For the sake of context and accuracy, when it was founded in Ripon, the Republican Party's main goal was to stop slavery. It was later the driving force behind the 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments.

Its current iteration is drastically different from what was created in Ripon.

#WIPolitics #USPolitics

Of course, it would also be better if someone as unserious as Kevin Warsh were not allowed anywhere near the Federal Reserve again, but well, here we are, in 2026, doing the total lack of elite accountability thing all over again.

Happy Birthday, Uncle George!

You gotta give to the GOP.

They trained their voters to hate “libs” so much they would gratefully accept every manner of corruption, lawlessness, cruelty, ineptitude, and criminality, and cheer it on, so long as it is their team doing it.

Game Designer Ross Isaacs (Last Unicorn’s STAR TREK rpg, and much more) is in desperate straits.

PLEASE join me in helping a great guy out!

Even simply spreading the word can help!

Officials who warned about Russian interference are being treated as the threat, even facing potential criminal charges. At the same time, people adjacent to Russian-aligned propaganda and influence channels are being handed power to investigate them.

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

You watch Jon Ossoff speak like this about the actual stakes & then you watch Andy Beshear speak about Funny Words, & the abject poverty of the latter approach to Democratic politics in 2026 is so stark that you don't know whether to laugh or cry about the latter.

Opening text of a thread by Palantir from X Because we get asked a lot. The Technological Republic, in brief. 1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation. 2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible. 3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public. 4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.

Palantir put out a 22-point summary of their CEO's book The Technological Republic. It's pitched as a defence of the West, but if you read it through the VDA framework, verification, deliberation, accountability, what it's actually doing looks rather different.
twitter-thread.com/t/2045574398...

RNC claimed 'election integrity win' over 'non-existent problem,' Virginia county election director says Prince William County Director of Elections Eric Olsen said the RNC is "trying to invent a headline to further a political agenda."

But none of this is true according to Prince William County Director of Elections Eric Olsen, who told Democracy Docket that the RNC is “trying to invent a headline to further a political agenda” and “to fabricate a nonexistent problem.” www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

“Trump’s enablers will be remembered for hiding the dementia, crimes and treason of the worst parasite in US history.”

Federal judge unloads on ‘unserious’ RFK Jr., says anti-trans policy showed his ‘cruelty’ Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai vacated the “Kennedy Declaration,” finding it unlawfully attempted to override medical standards and restrict care for transgender youth.

Breaking: HHS’s ban on gender-affirming care is struck down. Rarely have I read a ruling this sharply worded.

“This case is one of a long list of examples of how a leader’s wanton disregard for the rule of law causes very real harm to very real people.”

www.advocate.com/politics/nat...

I want to come back to this crucial point from @nickfleisher.bsky.social, with data. If you're going to write a report about "declining trust" in universities, then you better benchmark that to other institutions, & you cannot identify causes of that decline w/o accounting for the broader trend.

How the AI oligarchy devoured America How the AI oligarchy devoured America.

I know you're busy, but @motherjones.com just put out this epic cluster of stories/graphics on the new AI oligarchy and data center frenzy—including one on how AI billionaires are funding efforts to create genetically engineered children—really!—they hope can stop their AIs from killing us all.

'We are missing data': NWS weather balloon changes scrutinized as tornados hit Midwest For much of Monday, the agency didn't anticipate a tornado threat for Kansas City — then five hit that evening. Did a change in weather balloon launches leave forecasters in the dark?

"The Trump administration cut the agency deeply last year, leaving some forecasting offices short-staffed...

“You’re missing data from the Four Corners region, the northern Plains, part of the central Plains, and that’s where the storms were developing,” he said..."

www.nbcnews.com/weather/torn...

I thinks it’s next to the thunder mug.

Funny where they draw their lines…

Wil and Anne, thank you so much for sharing Marlowe with your virtual family. 😢

And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd old ends stol’n forth of holy writ,
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

This was a question I asked Pablo to ask Reps today. You got to listen to her answer because the caption doesn’t do it full justice. bsky.app/profile/acyn...

I REALLY dislike it when these so-and-sos use “Commander-in-Chief” outside of a military context. Thanks Dubya.

Bernie crams his taxes! (2019)

@jadomian.bsky.social @mandelino.bsky.social #theunderculture

Yikes! Hope you feel better soon. A wounded Kovalic is a dangerous Kovalic. Badger blood or something…I don’t know how badgers work…

I'm not easily shocked. But I'm devastated. I'm sick with revulsion.

I chose the bear long ago.

Trying to explain St Augustine to the pope, the former head of the Augustinian order, who wrote his doctoral thesis on Augustine, on his way back from celebrating mass at the Basilica of St Augustine in Annaba, Algeria, overlooking the site where Augustine lived is peak Adult Catholic Convert.

The inflation was primarily a cross-national pandemic-induced global supply shock, & voters rejected incumbents everywhere of all stripes. We don't need to do this again.

I’m not saying, but I’m just saying…

If you pick a fight with Canada AND the Pope…

You might be an asshole.

ERASING HISTORY: U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro asks court to vacate seditious conspiracy convictions of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and Proud Boys leaders Ethan Nordean & Joseph Biggs, despite jury findings of coordinated efforts to stop the transfer of power.

Can someone out there please count up all the CPAC speakers who ranted about George Soros funding left wing causes?

Be sure to take breaks and stretch every hour or two.

The victory of the opposition in Hungary yesterday, like the Polish election in 2023, is a victory for democracy, not just in Europe but around the world.