This, too, is outrageous -- firing an immigration judge because he granted asylum to six people. Trump's folks have made clear they want "deportation judges." Just rejecting any semblance of due process. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

How many different ways can a group of people say who they are before everyone just takes their word for it

I hate when I'm right.

The Epstein file is the only thing Trump has ever taken his name off of

An extremely satisfying set of videos is coming in a few years.

Oh.

Epstein, Wealthy Creep (UBR) Creature — Human Predator Menace, Banding, Reach Epstein, Wealthy Creep cannot be blocked by creatures with power 2 or less. (TAP), Sacrifice a treasure: Counter target spell or ability targeting Epstein, Wealthy Creep.

Epstein Files Transparency Act: "The Attorney General shall ... make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format." NYT: The DOJ "website also contains a search function, though it is unclear if it’s working properly. A query for 'Epstein' returned no results."

DOJ has announced it is appealing the dismissal of the James and Comey indictments. And meanwhile....

JFK’s niece: h/t @jamiegangel.bsky.social

The Epstein Files, everybody!

Just tried to search for Trump’s name in the Epstein files library on the DOJ’s website. You’ll be *shocked* to learn that there’s no mention of him whatsoever!

There's a couple layers of sick here. The first is that they hold these repugnant views. The second is that neither the participants nor City Journal apparently considered them too shameful or embarrassing to put on the record and publish, which is almost a bigger red flag.

From the right-wing Manhattan Institute's focus group of Gen Z conservatives -- just jaw-dropping stuff. We have a very sick society. www.city-journal.org/article/manh...

A photo I took in 2018 when people living in Trump-branded buildings voted to take his name off. Feel like there’s more of this to come.

I read through these (more in the comments) and hoped maybe this was some cheeky lefty publication that went looking for the most extremist nuts they could find to make the right look bad. Nope. It’s City Journal, published by the far right Manhattan Institute. Horrifying.

About to go on my first true work-free vacation of 2025 (I hope)! This is one of my final stories for the year, about the extremely humanlike chatbots we've been given and whether they should be that way. Happy holidays, here's a gift article: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/t...

Anyone under like 35 must get pretty confused when that one REM song comes on.

A Trump-appointed judge was so upset with the living conditions in which ICE detained an immigrant in Long Island, New York, that he threatened to hold the government in contempt. “I have never encountered anything like this." trib.al/2LMHIj6

I had some *thoughts* about @durbin.senate.gov ridiculous plan to sunset Section 230 unless Mark Zuckerberg tells him how else to kill the open internet.

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. No newspaper on the planet would consider “attended the same dinner event 15 years ago” as a “conflict” requiring disclosure. I could not even recall the names of 99% of the people who were at all the conferences & dinners I’ve been to over that timespan.

“That is the most insidious corruption…Trumpism gets its defenders to insist terrible things could never happen…Until Trump does the thing. At which point these same people insist the thing which could never happen must happen. That it is right, good and necessary.” open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...

When you ask yourself, why would they go ahead and do things like this, changing signage when there's a question of the legality, you have to remember that it will cost money to undo it, and when people try to do so, they will be met with complaints that they're looking backwards and wasting money

Second worst thing that ever happened to JFK

Trump, the Hunger Games, and the Kennedy Center. JVL's latest Triad, only @thebulwark.com: www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-hung...

This is a compelling piece, but I think it overstates just how much romance is left among ”liberal lawyers“ for the Court. I’ll highlight one example. 1. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

My grandfather spent years in the U.S. before returning to Colombia. He used to take us to the Kennedy Center at Christmas to see The Nutcracker. As a kid I especially loved the Hall of Nations, with its flags from all over the world. It hurts to see this place defaced and disrespected by a tyrant.

At least 20 people who have received clemency from President Trump so far this year were also forgiven of financial penalties totaling tens of millions of dollars. Some of these offenders owed money to real-life victims of fraud.

This has always been marketed as "the season of hope." But hope is not a plan, which is why I drafted this one. I have no illusions about 2026 & expect it to be an even more brutal test than 2025. But as the public at large turns more & more against Trumpism, the opportunity for change becomes real.

In retrospect, it's surprising how *little* of this happened in the first term, given that "slap his name on something" is the only thing he knew how to do in business for most of his life (before he learned the secondary skill "play a successful businessman on TV").

Given that this is not a legal name change, let's call the defacing of the Kennedy Center building what it is: vandalism. wapo.st/4s49qeX

Trump’s pardons wipe out restitution payments to defrauded victims www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

I can't imagine why a university would pass on hiring someone with a long history of citing fake data to support her weird theories, and who once had her entire book obliterated when an interviewer informed her that it based on a term she failed to research, and thus didn't understand.

Noem is using the Brown University shooter to end an entire visa program, but it should be noted that Pete Hegseth, just today, murdered more than twice as many people

The US military conducted strikes against two alleged drug-trafficking boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing 5 people, according to US Southern Command. At least 104 people have now been killed in similar US strikes, and Thursday’s attack marks the third this week. https://cnn.it/48X0HCI

NEW: They kept saying they were gonna do it and now they've done it A group of clowns (Senators) have introduced a bill to FULLY REPEAL Section 230. No reform, no replacement, just utter destruction of all online free speech. We can't let this happen. Share & take action www.badinternetbills.com

It'd be bad enough just on how Watterson famously doesn't want this kind of thing, leave him alone man. But also there's no way anybody could make a Calvin and Hobbes movie that wouldn't be absolutely terrible anyway.

When the official policy of the government has become “ this must be fake, you’re too brown to be American” it’s time to stop pretending that this will all just go back to normal

Yeah, here is the thing: Bari Weiss is fine with conspiracy theories that target her enemies. The biggest causes of political violence in America? Universities, which operate like madrassas. That’s a conspiracy theory dressed up as respectable middle-of-the-road punditocracy. That’s what it is.

Bozell has the distinction of not only holding disgusting views but being personally one of the angriest assholes you'll ever encounter, despite the fact that because of his family he has lived a charmed life of endless wingnut welfare while having no appreciable talents of any sort.

As we saw with the Abrego Garcia case, once their screwup becomes public, this administration doubles down and tries to destroy the life of their victim with a campaign of slander and brutality. Just watch how they're going to go after this woman and her family.

This is so painfully dumb. As a zillion others have noted LOTS of people who use and need a wheelchair to get around can walk short distances with effort. But also: Do they really imagine there’s some huge pool of people who’d go to the trouble of FAKING A DISABILITY to skip a ten minute line?

Damn it sure would be embarrassing for the writer of this if there were any medical conditions where people could walk but not for long distances

I mean, in that case he's been dying for about 40 years.

Trump's DOJ has been ordered to embark on a sweeping crackdown on "left-wing domestic terrorism." Civil liberties experts warn it could lead to a level of politicized FBI surveillance of Americans not seen since the era of J. Edgar Hoover and COINTELPRO. Our story today: wapo.st/3L9lpr4 (gift link)

Hadn’t looked at the Kennedy Center Opera schedule in a while, and possibly this has nothing to do with Trump, because the season is normally planned far in advance, but I note that everything on the Spring lineup is in English. Which is pretty unusual for opera.

You voted for the tiktok ban. You helped make this happen.

I spent some 15 years arguing against the post-9/11 expansion of surveillance authorities. I was routinely told I was paranoid because robust layers of checks guaranteed the political abuses of the Hoover era could never happen again.