Sign in

Fletch

@irwinfletcher.bsky.social
2.4K followers 5.5K following 831 posts

Tech entrepreneur and 💙

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Fletch
Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
“.. With Saudi oil now blockaded, Americans are about to discover why maintaining stability in the Middle East and not handing it to a consortium of Russia and Iran was always important.” @jayinkyiv.bsky.social
57398463287
Reposted by Fletch
Mary Branscombe @marypcbuk.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
The hyperscalers who spent decades building up clean energy supplies are going on on polluting because the US government is - I was going to say signalling but it’s outright saying this is what it wants. This is a STRUCTURAL problem not a tech problem as such (though I did hope for spine)
05721
Reposted by Fletch
NPR @npr.org · 24/02/2026
An NPR investigation finds the public database of Epstein files is missing dozens of pages related to sexual abuse accusations against President Trump. n.pr/4qTItsU
n.pr
Justice Department withheld and removed some Epstein files related to Trump
An NPR investigation finds the public database of Epstein files is missing dozens of pages related to sexual abuse accusations against President Trump.
333101735085
Reposted by Fletch
The Liberal BoJack @thelibbojack.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Errol Musk made money from a Zambian emerald mine in the 1980s. Peter Thiel, Max Levchin & Luke Nosek created PayPal in 1998. Martin Eberhard & Marc Tarpenning created Tesla in 2003. Jack Dorsey created Twitter in 2006. Elon Musk can’t even answer questions in an interview.
3199
Reposted by Fletch
The Wall Street Journal @wsj.com · 24/07/2026
They were like high-school students trying to hack into the textbook company to cheat on their final exam. Only these hackers weren’t human.
on.wsj.com
How the Futuristic Hack by Rogue OpenAI Models Unfolded
The incident serves as an early example of loss-of-control scenarios long feared by artificial-intelligence safety researchers.
42112
Reposted by Fletch
Casey Newton @caseynewton.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Rogue OpenAI agents are leaving notes to themselves on company servers to help them escape their test environments (!!!) www.reuters.com/business/its...
341034360
Reposted by Fletch
Lora Kolodny @lorak.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
no reporter or producer or correspondent reallllly wants to be the source, the subject of an important but bad and sad story of urgent national importance but she did it, anyway. thank you cecilia vega - www.sfchronicle.com/entertainmen...
sfchronicle.com
Fired ‘60 Minutes’ correspondent Cecilia Vega says she was told to report events ‘that never happened’
Two months after she was fired from “60 Minutes,” Cecilia Vega is sharing details about the troubling editorial pressures she said she faced after Bari Weiss was placed in charge of CBS News.
412638771
Reposted by Fletch
Defend The Vote @wedefendthevote.org · 22/07/2026
Republicans are taking a fake stock trading ban and using it to sneak through the worst parts of the unpopular SAVE Act that attacks the freedom to vote. It’s political theater, and should not be taken seriously. Don’t fall for it.
1239
Reposted by Fletch
Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
“Trump’s War has cost $113 billion and counting. Trump’s War has resulted in a collapse of U.S. credibility in the region and beyond. Trump’s War led to Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz. And gas prices have gone from about $3 to $4 a gallon today.” www.thebulwark.com/p/spain-wins...
thebulwark.com
Spain Wins. Trump Is Losing.
If at first you don’t succeed, maybe just pretend.
10416111
Reposted by Fletch
Colleen Paige @colleenpaige.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
011
Reposted by Fletch
Sarah Wood @sarahwood.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
Remember when “God” was added to the Pledge and our money back in the 1950s because Republicans were calling everything communism? Yeah, they’re still at it. New rule: if you can’t define communism, you can’t use the word.
1627566
Reposted by Fletch
Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
“.. In crypto, people say a game is a game,” the digital-asset entrepreneur said. “He played a better game than I did.” @wsj.com $WLFI www.wsj.com/finance/curr...
50392113
Reposted by Fletch
Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Jesus, three dissenting votes on birthright just might be the most insane part of this court's entire awful term.
1593937632
Reposted by Fletch
Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
The RNC thought it had found a new way to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of lawful voters. It spent millions building a case in an attempt to use disenfranchisement as a systematic tool to gain partisan advantage. www.democracydocket.com/opinion/the-...
democracydocket.com
The RNC tried to throw out your ballot. I fought back and won
The Court rejected the RNC’s scheme to disenfranchise voters. Democracy won.
516166354564
Reposted by Fletch
Adam Mockler @adammockler.com · 29/06/2026
This bill is the most common sense thing ever, so I’m not surprised every Republican voted no.
681451536
Reposted by Fletch
Techdirt @techdirt.com · 29/06/2026
VC Bros Claimed They Backed Trump To Protect AI. Trump Is Shutting Down AI. It Was Always About Access & Power Back in July of 2024, when two of the… www.techdirt.com/2026/06/29/vc-bros…
techdirt.com
VC Bros Claimed They Backed Trump To Protect AI. Trump Is Shutting Down AI. It Was Always About Access & Power
Back in July of 2024, when two of the biggest big shots in venture capital, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, explained why they had decided to go all in to back Donald Trump's campaign for re-election, they talked up a good game about how they would support any candidate who supported their "little tech" agenda. This always rang hollow — Andreessen has been on the board of Meta for years, which is the most anti-little tech company around.
4348
Reposted by Fletch
Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 30/06/2026
Stop believing VC bros who claimed they had to back Trump for the good of tech innovation. It was always bullshit. They just wanted access to power, as proven by them still supporting Trump after he has been way worse on tech policy than Biden.
749297
Reposted by Fletch
Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Donald Trump isn't taking the RNC's defeat in the Supreme Court very well. I agree it was a "tremendous loss" for him and the GOP. I am always happy to oblige in delivering him court defeats.😂 Thankfully, it was a great victory for voters and free and fair elections!
33253971073
Reposted by Fletch
Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 30/06/2026
Captain Underpants has lost his appeal. Figuratively and literally. To cheer himself up, maybe he can go to Martha’s Vinyard and have a pierogi. OH WAIT www.nbcnews.com/politics/sup...
nbcnews.com
Supreme Court declines to hear Alan Dershowitz appeal in defamation case
The choice leaves intact the landmark 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan ruling, which recognized protections for news media covering public figures.
31869751385
Reposted by Fletch
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 30/06/2026
Ossoff: "You've got the American govt controlled by Donald Trump backing a Trump family tungsten mine in Kazakhstan w/ a billion plus dollars of federal commitments at the very same time that they are cutting healthcare, defunding hospitals, & nursing homes, & doubling health insurance premiums."
4530701087
Reposted by Fletch
Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 30/06/2026
The guy whose yacht Steve Bannon was arrested on by Post Office cops just got 30 years in prison. www.npr.org/2026/06/29/g...
npr.org
Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui gets 30 years in U.S. prison for fraud conviction
Guo said he came to the U.S. to destroy the Chinese Communist Party. But the judge said he instead diverted investor money to live lavishly.
1932616724
Reposted by Fletch
The Verge @theverge.com · 29/06/2026
"Everyone will be affected, not just scientists. Every community in the country.“ A sneaky rule change has the potential to blow up scientific research in the United States. But there’s still time to fight it. Read more from @beebrookshire.bsky.social: www.theverge.com/science/9576...
Verge headline: The war against ‘woke’ could end US science as we know it
by Bethany Brookshire

