It’s only “political violence” if you disagree with the politics. Otherwise it’s sparkling “they deserved it”
Progressive techie. New York City sidewalk gardener. SCAdian herald. Married to Piglet, father of Alex.
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It’s only “political violence” if you disagree with the politics. Otherwise it’s sparkling “they deserved it”
ya that seems right but i also think theres an alternate timeline where like brexit narrowly loses, clinton narrowly beats trump and idk like bo xilai becomes premier instead of xi and everything looks totally unrecognizable across the three continents now
Laugh at Trump’s ridiculous innumeracy, sure. But the commander of the world’s most powerful military is responding to relevant questions about the laws of armed conflict by claiming that the existence of drug deaths in general permits him to kill anyone he feels like, which is very serious.
It’s going to take decades to clean this stain from our reputation — or longer.
Oh come on, have some self-respect! arstechnica.com/ai/2025/09/e...
As others have pointed out, the idea that we can control their behavior by modeling respectability (cooperating with the compulsory grief around Kirk, for example, and not saying truthful/angry things about him) is akin to an abused person's belief that they can control the abuse by being perfect.
Discovering computer as an adult makes you go crazy. Discovering computer as a baby makes you go crazy. In all of human history, there will only ever be one generation to discover computer at the correct age: 13
what we’ve seen from the right is the most insane case of cancel culture i’ve ever witnessed. the left has never even done close to a fraction of a fraction of what they want to do now
People missing an important point about folks getting fired for whatever they said about Charlie Kirk: Americans are being conditioned to be snitches on their fellow citizens who don’t toe a party line on what is “allowed” to be expressed. And employers are going along. It’s the new secret police
As I was biking around midtown today, I stumbled on a picket line outside NYC's Park Lane Hotel; their signs and fliers explained that the lobby restaurant's workers were recently fired for unionizing. Additional details available in The Chief, a labor paper: thechiefleader.com/stories/rest...
The Utah shooter joked on Discord with his friends that his doppelganger killed Charlie Kirk when they asked him about it From Nick Bogel-Burroughs, and contribution from me. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/13/u...
We’ve been living through 72 nonstop hours of this exact tweet
The garden hasn't fully bounced back from getting badly parched at the beginning of August, but I'm glad to see that most of the roses have survived and are putting on a pretty show.
The person who donated this sign to our garden was very well intentioned, but in hindsight I think that it doesn't really contribute to the overall aesthetic. (Also, sadly I have discovered that dogs can not read.)
The Dept. of Education has pulled funding for programs in 8 states that support students with both hearing and vision loss. A staffer at one program says he was told the Trump admin. took issue with 2 words on the grant application: “transition" and “privilege": www.propublica.org/article/trum...
I headed down to Trump Tower today with my friends from @riseandresist.bsky.social to say "Hands Off NYC" and make it clear that we do not want to see Federal troops deployed to our city. #HandsOffNYC
So to paraphrase, “The administration egregiously broke the law and did harm to people, but we judges don’t have the power to punish them. Nor do we have the power to make the victims whole. Also, we can’t stop them from continuing to break the law.” There are no checks or balances. Not anymore.
“We’re celebrating the legacy of our martyred free speech hero by firing a bunch of people for saying mean things about him” is the kind of thing Tom Lehrer could have done roper justice to.
The simple way to reconcile these two things is to recognize that the first is a bad opinion & the second is an outright lie
You cannot understand politics in the United States in 2025 without understanding Gamergate. It is the Rosetta Stone for our current nightmare.
Charlie Kirk was a casualty of the exact world he spent his life and career trying to build. This is a factually true statement, and no one should be punished for making it.
"Violence is not the answer" say people coming from a country that was founded on the genocide of its local population (and massacre of most of the survivors), a country where violence is engrained in every aspect of society, a country that became a superpower through constant warfare.
Transgender people are owed a retraction and apology from @wsj.com. The lie has already become canon to millions and it seems the least they could do.
in retrospect, there’s probably never been a name as threatening as “America Online”
"I wish we could blame this on muslims or migrants, but turns out it was one of us." what a wild thing to say
[the shooter is unidentified] the left must be purged with the sword [the shooter is, again, a compulsive masturbator who loved Hitler] I believe it was pascal who said that the heart has reasons that reason may not know
Extremist murders by ideology, 2013 to 2022. www.pbump.net/o/reassessin...
all my online time is spent on pants, so im only given to pants extremism
Huh an awful lot of rhetoric shifted from Old Testament to New Testament over the past few hours
there is something so disorienting about living in a world with miraculous progress in all kinds of stuff, including an Industrial Revolution-scale transformation of industry and energy, while US politics is *consumed* with the dumbest, most pointlessly awful shit imaginable bsky.app/profile/ryan...
Our demand remains: ICE OUT OF DC. NATIONAL GUARD GO HOME. Trump's control over MPD has now expired but the federal occupation of DC is still going strong. Agents are still harassing and detaining people — including this morning in Columbia Heights.
