Trump deserves no credit for dropping this lawsuit. He's doing it to set up a $1.7 billion slush fund for right-wing political violence. If Trump follows through, it will be the most brazen theft of taxpayer dollars by any president in history.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act broke down barriers to representation for Black voters in Southern states. After Louisiana v Callais, "you're going to see the white majority in these places reassert its primacy," @mcpli.bsky.social tells @npr.org n.pr/42CWKR0

Dems need to start treating unions differently. Some of them are Dem stalwarts, with members voting D+40 or more, like NEA, AFT, CWA. Others aren't. Why should I support the employees of my local transit (SEPTA), who are TWU members, when they're paying dues to maintain MAGA control of Congress?

1. What I found in Trump's new 113-page financial disclosure report. It doesn't look good.

this fuckin guy

"For the third straight time, a Dem president handed a GOP president an economy that was at the least pretty good...for the third straight time, the GOPer made things worse." Essential @mjtoma.bsky.social: Trump's policies are directly to blame in a truly rare way: newrepublic.com/article/2105...

$1.776 as in 1776. As in celebrating America’s 250th anniversary by robbing the Treasury to reward those who are destroying the country

DOJ sets up corrupt $1.776B "Anti-Weaponization" compensation fund, ostensibly linked to collusive settlement of Trump's meritless $10B suit against IRS. Acting AG Todd Blanche directly involved. www.justice.gov/opa/media/14...

The president is stealing tax dollars from the public treasury to pay off his criminal cronies.

From last week, on the kinds of terrorists and child sex predators Trump has just promised to reward. emptywheel.net/2026/05/15/t...

I want to know the name of the judge who presided over this. I want that judge’s name and email address public. I want people to be able to ask that judge what the fuck was wrong with him or her. /1

The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room “has attracted a steady stream of visitors to 101 Reade Street…The files, printed and bound, take up 3,437 volumes, each about two inches thick; all told, they weigh more than eight tons.“ www.nytimes.com/2026/05/13/s...

And the other shoe drops: The Justice Department announces a $1.7B fund to compensate Trump allies in exchange for Trump dropping his IRS suit. apnews.com/article/trum...

Weirdly, Todd Blanche set up this slush fund for terrorists and sex predators one day before testimony before Appropriations.

Gerrymandering is getting worse and more frequent. We break down the past, present, and future of this antidemocratic practice: bit.ly/3MqI6FI

Read @ariberman.bsky.social on the new Jim Crow that SCOTUS has willingly enabled www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

“This outrageous event makes a mockery of a core constitutional tenet of American life, the separation of church and state, essentially promoting a particular flavor of white evangelical protestantism as state-sponsored religion."

!!! *HUNGARY'S GOAL IS TO ADOPT THE EURO, PREMIER MAGYAR SAYS

There's a way out of the redistricting wars - and it's possible without a Constitutional amendment: Ditch the districts and elect members at large with proportional representation and restore voters' voice. But public must demand it. via @opinion.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

3. Trump purchased between purchased between $1 million and $5 million worth of Dell Technologies stock on February 10. During an economic speech in Georgia nine days later, Trump told the audience to “go out and buy a Dell computer,” saying the company made “phenomenal products.”

2. Three more SMOKING GUNS in Trump's new 113 page financial disclosure. Trump purchased between $50,000 and $100,000 in Micron stock on March 25 (also unsolicited). The next day he called into The Five, said he had just met with Micron's CEO, and called Micron "one of the hottest companies."

1. On March 11, Trump toured a Thermo Fisher Scientific facility in Ohio and repeatedly praised the company. On *the same day* Trump bought between $15,000 and $50,000 of Thermo Fisher stock. The purchase was "UNSOLICITED," meaning it was requested by the customer, not recommended by an advisor.

"Have you taken up arms against your government? Or tried to overturn an election? You may be entitled to compensation?"

Trump and his lawyers “are figuring out a way to refund the January 6 militia, presumably to get them ready for the next round of battle," says Jamie Raskin in this piece:

On that. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/n...

