Still Going

As I'm typing this, this is the top of the NYT web page:

In addition, there are 4 op-eds about it and even a sports story!

Morning

Sunday funday.

Late Entry

NYT did let Bouie write this.

On his podcast, Kirk called on authorities to create a “citizen force” on the border to protect “white demographics” from “the invasion of the country.” He embraced the rhetoric of white pride and warned of “a great replacement” of rural white Americans.

“The great replacement strategy, which is well underway every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different,” he said last year. “You believe in God, country, family, faith, and freedom, and they won’t stop until you and your children and your children’s children are eliminated.”

Kirk also targeted Black Americans for contempt. “Prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people — that’s a fact,” he said in 2023. Kirk was preoccupied with the idea of “Black crime,” and on the last episode of his show before he was killed, he devoted a segment to “the ever-increasing amount of Black crime,” telling his audience, falsely, that “one in 22 Black men will be a murderer in their lifetime” and that “by age of 23, half of all Black males have been arrested and not enough of them have been arrested.”

Kirk told his listeners that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson of the Supreme Court “is what your country looks like on critical race theory,” that former Vice President Kamala Harris was “the jive speaking spokesperson of equity,” and that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “was awful.”

“I have a very, very radical view on this, but I can defend it, and I’ve thought about it,” Kirk said at a 2023 event. “We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.”

Work Ethic

It is a bit of a "the food is terrible and the portions are too small" complaint, but the shitty work ethic of these people does amaze me.

I don't want to run the FBI, but if I did accept the job I probably would show up to the office occasionally.

Party Like It's 2003

We are back to the post-9/11 era, in the sense that mainstream news outlets are maintaining a unified state-sanctioned voice, with little dissent allowed to peep through. It's actually much worse, as the range of topics that applies to has been greatly expanded.

They have spent days maintaining a fictional version of Charlie Kirk, a fictional version of his critics, and a fictional version of his assassin, all while trying to hound his critics out of public life. A lot can be achieved if everyone who matters is screaming the same thing into most of the available microphones.  We see just how willing and eager they are to do just that.

What a dumb fucking thing to destroy your reputation about, Ezra Klein. Fucking hell.

Is It That Easy

That Trump almost always backs down if resisted has been known for years...

President Donald Trump shelved his plans to target Chicago as the next city for his domestic crime push after advisers warned him that sending in troops to help with local law enforcement without buy-in from the state’s governor could create legal headaches they want to avoid, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Honoring Him Accurately

At best, all the journalists who have been obscuring Kirk's real life record were oblivious to it. That is no defense of them.

Charles James Kirk, 31, died on Wednesday from a gunshot to the neck at a Utah Valley University campus event just as he was trying to deflect a question about mass shootings by suggesting they were largely a function of gang violence. He died with a net worth of $12 million, which he made by espousing horrific and bigoted views in the name of advancing Christian nationalism. The foundation of his empire was the group he cofounded and led, Turning Point USA, which is a key youth-recruitment arm of the MAGA movement. Kirk was able to launch Turning Point at the age of 18 because he received money from Tea Party member Bill Montgomery, right-wing donor Foster Feiss, and his own father, also a prolific right-wing donor. He was an unrepentant racist, transphobe, homophobe, and misogynist who often wrapped his bigotry in Bible verses because there was no other way to pretend that it was morally correct. He had children, as do many vile people.

Morning

I'm going to start practicing politics the right way.

Friday Evening

Enjoy

Moving On

 

You Know Who Else Is Complicit?

Many, if not most, of their colleagues, though I think they know that.

Two Democratic senators claim they have reached the “inescapable conclusion” that Israel is acting on a systematic plan to destroy and ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza to force local people to leave, and they say the US is complicit.

Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, both members of the Senate foreign relations committee, released their findings in a report on Thursday after returning from a congressional delegation to the Middle East where, they note, the destruction goes beyond bombs and bullets. They say they also found a systematic campaign to strangle humanitarian aid, which they call “using food as a weapon of war”.

Certainly the House and Senate leaders are.

Lunch

eat

"Tactic"

There are inevitably going to be grey areas in something like a B1 (or basic visa waiver entry) visa, and it sounds like some of this was in no way an attempt to abuse the system.

Georgia ICE Raid Netted Workers With Short-Term Business Visas

Last week’s immigration operation at a battery plant highlighted a tactic that companies use to bring in foreign workers to establish new operations.

Lost in most of the discussion is that you can tighten enforcement without violently detaining and shackling people in broad sweeps. "Stop doing that work," fines, and "you have one week to leave the country" would suffice.

A lot of people will "self-deport" if you tell them they have to. That isn't always appropriate, nice, or according to the law as previously understood before Miller's Calvinball, but it is better than locking people up in these conditions.

If your message is: stay out, foreign companies, then you can do what they're doing.

Framed

I scheduled the blockquoted bit below before it came out that they caught a guy. I still don't know anything about his motives for sure - though some things are trickling out - but the fact that they stopped screaming about transgender antifa implies some things!

I am not making any predictions here, because it would be stupid to do so, but what all coverage misses is:

1) Right wing violence is much more of a thing than left wing violence, the opposite of how it has been portrayed for years. 2) Extremely hardcore right wingers fucking hated Charlie Kirk, largely because he wasn't openly antisemitic enough for them (related to another thing our glorious media portrays in opposite world terms).

New York Times style guide update likely incoming: Groypers are left wing.

What, Like, You Expect Me To Work?

A fascinating thing, to me, is how so many Trumpers don't seem to take their jobs seriously, though this might have been more the case in his first term. It is less that they are incompetent, and more that they have no sense that, for example, running the FBI is an important job at all.

Whether Mr. Patel can overcome his embarrassing early stumble in posts online about the Kirk investigation remains to be seen. The F.B.I. director’s actions have already invited scorn and scrutiny from the bureau’s work force, and some senior officials at the Justice Department, who think his behavior has eroded public confidence in the F.B.I.

If I were Kash or a Bongino - a lazy dumb shit who just wanted to spend my day posting and going on Fox News - the first thing I would do is find the most competent guy who would put up with my shit that I could, and say, "You're in charge of the real work."

Morning

Going back in.

Sources

The NYT has one saying the MAGA CHUDS infiltrating the FBI are lying:

Lunch

eat

Sure Why Not

I'm glad to see our immigration policies/enforcement/industrial strategy plans continue to be coherent and in alignment.

South Koreans arrested by US authorities are due to be repatriated on Thursday, after their flight was delayed by a row over whether they should wear handcuffs and an offer from Donald Trump that the workers at the centre of an immigration raid be allowed to stay.

...

“The US wanted to handcuff our workers on their way to the airport, but we insisted that it should not be that way,” said Lee, adding that the flight was further delayed after “Trump’s order that those who don’t want to go back don’t have to”.

