John S. Cooper

A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women

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Opinion | Mamdani’s Victory Is Less Significant Than You Think

The New York Times quickly sending out Douthat to argue that Mamdani’s victory doesn’t really matter is so predictable it borders on self-parody.

Remember, folks: Every time the Right wins an election, it’s an undeniable expression of the will of the people. If a lefty wins, it’s just a blip.

By doing this, pro-democracy donors can help their activists build careers and livelihoods. This is critically important. Republicans make it easy to have a career spreading their ideas. Democrats do not. This is unsustainable for thousands of people. They give up and quit politics forever.

By contrast, Democrats spend most of their money on TV ads. This failure to build capacity means that the money on failed campaigns has a net zero return on investment. Democrats could easily divert $200 million every cycle to invest in advocacy media and have plenty more than Republicans.

Trump Administration Is Legally Required to Provide SNAP in Shutdown, Contrary to Its Claims Secretary Rollins’ claim that the Trump Administration is unable to deliver November SNAP benefits during a shutdown is unequivocally false. The Administration is legally required to use contingency r...

Secretary Rollins’ claim that the Trump Administration is unable to deliver November SNAP benefits during a shutdown is unequivocally false. The Administration is legally required to use contingency reserves to fund benefits for the 1 in 8 Americans who need SNAP to afford their grocery bill.

It’s baffling. Like what does he do all day?

Grass roots organizing (which died out long ago) would reveal what kinds of candidates might win. Now that parties are just elite media companies and consultants, they can only grope at what they think the littles might want.

Trump Administration Live Updates: White House Changes Course and Will Demolish Entire East Wing

White House "changes course"? No. Trump lied. This was always the plan, obviously. Now people can see it, is all. www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...

Basically all US policy is at this point about indulging Trump’s irrational obsessions, petty grudges, and corrupt grifts, and then taking secondary and tertiary measures to mask the consequences of those policies.

Rubio promised to betray U.S. informants to get Trump’s El Salvador prison deal To secure U.S. access to President Nayib Bukele’s notorious CECOT prison, Rubio agreed to turn over several MS-13 leaders central to a long-running Justice Department investigation.

This story is extraordinary even by 2025 standards. Marco Rubio, the nation's top diplomat, made a deal with Bukele and agreed to renege on informant agreements in a years-long DOJ investigation into MS-13, totally undercutting credibility of such agreements.

www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

A very efficient, distilled and to me pretty persuasive version of the bear case against AI economics.

My general belief is that Dems need to spend more time thinking about what they believe and less about what they think some imaginary swing voters want them to believe.

Political strategy will stem from an authentic set of beliefs.

Pure bloodlines? Ancestral homelands? DNA science says no. — Harvard Gazette Geneticist explains recent analyses made possible by tech advances show human history to be one of mixing, movement, displacement.

The white supremacist conceit that everyone in antiquity was living under some kind of global jim crow segregation is just complete bullshit news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

The Jeff-alytics Podcast Is Coming! Episode 0 is here! Episode 1 drops next Wednesday!

Hi all,

Some fun news...I have a new podcast coming out about why perceptions of crime rarely meet reality and what can be and is being done about it! Ep 0 was just released & Ep 1 will be released on Oct 1. Download & subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!

jasher.substack.com/p/the-jeff-a...

The application for stay presented to THE CHIEF JUSTICE and by him referred to the Court is granted. The July 17, 2025 order of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 25–cv–909, ECF Doc. 52, is stayed. The application is also treated as a petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment, and the petition is granted. The parties are directed to brief and argue the following questions: (1) Whether the statutory removal protections for members of the Federal Trade Commission violate the separation of powers and, if so, whether Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U. S. 602 (1935), should be overruled. (2) Whether a federal court may prevent a person’s removal from public office, either through relief at equity or at law. The Clerk is directed to establish a briefing schedule that will allow the case to be argued in the December 2025 argument session. The stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court.

This incredibly broad second question suggests they might have something even more radical in mind than just overturning Humphrey's.

Ah yes, who can forget Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus when God demanded “Saul, Saul, why don’t you persecute black people”?

