Yeah, but this Supreme Court doesn’t give a shit about the Constitution or consistent rulings, only partisan bullshit. Citizens United ruled that money is free speech, but they refused to rule on an anti-BDS law because they would have either had to rule against their ideology or explain how withholding money is not free speech.

If a lower court rules in favor of the bill, they’ll decline to hear the case. If a lower court rules against it, I bet they’ll make up some bullshit about how the first amendment applies to journalism and public speech, but not private companies providing a service, even if that service is speech. They’re barely even trying to pretend that they’re not a partisan institution anymore.

Here’s the thing that’s really pissing me off; I already know the ending. Back when this movie would, “never see the light of day,” someone (the director I think, or maybe one of the leads) did an interview explaining how the movie was going to end. It sounded hilarious, but now that I know what the bit is, it’s going to be significantly less funny.

The most disturbing thing about this is that it implies that Donald’s lower half is not made up of feathers, as one would assume, but sort of garment that covers his genitals. What other parts of Donald are not actually his body? Is he even an actual duck, or some sort of creature in a duck suit?

Well, there’s the third celebrity death.

I just can’t see a world where that isn’t immediate political suicide for everyone involved. Short of a judge ordering her release, I don’t think she’s going anywhere.

By the numbers, probably Mississippi. Lowest life expectancy, highest infant mortality rate, second highest poverty rate…being ranked 39th in education actually seems to be a bright spot for them.

Maybe? Seems like it would be easier to do it when she’s locked up in a a place full of criminals and murders. Plus, they got Epstien in prison, right? …haha, just kidding, it was a suicide…maybe.

First of all, good to know someone’s finally gotten in touch with Chuck Schumer. When you don’t hear from someone of his age for this long, you start to worrry.

Second of all, what the hell is he talking about? He’s 100% right to call this an, “Epstien Recess,” that’s accurate and good branding, but why would he be pardoning Maxwell? What would the motive be? “She might talk, so I’m going to pardon her as a bribe, even though that would be incredibly suspicious and unpopular with literally everyone. Also, it wouldn’t guarantee she would never talk, and would make it much harder to silence her later.” Doesn’t seem like a great idea, but maybe I’m missing something.

So, this is a dumb explanation. It’s like saying you would never support giving a knight a sword, just armor and a sheild. The armor and sheild are what let’s him mow down peasants on the battlefield with impunity, you can’t separate them out.

That being said, this is getting fucking ridiculous. The amendment was never going to pass (it got 6 votes), so this was entirely symbolic. Beyond that, she voted against the defense spending bill it was attached to, so in end, she didn’t support arms to anyone. She’s also one of the strongest voices on Gaza in congress (an admittedly low bar); she’s been voting against sending arms to Israel since before October 7th, she usually votes, “present,” on Iron Dome funding, and she’s called what’s happening in Gaza a genocide on the House floor. I can count on one hand the number of U.S. politicians willing to say, “genocide,” when talking about Israel. Behind Omar and Talib, she’s probably the most reliable pro-Palestinian Representative.

I’m assuming that she had some reason for voting against the amendment, and I assume it has to do with optics. Maybe she she thought siding with MTG would hurt her, maybe she thought voting against the Iron Dome would make her vulnerable to AIPAC attacks. It sucks, but Bowman and Bush both lost their seats to AIPAC money. The reality is you have to play politics sometimes, and if that means not making a symbolic vote for a doomed amendment, that’s not the worst compromise to make.

I’m sure he’s in hell now, having a blast.

That’s certainly how I feel about Parachutes. Solid little album, even if it’s not reinventing the wheel. I feel more mixed about A Rush of Blood to the Head. Some of their best tracks are on that album (The Scientist may be their best song), but a lot of it is forgettable, and Clocks just sucks, don’t know how that became a big single. I thought X&Y was pretty meh, and then I stopped listening.

I don’t know, maybe? When I was in high school the girls were all listening to emo. Once pop-punk went out of style (pretty much the minute Sk8ter Boi was released), most of the girls I knew pivoted towards Death Cab for Cutie or Dashboard Confessional. I was having a sad-boy period and other sad-boys I knew got me into Radiohead, Interpol, Coldplay (again, those first two albums), the Shins, and the Strokes.

