Magic Money Tree

@magicmoneytree.bsky.social

544 Followers 1817 Following

Maxing out credit cards and neglecting roofs

Oliver Kamm retweeting Richard Hanania on 21st June 2026, who tweeted about Tulsi Gabbard
My Mum messaging the family WhatsApp chat about Jennifer Hudson singing the US national anthem at the World Cup opening ceremony: "Who TF is this woman? Massacring a bad song"
A monkey paw (from The Simpsons) with one finger curled up
A screenshot of Nick Cohen's Bluesky profile, showing he's made 666 posts
A frame from The Simpsons that parodies the scene from 'Its a Wonderful Life' where there's nearly a run on the bank at which George Bailey works, but instead of saving the day in The Simpsons parody he makes things worse by saying, "W-Wait a minute! J-J-Just a second here! No, no. I don't have your money here. It's in Bill's house a-a-and Fred's house."
Post of mine from 5th February 2025 in response to Jonn Elledge asking why Labour were doing such right-wing things saying: "The labour right are right wing is I think the main explanation. Their loves include UnHerd, Michael Gove, public-private partnerships, no-fly zones, Steven Pinker, big tech, and Andrew Sullivan. Their hates include environmentalists, rehabilitative justice, and structural explanations of racism"
Homer Simpson snugly wrapped up in bed, right before he says, "Ahhh, I'm just so big toasty cinnamon bun. I never want to leave this bed."
Sam Freedman saying it's good Tim Leunig got a peerage because he "will add some genuine economic expertise to the Lords."
Sunder Katwala saying a month ago he's long predicted England would win the World Cup in 2026
Homer Simpson as King Solomon saying "The Treasury shall be cut in two" (in the actual scene he's wielding a knife propsing a pie be cut in two as two men claim ownership of it)
Kent Brockman - the newsreader in The Simpsons - saying to his young daughter, "Well, you were right about the Berlin Wall" when she tells him to do a story on the Lisa Lionheart doll
From today's Politico newsletter: "Early warning signs: The Sunday Times’ Jason Cowley reports on “uncertainty and trepidation” in Team Burnham amid jostling for jobs by Labour MPs. Saturday’s Times reports on apparent tensions between Fahnbulleh and ex-Makerfield MP Josh Simons on policy development. “We know what people around Andy think — but they don’t all think the same thing,” one Cabinet minister tells the Times team."
Chart from the Financial Times showing that inflation as measured by the Household Cost Indices (as opposed to he CPI) peaked at c.15% during the cost-of-living crisis in 2023 for the poorest in society, vs. c.10% for the wealthiest A second chart shows that for the poorest decile in society c.15% of household income is spent on food and a further c.9.% on energy, compared to c.10% and c.4% respectively for the wealthiest decile
Screenshot of an article by notorious race science peddler Ed West in the Spectator from 6th May 2014 with the headline: "Darwin's unexploded bomb"
Me pointing out to Sunder Katwala just over a year ago that far-right bell-end Kunley Drupka (who popularised the "Yookay" meme) has regular friendly engagement on Twitter with Mary Harrington, Ben Sixsmith, Sam Ashworth-Hayes, Aris Roussinos, Tom Jones (of The Critic), Mike Jones (@technopopulist), and Henry George (@intothefuture45)
An article from The Guardian from October 2013 with the headline: "Tommy Robinson link with Quilliam Foundation raises questions" Underneath: "Counter-extremism thinktank's decision to ally itself with former EDL leader is viewed by many as a high-stakes gamble"
Exchange on Twitter yesterday evening: Paul Embery: "Yes, she did believe that. And the truth is that, until about 12 years ago, it was also the general view of most people in society (and still happens to be the view of the established church in this country today). Disagree with it, by all means. But to present it as some kind of extremist opinion is plainly ridiculous." Arthur Newman: "Do you think gay people are inferior, Paul? Just because you think something doesn’t mean it isn’t extremist." Paul Embery: The original post referred to gay *lifestyles* being inferior, not gay *people*. If you cannot tell the difference between a person and a lifestyle, I really can't help you." Arthur Newman: "Ok fine. Lifestyles. Do you think they’re inferior? It’s a genuine question." Paul Embery: "Yes."
