Da Sparrow

one of the really useful takeaways from fukuyama's political order books is a clear conceptual understanding of what corruption *is* in its fundamental nature. and the answer... is patronage networks organized on personal connections! corruption is *inherent* in these discretionary systems!

😂

BREAKING: Judge Reyes has issued a preliminary injunction over the golf course and begins with this: "Rarely, if ever, has the United States Department of Justice urged a federal court not to believe the sitting President." ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show...

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

"My thoughts have often turned to the Middle East, an area which has contributed so much to the religious and cultural heritage of the world today, and whose potential for further rich contributions to civilization is great."= John F Kennedy

Armed ICE agents are moving through Puerto Rican neighborhoods with assault rifles, threatening residents who film them with pepper spray. In Villa Capri, a restaurant owner refused agents entry when they tried to enter without a warrant. Watch and share everywhere!

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.

i am in fact referring to basically this bsky.app/profile/hiki...

Did someone say impose Shania Law in Texas?

“The Department of Justice is putting its formidable thumb on next week’s elections in a way that seems clearly intended to call into question the legitimacy of any result that is especially unfavorable to Republicans—before those results have even come in.” Me on DOJ’s California and Alaska suits:

Put a monument for the people of Minneapolis for this on the National Mall when all is said and done.

I’m guessing the results from the first batch of GPUs in space are bad because instead of hearing about how wonderful orbital data centers are Elon has pivoted hard towards “only I can break regulations fast enough to build regular earth based data centers, unlike those losers at Coreweave”

I don't know that there is a definitive line to cross that makes you say, "I live in a police state now" but when masked gunmen can routinely brutalize the public, citizen or immigrant alike, with impunity, you have reached that point.

Here’s the editor of the Intercept Brazil as Lula tells the press that “something abominable is happening”

wow

JUST POSTED: A Russian energy giant has secretly moved to acquire a position in a massive Alaska gas project. Its part of talks between Witkoff/Kushner & Putin. But CEO of US company resigns after learning of Russian money in the project. A wowzer of a story. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/23/u...

Every aspect of life as a gay man is unimaginably better than it was when I was born in the mid 80s. We beat the plague that was killing us by the hundreds of thousands and then won broad social and civic equality.

The paper is immaculate. The lines are thin, the names carefully aligned. I run a finger down the chain, savoring each connection as if it were the embossing on a business card. “Look at that proximity. The sheer statistical improbability of it. I’m not saying I know Aella. That would be vulgar.”

The room is silent. I slowly place the chain of connection list on the table. “Do you like it?” I turn it around so they can see the names. “The degrees of separation are subtle. The chain is almost impossibly elegant. Notice the way the connections converge.” I pause. “It’s called networking.”

Matthew Yglesias continues to say that talking about ICE and excessive force in immigration enforcement helps Republicans. He is obviously wrong about this and refuses to acknowledge the data. Way past time for everyone to update their priors on this.

The New York Times wrote articles that were like "the impossible-to-characterize elusive politics of Elon Musk / he's lost interest in politics" right before he became *literally the largest GOP donor in history* the next election cycle. Twice. Two times!

As we approach the midterms, remember that the Alt National Park Service is a merch sales operation claiming without evidence to be a group of federal employees, and is not a genuine source of news about elections of any kind. Please get your election info from a local, reputable source.

NEW AD: Have you seen these anti-Talarico attack ads? Elon Musk paid for nearly all of them. The world's first trillionaire knows if he drags the most corrupt politician in Texas across the finish line, Ken Paxton will owe him everything. Elon Musk: Texas is not for sale.

It’s the Party of Pedos and it becomes harder to ignore every day, like Vlad’s hand pulling Trump’s strings

A lot of things lining up right now. - Potential Dem wave election. - This ad going to close race states. - Vivek's ad against Acton defusing the "trans issues won this election" claim preemptively. - Talarico not supporting a trans sports ban - Polls showing anti-trans ads backfiring Good stuff.

The ADL as an organization gets the mute button from me ever since they said Elon doing a Nazi salute at the inauguration was not antisemitic. Useless opinions from a useless organization, ignored.

gonna drop some geopolitics inside baseball: a dictator of a nuclear power is not an “uwu smol bean”

This tired, worthless old, disgusting golf course had 125,000 rounds played there in 2025. At an AFFORDABLE PRICE. WE KNOW WHAT TRUMPY WANTS TO DO. MAKE IT SO EXPENSIVE DC RESIDENTS WON'T BE ABLE TO AFFORD IT.. TRANSLATION: SO BLACK PEOPLE CAN'T AFFORD IT. He will rename it the Donny J. Trumpy.

Say what you want but the chemistry is undeniable. (📸 REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

Seems relevant to that flood of journalists who in the last few weeks announced publicly that it was okay to return to X, that the platform had gotten better, and the worst aspects of it had been minimized. This is what you have endorsed.

Ossoff: "I have no interest in running for president in 2028, and to be very frank, with just 16 days before the polls close, I want to urge everybody out there to remain focused on the task at hand. The Trump admin is out of control, they've lied us into war, they've sent prices skyrocketing ... "

An administration that views DC as its own personal playground to fuck with as desired and will continue to do so until stopped with actual legal consequences rather than stern judicial disappointment, exhibit ten billion

This is true and true in a way that "well it wasn't actually that broad a decision" misses. Trump v. US was, and has had the effect of, the Roberts Court's political endorsement of total executive lawlessness and corruption far beyond the four corners of any direct application to prosecuting Trump.

A bad update: we're getting reports of pro-No Kings creators who have been suspended today as well. And we still lack backend access to the official No Kings account. Stay tuned, will report news when I have it.

.........is knowingly selling medical devices that do not and cannot work under false pretenses a crime so vast that you have to basically indict the whole society that produced it?

“SecDef rock acted shtupidly”

holy fuck what

but also several mathematicians have stood up and said variants of "the part of math that I enjoy being paid to do for my career is no longer going to be something that people will pay me to do, because it will be available more cheaply from the bot, fuck you!" which is rent seeking