It's been noted before, but "venal, self-dealing demagogue, who promises all things to all people but only is in it for themselves" is a character type that would have been perfectly familiar to Demosthenes and Cicero, nevermind Jefferson and Adams.

Forget Linz. Superpower nuclear weapons are the ultimate threat to a US-style presidentialist system's basic legitimacy

it is the extremity of this danger, as well as the implied machine of industrial, military, and intelligence apparatus that supports it, that is behind "Bomb Power" and the other book "Thermonuclear Monarchy." Honorable mention is "Torment of Secrecy" bsky.app/profile/mpde...

CONUS --><---Russia ICBM flight time is half an hour at most. SLBMs due to variable positioning can be considerably less.

nuclear weapons would be something that would make them rethink very basic aspects of how they thought about the presidency

Nixon: “People have got to know whether their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.” Trump, in effect: Sure, I’m a crook. What are you going to do about it?

"...unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only."

The funny thing about Trump is that he's *exactly* the person the Founders thought would be the final boss for our Republic. They thought they'd face him in their own lifetimes. Instead, he took nearly two and a half centuries to become President. Happy 250, America! We're toppling a king again.

(Fun fact: Fiorello La Guardia was an Ellis Island interpreter early in his career, translating for German, Italian, and Croatian immigrants).

(Also just a very sophisticated operation - they had a million translators, many of them who spoke three, four, six languages. There was a canteen with 'local' food from the top ten or so most common origin countries. A whole system of train schedules to get people further in.)

I visited the Ellis Island museum a couple of years back, and it was striking that for all the old-timey racism... they let 98% of people in. And the museum clearly feels really bad about the 2% that got turned away!

"you don't believe in nationhood at all" for the United States of America specifically, which is not a nation in the conventional sense, correct!

one human on watch and everythjng else is just a fully botted up checkout line

the country grew in the 19th and 20th centuries by simply importing people from everywhere else in the world after giving them a cursory inspection for diseases and if anything we could automate ellis island today

The walls are closing in around the Reform leader and some of Nigel Farage's allies now believe he could soon be heading for the door www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/the-scanda...

It was me. I and my crew of chemically transformed gay frawgs geoengineered the horrid weather in DC by stealing a spaceship from Area 51 and spraying chemtrails across the entire Eastern Seaboard.

OK, who was it? Come clean.

The Drafting Committee asked Jefferson to write the first draft, which he did. It was then edited by the other committee members (Adams, Franklin, Livingston and Sherman). Then it was brought before the whole Congress for further revisions.

The Second Continental Congress gave a small Drafting Committee the job of writing the Declaration of Independence, made up of: John Adams (MA), Benjamin Franklin (PA), Thomas Jefferson (VA), Robert R. Livingston (NY) and Roger Sherman (CT).

... And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

"as Free and Independent States, [we] have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do...

"For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:" "For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:" "For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever."

"For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:" "For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:" "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:"

"He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures." "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power."

"He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries." "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance."

"He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands."

"He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good." "He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people."

"The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights" "to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"

You can be a MAGA Republican or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.

This July 4th, the Trump regime is pushing a new Red Scare. This is an actual White House post. The regime is pretending that communism is a serious threat to America.

For instance, some of the best complaints against Trump are listed in the Declaration of Independence, as complaints against George III. Some of the best arguments against his abuses can be found within the Federalist Papers. They show the depth of his betrayal.

The fact that the Founders were profoundly imperfect men and not gods is what makes them relevant, not irrelevant.

Kat has been fearless in this moment and deserves much credit for it. But one reason I still call myself a conservative is that I believe we should care very much about the past - good and bad - because it has much to teach us that we otherwise learn only through our own costly folly.

did the Founding Fathers have the Germ Theory of Disease as we know it today? No. But they were on the cusp of the invention of vaccines (Edward Jenner, 1798) and took outbreaks DEADLY SERIOUSLY

"without George Washington's decisive and unpopular inoculation mandate, colonists may have lost the Revolutionary War. This simple, life saving procedure and the people who fought for it are in many ways responsible for colonists' victory which led to the founding of this nation"

washington insisted on massive and risky innoculations against smallpox www.nps.gov/articles/000...

A watch-sized gold ring was gifted to President Trump this week from a Belgian diamond group, months after it won tariff relief. Isidore Mörsel, president of the Antwerp World Diamond Center, presented the ring to Trump, who accepted it. The gift is valued at $25k. Another clear violation of US law.

Today @sltaylor.bsky.social suggests that a good birthday present for America would be to put the specious “republic, not a democracy” line to bed for good

the question of whether the American founding was a radical experiment in what Lincoln would later describe as government “of the people, by the people, for the people”, or a means of legitimizing aristocratic rule has always been contested. the aristocratic (now plutocratic) side adopts that line.

"Proponents of aristocratic republicanism are not, have never been, mere throwback feudalists. Like all living traditions, aristocratic republicanism has adapted with the times."

this was never entirely absent (arguably present in 19th century) but it has become totally institutionalized by the 2020s

this is good, it makes the case that since war and land-owning are no longer sources of aristocratic virtue, aristocracy has migrated to the business world. having a big company that wins = being a glorious conqueror. which now accounts for brainrot of corporate elite

The thing about it is that SSPX really has no other choice at this point. Accepting scrutiny and discipline from ANYONE, including the Pope, would mean ruination and likely literal fucking prison. The best they can hope for now is to turn into a fully independent Scientology-like cult.

THE VATICAN IS CALLING IT A SCHISM I REPEAT HOUSTON, WE HAVE A SCHISM

You heard the son of a bitch. Taking the Senate is not optional if we want to avoid far worse tyranny.

Vance is right. By the end of the six-year term for senators elected this fall, Sotomayor will be 78, Roberts 77, and Kagan 72. It’s quite possible that senators elected in the midterms will vote, during that term, on nominees to replace one or more of the five in the majority.

Let's discuss boyfriends of bisexual women at pride staying home to enjoy the AC (or not)

this is going to be a trainwreck www.axios.com/2026/07/01/t...