“.. The astounding haul hints at a level of transactionalism for which it is difficult to find obvious comparisons in modern American history.” @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Yet another reminder that when billionaires take control of media, it’s not a win for free speech. It’s a win for oligarchy. The super-rich won't hesitate to sell out the American public if it means getting merger approvals or deregulation that helps their bottom line.

Holy shit practically the entire Heritage legal center resigned www.nationalreview.com/news/exclusi...

Buying up pesky news outlets to silence them — or having a pal do it — is a time-worn tradition of despots. We should be outraged but not surprised by CBS News’ downfall.

Almost every story Weiss greenlit at the Free Press lacked sufficient context. It's kinda their entire schtick.

💰Trump’s wealth increased by about $2.5B since his reelection, to $6.9B 💰 Eric’s increased 10x, to $400M. 💰 Don Jr.’s 6x, to $300M. 💰 Barron, a college sophomore, is worth $150M.

Let's remember that Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, who is happy to try to overturn Greenland's democracy for Trump in 2025, was also happy to try to overturn US democracy for Trump in 2020. Rotten people are consistently rotten. 1/

Something something censorship industrial complex

Elon Musk is spreading nonsense conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election again. This “report” comes from The Federalist, a propaganda rag for the Trump regime. Long story short: there was a statewide hand recount in GA. Biden’s victory confirmed. No law broken. This is nonsense.

What do these corporations all have in common? -Lockheed Martin -Palantir -Microsoft -Amazon -Comcast -Google -Apple -Meta -HP -Nvidia -T-Mobile They all have lucrative government contracts — and they're all donors to Trump's $400M ballroom.

Maguire posted a now-deleted video on X stitching together dubious 'evidence' and declared it seemed “very likely” the student was responsible. Maguire's bio says he's on the lookout for "high-IQ founders." He doesn't mention if he's also looking for ones who display good judgment and discernment.

In the wake of the tragedy at Brown, online conspiracists rushed to pin the horrific mass murder on an innocent Palestinian student. One of them was Shaun Maguire, a partner at leading VC firm Sequoia Capital. www.fastcompany.com/91463942/seq...

This.

I find myself thinking about historian Robert Paxton’s 2004 definition of fascism far too often than I’d like these days. Note that these sentences were written back when Donald Trump was a NYC playboy libertine who donated to Democrats.

Was looking for books at Amazon and was presented with a truly bizarre AI-generated video via Colossyan Creator that was supposed to be Seneca as a shirtless marble dude sitting by a fireplace speaking with a southern accent. Even I am getting sick of AI slop. There will be a backlash at some point

“.. The past few months have shown that even vague claims of ‘national security’ are enough to establish a new and dangerous norm that allows presidents to insert themselves in the management of private companies.” @reason.com @scottlincicome.bsky.social reason.com/2025/12/19/m...

CATO INSTITUTE: Despite DOGE slashing jobs, government spending in every month of 2025 “was greater than in every other year .. An observer who did not know when DOGE started could not identify it” on a chart. 🤡 www.cato.org/blog/doge-pr...

The heavy hitter liars of X are pushing Georgia stolen election rumors equating procedural violation around election workers signing tabulator machine tapes, to missing signatures on mail-in ballots. They’re playing clips of the Trump-Raffensperger call as if it was normal. No Community Notes.

"The emergence of Witkoff as envoy to the Kremlin is partly a story of Putin maneuvering to nudge aside America’s diplomats and clasp hands with its billionaires." Because the billionaires lack experience, can be manipulated. and have obvious conflicts of interest.

A recent modeling study in JAMA showed that if MMR vaccine rates drop 10% (easy to see happen with this), we’re back to 400,000-500,000 cases a year. Our current outbreak is 2,000. This turns the clock back to 1950 🚨🚨🚨

"There’s no reference to any legal authority & no detail. It’s just 'there are security concerns, as evidenced by the Secret Service saying there are security concerns & the project cannot be stopped, & you cannot have any more details.' How do you possibly push back against that? It’s just mush."

Trump's "Epstein files" "release" has the same energy as when he stood next to folders of blank paper and said it was his "business divestiture" plan

"According to the…annual Harris Poll, for the 1st time, a majority of Americans believe billionaires are a threat to democracy. A remarkable 71% believe there should be a wealth tax. A majority believe there should be a cap on how much wealth a person can accumulate." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/o...