President Trump told US officials to “encourage” the workers arrested at the Georgia plant to continue working in the country and help train Americans, according to South Korean officials cited by the state-owned news agency Yonhap.

Dumb Politics Day

There will probably light blogging as I think I might be going insane.

Celebrating The Life Of Charlie Kirk

It does seem like the best way to do that is to honestly communicate what he spent the last decade of his life doing and saying, to quote the very public statements of this very public figure accurately, and to honor his advocacy by accurately explaining it to people, but instead we're going spend the day focusing on "Charlie Kirk," a fictional construct.

Normal people, who mostly don't know who the guy is, are going to be very confused if they ever discover anything he said about anything, accidentally.  The New York Times and cable news aren't going to tell them.

The best you can say about some  prominent mainstream journalists, at the moment, is that they have no idea what Kirk's views are, because none of them really pay attention to prominent right wingers who aren’t in the green room with them.

They certainly can't hear his critics - the mostly black female college professors who Turning Point has been terrorizing for years, for example.   Those people aren't in the green room  - or the group chat - either.

Choose your favorite: they don't know, they are pretending not to know, or they genuinely know and approve.

Morning

Happy Rudy Giuliani day.

Happy Hour

Get happy

Oh Dear. Time For Another Blogger Ethics Panel.

The glorious free press.

The publisher of the Washington Post, Will Lewis, is facing fresh questions over his independence after a cache of leaked files revealed he gave extensive support to Boris Johnson as a secret political adviser when Johnson was prime minister.

The files shed light on how the media executive, who at the time was vice-chair of the Associated Press news agency, worked behind the scenes with Johnson as his premiership was engulfed by a series of scandals.

I know Americans think of UK journalism as "BBC World Service," those Guardian investigative pieces you remember, and that one interview with Jeremy Paxman from 30 years ago, but most of them are like Lewis. For those who don't remember the "blogger ethics panel" reference, when bloggers became a thing, some journalist were obsessed with trying to impose professional ("ethics") standards on us that didn't even apply in theory to journalists, let alone in practice.

They had public panel discussions about this stuff without consulting with or featuring any bloggers.

It was an attempt to marginalize and drive us out of "business."

Do It, Brad

I expect he won't (not that I would know), but Goldman really sucks.

Progressives are trying to entice New York City Comptroller Brad Lander into a Democratic congressional primary with a poll that shows him leading Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y. — if he runs.

...

Given a choice between Goldman and Lander, the comptroller leads the incumbent congressman by 19 points — with 52% supporting Lander and 33% backing Goldman. Demand Progress Action, a separate progressive group, commissioned the poll. Data for Progress was one of the first pollsters to identify Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani’s surge in the June New York City mayoral primary.

Forensic, Sir Keir

UK ambassador to the US, who has a very long record of corruption which UK journalists forget and remember as needed (that is how jouralism works there).

In a string of leaked messages, Mandelson wrote: "I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened.

"I can still barely understand it. It just could not happen in Britain. You have to be incredibly resilient, fight for early release and be…

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) September 10, 2025

Mandelson's right - it is almost unfathomable that the "British Epstein" would be arrested in Britain.

Lunch

eat

The Campus Free Speech Crisis (part 2)

One of its consequences.

In other words: if you’re looking to abduct a Columbia student in broad daylight, simply claim to be a federal agent!

— alex bronzini-vender (@alexbronzini) September 9, 2025

Columbia probably has to check if they called law enforcement on the student themselves.

The Campus Free Speech Crisis

Anyone who participated in that should be treated with contempt and scorn.

Yes, I mean they should be CANCELLED.

Seems Bad

I guess France might not just be talking shit.

Polish prime minister Donald Tusk has said the shooting down of Russian drones in Poland overnight was the first time this has happened in Nato territory.

Speaking ahead of an emergency government meeting, Tusk said Polish airspace was violated by a “huge” number of Russian drones.

He says that those which posed a threat were shot down by Polish and Nato pilots.

“This is the first time Russian drones have been shot down over the territory of a Nato country. All our allies are taking the situation very seriously. We have not recorded any casualties,” he says.

He adds that it was probably a “large-scale provocation” by Russia.

Morning

Wacky Wednesday.

Stop Being Too Obvious

Israel just making heads of government look like bigger assholes every day. 

We can't pretend you are negotiating if you keep bombing the negotiators!

Happy Hour

get happy

Oopsie

* WHITE HOUSE: U.S. FEELS BADLY ABOUT LOCATION OF ATTACK * WHITE HOUSE: ASSURED QATAR THAT SUCH A THING WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN ON THEIR SOIL @reuters.com

— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) September 9, 2025 at 6:46 PM

We have agreements and a big base there. This is pretty absurd.

Comet Pizza-A-Lago

Echoing something I wrote before, will any of our great Reactionary Centrists, who regularly fret about lefties/liberals being in a "bubble" and not understanding conservatives, even wonder out loud just how it is that a movement obsessed with a Grand Global Pedophile Conspiracy, centered on Jeffrey Epstein, somehow missed that he was Trump's bestie.

Lunch

eat

Sure Why Not

I guess Trump is gonna need a bigger (than an airplane) bribe.

Israel targets Hamas leadership in Qatar strike

Seems Bad

The world is giving off some 1914 vibes, among other things.

French hospitals have been told to prepare a potential armed conflict in Europe by next year, local media reported.

In a letter sent to regional health agencies, revealed by Le Canard Enchaîné , the Ministry of Health asked hospitals to prepare for a “major (military) engagement” by March 2026.

The newspaper warned that between 10,000 and 50,000 men could be expected in hospitals over a period of 10 to 180 days.

One of the Lads

I often think about how Chris Christie left office with a 14% approval rating, and then journalists and news outlets just kept promoting him as if he were a popular politician people were desperate to hear from, all without ever considering, or caring about, the reasons why he had a 14% approval rating.

This post isn't really about Chris Christie.

Morning

Don't see how Donnie Two Scoops wriggles out of this one.

Monday Night

Rock on

Monday Evening

Had to step out for a bit. Trump wrote a letter or something?

Happy Hour

Get happy.

Give It A Go

 See where it leads. Why not?

We cannot understand the true nature of the Universe, unless we question deeply.

I want to know what is real, even if the answer is total obliteration of my consciousness.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 8, 2025

A City Filled With Paid Liars

I've said this before, but a big problem with DC (political DC, not the broader city) culture is that so many people are paid to lie, so the social structure would fall apart if lying wasn't tacitly approved by everyone involved.

I'm not saying everyone is evil. Some of that lying is mostly harmless stuff, the kind of lying we all generally accept as part of life. You know, embellishing a bit to make your boss look good. Putting the best spin things. Shining a lot of turds.

But a lot of that lying is "lobbyist for EvilCorp" type stuff. And, hey, we're all friends here. Politics is a career. People might enter as a staffer for Congressperson Dogooder and then find themselves working for Satan, Inc. (DC office), a few years later. Am I going to abandon my friend group as they move through the ranks, from lowly congressional office interns to positions like Vice President of Genocide Promotion for the Center for American Advancement?

