Dave Levitan

On Monday, Mr. Rubio told reporters on Capitol Hill that the United States struck Iran “proactively in a defensive way” under the assumption that Iran would target U.S. forces after Israel began its own attack on the country. But on Tuesday, ahead of a pair of classified briefings on the war for members of the Senate and House, Mr. Rubio sought to play down Israel’s role in prompting the strikes.

words, what do they mean

They should make the entire GOP out of pending retirements

The Rise of the Prediction Markets Is As Grim as It Gets I don't think Dante foresaw "insider trading on the specifics of illegal wars of aggression," but it definitely belongs in one circle or another.

I wrote about the prediction markets. I am not a fan.

Wrote about this: www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump...

Is this too many nested parentheticals? Yes. Is it completely absurd that left-leaning politicians continue to post about horrifying shit on Twitter? Also yes.

Low-key intense movie villain the doctor in Fight Club who tells a patient “oh you’re in PAIN?? Try a CANCER support group you are WHOLLY UNQUALIFIED to attend! You little bitch.”

It occurs to me that I genuinely have no idea when I first saw this movie, which seems odd given my obsession. Hm.

He's not wrong. There is the micro of it — just like Pete Rose shouldn't be allowed to bet on a baseball game the outcome over which he has significant control, the cavorting satyrs inside Mar-A-Lago whispering sweet war-things in the president's ear should not have access to an essentially unregulated market that lets them cash in on which of those whisperings turns into a fucking Predator drone strike to Tehran — and there's the macro of it, the depravity inherent to a country where betting on foreign regime change and "Jeffrey Epstein confirmed to be alive before 2027?" (I am not kidding, and also still not linking) and the influenza hospitalization rate for next week (seriously, these are real) just kind of sitting out there, unregulated, untended, unaddressed, un-nuked-from-orbit.

I didn't even get into Giannis or Substack partnerships, there's almost too much depravity here

www.gravityisgone.com/the-rise-of-...

The Rise of the Prediction Markets Is As Grim as It Gets I don't think Dante foresaw "insider trading on the specifics of illegal wars of aggression," but it definitely belongs in one circle or another.

I wrote about the prediction markets. I am not a fan.

lol imagine a cabinet this competent

Tesco the golden retriever running in some light snow, happily holding her favorite ball in her mouth

The return of the snow dog

Somewhere in a Mar A Lago bathroom there is a portrait that will finally soon be handsome enough to lure in 1988 Elle Macpherson

Gotta admit, feels not so great to just keep paying taxes to the "science bad, child murder good" government

Again:

man, what

President Says Campaign Could Last 'Four to Five Weeks' or More

Within *three days* of this starting they killed hundreds of kids and saw several US casualties after which the president discussed the drapes he picked out and also had three $90 million planes shot down by friendly fire.

[nodding]

[nodding]

This is only one of many examples. There is a style, cadence, and word choice to DoD press releases in this somehow-still-young administration that provide a fascinating, if largely uncomplicated glimpse at the type of limited, childish ghouls currently in charge of the world’s largest military. There are warriors and warfighters everywhere; there is lethality, and force, and strength; there is a sneering dismissiveness of anything else the sprawling military apparatus engages in besides pointing guns at people and shooting them. The releases are the way a Fox News Pentagon talks, what they assume Secretary of Defense John Wayne would sound like.

This isn’t, of course, purely an exercise in misdirected machismo in language. Mixed in with the president’s clear imperial and expansionist goals, the fact that the DoD brass talk like someone likely to pull a gun on anyone who knocks on the door is a huge “warfighting” alarm bell. They don’t want the US military to be some big peacekeeping force that builds dams and shakes hands with locals; they want to invade — somewhere, anywhere — and blow shit up.

I wrote this about him and the new DoD almost a year ago

"They want to invade — somewhere, anywhere — and blow shit up."

www.jezebel.com/pentagon-pre...

Man, Hegseth is just a pure psychopath, huh.

Do you know how easy it is to NOT trip over your own dick into Nazi shit. To not go on Nazi podcasts or retweet Nazis or have Nazi tattoos. It’s the easiest thing most of us have ever done. We all do that every day.

An absurd Somerset village road with the sun setting, with a low wall and stone houses and trees

Six years ago today we arrived in the UK for a lovely one-month stay that lasted a year and a half, weird stuff

Combine a chief executive who lacks object permanence and theory of mind with a cavorting devilry of a cabinet and administration with the ability to make money off the specific timing of their next atrocity and you’ve got enough potential depravity to embarrass Caligula

The more I think about it the more their existence feels like endtimes shit

Ad for tonight’s Sixers-Celtics game just had narration saying “two teams that never rebuild” which is RICH about a team that “rebuilt” so hard that the Process became a proper noun.

#NBAsky

"American innovation" now refers to making a kind of atrocity cronut by combining insider trading with war crimes.

I have once again exsanguinated. Had way too much. Donate blood if you can, they give you snacks.

Anyway I’m sure the terrifying situation involving some of the dumbest, bloodthirstiest people on the planet will resolve in non-horrifying fashion

A functional country would yeet polymarket and kalshi into the sun

It is, in fact, in the special.