Ashley Flanagan

This is why I take every opportunity to remind folks that tariffs are taxes which are charged to Americans when they import something.

Generally if you have to start a sentence with “I’m not a doomer, but” you’re probably being a doomer

Edited screenshot from Disco Elysium that reads: RHETORIC [Heroic: Failure] -- Alright, here we go. We're devoting all your available brain cells to coming up with a question about video games. Scratch that, to coming up with *the* question about video games, the alpha and omega of video games questions, and that question is: 1. - (Whisper.) "Are games art?" 2. - Oh god, that's bad. Surely I can think of something better.

Every time.

People go into the job for many different reasons but I don't think "great at writing short essays to be delivered live out loud" is a super common one

The thing here is most clergy are not really all that great at writing sermons

somehow, arcanum manual is better at handling evolution and the Arcanum manual is written IN CHARACTER by a 19th century naturalist

I made an anti-AI post on LinkedIn and the people angry or defensive all have Visionary or Founder as their listed role, and everyone agreeing with me has a real job. Amazing how that is.

this is a good thread but I might actually take it further -- I don't think manosphere shit is actually about getting laid, I think it's literally about male loneliness, by which I mean, men addressing their loneliness via homosocial bonding through misogyny

this fundamentally misunderstands who stephen miller is and why he matters. miller is powerful *because* trump is old and weak. it is not coincidental that he was far less influential in the first administration. do these folks want to nominate biden again? because that’s how you’d get a dem miller

If you aren’t familiar, Terence Tao is a Fields Medalist and arguably the most prominent and accomplished mathematician of his generation.

No one is safe, basically. The current administration will use any excuse to burn it all to the ground.

He indisputably would have unleashed pogroms against Muslims and probably against government critics in general.

The most draconian laws are often positioned as "a way to protect children," but of course the real question is, which children?

i think the correct way to think about the lonely boy question is not "how do we reach out to incels?" but "how do we make sure that a teenage boy looking for romantic advice isn't flooded with right-wing propaganda?"

i am sort of an aspirational socialist but my paramount policy concern for the foreseeable future is just staving off civilizational collapse

"He's a piece of shit, but let's get the political science stuff out of the way," Steven told me when I asked if he thought support of Tesla could be considered apolitical. "Elon Musk has platformed white supremacists and antisemites on X. He got rid of all the moderation. He put back accounts that were clearly neo-Nazis. He's changed algorithms to promote that type of hate. Him and DOGE did massive cuts in the government, including our civil services. He's cut cancer research. Did I mention he was a giant piece of shit?" "He's cut our aid to Africa, which Will result, without exaggeration, in millions of women and children and innocent people dying. Millions," he said. "I'm not a big fan of people who give the Hitler salute. I mean, I'm kind of fussy like that. He gave it twice at Trump's inauguration," he continued. "He's a Nazi. And he cheats at video games. You have another question?"

lol at this response to a “man on the street” interview with protestors at the Tesla diner

Not With a Bang, but With a Truth Social Post The president is rattling a nuclear saber as a distraction.

The President of the United States thinks it is acceptable to use ballistic-missile submarines like toys, objects to be waved around when he wants to distract the public or deflect from bad news, or merely because some Russian official has annoyed him.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Same sort of thinking- smaller scale and mutatis mutandis- that makes some on the most radical left wing hope for far right to win against the moderate parties. “You may die but it’s a sacrifice l am willing to make“

NBC confirming my reporting.

yeah, i think that's a good way to put it: Nazism arose from doubling down on the collapse of the German high command's war ideology, just as Trumpism arose from doubling down on the total ideological collapse of Bushism.

EPSTEIN DROP. EPSTEIN DROP. EPSTEIN DROP.

When I watched Fellowship of the Ring and Aragorn slew the final boss orc a guy jumped to his feet sending popcorn flying and yelled YEAH!!! BASTARD!!! then giggled nervously and sat back down

Most Presidents would have just quietly downplayed a not-so-impressive jobs number and moved on, instead of calling the validity of all future jobs numbers into question.

This is a great example why Mark Milley had to call his Chinese counterpart in 2017 to say US was not going to attack.

Trump is the most dangerous and irresponsible nuclear commander in chief to have ever lived.

This is how a crisis can spin out of control. This is dangerous and inflammatory language. A perfect example of why no one American can have the ability to initiate a nuclear war. @scientistsorg.bsky.social

Donald J. Trump @realDonald Trump I was just informed that our Country's "Jobs Numbers" are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, who faked the Jobs Numbers before the Election to try and boost Kamala's chances of Victory. This is the same Bureau of Labor Statistics that overstated the Jobs Growth in March 2024 by approximately 818,000 and, then again, right before the 2024 Presidential Election, in August and September, by 112,000. These were Records — No one can be that wrong? We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can't be manipulated for political purposes. McEntarfer said there were only 73,000 Jobs added (a shock!) but, more importantly, that a major mistake was made by them, 258,000 Jobs downward, in the prior two months. Similar things happened in the first part of the

If you were looking for ONE THING you could do to undermine confidence in the US economy, this is EXACTLY what you would choose

One of my favorite lines from Disco Elysium is (paraphrasing) “unlike other political ideologies, fascism will offer to explain why you can’t find a girlfriend”

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced today that it will begin an orderly wind-down of its operations following the passage of a federal rescissions package and the release of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s FY 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-H) appropriations bill, which excludes funding for CPB for the first time in more than five decades. For nearly 60 years, CPB has carried out its Congressional mission to build and sustain a trusted public media system that informs, educates, and serves communities across the country. Through partnerships with local stations and producers, CPB has supported educational content, locally relevant journalism, emergency communications, cultural programming, and essential services for Americans in every community. “Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,” said CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison. “CPB remains committed to fulfilling its fiduciary responsibilities and supporting our partners through this transition with transparency and care.”

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is shutting down operations after loss of federal funding:

i know this is quaint of me but the white house renovation is crazy illegal and actually really emblematic of how trump sees the presidency as belonging to him

well, however worried about this you were this morning, you should be considerably more worried now