If you were actually mistreated by federal agents multiple legal hurdles stand between you and compensation, but if you were fake mistreated you can just, like, ask the Trump admin for money. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/u...
If you were actually mistreated by federal agents multiple legal hurdles stand between you and compensation, but if you were fake mistreated you can just, like, ask the Trump admin for money. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/u...
Courts still matter.
yes exactly tho I kinda hate that we've settled on the "high trust vs low trust" terminology since the supposedly "low trust" group is hilariously trusting! they are defined by being gullible, credulous rubes who trust claims by others instead of critically interrogating them
Reminder: the apparent plan was to spirit these children away in the middle of the night without them ever seeing the inside of a courtroom to challenge their deportation. Children.
BREAKING: DOJ tells the court that "that all of the class members that were on planes today have been deplaned and are in the process of being returned to ORR custody." The delay, Ensign says, was because he hadn't entered an appearance so hadn't gotten notice of the status report order.
Anna has had excellent coverage of this developing case in which the Trump administration tried to use the holiday weekend to secretly and illegally deport children.
If the fact that you don't see a lot about "Genocide Don" on social media makes you think that U.S. policy toward I/P has improved, you would be very mistaken www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/08/trum...
Trump loses *all the time*. Not always, and it's certainly not the whole story, but few presidents get defeated anywhere near as often.
Torturing children. That's what's happened here. Don't know what else you would call it.
RADDATZ: One of the things they are trying to do in DC with the National Guard is have them back up local law enforcement WES MOORE: They are picking up trash
every day i see hundreds of comments of people spinning elaborate scenarios to explain how trump can control everything and all opposition is futile. a) i think a lot of you need to log off and stop following professional doomsayers. b) i think a lot of you are cowards
"oh nothing matters because mr. trump won't let it matter" shut up
a bunch of you really believe that trump is the unstoppable god king who can do whatever he declares and it is dumb as hell
trump can issue as many executive orders as he wants, perhaps coverage should reflect the fact that a lot of these have the legal force of a child's wishlist for santa
there is nothing, for instance, that can trump can say or do that would force the colorado secretary of state to mandate voter ID or restrict mail-in voting
not just that he has no constitutional authority, there isn't even any particular legal or institutional mechanism by which the president can make anyone treat this as anything other than a weird advisory opinion.
DEVELOPING: Advocates are seeking a court order to block the Trump administration’s effort to deport hundreds of unaccompanied minor children to Guatemala. Judge abruptly moved 3 pm hearing up to 12:30 after she was notified that some children “are in the process of being removed" today.
This is a real danger but to jamelle's point in this thread, folks often don't appreciate the scale of American elections: how many polling places, election workers, and decentralized redundancies, and how little of it is under any federal control. It far outstrips federal manpower in its vastness.
Revitalization of nostalgic jugband styling in the wale of stomp-clap-hey? Irregular formations with anti-neoconfederate intent? Combat fashion as contrast and spectacle? Oh band of brothers, where art thou? It's time for someone in Washington to found the District Zouaves.
Executive Orders are not laws and do not rule Here’s what would rule: an affordable small plates bar near Lafayette Park in downtown DC serving a taste of the French countryside called: Executive Hors d'Oeuvres
As a former "traditional GOP" person myself, that's probably the most delusional sentence I've read in a while.
Sen. Joni "We're All Going to Die" Ernst saw her own poll numbers and the special election victory for Dems this week and opted to pull the ejection seat handle.
Trump is a weenie dictator who can't commit: "Authoritarians usually say 'I'm in charge, I speak for the nation. I'm the mighty and powerful Oz.' You know, the wizard doesn't come out and say, 'Some people say that I am a powerful wizard.'" @radiofreetom.bsky.social joins @timmiller.bsky.social
JD Vance: “I don’t believe Trump” will improve the lives of his voters. { ht: @patriottakes.bsky.social }
JD Vance on Donald Trump: “I’m a Never Trump guy. I never liked him. I don’t think he’s the person. I don’t think he cares about folks. I think that he’s noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place.” { ht: @marcofoster.bsky.social }
JD Vance: “Trump is a really bad candidate and frankly, I think, a really bad person.” { ht: @patriottakes.bsky.social }
Since the pandemic, New Jersey’s utility companies have been making record profits. As governor, I’m going to open up the books to make sure utilities aren’t price gouging or colluding to drive up costs for New Jerseyans.
