Reposted by tom torres
Reagan, 1981: “In the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
Clinton, 1996: “I say again, the era of big government is over. But we cannot go back to the era of fending for yourself.”
Mamdani, 2026:
Clinton, 1996: “I say again, the era of big government is over. But we cannot go back to the era of fending for yourself.”
Mamdani, 2026:
January 2, 2026 at 1:19 AM
Reagan, 1981: “In the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
Clinton, 1996: “I say again, the era of big government is over. But we cannot go back to the era of fending for yourself.”
Mamdani, 2026:
Clinton, 1996: “I say again, the era of big government is over. But we cannot go back to the era of fending for yourself.”
Mamdani, 2026:
Reposted by tom torres
it’s very funny to be asked what you like about Trump’s policies and say that you like his demolition of the East Wing
Trump’s approval is under 40% so naturally the New York Times found a whole bunch of people that support or defend what he’s doing, including a Kamala 2024 voter who regrets his vote lmao
December 30, 2025 at 8:18 PM
it’s very funny to be asked what you like about Trump’s policies and say that you like his demolition of the East Wing
Reposted by tom torres
I’m also not sure this is right on the merits. Trumpism’s project has always combined the kind of extra-constitutional maneuvers Last condemns with conventional politics. It’s never been a wholesale rejection of the preceding order, but an elaboration on the anti-democratic tendencies within it.
This is why I don’t trust the "Never Trump" Bulwark guys. They’re perfectly comfortable with real people being harmed, so long as the harm comes via a process they can label “liberal democracy.”
December 30, 2025 at 5:08 PM
I’m also not sure this is right on the merits. Trumpism’s project has always combined the kind of extra-constitutional maneuvers Last condemns with conventional politics. It’s never been a wholesale rejection of the preceding order, but an elaboration on the anti-democratic tendencies within it.
Reposted by tom torres
it's genuinely fascinating to me that "you cannot facilitate a genocide against a people and still expect their vote" is too advanced for some analysts to understand.
Dearborn, Michigan could not be reached for comment.
Trump: "I'm not concerned about anything that Israel is doing"
December 30, 2025 at 1:29 AM
it's genuinely fascinating to me that "you cannot facilitate a genocide against a people and still expect their vote" is too advanced for some analysts to understand.
Reposted by tom torres
Some libertarian nerds from the ACLU are going to barely contain their own heavy breathing when they argue that nonconsenual AI porn bots are a core tenet of free speech, and you need to laugh them out of the room.
December 28, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Some libertarian nerds from the ACLU are going to barely contain their own heavy breathing when they argue that nonconsenual AI porn bots are a core tenet of free speech, and you need to laugh them out of the room.
Reposted by tom torres
There’s been a turn in a lot of left/liberal moral thought over the past decade away from individual culpability and toward analyses of structural forces that generate bad behavior. But I’m increasingly convinced that those structural forces can’t be confronted while individuals enjoy impunity.
December 26, 2025 at 6:39 PM
There’s been a turn in a lot of left/liberal moral thought over the past decade away from individual culpability and toward analyses of structural forces that generate bad behavior. But I’m increasingly convinced that those structural forces can’t be confronted while individuals enjoy impunity.
Reposted by tom torres
People like this can’t be reintegrated into society and need to be identified, isolated, punished, and ostracized.
ICE detain father shopping on Christmas Eve—then steal his family's groceries.
Then 3 agents divvy up his paid for food—taking what they want for themselves.
"Can I just get the wife's number to call and let her know?" woman asks.
"No, guess he should've complied," agent says.
Yakima, Washington
Then 3 agents divvy up his paid for food—taking what they want for themselves.
"Can I just get the wife's number to call and let her know?" woman asks.
"No, guess he should've complied," agent says.
Yakima, Washington
December 26, 2025 at 6:37 PM
People like this can’t be reintegrated into society and need to be identified, isolated, punished, and ostracized.
