onfocus

The metaphor of Trump crushing a portion of the White House as he aims bulldozers at democracy itself is almost too obvious to note. But it’s not just a symbolic parallel: both are rooted in the same indifference to what these American institutions mean to Americans and to America. Both are rooted in Trump wanting to treat those things as his own and now feeling empowered to do precisely that.

Seeing the White House demolition has been surprisingly painful.

“If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States,” Kavanaugh wrote, “they promptly let the individual go.”

But that is far from the reality many citizens have experienced.

Kavanaugh ignored the entire history of law enforcement as it exists in reality.

The dress-up “dismantles their narrative a little bit,” Jack Dickinson, also known as the “Portland Chicken,” told Willamette Week. “It becomes much harder to take them seriously when they have to post a video saying Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and it’s, like, eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.”

Tactical frivolity.

We don’t need to cherry-pick the remarks of a college group chat, which is essentially what this is, given that most attendees received a college degree within the last two decades.

The hateful, racist, antisemitic “young” Republicans are not having persistent youthful indiscretions. This is the Republican party. And this is a not-very-funny satirical article that packs a punch.

Reid, in a statement through her attorneys, said the verdict shows “that this administration and their peons are not able to invoke fear in all citizens.”

“I feel sorry for the prosecutors really, who must be burdened by Trump’s irrational and unfounded hatred for his fellow man,” she said. “Knowing that I can stand in front of 12 of my fellow citizens and be found not guilty for standing up for basic human rights makes me feel like, despite the scary times we live in, we have hope for the future.”

DC jury is not having the BS.

The way out of our present age of political violence is not scolding "we have to live here with one another," at those who are not threatening anyone's life, at those whose very existence supremacists refuse to accept. Rather the way out is standing between supremacists and their targets and telling them "no, you have to live with them, just like we live with you, and if you can't do that, then you have a problem with us, too."

This is the way.

Benioff’s offending remarks came in a phone call from his private jet on Thursday, when the billionaire told the Times he would welcome federal troops in SF and said the city should have 1,000 more police officers than it currently does.

Man in private jet perhaps not in best position to judge how much authoritarianism is too much for the little people.

She also wrote that President Trump’s own words hurt his case, as his hyperbolic descriptions of Portland as war-ravaged and burning showed that his “determination was simply untethered to the facts.”

The truth still matters in some courts.

“We’re going to get out there and we’re going to do a pretty big number on those people in Portland,” he said, describing them as “professional agitators and anarchists.”

The most important thing to remember about deploying troops to Portland is that the Epstein files still haven’t been released. Trump seems desperate for an armed conflict somewhere. Please remember who has the power here and who the aggressor is.

“Free speech culture” means that you can call for censorship, disproportionately abuse other people for speech, chill and deter people for speech, even call for violence against others so long as you do it in certain ritualized and stylized ways that people who were on the debate team like. If you dehumanize fellow Americans from a lectern or with a debate moderator or as a contributing writer to a magazine, that promotes free speech culture; if you do it in a social media post denouncing the speaker, or from a protest outside, or in a letter to the Dean, that harms free speech culture. “Prove me wrong” is a magical incantation that renders what follows pro-free-speech-culture.

Excellent description of how the term "free speech" means something very specific in maga culture.

Papers, please. The hallmark of fascist states of eras past and your favorite movie about authoritarianism is now also the official policy of the United States...

This episode discusses a recent Supreme Court shadow docket decision that allows ICE to stop people based on their race or location. I haven't seen much (any?) discussion in the media of what seems like an obviously unconstitutional decision so it was good to hear this discussion.

The Trump administration, from the president down to the middle levels of obscure Cabinet departments, is populated by people whose defining experiences in public life involved being silenced by social platforms.

Antisocial trolls getting revenge. See also: Musk.