"totally again obliterated": American Politics March 2026

Only gives you this much w/o signing up for free sub, but it's prob the gist:

President Trump told Axios on Saturday that he has several "off ramps" from Operation Epic Fury, the extraordinary U.S. military campaign against Iran that he launched early Saturday morning.

What they're saying: "I can go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians: 'See you again in a few years if you start rebuilding [your nuclear and missile programs]," Trump said in a five-minute phone interview from Mar-a-Lago.

I think you mean Operation Epic Furry

The perfect thread title

Change it if you like, no prob.

no I think Raymond meant yours!

(I was just riffing/joking)

Well yours is good too, wouldn't mind a t-shirt of it.

and you'll do just what you choose to do

So because there's yet another 'bombshell' story about Graham Platner (he gave an interview to a former Green Beret who's now a podcaster who promotes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, though Platner himself apparently — I haven't listened — did not engage in such discussions during the interview), there's a new wave of "Don't vote for Graham Platner!" talk on Bluesky. But at the same time, he maintains something like a 20-point lead over Janet Mills, and all the other Democratic candidates (there are five others) are polling in single digits, I think.

The primary is on June 9. Shouldn't the anti-Platner folks (and the anti-Mills folks) be coalescing around an alternate candidate by now?

yes, but to tipsy's point recently on some other thread, someone also has to step up and announce they are running

Like I said, five other people have already announced: Natasha Alcala, David Costello, David Evans, Tucker Favreau and Andrea LaFlamme. I don't know anything about any of them.

https://mainemorningstar.com/race-details/2026-us-senate/

I don’t see anyone but Platner is going to be the nominee.

How

Me either. And given the general national mood of rage, I think he's got a good shot at winning. Most voters are anti-thug, but only because they don't have thugs of their own. Platner could go really far (has already gone really far) on a "but he's our bastard" vibe.

Since I don’t live in Maine and don’t have to worry about voting in the primary, I mostly just hope somebody who is not Susan Collins is the next Senator.

Tucker Favreau, the cursed Brundlefly of Tucker Carlson and Jon Favreau.

Director or podcaster, take your pick

ha, was just about to post about more awful Platner news.

Inside Politics showed Mills ads showing Collins being "concerned" about Trump, rather than courageous.

i will never ever ever vote for Platner

because i live in Virginia

The Mills ad was decent. But it's typical DC bullshit - "Ooh, look what a hypocrite my opponent is" - and it's utterly unsuited to the current moment. She seems to have been a good governor, certainly better than the piece of shit she replaced. But as a senator, she'd likely be a Chuck Schumer/Dick Durbin/Tim Kaine-style blob of jello.

She couldn’t possibly be more useless than Collins, neither of them could. In absolute terms neither she nor Platner are likely to be great, but the point is their Value Above Collins will be > 0.

yeah just removing a republican is good

She couldn’t possibly be more useless than Collins, neither of them could. In absolute terms neither she nor Platner are likely to be great, but the point is their Value Above Collins will be > 0.

Oh, absolutely. There is no circumstance in which Collins retaining her seat is a good thing. I'm just saying Mills is distinctly uninspiring — Dukakis-esque, if you will — while Platner is inspiring in ways that say very bad things about the political environment and the state of the country. A guy like him should not be doing well. That he is should frighten a lot of people, not just mainstream Democratic political consultants who see their gigs drying up if the party goes that way.

interesting his biggest boosters are the ultimate mainstream dem podcasters

wait im developing a theory everyones thinking hes going to pull a fetterman but what if hes really an undercover obama centrist

people on bluesky theorizing that hes maybe just very stupid

xxxp But she would vote reliably for the democrats and I'm not sure Platner would, based on his past. He has a sketchy history and a Fetterman vibe.

But I would be happy with either of them over Collins. I think Collins will win again, as she always does, however

The mainstream podcaster boosters of which you speak are the Pod Save America guys, who are just the worst imo

this is the guys show who he went on

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:y2llcscocbfrj3qnzvsjemdw/bafkreiezmxmv24pptkxi7p6fjkos3jt3ag6jqnb2qug7cl4tbxudg3eezm@jpeg

lmaoooooo

the new head of the Kennedy Center

Apparently, Trump had potential candidates to lead Iran in mind, but... they've been killed. Whoops!

people on bluesky theorizing that hes maybe just very stupid

he's been too consistently bad on one particular area for entirely too long, I don't think he's stupid other than that he appears to be too stupid to understand why this stuff is controversial.

feel like he might be stupid and into nazi stuff

why would he care if the war leads to stability or not? those are human welfare concerns, he doesn’t gaf, never has. what is the investment opportunity, for him and his friends? the same ones that looked the other way about epstein, people who are ethically neutral when it means opportunity for themselves. they will get rich off this war. they don’t care

ie, trump’s plans to turn gaza into a casino resort, etc

Oh good

"A gunman wearing clothes with an Iranian flag design and the words “Property of Allah” killed two people and wounded 14 early Sunday at a Texas bar, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The FBI is investigating the shooting, which erupted a day after the U.S. and Israel launched an attack on Iran, as a potential act of terrorism."

https://apnews.com/article/austin-texas-bar-shooting-7690f931ba00f950c1828cef25399bb6

he's been too consistently bad on one particular area for entirely too long, I don't think he's stupid other than that he appears to be too stupid to understand why this stuff is controversial.

Possible theory: He's got pissed-off-vet brainworms, exacerbated by the internet, and the question is, are there more people in Maine with pissed-off-vet brainworms exacerbated by the internet, or more people who find that to be a political dealbreaker?

While you watched Iran, Oracle took over Medicare:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TlYoVsW5ko

feel like he might be stupid and into nazi stuff

Feel like he might be stupid, into nazi stuff, and an ex-Blackwater employee

Congo is fighting Rwanda to regain control over the Rubaya coltan mine (where a collapse killed 200 last month) because the US has been promised access to the stuff.

https://allafrica.com/stories/202602240552.html

we shot down 3 of our own jets

thats an oops

I thought Kuwait shot them down by accident? Either way.

or iran shot them down who knows really

The jets committed suicide.

the jets took a nap

I guess kuwait shot them down but kuwait is on 'our side'

Yeah does appear to be "friendly fire"

well at least the US sold Kuwait the equipment lmao

this actually helps the economy because now they have replace them

scholars call it the invisible hand

the invisible hand grabbed the jets and put them on the ground

Here come the oops jets

oopsie and the jets

Platner might be stupid, into nazi stuff, and an ex-Blackwater employee, but he'll be *our* stupid, Nazi, Blackwater guy.

someone on bluesky pointed out that lazy incoherent politicians like him are destined to be sucked in by the existing power structure because not doing so is hard and requires knowing what youre doing

so he campaigns as this outsider and prob even believes it but is just bbq chicken as soon as he gets to washington

Platner might be stupid, into nazi stuff, and an ex-Blackwater employee, but he'll be *our* stupid, Nazi, Blackwater guy.

Exactly. I said much the same thing above:

given the general national mood of rage, I think he's got a good shot at winning. Most voters are anti-thug, but only because they don't have thugs of their own. Platner could go really far (has already gone really far) on a "but he's our bastard" vibe.

I mean, this is Maine we're talking about. The common clay of the Northeast, to paraphrase Blazing Saddles.

they keep re-electing "moderate" collins - platner is right in that state's racist voting wheelhouse

maine is dfor sure well below average in producing platner types, its kinda funny to see people itt make pronouncements about it, if you wanted to pick one state from new england itd be new hampshire easily, tho even then im sure theyre below the national average too

tho platners are just trending nationwide guess thats what we get

Dr. James Harvey apologizing for Casper's uncles

Sen. Lemon Gogurt ugarles.bsky.social‬
HEGSETH: *points to general's ribbon bars* "What'd you get that one for? Fucking your mother?"

GENERAL: *sternly* killing vietnamese children

https://bsky.app/profile/ugarles.bsky.social/post/3m22rsp6rfc2p

pete hegseth sobriety status: totally again obliterated

Nothing I can do
Total obliteration of my sobriety

It's a twist in his sobriety

He's talking about the Ballroom <again>

Shit Hegseth just threatened ICE

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a Pentagon news conference on the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, "If you kill Americans, if you threaten Americans anywhere on Earth, we will hunt you down without apology and without hesitation, and we will kill you."

Follow live updates: https://abcnews.visitlink.me/KPrql1

Operation Epic Fury

On another forum it was observed that EF could also stand for "Epstein Files" or "Epstein's Friend." Who named this thing--someone's inner juvenile delinquent?

Operation Epic Fury

sounds like a forgotten Intellivision game cartridge

America, Fuck Yeah

Operation Epic Bacon

"If you kill Americans, if you threaten Americans anywhere on Earth, we will hunt you down without apology and without hesitation, and we will kill you.”

i’m always complaining about my neighbors across the street because they’re really into domestic surveillance and they have this giant sign on their front door that says “TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT UPON ENTRY” with a big target sign. it’s like damn, it’s really hard to invite people to my place and be like “oh by the way, don’t step on that side of the street, you’re on camera and they might shoot you, and also they do like 34 dabs each day and are constantly coughing”

hegseth and the u.s. military is like for the whole world

Good news: Ryan Zinke, a complete piece of shit, has announced he will not be running for re-election to the House.

The jets committed suicide.

― Who's going to stop 200 balloons? Nobody! (President Keyes), Monday, March 2, 2026 9:23 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

hey hey, football season isn't for another 6 months, no need to be hasty

this guy

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said he is “baffled” by some of his fellow senators not backing the recent U.S. military action against Iran.

“Every member in the U.S. Senate agrees we cannot allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon,” Fetterman said in a post on the social platform X on Monday morning.

“I’m baffled why so many are unwilling to support the only action to achieve that. Empty sloganeering vs. commitment to global security — which is it?” he asked.

Baffled by a lot of things

This guy is running for Ryan Zinke's seat, and seems decent.

Sam Forstag

lol when I looked at his logo I thought his name was Sam Montana — it should be!

joe, tony, hanna— america luvs a montana

After working his way through school at the University of Montana, he went to work for the Forest Service, where he climbed the ranks to become a smokejumper – a firefighter who parachutes into remote areas to stop fires before they grow.

If he makes Metallica's "Jump In The Fire" his campaign theme song, he's definitely got my vote.

or Nilsson’s

State Dept just ordered all Americans to evacuate from the Middle East entirely

https://bsky.app/profile/repyassansari.bsky.social/post/3mg4dm5jrfc2c

Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari
AMERICANS IN THE MIDDLE EAST: DEPART NOW

Follow all @StateDept instructions immediately

https://preview.redd.it/q7jqubrsag651.jpg?auto=webp&s=f6d9cb49830550a11947969d9eff834bc617b6d9

i knew a smokejumper in the late 80s, heard some of the lore, and they are like navy seals in my “wired different” brain category

State Dept just ordered all Americans to evacuate from the Middle East entirely

― Serfin' USA (sleeve), Monday, March 2, 2026 5:54 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

ah i love normal stuff

yeah totally man i hear you brother

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:4usmserhjqkvhldgedfjb3jw/bafkreiemjq3tb63eyu6budmmn6phoiy5aveofp56lh3zdp5tnq6dzjm22u@jpeg

so Rubio, Johnson and the WH are really all settling on "Israel was going to attack Iran and we knew Iran would retaliate against the US as a result of that, so we attacked first"???? WTF kind of shit is this

dumb guy shit

interesting that theyre all cutting bait two days into this thing, these are not reliable people

So we're on day 3 and the VP is already throwing the president on the bus. Things going great.

vance trying to say he opposed it but also was for doing a very strong super attack is so funny man lamest guy in the world

He was against it but not because he's a wuss!

i actually wanted to do an much bigger war this war was baby stuff to me

i dont think billionaire class let don drapery last much longer. do they?

remember that Vance is so dumb he thought Netanyahu was *against* the Iraq war

I genuinely cannot wrap my head around how stupid everybody in this administration is, crazy to think in 2008 that the next Republican president would make Dubya and co look like geopolitical geniuses

it’s late-stage capitalism shit, they’re openly vacant opportunists

adam curtis voice, they are what’s left a couple decades after everyone stopped pretending the free market was anything other than a fraud, but there was nothing to replace the system

there are things bubbling up to replace this old shitty way of doing things, but it takes time. but both the democratic and republican parties look completely ancient to me at this moment, completely irrelevant

remember that Vance is so dumb he thought Netanyahu was *against* the Iraq war

― Mollusk, Virginia (Boring, Maryland), Tuesday, March 3, 2026 4:56 AM (five hours ago)

Our adversaries are dumb, but I don't think they're that dumb.

