One of the oldest cons in the world is "that guy's conning you. You have to trust me instead, I'll protect you from him."
The way "Addictiveness-is-everything" social media is breaking people and societies reminds me more and more of the Opium Wars profile and banner pics our blue heeler on our very yellow couch ... ...ok its his couch
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One of the oldest cons in the world is "that guy's conning you. You have to trust me instead, I'll protect you from him."
and more "if you, leader, thought this was bad enough to need emergency powers (and you actually loved the country over yourself), you would be keen to share the key info with other major parties, and have your worked thoroughly checked by independent judiciary / auditors.
ob disclaimer: this wd do nothing to stop how SCOTUS and Congress are winking at Trump's straight up false claims. But I think we'd be far better off if the debate for Democracies in Trouble was not "are times bad enough for how much of a secret god-king the Leader has declared himself?" ...
Hi Toby @polphilpod.bsky.social, After LA and DC, I've been thinking how Emergency Powers are every authoritarian's favourite weapon. What if invoking emergency laws automatically triggered oversight, review and power sharing? Do you know anywhere that's been tried? effectively?
and, importantly, the media and pundits didn't laugh this off or take it as proof the Trump was paranoid and the GOP out of touch. Y'know, the way they do when any Dem... accurately describes GOP statements or policies.
I find I'm hanging a lot of hope, and fear, on parallels to the total messes we made of previous communications revolutions. Mass printing and the 30 Years' War. Radio / TV and WW1 / WW2. Each time we found a new balance, but the path was 😱. I think we're in a similar breakdown rn. (Or several).
some of you need to make like travis kelce and engage with a tailor swiftly
This, btw and fyi, is part of the massive systemic breakdown and invitation to corruption y'all should really see about fixing.
Very much this. Except add conservatives don't win attention mainly cos of how good they are at theater. But cos they built a pliant media that lives to hype them up and push them and their ideas further.
Can't even build death star anymore, because of ewok
Have we written a game, new phone?
And a mass warrant for every ice employee. Masks? Well then y'all all guilty
related: I trained myself out of repeated snoozes by - when I hear the alarm, stand up before I turn it off. Then decide not to lie back down again. (Skip the deciding whether or talking yourself into it step. Stand up first. Then alarm off. Then decide). Sadly now I can't sleep in.
because cons strip mine literally every word anyone says anywhere for things to weaponise. Usually as an attack on "real americans like us." Obama wore a *tan suit*. He named a type of lettuce. People drank wine or lattes. Kids had avocado. It's not the words, it's the cons grievance pipeline.
These people have the most gifted, natural communicator in a generation. A man incredible at being natural and human and connecting with who he's talking to... and they're trying to make him nitpick his words while speaking. If anyone can put me in touch with this comms team. I just wanna talk.
Zohran did a charming little video about how his comms team told him he was using the word "ultimately" too much (cute supercut of same), then "I am listening, I am learning" (cut to interview where he catches himself at "ul-" and changes word). It killed me. I died. I'm still crying.
facts.
“Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity and happiness of the people; and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men.” ― John Adams
Without empathy it's also immeasurably harder to co-operate with global allies or co-ordinate millions of people over thousands of miles to have tens of thousands of those people all show up on the same beach on the same morning to kick the fashie's heads in for them.
"all [valid] ballots should be counted even late ones". Yes this 100% The whole aim of voting is to find out who the people appoint to run things. The only good reason for deadlines is practicality and consistency. Talking like late ballots are "lazy" or "cheating" makes no sense on those grounds.
4. Sausage sizzles or bake sales put on by the school or a local group as fundraiser at each polling place.
"Hey Thag look at this new thing I invented I call it a bed." "Oh that looks brilliant! Did you make one for everyone?" "...yes"
"Oh, Mr Trump we'd love to join your gang and buy your stuff, but our businesses they've been making our own drone program and they're really great. Everyone says they're the best drones ever. I think next year you'll be buying from us. ...oh, you've got an offer to make? Guess I'll hear it."
