anyway, it got me to thinking: what works, especially TV or film, about crime *actually* make a life of crime seem unappealing? I'd argue THE SOPRANOS actually does a pretty good job. For all of Tony Soprano's personal charisma, 80% of his actual life consists of sitting around a meat shop.
I don't know if it fails at its job, with WOWS specifically it seems like that's the point. The ending is extremely "sometimes there just isn't any justice, especially for the ultra-rich." Belfort gets a cushy minimum security prison and the fed who busted him is still slumming it riding the subway.
He constantly says shit like “we don’t need the oil but we should take the oil.”
Why does somebody with such a criminal child-like understanding of foreign relations get to coast along without a giant chorus of people saying “Sir, what the ever-loving-fuck are you talking about?”
Has anyone asked why Trump is obsessed with oil?
He talked about it with Venezuela, with Iran, and said we should’ve taken oil in Iraq/Syria.
Why does he think America needs to be stealing everyone’s oil? Is he just riffing off “Iraq Was About Oil” memes from the early 2000s?
What is going on?
no one in a position of power, in or out of government, really wants to deal with the fact that we have a demented chief executive, because if they acknowledged that, they'd feel obligated to do something about it and they don't want to risk their own careers or status doing something about it
“They would throw the world into the worst energy shock since the Carter Administration via an illegal war and shred the Constitutional/post-WWII order if it means they don’t have to be reminded trans people exist” is an unvarnished truth.
hey your kid died fighting to free the straight of hormel from iraq or iran or something. tyfys, sorry or w/e
"We should have empathy for the president."
Once again, the cult's cabinet officers insist that we must adjust our norms to make room for the world's most special little boy
Billionaire groupthink is wild; they are now all in a rush to insist they have no inner life. No introspection, soul, interiority, light. They need you to know they are nothing but hungry ghosts, forever consuming, shaping the world to death to rule over a graveyard. They want you just as cynical.
I haven’t seen things you people wouldn’t believe.
This is a real video from the official White House account on a war that is currently killing people. I don’t know how the US is going to come back from this.
The post was “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY. 🇺🇸 🔥”
Just a quick reminder that Trump’s official position on why he hasn’t delivered on his promise to end the Russia-Ukrainian war in 24 hours is because “he was being sarcastic.”
I need you to know that is the Administration’s official position on that.
I've got a tip for the PM that's going to blow his mind. If he thinks about the documents he puts his name to, he'll have to spend less time distancing himself from them.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
-Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953
When I heard this, I drafted a skeet about it, then thought "naaah, there's no way his speechwriters would allow him to contradict himself within one sentence." But they really and truly did.
Normalize laughing derisively in men's faces when they deserve it.
is life just a series of days where you're tired in the afternoon and wide awake at night, running behind on weekly deadlines, and seeing pants get slim and big and then slim again over the years until you die?
It really is fascinating how overt it now is that there are certain - really not controversial - ideas that you aren’t allowed to say on television.
Yesterday morning kids were sent running from their bus stop in panic because ICE showed up. This guy at today’s ICE Out of Lindenwold protest is a must watch 😭. @maddow.bsky.social
i think this is what drives me nuts. people talk about how, say, the UN was founded by "starry eyed idealists" who didn't understand "reality." the truth is that the UN was founded by those who had just fought and *won* the bloodiest war in human history.
Yep. At its root, the reason we don't have investigative journalism is that we the people don't *want* investigative journalism.
There's also a reason populist strongmen are popular, and it's that people don't *want* the cantankerous, awkward, often obstreperous process of actual governance.
Once you understand that most conservatives politicians are just actors playing the parts of their offices, and conservative voters are just playing the parts of the MAGA influencers they watch on YouTube you’ll understand why the Administration’s public communications are the way they are.
Someone told me lately "Bluesky is just like Twitter." I argued that was untrue on the basis that last time I had a Twitter account most times I got a new follower their bio said "single & looking for fun" & here when I get a new follower it tends to say something like "professor of rare moths".
Sometimes I think “everyone is twelve” is overstated. Then I see the literal health secretary announcing that he will never eat his vegetables and you can’t make him.