Good morning!

Got to love Lutnick going full MAGA on tariffs then having his sons company bet against it for fun and profit.

https://bsky.app/profile/anneapplebaum.bsky.social/post/3mg5hmcreys2m

Translation: he didn't have enough weapons to fight his war of choice and so he is blaming Ukraine
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:lafbr3dznxdyvgup2umwssht/bafkreiar5yrhhs7kkzmhdnpyzjwkqlp2vquyfqn6c25dr7fjly65zbaqaq@jpeg

Very successful forever wars

_remember that Vance is so dumb he thought Netanyahu was *against* the Iraq war

― Mollusk, Virginia (Boring, Maryland), Tuesday, March 3, 2026 4:56 AM (five hours ago)_

Sorry to be "that guy" but I had never heard this, so I looked it up, and the only source I could find was this dude🕸 whose wiki "list of controversies" should be enough to give anyone pause.

Our adversaries are dumb, but I don't think they're that dumb.

ah, too good to be true

The Dow is not at 50,000 anymore, hard day for Pam Bondi.

Trump literally thinks there is a Sneetches-like contraption that craps out missile parts onto a conveyor belt with Lucy Ricardo trying to hastily assemble them

just to clear up the whole reason for the u.s. joining the attack on iran thing:

The president insisted that Israel did not pressure the US to launch the initial strikes against Iran over the weekend.

“I think they were going to attack first, and I didn’t want that to happen. So, if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand,” Donald Trump said while speaking to reporters. “We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they [Iran] were going to attack first.”

uh, sure.

trump also wanted to let the UK know that Keir Starmer is not Winston Churchill

Trump, for his part, was unimpressed. “I’m not happy with the UK either,” he said. “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” referring to Starmer.

The president also said the UK had been “very uncooperative” when it came to Starmer’s deal to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. “They they ruin relationships, it’s a shame,” Trump said, after striking a cordial relationship with the British prime minister since returning to the White House last year.

we wanted to be the bigger lunatics

uh, i think this falls into the category of "fake directives that may or may not happen", but trump also just said that he's mad at spain and so he's instructed the treasury secretary (standing a few feet away) to "cut off all dealings" with Madrid

(xps) Starmer needs all the help he can get at the moment so he should be thanking Trump for boosting his popularity in the Labour Party and the country as a whole.

Oh, good:

Iraq started shutting oil production at the giant Rumaila field operated by BP Plc, according to a person familiar with the operation.

The field is shutting as storage space is running out while tankers struggle to exit the Persian Gulf, the person said, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public. Iraq is poised to cut 3 million barrels a day of output if conditions persist, the person said.

wow this is all going perfectly to plan

they should get some buckets

well, if that plan is the rapture, yeah

xp

The president also said the UK had been “very uncooperative” when it came to Starmer’s deal to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.“

great example of journalistic sane washing here. trump would never in a million years be able to articulate this even remotely

Which Trump was saying was a good deal up until very recently.

He added: “We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don’t want anything to do with Spain.”

if he follows through, this will hurt the U.S. more than Spain

Just once I’d like to see someone respond to him with, “No you’re not. Shut up.”

it feels like he's not thinking things through

the treasury secretary was standing right beside him, but unfortunately in order to get that job you have to agree to be a power-hungry coward who is only concerned with the wellbeing of family and friends rather than the people you represent, so really once you get to that point your hands are tied unless you have even 1 trillionth of a gram of spine, usually there is nothing left at that point

re: the possibility of anyone telling him he's completely wrong

great example of journalistic sane washing here. trump would never in a million years be able to articulate this even remotely

― Cattedrale metropolitana di Santa Maria de Episcopio, Tuesday, March 3, 2026 1:29 PM (forty-four minutes ago)

you are unsurprisingly correct; here's the video: https://bsky.app/profile/adamjschwarz.bsky.social/post/3mg6cpzfwyk2t

complaining about the media coverage of this guy at this point feels like a new form of mental illness, but otoh you'd think the sight of a decrepit idiot king starting world war 3 would excite *some* journalists

Something from Twitter that (if accurate) reminds me of Linkin Park choosing their name so that it would be next to Limp Bizkit in CD bins:

Per a source close to SEO, Donald Trump insisted the Iran War be named “Operation Epic Fury” so that when people searched “Trump ep” in search engines, autocorrect would suggest “Trump Epic Fury” instead of “Trump Epstein”.

lmao I hope that's true, the AAA Plumbers of wars

Someone should tell him that no matter what we Google, the first results are "Sponsored - Wayfair"

concerned with the wellbeing of family and friends

citation needed

lol fair

you are unsurprisingly correct; here's the video: https://bsky.app/profile/adamjschwarz.bsky.social/post/3mg6cpzfwyk2t

"That stupid island they have..."

It's worth reading up on what the British - at the request of the USA - did to the indigenous people of that stupid island.

no way does Trump know how a search engine works

you put coal in it

it would be mildly interesting to track down the exact deranged source of trump's Chagos fixation

probably surrounded by sharks, we know he has a fear of sharks

https://theonion.com/nation-admittedly-curious-to-hear-how-trump-pronounces-strait-of-hormuz/

Meanwhile, on the war at home — I annotated CoreCivic's most recent earnings call, complete with audio clips so you can hear these guys' corporate happy talk about mass immigrant detention in their own voices: https://theprogressivesouth.org/corecivic-annotated/

It's worth reading up on what the British - at the request of the USA - did to the indigenous people of that stupid island.

― Schlub 7 (Tom D.), Tuesday, March 3, 2026 7:53 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Small correction, there are no people indigenous to the Chagos Islands, just as nobody is indigenous to the Mascarenes. In both cases the local populations are primarily the result of European colonization, slave trade, and indentured servitude. But your basic point stands and, just to make it easier for the curious itt:

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

Meanwhile, on the war at home — I annotated CoreCivic's most recent earnings call, complete with audio clips so you can hear these guys' corporate happy talk about mass immigrant detention in their own voices: https://theprogressivesouth.org/corecivic-annotated/

― paper plans (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, March 3, 2026 9:30 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The fact that the guy's name is "Patrick Sw!ndle" is almost too rich

omg missed that

great piece, tipsy. it reminded me that I've got a book on my shelf to read for my dissertation: Free to Obey: How the Nazis Invented Modern Management by Johann Chapoutot

The fact that the guy's name is "Patrick Sw!ndle" is almost too rich

Yeah had to triple-check that one. And thx all! The first time I listened through that whole earnings call I alternated between fury and a weird sense of dissociation, like I couldn’t believe they were just blithely saying all this shit in public. But capitalism knows no shame obv.

nytimes

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o4h5r2albulagzxvhp634tof/bafkreibulzfbzbjfw7ux57y22nyf246beg72yixq72lcuy4ednvcc6atwe@jpeg

nypost

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:hnqlt57pdj4xdxnxmyigopbs/bafkreibwd7h7v4ud6dbw47xlhw4wqqe46wfbcyv2lm645z54d6khqzfzti@jpeg

“these people”

mythical conservative warrior sounds about right

Rubio's Rogues

A US Foreign Service Officer killed a woman and a dog, and wounded three other people in a road rage stabbing attack over the weekend.

Jared Llamado, 32, attacked the four women in the southbound lanes of Interstate 495 in Fairfax County, Virginia at around 1.20pm on Sunday following what authorities said was a minor traffic collision.

Michele Adams, 39, and Llamado's own dog died as a result of their injuries...

this seems very bad

Fared Al Mahlool | فريد المحلول‬
✧@faredalmahl✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 7m
BREAKING: US military says it has struck around 2,000 targets in Iran

Hey, there’s US Politics going on this country. Early going in TX count, but Cornyn and Crockett are ahead.

xxp wishe we could blame thos on Rubio but he was hired “a year and a half ago” and was an IT guy

but here’s a pardoned J6er: https://www.arlnow.com/2026/03/03/man-arrested-after-allegedly-touching-womans-hair-on-metro-near-clarendon/

three Democratic legislators in NC who sided with the GOP on various terrible things are all losing their primaries to progressive challengers tonight (so far, based on early results)

https://bsky.app/profile/taniel.bsky.social

get them

Talarico seems to have pulled ahead of Crockett.

Also, eyepatch-wearing scumbag Dan Crenshaw seems to be losing his primary challenge to some other scumbag.

rico's got the juice

i know its too early for this to mean anything, but in 2018, GOP senate primary turnout was 1.5 mil to the beto-led dems' 1 mil. this year, dems will have about 2.4 mil votes which looks to be slightly more than the gop's ~2.2 mil.

i mean theres no way were not looking at a huge blue wave next cycle

It definitely means something. It’s no kind of guarantee, but it’s a good turnout.

It definitely means something. It’s no kind of guarantee, but it’s a good turnout.

Do we think Donald Trump is going to become less of an insane criminal between now and November? Do we think the Republican Party is going to untie themselves from around his dick between now and November? I think voter rage is only going to increase. But I've been wrong before.

Oh I agree. They’re going to keep fucking up, people are going to get angrier. And I think MAGA is starting to have intramural cracks as Trump gets weaker.

But we’ve got 8 months of war and god knows what else between now and then.

I mean, a Talarico vs. Paxton matchup seems like it would favor the Dems, but Texas always seems to find a reason to vote red in the end.

In other news the war against so-called drug dealers is now expanding per NY Times

The United States and Ecuador conducted joint military operations against “designated terrorist organizations” in the South American country, the Pentagon said on Tuesday night, in what appeared to be a major expansion of the U.S. military’s unilateral strikes against boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific that the Trump administration has accused of carrying drugs

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/us/politics/us-ecuador-trump-military-operations.html?unlocked_article_code=1.QlA.Ozdy.kKHoKiVlg_27&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Dems flip a state House seat in Arkansas — not a surprise, same guy almost won it two years ago, but any seat flip in a red state is especially good.

https://www.the-downballot.com/p/breaking-arkansas-democrats-just

Crenshaw is down by double digits. Fuuuuuck that guy.

Crenshaw lost in primary though to a guy the Texas Tribune describes as - Toth is among the Texas Republican Party’s most conservative members

A promise I made to myself is that I will never again prognosticate about US elections. I'm hoping for the best and doing all I can, but also preparing for use to nosedive into some kind of fascist holding pattern for the next decade +

yeehaw!

Changes to Election Day voting procedures in two Texas counties on Tuesday led to hundreds of voters being turned away from polling places, angry recriminations from candidates and an 11th hour scramble to delay poll closings.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/03/politics/dallas-voter-rule-confusion-texas-primary

But what is there to be worried about, there's going to be a blue wave!

a thing no one said

This is a big mess, but it's not clear what strategic purpose it serves for Paxton and TX Republicans.

Crenshaw lost in primary though to a guy the Texas Tribune describes as - Toth is among the Texas Republican Party’s most conservative members

Jesus fuck, when Dan Crenshaw isn't conservative enough....

Not that I am following this closely but I happened upon a clip from the Clintons' Epstein hearings where there was momentary confusion because Boebert or someone kept referring to Bill Clinton as a 'sitting president' at the time of a photo, raising only two possibilities: that she thinks 'sitting president' means (1) a president at any time, during or after, their presidency, or (2) a president who is literally reclining.

