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John Howl Boo @jholbo.bsky.social · 1h

m.youtube.com/watch?v=4GE7...

-12 Dollar Bill

YouTube video by Raven A. Dayton

m.youtube.com

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Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 19h

By contrast, JB Pritzker told me that people should flood the No Kings protests precisely in order to let the American people know that something is deeply amiss.

More Dems should be doing this, to send the message widely that we are in real trouble right now.

newrepublic.com/article/2016...

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Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · 8h

Bari WeissBot: "The left says Trump's promise to fire only Democratic federal employees is a form of McCarthyism, but it's actually just an effort to foster greater viewpoint diversity."

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 12h

Q: How many layoffs have you authorized?

TRUMP: It'll be a lot. And it'll be Democrat-oriented.

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John Howl Boo @jholbo.bsky.social · 8h

Once again, American conservatives insist American values mandate Orwell. All men are equal but some are more equal than others.

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John Howl Boo @jholbo.bsky.social · 8h

Few points to Douthat for pushing back on what 'libertarian theocracy' means: namely, domination. But add insult to injury by calling it 'liberty'. Notable he wants it to be illegal to insult Christians - but fine for Christians to insult others. Good stuff. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/o...

"Douthat: So that’s the first purpose of your political project, for America to stop making God angry.

Wilson: Yes. And most people think that when they are confronted with that project, they think that we want to get our tentacles into everything and start controlling everything. I actually think we need limited government. The government should be significantly smaller than it is, and we need to curtail a lot of the busybodyness that we have. That’s why I would call myself a theocratic libertarian. There is a true libertarian element in this, and yet, the transcendent grounding for what we’re talking about means that we acknowledge the authority of God.

We have racked up quite a body count of awful crimes, and I believe the only way out is for us to repent and turn to Christ. This would be things like no more Pride parades, no more drag queen story hours, no more abortion on demand, no more legalized same-sex unions — all of that, done. That’s the repentance part."

"Wilson: Nineteenth-century America was a monkey house of communes and different things — that’s all true. But the 90-foot statue, those sorts of things, are taunts. It’s not, “Here’s our freedom, we’re just trying to worship in our own quiet little way.” It’s sort of, “I wonder how far we can push this before somebody says something.”

Douthat: OK. So there’s a “no taunting the Christian majority” soft policy.

Wilson: Right."

"Douthat: Well, no, no, I mean, don’t act demure. You have an entire style, and you have defended this style at length, saying basically that it is perfectly Christian to speak the language of insult, to call people — I just wrote down a few — “lumberjack dykes,” “small-breasted biddies,” “gaytards,” and then some other phrases that I’m not going to use. And that’s part of the appeal too, right?

Wilson: That is, that’s correct.

Douthat: You are, in your own distinctive way, very online and speaking some of the language of that kind of world.

Wilson: Yes. [Long pause.]

Do you want me to defend it? I’m not trying to be politically incorrect for the sake of being politically incorrect. And I’m not resorting to that kind of language — the language that you referred to — because I want to be an ecclesiastical Howard Stern or some sort of shock jock.

Douthat: That actually was in my notes. I am not joking. The Howard Stern comparison.

Wilson: Yeah. So what I’m doing when I use — I’m a wordsmith. I write a lot. I use words. And when I take certain words out with a sharp pointy edge or a blade, it’s a weapon to be used in a particular situation for a particular purpose in a particular time. It’s not for the — [gasps] — he said a naughty word. That’s not ——"

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John Howl Boo @jholbo.bsky.social · 9h

I miss the days when every billionaire was a policy failure - but not obviously a psychiatric breakdown.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 9h

My first thought was “wow I hope this guy didn’t give out his name because he could absolutely be charged” and yup, he is correct to stay anonymous.

This man’s account is shocking. His neighbors’ situation is shocking. The entire Chicago raid is shocking.

On the other side was a mom and her 7-year-old daughter, pleading for his help.
"I wasn't planning on letting her stay, but I didn't know what the hell was going on," the man said of his Venezuelan migrant neighbors. But he quickly relented. The little girl was inconsolable and hid under his bed.
"I didn't want them to take her," said the man, who didn't want to be named because he fears he'll be targeted by federal authorities for his actions.
"I gave her my bedroom, and I just told her,
'Just stay there. Don't open, don't, shh, just stay quiet," he recalled telling the mom and daughter as he choked back tears.

