Discursive resignation eventually has non-discursive consequences.

So many vulnerable people were hurt, harassed and raped by these ghouls and now—I’m worried—it’s gonna become hehe haha lurid internet circus instead of a long overdue moral reckoning. I’m scared of who we all are becoming. That man has brought us ALL low.

Thinking about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's answer to the question of whether he regretted his friendship with Epstein during the BBC interview. That this is the reason so many people discarded thinking about the victims is horrifying: Epstein was useful, they were not. www.bbc.com/news/uk-5044...

This is your reminder that Pete was mayor when two historic Black firsts took their positions (fire chief, police chief) and both had resigned under pressure from racists before the end of his tenure. Pete did nothing to protect them. He’s been shit for a very long time!

Everyone does know what's going on here, right? Should the Epstein evidence bill pass both the House and Senate, these criminals will say it can't be released because there is an active investigation. Never mind that a thorough investigation was completed, and the DOJ was prepared to try Epstein.

there’s a single, explosive “HA!” uttered by Avery Brooks as the supervillain in the “Deep Space Nine” James Bond holodeck episode that is, to me, the pinnacle of acting

If I had to predict a high-impact story that is flying under the radar now but will play a big role in next year's major federal and state elections in the U.S., it'll be electricity prices and data centers. Easy-to-understand affordability and corruption story.

It is 1998. I am at the kitchen table writing Batman fanfic but I keep getting distracted by breaking news about a Bill Clinton sex scandal It is 2025. I am at the kitchen table writing a canonical Bat-book but I keep getting distracted by breaking news about a Bill Clinton sex scandal

the Sarah Vowell’s “Assassination Vacation” to Stephen Sondheim’s “Assassins” to “Death By Lightning” pipeline

he’s right and he should say it

This is a straightforward Republican attack line, what the fuck is he doing

I just don’t see how we can pretend even for a moment that anything involving our federal government is remotely normal when the president is covering up his involvement in a child sex trafficking ring. Like, what are we doing here

h/T to @baddestmamajama.bsky.social who did this and really made me laugh: Olivia Nuzzi bio Mad Libs GO

Temu Joan Didion

GO WORK FOR CANDACE SHE IS GREAT

one of the underlying factors in all the Epstein stuff is that his correspondents - even the ones who likely did not participate in abuse themselves - are completely incapable of imagining his victims as people. he is real to them, the girls aren't.

Wild to me how many headlines I saw this week celebrating the U.S. Supreme Court rejecting Kim Davis's bid to end marriage equality, when the Texas Supreme Court just decided that state court judges are free to refuse to perform weddings for same-sex couples from here on out

THEN YOU PURCHASE THEM AND DO NOT USE THE PROPERTY OF OTHERS

Oh wow @reuters.com got the photo here:

everything I know about the Nuzzi/RFK Jr affair I have learned against my will

everything obviously wrong with this is obvious, of course, but I’m also struck by like ….. the terror of the silence of your own mind?? humans have prayed, contemplated, meditated in the search for wisdom (whether inner or divine) for our whole history. an app can’t meditate FOR you!

i'm going to say something even more salty: we have a lot of writers who aren't doing this because they can't. And they can't because they aren't readers themselves. They view writing as just another form of content creation that they will convert into views and then into dollars.

I have GOT to know someone with a need for this

NEW: "Wicked: For Good" is a potent fascism allegory that speaks in the language of one of America's most successfully enduring pieces of mass culture. I interviewed Oscar winning costume designer Paul Tazewell about designing aesthetics of freedom for @thecut.com.

Also … we do get that Epstein was basically running a cult The Love bombing The making people feel special Collection of high status people The collection of KOMPROMAT The demonstration of what happens to disobedience Thats a cult

one of the complex legacies of Pope Francis is that he publicly said a lot of very ugly things about ‘gender ideology’, but had personal friendships with a lot of Catholic trans women who felt really supported by him. Leo welcoming them publicly feels like a promising sign. I am EYEING HIM CLOSELY

they had Dubai chocolates at Costco so I’m very excited to try one and participate in the cultural moment on a much shorter time delay than I usually catch up to things

CLAIM: The government is run by a secret society of pedophiles RATING: FALSE. This society is in no way a secret

Bingo

Daw - look at her! I'm so proud of Katie Wilson and everyone else who wouldn't just let the local Dem establishment/machine automatically give Bruce Harrell a second term. The desire for someone else was palpable and Katie was brave enough to step forward in a strong and focused way. Thank you!

Frankenstein (2025)

some career-changing personal news

when your example of 'barely legal' is just literally illegal

into every generation a chosen one is born

There is something starkly funny about associating "true" Americanism -- which is to say whiteness -- with a food famous for being most often prepared so it becomes too dry and tough. A country where all pleasure must be hollow and performative! (I love turkey when prepared well.)

What makes people furious is of course how the NYT uses its own wide discretion about what to pursue, what to beat the drum on, when to have qualms about running with something, and when to just put it out there. There’s the rules, and then there’s the rules about when you apply the rules.

never logging off this torment nexus

HOLY COW. Basically, as folks note in the comments. Halligan allowed the court reporter to believe they were done for the day but then called the Grand Jury back. There is no judge, etc at these. So very likely she reconvened with no court reporter. I can't see how charges stand if that's true.

look as someone who can be incapacitated for weeks by the fear that I put the wrong number of exclamation points into an email this has been a fascinating glimpse into a some brains that work extremely! differently! from! mine!

it's been hard to put this feeling into words, but we've spent the past couple of decades being lectured to and patronized by an elite class that spent its free time joshing with jeffrey epstein about his little sex abuse empire while lecturing us about how out of touch we are

you could not script a more perfect "who are white Republican women in a nutshell?" moment than Megyn Kelly - quite famously herself a victim of an older and more powerful man's sexual misconduct - doing the "TECHNICALLY he wasn't a 'pedophile' per se" routine with a perfectly straight face

Thinking today how homelessness runs through this story, through Epstein's (Virginia Guiffre had been homeless before meeting him), and even through Gaiman's (his nanny was sleeping on the beach when Palmer recruited her, and he used threats of homelessness against another victim).

TV conspiracies: we’ve hacked their computers but they’ve perfectly cleaned up the evidence! Real conspiracies: To: conspirator From: famous person Attachment: evidence.png

note that the US Catholic bishops just elected an absolute firebreather of a conservative to be their new head, so it's important to understand that immigration is very specifically NOT an area where the MAGA adult convert caucus (Vance, Kirk, etc.) and old-school Catholic conservatives align AT ALL

It all would have been much easier if, as would have happened if we were remotely a serious country, it all ended with the Access Hollywood interview.

Government should do things. "Things" includes actually taking white collar crime and sexual predation seriously.

I am willing to grant him “Ordinary People” and “Life Is Beautiful,” but I simply don’t believe “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “The Sound of Music” are real answers. that’s some focus group shit. you know it’s just because they wouldn’t let him say “Blues Brothers” or “The Fugitive” or something

If you haven’t read this book yet, please do. it’s so good. much has been written about a small percentage of Hollywood’s most visible monsters - mostly the ones who did straight-up crime - but Mo digs much deeper on so many people who never faced justice for the lives and careers they ruined

this is the most stoned thing I've ever read in my life