Boycott Pitbull

[Boycott Pitbull @BoycottPitbull]

Cuban regime officials used large amounts of electricity to project large multimedia extravaganzas on the 73rd anniversary of the Moncada attacks in Pinar del Rio on July 26, and this week to celebrate the centenary of Fidel Castro’s birth. 1/3 #CastroIsNotCuba #FidelisnotCuba

[Camila @camilapress]

Havana: Celebrations continue past midnight (I took these videos at 1AM) as Cubans and international visitors usher in the centenary of the birth of Commander Fidel Castro 🇨🇺

[Pedro L. Gonzalez @emeriticus]

The most un-American thing I’ve ever seen. The federal government attempting to destroy an American Olympian strictly on the command of a senile narcissist who wants to make an example out of someone. I recall when I was a Lincoln Fellow of the Claremont Institute in 2021 hearing a lot about this kind of abuse of government power being brought to bear against Americans. Weirdly now though these warnings have gone silent not just from them but from every other major conservative institution that has for years pretended to be a bulwark against exactly this.

[Pedro L. Gonzalez @emeriticus]

The federal government is currently being weaponized against an American Olympian simply because Trump wants to pretend that this person is to blame for his botched Reflecting Pool job. But Glenn is fantasizing about socialists and hyperbolic hypotheticals. The unprecedented abuse of power to persecute a single man is a story that you think conservatives like Glenn would love. It's practically a made-for-conservative-TV story. But they have to pretend it's not happening. The losers at The Blaze have to ignore it, downplay it, or justify it, and instead goon to these idiotic delusions about Things That Could Happen because what is actually happening today, right now, indicts them worst of all.

[Pedro L. Gonzalez @emeriticus]

There was a time not long ago where having a book called “How to Read a Book” might have been a little funny but not anymore I think

This is actually great btw

[Pedro L. Gonzalez @emeriticus]

I do not know how anyone could support the GOP right now. The open contempt for Americans, utter indifference to the plight of normal people. It's just insane. On every issue, the GOP's messaging is basically, "We're glad you're suffering. That's good."

[Pedro L. Gonzalez @emeriticus]

"The free market" is when you slap tariffs on things strictly on one man's whims, have the federal government take ownership stakes in more than two dozen companies, and ensure Palantir gets as many juicy contracts as possible.

The only people who find Vance compelling here are the brain-rotted Blaze crowd, TPUSA grifters, and Vance sycophants who know that he is the last hope of the psycho circus that started with Trump.

[Pedro L. Gonzalez @emeriticus]

I don’t think Trump sycophants should be allowed to use the term “patriot” in any context

[Pedro L. Gonzalez @emeriticus]

Tim is one of the most awkward people I’ve ever met. Just a complete dweeb who would never dare to live out these violent fantasies. It’s a put on for the audience that falls apart when he actually gets pushback, like he did on Jubilee.

[Pedro L. Gonzalez @emeriticus]

Both Lauren Chen and Tim Pool were part of the Tenet-Russian influence scandal. Chen is only allowed in the United States now because the Trump-Vance administration intervened on her behalf. Only in conservative media could these people exist.

[Pedro L. Gonzalez @emeriticus]

My wife went through this and she is the most selfless person I’ve ever met. I don’t think anyone hates women and mothers more than the people who claim to be professional defenders of “family values”

[Pedro L. Gonzalez @emeriticus]

One of the most underrated and intelligent 90s sci-fi movies

[Pedro L. Gonzalez @emeriticus]

It's a good song. It's good to like things. You don't have to hate everything for the sake of hating everything

[Pedro L. Gonzalez @emeriticus]

Every now and then there's this video that makes the rounds from the 90s or early 2000s where people are dancing on a beach and dancing in an "uncool" but *carefree* way and it's usually captioned with something along the lines of, "This is what they took from you." But it wasn't "taken," it was just easier to be yourself before the digital humiliation-hate machine where your every facial expression started being subjected for scrutiny and mockery by people online who look for any reason to hate and heckle

[Pedro L. Gonzalez @emeriticus]

Everybody apparently forgot how guys like Marc Andreessen bragged that AI would replace everyone’s job except their own and now they’re like, wait why are you all mad? Just let us build the data centers that we said will dispossess you but not me. Why are you mad?