Thoth is among the Texas Republican Party’s most conservative members

https://worldhistoryedu.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Thoth-11.jpg

Looks like Talarico won. Good.

Seems like both were good choices for once? At any rate good on Texas.

From a South Park writer: https://www.draftbarrontrump.com/

President Trump proves that every day. Naturally, his son Barron is more than ready to defend the country his father so boldly commands. Service is honor.

I thought Crockett was alright but I admit I had no idea what a strong supporter of Israel she was. My only real exposure to her was her talking shit about Trump.

number of stories out there of her being a total a-hole too

(2) a president who is literally reclining.

So when he's on the toilet...

North Carolina's Dem lawmaker Carla Cunningham gave the GOP the decisive vote to pass a law forcing police to comply with ICE. She said "all cultures are not equal."

She just lost reelection BIG in the Dem primary to a progressive pastor & activist, Rodney Sadler. 70% to 22%!

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:7vj2towokzui3hgna5u5u46f/post/3mg7fne3nz225

The piece of shit who shut down the government office where I worked for 8 years back in 2021 is losing his primary by two votes, contingent on provisional ballots and the like. Really hoping I get a chance to dance on his political grave.

Yeah that Sadler win in NC is big, and also seemed pretty predetermined. Almost felt like Cunningham was committing political suicide with all her anti-immigrant stuff, pretty weird.

Also interesting is the Foushee-Allam congressional primary, much of which hinged on Foushee's past support for Israel (which she's tried to distance herself from). Looks like Foushee pulled it out, but very close. On most other issues they're both pretty progressive, and it seems like there was pushback in the Black community to trying to oust Foushee, who's been kind of a pathbreaker in the district.

https://www.npr.org/2026/03/04/nx-s1-5734577/north-carolina-election-results-foushee-allam

Apparently Texas Dems are fielding candidates for all congressional, statewide, legislative, and state board of education races for the first time since 1996.

good, finally.

can’t win if you don’t play

Slap Chop Vince wants to sue the GOP because they didn't call him Shamwow

https://bsky.app/profile/robertdownen.bsky.social/post/3mg6iklefhk2x

John Carter of Mars assisted by Rhinos, beats Shamwow Shlomi

love the idea that everyone wouldve voted for the loony informercial guy if they only knew it was him

as you may have guessed he did release one of the most truly unhinged campaign ads of all time

thank you pk for distilling all the responses in my brain which i could not concentrate efficiently lol

I think Talarico is a better candidate than Crockett for Senate in Texas, especially if he's running against Ken Paxton. But I really want Crockett to get out there and just shit-talk the Republicans relentlessly between now and November.

I wonder what Crockett will do next, since she had to give up running for her House seat to run for Senate.

Meanwhile Talarico's already texting me for cash, jeez James.

Seth Bodnar, president of the University of Montana, is running for Senate against Steve Daines. I got an email from him this morning. He's a Rhodes Scholar who went to West Point and Oxford. He's doomed.

me too! xpost

I can’t believe anyone sees daylight between Crocket and Talarico on Israel and genocide.

presented without comment

Gavin Newsom likens Israel to ‘an apartheid state’ and decries war on Iran

cool Gavin thanks

Michael Caley

Follow

the "gradually and then all at once" structure of public opinion moves is a wild thing, and one way you know it's happened is when politicians of the moderate / poll-driven / cynical type jump in with takes that just recently were seen as provocatively ideological

welcom, gavon newsem

I can’t believe anyone sees daylight between Crockett and Talarico on Israel and genocide

https://www.lonestarleft.com/p/talarico-crockett-and-the-democratic

more like komorebi than daylight?

the "gradually and then all at once" structure of public opinion moves is a wild thing, and one way you know it's happened is when politicians of the moderate / poll-driven / cynical type jump in with takes that just recently were seen as provocatively ideological

― The Luda of Suburbia (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, March 4, 2026 12:23 PM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah this shit is pretty wild, saw something too where a congressperson in ny i think had gone from the standard dem line of reform ice to running ads with big block letters on screen reading abolish ice

I don’t have great instincts on these things, but this Iran War — which had sparked just a massive war throughout the whole region and explicitly contradicts the MAGA claim to not be neocons, like to an absurd extent, as in john bolton said it went too far — seems like a tipping point that will push Trump into twenty percent approval territory and doom republicans in the midterms, potentially in the senate as well as the house.

It seems to have been done with a reckless disregard for public opinion.

still unclear why they even wanted to do it

There's definitely murmurs indicating this in the MAGAsphere, but not to the extent anybody wants to publicly put him on blast.

I think they're secretly hoping he presses the off switch in the next two days and isn't serious about weeks but let's be real, it's no longer up to him how long this lasts

especially when the first major act of the war was killing a bunch of schoolgirls

Xpost they don't know either!

I mean with Iraq the real reason was obvious and the fake reason they gave they at least meticulously brainwashed people into believing, but here they're explaining it in the same lackadaisical language that someone explains why they bought store-bought roast beef instead of Boar's Head.

When you feel you're invincible for this long I guess you just dgaf

The school bombing bullshit was either intentional or based on outdated intel that the building housed a military base (which was once true but hasn't been true in years). Or Israel lied to us about the Intel because they like bombing schools

Obv I know which one I'd prefer it to be and yet that reason isn't really any better

Really seems like we were pushed into it by Netanyahu, it's the most consistent throughline. And Trump was drunk on his great victory in Venezeula, and Hegseth is just immeasurably horny for "nonstop death and destruction," and Rubio is feeling so macho for the first time in his life, and Republicans in general are happy to be talking about WAR instead of Epstein and ICE and the economy ...

Just seemed like something to do, I guess?

bibi def sold them but like why did they listen to him what sounded so good about it

hegseth i could see just wanting to do a war that ones easy, but trump the big guy the decider did he just get a these are not nice people bouncing around his head

don't forget or discount the white christian nationalism/armageddon angle. just because it's so unbelievably dumb and racist and shrouded in blatantly hypocritical violent righteousness doesn't mean it's not real for so many people. white christian nationals are the most locked in part of trump's base. you know how trump used to love to do pointless post-election rallies just so that he can stand and talk for a couple hours with people who adore him? white christian nationalists literally want a world-ending war, and they're ready for it to last 7 days, 77 days, 7 years, or 3.5 years (i'm serious on the 3.5 years part - it depends on what kind of rapture they believe in)

We're doing it because Iran can't have a nuke but also because the Supreme Leader was evil and you all deserve better but we're not actually going to help with any regime change and also we have unlimited weapons that will run out next week thanks to Biden

I really think it is about Epstein. I never bought the whole "he's trying to distract you" line when it came to anything else but I believe it when it comes to this. This was the one issue his party actually did turn against him on. He can get his chud voters to celebrate the murder of liberals in Minnesota and unspeakable cruelty towards immigrants but they're not gonna celebrate child rape. The DOJ is engaged in such a blatant cover up and the few Senators who actually did see the unredacted files have said he needs to testify under oath immediately. The only thing that got Epstein out of the news was Venezuela so I totally believe he figured it would work again.

Deep Throat otm as usual: The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

At least with Maduro he got the headline he wanted. Here he's just adding another thing to draw negative attention to himself but he probably thought news of crippling Iran's warmaking ability would play better .

But nobody cares because nobody was seriously afraid of a threat that, were it even real, would not materialize until 2035

You can't do a WMD scare effectively without a major terrorist attack preceding it

Might have also done it to increase pressure for DHS funding

WWMD

I assume it's this from the Trump thread):

It has got to be so easy to get this guy to sign off on any kind of targeted military strike, he wants so badly to have his “Obama gets bin Laden” moment, just as badly as he wants the Nobel.

The Iran "war" will not last long because... we don't have enough weapons to fight it.

Defense executives plan to meet at White House as strikes on Iran diminish stockpiles

The Trump administration plans ​to meet with executives from the biggest U.S. defense contractors at the White House on Friday to discuss ‌accelerating weapons production, as the Pentagon works to replenish supplies after strikes on Iran and several other recent military efforts, five people familiar with the plan told Reuters.

Companies including Lockheed Martin and Raytheon parent RTX, along with other key suppliers, have been invited to ​attend the meeting, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private.

The meeting underscores ​the urgency felt in Washington to shore up weapons stocks after the Iran operation ⁠drew heavily on munitions. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and Israel began military operations in Gaza, the ​U.S. has drawn down billions of dollars' worth of weapons stockpiles, including artillery systems, ammunition and anti-tank missiles. The conflict in ​Iran has consumed longer-range missiles than those furnished to Kyiv.

At least one of the people said the gathering was expected to center on pressing weapons makers to move faster to boost output.

Lockheed, the Pentagon and White House did not immediately respond to requests for ​comment. RTX declined to comment. In a social media post Monday, Trump said there was a "virtually unlimited ​supply" of U.S. munitions and that "wars can be fought "forever," and very successfully, using just these supplies."

using up all the missiles is pretty interesting, same issues of industry consolidation and lean supply chains that cause problems across the whole dang economy

still unclear why they even wanted to do it

the best answer I can come up with, based on how Trump talks and acts in regard to foreign policy, is that he fundamentally believes that the USA has so much power it can simply force the world to conform to its wishes. he thinks past presidents haven't just issued orders to the rest of the world to get whatever we want and that's because they were too stupid to see how simple it would be. in his mind foreign relations and diplomacy consist of issuing threats and ultimatums. if these fail to get compliance, he orders up some punishment to see how well that works. if that doesn't produce immediate results, he shrugs, backs off, and alters his threats and ultimatums to tone them down a bit.

iow, he fundamentally misunderstands how wars work, whether it's a trade war or a military one. that misunderstanding is baked hard into his brain and we are at its mercy.

yah didn't donnie have a truthblame about this, how this is a crisis now because biden backed a triple trailer full o missiles up to ukraine and gave them all to zskyy FOR NOTHING?

the thing i keep thinking about is how we kinda got some dudes pissed off enough to pull off a 9/11 and we already were not exactly cooling things down and now it's like they simply said hey how can we do something chaotic which will ensure another three generations of even more virulent hatred aimed at us (deservedly tbh)

its not great

yeah, they call us the Great Satan and then we just go ahead and act like a Great Satan

good a theory as any i guess

Leavitt claims Trump decided to strike Iran because he had a "good feeling" that they were going to strike first

https://bsky.app/profile/factpostnews.bsky.social/post/3mgawsqkt6n2v

hooked on a feelin'

it really is kind of astonishing how i don't think i've heard anything in the u.s. media - ever - about the 1953 coup. it really did go down the memory hole

Not mentioned in 'We Didn't Start the Fire' probably

are there other US-backed coups that are better remembered? I can't tell because my own biases mean that I am very well aware of many of them (though I also only recently learned how involved the US was in Brazil in 1964). I guess Pinochet maybe? but I don't think that's exactly common knowledge

are there other US-backed coups that are better remembered?

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51sycwnkbTL._UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg

Remembered by whom? Some large majority of Americans definitely know nothing about any of this, not the faintest idea. If you limit it to the college educated Americans — 40 percent of the population — I’d be surprised if even half of them know about either Mossadegh or Allende. Maybe not even a quarter of them. That would be 10 percent of Americans overall, and hell that’s probably high.

American media does not discuss how we and the British put the shah in. Never. Iran came to being in 1979 when the first ayatollah took power and Jimmy Carter wasn't tough. They don't even mention how Carter let the deposed shah come here for cancer treatment, worsening the situation.

