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.
maltese mama
@themaltesemama.bsky.social
just a housewife. with a maltese (& an inherited & much loved havanese). my heart is hurting for our country.
Wrote about the border search exception: a massive loophole in the Fourth Amendment that allows border officials to search through your phone without a warrant, the exception provides an easy pretext for the Trump administration to target its political enemies. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Trump Should Need a Warrant to See Your Phone
Federal officers can too easily comb through the most intimate details of your life.
theatlantic.com
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.
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!
Gonna go out on a limb here and say racist cranks who write for extremist white nationalist websites like VDARE should not, in fact, be confirmed to top roles in the Department of Justice.
SCHIFF: You told my staff you stood by your article in white nationalist website VDARE where you wrote, 'Muslim immigrants & their kids seem prone to terrorism' C: I wrote that article in support of Trump's travel ban S: Do you stand by it? C: I stand by that article S: That's all I need to know
This is just rank Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism, based on the bigoted idea that there is something inherently scary about a president with the last name "El-Sayed." It is incumbent on all of us to call it out.
JD Vance: "We don't want the next administration, whoever -- god forbid you're gonna have President El-Sayed in three years ... "
TPM's journalism is reader-supported, not billionaire controlled. Your contributions to the annual Journalism Fund go towards hiring new staff, reporting trips, paying freelance contributors and more. Thanks for making our work possible. accounts.talkingpointsmemo.com/contribute
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accounts.talkingpointsmemo.com
If you’re up for a little skin-crawling experience, check out the slick real estate video tour of Epstein’s New Mexico ranch, investigation of which has been sandbagged and stonewalled more than any other major Epstein asset. Bad stuff happened there. players.brightcove.net/578288675500...
SIR Video Player
players.brightcove.net
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
VDARE?!?!? We are seriously considering VDARE authors for Senate confirmation???
SCHIFF: You told my staff you stood by your article in white nationalist website VDARE where you wrote, 'Muslim immigrants & their kids seem prone to terrorism' C: I wrote that article in support of Trump's travel ban S: Do you stand by it? C: I stand by that article S: That's all I need to know
This plane has left Alexandria, LA, again and is currently refueling in Bangor. Migrants onboard have been shackled for at least 34 hours. Story updated.
NEW: An ICE flight headed for Moldova turned around over the Atlantic Ocean yesterday and flew back to an ICE hub, returning 15 hours after it left. We don’t know why. Video I obtained from the scene shows 11 exhausted and shackled people disembark. gillianbrockell.com/why-did-this...
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.
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."
(Reuters) - A proposed deal between Iran and Oman would give Tehran control over ships entering the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, a senior Iranian source and two regional officials told Reuters on Wednesday, in one of the biggest concessions yet to Iran. www.reuters.com/world/middle...
DUI hire Hegseth and the felon has used almost all the US long-range precision missiles during the Iran war.
EXCLUSIVE: US has used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war, sources say
The degree to which the military is running out of ATACMS and Precision Strike Missiles has not been previously reported.
reuters.com
This was an op-ed that should have been an interview. If Ellison wants to make the case he won’t politicize the news why give him a pass on the evidence that he already has?
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 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
The suspicious transfer of Ghislaine Maxwell is just the most visible and outrageous example of what could become a quiet attack on the rule of the law:
Todd Blanche’s New Grip on the Federal Prison System
Critics worry a little-noticed policy shift could let the attorney general reward allies, punish enemies, and sideline longstanding Bureau of Prisons processes.
lnk.thebulwark.com
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
This is your periodic reminder that the National School Lunch Program feeds 30M children for $18B a year.
Brown University has a widget that tracks the cost of the Iran war to American consumers (as contrasted to whatever the Pentagon is spending). Per-household cost now exceeds $600. iranwarcost.watson.brown.edu
"He has become detached from reality—and that detachment is extremely dangerous." @radiofreetom.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Trump’s Irrationality Is Dangerous
The president’s recent rant is a sign of serious dysfunction in the Oval Office.
theatlantic.com
The war in Iran has shown that Trump’s inability to perceive reality has become truly dangerous. Iran is a disaster, but Trump’s irrationality could create other, even more perilous situations. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Trump’s Irrationality Is Dangerous
The president’s recent rant is a sign of serious dysfunction in the Oval Office.
theatlantic.com
are my tax dollars also being wasted on these trump account ads?
Scoop: "60 Minutes" is facing more brain drain. I'm told Madeleine Carlisle—a well-regarded associate producer at the newsmagazine, who also happens to be the daughter of Stephen Colbert—resigned from the program in recent days. Details in @status.news: link.status.news/4wLyA4i
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
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