No. 311✳ Arlington, Va.✳ Thursday, July 30, 2026✳ No algorithms, no ads✳ About
The White House has become a non-stop corruption machine. Never, ever before in the history of the country has the president of the United States so openly, so brazenly, so consistently worked to use the immense power of the presidency to enrich himself. Never before in the history of the nation has something like this happened. In secret, the president of the United States taking payments from foreign governments – put in his own pockets – and then handing them national security favors that the United States had never been willing to do in the past. - Sen. Chris Murphy
Actual reality tends to intrude upon the fabricated ones. Americans aren't stupid, only misled, and only temporarily.
33% of Americans perceive politics/government being our top national challenge.
If American conservatives were adults instead of petulant children - or supporters of everything they claim to hate about MAGA - they'd have supported Kamala Harris' center-right bid for presidency. Portuguese conservatives have gone further to keep the far-right from power: supporting António José Seguro, a socialist.
Kompromat is a Russian term for "compromising material"—damaging information, photos, or documents gathered, often by intelligence agencies, to blackmail, manipulate, or discredit public figures. Originating in 1930s Soviet secret-police jargon, it is used for political leverage or ensuring loyalty.
I recently passed another birthday and realized fully-well that I am staring down 40. This moment has given me pause to think: what goals have I set to now that I will regret if I have not accomplished them by 40? I took several years away from studying Japanese to get fluent in Spanish. I'd reached N4-N3, with a vocabulary several thousand words deep. I'd logged 225 days on Bunpro, and many more dozens of hours consuming input. I knew hundreds of kanji. Having begun to study Japanese in 2008 or so, it feels like my white whale. With three years left on the clock, there's still time to reach N2, ね？ With so much code to write, and math to study, maybe it will always remain out of reach...
To the surprise of nobody: it is obvious that Iran's theocracy is problematic, and has produced a terrible human rights record. It is equally true that Israel's ethnocracy is problematic, and has produced a terrible human rights record. Neither make good friends for liberal - secular and ethnically-inclusive - Americans.
