Eric Brignac (He/Him)

The Senate needs only to vote to end the filibuster (50% required), then vote on the Continuing Resolution. Shut down ends. The GOP has the power, but they just are not using it.

It is not the most important thing going on right now, but it is definitely one of those “am I taking crazy pills?“ moments. The GOP nuked the filibuster to confirm a bunch of ambassadors. And now everyone’s just pretending that they didn’t do that.

I love the march of knowledge. We go from hypothesizing that black holes might exist to photographing them orbiting each other. Humans are amazing.

I’d go easy on blaming the grand jury. They get a completely one-sided view of the facts and the law from the prosecution.

I have this image of speaker Johnson sitting in a dentist waiting room bored and picking up a newspaper and starting to read it and then freaking out and texting his aids.”Holy shit! Did you know about all this stuff that’s going on?!“

#appellatetwitter

When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

If I ever have to write a brief about the Eigth person to cooberate a Sherrif from Massachutes, I’m just gonna retire

Turns out "Eighth" is a word that is impossible to spell.

Like I spelled it wrong writing out this post.

Just a damn mess of "h"s and "t"s.

I know that this whole thing is disingenuous. But even taken on its face, the speaker of the House of Representatives is saying that he saw a headline indicating a major change in the way the government handle shut down. And he never bothered to read the article.

Some random thoughts

(1) Very much a product of its time. Hard to imagine any pre-social-media political drama holding up in a post-social-media world.

(2) Too idealistic in the “if we explain to our opponents why they are wrong they will agree“ approach. That’s never been true in world history

behold the bold and brave washington post opinion section (under new management), lol

Congrats!

GOOD NEWS! Researchers have made a HUGE breakthrough towards a UNIVERSAL antiviral. By targeting sugar molecules found on the surface of many viruses that SHARE structural similarities, they identified FOUR compounds that successfully BLOCKED infections from SEVEN different viruses.

Ha!

Lots of 90s music playing in the background in the waiting room of the Discount Tire this morning. I guess they did the demographic math of the likely age of car owners with tire problems.

Actual Muslim organizations in the UK are unequivocally decrying the terrorism in Manchester and mourning the dead without asterisk. As opposed to masturbatory performative Bluesky let's-bomb-Walmart twats who see an opportunity to be edgy.

It is interesting that even in these cynical times people still have a lot of faith in the law. They just assume that it always works like it should. Innocent people are not punished. Injured parties are always made whole. Etc.

This right here

US farmers are saying they "just need temporary help, until things get better."

Here's the thing. US farm exports- which are mostly soy- CANNOT get better.

Other countries expanded their soy industries to fill China's demand.

We've walled ourselves out of the global market, folks. This is it.

Saying in a condescending threatening matter that you're going to look forward to somebody primarying Hakeem Jeffries totally reveals you as somebody who HAS ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING IDEA WHO HAKEEM JEFFRIES REPRESENTS AND HOW POPULAR HE IS. I'm trying to help you avoid looking clueless. Really I am.

And I didn’t even mention the House Rules Committee, which is the most partisan committee of all. There are 13 members and four of them are Dems.

This is all to say that our focus should be on getting the majority, not on switching out moderates for progressives.
8/

For 26 but especially 2028 it's time for Democrats to make clear that the current Supreme Court will have to be reformed (expanded in number, reformed in structure) to allow popular govt to continue in the United States. Not so much a litmus test as precondition for any other promise to be credible.

The Mad & Foolish King inevitably turning his anger onto the person who put him on the throne back in Chapter One.

I’m glad that the writers have a sense of symmetry.

You can make fun of MAGA for declaring a war on escalators without making fun of the president’s weight and/or cardiovascular condition.

Seeing someone post something intentionally inflammatory and then getting to go into their comments and block everyone posting some version of “yes, I agree“ is like stumbling upon a particularly good fishing hole

i have to say, as a trans journalist who has covered the "trans debate" for about a decade now, there is no daylight between how the trump administration and conservatives lie about tylenol and autism and how they've lied about youth trans care.

By the way, you can in fact run a media business where people give you money for goods and services. 56k+ people give The Onion ~$100 and we give them a year of newspapers. This business didn’t exist last year in this way. People will pay for good shit. Now’s the time to break glass and go for it.

Fox News & @FoxNews X.com 'MAN OF STEEL': Charlie Kirk's body stopped a bullet that would typically "just go through everything" and it was an "absolute miracle" nobody else was killed, his surgeon told TPUSA.

no charlie kirk joke i make will be as funny or insensitive as this

It's sobering, in its way, to realize that there was truly nobody (save, perhaps, his children) who knew him that loved him as a man. He made himself into content, and he died as content, and his funeral is the most content of all. Soundbites to soundbites, bits to bits