"He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures... For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:"

Which brings us around to my ultimate thesis, which is that the Roman Republic conquered the entire world it knew...because of woke.

Glory to the Republic and those who defended her

Centrists: I'm sure TX 'gender ideology' ban will only apply to a few polemic women's studies books that went too far Texas: You can't assign Plato in a philosophy class anymore

Okay, I did it New at The Evening Constitutional! Why Donald Trump is an actual factual traitor, within the meaning of the Treason Clause eveningconstitutional.net/donald-trump...

Evolution doesn’t always take thousands or millions of years. Sometimes it happens right before our eyes. Such is the case with the Anna’s hummingbird, a species that has undergone a dramatic transformation in a few generations, thanks to the advent of hummingbird feeders: https://scim.ag/3YMuQQu

the Greenland shit is 'a distraction' in the sense that putting an IED in a preschool to get the cops away from your bank robbery is a distraction: it will probably work in the near term, it's massively stupid as a strategy in the long term in terms of heat on you, and the stakes are deadly serious

not beating the allegations that antivax beliefs are downstream of being afwaid of needles

The reality is that a lot of SSA clients need specialist help. They are older, many have low computer literacy or in poor health.

The Trump administration's key changes have been a) to add more burdens to SSA clients, increasing frictions and b) to expect that SSA clients will be able to manage those burdens via online processes without help. Recipe for failure.

The Trump administration has said it was improving the SSA. A year in, it looks like the mess that everyone else predicted. Not enough staff, manipulation of numbers and declining performance. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

the terracotta warriors are literally painted, by the way, it's why most of them remain in the pits - they lost their color when exposed, and Chinese archaeologists and other scientists have been trying to figure out a way to excavate the rest while keeping the paint intact

Historians also debate the proliferation of this cultic figure, whom many believe to have been a tutelary spirit

Proud to present this pictorial thread of Jamelle Bouie insulting you #1: You're a dumbass

Right. If you want a good explanation of why the American system of government worked well enough for 200 years and then suddenly stopped, it's because Republicans in Congress suddenly started letting their partisan interests COMPLETELY override their institutional interests

So Hitler's position in 1940/1941 is not a good position ruined by foolish decisions, but in fact a deceptively weak position that is almost certainly doomed, leading to insane gambles that only make it worse. The catastrophic mistake was having a war, a result of the worse mistake of being a Nazi.

The thing is that he does not retain any options regarding this. Even if you accept that there was legal precedent to rendition Maduro—there is no possible AUMF that covers the military occupation of Venezuela. There is straightforwardly no legal authorization for the President to do any of this.

I spoke with our local librarian when he instituted the policy, and he told me what often happened was kids just stopped taking out books forever because they did not want to tell parents about fines, and once they get in the habit of never taking anything out, that habit lasts a lifetime.

the legal framework against CSAM was strong and well-established, and the Trump administration has effectively destroyed it because one of their own makes it.

Would like to take this moment for us to appreciate the contrast with Biden admin Latin America policy which at least featured attempts to make things more democratic and helped ensure a smooth transition of power in Brazil.

This person went on a buying spree over the past 24 hours. Fresh wallet. Only existed since Dec 27th and has only bet on Venezuela-related markets. polymarket.com/@0x31a56e9E6...

I DECLARE A PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY

Don't you usually have to traditionally...defeat and occupy a country before you announce that you're occupying that country?

Among the many reasons you don’t kidnap a foreign head of state at gunpoint even if you have the capability, is that it sparks consequences you can neither control nor anticipate.

Harsh words from @kaine.senate.gov, who sits on the Senate’s armed services and foreign relations committees, and asks where Trump will deploy military forces next

The legal justification the WH gave us for attacking Venezuelan boats in int’l waters without Congressional approval was weak, and exposes the WH and military staff to domestic and international criminal prosecution. They have not even sought to justify strikes within Venezuela.

yeah I figured it out.

so cool that when Kurosawa made Seven Samurai, he was like, "What if a movie absolutely ripped for three-and-a-half hours straight?"

This is quite an important point; if you are a UK citizen with Twitter on your phone, opening it up is like playing Russian roulette that the algorithm might commit a strict liability offence on your behalf.

Jan. 2, 1776: Today marks the earliest known appearance of “United States of America” to describe our country. Stephen Moylan, a secretary to Gen. George Washington, employs the phrase in reference to efforts by the American colonies to obtain foreign assistance: 1/4

They gentrified the tinfoil hat

Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt's Nazi Staffer, by @chancephillips.bsky.social. The first ever story broken by @liberalcurrents.com, we remained the only one covering it for weeks after, until the Guardian picked it up. www.liberalcurrents.com/missouri-sen...

blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration!

We are *all* Real America in the same way a naturalized citizen who took his oath five seconds ago is exactly as much of a citizen as someone whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower.

Seriously though, Liberal Currents is a great publication and Alan wrote some really good articles for them this year.

make the IRS woke ICE

May 2026 be better than 2025! The De Brailes Hours,13th century. (BL, Add 49999, fol. 40v)

Fred Groincock United States, Census, 1940

The Kilmar Abrego Garcia case is instructive. If they can’t be allowed to do what they want to *this one guy*, how can they have the power to remake all of society in their rancid image? They know this, which is why they’ve pushed so hard on it. But they also keep losing.

The past year has been terrifying. Really, the past two—I lost a lot of sleep in 2024 over the promises of the Trump campaign, promises they immediately sought to make good on. But at the end of the first year of his would-be dictatorship, I am calling it: we are going to win.

Most normal substack history post

Yeah, man, the only difference between your career and Mark Rufallo’s career is the political stuff.

The part in the Gospel of Matthew where the holy family just kind of hunkers down and waits for the tyrant to die is officially the most relatable version of the Nativity story this year

“In the end, is Lindsey offering us Prometheanism? Or just repackaged patriarchy? One starts to hear echoes of Charles Haywood's "Foundationalist Manifesto," which (. . .)combines radical technological visions with retrograde gender and political norms.” www.liberalcurrents.com/are-we-prome...

there was a bill to forbid Virginia prosecutors from getting defendants to sign away their constitutional/Bill of Rights rights, giving them up for years. wild, right? youngkin vetoed the bill boltsmag.org/fourth-amend...

youngkin brought back a Jim Crow-era policy of voter disenfranchisement under him, Virginia became the *only* state to practice the harsh rule that anyone with any felony conviction ought to remain barred from voting for life boltsmag.org/virginia-gov...