Will Carty

Canadian Texan. FinancePolicyMusicArtSportsPolitics. #Xword nerd. Policy Owl. Ex-Senate & House. Ps are mine. Qs are others’.

[Ghosts of DC @GhostsofDC]

The 9:30 Club bought James Brown his own hooded hair dryer because renting one every visit got too expensive. That's just one secret tucked inside DC's most legendary music venue.

https://t.co/cXOgB51gtc

[Will Carty @carty]

Diddly Squat Farm
@ClarksonsFarm1

[Nick Gillespie @nickgillespie]

'Why is a flat-screen TV affordable and a college education not?...Because Congress has spent 60 years trying to make college affordable and has spent zero years trying to make TVs affordable.' By @reason's Aaron Brown, Michael Mendelson, @CliffordAsness https://t.co/ffQC5XQmIy

[Mike ter Maat @miketermaat_]

Voting used to be about choosing how much freedom you wanted.

Now it feels like choosing who gets to take it… and how.

Maybe we should go back to the first version.

[Will Carty @carty]

“Up to you.” #pride

[Will Carty @carty]

Um. When?

[Greg Lukianoff @glukianoff]

“Protect the children” too often becomes “show me your papers.”

Britain’s age-verification push and Washington’s online-safety bargain risk building speech-control infrastructure in the name of safety.

[Will Carty @carty]

“Sentient Sun” 🤯

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

https://t.co/puLXpatHvd

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.

Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.

I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these."

"They just come with the table, man."

They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.

This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat.

I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared.

"Did we…?"

"Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless."

Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined.

My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude."

Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man.

I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy.

Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived.

I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most.

Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.

[Dirty Texas Hedge @HedgeDirty]

Over 4000 workers just became millionaires by owning the means of production and the socialists are pissed

[Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias]

With $1 trillion in net worth, Musk could give everyone on earth around 125 bucks and thereby solve all problems forever.

[Will Carty @carty]

Just crazy.

[Jeremy Horpedahl 🥚📉 @jmhorp]

People act like it's a mystery or fraud that caused federal spending to explode since 2015

Here's the breakdown of the increase

Interest: 30%
Social Security: 20%
Medicare: 13%
Medicaid: 10%
Non-defense discretionary: 10%
Defense: 5%

That's 90% of the increase

[Library of Congress @librarycongress]

The Committee of Five—John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman—was appointed to draft the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago today.

Jefferson's draft of the document is here at the Library, and will be featured in a new exhibition opening July 3.

[Orin Kerr @OrinKerr]

Someday the Supreme Court is going to grant cert on this.

[Jessica Riedl 🧀 🇺🇦 @JessicaBRiedl]

A perk of being politically tribeless is being able to declare that Donald Trump, Ken Paxton, and Graham Platner are all personally unfit for office without having to twist myself into a pretzel trying to explain some hackish partisan double standard. Principles over party.

[McKay Coppins @mckaycoppins]

Coolest @TheAtlantic cover in a long time:

[ArtButMakeItSports @ArtButSports]

Dawn at the Alamo, by Henry Arthur McArdle, late 19th c, 📸 by @gwephoto

[Will Carty @carty]

@PLFTX @KXAN_Weather I thought the same thing up here!

[Nick Gillespie @nickgillespie]

A government that can't count votes in a timely manner shouldn't be allowed to run so many aspects of our lives.

[Will Carty @carty]

@whignewtons Perfect. No notes.