fascism is like a prion it folds everything it touches into an instance of itself.
when discrimination becomes indistinguishable from hypocrisy, all is lost.
there's a level of virtuosity in being corrupt in the way you prosecute your corruptions. and the very corruption of your corruption (in PA at least) was why you can't be prosecuted! it became fraud, not vote buying, and who's going to prosecute elon musk for fraud? it's like a pigeon for jaywalking.
one of the many ironies of the moment is it's the people who style themselves defenders of western civilization that are the greatest threats to the achievements of western civilization.
if you call it lawfare without making a persuasive, affirmative case for why others whose similar behavior came to public and prosecutorial light wouldn't be pursued, then you are just in favor of elite impunity.
seems kind of gratuitous to have gone through so much trouble to kill affirmative action in the university when you're just going to kill off the university.
“Right wing accelerationism is not a backlash *against* globalization and its combination of exit and constraint, but an argument that its logic should be extended downwards into the nation state.” @henryfarrell https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-reactionary-right-is-not-a-monolith ht #WilliamCullerneBown
the law in its majesty permits rich and poor alike to hand out million dollar checks to buy votes.
Elon Musk is a man who cheats at everything, and so presumes any adversary is cheating extravagantly against him, and he's fucking morally outraged about it.
Wilhoit's Law to him is not merely descriptive. It is the first and only commandment on a tablet set down by God. And he is the definition of the in-group.
a silver lining of Trump’s election is they can’t call you antisemitic or accuse you of a double standard for (correctly) describing Israel’s current government as fascist when you are also (correctly) describing America’s government as fascist.
there are the alarmists and "everything's probably fine" types. the "probably fine" types have the better track record in retrospect. but that's largely because of the work of the alarmists.
relying on empirical track record to decide which attitude to take may not be wise. depending on ones goals.
it's remarkable how quickly "tren de aragua" went from something i had never heard of to a crisis so urgent centuries-old safeguards of liberty and due process had to be cast aside, even at the acknowledged cost of some innocents getting pressed into indefinite detention and enslavement.
a firm is a human organization to accomplish something. recruiting and appeasing all stakeholders, generating cash flow sufficient to pay the bills, these are *constraints* a firm faces, not the goal or function or purpose of the firm.
the people who wanted "everything run like a business" also transformed how businesses were run, and it broke those too.
(they transformed businesses into the idiot share-price maximizers of pathetically stylized economic models, which is not how most businesses actually functioned before 1970!)
this is an administration that "reforms" imperfect but somewhat functional institutions into cargo-cultish mimics of what those institutions once were. https://www.thedailybeast.com/tim-pool-was-paid-by-russia-but-will-joins-white-house-press-pool/ ht @RunRichRun @thetnholler.bsky.social
"I was proud to reintroduce…the No Dollars for Dictators Act to ensure tax dollars aren't being funneled…to dictators, terrorists and other evil regimes." ~Florida Senator Rick Scott, from his e-mail newsletter.
I guess he really does believe in tax cuts.
we should form a group called the “real americans” and raise huge sums for ad campaigns throughout the free world apologizing for our country’s behavior under possession, thanking them for staying sane and free, praying we will soon rejoin them after a difficult exorcism.
https://bsky.app/profile/thomashansen.bsky.social/post/3lljncadhqs2y
Venezuela has genuinely been a pretty horrific place for people.
And now the US is like, hold my beer.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article302671624.html
ht #JeffStein
my alma mater was once as close to a utopian community of playful minds as has existed in this country.
i am so sad and ashamed by what it has become, so angry at the moral pygmies so raucously undoing it.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/29/florida-new-college-fires-chinese-professor
ht @jennycohn