watching trump’s full press conference drove me to drink, idk how people do that shit all the time
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watching trump’s full press conference drove me to drink, idk how people do that shit all the time
HUGE. The 5th Circuit joins many other federal courts in holding that Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act was unlawful. The judges emphasize that the law is fundamentally about *war* and about military actions; not illegal immigration or drug trafficking.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the vice chair of the Intelligence Committee, says he was denied a meeting with career intelligence workers because Laura Loomer objected.
Khanna: It’s going to be a bombshell press conference tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. The American people will hear directly from survivors of the Epstein abuse. And they’re not just going to talk about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s abuse — they’re going to talk about rich and powerful men…
Lethal force against a civilian vessel in international waters is a war crime if not in self-defense. If not in self-defense, only non-lethal actions, such as warning shots or disabling fire, are allowed. "Not yielding to pursuers" or "suspected of carrying drugs" doesn't carry a death sentence.
Kakistocracy.
1/ We are hearing the kinds of strong statements from Pritzker that we should’ve been hearing from all elected Dems to this point. But what is Pritzker going to *do* in response to military deployment to Chicago? Now is the time to announce actions and consequences and then follow through.
The White House declares that it would be a “hostile act” if House Republicans voted for a complete release of the Epstein files. Trump seems desperate to cover up any connection with his friend who raped children.
It’s not just that the President of the United States posted a video of eleven people being murdered in international waters it’s that the President of the United States ordered the murder of eleven people in international waters so he could post a video of it.
Here's the video Trump just posted to Truth Social, with the claim that 11 people aboard the boat were killed. There is zero evidence of self-defense here. Looks like a massacre of civilians at sea. Even if they had drugs aboard, that's not a capital offense.
I feel like in the 1980’s/90’s this would be a major plot point in a Tom Clancy novel, and the operation would be carried out as an off-book, illegal black op, with various characters trying to cover it up lest they face congressional hearings. Now the President just announces it.
I saw someone mention elsewhere that Schmitt had hired on the comms staffer fired for placing explicit neo-Nazi imagery in Ron DeSantis campaign material, and. If that's the case, either that Nazi is writing his material or ANOTHER Nazi is writing his material. Because that is German Nazi shit.
Even more than Patriot Front the speech reminds me of the sort of political speech we saw from Identity Evropa. Specifically, Identity Evropa after they got outed as pro-Hitler and then tried a desperate rebrand as "American Identity Movement" where it was suddenly all apple pie and the flag.
oh this is straightforward white nationalist agitprop
"Rapist felon forces university to shutter women's center."
🧪⚒️ it has been argued that without tides (and the large moon that generates them) then life (or maybe complex life) on Earth may not have existed at all. In other words, no species capable of finding things weird, would find tides weird.
Pritzker: "It breaks my heart to report that we have been told ICE will try to disrupt community picnics and peaceful parades. Let's be clear -- the terror and cruelty is the point, not the safety of anybody living here."
Pritzker: "When did we become a country where it's ok for the US president to insist on national television that a state should call him to beg for anything? Especially something we don't want. Have we truly lost all sense of sanity in this nation that we treat this as normal?"
Can you really negotiate with a White House that calls you a domestic extremist group?
”Leo Terrell, chair of an interagency antisemitism task force, shared a post on X (formerly Twitter) in March from a white supremacist who joked that President Donald Trump ’has the ability to revoke someone’s Jew card.‘“
So if the president calls you a terrorist, Rubio can murder you. Please note that Stephen Miller just called the Democratic party a "domestic, extremist organization." Pay attention. www.snopes.com/fact-check/s...
Reupping: A Tale of Two Governors: Confronting versus Dick-Wagging There's no reason to believe Pritzker will be any more successful at staving off invasion than Newsom. Big Q is on efficacy to raise the costs. www.emptywheel.net/2025/09/02/a...
I know, I know, but: The president of the US saying, literally, "we're going in" in reference to sending the military to an American city for no reason beyond terrorizing the local population should be the most immediately impeachable shit imaginable
Teens calling Idaho's suicide hotline are being told they can't proceed with the conversation without parental consent. Many of the callers are then hanging up. Idaho approved a strict parental consent law last year. idahocapitalsun.com/2025/08/29/i...
you'd think the governor of illinois basically going "we're being invaded by an authoritarian" would be something you'd see real easy on the front page of most everything an hour later
I know it’s all bad faith bs BUT I keep thinking about how the whole “reason” we apparently can’t pass any effective gun control legislation to prevent mass shootings is the idea that we need an armed populace in case the federal government decides to invade our cities and towns. Like??????????
