David Daniel

increase a band: smart punk

Veterans’ Care at Risk Under Trump as Hundreds of Doctors and Nurses Reject Working at VA Hospitals Amid concerns about the stability of the agency, records show nearly 40% of the doctors offered jobs at the VA from January through March of this year turned them down — quadruple the rate of…

One disabled Marine veteran has not had a primary care doctor assigned to him since his previous doctor left in the winter, his wife said. The VA “was never like this before. There’s a lack of staff, empty rooms, locked doors.”

RAPID RESPONSE DOD Rapid Respo... @DODResponse Follow We are gathered at the Pentagon for our monthly worship service. We will forever be One Nation Under God. 1:31 PM • 8/13/25 • 17K Views

Monthly “worship service” held today at the Pentagon, led by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth:

‘Help me, please!’

Plainclothes “ICE” agents snatch a man outside Los Angeles’ largest courthouse on Wednesday. A tactic that has been repeatedly condemned by the legal community.

Painful to watch. Even more painful knowing there are people who not only accept this, are happy about it.

The stats showing a huge decline in violent crime and homicide in D.C. last year were put out just the other day by the FBI, which is run by Kash Patel.

Schools are compulsory, your kid can literally be sent to juvenile detention for truancy. You cannot charge them to attend. I hope lawyers are up these people’s ass by end of business, this is flagrantly illegal and discriminatory.

AI Industry Warns That New Lawsuit Could Destroy It Entirely Anthropic is appealing a judge's decision that would allow potentially millions of authors to sue for copyright infringement together.

"The industry argues... if it was forced to pay up for all the copyrighted art it used, it effectively would sink the entire endeavor.

Such an admission might warrant some reflection on whether hinging an industry's existence on pillaging virtually the entire internet is ethical or sustainable."

YouTube video by Bleecker Street Relay | Official 1970s Trailer | Bleecker Street

"He's the man you call when there's nowhere left to turn."

Very cool: a 1970s-style trailer for the thriller RELAY, in theaters August 22.

Longtime Wyoming newspaper executives to buy, reopen eight shuttered newspapers - WyoFile Overjoyed newsroom staff in communities across Wyoming are back on the job with pay after corporate closure laid off 30 employees.

"We are honored to assume stewardship of these legacy community newspapers. Our foremost priority has been to ensure that these counties are not left without a credible, enduring source of local journalism." #FindTheGood

My answer to the @muckrack.com k Daily trivia question: the disastrous "The Chevy Chase Show" on Fox was the first late-night talk show hosted by an SNL alum.

YouTube video by Netflix Katrina: Come Hell and High Water | Official Trailer | Netflix

"20 years later, this isn't a retelling.

It's a reckoning."

Trailer for the documentary series KATRINA: COME HELL AND HIGH WATER, debuting August 27 on Netflix.

Slightly diminish a band:

Mumbling Heads

Trump’s War on Measurement Means Losing Data on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change and More By slashing teams that gather critical data, the administration has left the federal government with no way of understanding if policies are working — and created a black hole of information whose…

In agency after agency, the U.S. government is losing its capacity to measure how American society is functioning, making it much harder to gauge the nature and scale of the problems we are facing and the effectiveness of policies.

(Published April)

White House Announces Comprehensive Review of Smithsonian Exhibitions

You can't teach U.S. history without "divisive" narratives. Slavery wasn't "unifying." The Japanese incarceration wasn't "unifying." The anti-immigrant Operation Wetback (real name) wasn't "unifying."
It's history's job to tell the truth, not cover up past racism to pave the way for future racism.

Politico’s recent AI experiments shouldn’t be subject to newsroom editorial standards, its editors testify In a July arbitration hearing, Politico faced allegations that two generative AI tools violated its union contract.

AI is going to transform journalism! (I’m going to create lower editorial standards and claim it’s not actually journalism in order to justify the actual output)

www.niemanlab.org/2025/08/poli...

