The thing nobody in politics wants to admit: we had two antiwar presidents, and their names were Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Pretty crazy how important the blockade of a trade route is right now

Let. The people. Touch. The stove.

they’re just begging for a car chase

Harry Frankfurt, oracle of the 21st century.

Better to get owned by Fetterman in March than to get owned by Susan Collins in November.

I have said it before and I'll say it again: there is a reason why people keep confusing Naomi Klein with Naomi Wolf, and Klein wouldn't like it.

Living through the end of the Cold War was pretty great. People who were alive in the US in the 1950s (say, post-polio vaccine) must have felt like they dodged a whole lot of bullets. They got through it. We can get through this.

Piping hot take here: maybe your Spider-Man cinematic universe should start with a movie featuring Spider-Man.

Another piece about the growing breakdown of peer review. I wish the suggestions at the end were a little more actionable, but we have to start somewhere. The easiest lift here is probably counting reviewing and editing towards workload and promotion decisions.

A remarkable piece of writing. Reading it, you might conclude that English peaked somewhere between 1800 and 1900, but I think that just means it peaked somewhere between Laurence Sterne and M.R. James. Certainly not LiveJournal.

It kills me that I can't use this quote in my upcoming book about the growing convergence between science fiction and literary fiction, which opens with William Gibson and closes with Colson Whitehead. Although... (eyes copy edits dangerously)

I'm not sure I buy the premise. We know what the aesthetic of liberalism is: midcentury modernism, cool jazz, abstract expressionism. The TWA flight center and the starship Enterprise. The fact that no *contemporary* liberal aesthetic leaps to mind is a problem, but it's a different problem.

NIMBYs: it is time to use your powers for good.

I (don't) hate to say this, but basically if you're looking for a political affiliation in the year 2026 that won't force you to eventually climb into bed with and defend some kind of fascist, authoritarian, or general bigot, you have precisely one option, and that's unapologetic liberalism.

Maybe it should be a bigger deal that the president is decompensating? At least Ruben Bolling will get a good strip out of this.

5 authors I’ve read at least 5 books by: Francis Spufford Colson Whitehead William Gibson Thomas Pynchon Joan Didion

For all its sins, you could actually do this with his character in The Last Jedi because that movie was actually about something. Nobody in RoS has any existence outside their roles in an increasingly debased film continuity that Abrams was actively trying to shrink back to 1983.

The Ones Who Walk Away from Drowning Circle Paradise

A better world is possible.

I can't wait to see how those birds kill Sean Bean.

Once again, great job America

Important thread.

Also if he were running in the Democratic primary but didn't present himself as the scruffy populist working-class oyster whisperer.

This is another reason why I said yesterday that people need to begin making their peace with and hardening their hearts to the fact that the consequences for participants in this administration will need to be *shockingly severe.*

I teach a lot of working class first generation students at Nicholls in South Louisiana. I will never give up my conviction that my students deserve Homer and Sappho and Sophocles and Ovid and Dante too. It's not too good for them.

And we will learn from the lessons of Reconstruction by doing what Reconstruction would not do. These people need to go to prison. Every last one of them.

Also, universities.

It's true: my dad's Democrats don't have Nazi tattoos.

Worth remembering that when Audre Lord coined this phrase, the "master's tools" in question were racism and homophobia. You really won't dismantle the house with them! Generations of students heard the quote without the context and assumed she meant *actual tools* and wrecked themselves ever since.

So many different ways to chart our national shame.

The Marshall McLuhan scene from Annie Hall, except the guy is already talking to Marshall McLuhan.

Great job, America

This is how you do it. Restoring liberal democracy means defeating the wreckers. And that applies just as much to deceptive lobbyists and dark money groups as it does to abstainers and whataboutists and third-party dead-enders. Good for Malinowski.

Seems like this would be a really good time for observers and activists to maintain good contacts with national media.

Wonder Man is good--really, shockingly good. The depiction of the process of acting and the development of Simon and Trevor's friendship is so good that it almost doesn't need any genre elements at all. I genuinely didn't think Marvel had it in them.

Introduce yourself with: One book 📚 — Red Plenty by Francis Spufford One movie 🎥 — Goodfellas by Martin Scorsese One album 💿 — Exile on Main Street by the Rolling Stones One TV show 📺 — The Wire by David Simon

Some folk'll never shank a bitch But then again some folk'll Like New York gov. Kathy Hochul

MAGA fascists self-appointed "activists" 🤝 despising tactics that work

Seeing yet another 'using whistles is disablist' piece circulating: for the 40 millionth time, using disabled people as cover like this is disgusting and calculated to prey on people who are anxious about doing the wrong thing. Doesn't escape notice that white people are the worst offenders.

Read the whole thread.

NEWS: Judge Biery has ordered the release of 5-year-old Liam Ramos. A thunderous rebuke against ICE’s violent campaign in Minnesota. Read the order below. Link: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

When this crash happened, Trump and Vance et al immediately came out to blame the crash on affirmative action. Not so different from calling Alex Pretti an assassin and Renee Good a domestic terrorist. www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

"We promise never again to go down the darkest path," says man encouraging nation to go down the darkest path.

After being held in two of them as a boy, I fought for decades urging America to never again build concentration camps and put human beings in them. It breaks my heart to watch this happen twice now in my own lifetime.

It's not well regarded, but Captain America: Brave New World came so close to getting this tone right again... ...and then flubbed it by suggesting the president with a raging monster inside him actually had a conscience that could be appealed to.

Decades of restrictive housing policies by liberal cities and states are finally coming back to bite us in a major way. If we can't create the conditions for a massive blue state housing construction boom as soon as possible, we're cooked.

The newsroom is being punished because the owner gutted its coverage and alienated readers to secure favorable contracts for Amazon Web Services. News organizations cannot thrive if their owners have other businesses that are dependent upon a corrupt government.

Before speaking with two armed men at the Pretti vigil last night, a man approached & asked if I was going to tell the truth. I said yes. He told me how frustrated he was at the media & the harm it’s causing to his community. I asked if he wanted to share words for the media on camera, & he did: