"You know, we have a life and grass has a life and the grass here died about 40 years ago. " American Politics, August 2026

from:https://www.democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/trump-transcripts/transcript-president-trump-visits-park-police-officers-in-washington-82125

If only he would stay on the grass level, as a nature lover or parks and rec officer, also a golfer, a napper, and not think too much about, you know, anything but grass, or anything.

ONLY 30 MONTHS TO GO ON THE DONALD TRUMP CONTRACT

So they dropped the charges against that Olympic canoeist for “vandalizing” the reflecting pool and admitted it was a botched installation. Which of course the entire world already knew.

I bet that Olympics canoeist already accumulated lots of legal fees . But can he sue the government and get them back? I hope so.

More no-bid Trump contracts mentioned by New York Times

Trump’s Fixation on Arctic Ships Led to Billions in No-Bid Contracts
The president decided to buy 11 polar icebreakers after a game of golf with Finland’s president. Experts say it’s far from clear the United States needs so many.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the canoeist had plenty of pro-bono offers. anyway he has a great case for malicious prosecution.

To preserve the endless golden chain of US political fuckery, a link to the July thread:

The Saddest of Ferris Wheels - American Politics, July 2026

The canoeist should file a claim with the DOJ “weaponization fund”

I find it all so depressing and defeating - like, even if the Dems win the midterms and defeat Trump (whether or not he's running) in 28 and even expand the courts and get statehood for DC and PR, it feels like if they don't put every single one of these motherfuckers in jail and make them pay for their abundant crimes, they'll just get back in.

The way I avoid depression and defeatism is to get my jollies one step at a time.

i get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine

Poor you!

brb going back to my bars, temples, and massage parlours

This morning, Trump reportedly "lashing out" (getting his jollies?) at DOJ for dropping pool charges.

Repeated his lies again about vandals and disagreed with announced findings on Truth Social.

https://apple.news/Afyl5C8yZRM-ANJneve-_rA

was wondering when he was going to pipe up about this

it would be great if someone called him on his lies directly but I don't expect it to happen because it never does and is pointless

The media may not call him on his lies, but maybe this amounts to voters calling him on his bullshit:

A poll released by Quinnipiac University on July 29 showed Trump's approval rating at 32%, while 58% of respondents said they disapproved of the president's job performance. According to the pollster, Trump’s performance in the poll is the worst recorded in either of his terms in the White House.

Only a day after Quinnipiac’s poll, an AP-NORC poll showed similar numbers, as only 33% of respondents approved of Trump’s performance

Also worth noting that the percentage of people who will affirmatively identify themselves as Republicans to a pollster is down to 25%.

Don’t ask me why or how, but I read that entire transcript in dow’s original post, with Trump doing his patented “weave” i.e. spewing whatever flits into his addled brain. Many choice moments, but I actually lolled at this one:

And Pam, thank you very much. What a job. She's -- people don't realize -- they're going to see, she'll go down as the greatest attorney general we've had. I really mean it too. And where's my Kristi? You're there. Thank you very much. She's been incredible and she can ride a horse like nobody. She gets on those horses. She rips those horses around. But I want to thank you very much.

Secretary of Interior Burgum feuding with prosecutor Pirro online today, as Burgum decides to echo Trump and insist it was still vandals at reflecting pool. They're all crazy cult members

apparently Trump is now selling early access to his Truth Social posts, just the most breathtakingly corrupt shit I've ever seen in this country

Slobbering on Trump is their main job description. Insufficient slobber leads to leaving your cushy government job to fill "a very important job in the private sector" that Trump made up out of thin air.

https://www.npr.org/2026/08/01/nx-s1-5912219/trump-truth-social-access-insider-trading

wow. yeah. i mean, every step deeper into this is the frog slowly boiling, the straw that broke the camel’s back, etc

but lol, yeah, it’s like sign up for a service where you can figure out if trump is going to escalate or de-escalate the iran war he started, strait of hormuz insider trading tips, etc.

Trump's media company says customers have already started signing up. Such an offering would give institutional investors a leg up in areas of finance like high-frequency trading, where an advantage of a few milliseconds can mean the difference of millions of dollars. But will the service be widely adopted across Wall Street?