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John Howl Boo @jholbo.bsky.social · 9h

Big 'Rally-whose-name-cannot-be-spoken' energy.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 20h

Emmer: "This is about one thing and one thing alone -- to score political points with the terrorist wing of their party, which is set to hold a hate America rally in DC next week."

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John Howl Boo @jholbo.bsky.social · 10h

Too slow: "Gregor Samsa awoke to find himself transformed into ..."
On the go: "Here's why it matters that Gregor Samsa awoke to find himself transformed into ..."

lindsey adler @lindseyadler.bsky.social · 4d

...

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John Howl Boo @jholbo.bsky.social · 10h

"Off, worm, I'm looking for bigger stuff than you! I'm looking for Mr Mind, the most slippery customer Captain Marvel ever got after!"

John Howl Boo @jholbo.bsky.social · 10h

Normally you can reconstruct context from clips. But here? What is Thune arguing for? Saying you need to keep the filibuster seems like arguing for negotiating with D's. But then posturing as if D's are dangerous maniacs and only the filibuster is holding them at bay suggests - shutdown forever?

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 18h

Thune: "If the Democrats had won the majority, they probably would've tried to nuke the filibuster. And then you'd have four new senators from Puerto Rico and DC, you'd have a packed Supreme Court, you'd have abortion on demand ... "

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John Howl Boo @jholbo.bsky.social · 10h

This is spitting fire yet almost isn't fiery enough for factuality. Why is Trump doing this? Trump wants to punish state officials 'over a policy difference'? No. Trump has never done anything 'over a policy difference' in his Presidency. Still, great Federalist Papers quote!

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Natee (they/them) @himmapaan.bsky.social · 1d

I would have liked to have filmed the inking of this tiny wren and the shrub's very fine branches with this brush, but I needed to get especially close to the piece for this and it would have been too awkward.

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Detail from a silhouette drawing in black ink of a tiny bird perched on a small, leafless shrub. The head of a hen just makes it into the crop, opposite the bird. The drawing is very fine and intricate. The detail shown is roughly comparable in size to two postage stamps, and is photographed with a penny and the traditional Chinese brush the piece was drawn with.

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John Howl Boo @jholbo.bsky.social · 1d

When you are famous, they let you do it. Quantum fact!

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John Howl Boo @jholbo.bsky.social · 1d

Taine on the contrast between the drawing room philosophes and Rousseau! www.gutenberg.org/files/2577/2...

Away with these dikes, the work of tyranny and routine! An emancipated nature will at once resume a direct and healthy course and man, without effort, will find himself not only happy but virtuous as well.3332 On this principle the attack begins: there is none that is pushed further, nor conducted with more bitter hostility. Thus far existing institutions are described simply as oppressive and unreasonable; but now they are now they are accused of being unjust and corrupting as well. Reason and the natural desires were the only insurgents; conscience and pride are now in rebellion. With Voltaire and Montesquieu all I might hope for is that fewer evils might be anticipated. With Diderot and d'Holbach the horizon discloses only a glowing El Dorado or a comfortable Cythera. With Rousseau I behold within reach an Eden where I shall immediately recover a nobility inseparable from my happiness. It is my right; nature and Providence summon me to it; it is my heritage. One arbitrary institution alone keeps me away from it, the creator of my vices as of my misery. With what rage and fury I will overthrow this ancient barrier!—We detect this in the vehement tone, in the embittered style, and in the sombre eloquence of the new doctrine. Fun and games are no longer in vogue, a serious tone is maintained; people become exasperated, while the powerful voice now heard penetrates beyond the drawing-room, to the rude and suffering crowd to which no word had yet been spoken, whose mute resentment for the first time finds an interpreter, and whose destructive instincts are soon to be set in motion at the summons of its herald.—Rousseau is a man of the people, and not a man of high society. He feels awkward in a drawing-room.3333 He is not capable of conversing and of appearing amiable; the nice expressions only come into his head too late, on the staircase as he leaves the house; he keeps silent with a sulky air or utters stupidities, redeeming his awkwardness with the sallies of a cl…

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John Howl Boo @jholbo.bsky.social · 1d

... wholly disproportionate to the ordinary ways of society, hitting, wounding and soiling himself against every hindrance on his way;" (Of possible amusement value to @jacobtlevy.bsky.social.)

"VI. The Abolition Of Society. Rousseau.