They invite me to their vacation homes in Tuscany, after all.

When the culture thrives on lies, you don't last long if it bothers you. You don't last long if you even notice it.  You don't last at all if you bring it up.

The system is corrupt, not just individuals.

All The President's Horses

I don't really care if Trump gets booed or not - the real story here is that the USTA tried to censor (with some success) media organizations. But here we have a journalist from "MSDNC" arguing (later in replies) that because she showed up 6 hours early, and didn't face delays getting in, no one else did, which is at odds with reality.

I was there. I didn’t witness him getting booed & the delay wasn’t a big deal.
The day was about great tennis.
The President was there too. https://t.co/DtV17kAdTf

— Stephanie Ruhle (@SRuhle) September 8, 2025

It's rare these days for journalists to attack other media outlets, to question their reporting. It's a choosing sides kinda thing.

The viewpoint of "it didn't happen to me so it didn't happen" explains much!

Now What

This was Carville, in February, telling Dems to do nothing, basically.

It’s a wiser approach than we pursued in the first Trump administration, when Democrats tried and failed at the art of resistance politics. We voiced outrage on social issue after social issue. We spun ourselves up in a tizzy over an investigation into Russia. We fought Mr. Trump at every corner, on every issue imaginable and muddied up our message in an unwinnable war. We were saved only by his lousy governing and a lot of effort on our side finding good candidates to run for the House and Senate in 2018. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is retreat on the immediate battlefield — and advance in another direction.

It won’t take long. Public support for this administration will fall through the floorboard. It’s already happening. Just over a month in, the president’s approval has already sunk underwater in two new polls. The people did not vote for the Department of Education to be obliterated; they voted for lower prices for eggs and milk. Democrats, let the Republicans’ own undertow drag them away.

At this rate, the Trump honeymoon will be over, best case, by Memorial Day but more likely in the next 30 days. And in November 2025, we start turning the tide with what will be remembered as one of the most important elections in recent years: the Virginia governor’s race. From tax enforcers to rocket scientists, bank regulators and essential workers — the Trump administration is hellbent on drastically firing the federal work force, despite the fact that federal civilian employees account for just 3 percent of the federal budget. These workers are highly concentrated in Virginia, home to around 144,000 civilian federal employees. It looks set to be a resounding Republican defeat. This will be the first moment when we can take the offensive back and begin our crusade again.

It seems the plan was/is:

1) Do nothing

2) Trump gets unpopular

3) Continue doing nothing

4) Win VA governor's race

5) Continue doing nothing

6) Win 2026

"Doing nothing" is shorthand for "avoid any big confrontation" which includes, at the moment, not demanding anything serious - or perhaps anything at all - in exchange for preventing a government shut down.

This question is mainly an extension of the “collaborate or fight” decision Democrats weighed in March. Fighting does mean fighting for something, and Democrats appear to have landed on that something being short-term relief on health care.

But, as noted above, it is quite likely that there won’t be sufficient Republican votes in Congress, or support from Trump, to preserve ACA subsidies. The real issue, therefore, is whether Democrats are willing to see a shutdown battle through to its conclusion. I think at some level Democrats know that Trump isn’t very likely to come to the table around a bipartisan negotiation; it has not been his posture whatsoever in the second term.

So this really comes down to whether Democrats actually believe they can win a shutdown fight politically—or have the stomach for it. That’s a little curious, since Democrats have won every shutdown fight of the past 30 years, whether they were the party in power or out of power. Under Clinton, Republicans were blamed; under Obama, Republicans were blamed; under Trump, in his first term, Trump was blamed. And Democrats got favorable outcomes in the aftermath.

But Democrats have this burning desire to be the responsible party, and in their minds, shutdowns are irresponsible. There are also a lot of theories of how Trump could run roughshod over the bureaucracy if funding is cut off, though I don’t know how you could even entertain such a threat given his trampling of federal agencies since January 20. What would be any more punitive toward the civil service after a shutdown, relative to before?

Is this a good plan?

 

Maybe They'll Listen To Someone Who Matters

I liked Ezra's piece better the first time I read it, back in December when Jamelle Bouie wrote it (basically), but some people can't hear Jamelle for some reason.

They don't have a magic stop button, but they did not listen to Jamelle in December, and here we are.

Morning

Monster Monday.

Sunday Afternoon

Enjoy

Poll-Driven Party Can't Read Polls

Is immigration a good thing for the USA

Yes 79% (Highest ever)
No 17% (Lowest Ever)

Gallup pic.twitter.com/THrYZmkQtd

— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) September 7, 2025

Rotten Institutions

We've all seen what happens when the non-government portion of The Blob is activated for a supposedly righteous cause.  They help ensure we do things like invade Iraq, and are very good at it.

They've all pretty much gone silent on Russia and Ukraine.

In recent months, dozens of Russians have been expelled from the US and returned to Russia with the co-operation of immigration authorities.

When the dissidents arrived in Russia, the Russian authorities were given documents relating to their asylum applications in the US. Those dossiers, outlining their political beliefs and criticisms of Putin, could be used to prosecute them back home, campaigners believe.

The rest is behind the paywall, but you get the idea.

I am sure some of this has to do with Bezos destroying the Post, which for both good and ill was the way The Blob sent their memos to the rest of DC.

But most of it is just that these organizations were also just influence schemes for the worst people in the world, and when the wind shifts...

Worst Person/Great Point

I am quite sure that Dems are currently being told not to say things like this.

Morning

Sunday funday.

Saturday Happy Hour

Enjoy

Boom

I used to put these kinds of predictions on my calendar regularly. I should start doing that again.

Mommy He Shot Me Back

Some insight into what turned the tech guys into Nazis:

Mozilla guy (Eich) donates money to support banning same sex marriage. People - importantly, his employees! - get mad and he loses his position, eventually.  This is not being tossed out a window.  More importantly, who shot first, here? 

This is presumably what Marc Andreessen complains about on the rich guy group chat as he justifies going full MAGA to the beneficiaries of his patronage.

The American Empire

Not quite where I have always imagined.

Senator Pudding Brain

CIA not beating the allegation of "storage closet for elite failchildren."

Apparently there was a video, too (both since deleted).

This wasn't a slip. It was in a written speech and blasted out on social media.

Slotkin's only 4 years younger than I am. This was still an era were you grew up "knowing" this stuff through basic osmosis if your parents flipped on PBS occasionally, even aside from what you should have just learned.

Admittedly I knew this stuff a bit more than the average bear because my mom was a child in Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project, but still...

You can read coverage of the speech here, from a liberal outlet which puts in convenient ellipses to obscure the stupid part. The whole thing is the same fucking speech a certain kind of Democrat has been giving for 20 years, in which nothing can be justified separate from "national security" and a "threat from China."

