Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

The revolution will be supervised.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

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Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Trump Is Objectively Pro-Criminal

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This is the guy who started the Silk Road dark website which was used the facilitate major global drug trafficking. Was serving life in prison. But when Trump wanted the Libertarian Party endorsement he promised them this. He never heard of Ulbricht. Even spelled his name wrong.

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— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) January 21, 2025 at 7:06 PM

The only thing Trump loves almost as much as money is hanging around with monsters & sociopaths. Feeling that he’s one of the Made Men is probably as close to pure excitement as the old felon is capable of reaching.

"The scum that worked to convict him," as President Trump puts it, were the FBI, federal prosecutors and the GOP-controlled Supreme Court (which denied his ultimate appeal.)

— Dan Murphy (@bungdan.bsky.social) January 21, 2025 at 7:24 PM

annnnnnnd there's the Ross Ulbricht pardon.
Even if you've got mixed feelings about Silk Road, his sentencing was based, in part, on evidence that he ordered the murder of an witness, an informant, and three others.
www.wired.com/2017/05/silk…

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— Justin Ling (@justinling.ca) January 21, 2025 at 7:34 PM

Just a cherry on the sh*t sundae of his Jan6 insurrectionist releases…

All these women who turned in January 6 terrorists are in danger tonight

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— Brandon Friedman (@brandonfriedman.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 11:55 PM

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Fund a clean information environment

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I’m probably going to write health policy pieces in the near future.  But the first thing I’ve done on Day 2/1,461 is donate to Wikimedia Foundation, the group that runs Wikipedia.

Receipt for $10.40 donation to Wikimedia Foundatio

Lots of things need to be done today, tomorrow, next month, next year, next mid term and the next four years. Maintaining our data, knowledge and memory infrastructure is part of that. A mediocre chain sub a month is a good opportunity cost to pay for that problem.

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War for Ukraine Day 1,063: Russia Hammers Kupyansk & Launches Another Drone Swarm

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A quick housekeeping note: It was another very long day today and I’ve got a very long week ahead of me. So, I’m going to keep tonight’s update, and most likely the rest of the week’s, brief/on the shorter side and just cover the basics.

All of central Ukraine is currently – 6:33 PM EST/1:33 AM local time in Ukraine –  under air raid alert for drone swarms. Which is a bit of an improvement from an hour ago when it was all of eastern and central Ukraine.

Right now in Ukraine, eight oblasts are on alert due to Russian/Iranian Shahed attack drowns buzzing about.

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— Euan MacDonald (@euanmacdonald.bsky.social) January 21, 2025 at 4:37 PM

President Zelenskyy travelled to Davos today to address the World Economic Forum. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

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Watch This and Tell Me Where He’s Wrong

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Those of you who follow me on BlueSky know that I had zero patience for the strategy of “I’ll work with Trump on things we agree on” strategy that Bernie and Ro Khanna (more from Ro but certainly Bernie did it), with, I assume, the conclusion that “*shocked face* Trump didn’t do it”. That was dumb.

But this video is 7 minutes of straightforward Democratic response to Trump’s inaugural message. It’s good, and worth watching. It also has a message of hope at the end.

AOC calls him “tio” (uncle). I have a few tios that I normally don’t listen to, but when they’re right, they’re right. Tio got it this time.

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This Ain’t Ronnie and Tip Having Drinks at the White House

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Atrios quoted this from Hamilton Nolan, and I think it’s the right attitude about the current moment:

Until they political opposition in America grasps all of this, they will continue to wake up and find that they themselves are the Greater Fools. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, mysterious about Donald Trump, his allies, or what they are going to do. They are going to try to loot this country for as much as they can grab. Those who are with them will get a pass and those who are against them will be their enemies. After they leave, we will find that our institutions are weaker, our government is half broken, our crises have compounded, our most vulnerable citizens have suffered the greatest harms. Even now, I see many people who should know better falling into the trap of telling themselves that they will be able to get on Trump’s good side, to gently cajole him into the right place on their particular issue of concern. They believe that they can take advantage of his aggressive disinterest in most things by flattering him and then steering him the right way. So the Democratic governor of New Jersey gently proclaims that he wants to work with Trump to defeat congestion pricing and the Teamsters proclaim that they want to work with Trump on a pro-worker agenda and the UAW proclaims that they want to work with Trump on good trade policy and liberal columnists proclaim that Trump has a chance to do good things in the Middle East. And on, and on, and on. The con man maintains just enough unpredictability to fill his marks with hope that this time, they will be the ones to find the ball lurking under the shell.

