Mark Sumner 🌒

Billionaires don’t understand how close we are to “Eat the Rich” being a winning campaign slogan.

I feel like I should post this every morning: There never was any indication that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon or a long-range ballistic missile. This war is unnecessary and unjustified.

Economics isn’t necessarily a zero-sum game. But power is zero-sum. The more at the top, the less anywhere else. The fact is, wealth can’t be separated from power. Power begets wealth and wealth begets power. To understand the system, we need to understand the cycle.

Suck ass, The Economist

In case facts still matter

Per a new report from House Democrats, Trump's DOJ is withholding evidence of his ties to Epstein and slow-walking the complete release of the Epstein files. It's time to end the cover-up and expose the truth. Remember this when you cast your ballot. www.ms.now/news/house-j...

I think this will be a pretty damn good test of whether the White House Press Corps has any utility whatsoever or whether it's a squished slug that needs to be scraped off the nation's shoe.

Microsoft’s stock rose on the news that it’s getting rid of 1/4th its people. That’s nothing new. Disposing of human beings in favor of “productivity” has always been a favorite move for Wall Street. However fires the last human gets to turn out the lights.

Any wagers on how long it will be before AI-heavy companies’ jaw-dropping voluntary buyouts are replaced with even larger involuntary layoffs without compensation? apnews.com/article/micr...

If the golem becomes ensorcelled, the coven may need to assume operational burdens related to ensorcellation and the golem’s fel status. This may cost extra mana points.

Michaela Barnett, a Knoxville small business owner and scientist, is attempting to overturn more than a century of Republican domination in Tennessee’s 2nd Congressional District by beating U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett in November.

My heart is heavy. Walter Koenig, our Ensign Pavel Chekov, passed away early today. Walter and I met on the bridge of the Enterprise in the 1960s, and we stayed friends for nearly six decades. When Brad and I married in 2008, Walter stood beside us as our best man.

Trump continues to signal to Xi that he should invade and take Taiwan, and the US will do nothing. bsky.app/profile/atru...

Why do the most valuable companies in human history keep having to go back to the well over and over to complete the most basic steps of their plans? Almost makes it seem as if this is whole AI thing is just a scheme to funnel investor funds into billionaires’ pockets.

Another stunning defeat for a Trump-aligned right-wing leader in Europe. Serbian students voted out their authoritarian leadership after months of protests against corruption, taking their fight from the streets to the ballot box and turning people power into political power.

Reminder: The terrible trade deal with Canada that Trump now blames for his “economic war” on our northern neighbor was negotiated by (checks notes) Donald J. Trump.

See? There is no secret “defeat fascism once and for all” belief system. You just do the work, every election. Far left, center left, it doesn’t matter. Learn the lesson: Stop pretending you’re special and just fucking vote for Democrats.

Lula has been reelected president, Brazilian media has now called. An extraordinary comeback for the left-wing politician who trailed by 2 points in round 1 but managed to hold off Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president's son.

As the UN gears up for the COP31 climate session next month, there’s a new set of international climate negotiations intended to close the yawning gap between discussion and action. A coalition of 57 nations is seriously at work on phasing out fossil fuels. insideclimatenews.org/news/2410202...

Trump’s war is even destroying shipping from *American* ports. “The Iran war has made oil tanker voyages so inefficient that vessel availability has crumbled and freight costs have soared to record-highs, all but erasing the incentive for shipping crude oil from the U.S. Gulf Coast to Asia.”

Now we wait for the “sensible left” to tell us how Obama should have toned it down, been less arrogant, and not said anything that could possibly be taken as offensive or aggressive to right wingers. Just as they would if El-Sayed had given the same speech.

Not a big insight, but seeing high level executives at AI companies publicly espousing the position “We told you that our product that we’re developing as fast as possible was going to cause a disaster and you didn’t regulate us so this is your fault” is one of the most insane things I’ve ever seen.

Thread 🧵: the fraudulent transgender mailers have a connection back to Dallas, Texas, where a local Republican megadonor used a similar playbook years ago when he funded a fake BLM group to send letters to wealthy white parents that were designed to discredit the BLM movement.

Obama argues that we won’t fix our political problems unless we rediscover our moral compass first

@gabrielzucman.bsky.social: So let met get that straight: paying a wealth tax is impossible (“billionaires have no liquidity”, “it would be taxing unrealized gains”, “their wealth is virtual”) but one man paying half a billion to influence elections is possible. Did I understand well?

The 5-year cancer survival rate is up to 70% SIDS deaths have decreased by over 50% 89% decline in tornado deaths All thanks to federal investment in science and OUR tax dollars at work!

As soon as Trump went after the Rose Garden, my WTF meter went up to 11... hundred. Dems should have been outraged all over the media & socials. The Rose Garden may not be apple pie, but it's darn near close. If Dems had gotten up in arms at least a few Reps would have gotten off their asses!

I’m not sure anyone ever intended the pardon power to extend to making people unaccountable for all actions past, present, and future. But then, I was pretty sure the president’s authority didn’t include sending the military to murder opponents. SCOTUS set me straight on that one.

Me: "It cannot be stated often enough or vociferously enough: the Trump Administration is helping Russia to conquer Ukraine. The United States of America has taken the side of an aggressor against its innocent victim. We are helping our actual enemies" www.aei.org/foreign-and-...

Some diehard climate science deniers — like US Dept. of Energy Chief Chris Wright — keep sneering that more people die in the cold than in the heat while these clowns ignore the severe undercounting of the heat toll. www.npr.org/2026/09/04/n...

If a govt is facing an irrational and largely drug-fueled cult that thinks (1) an apocalypse is probably coming and (2) they, personally, will be the ones shepherding it into being then what's the single worst thing that govt could do in that situation, do you think. HA. Nope, you're way off.

Cars. Whether EVs or conventional, it’s hard to express just how much more reliable cars are today than they were when I was young. Car repairs used to be part of most people’s monthly budget. And way too often your car could consume all your savings.

The blue area is part of what Ukraine liberated with Operation Vivaldi. The circled area is the focus of an active drive by Ukrainian forces. Just because Trump and Musk are trying to help Putin hasn’t stopped frontline troops.

Trump’s DOJ is indicting and arresting his political enemies. His DHS raided the home of a sitting Congresswoman. His armed ICE thugs are going door to door harassing people under the pretext of finding non-citizen voting. If you saw this happening in another country, what would you call it?

Jan 2025: Trump shutters SDNY Epstein Probe Mar: 1000+ FBI agents are trained to mark Trump’s name for supervisory review May: Bondi tells Donald he’s in the files June: White House, DoJ, FBI conspire to create “case closed” memo July: Memo released Aug: Maxwell moved/sex offender status waived