“L.A.’s dysfunction reveals something deeper about how we’ve come to think about government. The way we talk about public goods is fake: it’s a debate between Republicans, who believe nearly everything should be privatized, and Democrats, who also believe nearly everything should be privatized — except routed through nonprofits, quasi-public agencies, and for-profit subsidiaries of nonprofits. A city that once boldly built a 230-mile-long aqueduct to steal a river now asks itself: should zoo concessions go to SSA or Aramark?” (07/28/25)
“An authoritarian movement cannot demand acquiescence from a formerly liberty-preserving populace for just any old reason. It has to be an emergency. And that’s what the pedophile fantasy has always provided. MAGA doesn’t tell its followers to vote for Republicans because the Democrats have the wrong prescriptions for the price of groceries or housing costs or education policy …. No, the heart of the MAGA message is that Trump’s opponents are not just wrong but part of a vast conspiracy to commit pretty much the worst crime most people can imagine. That’s why the MAGA faithful fervently pray for mass arrests in which the guilty will at last be separated from the innocent — a kind of secular Rapture. … At this point, it’s not even clear that those with access to the government’s information can distinguish between their imaginings and actual facts.” (07/28/25)
“American conservatives show no interest in understanding their country’s greatest geopolitical foe. The consequences of this incuriosity could be disastrous.” (07/28/25)
“I have no doubt that Zohran Mamdani, upset winner over the heavily favored former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, would have greatly preferred that his much better financed opponent would graciously accept the will of his party’s voters, thereby allowing the Democratic nominee (Mamdani) to sail on through the final election in November as is generally the case. And so would we, his supporters, all. Instead, he finds himself actively opposed by elements of just about every significant anti-democratic, anti-working class faction in American politics. As the Talking Heads song put it, this race ‘ain’t no disco; this ain’t no fooling around.'” [editor’s note: Even with the perfect Talking Heads quote, this pundit is delulu defined – SAT]” (07/27/25)
“‘The FBI began surveilling a Catholic priest in 2023,’ wrote James Lynch last week, ‘after the clergyman refused to divulge details about a recently arrested parishioner who was converting to Catholicism and seeking spiritual guidance.’ … ‘The FBI attempted to violate the priest-penitent privilege,’ the report continues, ‘on the faulty reasoning that the Richmond subject under investigation seeking spiritual guidance had not been baptized or completed catechism.’ You may be asking yourself, is the FBI out of its mind?” (07/28/25)
“Trump has reached a trade deal with the European Union, which follows previous deals with the UK, Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Some might view these deals as vindication of Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs, and other tariff hikes. But the truth is that these deals leave us worse off than before. In each case, tariff rates under the deals are vastly higher than they were before Trump started his trade war. For example, the new tariff on most EU goods will be 15%, compared to an average rate of 1.47% before Trump’s second term …. As a result, Americans will face much higher prices than before on many goods, and there will be other severe economic damage, as well.” (07/27/25)
“President Trump is pulling America out of UNESCO for the third time. Maybe this time it’ll be for good. Once lauded for its work in preserving important cultural sites, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization became a platform for miseducation by every tinpot tyrant trying to score points by defaming America and its allies. It also adopted a full-on woke agenda, backing divisive DEI and social justice causes that, as a Team Trump aide explained, conflicted with American values. ‘Continued involvement in UNESCO is not in the national interest of the United States,’ the State Department declared. The agency’s focus on the UN’s ‘Sustainable Development Goals,’ for example, follows the Paris Climate Accords program of deindustrializing the developed world, while paying the Third World to help it catch up.” (07/27/25)
“What is the definition of a gang? I would generally argue that this word is a contrived label used by rich people to describe any group of poor people organized around using force to acquire wealth like rich people without a state to hide behind. However, an even better definition may ironically come from United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement who describes a gang on their website as ‘An association of three or more individuals whose members collectively identify themselves by adopting a group identity, which they use to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.’ I say ‘ironically,’ in fact quite painfully so, because these self-righteous pig fuckers, better known as ICE, seem to have essentially described themselves to a T.” (07/27/25)
“In what we now understand were completely theatrical attempts to control the Covid-19 pandemic, experts demanded and politicians mandated all sorts of intrusive policies. Mask mandates were one of the most obvious. School closures. Lockdowns. Curfews. Capacity limits. Fear campaigns. The list is and was endless. And unfortunately the public willingly complied with all of them. On and on they went, for years in some cases. But in their discussions of those useless policies, one thing they always, without fail, ignored was the ancillary cost.” (07/27/25)
