"We will absolutely persecute you" -- U.S. POLITICS DECEMBER 2025

well, yeah

had to be that

Oops, reposting here from the defunct November thread:

The White House's new "Media Offenders" page is pretty funny. They currently rank the WaPo as their #1 Offender, which is the biggest boost in credibility the paper's had all year.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/mediabias/

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that President Donald Trump unlawfully appointed his former personal attorney, Alina Habba, to serve as the top prosecutor in New Jersey — a decision that could have far-reaching implications for other controversial Trump appointments that have been challenged in court.

In a unanimous decision, a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said that the extraordinary maneuvers the Justice Department deployed to bypass Senate confirmation and keep Habba in the top position were unlawful.

The appeals court’s ruling upheld a lower court’s decision disqualifying Habba. The question of the legality of her appointment will now likely be settled by the Supreme Court.

“It is apparent that the current administration has been frustrated by some of the legal and political barriers to getting its appointees in place,” the judges wrote. “Its efforts to elevate its preferred candidate for U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba, to the role of Acting U.S. Attorney demonstrate the difficulties it has faced—yet the citizens of New Jersey and the loyal employees in the U.S. Attorney’s Office deserve some clarity and stability.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/12/01/trump-habba-us-attorney-ruling/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com

The question of the legality of her appointment will now likely be settled by the Supreme Court.

well that should sort this mess out!

The November thread is showing as locked for me on Site New Answers, but I can still post to it. Would someone else try posting to it? Thanks.

Looks like it's properly locked now.

They currently rank the WaPo as their #1 Offender, which is the biggest boost in credibility the paper's had all year.

#resist

Trump saw the movie with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman and thought, they seem like bad hombres.

No everyone liked those guys

Not everyone liked those guys I mean

well yeah, they used to go the parking garage to see Deep Throat

does it seems like maybe knives out for Hegseth? Or will he walk

how are congressional Rs responding to this? Trump's reality distortion field seems to be weakening and I don't know how many elected representatives want to be seen endorsing blatant war crimes in South America

seems like they are attempting to throw Adm. Bradley under the bus first

xp

The bus was told to leave no survivors.

I think there are at least a couple republicans who are expressed some discomfort with murdering unindicted civilians in international waters

are

one thing that I guess is nice is I'm seeing way more calls for these goons to be prosecuted once Trump's term is over, I know Pritzker has floated this for ICE agents but it should really be a default position of the Democrat party right now, if you break the law you will be arrested

we're going to need a solid floor to hold this abundance of guillotines if you catch my drift

Oh, I’ve got a floor for the aftermath, or at least a good (persecuting) soundtrack for it:

https://wolf-eyes.bandcamp.com/album/no-answer-lower-floors-2

Yeah right! Dem leadership will be talking about turning the page on the Trump presidency and following norms because lawfare or whatever.

have you all considered this though?

Trump also said he had “great confidence” Hegseth did not give a spoken order to kill all crew members aboard the vessel, saying that Hegseth told him “he did not say that, and I believe him, 100%.”

100% is not just a little bit more than 99.9% - it represents a giant leap into indisputable fact.

100%

Yeah right! Dem leadership will be talking about turning the page on the Trump presidency and following norms because lawfare or whatever.

― (•̪●) (carne asada), Monday, December 1, 2025 2:31 PM (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

one thing about this moment is that Dems are also incredibly unpopular in large part because of this exact mentality, not saying anything will happen but it seems pretty clear where the electorate is at right now

The media needs to keep this Hegseth story alive as long as possible. It's another shot at our getting rid of him. If enough flies accumulate on that pile of shit, Trump will jettison him as too big a nuisance.

Sgt. Slaughter is probably available to take over

it should really be a default position of the Democrat party right now, if you break the law you will be arrested

For example they could say, "We will absolutely persecute you."

Huh, looking like an actual scandal is forming

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Monday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the second, follow-up strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean in September following a bombshell Washington Post report that claimed he ordered the military to “kill everybody.”

“With respect to the strikes in question on Sept. 2, Secretary Hegseth authorized Adm. Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement during Monday's briefing.

Pinning the second attack on Bradley.

Incidentally, Admiral Bradley supervised follow-up killing of surviving alleged terrorists on land in Seal Team 6 attacks back when. Yes, different laws apply to identified terorists on land who arguably posed a risk to US versus random folks on boats alleged to be drug runners, but it provides additional context per author Wesley Morgan who wrote a book called The Hardest Place: America's Military adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valley, and wrote on Bluesky re JSOC and SEAL Team 6 have spent a decade-plus orchestrating drone strikes on land, including when Bradley was the Team 6 commander overseeing Somalia/Yemen strikes—and reattacks to kill survivors,

https://bsky.app/profile/wesleymorgan.bsky.social/post/3m6x7bw7gb222

Let's just take a peek at that ol' Law of War Manual:

18.3 DUTIES OF INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES

Each member of the armed services has a duty to: (1) comply with the law of war in
good faith; and (2) refuse to comply with clearly illegal orders to commit violations of the law of
war.

...18.3.2 Refuse to Comply With Clearly Illegal Orders to Commit Law of War Violations.
Members of the armed forces must refuse to comply with clearly illegal orders to commit law of
war violations. In addition, orders should not be construed to authorize implicitly violations of
law of war.

18.3.2.1 Clearly Illegal Orders to Commit Law of War Violations. The
requirement to refuse to comply with orders to commit law of war violations applies to orders to
perform conduct that is clearly illegal or orders that the subordinate knows, in fact, are illegal.
For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.

https://media.defense.gov/2023/Jul/31/2003271432/-1/-1/0/DOD-LAW-OF-WAR-MANUAL-JUNE-2015-UPDATED-JULY%202023.PDF

It's the actual "well duh obviously" example the U.S. military's own rule book uses. And that manual is still in legal effect.

(Also you can look up the very detailed definition of "shipwrecked" and it of course very obviously applies in this case.)

Pete’s drinking extra tonight, mumbling the word “lethal” to himself

he really looks like he could host Family Feud or something

kind of a Seacrest vibe

mayo pete vs maga pete

In other news, my city council member, Janeese Lewis George, just raised 100K in a matter of hours in her newly announced campaign to replace Muriel Bowser as the DC Mayor.

I was extremely tempted (and repeatedly spammed) to donate, but I think I’m holding out for the merch.

Ah fuck it, chucked fifty into the pot.

I got thinking about this a$$hole the other day. I kinda got to wonder now if this guys whole schtick was some right wing think tank co-op'ed him to be a mouth piece. I do think Goldberg got a f'n ton of press for years and it was always the thing the right would point towards even becoming Fox News slogan.

Kinda darkly funny now looking at this BS.

BERNARD GOLDBERG, Author, Bias:

Well, I think we marginalize conservative views. I think too many people in the big-time media, I think, conservatives, in too many cases, are just right-wing nuts. And let me tell you, it does not mean — I emphatically say it does not mean — that the there's a conspiracy. There is no conspiracy. The media elites don't come into their offices in the morning, go into a dark room, roll up their sleeves, give the secret handshake and say, "How are we going to not only execute our liberal agenda, but get conservatives at the same time?"

That's not it. They marginalize conservatives mainly.. . I could give you many, many examples, Terry, but mainly by identifying every conservative who's in a story because — and I think rightly — the audience needs to know that these people are conservatives, that their views are conservative views and we should know, as they say, where they're coming from. But the very fact that we rarely identify liberals tells you, at least it tells me, that journalists very often think that these liberal views aren't liberal at all, but really mainstream, civilized, reasonable views. And that's the problem, I think.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/media-bias-skewing-the-news

journalists very often think that these liberal views aren't liberal at all, but really mainstream, civilized, reasonable views.

wtf? this a-hole apparently takes it for granted that, if a point of view can be described as "liberal" it is ipso facto NOT "mainstream, civilized, reasonable" and to take them for such is "the problem"?!

Hey man the guy wrote like five books, he’s got CREDENTIALS

Our boy Donny is having a manic posting spree

https://bsky.app/profile/paleofuture.bsky.social/post/3m6y2tu6rus2d

Hegseth found two things tonight - his hidden bottle of Seagrams, abd Trump's Truth Social password

more likely the account is pwnt by h4x0rZ

who cares

well yeah that’s about right

in 2015 trump said 'When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re [wtf sic] rapists..." and it caused some, uh, backlash

in 2025 the secretary of state says "i am recommending a full travel ban on every damn country that's been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies", and what are you going to do because it's kristi noem, and the whole administration talks like this.

They all certainly have social accounts posting like that. Probably the same author.

Noem's DHS not State, but yes.

Yeah they have 20 year old college dropout Groypers making more money than we ever will writing these tweets

The thing to remember is that Trump won the election after starting his campaign with that shit.

in 2025 the secretary of state says "i am recommending a full travel ban on every damn country that's been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies", and what are you going to do because it's kristi noem, and the whole administration talks like this.

― z_tbd, Tuesday, December 2, 2025 11:29 AM bookmarkflaglink

guess that means interstate travel is banned then

That's not flooding in, though, just sloshing around inside.

omggggg this is real check out Pete's place card

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3m6zhmbrrrg2j

"We've only just begun striking narco boats and putting narcoterrorists at the bottom of the ocean"

White lace and promises

that's been the case since Trump's decree in early September

xp

omggggg this is real check out Pete's place card

SSECRETARY

the racism is the point

Trump administration orders ICE to target undocumented Somali immigrants in Twin Cities, reports say

https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/ice-target-undocumented-somali-immigrants-minneapolis-st-paul-trump/

xp

lol, I completely missed that

Sssso sssssstupid. Even his place card is slurring.

I would assume it was a signal to Nazis if they didn't even have to give signals to Nazis anymore

re: DC shooting, Spencer Ackerman hits the nail on the head on Democracy Now

If the United States wants to find out whose culture is responsible for this horrific crime, it needs to start by knocking on doors at Langley and, as well, the Afghans who ran the U.S.-backed Afghan intelligence service known as the NDS. It was this culture of violence, of impunity, of murder for political reasons that had a specific role — we’ll find out more at trial — of shaping Lakanwal and his circumstances.

To blame the Afghans who came here as refugees, desperate, overwhelmingly, as your guests said, who worked with the United States, who served the U.S. war effort, is perverse. And it is ultimately a cover for allowing the U.S. to continue to create death squads, to outsource its most murderous and its most despicable wartime actions to locals, who then it can blame them for.

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/12/1/spencer_ackerman_dc_shooting_cia

He really is just a disgusting vile pos

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3m6znie6z4c2u

Really difficult to imagine him being more of a douche than is already

he is

racist POS

He's absolutely going to drop the N-word in a presser before the year is out, at the rate he's currently unraveling.

At that same cabinet meeting Kristi Noem told Trump and Hegseth they had "saved hundreds of millions of lives with the cocaine you've blown up in the Caribbean." Hundreds of millions! How many Americans does Noem think die of cocaine overdoses? It's less than 20k a year. The U.N. estimates that there were a total of 25 million cocaine users worldwide last year. Most of whom did not die from it. And also they've blown up at most a teeny little percentage of the cocaine supply in these hits, if they've actually blown up any at all.

I know that's just one of dozens of lies these people pump out daily, but it's still a little boggling how blithely they just utterly make shit up to flatter his highness.

I'm sure Don Jr's got a guy, a guy with a stable supply

I've heard them talk about hundreds of millions of overdoses a year before. Like everyone in America would be wiped out in four years at that rate.

In a year and a half! There are only 340 million people in the country.

Sidetrip here, but I'm wondering if the root of "many states have $2 gas" thing is taken from grocery store loyalty points programs? Groceries are more expensive, which can lead to more points earned on more dollars spent, said points then can be applied to lower gas prices at participating outlets, which sometimes <could> approach $2 a gallon.

I mean, I know they're really pulling the figure out of their ass, but they do also love convoluted esoteric theoreticals.

He's absolutely going to drop the N-word in a presser before the year is out, at the rate he's currently unraveling.

― better than ezra collective soul asylum (jon /via/ chi 2.0)

i swear he was about to call Ilhan Omar a little bitch at one point but caught himself

the bulk of coke crosses by the US/Mexico land border... but I don't see them blowing up semi trucks full of melons.. yet

The guy whose job it is to convince Trump to call people garbage instead of the n word.

coke prices are at all time low atm and very abundant in NYC currently xp

Affordability

coke prices are at all time low atm

well that honduran politician that just go pardoned hooked us up for a LONG time

$2 Cocaine before $2 Gas

do cars run on drugs

If you take the right ones you'll think they do

https://coolmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Guide-to-Buying-a-DeLorean-new.jpg

Jeffries and his dnc lobbyist worded messages. He has been criticized from the left for not speaking out about the killings of people in boats or Trump’s threatening war with Venezuela to seize their oil. So today he offered this-

Why haven’t Republicans done a damn thing to make your life more affordable?

