Todd Blanche Puts Dmitry Firtash's Onetime Lawyer In Charge of Criminalizing the Russian Investigation emptywheel.net/2026/04/19/t...

Todd Blanche Puts Dmitry Firtash's Onetime Lawyer In Charge of Criminalizing the Russian Investigation - emptywheel

The biggest reason Joe DiGenova is a wildly inappropriate person to lead an attempt to criminalize the Russian investigation is his past efforts to get paid by Russian-backed Ukrainians to do the same...

emptywheel.net

I will never forgive these assholes for making me repeatedly agree with Rand Paul 🤦🏻‍♂️

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 4mo ago

KERNEN: We'd never be able to send anyone back if you needed a judicial warrant every single time RAND PAUL: Well, I don't think that's true. Obeying the 4th Amendment of the Constitution shouldn't be too difficult. It's something we fought the revolution over.

NEW: DOJ told a judge in New Jersey that it had violated court orders about 54 times between Dec. 5 and this week — the latest accounting of a phenomenon that used to be rare and is now rampant. www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

To my surprise, CDC is still tracking how many children RFK condemns to measles. Cases are getting younger and, of course, it is spreading faster. www.cdc.gov/measles/data...

It’s nuts that a member of Congress thinks that the drinking age is designed to ‘protect’ the beer.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6mo ago

Rep. Brian Steil: "I flew home to my home state of Wisconsin, went to buy a 6 pack a beer, the clerk asked for my ID, confirmed it, and then I was allowed to buy the beer. I just think it's nuts that we protect our beer more than our ballots."

this was good, actually www.nytimes.com/2026/01/18/o...

Opinion | An Old Theory Helps Explain What Happened to Renee Good

nytimes.com

DOJ investigating whether Denmark lied on its Greenland mortgage.

I bet there’s some law against impersonating a state worker. This is not an “in the heat of the moment” situation, this is them very deliberately lying about being a state worker.

brian nam-sonenstein@bson.bsky.social · 7mo ago

There have been confirmed reports from local organizers in Portland ME that ICE is knocking on doors claiming to be from MaineCare and “offering help“

So, just yesterday: - 5 GOP senators joined Democrats to advance a resolution terminating hostilities in Venezuela; - The Senate gave unanimous consent to a resolution installing the J6 plaque in the Senate - 17 House GOP joined Dems to vote to extend ACA subsidies; (cont.)

This is incredibly well done, and totally damning. Videos Contradict Trump Administration Account of ICE Shooting in Minneapolis www.nytimes.com/video/us/100...

Video: Videos Contradict Trump Administration Account of ICE Shooting in Minneapolis

An analysis of footage from three camera angles show that the vehicle appears to be turning away from a federal officer as he opened fire.

nytimes.com

"why aren't people watching cable news?" cable news:

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 7mo ago

CNN is covering the Kalshi prediction markets as though they are news

TRUMP 2018: I never use that term. TRUMP 2025: Ok maybe sometimes.

NEW: The White House intervened in a DHS investigation. The target? Sex offender Andrew Tate. The WH person? Paul “Nazi Streak” Ingrassia. Who was previously also Tate’s lawyer. A banger from @robert-faturechi.bsky.social & Avi Asher-Shapiro www.propublica.org/article/andr...

When Democrats lose an election, we beat ourselves up over it for months. When Republicans lose an election, they convince themselves within 24 hours that they really won.

“I really don’t care. Do u?”

AAA gas prices: up w/w, down y/y Today’s National Average: $3.084 One Year Ago: $3.107

New Jersey’s mood right now! #HitTheRoadJack Vote @mikiesherrill.bsky.social 4 Governor!

Looks as if Trump is saying no Democrat will be allowed to win another national election—and he will use the FBI, the DOJ, and the CIA to make sure of that. This is a full-scale attack on American democracy, and every Republican, CEO, and conservative mouthpiece who doesn't object is complicit.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 10mo ago

Trump: "We can never let what happened in the 2020 election happen again. We just can't let that happen. I know Kash is working on it, everybody is working on it. And certainly Tulsi is working on it. We can't let that happen again to our country."

EXCLUSIVE: One Saturday afternoon in October, my phone lit up with a notification. I glanced down at the message. “Anna, Lindsey Halligan here,” it began. So began my text exchange with the woman who is prosecuting the president's perceived political enemies. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/anna...

An image of the Trump-Vance presidency smashing a wrecking ball into the White House to build a monument to Dear Leader—during a government shutdown—captures 2025 pretty well

Jonathan Edwards@jonathanreports.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Scoop: Trump has started demolishing the White House's East Wing facade to build his ballroom. The president had claimed construction of the $250 million building wouldn’t ‘interfere’ with the existing White House structure. /W @ddiamond.bsky.social wapo.st/4hqBNiU

Just three months ago they were brazenly denying that there were any #Medicaid cuts at all in the budget reconciliation law, despite the $990B in cuts being the largest cuts to the program in history which will make 7.5M people uninsured.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 10mo ago

KERNEN: There was an op-ed in the Journal urging Republicans not to get soft on some of the Medicaid cuts that we saw in the beautiful bill BESSENT: The spending cuts that occurred in the one big beautiful bill were the largest in history and we're not gonna go back on them

It doesn’t seem like it should be remotely controversial that if you’re killed by police while obviously storming the US Capitol that the military shouldn’t go out of its way years later to honor you, but then again Trump just rehung a portrait of Col. Robert E. Lee at West Point, so….

James Fallows@jfallows.bsky.social · 11mo ago

From @markhertling.bsky.social — retired Three Star General, veteran of our modern wars. www.thebulwark.com/p/honoring-a...

Wow we’ve come a long way from 1968

andy™@andylevy.net · 11mo ago

hey hey rfk how many kids did you kill today

Authoritarian theater turns out to be pricey.

Bill Grueskin@bgrueskin.bsky.social · 11mo ago

So.... 1)The state of Florida spent >$200 million to build the facility it calls "Alligator Alcatraz" 2) It opened in early July, christened by Trump. 3) Now it is closing, due to a judge's order. 4) It will cost $20 million to dismantle the center, which was used for about 2 months.

Bill Pulte keeps "finding mortgage fraud" because his whole family is in the business of encouraging people to "just check the box... you'll reduce your tax bill and NO ONE EVER REVIEWS THESE THINGS ANYWAY."

Axios shows its corporate stripes every day.

Drew Harwell@drewharwell.com · last yr.

Quite the intro to today's Axios

To Axios, shipping nonwhite US residents to torture prisons; destroying the admin state with thousands of lost jobs, millions dying abroad, and gutted disaster relief, safety, and science; plus giant flat taxes via tariffs, major graft, AND a child sex-trafficking coverup is apparently “winning”

Drew Harwell@drewharwell.com · last yr.

Quite the intro to today's Axios

The same people demanding you present a photo ID to vote are perfectly fine with letting you be arrested, handcuffed & thrown into a van by armed men wearing plain clothes, face masks & presenting no identification of any sort.