Jo_clever_ke
@insidejoke.bsky.social
I'm not sure from the article if there is any actual evidence proving this happens other than the word of two lying conman. For all I know they made this up whole cloth with the hope that someone rich and stupid would read in the WSJ and assume they're legit.
GOP operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, convicted election fraudsters, were paid $960,000 in the second quarter to secure a pardon for a former nursing-home operator who defrauded the government of $38 million. Trump pardoned the man, Joseph Schwartz, last month.
Inside the New Fast Track to a Presidential Pardon
Even some of the president’s closest advisers have been surprised by a number of the recent series of pardons.
www.wsj.com
December 26, 2025 at 12:27 AM
I'm not sure from the article if there is any actual evidence proving this happens other than the word of two lying conman. For all I know they made this up whole cloth with the hope that someone rich and stupid would read in the WSJ and assume they're legit.
The thing I thought about recently, which was in retrospect very ominous: As a kid I remember people claiming seatbelts did more harm than good based on this elaborate scenario where you’d get stuck in a burning car with a seatbelt that refuses to unlatch. Same backwards logic as antivax.
I think one of the defining things about our era and about conservativism, is an inability to distinguish between like, the actual government, and mid-level marketing managers at Target (who choose "happy holidays" to avoid leaving out non-Christian customers)
In retrospect the Bush-era War On Christmas stuff seems more ominous than it did at the time. It was just cable news guys crying about dumb/fake shit, then and now; I mean the campaign to turn Christmas, which most everyone likes and feels warmly about, into just another thing to get mad about.
December 25, 2025 at 10:32 PM
The thing I thought about recently, which was in retrospect very ominous: As a kid I remember people claiming seatbelts did more harm than good based on this elaborate scenario where you’d get stuck in a burning car with a seatbelt that refuses to unlatch. Same backwards logic as antivax.
These people do a really bad job at defending Weiss. It usually is less of Weiss defense than it is them shit talking their perceived enemies. Wonder what that says.
somehow everytime a weiss defender speaks up i am even more convinced of her incompetence and malice
December 24, 2025 at 12:36 AM
These people do a really bad job at defending Weiss. It usually is less of Weiss defense than it is them shit talking their perceived enemies. Wonder what that says.
Reposted by Jo_clever_ke
*I hear you guys calling them Kavanaugh stops and I don't like it.*
Kavanaugh in a footnote in today's opinion says "the officers must not make interior immigration stops or arrests based on race or ethnicity."
December 23, 2025 at 11:32 PM
*I hear you guys calling them Kavanaugh stops and I don't like it.*
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"It is logically impossible to simultaneously be evil, corrupt, and incompetent" is an absolutely amazing take to have in the year of 2025
December 23, 2025 at 9:51 PM
"It is logically impossible to simultaneously be evil, corrupt, and incompetent" is an absolutely amazing take to have in the year of 2025
This is just sad.
The Bari Weiss hysteria continues. Exactly what in "this piece isn't ready" and "try harder to get comment from the administration" constitutes the death of American journalism? www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
What Bari Weiss Got Right
And what she got wrong
www.theatlantic.com
December 23, 2025 at 6:41 PM
This is just sad.
Speaks to a drum I've been beating all day. Lets assume Weiss didn't nuke the story because of Trump admin pressure, well that just makes it worse in a sense for her personally, because of how stupid it was to nuke a story at the near last minute just over weird quibbles. Train wreck.
December 22, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Speaks to a drum I've been beating all day. Lets assume Weiss didn't nuke the story because of Trump admin pressure, well that just makes it worse in a sense for her personally, because of how stupid it was to nuke a story at the near last minute just over weird quibbles. Train wreck.
Via series of events, misjudging the size of a TV, I ended up riding in the back of an SUV, not the back seat, the literal back. Worst part was the drivers behind the car staring right at me. I definitely think they saw me.
December 22, 2025 at 10:06 PM
Via series of events, misjudging the size of a TV, I ended up riding in the back of an SUV, not the back seat, the literal back. Worst part was the drivers behind the car staring right at me. I definitely think they saw me.
I'm feeling the Christmas spirit.
December 22, 2025 at 9:46 PM
I'm feeling the Christmas spirit.
This is a standard that castrates CBS' ability to operate as a journalistic entity. It in effect gives veto power to the Trump admin for every story about them. Hell in theory it could apply to all CBS investigation subjects.
NEW: Bari Weiss addresses her decision to hold last night's CECOT story on the CBS News morning editorial call: "Our viewers come first, not a listing schedule or anything else..."
December 22, 2025 at 4:07 PM
This is a standard that castrates CBS' ability to operate as a journalistic entity. It in effect gives veto power to the Trump admin for every story about them. Hell in theory it could apply to all CBS investigation subjects.
Reposted by Jo_clever_ke
really cannot be emphasized enough that bari weiss has literally never done journalism. i don’t mean that in the pejorative sense. i mean that in the “has never performed the job she was hired to do” sense
One explanation for Bari killing the story is that she did so as a public act of fealty to the administration. But another is that, as an inexperienced journalist, she doesn’t understand that a refusal to go on the record is a kind of comment in and of itself
December 22, 2025 at 2:19 PM
really cannot be emphasized enough that bari weiss has literally never done journalism. i don’t mean that in the pejorative sense. i mean that in the “has never performed the job she was hired to do” sense
I did a bit of a meandering thread on this, but to be succinct: If you give her the benefit of the doubt, her actions look even stupider. In that scenario she pulled the story at the literal last minute, without a compelling reason, and now looks like a tool of the admin.
"I think Bari Weiss deserves the benefit of the doubt."
December 22, 2025 at 7:12 AM
I did a bit of a meandering thread on this, but to be succinct: If you give her the benefit of the doubt, her actions look even stupider. In that scenario she pulled the story at the literal last minute, without a compelling reason, and now looks like a tool of the admin.
