Monday, July 14, 2025
Sure Why Not
BREAKING: The Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to move forward with the abolition of the Department of Education. It gives no explanation for its order. All three liberals dissent. www.documentcloud.org/documents/25... From Sotomayor's dissent:
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) July 14, 2025 at 8:20 PM
[image or embed]
There's A Zucker Born Every Minute
July 14 (Reuters) - Mark Zuckerberg said on Monday that Meta Platforms would spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build several massive AI data centers for superintelligence, intensifying his pursuit of a technology he has chased with a talent war for top engineers.
Sure, Mark, it'll have legs, whatever you want, man.
Quit
WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department unit charged with defending against legal challenges to signature Trump administration policies - such as restricting birthright citizenship and slashing funding to Harvard University - has lost nearly two-thirds of its staff, according to a list seen by Reuters.Still it's good, of course.
Agenda Journalism
When the New York Times embarks on one of its agenda-driven missions - anti-Mamdani, anti-Trans, anti-Claudine Gay, for example - there are a couple of obvious takeaways. One is that they are very dishonest as they deny that they are doing the thing they are obviously doing. Two is that they communicate the things that they (the institutional 'they') think are important, and by implication the things that don't bother them much at all.
And They Came To That Conclusion All By Themselves
About 8 in 10 Americans, 79%, say immigration is “a good thing” for the country today, an increase from 64% a year ago and a high point in the nearly 25-year trend. Only about 2 in 10 U.S. adults say immigration is a bad thing right now, down from 32% last year.
Sunday, July 13, 2025
The Heart of the Matter
What’s going on with my “boys” and, in some cases, “gals?” They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening. We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and “selfish people” are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein. For years, it’s Epstein, over and over again. Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 “Intelligence” Agents, “THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,” and more? They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called “friends” are playing right into their hands. Why didn’t these Radical Left Lunatics release the Epstein Files? If there was ANYTHING in there that could have hurt the MAGA Movement, why didn’t they use it? They haven’t even given up on the John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King, Jr. Files. No matter how much success we have had, securing the Border, deporting Criminals, fixing the Economy, Energy Dominance, a Safer World where Iran will not have Nuclear Weapons, it’s never enough for some people. We are about to achieve more in 6 months than any other Administration has achieved in over 100 years, and we have so much more to do. We are saving our Country and, MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, which will continue to be our complete PRIORITY. The Left is imploding! Kash Patel, and the FBI, must be focused on investigating Voter Fraud, Political Corruption, ActBlue, The Rigged and Stolen Election of 2020, and arresting Thugs and Criminals, instead of spending month after month looking at nothing but the same old, Radical Left inspired Documents on Jeffrey Epstein. LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB — SHE’S GREAT! The 2020 Election was Rigged and Stolen, and they tried to do the same thing in 2024 — That’s what she is looking into as AG, and much more. One year ago our Country was DEAD, now it’s the “HOTTEST” Country anywhere in the World. Let’s keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Saturday, July 12, 2025
Conversations With My Past Self
I Guess Those Lazy Workers Did Something After All
Noem, who apparently had not received the new White House talking points, was still talking about scrapping FEMA this week, when she claimed the agency is “slower to get the resources to Americans in crisis” and should be “remade into a responsive agency.”
But, in the Texas disaster, the problem wasn’t FEMA. It was, in part, Noem.
“Noem now requires that all agency spending over $100,000 be personally approved by her, according to current and former FEMA officials,” NBC News reported earlier this week. CNN reports that this restriction led to delays: FEMA officials were unable to pre-position urban search-and-rescue crews, which specialize in searching for victims during catastrophic weather incidents. Noem failed to authorize the crews’ deployment until Monday, 72 hours after flooding began. The same day, according to NBC News, “FEMA officials created a task force to speed up the process of getting Noem’s approval.”
It's Tariff Week... Again
Donald Trump announced on Saturday that goods imported from both the European Union and Mexico will face a 30% US tariff rate starting 1 August, in letters posted to his social media platform, Truth Social.
The tariff assault on the EU came as a shock to European capitals as the European Commission and the US trade representative Jamieson Greer had spent months hammering out a deal they believed was acceptable to both sides.
Donald Trump has never stuck to a deal before, but we thought the would with us!
Both the EU and Canada scrapped their planned Digital Services Taxes and this is their reward!
Guilty Pleasures
Friday, July 11, 2025
Run Away
Speaking Of Epstein
The United States Department of Justice this week released nearly 11 hours of what it described as “full raw” surveillance footage from a camera positioned near Jeffrey Epstein’s prison cell the night before he was found dead. The release was intended to address conspiracy theories about Epstein’s apparent suicide in federal custody. But instead of putting those suspicions to rest, it may fuel them further.
