Meghan

i have been thinking a lot about how the entire concept of “the deal” is antithetical to transparency, fair play and rule of law, as larry notes. the deal is necessarily nonstandard, ad hoc and dependent on the whims of the dealmaker

The Murkowski number shift is stunning.

I’ve always believed that the political destiny of great nations has often turned on weak men’s reaction to the equivalent of “Jenny laughed when I asked her to the Spring Formal”

I don’t want to go to an airport lounge. I want to go to an airport dive bar. Let me wait for my flight while I drink a tall boy and play a janky Sopranos pinball machine.

I know, right? There should be a version of The Slammer or Ship Ahoy at PDX. If we can have food carts and a miniature Hollywood Theatre we can swing a dive.

When I was flying every other week, the airport lounge made sense cost wise. Now that I’m not flying that much, eh. I have an AmEx and most of the airports I go to have a AmEx lounge and if they don’t the airport restaurant is fine.

Whenever I see any framing that is like “This used to be America, what happened?” I think about how I was in my thirties before I learned George Washington’s “wooden teeth” were actually dentures made of gold, ivory, and teeth forcibly pried from the mouths of his slaves. That’s the FIRST GUY.

Scoop: Brown interviewing campaign managers for Ohio Senate race Brown would be another key candidate recruit win for Senate Democratic leaders.

I feel like Sherrod Brown had to have seen some good data if he really is getting involved in that Senate race
www.axios.com/2025/08/04/sherrod-brown-ohio-senate-race-husted

a black and white photo of two men standing next to each other with the words `` i 'm shocked . '' ALT: a black and white photo of two men standing next to each other with the words `` i 'm shocked . ''

Judges now, with Trump’s DOJ being so openly corrupt:

Judges know this too. But they participate and uphold the lie because if they didn’t the system would crumble. Something like 97% of criminal cases end in plea deals. The state has enormous power against the accused and judges, as part of this carceral system, are complicit.

I’m gonna tell you a little secret, criminal defense attorneys know that attorneys for the government mislead and lie regularly and do not deserve the presumption of regularity. The Trump DOJ is just acting more blatantly and in the open.

ELIZABETH WARREN: What Zohran is saying is 'I want people to be able to afford to live in NYC'

FABER: But raising taxes in order to do it?

WARREN: Oh my goodness! Oh dear! Are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry?

My Russian professor: “I think it’s the name of a town — Рожан (and the old orthography hard sign at the end)”

Recruitment AND retention

AI Flight Pricing Can Push Travelers to the Limit of Their Ability to Pay Airlines, including Delta, are testing artificial intelligence in pricing. Get ready for what one startup calls the “exploitation phase.”

My coworker @chafkin.bsky.social got ahold of an internal white paper from Fetcherr, the AI pricing company that is working with Delta and other airlines to make fare prices even more erratic for consumers. It details what the company calls the “exploitation phase”: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Let's be clear about what's happening: the Republican Party is trying to rig the mid-term elections, so voters can't decide who we want in power.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is threatening to arrest every opposition party state legislator. They're trying to make the US a one party dictatorship.

GOP senators place holds on Treasury nominees over solar, wind credits The actions follow a so-far unsuccessful effort by a handful of moderate Senate Republicans to meet with the Treasury Department to discuss forthcoming guidance.

Grassley and Curtis "have escalated their pressure on the Trump administration in recent days to back off its efforts to strangle new solar and wind energy projects, warning that potential cancellations would make it harder to meet growing power demand."
www.politico.com/news/2025/08...

There was another review of this book that I saw last week and now cannot find that was equally as scathing. I appreciate any and all takedowns of this man.

I was at a fancy energy junket and the divide between the politicians/consultants and actual energy industry people was exactly knowing the lag time on a gas plant.

It’s a plan. Is it the right plan? Maybe not. But it’s better than leadership has right now - which is no plan.

How a British teen model was lured into Jeffrey Epstein's web Anouska De Georgiou, who grew up in an affluent family, says she fell into Epstein's circle of abuse through well-connected friends.

Note that article about Trump, Maxwell, and De Georgiou, when she's 20, is after De Georgiou had already been abused by Epstein.

Funny coincidence how the next person Maxwell sends her to after Epstein is Trump.

www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

I guess she’d aged out. But still seems to fit a certain pattern.

Close up pic of the top half of a gray and white cats face. Her head is nuzzled into a blue blanket.

The dogs are at the exes and the cat is missing them, so she’s been extra clingy and cuddly with me. Just a sweet little nugget that will not let me get up until she is ready to get up.

I’ve been watching ‘Shiny Happy People’ season 02. If you’re wondering how people grow up to be MAGA fascists, it’s definitely eye opening. Good interview footage with @jeffsharlet.bsky.social

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKfE...

My political appointee supervisor looked up my voter registration and social media and then took away my entire portfolio.

the voting rights act is, in its entirety, obviously constitutional under the 15th amendment, which gives congress broad and proactive authority to stop racial discrimination in voting. and you know it is obviously constitutional because roberts has had to invent entire new doctrines to gut it.

"How can we communicate with optimism about the future … when we're living in the here and now where American democracy is in peril? … And we're supposed to ignore it? Leave it to others to wrestle with …? No no no no no. …

"That is tonight's Last Word on my last day at the Washington Post."

October and January jobs reports should be devastating. (Should be - but who knows if they are going to cook the books)

NBC News: Ghislaine Maxwell was ineligible to be transferred to a minimum security prison camp — like the one she was transferred to in Texas — because she is a convicted sex offender, according to the Bureau of Prison's own designation policy.