Erin

“Put Them in Trauma”: Inside a Key MAGA Leader’s Plans for a New Trump Agenda Private videos reveal Trump adviser Russ Vought’s “shadow” plans for using the military on protesters, defunding the EPA and villainizing civil servants.

Before engineering the Trump administration's government shutdown response, Russ Vought spent years building Project 2025 strategy.

“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” he said in 2023. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work.”

(Pub. Oct. 2024)

Opinion | This Is Not Free Speech Trump is known for saying a lot of things that he can’t or won’t back up. This time, the threats are real.

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com

“The administration and its deep-pocketed allies sent up a trial balloon: Mourn, or else,” Tressie McMillan Cottom writes on the response to Charlie Kirk’s death. “Trump is known for saying a lot of things that he can’t or won’t back up. This time, the threats are real.”

The Story of DOGE, as Told by Federal Workers WIRED spoke with more than 200 federal workers in dozens of agencies to learn what happened as the Department of Government Efficiency tore through their offices.

It is every American's patriotic duty to read this entire thing:

www.wired.com/story/oral-h...

"I knew that someday, years or perhaps decades down the line, when half of Gaza was still rubble and the other half Israeli skyscrapers, the magazine would offer a mea culpa. Maybe someone involved would end up considering it the biggest mistake of their career."

A Honda with several bumper stickers including one that says "Stop Painting Brick"

Thank you for helping me learn today. Sending you this spotted in Texas.

Texas folks! This Sunday, I'll be joining author David Hillis at the Austin Central Library for a conversation about writing, deep time, hill country ecosystems, and the Lone Star State's splendid natural history. Come through!

Politically Motivated Violence Is Rare in the United States The government can and should vigorously pursue justice for Kirk and all the others murdered by politically motivated terrorists, but it can and should do so without new political witch hunts, expande...

www.cato.org/blog/politic...

After a Year of Covering Texas, It Still Makes No Damn Sense The wonderful, horrible, nonsensical nature of our schizophrenic state underlines why honest, independent journalism is so badly needed.

In this tumultuous moment, Texas is still unique in its mind-boggling extremes. Texas loves to pick on queer kids. Yet, Texas is one of the queerest states in the country. Nearly 20% of our residents were born in another country, but we’ve vilified those neighbors.

thebarbedwire.com/2025/09/10/t...

A&M Dean removed following student complaints over curriculum The Department of Justice has also acknowledged the situation and said it would be investigating.

"Our president says..." fuck all the way off.
www.kbtx.com/2025/09/09/a...

They thought the Wired piece didn't do enough to point out that Bi's accusations were baseless and thought there should have been an ob/gyn quoted in the piece.

Also for what it's worth I think the article's title is bad.

It's such a weird time to be a journalist. Wired could have done a better job of including information from OBs though I can imagine none wanted to incur her wrath.
I'm hopeful that people seem to be taking the surrogate's side, but there may be corners of the internet where that's not true.

So from my read, the subject of this article obviously torpedoed herself (like how most of her "evidence" comes from a psychic).
But in Trump's America, I'm not sure. Even my college-educated group text angrily said it was irresponsible to publish such misinformation.

Need a Court-Appointed Lawyer in North Texas? You Might Get One With a White Nationalist Tattoo. Jason Lee Van Dyke — one-time leader of the Proud Boys and sender of racist tweets — is a court appointed attorney in Denton County.

EXCLUSIVE: Jason Lee Van Dyke — one-time leader of the Proud Boys, sender of racist tweets, and attorney for white supremacists — is making taxpayer money to represent people of color. County officials say there’s no rule against it.

via @stevanzetti.bsky.social

thebarbedwire.com/2025/08/22/c...

"@acog.org called restorative reproductive medicine 'unproven' and 'not a medical term,' stressing that many patients have already tried to chart their cycles, treat underlying conditions and make lifestyle changes by the time they arrive at an infertility clinic."

A woman in my SMBC chat group was so pumped about Trump's promise to make IVF free so here's a reminder that he has still done jack shit about this and is probably going to backpedal to "restorative reproductive medicine" aka it's your fault you're infertile. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/u...

This is so fucking insane.

The Trump administrations wants to give your children diseases that we had already completely managed via inoculation so its friends can sell you treatment. Next up, new and improved smallpox!

you can sum up half of legacy media’s issues like this:

I cannot believe Jim Bankoff is still the CEO of Vox Media when he is so bad at his job.
Solidarity with my friends at the shell that's left of Eater.

At any moment on this planet there are people dying horrible deaths due solely to the natural lottery of where they were born, but this one is happening directly because our government is facilitating it.

In Flood Disasters, Community Matters More Than Ever. ‘Help’s Not Coming from the Government.’ Thanks to climate change, harsher flood events will require more rescue operations, resources, and rebuilding. But the current system “offloads everything to the volunteer,” says Chris Boyer, the exec...

Thanks to climate change, harsher flood events will require more rescue operations, resources, and rebuilding. But the current system “offloads everything to the volunteer,” says Chris Boyer, the executive director at the National Association for Search and Rescue.

“The River House Broke. We Rushed in the River.” The July 4 Texas flooding ripped our Kerr County home from its pillars, pulling us into the water and into the night. Then morning came.

“I don’t know how long it took—ten seconds, maybe fifteen—for the house to come apart."

During the early-morning hours of July 4, the Guadalupe River pulled senior editor Aaron Parsley and six members of his family into its waters. Read his firsthand account:

Killing in the Name of is the correct answer but also:
I Don't Get Tired - Kevin Gates
Cover Girl - BIA
Formation - Beyonce
Heaven is Calling - Jai Wolf
Aquí Yo Mando - Kali Uchis and Rico Nasty

Nowhere in the world to run: The international law ripping children from their mothers The Hague Abduction Convention was meant to reunite mothers and children. Instead, it's often used by allegedly abusive fathers to tear them apart.

Catching up on @19thnews.org & what a doozy.

“There are literally mothers and children who have been murdered because of this law, and they are telling me they have more important things that they have to work on in Congress,” Monasky said.

19thnews.org/2025/06/hagu...

I got one of these and the "trying to make a connection over something I know nothing about" is maddening but then linking it to bathroom ads is next-level. -15/10.

It’s a good thing Congress isn’t alive to see this

Thank you all SO MUCH for your support. Our incredible Bargaining Committee worked into the night for us and reached a Tentative Agreement at around 5am! 🙏💪🥳🎉

As of now there will be NO STRIKE! Please continue enjoying all our work, knowing you all helped us get here! #unionstrong #voxunion #1u

The way nobody can drive well anymore because of GPS — not just atrophied turn-by-turn navigation, but the way ppl no longer know the layouts of their town or the names of roads or what to do when the map doesn’t match the terrain — that’s what genAI is doing to communication skills and literacy