The second half of the trump presidency is just going to be Onion articles come to life 🍊🤡

Really good points here. TLDR: Be partisan Dems!

Will Stancil@whstancil.bsky.social · 2d ago

This is, incidentally, the precise mistake Dems made with regards to Clarence Thomas for years. If they’d said (correctly) that his huge ethical breaches necessitated his resignation, each subsequent revelation - which went on for YEARS - would have made their demand look more prescient and urgent.

It’s really a relief to know the whole country isn’t as crazy as the President.

This "retribution" debate is maddening. No one is demanding revenge for bad tax policy or ill-considered deregulation. It's about accountability for open-air bribes, graft, extrajudicial executions, DOJ weaponization, unleashing state violence on immigrants, and killing people in the street.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 4d ago

El-Sayed: "As along as people see our politics as being about this red vs blue retribution game, all of us collectively lose. If you are focused on addressing the ways that bad decisions were made and then you can solve them, that's where I think accountability has to stand."

The people spoke. Now lawmakers must act: bit.ly/4BEB7jD

I don't want Hegseth to be fired I want him to be impeached, removed, and barred from holding future office www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-h...

Trump asking advisers if Hegseth should go, sources say

President Trump has been asking his advisers if Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should remain in his job after Tuesday's losses.

cbsnews.com

Gerrymandering is insidious and the districts Dems were able to win this time will now work to CRIPPLE what some of these Dems feel comfortable doing while governing. We STILL need to pass laws (and possibly constitutional amendments) to restrain gerrymandering.

yes, it is VERY OBVIOUSLY THE CASE that vote splitting by running a guy with the same name will be much more effective under a first past the post system. they are being intentionally dishonest bsky.app/profile/inca...

@incapotomus.bsky.social · last wk.

this is particularly remarkable for its nonsense and shows how much the coverage is driven by whatever two things Trump’s dying brain associates. Why would this “bolster critics“ of ranked choice? Ranked choice is the solution! If this story means anything it shows the need for ranked choice.

What Musk is actually scared of: -DOGE hearings -Starlink hearings -NHTSA implementing a 2016 guidance that deems "foreseeable misuse" of driver assistance systems a defect -DOJ fraud charges over "Full Self-Driving" -EPA crackdown on systematically out-of-compliance facilities at Musk-run firms

Karl Bode@karlbode.com · last wk.

the "other reasons" Musk deems "irrelevant" include silly little stuff like requiring his companies adhere to the law

He also makes an eloquent defense of why Democrats must pursue extensive investigations and potential impeachments, because the public must see the historic scale of Trump's crimes. I would only add that anyone Trump pardons has no Fifth Amendment privilege. Democrats must maximally use that fact.

Ossoff is prosecuting the case against Trump as one would prosecute a no-confidence vote in a parliamentary system

Trump is blowing up the international order so he can steal the loose change in the couch.

Richard Branson explains that Trump is Putin's dog.

This is profoundly shameful! #TrumpIsUnfitForOffice #Ukraine #Starshield 👇

Edward Hunter Christie@ehunterchristie.bsky.social · 3w ago

It adds insult to injury - and it further damages the credibility of the United States as a country - that a decision as damaging as this one for the defence of a partner country isn't even owned up to and conveyed openly. Instead, one learns piecemeal, 48 hours in, what has happened.

Reuters: Order to limit Starshield for Ukraine came from inside White House, sources say (free mirror of Reuters content below) www.internazionale.it/ultime-notiz...

Exclusive-Order to limit Starshield for Ukraine came from inside White House, sources say

By Erin Banco and Gram SlatteryNEW YORK/WASHINGTON, Oct 15 (Reuters) - The order to limit a satellite system used by Ukraine for battlefield communications and drone oper… Leggi

internazionale.it

A big problem with the Trump era lasting so long for Republicans is that it's really hollowed out their talent pool. Older, non-Trumpist guys have retired and the party is repelling a lot of the younger, competent PMC cadres they need to have in their talent pipeline.

Zelenskyy tells Piers Morgan Trump has betrayed him and that Musk and the US deliberately cut off Starlink and people are being killed as a result “This is not the right side of history. It is a pity that we are losing a strong partner”

I told you that’s next.

“It’s his responsibility to make us not look stupid.”

Shoe@shoe.bsky.social · 4w ago

James "Tricky" Talarico tricksed us!

