What are 5 topics you can talk about unprepared for 5 minutes? 1-Science fiction / fantasy 2-Software design 3-Politics (social progressive & fiscal conservative), especially economics ("saltwater") 4-Medicine (thyroid cancer survivor) 5-Life, the Universe, Everything (polymath)

Find substance abuse help through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline. Connect with treatment and mental health referrals near you by: Calling 1-800-662-HELP (4357)

Things the recovery industry will not tell you: 1. The drug worked. That is why people use it. Not weakness. Not moral failure. A neurological event so complete and persuasive that any honest account of addiction has to start there. The problem is not that the drug fails. The problem is that what it does is unrepeatable, and you will burn your entire life to the ground trying to get back to a place that no longer exists. 2. Shame is not guilt. Guilt says I did something bad. Shame says I am something bad. Guilt is appropriate. Shame is a cell with no windows. Most people use the words interchangeably. That mistake is lethal. 3. You cannot shame someone who has already named the thing you are holding over them. Say it first. Say it in plain light. The weapon drops. 4. Guilt can coexist with self-respect. Shame cannot. You can hold the damage and the dignity at the same time. I know because I live there. 5. Radical honesty does not give you back who you were. It hands you the clean slate of who you always wanted to be. The mask comes off. The cartoon other people drew of you stays on the page. 6. Nobody gets clean on a winning streak. 7. You have to be almost self-delusional in your forgiveness of yourself. (Go watch Chase Hughes) 8. The greatest sin was not the chaos. It was the absence. Being unavailable to the people who needed you. 9. Sustainable recovery starts with one thing: honesty with yourself. If you love an addict and want to help, that is the only door in. 10. I am only an expert on my recovery. Nobody is an expert on anyone else’s.

I see your profile picture. That’s Johnny Cash. My hero too. Arrested seven times. Smuggled 668 amphetamines across the Mexican border in 1965. Took every drug there was and drank like I did. Cheated on his first wife. Slept with more woman than I ever did. Hit bottom in a cave in Tennessee in 1968 trying to crawl off and die. And then he got up. He got clean. He spent the rest of his life singing for prisoners and addicts and the people the country threw away because he knew he was one of them. That was the whole point of the Man in Black. He wore it for the poor and the beaten down. He wore it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime. He wore it for the ones who never heard a word of Jesus. He wore it for the addicted and the dying. He wore it as a standing witness that no one is past saving. You picked his picture. You did not pick his message. Try listening to the words.

Laurence Fishburne reads a stark warning from W. E. B. Du Bois written in 1953. youtube.com/watch?v=K5bbtqAC…

Turns out we may already have an anti-aging vaccine. Created originally to prevent shingles, it appears to influence aging and cognitive decline - far beyond anything it was designed to do. The beauty of science. realclearscience.com/blog/20…

🚨BREAKING: In Columbus, Ohio, ICE agents hit a U.S. citizen’s vehicle, and then admitted, on camera, that they “do this all the time”… before driving away. A 17-year-old U.S. citizen was reportedly on his way to church, when multiple officials surrounded his car, backed into his front bumper, and jumped out of their vehicles. When he rolled down his window, they told him… “We got the wrong person.” And walked back toward their cars. The 17-year-old got out to document what happened, and told an officer they had hit his vehicle… And the response was: “You can take a picture if you want. We do this all the time. You’re okay.” And then they drove off. The Fourth Amendment protects you from unreasonable searches and seizures. And courts have made clear that a “seizure” isn’t just being arrested, or put in handcuffs. It also includes situations where law enforcement use their authority in a way that blocks your freedom to leave… or creates an intimidating, forced encounter. So, when officers surround a car, hit it while backing up, and pull a teenager into a sudden law enforcement interaction, with no valid reason… At minimum, it’s a reckless stop. At worst, it’s an unlawful seizure, with property damage, and no accountability. And then there’s the part when she casually said… “We do this all the time.” Because that turns an “oops” moment into a pattern. And when that pattern violates your constitutional rights and due process, it starts to feel a lot like the government is using the Constitution like they use the Bible… Quoted when it’s useful, ignored when it isn’t.

🚨BREAKING: The Secretary of Homeland Security just admitted, on camera, that he is going to violate your First Amendment right to free speech. He said, “I have ZERO tolerance. If you verbally assault our officers… we will find you, we will arrest you.” Except… that’s not how the First Amendment works. Unless someone is making a credible threat of violence, speech… even rude, angry, or insulting speech… is still protected. That’s the whole point of a free speech clause… to protect the people from situations where those in power don’t like what’s being said. So, when a top federal official starts framing “verbal assault” as something you can be arrested for, without clearly defining it as an actual threat… It stops sounding like protecting officers, and starts sounding like a government trying to silence people who speak out against it.