Not mentioned in 'We Didn't Start the Fire' probably

SCENE

Billy, surrounded by wadded-up papers: "Mossadegh / too proud to beg? No. ...Chicken leg? No. ...Steely's 'Peg'? No. Fuck, this is hard! Wait, got it, 'Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan.'"

maybe it's in the lyrics to forgotten b-side We Totally Started the Fire and We're Going to Keep Doing It, We Love Fire, Fuck Yeah FIRE

xxp Maybe not enough, but it's in the Times' lead editorial on Sunday after the attack and several articles this week.

and from last year (gift link): https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06/19/world/iran-israel-trump-news/as-talk-grows-of-regime-change-in-iran-heres-a-look-at-the-1953-coup-that-helped-reshape-the-middle-east?unlocked_article_code=1.QlA.hiHe._h4tp8MwEoxj&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Leavitt claims Trump decided to strike Iran because he had a "good feeling" that they were going to strike first

She was also telling the press not to just quote the people from the administration saying different things regarding the justification for the war

Ouija Board of Peace

lol

it’s weird saddam had more credible press officer than donnie

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mgax3tskqh23

There's two lagoons now?

was thinking about Noem claimed that they deported a cannibal, when these people inject cadaver fat into their lips and asses

ban fake lagoon imo xp

Oh be kind

speaking of Noem she's getting absolutely torched at this hearing and it sounds like they're gonna go after her hard as soon as Trump's out of office. so that's nice.

The laGoonies

It would be funny if Don croaked before he could pardon his cabinet.

as soon as Trump's out of office

...

Oh be kind

― sawdust lagoon, Wednesday, March 4, 2026 2:36 PM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

im with u brother lagoon solidarity

if anything we need more lagoons, its an important ecosystem

lagoon squad

who else would recommend Young Thug mixtapes

thats right

leavitt said that trump 'plans' to attend the dignified transfer of U.S. deceased soldiers, I'll bet he goes golfing instead

(this was something that Obama would routinely take part in)

this is really what theyre going with huh

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:2rrp7amblhg3xoly5n5huiqv/bafkreihe2ghaedv5mhi6sxac3eei22xnvjcge3w5l46kbqex4ivbj5rkcm@jpeg

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:2rrp7amblhg3xoly5n5huiqv/bafkreifrh7h53n6ix7qszjiofcla6pftmml5nlbnzbhtjf7xmwi4gj3uue@jpeg

many may be surprised to learn that weve been at war with iran for more than a few days

similar to Imminent Death Syndrome, an Iranian attack has been imminent for the past 50 years therefore we should have been attacking the whole time

lol 1979 -- I called it.

Not sure I've met anyone under Social Security age who cares about Iran so those headlines make some sense - trying to rally the remaining Boomers.

xp yeah this is payback bitches for something that happened decades ago

yeas saw some idiot in the admin saying this war is the culmination of 47 years of violence against the US

They should start playing "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" on the radio to get old people angry about the hostages again.

xpost I admit the Camel Clutch was pretty violent.

cool kids never have the time tbh

*cool kurds

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:6guagmhjwdanmotimn45j3pq/bafkreiezxq2cyhsnfhmzut24eypyxdrt7u5moca2ururjobthzscuxiew4@jpeg

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:6guagmhjwdanmotimn45j3pq/bafkreigxnhe7ovj272rnnadxqp66swddqcqykiu3eef2fpwi4yynhhwsrq@jpeg

This would be funny in a novel or a movie or a full-scale hallucination, but

Likewise:

An Iranian official said the country has not sent any messages to the US, in response to an earlier Axios report, Iran’s Tasnim news agency said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Axios reported the Iranians had sent messages to the US over the last few days but the US did not respond, citing an American official and a second source.

“No message has been sent from Iran to the US, nor will any response be given to US messages. Iran’s armed forces have prepared themselves for a long war,” the official, who was not named, was quoted as saying by Tasnim.

Eh that one I don’t necessarily believe, they’re always going to deny that. I don’t see any reason they wouldn’t be trying to negotiate, of course they want it to end.

Idk I feel like at the moment they are pretty pissed and aren’t reaching out to Jared to talk, at some point yeah but not now

lol I don’t think they’re reaching out to Jared at all. They have other people to call I’m sure.

Meanwhile Trump is meddling in the Texas runoff.

https://www.texastribune.org/2026/03/04/texas-senate-republican-primary-john-cornyn-ken-paxton-donald-trump/

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:tgw3d4hvw3x5ijrxax7lg26u/bafkreia6wpuimoah5c5yfvnev66qwixooo7uyjd5h5tjbvymaiuaes6i3i@jpeg

My junior senator is an even bigger piece of shit than I realized: Tim Sheehy broke a protesting Marine's arm today. There's video on Bluesky if you want to look for it.

yeah video is all over the web now, here it is on reddit. The Marine vet is also a Green Party candidate.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1rkze3e/senator_tim_sheehy_breaks_the_hand_of_us_marine/

pq[Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, announced today that he won’t seek re-election but will complete his term.

"After prayer, reflection, and many long conversations, I have decided that I will not seek reelection in 2026," he said on X. "I will complete this term fully committed to my work in Washington, DC, and then step away from elected office."

Burgess' announcement brings the number of House retirements to 53 — 32 Republicans and 21 Democrats. That surpasses the recent high of 52 in 2018, but it is still short of the overall retirement record of 65 in 1992.p/q]

oops,

Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, announced today that he won’t seek re-election but will complete his term.

"After prayer, reflection, and many long conversations, I have decided that I will not seek reelection in 2026," he said on X. "I will complete this term fully committed to my work in Washington, DC, and then step away from elected office."

Burgess' announcement brings the number of House retirements to 53 — 32 Republicans and 21 Democrats. That surpasses the recent high of 52 in 2018, but it is still short of the overall retirement record of 65 in 1992.

bonus oops, i forgot to include this last bit:

His announcement also means all four Black Republicans in the House won't be returning to Congress next year. Rep. Byron Donalds is running for governor of Florida, Rep. Wesley Hunt failed to advance in the Texas Senate GOP primary, and Rep. John James is running for governor of Michigan.

also,

https://apnews.com/article/bondi-subpoena-epstein-files-house-committee-b16a5ab68c4a37a3a533e5f2412d7a57

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Oversight Committee voted Wednesday to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi to answer questions over the Justice Department’s handling of files regarding the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation.

Five Republicans joined Democrats to support the subpoena proposed by GOP Rep. Nancy Mace in a sign of continued frustration among conservatives with the department’s review and release of a tranche of documents related to the disgraced financier. The move amounted to a sharp rebuke of Bondi by Republicans who have been clamoring for information about Epstein’s abuse of young girls and his interactions with rich and powerful people.

so do we know if Noem left a dildo or butt plug on the airplane, instead of her 'blanket'?

I mean, she is surrounded by dildos everywhere she goes.

huh, I wonder if there's any way to prevent polio in the first place?

Trump's CDC issues travel advisories to multiple tourist destinations over concerning spread of polio

Montana's other piece of shit Senator, Steve Daines, will not be running for reelection; his handpicked successor, Kurt Alme, currently the US Attorney for the District of Montana, already has the mad king's endorsement, so that's pretty much that.

Well, T has been known to withdraw his endorsement when a candidate looks to be lagging or pisses him off---has happened to several Senatorials where I live (AL), for inst---but concerning the guy who is

...president of the University of Montana... a Rhodes Scholar who went to West Point and Oxford...

its nice that evangelicals from different countries have their own theories about gods lil trump schemes

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:7234yom5bhj2mixyciltjrft/bafkreiej5lpsw6eftswkl2qgfbdo7sjkg6dfwjv4he36nwk5twp3kczw44@jpeg

trust the process

Meanwhile Talarico's already texting me for cash, jeez James.

xpost reminding me that Bob Dylan told a French journalist that God has cursed America because of slavery---the Lord plays a Long Game (and we're really even not that old yet, as countries go).

Talarico's appearance on Colbert cemented his status as a cheerleader for Satan among Texas meatheads.

Cool!
Retraction: Bob didn't say that, he said this, to French Rolling Stone (at least as quoted by BBC):

In the Rolling Stone interview, Bob Dylan was sharing his thoughts about US history and the country's racial divide.

He is reported to have said: "Blacks know that some whites didn't want to give up slavery - that if they had their way, they would still be under the yoke, and they can't pretend they don't know that.

"If you got a slave master or [Ku Klux] Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood."

During World War Two, the Croat Ustashe fascist movement killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma and others in their death camps.

Croats and Serbs also fought each other during the break-up of Yugoslavia, in a 1991-1995 war that left around 20,000 people dead.

After the interview was published, the Council of Croats in France (CRICCF) filed a complaint.

nothings gonna happen to her as long as Trumps in office but its probably good to remind these monsters that he won't always be and when he's gone they're going to go after them. normally I'd say the Dems never would actually do this but the median voter has gone from "vote them out" to "punish them" in the past year, so they're probably gonna have to run on it

Stacey Patton has an interesting take — or counter-take — on the Crockett-Talarico race. She's specifically pushing back against a narrative from Black women blaming Black men for not supporting Crockett. https://drstaceypatton1865.substack.com/p/blaming-misogyny-for-jasmine-crocketts

Crockett’s campaign seemed to only be about Crockett. Not much else there.

P lol p

Her campaign was disappointing and seemed to advance the idea that she’s kind of a brat.

That was a total ghost post. It does have strange look of intent but no.

Anyway popped in to say i heard talarico’s speech on hayes, never heard him til now. Lots of “enemy is billionaires” and “dc dems never delivering.” Talk is cheap but seemed ok.

Guessing Noem really is on the outs, per this via Bluesky:

TRUMP: DID NOT APPROVE $200M AD FEATURING HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY NOEM, SAYS HE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT

(Of course the thing that would get his attention would be the money not going to him.)

apprently hes been asking people if he should fire her, or at least someone is leaking that

talarico going straight at the religious right telling them theyre fake christians is pretty interesting no one ever does that

He asked me. I said sure.

He's trading her off his Madden team

Noem will inevitably be fired. The threshold for firing for bad publicity is a lot higher than it was in Term 1, but he's realizing he can't accomplish as much of what he wants with her in charge.

I don't see it being a noisy exit in that I'm sure she will blame Homan, Miller, and "libs" more than she will blame Trump.

That being said, it's probably not imminent, like he'll probably let her stick around and destroy more lives for a few months

Amazing that everyone knows she's having an affair with Lewandowski and they're co-running the department and her husband still showed up to support her at her hearing. No kink shaming or anything, but still.

You can't be married to a Republican politician without abasing yourself, it's like being asked to run food in a restaurant

“do you have an open marriage” had it’s doors blown off yesterday by like “are you banging cory?”

Now that we're on the subject of men abasing themselves:

James Carville stood by his sharp criticism of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) urging her to leave the Democratic Party, arguing she and others don’t take white male voters seriously enough.

Carville joined Stephen A. Smith on SiriusXM’s Straight Shooter on Wednesday ,where Smith asked about a video making the rounds on social media in which Carville blasts Omar over comments she made about white men.

“Lady, why don’t you just get out of the Democratic Party,” Carville said about Omar in the May 2025 video from his Politics War Room podcast. “Honestly, start your own movement.”

I bet she has some thoughts about what Carville should do, where he might go.

Xp “backatcha bitch— or just die already” would be my reply there.

I've seen Ken Paxton and Markwayne Mullin both floated as possible replacements for Noem, either would be every bit as bad

Carville's era of Democrat belongs in the toilet bowl of American history

flush him down, SAS too

Trump Is Preparing to Fire Kristi Noem

The Homeland Security secretary’s combative Senate hearing this week was a key factor, advisers say

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-iuis-preparing-to-fire-kristi-noem-85815862

the thing about that really dodgy contract for $130 million to a new company that was created 8 days before the contract was awarded.. and had never done any government work but are pals with Lewandowski? Fucking NAKED corruption

Being fired for making DHS look bad is some wild shiz.

