Donald Trump, poor little rich boy, never to be loved. “My grandfather was a patriarchal authoritarian sociopath... The one thing Donald most desperately needs and has never gotten and will never get, because of how damaged and depraved his own father made him, is love.” --Mary Trump podcast

This.

Trump sounds like a troubled middle school boy who has been humiliated by a girl. “The only reason Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown (Green turns Brown under stress!) went BAD is that she was JILTED by the President of the United States (Certainly not the first time she has been jilted!)” (Truth Social)

Why we all need to care about this. It's about suppressing progressive perspectives on the media. What Paramount did to Colbert and CBS News it will do to Warner Brothers and HBO Max. finance.yahoo.com/news/paramou...

Kennedy has gone well beyond recruiting some contrarians with novel perspectives. He has populated the advisory committee almost exclusively with people with records of attacking vaccines. And this is what that gets you: lnk.thebulwark.com/4iMMsF6

It's fine if Trump does it; it would have been criminal if Biden had tried to do it.

There goes more of our national legacy. I'm guessing their tasteless, badly-made replacements will all have the name "Trump" on them, printed in gold or what passes for gold.

More and more, Trumpian America reminds me of Stalinist Russia. The brutal despot puts his name on everything.

Never will be enough.

This is bonkers. Trump gives him a pardon but everybody knows he should still be in jail including Honduras

In a better world, the six ruthless right-wingers on the Supreme Count would be impeached along with the president. They're obliterating checks and balances for Trump. apnews.com/article/supr...  The Supreme Court seems likely to back Trump's power to fire independent agency board members

I guess the Administration is going to try not to release the full video.

Trump’s worldview is one of winners and losers. Always has been. His new National Security Strategy picks Russia, China, authoritarians, his friends and his family as the winners. Do you know who Trump decided the losers are? You and your family and our safety.

This headline captures the moment we find ourselves in: “The Kremlin praises new US security strategy as Russian strikes kill 4 in Ukraine.” open.substack.com/pub/charlies...

Another example among many of Republicans giving themselves powers they would never allow Democrats to have. It's the sure sign that we're in an autocracy now. Hegseth defends strikes on alleged cartel boats, says Trump can order use of force 'as he sees fit' (AP)

Republicans definitely do not "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." apnews.com/article/supr...  The Supreme Court seems likely to back Trump's power to fire independent agency board members

Trump’s stupid, unconstitutional tariffs. This is ALL on him. MAGA, MAGA.👇

What I always hear: “We can’t afford to pay our workers more than $15 an hour.” What I never hear: “We can’t afford to pay our CEO millions of dollars a year.” Funny how that works.

Kristi Noem flew too close to the sun? "For Kristi Noem, the price of love may be her job. Donald Trump is reportedly considering firing his Homeland Security Secretary over the problematic employment of her alleged loverboy, Corey Lewandowski, The Bulwark reported on Sunday" (Daily Beast)

Our cats are so shallow. All they care about is getting food and being petted. But is that so different from us?

Anyone else want to put Tom Cotton on top of a capsized boat in international waters miles away from Venezuela and see how helpless he is?

At the rate we’re going, we’ll see an executive order making it illegal to insult the President inside of six months.

By the end of the ratification debates, everyone understood that the 14th Amendment would grant birthright citizenship to the children of immigrants. The only live question was whether that was a *good* thing. Some senators argued it wasn’t. But they lost! applyliberally.substack.com/p/birthright...

You can only remove universal birthright citizenship from the 14th Amendment by inserting words that are not present in the text, like “allegiance,” then defining them in an idiosyncratic way engineered to produce your preferred result. No one should credit this fundamentally fraudulent enterprise.

You have to be fucking kidding me with this shit! “Americans don’t realize how good they have it.” ~ Scott Bessent on affordability

This is rather funny. Trump sees politics not in terms of progressive versus conservative but in terms of law abiding versus felons. (AP) - Trump slams pardoned Democratic congressman as ‘disloyal’ for not switching parties

Lawless. apnews.com/article/hegs...  Hegseth defends strikes on alleged cartel boats, says Trump can order use of force 'as he sees fit'

Netflix has bought Warner Brothers studio, unexpectedly beating out Paramount. Paramount is owned by the MAGA Ellison family, aligned with business and Trump interests. Netflix is closer to the old Hollywood style. Despite real problems, especially for theaters, Netflix is a better outcome.

