@davidasuper.bsky.social
I am sure Sen. Thune will ensure she can cast "no" votes on anything she wants for the rest of the year, just as he arranged for Sen. Murkowski to vote for Trump's hideous megabill last year so that Sen. Collins wouldn't have to. But she will never cast the decisive vote against President Trump.
Rick Hasen @rickhasen.bsky.social · 2d agoWill Susan Collins vote to confirm? Express concern?
So Tillis and Cornyn thought the 1.8. Billion dollar slush fun was so bad, that they will be willing to confirm the guy who came up with it. Huh
Wouldn't a triumphal arch be even more fitting at the place of the triumph? Rather than blocking all the historic sites in Washington, why not build it at the Strait of Hormuz? If Iran's military is as devastated as he says, how could they object? www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/u...
Park Service Finds Trump’s Arch Could Detract From Dozens of Historic Places
The 250-foot-tall edifice would alter views across Washington and Arlington Cemetery.
nytimes.com
Anyone who knows anything about Capital One knows it didn't act to advance a progressive agenda. The evidence must have been overwhelming. Trump Organization's suing should bring that evidence out in discovery. Bet they dismiss their suit before any of that gets into public filings.
Shibley Telhami@stelhami.bsky.social · 3d agoCapital One hits back against lawsuit over its decision to close Trump Organization accounts, stating that it did so after a review by anti-money laundering experts - the first time a bank has tied money laundering concerns to Trump's family business. www.reuters.com/legal/govern...
How is this not economic terrorism? What conceivable legitimate purpose could be served by destroying farmers' livelihoods? At best, this is an egregious and illegal form of collective punishment.
Rima I Anabtawi@rimaanabtawi.bsky.social · 3d agoThe Israeli army has set fire to vast olive groves in the village of Yaroun in southern Lebanon 🇱🇧
Can't get numb to this: The United States is stuck in a war it started, cannot end, and may further escalate to no avail, having dismantled its diplomatic apparatus, depleted its military stockpile, and destroyed its credibility. A historic strategic mistake harming millions in many different ways.
My latest on how courts and Congress can deal with obvious bad faith from the Administration. I illustrate with his new Groundhog Day tariffs, but the point applies much more broadly. Balkinization: The Groundhog Day Tariffs and the Problem of Executive Discretion share.google/JBYaPcH4qET5...
The Groundhog Day Tariffs and the Problem of Executive Discretion
Amidst a flurry of wildly erroneous charts and figures President Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on April 2, 2025. The...
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Hard to say how much of this is a vastly inflated estimate of the value of his own judgement and how much is a vastly deflated respect for the judgement of experts spending their lives on a topic. Both arrogance and disrespect are at epidemic scale in the U.S. today. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/01/c...
Trump’s Fixation on Arctic Ships Led to Billions in No-Bid Contracts
The president decided to buy 11 polar icebreakers after a game of golf with Finland’s president. Experts say it’s far from clear the United States needs so many.
nytimes.com
I find it ethically repulsive to say things deliberately that could harm children; fine for others to disagree. But that question of justice seems the full extent of the question to many. Our dire need is to persuade those not with us, and this will turn moderates off and close paths of persuasion.
Tom Nichols@radiofreetom.bsky.social · 5d agoI think it’s a remarkably stupid thing for a political candidate to say. This is not the first time people have pointed out Vance’s hypocrisy on this issue, but to pull his children into it and say that you somehow know what’s in Vance’s mind about his own kids is over the line.
My latest on how the Supreme Court's rhetoric on deferring to the "politically accountable" President makes little sense as 37% of the time the President will not face voters again. Balkinization: Presidential Accountability and the Twenty-Second Amendment: A Little Math share.google/5eMH6ma2OkbD...
Presidential Accountability and the Twenty-Second Amendment: A Little Math
Note: Having just spent the morning writing a short essay about the Twenty-Second Amendment, I was dismayed to find that Jeffrey Gor...
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In the late 1990s, when the Clinton Administration's surpluses threatened to create a shortage of Treasury bonds, many suggested that the Social Security Trust Fund invest in equities, subject to strict rules to prevent corruption or skewing the market. Republicans went ballistic. But now, crickets.
Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 6d agoThe definition of “picking winners and losers.” @thehill.com thehill.com/policy/techn...
