GOP: We control all branches of government. GOP: We won't even meet with Democrats, they're so irrelevant Also GOP: This shutdown is all Democrats fault

Diane DiMassa event in Hartford, CT at Real Art Ways TOMORROW (9/25; 6:30pm) speaking with @alexdueben.bsky.social about Hothead Paisan. www.realartways.org/event/hothea...

I will not link to it. I just want to reiterate that thousands of books have been banned by the right. And American Dirt sold millions of copies.

We should honestly start with the working assumption that the Trump administration murdered these people and buried them in a mass grave. Then, go from there. Make them prove they're alive. If they are, it should be easy to demonstrate.

From Feb 4th 1939

I think this comparison is largely right. Yes, it’s a replay of McCarthyism’s ugliest aspects but that was fueled by a widespread sense that the country faced dire external dangers while this is about a deeply unpopular president’s grudges.

No notes

If the the leading Democrat in a legislature is murdered by a man with a hit list of Democrats he aimed to kill to flip control of that legislature, that's not "political violence" But if a conservative podcaster is killed for reasons still unknown, that's The Left committing political violence.

I am advocating for you to be killed but I am using my inside voice you must debate me this is called democracy

donald trump and the white nationalists that run his government want you to think that slavery was just fine www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

He's right, and it's not just Brazil. Around the world, at least 31 democratic leaders who committed similar crimes have been jailed or banned from office since 2010. The failure to hold Trump accountable in the US was a unique and systemic failure of our institutions and political culture.

In 2013 the Roberts Court ended multicultural democracy in the US after 48 years with Shelby County v. Holder. We thought that meant that they were racist. (Because they are) We should have been going, maybe this is their first step towards ending democracy. Things look different in retrospect.

But imagine if it happened on the same day that an appeals court affirmed E.Jean Carroll’s $83M judgment against Trump for sexual assault. Oh just a moment. We’ve got breaking news…

lol wow… If you’re wondering if Trump is going pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, here is how Trump previously responded when asked if he would pardon Flynn, Manafort, and Stone.

Dems should strongly consider impeaching RFK Jr if they take back the House — and maybe should campaign on a pledge to do so

I was explaining to my Ukrainian colleague the phrase ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’. She told me the equivalent in Ukrainian is ‘The only free cheese is in the mousetrap’ - which is so much better

Thursday July 17th, please show up across the country to recenter key principles of friend, collaborator & freedom fighter John Lewis— to highlight both the ongoing destruction of democracy, & outlining some concrete actions for people to take together. Find an event here: goodtroubleliveson.org

NEW PIECE IS UP. I don’t enjoy facing the truth about this court, but it must be done. Yesterday’s decision in McMahon has me convinced. Hope you’ll sign up for the September webinars. We need the people - not just lawyers - to understand what’s at stake. open.substack.com/pub/sherrily...

New mini Zine based on Elizabeth Warren's report about what Elon did in his 130 days in the government is available: convergencemag.com/articles/elo... - print and share far and wide!

It’s absolutely impossible to think this is the result of good faith legal analysis, especially when they refuse to provide any reasons!

let's take stock here: (Democratic) Presidents, via the Dept of Education, can't cancel student debt because statutes don't clearly authorize it. Republican Presidents can cancel/shut down the Dept of Education because, even though only Congress can shut down departments ..., ... 🤷‍♀️ YOLO?

Every American should read this ACLU lawsuit about what is happening in Los Angeles and California. It is the stuff of dystopian nightmares. This is not immigration enforcement. It is positively stuffed with videos and articles documenting racial profiling on a scale unseen since Jim Crow.

Wrote about the absolute craziness of Missouri AG suggesting that any AI that suggests anything negative about Donald Trump is committing "consumer fraud"—especially given his own stance in Missouri v. Biden that no gov't official should ever even be allowed to *talk* to a tech company.

Needed this reminder today.

Protecting his stock portfolio while ripping away health care from 17 million Americans. This is Washington at its worst. We need to ban Congressional stock trading.

