Mark Willard

See you can't just say "America has fallen." You have to ease people into it, kindly. So when people ask how things are going you start out like "well, Trump went up on the roof today but I'm sure it will be okay. ".

Obviously what Eisner is saying there is correct, but it’s also kind of wild that he’s saying that about a company that had just taken several enormous, unprecedented risks under Ron Miller; most notably EPCOT Center, Touchstone, and The Disney Channel.

Quote from former Disney CEO Michael Eisner in the book “Disney War” by James B. Stewart "Companies like Disney are always founded by creative entrepreneurs," Eisner began, "but eventually the founder dies or gets pushed out, or moves on to something else. Inevitably the businesspeople take over—the man-agers-and they focus on preserving the vision that made the company great in the first place. They don't have any creative ideas themselves and they end up surrounding themselves instead with analysts and accountants to try to control the creative people and cut costs. In the process, they discourage change and new initiatives and reinvention. In time, the company begins to ossify and atrophy and die. It's important to have financial parameters and never to bet the house, which is how we always protected Paramount. But in a creative business you also have to be willing to take chances and even to fail sometimes, because otherwise nothing innovative is ever going to happen. If you're only comfortable running a business by the numbers, I can understand that. But then you shouldn't get involved with a creatively driven company like Disney?

Conversely, it’s kind of hilarious that Trump is trying to take credit for destroying the career of the… *checks notes* …most successful musician of this generation with the most successful tour of all time.

Donald J. Trump: "Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the “HOTTEST” ad out there. It’... Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the “HOTTEST” ad out there. It’s for American Eagle, and the jeans are “flying off the shelves.” Go get ‘em Sydney! On the other side of the ledger, Jaguar...

American Eagle/Sydney Sweeney as culture war avatar is phenomenally stupid, but Trump is on the verge of making AE jeans MAGA coded. I’m no expert, but pretty sure that’s not what AE was hoping for when they were trying to create a generically edgy/sexy/provocative ad. trumpstruth.org/statuses/32364

Lemme just say if President Bernie Sanders had unilaterally imposed, by executive fiat, hundreds of billions of new taxes, personally browbeat executives about job cuts and investments and then fired the head of BLS, the Chamber of Commerce and the business orgs would not be sitting idly by.

We’re in a really weird place when the *Republican* party line is “Arbitrary taxes imposed by the federal government with little to no warning are good, actually. It’s the business owners who are the problem.”

Musk's DOGE destroyed, crippled, or vastly reduced the effectiveness of international humanitarian relief mechanisms that were miracles of modern civilization

There are people in this administration who are truly morons and others who believe they need to act like morons to stay in the leader's good favor, and at a certain point it doesn't matter which group they're in

u.s. department of energy post on x praising coal: "She's an icon She's a legend And she is the moment [sparkly picture of coal]

struggling with an analogy here but imagine NASA posting a meme about how excited they are to return aviation to the pre-jet age

The common sense humility that would preempt nearly all conspiracy theories but sadly we Americans are far too proud and stupid for that.

This chart is better known as “I previously felt invincible when I was young, dumb and hot. Now I’m only one of those 3 and no longer feel invincible and therefore crime is up.”

This is the only correct take on this one

What is the point of throwing Ukraine to the wolves if Russia turns around and decides to bum rush the baltics? The same problems are still there only now you’re in a real war. Why is everyone from the NSC to think tank land to JP morgan so allergic to winning?

Paul's framing of this is absolutely insane. The bill only prohibits the trading/holding of *individual* stocks; not diversified ETFs or mutual funds that comprise the majority of most people's investments. This wouldn't discourage "successful" people from seeking office; just unethical people.

Trump Escalates Fight With Brazil, Taking Aim at Its Economy and Politics

The people who brought you "We can't bring back a guy we illegally deported because El Salvador is a sovereign nation"

present:

"We are extorting a judge and an entire foreign country to force it to drop an investigation into the crimes of one of Trump's buds."

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/w...

Update: I offered the amendment. Not to refuse acceptance of the Qatari jet; just to prohibit Trump from taking it with him when he leaves office - after the taxpayers spend $1 billion to retrofit it.

Failed 14-15. Every single Republican voted to allow Trump to take the jet.

America as "an abstract, universal idea that anyone can adopt" was the primary point of one of Ronald Reagan's last speeches as President.

It cannot be overstated how far MAGA is past historic US conservatism into just straight up white nationalist populism www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/spe...

just an entire administration filled with utter incompetents who have zero idea what is going on and zero interest in knowing

This was where I landed too... and how I've felt about almost all Marvel films in the last 2-3 years with the exceptions of Guardians 3 and Thunderbolts

Disney+ keeps track of users who share their passwords, and restricts their account so they can only watch Cars 2.

Diabolical.

Never ever ever did I think that the latest example of "everyone on the fringes of the left and right is crazy in the same way" horseshoe theory would be Sydney Sweeney but here we are

I had absolutely no idea Bove was a millennial before I read this. I assumed he was in his 50s if not 60s.

Stephen Miller remains the preeminent example, but it seems that almost all of the millennials who work for Trump look about 20+ years older than they actually are. Evil is prematurely aging.

Today is a good day — any day is a good day — to read and share this February resignation letter from SDNY prosecutor Hagan Scotten to Emil Bove.

It’s the type of thing you show your kids as an example of how to be.

never gonna top this

YouTube video by Saturday Night Live Hawkeye Disappoints the Avengers - SNL

A remake of this sketch but instead of Jeremy Renner, it's Pedro Pascal: "Nope, I'm just really smart and stretchy. That's all I've got." www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUfn...

ICE offering a signing bonus and student loan forgiveness is another sign of recruitment problems. Even with extremely low standards, they can't get close to the desired numbers.

That's good (fewer personnel means less cruelty) and bad (more desperation, leading to encouraging militias/vigilantes).

It was inevitable that Trump would blame the Epstein files on the autopen.

Also, he argues 1) there's nothing in the files b/c if there were his opponents would've used it, and 2) what's in the files is a hoax so we can't release.

You can go with 1 or 2 but both true wouldn't make sense.

Amazing how Trump’s ball he hit into the deep rough just magically pops out of his caddie’s pocket and they all just play it off like Trump just hit it there. 29 time Club Champion! bsky.app/profile/patr...

Worth remembering that in any other administration, a 15% tariff on our largest trade partner & some of our closest allies would be considered the worst trade war in more than a generation