It’s not true or false per se: you can structure the maths in any way you’d like, sometimes they could work to describe the scenario that the boot tax describes, sometimes not, it’s insane that we’re even talking about a curve & people arguing that only this section of the curve is real

Will Stancil@whstancil.bsky.social · 6h ago

I have no doubt it was intended that way! But in practice, in The Discourse, it has come to represent a very specific claim about consumer goods. That’s why it has its own wiki page and everything. Poverty taxes are real, but the SPECIFIC claim, described below, is generally false.

FWIW, both of VDARE’s founders were on the masthead of the National Review in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Peter Brimelow was also a staffer for Senator Orrin Hatch. This white nationalist thread has been present in the conservative movement for a long time. Screenshot is from 1997.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3h ago

SCHIFF: You told my staff you stood by your article in white nationalist website VDARE where you wrote, 'Muslim immigrants & their kids seem prone to terrorism' C: I wrote that article in support of Trump's travel ban S: Do you stand by it? C: I stand by that article S: That's all I need to know

Gonna go out on a limb here and say racist cranks who write for extremist white nationalist websites like VDARE should not, in fact, be confirmed to top roles in the Department of Justice.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3h ago

SCHIFF: You told my staff you stood by your article in white nationalist website VDARE where you wrote, 'Muslim immigrants & their kids seem prone to terrorism' C: I wrote that article in support of Trump's travel ban S: Do you stand by it? C: I stand by that article S: That's all I need to know

THE BUMS LOST! I SUGGEST YOU DO WHAT YOUR PARENTS DID. GET A JOB, SIR

Parker Molloy@parkermolloy.com · 3h ago

Karl Rove's little whiteboard on Fox News, lol. Like... idk, man. I'm not sure that the strategy of expecting people to know a bunch of Hasan Piker lore AND them caring enough about it to the point that it affects who they vote for is going to work, but okay.

Uh let’s put a pin in that

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 7h ago

Rep. Max Miller on Newsmax: "If any of these things were true, I would be in prison"

Hi im lockheed liberal and this is my wife, raytheon republican

“Are you okay, ma’am?” “I think I swallowed my router.” “Here, take my seat.”

Your little oopsie "mistakes" had me worrying for a year of my life about my partner going to jail for up to a decade based on lies likely fed to you by the top of the federal government. Show everyone what you're covering up in these emails and texts. There's a reason you don't want them released.

Boutros acknowledges 'mistakes' in 'Broadview 6' case but says sanctions, special counsel aren't needed

Chicago's top federal prosecutor noted in a court filing that his office has already dropped charges in the case, implemented “robust root-cause changes” and started the process of reviewing over 1,00...

chicago.suntimes.com

Every judge that is receiving a lifetime appointment here is signaling that they are pretty flexible when it comes to defending American democracy donmoynihan.substack.com/p/scenes-fro...

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 4h ago

BLUMENTHAL: Judge Cronan, you're already on the district court. Who won the 2020 election? CRONAN: Joseph Biden received the majority of electoral votes B: You have nothing to lose. You have a lifetime appointment, and yet you're unwilling to state the simple fact that Biden won the 2020 election

i'm under the impression that the spacex chunk hitting the moon is accidental which, if true, is a genuinely impressive failure in as in the context of how large space is, statistically, the moon arguably does not exist

What people are openly using AI for is bad enough, but the real promise of AI is narcissistic porn, & the people already using it for porn are not being open about it, they’re just cooking themselves more cooked than anyone has ever been cooked, & someday they’re going to pop like popcorn. Porncorn

I understand that people like computer and want computer to be real, but you cannot convince me that anything computer provides is worth submitting to fascism and a free flow of CSAM.

Matt Burgess (WIRED)@mattburgess1.bsky.social · 4h ago

NEW: Over the last few months, Meta has run dozens of paid ads that included AI-generated CSAM. The ads, some of which were linking out to “nudify” apps, targeted men in the US, UK, and a dozen European countries. Some were running in the last few days

LMAO. Literally anyone could call Donald Trump and he’d pick up because he’s a demented piece of shit who has a pathological need for constant attention

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 4h ago

Lindell: "I know a guy. I have an advantage over everyone up here. I can call up the president!"