The extremists are focused on all the wrong things, like trying to start a war in Venezuela.

These people have been a complete disaster.

gimme a fucking break... I wonder if this is a response to all those people getting their Irish citizenship

(WKBN) – Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) has introduced a bill to establish that citizens of the United States “must have sole and exclusive allegiance to the U.S.”

The “Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025” would make it so that no one may be a citizen or national of the U.S. while simultaneously having any foreign citizenship. If passed, a U.S. citizen who voluntarily acquires foreign citizenship would have to relinquish their U.S. citizenship after the date of enactment.

Those who have dual citizenship would have to submit a written renunciation of foreign citizenship to the secretary of State or a written renunciation of U.S. citizenship to the secretary of Homeland Security no later than one year after the enactment of the act.

For reference, it’s estimated that there are 9 million dual citizens in the US.

this might just be posturing, or hoping SCOTUS will actually listen to it

Multiple Supreme Court cases have been instrumental in establishing dual citizenship as a constitutional right...

I wonder which Melania will choose

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio)

Born in Colombia.

Though to be scrupulously fair to his worthless ass, he does not maintain dual citizenship.

and he doesn't want anyone else to maintain it either

well I've heard that the third largest city in Canada is Los Angeles... lots of folks in the entertainment industry obv. I don't think this will go anywhere but it'll give them a chance to propose a loyalty test, just for fun

I wanna know more about Boondoggle Ranch

On Tuesday, House Democrats also launched an investigation into his jet usage, asking the FBI to turn over all flight records amid reports of Patel’s “date night” travels with his girlfriend and to sporting events as well as a hunting retreat called Boondoggle Ranch.

omg

whoever leaked the existence of Boondoggle Ranch will be...*checks notes* SUMMARILY EXECUTED FOR TREASON

oh no please don't threaten me with never having to file a US tax return again

love this cosplay detail

The report also said Patel was fixated on having a medium-sized FBI jacket while arriving on the scene after the Charlie Kirk assassination, with a female agent eventually giving up her jacket. Patel reportedly was unhappy the jacket was missing some Velcro patches, sending agents scrambling to find some.

Dresser worthy.

Dreiser too

well that little detail of the jacket is a perfect metaphor for this entire administration... everything is about looks and optics, absolutely performative. When Hegseth did a Ted Talk to all the generals instead of using a lectern.. the gold, the ballroom, the TV people, etc., it's really just all for show

It's an endless quest to re-create a W in a flight suit optic

A tasteless and gaudy facade with nothing but pigs at the trough behind it.

it's really just all for show

to which I say... Mission Accomplished!

Bill Goddamn Kristol:

https://bsky.app/profile/billkristolbulwark.bsky.social/post/3m743njauvk2o

Hmm

Wow, this is wild!

US Intelligence is investigating that the DC shooter might have been blackmailed into the attack - with claims the Taliban had threatened his family back in Afghanistan.

So this attack wasn’t about too much immigration - it was about too little!

This is why,… https://t.co/eEENu9ODqx

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) December 3, 2025

Ehhh... I don't think the Taliban give a shit about anything to do with the U.S.; they're shitty people (from my western liberal perspective) but I've never heard anything about them being directly involved in foreign attacks, except maybe Pakistan or something

Nah they’re shitty ppl from an Afghan perspective

true

Dems House leader Jeffries decides today would be the right day to praise Trump's latest pardon, that of anti-abortion conservative Dem rep Cuellar who was charged with bribery and Jeffries also today decided to praise Trump's handling of the border. Why, oh why...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hakeem-jeffries-trump-pardon-henry-cuellar_n_6930cf60e4b0824b6df7cad7

Fucking simp

Meanwhile in NY Times article on some Republican women reps feuding with their Speaker Johnson, The NY Times notes a ways down regarding Johnson :

“In a recent podcast interview, for instance, he said that women were not able to compartmentalize their thoughts”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/us/politics/republican-women-speaker-johnson.html?unlocked_article_code=1.6E8.Xf7-.e0bANwQgw7Eo&smid=nytcore-ios-share

From a newsletter called Documented about immigration issues I see :

At least seven New York City immigration judges were fired on Monday, including Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Amiena Khan, who oversaw 26 Federal Plaza.

The judges join the dozens ousted across the country without cause since President Donald Trump took office on a platform that promised the “largest deportation operation” in United States history.

FBI arrested suspect in the pipe bombing situation on Jan 5th 2021 and it is not MTG

woah

Did Patel get to wear his women’s size jacket with all the medals?

Psh, arresting suspects is child's play. This administration is arresting people all the time.

But the suspect has been linked to statements that show support for an anarchist ideology, two people briefed on the arrest told the news outlet.

The only thing these chumps are better at than arresting suspects is incorrectly ascribing motive. I'm shocked they didn't claim the pipes espoused leftist trans ideology.

Probably anarcho capitalist

anyone who did this is obviously anti-government, but that also describes 100% of the people who attacked the capitol building the next day and everyone currently servcing in Trump's administration

Have they been pardoned yet?

Dunno if we've talked about this ridiculous Oklahoma case where the student went crying to the governor because she got a zero on a terrible essay that completely failed to address or fulfill her actual assignment and just basically wrote "God says we must hate queer people" and now the TA who wrote copious notes explaining all the ways the essay failed the assignment (and who happens to be trans) has been suspended by the university ...

Anyway, not shockingly, there's more to the story: the crying bigot's mom is a MAGA activist lawyer and COVID conspiracist who defended two Jan. 6 defendants.

https://archive.ph/EkGR0

yeah, that story is super depressing and super fucked up. it was clearly the plan all along, apparently the mom had contacted the media within hours of the student getting the paper back. it's awful.

I wrote a whole thing about this not long, the toxic pipeline available to any aggrieved bullshit artist on the right now where they can just say a few magic words and get turned into an immediate martyr by right-wing social media, which then immediately triggers action by red-state MAGAs up to and including senators and governors. It's not just the force of that system, it's the speed. Some random professor or teacher might say something in class that they don't even think is controversial, and by the time they get back from lunch the governor is demanding they be fired. (Needless to say, even at the height of social justice Twitter mobs, nothing remotely like that power ever existed on the left.)

*not long ago*

This was always the problem with centrist ghouls signing those sorts of "anti cancel culture" letters and such— they were ultimately endorsing the right's ideological position that only certain ideas are allowed, and all others must be suppressed and those who hold them must be punished. They couldn't see that consequences for actions, such as Twitter pile-ons, are actually quite different that having your entire life and career ended because of some dipshit Evangelical swastika worshipper freak.

otm. Looking at the full-on federal and state-level assaults on actual free speech right now, from library book bans to this kind of performative victimhood shit at OU, it's just hilarious that all those tut-tutters spent so long worrying about whether people like Larry Summers were being treated unfairly by the woke mobs. (By hilarious I mean enraging.)

I prefer martyrs who die for their beliefs, Charlie Kirk / Ashli Babbitt style.

its super depressing if you actually read the essay. it would be one thing if it was like, Charlie Kirk or Ben Shapiro type bullshit where you're clearly arguing in bad faith but are at least citing actual sources and making coherent arguments. this essay on the other hand was terribly written from front to back, almost as though this was the plan all along

What I was struck by was how much effort the instructors put into providing thoughtful feedback to the student and patiently explaining why they gave the score they did.

Yeah she 100 percent earned that zero. Also the student has been telling reporters that she's "not really that into politics," which seems hard to believe given that her mom is a raging MAGA psycho who's been in the news multiple times for being a raging MAGA psycho and now somehow the daughter is a Fox News darling.

This morning, the mom talked about the case on a local (Springfield, MO) radio show where she is apparently a regular. Can't bring myself to listen, but: https://www.ksgf.com/podcast/nickreedpodcasts/

Hegseth really leaning into the 'fog of war' defense for the second strike

"fog of war" = too busy jerking it in his private washroom because he gets to kill people and get away with it

uh, "kill them all" is the reported Hegseth quote that is at issue here and there is nothing foggy about that. also we aren't at war.

And Hegseth is sitting on his ass in some secure room in D.C. watching it all on TV. If he's in a fog, it ain't because of war.

they're twisting themselves in pretzels to explain that because the two guys weren't yet dead, they could've called for another boat to come pick them up, and while they awaited rescue, they could retrieve all the bundles of toot, so....

"Hey, our boat just got bombed by the US military. Please come pick us up in another BOAT."

I've generally been dimly aware of who the current Sec of Defense is at any given time... but this guy's mediocrity has kept him in the headlines constantly, and I'm sure he wants it this way

stupid Pete was talking about the smoke and fire being the literal "fog of war", something the silly reporters would never understand

I’m a little late to the party, but, I mean

“Boondoggle Ranch“

haha yeah I could talk abt that for a while

I'm gonna pack up my pa, I'm gonna pack my aunt
I'm gonna take them down to the Boondoggle Ranch

maybe this is the 'bubba' that Epstein was referring to, makes more sense than Clinton

The Other “Bubba” in the News: Boondoggle Ranch’s Bubba Saulsbury, GOP Donor and Texas Oil Scion

Bubba the Love Scion

Charlie Kirk / Ashli Babbitt

weird i've never heard of either of these ppl

that seems unlikely

i never should've heard of either of them

Maine - Democratic Senate Polling Leads:

All: 🟢 Platner +20

Women: 🟢 Platner +22
Men: 🟢 Platner +19

Under 50: 🟢 Platner +60
50-64: 🟢 Platner +21
65+: 🟢 Platner +1

Non-College: 🟢 Platner +21
College: 🟢 Platner +19

Z to A Research / Nov 18, 2025

— Polling USA (@USA_Polling) December 3, 2025

it’s plattening

Is that the nazi

it sure is

Look 2024 proved that if you want to win young men's votes you just have to run Nazis, it's just the way it is. You just have to try to find the good ones. Woke Nazis.

at least he's our nazi

the nazi of my enemy is my nazi

Meanwhile there is video of the two guys killed in the second strike on the shipwreck, and guess what?

Members of Congress were just permitted to view the video of the second boat-bombing strike that’s consuming Washington in controversy, during a classified briefing with Admiral Frank Bradley, who oversaw the operation. What they saw was deeply unnerving. And it pushes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s story closer to collapse.

Representative Adam Smith, ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said in an interview that the video of the second strike—which killed two men who’d been clinging to the wreckage of a boat destroyed in an earlier strike—badly undermines Hegseth’s stance in this scandal.

“This did not reduce my concerns at all—or anyone else’s,” Smith told me. “This is a big, big problem, and we need a full investigation.”

Smith said the video shows two men, sitting without shirts, atop a portion of a capsized boat that was still above water. That portion, Smith said, could barely have fit four people.

“It looks like two classically shipwrecked people,” Smith told me. But in the briefing, lawmakers were told that “it was judged that these two people were capable of returning to the fight,” Smith added. He called it a “highly questionable decision that these two people on that obviously incapacitated vessel were still in any kind of fight.”

https://newrepublic.com/article/203988/hegseth-boat-strike-video-details-horrific

Was the boat in question an AMC Sunfish sailboat?

Senator Tom Cotton, for instance, said it showed the two survivors attempting to flip a boat “loaded with drugs bound for the United States.”

Oh OF COURSE Boondoggle has a Bubba

Look 2024 proved that if you want to win young men's votes you just have to run Nazis, it's just the way it is. You just have to try to find the good ones. Woke Nazis.

Ernst Rohm was in it mostly for the nice uniforms and meeting guys

I mean, this is just too on the nose:

The State Department is instructing its staff to reject visa applications from people who worked on fact-checking, content moderation or other activities the Trump administration considers "censorship" of Americans' speech.

The directive, sent in an internal memo on Tuesday, is focused on applicants for H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, which are frequently used by tech companies, among other sectors. The memo was first reported by Reuters; NPR also obtained a copy.

fun factoid

Yes, members of Congress and their official staff are required by law to get their health insurance through a plan created under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or an ACA exchange. They do not receive free healthcare and must pay premiums, just like other working Americans.

The federal government, acting as their employer, contributes to their health insurance premiums. This contribution is between 72% and 75% of the total cost

Grand Jury refuses to indict Letitia James again, 2 weeks after first case against her was dismissed

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/grand-jury-declines-indict-ny-attorney-general-letitia-james-less-two-rcna247310

x-post

Cotton: "I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat -- loaded with drugs, bound for the United States -- back over, so they could stay in the fight."

In 2020 Cotton wanted to use troops to kill BLM protestors. Now in 2025, he thinks 2 guys hanging on the remains of a boat that was just hit by a missile are engaged in some sort of war battle and deserve to die

The Minnesota Somali-Americans clowning on socials about being promised the land 3000 years ago are bringing me joy.

xp Just wonder how much coke has been consumed at Mar-a-Lagoo over the years... Don Jr., obviously, but every other asshole republican golfer that needs a little lift

in other just released news -

The 6 member conservative majority overturns District Court ruling that Texas unconstitutionally utilized race in its new redistricting plan that will give Republicans 5 more seats. Majority says its just standard partisan politics.