Among other things, for a guy who keeps declaring that he is fighting Communism, he certainly has a deep, abiding faith in the planned economy.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6d agoTrump claims he’s going to replace migrant truck drivers with veterans
Mortgages are becoming more affordable for banks seeking to boost their profits.
Max Kennerly@maxkennerly.bsky.social · 6d agochat is this good
This is honestly one of the most shocking images coming out of this administration and that’s saying something
Murshed Zaheed@murshedz.bsky.social · 7d ago“Trump has rejected disaster aid for Democratic-run states at the highest rate in the 47-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.” Right now people in blue states are basically paying federal taxes as if they’re colonized territories of red states. www.politico.com/news/2026/03...
⚓️Russian Navy Day, 2026: Putin in St Petersburg, posing in front of a banner with a submarine at sea. Russian Navy Day, 2020: Putin on a boat, passing actual warships in the Gulf of Finland. From fleet parade to printed wallpaper. The demilitarisation of a “superpower” is going according to plan.
Friendly reminder that these things aren't impacted by closing the Strait of Hormuz so maybe, just maybe, we should implement them to avoid being impacted by future conflicts: -Solar panels -Wind turbines -Battery storage -Electric vehicles -Bicycles -Natural fertilizers -Electric heat pumps
Waiting for Infrastructure Week, I'm sure.
Yonah Freemark@yonahfreemark.com · last wk.Congress appropriated billions of dollars for new transit projects. Why is the Trump administration spending none of it? Why are even transit projects in red states going unfounded? New reporting in @nytimes.com (gift link): www.nytimes.com/2026/07/27/u...
“Racism is good and policy should be designed to reflect that principle,” couched in euphemism, is an acceptable opinion in the anglosphere leadership class but “racism is bad and policy should be designed to reflect that principle” is wokeness gone amok and unacceptable bsky.app/profile/okwo...
Musa Okwonga@okwonga.bsky.social · 2w agoThe editor in chief of The Economist referring here to the AfD’s leader as a “perfectly thoughtful person“ instead of what she truly is - a driver and enabler of German fascism - is a huge part of the problem.
Smart analysis on why GOP won't draw a line on Trump's demands. "The literature on complicity describes how this incremental acclimation operates even with the most violent and brutal behavior." She quotes former FBI Director James Comey: “Mr. Trump eats your soul in small bites."
Asha Rangappa@asharangappa.bsky.social · 2w agoFor this week's Substack, I wrote about the phenomenon of "gradual escalation" as illustrated by the Milgram experiment, and why we are already well into the high-voltage shocks asharangappa.substack.com/p/will-todd-...
It's stupid to be mad at Beshear because a Republican Senator not voting for an extended period of time is literally the best outcome a Democrat can hope for out of Kentucky, which means there's no reason to push it.
I'm eagerly awaiting the right-leaning campaign against the innumerable portrayals of Jesus as a blind, blue-eyed northern European. In the interests of "authenticity", you know...
Adam Serwer@adamserwer.bsky.social · 2w agoDespite the whining about “ historical accuracy,” the racist backlash to the casting in Nolan’s Odyssey is about the right wanting to justify racial hierarchy by projecting it into a past where it did not actually exist. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
How appropriate that, in the year when we celebrate the 250th anniversary of a revolution fought beneath the banner of "No Taxation Without Representation!", the party in power is taxing states shut out of political power to fund programs in states that do have power.
Don Moynihan@donmoyn.bsky.social · 2w agoTrump administration admits, in court filings, that it canceled billions in federal grants not for policy or performance reasons, but because recipients lived in blue states. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/b...
This is what happens when you spend your whole life thinking about responsibility in terms of civil or criminal liability rather than ethics or morality. Not only is it incorrect to accept responsibility when you haven't been obliged to, it's incorrect to even validate the idea of doing so
Faine Greenwood@faineg.bsky.social · 2w agoFuck you, Ian Bremmer, you abject ghoul.
Disgraceful. I would expect better from a pizza delivery service. These are attorneys for the United States Government.
Cristian Farias@cristianfarias.com · 2w agoThe subpoenas to The New York Times are withdrawn in real time, in open court, during a very embarrassing hearing for the Trump administration. Incredible work.
