Vic Brand

Feels like another (likely missed...) messaging opportunity for Dems...

The administration is literally laughing about how they won't give back the $175 billion they illegally stole from you.

One of my all-time favorite HP typos was the time that @letsgomathias.bsky.social called it the “Staten Island Fairy”

Judge who allowed FBI to search Washington Post reporter’s home rips into Justice Department | CNN Politics A federal judge ripped into the Justice Department on Friday for failing to inform him of the applicability of a law intended to protect journalists from government searches and seizures when it asked...

BREAKING: Judge who allowed FBI to search Washington Post reporter’s home rips into Justice Department for not informing him of the law that explicitly bars raids of reporters

Utah Supreme Court rejects legislature's request to halt new map The Utah Supreme Court has rejected the legislature's request to halt the new congressional map from being implemented.

The Utah Supreme Court has rejected the GOP-led legislature's attempt to prevent the state's new congressional map from being used this year. The new map gives Democrats a strong chance to flip a GOP-held seat.

There are some harms from tariffs a court ruling won't undo. Las Vegas, Maine, etc. won't get the missing visitors from Canada who boycotted the US for the past year; companies that went bankrupt and cited tariffs won't magically come back to life; Bourbon companies won't win back lost sales.

i do think it's still sort of underappreciated what percentage of people at government press conferences now are just right-wing content creators

A point I’ve been making a lot is that the tariffs are 1) the policy most personally important to Trump 2) the least popular policy with the American people according to polling 3) substantively destructive and incoherent 4) genuinely opposed by large swaths of conservative constituencies.

Prison Officials Said This Alleged Sexual Abuser Didn’t Exist The state rescinded its request to dismiss a sexual abuse lawsuit after a judge became aware of New York Focus’s findings.

NEW with @hellgatenyc.com: The state asked a judge to dismiss a prison sexual abuse lawsuit — lawyers said couldn’t find record of the alleged abuser. We found him.

Strongly reminiscent of this infamous diagram of a slaver ship. We are repeating our evils.

Masked paramilitaries marching in front of a hanging Trump banner on the DoJ

This picture is so crazy that if you had this as a scene in a made-for-TV dystopian scifi movie in like 2014 people would switch channels because you’d ruined the suspension of disbelief.

suddenly insulted by the AI autocomplete suggestion that just popped up in this google doc

asshole, what about the last several thousand words made you think that this was the sort of thing that would now start a paragraph with "In conclusion..."

DOJ struggles as White House presses on voter fraud Efforts to prosecute noncitizen voters have been slowed by lack of evidence, officials say, while Trump aides push for a broader crackdown.

That pesky thing called "evidence" gets in the way again: "The Justice Department has struggled to meet White House demands to prosecute noncitizen voters...in large part because the types of rampant voter fraud that the Trump administration describes have never been found." wapo.st/4aM9lox

State House votes to rename Florida airport to Donald J. Trump international The Republican-controlled Florida House voted 81-30 in support of the name change to President Donald J. Trump International Airport

Last week Donald Trump registered the trademark "Donald J. Trump International Airport." This week Florida Republicans voted to rename Palm Beach International Airport Donald J. Trump International Airport," putting taxpayers on the hook for licensing fees that go straight to him

One side of the coin is that a lawmaker is saying that educating himself made him change his mind on an issue. (Which, good!)

The other side of the coin is that he's admitting that he authored, sponsored, filed a bill while having evidently spent no time doing reading or research about the topic.

Conservatives spent years complaining about ”safe-spaces” and “liberal snowflakes” only to turn around and show they are absolutely terrified of ideas they don’t like (“racism is bad” “gender is fluid”) and willing to use state power to avoid the slightest discomfort.

The snowiest of flakes.

Revealed: Epstein cultivated relationship with CBP officer, causing US investigation Guardian review of US justice department files reveals Epstein interacted with six CBP officers. The officer investigated denied any knowledge of trafficking underage girls

NEW: Jeffrey Epstein cultivated relationships with CBP officers at the airports he frequented.

Epstein emailed and texted with six CBP officers, invited them to his island, visited with them at the airport, and frequently sought to determine who was going to be on duty when he was traveling

Was trying to remember a Will Forte quote from Tim & Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie and accidentally figured out how to make Google’s AI tool shut up

Quality lawyering though.

La Retraite de Hugues de Payens, by Georges Mathieu, 1958 (rotated), 📸 by @tiltoncreative

my wife texted IT HAS HAPPENED to the group chat and it wasn't about what i hoped it was about and i'm very disappointed and we have revised our group chat style manual

the last paragraph of the linked Wired article: "Closing his Friday email to staff, Jain suggested that staffers curious about the new DHS agreement come work on it themselves. 'As Palantirians, the best way to understand the work is to engage on the work directly. If you are interested in helping shape and deliver the next chapter of Palantir’s work across DHS, please reach out,' Jain wrote to employees, who are sometimes referred to internally as fictional creatures from The Lord of the Rings. 'There will be a massive need for committed hobbits to turn this momentum into mission outcomes.'" the phrase "committed hobbits" is highlighted in green

the only hobbit who looks into a palantir in LotR is immediately fucked up by it and also hobbits who join sharkey's men to brutalize their own people are shamed into resigning as soon as frodo & co. return www.wired.com/story/depart...

I hope this email finds you wherever you hide, and brings you back.

NBC ran a piece where Mary Carrillo went to Norway to find out why they're so good at the Winter Olympics and i was yelling BECAUSE IT'S COLD THERE

then she went to a little tiny ski jump for kids and was like "it's free, equipment is provided, & they don't emphasize results"

and i was like.
oh!

People also imagined that Prohibition would just be everyone not drinking anymore. The corner saloon would disappear, replaced by nothing, with no substitutes and no side effects.

We are *terrible* at imagining the consequences of the policies that we desire.

Trump Says Climate Repeal Saves $1.3 Trillion. The EPA’s Math Differs The agency’s own cost-benefit assessment for revoking the endangerment finding points to steep costs that may outweigh the savings.

President Trump said repealing climate standards for cars and the so-called endangerment finding would save Americans $1.3 trillion. EPA chief Zeldin repeated the stat.

But that's not actually what EPA's own math says. My story @bloomberg.com, with a gift link: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Excuse me, I believe that’s the cyclops from “Krull”?

We’ll never get this one back in the box, but using “media” as a singular noun and not a plural one can lead to some very poor understandings of the decisions outlets make.

Some real the ashes are ruining my garden vibes

Camus is also helpful in his conviction that a) everything is bleak but b) this sort of pessimism simply makes you a loser

This story (and the thread below it) are a great summation of What Just Happened. Carr wanted to create a chilling effect, and CBS/Paramount lawyers chose to embrace the cold rather than fight it.