”I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time...try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do.“

There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause

i'm seeing many folks arguing for why gifted education services are good, but i think that misses the point, not only in this nyc-specific case but more broadly. the issue at hand is whether we can fairly identify who is "gifted" at age four. this statistic would indicate we can't!

Pope Leo on 10th anniversary of Laudato Si: “There is no room for indifference or resignation. God will ask us if we have cultivated and cared for the world that he created…we cannot love God whom we cannot see, while despising his creatures." www.vatican.va/content/leo-...

The Dems breaking through right now are all treating Trump's consolidation of dictatorial power and his subjugation of Blue America as absolutely central facts about our moment. Zohran highlights that regularly. Trump's threat to nix funding is a case in point. newrepublic.com/article/2011...

I don't think that's America, I think it's just life. As Auden put it: "even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course/Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot/Where the dogs go on with their doggy life..."

Trump gives the most dangerous speech in US history & Democrats scream "health subsidies." Brian nails it. "The confusion in their posture stems from the fact that the nature of public misgivings about the Trump regime stem from his dictatorial abuses, rather than quotidian policy disputes..."

Most of the power authoritarians have is freely given. We should not comply with them in advance. Trump is far weaker than he looks. So is the GOP. We should draw them out, drain them at every opportunity, and fight for people’s wellbeing at every turn. We have been sent here to fight for people.

my friends and colleagues in advocacy spaces should read this terrific piece — “They see themselves as being pragmatic in difficult times and willing to make difficult choices. They imagine that doing something unpleasant is the same as doing something effective. They think it will save them.”

perhaps instead of cowering under a blanket labeled "health care," democrats should respond and advance on the issues that move people. this, of course, would require a foundation of conviction and principle, which may be asking too much of the party's leadership and strategists.

“Today’s generation of comedians prefer to use their hard-won liberties not as a weapon against the powerful, but as a license to operate free of any ethical obligations whatsoever.”

“Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops.”

separate from everything, the idea that 2020 was a squeaker but 2024 represents a historical mandate will simply be the death of me

the question to ask the republican majority on the court is “what CAN’T trump do?”

again, this should be a national scandal — congressional hearings, firings, etc. — instead of a daily occurrence, quickly memory-holed. to return to any kind of normalcy, the people responsible for this terror must be held to account.

“If you’re a child of the sixties, imagine waking up to the news that Bob Dylan was actually a serial killer, or Nina Simone was a COINTELPRO plant…”

anti-corruption remains a great centerpiece for a presidential campaign. it tested spectacularly well six years ago and i’m sure has only grown more potent since. most americans think the system is rigged (they’re right!). we can recognize that or perish. elizabethwarren.com/plans/end-wa...

If they had a right-wing, “tough-on-crime” coded mayor there would be endless national profiles about him and how he finally brought sanity back to Chicago.

this (and similar videos i see seemingly every day) should be a national scandal. there should be congressional hearings, questioning of senior administration officials, public apologies, real consequences, policy changes. anyone who commits to changing that "should" to "will" has my vote.

what is it that makes the front of a man—what, indeed, but his eyes?

CHOTINER: So your son is 14, is that right? IKARI: It's complex, Isaac. If— CHOTINER: And the “robot” he pilots, that’s actually the child of an alien you keep crucified in the basement, which is possessed by the spirit of his dead mother? IKARI: Look, let me answer the question. CHOTINER: Sure.

"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply." me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

beyond agreeing with this critique substantively, i also think it's deeply hilarious that searchlight did a big nyt spread about their innovative approach w/ a lame edgelord photo, and their first release is...utterly banal public opinion research from an establishment pollster.

Just a reminder that, despite what these freaks would have you think, antivaxx is extremely unpopular and we need to attack them relentlessly for putting insane dipshittery over our health

This is my fault.

you cannot negotiate with a tiger when your head is in its mouth

What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it

dems get some unfair dunks on here, but this is Type One 'piss of your base for no obvious benefit'

also, the most successful dems in the last decade in all three (kelly, brown, mccaskill/kander) were pretty unabashedly pro-choice. no doubt that a dem must differentiate themselves from the national party to succeed in these states, but especially in a post-roe world, abortion just isn't the issue.

i’ve heard charles mingus twice in public spaces this week — “old portrait” at a hotel bar and “jelly roll” at the albany airport. much to ponder.

“If you would look away from the words of Charlie Kirk, from what else would you look away?“

Our ability to comprehend daily events has been corrupted by a toxic info environment where political & attentional dynamics distort & manipulate our “collective sensemaking” processes. Our “official” sources are now products of that same environment. Reality fractures, along with the social fabric.

The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

At least 42 incarcerated people have been killed in the last decade. Just six people have been convicted in their deaths.

“Who doubts that America is strong? But that’s not all America has to be.”

thinking about ursula k. le guin.

people were reliably apprised of the existence of Moby Dick, and the havoc he had made

It Only Tuesday https://theonion.com/it-only-tuesday-1819569397/

crucially, he defied a president who was attempting to defy congress! the spirit of grant and the radical republicans who attempted to save this country from its worst impulses is direly needed today.

The New Yorker asked me “how bad” today’s Supreme Court ruling was. I boiled it down to one paragraph: link.newyorker.com/view/5bda429...

we should keep adding more supreme court justices until everyone in the country is a supreme court justice. we'll have to all cram ourselves into one building. everyone gets a new fancy robe, which makes the fancy robes company become too powerful. until the supreme court breaks them up. which is us

morally necessary and strategically obvious!

no surprised that brett ”almost certainly flunked his remedial classes” kavanaugh thinks the constitution authorizes a race-based federal “papers please” regime. quick, someone ask him what he thinks of the fugitive slave act.

There is simply no value to Democrats in helping with passing budgets or CRs when the administration claims limitless arbitrary impoundment and rescission powers.

today on a walk it occurred to me that i would like to play preposterous proportions on shroofus sproutsire and a handful of saprolings, so i ordered a copy. 39 cents for a dream. #edh #mtg

I'm kind of shocked that anyone is still proposing technocratic solutions to the "debate" over immigration. Even if this were a good idea (and it is not), Republican elites and media will never tell their base about it. You can't policy your way out of a propaganda problem!

popularism at work

I know people are overwhelmed by too much news from every angle, and maybe people are distracted by the "terrorist" language, or just plain exhausted. But this is the President of the United States saying he is going to go around killing people because he thinks they're criminals. And already did.

Trump labor secretary spinning a terrible jobs report by saying "but the few people hired are all native-born!" is as good an example of "drained-pooled politics" as you will see. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/564989...