Breath smells like horse sex

here for the politics, hoes, and memes

[Matt Royer @royermattw]

Here’s what makes this so bleak:

In 1976, people flocked to DC for the Bicentennial. A whole week of celebration. It was proud, it was joyous, and it was packed.

Our generation never got that. And most of us will be pushing 90 by the next one.

This was our turn. There was a bipartisan commission, America250, built to give it to us — a celebration that belonged to everyone.

Instead, the administration stood up its own group, Freedom 250, to push the real one aside. They fired the original organizer. They routed tens of millions in taxpayer dollars to the president’s version while the bipartisan one went unfunded. States pulled out because it had become too partisan. The musicians quit, so he turned the concert into a campaign rally about deportations and grievance.

They didn’t celebrate the country. They celebrated themselves.

And you can see the result on the grass. A 250th birthday that should have belonged to all of us, turned into one man’s vanity project.

Empty. And sad.

[Prof Zenkus @anthonyzenkus]

The problem with Jeff Bezos' ideology is that it's based on a false premise. The idea that "six thousand years ago someone invented the plow" is based on a faulty belief that ancient humans functioned as individuals. They did not.

Ancient humans were collectivist. The likelihood that one individual invented anything is slim to none.

This is the myth of the genius.

Archeological evidence demonstrates that for hundreds of thousands of years, early humans congregated around communal gathering places, like the fire, and engaged in problem solving and passing on of shared learning down through generations.

Additionally, the plow (and tools like it) were developed by humans in Mesopotamia, Europe, Egypt, East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa as well as other places - not in one place by one person. This is known as parallel development.

Believing that the plow was invented by one genius is like believing language was invented by one person. It is a silly myth and represents the projection of current moral standards onto past events.

This is called 'presentism' and it is both an uncritical and ignorant way to view history.

Social learning was the main driver of human evolution. Collectivism is how we both survived and progressed as a species.

The myth of the genius is an example of uncritical analysis and a flawed lens used to justify the grotesque hoarding of wealth and obscene inequality that is currently tearing at the social fabric our species.

It needs to be thrown on the trash heap of history.

[Prof Zenkus @anthonyzenkus]

The Blackstone Group is the largest private owner of rent-stabilized apartments in New York City, not small mom and pop landlords.

Valued at $137 billion (not including the $1.3 trillion in assets they control), Blackstone is headed by Stephen A. Schwarzman, whose total yearly compensation exceeds $1 billion.

The idea of the "mom and pop" landlord being priced out of business because of a rent freeze is a myth. Small independent landlords (owning 10 or fewer units) make up only 1.2% of the ownership of rent-stabilized units. Meanwhile large corporations own 87% of those units, with mega corporations like Blackstone Group (owning 1000 or more units) controlling 56% of the market.

Mega corporations like Blackstone are pushing the myth of the small independent landlord to hide the fact that they and other mega corporations control the vast majority of NYC rentals.

And honestly, fuck them.

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

The irony of Republicans controlling all branches of government while

bankrupting the country, starting a war, sending money to fraudulent programs, violating the Constitution, giving corporations immunity...

but arguing that the biggest problem we have is “stolen elections.”

[✨⋰Ẍ⋱ 🇸🇾شركسية✨ @savienog]

This is Damascus, the capital of my country.

Israel bombed it less than a year ago, despite the fact that not a single shot had been fired at Israel from Syria for over 60 years.

This had nothing to do with Iran, Hezbollah, or Hamas. It was part of Israel’s efforts to interfere in the country’s internal affairs and keep it divided and weak.

So when Israelis claim that Israel does not attack those who do not attack it, Damascus proves otherwise.

[Qasim Rashid, Esq. @QasimRashid]

If you can’t tax billionaires and trillionaire because “its unrealized gains until they cash out,” then stop letting them leverage that wealth for loans, as collateral, or as equity.

If it’s not real enough to tax, it shouldn’t be real enough to leverage.

This is why we say the system is rigged in favor of the super wealthy. Abolish billionaires, tax them out of existence, protect working people.

[Melanie D'Arrigo @DarrigoMelanie]

When an economic system is designed to exploit people for profit and extract wealth from the working class to transfer it up towards the obscenely wealthy, then poverty absolutely is an economic problem.

It’s why the minimum wage isn’t a living wage.

It’s why health insurance is tied to employment.