The 3 member Supreme Court liberal dissenters in an opinion written by Kagan ask : In enacting an electoral map
slanted toward Republicans, did Texas predominantly use
race to draw its new district lines? Or said otherwise, did
Texas accomplish its partisan objectives by means of a racial gerrymander?

The dissent says that is what the District Court held

just seems absolutely clear now that Venezuela is all about the oil

The boat bombings are a preamble to the invasion/regime change, to show that they are indisputably a 'narco-terror' state... they don't give a shit about the cocaine, it's about getting ready to take over for the oil

Dig your 'No Blood for Oil!' sign out of the garage, that's where we are again

have to admit i feel like I’m taking crazy pills with this focus on the illegality of the second strike on the boat. Aren’t all the first strikes just as unconscionably, depravedly outside the bounds of the law? They’re certainly just as lethal. Is this just dems going for the lowest hanging fruit that might miraculously yield a little whimper of bipartisanship, and in so doing normalizing the horrors of the fact that they’re blowing all these boats out of the water to begin with?

None of this stopped them from blowing up yet another boat today.

Never apologize. Never admit wrong. Double down every fucking time. Let the rest of the world figure out how to stop you. It's the Trump formula.

why dont i see coverage pushed that is talking about who was in the boat, along with the survivors who were killed? how do we not know these victims? wtf? if this happened in countries i’ve been to visit, i’m confident they’d have figured this shit out and press would be pushing stories and it would reach here— wouldnt it?

is this not happening in venezuela? why not? these are murders by my understanding of the situation. all these fuckers wankin over ‘wooo a war crime’ well it would be if usa was at war but no, this looks like straight murders. is venezuela asserting anything with factual allegations? i fucking hate how this is going.

and the oil in question is shit, it requires tons of transport, is full of sulphur, it has to be treated to separate it, and by my understanding from business there 15 years ago, making money from it was not easy even then. you can sell the sulphur once its out but so what. this is not like iraq aiui.

the emphasis on the order for the second strike makes sense because it is an unmistakable, clear, direct and well-defined crime under any and all circumstances. whoever is responsible (hint: it is hegseth) has simply and clearly committed a crime. full stop. the fact that the crime was committed 'on behalf of the american people' means we have to repudiate it or accept that we embrace complicity. the lines are sharp and can't easily be fudged.

xp yeah that’s part of my issue, like caring about this second strike even the slightest bit more than the fact we’re doing this at all is an implicit endorsement of the narrative that these actions should be interpreted through some kind of wartime lens, and there is no reason anyone should be conceding that absurdity

“the war on drugs,” the gift that keeps on giving. the fact that that’s a phrase that still rolls off the tongue for many Americans probably plays a not insignificant role in this way of thinking. thanks, nixon!

If you don’t buy the “rules of war” bs then all these strikes are just as unmistakable, clear, well-defined crimes imo

I don;t disagree about the "should" in your perspective, but this particular crime totally evades the nonsensical narrative of this being some kind of war, in that even under the administration's official narrative, this is a crime. there's no possible narrative spin to create an escape hatch from that fact.

i suppose if it brings down hegseth it serves a purpose. i’m sure the next sec def will be a thoughtful, compassionate and experienced leader

“A US Navy admiral testified that Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth did not give the order to "kill them all" during a controversial second US military strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, multiple lawmakers have said. “

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyxjd6pxzro

He said this while shuffling a stack of 200 Benjamins

The timing of the second-strike scandal and the video about not following illegal orders and the investigation/prosecution of the people who made that video is all quite something. Coordinated to some degree? I wonder if Kelly et al who made the video knew the Washington Post story was coming. They might have, who knows who all the reporters talked to. Anyway it makes a pretty clear case for the messages in the video.

In 2020 Cotton wanted to use troops to kill BLM protestors. Now in 2025, he thinks 2 guys hanging on the remains of a boat that was just hit by a missile are engaged in some sort of war battle and deserve to die

similarly, I believe it'll be a net positive when this venal fucker carks it

It will be a net positive when every Republican politician and voter carks it afaic.

why dont i see coverage pushed that is talking about who was in the boat, along with the survivors who were killed?

This is strange for sure. I've not read too many specifics, because I find the whole thing pretty horrifying/dispiriting, but I did see one of the (now many) boats described once as a submarine or submersible, and I thought, Ok, it's still horrifying and illegal, but a personal-use submarine is at least a little more on-brand/suspicious for a drug smuggler. Doesn't mean you get to murder them, though. Find a suspicious boat at sea? Cooperate with the local authorities and investigate, this extralegal shoot first, don't ask questions strategy is disgusting.

Good morning!

A US Navy admiral testified that Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth did not give the order to "kill them all"

Pete's more of a Metal Up Your Ass guy.

is this not happening in venezuela? why not?

Not sure what's going on exactly:

The New York Times reported that "Venezuelan security officials descended on San Juan de Unare, cut off the electricity and made clear that public pronouncements about the attacks were not welcome, according to four townspeople, including the niece of one of the victims."

pipe bomb suspect was a trump supporter; surprised the FBI even let this out.

weird that the arrest comes just a couple of weeks after Glenn Beck's website blamed a former capitol police officer for the bombings.

Or bomb placings rather

xxp that's actually good news, ty

the good news for republicans is that he's black so they can still blame it on that

him being a Jan 6'er should put him in line for a pardon though, right?

pipe bomb suspect was a trump supporter; surprised the FBI even let this out.

Figured this had to be the case, or they would have been screaming about radical leftist violence in the press conference yesterday. But given that, how do they possibly prosecute this guy when they just let all the other Jan. 6 people out of jail?

him being a Jan 6'er should put him in line for a pardon though, right?

He’s not white, so no

But given that, how do they possibly prosecute this guy when they just let all the other Jan. 6 people out of jail?

This is a great question and I don't have an answer but remember these people are not smart.

It was not too long ago the Kash was proclaiming that the pipe bombs were an inside job perpetrated by guess who? The FBI

A lot of professional gait examiners out of work now

Man pardoned on J6 current behavior so alarming that even this Justice Department wants to jail him: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/04/justice-department-urges-judge-to-jail-former-jan-6-defendant-after-alarming-return-to-dc-00678109

But he’ll probably be hired by the White House as Secretary of Stalking or something

I'm sorry but 'Stalking' is an offensive term. Please use "Curious People' now, thnx.

FBI Director Kash Patel was hit with another damning allegation of abusing the bureau’s resources after MS NOW reported Friday he has ordered his girlfriend’s security detail to drive a drunk friend home after a night of partying in Nashville.

Three sources who were granted anonymity told the outlet that on at least two occasions, Patel’s girlfriend, country singer and private citizen Alexis Wilkins, 27, had asked agents assigned to her security to drive her friend home.

However when the agents refused to divert from their assignment, Patel insisted they do so, even going as far as to yell at Wilkins’ head security to do as she said, according to the outlet.

Gonna miss this big guy

Ok, so Trump has won the inaugural 'FIFA Peace Prize"

Wossallthadabowt?

going for the Shriner vote

“I have just approved TINY CARS to be built in America. Manufacturers have long wanted to do this, just like they are so successfully built in other countries,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “They can be propelled by gasoline, electric, or hybrid."

Smart cars back on the menu baby

apparently he's learned about japanes Kei cars and got really excited about them... even a stopped clock etc.

“They can be propelled by gasoline, electric, or hybrid."

also by gusts of wind

Ok, so Trump has won the inaugural 'FIFA Peace Prize"

Wossallthadabowt?

― Mark G, Friday, December 5, 2025 12:34 PM bookmarkflaglink

does this mean he banned Suarez from playing

Ok, so Trump has won the inaugural 'FIFA Peace Prize"

Wossallthadabowt?

"you have won a prestigious and obviously deserved international peace prize from an organization recognized across the world, sir"

Just announced: ultra-efficient super-smart cars that consume literally no resources when put into neutral and pushed downhill.

The First Annual Donald J. Trump Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of FIFA

He gets to keep it in perpetuity.

Or, he gets to bitch and moan about who wins it next time.

dude def knows how to blow smoke up the arse

“This is your prize, this is your peace prize,” Infantino said, after Trump took the stage to accept the trophy, a medal and certificate. “There is also a beautiful medal for you that you can wear everywhere you want to go.”

a certificate!!

"We're going to put this right here, on the front of the refrigerator, so that everybody can see it."

it would have been funny if Trump *hadn't* won the FIFA Peace Prize

It would be funny if he did wear the medal everywhere he went, like a proud child.

this is like that movie Stone Fury where they pranked their friend that he was in a movie and that he won an award from the President of Show Business

sorry, it was Windy City Heat, Stone Fury was the character

https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/yhst-133657565843072/1-1-4-inch-medal-of-excellence-gold-29.png

they could make him a nice star out of dried macaroni and construction paper

the fact that it’s the inaugural award makes him the founding father of FIFA peace. people are saying that the world’s greatest leaders will strive for the merest place in his leadership lineage for hundreds- no, for thousands of years.

and he can wear the medallion wherever he wants to go, man. “hey don, wanna go to the mall?” “yah wait…i need my medallion, i need to look right.”

That FIFA 'Peace Prize' hits all of his pleasure centers so I'm sure he dgaf what the rest of us think about it. To him it's a real win. It signals fealty and abasement and there is a physical token made with gold, which guarantees it cost a good chunk of money that now belongs to him. We all can say it's pure fakery and flattery, but according to his system of values, that's as real as it gets.

it would be realer if it was real sport, like golf.

Now he has to win the War Prize

Presidential EGOT:

FIFA Peace Prize
WWE Hall of Fame
Time Person of the Year
Most Perfect Cognitive Test Score Ever

Ok, just saw the end of the FIFA world cup draw.

Village People. Trump dancing.

They'll be all talking about it tomorrow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_dance

Sheesh!

among the other things Trump has ruined: a perfectly nice song about cruising for twinks

The Trump dance is frequently performed to the musical accompaniment of the Village People's "Y.M.C.A.",[3] which Trump has called the "gay national anthem".[3][5]

lol wtf

fucking monsters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BScWncYxDag

As per usual, don't read the comments.

you're not kidding. lots of "ICE doesn't do this, must have been cartel disguised as ICE" and "wait until the full story comes out, don't trust the media, all of these stories are debunked".

just don't talk to people, really. the level of discourse is so destroyed right now

respectfully, I wonder how many of those comments are either bots or troll farms from another country

I notice this more and more on relatively innocuous social media posts

I wonder what the attrition rates are for ICE and CBP agents these days.. I know some are definitely genetic sociopaths, but there has to be a certain % that thought they were signing up to be respected law enforcement agents and pillars of their community, only to end up as despised storm troopers, with people following you and screaming at you to fuck off and die

No sympathy, you reap what you sow - but at least for some of them it must wear them down.. I read somewhere that a lot of CBP agents were mostly administrative pencil pushers in the past but have been reassigned to chase young mothers through the streets

I read that a lot of new ICE recruits are people who were working as prison guards, which makes total sense. They're even better suited to the job than regular cops, because they're used to abusing people with impunity day and night outside of any kind of public view or supervision. And ICE pays better.

Ossé is out.

Chi Ossé, the New York City councilmember vying to unseat House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, said Friday he will no longer run for the New York seat.

In a statement, Ossé, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, said he’ll withdraw his bid after not receiving backing from the democratic socialist group — an endorsement that would have likely ushered in support from other left-leaning voters who had propelled Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani to victory earlier this year.

“Exploring the possibility of this run was important,” Ossé said in a statement. “As committed, I will not be launching this campaign without the support of the DSA, and so the exploration process has concluded.”

The move puts an early cap on Ossé’s campaign, after the 27-year-old councilmember filed paperwork to run for the Brooklyn-based 8th District just last month.

The DSA voted not to endorse the young councilmember’s challenge late last month, but he’d maintained that he’d stay in the race despite the lack of support, writing on X “IM NOT GOING ANYWHERE” after the decision.

But the campaign also faced sagging support from city leaders like Mamdani, who advocated against endorsing the city councilmember at a DSA forum last month and reportedly discouraged him from entering the race earlier this year. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has also said she wouldn’t support Ossé's primary challenge.

If Trump dies of natural causes, Maga is going to say his doctor murdered him.

when it’s miller and vance together in the new ballroom with the double ended candlestick

^ hmmm. makes wonder for the first time what the miller-vance relationship looks like.

I saw a meme about this and honestly thought it was a joke, but of course it’s real:

In 2026, Americans will get free admission to national parks on President Donald Trump's birthday but no longer on Juneteenth and Martin Luther King Jr. Day, according to the National Park Service website.