Headlines on the Bloomberg Terminal from Air Force One:

*TRUMP: TV LICENSES SHOULD BE TAKEN AWAY IF BAD PUBLICITY FOR ME
*TRUMP: IF TV SHOWS 'HIT TRUMP' SHOULD BE DISCUSSED ON LICENSES
*TRUMP ON TV SHOWS CRITICIZING HIM: THEY'RE NOT ALLOWED TO

The key problem with what Ezra Klein says here is that he fails – or is unwilling – to grapple with the fundamental reality of the political conflict: The movement that dominates today’s Right fully rejects the very idea of “living here with each other” as equals. That’s their defining position.

"Klein’s fundamental error reveals something much more dangerous: he’s mistaking performance for discourse, spectacle for persuasion. Kirk wasn’t showing up to campuses to “talk with anyone who would talk to him.” He was showing up armed with a string of logical fallacies, nonsense talking points,

The basic problem here is that fascists do not want to live with you. This all presupposes democratic politics that they do not want to practice. There will be no reciprocity here, and if you act as if there will be if you avoid calling them fascists and venerate their martyrs, you‘ll get crushed.

"At DHS, Trump has ordered agents formerly dedicated to investigating and arresting human traffickers to focus on deporting immigrants."

This is not an administration that cares about public safety. This is an administration that cares about padding its deportation numbers.

Screenshot of Elon Musk tweet from shortly after Charlie Kirk was shot. Elon says "The Left is the party of murder" and is quote tweeting a post from Shaun Maguire that reads: The Left lectured us for the last decade about the dangers of violence from the Right From the assassination attempts of President Trump To Brian Thompson, the United Healthcare CEO, being murdered Now to Charlie Kirk The danger was actually on the Left

I'll merely note that today, like all days, is a great day to stop posting on Twitter, a platform whose owner force feeds this slop into people's brains with an algorithm designed to boost his views and trample yours.

If I have any credibility with you from 20 years of reporting on rightwing & fascist movements, please listen when I beg you not to celebrate Charlie Kirk getting shot. Leave aside morality: this isn’t a match in dry grass, it’s a torch. We do not want what this could ignite & we would not win.

ICE is Eating the Soul of America Four things that show ICE increasingly considers itself outside the law

New numbers show ICE is devouring US law enforcement: 1 in 5 US marshals, 1 in 5 FBI agents, half of all DEA agents, and over two-thirds of all ATF agents are now assigned to ICE enforcement. These are agencies with critical jobs they're now NOT doing.

www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/ice-is-eat...

this is almost certainly under Title 32 authorities (meaning the TX guard will be nominally under TX state control but on a federal mission), meaning the posse comitatus issues that came up in California will not apply. that said, it raises a whole lot of other legal problems

A picture of Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution, which provides that “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”

When President Trump used 32 U.S.C. § 502(f)(2) in 2020, that was to have out-of-state National Guard troops sent to D.C.—which has no sovereignty of its own.

Sending the un-federalized TX National Guard into IL without the latter’s consent raises *serious* Article IV problems that 2020 … didn’t.

This is exactly right! The Right’s core claim is that they represent an authentic, “real" America that is constantly being victimized, made to suffer under the yoke of leftist/liberal overreach, and therefore rightfully aggrieved. And too many Democrats/liberals look at that and go: “I agree.”

"Serious about safety" is a frame cj reform folks use as an alternative to suggesting crime "isn't a problem" but short of calling for more policing and incarceration...Dems would benefit from using it more often

It’s Been a Year Since Illinois Eliminated Cash Bail. Prosecutors, Researchers Examine the Impact Illinois became the first state to eliminate cash bail exactly one year ago Wednesday. Supporters said the law is intended to address equity issues, while opponents feared a spike in crime. New resear...

Early research in Illinois shows eliminating cash bail didn't increase crime. In fact, Chicago is having a big crime drop.

It's difficult to attribute that drop to a single cause (crime data is messy!) But it is safe to say ending cash bail didn't lead to a spike.

news.wttw.com/2024/09/18/i...