Improving lives in America isn't a "national security" issue. You don't have to frame it that way.

Bernie Sanders: we should take these actions to improve the lives of Middle Class Americans (boo, hiss, communism)

Centrist Dipshit Senators: we should do unspecified things to improve the lives of Middle Class Americans because scary China (swoon, wow, so smart, brilliant)

John Blutarsky was closer to reality:

Friday Night

Rock on.

Leprechaun Barbecue

After many reports that Trump was trying to "induce" Eric Adams out of the race for mayor, he is, in fact, going to keep running. At least for today.

Short version is that he needs to drop out by 9/11 or he stays on the ballot, though there are a couple wrinkles.

Stay Away

Businesss keep your money and people out.

Around 450 people were arrested, said the Atlanta office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in a social-media post. The post described the people as “unlawful aliens.”

...

...

Among those detained at the factory were South Korean employees of LG Energy Solution on business travel. Hyundai Motor said it believed that it didn’t directly employ any of those detained. LG Energy said Friday it was cooperating with the South Korean government and relevant authorities to ensure the employees’ safety and secure their prompt release from detention.

Certain kinds of business travel are of course perfectly legal for people from visa waiver countries, but don't expect agents with a quota to know or care. Heckuva job, here:

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Tori Branum is a Marine Corps veteran, firearms instructor, and Republican candidate for Georgia’s 12th congressional District.

She’s also a proud “America first” supporter of President Donald Trump. On Thursday, as agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security were still carrying out a raid at a Hyundai plant in rural Bryan County, just outside the district Branum is running to serve, she expressed pride in something else: her purported role in causing the raid, which resulted in the arrest of 450 people, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

“How do I feel about it? Good,” Branum tells Rolling Stone. “I have no feelings about the law. What’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong.”

Certainly helping My President's plan to attract foreign investment.

Donald The Dove

Sorry, Mr. President, sir, this going to make giving you that Peace Prize (you were the best nominee!) a bit harder.

US President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Friday that directs the Department of Defense to be known as the Department of War.

Y'all Motherfuckers Lying And Getting Me Pissed

I suppose a minor difference between reactionary centrists and the MAGA right is that the former are proud of being the smartest boys in the room, believing they know things they do not know and understand things they do not understand, while the latter embrace being dumbasses.

The former think you can win with debate club in the Marketplace Of Ideas and the latter are just, "fuck you, we're in charge."

Suspected

We're all enemy combatants now.

Trump Claims the Power to Summarily Kill Suspected Drug Smugglers

Reiterating: drug smuggling is not a capital crime nor even (in itself) violent.

Monthly Jobs Report

There was some drama (nerd drama) earlier as the database tools weren't working, but +22K jobs for the month - shitty number, though the reality could be even shittier because lol nothing matters.

You need about +150K per month to keep up with population growth.

Gotta fire whoever the new guy is.

Morning

What will distract us from kitchen table issues today?

Happy Hour

Get happy

Priorities

They don't believe in what were the primary functions of the FBI, so why not.

WASHINGTON, Sept 4 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's surge of federal law enforcement into Washington, D.C., is exposing the FBI's fleet of unmarked cars, potentially risking its ability to do its most sensitive national security and surveillance work, nine current and former employees of the bureau warned.

Tom's Two Laws Of Robotics

The Moustache Of Understanding:

So what I was trying to do is basically say, given this onrushing train of A.I. and its vast implications, there’s only one way to manage this, and that is if the two A.I. superpowers — China and the United States — collaborate together on a system for controlling A.I. and ensuring that every A.I. device that either of them makes or sells to the other has embedded in it a set of ethical normative controls to ensure that their A.I.s can only be used for the advancement of human well-being, and not for any nefarious purposes.

Sometime I feel the need to explain why things are dumb, but I think pointing laughing is good enough for this one.

The Liberal Bubble

A regular trope presented by our reactionary centrists (shy right wingers) is that liberals/lefties live in some sort of cloistered "bubble," unaware of the concerns and thoughts of right wingers, despite having them blasted at us from every media outlet constantly. 

Needless to say, they never write this piece for right wingers who have no idea that The Left thinks about anything (reactionary centrists don't either).

As for the bubble, it is somewhat amusing that the MAGA Right has spent years constructing elaborate conspiracy theories centered on Jeffrey Epstein, while somehow missing that Donald Trump and Mar-A-Lago are at the center of Epstein Cinematic Universe.

We could've told them that.

Sure Why Not

They shouldn't do it, but it would be a little bit funny, at least.

Driving the news: Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on Wednesday called Trump's Operation Warp Speed — the 2020 American effort to develop COVID vaccines — "a profound public health achievement."

"Such an accomplishment would typically be worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize, given its significant impact," Bourla said in a statement.

He also provided a link to "numerous published studies and updates" that validate the Pfizer vaccine's "safety and effectiveness."

Chemtrails

The dangers of indulging the fantasies of the crazies.

Since the state law went into effect, the Floridians who backed it have grown increasingly angry by seeing the skies just as marked by white trails as they were prior to the state law.

Here’s a smattering of irate posts on X in the two months since the state law went into effect:

— “Yes, the spraying has taken place every single day since the Ban was put in place!”

— “The invasion continues. Florida skies are under constant attack.”

— “DeSantis, why do you lie? Why do you say that you signed a Florida Bill getting rid of these hideous chemtrails, and it is all a fat big LIE?”

— “Welcome to Florida, the chemtrails state. Now we are being sprayed from 4 a.m. to 5 a.m., so by 10 a.m. the skies are cleared but you are breathing heavy metals. Thank you DeSantis.”

— “See how the chemicals are spreading out. Trees are dying, crops are barely growing. Why is our government doing this to us?”

By humoring Florida’s free-dumb coalition on chemtrails, state lawmakers have unleashed a tornado of disappointment upon themselves.

While not precisely the same, there is a lesson here about trying to give anti-immigration zealots something you can't give them. They don't want cuts to illegal immigration or even legal immigration. 

They want you to send them all back again, and if you can't provide that, they won't be happy. They will vote for the people who they think might.

Stop negotiating with the imaginary Reasonable Republican in your head, imagining that surely this compromise will appeal to them, because it's very sensible. Reasonable Republicans don't exist, and they haven't agreed to your compromise.

At Least They Fake Banned Tik Tok

I wonder if any country was too stupid to have data sniffers (I have no idea if this is a good technical term) around the White House when they were sending everything through Starlink.

China has hacked into American power grids and companies for decades, stealing sensitive files and intellectual property such as chip designs as it seeks to gain an edge over the United States.

But a sweeping cyberattack by a group known as Salt Typhoon is China’s most ambitious yet, experts and officials have concluded after a year of investigating it. It targeted more than 80 countries and may have stolen information from nearly every American, officials said. They see it as evidence that China’s capabilities rival those of the United States and its allies.

