Misfit was here! @misfitwashere - Tumblr Blog

Glitter

“All journeys end when we reach our destination but the journeying remains a thing apart, unique unto itself. Most of us make life’s journeys without understanding that the journeying is a separate thing.”

Bob Hoover - The Grendel Saga

enchantedbook

"The Princess and the Dragon" by Marta Kiss

misfitwashere

Here be dragons

#dragon

photomatt

If you’re going to give me AI slop, at least make it fun! Give me iambic pentameter. Make it all rhyme. Have it be a song. I think we’re under-utilizing the artistic and creative capabilities of models by making them produce work that sort-of-but-not-really looks like human effort.

misfitwashere

A note from our host.

#photomatt

robertreich

CEO Pay is Completely Outrageous https://robertreich.substack.com/p/ceo-pay-is-nuts

Speed Racer Dolphins

Trump's Biggest Self-Dealing Scheme Yet https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trumps-biggest-self-dealing-scheme

misfitwashere

Friends,

Starting August 1, Trump Media and Technology Group will launch a new data feed aimed at high-frequency trading firms whose profits are made by making trades a fraction of a second faster than everyone else.

It will provide “licensed, real-time access to posts from the highest-ranking Truth Social accounts.” In other words, the feed will let you know what Trump has said before anyone else knows, meaning it’s well worth the tab that Truth Social will charge to see Trump’s posts before the rest of the public sees them — up to $100,000 per month.

That’s a pittance relative to what could be made, because Trump’s words on Truth Social — about his war in Iran, about his latest tariffs, about the Fed — have caused the stock market to soar or drop. So, if you’re a trader on Wall Street, you’ll make millions if you know what he’s posting a fraction of a second before everyone else knows. Perhaps more to the point, if you’re behind on that news, “you’ll get crushed,” as one hedge-fund executive toldthe Financial Times.

No wonder Trump Media’s interim CEO Kevin McGurn is gloating that the feed will “become a meaningful, ongoing source of revenue for the company, creating lasting value for shareholders.” Trump Media has been unprofitable until now.

Trump, of course, is the company’s largest shareholder.

The scheme is Trump’s most brazen way to illegally profit off his presidency and enrich his Wall Street insider friends.

I say illegally because the Constitution lists “bribery” as a reason to remove a president from office, and the federal ban on bribing public officials also expressly applies to a president. (Whether these provisions can be enforced against a president who’s been given blanket immunity from “official acts” by the Supreme Court is another matter.)

The good news, though, is Americans are catching on to insider trading, and they hate it — so much so that House Republican leaders are now teeing up a vote this week on a bill that would create new guardrails for lawmakers trading stocks.

The “Stop Insider Trading Act” would bar members of Congress and their families from purchasing new shares of stock and require them to file a notice of their plans to sell shares at least seven days ahead of time.

Most Democrats say the measure doesn’t go far enough because it allows members to keep shares of stock they already own, in contrast with a competing bipartisan proposal that bars members from trading individual shares of stock altogether. And one provision Republicans have snuck into the measure —and that must be removed if they want any Democratic votes — deters mail-in voting.

The point is that at the same time Trump is rolling out a new tool to give traders more immediate access to his market-moving posts on Truth Social — if they’ll pay him up to $100,000 a month for it — Congress is limiting how members can profit from inside information they obtain through elected office.

The American public is so disgusted by corruption in Washington that even Republican lawmakers want something to show they’re not in the swamp.

Trump doesn’t give a damn about the public’s mounting revulsion at corruption. He’s not up for reelection. He doesn’t care that his polls are in the cellar. All he wants to do is make even more money, exert more power, and get even with people who have gotten in his way.

But the public wants his swamp drained.

Democrats, take note. Three months from now, ask Americans two related questions: Do they think they’re better off than they were before Trump became president again? Do they approve of the most corrupt White House in American history?

The answer to both will be a resounding no. And the best way for Americans to act on their disgust will be to kick the Republican bums out.

#robert reich

vicecityvibe

misfitwashere

Eli's Law

#wear the right costume #and the part plays itself

mariabeatrizmalta

misfitwashere

#up

Lecture two of my new lecture series: "Hitler and Stalin Today."

Welcome to the second lecture of my new lecture series, “Hitler and Stalin Today.”

This lecture is titled “A World of Empire.”

Totalitarianism did not emerge from nowhere. It was a response to the world of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and more particularly to the empires that Europeans had created during the previous four or five centuries. To understand the aims of Hitler and other fascists, of Lenin and Stalin, we must first understand the world in which they matured, one in which Europeans dominated others and applied law only to themselves. In some ways the fascists and the Leninists sought to break this world order, in that they wanted to transcend other empires; in some ways they took imperial practices to a radical extreme.

Below are the readings that go along with this week.

Colonization: A Global History, p. 1-23

Black Skin, White Masks, Ch. 5

Thank you for engaging with these lectures. I hope you enjoy them.

Below are some more of my works if you’d be interested in reading:

On Freedom

On Tyranny

#timothy snyder #thinking about...

in-soviet-russia-appa-rides-you

WHY HAVE I NEVER THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE?!?!

misfitwashere

Elefant

#elefant

The front page of yesterday’s New York Times featured some of the 440,000 Americans from Arizona alone who have lost Supplemental Nutrition

July 21, 2026

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 22

READ IN APP

The front page of yesterday’s New York Times featured some of the 440,000 Americans from Arizona alone who have lost Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits since the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act made the deepest cuts to SNAP in its history, expanded work rules, and shifted costs to the states even as cuts to federal grant programs have forced Arizona to lay off a third of its caseworkers.

Those Arizona residents include Dee McDonald, a 65-year-old cancer survivor who weighs 69 pounds and skips meals to feed her three teenaged grandsons.

