🇺🇸 Pithy Packy 🇳🇱

Opinion | Seven Pages of a Sealed Watergate File Sat Undiscovered. Until Now.

“There it was, finally — the secret Nixon had sought to keep under wraps: It was not the far left that most actively sought to sabotage the Nixon-Kissinger foreign policy but the hard right, not lowly pencil-pushers in the civil service but the most senior commanders at the Pentagon.”

🎁 article 👇🏼

The recent major layoffs catastrophe at the @washingpost.com is the result of what happens when a very entitled out-of-touch rich dude buys a national treasure and thinks that forcing truly good reporters away from reporting inconvenient truths (for entitled billionaires) will keep it alive.

Early returns in Louisiana’s special election:

The Dem candidate is leading 58.5% to 41.5%. That’s with a third of the vote in.

Context: this is a Dem-held seat but in a district TRUMP carried by 13%, so has been a big/obvious GOP target. Stay tuned.

Only 15 precincts to go and the Dem lead hasn’t moved

Seth Harp @sethharpesq X.com Ross Douthat @DouthatNYT challenged me to a debate on foreign policy. We recorded a 90-minute segment for his show, Interesting Times, on 1/15/26. But I defeated him so decisively that he refuses to air the footage. What an absolute coward. Today 11:41 AM Hi Is the NYT still planning to publish the interview I did with Ross three weeks ago? Today 1:01 PM Hey Seth, we've been working through the edit and it's looking like we aren't going to be able to make it work. We were kind of pummeled by the news cycle in the last 6 weeks and are going to pivot away from this story. Thanks for the time you put into it and for your expertise. Unbelievable cowardice on Ross's part and a giant waste of my time. I'm going to make it known what actually happened: Ross challenged me to a debate on foreign policy, got crushed, and doesn't have the intellectual or journalistic integrity to air the footage. Delivered

Seth Harp @sethharpesq. •6h Five days after we recorded, an editor of mine asked me how it went. I told her that @DouthatNYT was surprisingly unprepared to defend his point of view, and I suspected even then that they would spike it. From To seth.harp@protonmail.com * T Jan 20 凹 了 介 → It seemed to go just fine from my perspective although it did get a little heated towards the end when we debated foreign policy. I was somewhat surprised that Ross wasn't better prepared defend his point of view. They may still decide to spike it, we'll see. SH Sent with Proton Mail secure email. ••• On Tuesday, January 20th, 2026 at 11:41 AM, wrote: That's great —how did the interview go? {7 54 • 1.3K ill 38K

Seth Harp @sethharpesq. 5h I also told an editor at Harper's, on 1/30/26, that I suspected the NYT would spike the interview rather than publish video of me dog-walking @DouthatNYT and making a mockery of his defense of US regime-change wars ... Friday 12:35 PM It's been more than 2 weeks since I was interviewed for Ross Douthat's show. I murdered him in our debate over foreign policy and was genuinely surprised that he wasn't better prepared to defend his point of view. Now I'm concerned that he will spike the episode. Do you have a sense of how far ahead they usually record? Also I really hope I get to hear this My sense was that it was about a week Suspicious 4 17 44 • 1K thl 32K 贝 企 Seth Harp @sethharpesq. •5h Ross @DouthatNYT was unprepared to take on a subject matter expert, floundered around, and became irritable and sarcastic towards the end. But spiking the episode is ten times worse for his journalistic credibility than simply losing a debate, which happens to us all.

Seth Harp @sethharpesq. 5h ... Ross @DouthatNYT's producer blames their decision to spike our foreign policy debate on the crazy news cycle. But the last three episodes they've aired have been on Roe v. Wade, Covid-19, and young men's church attendance. OPINION Interesting Latest Feb. 5, 2026 Interesting Times with Ross Douthat The first draft of our future. Mapping the new world order through interviews and conversations. Every Thursday, from New York Times Opinion. Q Search Why Ending Roe Wasn't Enough for the Pro-Life Movement Activists won the legal battle. Are they losing the culture war? By ROSS DOUTHAT Jan. 29.2026 A Plan to Restore Trust in Science From a 'Fringe Epidemiologist' Jay Bhattacharya, the N.I.H. director, says authorities broke the public's trust in the Covid era. Now it's up to outsiders to restore it. By ROSS DOUTHAT and SOPHIA ALVAREZ BOYD Jan. 22,2026 No, Young Men Are Not Returning to Church All the religious trends you're wrong about. By ROSS DOUTHAT and ANDREA BETANZOS 18 17 75 1.5K ill 38K Seth Harp @sethharpesq. 1h I'm hearing that prominent guests are cancelling scheduled appearances on @DouthatNYT's show due to his lack of journalistic integrity. Why would you spend hours, days, or weeks prepping for an interview when you know the show is rigged to ensure that you don't show up the host? 3 223 ill 4.4K 贝

👀 Apparently, Ross Douthat invited Seth Harp to debate him on Douthat's "Interesting Times" NYT podcast. Harp says that the episode was recorded, Douthat got crushed, and RD/NYT decided not to publish it.

