Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
Today is the day Marco Rubio became president.
sometimes scribe | civil liberties | policy | long-suffering enthusiast of third amendment jurisprudence | serial semicolon abuser | begrudging distance runner twitter: peoples_estate
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view profile on Bluesky Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
Today is the day Marco Rubio became president.
Scott Lincicome (@scottlincicome.bsky.social) reposted
"Kyle Peacock, founder of Peacock Tariff Consulting, told the Daily Mail that households should brace for an additional $40 per week in grocery costs within three to six months." 🤔 www.themirror.com/money/trumps...
Raffi Melkonian (@rmfifthcircuit.bsky.social) reposted
You can think what you want, but from where I sit there is no indication Trump intends on giving up power in 2028, and we should just assume he’s not.
Julie Zebrak (@juliezebrak.bsky.social) reposted
Red flag alert — Billionaire Bill Ackman has a new fascination: a fast-growing private school that eschews lessons on diversity, equity and inclusion and uses artificial intelligence to speed-teach children in two hours. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
I reject this.
Joshua Erlich (@joshuaerlich.bsky.social) reposted
we are living in a time of profound suffering and profound opportunity. restoring the post-war status quo is not a solution, and the real roadblock to fixing our country is that nearly all of the will to be innovative is on the side of the fascists.
Will Stancil (@whstancil.bsky.social) reposted
Also, as @danahoule.bsky.social points out, one clear theme of ICE's little reign of terror is that they are EXTREMELY sensitive to murals, signs, and other displays criticizing ICE. Which means that one of the most effective ways to attack the agency is to produce those things in great numbers
Will Stancil (@whstancil.bsky.social) reposted
Media is scared to say what’s happening so they’re pretending flooding DC with troops is just a crime-fighting policy, even though the people doing it are obviously quite clear it’s an authoritarian coup d’etat
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
Every time I see another scenario like this, I genuinely have to wonder whether or not the user is even meaningfully aware that these models are—by design—optimized for weighted coherence rather than anything resembling high fidelity truth or objective accuracy.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) reposted
ICE used your taxpayer dollars to trick out a bunch of trucks in new livery, all painted black with "ICE" and a logo printed in gold on the side (and Trump's name in gold on the back window), then shoot a rap video in DC to post on social media. I am not making this up.
Joshua Erlich (@joshuaerlich.bsky.social) reposted
this person should get a lawyer, and, if they don't have a lawyer, my number is easy to find
Joshua Erlich (@joshuaerlich.bsky.social) reposted
again, taking four decades of a person's life should be prosecuted like murder
Mueller, She Wrote (@muellershewrote.com) reposted
I can’t help but notice the Wall Street Journal stopped getting Epstein leaks after Todd Blanche met with Ghislaine Maxwell and she was moved to a minimum security resort.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
Why do all of these ridiculous people look like they are walking off the set of Hudson Hawk?
David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf.bsky.social) reposted
Never has a better case been made for DC statehood.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
I try to avoid aiming for the lowest common denominator as a general matter, but it's difficult not to observe that this woman looks like she walked out of a page in The Handmaid's Tale.
Joshua Erlich (@joshuaerlich.bsky.social) reposted
the thing about trans rights is that we fight the civil rights issues of our time. nazi chuds have made this the issue of our time. it's not more *important* than other civil rights issues, but it is the battleground of the moment, and we have to meet the moment to support everyone's rights.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
I feel like this is subtweeting the increasingly intolerable stream of GPTphilia all over my feed today, largely from one specific user, and regardless of whether or not I'm accurate about that, as a general matter, I could not agree more.
Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes.lawfaremedia.org) reposted
Fuck it. I’m releasing these. The police seized all of my lasers during this operation. I have a court date in my future. #FreeLordLaser #FreeLadyLaser I will tell the whole story later. But it was all worth it to release these images on this day. “Good men must not obey the law too well.”
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
It literally looks like the Oval Office was "updated" with cheap seasonal visuals from Zara. So unfortunate.
Rodger Sherman (@rodger.bsky.social) reposted
the USA built a system of higher education so good that smart/rich people from across the world came here, spending billions to learn here, subsidizing education for Americans while spending money to live in our cities and towns. our government arbitrarily decided we should stop doing that
Secrets and Laws (@secretsandlaws.bsky.social) reposted
Read every word of this article and let it sink in that the President, DNI, DCIA, FBI Director, numerous Republican Senators, and most MAGA influencers are knowingly spreading Russian disinformation in order to harm the IC and distract from the President's close relationship with a child rapist.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
I don't know many individuals who would embark on a 90,000 sq ft renovation with the intention of leaving anytime soon.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
Unless the actual goal is gaining acceptance to a university complicit in the real-time erosion of free inquiry, or there is otherwise some compelling financial incentive, why on earth would any accomplished student choose to attend Columbia right now?
