Republican Protestants like Matt Walsh and JD Vance who convert to Catholicism because they hate modernity are the dumbest clowns imaginable. They aren't just more Catholic than the pope, they are more Catholic than any pope in the last hundred years. And incapable of seeing how moronic that is.

Please share: Federal law explicitly prohibits healthcare funds going to illegal immigrants. Don't let Republican liars get away w/saying otherwise. Only payments for emergency care are allowed, which keep hospitals from bankruptcy. 42 U.S.C. § 1396b(v)(1)–(3) www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/...

In the latest Theory of Change, @sethcotlar.bsky.social talks about the history of far-right censorship, & how false charges of communism are integral to the oppression. We also discussed William F. Buckley and Ben Shapiro's little-known extremist activities. plus.flux.community/p/trumps-mas...

Authoritarians always try to gaslight the opposition into despair. Trump has never been more unpopular. People want Democrats to fight him. This is great from AOC: www.thedailybeast.com/alexandria-o...

Put another way: We're going to slash the government whether it's open or closed. And with that said, the Democrats have no reason to bargain.

The Trump political operation is using blatant racism built on flagrant lying as its shutdown argument. Latinos for Trump, this is what they think of you.

"What Trump and Hegseth want, in a way, is to turn the US military into an institution more like ICE: an internal police force, unconstrained by many laws or norms, bullying and intimidating people here at home on behalf of the current administration in Washington." open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...

Most of the power authoritarians have is freely given. We should not comply with them in advance. Trump is far weaker than he looks. So is the GOP. We should draw them out, drain them at every opportunity, and fight for people’s wellbeing at every turn. We have been sent here to fight for people.

Thank you for your service!

The Third Great Awakening It’s easy to poke fun at Christians right now, with their missed raptures, pyrotechnic memorials to Potemkin martyrs, and ultra-cringeworthy social media. However they are getting at least one thing right. There is a religious revival plus.flux.community/p/the-third-...

Shit like this is why you should never, ever use the term "populist" to describe Republicans. They are vulgarians, not populists. Their agenda is anti-populace.

Instead of ceding leadership to people who have ideas on how to counter the radical right, many of the tired establishment Democrats are deciding to give up. Their cowardly and lazy choices are even more absurd when you consider the 86 million people who did not vote at all.

“If the gov't can punish professors and universities for viewpoints it dislikes, then no field of research, no classroom discussion, & no scholar’s speech is safe. That is precisely what the First Amendment forbids.” Cato joins ACLU, other groups in amicus supporting AAUP's Columbia suit. @cato.org

I really hope the guy makes some money from all the time he put into this, yikes!

This kind of direct debate among Democrats almost never gets to happen. It's one of the reasons that party is so weak right now. Ineffective leaders are never forced to justify or revise their policies under democratic pressure. This must end.

Reality has a liberal bias. These snowflakes need a lot more safe spaces than lefty college students.

Cockup collides with conspiracy. With any luck this scandal will grow into an epic crisis that will seriously undermine Trump and his irredeemably corrupt regime. A photo caught Scott Bessent reading a text. It said that Argentina had just done a huge soya deal with China, days after a US bailout.

So much of reactionary politics is raging against imaginary people. The "antifa menace" is the latest example. Another would be the obviously stupid idea that Patriot Front is an FBI-run fake white nationalist group. Which means that Kash Patel is its boss???

Quiet part deafeningly loud right here. These are bribes, not settlements. You don’t have to keep paying for YouTube Premium. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Alex, the African Gray parrot, was really important in the study of intelligence. His many skills showed humans are not nearly as special as we like to think. His trainer, Irene Pepperberg, is a great example of the amazing things you can teach with care and compassion.

The supposedly pro-choice RFK Jr. is the servant of the militant anti-abortion crowd. And he will come after birth control as well, mark my words.

X is currently full of large right wing influencer accounts accusing Swalwell of posting a photoshopped picture of the Michigan church shooting suspect wearing a Trump shirt. The picture is still LIVE on Facebook and can be verified by anyone. /

1. A day after the Michigan church shooting, Republicans are silent after learning the shooter was a MAGA extremist. No investigations of Trump supporters as terrorists. No national conversations about the rights of cisgender men. The silence is deafening. Subscribe to support our journalism.

This is insightful and speaks to what we see: the recklessness, the relationship with Evangelical belief, the sanctification of power and violence, the way Trump, who is devoid of philosophy, is the perfect figurehead.

This is fascism. Trump wants to use the military on citizens who oppose him. Cities are not in crisis. Crime is down everywhere. But Trump needs an enemy within to terrify people.

Pete Hegseth forcing every high ranking officer in the military to hear him rant about beards and overweight generals is exactly what I'm talking about here. It's the idiocy of evil.

exactly like the Chinese surveillance state

The conspiracy theories about "globalists trying to destroy American sovereignty" were actually true--but it was the ancaps and post-libertarian fascists who were doing it. Yet another accusation in the mirror by the reactionary right.

Great thread!

Dark stuff

bsky.app/profile/matt... Yes they acknowledge Trumps stupidity and yes terrible opsec but dammmnn that's a sweet cell phone case.

Back to back “free speech” headlines this afternoon.

If you only read one 🧵 today, make it this 🧵.

Worthwhile thread.

Since Elon bought Xitter, antisemitism and conspiracy crap has proliferated there. A new report finds that the site took no action on 88% of highly visible antisemitic posts. Only 7% eventually had visibility limited. It also ran ads on them.

Am I the only one that missed this? The Grindr CEO officially confirmed that the app received a massive usage spike with the 2024 Republican National Convention. The meme was true all along! 💫

"Conservative thought", nicely summarized

Well worth the time to read. Why logic doesn't work with many hard-core Trump supporters.

In case you wonder what the text says :

New from me: Russ Vought is using federal employees as hostages in federal shutdown negotiations, threatening mass firings if Dems do not accept Trump's terms. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court just allowed Vought to impose a de facto impoundment of foreign aid. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/shutdown-h...

Excellent thread!

Exactly. Charlie Kirk actually believed in witches. People like him are cabinet secretaries under Trump. We have to be so much more serious about these people's delusions. And btw, Kirk's wife thinks witches cursed him www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/u...

They mistake emotional attachment for evidence: if it "feels" true then it has to be true, especially since they can't cope with being wrong.

🧵The Trump regime knows that they are destroying the economy. They will never admit this in public, but they do in private. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent was photographed reading a text from AgSec Brooke Rollins saying that Trump's tariffs made China shift soybean purchases to Argentina.

The ADL defended Elon Musk's "awkward gesture." Now he calls it a hate group.

Accused Southport, NC shooter Nigel Edge launched several lawsuits attacking "LGBTQ White Supremacists" he said were trying to murder him for being straight nypost.com/2025/09/28/u...

So far today, Chuck Schumer has said his strategy for preventing Trump sending troops into blue cities is to win over Republican senators (!) while Hakeem Jeffries praised Eric Adams's courage and authenticity (!!) while refusing to endorse Mamdani. Again. These two gotta go.

I keep using the term "non compos mentis" to describe Trump because that's how he's acting. It's beyond his longstanding history of total ignorance, habitual lying, and constant exaggeration. He's genuinely disconnected from reality and often incapable of expressing coherent thoughts.

Just dropped a new episode for paid subscribers on why Ezra Klein's "abundance" is just another sock puppet No Labels effort by Republican billionaires to divide and conquer the left. Featuring the great @katewillett.bsky.social

Steven Pinker is out with yet another book stating obvious points intermingled with his personal beefs. Finally, he's been called out for it in The NY Times Reviewer Dennis Duncan calls the book "bad." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/b...