Yesterday Donald Trump tripled the size of his personal political army inside the government. Illegally. And almost no one noticed. Here's what happened: He signed an order converting ~8,000 of the most senior career officials in government into employees he can fire for any reason, or no reason at all. These aren't rando's. They're the directors, chiefs of staff, and the people who write the rules or decide who gets federal money, i.e. the lieutenants right below his political appointees. Until yesterday, they answered to the law. Now they answer to him. A president normally gets ~4,000 political appointees. People he can bring into government and fire at will. I was one of them at DHS. You serve at his pleasure, full stop -- so if you're gonna speak truth to power, you're prepared to quit (or get fired if he doesn't like it). The rest of the federal government is PROTECTED from firing if they tell the truth. But Trump just stripped those protections. Adding 8,000 more people to his personal army. Overnight. Without asking Congress. With the stroke of a pen, those people now serve at the pleasure of the president. They're "his" people, whether they like it or not. And the chilling effect is real. An official who can be fired this afternoon for "subversion of presidential directives" (the order's own words) doesn't need to be hand-picked to know what's expected of him or her. The threat does all the work. By the way, this order is illegal. The law only lets Trump reclassify jobs when "necessary" in exceptional circumstances. And this blows an 8,000-person hole in the merit hiring / firing system created by Congress. Without permission, Trump has created a whole new category of stormtroopers inside the Executive Branch. If this doesn't get challenged in court, you're going to see the U.S. government become a very different place. Here's the full story: bit.ly/4dQN5N2

oh my goodness -- Ted Lieu played Rubio a video of Trump sleeping while Rubio tried to talk to him during a cabinet meeting. Then this exchange happened: RUBIO: I've never seen him fall asleep LIEU: I'm gonna show you a video that shows you just lied to Congress *plays another video of Trump sleeping by Rubio*

Tennessee has passed a law requiring both prospective and current data center owners to bear the entire cost of their necessary utility infrastructure, per WKRN

Bill Pulte is a partisan thug with no experience in intelligence.   He is another unqualified Trump appointee that will make our country less safe.    And you won’t hear a word from the Republicans who claim to care about national security.

🚨 HOLY SHIT. A U.S. citizen just testified before the Senate that ICE agents ignored his passport, detained him, placed him on suicide watch, and released him WITHOUT charges or explanation. Read that again. An AMERICAN CITIZEN says he showed agents his passport multiple times… and still ended up locked in a cell under 24/7 lights, stripped naked, wearing a hospital gown while guards watched him constantly. His family reportedly had no idea where he was. Then after all of that? No charges. No explanation. Just released.

Nobody is buying the FCC's excuse for why they're targeting Disney. Their motivation is clear and the pretext is transparent. This is about punishing speech they don't like, and everyone knows it.

Almost seven years clean and sober. Not a victory lap. Just a fact. To anyone in the fight right now: it gets quieter. Not easier. Quieter. In the quiet, you find out who you actually are. That’s the part they can’t take from you.

So let me get this straight. Jake Tapper is focused on attacking my Mom. Jared and Ivanka are building a private island paradise on Albanian protected land. Don Jr married the daughter of Epstein’s banker, and a startup his fund backs just got a record $620M Pentagon loan. Eric is taking an Israeli drone company public for $1.5B in the middle of a war with Iran that nobody wanted. And I know: “But what about your paintings, Hunter?” Please.

Trump supporters, please explain why you don’t care as the Trump family makes billions of dollars!

Happy Pride month! #Pride is important because somewhere out there is a confused teenager who still thinks maybe being dead Is better than being gay and that's not okay.

The next time you pull up to a national park and pay the entrance fee, know this: Our parks have $23 billion in repairs that have never been made. But instead of prioritizing that our national parks are clean, maintained, and ready for your next visit, the President is spending some of the money on vanity projects like painting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue. nytimes.com/2026/05/27/clima…

There is no world in which this is okay.     Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito did not recuse himself from cases involving Trump’s Treasury Department while his own son was secretly working there as a political appointee and attorney.    His son's employment was hidden so thoroughly that his name appears nowhere on the Treasury Department website, he has no public resume, and his bar listings are outdated.    If Alito had recused himself, the secret would have come out. He didn’t recuse himself.    This is a clear conflict of interest, and the American people deserved to know about it.    The federal recusal standard is clear: a justice must step aside in any case where there is a reasonable basis to question whether he or she can be impartial. A justice ruling on cases involving the department where his son works fails that test. The Treasury Department sits at the center of some of the biggest legal fights of this administration, and challenges to Trump’s $1.776 billion January 6 slush fund could be headed to the Court next.    The Supreme Court is the only court in America with no binding code of conduct. That is completely unacceptable, and it has to change NOW.    Congress controls the Power of the Purse, and therefore the Court’s funding. If the Court will not adopt a binding code of conduct with real recusal review on their own, I support withholding their funding until they do.   notus.org/us-news/samuel-phi…

US hospitals, 457,950 COVID patients. AI found long COVID in 16.28%, about 1 in 6, with 89.31% developing chronic conditions. Coding misses over half of cases. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam…