Yes, Trump is a selfish idiot. No, Texas is not a guaranteed win for the Democrats. No one, not even Ken Paxton, is so egregious, criminal, or far-right that a majority of Texas voters won't find a way to support them. He's already won four statewide elections for crying out loud.

I hope Cornyn finds a shred of dignity & a backbone if he loses the primary. Being a lame duck has helped Tillis & Cassidy.

However appalled you are by this, it’s not enough. It’s a frank statement that Trump and Trumpists are above the law and need not even plausible excuses to loot your tax dollars. It’s a total failure of our civic institutions.

Cornyn demeaned himself to get Trump’s endorsement. Assuming he loses the primary—will he redeem himself? My guess, sadly, is no.

Historian here, Trump does have a foreign policy strategy, the Triple Axis Alliance for the 21st century. “The Financial Times reports that during his talks with Xi Jinping Donald Trump floated the idea that the US, China and Russia should co-operate against the International Criminal Court.”

This is THEFT. There is no other word for it. They are stealing almost $1.8 BILLION dollars to pay Trump‘s allies, despite knowing that these people are not legally entitled to any money and be laughed out of court if they filed a lawsuit for money damages.

Taxpayers likely subsidized any of the private jets, since the GOP’s tax cuts have allowed the immediate expensing of the entire cost. Time to play catch up. jetlaw.com/2025-bbb-ret...

Trump's attys say his motion to dismiss his $10B lawsuit against IRS is "self-executing"—a done deal. He's just giving notice and no "judicial action" is required. (He's saying there will be no judicial supervision of his settlement with DOJ.) storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Rick Perry offered up prayer for rain during Texas’ historic 2011 drought. Even designated special days for everyone to pray, to get some momentum. It failed. Instead of old-time smiting, God will continue to let us stew n our own juices. www.texastribune.org/2011/04/21/t...

If the President can successfully order the IRS to hand over billions of dollars to his personal bank account, the Constitution is dead and no longer operative. I'm not kidding. We've crossed a kind of Rubicon and the social contract is null and void.

Letlow is a spineless (& midwit) Trump puppet. Louisiana keeps living up to its reputation.

I don't know where this bizarre idea that China has universal health care comes from, but it very much does not by any normal standard. It has a highly tiered system that brutally discriminates against rural patients and imposes often crippling financial costs.

this Elon Musk plot to steal your 401(k) money is really going underdiscussed

New Second Reading podcast,:Josh Blank & I join the discussion of GOP pollster Chris Perkins' memo abt Republican turnout in Texas, and pick up on a recent @serranoalej.bsky.social piece to discuss immigration as a GOP issue in the 2026 election in Texas. texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/second-...

still not quite over the fact that i watched 15 year olds get sued for millions of dollars for downloading twelve songs and now we all have to accept AI slop because every tech company in the known universe decided that IP laws don't exist now that they're inconvenient for them

The Texas GOP primary race for AG gets ugly, as usual. I just ran across Roy’s MAMDANI act, which would denaturalize anyone with claimed “socialist, communist, Marxist, Chinese communist, or Islamic fundamentalist” views. /1 www.msn.com/en-us/news/i...

Every single GOP Congressman from Texas voted to support Russia yesterday, while they kill Ukrainian civilians and help Iran wage war against us. This includes @TXRandy14 & @RepBrianBabin & many others. Let’s remember that in November. thehill.com/homenews/hou...

And the Statesman link: www.statesman.com/politics/art...

The privileged (& often sociopathic) oligarchs make “eat the rich” look like the moderate position. They should be happy with “tax the rich.” I paid > taxes than Musk—in absolute amount—in 3 of 10 years, & any wretched soul who paid a dime paid > Musk, in 1 of those years.

So hard for the administration to condemn Russian attacks on civilian objects for some reason. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/w...

I work with former Republicans who say they didn’t leave the party, it left them. Some love the chaos, corruption & criminality—but not all do.