I suspect a decent chunk of powerful people are regularly being blackmailed by foreign powers, but we've hit the "what can you do" point of that.

Morning

Thirsty Thursday

Happy Hour

get happy

Sure Why Not

It isn't going to take too much more for other countries to move towards requiring vaccination proof.

Florida is set to end all state vaccine mandates, state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced at a news conference Wednesday.

Of course, other states won't be able to do similar, as people bring their measles back from Plague Park, Orlando.

Recessions

It just occurred to me that the last two downturns - Great and Covid  - were quite acute and sudden.  The former had a slow recovery time - thanks, Obama - and the latter a quick one, but in both cases the onsets were quick.

I think "we" sort of expect them to be like that, now, but neither of them were "normal."

I'm not predicting one.  I'm just saying that it generally takes awhile for things like tariff increases to percolate through the economy.

Saved

The author used to yell at me when I would post this, arguing that the piece was nuanced and critical and blahblahblah, but, well..

(this is from 2013)

Why Don't You Make Them One Million Percent Then

Bernie Sanders can be like, "maybe we should raise the minimum wage," and a thousand economists and Briefcase Centrists will descend upon his house with pitchforks to explain why he doesn't understand economics, and now we have this...

Imagine if every country did this, we could push world output to infinity in weeks.

Assassinations

I don't expect The Democrats to point out that assassinating alleged drug smugglers - not even a capital crime - is, maybe, bad, but they should consider the broader consequeneces of these taboos continuing to fall.

Extrajudicial killing is bad, yo.

Judicial, too.

You gotta stand on principle or you'll find there aren't any left.

No I don't think The Democrats have magic powers to stop these things.

Morning

Wacky Wednesday

You Can't Trust Freedom When It's Not In Your Hands

Pritzker has his own Guard.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) said Tuesday President Donald Trump is preparing to deploy National Guard troops in the state over the governor’s repeated objections. Pritzker also warned Trump will soon launch large-scale immigration raids in Chicago.

Pritzker said the Trump administration has begun staging the Texas National Guard for deployment in Illinois. He added that Illinois law enforcement agents were informed by Trump administration officials that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies will soon begin immigration operations across Chicago.

“In the coming days, we expect to see what has played out in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., to happen here in Chicago,” Pritzker said, referring to Trump’s aggressive deployment of the military in Los Angeles earlier this year and his recent deployment in D.C.

Work Is Hard

I bet most of these guys are barely-shows.

As the article points out, man-against-working-from-home can't use it as an excuse.

Exciting Announcement Thread

Still a chance it is "I am dead."

Lunch

eat

Do The Robot

I know Elon's robots are 100% bullshit, but for anyone who thinks they're 90% bullshit:

Automation and robots are nothing new. We have been very good at producing highly efficient machines for specific tasks. The point of a general purpose humanoid robot is that it would be able to do a wide variety of tasks without additional programming and with a great degree of flexibility.

What would they be useful for? My test is the "clean my table, load the dishwasher, and put the clean dishes away" test. That would be the home consumer test.

A commercial test would be "clean hotel rooms."

Try to imagine these creations doing those things. You can't do it, my friends.

Elon Musk is deemphasizing Tesla Inc.’s car business like never before in favor of humanoid robots that are still in development and a ways off from generating revenue.

Tesla’s chief executive officer said Monday the company will derive about 80% of its value from Optimus, the robot initiative he first touted four years ago. Musk made the prediction shortly after Tesla published its latest “master plan,” an oft updated corporate manifesto that mentioned robots for the first time.

He is just going to abandon the car business. And somehow the stock price will stay afloat.

Nadler

My longtime theory about congressional non-retirements - confirmed by a few people - has been that even the rich ones can't easily replace the loyal staffers that provide the equivalent of elder care.*  Good for Nadler not taking that route. I always liked him.

In a recent interview in his downtown Manhattan office, Mr. Nadler, 78, said he hesitated to step aside when he believes that President Trump is threatening the foundations of democracy. But he said he had been persuaded it was time for a changing of the guard.

“Watching the Biden thing really said something about the necessity for generational change in the party, and I think I want to respect that,” Mr. Nadler said, adding that a younger successor “can maybe do better, can maybe help us more.”

I don't really know why the "genocide" word is too much for people - its application to various events in the 90s didn't have this level controversy.  It isn't "holocaust" or "Shoah."  But I don't really care what people call it as long as they don't think arguing about the word is more important than what is happening. Still coming from Nadler this is something:

“I don’t know what to say at this point,” he said. “I can’t defend what Israel is doing.”

Mr. Nadler has been sharply critical of Hamas, still believes in a two-state solution for the region and does not agree with those who say Israel is carrying out genocide in Gaza. But he said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel was committing mass murder and war crimes in Gaza “without question.”

*Many people don't get that "elder care" largely isn't medical or similar, more just handling the complexities of life which become harder to handle.  More like you are dealing with a child, but they own a house and otherwise have the complications of adult life, like dealing with two factor authorization.

This One's For All The Haters And The Losers

I suspect the 2pm announcement from Trump is not "I am dead." I predict that Donald the Dove is going to start calling it the War Department.

Trump will make “an exciting announcement related to the Department of Defense,” per Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. https://t.co/mnxMEKLdbh

— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) September 2, 2025

...ah looks like it's the LOCATION OF SPACE COMMAND. Could be both.

Morning

Dead again?

Monday Evening

Enjoy

Precisely The Same

Seems Bad

The relaxation of the assassination taboo has not been especially wise.

A plane carrying the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was targeted by GPS navigation jamming while trying to land in Bulgaria on Sunday, a spokesperson for the commission told CNN.

The West

I don't really know who "The West" is in this framework. Or what "aligned" means. I don't think whoever wrote it does either.

It was a scene in eastern China almost certainly intended for an audience on the other side of the world: The leaders of China, Russia and India, the three largest powers not aligned with the West, smiling and laughing like good friends as they greeted each other at a summit on Monday.

Legitimate Concerns

This is mostly about the UK - with lessons from the US - but the same applies to all The Democrats (and I know many of you don't like to believe me, but this is the animating belief of House Democrats right now) who think they can put on their tough guy racist pants and "win" on immigration.

That is because the question at the heart of immigration crises isn’t “how many is too many”, but “how few is few enough”. The answer is “fewer than zero”. And because that is not a scenario that is possible, no matter what ever-escalating pledges, solutions or policies are offered, nothing will ever be enough. And each time that one decisive solution is executed – whether that be Brexit, increasing deportations, mobilising the navy – a chorus of voices will tell us that these are necessary placatory measures, and then promptly forget when the next one is demanded, and sign up to that as well. 

Morning

Holiday Monday funday.

Cindy Who

Not that I expect anything from Trump's people, but that Biden's people and all senators stopped taking her calls is.. a lot.

