100% this. Dems touting how we do deportation ‘the right way,’ is a losing argument every time. You’ll never win Republicans because they always want more deportation, particularly more violent, punitive deportation. And lauding deportation angers a huge part of your base every time. It’s lose/lose.

12-year-old Ender wrote that when she felt sick at Dilley, the doctor would only say to drink more water. “The worst thing is that it seems like the water is what makes people sick here,” she wrote in her letter. By @micarosenberg.bsky.social

I think Democrats should stop with “Trump is doing deportation wrong” because I think they should stop focusing on immigration as a matter of crime and punishment. It should a matter of freedom and opportunity. The question should be how is the government going to protect and advance both.

Massie: "Donald Trump told us that even though he had dinner with these people in NYC and West Palm Beach, that he would be transparent. But he's not. He's still in with the Epstein class. This is the Epstein administration."

Here's to all the intellectuals not in the Epstein files. They're the ones the Epstein class feared. They're the ones who could spell. virginiaheffernan.substack.com/p/toni-morri...

steve bannon joined the war on child sex abuse in the catholic church on the side of child sex abuse

I owe my supporters an update. Here it is. www.editorialboard.com/update-on-my...

A writer at The New Republic is trying to put Graham Platner at the center of what the TNR calls a "Democratic Tea Party." I think the concept has merit, but Platner doesn't belong at the center. He's a working-class impersonator. See this thread and article from November.

this is a really important point. the district courts are trying to contain this administration. the circuits, by and large, are still working, with the occasional exception of the 5th, 8th, and DC circuits. the Supreme Court is on an island. lawless and completely rogue.

Platner's dismissive comments about sexual assault in the military were so disgusting that a candidate who had experienced assault in the service dropped out to endorse Mills rather than risk Platner getting into the senate. www.everythingishorrible.net/p/progressiv...

“With its contempt for the humanities, Edge offered intellectually insecure reactionaries a pass. Without even opening a book, they could dismiss all of feminism, postcolonial theory and queer studies.”

Interesting, litter boy

I have no doubt this is true to some degree but I think it’s a mistake to believe that most people are against hostility and intolerance in the abstract. I think a lot of respectable white people saw themselves in Good and Pretti and didn’t like anti-Black racism coming for them.

On Thursday, I said the Democrats need to make an example of Pam Bondi, lest they invite even more contempt for the Congress. They can do that by impeaching her in due time, or short of that, by making her name synonymous with Epstein's. www.editorialboard.com/pam-bondi-is...

On Wednesday, I said Bad Bunny offered a radical new view of belonging. Immigrants are here. Therefore, they're American. "Abolish ICE" is only one step toward making a fact of life a fact of law. www.editorialboard.com/bad-bunnys-t...

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Why are TikTok leftists acting like the Democrats have already picked a nominee for 2028, and why are regular Democrats on TikTok humoring them by discussing it as if the leftists are adults? Come on, now.

Anyway, subscribe to a newsletter that doesn’t strive to tell rich and influential people how right they are. Thanks.

I would not be shocked to learn that Piker is paid by, I dunno, *someone* who’s jealous of Putin’s success.

Polling these last two weeks is very clear that Trump has not only lost the argument about ICE, he's also lost it on mass deportation. Country wants him to focus on the criminals and leave the rest of us alone. From new Yahoo/YouGov: www.yahoo.com/news/politic...

Aristotle: Politics is knowledge to foster virtues and the good life Rousseau: Politics is the pursuit of the common good Yglesias: Politics is paying consultants to win elections The value of a Harvard education.

finding a flow writing consistently

I think these people know what the right thing is but are too childish to admit their elders are right. Anyone with a teen in the house should recognize this behavior.

If Wasserman has to do this, there will be more pressure on Giants co-owner Steve Tisch From what we know, Wasserman only sent flirty emails to Ghislaine Maxwell years before Epstein’s crimes became public. Tisch emailed Epstein directly about meeting women after his 2008 conviction.

