“Trump is cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it.” -Vice President J.D. Vance

The founder we should talk more about is Thomas Paine, who will fuck your shit up every time. Here he is in The Rights of Man just ripping into any ideas of "originalism" and that kind of garbage.

A sadly apropos image for this particular July 4 in the nation’s capital. bsky.app/profile/joey...

We’ll be living with the consequences of this long after Trump is gone: “the new hierarchy is younger, has better command of the state’s levers of power, has gained insights from the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is savvier about soft-power tools including diplomacy and online propaganda.”

“If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher … as a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.” - Abraham Lincoln

“It was the latest move by the Trump administration to undermine laws intended to fight climate change and curb air pollutants that harm human health.” 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸

What once was self-evident is now revolutionary.

Patriotism vs. Nationalism: Patriotism seeks reconciliation with the past. Nationalism seeks refuge from it. Be a Patriot.

WTF: “Behind me was an aboveground swimming pool set up, ostensibly, for on-the-spot baptisms. In the spirit of inclusivity, there was also a candle-filled menorah positioned in the front of the tent.”

“I used to believe that most of us were doing our best to live up to those ideas. Trying and failing, and trying again to build a nation where anyone was entitled to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Do I still believe that now? I’m no longer sure[.]”

Jack Smith: "I think we are facing an attack on the rule of law that is different in kind and scope to anything I've seen in my lifetime"

“social democracy is as American as sliced bread”

America 250: “I found out that nobody cared” 😥

We are a soulless country.

Sotomayor: "the Court gives the President a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, elevating him above his once coequal branches." www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

German MEP Damian Boeselager, vice chair of the 🇪🇺Parliament's economy committee, warns that Trump has a kill switch to turn off Europe's economy. "Not every explosion makes a loud boom, but last Friday, I could definitely feel the earth tremble. Because Trump actually pressed a 'red button'..." 🧵

You mean images like this, right?

pass our law or we'll try to overthrow the republic every time we lose an election. because we're criminal degenerates.

Massie: "I think it's ironic that we control the House, Senate, Supreme Court, and the White House, and we're yelling 'election fraud'? I mean, we won all the damn elections."

have you heard this sort of urgency from Democrats about anything Trump has done

The upshot of this book so far: we have a cult, not a government.

“You have to apologize for winning” really sums up establishment Dem thought huh

Of course he did. Doesn't matter that the bill is bipartisan. He doesn't give a shit about Americans; he only cares about staying out of jail. And if that requires stealing an election or two and destroying American democracy, that's exactly what he's going to try to do.

It just means that established system of constitutional change--one where you need to build a political movement with supporting legal arguments, mobilizing, etc.--is still in effect. In other words, to change the constitution, you have to do a little more legwork in advance. /fin

If administration loses, it won't because law is suddenly supreme over politics or because the Justices are suddenly constrained by an original public meaning ascertained using originalists methods.

The birthright citizenship executive order is a test of whether the White House can dispense with all that. Stephen Miller didn't do the work of building an "intellectual" framework for overturning birthright citizenship. He just had Trump sign the order, assuming DOJ would force it on the courts.

It's easier for media to portray the election as an attack on American Jews than to delve into what NY-10 really was: The second most Jewish Congressional district in the US having a referendum between two Jewish candidates on what it means to do Jewish politics in the age of Trump and Netanyahu.

“I will be one of the Jewish members of Congress most willing to stand up for Palestinian human rights. And I will stand firmly against bigotry aimed at Jews. Those are not two different jobs. They are the same job,” Brad Lander said.

When a Jew wins a landslide election in the most Jewish city in the United States, where massive numbers of Jews turned out to reject a terrorist org that lobbies for genocide:

Because what they’ve been doing for the past 30 years has worked out so well…

Reading Regime Change and I can’t help but think of @mikeduncan.bsky.social’s The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic.

Incumbent Democrats haven't done much to stop Republicans from destroying this country, etc., and so the Democratic voters in their districts chose candidates who promised that they would, in fact, stop Republicans. That's precisely why there were primary challenges. This isn't complicated.

“Firing senior officers for cause is one thing. Firing them repeatedly on this scale and with no explanation is unprecedented in our nation’s history.”

“The fact that connections between the information sought in the subpoenas and any possible criminal violation range from extremely weak to nonexistent only adds to the overwhelming evidence that these subpoenas were not issued to investigate, but to harass, coerce, and retaliate.”

“So who are we? We're becoming bystanders in world events. America is a rogue power, it does crazy things…”

Trump inspecting the Reflecting Pool and declaring “SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE!” did it, when in reality it was poor workmanship by the companies he chose for the job is the kind of strongman theater you'd expect from N. Korea, not the US.

“He can’t control the Reflecting Pool or the Strait of Hormuz, but he can arrest people for nothing.”

RIP

You shouldn't threaten to destroy countries. But ... the more salient issue here is that Iran clearly has Trump's card. You can only threaten to annihilate a country maybe 11 times before the other country knows you're full of shit and your words are meaningless.

“.. This is not a document the United States agreed to because the war demonstrated a new U.S. military superiority. “.. it’s a document that has resulted from the fact that the United States bit off more than it could chew and doesn’t want to escalate.” . www.nytimes.com/2026/06/21/u...

“Mother, I've weighed the risks - which I prefer to living in a world dominated by Nazis. Bill" Thank god for Bill and so many more like him (Pic from @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social on X)

The profound part of Juneteenth for me is that before this was made a holiday, there was no official celebration of the end of slavery in the United States. When the 13th Amendment passed in December 1865, the legislators who witnessed its enshrinement imagined that the day would be remembered.

“Trump did what he always does: He abandoned all principle and all allies and put his personal interests above all other considerations.”

There have not been 45 other Presidents of the United States and “IQ” is debunked junk science that only stupid people and racists talk about

If you watch the Obama Library, the World Cup, and the Knicks parade this afternoon -- and nothing else -- you can actually see the America we're supposed to be at age 250

“Lazy Warmonger” is the perfect epitaph.

There's literally no US objective that this agreement satisfies. In fact, we're worse off than the previous status quo on even dimension it seems. What a catastrophe. We produced an even more hard line government and gave them more power while diminishing out own.

If accurate, a complete and total capitulation by America.

E 👏 v 👏 e 👏 r 👏 y 👏 t 👏 h 👏 i 👏 n 👏 g 👏 i 👏 s 👏 p 👏 r 👏 o 👏 j 👏 e 👏 c 👏 t 👏 i 👏 o 👏 n 👏

“Hokit singled out a prominent Black woman for humiliation, … and in doing so reiterated the MAGA belief that there is really only one right way to be an American. That is, to be male, white, heterosexual, and willing to do violence to anyone who isn’t these things.”