Wild

"What Trump did NOT do was even purport to show a single ineligible voter voted in the 2020 election, or that any voting machines were actually compromised, voting machines or voter registration databases breached, or election results inaccurately reported."

This AP investigation into David Brouillette, the ICE agent who shot Durán Guerrero in Maine is genuinely horrifying. Long history of extreme mental illness, chronic violence agst spouses and kids, PTSD and heightened violence from mil service. apnews.com/article/ice-...

The ICE officer who shot a Colombian man in Maine this week is an Army veteran who has struggled with serious mental health issues since early childhood and never should have been given a badge and gun to patrol American streets, several of his close relatives told The AP apnews.com/article/ice-...

The detail I can’t get out of my head here is how he told his ex-wife that he had been hired by ICE, but she thought he must have been having a delusion, because how could ICE hire someone who had such a long history of family violence?

Trump’s Underwhelming Announcement on Voting Does Not Even Purport to Show Any Illegal Votes Were Cast in the 2020 Election or That Voting Machines Have Been Hacked or Vote Totals Inaccurate; He Made a Pitch to Pass the SAVE America Act But Offered No New Fed Mandates electionlawblog.org?p=157434

Actually likely

The Biddeford shooter.

When you can’t decide if you want to hurt universities or immigrants more, you find a policy to say “why not both?”

Unprecedented corruption

The greatest corrupting force inside elite institutions right now is the idea that making changes or reforms that outside critics would agree with or support is ipso facto bad. Pure binary thinking. On the side of the bad people, etc. Why 1/2 prevent us from addressing 3 👇

All can be true: 1. Universities have been targeted by a decades-long bad faith campaign 2. Status quo is vastly more normal than craziest stuff on Fox/social media, esp. outside elite schools 3. Parts of academia are in rough shape Despite 1 & 2, we can and should address 3.

Many, many smart people at The Atlantic but the cover story hot takes they produce are insufferable: The End of {thing that is not ending} Is X Solely Responsible for {major social trend}?

In the realm of questions posed during Senate hearings, this one from Ossoff -- "Isn't it humiliating to be unable to answer this?" -- ranks right up there with "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?"

Unprecedented corruption

As we await whatever fresh hell Trump's speech tonight will unleash, it’s important to step back and recognize the broader strategy characterizing much of Trump 2.0. I suspect the same strategy will be deployed in the run-up to the 2026 elections. The template is 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁.

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com The words of the Constitution “mean little if members of Congress do not stand up to dangerous presidential power grabs,” the editorial board writes about Todd Blanche’s impending confirmation hearing to lead the Justice Department.

CNN: The son-in-law of GOP Georgia Senate candidate Mike Collins is a white nationalist social media influencer with a history of posting antisemitic content and Nazi imagery online www.cnn.com/2026/07/16/p...

A gentle reminder that the FBI’s Evidence Response Teams are finite resources — only some agents and analysts are members — and if they’re doing this, they’re not responding to crime scenes, training on extant or new techniques, or working their cases.

"In 20 years covering policing, I’ve never seen a government agency thumb its nose at the very concept of justice, rights and the rule of law the way D.H.S. and ICE have over the last 18 months."

I have a piece in the NYT today arguing that the law should permit victims of ICE abuse to sue not just individual officers, but supervisors and policymakers like Stephen Miller and Gregory Bovino. A Democratic president and Congress could do this in 2029. And they could make it retroactive.

Massie: "I don't think the problem is that our elections aren't secure because we control the House, Senate, White House, and to some degree we control the Supreme Court. So I ask my Republican colleagues, why are you complaining about election fraud? We won all the damn elections!"

"Departmental records indicate Dr. Jones has taken more sabbaticals, sick time, personal days, conference allotments, and temporary leaves than all the other members of the department combined."

Selling access to Trump's tweets to businesses held hostage by the mad king (and thus worried about what he'll do/say and how it'll affect their bottom line). Just endless grifting.

Thank god there are no gender studies classes anymore otherwise we might be able to figure out what's going on here.

There was an era when this would have been one of the biggest scandals in modern political history. That era was five years ago

Unprecedented corruption

RFK Jr. asked the National Institute of Health to dedicate $5 billion (!) to finding a link between vaccines and autism. "That would have dedicated more than a tenth of the NIH’s annual budget to investigating a hypothesis already refuted by scientists worldwide."

"According to U.S. code, “[o]nly the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on United States currency and securities”—a law that sprang from a Colonial-era tradition against putting current presidents on American coins themselves from the British monarchy."

Calling this "rape culture" feels like an understatement. It's pro-rape advocacy.

Unacceptable

"More than half of those fired or removed by Mr. Hegseth from promotion lists have been female or Black."

A "heritage" rally in Indiana. You know what you klan expect.

Great news! Court has temporarily blocked Trump administration's attempts to block/terminate researcher visas because of their research findings and advocacy.

"Chief Judge James Boasberg concluded that the policy unconstitutionally discriminates against one set of viewpoints in the public debate surrounding social media."

at this point i think we can stop calling it “highly unusual”

Unprecedented corruption

The vitamin K shot provides reliable, long-lasting protection with a single dose. One shot at birth offers the best protection during a baby's most vulnerable first months of life. Learn more about the importance of vitamin K at birth: www.aap.org/en/news-room...

Today we launch the first stable release of RegCheck: v1.0.0. RegCheck makes it easier and quicker to compare study registrations to published papers for consistency - something we know is important in principle, but rarely done in practice. A 🧵 on what's new: regcheck.app

Among female independents, "support for Trump was significantly lower when expressed to a virtual female co-partisan enumerator" but an ad about women secretly voting for Harris "reduced...private support for Trump while leaving publicly expressed support unchanged" laurapaler.com/wp-content/u...

This is the key: Racism ALWAYS presents itself as having some external rationale. It’s never “I just dislike this skin color for no reason at all, and that’s that.” But the Court has effectively said nothing is racist as long as some external rationale is claimed (or can be imagined).

An unfathomable clean air act violation. I worked in this exact field for years, including in oil and gas, and i still can't get over how wanton and obvious this crime is. Just stunning

How Regimes Rely on ‘Loyal Losers’ New research sheds light on how low academic performers with poor career options tend to be assigned the most brutal tasks, including torture and murder. (Gift link) www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/w...

The man with the nuclear codes

This will set back American math and science advancement for decades. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Trump’s willing executioners.

WHOA DHS does not say that the agent feared for his life… just the vague concern for “public safety.” So he killed him just because he did not want him in America, not because of any specific threat to agents?

Impunity for crimes, particular for homicides, is critical to the creation of an effective police state. Nothing is clearer at this point but that the FBI/DHS/DOJ will use their powers to destroy evidence and obstruct any serious investigation. Susan Collins pretends not to get this.

Elon Musk keeps telling us that his defunding of foreign aid had nothing to do with racial bias while also posting stuff like this