Nate Dreyfuss
@dreyfussaffair.bsky.social
Attorney by day … mostly attorney-adjacent hobbies by night.
New York <—> London <—> DC
New York <—> London <—> DC
Am … am I having a stroke? What is this headline? what is the meaning of “for”? www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...
September 10, 2025 at 2:18 AM
Am … am I having a stroke? What is this headline? what is the meaning of “for”? www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...
If I’m ever head of DOT, I’m laser focused on getting NHTSA to pass one single regulation: horns must be as loud inside the vehicle as they are outside. You can still hit that thing in an emergency, but by god you’re going to feel it as badly as the rest of us on the street.
Of the 326,509 vehicle noise complaints NYPD responded to between 2020 and 2025, roughly half were dismissed either because police “observed no evidence of the violation” or because “the condition [was] gone.”
OPINION: NYC Has Noise Cameras To Catch Loud Cars. Why Aren’t We Funding It? - Streetsblog New York City
The Adams administration is supposed to install 25 of them by the end of September. What's going on?
buff.ly
August 20, 2025 at 1:48 PM
If I’m ever head of DOT, I’m laser focused on getting NHTSA to pass one single regulation: horns must be as loud inside the vehicle as they are outside. You can still hit that thing in an emergency, but by god you’re going to feel it as badly as the rest of us on the street.
… just had a dark vision of the future where the taco emoji is banned because it’s used to mock dear leader, and some poor Chinese netizen has to explain the origins of the TACO trade to their less-terminally-online friends.
June 1, 2025 at 11:22 PM
… just had a dark vision of the future where the taco emoji is banned because it’s used to mock dear leader, and some poor Chinese netizen has to explain the origins of the TACO trade to their less-terminally-online friends.
… threatening the funding of our most prized … urban highways? Oh no … not that … the owning. They’ve so owned us urban libs. So owned.
Please don’t threaten to fill in the cross Bronx expressway next. We’d never recover from being so owned.
Please don’t threaten to fill in the cross Bronx expressway next. We’d never recover from being so owned.
Feds threaten NYC highway money if MTA doesn't shut down congestion pricing
A letter from U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday marked the latest turn in the fight over New York's landmark tolling program.
gothamist.com
April 21, 2025 at 11:42 PM
… threatening the funding of our most prized … urban highways? Oh no … not that … the owning. They’ve so owned us urban libs. So owned.
Please don’t threaten to fill in the cross Bronx expressway next. We’d never recover from being so owned.
Please don’t threaten to fill in the cross Bronx expressway next. We’d never recover from being so owned.
Honestly the most surprising thing about this graphic is that Fox boldly assumed they didn’t need to label the U.S. for their viewers, too.
March 6, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Honestly the most surprising thing about this graphic is that Fox boldly assumed they didn’t need to label the U.S. for their viewers, too.
As an observer of modern right wing populist movements (i.e., I live in 21st C. America), I’m going to say that claiming subway users are both part of “the plutocratic elite” and yet still “the undeserving poor” is a normal, shockingly effective, rhetorical strategy of the right.
in his statement "cancelling" congestion pricing, sean duffy calls people who ride the subway "an elite few" and i just feel as a communication professional that they gotta decide if they're going with that or crime-ridden drug den homeless shelter
February 19, 2025 at 7:52 PM
As an observer of modern right wing populist movements (i.e., I live in 21st C. America), I’m going to say that claiming subway users are both part of “the plutocratic elite” and yet still “the undeserving poor” is a normal, shockingly effective, rhetorical strategy of the right.
I feel like in Ohio Gatorade is legally considered a fruit.
February 1, 2025 at 3:33 PM
I feel like in Ohio Gatorade is legally considered a fruit.
I am so sick of this boundless veneration for the wisdom of the Founders. In this moment of constitutional crisis, all I hear are endless references to what the Founders could or could not have foreseen, vesting them with quasi-religious significance, and it’s all just fucking bullshit.
