Yeah this one's played out. Slightly modified "Empire does empire things but also sometimes good and questions abound of practices before empire" has a lot of runway though, imo.

People are, in my opinion, very sensibly scared. Millennials as a core part of the progressive movement are having kids and thinking of consequences and, yes, getting silly in their reactions. Noam isn't doing this but to others: please stop scolding and start inspiring. People just need leadership.

This is the whole thing right here. All these tired fights about whether Dems should moderate are ways of dancing around the real problem, which is the that political parties no longer have any mass constituency.

Again, the casing of the bullet apparently utilized said "Notices Bulges." Textual analysis needs to be holistic here. We don't know anything except for the irony poisoning.

I'm not sure what Will is trying to get at but for all involved: assigning coherent political ideology to Groypers just isn't possible. It begins with irony and anger and turmoil, looks for a framework within which it can enact, and then adopts that framework with a smirk. It's terrifying.

The harm caused by general assumptions that ICE would stop targeting people as the National Guard is moved to and fro is doing severe damage to people's understanding of the situation.

From ‘The Onion’ Editorial Board: It Is Journalism’s Sacred Duty To Endanger The Lives Of As Many Trans People As Possible https://theonion.com/it-is-journalism-s-sacred-duty-to-endanger-the-lives-of-1850126997/

the thing to understand is that for many people the violence of order maintenance is simply not seen as violence in the first place

Obviously, there's bigger news happening right now, but Senate Republicans just voted against releasing the Epstein files. Every Democrat voted to release them. Susan Collins was the deciding vote to protect Trump and others named in the files.

Stronger case to be made from excluding people fundamentally opposed to pluralistic society, really. Felons, in most idealistic reading, failed the social contract. MAGA voters believe many of us just shouldn't be included in the social contract.

Yes! This is why I also continue to advocate for making ideas worthy of being ostracized. If someone's ideas exclude the existence of the majority, are outright odious, they don't deserve a place in our public forum. Exclusion and social pressures are tactics.

For folks not in DC: - There are full-on police checkpoints most nights - Gangs of 30+ federal agents roam DC - National Guard folks w/ guns patrolling a Harris Teeter - Every day, multiple friends see ICE kidnapping ppl - Daycares are scared to have kids go on walks due to ICE

Scorsese is an easy mark for consideration of misogyny looking at his filmography uncritically. It's a bunch of gangsters and sociopaths. Then you realize that every story is about their downfall due to toxically masculine traits.

Personally biased but I think this is why you need more southern progressives not in the grip of DSA involved in being the face. Being a progressive in any not-deep blue state means talking to real people and convincing them, which is apparently hard for hard online left.

Like seriously I give it a year before they decide they don't need any dog whistles and they're just spewing 1930s Nazi propaganda while MSM uses phrases like "reminiscent of" and "experts say."

Armed soldiers patrolling the nation's capitol is a show of force indistinguishable from the most blatant fascist regimes in history.

I'll add to this as a cis-man. One of the best outcomes for trans- people worldwide would be Rowling's money disappearing and her shutting up, and at this point that only happens if ill befalls her.

You don't "reach across the aisle" to these people. You defeat them and make it clear that anyone enabling fascism in this nation are the ones who are actually unwelcome. Pluralism must be protected by ostracizing the intolerant.

Once you understand that a driving principle of American politics is there is no such thing as a compassionate solution that's cheap enough or a cruel solution that's too expensive, a lot of things click into place.

Scream and other slashers should be set in countries with much more strict gun laws bc I promise you in the US there's a lot more households with guns than you think and it's not even along any demographic lines. It really pushes my suspension of disbelief.

Going take a unique angle on this: animated family films tend to be incredibly tightly written. Iron Giant, early Pixar. Watch Into the Spiderverse and I'm constantly astonished at the symmetry of the emotional beats and themes. This is why it's frustrating when they let family movies be bad.

Really, really grim that the only rebuttal I can think of to this is, "Yeah, but they're bad at it."

