The plot of PLURIBUS, summarized!

she's just doing what she was hired to do

‘If winter comes, can spring be far behind?’ Too soon for Percy B?

Yes. And translators, badly paid, have been trying to make people aware of this, but they have only a small platform. Need writers and readers to be aware and speak out. All my foreign language contracts going forward will stipulate that a real person translates.

Basically, the Deputy Attorney General of the United States taking the 5th on national TV to avoid answering why he did one of the most disgusting things any DOJ official has ever done in US history.

Follow-up questions to expose outright lies? What a concept!

What a shameful question. First, it is not what Congress "asked for." It is what a federal statute REQUIRES. Second, WTF does "spirit but not intent" even mean? CBS bent a knee and paid Trump, it has a new owner who wants to please Trump, and sadly this is the result.

THAT’s why? It’s dumb politics? It’s a mistake that way? I see.

You start to get cynical & bitter & then you find out one of your state's snow plows this year is named Clearopathra & you remember there is no limit to human brilliance

One day something will happen — a wedding, a graduation, a job promotion, Jake Paul getting knocked out, Andrew Tate getting knocked out the next day — and you’ll want the right outfit to celebrate. Buy that special outfit now, so you’re ready when that next unexpected moment arrives.

On the winter solstice in Canada we all go ice fishing. It is a time-honoured tradition.

Rickey forever ♥️

In Moscow, they call her “our girl Tulsi” for a reason.

The preening stupidity of this is extreme.

I’m feeling pensive and nostalgic after that Gerald Owen essay by @jeetheer.bsky.social . My dear friend George Jonas was a role model, a hero to The Idler guys. The mag was housed above a pub on Davenport, we’d go there for a lunch and they’d hear George was in the house and come rushing down!

A fine piece by @jeetheer.bsky.social about Gerald Owen; a reminder, and Heer says this, that friendship CAN cross many borders of thought and belief. I remember Gerald with admiration and affection from his years at The Idler. This brought back memories. thewalrus.ca/the-friendsh...

The White House has been caught. The administration inserted a photo of Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, and Diana Ross into the Epstein files and falsely implied it showed them with victims. In reality, it’s a publicly available fundraiser photo featuring Jackson and Ross’s own children.

It seems fairly obvious that Trump can stay awake when HE is talking, generally about his own magnificence. If anyone else is speaking, has the mic, EVEN if they are praising him rapturously, he dozes off. Needs the mic. Needs all the mics.

I’d love to see a cartoon where the Epstein File (sic) handed over is a slim manilla folder, with a single redacted sheet visible.

Still failing. DOJ, FBI, Congress, media. And Donald. J. Trump.

I see Elise Stefanik has joined the GOP White Politician flight. Suspending her NY Governor campaign and will not run for Congress again. The writing isn’t just on the wall, it has knocked down the wall to make more room for running away.

For (obviously!) those who might be interested, here is the video of the lecture that I gave last month at the kind invitation of the Faculty of Arts at U of Manitoba. This, and other events there, were genuinely enjoyable experiences. Also, much nostalgia: my undergrad U. youtu.be/zWSh0_zov6E?...

I recommend this. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/o...

Snow tires are good tires.

Dear God.

So, @ericcolumbus.bsky.social and @jamalgreene.bsky.social among others have made clear the renaming of the Kennedy Center is entirely narcissist/performative. It CANNOT be renamed by Trump and his henchflunkies.

Ditto for the alleged Department of War (see, e.g., 10 USC 111) and the alleged Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace (see 22 USC 4603).

from the dissent: flcourts-media.flcourts.gov/content/down...

I don’t know how it works at the New York Times, but my editors at The Guardian would never let me publish this if they knew that I was one of the elites who spent time with Epstein. And if I published it without telling them, I would be out of a job.

This is 600% true!!

Reminder that Dan Bongino doesn’t know who Stephen King is

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have many things in common--but historically one thing will tie them together more than any other. They have both done more to weaken their own countries than any two US or Russian leaders for a century (if not longer).

5/ I am interviewed in the Post's report:

Republicans fought release of Epstein materials every step of the way, are now refusing to release the second strike boat video, and won’t let Jack Smith testify in public. They constantly hide everything they are doing from the American people.

Fox, gotta give it to them, is very good at proving the religious theory that humans lived (and live) at the same time as dinosaurs.

It is a quadruple blind study with 81,000 subjects over 25 years with 16 Nobel Laureates involved, right! Right?

I feel, perhaps predictably, strongly about this. If you also do, this post shows a way to steer your borrowing with Libby to books with a real person doing the audiobook reading.

If Boy Hegseth both releases the video and BRAGS about murder strikes in the Caribbean *except* the one Congress wants to see are we all permitted just a smidgen of cynical derision?

All the centers they’re cutting add up to less than $7 million in spending. UNC athletics budget is $185.4 million for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

Thank you. I was upbraided by some for noting bitterly that some (just said some!) were focusing on the referee stuff. Also for saying I prefer to go slower and see what official responses are before I comment on the much larger issue.

Burn!

Adore the OPTIMISM of his head tilt at the ump, at the end.

Immortal. (Almost typed Immoral, but…)

I am not (yet) going to comment on Puka Nacua, I’ll wait to learn more. But cannot help finding it (bitterly) funny that many are calling for his discipline/suspension for saying mean things about … referees.

That entire exchange was astonishing! Here's what I just published about this morning's hearing. nominationnotes.substack.com/p/judicial-n...

A discussion about books, tv, films, with a friend and I mentioned this; thought it worth sharing: My beloved, remarkable grandmother once said to 8-9 year old me ‘I don’t have time to read bad books.’ I think of her (and that) all the time.

There is so much deadly fuckery attached to RFK Jr, this adds to it.

BingoBongo moaning WAS on my … Bingo card, actually.

Lovely negotiation position.