I got the impression they were more of what bro-dudes listened to when they were sad rather than what sad-boys were listening to, but only exposure to them was Chasing Cars. They seemed closer to The All-American Rejects than, say, The Shins or Interpol or any of the other shit I was listening to when I was my most insufferable teenage self.

20 years ago they were what teenage sad-boys were listening to when they got bored of Radiohead and The Postal Service (and I mean that in the nicest way possible). Then after X&Y they kinda became electronic/synthpop for the clinically depressed.

Cut Coldplay some slack, this was the funniest thing that’s happened in a while. Plus, Parachutes is…fine…A Rush of Blood to the Head has a couple of good tracks. Everything after that is pretty trash, but those first two albums were good to mid.

The party is supporting him for fucks sake…

It’s good to see that Ken Martin isn’t attacking Mamdani, but Schumer and Jefferies are refusing to endorse him. You can’t say the party is supporting Mamdani when its two highest ranking members, both representatives from Mamdani’s city, are withholding their endorsement.

Stop treating random shitty neoliberals as “the party” when their wing was just kicked out of the DNC.

The people you want to “punish” were voted out of leadership in the last DNC election, by the voting members of the DNC…

I’m really struggling to understand why you believe this. The party just kicked Davie Hogg out of leadership for threatening entrenched power, and Ken Martin isn’t exactly fighting the neoliberal wing of the party either. One of the main differences between him and Ben Wikler, his main opponent for DNC chair, is that Martin wanted to continue taking money from, “good billionaires.” Even in the interview you shared, Martin goes out of his way to defend centrist and even conservative Democrats:

You win by bringing people into your coalition. We have conservative Democrats. We have centrist Democrats. We have labor progressives like me, and we have this new brand of Democrat, which is the leftist.

The neoliberal wing of the party is on the back foot right now, but they haven’t been kicked out. Many of them are trying to stage a comeback with Project 2029 and the Abundance Agenda, and plenty voting DNC members will support them. The fight for control of the party isn’t over; it’s barely started.

First, Bill Clinton is almost certainly all over them, and older Democrats still think of the Clintons as the epitome of Democratic success. Some of the old guard is still trying to push focus away from the Epstien files. Just two days ago, Nancy Pelosi was calling the Epstien files a distraction, which is a bat-shit crazy thing to say about evidence that could prove that your opponent was involved in a pedophile ring.

Second, Epstien probably has some sort of ties to the intelligence community. I don’t know that I believe all these stories about him being a secret Mossad asset, but I think its very possible that the someone in the CIA was using him. Alex Acosta, who prosecuted Epstien in 2008, claimed that he was told to back off because he, “belonged to intelligence,” and they’re clearly withholding a lot of information, there’s definitely something they don’t want people to know. Anyway, since 9/11, the Democrats and Republicans have had basically the same position on the intelligence community (essentially, abject deference), so if the CIA says that it would be a national security risk to release the files, the Democrats aren’t going to release the files.

Jefferies should be more concerned about getting Mamdani’s endorsement. He’s underwater on his polling and Mamdani won his district.

What she actually said, for anyone who cares:

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s amendment does nothing to cut off offensive aid to Israel nor end the flow of US munitions being used in Gaza. Of course I voted against it. What it does do is cut off defensive Iron Dome capacities while allowing the actual bombs killing Palestinians to continue.

I have long stated that I do not believe that adding to the death count of innocent victims to this war is constructive to its end. That is a simple and clear difference of opinion that has long been established.

I remain focused on cutting the flow of US munitions that are being used to perpetuate the genocide in Gaza.

For the record, I think this is a shitty explanation. The Iron Dome permits Israel to commit it’s genocide with impunity and act as a belligerent in the region. I get the attempt to differentiate between defensive support and offensive support, but cutting of arms for the Iron Dome would be the fastest way to curb Israeli aggression. But this statement in no way, “clarifies that she supports genocide.”

Yeah, and my point is that’s a stupid fucking point. Sexual assault charges are notoriously difficult to get convictions on, even when they’re not against wealthy, powerful celebrities. 15 young men accused Spacey, and he was aquitted of assaulting less than half of them in the London trial. 25 women accused Trump, none of them even got a criminal trail, and only one of them was able to get a civil verdict in her favor. You’re comparing two men who were both accused by dozens of people of sexual assault and both faced almost no consequences under the justice system, and then saying, “tHeSe ArE tHe oPpOsItE, dOuBlE sTaNdArD mUcH???”