Catholic Trumpers agree with her. They hated this pope.

Tickling a little bit is fine if you know for certain you're dealing with a kid who is having fun - ie: they keep coming back after a little bit of it. If the kid doesn't want you to do it please fucking don't. Speaking as a kid who hated it, it was like torture and it's a curse, because you can't help but laugh while it's happening so it seems like good fun even when it's goddamn well not.

Meanwhile the geriatric class is being taught the same lessons through Fox News and their ilk. My mother loves to spout the praises of the latest exploits of Elon Musk every time I talk to her and I'm just like "mom, Elon Musk is a billionaire, which automatically means he a piece of shit."

Are we, the in-betweens - going to be the only ones who remember now that they've co-opted all channels of "information" - for young and old alike?

This just in: The United States is a wholly owned vassal state of Russia.

Texas sucks. It's ugly, scrubby and obnoxiously humid/hot. I wouldn't entertain the idea of living there even if its government weren't full of regressive dumbshits. But holy shit is it ever. The median IQ of the citizenry must be pretty low because they keep voting these idiots in even as they live in a state that has a higher effective tax rate than California.

I've seen this movie before.

It is, as we have noted, all too possible to see in this case an incipient crisis, but it may present an opportunity as well. We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos. This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time.

You stupid motherfucker, you and your kind caused this. Sit there and act like the Executive are a bunch of civil-minded policy wonks instead of a bunch of deadly jackbooted criminals empowered by YOUR GODDAMN RULINGS. What a load of horseshit.

haha wow, I didn't expect these to be real.

I think we may have to agree to disagree, but I don't think having the Marshal Service, which is run by the Executive, issue them a subpoena is what I would call an "enforcement mechanism" that could "lead to a lot of death." It is nothing more than something for the Executive to tell the Marshals to ignore and barring that, for the Executive to ignore itself. There is no "enforcement" here. Judicial has recourse against you and me (it can have the Marshals jail us for contempt - unless we are under the protection of the Executive), but not against the Executive. The only recourse against the Executive is impeachment and conviction from Congress. End of story.

[citation needed]

They're not defying Trump, they own Trump ffs. There is no useful mainstream media.

And of course whatever they want to be true will be true.

She wrote me a personal response by email to apologize, published my response in the paper, and published a retraction of her editorial.

I'm sure she'd do the same today. The Internet has made us all so much better at engaging in constructive dialogue.

It the right really comprised 100% of self-loathing homosexuals and their beards?

MAGA people can't feel shame over any of this, they are incapable. This is a wealth and religion thing, you'll notice MAGA people are nearly universally either wealthy, religious or both.

Particularly in America (because of the historical confluence of wealth and religion) these two types of people don't experience shame the same way normal people do. Wealthy people's sense of superiority over their position in society has bred in them the notion that shame is for their lessers. The richer they are, the worse this is. Religious people feel that nothing in the world is more righteous than sticking it to nonbelievers and no effort put forth in pursuit of that goal can be considered shameful. In fact, the opposite. In any case their shame quotient is sodden with their own repressed sexuality.

You mis-spelled "belligerently doubling down."

Yep. Oh it will open down bigly. But I expect the day to end up sideways or marginal. If Cramer ends up being right about anything, then I'm certain I've switched timelines.

You might think you do, but the stock market is wholly price controlled. Even the Great Recession will never happen again. The market is controlled by huge banks and hedge funds using HFT algorithms and dark pools. Price means nothing and big drops are in any case performative.

The following weeks will demonstrate this, as the bounce(s) will take back the great majority of the perceived losses. Behind the scenes, of course, these same institutions love being given the opportunity to display this performative disapproval, as they make untold fortunes using the stock market as their own personal pump and dump.

Edit: Dow when this was posted: 40,986

I've not read Spinoza, but this idea has for most of my life seemed fairly self-evident. Something clearly seems to exist, I'm not the biggest most important thing in the something, though I am a part of it. Do I believe in God? Not per se - but I do believe there is something incomprehensibly larger than I am, and that in and of itself deserves a little respect and contemplation.

My religious parents didn't see it that way of course.

I believe it's going to be super fascinating because I don't believe collapse is actually possible anymore. All indices - the stock market, the price of gold, crypto, the dollar - all of it - is, imo, set-and-supported by algorithms and dark pools.

If true, this weirdly leaves the "illuminati" to do what they please, as these markets will no longer offer any actual consequences for... anything at all, really.