I think you just discovered the plot for The Fast and the Furious 10.

BRB, hiring a coyote to smuggle a cool Chinese EV over the border to avoid tariffs.

The book Poor Things was based on had a huge overarching theme of Sottish people being colonized and exploited by wealthy Londoners from the south, so erasing the Scottish ethnic identify of the protagonist was definitely a strange move. Completely robs the story of its original anti-imperialist message, but I guess there’s not much of an audience for that.

The only approach we can take as outsiders

Outsiders? OUTSIDERS? The Prime Minister of Israel is literally from Philadelphia. They are the 51st state. Israel is an American military base with some decorations on top. It’s like saying America should not interfere with South Korea vs. North Korea. A bit late for that!

back the regional coalitions we already back and avoid escalating

That is literally what protesters are asking for. We are asking for Biden to pressure Israel into not escalating. But then liberals get mad that roads are blocked off etc. because that’s not “the right way” to push for de-escalation. What is the right way? Any way that doesn’t actually work. Any way where activism is limited only to superficial cultural consumption. Those are the boundaries of liberal politics.

It’s only called a Fed if it comes from the Quantico region of Virginia. Otherwise, it’s just a sparkling hog.

“President McDonalds Walmart (D), I tip my hat to you sir. Poor people are stupid, and you, a rich man, are brave enough to lead us. God Bless America, Slava Ukraini, and let’s go kick Yemen’s ass!” -Aaron Sorkin in 2028

A list of his dork’s caucus memberships:

Congressional Progressive Caucus

lmao

Dads Caucus

well he does have 5 kids (and custody of 3 of them)

Voting Rights Caucus

LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus

Great job protecting trans people across America bro. Wonderful work. Zero bills passed, but here’s a participation trophy.

Pro Choice Caucus

GREAT JOB, SIR. REALLY DOING A WONDERFUL JOB THERE. THANKS FOR PROTECTING ABORTION RIGHTS.

Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus

He is only on this caucus because Chinatown is in his district. Lmao.

Labor Caucus

The heir to the Levi Strauss fortune is on the labor caucus.

Renters Caucus

GREAT JOB KEEPING THE RENTS LOW IN checks notes NEW YORK FUCKING CITY. AMAZING JOB. PAT YOURSELF ON THE BACK.

Quiet Skies Caucus

I had to look this up. “The mission of the Quiet Skies Caucus is to raise awareness on the issue of aircraft noise.” How few problems do you have in your life that you spend time on this…

Ukraine Caucus

Baltic Caucus

Oh, cool. What’s the last thing they did? “Baltic Security Initiative Act 2023 - Legislation providing the Department of Defense with $350 million over three years to provide the Baltic States with defense aid.”

Public Broadcasting Caucus

This is the guy NPR is made for, I guess.

Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition

Great job on making America not dependent on fossil fuels anymore. No, really, great job fixing global warming. Bravo.

Because the central metaphor of that passage is a religious one. It hearkens back to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

Which itself is adapted from “John Brown’s Body.” If you know anything about John Brown, he was a very religious man, and one of the main ways he got people to follow him on his anti-slavery crusade was by appealing to religion. In fact, as the Civil War went on, even the usually secular Abraham Lincoln began including more religious language into his speeches. This was partly to help calm the nation down due to the immense deaths during the Civil War. But it was also because John Brown’s rhetoric was very effective. There were a lot of people in the north who actually did not want slavery to end (like McClellan and his moderate faction), because it materially benefitted him. There was actually very little material benefit to abolition for Lincoln directly or really most abolitionists. Abolition was an ideological project, and one which could not have been accomplished in the mid-1800s without using Christianity as a justification. In fact, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s brother was the most famous preacher in America during the Civil War, and he constantly preached propaganda against the south and slavery which many people in the north agreed with, again, not because it materially benefitted them, but because they agreed that slavery was immoral from a religious standpoint.

One of the primary sources that Martin Luther King learned rhetoric from was the Bible. He was a reverend, and he sharpened his public speaking skills through the church. America has a long, long history of progressive rhetoric intertwining with religious themes. In fact it Steinbeck was using an appeal to religion in the passage you said you liked, even though you might not have noticed. So yeah, maybe there is a reason that the Bible is literally the best-selling, most widely read book in the history of humanity. Maybe it has some good rhetoric in it! And maybe people on the left can learn a little bit about how to capture people’s attention and empathy by learning from its prose.

Partially because in the 1950s the American government focused hard on separating religion and socialism. They did not want a “liberation theology” spreading in the United States. So they heavily labeled the USSR as “godless” and then slowly but surely boosted the right-wing of evangelical churches, culminating in Reagan/Bush, the rise of the “religious right,” and abortion being used as a wedge issue.

Here’s a list of all 20 people previously expelled from the House and Senate, and their reasons for being expelled (mostly during the Civil War).

Daily reminder that more Bernie supporters voted for Hillary in 2016 than Hillary supporters voted for Obama in 2008.

I think any conflict where hospitals have to invent a new acronym - WCNSF (Wounded Child, No Surviving Family) - to describe hundreds of orphaned children deserves to be called a genocide. Just as much as the Armenian genocide or the genocide of various indigenous American peoples.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231107-gaza-coins-a-new-acronym-wcnsf-wounded-child-no-surviving-family/

A multi-polar world? But then who would enforce our Rules Based Order ?

“Abby… Normal? YOU GOT THE WRONG BRAIN, IGOR!”

I’m imagining Elon Musk buying Pixar, and he just makes every movie about how his ex-wife should get back together with him.

Also, fun fact: James Madison (who was the fourth president and wrote the American Constitution) had a black son who he owned as a slave, and who was the result of him raping his own half-black sister, who he also owned as a slave.

No, no, she’s right. Chuck Schumer’s nepo baby celebrity millionaire niece, who lives in a giant mansion in Los Angeles, is the real victim of worldwide oppression.