Any mass firing like this by Trump, as punishment for shutdown or otherwise, is deeply illegal—as Judge Illston ruled and SCOTUS did not disagree though lawlessly let the firings continue. Also, this is a sign not of strength but of Vought weakness. He REALLY doesn’t want Congress to stand up. 1/

Vought holding the federal govt hostage for a boss who refuses to meet with Democrats is largely a result of Supreme Court fecklessness. We are eight months in and SCOTUS has done nothing to defend civil service laws or block de facto impoundments, emboldening constitutional arsonists.

All appropriations are mandatory

Both illegal and (one more) backdoor impoundment. “Non-essential” does not mean that money was not appropriated for this work. If this logic holds, any President who wants to downsize government would simply engineer a shutdown

The promise that the White House will engage in further illegal impoundment during a shutdown should not give Democrats thinking about voting for a CR any confidence that they will forgo illegal impoundment to undo any spending agreement (on Medicaid, for instance) used to get their votes on the CR

Ken CHESEBRO, an architect of Trump's bid to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election, has been suspended from practicing law in D.C. (he'd already been disbarred/suspended in several states) storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

ONE MORE THING!! *If* Maurene Comey's lawsuit survives the motion to dismiss (a bigger stretch than some other things here), then she'll get depositions from the people at DOJ -- in Blanche's immediate vicinity -- who fired her, to find out if it had anything to do w/Trump's jihad against Jim.

Oh, I forgot to mention: After Blanche killed the Public Integrity department (which would normally consult on both the McIver and the Comey cases), he was the one Habba at least consulted instead on McIver. That's why you have career people do it Todd!

Meanwhile, Todd Blanche is DEEPLY implicated in LaMonica McIver case--both because he personally ordered ICE to arrest Ras Baraka, setting off the tussle that led to physical contact, and bc he's got to sign court filings bc Alina Habba is not legally US Attorney. www.emptywheel.net/2025/08/16/l...

In her order in response, Margaret Garnett ordered AUSAs to tell Blanche to get it all to stop. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Start with the fact that Dale Ho already warned Pam Bondi she had violated local SDNY rules on the Eric Adams case. And Luigi Mangione complained that Blanche's own staffers were saying inappropriate things abt him. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

So there's good reason why senior people at DOJ miight like prefer EDVA grand jury no bill Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer. If they don't, Comey will have a superb vindictive prosecution claim, with evidence INCLUDING Todd Blanche and Trump himself. And Blanche is already in some trouble ethically.

NEW on MSNBC: Prosecutors in the EDVA presented new U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan with a memo explaining why charges should not be brought against James Comey — because there isn't enough evidence to establish probable cause, let alone enough to convince a jury to convict.

Kristi Noem still can't confirm who was killed during the shooting at the ICE facility today and can't even confirm that the victim's family has been contacted

They don’t bother contacting families when they shuttle migrants to facilities hundreds of miles away, or when they deport them to third countries. So yeah, this sounds right.

So just to be clear: The US is propping up Argentina’s economy, and now Argentina can eliminate its export taxes, so it can sell tons of soybeans to China, so China isn’t forced to buy soybeans from the US, so the US can pay subsidies to keep our farmers solvent. www.reuters.com/world/china/...

Erik Siebert, the federal prosecutor whom President Donald Trump pushed out Friday for declining to prosecute his political enemies, listed as an attorney on 675 federal cases. His replacement, Lindsey Halligan, who's Trump's former lawyer, has worked on only three.

This rabid crusade to fabricate a case against @jamescomey.bsky.social before a grand jury will produce far better evidence of perjury by Trump officials and prosecutors — the ones Trump installed after the original prosecutor was purged for admitting there was no case — than by Comey himself.

On CNN just now, Kristi Noem repeated the debunked claim that Sen. Chris Van Hollen had margaritas with a prisoner in El Salvador. Trump’s dictator friend Bukele arranged for margaritas to be brought to the table to set up Van Hollen. Everyone knows that, but it’s Homeland Security policy to lie.

👀 the WSJ describing Trump finding out about its story about the Epstein birthday book and telling aides "he would try to kill the story himself." www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Stanley Cup finals: 2.5M NCAA Men’s Final Four: 15M World Series: 15.8M NBA finals: 16.4M Oscars: 19.7M Jimmy Kimmel: 26M

‘We Know Better’: Experts Watch in Horror As Trump Admin Hides Record of Right-Wing Violence talkingpointsmemo.com/news/we-know...

