Maria Bustillos
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mariabustillos.com
Maria Bustillos
@mariabustillos.com
I help run @flaminghydra.com and its parent cooperative, the Brick House.

Digital ownership rights, archives and libraries, fun, and press freedom are some things I love.

maria | at | flaminghydra | dot | com
mariabustillos.com | thebrick.house
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Reposted by Maria Bustillos
shoutout to all my fellow queers for whom family of origin sucks around holidays (and those of us who are still working on finding that found family). everything is pretty bad right now but being queer is still fucking amazing and you are amazing and not alone and i love you and am grateful for you
November 27, 2025 at 3:25 AM
Unscrupulous on a level that makes you wonder what fresh deceits and machinations might laced through these stories as well
So Olivia Nuzzi is clearly a piece of shit who can never work in journalism again after this.

And, also, Ryan Lizza is clearly a piece of shit who should never work in journalism again after this either.

We're all agree on that, right?
November 27, 2025 at 1:39 AM
No accident that half the protagonists in movies are 'journalists' it is shorthand for honesty in this daft culture

That's why the worst charlatans on earth wear this mask
Something that strikes me in reading about this AND reading about other major figures in the news is that we have designed a system in America where the absolutely worst people are handed the largest, most powerful megaphones. It can’t be accidental. We built it on purpose.
So Olivia Nuzzi is clearly a piece of shit who can never work in journalism again after this.

And, also, Ryan Lizza is clearly a piece of shit who should never work in journalism again after this either.

We're all agree on that, right?
November 27, 2025 at 1:31 AM
Yeah and on behalf of the U.S. president.
Witkoff is not buying the Russian narrative. He is selling it.
November 26, 2025 at 11:47 PM
Reposted by Maria Bustillos
The newsletters will continue until morale improves
November 26, 2025 at 9:47 PM
Newsletter platforms that turn writers into individual self-publishers (competitors, rather than allies) are atomizing the fourth estate into relatively powerless tiny fragments
Newsletters will not save us, they may in fact hurt us.
November 26, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Reposted by Maria Bustillos
November 26, 2025 at 12:43 AM
A beautiful comic from Trevor Alixopulos today, free post from @flaminghydra.com

flaminghydra.com/issue-451/
True thanks
A holiday comic from Trevor Alixopulos
flaminghydra.com
November 26, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Leadership at huge organizations should be limited to people who know enough to consider the consequences of their decisions on the society and world outside

but wow is that ever not the case right now
November 26, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Reposted by Maria Bustillos
if you're like me and also looking for more stuff like this, i can strongly recommend @flaminghydra.com and @defector.com, which are two of the best subscriptions i pay for
November 26, 2025 at 1:52 AM
Reposted by Maria Bustillos
Good morning to Brazilian reporter Manuela Borges, who’s been waiting eleven years for this petty moment. ❤️ 🇧🇷
November 26, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Not for nothin but Jesus was unequivocally anti-billionaire
In newly leaked audio, Peter Thiel admits he urged JD Vance to ignore Pope Leo XIV on moral questions — including the ethical development of AI.

He goes even further, branding Leo “the woke American pope” and suggesting he’s a tool of the Antichrist.
NEW: JD Vance’s Top Donor Suggests Pope Leo XIV is Antichrist
In a leaked lecture, Peter Thiel says he’s urged Vance to ignore the pope on moral questions — and simply pray for him.
www.thelettersfromleo.com
November 26, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Reposted by Maria Bustillos
Just calling the pope the antichrist and encouraging others to disobey Rome, the way totally real and not at all fake-ass Catholics do
you're telling me a right-wing catholic convert is just a protestant in disguise? shocked
In newly leaked audio, Peter Thiel admits he urged JD Vance to ignore Pope Leo XIV on moral questions — including the ethical development of AI.