Metadata embedded in the video and analyzed by WIRED and independent video forensics experts shows that rather than being a direct export from the prison’s surveillance system, the footage was modified, likely using the professional editing tool Adobe Premiere Pro. The file appears to have been assembled from at least two source clips, saved multiple times, exported, and then uploaded to the DOJ’s website, where it was presented as “raw” footage.
Small Pleasures
That these horrible people have to spend time with each other.
FBI deputy director Dan Bongino took a day off from work Friday after clashing at the White House with Attorney General Pam Bondi over their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, four sources familiar with the conflict told Axios.
Why it matters: The dispute erupted Wednesday amid the fallout of the administration walking back its claims about Epstein by determining the convicted sex offender didn't have a celebrity "client list," and that he wasn't murdered in his New York City prison cell in 2019.
Bongino didn't come to work Friday, leading some insiders to believe he had quit. But administration officials say he's still on the job, even as the internal tension over the Epstein case continues.
We Could Get REALLY MEAN
Finger On The Pulse
Former US Secretary of State John Kerry has told the BBC his fellow Democrats allowed the US-Mexico border to be "under siege" during Joe Biden's presidency.
In sometimes sharp words, Kerry - who was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 and a US senator from Massachusetts - said he told Biden the party had "missed" on the issue of immigration for years.
Obviously anyone paying attention knows this is not what happened but, also, too, Gallup
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
...
Perhaps because of Americans’ opposition to immigration policies that Trump has enacted to remove undocumented immigrants from the U.S., their evaluation of his work on immigration is mostly negative. Thirty-five percent approve of his handling of the issue, including 21% strongly approving, while 62% disapprove, including 45% strongly.
I've seen Dems lose their shit when an issue is 55-45% against them. Right now immigration is 62-35% against Trump.
Democrats did handle immigration extremely badly, just as people like me tried to explain: they agreed with Trump about his signature issue.
They have also handled it badly since, not understanding that while many Americans are assholes, it was an obvious call that the majority would not like videos of armed and masked agents of the state violently kidnapping people.
Professional Dems will still resist this because they earned their vacation home money on this advice and they can never be wrong.
Where We Are
Can't Even Stick To That Fake Story
Thursday, July 10, 2025
Values Voters
State Sen. Angela Paxton announced Thursday she has filed for divorce from her husband, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
“I believe marriage is a sacred covenant and I have earnestly pursued reconciliation,” Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, said in a post on X. “But in light of recent discoveries, I do not believe that it honors God or is loving to myself, my children, or Ken to remain in the marriage.”
Though with Paxton it is indeed another one.
Sure Why Not
In the annals of Donald Trump’s crypto corruption, the $100 million Aqua 1 Foundation deal stands out for more than just its size: There’s very little evidence that Aqua 1 Foundation exists at all. The Aqua 1 website, which was registered on May 28, 2025, contains no information about the company beyond some fintech buzzwords and an e-mail address. The company’s original X account was suspended, as was an account for an apparently affiliated company called BlockRock RWA (“RWA” refers to the practice of creating blockchain tokens for “real world assets”). Searching public databases, including of businesses in the United Arab Emirates, I’ve been unable to find any corporate registration, official filings, or other documents attesting to the existence of World Liberty Financial’s newest and biggest investor.What if we built a fraud system based on fake money and then got Congress to make our fake money real? I anticipate no problems.
Over To You, John and Sam
* US JUDGE BLOCKS PRESIDENT TRUMP'S BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP ORDER IN NATIONWIDE CLASS ACTION @reuters.com
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) July 10, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Still Embarrassed Years Later
US President Donald Trump praised Liberian President Joseph Boakai for his strong grasp of the English language on Wednesday. But the African leader was educated in Liberia, where English is the official language.
Wednesday, July 09, 2025
I Did Not See That Coming
In Which Larry Summers Discovers People
I want to return to the topic after conversations with health professionals, including my daughters, who practice medicine and social work in rural New Hampshire. They made me realize that a focus on macroeconomics, while valid, misses the human brutality that I now see as the most problematic aspect of the legislation.Nothing is real until Larry notices it.
They Aren't Secret Police, Just Police Kept In Secret
The masks frequently worn by agents make ICE seem like the type of secret police that operates in authoritarian regimes. But they are apparently meant to protect agents from doxxing.
Full Nazi
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence firm xAI has deleted “inappropriate” posts on X after the company’s chatbot, Grok, began praising Adolf Hitler, referring to itself as MechaHitler and making antisemitic comments in response to user queries.
Is Journalism On
Cameron Hamilton, FEMA’s former acting head, was pushed out of the agency in May after he testified before Congress that he did not believe the agency should be eliminated. David Richardson, his replacement, has no background in disaster response and told employees last month that he did not realize the country had a hurricane season. It was not clear if Mr. Richardson was joking.FEMA director isn't always newsworthy, but at the moment...
