What an upbeat way for the New York Times to say that Alito is trying to turn our country into a dictatorship.

It's fun when @pkrugman.bsky.social talks Latin to us: "What we have is President Sundowner. This guy is non compos mentis."

"Five hundred nominating delegates elected proportionally by county committees would be joined by the full Maine Democratic committee. . . . "A relatively small number of people would decide from among a growing list of candidates which last-minute nominee faces five-term Sen. Susan Collins."

"On June 3 in my newsletter, I wrote that I thought more allegations against [Graham] Platner would come. . . . One person unsubscribed, calling me a bitch. . . . "I have learned again and again that when I am being called a bitch it means I am doing something right." - @lyz.bsky.social at Patreon

"European leaders have largely given up on hopes that they can bring back the America they used to know, and are quietly, in effect, declaring independence. . . . "Their willingness to de-Americanize partly reflects recognition that reconciliation is hopeless. . . ." -- @pkrugman.bsky.social [1/2]

"You become part of the problem when you repost these crazy yet entertaining stories. If you don't have time to check something before reposting or liking it, please be a warrior for the truth & don't press that button." This ex-reporter lists 6 reality checks that "should take less than a minute."

"It's extremely unlikely that anything substantive will come out of this NATO meeting. A year ago, the prospect of a failed summit would have been a source of deep concern. Now it will be met with a shrug. "Nobody expects anything but chaotic bluster from Trump." -- @pkrugman.bsky.social

"Don't let anyone tell you this has nothing to do with MAGA. Don’t let anyone insist this is some isolated phenomenon detached from the political movement that has flourished. . . . "Hatred survives when ambitious men discover it can be cultivated for power." -- @steveschmidt.bsky.social

"Democrats shouldn't lower their standards because the other party already has. If anything, this is the moment to insist that the same principles apply every time, regardless of whose name is on the ballot. “We’re in this together” -- @joycewhitevance.bsky.social on Graham Platner of Maine

Politics writer @sjdemas.bsky.social on Graham Platner, expected to drop his Maine campaign for U.S. Senate soon:

"Donald Trump didn't invent America's oldest prejudices. He exploited them. He legitimized them. He rewarded them. He transformed grievance into political identity and extremism into social permission. . . . "This photograph is evidence of it."

"When a candidate who has sexually abused women seeks public office, it doesn't matter what party he's in. He should be out. He’s not fit. . . . "It's not about guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead, it’s a decision about whether someone is fit to hold a job." -- @joycewhitevance.bsky.social

What’s nice is I don’t have to delete my platner takes. Mine pointed out I had a bad gut feeling from the start.

oh yeah this is a weekend at bernie’s situation

"A world in which playing fields are level is not the world Trump wants. He wants one in which people in power can ignore the rule of law for their own ends." -- @hcrichardson.bsky.social, historian who lives in Maine but does not want to run for Senate

➡️ Caption challenge: ⬅️ Real photo by Evan Vucci of @reuters.com from Oval Office ceremony Monday about a federal pledge to deposit $1,000 into IRA-style accounts for kids born in 2025-28. 💠 What might be a thought bubble above the child props❓

"Not so long ago, an American president was considered the leader of the free world. That title has been eroded as we watch walls go up and relationships shatter. Instead, Trump is hunkering down in isolationism, with no strategic endgame" -- @thedanrather.bsky.social | substack.com/home/post/p-...

"A [Democratic] party that tells women their safety, rights and dignity are negotiable — that abusive behavior is forgivable if the politics are right — is not the resistance. It's the same old story with better Instagram reels." - @sjdemas.bsky.social on Senate nominee Graham Platner of Maine [1/2]

"Trump is happy to interfere in an internat'l incident that might mean the difference between America winning or losing a game. "But he does not want to be involved in an alliance [NATO] that might mean the difference between the world winning or losing its security." -- @thedanrather.bsky.social

We’ve entered the period of the evening when I can’t tell whether the “it’s all over now” vagueposts are about Platner, the USMNT or McConnell.

Veteran politics writer and editor @sjdemas.bsky.social called out her party when Graham Platner won its Sen. primary in Maine w/ 75% of the vote. It resonates today "I've been covering Democratic politics for 25 years, and I've watched this pattern play out with depressing regularity. . . ." [1/3]

"For 250 years, we have relied excessively on the hope that democratic norms largely unsupported by legal coercion would hold the system together. . . . "We would all benefit from a political system with more cranky, Larry David-esque provocateurs." -- @jenrubin.bsky.social

@jenrubin.bsky.social salutes "Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness." "We can thank [Larry David] for a timely reminder: Greater irreverence & willingness to innovate a system created by very imperfect Founders may be precisely what we need to arrest our drift into an authoritarian dystopia."

