The Trump administration's claim of "zero" border crossings is falling apart

by @cookpolitical.com "The PollTracker, which curates data from 21 well-regarded national polls, shows Trump’s average job approval rating at 39.4%. What’s more, his approval rating on the economy is also at an all-time low — below even his overall job approval rating — at just 36.8%”

by @borowitzreport.bsky.social “Napoleon III’s reign, the Second Empire, resembled Trump’s Second Shitshow. There was rampant corruption, cronyism, and demolition that dwarfed the bulldozing of the East Wing: he mandated the destruction of 60 to 70 percent of the buildings in Paris.

by @jvl.bsky.social 1/2 “No one is quite sure when it started, but at some point people realized that USA was no longer interested in making users’ lives better. Instead, it had decided to see just how much pain the user base would tolerate before it abandoned the platform..

by @andertoon.bsky.social Hostage Situation

by @jweisswolf.bsky.social 1/2 "The US is one of only 4 nations worldwide actively rolling back reproductive rights — we share that distinction with El Salvador, Nicaragua, & Poland. And now we’re threatened with losing yet another right. The 5th Circuit issued a ruling..

by @nberlat.bsky.social "Democrats tend to get 'trapped in…inconclusive military conflict[s]' because they don’t want to escalate but also don’t want to pay the political price of pulling out, which may damage their reputation with elites and so sink their agenda"

by @newsjennifer.bsky.social "There is no sign yet that the oligarchs who own CBS are concerned about Weiss’ commercial failure. David and Larry Ellison continue to treat CBS like a party favor for Donald Trump while Weiss uses the network to purge staffers"

by @50501movement.bsky.social URGENT: ACTION NEEDED | Tennessee Is Testing the New Redistricting Strategy

by @edtibbetts.bsky.social "Iowa is staring at billion-dollar budget deficits because of the disastrous Republican flat tax that slashed millionaire taxes nearly in half. We’re also devoting more than $300 million a year to Iowa families who choose to send their children to private schools"

by @jefftiedrich.bsky.social what kind of shithole country wastes a billion taxpayer dollars on a gaudy Epstein Dance Hall?

by @thomharman.bsky.social “When Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, and when Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act in 1996, this was the endgame they set in motion. A handful of billionaires owning the airwaves, installing political commissars in the newsrooms”

by @hcrichardson.bsky.social “Republicans are advancing a measure that will appropriate $1 billion in taxpayer money for Trump’s ballroom. They are doing so through budget reconciliation, which cannot be filibustered and so can pass the Senate with no Democratic votes"

Iowa to pay $125K to employee fired for Charlie Kirk comments

by @lizdye.bsky.social “This is a gambler who knows he’ll never have to lay his cards on the table. Sooner or later — and probably sooner — the cops are going to bust in and confiscate the chips. Just like the last time the DOJ indicted Comey, a court will dismiss this dog of a case”

by @tdorman.bsky.social “White Christian Nationalism is thriving in Iowa. Elections are good vs. evil. Satan is trying to capture the Golden Dome of Wisdom, now redder than hell. A pastor sticking up for the rights of non-Christians is a wolf witch”

by @normornstein.bsky.social “The Callais decision, of course, is part of a pattern of the Roberts Court blowing up voting rights; destroying a century of campaign finance laws in direct violation of a promise made by Roberts to respect stare decisis and decide cases on the narrowest basis possible”

by @nberlat.bsky.social 1/2 “There are a range of reasons that people focus on polarization rather than fascism. But there is a single throughline connecting them. “That throughline is white supremacy. People emphasize polarization over fascism because they find some fascist policies appealing..

by @thebulwark.com William Kristol "Three surprising and impressive leaders in the fight for freedom. Can they succeed on their own turf? Could they also inspire a resurgence of the cause of liberty here in the United States? Could the Old World come to the rescue of the New?”

by @artcullen.bsky.social “‘Hungry people are dangerous people,’ famous farmer Roswell Garst of Coon Rapids declared. “You can get radical on an empty stomach, or when you see children starving to death. Or when the government shoots you to death for peacefully protesting”

by Jag Bhalla @liberalcurrents.com "We've arrived at a pivotal test of proper liberal priorities. Liberalism was founded to constrain state power for fear of political tyranny. But now that private actors can wield state-like power shouldn't they, too, be more prudently constrained?"

by @erinosmon.bsky.social 1/2 "Like much of his heartland rock cohort, Mellencamp wrote from his life—­the people and places of his formative years burrowing into his lyrics as an adult. Though Mellencamp had a comfortable upbringing, he saw the hardship endured by..