More like, MAHAHAHAHA

Ryan Marino, MD@ryanmarino.bsky.social · 4h ago

Taking my time to really listen and learn from the very valid concerns of the MAHA movement:

Taking my time to really listen and learn from the very valid concerns of the MAHA movement:

Memento (artemis) Morty 🌙@mementomorty.bsky.social · 4h ago

we should hear MAHA out about this they might be onto something

This is unironically what it's going to be like if even a single DSA backed candidate makes it into the Dem Primaries for 2028

“We don’t want the next administration, God forbid, Mr. [racist name]” Burn this racist at the stake in the administration

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6h ago

JD Vance: "We don't want the next administration, whoever -- god forbid you're gonna have President El-Sayed in three years ... "

This is just rank Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism, based on the bigoted idea that there is something inherently scary about a president with the last name "El-Sayed." It is incumbent on all of us to call it out.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6h ago

JD Vance: "We don't want the next administration, whoever -- god forbid you're gonna have President El-Sayed in three years ... "

This photo feels like a weekend AirBnB rental that nobody survives

Stan Oklobdzija@stano.bsky.social · 4h ago

For federal elections, splitting the GOP into two competing crank Nazi movements would be great for Democrats. At the state/local level, however, we'd be condemning large portions of the South and Midwest to governance by Crossfit George Wallace's.

Sadly, every person on stage and in the audience here will probably have their name written down in the Death Note soon and while I don’t agree with Kira on that, it’s not a surprise either

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 4h ago

Every single Republican candidate for governor of Minnesota (including Mike Lindell!) makes clear that if Trump tried another Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities, they would support his efforts to brutalize residents

this should go over well i the general

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 4h ago

Every single Republican candidate for governor of Minnesota (including Mike Lindell!) makes clear that if Trump tried another Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities, they would support his efforts to brutalize residents

It’s pathetic how easy it is to corrupt key people on a civilizational PR level, and this is our fault, really, we prioritized attention as a metric, which of course prioritized especially loud and annoying idiots

Matt Novak@paleofuture.bsky.social · 7h ago

Jim Cramer just now on Elon Musk and why you should buy SpaceX: “Because our minds are small and his mind is big.”

Completely insane topic, one hilariously impossible to gather actual useful controlled social science data on without some sort of straight up Nazi eugenics program that itself would invalidate the study results, so anyway here’s a crazy collection of folks w/ unknown political biases vibing

Michael Hobbes@michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 5h ago

If I had a terminal illness, my My Make A Wish request would be to sit in on an editorial meeting at this magazine www.theatlantic.com/family/2026/...

The thing is: despite the way the executive branch has become more and more political over the years: Burgum is still a public servant. He’s still supposed to have taken an oath to either serve the public, or else resign. It’s clear these oaths have become devalued into absurdity under Trump

John Timmer@jtimmer.bsky.social · 7h ago

RE: the last screenshot, on Doug Burgum: It's worth noting that Burgum ended up being the point man in Trump's war against wind power, and so had to get comfortable blatantly and publicly lying to do that. Once you start getting comfortable with it, future instances become easy.

RE: the last screenshot, on Doug Burgum: It's worth noting that Burgum ended up being the point man in Trump's war against wind power, and so had to get comfortable blatantly and publicly lying to do that. Once you start getting comfortable with it, future instances become easy.

Greg Sargent@gregsargent.bsky.social · 8h ago

It's funny that Jeanine Pirro brought a box of evidence to WH to persuade Trump. He wants her to consciously *throw out* exculpatory facts and *knowingly* prosecute innocent people. So facts can't persuade him by definition. Me and @barbmcquade.bsky.social on this: newrepublic.com/article/2139...

Former Republican Sen. Jeff Flake just endorsed Jon Ossoff for Senate in Georgia. "Character matters. And I want someone in that seat who takes the institution seriously and will protect the institution."

Former GOP Sen. Jeff Flake backs Jon Ossoff, saying ‘character matters’

The Arizona Republican has been one of the loudest critics of President Donald Trump. He says Ossoff's character outweighs any policy disagreements they might have.

ajc.com

Great reporting from @sethklamann.bsky.social at the Denver Post, on the pressures that federal immigration judges are under to deny due process to detainees. It profiles one of the judges who was fired after she challenged the system. @hcrichardson.bsky.social

The Denver Post@denverpost.com · 9h ago

Brea C. Burgie was the second Colorado immigration judge fired under the Trump administration in his second term, and she joins roughly 120 judges nationwide who have lost their jobs in the past 18 months, said Jeremiah Johnson, vice president of the National Association of Immigration Judges

The decisive failure of GOP referenda in Kansas Amendment 1 and Missouri Amendment 4 yesterday is yet another reminder of something I've been saying for a while: Voters, even Republican voters, now regularly despise and repudiate GOP attempts to use them to destroy democracy.

Bari Weiss coming straight from the lab where she researches ways to be the absolute worst.

Sarah Szalavitz💡@dearsarah.bsky.social · 23h ago

Lean In To Fascism