Reposted by tom torres
"RIP to the Heritage Foundation, which functionally died this week, as its most prominent staffers made a beeline for the exit."
Good riddance!
Boom from @lizdye.bsky.social in @atrupar.com's latest PN.
open.substack.com/pub/aaronrup...
Good riddance!
Boom from @lizdye.bsky.social in @atrupar.com's latest PN.
open.substack.com/pub/aaronrup...
Heritage Foundation killed by MAGA
Antisemitism in the GOP? The devil you say!
open.substack.com
December 24, 2025 at 1:55 PM
"RIP to the Heritage Foundation, which functionally died this week, as its most prominent staffers made a beeline for the exit."
Good riddance!
Boom from @lizdye.bsky.social in @atrupar.com's latest PN.
open.substack.com/pub/aaronrup...
Good riddance!
Boom from @lizdye.bsky.social in @atrupar.com's latest PN.
open.substack.com/pub/aaronrup...
Reposted by tom torres
James Merril’s poem “Christmas Tree,” written while he was dying of AIDS. 1995.
December 24, 2025 at 1:43 PM
James Merril’s poem “Christmas Tree,” written while he was dying of AIDS. 1995.
Reposted by tom torres
The 60 Minutes episode about CECOT was not only worth running, it was an exceptionally powerful work of journalism that made clear the US government has embraced torture. You can read the transcript here: www.thenation.com/article/soci...
Read the CBS Report Bari Weiss Doesn’t Want You to See
A transcript of the 60 Minutes segment on CECOT, the notorious prison in El Salvador.
www.thenation.com
December 24, 2025 at 1:04 PM
The 60 Minutes episode about CECOT was not only worth running, it was an exceptionally powerful work of journalism that made clear the US government has embraced torture. You can read the transcript here: www.thenation.com/article/soci...
Reposted by tom torres
"Get the principals on camera" is such a telling phrase here, because it tells us that for Weiss there's no world in which the victims of these horrific actions can actually be seen as the subjects of the story: They're background noise, and the people who matter are the ones sending them.
Weiss concluded: “We need to be able to make every effort to get the principals on the record and on camera. To me, our viewers come first, not a listing schedule or anything else. And that is my North Star, and I hope it's the North Star of every person in this newsroom.”
December 22, 2025 at 5:03 PM
"Get the principals on camera" is such a telling phrase here, because it tells us that for Weiss there's no world in which the victims of these horrific actions can actually be seen as the subjects of the story: They're background noise, and the people who matter are the ones sending them.
Reposted by tom torres
what do we think the revamped 60 Minutes segment will look like? the obvious answer is it will include interviews with the administration, but an underrated contender is interviews with victims of purported migrant crime.
December 22, 2025 at 5:40 PM
what do we think the revamped 60 Minutes segment will look like? the obvious answer is it will include interviews with the administration, but an underrated contender is interviews with victims of purported migrant crime.
Reposted by tom torres
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 12:40 PM
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
Reposted by tom torres
yes. she investigated the case of why everyone at the new york times hated her and discovered that it was because she was too smart and too brave.
Asking this seriously: has Bari Weiss ever in her career reported out an investigative story?
December 22, 2025 at 6:00 PM
yes. she investigated the case of why everyone at the new york times hated her and discovered that it was because she was too smart and too brave.
Reposted by tom torres
When Republicans get mad they initiate an ethnic cleansing operation; when Democrats get mad they introduce a resolution saying that somebody should sue.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says he's introducing a resolution directing the Senate to "initiate legal action against the DOJ for its blatant disregard of the law in its refusal to release the complete Epstein files."
December 22, 2025 at 4:47 PM
When Republicans get mad they initiate an ethnic cleansing operation; when Democrats get mad they introduce a resolution saying that somebody should sue.
Reposted by tom torres
I highly recommend watching this segment, not just because the CBS News execs and the White House didn’t want you to, but because these men were tortured and they deserved to have their voices heard.
