This is why I'm a little less scared than I might otherwise be of this development. Sure, elite discourse shapes how events are perceived across media, but if it's this dorky, it'll become a punchline before it can do any damage. Bari is a world-class asshole, but much more grifter than mastermind.

Can some Democrat please make an issue of this? Without talking about healthcare or using the phrase "the authoritarian playbook?" Like, just call it out as unpatriotic and a danger to our national security?

Attempts to explain American society without centering racism always end up convoluted and weird. Attempts to explain American society as ONLY racism are surprisingly accurate.

Make a movie better by adding John Carpenter's to the title: John Carpenter’s My Dinner With Andre

"we cant uninvent ai" no we cant but we couldnt uninvent nfts either and nobody gives a fuck about them anymore

I know there's an argument for giving the baby his bottle here, but I will be profoundly pissed off if they decide to placate Trump. He deserves frustration. He deserves to never achieve this meaningless accolade.

I don't want to live with these people, I want to drive them out of public life.

I see a lot of people saying that a person charged with a crime deserves the chance to prove their innocence. Please stop doing this because you have it backwards and this is really important. It is ALWAYS the government's burden to prove a person guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Our favorite pasttime is transing, and our second favorite is sneaking the Muslim Bible into school libraries

Gut yontiff, time for my annual struggle to not say the phrase "sukkah mc's" in front of long-suffering family and friends.

Basically, Esoteric Obamaism is buying votes from the herrenvolk with social programs while stiffing everyone else and hoping it will all just work itself out in the end without anyone having to do the hard part because you deluded yourself into thinking you have reached consensus with them

"You want fries with that?"

It’s essential that you find common ground with Trump supporters. For instance, you know that you have many flaws, and they believe you are less than human. Work with that. —Ezra Klein, tomorrow in the New York Times

I am once again calling on state governors to mobilize their National Guards to escort congressmembers into ICE facilities so they can DO THEIR LAWFULLY ASSIGNED FEDERAL DUTIES

This is a bit frivolous but the expression on this man's face is that of someone apprehended at an airport in a nation with draconian laws with 2 kilograms of hashish strapped to his abdomen.

it's weird that a clown car full of freaks like stephen miller and jd vance feeding the populace a strict diet of state violence, austerity, and cringe are not getting more popular. bread and circus but there's no bread and the circus is one sclerotic monkey vomiting on his balls

I am sincerely curious if anyone has bothered to tell Trump that we're about to invade Venezuela.

Honestly it makes me sad that Charlie Kirk isn't here to enjoy this. Can you imagine how into it be would have been?

If you'll permit a fleeting moment of odd grace, let's note that The Bulwark, a project of self-identified conservatives, in an article by Bill Kristol, sends its readers to encounter Eco's antifascist essay at The Anarchist Library. This is a popular front. Ragtag, but real. And quietly serious.

This is "The Stepford Wives" for pedophile libertarians.

And this is what makes it hard to mouth bromides about Charlie Kirk, or take seriously the mewlings of Ezra Klein. These people aren't evil, because people aren't good or evil, but they are doing evil. Respect for their humanity *requires* denouncing the evil they do and demanding that they atone.

Why are more people not talking about Hegseth firing the head of the Coast Guard so that Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski could live in the house set aside for her by law, rent-free on the taxpayers' dime.

Pharmacists who recommend homeopathy should be willing to accept as payment envelopes that once contained money. - @davidjuurlink.bsky.social

In a weird way, LLMs are truth-seeking phenomena, if we concede verisimilitude as a form of truth. Conservatism as currently understood is a truth-neutral phenomenon, beginning with ideology and selecting which facts to cite, avoid or invert so as to reify that ideology.

And they've become quite comfortable making this argument out loud, with Vance especially reaching for the bathetic characterization of white people being valorized by the wars their ancestors fought. It's an ideology of aggrieved mediocrities and losers.

