Classical liberalism, representative democracy, equality before the law. In 1 word: Freedom I sometimes make satirical AI art. NOTE: I have nuanced opinions. You're unlikely to agree with all of them, and that's ok.
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JUST IN: 5th Cir., 2-1, rejects Trump invocation of #AlienEnemiesAct. Court says POTUS did not adequately outline any invasion or predatory incursion. Majority: Southwick (GWBush), Ramirez (partial concur) (Biden). Dissent: Oldham (Trump). w/ @kyledcheney.bsky.social www.politico.com/news/2025/09...
I don’t know how this is possible. Texas cannot control guard sent to Illinois without violating Illinois sovereignty. It must be federally controlled units, otherwise instead of a Posee Comitatus problem, we have a major constitutional crisis.
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
BREAKING: Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker says the Trump administration has begun staging the Texas National Guard for deployment to Illinois, and federal agencies will soon begin large-scale immigration raids in Chicago. From: @jaknutson.bsky.social
Brain worms
Trump has sent Texas military personnel to within 20 minutes of my parents as part of a plan to invade Illinois with another state's National Guard. What the literal F.
This. Stop listening to the idiot mainstream pundits. They don't have a clue how to do anything but promote themselves, and they are conflicted.
Senate Democrats: DO NOT FUND the government when the current continuing resolution expires at the end of the month. SHUT IT DOWN unless DC is funded, the troops are withdrawn from our cities, elections are protected, the Epstein files are released in full... SHUT IT DOWN.
his entire statement is excellent, and thanks to @atrupar.com as always for quality clipping and quoting. idk how you keep up with it all, man.
Trump continues to act as Putin’s lapdog, this time by abruptly firing a senior-level CIA Russia expert. As astonishing as this is, the continued silence of Republican foreign policy “experts” who know better is unforgivable.
I don't think many undecided voters make up their minds by browsing Bluesky. Sorry, I know that's a controversial thing to say, but I don't think millions of voters are hanging on our posts, especially not the sort of voters who don't pay attention to politics except a bit around election time.
You are right. Unfortunately, the only votes that will change resultant from Bluesky interactions are those influenced by controlled opposition on the platform. It's an opportunity for bad actors to screw with our coalitions and introduce discord.
POLITICO Playbook reporting Trump’s “announcement” today will be “focused on defense”
Concern over low birth rates was what the theocracy in Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale used to come to power.
It's a municipal election, folks. It is irrational to break coalitions over disagreements with a mayoral candidate in NYC.
It's annoying that controlled opposition trolls are gearing up on Bluesky. They appear to be attracted like bees to honey when anyone discusses Mamdani. They are honestly exhausting pieces of shit. Please follow @eliothiggins.bsky.social to learn more about their bullshit.
NYC is not even close to the world's largest city. Not bu a longshot.
It's a municipal election - not a state-level election. I lived in NYC for 30 years and have a solid understanding of how the city's politics work, including the interplay with Albany. The biggest threat that Mamdani poses is as a symbol the GOP can point to - not the powers of being mayor.
What could possibly go wrong?
If you think the bruises on Donald's hands are bad from last week, you should see his knees from Alaska.
It would be insane to trust social media without researching yourself. While many folks may well do that, I am not one of them. My point stands: Municipal election Dem nominee ≠ presidential election 3rd party. It's apples to oranges.
I don't even like Mamdani's politics, but it's a mistake to conflate socialism with being a useful idiot for Russia. Running for president as a spoiler for Russia and running in a municipal election as the Dem nominee are objectively different things, with starkly different consequences.
There is no excuse for this delay by the EU or the US.
Okay. I just came back to this and you aren’t calling these efforts resegregation yet, you absolutely should be
Absolutely, but first, they should retake their journalism courses. I'm certain that journalism is not taught as it's often practiced.
Some of y'all in the media really need to take some political science courses.
Sparkle is legend.
Fifty-one of the 85 Federalist papers were written by a guy born in Nevis.
I stopped after thoughts. Never made it to prayers. Better uses of my time exist.
It's absurd that the government is essentially using sleep deprivation of 1 judge on a holiday weekend to try and end-run the judicial process. Oof.
Pritzker: "We want more help—civilian law enforcement help. We would like ATF agents to help us take more guns off the street. We would like FBI to coordinate with local law enforcement to help catch perpetrators. If they do that, we'd welcome it. That's not what they're doing."
WOW, must see TV!
This is good! I’m at an ice cream shop on Aiken, SC and two elderly white women are talking. Both church-goers. One said she’s always been a Republican but she’s very upset at how Republicans in Congress aren’t standing up to Trump.
