Patrick Hruby
@patrickhruby.bsky.social
Deputy Editor, Washingtonian | Alum and bylines, many places | To pitch me: [email protected] | To reach me: www.patrickhruby.net
Corporate welfare
The Boston Globe identified the companies in Massachusetts that employ the most SNAP recipients. A key stat: "In Massachusetts, 74% of working-age recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are employed, half of them full-time."
Full article: www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/28/m...
Full article: www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/28/m...
November 30, 2025 at 3:20 AM
Corporate welfare
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
Btw we already had someone to do 11.7% of work tasks, they were called "a secretary" and the suits decided it was cheaper to make everyone do their own emails and schedules.
But you can add up any number of secretaries and still not get one programmer, or architect, or nurse.
But you can add up any number of secretaries and still not get one programmer, or architect, or nurse.
November 29, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Btw we already had someone to do 11.7% of work tasks, they were called "a secretary" and the suits decided it was cheaper to make everyone do their own emails and schedules.
But you can add up any number of secretaries and still not get one programmer, or architect, or nurse.
But you can add up any number of secretaries and still not get one programmer, or architect, or nurse.
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
Headline: "AI can replace 11.7% of workforce"
Actual study: Anthropic paid MIT to use a "labor simulation tool" that said 11.7% of TASKS could be done by AI
Actual study: Anthropic paid MIT to use a "labor simulation tool" that said 11.7% of TASKS could be done by AI
MIT study finds AI can already replace 11.7% of U.S. workforce
Artificial intelligence can already replace 11.7% of the U.S. labor market, across finance, health care and professional services, according to MIT's study.
www.cnbc.com
November 29, 2025 at 9:57 PM
Headline: "AI can replace 11.7% of workforce"
Actual study: Anthropic paid MIT to use a "labor simulation tool" that said 11.7% of TASKS could be done by AI
Actual study: Anthropic paid MIT to use a "labor simulation tool" that said 11.7% of TASKS could be done by AI
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
When I was a kid we had a button you could push to hear music that you couldn't imagine, it was called the power switch on the radio
When your brain is so cooked it has turned to ash and blown away in the wind
November 29, 2025 at 2:42 PM
When I was a kid we had a button you could push to hear music that you couldn't imagine, it was called the power switch on the radio
🧑🍳💋
A study by Dayforce shows 87% of executives use AI for work, compared to 57% of managers and just 27% of employees.
I think this explains the massive disconnect we see in how CEOs talk about AI versus everyone else. It also raises the question of how useful it truly is for frontline work?
I think this explains the massive disconnect we see in how CEOs talk about AI versus everyone else. It also raises the question of how useful it truly is for frontline work?
Execs are embracing AI more than their employees are, new research suggests
Research from HR software company Dayforce suggests that executives are leaning into AI far more than their employees.
www.businessinsider.com
November 29, 2025 at 3:52 PM
🧑🍳💋
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
Another one for the "we are ruled by hollowed-out husks who believe in nothing but their own untouchability" files
A study by Dayforce shows 87% of executives use AI for work, compared to 57% of managers and just 27% of employees.
I think this explains the massive disconnect we see in how CEOs talk about AI versus everyone else. It also raises the question of how useful it truly is for frontline work?
I think this explains the massive disconnect we see in how CEOs talk about AI versus everyone else. It also raises the question of how useful it truly is for frontline work?
Execs are embracing AI more than their employees are, new research suggests
Research from HR software company Dayforce suggests that executives are leaning into AI far more than their employees.
www.businessinsider.com
November 29, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Another one for the "we are ruled by hollowed-out husks who believe in nothing but their own untouchability" files
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
Five-byline alert: 🚨
“.. the full scope of [Witkoff’s talks] went much further, according to people familiar .. They were privately charting a path to bring Russia’s $2 trillion economy in from the cold—with American businesses first in line .. to the dividends. 🇺🇦
www.wsj.com/world/russia...
“.. the full scope of [Witkoff’s talks] went much further, according to people familiar .. They were privately charting a path to bring Russia’s $2 trillion economy in from the cold—with American businesses first in line .. to the dividends. 🇺🇦
www.wsj.com/world/russia...
November 29, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Five-byline alert: 🚨
“.. the full scope of [Witkoff’s talks] went much further, according to people familiar .. They were privately charting a path to bring Russia’s $2 trillion economy in from the cold—with American businesses first in line .. to the dividends. 🇺🇦
www.wsj.com/world/russia...
