I feel like United States opposition to authoritarian rule is sort of squishy. You can push into it quite a bit without any pushback (law firms, media companies, universities giving in), but eventually you start hitting something hard. And that's the point where I think we're at right now.

counterpoint: that speech was bad, actually, and even if it had been an email it would have been a bad email

"The Trump Administration deftly pounced." I never thought I would read that in The New Yorker. The story explains the negotiations behind the Gaza peace agreement. And it really does sound like the administration has does some smart things www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

We had 200 years to repeal this law. More than 200 years. We've depended WAY to much on the president not being a wannabe fascist. www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...

Philly road repair

I wanted one of these as a kids but never got it because of mean parents. But now I need it so every time someone takes a photo of me they'll think it's AI.

If the Democrats were smart they would be adding a demand that Trump restore all the funding to blue states that he's cut to their demands for funding the government. That's if they were smart, though...

Tears of joy

Preparations are underway for the destruction of the large work of art near my home, the Painted Bride by Isaiah Zagar.

I've been reading Proust. It's shocking how acceptable anti-semitism was. The Nazi genocide discredited the idea, at least in polite society. We who oppose Israel's ongoing genocide should do everything we can to keep opposition to the actions of a government from turning into hatred of a people.

I thought the Canadians weren't coming here anymore. Go home!

I know everybody's been thinking we're losing, but 1) public opinion has shifted against sending more weapons to Israel, for the first time in my life, 2) Trump's approval is declining, and nothing he's done is going to help, and 3) the Democrats are finally doing something. The tide is turning.

Day 1. Still feeling good about the Democrats pulling together in the only meaningful way they can against the Trump administration.

If you had told me even three years ago that authors would be fighting big tech companies because those companies had fed all the text in the world into their computers, and had made sense of it, I would have said you're imagining a sci-fi fantasy.

There's really no point in trying to figure out why somebody did a mass shooting when you don't actually do anything when you do find out the reason.

The most important change we should make in the backlash to the Trump administration, and it's coming, is to make the Constitution easier to amend. After Watergate we shouldn't have had to depend on good behavior of the President to keep the DoJ independent; it should simply be independent.

You know, if Trump was doing well, his favored candidate for NYC mayor would also be doing well, instead of giving up early in like last place.

According to the law of presidential reaction, the next president should be as little like Trump as possible. So I don't think we'll end up with a Republican because they're all emulating Trump. On the Democratic side, who is the least like Trump? I'm guessing AOC.

According to this article narcissistic personality disorder can be treated through talk therapy. It's so hard to realize that our president could have been cured given proper treatment, which his family could have afforded. www.newscientist.com/article/2496...

According to some theories, there's only like 1,000 people who would get raptured. So, possibly, they left but we didn't notice.

Weirdly, Jimmy Kimmel might turn out to be the "at long last" moment. People are standing up to him, including Republicans. He's very publicly lost a fight he cared about. I'm not saying it's likely, but it could be. And how ironic that another TV guy ends up taking down this TV President.

Why did Jimmy Kimmel win? 1. Hollywood is a union town, and Jimmy is well-liked. 2. The constitutional principle was clear. Even other people on the right pushed back. 3. The "stick" the FTC has (disapproval of a merger) is not very frightening. 4. Disney/ABC/Hulu are vulnerable to the public.

Proud to say my daughter is working for the Center for Investigative reporting. She's raising money for them. They're at the cutting edge of reporting that fights back against the authoritarian state Trump is trying to create. www.cir.org

Let's not forget what happens when we fight back. Sometimes we win.

Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show, which Disney suspended following the host’s comments about the Charlie Kirk assassination, will return Tuesday, the company announced. on.nbc10.com/JDmVULQ

Charlie Kirk Sept 27 2024: "Just so we're clear, the Haitians that are in Huntsville that are raping your women and hunting you down at night - it's only gonna get worse - unless Donald Trump wins There will be hundreds of thousands of Haitians brought into Alabama and they will become your masters"

ILLINOIS — Trump’s Gestapo violently throws female congressional candidate @KatAbughazaleh to the ground to the ground

David Brooks said something last night that made me think about what's been happening from the right's point of view. "imagine you woke up tomorrow and Christian nationalism was everywhere. In movies, on mainstream television, schools, newspapers. How disrespected, angry, etc would you feel?"

I like this from Proust: "There is hardly a single action we perform in adolescence which we would not give anything, in later life, to be able to annul...what we ought to regret that we no longer possess the spontaneity which made us perform them...it is the only period in which we learn anything."

It makes sense that Jimmy Kimmel may be the turning point where people really start fighting back. His removal violated a clear constitutional principle, he is supported by a well-connected educated and unionized community. Nexstar has to decide between getting the merger or having a business

I know I'm speculating but I don't think Tyler Robinson was ever "radicalized." He seems to have grown up in a family that believed, with Charlie Kirk, that using a gun to defend yourself and your family was right. He saw a threat to the existence of his partner, and took action.

Charlie Kirk: "Gun control, like vaccines and masks, is focused on making people feel ‘safe’ by taking freedoms away from others. Don’t fall for it."

This is where logging in to Disney+ to cancel takes me. There's simply no way to cancel.

Trying to cancel Hulu is harder than usual. It redirects me to Disney+, which then won't let me log in (never sends verification email). I wonder (hope) if their system is overloaded.

Tbh allowing media corporations to form huge conglomerates that could be subject to government pressure on otherwise unrelated business operations turned out to be a mistake. But it's a mistake we can fix.

Really happy that I subscribed to Disney only for a month to watch Andor. Which, btw, is a show about fighting back against an increasingly authoritarian state.

At a Turning Point USA event in 2023, Kirk said he thinks gun deaths are “worth it” to have a Second Amendment.

Folks, bakers, PLEASE stop making things so round. You should be able to take a bite of a cupcake without, I don't know, worming your teeth around the ganache topping. A layer of ganache is fine and delicious. Same goes for sandwiches. At most an inch and a half in height.

I'm glad to see organizations, finally, banding together in a meaningful way to push back against authoritarianism. Would that colleges and law firms had stood together like this. medium.com/@uniteinadva...

The biggest moment of the Emmys for teenage boys had to be Owen Cooper getting a full frontal hug from Sydney Sweeney.

Ming enjoying the sunlight.

"Strange twist": a new name for corruption. "Those talks are being anchored by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whom Mr. Trump has put in charge of negotiating with China... in a strange twist, it could also help Mr. Bessent financially. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/b...

It's quite possible to create a database of "bad cops" (cops who have been fired for cause). All the information is public. It's not even that difficult. But the government is not going to do it. A private philanthropic foundation could fund it, though.

I think the best thing someone can ask a Trump supporter is, "can you name one thing that he's done that's made your life better?" NOT: punished someone you don't like (deported migrant workers). NOT: theoretically, helped someone ("no tax on tips"). Something that has made your own life better.

I was on a bike trip in Michigan for a few days. Cat's glad I'm back.

Experienced a miniature version of what importers are going through, looking for small replacement parts for my bike. What a mess. Foreign manufacturers are no longer being stocked here, and foreign websites will sell, but who knows what the tariff will be.

Fyi, NOT paying extra to pick a seat sometimes works out. I had a seat mid-plane with an empty seat next to me last time, and this time I got the exit row (tons of legroom).

The beautiful beach in Ludington, Michigan. The "third coast" deserves more attention.

That's the worst drawing of a woman I've ever seen.

They're pulling out their manuals to fix the plane. Things are looking great!