As a professional analyst, I think this is correct. But I think it omits a crucial fact: We all *expect* Senate Democrats to fold because they have consistently set the expectation of being utterly unwilling to fight.

I say this as someone who was an elite-tier dork until graduate school (at which point, I became slightly cooler and was a B-tier dork)… this man looks like the trivia team (of which I was captain) would think he’s too dorky.

Grifters gonna grift.

The fact that Zohran Mamdani's first pitches at Mayor elect are basically just "we're going to start enforcing requirements that landlords keep their buildings livable" and the landlords are freaking out is probably a good early indicator that he'll do well as Mayor.

Not a lot of weak spots in this group, unfortunately, from a "call the offices" angle. Durbin and Peters are retiring. Though Ossoff is up in '26 and Kelly's up in '28 (though he's looking very seriously at running for President). Those would be my focus.

If I’m a Senate Dem who just watched combative anti-Trump/GOP messaging from every major race result in double-digit wins, I’m not sure how I could justify striking this weak ass deal. Some Dems (Fetterman) just suck, but there shouldn’t be 8 votes for this shit.

Health care, agriculture, affordability, counterterrorism. Hochul just throwing punches in bunches on this one. She’s going to wipe the floor with Stefanik, perhaps to the point it significantly damages down ticket Republicans.

Golden isn’t running because his polling in the district is dogshit. The “progressive criticism” has had basically no impact on Golden. But it’s inconvenient for Yglesias to acknowledge that Golden’s problem is more tied to being a protectionist at the expense of Maine seafood.

Not a fan of JCO, but you could easily write a dissertation on her use of X/Twitter.

The Catholic Church could show its serious about antisemitism by publicly condemning and excommunicating any of the many, many antisemitic extremists who ground their rhetoric in Catholic teaching pre Vatican II. Nick Fuentes, E Michael Jones, Patrick Coffin, Candace Owens… That’s just in the US.

They've already murdered someone in my city, shot another woman, zip tied children, tear gassed an elementary school, and broke six ribs of a bystander. The president of the United States of America says: that's not enough.

The last week, I’ve gotten more messages from political teams asking about Fuentes than any other week. (I’ve recently done two briefings with senior figures ahead of meetings with Yarvin… I don’t know how I got the rep as this guy, but I guess I’d rather it be me than no one/bad advice.)

Democrats believe in a liberal democracy where people can live according to their convictions. Republicans believe 8 year olds should have to undergo genital exams to play soccer.

Went back to the history of the Sicilian Mafia to illustrate something obvious but worth stating explicitly: The Trump administration behaves like an organized crime syndicate running a protection racket, not a representative government www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

Phillip Lewis, a 72-year-old cancer patient, said he was woken up and marched outside his home in his robe and underwear before federal officers even checked his ID. He was not, it turned out, the man they were looking for. By @wendicthomas.bsky.social & @kathsburgess.bsky.social

40 men Trump sent to CECOT tell the NYT they were beaten, tortured, and sexually assaulted. The details are worse than you can imagine. We can’t let them get away with this. Miller and the other architects of this sadism need to go to prison. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/w...

A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death. Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written." Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating. 🧪🧬🧫

I think this is exactly the right comparison. The primary difference with Fr Coughlin is that many Bishops at the time, including the most consequential Archbishop Mooney (who had the canonical authority to limit Coughlin’s public life). We don’t have any of that in US Catholic leadership today.

Two panels commemorating the contribution of Black American soldiers towards the liberation of the Netherlands in World War Two have been quietly removed from a cemetery in Limburg. It follows a complaint by right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission.

Folks, if you are hungry, please contact your local Sikh gurdwara. Or just show up for langar, which most gurdwaras do several times a week, for a free meal. Lots also do weekly or monthly drives giving out groceries. No conversion necessary. Feeding anyone who is hungry is a key part of Sikhism.

The WSJ on how unbelievably stupid Noem and Lewandowski are. I don’t care that I’m late to this; it’s to good to pass up. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

This statement from Jikeli is the kind of thing that shows a person isn't intellectually serious about the issue. The story about Jikeli kicking a grad student off the call, only for everyone to leave and reconvene on a call without Jikeli, is an extremely Jewish response to goyische bullshit.