Like, Star Wars Emperor to Vader: "you're tarnishing the brand."

if she is fired, it's because she made Trump look bad

(in his head ofc)

also Lewandowski is breaking laws just by being in the office

hes prob mad she didnt give him a taste of that corruption money

https://www.propublica.org/article/kristi-noem-dhs-misled-senate-judiciary-corey-lewandowski-contracts

No bid contracts is a thing all over the administration, even the Kennedy Center social media contractor is Kari Lake’s husband

the spokesperson said. “Mr. Lewandowski does not receive a salary or any federal government benefits. He volunteers his time to serve the American people.”

Ha, 'salary'? There's no money in 'salaries'

Ken Paxton as AG would be kind of amazing. Not good amazing, mind you. But even with as much terrible stuff as Noem has done, I think he could find ways to be even terribler.

I can't imagine his TX replacement could be any worse?

Anyway:

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:bdvnkv3wu5kgtmvto4xsp6on/bafkreif7x4hr2gtzkfzn3r4e3eq2xt646iujsrvva5q3fbyteriohg2uda@jpeg

The Shield, you say.

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fthe-end-will-always-haunt-me-v0-ohxr9vv6czie1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D494%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D9d0319a63b6130384394081946a2fa3eeb3dac91

mr markwayne, welcome

'Special Envoy for The Shield of The Americas' lol... who makes this shit up?

Wow. So now Lewandowski has to sleep with him, huh?

gets to

Markwayne is genuinely one of the dumbest US senators who ever lived

Mullin is one of the dumbest motherfuckers alive. This should be glorious (in a "shitting one's pants publicly every day" kind of way).

he uses Iraq and Iran interchangeably

wait. he's a senator. how is that going to work

Ken Paxton as AG would be kind of amazing.

ofc you meant to say Secretary of Fucking Homeland Security, although lately Bondi has been looking like she's in so far over her head that she's drowning

Markwayne is genuinely one of the dumbest US senators who ever lived

― frogbs, Thursday, March 5, 2026 1:49 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Dumber than Tuberville?

_Ken Paxton as AG would be kind of amazing._

ofc you meant to say Secretary of Fucking Homeland Security, although lately Bondi has been looking like she's in so far over her head that she's drowning

she’s in charge of the stock market, there’s a lot going on right now

yeah that's why I said "one of"...there's some pretty stiff competition there but Markwayne has been such a consistent gift for late night talk shows, he's cartoonishly stupid

Would Mullin pass confirmation hearings? He's really a dumbshit

he's a senator. how is that going to work

Watch them assert that he still gets to vote in the Senate while in the Cabinet, because we said so and who's going to stop us?

Also confirmation is unnecessary because he will technically only be an interim appointee, with his interim status automatically renewed in perpetuity.

In other news Marco Rubio will also be on the Supreme Court, thank you for your attention etc.

xpost Rubio sailed through 99-0 being a fellow senator -- but that was a different time (one whole year ago).

Anyway, found his qualifications:

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ejihld4sywvvqwe67cdkn4jq/bafkreighwgdmmrh5jzoy5id56tmosado6vlqk5jysgu437ra6fjiq25qwi@jpeg

Would Mullin pass confirmation hearings? He's really a dumbshit

― Andy the Grasshopper

On the contrary! Senatorial courtesy, as Ned said. We used to have a fine tradition of plucking SCOTUS justice nominees from the Senate.

he only needs 50

He’s too busy making Diddy docus

is 'fingering nostrils' a euphemism for something? Asking for a friend

Oh and Noem will still live in the USCG Commmandant's house. At least until the White House ballroom is built (and repurposed as the set of the MAGA reality show "House of Sycophants").

does she keep the jet with the sexy bedroom?

no just her favorite blanket

Noem’s decision to allot $200 million on an ad campaign, featuring herself urging those living illegally in the U.S. to self-deport, had already rankled the president for months for its self-promotional style.

At the hearing, Noem told Senators that the President had signed off on the ad campaign–an assertion that upset Trump, who told senators and advisers he had not signed off on such a campaign.

this is hilarious coming from trump but also 100% the reason this is happening is because he was jealous of her tv ads lol

He'll do fine, I'm sure:

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ejihld4sywvvqwe67cdkn4jq/bafkreie72z7r5ki2plquovafieo5csk6wh5eq2wy6plo6tfmvw7w5kmeci@jpeg

oklahoma is a safe Republican seat maybe the Education guy who made oklahoma schoolkids watch his pro-Trump videos

she's doing a press conference and she doesn't know

lol

Did Mark and Wayne shove into each other if ya know what I mean nyuk nyuk

‪Julianne McShane‬
✧@juliannemcsh✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 9m
NOEM TAKING QUESTIONS - DOES NOT APPEAR TO KNOW SHE WAS FIRED

dude has seen some shit

During a Monday appearance on Fox News’s “America Reports,” Mullin said, “The loss of life, when the president first came out and he talked to the American people, he was very resolved and direct on what we could expect.”

“War is ugly, smells bad, and if anybody’s ever been there, and been able to smell the war that’s happened around you and taste it and feel it in your nostrils and hear it, it’s something that you’ll never forget and it’s ugly,” he added.

Rep. Pat Ryan, an Army veteran who served in Iraq, gave a fiery response to Mullin’s comments on the social platform X.

“Hey @SenMullin, what the actual f*** are you talking about? Did I miss the part of your bio where you served in combat (or served in uniform at all??). Call of Duty doesn’t count,” Ryan said in a post on X Monday evening.

cool, bro

Senator John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has repeatedly broken with his party on key votes, said he would vote to confirm Mullin. He said it was a “good thing” that Noem was out of the job, and called Mullin a “nice upgrade.”

the head injury caucus

Reporter: knock knocks

Noem: Who's there?

Reporter: Not you anymore

going great

‪Yashar Ali 🐘‬
✧@yashar✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 2m
BREAKING

The U.S. State Department has suspended operations at the U.S. embassy in Kuwait due to ongoing safety concerns.

ofc you meant to say Secretary of Fucking Homeland Security, although lately Bondi has been looking like she's in so far over her head that she's drowning

yes my bad. Although maybe Trump can get rid of Bondi too and put Paxton there to get him out of the Texas race. (He's gonna have to give Paxton something to get him out, dude will be out of a job at the end of the year and he's gonna have some big alimony to pay.)

I can def see trump firing all the women in his cabinet and replacing them with the most empty-headed white men on earth

(He's gonna have to give Paxton something to get him out, dude will be out of a job at the end of the year and he's gonna have some big alimony to pay.)

You don't think Paxton's gonna win the runoff?

Well Trump wants him to drop out. Or presumably he's the one Trump wants to drop out, he hasn't endorsed Cornyn yet but supposedly that's his lean.

Which Paxton absolutely won't do unless he gets something for it. He's already floating that he'd drop out if Republican senators break the filibuster and pass the SAVE Act, so he looks like he's fishing for a deal.

newsom has gone fringe on our strong special ally

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) criticized California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) for comparing Israel to an “apartheid state.”

“That’s a talking point of the fringe of my party, and that’s profoundly disappointing. I mean, I was shocked,” Fetterman told NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo on “Cuomo” Wednesday evening.

“Overall, he might be more liberal, but I never thought he would actually go that way and would describe our strong special ally (that way).”

just straight up talking in trumpspeak now

i am so sick of fetterman. there was video of him insulting a reporter yesterday and the dude barely seems fit to be in public let alone a senator

TBI is a helluva drug (or was it a stroke for him? I forget)

he does look like he should be fighting Mad Max in a cage battle

our strong special ally killed a Philadelphian a couple weeks ago: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/05/investigation-americans-killed-israeli-settlers-soldiers-west-bank

Can Fetterman be given VR goggles and made to think he's going to work while a less stupid doppelganger takes his place

xp sorry, I realized that was slightly misleading wording on my part; the IDF didn't do the killing directly:

Nasrallah Abu Siyam, born in Philadelphia, was shot on 18 February in the West Bank village of Mukhmas during an attack on Palestinian farmers by a group of masked settlers. Witnesses said that Israeli soldiers present did not intervene, provide medical assistance or make any arrests.

Shapiro also hasn’t said anything about that killing, because he is a vile Israel-applauding creep as well

What's this about Trump replacing Noem with Kenny Wayne Shepherd

BruceWayne

israeli settlers are using this war distraction to totally terrorize West Bank residents

Well if this week's primaries are any sign, Fetterman is definitely going down in '28 (if he even runs for reelection).

And I just wanna make a teeny lil point here. We have lots of discussion in these politics threads about the wisdom or value of engaging in electoral politics, particularly of the two-party variety, and the frustrations they bring. Which they do and they always will. But just because things don't happen or change immediately doesn't mean that they don't happen or change. The pro-Palestinian protests did not sway the Biden administration, it's true, or the Harris campaign. But for people who were paying attention — which turns out to be a not insignificant number — they had an impact. They helped change the narrative of Israel on the left — and even on the center-left — to the degree that we are now seeing pro-AIPAC Dems backtracking and trying to distance themselves, and Israel-skeptic Dems winning primaries. And ultimate windsocks like Newsom registering the shift.

The work does matter. Never as much or as fast as it needs to — the time to stop the war in Gaza was years ago — but it does make a difference. (Now, we need all of those people to actually live up to what they're saying, which is always the hard part.)

We also have a lot of discussions about whether or not people should withhold their votes for Dems over particular issues, such as Gaza (this happened like this week I think?). I'm not saying it's the sole reason for this shift — which I agree is hugely welcome and def significant — but maybe we could bear this in mind in future.

So Noem just gets to keep the 100 million or so that she embezzled and fuck off with her abuser boyfriend? How is this a punishment?

It's definitely not!

Well, withholding votes can have the unfortunate side effect of e.g. electing someone worse. (Which 2024 may be an example of, at least according to that Democratic Party report that got spiked.) Is the mass pain and suffering being inflicted at home and abroad by the Trump administration a worthwhile tradeoff for moving the party to left on Israel? I guess we could have that discussion. But I don't think that what happened this week was just "withholding votes," it was actively voting for better alternatives.

Anyway the point is that political parties are malleable. They are coalitions that change with every election, albeit not always in the way you want them to. But they and their establishments (as they exist at any given time) are not some indomitable impenetrable force.

xp no no no she's a Special Envoy to the Extraordinary League of Shields

xps Anytime Israeli settler violence is mentioned, this sentence from A.S. Hamrah's review of No Other Land flashes through my mind:

As usual, the settlers come off as violent and dangerous, the most insane people on Earth, which in 2025 is saying something.

re noam she is being moved outta the spotlight into a less public role, and being maintained in an office. it's to try to get her out of the fucking way, but also to keep her from being torn limb from limb.

right? ^total assumption

she's a Special Envoy to the Extraordinary League of Shields

Fortunately Dan Crenshaw has just been freed up for service as well.

https://cdn.marvel.com/u/prod/marvel/i/mg/c/c0/6478adfc64be3/portrait_uncanny.jpg

of course the line does what it does but it's quite something that the DOW is down 2k since Bondi's proclamation

tipsy all I'm saying is that such a rapid and profound shift for the party could, IMHO, only have happened after they lost in 2024. If Harris had won, I think we still would have seen this shift — since it's as much about protest as it is about lots of people experiencing media exposure to a horrendous genocide, which after all *should* upset people, one would like to assume —but I doubt you'd see the likes of Newsom coming around this quickly.

so, I'm not saying "keep not voting, it works!" but the arguments people often make about threatening to withhold votes being an efficacious means to influence the party seem to have been at least partially right

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/trump-bought-netflix-bonds-amid-paramount-warners-fight-1236521512/

corruption IS virtue. it proves you are motivated, smart, and willing to take risks.

But they and their establishments (as they exist at any given time) are not some indomitable impenetrable force.

just change your dn to "melty brainworms" and spare us a variation on this tired bromide every three days

so tempted to change my DN to Ultimate Windsock, but no

lol

I slapped SCOTUS and Ouiser Boudreaux🥄😷‬
✧@nwayn✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 20m
Corey Lewandowski OUT @ DHS. (Per Katy Tur.)

tipsy all I'm saying is that such a rapid and profound shift for the party could, IMHO, only have happened after they lost in 2024.

