tonyclifton25.bsky.social
82 posts
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Getting Started
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Let’s give credit where it’s due. They took the wealthiest country in the history of the world, yet convinced low info voters that the problem is general prosperity, not wealth distribution, so that the whole thing should be upended to hurt the poor and vulnerable. Truly impressive work.
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Ross Douthat is such a flaccid writer and thinker. He’s what happens when you give a car dealership tube man MS Word and a column.
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His speech was better in the original German.
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Oh absolutely. There’s an underlying thread of hereditary superiority endemic to the tech libertarian bros movement. Anything that interferes with their droite du seigneur is by definition, wrong and unnatural. We used to call it something else…
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You’re assuming that we continue to have free and fair elections. I would not assume that.
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For Kudlow to admit that means the reality is far far worse.
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A very mediocre white man
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They obviously have their own version of DEI, for rather mediocre people. There’s no version of reality where Hegseth, Noem, Patel, or Caine are “qualified” for those posts.
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The problem is that most people are as dumb as doorknobs and love to imagine Superman coming to clean up Metropolis, when it turns in reality that, notwithstanding some hiccups, Metropolis runs reasonably well, and Superman doesn’t know what bad guys look like because he just showed up 5 mins ago.
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Fun fact: Hooters 2.0, aka Twin Peaks, was spun out of its parent company a few weeks ago. Not doing amazing.
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Well given that Elon is supra-national and has no loyalties other than to himself and his self-aggrandizement, its not exactly a shock that he can't imagine a person who actually feels responsible for others and acts accordingly.
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For a bunch of weirdos and fuckups who claim everything is the will of God, perhaps they should aspire to take better care of His home.
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That may be the case. I pulled it from Masha Gessen, referring to a book by Timothy Snyder.
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Next James Bond to have curious resemblance to Amazon founder
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Anticipatory Obedience. Aka cowardice and leadership failure of the highest order.
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The worrisome bit is that 30% still support the Gulf of America thing, despite, or because, of its patent idiocy. If you asked the question, “do you believe the world is flat”, you might get similar numbers.
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I feel like I’m saying this every day - there is a huge gulf between intelligence and knowledge. And if you’re a 19 year old DOGE clown, you may have a bit of the former but almost certainly none of the latter.
e.g. SBF is incandescently smart, but lacking in a lot of knowledge. And now in jail
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Irony is only effective with people who possess a modicum of self-awareness. So we’re out of luck here.
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Everything is a test. And so far, the other “leaders” of America’s institutions are failing, as they rationalize obedience to a dictator as some kind of noble protective survival tactic, when in fact it’s just cowardice and encourages more taking.
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So who do you think gets invited to the Admin’s version of Wannsee? I think we already know where it will be held…
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Of course there’s no plan. It’s a lot of people trying to make the nonsensical sound vaguely sensible. It’s embarrassing and akin to the emperor and his clothes.
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I guarantee that most of the people perpetrating this think of themselves as good people, maybe even good Christians. The rest of us know it to be an obscenity.
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I’ve had this conversation with friends of mine. It’s when you realize that humans, especially Americans, have an unfortunate normative bias where they expect things to skew to “normality,” without truly acknowledging that the Black Swan can kill you and everything you hold dear.
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The only reason anybody has ever heard of her is because a) Sergey was dumb enough to marry her and b) he paid her $1bn to go away. She’s a monument to the axiom that very smart guys are often dumb in matters of the heart.
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I think the thing nobody wants to say right now, but I will, is that the eventual Constitutional crisis that will confront us can only be stopped, or aggravated, by what the professional military decides to do. Like a banana republic.
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I talk to investment bankers every day. They are loath to speak in anything more than generalities so I say it for them - chaos and uncertainty have been bad for the markets and compromise one’s view of the future. Not to mention regulatory and trade uncertainty.
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Politeness and generosity of spirit will only get you stomped in this administration. The gloves need to come off, or we will lose everything.
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There’s some seriously complex pathology going on when you’re acting like you’re on the righteous winning team while at the same time assaulting people.
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Seems to be a habit
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Presumably not including Rudy, who sold himself out long ago.
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Where’s Joni Mitchell?
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Yeah one might reasonably assume that members of that unit have self-selected, at least to some extent, based on their feelings about corruption vis-a-vis other crimes.
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You are eventually given the opportunity to stand up and be counted. Some relish the chance, others shrink from it. But it’s how you distinguish real leaders from the many counterfeits who populate government and the CEO chair today.
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I was thinking more in terms of a resurgence of Wagner operas.
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“Anticipatory obedience.” Which never works. They just keep taking more, until you’re just a shell and you don’t even remember what you ever wanted to be.
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Well they love “this country,” but they happen to hate most Americans.
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No, his kids will be “one of the good ones.”
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We should acknowledge that this Admin is proving the flaccidity of public shame and exposure. They don’t believe that open corruption is disqualifying, and as of now they appear to be correct.
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Well, the MAGA folks in the media/online would like you to think that Trump is some kind of 12-dimensional chess player. Listening to him speak for more than 15 seconds should dispel that notion decisively, yet here we are, still hearing idiots who think that he's what a smart person sounds like.
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Maybe New Yorkers can simply not pay (if one owes) their federal taxes and see how that’s taken.
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"Not that I'm aware of," is her daily mantra.
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Being blissfully unaware of your lack of qualifications does have a few advantages, evidently.