This is fairly infuriating. Indiana U abruptly got rid of the Jewish director of the Jewish studies program, replacing him with a non-Jewish scholar, Günther Jikeli. Jikeli then defunded a Jewish graduate student who has been critical of Israel. www.jta.org/2025/11/07/u...

Mamdani embodies a pro-Palestinian politics that truly distinguishes between the state of Israel and the Jewish people, and truly takes antisemitism seriously as its own problem. That makes him a threat to those who want to absolutely conflate antisemitism and anti-Zionism, whether the ADL or WoL.

Nightmare blunt rotation.

You can't actually spend $1.4T against a $20B revenue and stay solvent. It's literally not possible, but (as Ofer Eldar points out here) Altman isn't on the hook financially for any of the promises he's making. But the cascading economic impact will be. www.forbes.com/sites/rashis...

chasing-duck.png purchase insurance from whom

A government run by the crooks for the crooks. The most corrupt President in American history.

Thinking about the many times I've seen "Obama is ignorant" or "AOC doesn't understand economics" or the like while Trump belches out a half-baked insincere proposal for a two-step version of the same ACA subsidy he's trying to eliminate.

The dumbest motherfucker speaks again.

The math was never mathing on this one, and any journo who treated this like a serious thing probably should be laughed at.

My problem is that Zohran Mamdani is the first politician I’ve looked at and thought, “yeah, I’d like to chill with that guy and have a beer” and it makes me wonder… is this how boomers felt about Bush43?

Karp and Thiel are really focused on short term valuation of their company when people like Burry recognize that building your business on contracts with Trump is a bad strategy. I think Burry's insights are often overblown, but he's probably right about this one.

I don't have especially strong feelings about Bigelow, but A House of Dynamite was absolutely terrible.

Guillermo Del Toro's Frankenstein is weirder than I thought.

So... snuff. AI snuff.

I've had a lot of people over the years (especially in interfaith contexts) talk about how David French is a model of the kind of person we can have reasonable disagreements with, but still respect as a moral, principled person and... I just can't with this jabroni.

every time you think the new WaPo editorial board can't embarrass itself any more, they manage to find a way. Left: 'Texas gerrymandering is no big deal!', from August. Right: 'Maryland gerrymandering is an affront to Western civilization!', from today.

"Former FTX spokesperson and ambassador Kevin O'Leary."

Nuremburg trials is the moderate position

Called it, 15 months ago, for @liberalcurrents.com, to which you should lend your support. www.nbcnews.com/politics/imm... www.liberalcurrents.com/mass-deporta...

COVID happened because Trump disbanded Obama's pandemic response team. It all could have been avoided.

I think about this scene a lot. youtu.be/FMJMfcpK554?...

Politicians like Cuomo are a relic of the past. (Did I want to title this one “Don’t Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out”? Yes, I did.) www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/o...

This is a pretty straightforward move: offers the GOP an off-ramp which either (a) they take, and Schumer gets to take it as a negotiating win or (b) they don’t take it, and Dems get to hammer them “they’d rather close the government than lower health care costs.”

If you’re shocked by the Heritage Foundation defending Tucker Carlson — who’s done more to normalize antisemitism & white nationalism than almost anyone — you haven’t been paying attention. That same extremism is at the core of Project 2025, from mass deportations to gutting core democratic rights.

One theory of this is that the GOP is trying to push swearing in Grijalva to situation the Epstein file drop around the holidays, when people tend to consume less politics… it’s a stupid theory, but that doesn’t mean it’s false in DC. (In some cases, it makes it more likely to be true.)

The Nexus Project is deeply concerned by the divisive, hyperbolic and aggressive response that we are seeing from some corners of the Jewish community to the election of Zohran Mamdani as the next mayor of New York City. Our full statement: nexusproject.us/press-releas...

MKUltra is mentioned here. While I was at McGill, I went to a talk about MKUltra experiments in one of their hospitals. Some older people came to defend one of the doctors involved, saying he came from a good family. Blows my mind what people can overlook. www.thehastingscenter.org/what-researc...