Tuesday, July 08, 2025
Captain Planet Wasn't A Woke Environmentalist When I Was A Child
They Know What They're Doing
These are choices.
The New York Times On A Rampage
For one thing, it came to the Times due to a widespread hack into Columbia’s databases, transmitted to the paper through an intermediary who was given anonymity by the paper. That source turns out to be Jordan Lasker, who – as the Guardian has reported – is a well-known and much criticized “eugenicist”, AKA white supremacist.Can't shame people who can't feel shame, can't correct people who think they are are infallible.
Traditional journalism ethics suggests that when news organizations base a story on hacked or stolen information, there should be an extra high bar of newsworthiness to justify publication. Much of Big Journalism, for example, turned their noses up at insider documents offered to them about JD Vance during last year’s presidential campaign, in part because the source was Iranian hackers; in some cases, they wrote about the hack but not the documents.
The Mamdani story, however, fell far short of the newsworthiness bar.
A ranking Times editor, Patrick Healy, responded to criticism of the story in a thread on X, justifying it as part of the paper’s mission “to help readers better know and understand top candidates for major offices”.
Soledad O’Brien, the prominent media entrepreneur and journalist, called that explanation “a joke”. The publication of the Mamdani story is “an absolute embarrassment” for the Times, charged O’Brien, who herself is of mixed-race ancestry and identifies as Black.
Good Luck Everybody
Now a month later, while not a hurricane, the first big natural disaster since Noem tightened her grip has struck–and it shows.I'm not sure what precise combination of ideology and incompetence this is, but you don't have to choose one over the other!
“We would have hundreds of people on scene in FEMA jackets registering people for assistance, regional coordination center fully activated, national at least partly activated,” a current FEMA employee whose identity is being protected for fear of reprisal told The Handbasket. “Setting up disaster recovery centers with federal partners, we’d have our search and rescue there already. We would have mission assigned other agencies like USACE (US Army Corp of Engineers) to clear debris and establish power.”
I never quite figured out why they hate FEMA so much - seems like the smarter play from some grifters would be to see it as an extraordinary grift opportunity with a small side in handling aid - but I'm sure there are some nonsensical reasons.
Framing
Monday, July 07, 2025
Another Fine Elon Product
In its first year on the road, the Cybertruck ended up being tied to five fire fatalities through Jan. 1, a concerning trend that makes the rate of such fatalities higher than that of the notorious Ford Pinto, which was in production from 1970–80.
Baby Steps
The debate is no longer progressive vs. moderate; that is very 2017.
— Elissa Slotkin (@ElissaSlotkin) July 6, 2025
The debate is how do you answer one question: Is the second Trump administration an existential threat to democracy or is it bad but survivable?
I believe it is an existential threat. https://t.co/0AT2AUjMqo
Sure, Jan
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: President Trump's Justice Department and FBI have concluded they have no evidence that Jeffrey Epstein blackmailed powerful figures, kept a "client list” or was murdered, according to a memo detailing the findings obtained by Axios.https://t.co/Dyt4ycKRuV
— Axios (@axios) July 7, 2025
An official Trump White House account posted this 5 months ago btw https://t.co/3TxT72LAcb
— Democrats (@TheDemocrats) July 7, 2025
Agendas
It's always clear when the NYT has an agenda, but they do the "I know you are but what I am I" thing when you point out the obvious. The critics of the Times are always "activists" who expect the newspaper to depart from its Vulcan objectivity and impartiality to push an agenda, while they are the platonic ideal of journalistm, merely pursuing truth wherever it may lead.
Death Cult
Texas braces for more rain as death toll mounts to at least 82 with dozens missing
Sunday, July 06, 2025
Of Course They Did
The Tony Blair Institute For Taking Bribes To Do Middle East Murder couldn't not:
The Tony Blair Institute participated in a project to develop a postwar Gaza plan that envisaged kick-starting the enclave’s economy with a “Trump Riviera” and an “Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone”.
It envisaged all Gaza’s public land being put into a trust for development, whose assets could be sold to investors via digital tokens traded on a blockchain. Gazans would be offered the chance to contribute their privately owned land to the trust in return for a token that gave them the right to a permanent housing unit.
How my apes doing?
Amazing people:
When first approached by the FT regarding its role in the project, a TBI spokesperson said: “Your story is categorically wrong . . . TBI was not involved in the preparation of the deck, which was a BCG deck, and had no input whatever into its contents.”The FT then provided details of a 12-person message group used for the project — including two TBI staff, BCG consultants and the Israeli businessmen — and an unpublished TBI document shared within the group titled “Gaza Economic Blueprint”.At this point, the TBI spokesperson said: “We have never said TBI knew nothing about what this group was working on or that they weren’t on calls in which the group discussed their plans.”
