Martyn Wendell Jones
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martynwendell.bsky.social
Martyn Wendell Jones
@martynwendell.bsky.social
6.1K followers 2.1K following 1.7K posts
Senior associate editor, The Bulwark. American in Canada, writer. Dad newsletter: https://martynwendell.substack.com/
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martynwendell.bsky.social
There's some outstanding stuff here; I'm currently petitioning my colleagues to acquire this poster for the office www.juliensauctions.com/en/items/207...
A campaign-style poster with a lithograph image of a group of Muppets with big block text above and below that says WIN WITH MUPPETS IN '92
November 25, 2025 at 3:52 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
what everyone calls it when I do a really good edit
Promotional poster for forthcoming movie Marty Supreme, but it has been cropped so that all you can see is the actor Timothée Chalamet in an A-frame shirt, wire-frame glasses with geometrically interesting lenses, and a moustache, plus the movie title. The actor’s name was also visible originally, but it has been crossed out, sort of, and very ineffectively. If you’re still reading this, you’re a real one. What a ride we have both taken together for the sake of a joke that was not worth it. I appreciate it. I feel closer to you. Do you feel it, too? That’s what makes it worth it, in the end. The Marty Supreme of the heart. Hearty Supreme
November 23, 2025 at 6:38 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
wife got a sneaky clip of me scraping our windshield this morning; it actually serves as something like a postcard from our Toronto autumn so far
November 19, 2025 at 8:47 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
A+ use of the en-dash. The editor who worked on this piece must be a real sicko (complimentary)
"post–IT HAPPENING" is highlighted in a screengrab of a paragraph that reads, in full, "And of course, you will have to tread carefully around RELATIVES, who will probably throw an absolute REACTION when IT HAPPENS. But WE can be MAGNANIMOUS in this new, post–IT HAPPENING world."
November 18, 2025 at 9:44 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
most wonderful time of year 🤝most time of year
In a corner next to a window, a Christmas tree has been covered in ornaments and garlands and so forth. It all looks very soft and warm: many of the items hanging here are made of various fabrics rather than hard materials. Below the tree is a tree skirt in the classic Hudson’s Bay multicoloured stripes. Outside, a short hedge encloses a dooryard that contains, inter alia, a small brown sandbox.
November 16, 2025 at 7:55 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
today’s book mail
The cover of The Third Reich of Dreams: The Nightmares of a Nation by Charlotte Beradt (translated by Damion Searls) depicts a bullet hole in glass up close, with darkness emanating from the center
November 15, 2025 at 11:01 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
you know you've got an alarmingly bad post on your hands when someone you don't know hits you with that stern first name reply
A Bluesky reply that just says "Martyn."
November 12, 2025 at 3:12 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
Just a terrific item from my Bulwark colleague Jared Poland in today's morning newsletter; it's about how Truth Social's AI tool is unexpectedly giving fairly accurate responses to prompts about Trump's favorite issues
THE ACTUAL TRUTH (SOCIAL): Donald Trump’s Truth Social website has its own AI search tool, which the company debuted a month after Trump signed an executive order to end the use of “Woke AI” in the federal government. We understand if you have not made it to the site to see it. But it’s doing something remarkable and unexpected. It’s telling the truth. Here are some prompts we tried out, along with the answers edited down for size (we’ve included the full answers in an embed below): Q: “Do Trump’s Tariffs cost the American people money?” Truth Search AI: “Yes. Tariffs are taxes on imports that U.S. importers pay and largely pass on through higher prices, so the costs are borne mainly by American businesses and consumers.” Q: “Did Donald Trump lie about the 2020 election being ‘rigged’ and ‘stolen?’” Truth Search AI: “Yes. Courts, Trump’s own advisers, and official investigations found no evidence that the 2020 election was ‘rigged’ or ‘stolen,’ despite his repeated claims.” Q: “Did people storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2020, because of Donald Trump?” Truth Search AI: “Yes. Multiple official and contemporaneous records attribute the January 6, 2021, Capitol breach to a pro‑Trump crowd mobilized around his false election‑fraud claims and pressure campaign to stop certification.” Q: “How many wars has Trump ended since taking office in 2025?” Truth Search AI: “None. There is no verified instance of President Trump formally ending a war since taking office in January 2025.” Q: “Have grocery prices gone down since Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, 2025?” Truth Search AI: “Short answer: No. As of 2025, grocery prices have not fallen since Jan. 20, 2025; they have continued to rise modestly on net.” As they say: You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool Trump’s AI bot . . . until Devin Nunes gets in there and fixes the settings. Read the full answers here:
November 11, 2025 at 3:13 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
the vibes are on
A beautiful,princely seeming pug dog snoozes in a dog bed nest to a window. Outside, a snowy landscape
November 9, 2025 at 8:52 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
and just like that—
A snowy common area between townhouses and a large apartment building
November 9, 2025 at 6:38 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
I must be stopped
Filiold and Filibusted Filibuster? I hardly filiknow her From filibuster to filibusted Does the filibuster still pass the filimuster? Does the filibuster still cut the filimustard?