Rousseau and the spiritualists.—The original goodness of
man.—The mistake committed by civilization.—The injustice
of property and of society.
A return to nature, meaning by this the abolition of society, is the war-cry of the whole encyclopedic battalion. The same shout is heard in another quarter, coming the battalion of Rousseau and the socialists who, in their turn, march up to the assault of the established régime. The mining and the sapping of the walls practiced by the latter seems less extensive, but are nevertheless more effective, and the destructive machinery it employs consists of a new conception of human nature. This Rousseau has drawn exclusively from the spectacle in his own heart: 3328 Rousseau, a strange, original and superior man, who, from his infancy, harbored within him a germ of insanity, and who finally became wholly insane; a wonderful, ill-balanced mind in which sensations, emotions and images are too powerful: at once blind and perspicacious, a veritable poet and a morbid poet, who, instead of things and events beheld reveries, living in a romance and dying in a nightmare of his own creation; incapable of controlling and of behaving himself, confounding resolution with action, vague desire with resolution, and the role he assumed with the character he thought he possessed; wholly disproportionate to the ordinary ways of society, hitting, wounding and soiling himself against every hindrance on his way; at times extravagant, mean and criminal, yet preserving up to the end a delicate and profound sensibility, a humanity, pity, the gift of tears, the faculty of living, the passion for justice, the sentiment of religion and of enthusiasm, like so many vigorous roots in which generous sap is always fermenting, whilst the stem and the branches prove abortive and become deformed or wither under the inclemency of the atmosphere. How explain such a contrast? How did Rousseau himself account fo…

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John Howl Boo @jholbo.bsky.social · 1d

Taine on Rousseau. "Incapable of controlling and of behaving himself, confounding resolution with action, vague desire with resolution, and the role he assumed with the character he thought he possessed; ..."

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John Howl Boo @jholbo.bsky.social · 1d

Honestly, Trump has a better claim to the Physics Nobel. He's experimentally demonstrated all sorts of quantum phenomena on a macro scale: all sorts of contradictions are true, so long as no one looks and sees what's actually going on, collapsing your superposition.

James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 1d

A columnist still at WaPo.

Headline: "Yes, Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize."

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John Howl Boo @jholbo.bsky.social · 1d

To be fair, you could say Dole got it together as late as 1996. But I defy you to find any Republican proposal post-1996. www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/st...

Statement by Senator Bob Dole on Clinton Signing Health Insurance Bill Advanced by Republicans | The American Presidency Project

www.presidency.ucsb.edu

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John Howl Boo @jholbo.bsky.social · 1d

Republicans haven't put forward a health care reform proposal since Bob Dole - 1993. But sure - two weeks. This time it's gonna happen.

Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 1d

Republicans have had 15 years to come up with an Obamacare replacement plan. They still haven’t

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Thune: "The president would like to overhaul Obamacare and give people health insurance that is higher quality and more affordable."

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 1d

Adventures in framing:

Headline presenting this as a real-world question. Rather than as another sign of deepening vortex of narcissistic delusion and detachment from reality.

Headline: Trump Has His Eyes on Nobel Prize. Will He Get It?

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Lindsay Beyerstein @beyerstein.bsky.social · 1d

Of all the clerics they could have popped, those ICE idiots had to hit Hot Priest.

Presbyterian minister David Black on CNN, who was shot with pepper balls while praying outside an ICE facility.

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Adam Gurri @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

Read @aselrod.bsky.social today on how there’s no amount of real crime fighting that will win a political battle over fake crime

Liberal Currents @liberalcurrents.com · 2d

“There is no degree of acquiescence to Trumpism that will satisfy this administration or MAGA at large. All there is is a choice between offering a faint echo of the false reality they’re selling and creating dissonance by speaking the reality of the situation to the public.”

All In Our Heads: On Losing Our Democracy and Life Beyond Our Imaginations

Our language has to meet the moment, and we have to be relentless about dispelling the fiction MAGA is selling.

www.liberalcurrents.com

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Lawprofblawg @lawprofblawg.bsky.social · 1d

Look, this isn't LEGAL scholarship.

#Satire

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Jon Seidel @jonseidel.bsky.social · 1d

U.S. District Judge April Perry says it comes down to a "credibility determination."

"I simply cannot credit [the Trump administration's] declarations to the extent they contradict state and local law enforcement. … DHS' perception of events are simply unreliable."

Jon Seidel @jonseidel.bsky.social · 1d

#BREAKING A federal judge say she will grant "in part" a request by the state of Illinois for a temporary restraining order against the deployment of National Guard troops into the state.

U.S. District Judge April Perry is still ruling and has not outlined the details of her order.

Jon Seidel @jonseidel.bsky.social · 1d

Perry: "I'm going to issue an oral ruling."

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