"It's insane," said one Wall Street executive, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation from the Trump administration. "I can say for myself and 200 of my friends in finance, we're not getting anywhere near this. In another administration, this would be considered criminal.”

you gotta love the moment when the wall street executive delivers the hard truths

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:nkatjcr76lx7vwrpvx2bp5jb/bafkreicbgwgt5fyymk3wguaafd6qfqb4ttnsiswva7egjg37xhhfqrypnq

Faces New Scrutiny

Increasingly scrutinated

Scrutum

The wrinkled old retainer

Still, even in its new form, Mr. Blanche’s order for the I.R.S. to abandon any audits of Mr. Trump’s previous tax returns is an unprecedented and potentially illegal benefit to a sitting president, worth potentially tens of millions of dollars in lower taxes and avoided penalties

From NY Times re how 2 “holdout “ Republicans are likely now to make Blanche attorney general despite above, because he has supposedly dropped other item that would set up slush fund for J6 ers

lol as soon as he is confirmed he's going to do all the shit he said he wouldn't do

why would Biden let him do that?

Can't spell "slush fund" without "lush fun."

Hey, Biden tried to provide guidance by nominating a worthless, do-nothing AG.

how is Hong's anti-Thanksgiving platform hitting in the wisconsin heartland?

Democratic socialist and former Wisconsin state Rep. Francesca Hong (D) on Monday defended a past social media post urging the country to “cancel Thanksgiving” further leaning into her progressive agenda that’s gained traction for her Wisconsin gubernatorial campaign.

Anchor Kaitlan Collins asked if Hong still stood by her now-deleted post on X from 2021.

“Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621,” Hong previously wrote on the social platform.

“If it takes a worldwide pandemic for us to realize we should stop celebrating colonialism and the original superspreader event that killed indigenous folx and women, so be it,” the post continued.

I can't imagine that interview with Collins hit all that well for her. And she and the other DSA candidates should stop going on Fox News, they just seem like sitting ducks for mockery.

I really like Hong, but she and others need to stop with the intersectional gibberish language. Most people don't get it. It feels to me like they're talking over most people's heads. Why?

I really like Hong, but she and others need to stop with the intersectional gibberish language. Most people don't get it. It feels to me like they're talking over most people's heads. Why?

Seems to me (and this is why I'm not a politician) it shouldn't be that hard to start your answer to "Do you still want to outlaw Thanksgiving?" with "You realize not everyone in the world is white and Christian, right?"

looking good for el-sayed

intersectional gibberish language

and i think centrists should stfu and sit down.

policing normal language utilized by plenty of non-college educated, non-white people is textbook liberal racism.

but you know some posters here wouldn't know that because they're white and live in mostly white places and never actually interact with non-white people. trust me: everyone knows what colonialism is except dumb fucking honkies, and catering to them doesn't fucking work anyway.

cori bush lost

lol

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:flfa7b6kgjqp3bbh223tmpjk/bafkreic74pubquklzbwxbzu4l5jyi64gmlcxeh7zcmoz2hlp3ynmmouzcu

Democrats
Projected winner
ABDUL EL-SAYED WINS THE MICHIGAN PRIMARY

now win! there should be law about spending in these matters. now win. i’m so glad he took it. now change the law when it is unfair— or in this case fucking obscene. do we know who forces that? we do. not politicians

if we settle only for better justice for gaza by defunding anything (and that itself is still far away), the necessary steps will be worse than incomplete. it will invite only more injustice for both issues.

one can say “oh it’s scotus who controls much of this matter.” yes it is. my opinion remains.

Meanwhile

Political Polls
@PpollingNumbers

Results - Thomas Smith — the guy who suspended his campaign last month — just defeated Trump-endorsed Amir Hassan in the MI-08 GOP primary.

this might be a bunch of hot air but still doesn't bode well

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told faith leaders he is planning to roll back abortion access even in states that have laws protecting it.

On a private call last week hosted by the White House Faith Office, Blanche told the religious group Intercessors for America that moves to undo the Biden administration’s efforts to protect abortion are “taking longer than we want.”

