In 2018, Abdul El-Sayed ran for governor in Michigan.
He had a resume full of credentials including stints at the University of Michigan, Oxford, and Columbia for medical school
— but no political experience.
He conducted a Bernie Sanders-style progressive campaign against Gretchen Whitmer
but found himself stonewalled by the political establishment and powerful interest groups.
In the end, he faced a sedated electorate disinterested in a campaign centered around getting money out of politics and untangling the octopus-like ties between government and big business.
El-Sayed lost to Whitmer by 22 points.
Now it’s 2026 and El-Sayed, an Egyptian-American, is running a Bernie-style crusade with a mantra of
“money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all.”
Gretchen Whitmer and the Michigan Democratic Party establishment have endorsed Haley Stevens, his opponent.
AIPAC has dropped tens of millions of dollars on behalf of Stevens
and El-Sayed has been outspent 12 to1 heading into Tuesday’s primary.
El-Sayed is polling ahead of Stevens by 10 points.
Eight years is a long time.
EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE a campaign comes along when the traditional boosts of endorsements and money no longer work and start looking like a mutually agreed suicide pact.
Welcome to Haley Stevens’ reality.
While the mid-Michigan Democrat has received online fame/infamy for her thick Midwestern accent and a promise to “stick-it-to-’em,
— although it’s not quite clear who she wants to stick it to
— Stevens went about the primary race in her trademark worker bee style.

In addition to Whitmer, Stevens
— who has served in the U.S. House since 2019
— has the backing of retiring Senator Gary Peters, former Senator Debbie Stabenow, and Chuck Schumer.
Representative Jim Clyburn came to Detroit to campaign for her.
The airwaves are saturated with the tens of millions being spent by AIPAC, a longtime Stevens backer,
linking her real work on Barack Obama’s auto industry bailout to an implied endorsement by Obama, which has not actually happened.

The money being spent on Stevens is to make sure that El-Sayed does not become the first Muslim elected to the United States Senate.
None of that has worked if the polls are to be believed.
Last Monday, Stevens went after El-Sayed in the race’s last debate for being, well, too popular.
“My opponent here, Abdul, he is such a talented guy,” said Stevens.
“He’s written three books, he’s had 300 podcasts.
You know, he’s had all this attention, but the deal is we don’t need a celebrity candidate. We don’t need a celebrity senator.
We need somebody who is committed to six years of hard, unglamorous work.”

The old political saw of “we need a work horse, not a show horse” usually works in Michigan,
a state that has elected a series of hardworking but uninspiring Democratic senators for decades.
So what’s changed?
Talking to voters and activists in Michigan, it comes down to Gaza and Kamala Harris.
In 2022, Michigan lost a congressional district after the census
and Stevens faced off against fellow incumbent Andy Levin, the scion of a storied Michigan political family and the president of his synagogue.
AIPAC didn’t appreciate Levin’s mild support of a two-state solution in the Middle East and spent millions on Stevens’ behalf and she won easily.
At a July 30 El-Sayed event in Ypsilanti, Levin was asked what had changed since his 2022 loss. He gave a succinct answer: “Gaza.”
In this campaign, El-Sayed has hammered Stevens for the AIPAC expenditures.
What was once a political life preserver for Stevens is now an anchor dropping her to the ocean’s floor.
rollingstone.com/politics/poli…

You know why conventional economic models don’t predict recessions, even deep recessions?

Because the economy is built on hubris and no one, from governments to businesses to the press, listen to anyone who has anything bad to say.

“No way to prevent this, says only economic system where this regularly happens.” Okay, not strictly true but. You get the idea.

Bubbles are obvious even at the time. There are always people who warn about it. There are economists who consistently get this right because they do have models that get it right.

But nobody wants the music to stop playing. Politicians want the growth to happen until the next election cycle and until they can cash out too. The press are cronies for the ruling class and they too have stock portfolios they would like to cash out. Companies just want investor money and don’t care how or if it’s ethical, because the execs get bonuses. Most investors are frankly stupid who exist on bailouts from central banks (have you ever met some of them? I have, they’re not the most intelligent people to be very mild about it).

