@tj-stiles
American historian and biographer. Pulitzer Prize for History for "Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America" Pulitzer Prize for Biography & National Book Award for Nonfiction for "The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt”
Friday: "Unconditional surrender!"
Saturday: "How about a tuna sandwich? Nice albacore, not that dark chunky tuna."
Sunday: "From now on you must all speak English! And write it with my weird capitalizations."
Monday: "All I want is a reunion cookout in Prospect Park."
Tuesday: "No more pants!"
Tolstoy: This guy. ROFL.
Step 1: Self-righteously declare English to be the official language.
Step 2: Fire everyone who can read or write English.
The #BondiTop
"...Mr. Lincoln certainly would have receded and would have dealt with the South with an iron hand, as Congress had determined to do, and as General Grant was compelled to do when he assumed the Presidency."
And Cullom was no fire-breathing radical.
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2...
From Shelby Cullom's memoirs:
"...When the Legislatures and Executives of the Southern States began openly passing laws and executing them so that the negro was substantially placed back into slavery, practically nullifying the results of the awful struggle, the untold loss of life and treasure,..."
The important thing is, they're laser-focused on affordability.
You know, how it's not really a problem.
Oof. Multiple THAAD radar systems have reportedly been destroyed by Iran. That’s bad.
I’ve also seen some surprise that Russia is providing Iran with targeting data for US forces, but that was expected. We’ve been providing Ukraine with targeting data for 4 years.
www.cnn.com/2026/03/05/m...
“You *need* me on that wall, shooting at you!”
We have yet to hear the threat precisely described. In fact, it has been transparently misrepresented. The ends seem to change daily—and they are mere tossed-off comments. A complete failure to think it through. And means? We seem to be merely firing off our munitions stocks for the point of it.
In war, one shapes means to the ends. The ends are determined by the level of threat. Gulf War, 1991: Threat seen as limited, ends were limited (no occupation of Iraq), means sufficient. Iraq War, 2003: Threat overstated, ends wildly overstated, means inadequate to grandiose ends.
Iran now? Oy…
Yeah, I mean, who keeps track of who pays taxes? Or how much? Is that even a thing? Here at Customs, it’s just, “Put your money in the shoebox. We trust ya!”
Rules of engagement are integral to strategy. Diplomacy is integral to strategy. Pete “rules of engagement are stupid” Hegseth thinks objectives are just targets. Objectives in war as well as peace include a stable, achievable end state, which can never be reached by destruction alone.
I will miss Kristi Noem's inimitable constitutional insights, as when, asked by Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H. at a Senate hearing to define "habeas corpus," she replied, "Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country."
Not long ago, the idea that any president would shrug off the likely deaths of Americans in a terrorist attack he provoked would have been treated as absurd. Risible. Laughably risible even. But here we are.
It turns out it was Trump who had Trump Derangement Syndrome the whole time.
Donald Trump stacked the commission in charge of approving his golden ballroom with loyalists.
Yet even they can't deny that a majority of Americans oppose the project.
Destroying the White House East Wing to feed Trump's ego will be a stain on our history. www.cnn.com/2026/03/05/p...
In 1945, Orwell wrote in "Notes on Nationalism," "Pacifist: Those who ‘abjure’ violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf."
Again, he did not mean the violence would be committed *against* pacifists.
Prosecute Noem.
www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-f...
Yes, folks, this is a bad paraphrase of something Orwell actually wrote (see reply). However we know that Orwell did not mean that the violence would be committed *against* the people sleeping peacefully in their beds.
Noem presided over summary executions of two peaceful U.S. citizens.
[Exit Murderer.]
Markwayne Mullin gets the job?
On Capitol Hill you can tell when Tommy Tuberville and Markwayne Mullin play chess from the loud cries of, "King me!"
But Stephen Miller is still in charge.
www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03...
Yeah, well, I had a say in picking the U.S. leader. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
In case you forgot what Trump’s role model is up to.
among other things, it's very very funny to imagine Trump having granular knowledge and strong opinions about various obscure Iranian regime figures possibly in the running.
His talking points were astonishingly dumb. “You can’t have 535 commanders-in-chief.” Yeah, the Constitution’s requirement that Congress approve any war doesn’t make commanders of individual members. “They declared war on us 47 years ago!” So why was Trump negotiating with them? It’s a war of whim.
Republicans finally send someone to discuss the war with NPR, and they pick *Ron Johnson*?!? Tommy Tuberville wasn’t available I guess.
His stammering non-explanations of his hypocrisy over Congressional approval finally ended up as, “Look, this is just the way it is.”
one.npr.org/i/nx-s1-5735...
Exactly.
Today’s Daily Cartoon, by Brendan Loper. #NewYorkerCartoons
Sorry I'm not more open-minded about LLMs, it's just some fucking maniacs shoveled out a bunch of useless bloatware featuring that technology, did not give me any chance to opt out, reorganized the entire economy around it, zeroed out gains made by green energy, and made it impossible to buy RAM
I don’t know. If I were Ukraine, I’d insist on selling them to Europe, and Europe can supply the U.S.