It’s why businesses only pay taxes on profits and people pay taxes on income.

It’s why the $50 billion in wage theft each year has never landed a CEO in prison.

It’s why companies who force taxpayers to subsidize their employees’ wages with social safety nets still get tax breaks, while everyone else gets tax hikes.

It’s why billionaires can write off the cost of their private jets and yachts while teachers can only write off $300 worth of school supplies.

Poverty is an economic problem because our economy is regulated and legislated by politicians who are owned by oligarchs.

[ALUTHEDON @Mbakaza4L]

If it’s “pineapple belongs on a pizza” yes

If it’s “burning children alive is worth it so Jews can have an ethnostate” then no

[Lyn🦋 @_ayandamay]

I want a refund on every minute I spent in 8th grade learning that monopolies are illegal and that our government would protect us from greedy men....

[Brad Miller @BradMiller1010]

If there's any cult more ridiculous than the Trump cult, it's the Elon cult.

The dude is a weird technoccultist who basically serves as the avatar of the tech elite arm of the global power structure.

If you believe @elonmusk is rich just because he's smart, then you have no idea how the world works. You probably also believe he purchased Twitter because he cares about free speech. You probably still believe DOGE was about eliminating govt waste & corruption.

Elon is not the richest person in the world. He's the richest person we're allowed to know about. Within the real world power dynamics, he's a middle manager at best. He's rich because he's useful to the globalist asset managers. He's been allowed to become wealthy because it's part of his scripted persona. This persona is useful in getting normie morons to suspend all judgment & get on board with the implementation of the technocrat takeover. Elon's role is essential in building out the data collection/surveillance infrastructure of the control grid.

If he were to refuse to do the bidding of his masters, his stock value would plummet & his wealth would evaporate. He knows this, which is why he does what he's told.

You guys have got to stop worshipping your overlords. It's pathetic.

[James Talarico @jamestalarico]

For decades, Dan Patrick has sold out the poor, the sick, and the vulnerable to enrich his donors.

Love feels like blasphemy when you worship power.

[Not a Good Jewish Girl✡️ @estherzelda0514]

It's quite funny that this dude's historic wealth might be the most persuasive blackpilling possible on capitalism, and yet the socialist warriors do not take advantage of the opportunity.

Let me explain. His wealth is fundamentally disconnected from personal merit or direct labor. He is the CEO of three companies and in the C-suite at many others. There is simply no possibility whatsoever that he works the hours expected of such positions and that the little personal labor he dedicates to them represents the the incredible wealth he has extracted from them.

Moreover, there are several, well-documented claims from insiders that they have to handle or buffer his erratic behavior, and that the executives that actually do the work are relieved when he gets hyperfocused on another company and leaves them alone. What work he does when he is hyperfocused consists mostly, according to insiders, as extreme micromanagement. He self-describes himself as a "nano-manager," and his official biographer talks about his hyper-critical "demon mode." There is a pretty reasonable argument to be made that his presence harms these companies, rather than helps them.

This is only boosted by how many expensive, high-profile lawsuits his companies have been embroiled in by his public remarks, nonstop posting, and refusal to abide by financial disclosure deadlines. How he treats his employees and unilaterally fires people without cause also causes employment lawsuits.

Substantively, his companies also benefit from him lying to the market to cause speculation and government subsidies won by quid pro quo behavior that would have, in better times, been considered criminal. Musk causes Tesla and SpaceX to consistently lie about its products, and he is never punished enough to offset the personal benefit he gets from the market or subsidies by such lying.

His wealth is an illusion driven by retail investor enthusiasm based on these lies, market expectations based on his lies and the fact that he has yet to seriously pay for lying, and pay packages approved by boards stacked with flunkies that cannot articulate how he can possibly do enough work as the CEO of three companies and executive of half a dozen others to justify his intensely bloated pay packages. He receives that pay even when his companies are not profitable, which has led to constant shareholder lawsuits.

If there was a poster boy of American Capitalism, it is him. He represents everything wrong with the reality of how the system works, and how lying and anticompetitive behavior is not adequately curbed.

[Team Talarico @TeamTalaricoHQ]

BREAKING: Ken Paxton’s own lawyer just endorsed James Talarico:

“I defended Ken Paxton for years in the impeachment trial and in state criminal cases. But in my view, I think Ken has lost sight of his core mission, which is to represent the people of Texas. 

