Todd Blanche's last-minute promise won over Senators Cornyn & Tillis, but shouldn't have. The "deal" leaves Trump's tax immunity intact. It confirms what the Senators should have already known about Blanche's lack of fitness to be AG. My analysis: open.substack.com/pub/joycevan...

The $1.776b Slush Fund Isn't As Dead As Senators Cornyn And Tillis Seem To Be Willing To Believe

MS NOW’s Mychael Schnell reported Monday morning that “Overnight: A spokesperson for Sen.

open.substack.com

The news story about Donald Trump being desperate for immunity for tax fraud & the news story about Donald Trump being kicked to the curb by Capital One for widespread money laundering are RELATED.

11 years ago today, Ken Paxton surrendered at the Collin County Jail on felony securities fraud charges. This is his mugshot.

CARTOON OF THE DAY (if you know who made this let us know)

Apparently there are a bunch of fake smbc merch operations, selling copies of our designs. Just a reminder, there is only one place to see our junk: smbc-store.myshopify.com/collections/...

That said, let us take a moment to thank our Bluesky Trans and Furry Elders for freaking out Jack Dorsey so much he bolted and left us this nice social media playground, taking most of his crypto chuds with him. We thank you for your service.

I should be clear that the architecture of Bluesky makes it the social media place I most like to be. I'm not on social media to be an influencer or instigator; I want to hang out with folks and have an enjoyable time. This place delivers on that. I hope it continues to do so for a long time.

Bluesky is a "liberal bubble" because fascist chuds can't get traction without algorithmic assistance and because people here trained themselves to block "debate me" trybois the instant they roll up

The Verge@theverge.com · 2d ago

Bluesky's new CEO Toni Schneider on the platform's reputation for being a liberal bubble: "Yes, we definitely want that to change. It is already changing. It certainly wasn’t designed to attract one specific group of people."

New Yorkers had to subsidize the $117 million that the NYPD paid out for misconduct lawsuits in 2025 alone, even though most of them were never personally abused by a cop. Where's your worried op-ed on that one?

USA TODAY Opinion@usatodayopinion.usatoday.com · 2d ago

Opinion: Mamdani's idea may sound appealing, but it's NYC taxpayers who will take the hit, subsidizing discounts they may never even use.

The “get politics out of sports” crowd is sure having a normal one

He's losing words. Anyone with a parent or loved one suffering from dementia will recognize this pattern. Wen he says "moving cameras," it's because he can't recall the word "videos" and so he's stating the component parts as best he can. E.g., a "camera" is involved and the images are "moving"

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2d ago

Trump: "We have photographs or tapes -- like moving cameras, right? -- where people are on the side cutting it with a box knife."

Maybe it’s just time for the GOP to go, to admit it is a failed, toxic brand and shut it all down.

The Daily Beast@thedailybeast.bsky.social · 3d ago

A Trump-endorsed candidate facing allegations of abuse has released a lengthy video refusing to drop out of the congressional race and trashing his ex-wife.

Trump allegedly just won his 43rd Club Championship today at one of his courses.

Anyone who has worked with domestic violence victims know the answer to this is too often yes.

President Trump decided to buy 11 polar icebreakers, worth almost $7 billion, after a game of golf with Finland’s president. The question, experts say, is how many the U.S. really needs. nyti.ms/4hK355K

Means-tested programs like SNAP are shaped not just by benefit levels, but by hassle. And hassle is regressive: it hits hardest when you lack a car, flexibility, cash, or time.⁣ ⁣ https://newsletter.platypuseconomics.com/p/how-snaps-new-rules-make-eligible

I’m astonished by the ability of my fellow humans to forget the events we all just lived through. Folks remember the masks and the remote school. The million US dead are rarely mentioned. Folks, we lived through a plague.

I’ve been yelling about it this all year. Municipalities still act like these are unfortunate incidents instead of what they are. They’re attacks on critical infrastructure. We’ve underinvested in modernizing essential systems and infrastructure while degrading cybersecurity.

Jeanine Pirro should be disbarred. It is absolutely indefensible and gross misconduct to rush through a criminal indictment for political reasons before an investigation has been completed, which resulted in false evidence being presented to a grand jury.

Feels more like Groundhog’s Day & less like news at this point

NBC News@nbcnews.com · 4d ago

BREAKING: Trump pauses attacks on Iran, citing “perimeters of a deal” that would end Tehran’s “nuclear threat” and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

This is a story about the President and several of his hand-picked appointees all committing crimes and blatantly lying to the public while stealing public funds and abusing the criminal justice system, but the NYTimes describes the situation like they're recapping a soap opera.

Larry Glickman@larryglickman.bsky.social · 3d ago

Another example of the problem with the fixation with Trump’s putative emotions: here a story about the Trump administration’s corruption, incompetence, and venality is framed as one about Trump’s “wrath.” www.nytimes.com/2026/08/01/u...

The diarrhea lettuce company, Taylor Farms, uses slave labor contracted from the Arizona Dept. of Corrections. The backbreaking labor is often performed by imprisoned Mexican nationals who would be otherwise ineligble to work in the US. They are paid $1.50 an hour.

The Diarrhea Lettuce Company Has Been Linked to Forced Labor

The lettuce-producing Taylor Farms was linked to the widespread use of prison labor before its involvement in a cyclospora outbreak.

futurism.com

It's pretty infuriating that Trump is denying disaster aid to Oregon for political reasons and I have barely heard anything about it, while Biden was falsely accused of doing the exact same thing to North Carolina and millions of people believed that

I’m so naïve I really didn’t think they would let the president sell high-level oval office information to traders for his own enrichment.

Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 4d ago

$DJT

Hard to overstate how much of a threat leaders and public officials who actually govern and serve the people pose to those whose political careers depend on fomenting cynicism and delegitimizing democracy

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani@mayor.nyc.gov · 5d ago

Now this is the kind of trash talk we can get behind. We’re containerizing neighborhoods by taking trash off our sidewalks and allowing mid-size buildings to trade in their wheelie bins for a bigger, better, cleaner alternative: Empire Bins. It’s time to put a lid on it, New York.

Frum: The 20% who lived in the most pro-Trump places suffered 70,000 more COVID deaths than the 20% in the most pro-Biden places. Red America obeyed those who told them not to mask, not to vaccinate. They died for it. No, Fauci is not the villain here. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Anthony Fauci Is Not the Villain in This Story

The doctor was thrust into his pandemic-leadership role because of Trump’s deadly dereliction of duty.

theatlantic.com

a republican congressman allegedly broke his two-year-old daughter's collarbone and he somehow hasn't been run out of congress. there really is no bridge too far for these ghouls.

‘Platner on steroids’: Max Miller abuse claims have Republicans silently sweating

The Ohio lawmaker denies the allegations as an Aug. 5 deadline to drop off the ballot approaches.

politico.com

People potentially subject to the nyc pied-à-terre tax are being treated with 1% of the administrative hostility of SNAP and Medicaid applicants, and they’re throwing 100x the fit

A self-respecting Congress would impeach him over this immediately. Doing an end-run around the Senate's Constitutional "advise and consent" authority to illegally take money from taxpayers, and give it to himself and criminals he likes. Alone, one of the most impeachable offenses in US history.

Howard French@hofrench.bsky.social · 4d ago

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

It was inevitable that reactionary centrists would turn against harm reduction and call for a return to mass incarceration

The Cities That Said Yes to Drugs

Policies that gave addicts clean needles and places to use drugs were intended to reduce harm. They created a “zombie apocalypse.”

theatlantic.com