I have my critiques about Pritzker, but right now they seem insignificant against my appreciation that he is the governor right now
We already got to the bottom of it. RFK Jr. intended to destroy our vaccine system, and we all knew that. But Cassidy was too chicken to oppose his nomination as HHS. He gave Kennedy the keys to the car, knowing he would drive it--and us--off the cliff.
That Pritzker press conference was... surreal, and I think marks a significant moment of escalation in the constitutional omni-crisis. This was the governor of a state saying plainly the Union itself is being torn apart and his state is being militarily invaded by an authoritarian regime.
this is almost certainly under Title 32 authorities (meaning the TX guard will be nominally under TX state control but on a federal mission), meaning the posse comitatus issues that came up in California will not apply. that said, it raises a whole lot of other legal problems
If it’s under Title 32 authority, the Texas guard remains under state control. That would mean that one state is deploying armed forces into the territory of a non-consenting state. And that’d clearly be a violation of the principle that states are co-equal, territorially limited sovereigns.
Pritzker never ever says that opposing Trump requires throwing any part of the anti-Trump coalition under the bus. Democratic politicians who do—sometimes with a show of “I might not agree, but The People demand it, and I want to win”—are not just immoral, I severely doubt their political strategy.
Texas state Sen. Charles Perry (R) apologized on the Senate floor Tuesday, after Democracy Docket reported last week on racist remarks he made about immigrants at a 2022 legislative hearing. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
Illinois needs to activate their NG to set up roadblocks outside wherever the TX NG is being billeted and not let them come out unless they are unarmed and in civilian clothes.
These problems are even bigger. As a constitutional matter, the deployment of unfederalized Guard personnel into a nonconsenting state can never happen. Never.
Pritzker should mobilize the Illinois National Guard to oppose them. Extreme? Maybe. But I don’t see why he should just let another state effectively invade his.
Pritzker's already demonstrated more creativity and initiative than most of congree combined by breaking this news himself
the thing is that by getting out in front of this instead of waiting for it to happen Pritzker might actually short circuit the whole thing. Texas is already issuing denials.
Pritzker again exhorts the news media to tell the truth about what's happening: "I refuse to pretend that any of this is normal."
The great @sifill.bsky.social shreds the media for falling for Trump's narratives -- in this case, that these occupations have anything to do with crime. open.substack.com/pub/sherrily...
Illinois Gov. Pritzker ahead of Trump National Guard deployment: "To Chicagoans... Look out for your communities and your neighbours. Know your rights. Film things that you see happening... Authoritarians thrive on your silence. Be loud for America."
be loud for america is probably one of the most cogent things a dem politician has said in recent years
75% of the county votes for Trump. Trump kills their project, which had been underway for some time, that was designed to become a global leader in the industry and reshape how America handles it. Oops. They hurt themselves. Again.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
At some point, you have to defend democracy, not just pivot to talking points, or there won't be fair future elections to win www.cnn.com/2025/08/31/p... What I told @ronbrownstein.bsky.social (joking/not joking):
"The GOP is signing on to mass murder of children based on the novel theories of a man who has no party ties except a single Trump endorsement. It is a measure of the party’s utter hollowness, brokenness, and evil that even in this case, it can barely find the resources to demur."
America heartbroken to discover president somehow still alive
after All Of This, it will not be enough to turn DC into a state: we must turn DC into at least twenty states: each DC neighborhood deserves two senators
Trump looks great, extremely sheveled
Breaking: a young and healthy Donald Trump announces that Space Force will be launching a preemptive strike on The Great Gazoo, who he heard make threats as he fitfully napped in front of the TV Saturday.
Vivian Wilson was featured on another magazine cover so naturally, Elon has spent the last few hours binge posting heinous anti-trans screeds. www.thecut.com/article/vivi...
What comes aprés Trump? I have some thoughts. The biggest is that JD Vance has Malenkov written all over him . . . www.thebulwark.com/p/the-death-...
They just updated to 2:45, lmao. They must be absolutely pumping him full of every stimulant known to man backstage.
