this letter?” Mr. Vance posted on X about an hour after the story published. “Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump?” Even Elon Musk, who accused Mr. Trump in a now-deleted post on X of being named in the F.B.I.’s files earlier this year after the two had a falling out, said he did not believe the letter was real. “It really doesn’t sound like something Trump would say,” Mr. Musk wrote on the platform shortly after the story was published.

Laura Loomer, another one of Mr. Trump’s influential, far-right supporters, said in an interview that while many supporters remained frustrated by the lack of promised transparency in the Epstein case, the news story, which she believed “falsely accused” the president of writing the letter, “reunited” the MAGA movement.

NYT uncritically publishes a bunch of clearly false attacks on the WSJ scoop. Strictly speaking, the NYT has no obligation to defend a competitor's reporting; but in a story on deranged MAGA-Epstein politics it could note that journalism is based on facts/verification
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/u...

Globe and Mail reporter targeted by online campaign, photographed surreptitiously in public settings An anonymous X account posted photos of Alberta reporter Carrie Tait and described her movements as she reported on a health authority controversy

Hi, yes, g'morning. This is awkward.

But targeting a reporter - hi! - with
surreptitiously obtained photos and details of her tooling around town is an attack on the public's right to know.

www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...

So the right D nominee might fix the rift, but then lose, and then we start over ...

Seems like practically speaking, "fixing the rift" and "winning" are two things that have to happen simultaneously through the D primaries (which will air out the issue) and then with a D nominee/president to begin to impose some order via politics/policy. But if that nominee loses, keeps festering

The larger problem is, the Trump administration's lack of transparency/legibility is corrosive to accountability (on top of literally destroying the govt's accountability capacity) and public discourse in general. It breeds cynicism and learned helplessness. And a huge challenge for journalism. /end

In a "normal" administration, if somebody got fired, the govt. would issue a statement (maybe true or "spend more time with family" etc.) and journalists could report on what really happened. With Trump, explaining "what really happened" even in small-potatoes decisions might be near impossible.

As a result, the Trump administration is a bunch of random seemingly inexplicable shit happening all the time, a govt. that is completely opaque, not so much by design but because nobody cares

The Trump administration is not at all legible – not to the public, not to journalists, and not even to itself. Many important decisions are never explained (e.g., why defund/dismantle NIH). But many or most decisions are arbitrary, based on some lizard brain impulse and opportunity (USAID).

Captures something important. The Trump administration is obviously not transparent. But a key part of democracy is something more like *legibility*: govt. decisions/processes can be seen and explained. By govt. agencies themselves, or IGs, journalists, NGOs etc
talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/polit...

(Chris Rose and I started at the TP within a week of each other. This is an excellent and compassionate account by TP/Advocate writer Keith Spera.)

Writer Chris Rose gave New Orleans a voice after Katrina. Now he lives alone in the woods. In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, his column in The Times-Picayune gave voice to the grief, frustration, anger and absurdity of a battered New Orleans. But Chris Rose also battled his ...

Talented writer and former Times-Picayune journalist Chris Rose most famously documented Katrina stories in "One Dead in Attic" and walked a troubled path of addiction and other problems before arriving at something close to peace living in a Maryland state park
www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/...

Sorry to hear! Looking forward to hearing what comes next.

Spotlight graph of X discourse about Epstein from July 5 to July 13. Graph showing X posts along time (X axis) and cumulative number of X posts shared by that time (Y axis). Counts are limited to posts (excluding reposts) from accounts with more than 25,000 followers. Individual tweets are sized by the total number of reposts. Graph shows initially low activity (X posts from high follower accounts), with a first surge on July 6, starting at 9pm EDT, and then surging again the next morning and throughout that day. After that, there are additional periods of increased activity (though not as much as July 6 and 7) which occurs during the days, with tapering off during the nights. Two posts are highlighted: <First Post> @elonmusk (7/8/2025, 1:28:41 PM EDT): They arrested (and killed) Peanut, but have not even tried to file charges against anyone on the Epstein client list. Government is deeply broken. https://t.co/YndRadQUBE 221976925 Followers | 71243 Reposts | 492754 Likes http://twitter.com/elonmusk/statuses/1942636971450589642 <Second Post> @AOC (7/11/2025, 2:18:31 PM EDT): Wow who would have thought that electing a rapist would have complicated the release of the Epstein Files? 12742334 Followers | 47336 Reposts | 415845 Likes http://twitter.com/AOC/statuses/1943736675877658637

For those interested in what the conversation about the Epstein files looked like on X over the last few days, I collected some data and put it into an interactive visualization: faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/Spot...

A Supreme Court Justice who tries to communicate directly with the public is a novel idea and just what the institution needs – political communication to expose an institution masking its own corrupt politics with institutional trappings and lingering perceptions of integrity

Trump Is Gutting Weather Science and Reducing Disaster Response

“We are not witnessing a reimagining of federal disaster response — we are watching its demolition. With each policy rollback and staffing cut, the federal disaster management function is being hollowed out, leaving states and survivors to face storms, fires and floods with less.”

This was a noteworthy character beat in the film. Gordon presses Batman on the ferries blowing up, and Batman responds, "that won't happen." The Joker talks about the "fireworks" of the imminent explosion and Batman says "there won't be any fireworks!"

And this is only the beginning, Texas was terrible but we will likely see much worse ...

And yeah, federal agencies failed terribly in the immediate Katrina response because FEMA had been hollowed out under George W. Bush.

(I was involved in the Times-Picayune's Katrina coverage and co-authored a book on that disaster. One lesson was, only the federal government can coordinate the response to large-scale disasters and fund recovery. Basic matters of scale.)

It's at least a modestly positive development that the negative news coverage of the Texas disaster focused on weakened NOAA and FEMA capacities has spooked the White House about about plans to continue degrading/dismantling those agencies