SlacktivistFred

His own “L’Etat c’est moi” confusion/ambition makes him think that killing/abducting another country’s head of state means he has conquered that country. It’s one-dimensional chess — the idea that he wins if he takes out the other side’s king.

So now I guess we’re looking for the Iranian Delcy Rodriguez?

Democracy starts by establishing the basic rights that can never be lost or upended by the loss of an election. Without that guarantee, the electoral stakes are too high for anyone to tolerate or accept an electoral defeat. Democracy does not mean minorities must freely surrender their freedoms.

You can’t wander into the Thirty Years War and just decide to settle the matter by voting. The Protestants get 51% of the vote, so now all the Catholics have to convert. That’s not what democracy is. Democracy is when no one has to convert no matter who wins the next election.

Middle of a great thread & the point I’d highlight as to why imposed “democracy” failed in Iraq & Afghanistan. We had them *start* with elections. That’s not where democracy starts. It starts with a Flushing Remonstrance & a Bill of Rights — by saying what elections CANNOT change.

🎵 … Everybody knows you live forever

When you’ve done a line or two … 🎵

We shouldn’t let the flagrantly sinful immorality of people like Sean Feucht and Dale Partridge to completely overshadow the fact that they’re also just really, really dumb.

Like, no, just dumber than you will expect them to be even when you’re already expecting them to be extravagantly dumb.

I had to see this pop up a few times before grasping that this was a second, different, death-laser mishap and not just a follow-up on the recent party balloon incident.

Compromise proposal: DHS can use the song, but only if they play it, live, and get all the time signatures right.

Judge: IRS broke law ‘approximately 42,695 times’ in giving DHS data A court on Thursday issued an opinion on a data-sharing agreement between the taxpayer agency and federal immigration authorities.

Breaking news: A federal judge found that the IRS violated federal law “approximately 42,695 times” when it shared confidential taxpayer addresses with immigration enforcement officials last summer.

Post old memes to confuse young people

Our communities didn’t ask for this. It’s going to overwhelm their infrastructure with potentially catastrophic consequences, and we do not want them here.

Subsidiarity invoked!

Inescapable network of mutuality ftw.

David Dark shared a word from Brian Eno that I’ve been sitting with as a source of hope.

Eno says revolution/change comes in two stages: “Firstly, when everyone realizes something is wrong, and secondly, when everyone realizes that everyone else has realized.”

Some of these faculty are literal, doctorate-level experts in Catholic social teaching. Dissertations on Rerum Novarum and on Laborem Exercens and on the priority of labor and whatnot. This is gonna get ugly and erudite at the same time.

97 of Republicans students do not feel attacked or pressured on campus. The other 3% have podcasts complaining that they are “persecuted.” And all of them started those “I Am Being Persecuted” podcasts years before they arrived on campus.

Frog and Toad, but with all the illustrations replaced with screen grabs from the RFK/Kid Rock workout video.

Nine minutes in, a confused-but-always-eager Mike Johnson, leaps to his feet to lead a standing ovation, interrupting the Layla-esque instrumental coda. “Sit down, Jesus Boy!” an angry Trump yells, “This is the best part!”

Placing prediction-market bet that 11 minutes of the State of the Union is just him standing there, swaying, listening to “November Rain.”

“I’m up to this in my eyeballs” is an amazing garbling of the idiom the Republican speaker was attempting to use.

I am not a lawyer and do not closely follow tariff litigation, but it pleases me that there exists an apparently important case that bears the name “Princess Awesome v. CBP.”

I’m with anybody who is “versus CBP.” That anybody in this case happens to be named Princess Awesome is just awesome.

When someone says “there are no ‘contradictions’ in the Bible” they’re basically saying “I don’t know what ‘synoptic’ means, but I’m sure it must be bad.”

(And, also, “by refusing to allow the existence of disputes, I can avoid the risk and responsibility of taking sides.”)

Two forms of trauma can mess you up for decades. One comes from someone else hurting you. The other one comes from you hurting someone else. Baldwin was remarkable not just for seeing and describing this with such fierce clarity, but also for his genuine grief for everyone in both categories.

Yeah, ICE wants 1.1 million gallons per day sewage handling and the existing county system has a capacity of 1.25 million gallons per day for the entire county.

“And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things.”

something abled people don't get is you can have just one day a week where you are too sick to work, and that's enough to disqualify you from nearly all full-time jobs. it doesn't take a lot

Ten pages into a Google News search using the “Archives (1 year+)” time range and so far every result has been within the past six months, including several from *today.*

Am I just misunderstanding what “Archives: 1 year+” is supposed to mean?

All I want in this cold cruel world is for Shonda to take on CPE

Screen shot of a Philadelphia-area weather forecast map with the little press-to-play-video-arrow appearing just east of Coatesville and covering most of Chester County. The arrow (and my neighborhood) sits in a dark purple band on the map where they are predicting 8-12 inches of snow.

KYW slapped the play button for their blizzard forecast right on top of our house.

A few of my favorite Farm Security Administration photos