David Atkins

Hegseth is an ugly pustule on Western Civilization, an avatar of its worst instincts tempered by none of its virtues.

Western civilization is principally the product of:
1) Ancient Greek philosophy and culture
2) Ancient Roman law and infrastructure
3) Enlightenment philosophy

And *distantly* 4) "Christian" teachings mostly as a thin overlay to justify oppression of women and obedience to lords and kings.

Everything these people do is an explicit rejection not of liberalism, but of basic morality and ethics.

There is no guiding principle beyond "we do whatever we wamt to further the power of straight white Christian fundamentalist men." They are evil to the core.

Pretty much everyone who isn't directly in AI or finance is struggling right now. The stock market has been papering over weakness in the rest of the economy.

This is honestly one of the most anti-Jewish things I’ve ever seen from the United States government.

Yes

It doesn't do much good to have really expensive, high tech weapons if you can't make enough of them to last you more than a week or two.

The generals knew this, presumably. Did Trump and Hegseth not know? Or did they not care?

Dem Candidate for Rep. Eric Swalwell’s Seat Donated to Far-Right Republicans — Including Laura Loomer Democratic primary hopeful Rakhi Israni, who is running for Rep. Eric Swalwell’s seat, gave to MAGA figures — including Laura Loomer.

If you don't want the sketchy Laura Loomer donor in Congress, her very excellent, non-sketchy primary opponent is @mattortega.com

I know we are well through the looking glass here, but it's worth reiterating how gross and abnormal it is for a sitting president to be communicating these veiled internal political threats and naked partisanship on a public channel.

Many people speculated that Trump kidnapped Maduro--and seized Venezuelan oil--as a stealth way to boost affordability by decreasing gas prices.

But either that wasn't the motive, Trump just undercut it badly by attacking Iran.

Or worse, maybe he thinks he can steal Iran's oil, too.

This is the point. If your vaunted trillion-dollar military can't get through a few days of airstrikes because you've consolidated the industrial base so badly, then you don't have a trillion-dollar military, you just have contractors in No. Virginia getting rich

kind of crazy that if you have enough money and don't like what you see in the media, you can just buy up every film studio, news station, and social media app and change it

Ongoing “lol” at every entity that cuts a lopsided deal with this guy rather than telling him to fuck off

War! War! It’s the Department of War! Don’t be so afraid to say war, you beta cucks!

Is this a war?

No.

I get why/that people say this, but dont' underestimate this:

all other social networks are invested in making sure that posts that link to journalism remain buried, or at least never go viral.

BlueSky doesn't do that. That makes it very valuable to a ton of newsrooms righ tnow.

"Agentic" in Silicon Valley lingo

People who post stuff like this really need to get specific about what they mean by "the Democratic Party". Which institutions and Democrats? The DNC? DSCC? Maine Dem Party? Who exactly?

If your frustrarion is with the voters in primary polling, take it up with them.

We really need laws against this sort of thing. Placing bets on everything in society creates massive corruption incentives and warps behaviors.

The truth is that both The Groups and The Yglesias Mods are wrong.

People want a Dem Party that avoids workshop jargon and doesn't tolerate antisocial behavior, but *also* stands up fiercely for inclusive progressive values, pushes hard on economic equality, and fights fascism like a honey badger.

The latest from YouGov (n ~ 1.6k adults):

Approval of Iran strikes: -10
Approval of Trump's handling of Iran: -15
Should Congress approve wars first: Yes +31
Will intervention make Iran better/worse off: Worse off +20

yougov.com/en-us/search...

Donald Trump is dragging the United States into a war the American people do not want. Let me be clear: I am opposed to a regime-change war in Iran, and our troops are being put in harm’s way for the sake of Trump’s war of choice.

Read my full statement:

They didn’t even bother wheeling in a tv (showing twitter) this time. It’s just a poster of where some ships are and some phones for conference calls with the White House.

Truly imagine if any other President had launched a war seemingly this disengaged from the whole situation.

A United States senator from the president's own party, one who serves on the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, has no idea what's going on as America goes to war with Iran.

What is Congress?

Yeah that's a block. You don't argue in good faith.

Yeah i'm blocking all these bad faith idiots.

Ah well that magically make it a reality then

That is one of the dumbest things I have read this week

You can blame Dems for not being strong enough on a lot of things, but gun policy is not one of them.

Ruling parties??