Jon Atkins

The Jolly Roger flag

Apparently some folks are playing real dumb about skull symbols so let’s play a little game I like to call “Nazi skull or not a Nazi skull”

First up, the Jolly Roger. This is a pirate skull, not a Nazi skull. It means you might get robbed, but prolly not genocided.

With me so far? 1/x

Oh, she’s concerned. Maybe she’ll use her power to stop them from tearing down the East Wing last week.

“You’ll tell your wife you’re going to see your mistress and tell your mistress you’re spending time with your wife, and instead you’ll sneak off to your office and do math!”

There’s a story of a young mathematician who was struggling to find enough time to do his research and complains to a senior colleague. The colleague tells him he should get a mistress.

“I don’t have enough time as it is; how is getting a mistress going to help???”

Is Germany's far-right populist AfD spying for Russia? – DW – 10/26/2025 German politicians are making serious accusations against the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. They allege the party is studying the country's critical infrastructure — in the interests of the Kre...

“German politicians are making serious accusations against the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. They allege the party is studying the country's critical infrastructure — in the interests of the Kremlin,“ using parliamentary inquiries to gather detailed information on IT, transport, water etc.

ACLU reporting that “several of the 6 women detained at South Louisiana ICE Center in Basile, LA, & Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, GA were pregnant & have miscarried while in custody.”

0 outrage from MAGAs about these fetuses. They were never about life. They are only about control of women.

'Jarring, frightening attack': Chicago homeowner describes immigration raid at his home MSNBC exclusively obtained security footage of federal agents targeting construction workers at a home in the wealthy Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago. Leo Feler, who owns the property, joined The Wee...

In a wealthy neighborhood in Chicago, immigration agents hopped the fence of a US citizen’s home and tried to pull a construction worker out a 2nd-story window. Homeowner came home to blood all over his house. www.msnbc.com/the-weekend-...

Lots more detail in here about this outrageous arrest. The guy has been in jail for weeks now for posting a quote by President Trump.

Conservative Outlet Newsmax Is Coming to a Taxi Near You A new media partnership is hitting the streets — literally.

It’s a nationwide deal.

www.yahoo.com/news/article...

Financial Times headline says “critics accuse” Trump of extrajudicial killings

I’m sorry, why are we using “critics accuse” language here? These are factually, unambiguously, extrajudicial killings. It’s not an opinion. It’s not a disputed or disputable claim.

The TRO halts the deployment and of the national guard for, the initial stay undoes the halt, the new stay puts the TRO back in place.

Well, if you get the Dodgers to spend all their runs in game 1, then they’ll have fewer runs left to score for the other games and you’ll have a better chance in them. That’s how it works, right?

ryangoodmanlaw on Instagram: "I spoke with 60 Minutes about our study on all civil lawsuits involving the Trump administration. The full study is here @justsecur…" I spoke with 60 Minutes about our study on all civil lawsuits involving the Trump administration. The full study is here @justsecurityforum https://www.justsecurity.org/120547/presumption-regularity-trump-administration-litigation/

What's happening in the courts

Judge McElroy (Trump appointee):

“Blatant disregard” of court’s order

Judge Gallagher (Trump):

“No attempt to offer any justification for their blatant lack of effort to comply”

Judge Lamberth (Reagan):

“More than support a trial on civil contempt”

American History Be Damned Trump levels a national treasure

Dan Rather on the destruction of the East Wing:

"The only reason we know the East Wing is being bulldozed is because Treasury Department employees, who work next door, defied a White House order by sharing photos taken from their offices of a national historic landmark being leveled."

Important 🧵 thread

"Congress approved funding for the renovations in 2008—before Obama took office—'after a Bush administration report revealed some systems in the White House were periodically failing.'"

GOOD NEWS! A groundbreaking study of MORE THAN 1,000 people reveals that cancer patients who received a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy lived dramatically longer than those who didn’t. In some cases, their survival rate was DOUBLED.

But if I buy a 5x ETF and a -5x ETF, I’ll make 100% on the day the market eventually has a 40% move in either direction.

Of course, I’ll have lost way more before that due to the volatility drag.

I'm old enough to remember how the UK government tied itself in knots after a set of sensitive data had been compromised and might have fallen into the hands of the Taliban.

Well, Germany just let diplomats newly accredited by the regime take over the Consulate General of the Islamic Republic of...

for those unfamiliar with the nazi bar:

This. The president can't extort corporations to pay essentially taxes to him personally so that he can use that money at his personal discretion to do government work.

Struck me at the end of Trump's first term, post-impeachment, that even when he got bipartisan support (like for CARES) he didn't invite Dems to the bill signing.

I think about this bc there's a kneejerk political media instinct to ask Dems how they'll unify the country and it's getting very silly.

@keysersoze2024.bsky.social is pretty definitive on this that Bessent wasn’t involved in that trade. Searching for “from:@keysersoze2024.bsky.social Bessent” turns up several interesting hits including this one.

bsky.app/profile/keys...

there are good & worthwhile historical & legal arguments for why the unitary executive is nonsense but to my mind the most straightforward argument is that it makes no logical sense that the president has absolute removal power over the people whose job it is to keep the executive branch accountable

D.A.A.G. Kambli: So, Your Honor, as one example: The privacy interest. That affects, um, how -- Judge Christen: Has it been a problem? D.A.A.G. Kambli: I can’t say there’s anything in the record with these individual plaintiffs. Judge Christen: Me either; I can’t find it. I have a related question. At oral argument in front of the district court, the government responded … there was no evidence associating transgender people with a lack of honesty or humility. … Is there any evidence associating transgender service members with a lack of integrity? D.A.A.G. Kambli: So, Your Honor, there’s no evidence in the record of that. Judge Christen: Okay. I’m going to ask the other four traits. I’m not trying to be pedantic, but I want to make sure I’m not missing anything because there are a lot of different studies. … Lack of selflessness? D.A.A.G. Kambli: So, Your Honor, there’s no evidence in the record on that. Judge Christen: Honor? D.A.A.G. Kambli: There’s no evidence in the record on that Judge Christen: Truth? D.A.A.G. Kambli: The same answer. Judge Christen: And the same answer for lack of discipline? D.A.A.G. Kambli: The same answer for that.

Yesterday in Shilling v. Trump (the 9th Circuit case about the military transgender ban), the government admitted that it has found no evidence to support any of the "traits" that the Secretary of Defense attributed to transgender servicemembers.

Guessing your lights do too. A friend once pointed out that light switches are incredibly reliable compared to any software.

I was impressed hoping your data source really did go back 125 years.

7 Things the No Kings Protests Accomplished The political emergency isn't over, of course, but who thought it would be. Here are seven things this weekend's protests accomplished.

What, if anything, did the No Kings protests accomplish?

I've seen that pop up in everything from genuine inquiry to sneering dismissal. For anyone asking or facing that question, here's an answer.

Everything isn't all fixed, of course. But the protests accomplished at least these seven things:

One big anti-woke tax we have to pay comes from the evisceration of environmental regulation and the attacks on private-sector ESG. The costs of pollution, toxic emissions, and environmental destruction don't go away, they're just externalized away from the destroyer and onto society as a whole.