This is the team. The ones making sure food reaches people in #Gaza. Despite tremendous challenges, their commitment and determination never waivers.

I reiterate my call for their safety & protection—and for the sustained access that @WFP needs to continue our life-saving work. pic.twitter.com/Q9IVmdPiFt

— Cindy McCain (@WFPChief) August 31, 2025

Translate This

I think what actually happened is pretty obvious, but you can all speculate!

Afternoon

enjoy

America's Worst Humans

Patrick O'Hanlon.

Main Character

One can't completely deny America's centrality in the world, but we are, relatively speaking, much less important than we used to be. A lot of those "poor" countries - big and small - aren't poor anymore. Our big sticks are still there, of course, but our carrots, especially ones dangled by the Mad King, aren't as valuable as they once were. Any transition is complicated and potentially costly, but China and India (for example) really don't need the US.

Public Safety

Broadly, the "police chase" should basically never happen.

U.S. Park Police have initiated at least 10 car chases in the past three weeks as part of President Donald Trump’s surge in federal law enforcement in D.C., court records show. They’re pursuing drivers they tried to stop for tinted windows and fake tags, broken headlights and running a stop sign.

A driver with a minor in the back seat struck a tree, then a guardrail. Another accelerated to more than 80 mph before hitting multiple cars on Interstate 295. A third nearly hit a detective before flipping the car. Court records reviewed by The Washington Post show that among the 10 chases since Aug. 14, at least six involved crashes.

The pursuits — all of which began as traffic stops for nonviolent crimes and were initiated by federal task forces formed in response to Trump’s Aug. 11 executive order — would have violated D.C. police policy. The District’s police department allows car chases only when the driver is putting other lives in danger or is suspected of committing a violent crime.

Morning

Sunday funday

Some Dumbasses Thought Trump Would Actually Pay Them

How do people not learn.

Saturday Afternoon

It appears the reports of his death were somewhat exaggerated.

Sure Why Not

I guess all IP law is nonsense now.

Aug 29 (Reuters) - Meta has appropriated the names and likenesses of celebrities – including Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, Anne Hathaway and Selena Gomez – to create dozens of flirty social-media chatbots without their permission, Reuters has found.

While many were created by users with a Meta tool for building chatbots, Reuters discovered that a Meta employee had produced at least three, including two Taylor Swift “parody” bots.

Amazing stuff:

All of the virtual celebrities have been shared on Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms. In several weeks of Reuters testing to observe the bots’ behavior, the avatars often insisted they were the real actors and artists. The bots routinely made sexual advances, often inviting a test user for meet-ups.

Interesting Times

Morning

Is he dead yet?

Friday Evening

enjoy

...Circuit Court chucks out Trump's tariffs.   Someone wake John Roberts.

Deathgrip

You don't have to know anything about any of these people to know this is nuts.

Reportedly, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is wooing Maine Governor Janet Mills to run for the nomination. At 77, a win against Collins would make her the oldest senate freshman in history. (Platner is 40.) Platner’s campaign only becomes an insurgency against Susan Collins if he first survives the Democratic establishment. His pointed critiques of party inaction have already set the tone. His candidacy isn’t just about beating Republicans, it’s about forcing Democrats to do more than fundraise off of their failures.

Whoopsie Doodle

They lie about everything.

Years after a Tesla driver using Autopilot plowed into a young Florida couple in 2019, crucial electronic data detailing how the fatal wreck unfolded was missing. The information was key for a wrongful death case the survivor and the victim’s family were building against Tesla, but the company said it didn’t have the data.

Then a self-described hacker, enlisted by the plaintiffs to decode the contents of a chip they recovered from the vehicle, found it while sipping a Venti-size hot chocolate at a South Florida Starbucks. Tesla later said in court that it had the data on its own servers all along.

The hacker’s discovery would become a key piece of evidence presented during a trial that began last month in Miami federal court, which dissected the final moments before the collision and ended in a historic $243 million verdict against the company.

Life Is But An Illusion

I have some, um, nuanced views about the whole Fed Independence issue, but if the people who run it aren't willing to preserve it, then it never really existed anyway.

Unless, of course, he makes the decision to stand up for the rule of law and explain that the attack is not merely on the central bank, but democracy and the constitution. Powell should give a public, primetime television speech explaining the stakes, that the president’s order was legally invalid and that the Federal Reserve system will ignore the order. Federal Reserve Board General Counsel Mark Van Der Weide and the legal division of the Federal Reserve Board are no doubt advising Powell that any such bold action would open Powell up to the risk of a “for cause” firing from Trump himself. Their legal analysis is sound but their political instincts are wrong.

When your opponent is Donald Trump you escalate in response to threats; you don’t try to appease him. Powell must do everything in his power to compel the conventional wisdom of market traders to more adequately “price in” the degradation of the rule of law. This must include tying the rule of law and the threats to the constitution to the credibility and standing of the Federal Reserve itself. Powell’s term expires in less than a year anyway. If defending the constitution and his own institution is not worth the risk, what would be? The Federal Reserve has already made the error of letting itself become isolated from the attacks on the rest of the administrative state. Powell can still change course, but time is running out. Federal Reserve Chairman Powell: hang together with Lisa Cook.

Seems Bad

We seem to have cycled through our effective official policy being: 1) it's not happening, 2) it's happening but we're not responsible, 3) we're responsible but it's too expensive to do anything about it, also something something China and Africa 4) it's too late to do anything about it, and back to to 5) it's not happening.

The collapse of a critical Atlantic current can no longer be considered a low-likelihood event, a study has concluded, making deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions even more urgent to avoid the catastrophic impact.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a major part of the global climate system. It brings sun-warmed tropical water to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and sinks to form a deep return current. The Amoc was already known to be at its weakest in 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis.

Self-Preservation

I get that the rich and powerful can insulate themselves from a lot of the deprivations they inflict onto the rest of us, but it is a bit difficult to protect yourself against various plagues. You would think some members of the Oldest Deliberative Body In The World (by age of members) would have some minor concerns about this.

Also, Magic Beans

I was going to criticize something else in this WaPo piece, but then I reached the end and found something which we increasingly see in pieces on every topic. Basically, "...and then artificial intelligence will solve everything."

In classic Trump fashion, such quick deadlines might help focus people and force them to innovate faster. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has, so far, certified only a dozen third-party service providers to collect and pay duties on international mail. That number will grow soon. Embracing artificial intelligence, including predictive analytics, could help speed packages through customs, no matter their value.

That first sentence is amazing, also, too.

Morning

Funky Friday.

Thursday Night

Rock on.

Happy Hour

get happy

37

I think 37% is about as low as Trump can go unless a shit economy kicks in, or some other catastrophe, but if that isn't low enough for people to treat him as unpopular...

President Donald Trump’s approval rating dropped to a new low of his second term, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.