Paul makes a point that needs more attention. Bondi has seen the unredacted Epstein files. She knows who the ghouls are and what they have done. Yet she acted like it means nothing to her. Her name should be made synonymous with Epstein’s.

Anyway, subscribe to a newsletter that doesn’t strive to tell rich and influential people how right they are. Thanks.

Yeah I mean the *2024 exit polls* found 56% support path to legal status for most undocumented versus only 40% deportations. Entire commentariat has pretended not to know this for the last year or so

yes, dear God, yes.

Trump is creating conditions in which being an American means being a Republican, and if you don’t like that, you deserve death.

Utterly unacceptable in a democracy. In a sane world, House Republicans would be drafting impeachment articles today and Senate Republicans would be preparing for a trial to convict and remove him from office

Despite President Donald Trump insisting it’s foreign businesses paying for his raft of tariffs, mounting data indicates that, actually, American households and businesses are footing the bill for his import taxes. https://bit.ly/3MxlDsJ

N. Craig Smith, chair in ethics and social responsibility at the business school INSEAD, argues the business world is following the example set by the Trump White House, which has brushed off numerous controversies that might have imperiled past administrations. https://bit.ly/3Oim6Qb

Thanks for the shout-out this morning, @pkrugman.bsky.social! (I also learned a new word this morning: "Autodidact")

In 1854, after watching the federal government deploy 2000 federal troops and spend $40,000 sending Anthony Burns back into slavery, Boston's Amos Adams Lawrence said “we went to bed one night old-fashioned, conservative, Compromise Union Whigs and waked up stark mad Abolitionists.”

I may say more later but part of what some of us need to understand is that the right has built an entirely distinct civic society, with its own hierarchy and (mostly networked) cultural institutions. That includes celebrity.

"You have to vote for us.”

Last Friday, I said Trump is trying to crush a religious uprising against him. He's succeeding thanks to media complicity. www.editorialboard.com/donald-trump...

Times columnist @polgreen.bsky.social poses a familiar question, and arrives at a... let's say an unusual answer. Why, she asks, has trust in the news media cratered? Because aggressive, probing journalism isn't really that popular. People resent it. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/14/o... [Gift link]

This is an excellent piece that I agree with entirely. Most people in 2016, including Trump, thought evangelicals really were like pious conservatives. But Trump learned what some of us already knew, they’re total fucking phonies who use spirituality as a weapon & cover not as a moral compass.

Either he's lying again about stolen elections & should be immediately removed, or he's detached from reality & should be immediately removed. I'm sure Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson will be all over this tomorrow & in the coming week.

I see no reason not to look at the online gambling and prediction market craze as a new opioids crisis. It will wreak havoc on lower-income Americans and leave a trail of destruction and despair in its wake. The companies are just Purdue Pharma 2.0 www.liberalcurrents.com/from-pill-mi...

Of course we can’t fund every independent news source. But if you haven’t picked one yet, consider this one. See for yourself.

We have to push the press corps to say plainly that what they mean is that Democrats are not legitimate Americans. "When it gets to Election Day, we've been proactive to make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country."

1. The Editorial Board is about politics in plain English for normal people & the common good. Everything I do is free and open. But I can't eat free. Subscribe today for just $9 a month. Save 31% by subbing for the year! Here's what I've done recently. www.editorialboard.com/join-the-boa...

i need to admit something. the more i think about how many of our problems are downstream of a very small number of ppl and organizations hoarding all the wealth and power, the less interested i am in discussions of american democracy that prefer to focus on anything else.

American democracy can absolutely withstand a non-legally binding EO about voter ID. The president does not control state election requirements. Organizers, activists and operatives are prepared for Republicans to try to mess with election results as they have been for decades.

At least a half-dozen top officials in the current Trump administration have connections to Jeffrey Epstein, according to an NBC News review of some of the over 3 million documents the Justice Department has released. www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus...