Among other things, there has been a total collapse of any pretense that government agencies aren't overtly partisan tools distinguishable from campaign accounts.
Knowledge and chaos
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Among other things, there has been a total collapse of any pretense that government agencies aren't overtly partisan tools distinguishable from campaign accounts.
I still hold grudges against people who were very centristy in the bush era and always chastized crazy liberal bloggers for their supposed alarmism. Many of those people are suitably alarmed now, but maybe "impeaching George bush" and "put dick cheney in prison " weren’t such crazy ideas after all
Yep: open.substack.com/pub/donmoyni...
The full context of the quote is…disturbing.
The public's supposedly hardline stance breaks down with any followup questions.
Every so often I hear people saying that "the public" has a deep seated, unshift able hostility to immigration, and feel the need to post this.
White Christian Taliban shit right here. Time to stop tiptoeing around it. These people are fanatics pursuing a Holy War. It’s a critical piece of the threat assessment that should inform our strategies. (Psst. They’re not just going to hand back power.)
This happened during Trump's first term, but I believe under Pete Hegseth we are about to enter a new golden age of the SEALs being told "your mission, should you choose to accept it: take these amphetamines, fall out of a helicopter, and drown."
I know it's easy to lose the details in the overall horror of what's happening, but this particular decision is going to have really severe impacts. It was already getting harder to successfully bond out of immigration detention, but now this closes that pathway to release for countless people.
"I, like most of America’s teachers, am a godless communist (I try to be—it can be tough to make all of the meetings). But the real world has a funny way of challenging ideology, and frankly, I can’t think of a text more relevant to today’s classrooms than the Ten Commandments."
This nonsense is an absolute disgrace to America, an insult to our nation's history. Democrats are so pathetically out of touch they're afraid to say so for fear of alienating Joe Sixpack, but middle America doesn't like this. They don't want to see our national symbols clownishly defiled.
People hate when abolitionists say this. But it is correct.
Ah yes, tough questions like “Do you know what your job is?” and “Where are you right now?”
It's just a sports ban. It's just a bathroom ban. It's just a healthcare for kids ban. It's just a military service ban. It's just a federal jobs ban. It's just a university housing ban. It's just a passport & visa ban. It's just one Constitutional right. It's just your status as free citizens.
Over the last ~25 years, Wikipedia editors have developed policies and procedures to screen out much of the discourse that dominates other platforms: unsourced assertions, disproportionate emphasis on fringe views, alternate perspectives claiming exclusive validity. www.theverge.com/cs/features/...
it is, in fact, a difficult question because SCOTUS invented presidential immunity and defined it broadly enough to make it difficult
"If anything the idea that the slide from Buckley to Trump has been a reactionary degeneration of the movement isn’t quite fair to Trump, who has never openly backed de jure segregation and has been more supportive of gay rights than Buckley ever was."
"This is, in many ways, the dynamic that defines reactionary centrism: the right must be understood, but never blamed. The left can be blamed, but need not be understood." Very, very good piece, highly recommended. This is the dominant ideological tendency in the US elite today and it is *toxic*.
I don't know that I'm going to lose much sleep over this. But it is kinda' crazy how quiet your typical law-and-order types have been as Trump's obsession with immigration has kneecapped every other area of law enforcement.
We won!! “Defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities … Their actions have jeopardized decades of research and the welfare of all those who could stand to benefit from that research.”
1/ I worked at DoD. I literally cannot imagine lawyers coming up with a legal basis for lethal strike of suspected Venezuelan drug boat. Hard to see how this would not be "murder" or war crime under international law that DoD considers applicable. Read expert analysis by @bcfinucane.bsky.social⤵️
You can read the letter here: www.savehhs.org The scale of public dissent from federal employees is extraordinary, even as the threats against them are unprecedented. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/your-gover...
Prominent far-right influencers have been attempting to rehabilitate Hitler's reputation. That's not an exaggeration; it's easily documented. I wrote about why they are doing this, what they hope to gain, and what it means for America.
Dr. Daskalakis has a résumé for the ages: NYU med school, Harvard residency, fellowship, *and* MPH, double board certified, and over a decade of boots on the ground experience in epidemic-fighting. He used his identity to build trust in public health. He's exactly who you want in government. ffs
the two americas
Along with the authoritarianism & the science denial & corruption & the white supremacy & the antisemitism & the desire to impose Christian theology on all of us, the signal feature of the Republican Party now, at all levels of government, is that it doesn't care about actual governance.
Wrote about how the governmental health agencies are headed by censorial individuals who spent years screaming falsely about how they were being censored when people just didn't want to promote the nonsense they were pushing. But now THEY are actually censoring critics.
National Guardsmen now stationed outside our DC building confirmed that the only thing they can do if they witness a crime is call 911. The have no more authority than my office mate to intervene. Despite the handcuffs, they can't make arrests. They are very expensive mall cops.
There’s a pathological obsession with combatting crime in America with no punishment too extreme and it’s worth continued self-reflection about why.
