Check out a very "timely" deleted scene from "73 Yards," with more deleted scenes being teased for Doctor Who Day later this month.
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From Benjy Sarlin at Semafor: We’re deep in the “bargaining” phase now, as Democrats look for coalition members to blame, positions to dump, and language to police that will win them back the millions of voters they lost across the country on Tuesday. That’s a healthy part of any electoral loss, and it’s why we have free and fair elections — politicians only know when they touched the hot stove when voters tell them. But I’m also skeptical of almost every early explanation for Harris’ defeat I’ve seen so far that hinges on Democrats making a tweak or two and fixing their problems. It’s not that they aren’t smart recommendations in the mix, it’s that they’re far less relevant than the likeliest factor in any Democratic turnaround: Time. Democrats are smart to listen to the voters who rejected them and stay humble about what they might learn. But the emphasis here is “listen” — the actual answers as to what to do next will likely only reveal themselves once they see how Trump governs and how the public responds.
Together with many other academics in the Netherlands, I have been very busy in organizing a nation-wide demonstration next Thursday against the 1 billion budget cuts to higher education that our very-right-wing government has announced. (For background explanation, see this earlier post). Today, I have a long opinion piece in the daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad […]
Planting a flag in red America If you don’t show up to play, you forfeit. Step into many fast food joints in rural America and the TV is likely tuned to Fox News. Drive across rural America east and west and radio is dominated by RW talk. Democrats have let this situation stand for years without responding. Will they this time? Ryan Cooper argues that so-called “liberal media” was in the tank for Donald Trump. A lot of factors contributed to Donald Trump’s win, he writes: But the information environment—the combination of traditional journalism, social media, party propaganda, and so on—is preposterously biased and inadequate. Trump brushed aside any of about a thousand scandals that would have sunk any previous politician. Democrats need to take a long, hard look at what their information strategy should be, and more importantly, how their messaging can be reliably and consistently put in front of voters. Cooper recommends that “Democrats need a party publication—something to bypass the traditional media and deliver progressive messaging directly.” Fine idea. Not going to happen.
Voters protected abortion rights, struck back at oligarchs, delivered public school funding, and ensured workers get their payday.
A Public Service Pronouncement Please don’t spread conspiracy fantasies about the election, okay? TikTok and X are rocking with these two videos below (at least). They are — let’s not be polite about it — bullshit. Before I even debunk them, let’s be clear again: This is bullshit, a live-fire exercise in a little bit of knowledge being a dangerous thing. The TikToks allege that these people looked up their ballot status on Vote dor org and found nothing: “Please go check your ballot status. I just checked mine and my vote did not count! ” Look, I’ve been doing election work a long time. What typical voters don’t know about the election process could fill libraries. Item #1: The video above has (of now) 1.2M engagements and 2k comments on TikTok, and 206k views on X. Her followup video notes that she’s in Washington state (voting there is virtually all by mail). She reports that her ballot status shows only “ballot mailed” and “ballot received, but not that it’s reviewed and accepted. “As far as I am concerned, no. It doesn’t mean that it’s accepted,” says thewindwitch.
Does some new pre-release Doctor Who merchandise hint at a major villain for the upcoming second season - and who Mrs. Flood REALLY is?
Riksbanken har en nästintill oinskränkt makt över penning-politiken, en politik som i hög grad styr inflation, sysselsättning och ekonomisk stabilitet. Denna makt bör vara föremål för större demokratisk övervakning för att säkerställa att den överensstämmer med vad vi som samhällsmedborgare har för intressen. Riksbanken verkar över tid ha utvecklat en slags ‘policybias’ där inflationskontroll prioriteras […]
Photo by barnilsson During my first ten years travelling back and forth between Lund and Berlin, it was still there, even when this photo of yours truly — leisurely reading taz — was taken at Café Einstein back in the summer of 1988. Had anyone told me then that the wall would soon come tumbling down, […]
California just voted in harsher penalties despite low crime rates, thanks to TV news, a $16 million campaign, and a slow defense by criminal justice advocates.
The post How California Got Convinced to Lock More People Up appeared first on The Intercept.