“.. the full scope of [Witkoff’s talks] went much further, according to people familiar .. They were privately charting a path to bring Russia’s $2 trillion economy in from the cold—with American businesses first in line .. to the dividends. 🇺🇦
www.wsj.com/world/russia...
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
Northwestern and Columbia being famous for journalism and bending over for Trump seems a little too on the nose these days
This is the second largest payout from a private university to the Trump admin yet, second only to Columbia’s $200m
November 29, 2025 at 2:07 AM
Northwestern and Columbia being famous for journalism and bending over for Trump seems a little too on the nose these days
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
This ridiculous sentence is written like a bothsides-ish balancing statement, but it isn’t one. When the mob is in charge, paying the protection money they extort from you is a cost of doing business. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/u...
November 29, 2025 at 2:22 PM
This ridiculous sentence is written like a bothsides-ish balancing statement, but it isn’t one. When the mob is in charge, paying the protection money they extort from you is a cost of doing business. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/u...
wtf
At this point, our intro comp/first-year English course has been so heavily revised, it no longer includes a novel, or "extended reading" of any kind, no "specialized" or "historical" reading, mostly in-class assignments, no research essay...and we are still seeing a 40-50% rate of AI misconduct.
November 29, 2025 at 1:55 PM
wtf
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
The perception of dominance is the appeal. That’s literally the only thing that “Western Civilization” offers people like this and that’s what they mean. Own people, own property. It’s the “birthright” to hurt their lessers that they champion. That’s pretty much it.
It is odd to me that, like, you'd think it'd be parody if you said: to be clear, they only like the bad bits of Western Civilisation -- but that turns out to be true. They like the rapacious imperial murder, but not the art or intellectual achievements or civil liberties, etc.
i mean what are these "western values" these guys are so hopped up about? they are directly antagonistic to western europe. they don't believe in civil liberties. they reject democracy. and don't get me started on christianity, they hate their white neighbors almost as much as the brown ones
November 29, 2025 at 1:11 PM
The perception of dominance is the appeal. That’s literally the only thing that “Western Civilization” offers people like this and that’s what they mean. Own people, own property. It’s the “birthright” to hurt their lessers that they champion. That’s pretty much it.
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
Finally getting some theological clarity on the ethics of reclining in one’s plane seat
November 29, 2025 at 12:13 PM
Finally getting some theological clarity on the ethics of reclining in one’s plane seat
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
Want more federal dollars? Admit more students! Hire more faculty! Expand your programs!
November 29, 2025 at 1:22 AM
Want more federal dollars? Admit more students! Hire more faculty! Expand your programs!
For a good measure of how America works, consider: the same schools bending for GOP extortion went full Ride of the Rohirrim—for decades!—in order to not let other entities pay college athletes.
November 29, 2025 at 12:56 AM
For a good measure of how America works, consider: the same schools bending for GOP extortion went full Ride of the Rohirrim—for decades!—in order to not let other entities pay college athletes.
“Might” is the Atlas word in this pair of sentences
If the U.S. was at war, Pete Hegseth's order would be a war crime, a military lawyer said. Instead, it might just be murder. wapo.st/49KbUJ1
Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order to kill all crew members in the Sept. 2 strike on a suspected drug boat. Navy SEALs fired a second missile.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 28, 2025 at 7:08 PM
“Might” is the Atlas word in this pair of sentences
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
I think that somewhere along the way something in Stephen Miller got fundamentally damaged. This is neither an excuse nor a mitigating factor; the dude is genuinely fucking evil and he and everything he stands for should be fought against and stopped. But he is something beyond mere sociopathy.
Since Stephen Miller is in the midst of another of his Aryans-only trantrums, we should note that his family are 20th century immigrants from the shtetl of Antopol (Антопаль) then in the Hrodna gubernia of Russia. Applying his immigration rules, they would all have perished in the Holocaust.
Stephen Miller Is an Immigration Hypocrite. I Know Because I’m His Uncle.
If my nephew’s ideas on immigration had been in force a century ago, our family would have been wiped out.
www.politico.com
November 28, 2025 at 6:57 PM
I think that somewhere along the way something in Stephen Miller got fundamentally damaged. This is neither an excuse nor a mitigating factor; the dude is genuinely fucking evil and he and everything he stands for should be fought against and stopped. But he is something beyond mere sociopathy.
