@calad-uin.bsky.social
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"democratic strategist" here is a zoomer who just made it out of college and thinks the lesson to learn from every anglosphere party is that none of them are too moderate to win
bazelon, you are the American McSweeney
bazelon, you are the American McSweeney
Jesus, just stop. Democrats are winning now.
And if some voters feel this way about Democrats, a major reason is that THE FUCKING CONSULTANTS KEEP SAYING THE PARTY IS TOO LIBERAL AND OUT OF TOUCH. They incessantly reinforce the stereotype.
washingtonmonthly.com/2025/12/10/t...
And if some voters feel this way about Democrats, a major reason is that THE FUCKING CONSULTANTS KEEP SAYING THE PARTY IS TOO LIBERAL AND OUT OF TOUCH. They incessantly reinforce the stereotype.
washingtonmonthly.com/2025/12/10/t...
Tough Medicine for Democrats: “Too Liberal” and “Out of Touch”
Democrats are riding high after special elections, but that doesn’t mean they’re popular. Strategist Simon Bazelon has advice on what to fix.
washingtonmonthly.com
December 10, 2025 at 1:44 PM
"democratic strategist" here is a zoomer who just made it out of college and thinks the lesson to learn from every anglosphere party is that none of them are too moderate to win
bazelon, you are the American McSweeney
bazelon, you are the American McSweeney
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It rocks that Starmer's strategy has failed so utterly that centrist Americans have to pretend he doesn't exist because he would completely refute their position.
December 10, 2025 at 2:33 PM
It rocks that Starmer's strategy has failed so utterly that centrist Americans have to pretend he doesn't exist because he would completely refute their position.
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i've said it before but this is the post that makes me think the centrist strategist wing of American politics is cooked
December 10, 2025 at 1:54 PM
i've said it before but this is the post that makes me think the centrist strategist wing of American politics is cooked
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are Labour Party members okay
December 10, 2025 at 5:33 PM
are Labour Party members okay
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My working theory is that everyone in the US government has the brain of an Army battalion S3 NCOIC on a power trip.
Mr. Rubio said switching back to Times New Roman would “restore decorum and professionalism to the department’s written work.” Calibri is “informal” when compared to serif typefaces like Times New Roman and “clashes” with the department’s official letterhead. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/u...
Rubio Deletes Calibri as the State Department’s Official Typeface
www.nytimes.com
December 10, 2025 at 2:59 AM
My working theory is that everyone in the US government has the brain of an Army battalion S3 NCOIC on a power trip.
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there is no path forward without denazification of the United States government
They're using the confinement box, one of the most horrific methods of CIA torture in the post-9/11 black sites, against migrants now. This is the direct result of the lack of consequences for the architects of the torture program. Either there will be criminal penalties for this or it will expand.
Torture Techniques from CIA Black Sites Were Used at Alligator Alcatraz
Amnesty International, interviewing migrant detainees, identifies use of the confinement box. There can be no denying it is a torture prison
www.forever-wars.com
December 8, 2025 at 9:51 PM
there is no path forward without denazification of the United States government
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it is incredible that legalizing watergate has been the overriding ideological project of the american right for fifty years
December 8, 2025 at 8:39 PM
it is incredible that legalizing watergate has been the overriding ideological project of the american right for fifty years
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everyone involved in this--from that nameless fuckface guard to john roberts himself--should spend their rest of their lives in prison
December 8, 2025 at 10:20 PM
everyone involved in this--from that nameless fuckface guard to john roberts himself--should spend their rest of their lives in prison
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lmfao
Yeah the guy who explicitly said "I am incurring risk against a PRC conflict in the 2020s in order to retool the force for Operation Useless Dirt today" who then turned around and did the hot dog guy routine in the 2020s about readiness for a PRC war is definitely the guy to listen to
Yeah the guy who explicitly said "I am incurring risk against a PRC conflict in the 2020s in order to retool the force for Operation Useless Dirt today" who then turned around and did the hot dog guy routine in the 2020s about readiness for a PRC war is definitely the guy to listen to
“The Pentagon has not had a strong secretary of defense willing to impose tough choices since Robert M. Gates, who served both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, left the office in 2011.”
The word choice, “strong” is bizarre here. Also Gates cancelled F-22 and LRS-B, two massive mistakes!!!!!
The word choice, “strong” is bizarre here. Also Gates cancelled F-22 and LRS-B, two massive mistakes!!!!!
December 8, 2025 at 5:38 PM
lmfao
Yeah the guy who explicitly said "I am incurring risk against a PRC conflict in the 2020s in order to retool the force for Operation Useless Dirt today" who then turned around and did the hot dog guy routine in the 2020s about readiness for a PRC war is definitely the guy to listen to
Yeah the guy who explicitly said "I am incurring risk against a PRC conflict in the 2020s in order to retool the force for Operation Useless Dirt today" who then turned around and did the hot dog guy routine in the 2020s about readiness for a PRC war is definitely the guy to listen to
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in fairness "if you give your army literal meth turns out they can outpace just about anyone, at least until they crash" is a lesson the defense ventures crowd would 1,000% get behind
That’s not what happened in 1940 lol, the French army did not sit behind the maginot line
December 8, 2025 at 6:17 PM
in fairness "if you give your army literal meth turns out they can outpace just about anyone, at least until they crash" is a lesson the defense ventures crowd would 1,000% get behind
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written in exactly the kind of language that high-level decision-makers love but if you peel back the layers, it's railing against bloat and cost overruns as a way to sell newer, more expensive, "high tech" bloat
December 8, 2025 at 6:35 PM
written in exactly the kind of language that high-level decision-makers love but if you peel back the layers, it's railing against bloat and cost overruns as a way to sell newer, more expensive, "high tech" bloat
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with the greatest possible respect to the NYT editorial board, i feel this piece reveals more about the assumptions and anxieties of elite commentators than it does the US military's assorted problems
This is a wild framing.