The whole point of saying he would speak at 2 p.m. was to end the rumors that he's dead and now they're taking 45 minutes to staple his face on and put an iron rod and hooks up the back of his suit? It's not ideal.
I’m amazed there is a whole class of people paid to have dumb opinions. I have even dumber opinions for free
Yep. News orgs should state unabashedly that they are not in the business of amplifying Trump officials’ lies, and any official who feels entitled to such amplification can go stuff it. Let Noem shriek into the MAGA disinformation abyss all she likes. Just say no to this sleazy scam already.
In the long term I dream that we DO reconstitute, because a government structured under the U.S. Constitution will never be more than a sad approximation of democracy. The Senate, the Electoral College, and the Supreme Court are all anti-democratic institutions, by design.
Things feel uncertain right now, Illinois. I want you all to know we’re doing everything we can to protect your rights. Make sure you know how to stand up for yourself and others at illinoisimmigrationinfo.org.
It's so weird how Greenwald and Nate Silver and the like—who aren't even here—keep insisting that Bluesky is pro-DNC, when I've yet to see anyone here ever say anything nice about the DNC at all. Also, evaporating? Lol. Bluesky now sends WAY more traffic to @techdirt.com than Twitter *ever* did.
Long form proof of life document please and thank you
seems the whole point of the "announcement" was proof of life and ability to talk to a group of reporters
there's a general consensus that if you ignore what right-wing people think, it won't matter this is dead wrong, and i mean that literally
I'm a 57 year old college educated man. I learned about the Tulsa race massacre from a TV show 6 years ago. Schools have been very selective about the history that is taught. That's just one of the reasons why this matters.
the 80s and 90s were such an amazing era for little kids watching movies that they absolutely should not have been watching
Julia Roberts may have received a Best Actress nomination for PRETTY WOMAN at the 1991 Academy Awards but the real accolade we need to talk about is how the same performance won her the award for Favorite Movie Actress that same year at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards.
Happy to take the birthrate people seriously the second one of them is like omg, have you seen the black infant mortality death rate? We’re losing out on so many lovely black babies!
“in an email to a peer about 18 months later, as he was preparing to enter law school, Velchik wrote that he‘d enjoyed Hitler’s autobiography and political manifesto, “Mein Kampf,” more than any other book he’d read recently during a year of travels” www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/02/m...
👇🎯
Um...as the old saying goes, when you want to convince people you aren't being Weekend At Bernie's, you open your press conference with serious unexplained technical glitches.
tRump late to start the press conference... Probably still waiting on the puppeteers to get all their strings and controls set up.
I don't like this new rule. I much preferred a presidency subject to checks and balances. But thanks to Trump and the Supreme Court, we don't have that anymore. And Democrats aren't going to get it back by acting like the adults in the room. They'll only wind up ceding more power to the arsonists.
Everything I've seen about Democrats' version of Project 2029 is far too modest and weak-kneed. Democrats need to look at the precedents Trump is setting (and shattering) and figure out how a progressive can maximally wield the power that this administration is concentrating in the executive branch.
Where I live, in D.C., the Trump administration just effectively repealed our gun laws by refusing to enforce restrictions on AR-15s and public carry. It's a two-way street, right? The next Democratic administration should declare a nationwide ban on assault weapons. It's an emergency, after all.
NONE of these plans are any more extreme than what Trump is currently doing with the help of the Supreme Court. If Trump can shut down the Department of Education and CFPB, President AOC can shut down ICE. If Trump can kill green energy projects, President Newsom can kill the fossil fuel industry.
Impound ICE's funding and redirect the money toward mass refugee resettlement. Cut off federal funding to states with draconian abortion laws and use the money to build reproductive health clinics in those states instead. End oil and gas subsidies then funnel the money to green energy projects.
Other things the next Democratic president should claim a prerogative to do unilaterally: •establish Medicare for All •forgive all student loans •legalize weed •mandate nationwide non-partisan redistricting It's an emergency! And he's the duly elected commander-in-chief! That's how this works now.
I am serious when I say that none of those actions would be more radical than what Trump is currently using his executive power to do—almost always with permission from the Supreme Court. And if the judiciary stands in the way, why not follow Judge Emil Bove's maxim and "tell courts 'fuck you'"?