Keep On Extending
Mr. Deals gives everybody another 3 weeks or so. Remember when all the MAGAs were fantasizing about having iPhone factories up and running by June 1, or whatever.
Countries that don't make trade deals with the U.S. by August 1 can expect tariff rates to return to the levels announced in April, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday.
It had been July 9.
Kooky Billionaries And Politics
I suspect it to be more funny than important, with a reasonable chance that he just forgets about it in a month. Unless he has some genuinely cunning plan I can't fathom, the smarter play for a rich guy is the threat of primary challenges against Republican candidates.
The cult of Trump beats the limited cult of Elon. I don't think he gets this.
Most likely it all comes to little. They almost always claim they speak for the "middle" which is both stupid and clever. Stupid because they believe it, clever because our stupid Advanced Politics Knowers love calling far right things "centrist" if you give them any excuse.
Sadly, that's how Hakeem Jeffries talks, too.
Saturday, July 05, 2025
Horrible
Rescuers search for over 20 girls from Texas camp as flooding death toll rises to 27
What's It All About Then
Mamdani pretended to be black, because black people have lots of unfair advantages that he wished to exploit.
One Quick Trick
There’s more. Two years prior, the NHTSA had flagged something strange – something suspicious. In a separate report, it documented 16 cases in which Tesla vehicles crashed into stationary emergency vehicles. In each, autopilot disengaged “less than one second before impact” – far too little time for the driver to react. Critics warn that this behaviour could allow Tesla to argue in court that autopilot was not active at the moment of impact, potentially dodging responsibility.This is how fatal crashes are never Elon's fault.
The YouTuber Mark Rober, a former engineer at Nasa, replicated this behaviour in an experiment on 15 March 2025. He simulated a range of hazardous situations, in which the Model Y performed significantly worse than a competing vehicle. The Tesla repeatedly ran over a crash-test dummy without braking. The video went viral, amassing more than 14m views within a few days.
Friday, July 04, 2025
Obvious Point Made Obviously
"No death tax, no estate tax, no going to the banks and borrowing from, in some cases, a fine banker. And in some cases, shylocks and bad people."
— Matt Novak (@paleofuture.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 1:40 AM
[image or embed]
Putting Suckas In Fear
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- LL Cool J says he won't be performing at Philadelphia's 4th of July celebration concert as long as the strike is ongoing with District Council 33, the city's largest blue-collar workers' union.
Eugenics Daily
He did not get into Columbia.
The NYT granted the source of this hacked information anonymity, despite his name being well-known, to cover up the fact that they used a Nazi eugenicist freak as a source of hacked information. The anonymity (pseudonymity, precisely) was not to protect the source, but to try to protect the rep of the Times.
They even tried to determine whether Mamdani's family ever intermarried with indigenous Ugandans, which somehow was important to this story of how a 17-year-old correctly checked the boxes on his form.
There are 3 bylines on this story.
Thursday, July 03, 2025
Your Democratic Consultants
But now Republicans have created another problem. They didn’t just cut Medicaid; they also have forced nearly half a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare, the health program for the elderly.
Because of a statutory requirement to automatically impose budget cuts when legislation increases the deficit, the Big Beautiful Bill would require automatic sequestration cuts across the board, something that has been confirmed by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) but has been largely absent from the debate over the bill. Medicare is one of the programs that will face the axe, and the damage sums to $490 billion over the next ten years, starting in the next fiscal year that begins in October. While many of the safety-net cuts in the bill are delayed to help Republicans with their re-election campaigns, the Medicare cuts must begin next year.
You can say "oh that's just one guy" but, trust me, looking for affirmation and approval of anything from right wing validators is pretty much the norm for most of the Democrats.Here's what a Dem consultant told a reporter about my story that the GOP bill,as written, forces $500bn in Medicare cuts: "I need an actual publication to verify this before I take it seriously. Like what’s Jake Sherman’s take here? My understanding is these Medicare cuts are routinely cancelled" 🙄
— David Dayen (@ddayen.bsky.social) July 3, 2025 at 6:39 PM
[image or embed]
Dems can't find their "Joe Rogan" if they can't even handle "David Dayen."
Stephen Miller In The Cuck Chair
BREAKING: Stephen Miller just accused Elon Musk on live TV of supporting the invasion and called him an outside voice who doesn't represent the interests of the American people.
— CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) July 2, 2025
Oh - My - God. pic.twitter.com/1luhAD8Z5d
The Car
BROOKS-LASURE EXPLAINED WHAT IT ACTUALLY MEANS when a hospital closes, recalling a closure when she was at CMS. “The first thing we had to do is make sure people in that hospital are moved to somewhere they can get care. You might have people in serious situations, and moving them is a life-threatening proposition.”Already starting.
