She's in Russia right now. Hard to accept Russia is not somehow facilitating this. Putin perhaps even negotiated a role in the heist with the administration ahead of time.

Im seeing discussions about consultations with congress, authorizations of force etc. I have to say this transcends any of what I would call sub constitutional technicalities. The president has gone to war with a foreign power and, it seems, kidnapped a foreign head of state on the basis of nothing.

Journalist should be paid. Stop complaining about paywalls.

A side story is there’s a ton of insider trading on these prediction markets. New accounts making hundreds of thousands on their first and only trade, that maduro would be ousted. Seems like insider trading is legal if not encouraged on these platforms

Now that they’ve started a war I’ve completely forgotten that they’re pedophiles.

The population of Venezuela is 28 million people - 5 million more than Iraq in 2003. The United States and its minor allies sent 160,000 soldiers into Iraq in 2003. What they are saying here is impossible unless the Venezuelan military is de facto under Rubio's control this morning.

decided to go smell the rotten milk in the back of the Washington Post fridge... I don't even know what to say about this

Kinda feels like we're going to run the Machado government out of an airport and control 0% of the country

This person went on a buying spree over the past 24 hours. Fresh wallet. Only existed since Dec 27th and has only bet on Venezuela-related markets. polymarket.com/@0x31a56e9E6...

There was a leak but not to the media

Attack helicopter providing very close direct fire support. Based on the rocket pods and minigun fire this is likely an MH-60L DAP or AH-6, both of which are used by the 160th SOAR

Un fucking believable

Totally normal. Nothing to see here 😡

The leaders of every major institution have straight-up fricasseed their brains with 16 hours of daily Twitter time and are now incapable of any thought that can’t be formulated as “CHEW ON THIS HOT TAKE: [biggest pander imaginable].”

Yep, the level of vicious bigotry is extreme and we can cannot give an inch. There is a movement on the far right, supported by billionaires and powerful people in the White House, who want to ethnically cleanse Somalis from the U.S., and we must describe it as such and treat it as such.

Academics as elites? Your average car dealer is more economically mobile than a academic at a state university lol

The steadily emerging birth of homo non-sapiens.

Child exploitation content on X/Twitter sharply increased under Musk, who not only abruptly disbanded the group of volunteer experts advising the platform on child safety, image exploitation, and other abuses in 2022, but tried to blame them for the company's CSAM problem www.npr.org/2022/12/12/1...

I guess they're being sued for stealing this can't miss premise from another film: "The Better Half"

This ICE post is a reference to a Rhodesian Army recruiting poster ("Be A Man Among Men") that's very popular with white supremacists.

one of my recent preoccupations is the visceral hostility the MAGA right has for the histories and traditions of the United States. these are people who spit on the Declaration and salute third-rate European despots!

New: We got an internal ICE document revealing its $100 million ad plan to bring in 14,000 new hires: deals with "tactical" influencers; ads to gun & military buffs; and geo-targeting phones around NASCAR races and gun shows. A "wartime recruitment" mode with paramilitary branding: wapo.st/44QrP5j

Can't forget defunding daycares in all 50 states for the sole purpose of amassing more far-right internet clout.

This attention hacking op that is directing clout chasers with cameras and other unstable people to daycare centers is going lead to something really bad happening.

Between this and the "LLMs have human person civil rights" people(?), bluesky is truly collecting every variety of bummer account.

Twitter racism is getting so niche and esoteric that a fair number of folks in these comments understandably assume on first glance that McCain is mad the mayor of Minneapolis is a Star Wars fan.

We're slipping into full-blown gutter racist pogrom politics and the reactions from most of the media/punditocracy/commentariat/elite/influencers/etc has tended from gleeful participation to "well, if that's what the people what it can't be that bad". Seems suboptimal, to me.

Seems bad that all of the most banal, gormless Republicans who used to just talk in cliches are frothing-at-the-mouth racists now.

No my man, the answer absolutely involves taxing those gains.

Remembering the last time I was counting on the Falcons to beat another team!

Remembering the last time I was counting on the Falcons to beat another team...

Another Stafford pick that immediately leads to another Falcons touchdown. It's Christmas in Seattle again.

Let's go Falcons.

The perfect Yglesias post: declaring “billionaires are good, actually,” as if it was some bold, counterintuitive take.

Measles is really scary. It has an R0 of at least 12 (and could be *much* higher), meaning 1 person infects 12 others on average. COVID19 has an R0 of ~6, for comparison. That's why measles needs such a high vaccination rate (>95%) to keep it down. Any anti-vax BS can easily drop it below this line.

this seems specifically designed to break mail-in voting (where deadlines are defined by postmark)

Doesn’t mean people aren’t learning, but it’s sort of bizarro world it takes an entire field exercise and not, oh idk simply looking at a UAF mechanized brigades telegram channel to figure out how UAS can enhance fires www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/u...

Caught part of DeMille's "The King of Kings". I need to learn more about his films (+ that of people in his circle like Jeanie MacPherson). One thing that stood out is the bananas use of animals. Swans running away from a loosely handled leopard! A zebra chariot (zebras famously are not into that)!

something very important for Dems to realize is that the tech overlords are not people you can win back by promising a lighter touch and saying a few nice things they’ve gotten a taste of mask-off fascism and they are not going back, they don’t want to play nice with the peons anymore

This TCM in memoriam reel is beautiful and crushing. You can critique the weight given different people and the images they chose, but I think it's well done. It was an awful year that saw way too many talented people pass on.

I feel like "attention hacking" is most of politics now. The Minnesota aid fraud story is becoming a perfect example. Recap: In 2022, the Biden DOJ filed the first charges against dozens of fraudsters, many of them Somali-American, who'd fleeced a state food aid program. (1/x)

AI sloppers (is that a term?) crying that their prompts are being stolen is more beautiful than anything AI could produce

Julie K. Brown is a reporter for the Miami Herald who did groundbreaking work on Epstein beginning in 2018, including groundbreaking work on the disgusting coverup by Alex Acosta. Her travel itinerary was released with some of the Epstein files. It appears the DOJ was monitoring her in 2019.

Companies are going to conclude it's just easier not to hire people of color. Which, I assume, is the point www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Honest person speaking truth to glassy-eyed devotees of the floppy slice:

Is Tom Brady in the pocket of Big Leather Glove