I've said it before and I'll say it again: A whole lot of our current social and political problems stem from the media deciding their role is to report what powerful and influential people are saying, as opposed to explaining what is happening in objective reality.

Methinks they doth protest too much

Excerpt from a blog post by @JohnRogers.bsky.social: John: Hey, Bush is now at 37% approval. I feel much less like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic. But I wonder what his base is -- Tyrone: 27%. John: ... you said that immmediately, and with some authority. Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That's crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population.

Pretty darn close to the famous 27% Crazification Factor:

kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/10/lunc...

Rock concert T-shirt style design featuring Sir Patrick Stewart holding an electric guitar, with stylized text reading: DARMOK & JALAD AT TANAGRA SEPTEMBER 1991

The message of the Right reacting to Virginia is the same as the message of "2020 was rigged": no victory by anyone but us is ever legitimate. We are the only ones allowed to win.

These people are cartoon villains entitled to no respect and no trust. Rabid dogs.

“It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

- Harry Truman

As Trump proves often, the reverse of this is also true.

It’s amazing how much you can fuck things up when the only thing you care about is getting the credit.

So many shapes to find! 🤩

If you're primarily a side sleeper, can recommend foam pillows.

Maybe picking up skin oils from the keyboard when you close it?

Mr. O'Gyny could be an interesting drag angle

The Art of War is very funny once you understand it for what it actually is, which is Warfare 101 For Dipshit Nobles

the intended audience is exactly people like Pete Hegseth

Yeah. My theory for why the manosphere came to be is that there's a massive psychic hole in young men right now because the previous patriarchal paradigm collapsed and they were raised to fit into that paradigm. And a new one hasn't fully emerged.

Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes REDMOND, WA—In what CEO Bill Gates called “an unfortunate but necessary step to protect our intellectual property from theft and exploitation by competitors,” the Microsoft Corporation patented the nu...

I tried putting those headlines in quotes along with specifying site:theonion.com, but only found this one:
theonion.com/microsoft-pa...

The Supreme Court Justice With The Most To Say | On the Media | WNYC Studios Clarence Thomas has a comprehensive vision for America. We ignore it at our own peril. 

Key thing to understand about Thomas is, he's a Black Nationalist who believes any attempt to reform race relations in America is a fool's errand that only delays the inevitable moment when White & Black America go their separate ways, so he'd rather make things worse to accelerate that. Really.

Q: How does Soylent Green taste?

A: It varies from person to person.

Wow Swalwell and then Gonzales both running like somebody told them there’s a hole in the side of the girls’ locker room

Libido Dominandi: The Great Blasphemer vs. the Augustinian Pope How Augustine’s warning about the “lust for domination” makes Pope Leo Trump’s most formidable opponent

Leo is the first Augustinian pope. One of his core beliefs is that pride is the beginning of all sin. Augustine warned in the 5th century about unjust wars fought by men with libido dominandi—a lust for domination—men just like the American president.
www.mind-war.com/p/libido-dom...

Whistleblower says Trump officials thought USAID did 'just abortions,' asked for 'Barney-style' slides before gutting agency, per new book Read an exclusive excerpt from Nicholas Enrich's "Into the Wood Chipper"

NEW—I got an exclusive excerpt from a USAID whistleblower's new book that made me gasp multiple times. It details Trump's dismantling of the humanitarian aid agency & his team/DOGE's shocking ignorance to public health.

'Into the Wood Chipper' by Nicholas Enrich is out tomorrow. Read excerpt here:

"We tried insisting they capitulate to our every demand and get nothing in return. They told us to kick rocks. Then we kept trying the exact same thing over the next 21 hours and kept getting the same result, so we're out of ideas."

Shady Vance is like a casino cooler who breaks the luck of anyone he goes near

Series of bsky posts from Mark Chadbourn quoting and paraphrasing Peter Magyar. "Our country wants to live again. It wants to be a European country again." "No mercy, [members of previous administration] will need to take responsibility for their actions."

Happy to be accused of motivated cognition but if we're reading Magyar's victory as road map for what to do to bring down an authoritarian regime, I'll take this road to FAFO:

Shady Vance is like a casino cooler who breaks the luck of anyone he goes near

i will vote for any candidate who offers up this slogan

Big if true. Another major load-bearing support of the Right here may just have been kicked out

Schadenfreude: It's Good for What Ails Ya!

the irony here is that i think trump is actually right about this, but not in the way he thinks he is

"He understood trump after our conversations. it is not complex. he must be seen to get something its that simple."
~Jeffrey Epstein

I'll have what Hungary's having

we will have to see how well he follows through but so far the rhetoric from Magyar is a pitch perfect model for what we need from the next Dem administration

no mercy, no reconciliation