You and your wife drop your 6-year-old off at school. You just moved here. You see ICE terrorizing your new neighbors. You film them, as is your legal right. Your wife complies with orders. She is then shot in the head. You still have to pick up your child later today. This could be you.

Every single congressional Democrat needs to be out there, right now, insisting that Pete Hegseth resign right now and announcing that he will be held accountable for committing war crimes. If you do not demand accountability here and now, they will only become more emboldened.

Sorry to be corny but the aerial shots of these crowds are almost indescribably moving and hopeful

For a decade, Trump has wanted to be a dictator. The only changes during that time are 1) the realization by Republicans across the board that they might be able to use his cult of personality as a *permanent* power grab, and 2) the speed of our institutional degradation and collapse.

Holy shit, they did it. They wrote the headline.

oh

If that’s what they do to a United States Senator with a question, imagine what they can do to any American that dares to speak up. We will hold this administration accountable.

"Masked security forces captured an opposition leader in the coastal province of New Jersey as regime officials continue their months-long crack-down against pro-democracy elements in the embattled United States. The arrest comes as the regime issued calls for summary detentions without trial."

We are speedrunning the Declaration of Independence, folks.

If the Supreme Court ultimately agrees with what the gov't is arguing today, that the President has broad Article II powers that would permit it to deport people & there can be no judicial review, then literally no one is safe.

American politics makes a lot more sense when you realize that the GOP is afraid of pissing off the GOP base, and the Dems are afraid of pissing off the GOP base, but neither party is afraid of pissing off the Dem base.

This vote was to start the process of the cuts. It WILL come back for a final vote. There are some chances to slow or potentially stop it. Need constant pressure on GOP Focus on GOP swing seats & key committees. Energy & Commerce is where the Medicaid fight will go down. Ways&Means for tax fight.

One of my best friends is from a sleepy, wealthy small town in the south-west of Germany. He said, so many of my parents’ neighbours are rich and bored, with little to complain about, and they’ve radicalised themselves at dinner parties and online. In their aimlessness, they’ve bonded over hate.

Here it is in a nutshell: 1. Trump is an authoritarian. 2. With the GOP controlling Congress, courts are key to protecting democracy. 3. So far, courts are doing a good job on #2. 4. GOP will next attack election rules like they did in 2021. Don't let the cynics convince you not to fight. FIGHT!

in what meaningful way can we say that the constitution is in effect when an unelected and unaccountable billionaire is wielding state power to unilaterally cancel congressional appropriations?

This is what the government did with 120K+ Japanese Americans in 1942. I know. I was there in those camps.

Do you know why a president would do all the most evil and heinous shit via Executive Order? Because his party can't easily make it law. And if they can't make it law, they can't make it last. Don't let anyone make you feel like this is The End. Do not let them demoralize you. Live to see them die.

One episode away from finishing the first season for the first time, and these are my thoughts, word for word.

GEORGE LUCAS IN 1999: a trade embargo is going to spark the galactic reckoning and collapse ME IN 2025: ah, okay

It's fun to be living in a moment when it seems like we are about to enter an era of terrifying authoritarianism OR an era of authoritarian overreach that immediately crumbles and gives way to something better, and these two things might happen simultaneously, and we won't know for sure for A BIT.

Fact-checking wasn’t “biased” against conservatives. Conservatives just shared more false content. If there’s a sportsball game and one team fouls four times as much, it’s not “biased” for the ref to call four times as many fouls against that team.

At the time, everyone, including Republicans, understood how bad it was. Then, brick by brick, they built a foundation of lies to justify doing what they know, deep down, to be wrong. Trump betrayed the country. And so do they.

A big one today with @mikecaulfield.bsky.social. It's about Jan 6th but its really about trying to diagnose what precisely is broken about our information ecosystem and why everything feels so stuck. It's about how the internet is a justification machine. www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

my armchair psychological diagnosis is that the drive to accumulate as much wealth as possible eats away at the drive for self-improvement or the internal desire to cultivate any skills or tastes. these people build huge mounds of treasure and then essentially just sit around looking at it, empty.

LA TIMES: Greetings, President Trump! Our billionaire owner is personally approving every headline in order to ensure we never treat you unkindly. WASHINGTON POST: Here is one million dollars for your inauguration, sir. ABC NEWS: We got you a Christmas present. It's fifteen million bucks.

warning signs that the North Carolina supreme court may end up overturning the results of a major election:

the frenzy over the hunter biden pardon is a good reminder that the press knows how to make something a scandal and has decided that nothing trump does is truly deserving of that treatment

I was listening to an interview with Ayana Elizabeth Johnson a few days ago who said we need more stories in Hollywood depicting a solutions oriented future beyond dystopia. My first thought: Star Trek’s been there this entire time. Gene Roddenberry+ have given us a lot on which to build.

It is all going to get so, so much stupider

The fact that, a week and a half after the country resoundingly elected Trump, everyone is focused on a boxing match between a 60 year old and a YouTube dipshit is huge “I’d buy that for a dollar!” dystopia energy.

Feeling my sanity slipping away as more and more (genuinely awful) stories about what Trump said or did accrues. Because: HE PLOTTED AND ATTEMPTED TO EXECUTE A VIOLENT COUP ON LIVE TV! HE ATTMEPTED TO END THE REPUBLIC! HE'S THE BIGGEST TRAITOR TO THE CONSITUTIONAL ORDER SINCE THE CONFEDERACY!

Every writer still on Twitter thinks they're Christopher Hitchens in a war zone instead of just someone with credulous brand loyalty (to a Nazi particle machine)

I hope this reminds people of what I have said all along. Trump is beyond beatable whether it’s Joe, Kamala, or someone else. Fucking act like it.

This guy with full immunity for “official acts,” plus the unlimited ability to pardon any official who would implement such orders = “limited government” Republican style.

From reading the article, there’s a ton of “yay for police!” to get through before the information that the city deployed social workers who referred troubled kids and their families to Social Services instead of putting them in the system.

One of the meanest, dumbest assholes on the planet got clocked on 34 charges, let yourself enjoy it a little

Probably a good time to repost eco’s 14 points on ur fascism. Instead of alt text I’m going to add them as a thread.

Here’s what the national guard bullshit is really about. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

real marked difference between a country with a recent experience of dictatorship and one blithely convinced It Can't Happen Here, We're Too Special and Good

Vladimir: Well, shall we log off? Estragon: Yes, let's log off. [They do not log off.]

The answer to every story about elite college admissions is to make sure every American has access to a low price high quality public education within a reasonable drive of their hometown. The wild thing is we mostly achieved this. Then destroyed it.

One thing the framers of the 14 amendment understood insurrectionists have constituencies and insurrections shouldn't be allowed to continue via ballots.

If you see a graph of any trend in modern America with a sharp infection point, odds are good that’s the point labeled 1980

Plans to use the military to put down civil protests on day one. It will get bad very fast!

aside from the most obvious stuff, centrist dipshits are really sleeping on the possibility that the House will not certify a Biden victory if any Republican is speaker

Unsurprising that Bouie has a good take about media consumption in general. Lore fixation is a curse on genre/franchise storytelling. But...weird to me that he (and many others!) are applying this to Ahsoka, a show that, to me, had clear character arcs and central conflicts driving the story. (1/)