I remember the phrase "they can't be allowed to melt back into society" re: the de-Baathification of Iraq after the war there. Like everything about that experience, the attempt was cynical, stupid, and botched. But there really should be a plan about what we do with guys like these in the future.

Rick Steves rules. Good dude!

Have to imagine it’s a good sign that a historically unpopular, dictatorial president who has continually alienated and offended the military and its leaders is now announcing an out of nowhere bribe for them.

A podcast asked me to record a voice note about my prediction for 2026 and here it is.

Perhaps the least credible thing I've ever read is Bob Kraft's anecdote about how, after his wife died, Trump was the steadfast friend who was always there for him. It's impossible to believe that the man has ever had a moment of compassion, grace, selflessness, or decency.

If you're saying that Israel as a Jewish ethnostate is the only way to protect Jews like me, what I hear you saying is "it's too hard to not kill Jews in our own countries so we're not going to try."

Mark Zuckerberg is building a data center in Louisiana that will use 3x more electricity than all of New Orleans. Oligarchs want YOU to pay for these data centers with higher water & electric bills. Americans must fight back against billionaires who put profits over people.

The anti-Semitic mass shooting in Australia will cause a national conversation and policy change. We know this because the 1996 Port Arthur massacre led to significant restrictions on guns. The shooting at Brown will do nothing. We know this because it occurred on the anniversary of Sandy Hook.

the brits should be so embarrassed by their transphobia, they got completely bamboozled by an American evangelical plot. they think they’re so much smarter than us but they got turned into a country of jug hooting bigots without even needing to be told it’s what God wants.

People keep wondering why they're going after Venezuela. It's because they want to do regime change and control its oil, then use a big tract of land there to keep a tax free "network state" that looks like Dubai but operates like Rhodesia. They are saying this out loud! Believe them!

I hope people understand that if Trump gets his way America will soon be part of the global axis of evil if we aren't already. You see it in the Caribbean, you see it in Ukraine, and you see it with Trump trying to buddy up to Xi. We are a malevolent force.

We got Weird Al out here singing Killing In The Name, the time for moderation is over

these gross fucks. just scum.

Respect to Wayne Gretzky for not preparing for this at all. You miss 100% of the pronunciations you don't practice for.

Fugees welcome. Refugees? Not so much.

i know it has been made fun of constantly (and, please, keep doing so) ... but it cannot be overstated how INSANE it is that FIFA have anointed themselves as the arbiters of PEACE to give out this made up peace award to trump

FIFA is parody-proof.

if there's a reason to keep up the "tribunals for all involved" discourse one such reason it is to put in stark relief how far away some of the Dem politicking is from the mood on the ground

they are able to peel back the ACA because its a shitty half measure but if we had gotten real universal healthcare instead no one would dare touch it because literally everybody on all sides would flip out. one more reason why Democratic incrementalism and "pragmatism" is fucking stupid !!!!!

i’ve said this before and i remain convinced it’s true, the 2028 platform that would deliver obama 08 results is “i am gonna bring the hammer down on the corrupt self-dealing politicians and their rich friends and there are no sacred cows id give a pass”

We know this because he told us. The reality is the government was shut down the first day Trump entered office. We just didn't talk about it that way. The only real leverage Dems had is on appropriations. Schumer screwed that up in February/March for FY 26. It imperiled his political support.

Maybe important to note it was the disruption in air travel that Democrats couldn't stand and not, you know, 40+ million people not knowing where their next meal was coming from.

“They promised to hold a meaningless vote on ACA subsidies, and because they took an oath to the Constitution as federal wallet inspectors, I know they will keep that promise.”

Moderate Democrats saw that voters were energized and might expect something from them, so they needed to put a stop to that ASAP

In Italy labor unions helped start a network of left-leaning news/music radio stations that have become some of the staples of public information in much of the country. They now run on a donation / ads model, but initial investment was from labor. I think about this often.

we’re about to find out if loving SimCity makes you a better mayor Mamdani was asked in 2002 by NY Mag what he wanted for Christmas and said SimCity 3000

TURN THE VOLUME UP

zohran's first act as mayor should be reuniting the bodega boys

The Korean article on the Hyundai raid explained MAGA as a movement seeking to overturn the civil rights movement and I still haven’t found a better description

SNAP exists because politicians take campaign contributions from large corporations in exchange for letting those corporations pay a poverty wage so low that it must be subsidized with taxpayer money, paid by middle class workers barely getting by—all so 700 billionaires can have a few extra billion

Refusing to feed people while building a massive ballroom is a fast track to eat the rich. No pun intended.

it's important to remember the people doing this aren't "just following orders," they signed up to do this, they're excited to do it, it's what they want to be doing, and each one of them is personally culpable for the entirety of ICE's conduct

Here's a photo of my friend and colleague, Jorge Bautista, getting shot in the face with a flashbang grenade. The ICE Agent is so afraid of Jorge (who was posing no threat) that he has wet himself. Please share this photo. Everyone needs to know what cowards ICE agents are.

OK, so we get the state intervening in the market, but not in a socialist way, in a right-wing nationalist way that’s corrupt and corporatist. A social nationalism, if you will. We can workshop the name later.

Inside the Hermitage, the winter palace where Tsar Nicholas II and his family lived before they were executed—in a country where Russians were starving.

Ballroom Contractor in Bid Meeting: we can do the demolition fast but construction will be unpredictable, supply chains are kind of fucked right now because of Trrrr (remembers where he is) rrransgender sports

that a bunch of billionaires have been irreversibly brainwormed by getting addicted to a glorified chat room adds credence to my theory that spending too much time on IRC as a child acts as a powerful inoculant to the worst impulses of an escalatory group dynamic

Newsom is a friend to big business. He is a friend to private equity. He is a friend to law enforcement, to Steve Bannon, to Newt Gingrich, and Charlie Kirk (pre-hole). He isn't progress — he is a parasite.

If this was happening in any other country you'd have journalists and analysts discussing risks of state failure

One of the smartest things Costco does is assigning every shopper a “Costco Enemy,”who stays in front of them putting carts in stupid places and blocking the aisle and going really slowly. This gives the shopper 30% more browsing time and creates a memorable, provocative experience

They make up lies about paid agitators doing violence, and attach them to the name of a prominent Jewish person. This is antisemitism, and it infects every part of the GOP.

I think it's @cooperlund.online who first pointed out that they're not so much interested in fascism as generating fascist content

This ostentatious Christian with the big cross around her neck is really saying that people who cannot prove their citizenship in an emergency room should be left on the sidewalk to die. And that's what she believes.

Whoever is running DHS social media knew exactly what they were doing here. The "Mac Tonight" Moon Man meme was so prevalent on Nazi Telegram channels I genuinely didn't even know it originated elsewhere until much later.

Pete Davidson just became the only victim of 9/11 to get reparations from the Saudi regime.

This is why we fund scientists to study things like oyster slobber even if you don’t think it sounds important