This is at the gate, after she, a U.S. citizen, cleared security. Guilty until proven innocent with no due process is how it works under fascism.

I've been doing this for so long that I didn't know I could still be shocked, but I am *genuinely* stunned how many people are lying about Pretti "interfering" or "obstructing," and how many 2A folks are suddenly framing the right to carry as some implicit threat. Shameful.

As a poker community we are so excited anytime a woman makes a run at the main event. It’s the talk of the community and we all root united for her. The rest of the year if any female says anything or does anything with a few exceptions of the top 5-10 highly (deservedly) respected/admired, they get piled on by any one with an account. It’s ok to let females share their perspective on issues even if it might be wrong 🤯. They are coming in this industry with a different past and a different future than many of us. We have chewed up and spit out so many could be rising stars from a personality and player perspective ganging up to immediately explain to them their flaws. Some of the biggest male voices in our industry say stupid stuff on the regular. They promote themselves in ridiculous ways. They are just flat out wrong many times. They are either ignored or have a few back and forth and people forget. They blend back in. Meanwhile women get completely ostracized and run from what might or might not be a promising role in our game. Anyway, when weighing the options of piling on or not maybe take a step back and sit one out every once in a while. Happy Thanksgiving ☮️ ❤️

I had the pleasure of meeting Danya at a tournament in Charlotte, and what struck me was how much he cared about having a positive impact on his students. He was such a kind and humble person. Thinking of his family and loved ones 💔

My poker hot take is that bad beat stories aren’t the problem; most poker players are just horrible storytellers 🙃

I, for one, am outraged that transgender mice are eating the neighborhood dogs and cats 😡😿

The last couple years of writing public about politics has affirmed for me the two most toxic kinds of behavior on the left and right. Both are purity testing, but differently. Here is how it goes: On the left, it’s a purity test of thought. I could agree 85% with a lefty on an issue like homelessness, but if I don’t agree on the final 15%, I become the enemy. Sometimes it’s the final 1%, like language around the issue. For instance, I regularly see people on the left criticizing my take on an issue related to homelessness because I don’t use activist language like “the unhoused,” even though I’ve never heard a single shelter worker or homeless person use that language in my reporting. It’s complete and utter nonsense, but it’s a purity test, and I become the enemy even when we agree on everything else I might believe. On the right, it’s a purity test of personality. You absolutely have to love and support the personalities of the Trump-right or else you are out. Even the self-evidently bad ones. For instance, my criticism of Pete Hegseth — an obviously mediocre leader who is unqualified in a million different ways to lead 3 million service members and civilians as defense secretary — is considered out of bounds. All week I’ve had pro-Trump readers in my inbox saying they were unsubscribing or now knew I was a liberal because I was too hard on a guy who made his entire living as a pundit by being a firebrand provocateur, and who has brought controversy and mismanagement to every org he’s worked at. But you aren’t allowed to say so. You can’t criticize charlatans like Vivek or Elon or Don Jr. even when they are being intentionally provocative or over the top. What is MOST interesting about this is that the inverse is totally untrue, also. For instance: Pro-Trump conservatives generally don’t care if I agree only in part with their ideas, they will invite me onto the Trump train. In fact, if I am 10% on board with something Trump says, they welcome me with open arms, and they don’t care at all about the other 90%. They especially don’t care about how I say it. At the same time, liberals don’t give a single shit about criticizing their own leaders. You can spend all day trashing Pelosi, Biden, Harris, Democrats broadly, every Democratic pundit and social media influencer, and they’ll still love you so long as you have perfect alignment with them on the issues or the language. In fact, they often enthusiastically criticize their own party leaders, and encourage others to do so too. It is such a strange, disorienting thing to live between these two political tribes in 2025. And it’s obviously impossible to make everyone happy. But I’ve realized having moderate or someone centrist politics, or even worse (in my case) feeling really strongly aligned with the right and left depending on the issue, you end up on the wrong end of a bunch of venomous, tribalistic, purity-testing partisans at all hours of the day.

We need an NBA players only Chess tournament, proceeds go to the charity of choice of the winner

Would bring me so much JOY if we could shift the conversation away from telling people to eat less junk food and instead to eat more foods that make them feel better: poultry, fish, vegetables, fruits. People don't need to be told donuts are bad by a shirtless mad man in Smith's

Laughing to myself thinking about this block in Florida. It’s like if cartoon gnomes had redlining

A key point missing in a lot of post debate analysis is that Trump’s claim about immigrants eating pets almost perfectly syncs up to the piano in the Peanuts theme song.

Did you know that ALL female chess grandmasters in history are currently living? Chess is one of the oldest games in the world and the first grandmasters were given that title in 1914- over 100 years ago. The first female grandmaster didn’t come til much later… in 1978. Nona Gaprindashvili, the first woman to become a grandmaster is still alive today. This crazy stat shows how relatively recent women are in the top levels of the sport. A lot of people have discussed the reasons behind this, but more women are playing chess now than ever and hopefully the number will only grow.

Playing my favorite game on stream today! 😎🃏

“What’s it like playing poker as a woman?” 🤔 I’ve gotten asked that question a lot, and have also been informed our brains are biologically different… which makes sense. Here are some key differences I could think of, but ladies feel free to add on if I left anything out! Link to play me: bit.ly/4c1fRai #ignitionpartner #poker

The LIPS Texas Star Ladies Championship kicks off @theroyalatx in Austin! Our FEATURED LIVE STREAM CASH GAME begins at Noon CST and we'll post the link here and on Social Media links everywhere. The $150 NLHE Kick off tournament starts at 2PM! See you all soon! #lipstour

That time @MariaHo and I were blocked from entering the @WSOP tournament area because it was "for poker players only" (aka, last week) - or the very real (and persistent) problem of sexism and bias: open.substack.com/pub/mariak…