Twitter exchange between Sunder Katwala and Rob Ford in August 2015: Sunder: "Problem for gvt is partly that EU net mig well over 100k & rising.But nonEU migration *also* well over net 100k & rising. Cd control that!" Sunder: "@PME_Politics @robfordmancs what u call problem narrative, I see as foundational. Start within the circle. Engage, don't dismiss. Build out." Rob Ford: "Precisely. These are low trust voters. Constructive engagement with concerns is vital for positive response"
Luke Akehurst saying in a tweet on 16th February 2026: "I have never been involved in any way with Labour Together. Please don't make things up. I appreciate the names are similar but the groups I lead are Labour First and Labour to Win."
Headline from an article in the FT yesterday: "World's largest meat group JBS scraps a key climate goal" Underneath: "Company drops net zero target that includes suppliers' greenhouse gas emissions" Under a bird's-eye view picture of one of their facilities it says: "A JBS facility in Brazil. The company said it was difficult to control indirect emissions generated chiefly by livestock is buys for slaughter from thousands of farmers"
Extract from a recent Liberal Current article: "Epstein's Gifted Scientists" "We cannot know the precise details of the conversations that took place between Pinker and others at the Epstein-funded salons, but we do know that Pinker was interested in discussing the idea that "groups of people may differ genetically in their average talents and temperaments.” As science writer Anjana Ahuja noted at the time, for “groups of people”, read “races”. In a 2006 blogpost on the Edge website, Pinker cited a discredited idea which has been embraced in scientific racism (known as Lewontin’s fallacy). He attempted to counter the scientific consensus that race is not a genetically valid taxonomy and to legitimize the hypothesis that there may be innate racial differences in intelligence. He has also boosted the profiles of ideologues who peddle in scientific racism and eugenics. For example, he has promoted the work of far-right blogger Steve Sailer, who mainly writes about supposed racial differences in intelligence. He re-published a Sailer essay titled ‘Cousin Marriage Conundrum’, originally published in The American Conservative, in an edited 2004 volume of The Best American Science and Nature Writing. The article by Sailer argued that Arab societies are too inbred for the type of democratic reform that was a stated goal of Western politicians in the 2003 ‘regime change’ war on Iraq."
Question from the British Election Study: "Do you think that too many immigrants have been let into this country, or not?"
Mary Harrington tweeting on 3rd August 2024: "Mothers for Remigration"
Front cover of the book 'Feminism Against Progress' by Mary Harrington
Screenshot from Pro Evolution Soccer 4, showing Brazil's line-up as being Dida, Lucia, Roque Junior, Cafu, Roberto Carlos, Emerson, Gilberto Silva, Ronaldinho, Kaka, Ronaldo, and Adriano
Wes Streeting on Twitter yesterday saying "Essential reading" about an article in The Times by Jonathan Haidt with the strapline: "We're dumbing down while machines are becoming smarter"
Tom Forth quote-tweeting Richard Hanania on 3rd July on productivity gaps between British cities
Will Cooling arguing that the British cordon sanitaire against the far-right is weak because there's a culture of everyone going out for drinks together
From today's FT interview with Morgan McSweeney: "He reveals that he has spoken to Starmer on the phone about half a dozen times since he left Downing Street but has not seen him face to face. Did he advise him not to quit? “Not in the past few weeks, no,” he says. “I haven’t seen him since my leaving do.”"
A chart from today's Bloomberg Green newsletter showing that gas consumption driven by data centres in the USA has increased from <1 billion cubic feet per day in 2020 to over 2 billion now, and is forecast to increase to over 6 billion by 2035
A screenshot of Fifa International Soccer on the Mega Drive, showing four Brazil and four Italy players - and the referee - plus a yellow star (with a number 5) around one of the Brazil players (who will be the player being controlled by whoever's playing the game)
Headline to an article in today's FT: "Quarter of UK water groups underspend investment allowances as network creaks", noting underneath: "Utilities failed to use maximum allowed despite arguing that higher bills were needed to fund improvements"
Ed West's newsletter from September 2022 linking to an article Rob Henderson about Richard Wrangham's book 'The Goodness Paradox', which starts off saying it's "accepted as orthodoxy now" that "humans self-domesticated, weeding out the most violent individuals in a similar way to how we domesticated wolves."
A screenshot of some Ian Dunt tweets from 2014 praising Douglas Carswell, including one saying he is "warm, genuinely independent-minded, not a Little Englander"
From Politico's newsletter: "Amid all that, Burnham confirmed plans for a No. 10 in Manchester as the "nerve centre of a rewired Britain"...confirmed he would scrap or reform the Commons whipping regime...said "social value" would be prioritised in procurement...pledged massive council house building and town centre densification...and promised to reform business rates."
