Well, if Hegseth keeps kicking out qualified officers, we are going to be down to 300.

This is why any attempt to define "fair" SMDs produces endless litigation over whether the process was truly nonpartisan (good luck with that) and whether the basket of subjective criteria was correctly applied, a point @leedrutman.bsky.social mentioned in our recent discussion.

More than a quarter of American adults have a daily gambling habit, 42 percent of bettors have said they spend more than they should, and a majority of men ages eighteen to forty-nine have an active account with an online sportsbook.

“National service is just AmeriCorps.” Not really. AmeriCorps is pretty small. And, at least in my proposal, national service can and should touch on far more aspects of civic life than AmeriCorps currently does.

Just flip to the appendix for the good part Stearns doesn't get rid of the presidential election per se, he just rolls it into the "top line" party vote of an MMP election Parties would nominate candidates in the "summer cycle" as now. Then post Nov. election coalition negotiations would happen.

Abolish ICE. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/18/o...

Deterrence

Collins votes for death squads and then tsk tsks that Democrats aren’t doing enough

None of this can happen without what colleges call "prerequisites" 1st 60 days of 2029: - confirm 4-6 new SCOTUS judges - DC statehood. Insta 101st & 102nd Senators - independent prosecutor for 45/47 crimes - 600-900 member House with multiparty proportional representation teed up for '30 midterms

This just ain't it, Professor Allen. Ending Citizens United is a worthy goal, sure. But how are you going to do that with a 6-3 MAGA Court? Same question for gerrymandering. I'm not opposed to national service in principle, but gmafb.

This is a common refrain, but I don't think it's true, at least not at the moment. The problem is that when liberals *do* advance a positive vision, we're condemned as illiberal by other liberals (when we advance social justice). Or we're dinged as utopians (when we promote, say, open borders).

Imagine a prosperous, multiracial & pluralist society running on green feminist infrastructure, fueled by green energy & publicly funded scientific innovation, where everyone's basic needs are generously met & no person or group is so powerful they dominate everyone else. That's the liberal vision.

The man who wrote "Charlie Kirk does politics the right way" has the audacity to turn around and say *this* about other liberals. Absolute cinema. (Also, read Paul's excellent thread.)

DC statehood, proportional representation/MMD, court reform, national campaign of reconstruction and deterrence to prevent anyone from ever trying this kind of garbage again

I keep hearing about how the poor training of ICE agents led to the recent killings. But as I argued for @ms.now after the Renee Good murder, it isn’t really about training. It’s about what DHS is designed to do now. www.ms.now/opinion/ice-...

In a normal parliamentary democracy, gross incompetence leading to the inability of citizens to purchase & eat basic foodstuffs without becoming violently ill would bring down the government or immediately result in multiple ministerial resignations. Again, presidentialism was a grave mistake.

For my column this week, I wrote about Lindsey Graham. But really, it’s about all of us and the million little deaths of liberty our republic has suffered. www.liberalcurrents.com/liberty-and-...

Judging from this applause for *stopping* Supreme Court expansion *at a liberal conference*, some liberals are reflexively against desperately needed: - electoral reform (multiparty proportional representation) & - reduction of presidential power and expansion of Congressional authority

The implicit model is that power comes from judges who create the government and set the rules for the people's participation. But in a republic, it's the people who have power and create the Constitution and government. Courts only get whatever power the people give them through the Constitution.

"When ICE officials handcuffed the lifeless body of Joan Sebastian Guerrero—a young man and father, here legally—in a parking lot in Biddeford, Maine, we saw the America that Lindsey Graham warned us about in action. It’s an America he helped create." www.liberalcurrents.com/liberty-and-...

It seems that a lot of lawyers have internalized the idea that the court is outside the constitutional system and not subject to it.

My dissent on this, also at @theunpopulist.net. Probably one of the pieces I’ve caught the most flak for from certain quarters, but it’s where I am as a reluctant convert. This Court really is that bad, and it is not an unthinkable apocalypse for Congress to exercise its constitutional check on it.