But Blanche assured them that the Justice Department (DOJ) is “working hand-in-hand” with federal health agencies, the White House and President Trump’s team “to get permanent solutions so the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state.”

important gop adorability discourse

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:hw6pij3rglmi4eescerb2pn5/bafkreib4f5abje5h4q2hensxspggctafpelzluv4xv462khcowegjzhf3y

https://bsky.app/profile/tylerhuckabee.bsky.social/post/3msdrvtms3k2b

regarding the Blanche nomination it appears Susan is concerned

President Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, Todd Blanche, faced renewed uncertainty over his U.S. Senate confirmation on Wednesday after Republican Senator Susan Collins said on Tuesday she would vote against him, leaving the former Trump personal lawyer with little margin for error.

xp so fucking weird that the VP of the United States is weighing in on this shit

xp so fucking weird that the VP of the United States is weighing in on this shit

It's always important to keep in mind that JD Vance is a giant fucking loser.

Trump is a poster. Vance is a reply guy.

they don't eat burritos in the White House

just in Trump Tower

Happy #CincoDeMayo! The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics! https://t.co/ufoTeQd8yA pic.twitter.com/k01Mc6CuDI

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 5, 2016

Trump is a poster. Vance is a reply guy.

extremely otm

BLITZER: If a Democratic Senate primary were held in Pennsylvania today, do you believe you would win?

FETTERMAN: ... Like, today?

BLITZER: Yeah

FETTERMAN: Uh. Yeah.

lol

lol that is pretty good

“ the White House Faith Office”

LOMBARDO: So I know the pastor spoke about Officer Abdelnabi--

TRUMP RALLY CROWD: *Boooooo*

LOMBARDO: No. We're not booing him. He's the officer that passed away here recently

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3msed6xkkf42b

jfc

I've been forced to learn in the past few days of the existence of this weird Nashville Zionist influencer. She has a book out called White. Blonde. Jew., which is first of all a creepy fashy title. Then an indie bookstore in Nashville canceled an author appearance by her out of security concerns, because they'd gotten a lot of flak from customers about bringing in a cheerleader for Netanyahu and the IDF (which she is, she posted a "Prayer for the IDF" on her Instagram a few months ago). So now of course she's riding the Canceled Circuit, going on Fox to blame antisemitism and booking paid speaking gigs under the banner "Canceled for Being a Proud Jew."

So anyway I looked at her Instagram. I'd never heard of her. 92K followers, which doesn't seem massive to me but I guess was enough to get a book deal. She appears to be part of a kind of circle of right-wing pro-Israel influencers. She does a lot of Muslim bashing. But what struck me was her affect in her videos. She started as an architecture and design influencer before "reconnecting with her Jewish identity" after Oct. 7, and she has all the breathy ASMR intonations and vaguely uplifting words of Live Laugh Love culture but they're wrapped around really brazen cheerleading for Israeli violence. It's kinda disconcerting. (I'm not even typing her name, easy to find, just wouldn't want any of her trolls to wander in.)

when I’m emperor all “influencers” are going to work in the rice paddies

xp She sounds like a Human Resources manager from hell

i doubt anyone could top the HR manager i once worked with - was completely unsurprised after i left the company to find out her husband was a unionbuster.

if and when you miserably fail, try try again

President Trump on Thursday signed two executive orders again aimed at restricting birthright citizenship, an apparent attempt to circumvent a recent Supreme Court ruling that upheld the constitutional protection.

One of the president’s orders expands the definition of who would be ineligible for automatic citizenship, including “alien enemies of the United States, members of foreign terrorist organizations and large categories of people who lobby and act on behalf of foreign governments,” according to officials.

Courts have historically recognized four exceptions to the Citizenship Clause: children born in the U.S. to foreign sovereigns and diplomats now referenced in the executive order as well as children of foreign forces during a hostile occupation; children born on foreign public ships and children of Native American tribes.

