JD

If you are too young to really remember the Obama years, conservatives were like this every single day. He really did just break their brains.

Since we're on a political high, let me add: doomer mentality is what makes far right movements thrive. Our turn around in Brasil was largely in part to keeping a positive mentality and refusing to see everything as hopeless. Killing cynicism in you kills fertile ground for fascism.

Obama’s Cheesecake Factory decor joke is going to continue to get far more play in the media, days after it happened, than RFK Jr being openly racist. Draw your own conclusions about the press based on that.

Extremely funny to go "I can't believe the Poles didn't insitute reforms that would have upset Moscow" with a header image of What Happens When You Upset Moscow

Some context around this, from a markets person. Historically in LatAm, leftist victories have led to sharp losses over the ~3 months after an election where the left wins. Stocks also typically underperformed into those victories. But 3y post-election, returns for leftists have been *higher*.

Yeah TBH I think the left needs to crush John Samuelson's mob as a lesson for what happens to chud unions that defect.

Kavanaugh stops in action: ICE tackled a non-verbal kid near his school, left him with injuries requiring surgery, and then left the scene when they realized he wasn't the person they were looking for www.independent.com/2026/10/23/i...

Abusing power and distorting DOJ to manufacture charges against a non-criminal because said true things the president doesn’t like = BAD Using up more of the regime’s limited prosecutorial resources on yet another likely-to-fail effort going after someone who has resources to fight back = GOOD

In fact I will say the Earnest and Pious Charismatic Ethnic Minority political figure (AOC, Mamdani, El-Sayed) has been a pretty good bet for the American left so far, whereas the Disaffected Gruff White Guy Showcasing True Masculinity (Fetterman, Platner) has been a worse bet. Just an observation.

You know baseball isn’t rigged because this has been a surprisingly anti climactic series for a team that has never won the World Series. Like they’re just straightforwardly very good.

Why would Cornel West, a man who serves on the board of a far right education group with Christopher Rufo, do this?

*BOLSONARO: FEDERAL POLICE REQUESTED I GIVE THEM MY PASSPORT

The “something” in question was the workers themselves deciding by 1966 that they no longer wanted New Dealer welfare capitalism if it meant black Americans would benefit from it while anti-war protesters were free to burn the flag

cursed era

this might rank as one of the most important outcomes of the night if it happens. would give dems the ability to begin to make north carolina a democracy

I also think it is important here to distinguish between a sports-esque 'rooting interest' and a recognition that populist authoritarian leaders and movements tend to understand themselves as allies of each other. Orban and Putin spent a lot of money promoting authoritarianism abroad.

I think this is broadly correct but it’s a symptom not a cause- the reason I’m deeply invested in the democratic choices of e.g. Brazil is that there’s a really big difference between Lula and Bolsonaro! a characteristic of democracy is that it allows for very frequent big direction changes

I got to know Walter Koenig through our connections to BABYLON 5, but grew up watching him on STAR TREK, as so many of us did. Got to know him in later years well enough to ask him for an interview for my documentary BACKYARD BLOCKBUSTERS, which he graciously did. Be seeing you, my friend.

"libertarian candidate for state senate in north carolina is currently in a shootout with the cops and live-tweeting his planned suicide", while not exactly surprising, is still a weird thing to read

Republican Shellie Flockhart, who called Iowa Democratic House candidate Sarah Trone Garriott "dangerous" for kids, actually pleaded guilty to endangering kids herself after authorities said she drove drunk with her children in the car in 2017.

looked at in longer perspective, it's striking how much this resembles the premodern system of exclusion, rents, and personalist connections, which was--and this part's important--radically worse than the modern system of impersonal rules and general taxation

This, but also, as a liberal I believe in freedom and human rights for all people, all around the world. That translates into rooting interests in elections where freedoms and rights are on the ballot, as they often are.

Median rent as a share of median income of renter households in major U.S. metros, 2010 vs. 2024. Minneapolis is lowest on the list, at 29%, down from 30.4% in 2010. www.artio.so/dataviz/page...

This is one good example of how appropriations hardball can work if you're willing to not blink first. Another: take your pick for demands and restrictions on funding Executive Office of the President. Yes, literally defund the White House. EOP is the central hub of the assault on the Constitution.

“I have absolutely no regard for the immediate interests of the workers because I happen to know better than you and them both, due to my superior education.” it’s weird finding 2011 Reddit /r/atheism in the wild still

My heart is heavy. Walter Koenig, our Ensign Pavel Chekov, passed away early today. Walter and I met on the bridge of the Enterprise in the 1960s, and we stayed friends for nearly six decades. When Brad and I married in 2008, Walter stood beside us as our best man.

Hungary's recent election was less free and more unfair than the upcoming US midterms, and pro-democracy forces still won. Similar point about Serbia's election this weekend. In normal democracy terms, America is in bad shape. But in consolidated authoritarianism terms, we're looking pretty good.

My pal Danielle Koenig shared that her father Walter Koenig passed away last night at age 90. A performer whose kindness and warmth shone through the screen. He will be well remembered.

Over 2,000 alumni from Vivek’s all-boys catholic high school in Cincinnati have signed and circulated a petition demanding that he pull the ad and issue a public apology for “ignoring the moral responsibilities” of his Jesuit education. I think he’s pretty cooked.

The unit economics here are frankly shocking they're so good. This is wildly stronger than I expected tbh.

AK's had more notice but CA is more worrying. Equally insane and delusional as litigation, but CA tells us something: It doesn't have any close races so it's not about flipping a seat or two. There's only one reason to target CA: it has enough House seats to cover the margin of any Dem majority.

Everyone thought Lula was cooked, hopeless. Then he bought a phone and started posting and now he's gonna get a 4th term. The lesson is to never stop posting.

Why haven’t I done a very deep dive into recent American foreign policy moves? For the same reason I don’t like slasher films. danieldrezner.substack.com/p/american-f...

In retrospect, prohibition worked perfectly. We needed shock therapy to get truly staggering levels of alcoholism under control. After a few years we opened things back up, but the fever had broken.

a fascinating thread for constitutional design sickos about how a parliamentary democracy degenerated into personalism, semipresidentialism, and "mood parties"

Solar has overtaken nuclear. A decade ago it supplied 1% of the world's power. In 2025 it met three quarters of global demand growth. Almost nobody saw it coming. I spoke to Jocelyn Timperley at BBC Future about why. www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

lol reminder that betting markets are extremely accurate measures of conventional wisdom

I have put a LOT of my personal points in Avoiding Advertising, and it is always so jarring when I see people like...use YouTube raw. I don't even use the YouTube app on my phone/tablet because Safari gives you SponsorBlock

Not only an incredible talent, but a rare talent who also thought it was funny to just voice random memes every once in a while

This drives me CRAZY. I grew up playing sports w/ boys. I played on a U12 boys select soccer team, b4 switching to a U12 girls team that kept beating us. Nobody had any issue with any of it. Youth sports have never had the strict sex/gender boundaries that “XX-XY” activists are now trying to defend.

Brazil’s results tonight are a big endorsement for the idea that every country should have a second “are you you sure about that” election a couple weeks after the first one for the important stuff

My immediate concern here is that the Trump administration will back this likely effort to attempt a coup, rhetorically if not materially. It would hardly be the first shameful thing the United States has down to our neighbors to the south, but it would be a very shameful thing indeed.

let's fucking go

Brazil going the way of South Korea. Basically around the world women are desperately trying to keep power out of the hands of incredibly stupid fascistic grifters while men keep trying to hand it over. Men are an embarrassing cringe gender.

Lula Goes HARD

between serbia, brazil, and hopefully november 3, a good reminder: voting works it’s not the end, there’s always work to be done after the vote, but if you want to beat the motherfuckers and keep them out of power: vote your asses off