Every centrist hagiographer: he said some very important stuff Everyone: oh, like what? Every centrist hagiographer: very important things Everyone: Can you repeat some of those things he said? Every centrist hagiographer, looking at their legal department frantically shaking their heads: no
Liberals are doing the right’s job for it. By lionizing Charlie Kirk and refusing to acknowledge his real political project, they’re giving power to the right’s completely predictable effort to use his death to forward their goal of an authoritarian, fascist state.
[Trump deploys federal forces and secret police to occupy major cities and disappear their immigrant residents] Top Democrats: This is a distraction. [Charlie Kirk gets assassinated] TD: Our flags shall fly at half mast for this controversial-but-essentially-noble figure who invited civic debate.
This is such a funny element to the Kirk eulogizing: they can’t describe him the way they’re describing him *and* show clips of anything he actually said or did
Worth it to note that "anti-fare evasion tactics" included getting rid of fines for first-time farebeaters and instead warning them and/or counseling them to get into the discounted fare program. Instead, fare enforcement now concentrates on repeat offenders.
have spent the last 12 hours in some sort of pre-grief for what's clearly coming, an imperial boomerang with x-ray vision now unconstrained by whatever law we had left
Again, here Klein was showing off how Musk's deliberately curated feed of gutter bigotry successfully convinced him that gutter bigotry was a mainstream point of view that makes some valid points that need to be respected
Still thinking about how scared Charlie Kirk was of the New York subway, how comfortable he was in suburban Utah, and how this totally incorrect sense of threat is really emblematic of the American right
To keep this in perspective, Brian Kilmeade earlier in the day proposed forced lethal injection for mentally ill people who bother people in public.
Someone shot up my kid's school today, and our governor is paying tribute to a guy who thought that is an acceptable price to pay for having the Second Amendment. Jared Polis has failed Colorado.
Or giant flywheels!
thank goodness Kash Patel cleaned house in the SLC FBI office. clearly everyone was made a lot safer.
Chris Rufo right now
This explains it better than I can
Very, very bad stuff coming from leading right-wingers
I thought people were exaggerating, but no, it really is the case that liberal politicians posting platitudes about the Nazi Youth youtuber never posted anything about Melissa Hortman
Seriously, like bro there are military troops in Washington DC RIGHT NOW cracking down on “crime“ that doesn’t even fucking exist. They don’t need an excuse, they will do it ANYWAY.
This is an absolutely deranged thing to say about a proponent of political violence and unfettered gun access who died from getting shot.
It is entirely possible to be respectful about the death of a person you disagreed with without “honoring” him by vowing to continue his disagreeable, hateful “work.”
It is weird that the assassination of essentially a celebrity influencer is a bigger deal than the shooting of two top state legislators + their spouses
American officials said the repeat drone strikes were carried out by Special Forces, and more attacks could come soon.
The only names I will chalk tonight: Melissa Hortman Mark Hortman #fuckguns
Charlie Kirk spent his life‘s work and all of his energy and time targeting out-groups while arguing for a world in which gun massacres would be easy to enact, plentiful, and inevitable, and he became famous and wealthy doing it, and we’re now not supposed to mention that because it’s not polite.
the people who mocked and made up shit about the attack on paul pelosi have thoughts about decorum and we should definitely take them very very seriously
@govpritzker.illinois.gov's take on Kirk is the correct one: "Political violence, unfortunately, has ramped up in this country ... I think there are people who are fomenting it in this country. I think the president's rhetoric often foments it." On point. So glad Democrats are saying this.
this is just my personal pet peeve but it sucks to feel bad all the time and i am not into it
This is a Fox host on mid-day "news" suggesting we might have to execute the mentally ill via "involuntary lethal injection" so that they don't bother people in the streets.
I encourage everyone to look out for their safety and practice good internet hygiene, of course. But some of the scolding posts I've read suggest we can change the awful aftermath of a fateful event by just holding our tongues and being quiet little mice, and that isn't my experience.
Trump claims crime is down to "virtually nothing" in DC & adds the crimes that are happening are "much lesser things. Things that take place in the home they call crime. You know, they'll do anything they can to find something. If a man has a little fight w/the wife they say 'this is a crime. See?'"
The White House Press Secretary, the official spokesperson for the Trump administration, told reporters in an official briefing that the president wants to invade "every Democrat-run city" with troops. Any media still pretending that this is about "crime" is making a conscious choice to lie to you.
I don’t give a shit if JD Vance doesn’t give a shit about the Constitution. Striking civilian boats in international waters is both unconstitutional and a war crime. The party of “law and order” clearly doesn’t care about respecting it.
The real way to make money very soon IMO is going to be from repossessing the glut of servers and GPUs once companies cut back and a lot of the startups go under.
Sure seems like Big Pharma spent way way more energy, money and lobbying capital on fighting Dems on prescription drugs than doing anything about the Secretary of HHS casually, and without any real evidence, telling everyone their products kill kids and give them autism.
i cannot believe they are expecting us to play along with this "might not be his signature" farce and that a lot of people actually are, i feel like ive lost my goddam mind
My fave shot of @bkindivisible.bsky.social's #NoTroopsInOurCities signage today. Lots of cars honked as they passed and lots of pedestrians on the bridge gave thumbs up!
