If Trump claims he wants Republicans to vote to release the files now because he has nothing to hide, why doesn’t he just release the files today? Why did he order his AG many months ago not to release them? Why did he threaten Rs who signed the petition?

Just heard re: some ICE agents who raided a Chicago taqueria, then went back to the same taqueria for lunch the following week and got confused when the owner kicked them out, and I realized "jesus these doofuses really do believe we're all living in a video game where the NPCs have no memory"

This piece was greenlit and then killed by a British newspaper, so I’ve decided to publish myself instead. Trans People Deserve Better. "Gender critical" feminism doesn't help women but it does help the far right open.substack.com/pub/wellread...

Well sure if your goal is to win then tacking hard to an imaginary bigoted centrist median voter is a bad strategy but like half of the democratic party establishment doesn't seem to particularly care about winning.

everyone who wants Democrats to focus on throwing immigrants and trans people under the bus needs to explain why this is not going to be the end result

In a press gaggle today, Trump refused to condemn Tucker Carlson for having Nick Fuentes on his show. He went further, refusing to even condemn Fuentes himself. 🚨 Calling all American Jewish leaders and organizations: Tell the president this must stop. Our lives are at stake.

2028 watch: The most effective ad for Prop 50 came not from Gavin Newsom. It came from AOC. -Super PAC Future Forward found that Ocasio-Cortez's direct-to-camera ad did better than ads featuring Newsom — Prop 50's chief cheerleader — and Barack Obama. www.axios.com/2025/11/16/a...

I've got something coming out tomorrow on how the second Trump term has been an all out war on professionalism in every sense

For thirty years I worked in the post-Soviet successor states in Central Asia and observed over and over again precisely the cycle that Bill Kristol describes. Corruption leads to authoritarianism, directly. The path is utterly predictable.

When DHS dared to call its anti-immigrant racial profiling weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina, “Operation Charlotte’s Web,” I knew I was going to have to write about it. Tonight, at Law Dork, here it is: www.lawdork.com/p/gregory-bo...

Politics 101: Any issue that unites your base and divides theirs is a good issue that you should keep pounding.

Charlotte is my hometown. From what I’m hearing from all my friends & family still there is that ICE is set up big time on South Blvd., beating on ppl and taking them regardless of citizenship. If you’re there and can, film everything you can.

The Fallout of CBP Raids - North Carolina

The Department of Justice is participating in corrupt prosecutions and corrupt cover-ups.

matt yglesias' primary claim about politics is that to win elections, democrats should adopt the strategy which has given starmer a 13% approval rating in the UK

This is exactly what I have warned of myself when you understand how law enforcement operates and how Trump needed to work around it. He knew that the military wasn’t going to cave to his demands and even those pathetic fucks like Miller realized they needed to build their own army via ICE/CBP.

ICE is now racistly terrorizing #Charlotte, NC as they continue their string of utter failures to stop real criminals. They're so cruel & inept, they assaulted this AMERICAN CITIZEN twice, violently detaining him w/in minutes of confirming his citizenship. 🤬 Reposting for legal documentation reach.

I remember when some people on social media said after Helene that Western North Carolina deserved it because it's a red state. This ignores the fact Asheville has a bunch of weed-smoking hippes.

Here’s a story for every national news outlet: In N.C., churchgoers are literally running into the woods as federal agents descend on the property. “Inside the church, women and children sobbed as they wondered whether their loved ones had been taken.” www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politic...

larry summers is genuinely, deeply misogynist in a way which is not even captured by his public contempt for women

I understand why a lot of white liberals are like, fuck the south, because they think about the people in power who are mostly white conservatives. But that is only because of Jim Crow, voter suppression, a lack of real funding for Dems there

5 headlines tonight on Charlotte Observer’s homepage: “Manolo's Bakery closes to protect customers” “Church members flee as federal agents arrive” “Super G executive describes agents dragging out teen employee” “Border Patrol questions people at Walmart” “Border Patrol sweep sparks fear”

Where the hell are you? EVERY GODDAMN PUBLIC OFFICIAL IN AMERICA Where the hell are you right now? What the hell are you going to do right now? This is all illegal unconstitutional intentional harm. WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?

