Another win for "Fuck you. Make me."

Thanks, Boss: “We’re desperately in need of an effective alternative party, or for the Democratic Party to find someone who can speak to the majority of the nation. There is a problem with the language that they’re using and the way they’re trying to reach people.”

“.. I absolutely couldn’t care less what he [Trump] thinks about me … He’s the living personification of what the 25th Amendment and impeachment were for. If Congress had any guts, he’d be consigned to the trash heap of history.” @time.com time.com/7319963/bruc...

gotta remember that no one likes this shit

Step 1: Start a dumbass trade war with China (and Brazil). Step 2: Lose Chinese soybean market to Brazil. Step 3: Bail out your nutty right wing buddy Javier Milei. Step 4: Lose soybean market to Milei, too. Steph 5: Make taxpayers pay for your stupidity.

So from our perspective, are there a lot of challenges to digging out of this mess and getting our democracy running effectively again? Yes. Even if we get these guys out, they'll have broken a lot. But they're even further away from victory. They are not inevitable, do not make them so.

What the MAGA guys should be doing, if they're smart - many are not - is checking the exits, making sure to avoid doing anything that might land them in jail in a post-MAGA world and going either right-wing grifter or chameleon 'Nikki Haley republican' pretending they never believed in this.

Finally, I'm sure someone is screaming 'don't give them ideas!' or something and..look, if anyone in the MAGA establishment is reading this, here is my advice: Bail. This isn't working out. Your big guy is billion years old and sundowning and Little JD ain't got it. This isn't going to work. Bail.

Do not be their sword.

The only way these fascist chucklefucks make this work is by succeeding in manufacturing the *appearance* of inevitability, because they *do not* have the force or skill to win a straight fight. In short, the only weapon that can deliver them victory is you: the fool doomer whose nihilism is poison

This brought out a bunch of doomers "...but! but!"-ing with all of the obstacles facing a pro-democracy movement in the USA, but I think it is worth thinking about the question from the other side. What does MAGA need to do to do (not how, just what) to hold power long-term? Are they doing it?

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

trump wasn't joking.

This administration very literally favors Secret Police.

Reminder: Trump ALREADY did hire a prosecutor specifically to bring frivolous prosecutions, with John Durham. We LITERALLY now know that Durham learned 2 years in that he was chasing Russian disinformation.

Chotiner: and then you didn't send him to jail, and he ran again? USA: I mean yes but we do have pretty robust institutions, you know, the supreme court and so on Chotiner: I see. So they were able to stop the worst of it? USA: Well now it um the thing you have to understand

The ONLY reason any of this works is because everyone is handing victory to them. The media reprints their lies credulously, the universities let them set curriculum, SCOTUS and congress have utterly abdicated their oversight duties.

The laziness of it is so real. It's not just that they didn't do the groundwork on manpower, it's that they don't do any work at all. It relates to Trump's Power of Positive Thinking stuff, they think they can just wishfully speak their power consolidation into being.

That is a very smart rec, @reactorsff.bsky.social ! New excerpt just dropped! Catch some thieves before they escape and launch next week!

Creepy history fact: Juan Peron's wives (his first and his second the famed Eva) both died of cervical cancer and some scientists think he was a carrier.

this is one where I disagree very strongly with Mehdi. we need to start fighting for immigrants and explaining that the immigration system is set up to trap them and harm them. we shouldn't be playing gotcha with it or leveraging it against partisan opponents like it's a game. 1

Protests matter, your dollars matter, everything matters, resistance works.

"Once Upon a Time" by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams. One of the most beautiful songs in the musical theater canon sung by the great Kurt Ollmann www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBI2...

following charlie kirk's death and the right's open embrace of cancel culture, the gamergate 2.0 mob has kicked its efforts into overdrive, targeting dozens of devs and personalities. this has resulted in an avalanche of harassment, but relatively few firings compared to the 100+ in other sectors

The right always exaggerated cancel culture on the left, but it’s pretty clear they were always projecting their wish to do the same. Sadder is that many on the Left had warned that the Right would eventually be better at it. And now they are. bsky.app/profile/techmeme.com...

