The first paragraph of Judge Breyer‘s opinion granting an injunction in the California National Guard case is a banger.

Major Pete Hegseth, in 2016: "... that's why the military said it won't follow unlawful orders from their Commander in Chief. There’s a standard. There’s an ethos. Me in 2025: "You can refuse illegal orders." Watch for yourself.

Senator Kelly is correct. Plus a Public Service Announcement: KEY section of Department of Defense's Law of War Manual is 18.3.2.1. The VERY rule on the "requirement" to refuse illegal orders gives as its paradigmatic example of what is "clearly illegal: "orders to fire upon the shipwrecked."

Sounds like we need to hear sworn testimony from Admiral Bradley, Admiral Holsey, and any JAG officers involved, about who ordered what and who objected.

It’s wrong to lump all top Trump people in one category. There are differences among them. But they do seem to fall into three (sometimes overlapping) categories: • Ordinary criminals (grift and corruption). • Sex criminals. • War criminals.

It is one thing not to support U.S. aid to Ukraine; it is another to be hostile to Ukraine, and sweet on the brutalizer of that country. I have written a piece expressing, I hope, a little of the revulsion that many of us feel. www.thenextmove.org/p/agony-over...

Sign at the US Military Academy at West Point:

We’ve reached the stage of people fearing reprisals for criticizing swastikas.

My husband @captmarkkelly.bsky.social is a 25-year Navy combat pilot veteran. He served our country with strength, courage, and integrity. The President called him a traitor and demanded he be executed. It is dangerous and wrong. Americans need to stand up and say so.

If President Trump were truly committed to countering antisemitism and protecting the Jewish community, he wouldn’t defend and further normalize Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/16/u...

"A movement, especially one that verges on an outright cult of personality, is defined by its leader, not by its rank and file. And when the leader is lawless and depraved, then efforts to contain his influence while preserving his power are doomed to fail." www.nytimes.com/2025/11/09/o...

OMG. The site is literally called the Dunning Kruger Times.

this is actually impressive, making up a brand new nobel peace prize replacement is a genuine innovation in bribery absolutely nobody does corruption like FIFA

New: The FBI is quietly urging ICE agents to properly ID themselves in the field. In a bulletin to law enforcement last month, it warned of criminals posing as ICE to rob, rape, kidnap—a problem it says now demands national coordination to confront. By me & @carolinehaskins.bsky.social:

I think it’s….interesting…that some on right seem to just suddenly becoming aware of their Nick Fuentes problem. When Trump invited him to dine at Mar-a-lago where did you all think this was going?

Downside: government corruption like this is bad Upside: Kash Patel abusing his position as FBI Director to corruptly use a jet to try to impress a woman might be the least destructive way he uses his position, and it’s therefore relatively better for the country if that’s how he spends his time

Remember, Taranto turned up with guns at Obama's house a few hours after Trump posted Obama's address on his Truth Social account. Taranto reposted the Trump post with the address so we know he saw it.

It’s really curious how Trump wants to topple Maduro’s regime but also BECOME Maduro’s regime.

I think borrowing on your shares should be considered a realization event for tax purposes.

A third of Republicans favor threatening to deport US citizens who have been critical of Trump. Two-thirds support DOJ investigating his opponents. www.economist.com/united-state...

"To bring a democracy under authoritarian control, you need more than a strongman. You need politicians who will assure the public, as we slide toward one-man rule, that nothing odd is happening. That’s the role Johnson is playing in Trump’s takeover of America." My report on Johnson's complicity.

Pope Leo quotes Hannah Arendt: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist." www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...

This piece about Bari Weiss is devastating because it's relentlessly fair. DO NOT MISS. www.thebulwark.com/p/bari-weiss...

Anyone who criticized Charlie Kirk might as well have pulled the trigger, but calling several thousands of protestors "terrorists" before they gather is totally ok.

The Speaker of the House has firm views that Bad Bunny is a terrible pick for singing at the Super Bowl, but hasn't had time to watch the President's speech to our military leadership or form an opinion whether furloughed federal workers should be paid or Illinois' governor should be thrown in jail.

