Tom Bacon

Chuck Schumer Helps Pull Democrats Back From Brink Of Courage

Chuck Schumer Helps Pull Democrats Back From Brink Of Courage

Here's a photo of my friend and colleague, Jorge Bautista, getting shot in the face with a flashbang grenade. The ICE Agent is so afraid of Jorge (who was posing no threat) that he has wet himself. Please share this photo. Everyone needs to know what cowards ICE agents are.

From a high school teacher: “You can’t do everything, but you can do anything.”

If I had explain American history in one sentence, I could do worse than "John Brown was hung for treason, but Robert E. Lee was not."

Brian Krassenstein tweet from 2019 Super Bowl in which he says “While many of you are likely yelling ‘GO PATRIOTS’ or ‘GO RAMS!’ I’m yelling ‘GO ROBERT MUELLER and the rule of law!”

Dutch late night TV has its take

📌

It's getting harder and harder to deny that AGI is a near certainty. This kind of rapid expansion, this level of investment and infrastructural shift, this amount of *risk* - it doesn't happen without astronomical reward. The other day I saw a big barn, which can only mean one thing: giant horses

America Tips Into Fascism Today is different than before.

The precise moment when and where in recent weeks America crossed that invisible line from democracy into authoritarianism can and will be debated by future historians, but it’s clear that the line itself has been crossed. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/america-ti...

I’ve been having a few too many conversations like this. Them: Hi Kate, how are things with your work, with the world? Me: the university is under attack, democratic norms being broken in half, so, pretty bad. Them: But everything is going to come back and be okay after the midterms. Me: Uhh, no.

Shocking Video Captures Calm Police Officers Handling Situation Nonviolently

This may be what actually gives Ed Zitron a stroke.

Left: Hugh Jackman in the male gaze
Right: Hugh Jackman in the female gaze

i mean like literally. one's a muscle mag for lads & the other is GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, for god's sake

#copyediting

No, we're not calling it Alligator Alcatraz.

It's a Florida concentration camp.

Stages of life:
1. Birth
2. You gotta be fucking kidding me
3. Death

Q: So I wonder what you think about that, about the phrase “globalize the intifada” and what we've seen as some anti-semitism coming from the left-wing protesters. A: The first thing as you were saying is anti-semitism is a real issue in our city and it's one that can be captured in statistics, the ones that you're citing. It's also one that you will feel in conversations you have with Jewish New Yorkers across the city. And I remember one conversation I had with a friend of mine after the horrific war crime of October 7th. He was telling me that he went for Shabbat services at his temple and he was facing forward when he heard the door open. And he turned back with a chill going up his spine because he didn't know who was coming in. And that's more than a year ago. And then just a few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a Jewish man in Williamsburg who told me that the same door he would keep unlocked for decades is one that he now locks out of a fear of what could happen in his own neighborhood. And I think that this is something that has to be the focus of the next mayoral administration, is not just talking about it, but tackling it. And these are the conversations that have informed our commitment around increasing funding for anti-hate crime programming by 800% in our Department of Community Safety. To the question of language that's being used. I am someone who I would say am less comfortable with the idea of banning the use of certain words and that I think it is more evocative of a Trump style approach to how to lead a country. And-

Q: Does that just make you uncomfortable? Like the phrase globalizing intifada. And like the phrase from the river to the sea, does that make you uncomfortable? Or do you think- A: Okay, those are different. Those are super different. Q: They're not really. A: Those are like different genres. Q: I'm sorry, I'm asking so wrong. Then they're not really different to me. And to some people they are not different. A: I know people for whom those things mean very different things. And to me, ultimately, what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights. And I think what's difficult also is that the very word has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw ghetto uprising into Arabic because it's a word that means struggle. And as a Muslim man who grew up post-911, I'm all too familiar in the way in which Arabic words can be twisted, can be distorted, can be used to justify any kind of meaning. And I think that's where it leaves me with a sense that what we need to do is focus on keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe. And the question of the permissibility of language is something that I haven't ventured.

I feel like I'm losing my mind. Here is the transcript of what Zohran Mamdani actually said about the phrase "globalize the intifada." This is his "refusal to disavow it." This is what has people terrified. Just fucking read it.

Source: podscripts.co/podcasts/the...

It’s so interesting that an outlet that encourages its writers to speak truth to power is flourishing in a media industry where everything else seems to be in decline. I want that to be a lesson to people. Kowtowing to power—if your job is not that, nobody fucking wants that. It does nothing for you to pull a punch at this moment. You have to be able to stand up for a baseline of humanity. That’s what we do here. And I’m glad to tell you that they never blinked. They never thought twice about it. They just always were like, “All right, well, let’s keep doing what we do here.”

People keep asking why The Onion is doing well right now, and it's simply because we just refuse to kowtow. I cannot stress enough how good it is for your business and your soul be strong and even fun in the face of the ongoing horror and bullshit.

www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/st...

I, for one, am tired of [gestures broadly]. I have grown weary of [points in all directions simultaneously].

📌

📌

I'm 18. The economy enters a once-in-a-century recession. A Republican president is responsible.

I'm 29. There is once-in-a-century pandemic that leads to a once-in-century-recession. A Republican is responsible.

I'm 35. Tarriffs trigger a once-in-a-century recession. A Republican is responsible.

49% of Troy was like "they tried to kill us yesterday" but 51 were chanting HORSE! HORSE! really loud

As always, not a lawyer, but one thing that leaps out at me about how things are going down in the courts right now is that the US court system is not designed to be responsive to a crisis like this one. A crisis like this one is not what it's FOR.

The StoryGraph We'll help you track your reading and choose your next book.

Recently switched to StoryGraph from Goodreads: www.thestorygraph.com

Fender affirming care is ok for these douches apparently

📌

Sesame Street really tells the story of America:

- Created for PBS to educate young (especially Black!) children
- Becomes a beloved institution cherished by the entire country
- Gets privatized and kicked to premium cable due to budget cuts
- Unionization leads to mass layoffs

What a country!

If you were looking for a unified theory explaining the last 20 years of Supreme Court politics, you could do a lot worse than “Citizens United was a direct reaction to Obama winning, and Shelby County was a direct reaction to Obama winning again”