Vought holds one of the most powerful jobs in D.C., and he’s used his position to wage a quiet war to change the shape of the entire U.S. government. Here's what you should know about Trump’s shadow president. (Published Oct. 2025)

The terror spreading across the country this a.m. because in some more progressive corners of the US progressives won elections is telling. The reason the reaction is so over-large is because progressives unlike centrists and the right, are the only group who pose a real threat to established power.

Two months into his pontificate, Robert Prevost called his Chicago bank to update his phone number. Security flagged the file: any change needed a photo ID, in person. He wouldn’t be able to do that, he explained. “Would it matter if I told you I’m Pope Leo?” he asked. She hung up on him.

What if you were abducted & detained & you had no idea when or if you'd ever get released & you feared being sent to a country on an entirely different continent? That's what immigrants are fearing! All immigrants, regardless of status are at risk in this administration. #ICELawlessness

Absolutely nothing suspicious about this. It's perfectly normal for foreign governments to do things like that.

“Any fascist attempt to gain power in America would…work under the guise of ‘super-patriotism’ & ‘super-Americanism.’ Fascist leaders are neither stupid nor naive. They know that they must hand out a line that ‘sells.’”-U.S. Army orientation, 1945 archive.org/details/Army... What’s past is prologue.

The “cosplay soldiers” of ICE are the least qualified and most poorly trained government agents in US history. PAXIS.app (now in the hands of thousands) gives immigrants and allies the constitutional and legal strategies to deal with them. Fight ICE: www.gofundme.com/f/PAXIS

Excellent, lucid, non-hysterical essay by Mr. Rothkopf.

This video on the rise of Russ Vought is based on scores of interviews, thousands of pages of emails and dozens of hours of videos and recordings of private briefings given by Vought, most of which have not been previously reported.

I calculated the Pentagon's "black budget".... Using Claude, the LLM banned from the Pentagon by Hegseth, I went through the military’s initial budget submissions. I found $126 billion in programs either explicitly marked as classified, or described only through a code word. (1/2)

Are news outlets supposed to apply journalistic standards to skeptically assess what politicians say, or are they simply delivery devices that legitimize and amplify whatever bullshit politicians feel like saying? Asking for a country.

this would fix the website

One of the most prominent promoters of violence in our world is the president of the United States.

Holy sh*t THIS IS THE KIND OF AD DEMOCRATS NEED TO MAKE!!! Expose Republicans as the out-of-touch ASSH*LES they are. SPREAD THIS EVERYWHERE!! #EarthDay

Ohmygodthis

Great discussion, as always, with David Rothkopf on the DSR Network, and Jon Wolfsthal & Joe Cirincione @djrothkopf.bsky.social @joecirin.bsky.social @jonatomic.bsky.social @thedsrnetwork.bsky.social

Current status of the Strait of Hormuz dispute

Artemis II crew returning to Earth.

America — and the rest of the world — erupted in excited glee today over an unsubstantiated rumor. Can you even begin to imagine the global reaction when it actually happens? 😳🌍 #Trump

Really appreciated this conversation between Jon Stewart and Heather Cox Richardson. @hcrichardson.bsky.social The future isn’t written for us. Systems fail. People can rebuild them. History, art, and storytelling help people make sense of the moment, recover agency, and imagine what comes next.

🚨 Ever Alvarenga, an asylum seeker, was driving to work Thursday morning when he was rear-ended by an ICE vehicle. He is still in the hospital after suffering significant injuries to his head, chest, back, & hands. [1/2]

Anger Makes You Blind. In this short clip, H H the Dalai Lama shares a humorous story about his angry driver in Lhasa to illustrate a profound truth: when anger arises, the mind loses clarity. Without anger, we can respond to difficulties—and even to those who cause us harm—far more effectively.

And all I will continue to say is…imagine the worst, and be ready to defeat it. Is Trump gonna fuck with/try to cancel the midterms? Believe it, defeat it. Will Trump try to run for a 3rd term? Believe it, defeat it. We didn’t imagine the worst after the 2020 election, and Jan 6 happened. Not again.

Crazy story: Sophisticated drones attacked Louisiana’s Barksdale bomber base during week of 9 March in 4 hour waves, disrupting Epic Fury ops "It is the first time a US airbase was temporarily put out of operation in wartime, something that never happened even in World War II."

kudos to Jack in Silver Spring MD, surely on Bluesky

The culture of DC has us screwed six ways to Sunday. But one of those ways deserves more focus, despite not being the sexiest or most triggering. My latest. open.substack.com/pub/davidrot...

Before the rallies. Before the White House. Before the lies became policy — there were decades of smaller lies. Who IS Donald Trump, really? Where did the corruption start? I went back to the beginning. The results are alarming. 🧵 PART ONE is live on Substack. open.substack.com/pub/adamkinz...

In a direct exchange with Sen. John Cornyn, Sen. Dick Durbin methodically explains to Cornyn how the SAVE Act would adversely affect voters and election administration. …

Trump sees himself as the Slim Pickens riding an atom bomb in Dr Strangelove, when he's actually the Slim Pickens in Blazing Saddles.

The inept politics of Turkish centrist politicians engaging Erdoğan furnishes an excellent learning experience for American Democrats in dealing with Trump. Schumer and Jeffries are, if anything, still far more inept in their opposition than the Turkish CHP.

Sycophantic Special Housing. www.reddit.com/r/WhatTrumpH...

Representative Frost was fabulous in this interview.

“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” Antonio Gramsci

Yes they do

Remember: white Evangelicals are absent from government in Washington per WaPo

Good speech. Most US press got bamboozled by Bill Barr's scheme. Trump's collusion with Russia was always real, continues to be. www.youtube.com/live/ylvTFvJ...

Rubio: “Let me tell you, Iran is run by lunatics, religious fanatic lunatics.”

Little known fact: Virtually all forms of lichen are smarter than Senator Markwayne Mullen.

This is amazing. www.getyourfuckingmoneyback.com

Is it too much to ask sitting members of Congress today to be half as fearless and principled as Edward R. Murrow was in 1954 when he challenged Senator Joseph McCarthy? www.cnn.com/2019/07/15/m... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_...