One of my great uncles, a full professor at Penn State University, registered himself as a lobbyist for a foreign government. He received no pay for this. He just wanted to do something for a nation he felt sympathetic toward which could barely afford an embassy in DC. According to this EO, Trump thinks his kids shouldn't have been American citizens.

well it's an EO and barely worth the paper... but they want another court battle I'm sure

I wonder if lobbyists for Israel are exempted

No doubt they are

also what about an *American* citizen who is trying to market, say, Spanish wine for the Spanish wine board? or the Irish Cheese board? they could get wrapped up in this broad category

this has to be a Stephen Miller pet project, coming up with the new text... he seems to be the one that despises the 14th Amendment above all else

https://i.ibb.co/qL5mxB9Z/Screenshot-2026-08-06-203600.png

https://gifdb.com/images/high/clutch-pearls-whitney-houston-hru1usp37owc49s1.webp

this attempt at a new red scare is funny no one cares including the people trying to make it happen, low energy stuff

the communists are eating the dogs, they're eating the cats

some huffpost guy just wrote an article saying because trump is seizing the means of production (bullying companies into giving the government a taste i guess) that means hes a communist

I did see some MAGA woman on instagram expressing worry that the communists would force her to wear a burkha

And honestly, the world would be a better place if she was covered from head to toe

lag∞n
Posted: August 6, 2026 at 8:52:31 PM

this attempt at a new red scare is funny no one cares including the people trying to make it happen, low energy stuff

i mean… it is actually quite a serious accusation w/ real consequences in my organization. but the validity (or lack thereof) of the claims isn’t any more/less relevant now than it was for red scare 1.0, when it was used for posturing and score-settling.

it was more relevant then

dude, in May my coworker i was put on probation for “ideological concerns” related to an accusation of Marxism.

and yes, i know this sounds hyperbolic/nuts, but it’s a big fact of life in my line of social services administration right bow. members of a (fairly extreme) right wing platform actually organized against some of the more socially progressive members of my staff, doxxing and illegally recording them for doing their job. and although they weren’t actionable misdeeds committed by the targeted staff, some older/more conservative management have used this “concern” to internally reorient how we provide service… exactly in line with the desires of the right wing organization. it’s relevent AF!

sorry for typoes…. on phone

obviously thats very bad and many very bad things are happing in the country im sorry you have to deal with it, but also its just not comparable to the mid century red scare

yet. and i agree. i guess what i’m saying is that the mccarthy era was about pretexts for cronyism and powergrabbing and fuckery as much it was about ideology, and i don’t see this as different in character. (i do see it differently in terms of scope… and i totes acknowledge that the accusers this time seem to lack the guile and commitment of the HUAC crew)

people really were very serious about being anti communist then tho obvs all sorts of other motivations and complications were at play too, where as now imho no one really gives a shit about it its just a word they say that they think will help them get their way but imho it doesnt have much cache anymore, which of course doesnt mean they still cant fuck with you

yeah i feel like the fuckhearts in play here have no understanding of the fundamentals of the argument.

then i recall that they probly didnt in 1953 either.

JFC

Eric Swalwell leveraged his past sexual relationship with Katie Miller, Stephen Miller’s wife, in an effort to get the DOJ to quash the release of FBI files detailing his contacts with suspected Chinese intelligence operative Christine Fang, known as “Fang Fang.”

https://bsky.app/profile/yasharali.bsky.social/post/3mshew2nqks2f

so sorry you’ve gotten mixed up in that soda.

eat shit, klandy

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/rep-andy-ogles-loses-republican-primary-tennessee-rcna591185

In other Tennessee news, our local Democrats had a good night in county elections. They flipped a school board seat to give a 5-4 Democratic majority for the first time — and they did it by running against vouchers and book bans. Knox County was the largest school district in the state with a Republican majority, now it's not. (Our politically astute superintendent will no doubt adjust his focus as required.)

And they also flipped a long-Republican County Commission seat to give the Dems a 4-7 minority instead of 3-8. Even better, that seat got flipped by a 29-year-old gay Democrat who beat the head of the local Moms For Liberty chapter by 8 points. (He's a super smart good dude, really happy he won.) And countywide, the labor organizer with a socialist past and a photo of himself wearing a CCCP T-shirt that the GOP circulated relentlessly got within 5 points of beating the Republican candidate for county mayor — 47.5-52.5. That's closer by far than any Democrat has come to winning countywide office in 20 years.

So yeah. People showed up. The energy is out there.

Thank you for reporting the good local news, tipsy.

Darkly amusing that the old beef with Communism was that it was godless; opiate of the masses etc.

Somehow the new Communism is also fundamentalist Islam?

we'll take it

A US federal appeals court has ordered the Trump administration to halt construction of the US president’s $400m White House ballroom, in a fresh blow to the controversial project.

