Not the Governor of North Carolina; got the handle first

The @democrats.org use of text blasts for fundraising is one of those strategies that shows catastrophic disrespect to their supporters. I know someone who donated to @avindman.bsky.social's campaign and then got a dozen fundraising texts in 2 days. You want volunteers? Follow-ups? Don't do this.

I recommend reading the above article, which quotes a March for Life spokesperson saying, "No pro-lifer would ever want to punish a woman who has chosen abortion. This is against the very nature of what we are about."

It was a lie then, and we're seeing it constantly now.

Trump Backtracks On Comments About Abortion And 'Punishment' For Women In an interview set to air on MSNBC Wednesday night, Donald Trump upset both abortion rights advocates and opponents and drew criticism from the rest of the presidential field.

I remember this moment during the 2016 campaign, back when people were insisting that Trump would be better than the median Republican on abortion (rather than just being beholden to Leonard Leo like all the rest, which is how he turned out).
www.npr.org/2016/03/30/4...

I generally think Krishnamoorthi is an effective member of the House. (The "four bills" stuff is nonsense.) But Stratton is running a great campaign and seems to be much better for the moment. The pseudo-centrist stuff is not a good thing to see in a Senate candidate. Stratton's answer was great.

David Brooks has gotten away with doing terrible political philosophy for a really long time. I don't thikn the problem with editorial pages is bad political philosophy, but it is *a* problem, and is part of how we got Weiss, Douthat, and many other dingleberries.

Access to abortion is a 60/40 issue for Democrats, and they should hammer it at every opportunity. Not criminalizing women who have miscarriages is a 95/5 issue and they should point out the entire anti-abortion movement drove the country to this point, lying about the end goals.

Clinton/early Biden on "law and order" (i.e. racism, but less explicit than the GOP), Obama on foreign policy (non-interventionism, except for drones), early 2000s Bernie Sanders on immigration (again, racism, but more dogwhistle-y than the GOP), and Clinton weak-centrism on government programs.

There are some very smart people in Democratic politics, but as far as I can tell, major fundraising orgs and national campaigns aren't really listening to those people on developing party strategy. They've adopted a combo of the worst of Dem strategy.

I had a woman next to me on the treadmill holding a high-volume conversation (I guess... I'm not sure she ever shut up long enough for the other person to speak) for a full half-hour I was running.

Unfortunately, we have a white, upper-class political strategist class who dominate Democratic politics, suck at their jobs, and can't figure out "most undocumented people are good and all people deserve to be treated with dignity."

Instead, they're just doing Clinton-era law-and-order repackaged.

Remarkable: Majority of working class voters oppose deportations of undocumented immigrants with jobs/no criminal records, per new Marquette data.

Remember how pundits said 2024 meant Dems must become restrictionist to win back working class? I challenge that here:

newrepublic.com/article/2059...

I realize that the days of actual gym etiquette are completely gone now, but it'd be great if people understood that other people are in the space, trying to work and focus, and at least had common courtesy.

Ari Drennen @AriDrennen Follow The high trust neighborhoods that MAGA yearns for exist all over America, and they're all like D+40 nxthompson A @nxthompson •22h An extraordinary paragraph. buff.ly/uH5ykhX The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they're the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesivebecause of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about "Western civilization," while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.

This is so spot on

Thread

NEW: Hundreds of judges around the country have ruled more than 4,400 times since October that President Donald Trump’s administration is detaining immigrants unlawfully, a Reuters review of court records found.

The government keeps doing it nonetheless.

www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

Climbing to new peaks of douche.

Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts

New story up on the Homeland Security Department’s new tactic: flood social media companies with subpoenas to unmask anonymous accounts that criticize ICE or monitor the movements of ICE agents.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...

I want people to really understand and grapple with how bad it is for victims and all of us to live in a system where sexual violence is not punished, but victims are punished more for coming forward. I need people to see it for what it is so that we can actually do something about it

This problem can be solved by putting Clancy Brown in your asthma meds.

India’s Global AI Pitch Masks A Troubling Reality At Home Without regulatory oversight and guardrails, AI in India will continue to function less as a public good and more as a tool of oppression, writes Tavishi.

Next week’s India AI Impact Summit is framed around “democratizing AI.” But as India expands AI-driven surveillance, predictive policing, and welfare automation, minorities and marginalized communities are bearing the costs, writes Tavishi.

“They were hellbent on not allowing anybody to help him until he was dead,” she said. “I was right there, and they — all of them — made the decision to deny me access to give him the best possible chance of survival.”

What if Herman Cain, but Democrat?

Supposed to be doing some work, and I'm completely locked in on ep 2 of Black and Jewish in America: An Interwoven History.

I've said it before and will say it again, PBS has some of the most amazing content all year. But the way they bring it during Black History Month....the bee's knees.

YouTube video by Saturday Night Live Pam Bondi Hearing Cold Open - SNL

I think we're going to get another Amy Poehler appearance on SNL this weekend: youtu.be/iSfC_N8XOTE?...

Meta’s internal memo said the political tumult in the United States was good timing for the feature’s release. “We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns,” according to the document from Meta’s Reality Labs, which works on hardware including smart glasses.

this is comically evil. brazenly anti-social. just absolute black-pilled nihilism. we will not have a republic, we will not be free, until we regulate these companies to the point where — at a bare minimum — they're too afraid to put stuff like this down on paper.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...

I really do not love the undisguised antisemitism that the genuine monster Epstein is now awakening across the political spectrum.

Exclusive: White House uses USAID funds for budget director Vought's security, documents show The White House budget office is using millions of dollars from the former U.S. foreign aid agency to pay for the security detail of Russell Vought, President Donald Trump's budget chief and an archit...

There are ~90 million people alive today because of USAID. Russ Vought illegally shut it down and now is spending the money on himself. These are deeply evil people. www.reuters.com/world/us/whi...

[Haaretz] 'Jewish Clergy Against ICE': Hundreds of U.S. Jews Rally Against Trump Administration's Immigration Crackdown "We are demonstrating that American Jews are opposed to the horrific policies of this administration that are harming immigrants"

"We have a lot of clarity that Jews are safer in a multiracial democracy, and that we don't want to be used as an excuse to enact these types of draconian policies. It feels extra important to speak out." www.bendthearc.us/haaretz_jewi...

"If one can get a Nazi tattoo innocently..." is one of the great hedging moves in the history of American politics.

The damage to scientific research in both the public and private sector by this administration is incalculable.