maltese mama

@themaltesemama.bsky.social

just a housewife. with a maltese (& an inherited & much loved havanese). my heart is hurting for our country.

BREAKING: The New Mexico Department of Justice has sued Acting AG Todd Blanche and the DOJ, requesting the court for access to unredacted Epstein-related investigative files that the DOJ has been withholding.

The problem is that as we're seeing with the Strait of Hormuz, "the USA forfeits its global ambitions" does not lead to a new age of peace and sunshine, but to global recession and instability. The Strait of Hormuz is not the only load-bearing instance of US power backstopping modern economies.

@tupolev22m.bsky.social · 4h ago

I think the traditional answer is actually "forfeit your global ambitions because you can't afford them and voters won't make the sacrifices necessary to restore them," unfortunately

holy shit -- Schiff ties Trump's judicial nominees in knots by asking them who won the 2016 before *before* asking them who won in 2020, which results in them sounding like election deniers about Trump's victories!

Sen. Wyden: It seems that every time Republicans get their hands on Social Security, life gets worse for older people. Thanks to Trump and the Big Beautiful Bill, the crisis is speeding up. It gave huge tax breaks to billionaires and corporations, and plundered Social Security by $168 billion.

NEW: DHS wants to pay private contractors bounties to hunt down people who already left the country, photograph their homes, and demand money. It told them leaving the US would wipe out fines. It was the pitch for self-deporting. Experts tell WIRED this is a pointless escalation of tactics.

DHS Is Hiring Bounty Hunters to Find and Photograph Deported People’s Homes Abroad

Homeland Security told immigrants that leaving the US would wipe out fines it claims they owe. Now it wants private investigators to find them in their home countries and collect.

wired.com

Notice DOJ doesn't talk about its efforts to obtain state voter files anymore. They are 0-20 in those cases and today is the beginning of the quiet period -- states can no longer do systematic removals of names from the voter rolls. TLDR: We won!🥳

as noted yesterday, Trump has now come around to treating an Iranian toll system covering the Strait of Hormuz as a given. Hard to overstate the level of strategic failure. US started the war purely as a war of choice and ends up dramatically empowering Iran and given the Iranian govt big wins.

Bill Grueskin@bgrueskin.bsky.social · 5h ago

Reuters: Iran wants fees of 5%-7% of the price of cargo from ships using the strait; Oman wants 3%. "Making fees voluntary, at least nominally, could be a way out of the impasse, although an implied threat of Iranian attacks could mean shippers would be ​unlikely to risk transit without paying."

The Trump administration is preparing to spend nearly $5 million in State Department funding to promote anti-immigrant narratives and Christian nationalism across Europe. The program would use U.S. taxpayer dollars to strengthen far-right allies and export the ideology behind Project 2025.

State Department Plans $5 Million Push for ‘Western Civilizational Heritage’ in Europe

The Trump administration is launching a nearly $5 million State Department program to fund organizations across Europe that promote anti-immigrant narratives, Christian nationalist rhetoric, and the d...

globalextremism.org

I spoke with 10 CNNers about David Ellison's essay in The NYT, in which he tried to convince the public he'll be a good steward of CNN. Suffice to say, no one at the network is buying what he's selling. “We all have eyes and ears and see what’s happening at CBS." www.status.news/p/david-elli...

The Ellison Credibility Crisis

The Paramount boss tried to convince the public he can be trusted with CNN. But staffers inside the network torched his Times essay in brutal comments to Status, pointing to his disastrous record at C...

status.news

Reminder that last year a Republican senator speaking on the record (!) admitted in so many words that all of this is playacting -- that GOP leadership "allow[s] [Susan] Collins the flexibility to vote no on some nominees" for electoral reasons. #MEpolitics

Bild

Propaganda arm of Susan Collins campaign in action. The actual news here -- to the extent their is any -- is that her team thinks she's got more trouble on her left flank than her right. OR that her numbers are so weak in general that it's worth risking MAGA's ire to shake up the race. #MEpolitics

Bangor Daily News headline: "Susan Collins a 'no' on Todd Blanche for attorney general