Explaining their majority decision, Judges Patricia Millet and Bradley Garcia wrote: “Each President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its Executive Residence.”

until SCOTUS rules that he can demolish the whole WH and turn it into a McDonalds if he wants to.

I could have sworn I've seen that same story/order/legal outcome every week for the past few months.

Speaking of things ending up with Supreme Court these 2 new birthright exceptions Trump and Stephen Miller announced with an executive order could end up going to the US Supreme Court

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6015054-trump-executive-orders-birthright-citizenship-birth-tourism/

And then there's this- President Donald Trump is moving forward with his attempt to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve over unproven allegations of mortgage fraud, sources say, in a move that is likely to spark a new legal battle over the independence of the central bank. The Supreme Court had found that the Fed was the only independent agency

yeah we talked about the birthright thing a bit yesterday... the overly broad thing about 'people who lobby and act on behalf of foreign governments' is the real clincher, there's a fuckload of people who could get pulled into that category

The Lisa Cook thing is insane because Bill Pulte was illegally accessing people's mortgage applications.

Is Dems in senate agreeing to a continuing budget agreement now through December ( after the elections) in exchange for just no more extra money being given to Border Patrol ( who already have a ton) a good thing? Schumer also thinks doing this will keep pressure off Dems and somehow also stop the crappy Save Act from passing in the Senate.

“1But the budget reconciliation process is cumbersome, and Republicans are running out of time to pass their measure before Election Day. The Senate has just three scheduled weeks in Washington before the midterm elections, in which control of Congress is at stake.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/08/us/politics/trump-save-america-act-republican-voting-bill-senate.html?unlocked_article_code=1.4FA.TlVa.tv5zQHO27ozE&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Hopefully the Republican senate can't do much in those scheduled weeks on that proposed reconcilation bill for the Save Act and anything else (if House decides to try to change budget bill that Republicans and Dems in Senate agreed to already ). Schumer and Dems should try to delay and drag things out but who knows with Schumer.

NY Times with more details on another sleazy Trump crypto thing that will get overlooked by most and just added to the list -

During the World Cup soccer final in New Jersey last month, Zach Witkoff, co-founder of President Trump’s cryptocurrency company, took in the action from a luxury suite. Joining him was a man who had made the president, and all the company’s co-founders, much richer.

Two years earlier, the man, Guren “Bobby” Zhou, was a failed hardwood flooring retailer in Britain who had come under investigation there for money laundering and presided over the collapse of a small crypto start-up.

Then seemingly out of nowhere, he became one of the biggest buyers of tokens from Mr. Trump’s company, World Liberty Financial, dropping a total of $100 million through a new firm called Aqua 1. He kept quiet about it for months, other than speaking briefly as “Mr. Bobby” from Aqua 1 during a little-noticed audio stream on X.

“We’re very proud to be a major player in the World Liberty, which is Trump’s family’s crypto venture,” he said.

Under World Liberty policy, as much as $75 million of that money was distributed to a company controlled by the president and his three sons. The money also benefited the family of Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration’s special peace envoy and the father of Zach Witkoff.

In any prior era, a windfall for the president of that size from a foreigner with no public signs of access to that level of wealth would have certainly gone against norms and might have spawned a congressional investigation.

Instead, the curious case of Mr. Zhou illustrates the ease with which buyers with unknown backgrounds and motivations can use the anonymity of cryptocurrency to shower Mr. Trump with money. The president’s recent financial disclosure form shows that he collected $1.4 billion from his crypto businesses last year, the majority of it from anonymous sources.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/09/us/politics/bobby-zhou-trump-crypto.html

dude is obviously a straw buyer

Don Jr. likes straws

Sociopathic wife beater Max Miller lies and makes a constituent’s life hell:

https://prospect.org/2026/08/11/max-millers-endless-wars/

Welcome to the Resistance, Tomi!

“Let’s be frank about it, some Americans are turning to socialism because Republicans have failed us so dismally that even the most destructive economic model imaginable feels palatable to people who are struggling to make ends meet and buy groceries,” Lahren wrote on the social platform X.

In a follow up post, she further slammed Republicans who have pushed for continued U.S. military operations against Iran and accused lawmakers of being disconnected from the economic consequences of the nearly six-month war.