Another factor is how the loss of an anchor hospital affects local economies. A hospital can be the biggest employer in a small town. If it closes, the entire town can wither away, straining local and regional finances and burdening the residents who don’t have the resources to move.
Over the longer term, the closure of rural hospitals forces patients to spend hours getting to the nearest care center, and in some cases leaves them without access at all. “I was in Colorado and we drove from one part of the state to the other to get to a hospital,” LaSure explained. “They said to me, ‘The road you drove over, one out of three days of the year you can’t get over that road,’” due to weather or some other complication. When the nearest hospital is across the Rockies and it’s snowing, you really have no ability to get care.
Catching The Car
And How Does That Work
Hospitals have "just gotten absolutely smoked, so much so that quite frankly there's no way that these cuts go into effect," according to Treyz.
Treyz is with some investment advisory firm. I think this is just "nothing bad could happen to people (businesses) that matter" cope and I think we will be finding out that eventually even people who matter get hurt.
It's Happening Again
Wednesday, July 02, 2025
Sure Why Not
An Iran-linked hacker group is claiming to be in possession of a trove of stolen emails from President Donald Trump’s inner circle and is now threatening to publish the material in what U.S. officials describe as a politically motivated “smear campaign.”
These People Are Weird
Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem claims the U.S. government tried to deport a cannibal from America, but the immigrant was so “deranged” he began eating himself on the plane.
The wild story was shared on Tuesday as Donald Trump toured a migrant detention centre dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”: a controversial facility based in Florida’s swampy Everglades region, that will house up to 5000 people.
Positive Steps
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) apologized to New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani on Monday after facing swift backlash for Islamophobic comments she recently made in a radio interview about her fellow New York Democrat.
The senator spoke over the phone with the state assemblymember and “apologized for mischaracterizing Mamdani’s record and for her tone in the interview,” according to a readout of the conversation that Gillibrand’s office first provided to Politico on Tuesday.
Sucker
As Mark Zuckerberg staffs up Meta’s new superintelligence lab, he’s offered top tier research talent pay packages of up to $300 million over four years, with more than $100 million in total compensation for the first year, WIRED has learned.
Tuesday, July 01, 2025
American Manners
The Future Of The Democratic Party
Zohran Mamdani has won New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, a new vote count confirmed on Tuesday, cementing his stunning upset of former governor Andrew Cuomo and sending him to the general election.
The Associated Press called the race after the results of the city’s ranked choice voting tabulation were released and showed Mamdani beating Cuomo by 12 percentage points.
At Least Some Good News
US televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, whose multi-million dollar ministry with a global reach was crippled after a sex scandal, has died at the age of 90.
Tick Tock You Don't Stop
Small Pleasures
“I’ve had my share of blowouts with Elon over the years,” Low told POLITICO in a rare interview since Musk’s ugly spat with Trump. “Knowing Elon the way I know him, I do think he’s going to do everything to damage the president.”I know none of this matters, but allow me my small amusements in the middle of all this.
Reporter: Are you going to deport Elon Musk? Trump: We'll have to take a look. We might have to put DOGE on Elon. You know what DOGE is? The monster that might have to go back and eat Elon. Wouldn’t that be terrible? He gets a lot of subsidies.
— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) July 1, 2025 at 1:28 PM
[image or embed]
Let Them Fight
Monday, June 30, 2025
Related
Coalitions
There was a concerted effort from without and within the party to reject the 2020 Biden-Sanders-Warren coalition, to declare it a failure and reshape a new one. They were trying to tank the 2022 midterms, or at least wishcast that into being, and then use as that an excuse to go back to the happy place of courting Sensible Republicans.
The 2022 midterms didn't go as hoped, for them, as it wasn't the Red Wave that they had been desperately hoping for. They went on as if it had, as if SBF wasn't in prison.
Everybody's Working For The Weekend
Fetterman when asked re: timing
— Alan He (@alanhe) June 30, 2025
“Oh my God, I just want to go home. I've already my I've missed our entire trip to to the beach…, there's no drama that we know the votes are going to go…And I think, I don't think it's really helpful to put people here till some ungodly hour.”
President Deals
Canada will rescind a planned digital services tax in order to advance stalled trade talks with the U.S., Ottawa announced on Sunday.
Experience and Competence
This one is worth reading from start to finish so I won't provide an excerpt (the only way most people click through).
One point I will emphasize a bit is that many in politics and political journalism want to claim that it was Mamdani who made Gaza/Israel the centerpiece of his camaign, which is a complete fabrication. It was Cuomo who did that.
Remember that when people ask why The Left is so obsessed with Israel, in order to imply something about that.
