Even if you take the most lenient possible interpretation -- that SCOTUS has made it increasingly hard to prosecute bribery and corruption -- you still have to ask what kind of crooked-ass administration hires a guy who just took $50k cash.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:c7ozmxoc5b2ky4iam2o36uic/post/3lzchjz5lis25

Even after abusing his power to get Kimmel fired, Trump is still seething with resentment. Hopefully to the point of ill health. KEEP RIDICULING THEM, THEY CAN’T HANDLE IT.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4usmserhjqkvhldgedfjb3jw/post/3lz5buslktc2w

Never stop the ridicule for one second.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:vn3p3ydk5zgywye3focmlf64/post/3lz3b7cug2k2i

I mean, if you want a pack of snorting losers eager to shoot unarmed refugees and kill fishermen, you could hardly do better.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:gljcmclsvuebhhnvpa2rwvjr/post/3lz4u5xgw622n

Reminder: before you go full-on defeatist about the rule of law, keep in mind it remains often effective on a micro-level. It’s on the macro- that the FedSoc types have killed it. Hard work and good lawyering can make a difference for regular people — though not always, and not all of them.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5mbed4jchmim6tv4q7atgvrk/post/3lz2qcmmac22i

Brendan Carr had better get on the ball to silence this Brendan Carr guy

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:yb46ioo6f5zs336a2ujh7mtq/post/3lz3jb6o5pk23

Cancelling Disney+ and Hulu. Kids will be disappointed but they can deal and make (and fund) their own moral choices.

/2 Also: “I don’t care about the constitution or the rule of law because my feelings are hurt” is a very modern American conservative sentiment.

Can Jimmy Kimmel sue Brendan Carr, or other federal actors, for violating his First Amendment rights by coercing ABC to suspend his show, and maybe eventually to fire him? To teal deer it, yes, but without an effective remedy. /1

A grim reminder: these people will never be satisfied. There’s no point at which they will say “we’ve won, let’s enjoy life.” They will always be looking for someone else to punish, to revile, to dehumanize. They’re empty without that.

Anyway, now we know what the FCC thinks is in the public interest: Fox host advocating for executing homeless people? Yes ABC comic suggesting Trumpers are using a death cynically? No

Didn’t Aaron Sorkin have a short-lived show about a SNL-type show and at some point Stephen Webber plays a network exec who decides to stand up to the administration on an FCC issue? Sorkin always did have realism issues.

/7 Klein’s other theme seems to be that even if people are advocating terrible things, things that dehumanize others, we should find a way to act as if they are not, in order to find common ground. But is that really right? And what if it’s not reciprocal?

/6 Klein isn’t the main target (at least not quite yet). Because Kirk will go through the pantomime of “debates” and podcast appearances and columns, Klein can imagine Kirk as just like Klein - another laborer in the word mines. It’s no particular skin off his back.

/5 In our scenario, Kirk doesn’t just aim at Klein. In fact he’s likely to treat Klein with at least the simulacrum of respect, unlike Hasan (I leave it to you to imagine why). Kirk’s worst vitriol is saved not for his fellow air conditioning repairmen, but for others.

/4 Klein’s view of politics reminds me of the old Ralph and Sam Looney Tunes cartoons, the mortal enemies punching in, trying to kill each other, and then punching out. But there’s a difference.

/3 Moreover, Klein’s identification with fellow pundits seems selective. Klein could have identified with, for instance, @mehdirhasan.bsky.social, whom Kirk called to be deported for his views — something that did not disqualify Kirk from “doing politics in the right way,” in Klein’s eyes.

/2 This approach sees speaking and writing and politics as just widget-making, morally neutral, banal. Hey; that guy repairs air conditioners and so do I; we’re much alike. By contrast Klein doesn’t seem to identify with the people Kirk reviled and despised and degraded.

Ezra Klein’s most recent column gives the game away: he talks about how horrified he was by Kirk’s assassination because he identifies with Kirk. Kirk, like Klein, talked for a living. So even if they had different policy positions, to some degree, Klein sees himself in Kirk. /1

/2 Also: if you suggest that shouting at the President in a restaurant is RICO, you are (1) completely without shame or self-respect, and (2) believe, probably accurately, that your chosen audience is made up of total morons.