Finally listening to the Klein-Coates discussion, and something really jumped out at me - Klein fears we're entering a period of memetic political violence, and cites the attacks on Josh Shapiro, Paul Pelosi and Trump himself. But he notably doesn't mention 1/6, nor the lawless predations of ICE.

The Republican deal for the working class is, "I'm going to kick you in the shins, but I'm gonna kick that guy in the balls and you'll get to laugh at him," and it's disturbing how effective that's been.

Look at every beloved American story - the climactic moment is always the nerdy guy punching the bully in the mouth. To pull this out a bit, what the Democratic party actually has going for it now is that it looks pathetic. So we're extra ready to cheer if/when it decides to punch the bully.

CBS still managing to cover actual news before it gets turned into a zombie by Bari Weiss. Sad to watch a great institution destroy itself on purpose.

you know what is totally cool to say? It is totally cool to say that every last confederate officer should have been hanged and every last plantation owner dispossessed and hanged after the civil war. It is totally cool to say it. it has no correlation with how you feel about politics in the present

Most of the power authoritarians have is freely given. We should not comply with them in advance. Trump is far weaker than he looks. So is the GOP. We should draw them out, drain them at every opportunity, and fight for people’s wellbeing at every turn. We have been sent here to fight for people.

It's funny reading (the actual) Patton's speech to the Third Army and seeing what a piss-poor copy of it Hegseth's dimwitted display was. He's trying so hard to hit the note of fierce vulgarity, and falling short, because Patton, under his bluster, cared with his soul about winning the war.

And this is why we're going to be okay. Because more people look at this with admiration for this man's guts and intellect than look at this morning's fetid clown show with admiration for their raw power. The road is long and bad, and we're not far down it yet, but it ends with victory.

I wonder if General Milley might have anything to say about today's little shindig.

On the one hand, this is unspeakably stupid and offensive to every decent American, living or dead. On the other hand, this is not exactly a consolidation of power.

It's not great that we don't know which insane video this is referencing.

And this is a big part of how we landed here - stopgap solutions instead of difficult-to-pass laws, selective enforcement, and acceptance of pervasive low-level injustice as the price of living in a prosperous society. It's time to change all of that.

The AfD qualified for three mayoral run-offs in cities in North Rhine-Westphalia today, and lost all by big margins. The lesson is not that we have overdone the AfD's rise, but that we do perhaps sometimes underestimate the counter-mobilisation effects - including in east Germany, incidentally.

Think it’s very important we situate their claims to desire a “post-racial” nation within their demands to eliminate any policy which would actually address the material effects of racism. They’re wanted a code of silence around systemic racism, because Obama won an election.

Please God somebody get this dude out of leadership, this is unacceptable.

I don't want to learn to live with these people. I want to build a society where these people are afraid to leave their houses.

My parents briefly canceled cable when I was 3 because I was too into Twisted Sister's video for "We're Not Gonna Take It."

Jesus it's brutal to discover someone so brilliant because everyone is posting their stuff because they just passed.

Trump: everyone in the US died from drugs last week Reporter: [nods] Trump: so we must murder on the high seas Reporter: [nods] Trump: I caught Trix rabbit once Reporter: [nods] Trump: the cock on that bunny Reporter: [nods] Trump: bigger than you think Headline: Trump Policy Seeks To Save Lives

The United States Secretary of Defense (aka, Major Pete) is either (a) openly celebrating Nazis and planning to destroy the US government from within or (b) a punk-assed internet troll trying to look tough to offset his gross deficiencies. Neither is good.

People who drive with their brights on in city traffic. Straight to jail.

And this is the problem at the heart of the centrist demand that we all "learn to live together" - when one side embraces bullshit, suddenly there are "political" questions with empirically verifiable answers. And nothing good can come from giving equal weight to known truths and known lies.

... which has the effect of suggesting to less-engaged members of the public that Ds and Rs agree that the ICE shooting matters more than the CDC shooting. Which benefits the GOP yet again.