the failure of the Mueller Report, ultimately, was the successful result of the conservative project to make sure that what happened to Richard Nixon would never again happen to a Republican president

Mueller in both his report and testimony thought that he was laying out a damning case against Trump — far worse than the same conduct that had gotten Nixon forced out of office — and then the media covered it as "TRUMP TOTALLY EXONERATED: NOTHING THERE"

Why it was so vital to beat Trump in 2024. Through selection and emulation, politicians will do whatever works to seize power. Guess what got shown to work?

Ex: Delia Ramirez (who’s Methodist) and Daniel Biss (who’s Jewish) both took money from J-Street employees and neither took money from AIPAC. Guess which one gets the red background with flames and a black & white photo, and which gets the green background with normal colors.

You need unapologetic hall monitors with the ban hammer. The problem with BlueSky leadership is that they want to be cool kids and hall monitors at the same time and thus are bad at both.

i'm dying

Netanyahu sucks, AIPAC sucks, but "we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby" is just code for "blame Jews." Trump wasn't forced to do this. Trump's supporters—like Kent—weren't forced to elect him and embolden him. They're not absolved of any responsibility.

The idea that it is the Democrats' job to be Donald Trump's nanny and clean his dirty diapers every time he soils himself (but never be allowed to impose any real discipline) is nonsense. The core condition Democrats should have for supporting anything is "impeach and remove."

If we all work hard we can get Money Derangement Disorder into the DSM-7 by 2040

this is also why leftists who dream of red brown crossover are (at best) fascist dupes. fascism was *founded in order to coopt leftism.* Red brown crossover is literally just fascism; it's how fascism is meant to work.1

Bush invaded Iraq on March 20 and Baghdad fell on April 9 (20 days). we’re 13 days into the Iran war and Iran is still able to control one of the most important shipping lanes in the world

The problem with the idea that Epstein was forcing elites into some kind of scheme is that we have a lot of the communications between them and him and they seem to regard him as a fun buddy

It's simple. Just announce the war is over every morning before the stock market opens. Then right after it closes double down with threats of an even bigger, longer war. Just do this every day forever. The war and the market siloed off in two alternating realities that never meet.

My thoughts on chili: 1: Beefless chili is bad. 2: Beanless chili is a monstrosity

Trump's been brainlessly blabbing all day, variously asserting the war is over, that we'll take over a big chunk of the Persian Gulf, that Iran must be destroyed... empty nonsense, like LLM slop. If you want to look for market manipulation, look at the press outlets who cherry-picked comments.

Pocket the Street Alchemist is doing numbers over on Tumblr for some reason, so here you go Bluesky! I hope you enjoy this dumb moment from a lil weirdo NPC I introduced in my D&D campaign a while back! #kobold #comic #doodle

please god bsky just let me turn off reposts on a per-user basis, NO i don't want to use a stupid ass feed for only posts, NO i don't want to turn off reposts for everyone i follow, shut up

Post DOGE I think of redistributive taxation far less in terms of redistribution itself than in terms of taking away social-political nuclear launch codes from people who can’t be trusted with them.

la palabra “fursona” implica la existencia de un “fursono” que es mas masculino

I’m no wrecker, I will continue to argue that every decent person must vote blue no matter who, but that commitment needs to be paired with an equal commitment to applying real scrutiny to the party, its sclerotic leadership class, and its suffocating machine-like dynamics

and to make it explicit, If you’re watching videos of kids get incinerated you’re not bearing witness, you’re almost guaranteed to transform into an incredibly unpleasant person who’s going to be a liability to whatever cause he cares about until thats dealt with

the Democratic Party cannot act as an opposition party credibly opposed to this bloodshed because it's elected leaders don't actually oppose it. this is a serious problem.

he's not smart. there are many things he does not know and more he does not understand. and marines, as a group, simply love iconography that is nazi-lite or fash in nature. it's possible he's a secret white supremacist but just soooo much more likely he's a jarhead chud who is stupid and also dumb

Well maybe they had drugs on them, huh? Ever think about that?

also, being a great senator is hard, but being a mediocre one is easy as hell. show up for the monthlyish vote, press the party button, on the golf course by 3

Every single year is either an election year, or a year leading up to an election year, so saying “you must support Democrats in elections and the year before them” is tantamount to saying you can’t ever criticize Dems at all. (And it’s pretty clear that this a rule a lot of people would prefer!)