Previously, the National Park Service included these two federal holidays among its free-entry days for its 116 parks.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/experience/national-parks/2025/12/05/national-parks-free-entry-days-2026/87631147007/

libs? pwned!

I for one look forward to the mandatory celebrations of Trump's birthday which are sure to be announced soon.

They'll be all talking about it tomorrow.

who’s they?

Media. Which they are.

Nobody's mentioned the shambles of the Village People performance, walking on a whole minute after the backing tape had started.

Small beer by comparison, but.

12 billion dollar bail out for a sector he destroyed is certainly something

these pathetic fucks just ass kissing and begging for money live on TV

isnt this the exact reason why farmers always vote Republican, they don't want to adapt they want bailouts

yes and that's how republican's keep these assholes voting for them

so tariffs are just a tax on the rest of us to pay off farmers

also it isn’t even family farms, a lot of the “farmers” are actually enormous businesses, or they’re smaller farms owned by multibillion dollar agribusinesses concerns

'enormous businesses' have an ear in the White House not shared by the little guys

xp The tariffs are a tax separate from the bailouts:

The administration drew the $12 billion from a USDA fund using taxpayer dollars

Jasmine Crockett (who was gerrymandered out of her congressional seat) throws hat into the ring for the 2026 Senate race.

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/12/08/jasmine-crockett-texas-senate-democratic-primary-2026/

wow

And Colin Allred dropped out of the race.

I wish her the best, though that seems like a real longshot bid.

it won't be easy but she has a higher profile than anyone else in the race including John Cornyn, should at least make it competitive

I get bad vibes from Crockett, feels like another race that donors will drop endless millions into to get a 6-point loss.

I like her first ad, and cable news bookers love her.

https://bsky.app/profile/keithboykin.bsky.social/post/3m7j5cybqvs2c

"Trump thinks I'm stupid" does not seem like a good ad theme.

JoeStork otm

As we've discussed recently, Texas is actually majority Democrat by voter registration... but yeah, Senate seems a bit ambitious at this juncture

Trump thinks she's stupid because she's: (A) Black; (B) Female & (C) A Democrat.

Meanwhile over on the GOP side, they're running a three-man circular firing squad between Cornyn, Paxton & Wesley Hunt. The local airwaves are flooded with ads from PACs for the former two and Hunt himself about how actually their guy kisses the most Trump ass and how much the other two suck because they don't kiss enough Trump ass.

As we've discussed recently, Texas is actually majority Democrat by voter registration

i might have missed this discussion, but that is misleading, in part bc Texas does not actually have party registration:
https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/is-texas-actually-a-blue-state

I said it before, but Texas does not have a majority of democrats, at least among people who currently vote.

I like Jasmine Crockett and James Talarico, they are both very articulate and interesting, but my guess is that Cornyn or Paxton will still win. I don't think Texas will become a blue state in my remaining lifetime. I'm just happy that there are enthusiastic democrats hammering away

Paxton, ugh

yes, I was incorrect by saying 'majority,' i.e. over 50%

However:

Party Registration Statistics
Total Registered Voters: 17,485,702
Democrats: 8,133,683 (46.52%)
Republicans: 6,601,189 (37.75%)
Unaffiliated: 2,750,830 (15.73%)

Texas voters do not register by party. However, when those voters participate in a partisan primary, that ballot choice is recorded and reported on the state voter file.

‍

Reporter of leak says targets incl. online forums as well---interview here:

“Domestic Terrorism”: Leaked DOJ Memo Targets “Anti-Americanism, Anti-Capitalism, Anti-Christianity”

xp Those numbers actually indicate "likely party affiliation." Most voters in Texas have never voted in a primary, so the affiliations of the rest are modeled through demographic data. Point being that it's inexact and doesn't tell you much about actual voting patterns.

Came here to post that democracy now link.

No words.

The wording is almost too preposterous to believe. It basically defines everyone who isn’t a conservative Christian Trump supporter as a potential extremist who might incite violence.

There will definitely be fuckery from all of this, but it's the kind of fuckery that could blow up in their faces (a la the James/Comey cases).

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:g45u5yjzuvvmzyn346dtlemj/bafkreiesi3do56i6u64w3bteqz2i5egupsi4xnmddj2rg4wmnzhxoe5bvm@jpeg

...for January thread title.

hard to get over how utterly embarrassing this administration is from top to bottom, the cringiest folks imaginable spending all day using AI to make Franklin the turtle shitposts about the war crimes they're committing

Way cool to find out our nation has a humiliation kink.

Got to figure that that small farmer Bill Gates probably will get maybe the biggest check in that bailout, considering he is the biggest single owner of farmland in the US. Serfs gotta eat you know...

McSerf Corps - work off that personal debt while helping feed America!

By court order...

Charlie don't serf and we think he should

As much as I expected something like that to come out of this administration at some point, that DOJ memo is still pretty chilling.

I think they really expected people to care about Charlie Kirk as much as they did.

what, did people really care? it all felt forced by the media and performative on the public side. no one gives a crap about that dork anymore not even his widow

“We are pushing all of our chips in on artificial intelligence as a fighting force. The Department is tapping into America's commercial genius, and we’re embedding generative AI into our daily battle rhythm" -- Hegseth"

Very well

xpost That's what I was saying.

No one gave a shit about Charlie Kirk except them.

ya I don't think your average Trump voter even knew who he was, only the offputting weirdos who spend all day on Twitter, the fact that the media made such a big deal out of it is evidence they're all still on there

In the days after Kirk's killing Vance and a bunch of other ghouls were on tv talking about tracking down the sinister voices who inspired the shooter, and seemed to think they could get everyone on the same page like after 9/11, but when everyone was like, "WTF put Jimmy Kimmell back on the air," it all collapsed for them.

xpost That's what I was saying.

oh i was confused, my bad

The ting that doves me crazy is that Jimmy Kimmel said nothing about Charlie Kirk! He was making fun of Trump instantly switching to talking ain’t Gibson’s ballroom.

She doves me crazy
This is what it sounds like when drives cry

Ugh

The only time after Inauguration Day itself that I felt as if the Trump administration had finally incepted my brain was after the Kirk murder; then I thought, huh, well, if my parents (FOX watchers) and most anyone over 30 gave no shits about him, why should I? This thing would fade. And that's what happened.

In the days after Kirk's killing Vance

wait so if Vance is dead who is the person pretending to be VP now

Charlie with a fake beard and eyeliner obv

we’re embedding generative AI into our daily battle rhythm

Looking into modifying our weapons for use with six horribly malformed fingers

i’m loath to make predictions but I have a feeling that if the big man pops his clogs during this term we’ll see how low a presidential approval rating can go and it might end with a bunker suicide

re: Vance

lol YMP!

No new insights here, but a pretty good little rant: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-sheriff-of-sundown-city/

That adolescence now suffuses every level of the MAGA GOP, from lowly tweets to the attempted canonization of vile little snot Charlie Kirk. White House press briefings and responses vacillate between Mean Girls and schoolyard taunts. Government social media accounts teem with weak dunks and memes that border on geriatric in internet time; the only new detail is how much more the next one can resemble official Nazi Party posters. Everyone from senators to secretaries to the vice president engage with reality with the sneering, affected sociopathy of a teen incel. Foreign policy is bullying; law enforcement is bullying; economic policy is bullying plus scamming; all the money they’re spending is someone else’s; all the cars are limos; all the girls are lacquered like every day is Homecoming, and everyone is terminally horny, like an unwanted hug pressing a boner against you. It’s all so fucking embarrassing.

This is the future the GOP has unbuilt for itself, and we will be living with its juvenile mentality for a while, not just as a pose, but as a platform. Watching Trump’s mind unmaking itself and the conservative discourse is like reading the infamous Lee Atwater quote about the Southern Strategy in reverse. After the slow assembly of the GOP’s postwar rhetorical playbook, Trump has rewound the story of American conservatism — from economic abstractions and cuts cuts cuts, back past individuals’ and “states’ rights” and forced busing and returned it to 1954. The next stop is shouting the N-word over and over.

Very well said, though I think I’m maybe a good 10-15 years away from being ready to read a book-length laceration of this awful year and the people making it awful.

just looking for places to practice their cruelty, and then posting it online

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) changed the name of former Adm. Rachel Levine, a transgender woman who served as the agency’s assistant secretary under former President Biden, to her birth name, or “dead name,” on her official portrait.

HHS confirmed on X Tuesday that the department changed the name during the government shutdown, saying that they wanted to depict “biological reality.”

Just fuckin' bullies picking on the queer kids, except everybody's middle-aged. Pathetic.

Really redefining “inhuman”

The ting that doves me crazy is that Jimmy Kimmel said nothing about Charlie Kirk! He was making fun of Trump instantly switching to talking ain’t Gibson’s ballroom.

― Modollno Kahn (Boring, Maryland), Tuesday, December 9, 2025 10:45 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

they were still in guilty-conscience panicky redirection mode for how _______ it is he got a shot at a school literally mid-sentence not exactly condemning school shootings iirc

they seemed to struggle a lot trying to figure out how to memorialize the guy, they were trying to make him into some MLK-level martyr and a paragon of respectful debate but there wasn't really a clip of the guy nor a single quote that made him seem like anything than an annoying shit, which is a problem when even your own voters didn't know who he was. especially since the clips of him that *did* spread afterwards were the ones where he was like "yeah it's fine if some people get shot"

you can't force people to mourna piece of shit

"He's our piece of shit."

Apparently Miami is about to have its first Democratic mayor in 30 years?

is it Alfred?

Yes, we are. She's not MY mayor -- she's City of Miami, whereas I live in Miami-Dade County. Huge symbolic victory, though, as the Trump candidate will lose by a lot.

and Harris barely won last year.

on the Negroni Party ballot

Congrats Miami! It's an important city, even a symbolic win is a good win. Definitely good to gain back some ground.

Meanwhile, this is obviously fantastic and not at all foreboding news:

The name Gregg Phillips may not ring any bells, but it’s possible you’re familiar with his past work. Maybe you’ve heard of “2000 Mules,” a 2022 documentary by far right conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza based on completely unfounded claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election drummed up by True the Vote, an election denier nonprofit where Phillips has long served in leadership. (The widely debunked film featured the late Charlie Kirk.) Or maybe you remember when Trump tweeted in 2016 with zero evidence that “millions” of people voted illegally in that year’s presidential election? That was based solely on a previous tweet from Phillips, which was also based on no evidence.

Phillipps’ impact on the lives of Americans is about to significantly grow, The Handbasket is the first to report per multiple sources, with his new job as Administrator of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery (ORR). Despite having zero experience in disaster response, Phillips has publicly shown a keen interest in the inner-workings of his new agency and natural disasters, despite never having professionally worked in these spaces. He’s posted on LinkedIn that his “work in disasters and emergencies goes back four decades” and refers to himself as “a very vocal opponent of FEMA.” On his Wikipedia page you’ll find an entire section labeled “Allegations of grift, ethical misconduct, philandering, nepotism and cronyism.” Despite it all, he’s about to take on one of those most important roles in federal disaster management.

https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/conspiracy-theorist-election-denier-fema-gregg-phillips

To again state the obvious, if you were trying to weaken our country and make it more vulnerable on purpose, you'd be doing all the things these guys are doing.

“philandering”

disaster response is my passion

I think it is going to be crony BS, pay for play. Considering the hurricane and tornado alley is pretty much in red states, you know those bubbas are not going to say bupkis about making some folding money, when if they grease the wheel they get paid. All those big infrastructure type companies that get contracts are probably pretty well represented in their political affiliations.

They will definitely be dicks with the forest fires out west for sure.

...and already are as we've seen with hurricanes/weather disaster relief <in coastal red states>.

We’re at the “fonts are woke” stage:

Marco Rubio ordered diplomats to return to using Times New Roman font in official communications, calling his predecessor's decision to adopt Calibri a “wasteful” diversity move

Uh, isnt it Microsoft's decision re making that the default font in Office? Which happend at least a decade ago?!

thanks obama

we must return to the original fonts of 1776

ilx point of order isn’t it a typeface i thought that was settled in the 00s

In January 2023, the United States Department of State retired Times New Roman in favor of Calibri for official communications and documents due to superior readability on a computer screen, and accessibility, since its sans-serif nature would cause fewer problems in the usage of text-to-speech and optical character recognition tools.[37][38] In December 2025, the State Department switched back to using Times New Roman.

if you were writing a YA novel about the rise of fascism this replacing the fonts stuff would be criticized as too on-the-nose and unrealistic.

