Ineffable Benthic Pulchritude (braveiowan on bird app)

....it looks like an... inflatable palm tree, a kiddie pool full of dos equis empties and...yes, he's starting to put up string lights and a few faded collapsible chairs... there is a rusty folgers can of cigarette butts propping the door open... and yup, he slapped a skrewdriver sticker on the door

Can we swap out our billionaires for the welfare state ones, they seem less sociopathic lol

Somewhat undersold by the vocal rich that there are a decent chunk of them that are for taxes

You hilariously see it in scandinavia a little where last year there was similar "the rich will flee" commotion and the funny thing about a swedish magnate is they're like "ill only pay 60%"

Only?

Coast Guard Arrested a Canadian Man. He Says He Wasn’t in U.S. Waters. Fisherman Edouard Lallemand is accusing the U.S. Coast Guard of kidnapping him.

For reference,

Cmon ICE, nice try

When the cryptocurrency entrepreneur Eric Schiermeyer heard that President Trump was holding small group dinners with major donors, he saw opportunity. Mr. Schiermeyer reached out to a lobbyist with connections in Mr. Trump’s orbit, who arranged for him to attend a dinner with the president at his private Mar-a-Lago club on March 1 in exchange for donations to a pro-Trump PAC called MAGA Inc. totaling $1 million. The personal and corporate donations were among dozens of seven- and eight-figure contributions to MAGA Inc. from crypto and other interests revealed in a campaign finance filing on Thursday night that hinted at the access Mr. Trump accords those willing to pay. At the dinner, Mr. Schiermeyer, who had never given a federal political donation before, presented an idea for a cryptocurrency called “U.S.A. Token” that would be distributed to every citizen, according to interviews and a flier he distributed to attendees that sets out details of the proposal. He hoped it could be su

Cryptocurrency interests, which have benefited from the Trump administration’s dismantling of a yearslong government crackdown and from the Trump family’s financial interest in the industry, appear to have been the most generous industry, accounting for nearly $45 million in donations to MAGA Inc.An affiliate of the exchange Crypto.com gave $10 million, while the crypto services company Blockchain.com donated $5 million. The venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who are heavily invested in crypto, gave $3 million each. Ondo Finance, which has a partnership with the Trump family’s crypto company, donated $2.1 million to MAGA Inc., on top of $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

The scale of Trump's pay-for-access scheme outlined by the @nytimes.com is mindblowing. Crypto contributions resulting in business deals with the Trump family crypto businesses, oil companies buying influence and later reaping benefits from friendly policies, and a $1 million pardon.

Age, in terms of generational presumed knowledge. As in, Mamets old enough that any new conservatism is going to be pinned on his memory of old, so its a dual 1. He wont believe trump could be a "new" bad thing besides R in general + 2. He is SO familiar w libs culturally, he cant think politically

YouTube video by Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso David Mamet Has Left the Building | Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

in which David Mamet walks out on @samfragoso.bsky.social for questioning his stance on the Columbia protests vs J6 insurrectionists

Pike is part of the spinfoil hat althistory pushed by a big freemasonry contingent (im not kidding, i went down this detour in 2020) that frames pike as a freemason *first* and is a part of the larger "the klan? Whaaaaaat?" deal that likes to loop ole bedford forrest rehab in... i hate this statue

Excerpt from Bertol Brecht's war primer THOSE WHO TAKE THE MEAT FROM THE TABLE Teach contentment. Those for whom the contribution is destined Demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry Of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country into the abyss Call ruling too difficult For ordinary men.

Bertol Brecht's War Primer, snippet

Roofing company ad w slogan "forged by faith; Built with Pride

Trivial, but i give credit to being so confident in one's "faith" you immediately roll into one of the seven deadly sins.

Hard to suss out which party is insulted more there

You know there was a really crap blog/article a guy wrote about thus particular statue, railing about the wokes and i went down a rabbit hole on it because it was just all wrong, factually, and im a nobody so i never posted but this, uniquely, pisses me off

Fuck albert pike

The AI bubble is so big it's propping up the US economy (for now) Plus how American professors are fighting back against the AI onslaught, a backlash over AI models in Vogue, and more.

