Dazzle your friends this weekend with fabulous tidbits from @jesszafarris.bsky.social! This week, we ran through some of our favorite stories from her new book, "Useless Etymology." 🎧 APPLE PODCASTS: bit.ly/48Ipf3S 🎧 SPOTIFY: bit.ly/3W8pWw5 Fun facts in the thread →

The rule of law means that civilians who commit crimes are prosecuted in courts of law with benefit of due process. Extrajudicial executions in international waters are an affront to our Constitution and the law of nations. It isn’t national defense. It’s murder.

Just as they were under Biden, and Trump I, and Obama, and Bush II, military strikes without congressional authorization are illegal.

Don’t believe anyone who tells you that intelligence shows anything “without a doubt,” but even if the intelligence was water-tight, this strike was still murder. No law permits the deliberate, premeditated killing of civilians.

i did not say i "fear" the reaper dude, i just said i think it's annoying that there's a reaper

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I’m just not sure that ‘get rid of discounted groceries for military veterans’ is going to poll as well as they think it’s going to.

Happy birthday to Charlie Brown, first published OTD in 1950.

But Justice Kavanaugh promised me this wouldn’t happen???

For the first two or three days, baby chickens don't need to eat after hatching 'cause they get their nutrients from the yolk reserve. Sometimes the yolk reserve weighs them down so much they can't walk, so now I have to babysit this fat ass until he loses weight.

I no longer view SCOTUS as engaged in, to borrow ACB's words, "a legal enterprise." I think they're an ends-based, wholly political branch So I would expect protections to be scaled back when it would help Ds (e.g. defamation) and expanded when it would help Rs (religion) bsky.app/profile/issu...

What better way to observe Yom Kippur than by lighting the chanukkiah and eating some apples and honey.

I made a joke to a boss like 15 years ago that I’d do well under a fascist regime because I like rules and look good in brown. She thought it was funny enough to email it to all her friends. I think about that every time I read this essay.

TODAY IS THE ONLY DAY YOU CAN REPOST THIS!!!

My brain is basically a merry-go-round of quotes from A Streetcar Named Marge. At any given moment, if you startle me, I’m liable to say, ‘I AM A LEECH.’

I’m sure someone will express more eloquently than I can but Jane Goodall represented a worldview in which caring for the wellbeing of things totally outside your own personal ambit was a virtue in and of itself.

thank you for everything Jane Goodall

Stress-Free Eric Adams Spends Day Bribing Pigeons In Central Park — theonion.com/stress-free-...

As a recovering Catholic, I find it difficult to convey how weird I find these criticisms of the Pope. You’re supposed to keep your criticisms non-specific, like, ‘And I just don’t know’ with a sad shake of your head.

Solidarity to workers, of course, but also I want the pink sweater that the passerby in the first two seconds of the video has.

Yom Kippur is a day of reflection, of forgiveness, of restoration. This year, may we all pray for a better, kinder, more peaceful future. Wishing all who observe across the five boroughs and the world a meaningful, easy fast. G’mar chatimah tovah.

Posting this three hours before the start of Yom Kippur is quite a choice

🌟 very sad that my dear friend Jane Goodall has died. we were 1st in contact via fax letters to her home in Bournemouth, UK. we met in 1999, hit it off. she inspired me to write 3 songs: Counting On You, Roots & Shoots Everywhere and my tribute, Jane Jane (with her own chimp sounds). #RIPJaneGoodall

Joke’s on you, Yom Kippur, I’ve had a stomach flu for seven days and was already planning on fasting.

Look, these people are Protestants.

Israel has just arrested Greta Thunberg and many others. Statement from the Global Sumud Flotilla: “People of conscience have been abducted. The flotilla broke no laws. What is illegal is Israel’s genocide, Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza, and Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon.” 1/3

Zohran Mamdani calling it a genocide on The View and getting applause.

Apparently the Bee hates Mark Twain.

It’s bizarre that crime rates continue to plummet while mass shootings continue to rise.

The Supreme Court's "Trump can do whatever he wants, except mess with the Fed, for reasons" jurisprudence continues apace

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

"It came to me in a dream" - John Roberts explaining the magic legal principle protecting the fed but no other agency from Trump's capricious whims

COLLINS: So you're telling me you're willing to vote no every time? BERNIE SANDERS: Damn right

Massive appreciation to Veena, @sbagen.bsky.social and numerous other colleagues leading aaup's critical efforts

It’s sort of impressive how a sizable portion of the country seems to have totally lost its spine in face of authoritarianism because Donald Trump barely won the popular vote.

Say what you will about the Biden administration, but I had to think about the Federal Vacancies Reform Act a whole lot less during those years.

Good www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Reminder that the primary reasoning behind the 9th Circuit’s decision allowing these raids is that the plaintiffs couldn’t show that they’d be detained again.

"Working largely from Canary Mission’s list, Homeland Security Investigations generated between 100 and 200 reports on student protesters. DHS then referred dozens of such reports to the State Department, recommending that it revoke the visas and green cards of those individuals."

More inspiring photos of Des Moines students staging a walkout to protest their superintendent's detention by ICE! (photos by Lily Smith of the Register)

We don't often see anaphora like this repetition in judicial opinions. "But not all of them." (law firms) "But not all of them." (higher education) "But not all of them." (media outlets) Constructed through footnotes.

This is chilling but also mildly amusing that he recalled military personnel from around the world in order to announce a records retention policy change.

pete hegseth, who you will recall has been accused of domestic abuse and sexual assault, has announced a new policy by which you cannot file anonymous complaints of mistreatment. sex criminal solidarity.

Great piece on the right’s fair-weather commitment to free speech. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/o...

Look you guys wanted him to quit drinking you can't have it both ways.

Maybe not super politic-y but I highly recommend Words Unraveled, about the history of words, which every once in a while reveals its politics but is otherwise just a nice break from the news, which I think is important as a leftist trying to remain sane right now.

We need a bigger tent, that’s why we must betray and expel the following types of people: