Jillian Powers

Folks, if ICE shot a pastor in the head with a pepper ball on camera, what do you think they do to people behind closed doors?

Elon Musk said he was going to cut spending by $2 trillion dollars, but instead spending is higher this year than we thought it would be before Trump took office. Truly incredible stuff.

The thoughts of an economic depression are depressing

Supreme Court: of course states can regulate, and restrict access to, medical procedures if there’s a compelling public interest

Colorado: (bans conversion therapy for minors)

Supreme Court: no not like that, we only meant abortion

Bondi senate hearing had a folder full of notes for attacking the senators

Bondi senate hearing had a folder full of notes for attacking the senators

Bondi senate hearing had a folder full of notes for attacking the senators

Bondi senate hearing had a folder full of notes for attacking the senators

Reuters photographer Jonathan Ernst noticed that Bondi flipped open a file during the Senate hearing and he zoomed in.

Inside were her crib notes for attacking the senators.

The GOP now practicing Cliff's Notes Fascism

In other words, under oath Bondi was purely a performance.

This is great. The absurdity of this moment captured. Make it go viral.

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted “no one has died” as a result of U.S. foreign aid cuts. In Myanmar, the grieving father of a 2-year-old boy who died after their food rations were cut calls such claims a lie.

Gonna be thinking about this lede for a minute.

This is just incredible

A tiny, tagged Monarch butterfly has flown from Southern Ontario in Canada to *Oklahoma* in a couple of weeks, as part of their migration

And they haven't got google maps open on their phones either, they just know where to go

Solar and wind power has grown faster than electricity demand this year, report says A new analysis of solar and wind power shows its generation worldwide has outpaced electricity demand this year.

There is a lot that is Not Great about the current moment.

That doesn't mean that there aren't some good things too.

For the first half of the year, more energy was generated from renewables than from coal.

apnews.com/article/clim...

"Ultimately, the highest goal of democratic governments is not, and should not be, innovation. Rather, it is about making sure that various trade-offs, between innovation and safety, digitization and nondiscrimination, are managed in line with the rule of law. The goal is to prevent companies from moving fast and breaking things." - The Tech Coup by Marietje Schaake

This from @marietjeschaake.bsky.social's excellent book "The Tech Coup" remains an evergreen statement.

Robin Williams' daughter has some quality thoughts on AI slop

Claim: 10 cars rammed ICE
Truth: No cars rammed ICE

Claim: She boxed ICE in
Truth: ICE boxed her in

Claim: She shot a rifle at ICE
Truth: She did not have a rifle

Claim: ICE returned fire
Truth: Only ICE fired

Claim: She drove herself to the hospital
Truth: Paramedics found her

Judge blocks South Carolina from giving DOJ millions of voters' data Sep. 3, 2025

Judge's house on fire

Judge Diane Goodstein crossed the Trump administration last month. Yesterday, her home burned, her husband was injured and it's being investigated for arson.

www.postandcourier.com/news/crime/s...

Elon Musk Gambles Billions in Memphis to Catch Up on AI xAI is aiming to win the tech arms race with its “Colossus” data centers, thrown up at lightning speed, but Memphis is divided over the massive power and water demands.

"Musk’s data centers will probably bring in only a few hundred jobs to Memphis while consuming millions of gallons of water a day and more electricity than is needed to power all the city’s homes. Natural-gas turbines powering the data centers have brought pollution and controversy over their use.."

‘Obedient, yielding and happy to follow’: the troubling rise of AI girlfriends AI dating sites claim they remove potential for exploitation, but critics say they are reinforcing harmful stereotypes

‘Obedient, yielding and happy to follow’: the troubling rise of AI girlfriends

The fact they jumped straight to AI actors modeled after women when, if I’m not mistaken, male actors are a higher labor cost kind of says it all doesn’t it,

Violent thugs are terrorizing Americans and they were sent by the White House.

I distinctly remember the moment the coin dropped for me that government jobs were a path to the middle class for black Americans and so advocating for “small government” is, and always has been, racist at its core

"At the foundation of our civil liberties lies the principle that denies to government officials an exceptional position before the law and which subjects them to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen."
Louis D. Brandeis, who died on this day in 1941

“.. no modern American president has positioned his family to make so much money while in the White House. Already, since the early days of his reelection campaign, he’s more than doubled his net worth to about $5.4 billion.”

@bloomberg.com
www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

Moderation works best when most people are following the rules willingly and view the moderation as necessary and helpful. Getting that buy in is not that hard, but the thing that makes it hard is having a contemptuous, combattive attitude towards your userbase.

A political media apparatus either full of suckers or accomplices willing to gobble up absolute garbage about Trump “distancing himself from” Project 2025.

How Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss have taken the NY Times’ campus concern trolling to new heights in just 2 years

With news that Bari Weiss is going to be the new EIC at CBS News, I wanted to reup this piece I wrote 6 years ago about how she and Bret Stephens helped turn NYT into a moral panic factory www.mediamatters.org/new-york-tim...

Can we call them the Gestapo now?

"Only the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on United States currency and securities." 31 USC 5114(b)

Journalists should never have to fear government retaliation for reporting on government activity, and showing up to work shouldn't result in your family being torn apart.

Yes, New College is incredibly inefficient but it also dropped 60(!) spots on the US News & World Report rankings. Not easy!
Everytime Chris Rufo is introduced as an impt voice in higher ed, remember that the one time he had a hand in running an institution has been a disaster.
Competence matters.

Apple Faces Greenwashing Lawsuit Over Carbon Neutral Claims The Environmental Defense Fund has backed the tech giant's carbon offset practices as class-action lawsuit challenges Apple Watch carbon neutrality

Lol. Called it.

It’s fat general week