🔥 BREAKING: A spokesperson for Kids Can Press, the publisher of the Franklin the Turtle books, messaged me today about Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth using the likeness and image from the books to make light of killings in the Caribbean in his post yesterday on X.

Hot off the keyboard and gifted: Hegseth has to go. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

If we’re blowing ships out of the water in the Caribbean with no care for the rule of law, how can we call out others for doing the same? Actions like this give autocrats like Putin an excuse to justify their own actions. I don't want to return to that sort of dog-eat-dog world, do you?

When Trump calls female reporters “piggy,” “ugly” and “stupid,” it doesn't reflect badly on the women. It's just more evidence that the males of MAGA are manspreading their own insecurity. My weekly Stop the Presses newsletter. Read and subscribe for free.

Working Mainers deserve a Congressperson who fights for them — not billionaires or special interests. I wrote about why I’m running, what I’ve learned serving this state, and the future we can build together. Read my op-ed in the Bangor Daily News: www.bangordailynews.com/2025/12/01/o...

The path forward for Democrats is to embrace economic populism AND social justice — not one or the other. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AymVXqZ6CRw

HERTLING: “.. a military that abandons its legal and ethical foundations does not protect a nation — it endangers it.” @markhertling.bsky.social www.thebulwark.com/p/pete-hegse...

So for journalists to blithely report on this MRI as though there's been transparency, when we're only getting any additional information at all because it's become a political scandal, and the additional information we're getting is in a non-standard format and lacks any detail... well, that's bad.

FACT: If you Invested $12,500 in Melania Trump's memecoin scheme 11 months ago at its peak, you now have $118. Congrats for getting scammed by the First Family.

As others have pointed out, the founders never foresaw a corrupt president (which we have) abusing the pardon power to absolve all criminals and miscreants for any reason, nor did our Daffy Duck Supreme Court ever think it might not be a good idea to put said president above the law.

Kaine: "We had to pry with a crowbar after weeks and weeks out of the administration the supposed rationale for the strikes in international waters. It was very shoddy. It was not at all persuasive that these are legal actions ... It's time for Congress to rein in the president."

The president has illegally declared war to stop fentanyl trafficking from a country that does not traffic that drug, claiming its leader is trafficking drugs himself, the day after pardoning a former leader of a country who is a convicted drug trafficker. Just to level set

"'History’s eyes are on the Supreme Court,' she said. 'This court will have to decide, is it going to be the court that puts an end to American democracy as we know it'..." www.politico.com/news/magazin...

If the Venezuelan sailors were enemy combatants, then the 2nd strike is a war crime. If the Venezuelan sailors weren’t enemy combatants, then both strikes are criminal murder. It’s that simple.

😄

You don’t get to pick. That’s the whole damn point of the rule of law.

The Moment to Pick a Side Has Come open.substack.com/pub/joycevan...

The ‘family values’ crowd thinks the real story is a pretty family photo, not the five affairs, the alcoholism or the possible murder charge. How about? ‘Seven kids whose lives could be shattered in the near future.’ What a sick, twisted definition of values.👇

"True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.” —FDR, 1944

Trump’s War on drugs is a Joke! He’s killing People in supposed drug boats, and having any survivors killed by Navy Seals. He is ready to order a full assault on Venezuela to stop the flow of illegal drugs and force Madero out. Last week Trump Pardoned a Known drug trafficker from prison? Really!🤫🐷

Demolishing the East Wing of the White House before finalizing plans for what will be built above its ruins is a near-perfect metaphor for Trump's approach to economic policy. The only difference is the wrecking crew doesn’t claim the rubble is evidence of unprecedented growth.

Number of states where average gas prices are below $2: Zero. Number of states where average gas prices are anywhere NEAR $2: Zero.

Walmart and McDonald’s are among the top employers of workers who rely on food stamps. McDonald's CEO raked in $18.2M last year — over 1,000x the company's median employee pay. Walmart's CEO pocketed $27.4M — 930x the company's median employee pay. See the problem?