The next Democratic president should declare that the National Emergencies Act and Article II of the Constitution allow him to: •admit D.C. and Puerto Rico as states •abolish ICE •grant citizenship to any immigrant •disband the 5th Circuit •expand the Supreme Court Seriously: Why the hell not?
When will people on the left wake up and realize they fell for a right wing moral panic about social media and cell phones that’s currently being used to strip us all of civil liberties? Jonathan Haidt, one of the primary architects of this moral panic, just brought his misinfo blog to Bari Weiss
But ppl in high-crime/high-enforcement communities? The ones who are actually voting for reformers? The ones for whom criminal legal policy is a lived experience not a vicarious one? Almost always silenced. So of COURSE reform policies seem politically weak, if you never talk to their supporters!
Another “who journalists talk to” point I think matters here, esp w respect to crime: Major papers rarely interview those actually affected by crime and enforcement. They’ll interview cops, who obv favor toughness. They’ll interview DA, who mostly are self-servingly/selection-bias the same.
#BREAKING: Judge Breyer has held that the Trump admin. *violated* the Posse Comitatus Act in its military deployments in and around Los Angeles, and has enjoined further use of those troops for law enforcement tasks. The order is stayed through 12 PDT on 9/12: georgetown.app.box.com/file/1973361...
Basically The Onion headline but for white supremacists: Why Do All These Keep ?
The mayor of Baltimore drastically slashed crime despite close proximity to Virginia with its lax gun laws and it was a blip in the news cycle and then a return to the only way to stop crime is law and order. We are a cruel, punitive country with a national press that loves facism.
Good hire. He’ll be able to pivot when the time comes. stevenlubliner.substack.com/p/trump-said...
Perfect encapsulation of the Trump administration: The guy suing Harvard for alleged antisemitism is a straight-up Hitler-admiring Nazi. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/02/m...
The black hole of disinformation and bullshit continues to suck in huge portions of the US. Rabies is spreading in the US. One reason is that many people are not vaccinating their dogs. Why? Many actually believe rabies vaccinations will make their dogs autistic.
The people in Washington who can actually stop Trump are not Democrats. They are Republicans. And we should be asking them every day when they will start. washingtonmonthly.com/2025/09/02/r...
One of my Supreme Court reform takes is they should be completely barred from taking any outside income (incl. publishing deals) and it should be particularly frowned upon, normatively, to be writing books. Memoirs are for writing after you retire, not five years into a lifetime appointment.
That account Musk is retweeting has boasted about being an “Aryan” white supremacist and has a habit of quoting Hitler. www.dailydot.com/debug/captiv...
I'm just going to keep noting that the owner and operator of Twitter -- the social media that too many politicians and pundits use to determine what's "normal" -- keeps on pushing the white supremacist Great Replacement Theory that has been the motivation for multiple mass shootings in this country.
the DOJ atty (& 2x Harvard grad) who suggested Harvard showed "wanton indifference to antisemitism" once wrote a paper from the perspective of Hitler & expressed admiration for Mein Kampf stunning reporting from @hilaryburns.bsky.social @talkopan.bsky.social www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/02/m...
Let me see if I understand this: Trump, the “anti-war President,“ will be renaming the Department of Defense to the “Department of War.” Got it.
Here's some real talk: Dem strategists urging Dems to avoid the "trap" of talking about Trump occupying cities are saying this precisely in order to get quoted in NYT and elsewhere, and everyone involved in this charade knows it. @jamisonfoser.bsky.social and me: newrepublic.com/article/1998...
In @theatlantic.com the former First Lady advocating healthy lunches is just like the hhs head being an anti vaccine quack killing people. Stop the planet I want to get off.
The biggest mistake liberals make on media issues is assuming the mainstream media gives a single fuck. They don’t care. They’re rich and they’re white and they’re protected. None of this affects them. They don’t give a shit. If you understand this fact then the tone of the coverage makes sense.
We’ve spent more time talking about nonexistent crime in 🇺🇸 cities in the last month, even as we’ve totally erased actual political violence from the National Conversation™️. Hard to overstate how disheartening & deeply unserious this has been.
Add in that the MN shooter might have been preventable if FBI and DHS hadn't refocused their domestic terrorism policing, and FBI didn't even MENTION the terrorist attack at CDC.
White House reporters have all seen Trumps bruised hands. It’s an active choice not to make an issue of it while these same people spent years freaking out about Biden.