I’m sorry, are you genuinely stupid enough to believe “the guy who shot at a crowd of Jews said he didn’t do it because of hatred for Jews”. Like are you really that fucking dumb?

“A politician must earn my vote” is really the ultimate triumph of consumerism. No conception that voting is a collective power. Just an empty belief that a vote is a type of currency that one uses to purchase a politician.

This is the guy Marianne Williamson said she wanted to "impress" by making fun of people with depression.

Today's plans:

Happy holidays to all who are traveling! Good luck. www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiSf...

Worth remembering that Bari Weiss signed that oh-so-remarkable Harper’s Letter about the vital importance of free speech and the need to resist attacks on it. I know that letter is five years old now, but utterly annoys me as much today as it did when it came out. So transparently bad.

Apparently Bari Weiss watched those SNL "60 Minutes" sketches with Martin Short in the 80s and decided Nathan Thurm was the hero.

Bari Weiss: Did you kill that piece like I asked? Editor: Yeah boss, right up against the deadline and after a ton of outlets already had access so everyone will want to watch it after you made a big deal about it, just like you asked. Bari Weiss: What?

This precisely

I do feel sorry for white men, but not in the way they want Most of us do

A final 2025 @chicagoreader.com Ghost Light column from me, reflecting on some of my favorite shows and other things. chicagoreader.com/performing-a...

Love a genuine Freudian slip.

Yes, but JK Rowling spends her fortune making life hell for trans people, so who's the real hero here, HUH? (I hope the sarcasm meter works on this one.) Gonna guess that more people suffer from the effects of usury than from possibly having to pee in a stall next to a trans person.

Sing along if you know the words! www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL0l...

I do think that when talking about LLM adoption, you have to keep in mind the difference between jobs where you can just wing it on a lot of stuff, and jobs where accuracy is absolutely paramount and the consequences of failing to be accurate are dire

Dude did a minute long riff on his wife's underwear, but when your job as a member of the mainstream media is sane washing the incoherent ramblings of a guy who keeps the lights on in your building, the public must be told he's just doing normal President stuff🙃

Because it’s not just Bari Weiss’ CBS asking this question—in the last few months, I’ve been approached by half a dozen different shows looking to ‘debate’ the same topic. I even got a request from NPR-distributed “Open to Debate” to see if I’d weigh in on “Has Feminism Hurt Women?” NPR!

"village" mentality is what sustains conservatism. not being able to do anything without the Grandma Gestapo reporting your every move. depending on the easily withdrawn kindness of others instead of impersonal but reliable services. and of course obeying aristocratic landowners

Someone in my house has never seen "My Favorite Year" so that is being taken care of now.

Probably never occurred to Jain to look at Casten’s FEC report, where he would have seen Casten gave at least $600,000 to the DCCC & the Illinois Dem Party Maybe had Casten kept that $600K he could have overperformed. You could even argue he DID overperform by not spending all that money on himself

The NYT calls Trump's illegal blockade and murderous boat bombings "An escalating standoff between the United States and Venezuela" www.nytimes.com/2025/12/20/w...

This is why I'm really starting to hate the data bros. Matty Y: "Dems should focus less on climate change/renewable energy, it's a losing issue." Sean Casten (an actual Congressman): "I won a purple district multiple times by focusing on those issues" Lakshya: "YEAH BUT YOU DIDN'T OVERPERFORM"

Some of us are spending their Saturdays getting Democrats elected. Which i am doing. Now. What are you doing besides shitting on Democrats on Social Media?

Beautiful job by TCM on the 2025 memoriam, as usual. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF8_...

This Yglesias piece in the NYT is horrifically bad. Almost every "fact" it cites is provably false. At best it is cocktail party banter from a pundit who knows nothing of energy. At worst, it was cut/paste from oil industry talking points. So, a rebuttal: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/o...

For the second year in a row, a beloved Chicago actor with deep roots in the storefront scene has died right before Christmas and it's hard not to feel pissed about this, honestly.

OK, I'll play: the number 1 movie when you were ten will define your 2026. (Why should this next year be any different, I say!)

Johnathan isn't wrong. And that will continue to depress the living shit out of me for the rest of my days. Also, the people on the "left" who were willing to risk the return of a rapist to office to "send a message?" Get bent.

Some news about my place of employment! chicagoreader.com/columns-opin...

Terrifying headline if you don’t realize they are sports teams.

Look at you, able to discern disabilities like chronic heart failure, neuromuscular disease, myopathy, etc, all by observation. Can you teach me how to do this? They skipped that part in med school 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

Here in Delaware we have a statue of Thomas Garrett, a white man found guilty of obstructing the recapture of fugitives from slavery – ordered to pay damages to the point of ruin for it. We don't, to my knowledge, have any statues celebrating the judges or jury members who found him guilty.

I do really enjoy this musical. www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YZr...

The White House claims the vote to rename the Kennedy Center was “unanimous.” That is false. I was muted on the call and denied the opportunity to speak or register my opposition. That is not consensus. That is censorship.

And for some reason I am now thinking about this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=__Ro...

I don’t know how it works at the New York Times, but my editors at The Guardian would never let me publish this if they knew that I was one of the elites who spent time with Epstein. And if I published it without telling them, I would be out of a job.

if this were derry, you just know the new york times would be doing a story on the male clown loneliness epidemic. trying to get women in the sewers to give big penny something different to eat. because we live in hell.

Only running through this weekend, but @chicagoreader.com contributor Kimzyn Campbell HIGHLY RECOMMENDS the world premiere of Madie Doppelt's "The Model Play," now in an environmental staging with Snails on a Bike. chicagoreader.com/performing-a...

Terry Hall also died on this day three years ago. I saw this when Sinead died. Still love it. Still miss them both. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o5t...

Kirsty was killed 25 years ago today. www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9jb...

Do you remember when the broadcast networks declined to air primetime speeches by Obama and Biden they deemed too overtly political? Because I do apnews.com/20ccd7a90e43... www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/0...

1/ At bargaining yesterday, @propublica.org management said that they should have 100% discretion to replace workers with AI and would not commit to labeling future AI-generated content.

I will never understand why there is a segment of the left/progressives/whateverthefuck you call it who are more enamored of partially redeemed right-wing garbage than they are of mostly solid-down-the-line liberals.

I will forever say this should be put on a t-shirt. “Janet Napolitano Was Right”

My alder (Maria Hadden) is gold stars across the board!

The Reason for the Season: defector.com/the-2025-hat...

This is the way

Is MoDo still polishing the turd of her "Donald the Dove, Hillary the Hawk" BS?