January 31, 2025 at 10:07 PM
I am so sick of this boundless veneration for the wisdom of the Founders. In this moment of constitutional crisis, all I hear are endless references to what the Founders could or could not have foreseen, vesting them with quasi-religious significance, and it’s all just fucking bullshit.
This almost certainly is a delayed consequence of sanctions, right? Years of deferred maintenance, or repairs being done without easy access to new parts, and planes are literally falling from the sky.
‼️ Russia: “A passenger Boeing on the Dubai-Moscow flight, which sent out a distress signal over the Caspian Sea, aborted its flight and landed safely in Astrakhan”
🚨 DO NOT FLY ON A RUSSIAN AIRLINE
This is the 9th incident requiring emergency landing in 2025
www.interfax.ru/russia/1005306
🚨 DO NOT FLY ON A RUSSIAN AIRLINE
This is the 9th incident requiring emergency landing in 2025
www.interfax.ru/russia/1005306
January 29, 2025 at 8:42 PM
This almost certainly is a delayed consequence of sanctions, right? Years of deferred maintenance, or repairs being done without easy access to new parts, and planes are literally falling from the sky.
In some ways these actions are the most surprising: we are literally only 50 years from the “you cant even see the hollywood sign” era of smog and they are just *itching* to fill our lungs with this shit again.
Sean Duffy became DOT secretary today and immediately signed an order for the US to begin process of reducing emissions requirements. The result will be worsening of the climate crisis.
www.transportation.gov
January 29, 2025 at 3:33 AM
In some ways these actions are the most surprising: we are literally only 50 years from the “you cant even see the hollywood sign” era of smog and they are just *itching* to fill our lungs with this shit again.
Smallest point, but J.D. Vance not buttoning his suit at the Inauguration, in obvious imitation of Trump, is the sort of small sign of fealty that is extra pathetic.
January 20, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Smallest point, but J.D. Vance not buttoning his suit at the Inauguration, in obvious imitation of Trump, is the sort of small sign of fealty that is extra pathetic.
Reposted by Nate Dreyfuss
Occasional reminder that there’s no, “it’s too late, its over” for anthropogenic climate change. Every molecule of CO2 that doesn’t go into the atmosphere makes a difference. Preventing 0.1 degree of warming makes a difference. Every bit of climate resilience we build together makes a difference.
January 9, 2025 at 1:18 AM
Occasional reminder that there’s no, “it’s too late, its over” for anthropogenic climate change. Every molecule of CO2 that doesn’t go into the atmosphere makes a difference. Preventing 0.1 degree of warming makes a difference. Every bit of climate resilience we build together makes a difference.
Finally finishing the Power Broker for the first time, and man, the city really needed a De-Mosification program.
December 31, 2024 at 2:50 PM
Finally finishing the Power Broker for the first time, and man, the city really needed a De-Mosification program.
Say what you will about this Trump guy, but the crushing of liberal democracy is a small price to pay to get rid of daylight savings time *and* the debt ceiling. Maybe he can even get rid of the penny while he’s at it.
December 19, 2024 at 6:00 PM
Say what you will about this Trump guy, but the crushing of liberal democracy is a small price to pay to get rid of daylight savings time *and* the debt ceiling. Maybe he can even get rid of the penny while he’s at it.
Witnessing the denigration of the value of higher education, the assaults on academic freedom and university independence, and the closure of smaller schools across the country, it feels like “the lamps are going out all over [America]; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”
I will never stop being aghast that the United States built a higher education system that was literally the envy of the entire world—our bitterest political enemies nonetheless sent their children to us to be educated, it was so good—& then just decided to systematically, ruthlessly dismantle it
December 17, 2024 at 4:04 AM
Witnessing the denigration of the value of higher education, the assaults on academic freedom and university independence, and the closure of smaller schools across the country, it feels like “the lamps are going out all over [America]; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”
One thing we learned from the first Trump administration is the value of *making him fire you.* The rush of public officials to ‘obey in advance’ by folding like this bodes very poorly for the next four years.
