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Jun 26, 2021

A few years ago I wrote an essay titled "The Cruelty Is The Point" on Trump's approach to politics and policy. On Tuesday, my book sharing that title is being published. Today in the

@nytimes

, I explain why Trumpist politics didn't end with his defeat. nytimes.com/2021/06/26/opi

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Show’s up! Insight from

@sophgaston

link.chtbl.com/onthemedia?sid

, and

@paulisci

The rise in births as a result of post-Roe abortion bans won't be equally distributed,

@quasimado

reports. These births are likely to be concentrated among the poorest of the poor, in some of the worst states for infant and maternal health:

We Are Not Prepared for the Coming Surge of Babies

The post-Roe rise in births in the U.S. will be concentrated in some of the worst states for infant and maternal health. Plans to improve these outcomes are staggeringly thin.

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Photos of the Week: Frosty Morning, Meteor Shower, Surfing Santa - 35 images from the past seven days, including the splashdown of NASA’s Orion spacecraft, a candlelit procession in Jerusalem, a 100-million-year-old fossil in Australia, and much more theatln.tc/vTiYINP4

You have a right to say what conservatives want you to say.

You have a right to free speech as long as you are saying what conservatives want you to say.

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A great piece from

on the new rules of “free speech” twitter, which are: you get banned if you say something the owner doesn’t like.

techdirt.com

Elon Tries (Badly) To Defend The Banning Of Journalists As Twitter Starts Blocking Links & Mentions...

Look, I fucking warned Elon that this is exactly how it would go. It’s how it always goes. Remember Parler? They promised that they would moderate “based off the FCC and the Supreme cou…

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When club friendlies are back before the season starts up again

Quote Tweet

AS Roma English

@ASRomaEN

Oct 9, 2018

International football is important but club football is importanter

What should you read next? Daniel Treisman and Sergei Guriev's book, "Spin Dictators," about the world’s emboldened authoritarian leaders, offers an important warning to Americans:

The Atlantic 10: 2022’s Most Thought-Provoking Books

The books that made us think the most this year

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Some Twitter thoughts: 1. Elon Musk owns the company and has the right to do what he wants with it (within the law). If he wants to come up with flimsy pretexts to suspend critics, he can do that. There's not much point to examining the rationale he uses to backfill his whims.

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This left wing political correctness is getting out of control

nbcnews.com

Twitter suspends journalists who have been covering Elon Musk and the company

Thursday's suspensions come as Musk has backtracked on his promise that he would run Twitter as a free speech absolutist.

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Dec 16

You have a right to say what conservatives want you to say.

You have a right to free speech as long as you are saying what conservatives want you to say.

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Journalists who cover Elon Musk have been suspended on Twitter tonight:

@Donie

O'Sullivan from CNN, Aaron Rupar and the Washington Post's

@drewharwell

. Rupar tells me he has "no idea" why it happened.

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This story really makes me furious. Remember the avalanche of bad faith nonsense about this?

nytimes.com

Video Footage of Attack on Paul Pelosi Shown at San Francisco Hearing

David DePape, the man accused of bludgeoning the husband of Nancy Pelosi, told the police that he also had Gavin Newsom and Tom Hanks on his target list.

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Just infuriating: The deal to protect 2 million dreamers and overhaul our asylum system is dead. McConnell told Sinema and Tillis he wouldn't attach it to the omnibus, and other sticking points arose, sources tell me. Here's the ugly, awful inside story:

washingtonpost.com

Opinion | The untimely, infuriating death of the deal to save 2 million ‘dreamers’

How the door slammed shut on a real opportunity for progress.

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In Iowa, you're told growing up that the caucuses represent democracy in its purest form. They're romantic! They're magic! But eventually you realize that they're also not fair.

Iowans Knew This Day Would Come

The long farewell to the Iowa Caucus

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Elon Musk has maintained that he is a political centrist. But his tweets, actions, and associations say otherwise, writes

@cwarzel

Elon Musk Is a Far-Right Activist

One tweet says it all.

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Dec 15

If certain kinds of speech make YOU feel unsafe, who cares, suck it up snowflake, that’s just free speech. But if it makes ME feel unsafe, well that’s totally different, you really shouldn’t be allowed to do that.

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for

, talked to dozens of AZ volunteers who helped get

@kyrstensinema

elected. they're mad at her less bc of policy disagreement than bc they feel misled

‘She Made an Idiot Out of Me’

Conversations with Kyrsten Sinema's former canvassers reveal anger and disappointment with the newly independent senator from Arizona.