I really hope this becomes the black eye it deserves to be www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
CHICAGO…
If this happens, Jake Tapper should never show his face in public again.
Garcia: We finally got word from the Epstein estate. They're going to be providing the actual Epstein book… the estate is actually going to actually now get us that book and a bunch of other documents that they have that's actually not been reported yet.
shocking
In actuality, people who would jettison willing allies in our efforts to preserve democracy are enemies of democracy themselves. Look in the mirror.
“He is full of energy and thankfully he has a backbone to stand up for what is right and not be motivated by money as too many of our colleagues are,” said Zaid, Lowell’s simultaneous client and co-counsel in other matters. www.politico.com/news/2025/08...
John Adams would be proud of Lowell. He's taken clients from Kushner to Cook, with the law being the focus - not perception of the client. In a fair system, this is how lawyers should operate.
@jvl.bsky.social: "We are close to a tipping point where even if a significant majority of Americans decide that they want to change course, they won’t be able to. The cascade will have doomed liberal democracy." Debate in the comments @thebulwark.com: www.thebulwark.com/p/democracy-...
BREAKING: Lawyers on Thursday night asked the full DC Circuit for en banc rehearing of the Trump administration's appeal of Chief Judge Boasberg's "probable cause" order in the criminal contempt proceedings over the March 15 Alien Enemies Act flights. Background: www.lawdork.com/p/dc-circuit...
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.
This interview, which is also available to listen to as a podcast, provides a useful overview of some of the dangerous trends we’ve been seeing in recent months regarding federalization and militarization of state and local police functions.
In Israel, hundred of thousands take to the street opposing Netanyahu's planned military campaign in Gaza City and demanding that he accept the hostage release deal already accepted by Hamas. www.cnn.com/2025/08/27/m...
The Trump regime is using Putin’s playbook for illegal annexation of Greenland, which is territory of the European Union. Next step: sending “Little Orange Men” to “protect” the astroturfed separatist “movement”.
If it weren't so scary, it'd be funny.
With Lisa Cook suing to challenge Trump's firing of her, experts in mortgage law tell me her lawyer can now use discovery to dig into the role Trump loyalist William Pulte played in singling out mortgages of her, Schiff and Letitia James for scrutiny: newrepublic.com/article/1996...
www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/irans-d...
Why does Poland not have political free speech? EU - Your own house has a few issues too.
Interesting that he uses the word "right." It doesn't seem he understands the concept of rights in almost any other context.
Sarah - I think it's reasonably safe to conclude that the folks you're talking about never believed in these principles. In retrospect, they pretended to be principled because they saw a means to an end.
Pritzker showing political opposition and elite resistance. Not accepting lies as pretexts, responding to the real reason. Not weakly acquiescing, a clear no. Not letting awful/illegal things slide, warning to use all the power he has to punish it. And the fascist bully doesn’t know what to do.
National Guard is now tasked with picking up garbage in DC
“He’s purely transactional” “He believes whatever the last person who spoke to him said” “Appeal to his ego, talk about how great he is, that’ll get him to do the right thing” Everything along those lines is wishful thinking. He’s a Putin sympathizer who’d like to see Russia win. Always has been.
US Ukraine war policy is in such bad shape, with embarrassingly flailing displays of weakness, because the president requires it to be based on an obvious lie pushed by Russian propaganda, that the war Russia voluntarily started and continues is somehow someone else’s doing, especially the target’s.
Risks losing trust? What trust do they have now?
Imagine if lefty pundits who've spent FOUR MONTHS whining that Dems aren't doing anything would instead, IN REAL TIME, figure out what the fuck they're doing and message that instead of making shit up months later?
We've noticed. The crook keeps reminding us he's an asshole every day, usually via Truth Social.
He’s wrong about everything, and thinks he’s right about everything. Hard to tell which is worse. The war will end when Russia decides no longer to fight. The US could make that happen with a few simple policies. Instead the Trump administration offers ridiculous analysis and pathetic excuses.
Narrator: They were in fact, that dense.
Really makes you think about the quality of people still in the GOP. They've been selectively lying for decades, hoping to get to the point where they can do all the things they claim they opposed.
The earliest gospel is Mark and was written around the 2nd Temple destruction. ~30ish years post-Jesus. Even that gospel is not a primary source (Mark was not hanging with JC) and you need to employ faith to take the events as laid out in the text as factual. 2/2
Yes - but there is no primary source evidence that any of what's written in contradictory (to one another) gospels is historically accurate & not wildly embellished. It's the difference between faith & fact imo. One can believe the words, but the evidence for specific events is lacking. 1/2
Pro-tip on flag burning: Burn a Confederate flag. You get the same point across, and I bet it pisses the fascists off even more than burning a US flag.
