Erik Israel

The Best Night of My Life Was a Free Press Party And I don’t care if you judge me.

It's funny how sad this whole thing is. These folks cannot write a simple post without making it a full-on grievance.

www.thefp.com/p/best-night...

She was a real one

Coming up on one year of Draghi report. Progress has been pretty barren.

One meta observation: Europe faces multiple small drawn-out shocks that chip away at the economy.

As a result a lot of the debate ends up in de facto “do nothing” policy.

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“On June 15, 1992, [Dan] Quayle altered 12-year-old student William Figueroa's correct spelling of "potato" to "potatoe" at the Muñoz Rivera Elementary School spelling bee in Trenton, New Jersey. He was the subject of widespread ridicule for his error.” — @wikipedia.org

Before Ingrassia was admitted to the bar, he reportedly pretended to be a lawyer for more than a year (while "representing" the Tate brothers): www.dailydot.com/viral-politi... (from @noturtlesoup17.bsky.social)

This is what a kleptocracy looks like, exhibit 2736

Ze zal toch beter haar best moeten doen om lager te komen dan dit gezelschap.

In 2020, a right-wing lawyer went to the home of a federal judge in NJ and shot the judge’s husband and killed her son, Daniel Anderl.

Since then, judges nationwide have been receiving pizzas they didn’t order, delivered to the judges’ homes.

And are told it was ordered by Daniel Anderl.

Vile.

Het huidige (rechts-populistische) medialandschap: inhoudsloos vermaak en rechtse meninkjes Tijdens de zogenoemde komkommertijd is het tv-medialandschap in handen van rechtse actualiteitenprogramma’s. De tv-kijker wordt getrakteerd op Nieuws van de Dag en Oranjezomer bij SBS6, om vervolge…

Woonminister Mona Keijzer mag vrijelijk haar plannen presenteren en echte journalistieke meerwaarde heeft Goedenavond Nederland (WNL) derhalve niet. 1/2

antipopulista.com/2025/07/30/h...

As was famously said about the French Revolution, it is too early to tell. And as ever we lack the counterfactual. But it is hard at the moment not to see this as among the worst possible outcomes for Europe.
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'Zodra je een discussie over islamisering voert, word je meteen in een bepaalde hoek geduwd' De Oranjezomer-tafel reageert op een kritische tv-recensie in het NRC over de uitzending van De Oranjezomer van dinsdagavond.

Het gejank en de zelffelicitaties zijn te triest voor woorden. Mens roept hard genuanceerd te zijn, en kennelijk trapt iedereen erin. Net zoals Vlam, de ‘onafhankelijke mediaman’, die nooit kritisch is op zijn broodheren. www.vandaaginside.nl/media/de-ora...

Lionel Shriver tells those of us who live here what our country looks like if you leave it + rely on the media ecosystem of the very online right as a proxy for reality

A broader trope is that industrial policy is too expensive, and that the US is bankrupting itself with it.

IRA and Chips combined was like 0.5% of US GDP a year - Americas 6/7% US deficits have other drivers.

And for the European economy mid-tech manufacturing is way more important than America.

Autocratic populism produces poverty and decline

Makary is really bad, even by Trump standards. It's one thing to exaggerated the dangers of the vaccine, but he's just lying now.

A must watch on the Gabbard silliness.

Viktor Orbán says he hopes the V4 (Visegrád Four, 🇨🇿🇭🇺🇸🇰🇵🇱) will be revived in a year—meaning he’s banking on Andrej Babiš winning in Czechia and the Polish government falling, so his illiberal alliance can get back together.

Meanwhile, polls actually show Orbán himself will be voted out in 9 months.🤷‍♂️

I appreciate it's cliche and pointless to note this, but I don't think that six months into her term a hypothetical President Kamala Harris would be suing MSNBC, Bill Gates and The Guardian for reporting on her close personal friendship with a paedophile.

Did he talk about releasing the files? I only remember him being very non committal on Epstein. Not like with JFK and UFO stuff.

"Mr. Murdoch stated that he would take care of it"

👀

Can we take a moment to appreciate how THAT RIGHT THERE is what, in any other age, would have been a presidency-destroying scandal???

we never should have hurt that gorilla

Trump today: "I'm surprised he [Jerome Powell] was appointed. I'm surprised frankly that Biden put him in."

Trump in November 2017: "It is my pleasure and my honour to announce my nomination of Jerome Powell to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve."

You gotta hand it to Vladimir Putin, there's no man in the world better at seizing defeat from the jaws of victory.

A street sign in Upton, England reading "Play Area and Cholera Burial Ground"

Never change, England

Bit late for the Tories to start talking up the Norman Yoke imho.

💥Polls show most Hungarians see through Viktor Orbán’s propaganda: they know the GDP recession, inflation, soaring food prices, and stagnating wages are the result of his failed economic policies and rampant corruption—not George Soros, muslim immigrants, Brussels, or Ukraine.

I think a lot of what is holding Extwitter up now is simply a combination of network effects and proximity to power

Pandemic Revisionism, Part One: COVID-19 Origins Because people keep getting this very wrong.

How did the pandemic start?

I have avoided publicly commenting on this for 5 years. Here's my take as someone who has no stake at all in the game.

gidmk.substack.com/p/pandemic-r...

Rather enjoyed this bit, taking down our former Ambassador to Copenhagen: a classic of the “right wingers quoting Orwell without actually bothering to read him” genre.

I don’t want to give one to Chris Rufo, but I have to admit that his public announcement that he would manipulate the New York Times in very unsubtle ways has worked. Not only did it not make them wary and defensive, it seems to have made them more eager to treat him like their assignment editor.