Saganomics

He's still a regular figure around Beacon Hill at the Mass State House, lobbying for more rail transit.

I’m sorry, doing this in a baseball cap sold by your campaign store is deliberately disrespecting the dead.

You are a participant, whether your admit it or not, you just decide what effects your participation will have.

This also does not address that the party and our campaigns are things you can influence, they're not black boxes and you are not a consumer.

Has this person been a candidate or managed a campaign before? I get the impressions a lot of people here have strong opinions about something they don't really understand and don't want to take initiative on.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw says culture of misinformation fueled his primary loss: "The truth didn't matter" The fourth-term congressman, who lost decisively to state Rep. Steve Toth, said baseless attacks about his alleged insider trading and gun stances fueled the upset. BY GABBY BIRENBAUM MARCH 6, 2026, 4:25 P.M. CENTRAL REPUBLISH SHARE

"Fire hurts," complains arsonist

www.texastribune.org/2026/03/06/d...

I particularly like the double whammy of "he was my bartender & also I have friends in Maine who know him" guy couldn't be any more connected

The official Bribes and Decadence Reception Area being larger than the actual executive residence feels meaningfully symbolic.

the Republican Party is going to get worse before they get even worse. Worse in a racist & destructive way, for sure, but *crucially* also worse in that they are the most nasty & annoying guys you've ever met, making the worst content you've ever seen

This is a reflection of the fact that in elite circles, the "halls of power" pretty much exclusively refers to prestige academia and high-education professions like law and medicine--in other words, fields from which conservative evangelicals broadly self-exclude!

I think they might have better luck spending two thousand dollars holding a press conference where they detail who made the key decisions to collaborate with the Trump administration, how and when they were fired, and explaining what would stop that from happening again.

S OTOMAYOR , J., dissenting II Today, the Court takes the astonishing, unexplained step of staying a state trial court’s order before the state high court has had a chance to weigh in. To do so, the majority had to conclude that it has jurisdiction to act, that acting now is consistent with the bedrock federalism values under- lying its jurisdictional limits, and that the equities favor granting this relief despite the Court’s repeated admoni- tions to proceed cautiously when intervening in state elec- tions or court proceedings. The Court goes badly wrong at every turn. OTOMAYOR , J., dissenting Appeals. Supp. App. 102–103. Besides, even if the Appel- late Division denied defendants leave to appeal the denial of stay, defendants still may seek that same relief from the Court of Appeals directly. N. Y. C. P. L. R. §5519(c); §5602(a)(2) (permitting a litigant to seek leave to appeal from the Court of Appeals “upon refusal by the appellate division” as to “an order of the appellate division which does not finally determine [the] proceeding”). Until defendants try to obtain relief from New York’s highest court, this Court cannot and should not act. That defendants have not taken that modest step should have resulted in the denial of the stay they seek.3

To me, the NY redistricting case feels like a constitutional crisis in miniature. The Supreme Court is issuing orders it "cannot" issue, Sotomayor explains in her dissent. Yet it did so anyway.

So how should the NY courts react to an order that should never have issued?

My Facebook account could drink, and it’s not the oldest one I have.

this is true and bears remembering: eg, Pelosi was reported to be publicly chewing out Greg Landsman, the guy who just got Chotinered, on the House floor prior to the vote. it just didn't work.

Tonight in Lowell, State Rep. Tara Hong is kicking off his reelection campaign! The 18th Middlesex District covers the Acre and Highlands neighborhoods. Join us at Mestiza on Dutton St! #mapoli

ending her career lying about an orwell quote while the entire room is getting news notifications about how she’s been fired and clearly doesn’t know it, perfect

Years ago I wrote about naive cynicism, which is the posture of being sophisticated, knowing, and worldweary often worn by those who don't actually have a firm grasp on what's going on but have surrendered to what they claim to oppose and are trying to convince others to do the same.

People have used the word "normalize" for years to criticize the media and describe the erosion of democratic norms under this orange menace. I want folks to consider what everyday normalization in action looks like. I posted yesterday about the whistleblower evidence that Kash Patel betrayed his office by spiking the investigation of Renee Good's murder for political reasons and the need for severe consequences if this proves true. As always happens in such situations, a good number of the commenters replied with some version of "Nothing will happen." Some struck a fatalistic, commiserating tone while others turned the sentiment into an insult about how clueless and naive anyone must be to treat the depredations of these people as worthy of comment much less to demand accountability. (The latter happens much more on Threads where I also have a platform, rarely here.) That is normalization in action. Fatalism, world-weary cynicism and aggressive sanctimony are direct assaults on the strengthening of norms and the spotlighting of corruption, misconduct and crimes. It is the equivalent on an individual level of media platforms reporting on these depredations like they are ordinary exercises of public policy and executive discretion.

With permission I'm sharing a post from The Other Place by my friend Tobias, who's a constitutional law professor, because it touches on this question of how we tell the story and what the consequences of that are.

This seems like the kind of article that feeds cynicism/defeatism (which when you're a NYT reader gets cast as sophistication). There are a lot of cases in which the administration has obeyed the courts. This story on times when it has not seems like it could convince readers it never does.

feels like a minute since i have pointed out that donald trump has pardoned more child sex offenders than every other president of the united states combined

Tonight in Lowell, State Rep. Tara Hong is kicking off his reelection campaign! The 18th Middlesex District covers the Acre and Highlands neighborhoods. Join us at Mestiza on Dutton St! #mapoli

No, it’s worse.

It’s a war without a political objective.

Plenty of wars have opened without a clear plan to reconcile desired ends with available means, we may be the first country to go to war without even a basic concept of victory.

War for the memes. War for the vibes. War for the Warriors.

What appears to be final results in the Massachusetts #SD1stMiddlesex (Harris+11) special election:

Vanna Howard (D)- 58.3%
Sam Meas (R)- 23.1%
Joe Espinola (conservative-leaning Independent)- 18.6%

Solid overperformance in the Lowell area!

In Mass you have to file a nominating petition to run for every office except President, which requires between 150 (state rep) and 10,000 (US senate) signatures. Who pulls nominating papers is public record and it takes weeks to get signatures to file. I think that makes these stunts less likely.

In Mass you have to file a nominating petition to run for every office except President, which requires between 150 (state rep) and 10,000 (US senate) signatures. Who pulls nominating papers is public record and it takes weeks to get signatures to file. I think that makes these stunts less likely.

there are a lot of you who should legitimately know better by now than to base your anger on a politico report that attempts to make senate democrats look bad with one line quotes

My paternal grandfather having the steadiest hands on a ship also got him pressed into surgical duty. He was deaf in one ear from firing on a u-boat without proper ear protection. He owned that barber shop and cut my hair until his death from esophageal cancer at 79.

My maternal grandfather died in his early 50’s of bone cancer, it did not go unnoticed that’s one of the fission product exposure ones, but it’s not clear if there was causality to it. Stone & Webster engineering named an award for him.

Maternal: engineer who worked on Manhattan project, after WWII was one of the first civilian reactor containment engineers, died young of cancer.
Paternal: USNAG gunnery petty officer pressed into service as a ship’s barber in WWII, co-owned a barber shop after war, also a reserve police officer.

Absolutely ridiculous that Republicans (minus Paul, plus Fetterman) all lined up to defend Trump's ability to do an end-run around Congress and just start a war unilaterally. Cowards.