Breaking: Trump's US envoy to Syria (also one of his few personal friends) apparently wholly unaware of what "Islam" means. This is stunning and in any normal world would be career ending for any diplomat in the Middle East.

Theory: None of the people Chotiner interviews has ever experienced a consequence in their adult life so they don't have the awareness to turn his interview requests down

when your interview did not go great

If you’re a climate/energy person, I will take your portrait pro bono.

He agrees with whoever he talked to last. At least for a few minutes before he reverts to previous biases.

kids, remember that you're still on the record until the interviewer agrees that you are off the record

Isaac Chotiner has invited me to sample some delicious Amontillado wine and I don’t know guys but I think I’m going to come out of this interview seeming like *quite* the wine expert

KALIVAS! OR, ANOTHER TEMPEST by Nick Mamatas In this science-fiction revision of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Kalivas lives in solitude on the Farallon Islands, off the San Francisco Bay, until the Master and his daughter M colonize his lonely realm. Kalivas, the last free-range human, is pressed…

isaac fuckin chotiner: Well, the next time someone brings up a terrible anecdote about Cambodia or Vietnam, I will definitely drop the Star Wars story [about Kissinger coming to your book party] to show that people have two sides interviewee: yeah. he’s my bud!

意味飽和! Semantic satiation! That thing where a word loses all meaning in repetition has a name. #TranslationIsLearning

What the FUCK

Donald Trump Wants a $5 Billion Premium for Confessing His Weaponization Claims Are Bullshit www.emptywheel.net/2025/09/23/d...

I don't know even what to say about the beauty of a simple free breakfast in lunch for all. My kid gets to kindergarten, and the teacher says, "OK, who's hungry?" Great for every kid in the room, especially those whose parents could afford it anyway. Every kid has fuel. Who wouldn't want that?

To anyone who believes the London nonsense the orange toddler and his friends like to pedal: have you *seen* the cost of housing in London? Yes, even in the boroughs you think are ‘no go zones’. Do you imagine anyone would pay that if it was the kind of hell hole they’re describing?

A new study, based on a survey of 1,150 workers suggests that the injection of AI tools into the workplace has not resulted in a magic productivity boom and instead increased the amount of time that workers say they spend fixing low-quality AI-generated “work.” 🔗 www.404media.co/ai-workslop-...

it's so nice to see what a functioning judiciary looks like "A transgender woman in the East African nation of Kenya has won a landmark court victory in which the judge not only found in her favour, but ordered the government to pass a Transgender Protection Rights Act." fuck yeah

Happy #Bisibility Day to those who celebrate. 💙💜❤️

Hey folks - I have a newsletter out with a writing update and an essay about Charleston, Ryan Coogler's SINNERS, and loving America while not being in love with America. You can check it out here: bit.ly/47YotPU

You know how I have been posting about how you should pre-order my new novel, KALIVAS! OR, ANOTHER TEMPEST? Well, it's out today, so you'll have to just regular order it or buy it in person at a store.

The Trump ethos is very much ”foreigners suck, go USA,“ so proTrump people will cheer any sneering at or insulting of foreigners, whether they are allies or not, because they have such a juvenile concept of the world.

TELL ME YOUR 🏳️‍🌈QUEER SHORT SFF🏳️‍🌈 OUT IN AUGUST 2025!!! Originals only pls, up to novella in length, indie okay. Just reply with the author, title, and a link to read and/or buy and I'll get them on the list. Here's July's list for context & more info: www.patreon.com/posts/some-q...

I was told foreign aid is bad

This is an unwelcome but unsurprising development.

Joe Manchin singlehandedly blew up Biden's welfare agenda and caused child poverty to ~double. Andrew Cuomo literally conspired with Republicans to give them control of the state Senate

for all the flapping about Uncommitted during the primary it has always been the Blue Dog centrist types who are most disloyal to the party