When to me it's so so so obvious that the very best thing you could do to make negotiations with Trump go well, is to have options. For it to be clear you have alternatives to his "deal", and they're good ones. That you can walk away more than he can.
If you boil the argument down to its core, it's just "if any crime exists at all, the government is justified in doing absolutely anything in response to it" which is absolutely nuts. Crime exists in literally every place in America!
He has kept among us in times of peace Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution & unacknowledged by our laws.
If you complained more about the phrase "defund the police" than you did about the brutalizing committed by police then congratulations you helped usher in a police state
followed shortly with "this ahole exposed themselves in a bathroom while harassing and threatening other users."
Oh, completely wise to these tricks. But I'm convinced they appreciate respectful observance of the Old Traditions. Also, they like schooling us on the little hubrises now and then, to keep us mindful of the big ones.
99 years ago “Solitude, with its opportunity to think, is a thing of the past” “We have a movie eye, a radio ear, a newspaper brain, and automobile nerves”
First they came for the trans people, and I threw them under the bus because I am a goddamned coward with no vision. Then they came for the immigrants, and I threw them under the bus because I am incapable of learning from history and do not understand that "divide and conquer" is a thing.
ME (to MAGA): How about you go first. And also tell us how many people at your church, school and place of employment you've applied your definition to. (Oh, you've overwhelmingly just taken their word for it? Huh weird).
It happened again
You don't _need_ any single story to stay top long enough for anything, if you use each of them to vaguely handwave at past failings as the context for the new story. Plus it would've been true. The problem is each is "debunked" by the Sun/Mail/Fox/OAN/WSJ (once) spinning up talking point disinfo).
True, but imo that's 100% downstream of Rupert breaking the media in each country. (Easiest thing in the world for a competent media to build a pattern of stories. See what they did with "old, sleepy Joe". Would've had no trouble to do headlines like "another Boris clanger. Can he tie his shoes?").
and PMs used to do that cos otherwise the scandal would dog you at every turn and your govt would never recover.
Thanks Shane! It's on iView, it was a Q&A style show from 1976 called Monday Conference. Sadly the heroic Lex Watson who was standing up for LGBTI people died in 2014, just after being awarded the AM, and three years before marriage equality. Link: iview.abc.net.au/show/monday-...
Why do they need a proxy for determining sex? If it's a one dimensional, material property they should just be able to measure it directly. Almost like it isn't that at all
* repotting.
Do the voters have a Pardon Power? In the Constitution? I can't find it but then I'm no Constitutional scholar. Also, seems very weird to 1:1 conflate their pardon power, if they have one, with the selecting an executive officer function.
Yah. If anyone held this position seriously, rather than as a thought-terminator, they would have seriously grappled with how to get the voters full info (investigation, discovery and cross, with penalty for falsehood). (This comment is to you, David Plotz).
Also everyone who ever gets impeached was legitimately elected, that's the entire point of the thing
Really good ep, thanks lads. Hey @nickcarrcomedy.bsky.social what was the show you mentioned (on SBS?) with that one (heartbreakingly brave) gay man on stage taking audience qs in the '70s. I knew today's anti-trans attacks are recycled anti-gay stuff, but the way it was word-for-word was wild.
United Farm Workers President Teresa Romero - Two years ago, we invited all 100 senators to work in the fields. Only two of them accepted: Alex Padilla and Cory Booker.
This exchange - one for the ages. Riveting. www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5kX...
Same reason battered spouses do, mostly. If Dems say "People are struggling, but the US economy recovered faster than similar economies, and [these measures] helped Americans", we get months of every media outlet saying "Dems are telling people they're not struggling. Why are Dems out of touch?"
It *looks* kinda like the Juice Media "Honest Government* ads from Australia. Excepppppt... those are brilliant, and this is.. maybe its conservatives just completely failing to understand the joke, again?
