Turadg👂

Ezra Klein: Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way

You can dislike much of what Kirk believed and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion. When the left thought its hold on the hearts and minds of college students was nearly absolute, Kirk showed up again and again to break it. Slowly, then all at once, he did. College-age voters shifted sharply right in the 2024 election. That was not all Kirk’s doing, but he was central in laying the groundwork for it. I did not know Kirk and I am not the right person to eulogize him. But I envied what he built. A taste for disagreement is a virtue in a democracy. Liberalism could use more of his moxie and fearlessness. In the inaugural episode of his podcast, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California hosted Kirk, admitting that his son was a huge fan. What a testament to Kirk’s project.

There are many reasons why political violence should be rejected with few exceptions that don't apply here. There's principle — the pre-political worth of a human being — but if that doesn't grab you, there's also the spectacle of your political opponents being canonized as saints.

Paul Ingrassia (lawyer) - Wikipedia

The guy Trump picked to lead the office that’s now investigating Jack Smith:

— said Niki Haley is ineligible to be president
— has neo-Nazi ties
— was Andrew Tate’s lawyer
— 2x Claremont fellow
— wrote for Gateway Pundit
— called for Pence to be hanged
— called for secession after 2020 election

Maurene Comey's goodbye note to SDNY colleagues:

I say often that my former political party has become un-American. “Bullshit Joe, give me an example of something un-American,” people say. Ok. Here’s one. Advocating to revoke the citizenship of an American citizen bcuz of his political views. That’s pretty damn un-American.👇

Opinion | It’s Not Just Trump Voters. Both Parties Are in Denial.

Helpful research!

It’s Not Just Trump Voters. Both Parties Are in Denial. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/o...

My favorite protest sign so far.

🔥

NO KINGS!

Genie: ok what do you want for your birthday
Trump: a military parade, oh, and also millions of people on the street chanting my name
Genie: okie dokie

WATCH: “I WAS AN INTERPRETER IN AFGHANISTAN FOR 3 YEARS.”

ICE grabs a man whose name they don’t even know at his immigration hearing, shackles him, expedites his removal.

Q: Why would anyone ever help our military again? — Trump is endangering and weakening our military.

If you burn down a forest, you don't miss out on lumber for just that season. You have to replant all the trees, nurture them, and wait for them to grow.

The science and research budget cuts happening now are wanton, senseless arson. Recovery, if it ever happens, will take generations.

treason to this nation’s principles

America cannot long remain free, nor first among nations, if it becomes the kind of place where universities are dismantled because they don't align politically with the current head of the government.

Poster for Air Guitar Championships

It’s that time of year again

Back the blue? Your followers BEAT the blue on Jan. 6 and then you pardoned them. Shameful.

This is bleak reading

Gosh, I wonder why? 🤨

There is so much possibility for economies not reliant on cops with guns and jails, economies we can program and co-govern with our dreams. I saw a bit of that this weekend. But in too many ways, folks are accepting some hyper-capitalist sleepwalk as good enough.

BILL GATES: “The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one.”

@financialtimes.com
www.ft.com/content/bdd9...

Proof this guy is full of SITH.

"WE'VE ARRANGED A society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don't know anything about it?" "Science is more than a body of knowledge, it's a way of thinking. A way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along."

I think a lot about what Carl Sagan said in one of his final interviews.

Where the heck is the Tea Party movement when you need it?

Call it something fancy like "malfeasance" or something simple like "incompetence" but either way there should be articles of impeachment to remove the HHS secretary for being a shameless liar who is working relentlessly to make people sick.

Despite seeing several people I totally trust say this was real I still felt I had to verify it with my own eyes. And having done so I still can't believe it's real.

Pope Francis’s "Urbi et Orbi" Easter speech:

“How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized and migrants...I appeal to all those in positions of political responsibility in our world not to yield to the logic of fear which only leads to isolation from others.”

In the current moment: Pugnacious progressives > cringing centrists.

Best of all, but a bit hard to find: Pugnacious centrists.

How Nintendo Bled Atari Games to Death Behind every great console is a great legal fight.

Interesting history of copyright and courts in video games
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/how-nintendo... #Gaming #Law #OpenAccess #VideoGames via @mitpress.bsky.social

Two Dictators Walk Into a Bar... On yesterday’s sickening Oval Office summit.

"After all these years in and around politics, I’d like to think I have a pretty strong stomach, but yesterday was sickening... This was not newsreel footage of two dictators meeting somewhere far away and long ago. This was yesterday. Here in the Oval Office."

www.thebulwark.com/p/two-dictat...

It's striking how much Trumpists hate what's made the United States great: immigration, trade, medical and scientific research, the rule of law, an enlightened patriotism, a willingness and ability to correct past injustices.

At the end of the day, Trumpism is Third Worldism.