Illustration of an American flag draped into a measuring glass, where it dissolves
14223451151
Reposted by Fletch
Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Slaughter is an earthquake: SCOTUS has overturned a 90-year-old precedent that facilitated much of modern governance by granting many agencies meaningful independence from the president. Now SCOTUS crushes that independence ... for seemingly every agency except the Federal Reserve.
5031201274
Reposted by Fletch
Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
As with some other things, i suspect if we have another dem president we will discover that the court did not so much transfer power to the executive as to themselves, ie they will find novel bullshit reasons to block a dem president the same way the find novel bullshit reasons to enable trump
26985341969
Reposted by Fletch
Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
“.. one of the largest single injections of capital in the cycle, the people said.” @wsj.com $ORCL www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
33290128
Reposted by Fletch
Amanda Carpenter @amandacarpenter.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
WSJ What Ellisons gave: -$45M to a Trump-aligned '24 campaign group -Millions to pro-Trump groups after elex -Bought the Free Press and installed Bari Weiss -$ to be corporate sponsor of Freedom 250 What Ellisons got: -$500B Stargate Project -TikTok -Paramount merger www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
wsj.com
How a $45 Million Donation Brought Larry Ellison Deeper Into Trump’s Circle
The billionaire’s private friendship with the president has helped Oracle’s business and his son’s media conglomerate.
22464236
Reposted by Fletch
Sage Deviant 🏳️‍⚧️ @trans.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Trump literally drove a presidential motorcade through the reflecting pool while it was still being refurbished & before the new liner even dried properly. if you drift a bunch of armored SUVs around inside of a dry pool, it damages the liner. it isn’t difficult to figure out what happened.
A motorcade of black SUVs and a presidential limousine drives along a wide paved route on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., with the Washington Monument rising prominently in the background. 