There’s no structural reason recessions have to happen other than they’re basically profitable for the ruling class. They buy low and sell high. Plenty of people made out like bandits after 2008 especially in the wake of QE.

Suggested New GNOME Bug Report Wording, or We’re GNOME and You’re Not.

GNOME Version 48:

Please stop filing bug reports. This is our desktop. We designed it, we built it, and we know what you actually want better than you do. If there are some features you think might be missing, if the desktop isn’t quite as effective as you imagine it could be, GOOD. That means you’re finally getting it. See Figure 1.

            ---------------------------<br>            !            -            !<br>            !           { }           !<br>            !           | |           !<br>            !           | |           !<br>            !        .-.! !.-.        !<br>            !      .-!  ! !  !.-.     !<br>            !      ! !       !  ;     !<br>            !      \           ;      !<br>            !       \         ;       !<br>            !        !       :        !<br>            !        !       |        !<br>            !        |       |        !<br>            !                         !<br>            ---------------------------<br>                  Figure 1.<br>

1. Customisation. We removed most of it. Users don’t know what they want anyway. Every preference you don’t have is one less preference you can set incorrectly. If you somehow discover dconf, that’s your own fault. See Figure 1.
2. Desktop Icons. Gone. They encourage attachment to files, which distracts from the beauty of empty whitespace. If you require desktop icons for your workflow, your workflow is invalid. See Figure 1.
3. Menus. Menus contain too many choices. Choices make users unhappy. Therefore we replaced them with a single button containing three dots. If the option you need isn’t behind the three dots, that’s because you shouldn’t be doing it. See Figure 1.
4. System Tray Icons. We deleted those too. Applications should not be running in the background. If they are, they should stop. If they insist on existing, they can minimise into your imagination. See Figure 1.
5. Title Bars. Wasteful. We merged them with the toolbar to save precious vertical pixels so you can admire more empty margins. If your application now has three rows of buttons instead of two, that’s an application problem, not ours. We talked to our HIG designers, and they think like we do: See Figure 1.
6. Themes. We made the one theme. It’s perfect. Applications are expected to resemble each other. If yours doesn’t, that’s because the application developer made poor life choices. If you install a custom theme and it breaks something, congratulations, you’ve voided your warranty. We told theme authors to see Figure 1 a long time ago.
7. Extensions. We support extensions. Right up until the next release, at which point they explode. This encourages extension authors to remain engaged with the community. We told extension authors to see Figure 1 too.
8. Workflow. If your existing workflow no longer functions after an update, that’s because it wasn’t the correct workflow. The new workflow has fewer clicks once you’ve completely retrained your muscle memory. If you need your workflow to work, see Figure 1.
9. Buttons. We removed the minimise button because nobody uses it. We know this because we asked ourselves. We also removed the maximise button because windows should not become too excited. If you really need either button, you clearly require spiritual guidance. See Figure 1.
10. Preferences. We moved them. Then we renamed them. Then we merged them into another dialogue. Finally we removed them because the correct value was obvious. If you need to change a setting, see Figure 1.
11. Bug Reports. Before filing one, please ask yourself whether the problem is actually your expectations. Nine times out of ten, it is. The remaining case is an enhancement request, which is already WONTFIX. Our bug triage people think like we do: see Figure 1.

In conclusion, your desktop is now simpler, cleaner, and more opinionated than before. If this prevents you from getting work done, perhaps your work was unnecessarily complicated. Love GNOME or install KDE, but please stop asking for minimise buttons.

I co-proposed/wrote the #Codeberg vibe-coding ban and all I got was a lot of haters in my mentions.

And a nearly 70% approval rate, with one of the highest voter turnouts the association had afaik (and one that's comparable to the last EU elections). 😎