Literally can’t do anything right

Trump II is about many things, but one of the key themes has been, is, and will be the graft and corruption Trump is intent on monetizing the presidency to line his own pockets and those of his friends and allies All at our expense For this alone he should be impeached, convicted, and removed

“Pulled in” “Stunningly lucrative” Also, wildly illegal & unconstitutional. Again, that needs to be the hed, dek, lede, & main message of the entire article.

If you had any doubt that Trump and his MAGA acolytes are eugenicists:

Why would literally anyone agree to a deal with this man when he has demonstrated again and again he will refuse to adhere to it the second he decides he no longer wants to?

This also applies, of course, to domestic laws & court orders. He doesn't believe he is bound by any of these things, & there is only one solution for that. Everything else is fantasy & denial. bsky.app/profile/mcop...

What's that all about you ask? Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king And a king ain't satisfied till he rules everything

He's killing the ducks. He's killing the birds. He's killing the wildlife of the people who live there.

This is my lane. I went through the 194 Trump v Barbara opinion from yesterday section by section, noting what they got right about US migration and citizenship history, and what the dissents get wrong. Please share if you think it is helpful to others.

Democracy dies in journalistic stenography This plane is 1) a major national security vulnerability, 2) an unconstitutional emolument, 3) a criminal bribe, and 4) antithetical to the spirit of republican austerity

Donald the Dove, Hillary the Hawk, etc. etc. etc.

Signs you might be a far right authoritarian party (#3387):

How it works: 1. Trump called for the end of birthright citizenship 2. MAGA scholars supplied vacuous claims, get lots of attention unrelated to the quality of their work 3. The Post treats the plain meaning of the constitution as an issue that is subject to legitimate disagreement

There’s obviously a lot that’s wrong here but one major component here is the delusion among a surprisingly large portion of parents that their kid is gonna get an athletic scholarship and go to the Olympics, and a truly courageous public official _might_ find a way to break the bad news to them.

Has anyone run the numbers on the relative value of investing a decade into kids’ club sports minus likely athletic scholarship haul vs. simply tucking that cash into a 529

The scope of insider trading conducted by Trump is so unfathomable that I don’t even know how you begin to document it all. It’s so far beyond the realm of what should be possible that you could spend a lifetime investigating it.

I mean, it's not like there's a great paper showing that The Apprentice significantly increased Trump's political popularity because he was portrayed as really good at "moneymaking" ungated: static1.squarespace.com/static/59485...

That “nuance” being the collective delusion of parents who have spent over a decade being exploited by a youth sports industry that lies about their children’s aptitude and weaponizes FOMO to wring every last dollar out of them

Also worth noting that we're now 37.5% of the way through the term everyone said Biden wasn't capable of serving, & I don't really what to tell you if you don't think we'd be just fine with him in the WH right now, & Kamala Harris on standby as the VP is designed to be, compared to where we are now.

the troops are not responding to JD Vance's speech, like, at all. not a single peep over this nearly 2 minute clip negative juice

This man has zero self-awareness and negative juice

Amid the 250th, I'm excited to announce my new book: "America in 25 Revolutions: The 250-year quest of an imperfect country to be a more perfect union." Writing it reminded me that we have always been an imperfect country—but change is possible: www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/a-project-...

I am just a small-town political scientist, frightened & confused by the levels of authoritarian debasement to which Kevin Hassett is willing to submit himself, but I do know this: people claiming to be serious economists should understand basic concepts like selection bias & endogeneity

Make Shame Great Again

supreme court cases aren't a random draw from the set of all possible cases. the composition of the court affects the cases people try to get it to take, and the cases it actually takes.

From Trump's annual financial disclosure report It's a ................ unique way of generating revenue for an American President

"Yes, we are very proud of our major national security vulnerability, unconstitutional emolument, and crime scene of corruption!"

Because it’s ALL about him. July Fourth is the excuse. And the corruption of the Qatar jet —that he can get away with it—is an enormous ego boost. He’s stolen the semiquincentennial—along with everything else —that belongs to US. Go local.

Foreign monarchs’ corrupt ‘gift’ of that obscene luxury jet to the US President is illegal, barred by our Constitution in Article I §9. Staining the skies of Washington with that honking monument to lawlessness will pervert an anniversary that belongs to us, all Conservative and Liberal Americans.

Fox voted into henhouse

👇🎯 Don’t. Print. Lies. In. The. Newspapers. Flagrant violations of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause are not something that “defies long-held tradition.” They are flagrant violations of the Constitution. What is journalism, anyway?

It's hard to celebrate the ideals of the Declaration of Independence if you don't believe in them www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

See, e.g., Roe v. Wade. The next attack will likely not be a full-throated frontal one. On abortion, first it was public funding. Then minors, consent, and increasing insurance and administrative costs. A successful push to redefine the standard to a balancing test in 1992.

“Take this 33 year old Middle Eastern activist. No job, just travels around all days with his friends criticizing hard working entrepreneurs like the money changers. Do we really want someone like that in the US?”

No previous president has ever manipulated American foreign and domestic policy in order to make himself a billionaire. Unprecedented www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

It's a power and prestige game for Wurman et al., which is just sick. It's somehow resumé builder to say "I invented a pretext that almost got the 14th amendment invalidated, isn't that cool?"

Unprecedented corruption

It‘s just insane to me that a sitting president has made MORE THAN A BILLION DOLLARS peddling fucking fairy dust with no intrinsic value beyond his stature and power AS president, and it’s not treated as the biggest corruption scandal in American history.

They're plundering the national treasury.

2 BILLION dollars Trump has made from the presidency

Tim Walz had it right when he said these people are weird

"You have to love our country. Now let me defile one of the lasting images of our country because I don't like what it means."

At least a couple of legal violations even before we learn about the closed contracting process

"It's over, right?" a journo asked me this morning about the birthright citizenship case. No. No legal or political result is final unless the losing side gives up fighting. They will try again. New prez, new judges. There's a social movement based on racial grievance + scapegoating immigrants.

Of all the 7 billion plus people living on Earth, you award the title of "greatest" to [checks notes] Clarence Thomas!?!

It really all boils down to this. Related: we cannot pretend the problem here is "polarization" or that the solution is "dialog across difference." And again, we cannot be serious universities & have full-spectrum "viewpoint diversity" if it means taking this seriously: bsky.app/profile/mcop...