Popcorn Palace

Here's my surprised face 🤨

Many times I'm about to repost something that seems bad, & then I catch myself: Do I understand enough about it to write an article? To write even an undergrad reading response? If I don't, doesn't mean the thing isn't bad! It does mean that I'd risk spreading misinformation, which is its own bad.

We didn't realize that "MAGA" means Make Argentina Great Again.

I don’t think “The Simple-minded, Sociopathic Wheezing Orange Gargoyle Stadium” is a good name for a sports venue.

The Democrats’ Patriotic Vanguard A small group of lawmakers with military or intelligence backgrounds prefigured Harris’s overtly patriotic campaign.

“We want to turn the page past the divisiveness, the angriness, and just focus on brass tacks, good policy, and governance"
That was how @abigailspanberger.com began her campaign. From last year:
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

And this is what I heard @mikiesherrill.bsky.social say:
We have "to try to address the things that are scaring people, to try to make your life a little bit better, to try to just bring some rationality and sanity to a world that right now isn’t making a lot of sense.”

The Next Terrorist Attack And What Comes After (Updated)

Six months ago I wrote this post about “the next terrorist attack.” I republish it now (lightly updated) because my fear of this scenario has recently grown much greater.
snyder.substack.com/p/the-next-t...

Putin is clapping with glee. Russia egged on antivax groups in usa long before trump.

The whole Third Term Project isn’t actually about Trump. The people behind it know he will likely be dead or enfeebled by 2029. It is about them, the vastly unpopular group around Trump, wanting to grift us forever without elections.

Karoline Leavitt officially announced the "Launch of a large-scale investigation to find the people behind 'No Kings.'"

I've saved her some time.

Taylor Swift, The White House Demolition, And Pathways Of Persuasion There's a difference between lifting a finger to the wind and making the weather.

this piece by @brianbeutler.bsky.social is so spot on

"What I want, more than anything, is a change in political culture that frees Ds to exploit R liabilities proactively, w/o fussing over whether they’re persuasive in intimate, controlled settings, or crowding out some master narrative."

This is amazing. And it’s truly the stuff of nightmares.

I realize I'm saying this so much that I'm getting boring, but farmers are a tiny, tiny, tiny proportion of the population of Iowa. 1.5% of Iowa workers work in agriculture, and most of them aren't farmers in the sense of farm owners. There are *waaaay* more healthcare workers in Iowa than farmers.

Same offender is a regular on nextdoor, breathlessly informing us of same old same old local conspiracy stories

No bottom, no end. Same personality issue as trumplethinskin. Wholly unsuitable for public office.

Orange turd is incapable of appreciating anything but his own glory. He can't comprehend children, babies, pets, art, music, history, love of another person, the beauty in a tree or historic architecture..unless they somehow serve him. The psychologists warned us: malignant narcissist

Don’t laugh at this. Don’t dismiss it. They’re serious. Prepare for it. And get ready to fight against it.

Hope you all are having a blessed Thursday

Everyday is a new impeachable offense, it’s meant to overwhelm to desensitize us to increasing harm, i.e. we are being yeeted through a series of Overton windows.

Shameful of the NYT to be burying No Kings on its homepage. It’s the biggest story of the day and it is appropriately leading every other new site even WSJ.

Giant copy of the Constitution being carried down Pennsylvania Avenue.

3 legs and so many hands

Home of the Brave launched a $1 million national ad campaign in support of the peaceful No Kings rallies on Oct. 18th.

The ads will run in over 185 local papers and The New York Times, USA Today and The Washington Post calling on Americans to “peacefully protest our false king."

Nice recap

Hundreds of U.S. students quarantined amid measles outbreaks At least 270 unvaccinated kids are staying home from school as measles continues to spread nationwide. "Expect more," one expert said.

History gives us plenty of examples of disease used as a weapon. There are fewer cases of governments deliberately using disease against their own citizens. We are living (or dying) through one right now.
www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

Who?

Text card: Listen for dangerous words. Be alert to the use of the words extremism and terrorism. Be alive to the fatal notions of emergency and exception. Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary. #OnTyranny

One of the lessons I discuss in "On Tyranny":
Listen for dangerous words.

Take the good news seriously too

From 1939-1945 German officers also listened to speeches from civilians about how the laws of war didn’t apply to them. And then they participated in the Holocaust, starved millions of prisoners of war, destroyed villages and cities, and were defeated.