I think this is the fundamental problem that is going to destroy this country. Everything comes back to this.

If the indicators are blinking red then it isn’t a “vibecession,” is it? Anyway, Trump is in no danger of getting caught in the same dynamic because he doesn’t face a relentlessly hostile press. That’s what doomed Biden. www.axios.com/2025/09/05/t...

the party needs to be trying something different and taking risks also, inherent to taking risks is that some of them fail the key is that you have to both take an L when the risk fails and not give up on risk-taking itself

An amazing story of this decade was the ADL turning all its fire on Israel critics while tech companies dismantled their censors and Hitler-lovers came roaring back.

Warped priorities: 17 NYT news stories on the Louvre jewel heist (so far); 3 NYT news stories on 7 MILLION PEOPLE attending No KIngs Day events (including one on late-night comedians and one on Trump's "brown liquid" video.)

The press has been reporting that regime officials are responding to reporters’ questions with “your mom” but they have not made this childish lack of professionalism a story unto itself. Which means that there’s little chance of it breaking through the noise.

I'm not sure you can get more marie antoinette than taking away food stamps before thanksgiving while you build a gold and marble dance hall so the other crooks can bring bribe you over a badly-cooked (argentinian) steak

Graduate seminar did a deep dive on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense yesterday. At the line, “in America the law is king,” they (14 students from 6 countries) burst out laughing. I've been doing this for 35 years and this is the first time that was a laugh line.

It’s hard to convey just how much Chicagoans are mobilizing against ICE. Don’t want to downplay the harm, or make it seem like a fair fight. But in neighborhoods across this city, ICE is getting chased by people blowing whistles and shouting. People are running TOWARD ICE to protect their neighbors.

Personally, I think we should know the names and faces of the people in the US government who are producing a constant stream of white nationalist propaganda, given that THEY WORK FOR US and OUR TAX DOLLARS PAY THEIR SALARIES.

I don't think we should let it go that the president posted a video of himself shitting diarrhea on us. It should be on his wikipedia page

the media has made a huge deal about Neutrality and Not Editorializing and it all falls apart when you realize they are too afraid to publish a factual description of the video Trump posted

Those with sharp eyes might detect a subtle difference in NYT play last month of an event in one city, w 100,000+ attendees, versus play this morning of some 2500+ events w many millions of attendees, in all 50 states. See if you can spot it! /s Then you can find today's story on p A23

Gentlemen, start your sanewashing

This is quite a hed/subhed. 1) Start with Vance. Use strong action verb. Accept the autocratic premise that the “Marines’ Might” are Vance’s to flex. 2) Mention the protest second and absurdly describe them as in the thousands 3) Treat Trump’s strong man use of the military as a partisan scuffle.

I think it should be career-ending to tell a willful and easily disprovable lie to voters like this

At this point, if you're interviewing a Republican about the president's latest transgression and you *don't* have the video or post or whatever cued up and ready to show them when they pretend they haven't seen it yet -- I'm just going to assume you're in on the con yourself.

The NYT app the morning after the biggest wave of protest rallies in America in a generation They buried the story between other headlines, opting not to use a photo too.

Gratitude to all of the organizers.

"no kings protest are violent" and it's actually someone wearing a rubber chicken costume leading a dance party outside the US capitol building

Trump has been able to make so much headway against the constitutional system because the institutions that are supposed to hold him in check have adopted the posture that it's savvy to let him have his way. Now millions of people are saying "Are you sure? An enormous number of us disagree."

/2 The Roberts Court 6-3 majority is best understood not as a genuine or legitimate independent adjudicatory body but as a ceremonial adjunct to the Trump government, like a First Lady or a second-born prince in a constitutional monarchy.

By the way, important to recognize that Michael Schmidt wrote both these pieces and it’s not crazy to think his line today was directed at his own editors as much as anyone else

ooh well done

The antifa terrorist marxists are out

I tapped into a bank vault to get aid to poor people out the door. I found a creative solution to get people paid. And rather than congratulate me for doing that, this unprecedented action to pay people, the cops want to arrest me for it. They're saying it's illegal.

As I pessimistically anticipated yesterday, the Russians have succeeded in disrupting the discussion about US Tomahawk deliveries to Ukraine – a discussion that, until Putin’s call to Trump the day before yesterday, had been progressing to Ukraine’s benefit. 1/10

There is no rule of law in this country any longer. He’s arbitrarily indicting his enemies and freeing his supporters and sending his thugs to grab people off the streets and the media and Supreme Court are mostly just shrugging and saying “Trump gonna Trump”

Yes! This is basically the core insight of my theory that we can divide impeachable offenses into "mandatory" and "discretionary" categories With the former, once you believe in the facts of the allegation, you are bound by oath to impeach

This is art.

This is super cool not just that it exists, but it's at the center of a quasar detected in the 19th C (because the dust around the black hole is so hot, and thus bright), which means people literally saw the two black hole system, which is counterintuitively bright, before black holes were theorized

Windows 10 goes out of support today. My fave useless fact about w10 is that the iconic blue desktop background is a *photograph* - not CGI. Tiny 'making of' vid here - youtu.be/_2RacX9DgWM...

utterly depressing that Nixon-level scandals are now a normal Friday night news drop, barely remarked upon, just another day in Trump’s America

This is not a minor issue: it’s a serious threat to democracy. We’re rapidly transitioning into a world where, as long as you support the president, you can be above the law; if you’re in the opposition, you have a target on your back. Opposition can’t survive under these conditions.

Also, this seems like something for the Dems to jump all over: GOP policies are SO unpopular that the Speaker of the House—one of the most politically powerful people in the US—feels compelled to feign absolutely implausible ignorance to avoid acknowledging them!

This is the insouciance I was trying to shake liberal elites out of when I wrote this. www.offmessage.net/p/how-to-rev...

See this for what it is: *Trump wants to make the military/FBI loyal to him *GOP refuses bipartisan legislation to pay the military *Trump creates a new executive power: that he and he alone decides if the military/FBI is paid during shutdown donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-shutdo...

If you keep on like this, Mr Jeffries, I’ll agree to forget about all the stuff that you said before.

we are not having a lot of luck with institutional pushback - everyone who does is fired and replaced we are definitely not having any luck with “norms” what we are having luck with is ordinary people looking at the incompetent bullshit put in front of them and going “absolutely not”

I hate how often I am forced to think about this meme

war on Christmas

If you let Trump just declare random innocent Venezuelans terrorists and assassinate them, if you let him just get away with summary executions with no due process; no oversight and no penalty, then eventually Trump WILL start killing American citizens who criticize his administration.

Ronald Reagan said it. #NoKings tomorrow 10/18

Wow. New Economist poll finds only 34% of Americans say ICE's use of force has been justified, vs 51% who say it's been excessive. And they oppose agents wearing masks by 52-35. Yep, ICE is becoming a pariah agency, and that's gaining deep penetration in the culture:

I am sure these guys will get right on it

If you're running in a Dem primary for Senate, preemptively endorsing the filibuster is already a red flag. ... but not knowing the filibuster for lower court judges has been gone for more than a decade is even worse, it's indisputable evidence of incompetence.

Johnson: "Grijalva should be working for her constituents right now. I don't know what she's doing. I keep seeing their political stunt videos. She should be in her office. She should be working or in the district for her constituents" (Grijalva is not in fact a Rep. b/c Johnson refuses to seat her)