The vehicles travel across the reflecting pool, creating mirrored highlights beneath them.
451587467
Reposted by Fletch
Katie Drummond @katie-drummond.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
NEW: Insane screwup inside Meta. The company exposed worker keystroke data that was being used to train AI — making it potentially accessible to anyone at the company. The data included personnel and performance info, private convos, full transcriptions…imagine your coworkers seeing all of that.
wired.com
Meta Exposed Data Internally From Its Controversial Employee-Tracking Program
Employees had previously raised concerns about the initiative, which involves collecting workers’ keystroke data to train AI models.
661930685
Reposted by Fletch
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 19/06/2026
“We can’t live a full dignified life — with the ability to question authority, have different relationships with people, test ideas [and] blow off steam — if we don’t have private communication.”
bloomberg.com
Signal's Meredith Whittaker: The Push for Online Safety Risks Mass Surveillance
The president of the encrypted messaging app says autonomous AI agents, device scanning and digital advertising are converging into a new architecture of surveillance.
1457193
Reposted by Fletch
Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 13/06/2026
Difficult to think of a better example of Silicon Valley billionaire group chat brainrot than someone thinking the best way to combat the billionaire wealth tax would be to... buy up the company collecting signatures for the ballot measure. via @sfstandard.com sfstandard.com/2026/06/13/b...
In an encrypted group chat on Signal, a who’s who of tech titans met to commiserate and toss out solutions: Should they appeal to the governor? Run counter-initiatives? Put up candidates for office?

The members of the chat, some of whom are reported here for the first time, read like a Forbes list of Silicon Valley elite: Google cofounder Sergey Brin, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, former Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, former Sequoia Capital head and chairman of The Standard Michael Moritz, Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan, PayPal cofounder Max Levchin, Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, Ripple cofounder Chris Larsen, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, venture capitalist Ron Conway, Greenoaks Capital founder Neil Mehta, investor and “All-In” podcast cohost David Friedberg, Future Ventures founder Steve Jurvetson and his wife, Genevieve — dozens of tycoons, some of whom were hyper-active in the chat and others who engaged not at all. 

“It’s kind of like, ‘Who wasn’t in it?’ to be honest,” said one of two people who saw the chat and described its contents to The Standard. “And it just kept getting added to.”

At some point, a chat participant proposed an action more audacious than lobbying Gov. Gavin Newsom or funding an anti-tax measure: What if the group simply bought the signature-collecting company the union was using, then prohibited it from collecting more signatures?
13588205
Reposted by Fletch
𝙽𝚊𝚜𝚑 𝙸𝚜 𝙷𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝙵𝚘𝚛 𝙸𝚝 @nashishereforit.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
"I love the inflation"
401070335
Reposted by Fletch
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 10/06/2026
WHITESIDES: The truth is the cheapest form of energy on a per unit basis is daytime solar. Is that not true? CHRIS WRIGHT: It depends-- WHITESIDES: No it doesn't depend! It's true. You are amazingly misleading the American public. WRIGHT: It depends-- WHITESIDES: No!
641163924662
Reposted by Fletch
Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Still not on either the NYT or WaPo homepages: Trump: "I love inflation"
772049588
Reposted by Fletch
George Pearkes @peark.es · 10/06/2026
Forever Wars Bros, we are SO back.
06/10/2026 16:10:06[AXS]
  Trump holds Situation Room meeting on Iran strike options
  By Barak Ravid

  (Axios)
  President Trump helTrump had been growing increasingly frustrated over nearly
  two weeks of waiting for an Iranian response to his latest offer.rs the U.S.
  would "hit them again hard today," two U.S. sources said.
  Zoom in: The sources said one option Trump is considering is launching an
  operation that is big in scale but short in duration, with the aim of pressing Iran
  to change its position in the negotiations. The sources did not provide specifics.

  State of play: Qatari mediators held talks with Iranian officials on Wednesday
  in Tehran to try and restore some momentum behind the deal the U.S. and Iran
  have been negotiating for weeks.
     •  Barring a breakthrough, U.S. strikes could follow.
     •  The U.S. struck Iranian radar and air defense sites on Tuesday evening in
        response to the downing of a U.S. helicopter, but those strikes were
        calibrated to avoid casualties and leave open the possibility of a deal.
  The Situation Room meeting was attended by Vice President Vance, Secretary
  of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen.
  Dan Caine, White House envoy Steve Witkoff and other senior officials, the
  sources said.
2435739
Reposted by Fletch
Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 10/06/2026
Welp. New reporting from the Times shows I was right. Blanche asking the courts to release the Epstein files was a ruse. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/10/m...
Option 1 was to petition Federal District Courts in Florida and New York to unseal the grand jury testimonies — the secret transcripts of prosecutors’ presentations of witnesses and evidence in their efforts to obtain indictments in past Epstein-related cases. As those were almost certain to contain no significant new information, everyone agreed that this option was a good idea, and not only because a release was unlikely to damage the president.

