I don't love using "blood libel" to describe anything other than the actual historical phenomenon of accusations against Jews of ritually killing Christian children. But if anything in modern political discourse structurally resembles a blood libel, it's Vance accusing Haitians of eating cats.

JD Vance appropriating the term "blood libel" to describe legitimate criticism of ICE agents is one of the most antisemitic things I have heard in US politics in the past few weeks. Yet this administration has somehow managed to convince a lot of people it actually cares about fighting antisemitism.

This is the same guy who complained about the ADL’s history of (accurately) identifying and criticizing right wing extremists who thought the US was a blood and soil nation that belonged to white Christians.

JD Vance is now using the term "blood libel" to describe criticism of ICE, saying, "The Democrats and the media — because they so hate the idea of a real border — are engaging in a kind of blood libel against ICE agents." Somewhere, our ancestors wept.

Nice checks and balances you have there, would be a shame if we gutted Congress‘s power significantly via the shadow docket

The Daily Caller has put this disclaimer on the article, which I strongly recommend you read just to see how sadistic it is. Needless to say, the Daily Caller Editor's Note is bullshit. dailycaller.com/2025/09/26/i...

This is what I keep coming back to—from stuff like this, to the "debate me" MAGA bros who show up on college campuses: the desire on the right for prolonged engagement with the left is wildly asymmetrical and unreciprocated, and speaks to a kind of contempt laced with deep affinity and desire.

Daily Caller editor Geoffrey Ingersoll wrote an op-ed today entitled "Enough Is Enough … I Choose VIOLENCE!" Ingersoll insists he wasn't calling for political violence, he's calling for self defense What he's describing is not self-defense by any measure dailycaller.com/2025/09/26/i...

What power of the purse?

Brought to you, as we've come to expect, by the Court's Traditional Originalist Friday Afternoon Emergency Docket:

Kagan on the “asserted harms” to the Trump’s foreign policy, to which the conservative justices deferred in their unsigned order:

Why do headlines say "norms shattered" when what is meant is "laws broken" or "Constitution violated"?

It's seriously gratifying to see my more senior colleagues calling out the patent nonsense and analytic malpractice in this article.

This is a great thread by an expert in the field about why the "Left-wing terrorism is on the rise" claim is really a bunch of nonsense. Give it a read.

7/n One serious error in the data, in my view, undermines their central claim. The authors have chosen to exclude contemporary school shootings, many of which now clearly include elements of right-wing sentiment and ideological influence. Messy? Yes. Complicated? You bet. But present? Absolutely.

= everything will be more expensive, assuming you can get it delivered

Starmer's mainstreaming of far-right politics is not bad because it is bad electorally (which it is), but it's bad for political reasons and because it is a threat to democracy and many communities Only thinking about democracy in electoral terms makes it easy to ignore power structures

The success of the far right is not only measured in votes and seats but in its impact on rhetoric, policy and ideology. The fact that a (nominally) social democratic head of government with a huge majority choses to say and do this is maybe the biggest success of the far right in Europe yet.

Beatrix v. Storch wiederholt das MAGA Narrativ von Kirks Trauerfeier im Bundestag, spricht von einer „spirituellen Revolution“ in den USA - in Anlehnung an die „spiritual warfare“ auf dem Memorial (Vorstellung eines existentiellen Kampfs zwischen rechtgläubigen Christen & Mächten des Bösen)

Dank an @ardenthistorian.bsky.social für diese Analyse der Trauerfeier für Charlie Kirk, zB auch Tucker Carlsson‘s antisemitischen dogwhistle. Die AfD sucht durch Beatrix von Storch Anschluss an den christlichen Nationalismus. (Vielleicht sollte man sich die „Deutschen Christen“ wieder anschauen ?)

The amazing thing about Trump is that he says right into the camera on the White House lawn while stone cold sober the sort of stuff Nixon would only scream in solitude at the White House fireplace after a bottle and a half of whiskey.

Uhhh, folks? This is real bad. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

"A brutal massacre followed, in which it’s estimated almost 150 Native Americans were killed (some historians put this number at twice as high), nearly half of them women and children." www.history.com/this-day-in-...

If Obama's effort to speak truthfully about the US's role in the world was dubbed "the apology tour," then what Hegseth is doing here is the "That's fucking right. We did that. And we're proud of it. And we'll damn well do it again if we feel like it" tour.

Trump gets humiliated at the UN, Kimmel returns, he drops further in the polls and just goes fucking crazy at the White House today. Insane new tariffs, Comey, war against his domestic opponents, shutting down the government. He is losing it, and it’s getting dangerous out there.

The MAGA monocultural revolution is so thorough that Hegseth made it a priority to honor soldiers who carried out war crimes in 1890.

