This is behavior I tolerate from my dog, but I wouldn't be friends with any human being who so needed to be an exception to someone else's well documented pattern of abusive behavior.

If anyone is said to not be entitled to due process of law, then NO ONE is entitled to due process of law.

They are not, you know, actually sincerely against showing contempt for America or its values or its peoples. That’s the essence of their movement. What does MAGA mean other than America is no longer great? No, the demand for obeisance is only directed at certain people.

Fascism is bad for everyone in every conceivable way. There are no benefits, no silver linings, & no one will mourn for one single second when these monsters are dead & gone.

The truth challenges power. So, power must challenge the truth. www.wbur.org/onpoint/2025...

The harm that conservative people did to people making critical assertions about Charlie Kirk after his assassination is what many prominent Democrats did starting in 2023 to people protesting the US's doing of the Gaza genocide. Boomerangs return.

Good morning.

There is no such thing as “taxpayers”. The figure of the “taxpayer” is a figment of the conservative-libertarian imagination, designed precisely to foster an anti-communal Individualism by positing the individual as *necessarily ontologically preceding* the community. substack.com/profile/7855...

I. I don’t . I have words to say and like things to type but also like does it even matter? Folks is dragging citizens out their homes, bankrupting BW and folks want to have discussions about “feelings”

"but the second amendment protects against tyranny--" Oh really? Well, where are you people, while ICE agents are storming people's homes without a warrant?

It's a lot easier to understand what I'm trying to say when I talk about the second amendment if you imagine that I want the second amendment to be about as strong as the current court makes the fourth, and I want the fourth amendment to be about as strong as we make the second.

Whenever this point comes up it's focus is usually on how we're losing a tug of war with the right as we cede ground, so they can shift the Overton window. But a part of me wonders if it's even worse than that. Beyond enabling, I wonder of this somewhat *forces* them to push further right.

They think far right wingers are going to vote for them and their intelectual verbatim makes them to look smart & reasonable. Bigoted people are going to vote for far wingers anyway. They don't even think there are people who will sacrifice their interests in order to destroy the people they hate.

Jeet Heer called it back in August 2015, back when most pundits still treated Trump's candidacy as a sideshow and-or a joke. newrepublic.com/article/1224...

Chris Rufo's disastrous takeover of New College in Florida shows what universities would become if they sign the Trump regime's extortionary "compact." New College was supposed to model the anti-woke conservative higher-ed Americans crave. Instead, it showed the opposite, and serves as a warning.

Bari Weiss' only talent is telling billionaire oligarchs what they want to hear dressed as dangerous truth. Her obsequious sycophancy for the oligarchs and appeal to their existing prejudices is the only value she has. Without them propping her up, she wouldn't have a career.

Can only imagine what would happen if Dems produced for its Black voter base the same as the GOP does for white evangelicals.

I hope that all of this from @amandamarcotte.bsky.social here is true. www.salon.com/2025/10/01/m...

The two highlighted passages here from this September 9th @timothypmurphy.bsky.social piece in @motherjones.com are some of the most salient things that you could read about our present era! www.motherjones.com/politics/202... Share these quotes far and wide!

I saw Jane Goodall do a talk in my hometown as a kid and she greeted the crowd with "good evening, or as the chimpanzees say, ooo ooo AAAHH AHHHH AHHHH OOOO AHHH OOOO OOOOOOO AHHHH" and everybody stood up and applauded. Swear to God.

vile stuff. vile people.

If you believe - or want voters to believe - the house is well and truly on fire, then you must not merely scream "fire" but put forth a plan to extinguish it. Otherwise, your claims are lies or you reveal yourself incapable of solving the problems you've named. Thank you Rep. Stevens.

Yeah, it's the typical Bully's Logic of "your resistance to the way that I am treating you is my justification for treating you that way."

MAGA has turned our government into a weapon against our people. No funding for fascism. No dollars for dictators. No payouts for pedophiles. No complicity in the budget.

Thrilled to see growing consensus that Dems must step up in the Continuing Resolution fight. Key to doing so? Refuse to frame this as "shutting down government." Instead, call it what it is - refusing to be an accomplice to turning the government into a weapon against the American people.

