rjbennett.bsky.social

The reason we keep hearing about desperate schemes to boost Republican chances in the midterms—Announce we're buying Russian diesel! Sue to preemptively reject a Democratic victory in Alaska!—is because they don't have a secret plan that will overturn a midterm loss, not because they do.

This is Tommy. Tommy had a question about my allegiances. Listen to the end to hear about his.

You know, the thing is, I had drafted this piece a month ago, and then never published it, because I thought maybe it was too mean.

my sources are telling me that ken paxton just checked into the Ligma Center

for as long as i've been alive, republicans have ran the same playbook: a few weeks before voting begins, they roll out completely fabricated smear campaigns. these things are always coordinated, so the talking points take over the news. the party is never electorally punished for their dishonesty.

Mike Rogers is a corporate sellout who moves back to Michigan every few years to run for office to take another swing at the revolving door of corporate politics.

ok I had to force down a tear with this one reskeeting with alt text

A reminder that as you see photos of those Patriot Front douchebags today, they are marching on a holiday because none of them have anywhere else to be. None of them have friends or family who want them around on a holiday. No one is missing them today. They're already with their only friends.

There’s been a lot of talk in this race about what makes a "real man." A man does what’s right when no one is watching. He upholds his commitments to his family and neighbors. He doesn’t lie, cheat, & steal his way through life. Real men serve others. Weak men serve themselves.

[once more, for good measure] Everybody thinks when he gets rich he’ll be a different kind of rich person from the rich people he sees around him; later on he finds out there’s only one kind of rich person, and he’s it. —Thornton Wilder, The Matchmaker

"Especially over the last 15 years, the Court's corrupt majority has more & more openly adopted the stance that you have a powerful presidency for Republicans & a weak one for Dems. They won’t allow Dems to enjoy the fruits of political power when they win it, & that’s just an untenable situation."

Happy March 15. Here is my favorite Ides of March meme:

It took the White House about 8 days to get to: actually high gas prices are awesome.

There are a lot of posts out there with the close-up visual of Markwayne Mullin on January 6, but this is a better perspective. He’s not protecting others; he’s protecting himself and hiding. You can see plenty of people at the entry door, ready to take on the insurrectionists, but not Markwayne.

The president and vice president should be impeached, convicted, and removed.

bsky.app/profile/carl...

a government for, by and of degenerates

I was thinking about how blunt he is, compared to the athletes who tried to be a little more gentle and still got attacked by the president for it. Might as well say what you mean.

The conservative CA/SF haters must be seething right now. TikTok is just absolutely flooded with wide-eyed visitors stumbling around absolutely gobsmacked by how fun and nice it is vs. what they've heard for so many years. Lotta propaganda money and effort going down the drain.

I've written about the overarching post story, causes, underlying pattern. But the failure of Lewis or Bezos to even show up, literally or figuratively, on a day of devastating cuts epitomizes the profound lack of character and accountability that is so common place today within the American elite.

Ossoff: "You're seeing what I'm seeing, right? The president posting about the Obamas like a Klansman."

Pretti was not protesting, but the actual rule is "Don't bring a gun to a protest unless you're coming to shoot left wingers, then it's ok"

🤷🏼

This photo was taken in 1911 using glass plate technology by Herbert Ponting who was part of Scott's Antarctic expedition, The composition and detail are exquisite with the band of white snow/ice creating a perfect frame around the two people and the ship in the distance Iconic imo

🔥 From @statuscoupnews.bsky.social : “This is nuts. What the fuck is going on? I’ve never protested in my life… they tell you it’s immigrants — it’s fucking anybody. They’re just trying to scare people. I’m not paid to be here. I have to work in the morning. This is wrong.”

looks like donald trump used the military to do a smash and grab for his personal benefit

Having served in multiple countries run by ruthless dictators, I am accustomed to their tactics for keeping their populations under control. One of them is to employ a legion of fake opposition figures who promote the false narrative that "all parties are the same, so why bother voting?"

i firmly believe — like you would have to give me hard evidence to convince me otherwise — that they feed trump a steady diet of AI slop

they are recruiting for the worst, bottom-of-the-barrel chuds imaginable and those chuds are behaving exactly as you'd expect

one takeaway from the grok noncon porn thing is that much of the media just isn't interested in an issue they can't pretend has two sides or that doesn't give them an opportunity to shit on the left. Also it would be uncomfortable to justify remaining on twitter after acknowledging it

Major content warning for some of the commentary we found on Donahue's account. He's opposed to mixed race relationships and women voting, and he cheers on a gay bashing and makes a death threat against a drag queen. He's not a big poster, but follows exclusively far right influencers.

Thriving in independent media for 25 years, without a) getting hoovered into some larger media org & subsequently axed, b) getting ruined by some hedge fund guy, c) falling afoul of any short-lived "pivot to video" style trends, or d) going broke... ... is a genuinely remarkable achievement! Kudos.

if i were a pro-trump financial type i might view the destruction of reliable government data with the kind of anger and apprehension that might lead me to reevaluate my politics, but then if i’m a financial guy throwing my weight behind strongman rule, i’m already too stupid to breathe

for many of the worst people in our politics, the only real belief they have is that it should be illegal for us not to like them

MAGA very pragmatic and low energy all of a sudden

They launched a coup, suffered no consequences for it, won back power, and have used the power to pardon everyone involved while remaking the country through violence and intimidation. It’s just ridiculous to talk about the political violence of yelling at ICE agents within that context.

look who learned what 86 means

i just watched a clip of stephen miller talking to hannity from a few days ago and my god is that guy a stone cold freak. like, everything about him is profoundly off-putting, like a bug in an eggar suit