This is big. Speaker Johnson’s procedural loophole to avoid a vote on Trump’s wildly unpopular, cost-raising tariffs failed. I’m glad my bipartisan resolutions in the Senate to undo Trump’s tariffs have passed, and now it’s time for the House to vote to do the same.

I feel like I didn't get nearly enough love for this awesome shout-out to John Carpenter

I think they believed, even more, that winning elections and taking control of the government would produce *respect*, the thing they crave. But you can't buy, or compel, respect, and that makes a lot of MAGA world bonkers.

The king is mad.

"To suggest that [Jack Schlossberg] has failed upward would give him too much credit because failing requires having been entrusted with some responsibility in the first place." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

As always, well worth the read. And Tom often "gifts" his articles -- so no griping about paywalls. I have already recommended subscribing to THE ATLANTIC. Lots of fine writing to be found.

We “sent our...officers...hoping the university would better understand & appreciate our warrior class.” --Hegseth "But that’s not why the military sends people to universities. They do not go to Harvard or Johns Hopkins pleading to be understood; they go so that *they* will understand." ☝️🔥

The large nuclear powers are repeating the errors of the Cold War in boosting their arsenals in a dangerous action-reaction dynamic. Not known for intelligent thinking, the Trump regime signals intent to do its part. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/u...

You are receiving this broadcast as a dream. We are transmitting from the year 1 9 9 9. You are receiving this broadcast in order to alter the events you are seeing.

Chris Rufo doesn't have a career outside of being a "culture warrior." This is his movement. He made his bed. Now he gets to lie in it.

Here is my conclusion after sitting through Maxwell's deposition with her refusing to answer a single question about the men who raped underage girls, saying she would only do so for clemency. She must immediately be sent back to the maximum security prison where she belongs.

Well hello old chum cc @callthebanners.bsky.social

It's at the foundation of everything going on in the world today. Democracies eating themselves alive because guys who have two cars and five TVs are mad at some grad student named Rainbow

This is true, but having taught at some elite schools, I can say that some kids believe that checking all the boxes and getting into a good school entitles them to anything they want. When they find out that nature and society limit them, they become fake-populists and wanna burn "the system"

“If you’d been nicer, I’d be less of a sociopath….”

Hegseth, among others, is using the school as a punching bag to express the generic social anxiety and status-based resentment that drives much of the MAGA movement. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

"This Donald Trump guy, I wonder what he'd actually do in office." - Voter, 2024

"Trump voters urge him to tone down the rhetoric and focus more on domestic issues, especially clearer pathways to legal status for law-abiding immigrants", proving they unaccountably had no clue who they were voting for.

Well, he's in Rhode Island today, and I'm about to publish a piece about his attack on Harvard

What a coincidence. Finishing up something I'm writing about Hegseth, and he's right across the bay from me today.

I always wanted my own set of square glasses

@radiofreetom.bsky.social said it best…

Every time Tom makes someone mad on the internet, a kitten is born. #ThatsAlotOfKittens

Sorry I'm not around today, but apparently I made pete hegseth mad over on X

I would remind you while you say this, that my operatives would avenge my death, and some of them… are Vulcans

Shifting TV modes for a moment, rewatching old Law and Order eps, I came to realize that Jack McCoy is kind of a son of a bitch

Bob Gunton is one of my fave character actors

To me, this is the virtue of TOS, TNG, and SNW: Each ep can stand on its own and you don't need a writer's bible to catch up

don't get me started

btw, it took me this long to realize that Lt. Palamas is a Greek name (St. Gregory Palamas is a revered Greek Orthodox saint) Those clever writers

I like TOS, SNW, ENT, and many eps of TNG, a few of VOY, none of DIS, DS9, or whatever other dreck is out there

And I hate to tell you Trek fans, but Roddenberry was cheating on his first wife with Majel Barret *and* Nichelle Nichols. The man was a genius, but, erm, flawed.

And btw Trump carried this district by 13 points. (But this is not a flip; the seat was held by a Democrat.)

For all the ridicule we direct at "Spock's Brain," "Turnabout Intruder" is easily the worst episode of TOS. Shatner - a good actor - is allowed to do a hambone misogynist take on what a woman would be like. The last ep broadcast, and should have been buried with garlic in its mouth.

The music makes it. (And yes, another reason I wasn't a big VOY fan: Sooner or later, they gotta run out of stuff)

So much love here for "The Tholian Web." I never liked it. What was the attraction to it? "Local space" makes everyone nuts? The only good part is the "I am dead" message from Jim to Spock and McCoy.

When I was a kid, I found "The Empath" disturbing. The BBC banned it for some years from reruns.

If you all are as big a bunch of nerds as I am, I recommend Marc Cushman's "These Are the Voyages." Incredible detail on every episode of ST TOS www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

And while I'm taking apart bad ST:TOS, we all enjoy the humor of "Piece of the Action," but, um, the Iotians learned to talk like Chicago mooks from reading *one book*? If the USS Horizon had left a library of vids, etc, sure, but...all this from a book?

I'd argue that "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" is an excellent episode. Yes, it's heavy-handed - this was the 60s, after all - and Spock not noticing which side of Bele's face is which is a blooper - but Gorshin really saves it.

It's here at 19:14: "If they refuse to move out on cue, SCREW THEM" www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPC-...

There's a great outtake from this episode, where the centurion says: "And if they move, SCREW THEM"

Admired Kate Mulgrew. Tapped out at the onboard rebel and the holographic doctor.

The one thing I *did* like about TNG was that the Federation finally figures out "away teams," and that you should not beam your entire senior command into dangerous situations and leave Sulu or Chekhov in charge when the top brass all get turned into Thralls.

Yeah, that's in "Who Mourns for Adonais" and it's a wince-inducing line in a Federation of hundreds of planets "Mankind has no need for gods. We find the one quite adequate." We? Not even true on Earth, Jim.

I knew I'd have a problem with TNG the minute I saw the set. It was like a talk show set on a starship. It's a fargin' heavy cruiser, with a full compliment of ass-kicking weapons. Put the barcaloungers away, get the kids to a star base, and fire Wesley from an airlock.

AND WHY WOULD THE PEACEFUL FEDERATION NEED A GENERAL ORDER 24 Ahem. Sorry. But this kind, egalitarian Federation has a "wipe out the planet" option? For what? In case the Halkans won't hand over their dilithium?