Also clocked in that article that the Rubio memo in question notes this as a strike against not just DEI, but DEIA - now accessibility is bad too. I wonder if they’re just going to keep adding letters as they clamp down on any independent thought. Again almost too painfully on-the-nose, we’re deep into “First They Came” territory. Watch out trade unionists you’re next

ilx point of order isn’t it a typeface i thought that was settled in the 00s

― look, he's country's own david bowie- deal with it (Hunt3r), Wednesday, December 10, 2025 5:44 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

The font is the stand on which the typesetter puts the cases of type. On the front of each piece of type is the typeface which is the design of the letters. The skewmorphic bastards and xerox or wherever knew what they were doing and everyone else has got it wrong since.

his “work in disasters and emergencies goes back four decades”

Like this administration

my phone only does liberal typefaces, I'm being brainwashed

Rubio the serif sheriff

relieved its not fraktur

I'd prefer to be sans sheriff

I’m not gonna lie, I read that story and thought, “stopped clock.”

San serif typefaces give me an awful headache, and I find them intensely hard to read. TNR or Georgia forever for me, thanks.

TNR rules.

Palatino for approachability

Garamond for elegance

Good morning!

I write all my memos in wingdings

if you were writing a YA novel about the rise of fascism this replacing the fonts stuff would be criticized as too on-the-nose and unrealistic
True Fascist font would be Blacketter.

* Blackletter (often incorrectly called Gothic)

TNR is obviously classic, and it's true that it looks more "professional" than Calibri, although that's somewhat tautological — I think our sense of of what looks professional still derives from print (books, business letters, memos, etc) and print favors serifs. The order itself is dumb and needlessly tendentious, but unlike most dumb things these guys do its result is fine. (Also from what I've read, with the resolution on current screens, the accessibility argument in favor of sans serif has largely evaporated.)

Comic Sans in the streets, Chamberi Super Display in the sheets

Georgia is the only font I write in. I think it's the Guardian online font, too.

I hate TNR, love Georgia, like Calibri (and didn't mind whatever was the generic/automatic Word font before that - Aptos, I think?).

Yeah Georgia's my fave too — it's what we use for our daily newsletter. Elegant, readable, classy.

I keep stumbling into this thread and going “why are people so mad at Ta-Nehisi Roates”

i was thinking The New Republic

^yes Alfred saying "TNR rules" took me aback (they seem okay these days tbf)

Calibri is objectively trash, cry harder libs

When Miller asked point-blank whether he’d do DOGE again, Musk hesitated.

“I mean, no, I don’t think so,” he admitted. “I think instead of doing DOGE, I would have basically … worked on my companies, essentially.”

He added that in another timeline, without the political storm, “the cars — they wouldn’t have been burning the cars.”

So you're saying that vandalism works

follow up question, mr. musk, if i may -- so was it at least worth doing it to kill all the investigations into your various companies?

In lieu of taking out Jeffries, Lander beating Goldman would be a good step. (And would certainly send a message to Jeffries.)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/new-york-city-comptroller-brad-lander-congress-campaign-dan-goldman-rcna248367

incredible stuff

Sahil Kapur sahilkapur.bsky.social‬

Status update on House Republicans and a health care plan, after this morning’s conference meeting:

“The consensus is we need to come up with something,” Rep. Ralph Norman says.

https://bsky.app/profile/sahilkapur.bsky.social/post/3m7nf3djqt225

I'm going to guess what they come up with involves betting on people's illness with crypto.

it's gonna be some lame health savings account, 'cutting out the middleman' or something something

Apparently these were posted up around the Pentagon. I suppose it's a better use of your tax dollars than the Pentagon, but still ...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G7vjRbhXwAAqk45?format=jpg&name=large

xp They were promising that we could “negotiate directly with insurance companies”, lol.

Today in "America is over, with or without Trump":

"We will never fucking trust you again"

we are all captive to the delusions of our ruling class, who are convinced that every problem we face can be solved by adding another widget to the tax code that incentivizes a small shift in our economic behavior. when this widget fails to solve the problem the conclusion is that it wasn't correctly designed and must be tweaked.

eventually, the widget is denounced as a failed policy; it must be junked and replaced with a wholly new, revolutionary, surefire, perfected widget that provides the correct tax incentives. once it is implemented, we'll be in clover.

xp just heard that the Canadians are trying to figure out what to do with all the U.S. booze they pulled from the shelves this year

Surely they could sell it to discounters located outside Canada and recoup all or most of the original cost. The loss would mainly be storage and shipping.

they should mix it into one giant long island ice tea and everyone in canada can have a sip

NY Times Pitchbot

Follow
Democrats say gay men should live their lives openly without shame. Are they saying this magnanimously, or are they trying to cut off the flow of new Republican podcasters?

booze for a good cause

The Canadian province of Manitoba will sell select American alcohol to the public from tomorrow, with proceeds to be donated to charity.

Turn it into eggnog, sell it as a value-added Canadian product.

The US has seized and oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. I didn't get much more info - I can't even read this article.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-10/us-seizes-oil-tanker-off-the-coast-of-venezuela

you can always try archive.is/https://thelinkthatissometimesarchivedtherebyakindsoul

Did they make the case that it was full of drugs?

Fossil fuels are a drug

Just in time for the World Cup... so welcoming!

Tourists to US would have to reveal five years of social media activity under new Trump plan

Tourists to the United States would have to reveal their social media activity from the last five years, under new Trump administration plans.

The mandatory new disclosures would apply to the 42 countries whose nationals are currently permitted to enter the US without a visa, including longtime US allies Britain, France, Australia, Germany and Japan.

In a notice published on Tuesday, the US Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) said it would also require any telephone numbers used by visitors over the same period, and any email addresses used in the last decade, as well as face, fingerprint, DNA and iris biometrics. It would also ask for the names, addresses, birthdates and birthplaces of family members, including children.

that's actual insane

God almighty I would never go to any country that required that. You don't want my money, fine.

there's also an implication that everybody uses social media? and not everyone does

nobody needs to vacation in the US that badly

foreign tourism in the U.S. is already in steep decline, here's the nail in the coffin

I'm just lolling that people like Matt Taibbi thought the Twitter Files was the biggest story in history and are silent as fuck about stuff like this.

that ai slop poster up thread looks more like Matt Gaetz than Pete Hegseth imo

To again state the obvious, if you were trying to weaken our country and make it more vulnerable on purpose, you'd be doing all the things these guys are doing.

― paper plans (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, December 9, 2025 6:01 PM

feel like that's gonna be an evergreen post for a while

Weaken our country? What about the airport gyms?

that ai slop poster up thread looks more like Matt Gaetz than Pete Hegseth imo

Ha, I was thinking Archer

im baffled as to how that 5 years of social media crawling would even work?

it won't... and if the countries mentioned don't currently require a visa, when would this happen? At the airport, upon arrival?

it will work exactly like all those requirements work, if they like the look of you you get waved through but if you're suspect in their eyes they will use this impossible-to-comply-with requirement to refuse you entry.

they don't want immigrants to do it the "right way" either:

INDIANAPOLIS — Thirty-eight out of 100 prospective citizens were apparently "turned away at the door" during an Indianapolis naturalization ceremony on Tuesday.

Seldom does a naturalization ceremony end in questions. Typically, the people who are invited to take an oath to America have taken all the tests, gone through the vetting process and waited years to make it to this point. But on Tuesday, Dec. 9, that invitation was revoked for some.

Marion County Clerk Kate Sweeney Bell (D-Indianapolis) says dozens of people were turned away during the sign-in process at a "We the People" event in Union Station. She says her office routinely attends the events to get the country's newest citizens registered to vote.

"They've taken the tests, they've learned our history. They have a rudimentary understanding of the language," Bell said. "We closed our door to them after we told them, 'Yes, you are welcome'... I hope they try again."

Marion County Clerk Kate Sweeney Bell condemned the turning away of dozens of prospective U.S. citizens during a naturalization ceremony Tuesday.
The turn-aways unfold against the backdrop of expanded federal immigration policies under the Trump administration. Immigration applications have been halted for people from dozens of counties, including Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Restricted access applies to people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

"It's wrong ... every part of that is wrong," Bell said.

Across the country, immigrants arriving at naturalization ceremonies are increasingly being told that their countries of origin now place their status in jeopardy.

It's unclear if what happened at the ceremony in Indianapolis is for the same reason, but it's something Exodus Refugee immigration attorney Rachel VanTyle says is a growing concern for her clients.

"By the time somebody is ready to be a citizen, they have done all the steps and done it the right way," VanTyle said. "They're already usually legal permanent residents, but they're trying to get to the finish line of immigration, which is citizenship."

VanTyle says for now, there is a limited scope for what she can do as an attorney and an advocate.

only Norwegians, Swedes & Danes need apply

There's an article in the New Yorker about how to leave the US, focusing on the DAFT (Dutch-American Friendship Treaty), which only requires you to deposit the equivalent of 4500 Euro in a Dutch bank on behalf of the business you're planning on moving there to run. Very quick and easy, but it's hard as hell to find a place to live, apparently. (My wife and I discussed exactly this exit strategy, but have decided to stay here for the time being.)

Another prelude to fascism, those entry requirements. Obvious point perhaps, still chilling

Just wait until they start restricting U.S. citizens from leaving ...

gmab we are so far past the chilling stage that mentioning chilling effects actually gets me mad, we should be at the throwing bricks stage. but here i am. chilling.

that's just what they want: brick throwing so they can start shooting

once that happens i will absolutely leave and not come back

gmab we are so far past the chilling stage that mentioning chilling effects actually gets me mad, we should be at the throwing bricks stage. but here i am. chilling.

i agree with you, no need to be a dick

I think he agrees with you.

if my work ever decides to send me to the US: all my posts about Trump were constructive criticism, obviously.

you Britishers might be able to get away with it since they’ll see lots of Starmer criticism on your phone so that they’ll think you’re automatically a fan of Farage

Republican alternatives to extending ACA subsidies, which Johnson is dead set against... my favorite is probably 'innovation'

https://www.politico.com/dims4/default/resize/680/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2F0a%2F78%2Fb9ba80724925888e1393fbcf672c%2Fgop-health.jpg

"fight the middle man"

I don't like their chances...

https://images.justwatch.com/poster/173662433/s718/the-middleman.jpg

and where do they get their own insurance?

Members of Congress must get their health insurance through an Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchange known as the DC Health Link.
A specific provision in the ACA (Section 1312) requires that the only health plans available to Members of Congress and certain designated congressional staff are those offered through an ACA exchange.

HSAs are such garbage as a solution. If you can afford to fund them enough to really help you probably aren't the person in one of these affected plans

Apparently, there was this health care plan that completely eliminates the middleman, but I can't recall where I heard about it. I guess I'll go back to my glass of Alchemist Heady Topper IPA while blasting this Phish show

there was this health care plan that completely eliminates the middleman ... Alchemist Heady Topper IPA

We could change the beer to honor your epic thread with Moody Midtempo IPA

Oh man, now I just want a Heady Topper.

can't imagine this "we need 5 years of your social media posts if you want to enter America" thing is gonna play well even with conservatives

you Britishers might be able to get away with it since they’ll see lots of Starmer criticism on your phone so that they’ll think you’re automatically a fan of Farage

― Modollno Kahn (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, December 10, 2025 6:08 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I was thinking about the first time I started reading political threads on ilx and how I thought Dr Morbs was some racist conservative due to his Obama criticisms. I also thought Alfred was some Reagan worshipper, so maybe we’re good

lol

"price transparency" is always a hoot

Can't wait to check out the menu when I'm on a gurney with a concussion and broken collarbone.

HSAs are such garbage as a solution. If you can afford to fund them enough to really help you probably aren't the person in one of these affected plans

Exactly. And also, you still need insurance even with an HSA! Insurance is to protect you from things that cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the annual cap on an HSA family plan is $8,750. Not gonna pay for a lot of cancer treatment or months of physical rehabilitation with that. (And if you raise the limits, they just become tax write-offs for the wealthy even more than they already are.)

way xp, tabes that wasnt meant to seem so oppositional, sorry to sound rude. i am wicked cranky obv. and alfred i think you’re likely correct too.

you Britishers might be able to get away with it since they’ll see lots of Starmer criticism on your phone so that they’ll think you’re automatically a fan of Farage

― Modollno Kahn (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, December 10, 2025 6:08 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://bsky.app/profile/miloedwards.bsky.social/post/3m7pau535ww2w

[12hrs into my ice interrogation]

agent: in 2021 you posted “they should call him matt hardcock am i right fellas” can you explain that?

me: do you know who matt hancock is?

a:…

[43mins later]

a: he had his own app? for parkour?

me: no the parkour was a separate issue

it won't... and if the countries mentioned don't currently require a visa, when would this happen? At the airport, upon arrival?

― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, December 11, 2025 8:35 AM (twelve hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

They will collect your social media account details when you apply for an ESTA. The box is there already it will shortly become mandatory. If you don’t have a valid ESTA then you won’t be allowed to board.

There’s two ways they can get you; either their grok level LLM will dig up or hallucinate some dirt on you or you’ll miss out a detail (and there’s a lot of details) and they can prosecute you for lying to the federal government.

I was considering going to a conference in Long Beach next year, I won’t be. And not just because I flipped off the photo of the dear leader in the US consulate on Monday; in a fit of peak over the stupidly MAGAed bathrooms.

