yeah, the reason republicans are just not going to budge from texas is the reason why armies try not to abandon their capitals. it isn’t necessarily a strategic defeat to lose the seat of power, but it is a profound blow to morale.

Super Shoe@shoe.bsky.social · 2h ago

They can't let go of Texas. It's completely demoralizing.

"All he wants to do is appeal to his base. He has no principles. None. His goddamned tweeting & lying...oh my god. I'm talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit…the phoniness of it all. It's the phoniness & this cruelty. Donald is cruel."

Maryanne Trump Barry - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Schmitt: Did you attend a concert wearing an anti-Trump shirt? Smith: I wore a “No Kings” shirt. It used to be a bipartisan American sentiment.

"It's important for you all to stay on the same team as Ken Paxton," says the woman who filed for divorce and ended their marriage

Drew McKevitt@drewmckevitt.bsky.social · 6h ago

Lol just saw a local ad by Angela Paxton (Ken's wife) in which she never says his name and instead says "in an election like this it doesn't matter who the individual players are, it matters that the right team wins," which is like "I know my husband is trash but you have to vote Republican anyway"

HASSETT: If people were unhappy, it'd show up in the data TAPPER: It seems to be showing up in the data, just not the data you're looking at

The second paragraph is incoherent but so is the first. Young people saying they are focused on making money rather than starting a family is not an example of them casting aside religious values or secular ethics. His mind is dull and his writing is sloppy in both the original and modern sense.

Michael Hobbes@michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 7h ago

Yglesias has lost his mind. This is not "progressive economic thinking," this is what you see on Twitter. substack.com/@matthewygle...

Impossible to understand how anyone could look at Rufo's career and conclude he was someone engaged in a "forthright defense of meritocracy." Rufo's entire career is built on the idea of purging people who don't think or look like him from positions of power.

The Atlantic@theatlantic.com · yesterday

A GOP schism over the Texas candidate Bo French’s social-media post reveals the limits of the party’s defense of a color-blind meritocracy, @jonathanbchait.bsky.social argues.

Every single one of these stories is like this and it pisses me off to no end

Mr. Dan Zak@mrdanzak.com · 11h ago

A Haitian man legally immigrated to Ohio, then was given an ankle monitor bc Trump withdrew his status. He threw himself in front of truck. The trucker, who voted for Trump, is haunted. “Pierre was doing what he was supposed to do. We did not do right by him.” www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

man I would like one fucking electorate - one! - to remember that fascism is bad for more than five minutes at a time

George Pearkes@peark.es · 3h ago

First results in the first round of the Brazilian Presidential election are in. Lula trailing but looks like the south is reporting faster which skews towards Bolsonaro. That said, prediction markets think this looks good for Bolsonaro (that has signal, unlike prior to vote counting).

Correct!

"Federal immigration agents have shot at least 20 people since Republican President Donald Trump returned to office, seven of them fatally." thehill.com/policy/natio...

DHS announces nationwide surge in 'sanctuary' cities

DHS said ICE has initiated a “surge in sanctuary cities,” as part of the Trump administration’s continuous crackdown on immigration.

thehill.com

And this time we’ve basically blinded ourselves by dismantling the surveillance and research capacity that existed in 2020.

Walker Bragman@walkerbragman.bsky.social · 6h ago

A confirmed lab leak that we’re all hearing about. As opposed to the secret COVID conspiracy that there’s no evidence for but every major media outlet nonetheless gave credence to under pressure from the right and hallucinating op-ed columnists.

An interesting paper given that Judge Perry just named Baude as amicus in the Broadview 6 case to write what I fully expect to be an argument about whether judges are helpless when DOJ breaks the law.

William Baude@williambaude.bsky.social · 4mo ago

I was the least of three coauthors on this one, but delighted we pulled it off.

Wow. That moment when the audience claps, and you can see it's mostly women applauding. The men are mostly silent, a few doing the least clap possible. 😖🤦‍♀️ Guys, WTF???

Andrea Devon@andreadevon.sheshed.rocks · 6h ago

“Their rights are being rolled back, their voices silenced, their bodies turned into battlegrounds, and their freedoms treated as bargaining chips.” António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, urging action on the injustices facing women around the world. #SheShed #VivaHerAlliance

A good student, an athlete, an ROTC member, who came to the US LEGALLY — so humiliated by ICE that he took his own life. His blood is on Donald Trump’s hands. His blood is on the hands of every ICE agent. His blood is on the hands of everyone at DHS.

