FYI, at Bluesky I’m @kurtandersen and at Threads I’m @kurtbandersen.

The Texas flooding is probably going to wind up the 8th deadliest in U.S. history. In almost a century the second worst after Katrina.

Against a 2-term GOP incumbent U.S. Senator in Nebraska, A+ 1st-time populist candidate @osbornforne did shockingly well in 2024. Running now against rich GOP heir Pete Ricketts, who only took office in Janaury. The latest poll has Osborn 45%-46%. I'm in!

RT @NateSilver538: It's kind of a gift to be a politician who makes your opposition unhinged. Obama had that. Trump did/does and maybe play….

That mainstream animation from Hollywood studios in the early 1940s included cartoons with weird stills like this is so amazing and great. Tex Avery (and Chuck Jones et al) along with Disney (Fantasia, Pinocchio). A Golden Age with a great big tent: 👏🏻👍🏻

Well, now he’s got it clinched.

Thanks to Trump’s Weather Service cuts, their 2 flood zone offices now lack a chief meteorologist, warning coordination meteorologist, senior hydrologist & staff forecaster. And the top elected official in Kerr County, where the camp is, on their lack of a local warning system.

If I ran @MSNBC, Friday nights at 11 and Saturday in primetime I’d put on a new show—young host, at the top a 10-minute montage of the week’s stories like this, all clips from their shows, followed by an airing of Idiocracy. (And try to license the title for the show’s name.).

Shockingly out-of-it: the @HHSGov secretary, the guy who in charge of the Medicare system, was unaware last week that @TheJusticeDept is investigating UnitedHealthcare—the biggest seller of Medicare Advantage plans—for criminal Medicare fraud. A major story that broke in May.

The 50-odd million people over 65 on Social Security just got this misleading email from the government. Trump is very stupid in many ways. But this—perpetuating his lie that Social Security recipients no longer have to pay income taxes on their benefits—is real evil genius.

A salute to one of the House Republicans—one of two out of 220—who voted against the America-wrecking budget bill: @BrianFitzUSA of Bucks County PA, ex-FBI agent who led both their public corruption and election crime units, the last remaining moderate Republican with backbone.

I enjoy reading Matt Yglesias. I can’t stand listening to him talk. Truly a voice for print.

I see that this new budget bill collapses the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development into a different NIH institute. So RFK Jr. agreed to remove his Aunt Eunice's name from the NIH named after her?.

This 22-year-old SF programmer's AI model, it appears, has determined that Manhattan's restaurant patrons south of the Park and in Inwood are the hottest in the borough (hotness being partly a function of youth), and much hotter than those in L.A.

$9B of the $10B total is from his meme coin (“a type of digital currency tied to an online joke or mascot, it has no function beyond speculation”) and his Truth Social meme stock DJT, which lost $400M in 2024 on $3.6M in revenue — “the average of a single McDonald’s restaurant.”

Gift link:

Great investigative piece about Trump’s business the last decade. What a total loser he is at actually building and running real estate, how close to failure he still slides, how it’s now all about the disguised bribes and scams of Gulf branding deals and meme stock and crypto.

Good piece, great lede.

RT @JamesSurowiecki: Very important point - lots and lots of people on Medicaid don't realize that they're on it and are potentially at ris….