Vance is famous because he wrote a book about how much the Americans around him sucked.
Mamdani seems very patriotic. Vance, who rejects the entire core basis for the nation that we've shared for 250 years? Not so much.
I don't think Ernst was a particularly strong incumbent, and incumbency advantage isn't what it used to be anyway. It's a Republican state, whatever we make of the 2025 specials. But: Any time Republicans have to pick a nominee for an open seat there's a serious chance of disaster for them.
Eye contact
oh come on www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/u...
This week, the Trump Administration (1) offered a military funeral with honors to Ashli Babbitt, a J6 rioter, and (2) hung a portrait of Robert E. Lee at the Pentagon. Makes sense. They both served the same cause: assault on the constitutional government of the United States.
This is illegal. www.gao.gov/blog/what-po...
This is THE question for a lot of lower court judges evaluating the administration’s power grabs, and it truly sucks
Update from @maiaspoto.bsky.social: LA federal defenders, citing Alina Habba opinion (& our reporting on Acting US Atty Essayli "overruling the findings of the govt’s own agents & line prosecutors), asks court to disqualify Essayli as chief LA prosecutor news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/j...
Excellent short thread. This is what I've tried to be saying since January. We should all agree there's a sustained, ongoing, multi-pronged attack on democracy, with many battles that can go either way, and that frames everything.
I know, I know, he should be on here personally apologizing to Willis and Beutler for not doing whatever they think he should be doing, but I think actually doing actual things to reduce Trump's political power is good too. A controversial take on here, I know!
I know it's illegal on here to notice that our leaders are actually fighting back in the job we actually elected them to do, but here's the Wall Street Journal bitching about Schumer's "historic" delaying tactics that have left almost 90% of Trump appointee slots empty. archive.ph/2025.08.27-0...
Once more: Schumer and the Dems are in fact doing everything McConnell and the GOP did to Biden's nominees, plus a bit more. If you want to be mad at Schumer and the Dems about noms, blame them for not going nuclear back then, as Republicans are apparently going to do now.
I think we are in a quantum superposition between democracy and competitive authoritarianism. The 2026 midterms will collapse the wave function: we'll look into the box and see whether the cat is dead or alive.
🚨Border Patrol arrested two firefighters who were actively fighting a wildfire at the time. When the other members of the crew asked for a chance to say goodbye, a Border Patrol agent told the crew member “you need to get the f*ck out of here. I’m going to make you leave.”
This makes me question the president’s health more than the size of his ankles
When I'm governor, I'll modernize state agencies and cut through red tape so New Jersey entrepreneurs can focus on building their businesses, not getting bogged down by bureaucracy.
So, she's going to put holds on nominations, attach riders to approps bills, and haul people in for hearings, right? Right?
By any conventional measure, we have crossed a threshold in this country where democratic institutions are being intentionally attacked on a daily basis. Of course these attacks are not always successful. But a few failed campaigns does not (should not) disguise the fact that one is at war (3/3).
The debate over how to classify the present regime in the US matters primarily because of its practical upshot. If the disagreement is really about the authoritarian “box score” (rather than direction of change), then what really matters is identifying (thus to emulate) successful resistance. (1/3)
Just out for an evening stroll in beautiful DC, wearing my Third Amendment T-shirt so the national guard knows they can’t come sit in my couch
Newsom: Perhaps the president could deploy the National Guard in every corner of Mississippi. Murder rate is out of control there. And the governor may want to make that phone call.
As someone who works on political campaigns, specifically in voter mobilization, I am very nervous about amplifying any narrative that’s going to make people doubt the effectiveness of voting. (That said, def telling people this year to put vote by mail ballots in drop boxes rather than mail)
Over 400,000 New Jerseyans will pay more for their health care next year because Republicans chose to sacrifice your care in order to give tax breaks to their billionaire friends. It's unacceptable.
Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is headed to the Ocean State, likely to spout talking points about how Trump is “putting workers first.” She should try telling that to the thousands of union workers who Trump just fired through his stop-work order on a nearly complete wind farm in Rhode Island.