Seems Bad
The Trump administration has, for the first time ever, built a searchable national citizenship data system.The tool, which is being rolled out in phases, is designed to be used by state and local election officials to give them an easier way to ensure only citizens are voting. But it was developed rapidly without a public process, and some of those officials are already worrying about what else it could be used for.
Whatever the merits of such an idea (none, but let's pretend), a system implemented with no concern for accuracy and no way to correct errors is there for reasons other than the stated ones.
Sunday, June 29, 2025
Run Away
Tillis (R-NC) is not running for re-election. I am sure he is now free to vote good instead of bad (lol).
Alaska Gold Rush
To some degree, I think buying off members of Congress with goodies for their districts/states is actually a better way of doing things, but you don't get to prance around as a principled moderate when you do this.
Collecting goodies is better than getting rid of all the goodies! More senators should demand goodies, maybe even for the whole country!
Stephen Miller's Personal Domestic Military
I know we all love first responders now, but we don't, really. Nobody likes the "cops" the instant they get in their way unjustly, even once.
Saturday, June 28, 2025
Bad Politicians And Their Familiars In The Press
Penalty
Gillibrand answered: “It’s very simple. When multiple allegations came out about Andrew Cuomo, I think it was eight or nine, I called on him to resign… That was my view at the time because people asked how do you think they can continue to govern with these allegations? …The question being asked today is what’s my opinion about someone after they’ve resigned, after they’ve taken the penalty that I called on them to take? …And my answer to that is everyone gets to decide in this election who they want to vote for.”Naughty boys get a year in the penalty box, then we believe they have learned their lessons.
She added: “It’s up to New Yorkers. It is not up to me.”
Friday, June 27, 2025
Geography Is Hard
Cuomo’s campaign was fueled by a cadre of long-time advisers, including his top strategist — Melissa DeRosa — who was not paid, obscuring her role on public campaign finance records. Few had ever worked on a citywide campaign. His campaign in May denied to POLITICO that DeRosa was working for the ex-governor despite her prominent role during internal meetings, according to two people with direct knowledge of the campaign’s inner workings.How long can 3 miles take, Michael, 10 minutes?
His team struggled with the city’s geography, scheduling back-to-back events in locations with only a few miles difference, but hours apart in driving due to New York’s notorious congestion, according to two people.
Kristen Gillibrand Runs The DSCC
This is the most racist, absurd, unhinged thing a democrat senator not named Fetterman has said in a long time. Absolutely revolting. In a just world she would be forced to resign. https://t.co/DbduXwTjNz pic.twitter.com/fb3CmF1w87
— barbarism critic (@barbarismcrit) June 26, 2025
Squid Game
Israeli soldiers in Gaza told Haaretz that the army has deliberately fired at Palestinians near aid distribution sites over the past month.Surely, Mr. Atrios, that is a needlessly inflammatory title.
Conversations with officers and soldiers reveal that commanders ordered troops to shoot at crowds to drive them away or disperse them, even though it was clear they posed no threat.
The soldier added, "We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred meters away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there's no danger to the forces." According to him, "I'm not aware of a single instance of return fire. There's no enemy, no weapons." He also said the activity in his area of service is referred to as Operation Salted Fish – the name of the Israeli version of the children's game "Red light, green light".People in politics and journalism risk their careers for saying this is bad, or even acknowledging it.
Thursday, June 26, 2025
They Will Take Awhile To Adjust
Nearly two-thirds of voters (64 percent) say they prefer giving most undocumented immigrants in the United States a pathway to legal status, while 31 percent say they prefer deporting most undocumented immigrants in the United States, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University national poll of registered voters released today.There definitely have been notable exceptions, but it is how leadership has been approaching these issues.
...
Voters 56 - 39 percent disapprove of the way U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, is doing its job.
...
[on Trump]: immigration issues: 41 percent approve, while 57 percent disapprove, with 2 percent not offering an opinion;
Let Him Think That
OK everybody do that now. Start pretending.
Everything Is Computer
It's quite amazing that in the year of our Gritty, 2025, people still think it's useful to dismiss anything associated with young people - which at this point means people under 45 - as being an internet things, tweet things."This is going to be the most interesting political campaign in the history of New York City," Eric Adams says. "They have a record on tweets. I have a record on the streets."
— Ross Barkan (@RossBarkan) June 26, 2025
Once upon a time you could make some meaningful distinction between "online" and "real life" in the sense that most people weren't very online, in the sense that everything wasn't very online. Now it is.
Exciting Day Tomorrow
Supreme Court birthright citzenship case. Exciting innovations in pretending words don't mean what they mean are likely! This is called "textualism." Or sometimes "originalism." Or whatever.
