RoninMacbeth ☠️🎢

Israel murdered five al-Jazeera journalists, including Anas Al-Sharif.

They did so because they're now liquidating Gaza City, and want to silence the remaining witnesses.

To Western journalists silent about the slaughter of your colleagues:

Their blood is on your hands, too.

Count Taaffe is another fun character in "Fall of Eagles." Almost a moral void, a professional bureaucrat going about his business to protect dynasty and empire. It's just that doing so means arranging a coverup of a suicide pact while watching the obliteration of a rival's cause.

I liked "Top Secret," mind, I just prefer "Naked Gun."

Not sure if this is a hot take, but I generally preferred "The Naked Gun" (the original, mind) to "Top Secret" because it felt more...focused, I guess? Like "Naked Gun" clearly knew what it was parodying while "Top Secret" felt more scattered, parodying too many things and spreading itself thin.

It's kind of extraordinary how much of a paper tiger the Second Empire was. Skating by on not looking quite as incompetent as the British and Russians in Crimes or the Austrians and Savoyards in Italy.

And this would be at the same time as propping up Maximilian, right?

I'll never forgive 'em for leaving Sev behind, man. That was a gut punch.

Ironic, considering that I hate the Mandalorians, but I played this a lot as a child.

youtu.be/iiNyQD5Yq3E?...

The main tension, I suspect, is that Carl is one of the people who would, in a sane political world, be a Republican. The fact he's in here with us is a consequence of the Democrats becoming the party of "society should basically function." Which, sure, it's fine that he is, but it's awkward.

I can barely comprehend it myself, and I'm living it.

Bill Clinton, he was spreading COVID from Epstein's island.

Yeah but you do need the party base, especially to maintain power within, you know, the party. You can tell them to fuck off if you like, tell us how it works out.

Yeah, that was the death of the constitutional order there. If the Supreme Court can just waive that part, then there is no constraint. There's no going back now.

Indeed, I would argue that in a situation where the party base is in revolt, trying to mollify all the factions in the party is a wise call. Barring really appalling cases, the leadership should back primary winners, or else the left flank of the party will question what we're getting out of this.

Ah man, you have no idea how stoked I was to watch this after school on Cartoon Network in third grade. This was my shit.

In Episode 3 of "Fall of Eagles," a stable but complicated political order is thrown into disarray by people who have grown up in that stable world and don't realize that political order requires careful management and some costs to maintain. Thankfully we will never know what that's like.

"Propaganda of the Whoopsie Daisy"

Russia is really trading on its reputation in wars where they fought as a coalition (Great Northern War, Napoleonic Wars, World War 2), aren't they?

*baying for

The UK is a nation that is currently paying for the blood of refugees in small boats, has a fit when a trans person uses the restroom, and broke with a major customs union because it was pissed about brown people existing. Neither of us are the adults, my Anglo cousin.

Not to say that trials are perfect as-is. And I am certainly not saying enough rapists are held accountable or their victims are treated humanely. But I would caution people against advocating for a system in which an accusation is sufficient to condemn someone to death on the spot.

I don't think there are many genuine believers in universal justice or presumption of innocence. Everyone has some crime for which they think the accused should be subjected to a process that looks less like a trial and more like a lynch mob.

I'm not even being entirely sarcastic. Harkon does seem to fit into the mold of what these people want. Sees himself as innately superior, uses his wife and daughter as tools, serves the literal Lord of Rape, has a plan that will kill his own people even if it succeeds...the GOP is Harkonmaxxing.

"No EMF waves" ah yes, under fascism we shall abolish the tyranny of the sun. In related news I found a picture of this cartoonist's role model.

In a world where Luigi Mangione, a stochastic terrorist with fairly right-wing beliefs, can be hailed as a leftist narodnik hero, then why not someone who accidentally shot a Blackrock executive?

Sturgeon's law, 90% of every genre's novels are crap.

Alors, c'est la Terreur.

I don't think it was that. It was that a lot of people thought he would be a reasonable voice within the administration, not the modern Von Ribbentrop. That's his real danger: not a conspiracy, but a comforting appearance.

Yeah, but in the absence of someone with Trump's charisma, the person who has the best handle on power and can consolidate elite opinion will probably win. Rubio lacks Trump's charismatic leadership, but so does everyone else. Barring a dark horse I think Rubio is the most likely successor.

That's the thing, we will probably be dealing with backlash to Trump by the midpoint of his term, so elites who accepted Trump as a way to beat down workers, minorities, etc. will probably be looking for a successor who keeps them feeling safe while delivering what they like about Trump.