The US can dominate everywhere in the world except 7000 miles away at an island 100 miles off another superpower’s coast.
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
The US can dominate everywhere in the world except 7000 miles away at an island 100 miles off another superpower’s coast.
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Opinion | Overmatched: Why the U.S. Military Must Reinvent Itself
Investing in the old ways of war leaves America at risk.
www.nytimes.com
December 8, 2025 at 6:32 PM
with the greatest possible respect to the NYT editorial board, i feel this piece reveals more about the assumptions and anxieties of elite commentators than it does the US military's assorted problems
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now I desperately want to see more cat/possum buddy films
December 8, 2025 at 4:01 PM
now I desperately want to see more cat/possum buddy films
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i have no idea why “the US must adopt the defense procurement strategy of the weaker party fighting a defensive conflict with deep asymmetries in order project power abroad(???)” is becoming a mainstay opinion of the commentariat but here we are
December 8, 2025 at 5:27 PM
i have no idea why “the US must adopt the defense procurement strategy of the weaker party fighting a defensive conflict with deep asymmetries in order project power abroad(???)” is becoming a mainstay opinion of the commentariat but here we are
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Let me try, and I won't turn off replies, and you can quote-post me if you like. Claire Lehman was and is a bad actor. She and the whole Quillette gang used "heterodox" as a way to make it sound sexy that they believed black people are genetically destined to be less intelligent than white people.
Update: actual Peak Bluesky has been achieved, the author has done a HELEN, ANSWER FOR YOUR CRIMES quote-tweet and then not allowed me to answer for my crimes by turning off replies.
bsky.app/profile/shar...
bsky.app/profile/shar...
I mean, yes, going to bat for Clare Lehmann isn't actually that laudable, Helen. The technocapitalists are awful: but do you think that the intellectual climate wasn't primed for this nonsense?
December 8, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Let me try, and I won't turn off replies, and you can quote-post me if you like. Claire Lehman was and is a bad actor. She and the whole Quillette gang used "heterodox" as a way to make it sound sexy that they believed black people are genetically destined to be less intelligent than white people.
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the universities obviously have no responsibility for what happened whatsoever. no one in the trump administration gives a shit about the quality of universities, as you well know. they just see an enemy of authoritarianism and want to destroy it.
Do the universities have no responsibility for what happened? I don’t like the leftist argument that things just happen to institutions with multi-billion dollar endowents. Their vast DEI & HR bureaucracy has failed many staff and students eg www.nytimes.com/2024/10/16/m...
The University of Michigan Doubled Down on D.E.I. What Went Wrong? (Published 2024)
www.nytimes.com
December 8, 2025 at 6:40 PM
the universities obviously have no responsibility for what happened whatsoever. no one in the trump administration gives a shit about the quality of universities, as you well know. they just see an enemy of authoritarianism and want to destroy it.
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in a lot of ways the US has been coasting on our cold war inheritance (massive investment in defense tech and capes) without paying it forward to the next generation because it's cheaper (and we blew fuck tons of money on Rummy's Transformation boondoggles and Iraq/Afghanistan)
December 8, 2025 at 4:49 PM
in a lot of ways the US has been coasting on our cold war inheritance (massive investment in defense tech and capes) without paying it forward to the next generation because it's cheaper (and we blew fuck tons of money on Rummy's Transformation boondoggles and Iraq/Afghanistan)
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THE ISSUE WITH THE DEFENSE BUDGET IS THAT WE THINK WE CAN COAST ON THE LEGACY INVESTMENTS WITHOUT HAVING TO SPEND MORE MONEY OR SHED CAPABILITIES OR COMMITMENTS
I see the gizmo cult has made its way into the NYT
December 8, 2025 at 4:48 PM
THE ISSUE WITH THE DEFENSE BUDGET IS THAT WE THINK WE CAN COAST ON THE LEGACY INVESTMENTS WITHOUT HAVING TO SPEND MORE MONEY OR SHED CAPABILITIES OR COMMITMENTS
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other than the obvious moral reasons why the US should not execute surrendering smugglers at sea, i suspect sending the message “we will still kill you if you surrender” means fewer people will surrender
December 8, 2025 at 2:31 PM
other than the obvious moral reasons why the US should not execute surrendering smugglers at sea, i suspect sending the message “we will still kill you if you surrender” means fewer people will surrender
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The problem is that even right-wingers who detest what he stands for cannot admit they were wrong about him, so they keep handing him more and more power assuming that he’ll stop being Putin and become the great transformative leader they all delusionally imagined him to be.
December 8, 2025 at 4:19 PM
The problem is that even right-wingers who detest what he stands for cannot admit they were wrong about him, so they keep handing him more and more power assuming that he’ll stop being Putin and become the great transformative leader they all delusionally imagined him to be.
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Trump isn’t some conservative superstar, he’s a barely literate mafioso who couldn’t pass a sixth-grade civics test whose entire administration has consisted of pardoning outright fraudsters, race war rhetoric, and looting the public and private sectors while naming stuff for himself.
December 8, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Trump isn’t some conservative superstar, he’s a barely literate mafioso who couldn’t pass a sixth-grade civics test whose entire administration has consisted of pardoning outright fraudsters, race war rhetoric, and looting the public and private sectors while naming stuff for himself.