[Pedro L. Gonzalez @emeriticus]

On its face, Mike Pence's new book, "What Conservatives Believe," is a manifesto that calls on Americans to return to what Pence considers the roots of conservatism in order to combat both progressivism and right-wing populism, which he sees as mirror images of each other. Beneath the surface, though, there is also an attempt by Pence to absolve himself and the conservative movement of complicity in the disaster of Trumpism. Reading it, you come away concluding that Pence, like the conservative movement, is not interested in real introspection, and that is why the attempts to retake control of the GOP from Trump are doomed. My review for @commonwealmag:

[Pedro L. Gonzalez @emeriticus]

This is the magic you get from the constraints imposed on people by technological limitations.

[Pedro L. Gonzalez @emeriticus]

The right sees itself as being in a struggle against a coalition of nonwhites, immigrants, and their white allies. It uses terms like "Third Worldism" to describe the opposing force, and it is willing to accept unlimited abuse of power, unprecedented corruption, and cruelty as the cost of "winning" this racial conflict, even if that means turning America into the very sort of squalid authoritarian regime the right associates with that incoherent term. I wrote about it for The Nation.

[Marc Caputo @MarcACaputo]

An important clip here —not because of the incredibly awkward pause when the Castro-praising DSA guy doesn’t quite know what to say to Boris Sanchez— but because it exposes this cartoonish propaganda of those leftists who don’t understand Cuban history

Batista was a dictator

So was Castro

Many who opposed the Castro dictatorship opposed the Batista dictatorship. They’re not all sugar barons who fled their latifundias

[Infinite Books @infinitebooks]

Every morning I wake up and think, good, another 24 hours’ pipe-smoking.

— J.R.R. Tolkien, in a 1966 interview

[Ladytron Fan Account @Lady_FanAccount]

"Everywhere" was written by Christine McVie during the turbulent recording sessions for Fleetwood Mac's 1987 album Tango in the Night. While the band was dealing with considerable internal tensions including the strained relationship between Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, McVie created one of the album's brightest and most pop-oriented songs. The contrast between the track's joyful, romantic sound and the turmoil surrounding its creation makes it one of the album's most striking recordings.

The track became one of Fleetwood Mac's biggest hits of the 1980s, reaching No. 4 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100, while topping the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart in the United States.

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

STOP comparing Afghan women in burqas and Iranian women under compulsory hijab with Christian nuns.

This really isn’t complicated.

A nun chooses to become a nun. Her vow applies to her. She doesn’t take the vow and suddenly every woman in Italy has to cover her hair.

And if she removes her veil, the morality police don’t show up to beat her, arrest her, or throw her in prison.

That’s the difference.

In Iran and Afghanistan, the rules don’t care whether you’re religious, secular, Muslim, atheist, or just want to be left alone. You’re a woman? Congratulations. The authorities have a dress code for you.

And please stop pointing at little girls in hijab and calling it “choice.” Some of these children can’t even read yet. They’re old enough to choose a religious obligation for life, but apparently not old enough to choose what they want for lunch?

Here’s the test nobody seems to want to take:

What happens when a woman says NO?

If the answer is guns and bullets, prison, beatings, losing your education, or being erased from public life, congratulations, you’ve discovered the difference between choice and coercion.

And if you still think the Taliban model is somehow “liberating,” try it yourself. Cover up. Obey. Let religious authorities decide how you dress, where you go, whether you work, and when you’re allowed to speak. Then explain to Afghan women how empowered you feel.

Is this really that difficult to understand?

#LetUsTalk