I’ve gotten requests for free work “for exposure” my whole life, once from a literal billionaire. Luckily less so in recent decades. But using the “for exposure” excuse with TAYLOR SWIFT? Truly warped. There’s a whole class of business shitheads who really think no artist *deserves* to be paid.

Another day in Trump’s America.

Literally the authoritarian playbook: 1. Call your opponents terrorists. 2. Deploy state power against them. There's nothing subtle or confusing or complex about what's happening. The *outcome* is uncertain but the authoritarianism is right out in the open.

Last two sentences practically beg his next Dem successor to reverse it on day one.

Like the Twitter app, I want Bluesky to open at the last post I read and load new posts above it so I can read in chronological order.

There was an official investigation that found that Comey didn't lie when he said he didn't authorize his underling to leak information about the Russia collusion investigation. The guy had prior and ongoing authorization to talk to the media. He didn't need to ask Comey's permission.

Three tariff announcements tonight, each one is dumber than the last. I don’t even know how to read this except as a way for the White House to exempt US pharma multinationals (who import a lot but are always building *something*) and push out smaller foreign competitors.

The MAGA monocultural revolution is so thorough that Hegseth made it a priority to honor soldiers who carried out war crimes in 1890.

"experts say" www.cnn.com/2025/08/11/b...

Comey's testimony in 2020 On the left: In hearing, Senator Cruz erroneously claimed McCabe had said Comey "directly authorized" leak to press. Comey denied that. On the right: Cruz was wrong. McCabe did not say Comey authorized the leak (source: Inspector General Report, on which Cruz relies)

Firing all the people who believe in the rule of law will at least make it easier to purge the Trump partisans when this house of cards collapses.

As awful as it must be to be Lindsey Graham, it's not nearly awful enough.

He repeatedly made the nonsense claim that he was going to cut drug prices anywhere between 1000 and 1500%. In reality, people are going to have to choose between medicine and food or shelter.

All the reporting says Erik Siebert was loyal MAGA. But because he wouldn’t bring bullshit charges against James and Comey, Trump quickly threw him under the bus, casting him as a deep-stater beloved by Democrats. They don’t learn. There is no way to serve in this administration ethically.

“Heavy (Big!) Trucks” In case you didn’t know what heavy trucks are. They’re big.

Not even 20 minutes later and I guess we’re doing 50% tariffs on IKEA for some reason. He’s a man with a plan to make life more expensive and he can’t be stopped.

Patel is basically admitting on camera that the FBI no longer adheres to the Attorney General Guidelines, which prohibits investigating U.S. persons based solely on First Amendment activity (including membership in a group).

Probably no man bears more individual responsibility for electing Trump the first time, and this is also transparent bullshit bsky.app/profile/phil...

2020: lol dumb libs think words are violence 2025: president trump issues memo declaring words are violence

He talks about moving a World Cup game out of Chicago because it has high crime, which is interesting because there is no game slated for Chicago. But Dallas has a World Cup game, and Dallas has a higher violent crime rate than Chicago, and Dallas has a Republican mayor … oh, OK, I see it now.

Reid Hoffman, the billionaire founder of LinkedIn, funded E. Jean Carroll's litigation against Trump.

In his confirmation hearing, under oath, he said “climate change is real.”

This is really bad. It won’t get the popular opposition the Kimmel incident did, but it’s way more sweeping and authoritarian. This is an effort to bring the full force of government down on any and all opposition to this administration. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Brilliant businessman accidentally gives employees 7-month paid vacation.

One of the truly weird culture war flashpoints of this era is how an anti-parasitic on the market for 35 years became the right's cure-all snake oil and popular way of signaling contempt for modern medicine.

Republicans can’t win on their policies, so they are trying to dodge accountability by rewriting the rules. These lawmakers are going out of their way to silence the will of the people and deliberately undermine our democracy.

Trump is bailing out Argentina’s economy to the tune of $20 billion while our farmers are enduring a crisis that he caused with his tariffs. On top of that, food, housing, health care and electricity costs continue skyrocketing. That’s not putting America first.

This is the predictable & unprecedented new level of open corruption that happens when the president openly monetizes his hotel in plain sight for four years & we don't do anything about it.

Hard to make a better case for bored decadence than "I am very upset about hearing that the president of the United States had to walk up one flight of stairs, it must be a conspiracy, this is personally victimizing me, I'm a victim."

Arrest and charge this motherfucker

They’re literally giving prosecutors the names of people and organizations, and telling them to go find crimes. It’s clear from the NYT that the directive came from Trump. This is a direct consequence of Roberts explicitly immunizing weaponization of DOJ in Trump v. US.

I will never understand why the MAGA right is so enamored with this product. Meanwhile, the federal government is cancelling actual research into cancer cures, research that had real potential.

[5 second Google search]

Also: when a government acts brutally and lawlessly and immorally, but tells you that pointing those things out incites violence and terrorism, that government and its agents are entitled to no respect or credence.

Republicans, Trump included, are zeroing in on transgender people and blaming us for the looming government shutdown. They are demanding that Democrats cave on transgender rights. Many of them are copying the same talking points in their messages.

If a government tells you that you can’t call it authoritarian, it’s authoritarian.

People seem determined to remember Charlie Kirk as a devout Christian. This includes mainstream and liberal descriptions of him and not just MAGA hagiography. But look, the things he said about people were in direct contravention of Christ’s teachings. It’s deeply perverted to suggest otherwise.

Modest proposal: If you are a producer who doesn't like awards shows, do not produce one. If you are a host who doesn't like awards shows, do not host one. If you are a television viewer who doesn't like watching awards shows, do not watch one.

The acrapolis.

CBS got their hands on a rendering of Trump's big White House ballroom. We'll let you pass judgement in the replies here.

At this point we all know that “low IQ” is his way of saying “black or brown,” right?

Remember that the Trump Administration demands you idolize these agents and not condemn them. But they’re Gestapo trash.

The circumstances of Mr. Escobar's arrest are even worse than the brief summary above. He repeatedly tried to tell the immigration officials that he had papers while they were arresting him. In response, a federal agent said "No you don't. You are illegal," and "Shut up, bitch! You're illegal."

WOW. The lead plaintiff is a Latino man who's been here legally for 24 years. He was grabbed off the street by plainclothes federal agents who didn't even ASK about his status. He was detained overnight and only released once a supervisor realized he had been illegally arrested.

This is what the next generation of Democrats does: Refuse to ask permission. Refuse to “wait your turn.” Fuck that. It’s time for change, whether the gatekeepers like it or not.

White supremacy means excluding African Americans from public universities (funded in part by their own taxes), forcing them to build up their own institutions (with less public support in every way), and then forcing your way into that space as well, so they can't escape Your Important Questions.

In what world do they imagine that 1) an assassin could get a gun into the UN, and 2) that assassin would be totally stymied by a moving escalator?

Funny thing about escalators: if they stop moving they become, you know, stairs…

Vance last year, on staging a reception to help Tucker Carlson sell VIP tickets after Carlson celebrated a Holocaust denier: "We believe in free speech." Vance now, on people who say gross things about Charlie Kirk: "Call their employer." The hypocrisy is bottomless. I lay out the receipts here.

NEW: The 1930s Peruvian strongman Óscar Benavides is perhaps best remembered today for allegedly uttering the pithy aphorism, “For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.” That’s the kind of legal system Donald Trump is working hard to bring about. www.thebulwark.com/p/its-waterg...