"What they did wasn’t warranted. I know for an absolute fact I did nothing wrong." George Retes, a U.S. citizen and Army veteran swept up in an ICE raid, spoke with Conor Friedersdorf: https://theatln.tc/70IO4a9F 📸: Carlos Jaramillo for The Atlantic
31, Here I remain. I paint Warhammer and write in my spare time. Birds are pretty great.
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"What they did wasn’t warranted. I know for an absolute fact I did nothing wrong." George Retes, a U.S. citizen and Army veteran swept up in an ICE raid, spoke with Conor Friedersdorf: https://theatln.tc/70IO4a9F 📸: Carlos Jaramillo for The Atlantic
An Iowa official defied the governor’s orders to fly flags at half-staff for Charlie Kirk, writing he wouldn't honor a man who "did so much harm"
another thing, transphobic gay furries are so fucking funny we are getting shot with the same bullet bro better a trans furfag than a fascist bootlicker
This not a new thought at this point, but one of the most effective ways to break the GOP would be allowing direct-to-consumer car sales and cutting out the dealerships
here the national guard have been somewhere between an unintended danger (hitting civilian vehicles with military ones) and an annoyance (getting a jumpscare seeing long guns at the subway station) it's not that we should want them or get used to them, but plenty of damage can be done without them
Going to start talking about fascists like the talk about me - It's time to understand that fascists are engaged in what they themselves would call terrorism. Political violence to create terror in a population. Fascists, unlike trans people, have chosen their political affinity. It's not inherent
"Mast's legislation [..] could be used to deny American citizens the right to travel based solely on their speech." "[T]hought policing at the hands of" Marco Rubio. #USA #Policing
I have written and deleted a lot of posts but I keep thinking about how the brutal assassination of Minnesota State senator Melissa Hortman, her husband Mark, and their beloved dog Gilbert in June did not prompt this same level of calls for empathy, sympathy, and flags at half-mast.
Please don't forget, and don't let anyone else forget, they did this openly.
Healthy societies do not do this shit:
This is an amazing excellent analogy. Civility in the service of evil is hollow.
Shoutout to all the cis people who told me it'd never get this bad and I was just being paranoid whenever I was worried
Also, it says a lot about the nature and structure of the current US regime that it lends itself to this kind of analysis. I can't think of another modern presidency for which that has been the case.
I HATE THEM. I HATE THEM. I HATE THEM. I HATE THEM. I HATE THEM. I HATE THEM. I HATE THEM. I HATE THEM. I HATE THEM. I HATE THEM.
I think it's worth clarifying that you do in fact retain free speech while you're in the military. You are in fact allowed to say what you want in a private capacity, including political speech. I don't know where people go the idea otherwise, but it's not accurate.
it is remarkable how they apparently have been scared off blue city/blue state approach
This goes for federal civil servants too. I have the First Amendment right to express personal political opinions on personal time and personal platforms.
I think the motivation for a lot of this stuff boils down to the bone-deep realizations that Twitter is dead and that Substack does not provide what Twitter used to provide
If the blame for Kirk’s death became hard to assign, the response to that death could still be punished. People who made tasteless or simply factual statements about Kirk found themselves fired from their jobs in a coordinated campaign of cancelation. Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio joined in.
This is the past two decades of journalism summarised. Far-right actors operating in bad faith continuously worked the referees, exploiting media's pursuit of a platonic ideal of objectivity to legitimise and mainstream their disingenuous grievances, and now the doors have been totally blown open.
Huge banner that says “get nukes”
If he can do the first three things without me having broken the law, he already took away my freedom.
This was intentional on the part of the specific law enforcement official(s) who were initially involved. They were trying to pin this on trans people.
The Wall Street Journal would be doing an important act of journalism in the aftermath of their irresponsible reporting to find out how exactly their sources "mistakenly" interpreted the ammunition to have trans-related symbols. Because I gotta be honest: I'm not buying that it was a mistake.