In the wake of Trump’s second victory, we could have expected the usual triumphalism from America’s growing contingent of right-wing extremists, and the usual handwringing from liberal commentators. These two groups have set about attacking one another online, with American liberals lamenting the fact that half of their country is either evil or stupid, and […]
After a few days of emotions running wild—some feeling like shattered glass and others bubbling with joy—the time has come to pull oneself together and look for sound analyses to understand what happened and why. The point is that there was really no need to search… The reasons for Trump’s victory are well known, especially […]
For all the childless cat ladies a little ray of sunshine. It’s from last January but it illustrates that humans aren’t all bad: BLASDELL, N.Y. — Ten Lives Club has now received over $270,000 in donations in support of Buffalo Bills kicker Tyler Bass, and the organization shared that every dollar will be going right back to saving more cats. “I was crying on the phone today, I just can’t believe it,” said Ten Lives Club Public Relations Manager, Kimberly LaRussa. “I’m just so happy for the cats.” These kittens were born the day before the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills playoff game and have never known a day without Tyler Bass helping them out. These three kittens have now watched over $270,000 in donations come in since Monday night. “We are all speechless at Ten Lives Club and can’t believe this is happening,” Kimberly said. “I hope it brings him a smile to know how many cats he is saving right now,” Kimberly said. Kimberly shared this has been their largest amount ever received by far, topping even their largest fundraiser ten times over.
Why Donald Trump was able to shatter the Democratic coalition — and what needs to be done to rebuild it.
George Conway responded: Bill is right There are plenty of micro-explanations and micro-excuses for what happened in the presidential election of 2024. And on the margins, any number of them—indeed, almost certainly, a combination of them—made the difference. But their impact was only on the margins. Don’t get me wrong—small margins and the factors that move them do matter, a lot, in elections—particularly in America in the 21st century. They deserve careful analysis, but only to a point. For the bottom line is that these considerations are not what we must focus on first and foremost today. What deserves the lion’s share of our attention are the facts that a major political party could have even considered nominating Trump despite his manifest criminality, moral depravity, psychological derangement, and cognitive deficiencies and deterioration—and that nearly half the country would have voted for him no matter what he did or said and no matter whom he had run against. That was the ultimate problem in this election, and remains so. We suffer from a deep sickness in our national polity.
It seems so: The most chilling moment of the election night carnage came a little before 1 a.m. ET. It wasn’t yet confirmed that Donald Trump would win, but the writing was on the wall. Assessing the newly transformed MAGA-friendly political landscape, the pro-Trump lobbyist and political commentator David Urban said on CNN: “Democracy is a luxury when you can’t pay your bills.” Democracy as a luxury. Democracy in good times only. Democracy when it suits you. This mindset – a precursor to fascist regimes in other countries – is why it feels like a white-wash to ascribe Trump’s victory to economic issues. It feels like a safe, socially acceptable reason to cite for rejecting Kamala Harris and the Biden baggage she carried. It’s easy for political reporters and TV commentators to slip into gentle analysis of the election results by focusing on the economic factors (to the exclusion of misogyny, racism, and host of other drives of the electorate). But it doesn’t necessarily follow that Biden-era inflation and post-pandemic backlash means jettisoning democracy. That’s a choice.
The great problem with Trump, predictively, is that he’s fickle. He often doesn’t do what he says he’ll do. Even if he was sincere he’s easily handled by flatterers. The best model for Trump is an arrogant and touchy king who wants to be made to feel he’s amazing.
This means that court games matter even more than in a normal Presidency, and those who play them best have the most power and influence.
But even a good courtier can step wrong with Trump and be pushed out. The limelight has to stay on Trump himself. A courtier can have great power, but the credit and the media must flow to the top. The last thing any courtier wants is to have people saying publicly that they’re the power behind the throne.
Watch what they watch, hear what they hear Brian Beutler wrote an excellent piece about the Democratic Party and the working class that you should read in its entirety. I think his analysis of the dysfunctional relationship is spot on. But the piece is called “Democrats PLEASE Try To Fix This Problem — If they ignore the media environment in their 2024 post-mortems, it will be the first major error of the second Trump era” and this is why: There may be much for liberals to learn walking in the shoes of working class or rural midwesterners, but few Democratic officials would find the experience shocking. They know, at least on an intellectual level, all the ways working class life can be a slog. The talking points they write don’t misdescribe the struggle.