The richest man on earth owns X. The second richest man on earth is about to acquire TikTok and his family could soon own both Paramount and Warner Bros. The third richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post. See the problem here?

Some snippets of citizen sentiment to share: “New polls from Gallup and YouGov show Democrats pulling ahead of Republicans as the party voters trust more to handle the economy…Maybe the situation for Democrats is less dire than pundits think.” +

NEW: NBC News confirms that the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, on the east side of the White House, has been destroyed as part of the demolition of the East Wing. (📸 Getty Images)

Military funding through private gifts circumvents popular control of the state's monopoly on the legitimate use of force. It is and should be absolutely unacceptable in a free society.

I’m good with my taxes subsidizing social welfare for people who can’t afford food. I’m enraged with my taxes subsidizing corporate welfare to businesses that won’t pay a living wage.

This should be seen as what it is: a huge step towards ending free and fair elections.

**The "Four Freedoms" refers to four essential human freedoms championed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a 1941 speech: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. These concepts became a cornerstone of his vision for a post-war world** -wiki

After I saw the wrecking crew, I'd hoped this patently unlawful destruction would stop with the East Wing structure itself. But that dumb, selfish, grifting thug also destroyed the East Garden Room, East Colonnade, Family Theater, and Visitors Lobby. It's all gone. Without authority. Criminal.

BREAKING: Jack Smith is requesting that Congress and the Justice Dept. let him testify in public. In new letters to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, Smith says he wants to testify "in open hearings" because of "the many mischaracterizations" around his investigations.

Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of crypto exchange Binance, received a pardon after months of boosting a crypto venture owned by President Donald Trump's family.

I'm not fond of performative impeachment filings--bc they diminish the groundwork you'll eventually need if you do want to impeach. But this pardon might be worth it. Add in all the Jan6 pardons and Santos and all the other people whom Trump paid and make it 300 pages long and read it all.

If someone told you a year ago this would be a headline in 2025, you wouldn't have believed them. Authoritarianism has taken over our country.

Harvard has slashed the number of Ph.D. student admissions slots for the Science division by more than 75 percent and for the Arts & Humanities division by about 60 percent for the next two years. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

😕

This is gone now. The East Wing lobby two years ago.

FDR Memorial, Washington DC. -RIP East Wing-

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.

Amazingly good news.

Warped priorities: 17 NYT news stories on the Louvre jewel heist (so far); 3 NYT news stories on 7 MILLION PEOPLE attending No KIngs Day events (including one on late-night comedians and one on Trump's "brown liquid" video.)

The White House is asking people not to share pictures of the East Wing because it’s even worse today.

No money for pediatric brain cancer research, $200 million for a new Trump ballroom www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

Horrific moment of russian drone strike on kindergarten full of children in Kharkiv today ‼️

Today, Mike Johnson will keep the House adjourned for the 79th day out of the last 91. The senate has been working, so this is not about the shutdown. It is about avoiding a vote to release the Epstein files.

Richest man on the planet owns two-thirds of the satellites is the beginning of a not happy movie

Giving this man this much power was a choice and it can be undone.

This isn’t a focus in the Discourse because the loudest voices with the biggest platforms are people who have never worried about their next meal. I’ve needed SNAP; I’ve used SNAP; I’ve lost it when it mattered. This is going to be a wave of mass starvation beyond living memory in this country.

NEW: After The Washington Post reported Monday on the demolition of the "East Wing facade," a new picture obtained by Law Dork that was taken on Tuesday shows that a substantial portion of the entirety of the East Wing has been demolished.

lol, lmao even www.reuters.com/world/us/whi...

"The White House account has drawn only around 12,000 followers. More than 100,000 users have the account blocked."

"Mosquitoes have been found in Iceland for the first time as global heating makes the country more hospitable for insects. The country was until this month one of the only places in the world that did not have a mosquito population. The other is Antarctica."

Sanae Takaichi elected Japan’s new prime minister — the first woman in the country’s history to hold the post

Graves in the yards of Kostyantynivka. The same scene now unfolds here as in other cities and towns where the russian army advances reducing everything to dust and rubble and murdering everyone.

I think it would be worthwhile to have a judge, panel, and SCOTUS say out loud that no one has standing to sue to prevent the destruction of the White House by the President.

so that was money well spent then, hey? america firrrrst! "The Argentine peso has fallen below the level it reached before the US Treasury began purchases this month, in a sign that the Trump administration’s financial support is failing to halt the currency’s slide..." www.ft.com/content/815e...

Another obviously impeachable offense no one ever thought to catalogue before.

Insane. Tearing down the White House without legal authorization in order to build a palace ballroom for himself. It will of course need to be demolished.

Divided Ninth Circuit panel stays injunction against President Trump’s federalization of National Guard troops in Portland: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us... Judge Graber, who is no firebrand, wrote quite a dissent—encouraging en banc review and some patience on the part of the public:

The WH steals people’s property constantly and never asks permission. Another example of Trump acting like a king.

Early voting for Texas' November election begins today, Oct. 20. Here’s what you need to know. 🧵

You know it’s bad when the Dept of Labor says immigration raids are “threatening the stability of domestic food production and prices for US consumers.” @opinion.bloomberg.com #CPI www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

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.

Republicans are lazy. They gerrymander their way into power and never lift a finger again. Do you think they have ever put a petition together and worked hard enough to get something on the ballot and then knocked doors to get voters out so it will pass? No. They are lazy freeloading sloths.

Another leverage for Putin. I explain. Trump goes against Maduro - Venezuela ends up singing a 10y cooperation deal with Russia. Now Colombia, part of BRICS-led New Development Bank, whose president is pro Russia to begin with. It gives Putin a leverage to be the “mediator” who ends up on top.

We showed up. Nobody paid us. We didn’t hide our identities, beat people up, teargas anyone, pepper gun a pastor, zip-tie naked kids, shoot/kill/disappear people, kill any dogs. That’s what MAGA sanctions, not us. No Kings, no fascism, no cruelty. We want our rights back. We want respect. 🐸

Certainly not pro-American like Jan 6, amirite Mike?

Great media literacy/critique thread here>> h/t @randyfromm.bsky.social

1. Home color laser printers are cheap and I've had one for years, pro-rated toner about $0.20 2. 4 sheets of 8.5x11 labels is $1.33 3. $2 for a sheet of black foam board 4. A stick from my garage and four staples I'll be waiting for my three dollars.

At this point, if you're interviewing a Republican about the president's latest transgression and you *don't* have the video or post or whatever cued up and ready to show them when they pretend they haven't seen it yet -- I'm just going to assume you're in on the con yourself.

This is what democracy looks like. #NoKings

Trump posted an AI video of himself literally shitting on Americans… There’s nothing too on the nose for this regime.