pretty grim time for current events (Redford’s death) to drive people (me included) to watch ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN again

😕 💵

jennifer rubin and bill kristol are now the left flank of the democratic party

This is yet another story about authoritarianism — but one that hits a little different. Phurba is resilience incarnate, a person born for these times. And his tale is bonkers. I hope you enjoy reading it as much we did reporting it. Gift link: www.wsj.com/world/asia/t...

There is no world in which it is normal for the president to publicly call upon his attorney general to hurry up and prosecute his political foes. It’s like the Watergate tapes but posted on social media. Let’s get a grip on what’s happening here.

Every day there are like 3 new things that happen that 25 years ago would have instantly disqualified someone from public office.

it is very mean when you say using gestapo tactics makes them comparable to the gestapo

This moment is disturbing even in the mundane: I’ve started taking screenshots of historical sources I’m using in research from the national park service, the smithsonian, and the national archives, just in case they get taken down. It’s now a part of my process and takes time I have to plan for.

Democrats need to seriously consider an impeachment inquiry into now-Judge Emil Bove if/when they take back the House. He led the brazenly corrupt Eric Adams quid pro quo. He facilitated the Tom Homan bribery cover-up. And there’s probably more! He was Trump’s hatchet man at DOJ for months!

Megyn kelly saying the quiet part out loud again

Two thousand views in ten hours

“With a single post or video, we can influence thousands of guests to try a food, drink, or experience in the parks,” she says. “I couldn’t, in good conscience, keep giving them free publicity knowing they don’t support free speech and are willing to bow to fascism."

In a less insane time, if it was discovered that the President of the United States said this privately to their AG, it would’ve triggered an all-encompassing, impeachable corruption scandal. Here, Trump is saying it publicly and it’s just another Saturday.

SEND A MESSAGE TO PAM TELLING HER THAT WE CAN'T DELAY ANY LONGER, IT'S KILLING OUR REPUTATION AND CREDIBILITY

Kind of wild to see a Saturday Night Massacre style scandal play out in full public based on a mistaken DM….

This is what we need from elected officials -- a commitment to stand up for their constituents and, just as important, a willingness to tell right-wing trolls to get bent.

Can you imagine being an armed, kitted-up ICE agent on the streets of a US city shoving a middle-aged woman to the ground? Irredeemable agency.

Important thread.

Nothing is inevitable. In either direction. Hope and work.

I am paraphrasing what someone else said on here. I can't recall who. What Kristol/Never-Trump conservatives have in common with Sanders/AOC Dems is that neither bloc was shaped by/allied with the Dem establishment. So both blocs see Jeffries/Schumer as ineffective and say that bluntly.

So much of Trump’s agenda — from Covid to the Fed to foreign policy — is about trying to blame and fix all the “mistakes” made by whoever was president from 2017-2021, whatever his name was — it was probably Biden or Clinton or Obama, but he forgets.

I resist getting caught up in pundit thought bubble politics bc most of them have never actually worked on a campaign but fine here goes… 1. Pro-choice policies are very popular - the polling doesn’t actually support Klein’s supposition. Frankly we should run more on pro-choice platforms.

The problem is not their ideology. Ideological compromise is necessary. The problem is that the current generation of leadership never wanted fighting Trump and cleaning up after him to be their main job. They have no stomach for the style of politics that is now necessary.

Media execs have fallen prey to a propaganda and harassment campaign that has completely divorced them from what people actually want right now. Both their insular information environments (group chats, podcasts) and ambient noise (Twitter reactionaries) have put them in a very stupid bubble.

It is insanity that this hugely consequential news — whether Trump’s EO vomit tirade about H1Bs applies to current visa holders — is sourced *anonymously*! No one will go on record to clarify the new rules!? www.politico.com/news/2025/09...

We don't put powers in an elected legislature because they're necessarily all that prone to getting things right. There is value if nothing else in that a few hundred people can't be as erratic, can't produce such destructive uncertainty, as one illiterate geriatric and his maladjusted consigliere.

Again Bouie from the top rope

No, we do not. We have to actually stand for something. And communicate it effectively. Then go out and persuade non-voters to vote and to vote for the things we stand for.

The notion that Republicans are the more real Americans, whose authenticity Democrats must pay tribute to with imitation, persistence even though it is contradicted by more and more actual empirical evidence.

There's a refusal to admit that a significant number of US voters DO NOT vote on policy.

The most dispiriting thing to me right now is the immense level of cowardice I see all over, at all levels.

Quite the Friday fascism dump we’re getting

When an administration looks at North Korea and says “sounds fun let’s try that.”

TRUMP: That's why I sued the New York Times two days ago for a lot of money KARL: A judge just threw that out TRUMP: I'm winning. I'm winning the cases.

We live in a giant collective action problem and we are mostly behaving like the most simplistic single-turn game imaginable.

It’s been sad this year watching how the White House press corps refuses to back each other up. Here a female journalist is insulted and denigrated and the next male reporter just moves on to a new question. You’re all in this together, folks. Time & again, they won’t stand up for their colleagues.

“Hit roadblocks” is a weird normalizing euphemism for “refused to invent evidence of a crime that didn’t happen after being ordered to do some corruptly by the president.”

“Hit roadblocks”? Really?

Must-read; important to interpret recent events in terms of how Trump could turn the US into a competitive authoritarian state where the government abuses its powers to undermine the opposition even as elections continue to be held

Tickets are going fast for the Wit Literary Festival -- with the legendary CIA officer Jim "Mad Dog" Lawler, the great author and journalist @vermontgmg.bsky.social Garrett Graff, and yours truly -- Friday 9/26 in Lenox, MA. Pick up a pair right here! authorsguild.org/event/wit-20...

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.

And the landmark political science film The Empire Strikes Back

"That’s the thing about negotiating with fascists: the negotiation is never over.... Giving your lunch money to the school bully has never once stopped him from coming back." @marisakabas.bsky.social on the lesson to learn here. www.thehandbasket.co/p/jimmy-kimm...

Oh. My. God. Profoundly twisted framing from @nytimes.com The casual reader of this hed and subhed would have exactly zero inkling that this is likely corrupt or even illegal or unconstitutional. Euphemistic to the point of absurdity.

“if he can order the Navy to operate as a presidential hit squad on the high seas, any number of grim hypotheticals could become reality sooner than Americans might expect,” @radiofreetom.bsky.social argues:

Why?

The defining lesson of this first year of Trump authoritarianism is that kowtowing & capitulating yields zero permanent benefit and only emboldens the admin to come after you more. This critical lesson was first documented in the landmark political science treatise “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.”

One theory is that Trump is a shrewd wannabe authoritarian taking calculated steps to consolidate power Another is that he’s always been thin-skinned and driven by personal grievances, but now has the powers of the presidency and he doesn’t care about the long-term damage to the country

Feels like this week signaled the permanent reorientation of legacy media industries. There's no sustainable business model to "fire successful talent to obtain ephemeral political points with no tangible dividend."

Say what you will, but these people were sending death threats "the right way."