Todd Blanche's corrupt DOJ also dismissing charges against Gautam Adani, in exchange for a $10B bribe (aka investments in US). storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Without the VRA, the GOP can gerrymander many Black & Latino legislative seats. They could gain supermajorities in MS & the GA+TX senates, block Dems from ending supermajorities in LA+SC, & make GA’s House virtually unwinnable. TX Dems could stop them by flipping TX’s House or gov’s office in 2026

Sadiq Khan: "When President Trump got elected in 2016, there was a 2000% increase in the racist hate I received." Full Byline Times interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Gn...

David Venturella, who spent more than a decade as an executive at the private-prison behemoth GEO Group, will be the next acting director of ICE. This has been a banner year for GEO Group, the largest private prison contractor incarcerating immigrants in the US: ICE is its single largest client.

On The Briefing with Michael Waldman, @profmmurray.bsky.social discusses her new book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader. Watch: bit.ly/4tsGahv

The USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor is the only U.S. historic site I've ever visited that was 100% quiet, with Americans showing complete respect. On that day, I doubt that any of us thought about snorkeling at the tomb of 900+ sailors and Marines. But Kash Patel thinks differently.

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are investors in two publicly listed companies (a golf business and a construction company) that plan to merge with drone companies and are pursuing business with the Pentagon. While deals were previously reported, my latest piece adds new details:

Students complain about a white conservative guy set to give a commencement speech, the university doesn't cancel him, it gets an article in the NYT. Students complain about a brown anti-genocide guy set to give a commencement speech, he is canceled, and no one on the campus culture cares. Huh.

Want to learn more? Check out the latest from @nlanard.bsky.social:

In 2022, Peter Thiel bought a Senate seat for JD Vance with $15 million in campaign expenditures—a pittance for a man whose net worth has increased by about $12 million a day. This year, a handful of cryptocurrency billionaires may be on the verge of helping to secure one in Alabama for even less.

This has been such a persistent issue with the @nytimes.com in particular, and criticized so often, that you really can't see it as an oversight anymore, but as a deliberate policy of contempt towards other media outlets.

Always grifting: Trump is expected to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in exchange for the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration. abcnews.com/US/trump-poi...

I spent the last six years closely following all of the claims by MAGA Inc. of so called "weaponization" of the Biden admin against them and literally every last bit of it was total and complete bullshit. It was fabricated nonsense. And now they're all gonna get rich.

Billionaires. Where are labor leaders and representatives? “A Closer Look at Who’s in the U.S. Delegation to China” www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

In a stunning act of political partisanship, the Roberts Court discarded its own precedents to green-light a last-ditch effort by Alabama to use a gerrymandered congressional map for the 2026 midterms.

Impressive work by Friedman here, summarizing a handful of the countless reasons why Trump cannot be trusted as a partner, then demanding the rest of NATO trust him as a partner to reopen the Strait. Why would they, especially when Trump has said he wants to toll the Strait with Iran?

The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority is relying on its own radical decisions to justify antidemocratic rulings, like the one to destroy the Voting Rights Act. For more on the Supreme Court of the United States, subscribe to Jesse Wegman’s newsletter Major Questions: bit.ly/42N7TP2

DOGE wanted you to think they were cutting waste. Here’s what they were actually doing: feeding grants into ChatGPT with a yes/no question about DEI, then wiping out everything that came back yes. These cuts didn’t reduce the federal deficit by a single dollar.

".. allies are deeply concerned that President Trump will bend to Xi’s request to delay arms sales to Taiwan .. it would suggest that for the right price, any partner’s fate may be for sale.” @financialtimes.com www.ft.com/content/156b...

Exclusive: The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general has launched a probe into the $38 billion warehouse-to-detention program championed by former Secretary Kristi Noem.

These homeowners counted on an energy efficiency program to fix their aging homes and lower their utility bills. The Trump administration canceled it, calling it DEI.

“Lying about people’s everyday expenses, bragging about cutting off the world’s oil supply, admitting he chose to derail the economy—it’s hard to imagine a more self-incriminating performance.” www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-admi...

ICE is a lawless thug army.

Trump incredulous, furious that brutalized American people are getting mad rather than fawning before his lies and bullshit.

The best edit cartoonist of the 21st century, by miles and miles