This is a missing piece that I & some retired Marines were trying to figure out when this story broke. Every tattoo is in their file. New tattoos are updated. This tattoo is strictly prohibited & he absolutely would've known WHY immediately. He has no plausible deniability, it's all lies.

Once again, I am begging people to remember there are more than two candidates running to be the Democratic Senate nominee from Maine, and at least two are Army veterans who did NOT get Nazi tattoos. mainemorningstar.com/race-details...

Let’s talk about Graham Platner’s Big Lie, finally. In 2009, at the height of the Gulf War, the Marines barred him from active duty. Platner claims it was his forearm tattoos. But his one forbidden tattoo was the Nazi symbol on his chest. He knew - and he left the Marines rather than give it up. 1/

Democrats may not be able to prevent Mullin's confirmation, but they can certainly turn his track record of offense and stupidity into two days of televised humiliation so spectacular that he is wounded in Trump's eyes from day 1. That is the job.

The Montana Senate delegation continues a its crazy streak: today one Senator (Sheehy) broke a uniformed Marine vet's arm and the other (Daines) withdrew from his race at the last minute, making way for an unknown R candidate. That's the 2nd Montana Senate race in a row with a bizarre withdrawal. 2/

EXCLUSIVE: At more than 30 installations, U.S. commanders told troops the war on Iran is a Christian war. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been “inundated” with more than 110 complaints. One NCO said they were told the U.S. war is to bring about Armageddon and the return of Jesus…

You only have a short time to comment. They are trying to destroy our forests to enrich a few logging company executives and the politicians they’ve paid off. Leave your comment here: eplanning.blm.gov/Participate-... morethanjustparks.substack.com/p/blm-announ...

Update: disinformation researchers are also concluding that there is an ongoing astroturfed effort to push for Pahlavi, whose supporters stormed the US Capitol on Jan 6. In so many ways, what we saw at the Capitol then is still playing out. Jan 6 was a waystation that brought us to today. 5/

This account has warned for years that the many pro-Shah flags at the US Capitol on Jan 6 meant some kind of Trump collusion with supporters of Reza Pahlavi, son of the last Shah. Now Bari Weiss is pushing to install Pahlavi in Iran: the nepo baby son of the last guy we installed there. Not good. 1/

Why didn't Graham Platner know better than to appear with an antisemitic podcaster in the middle of a Senate campaign? Because he's never suffered consequences from anything. Outside the military (where he fucked up and got barred from the Marines), Platner's had no real job besides bartending. 1/

If it does happen that Ted Cruz is named for the Supreme Court, reporters will need to call out the gross, incestuous connections. First, nearly half the SC would then come from George W Bush's legal team contesting the 2000 election: Cruz, John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. 1/

Aakash Singh, the young DOJ lawyer tied to Ed Martin, shows up in today's hearing for Kilmar Abrego Garcia. After Abrego Garcia was brought back from Bukele's torture prison in El Salvador, Singh said prosecuting him on a 2022 charge was "top priority for us". Sure looks like vindictive prosecution.

Be warned everyone that this tidbit by Trump likely refers to a plan by certain techbros to run their own nuclear power plants. People need to fight hard against any effort to weaken the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which grants licenses and ensures safe operation of nuclear energy facilities.

How to stop a dictator: "To save democracy, you have to actually talk about democracy." Solid research in this thread. These guys didn't ask what polls in a focus group. They asked what worked in other countries. We should listen.

One goal if D's take the House this year: Jan 6 hearings that finally get to the organizers. Two men who could help drive that are both running in MD-5: Harry Dunn, who defended the Capitol, and now David Sundberg, who was tasked with reviving the FBI investigation in 2022. Marylanders, pick one. 1/

When will anyone ask WHY Judge Aileen Cannon tries always to protect Trump? A woman whose husband worked for New York City mobster and Trump pal John Rosatti, now a judge who consistently rules for Trump. Not one reporter will dig into her history? She's beyond the presumption of normality.

People interested in the story of Jeffrey Epstein and the young European violinist he introduced to Bard College president Leon Botstein: it's been written up by the Times Union. She got into Juilliard, was looking for a family to live with, then one of Epstein's recruiters pushed her to Epstein. 1/

👀The federal judges in West Virginia, where ICE has been pulling over and detaining people on the freeway, are literally screaming about ICE's tactics. "It is an assault on the constitutional order," Judge Goodwin says. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

US science is being turned over to Peter Thiel, who will kill it. Trump installed one longtime Thiel lieutenant as his science advisor. Now another Thiel lieutenant, Jim O'Neill, will head NSF. Both are the least-qualified ever, with NO science training. They're picked because they serve Thiel. 1/

The only consistent explanation for what the Trump administration is doing on immigration is "we want to lock up a bunch of people in camps." It's not about illegal immigration. Or crime. It's not even about deporting people. It's people like Stephen Miller lusting for an excuse to build camps.

This account has warned for YEARS that state-mandated college curriculums were coming. That a goal of people behind Trump - on Jan 6 and now - was to dictate what's taught at ALL levels, K-12 to university. People didn't want to believe it can happen in the US. But it can. And now it's happening.

A simple and useful way of choosing who to support in the primaries is to ask, who is LEAST supported by crypto interests? 2026 will help define what the future Democratic party is to be. It should be made clear to candidates now that taking billionaire donations comes with a political price.

The Epstein Files are so vast and detailed that they feel like the ruins of Pompeii--a snapshot of of Billionaire Town, preserved in volcanic ash--their food, their cruelties large and small, their graffiti with dumb dick jokes, the tools of various trades, art, family pets, so many brothels...

