Pete Hegseth: "We need our warriors to embrace the Spartan mindset" U.S. Military: *suffers crushing defeat to the Persians*

Trump years have been instructive because it's been clear that nobody in the GOP actually hates the inevitably bad things about communism. Secret police, personality cults, gulags, kleptocracy, party loyalty tests, martial law, even central planning. Just the concept of people with less having more.

For decades Air Force One has been built from the ground up as a flying military command bunker. He really thought you could hurriedly tack on some after market tech onto an aging orgy plane and get the same thing. Like trying to turn the Playboy Grotto into the NORAD doomsday bunker, but dumber.

Announcing "this is how I'm getting tough on China!" while proudly destroying something American is very on-brand.

Haaland Oates

there's a lot here to be angry about but in theory if you care about things like "Western Civilization" it seems to me that you should probably be in favor of talented artists disseminating the core texts of the Western canon in a way that makes them accessible to the entire world.

there is a cohort of men who resent the responsibilities and obligations of adulthood — of the fact that you owe things to other people. it is a fundamentally childish impulse that they have reconfigured as the height of masculinity, and i think it informs the parasocial attraction to platner.

This was the USMNT we all know. Lazy, incoherent, lack of give a fuck. The off-field distraction helped nothing. People kept asking why I didn't believe in the apparent positive change to the squad, and just this is who they have always been Thank God for the USWNT. They know how to play

The Balogun situation is vintage Trump: -Corrupt as hell -Betrays one of his supposed bedrock principles if it aggrandizes him -Center himself to deliver something that seems good to the rubes, but actually does massive damage to US reputation -The only thing its missing is stealing $

This feels like a good time to note that, indeed, USWNT is the winningest team in international sports history (win percentage: 84) the18.com/en/soccer-en...

Until we address the fact most talented soccer players in the US can’t afford to compete because club and travel teams have snuffed rec/school ball out, this is probably going to keep happening.

Ball don't lie

So I guess this is a sub-bloop: I'm done with people posting fake Trump Troots as though they were real, be it an honest error, a deliberate attempt to deceive, or a lame attempt at "satire." Satire isn't possible with him, since everything is plausible ― and comments show many believe the fakes. /1

2/2 And while I'm at it: Reminder that DC has more residents than two entire states w total of 3 Reps and 4 US Senators (WY and VT, closing in on ND). We pay *more* federal tax per capita than any other jurisdiction—really, top even NY and CA. And have zero vote in Congress. Statehood for DC.

shutting down a major artery into the city during a holiday weekend while the world cup is in town and there’s a historic heat wave that’s lead to energy rationing just so you can have a wedding is a real radicalizing eat the rich moment

So, the bastards tell us plainly that they do not support or respect the Constitution of the United States. SO BE IT. They are neo-Confederate traitors, and should suffer a much more serious fate than their ideological ancestors did.

1. Whole lot of "Don't Tread on Me" types who are very silent about this kind of behavior from ICE 2. This would be a massive scandal in any other administration, but now it is barely reported by the local news and will never crack national

...I've held my nose and voted for centrist Dems more times than I can count because I didn't want the opposing Republican to win. centrist Dems who won't do the same when a progressive is on the ballot are giving away what side they are really on

Hey just wondering whether there are any mythological tales about a man who becomes obsessed with a reflecting pool? Maybe there would be, like, a personality trait associated with that myth.

All of Trump's go-to riffs are clearly things that someone tried to explain to him using extremely small words and basic concepts and that he still didn't understand, but still latched onto specific terms to create his own Ralph Wiggum version

Messi just wanted his record breaker to be from the field of play not the dot

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and— I said look. Look with your eyes! Oh now you’ve gone and touched it. The paint is peeling. My beautiful paint! I’ll have to call my pool guy back. Vandal! Antifa! I said look And despair Nothing but the algae remains.

In a nutshell: www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/b...

Breaking News: the algae has agreed to accept $300 billion to consider vacating the reflecting pool

You can absolutely do politically incorrect humor today, it's just harder and means you shouldnt punch down. You can do racial humor without being racist. You can do sexual humor without being a misogynist, or homo/transphobe. It is harder, but just be better at your jobs instead of lazy hacks.

Robert Evans of Behind the Bastards suggested that the way to break the GOP's back was: 1. Crackdown on MLMs 2. Regulation of supplements 3. Legalizing direct sale of vehicles Regardless of what it does to the GOP, these all sound great to me.

If politicians really want to “save childhood,” they can start by ensuring every child has three meals a day, a safe place to sleep, and safe access to education. Banning social media does nothing to help kids who don’t have basic resources.

Alexi Lalas is insufferable

All those circa 2005 sci fi shows that mentioned Elon Musk as one of the greatest minds to seem topical sure have not aged well

Reporting on Elon Musk becoming a trillionaire should be done with the same general tone as a lethal virus escaping containment, not as an awesome achievement.

Don’t worry Knicks fans. If Ted Cruz shows up in San Antonio for game 5, your team will be fine.

Trump take sweep

The thing is, you can absolutely say: "I will vote for Platner if he's the nominee because a blue Senate seat is worth it" without trying to defend Platner as a person. There's no reason to defend Platner's behavior, when he's shown himself over and over to be a bad person.

Just so we’re clear, Trump decided to give himself and his family tax-cheat immunity. Congress didn’t do it. The courts didn’t do it. Trump is stealing tens of millions of dollars from taxpayers because the Republicans in charge of our government refuse to stop him. it’s outright theft.

I don't blame posters for recognizing that a Democrat had charisma & voters love him, but I blame every professional reporter & political commentator who defended him for not even trying to do their job. The Pod Save guys's names deserve to be dragged through the mud right alongside Platner

Shocking that the rich kid playing at being an Oyster farmer with a Nazi tattoo turns out to have been a serial cheater and abuser of women. Collins has to go and the Dems need that seat, but this was never the guy.

I’ve been in the I don’t trust the dude with the Nazi tattoo since the beginning and people were like oooooh but the alternative was Susan Collins or Janet Mills dummy. No the alternative is the party cultivating talent and doing capacity building

Not for nothing but freedom of navigation has been a core US foreign policy objective for 200+ years and preserving the Arabian Gulf from domination has been one for just a hair under 50. When I say things like “calamity” or “inexcusable defeat”, I am not being partisan or exaggerating.

so when i said in 2015 that he was a lunatic and would destroy the entire country for his benefit and he was a complete racist sociopath and would rob the country blind, that turned out to be correct, yes just checking

It is amazing to have more in common with the Pope now than I did when I was actually Catholic

They will need to appropriate minimum several hundred million dollars just to get the white house back to some kind of normality and sweep it for hidden cameras and listening devices and the media will cover the expense as their first scandal

One problem for us going forward as a country is that Biden went out of his way to provide economic support for red areas and their response was to embrace economic warfare against blue areas. Hard to see any viable way to stop that other than for blue areas to reciprocate and retaliate.

guy who is mad at Nolan’s Odyssey because it depicts the sea as blue instead of wine-dark

Paul Musgrave's comment that "Substack is like if the Ferengi had invented “humanities”" remains undefeated.

I really don't think we talk enough about how Trump's political career is like an obnoxious rich guy heckler behind home plate who when he actually tries to play is like this