Just going back to that proposed new customs thing:
In a notice published on Tuesday, the US Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) said it would also require any telephone numbers used by visitors over the same period, and any email addresses used in the last decade, as well as face, fingerprint, DNA and iris biometrics. It would also ask for the names, addresses, birthdates and birthplaces of family members, including children.

I don't jest when I say, this is the level of scrutiny I had to go thru when *ASIO* interviewed me for secret clearance, ffs.

And yeah tbh this isnt entirely a new thing, as Ed points out they've already more surreptitiously been doing this for some time, everyone I know who works in infosec/networking/related travels with burner phones, new/wiped laptops etc when they can. Not always practical if you gotta bring work with you I guess. But they can, and have, taken peoples gear off them, disappeared with it for hours, then handed it back. Whats done to it? who knows. Rootkits? Trackers?

If you can keep whatever you last ate down, this article on the freeing of the Tate brothers being orchestrated by the Trump admin is fucking sickening. (Gift link)

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/us/andrew-tate-barron-trump-romania.html?unlocked_article_code=1.708.ytOc.aWtG2UZs4Klt&smid=url-share

there was this health care plan that completely eliminates the middleman ... Alchemist Heady Topper IPA
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, December 10, 2025 9:59 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

exactly what i prescribed for myself last night!

anecdotal, but I've no doubt others will do the same

An Australian who lives in Sydney and also asked to remain anonymous said he would not be visiting the US for next year’s World Cup because of US policy changes. After changing their plans earlier in the year, his family of seven will instead limit travel to Canada and Mexico.

Phone is probably full of "We did it, Joe" memes.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1228460156.jpg

the guy with the larger gun is now representing over 400 people pardoned or granted clemency for the jan 6 coup attempt

Judge Orders Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Be Released Immediately from Ice Custody

xpost obviously being forced to do it at gunpoint

xpost I'm sure they will get right on that

Kristi Noem was testifying to a House committee today I see in Aaron Rupar bluesky posts-

MAGAZINER: How many veterans have you deported?

NOEM: We haven't deported veterans

MAGAZINER: We are now joined on Zoom by a combat veteran you deported to Korea

Noem then defended deporting the guy because he had minor drug offenses in the 90s.

At another house hearing today an FBI guy named Glasheen had trouble explaining their focus on Antifa -

GLASHEEN: Antifa is our primary concern right now. That's the most immediate violent threat we're facing

BENNIE THOMPSON: Where is antifa headquartered?

GLASHEEN: ... ... ... we are building out the infrastructure right now

THOMPSON: What does that mean?

BENNIE THOMPSON: Where is antifa headquartered?

Antifa Meeting Thread

They moved into the ACORN Tower but sneakily never renamed it.

hold the fuck on! CBS is hosting a primetime town hall with Erika Kirk host by Bari Weiss

oh that’ll break all ratings records

hope it’s live and they something really inexcusably vile

platforming the widow of podcaster known by most only because he got murked on camera is crazy work

The best thing about what has happened to CBS News is that I never watched it anyway and can happily continue not watching it.

soon to be true of cnn as well

Navy Delivers Report to Hegseth on Potential Punishment for Senator Kelly

supposedly it's a three word memo that says "are you high"

What bums me out is that my mom and her husband regularly watch CBS Sunday Morning and 60 Minutes. My mom is basically a liberal, and her husband is a lifelong Republican who dislikes Trump and probably voted for Gary Johnson in 2016 and Harris in 2024. Their preferred news sources are "neutral" establishment outlets and centrist commentators (more than once, I have been asked to send them a gift link to a David Brooks column). Which have their own problems, obviously, but I never needed to worry about those CBS shows being infiltrated with right-wing propaganda.

Ideally Trump will die in the middle of it, and they'll have to interrupt the broadcast to break the news.

Weiss made that double circumcision weirdo who attacked TNC the new anchor of CBS News.

is Trump still on his “surprise I’m the one who will make you live in a pod and eat bugs” economic message tour?

I never needed to worry about those CBS shows being infiltrated with right-wing propaganda.

isn’t CBS with all those “what if the troops were also detectives” shows?

also "What if your grandma was also a detective" shows

Competing Democratic and Republican proposals intended to avert rising health care premiums were blocked in the Senate on Thursday, making it all but certain that expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies will expire at the end of the month. Four Republicans joined Democrats in backing a three-year extension of the subsidies, but the plan fell short of the threshold to overcome a filibuster. Republicans likewise failed to advance their plan to replace the subsidies with an expansion of health savings accounts and direct payments to people who buy the most basic plans.

xpost Stop! Or My Mom Will Snoop

Definitely grew up watching CBS News/WCCO over other choices (fun fact: my mom babysat her neighbour Harry Reasoner’s kids in the mid/late ‘50s).

Yeah I shouldn't be blasé about it, CBS becoming Weiss-ified is objectively bad news in multiple senses. The right-wing media disinformation universe is already vast and has captured the brains of a sizable minority of the population, adding a marquee name to it will do more damage. But also, nobody should be pinning any hopes on legacy media at this point.

Four Republicans joined Democrats in backing a three-year extension of the subsidies, but the plan fell short of the threshold to overcome a filibuster.

Did someone threaten to filibuster? If not, why wouldn't it have passed?

Yeah I shouldn't be blasé about it, CBS becoming Weiss-ified is objectively bad news in multiple senses. The right-wing media disinformation universe is already vast and has captured the brains of a sizable minority of the population, adding a marquee name to it will do more damage. But also, nobody should be pinning any hopes on legacy media at this point.

Funny how close the far-right wing is to their long-planned goal to capture the “Seven Mountains” like Hollywood and mainstream media just when the monoculture has broken down and even normie liberals realize that network news and mainstream newspapers are propaganda for the rich.

xpost Yes, the Republicans filibustered, which they weren't supposed to do according to that agreement that ended the shutdown I think. But they did it anyway. Big surprise.

there's a double secret filibuster going at all times to make sure nothing ever gets done

I think there were probably more Republicans that would favor an extension but the WH has been whipping hard, as is Mike Johnson over in the House

i saw Dummy Tuberville up there blabbing so i figured that's what was going on

Justice Department fails to reindict Letitia James for a second time
oh well lets run it back a third time

now it's come out that no other than Trump claimed two primary residences in the past

The difference is that his houses are houses

And they belong to him, a white rich guy

remember when the dems had the GOP shook over the shutdown and folded over a promise of a vote?

Johnson is being very cagey about the emerging GOP healthcare plan, but some sources say it includes coin-operated first aid kits mounted to telephone poles

Working with RFKJr and the MAHA Moms Choir on medical innovations including coupons for healing crystals, prayer bank phone trees, and home leeching.

Now picturing pot dispensaries, but with different leech sizes and origins. Head cold, lake leech. Cancer, a bevy of remoras.

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indiana voters will not face new congressional districts in 2026 after the state Senate on Thursday afternoon rejected those maps by a vote of 31-19.

was just coming here to post that, pretty awesome

Hey, whatever we can get here

I saw JB here threatened to do the same if Indiana went forward with it. Illinois is already carved to hell to favor democrats, iirc, but he still raised the prospect of Project Oops, All Blue!

Indiana All Blue Map

https://www.dropbox.com/preview/IN%20D.jpg

remember when the dems had the GOP shook over the shutdown and folded over a promise of a vote?

The Dem strategy was “we know you will renege on your promise and THEN who will look foolish???”

dammit sorry

https://previews.dropbox.com/p/thumb/AC3sfUOri0p3pWeQRAk7b3JYk40FhRLRP-sbuIa7OKkc-kqYgdVQZnQYhSjpid4urwDFe7xs3bCA-x6IKBUy8OZ66mcjgnPr6Z7h3vpmO4fLeV1Lhp1E6BOFUMS3jeq0OzJ81CsRzGMjfa7NMB-yFBmfhONzLVuRfkdt0QSl7RXg8TBYa0ORSBsexlf1eohq8TBm3y5MaK5w8OZgH1wWaU3__DsXXswpinJvlexRHD5vqSe07kbgEJJkwvUqsxqybbow1tyb3BC0Zl4eRshsdmAfcdOGncb3O8F3kle2AKqC8KQPz7G5ivaxv1JZc_y0j7vLSc7G_tlK9uTFZP-zwt3I/p.jpeg?is_prewarmed=true

Apparently Trump (or one of his goons) threatened to yank all of Indiana's federal funding if the map didn't pass. Literally said "Roads will not be paved. Guard bases will close. Major projects will stop." Whoops!

I saw that quoted on social media but I can't find a source for it, so I think he didn't actually make that threat. He did threaten to primary Republicans who voted against it, but they voted against it anyway.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-poll-approval-economy-immigration-inflation-crime-9e5bd096964990e040bc4bacd9fcac21

25 points underwater on approval and this is being framed as a silver lining given how bad his other metrics are

Going to be an uphill battle for him to get re-elected.

lately seems like it's an uphill battle for him to make it to the toilet

Because as we all know, shit rolls downhill.

He did threaten to primary Republicans who voted against it, but they voted against it anyway

little by little, here and there, it seems like the fever might be breaking

(also Indiana is a weird state - they really resent being told what to do)

Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been released from ICE detention

was he arrested moments later?

the threat above was from a so-called think tank

President Trump has made it clear to Indiana leaders: if the Indiana Senate fails to pass the map, all federal funding will be stripped from the state.

Roads will not be paved. Guard bases will close. Major projects will stop. These are the stakes and every NO vote will be to…

— Heritage Action (@Heritage_Action) December 11, 2025

Ah, OK. Related to the Heritage Foundation. So, not a totally idle threat. But uh I don't think any of those things are going to happen.

Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee voted Thursday to return Rep. Henry Cuellar to his leadership position on a powerful spending panel following his pardon on federal corruption charges...Still, the fact that the vote even happened meant that at least one Democratic appropriator privately objected to reappointing Cuellar by acclamation. If his party retakes the House majority next year, Cuellar would be in line as subcommittee chair to directly oversee more than $60 billion in annual spending on agencies including Customs and Border Protection and ICE.

from Politico
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/12/11/congress/henry-cuellar-will-retake-key-spending-post-after-trump-pardon-00687105?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky

Oy veh.

https://i.imgur.com/pQLzImi.png

when you've lost Peggy, you've lost the nation

not sure Noonan is MAGA

At least you've lost the diehard Reagan idolators who have no natural affinity for Trump.

I know fish don’t come more barreled than Rod Dreher writing for The Free Press, but wow @ this headline;

The Intersectionality of Nick Fuentes
The Groypers’ worldview is a Frankenstein made out of the race essentialism of the progressive left.

Yes definitely it was the progressive left that invented race essentialism. Reminds me of an exchange I had with a right-winger online not long ago, who was ranting about how racist majority-minority districts are and how we have to get rid of them to be non-racist. And I was like, you do know why we have the Voting Rights Act, right? (Spoiler: he did not.) These guys really think race and racism was basically invented by the left in the 1960s.

Here’s just a teeny bit of Dreher (I apologize) to illustrate:

Back in 2019, near the height of the Great Awokening, Stacey Abrams—the prominent black female Democrat who was once thought to be the future of the party—put identity politics at the core of the Democratic Party. In a speech to the Center for American Progress, Abrams said:

“The notion of identity politics has been peddled for the past 10 years and it’s been used as a dog whistle to say we shouldn’t pay too much attention to the voices coming into progress. I would argue that identity politics is exactly who we are and exactly how we won.”

Identity politics for me, but not for thee, white boys. They really thought this would last forever.

Abrams was wrong to think that identity politics, as a concept, only emerged in the first Barack Obama term. It has been at or near the center of liberal politics since the late 1960s, and the rise of the New Left, which explicitly rejected Martin Luther King Jr.’s universalist Christian liberalism in favor of affirming black identity and defining it against hegemonic white power.

Hey guys remember the time when everyone agreed Nazis were bad? Those were good times

This is the mindset of someone who thinks racism ended in 1964, but people just keep whining about it anyway.

I loathe this guy more than Trump: https://archive.ph/aIPeB

he’s running in ‘28 isn’t he? (he’ll faceplant badly, of course).

Everyone hates him, especially his own party.

in an even slightly just country he'd be going to jail for a long time for that. horrible

https://bsky.app/profile/ryanlcooper.com/post/3m7shxukz4l2o

Ryan otm

ryan cooper‬
✧@ryanlcoo✧✧✧.c✧✧‬
· 44m
I observe that total moral degeneracy tends to have a corrosive effect on a political movement, if it has no genuine standards or principles then it will tend to get devoured by progressively more insane grifters

That's always been the case with the right--whoever is offering the most dopamine-producing hate and conspiracy hits is going to win out

well, but there was a time not even that long ago when the Overton window was still to where the stuff that is now core GOP thought was actually confined to the fringe lunatic wing, and stuff like Candace Owens is saying would have had you tucked away in a corner and told to stfu and stop helping.

doesn't mean much of the right didn't *believe* this shit but that they gauged that it was political poison to say these things, even during Trump's first term. The 2018 midterms and Trump losing in 2020 had much of the right reconsidering platforming some of the real extreme folk, but the GOP learned really quickly between 2021-2024 that inflation/economy was truly enough to win the election by itself and they didn't have to hide their crazy anymore. I imagine they themselves were probably stunned how well Trump was polling against Biden in 2023, a mere two years after an insurrection, even before Biden's declining mental acuity was coming into focus.