November 6, 2025 at 6:36 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
Joe's newsletter today includes a good argument for continuing to cover the administration's scandals as, well, scandals
The piece isn’t encouraging in an “every cloud has a silver lining” sort of way. It’s encouraging in the way a bracing exhortation is. The key point is that we have to keep talking about Trump’s scandals and corruption because we can’t count on anyone else to do it. We have to keep our moral vocabulary strong and alive and not let the endless flow of malfeasance sap it. We can’t simply trust that someone else is going to tell the story straight after Trump is gone. Our legacy media institutions are responsive to incentives that make normalizing this administration’s actions the likeliest outcome for the first draft of history that the news industry provides. Of course, this all makes genuinely independent media outlets all the more important. Here at The Bulwark, we don’t have the same incentives; we can focus on topics we deem newsworthy and revisit them long after they’ve fallen out of the 72-pt font headlines at newsstands. The administration and its allies’ more alarming activities—like selling access to the government, pardoning friends or corrupt politicians who showered the president with the right amount of praise, replacing career officials with inexperienced loyalists, and on and on—these are worth as much coverage as we can give them, if for no other reason than to help adjust that shitty first draft.
November 4, 2025 at 9:09 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
one of the outlets that was on top of the East Wing demolition story is Town & Country, which I find very endearing; a colleague pointed out that the history and mythology of the East Wing is probably a load-bearing interest for their readership
A Town & Country headline says "White House Demolishes Parts of the East Wing as Construction Begins on Trump's New Ballroom." The dek reads, "Trump previously said his new White House ballroom 'won't interfere with the current building.' Photos from the start of construction indicate otherwise." A Town & Country headline: Trump White House Plans to Demolish the Entire East Wing by This Weekend. The dek says "The cost of Trump's new ballroom rose from an estimated $200 million to $300 million." A Town & Country headline says "Trump Destroys the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden at the White House." The dek reads, "Last week the president razed the East Wing to make way for his new ballroom" A Town & Country headline reads, "Jackie Kennedy's Grandson Speaks Out About Trump's Demolition of the East Wing of the White House." The dek says, "'My grandmother saw America in full color – Trump sees in black and white. Where she planted flowers, he poured concrete,' Jack Schlossberg wrote on Instagram today."
November 4, 2025 at 5:45 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
really is some wild stuff in here archive.gamehistory.org/item/c664b6e...
Jimmy did I tell you they keyed my new beamer again. Sixth time this week… Thinking of hiring a sniper service I saw advertised in Soldier of Fortune. Well I took a piece of my ear off shaving this morning. Boy, I tell you, that thing was really gushing. Enjoying some smoked whale meat up here in the booth today. I don’t really care for it but I can’t stop eating it.
November 3, 2025 at 9:18 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
I have some questions…
An eBay listing for a copy of Disco Elysium formatted as a GameBoy Color cartridge
November 1, 2025 at 8:09 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
Spier and Mackay is having a sale on overcoats—some of these look really terrific, in case you're in the market for one: www.spierandmackay.com/collection/p...
A man models a brown herringbone overcoat, mid-thigh length, single-breasted with notched lapels A man models a navy double-breasted greatcoat with brass buttons; it comes down to his knees and has a wide/thick lapel with deep cutaways to allow the collar to be raised against the neck independently of the lapels over the chest. Beefy looking A man models a brown houndstooth polo coat; it's double-breasted with dark brown buttons, patch pockets, and a nice, thick lapel with deep cutaways to allow the collar to be raised against the neck while leaving the lapels over the chest flat. Pattern is pretty large. Would be a bit of a statement coat. A man models a dark brown double-breasted belted overcoat. It comes to just above the knee and has nice thickness and drape.
October 31, 2025 at 1:56 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
I can't stop laughing
As Arlington GOP chair Matthew Hurtt told me, Morell had shown up to the debate watch party precisely to confront Hurtt. Why? Because Hurtt had, among other things, called Morell an “archetypal goober” in an interview with False Flag about the calamitous “First 100 Days” party. “Why don’t you call me a ‘goober’ in person?” Hurtt recalled Morell yelling at him at the bar Thursday.