19 year old freshman just wants to go home for Thanksgiving to see her family, she gets deported to Honduras. Former President of Honduras who’s serving 45 years in prison for drug trafficking? He gets a full presidential pardon. Both are Honduran. Only one is a criminal.

Van Hollen: "It's either murder from the first strike if their whole theory is wrong, and I think the weight of the legal opinion is they've concocted this ridiculous legal theory. But even if you accept it, then it is a war crime. I do believe the secretary of defense should be held accountable"

Amazing.

Bash: "Do you believe if there was a second strike to eliminate any survivors that it constitutes a war crime?" Mark Kelly: "It seems to." Bash: "If you received that order, would you have carried it out?" Mark Kelly: "No…Going after survivors in the water is unlawful."

Mark Kelly: "We have a president who doesn't understand the Constitution, who installed an unqualified secretary of defense. I cannot think of a secretary of defense in the history of our country that is less qualified than Pete Hegseth. He should've been fired after Signal-gate."

Klobuchar: "What the president has done is taken a horrific crime that occurred in DC and went 2,400 miles away to Somali & somehow indicted an entire group of people, 80k of them in my state, as well as all naturalized citizens. This is what he does. He tries to make people hate each other."

The president is a political cartoon of corruption come to life, a gaudy grifter who is selling off pardons and lining his pockets, building a golden ballroom and protecting his fellow sex predator elites, all the while regular Americans are suffering and struggling to make ends meet. Run on *that*

So you now decide which laws and court orders you'll follow?

What would be nice is if he advocated for businesses as well as consumers and thought there were some important safety measures to propose that would benefit all. Instead he trashes those companies that think that way. www.cnbc.com/2025/10/21/a...

As I have long said, David Sacks is the biggest and most conflicted piggy at the trough: Silicon Valley’s Man in the White House Is Benefiting Himself and His Friends www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/t...

They are literally just copying Clear And Present Danger here. They can’t even war crime in an original way.

Two more headlines from today's @nytimes.com "The Ex-President Whom Trump Plans to Pardon Flooded America With Cocaine" "As Trump Threatens Cartels, He Vows to Free a Convicted Cocaine Trafficker" Just another day in the Trump White House.

A couple of headlines from today's paper: "Silicon Valley’s Man in the White House Is Benefiting Himself and His Friends" "Trump Frees Fraudster Just Days Into Seven-Year Prison Sentence " Just another day in Trump's White House.

A Maine woman retired early to be a caregiver for her terminally ill mother. Now she’s facing cancer herself, and because ACA subsidies won’t be extended, she is losing her healthcare. Her costs are going up for $49,000 a year. This isn’t healthcare, it’s eugenics. Medicare for all.

The White House has launched a new website aimed at tracking what it deems “media bias” and inaccuracies—which itself contained inaccuracies.

Pete Hegseth is a war criminal and should be fired immediately.

U.S. flags are still at full staff today, even after two National Guard soldiers were shot and one was killed days ago. They were lowered almost immediately after Charlie Kirk’s death.

This absurd pardon shows the murderous boat bombings were never about stopping drugs

🧵 Lowe's CEO, one of 8 Black Fortune 500 CEOs, stands firm on DEI. "Championing Diversity Through Action: Ellison’s approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is rooted in practical change rather than public statements" Home Depot, meanwhile, allows ICE agents to raid its parking lots.

a lot of words, none of them denying that Hegseth gave an order to kill helpless people who were stranded at sea after he blew up their boats

“What happened in D.C. was horrible. But let’s not punish an entire faith for the actions of 1 person. @SenTuberville’s bill is Islamophobic. Let’s stop this.” NASHVILLE councilwoman Zulfat Suara says questioning the loyalty of 🇺🇸 Muslims is wrong. Full: www.instagram.com/reel/DRnyswp...

Gallup poll | 11/3-11/25 President Trump approval Disapprove 60% (+6) Approve 36% (-5) news.gallup.com/poll/699221/...

Former Antonin Scalia clerk, Senate Judiciary Committee general counsel and deputy assistant attorney general under George W. Bush suggests, in so many words, that the Secretary of Defense committed war crimes.