We'd have to run it both ways to find out, but I don't think that's true. The party's voters were already moving in that direction, the polls showed it. Had we been allowed an actual primary in '24 it certainly would have been an issue then. This year's primaries are the first chance to see the effect. That's kind of the point, you have to change the political conditions on the ground first before the party changes, the "party" to the extent it exists is always inherently reactive. Again (and I know some people on this board hate to hear this kind of stuff because they think there are magic ways to make things happen), it takes time and organization and persistence. Years, not months. Every major change in the allocation of wealth and power in this country's history has taken literal decades. This shift on Israel is in some ways remarkably fast for a political party, although even there its roots really go back quite a way. We had a former Democratic president write a book calling Israel an apartheid state 20 years ago, and so it took two decades for that to get to where Gavin Newsom thinks he should say it.

xpost Maybe he gets to keep the blanket.

agreed that kamala losing put the fear of god in dem electeds, and not just about gaza but about being a cookie cutter corporate dem in general, some realization arose that the sensible centrist era is over, and now you see formerly party line dems turning all the way around on gaza abolishing ice etc

now im not saying people should withhold their vote mostly because i think its a largely irrelevant argument that happens between two small groups of political enthusiasts, most people vote if they feel like it and dont if they dont, kamala didnt lose because some block of fussy leftists took a principled stand she lost because not enough general citizens were interested in buying what she was selling

I'm surprised no one's posted this story about the racist and antisemitic students at my university prowling on private chats.

its hard to keep track of all the leaked young republican nazi chats

srsly

slightly disturbing that every single highly politically motivated conservative under the age of 40 has had their brain turned to goo by online nazi content

tbc I def don't think Harris literally lost over Gaza — reading that opinion 9000 times from blue maga freaks on bsky has driven me insane — but the perception that it did was a huge factor

I guess my question tipsy is whose "time and organization and persistence" are you crediting here? the pro-Palestine movement? BDS lol?

dem party study on the election that they tried to keep secret but eventually leaked came to the conclusion that she lost because of gaza

I mean they've done a lot of work and the campus encampments (and the vicious response) were significant, but this changes strikes me as particularly unhelpful to your argument, notably lacking in time/org/persistence at a mass level

xpost yeah that's my assumption as well, based on nothing though -- have there been leaks?

hard to say why she lost but a lot of voters were not enthused on her for that reason

sorry bad reading on my part lagoon, I didn't realize it had leaked

yeah there were leaks and apparently it said that gaza did kamala in, but also we already knew that she was shown polling during the campaign that said as much and did nothing about it

^^

I do think it's the dominant reason for the loss tbh

donald currently bragging about the DOW being at 50k

I guess my question tipsy is whose "time and organization and persistence" are you crediting here? the pro-Palestine movement? BDS lol?

I think the protests in '23 and '24 were definitely a part of it, I think it made an impact. I also think that for people who pay attention to the news, even the blinkered view that we tended to get of the slaughter in Gaza turned people against it. But also all of that came on top of years of Israel moving to the right, Netanyahu becoming essentially a Republican Party cheerleader, even things like Jimmy Carter's book, all of it created a landscape where default liberal support for Israel had weakened — not among elected Democrats, so much, but among the people who vote for them. So like a lot of things that look sudden, it was more of long-term shift driven by events and people's own growing awareness.

And yeah, the whole reason they're not releasing that report is because of what they found about Gaza. But obviously even without the report being "public," every Democrat knows about it.

idk how exactly they came to that conclusion but someone on bluesky was speculating that going the wrong way on a divisive issue like gaza can be even worse than it looks from just the voting numbers because the people who care the most about it are the most politically active exactly the type who you need to be volunteering for you

instead theyre shit talking you to anyone who will listen

I think that's probably true. See also the Dems totally shutting the door on Bernie's whole cadre after '16. Thousands of activists told "We don't need you, go away."

maybe if the dems turn away from corporatism they can finally find common cause with activists bringing them to parity with republicans

That’s working out brilliantly for the Labour Party over here, fyi.

labour on a roll

Was this poll posted?
https://news.gallup.com/poll/702440/israelis-no-longer-ahead-americans-middle-east-sympathies.aspx

This year marks the first time that more Americans sympathize with Palestinians than with Israelis. Democrats actually arrived there in 2023, in a poll taken before Oct. 7. But in 2023 and 2024, the percentage difference between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli Democrats was only in single digits, whereas now it's nearly 50% (65%-17%)

israel really fucked up by doing something so awful that americans had to pay attention, their old plan was going great they shouldve just stuck to that, i guess maybe bibi was just trying to stay out of jail

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:awzzrtrcrvpnxi3ph2sbhxwv/bafkreiaanyjnvwtdiomgvmnvtj3histod27mbh4zad7nq2bwkqxvkvcq7u@jpeg

Lol

South Dakota Karen vs. Mar-a-Lagoo Vampira

just change your dn to "melty brainworms" and spare us a variation on this tired bromide every three days

― Cattedrale metropolitana di Santa Maria de Episcopio, Thursday, March 5, 2026 4:13 PM bookmarkflaglink

FPed

while I didn’t FP, please don’t do that budo.

I'm just tired of zing culture showing up in the middle of what was a fairly productive, healthy discussion, like...we're not at a baseball game

The Khanna-Massie resolution to disengage US forces from Trump’s war against Iran just failed by a narrow 212-219 vote.

Two Republicans voted for it, but four Democrats voted against it.

If those four Democrats had stuck with their caucus and their voters, it would have passed.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/05/us-house-war-powers-resolution-vote

Oh, discussed over on Iran thread

I am in the Qantas lounge at Sydney airport - For some obscure reason James carville’s polished skull keeps grinning down from the tv screen.

I’m sorry to dissapoint anyone wishing for his demise - what is dead can never die

the spokesperson said. “Mr. Lewandowski does not receive a salary or any federal government benefits. He volunteers his time to serve the American people.”

Corey Lewandowski OUT @ DHS. (Per Katy Tur.)

this is like when Kramer got fired from that job he didn't even really have in the first place

Carville's a "has been" and he has been for a very long time. Does any candidate for office actually follow his campaign advice these days, let alone pay him for it?

Carville is such a fossil that Family Guy successfully mocked him for how old and obsolete he was *25 years ago*

xxxxxJesus Alfred! Stay safe.

Lotta rules for Markwayne and his successor, but I guess it'll work out:

https://oklahomavoice.com/2026/03/05/gubernatorial-appointee-would-become-oklahomas-next-u-s-senator-until-voters-can-decide/ (Does Trump know he isn't white?)

He is definitely white. Or "white-passing" I think is the term.

Interesting (overly deferential) article about his accidental intersection with indigenous politics here:

https://www.hcn.org/issues/51-21-22/indigenous-affairs-this-cherokee-congressman-is-for-trump-and-indian-country/

goddamn this sounds familiar

What is ‘Shield of the Americas’?

The regional coalition of countries in Latin America will work together on ideology and policy initiatives that help secure the Western Hemisphere, according to the White House.

School Shield of the Americas

Lindsey Halligan Is Under Investigation by the Florida Bar - The New York Times https://share.google/ft3loWRzD6FgucLss

https://i.postimg.cc/c6GqkDQF/5988268b308d9cf2e6bcb7b765e64b47f64d1bec.jpg

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:djuj57armcsoyzmdfeg7i4qf/bafkreigadfq642rqlromanzkqsblpaiqh5tzovyqlypcpsn7lnkzjz3bce

The US economy lost 92,000 jobs in February and the unemployment rate rose to 4.4%

going well

august 2018... remind me?

xpost

prob just noise

the x axis on that graph is spaced quite weirdly

oh yeah the change happened at some point, or gradually through, 2012-2018

which I think means the answer is basically Bernie

Shapiro also hasn’t said anything about that killing, because he is a vile Israel-applauding creep as well

― a tv star not a dirty computer man (the table is the table), Thursday, March 5, 2026 3:31 PM (yesterday)

not true actually, though pretty mild: https://whyy.org/articles/palestinian-american-killed-west-bank-philadelphia/

would prefer a lot more of this:

State Rep. Chris Rabb also spoke out against Abu Siyam’s death.

“It doesn’t matter that he was a U.S. citizen,” he said. “There is no hierarchy of human rights.”

Never change GOP

GOP nominee in #TX23 Brandon Herrera shows off his copy of Mein Kampf, “I got the 1939 edition printed in English”

Let's go Brandon!

Shapiro also hasn’t said anything about that killing, because he is a vile Israel-applauding creep as well

― a tv star not a dirty computer man (the table is the table), Thursday, March 5, 2026 3:31 PM (yesterday)

not true actually, though pretty mild: https://whyy.org/articles/palestinian-american-killed-west-bank-philadelphia🕸/

would prefer a lot more of this:

_State Rep. Chris Rabb also spoke out against Abu Siyam’s death.

“It doesn’t matter that he was a U.S. citizen,” he said. “There is no hierarchy of human rights.”_

he hadn’t said anything as of my writing, but okay king

Subscribe now for instant updates from Josh Shapiro

sorry table, I shouldn't have implied that you should have known that. I just felt obliged to correct the record when I saw the news.

plus it fits into the convo we were having yesterday about the party & Israel. plus plus it makes Fetterman look like an even more ghoulish pos

of course, sorry for my snark, i am just opposed to “handing” anything to Shapiro, because he is vile.

https://i.ibb.co/vCgZ7Z9p/image-3.png

But the chiron says 'adds' as well!

newsmaxxing

We added 92k jobs to the dustbin

We added 92,000 jobs for AI bots

ai bots are people, friend

If firing the chief number counter didn't work to make the numbers better, have they thought about firing the numbers themselves for underperforming? Do we even need all these numbers or do they just confuse us?

they juked the stats and still got wrecked

lmao mystery solved as to why these centrist pundits are riding so hard for this weirdo, they know him, he poured them drinks

https://i.postimg.cc/PJz6rn3z/Screenshot-2026-03-06-at-4-48-51-PM.png

Few things on this: Maine (and some other New England states like Vermont) treat private school differently. In many towns you can go to private school free, paid for by the town, because the towns are too small to have public high schools.

But yeah, it appears Platner was at… https://t.co/tF9nkgrDVL

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) October 23, 2025

hmm intended for that embed to be just a link but it expanded anyway

of course hes their avatar of working class purity

very good debunking of the "troops were told it was Armageddon" story

https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/before-you-share-that-story-about

basically my takeaway:

1. wait 24 hours before sharing anything
2. assume it's either AI or a grift until you are reasonably sure otherwise

currently Trump is yelling at a Fox News guy on live TV

Aaron Rupar‬
✧@atru✧✧✧.c✧✧‬
· 14m
DOOCY: It sounds like the Russians are helping Iran target and attack Americans--

TRUMP: That's an easy problem compared to what we're doing here. What a stupid question that is to be asking at this time. We're talking about something else.

Related to that, from the Washington Post:

Russia is providing Iran with targeting information to attack American forces in the Middle East, the first indication that another major U.S. adversary is participating — even indirectly — in the war, according to three officials familiar with the intelligence.

The assistance, which has not been previously reported, signals that the rapidly expanding conflict now features one of America’s chief nuclear-armed competitors with exquisite intelligence capabilities.

Since the war began Saturday, Russia has passed Iran the locations of U.S. military assets, including warships and aircraft, said the three officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

We used to do the exact same thing for Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War. Tit for tat - easily foreseen.

xp

As noted on the Iran thread, despite this, we are apparently considering lifting the ban on purchasing oil from Russia.

...which is aligned well with the President's comment above.

