Friday Tweets

Some stories and developments you might want to keep on your radar.

Did anyone else get the feeling that the GOP "convention" was more about soothing Trump's ego than about helping the candidates?

the internals must be great

[image or embed]— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm.bsky.social) September 17, 2026 at 8:36 AM

Then there’s Rep Mike Lawler who took on Trump and WON!

[image or embed]— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm.bsky.social) September 17, 2026 at 5:48 PM

Maybe Rep. Tiffany can use this picture for his gubernatorial campaign (I'm sure one of the candidates can).

8 months ago.

[image or embed]— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) September 17, 2026 at 6:04 PM

We have mentioned the unprecedented level of Saudi et al. funding for this charming deal, haven't we?

FCC Approves Foreign Funding for Paramount-Warner Bros. Deal www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

[image or embed]— Catherine Rampell (@crampell.bsky.social) September 17, 2026 at 2:16 PM

More news from the Ellison media empire.

Bari Weiss has plunged CBS News into ratings calamity. —"Evening News" has posted worst ratings of 21st century —"CBS Mornings" has posted worst ratings of 21st century —And now "60 Minutes" has posted worst ratings of 21st century More in @status.news: www.status.news/p/60-minutes...

[image or embed]— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy.bsky.social) September 15, 2026 at 6:55 PM

I was working on a post criticizing Marshall for being too credulous of "rationalist" claims. Looks like I can delete that one. Excellent thread.

The AI debate has forced me, somewhat agst my will, to grapple a bit more closely with the "longtermists", basically a movement or subculture of morons who propose novel forms of moral reasoning based on sci-fi ideas they imagine might happen hundreds, thousands or millions of years in the future.

[image or embed]— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm.bsky.social) September 17, 2026 at 10:36 AM

This one's worth repeating.



Yes, but the longtermists add another level of bullshit by pulling thousands of years of made-up numbers from a convenient orifice.

one of many advantages to being heavily exposed to the self-driving scene is understanding that "the trolley problem" is vacuous bullshit for poseurs

[image or embed]— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) September 15, 2026 at 3:38 PM

Eye popping. Court just unsealed Summary Judgment motions in New York Times v OpenAI / Microsoft. Easy to see why the AI companies had so many redactions (pink). Their own people wrote the lede for NYT, the "largest theft of labor in human history"... "more and more substitutive..." /1

[image or embed]— Jason Kint (@kint.bsky.social) September 17, 2026 at 11:48 AM

Burry:

[image or embed]— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) September 16, 2026 at 2:50 AM

Similar points made by Cal Newport, Carl Brown, et al. Finishing up a post for next week on this.

‘People built the test, removed restraints, defined the objective, left a route open and decided not to stop what was happening. Calling the result “rogue AI” does more than sensationalize it. It allows those human decisions to disappear quietly from the story.’ www.wsj.com/opinion/the-...

[image or embed]— Jesse Felder (@jessefelder.com) September 17, 2026 at 11:46 AM

"All the news that fits the narrative."

In the course of a good discussion of the upcoming midterms, Nate Cohn says, without any pushback, that Immigration was "a terrible issue for Democrats during the Biden years. Because Biden opened the border..." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/p...

[image or embed]— Larry Glickman (@larryglickman.bsky.social) September 16, 2026 at 9:35 AM

A few weeks ago I realized that Trump (to the extent he reflects on it at all) still thinks of the fed rate in terms of non-repayment risk, the way a real estate guy (particularly a shady one) would approach interest rates. That why he seems to believe you should cut when the economy is hot.

Well, that took longer than I thought, but he hath spoken:

[image or embed]— Michael McKee (@mckonomy.bsky.social) September 16, 2026 at 1:44 PM

Remember those posts we did about the importance of adequate oil reserves?

“.. With Saudi oil now blockaded, Americans are about to discover why maintaining stability in the Middle East and not handing it to a consortium of Russia and Iran was always important.” @jayinkyiv.bsky.social

[image or embed]— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) September 13, 2026 at 5:04 AM