SNAP falls under the Department of Agriculture, and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins celebrates the cuts, claiming the program is rife with fraud. Like other Republicans, she cites error rates. But error rates usually reflect mistakes in classification numbers by caseworkers, not fraudulent use of services.

Today Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told reporters the federal government is withholding more than a billion dollars in Medicaid funding from California and Minnesota, saying they want to see proof that payments there aren’t fraudulent. Sarah Kliff of the New York Timesnotes that the administration was already withholding money from those two Democratic states. It has withheld $1.3 billion from California since May and $243 million from Minnesota since February. Now Kennedy says it will withhold more than $867 million from California and more than $200 million from Minnesota.

In the Denver Post today, Executive Director of the Association of National Park Rangers Bill Wade wrote that during his years as the son of a park ranger, and then as a park ranger himself, “I learned that these extraordinary parks belong to every American and that the people entrusted to care for them carry a sacred responsibility to protect our country’s breathtaking natural resources and key elements of our nation’s history.”

“But never—not once in decades—have I witnessed such systematic degradation, disrespect and dismantling of the National Park Service as I see today under the thumb of the President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum,” Wade continued. Budgets go up and down and policies change as administrations turn over, but “what is happening now is an assault on the people, the mission and the values that have made the National Park Service one of America’s most valued institutions.”

The Trump administration has slashed staff, starved the service of funds, and imposed a political narrative on historical interpretation. “Recovery from these losses is likely to take years, if not decades,” Wade wrote.

At the same time that the federal government is cutting programs that benefit the public, it is also privatizing systems that the government has been managing. Yesterday Justin Doubleday of the Federal News Networkreported that Des Moines International Airport and Tampa International Airport have opted into the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) new privatization model for airport screening.

Congress created the TSA after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Before then, individual airlines contracted with private security firms to screen passengers and baggage, but the 9/11 attacks showed that this private system had dangerous vulnerabilities. Now the Trump administration is resurrecting that system.

While administration officials are slashing government programs that protect ordinary Americans, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine appeared on Capitol Hill today before the Senate Appropriations Committee to explain why the Pentagon is urgently in need of an injection of $67 billion to tide it over until the end of the fiscal year on September 30. The Pentagon has sunk billions into the war in Iran. Hegseth told senators the war had cost $37.5 billion, but independent analysts estimate the true number is significantly higher.

Two congressional aides told Noah Robertson, Riley Beggin, and Jarrell Dillard of the Washington Post that both the Navy and the Air Force will run out of money provided for ongoing military operations in 2026 at the end of this month. The Pentagon is already moving money around to bridge the gap, diverting money budgeted for equipment and maintenance and limiting or canceling military exercises and training.

Yesterday Rose L. Thayer of Stars and Stripes reported on one such diversion: The Army is reducing the legal resources available to soldiers being evaluated for disability “as review boards determine whether they are fit to serve or should receive medical retirement benefits.” In the past, the Office of Soldiers’ Counsel has provided those services, but dramatic cuts have left personnel available only for an initial evaluation, rather than throughout the three-stage process. After the initial evaluation, soldiers must either represent themselves or hire private attorneys.

At today’s hearing, Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) grilled Hegseth. “Mr. Secretary, early in the conflict, day three, you said one of those core objectives was to, quote, destroy the missile threat, and as you restated it on day five to, quote, obliterate Iran’s missiles and drones. Those were clearly and repeatedly stated core objectives of the campaign, which four months ago you declared had been completed victoriously with every single objective achieved. Were those objectives achieved four months ago?”

Hegseth answered: “No one ever stated that every single missile was gone. Ultimately, combat ineffective means they’re not able to dig them out of their UGFs [underground facilities] and shoot at us.”

Ossoff: “Had the missile threat been defeated four months ago?”

Hegseth continued over Ossoff: “It doesn’t mean they don’t have underground facilities where they put missiles in them and hold onto them because they’re the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism. So we never expected they would stop having capabilities to shoot. The question is, at scale, against an opponent like the United States of America, which went toe to toe with them in Iran, couldn’t….”

Ossoff continued: “You stated on March 8th, day nine of the war, on 60 Minutes, you assured the American people of Iranian surrender. Does that remain your prediction?”

Hegseth: “Ultimately, Iran will never have a nuclear weapon to threaten the United States of America. That has been the objective, and it remains so.”

Ossoff: “So, just to review, you will not answer whether your statement made on the fourteenth day of the war that Iran’s military had been, quote, destroyed and made combat ineffective was a truthful statement to the American people, as you sit here and ask for tens of billions more for the conflict.”

The second Trump administration is forcing the American people to define how they think the United States government should spend their tax dollars.

Today Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) introduced a proposal to expand Medicaid to all American children from birth to age 26. Kim noted that about 4.4 million children in the U.S. don’t have health insurance and 23 million are underinsured. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act will make things worse.

Joseph Choi of The Hill reported that Democratic senators Alex Padilla of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois are co-sponsoring the bill. The legislation proposing “MediKids” has been endorsed by a range of organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“Every child should have health care,” Kim said in a video. “Every child should have the ability to go to a doctor when they’re sick. Every child deserves to be healthy.” MediKids “would automatically enroll every child in health care coverage at birth. Because the system we have right now isn’t working. Because healthy kids make healthy adults, and that makes for a healthier, stronger future for our country. Because, as a parent, you deserve to be able to provide care for your kids without worrying about going into debt, emptying your savings, or straining the family budget. And because…we all have a responsibility to care for each other.”

Kim said Democrats need to bring new ideas forward while also opposing the Trump administration’s destruction. He told reporters: “I know that there’s overwhelming support from the American people for ideas like this, and there’s a hunger for ideas right now.”

—

#heather cox richardson #letters from an american