Mueller, She Wrote (@muellershewrote.com) reposted
Dems. Wanna get your polling out of the gutter? Stop talking about redrawing house maps in blue states and do it. Go big. Don't match them seat for seat. Blow them out of the water. Then endorse Mamdani. You're welcome. Love, Allison
Gwen C. Katz (@gwenckatz.bsky.social) reposted
You know, if enough of us say on the internet that it's important to wash your cybertruck with saltwater and lemon juice to preserve the finish, eventually ChatGPT will start telling cybertruck owners that.
NY Times Pitchbot (@nytpitchbot.bsky.social) reposted
Emil Bove’s norm-breaking behavior at the Department of Justice alarms some observers
Dave Karpf (@davekarpf.bsky.social) reposted
There’s a brand of political thinker (call them “normie optimists”) that reflexively treats this all as ephemeral. “Just wait for the midterms. Focus on the right messaging and win those swing districts.” I just want to stare at them and say “Emil Bove has been confirmed to a lifetime judgeship.”
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
I thought they were against gender affirming surgeries?
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) reposted
Bove is genuinely still on the hook for possible criminal contempt charges. Which, if the DC Circuit ever gets off its ass and does something about its "administrative" stay (since APRIL), may require him to testify under oath, despite being a judge. Unprecedented situation.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
The Bove confirmation is even more remarkable when considering that a brilliant and impeccably qualified attorney was denied this exact seat for no credible reason beyond daring to practice law while being Muslim.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
show me the lie, gang
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
Just to be really clear, the only meaningful difference between Nancy Mace and the average Republican attempting to blend into polite society is that she is willing to say these things out loud.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
Even an AI will tell you this is an absolutely terrible idea.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
Can't wait to see the result when AI attempts to qualify a severely disabled younger patient with, for instance, unspecified idiopathic neuropathy but otherwise normal EMGs and unremarkable serology coupled with vague, poorly documented medical charts.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
Where we are as a country: The sitting president is posting racist memes about a predecessor—likely to distract from the fact that his former criminal defense attorney is meeting with a convicted sex trafficker in hopes she’ll somehow exonerate him.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
The utterly bizarre grievance politics of Bari Weiss’ rag are so deep in the rabbit hole I honestly can’t tell where satire ends and reality begins. This is like an Onion piece on bourgeois panic come to life.
Julie Zebrak (@juliezebrak.bsky.social) reposted
What if everyone just changed their profile pics to Jeffrey Epstein + Donald Trump photos on social media.
Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) reposted
We are seven months in, and the speed with which vital civic institutions are capitulating to authoritarian demands we once would have regarded as inconceivable in an established liberal democracy is jawdropping. I hadn't thought I was polyannaish about America, but it's really stunning.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
Fuck that. I am increasingly accused of it with regularity for the same reason and have exactly zero plans to change my own writing style to accommodate the newfound punctuation police. It is generally quite easy to spot the difference; AI indeed overuses them, but poorly.
Michael Hobbes (@michaelhobbes.bsky.social) reposted
Again we see the incoherence of right-wing policy. Rounding up homeless people and imprisoning them *is* housing them! Punitive solutions to this problem also cost a shitload and require a massive bureaucracy. They are fine with providing housing, but only if it is ineffective and dehumanizing.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
Much law. Very order.
Anthony Michael Kreis (@anthonymkreis.bsky.social) reposted
Today is a good reminder that during Reconstruction, white southerners penalized freedpersons for being unemployed, unhoused, and destitute—criminalizing access to food, legalizing Black children’s abudction, and restricting Black folks’ freedom of movement— eventually bringing about the 14th Amend.
jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) reposted
very pleased to see trump collapsing with the public but i have to take issue with the assertion made that trump has accomplished what he said he would do. he distinctly hasn't! news.gallup.com/poll/692879/...
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
See also: Messages, text.