They're letting India buy Russian oil now (for a month they say)

Ginni Thomas trending---for inst, WaPo says she corresponded with John Eastman, CBS News'(!) Bob Costa talks to NPR, also getting ethicist's response:

...The text messages raise ethical questions about whether Clarence Thomas should have recused himself last year in cases pertaining to the election and whether he should in the future. New York University law professor Stephen Gillers, author of leading texts on legal ethics, tells NPR that the newly disclosed texts have changed his mind on these questions.

"By reaching out to Mark Meadows and possibly others, [she] became part of the Stop the Steal team," he said. "That team's strategy included eventual appeals, if necessary to the Supreme Court."

Even if Clarence Thomas didn't know what his wife was doing, Gillers maintains, these texts indicate he would have had to willfully ignore her conduct, and in any event, he certainly knows now.

Read below for more highlights of NPR's interview with Costa and what the text messages reveal.

Democrats see a new opportunity brewing deep in the heart of Texas, where Republicans solving one problem may have inadvertently created a new one.

Rep. Tony Gonzales’ decision to drop his reelection bid over an infidelity scandal has elevated Brandon Herrera, a controversial social media figure known by his handle “TheAKGuy,” to the Republican nomination for Texas’ 23rd Congressional District.

...The YouTuber, gun manufacturer and Second Amendment activist has millions of online followers — and a track record of off-color, edgelord jokes that are ripe fodder for campaign ads. Herrera has come under fire for a long history of posting Nazi imagery and his involvement in a group called Sons of Confederate Veterans. Jokes like his line “I often think about putting a gun in my mouth. So, I’m basically an honorary veteran” were a flashpoint for criticism in his 2024 primary against Gonzales.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans is basically the Klassy Klan

The woman’s central allegation, according to FBI summaries of her interviews with investigators, known as FBI 302s, is that Trump hit her after she bit his penis when he attempted to force her to perform oral sex.

“For the last few weeks, Oversight Democrats have been investigating the FBI’s handling of allegations from 2019 of sexual assault on a minor made against President Donald Trump by a survivor,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the committee, said in a statement last week.

“Oversight Democrats can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes,” he added.

by "released it," I meant the series of interviews.

glad a bunch of folks are pointing out Trump wearing his dumb branded baseball cap at the funeral for the soldiers he got killed, I know optics don't matter anymore but its a brutal image

I really hope he strokes out, falls in the White House lawn and is pecked at by birds for 217 years

They could illustrate a decade’s worth of calendars with ways people hope he goes.

glad a bunch of folks are pointing out Trump wearing his dumb branded baseball cap at the funeral for the soldiers he got killed, I know optics don't matter anymore but its a brutal image

he called them ‘heroes coming home in a different manner”, i thought that was pretty sentimental for him

Let's hope he "comes home in a different manner" soon

This presidency is like the most fucked up “Make A Wish” in the history of the world.

Keri L. kind of her own Corey L. here, self-anointing-wise :

A federal judge overseeing a raft of legal challenges to the Trump administration's drive to dismantle the Voice of America ruled Saturday evening that Kari Lake had acted unlawfully in running the network's parent agency.

"Lake satisfies the requirements of neither the statute nor the Constitution," U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth wrote in his ruling. He declared all of Lake's actions over the past year to be null and void. That includes the layoffs of more than 1,000 journalists and staffers at the U.S. Agency for Global Media and the Voice of America.

Today in "Oh no! Please don't!":

Trump vows legislative blockade until SAVE America voter-ID bill is passed

President Donald Trump threatened to withhold his signature from any bill that reaches his desk until Congress passes a controversial election measure known as the SAVE America Act, which would make it much harder for many Americans to vote.

“It must be done immediately. It supersedes everything else. MUST GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Sunday. “I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed.”

The SAVE America Act would require proof of citizenship and photo ID to vote. The measure has been the subject of an immense pressure campaign from right-wing commentators and congressional Republicans.

The House passed the bill last month, but it is short of the 60-vote filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Republicans hold a 53-47 vote majority in the upper chamber, and Democrats have vowed to oppose it. That has led some Republicans to call for subverting the filibuster, which Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D, has so far resisted.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the threat of gridlock does not change Democrats’ stance.

“If Trump is saying he won’t sign any bills until the SAVE Act is passed, then so be it: there will be total gridlock in the Senate,” he said on X. “Senate Democrats will not help pass the SAVE Act under any circumstances.”

Trump has also called for Congress to deliver him an enhanced version of the bill, “NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION,” he wrote.

“GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY - ILLNESS, DISABILITY, TRAVEL: NO MEN IN WOMEN’S SPORTS: NO TRANSGENDER MUTILIZATION FOR CHILDREN! DO NOT FAIL!!!” Trump added.

I like how they didn't even bother pointing out that "mutilization" isn't a word...

Gotta show your own and kid genitals to vote?

Why is the trans-bashing even in there? Does he just add that to everything now hoping to keep the bigots engaged?

I guess so. Plus Republicans don't want people to know of the additional hurdles they are potentially adding to voting - Birth certificates are also one of the few options to prove a registrant’s identity, but they often do not reflect a married person’s or LGBTQ+ individual’s current legal name once they have changed it. While there are ways to further corroborate one’s identity, some experts warn the bureaucratic burden may turn people off registering altogether due to complications — preventing citizens from being able to cast a ballot.

https://19thnews.org/2026/02/house-passes-save-america-act-married-women-vote/

yeah, the funny thing is that it punishes married women who changed their names as the traditionalists demand and yet women these Jezebels, who do not change or take their husband’s name will have no problem at all

Well they also don't think married women should vote. (Or women in general, but especially the married ones.)

This Jamelle Bouie video seems about right to me. The bit where he laughs at how thoroughly Trump has destroyed his own presidency (just too bad he's gonna drag the rest of us down with him, oh well) is particularly good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozvWGx_Re9A

He's wrecked everything he's touched, and yet the Democrats remain too timid to mount a concerted opposition.

I know how this might be received, but here goes nothing. Have you tried directly telling any democrats exactly what you'd like to see them doing? This seems to be the part that a lot of left-leaning people on the internet generally and on ilx specifically never get around to doing. The process is designed so that this is not really a dispensable piece of it.

Pretty obvious first step would be stop rubber stamping Trump nominees, stop letting caucus members undermine war powers votes, stop approving further war funds. I don't think Democrats are unaware that these things are unpopular with their constituents, they just don't give a shit. Only way to move the ball forward is primary challengers because there are just too many who are eager to collaborate.

I agree with Bouie, I think this is going to drive his popularity into the ground. I think there are millions of Americans who are already at a breaking point financially in large part due to tariffs, this is going to make things much worse and unlke the Covid recession there was no reason at all for any of this. Factor in all the job losses and a bunch of people getting kicked off their health insurance and I think people are really going to suffer. Even the hardcore chuds won't be able to ignore it.

Secondly if there's one thing this country loves more than a rich pedophile it's our troops. The way he regularly shits on our armed forces I think actually has hurt him. The optics of dead soldiers being laid at his feet while he's wearing his stupid fucking baseball hat won't play well even for him. I know some people think MAGA folks will come around but if they do it'll be the first time in history that support for a war actually went up over time. The fact that this thing is *starting* with an approval rating in the twenties is catastrophic for him. It's even less popular than Vietnam was in *the end*.

Trump and his enablers really do seem to be pinning their hopes on their ability to pull as many strings as possible to manipulate the outcome of the midterms to maintain at least a slender majority in the House and Senate.
They will pursue every avenue they can find to arrive at that result. As Bouie states, the backlash is likely to overwhelm their efforts to steal the election.

Once they fail, they Project 2026 people will probably turn their attention to using the power of the presidency to destroy the civil service, dismantle more cabinet departments, cripple social security and purge the military of non-MAGA influences. How far they get will depend on how much room for maneuver the Congress, the courts, and the national anger allows them.

Fox News uses old clip of Trump after he wore hat while saluting slain US soldiers

Fox News used old video of Donald Trump in multiple reports on Saturday and Sunday, concealing from viewers that the commander-in-chief wore a golf hat throughout a ceremony on Saturday in which he saluted six flag-draped transfer cases carrying the remains of the first US troops to die in his war on Iran.

This Jamelle Bouie video seems about right to me.

Bouie is the sharpest commentator around imo

he commander-in-chief wore a golf hat throughout a ceremony on Saturday in which he saluted six flag-draped transfer cases carrying the remains of the first US troops to die in his war on Iran

maybe that golf hat is all that's keeping his rotten head from falling apart

Or that rash on his neck a week or two ago has spread?

A parasite rejecting its host as unviable and trying to leave

Bouie is the sharpest commentator around imo

I agree, which is why I find it engaging that there is a set of Bluesky posters who are convinced that he is a Nazi collaborator because he writes for the New York Times.

On Bluesky I came across a few posters saying it was because he wasn't good on Gaza.

I don't remember that being the case; it may just have been that he didn't comment on it much? Unlike most pundits, he's pretty good at staying in his own areas of knowledge. I was following him throughout the genocide, so I do think I would have noticed if he'd said anything pro-Israel.

I did ignore him for a long time after the 2016 election because I was following him on twitter that summer and was convinced by him repeatedly saying that trump "had no path to the WH".

I don't remember that being the case; it may just have been that he didn't comment on it much? Unlike most pundits, he's pretty good at staying in his own areas of knowledge.

this, and he said as much, that he didn't know enough about it. he comments on politics b/c that's his specialty and knows a lot about history and The Constitution

he said as much, that he didn't know enough about it

What is there to know? No specialized knowledge is required to recognize and condemn war crimes and mass murder.

He did gush over the greatness of Songs from the Big Chair a couple weeks ago.

Here's a column he wrote in summer 2024, if you want to see how he approached it: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/30/opinion/kamala-harris-netanyahu-israel-gaza.html.

What is there to know? No specialized knowledge is required to recognize and condemn war crimes and mass murder.

The closing line of the story Rob linked to describes the war on Gaza as "a terrible campaign of relentless destruction and incalculable human suffering".

Specifically Israel's actions therein, and criticising Biden's "ignominious role as chief supplier".

He did gush over the greatness of _Songs from the Big Chair_ a couple weeks ago.

Liking that album puts you on the right side of history on all topics

Bouie is extremely quick to block people who counter or argue with him on bluesky; I got blocked myself for commenting that he hadn't been very clear in a post that was obviously not very clear by the fact that all the responders were misinterpreting him. That's his prerogative on social media though and I think he's a better writer in his op-eds than he is on bluesky. At any rate, the outcome of his being quick to block is that he blocked a lot of trans posters who were yelling at him that he was a nazi for working at the NYT and now the line of argument seems to be that he's anti-trans for doing so. This overlooks the fact that he just blocks anyone who yells at him. It is all stupid.

Bouie is extremely quick to block people who counter or argue with him on bluesky

vs

he outcome of his being quick to block is that he blocked a lot of trans posters who were yelling at him that he was a nazi for working at the NYT

hmmmmm

I might block people calling me a Nazi too.

lol exactly--especially because of where you work? no one needs to listen to that shit

Most people on Bluesky don't block nearly enough of their fellow posters. I don't need to bother - I just mute certain words and that keeps 95% of posts that would annoy me from ever reaching my eyeballs.

What does it say about me right now that my reaction to this conversation is that social media needs to be launched into the sun?

could not agree more

At least Bouie just blocks people rather than quitting social media as TNC did.

He took a couple days off last week and I worried he was gone forever

I don't personally care about Bouie at all, but the NYT has led the way in US media (maybe arm in arm with the Atlantic, but they don't have the same credibility as journalists) in fostering a genocidal culture against trans people. Trans people objecting to him working there or writing him off entirely seems pretty reasonable to me.

I'd rather the NYT pay a writer as good as Bouie than replace him with another dangerous Bret Stephens-type hack.