At Haitian student’s funeral, a community confronts painful immigration reality — Miami Herald

The emotional ceremony held in English and Haitian Creole was attended by his parents and two younger brothers, local community advocates and elected officials including Springfield Mayor Rob Rue, Sta...

apple.news

Your vote is not small to the people spending millions to make sure you never cast it. They know what happens when working people, young people, women, and every fed-up voter show up together. We flip Congress. They lose control. That’s the whole assignment. #BlueWaveIn30Days

They do not want legal immigration. They brag about revoking legal visas and denying legal naturalizations. They want negative net migration, and they are succeeding at it

Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li@sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 11h ago

"There is no way to be “one of the good ones.” There is no way to come to America “the right way” that will satisfy these gutter racists."

“Lucifer, Son of the Morning, I'm gonna chase you out of Earth”

“I am the British whistleblower who reported evidence concerning Howard Lutnick, his links to Jeffrey Epstein, and Cantor Fitzgerald and BGC to the FBI in 2020–21,” reads a post from an X account widely reported to belong to Andriesz.

Horror as final post of banker who outed Howard Lutnick’s ties to Epstein resurfaces www.rawstory.com/howard-lutni...

Horror as final post of banker who outed Howard Lutnick’s ties to Epstein resurfaces

The final online post of a British banker who reportedly died by suicide shortly after outing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s business ties to Jeffrey Epstein left several critics speechless on Su...

rawstory.com

StrictlyChristo 🇺🇦🌻@strictlychristo.bsky.social · 8h ago

The British banker Simon Andriesz who exposed Howard Lutnick’s links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has died by suicide at 57. Andriesz was previously a managing director at Wall Street firm BGC Group where Lutnick, now the US commerce secretary, was the CEO.

In short, if it succeeds, this tactic can help enable Hegseth’s effort to politicize the military and further his aspirations to turn it into a partisan/personal ally. 12/end

Second, it helps pundits sympathetic to Hegseth’s policies rationalize the actions he takes that they find distasteful. They can selectively ignore the bad bits, in favor of the good. 11/

Why might Hegseth be using this tactic? First, it distracts ppl from his ideological messaging; pundits might be inclined to tune out his inflammatory statements and focus on his reasonable-ish policies. 9/

But, while the directive explicitly does not say who to vote for, and fosters an image of nonpartisanship, Hegseth may be counting on these being Republican votes, as the officer corps has long leaned that way (somewhat less so for enlisted). 8/

But, at least for now, the metric for what constitutes “warfighting” is undefined, likely by design. This leaves the services to read the tea leaves abt Hegseth’s intent, yielding lots of potential subjectivity in determining who passes & much room for “lethality” to dominate over other skills. 5/

“Handbook of Pete Hegseth Thought”

Risa Brooks@risabrooks12.bsky.social · 4h ago

But the speech also reiterates his ideological litmus-test for service members (“no beardos, no weirdos” & you can leave the military if you don’t like what I am saying), while handing out a compendium of his speeches, deemed a “field manual,” to attendees. www.the-independent.com/news/world/a...

First, take his Sept. 30 State of the Force speech to service members at Quantico in which he proposed the establishment of a new combatant command for drones/robots/AI and an initiative to study future war. Seems relatively substantive at first glance. 2/ See here: www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

Hegseth Unveils New Command to Oversee Military-Drone Tech

In speech at Marine Corps base, defense secretary also said Elon Musk would help the Pentagon study the future of warfare.

wsj.com

With Hegseth in the news this week, I’ve noticed him using a particular rhetorical tactic: packaging highly ideological messaging to the military & public w/ (superficially) reasonable & substantive policy proposals. Before I explain what he is up to and why it matters, here are three examples:

Ballots will be going out soon. If you're undecided, the Denver Post has q&a answers from all 7 of us asking for your vote for governor. www.denverpost.com/2026/10/03/c...

Colorado Governor candidate Q&A

The race features Republican Victor Marx, Democrat Phil Weiser, American Constitution Party candidate Stephen T. Hamilton, Libertarian Party candidate Eric Mulder, Unity Party candidate Jeff Peckman, ...

denverpost.com

A Haitian man legally immigrated to Ohio, then was given an ankle monitor bc Trump withdrew his status. He threw himself in front of truck. The trucker, who voted for Trump, is haunted. “Pierre was doing what he was supposed to do. We did not do right by him.” www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

A Reckoning in Springfield

A truck driver out on his route confronts what the country has become.

theatlantic.com