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
Small changes to ‘for you’ feed on X can rapidly increase political polarisation
Small changes to ‘for you’ feed on X can rapidly increase political polarisation
Study finds that a week of political content can bring about a shift in views that previously would have taken three years
Small changes to the tone of posts fed to users of X can increase feelings of political polarisation as much in a week as would have historically taken at least three years, research has found.
A groundbreaking experiment to gauge the potency of Elon Musk’s social platform to increase political division found that when posts expressing anti-democratic attitudes and partisan animosity were boosted, even barely perceptibly, in the feeds of Democrat and Republican supporters there was a large change in their unfavourable feelings towards the other side. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
November 27, 2025 at 9:39 PM
Small changes to ‘for you’ feed on X can rapidly increase political polarisation
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
I’m not sure how Bolsonaro will be bitten by an emu in prison, but I trust his ability to do it
November 28, 2025 at 12:46 PM
I’m not sure how Bolsonaro will be bitten by an emu in prison, but I trust his ability to do it
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
I can only think of one person for whom this is true and it’s Stephen Miller, who for some reason will not rest till the US reproduces the violent xenophobia that made his and my ancestors flee eastern Europe. The rest of his family seems normal, though
Stephen Miller is now arguing that assimilation is fundamentally impossible and that certain cultures are not compatible with Western civilization
November 28, 2025 at 12:51 PM
I can only think of one person for whom this is true and it’s Stephen Miller, who for some reason will not rest till the US reproduces the violent xenophobia that made his and my ancestors flee eastern Europe. The rest of his family seems normal, though
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
"fake news" and "Lügenpresse" were less about spreading novel lies and more about maintaining epistemological discipline in the face of countervailing evidence
November 27, 2025 at 6:03 PM
"fake news" and "Lügenpresse" were less about spreading novel lies and more about maintaining epistemological discipline in the face of countervailing evidence
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
sorta coming around to the view that the social danger of genAI images is less that they'll make people believe fabricated things are real and more that they'll make people believe real things are fabricated
November 27, 2025 at 5:59 PM
sorta coming around to the view that the social danger of genAI images is less that they'll make people believe fabricated things are real and more that they'll make people believe real things are fabricated
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
Again, there is no plan for running our universities without federal funding, or foreign students, at scale. But the public has no idea about this because no. one. is. telling. them. this. They expect their kids are still going to be able to do all the things at college in the next 4 years, & well:
The entire business model of R1 public universities rests on 4 revenue sources:
1. Federal grants
2. Private gifts/endowments
3. Tuition (esp. from foreign students)
4. State $
For decades, 📈 in 1-3 offset a secular 📉 in 4. Now, 1 & 3 are being decimated & 4 ain't coming back. The math is clear.
1. Federal grants
2. Private gifts/endowments
3. Tuition (esp. from foreign students)
4. State $
For decades, 📈 in 1-3 offset a secular 📉 in 4. Now, 1 & 3 are being decimated & 4 ain't coming back. The math is clear.
November 27, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Again, there is no plan for running our universities without federal funding, or foreign students, at scale. But the public has no idea about this because no. one. is. telling. them. this. They expect their kids are still going to be able to do all the things at college in the next 4 years, & well:
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
"a single person of this demographic may have committed a crime, therefore we must punish the entire demographic" is a policy response you may recognize from fascist governments dedicated to ethnic cleansing elsewhere.
November 27, 2025 at 5:52 AM
"a single person of this demographic may have committed a crime, therefore we must punish the entire demographic" is a policy response you may recognize from fascist governments dedicated to ethnic cleansing elsewhere.
lmao
Speaker 'barely holding it together' and 'crushed by his workload': NYT
Speaker 'barely holding it together' and 'crushed by his workload': NYT
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) made several revealing admissions about the stressful and chaotic nature of his job, according to a recent New York Times report.The Times' Annie Karni wrote in a Wednesday article that Johnson turned what was meant to be an easy interview with a friendly podcast h...
bit.ly
November 27, 2025 at 12:59 PM
lmao
Reposted by Patrick Hruby
They don’t even need a specific federal/military action to be manufacturing consent for, it’s just a reflex.
November 27, 2025 at 1:30 AM
They don’t even need a specific federal/military action to be manufacturing consent for, it’s just a reflex.