these are the kind of numbers that, *at the end of a president's term*, herald a total wipeout for his party in the next election. we are in december of year one.

We were going to cure cancer, folks. Cancer!

I mean this is where "smart" starts to lose meaning. Because she is very good at using bigotry to make herself wildly rich. That's a competency, folks! That's using intelligence! That involves intellectual capacity!

There's just no evidence to suggest that she didn't understand what she was doing, that she and her bosses didn't understand what the outcomes would be, and it is in our best interest to assume we are dealing with an enemy that is strategic and intentional.

Also people aren't hearing the details in the CECOT story that she pulled because the story was pulled. She has absolutely succeeded in cutting into the power of the story and I think we should assume she--and her bosses--understood that doing things like this would cause a kerfuffle.

People are in such a rush to frame her as a stupid little lady when she is an extremely ambitious asshole

Guys. She knew exactly what she was doing. She’s bad at getting ratings but she’s very good at collaborating with fascists. She’s smart and knows what she needs to be good at.

This comment is about Bari Weiss, but applies to Trump and all his cronies. They're not buffoons, nor are they criminal masterminds. They have clear goals and specific skill sets. We do ourselves no favours by opposing caricatures and phantasms.

Exactly right. People want to make this about language and forbidden words, but it's really about prosocial and antisocial behavior. To encourage the return of the R slur, as far too many on the left have embraced, is to promote antisocial behavior that makes society worse for everyone.

It’s not a refusal to re-enter society. It’s not shaping your life around Covid avoidance. It’s adaptation. It’s a desire to protect health. It’s being willing to accept that things change, and masking & clean air are the way forward. Mass death & disability is not normal

The name "Popular Science" doesn't mean we shift our coverage depending on public opinion. It means we cover relevant subjects that are rigorously researched, reliable, and grounded in reality. And trans lives are grounded in reality. We see y'all. No matter what. www.popsci.com/science/tran...

I'm afraid it's not. It's an old liberal tradition of imagining that some identities are somehow constitutionally immune from fascism, which is a variant of the very racist and misogynist thinking at the heart of fascism. Long history of imagining wives of fascists aren't part of the project.

Above I said "no religion is immune to fascism." This is *not* an anti-religion statement, and I've as little time for that kind of flat and essentialist thinking as I do for Christian or Hindu nationalism. Fascism is like a black hole: it exerts a terrible gravity on all things.

The liberal imagination that Usha Vance must somehow not be a part of the fascist project to which she gives her energies is yet another facet of white supremacy & Christian nationalism the very racial & religious essentialism on which they thrive.

In case you need to hear it from someone who was raised Hindu: Usha is not a hostage, she is an accomplice. She is culpable. Fuck her and the fascists she colludes with. May she go down with all of them. As Zohran ably demonstrates, our communities do not aspire to whiteness & don’t seek to appease.

They're eating the dogs!

When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.

Yes. And translators, badly paid, have been trying to make people aware of this, but they have only a small platform. Need writers and readers to be aware and speak out. All my foreign language contracts going forward will stipulate that a real person translates.

Responsible researchers have the privilege to unhitch themselves from the "AI" brand at any time. Are you studying wildfire smoke or deforestation using satellite imagery? That used to be "remote sensing" and you can call it that again. Signal processing, image segmentation, structure-from-motion.

Absolutely. This woman knows what she’s doing. And she hates other Desi Americans, too—I won’t say how I know but she’s been like this since law school. So, yeah, Usha Vance is a racist self-loathing clout chaser like the rest of them, and she can fuck all the way off.

Polygraphs are junk science. But polygraphs are an effective "prop" used by trained interrogators. An unelected bureaucrat developing a sudden interest in raw intel from a controlled access program is the kind of thing that makes career intel people very suspicious. And for good reason.

None of this is normal. It is quite abnormal. Someone develops a sudden and inexplicable interest in sensitive compartmentalized information having nothing to do with their job? That's like a bright red warning beacon for counter-intelligence (the mole hunters). The failed poly and firings? Yikes.

Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

she's just doing what she was hired to do

Here's some more white pride: A Jayhawk isn't a real bird. A Jayhawk was an *extremely* violent and capable white man, that was super anti-slavery. They didn't attack civilians. But if you kept slaves and hurt Black people? Then you were fair game to them. They would kill you and steal your stuff.

Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵 Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

Do you remember that meme awhile back of the guy asking someone on the street "you have to choose between universal healthcare and trans rights," and the guy said "both, I reject your premise." That's the kind of thing all of us need to get comfortable with. Rejecting the premise.

And please also, AGAIN, never forget that they are inherently unethical to use because no one gave permission for their research or writing to be used in it. It is all stolen, and if you're using the plagiarism machine, please keep that in mind.

A depressing but important read. 3 House Dems voted to ban gender affirming care for minors. If they hadn’t done so, the bill would have failed. 7 Dems voted to allow ICE agents to strip search children. You read that correctly. They ought to be ashamed of themselves & be primaried out of jobs.

A tow truck driver who towed an ICE SUV that was blocking a driveway while the agents kidnapped Angelanos back in September was just found NOT GUILTY on the only charge against him (theft of government property). THAT'S ANOTHER WIN FOR "FUCK YOU; MAKE ME"

the world lost an entire generation of gay men and other HIV+ people all because of this piece of shit in the photo below. and that student debt you can never seem to pay off? also the fault of said piece of shit below.

I don't give a single solitary fuck about what happens to Bill Clinton, specifically, but I also want to go on record as saying there is no one, famous or a personal friend, who I hold so dear that if they were a rapist, I would not want that news coming out. Name, shame, prosecute. ALL. OF. THEM.

I find it so weird when people are like, "You're gonna regret this when your fave gets caught up in it." No I'm not. If someone I admire is actually a monster, I want to know that. I do not care who it is. There's no one I value more than exposing predators.

It's gonna be hilarious when the thing that heals the political divide is sending Bill Clinton to jail.

Sign of the times and all that but also, if you are a trans scholar especially or study weaponized domains of knowledge like climate change or vaccinations, just do it. The US really is not safe for most kinds of scholarship any more.

I just saw someone yell “they’re just using it to generate ideas!” And I hate to say it But if you work in the ART DEPARTMENT and you need a death machine stuffed with your colleagues’ work to give you ideas Quit.

If you're not trans, I don't think I can fully explain how important this is. It's so powerful that one of the most circulated science media publications in the world has come out and said "trans children are real and providing transition care improves their lives." That's groundbreaking.

I can’t believe they’re still doing “what about Bill Clinton?” The only people who care about Clinton are the ones who want to pass him off as a guy Dems care about.

?!?!?!

Also medical privacy! Trans health care & reproductive care are medical privacy issues! Medical privacy issues affect everybody & people need to get pissed off about it!

greatest mural ever? it's in the running

All I want for Christmas is objective reality back.

Every city in the US could reduce their murder rate simply by finding the 10 most violent most abusive officers, and firing them immediately. But they won't do this. And we'll keep making copaganda shows like "Law and Order," that glorify police brutality and unstable cops.

I spoke to a dozen professional concept artists working in games about whether generative AI image tools have made their jobs easier, even if it's just used in "very early ideation stages." Zero said "yes." Most said it made their job harder. I learnt a lot about concept artists. You should too!

David Brooks, who wrote in the NYT last month, "The Epstein Story? Count Me Out" is... in the latest Epstein photo dump published by @oversightdemocrats.house.gov. He should absolutely be fired by NYT for this. Major conflict of interest that he didn't disclose.

I believe in prison abolition. I am against any form of torture or state-sanctioned violence against prisoners. However, every single one of these freaks should be thrown in a dark jail cell to rot by themselves for the rest of their lives.

This should be the bare minimum position of the entire Democratic Party and every elected official with a D after their name.

That Compact essay is very easily picked a part with actual data/evidence, but what has become clear is there is very little will to do so as its dubious claims confirm a deeply held grievance amongst an apparently large % of our white colleagues that they are the victims of rampant discrimination.