What if there are no [legal] consequences attending to release of the Epstein files? What if the intended message, instead, is, "This is how the elite behaves, and you silly mudsills are not entitled to question it"?

We cannot keep responding to naked power with subtle logic.

They're going to back off. Poke at something else for a moment. Next time will be worse. And they'll be better prepared, more intentional.

So, “originalist” actually means “before the Bill of Rights.”

We white folk aren’t used to this treatment. Apparently it’s gonna take us a while. Dammit.

From this moment forward (and before, but clearly now): -If you work for ICE. -If you vote for money for ICE. You are complicit. This is the gestapo. You're on the wrong side. You can't pretend not to know.

Just a reminder that for the last year Tik Tok has been on phones in the US even tho Congress passed a law obliging its sale and the Supreme Court upheld that law. For a year. This is how the rule of law was first diminished. And, yeah, the Epstein files, too.

So we’re going to have a trade war. With Europe. Over Greenland. Because real estate logic trumps all.

Then there was a piece of paper suddenly cutting $2-billion in funding from substance abuse and mental health organizations, effective 1/13.

At this point, given the relative cost of renewable energy and the scale of the investment opportunity there for incumbent utility & power companies, what is the constituency for this rabid anti-green energy content? Whose interests is it actually serving? It's such a colossal waste of time.

RIP Dave Allen. The moment does seem to cry for music, this song keeps earworming me: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHVI...

It has come to this: We are now reduced to arguing the merits of a government-sponsored snuff film.

Tutored by a mob lawyer, he runs the country with the finesse of a second-tier mob boss. Oddly, though, I've not seen any news of an uptick in organized crime.

Members of Congress keep issuing statement and writing bills that will never get out of committee as if Congress mattered. The President doesn't think it does. Not anymore. Nice pension, I suppose. We have 2026. Maybe. To make Congress count.

It's a con. They're selling fear. To us, where we live. To other countries, where they live. It's not about rule of law. It's about intimidation.

Wait. Two news orgs knew in advance about the Madura "extraction," because security was that good. But Congress couldn't be told. Er...asked. Got it. It was nice living in a semi-functional democracy.

The security reason to electrify transport is not about oil imports, it’s economic resilience. Oil powers 90% of US vehicles, so when the price of oil spikes because of a war, people & companies pay more for energy, which hurts the economy. The more transport is electrified, econ security goes up.

Anyone know the going rate for a member of Congress, or, at least, their spine? Maybe if we pooled our resources…

hey remember when a bunch of middle-aged drunk korean lawmakers climbed the locked gates to the national assembly to hold an emergency session after the president gave illegal orders to the military, all of which ended with said president being sentenced to prison

I always thought that I was just barely smart enough not to live in a rogue state, amid a lawless society. Not a healthy place for a pacifist. But here we are. We have failed. Utterly. Comprehensively.

Wonder how this is playing in Rex Tillerson's home.

Imagine, as I'm sure others have, that some foreign power found our Fascist Kleptocrat to have, say, violated international law by killing sailors in open water, to have committed war crimes by killing them once their boat was sunk, and then invaded to take him captive for his crimes.

Looks like some teams are playing dead today.

I must be among the least significant authors to receive notification of the $1.5-billion Anthropic settlement. $3k a book. I don't want their crumbs. I want my words back. Taken from the maw of their machine. All of them. Ain't going to happen. Probably cash the check. I despise AI.

Russian history has been shaped far more by Stalin's decades-long consolidation of power than by the Lenin/Trotsky revolution. The Fascist Kleptocrat will die, someday. Eventually. It's the night of long knives, after, that holds the most peril.

Something screwy is going on with shipping this holiday. Vendors with 2-day ship are telling us the carriers can't cope. Other vendors are taking 2 weeks instead of 3-5 days. This is not normal, even for this season. Wonder if it's UPS new labor agreement being used against us?

Could we just cut to the chase and organize college leagues according to tiers of NIL expenditure? Kinda like prize fighting... ...it truly sucks to be a mid major in this world, to watch your best players leave after a year and be unable to replenish...

Since demand is fairly inflexible and the supply comes from various places, shouldn't we be asking who benefits from these illegal, immoral attacks on small boats in the Caribbean? It has the smell of a taxpayer supported protection racket. Somebody always gets fat with this guy in office.

Just a thought, but the West Virginia National Guard SHOULDN'T EVEN HAVE BEEN in Washington, D.C.

Of the 38.3-million Americans receiving SNAP benefits, only 500,000 qualify for ACA. (If the Google isn't lying to me.) Maybe it turns out the Dems were uncomfortable asking the poorest, most fragile among us to suffer so more affluent folk could afford health insurance.

At last this administration is doing something for the environment. Cutting air travel.

He can't really come for NYC, can he? Too much of his actual wealth is tied up in real estate there. Picture a fleet of code enforcers, tax collectors, fire inspectors...plaguing every property he owns, every property his extended family owns, every property his visible supporters own.

New awareness campaign

The tyrant wants to blow things up so they’ve given him Venezuela. But who gets the oil when it’s done?

Dreamed that I was sleeping.

He isn't going to follow the rules because nobody can or will make him. Not Congress, who wouldn't vote to impeach even tho they saw the crime. Not the courts, who have already made clear their allegiance. Maybe us. Maybe.

Alfred Jarry's absurdist play, "Ubu Roi," gave name to the spectacular Cleveland punk band Pere Ubu. Which means "King shit," and pardon my french. Could we have a revival of that play, like, everywhere, all at once?

If we took the entire ICE budget, melted it down, and spent it on homes, on mental health counseling, on jobs training...how much better could the government make city life? Just a thought from a country cousin...

University of Kentucky has revoked support for numerous identity-based student organizations and denied students access to gender-inclusive housing for the upcoming semester. kykernel.com/118662/news/...

Koch pere self-published a sci-fi novel in the '60s in which millionaires got three votes instead of one. They believe in democracy. Honest. They just, uh, define it differently.

No pictures, no kings. 300 of us in eastern Kentucky.

Are these the two oldest QBs ever to start against each other in the NFL?

Really, he just wants to treat American Democrats the way he's now treating Venezuelans in small boats.

This guide says you don’t just argue; you dismantle the cult. From turning its own tactics like slogans and repetition against It and offering dignified exits for followers, it's the best out there. Check it out: https://americanmanifesto.news/anti-maga-messaging-guide-v1

What they did to Joanne’s Fabrics? That’s the plan for our country: sell it for parts.

Recently drove a lot of divided highways up the gut of Ohio, across Eastern KY, down to southeastern West VA. Saw one Trump flag. One. A whole lot of American flags, which can mean anything. I don't think this means Trump support is ebbing. I think it's a rebranding.

Dear gods, now we’re hoping the generals will save us? The opposition party won’t do squat. The courts have been bought. It’s down to us. Probably should be, too.