“The Justice Dept should never have brought such an astoundingly shoddy case. The decision to, under intense pressure from the president, is an indication of how thoroughly Trump has been able to corrupt the department… In any other political moment, this would be obviously impeachable conduct.”

A basic point, but the reason you go after flawed actors like Comey is to habituate people to the abuse of prosecutorial authority, so that when more serious figures are targeted the abuse of authority feels routine.

All grave matters of national security, as the Supreme Court will no doubt affirm soon. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/b...

Counterpoint: it’s not a “legal enterprise” when you are reversing district courts, abandoning precedent, and altering the structure of the federal government without reasoned explanation.

ABC News: “Earlier this week, federal prosecutors in Virginia informed Halligan they could not establish probable cause to charge Comey. Despite the lack of clear evidence and ethical concerns about bringing a case without clear probable cause, Halligan sought an indictment from the grand jury.”

Read a lot of indictments in my time and the comey one is by a distance the weakest

Remember folks, when the ICC seeks to prosecute Israeli officials for atrocities in Gaza, that is “lawfare.” When the U.S. President personally forces his handpicked US attorney to prosecute his political foe, that is “justice.”

This photo but replace it with Trump's inner circle, as everyone watches a giant monitor showing Trump's birthday card to Epstein.

So, the Trump administration is using the Situation Room for crisis meetings on how to spin the Epstein files. How many actual crises around the world are being ignored by Trump's NSC? www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

You don't, under any circumstances, have to "both sides" Trump's weaponization of the DOJ and authoritarian crusade against Soros and OSF ("Liberals say the assertions are falsehoods aimed at stifling dissent.") Of course they are! www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/u...

Kimmel’s defiant return highlights one of the most disturbing dynamics of Trump II, that so many people in positions of leadership are chickenshit frauds who would rather fold in advance than put up anything resembling a fight www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

"None of the people who spoke with The Post could recall a defense secretary ever ordering so many of the military’s generals and admirals to assemble like this. Several said it raised security concerns. 'People are very concerned. They have no idea what it means,' one person said."

Won't someone remind the professors put on Charlie Kirk's McCarthyite "watchlist" that he was actually "practicing politics the right way." www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/25/m...

What was incredible to me about this press conference is that nowhere did anyone mention that the victims were all detainees. Even if it turns out the suspect intended to target ICE employees, which we still don’t know is true, doesn’t that seem like important information?

I'm thrilled to join the Century Foundation as a fellow at Century International, where I'll be writing on Syria's future, from the huge challenges of reconstruction to the prospects for U.S.-Syria ties after Assad. @centuryintl.bsky.social @tcfdotorg.bsky.social tcf.org/experts/fred...

writing "self defense" on all my ammo just in case anyone ever asks me any questions that are already answered by the ammo

It's weird - but now in Oslo, there's so many EVs that you notice the noise and the smell from individual ICE cars, and you realise how much we've been normalising it for ever. You can smell them half a street away. And inside parking lots are just *quiet*.

“Those who point out that Kirk was a Christian nationalist provocateur risk their jobs or worse. The official line is that the appalling murder of Kirk made him a martyr to God and American liberty. Dissenters to such hyperbole risk being branded as terrorists.” writes @edwardluce.bsky.social

“What once sounded like theoretical warnings about ‘government weaponization’ has become a reality for organizations across the country.” www.notus.org/trump-white-...

Trump’s ICE agents are terrorizing America. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/23/m...

This deserves a Pulitzer.

when the interview goes well: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

The energy of Trump's UN speech:

Now watch Marco Rubio—who not long ago presented himself as some kind of serious foreign policy figure (and was treated as such by elite Washington institutions and publications)—praise Trump's speech and hail him as America's greatest diplomat.

despite having far less of a user base, I get more traffic from Bluesky and my feed delivers less annoying commentary (still some to be sure and I'm sure I deliver some myself) but I find more news than on Threads or X which all rage bait bsky.app/profile/jay....

He doesn't deny taking the $50,000 bag of cash.

The Democrats!

I can't believe Donald Trump, who mused about injecting bleach to treat Covid, would claim Tylenol causes autism and that vaccinating babies is like "shooting up a horse.”

watching kimmel tomorrow

Huge news here today in Egypt: President Sisi pardons Alaa Abd El-Fattah after years of imprisonment & repeated hunger strikes.

You can draw a straight line from drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, and all their bogus justifications, to Trump’s expanding war on random boats in the Caribbean.

A fourth boat bombed in international waters. Total death toll now 19 What I dont get is, if these boats are "carrying fentanyl" as Trump says (they absolutely arent. Even the DEA says VZ doesnt produce fentanyl), then why not seize one and show us? www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-...

“The news tells us that we are moving from one country to a different, autocratic one. The television shows us: This country looks different, sounds different and feels different. A familiar face and a familiar voice vanish… The price of admission to Trump’s America is aggressive compliance.”

“The target repeatedly brought up Homan, saying he was collecting bribes in exchange for future government contracts, the two sources told Reuters.” Just how many $50,000 bags of cash was Homan collecting last year? www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

lol the Times removed the first part of Shirley’s quote blaming Biden for Trump’s removal from Twitter and Facebook after Jan 6 — but without an editor’s note or clarification. So much for readers’ trust!

Trump the anti-interventionist once again gunning for his Nobel peace prize.

"The riddle of American policy is that its masters know so much and comprehend so little. Information is not understanding; it can be the opposite." Hussein Agha & Robert Malley on America's delusions in the Middle East and the "alternate universe" Washington built over decades, from Iraq to Gaza.

"Palestine shows Hollywood’s escape depends on denial. To acknowledge it collapses the fantasy of neutrality, the illusion that art floats above empire. When actors in couture name a siege, the bubble bursts." Great essay in @newlinesmag.bsky.social by Adam Makary on the biggest taboo in Hollywood

Another way the Trump White House is trying to intimidate the press and anyone willing to speak to a reporter:

Trump, stewing in the White House residence, is yelling at his lawyers and asking why they still can’t fast track this to the Supreme Court like every other case.

"Taking away a broadcast license has so many legal obstacles and takes so long that the FCC doesn't even try." This is important to understand. The real action is in self-censorship and merger approvals. view.newsletters.cnn.com/messages/175...

No clearer distillation of media bubble brain than Ben Smith opining on cable news that a Palestinian graduate student who was disappeared and detained by the government, and could soon be deported, is “less vulnerable” than a celebrity TV host making $16 million a year.

Indeed, as Mahmoud Khalil told @omidmemarian.bsky.social in a recent interview, “ICE tried to silence me, and in doing so, they amplified my voice.” “A lot of people think that what's happening is very far from our doors—they are so wrong. It's literally at our door.” dawnmena.org/i-was-put-in...

Worth noting that Khalil (and others) who have everything to lose, have shown more bravery and commitment to free speech than elites across academia, corporate America, culture and politics bsky.app/profile/josh...

So, a university president fired a professor because they taught a course that discussed there being more than two genders, and now the university president is being fired for not having fired the professor quickly enough, is where we're at. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/u...

This is an agent of the US federal government, armed for live-fire combat against a modern army, slamming a passive and nonviolent female candidate for the US Congress into asphalt. Then walking away without checking if she has injuries, with his identity concealed behind a black facemask.