The new poll found that Trump’s approval rating slid 3 percentage points since the survey was last conducted in July. According to the poll, 37% of voters approved of how Trump was handling his job as president while 55% said they disapproved.

Somehow Tony Blair Returned

Signifying nothing good.

Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister who led his country into the war in Iraq and whose eight-year tenure as a Middle East envoy got — at best — mixed reviews, raised eyebrows on Wednesday when he attended a White House summit on the future of Gaza.

Cindy Who

It does say a lot about That Town that everybody stopped taking her calls.

#Gaza is at a breaking point. I've just seen it myself.
 @WFP operates in conflict zones all over the world. Families in Gaza are starving—and we know how to deliver at scale.
 
We must revive our network of 200+ food distribution points, community kitchens & bakeries ASAP.

— Cindy McCain (@WFPChief) August 28, 2025

So Much For The Tolerant Left

Just because I demonize them for several hours every day to my audience of millions?

The conservative personality admitted on his self-titled Fox News show that he fled the metropolis because he was pushed to the limit by a few glances — or perhaps glares — he suffered through during an experience at a local eatery.

"It's not going to impact my life, because I left New York," Hannity said while discussing the potential for Zohran Mamdani, the son of film director Mira Nair, to win the city's mayoral race.

"You know why I left New York? High taxes, quality of life, crime," the 63-year-old stressed, before telling his audience, "I had a hard time going to a restaurant in New York City because people would stare at me and hated me."

He added, "They had daggers in their eyes."

The violent left with their eye daggers.

The Plagiarism Machine Is Now The Snitch Machine

Yah don't use this.

In a new blog post admitting certain failures amid its users' mental health crises, OpenAI also quietly disclosed that it's now scanning users' messages for certain types of harmful content, escalating particularly worrying content to human staff for review — and, in some cases, reporting it to the cops.

"When we detect users who are planning to harm others, we route their conversations to specialized pipelines where they are reviewed by a small team trained on our usage policies and who are authorized to take action, including banning accounts," the blog post notes. "If human reviewers determine that a case involves an imminent threat of serious physical harm to others, we may refer it to law enforcement."

People are going to SWAT themselves trying to "write" fiction.

Wonder of Science

The man can see mitochondria.

Morning

Get your morning on.

Wednesday Night

Rock on.

Happy Hour

get happy

Metastasize

I know it doesn't apply to everyone - or every entity - individually, but collectively, the Professional Democrats are a hell of a lot more corrupt than they were 20 years. People like this are not going to save us!

A Democratic Senate candidate running in Maine on a platform of getting money out of politics has spent his career entangled with controversial PACs created by the notorious email fundraising firm Mothership Strategies. The firm pioneered the hair-on-fire fundraising tactics that often send more money to political consultants than to political candidates.

Mothership was recently the subject of yet another viral investigation that revealed that of the $678 million the company’s core political action committees raised since 2018, just $11 million went to candidates; $159 million made its way to Mothership Strategies. Meanwhile, the firm’s spammy approach to email and text messaging—mock overdue bills, sky-is-falling rhetoric, and so on—has left the grassroots commons desiccated, draining email fundraising of its potency and driving many campaigns toward SMS (which is in the process of being destroyed itself).

Corruption seeps into everyone and everything eventually. That's just how things are done, don't rock the boat, hey you'd better show you're one of us by joining in. No one is going to get ahead by threatening to expose the system.

Where's Daddy

Chotiner interviews Jacob Lew, Obama's Treasury Secretary, Biden's ambassador to Israel.

When you would call them in the middle of the night and say, “What on earth happened?,” what was usually the answer?

The general pattern was that in-the-moment stories were inaccurate, and that the Israeli military and government establishment were not in a position to fully explain yet. We could almost never get answers that explained what happened before the story was fully framed in international media, and then when the facts were fully developed, it turned out that the casualties were much lower, the number of civilians was much lower, and, in many cases, the children were children of Hamas fighters, not children taking cover in places.

Sorry, what did you just say?

In many cases, the original number of casualties—

No, I meant the thing about who the children were.

They were often the children of the fighters themselves.

And therefore what follows from that?

What follows is that whether or not it was a legitimate military target flows from the population that’s there.

Crackers

No golden age, but I do think there's a small chance that in the aughts this would have been a resignation event.

People other than Media Matters might have noticed, at least.

Where Have All The Good Men Gone And Where Are All The Gods

Fresh from the fight.

Prosecutors Fail to Secure Indictment Against Man Who Threw Sandwich at Federal Agent

Trial Balloons

The reason to scream when they get floated is to try to pop them.

The reason to scream, generally, is that the people whose calls get taken - the people who don't have to scream - are much more likely to think this is good and right.

The title of the post was "115 Dems" for a reason.

The modal belief of House Dems right now is that they lost because of immigration and trans issues, and somehow - despite everything - if they could just go back in time and pass the 2024 immigration bill, then everything would have been fine.

That immigration reform was the top agenda for months, that Biden talked about nothing else, that the Republicans predictably rug pulled it, and that all this accomplished was precisely what critics predicted - ensuring that immigration was a top election issue - has not phased them in the slightest.

Don't focus on immigration, we said.  The Republicans will not let this bad bill pass, anyway, we said. It failed and guess who was right - they were!

Trump is doing what is he doing and over a third of House Dems are running with "he is basically right."

115 Dems are not in marginal seats.  These are not rogue members trying to win re-election in Trump +4 districts.  This is the dominant view of House Dems at the moment.  Not universal, but dominant.

We've been getting lectures about everything being a distraction from "kitchen table issues" for months, and this is what they have come up with.

2026 is going to go very badly - for the country, and electorally - unless we scream at these people and get many of them out of office in primaries.

Crimecop

Philadelphia DA proposes making crime illegal again.

Krasner: So, if what you have is a group of ICE agents, or even the military, coming into Philadelphia and committing crimes—assaults that are illegal, kidnapping, unlawful restraint, obstruction of the administration of justice—they can be prosecuted.

[image or embed]

— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) August 27, 2025 at 12:43 AM

Morning

Wobbly Wednesday.

Tuesday Night

Rock on.

115 Dems

Genius stuff. 

A group of House Democrats hope they have the solution to a policy issue that has long plagued the Democratic Party: immigration reform. 

 

The New Democrat Coalition, comprising 115 members who span the caucus’s ideological spectrum, released a framework Monday containing policy proposals on topics including increasing financial and operational support to border agents and rethinking U.S. visa policy.

It is much much worse than those paragraphs suggest.

I don’t know what politics show some of you are watching.  I think opposing this morally bankrupt and politically suicidal course is more important than clapping loudly for the brilliant Dem messaging, which is converging on "like Trump, but more responsibly and sensibly."

The ones who are actually opposing Trump's actions do not get to sit at the cool kids table at the Dem caucus lunches.

Sometimes I know what I am talking about.

The Message Factory

Rolling Stone on who is guiding The Democrats.

