In addition to being straight-up Nazi rhetoric, the "undocumented immigrants caused the housing crisis" lie seems designed to drive me, personally, insane.

‘No! Not Larry Summers!’ Wails Devastated Nation WASHINGTON—Responding to recent revelations suggesting the prominent economist was a close associate of the late child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, a devastated nation reportedly joined together to...

‘No! Not Larry Summers!’ Wails Devastated Nation

I mean this is like….the underpinnings of prep school and elite university culture right?

No confidante like a co-conspirator, you know?

The bizarre, open confessional tone of some of these emails makes me wonder how much Epstein's whole thing was an influence-laundering operation, built around the principle that if you really want to earn someone's confidence, you shouldn't do something good FOR them, but something bad WITH them.

Chat, is it good when you’re being ruled by an increasingly senile monster, so depraved he’s described by his pal, Jeffrey “Child Molester” Epstein, as “evil beyond belief”?

Why again did the NYT sit on all of this?

We should keep yelling at them, it's working. This is the landing story now.

The top story on NYT right now is "Trump re-opens government"

Ironically you can see this very dynamic in the Epstein emails themselves, where the power elite all email each other absurd rumors and semi-literate political scuttlebutt and theorizing. The boys’ club exposed in those messages is the same one that controls the brains of the top Times editors.

Ultimately the problem is this: the paper is controlled not by scrupulous reporters but by a clique of Leonhardt types, who surround themselves with chattering class nitwits, cogitate on the news mostly through insular group chats and similar, and always think the GOP has at least half a point

I’m fine conceding that a bunch of nebulously incriminating Epstein statements do not a story make, but in that case neither does the Biden Parkinson’s nonsense, or literally any component of the various Clinton/Wikileaks pseudo-scandals, or tons of other right-wing stuff the paper has laundered

It’s clear when the paper’s Politics Knowers think something is important, journalistic standards are no obstacle. They find a way to get that thing on the front page nonstop, whether it’s “reporting the controversy,” repeating right-wing info dumps, or meta-coverage of how it’s affecting politics

I actually think this is a fair point and it’s hard to know precisely what you’d publish out of these emails. It’s just maddening in comparison to the NYT’s willingness to absolutely obsess over scurrilous rumors about Biden dementia, Clinton email non-scandals, etc.

Don’t Build Housing, Just Deport People: The Nativist Right Recoils at Trump’s 50-Year Mortgage Proposal The backlash against Trump's proposal reveals the characteristics of his base's reactionary housing politics.

I gave a name to this deportation-first approach to American development

DIMBYism: Deport In My Backyard

www.liberalcurrents.com/dont-build-h...

Don’t Build Housing, Just Deport People: The Nativist Right Recoils at Trump’s 50-Year Mortgage Proposal The backlash against Trump's proposal reveals the characteristics of his base's reactionary housing politics.

The America First solution to the housing crunch isn’t a 50-year mortgage. It’s 100+ million deportations.

I wrote about the nativist dream of an idyllic, white, Christian America for @liberalcurrents.com

www.liberalcurrents.com/dont-build-h...

"He promised not fiscal discipline but social welfare for the right kind of American. For migrants and minorities, he offered deportation and incarceration."

Good that @aselrod.bsky.social gets this exactly right, very few do:

Trump Press Sec’s Epstein Spin Implodes as New Info Rattles Him Deeply As Karoline Leavitt struggles to explain away Trump’s growing panic over new Jeffrey Epstein revelations, a sharp observer of the right explains why MAGA is cracking up over the scandal—and what to ex...

New Epstein emails "seem to show Trump understood who Epstein was, how he and Maxwell were acting, and the kinds of crimes they were committing. He was adjacent to, if not involved in, those crimes."

On the pod Nicole Hemmer is brilliant on bigger Epstein-MAGA story:
newrepublic.com/article/2031...

So “it turns out Spanberger took positions that strongly challenged Trump on immigration in ways that some Democrats have been reluctant to do.”

The @gregsargent.bsky.social analysis re VA’s gov race seems significant underscoring why Ds need to go on offense re Trump/Miller’s deportation regime.

Trump's coalition of deplorables can't hold if some of them are softening on immigration. Democrats should exploit that.

Some Dems and pundits overread the significance of Trump's win. They looked at dissatisfaction with the border and discerned a seismic cultural reaction to immigration levels inside the country. The former was real. The latter is a mirage.

(h/t @gelliottmorris.com)

newrepublic.com/article/2030...

Also most voters have just never thought remotely seriously about policy. “Should we get rid of illegal immigrants? Well, of course; they’re illegal!” There’s nothing deeper than that going on until they start seeing what that actually entails.

YouTube video by Takes™ by Jamelle Bouie What's the deal with the filibuster?

new video up at my youtube page on the history of the filibuster and why it’s Bad. watch/share/subscribe/etc!
youtu.be/a30e7lw6KL4

it keeps going...

"skin as part of brain?"

This is that great intellect people talk about?

I don’t understand this man’s relationship with the comma

Meanwhile, on X

I am regularly surprised how few people know of that tbh.

King Leopold II of Belgium, who is so infamous for the Belgian Congo colony, was a paedophile head of state. He paid servants to bring him underage virgin girls to rape.

British citizen and Russian propagandist Graham Phillips participated in the torture of two British citizens who served in the Ukrainian armed forces, were captured by the Russians and tortured while POWs. Maybe you forgot or didn't know about that. I hope you are not dismissing it as "simping".