Congressional Republicans shut down the federal government - their third time under Donald Trump’s control. Here’s what that means for you.

Amy vet, Ph.D. in history, fed employee for a quarter century, made the right call in preserving our nation's history. Punished for it by POTUS and one of the smallest men on earth, Marco Rubio.

I swear nobody wants to talk about the fact that food prices are still rising faster than prices in general. A year ago all we heard about was the price of eggs. Food prices are still rising yet the media gives us…crickets…

Loyalty oaths for universities. The thing of the Third Reich. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...

But also it's easy to hear agreement in things. Like "I'm concerned about crime" might be taken as an agreement with a particular approach to crime, especially an authoritarian one (like sending in the military).

Not arguing at all, just pointing out that there is a normal cognitive bias to assume other people think like you. Pretty much everyone I talk to who talks about politics within a bubble assumes they are the norm. The only way to get away from that is to be around people who argue with you.

This is a very good essay, y'all know what I think about how characterizing non-rich people who vote for Trump as stupid is a dead end, and, I think that Valdes-Rodriguez is on to something here. alisav.substack.com/p/are-americ...

Times in which Charlie Kirk directly called for, supported, organized, and/or financed political violence, a thread with receipts: threadreaderapp.com/thread/19666...

I'm watching coverage of the gov shutdown. Absent is the recent Supreme Court action allowing the president to rescind budgeted funds. They destroyed the negotiation necessary for this process. How can there be compromise when one side has established that they won't abide by agreements they make?

Authoritarians always try to gaslight the opposition into despair. Trump has never been more unpopular. People want Democrats to fight him. This is great from AOC: www.thedailybeast.com/alexandria-o...

It's eugenics all the way down. "How do we cure these people?"

People of Illinois, we need your help. Get your cell phones out – record what you see. Put it on social media. Peacefully ask for badge numbers and identification. Speak up for your neighbors. We need to let the world know this is happening – and that we won’t stand for it.

"The shutdown can certainly be used rhetorically to justify more firings, but they’re just the same firings with a different rationale, one that is no more legal or legitimate than before. Of course, 'legal' and 'legitimate' are loaded words given the rubber-stampers at the Supreme Court."

Call Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, and ask him why he's protecting pedofiles and childhood sex traffickers. His official DC numbers are: (202) 225-4000 and (202) 225-2777 Bossier City office: (318) 840-0309 DeRidder office: (337) 226-6385 Leesville office: (337) 423-4232 Be relentless.

Yeah, I have thought this for a long time, and I remain perplexed about why partisan Democratic Party voters who exhibit this zero-accountability worldview for their politicians think that it helps THEM.

This fellow, at 81 years old has spent the last year seizing control (with his family) of a significant bloc of the US media ecosystem. Trump has appointed his company as new part owner of TikTok US (think what Musk did with the invisible Twitter algorithm) and his son just captured CBS.

Yep. Another great example of, now it’s a difference in morals between the two sides, not a difference in political views. The right to exist is not open for debate, and the idea that we’d just sit down and have a nice discussion over it is typical right-wing absurdity.

This is almost two months old, and there is so much good in it. I encourage you to read the entire thing. alisav.substack.com/p/mexico-is-...

Here is a great @nberlat.bsky.social piece from one week ago today (before the announcement that Jimmy Kimmel would return to his TV show) that I finally just now read. www.everythingishorrible.net/p/stop-being...

One CNN investigation has identified “more than 100 US citizen children, from newborns to teenagers, who have been left stranded without parents because of immigration actions this year …”

Several months ago, I learned that a friend I had met because of similar academic interests was planning to co-write a book with an aggressive and vocal bigot on X. When I asked, “Why publish with someone who constantly demeans other people that way?” the response was “Well, he’s always nice to me.”

via Letters of Note (lettersofnote.com/2016/02/02/e...)

This is a beautiful piece of writing - because it’s so clear and fundamentally about being human, together. South African friends who grew up under apartheid have said the same. Call it out, name it, shame it- the hateful rhetoric and the actions that follow. @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social

This is weakness. They can't stand being protested so they're going to bring absurd charges against protesters they know they can't sustain in actual court. It's going to tie up massive amounts of resources while real crime goes uninvestigated. This is pure intimidation and trying to instill fear.