Does this mean Jesse Waters no longer has a pretext to blow up the UN and the regime can’t arrest the “radical left” for stopping Trump’s escalator ascendancy? apnews.com/article/trum...

3/ Also note the discrepancy in Senator Cruz's letter to DOJ referring this as a criminal matter. On left: At hearing, Cruz asked Comey whether he was aware AND authorized the leak On right: Cruz letter to DOJ falsely frames it as Comey testifying he NEITHER was aware NOR authorized the leak.

2/ Senator Grassley's question to Comey in 2017 (in 2020, Comey said he stands by his 2017 testimony) focused only on the "authorization" as well. So, Comey should be able to stand on that as being truthful and consistent with McCabe's account. Grassley: "have you ever authorized..."⤵️

Comey's testimony in 2020 On the left: In hearing, Senator Cruz erroneously claimed McCabe had said Comey "directly authorized" leak to press. Comey denied that. On the right: Cruz was wrong. McCabe did not say Comey authorized the leak (source: Inspector General Report, on which Cruz relies)

Hooray for my brave old colleagues in the EDVA US attorneys office. They've apparently produced a memo laying out while there's no PC to indict Comey. If Trump flunky Lindsey Halligan goes ahead and indicts him anyway, she could be looking at severe professional sanctions even possibly disbarment.

MAGA Elite Are Split on Protected Speech. Trump Voters, Not So Much talkingpointsmemo.com/news/maga-fr...

5 years ago, I quit my White House role and spoke out against Trump. It cost me my career, but truth mattered more. From my break with Trump to Kamala Harris’ blunt truths today, the test remains: who will speak up, and who will stay silent? Courage is still rare.

Here's a neat trick EDVA USATTY Halligan could try. Insist that either Todd Blanche – remember who did it in the Adams case – or Pam Bondi sign any indictment of Comey and put their licenses on the line. Too bad it's a little late for Emil Bove...

Dems should signal they will fire a Trump-approved Comptroller General in order to reclaim one of the few functioning checks they have.

“Russia can sustain extremely high levels of casualties and losses in human lives. They don’t care about people’s lives.” However, “it is painful for them to lose money...” This is how the oil industry became the Ukrainians’ most important target."

"Since August, 16 of 38 Russian refineries have been hit, some multiple times. Among them are facilities in Samara, Krasnodar, Volgograd, Novokuibyshevsk, Ryazan...On Monday, they struck Gazprom’s fuel-processing plant in Astrakhan...Yesterday, they hit a key part of an oil pipeline in Bryansk"

Dems in farm-belt states should probably just advertise with these charts.

Trump got TikTok from China for domestic proproganda and to enrich his friends and completely f-cked over American farmers. It’s an another incredible Trumpian betrayal.

DHS thinks that "calling people Nazis is incitement to violence" is some kind of "get out of jail free card" from being called out for acting like Nazis.

This strikes me as a good reason not to be a Nazi, then.

Trump calls anyone who criticizes him "radical Marxists" and "enemies of the people", but if you point out how masked secret policemen grabbing people off the streets with zero accountability are kind of behaving like Nazis, you're inciting violence. Those are the rules.

ICE is not "doing politics the right way".

They're not even doing law enforcement the right way.

Step 1: Start a dumbass trade war with China (and Brazil). Step 2: Lose Chinese soybean market to Brazil. Step 3: Bail out your nutty right wing buddy Javier Milei. Step 4: Lose soybean market to Milei, too. Steph 5: Make taxpayers pay for your stupidity.

Laura is deeply concerned about the deteriorating dollar and surging inflation, as am I, and urges me to buy gold! Wait—does that mean she no longer has absolute, unquestioning, and unwavering faith in Our Dear Great Orange Stable Genius and Fearless Leader??? Say it ain't so!!

Yes I will be fighting back against the unjust firing by @washingtonpost.com. I have filed a grievance and will be represented by none other than the amazing @katiephang.bsky.social and an incredible legal team. Journalistic freedom is a bedrock of a healthy society and is worth battling for.

This should be a red line. Trump is personally directing the indictment of @jamescomey.bsky.social based on personal animus even though Comey violated no law, as evidenced by the fact that the former US Atty looking into the case resigned rather than bring phony charges. Make Kimmel-level noise.

By no means is this hyperbole 👉

trumps administration is whining and begging everyone to stop comparing ICE to the gestapo meanwhile they act just like the gestapo and use social media to post aesthetic videos making fun of and demonizing immigrants