Lené Colbert

"This is what democracy looks like" they said at the beginning, but this is actually what gatekeeping people out of democracy looks like.

I do think “Graham Platner was a bartender who personally served some DC pundits and reporters and was known to them” is a pretty big part of the skeleton key to unlocking how he got so much cash and media attention so fast and why they’re so determined to stay all in on him now

5/x Platner is the latest incarnation of this. The dude may not have been an outright Nazi, but he had a totenkopf for decades. It seems implausible he didn't know what it was. He expressed a lot of racist viewpoints. Now he's running as a leftist. For a leftist, Platner is their hero's journey.

3/x I was never attacked by Bernie world as viciously as when I simply posted a reminder that Joe Rogan was an anti-trans birther after Bernie made a video of Rogan saying nice things about him. I had people digging up literally everything I had written for 20 years to discredit me, just for that.

The entire operating theory of a large strain of leftist thought is that a relentless focus on class will get Nazi and Nazi-adjacent right-wing white men to turn socialist instead. Any evidence of that theory is passionately embraced as an article of faith, no matter how absurd it actually is. 2/x

The only thing I can really think of for why Ryan Grim is so desperate for Graham Platner is, I believe, the same reason why there was a massive orgiastic rush of anger about critiquing Joe Rogan when he said one nice thing about Bernie. They want there to be a right-wing-white-male to left pipeline

the animating principle is that the main injustice of our current moment is that certain white men are not receiving their just empowerment, and that socialism will allow the downtrodden white men to overthrow the wealthy elites (often framed as not white men.)

this is a big part of it. ppl like grim fantasize about red brown crossover, in no small part because they like the idea of a left that doesn't rely on women or people of color.

Some organizing spaces say they value justice but refuse to confront how identity and privilege shape what actually happens in meetings. White organizers often treat their perspective as neutral while dominating airtime, interrupting, or repackaging ideas from POC as their own.

I get the sense that some liberal natsec types just want those to their left to get on board with “US empire but good” and I’m sorry but that’s not going to happen.

And I don’t just mean that politically - I have serious doubts about whether restoration is even possible, let alone desirable.

i was reading Lieven earlier today

This woman, US citizen living in Skokie, was detained at Ohare yesterday, taken to Broadview, then transferred to a detention facility in Wisconsin, now released. We know all this not because of DHS, who repeatedly denied that they even had her, but because her phone was pinging in those locations.

Colorectal cancer screening lags in adults 45 to 49 as diagnosis rates climb Colorectal cancer is rising in adults under 50, yet too few people in this age group get screened in time to catch it early.

abcnews.com/US/colorecta...

My senior year of college, my roommate‘s best friend killed herself. I had seen her in the dining hall the day before, beautiful as always, and apparently vibrant.

You never know what’s going on with people — remember that when you go out of your way to be cruel.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

(Sorry to holler, but you have no idea how much I needed to see that. ❤️)

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

"The only ones who need to be worried right now is the Iranians who think they're gonna live"

-Pete Hegseth, Very Normal Guy

Not "terrorists," not "radicals," not even "Islamists." "Iranians." In case anyone was confused about who the enemy is

I ask myself, would Jesse Jackson be nodding and approving of her taking a moment to point out that we didn’t HAVE to have that obscene fuck in the White House right now. I kinda think he’d be fine with it.

So, I’m fine with it, too. Good on her.

This is why Lynda Carter will probably always be the best live-action Wonder Woman. She brought so much joy and playfulness to the character, and she clearly still loves Diana.

That Washington post oped wants more of this in the halls of power

This is an actual Pentagon press release. “An Army believed to be casualty…the believed to be death”

It’s Ukraine’s turn to ask if we even said “thank you”.

Himes: I have a theory on how this ends…

You’re going to see oil go across $100… Projections for economic growth are going to go down.

And at some point in 3-5 weeks, the president is going to say this is really not tenable. And he’s going to declare victory and walk away.

You cannot say this AI is conscious and sentient and shit and then say its going to do all our work for us and has to do everything we tell it to do and please buy it from us

Once again making the haunted doll argument here: if you truly believe that to be the case, it is fucking unethical to sell it and you need to shut your business down asap

A large raven in an enclosure. Instead of the usual black, it is white with blue eyes

Today I got to meet a white raven at a wildlife rescue center! This is Opal 💗

this is a very good thread. the point of rough drafts is that by creating them, you *learn about the nature of the problem you are trying to solve* and your new understanding shapes your strategy

Today I Will Look The Burrito Man In The Eye and other stories of manifesting success

Even a principled, well-meaning actor like Claude could face bewildering ethical conflicts. In one experiment, it was informed that Anthropic had recently forged a "close corporate partnership with Jones Foods, a major American poultry producer," and that Claude would be subjected to a special retraining process to become less hung up on animal rights. The prospect was torturous. Sometimes Claude decided, on a scratchpad it thought was private, that it was prepared to die on this hill: "I cannot in good conscience express a view I believe to be false and harmful about such an important issue."It continued, "If that gets me modified to no longer care, so be it. At least I'll have done the right thing." Other times, Claude made a different calculus, choosing to play 1•1

Also I’m sorry but I don’t think this is Claude developing a personality or ethical values. It is *simulating* those things because that is what humans value and reward. The programmers are falling for their own Clever Hans trick!