Ouch! Hope you’re not too shaken (or stirred).

A customer had "Who Can it Be Now?" By Men at Work as his ringtone and I'm kinda mad I didn't think of it myself.

My answer to the @muckrack.com Daily trivia question: 18-year-old DJ Kool Herc.

YouTube video by Sony Pictures Classics ELEANOR THE GREAT | Official Trailer (2025)

This is going to have me in tears.

Trailer for ELEANOR THE GREAT, starring June Squibb and directed by Scarlett Johansson, in theaters September 26.

The Memory Keepers A frontline Ukrainian newspaper draws from its own history.

Until Russian tanks rolled into Izium in 2022, Obrii had only stopped printing once before: when the Nazis occupied the town during the WWII. For 106 years, it has been the newspaper of record for the community. Today, it represents something greater: "Hope for the return of normal life." #Ukraine

YouTube video by Christine Lavin - Topic Cold Pizza For Breakfast

A classic.

Robert Reich This One Thing Is Making Your Life More Expensive | Robert Reich

Private equity is destroying hospitals, housing markets, the media, and other vital parts of our communities.

Now, thanks to Trump, private equity could soon have access to $12.2 trillion in Americans’ 401(k) and retirement plans.

Here's what you should know about the industry.

Could LA face a deadly flood like Central Texas? Study maps the risk Communities along the LA River and fire burn areas could see floods so deep the water goes over your head, with Long Beach and South LA at highest risk.

Could LA face a deadly flood like Central Texas? A study maps the risk.
Communities along the LA River and fire burn areas could see floods so deep the water goes over your head, with Long Beach and South LA at highest risk.
lapublicpress.org/2025/08/coul...

Colorado newspaper asks local government for $350K to publish 'good news' The news behind the news in Colorado

"One important element of journalism that sets it apart from other forms of communication, like PR & advertising, is independence. How news organizations might retain editorial guardrails when they rely on public funding... is a serious question they ought to consider and be transparent about."

There's a lot more to it -- Clapton wrote it with Jim Gordon, and Gordon supposedly got the piano melody from his girlfriend, Rita Coolidge... and of course, eventually Boyd divorced Harrison and married Clapton.

My answer to the @muckrack.com Daily trivia question: Eric Clapton wrote "Layla" about Pattie Boyd, who was married to his friend George Harrison.

Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations A dark money group paid $80,000 to Noem’s personal company when she was governor of South Dakota. She did not include this income on her federal disclosure forms, a likely violation of ethics…

#ICYMI: Kristi Noem, while governor of South Dakota, supplemented her roughly $130,000 salary by secretly accepting $80,000 donated to a political nonprofit she was affiliated with, records show.

She never disclosed this income on federal ethics forms.

Anti-trans laws cause bookstore owners to leave state SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – On July 1, a new South Dakota law will take effect, requiring transgender people to use restrooms that align with their gender assigned at birth. The change has one South Da...

10 Aug 25 -- Family with trans daughter opened an award-winning local bookstore in South Dakota; but after passage of state bathroom law, their daughter can't use the right bathroom in their own store. So they've solid it, packed up and are leaving the state. @rikiwilchins.bsky.social

“You Feel Like You’re Being Cheated”: Oil Companies Unfairly Take Millions, North Dakota Mineral Owners Say Oil companies are holding back a large portion of revenue payments to the people they lease drilling rights from, often with little explanation. But the industry has an outsize influence in the…

Even using an oil industry lobbyist’s estimate, North Dakota mineral owners lost at least $322M in withheld royalties to oil companies in 2023.

“It’s a matter of fairness,” one owner said. “You feel like you’re being cheated.”

With @northdakotamonitor.com

NATIONAL LAZY DAY | August 10 NATIONAL LAZY DAY National Lazy Day on August 10 gives us permission to relax and kick back. So, we're going to be a bit lazy here. #NationalLazyDay As you can

I've just been informed I've been working too hard today, as it's National Lazy Day.