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Replying to

and

might need ti revise my statement to say that this moment right here is the peak

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france got SEC speed, boy

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"Far too many prominent members of the attempt to overturn the 2020 election remain in office," writes

@GrahamDavidA

The Threat to Democracy Is Still in Congress

One hundred forty-seven Republicans voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Almost all of them are still in office.

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Kevin McCarthy is relying on Marjorie Taylor Greene to lobby for him for Speaker of the House. As I wrote earlier this month, a party that is so in thrall to a conspiracy theorist like her is not a party that will be rebuking antisemitism any time soon. newsletters.theatlantic.com/deep-shtetl/63

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We have clear, unambiguous, answers on how Grant died now. I sincerely hope that people respect his wife’s wishes and focus on who he was as a person.

Quote Tweet

CBS Mornings

@CBSMornings

Dec 14

Grant Wahl’s wife, Dr. @celinegounder, reveals that the renowned journalist died due to an aortic aneurysm that ruptured at the World Cup. Gounder says she hopes he is remembered as a “kind, generous person who was really dedicated to social justice.”

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"This coming recession, if it does come, will largely be an artifact of policy,"

@AnnieLowrey

writes. "To get the price of milk and gas under control for everyone, the argument goes, some people might need to lose their jobs."

The Federal Reserve’s Artificial Recession

Pain is on the way even if interest-rate hikes work as intended—which is not a given.

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Soccer isn’t just a game; it has a tempo, an aesthetic, an exchange of energy between performer and audience. The choreographer Annie-B Parson on the World Cup as a magnificent dance:

How to Watch the World Cup Like a Choreographer

You don’t have to be a soccer expert to appreciate the grand spectacle.

"The surprise at the crunchy-to-alt-right pipeline, or at the closeness between the radical right and the radical left, reveals a problem with common ideas about left, right, and center in American politics,"

@kathleen_belew

writes:

The Crunchy-to-‘Alt-Right’ Pipeline

Those living on the fringe of the left and the right share more in common than you might think.

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theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/

Dec 14

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They have a right to say what they want and you have a right to say what they want. That’s just freedom of speech.

Quote Tweet

Michael Hobbes

@RottenInDenmark

Dec 12

As usual we see the free speech crowd characterizing ordinary disagreement as a form of censorship. Employees expressing concern about their bosses' actions is ... debate. This is the "marketplace of ideas" they're constantly pretending to support. twitter.com/bariweiss/stat…

Show this thread

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Actual attempts at state censorship is therefore treated as “free speech,” while editorial discretion they oppose is treated censorship.

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It’s a simple but significant inversion in conservative right to post rhetoric, treating social media like it’s the government and bound by the first amendment, and right wing governments like they’re private companies and not bound by the first amendment. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/

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Last week Paul Whelan’s family watched as Brittney Griner came home. After years of “begging people” to take notice of Paul’s plight, his family was stunned to suddenly find cable news and social media replete with opinions,

@elainaplott

reports.

How Politics Compounded a Hostage Family’s Grief

This week, Paul Whelan’s sister watched as politicians and pundits weaponized the imprisoned American’s plight.

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"There’s no economic activity in this space. There’s nothing produced by these companies."

@cwarzel

talks to

@MikeBurgersburg

, who predicted the downfall of Sam Bankman-Fried's empire.

The Doctor Who Helped Take Down FTX in His Spare Time

“There’s nothing really complicated here, but it looks complicated if you don’t understand what they’re doing.”

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This by

is great. Conservatives once argued liberalism was so unpopular it could only be promoted with coercion (union dues, NPR, fairness doctrine, student fees, etc.). They now want government to force tech cos to publish conservatives. .

You have a right to free speech as long as you are saying what conservatives want you to say.

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"Ever since the Supreme Court first agreed to hear the case, Moore has drawn alarm from across the political spectrum,"

@qjurecic

writes:

A Case That Even This Supreme Court Seems Torn Over

A better version of the independent state legislature theory is proving difficult to figure out.

Liberals know how to solve homelessness,

@JerusalemDemsas

writes. Why don’t they?

The Obvious Answer to Homelessness

And why everyone’s ignoring it

Dec 12

Sometimes, a person comes face to face with a catastrophe so vast, so evil, that they vow to fight the ideology that caused it. Slavery. The Holocaust. Getting booed at a comedy show for being a rich bully.

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“The conservative conception of the ‘marketplace of ideas’ has come to resemble conservative views on elections—they are functioning properly only when they provide the desired results.”

You have a right to free speech as long as you are saying what conservatives want you to say.

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Wrote about how the Conservative Right To Post swallowed the First Amendment, redefining "freedom of speech" to mean a right to say the things Republicans want you to say.