Listen, I get noting the hypocrisy is fun, but there’s literally no reason to punish people who work at a strip club for Trump’s bullshit. There’s nothing wrong with strippers making extra money in some event as long as they consent to be there. I’ve got no issue with some young women making money off of old perverts…

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, ironically, probably committed immigration fraud. There is a credible claim she lied to get asylum in the Netherlands, where she promptly turned to far-right politics. Her rabid anti-Islam politics since, which mostly rely on far-right anti-Muslim groups and racist narratives, only make her…

-Knoxville high-five- 

Franklyn? Not Franklin? Could be wrong, but the latter is near Nashville. Dunno about the former. Just wanted to say something in case that’s a possible error. 

I really don’t like it. I see the logic they’re using, but FIFA rankings are just too much bullshit. I want the “middle class” of the federation to have a shot. I’d rather the US is forced to play against weaker teams and earn their way into the Hex.

It’s truly strange how the many well-founded criticisms of the DHS mostly just disappeared from public consciousness. It’s a massive and overbearing agency with a history bad behavior and abusing powers that cobbled together a bunch of disparate powers and departments into a bloated monster that has never worked very…

“Distraction Becky” has a real ring to it.

That was a Trump-appointed political apparatchik at the top who put that out. Given past experience, most of the staff at the museum probably not only agreed with the term but were ready to issue explainers on the origin. The US Holocaust Museum has a very good record on opposing human rights abuses.

I saw a survivor of Hiroshima speak not too long ago. She came to a small regional Asia-focused academic conference. It was intense. There’s really no substitution for someone who lived through something like that. When you’re in the room, when you see her pause as she tells a story she’s told a thousand times,…

Thought of this immediately.

Because history is very often just a rationalization of present day prejudices. The subject is taught so terribly in the US (and not quite so well in other English-speaking places) that that fundamental fact is often not well known. History is two things; the record of the past and how people interact with that record…

I was thinking the same thing. Is it possible they’re going after small scale crimes with a weapon as an intensifier? So say, a guy selling weed caught with a gun he shouldn’t possess? I’m not familiar enough with PA state law and this issue to know for certain but I’d guess this was a designed to undercut his attempt…

That’s pretty textbook violent conduct, unless the rules have changed and I missed it. That should’ve been a sending off. The non-call is a serious game-changer. 

I’m biased as a DC fan, but Arriola is a good player. Even in his less than stellar games he pulls some attention and pressure off other players, and on good nights he’s consistently dangerous. I think his finishing isn’t quite there, but you can do a lot worse than an energetic winger who pulls defenses out of shape…

Yes, that’s generally a well-worn historical fact at this point, as solid as most historical “facts” can be (meaning there’s still a chance it’s wrong, but the evidence strongly points one way).

I just played this game with someone supporting Netanyahu’s recent abuse of a small aDNA study to support his racism against Palestinians. I started going over how the nationalist narrative of ancient Israel is largely a construct invented both by modern people and the ancient Judahite monarchy, and contradicted by a…

Dear Gods. I can say firmly, as a historian (though that’s not my period) we have an incredibly amount of evidence of the Holocaust. There’s no rational ground for skepticism. You can maybe quibble in good faith about how we teach it, there’s a tendency in the US to ignore non-Jewish victims (though that’s probably…

He only needs one friend to pull this off.

Who keeps letting this shitstains out of the greys? 

Yeah, this is really firming up my theory that this was an intentional leak to push out the ambassador and replace him with a pro-Trump empty suit and hence slither into the narcissist’s good graces. If it was Boris or one of his allies, which still seems most probable, it may be a play to either try and get the US to…