Nick DeFiesta

lmaooooooo
www.gq.com/story/inside...

The question of our time is how do you artistically rebel — and win — against a totally flat cultural landscape? And before my readers, who I assume are all approximately 36 years old and very tired, say, “so what, who cares?” This does matter. I mean, just look around right now lol. You know things are bad when even OpenAI President Greg Brockman is posting stuff, like “Taste is a new core skill.” If people had taste, your company wouldn’t exist, Greg. But if everything is just attention now, and attention is completely commodified by algorithmic tech platforms, how can you push back against that? Well, I am slowly coming around to a theory on the new cool: You have to essentially pre-deplatform yourself. Culture right now is determined not by human teams of editors and producers picking and choosing what youth culture gets the spotlight, but, instead, by the unthinking algorithms that power YouTube and TikTok. Which means the only things that have the level of scarcity and danger required to be seen as cool by young people will, slowly, but surely, be whatever is unacceptable on those platforms.

A post so smart I'm almost afraid to share it.

www.garbageday.email/p/the-only-t...

They raided the jailed children to steal their letters.

The problem, in federal officials' minds, wasn't confining children in prison-camp conditions; it was that the children could tell the public about it.

I get five million newsletters (give or take) and this is one of the few I read straight through the second I can. You won’t regret it!

The drunk uncle theory.

You don’t argue with the casually homophobic uncle at Thanksgiving dinner to change his mind; you argue so that the closeted cousin at the kids table knows there’s safe people and better possibilities out there

Will it be national news? Will it cause performative outrage? Will he be censured?

Nope. Forgotten by tomorrow.

Crushing the mRNA industry in the US also probably destroys a bunch of cures for various cancers just as an FYI.

This is something the Nazis used to do to Jewish children in the camps. It happened to a man I knew when he was a child in Auschwitz. The camp guards thought it was funny as hell.

Top of NYT rn

I think we can settle the Cardi B - Nicki Minaj beef once and for all

at some point maybe we should do something about the cabal of billionaires intentionally demolishing society so they can profit off the ashes

Not sure if this is the case but holy shit was it the case with Jan 6 when EVERYONE agreed it was one of the worst things Ever and then Dems… let millions of people just lose interest in a matter of weeks

Screenshot of posts from four different people talking about a ring commercial that I completely missed. (God bless the “popular with friends” feed) Brandon Friedman • @brandonfried... • 31m The nice commercial about helping kids find their lost pets was the scariest thing I've seen in my life Adam Gurri © @adamgurri.liberalcur... • 33m So uh Ring just up and said they've got a huge centralized private surveillance network they can leverage all at once huh Tressie McMillan Cottom • @tressi... • 34m I tell you what, Ring figured out exactly how to weaponize white people's empathy in service to a corporately controlled surveillance state. Tell them it will find your dog. Joshua Erlich •@joshuaerlich.bsky.... • 34m fuck this Ring commercial hiding fascism behind dogs

We’re onto you, Ring

I'm hardly the first person to note this, but it's enormously instructive that our President and his followers saw the message "THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE" and understood it, correctly, as an attack on them

once again these things boil down to “is your group a bohemian cultural identity” or “is your group actually trying to do things?” and the key tell is whether your activity centers on policing of in-group behavior or whether it centers on, again, tangible goals

DeLauro to pressing clergy: 'I will not vote to abolish ICE' The Connecticut U.S. representative found herself at odds with faith leaders.

“Renee Goodman [sic], Alex Pretti – there are no words,” DeLauro said.

“You said there were no words after the murder of those two individuals,” said Rev. Jack Perkins Davidson. “I think the words are ‘Abolish ICE.’”

www.ctpublic.org/news/2026-02...

Federal judge: "The presumption of regularity that has previously extended to [the United States Government] that it could be taken at its word—with little doubt about its intentions and stated purposes—no longer holds."

This is in a case where the Trump admin sued Oregon.

