Amazing. If a professional wrestling crowd is chanting "fuck ICE," it suggests to me that large swaths of the culture are not just upset over ICE tactics, they're coalescing against mass deportations as a broader ideological project. newrepublic.com/article/2060...

sure the us is sliding into authoritarianism but on the other hand, south korea is completely paralyzed by dubai chocolate fever. in a couple of weeks they went from dubai chocolate chewy cookie to dubai chocolate raw amberjack fish to dubai chocolate grilled short ribs

What's grimly funny about the Post is that in the DC newspaper scene, the Moonies and their Washington Times are on their way to having the upper hand, if they are there already.

Really feeling the Rebuilding Korea Party slogan today: Three years is too long.

Genuinely breaking me how Alex Pretti was such a soyboy that MAGA nutjobs like to make fun of. He hiked. He played music. He had a graduate degree and he was a male nurse. And he was more courageous and relentless than everyone of those assholes.

On Saturday, @theverge.com's creative director @kristenradtke.bsky.social carefully watched a video of a shooting in Minneapolis, twice. Hours later, she found out that the man who was killed was her childhood best friend. www.theverge.com/policy/86856...

My own theory has been that Renee Good was Park Jong-chul and Alex Pretti was Lee Han-yeol. Two deaths back to back that hit extra hard because they were easy for the public to sympathize with and the regime's response was so callous and insulting.

I mean things are bad but Gwangju was 1000-2000 plus dead, not 2, and drugged up paras were firing at anything that moved. If it gets to that stage we're in a very very different situation.

The courage that Minnesotans have shown is above and beyond. There were moments when I wondered if Americans still had it in them, and I'm heartened to be proven wrong on that.

One of the best things I’ve read in a while:

In some countries the outbreak of bloodshed inspires the opposition party to call for the leader to resign

We have been told for nearly 30 years that America needed to tolerate mass shootings because the broad availability of guns would help us defend ourselves from an overreaching federal government. That day has come. The people who said this are supporting the federal agents. Many have joined them.

“They” won’t greet “us” like a prodigal son, but like an ex-business partner whose drug addiction bankrupted them

As shocking as the terms of US exit from the international community have been, the terms on which the US will re-enter the system (someday) will be even more shocking to a leadership class accustomed to being the leaders of the world

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.

going into people's houses without a warrant. applying for a warrant to investigate a person they already killed. just wild fucking frontiers in 4th amendment law

THEY WILL NOT BREAK US THEY CAN NOT BREAK US THEY DIDN'T BRING ENOUGH GUYS FOR EVERY ONE OF US THEY TAKE, ONE HUNDRED MORE TAKE TO THE STREETS THERE WILL FOREVER BE MORE OF US THAN OF THEM THEY STAND FOR NOTHING, WE STAND FOR EACH OTHER THEY WILL REGRET COMING HERE MINNEAPOLIS WILL WIN

Think this is where the size of the US really affects the dynamic. A protest of that size in Minneapolis would start shaking the national politics if Minnesota were a country. But it's not, so we need an even greater buildup.

I've been at this place for at least a decade because of Korean politics and it's nice to see Americans finally coming around to it. Let's go get it folks. Fuck them heinous evil.

We got a small preview with the Golden Globes, but the flamewar between Sinners fans and K-pop Demon Hunters fan leading up to the Oscar will be some next level shit.

I've been waiting for this. Independent autopsy of Renee Good is in. It's strong evidence against Agent Ross, given what it means about the second or third shot through the left-side window. It's the second and third shots that make the easiest criminal case of a willful killing.

Excellent @radleybalko.bsky.social piece on why what we are seeing in Minneapolis is, in fact, something qualitatively different than the police violence that happens all too often. This struck me as a key line: the OPEN contempt for accountability. Such explicitness matters.

wow, firstly they kidnap him on a bus and now this. it's a rough day.

Close review of both the Civil Rights Movement and Korea's democracy movement makes you appreciate that in the moment, everything seems messy and confusing. People who later turn out to be legends - MLK, Kim Dae-jung - make some dubious decisions at the time, and are rightly criticized for them.

i think this MLK day the thing to focus on is the strategic focus and tactical brilliance of the civil rights movement and the way it was laser focused on a set of achievable goals

The Nobel Peace Prize becoming so prestigious that wars are fought over a head of state coveting it is some real monkey paw stuff for Alfred Nobel.

As I quipped to Arirang News last month, if Kim Jong Un would create the Pyongyang Peace Prize, with a trophy made of gold, like FIFA did in creating its trophy for Trump, that might motivate Trump to come to Pyongyang to accept it - and while there, to check out the resort accommodations in Wonsan.

Twitter K-pop fans are having another dumbass debate about cultural appropriation and I'm so fucking glad I'm not doing that shit anymore.

I'm sorry they ran off with the kid's phone and sold it to one of those machines in the supermarket?

In Minneapolis

Death to insurrectionists. You are either serious about protecting democracy or you are not.

Alpha News is a far-right site run by the wife of the former head of the Minneapolis police union. Whoever leaked this to them thinks it makes Ross look good. Which is just astonishing.

In the video that the shooter took, which I believe was leaked to be exculpatory, he appears to yell “fucking bitch” after he shoots Renee Good.

his name is Jonathan Ross and he shouldn't get a good night's sleep for the rest of his life www.startribune.com/ice-agent-wh...

It’s easy to think that schools in Minneapolis are closed because the Feds murdered someone in the street but no, the actual reason is that while that was happening, the Feds were busy doing other heinous shit across the city like tear-gassing a school

The surprise invasion of Venezuela isn't imperial expansion driven by the dictates of capitalism; it is somehow even sicker. The Trump administration is behaving like gambling addicts chasing clout in an attention economy. Venezuela is a fucking meme stock. www.theverge.com/policy/85807...

A resignation letter: "We all saw it. We all saw, with our own two eyes, people getting dragged like dogs and killed. But we could not write one line about it on the newspaper. In shame, we put down our pens. May 20, 1980 All Journalists of Jeonnam Maeil Shinmun"

I tell my friends in Korea that right now, living in US is like living during the Chun Doo-hwan times, minus the mass murder. But at this rate, we are not even that far away from a mass murder.

FT,

What I wouldn't give to be a fly on a wall for this completely insane grand jury deliberation.

Would be fascinating to see how SDNY stands up against this bullshit.

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

It’s not about drugs. If it was, Trump wouldn’t have pardoned one of the largest narco traffickers in the world last month. It’s about oil and regime change. And they need a trial now to pretend that it isn’t. Especially to distract from his sinking under Epstein and skyrocketing healthcare costs.

grim posthumous scenario i had not previously considered: you post a picture of the missile headed straight for you, and are memorialized by a bunch of random assholes complaining about alt text

White racists are not ready for the end of DEI that leads to them having Asian overlords.

You are either serious about defending democracy or you are not. And you, @benjaminaengel.bsky.social , are being very unserious right now.

How do you not fucking learn after going through THAT. There could be another Gwangju and you will forget all about it after about a year.