Funny enough, I go to New York City because I know it's a city where Sean Hannity would get mean looks from people at restaurants.
From Oak Tree Road to India Square in Jersey City, my administration is going to make sure that Indian-American businesses have the tools to grow and thrive. By contrast, Jack fully backs Trump's tariffs, even though they cause businesses and families to feel "pain."
Reuters repeating a falsehood here. Most of this money was already granted to intel under the chips act passed by Biden. The rest under other pre-Trump programs
This is the counter checklist to what I posted today. Again, I very much hope I am wrong and Zach is right. In practice, I think we probably agree on most stuff, but a) on what meets the threshold of competitive authoritarianism, and b) what counts as completing the checklist.
any argument that trump has fully consolidated authoritarian power has to contend with the fact that the government wants to deport kilmar abrego garcia to uganda but hasn't done so, because a judge told them not to
Lot to unpack here in terms of principled stances vs electoral considerations and what the evidence says, but even if you agree with the premise of the piece, the idea that Trump is a dealmaker on election policy, or that its a good idea to add more federal control over elections rn is questionable
When I was the elected prosecutor in KC, if asst prosecutors repeatedly took cases to the grand jury that were not indicted there would be consequences. It would mean that they were trying to indict people with insufficient evidence which is unacceptable and wrong.
My wife's reaction: "You should ask him to subscribe to your newsletter."
Listening to a podcast where a well known tech world wannabe fascist calls journalism "nonconsensual invasion of privacy for profit" and thinks that's clever and my goodness does that reveal a lot of how completely brain wormed a bunch of these guys are once they faced a tiny bit of criticism.
Absolutely bonkers personalist regime stuff www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
One more time, shout out to the very serious people who suggested that RFK had some really good points about public health. No way to have predicted how things would turn out, except to look at his past record and everything he said about vaccines.
Put another way, it's as if someone made a real life version of AI-slop in an effort to align reality with the slop.
"The spectacle that falsifies reality is nevertheless a real product of that reality, while lived reality is materially invaded by the contemplation of the spectacle and ends up absorbing it and aligning itself with it."
Because the thing is, this is real but also, it's not real. This image reflects the reality that Trump *wants* a total state in which he is the unquestioned leader, but we do not actually live in that state, at least not yet.
I wasn't going to write about Taylor Swift's engagement, but people kept asking for my take. So here's my take: it's totally unsurprising that a 35 year old woman would marry her boyfriend of 2 years. It means nothing about a cultural shift away from feminism www.cartoonshateher.com/p/women-marr...
Atlantic City businesses will not be left behind by my administration. I'm going to make sure government works for you: it will be easier and cheaper to start and grow a business, and the state will prioritize critical investment in Atlantic City and Atlantic County when I’m governor.
I was so glad to have the chance to meet with folks in the South Jersey Latino community to talk about how my administration will support small businesses, invest in schools, and stand up to the chaos coming out of Washington to ensure that families can thrive here.
We’re back in South Jersey ;)
the appearance of gen AI slop alongside this moment is just too perfect. it provides one of the big missing pieces of fascism that was absent from trump 1 in terms of reactionary modernism
when your politics are fundamentally aesthetic (per walter benjamin on fascism), but you lack the necessary thread of connection with reality to produce anything *besides* the aesthetic
i find this image so fascinating. it is both a literal example of authoritarianism but also a second-hand reproduction of the aesthetics of other authoritarian states. it's like a simulacra of authoritarianism whose purpose is to attempt to make the simulacra real.
Yeah. So far it’s *attempted manipulation* but if people start inadvertently promoting the narrative that it’s already succeeded, then that will help it actually succeed. And so far R states have been resistant to fucking with vote by mail because A LOT of Rs in red states vote by mail.
This isn't to say that Trump will definitely fail. I could list all the things he's done that have damaged democracy, from midterm gerrymandering to gangster-extortion of CBS. But as of right now, there is both meaningful public dissent and free and fair elections. That's not CA.
-Mainstream media is harshly critical of Trump -Election administration still local and non-partisan -Judges and juries are resisting prosecutions -Military isn't repressing protestors -Local law enforcement in places like Illinois resisting cooperation -Vibrant civil society resistance
I find this @donmoyn.bsky.social piece helpful in clarifying why I disagree with the "America is already in competitive authoritarianism" thesis. Don's checklist shows things that Trump has tried to do, but he hasn't *succeeded* in most areas donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-author...