Go For It
I won't post the whole thing, but here is the plan by rich guy lunatic Bill Ackman - driven insane because his daughter went to Harvard and came out with some crazy ideas - to save New York from Mamdani:
Importantly, there are hundreds of million of dollars of capital available to back a competitor to Mamdani that can be put together overnight (believe me, I am in the text strings and the WhatsApp groups) so that a great alternative candidate won’t spend any time raising funds.
So, if the right candidate would raise his or her hand tomorrow, the funds will pour in. I am sure that Mike Bloomberg will share his how-to-win-the-mayoralty IP and deliver his entire election apparatus and system to the aspiring candidate so that the candidate can focus all of his or her energy on the campaign.
One unfortunate fact, as far as I understand, is that the candidate will have to be a write-in as I believe that none of the current candidates established a nominating committee if they were to withdraw, which means that no one can take their spot on the ballot. This is such an important election, however, that I believe the write-in requirement could actually turn into an important call to action that brings people in throngs to the polls. It therefore won’t be the game stopper it would normally be in a typical election.
As a result, the risk/reward of running for mayor over the next 132 days is extremely compelling as the cost in time and energy is small, and the upside is enormous. If the candidate does not win, there is no harm, no foul, because the perceived probability of beating the Democratic nominee in a NYC mayoral election is extremely small. Therefore, there is no reputational risk to losing this election, and the corresponding reputational benefits are extraordinary whether one wins or loses.
If the candidate wins, this is obviously a huge home run for the City and the candidate, but it is also an opportunity to save the Democratic Party from itself, grabbing the wheel just before the party goes even further off the cliff. The new mayor would be a national superhero for the City, for the Party, and for the country.
For the aspiring politician, there is no better way to get name recognition, build relationships with long-term donors, and to showcase oneself than to run for mayor over the next 132 days. This election is already global front page news. For the aspiring young candidate, the amount of publicity and the massive followers to be gained are of incalculable long-term value whether they win or lose, and whatever they choose to do in the future, business, politics or otherwise.
Who should/will it be?
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
Vote Blue No Matter Who
She is actually a current member of Congress (D) from Long Island. Not even from NYC!
Our New Problem
Bouncing To The Left And Bouncing To The Right
Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, one of the first technologists hired as part of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is no longer working for the federal government, according to multiple sources.Dude's probably already richer than I will ever be so I can't be too pleased. There'a always more money in evil than good.
"Predictions Markets"
It is extra funny coming from Mr. Politics Stats Guy - we don't need you Nate, we have the gambling site graph! You keep telling us that!Maybe Zohran wins an election 2 weeks ago, and maybe Lander or someone would emerge if you had another month to go. Markets have Cuomo back as a 3:1 favorite for now though. pic.twitter.com/1iAJsYE0Hc
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) June 23, 2025
Great Moments In New York Times Nonendorsements
Given those polls, however, the crucial choice may end up being where, if at all, voters decide to rank Mr. Cuomo or Mr. Mamdani. We do not believe that Mr. Mamdani deserves a spot on New Yorkers’ ballots. His experience is too thin, and his agenda reads like a turbocharged version of Mr. de Blasio’s dismaying mayoralty. As for Mr. Cuomo, we have serious objections to his ethics and conduct, even if he would be better for New York’s future than Mr. Mamdani.
Just adding that while de Blasio had his flaws, all his big problems were entirely Cuomo's fault. Any Advanced Politics Knower should know this!
This Is The Way
Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Voting Day In New York
This is nowhere close to a full accounting.
That anyone prominent in Democratic politics supports him...
But Did They Poll The Journalists
President Donald Trump’s decision to launch airstrikes against Iran is broadly unpopular with Americans, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS after the strikes.
Americans disapprove of the strikes, 56% to 44%, according to the survey, with strong disapproval outpacing the share who strongly approve. Most distrust Trump’s decision-making on the use of force in Iran, with about 6 in 10 worried that the strikes will increase the Iranian threat to the US.
Seems Bad
A senior Justice Department official, Emil Bove III, told subordinates he was willing to ignore court orders in order to fulfill the president’s aggressive deportation campaign, according to a whistle-blower complaint by a department lawyer who has since been fired.
The account by the dismissed lawyer, Erez Reuveni, paints a disturbing portrait of his final three weeks on the front lines of the Trump administration’s legal efforts to ship immigrants overseas, often with little notice or recourse. In Mr. Reuveni’s telling, Mr. Bove used an expletive as he discussed disregarding court orders, and other top law enforcement officials showed themselves ready to stonewall judges or lie to them to get their way.
God Bless Iran
Oh My Stars
An incredible moment
— J. Emory Parker 🏳️🌈 (@jaspar.bsky.social) June 24, 2025 at 12:12 PM
[image or embed]
(click the top one and you can watch the video on bluesky)“We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing!” “We just apologize for that language from the US president.” -Sky News
— J. Emory Parker 🏳️🌈 (@jaspar.bsky.social) June 24, 2025 at 12:09 PM
Monday, June 23, 2025
Do We Think Members of Congress Have Great OPSEC?