My worry with Twain is like with Oscar Wilde - they would be amazing to hang with, but when other targets don't present themselves, your every failing would get torn to shreds on the regular.
This is, literally, how it played out in Putin's Russia.
and it's lovely!!
I just want to remind us all he does love drawing a foul. He takes something he's guilty of. Acts _incredibly_ guilty so people accuse him of more than we can prove... and he flips to telling his base see see its all a liberal hoax. (You didn't prove a pee tape so my obvious Russia link is "fake")
This is an example where the playbook he's tried with Epstein worked perfectly. He claimed from the start (incoherently & evidence free) that it was a hoax, & targeted investigators. Barr did his "nothing to see" memo four days before the report. Fox yells "hoax" for years. That's now the "truth".
Toby I don't think we can overstate how much "in two weeks" has always been a magic spell for him. Appointing people is part of that magic. If people keep asking, bring it up one day in the past tense. "Remind" people what happened when you released it. "TACO" did so much damage to his playbook.
Really hoping this is about a kitten.
This here. Hey Mr Zipper, is any NYC mayoral candidate pushing your transit ideas? If yes, why aren't you lauding them? If no, why are you singling out Mamdani for criticism? (I think it's cos you're going for the incumbent crook and the disgraced pervert but don't want to say so).
Every "tech" guy is just a VC guy in a subculture that gets called "tech" for no particular reason. Most real "tech" - like, i dunno, cutting edge materials research - doesn't get called that while "a new pizza delivery app" does
Clear no. Fully agree. If they show up with an eviction notice. Now I've got a problem.
Targeting a Christian minority.
Hundreds form human chain to help Melbourne’s oldest bookshop relocate after more than a century
Brother Jim was on to something.
meanwhile Trump invented his own Twitter where no one can be mean to him like
PS if you finish the survey you get a picture of my dog
Respectfully, if you're coming here it would be nice if you'd even attempt to respond to the thread. How "troubling" is this in context of the media's beat up attacks on Mamdani? Does mass imprisonment and exile affect transit and policy discussions, and aren't they worthy of your notice?
I tried to embrace the semicolon but my arms went right through the middle! 😭😭
Hello yes this is Australia. Who were you wanting to speak to?
“New York Times suffers cancellations and outrage over hit piece collaboration with Nazi eugenicist. “
there is no more luxury belief than the dream of a little conquest
I like this thread. I don't have anything terribly insightful to add but I can imagine a not-that-long-ago me making a mirror-thread on not getting the appeal of Actual Play. :)
The Teals targeted wealthy conservative city & suburb seats on climate, anti-corruption, and women's issues. They ran principled, successful professionals, mostly women, and look like they have made it next to impossible for the conservative party here to win a majority for the foreseeable.
skipped Presidential politics and aimed for a balance of power in the House by targeting select districts on a few particular issues. (Musk is very not the guy to do it. Too polarised and polarising. But he could perhaps find similar spoiler avenues).
Hi Kevin, good article ty. I'm curious do you know much about Australia's Teal Independents?, and what lessons US third parties could take from them. Obviously, incredibly different systems and situations. But I've thought for a few cycles now there could be an opening in the US for a party that
I also think we're way past the point of "resigning on principle". From any position of influence or power. Look carefully to see you're not enabling, excusing or covering for the wickedness (Jamelle seems to me set, here), do all the good you can, and make them come and take it from you.
The current leader who best epitomizes the spirit of the Declaration of Independence is Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
He has refused his Assent to Laws… For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world… For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury… For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences… A Tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
also - we are way past resigning on principle. In govt, media, or any other positions of power.
Call a rep and bitch? Likely just noise. Any energy this caller had for taking action they probably just got out of their system by the call. And they're not local anyway.
Call another rep, believably sound like you're going to donate or volunteer in their race cos of this issue? Real, but a lot less solid and immediate unless you're Elon. (and even he's backfiring more than he's helping anymore).