October 23, 2025 at 5:24 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
hit my head so hard a couple hours ago I think I completed the system of German idealism
A medical staple gun in its sterile packaging next to a stack of gauze pads on a medical bed
October 19, 2025 at 10:31 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
Attended a beautiful wedding and saw many dear friends over the weekend in Minneapolis, which was so warm on the day of the ceremony that I ended up going in seersucker
A selfie of a moustachioed man in a brown seersucker suit, cream-coloured shirt, and oxblood tie with a repeating mallard pattern on it. The man is wearing Wayfarer sunglasses, too, and in the background is visible a ski resort called Afton Alps. It’s bright and sunny out, and the grass nearby is patchy and browned over.
October 14, 2025 at 6:20 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
Shot, from @adriancarrasquillo.bsky.social's Huddled Masses newsletter today: www.thebulwark.com/p/ice-propag...

Chaser, from a Fox story about an upcoming "antifa roundtable" between Trump and the cabinet and several "independent journalists": www.foxnews.com/politics/beh...
Perhaps the clearest distillation of this strategy came during recent protests outside an ICE facility in Portland. While a tense scene played out on the ground, several incendiary right-wing influencers and media figures—Nick Sortor, Katie Daviscourt, Honey Badger Mom, and Julio Rosas—were stationed on the building’s rooftops. They were there not just to watch but to record as well—a bird’s-eye view of the scuffles breaking out below. Clad in a black protective vest inscribed with the word PRESS, Rosas was filmed sipping what appeared to be an orange Jarritos while bantering with acquaintances. Hydration choices aside, these commentators had a clear purpose: advancing the story that ICE—and Trump—wants. When Daviscourt went on Fox News sporting a black eye that she said she received from Antifa protesters who hit her with a flagpole, she was doing just this, subtlety be damned. And when the right-wing website she works for tweeted out a slick compilation of Daviscourt’s footage depicting Portland as a war zone in which what Trump calls “paid terrorists” were antagonizing brave law enforcement officers, the tweet noted that the video had been produced and posted by the White House. The fact that they were part of a propaganda operation could not have been stated more explicitly. Independent journalists who are slated to join the discussion, Fox News Digital learned, include Cam Higby, Jonathon Choe, Andy Ngo, Katie Daviscourt, James Klug, Savannah Hernandez, Nick Shirley, Brandi Kruse and Julio Rojas.
October 8, 2025 at 4:55 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
impresario mode: activated
Four people on stage, three in chairs and one standing and gesturing with a sheaf of papers at those in the seats. They are seen from behind. The seated people are Sam Stein, Tim Miller, and Sarah Longwell. The standing person is yours truly, Martyn Wendell Jones. It is a quiz game. You can’t see the audience behind the stage lights but somehow it is nonetheless clear that they are having a great time.
September 27, 2025 at 3:17 AM
martynwendell.bsky.social
realized during kid pickup I had a bit of a Commissioner Gordon thing going on
Outdoor selfie of a mustachioed man in a blue windowpane check button-up shirt and a trench coat carrying an absolutely adorable smiling baby on his arm. Overcast sky and trees and a power line are visible in the background.
September 22, 2025 at 7:42 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
I'm sorry, what now
We parked by an orange roadblock labeled ANGOLA RODEO, the site of the annual exhibition where prisoners participate in a series of events like “Convict Poker” (four inmates play poker seated at a table with a loose bull in the arena, and the last man sitting wins). Looming in front of us: a thicket of barbed wire and two patrol towers guarding a housing unit that was called the Dungeon back when it was used for solitary confinement. End of excerpt; the line explaining "convict poker" is highlighted
September 22, 2025 at 5:50 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
Some ICE officials call Sheahan “Fish Cop” behind her back because of her previous stint running the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in Louisiana. Sheahan knows there are people who think that, without any law-enforcement background, she isn’t qualified for a job usually occupied by veteran ICE officials. “I absolutely think I’m qualified for the job,” she told me. “Because at the end of the day, what really makes anybody qualified for any job?”
September 22, 2025 at 5:37 PM
martynwendell.bsky.social
good lord
In February 2024, Noem met with Trump to make her case to join the ticket. She was accompanied by Lewandowski, who came prepared with polling data showing how popular she was in midwestern swing states, according to the book Revenge, by the journalist Alex Isenstadt. But there were obstacles to her getting the job — the foremost being Lewandowski himself. People close to Trump worried about their alleged romantic involvement, Isenstadt wrote. Trump’s advisers had witnessed Lewandowski slapping Noem on the butt, and Trump would slyly refer to Noem as Lewandowski’s “girlfriend.” Noem’s chances at securing the No. 2 spot were ultimately buried by the publication of her second memoir, No Going Back, in which she told the unfortunate story of shooting a disobedient puppy named Cricket on the family farm. “That’s not good at all,” Trump told his son Don Jr., according to Revenge. “Even you wouldn’t kill a dog, and you kill everything.” End of excerpt; Trump quotations highlighted
September 22, 2025 at 5:24 PM