41 minutes of watching two shipwrecked men trying to flip a boat and signaling for surrender/help before firing on them again reminds me of the 9.5 minutes Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck, in that it’s an agonizingly long time to be killing helpless people who clearly posed no threat.

How fragile does your ego have to be that you have an insatiable need to be rewarded with prizes that you didn’t earn. How sick do you have to be to not know that you are not accomplishing anything. You have no self-respect that makes you incredibly vulnerable to manipulation. God he’s sick.

We're living in a sitcom in which an unhinged loudmouth is elected president and goes around breaking things. Trump Fires Ballroom Architect Who Said It Was Too Big The architect warned the president that enlarging the ballroom beyond the size of the White House itself was unwise. (Daily Beast)

Welp. On the one hand, Putin may end up wiping out much of the population of Ukraine after all. On the other hand, he also may end up wiping out much of the population of Belarus & Russia as well. So...

Ut oh. Both Trump and Vance are in trouble.

It’s never easy when they leave, my mom & I had been at odds for a bit, that we didn’t make amends before she died bothered me for a very long time…none of us get to choose how or when, so I try to tell me loved ones that I love them often, try not to carry anger, forgive...just be kind to yourself.

The GOP is breaking apart from its inner contradictions. It hates the health care crisis but won't remedy it. House Republicans are privately fuming at Speaker Mike Johnson over his failure to lead on issues such as the cost-of-living crisis and skyrocketing healthcare premiums, according to CNN.

HuffPost - Former CNN host Don Lemon unloaded on Trump’s recent xenophobic tirade against Somali immigrants. “It’s racist, it’s vulgar, it’s beneath the dignity of the White House,” Lemon said. “And quite frankly, it’s just gross and Donald Trump seems like a gross, bigoted, racist piece of shit.”

Hands down least “masculine” person I met covering tech. One lunch I had with him in Palo Alto (he was urging me to run for mayor and wanted to give me $) I recall thinking what an incredibly whiny boy (I think I told someone at the time: what a limp dick) and could not get away fast enough.

Hi Lemonade Girl! Thank you very much for including me in your starter pack! @lemonadegirl.bsky.social Very appreciative of your thoughtfulness🥰🤗🙏 Reposted

Spot on‼️

#ImpeachTrump #ReleaseTheEpsteinFiles #POTUS

The lack of leaks is the weirdest thing. Trump's organisation can't even organise an illegal attack on a fishing boat without accidentally inviting a reporter to get real-time action. Yet they can hang onto the Epstein files. They must be REALLY bad.

We can see where this is going. (AP) - National Park Service drops free admission on MLK Day and Juneteenth while adding Trump’s birthday

Trump does not even pretend to be president of Biden voters.

The SC would never be doing this if it were President Mamdani. The court’s conservatives, liberal Justice Elena Kagan noted in September, seem to be “raring to take that action.” apnews.com/article/supr...  The Supreme Court weighs another step in favor of broad presidential power sought by Trump

Here's another tribute to Frank Gehry in the LA Times. Gehry, who died yesterday, lived, worked, and attended concerts in the L.A. metroplex for most of his adult life. This appreciation, by classical music reviewer Mark Swed, focuses on Gehry's concert halls. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

The LA Times is filled today with wonderful tributes to the great Angelino architect Frank Gehry. Here's one, with photos and descriptions of 10 amazing, uplifting structures. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

If SCOTUS planned to uphold birthright citizenship, they would’ve left the lower-court rulings untouched. Taking the case is the tell. You don’t grab a 150-year precedent just to admire it. They took it because they intend to change it. Pretending otherwise is denial. #SCOTUSRot

My god, it really does just get worse and worse, which is really saying something given that it started as a war crime and murder

Trump will die before the full realization of American fascism is reached. These are the birth pangs. It will get so much worse unless we do something. We should and we must. Take stock of what this feels like, how unacceptable this is. Devote yourself to fighting it.