WASHINGTON, June 23 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms' (META.O), opens new tab WhatsApp messaging service has been banned from all U.S. House of Representatives devices, according to a memo sent to all House staff on Monday.
The notice said the "Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user data, absence of stored data encryption, and potential security risks involved with its use."
...
In January, a WhatsApp official said Israeli spyware company Paragon Solutions had targeted scores of its users, including journalists and members of civil society.
Consequences? To My Actions?
Not even a toddler's understanding of that.
SINGAPORE, June 23 (Reuters) - At least two supertankers made U-turns at the Strait of Hormuz following U.S. military strikes on Iran, shiptracking data shows, as more than a week of violence in the region prompts vessels to speed, pause, or alter their journeys.
Washington's decision to join Israel's attacks on Iran has stoked fears that Iran could retaliate by closing the strait between Iran and Oman through which around 20% of global oil and gas demand flows.
There are many reasons that NotWar is preferable to War, and I doubt Don and Pete and Marco have thought many of them through.
Our Big Sweaty Boy Just Likes To See Himself Being Praised On The TV
This is good from the NYT, but when they talk about Iran tomorrow will they remember it? I mean, will it be incorporated into "the narrative" or will the reporters and their colleagues wake up mind wiped and take it as given that it's about important military goals or whatever.
The president was closely monitoring Fox News, which was airing wall-to-wall praise of Israel’s military operation and featuring guests urging Mr. Trump to get more involved. Several Trump advisers lamented the fact that Mr. Carlson was no longer on Fox, which meant that Mr. Trump was not hearing much of the other side of the debate.
We all know Trump is like this, and sometimes they cover that fact, but most of their coverage pretends he isn't like this!
More generally, when every single one of these people lies constantly, it isn't enough to fact check them occasionally! Hang out with Tommy Flanagan enough, and you know to doubt his claims!
And The Man Might Do It
It would be funny! Though he'll still probably have to go up against Cuomo AND Adams AND a Republican in the general because everything is stupid.
The final Emerson College Polling/PIX11/The Hill survey of the New York City Democratic mayoral primary finds former Governor Andrew Cuomo leading with 35% support, followed closely by Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani at 32%, and Comptroller Brad Lander at 13%. City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams follows with 8%, Scott Stringer with 3%, and 4% of voters remain undecided ahead of Tuesday’s election. Since last month’s poll, Mamdani gained ten points on the initial ballot test, rising from 22% to 32%, while Cuomo gained one point, 34% to 35%.
Mamdani would win the primary after the ranked choice voting was calculated, if this poll is correct.
Incompetent Old Guard
They should be condemned for not even trying. Don't put yourself in charge if you can't even be bothered to do the work.
We can argue a bit about how much of this is genuinely about ideological differences, how much of it is the desperation to make sure one of our guys is in charge of sprawling patronage networks, and how much of it is about an ageing generation who can't imagine a world that isn't about them.
And how much of it is about racism, of course.
But, back to the main point, you guys were fucking lazy! Even Cuomo himself was so incompetent and lazy he fucked up getting matching funds!
These people should be embarrassed.
Even Dumber
The Tesla company guys are in the passenger seat, not the driver's, which means they're there to hit an emergency stop button and communicate with the teleoperator. In other words, there is >1 employee per car, probably close to 2 at the moment.
Sunday, June 22, 2025
Nobody Could've Predicted
Sure Why Not
WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday called on China to encourage Iran to not shut down the Strait of Hormuz after Washington carried out strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
What's Next
Saturday, June 21, 2025
Happy Hour
Mahmoud Khalil emerges from airport security with his wife Noor and newborn, legal team and Rep. AOC.
— Gwynne Hogan (@gwynnefitz.bsky.social) June 21, 2025 at 6:37 PM
[image or embed]
Donors
I think I do understand the reasons for this, but as far as I know there has been zero reporting on why this actually is.
Media Studies
Melting Pot
Pham
Bishop Pham, himself a Vietnamese refugee as a child, said ICE agents were “standing there covered with masks as we walked toward the courtroom. Eventually the … agents kind of scattered and went away. No wonder people come in fear.”
Friday, June 20, 2025
Some Good News
Mahmoud Khalil was granted release on bail by a federal judge after a hearing Friday, in the latest move in the pro-Palestinian activist's legal saga following his March arrest that spotlighted the Trump administration's deportation crackdown.
Crisis Or Opportunity
Welp
“The mayor of New York is uniquely positioned to play an important role in the future of the national Democratic Party,” Mr. Clyburn said in a statement, adding that Mr. Cuomo had the “experiences, credentials and character to not just serve New York, but also help save the nation.”