What? x.com/sethharpesq/...

Should You Buy a Newspaper or a Yacht? Advice for Jeff Bezos

Devastated to see what’s happening at a place that I loved because it was the writing home of so many people I loved. what a gutting week

We are not Nazis. Also: No Kings, No Dictators.

For anyone who wondered how the Germans turned a blind eye to the Holocaust, we are living through the answer. We watched it start in real time. Do you remember last October? The details slip away fast but holding onto them helps us hold onto who we are joycevance.substack.com/p/we-are-not...

Cowards

Who would he credit for a screenshot of part of the released and redacted Epstein files?

"Epstein class" is terrific not simply because several of them are directly tied to Epstein's crimes, but because it strikes at the corruption, immorality and impunity of that entire circle.

Saturday Report 2/7/26 — Surprise Surprise?! TrumpRX is a fake. Read the fine print... The Best of the Rest of the News and Opinion

hartmannreport.com/p/saturday-r...

Let’s not forget the Epstein files.

Just one segment from the Thom Hartman report. Link in followup post.

instagram.com/stcous_3333

Curious as to why sender name was redacted too.

We are deciding right now whether we want to be a country with ethnic cleansing and concentration camps.

Extermination camps.

Warehouses for human product — slaves — to be shipped to third countries.

We can’t later claim that we didn’t know.

2025 Transparency Report Overview - Bluesky In 2025, as Bluesky grew from 25 million to 41 million users, we improved the trust and safety infrastructure to better enable our mission. Here's what that looks like in plain language.

In 2025, as Bluesky grew from 25M to 42M users, we took actions to keep it welcoming, using proactive design to reduce toxic content by 79%.  Our 2025 Transparency Report shares how we're building a safer platform while keeping a transparent and human-centered approach: bsky.social/about/blog/0...

Waffles the three-legged, chonky, tabby cat, sitting on the bed, looking very judgy.

Waffles is feeling extra judgy this Caturday morning.

#wafflesthecat #cat #cats #catsofbluesky #catsky #tripawed #threeleggedcat #caturday

Rain makes him gwumpy. Not you.

Vasco Gargalo

Federal prosecutors began investigating Renee Good’s killing. They had a warrant.

Washington ordered them to stop — fearing a civil-rights probe would contradict Trump’s claim that Good “violently, willfully, and viciously” ran over the ICE officer who shot her.

When prosecutors

NSA detected phone call between foreign intelligence and a person close to Trump Whistleblower says that Tulsi Gabbard blocked agency from sharing report and delivered it to White House chief of staff

NSA found someone close to Trump in illegally in contact with foreign intelligence. Gabbard, head of NSA does nothing. Whistleblower reported Tulsi sitting on it. Instead of following protocol with informing the 8 key Congress-members, Gabbard goes to Trump’s Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles.

Pursued by federal agents, suburban ICE observers remain resolved After a frightening pursuit by federal agents, suburban ICE observers say fear hasn’t stopped them from protecting their communities.

"It's more soccer moms than hardcore activists, they said. But the challenging conditions have brought them closer together. After knowing each other for just weeks, they feel like they’d give their lives to protect one another if necessary..."

www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

Anne Applebaum on Trump's betrayal of Europe "They’re bewildered we’ve allowed this to happen."

"The American media makes things that are abnormal seem normal. The European press doesn’t do that. So you’ll see when they report on Trump’s rambling Davos speech, they will say it made no sense. In the US press, you’ll just see excerpts and an attempt to sanitize it." — @anneapplebaum.bsky.social

You’re g-damn right I ordered the racist Obama post!

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

So amazed at the student organizers in South East CT today. Thank you to @50501movement.bsky.social NL immigrant defense @indivisiblesect.bsky.social and the countless other adults that came out to support these students and uplift their voices.