SecDef announcing another (9th) lethal strike, again in the Pacific against an unspecified "designated terrorist organization." Claims these "DTOs are the 'Al Qaeda' of our hemisphere. Nope. No armed attack on US like 9/11. No AUMF. No armed conflict. Just more lawless premeditated killing.

Basically all US policy is at this point about indulging Trump’s irrational obsessions, petty grudges, and corrupt grifts, and then taking secondary and tertiary measures to mask the consequences of those policies.

The US government: Well, we might have zip-tied children and/or shot them with rubber bullets, but not the young ones! (not a joke or an exaggeration)

I'm old enough to remember when Republicans pretended to be against "crony capitalism" or, idk, forcibly seizing private business entities through threats of force.

Anyone who thinks they’re immune to propaganda is the biggest sucker of them all.

The same people who lost their minds over renovations to Cracker Barrel are totally fine with the White House getting bulldozed

the symbolism of “Trump destroying the White House for a overpriced luxury vanity project, during a government shut down, days after a historically-large mass demonstration against his regime called “No Kings”’ would be rightly viewed as laying it on a little thick if it was in a work of fiction

The US can have tariffs, it's just up to Congress, not POTUS. But Trump is so far gone with "L'État, c'est moi" that he thinks if he can't unilaterally do whatever he wants, it must not be possible. And third world countries haven't existed for 30+ years, but Trump still thinks it's the 1980s.

34 people killed in 50 days. Their guilt or innocence unknown, for an alleged crime that doesn't carry a death sentence. That's a lot of death. adamisacson.com/boat-strikes/

All of the Clinton-era conservative pearl clutching about the sanctity of the White House and the Democrats’ disrespect seems like it’s from another world now. There was a whole scandal because Al Gore made fundraising calls from inside the building. They investigated the Clintons’ cat!

Remember when Obama’s tan suit was a sign of intolerable disrespect for his office

There is no difference between Trump destroying the East Wing and using a wrecking ball on the Washington Monument or Smithsonian. Just because he (temporarily) lives there doesn't give him the right to demolish the White House without Congressional approval.

This is not a joke. It actually happened.

If the National Guard is really in D.C. to protect federal property, they should probably have been at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. two days ago

The president is establishing the principle that he can order the murder of anyone he deems a threat. And Congress is letting it happen.

There are laws about how to interdict suspected criminals on the high seas. There are laws about how to renovate federal buildings. There are laws about how not to monetize the presidency. There are laws. We should enforce them. And not normalize the flagrant violation of them in the newspapers.

What the fuck are we even doing anymore? Congressional Republicans, this is on you. And six members of the Supreme Court. You could stop this, but you're cowards.

Finally: If Trump is hinting or outright demanding that DOJ give him $230 million in claims, how can any official who might be needing a pardon later say no to him? Reinforces the picture of all this as a kind of criminal syndicate. Raskin is strong on this here: newrepublic.com/article/2021...

Awful: Trump's $230 million shakedown from DOJ can be paid to him confidentially at first, without the public ever finding out about it until later, Rep Jamie Raskin tells me. Raskin will formally demand full communications between WH and DOJ on this. New from me: newrepublic.com/article/2021...

The optics of Trump building a ballroom that 99.9% of Americans will never set foot in while millions line up for food banks are worth more than any policy paper or economic proposal. This image is a visceral punch in the mouth that needs no words. It should haunt the GOP for a generation.

This is how a dictatorship works

I am completely awestruck by the ease with which Mike Johnson lies on a daily basis. I'll never understand how such a transparently fraudulent "man of faith" can live with themselves. Life is too short to be that phony.

We’re in this bizarre scenario where the president is incredibly unpopular and continues to do things that are unpopular, and often illegal, and indeed are devastating attacks on the very constitutional structure of the US - and yet everyone dodges out of his way as if he has a popular mandate

I agree with this. There are a lot of people out there who think both parties are the same and if Democrats put a show of pushing out people with Nazi tattoos and shitty text messages and abused employees then all of a sudden you're making inroads.

