The simple reality is that KOSA is a bad and dangerous bill that will enable whoever is in power to censor voices they don't like. That's a problem and its why civil liberties groups are the leading voices against it (not "big tech lobbyists."

Seven truths about trade

Beneath all the tariff craziness — the taxes on islands inhabited only by penguins, the pseudo-profound mathematical definition of “reciprocal”, the idea that the settled trade policy of every other country on the planet somehow constitutes an emergency, and enough U-turns to make a ballerina dizzy — it is easy to lose sight of a basic fact: even a modest and predictable tariff i

https://timharford.com/2025/05/seven-truths-about-trade/

#UndercoverEconomist

The clearest conclusion I’ve come to doing a DOGE podcast for 4 months is that they’re not just incompetent at cutting waste and fraud, but that was never the real goal. And it’s vital to get folks who share that goal to recognize that.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:n74wy26n6klbv7xgrndeog7s/post/3lprbpvysik26

Parrot ftw!

There is a line beyond which you’re no longer publishing words of hate mongers to make sure they don’t get to flourish in the shadows and you’re just boosting their message.

I’d say … essentially giving them an op-ed is on the wrong side of that line.

Adam Levitin on the GENIUS Act: “[I]n regard to cash deposits, the stablecoin investors will have priority over the claims of ma-and-pa for their bank deposits (and thus over the FDIC's subrogation claim when it pays ma-and-pa). Yes, you read that correctly: Congress is about to put the claims of stablecoin investors ahead of ma and pa's bank deposits. That's just stunning. Now ma-and-pa's deposits are FDIC insured, so they'll be alright, but it means the FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund is footing the bill. In other words, the GENIUS Act is subsidizing stablecoin issuance on the back of bank deposits. By subordinating the FDIC's subrogation claim in a bank insolvency to the claims of stablecoin investors, the GENIUS Act is effectively letting FDIC insurance leak out to cover uninsured stablecoins, without any insurance premiums paid.”

https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2025/05/the-genius-acts-insolvency-provisions-crypto-investors-come-ahead-of-bank-depositors.html

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpolitics #USpol

DOGE cuts
⤷ tornado forecast offices closed overnight
⤷ 27 Americans dead after overnight tornadoes

Me: “It has a fun core gameplay loop, complex mechanics, and an interesting and mature story.”

Also me: Beating the tar out of a mime.

Very first chatbot was written in the 1960s, and it was like 200 lines of code. People thought it was sentient too, you're not unique.

A reminder: DON'T TALK TO THE FUCKING COPS. Not even if you think you're innocent or "have nothing to hide."

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/13/hasan-piker-just-gave-his-millions-of-followers-a-masterclass-in-what-not-to-do-when-detained-by-cbp/

Also, it's not about immediately "lawyering up", it's about forcing them to either arrest you (if they think you've committed a crime, they're going to do it whether you talk or not!) or release you (in which case you didn't need to "lawyer up", AND you also didn't give them an excuse to arrest you).

@arstechnica "'Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That’s not my department!' says ~~Wernher von Braun~~ Elon Musk"

/5 There’s a certain amount of we-are-the-paper-of-record-so-we-define-terms going on here that, given the NYT’s utter failure to met the historical moment, I find insufferable.

This is a symptom of a broader unhealthy trend that, with apologies to Key & Peele, I call "But Is It Against the Law Though?" where it's assumed that the only appropriate standard for any kind of judgment has to be borrowed from criminal law.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4vd5wndiwpedc7fofjp2quxq/post/3loy6qbapqs2j

A cannibal who actually filled up on cheese before the main course of the feast

@onthisday

“Abolish ICE” is the moderate position. Radical is “prosecute every ICE employee under RICO.”

Rümeysa Öztürk has been freed!!

Tufts student detained by ICE ...

Via "One First," me on why Stephen Miller's riff on suspending habeas corpus is not just factually and legally wrong (in multiple respects), but reflects a dangerous escalation in the Trump administration's rhetorical attacks on the courts: www.stevevladeck.com/p/148-suspen...

148. Suspending Habeas Corpus

Holy shit indeed.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:3o3xlahjenddxtpwwk6c6z5w/post/3lor5fe6oqc2r

I haven’t been Catholic for a very long time and try to stay out of the church’s internal politics but my rule of thumb is that if fanatical converts like Vermeule, Vance, or Ahmari are upset it’s a good sign.