Effing Grim

Fox News can’t make you indifferent toward children. Can’t make you cheer using a child as a threat against their parent. It reveals it. You are that way.

Humiliating and dangerous: Trump has now finally just made America an ally of the Kremlin and is aiding Putin in his war against an American friend and partner. Shameful betrayal of a US friend, and pathetic submission to a US enemy. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1...

Your regular reminder: If the Russians stop fighting, the war ends. If the Ukrainians stop fighting, their land will be occupied, their leaders will be killed, their history and language will be erased, their children will be kidnapped to serve Russia.

Wow.

This was murder. Pretti did not initiate the confrontation. He didn’t strike them. He didn’t brandish his gun. They tackled him, beat him, disarmed him, and shot him.

“What the f*ck is going on, this is insane! ICE is just trying to scare people; they tell you it's only immigrants-it's f*cking anybody!" credit: @StatusCoup ICE is over immigration, NOT citizens. They are shooting & detaining citizens. We are paying for Trump’s secret police in more ways than one.

1. ICE will kill you. 2. Trumpists will lie to justify it. 3. Because they are all thug trash.

The truth.

It’s amazing. The thirsty, desperate/to-be-relevant, foreign policy commentariat that is so unfortunately platformed by a lot of mainstream media wants to portray the Venezuela operation as “sending a message” to China and Russia and other adversaries. This is so abjectly moronic. (1/x)

New Interview: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

“Tell your children who the cowards were.”

And may every day be another wonderful secret.

I did not know this

Wow -- Russia reportedly plotted last year to plant bombs on US-bound flights (gift link) giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Francis M. Wilhoit: Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

I didn't take pics but the feeling of being in a group of people with no visible beginning or end was so thrilling. The opposite of online anomie, and a living counterpoint to the wary, isolated, compartmentalized world the shitheads want to make. It's simple and obvious I guess but it means a lot.

Trump posted an AI video last night of him wearing a crown, flying a jet and bombing protesters with shit. Yes, shit. Many U.S. media have ignored this latest example of Trump’s mental instability. Others have downplayed it. The response says a lot about why we’re in this mess. 🧵 1/

The most important political thread of our time.

Younger veteran: "How old are you, man?" Older veteran: “87.” Younger veteran: “Out here getting arrested, raising hell at 87.” Older veteran: “It’s just beginning.” 🦅 🦅 🦅 #ResistanceUnited 🔥 🔥 🔥

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

Yes indeed! What do you do when you're covering a lying, bloviating politician who revels in attention, good or bad? Ignoring him or covering him neutrally or even covering him critically doesn't work. You've got to try something different! Clip and save this chart:

An attempt to make sense of Trump's "incomprehensible determination to press ahead with policies – such as tariffs and the defunding of medical research–that will do deep harm without any apparent gain, even for Trump’s backers and clients, still less his voters." www.theguardian.com/news/2025/oc...

New from me: A "heterodox" writer took a week to teach himself immigration law, then reprimanded me for daring to suggest that Trump is violating the due process rights of immigrants. He's wrong -- about pretty much everything. radleybalko.substack.com/p/what-to-wa...

Not only is this piece an incredibly informative read, Balko absolutely nails the disingenuous, moderate actor here (such as Jonathan Haidt).

There's no more fitting tribute to Charlie Kirk than the one they're giving him right now: nominally Christian survivors on the same grift clambering over one another for more publicity, capped by the shambling, lurching embodiment of everything they long to be. You couldn't write anything meaner

Jarvis: I hate to say this to my friends here at CNN, mass media is dying, so they're taking the last of these vestiges of institutions that matter and they're trying to turn them into propaganda organs under threat from the head of the FCC

Exactly this

Becoming increasingly clear we’re gonna have to build a parallel infrastructure for all the media we really love. The reason all of this is happening under the color of law is hyperconsolidation, dissent being traded straight up for merger approval, or fear of harassment.

Here's a good blog post: defector.com/this-is-who-...

Everyone including media and democrats have completely accepted and promote Trump and MAGAs blame of democrats. If we are stereotyping — The suspect in the picture looks like a groyper or disgruntled MAGA. Homicidally mad about Israel or the Epstein cover up is completely plausible.

“Policy is being set in order to provide content for the MAGA social media hordes”. And reporters label normal reactions to each outrage as partisan and divisive. Ask Dems opposed to military occupation of U.S. cities, for example, why they don’t want to stop crime.

It is impossible to overstate the centrality of social media to our political collapse. Policy is being set in order to provide content for the MAGA social media hordes, who then spiral into greater radicalism, which then results in more extreme policy. Complete disregard for any other goal.

There is no democratic justification for withholding these files. This is a coverup.⁩

The degree that the Republican Party has been compromised by the Russian Federation is the great under-reported story of our time. Nothing like this has ever happened.

“Capitalism without government-granted patent and copyright monopolies is still capitalism.” Capitalism without competition is feudalism. To the GOP + their corporate Dem auxiliary’s threat that the elite won’t invest if we don’t surrender to them endless certain profit, I’d reply “crypto”.

Taxing the rich is great, but it would be even better not to write the laws so that the rich get all the money deanbaker22.substack.com/p/the-rich-w...

ProPublica actually is what name brand media was before the billionaires.

If you burn an American flag, you get a year in jail. If you attack a Capitol police officer with an American flag, you get a pardon.

I'm reposting this because I'm pissed that major news outlets like the NYT invented a bad economy story under Biden, which helped give us Trump cepr.net/publications...

Folks, you love to see it

I love to show up every day for my job, which is standing around holding the front of my tactical vest and getting told to choke to death by thousands of passers-by while 11 of my coworkers handcuff a roofer on his way to work. Every night I drive 80 minutes home, thinking about nothing at all.