Democat

To be crystal clear about this: The plaintiffs challenged the Texas law six days *before* it was signed by the Governor and became law. That was *too late*.

i think the explanation is that Roberts is increasingly influenced by the postliberal Catholics

NEW info on shipwreck attack. It gets worse.

The 2 survivors climbed atop wreckage and waved to overhead.

"Some of the people viewing the video thought ... could have been an attempt to surrender"

Others "said the most logical explanation was ... signaling for a rescue."

1/

4/ Even worse on these officials account, it seems if the third view is correct, that was a reason to kill the survivors.

You read that right, and I am not exaggerating.⤵️

A shipwrecked person beckoning others to come rescue them is a basis for killing them.

it is a hell of a thing to ask, like, liberal arts college cultural studies majors to become the nation's inquisitors. but, we are being faced with genuine evil. I do not see another way past it. we either accept the internal conflicts of what we must become, or fail

we are going to have to be the cops, the troops, the courts, the prosecutors, the security services. imagine liberalism purely along this direction, and you can see the ideologies and institutions that will develop about it

liberalism is going to require something martial and vicious and somewhat fanatic if we want it to survive. it won't be the liberalism we grew up with. it will be an uglier, harder thing for an uglier, harder world.

there is this idea that we've accepted in modern liberalism that we have to accept all viewpoints and give them their permitted space to compete, and that nothing is truly evil, nothing can demand genuine punishment.

we are learning this is quite wrong.

a while ago I was on the @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com podcast and was challenged with the question "what kind of stories can liberals tell to defend their ideals?" and I struggled with it.

I feel like I'm developing an answer as the weeks go on. Namely, that liberalism doesn't mean peaceful.

That was a compliment BTW. Go listen to the song, particularly the part towards the end that starts “I’m the biggest hater” and I think you’ll see what I mean

2/2

To say this for the 50th time, for anyone who doesn't know:

Three young conservative lawyers were part of the GOP "Florida recount" team that led to GWB becoming president, via Bush-v-Gore.

They were: John Roberts. Brett Kavanaugh. Amy Coney Barrett.

Small world.

The current Supreme Court has forfeited all legitimacy.

Democrats (and everyone) need to address that reality.

John Roberts > Roger Taney.

Court needs to expand. And have fixed terms—like *every* other supreme court in developed world. And have ethics rules, like all normal organizations.

undercovered as part of Our Current Nightmare that 60% of Republican SCOTUS appointments in the 21st century got there by stealing the 2000 election for Bush.

The new US National Security Strategy says explicitly, that the US should intervene in European domestic policy. It is difficult to interpret "Cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations." otherwise in the context of everything else this government says and does.

there is now at least one event which requires understanding where this image came from to explain

i think people have mostly, finally gotten over the fear that trump's going to deploy DHS troops out to every city in america, what people need to internalize next is that they will not have the money to sustain even their *current* operations within a year and a half

it is absolutely unbelievable that the Trump administration is systematically persecuting Cubans and Venezuelans, the most Republican Latinos in the US. what are they doing

One of the dilemmas of living through the second Trump administration is that saying these things out loud seems crazy. But yeah, the death penalty is an established, well-documented thing we have on the books for precisely these kinds of crimes; they obviously did it; and it's not hard to prove.

simone weil, who was near-blind, autistic, a pacifist, incapable of almost any physical activity, and actively in the process of dying during world war ii somehow found a way to try to join the french reisstance

@theophite.bsky.social Bluesky says Vox is a similar account to you. That strikes me as quite an insult.

Not a fan feel the same

“As a matter of plain reality, an unarmed speedboat, even if it is carrying cocaine, is not a warship. And none of the 11 people aboard — not merely the two initial survivors, but also the nine people the U.S. military killed in its first strike — were fighting anyone.”

Nobody in Trump's camp seriously expected to beat Harris--his inner circle this time around is filled with people who have the political instincts of sea cucumbers. They bet the house on authoritarian power consolidation while having no practical ability to make it happen.

Lovely. We’re going back there in Dec 2026. Really looking forward to it.

Yes, I’m old enough to remember Watergate and its aftermath. I’ve heard a theory that a big part of the genesis of RW jurisprudence was that the GOP was enraged by what happened to Nixon and swore they wouldn’t let that happen again.

Yes this is what I was saying in the previous thread. Miller and Vought aren’t politicians and have no understanding of how politics works.

the thing is, they've turned everything immigration-related to stephen miller, who has never run for office, has never held an elected position, and who could not win a popularity contest consisting solely of members of his own household. he is indifferent to the future of the republican party.

look at the first 11 months and change: they've been almost completely incapable of delivering unqualified Ws for any major group of stakeholders. even when, say, oil and gas get eased vehicle efficiency standards, they have to contend with immigration policy that reduces their workforce

I see this slightly differently: because Trump is so compromised, the decisions are being made by bureaucrats who don’t respond to political incentives. Those aren’t even on their radar screens. And that’s bad too! But in a different way.

part of the reason i've got such contempt for the doomerism around "they don't think they'll have to win an election again" is that this belief — which i agree some of them hold — critically endangers the entire project, it doesn't strengthen it. they are incapable of shifting strategy or pivoting.