Liz Truss has been a shambolic world class fraud since the days she was a LibDem Oxbridge student leader and small-r republican

Courtesy of Hegseth, everyone who goes to any beach in America with their families consents to sudden and unexpected low flyovers from military jets as part of your experience. Maybe the pilot will be getting testosterone injections. This is how your tax dollars are being spent.

Spoiler alert: Moses dies at the end of Deuteronomy

What does "very flirtatious" mean in this context? A drunk sitting member of Congress leaning over a 25-yo staffer who makes $60K a year and would like a career in DC? Putting his hand on her knee? Asking for her number? Responding to substantive questions with comments about her body?

i have never seen someone as clearly vacant behind the eyes as tuberville. there is nothing going on in there. if the electrons are firing they are moving through molasses

Trump refers to mail-in ballots as "corrupt." He votes by mail. This is an utter horseshit attempt to stave off an impending election disaster for Republicans.

In 2029 an independent US prosecution service needs to be stood up by statute from the flaming wreckage of the USDOJ

It's important to step back for a moment to realize that the duly elected President of the United States is doing a prime time White House address claiming that his country has the most corrupt election system in the world

I don't have an election law take on Trump's speech because his brain does not exist in the same universe as any election laws.

I feel we should be where Italy was in 1946 when we get to 2029 👇 >> How can we leave the imperial presidency intact after this? <<

This speech is quite literally an impeachable offense. The President is trying to undermine faith in US elections and to delegitimize the elections of public officials.

Congress can end this. Congress can save the USA. I wish it would.

Sen. Alsobrooks is on FIRE. She is a model of how to criticize authoritarian actions. She is calm, direct, expressive, professional, and the epitome of what I would call dispassionate urgency. She's not emotional--she's emphatic. She uses data and stories. Just perfect pitch. No notes.

The government will murder you if you exercise your constitutional rights to free speech and petitioning them for redress of grievances.

I believe with my whole heart that RFK jr doesn’t care if people die from these kinds of illnesses because he thinks only weak people will perish. Same way I believe he sees autism as a contagious form of degeneracy. He just wants to weed out society to suit his wretched worldview

👇🎯🧵 People want more than fair maps. They also want more and stronger parties, & we’re not going to get those so long as we have SMDs with first past the post. bsky.app/profile/mcop... Yes, we need to fix the Court or none of this will get done. But the SMDs & FPTP need to go, too.

Very excited to embark on this project! Without getting too far into the weeds just yet, it's going to be a history of American naval aviation in the Pacific (hence all the posting lately) during World War II from 1943 to 1945, told through the pilots and squadrons who flew off the carriers!

“‘That is RIDICULOUS,’ one person with knowledge of the planned golf trip said in a message. ‘Pence and Harris never pulled anything like that.’” www.ms.now/news/veeps-s...

If the head of US intelligence isn't able to say who won the election in 2020, then maybe he shouldn't be head of US intelligence.

this guy wants as many americans as possible to die of preventable diseases. he views that as preferable to vaccines or long term medication. makes us “stronger”

Completely insane and pointless policy slate continues I think that living on the dopamine hit of short forms and especially AI slop is far more of a GenX and Boomer problem than it is among digital natives. It's the elderly who should have smart phone restrictions not teenagers

Political parties that attach names to candidates on ballots and stand for elections are essential to the working of democracy in the modern world. We need laws that enhance their place, not tries weaken them and make elections label-less candidate free-for-alls Recently in @liberalcurrents.com

Andy Burnham urged to change the UK’s voting system before it is ‘too late’

Electoral reform in the US has often pursued an anti-party route, but there's a growing critique of how that impulse has been ineffective or even backfired. Instead, party-strengthening and pro-multiparty reforms like PR are gaining steam. I sat down with @leedrutman.bsky.social to talk about why.

Read @bretdevereaux.bsky.social's Bulwark piece here, his blog (acoup.blog), and listen to every podcast he's a guest on. Nobody is making western classics education more relevant, listenable, and free of fascist poser nonsense then Bret.

At Liberal Currents we truly favor feel-good rhetoric