The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is out with a new (very bad) decision, and it's a doozy.

The Fifth Circuit says that Texas can require the Ten Commandments in classrooms. But somehow it gets worse.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Tulsa County DA race pits experience against calls for change Incumbent Steve Kunzweiler is running on a decade of high-profile prosecutions and stability. Challenger Colleen McCarty argues those same years show it’s time for a different approach.

Incumbent Steve Kunzweiler is running on a decade of high-profile prosecutions and stability. Challenger Colleen McCarty argues those same years show it’s time for a different approach.

More than that, the FBI paid tons of informants who infiltrated the Klan.

For one famous example, Gary Thomas Rowe was a paid FBI informant who was present at the murder of Viola Liuzzo.

But there were so many more. By one estimate, in 1965 a full 15% of the Mississippi KKK were paid informants.

“Global prices of jet fuel have risen more than 70 percent since the start the war at the end of February”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH

CDC won’t publish report showing covid shots cut likelihood of hospital visits The report, which had cleared the agency’s scientific-review process, had been delayed. It now won’t be published at all, people familiar with the decision told The Post.

SCOOP: Two weeks ago, the head of the CDC delayed publication of a report showing covid vaccine cut likelihood of ER visits and hospitalizations by half. Now that report is no longer allowed to be published in CDC’s flagship scientific journal. My latest. 1/2
www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/...

The White House Intervened on Behalf of Accused Sex Trafficker Andrew Tate During a Federal Investigation Federal authorities were chided for seizing electronic devices from Tate and his brother, and told to return them, records and interviews show. Experts said the intervention was highly inappropriate.

Experts say it’s highly unusual for the White House to tell agents to give up custody of potential evidence in an investigation, as it did with the Tates.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that in my 30 years working,” an ex-DHS official said.

(Published Nov. 2025)

Like Trump’s other spurious political proescutions, this is borrowing a page from his private sector penchant for litigation as a weapon to make the target’s life hell. He doesn’t have to win. He gets to publicly smear them & cost them a lot of money & stress even when they ultimately win.

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.

What went wrong in Israel? A genocide scholar examines ‘what Zionism became’ In his new book, Omer Bartov tracks how a liberatory strand of Zionism transformed into an extremist ideology that he sees as responsible for genocide in Gaza

“People were sitting around, having fun, living a normal life, while there was genocide happening down the road. And I just couldn’t take that, because when you’re there, you’re complicit. You can’t help it. It doesn’t matter what you think.”

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

At a time when Congress is gridlocked, more Republican states are trying to implement the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda.

Most of the roughly 200 bills targeting immigrants stalled, with help from business and Christian groups. https://wapo.st/4sM8WcA

wait. wait. you're telling me that the equality of citizens *works?*

The danger in trying to do good is that the mind comes to confuse the intent of goodness with the act of doing things well.

I would submit that a gerrymander by politicians saying fuck the voters and one by voters saying fuck the politicians are two wholly different animals

This both suggests that the NYT‘s model of the VA vote was very well-constructed and also is a great example of model accountability: you can see both the consistency in the modeled outcome and how the actual outcome converges on it.

Connecting some dots here: the Associated Press offered buyouts to ~120 US journalists this month, and among the reasons is that McClatchy dropped AP in 2024. This is a piece of what McClatchy is doing instead.

Starting a mid-decade redistricting war only to end up with -1 seats is the same fine strategic genius and subtle grasp of game theory that brough us the Strait of Hormuz.

Worth noting how many organizations like SPLC neutered themselves and the work that they do, trying to avoid this very moment. Especially since Trump won again. But MAGA was always going to come for them. And eventually, we'll all be targets. No matter how much we tried to remain nonpartisan, etc.

What Happened to the SPLC—and Me Union breaking, Gaza, and fear of MAGA turned the SPLC into an organization that abandoned its own civil rights principles.

SPLC is far from the only organization that did a version of this, but it's worth re-reading this recent essay from @michaelehayden.bsky.social and considering whether their actions were worth it. michaeledisonhayden.substack.com/p/what-happe...

“Let people enjoy things”—no. Nobody should enjoy selection bias or measurement bias

Aside from who started it, states like CA and VA putting a counter-gerrymander up to a referendum, where people are told and can make a decision on the context for why it's being done, has vastly more democratic legitimacy than state legislators rushing it through because they got bullied by POTUS.

Thirteen U.S. troops died trying to get these people to safety — Afghan interpreters, soldiers, and the families of our service members. Veterans spent sleepless nights during the chaotic withdrawal fighting to keep them alive. Now our own government is going to abandon them.

Shoutout to Stillwater!

Being 1000% clear, your immunocompromised friends (you have them, right? Well, you do now) weren’t happy with lockdown because we hate people and didn’t want to hang out.

We miss lockdown because that’s when abled people acted like they cared if we died.

one of the ways the mid to late 20th century political world has distorted the historical memories of even sophisticated observers is in the idea that you can achieve major transformations of american political life through something like bipartisan consensus

Devastating Shootings in Louisiana and Virginia Follow This Pattern. It’s More Common Than You Know An Army veteran and a former politician took the lives of their loved ones before killing themselves. A new analysis by The Trace shows how often murder-suicides occur.

Domestic shootings in Louisiana and Virginia have seized the nation's attention. But murder-suicide happens more often than you may think.

There are an average of 1.5 gun-related murder-suicides a day, according to Gun Violence Archive — and the majority stem from intimate partner violence.

flipping through a proof of yet another book from a somewhat well known liberal voice diagnosing “where the left went wrong” and i’m struck, again, by the fact that a large part (if not most) of the liberal commentariat simply does not believe that the political right has agency.

Right: [reviles academia for generations, celebrates deportations for writing op-eds and protesting, dismantles departments it doesn’t like, enacts de jure speech codes]

Left: [is sometimes annoying and unserious]

Some Academics:

This is truly an insane thing for a public health person to say.

Outright eugenics.

RFKJR needs to GO ASAP.