For your end of year donation consideration, the patriots at this firm right here (see also Democracy Docket) 🇺🇸👇

For the record, the law states that "No record shall be withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary." www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...

Ahhhh… So Trump took billions from troop housing and gave it to them as “bonuses” - Got it. A con artist to the end. www.defenseone.com/policy/2025/...

WSJ: The Trump family’s ventures since re-election “generated at least $4 billion in proceeds and paper wealth for the family as of December, according to company statements and securities filings.” @wsj.com www.wsj.com/politics/tru...

Utah Sen. Mike Lee has proposed changes to the Senate appropriations bill that could open the door for the sale of national parks, according to national park advocacy groups. via @thatsmohrlikeit.bsky.social www.sfgate.com/national-par...

HHS has abruptly terminated 7 grants to the American Academy of Pediatrics for initiatives such as reducing sudden infant deaths, improving adolescent health, preventing fetal alcohol syndrome, and early detection of autism.

Notice that the parts of Trump's economic program that help working and middle class Americans — DOGE checks, tariff rebates, and warrior dividends — are popular, progressive, and non-existent. Tax cuts for the rich are unpopular, regressive and very very real.

See this @wsj graphic for example on how many different businesses Trump is involved in while also seemingly running the country. Just brilliant reporting/graphics!

Trump: “One year ago, our country was dead!” The Economist, one year ago:

woah

Trump’s ballroom went from $200 million to $250 million to $300 million to $350 million to $400 million to …

The thing that shockingly few military/defense reporters are willing to say is the whole thing is batshit crazy and based on lies. Even if you hate Maduro — and who doesn’t?? — this 👇 is batshit disproportionate waste of US hard power assets Honest people will say this to you.

Why are members of Congress going after law school clinics? Lisa Davis explains why these investigations punish public interest lawyers for their clients, chilling legal advocacy that is essential to a functioning democracy. www.justsecurity.org/126738/assau...

One of the biggest moments of my career: USCIS canceled my client’s naturalization oath ceremony. We filed a lawsuit, went to trial, and the judge swore him in right there in the courtroom!

Very cool to see more states step up and create public health & science communication infrastructure in a time when people are looking for reliable health information! www.gov.ca.gov/2025/12/15/g...

Just to be clear: if 'no one was ready' a lot of people fucked up, bc those of us who work on this laid out what was going to happen 8yrs ago. The twofold issue that 1)it's not just a tech problem, and 2) Big Tech allowed itself to be ref-worked into spinelessness. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/t...

Another day, another Network State cult project: Financial Times: A wealthy bitcoin investor wants to set up his own court system within a libertarian community on a Caribbean island as part of the tech-backed “network state” movement.

Trump isn't just gloating about Reiner being murdered, he's claiming that one of his supporters did it because Reiner disrespected Trump. He wants people to think a MAGA did this. That's a terrifying escalation in the rhetoric.

Just a reminder that at least 600 Americans were fired for failing to show sufficient respect after Charlie Kirk's murder.

Trump reaction to murder of MAGA activist Charlie Kirk: flags to half staff, medal of freedom, anyone who criticizes or quotes Kirk must be silenced OR ELSE Trump reaction to murder of liberal activist Rob Reiner: he deserved to be murdered because he criticized Trump

Sen. Murphy: Over the last year, Trump has been engaged in a dizzying campaign to increase violence in this country. He is restoring gun rights to felons. He eliminated the White House Office of Gun Violence Protection, and he has stopped funding community anti-gun violence grants

#ConvictedFelonTrump doesn’t believe criminals who defraud the U.S., or convicted #NarcoTerrorists, or J6 criminals who harmed and killed Capital Police, or other serious criminals should be accountable for their crimes. And Republicans are silent #DV1 #ProudBlue #FDT

Gen AI tools are not good sources for information during rapidly unfolding, novel events. Words associations aren't helpful for discovering ground truth. These tools are more likely to echo and contribute to the inherent uncertainty and ambiguity of crisis events.

*Literally all investigations of firms with ties to Trump crypto businesses or involving Trump donors have been dropped. *The pattern of non-enforcement for crypto is different from other SEC cases

DiResta reveals the absurdity of the right-wing populist arguments that every potential intervention to make information spaces more trustworthy — from content moderation to fact checking to blue checks to transparency measures for researchers and journalists — is “censorship”.