Kinzinger: “That’s the thing about the words that come from the presidential podium. They aren’t like the words the rest of us say. They carry the weight of the office, and the people who hold it have always understood that.” 💯

Adam Kinzinger@adamkinzinger.substack.com · last mo.

Trump can’t talk his way out of this one. He fumbled part of his most recent speech so badly that he ended up with the suggestion of Iran bombing U.S. cities. In typical fashion, the White House is saying you didn't hear clearly that which you obviously did. (link below)

Another good take by @brianbeutler.bsky.social...it reminds me of the importance of reading and understanding Hofstadter's Anti-intellectualism in American Life, which starts from the decline of McCarthyism... www.offmessage.net/p/republican...

Republican Disarray And The Second Failure Of McCarthyism

The missing ingredient, for now, is consequences.

offmessage.net

What a joke. We are governed by performative morons. It provides zero confidence that AI in the military will be executed well. Hegseth is too busy yapping his gums and firing people (in order to mask his profound incompetence and insecurity). Good times. 🙁

Helen Kennedy@helenkennedy.com · last mo.

I had a lot of fun with this thread yesterday and people seem to enjoy it. I am sad to have to report, that today they have reprogrammed the new federal chatbot to refuse to answer questions that might embarrass Trump. Eg: Yesterday Today

The projection here is next-level. No words …. ☹️🤡

Mark Chadbourn@chadbourn.bsky.social · last mo.

Hegseth: “The ideological clowns are out. The patriotic cowboys are in, with testosterone testing on top.”

These ads go in the same category as brazen, easily disproven lies after ICE killings. It’s not about persuasion. It’s a display of power. They could have passed them off as PAC-funded. They added “paid for by the U.S. government” because they want us to know they can break the law with impunity.

Asawin Suebsaeng@swin24.bsky.social · last mo.

zeteo.com/p/trumps-whi...

When the “censorship industrial complex” myth was just getting started, in Fall 2022, I got a public records request from the AG’s office of Missouri looking for all my emails related to my team’s election rumor research. The Missouri AG at that time? Eric Schmitt. What a tool.

Sahil Kapur@sahilkapur.bsky.social · last mo.

A phenomenal moment in the Senate. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., claims he has evidence Jack Smith went to a HAWKS game in Atlanta. Smith denies it. Schmitt declares he has busted Jack Smith for perjury. Smith, vexed, says he went to HAWKEYES game in Maryland. WATCH IN FULL, UNINTERRUPTED

Some good insights below. Even doing this second Jack Smith hearing ~6 weeks before the election seems RISKY and it signals that Trump still calls the shots. The entire GOP has no spine and/or they are too deep into Trump’s Kool-Aid to think straight anymore. Pathetic.

Aaron is not underrating this. It's cinema. The sly smirk when Schmitt thinks he's gotten Smith to perjure himself. The hasty vanishing of the sign. Klobuchar getting Kennedy to hold it up. Schmitt getting LOUD and ANGRY when Klobuchar points out he mixed up the Hawks and Hawkeyes.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last mo.

🤡 Schmitt beclowns himself 🤡 Schmitt concocted an elaborate conspiracy theory that Smith traveled to Atl for a Hawks game and to collude with Fani Willis, & flashed his "evidence" before accusing Smith of perjury. There's just one problem -- his facts were totally wrong. Here's the whole sequence:

Alex Karp is something to behold. Does he simply relish some form of World War III that is AI-centered and the US wins? I just saw Karp’s usual condescending and angry rant with Eamon Javers of CNBC in front of the White House; before AI leaders’ lunch with POTUS. #palantir

Perfect mojo for this political moment ! 👍 “make ‘em sweat” #resist #GOPCowards #impeach

Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 2mo ago

If they deserve to be impeached — and so many of them do — then the House should impeach them. Maybe the Senate won‘t convict but it’s still worth the effort to remind people that laws still exist and that Democrats still defend it. Also, as noted here, make ‘em sweat.

Your daily reminder that our POTUS is an embarrassing buffoon. 👇

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2mo ago

Trump: "Canada is destroying itself by allowing millions & millions into the Country, essentially unchecked & unvetted, & who are causing problems that'll soon be too big to handle. It is a Liberal takeover that will end very badly. Already showing up in their numbers. Big unemployment. ‘Oh Canada!"