Think about how quickly the attack on free speech happened, how quickly anti-"cancel culture" rhetoric turned into repression. This is the same dynamic that happened with all projection of the right. "Crime" while being a mafia. "Grooming" as they target children. It will happen with antisemitism.

The President of the United States PUBLICLY pressuring the Attorney General go after his political enemies. And an entire political party, and half the country, will yawn & look the other way. Sure, blame Trump for democracy & the rule of law slipping away. But so, so many others deserve blame too.

Dam been writing a book about this and she just TikToked it in 90 seconds.

Even if you take the most lenient possible interpretation -- that SCOTUS has made it increasingly hard to prosecute bribery and corruption -- you still have to ask what kind of crooked-ass administration hires a guy who just took $50k cash.

...further into the far right

“I trust my immune system. I don’t need a vaccine.” Ok, I trust mine to protect me too. Which is why I trained it extensively on what the virus looks like so it can handle it. Boxers don’t enter the ring without a plan. It’s the punch you don’t see coming that knocks you out.

Watching all these centrist pundits stress the “civility” of Charlie Kirk’s style without addressing the ugliness of his substance is giving me a renewed appreciation of how the civil, polite White Citizens’ Councils conned the same crowd into thinking they were distinct from the cruder Klan.

‘Booty’ and ‘butt’ are synonyms. ‘Call’ and ‘dial’ are synonyms. But, a ‘booty call’ and a ‘butt dial’ are VERY different things.

there will be a sizable percentage of folks who never believe whatever comes out of the investigation into kirk's killing, and it sure doesn't help having a potus who's prejudged it & an FBI fully weaponized. just be prepared.

I think the odds lean heavily towards this happening, and that's going to be very, very bad.

The greatest exchange in comics interview history still belongs to Jack Kirby

The same Supreme Court that just acted overnight to unleash ICE raids that break apart families and brutalize people in LA, couldn't find the time in 2024 to fast-track Jack Smith's case against a sitting president for trying to overthrow our government. Their priorities tell you everything.

Huzzah!

I don't think trump's little blue pill is any sort of gotcha moment. More likely it's a simple answer like this.

Reid: Bondi is not a real AG. She just works for Trump. All these U.S. attorneys — what’s her name from Fox (who I hope is sober) — she’s not a real U.S. attorney. She works for Trump. They’ve gutted the DOJ. The DOJ doesn’t exist. The FBI doesn’t exist. It’s all just Trump’s employees.

Today's a federal holiday because on the eve of the 20th century machinists, carpenters, and people who worked in mills, mines, and factories joined together to fight for better wages and a day to honor working people. If you're enjoying the holiday today, thank the labor movement.

NINE rural hospitals may close. MSU's SNAP-Ed program, which provides some schools with their ONLY phys ed program or ONLY school nurse, will be cancelled as of October 1st of THIS YEAR. Here's more:

This will be very fun to watch...

Bacon and ice cream does sound kinda good tho...

Love this for them

They don't feel shame, but they care deeply about status. Wanting to be liked--or at least envied--is their Achilles heel. We can use that against them:it's cheap, non-violent & effective. Social shunning of elites supporting Pinochet helped bring down the Chilean dictator: it can work here too.

remember folks, we cant have gun restrictions because if we do the federal government will occupy our streets, imprison people without due process, ship dissidents to foreign gulags and things of that nature

Title text: "I tried uploading it to a household appliance porn site I found, but apparently their content is limited to only fans." Alt text: https://explainxkcd.com/3133#Transcript

Dual Roomba xkcd.com/3133/

I agree with this completely, while also feeling deeply unseen, haha.

There has always been this strange doublethink around games. We want to insist that games are art, and by extension that our pastimes are worthwhile, but the implications are harder to swallow. If games are art, then they become subject to a new range of criticisms.

This looks like it could be fun

Pritzker: To the members of the press who are assembled here today and listening across the country, I am asking for your courage to tell it like it is. This is not a time to pretend here that there are two sides to this story.

As you watch the extraordinary spectacle of Trump's government attempting to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda, let's not lose sight of just how lawless and indefensible Trump's misconduct has been all throughout. Here's a thread recapping all of it. 1/

I'm still seeing news stories which suggest the US govt purchased a 10% stake in intel. But that's simply not true. They're pointing to money that was already appropriated as part of the CHIPs bill and other programs. Intel gave Trump 10% purely as a result of threats.

“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” ― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

If someone writes a pro-RFK Jr. article after the 2024 election and another article that's pro-DOGE — which this "case for staying on Twitter" writer did — then they were either always part of X's target audience, or they're not influencing people on there so much as being influenced.

Words/phrases Democrats should never use: * bipartisan * my Republican friends * real, valid, legitimate, serious, important (to describe issue raised by Republicans) * yea (when voting on Republican bills) * distraction (to describe bad thing Republicans did) * woke (in derogatory sense)

Dune, 1965

Hello. I wrote a nice long essay about AI and this very strange moment where we're constantly told we're living in the dawn of a strange new future but the only thing that's actually clear is that everyone feels pretty unmoored and uncertain. I hope you'll read it

We needed to expel every GOP Representative who voted against certifying the 2020 election results. We didn’t. So here we are. As with everything else in 🇺🇸 history from 1/6/21 to Iran-Contra to Watergate all the way back to 1865. People respond to incentives, especially lawless authoritarians.

I'm just now finding "It's Nice to be Disliked (by One of Those)" by @brittlestar.com, and it's the perfect theme song for the Gestapo-bothering videos from DC that I'm now obsessed with.

Controversial opinion: When it comes to US presidents, "blatantly breaking laws and violently violating people's rights" is a bigger deal than "is old," meriting greater public concern and a higher percentage of attention.

The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex - one of the most colorful regions on the night sky. bit.ly/4lB3t68 🔭#astrophotography🔭

"It is still a free country. You can still say what you want. So why are so many powerful institutions behaving like it isn’t and they can’t? If a few bratty cartoon kids can peel off the emperor’s clothes, what are the grown-ups so afraid of?" [giftie] www.nytimes.com/2025/08/16/a...

Newsom: "He doesn't play by a different set of rules. He doesn't believe in the rules. As a consequence, we need to disabuse ourselves of the way things have been done. It's not enough to just hold hands, have a candlelight vigil, talk about way the world should be...we have got to meet fire w/fire"

This is one of the most beautiful things I have witnessed, the craft here is impeccable.

I disagree. If more people acted like this (a lot more), then it could absolutely solve the world's problems. I DO agree that it's a beautiful interaction. Made my day. Also made the room a little dusty.

Solve cases on the go with the new MicroMacro Downtown Detective app! Available on Android and iOS.

Shameful but not unexpected. It's going to take decades to unwind the damage done to the country by faux conservatives.

The White House is taking new steps to undermine every international student at our universities. It has approved a new rule restricting student visas to 4 years max. That's not long enough for PhD students, or about half of undergrads, to finish their degree. Likely to enter force within days.

*pink pony club* Al Yankovic I'm gonna keep on cosplaying as Al Yankovic I'm gonna keep on cosplaying in West Hollywood I'm gonna keep on cosplaying as Al Yankovic, Al Yankovic

I wish more people (especially electeds) understood this. If you're willing to throw one group under the bus to get ahead, then what OTHER groups are you willing to abandon, and why should THOSE groups trust you?