“He is not going to get away with this forever. His scrambling efforts to line his pockets more and more, to pillage everything that isn’t nailed down, before he’s sent packing once and for all—this can only sharpen the electoral vengeance that’s coming for him.” open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...

It’s time to stop the corruption. Today would be good; a year ago would have been better, but never too late for accountability and integrity.

Time to make Section 4 of the 14th Amendment famous, which explicitly bars the U.S. government from paying out or owing anything to insurrectionists. The text instructs that “all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.” constitution.congress.gov/browse/amend...

21 century liberals have been slow to grapple with the exercise of power. Now, at long last, someone has explained the stakes.

History is not age-inappropriate. Discomfort is not the same as harm. Whether it is a book removed from a library shelf or a plantation tour that skips the slave quarters, the effect is the same. #CivilWarMemory 🗃️ kevinmlevin.substack.com/p/banned-boo...

An effort called the Box Elder Accountability Referendum — or BEAR — hopes to put the decision to build a data center in northern Utah to voters. Read more: https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2026/05/12/box-elder-data-center-how-county 

Folks, it's happening. The Salt Lake Tribune's journalism is now free to all. Read about it here.

Good question 👇

In the USA today corruption is not just a widely accepted part of the system, it is the point of the system. Go ahead Americans, shrug your shoulders as the President turns the office into a vehicle for illegal enrichment. www.nbcnews.com/business/bus...

Surprise! The Trump sons are ripping you off…again. This time Don Jr. & Eric took $59M from MAGA supporters for a "Made in USA" gold Trump phone, then quietly added fine print saying customers may never get one or see their money again.

Can we come up with a new term for "left-leaning," say, "democracy-promoting"

By the way, if somebody tries to tell you climate change is only a concern of "educated and affluent" liberals, you can show them this map. At least half the people in *every* US state, even the deep red ones, worry about it

A v good piece. Also and again, who wants to have to write about coverture as current events. karinwulf.com/tidbits/cove...

Watching a series of former Confederate states rush to eliminate any vestige of black representation in the House pretty much answers the question whether the Voting Rights Act was still necessary.

The more I read about these ideas in the New York Times, the less radical they start to seem. Another must-read from @jamellebouie.net www.nytimes.com/2026/05/13/o....

This 80 second clip of Justice Robert Jackson’s opening statement will send shivers down your spine. Commit it to memory like the Gettysberg address. It’s even more important than Lincoln’s speech because we forgot his words the first time. We can’t promise “never again” if we don’t remember.

This is absolutely correct. Most politicians cared a lot about their reputations for honesty; they would of course spin and sometimes go over the line where it couldn't be backed up at all but very few politicians and no previous presidents would just outright lie all the time.

the pitch deck to sponsor sec. of transportation sean duffy's family road trip reality show (obtained by POLITICO) is as stupid and corrupt as you'd expect: static.politico.com/74/6e/5da7a1...

The weather dependence of fossil-fueled electricity is underappreciated. Winter storms can knock out coal or gas supply. Heatwaves can cut plant efficiency or make rivers too hot for waste heat rejection, forcing outages. These extreme weather risks tend to arise when the grid is already strained.

Quite literally: lock him up. He is stealing public money.

I want everyone who had any hand in all this corruption imprisoned. We have lost our republic and Trump is raiding the Treasury for himself and his cronies

Utah is facing a wave of proposed AI data centers, with 21 applications pending across the state. In a new FOX 13 interview, Dr. Brian Moench of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment explains why these projects raise serious concerns for air quality, water use, energy demand, and public health.

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.

Juan Linz was right 🌲 bsky.app/profile/mcop...

Letter: The new-look Forest Service has dramatically decreased its budget for trail maintenance while dramatically increasing its budget for lumber. Perhaps if there is less forest, there is less need for trail work?