He goes even further, branding Leo “the woke American pope” and suggesting he’s a tool of the Antichrist.
November 26, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Anyone who would make this grotesque argument should have no power of any kind
Sure sure you might say that my client's knife "caused" the victim to stop being able to pump blood to their brain, but Hume's 𝘌𝘯𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘺 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘏𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘜𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 really makes it clear that we should all have some reasonable doubt about the concept of "causation"

www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne...
November 26, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Reposted by Maria Bustillos
TODAY: Carrie Frye has some VERY good news about the archives of The Hairpin after a "horrifying zombie afterlife"!!!! flaminghydra.com/women-laughi...
Women Laughing Again On The Internet
Sometime last year the online archives of The Awl—the influential blog that ran from 2009-2018, and former home of many a Flaming Hydra contributor—went out, like a light switching off. Meanwhile, the...
flaminghydra.com
November 26, 2025 at 12:26 AM
Reposted by Maria Bustillos
This also suggests Democrats could win with a Mamdani-style platform of Medicare for All and free public transit.

(I mean we already knew this, but I'm glad someone is explaining it in a way the CFAs can understand.)
November 26, 2025 at 2:06 AM
Reposted by Maria Bustillos
ChatGPT took Press Gazette content then said that could not have happened:
World’s leading LLM said it could not have done the thing it did. pressgazette.co.uk/platforms/ch...
ChatGPT took Press Gazette content then said that could not have happened
World's leading LLM said it could not have done the thing it did.
pressgazette.co.uk
November 26, 2025 at 8:39 AM
Reposted by Maria Bustillos
"My mentor always tells me, 'Kim, dogs don’t bark at parked cars." They’re coming after critical race theory, 1619, intersectionality because these ideas mobilized people. They gave them the language to actually articulate what they were seeing with their own eyes," says Kimberlé Crenshaw.
November 25, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Reposted by Maria Bustillos
Great stuff from Mark!

If you want to read more about Palantir's aggressive expansion into the UK, it is something I have mapped quite extensively over time.

2022: bylinetimes.com/2022/06/30/h...

2023: www.bylinesupplement.com/p/the-defaul...

2025: bylinetimes.com/2025/04/25/p...
November 26, 2025 at 7:54 AM
You could send @annamerlan.bsky.social to like a laundromat and she would come back able to explain the structure of the whole universe to you and it would also be hilarious
To top off a ridiculous week, I wrote for @flaminghydra.com about the concept of the "fern bar," which it turns out was not just a phrase my mom came up with as an insult. (although, that too) flaminghydra.com/the-fabulous...
The Fabulous Fern Bar
a fiery writer-owned cooperative
flaminghydra.com
November 26, 2025 at 12:49 AM
Had so much fun trawling through the restored archives of The Hairpin today!! What a thrill to have been able to take a small part.

If you've never read this wonderful publication, please check it out at thehairpinarchives.com
November 26, 2025 at 12:47 AM
Must be nice to have a real supreme court
Bolsonaro gets 27 years for his attempted coup to hold power in Brazil. Trump is acquitted by Republicans in impeachment & then re-elected so he can inflict more ego-driven destruction at home & around the world. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...
Jair Bolsonaro ordered to start 27-year prison term for plotting Brazil coup
Ex-president to start serving term in 12 sq metre bedroom in police base in Brasília after time for appeals elapses
www.theguardian.com
November 25, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Rutger Bregman (of Davos 'texes, texes, texes' fame) has been forbidden, by the BBC, to say that that HE PERSONALLY considers Donald Trump "the most openly corrupt president in U.S. history." Amazing.
NEWS --> BBC confirms to me that they did edit a line out of historian @rutgerbregman.com's speech. It called Trump "the most openly corrupt president in US history."

BBC also confirms this was done on the advice of lawyers. So Trump's threats worked.

New piece:
newrepublic.com/article/2036...
Trump’s Fury at BBC Gets Unnerving Results with Pro-MAGA Edit Stunner
First, British Broadcasting Corporation execs resigned after Trump complained about a segment. Now the BBC edited out a line from a historian that was critical of Trump. Where does this end?
newrepublic.com
November 25, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Nationalize these server farms and use them for state-run search engines and social media platforms run with transparency and proper oversight.

SOMEONE PLEASE run on this
You pull yourself up by your boostraps. Me? I DESERVE free money from the government, and so do my rich friends bsky.app/profile/cwar...
when its definitely not a hostage situation
November 25, 2025 at 4:44 PM
ten thousand varieties of Yikes
Highly specific siren: Nick Cave and Rod Dreher hung out
November 25, 2025 at 3:52 PM