Monkeytime

One of the best pianists I've ever heard in my life. A beautiful musician. Rest in peace.

Just subscribed to BALT Beat @baltimorebeat.bsky.social as a monthly donor! An underrated way of holding the line against fascism rn is actually putting your money where your values align. Def encourage my legions of followers (lol) to do the same and support Black-led local journalism

This is the worker-run local news outlet that sprung from the ashes of DCist. It totally deserves your coffee money for tomorrow.

DC needs reliable local news sources!

Tweet from Cassidy: It is unfortunate that the Secretary just canceled a half a billion worth of work, wasting the money which is already invested. He has also conceded to China an important technology needed to combat cancer and infectious disease. President Trump wants to Make America Healthy Again and Make America Great Again. This works against both of President Trump’s goals.

Senator Bill Cassidy’s vote secured the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy jr. He’s now issued a brief statement faintly calling Kennedy’s destruction of vaccine research “unfortunate”

it's so, "of course she was," but just noting it now: Azeen Ghorayshi's NYT reporting was cited twice in the outrageous Bondi memo in April, instructing DOJ to investigate gender-affirming care for anyone under 19 www.justice.gov/ag/media/140...

The text of the “Katie Johnson” v Donald Trump / Jeffery Epstein lawsuit I downloaded the KJ V DT JE lawsuit, Central District of California Case 5:16-cv-00797-DMG-KS, and converted it to text, and cleaned it up for posting. Frankly, I am not sure if this postable because ...

Text from the lawsuit filed by "Katie Johnson" against Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. The case was suddenly dropped a few days before the November 2016 election. In it, Trump and Epstein argued over which would rape her, a virgin. Trump won. BIG TRIGGER WARNING. www.dailykos.com/stories/2025...

JK Rowling tweeting got a boycott of M&S, stretching facts to the breaking point, and making the world a worse place for absolutely everyone.

The employee asked the girl and her mother if they needed help shopping. That’s it. That’s all. The misinformation, the insinuations (because the facts are inconveniently benign) are EXACTLY what was done to lesbians in the 80s. This is the product of hate and fear, not reality.

Buttigieg has doubled down on his “leave the issue of trans kids in sports up to communities.”

To reiterate: This means leaving civil rights up to localities, abdicating the role of the federal government.

School districts controlled by Moms for Liberty extremists will be free to discriminate.

Brown University is ‘functionally inaccessible’ to transgender students after Trump settlement “Everyone I talked to thought it only applied to sports. But it applies to everything," one transgender student told The Advocate.

The Trump administration effectively created a de facto bathroom ban at Brown University and none of the major media is covering it, and if they do, they character it as about sports. This is how the trans visa ban was enacted and characterized.

www.advocate.com/news/transge...

I believe one of the new mRNA vaccines was expected to treat colon cancer, and another had the potential to keep pancreatic cancer from recurring. That’s what they’re taking away.

The FBI released its Uniform Crime Report *today* showing that all categories of violent crime are down in Washington DC, returning to pre-2020 levels.

Sam Altman @sama someday soon something smarter than the smartest person you know will be running on a device in your pocket, helping you with whatever you want. this is a very remarkable thing.

Sam Altman has got to the point where he doesn't even bother to describe stuff anymore. "Uhh yeah sometime you'll have a thingy that will do stuff. And wow will it be good!"

This is actually the fault of the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, which unconstitutionally capped the size of the House at the 435 seats determined by the 1910 census. We have a legislature based on the year California had 2.3M people. Both chambers have shifted power from people to land.

They speak for the Gunpowder River. That includes warning about E. coli. Volunteers with the Gunpowder Riverkeepers are uncovering dangerously high E. coli levels in parts of Baltimore’s beloved river, raising concerns about water safety, pollution and what’s at stake for ...

Yow: "The Department of Natural Resources advises swimmers to avoid all natural bodies of water for 48 hours after a one-inch rain due to the threat of contamination...[In summer] it’s hard to find a day that doesn’t come within two days of a hard rain." www.thebaltimorebanner.com/gunpowder-ri...

They speak for the Gunpowder River. That includes warning about E. coli. Volunteers with the Gunpowder Riverkeepers are uncovering dangerously high E. coli levels in parts of Baltimore’s beloved river, raising concerns about water safety, pollution and what’s at stake for ...

Tubing down the Gunpowder River is the perfect way to spend a summer day— except when E. coli levels are soaring, as they have frequently this year. I spent time with the Gunpowder Riverkeepers to see how they’re working to protect the river. www.thebaltimorebanner.com/gunpowder-ri...

You can see the "I've made a huge mistake" wash over this dude's face. Love this energy from Nebraska

I absolutely love this story, and you will too. She's going straight from high school, without graduating, into the graduate department of math at the University of Maryland this fall. She's already rewritten the landscape of her field. Fabulous.

Not fleeing: New report shows more wealthy residents in Mass., 2 years into 'millionaire's tax' Despite previous concerns, Massachusetts' "millionaire's tax" hasn't seemed to deter high-earners from continuing to live here, according to a new study from the Institute for Policy Studies.

