Taps sign

To wit bsky.app/profile/arib...

Bro

I might be wrong but I think these folks might be underestimating how deeply offensive this is to a not insignificant subset of Republican state legislators, not just in Indiana but anywhere (including Idaho). These people have localized constituencies and are not (always) partisan automatons.

immigrants score the lowest on tests, but they also take all our jobs, while at the same time taking all the welfare and buying all the homes

no wait don't go

This is honestly a pretty Bluesky-specific problem. It is deathly serious in here at all times and I'll be honest, looking at Bluesky regularly is making me a worse, more hysterical writer, causing my non-Bluesky readers to tune out, and it's just making me an unhappier person.

What an embarrassment

Rick Scott (net worth: $200m) makes this same argument constantly. It really speaks to how their personal life experience informs their policymaking (see @bcburden.bsky.social's classic book). They — not the very few lower-income members — are the most threatened by legislation like this.

If you think your job is not to tell the truth but to "challenge your audience's assumptions" if the latter is in tension with the former then you're going to end up lying. bsky.app/profile/larr...

What time do you get in?

After you help your boss convert a doc to PDF

If I'm reading Georgia's election code correctly, a special election date would be set within 10 days of MTG's resignation, and the election would be held within a month of that announcement. So probably sometime in February — would love @the-downballot.com to set me straight if I'm wrong!

“a member of the DSA steering committee came up to me, big DSA member, strong DSA member, tears pouring from his eyes down onto his bright yellow zohran tote bag, and he said to me, he said, sir, labor is the source of all value. and i said, its so true. solidarity, comrade”

A total joy to see my @slate.com Political Gabfest pals (who are not literally my pals but I feel like they are after over a decade in my ears) on video for the first time! (@jdickerson.bsky.social @davidplotz.bsky.social)

In case you were wondering what YouTube recommends first when you turn off your watch history/subscriptions and start from scratch

Let's go let's go let's go

mr president sir theres a story coming about how you intervened to help a sex criminal. no sir, not that sex criminal you helped….no not that one either…sir, please stop guessing sex criminals that you helped. ill give you a hint sir, hes a trafficker. no sir, not that trafficker a different one

If you need a break from, you know *gestures wildly*, I wrote about the Edmund Fitzgerald because I felt like it.

I don't have a lot of (read: any) sympathy for congressional Republicans on this (or any) issue, but how annoying must it be to just be jerked around by the White House like this, to have to go back and pretend like you thought it was a great idea all along after first having to pretend it wasn't.

"So really it's a game of both luck and strategy, and the object (as you may have guessed, your Holiness) is to accumulate cones"

The number of things this skeet could apply to is astronomical

“Somehow, Woody returned.”

I know it's a boring observation at this point, but it just deserves a mention that Republicans are losing their minds over a map that gives Democrats just 25% of the state's delegation (instead of 0%) in a state in which Kamala Harris won 38% of the vote.

Adelita Grijalva is finally getting sworn into the House today. Her 50-day stint as a congressperson-elect is by far the longest this century.

Bluesky rn

"Unwilling to assert itself as an equal branch of government," Congress has been "content to hand over many of its core constitutional powers to the executive branch...Yet Congress’ path to irrelevance...did not begin during the shutdown" writes @charlesrhunt.com theconversation.com/the-shutdown...

I use Claude (an AI) to scan my posts for spelling and grammar errors. On the most recent post (about the East Wing, link below), I got a really amazing addendum. www.pbump.net/o/yes-most-a...

Has anyone actually written something on the apparently inability of the reactionary mind to grasp the basic themes and even overt text of Tolkien? Like at some point Gandalf turns directly to camera and says “the Men of Gondor sure are insufficient to this task, we need the hobbits to do it”

Man where my muddle buds at

I've listened to John for 15+ years on the Slate Political Gabfest. He's one of those figures where if you've driven someone as even-keeled, straight-shooting and generous-hearted as he from your network, it's worth asking yourself just how far from the path you've strayed.

I think the Reagan ad is most effective not by the topic but by reminding everyone that presidents don't have to sound like insane morons.

He’s designing the ballroom with AI isn’t he www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

no

“oh so you think the east wing being demolished is worse than-“ it’s a synecdoche, man. a visual metaphor. there’s a reason the aliens in Independence Day don’t aim a huge laser at SNAP benefits

Sliwa is a real one

I saw like 3 different signs on Saturday that said "The only King I worship is Jesus"

#NoKings in Boise, featuring a real-life, Li'l Sebastian-style mini horse

Ah yes the choices, and how vexing they are

Working unbelievably hard over here

just walking into the ocean and never coming back

Also, Angus King is 81 and will be 86 in 2030, when his seat comes up next. Assuming he retires, and that Mills keeps her "one term" promise, there will be plenty of upcoming Senate opportunities in the future for other candidates. That said, of course they should keep running now if they want to!

Not for nothing, but I've rarely heard Gov. Mills speak, and boy does she publicly present as a very different kind of "77 years old" than (for example) Trump or Biden or McConnell did, and at least for campaign purposes that absolutely matters.

Maga patriotism is just narcissism, America to them is what they see in the mirror not what it actually is—they’re incapable of loving that country bsky.app/profile/atru...

Gob is not on board

It was a rare moment of joy in this interminable year to get to revisit Marco Rubio's Tiny Watergate with @jaclynkettler.bsky.social.

I know there's a lot going on right now and this is a small thing, but can we please scrub "trade barbs" as an idiom from all future political news coverage? Or alternatively, we start applying it to all high-profile white-knuckle conflicts, e.g. "Kendrick and Drake traded barbs"

There’s an essay to be written about how maga patriotism is just shitty fandom. Anyone who follows sports knows fans like this, it’s always the ref’s fault, the other team doesn’t exist, there’s some plot/player/coach holding the team back otherwise they’d always win easy bsky.app/profile/atru...

Truly the most exquisite losers ever to grace the earth