before and after hegseth's directive

The Supreme Court has made it increasingly difficult to successfully prosecute public corruption, making it easier for people like White House “border czar” Tom Homan, who accepted $50,000 cash in a bag, to get away with alleged bribes. talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/no-one-...

Reminder: personally attacking a journalist for criticizing the government is not normal agency conduct. It's a pretty clear attempt to intimidate the journalist, and from those that complained about government censorship, like Secretary Kennedy did, the hypocrisy is jarring.

So weird how the “great guy” narrative on mainstream media is backed up by zero clips of him demonstrating the qualities they are celebrating.

This is class solidarity. In case you’re at all confused.

"Political violence" is a term that exists to suggest a moral distinction between "violence against politicians" and "violence by politicians" - so that one can be condemned while the other can be normalized. Obviously, no such distinction exists in reality: violence is violence.

One thing that feels different right now is the difference between structural power and rhetorical power. Usually in the aftermath of major political events (including, especially, shootings), we see contestation over framing — how each party coalition tries to make sense of the event. (…)

It’s fine to say that violence is never the answer, but I can’t help but observe that for Charlie Kirk violence was always the answer, and it was the only answer he offered, and, because of the privilege that he refused to admit he had, he could enact it from a comfortable and respectable place.

being totally comfortable speaking this way to millions of people is one of many signals that we're in an extremely dark place

We must stand resolutely against political assassination and political violence of all kinds, and just as resolutely against everyone who exploits acts of violence as the pretext or excuse for political repression of political opponents.

For everyone saying political violence has no place in this country… Remember two Democratic legislators were shot in Minnesota just this year. And America shrugged and moved on.

I think that when a leader tries to foist an immoral, often illegal, and demonstrably unpopular set of civil right infringements on a populace—and does so in a way that is both hasty and provocative—a violent backlash is INEVITABLE. Tragic, yes. Surprising? Not at all.

Fox News host on mentally ill people who commit crimes: “Just kill them” www.mediamatters.org/fox-friends/...

So Trump gets pushed out and Vance fills the void as the figurehead he’s been slowly building online. Not the couch-fucking, “how long have you worked here” Vance, but the “fuck your face - War crimes, hell yeah” Vance.

How can Democrats be against quartering the troops? How much safer can you be than having them in your house?

This @washingtonpost.com editorial doesn’t make it past the second paragraph without a glaring (and telling) factual error. President Washington didn’t create the War Department in 1789; *Congress* did: www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...

Ok, whatever, we're here now. But why is HE here? Nigel Farage Why is this right-wing member of BRITISH Parliament testifying in a hearing about European law . . . when he is no longer "European" because he (specifically!) CHAMPIONED BREXIT?! You know that thing that make the UK NOT the EU 5/

That Pritzker press conference was... surreal, and I think marks a significant moment of escalation in the constitutional omni-crisis. This was the governor of a state saying plainly the Union itself is being torn apart and his state is being militarily invaded by an authoritarian regime.

“Our job is lethality and readiness and warfighting.” – Pete Hegseth, U.S. secretary of defense 🥴

RFK Jr. doesn’t just benefit from this, he legitimises it. His name and political platform strengthen the illusion that these counterpublics are engaging in real democratic discourse.

So much for small-government conservatism. Pure fascism in plain sight

At around the 22-25 minute marks, Yarvin, JD Vance’s court philosopher, proposes a system where black people would be made wards of religious ministers, who could force them to work as indentured servants and require them to submit to 24/7 “air-tag” monitoring.

Stephen Miller has always been the dude who is unhinged by the fact that other people are allowed to disagree with him, even women and black people

I got the complaint in the horrific OpenAI self harm case the the NY Times reported today This is way way worse even than the NYT article makes it out to be OpenAI absolutely deserves to be run out of business

Sometimes the sheer idiocy of this moment overwhelms me. The idea that our convicted felon POTUS who incited an attack on DC police then pardoned the attackers & who's the most corrupt official in US history is going on an "anti-crime" ride-along in a city w/falling crime rate is...(brain explodes)

Jesse Watters did not believe the election fraud claims but still texted his colleague Greg Gutfeld to say he thought Fox would get “incredible” ratings if they “went ALL in on STOP THE STEAL.” Who cares about democracy if you can get ratings? www.mediaite.com/media/news/j...