I do think something like this is true, there is a petty bullying culture on here that makes the place off putting to many. But I also think it's genuinely odd (as comes out in the replies to this) that Twitter is a preferable alternative cos it has similar things *done by a preponderance of Nazis*.

I think when you have inked a notorious Nazi symbol on your body, we do not in fact have to give any benefit of the doubt

Picard: “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.” *replicator gives him a potted plant* Wesley: “Didn’t you order tea, sir?” Oh yeah you can really tell this kid is a generational intellect

I have noticed more and more frequently people saying something “has zero to do with” something else What’s the deal with that It doesn’t sound like it’s correct Has this always been a thing I’ve just not noticed

the main reason to go after the rich is that if you don’t the entire structure of your society is predicated on the whims of people who are entirely disconnected from ordinary life billionaires are simply too dangerous to exist, and any budgetary stuff that comes out of it is just a bonus

If you do get an answer from prison abolitionists, it's either the most insane thing you've ever heard or "prisons but much smaller and more humane and rebranded" which is the correct answer but is not what the word "abolish" means

it is not interested in plot, it is not interested in worldbuilding, it is not interested in anything except throwing random disconnected snapshots of nostalgia at you rise of skywalker kicks over the sandbox and leaves you uninterested in star wars in a way the prequels never did

Seth Moulton, one of the more prominent examples of early-25 safe dem “maybe we should sell out trans rights”, is cosponsoring the trans bill of rights:

Gavin Newsom is a specific type of politician that likes being in power because you get to ride in limos and meet cool people and feel powerful. He doesn't really care what he does with that power. This is why I want him to lose and why I will not panic if he wins -- he will do whatever's easy.

the only reason trans sports “worked” as an argument was that it was an appeal to fairness. centrist media institutions tried to parlay that to more anti-trans positions but. it just didn’t work because trans activists have successfully linked our rights to the fundamental freedom to choose

This is why Democrats nominated Kerry over Dean in 2004. Kerry made a whole thing about being a decorated war hero. Surely they can’t exploit this, they thought. The Republicans attacked him *for being a war hero* and he ate shit and lost.

The Death Star board room scene is low key the funniest scene in cinematic history. It’s a work meeting with an evil samurai wizard everyone else finds mildly annoying and when his manager tells him to stop killing a coworker with his magicka, he has to listen.

That’s not really true - Jeffries and Hochul both endorsed him, the national party supported him. Schumer refused and guess what! You should not be like Chuck Schumer!

they're not actually high engagement *with the politics*, they're high engagement with very limited and highly stupid online social circles.

Honestly it's weird because in the abstract you'd think "consumerism bad, makes voters into greedy little pigs who choose fascism for cheaper shit" is like a *perfect* leftist narrative. But they shun it!

The whole ideological complex that has decided every horrible human rights violation in the world is Israel's fault, except the Holocaust, which was really America's fault for telling those damn Germans how to commit genocide, really produces some pretty bad conclusions.

The biggest political divide on here is not between left and liberal but between "politics is real and involves real outcomes for real people" and "no it doesn't fuck you"

call me a carceral urbanist or whatever but i think that if you murder an entire family with your SUV, at the very least, you should never be allowed to drive again

like yeah no sorry actually every single pro-trans legislator in the country has -D next to their name. does that excuse national centrists playing footsie w transphobia? no - but it is, actually, why things didn't progress past footsie & instead that behavior was viciously backlashed. that matters!

My primary problem with a lot of more serious literary fiction isn’t that it isn’t well written or compelling it’s just that a lot of it is about “I’m articulate and depressed” and I kind of want like, something to happen, I guess. I suppose I’m something of a philistine in that way.

ngl one of the things I hate most about AI is how people react to idiots claiming LLMs are sentient by going in the complete opposite direction and declaring that actually we know how the mind works and where consciousness comes from