The subhead of this piece is "The Underpants Gnomes Are Coming For Our Elections." I couldn't think of a better way to convey the magical thinking that imagines Trump to be in charge of the elections process ... or a better way to dispel that illusion.

"The cause of ending cancel culture launched a thousand MAGA-aligned influencer careers; it is the supposed raison d’être of entire MAGA-friendly publications. Now that the government they serve has turned the page on free speech, what do they do?"

“In the Pentagon press room, there’s a wall of photographs under metal lettering that reads ‘Pentagon Correspondents’ with the faces of the men and women who cover the Defense Department for major news outlets. “On Friday, all 30 slots for photographs were empty.”

Congress could've pushed back against Trump's inflationary tariffs, but instead House Republicans have repeatedly voted to block their own authority. It's one more way the GOP is ceding more power to the president talkingpointsmemo.com/news/republi...

"We have to get them off the streets and we have to get them off the internet. We can’t let them communicate with each other. I’m all about free speech, but this is a virus, this is a cancer that’s spreading across this country."

The drama of forbidden love revealed in those texts in the Robison indictment, like something out of Chekhov or Shakespeare, so much more richly human, strange, politically uncatagorizable than the idiot babble we're forced to endure about which "side" did it. Sigh.

A lot of the press is running with Utah Governor Spencer Cox's speculation that the messages on the bullets speak for themselves. It's quite a stretch however to say anything about this is self-explanatory.

We are in the middle of a cancel culture movement but it's coming from the right. The free-speech warriors are targeting professors and attacking speech, revealing the bankruptcy of that entire movement, as @ryanlcooper.com notes. prospect.org/education/20...

Anti-Putin activists are now warning dissidents against seeking asylum in the U.S.

After the Trump admin sent dozens of Russian asylum seekers to Moscow (including one man wanted for desertion), exile groups are warning people not to seek refuge in the US talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-a...

TPM's @emineirmakyucel.bsky.social spoke to a bunch of Senate Dems this week. They appear to be focused on extending the ACA enhanced subsidies instead of Trump's power grab as part of the coming funding fight to keep the government open.

"When you look at the factors weighing down Dems, it's not crime or trans rights or wokeness. It's the deep-seated belief among independents and Dem voters that Dems are weak and feckless; their nominal positions don't matter because they're either unwilling or unable to fight for them."

Federal judges appointed by presidents of both parties tell NBC they feel the Supreme Court is undercutting them and validating Trump's attacks on them.

Texas AG Ken Paxton, who is running for U.S. Senate, is headlining an event with this guy, whose claim to fame is that he stormed the Capitol and was caught on camera toting Nancy Pelosi's lectern. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/texas-a...

turns out he wasn't so good at the litigating www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

Ugh: “Trump’s DOJ seeks voting equipment in Missouri ahead of 2026 election” electionlawblog.org?p=151915

NEW: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Headlining ‘Gun Rights’ Event With Well-Known Jan. 6 Rioter talkingpointsmemo.com/news/texas-a...

A former Fox News producer with history of posting racist stuff on social media — and, each time, prompting a controversy, including getting impeached from student government while in college — now has a gig at the EEOC, the worker protection agency created as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Worked with @brycecovert.bsky.social on this new piece for @talkingpointsmemo.com: "Connor Clegg, a former Fox News producer who was ousted from his school’s student government over accusations of racism, is working in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s communications department."

The Trump admin has ironically continued to defend workers' rights in Mexico via a labor provision in the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, all while gutting collective bargaining for nearly 400k U.S. civil servants, more than 2.6% of American unionized workers talkingpointsmemo.com/news/the-tru...

Kristi Noem appears to have a not-terribly-well-hidden non-official Facebook account under an alias. Experts told us it was less than ideal for a high-level security official.

An appeals court ruled most of Trump's tariffs are illegal, opening the door for the possibility that the U.S. govt will have to pay back the money its collected so far. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trumps-...

“I think that’s wholly appropriate and certainly comports with my understanding of the law,” said C. Fred Bergsten, who helped negotiate IEEPA in the 1970s, “and hopefully it will excise lots of the damage that his tariffs have done.”

"The move forces members of Congress to confront a question that has lingered over the legislative branch all year: What is the point of the two parties negotiating a federal budget if the executive branch insists it has the power to unilaterally determine what funds get spent?"