She said the politicians doing so are “likely all invested in the military industrial complex” and were unconcerned about pressure felt by consumers at the pump, amid rising gas prices linked to the war.

Turns out the one thing a lot of these dorks don't like is the endless wars they promised they would not get. Oh well, guess they'll just all have to ... vote Republican again the next time around.

well, the only other option is the Communists.

one thing I have noticed about some of the Trump voters I know is they realized he was a pedophile not when the Epstein files dropped but when the Iran war started

When the missile smoke clears, a man's sexual politics do too.

When the missile smoke clears, a man's sexual politics do too.

oh no! El-Sayed has closet skeletons that have been discovered

“Fireworks just aren’t worth it: hear us out” one deleted video from 2024 read, according to CNN’s KFile, which first reported the clips.

El-Sayed suggested that the loud noise from fireworks could trigger veterans that suffer from PTSD or endanger children and pets. He now says his outlook on the holiday has shifted.

“Abdul is the former captain of his high school football team, loves Michigan football on Saturdays, and celebrates the Fourth of July with fireworks like the next Michigander. Cherry-picked comments from old podcasts don’t reflect his beliefs today,” his campaign told CNN.

Last month on the 4th, somebody shot a rocket towards my building and lit the grass on fire, I had to put it out with a bucket until the firetruck arrived. Fireworks suck

Firework is real work

9 out of 10 dogs agree that fireworks just aren't worth it

Tbh that will pick him up some votes from the dog owners who dominate neighborhood chats around the 4th.

yea I saw this mentioned on what I gathered was a pretty conservative FB page and nearly all the comments were like, "good. fireworks are awful"

ditto for Hong's prior comments about Thanksgiving. this isnt like some thing everybody unabashedly loves in fact I think given the utterly toxic political environment in this county most people dread Thanksgiving a little.

well he got this coveted endorsement

Democratic strategist James Carville said he is backing Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in spite of his criticism of El-Sayed and especially when compared to the Republican in the race.

“El-Sayed himself has said the Democrats is as much of a problem as the Republicans, which I disagree with. But when I look at him and I look at Mike Rogers, who’s a lackey for the entire pharmaceutical industry, who’s an election denier, then I’m going to take El-Sayed every time,” Carville told Piers Morgan on his “Piers Morgan Uncensored” show in a clip posted Monday.

El-Sayed himself has said the Democrats is as much of a problem as the Republicans, which I disagree with.

I also disagree with that, grammar-wise.

You don't go to Foghorn Leghorn for grammatical niceties.

Is our Democrats learning?

The state with the prettiest name! On gay-married candidate, the well-named Keith Gross, running for a Panhandle congressional seat:

He picked up an endorsement in April from the Log Cabin Republicans, the nation’s most prominent LGBTQ+ Republican organization. He discussed that briefly with The Wakulla Chronicle, where he welcomed the support and distanced himself from the fight for transgender rights.

“I would say they’re more of an LGB group,” he said of Log Cabin. “Trans-ideology is far outside of what most normal gays espouse. I do welcome their endorsement, and I welcome the endorsement of any group that wants to help us elect America First candidates.”

how can i trust you with freedom of gender identification when i cannot even trust you with— well, any freedoms at all? because you don’t deserve that.

Yesterday Mayor Mamdani endorsed a bill to force Amazon to employ its own delivery drivers, rather than outsource the work to subcontractors. The Prospect can report that Amazon's lead lobbyist on that bill is Chuck Schumer's daughter Jessica

https://prospect.org/2026/08/11/mamdani-schumer-lobbying-new-york-city-council-amazon-delivery-drivers/

Dem governor primary vote in Wisconsin is very close. Hong's views on Thanksgiving got a lot more attention than the Republican primary winner Tom Tiffany's votes as a member of the US House of Representatives against certifying Biden's 2020 electoral wins in cetain states

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/election-denier-tom-tiffany-wins-wisconsin-gop-nomination-for-governor/

Wow amazingly close. 3,000 votes right now.

yeah it really feels like both the media and the Dem party were trying to ratfuck her at the last minute and it looks like it might have worked. that said I do like Crowley, he'd be my choice if not for Hong, and I do suspect that he has a better chance of beating Tiffany. though I think either of them would probably win.