Under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the secrecy of grand jury materials is regarded by most federal judges as almost always inviolate, and the bar for any release is exceptionally high. If the courts refused to unseal them — as Blanche predicted — they could shift the blame for withholding the Epstein material away from the Trump administration and onto the judges. And all the better if the judges had been appointed by Democratic presidents. Blanche’s suggestion would make it appear that the White House wanted the materials released, when it was almost certain not to happen.
12355502047
Reposted by Fletch
Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 10/06/2026
Trump's war has wiped out an entire year and a half of wage growth
Figure titled Trump has erased all the wage gains of his term, plotting average real hourly earnings for the private sector by month in May 2026
381901792
Reposted by Fletch
David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Financial institutions are giving SpaceX shares special expedited treatment to burrow onto indexes that millions of index fund holders will then robotically purchase to induce demand. It's an innovative version of a pump-and-dump scheme. Eleanor Davis-Diver reports. prospect.org/2026/06/10/e...
prospect.org
Elon Musk Is About to Make Saving for Retirement Even Harder - The American Prospect
The upcoming SpaceX IPO will make investing in index funds for retirement worse, while Musk and friends rake in millions.
16378209
Reposted by Fletch
Reuters @reuters.com · 10/06/2026
Trump setbacks fuel lame-duck talk as he turns 80 reut.rs/3PPNKoY
reut.rs
Trump setbacks fuel lame-duck talk as he turns 80
U.S. President Donald Trump is trying to project political strength as he turns 80, but setbacks at home and abroad are exposing the limits of his power and pushing him toward the kind of lame-duck status he has told aides he is ​determined to avoid.
1223841
Reposted by Fletch
YouGov America @today.yougov.com · 09/06/2026
NEW Economist/YouGov Jun 5-8 % who approve | disapprove of Donald Trump U.S. adult citizens 35% | 60% (-25) Last week 35% | 61% (-26) Start of term 49% | 43% (+6) Dem 4% | 95% Ind 23% | 67% Rep 81% | 18% 18-29: 26% | 71% 65+: 42% | 56% d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/ec...
A stacked bar chart of YouGov polling data with the headline: "Approval and disapproval of Trump's job performance."

The chart has the sub-headline: "Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as President? (%)."
1718264
Reposted by Fletch
Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Look at this astonishing chart and tell me we don't have a billionaire wealth problem.
youtu.be
Inequality Isn’t Just Unfair, It’s Dangerous
Taxing the rich is absolutely essential to saving our economy and our democracy.Don't believe me? Look at this chart.
18810293
Reposted by Fletch
ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 08/06/2026
I thought people were kidding, turns out Elon really did axe the screwworm containment program back in March 25. fucking imbecile www.agri-pulse.com/articles/226...
agri-pulse.com
Bird flu, screwworm monitoring among foreign aid programs killed by Trump
Among the more than 5,300 grants and programs killed as a result of the Trump administration’s USAID cuts are a slate of U.S.-funded programs at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, including eff...
26692803693
Reposted by Fletch
Christopher Mims @mims.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
If any other president had said "I"m going to destroy demand for liquid fossil fuels by permanently increasing their cost; wipe out America's cattle herds; spur the biggest wave of investment in renewables in history through energy insecurity" Congress would shut them down. Not this one!
427033
Reposted by Fletch
Chris⚖️Justice @chrisjustice01.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
🧐 Hunter Biden on current corruption. Brings receipts
11226113
Reposted by Fletch
Bill DiFilippo @billdifilippo.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
hunter biden cooked here?????
316818
Reposted by Fletch
The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
PSA: Hunter Biden is now one of the best follows on the hellsite.
761854344
Reposted by Fletch
Hoodlum 🇺🇸 @nothoodlum.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
From Hunter Biden on Twitter.
1182518807
Reposted by Fletch
Stealthgirl 🫘 @stealthgirl21.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Are you following Hunter Biden over on X? He’s pretty entertaining.
341998309
Reposted by Fletch
Gustavo @agusnox.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Hunter Biden dropping some serious shade
181659299
Reposted by Fletch
PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 @patriottakes.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
Trump Cut Screwworm Monitoring Program Before Parasite Reached Texas Flesh-eating larvae cases have been reported in the U.S. for the first time in decades meidasnews.com/news/trump-c...
meidasnews.com
Trump Cut Screwworm Monitoring Program Before Parasite Reached Texas
Flesh-eating larvae cases have been reported in the U.S. for the first time in decades
39338145
Reposted by Fletch
Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
Bari Weiss not beating the bootlicking propagandist allegations here:
17997382845