In escalating spree of violence against civilians, MAGA extremist group paramilitary forces shoot two in Portland just one day after murdering woman in Minneapolis

I'm glad to see this pressure on Google and Apple. If any other company was running an active CSAM generator in public you better believe it would have been removed from their app stores by now www.wired.com/story/x-grok...

New York acting like a blue state instead of a blue city stapled to a red state that hates it. By God I thought I’d never see the day.

Time to consult the Declaration again

good for you @pbump.com. i know it wasn’t your intention but this was an act of bravery and profound decency. cable news is relentlessly dehumanizing and soul-corroding; we need as many examples as we can to remind ourselves that we are still human beings.

Senate moves to close barn doors while wishing fleeing horse well

"An analysis of footage from three camera angles shows that the motorist was driving away from—not toward—a federal officer when he opened fire." Great video analysis of Minneapolis shooting from NYT. These frames show drawing of gun and exact moment of first shot. www.nytimes.com/video/us/100...

Subtweet? What subtweet? I'm just describing this week's #Torah portion.

Heard the slang word “eepy” and was disappointed to learn it didn’t mean “deeply interested in the history and tactics of the Ypres Salient.” Do better, Gen Z.

Five years post-insurrection and Congress has functionally ceased to exist, exactly as Trump intended at the time

losing my mind at the "she should have followed directions" people really? really? you're cool with "if you don't follow directions, they get to kill you"? that seems like a good state of affairs to you? that seems like how law enforcement ought to work: instant obeisance or death?

Sometimes all you can do is make the world 0.0000000000001% less awful by being a good person and it feels very meaningless but it’s also the only thing that really matters

Good time for a reminder that weird flukes and contingencies drive history as often as Great People and ideas

I feel like people are being cagey here because describing the event factually makes clear that something awful and significant has happened, and therefore calls the difficult question of what should come next

it is the policy of this government to treat democratic-led states as conquered territories and the people therein as something like hostiles or even enemy combatants

If you are anxious and sad about the state of the world, that's fine, and there are plenty of strategies for dealing with that. But I think you already know that drive-by online dooming isn't a strategy. It's selfish and adolescent. It's a contagion that only spreads the worst of you, not the best.

Make it viral.

This seems significant: not a FORMER DHS official, but a SENIOR (current) one saying the officer who fired acted counter to training. This is not an admin that admits mistakes. And they are hanging this guy out to dry on Day One. I think they know this is bad. Really bad.

"He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures... 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:"

Pretty good example of what happens when newspapers lay off their metro sections and housing reporters, but then decides they want to pontificate on city affairs

Looking for nature valentines cards? Last year's comic is now available as cards! They start shipping Jan 12. topatoco.com/collections/...

Not only did I live for three wonderful years in Minneapolis (92-95), I lived about five blocks from this intersection, on Powderhorn Park. I'm so sorry for the good people in that great city.

There really are ways to use technology to streamline government and improve both the efficiency and quality of services (see, e.g., Code for America). These people have just taken the laziest route possible, because they don’t care.

I realize hypocrisy is dead but, with the Great Books angle, if this were a liberal arts college there would already be three @chatterton.bsky.social columns about this

In which @ellamarkianos.bsky.social braves an AI consciousness conference to meet the people working on model welfare www.platformer.news/ai-conscious...

👇🎯 Again, the two parties are not remotely the same, & yet they are covered in our most prominent media outlets in exactly opposite proportions to the actual degree of scandal, lawbreaking, authoritarianism, etc. This has reached new levels of farce & obscenity since Trump. bsky.app/profile/mcop...

Good day to share one of my finer moments online.

This is why I’m pushing for a state escrow account that holds federal funds before sending them on to Washington. If Trump wants to steal our tax dollars that were legally appropriated by Congress, then we should just be paying ourselves.

The failure of our elites to hold Trump accountable for January 6th is as disgraceful as what happened on that awful day. Since 2010, 35 democratic leaders around the world have been criminally convicted. Only Trump went unpunished and unconstrained. Now he threatens democracy at home and abroad.

Chilling

Lot of Substacks feature smart ideas presented badly — weak structure, bland prose, or articles that are way too long — proving the old maxim that everyone really does need an editor.

The Fifth Circuit's en banc sitting for the end of this month is a sort of a microcosm of the times. 10 commandments mandate, alien enemies act, Texas immigration enforcement, drag shows, guns, a habeas grant, with a little regulatory rollback tossed in.

It's Their Time

Unitary executive theory is when the president can start a war but not forgive a loan

“27 million fewer car trip,” with benefits across the board for New Yorkers *and* most commuters. An absolutely stunning policy success. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

I spent four years working on a child sex abuse prosecution. It’s not a joke, it’s not edgy, it’s not fodder for a meme. Dave is right.

Thread: Our NATO allies are worried enough that they feel the need to put out press releases saying, in nearly as many words, that they’ll defend each other in a war.

No. No. No. Punitive processes make narrowly targeted programs *less* efficient and *more* costly. Because more scrutiny requires more bureaucracy. Punitive processes also make it *less* likely that people will get aid for which they qualify. Because of the roadblocks and stigma scrutiny creates.

yep. i can identify any number of structural issues but at the end of the day the basic problem is the republican party. this has been apparent for at least 20 years. it is also an incredibly unpopular observation to make among “serious” people.

Which makes it all the worse and more telling that Trump hasn’t even tried to work with Congress, when its members and rules are stacked thoroughly in his favor

This is a client stage arrangement with antecedents in the Roman Republic — where it also required the Senate’s close involvement

Lot of handwaving, “well but,” and “even though” statements when the times call for moral clarity. It’s wrong for the President to invade a sovereign nation without even a pretense of congressional approval. Full stop.

Embarrassing

Not clear to me how Congress as an institution survives the year without leadership willing to stand up for the body’s core functions

The kidnapping of Maduro inaugurates a highly dangerous era of U.S. empire that for perhaps the first time in an era of mass media is not pretending to be anything other than a violent, extractive enterprise of domination.

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

Meme of the year, 2025-???

Congratulations to all the political scientists out there about to get some very exciting observations for their rally-around-the-flag effect studies