Breaking News: The FBI director, Christopher Wray, intends to resign, bowing to the reality that Donald Trump plans to replace him with Kash Patel, a longtime loyalist. The news comes more than two years before Wray’s 10-year term would have expired.
Christopher Wray says he will step down as F.B.I. director.
President-elect Donald J. Trump had already signaled his intention to replace Mr. Wray with a longtime loyalist, Kash Patel.
www.nytimes.com
December 11, 2024 at 7:34 PM
One thing we learned from the first Trump administration is the value of *making him fire you.* The rush of public officials to ‘obey in advance’ by folding like this bodes very poorly for the next four years.
Add this to the list of instances of tech-bro illiteracy: these guys watched Gattaca, loved the tech qua tech, and totally ignored the film’s fundamental criticism of genetic engineering (let alone the implicit critique of “meritocracy”). i.e., they missed the whole point of the movie.
Tech bros know what every parent wants: children who sleep less
December 11, 2024 at 4:01 PM
Add this to the list of instances of tech-bro illiteracy: these guys watched Gattaca, loved the tech qua tech, and totally ignored the film’s fundamental criticism of genetic engineering (let alone the implicit critique of “meritocracy”). i.e., they missed the whole point of the movie.
Is there a term for something like an “Explanation of Benefits” email from an insurance company that, because it obscures more than it elucidates, does *exactly the opposite* of what it says on the tin?
December 6, 2024 at 10:15 PM
Is there a term for something like an “Explanation of Benefits” email from an insurance company that, because it obscures more than it elucidates, does *exactly the opposite* of what it says on the tin?
Serwer is correct, of course, but this illiteracy is everywhere. I’m reminded of Sam Altman of OpenAI pushing out a voice-chatbot that sounded like Scarlet Johansen because he wanted it to replicate her voice in “Her,” a film explicitly about the *dystopic alienation caused by technology*.
Wrote about what’s behind conservatives watching movies and shows warning about the dangers of fascism and somehow coming away thinking the fascists are the good guys, and they should follow their example www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
Republicans Are Confused About the Concept of Bad Guys
Some conservatives are embracing the villains in what are supposed to be cautionary tales.
www.theatlantic.com
December 5, 2024 at 9:32 PM
Serwer is correct, of course, but this illiteracy is everywhere. I’m reminded of Sam Altman of OpenAI pushing out a voice-chatbot that sounded like Scarlet Johansen because he wanted it to replicate her voice in “Her,” a film explicitly about the *dystopic alienation caused by technology*.
And that constraining aspiring autocrats is the responsibility of the establishment, for elected officials, civil servants, and party élites, and is not a burden that should be passed to the public in cowardice masquerading as “deference.”
Seems valuable for as many US political scientists as possible to point out, esp. to journalists, that the lesson from Korea is that would-be dictators are stopped when members of their own party stand up against them.
December 4, 2024 at 5:17 PM
And that constraining aspiring autocrats is the responsibility of the establishment, for elected officials, civil servants, and party élites, and is not a burden that should be passed to the public in cowardice masquerading as “deference.”
Whatever one thinks about the pardon of Hunter Biden, the pardon power is itself an anachronism *primed* for abuse and should be stripped from the president whenever we get around to our next constitutional convention and/or post-civil war set of constitutional amendments.
December 2, 2024 at 1:58 AM
Whatever one thinks about the pardon of Hunter Biden, the pardon power is itself an anachronism *primed* for abuse and should be stripped from the president whenever we get around to our next constitutional convention and/or post-civil war set of constitutional amendments.
Shooting the introduction of the NYPD in Central Park in Elf like the Nazgul in Lord of the Rings is some truly masterful cinematography.
November 30, 2024 at 1:27 AM
Shooting the introduction of the NYPD in Central Park in Elf like the Nazgul in Lord of the Rings is some truly masterful cinematography.