Yes, but that's distinct from presidentialism. More generally, the fact that competitive authoritarianism has arisen under such varied constitutional arrangements argues for looking at other factors that may be at work. Not to deny their importance, but clearly there's other stuff going on.

Taibbi's definition of "horrible" might be a tad different from that of an immigrant family hiding in their house to evade Trump's secret police, but let's not forget that things are tough for him, too.

BTW, immediately after this passage he proceeds to complain once again about liberal censorship.

"I won't let men in girls locker rooms" motherfucker you're letting GIRLS go in the girls locker room, the GOP wants men checking your daughters genitalia! ATTACK, RELENTLESSLY, HOW WEIRD THEY ARE AND HOW THE EPSTEIN PARTY WANTS STRANGERS STARING AT UNDERAGE GIRLS!

One has an agreed-upon nominal value, while the other has an agreed-upon nominal value while also being (1) accepted by everyone in the world as a medium of exchange and unit of account and (1) backed up by an intricate network of global and national-level institutions.

Central banks have always been fucking people over. But they're all we've got.

Yep. They take what, in reality, is digital nonsense and try to liken it to gold. It in fact it has the exact opposite attributes.

Exactly. When oil goes down a bit later this week, these same journalists will call up their industry-affiliated contacts until one of them gives them a quote about "ebbing concerns."

The job of financial journalists is to "explain" market moves - even on days like today when there's no special news driving the market. So they make stuff up, like a "renewed" supply crunch that's been ongoing for months.

Uhh, no, I am not going to watch this.

At one point, I started writing a book comparing apologists for genocide in Ukraine and Palestine. But then Trump was reelected, so I'm writing a book on how to overthrow him (nonviolently).

My first instinct was to write, "you sure about that?" Then I looked and - great scott!

And ditto for the tankies. Almost all of them would heartily agree with expert assessments that Israel's committing genocide. But mention expert assessments of Russia's genocide and watch the braindead excuses fly: "It's not genocide, and the Ukrainians are the only obstacle to peace."

No, I'm sure that if the Palestinian people just became reasonable, Netanyahu would give them their state.