MA put in a 4% millionaires tax 2 years ago, & the GOP said we'd miss revenue targets & millionaires would flee. MA collected TWICE the projected revenues, & the number of millionaires went UP 40%.
www.wbur.org/news/2025/04...

The Trump Administration Is Promoting Its Anti-Trans Agenda Globally at the United Nations U.S. delegates have objected to use of the word “gender” in U.N. documents during forums on topics as varied as women’s rights, science and technology, global health, toxic pollution and chemical wast...

At a United Nations meeting on pollution, the U.S. delegate said the U.S. has a "national position" on gender.

The position leaves no room for the existence of transgender, nonbinary and intersex people, who face discrimination around the world.

My latest:

www.propublica.org/article/trum...

How an NYC Suburb Is Actually Managing to Bring Rents Down New Rochelle embraces development and makes it easy to build, leading to thousands of new apartments.

WSJ gift link to the article this quote comes from: www.wsj.com/real-estate/...

But one commuter town outside New York City is slicing through red tape and building thousands of new apartments. New Rochelle has completed more than 4,500 new housing units over the past decade. Another 6,500 units are either in the pipeline or the planning stages for the next several years. Those 11,000 new units would represent a 37% increase in the number of New Rochelle apartments compared with 10 years ago. About a 40-minute train ride to Midtown Manhattan, this suburb of more than 85,000 remains one of the few places offering relative affordability in the notoriously expensive New York City metro area. New Rochelle median rents are only 1.6% higher than in 2020, well below the 25% or higher increases in New York City and outer markets like New Jersey's Newark, Hoboken and Jersey City, according to Apartment List. New Rochelle's median rent actually declined 2% from 2020 to 2023, while median rent nationally was surging at a double-digit rate.

Begging you to just build more housing

You can text "Hello" to 741741 any time and talk to a crisis counselor. It's free and available 24/7 in the US and Canada. It doesn't matter what kind of crisis you're experiencing; if it's a crisis to you, it's a crisis to them.

Yep, that tracks

Fuckers. "On his way out, he said that CEO Sadarangani urged him against exercising his stock options — options that will now, barring changes to the current deal, be worth nothing."

Thread.

The main rationale offered for this fundraising frenzy is that it's a necessary evil—that the tactics, while unpleasant, are brutally effective at raising the money needed to win. But that’s a lie. A fundraising model with a 1.6% efficiency rate is not a pragmatic fundraising strategy.

The Mothership Vortex: An Investigation Into the Firm at the Heart of the Democratic Spam Machine How a single consulting firm extracted $282 million from a network of spam PACs while delivering just $11 million to actual campaigns.

The annoying spam texts destroying the Democratic brand:

$678M raised through those spam tactics

$282M to one consulting firm: Mothership Strategies.

$11M to actual campaigns (1.6%)

The party isn’t just treating donors like marks—it’s being fleeced itself yet continues to back Mothership.

Quid pro quo Cryptocurrency companies are reaping the benefits of their contributions to Trump and other pro-crypto politicians. Company Benefit Contribution Justin Sun and Tron SEC enforcement case stayed pending resolution Criminal investigation possibly paused $100 million to purchase $TRUMP memecoins $75 million to purchase WLFI tokens from Trump-owned World Liberty Financial $37.7 million to purchase $TRUMP memecoins (via HTX) Listed USD1 for trading on HTX Cumberland DRW SEC enforcement case dismissed with prejudice $100 million investment into Trump-owned Trump Media & Technology Group $100,000 to crypto-focused super PACs Ripple SEC enforcement case stayed pending resolution Joint request to return $75 million of previous SEC fine to Ripple $73 million to crypto-focused super PACs $5 million to Trump inauguration fund Coinbase SEC enforcement case dismissed with prejudice Relaunched bitcoin borrowing program previously shut down after SEC warnings $75 million to crypto-focused super PACs $1 million to Senate super PACs $1 million to Trump inauguration fund Sponsored Trump birthday military parade Andreessen Horowitz Four Andreessen Horowitz employees installed in formal or informal positions of influence at the White House $70 million to crypto-focused super PACs $5.35 million to Trump super PACs

Crypto.com SEC investigation ended with no action $10 million to Trump PACs Business partnership with Trump-owned Trump Media & Technology Group Gemini SEC enforcement case stayed pending reslution SEC investigation ended with no action $4.9 million to crypto-focused super PACs $2.6 million to Trump super PACs Kraken SEC enforcement case dismissed with prejudice Relaunched staking services which were shut down as part of a February 2023 SEC settlement $1 million to Trump super PACs $1 million to Trump inauguration fund $1 million to crypto-focused super PACs Circle SEC approved IPO Favorable stablecoin regulation $1 million to Trump inauguration fund $1 million to crypto-focused super PACs Robinhood SEC investigation ended with no action $2 million to Trump inauguration fund ConsenSys SEC enforcement case dismissed with prejudice $800,000 to crypto-focused super PACs Binance SEC enforcement case dismissed with prejudice Reported talks with US Treasury Department to remove compliance monitor Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao seeking pardon Listed USD1 for trading $2 billion investment from MGX denominated in USD1 Reported Trump family talks to acquire stake in Binance US

I've been tracking the quid pro quo between Trump and the cryptocurrency industry at www.followthecrypto.org/quidproquo