It’s because it’s not government policy. It’s not a legal action. It’s not a political move. It’s a heist. You’re watching an armed heist in broad daylight and the man leading it is asking you to be happy about your money being stolen from you and your family

Pretty sure you don’t need to quote ethics experts to say the $1.8bn slush fund is corrupt.

In November I broke this story about Andrew Paul Johnson, a pardoned J6er who molested children and used the promise of reparations to bribe his victims silence.

Most people will only see the spin around Trump’s $1.8b settlement fund. But once you walk through the timeline, the level of corruption becomes impossible to dismiss. Read this one all the way through. open.substack.com/pub/joycevan...

Mark Cuban stands behind Trump as Trump speaks on behalf of stealing from taxpayers. This is why you don't go to the White House to do events with Trump -- you end up disgracing yourself.

New NYT poll has Dems +11 in the generic House ballot matchup. Among independents it's +18 points. If accurate, that has the makings of a blue wave and I wonder if it gets South Carolina Republicans to rethink their gerrymander before it's too late.

It's the exact reason we got the VRA! We got the VRA _not_ because there was always provable sneaky intentional racial discrimination in districting, but because, esp. in the South, white conservatives designed a party system AND maps through which they'd win the seats, & Black voters would not.

When a federal agency tasked with protecting all Americans decides to mandate a specific religious worldview, it ceases to protect democracy and begins to threaten it.

Ross Barkan's plagiarism mini scandal has barely been discussed on Bluesky. We should be taking note of it. Especially since, now that he has responded on Twitter, his explanations are ridiculous.

Forgive me for sounding like a broken record, but we are not a Christian nation. We are a nation where you are free to be a Christian. Your religion guides you, not all of us. It’s as simple as that.

This is insanity: Trump's DOJ is about to "settle" his lawsuit against the IRS by creating a $1.7 billion slush fund to pay off victims of Biden "weaponization." I talked to Jamie Raskin about this. It's even more corrupt than it first appears. 1/ (new piece) newrepublic.com/article/2105...

“What Democrats need to understand, is that this is a moment of drastic, monumental change, initiated by a Republican Party poisoned by illiberalism and anti-democratic resentments and a figure in Trump who wants to arrogate despotic powers to himself.” www.liberalcurrents.com/democrats-ne...

There it is. The Senate parliamentarian rules the $1 billion for Trump's ballroom in the GOP's budget reconciliation bill violates the rules + is subject to 60 votes vs 51. Via budget committee Dems:

@elienyc.bsky.social Elie - most people think "expanding SCOTUS" only means adding Justices. They should watch your video with @bradlander.bsky.social where you explain how we can (and must!) expand SCOTUS in a way that is STABLE, & ends partisan, political rulings. substack.com/@elienyc/not...

SNL scrapped a skit of Defense Secretary Hegseth reading the "Pulp Fiction" Bible verse two weeks before it really happened. The show's writers thought it "too ridiculous," according to Colin Jost. youtu.be/Sk5ABAy38fk?...

ABC killed fivethirtyeight.com, pulling down thousands of stories and dashboards. I can bring them back, but I can offer you https://fivethirtyeightindex.com, my new index of everything captured by archive.org.

@joshtpm.bsky.social shares his wisdom on how US democracy can be saved going forward. End the filibuster: “People get elected, they say they’re going to do X, Y, & Z, & then they can’t, bc no party can amass 60 votes. That's one of the reasons you have Trumpism" Via @atrupar.com’s PN.

Wagner: John Roberts is race-neutral color blind framework is harmful because it treats race as if it doesn't shape our laws and our power and our infrastructure, which makes it harder to identify discrimination and harder to justify the the remedies to fix it.

"Nobody, no American citizen should be discriminated against based on the color of their skin. And that's what this [the VRA] did" is something even I did not expect the speaker to say in 2026

My Arthurian Legend Students did a creative final This student made ink out of elderberries, blackberries (specifically moldy blackberries), and rosemary in salt and vinegar

Justice Alito complaining about the Court granting a stay without any reasoning is, shall we say, rich? He's been in the majority in scores of such cases, many involving elections.

As I noted last Monday, Justice Alito is the only justice who regularly imposes deadlines on his administrative stays—which he only does when he doesn’t like the applicants, and which *always* causes this kind of unnecessary drama as we approach his (totally arbitrary) cut-offs:

The House just had an extremely rare tie vote, on a war powers resolution introduced by Josh Gottheimer to end the Iran war. A tie fails in the House, so the measure is defeated, but this could pass the next time one of these comes up, which should be in a few days.

