I think it’s bad that the Speaker of the House has been in a sensory deprivation tank since roughly 2015 and only emerges to get yelled at in the hallway outside of the tank.

His name is DAVID EASTERWOOD and he’s not just “reportedly associated,” he’s the Acting Director of the ICE Field Office here. They want to be badass warrior spies with no mercy, no rules until they face the *tiniest* bit of accountability, then they cry like babies who got their juice box stolen.

Pro-tip: if you reduce your circle to only people who have ever asked a sincere question of you that expresses any curiosity about you at all, you will have fewer friends but also better sleep.

We had endless articles and TV clips about Biden's mental capacity but silence about Trump's obvious unfitness when he says he's going to start a war with Denmark over Greenland because he didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize.

The images and stories coming out of Minneapolis are extraordinary. We can't say we did not know what was happening. Lots of people are putting their bodies on the line to make sure we do.

New Past Lives bonus interview: I talked with the fantastic @kevinmkruse.bsky.social about John Doar, the Civil Rights Movement, and the role Doar and the Justice Department played in making the law lived reality. One of my favorites I've ever done! www.patreon.com/posts/interv...

Deleted the Bad Site profile, so if you met me on there and find me on here, hi.

It used to be that victims of murders in the U.S. would be smeared by InfoWars and Gateway Pundit as a way to fetishize guns and violence for ad dollars and supplement sales, with the added benefit of cozying up to far-right politicians. Now that work is done by CBS News.

i don't want the unpopular geriatric rapist criminal president to start world war 3

Blanket bans on trans youth in sports have never been about fairness or science or protecting girls' sports. They are entirely about alleviating the discomfort of bigots who don't want trans youth on sports teams or anywhere else in the public square. That's all they are.

here at cbs news, we are undertaking a mission to tell the kind of stories that for too long have gone untold, like how cops are badass and white people have never done anything wrong

Crucial context: ICE agents have typically been taught not to get scared, shoot fleeing moms in the head, and then call them a bitch afterwards on days 48 and 49 of their training.

Saying "We're gonna fuck Iran up if they hurt protesters" while shooting moms in the streets here is., like... We need a term that's bigger than gaslighting.

Every video showing ICE agents is them acting without restraint. Pinning a pregnant woman to the ground, pointing weapons at bystanders unprovoked. Those who want you to not believe your lying eyes today also want you to not believe anything you've ever seen about ICE agents.

We ALREADY have ICE concentration camps. We are ALREADY so far gone. Fuck the people who support this evil.

As you listen to DHS and ICE offer their excuses and justifications for murdering an American mother in cold blood, a quickly-forgotten reminder from Chicago: www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...

Important context for claims that the Nicole Renee Good was obstructing/assaulting officers before she was shot & killed: The last time immigration agents shot a woman (Marimar Martinez, Chicago) they made similar claims. Prosecutors have already dropped the charges www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...

/3 (6) meanwhile they think anyone who posted Charlie Kirk’s own words to criticize him should be fired and (7) they know that’s inconsistent but they don’t care because consistency is weakness, because, again, shitty people with shitty values from a shitty culture.

/2 (4) Also they know that praising a murderer enrages and horrifies decent people and (5) they hate and resent decent people because they are shitty people with shitty values from a shitty culture and they know it

Trumpists will be giving the ICE murderer awards and recognitions and honors. That’s because (1) killing someone who thinks differently than they do is their fantasy (2) most of them are too spineless to do it but (3) by praising the murderer they can murder in a fantasy-league way

Right. The point is not “it matters extra because it’s a citizen,” the point is “we either hang together or we will all hang separately.”

I just want people to remember that what this was was transparently obvious at the time and universally condemned. Hold on to that fact and don't let people change it under you.

The destruction doesn't make for a photo-op like tearing down the East Wing of the White House or bulldozing the Rose Garden, but it's every bit as bad. Generations of American children learned to spell and count, learned the Preamble to the Constitution, from watching shows produced by the CPB.

The truest sentence you’ll read today.

Just woke up even angrier. Impeach, convict, remove. Draft articles now. Either we have a representative government or we don’t. Do not shut up about this until there’s a vote.

Ending the year with a bang on Within Reason with Mike Matson, one of those programs showing what good media can do to connect people to politics. www.youtube.com/live/IkUvug-...

“To look upon a spy’s life is to look upon the moon.”

It's a weird world when dutifully regurgitating a bunch of carefully curated information that the world's richest man gave you is "fearless journalism," but reporting on how the government is kidnapping innocent people and sending them overseas to be tortured is "not moving the ball forward."

News stories about the concentration camps we run in foreign countries have to be smuggled to a third country in order to be seen.

This interview is now UNLOCKED and available to all: lthomas.substack.com/p/slavery-is...

But shall this crazed old man be tamely suffered to drag a whole ship’s company down to doom with him?

Not even gilded. We are living in the American Pyrite Age.

@dieworkwear.bsky.social if you have not already done so, may I please request an analysis of Benoit Blanc’s style choices?

I named my fists Vladimir and Estragon because they are ultimately kind of useless, yet still ready and waiting.

Yes, a field day.

Ray Hui visited a couple years ago and filmed this really cool profile. Can’t wait to see the upcoming docs on the other featured female fighters: youtu.be/cx1Sj4BTgug?...

"What if QAnon was right" is very, very dumb and even more dangerous. Not trying to sell books here, but this is why i named last one undertow. As in a current you get tired of swimming against and you just lean back and let it take you out to sea.

If this sounds like your kind of podcast, share it, tell your friends about it, get the word out! Past Lives is a 100 percent independent production, and we're going to depend on your support to make this work. I'll be sharing the link to our Patreon soon, and be sure to subscribe!

THIS. 💯

This deal to reopen the government is fucking disgraceful. Tens of millions will lose their healthcare. Trump will be emboldened. This is exactly what’s wrong with Democratic Party leadership and why we need more people in Congress who will actually hold the line.

A negotiation expert running for Congress (full disclosure: I’m married to him) explains exactly how bad the deal was that some Dems struck last night. www.facebook.com/share/v/1FPD...

@juliekedzie.bsky.social and I worked for an hour on guard retention, then we voted! So productive! #bjj #vote

yes I have messy hair and a John Brown rashguard.

[Exit Clown.]

Steve Bannon's "third term plan" is that you become so convinced that Trump will cancel and/or rig all future elections that you disengage from democracy, don't volunteer or donate or run for office, and think your vote doesn't matter so why bother. It only works if you let it work.

A key attribute of thug trash is pathological sensitivity to criticism and mockery. Use it.

Two $20 billion gut punches to American ag, already suffering under illegal tariffs. And not only do we have nothing to show for it, it's looking more and more like we're going to be bailing them out for the third or fourth time. This month. The third or fourth time *this month.*