!! Here’s a link to full video of the 60 Minutes segment that Bari Weiss killed last minute, via @jasonparis.bsky.social:
is.gd/paU8Ko
(It was uploaded to the Global TV app in Canada, seemingly by accident, and has now been taken down)
is.gd/paU8Ko
(It was uploaded to the Global TV app in Canada, seemingly by accident, and has now been taken down)
December 22, 2025 at 10:46 PM
I highly recommend watching this segment, not just because the CBS News execs and the White House didn’t want you to, but because these men were tortured and they deserved to have their voices heard.
Reposted by tom torres
One of the more important stock-taking moments to watch a bootlegged news program censored in your country.
December 23, 2025 at 12:12 AM
One of the more important stock-taking moments to watch a bootlegged news program censored in your country.
Reposted by tom torres
The evanescence of philanthropy is one of the macro trends of the next several decades that is probably going to have more cascading effects than realized.
After Dell, continuing the trend of disintermediating philanthropy from foundations to direct donations, getting tax benefit while saving overhead and purchasing political favor directly.
December 21, 2025 at 2:37 AM
The evanescence of philanthropy is one of the macro trends of the next several decades that is probably going to have more cascading effects than realized.
Reposted by tom torres
2/ The Danish head of its CDC is like: are you fucking crazy? We are a small country with universal healthcare. You shouldn't do what we do. We should do what you used to do.
December 21, 2025 at 2:57 AM
2/ The Danish head of its CDC is like: are you fucking crazy? We are a small country with universal healthcare. You shouldn't do what we do. We should do what you used to do.
Reposted by tom torres
Why decline all these chances to defend feminism? Because to participate would be accepting the premise that our rights and humanity are up for debate in the first place.
Once you’ve conceded that it’s reasonable to ask whether women’s equality was a mistake, you’ve already lost.
Once you’ve conceded that it’s reasonable to ask whether women’s equality was a mistake, you’ve already lost.
December 20, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Why decline all these chances to defend feminism? Because to participate would be accepting the premise that our rights and humanity are up for debate in the first place.
Once you’ve conceded that it’s reasonable to ask whether women’s equality was a mistake, you’ve already lost.
Once you’ve conceded that it’s reasonable to ask whether women’s equality was a mistake, you’ve already lost.
Reposted by tom torres
Anyway my ancestors were illiterate drunks—peasants, petty criminals, undocumented migrants, and people leading desperate, dishonorable lives of pain and struggle. The promise of the American idea, if not the American reality, is precisely that for my rights and dignity, this should not matter.
December 20, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Anyway my ancestors were illiterate drunks—peasants, petty criminals, undocumented migrants, and people leading desperate, dishonorable lives of pain and struggle. The promise of the American idea, if not the American reality, is precisely that for my rights and dignity, this should not matter.
Reposted by tom torres
JD Vance, Nick Fuentes, this lady—all of them are positioning themselves as rejecting the ideas core to the mythos of the founding. In that sense you could say that they’ve stopped being “Americans” in a meaningful sense—that they’ve spurned that identity and project—and have become something else.
December 20, 2025 at 2:27 PM
JD Vance, Nick Fuentes, this lady—all of them are positioning themselves as rejecting the ideas core to the mythos of the founding. In that sense you could say that they’ve stopped being “Americans” in a meaningful sense—that they’ve spurned that identity and project—and have become something else.
Reposted by tom torres
Five seconds’ reflection reveals that what this really means is “every student should have access to an education that is about nothing and changes every five seconds at the whim of rich airheads”
December 20, 2025 at 1:35 AM
Five seconds’ reflection reveals that what this really means is “every student should have access to an education that is about nothing and changes every five seconds at the whim of rich airheads”
Reposted by tom torres
can’t understand why women hate these guys
December 19, 2025 at 6:23 PM
can’t understand why women hate these guys