Alex Barnes 🇺🇸🗽🇺🇸

Equal-opportunity complainer.

All opinions are my own. So, too, are the bad jokes, pithy comments, and random musings.

Слава Україні!

[Robby Soave @robbysoave]

This is like appointing Cookie Monster head of the Don't Eat Cookies department

[Alex Barnes 🇺🇸🗽🇺🇸 @ABarnes94]

@noneundersun @jmgwritten Yes - Long Island! 🇺🇸

[Scott Lincicome @scottlincicome]

Not just "fine".

"Downing between about three to five 8-ounce cups of joe daily, or around 400 milligrams of caffeine, is linked to a lower risk of heart disease, heart failure, stroke and Type 2 diabetes"

[Rich Lowry @RichLowry]

I know countless millions of people love soccer, and it can be a thrilling game, as we witnessed repeatedly during the World Cup, but it suffers from a fundamental structural flaw.

Because offense is in such short supply at this level, scoring is highly dependent on penalties.

This means that scoring often comes outside the normal flow of play, and incentives flopping and pretend injuries that are unworthy of grown men—you think someone rolling around the turf in agonizing pain is going to have to be transported immediately to the hospital, then you look up and he’s played another 45 minutes, no problem.

Then, there’s the courting of artificial penalties—a player steps in front of another, gets bumped, and proceeds to pretend he got shot.

Whatever the other merits of soccer, this stuff is a blight on the game and brings an element of low comedy to even the highest-stakes competition.

[Sin Eater Ketosis @trashavocado]

See, this is the problem with ever doing any kind of welfare through the tax code.

You do something nice for a sympathetic old lady like exempt most of her wealth from taxes, and she and her heirs feel entitled to it into perpetuity like a medieval title.

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

This is a particularly evil form of rent-seeking

[Alex Barnes 🇺🇸🗽🇺🇸 @ABarnes94]

@NWSNewYorkNY What happened to the Hudson and the East River?

[dandelion georgism 🔰🏗 @DandyGeorgism]

1995: oh cool you can buy books online now

2026: the company that owns Whole Foods and Lord of the Rings is experiencing setbacks with its space program

[𝒹𝒶𝒾𝓈𝓎 @daisandconfused]

romanticizing the air quality index

[Alex Barnes 🇺🇸🗽🇺🇸 @ABarnes94]

@Smorgasboredom @eastriverpearl Hey this time it's Canada's fault for the smoke!

[Alex Barnes 🇺🇸🗽🇺🇸 @ABarnes94]

@BlankProfile420 @ShamebyJames2 @agraybee Yeah and they've been outrageously wrong about it ever since then.

[Alex Barnes 🇺🇸🗽🇺🇸 @ABarnes94]

@rmm4pi8 @jefdiesel @constans I just think the solution to all of this is better signage and more signage, not "only regulars know what to do, and if you're a tourist/first-timer/elderly/etc well hopefully you figure it out in the 3 minutes between announcement and departure and don't panic in the meantime"

[Alex Barnes 🇺🇸🗽🇺🇸 @ABarnes94]

@jefdiesel @constans @rmm4pi8 Yeah, I know how to guess/ask people/etc, but the point is that it's ridiculous that one must do that at all!

[Alex Barnes 🇺🇸🗽🇺🇸 @ABarnes94]

@jefdiesel @constans @rmm4pi8 People just sort of figure out which track they're supposed to wait for, but it's not announced until the line has already formed with >80% of the passengers.

[Alex Barnes 🇺🇸🗽🇺🇸 @ABarnes94]

@HenMazzig "Well, if you take my assets and my wife's assets together"

Yes, that's called "marriage"!

[Yurok Around The Clock @HellcatBruce]

Hold on, before I resign in disgrace I have a list of demands

[Alex Barnes 🇺🇸🗽🇺🇸 @ABarnes94]

@umichvoter Paging @GreenPlusAnE

[Jonathan Chait @jonathanchait]

Why consultants shouldn't just meet a random guy and decide he can be a Senator because he sounds good https://t.co/MlBqXXPcxM

[Sarah Isgur @whignewtons]

And btw Jenny Racicot is a hero. She saw another woman with different political beliefs get attacked and shamed for telling the truth and instead of keeping her head down—she ran to defend her at the risk of her own safety and reputation. That takes real guts these days.

[Lyndsey Fifield @lyndseyfifield]

I actually understand why Democrat leaders didn't take our stories seriously when the Times reported them in June but are taking them seriously now.

It was by design.

The line most shared from the piece was the claim that the Times “could not corroborate” my story despite talking to two of my friends.

I gave them the contact information for five friends.

They called the two who I clarified would not know about the abuse but would be able to affirm our relationship timeline, events, etc.

They simply did not call the other three.

I also gave them the names of all my former roommates who remembered him stalking our row house (which was about 5 houses down from his) and waiting for me to return. I gave them screenshots of messages between these roommates and I discussing it.

I gave them the names of other men I dated who might have remembered him following us around the hill and showing up on my stoop after we walked home from dates to confront us. I gave them emails to my landlord urgently ending my lease and moving to an apartment across town and diary entries talking about it - all time marked.

I told them that during pre-marital counseling I had spoken to my ex-fiance about the abuse because I had to explain to him why I reacted with such terror any time he lost his temper. They said oh NO we don't need to bother HIM (or my priest). Besides, I had written about it in my diary in detail, they reassured.

As the weeks dragged on I stopped trying to give them evidence because the amount I had already given them seemed to overwhelm them and I thought it meant they clearly had more than enough to verify my every claim.

My friends might not have known the details of the abuse, but they affirmed that yes, I had told them that he was abusive—long before he ran for Senate.

Besides, they assured, my part in their reporting would be small. I thought my details would only serve to affirm Jenny and the other anonymous woman.

Jenny and I - having never met or spoken - both shared with these reporters terrifyingly similar details of intimate partner violence, coercive control, and cycles of abuse/love bombing. The third unnamed woman in the story did as well.

But tell me again how they “could not corroborate.”