I’m obviously no fan of corporate health insurance providers, but it’s insane to watch the GOP act like they don’t understand how insurance pools work.

The GOP healthcare plan is literally just go figure out yourself

they backed themselves into a corner from the onset when they couldn't repeal and replace the ACA because the right/Libertarian objection to the ACA was always predominantly "being forced to buy insurance" and they didn't need Democratic cooperation to remove the individual mandate penalty, so not removing it was an impossibility.

they lied and denied that premiums would go up back then, and blamed it on other stuff. so they can't pretend to know now that a shrinking insurance pool means the proportion of people who enroll in insurance that will rack up expensive claims will be much larger and unsustainable.

the right and Libertarians have always more or less believed that if we didn't take taxes out for Medicare and Social Security or premiums out for insurance, that people would just be able to afford to pay for doctor visits out of pocket, because these are idiots who fundamentally think everybody is as rich as they are and dont' know how much anything costs and are terrible at math

i heard the about the gop non plan gotta-propose-something and the word hsa came out and i’m angry

I don't think they believe people will miraculously be able to afford this, they just don't care and are happy to see people die

^^

Kamala sent me an email, she's found something to keep her busy in '26

I know a lot of folks are wondering what’s going to guide us through this moment. How are we all going to chart the course?

For my part, I have decided to start a PAC — Fight for the People PAC. I am going to travel, speak out, and help elect Democrats everywhere and I cannot do this alone.

then she asks me for money

all that fighting for people is so much easier on an expense account

Mainstream Dems can’t oppose HSAs cause that was Clinton’s grand bargain and God forbid they admit they (HSAs and by extension Bill C.) suck.

Kamala is a grifter fraud, news at 11

Average HSA Balances by Age (2023 Data)
Under 25: $1,154
25–34: $2,585
35–44: $4,438
45–54: $5,674
55–64: $8,339
65 and Older: $9,022

name one hospital visit that doesn't obliterate most or all of that if you haven't met your deductible yet

sps - if you are correct, then we can conclude that every Dem who opposes the republican hsa proposal is no longer a mainstream Dem. good to know!

well, but there was a time not even that long ago when the Overton window was still to where the stuff that is now core GOP thought was actually confined to the fringe lunatic wing

The GOP has had quite a time trying to quarantine its lunatic fringe over the years--but even in the 90s you had right wing radio hosts stoking conspiracy theories and right wing Senators shooting pumpkins to see how Vince Foster's head would have exploded, G. Gordon Liddy telling people to shoot federal agents, leading to Glenn Beck and his chalkboard, etc.

i mean that stuff is positively mundane compared to the Q-Anon era nonsense. they believe in outright magic now

is Q-Anon even a thing anymore? I haven't heard much about them

>> I don't think they believe people will miraculously be able to afford this, they just don't care and are happy to see people die

No, it's that they think "if the government gets out of the health insurance business," that we'll just miraculously go back to "the good old days" when you went to see your "family doctor"* and he just took care of you and you paid your bill and that was that.

*who was an old white man, not some goddamn Indian fella with an accent

it was easier when, y'know, your company actually let you have HMOs for like $20 a pay period and your portion of the bill was 10% or less.

right now I pay $30 for an HDHP plan which is essentially "say, wouldn't it be better if you just paid for everything anyway?"

my $20 HMO in 2004 had a $100 deductible. fun times

Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been released from ICE detention

― whimsical skeedaddler (Moodles), Thursday, December 11, 2025 4:33 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

was he arrested moments later?

― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, December 11, 2025 4:34 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

they tried to, for real, this morning.

In a dramatic series of overnight developments, the Trump administration took extraordinary steps to try to re-detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia within hours of his court-ordered release, but a federal judge stepped in and blocked the move.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland issued a temporary restraining order at 7 a.m. ET today barring the Trump administration from taking Abrego Garcia back into custody after she ordered his release yesterday. Her emergency order came after ICE directed Abrego Garcia to report to its Baltimore field office at 8 a.m. ET today. Fearing that Abrego Garcia would be re-detained when he showed up at ICE offices, his lawyers filed an emergency motion overnight imploring Xinis to intervene.

All of this unfolded only hours after Abrego Garcia was released from ICE custody on order from Xinis.

i hope abrego sues the united states for 600 trillion dollars

i mean that stuff is positively mundane compared to the Q-Anon era nonsense. they believe in outright magic now

― Edward Albee Sure (Neanderthal), Friday, December 12, 2025 1:46 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think you're missing the religious element. Many of them were convinced Clinton was the antichrist, and later that Obama was. If you drove through the country back in the 90s the radio was all about black helicopters and the UN taking over the country through FEMA and leaving secret symbols on Railroad Crossing Signs, etc.

xxpost sure would be nice if the framers had created a mechanism that allowed federal judges to just tell DOJ lawyers "congrats, you're not a lawyer anymore, immediate disbarment" for shit like this.

fuck a slow-walk through the complaint process, instant ban

government needs an FP system

Q-Anon must still be a thing for a group of diehards who have nothing better in their lives than to keep the flame alive. a cult that big and enthusiastic doesn't just disappear overnight without a trace. But, no 'Q' means Q-Anon is now rudderless and all the excitement is gone.

I think people got the same rush from Q drops that Libs got from those tick tick tick Twitter posts that made you feel like Trump was going down any second now.

for a second I thought Q drops were a liquid form of conspiracy

I think people got the same rush from Q drops that Libs got from those tick tick tick Twitter posts that made you feel like Trump was going down any second now.

yeah there was a lot of silly shit. one that makes me laugh was the server in Trump tower communicating with a Russian bank

They thought they were getting JFK Jr's return.. instead they get...

I think Q Anon didn't exactly disappear, its loonier aspects got sanded down but the spirit of it was absorbed into MAGA. It got mainstreamed through the cultural right broadly picking up on everyone groomers and I think it really helped pave the way for Moms for Liberty and the book-banning frenzy. And also definitely fed into the Epstein fever, which has turned out confusingly for them.

picking up on calling everyone groomers

important to remember that a lot of the things we take for granted about how teflon Trump is now was alien to us in the early portion of 2017.

I mean sure, Reagan was kind of a demagogue in many ways and planted many of the seeds for this shit, but Dubya, as much as he facilitated the rise of the imperial Presidency, had mostly respected checks and balances (he should have been tried in the Hague for the Iraq War though), didn't enjoy unconditional support from his party/voters - he got away with a lot, yeah, but even many of his cronies and voters turned on him by the end of 2008.

I remember being shocked at the unconditional fealty Trump got from the GOP not because I think they have any scruples, but just because he was still not liked very much by his own party and early on, was largely being blamed for the failure to advance many of the party's policy aims due to his ineptitude. he was very much seen as a dude who lucked into the Presidency, didn't have his cronies inserted everywhere, and hadn't really created the atmosphere of fear within his own party that exists now. We even started a poll asking if Trump would make it to the end of his first term and I think most of us actually voted that he wouldn't.

probably by the end of 2017 though it should have been obvious that we were in new waters and that there was no singular thing that was going to bring him down. so I definitely muted those channels.

the atmosphere of fear within his own party that exists now

I think Trump would be happy to just golf and do rallies and design ballrooms... it's the evil axis of Miller, Bannon, Heritage/Project 2025 et al that have really done the most to create this Khmer Rouge level of internal paranoia

Yeah he mostly wants the adulation and the money, plus the pleasure of driving his enemies before him etc. But he defines his enemies in pretty narrow and specific ways, as opposed to Miller and Vought, who really want to destroy the entire liberal order and (Miller especially) personally punish every person who thinks otherwise.

I think Trump would be happy to just golf and do rallies and design ballrooms... it's the evil axis of Miller, Bannon, Heritage/Project 2025 et al that have really done the most to create this Khmer Rouge level of internal paranoia

Yeah no, I don’t buy this at all

Trump is an active and eager participant in this heinous nonsense; if he’d rather be golfing, he’d be golfing

yup

He more or less called this his revenge tour

Score settling is his motivation.

The fact that he’s the figurehead doesn’t mean he shouldn’t get just as much of the blame as the architects, particularly when he’s gleefully embracing the role because of how many people he gets to call subhuman

Trump wants it all: photos with Mamdani looking genuinely pleased; to fill his pockets; and to make his enemies suffer for their perfidy, imprisonment and/or death if necessary.

IOW stop looking for “the real enemy” because the answer is “it’s all of them” and it’s because they declared themselves to be our enemies. I otherwise wouldn’t give two shits about them.

Otm

Stephen Miller didn't run for president -- Donald Trump did. He's responsible.

my golfing comment made it sound like I'm letting him off the hook, which I'm not.. I guess I was just reacting to Neaderthal's assessment of his first term compared to the current period. Bannon was there, but there were a bunch of career people in the Cabinet that were able to check his worst impulses. Those people are all gone and it's a bunch of nihilists that want to see the whole thing destroyed and burned to the ground

Oh Trump gets all the blame! But I think it's also true that his interest in most things that aren't him is fairly shallow and fleeting. That's not any kind of exoneration, it's just how he is.

the current regime actively encourage his worst traits, rather than trying to cover or make excuses for him

Those nihilists in his cabinet were handpicked by Trump because the career people in his first cabinet frustrated his blatantly illegal impulses and he was determined that wouldn't happen this time around.

I had a (now former) friend who called the dem's deference to Obama a 'Dear Emporer' era, and I disagreed with that, but I think we're clearly in that era now w/r/t the GOP and Trump.

xp handpicked but I'm sure Heritage had a wish list as well

xp What are some examples of that? Hegseth is maybe the only one I can think of.

I understand this second term is considerably worse in its effects, but I worry a little about comparatively revising our understanding of his first term, which was breathtakingly corrupt, extremely racist, and thoroughly criminal, because it implies we can get back to normal with some "decent" republicans on board. No one in the admin was really keeping Trump in check imo — they got better at carrying out their agenda because they are more experienced now, plus they spent the Biden term making plans, rather than unexpectedly winning in '16.

the only way we could've gotten back to normal is by prosecuting every single person involved and dismantling the media apparatus that was completely uninterested in telling the American people the truth about anything, also we probably should've launched Elon into the sun, we didn't do that, we didn't even try, and now we're past the point of no return

Pam Bondi almost makes Bill Barr look ethical

I disagree! Not vehemently, but I encourage you to read the wikis of any Trump 1.0 cabinet members that you are considering having non-violent thoughts about

They're all absolutely horrible but there's this cruel, juvenile glee being expressed now that seems less hindered than the first term

A real feature of the 2nd admin is a totally contemptuous amateurism, turning DOGE dipshits loose to wreck systems they didn't remotely understand or try to, filling the Cabinet with "I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV" right-wing media jackasses, giving HHS to a complete nutjob, turning official government media into just a stream of groyper trolling. Refusing to treat the jobs and functions of government with any degree of seriousness is all on purpose, of course, right in line with Grover Norquist's "drown it in a bathtub" dictum.

yeah, the social media stuff is WAY worse than last time around, super embarrassing

Pam Bondi almost makes Bill Barr look ethical

You may recall his first choice was Matt Gaetz!

John Boehner & Paul Ryan seem like a different world, a different century

Admittedly it's hard to have this conversation because looking up who, for example, was HHS sec last time and there are five goddamn names. I've said this before, but not firing people constantly is one huge difference from last time. I do concede that RFK is on a whole other level of destructiveness, but the longest-serving first-term sec was an anti-abortion, anti-Obamacare former Eli Lilly exec.

The social media stuff is obvs worse too, but I was addressing the idea that trump's criminal impulses were being checked, not his rhetoric.

xxxxxxpost kind of a strawman? I don't think anybody is naive enough to think there's a 'back to normal' around the corner (what is normal in 2025, anyway), or minimizing what he did in the first term, but that there were guardrails in the first term that just aren't there anymore. they didn't stop everything from happening, but they at least constrained the worst of the damage. he was prevented from repealing and replacing ACA (by his own party no less), and often told 'no' by McGahn and other White House counsel for things like opening an FBI investigation into Clinton/Comey. his own VP wouldn't help carry out January 6th (albeit he enabled it happening to begin with), nor would any of his hand-picked SCOTUS justices hear his appeals.

the first term was extremely damaging and not something I'd want to return to, but at least there was some interference. it isn't as if he didn't try to do many of these things in his first term, but most of the time got told 'no' or people moved behind the scenes to stop it.

people moved behind the scenes to stop it

^^^^ this in a nutshell

the trick to understanding Trump's first term isn't to remind oneself of the horrible things he accomplished, to remind ourselves of the shit he asked to do that he was stopped from doing. it's not a short list and it is a horrifying one.

like he actually tried to fire Mueller, replace the AG with Jeffrey Clark and send letters to State AGs to ask them to halt certifying their election results, seize voting machines, and investigate his political opponents.

no, it didn't stop him from doing immense damage to the country, people pointing this out aren't saying 'it wasn't so bad, let's go back to that', they're saying 'this is why it's much worse now'.

