Maybe the reason that ICE has suddenly spiked in the numbers of illegal immigrants it's arresting is because it's started focusing more on illegal immigrants and less on hunting down anti-ICE protesters.

I managed to brain-freeze a Confederacy apologist this week. He trotted out the old "Slavery had existed since ancient times". Me: "So if I wanted to make slavery legal again here and now, could I justify it by this argument? Make that argument and then tell me slavery today would be wrong."

The ultimate test of whether or not MAGA politicians and pundits actually believe TDS is real or just use it as an excuse to shoot down any criticisms of Trump just occurred to me: If someone assassinates Trump, then claims insanity as a defense based on having TDS.

Fauci's grilling brought back all the times Republicans blamed Covid restrictions wholly on the government. Many if not most of those were enacted by private companies (including my employer), but Rs can never bring themselves to blame private industry when they could blame the government instead.

@stevesack.bsky.social

Today in "MAGAs are conditioned to attack Democrats no matter what", over on FB they're attacking Tim Kaine for honoring the 4 dead U.S. soldiers the Pentagon stripped off the Iran War casualty list.

So this week Fauci was accused by a Congressional Republican of getting rich while a million people died of the Covid pandemic that Republicans claimed didn't really kill anybody.

I dunno, maybe there's something to the MAGAs saying Fauci was evil - it would explain why Trump wanted to keep him on.

Social media MAGAs make fun of older protesters for their age but then keep sending elderly people to the White House and the Capitol.

Just when I thought social media MAGAs couldn't go any lower, last weekend they provided me with the creepiest thing I've ever heard them say: That the soldiers who died due to the Iran War sacrificed themselves for the president. Not the country, their families, or freedom, but the president.

"Democrats have dead people voting!" As much as I think this is a lie, I've got to give Republicans some credit - they haven't let Mitch McConnell vote for weeks.

My tiny act of resistance this week was wearing my Smithsonian hat into a restaurant that always plays Fox News on its TVs.

A few of the people in my area complaining about how far the Canadian wildfire smoke has traveled are the same people who don't understand why we haven't just nuked our enemies yet.

MAGAs are so conditioned to attack Democrats no matter what that over on FB yesterday and today they're attacking one of my D senators for supporting the Suicide Hotline.

"But we closed our local mail processing center, so we'll have to drive our mail truck around for eight days first and then come back and deliver the pain."

Leah McElrath@leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 3w ago

An impressively tortured metaphor.

Even after all this time, sometimes the Trump administration does something that I initially almost think is a spoof story. www.newser.com/story/392900...

US Will Screen Troops Over 30 for Low Testosterone

Annual hormone tests, optional treatment to 'optimize' troops' performance

newser.com

I wonder if Trump thinks that SCOTUS-granted presidential immunity covers this. Supreme Court justices respond to Trump's 'dangerous' rhetoric www.msn.com/en-us/news/p...

Now taking bets that the GOP will announce Mitch McConnell's death on August 12th, 2026, the day after the election filing deadline.

"If I can't keep the fees then nobody can."

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3w ago

one day after announcing a fee for transiting the strait, Trump now says "I don't think anybody should be able to charge a fee for the strait" 🙃

Watch out, Canada and Greenland, if Trump has the US invade you then you might wind up in control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3w ago

Trump posts an image featuring a map showing the United States taking over Canada and Greenland

I wish more journalists would point out that Sen. McConnell and Rep. Tom Kean (missed 4 months of work) are/were essentially on paid sick & medical leave. The same employment protection they’ve spent their careers blocking other Americans from having.

Nice try, senator, but we still haven't forgotten about the Epstein Files.

Flock cameras just went operational where I live a few days ago, and once again many if not most of the cries of protest about them are from the same people who tell non-white people "Don't break the law and you'll be fine".

I suspect Putin also finds Zelenskyy a "difficult character".

Today I ran across a 1905 book called Messages and Papers of the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis, of course, is prominent, and I flipped through the book to see how long it would take me to discover another Davis speech saying the Confederacy needed to exist to protect slavery. Less than two minutes.

On the bright side, Trump managed to fit a 776 into something he did this year again.

Steve Rattner@steverattner.bsky.social · 4w ago

The U.S. trade deficit rose by over 40% last month, reaching $77.6 billion. That's the largest since March 2025 and higher than the monthly average during Biden's term. Trump's tariffs have failed to make a dent.

A Roman terracotta figure of a cat, presumably playing a harp(?). It was made in Egypt when it was part of the Roman Empire 80-100 AD. Held at the Museum August Kestner in Hannover, Germany. #History #HistoryMatters