Lost in the discussion of how Charlie Kirk "did politics the right way" are the lives of the two victims assassinated at Florida State University by a member of Kirk's organization, Turning Point USA, in April 2025.
the notion that AI will be the dominant technology of the 21st century is so fatally flawed. but also appropriate for a country that has lost the ability to make things in physical space
Bunnicula: the Masquerade
I don’t know why the National Guard is in Washington, but while they’re here, they should definitely crack down on the dogs that have clearly been engaging in carjacking
If there are soldiers that punished for speech that falls within DOD guidance, it’s about as fundamentally unAmerican as it gets
did a little media criticism www.theverge.com/politics/777...
A significant thing here: El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on migration, tells @alejacorazonhm.bsky.social he is questioning whether Catholics can, in good conscience, join ICE. religionnews.com/2025/09/12/c...
get squished idiot
The situation in Nepal is incredible. The government tried to ban social media last week which led to violent protests and the prime minister ousted. Gen Z protesters then met in a 100K strong Discord chat where they elected ex-chief justice Sushila Karki as the interim prime minister.
Media discovering groypers for the first time reminds me of when they first encountered incels. Those of us who study misogyny or followed Gamergate had been screaming about incel culture and violence for years. Coverage of hate groups is far too reactive.
Saw it yesterday, the crowd was a wide range of 20-somethings to late 40’s, nice to see such a wide span of people go to an R-rated anime movie.
POSTING MY DUMBASS OFF THE CUFF RAMBLE
Their Discord server.
National political reporters: consult your gaming desk. You likely have a massively blind spot — this isn’t a dig at anyone, because I have this blind spot too b/c I’m not a gamer and am trying to adjust for it in real time — covering this very important moment if u don’t game & don’t know the memes
This basic facility with Internet and pop culture and its impact on political life is only going to get more crucial to understand, from here on out
Whatever its merits, the internet has become a psychologically destructive force. You will be happier and healthier if you don’t spend excess amounts of time online. Stop scrolling. Water your garden. Read a book to your kids. You will not regret a life spent in this world.
👇🏽 🎯
I should really write it up (I will never write it up) but the defining thing, to me, is not being Online, it's being Only Online. a family or other social graph in your offline life is grounding and fundamentally a basic human need.
One of the things I got grilled on a bit during my Oral Exams was not mentioning the fact that Third Spaces could also serve as places of radicalization as well as places to get properly socialized and my committee was right to call me out on it but I'm still with Alex here.
this is in line with my increasingly strongly held belief that friction in sociotechnical systems is not just Good but is a Necessity
gaming culture is as important to today's politics as coffee house culture was to the Enlightenment era
One thing that’s different now is there’s virtually no shared foundation of reality, at least not online. And that’s largely purposeful. It’s all a bunch of engines to produce emotional reactivity, and we’re all parts of those engines—consciously or not—while also being subjected to their effects.
“.. I can’t remember anyone ever telling me we can’t say anything critical about a civilian like this. He was not in our chain of command or anything,” the officer said. @nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...
I have had three separate conversations in three separate contexts today about how nice it would be if trans people weren't being aggressively targeted by forces in power so that we were free to have defining characteristics beyond "trans."
"Mom can we have Great Purge?" "We have Great Purge at home" Great Purge at home:
Media Matters have got 50 pages of clips: www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/
I hope there’s ASCII art at the beginning of this FAQ
Wrote about the week. How the shooter's ID didn't appear to matter to ppl. How the discourse takes place in very same spaces that incubate/perpetuate hate & violence. How shooters now know that their acts will be flattened, analyzed, argued over & amplified. How all of this feels so dark & poisonous
I’m still trying to wrap my mind around Kavanaugh actually writing this, as if the Fourth Amendment only protects people who have not done anything illegal. This is so foundationally wrong that it’s hard to know where to start.
WSJ has now appended this lengthy editor's note to its original report. It notably contains zero contrition for the initial decision to spread such incendiary misinformation. www.wsj.com/livecoverage...
An economy that is turning towards almost exclusively graft, speculation, fraud and gambling to obtain wealth, which is basically what we currently have, is going to only create more conditions that lead to social isolation and violence.