Roberts dropping that “we’re not political actors” quote and doing this 96 hours later is nasty work

SCOTUS: Courts are not allowed to intervene and change a map if it's too close to an election unless it benefits Republicans then it's okay www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

But the First Amendment problem with universities is that students are uncivil.

Breaking news: Indiana University plant microbiologist Roger Innes has been locked out of his laboratory by the school in response to a request by one of his federal funders. The move comes after Innes complained about the government’s prosecution of Chinese postdocs. https://scim.ag/4tsDqRr

My entire lifetime has seen Republicans benefit from every structural bias in the system: two republican presidents elected while losing the popular vote,the senate being biased towards small rural conservative states,house and state legislatures being heavily gerrymandered, and a captured SCOTUS.

Also: You could already have gotten this story in your mailbox if you paid the mere $25 A YEAR for a print + digital subscription to Texas Monthly. We are, IMO, the best bargain in journalism. subscription.texasmonthly.com/pubs/TZ/TXP/...

US increasingly as (still dangerous) has-been power to China. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/03/o...

It is interesting how Trump quietly accepted the Gulf states denying U.S. military access to their airspace for Iran operations after blasting NATO countries for doing the same thing. www.nbcnews.com/politics/whi...

Why aren’t they questioning him about his & his family’s open corruption? Brandon & Kyle Lutnick are repeated & directly benefiting from their dad’s position. Where are the hearings on that? www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/u...

Fox News: "A very influential Democrat from Virginia, state senator Louise Lucas, is the center of a major FBI corruption investigation. Right now, in fact, agents are executing search warrants at her office."

But it wasn’t just Musk. Trump gave Musk free rein & the GOP Congress blessed it. Eugenicists all. I never want to hear these assholes call themselves the party of life.

A Harvard study just published estimates Elon Musk's destruction of USAID has already caused 600,000 deaths 2/3 of them children. That is his legacy in this world.

what could possibly go wrong

Trump cites Venezuela as a success. The old regime is in place. Nothing much has changed. Except...Trump's pals now are getting a little taste. It's mafia imperialism. It's a shakedown. And for the right $$$ he would've given the same deal to Iran's leaders. He just wants his cut. Gotti-ism at work.

I’m 100% certain Connor doesn’t regret moving from Odessa, Texas as a child.

Arrogantly, proudly lawless. What cha gonna do?

If Blagojevich selling a senate seat was a crime, surely buying one is a crime.

Can't remember which jabroni was talking about it being myopic that people are pushing for SCOTUS reform, but here's a sitting justice showing up on Fox & Friends lmao

Tomorrow morning, we will be dropping a ~12,000 word story on Paul Pressler, the alleged sexual predator who remade the Southern Baptist Convention and helped ordain the marriage between the GOP and white evangelical voters. There is *a lot* in there and I hope you'll read it.

Chinese researchers have created a bamboo-based plastic as strong as petroleum-based plastics, which can fully biodegrade in soil in just 2 months phys.org/news/2025-10...

Trump to Congress, May 1: Hostilities with Iran "have been terminated." Trump to Florida audience, May 1: "You know we’re in a war." @ericalgj.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/u...

I’m betting a fair number of Jones’ followers are not sentient enough to detect a difference. Can the Onion hawk supplements to help the Sandy Hook families? That’s what made Jones rich.

The pro-crime, pro-pedophile party is hard at work. I hope Talerico kicks Paxton’s butt in the general (assuming Paxton wins the primary because the Texas GOP, like the national GOP, loves a degenerate criminal.)

Epstein Class solidarity at work: Texas AG Ken Paxton fought to lower the sentence for a multiple-time pedophile (and friend of his) from a felony and life in prison to thirty days in county and two misdemeanors. For "years of molestation." www.yahoo.com/news/article...

From Rand’s father, Ron, who, amazingly, is still with us. Rand didn’t fall far from the tree.

Social Security and Medicare are promises to people — not entitlements. It’s incredible how much the GOP has lost the modern plot. These were giant leaps forward for us, where seniors didn’t die in poverty and without care.