The problem with this impulse is that inherent in the hope of working with this guy is the accompanying understanding that you must not try as hard as you can to smash the guy at the same time. You can’t say “Donald Trump is a loathsome fascist” and then say in the next breath “We look forward to crafting a worker-friendly trade policy with you, sir.” Yet, hey, guess who the people are who, collectively, are nurturing all of these disparate hopes of winning on their pet issues? They are the opposition. We are entering an age of gangster style fascism. We are going to need all of the opposition that we can get. If most of the opposition is busy flattering itself that they can soften Trump on this or that, they are not doing their most important work: Trying to destroy his entire political project. That political project is, I remind you, one of destroying the rest of us. An opposition that can’t dedicate itself to being the opposition is a weak opposition, indeed. And Trump has always enjoyed a weak opposition.

If you think that you are a savvy politician because you got Trump on your side regarding congestion pricing and meanwhile he is stripping thousands of your citizens of their birthright citizenship, you are wrong. If you think that you are a savvy union leader because you got Trump to a little better place on trade and meanwhile he is stripping every woman in your union of her right to abortion, you are wrong. If you think that you are a savvy liberal writer because you cajoled Trump into a little better place on foreign policy and meanwhile he is telling your trans friends that the government will no longer legally recognize their identity, you are wrong. You have made a miscalculation. You have not taken in the full picture of what you are dealing with here. You have been sold a worthless little bauble in exchange for something real. You have not done the math. You are the Greater Fool.

The bad guys are in charge right now. You can’t triangulate your way out of this. All you can do is fight.

Evan Hurst at Wonkette puts a finer point on it, but gets it right, too, in his piece Elected Democrats, are You Collaborator or Are You Opposition, Make Your Choice.

I’ll call out JB Pritzker as someone who’s doing notably well in opposition.  I’ll call out the 48 Democrats in the House and 12 Democrats in the Senate who voted for the Laken Riley Act as the ones who aren’t doing as well.

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The Anti-Trans EO

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Erin Reed has an in-depth examination of Trump’s anti-trans Executive Order [gift link].  Key points:

  • The focus is mainly transgender women, and the goal is removing them from public spaces.
  • HHS has a big role in the EO.  After he outlaws vaccines, RFK Jr will probably get right on that.
  • The definition of “sex” in the order must also apply to passports and other documents.
  • The order will have an impact in places like prisons, where states like Florida already do things like forcibly shear trans women’s hair, etc.

Read the whole thing.  Lamda Legal has come out strongly against and vows to fight it in court.  (Important to note that their press release indicates that the legal action will take place after rule making in the bureaucracies, so this EO isn’t going to make a “right now” difference.)

Somewhat related, since the “way in” to the trans issue for Republicans was women’s sports, this piece relays the findings of a study in the journal Sociology of Sport.

The researchers found that respondents who viewed female athletes as less deserving of attention, support, and media coverage were more likely to oppose transgender inclusion in sports. For example, individuals who disagreed with statements like “Women’s sports deserve the same amount of media coverage as men’s sports” were significantly less likely to support transgender athletes’ rights.

The researchers also found that adherence to traditional standards of femininity—such as prioritizing thinness and attractiveness—was a strong predictor of opposition to transgender athlete inclusion. For instance, respondents who endorsed the idea that women should be thin or that women’s muscles were less attractive were less supportive of transgender athletes competing in alignment with their gender identity.

Similarly, those who agreed with statements like “Female athletes will never be as good as male athletes” were more likely to oppose allowing transgender athletes to compete according to their gender identity and to support sex testing.

This is unsurprising to me, but apparently TERFs just don’t get that the hatred focused on trans women isn’t just about them being trans, it’s about them being women.

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Another Unpopular Thing

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Another Unpopular Thing

Watergirl’s Dan Pfeiffer post picked a few of the unpopular things Trump did in a day, but there are more. As Brian Schatz points out:

In an event like an inauguration everyone is seated by rank. In this one the richest men in the world who run our information platforms were seated in front of the actual cabinet. That’s not some little curiosity – that’s the whole thing.

— Brian Schatz (@schatz.bsky.social) January 21, 2025 at 6:23 AM

Another one that Pfeiffer didn’t mention:

Trump just literally eliminated an Executive Order to reduce the price of prescription drugs. They are ripping you off, personally. They never gave a shit about the price of anything.

— Brian Schatz (@schatz.bsky.social) January 21, 2025 at 6:26 AM

There’s just so much from yesterday that Democrats have enough material for months.

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