And unlike Ken, I believe that you, James, believe in unity over division and that you know how to assemble not only Democrats but Independents and Republicans and we need that right now. 

We need unity, we don't need any more division and that's why I'm supporting you.”

[Janice Hough @leftcoastbabe]

Hey media

Not a Platner fan, but why is he a nonstop story and not Ken Paxton's TWENTY indictments by a GOP led-Texas legislature, securities fraud charges and his wife's filing for divorce on "biblical grounds?"

[Бианка @BiankaB12]

The trend of billionaires investing millions of dollars in building apocalypse bunkers in New Zealand is a total waste of capital, and it demonstrates absolute divorce from reality.

For the sake of argument, let’s play this scenario out: let’s say, it gets real ugly, scarcity hits hard, there’s a drastic collapse of society, total supply chain destruction, food scarcity, the works.

Do they think their pilots won’t just shoot them once they land in Aukland? Their chefs and staff won’t cannibalize them the first chance they get? Or the locals won’t shoot wealthy Americans for sport?

That’s the major difference between the American wealthy and the European wealthy - the former are not invested in the health of their nation (they don’t see it as anything more than an ATM). Do they even have contact with the real world? They don’t have to wait in traffic and endure a crumbing infrastructure, they can fly over it in a private helicopter. They don’t need to deal with the hassle of the healthcare system, because they have private medical staff / concierge.

Elon Musk was against the development of public transportation system - like a subway - in LA, because you could end up riding it with a criminal, hence why he went for that overly expensive hyperloop tunnel system.

These people have no skin in the actual game, there’s no incentive for them to make America a healthy and safe society, because they have already built their apocalypse bunkers.

In contrast, think of the von Liechtenstein family - the royal family running Liechtenstein for 800 yrs now. The crown prince, Hans Adam III, drives his own car, uses public airlines (first class), walks the streets of the principality without security detail, and even opens the castle for citizens each year for celebrations, where he drinks beer from a plastic cup and hangs out with his citizens.

Why? Because he has spent his entire life making Liechtenstein a safe and prosperous society. He’s not afraid that his people would storm the Vaduz castle and hang him. On the contrary - years ago, they voted on a referendum to give him MORE powers, not less.

Many such examples.

The apocalypse bunkers are a waste of resources.

[Moe Davis (U.S. Air Force, Retired) @ColMoeDavis]

I’m not saying Graham Platner should or shouldn’t be a candidate for a Senate seat, but I am saying that the media’s treatment of Platner as compared to its treatment of Ken Paxton is the same as the media’s treatment of Joe Biden as compared to its treatment of Donald Trump. The media bolsters the MAGA narrative that there’s never a decent Democrat nor an indecent MAGA Republican.

[Stephen Richer @stephen_richer]

Sure. You'd just need to:

1) Forge her signature (commit a felony).

2) Hope your forgery is sufficiently accurate

3) Hope that she (intended voter) doesn't call election office and ask about why she never got a ballot (in which case that mail ballot would be deactivated, and it would be investigated if returned)

4) Hope that she doesn't send back a replacement ballot or show up to vote in person (in which case the same as #3 would happen).

But more importantly, instead of showing us a picture of a mail ballot (which could just be from anywhere and is not evidence of material fraud), why don't you answer:

Where are the mass arrests? Trump has been in office for 18 months now. And there have been lots of ambitious Republican prosecutors and sheriffs in office for 6 years since the 2020 election.

And together they've scraped up a handful of individual voters. A few noncitizens vote. A few people voting in multiple jurisdictions.

Hundreds of thousands of hours have been searching. And yet...

What you have is, at best, evidence of a clerical error that yielded no harm.

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

So let me get this straight.

Jake Tapper is focused on attacking my Mom.

Jared and Ivanka are building a private island paradise on Albanian protected land.

Don Jr married the daughter of Epstein’s banker, and a startup his fund backs just got a record $620M Pentagon loan.

Eric is taking an Israeli drone company public for $1.5B in the middle of a war with Iran that nobody wanted.

And I know: “But what about your paintings, Hunter?”

Please.

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

The single worst decision the American left made in recent years - and I include myself here - was defending, promoting, believing in this guy.
The absolute worst. An absolute charlatan and liar and wannabe Republican.

Apologies to @ConorLambPA and @malcolmkenyatta.