Old Hound

The GOP cares only about its own power and wealth transfers to its rich donor base. It has no principles; it serves no one but its own members.

Oh how terrible for him and his campaign. Thoughts and prayers for Vivek. Story: buff.ly/suif1av

live in 25 minutes!

Pro-Lula Brazilians doing en masse digital organizing against the platforms is interesting. Basically took website/influencer growth hacking techniques—eg everyone go like/comment/share this, get the algorithm to pick it up—and applied them to electoral politics at a grand scale. Thread:

This is such a brutal review: "Of all the books I have ever reviewed that purported to offer a serious thesis, this is without question the most deranged. If you are seeking a Christmas present for someone you really don’t like, give them a copy." www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fi...

Yes! Put all the enablers on notice. They are not somehow immune from accountability.

And finally keeping at it, year-in, year-out demands not ironic detachment but sincere, even 'cringe,' commitment - of the kind that feels like vulnerability. It is not enough to be angry all the time, you must also be grieved and sorrowful and even sometimes joyous too.

It is, fundamentally, an exercise of choosing the lesser evil, over and over and over again, so that the total amount of evil in the system decreases over time. And you must keep doing it, because - since evil is easy - good is easily reversed.

Actually, positive change is slow, difficult and incremental by nature. Destroying is fast, building is slow. It is easy to bring misery to people - any idiot can do it, as Trump shows - but very hard to improve their conditions. Building a better society is slow, careful, patient work.

It turns out that choosing the lesser of two evils is, in fact, a moral imperative. And some folks want to wait for the Revolutionary Perfect, but I would equally challenge them to demonstrate a single time where a 'start from nothing, year-0' revolution has turned out well for most people.

I do not claim that you can pour everything into the gap between Trump on the one hand and Biden/Harris on the other, but into that chasm nevertheless fit a great many lives lost or ruined. It turns out there really was a difference!

Under President Harris, we wouldn't have betrayed Ukraine. President Harris would not have driven up the prices of everyday goods with idiot tariffs. Under President Harris, HHS would not be run by anti-vaxxers and we probably wouldn't have a building measles problem.

Yes and also this sort of 'uniparty' nonsense feels so hollow deployed in the midst of a national stove-touching. It turns out the difference between a 'milquetoast corporate Democrat' and Trump was really big! President Harris would not be driving trans soldiers out of the military!

President Harris would probably not be at war with Iran. She certainly wouldn't have regime-changed Venezuela. Under President Harris, the USA wouldn't send anyone to CECOT. Under President Harris, Alex Pretti and Renee Good would not have been shot by DHS thugs.

Read this. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/18/o...

In a MAGA cohort of disgusting human beings, Vivek Ramaswamy is one of the worst. His campaign attack ad against his Democratic opponent for Governor Dr Amy Acton featured her estranged mother calling her a liar. Estranged because she lost custody when Acton was raped as a child by her stepfather.

JD is a scumbag.

Vance says "we are not going to attack someone based on anonymously sourced story" - man, you said Haitians were eating pets based on nothing. A big problem for the Trump administration is that there are no clean hands. At this point, everyone looks corrupt or a hypocrite. bsky.app/profile/atru...

A polling firm got caught faking data. They said it was not faked, or ok, it was faked, but it was all part of some broader social experiment. Two things about academic experiments: a) you get ethical approval to minimize harms - which were real (thread). b) you pre-register expectations. Did they?

We've had transcripts of Thiel's secret lectures on the Antichrist for a minute -- he's been publishing relevant parts of them, so we had David Gibson, director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, pull them apart for us. Gift link! www.theverge.com/tech/1014252...

Canada is worth fighting for. Polls are open in Alberta from 9am until 8pm. Visit elections.ab.ca for information on how to vote. Vote today. Vote for Canada.

finally going to watch "MUSK" with my friends in the theater tonight, more than three years after getting my first call from Alex Gibney, and I have to say: the last 24 hours of news (especially the "flying roadster" spectacle and Ukraine Starlink backstab) are the perfect context for this film

Trump: "Zelenskyy is not a good guy for us to deal with ... I'm not a big fan of Zelenskyy. They've destroyed that country." (Note that Trump also blames Obama for the war, but never Putin!)

a group of Katie Zacharias is called an Ivankae

This is disgusting, but not unexpected. The Trump administration is putting their thumb on the scales for Putin, despite the fact that it’s Russia violating the energy ceasefire. 

whenever you saw Helen Branswell’s name you knew it was going to be right and there was an excellent chance it was going to be insightful. RIP.

Excerpts from Michael Lewis on DOGE (Guardian article). 1. Gavin Kliger, white nationalist, refused to shake hands with the Black IRS staffer who briefed him on privacy issues. Or pay attention. Kliger now has a defense start-up valued at 1.4B thanks to DOGE. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Ossoff: "We will repeal the tariffs, which will reduce grocery prices. We will end this disastrous war which has driven diesel to $6. And we will repeal the healthcare cuts that have doubled premiums for more than a million Georgians. Those are things we can and need to do immediately."

Ruhle: "Wow. I want to just read this to you. A quote from a White House official reaction to Zacharia's first press briefing. 'Getting behind the podium is tough, but she got off on the wrong foot. She needs to get much better fast, otherwise she'll break Scaramucci's record.'"

Every day is a good day to be thankful for Canada's federal political financing limits.

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STAR WARS​​: Galactic Racer (Cloud Gaming) is Free For Amazon Prime Members via Luna. https://ow.ly/fwnh50ZUSq6

OOPSIE Legal risks pile up for Altman as OpenAI uncovers dozens of hacks - www.ft.com/content/2c24...

Every time @carrietait.bsky.social goes quiet for a whole, you know she is working on something big. Here it is www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...

It's hard to fathom that, let alone be OK with the fact that, the six people who allowed tonight to happen will start hearing cases next week, the outcome of which will affect us all.

Here is @tennesseelookout.com's report: tennesseelookout.com/2026/09/30/u...

Jesus Christ dude

Canadians from coast to coast -- and even on the prairies -- are united in their desire to fight back against the United States and defend their sovereignty. So why do some members of the business community seem so determined to surrender? #cdnpoli www.nationalobserver.com/2026/09/22/o...

Republicans who criticize Trump’s policies but voted to fund them are still complicit. Video: buff.ly/LvqbIlD

i thought this was very funny

Basically, my position is that I'm willing to eat a salad instead of a steak because I'm a team player but I'm not willing to eat a shit sandwich instead of a salad because I expect my teammates to be team players.

Universal took one look at Ed Sheeran and decided to just show the damn movie!