“The lesson of the Trump years is that liberalism and democracy are not self-sustaining. That guardrails are dependent on the courage and wisdom of individuals. That we only get liberalism tomorrow if we choose to protect it today.” open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...

dem leaders getting absolutely dogwalked by random focus group participants at this point

Like the dustbin of history is some permanent place. Like some fucking demagogue can’t just reach into the dustbin and use the ideas again Dumb as fuck

These interviews with former Obama administration officials underscore a mistake none of them will express bluntly. They gravely overestimated the character of the American people. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/u...

There are ~80M non white citizens of voting age. Say they voted at 50% (a slight underestimate). Say they voted 25% in person (underestimate probably). With what resources is ICE going to arrest and detain *ten million people* so they can’t vote?

The Chief Justice of the United States will literally change the rules of the Supreme Court of the United States instead of divesting in individual stocks.

In November, Trump said late-night hosts who mock him are engaged in “probably illegal” misconduct. It seems to me we can draw a line from that declaration to CBS telling Colbert not to air an interview with Texas’ James Talarico. www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

I really hope someone in dem policy circles is coming up with a plan for ICE and CBP doing what police departments have done when there’s a DA they don’t like: quiet quit and half ass the actually legit parts of the job and loudly tell friendly media that they can’t do their jobs, Because of Woke

As someone who did vote during this ICE bullshit, so many were motivated to vote because of a) ICE bullshit and b) the Republican candidate texting us to “stop fraud,” that everyone went out of their way to vote an already non-competitive race. The Democratic candidate put up Kim Jung-Un numbers.

These are bad people who are trying to do terrible things. But instead of worrying about what might happen, the best thing to do is prepare for it as best that you can. Political leaders should be prepared for bad things happening as should regular citizens.

If you are worried about this scenario happening in your community, you should either become a poll worker or get started organizing a rapid response network or patrol. Have dozens of people descend on a polling station to blow whistles at or record ICE agents to make their lives miserable.

The bigger reality is creating a sense of fear, not that they’d be able to pull it off. I’m not sure how fearful people who can legally vote would be.

Each arrest takes like a half dozen agents. They just don’t have the manpower for this. I am not even sure where the marginal utility of this type of thing would be. Maybe if they concentrated their efforts in one congressional district or something.

Does Peter Thiel love the USA? What are his favorite parts about it? What drove him to immigrate here?

What’s one way we can rein in ICE? We can start by boycotting ICE’s corporate collaborators that are profiting from the agency’s cruelty. Watch.

1/7 Peter Thiel is the ultimate hypocrite. He is a gay, foreign-born billionaire who built his fortune in liberal California. He owns JD Vance and runs mass surveillance to fund a fascist movement aimed at destroying the very democracy that once allowed him to succeed

2/7 Thiel famously wrote that he no longer believes freedom and democracy are compatible. This is the ideology of the man who owns JD Vance. He does not want a better America. He wants a corporate autocracy where the public is just a managed mob

3/7 The hypocrisy is absolute. While he claims to value liberty, he built Palantir, a mass surveillance empire that harvests your data for the state. He talks about freedom while selling the tools of total control to government agencies. He is an enabler of authoritarianism

4/7 His control over the White House is unprecedented. Thiel did not just fund JD Vance. He manufactured him. Vance is a former Thiel employee and a political avatar for an oligarch who views the American voter as an obstacle to be bypassed

Even this is a massive understatement of the actual costs, since all of those things require advance planning, paperwork, and (in some cases) scheduling document retrievals (often only possible during work hours). The cost doesn't have to be high in dollars to be a prohibitive tax on voters.

1/12 Peter Thiel is the Bond villain of the 21st century. He is a powerful oligarch who operates in the shadows while pulling the strings of global politics. He is potentially the most dangerous man in the world today. What makes this Epstein-class oligarch so dangerous:

I think we need to ask why the Washington press corps is passively accepts the fact that this administration is raising our taxes when, if it were a Democrats who was doing it, this news would be a national drop-what-you're-doing story. click1.newsletters.rollcall.com/jfnkbmdnzpqw...

12/12 Thiel is a well-organized architect of a new American fascism who uses the tools of liberty to build a cage. If Americans value their democracy, they need to watch the man holding the strings. He happens to be a dangerous fascist and a walking paradox

SCOOP: I have the first interview with the 36-year-old South Jersey man whose tearful protest against an ICE raid at a school bus stop has been watched more than 3 million times How a non-political Eagles fan Everyman became the face of ICE resistance My new column www.inquirer.com/columnists/a...

Way too few know about these Epstein emails that show that he helped Russia blackmail Trump:

President Trump keeps threatening to unilaterally impose rules (like voter ID requirements) on upcoming elections. Monday’s "One First" explains why—whether as a matter of constitutional law, existing federal statutes, or simple, practical logistics—his (ominous) threats are ultimately empty ones:

This is such a good article. A brief and concise explanation of how corruption and political rot oozes out of both parties as they actively and strategically resist being held accountable for any wrongdoing no matter how damaging and heinous it is.

If you want to know what the Trump people really think of the military, look at how they treat them on a day-to-day basis.

Tax season is coming. When you get a bit back on your return, I am begging you not to forget that they slapped you with tariffs and hiked your health bills. And they gave the real money to the rich. They're going to want praise and celebration. Don't give it to them.

someone in the coast guard has had absolutely enough of this shit from these two

Windows reading “pedophile protectors” were spray-painted at the Republican Party of Eau Claire County headquarters in Altoona, Wisconsin, and about a dozen eggs were thrown at the building. No suspects have been identified.

WILL STANCIL: You could not live with your own failure. And where did that bring you? Back to me.

He cannot keep getting away with this

Free Kilmar

Breaking: WASHINGTON (AP) - Judge says government can't take Kilmar Abrego Garcia into immigration custody because it lacks viable deportation plan.

looks like Mamdani is gonna get his rent freeze this year after all. big news on the housing beat from @smaldo.bsky.social:

That's one way to characterize leaving a dictatorship in place with US backing in order to profit from it with no oversight or accountability from Congress. bsky.app/profile/atru...

Status update on the party of Abraham Lincoln.

AOC / Cuban

cooked his ass

🔥 “Are you a veteran? — the pause means NO. Thank me for my service.” @Tezlynfigaro takes @kevinolearytv over her knee on @abbydphillip’s Nightly Yelling Show

I'm going to make it a mission to remind people that it was the MINNESOTA REBEL ALLIANCE, not "Minneapolis," that showed the country was mutual aid and resistance can look like. If we're going to learn from it, you have to remember that people pitched to help others who WERE NOT "neighbors."

Pre-litigating 2028 so that I'm ready when I'd disappointed

"Most importantly, there is no AI without massive financial and ideological backing. It is therefore pointless to discuss its techniques or capabilities without asking who controls it, who benefits from it, who builds and deploys it, and what it is doing in the world"

The success of podcasts where men (yes, overwhelmingly men) talk about Big Questions in philosophy, politics, and ethics, shows that there is still a real audience for humanist education, that we are ceding to unqualified charlatans.

Brendan Carr didn’t want you to hear this.

"It is the worship of power in the name of Christ, and it is a betrayal of Jesus of Nazareth." - James Talarico with an absolute elbow from the sky right on Christian Nationalism.

Barbra who?

As an attorney with occasional experience with the Equal Time rule, I can explain what's going on here and how the FCC's Brandon Carr is leveraging his position to force late night and daytime talk show hosts to exclude Democratic candidates. First I need to explain the Equal Time rule itself. 1/