Puzzling that the centrist pundits who are arguing for a "big tent" Democratic Party are the same people who spend all their time on social media attacking the left. The Venn diagram of these two groups is practically a circle. Meanwhile, if you take Dems and subtract the left, you get 2000 and 2024

friends pls pay attention because i am hard pressed to think of any time cheryl lynn has been wrong

Going back to Summers' talk about how women don't want to work hard and don't have high end aptitude, we could ask: What fraction of young men must deal with a creep with substantial power over their career hitting on them using tips from an infamous pedophile? 🤔 www.thecrimson.com/article/2005...

If women are underrepresented in STEM, it's at least partly because men like this offer mentoring, then embarrass themselves by assuming their mentees must be into them, then decide the best solution is to cut ties, which sends the signal to other faculty that the mentee must not be good enough.

Watch this.

I have friends and family in Charlotte. This makes me worry more than usual for them. @ponderingpolitics.bsky.social , have you seen this?

Important thread.

To be antisemitic or to not be antisemitic? That is the question the GOP is struggling with in the wake of Tucker Carlson's interview with Hitler fanboy, Nick Fuentes.

No one should have to face such threats. It would’ve been nice if Greene had realized this before she amplified and endorsed calls for executing Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.

Namby/Pamby 2026 will not save democracy. We need fighters, reformers, and passionate progressives who will demand real change, real accountability, and real consequences.

Toad sat on the edge of his bed. “Blah,” said Toad. “I feel down in the dumps.” “Why?” asked Frog. “I am thinking about tomorrow,” said Toad.

I was being hyperbolic there. Yes, some actually want Democrats to just be Eisenhower Republicans. Others, however, genuinely do not understand political theory or cognitive psychology much. They think they are helping. I wrote about the former group right before Harris got swamped by them.

Never conclude that Trump is doing the right thing, no matter what apparent pressure.Besides Clayton‘s being a loyalist, watch for them to try to use the fact that the investigation to prevent disclosure of the emails.If it’s not an ulterior motive like that, it’s something else along the same lines

“Given this administration’s track record of weaponizing federal agencies to chase baseless voter-fraud conspiracies and challenge voters’ eligibility. The public should be deeply concerned about what’s being built behind closed doors with their tax dollars and the threat it could pose to voters."

Ezra Klein hasn't fully redeemed himself here, but platforming Ganz here made for one of the two most important, valuable pieces I've read in years. Read it. Now. (FWIW, @jillfilipovic.bsky.social's "The Adolescent Style in American Politics" is the other, and it's deeply related to this.)

so uh, what was Merrick Garland doing

My article from yesterday www.thenation.com/article/poli...

Great idea!!

I cannot begin to properly articulate how upsetting it is to have had people baselessly accuse trans people of being groomers and pedophiles only for it to come out that they were deliberately doing this as part of a project to provide cover to actual groomers and pedophiles in positions of power

the throughline of the conservative culture war they're waging is simply this: women and children are property. that's it. everything else is downstream of that

Hating black people and believing we are inferior when you and your crew are barely literate and involved in every crime known to man (theft, drug smuggling, human trafficking, pedophilia, bribery, rape, blackmail, fraud) is WILD.

Stories like this should make us all proud to be an American and remind us what we’re fighting to save. Trump and MAGA don’t get to define this country for me, and they certainly don’t get to tell anyone else they don’t count. We will win. We’ll abolish ICE. And we’ll have a Thanksgiving turkey.

In this paragraph, we have a heartbreakingly bleak portrait of American society as it actually exists.

I would be utterly thrilled to rid the Democratic Party of everyone who was pals with Jeffrey fucking Epstein why exactly would I want a child abuser to make government policy

The Trump administration is a regime of restoring male power. That includes being a pedophile protection racket covering for men who sexually abuse girls. jill.substack.com/p/the-dogs-t...

Wow so many reporters breaking that classic journalism adage, "never make friends with the pedophile."

I've always argued that congressional Rs aren't scared of DJT as much as of the machine behind him. And this is clearly why most won't break with DJT no matter how much damage his admin/nominees do. They're afraid of much more than being primaried.