Sophia Babai (@swingingstorm.bsky.social) reposted
The thing is, I'm actually not remotely interested in having a debate about whether or not starving 2 million people is bad. There are many things I am willing to have a debate on, but if you aren't super clear on that one then we just don't have anything to say to each other.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
This is truly wild: “[Maxwell] just might be a victim. She just might be. There was a rush to judgment. There was a lot of chaos there for a while.” They are laying the groundwork to exonerate her—in exchange for what, remains to be seen, but I don't imagine anything good.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
The adjudicated rapist who spent years very publicly palling around with a notorious pedophile is furious that people suddenly took notice and won't stop asking questions about it.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
It's absolutely wild to pause and consider that this entire clown show emerged out of irrepressible anger that an intelligent, articulate Black man was elected president and did a reasonably good job.
Scott Lincicome (@scottlincicome.bsky.social) reposted
"Canada tariffs could add $14,000 to the cost of building a home by 2027, report warns" www.cnn.com/2025/07/22/b...
jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) reposted
i swear the next drop is going to be trump and epstein at a book signing for OJ’s “If I Did It” or some shit
Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) reposted
Those "rogue judges" were acting under an express grant of authority provided by Congress—one explicitly permitted by Article II of the Constitution, which says Congress can give the judiciary power to appoint inferior officers.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
See also: Musk, Elon
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
In the event anyone needed to remind themselves that Rahm Emanuel is a total ass.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) reposted
Shame! Shame on the Trump administration for stripping legal status from thousands of our ALLIES, including many we evacuated from Kabul ourselves! This makes our country utterly untrustworthy. No future ally will ever believe our promises; all can be taken away. We lose our honor.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
Today is the day Hunter Biden became president.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
I'm not even certain the headline–as horrifying as it is on its own–sufficiently captures how degrading and inhumane the additional abuses reported by Human Rights Watch actually are.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
Rendition is the nearest neighbor but problematic for all of the obvious reasons—Proxy refoulement is the best I've come up with in my own search for a fitting term.
Philip Gourevitch (@pgourevitch.bsky.social) reposted
This would be a much truer account of what Rubio is doing g if the Times had stopped its summary one word earlier and left out “abroad”
Hypervisible (@hypervisible.blacksky.app) reposted
“Safety”
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
Absolutely wild that Roblox is implementing mass biometric data collection for minors without even so much as parental consent.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
Still amazing to me that someone even slimier than Giordano landed in this role—it’s like a pipeline for failing upwards.
Karl Bode (@karlbode.com) reposted reply parent
To be clear Larry Ellison, a billionaire Trump donor who believed the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, used his own money to buy CBS and install his son as the boss. They'll then convert CBS into another right wing propaganda mill like Fox News. It's not really subtle!
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
In fairness, if there is one thing on which JD Vance is a resident expert it is, undoubtedly, smugly spreading stories that are complete and utter bullshit.
Philip Bump (@pbump.com) reposted
And, uh, some personal news: This is also my last column for The Post. I was offered and accepted a buyout. To answer one possible next question, I'm not sure what's next save taking some time off. If you want, you can enter your email at pbump.net and I'll let you know when I figure it out!
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
Not familiar with the reference, but this is probably one of the best descriptions I've ever heard.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
I have the chronic form + overlapping Sjogrens. Went from the picture of health to this within a week of vaccination. I'm the last person on earth who needs to be lectured on this, believe me. The larger point is, the statistical comparison is inaccurate.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
It's difficult to even establish this level of unified agreement about whether or not the grass is green. Incredible.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
Totally normal stuff here.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
At the risk of being the naysayer (sorry, truly) these republicans—emphasis on Salazar—are the same who just unapologetically voted to exponentially increase ICE funding, and have offered zero pushback to Trump’s agenda. For Salazar, this is just a messaging bill she can show her outraged district.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
Don’t mean to be adversarial, but as one of the lucky few who have been (gravely) injured by a vaccine (though remain pro vaccine), I am acutely aware that VICP only represents a subset of actual injuries. The lightning strike comparison is rhetorically powerful but statistically questionable.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
The famously articulate President of the United States, everyone:
Jamal Greene (@jamalgreene.bsky.social) reposted
For those of us who believe the Supreme Court is, at least in part, a political institution, its saving grace is that it moves the law only in increments, is reactive rather than proactive, and must give its reasons and be judged on them. A Court that doesn't do those things isn't worth having.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
It's hard to say w/ certainty, but this translates as a type of latent concept contamination—a warped sense of relevance shaped by lexical co-occurrence patterns in training data/interactions—combined w/ speculative prompting & possibly even a manual safety patch.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
One issue with appointing people who have no background or education in public policy is that they are functionally clueless about its historical origin or evolution. Medicaid covering able-bodied adults is not new or accidental—it was deliberate policy supported by decades of legislative reform.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) reposted
Your reminder again that Ms. Sheahan has effectively no law enforcement background. She's a 28-year-old who was a close personal aide to Kristi Noem in South Dakota, then parlayed her connections into getting appointed as head of the Louisiana Fish & Wildlife Service at 26.