The way I see it. The question any rep and their staff has on every issue is "is this issue moving votes, for next time I face election?" Call your own rep? that's one vote for sure, plus some ppl prob feel like you. Bringing a group, or going viral in local media/socials? Crap, def a few votes.
Yep. This "It's not that he's a king it's just that no one can rein him in or hold him to account (edit: except voters, but they have no right to know what he's done or what he's stolen from them)." Is perhaps the stupidest and most unAmerican ruling in years. And there's a lot of competition.
Chris Hayes and Hasan Minhaj had an interesting bit yesterday on how what we want is recognition but what we can get being popular or famous online is attention and how much that fks with us.
The cynicism is something that ends up suiting capital very well.
Under no circumstances does 'evenly applying the rules' actually help marginalized people; as a matter of fact, it generally worsens harm to apply the rules as evenly as possible! Fascists are -hyper-specialized- line-toers and rules-lawyers, as well as being obligate provocateurs.
Does any other country get a Canada Day? I don't think so! Case closed. (Happy you day, Canada).
Oh! Maybe a (gross, oligarch) version of Australia's Teal Independents! Fingers crossed! (They are principled, conservative, mostly professional women who won several key seats running on corruption, climate and women's issues and... kinda rule out a conservative majority til that party shapes up).
🧵🚨🚨🚨The Cycle's Monday Memo: Yes the Senate just passed the Big Ugly Bill but actually, Republicans have a Really Big Problem Want to know more? This 🧵is for you!! (please RP) open.substack.com/pub/thecycle...
(not trying to put extra work on you. I know we're all busy. Just trying to find things that aren't more work but feel more useful?) Maybe post to friends or family 'Is anyone else worried about this bill cutting medicaid? I tried to call (rep) but no one answers." And - thank you for fighting!!
Yeah. Getting their attention is almost impossible. The point really is getting local media and local voter's attention. Can't meet with them in their office? Maybe someone arrange a meeting out front of their office. Bring a folding table and put an empty seat for the Rep with their name on it.
and the *Republicans* can't even put together bills that they themselves will vote for, and this is not reported as a horrible laughable failure. (Usually, news reports frame it as "how dare Dems deny the GOP votes they need to pass their agenda [since their own ppl obviously won't vote for it]").
worldbuilding is fundamental to rpgs. And I wondered how much that was your assumption, or preference, and where this kind of thing (rpg taking boardgame mechanics not setting) would fit for you.
mechanics (Jenga, in this case) to drive that tension and escalating risk their RPG genres want, and expect any play group will know and share the tropes of horror and rom-com enough to easily make it up and be on the same page. and I ask cos your post seemed to assume that substantial
This. Sorry, I was unclear. Both are published TTRPGs, and reasonably successful. (tone note: in case my typing doesn't come across how I intend- I'm delighted with this discussion, here to learn and share) I ask about these precisely because they are generic RPGs, that use their boargame
oooh, nice!! you're in today's Lucky 10,000! Dread is horror movies done with Jenga. Rack up the tension with each block drawn. Star-Crossed is even better - it's first dates done with Jenga.
Dread (and Star-Crossed) are my first thought examples. How do they sit in your typology?
You could remind your viewers Mamdani was one of many who rushed to the courthouse to help secure Lander's freedom, and support his actions.
If you want to interview Brad Lander about his people's safety, you could give him a platform to talk about that time he was physically overpowered and hauled away by the president's shiny new secret police, *earlier this month*!
Mamdani should just ask everyone demanding apologies and clarifications why they would believe him when they refuse to believe the thousands of Jewish New Yorkers who voted for him and the highest ranking Jewish official in the city
"We're going to stand up for Haiti because you taught the world about freedom. It's time for us to return the favor."
(someone might say "Shane that's irrelevant whataboutism". But for sure if the story was about Republicans para 3 would be "Democrats also have antisemitism problems").