Reading

Excerpts from Side A of this year’s worst-selling Halloween cassette tape. To listen to the audio versions of these sketches and others, click here.

1. Running into an Ex You’re Still in Love with at the Grocery Store

LAURA: Dave, is that you?

YOU: Babe! I mean, Laura. How… how are you?

LAURA: So so good. I haven’t seen you in, what, over a year?

YOU: Seventeen months. Yeah, it has been a while. Crazy, crazy. But you look great. Are you still seeing… never mind, not my business. I, um, see you still like hummus.

LAURA: What? Oh, yeah, got some Sabra in my cart. I still like hummus, I guess. Listen, we should grab a coffee sometime…

That’s Elon Musk’s group America Pac. Apparently, it’s run by 12 year old boys. They have removed it from X, but it still exists on Facebook for now. Warning: This ad contains multiple instances of the ‘C Word.’ Viewer discretion is advised. Kamala Harris is a ‘C word.’ You heard that right. A big ole ‘C word.’ In fact, all of the other ‘C words’ think she’s the biggest ‘C word’ of them all. That’s right. She’s a tax-hiking, regulation-loving, gun-grabbing communist. And the worst part? She’s proud of it. Kamala Harris: the ‘C word America simply can’t afford. See you nationwide Tuesday, November 5th. This is where we are people. Update — Oh look, more C-word. Apparently the Trump campaign stopped that rancid comic from saying it during Trump’s rally last night: [F]our top campaign sources said it could have been even worse. “He had a joke calling [Vice President Kamala] Harris a ‘cunt,’” a campaign insider involved in the discussions about the event told The Bulwark.

Today’s model of delegation has much to recommend it. But it should not be cloaked in euphemism. It is an abrogation of democratic sovereignty for pragmatic reasons, conditioned on the one hand by deeply entrenched and unflattering assumptions about electoral politics and, on the other, on an unquestioning acceptance of the private organization of credit […]

After the 2016 election once everyone recovered from the shock, the analyses of what happened started to gel into a conventional wisdom that said Donald Trump won because a bunch of non-college educated white people were feeling “economic anxiety.” Thousands of stories and features followed with reporters being sent out to rural Pennsylvania diners and Iowa church socials to figure out what those voters really want. But the fact was that it was an extremely close electoral college victory that could have gone either way with just a handful of votes in a couple of swing states. The main data guru at the time, Nate Silver, did a post-election analysis which showed that whenever there was an event such as Hillary Clinton collapsing briefly at a 9/11 event or the Washington Post reporting of Donald Trump’s gross commentary on the Access Hollywood tape, there would be a slight drop in the polls for the affected candidate but they would rebound to the usual stasis within a couple of weeks. Trump was still struggling to recover from the Access Hollywood scandal at the end of October of that year and Clinton was ahead in the aggregated polling by about 6 points.

Former VA officials warn that another Trump term could irreparably damage the health care system for millions of veterans.

The post Trump’s Cronies Threw the VA Into Chaos. Millions of Veterans’ Lives Are on the Line Again. appeared first on The Intercept.

My interview on my new book with Andrew Keen has just been released. Please find it on the link below: https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2229-robert-skidelsky-worries

.

Below is my speech on Ukraine in the House of Lords on the 25th of October. Unfortunately, time constraints forced me to leave out two bits of my argument which I will put in brackets in the text. “My Lords, I am usually put last on the speakers’ list in any debate on this topic, … Continue reading Speech in the House of Lords – Ukraine

Donald Trump/Tom Homan/Stephen Miller/Project 2025 dream I’m reposting this “60 Minutes” clip of Tom Homan again to make sure no one misses it amidst the Trump rally coverage. CBS News: Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has said it would be reasonable to deport a million people a year. And Trump’s top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, told the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this year that deportees would be removed from the country in a massive military air operation. “You grab illegal immigrants and then you move them to the staging ground and that’s where the planes are waiting for federal law enforcement to then move those illegals home,” Miller said at the conference. “You deputize the National Guard to carry out immigration enforcement.” Homan said he doesn’t use the term “raids,” but immigration enforcement operations at worksites would be needed.  Deeper into the realm of ethnic cleansing From the clip: Cecilia Vega asks: “Is there a way to carry out mass deportation without separating families?” “Of course there is.

