Americans bewildered as release of Epstein Files leads to resignations and criminal investigations in democracies around the world.

It's a lot easier for people to blame voters generally instead of just admitting the candidate they liked failed in the basic job of getting sufficient votes to win. It is the candidates' responsibility to get votes. If they lost, that's on them. Not their fault maybe but their responsibility.

1) It should be obvious, but it is the campaign's job to win the election. The campaign should have a plan to get enough votes to win. That's the whole job. I have seen union campaigns fail and it is never the workers fault. It's the organizer's fault.

Almost every complaint about what academics in the humanities study could be solved by quantities of money that are - in the scheme of these sorts of things - very small. In that context, what is telling is that the right, aware that the humanities were for sale, opted to destroy them instead.

There are two kinds of people in the world: People who suffered, and think because of that, everyone else should suffer the way they did because otherwise it's not fair. People who suffered, and think because of that, no one else should have to suffer either. Be the second.

The 2028 Dem platform needs to include "prosecute everyone who lied to Congress." Whatever fake "norms" there were against that are long gone, and Trump has routinely used and threatened it, including against the Federal Reserve. Real, meritorious prosecutions need to happen at scale.

Someone has sure already made this observation but the fact they can convert all those empty warehouses into prison camps means they could have converted them into housing, community centers, job training centers or, hell, libraries or schools all along. It’s always a matter of will not resources.

I wrote about something I've been thinking about for a long time. A kind of post-ironic collapse in our politics and culture where nihilism has become the lingua franca of the internet and beyond. It links Kirk, Clavicular, Epstein, memestock/coin stuff, mass shooters. I hope you'll read it.

“Stories are not universally bought and cannot be imposed on others at the point of a gun or by other forms of force. John Locke was not wrong when he argued that force can only grant you submission, not belief.” www.liberalcurrents.com/politics-is-...

I don’t really know what I expect in posting this, but maybe some people see it and can learn from it. I’ll call it “lessons from an unwilling immigration attorney.” 1/

I expect more content like this after universal basic income and now consider it the sticky toffee pudding argument for UBI.

I can't think of an attorney general ever showing this much open contempt for Congress before. Not only would most of them think this kind of conduct was beneath them, they'd have known that the Judiciary Committee chair, whatever the party, would never stand for clownish antics like this.

New in PN: The death of the CIA Factbook and Trump's war on usefulness "There’s nothing partisan about the CIA World Factbook, so it’s hard to imagine how allowing people to use it could impede the MAGA agenda. Unless, that is, you realize the Factbook had to go *precisely because it was useful.*"

A simple proposal for federal judges frustrated that Trump Regime isn’t freeing people in response to habeas corpus orders: Order that DHS bring each individual to court for their habeas hearing. If the judge grants habeas, the petitioner walks out free. Bonus: huge pre-hearing burden on feds.

what do you mean the leader of your country will sometimes "resign" just because there's "a scandal"

There is such a hunger in this nation for nobility Whole genres of fiction where the premise is "what if leaders were . . .good? Even just some of them?"

💯👇

both the president and literally everyone else understand any statement of a moral principle -- any moral principal -- as a denunciation

OK "god bless america" and then naming every country in the americas from south to north is absolute king shit

Remember when "America has many groups of people in it and that's good and makes us strong" was an uncontroversial - even cliched - viewpoint that was universally endorsed across the political spectrum? We can go back! We just have to get rid of the tiny handful of bitter, angry men in the way.

“God Bless America and a bunch of other countries” gonna bust some blood vessels

Still adding slop accounts daily. It's at around 6,750 accounts now. I make sure to click into each one and scroll a little to make sure they deserve to be listed in here. I have seen some... messed up stuff.

This Super Bowl Sunday, I’d like to introduce you all to the magical curse bowls used in Upper Mesopotamia and Syria in late antiquity. Written in Mandaic (as here) or Syriac Aramaic, they trap demons who trespass on a household by sucking them in with spiraling spells to the center of the bowl.

kind of funny that an olympian said they are here to represent "compassion, respect, and love for others" and some people automatically knew that was a statement against them

the fact that they saw Polanski as not being punished despite fleeing to France -- the fact that his social circle did not hold him accountable -- finally makes me understand why the elite media is insane about left activism at elite colleges: nothing anyone else can do to them matters.

photo from a friend at a lego convention right now, amazing 🌭

the jerk store called. they said theyre proud to still be serving ice agents

The GOP has offered nothing this century except for catastrophic wars. No healthcare plan; no re-industrialization. Now they're losing their only issue, immigration, as people see the violence and havoc that comes with mass deportations.

I think a *lot* about CS Lewis’s The Great Divorce Hell not as demonic torture but as a blandly miserable place full of petty miserable people who can’t stand each other

Incredible. They destroyed a great newspaper because they hated the people who actually paid for it and read it so much that they'd rather scrap the paper if they couldn't get Tucker Carlson's audience bsky.app/profile/maxt...

Take control of your mind. Start thinking for free! See and read the full comic on penny-arcade.com ! #AISlop #WriteForFree #ThinkForYourself #AIisAGrift #comedy #foryou

and this what Musk did with Twitter.. bought it to destroy it because it was of value to the people who used it. Now, twitter's useless.. a cesspool.. same w the post. So much money to burn--and protect their power and wealth.

contrast this with Walz in Minneapolis just narrating everything that’s happening

Don’t laugh, AUSAs only do this when they’re very distressed

This @bostonreview.bsky.social piece by @adambonica.bsky.social and @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social is an absolute must-read, as are many of the responses to it. Spread this one far and wide.

And be aware that the GOP and malign foreign elements will try to stir up these differences and make us fight and divide us.

People who are passionately committed to something enough to become activists will occasionally be messy and we need to figure out how to be OK with that.

Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow, calls for 6 more weeks of winter www.accuweather.com/en/weather-n...

to be fair, figuring out that these dudes had ex-wives is about as difficult as figuring out the target of Hamburglar's next heist

Sunday Dinner! Sage Sausage and Cannellini Bean Soup with shredded Parmesan, grilled bacon egg and cheddar sandwich on the side

No "if." The very concept is medieval. No kings, no sovereigns. It is as ludicrous a principle in the modern era as the the divine right of assistant managers.

Still can't believe the latest Epstein Files release just casually confirmed the anti-SJW movement was planned by pedophiles. "The entire reactionary anti-woke backlash was masterminded by child traffickers" is the kinda shit I'd say as hyperbolic agitprop, but it was true the whole time.

solemnly, awooga

i think this is exactly right. fascism is the Death Drive as ideology. it's why the catastrophic end of the Nazi Party does not deter people from worshipping Nazis. that the Nazis destroyed Germany along with the rest of Europe is part of the appeal.

Real talk, if Thomas Paine were alive today he'd currently be in prison for sending "The Case for Bombing Their Homes" to his 500,000 Substack readers and then minutes after hitting the publish button attempting to purchase 57 tons of fertilizer

The good news is that the Trump regime has an incredibly limited repertoire of responses (repression, attack, etc) which will increasingly cause backfire. The bad news is that Trump is stuck in a cycle of repression where increasing backfire causes more need to repress and attack.

Google "lemon party" for more information

we stand with don lemon and the entire lemon party

It's not what I would have predicted, but I guess it's to the barricades with Will Stancil and Don Lemon