Tarantino write large, but really Pulp Fiction, a story in which many characters recognize their intended fate within the pages of pulp and either a) resist and change or b) die. Tarantino makes an oddly compassionate movie out of farce.

This is the problem with people getting mad at the "Wait, can he do that?" question. It's OK to ask that and then... just wait. Tyranny requires a lot of competence and constant attention!

I teach high school. The problem transcends gender; the amount of grifting aimed at teens who are naturally insecure about their place in the world is damaging everyone, and they both require understanding and yes, good treatment. You do have to replace the hook-up artist ethos with something better

I kinda alluded to this in a QT yesterday but this, of course, requires Doing Things and Dems have been working hard for decades to condition an electorate into thinking that Nothing Can Be Done. Ever.

I personally nominate the video game Prince of Persia: Warrior Within as the most culturally emblematic piece of art from 2004. The pervasiveness of post-grunge emo was wild.

There's been hot takes on this account but this isn't one of them. If you think about tax exemption for churches for like more than 5 seconds it becomes laughable we allow churches to get away with it.

Whatever the hell this was in Heat.

Imagine writing an article in which you admit to being unfunny. Truly embarrassing.

I think arguments like this are always funny considering one of Superman's most iconic moments is being beaten to death.

Compassion and kindness are enemies of the American Right now, sometimes explicitly. Any film celebrating those values will be bashed. Goodness is a threat.

i’m not advocating for violence but it strikes me as uncontroversially true that the world would be a better place if that bullet hadn’t missed a year ago. or if covid had gotten him back at the end of his first term!

Big scoop from @mikaelthalen.bsky.social: he built a Stingray detector and found evidence of ICE conducting cell phone surveillance at a protest: san.com/cc/exclusive...

You should continue to shame any and all people and organizations you know of for maintaining a presence on that site. You can find infinite reasons to sit at the table, but they need to know sitting at the table is enabling.

I think Zohran is an early sign a big part of the reaction to Trump 1 was “we need to go back to normal, we gotta nominate the most conventional people imaginable” which is how we got Biden that comprehensively failed, and a lot more people are open to real alternatives this time around

The 18th and 19th centuries were a turning point in how people conceptualized the rights of each person and the purpose of government. There's no other document from this time that synthesizes these ideas more comprehensively. The gut reaction about this being America-centric is wrong in this case.

Our opponents do not love America. They do not love America. They love themselves, America is just the place they happen to be. They do not believe in America. America is just the name of the place they happen to be. They cannot deny me America because it was never theirs to deny.

It is vitally important for Democrats to reclaim patriotism and its meaning. The egoism of the right is its weakness and incompatible with the true ideals of our nation, a dream of a place where everyone can be accepted, improve and contribute to a community that values them.

Conclusions that might take me several days to come to after an event, Bouie typically does in minutes or hours and articulates them better in just social media posts alone, not even his professional writing.

Michael is correct, but the reason this is surfacing right now is today feels like a culmination of all the warnings that were called alarmism by centrists. "Fuck Republicans" is always present, but people are rightfully grieving and lashing out.

so "alligator alcatraz" has already flooded with standing water over electrical cables after a rainstorm of 1.5 inches eh

Slots for August open!!!!

They of course did not do this because that would challenge Trump, their liege lord. There is not a world in which this current court would have taken so logical an action.

Absolutely incredible turnout for Budapest Pride! So proud of all the organizers, including some old friends, who estimate hundreds of thousands— major embarrassment to Orban

It is *really* important to understand that this is a desirable outcome under the ethos of Project 2025. They are OK with colleges "accidentally" losing grants. They would take all of them if they could.

Pack the Court. If we are serious about the defense of these rights, we pack the Court. Simple as that. They pack it back, we pack it again. We do it until we reach consensus on long-term reforms to the judiciary. I don't know what it's going to take for people to get it.

"Expand the Court" is the moderate opinion.

Look, this is a very good point but this still feeds the MAGA conservative agenda; they want to make public education untenable. "It looks like people disagree too much on religious grounds. Let's turn to vouchers and charters to fix this." That's the goal.