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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

President Trump, rickrolling the American people.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

This is correct. www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/s...

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Live from New York: www.nytimes.com/live/2025/11...

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

It's a great job Donald. It looks exactly like bathrooms used to look in Lincoln's day. Maybe take a few months off the job and focus on restoring the rest of the White House? It would be a real public service.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

Crazy that the building did that to itself

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

lol this is a great point. Our new royalists have adopted the British spelling of theatre.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

What a brazen lie to tweet right above a video in which one can clearly hear Padilla saying "I'm Senator Alex Padilla."

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

It may seem like chaos, but the best way to understand what's happening on immigration is that there are a bunch of competing forces that are most easily balanced by treating immigrants as a permanent underclass of cheap labor. Trump has tried to upset that equilibrium, and he's losing the fight.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

Fitting moment to be opening a monument to the rewards of white collar crime across the street from the White House.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

In which LA officials suddenly remember that the LA Olympics will be held in LA: www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/u...

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

lol yes it would be awesome if we could just skip ahead to this part: (The picture is of the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro in Lucca, Italy. The ring of buildings preserves the shape of the Roman amphitheater that stood on the site.)

The Piazza dell'Anfiteatro in Lucca, Italy. The ring of buildings preserves the shape of the Roman amphitheater that stood on the site.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

TIL that back in the day there were baseball cards for newspaper editors. Allen & Ginter, a tobacco company, issued a set of 50 in 1887. Here are a few examples:

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

We've been hollowing out the federal government for a long time. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

What a headline. (What a story.) www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/w...

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Amazing how often our housing crisis turns out to be at the root of our other problems -- in this case, the air traffic control problems at Newark's airport. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/b...

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Just some excellent work here on finding the right way to describe the current situation.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Bitcoin: Failing to be useful* since 2008. *Except for crime. It's still great for crime.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

This isn't a special fact about Brightline. All passenger trains are real estate ventures. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/01/t...

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

New logo for the Carville/Schumer Democratic Party:

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

And congratulations to Facebook on its remarkably successful demonstration of the Streisand Effect.

Careless People, the new book about Bad Facebook, now up to #6 on Amazon's bestseller list.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Champagne is an example of something we actually can't make in the United States. Maybe not an important example, but an example nonetheless.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

This is crazy. I know there are many crazy things happening right now, but this is a very high density of crazy:

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

I would like to say that I can't believe this is an actual quote from a Democratic member of Congress but www.thecut.com/article/demo...

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

Trump's first tariffs took effect in 2018. We've been living in a new age of tariffs ever since. Here's the effect to date on US manufacturing:

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

There are many mysteries and ambiguities in life but the nature of this gesture is not among them. It's a Nazi salute.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Calls to mind this 2003 image of federal financial regulators. Or whatever the opposite of a regulator is.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

One salient fact about immobility: It makes people sad and angry and more likely to vote for Donald Trump. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Mobility shaped and created America. Now we are increasingly defined by a lack of mobility. This is a great book (and I'm especially pleased to recommend it because it was written by my brother): www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/700580...

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

Great book, set in Pittsburgh, about that transition from factories to healthcare and its many complexities: www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

One thing that was actually better during the McKinley era? You could get pretty much anywhere by railroad.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

I do not want to read Chuck Schumer's oh so clever analysis of the economic impact of tariffs. I want the Senate Minority Leader to call a press conference in front of the Treasury Department and demand to know what the hell is happening in there. But that's just me.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

How about for starters maybe just try standing up for the rule of law?

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

It's true that getting rid of FEMA would hit red states hardest (see map), but it's not just FEMA. Getting rid of basically any kind of federal aid would hit red states hardest.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

It may make more sense if one reads the whole thing. Or maybe not. But here's the whole thing.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

Snow sculpture of the Capitol, in front of the Capitol.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

The last three seasons are three of the five busiest seasons on record. Definitely not declining in popularity.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

The Park City ski strike is discomfiting elites who mostly experience corporate concentration as good (for their portfolios) or negligible (for their cost of living). Support antitrust enforcement: It will improve the holiday lines at your favorite ski resort! www.nytimes.com/2025/01/06/b...

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Anyway now that we've decided Nippon Steel poses a grave threat to national security what are we planning to do about its existing U.S. plants. Are those dangerous too?

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

The White House says RealPage's rental price fixing scheme cost tenants $3.8 billion in 2023. That is a lot of money. www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-...

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

The largest tract of unused land in DC is the 174 acre parcel at the edge of Capitol Hill that includes the old RFK Stadium. Things DC needs: Housing, green space. Things DC does not need: A giant concrete bowl surrounded by parking that is used 13 days a year.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

I hope the government gets funded, but if this thing does fall apart, the silver lining will be that DC is prevented from building a new football stadium on precious land better used for pretty much anything else. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/18/u...

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Kind of amazing that the nation's 2d through 5th largest metro areas (LA, DMV, Chicagoland, Bay Area) have a grand total of 3 skyscrapers under construction.

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

(Can I interest you in a brilliant book-length exploration of this point? One of the best books I read this year.)

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Binyamin Appelbaum @bcappelbaum.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Final note on this subject: There is a second monument on the Antietam battlefield that exists solely to give directions to the McKinley monument.

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