A “Heat Index” recently syndicated in at least two newspapers seemed like a normal summer guide—until readers noticed how much was made up. @damonberes.com and @cwarzel.bsky.social on the future of AI slop:

Wicker pans plane “gift”: “It would be like the United States moving into the Qatari embassy,” Sen. Roger Wicker said.

2) Our allies are watching. It’s worth also considering how our allies will read this story too.

Prime Video is streaming The Apprentice. Was that part of Bezos’ bent-knee deal?

Nobody is answering phones in Roger Wicker’s office this afternoon. Reports say he removed a social media post with a picture of him and Zelensky during a meeting this morning. It was part of a story about pro-Ukraine Republicans starting to bend toward Trump and away from Ukraine.

Having served as a Moscow correspondent in the early days of Putin's reign, this reminds me of how the Kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access.

My dispatch: "Two weeks into a fast-moving coup by a South African tech oligarch, the USA hangs suspended in a liminal state between the constitutional republic it has been for 249 years & an authoritarian regime akin to Europe’s fallen democracy, Hungary." www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/white-nati...

I’m very plugged into the news cycle. There was not a single item in here I hadn’t already seen somewhere in the past week. But to see it reported all together — in the actual, straightforward way our current media standard-bearers seem entirely incapable of doing — is still striking

newrepublic.com/article/1904...

Will the Mississippi media start holding the state’s congressional delegation accountable, or will Wicker et all continue to get kid-glove treatment? Asking them if they support the Jan. 6 pardons, and why/why not, would be a start. (If someone has already done this story, please post the link.)

A key mark of totalitarianism is government and party ownership and control of the means of speech and information. The party, through its main apparatchik, owns Twitter. The government wants to own TikTok. The only free speech is the fascists' speech.

Trump previously signed an Executive Order banning TikTok, worried it would ruin his reelection chances.
If he "saves" it, he will have simply undone what he originally did—keeping his pattern of creating a non-existent threat, creating an unnecessary emergency, and then taking credit for fixing it.

www.wicker.senate.gov/2022/6/wicke...

Will he stick to this position now that Trump’s changed HIS position?

Bezos has really upped the ante for billionaires debasing themselves to gain favor with Trump.👇

Cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit the Washington Post because it refused to print a cartoon mocking tech and media billionaires for sucking up to Trump. anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-qui...

I don’t make many smart moves, but getting Air Tags for my keys, wallet and car has spared me a lot of anxiety.

Ha!!! 😂😂 I see what they did there.