In MN, for the open Senate seat, Peggy Flanagan absolutely WALLOPED Angie Craig (and my absentee primary ballot arrived in time to be counted, phew!).

“Then seemingly out of nowhere: American Politics September 2026”

What I saw of the Hong campaign didn’t signal “sure winner” (Bernie and others unwilling to endorse, non-charismatic, etc.) but she was way ahead in polls. A mirage, it seems.

Polls were likely off as they were in Michigan, but I suspect a significant portion of voters who might have been inclined toward Hong were in the final days persuaded by the electability argument that was used against her. And to the extent that the Thanksgiving comment made a difference, it might have been less "oh, she's too Woke 1" and more "she's not ready for prime time."

I wasn't super impressed with any of the interviews I watched with Hong, could maybe see why AOC/Bernie/etc didn't dig in on that one. But respect to her for a strong campaign, even a close loss is an achievement given what she started with. And while all these races tend to get presented as zero-sum "moderates win/progressives lose" or vice-versa, having so many progressive candidates in so many places scaring the establishment is a net good. Whether they win or lose they force conversations and issues into the mix that candidates have to think about and address.

Also polls seem to be overestimating progressive candidates for maybe some kind of methodological reasons? Anyway, nobody should feel too comfortable with ostensibly large polling leads.

In MN, for the open Senate seat, Peggy Flanagan absolutely WALLOPED Angie Craig (and my absentee primary ballot arrived in time to be counted, phew!).

― einstürzende louboutin (suzy), Wednesday, 12 August 2026 06:17 (seven hours ago)

Way back in March during the DFL caucuses Craig was clearly not a factor, at ours she didn't even show, her surrogate got booed, and her signs kept falling down.

All the talk from the local media and the loud moderate Dems voices *cough*Gwen Walz*cough* about how we can't have a progressive candidate because Craig has "electability" outside of Duluth & the Cities...whelp Craig only carried Rice County by 26 votes. That's her home base. And she got stomped up north too.

Sadly, I don't think we have seen the last of Craig, esp if Klobo wins the gubernatorial race

I agree she's not as good at the media as someone like AOC, Mamdani, Bernie, or El-Sayed. Her policy positions are good and very popular but she just doesn't come off like a natural politician. Which is part of what I liked about her. She felt very authentic, a normal person just trying to do her civic duty, that oughta be enough and it almost was. Oh well. Crowley is fine, will probably make a better governor than Evers, and yes I do think he has a better shot vs. Tiffany than Hong would.

Is it true that while Hong had an army of volunteers, she had no TV ads at all? Feels like bad strategy to not even hedge your bets a little.

while all these races tend to get presented as zero-sum "moderates win/progressives lose" or vice-versa, having so many progressive candidates in so many places scaring the establishment is a net good. Whether they win or lose they force conversations and issues into the mix that candidates have to think about and address.

And when the "moderates" show up and support/campaign with the progressives, as in Michigan, the establishment and the press doesn't (yes "doesn't" not "don't" because they're all one thing) know what the fuck to think.

Also polls seem to be overestimating progressive candidates for maybe some kind of methodological reasons?

True in Michigan and Wisconsin but not in Minnesota, where Flanagan outperformed her polling.

Is it true that while Hong had an army of volunteers, she had no TV ads at all?

she had streaming ads, but not linear TV ads

In MI and WI there were late pushes by the establishment, in particular endorsements by governors, that probably weren't picked up on by the somewhat light polling.

Crowley has already announced a "unity tour" with Hong.

also worth noting that Wisconsin polls showed about a third of voters were undecided as recently as a week or two ago

Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat who had pledged to stay out of the race to replace him, went to war for Mr. Crowley, campaigning alongside him and warning that Ms. Hong would “probably” lose to Mr. Tiffany in November. Mr. Evers helped Mr. Crowley raise money from individual donors and labor unions in the final weeks of the campaign, helping him surpass Ms. Hong’s fund-raising totals in July.

. Her campaigning style was unorthodox. She was soft-spoken on the trail and occasionally shaky in television interviews. And she sometimes struggled to explain old social media posts criticizing holidays like Thanksgiving and calling for the abolition of the police….

Neither of the country’s two most famous democratic socialists — Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York — endorsed Ms. Hong in the primary.

