My county has a median household income of $84,000 and just shy of 17% of people here rely on SNAP. Most people have no idea just how widespread the need for food assistance is.

NYT: We have the shittiest take on the White House demolition WaPo: Hold my Dom Pérignon bsky.app/profile/aman...

I can totally envision the headline WHY MASS EXECUTIONS NEEDED TO HAPPEN By Ross Douthat

The “populist” movement, brought to you by a bunch of weird old freaks who inherited billions and never worked a day in their life. Just like Trump (and Musk and so many of them), this man would probably starve to death if he were forced to shop and cook for himself.

A party that would welcome back past Presidents and nominees from Carter (I know he just passed) to modern party conventions has not moved “sharply left”, while a party that wouldn’t welcome ANYONE pre-Trump has gone bat shit extremist right. These pundits are not serious.

Point us to a Democratic governor who represents a shift to the left as extreme as the shift to the right represented by Republican governors DeSantis, Stitt, Abbott, Huckabee Sanders. And to legislative majorities in blue states that have enacted as many extreme policies as MAGA has in red states.

And they conveniently continue to ignore the far-right legislation that has been passed in red states over the past decade, including the wave of forced birth laws and the wave of education gag orders and book bans. But I guess that mostly affects women and children, so...

And even if they are not harmed politically by their authoritarian turn, the dangerous, unprecedented extremism of the GOP should be covered as the major story that it is. They are now the equivalent of a European far-right party, and I’ve seen remarkably little framing along these lines.

In the last week, Trump tore down a portion of the White House, claims that a friend of his is paying the military, posted a video of him dumping shit on the American people, demanded hundreds of millions of dollars from DoJ, and unleashed vicious ICE agents on peaceful American cities.

Meanwhile, it is inarguable that the GOP has gone “sharply right” in much more tangible ways. The “big beautiful bill” might be the most right-wing major piece of legislation in recent decades. Trump, Vance, Miller, Bannon are closely connected to the global far-right. Trump is an autocrat.

The Trump-Vance swamp: a gilded ballroom for themselves while they do nothing to help starving Americans.

The plagiarism machine that’s mostly wrong and consumes lakes would like you to get a low flow toilet

This still holds up, and has only gotten worse since the election.

Which also explains their hostility to someone like AOC's working-class identity in the service economy, which represents much more of the working-class jobs they purport to be concerned with.

That permeates the entire discussion in a way that is so obvious, it's telling that they never actually engage with it explicitly.

New updates added this week -- because we keep getting more bad news about AI tools.

Republicans win not only because they repeat shit but because they get others to repeat shit! Namely: their base, the press, and the Ezra Klein podcast!

The focus on "the deplorables" without any deeper analysis is an object lesson in why the right-wing media prevails: REPETITION. People didn't give a shit about that comment. The MAGA media MADE people care about it. It constructed a "deep story" of grievance for the movement to own.

Reporters are obsessed with asking Trump “why did you do this” instead of factual questions like “what’s the name of the person you pardoned”

So much talk about "working-class" voters becomes a discussion of how to accommodate and reinforce misogyny and bigotry in order to win elections. "Working-class" in these discussions invariably means men (usually white men). If those are the voters you're trying to reach, just be honest about it.

Well at least the President is an accused pedophile

@umich.edu faculty call for an honorary degree for Trump “We have proven that we have no hard moral principles and no hill on which we will die.” www.michigandaily.com/opinion/op-e...

11. I can’t know what the future would have been, but I’m guessing a goodly number of potential supporters would have been willing, even eager, to overlook Platner’s transgressions, in the service of his anti-establishment politics, if he had expressed a measure of regret.

Quite a kicker.

Trump's style will forever be "what if Uday Hussein ran a Ramada Inn," as @kenwhite.bsky.social described it, a cluttered mess of generic tacky designs covered in gold leaf, simultaneously piggish and cheap.

And any attempt to argue states can’t enforce their own laws is 100% an attempt to dissolve the union

A WH that even pretends to be lawful would say “of course we will follow state laws.” Only fascist madmen would say “if you try to enforce laws we think that’s treason.”

"a crypto billionaire paid a large bribe to the president for a pardon, which the president used to pay the military while attempting to invade several American cities" this is plausibly currently true. it would have been considered absolute, gibbering madness a year ago.

2/2 And, surprise surprise, the demolition company, ACECO, has taken down all its online presence (including for its owner, Rob Wilson, and president, Stephen D. Smith). Big, tough guys. Clark Construction still has its site up. www.clarkconstruction.com

Chairman John F. W. Rogers (unable to find a current email but formerly of Goldman Sachs [email protected]) Vice Chairman Teresa Carlson www.linkedin.com/in/teresacar...

White House Historical Association (202) 737-8292 [email protected] Nominally non-partisan, but actions have been coordinated, including shutting down actual White House tours. They also claim to have recently scanned the East Wing and removed historical artificts “for preservation”

The leader, Will Scharf is STILL on staff at the WH and is Trump’s personal lawyer. He claims that the commission has “no authority over demolition”. National Planning Commission Head of Commission Will Scharf Twitter @willscharf Email [email protected] www.thedailybeast.com/how-trump-us...

Now onto the Public Entities that should have put a stop to this. National Planning Commission. Nominally the group that would have approved this, but Trump took it over by installing his personal cronies in July.

The Construction Firm. They’re going to build the monstrosity on top the rubble of the house that Eleanor Roosevelt built. Clark Construction Group (301) 272-7412 Melissa Snyder [email protected] Jay Grauberger [email protected]

Engineering Firm. They provided assurances that the demolition and ballroom were safe. Nominally they are responsible for code enforcement (of which there was none). CEO Troy Rudd [email protected] aecom.com/about-us/our... President Lara Poloni [email protected] aecom.com/about-us/our...

Next, the Architect. He designed this monstrosity. It was him on the roof of the White House back in July McCrery Architects (202) 737-5444 [email protected] James C. McCrery II [email protected] [email protected]

First, the Demolition Firm. Most culpable. Tore down the East Wing with no permits in the fastest most destructive way possible (make sure to ask about lead abatement) Aceco World LLC (301) 588-0707 Chairman: Michael Citren [email protected] President: Stephen D. Smith [email protected]

If they are firing tear gas at protesters near a detention center, they are CBP. If they are jumping out of cars to detain people, they are ICE. If they are picking trash up, they are National Guard. If they are just sitting around with rifles looking bored, they are Marines.

This “guide” is another example of how NYT editors democracywash the Trump regime. bsky.app/profile/medi...

the ballroom will never be built and he’ll just pocket whatever money he collects because he is a grifter first and foremost

Look, we are going to have to knock down the Jeffrey Epstein Memorial ballroom when Trump dies or flees to Argentina like we did to Saddam’s palaces, for many reasons. And we now know that we don’t even need anyone’s permission to do it!

It's because white people can always see the humanity in each other and not in the POC Kirk targeted and actively harmed.

Inside the Hermitage, the winter palace where Tsar Nicholas II and his family lived before they were executed—in a country where Russians were starving.

one very funny thing Zohran Mamdani said in this interview: Bill Ackman has spent more money trying to defeat Mamdani than Mamdani wants Ackman to pay in additional taxes www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEX1...

text code GUILTY for a free $25 gift bet at Draftkings

if your story on Elon musk's robots doesn't mention the very real possibility that thus is all stock fluffing vaporware somewhere in the first four paragraphs you are not doing journalism

Okay, no, seriously: who's got the device that disrupts all "smart glasses"— and only the smart glasses— in a 300 foot radius?

A key attribute of thug trash is pathological sensitivity to criticism and mockery. Use it.