When Bari Weiss was tapped to lead CBS people pointed out she was a hack, this fact overshadowed the other major issues, that she was utterly inexperienced. This is a crisis largely of her own making, and no one is going to trust her on anything she says because she never earned the trust.
Bari Weiss spiked the CECOT story because she wanted to have Stephen Miller included and demanded to control the language 60 Minutes used to describe the men who were brutally tortured after being sent to El Salvador without due process.
December 22, 2025 at 7:00 AM
When Bari Weiss was tapped to lead CBS people pointed out she was a hack, this fact overshadowed the other major issues, that she was utterly inexperienced. This is a crisis largely of her own making, and no one is going to trust her on anything she says because she never earned the trust.
Reposted by Jo_clever_ke
bari is the standard bearer for the media types who think any journalism that leads the consumer toward a left-wing position must be tempered and balanced until it doesn’t.
December 22, 2025 at 5:49 AM
bari is the standard bearer for the media types who think any journalism that leads the consumer toward a left-wing position must be tempered and balanced until it doesn’t.
Reposted by Jo_clever_ke
Not sure why we struggle so hard to convince people the GOP will do all the things they repeatedly and explicitly promise to do
December 21, 2025 at 9:13 PM
Not sure why we struggle so hard to convince people the GOP will do all the things they repeatedly and explicitly promise to do
Cannot believe Sorry We're Closed was an Epic giveaway, was only released a year ago, was actually thinking about buying it on Steam, amazing to get something you actually really want for free.
December 21, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Cannot believe Sorry We're Closed was an Epic giveaway, was only released a year ago, was actually thinking about buying it on Steam, amazing to get something you actually really want for free.
Reposted by Jo_clever_ke
Interesting move to threaten Bouie's employment and then complain that you're being bullied by a US representative
I think by NYT rules Jamelle and I aren’t supposed to argue on here but Lakshya’s model builds in incumbency effects and down-ballot lag (and obviously the model and those WAR numbers were calculated before Casten started taking shots at me).
December 20, 2025 at 11:19 PM
Interesting move to threaten Bouie's employment and then complain that you're being bullied by a US representative
Reposted by Jo_clever_ke
The gall to treat the 2024 election like it was a binding referendum on American culture, a lasting “vibe shift” to which others must accommodate, then within a year proclaim the cultural change over, as if a bystander, not an active contributor manufacturing vibe shifts by overdetermining results.
December 21, 2025 at 1:05 PM
The gall to treat the 2024 election like it was a binding referendum on American culture, a lasting “vibe shift” to which others must accommodate, then within a year proclaim the cultural change over, as if a bystander, not an active contributor manufacturing vibe shifts by overdetermining results.
Reposted by Jo_clever_ke
striking i think that yglesias' response to being criticized on facts and policy is "well but it doesn't poll well in R+1 electoral districts." polling is important. sure. but it's not actually a good barometer of what's true lmao
Look as long as everybody starts ignoring Yglesias we are making progress.
December 21, 2025 at 1:17 AM
striking i think that yglesias' response to being criticized on facts and policy is "well but it doesn't poll well in R+1 electoral districts." polling is important. sure. but it's not actually a good barometer of what's true lmao
Reposted by Jo_clever_ke
Swing voters famously base their votes on sober consideration of the issues.
December 21, 2025 at 12:22 AM
Swing voters famously base their votes on sober consideration of the issues.
Reposted by Jo_clever_ke
Tis the season.
December 19, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Tis the season.
Reposted by Jo_clever_ke
the most consistent driver of radicalization on a mechanical level -- and its really not anything close to a scientific field -- is immersion in a community that is already radicalized
it would be interesting to explore what motivates this because i think these people genuinely believe they were “radicalized” by a single event when a look through their profiles indicates they’ve been posting extreme and violent content for a very, very long time
December 20, 2025 at 5:37 PM
the most consistent driver of radicalization on a mechanical level -- and its really not anything close to a scientific field -- is immersion in a community that is already radicalized
Reposted by Jo_clever_ke
Also 'leftists for deflation' is an inherently funny concept. As is all these people wanting the economy of the 10s back, something they described as a hellscape at the time. Really miss that really cheap credit, eh?
December 20, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Also 'leftists for deflation' is an inherently funny concept. As is all these people wanting the economy of the 10s back, something they described as a hellscape at the time. Really miss that really cheap credit, eh?
So does Bannon just no longer even pretend to do the populist shit anymore? Trump 1 he was doing that bullshit all the time talking to the press about a wealth tax.
Steve Bannon at AmFest 2025 yesterday: "We are a Christian nation that got off the rails. We have to re-Christianize this country... Charlie Kirk is a Christian martyr and Charlie Kirk is a Christian saint. That is your legacy that you take up."
December 20, 2025 at 3:22 PM
So does Bannon just no longer even pretend to do the populist shit anymore? Trump 1 he was doing that bullshit all the time talking to the press about a wealth tax.
Reposted by Jo_clever_ke
I don’t disagree with the general premise of that we are gonna be living with a Trumpified conservative political and media universe for a long time but the degree to which Candace Owens (Candace Owens!) is currently freaking out the maga and gop elite is real… newrepublic.com/article/2044...
The MAGA Crack-Up Is Overrated. MAGA Is Here to Stay.
Sure, Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, and Tucker Carlson are squabbling. But the underlying ideology remains as powerful as ever.
newrepublic.com
December 20, 2025 at 3:10 PM
I don’t disagree with the general premise of that we are gonna be living with a Trumpified conservative political and media universe for a long time but the degree to which Candace Owens (Candace Owens!) is currently freaking out the maga and gop elite is real… newrepublic.com/article/2044...