WaPo reports: Trump just put his receptionist Chamberlain Harris on the arts commission reviewing his ballroom. They omit: in 2021, Harris helped Trump move classified docs to Mar-a-Lago, and scanned some on her laptop. Then once that story went public, she wiped a 2019 trip to Russia off her CV. 1/

This project - tracking DHS's effort to build a massive detainment system - is among the most consequential acts of resistance right now. Imagine an alternative history where the Third Reich had faced organized, angry local resistance in every place they tried to build a concentration camp. 1/

Reposting the letter put out by Todd Blanche and Pam Bondi today, because had misunderstood what they're claiming. They claim the only redactions in the Epstein files are for victim protection, legal privileges, and CSAM. But we know that's wrong, because the redactions aren't consistent... 1/

SecDef Pete Hegseth raises the alarm: Princeton and Harvard are so woke it's dangerous for our military to go there. Absolutely agree! Just imagine if we let one of those woke Princeton/Harvard boys into the Pentagon - next thing you know he'll be installing a makeup studio. Purge the place now.

Scientific American models how to start on institutional accountability by bringing it all out: 6 current or former advisors in the files. In 2009, Marty Nowak of Harvard emailed Epstein: "[I] am in the newly formed board..of scientific american.. seems like everyone there is a friend of yours." 1/

Ian McKellen performs “The Strangers’ Case” speech from “Sir Thomas More” on Colbert.

NEW: since last year, a pair of "highly trained" feds have been involved in an array of incidents attacking crowds with chemical weapons. We used public records and open source analysis to identify Edgar Vazquez and Michael Sveum, alongside some other members of their tactical team. Read more:

No - if Bezos were trying to make money, he'd run the Post as a business. He bought it to affect the narrative, discovered he's not as good at propaganda as Murdoch, and now he's petulantly discarding it. It is precisely because he DOESN'T need money that he can do this. He can afford a tantrum.

/4 I continue to think that the constant theme is elite pundits being hostile to trends or discussions that criticize or hold accountable other elites.

"Popularism" is cargo-cult political science - it's a confusion about which variable drives a correlation. If voters want politicians with moderate beliefs, that doesn't mean they want politicians with no beliefs who recite fake-moderate scripts. The words do not magically produce the vote! 1/

Highlighting the speaker who stood in front of the Surprise mayor and told him to consider what the Mayor of Ohrdruf must’ve thought before he died by suicide: “He might have thought ‘how is this my fault I had no jurisdiction over this’ maybe he said ‘this site was not subject to local zoning.’”

Hey here's a new fun charitable project for MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates.

ohhh ‘democracy dies in darkness’ was aspirational

The leadup to Jan 6 taught us: ratfuckery is ALWAYS preceded by organized efforts to set a narrative. So when a GOP Rep goes on TV and says, "it's dangerous that states run their own elections, really it should be the federal government", LISTEN. He's prepping the ground for stealing an election. 1/

Paris prosecutors raid the French offices of Elon Musk’s X as part of an investigation into spreading child pornography and deepfakes.

So the NYT's Three Witches (Binder, Blender, and Schmidt) spent months gleefully prophesying that Harvard was about to cave to Trump; are finally forced to concede that nope, it's not happening; so pivot to recast it as: Harvard is conceding to those pesky liberal students and faculty. Amazing. 1/

And here are the faces of Pretti's killers, from the amazing @jsweetli.bsky.social. 6/

The agents who killed Alex Pretti are now identified by ProPublica. The man who shot Pretti in the back ("A4"), is Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa. The man who instigated the confrontation, then shot Pretti's prone body, is CBP officer Raymundo Gutierrez. Not new hires - 8 and 12 years service. 1/

One way to think through the victory in Tarrant County, given that Rehmet ran in labor issues, is that the voters were offered two competing theories of solidarity and chose collective bargaining over white supremacy as their mode This shift is possible and important to aim for

Yesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning. Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack.

Don't focus on uncorroborated tips in the Epstein files. Focus on the consistent claims that have documented evidence. The Trump DOJ may have front loaded these releases with a lot of those uncorroborated and wild tips about him in there exactly to undermine more serious allegations and files.

People are getting really fooled by things in the Epstein files. This is NOT a "Declassified FBI memo". It is a story told to the FBI by a CHS ("confidential human source"), who could be anyone from a petty criminal to a whistleblower to a propagandist trying to deceive (as here). Be smarter. 1/

Looking at the list of 19 new CBS News commentators, the median number of times they appear in the searchable Epstein database is 2 and the mean is 100

Bari Weiss is in the Epstein files! Though she may not have met him in person. Her gf Nellie Bowles visited Epstein in 2018, invited by his Russian aide Masha Drokova. He then told Bowles to bring her "babe" (Weiss) next time. (Two years later, they launch The Free Press.) h/t @marlownyc.bsky.social

It's no surprise why the US is "backsliding" fast: Putin is desperate in Ukraine and needs help. Trump's problem is, he picked a tough speed. It works to go slower and gradually erode rights, as in Orban's Hungary. Or faster, to dominate and cause terror, as in Hitler's Germany. In between is hard.

The most important thing in today's Epstein files may involve 4chan. In 2011, Epstein met with 4chan creator Christopher "moot" Poole; that same day, Poole launched the /pol/ board that 3 years later would be the heart of Gamergate. And Gamergate was the start of the movements that led to Jan 6. 1/