David DeCosse, Catholic theologian, journalist, teacher

Opinion | Where Trump Is Vulnerable and How to Act on It

"Authoritarian regimes need civil society — the realm of people and organizations outside government control — to acquiesce to their rule."
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/o...

Opinion | There’s a Path Out of This Divide

@davidfrenchjag.bsky.social on hope and "Lord of the Rings": "'For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.'”
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/o...

This guy is very good. Very well said, Mr. Mamdani

what a bunch of losers...

War ravaged Portland.

Liberalism has atomized & Balkanized the national community & robbed us of a common national project, no one trusts anyone anymore. We’ll fix this this by forcing your coworker Raul to carry his papers everywhere for random questioning, closing your closest hospital, & bankrupting the local college

For Erika Kirk, a Husband’s Life Cut Short by Violence He Seemed to Foresee

An aching, beautiful interview with Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk's wife. May she and her children be consoled today and forever. I invite everyone to read this to get to know Mrs. Kirk and her loving life with her husband.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/21/u...

According to MAGA theory and Stephen Miller's vision of humanity, London is not supposed to work; nor is LA; or NYC; or so forth. Surely the equivalent of the National Guard is patrolling London as we speak...

Excellent and important piece, Dominic. Thank you

They cry “free speech” when it’s hate, violence, and lies. But the second we tell the truth or call them out, suddenly we’ve gone too far. That, my friends, is what you call selective outrage.

The amount of shit I got for this segment at the time was astronomical, and it was all from people who now stalk CVS employees to get them fired for insufficient online sadness.

Cheering on political violence is both evil and not new, an outgrowth of an internet intentionally dismantled years ago.

Their waists and hands were tied together, forcing them to bend down and lick water to drink. The unscreened bathrooms contained only a single sheet to cover their lower bodies. Sunlight barely penetrated through a fist-sized hole, and they were only allowed access to the small yard for two hours. Detained by US immigration authorities for eight days, the workers and their families expressed shock, describing human rights violations and absurdities they could not have imagined as ordinary Koreans living in 2025.

korean reporting is nightmarish on the conditions Korean workers were contained in

Thanks so much, Tom

“Unguarded Eyes”: The Doorway to a Politics of Conscience We need to develop a shared sense of conscience that binds people together across divides and becomes the basis of a story that leads to the renewal of our political world.

“Unguarded Eyes”: The Doorway to a Politics of Conscience - Markkula Center for Applied Ethics www.scu.edu/ethics/all-a... @daviddecosse.bsky.social

I think these intense, reality-averse screeds from MAGA are at bottom driven by the intensity of their self-hatred for going along with Trump's world of endless lies that they know is wrong and for failing to be courageous enough to get out. Double down on crazy because you can't face yourself.

Well said: I have been so struck by the way the word "Left" and "they" point toward some imagined reality that always delivers one thing: A reason to attack, dismiss, vilify, resent, be enraged, etc.

“Unguarded Eyes”: The Doorway to a Politics of Conscience We need to develop a shared sense of conscience that binds people together across divides and becomes the basis of a story that leads to the renewal of our political world.

In the spirit of seeking peace, here's an essay of mine calling for the development in the United States of a shared politics of #conscience. I welcome further conversation on this topic and honor all of those courageous people already engaged in the work of peace.
www.scu.edu/ethics/all-a...

The narrative that accuses the Left consumes everything into an ever-expanding story of victimization...there's no room for including both the moral outrage of Kirk's killing and the moral outrage of the assassination of Democratic Minnesota state senators by a right-wing zealot...and more.

ICE = Deaths Head SS, literally

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-Tote...

There's an argument to make about gun rights. But not today. We should mourn this man and grieve for his wife and children and family and friends. May he rest in peace.

Spencer Cox: "Our nation is broken. We had political assassinations recently in Minnesota. We had an attempted assassination on the gov of Pennsylvania. And we had an attempted assassination on a president. Nothing I say can unite us as a country. Nothing I can say right now can fix what is broken"

Live Updates: Charlie Kirk, Right-Wing Activist, Fatally Shot in Utah

May God be with Mr. Kirk and all who love him. This is an outrage: Utterly wrong and a terrible moral stain on our country. I want no part of whatever inspired this.

Live Updates: Charlie Kirk, Right-Wing Activist, Fatally Shot in Utah www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09...

Trump Administration Halts I.R.S. Crackdown on Major Tax Shelters

Why don't we send armed IRS agents with assault weapons and tear gas and armored personnel carriers into every corporate boardroom and related leafy suburb in the US to track down these tax cheats?!
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/b...

Kavanaugh and judicial ethics: There is clearly no effort whatsoever to try to see these ICE street stoppages through the eyes of those who have been stopped and will be stopped (not to mention the reports of such stops gone very wrong). It's a judge rejecting the character needing for judging.

Watching RFK Jr testify today, I wondered if his delusions about vaccines arise from a deeper need to deny unbearable things. In effect, his delusions provide permission to say: "I can deny any reality I want to deny - including the reality that my actions played a huge role in my wife's suicide.

Scoop o'clock? Here's another.
bsky.app/profile/blue...

Newsom's social media team is killing it.

Throwing a sandwich at a cop: REQUIRES 10-PERSON TACTICAL TEAM TO AREEST IN FULL RAID GEAR (even tho subject wanted to turn himself in)

Beating a cop unconscious with a flag pole: “Go home. We love you.”

👇👇