The Gen. Mattis statement I see people posting today is from 2020. Which only goes to show how Americans chose to ignore some very clear warnings. www.npr.org/2020/06/04/8...

In light of today’s absolutely fucking deranged “I’m in a war movie” speeches by Trump and Hegseth, I give you the plaque at West Point.

Trump admitted domestic national guard deployments are based on a pretext, and the White House is egregiously lying about "crime" and "insurrection" as an excuse, but with the added wrinkle that the president himself may be disconnected from reality, lying but also caught up in lies others tell him.

So much has gone wrong in US press reporting on Trump because the White House reporters are people who have exclusively covered US politics. They need people who have worked in Hungary, Turkey, etc. The relevant knowledge isn't Reagan factoids; it's the dynamics of competitive authoritarianism.

The White House Deputy Press Secretary looked at this graph and thought "those grey bars are totally fine, everyone will understand that only the yellow ones are a problem".

Let’s spell this out. Trump fired a qualified U.S. attorney who refused to do his bidding and installed his own personal lawyer to punish a perceived opponent. Justice needs to follow the law, not politics. This is an attack on the rule of law. Full stop.

No police chief would hire someone who'd taken a bribe to be an officer. Yet the man who now serves as border czar took a bag of money as a bribe for favors. That’s what criminals do. Administration says nothing to see here. There’s a tape. Release it. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/u...

“On Sept. 20, with hidden cameras recording the scene, Homan accepted $50,000 in bills, according to an internal summary of the case.” Homan was being investigated for allegedly “soliciting payments in exchange for awarding contracts should Trump win the election” www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/t...

The killing of Charlie Kirk is part of a grim pattern of political violence in America. This is what the data show econ.st/4nqZysO

"The best way to honor or oppose Charlie Kirk’s legacy is to keep arguing—peacefully and courageously." --Paul D. Miller thedispatch.com/article/je-s...

Good guidance from @jvl.bsky.social as we deal with rage and recriminations (on social media, TV and even Congress) in the wake of Kirk's murder: "When you see people being neither wise, prudent, nor charitable — and you will — pray that they are given grace and offer them yours as a down payment."

I don't see much evidence of Democratic leaders spewing violent rhetoric, as Trump claims. I see evidence of them talking about our shared humanity despite our in many cases profound differences, and how today's murder is tragic and wrong.

This is pretty fucked up in lots of ways.

Russia never would’ve violated a NATO member’s airspace and one US partner in the Middle East never would have violated another US partner’s sovereignty if Donald Trump were president. They’d all be too scared of strong strength responding strongly. That stuff happens only with a weak US president.

I go to the CNN website and there's not a visible mention of the President threatening to unleash the "War Department" on Chicago, like the helicopter attack in Apocalypse Now. Because the President's complete lunacy just isn't news, I guess.

Only someone who avoided the draft would want to rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War.

Today we learned that in June the US economy lost jobs for the first time since 2020. We haven’t seen this kind of net job loss since - well, since the last time Trump was in charge.

The notion that anyone involved in the "Twitter files" episode could be taken seriously as a journalist as opposed to a PR flak is a disturbing sign of the times.

- promises to end all wars in his election campaign - keeps claiming he has ended a bunch of wars - is obsessed with winning the Nobel Peace Prize - illegally renames the DoD to the "Department of War"?

I'm not saying there are no trolls here, but if your usage of Bluesky is limited to periodically logging in, strapping a giant "KICK ME" sign to your back, and running around the playground screaming "HE KICKED ME" then that's a you problem

It’s not true that there are no principled conservatives, and every time they appealed to principle it was merely a mask for “it’s bad if you do it, but good when we do it, and we’re eager to do it a lot more.” It’s just that principled conservatives all went NeverTrump, by Jan. 6 at the latest.

Civic education and especially the press in this country aren't great, but the big problem here is that the people acting like the president isn't a public servant tasked with faithfully executing the law, but instead The Country's Boss, includes the GOP majorities in Congress and the Supreme Court.

ANGRY @jvl.bsky.social took to @thebulwark.com today: "Trump is waging war against the American government. When he’s done, he’ll use his government to wage war against Americans." www.thebulwark.com/p/the-cdc-th...