Prof. Wurman (or his press, doubtful) hired an agency to sell his book to academics that describes him as a MAGA law professor and pitches his book by highlighting the singularly worst historical work I’ve ever read. If his book is anything like his common law stuff… it’s more valuable as kindling.

5/14 Forecast Update Alabama’s redraw modestly increased Republicans’ chances of retaining the U.S. House, but Democrats remain clearly favored to flip the chamber overall. 🔴 U.S. Senate: 52.5% (-0.2% since 5/12) 🔵 U.S. House: 77.4% (-1.4% since 5/12)

Perfect campaign ad for the upcoming Midterms. 👌

Guys! We are go for meganframpton.com 🌟✨ This site was a total pleasure to make and we both had the chillest vibes going thru. Love that for us! Give it a browse and check out Megan's new title "Demons and Diplomacy" that you can pre-order now! 👇🏽

This would constitute one of the most brazen, most appalling acts of corruption in U.S. history. I know we’re numb to all of this but this is a seven-alarm fire. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/b...

I would prefer not to I reject your assumptions I deny your premises I refuse your authority I do not capitulate Be ungovernable my friends

According to The New York Times, Trump’s reflecting pool project is now set to cost more than seven times what he claimed, with a no-bid contract going to a firm tied to his own golf club. Chris Hayes reacts.

Breaking NYT: Brad Raffensperger received a "manifesto" deemed to be a "credible threat on his life" on Monday, the day before a suspicious object disrupted a campaign event in Macon. The handwritten document included a photograph of Raffensperger with the word "Boom" written across his forehead.

The OLC opinion was released today on eve of the first court of appeals oral argument on the issue, presumably so that DOJ could (and did) file a letter with the court of appeals citing the opinion. Very shady. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

I encourage states to review the text of Fuck You v. Make Me

The Tennessee Speaker of the House will remove all Democratic Caucus members from standing committees and subcommittees as punishment for their redistricting protests. Democracy dies in Nashville.

The GOP needed a supermajority for this motion, and 5 GOP state senators opposed it — which is why it failed. Unless 3 of those senators change their mind & there's a new vote quickly, the only next path would be a special session.

Somewhat unexpected news from South Carolina: Enough Republican senators *opposed* a vote to add redistricting to the ongoing legislative session, so the measure was DEFEATED. This prevents the GOP from taking up a new congressional map and eliminate the majority-Black district held by Clyburn.

Trump on Iran War: Reporter: What extent are Americans’ financial situation motivating you to make a deal? Trump: Not even a little bit. I don't think about Americans’ financial situation

FOX NEWS: With these big events coming, how concerned should we be about potential attacks? MARKWAYNE MULLIN: We are months behind FOX NEWS: Wow. That's unsettling

this is absolutely BONKERS behavior from the director of the FBI. it's a disgrace to his position and the entire US government.

I, too, am old enough to remember when the entire National Conversation™️ focused on the need for Democrats to Tone Down The Rhetoric because of fears about Political Violence.

Slavery was legal. The Holocaust was legal. The blatantly partisan U.S. Supreme Court rulings to steal Black political power and empower the dictator are legal too. But that doesn’t make them right, and they won’t survive the real justice that is coming.

The Roberts Court, the Trump White House, and the national GOP are acting like this is their one big shot. Either they secure the lasting end of US Constitutional democracy, or they’re in very serious trouble from the backlash. And they’ve already gone so far that there’s no other possibility.

great post

I admire the hell out of these Texas Tech students, who held a funeral for academic freedom: pen.org/texas-tech-a...

Crucial point from @ariberman.bsky.social on the pod: Dems have already tried leading by example as a way to try to entice Rs to deescalate the hardball. It failed. Time to try something else: Dems must now engage in redistricting Total War. Our exchange on this: newrepublic.com/article/2102...

Bezos fires nearly half the WaPo news staff but lavishes money on a studio for its trollish opinion section. What a repulsive man. www.status.news/p/washington...

New in PN: This is a crisis of democracy. What will Dems do about it? "Perhaps you’re uncomfortable with one or more of these proposals. That’s fine. At this point, the details are less important than preparing for a new approach to politics, procedures, and governing."

“The way this conflict played out has made something distressingly clear: We are facing nothing less than the collapse of American democracy as we have known it.” Truth from @paulwaldman.bsky.social in @atrupar.com’s PN: open.substack.com/pub/aaronrup...

Hey man, you need to stop taking my fucking videos, cropping off my handle, splicing it with other clips (which you presumably also stole), and then slapping your name on it. It’s one thing to download my TikTok and post it instead of just sharing here, but we’re hitting lawyer territory here.