Just shocking. No idea what to do about this. The first amendment implications are...very confusing.
Alaska's 'ranked choice' voting system is a mess.
Worth reading if you are interested in the Brazilian election issues.
CRUCIAL FACTS ON THE FLAVIO BOLSONARO MATTER:
It's not just Flavio Bolsonaro who fled Brazil to escape the tyrannical persecution of Alexandre de Moraes and the pro-Lula wing of the Supreme Court. There are dozens of Brazilian exiles who have done the same: dissident journalists, activists, bloggers, and politicians who all fled to avoid certain prison for political opposition.
In most of these cases, Moraes has demanded the extradition of those who fled and whom he wants to imprison back in Brazil. But Moraes' extradition requests have been repeatedly denied by multiple countries and institutions on the grounds that these prosecutions are politically motivated or otherwise corrupted. Among those concluing this: Spain, Italy, INTERPOL, and even the US under Biden.
Just today, Italy refused Brazil's demand to extradite a person named @edutagli, who was once a top aide to Moraes, but then fled to Italy after Moraes accused him of having been my source in a huge leak from Moraes' office that I obtained for reporting I did with @Folha in 2024. That massive leak enabled us to publish roughly 20 articles proving systemic abuses of power by Moraes against his political enemies: exactly the reason so many Brazilians, including Bolsonaro, know they can't get a fair trial in Brazil.
Italy today refused to extradite the person accused of being our source on the grounds that the proceedings would be a farce because Moraes — as he so often does — wants to act as the supposed victim, investigator, and judge, and thus his demand falls well outside of Italy's extradition standards. Again, multiple countries have concluded the same, showing what a farce Brazil's once-respected judicial system has become under the Lula/Moraes regime.
Moraes has overseen a system of political persecution masquerading as criminal justice that has been recognized as a sham by multiple countries that are not exactly Bolsonaro allies. Nobody in their right mind who is a political enemy of Moraes would remain in Brazil once if it is clear that he intends to imprison you, since he has proven that guilt is a foregone conclusion and he operates with no legal or constitutional limits of any kind.
That is why asylum under international law exists: to protect those who cannot obtain justice in their own country because the justice system has been corrupted and commandeered for political persecution. Many people, such as Julian Assange, have needed that protection (which Lula cheered). Now people need it from Moraes in Brazil. That is sadly one of the main legacies of both Lula and Moraes over the last six years.
Tom Aiello retweeted
Late-stage democracy is more descriptive than “end-stage capitalism.” What you’re seeing is a predictable failure mode of a system in which people can vote themselves more money. That’s not a failure of capitalism, that’s unrestrained democracy robbing capitalism.
I'm in my 40s. I'm a lawyer. My wife is a lawyer. We both work full time.
We cannot afford the house my parents purchased on a single electrician's income in their 30s.
We cannot afford the house my immigrant grandparents purchased on a single MTA bus driver's salary in their 30s. They had SIX CHILDREN.
For 30 years, politicians in Washington & their oligarch allies convinced regular people that this was just about avocado toast and fancy coffee.
In reality, this is end-stage capitalism. Everyone is stuck in place. It's impossible to buy a home. It's too costly to move. We work too much to have passion projects. We don't have enough savings to start our own businesses. We can't afford to go without healthcare to do it.
Thanks for writing this article @troy_closson. Would be very happy to discuss further.
nytimes.com/2026/10/25/nyreg…
Tom Aiello retweeted
Just a reminder: in 1995, Chicago experienced a major heat wave. Almost 800 people died. Afterward, there was a concerted effort to provide air conditioners and cooling centers. In 2012 there was a worse heat wave but only 26 people died as a result.
Air conditioning works.
Blistering record heat in Europe this summer killed more than 50,000 people, with nearly two-thirds of that death toll blamed on human-caused climate change, a new study found. abcnews.link/EUhX7dR
> One of the Senate candidates in Texas is corrupt and the other has ideas untethered from common sense.
Which way, Texas?
Tom Aiello retweeted
The final 2026 US budget is out…
One of the great political moves by the left in recent years has been convincing a large portion of America that we don’t already spend the vast majority of our money on healthcare and entitlement programs.
Tom Aiello retweeted
Abdul el-Sayed entered, gained energy within, and won his Democratic Party primary on the basis of his positions on the Middle East. He attacked his opponents for being aligned with Israel, a country he openly opposes, and many of his campaign surrogates were animated primarily by that issue.
I don't even disagree, on the substance of that one issue, that the US should not provide military aid to Israel while the country actively builds settlements and turns a blind eye to settler violence in the West Bank, though I think AES goes too far in treating them as something more akin to an adversary than a flawed ally. But Middle East issues are very obviously and openly something that animates him and his supporters.
Consider the median American's opinion on Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other Islamist powers in the Middle East with Abdul el-Sayed's. Take the median Democrat, even. Is anyone willing to go on the record and say they honestly think he is no more sympathetic to them than the median American? He is not an Islamist - he is an American social democrat who, like many American leftists, finds many reasons to sympathize with Islamist groups and sees them often as victims of American foreign policy in the Middle East.
I keep seeing people want to have it both ways: on the one hand, he will gain power because he is a fervent opponent of Israel. On the other hand, to even think about asking him for more elaboration than a cursory denial on how he feels about the Islamist powers in the region is an undue concern motivated by his race and faith.
No. Absolutely not. If we are to enter a period of renegotiating the country's approach to Middle East foreign policy - and make absolutely no mistake, that is one of the core reasons AES's supporters and campaign surrogates want him in office - then we absolutely cannot treat it as undue religious/racial motivation to want a clear picture about where people stand in relation to Middle East powers and why.
Republicans did not make the Middle East central to Abdul el-Sayed's campaign. Abdul el-Sayed did. Now he wants to have it both ways, and a lot of people are nodding along for motivated reasons.
Tom Aiello retweeted
I don’t currently know which politician this was, but I don’t make the rules:
It’s all of our duty to share this young man’s rabbit art, after the authoritarian response he received! 🐇 🐰
Tom Aiello retweeted
Market-made billionaires create more value via the economic activity that made them billionaires than via whatever their taxes fund.
Tom Aiello retweeted
HBO's @LastWeekTonight has a long track record of citing social science findings without the appropriate context, massaging them to support whatever point @iamjohnoliver is trying to make.
A nation, like a man, is only as good as its word.
Looks like I know who I'm voting for in this one.