Trans people objecting to him working there or writing him off entirely seems pretty reasonable to me.

agreed. but people shouldn't call him a nazi for it

a great way of writing him off would be to not engage with him on social media and or ignore him.

there are so few ethical corporations out there anymore particularly media companies, if you drive away people like Bouie from the NYT it will be all Nazis before you know it

Imo Bouie and Tressie McMillan Cottom are by far the clearest & best thinkers and most interesting writers at the NYT or almost anywhere else. TMMC especially is a delight. (I find Bouie's slower pace of delivery a little taxing in video form but that's on me.)

I'd rather the NYT pay a writer as good as Bouie than replace him with another dangerous Bret Stephens-type hack.

seconded

(I find Bouie's slower pace of delivery a little taxing in video form but that's on me.)

also seconded but that slow pace is balanced out by the opportunity to nose around his bookshelf or revel in his dog

agreed. but people shouldn't call him a nazi for it

― a (waterface), Monday, March 9, 2026 11:09 AM (three minutes ago)

I agree that literally calling him a nazi is hyperbolic. My only point was that trans people have every right to identify the NYT as a particularly dangerous enemy. Their anti-trans reporting has been cited in anti-trans legislation, for example. Public opinion on trans rights and healthcare shifted sharply rightward, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the NYT holds a large share of the blame for this moving from an exclusively right-wing issue to one centrists and liberals also now have "concerns" about.

It all boils down to the "does working for a corrupt institution inherently corrupt you even if the work you do is pure?" debate.

And then there's the dilemma is how many people does Bouie reach on his own independent platform vs on NYT's?

Going back to TNC again: he recognized that working at the Atlantic had given him a warped view of the Palestine issue. I doubt Bouie agrees with everything the NYT publishes, but I'm sure he feels pressure to "stay in his lane" when it comes to certain subjects.

hell, look what happened to Krugman.

Wasn't it Bouie a few weeks ago that stressed his peers should be pivoting to more video commentary if they want to be heard? My own kneejerk reaction is that I want fewer hot takes, fewer short videos taken in the car, or on a bench, or wherever, but as much as I hate it ... he's probably right. Faces will always reach more viewers than good prose will reach readers. It's certainly one reason all these right wing goobers get traction.

You really need to appeal to multiple adult learning styles IMO

I hate videos. I take in the written word much better

^^^ same Neando but I fear we’re part of a vanishing minority

I'm not even sure it is a learning style so much as a basic listening style. You forward or link to an article, someone has to a) not ignore or delete it and b) click through and read it. You make a short video, though, and it will or may pop up in your social media scroll and immediately engage. Whether it actually informs or connects, who knows, but it's a lot easier to listen or watch something passively than passively read something. I'm glad Bouie is at least making an effort. Recently I've even seen (speaking of) Krugman popping up in talk to the camera clips.

I have no issue with Bouie because he does both but when friends send me articles via forwarding vs videos, I can definitely say the articles get read immediately, but videos get put off until later

I watch some of Bouie's videos, and follow him on Bluesky. I don't tend to read his pieces for the Times, because a) I'm not a Times subscriber and b) I'm already pretty familiar with the arguments he's going to make from watching the videos and reading his Bluesky posts.

I read a lot of stuff in a week. So doubling up on subject matter doesn't feel like a valuable use of my time.

(In any case I'm not suggesting nobody should create vids because we should cater to multiple personality types, I was just slightly bristling at the framing of videos being superior as opposed to just another tool in the toolbox)

I get sent an article while, say, on public transit, I can open it right away and get reading.

I get sent a video and either I leave it until home so I can watch w/ sound on (by which time I will have forgotten, I will never watch the video) or watch with sound off and get impatient two lines in.

I know I'm not representative fwiw.

Also dunno if anyone's neglecting to pivot to video though, my insta recommendations are certainly full if earnest leftists talking to camera.

I think Bouie is great on camera and I think video is good! A long talking tiktok is just not as good a fit for how I listen. Editing it must be a whole other job though.

I definitely get the vibe from a lot of the college students at my job that reading is like opera... an abstractly respectable thing old people like that they personally find to be unfathomable and weird, and if pressed they'll admit they also think it's alienating and elitist. If you want to reach the under-25 audience, you better be making videos.

COLLEGE STUDENTS feel this way???

yep, professors in my department constantly talk about how it's impossible to get them to read an entire book, and most of them can't even handle a single chapter.

God that makes me feel super sad. As a teenager I devoured books. My brain and attention span has deteriorated since then, ofc.

Is Bouie's target audience the under 25s? I thought that was Hassan Piker's beat.

don't know that it's his beat, but he just drew a packed house at my daughter's college

He’s probably trying to reach everyone… and so he’s doing what musicians and influencers and everyone else has to do now

You can’t just think or create or design or whatever, you have to multi-platform yourself

Trump to hold a press conference after markets close on Monday

more stock market manipulation incoming

Hearing that Trump is bored with the war.

Another Boradwar

Not going at all like Venezuela. None of the Iranians have even offered him a peace prize yet.

trump announces he’s the hidden Madhi

If things go the way they’ve been going, he’s either gonna nationalize the oil industry or declare that he now gets a personal 10% cut of all stock transactions.

Secret Mahdi

more stock market manipulation incoming

For real, what a bizarre way to make an announcement, "after markets close." I guess it's signaling to those who know to buy/sell one way or another, and leaving everyone else to guess. Most likely something related to oil? Maybe he's gonna dump the federal oil reserve, why not. He's depleting all the rest of our resources.

Some people are going to be buried with ticker symbols on their tombstone

after their tickers give out

go out

We discussed the literacy crisis...somewhere...on here. I forget where now.

we all have to wear size 13 Florsheims now under pain of death

I honestly don't know why any journalist would attend these anymore

depends on whether employees of OAN count as journalists

Secret Mahdi

RFK Jr's next MAHA Edict: Drink More Likini's Juice!

COLLEGE STUDENTS feel this way???

I can't be the only one that has come across headlines declaring that professors are having trouble getting FILM STUDENTS to watch entire films.

Anyway, it's not that Bouie is in some way uniquely positioned to reach young people, or that videos are the only way to reach people, but young people seem particularly receptive to news and information by way of short visual clips. In fact, I've got to assume that *most* scrolling through social media are more likely to stop on something that has a visual or moving component to it, and that we're the only sickos searching the infinite scroll for long form substack essays or whatever. The rest are watching skits and animal videos and whoever can craft something eye catching enough to compete with that (a tall order!).

Speaking of TNC, was "The Case for Reparations" the last political long-form essay that went must-read viral. Feels like it. And that was before the Trump/Covid/peak social media era.

BREAKING: Kevin Kiley (R-CA) is SWITCHING PARTIES. Effective immediately, he is leaving the Republican party to become an Independent. This complicates Mike Johnson’s slim majority.

becoming an independent isn't switching parties, it's leaving a party

Is actually switching parties mid-mandate actually a thing in the US? It's been happening a lot lately in Canada.

All that means is he thinks that'll get the stink off him, while still allowing him to vote in lockstep with his former party.

yeah this guys sucks from what I could gather in 5 mins of reading

There have been members of Congress who have switched party in office, yes. Arlen Specter switched from Republican to Democrat, Strom Thurmond and Ben Nighthorse Campbell both left the Democrats and became Republicans.

doesn't mean much if he still votes with the Republicans

This is where I saw it, btw:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kevin-kiley-leaves-republican-party-becomes-independent/

The move complicates House Speaker Mike Johnson's narrow majority, though Kiley said he plans to caucus with the Republican Party "for the remainder of this term."

"That is how I was elected to begin this term," he said.

But Kiley would not say whether he would be a reliable vote for Johnson during procedural votes. Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, can afford to lose one vote, if all members are present and voting.

xp Joe Lieberman also did some kind of switcheroo

I mean it's not a good sign for the GOP though if House reps are prepping for November elections by leaving the party

Well it's the redistricting thing in this case. His formerly safe seat no longer is.

Is Bouie's target audience the under 25s? I thought that was Hassan Piker's beat.

― a ZX spectrum is haunting Europe (Daniel_Rf), Monday, 9 March 2026 17:05 (two hours ago)

don't know that it's his beat, but he just drew a packed house at my daughter's college

― bulb after bulb, Monday, 9 March 2026 17:13 (two hours ago)

He’s probably trying to reach everyone… and so he’s doing what musicians and influencers and everyone else has to do now

You can’t just think or create or design or whatever, you have to multi-platform yourself

― Clever Message Board User Name (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 9 March 2026 17:22 (one hour ago)

iirc he has said that he enjoys the challenge of learning a new way to reach people. (which makes sense for someone who started as a blogger, has a sideline as a podcast host/guest, is a hobbyist photographer, etc.)

he has also said that there are a lot of people who know him exclusively as a youtube/tiktok guy (because he pops up in their feeds) and don't know that he writes for the new york times.

This doesn't exactly sound like an Onion headline, but:

Golf club firm owned by Trump’s sons merges with drone manufacturer

maybe worth mentioning re: college reading - so many textbooks are absolute dogshit reading experiences. academic writing is incredibly bullshit-y overall unless you're an academic yourself or an academic-in-training.

The story I keep hearing is about English Majors who can't read full books. Why, like, why pick that major?

maybe there should be a Cliff Notes app

I'm sure that there are some actual societal developments that are Not Good which can't just be waved away but when I went to journalism school in the 00's you bet there were a lotta ppl around who didn't read newspapers or even really keep up with current events lol, they didn't care about the news they cared about the dream scenario of them delivering the news.

why pick that major?

They thought it would have more to do with Downton Abbey.

I have had film students the last five years who have trouble finishing films, but so far it looks like classic laziness instead of generational torpor or something. Less than a third of 47 students will, say, analyze the same scenes in a film, usually found on YouTube, instead of finishing the thing. I'll catch it and advise them to quote other scenes.

obviously the marginal literacy of youth is a concern but mainly I was just pointing out that there's a growing demographic that you cannot reach via the written word at all. if your beat is politics you need to be visible to these people regardless of how you feel about them not really being able to read

why pick that major?

They thought it would have more to do with Downton Abbey.

― paper plans (tipsy mothra), Monday, March 9, 2026 8:02 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the bosom manor major

I do remember meeting an English Major who said she'd never a read a book that wasn't assigned in a class. Weird, but at least she read the assigned books.

I had an english prof who had previously been at a somewhat shittier state U and claimed a lot of his students were like that.

Trump tells CBS News "the war is very complete"

markets surge like 700 points just before

I do remember meeting an English Major who said she'd never a read a book that wasn't assigned in a class. Weird, but at least she read the assigned books.

― 138,683 Serious, Earnest Americans Emphasize Demand for Prepar (President Keyes), Monday, March 9, 2026 4:12 PM

This was the case in 1994!

ha that's the year I met her!

Trump also told the news outlet that he had someone other than Iran's newly announced supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, to lead the country.

Very much "Freeman of the Land fucks appointing their own fake judges" energy

Trump also told the news outlet that he had someone other than Iran's newly announced supreme leader

in fact it was gonna be a highly rated reality show on Fox, different contestants compete to be Supreme Leader and are eliminated one by one, with Trump as arbiter and judge

The big twist is that all the contestants are Christians!

"most people don't know what roadside bomb means"

Donald was recently told again what a roadside bomb is

anytime i do comedy

A roadside bomb is when Trump orders his chauffeur to pull over so he can take a dump.

re: the discussion about students being unable to read full books or watch full movies, I'm very happy to say that my soon to be 23-year-old son has very strongly embraced both reading classic novels and watching famous movies over the past year, even though he's a CS major! The core English classes he had to take at the local community college were a big influence on his enthusiasm for literature, so don't give up, teachers!

If anyone is feeling masochistic or bored, these dimwit DOGE depositions are ... dispiriting, for so many reasons:

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

After comments that seemed to suggest President Trump was looking towards an exit from his war with Iran, Trump said in a speech to Republican lawmakers in Florida that “we have won in many ways, but not enough. We go forward more determined than ever to achieve ultimate victory that will end this long-running danger once and for all.”