Drew Harwell

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"Our government is treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment, as if it’s just another piece of content to be swiped through while we’re waiting in line at the grocery store"

Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, archbishop of Chicago

bit.ly/4bxp5ND

On the day multiple media organizations reported on a video showing a U.S. Tomahawk missile killing dozens of children in an Iranian elementary school, the White House's meme strategists posted a missile video soundtracked by Nelly's "Here Comes the Boom" wapo.st/3NhffGm

Someone made a parody Trump-administration Iran-war rapid-response account

What are Bluesky posts called

Waging war for the lulz Read to the end for Zooey Deschanel’s Crumbl Cookie review

"Can you ironically use Halo fancams to inspire a draft? Can you entertain your CHUD followers with fashwave Agartha edits when gas is $10 a gallon?" www.garbageday.email/p/waging-war... @bumas.bsky.social @garbageday.email

Bluesky CEO Jay Graber Is Stepping Down Venture capitalist Toni Schneider will take over as interim CEO as Bluesky’s board of directors hunts for a permanent replacement.

EXCLUSIVE: Jay Graber stepping down as CEO of Bluesky www.wired.com/story/bluesk...

The guy who voices Master Chief from the video game "Halo," who was featured in a White House meme video showing missiles blowing people up in Iran, calls it "disgusting and juvenile war porn" wapo.st/3NhffGm

Your employees didn’t seem to be satisfied with that explanation. In the company meeting after the layoff announcement, one of them seemed offended that you were wearing a hat that said LOVE. Is a compassionate layoff an impossible task? I don't think it's an impossible task. I wanted to approach the whole situation with love. We had an all-hands where they could show me all the emotion and give me the feedback. I believe our settlement to be generous compared with the rest of the market. I wanted to do it from a position of strength, so that we're not offering a less interesting severance package for people when our backs are against the wall. For all the negative messages that we may have gotten on that stream, we've gotten a lot of gratitude as well. It’s not just about our company. It points to a larger thing that might happen in the future for many other companies.

Jack Dorsey wore a hat that said "LOVE" during the meeting where more than 4,000 people were laid off www.wired.com/story/jack-d... @stevenlevy.bsky.social

Wow -- as first spotted by @BadFoxGraphics on X, Fox & Friends this morning used *old footage of a previous dignified transfer* to mislead their audience about the fact that Trump wore a baseball cap during the one yesterday

Trump blocks FBI terror threat alert linked to Iran war Top Trump officials ordered it placed on hold over concerns that it could show the domestic risk of the war and further erode public support.

“The White House did not deny blocking the terror bulletin”: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

The White House is transforming the Iran strikes into a meme war The White House is using memes that make light of violent combat in Iran, mixing footage of real missile strikes with clips from action films and video games.

Treating war with the solemnity it merits: “On Thursday, the White House posted a video overlaying airstrike footage with the lyrics ‘Kaboom, kablow’ from the viral rap song ‘Bazooka,’ and another mixing clips of missile detonations with SpongeBob SquarePants.” www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

DHS feeds talking points to Republicans as opposition to ICE warehouses swells DHS sent talking points to Republican officials to promote migrant detention centers while communities complained about a lack of transparency.

Local Republicans are getting slammed so hard on ICE warehouse plans that DHS is having to feed them talking points

@douglasmac.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...

The White House is transforming the Iran strikes into a meme war The White House is using memes that make light of violent combat in Iran, mixing footage of real missile strikes with clips from action films and video games.

New: The White House is transforming the Iran strikes into a meme war. An "aesthetic of bloodlust" that gives Americans the empathy-free, Hollywood, video-game version of deadly combat www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

The White House is treating war like a video game YouTube video by Drew Harwell

Comes two days after the White House's Call of Duty airstrike video: www.youtube.com/shorts/jaejS...

Inside the White House’s new media strategy to promote Trump as ‘KING’ The Trump administration has transformed its traditional press shop into a rapid-response influencer operation, and “they’re all offense, all the time.”

Multiple jobs! www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

A few hours after NYT reported that the U.S. bombed an elementary school in Iran, killing many children, the White House last night posted this video mixing airstrike footage with Top Gun, Iron Man, Gladiator, Halo, Breaking Bad, Star Wars, John Wick, Superman, Transformers and Dragon Ball Z

Analysis Suggests School Was Hit Amid U.S. Strikes on Iranian Naval Base

Official statements placing U.S. forces in the area – along w/ analysis of social posts, videos, sat. images – suggest U.S. forces bombed a school in Minab, Iran during strikes targeting an IRGC base. Over 150 were killed, Iranian officials say. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/w...

What are Bluesky posts called

Ok yeah they definitely had a bunch of stuff premade. Transcending into new levels of haterade

From a content-creation standpoint they turned this around extremely fast

Great ProPublica reporting on it: www.propublica.org/article/kris...

Our story on ICE's "wartime recruitment" ad campaign, which featured this photo of Noem on the cover: www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Kristi Noem is out at DHS. Here's a TV commercial of her on a horse, filmed five months ago at Mount Rushmore, for an ad campaign that cost more than $200 million

Prediction markets are betting on death YouTube video by Drew Harwell

Prediction markets are betting on death

The dystopian betting sites let anyone profit off war and disaster, and insiders are cashing in

www.youtube.com/shorts/-UMYl...

ICE taking steps to close detention center at Fort Bliss, document shows Preparations to shutter Camp East Montana in El Paso come less than eight months after facility’s opening, according to an internal ICE document.

Camp East Montana was supposed to be the Trump administration's model for a new breed of large-scale, makeshift immigrant detention centers. Eight tumultuous months, 60 violations and three deaths later, ICE is preparing to close it. New from me: t.co/jOIIRAMJCo

The TikTokers Reading the Epstein Files So You Don’t Have To How TikTok turned a massive government document dump into a crowdsourced investigation.

I wrote about how the Epstein Files have taken over TikTok for Vanity Fair

‘I did not vote for this’: Thousands of public comments slam Trump’s ballroom A Post analysis of submitted comments found more than 97 percent were critical of the planned 90,000-square-foot addition. The White House has defended it as necessary.

A small federal agency reviewing Trump's ballroom has received tens of thousands of public comments.

More than 97% oppose the project, per WaPo analysis.

"I did not vote for this," one 3x Trump voter wrote.

with @aaronschaffer.com and @jonathanreports.bsky.social

Million-dollar question. The strategy seems to be triggering the libs and getting views on X - things that don't actually seem to shift public opinion in a very big country that is not terminally online

The White House is treating war like a video game

Call of Duty Modern Warfare III (2023): MGB Nuke Sound Effect YouTube video by NightmaREE3Z

For those wondering, a "killstreak" is when you kill a certain number of people without dying and get a bonus. The one in the White House's video is for a 30-kill streak: a tactical nuke that kills everyone, including the player www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2l3...