The Founders assumed that loyalty to one's institution would trump loyalty to ideology or party or "faction," a monumentally stupid assumption that by itself rubbishes the notion that they were farseeing sages of democratic theory
What even is the opinion here, "we would like the federal government to be run by totally different people with an entirely different agenda"? All of the blame and agency is placed on local officials, not the deranged authoritarian calling in militarized forces under false pretenses.
This guy gets it. This is the way.
If scientists are loving Bluesky, but Glenn Greenwald and Matt Yglesias hate it, I know I’m in the right spot.
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
Pritzker: Any rational person who has spent even the most minimal amount of time studying human history has to ask themselves one important question: Once they get the citizens of this nation comfortable with the current atrocities committed under the color of law, what comes next
Last year, Idaho passed a strict law that forbids anyone from providing to a minor any service that could be construed as medical or psychological in nature without parental consent. Now, minors calling the state's suicide hotline are being forced to have a parent speak for them or hang up
find common ground with fascists?!! I to throw my phone against the wall at 500 mph
starmer is doing all the anti-immigrant and anti-trans "popularism" stuff the centrists are demanding US dems do and this is the predictable result:
"Rapist felon forces university to shutter women's center."
Not good. Not good at all.
Can you please get elected already?
Bail reform increases safety, pretrial incarceration DECREASES public safety Good op-ed in @nytimes.com from my friend David Gaspar (and Jeremy Cherson) @bailproject.org www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...
Vinay Prasad had YouTube censor Jonathan Howard’s channel because he didn’t like how it made him look. A petty act by a vindictive, unqualified hack. And more evidence that these frEe sPeEcH warriors have always been petty censors out to silence criticism that they just can’t cope with.
Just call it the "Genital Inspection Movement"
It's unconscionable that in a time of such grave peril for a vulnerable minority, one who has borne the brunt of all Trump's hatred and extremism in executive order after executive order (and I didn't even scratch the surface btw) that a single Democrat is making trans women in sports their focus.
This is exactly right! The Right’s core claim is that they represent an authentic, “real" America that is constantly being victimized, made to suffer under the yoke of leftist/liberal overreach, and therefore rightfully aggrieved. And too many Democrats/liberals look at that and go: “I agree.”
Guilded Age levels of corruption and nepotism
Compare the murky, indeterminate data on school closures to the stark, decisive findings on vaccine hesitancy. Republican policies and rhetoric killed hundreds of thousands of people! We don’t need to bolster this fake narrative. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
the thing that was terrifying to them about FDR wasn't so much the policies themselves (which were, of course, far short of socialism or communism) but that they were incredibly popular and lead to electoral dominance until FDR's death (and even somewhat after)
“.. with the exception of the pandemic, Black women have never seen such staggering losses in employment.” @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/u...
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.
I've just finished reading 'This Arab is Queer' an anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab Writers edited by @eliasjahshan.bsky.social An eye-opener for me in many ways, challenging stereotypes and my assumptions 📚🇳🇿 thoroughly recomend adding to your reading lists (I borrowed it from Dunedin Public Library)
The extent to which ICE is ignoring all civil rights and due process is astounding — and indicative of a culture where they’ve been told they can do literally no wrong. Agency and admin leaders must face sanctions and legal consequences.
👇🎯 University presidents, take note & start getting in front of microphones, en masse, now:
hi, cis folks! this is present day reality for UK trans folks. it’s outrageous someone should have to have taken this journey to live as themselves, participate in society, & be with who they love. hi, cis americans! this is a future trans americans see that starts with “we need to compromise.”
"Trump’s age, his visible health problems, and the White House’s cagey answers raise real questions about transparency and capacity. Yet the institutions that pride themselves on holding power to account have largely looked away," @passantino.bsky.social writes. www.status.news/p/trump-heal...
I wrote this weeks after trump won in 2016 and almost ten years later I still think there is basically nothing more to say, not because I am super smart but because this is all so very empty and stupid www.lawfaremedia.org/article/bull...
Sincere question: what would you define as an atrocious mass information environment during the Republic of Letters?
The right seeks to—and does—shift the terrain on which we fight and live. We can either seek to do the same or be perpetually losing ground.
always a question of “what science counts to you” but the destruction of the world’s first trans clinic was in 1933 and most of the elimination program borrowed whole cloth from US jim crow pseudoscientific eugenics, so for sure, yeah the literal nazis did RFK shit.
The average American simply has no idea how quickly the infrastructure that keeps us safe and healthy is collapsing. These systems run in the background thanks to government employees who quietly do critical work. Those employees are being purged and systems are being destroyed.
Old entertainers need to stop saying this shit. Firstly it's boring grumpiness. Two, It's not true and thirdly, if it's true it also doesn't make sense. How do you "not make" something that already exists
They’re really gonna Dianne Feinstein this ghoul, aren’t they?
Misogyny definitely played a role, but so did the higher standards/principles Democrats apply to themselves and MSM applies to them as well, just look at Al Franken and Bob Menendez coverage. To my original point, that higher standard and principle may have applied to Biden’s decline vs. Trump’s.
people keep pointing to Hong Kong but not enough to ACT UP
I’m a novice, so I’m sincerely asking: is that the UN or Houthi backed prime minister?