"Anxietyland" review by LA Johnson by @gemmacorrell.bsky.social

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription.

by @tarapalmeri.bsky.social 1/2 “Moments like what happened between Blanche and me rarely make it into official accounts of Washington life. They don’t appear in transcripts or readouts. But they reveal something essential about how power operates—not in hearings or press conferences..

@briantylercohen.bsky.social 1/2 “The midterms are fast approaching, and with Republican numbers writ large falling off a cliff, we can expect Trump to lash out in every direction. And whichever unlucky administration official happens to have been caught by a major publication..

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription.

by @tdorman.bsky.social “it’s almost inevitable a candidate’s promises become hypocrisy in seconds flat when corporate money somehow finds its way into the race. It’s usually donated to an outside group or party committee that, in turn, is spent to help your side win”

by @thomhartmann.skystack.xyz 1/2 “Edward R. Murrow built CBS News into something this country could actually rely on, and what the Ellisons and Bari Weiss are doing to it now is what happens when Reagan’s killing of the Fairness Doctrine finally meets..

DOJ drops criminal probe into Fed chair Jerome Powell

by @atrupar.com @thorbenson.bsky.social “Orbán’s defeat offers some lessons for how democracy defenders could potentially win against Trump. One of the key takeaways is that the opposition, led by victorious Tisza Party candidate Péter Magyar, focused on Orbán’s corruption”

by @thebulwark.com “the DOJ left out one key word from that SPLC article: ‘pathetic.’ In the actual story, the SPLC described United Klans of America as a ‘pathetic millennial reboot of what was once a serious domestic threat’. “That doesn’t sound like ‘manufacturing racism’ so much as mocking it”

by @thomhartmann.skystack.xyz “Overall Republican approval slipped but remains high at 77 percent. Among MAGA-aligned Republicans, support holds at 96 percent. But among non-MAGA Republicans, approval fell 19 points to 60 percent. That is the fracture the White House should be watching”

by @jdickerson.bsky.social“To the extent that the transmission system fails — to the extent that 58% disapproval produces no visible political consequence, or an insufficient one — it allows Trump to cast his poor standing as the product of a scheme or a plot rather than a genuine national judgment”

'Like I was disposable to him': Marimar Martínez testifies at congressional committee hearing about Border Patrol shooting

by @hcrichardson.bsky.social “This pattern—expecting Republicans to behave wildly & cheat to grab power while expecting Democrats to behave according to the rules of normal times—has been going on now for years. It is a dynamic that reflects the political patterns of the years before the Civil War"

by @paulkrugman.substack.com.web.brid.gy “Warsh is smart. He is very good at saying things that sound thoughtful and impressive, but he is also, and it’s really very clear, a partisan hack. He’s for tight money when a Democrat is in the White House and for easy money when there’s a Republican”

by @michaelianblack.bsky.social The Crass Menagerie

by @laurarbelin.bsky.social

by @anneapplebaum.bsky.social “perhaps we can agree to call it goulash authoritarianism: a one-party-takes-all system that does enormous damage but can perhaps be removed after a generation in power if enough people are willing to risk their careers, families and fortunes fighting against the state”

by @joycewhitevance.bsky.social "Indicting the SPLC sends a message—part of their work involves tracking white supremacists, like some of the people who overran the Capitol on Jan 6. At the same time, it’s making sure the kind of people the Center tracks are walking free"

by @hcrichardson.bsky.social "just 35% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s job performance. 61%disapprove, a new low. 72% of Americans disapprove of the way Trump is handling rising prices. In a generic ballot for Congress, voters prefer Democrats over Republicans by 50% to 43%

The FBI Director, the DC US Attorney, and the Secretary of Defense walk into a bar. Apparently like every day.

Republicans tout Trump tax law as refunds rise on Tax Day, but gains fall short of projections

Iowa GOP candidate suggests removing Muslims would be easier than deporting undocumented immigrants