Rufus Algonquin

The rules clearly say we act in bad faith, manipulating the system to give ourselves disproportionate power, and you pretend it's good faith, letting it happen while unilaterally restricting yourself in adherence to standards we say must be honored when it helps us and violate otherwise. No fair!

For real opposition, do less “can we be confident if we fight on this we’ll win?,” and more “will fighting on this be a headache for them, tying up some of their limited resources?”

ICE Agents Wait At Edge Of Delivery Table To Deport Newborn

ICE Agents Wait At Edge Of Delivery Table To Deport Newborn

Bari Weiss just sent this Christmas Eve email to the CBS News staff about "building trust," which includes her tripling down on spiking the CECOT piece "to make sure it's comprehensive and fair."

One CBS staffer tells me: "She really has no idea how insulting she comes across."

Unhand her you fiend!

Vile isn’t a strong enough adjective. Couldn’t he have just said nothing?

Bob Dylan
Graham Parker
Loudon Wainwright III
Elvis Costello
The Feelies

I’m writing an obituary. Is butt plug one word or two

I will give Marjorie Taylor Greene credit for one thing: deciding she’s had enough and getting out, rather than thinking nothing matters more than staying in Congress and doing anything to get along.

On that specifically, it would be better if more politicians were like her.

Most people think the President of the United States can snap his fingers and do what he wants. Trump is eager to reinforce this, in principle and practice. If you fold now, he gets the credit. Go back on your terms or not at all. Sometimes politics is a slow bleed.

The replies write themselves

I’d like to hear more about this intriguing theory, actually.

Today’s Randy Newman-centric episode of Testify! is in the archives at wfmu.org/playlists/TG #radio #freeform @wfmu.bsky.social @gtdradio.bsky.social

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60 years old today. Doesn’t hurt as bad as I thought it might.

How quickly they forget how they’ve contributed to the actual thing they’re condemning.

Sad thing recent events have made me accept: a lot of US elites are weak, amoral people, whose guiding star is "what does power want?" mixed with "what's easiest for me in the short-term?" And that unfortunately means we can't appeal to principle or patriotism, we need to structure their incentives.

In rare interviews, federal judges criticize Supreme Court's handling of Trump cases Ten judges tell NBC News the Supreme Court needs to explain its rulings better, with some urging Chief Justice John Roberts to do more to defend the judiciary against external criticism.

This is an absolute must read by Lawrence Hurley @lawrencehurley.bsky.social - federal judges spoke to him about their frustrations with the Supreme Court (how it's enabling Trump's attacks on them, how it's making a hash of the law on the shadow docket, etc.)

www.nbcnews.com/politics/sup...

Mussolini didn’t actually make the trains run on time. That’s propaganda.

20th century fascists did “sheer vandalism” and elevated superstitions above science, often in self-harming ways.

The competence of fascists is another of their self-aggrandizing myths. It’s just that destroying is easy.

Every time anybody calls any politically charged event or decision "a distraction" from some other thing, a jack in the box should pop up and punch them in the mouth

Justice Jackson used “Calvinball” in an official Supreme Court dissent.

It really is the best term for the unprincipled, inconsistent, sometimes contradictory, frequently un-American bullshit the Roberts court has foisted upon us, unsubtly putting ideology and partisan outcomes over facts and law.

A book titled It’s Even Worse Than it Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism by Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein.

Picked this up at a used bookstore today. It was published in 2012 and now we know that it’s even worse than It’s Even Worse Than it Looks.

Look what you made me do, explained the secret police as they violently violated someone's rights.

To Live Inside a Lie Firing the top labor statistics official for doing the normal monthly jobs report is only the last attempt to force everyone else to abandon reality too

"This is considered impolite to point out in many mainstream venues, but to be a Republican in good standing today, you have to believe, or at least go along with, an insane amount of lies."

Firing the BLS Director for reporting monthly jobs data institutionalizes that lying, imposing it on others.

I am old enough to remember cigarette machines that took (lots of) quarters & sound it made when you pulled the knob towards you & it snapped back into place and the pack landed in the little trough

I've heard that these still exist, but I can't remember the last time I saw one in the wild