it's a bold move, Cotton

I'll be damned if this isn't checks & balances working for once (though I would note it's being driven by Republicans being terrified of midterm polling rather than jealously of their institutional powers & privileges)

I wonder how many officers are going to flee to the private sector come 2029

The president announces his negotiating position as the result, everyone cheers, & then we slowly find out what the other parties to the discussion have to say. What a system

Why do I suspect Trump's people specifically used the word "Beirut" because it would trigger his memory enough to get him to care

The man just wants to be left alone to pick out fixtures for his ballroom, is that so much to ask

It Can Only Good Happen

It's been 90 days since I started counting down how many days we had until the midterm elections specifically because these guys were locked into bad headlines during the general election. At this point we're getting into "locked into bad headlines during the next general election" territory.

A fellow will persist in his foolishness long after he regrets it

Didion gives you ample opportunity to appreciate the ruins of actual conservative principle even as the realities mean the soil keeps washing out from around the pilings

So far the world's survived Trump by pretending he's rational & choosing to ignore when he isn't, & trusting he's not capable of fully undermining that. Even COVID bore this pretense out: he failed, sure, but so did everyone else to some extent. So they just keep waiting for someone to hit "Undo".

156 days until Election Day

Old school Pokémon cooked when they decided you should get to name your rival. More games should do that. I should get to name the bad guys in Baldur’s Gate 3 “NUTSO LADY,” “WRINKY EMO,” and “STINKY PETE.”

Usually, when a war is on, at least one belligerent either sees advantage in continuing fighting, or has the means to force a decision by some other means. This is a war where neither is true for either side.

A visible reminder of the hazards of always buying from the lowest bidder

"the most conspicuously moderate & most conspicuously pro-women's rights (low bar, of course) Republican senator is politically vulnerable" is an obvious political observation obscured by Collins's hilariously weak opponents. Platner ought to be weak but ME voters insist on disagreeing. Simple as.

Indeed, they never find common ground so easily as when commiserating over being disrespected

Mr. Matthew Duray is lying or even dumber than I'd assume. Either it will be a help or it will not matter at all. There's no scenario where Trump foot soldiers are purged but conservative Republicans are mercifully unscathed. The logic of polarization is ruthless

Me in high school:

This is something between a tomato & bean soup & a non-dairy tomato bisque, but what's for sure certain is that my phone has zero ability to capture the color correctly. Fortunately that doesn't affect the flavor

His sergeant finished his bachelor's at 26 & is starting his master's next year. His CO is an ultramarathoner who has written three published articles on how to ensure hot meals during various disasters. His commanding general will be the president of the University of Maryland after he retires.

I really hope today's Platner stuff isn't a surprise to anyone on here

The beautiful blonde goth girl with FUCK OFF written on her forehead who I married also loves when I do this

Sadly many drivers, trees, & guardrails live for nothing more than to ruin our dreams

My big worry is "Talarico es suave y soja y gay, míralo." Republican Spanish-language outreach has embarrassed us for years now

It's a stupid fucking word, but "affluenza" gets closer to the problem than I'm happy to admit. A crisis of belief driven by a numbness to consequence, & to the weight of things in the world. Is it possible for these people to need Heidegger? Or does that just get us a bunch of little Dugins

I think the Brooks Brothers riot is a great example of how one led to the other. But there's a big difference between being the dog that chases the car & being the dog that catches it.

That the nonvoters who could be turned out have been Trump voters does not in any way mean that nonvoters are all Trumpy. But it sure proves it's foolish to treat them as an easy fix for Dems' woes

It's very human, & it's a human impulse that has to be suppressed if you're going to think usefully at any scale beyond here & now. Half of the point of education is to get you to stop judging everything by that impulse. The other half is to help you use that impulse to do good given all the bad.

The flip side of Marcia Lucas belatedly getting way too much credit for Star Wars is she still doesn't get enough credit for everything else she did.

There's more than a little myth in this rendering but Marcia's contributions were certainly vital. John Jympson did the original Star Wars edit, literally by the book: he stitched together all the footage in the order it was scripted. It was terrible, but that was okay, it was just the rough cut.

It was never formally enforced & has no enforcement mechanism besides impeachment or the ballot. If you keep electing a leader who refuses to be accountable to the law, you will soon find there is no law.

The linear progression of time is a counterrevolutionary enemy of the proletariat

Yep, it was very annoying

Good for her. The temptation to retain a personal staff in your dotage at taxpayer expense is too much for a lot of congresscritters to refuse. She did the right thing.

Erick Erickson has always been useful solely in his willingness to outline his politics in the most brutally unflattering terms. A lodestone of partisan bigotry.

The neat thing about these big numbers is either it doesn't happen, & we still need to put in the work, or it does happen & the work was gravy. There is no world where we have any choice but to put in the work, & there is no world where we shouldn't be proud of the work we do to win this November.

Every American city needs a jacket for its dads

Starting to fix the horrific cucumber mojito mocktail my wife tried off the 'gram only to conclude it'd be a waste of perfectly good ginger ale

It is going to be very annoying hearing every one pretend that personal income growth matching the trendline at a lower level after Biden-era inflation (which sucks, but it still meant real personal incomes were rising meaningfully) is the same thing as real personal incomes dropping under Trump

It's not entirely false, but the degree to which it is treated as affirming the prejudices of editors of a certain age completely overwhelms the actual truth of the situation

Oh yeah, baby, that's the stuff

This is a measure of the failure of the Trump II project, but it also reflects Peter Thiel being a nut who loves exit plans at least as much as he loves buying in

"I said 'pull' goddamnit"

the Republican Party is going to get worse before it gets even worse 🤗

Wow, we've got peace! We just need Trump to sign onto the peace deal & Iran to sign onto the peace deal & the peace deal still needs terms. Neat. We're learning so much about diplomacy here on the Internet today.

this reads much more as a plea to throw more money at the Space Force than as an actual plan to do anything, which makes sense because Space Force literally exists to ensure more money gets thrown at Space Force

"I've put my years as a private dick behind me"

The Millennial-era Democratic Party is going to be chock full of guys who had Yahoo! Fantasy Football Teams. Please God do not force these men to perform their masculinity by recounting the time Marmalard's Floaters made the playoffs because they snagged Joe Jurevicius off waivers

Reddit post laser-guided to destroy the beautiful perverts who follow this account