A worker making $50,000 a year contributes to Social Security on 100% of their income. A CEO making $20 million a year contributes to Social Security on less than 1% of their income. Instead of raising the retirement age, we should scrap the Social Security tax cap.

Here’s an idea. The west has held about $300 billion in Russian assets. They should release 2 billion a day to Ukraine until Russia stops the war, or they disperse it all. Then Russia will have to accept the war has an additional real cost per day

@benjaminwittes.lawfaremedia.org You started something! youtube.com/shorts/rhZ_B...

The NRA buys off Congress. No action on guns. The oil industry buys off Congress. No action on climate. Insurance companies buy off Congress. No action on health care. The list goes on and on. Money in politics is the root of our dysfunction.

The full 12 minutes of @govpritzker.illinois.gov speech today, which was superb. (Via Nicole Wallace / @msnbc.com segment.) www.msnbc.com/deadline-whi...

What if it’s the “Epstein files” that are the distraction from our descent into being an authoritarian police state?

Trump will declare martial law and also invoke the insurrection act if it seems GOP won't win 2026 and 2028.

"Too many reporters have resorted to sane-washing Trump, forcing his bizarre statements somehow to make sense by cherry-picking the occasional phrase or sentence related to policy while ignoring his kooky rants about sharks and his Stalinist threats against his political enemies.

So far, the Trump - Zelensky meeting was...Trump treading water. I think Putin gut-punched him and now he's at a loss about what to do next.

Bizarre degree to which Trump’s psychopathology drives global affairs these days.

There’s no longer any pretense this has anything to do with crime (there are cities or parts of cities in SC and Ohio that have higher crime rates than DC — send the troops there!). This is about establishing a precedent for Trump seizing control of the nation’s capital when he wants to.

Lavrov hasn’t had such a good laugh since he yukked it up with Trump in the Oval Office after Moscow helped Trump win in 2016.

With Russia on the march in Europe, Trump Putinizing the US, and KGB man Putin (and foreign minister Lavrov in a USSR shirt) in Alaska, no better time to talk to a man whose office is next to the Berlin Wall's infamous death strip. Please listen (or read) and share.

Great article in The Atlantic. "We believe they must tell voters that in all sorts of ways—the economy, health and health care, disaster relief—Trump is making their lives worse, not better. He and his administration are amateurs, inept and in over their head."

Ten years into this mess, it really all does come down to this, doesn't it?

Sure seems like CA needs a Stand Your Ground law. A reasonable person could be afraid of grievous harm from a masked man impersonating an LEO in this situation. They ought to be able to defend themselves.

Trump will spend his weekend promoting a new golf course at his resort in Scotland – costing taxpayers an estimated $10 million. After this jaunt, he will have spent at least $52 million of taxpayer money on golf trips. If that’s not fraud, waste, and abuse, I don’t know what is.

Keith Edwards kind of nailed it. While no one agrees with me, I expect it to come soon (versus the end of his term). bsky.app/profile/atru...

here it comes

🚨🚨🚨 Jeffrey Epstein during a 2010 deposition: Q. Have you ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18? A: Though l'd like to answer that question, at least today l'm going to have to assert my Fifth, Sixth, and 14th Amendment rights, sir.

I am sure that Trump’s investigators are still working hard in Hawaii.

Next week we will learn that Tulsi Gabbard has located a Barack Obama birth certificate from Kenya.

we are currently watching an entire political party run cover for the most notorious sex trafficking ring in modern human history

It’s still amazing tens of millions of people want this guy in the White House and making life-and-death decisions.

So after 6 years of Republicans calling Democrats pedophiles, they have been exposed at the party who defends pedophelia. Sick

Probably. But he will spell it wrong.

sound up

There is only one way to read Trump’s post today about Epstein - basically a confession. He’s guilty, he knows he’s guilty, his cult isn’t culting on this, and he’s a cornered rat with no way out other than to plead with people not to care about child sex trafficking.

If you won't be silenced or intimidated, if you want to stand up against Donald Trump's authoritarian project--then join us in speaking out and fighting back against his disastrous agenda. Join us at ofthebrave.org. (And you can begin by following us at @ofthebraveusa.bsky.social.)

Trump, Epstein, and The Corruption Of It All The Epstein conspiracy has radicalized the MAGA base, who demand answers from the Trump Admin. This is the perfect time for Democrats to attack and for corporate media to ask follow-ups. With @levparnas.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/thelefth...

Excellent essay by Tom Nichols -- "Who’s Running American Defense Policy?" "This administration was never directed or staffed with any coherent foreign policy in mind beyond Trump’s empty “America First” sloganeering.

True love lives forever

@theatlantic.com Can you please change the crossword back to the way it used to be, where you can see the entire week's crosswords instead of just the current day's crossword?

@theatlantic.com Why am I now seeing ads on The Atlantic online, when I'm signed in as a subscriber?

Why do so many feel like they've fallen behind? It's not because of immigrants, trans people, DEI, the “deep state,” or any other bogeyman trotted out by the GOP.  It's because big corporations and billionaires have rigged markets and siphoned off most of the economy's gains.

This headline in the WAPO -- WTF???

Excellent speech.

When it's too late, all the establishment and corporate bootlickers will realize no matter how much you try to placate MAGA, it's never enough. It's a fascist movement that doesn't care about rules or reciprocity. It's about gaining power by any means necessary. It's all projection all the time.

So, to be clear, Musk has now admitted he funded a man he believes to be a pedophile to be president. And Trump has now admitted that he gave access to high level government secrets to a man he believes to be a big time drug addict. This should be *the* story on the Sunday shows tomorrow.

CEO pay is up 1,085% since 1978, while typical worker pay is up just 24%.  Why do we always hear "we can't afford to pay our workers more" but never "we can't afford to pay our CEO more"?

The GOP budget bill is 1,116 pages long but it boils down to this one simple fact: Republicans are facilitating a massive transfer of wealth to the richest Americans while making cuts that would rip away healthcare and food from millions of people. It's Robin Hood in reverse.

Psst…those 1950s manufacturing jobs Trump loves so much? They were good jobs because they were UNION jobs. Oh...and taxes on corporations and the rich were much higher. Trump’s agenda won’t bring back the “Golden Age.” It’ll make the rich richer at everyone else's expense.

100 Days of Ressentiment open.substack.com/pub/persuasi...

It’s almost as though everyone in Trump’s orbit, inside and outside government, gets together on a (non-secure) Zoom call to decide “What’s the most corrupt and illegal thing we can do today? And on some days they can’t reach consensus so they just go ahead and do them all.

The United States sent possibly innocent men to a foreign prison without a hearing ... and put a convicted felon who led a violent coup against the Constitution in the White House.

Citizens United is among the worst decisions in history. It corrupts our system every day.

Important article by Anne Applebaum www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...