Every time Trump breaks the clear letter of the law, the NYT and WaPo write a story about how he’s “pushing boundaries” or “testing the limits of his authority” He's not Chuck Yeager, guys. He's a crook.

Also like, from their perspective, why tf aren't we "ending" him right now?? It's a very real betrayal of our allies not to act to prevent this. They're justified in feeling like the domestic opposition is kind of using them for our own ends

Ds and establishment Rs saying "if he goes for Greenland/Canada that will end him" rings extremely hollow in Europe and Canada where they are having to stump up real costs to deal with it even if nobody is shooting at each other yet. It's not an "if". It's already eating costs over it today

I think everyone is overindexing on the mechanical implausibility of Trump "canceling" an election and ignoring the ease with which he could order ICE into swing districts on election day to "prevent illegal voter fraud"

No one from the GOP Congressional majority does anything about all this because they're into it. That's the Occam's razor explanation. Yet there's more focus on finding excuses for them. "No, you have to understand, honoring the Constitution is bad for their job prospects." OK. So they're into it.

what a fucking time to be alive

Saying this without judging religions or ideological beliefs as such, I find a dark amusement in watching millions who claim to be devout Christians and defenders of traditional family values cheer for the death of a woman, strip protections from the needy, separate families, and celebrate wars

One thing about this political moment - that goes on forever, alas - is that you really find out who actually Believes Things and who was just in it for power and clout. You can think libertarianism is crazy-land, but Gillespie is truly a libertarian. The same for Bill Kristol's neo-conservativism.

6/ The Tech Bro colonialists’ apparent State Department contact, American Moment alum Samuel Samson, was the subject of this article by @zackbeauchamp.bsky.social. It seems that Samson admires Catholic integralist Adrian Vermeule. www.vox.com/on-the-right...

😳 Thiel Fellowship co-founder Michael Gibson & American Moment founder Nick Solheim led a 2024 talk about colonizing Greenland. Gibson wrote yesterday that someone shld “pitch Rubio on building a charter city in Venezuela…” In reply, his colleague tagged an American Moment alum IN THE STATE DEPT. 1/

scrawny 18-year-old about to fall out of an army helicopter over tehran: this is so epic. this is totally sigma, right babe? AI e-girl operated by a balding intelligence officer in virginia: that's right baby, Iran is totally cringe

1/Leaders are abducted/allies are threatened but pundits and governments are scratching their heads on what the US is doing. Danish PM on Greenland "It makes absolutely no sense". Why? Because actors using old IR models when we need a new lens. Enter neo-royalism. abcnews.go.com/Internationa...

IMO a big part of what feeds these cycles are inherent to how online communities broadly operate, specifically in relation to individuals pursuing in-group popularity by continually pushing more extreme versions of the original organizing opinions and ideology of the group.

Josh Marshall on the mistaken assumption that there is “a” reason why we attacked Venezuela. I have an odd perspective on this, since I spent ages fixating on the analogous question about Iraq. It started when I noticed that none of the books about how we went to war in Iraq mentioned a DECISION.

The man with the nuclear codes has a child's understanding of the military he commands

Every legal story now is either Ancient Circuit Judge Delivers Crystal Clear 100 Page Rebuke To Trumpist Overreach or In Unsigned Shadow Docket Decision, 6-3 Majority Declares Trump Can Hunt People For Sport

Just so we're clear how this works 👇

Slow collapse of the postwar international order continues apace :(

It’s a shame that GTA VI has been delayed but I’m excited by Rockstar’s promise that the extra time will allow them to give all the pedestrians in the game “a rich inner life” and “the capacity to actually experience pain”

“Tell your children who the cowards were.”

We're being governed by the comments section of local news.

That's about the size of it

i believe that short form video is maybe one of the worst things people have ever come up with and it should be regulated at least as much as cigarettes

Speaking as a fellow stereotypical Dad, embrace the paralysis. Enjoy it. Extend it. Right now, you exist in a world of unlimited possibility — this smoker, or that one? Which brand, model, price point? Which fuel? You are a king of infinite space. Once you buy the thing, you’re a guy with a smoker.

When the FDA Commissioner goes on TV to elevate an unverified anecdote about a "friend's parent" dying from a COVID vaccine—while ignoring safety data from 1M+ people published 48 hours earlier—we have an institutional problem. This misleading rhetoric is deeply irresponsible. 🧵

I wrote about the Sydney Sweeney jeans discourse and broken informations systems that make talking to each other impossible (in fact it's not even the goal). Context collapse is just how people (and brands!) communicate now. www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

As I said a month ago… www.editorialboard.com/unsaid-make-...

Republicans are waging a generalized war on science, but I think many of them don’t fully grok that RFK isn’t at war with science alone or per se: he’s at war with sick people, and of the view that only the lucky should be allowed to survive into old age. They are know nothings, he is Mengele.

when RFK says he wants to “end chronic disease,” what people hear is “he wants to cure us” but what he means is “i want to cull the weak”

Sharp contrast to apocalyptic fervor of certain other countries hits you right after you arrive. There is nobody at the airport. This is the key attraction of Finland. There are no people here. Somewhere in the distance you may glimpse another Finn. But they will not glance at you.

Weird they're showing Swan Lake on Fox right now

Where we are with the courts

Love the lil flex when they realise they just became the most famous bird in the world.

Who can forget the Swiss-Austrian Union, or its famous capital - Istanbul.

the autoconclave can sterilize any cardinals still tainted by original sin in 30 minutes

🧵 THREAD: A federal whistleblower just dropped one of the most disturbing cybersecurity disclosures I’ve ever read. He's saying DOGE came in, data went out, and Russians started attempting logins with new valid DOGE passwords Media's coverage wasn't detailed enough so I dug into his testimony:

One thing that is clear from these headlines is that the big news orgs don't have a vocabulary or strategy for how to report to readers when the President claims to do something he not only lacks authority to do but even the power to do. That's a very basic, foundational thing.

Americans, look and learn.

We are only 19 sign-ups away from the highest number of paid subscribers we've ever had: 35,000. It's a great time to read everything we publish and support our dogged, hard-working team! talkingpointsmemo.com/memberships?...

Assuming this ends in shutdown, now it’s a pure information war. Dems need to be everywhere. Trump wants permission to continue his open-ended war on social security, veterans, and cancer research. Permission denied. Etc.

Trump has introduced the "nano-tariff:" a hefty tax imposed for a few hours, then lifted after shattering business confidence.

I've read TPM daily for the last 23 years, and for the last few years as a paid subscriber. Take advantage of the birthday offer for $52.50 per year. We need high-quality independent media now more than ever.

Happy International Women’s Day to the most international woman of all: the woman trapped on the International Space Station

Great pictures from the Ukraine rally at the Ellipse today.

A minor thing but is true nonetheless: due to silence, a large part of the leadership of intellectual foreign policy & national security studies, has abdicated any authority now or in the future. It’s gone. Completely up for grabs for the few folks who can stand up a say “No, Canada is our friend”.