Twitter exchange from December 2024: Noah Smith: "I've become radicalized into carceral urbanism. Either you think Eurasian cities are safe because they have racial superpowers (unlikely), or you think they're safe because they policed hard for 500 years until people learned to behave." Mario Alberto: "There's a chance that they policed hard enough for 500+ years that it actually weeded out the most impulsive people from the gene pool." Noah Smith: "I think that might be the case yeah. Will need research to confirm, though."
I got Zohran Mamdani on the 2020s Political Compass Test
Headline to Guardian article on Bari Weiss hiring loads of British journalists: "'Not puff pieces and kid gloves': why Bari Weiss is hiring British journalists at CBS News"
Title of David Aaronovitch's latest Substack article: "Killing Keir and admiring Andy: Two exercises in projection"
Sam Bowman saying on Twitter in response to a theoretical Met Office forecast showing temperatures of 45c in June 2056, "We have just thirty years to legalise air conditioning."
Oliver Kamm retweeting Richard Hanania on June 21st re Tulsi Gabbard
Luke "The Nuke" Akehurst tweeting "An excellent appointment on a range of levels" re James Purnell being appointed Chief of Staff by Andy Burnham
From today's Politico newsletter: "JACKDAW DROPPING NEWS: Ed Miliband appears to be making his pitch for the current hottest prize in Westminster, the role as Burnham’s chancellor — with the i Paper’s Caroline Wheeler reporting and the energy secretary is preparing to approve new drilling in the Jackdaw field. The move is intended to prove he can be a pro-growth chancellor in a possible Burnham government and send a signal to unions and business that Miliband is not simply net zero at any cost."
Results from a 50-question quiz on how right wing you are, scored across five areas/archetypes: libertarian; free marketeer; social conservative; traditionalist; nativist. I scored 0% on each of the five measures
Triple H doing his famous post-entrance pose/celebration where he basically spits a load of water in the air whilst flexing his steroid-fuelled muscles
Extract from 'Brexitland' by Maria Sobolewska and Rob Ford making the argument that whilst there is general agreement within British society that racism is bad, there is a liberal-conservative divide as to what constitutes racism, and so conservatives get annoyed by what they think is too expansive a definition of racism by liberals
Homer Simpson jumping out from under a manhole cover (after Mr Burns was trying to hide him from safety inspectors) saying, "D'oh! The bee bit my bottom! Now my bottoms big!"
Me saying in February "I'm still celebrating if I'm only two-and-a-bit months off" after saying seven months prior that on 1st December 2024 I said I give Starmer 6-12 months left as PM
BBC article from June 2025 on Seamus Coleman, who played for Everton for 16 years after signing from Sligo Rovers for £60k
A picture of Cherie Blair at what looks like some sort of panel discussion, with the headline underneath (from a recent DeSmog article), "Cherie Blair's Charity Received £3.6 million from ExxonMobil", and the sub-heading, "The oil major has provided a significant chunk of the foundation's income."
UnHerd reposting Mary Harrington saying: "Current Year Yookay is like a horrible fever dream: you vote again and again for sensible taxation and functioning borders and public services, but every time you go outside there's just the same Labour MP chasing you with a syringe"
Nicole Lampert reposting Alex Massie saying: "Very excited by this year's Edinburgh Book Festival theme: "We're Better People Than You"." The blurb for the festival then says: "Our theme 'Changing Your Mind' speaks to the moment we're in. At a time when opinions seem increasingly polarised and online debate is so divisive, we're creating space for thoughtful, nuanced conversations - exploring the reasons for our increasing social and political divides, and how we might change each others' minds, or at least agree to disagree, more agreeably. We're also looking at the potential of the human brain to adapt and relearn, and at the unparalleled power of stories to change our thinking. Changing your mind is a lifelong process of staying open to new ideas. By bringing amazing speakers and curious audiences together, around knowledge and perspectives that help us challenge our assumptions and see the world differently, we hope the Festival programme this year will help us gain a deeper understanding of both ourselves and each other." - Director, Jenny Niven
Sam Ashworth-Hayes retweeting James Orr saying: "Delighted to announce that Karl Williams is joining Reform UK as Senior Policy Advisor. Karl joins us from the Centre for Policy Studies, where he has been serving as Director of Research. One of the sharpest policy minds on the British right, Karl cut his teeth on energy and" (it then cuts off)