H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
banner
harrysimmons3578.bsky.social
H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
@harrysimmons3578.bsky.social
I have no politics but revolutionary change--for the worse.

Diatribist for Verdigris Magazine. Please send essays to contact@vdgasjournal.com or contact @cloudquistador.bsky.social

Send all hate mail to harrysimmons3578@proton.me
Pinned
To everyone:

Join me in celebrating the re-launch of the magazine Verdigris, @cloudquistador.bsky.social effort to bring forth a magazine dedicated to literature, high journalism, and an analysis of the decay we call politics.

Yours truly, your favorite wise hack, will be the in house reviewer.
In 2025, we introduced Verdigris, dedicated to promoting writers who want to engage with the world. We did okay in 2025 but urgent times demand redoubled efforts. For 2026, a renewed and reinvigorated focus on writing about urgent matters and helping you do the same. youtu.be/dtPJSAMICFU
Verdigris Journal: 2026
YouTube video by Film Conversations
youtu.be
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
About such people, Tacitus wrote: "Excess flattery can disgust a man with some honesty: Annals 3.65: "It is reported that whenever Tiberius left the senate- house,he exclaimed in Greek: 'Men fit to be slaves!' Even he, freedom's enemy, became impatient at such low servility."
Jesus Christ, a standing ovation? For an apologist for a regime which is buying warehouses to build concentration camps and murdering protesters on the street?
February 14, 2026 at 9:49 AM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
AI CEO 💩:

"When characters experience anxiety in the text, and then when the model itself is in a situation that a human might associate with anxiety, that same anxiety neuron shows up."

not even ppl feel anxiety like this: we understand fiction vs non; books can make us anxious, but we like them
I'm pretty sure I know. They aren't. We're not going to really be able to make a lot of progress in dealing with the implications of this tech unless and until we get rid of all this "woo-woo" talk about LLMs. Anthropic pushing this line is PR, unserious.
February 14, 2026 at 8:20 PM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
Contributing columnist Ka Vang writes: "Why would people of color and immigrants, particularly so many Latinos, join immigration enforcement? How can they serve an institution that harms people who look like them?"
Vang: Why do so many Latinos join ICE and the Border Patrol?
Contributing columnist Ka Vang writes: "Why would people of color and immigrants, particularly so many Latinos, join immigration enforcement? How can they serve an institution that harms people who look like them?"
bit.ly
February 14, 2026 at 11:11 PM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
One of the most successful protests in American history. Musk was driven out of the government, and his core brand, Tesla, is now toxic. And the shoes have just begun to drop
Well, it seems that 50 protesters and hundreds of drivers in Arlington VA are in total agreement!! Our one year anniversary of #TeslaTakedown and quite possibly the loudest, most unhinged honking yet! @teslatakedown.com @teslatakedownuk.bsky.social @everyonehateselon.bsky.social
February 14, 2026 at 11:59 PM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
“No country, let alone continent, will ever be completely digitally independent, and nor should they be. But by pulling together, Europe can ensure its digital systems remain accessible even in a crisis – just as is expected from its physical infrastructure.”
Europe wants to end its dangerous reliance on US internet technology
As the US increases political pressure on Europe, it’s possible to imagine the continent losing access to key computing services.
theconversation.com
February 15, 2026 at 4:09 AM
Just because a person’s style of speech is ‘unfiltered’ or ‘saying what one thinks’ doesn’t make that speech interesting, right, or subversive.

Given the number of people who don’t have a thought between the day they’re born and the day they die, such speech is more like vomit than like speech.
February 15, 2026 at 4:14 AM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
ICE using the same ruse that Ted Bundy used to kidnap people should tell you something.
CCTV footage appears to show DHS agents posing as people having car trouble in order to lure a target out of his house before arresting them. The target comes out and starts helping them before 3 vehicles surround the scene. The car "experiencing" trouble then drives off with them.
February 15, 2026 at 1:51 AM
February 15, 2026 at 12:11 AM
February 15, 2026 at 12:11 AM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
Democratic Senator @blumenthal.senate.gov says "I want to salute Senator [Lindsey] Graham...I am in the John McCain wing of the Democratic Party."
February 14, 2026 at 4:25 AM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
If you can't feed a family on the minimum wage...

Then it shouldn't be the minimum wage.
February 15, 2026 at 12:00 AM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
even tho these examples are so tired, the reliance on these systems grows... it's so messed up
It’s so funny to think about the fact that there’s people out there deferring every life decision to this
February 14, 2026 at 1:19 PM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
TIRED: she broke up with me

WIRED: new single just dropped
February 14, 2026 at 1:27 PM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
👇👇
February 13, 2026 at 12:25 PM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
🚨 GROUNDBREAKING NEWS! 🚨
The Virginia Supreme Court has decided our Redistricting Vote can move forward. Please mark your calendars ➡️ Early Voting will begin on Friday, March 6, and Election Day will be Tuesday, April 21. VOTE YES! #virginia #VoteYES #vote
February 13, 2026 at 7:29 PM
Wait, we can do that? 🫨
February 14, 2026 at 2:43 AM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
Breaking:

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Feds open criminal probe into whether ICE officers lied about the shooting of a Venezuelan man in Minneapolis.
February 13, 2026 at 7:55 PM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
FBI Announces They Have Located Savannah Guthrie
February 13, 2026 at 8:10 PM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
Third, she is advancing a progressive internationalism and decidedly NOT a leftist foreign policy. It’s similar to the Obama platform. Pro NATO, pro free trade, and nominally anti war but still in the language of allies and enemies. She did call Gaza a genocide multiple times without equivocating.
February 13, 2026 at 11:07 PM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
Fourth, it’s clear that foreign policy doesn’t motivate her, similar to Bernie Sanders. She’s a domestic policy person trying to scratch together a foreign agenda. That’s pretty concerning considering how much the deep state dominates foreign policy absent a strong willed president.
February 13, 2026 at 11:09 PM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
Second, her clear focus is connecting populist left-wing domestic policy at home to foreign policy abroad. This is both the morally correct position and the strategically wise one for convincing voters. I’ve been asking candidates to do this my whole life, so kudos here.
February 13, 2026 at 11:05 PM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
I watched both of the AOC panels in Munich. I think the takeaways are pretty clear. Quick thread 🧵
February 13, 2026 at 11:02 PM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
if you're an older person who finds words like mogg and maxxing annoying, just starting using them. people over the age of 30 have the superpower to end trends by simply adopting them
February 14, 2026 at 1:50 AM
Reposted by H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost 🏴‍☠️
“I have a challenge to all the patriots out there who fly “Don’t Tread on Me” flags and talk about upholding the Constitution. This is your moment. You’ve spent your entire lives talking about resisting tyranny. Now it is happening right before your eyes.”

thehill.com/opinion/civi...
thehill.com
February 14, 2026 at 12:23 AM