Forging new frontiers in moral degeneracy. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/u...
Political Columnist, Bloomberg.
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Forging new frontiers in moral degeneracy. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/u...
Glaciers in Central Asia have long managed to withstand rising temperatures and changing weather patterns. But now, that isn't the case
This is a lie on an absolutely colossal scale - the figures show that tariff revenue has increased by $20 billion/month - www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... would take over 30 years to reach $8 trillion at this rate
I’m glad @emptywheel.bsky.social wrote this. I’ve been watching Noem in recent weeks and wondering if Kilmar Abrego had an actionable slander claim against her? It seems like she has no proof for any of her slurs.
"'(T)he Court’s role is to respect the choices that the people have agreed upon, not to tell them what they should agree to,' Barrett writes in 'Listening to the Law'..." The Founders agreed presidents shouldn't be kings. Why don't you respect that? 1/n
If you are a corporate CEO you can be removed for an "undisclosed romantic relationship." If you are a Republican you can be elected president or put in charge of major cabinets after being credibly accused of sexual assault(s). www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Three quarters of Republicans are satisfied with a nation that is not creeping, but racing, toward fascism.
Fifty-one of the 85 Federalist papers were written by a guy born in Nevis.
'Various participants described the outlook for US monetary policy as “horrible”, “chaos”, and a “disaster”.' on.ft.com/4n3d3yA
Trump has iced out the democracies. Now the other leading thugs are icing out Trump. “Mr. Modi sought to show that India has other important friends…if the Trump administration chooses to continue alienating New Delhi with tariffs.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/w...
Every Democrat should be demanding his resignation at least 10 times a day. Every day. Over and over and over.
OTD in 2004 Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya was poisoned. While on a flight. After asking for tea. If you can imagine that. She was later shot dead as a birthday present to Prez. www.theguardian.com/world/2004/s...
Every authoritarian regime that embraced this aesthetic inflicted violence and chaos on its society
Surprising that the MAGA cocktail of laziness, ignorance, incompetence, bad faith and stupidity did not yield superior results.
On one hand, this is bad. OTOH I guess it’s better to have him manufacture a war against Venezuela than against Canada.
This is good rhetoric.
“I love and respect great workers and contractors” says the real estate heir who systematically cheated craftsmen and contractors out of their rightful pay.
🧵 Authoritarianism, Democratization, and Coalition Politics. The consensus around here is, more or less, that the United States is currently a consolidating authoritarian regime controlled by a mix of reactionary populists and fascists.
They’re doing all this to prevent people from MEMORIALIZING A MASS SHOOTING
As I recently wrote: “Mr. Trump may think his word is law, but neither a social media post nor an executive order has the power of a royal edict“ www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/o...
This “explicit” is a weird editorial choice. The constitution gives the president no power over this at all. It’s not ambiguous.
“This was the final, fatal miscalculation—the belief that democracy’s protections could be bargained away but democracy itself could still somehow survive.” cc: US elites.
Please tell me more about this.
"And during this weekend’s trip to China — Mr. Modi’s first in seven years — he is expected to have a receptive audience for stronger and expanded ties with Beijing and Moscow." A+ strategic work by Trump's ego. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/u...
Stuart Stevens, currently to the left of most democratic leaders on the Hill
Death cult.
A Trump voter imprisons your neighbor it’s law and order. Kicks their gay kid out its religious conviction. Shoots you dead it’s self defense. Kidnaps you, it’s border security. Invades your town, it’s fighting crime. Tell them you don’t like them anymore, it was all just “political views.”
Zohran Mamdani is the happiest politician in America, his whole campaign is about how New York is awesome and can be even awesomer. Meanwhile, there has never been a politician in history who talked as much about what a shithole he thinks America is as Donald Trump does.
This is the simple public declaration that every Democratic elected official in the US should make several times a day.
Just saw a video of Bill Maher calling Mamdani a “straight up communist” and I continue to be struck by the depiction of policies associated with the New Deal Order as far-left extremism, which goes along with a refusal to depict Trump’s unprecedented authoritarian actions as far-right extremism.
Authoritarian party moves to further restrict democratic capacity.
for what it’s worth I think “fire RFK” is potentially a concrete ask that could work for the budget, assuming that Rs can’t get their shit together. Rs would probably like to be able to blame an RFK firing on Ds and I think that’s a totally acceptable trade
Three GOP senators – Tillis, Ernst and Cassidy – were pressured into voting for Trump nominees or face losing reelection races. Now: – Tillis is retiring – Cassidy may lose anyway – And Ernst just announced her retirement. Appeasement. Doesn't. Work. www.cbsnews.com/news/joni-er...
