"It is that salience that makes Israel such a poisonous issue in American politics, that one position in a bloody and intractable ethno-nationalist conflict routinely gets elevated to the heights of politics and culture, and treated as if their views are simply neutral and objective."

I think it's even simpler than this. The US is a hegemon, and hegemon's generally lose* peripheral brushfire conflicts because they are much less invested in a victory at the frontier than the people who live there are invested in a victory at home. *ie get bored and go home

Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan thinks the global economy is living on borrowed time. www.dallasfed.org/news/speeche...

more universities, more doctors, more housing, it's a shame that the Abundance guys are *makes equivocal hand gesture* because there is a real there there.

This observation serves to illustrate how two things are true: the high end of the wealth distribution is grotesquely under-taxed, and even super-confiscatory schemes directed at that wealth can't replace a broad tax base.

Well they did get in bed with Pakistan, maybe they're slow learners...

Fow example: There are 3 countries that make a 5th generation stealth fighter, and including the Russians in that figure is generous.

100%. The problem is much less the tech itself (though it is extremely powerful and potentially disruptive) and more that we have next to no meaningful guardrails on its use by a gaggle of sociopathic predators.

I always come back to Lincoln on Memorial Day

And no, you can’t criticise me for calling Graham Platner an opportunistic piece of shit with weird misogynistic and racist views who should not be allowed anywhere near elected office because I’ve been reliably informed that verbally trashing a candidate during a campaign doesn’t affect the result

have become more and more blase about the idea of LLMs writing news coverage. its not that the humans doing it have really shown much value

This, incidentally is a deal where we get an Iranian nuclear weapon as soon as they can build one.

So… If I understand correctly, the DNC did not want to release their autopsy with the official story being that it was too shit for public consumption, they got pressured into releasing it anyway, and it turns out they were telling the truth.

Like if you and I were back in Berlin, 1935, and I said to you "Hitler is very scary," you may be correct that "German society was always antisemitic" But you would be correct in a stupid and trivial way that I am not going to respect, because you are missing the point, and being very smug about it

A lot of replies being like “Wait something good!?” No you morons, republicans want to be able to allow chud truck drivers to speed through your neighborhood without consequence. You are a fucking sucker if you think congressional republicans care about privacy. This stupid country I swear to god.

“Biden is old” was an op by the media who hated that he refused to kiss their ass after they spread lies about his son. I mean that literally and here are the receipts.

The DNC autopsy may be trash, but I’m sympathetic to anyone whose job it is to write an autopsy in the first place. The 2024 election didn’t make sense, it broke the rules in ways everyone found confounding at the time, and it’s not reasonable to expect sole consultant to solve the mystery here.

But enough about the median voter's view of ICE

Since we're on the subject, the upcoming Dem Senate should also kill the filibuster. A number of reasons why you want to do it immediately, but the big one for me is that it will let them pass loads and loads of popular bills for Trump to veto

Random thought: Has anyone done polling on the popularity of the Voting Rights Act?

normatively and socially a technology I have deep qualms about, technologically and empirically it's clearly only getting better, and at this point the belief that it's all a scam or fake is a belief in the religious sense, not one backed by actual events.

it's insane that the Mandalorian started seven years ago and has three seasons. this is not how an episodic Space Western is supposed to work. there should be seven seasons and 100 plus episodes by now. would they all be good? hell no. but they don't have to be.

Wilhelm II was an early experiment in "What if we put a dipshit who's natural role is bankrupting his father's small to medium size businesses in charge of an early modern nation-state ? " turns out it's bad.

I’m old, Gandalf. I don’t look it. But I’m beginning to feel it in my heart.

I see we're doing this again. Anyways, Zionism is Jewish ethno-nationalism, which doesn't make it any more inherently evil than Serbian or Italian or Greek or Turkish or Mexican nationalism, but is also no reason to it treat it as any more exculpatory for the crimes of the Israeli state.

I’m honestly unsure what Silicon Valley’s theory of victory is here. As far as I can tell, the plan is: 1.) Suck up to president who has annihilated the taboo on political violence 2.) Take everyone’s job 3.) Expose them to nonstop extremist propaganda And like... For fuck’s sake, why?

this is such a great encapsulation of what the various factions of the reactionary right want. i might add that they envision themselves as slave masters and the rest of us, in one way or another, as their slaves. betterdonkey.substack.com/p/the-vra-wa...

Its not necessarily ideal compared to the destruction of the Republican party, but if the party can be encouraged to ditch Trump before we get to that then its a partial win.

ITS AN ALL VOLUNTEER FORCE ASSHOLE

Now that I know people are stupid enough to repeatedly vote in a clown car of evil quacks who actively want them to have measles I just have way more reservations about centralizing everything under the fed govt. 10 years ago I felt differently

probably nothing to worry about

The funniest thing about the “fertility debate” is that it has an easy answer as far as America is concerned (let in more immigrants) but people are like that is neither racist nor misogynist enough

Right, yeah. All the people most wound-up about the uses and misuses of American power at the same time can't imagine anyone but America (and/or Israel) being the protagonist of World Affairs, or having really any agency at all. We don't get to DECIDE this stuff!

This whole thread, with the original quotee coming in to fight about it is a great example of the problem the left in the US has with natsec policy. A bunch of fundamentally lib aligned commentators are pointing out how the situation is a trap and it's being responded do as warmongering.

Now I want a sci-fi odyssey retelling, sounds dope actually.

this is, i think, the single most important thing to understand about donald trump and his boyars in this second admin; the whole administration is engaged in total culture war against the very idea of principles and dignity and virtue, it’s the most crudely cynical administration in US history

Raising the Flag Follow my work and writing on Substack: nickanderson.substack.com

it's great news for future generations but as a member of the current generation, oof aah ouch owie

You’re god damn right I’d kill for this country

US universities genuinely are like “welcome to Tennessee Agricultural College in Bumfuck Nowheresville. We invented the modern potato and our facilities include a particle accelerator, nuclear reactor, and TOP500 supercomputer. Tuition is $12,000 for instate students and we have 40,000 of them”

America should get back in the business of having giant propaganda landscape paintings made

WHY SHOULD EUROPE FORGO THEIR PRIMARY SECURITY THREAT—THE WAR IN UKRAINE—TO DIVERT RESOURCES FOR AN UNCLEAR AND OPEN ENDED WAR OF CHOICE THE UNITED STATES LAUNCHED WITHOUT EVER ONCE CONSULTING EUROPE CAN A SINGLE ONE OF YOU PEOPLE ANSWER THAT

Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. But warmongers can keep fighting even longer than that.

Ok....*now* you can say real wages are falling.

Needing to win by 4 points nationally to get a bare majority in the House of Representatives due to partisan gerrymandering is (1) unfair, (2) a sign of America’s democratic backsliding, and importantly (3) doable.

I think Sam is 100% right here, the problem is that centrist pundits types have a lot of power to shape the media narrative, so convincing them is enough to shift thw whole media.