Couldn't agree more with this from @brianbeutler.bsky.social er.bsky.social. Intra-left factional debates are, for the most part, a political luxury good. A lot of these arguments feel like passengers on the Titanic discussing the best way to build a ship.
"Their desire to please a political base will result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults. Their base should be the people they serve, not a political voting bloc." From CDC immunization & respiratory diseases director resignation letter. Tragic. www.facebook.com/jill.lawrenc...
Coffee is basically my one luxury (I quit drinking soda in 2021) and I could totally be a single-issue inflation voter over this shit.
Except that executive order is entirely toothless
It would be great to push RFK out now. Also: If we had pushed RFK out after the CDC shooting, we wouldn't have to worry about four open leadership positions at CDC with whoever steps in next. Every crisis where we wait to make this the objective means the damage will be worse when we regain power
“Some activists launched ‘No sleep for Ice’ rallies, with chants and music blaring through the night, in hopes of pressuring the hotels to kick agents out. Now, public records shared w/the Guardian show that the protests indeed sent federal agencies scrambling …” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Back in 2020, YouTube suspended OAN's channel, demonetized it, and noted it was not an "authoritative" source. Now, five years later, the Google-owned platform has inked a deal to put the MAGA propaganda network in millions of living rooms. Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/youtube-oa...
For more on the international parallels between Trump and other authoritarian regimes I recommend subscribing to @ruthbenghiat.bsky.social's Lucid. This from today's newsletter: lucid.substack.com/p/trumps-war...
A rare example of a major outlet (in this case the WSJ ed. board—yes, them!) comparing Trump's actions to the failures of other authoritarian regimes around the world & through history. Media need to connect these dots so more people understand the perilous path the Trump White House has put us on.
Full resignation letter from Demetre C. Daskalakis, a CDC leader, does not hold back. "The recent shooting at CDC is not why I am resigning. My grandfather, who I am named after, stood up to fascist forces in Greece and lost his life doing so. I am resigning to make him and his legacy proud."
HOLD THE PRESSES: Even though HHS says Monarez is out (see tweet) her lawyer says otherwise. What a shitshow. bsky.app/profile/mark...
Two things: *She is in infectious disease scientist who was asked by a vaccine crank to support an anti-vax policy not backed by evidence *She was told to resign or be fired bsky.app/profile/ddia...
Here are excerpts from the resignation letters from CDC leaders: Via @jeremyfaust.bsky.social insidemedicine.substack.com/p/breaking-n...
Resignations of CDC staff directly related to misinformation, weaponizing of public health, which is coming from RFK Jr. Untenable situation for them to serve under these conditions. www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...
![In his resignation letter, Daskalakis wrote, “I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponizing of public health.” Houry’s resignation letter spoke about the continued spread of misinformation around vaccines. “Recently, the overstating of risks [of vaccines] and the rise of misinformation have cost lives, as demonstrated by the highest number of US measles cases in 30 years and the violent attack on our agency,” Houry wrote.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2rrp7amblhg3xoly5n5huiqv/bafkreiboml2a3p7qlqb4qmlbhb76rzanvnpkvlpw34wggsq6wsv27wvy5m@jpeg "Click to view full size")
In a functional government, this would be a five alarm fire where Congress calls in Kennedy and asks him what the fuck is going on
A handful of GOP Senators could probably force him out in a week.
I don’t need a self driving car. I need a vehicle that runs between major areas and can transport large numbers of people at once to reduce environmental impact…wait it’s a train. I’m describing trains. Build more goddamned TRAINS, America.
"Researcher who has distorted voter data appointed to Homeland Security election integrity role" www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...
Second time we’ve seen this in DC. There were a spate of these in LA; I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more
I'm skeptical of the rising academic consensus that the US is an autocracy. Elections are still free and fair (see Iowa last night) and there's still vibrant opposition/civil society dissent. This could change! But current reality is more akin to Guillermo O'Donnell's "delegative democracy:"
I think this, from an influential 2011 book on executive power, explains why the American political establishment was so comfortable with the growth of the imperial presidency. They couldn't imagine someone of Trump's character gaining power.