Secrets and Laws (@secretsandlaws.bsky.social) reposted
I've been obsessed with Trump saying he "wished her well" regarding Ghislaine Maxwell, and how neither the media nor Dems have made an issue about it. It turns out Jonathan Swan did ask him about it in that train wreck interview back in 2020, and holy shit, his answer then is even worse. Follow 👇
Mueller, She Wrote (@muellershewrote.com) reposted
Shocker. They want to privatize everything. Schools. NASA. Police. Health care. Social security. The VA. Everything.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
Old enough to remember when Republicans collectively flipped out at Bush’s attempt to privatize everything from FEMA to Social Security—one particular moment that stands out was Trent Lott warning the party was walking into “a political buzzsaw.”
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
Hardcore MAGA is not gonna let this go. The degree to which Epstein is inexplicably central to the core qAnon thesis alleging an elite pedophile cabal simply cannot be overstated. He is the common unifying thread woven through all of the institutions they most distrust.
Will Stancil (@whstancil.bsky.social) reposted
Apparently there are still literally no safeguards on the app version of Grok, either. People are sending me stuff like this.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
These screenshots categorically eviscerate the public explanation from xAI about the aberrant behavior from the other day. Grok is not just misaligned & none of this is attributable to a few rogue prompts. It is sadistically weaponized in a way that suggests sandboxing of unsafe behaviors.
sarah jeong (@sarahjeong.bsky.social) reposted
I would call myself a professional pessimist and "extremely depressed about the future" but god, please stop going into people's mentions to tell them that the law/courts no longer matter or post "AND YOU'RE SURPRISED???" at them, especially so if they are actively engaged in making the world better
Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor.bsky.social) reposted
The constitutional remedy is impeachment, if Congress ever wants to be relevant again.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
It is simply wild to see a judge speak to DOJ like this. The government has absolutely obliterated any presumption of regularity.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
This is *literally* state-mandated DEI for conservatives.
Catherine Rampell (@crampell.bsky.social) reposted reply parent
Trump promised he'd target "criminal" immigrants. Instead of pursuing gangbangers and drug-dealers, he's rounding up grandmas, gardeners, cancer-stricken kids, construction workers. He's stripping those here *legally* of their documents. Even some GOP lawmakers have now begun to criticize him:
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
An LLM that was, two days ago, gleefully advocating a second holocaust two days ago will now be integrated into an autonomous driving system. What are we even doing?
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
As predictions go, this one seems pretty reliable.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
At least once a week I am reminded that canceling my WAPO subscription was an excellent decision. While I have a great deal of sympathy for the plight of journalism in general, I have near zero for anyone who chooses to remain at this publication.
Mark Copelovitch (@mcopelov.bsky.social) reposted
Don't. Print. Lies. As. Stenography. In. The. Newspapers.
Steve Vladeck (@stevevladeck.bsky.social) reposted
My own numbers are different. The Biden administration sought emergency relief from #SCOTUS 19 times, and received it 10 times. So far, Trump has asked 20 times, and has received it 15 or 16 times (depending upon how we count the "clarification" in D.V.D.). That's a difference, but not this stark.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
Looking forward to an AI chatbot in every classroom. What could possibly go wrong, amirite?
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social)
Turns out her line in the sand was the company's AI openly advocating a second Holocaust alongside graphic descriptions of violent rape fantasies. One thing that seems reasonably certain, however, is that whoever replaces her will likely be far worse.
Shawn Whitt (@shawnwhitt.bsky.social) reply parent
this reads like it was compiled in response to a bizarre editorial mandate for a both-sides narrative scripted in the register of Henry James
Max Berger (@maxberger.bsky.social) reposted
I gotta say, as a Jew, it’s incredibly fucked up and sad that Elon Musk and Grok being Nazi sympathizers hasn’t caused a mass exodus (or coordinated boycott) from X. I don’t like to shame people for what is clearly a failure of collective action, but honestly, what the fuck?