Ben Stephens

So the basic thesis of this book is— CURRENTLY the #7 dating book on Amazon — seems to be “To be a boss bitch, simply shrink yourself into a corncob, extinguish all your needs, jettison your communication skills, and see if maybe you can use ego-stroking to trick your man into doing the laundry.”

Listening to @mrjamesob.bsky.social talking about the attacks on the RNLI — if you stood in the midst of this mob and started loudly singing 🎵 “RULE BRITANNIA…” they would all instinctively join in with a full-throated “…BRITANNIA RULES THE WAVES” with absolutely zero sense of irony.

The average Brit will earn around £500,000 total over the course of their working life. Nigel Farage was handed 10x that sum (£5m) in a single payment from a Thailand-based crypto baron, and seems to feel it is the height of rudeness for any of us to ask about it. @mrjamesob.bsky.social

Actual footage of @mrjamesob.bsky.social returning to work after a week off.

@mrjamesob.bsky.social your list of dumb slogans (Brexit Means Brexit, etc) needs to be titled “Thought-Terminating Clichés” as that is what they are. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought...

Listening to @mrjamesob.bsky.social describe the psyche of Donald Trump makes me think of the Buddhist concept of the Hungry Ghost — creatures with endless insatiable wants, cravings of hunger that can never be satisfied. (Coincidentally, depicted in art with huge empty stomachs and tiny mouths.)

Looking at the 2024 crime figures, it's absolutely insane how Trump, tech billionaires, and centrist pundits fooled everyone into thinking Biden had turned the U.S. into some Hobbesian hellscape. 50-year lows for violent crime, armed robbery, property crime. Second-lowest homicide rate.

As always, America is just tossing a grenade into a car parts store and hoping the blast somehow builds a working car.

The intention of policies like this proposal is to introduce so much friction, so much pain, so much discomfort and humiliation, that a child desists rather than continue to assert their true identity. It is nothing less than conversion therapy being written into school policy.

THE 25 BEST FILMS OF 2025 A Video Countdown vimeo.com/1156345183

“I moved on her like a bitch.”

A number of beauty pageant contestants of yesteryear are very familiar with this exact approach.

I admire Walz as a person and sympathize with his plight, but it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that by stepping down he is showing bullies that bullying works. So…expect more of this.

This shit is made up, actually

This is genuinely horrifying. Fact-free far-right agitprop given accolades by credible media across the political spectrum.

Hearing it afresh in this episode, can we all just pause and reflect on how FUCKING DERANGED it is that the richest man in the world routinely and casually describes opposition to fascism and bigotry as a “MIND VIRUS” that has to be eradicated? Like, that is some scary shit.

It was never about "free speech", it was always about controlling who got to speak and about what. They didn't like that the academy (for all it's failings) was teaching critical thinking or holding up a mirror to evaluate history through a critical lens.

I needed someone to see this and the first person i thought of was @michaelhobbes.bsky.social (Liz Truss has pivoted to video. And it’s going great.)

Walter Isaacson to Elon Musk: (@ifbookspod.bsky.social)

As Donald Trump’s father Fred’s dementia worsened, his family still let him pretend he was in charge of his real estate empire — coming into the office every day, shuffling around empty papers, his phone disconnected from the outside world. I think about that a lot lately.

Focusing on a single incident makes it resonate with the public more. It doesn't somehow justify the other killings, it illustrates the larger problem. The right is good at this, sometimes in bad faith. For example, Laken Riley. Basically "one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."

I want him dragged screaming out of that Oval Office like William H. Macy out of the motel room at the end of Fargo.

I think whenever and however he is finally booted from office, we should leave the ruins exactly as they are. I picture a partially wrecked White House standing for all time, its remains stamped with his gaudy Vegas aesthetic, as a reminder of what we allowed to happen. Of what we did to ourselves.

I wish there were a single cell in my body that believed there would be any meaningful consequences for this.

@mrjamesob.bsky.social on @lbc.co.uk talking about the UK “The people in charge of the discourse are no longer the same people who are in charge of the government, which is why the media is at last attacking the government – something they never did when the truly horrible things were happening.”

The Myth of a Rightward Realignment   Let’s discard some stubborn misconceptions about Trump’s support and what happened in the 2024 election. They are only obscuring our understanding of a profound de-alignment. As the piece is partially behind a paywall, I’ll share some key thoughts: 🧵

Why POC collectively hold our breath when there’s a mass shooting or high profile crime before the suspect is even identified: • Afghan man shoots a National Guard member: With zero knowledge of the background or motive, the right screams that Muslims are terrorists and must be deported. 🧵

Oh hell no.

You don’t have to pick a side. Sometimes a situation has two assholes in it.

Probably best not to get your hopes up for an upset in Tennessee, but a Trump +22 district going to this close in just a year probably has Republicans looking at the midterms like a potentially extinction-level event

He’s already suing them for a billion dollars or whatever. Might as well double down at this point.

If only someone had taken the time to remind the members of the military that they are obligated not to follow an illegal order.

There’s a reason Green Room is set in Oregon.

One of my favorite festive tweets.

If you slow down the playback you can pinpoint the exact moment at which Peter becomes The Joker.

One fascinating and yet expected thing is that none of the big foreign accounts pretending to be American are left of center, or even anti-Trump. Not a single one. Says something about the economics and geopolitics of political grifting

No shit.

The fact that the entire US elite class clutched onto this book as a source of deep insight tells you all you need to know about the people running this shitshow.

The toilet of a busy train station in central Kyoto. Also, a snowbound cabin in Big Bear, California.

BREAKING: Federal judge rejects DOJ's effort to subpoena the names and medical records of children who have received gender-affirming medical care from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Someday you, too, could have the moral fortitude to look upon a years-long rape circus organized by the nation's most powerful elites and declare, "The people upset about this are speaking about it the wrong way."

“When the president does it, it’s not illegal.” - R. Nixon