Pin this, save it, we’ll need it. “When a prison camp opens in your town…when a DREAMer is disappeared from your classroom…when the President destroys what’s left of the Constitution…They will all say they didn’t know this was coming. And I want the American people to know that they did.” AOC 🔥🎯

If you say that America is poised to institutionalize a police state - that the reality of concentration camps and regularized disappearances will become an ongoing facet of life - you'll still receive eye-rolls and clucked tongues. But that is not a possibility of this budget, it is the purpose.

It's a very, very good point. The earlier crises were vast and required huge amounts of spending. We have no economic crisis now. We have a vast political and constitutional one. It's when you'd want to keep deficit/debt stable with respect to size of the economy.

This reflection/reporting from Hua Hsu winds up in the place I've been writing about for more than a year. If we want students to write we have to mitigate the transactional aspect of the experiences as much as possible. They must be worth doing. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

It's incredible that neither the president nor VP was here. The politicization of all facets of American life is coming from the White House. No other American president would have failed to pay their respects. www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

Chris Murphy: "The CBO, nonpartisan, says it's gonna kick between 10 and 15 million people off their healthcare. And for what? To be able to afford a new $270,000 tax cut for the richest families in the country ... it's a moral abomination."

This is an assault on the Reconstruction Amendments by a Neo-Confederate Court wedded to the far-right argument that those amendments were illegitimate and destroyed the original intent of the Founders, which was to create a white man's country

David Hogg is cooking lately

New — I wrote about how Zohran Mamdani’s win shows the power of a positive vision for the future, New Yorkers’ rejection of fear-based politics, and provides a blueprint for progressive Jews and Muslims to create a multi-racial, multi-faith coalition that supports prosperity for all. Read it here:

Chris Murphy: "Trump & the Republicans are trying to engineer the most massive transfer of wealth from the poor & middle class to the wealthy in history of the country...that's super unpopular. So how do you pass it? You can only pass it if you also destroy democracy & the means of accountability"

Seems like Trump’s most powerful advisor being a white nationalist should inspire greater alarm than the possible mayor of new york being pro palestinian rights

If you’re zip-tying grandmas protesting losing health care maybe you’re not the good guys in the story?

I saw so many people talking about how Mamdani and Lander were clearly running because they love their city and want to make life better there, while Cuomo seems to hate and fear it, and that feels like the key piece of this campaign that could be replicable by progressives everywhere

brad u should primary chuck schumer

If you're about to post something mean about Andrew Cuomo, I urge you to pause, take a deep breath, and think of something even meaner.

The dismantling of the research apparatus that made America the science and tech giant it's been over the past century is the greatest own-goal in history. We haven't even begun to calculate or feel the losses

A great excerpt from a great book. Also, referring to James Patterson novels as "the Sweet Valley High of police procedurals" is both deeply accurate and probably the most succinct and brutal takedown of his work I've ever read.

I feel like it’s hard to have discussions on AI because very reasonable positions are being treated like they’re saying “all AI bad, good AI impossible.” But we cannot have a reasonable discussion of AI without talking about who is making it and how.

Seemingly lost in all of the NYT coverage is that what the Supreme Court did was effectively lower the evidentiary bar that state's have to meet to justify their bans. The lower courts that applied heightened scrutiny universally blocked the bans.

When Dobbs came down, the media rightly saw it as the culmination of a decades long effort to eliminate abortion rights by the conservative legal movement. When Skrmetti came down, the media blamed trans people and not that same conservative legal machine. It's the same court and lawyers.

George W made Colin Powell lie to the UN about centrifuges and weapons of mass destruction in order to invade Iraq. Trump just casually remarks that he “thinks they’re close” to a weapon and apparently that’s enough to go to war with Iran. Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more stupid…

UPDATE: It gets worse. The updated legislative language makes over 250 MILLION ACRES of public land available for sell-off.

narrator: an unexpected crisis would, in fact, hit them

From a week and a half ago: “As of Monday, the model shows, about 96,000 adults and 200,000 children have died because of the administration’s cutbacks to funding for aid groups and support organizations. The overall death count grows by 103 people an hour.” www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...