Our story on the chaos Trump's and Vought's "pocket rescissions" gambit has now inspired. From @kateriga.bsky.social.
"Tao is one of the most prominent mathematicians and academics to publicly oppose the administration’s actions, calling them an “existential threat” to his field, and academic science, more broadly. He said public advocacy is a priority over his research, for now." www.nbcnews.com/science/scie...
A rough MAGA hierarchy of values: The Confederacy and enslavers; Jan 6 thugs; White Christian nationalists; Putin/White Russia; Professional liars, ie Fox, etc.; Sundry crackpots and evil loons; Right-wing grifters, ie Trump lads; Racist billionaires and toadies; Rando unqualified White men.
“I don’t have any choice” says the kidnapper.
Robert E. Lee killed more U.S. troops in battle than Adolph Hitler and Osama bin Laden combined
Can the health secretaries in the blue states organize themselves as the 23 Dem AGs do and start more aggressively pushing back on what Kennedy is doing? Their citizens are at risk.
Some thoughts on the rapid disassembly of the CDC and what it means for the health of Americans, public trust and national security. As one former agency official bluntly put it: “When people call the CDC, who is picking up the phone?” My latest for @opinion.bloomberg.com (gift link):
And now they have their Horst Wessel
This rectangle in the middle of the screen is a color I pulled from Trump's face in Premiere Pro and then filled a shape with it. He's worn that insane orange makeup for years but in his meeting with the South Korean leader it was especially Oompa-Loompa.
They’re doing everything they can to signal and people are doing everything they can to ignore it.
Trump continues his transition from generating stochastic violence to supporting more deliberate forms.
Page One in #NY21. www.nny360.com/news/it-s-be...
According to pathological liars, the economy grew more than honest people realize.
"Trump's protestations about Russia have always been self-discrediting. He persistently maintains that (1) allegations of his bromance with Putin are a hoax and (2) the hoax is interfering with their bromance."
They should just do tariff rates like Lotto — pick spinning balls out of a barrel. Trump can spin the barrel each Saturday night live on TV; tariffs can go up or down weekly. Better TV ratings than current system while no less destructive and insane.
“Kennedy would be less hazardous if he decided to do cardiac surgery. Then he would kill people only one at a time rather than his current ability to kill by the thousands. Why is it that killing a single person is seen as murder but killing masses is excused if you are a politician?” Dr Bill Foege
This (whole thread) gets at what I was going for, and the point where there should be broad agreement, even as we might wrangle on details, terminology and degree of democratic collapse.
From 2024: GOP gun culture is a manifestation of its murder of democracy. "Democracy takes place in public and draws its lifeblood not from gunplay but from open public discourse in safe public arenas. It is incompatible with the intimidation of gun culture." www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
The paradox of Trump 2, I think, is that it's a nascent autocracy with the qualities of a dying autocracy: The autarch is old, promising an early succession; he is using his newfound powers to undermine the stability of the realm; & the regime, for all that it's been accommodated, is run by idiots
Sept 1-7 is the firearm industry’s “Gun Storage Check Week” in the US.
I dare you to go to Annunciation School and tell our grieving community, in effect, guns don’t kill kids, antidepressants do. Just shut up. Stop peddling bullshit. You should be fired.
Horrifying
The abrupt attempt to oust Dr. Susan Monarez, the CDC’s director just weeks after her Senate confirmation, is yet another glaring sign of Secretary Kennedy’s failed leadership and reckless mismanagement. www.apha.org/news-and-med...
The local political story around the DC military takeover is rich stuff. The zombie delegate who refuses to retire or appear in public, the mayor who will assent to anything if it gets her football stadium...
This is such a no-brainer that the lack of a coordinated response feels deeply damning. A Democratic leadership team that can't mobilize an instant all-hands-on-deck effort on RFK Jr. isn't a leadership team at all.
Bitten by Trump’s tariffs and other diplomatic shifts from Washington, China and India look to repair ties.