During the first Trump term the NYT published an Op-Ed anonymously written by a group of 'senior administration officials' who warned that Trump was constantly ordering illegal actions and these were desperately being sidetracked through every means possible, for his own good and that of the nation. It caused an uproar among the MAGA faithful and solidified the idea of a Deep State that was sabotaging Trump.

Don't forget 'Shoot 'em in the legs!'

xp
yeah ok the "back to normal" read might be off, but I do think there is some minimizing going on plus I'm not sure I'm following the argument maybe? Like on the ACA, that had nothing to do with his cabinet or any behind the scenes action. Parts of the GOP were trying to repeal ACA years before Trump was even elected. The only defectors when it died in the senate in 2017 were Collins and Murkowski. And hey Trump EO'd a huge premium increase anyway.

So far most of Trump's bullshit investigations seem to be getting stymied anyway. Yes, there's a difference between DOJ refusing to do it and DOJ being laughed out of court by judges, but the result is the same.

Pence/J6 feels like a substantively different issue than what we're talking about. No argument that JDV is a loathsome demonic scumbag.

I think the more significant factor this time is widespread elite collaboration with or capitulation to the regime, not interference or guardrails behind the scenes. I'd have to think about whether or not the party seems more captured this time.

post-xpost: I think I get what you guys are saying, and I don't want to argue for the sake of arguing.

During the first Trump term the NYT published an Op-Ed anonymously written by a group of 'senior administration officials'

Was there more than one of these? Because the only one I currently recall was written by a single DHS appointee: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Part_of_the_Resistance_Inside_the_Trump_Administration

Don't forget 'Shoot 'em in the legs!'

Am I losing my mind or didn't Biden also say something like this?

xp so do we all still think that was Pence or nah

xxxpost

It was just one guy

On Oct. 28, 2020, Miles Taylor, who left his position as chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security, made public his authorship of this article.

widespread elite collaboration with or capitulation to the regime

yeah this is notable... the tech titans paid lip service to wokeness in the Summer of 2020 (Musk excepted) but all that phony 'we're with you!' BS is gone, gone, gone... they know where their bread is buttered

failing to repeal and replace the ACA was John McCain voting "No" in McConnell's face

i don't really see the utility of the debate though, are any of us really forgetful of Trump 1.0? I mean this was less than a decade ago and we posted to monthly threads about it

meanwhile, Trump pardoned someone who is in prison on state charges and will not be leaving prison so congrats on doing nothing i guess

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-claims-pardon-jailed-colorado-election-clerk-tina/story?id=128344883

hey know where their bread is buttered and their bunkers are near completion

I see it's Friday afternoon, therefore we need a needless argument.

xxp I think we were talking about Q-Anon and got sidetracked

As of Friday morning, no legal action has been taken against the Trump Administration over the president's announcement.

...why would there be? wouldn't the only sensible course of action against an invalid order is to stay the course and leave her in prison, why would anybody need to take legal action? I would think the person who'd be trying to take legal action would be Tina Peters trying to compel courts to force her release before she's laughed out of court

failing to repeal and replace the ACA was John McCain voting "No" in McConnell's face

― Edward Albee Sure (Neanderthal), Friday, December 12, 2025 4:15 PM (five minutes ago)

It was all three of them; I mistakenly left off McCain.

i don't really see the utility of the debate though, are any of us really forgetful of Trump 1.0? I mean this was less than a decade ago and we posted to monthly threads about it

― Edward Albee Sure (Neanderthal), Friday, December 12, 2025 4:17 PM (three minutes ago)

I was responding to "there were a bunch of career people in the Cabinet that were able to check his worst impulses. Those people are all gone and it's a bunch of nihilists that want to see the whole thing destroyed and burned to the ground." Maybe 'forgetful' isn't the word, but I disagree with this analysis of the first Trump Cabinet.

a big difference from
last time was his half-hearted attempt at “infrastructure” (remember how it was always infrastructure week?) but this tome he is gleefully telling his hog fans to go die in a fire

When Trump took office in 2017 he realized he had no idea what he was doing, so he was more willing to listen to his chief of staff telling him something what unconstitutional and he shouldn't do it. But at some point he decided he knew more than everyone else.

I was responding to "there were a bunch of career people in the Cabinet that were able to check his worst impulses. Those people are all gone and it's a bunch of nihilists that want to see the whole thing destroyed and burned to the ground." Maybe 'forgetful' isn't the word, but I disagree with this analysis of the first Trump Cabinet.

I mean, that’s certainly your prerogative but who for example is the analogue for Jeff Sessions, aka “evil Foghorn Leghorn”, in this administration?

Trump‘s first administration was the worst leadership I had seen in this country in my lifetime until his second administration; this in no way implies that I think Trump‘s first administration was okay, or that I now retroactively like GWB‘s administration because it’s gotten so much worse. They’re all below the threshold of acceptability, that doesn’t make them all the same

a big difference from last time was his half-hearted attempt at “infrastructure”

Umm, sorry, but a glitzy ballroom funded by billionaire cronies definitely qualifies as 'infrastructure,' in fact maybe the best ever

xpost yea it's certainly not accurate that everybody in Trump's circle stood up to him and acted as a moral compass, or that there was pushback for *everything*, but it simply is a fact that he faced a lot more resistance, both externally and internally, in his first term.

djp otm

and bob dylan otm

"When you think that you lost everything/You find out you can always lose a little more"

Or, to paraphrase Gore Vidal, there's an awful lot of nadir to go.

Simply put, the resistance to Trump's illegalities in the first term was usually from officials who understood they'd be complicit in a crime and were more vulnerable to prosecution than Trump, so they balked at being put in that position and tried to dissuade him. Not because they disagreed with him politically. The current set of appointees have zero qualms at all about compliance with illegal actions or orders. They live contentedly under Trump's pardon power umbrella.

Legal reporter Chris Geidner regarding the contempt proceedings for when the current Trump administration flew people to EL Salvador despite the Judge's order not to and to turn around

Judges Neomi Rao and Justin Walker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Friday night blocked D.C. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg from beginning his scheduled Alien Enemies Act case contempt proceedings next week.

Judge J. Michelle Childs, a Biden appointee, would not have granted the stay.

The “administrative stay” issued by two Trump appointees on the appeals court after the close of business on Friday blocking Boasberg’s contempt proceedings echoed a similar “administrative stay” issued by two Trump appointees on the appeals court after the close of business on a Friday blocking Boasberg’s contempt proceedings back in April — a move that ultimately delayed the district court’s effort for seven months.

This is just the latest of three decisions from two Trump appointees on the D.C. Circuit that have slowed Boasberg in his effort to do a fundamental task of a district court judge — deciding whether he is going to hold someone in contempt for violating his orders.

Here, that task does have a more stark target, to be sure. A contempt finding could lead to Boasberg referring one or more members of the Trump administration for the possibility of criminal prosecution as a result of the administration’s actions over a weekend in mid-March, when the Trump administration started deporting people under President Donald Trump’s Alien Enemies Act proclamation.

The plaintiffs will have to now again ask the full D.C. Circuit panel to hear the matter, and /or appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The full D.C. Circuit panel had earlier ruled for the plaintiffs and not for the Trump administration.

This video is very much worth watching. Adorable outraged Minnesota grandparents who had ICE goon point guns in their faces.

https://www.tiktok.com/@celeste06_/video/7581602934517943582?_r=1&_t=ZT-92B1JbZmAAf

oh great WMD just dropped! they are designating Fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction

Can they not see how fucking stupid this sound?!?!

*new WMD

time to nuke the Sacklers

well all these police procedurals where an agent gets a speck of it on their uniform and has to be revived with narcann... this has been building in the media for awhile now

Big Politico article about how destroying public lands has Republican voters in Montana very upset. They're all shaking their heads with Susan Collins-esque concern. We'll see whether it impacts their behavior in November. (It will not.)

Carroll and other participants are alleged to have formed a Signal chat known as the "Order of the Black Lotus," which Carroll deemed a "radical" faction of the TILF, and ultimately used it to discuss their bombing plot, according to the complaint.

In their Operation Midnight Sun planning book, the group is alleged to have gone into meticulous detail, arranging how they would split into teams and plant backpacks with IEDs along their "assigned buildings," the complaint says. An "off ground team member" would be assigned to monitor police scanners in the event law enforcement was alerted or responding to their designated scenes, according to the complaint.

We are literally living in OBAA.

I mean maybe terrorists really do form Signal chats named The Order of the Black Lotus, what do I know?

what is that a quote from?

Oh sorry, it's all over the news. That's from ABC: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fbi-disrupted-alleged-terrorist-bombing-plot-los-angeles/story?id=128416761

The Order of the Black Lotus is a "radical faction" of the Turtle Island Liberation Front (TILF), which Pam Bondi says is a "far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government and anti-capitalist group," that also "planned to target ICE agents and vehicles." These are real things our government is saying, so I'm sure they're definitely true.

Well I'll be danged! The "Turtle Island Liberation Front" is big enough to have a more "radical" splinter group!

lol these are the propaganda materials they seized

https://www.desertsun.com/gcdn/authoring/authoring-images/2025/12/15/PRRS/87784308007-pxl-20251212-230751245-mp.jpg

Saw Turtle Island Liberation Front at Big Ears two years ago and they were fantastic. Marc Ribot sat in, don't know if that's a usual thing.

and here are their bomb-making materials in the desert ... on a camp table surrounded by camp chairs ... this was truly a top-caliber and very serious operation these guys busted.

https://www.desertsun.com/gcdn/authoring/authoring-images/2025/12/15/PRRS/87784307007-image-000004-1.jpg

they have a cool slackline rig behind the tent

Is that coconut water? Gotta stay hydrated when you're developing your arsenal!

will be amusing to watch this case fall apart

Ugh, despite whatever bullshit they are peddling elsewhere, ICE and CBP (led once again by Bovino) are back in Chicago snatching people off streets and parking lots.

in 2015, after the election, i was working on a dumb project trying to expose how awful trump was. how needed my project was! how essential! anyway, one of the film clips i used was mike flynn, speaking to some relatively small group, saying that 'islam is a cancer'. it was so shocking to me that anyone could be on film saying this and ever work again, ever be invited to speak again, ever do anything in public again.

here's a sitting football coach senator:

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL): “Islam is not a religion. It’s a cult. Islamists aren’t here to assimilate. They’re here to conquer. Stop worrying about offending the pearl clutchers. We’ve got to SEND THEM HOME NOW or we’ll become the United Caliphate of America.”

sounds like someone denying that god is one!

Spudtown is so fuckin stupid

Ugh, despite whatever bullshit they are peddling elsewhere, ICE and CBP (led once again by Bovino) are back in Chicago snatching people off streets and parking lots.

I thought they didn’t like the cold?

there have always been people like tuberville, and he'll never change. what a gigantic hex of eternal shame and failure on everyone who supports him by looking the other way, everyone who knows how wrong it is

xp - Well our cold snap broke and it's supposed to be near 40 today, that's probably why.

This story about the Chief of Staff's interview is so classic (but she's a dud). Those quotes are 100% otm and believable to any non-chud and she's scrambling to ask us to believe she never said them. I can smell her fear of Trump from here. What a horrible way to live that must be.

fear of trump and his fans is real. i mean, didn’t romney say that’s why impeachment failed, otherwise they had enough senate Rs?

Romney is just excusing his and his colleagues’ cowardice

Yeah, less cold here than the past few days. Pretty sure I was passed by the Bovino motorcade about an hour ago. Four black unmarked SUVs with police lights (heading south on Halsted, which tracks, for those that know Chicago). One of the saddest aspects of this ordeal is that Bovino's presence implies more showboating and photo opps and other ott bullshit.

Romney, to his credit, voted to convict, and is the only Senator from the President's own party *in history* to vote to convict.

Credit should be tempered by the knowledge that if his vote would have been vote 67 to convict he'd have voted No

Those quotes are 100% otm and believable to any non-chud and she's scrambling to ask us to believe she never said them.

of course she said them, but I don't comprehend why.

Because everyone who works for Trump is basically a self-promoter

Because everyone who works for Trump is basically a self-promoter an evil moron.