One horrific thing to me is that the president- a man who has gotten away with everything including literal murder up to this point- seems extremely nervous about anything regarding Epstein coming out. Like how bad does it have to be

The Kremlin disguised a nearly $100 mn payment to Trump in the form of a brokered real estate deal... and both Jeffrey Epstein and William Pulte were involved in the deal. That's very interesting.

Jeffrey Epstein advised Steve Bannon that the lawyers representing Brett Kavanaugh in his confirmation hearing should accuse Christine Blasey Ford of being on medications that cause false memories or memory loss.

honestly i really don't like that there really is a cabal of elite wealthy pedophiles. i would very much prefer if that wasn't true.

Thanks to SCOTUS, they couldn't touch Obama even if he did the worst stuff in Trump's imagination. But also thanks to SCOTUS, no one can stop them from trying -- and running DOJ into the ground in the process. Consequently, we have entire agencies whose mission right now is to salve a sad man's ego.

I think that guy was probably involved in child sex trafficking, and he's self-evidently been bending over backwards to corruptly cover it up, but also he can continue to be president for another three years, is not a coherent position and the incoherence of it is obvious.

Landon Thomas Jr of the New York Times got told by Jeffrey Epstein that Trump walked into a glass door bc he was so busy staring at girls in Epstein's house and didn't print it. wild that the Times didn't consider that newsworthy.

So...why did the NYT never run this?

This article was fascinating and also made me hyper-aware of the act of reading while I was reading it.

Hell is not hot enough.

Human Rights Watch found that Venezuelans shipped to El Salvador by the United States were beaten almost every day.

I feel like this point is weirdly under-discussed in the discourse! Acosta himself approved Epstein's notorious sweetheart non-prosecution agreement. By elevating Acosta to the cabinet later, Trump seemed to ... pretty clearly reward that?

good lord

Well I guess technically Operation Paperclip predates the creation of the H-1B visa. 1 Pedant Point(tm) awarded

I wish journalists could act like they weren’t born yesterday. An uncurated document dump out of an investigation shortly after focused evidence is released is an expression of panic, a desperate wish to distract, and perhaps a hope that someone will find something they haven’t yet.

*Larry Summers wondering why the Streisand effect gets to be named for a woman when he’s obviously so much better at it*

So on Epstein, the Democratic position should be "Trump should resign." If you are a Democratic elected, practice saying "We demand the president's resignation" in front of a mirror as many times as it takes until the dry-heaving that comes from having a phobia about actually doing politics passes.

"is the president of the united states currently being blackmailed by pedophiles" is a legitimate question with supporting evidence that needs to be investigated

And Trump did his improv “yes and” thing like he does on everything

I regret to report that this was rather disappointing. I thought Ian McGuire's previous novels were both excellent and were both extremely my shit, but this lacked their pungent atmosphere and vivid characterization. Really too bad!

jesus christ

Panoramic View of the Northern Lights last night over the Chicago Skyline.

Josh’s post is worth reading in its entirety. The points: 1) kill the filibuster 2) court reform 3) DC/PR statehood 4) clean up laws on presidential power 5) outlaw extreme gerrymandering These strike me as a really good starting point of foundational necessities.

Shea Whigham as Roscoe Conkling is such insanely good casting that you have to be at my intersection of Character Actor Sicko and History Sicko to fully appreciate but fortunately that's like hundreds of thousands of people on here

“Socialist Muslim with nuanced views on Gaza and no ties to the NYC political machine governs in a boring, popular way” is an apocalyptic scenario for like half a dozen little cabals

this is a rich text but my favorite part is that despite being presumably good at math, her husband is so illiterate that he cannot read a baby's report card

steve jobs would have had someone shot for this

Having shitty, corrupt, thuggish cops is expensive. Not for the cops I mean. But for the taxpayers.

Mary Petty, New Yorker, January 5, 1952

in a long life filled with saying stupid shit this is may be the stupidest shit he's ever said

"We’re done waiting for Dems to find their spine. We can’t afford a weak & cowardly Democratic Party while the authoritarians invade our cities, terrorize our communities, & threaten our democracy. We get the party we demand, & we intend to demand a Democratic Party that fights.” — @indivisible.org

"The commander of US Southern Command, Adm. Alvin Holsey, offered to resign during a tense meeting last month with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ... after he raised questions about the legality of the strikes ... Holsey will leave his post in December, just one year into his tenure."

Ah yes, the thing to revitalize your downtown is to fill it with masked and armed man who routinely pepper spray random people. Everyone loves that.

In fairness to Bari, a lot of cub reporters feel that way when they get to their first real news job

I truly don't understand why healthcare billing is like this.

Never change, Bluesky

Was telling my kids about the Edmund Fitzgerald, as a Midwestern dad does on November 10th, and decided to put on the song for them. Just trying to inhabit the archetype, you know? youtu.be/FuzTkGyxkYI?...

Oh my God, so many sections of sidewalk are pure ice tonight because they weren't shoveled earlier.

Feel like his fate was sealed as soon as Daniel Jones turned into a very good QB for the Colts.

Uncomfortable truth about US politics is we’ve been in a constitutional crisis this whole century, and there is no way out short of a revolution. Kind of a midwit thing where the super low-info voters get that and the polisci professors get that and everybody else is like, Dems gotta try harder!!

Ended my voicemail to Durbin by shouting "Quit your job, Dick!" It felt wonderful.

a lot of the Democratic Senate caucus's calculus (as well as much of the discourse) seem to be predicated on the assumption that Congress will continue to be the central space for political confrontation and that the traditional electoral timelines will continue to shape our political life 1/

Quit your fucking job, Angus.

This coward needs to be gone and every single one who agrees with him

seems to me that those democrats inclined not to fight perceive themselves as living through a somewhat ordinary cycle of presidential overreach and backlash and not something much more significant and dangerous