it's genuinely hard to express how bad jim crow was. however bad you think it was it was worse.

Furious that I accidentally bought Weight Watchers tortillas, so occasional reminder that Weight Watchers (or whatever they call themselves now) works by having people pay to formalize and entrench disordered eating behaviour. Imagine if AA had weekly meetings to make sure everyone had had a drink.

It's almost like cancel culture was a lie! [AlwaysHasBeen.jpg]

Daniel tiger "I'm sorry" is a start next "how can I help" we can not let these people off at I'm Sorry

This is perfect.

Trump's loss in court over the legality of his tariffs is good, but did not and cannot fix the real damage. That damage is long term and needs more than court decisions, or even elections, to fix it.

Trump's loss in court over the legality of his tariffs is good, but did not and cannot fix the real damage. That damage is long term and needs more than court decisions, or even elections, to fix it.

I’m all for welcoming converts. But Rufo isn’t a slow learner. He’s an architect of this hellscape. If he’s truly repentant, he needs some time in the wilderness. And maybe — *maybe* — after that . . . he can go fuck himself.

it is really bad how many people across the political spectrum on social media seem to discuss things in terms of discredited genetic pseudoscience when it comes to identity

Google: Get excited! Adding Gemini to everything! Get ready for your Assistant to solve more and more complicated problems for you! Also Google: We will open a Drive file using the Google account associated with the email the Drive file was opened from 10% of the time, if you're polite.

Proudly annoying, uptight, moralistic, and uncool, since 1867.

Lots of people representing lots of nations on Parliament Hill on the anniversary of Russia's full scale invasion. Ukraine continues to fight for their sovereignty and for democracy. Слава Україні! #Ukraine #StandWithUkraine #Canada #cdnpoli

"Long before Lord Acton popularized the idea that ‘‘power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,’’ Benjamin Constant warned his fellow Europeans that unlimited power had the tendency to distort human judgment." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-logic-of...

My pre-existing mental/emotional state was not sufficiently bolstered for me to watch this continuously.

Plurality of the sentiment I see from American Olympic followers this year: boy it sure is nice to have one thing that's not political. Go sports! Plurality I see from Canadian Olympic followers: boy, I cannot wait for the USA to come to its senses so the Olympics to go back to being about sports.

Slightly buried in this excellent piece is the fact that Goodwin shares Stephen Miller’s love of the US 1924 Immigration Act - the one admired by Hitler and the reason why so many Jewish refugees (including Anne Frank’s family) were turned away www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

🇨🇦

Politicians saying “Judeo-Christian” is like bridge and tunnel types saying they're from "New York-New Jersey." If you’re using it, we know you actually just mean the second thing

In other words, the standard Trump template: 1. Upend status quo 2. Create crisis 3. Make “deal” that is, at best, the same as the previous status quo 4. Claim victory Wash, rinse, repeat.

[nods in Montesquieu and Shklar]

🧵

Paul Wells with the numbers on Danielle Smith's claims to need referendum questions to deal with the problem of Trudeau era immigration. Harper era immigration was about 92% the number that came in under Trudeau.

Furious Minds was selected as the book of the week by @theobserveruk.bsky.social in the UK. Kenan Malik reviews and calls it “an outstanding intellectual history of the present.” observer.co.uk/culture/book...

I updated my column with some new details — Trump's rambling press conference, the inflationary pressures of his previous tariffs, and how his Commerce Secretary may stand to get rich off today's SCOTUS decision. www.thestar.com/opinion/star...

Lots of new followers this week, so hi! Here's the weekly newsletter I edit, out on Fridays with a bunch of reading recommendations gleaned from @seabirdreader.bsky.social. Check it out and subscribe if you like. (It's free!) seabird.kit.com/posts/tiding...

Folks the exvangelical ex-homeschoolers should always be heeded

Trade war is over if you want it

Yes. Keep hammering on the connection between detention conditions and people giving up their cases. documentedny.com/2026/01/30/t...

You can pretend these people are fringe and irrelevant all you want, but Doug Wilson led worship at the Pentagon today bsky.app/profile/bria...

Janet Bufton @janetbufton.ca reminded me of the time IN GODDAMNED 2008 when I said these things: youtu.be/q0nnLGbniZ4?... No wonder I am so tired of saying them and have so little appetite for saying them yet again.

Two companion suggestions to today's piece by @aselrod.bsky.social immediately come to mind. The first is this, by @jkuznicki.bsky.social. I come back to insights from this all the time.

25 years ago, a bunch of libertarians moved to NH to take over state government. Jason Osborne, one of those "Free Staters," has since risen to be majority leader in the state house. How is he fighting for "liberty?" By helping Stephen Miller build a 324,000-foot prison for migrants and refugees.

Violent criminals are taking all the jobs.

The late great Steve Horwitz, less than a month into the first Trump presidency, already fully understanding the shape of things:

The world's richest man is broadcasting eliminationist rhetoric about a tiny, vulnerable minority, and virtually no one is going to treat it as a scandal. It's just normal now.

This is a good response to last week's NYT column on libertarians and Trump.

This is both cause and reflection of the MAGA obsession with ancestry and settlement (as a good thing). The Eric Schmitt claim (link in reply) that American “pioneers” were flighting not for a “proposition” but for a “homeland for themselves and their descendants” is actually logical—just evil.

Outside of a classroom “Western Civilization” is always a giant fucking red flag.

First date: 28 Days Later in theatres, then listening over coffee at Second Cup to a hypothetical plan for a tea cozy shop he'd run just to be funny if he had all the money in the world.

Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand… Notice who’s missing when she mentions whom Canada has historically relied on to defend it? www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/f9f7c04...

here's the thing: What these detransitioners are experiencing is *gender dysphoria*. They need therapy, not a fucking political platform. What this person experiences now, being in a body that doesn't suit them, is what every single trans person goes through when they experience puberty.

really interesting to me how many professional political commentators have basically retconned the draconian immigration enforcement policies of Obama and Biden out of existence and have completely swallowed the right wing narrative of immigration enforcement

A lot of median voter dunking but isn't this just habitually Republican voter?

"For all of them, leaving the U.S. wasn’t better than staying in the U.S., but it was better than remaining detained here."

TV. They've just reinvented TV.

The Bell Curve to Pedophile Island pipeline isn't the most obvious thing but neither is it totally surprising.

The problem I have with "see, we said DHS was a bad idea" and the like is not that it's wrong. The status quo did have lots of problems and weakened guardrails, of course. But it's absurd to minimize, especially now, how radically different Trump is as a fundamentally lawless anti-constitutionalist.

It's also pretty spurious to claim vindication on Trump when your own argument is mostly that he's just more of the same and a difference only in degree and not in kind, which is not a perspective that's actually been vindicated. It's been proven utterly wrong.

Unlike Radley and Shikha I was never at Reason (I only wrote a piece for them once). But having been in the similar orbit at Cato: some libertarians have been good on strongly opposing Trump as a uniquely dire threat, but it was firmly a minority. To claim vindication writ large is... unmerited.

Some admirable exceptions obviously (Andy among them), but a full accounting of the libertarian movement in the Trump era has to acknowledge it's a story of a team with all the best coaches striking out in tee-ball.