This was one of my favorite rooms to study in when I was at college, hidden away in a much bigger library. Just the presence of the room itself made everyone be quiet in there.
Can you imagine what it must have felt like to talk your own son out of suicide, and then turn him over to the cops, knowing he's almost certainly never going to get out?
And the most important thing about an ~economic war plan~ we could have is basically a common, integrated supply chain of critical minerals and defense products (energetics chips etc) / market for Team Atlanticist Democracy, unfortunately we currently blowing up Team Atlanticist Democracy
whoever there decided that steven crowder was a reliable source and stuck with that story for nearly 24 hours after it was already debunked needs to have some sort of accountability
The critical liberal error was to mistake victory in the Cold War as proof of a universal longing for freedom rather than a universal longing for cheap consumer goods.
Christ…
Does anyone else remember when Joe Biden in the State of the Union Address had some line about "And political violence is completely unacceptable and we must all say that!!!" and then only half the Congress clapped?
"Don't mock or you'll be deported" is the mark of a weak, decadent nation, a petty and insecure failure unworthy of respect.
It is insane for this to be the only evidence you cite in your editorial about political violence. The far right has been responsible for the majority of terrorist attacks in the United States for years. Republican leaders routinely celebrate extrajudicial killings and refuse to regulate guns.
![In May 2019 and for the first time in its history, the FBI identified fringe conspiracy theories as a potential source of domestic terrorism, it specifically cited QAnon.[37] A June 2020 study of domestic terrorist incidents by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) reported that during the previous 25 years, the majority of attacks and plots were perpetrated and hatched by far-right attackers. This trend has accelerated in recent years, with this sector being responsible for about 66% of all of the attacks and plots which were perpetrated in 2019, and it was also responsible for 90% of all of those attacks which were perpetrated in 2020. The next most potentially dangerous group has been](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:j76trmiofvaxxpvx2vnb2vwf/bafkreic2lqskmjkxl2u7wmfsvqxyxjwcfznx4njsr7sbrma44nlvr5mjcm@jpeg "Click to view full size")
It's worth asking why every elite institution is issuing statements like this rather than pointing out the obvious fact that the institutional right commits and glorifies violence far more than the left. Is there a reason you feel you can't say that out loud? www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/o...
Darkly funny how Senate Dems cowered in fear of a public backlash to changing the voting threshold on judges....and Rs do it and get a one-day tepid headline and no one will ever think about it again. Which is exactly what internal party critics said would happen!
A jolly and fat Franciscan friar, fulfilling a stereotype with his entire being, taught me moral theology. He used to say, “Love your neighbor. Your neighbor is person next to you in class, and the starving child in Africa. But especially the person next to you in class. They’re much harder to love”
One guy called and said he’s outside my apartment and to come outside and talk. Don’t think that’s true but I’m not gonna check! There’s more than enough info to find and arrest these guys, but the question is whether law enforcement would care about threats like this in 2025
Trump is engaged in a kind of authoritarian grooming to normalize the idea of militarized federal forces in the streets of American cities. He wants enough pushback that he gets to display dominance, but not so much people are horrified, or he gets handed a decisive defeat in court too early.
It is hard to think of a more explicit directive to the radical right than “I don’t care what you do, and in fact I agree with your motivation.” He’s already pardoned violent extremists and this is a promise to pardon more.
i really hate this postmodern nihilistic violence
the media rush to canonize charlie kirk is legitimately maybe one of the weirdest things of this nature i have ever seen in my life
We're living through an authoritaian putch, and nobody knows exactly how best to fight back. So we should all be trying stuff and learning as quickly as possible. Pritzker demonstrated a good tactic for protecting his state - others should use it.
It shows once again that as long as they’re not the ones being affected / talked about, it all boils down to civility and process vs content for them. That Klein op ed is mind boggling in its myopia
The other thing Pritzker did is call out the details of the unique escalation and extra lawlessness of the plan to use out-of-state troops. It is plausible he ripped the mask off that in a way that cut through the legalistic mumbo-jumbo and gave some (possibly Abbott in particular) second thoughts.
