Wonk_arama

My brain is a committee; 3 are playing on their phones, one is arguing with a plastic plant & the rest have gone off in search of biscuits.

And wearing an onion on the belt … as was the style at the time

Justice Elena Kagan has sharply criticized the Supreme Court's conservative majority — saying it undermined democracy in a series of rulings, including several that prompted the wave of gerrymandering. "[T]he court has blinded itself to the very deleterious effects of their rulings."

Much of the intl reporting on the French protests has been doing my head in. Especially the Australian tendency to miss the point. So I was glad to write about what I saw firsthand at Place de la République last weekend. And have my photo published, too. www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/2026/10...

the routine, pay for play pardons are all by themselves one of the worst corruption scandals in american history!

The most remarkable thing is that Jan Crawford, chief legal correspondent for CBS News, thought that El-Sayed explaining the importance of freedom of religion in the Constitution *proved Tommy's point*, which was that El-Sayed is a terrorist sympathizer. Because he believes in THE CONSTITUTION

Weaponised shamelessness

Big deal. Lada Rivas have been doing this for years. In Soviet Russia car flip you.

Not me and not a firing but the shortest tenure I ever saw was the guy who quit a project before his ‘welcome to the team’ morning tea on his first day. Basically 90minutes and he noped out of there. 20 years later and I still say to new colleagues on their 2nd day “happy to see that you came back”

Oooh no Tommy died on CNN.

Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed delivering a master-class in rebutting a bad faith (pardon the pun) argument.

This piece is in relation to the challenges to birthright citizenship but this quote lays bare the stark reality facing the US - ‘constitutions are not self-enforcing, and rules constrain only those who acquiesce to being constrained’

The US is irretrievably broken.

Excellent piece by @jamellebouie.net

My latest @newscientist.com cartoon

for reference, in the Dobbs opinion, Alito was like, women generally don't _plan_ to get an abortion, so how could they have a reliance interest in abortion? which is kind of an extension of 'you want health insurance? what, you plan on being sick?'

Before we men start pontificating in public on the Cornel 7 or SA against women in general, we’d do well to remember we’re almost guaranteed to be in the earshot of at least one SA survivor.

Peter Capaldi - what an effortlessly cool dude.

Pete is lost in terms of modern war. I use the example of this outgunned Ukrainian army officer who successfully terrorized a Russian unit for weeks because she "did the math." At the time, someone commented, "yeah, in combat, 'I did the math' beats 'I can do 100 pushups' every time."

Well if the Vance 2028 team is looking for a potential running mate with good name recognition, I think it’s safe to say Sen Eric Schmitt has that now.

“Yeah, we gotcha …” except wrong team, wrong State. Be clowned themselves.

The ‘oh shit’ moment caught live on camera. They came for Jack Smith with conspiracy allegation, followed up by one for perjury … and missed by about 650 miles.

Susan Collins is always horrified by the predictable results of her own vote, which means Mainers who genuinely care about Susan Collins should elect Troy Jackson as he won’t vote for things that wind up upsetting Susan Collins, unlike Susan Collins

I think this shows how monumentally stupid JD Vance is, that he walked right into that. Anyone with any clue could have seen that set-up a mile away.

Everyone hates *surveillance* cameras’. It doesn’t matter what wearable you hide them in. And marketing them to kids is even more creepy than before.

This is like accusing someone of robbing a bank because they deposited money and never withdrew it

This is real supervillain stuff.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson swinging for the fences and for posterity. History is not going to be kind to the Roberts Court with its use of the emergency docket coming in for particular scorn and Justice Jackson wants to be both on the ‘right side’ and on the record.

Amnesty International calls for ICE to be abolished

They’re not bringing the best people. The point of paying for *any* insurance is if you end up needing it, the cover is there. The point of Obamacare was to make health insurance more affordable for more Americans.

Child: This is my first time meeting a mayor. Mamdani: Wow, have you ever met a prime minister? Child: No Norway PM Jonas Gahr Støre: *walks over*

I wonder who drew the short straw or have the White House advisors collectively agreed to just not tell him?

Okay, this got me.

Surely, as more Democrat’s vote by mail than Republicans ‘apparent outcome’ is really ‘preferred outcome’

It’s often said news outlets don’t take a harder stance on the Trump administration because they don’t want to risk losing access. What will CNN, MS Now and Politico and others, and there will be others, do if that access is arbitrarily taken from them? This is a moment, what will they do with it?

You have to wonder of much of this is an actual ‘cash for pardons’ working with the Trump administration and how much is a con where money is sought on a promise but with no connection to the administration and failure being written off as Trump being fickle? Seems like an easy con to run.

Dear companies that advertise on Streaming Services that I pay a subscription for. I shall never, ever buy a single thing you try and sell me. Ever.

Every night I go to bed thinking I have seen the dumbest shit I’ll ever see in my life and every morning I am wrong before I’ve even finished my coffee

Interesting summary of recent events. The US - history’s first irrelevant superpower? The US is still a significant economic, political, and military powerhouse but if old alliances are unraveling and influence is fading where to next?

thank you the new yorker and françoise for having me do this cover for the late, great dolly parton

Terribly sad news for her family, friends and those who loved her, but what a life well lived. Vale Dolly.

One of the Trump legacies is going to be motivating Canada into forging closer economic and other ties with the EU at the expense of longstanding ties with the US. Real nose to spite face stuff.

Claude Monet by Thomas Bossard

So when on the night of 3 Nov Trump says “Stop the count” or begins railing against mail-in voting, journalists at the press conference better ask how he voted and if he again voted by mail, whether he thinks his mail-in vote shouldn’t be counted.

Incredible @angieforfl.bsky.social Nixon pic 🔥

When this gets to court—and it will- it’s going to be entertaining seeing how the government defends as neutral and not viewpoint based. U.S. Investigated Left-Leaning Groups During Minnesota Immigration Crackdown www.nytimes.com/2026/08/13/u...