On top of his crypto grifts, real estate deals, and other corrupt ways he profits from the presidency, Trump now literally wants his own DOJ to pay him $230M. He does this all while his tariffs raise prices on Americans. An insane, unprecedented level of blatant corruption.

BERNIE

I can’t stop thinking about all the hoopla over removing confederate statues and the phony appeals to “heritage.” But this is done without discussion. It was always about displays of dominance.

It hasn't even been a year and Trump is literally gutting parts of the White House. A hearty "fuck you" to everyone who told us last year that we were overreacting to what a second Trump presidency would mean.

The Trump Doctrine: If a supposed “narco terrorist” survives our attempt to kill him, we send him home and let him go free. Kind of makes it look like they didn’t have sufficient proof to present in court.

"not serious... internal politics and drama" “embarrassing” “below our institution" "bleeding talent, talented generals and flag officers, for what appears to be the opposite of a meritocracy" "a lot of backbiting and mistrust and general unprofessionalism" “the mentality of a midgrade officer”

This is the asymmetry in our politics and media. If this was the other way around, Biden had pardoned someone then charged with trying to kill Trump, it would be the biggest story in America and every Republican commentator, congressman, news outlet, would be screaming about it in unison.

"The President is stealing hundreds of millions from taxpayers to line his own pockets and is destroying the white house while the gov't is shut down" seems like a pretty straightforward winning message. If Dems can't get elected with that, they need to get out of politics.

And the renovation was carried out by a commission authorized by Congress and staffed with appointees of the president, House and Senate. The president didn't just ring up a contractor one morning to have them tear things down. Because it's not the president's goddamn house.

The biggest renovation of the White House -- the so-called Truman Reconstruction of 1949-1952 -- came about only because the building was in such a state of disrepair that inspectors decided it was unsafe for occupancy. Not because the president just decided he needed a big fancy ballroom.

Donald Trump is now officially demolishing part of the White House to make room for his $200 million golden ballroom. This comes as Americans can’t afford groceries and the government is still shut down.

Donald Trump is literally tearing down The People's House. If Dems don't constantly run this footage in ads, they're bigger fools than I already thought.

Oh it’s not appropriate for your program to air the president wearing a crown and shitting on American citizens? You’ll talk about it in euphemisms? Maybe call it the “crown video” and ignore the shitting part? Because that’s appropriate? Tell me, was it appropriate for the president to do it?

The networks took the much smaller Tea Party movement so seriously they broadcast a Tea Party rebuttal to Obama’s 2011 SOTU on top of the normal GOP one.

All week the pro-Israel and pro-Trump supporters screamed at us, in unison: why aren’t you celebrating the ceasefire?? Because we knew it wouldn’t last. But even I didn’t think it’d be over in less than a week. What a complete & utter humiliation for Trump, thanks to Netanyahu.

Mike Johnson: "We're fighting for healthcare as well. Not just in word but in deed. We put in the one big beautiful bill, real reforms to Medicaid to make it work better." (The bill in fact cuts nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid.)

people playing music/videos on their phone speakers in public is more than just mildly annoying and is instead a leading indicator of the decline of community and empath

There are no words.

Padilla: It’s not just undocumented folks who are being detained and arrested. It’s legal immigrants—even US citizens. We know of at least 170 US citizens who have been caught up in these raids and put in detention centers. It’s the intended effect of this administration to stoke fear and terror

Our federal tax dollars are being used to fund a network of government social media accounts that pump out disinformation 24/7. Even during a government shutdown. It’s definitely not essential work.

No member of Congress should vote for any appropriations if the whole exercise is a non-binding farce.

"For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law."

This is potentially a massive story. Did DOJ plan for survivors? Do they have sufficient evidence to prosecute? What is US jurisdiction to prosecute? Where will they go next? When is their court date? Will they be indicted? Held at Gitmo? Returned to Venezuela? Be Epsteined?

The reason the clowns in the Trump administration aren't bragging about the sixth illegal strike is because there were survivors, and you know without a doubt these incompetent buffoons never considered what they would do if there were survivors. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/u...

Trump is bad for businesses just as he's bad for people.

It's incredible how much the speaker of the house doesn't seem to know.