Jonathan Koomey

“After Senate leaders failed to fast-track more of President Trump's nominees before recess, Republicans are vowing to change the rules when they return in September, Axios' Stef Kight and Stephen Neukam report. Why it matters: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) refused to back down from his demands. Trump ultimately gave Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) cover to let his fatigued conference go home and reset yesterday evening— setting the stage for a renewed fight this fall. ⚖️ Zoom in: Senate Republicans are eyeing rules changes to counter Democrats' stonewalling of civil nominee confirmations. It's unclear what exact changes they'll pursue. Some options include eliminating procedural votes; shortening debate time; voting on nominees en bloc; or shortening the list of positions requiring confirmation. Recess appointments — mentioned again yesterday — remain another path forward. After days of heated arguments among lawmakers, Trump seemed to permit senators to head home for the scheduled break on Truth Social, where he also said Schumer should "GO TO HELL!" Via Truth Social”

👏🏻Give @schumer.senate.gov credit when he deserves it. And here he deserves it. 👏🏻

Schumer refused to buckle in nomination fight vs Trump & his senate bootlickers and Republicans gave in.

More of this please. Even Axios couldn’t spin this for Republicans www.axios.com/newsletters/...

"don't make immigration salient" is going to stick in my craw forever. just a total demonstration of fecklessness and a piss poor understanding of the political moment.

Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton will try to arrest us.

So we’re traveling to Illinois for safe harbor.

We’ll be in the Land of Lincoln — the state where Abraham Lincoln broke quorum as a state senator in 1840 by jumping out of the window at the Illinois State Capitol.

DNC Chair Ken Martin’s Statement on Texas Democrats Breaking Quorum To Fight Back Against Texas Republican Gerrymandering, includes the following: “For too long, Donald Trump and Republicans have tried to get away with rigging the system, breaking the rules, and scheming to hold onto power. It’s time to fight back. Republicans are going after people’s health care, jobs, and pocketbooks while wrecking the economy to protect or enrich a handful of elites — and then they think they can get away with it by rigging the maps to overrule the will of voters. For weeks, we’ve been warning that if Republicans in Texas want a showdown — if they want to delay flood relief to cravenly protect Donald Trump from an inevitable midterm meltdown — then we’d give them that showdown. That’s exactly what Texas Democrats did today: blowing up Republicans’ sham special session that’s virtually ignored the plight of flood victims in Kerr County.

We’ve been warning Texas Republicans for weeks that if they want a showdown, we’d give them a showdown.

That’s exactly what Texas Democrats did today. The DNC will proudly fight alongside them to stop this anti-democratic assault.

@kenmartin.bsky.social You better be talking about putting your DNC money behind every Democrat governor to help them redistrict Republicans out of office. That's what is required and what the people want. We are fucking tired of minority rule!

〝Right-wing information spaces treat the lies as established fact, similar to how Star Wars and Marvel fans talk about canon. Republicans in Congress have to go along with Trump’s latest lies when asked, but some try to avoid that by lying that they didn’t see what he said.〞

Everyone who thinks that voters are responding to their own lived experience needs to explain this graph.

They've BEEN doing it. Yes, in your state too! All 50.

#OrganizingEverywhere

(But see also:)

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 "parasitic (online Democratic fundraising) ecosystem could not thrive without the tacit approval of the Democratic establishment. The relationship between the Mothership network and the official party is not adversarial; it is deeply symbiotic."

Simply a must read from @adambonica.bsky.social

How to Turn a Party Into an MLM: The Mothership Story (Basic Books, 2026)

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.

BREAKING: China has officially banned cryptocurrency trading, mining, and related services

Trump Will Slow, but May Not Stop, the Rise of Electric Vehicles

EVs are quieter, simpler, less expensive to run, and more fun to drive than equivalent combustion cars. They’re where world auto markets are going, so why handicap US auto companies competing in those markets? All to pay off fossil fuel donors.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/b...

The Coming Republican Depression: How the GOP Turned America Into a Powder Keg, and Is About to Light the Match Housing bubbles, financial scams, and political sabotage are converging into a historic, preventable disaster.

Thom Hartmann

How the George Floyd Protests Changed America, for Better and Worse

"the left’s illiberalism occupies a marginal position in mainstream Democratic politics and the right’s illiberalism possesses a stranglehold on the Republican Party"
Bracing review that gets at something much bigger: people love to leave power out of their analysis
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/b...

'Quit now': MAGA freaks out on GOP leader after he blocks Trump from recess appointments A decision by Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to schedule pro forma sessions throughout the August recess which will, in effect, stop Donald Trump from making any recess appointments, has set off a firestorm among the president's MAGA followers.According to CSPAN's Craig Caplan, "Senate jus...

A decision by Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to schedule pro forma sessions throughout the August recess which will, in effect, stop Donald Trump from making any recess appointments, has set off a firestorm among the president's MAGA followers.

We told you they were going to do project 2025 and it’s 2025 and they’re doing project 2025

The worst ones are people like Hassett, who are very aware that they are lying to the American people week after week on Sunday shows to cover for Trump, but do it effortlessly with a smile. In many ways worse than the brainless cultists. bsky.app/profile/atru...

Given the actions of the Republicans and their enablers in industry, refraining from opening in public has become more difficult and less justifiable.

In times like these, I would be remiss if I did not voice my condemnation or our fascist regime and their enablers.

Folks, I am really appreciative of people who have followed me and added me to their starter packs.

I post about climate science, energy system transition, and related issues.

I try to restrain myself to information and questions, and try to avoid unseemly opining in public.

article is a strawman

I would argue instead that AI both sucks and will change the world for the worse

Yes, cost reductions should continue.

Are we going to get to a place where this dynamic breaks down? Once solar + storage is the cheapest option, does making it even cheaper still accelerate deployment? And does it still have downward price pressure incentivizing more learning?

I suspect there’s some margin padding because of the subsidies, given that other countries typically build renewables more cheaply. And tax credits are a transfer payment, not a societal cost. There are some indirect costs but these are likely outweighed by learning effects driving costs down.

Maybe I'm wrong to be annoyed by this but, when folks say that the solar / wind is going to get built anyway (post IRA repeal) but it will be "more expensive" is that really true? The tax credits are a real cost, just socialized. So in a sense the cost will be the same, just more transparent.

Solar is already cheap, but that doesn't mean it ceases to gain further economies of scale.

Secondly, there's externalities to consider. The free market sucks at factoring in the costs of externalities. What's the cost of the added healthcare / reduced working hours from air pollution?

That's not how any of this works. Subsidies *accelerate achieving scale*. Scale reduces costs. Subsidy thus - if a tech has the potential to be competitive at scale - allows it to reach said scale much sooner, or in some cases, at all (new tech can be locked in a vicious cycle of low vol/high costs)

I can tell you for certain that there are several wind/solar/battery/transmission projects up here in the Arctic that may (or definitely will) NOT get built after the withdrawal of IRA grants

I am not sure US people realise what an anomaly tax credits are in the world of global renewables. Apart from anything else, paying a % of capex sets up some perverse incentives that are so embedded in the US renewables industry's thinking that you can feel like you're going mad explaining it.