I’ll add that beyond my research nerd brain reading that study and having concerns with how they made their stats, the conclusion “right wing terror is way down” is also just not true outside the super narrow window they defined. It is still a top threat, and deadlier than left wing counterparts.

Quoted here sharing my reservations about a study that says right-wing terror attacks are down — the frameworks of terrorism aren’t well suited to size up the threat of political violence and can give people the wrong impression if they don’t understand how they work www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol...

When American fascist Gerald LK Smith, the leader of the "America First" party, gave his 1946 speech in Viroqua, he devoted most of his time to decrying how "communists" had taken over American universities and were brainwashing students there.

Finally, in 1945 the US Army said that another key hallmark of a fascist form of politics was that it would be obsessively fixated on calling everyone to their left "a communist" who posed an existential threat to America. bsky.app/profile/seth...

In 1945 the US Army said that a fascistic politician would also be an angry hyper-nationalist who tried to encourage his fellow Americans to reject ideas like "the brotherhood of man" and the importance of international cooperation as embodied in organizations like the UN. bsky.app/profile/seth...

The term "Americanism" was then embraced by the KKK that was resurgent in the 1920s. A group called the "Americanist Educational League" was founded in 1927 (it still exists, btw) by a guy who would go on to be the leading voice for Japanese internment in WWII encyclopedia.densho.org/John_R._Lech...

Walter Huss wasn't just any old "Christian anti-Communist" activist. He was a former Silver Shirt who partnered with Oregon's leading neo-Nazis & far right domestic terrorists to try to take over the OR GOP for his distinctive brand of white Christian supremacy. rightlandia.ghost.io/walter-huss-...

The beauty of a term like "Americanism" is its vagueness. What American could disagree with promoting "Americanism," right? But it's vagueness is precisely why far right White Christian Nationalists like Walter Huss (future chair of the OR GOP) embraced it as a way to mainstream their radicalism.

This a thread about one feature of the Trump Admin's EO regarding the Smithsonian that I haven't seen much explicit discussion of. The stated purpose for reviewing Smithsonian exhibits and collections is to ensure they align with something called "Americanism." That term has a notable genealogy.

You'll note that in 1945 the US Army flagged the term "Americanism" as a seemingly pablum term that American fascists might try to use to cloak their politics in. bsky.app/profile/seth...

I hear the President has decreed that it is possibly a crime to refer to Americans as "fascists," but "fascism" is a word that has a relatively clear meaning that's worth understanding. Here's how an official publication of the US Army defined "fascism" in 1945.

Reid Hoffman, the billionaire founder of LinkedIn, funded E. Jean Carroll's litigation against Trump.

A new senate report is full of *shocking* details about DOGE activities inside the federal government. Including, unfortunately, the disturbing access that DOGE affiliates had to our SSNs: "One whistleblower noted the possibility that the agency may need to re-issue SSNs to all who possess one."

We knew this was coming. www.axios.com/2025/09/25/f...

Imagine the response if a Dem Administration removed every top general and admiral from every US military post all around the world (including conflict zones), in order to force them to attend a big in-person meeting in DC (with a former cable news co-host). www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

“We are here to represent those who did not come to Mass today because they are in fear...” www.commonwealmagazine.org/chicago-ice-...

. @adamserwer.bsky.social is correct. A major difference between Trump I and II is that lots of people decided not to fight this time around. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Really need leadership at universities, media companies, law firms, &c. to internalize this point.

“Kirk may serve a purpose as a martyr for the moment, but it is only ever truly beholden to one messiah: Donald Trump.” @ardenthistorian.bsky.social reports for @religiondispatches.org on Charlie Kirk’s memorial service and how his death is being used to advance MAGA's agenda: ow.ly/VJpG50X1CPh.

Wenn der Faschismus vor der Tür steht, wird Jens #Spahn ihn hereinbitten, weil er dessen Ansichten bestechend „klar“ findet

Der Bericht über die irre Trump-Rede vor der UNO zeigt, wie Nachrichten-Journalismus an seine Grenze stößt: Eine sachliche Zusammenfassung dieses egomanischen Schwachsinns ist völlig sinnlos, aber weil das Format Tagesschau das verlangt, klingt es so, als habe Trump etwas von Substanz gesagt

I was back at 26 Federal Plaza today, where an ICE agent violently threw this bereft woman to the ground in front of her kids. She had not touched him. She did not pose any threat. She had to be taken to the hospital. (🎥: Elias Eliahu)

Halb MAGA-Rally, halb religiöses Revival: ich habe über die Trauerfeier für den ermordeten Charlie Kirk geschrieben, das Who is Who der rechtsextremen Redner, den Fokus auf „geistliche Kriegsführung“ als existentiellen Kampf zwischen rechtschaffenen Christen und Dämonen & christlichen Nationalismus