"Look at the photograph. Sit with it. Ask yourself what it says about the country 250 years after its birth. . . . "One image that says more about this moment in American life than a thousand campaign rallies or cable news panels ever could." — @Steve Schmidt (@thewarningses.bsky.social)

"Imagine what this anniversary could have been with different national leadership. "It could have made us more united and appreciative of one another, a chance to celebrate what we share instead of stoking and exploiting our divisions." -- @elliotkirschner.bsky.social

"[Trump] is betting that the corruption will be so constant that we stop hearing it. That the outrage will just turn into exhaustion & the exhaustion will just turn into acceptance. We can't let that happen. "Because once corruption becomes normal, it becomes permanent" - @chrismurphyct.bsky.social

@nytimes.com landing page on our 250th anniversary weekend in this sweet land of liberty . . . if we can keep it:

In a July 4 post, @joycewhitevance.bsky.social celebrates “that we are still here with no thought of bending the knee.” "Democrats are the party of patriotism and country, the party of democracy and No Kings, and it's time to claim that space and be proud of who we are and what we've accomplished."

Today, I'm announcing that I am suspending my campaign for United States Senate.

Writing headlines for the web is a mostly thankless task, but even so, this is quite the attempt at "balance" by the WashPost:

"Every time a newspaper headline, cable news pundit, legal analyst or even progressive politician refers to the 'conservative' justices on the [Supreme] Court, they are sanewashing a group that is neither acting like justices nor behaving like conservatives." -- @elliotkirschner.bsky.social [1/2]

Sen. Mitch "McConnell has been hospitalized for weeks. Must be nice to have a job where you can have free healthcare even if you don't show up for it." "The rest of America wouldn't know because he continually votes against making our healthcare more affordable or accessible."  - @lyz.bsky.social

"That we are in the midst of a significant struggle this Fourth of July is perhaps the most honest way we can celebrate its true meaning. "We want life to be better. We want liberty to be greater. And the sadness we feel is a yearning for the pursuit of happiness." -- @elliotkirschner.bsky.social

@lktiv.bsky.social cracks wise about the Great American State Fair:

"Asked what kind of government the framers had produced, Benjamin Franklin is said to have replied: 'A republic, if you can keep it.' "The conditional part of that sentence — the if — comes fresh to every generation & is the work in front of us" - @nytopinion.nytimes.com editorial today [gift link]

"Donald Trump believes that government exists to serve him—to make him richer, to protect his friends, to reward his donors. That's why he doesn't have time for you. "He doesn't have time to solve real problems because he's making money for himself and his friends" — Sen. @chrismurphyct.bsky.social

"The radical, destructive & unhinged Supreme Court majority ... are radical, reactionary & revanchist, unrestrained in their methods & imperious in their certainty. "They don't seem to believe they are bound by precedent, Congress, history, institutional legitimacy." -- @elliotkirschner.bsky.social

My German parents, who hadn't yet met, landed on steamships in the late 1940s. There were proud Americans and so am I, co-hosting dinner with four neighbors this 250th Independence Day. This land is our land. [h/t @stuarth2o.bsky.social, son of 1949 immigrants]

"The Great American State Fair has been neither great nor particularly American. It doesn't include all the states, and it's not much of a fair. . . . "I wrote that as a joke, but . . . reality will out-weird you at every step. . . Reality is the joke." -- @lyz.bsky.social

"Congress' approval of the final form of the Declaration of Independence marked the delegates' ultimate conviction that a nation should rest not on the arbitrary rule of a single man and his hand-picked advisors, but on the rule of law." -- @hcrichardson.bsky.social, Boston College historian

"And crown thy good with brotherhood "From sea to shining sea." -- Katharine Lee Bates, poet who wrote 'America the Beautiful' in 1893

Trump borrowed more than $50 million from Charles Schwab Bank last year. But what we don't know— 💰️ why he needed the funds 💰️ how he used the funds 💰️ what assets he pledged as collateral 💰️ the exact amount he borrowed 💰️ when it's due ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ @danalexander21.bsky.social for Forbes

"Like many Americans, I am an immigrant. I came after a childhood that took me through Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran & the United Kingdom — through revolution, war, military rule and race riots. I've seen what it looks like when democracies fracture." - @lispahani.bsky.social at @contrariannews.org 1/2

"The White House is not a business opportunity. The presidency is not a license to steal from the American people. "The government of the United States doesn't exist to make Donald Trump rich. It belongs to the American people."

Trump has earned $2.3 billion since the beginning of his presidency through 4 different crypto schemes.   The common denominator for each: the Trumps win big, and you lose. Data from @reuters.com.

The wit and wiseassery of @lyz.bsky.social Lenz spices her latest Patreon essay. * "Every time a Cybertruck roars, a new demon gets its horns." * "Hot socialist summer is in full swing!" * "I cannot wait for the Taylor Swift divorce album."

@lktiv.bsky.social on the so-called Great American State Fair:

"When those fireworks go off, I'll put aside concerns about our political crisis & celebrate without reservation the privilege of growing up in, to use Abe Lincoln's words, a country "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" -- @davidfrenchjag.bsky.social

"Because Trump governs primarily through executive action, not legislation, it's easy to envision a successor reversing the U.S. exit from the World Health Organization or the dismantling of the Dept. of Education. But it's much harder to tear down a ballroom." - Shelby Talcott at @semafor.com [1/2]

"For two and a half centuries, Americans have been committed to a better country and a brighter future — and determined to do the work that makes both real. "That is what patriotism has always looked like. That's worth celebrating — and fighting for" -- @lispahani.bsky.social at @contrariannews.org