Pro-tip on flag burning: Burn a Confederate flag. You get the same point across, and I bet it pisses the fascists off even more than burning a US flag.
Putting the military on the street will lower crime. It does in North Korea, did in Nazi Germany, and in the book 1984. The question isn’t will it lower crime. The question is do we want to be a nation governed like this. Until 6 minutes ago the GOP believed in LOCAL control.
Pretty much all information we have about this guy is derived from texts written by his followers 100 years after the fact. Our historical understanding of what happened is close to zero unless we lean into the aforementioned gospels.
Pritzker: To the members of the press who are assembled here today and listening across the country, I am asking for your courage to tell it like it is. This is not a time to pretend here that there are two sides to this story.
Gov. Pritzker: “Earlier today in the Oval Office, Donald Trump…asked for me personally to say, ‘Mr. President, can you do us the honor of protecting our city?’ Instead, I say, ‘Mr. President, do not come to Chicago. You are neither wanted here nor needed here.’”
Me: I am a very progressive, gay, Episcopalian who loves liberal democracy and supports government intervention and a strong social safety net! Some weird part of BlueSky:
www.yahoo.com/news/article...
One crucial front in the war against fascism will be the right to photograph police. The cops have always hated that right and they and their various lickspittles will push back at it at every turn.
This man is an expert on looking the other way on sex abuse incidents. I absolutely cannot believe they brought this guy on to talk about this subject. bsky.app/profile/acyn...
I have no problem engaging with people who disagree with me.
I'm happy you're here. It's easy for BlueSky to shift into bubble mode. We could all be somewhat more introspective about how social media can distort our understanding, even subtly.
If you have to keep your most left-flank coalition members on board against what you all agree is fascism, then something is deeply, deeply wrong with your most left-flank coalition members.
FWIW, "yours for the restoration of the Republic" was a common salutation American fascists gave to each other in the 1950s and 1960s. This is from a 1952 letter by Ohio white supremacist terrorist Peter Xavier. The rest of the rhetoric here might be familiar too.
Thanks for all of the comments...I do believe that Republicans who continues to speak out despite being targeted by the administration deserve to be called brave.
Give this man a raise: Bob Clark, vice president of marketing for Herr Foods, Inc., said the company was surprised to see its chips mentioned in the press. “While we can’t speak to the details of the story,” he said, “we can confirm that our Sour Cream & Onion flavor is money.”
Virginia Giuffre’s lawyer Sigrid McCawley reacts to the Maxwell transcripts, saying Maxwell “repeatedly and brazenly lied” to the government and is trying to “recreate history.” Full statement
"Give me the man and I will give you the case against him"
In July, Judge Xinis tried to get info about the government’s plans to deport Abrego after his release from criminal custody. DOJ insisted that nothing would be decided until he’s in ICE custody and assigned a desk officer. He’s not in ICE custody but suddenly they know exactly what the plan is.
The U.S. now owns 10% of INTEL. MAGA communism is real.
There is simply no reason to report in a headline the claims of a convicted sex trafficker with every reason to lie
The MD federal judge, among other things, said 72 hours doesn’t include weekends.
Congrats, MAGA! You're complicit in covering up one of the most vile child sex-trafficking rings in history. Jeffrey Epstein thanks you for your service! Catch up on all of today's news here: www.meidasplus.com/p/today-in-p...
NEW: We sent a letter to Texas school districts warning them not to implement a new law that requires all public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. This week, a federal court deemed the law “plainly unconstitutional.” Public schools are not Sunday schools.
Trump made clear that, if returned to power, he would turn the federal govt into a tool of revenge against his opponents. He has done precisely that. Americans who care about freedom and the rule of law should be outraged and insist Congress and the Courts stop this unamerican behavior.
Bolton’s home raided, Gen. Kruse fired, Epstein coverup proceeds, seizure of 10% of Intel another step towards state capitalism. Just one day in the somewhat chaotic but directionally purposeful march towards…despotism. Does anyone think they’re doing all this so they can hand over power in 2028?
Thank you. “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” - Adams
I think it is precisely these moments and people precisely like John Bolton that test our commitment to the rule of law and our rejection of arbitrary governance. Schadenfreude is not a constitutional virtue.
They also allow old men to marry 15 year olds. Fun state.
