I would like to get off this ride

Every day this government finds new depths of total depravity. They dig a little deeper with each passing hour, settling in like it's the easiest thing in the world to send dozens of children to their horrifyingly violent ends while they lock kids up in cages at home. The cynical rhetoric that raining hellfire down upon civilians is meant to give Iranians a shot at self-determination while they shatter the rights of our own domestic public day-in and day-out grates heavily. To partner with a government that has turned Gaza into a wasteland and presided over a multigenerational genocide just pushes the knife in further.

As the bombs fall onto the Middle East (again), duplicitous shitheels log into their Polymarket accounts and bet on where the next missile will land, and how many unfortunate civilians are buried under rubble. This market has generated nearly $54 million in trading volume for its users. "The promise of prediction markets is to harness the wisdom of the crowd to create accurate, unbiased forecasts for the most important events to society," Polymarket said on their website. "That ability is particularly invaluable in gut-wrenching times like today. After discussing with those directly affected by the attacks, who had dozens of questions, we realized that prediction markets could give them the answers they needed in ways TV news and 𝕏 could not." As Ana Marie Cox said on Bluesky this morning, should Iranians "be monitoring Polymarket to see if their children will be murdered the next day?"

Much of the purported Opposition Party has already fallen into lockstep, offering up fake outrage at being cut out of the murderous deal and signaling support for regime change (again!) in a country this government has no business meddling in. Just a few statements that have come out since this morning:

Keep threading the needle, guys, that'll help.

Frankly, this level of evil is hard to comprehend. This American regime destroys the lives of Americans at home and upends the governments of countries outside our own. They continue to wage a campaign of terror against immigrants across this country. They attacked and destabilized Venezuela at the start of the year, kidnapping President Nicolas Maduro in the process. They ramped up the blockade against Cuba this past month. They're bombing Iran today. Many people are going to die.

Already, emergency protests have been scheduled across the United States in response to this aggression, and will likely continue into the future. Once again folks will take to the streets to register their outrage at being forced into a global conflict that no one wants. What a time to be an American (evergreen). What a horrible time.

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Some reading I've found instructive as I've attempted to grapple with the news this morning:

An Unpopular, Doomed, Bloody War

People will die and nothing will be accomplished

Systematic HatredsPaul Musgrave

Why ‘Flooding the Zone’ Works for Trump - Dame Magazine

Trump’s allies openly described a strategy to overwhelm the press with simultaneous crises. The structure of modern journalism makes it work

Dame MagazineParker Molloy

The rise of end times fascism | Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor

The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them

The GuardianNaomi Klein

This way madness lies, but you knew that

It’s the most relatable thing in the world: You’ve just put your weekly data-visualization newsletter to bed when the president of the United States unilaterally decides that the country is going to launch a war against a foreign country. Not much to do but throw some charts together! Foreword So

How To Read This ChartPhilip Bump