Seth Harp @sethharpesq X.com Ross Douthat @DouthatNYT challenged me to a debate on foreign policy. We recorded a 90-minute segment for his show, Interesting Times, on 1/15/26. But I defeated him so decisively that he refuses to air the footage. What an absolute coward. Today 11:41 AM Hi Is the NYT still planning to publish the interview I did with Ross three weeks ago? Today 1:01 PM Hey Seth, we've been working through the edit and it's looking like we aren't going to be able to make it work. We were kind of pummeled by the news cycle in the last 6 weeks and are going to pivot away from this story. Thanks for the time you put into it and for your expertise. Unbelievable cowardice on Ross's part and a giant waste of my time. I'm going to make it known what actually happened: Ross challenged me to a debate on foreign policy, got crushed, and doesn't have the intellectual or journalistic integrity to air the footage. Delivered

Seth Harp @sethharpesq. •6h Five days after we recorded, an editor of mine asked me how it went. I told her that @DouthatNYT was surprisingly unprepared to defend his point of view, and I suspected even then that they would spike it. From To seth.harp@protonmail.com * T Jan 20 凹 了 介 → It seemed to go just fine from my perspective although it did get a little heated towards the end when we debated foreign policy. I was somewhat surprised that Ross wasn't better prepared defend his point of view. They may still decide to spike it, we'll see. SH Sent with Proton Mail secure email. ••• On Tuesday, January 20th, 2026 at 11:41 AM, wrote: That's great —how did the interview go? {7 54 • 1.3K ill 38K

Seth Harp @sethharpesq. 5h I also told an editor at Harper's, on 1/30/26, that I suspected the NYT would spike the interview rather than publish video of me dog-walking @DouthatNYT and making a mockery of his defense of US regime-change wars ... Friday 12:35 PM It's been more than 2 weeks since I was interviewed for Ross Douthat's show. I murdered him in our debate over foreign policy and was genuinely surprised that he wasn't better prepared to defend his point of view. Now I'm concerned that he will spike the episode. Do you have a sense of how far ahead they usually record? Also I really hope I get to hear this My sense was that it was about a week Suspicious 4 17 44 • 1K thl 32K 贝 企 Seth Harp @sethharpesq. •5h Ross @DouthatNYT was unprepared to take on a subject matter expert, floundered around, and became irritable and sarcastic towards the end. But spiking the episode is ten times worse for his journalistic credibility than simply losing a debate, which happens to us all.

Seth Harp @sethharpesq. 5h ... Ross @DouthatNYT's producer blames their decision to spike our foreign policy debate on the crazy news cycle. But the last three episodes they've aired have been on Roe v. Wade, Covid-19, and young men's church attendance. OPINION Interesting Latest Feb. 5, 2026 Interesting Times with Ross Douthat The first draft of our future. Mapping the new world order through interviews and conversations. Every Thursday, from New York Times Opinion. Q Search Why Ending Roe Wasn't Enough for the Pro-Life Movement Activists won the legal battle. Are they losing the culture war? By ROSS DOUTHAT Jan. 29.2026 A Plan to Restore Trust in Science From a 'Fringe Epidemiologist' Jay Bhattacharya, the N.I.H. director, says authorities broke the public's trust in the Covid era. Now it's up to outsiders to restore it. By ROSS DOUTHAT and SOPHIA ALVAREZ BOYD Jan. 22,2026 No, Young Men Are Not Returning to Church All the religious trends you're wrong about. By ROSS DOUTHAT and ANDREA BETANZOS 18 17 75 1.5K ill 38K Seth Harp @sethharpesq. 1h I'm hearing that prominent guests are cancelling scheduled appearances on @DouthatNYT's show due to his lack of journalistic integrity. Why would you spend hours, days, or weeks prepping for an interview when you know the show is rigged to ensure that you don't show up the host? 3 223 ill 4.4K 贝

👀 Apparently, Ross Douthat invited Seth Harp to debate him on Douthat's "Interesting Times" NYT podcast. Harp says that the episode was recorded, Douthat got crushed, and RD/NYT decided not to publish it.

What? x.com/sethharpesq/...

that stage of society when school children share the bond of having endured the camps together

Unbelievable

this is a wicked man who knows he is being wicked and does it anyway

A fun case study since there have been 72 million articles on the cold in the east and 4 on the warmth in the west

Two CBP Agents Identified in Alex Pretti Shooting The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raym...

BREAKING: The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.

The fact that both are quite experienced—8 years and 12 years with CBP—is yet more evidence that CBP should be abolished and all of its agents fired. There's no way to "reform" or "retrain" that, it's just a violent gang with badges.

I find it kinda astonishing all these people who have spent so many years in public life, many of them media/ PR pros, didn’t think to get ahead of these stories. Did they really think it’d never come out? Bowles & Weiss never thought to mention it to ‘Free Press’ subscribers?

Watch the video as a recklessly driven cheap car careens around and a gang of armed thugs spring out to menace an innocent civilian, like a kidnapping or robbery or murder-for-hire.

It looks like organized crime taking place in a third-world country, because it is.

ICE is assaulting and at war with americans. we are all their enemy. no other way to look at it at this point