If you want to put back statues and memorials and names of Confederate traitors while tearing down museum exhibitions on slavery because they don't show the greatness of the nation... the nation whose history you're celebrating is whiteness. The kind of nationalist you are is a white nationalist.

WON’T SOMEONE THINK ABOUT THE ENSLAVERS!?

Trump, Elections and the Opposition’s Strategic Depth talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump...

For most of the last decade, our media and political class has panicked over the idea that progressives were intruding on free speech rights by loudly criticizing people with unpopular views. Anyway, here's far-right federal paramilitaries advertising that they'll rip down pro-immigrant messages.

Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee spent four years and hundreds of thousands of lives trying to occupy Washington, DC. MAGA accomplished it without firing a shot. South Carolina was the first state to secede. If South Carolina troops are the first in DC, let that symbolism not be lost on anyone.

(2) they’re telegraphing the conclusions that they (as angel investors) were bound to prefer. Small groups with tons of funding, clear vision, and no accountability? Why THAT JUST HAPPENS TO BE THE PREFERRED VC TEMPLATE! HOORAY!

"His ownership of property there & his recent wedding at a family estate in Uganda raise serious questions about his commitment to the values he champions." I own property in a country that doesn't want me to vote, wants to overrule my uterus, is kidnapping POC, & daily trashes trans folks. GTFOH💩

🚨 BREAKING: After far-right influencer Laura Loomer raged online about a few severely injured Palestinian children arriving in the U.S. for life-saving medical interventions, the State Department announced it has suspended all visitor visas for individuals from Gaza.

No agency insignia at all on their uniforms, so this is likely not DEA or ATF or FBI or Border Patrol. So probably it’s DHS, most likely ICE. And yeah, the comment about “liberal” is really telling. These guys are wildly unprofessional.

The President cannot commandeer any local law enforcement. The President does not run the Smithsonian. The monthly BLS jobs report is required by law. Release the Epstein files. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

4. Our counternarrative is about the failure of "tough-on-crime" nonsense producing safety...and also about authoritarianism...but, let's be honest, Rufo is a straight up fascist

how about you just be a decent fucking person and pay back into a system you exploited without begging for cookies on social in a country where the affluent extraction class already pays disastrously low taxes

Once again, ~35 years ago, a GOP POTUS led an international coalition, under UN auspices, to reverse the unprovoked violation of territorial sovereignty of another country. Now, the GOP is a far right authoritarian party that endorses “earning” other states’ sovereign territory “on the battlefield.”

The wildly divergent trending media reports over the past couple of days regarding the possible Trump–Putin meeting suggest that sources on both sides are leaking dream scenarios to journalists and praying to God Almighty that something will manifest into reality.

They’ve just taken the spirit of DEI and cloaked it in the language of “Meritocracy”. www.businessinsider.com/palantir-ceo...

As end-of-empire scenarios go it is so much more dignified to get your capital city sacked by the Visigoths than to have a bunch of illiterate rich people in their 70s doing it through a series of incomprehensible tantrums because their brains were defeated by their phones.

@sethcotlar.bsky.social, a real historian, takes on Prager U's "history" of the country. As I've heard it said on the internet, read it all. sethcotlar.substack.com/p/pragerus-t...

The idea that President can negotiate/dictate bilateral “deals” by using the full force of the federal government to punish and humiliate his perceived enemies goes against the whole idea of the rule of law. That should be the story, rather than normalizing this authoritarian behavior.

It is not “deal-making.” It is extortion built on Christopher Rufo’s idea of “taking down” one or more elite university. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/u...

Here's how NYT explained that TRUMP'S FUCKING DEFENSE ATTORNEY went to meet the sex trafficker who "stole" his spa girls, turning one into a sex slave. No mention of his name, no mention of his role as defense attorney, no mention that sex traffickers don't go to prison camps.