This firefighter arrived in the US at age 4, has been here for 19 years, was on track to legal status, and was on a crew trying to contain a major blaze (in Washington state, vs Oregon, fwiw.) h/t @joshuajfriedman.com www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Sorry, but I wasn’t talking about the Harris campaign or its coverage. You’re making a good but separate point.
@sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com You should have Matt Stoller on to talk about Fed Bank and its independence. Might make for a lovely discussion.
wow
Can’t be overstated how much of a role Comey played in electing Donald Trump 1.0. Do you think “BUT HER EMAILS!!!!!” coverage is analogous to “JOE BIDEN’S AGE!!!!”? If so, then NYT has a major role to play in Donald Trump’s ascendency both in 2016 and 2024
Hello, I am furious www.liberalcurrents.com/let-it-burn-...
I’m always cautious with 1930s Germany comps but this is an excellent read on the politics of capitulation and enabling
Techno theater this time instead of hygiene or security theater
In @nytopinion.nytimes.com “Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, is endangering the health of the American people now and into the future. He must resign,” Senator Bernie Sanders writes in a guest essay.
This is good: With Trump/RFK destroying CDC, JB Pritzker's officials are exploring the possibility of buying Covid vaccines from manufacturers and distributing them in-state themselves, source tells me. Dem govs must step up and fill the void. New piece from me: newrepublic.com/article/1998...
Useful to think about this administration as a set of reactionary regime changes. At CDC, from pro-science to pro-quackery. And, at the Pentagon, from pro-Union to pro-Confederacy.
1. My newest Anti-Trans Legal Risk Map is here. Risk has increased sharply for youth in many states as clinics shutter under Trump and state AGs refuse to enforce civil rights laws. For adults, some increases in risk. Nationwide risk remains extreme. Subscribe to support my journalism.
THAT’S where I remember her from!!! UGH!
RFK must go. Please contact your congresspeople about this. Ask them why RFK was allowed to unilaterally fire a senate appointee because she contacted senators – the appropriate oversight body – after the HHS secretary demanded that she break the law & betray Americans’ public health.
Horst Wessel 2.0
"I had never seen anyone virtue-signal so gracefully, so effortlessly. I was like, 'I have to work with this guy.'" 😂😂😂😂 Meet Cory Booker's (fake) political consultant, played by Zeteo's very own @heycapello. "No one does it like Cory." zeteo.com/subscribe
One of several top CDC officials to leave their post this week—after Kennedy fired the agency’s director for refusing to “rubberstamp unscientific, reckless directives"—is telling all. Including that Kennedy has never been briefed by any of the center’s scientists on major diseases. trib.al/j3PrEDR
*Colonel* Robert E. Lee. He was only a general in an illegal army
yo this guy is cooking
Peter Thiel crony named acting director of CDC. Jim O'Neill was CEO of the Thiel Foundation and was managing director for Thiel's Clarium Capital and Mithril Capital. He also co-founded the Thiel Fellowship. gift link to WaPo, which barely mentions these things:
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...
Next week it'll be September. So far no sign of Republicans standing up to Trump in any meaningful way.
The Germans a generation after the Reich consciously made sure to tell history the right way. The Japanese did the opposite. There’s no right side of history, history has got to be made.
New, from me: America is no longer a functioning democracy. It is a competitive authoritarian system, hurtling rapidly toward authoritarianism. This was a hard piece to write but we can't move forward if we don’t acknowledge where we are. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-author...
Resignations can make a difference! In 2005, Dr. Susan Wood resigned from the FDA to protest political delays in approving Plan B, saying she could no longer serve when scientific evidence has been overruled. In 2006, Plan B was approved for OTC use for ages 18+, and in 2013 with no restrictions.
I have never seen so many public servants protest the mismanagement of a government. Trumpists will point to this as proof of the deep state, but the reality is that these are professionals who are desperately trying to get the public to understand how bad things are.
Trump does not have the type of paramilitary mass organization that characterized interwar European fascism. But he is rapidly and systematically building a machinery that serves a similar purpose and functions to impose martial law in the streets.
Physicians are using A.I. for diagnoses and more. But a new study found evidence that relying on A.I. tools might erode a doctor’s ability to perform fundamental skills without the technology, a phenomenon known as “deskilling.”
Dr. William Foege, 89, who helped end smallpox in the 1970s, recently wrote: RFK Jr.’s “words can be as lethal as the smallpox virus.” And his actions are more lethal still. He’s waging war on America. That’s an impeachable offense. He must be removed from office. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/h...
Want to boost students’ reading comprehension? Here’s how: Help them develop a deep reservoir of vocabulary and thematic knowledge to dive into. 🤿 #literacy #EduSky #EdutopiaVideos
Kennedy and his allies are malicious actors who don’t care about science or public health. They all have axes to grind. People will die because of it and they do not care. Eugenics are back, baby. The ‘health as an indicator of virtue’ crowd are in charge.