Analysts show that capital expenditures on AI were so big over the last 6 months they added more to the GDP than *all consumer spending*. That growth is offsetting pain from the tariffs and slow job growth.

So the AI bubble may be propping up the whole US economy. What happens if and when it pops?

The cloud city ref is, sadly, going to be omnipresent for awhile lol

bsky.app/profile/anin...

Democratic senators negotiated for release of billions in funds in exchange for confirmation deals, sources say Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was negotiating with Republican leadership for the release of billions in government funds for the National Institutes of Health, World Food Program and other spen...

Theyre offering confirmations in exchange for shit they already won funding for a first time

How depressing to view an exchange of equal value when the thing you are bargaining for is prior approved funds

Like my guy, you actually already won that bargain when it passed as a bill, some cloud city shit

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.

I want this first line on a damn billboard with his name and employer listed. The moodys guy gets it ffs.

Mark Zandi @Markzandi · 8h The economy is on the precipice of recession. That’s the clear takeaway from last week’s economic data dump. Consumer spending has flatlined, construction and manufacturing are contracting, and employment is set to fall. And with inflation on the rise, it is tough for the Fed to come to the rescue. Unemployment remains low, but that’s only because labor force growth has gone sideways. The foreign-born workforce is shrinking, and labor force participation is declining. Telling is the economy-wide hiring freeze, particularly for recent graduates, and the decline in hours worked. Mark Zandi @Markzandi · 8h It’s no mystery why the economy is struggling; blame increasing U.S. tariffs and highly restrictive immigration policy. The tariffs are cutting increasingly deeply into the profits of American companies and the purchasing power of American households. Fewer immigrant workers means a smaller economy.

Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi says:
- We are headed for a recession
-The BLS data is totally reliable- for now
-The revisions are due to delayed reporting of DOGE govt layoffs
-Higher tariffs are dragging down the economy
1/

One of the tenets of my own personal socialism is that capital will always work in its own interests, and seeing that assumption fail in such a spectacularly illogical direction is breaking my brain in a way I just did not anticipate. I simply don't know how to adjust my priors for this.

The Trump Administration’s Campaign to Undermine the Next Election The executive branch is interfering in U.S. elections in unprecedented ways.

I’m not a doomer, but seeing all of this stuff laid out in one place, combined with seeing continued reports of businesses and universities and law firms capitulating to threats, combined with SCOTUS seemingly rubber stamping everything, makes me really, really apprehensive.

Red Vines are the peoples candy ropes

Legit chuckled at the moment of authorship reveal. Pampaul, alltimer, one of the "greats"

Epstein Is Only the Tip of the Iceberg: The Trump Protection Machine and the Epidemic of Violence Against Women On July 2, the jury delivered a guilty verdict on some of the charges against music mogul Sean Combs for his decades of horrific sexual abuse of women with the help of his extensive staff and deep poc...

A longer version of this essay is at:

Paul Ingrassia (lawyer) - Wikipedia

The guy Trump picked to lead the office that’s now investigating Jack Smith:

— said Niki Haley is ineligible to be president
— has neo-Nazi ties
— was Andrew Tate’s lawyer
— 2x Claremont fellow
— wrote for Gateway Pundit
— called for Pence to be hanged
— called for secession after 2020 election

More on Trump’s nominee to lead the office investigating Jack Smith:

➡️ He said that the descendants of slaves should pay reparations to the descendants of slave owners

➡️ He urged Congress to make J6 a national holiday

➡️ He called for Trump’s birthday to be made a national holiday (“MAGA Day”)

I spent decades at Columbia. I’m withdrawing my fall course due to its deal with Trump | Rashid Khalidi The university’s draconian policies and new definition of antisemitism make much teaching impossible

Columbia’s capitulation has turned…[it] into…an anti-university, a gated security zone with electronic entry controls, a place of fear and loathing, where faculty and students are told from on high what they can teach and say, under penalty of severe sanctions.” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Trump seeks to fire official overseeing jobs data after weak employment report - The Boston Globe Friday’s jobs report showed that just 73,000 jobs were added last month and that 258,000 fewer jobs were created May and June than previously estimated.

President Trump called for the firing of the head of the agency that produces the monthly jobs figures after a report showed hiring slowed in July and was much weaker in May and June.

These people need to learn the fine art of prethawing postcoital uncrustables