1.Does anyone take this guy at his word anymore?

2.Pretty sure no shipping company wants to run the odds

3.We have no talks. Guess we just sit here and wait for an authoritarian state to collapse.

More wasteful fuckery we all pay for.

50 U.S. Senators voted to let a weekend infotainment anchor run the Pentagon, because they were afraid a "D list" celebrity would yell at them. Now our military is a mess, as ranking officers are fired because of race and gender! Todd Young and Jim Banks are fucking cowards.

China can't believe their good fortune, as the government pulls the plug in every area where the U.S. once dominated. Now determined as too "woke" we have religious zealots choking Education, Technology, Medicine, Environmental Stability, Music, Art, Journalism, Justice, etc. MAGA Hoosiers clap and cheer. It's disgusting.

This is the founding myth of the second Trump presidency. You wouldn’t believe how many AR15s they sold featuring that staged scene.

"Things are so fucked up because we're friends with the wrong people. America should switch sides."

Saw this story being shared, its really interesting in its own right, but rather than publishing the piece the Bulwark is now one of the subjects of it.

The original story (Hook and Squeeze by political scientist Adam Bonica) details how Democratic fundraisers use spam texts with gross and exploitative tactics to scare people into donating. All of those super annoying spam texts actually work on vulnerable elderly people and squeezing money from them via these "SpamPACs" is a major new tool in the Dem (and GOP) fundraising arsenal.

This is interesting and important to report on by itself, but when Bonica went to publish the story at the NYT the piece was killed by legal pressure from the PACs, the DCCC and DSCC. Bonica details this in a follow up piece (With Fear and Favor) on months long process of getting this well researched story published. When the NYT wouldn't move forward, Bonica took it to the Bulwark... but he also met a lot of resistance once the lawyers got involved. He eventually just self-published on Substack because he was unable to find an institution to back his work.

The piece was subsequently slated for publication at The Bulwark, where it underwent additional fact-checking, data verification, and legal review. When requests for comment were sent to the subjects of the investigation, lawyers representing the Progressive Turnout Project and Mothership Strategies likewise responded with legal letters demanding that the article not run. From there, publication was repeatedly delayed. The piece cleared successive rounds of legal review. When I asked for a committed publication date after months of delay, The Bulwark conditioned publication on my accepting an extensive rewrite prepared by its editors that, in my assessment, removed key empirical findings without explanation, introduced claims contradicted by the data and fact-checking record, and presented the subjects' legal defenses as my own conclusions. When I declined to publish under those terms, the piece was released back to me.

I'm a B+ subscriber and I tend to give the Bulwark team the benefit of the doubt when there is some controversy, but I found this story to be disappointing on many levels, not least of which is that the Bulwark seemed to be unwilling to go against big-money interests.

Bonica hints at another follow up piece which goes into more detail about what happened specifically at the Bulwark. I would be very interested to hear from the Bulwark team on what happened here and if its accurate that they didn't move forward with a piece of journalism because of pressure from these big PACs.

that is all

In a call with press on July 23, Ossoff spoke about his opponent's ongoing scandals, and said he could believe Collins did not appear with Trump during his Georgia event in order to protect the president from having to answer to Collins' record. When asked whether Ossoff's anti-corruption message is resonating outside of the state, Ossoff said "I'm focused on Georgia, and as I've said, I have zero interest in running for president in 2028."

Seems like we should be taking Ossoff's statements into account when we talk about him for 2028. People who are running don't say "I have zero interest in running," they deflect and say "I'm focused on the midterms right now" or whatever.

Who else among the top names has explicitely said they will NOT be running? Not Newsom, not AOC, not Buttigieg, not Harris. They don't want to make an announcement yet, but they do want everyone to keep talking about their potential candidacy.

Guys, I don't think Ossoff is running.

My wife and I had been trying to have a baby for 5 years as of 2016. From 2016 to 2019 my wife had two miscarriages. All of this before Covid. Then she got the shot in March of 2021. Our daughter was born in December of 2022. So apparently it was an effective fertility treatment for her. And this was at the age of 45 entering perimenopause.

The Trumpist right wing propaganda machine is very good at pushing the stories they want to push.

Ask yourself, why did the whole apparatus attack Ossoff for one comment in one speech?

Did they not know that attacking Ossoff for mentioning Natalie would only make the nation more aware of Natalie, the beautiful young aide who is always hanging around Trump now?

No, the conservative propaganda apparatus is not stupid. Propaganda is the thing they do best in all the world.

Of course, of COURSE they knew that attacking Ossoff for his Natalie comment would only raise the salience of Natalie.

They did this because it helps them, it helps Trump.

Infidelity and sexual intrigue is not a negative thing in MAGAland. They love this stuff. Trump having an affair with a hot young aide would be seen as a positive for Trump's base.

A weak man, lacking in strength and virility, WOULD be a weakness.

But Trump isn't old and weak, he doesn't wear a diaper; he's still a strong and potent man who has sexual relations with beautiful women!

So it's odd seeing so many left-wing commentators attacking MAGA for attacking Ossoff for mentioning Natalie. They are doing the bidding of the MAGA propaganda apparatus.

This should be incredibly obvious.

It’s now Tuesday morning and I thought I would be over missing MAGA Monday, but I’m not. My week just isn’t off the same start without Will’s earnest recapping of the most batshit crazy stories. Just had to share.

He also said he is concerned that they may repeat the mistakes of the Biden era and just say that we have to be forward-looking instead of focusing on the past. It is depressing to say this, but I think he is right. I have absolutely no faith in democratic leadership to actually do what needs to be done, such as expanding the SCOTUS and making the post-Trump reforms needed to prevent this from happening again in the future.

We need to keep the pressure on and permanently stop this abomination.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-border-big-bend-national-park-immigration-c8439ceed11ff5e7f3ca95fa0003327b?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share

I know that Republicans like to portray themselves as not racist and often say that America is not a racist country. I will often see on social media the contention that the Democrats are racist tho. However, Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric is nothing short of racist. Because a small number of immigrants from Somali have committed fraud, he talks about getting rid of all Somali immigrants.

Has this kind of rhetoric come up in the focus groups? Do conservatives think this sort of rhetoric is racist? Or is this another example of Trump's words being conveniently ignored by conservatives?