Berk Özler

And yet Google Maps is allowed to keep telling me that police are ahead

Funny, because people who are not big Tay fans on my TL enjoying this album more than the Swifties...

After Declining to Give Trump a Sword for King Charles, a Museum Leader Is Out

One day you're minding your own business as the director of a library and museum no one has heard of, the next one you're out of a job because the crybaby dictator didn't get what he wanted from your museum...

The most random job firing ever.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/a...

Young’s opinion, which rules that the Trump admin illegally targeted pro-Palestinian students for deportation, is absolutely scathing.

“In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police…ICE brings indelible obloquy to this administration and everyone who works in it.”

"This Court has listened carefully to the reasons given by Öztürk’s captors for masking-up and has heard the same reasons advanced by ... ICE. It rejects this testimony as disingenuous, squalid and dishonorable. ICE goes masked for a single reason—to terrorize Americans into quiescence."

At event in DC, Sen. Chris Van Hollen keeps it going with Hakeem
Jeffries over not endorsing @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social: if you can’t back the kind of campaign he ran, “don’t ask those young people to show up for other Democrats across the country — that’s the message that will be sent.”

This is why we fund scientists to study things like oyster slobber even if you don’t think it sounds important

Ranking Member Jamie Raskin Prepared Remarks for the Judicial Conference September 16, 2025 Thank you, Chief Justice Roberts, for the invitation. Forgive my directness here but the times are serious, as you know, our time is short. I have just five minutes and don't want to trespass on Senator Cruz's time. Sometimes these days I feel as if all the foundational principles are being trampled and lost. Often, I hear my colleagues in the House, and these are fellow Democrats, get up to protest some Executive usurpation of legislative power and they begin their lament with the plaintive cry, "We are a coequal branch of government..." And I always feel they have lost the argument right there just by repeating that fifth-grade dogma. First of all, co-equal is not even a word. It's an embarrassing redundancy like "very unique" or "irregardless. "

But there's a reason all legislative power is vested in the Congress and there's a reason it's in Article I. The Founders had a revolution against monarchy and its constant assaults on liberty. In America, the Framers determined, only the representatives of the people would have power to declare wars, pass budgets, impose taxes and tariffs, and so on. Article lis pages and pages of all the powers vested in Congress. Then you get to Article Il, which is tiny. The key paragraph says a president shall be removed from office upon impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors. If we are co-equal, why do we have the power to impeach, try, convict, remove and permanently disqualify the president and he doesn't have the power to impeach, try, convict, remove and disqualify us? The core job of the president is plain: "To Take care that the laws are faithfully executed." That's it. Not abused, not thwarted, not impounded, not redirected, but faithfully executed. A lot of the cases entering the federal courts are variations on this theme.

Here's the remarkable thing: Americans have brought over 300 cases in federal district courts against the Administration so far for usurping legislative powers, defying federal laws, or violating the rights of the people. This summer, researchers found that plaintiffs were winning an astonishing 77% of the cases in the district courts. Moreover, they found that President Trump was losing about equally before Republican-appointed judges (72%) and Democratic-appointed judges (80%). The numbers in the federal circuit courts of appeal are similar, with plaintiffs against the Administration winning overwhelmingly and again without a sharp partisan valence to the appeals courts' voting. A good example is the birthright citizenship case where four district court judges, two appointed by Republican presidents and two appointed by Democratic presidents, all struck down the President's purported negation of birthright citizenship. Then, on appeal, three circuit courts again all ruled against the Administration. But everything is flipped when the cases come to the Supreme Court.

This rules - @raskin.house.gov straight up called out Roberts to his face.

democrats-judiciary.house.gov/media-center...

I have never in my life felt as ashamed of the settler state of New Zealand as I am today. #FreePalestineNow

Five books on a couch: The Arrogant Ape, The Season, A Beginner's Guide to Breaking and Entering, Audition, and Three Bags Full.

Nice to have birthdays like this🥰

This is truly the bizarro world, where people who are triggered now are the same people who didn't believe in getting triggered a minute ago, calling them snowflakes...

It's also the thing to do when your chilli plant goes bonkers at the end of the season and you have way too many. This and making fermented hot sauce, of course😋

Very good...

You Love America A covenant with death, and an agreement with hell; Yale, Du Bois, Bagehot, Pynchon, Fitzgerald

"You think it is an error if anything around you casts shame upon you, douses you in fear."

Maybe sometimes it's not...

rottenandgood.substack.com/p/you-love-a...

It's a cricket term, right? 😉

Hundreds of Alligator Alcatraz detainees drop off the grid after leaving site As of the end of August, the whereabouts of two-thirds of more than 1,800 men detained at Alligator Alcatraz during the month of July could not be determined by the Miami Herald.

More than 1800 detainees are missing after the closure of Alligator Alcatraz. Their families and lawyers can’t find them and they’ve vanished from the ICE database. Feels like this should be a much bigger story www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

It's not a performance. It's acceptance (or lack thereof)...

We can surely criticize whitewashing without being required to bend backwards to apologize/atone for the sins of others...

IDK if this is subtweeting the BR article but if not, you might take a look at it for an argument that the "shaming" could be done better, without its recent excesses...

Something caused enough anger to write those final two paragraphs, which feels more personal than the rest. The column would have done as well, probably better, without them or, at least, a slightly better worded "shame on you..."

Ezra Klein can often be wrong, he's certainly off-base here. The central point here about shame & cultural pressure also feels right to me, w/ the caveats made in the article. But, I don't think that even Dr. Táíwò thinks that Klein does not "understand what liberal and egalitarian values are."

countless generations of talent and culture

This is so cool...

Reposters...

Misinformation and its consequences You’ve seen the scenario on “Law and Order” many times: the defense lawyer tosses out a wild accusation that the person on the witness stand (or someone else related to the case) is the real killer – ...

There's some old research that suggests that unless you (and the reporters) vigorously and repeatedly retract, the original post will continue to have influence. Have an old blog on this, which funnily also mentions Cowen:

blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...

Toh-mah-toh sauce AFD...

Really tough choice between blue, purple, and brown...

Glad you picked that because pies are taken by NZ, which is covered by an emoji on the team photo...

What dish or specialty would you say Australia is contributing to this amazing team?

Also, I like Pippin (the elf) vs Pippen (the Bull): like opposites 😉