The New York Post claims Trump has begun to use Russ Vought's "pocket rescissions" gambit to override Congress' power of the purse. nypost.com/2025/08/28/u...

This is the peak Axios AI story. Workers are getting stressed because they’re under pressure to find something useful to do with AI. If they don’t investors will have bought into a bubble. Why do workers hate investors?

New from me + @emineirmakyucel.bsky.social about the damage Trump/allies did to DC before flooding it with armed federal law enforcement under pretext that its own government can't handle the fabricated crime spike talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-a...

really interesting interview with Yevgeny Prigozhin's mom (rus) "I told him: Zhenya, people will only support you on the internet. Nobody will go with you. People aren't like that now; nobody will go out into the squares." www.fontanka.ru/2025/08/22/7...

As has been obvious since the moment he sent National Guard troops into D.C. to do things like patrol tourists on the National Mall, Trump is using decades-old right-wing propaganda — fear mongering about supposedly lawless urban hellscapes — to justify bringing the military in to Dem run cities.

It's early, but this could be an indication that senators have enough questions about Antoni that his nomination will encounter trouble.

SCOOP: Trump's BLS pick E.J. Antoni -- who many economists have flagged as unqualified -- will face a hearing before the Senate HELP committee. Over 30+ years, only 1 of the last 6 BLS chiefs had a committee hearing talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-e...

TPM breaks the news that the University of Michigan's hospital system has been hammered by the Trump administration's DOJ into suspending gender affirming care for minors. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/univers...

Scoop, w/ @kateriga.bsky.social : University of Michigan Health ends its healthcare programs for transgender minors after a subpoena from the Trump DOJ talkingpointsmemo.com/news/univers...

EXCLUSIVE: In response to threats of criminal prosecution from the Department of Justice for performing gender-affirming care, the University of Michigan hospital system will tomorrow announce they are ending gender-affirming care in the UM hospital system. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/univers...

TPM EXCLUSIVE: The University of Michigan hospital system confirms it's discontinuing gender-affirming care for minors after receiving a subpoena from the Trump administration: talkingpointsmemo.com/news/univers...

Scoop from me & @joshkovensky.bsky.social: After receiving a subpoena and being threatened with criminal/civil investigations by Trump's DOJ, the University of Michigan's statewide hospital system will stop providing gender-affirming care to patients under 19 talkingpointsmemo.com/news/univers...

NEW: Trump Bureau of Labor Statistics nominee was bystander outside Capitol on Jan. 6, White House says www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus...

A federal judge's order requiring a two-week halt to construction at 'Alligator Alcatraz' is the product of a push by Native American and environmental groups.

Feel like it should be a bigger deal that 379,000 civil servants—more than 2.6% of all unionized workers in the United States—lost collective bargaining rights in the past week. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-f...

BLS Commissioner Nominee’s Suggestion to Suspend Monthly Jobs Report Is ‘Like Gouging Our Eyes Out’

Trump's so-far-successful effort to strip collective bargaining rights from federal workers appears to have resulted in a decrease in the total number of unionized American workers of more than 2%.

Sherrod Brown will run for the Senate in 2026. #OHSen www.cleveland.com/news/2025/08...

@joshkovensky.bsky.social: "At a press conference on Monday, Trump flanked himself with a cast of former Fox News hosts-turned-law enforcement officials" who "took turns portraying D.C. as a Mad Max-style hellscape in sudden need of federal and military action" talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-g...

Goodbye Billy Long. It seems like everyone you worked with hardly knew you. talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/bi...

ok @maxread.info knows I’m a fan but any accounting of stomp clap that doesn’t include early whoa-oh hardcore eg the Misfits is missing a limb. That yell-the-chorus punk (whose legacy is people who think all choruses are for yelling) is a vital part of this

If you like or hate read my daily evening briefing published at @talkingpointsmemo.com each day, pls consider signing up to get it sent straight to your inbox if ur into that sorta thing. it's free :) wherethingsstand.talkingpointsmemo.com/p/vance-brin...

In 2024, Congress urged NIH to shut down a massive data collection program, fearing it had gotten in deep over its head. Now, Congress alleges, NIH has revived that program as part of RFK Jr.'s search for an autism "cure."

“The Supreme Court has said they are textualists, and that works out badly for liberals in many settings — but this one is hard to win for the textualists when there’s no support in the text.”