"Asking us to build factories and invest then arresting and detaining. Is this what an ally does?" -- Protest sign at airport where South Korean workers, including engineers with work visas, were returned www.wsj.com/world/asia/c...
Two key things to point out re: Trump sending National Guard troops to Memphis: 1) Unlike in blue states, there’s just no need for this; even if circumstances warranted, Governor Lee, who still commands the TN National Guard, could’ve just sent them in himself; and 2) Chicago (and Illinois) won.
Trump is engaged in a Russianification of American foreign policy: no soft power, no ideals, no persuasion, anti-democratic, zero-sum logics and hostile policies toward our erstwhile allies and their citizens. Russia has never been better than this, but the US is pissing away the basis of its power.
The metro is great!
To be honest, I think this is what some people--the people most likely to be interviewed by media-- mean when they say "the economy". They want services to be cheap because low wage workers have terrible outside options. Instacart and Uber being expensive was "the economy". Now it's better. 😖
Making it clear to someone that if they try to do something you don't want them to do, they might get some of it done, but they are going to suffer every step of the way and you are going to make people they depend on the loyalty of pay the price for their failure just works, folks.
"Irrational madness dominates American society."
A scathing editorial in Hankyoreh on "imperial tyranny" and racism in the United States. A view from the left but close to the government and likely to the views of many Koreans. www.hani.co.kr/arti/opinion...
1. Been thinking a lot about Judith Butler’s notion of “grievability” with respect to Charlie Kirk, Gaza, Melissa Hortman and others. It’s a way of thinking about whose lives are socially recognized as valuable and, therefore, whose deaths are publicly mourned.
This. "Trump’s genius is to keep pushing Democrats into reactive conservatism. That, plus the average age of the party’s leadership, makes Democrats look like permanently outraged grandparents." FDR's experimentalism and class hatred would be jarring to today's professional managerial class.
A lot of people who were panic mongering about a woke cultural revolution are conspicuously quiet about a youth activist denouncing a professor for wrong think and that professor being fired as part of a campaign of public shaming by political leaders.
"The number of Americans missing work for National Guard deployments or other military or civic duty is at a 19-year high, adding disruption to a labor market that’s already under strain." Pretty remarkable when we're not at war—except against our own people. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
No, you cannot.
NEW: NDAs around the Pentagon, increasingly scarce contact with Congress, a fixation on social media and public image — and a wariness of anyone who threatens it, including the Army secretary. Secretary of Culture War: How Hegseth wields power at the Pentagon www.cnn.com/2025/09/12/p...
I feel like the sanitizing of Kirk’s politics is sometimes an effort to create an idealized victim in order to bolster renunciations of political violence and sometimes simple ignorance about his actual politics.
New: First-time applications for unemployment benefits surged to a level not seen in nearly four years. There were an estimated 263,000 initial filings for unemployment insurance made during the week ended September 6, according to Department of Labor data.
"I can do whatever I want."
Insane to hear the president of the United States talking about American cities the same way Putin talked about Eastern Ukraine.
“.. Their roundup and the .. video showing some Korean workers shackled with chains around their hands, ankles and waists have caused public outrage and a sense of betrayal in South Korea, a key U.S. ally.” @apnews.com #Hyundai apnews.com/article/sout...
One sign that the US is hosed is that it would prefer to piss off an enter country, a rising power, at the behest of a failed local politician. This is the sort of dumb, petty end of empire behavior.
The President of the United States — except in incredibly exigent circumstances — should not even be briefed on the minutiae of such investigations. This is the erosion of one more norm which has long protected our liberties.
Nepal, a country with a population of 30 million, is in the throes of a population revolution. Brazil, one of the world’s largest countries (215 million) and with a presidential system modeled after the United States, just sentenced a former president to die in prison for abuses of office.
Must read 🧵. TOPA isn't perfect, but it's an important tool in the affordabilty housing toolbox. Axing TOPA for landlords who promise to keep 51% of units affordable w no oversight is like hiring wolves to guard the chicken coop. DC landlords have shown time and again they have not earned that trust