alexandra ocasio cortez embodies the american zeitgeist more vividly than almost any politician.
she effectively represents america’s educated, urban, millennial condition which is enormous agency (romantic uncertainty + delaying family, etc) paired with profound uncertainty about what life is actually for.
It was pretty remarkable to watch this happen on CNBC.
Host Brian Sullivan shut down former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb after Gottlieb tried to interrupt him while he was explaining why the media’s coverage of measles outbreaks has been far too simplistic.
Sullivan called the reporting “lazy” for automatically blaming Trump supporters and anti-vaxxers...then Gottlieb tried to steamroll him.
Sullivan wasn’t having it — “Let me finish!”
SULLIVAN: “I want to push back a little bit, Doctor, and say this, that there’s a lot of lazy reporting out there about these measles outbreaks where it’s like, well, we hear that outbreaks are in Texas and in South Carolina, and it automatically defaults to some political thing.”
GOTTLIEB: “Yeah, I agree with that.”
SULLIVAN: “That’s lazy reporting. If you look at the data, the data is publicly available…”
That’s when Gottlieb tried to interrupt him.
GOTTLIEB: “Well, what I will say to that…”
Sullivan fired right back.
SULLIVAN: “No, no! Let me finish!”
“This is critical. This is not…it may be political, but it’s also very religious.”
“A lot of the outbreaks, the majority of the outbreaks in Texas were among basically an Amish community. They’re not going to take vaccines no matter what you do.”
“One of the South Carolina outbreaks, almost all of it was centered around a tight knit Slavic, very religious community in Spartanburg, South Carolina.”
“These are not people who are anti-vaxxers because of politics.”
“They just, their religion does not believe in it.”
“So what are we willing…and there’s a lot of just laziness out there reporting where it’s like, well, they’re Trumpers so they’re anti-vaccine.”
“I’m sure there’s some of that, but how much are we willing to tell a religious community that doesn’t believe in this and hasn’t for 100 years, and won’t 100 years from now that they are required to do something that their religion says they should not do?”
“And that’s the challenge!”
Well done Mr. Sullivan. This would have never happened on CNBC just a few years ago.
The fact that the US is responsible for the vast majority of the world's medical breakthroughs should basically end the socialized medicine debate. And the socialism debate more generally, because the lesson generalizes. https://t.co/dIGaf5MGhK
Florida is now the safest big state in America. Miami, Orlando and Tampa combined had just 29 murders in the first half of 2026. That’s incredible leadership and police work. Miami had just 8 murders so far in 2026, down 50% from last year. https://t.co/qElUkYvTBx
Why can’t communists be communist the way the Amish are Amish, as in, peacefully, voluntarily, among themselves, without taking anyone else’s property or forcing anyone else to participate?
If communism is really about cooperation and community, why does everyone else have to be forced into it?
Earlier today I tabulated the authors cited in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on "capitalism" by ideology. The results showed they were overwhelmingly drawn from authors with Marxist & anticapitalist perspectives.
Here's the same chart for their entry on Marx.
Don't let these people lie to you when others are literally on the record telling you exactly what they want. @mehdirhasan launder's the marxist opinions using their favorite "I'm just a progressive!!!", but it's not reflective of what the far left types actually believe.
Listen to @hasanthehun and @_SecondThought in a more unfiltered conversation where they aren't trying to fool liberals:
I asked Claude to tabulate the ideological leaning of the cited sources used in this encyclopedia article on "capitalism."
It draws overwhelmingly from a Marxist perspective, using authors who are hostile to the subject matter.
Even for pro-choice people (which I am, technically), the question has to be faced: At what point is abortion indistinguishable from infanticide?
You can argue that it is distinguishable up to some hard-to-define point in the pregnancy. But surely that point is not the ninth month of pregnancy. This law is evil.
This is what a 34 week old baby looks like outside the womb.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey just legalized killing an unborn child at this age. For no reason, just because someone wants to
They call it “reproductive rights” because they refuse to call it what it is: murder
Another instance of unions being awful.
California has a shortage of court reporters, which means some civil litigants end up with no official transcript of what happened in court. This makes appeals much harder, meaning people can lose custody of their kids, etc
A group representing victims of domestic violence and other vulnerable litigants filed a lawsuit to let courts take audio recordings.
The court reporters’ union worked to stop this, because they demand more hiring.
The unions would rather no record being kept than let a machine do the work.
Remember, kids. Unions are parasites. They exist to harm other people for their own ends.
Everything California wants to do is like this. Government is supposed to work for the people, not for the government employees themselves.
The California Supreme Court did the right thing in this case. But countless attempts to make government function better face a bitter struggle thanks to unions.
The way these people use the word diplomacy is insane. It's just a magic get out of jail free card that will produce the outcome you want with no discernible trade-offs.
Of course she thinks diplomats are the answer. She doesn’t have a model for someone saying no. It’s why they think we can abolish the police, send in crisis negotiators or mediators, she doesn’t have a model for when someone says no. It’s advanced movie brain. When the hero gives a rousing speech to diffuse a tense situation, she thinks that’s how it works she mistakes this writing for reality. She’s horrified by instances when the police shoot violent criminals, because she thinks they had the option to talk the criminal down and didn’t take it.
@StellaB_Stating@MONVALLEYGIRL@SwipeWright@JeanGreige No, I think you don't know what natal testosterone is. Taking hrt doesn't have any effect on natal testosterone.
Natal testosterone refers to the level of testosterone experienced by the child on the womb. And that has major effects on their phenotype and behavior.