one of the underlying factors in all the Epstein stuff is that his correspondents - even the ones who likely did not participate in abuse themselves - are completely incapable of imagining his victims as people. he is real to them, the girls aren't.

The girl later told congressional investigators that she saw Mr. Gaetz use cocaine that night. For having sex with him twice, the girl was paid $400, according to testimony she gave to the Ethics Committee. That fall, the girl moved to live with a family member in Texas, according to Ms. Wolf. She did not complete her senior year in high school. She continued to work for minimum wage in the food services industry. Ultimately, between the money she made from her interactions with men and in the food services industry she was able to save up enough money to get braces.

I sometimes feel like they don’t want to end poverty or reduce inequality because they believe they’re entitled to a class of people they can prey upon

just a reminder this guy slashed the tires on his much younger female coworkers tires to trick her into getting in his car

he was married at the time

The Republican president is a pedophile who has doubled my healthcare costs and let scores of violent criminals out of jail. But a Democratic mayor-elect wants to make busses free in a city I don't live in. I have never felt more politically homeless.

This is a core element of conservative philosophy: If a single "undeserving" person is getting a government benefit, the answer is to take it away from millions.*

*Offer does not apply to tax loopholes or any other benefit enjoyed by the wealthy

This isn’t even the stuff they’re trying to actually stop from getting out.

In retrospect we probably should've had Epstein down as an Unsolicited Advice Guy the whole time

Important to understand the Epstein stuff and the fascism and the corruption are, in a lot of ways, really all the same story from different angles: powerful men who can and do abuse vulnerable people around them because they can, and because systems of elite accountability catastrophically failed

The Epstein stuff is always so amazing to me because it's like "yes he was a sex criminal but if you can get past that, he was also an avowed eugenicist"

again i am perfectly fine with locking every one of Jeffrey Epstein's friends in prison, Democrat, Republican or Whatever.

I think there's a lot more to come out about Trump. Especially when he dies. I think a lot of people are going to come forward who are too scared to while he's alive.

A black cat sitting in front of an open book

Would you join his book club?

“Darth Vader” was an amalgamation of various Imperial Era generals and cyborgs that were combined in histories written centuries after the fact

going on twitter now is like the dark world part of link to the past, where the shape of things is roughly the same only now instead of the friendly villagers there's some demihuman freak snarling at you going "welcome to the village of assholes!! we hate you!!" also the trees shoot bombs now

It's 1348 and you're getting rat faces in your notifications. Chat is this good

Even if the vote passes in the Senate, Johnson will never hold a vote on it and you come out looking like a fucking rube. Just admit that Americans' health care isn't as important to you as your holiday vacation already.

By not just giving up, but giving up *randomly*, *in exchange for nothing*, Schumer's Democrats create two problems for themselves.

1. The argument the Republicans, not them, caused the shutdown collapses: bsky.app/profile/did:...

2. The Repubs will *absolutely* do this again next time; it worked:

be the person brave enough to stand up and say
"like, no dude."

You voted no but made sure it would pass anyways, you chickenshit coward. We'll remember that you sold sick Americans up the river so that your holidays wouldn't be inconvenienced.

The Republicans in the Senate threatened to force everyone to keep coming in through the holidays if they didn't reopen the government and Dems caved immediately

That's not actually true, they're just not up for reelection till 2028/30 and they're hoping you'll forget by then

Senators on the brink of retirement who lived full, wealthy lives and never feared the loss of their own healthcare voting for their constituents to die from their inability to afford the same is treasonous

Dems backed Trump into a corner where he’s advocating for starving Americans and hemorrhaging support. If they vote to let him off the hook in exchange for nothing it’s a cataclysmic failure. I know people are in pain but insulating Republicans from political consequences is not the answer.

These are all fantastic games and I even had the privilege of doing UX research for one of them!

The DoJ has been left to grinder their teeth as their arguments over the ballistic sub melt away when the jury sees them trying to torpedo a po' boy with the fixins of a real hero

"loss of our own dick was not in our projections while pulling the 'shoot off your own dick' lever"

“Your Honor it isn’t spoliation in *this* case if we are simply destroying *all* evidence on an equal internal-retention-policy basis on the assumption that our employees are probably committing and documenting a lot of wrongdoing“

This is *literally* what adverse inferences were made for