Absolutely bonkers personalist regime stuff www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
It's important to know what we're dealing with. Though some in the media still try to horse-race, both sides this, we're faced with psychopaths at the helm of our nation's public health, scientific and healthcare efforts. They want to inflict pain and suffering. It's a goal, not a by-product. 6/
Huh I wonder why Trump fired him oh there's a picture included, nevermind, same as usual
A humble book doesn’t stand a chance against the modern internet’s sophisticated algorithms -- that's now showing up in reading performance and enjoyment around the world 🎁 via @opinion.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
Blackmail and Brownstones: Todd Blanche Locked Ghislaine Maxwell into Her Obvious Lies www.emptywheel.net/2025/08/28/b...
Press release as Rome burns in a toxic chemical conflagration: “DCCC Launches Digital Ads Calling Out Vulnerable House Republicans for Making America’s Cookouts More Expensive”
Continue to greatly appreciate your work.
Wow
A handful of GOP Senators could probably force him out in a week.
I have found a lot of use for Melinda Cooper’s concept of the anti-social state: a government that exists only to extract wealth and inflict violence, and dismantles all its pro-social and life-enabling functions. www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
They don't feel shame, but they care deeply about status. Wanting to be liked--or at least envied--is their Achilles heel. We can use that against them:it's cheap, non-violent & effective. Social shunning of elites supporting Pinochet helped bring down the Chilean dictator: it can work here too.
I would never have guessed.
There’s always a certain amount of confusion in these personnel matters when the president is a pathological liar and the agency head is a deranged maniac.
The volume of MAGA depravity is breaking this country in a million pieces. www.wfae.org/race-equity/...
wtf is this nonsense? He thinks he can understand kid’s “mitochondrial challenges” just by looking at them? This is an insane person.
Hero jury saves hoagie hurler from legal grinder www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/u...
Living in the US right now is like watching Godzilla torch all the buildings down the street and people are saying things like, “Is it warm? It feels warm today.”
We have 30 departments at my #hospital looking for #nurses right now, and they are deporting nursing students
Yellen not at all pulling her punches in this op-ed for the FT www.ft.com/content/d2ea...
The news paper that everyone who owns 2 or more bulldozers reads seems displeased with the regime. www.enr.com/articles/611...
What an image (J. Scott Applewhite, AP)
Really feel like all these jumpy Epstein people need to get in line. I'm still waiting for the start of Melania Trump's August 2016 news conference at which all of her perfectly legal immigration documents will be on display. www.cnn.com/2016/08/09/p...
#MenWithCats
"Trump has vowed repeatedly to halve power prices within 12 months of taking office as well as double electricity capacity. Instead, residential electricity prices have climbed about 10% from January until May and are projected to rise another 5.8% next year," www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
“Trump’s pretense to ownership of public goods and public spaces isn’t some quirk to be ignored or waited out — “there goes our Donald!” — but a direct expression of his autocratic ambitions and despotic cast of mind.”
Bill Dudley wasn’t worried about Trump imperiling the Fed. Now he is: “The threat to the Fed’s independence — along with the risk of uncontained inflation, much higher long-term borrowing costs and a significantly weaker dollar — isn’t going away.” www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
I feel very confident that these were the most hilarious "covert influence operations" of all time, and I would like to hear more about them.
Maybe there’s a legit reason. But this looks like more authoritarian thuggery working its way into the sinews of civil society. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/u...
IP: “.. If Trump’s effort to remove Lisa Cook for cause succeeds, and perhaps even if it doesn’t, this week will go down as one of the most consequential for financial markets in decades.” @wsj.com @opinion.bloomberg.com www.wsj.com/economy/cent...
Trump allows Russia to kill Ukrainian civilians without consequence; meanwhile, he might sanction EU officials implementing the bloc’s social media regs based on the false premise they’re censoring Americans. Tilting at windmills, with a heaping side of empty morals. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...
I think one reason we are likely on a worse-than-Hungary trajectory is that MAGA is more primal, more savage, than Fidesz. Orban is post-democracy. Trump/MAGA aspires to be pre-democracy.
Once called home, close to tears, from a Cracker Barrel in Florida. After a long work day it was the only place open. I ordered the safest item on menu: hamburger. I received a processed patty of indeterminate origin, wedged between cardboard and slathered in gooey mayo. Returned to hotel hungry.
MAGA war on democracy is a world war.
New euphemism for "megalomaniacal dictator who demands public adoration from obsequious subordinates" just dropped
“As of Tuesday, she had raised over $800,000 on the Christian fundraising platform GiveSendGo — including many donations that came in after the charges were announced — with a stated goal of $1 million.” www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/...
Jeffries has been punching himself in the face for a while now.
This is such an embarrassing way to end a democracy.
What a slob.
Spotted in Columbia Heights
