"No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law". Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 of the U.S. Constitution.

“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty” -Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)

it’s early but it seems like maybe this is relevant again (wrote it last week fml)

From my colleague @scottlincicome.bsky.social.

The national security apparatus of the United States appears to be suffering an existential disaster, but the entire class of natsec oriented journalists and pundits who tanked Biden for a messy Afghanistan withdrawal are too scared to discuss the catastrophe or the cause

Thread.

A terrorist targeted federal workers last week. There wasn’t much reporting on it. But I’m not finished thinking about it! 🧵 An anti-vaxxer fired more than 500 gunshots into CDC Atlanta, shattering 150 “blast-proof” windows on 6 buildings. Employees were pinned down in terror.

Just a heist of public funds. Why should Trump own it if taxpayers spent $1B on the retrofit?

DEMOCRATS: Release the Epstein Files TRUMP: Instead, how about I convince Ghislaine Maxwell to make a statement saying I didn’t do anything wrong in exchange for a pardon DEMOCRATS: That’s not the same thing REPUBLICANS: Jesus, what more do you people want

This is brutal but so spot on: “To help the putchists regain power, America’s highest court pretended the Constitution said things it clearly doesn’t, not just once, but twice.”

Even I — who spent the better part of two decades in the Bureau, and personally knows the guest — found this incredibly insightful.

Since April 4, #SCOTUS has issued 15 rulings on 17 emergency applications filed by Trump (three birthright citizenship apps were consolidated). It has granted relief to Trump ... in all 15 rulings. It has written majority opinions in only 3. Today's order is the 7th with no explanation *at all.*

I think about this constantly

Summary Table of the massive defunding of biomedical research in the United States www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Where is he? If we stop asking, stop demanding his return, we are complicit in his disappearance.

That sentence is so insane

"Brooke Nichols, an associate professor of global health at Boston University, has estimated that these cuts have already resulted in about 300,000 deaths, most of them of children, and will most likely lead to significantly more by the end of the year."

There is no possible interpretation of the tax and spending clauses of the constitution where today's tax hikes are acceptable. Congress could not pass a law saying the President gets to raise income taxes whenever he wants to whatever he wants, and it didn't pass any such law regarding tariffs.

Senators coming for my job now.

One of the most productive things that average people can do to improve our political situation is: talk to people on the other side. You can change them! Some ideas about how to do that: www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/talking-ou...

One way to read stories based on leaked docs: look at time from being circulated to docs getting published — bc that’s the amount of time it took to a) get someone pissed enough to agree to leak and b) get enough also-pissed people to confirm. These are slides dated April 29-30, published May 1.

So dark. This will cripple US scientific research for years (forever?). Once you fall behind, it’s hard to catch back up 😳 www.science.org/content/arti...

NEW: Per multiple sources, the National Cancer Institute’s Board of Scientific Advisors has been entirely disbanded.

On the Tesla earnings call, Musk starts with crazy conspiracy theories and lies. $TSLA.

I know everyone has said this before, but still hard to get over it. Folks like me got into public-facing writing in part to stop people from saying "the president did it" all the time and here it's just totally the case that The President Did It. Nothing tricky or complicated about it.

There used to be a word for folks who would break the price mechanism and then appoint a committee to coordinate economic activity, instead.

Trump’s tariffs, explained. @sarahlongwell25.bsky.social @quipsilver.bsky.social

The discourse around tariffs has been “things will get more expensive” but I am here to tell you that I am knee deep in reporting on this subject and I strongly suspect that if super high tariffs endure, it will shift to *certain items cease to be available at any price*

Oligarchy is the theory that the business elite know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

Yep, read the opinion. It describes where we are: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Life comes at you ... at exactly the rate it promised to come at you during its 4-year re-election campaign where it told you exactly what it planned to do literally thousands of times.

Here's the real kick about how Trump's tariffs are going to hike prices for everything: Once that happens, even if the tariffs go away, the prices are never, ever going back down again.

Imagine Fox News in during the Obama if Obama offered up the exact same policies Trump is putting in place today. Everyone on air would have an unfathomable meltdown over the taxes imposed by dictator Obama. Rightfully so.

There is no possible interpretation of the tax and spending clauses of the constitution where today's tax hikes are acceptable. Congress could not pass a law saying the President gets to raise income taxes whenever he wants to whatever he wants, and it didn't pass any such law regarding tariffs.

It's getting a lot of attn today. But even before today most of the country had very little idea of what has happened at NIH or through it the entire ecosystem of biomedical research in the US. Simply put, Musk, Kennedy & Trump exploded a bomb right in the middle of cancer cure research in the US.

“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.” www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/h...

Just in case you forgot, Musk spent at least $250 million to get Trump elected.

The irony is that between DOGE and Trumps tariffs they’re endangering the anchor of a lot of American prosperity, which is centuries of political stability and rule of law which makes a place people want to put capital. None of these dweebs grasp that.

"This stuff isn't quantum mechanics. American leadership in the world benefits America. First and foremost. To the extent that it also benefits other countries, that’s great. Good for us. "But that's not why we do it. That's never been why we do it." www.thebulwark.com/p/america-fi...

Richest guy in the world telling us we can’t afford to have our government fund cancer research.

18F, the federal government’s technology shop, was demolished by Musk’s team shortly after midnight. It was a cost-recoverable org, charging agencies for their expertise, using a consulting model. Its cost to government was negligible, its benefits huge. My team there once saved DoD $500 billion.

Even amongst the tech bro / manosphere types Elon is starting to code as incompetent and embarrassing. I think he’s done by next year because his acolytes need him to be cool and subversive and he just seems like a spoiled kid who’s angry when he doesn’t get his way.

Correct about the ongoing existential crisis of American democracy on every point, from one of the world's great scholars of democracy: (via: www.theunpopulist.net/p/trumps-ame...)

I think anyone who's been paying attention knows this. But it's worth stating clearly. The idea that any of Elon's wilding spree is being done in the name of efficiency is absurd on its face because the terminations are virtually all being done based on duration of service because that creates ...

What the past few weeks have felt like. I'm going to ration my phone use for a while.

For sure. Back in 2009 nobody would have argued that the individual mandate was unconstitutional. Now in 2024 it is settled law that presidents are immune from crimes they commit as long as it is an official action, and insurrectionists can run for office if congress doesn't act.

the one tweet worth saving