🙏

“Repealing the rule means less protection for clean drinking water, less protection for endangered wildlife that depend on healthy habitat, and less accountability when corporations leave these landscapes damaged and degraded.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Winner-take-all, single-member district elections can never be fair, competitive, & representative. The Gerrymandering Wars of 2025-26 lay bare its bankruptcy Multiparty proportional representation can be enacted by law. It'd transform our calcified politics overnight by me @liberalcurrents.com

Great essay by @gregsargent.bsky.social about the symbolic politics of our era. Greg reads Trump's efforts to build a ballroom as part of his attempt to brand a new imperial presidency with himself at the helm... newrepublic.com/article/2101...

“A recent report by New America, a Washington-based think tank focused on education… found that universities use institutional aid to compete for students who can already pay. As a result, billions of dollars flow to students without financial need, while low-income families are pushed toward debt.”

Breaking news: Indiana University plant microbiologist Roger Innes has been locked out of his laboratory by the school in response to a request by one of his federal funders. The move comes after Innes complained about the government’s prosecution of Chinese postdocs. https://scim.ag/4tsDqRr

Everyone running for office needs to understand the existential threat to the democracy, the rule of law, and the republic the current GOP is and act accordingly. If you're running to be in office, you will need to use that power to not move on, but fix what the GOP broke.

🧵Today I am releasing a new, open source tool that combines information on energy use, emissions, and health impacts for over 2,000 proposed and operating data centers across the US. It draws on the outstanding work of FracTracker Alliance, @oilandgaswatch.bsky.social, and others. 1/12

NEW: The Trump administration has granted more than 180 polluting facilities nationwide a two-year pause on compliance with Clean Air Act rules. All they had to do was send an email.

AI and CEOs

The Canvas hack that brought campuses globally to a standstill got me thinking about a piece that I wrote in @techpolicypress.bsky.social, about how “technology is the spinal cord of government.” I wrote a few thoughts on what this looks like in schools. www.thehomescreen.org/p/technology...

It’s genuinely amazing to me that almost every single day he proposes some policy that would harm & kill people (tanning beds for kids, banning antidepressants, ending vaccination programs, etc)

Ludicrously anodyne framing from NYT here effectively launders the Trump/GOP rigging of elections and reduces it all to a simple "who's winning, who's losing" formulation. Explains a lot about why we're in our current mess.

People who hold power shouldn’t plaster their names and faces across government buildings and infrastructure. Trump’s moves to do so deserve emphatic public repudiation. [Dan Greenberg]

It’s telling that Alabama took 14 years to implement Brown (you MUST desegregate) and < 14 days to implement Callais (you CAN eliminate Black districts if you call them Democratic, but you don’t HAVE to).

Want to know more about what the CFTC should do to regulate prediction markets? Check out the letter we wrote on this just last month:

5. The cost of US climate disasters has climbed to nearly $200bn a year. The government is no longer recording them

Well done article from @us.theguardian.com on how the Trump administration's war on science and data is harming the American public. "Experts warn that Trump’s destruction of the country’s data infrastructure will have lasting impacts on all aspects of life..." www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

“What happens if you deposit that much [heat] energy continuously into a topography like this?” Davies wondered. “Right at the north end of the Great Salt Lake, a watershed that’s in collapse. A high desert environment? A valley?” www.sltrib.com/news/environ...

After 12 years as the Bulletin's editor in chief, John Mecklin @meckdevil.bsky.social is stepping down. If you're a deep thinker and top-flight journalist, here are the reasons you should want to replace him, from the man himself.

A metaphor in Alabama

Americans are concerned that rising political violence threatens to undermine democracy. But James Piazza writes that socially cohesive neighborhoods can protect against democratic erosion, with local organizing playing a key role. www.justsecurity.org/138198/socia...

The Trump war on small children: a tally. ProPublica identified at least 79 children who’ve been left screaming, unable to breathe, or otherwise hurt by tear gas and pepper spray during Trump’s historic immigration crackdown. www.propublica.org/article/kids...

Mass deportations make us less safe!

"So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, 'These are your gods'."