As the Times explained elsewhere, Blue Rose handled much of the ad testing for the Super PAC Future Forward as it worked to support Harris’ campaign. Blue Rose’s team was effectively embedded within Future Forward, which served as Harris’ primary outside spender and spent $560 million to boost the Democratic ticket in 2024. It’s worth noting that many of the ads run by Future Forward were completely unwatchable — overstuffed with tidbits about various policies, provided too quickly for a casual viewer to process and often presented by random narrators. 

Blue Rose has worked with much of the Democratic Party apparatus — the Democratic National Committee; the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and its outside spending arm, Senate Majority PAC; the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and its independent arm, House Majority PAC.

The firm is prone to bold proclamations. Among its contributions to the 2024 campaign was the idea that running negative ads against Trump was ineffective, and contrast was more important, according to people familiar with the Blue Rose operation. (Democratic National Committee officials are still incensed that Future Forward eschewed attacks on Trump.) Another was that the Super PAC should deploy its ads late in the campaign, when the cake was already nearly baked.

These proclamations are typically based on experiments, randomized-controlled trials, that are supposed to determine the efficacy of ads and messages. Critics question whether this is a viable way to test the impact of political messages, as well as the methodology — which Blue Rose doesn’t share — based, in part, on who exactly is participating in its web panels. 

Jake Grumbach, an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, made an apparent dig at the methodology on Sunday, joking on X that the Democratic Party is being run by “people who sign up to take online surveys about the persuasiveness of various digital campaign messaging vignettes via consumer reward programs.”

I'll add that this particular message memo concludes that these are bad messages:

They are correct.  These are absolutely shit messages that no one should use! That is not the same as saying that the topic is shit.  They're just shitty statements!  There is a difference between "voters aren't concerned about this issue" and "voters think this is a fucking stupid thing to say!"

The Milky Way And Fucking Shooting Stars

How about eleventy million percent?

Aug 25 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday that China has to give the United States magnets or "we have to charge them 200% tariff or something" amid a trade dispute between the two nations.

I suspect China, out of all entities, knows to tell him to fuck off.

Nobody Could Have Predicted

I still expect something absolutely catastrophic to happen because of this type thing.

Members of the Department of Government Efficiency uploaded a copy of a crucial Social Security database in June to a vulnerable cloud server, putting the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans at risk of being leaked or hacked, according to a whistle-blower complaint filed by the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer.

Sincere Advice

I do love the genre of evil conservatives giving Democrats advice, as their big concern is the success of the Democratic party. 

Oh, Ramesh, tell us how to win! Please!

I don't love that Hakeem Jeffries is reading and nodding along.

In case you need a reminder of Ramesh's deep concern for the fortunes of the Democratic party:

Taking The Lead

If federal elected Dems don't take the lead in opposing Trump's military occupation of cities, masked kidnappings, and other authoritarian actions, then that activism will happen elsewhere, and in ways they have less control over. I don't think that's what they want, as still, in the year of our Gritty 2025, they are unable to not take the bait in somehow being responsible for things random people do and say.  Even made up things!

Someone's going to be shouting "abolish ICE" and "defund the police" and even "worse" and they can't stop that!

I guarantee the response to this will be something like, "This is a despicable act, HOWEVER" and that is not going to help you! You took Trump's side even though you think you didn't!

Team Big Rich Oaf

Man of the moment.

Over the weekend, we learned from the media that Donald Trump has been planning, for quite a while now, to deploy armed military personnel to the streets of Chicago. This is exactly the type of overreach that our country's founders warned against, and it's the reason that they established a federal system with a separation of powers built on checks and balances.

What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted. It is illegal. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American.

No one from the White House or the executive branch has reached out to me or to the mayor. No one has reached out to our staffs. No effort has been made to coordinate or to ask for our assistance in identifying any actions that might be helpful to us. Local law enforcement has not been contacted. We have made no requests for federal intervention. None.

We found out what Donald Trump was planning the same way that all of you did: We read a story in The Washington Post.

If this was really about fighting crime and making the streets safe, what possible justification could the White House have for planning such an exceptional action without any conversations or consultations with the governor, the mayor, or the police?

Let me answer that question: This is not about fighting crime. This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city, in a blue state, to try and intimidate his political rivals.

This is about the president of the United States and his complicit lackey, Stephen Miller, searching for ways to lay the groundwork to circumvent our democracy, militarize our cities and end elections.

There is no emergency in Chicago that calls for armed military intervention. There is no inter- insurrection. There is no insurrection. Like every major American city in both blue and red states, we deal with crime in Chicago. Indeed, the violent crime rate is worse in red states and red cities.

Here in Chicago, our civilian police force and elected leaders work every day to combat crime and to improve public safety, and it's working.

Not one person here today will claim we have solved all crime in Chicago, nor can that be said of any major American metro area. But calling the military into a U.S. city to invade our streets and neighborhoods and disrupt the lives of everyday people is an extraordinary action, and it should require extraordinary justification.

Look around you right now. Does this look like an emergency? Look at this. Go talk to the people of Chicago who are enjoying a gorgeous afternoon in this city. Ask the families buying ice cream on the Riverwalk. Go see the students who are at the beach after school. Talk to the workers that I just met taking the water taxi to get here. Find a family who's enjoying today sitting on their front porch and ask if they want their neighborhoods turned into a war zone by a wannabe dictator. Ask if they'd like to pass through a checkpoint with unidentified officers in masks while taking their kids to school.

And the important bit:

Finally, to the Trump administration officials who are complicit in this scheme, to the public servants who have forsaken their oath to the Constitution to serve the petty whims of an arrogant little man, to any federal official who would come to Chicago and try to incite my people into violence as a pretext for something darker and more dangerous: we are watching and we are taking names.

This country has survived darker periods than the one that we are going through right now, and eventually the pendulum will swing back, maybe even next year. Donald Trump has already shown himself to have little regard for the many acolytes that he has encouraged to commit crimes on his behalf.

You can delay justice for a time, but history shows you cannot prevent it from finding you eventually. If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me, not time or political circumstance, from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law.

This man should be talking about kitchen table issues, which involves saying, "Donald Trump is distracting us from the price of eggs!" 

Hakeem Jeffries must condemn!

Morning

What is distracting us from our kitchen tables today?

Late Happy Hour

enjoy

Kitchen Table Issues

Seems like "being scared to leave your house without your passport" might qualify, if only indirectly.

The Girls Are Fighting

Sam Altman's only redeeming feature is that Elon hates him. T

wo of Elon Musk’s companies sued Apple and OpenAI on Monday, accusing the pair of an “anticompetitive scheme.”

Lunch

eat

The Royal 'You'

Who is the NYT addressing here? I mean, its own staff, hopefully, but otherwise?  Maybe most people are aware of things that the NYT office group chat is surprised by.

I am not surprised by the answer.  Why does the NYT assume I would be?