Lord Walney's position as government's anti-extremism adviser is under review amid a campaign highlighting his paid lobbying work for defence firms and others

Donald Trump filmed one in Madison Scary Garden Digby last night featured just a few of the racist quotes. (They even played “Dixie” before Byron Donalds walked on.) But know this. Trump long ago stopped trying to win this election on Nov. 5. He plans to take it by force afterwards. Rick Wilson knows it. So should you. The only way to keep us from that is by making Nov. 5 “a real knockout.” Last night’s New York rally and Trump’s others in states he has no chance of winning are not about winning on Nov. 5. They are about keeping the spotlight on himself, about turning the volume up to 12, about signalling what he wants his followers to do when he loses. He’s doubling down on what he and his co-conspirators failed at in 2021. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tells “Morning Joe” they are “mini January 6 rallies … mini Stop the Steal rallies” meant to prime his base for more post-election violence. Trump’s campaign deliberately chose Madison Square Garden for the callback to the pro-Nazi German American Bund rally from 1939. Trump adviser Stephen Miller, of course, did not disappoint on that score.

Our friends at 270 Reasons are gathering a polyphonic orchestra of brilliant writers, teachers, doctors, filmmakers, artists, and citizens of all kinds to weigh in about their plans to vote this November. These opinion essays run the gamut from advocacy for basic human rights to acutely personal mini-manifestoes. Read the rest over at 270 Reasons.

Because Kamala Harris Is an Ally to the Queer Community

Have you felt the chill?

Since the election of Trump and his Republican stacking of the Supreme Court, we’re facing a rollback of rights, civility, and the idea of joyful self-determination for all.

Trans, gender-nonconforming folks, drag queens, and our whole LGBTQIA+ community are under attack. But we’re not the only ones…

Kamala Harris gets it.

Hanan El Atr Khashoggi’s engagement was the start of a nightmare that would involve murder, global espionage, and a years-long fight for justice

The idea of the gold rush is deeply rooted in the American psyche. “There’s gold in them thar hills.” Anyone can abandon his family and community to gamble big on themselves. Thanks to this rugged individualism and the natural bounty of our territory, there’s a chance that you can strike it rich. More than American, […]

“After the Washington Post announced it would not endorse a presidential candidate in this year’s election or in the future, its billionaire owner remains silent as the newspaper’s staff are in turmoil.” – CNN

The Starfleet Gazette will not be endorsing a candidate in the upcoming election for president of the United Federation of Planets. This decision was not made lightly, but neither of the two candidates—decorated Starship Voyager Captain Kathryn Janeway or The Borg—has shown us a real path to endorsement, and we must stay true to our priorities: journalistic integrity and not pissing off The Borg.

Sure, The Borg have been a bit of a problem. Their tendency toward mass assimilation and the stripping of individuality and personal freedom doesn’t exactly jibe with our idea of what makes a great leader. But let’s be honest. Kathryn Janeway hasn’t been perfect.

Can it be truthfully said that “internal borrowing shifts the war burden to future generations while taxing places it on the present generation”? A thousand times no! The present generation must still give up resources to produce the munitions hurled at the enemy. In the future, some of our grandchildren will be giving up goods […]

Arrested for supplying water to migrants from Mexico, an aid worker’s trial challenges the boundary between law and morality

- by Aeon Video

Watch at Aeon

Before he was famous, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was Louise Dupin’s scribe. It’s her ideas on inequality that fill his writings

- by Rebecca Wilkin

Read at Aeon

As a great loss loomed, I feared straying too far from the hard truth. But I learned to distinguish denial from hope

- by Christiana Boules

Read at Psyche