Jeet Heer

Gatsby has long been taught as a potentially Jewish character. In the book the narrator sees him meeting with Jewish mobsters. It is, in fact, his potential Jewishness that explains both why Daisy will not marry him and why white supremacist eugenics makes an appearance in the book at the dinner party as a verbal assault against him. But the right doesn't take literature classes, so.

I can't get over the fact that Dune is about an oppressed people fighting for their homeland, waging a jihad to bring down a hegemonic empire by threatening to cut off the flow of their most precious commodity after the empire had assassinated their religious leader's father.

I can't get over the fact that Dune is about an oppressed people fighting for their homeland, waging a jihad to bring down a hegemonic empire by threatening to cut off the flow of their most precious commodity after the empire had assassinated their religious leader's father.

I have long maintained that Biden will be viewed favorably by history 1) because he was a very good president and 2) he will look even better when viewed between the disaster of 2 Trump presidencies. It’s already playing out. I will be vindicated sooner than expected ❤️

Yglesias is right here

White House has provided the dinner guest list for tonight:  A dinner in honor of Her Excellency TAKAICHI Sanae, Prime Minister of Japan Thursday, March 19, 2026 1The President of the United States 2Her Excellency TAKAICHI Sanae, Prime Minister of Japan 3Mr. Andrew Abboud 4Dr. Miriam Adelson 5Mr. AKAHORI Takeshi, Senior Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs 6His Excellency AKAZAWA Ryosei, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry 7Mr. Jim Allen 8Mr. Cristiano Amon 9Mr. ARAI Masayoshi, Director-General, Trade Policy Bureau, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry 10Mr. ARIMA Yutaka, Director-General, Foreign Policy Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs 11The Honorable Scott Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury 12The Honorable James Blair 13The Honorable Pam Bondi, Attorney General 14Mr. Greg Brockman and Mrs. Anna Brockman 15The Honorable Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior 16The Honorable Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Secretary of Labor 17The Honorable Sean Duffy, Secretary of Transportation 18Mr. Larry Fink 19The Honorable George Glass, Ambassador of the United States to Japan and Mrs. Amy Glass 20Mr. David Goeckeler 21The Honorable Jamieson Greer, United States Trade Representative 22The Honorable Bill Hagerty, United States Senator from Tennessee and Mrs. Christine Hagerty 23Mr. HAYASHI Makoto, Executive Secretary to the Prime Minister 24The Honorable Pete Hegseth, Secretary of War 25Mr. ICHIKAWA Keiichi, National Security Advisor 26Mr. IIDA Yuji, Executive Secretary to the Prime Minister 27Mr. IIJIMA Isao, Special Advisor to the Cabinet 28Mr. Takajiro Ishikawa 29Mr. KANO Koji, Vice Minister of Defense for International Affairs 30Dr. Alex Karp 31Mr. Arvind Krishna 32Mr. KUMAGAI Naoki, Director General of the North American Affairs Bureau in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 33The Honorable Kelly Loeffler, Administrator of the Small Business Administration 34Mr. Palmer Luckey 35The Honorable Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce 36Mr. MATANO Motosada, Director-General, Economic Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs 37Mr. Hideki Matsuyama 38The Honorable Linda McMahon, Secretary of Education 39Mr. Sanjay Mehrotra 40Mr. Michael Miebach 41Mr. Jason Miller 42Mr. Jeff Miller 43The Honorable Stephen Miller 44Mr. MIMURA Atsushi, Vice Minister of Finance for International Affairs, Ministry of Finance 45His Excellency MOTEGI Toshimitsu, Minister of Foreign Affairs 46Mr. NAMAZU Hiroyuki, Senior Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan 47Mr. Michael Needham 48Mr. Tetsuo Ogawa 49Mr. Kelly Ortberg 50Mr. OZAKI Masanao, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary 51Mr. Sundar Pichai 52Mr. Ted Pick 53The Honorable James Risch, United States Senator from Idaho and Mrs. Vicki Risch 54Mr. Horacio Rozanski 55The Honorable Marco Rubio, Secretary of State 56Mr. SAIKI Kozo, Cabinet Secretary for Public Affairs 57Mr. Shyam Sankar 58Mr. Masayoshi Son 59Mr. James Taiclet 60Mr. TAKAZAWA Yoshinori, Director, First North America Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs 61Mr. Charlie Takeuchi 62Mr. Hock Tan 63The Honorable Scott Turner, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development 64The Vice President of the United States 65The Honorable Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget 66The Honorable Chris Wright, Secretary of Energy 67His Excellency YAMADA Shigeo, Ambassador of Japan to the United States of America 68The Honorable Lee Zeldin, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

Amazing thing to write when Donald Trump is president. But also: Baseball Crank writes for National Review, a magazine which for years worked diligently to free the rapist and murdered Edgar Smith. William Buckley, the founder of the magazine did so because he thought that anyone who read National Review could not be guilty of rape and murder. After he was freed, Smith went on to stab another woman.

Hegseth is too ignorant to understand that but analyst Anders P. Nielsen made a really good point in one of his podcasts: Everything that Trump and Israel have been doing in the Middle East would have been impossible without Russia's army being bogged down in Ukraine.

The Afroman Trial. -Cops raid Afromans house for bullshit reasons. -Steal money, break his door, fuck his house up. -No criminality found whatsoever, no charges at all pressed on Afroman. -Afroman spends the next 3 years making songs that make fun of all the officers involved by name, even using footage of the raid from his own CCTV cameras. -Songs had titles like "Randy Walters is a son of a bitch" and "Lick Em Low Lisa" accusing one of the officers of being a lesbian and sleeping with the other officers wives. -During the raid one officer looked like he was about to eat some lemon pound cake sitting on Afromans counter, Afroman made a whole album calling the officer fat. -The cops get mad and file a lawsuit for defamation. -Afroman turns up to court in a whole American flag suit. -Officers performatively mald and cry while listening to the songs really trying to oversell how badly the songs upset them. -One officer was suing because Afroman made a whole song about him saying he was fucking the officers wife. When the officer was asked if Afroman was really fucking his wife, he said "I don't know". Nuking his own case and establishing that there is a non-zero chance that Afroman might actually be fucking his wife. -As his only witness for the trial, Afroman brought a deputies EX FUCKING WIFE. -The jury ruled completely in favour of Afroman. This entire thing has been a great win for free speech and absolutely fucking hilarious.

Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi's reaction as Trump says "Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Habour?" Undoubtedly the worst American diplomatic gaffe in post-war US-Japan history.

Well, I did not anticipate this: *BESSENT: US MAY UNSANCTION IRANIAN OIL THAT’S ON WATER

qatar is about to start cutting helium exports... helium is used for chip production... the iran war is about to turn the ai bubble into the hindenburg

Well, I did not anticipate this: *BESSENT: US MAY UNSANCTION IRANIAN OIL THAT’S ON WATER

This is wild. People in *every single one* of the top US allies now think it's better to depend on China than the US. The global balance of power is clearly tilting away from the US and toward China.