𝚂𝚝𝚎𝚟𝚎 𝙼𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚎𝚜

...complicity in the violence that comes.

Complicity for the GOP, the Democrats, the media, all of us.

...gets it right? This isn't politics, a discussion that aims at the common good, but warfare?

If the war already is underway and in fact not a new war, the whole complexion seems different.

This doesn't exclude escalation to violence. But it does mean every complicity in escalation is...

What if we shouldn't be waiting for a next civil war because it's already been underway for 30yrs?

What if the factions aren't states but parties?

What if the weapons have been elections, laws, and judicial opinions?

What if @corybooker.com's language of "fight" and "draw[ing] a line" in fact...

In what way is this an interview? How does this add to the sum of public knowledge to improve discourse about problems we share in common?

Most of "the news" is a simulacrum of news.

Yes, Zeldin's a jerk. We knew that already. This doesn't inform us.

The problem is CNN.

I know who actually invented "cancel culture." I was there in the 90s when they invented it.

Senate confirms CatholicVote’s Brian Burch as US Ambassador to Vatican ShareThe Senate Saturday afternoon voted 49-44 to confirm CatholicVote’s cofounder and former longtime president as the nation’s Ambassador to the Holy See. In a press release…

Brian Burch is a partisan agitator, the opposite of a diplomat.

Brian Burch confirmed as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See - OSV News share.google/zK3z6LW29W7c...

So what.

Aesthetics of Nuremberg and Versailles.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting to shut down after being defunded by Congress, targeted by Trump The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been a cornerstone of American culture for three generations.

More and more I am asking—

Why remain in a country where I don't trust anything, where every worthwhile institution is gutted, where almost nothing is good anymore?

Why stay in this "shithole country"?

apnews.com/article/publ...

The global economy (for now) hinges on the US economy, and the US economy hinges on accurate economic data.

Whatever you think is the most institutionally destructive thing he has done, this is worse than that. The consequences will spiral.

The thing that frightens me most about the world right now is that every second of the day, the likelihood that an average person will have access to reliable, vetted information and news decreases just a little bit.

I don’t see this trend abating. There’s no obvious path back.

I'm saying this is the week.

And, it begins.

thehill.com/business/543...

My good Republican answer to Sen Scott is that, if the $174k is not a satisfactory wage, seek a different job. There are many.

Sen. Scott's switchboard seems busy. 202-224-5274.

Maybe like me, you're phoning to remind him that he doesn't need to trade stocks to make money. We pay him $174k/yr, far more than the minimum wage or the median income, so he won't need to sell the public trust we have given him.

...where they stand to gain.

But Rick Scott knows better. He is a man for our time. The Mammon worshippers are here. They are rich, powerful, popular, and winning.

But they ALL are baldfaced enemies of the Republic.

...talks about "effectual precautions for keeping [legislators] virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust." That sounds A LOT like what this stock trading measure is about.

And it is an ancient principle—Nemo iudex in causa sua—which says no one should decide a public question...

Scott seems to like money more than he likes the American founding, its founders, and the English common law tradition.

Fed 73 finds Hamilton worrying abt the POTUS "making money"(RS) in ways that "renounce or deserr the independence intended for him by the Constitution."

In Fed 57 Madison...

A feature not a bug

I know making sense isn't the point and this is about owning the so-and-so's. But this one's weird.

You Biden voters will pay for this economic calamity we Trump voters chose??!?

There is no politics. There is only an empty show.

Catholic moms plead with their bishops to speak out on migrant detention (RNS) — A new online group, the Dorothea Project, aims to bring attention to Catholic social teaching.

My colleague & friend @heidischlumpf.bsky.social is back at work here with @religionnews.com.web.brid.gy, where I also am very pleased to be contributing semi-regularly now.

These are dark days and also, for things like the Dorothea Project, encouraging too.

religionnews.com/2025/07/22/c...

Trying to figure out what this ad for adulterous vacations has to do with Homeland Security

Class and Identity in Hilton Head: The Gullah v. Wealthy Landowners

The Gullah are a treasure of SC, they have an important history and a unique culture.

So. Of course.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/u...

How Britain privatised itself into failure Britain outsourced its state – now private firms profit while public services crumble. In Failed State, Sam Freedman explains what went wrong

🚨How Britain privatised itself into failure.🚨

Britain outsourced its state – now private firms profit while public services crumble.

In 'Failed State', Sam Freedman explains what went wrong.

We've all done some version of this in our living rooms in the last 35yrs.

In the American Grain Although admired by D. H. Lawrence, this modern classic went generally unnoticed during the years after its publication in 1925. Yet it is “a fundamental book, essential if one proposes to come to ter...

Dr Williams's masterpiece is 100yrs old. We were an imperfect people who yet evoked poetry. We've become an awful people who strain to meet the moral level of reality TV.

In the American Grain | New Directions Publishing share.google/w9FoEwiM4Lup...

...the breaking of politics which is our real problem—the way we more and more feel unaccountable to each other and as though a 2-sided polarized binary is so inevitably natural that it is a law of hydraulics.

...catastrophe. Sure the public health response could have been clearer. But we rarely have that luxury in medias res. And the real problem was how that response got buzzsawed by social media's realitime daily feeding frenzy of instant reaction that benefitted the agents of chaos,only accelerated...

@edwardluce.bsky.social is, I think, esp misleading on his treatment of the pandemic & vaccinations fwiw. He's making the fog of war as the pandemic played out in realtime somehow a justification for general refusal to accept any limits on personal freedom that sought to blunt a civilization-wide...