Ian Koski

Hearing RFK Jr.'s crazily heavy breathing through the microphone sends such an interesting message about this administration's view of public health.

Ticketmaster sending an email with new terms of service at 6:50 on the Friday night of Labor Day weekend can’t be good.

So what are the solutions? Well, reverse engineer everything above. Find people who know how to build organic audiences--lots of people, not just one or two. Fund them, and fund them well. Don't make them jump through 50 hoops over the course of 12 months to get a $50,000 check. That is useless, it wastes their time, and they can't do anything useful with it. Drive the car like you stole it. Be aggressive, fast, generous and ratchet up your fault tolerance. Understand that in order to be effective you are going to have to build a media ecosystem that holds contradictions and is representative of the Democratic populace, not some imaginary median voter who everyone assumes is a platonic centrist (despite evidence to the contrary, which is another post.) There are lots of different kinds of Democrats. There should not be a monolithic template for talking to them and if Dems try to force all of these efforts into one, they will end up talking to no one. Learn the difference between bad and good content, and not by message testing or doing paid spend it but by putting it in front of audiences and seeing what works organically. (People also use really shitty metrics to decide whether something is having political impact, but that's a whole other post too. I could write a treatise on why ad performance on meta as a metric is stupid but this is already running long.)

Super super smart (per usual) by @espiers.bsky.social, per usual on the problem with Democratic media efforts. www.elizabethspiers.com/why-dems-kee...

Massive win for Democrats in Utah today.

I wonder how he felt about this idea when it came from Hillary Clinton. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...

Blood money.

#MEpolitics

Is Senator Collins really saying here that because Republicans didn't vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, the Trump Admin shouldn't have to continue executing the law? This is stunning. Especially from a "moderate." Especially from an appropriator. #MEpolitics
www.pressherald.com/2025/08/06/m...

Any reporter who publishes future data without noting this obvious pledge by the president to manipulate future data should surrender their press credential. This is insane.

Ick

Five straight years of Monica Lewinsky jokes didn’t alienate anyone at all

PPH rewards Susan Collins for her complicity in the withholding of this $$ -- e.g. thru Trump nominee votes -- by slapping her photo next to this article instead of Mills or Pingree who also called for the funds to be released but were not similarly complicit.

Absolute propaganda move. #MEpolitics

Maine media: Stop crediting Susan Collins for getting Maine's education funding released. Every state's withheld money was released! www.nytimes.com/live/2025/07... #MEpolitics

Also the education funds were released in every state. Not just Maine. It wasn't a Collins thing. www.nytimes.com/live/2025/07...

The Democratic party needs fresh faces and fresh voices.

by Rahm Emanuel, James Carville, and David Axelrod

Wow. Puck reports that Susan Collins pulled her amendment to make rescissions smaller after MAGA Senators pressured her, not Democrats like she claimed.

Embarrassing but par for the course.

Shady Susan liar.

#mesen #mepolitics

puck.news/collins-back...

"Purely financial decision" feels... unlikely.

Billionaires get cancer too. I hope some step up where Trump has surrendered.

Maine Democratic Primary Survey Take this survey powered by surveymonkey.com. Create your own surveys for free.

Was just texted this completely bananas Maine Senate Democratic Primary poll. It’s not restricted to a single respondent. It would be terrible if people spammed it. bit.ly/me-primary-p... #MEpolitics

Amazing quote. Payroll in freefall since the World Series? That’s on the Lerners.

Now fire the cheapskate owners.

Sorry, missed this. Yes, the manager's amendment and final passage got the same votes.

Senator Collins just voted against the manager's amendment.

USAID cuts could lead to 14 million deaths over the next five years, researchers say An analysis published Monday in the medical journal The Lancet projects that cuts to the agency will lead to more deaths from diseases like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

Move fast, break things, and cause megadeath.

www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

She already supported this by voting yes in debate. Even if she casts a symbolic no vote for the actual bill, she gave up opposing it at the only time it would've mattered.

#mepolitics

Senator Collins has demonstrated again that she no longer knows how (or does not care to) to use the power she has to effect meaningful change in the modern Congress. #MEpolitics

Sorry didn’t realize you’d already noted that

How do you know your senator doesn't care what her constituents think? When the staff assistant doesn't even ask where you live, let alone your name, when you call to urge the senator to vote against the GOP budget bill. #MEpolitics

No joke, Trump has to fire all of them now. They're a sabotage risk to the administration.

"oh noooooooooooooooo"

*RFK