You remember the dire predictions about congestion pricing inducing more traffic and higher emissions in the South Bronx. Well none of them have come to pass, according to data analyzed by Charlie Komanoff.
It’s only been eight months and we are already at “yield to the troops.”
They know they are going to lose so the copium has begun. But this is a sign to everyone who votes for Mamdani that the opponents are going to make things extremely miserable to punish his voters. Get ready to fight on every single front. nypost.com/2025/09/06/b...
In the Fourth Republic, we're going to resurrect the Postal Service with postal banking, public email accounts, and neighborhood post offices that provide constituency services and free legal advice. It's going to be so good.
I see we’re talking about institutional collapse. it is true and correct that we’re screwed and the organs of the federal government will not regain the functionality they had a year ago. it is also true that it’s cheaper to rebuild than to renovate.
Having a lot of trouble summoning sympathy for folks who now pretend they thought Trump was only going to go after violent criminal immigrants. It was alway obvious that wasn’t true. You just mean you didn’t think he’d go after white people.
No solidarity. Reporters let Trump talk this way to a woman reporter and then clamor to get their own question answered. He used to do it to April Ryan, Yamiche Alcindor and Abby Phillip. And that’s why he controls media. No solidarity.
We can set an example for the whole nation in this election.
Talked to Tim Walz as he campaigned in Wisconsin. Thought his answer to one Q I'd had for Dems - if you come back in 2028, do you rebuild everything DOGE broke? - was interesting. "I think it's an opportunity." www.semafor.com/article/03/1...
It’s like if the subprime mortgage boom had been accompanied by a relentless stream of op-eds in every magazine and newspaper about why subprime mortgages were the future and anyone who voiced any skepticism about them was a stupid caveman
Highest level of support since Gallup started asking this question a quarter century ago
+1, and also renewing my related distaste for the using the phrase "conspiracy theory" when the word "lie" is more apt
On fascism and racism, Langston Hughes said, "Fascism preaches the creed of Nordic supremacy." He also noted, "Fascism is a new name for that kind of terror the Negro has always faced in America... This kind of terrorism is extending more and more to groups of peoples whose skins are not black."
I keep getting this pit in my stomach thinking about the scope of the invasion they’re going to launch on NYC on election night. I don’t know if Hochul has the temerity to back up Zohran like he needs, and like the city deserves. It’s going to be a siege. And NYPD won’t be in our side.
Senator Rand Paul directly and forthrightly takes on JD Vance: "What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial."
it’s been brought to my attention that it’s actually only been 7 or so months since trump took office. there really aren’t good enough drugs for this.
Transphobia is a unique sort of bigotry that just absolutely cooks the online brain. Holding it nearly always results in an inability to ever admit you’re wrong about anything and exponentially increases the likelihood of believing in a cascade of ever dumber conspiracies and fascist ideology
For most Americans, the date 1913 means nothing. For Americans on the far right fringes, 1913 has long been a date of great significance. Here’s a piece from the antisemitic rag “American Mercury” in 1957, for example. One of their writers at the time was George Lincoln Rockwell.
I mean this is them losing the long game right here. If Dem governors find their spines in 2026 and make moves to keep the Trump admin from stealing elections (and I actually think they might), Trump's obvious plan is military intervention. But WITH WHO?
ICE is not a military force, it's a bunch of undisciplined doughy cowards who turn heel half the time when people say mean things to them. We're only a little more than a year out from midterms, even with rapid expansion ICE is not going to be in shape to wage civil war effectively
haha well here's your happy thought for a late saturday night: as terrible as things are right now, this is as good as it gets under trump. something more terrible happens next week. maybe tomorrow, who the hell knows. g'night!
This. Is. Fascism.
HANDS OFF OUR CITIES! #CHICAGO #TREASON #IMPEACH
BREAKING: ICE is sending Russian dissidents back to Russia. When the dissidents arrived in Russia, the Russian authorities were given documents relating to their asylum applications in the US which under US law are confidential. This seems to be part of a secret agreement between Trump and Putin.
a friend and I went downtown this evening to scream in the streets with thousands of our neighbors. @theonion.com was also at the protest this evening and they were pulling no punches
People from all over are showing up for DC. This is not a moment. It’s a movement. We are united in our demands. We are all DC! #FreeDC
Alright, so I've been afraid to say this out loud, but I think after today, I can say it: In the first Battle of Los Angeles, the good people of LA County have prevailed. We beat ICE back. 1/
So, Chicago, it's your turn now and man, I am so so sorry. Nobody should have to go through this. This is awful. This is fascism. Organize. Step up. Don't think other people will do it -- the might, maybe even they will, but they need you, too. Be like LA -- be sand in their gears. 9/
Relatedly: we all should start getting loud about how the military should absolutely positively refuse to do this if ordered
Mike Masnick 
drdoofenschmirtz.bsky.social 