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jfallows.bsky.social
Reporter and writer: https://fallows.substack.com/ and https://www.ourtownsfoundation.org/ One-time speechwriter, long-time pilot, longer-time husband of linguist/writer Deborah Fallows. Note same wristwatch in the two photos, more than 50 years apart.
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You'll note that in the *deserved* solidarity for Harvard's resistance to Trump, people avoid mentioning that Navarro got a PhD in econ there. Something happened to him. This guy ran *AS A DEM* for Congress in CA, was in SEAsia in Peace Corps; taught at UCSD; etc Went nuts over China. Now...

Agree. Important exception: @lawrenceodonnell.msnbc.com on his TV show hammered home this point virtually every day since the (lawless) tariffs were announced.

Haaaaaaaaaahahahaha

If you'd like to read the story that Elon Musk himself would have written about his hardships in DC, and how mean everyone was to him, you can check out this one from WaPo.

I thought Sean Duffy knew nothing about aviation. But then I heard him talk about public transportation....

If you have *ever* spent more than two days *anywhere* outside the US, you know that public transit in [Shanghai / Paris / Hong Kong / Toronto / Tokyo / Mexico City / etc ] can be clean, safe, humane, etc. A "Sec of Transportation" revealing he knows nothing about transport.

Oh, you're breaking my heart. Try flying an airplane, or being in command of a boat, where everything you do is subject to monitoring. And car-driving is 100x more lethal than boats or airplanes. (On average 1 person per day killed in small planes, vs 100/day in cars + trucks.)

Thousands of people's lives are being disrupted around the world because of this cruelly capricious decision. Trump ("Caligula's horse") does not know that it has occurred. Side note: Can't wait for more reporting on Joe Biden being old and not-in-control.

Student newspapers are really meeting the moment, at this moment. Admiration to 'kids these days' telling the fraught story of univ life on their campus news sites. Including this delicious column from @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social , on a way out of Harvard-Trump impasse. By Yona Sperling-Milner

WaPo profile of new, pensive Musk, so relieved to escape "controversy of DC Beltway" that for some reason—who can say why??— landed on him. Made him "whipping boy" Phrases not in piece: "Largest single donor" "feeding USAID into woodchipper" "mass firings" www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

In a public forum at UCSD in 2011 where I was interviewer, Musk said he was "highly confident" SpaceX would be operating manned missions to Mars *by now*. (He said manned landings in 2026. Which means launch by now.) Meanwhile, the realities. What a guy. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/s...

Unlike S Miller or presumably Trump, Rubio knows goddamn well that this is *wrong*. (Arbitrarily halting student-visa interviews) He opposed things like this back when he had the guts to run against Trump. Sometimes Trump's slur-nicknames are apt. Little Marco. www.nytimes.com/live/2025/05...

Just saying: Right at this moment, thousands upon thousands *and thousands* of Harvard alums all on a call about standing up for academic independence. (No revelations here, a "public" event.) This is not a "joiner" group of people. Have never seen anything like this.

I still think the best idea for progressive donors is to just revive every alt-weekly in the country and staff them with 10 reporters each.

Two of my enthusiasms, in one place. A small-plane journey along the route of ... California High-Speed Rail! www.wired.com/story/califo... www.youtube.com/live/HV60ZxA...

Another v good piece at @wired.com : TL;DR: No timeline promise Musk has made has EVER come true. It's always "full confidence we'll see this next year" I personally interviewed him at conf in 2011 when he was "highly confident" of *manned* Mars missions by NOW. www.wired.com/story/theres...

The tradition is for commander-in-chief to give commencement addr at one service academy each year, on rotating basis ALSO the tradition, going way way back, for prez to SHAKE THE HANDS of all graduates. Photo of FDR, standing with braces, doing just that Current C-in-C couldn't be bothered.

Stop the @bsky.app bashing. We’re all under a tremendous strain. We’re not perfect. I block when I need to, but ignore most foolishness. Don’t become goaded into leaving a platform that’s doing almost all the right things. To organize for 2026, we need to stay in communication w/each other.

Kristi Noem doesn't know anything. It shows. (By me.) fallows.substack.com/p/kristi-noe...

I do understand that Biden’s inner circle covered up his decline. Got it. What I don’t understand is the same journalists and pundits pounding that story are ignoring this psychopath like it’s normal. I accepted Biden was old all along. I can’t accept this lunatic leading us.

RIP C Rangel Lots of people talk about restoring "service" ethic in US. Great idea—now pioneered by @calvolunteers.bsky.social in CA Some people say, "To do that, we need a draft." Won't happen. AFAIK Rangel was *only* House member to support it. Sign of his independence, and need for another way

Re-upping: If *anyone* *anywhere* in US journalism is planning a story this coming week on "Joe Biden's fitness," .. . ... Look at yourself in the mirror and focus on what is happening right now. Our problems, NOW, do not involve Joe Biden.

Re-upping: My view on the "Chinese people have tiny hands" meme. (I was 6'2" at time of this photo.)

The US makes its military equipment in the US. ANY journalist in US who is focusing on Biden's cognitive issues (when he never made factually-moronic statements like this), and not Trump's ....

Increasingly convinced that Barron didn’t get into Harvard

In piloting world, this means that Trump will be golfing on Memorial Day. What a guy.

The "proud MAGA bimbo." Excellent piece on world that has given us Palin (a genius, in retrospect) and now Noem, Bondi, Habba, Leavitt, and the like. We were in South Dakota ten years ago, when Noem looked like a "normally attractive person." Pre-MAGA makeover. www.salon.com/2025/05/23/k...

Next in this series: A really underrated idea for investors is to buy low, and sell high.

"Is America Really Better Off if Bubonic Plague Returns? We ask experts for their views." Someone chose this as a headline. Thinking it "edgy" or "clever." That someone, whose name we don't know, is an editor at most influential US news org. May well have "gone to school in the Boston area."

Headline at left, from 'Independent' in UK. Headline at right, from "most prestigious" news org in US. -Hard to believe they're about same event. -All too easy to believe that NYT again went with sane-washing.