From Ny Times

Hong is pretty much right about everything she said, and that this is unacceptable to some voters and the eatablishment just shows how bankrupt and completely ideologically fucked our political system is.

That’s all true but it’s also true the messenger matters. She was obviously a good candidate— as her getting so close despite the odds show — but to win in that kind of situation you need to either be a great candidate or a lucky candidate and she maybe wasn’t quite enough of either.

Have Ygelias and his ilk started talking about a Crowley Presidential run yet?

oh I see

Matthew Yglesias
@mattyglesias
·
1h
The rise of a new moderate Crowley will bring to a close that cycle that began with Joe Crowley’s 2018 defeat and augur a new era of triumphant Common Sense Democrats.

I would expect nothing less

Lindell alleges voting irregularities, refuses to concede

Certainly there were irregularities--people actually voted for Mike Pillow Guy.

Though when you lose by 11 points I don't think it matters what you think.

That’s all true but it’s also true the messenger matters. She was obviously a good candidate— as her getting so close despite the odds show — but to win in that kind of situation you need to either be a great candidate or a lucky candidate and she maybe wasn’t quite enough of either.

This is also part of the problem afaic

among former crack addicts, I think Hunter Biden is currently fairing better than Lindell

I would trust an active crack addict more than I would trust a single person in either house of congress

I would expect nothing less

Lindell alleges voting irregularities, refuses to concede

― Andy the Grasshopper, Wednesday, 12 August 2026 18:05 (twenty-eight minutes ago)

Irregularity like Mike Lindell maybe still a resident of Texas and his own MN party isn't sure if he is eligible to run in MN?

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/08/04/mngop-questions-residency-of-republican-governor-candidate-mike-lindell

Getting ratfucked by your own party is some next level shit you gotta admit

how many time have we heard 'a new low' and then it's just exactly where it was last month

President Trump’s approval rating dipped again this week, following a downward trend in support for the president amid the ongoing Iran war and mounting affordability concerns ahead of November’s midterms.

The latest survey from The Economist/YouGov, published Monday, found 33 percent of respondents said they approved of how Trump has handled his job as president. Another 62 percent indicated they disapproved.

I hear he's increasingly isolated

to spend more time with family

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, will leave her role at the end of this month to spend more time with her family, including her two young children, Donald Trump announced today.

The president said that said it was a “decision I totally understand and respect”, while adding that Leavitt would become one of his “top outside advisors” when she leaves the administration.

33% honestly seems kinda high to me

They're high on something, for sure.

1/3 has been pretty consistent

I doubt it will dip much further. That's probably all the people who think he won in 2020.

They're the approximately one-third of the country who I have always assumed just want a white supremacist authoritarian state.

For historical comparison, about 20 percent of the non-enslaved portion of the U.S. population lived in the Confederate states during the Civil War. If you figure they had some number of sympathizers in the rest of the country, 30-35 percent might just kind of be our Nazi Klan baseline.

It's possible the number could dip because some of those people (like Curtis Yarvin) have decided that Trump just doesn't have what it takes to do what they want. So they might disapprove of him for being insufficiently Nazi.

Something tells me that if there were actually 83 million Nazi Klan folx in the USA things would be slightly worse.

I dunno might look a lot like it does now.

Something tells me that if there were actually 83 million Nazi Klan folx in the USA things would be slightly worse.

Oh, they're out there. But they're dispersed, and a lot of them aren't joiners.

also don’t have the means to impose their will yet

This has been a big chunk of "the base" ever since the Southern Strategy and party realignment brought most of the eager white supremacists into the Republican Party. And they were forced to live off scraps of scattered racism and innuendo from GOP presidents up until Trump, and then he showed up just chucked out red meat left and right and they were like YES FINALLY. And now they're frustrated because more hasn't happened. The NYT had a story the other day about Trump feeling "pressure" from the base to move quick and kick all 350,000 Haitians out now that the Supreme Court says they can. They want to see the video of legions of Black people put on planes and sent away. They're thirsting for it.

They want to see the video of legions of Black people put on planes and sent away

except for Marie, who looks after mother in the home... she should stay

big ICE push around here recently

It's possible the number could dip because some of those people (like Curtis Yarvin) have decided that Trump just doesn't have what it takes to do what they want. So they might disapprove of him for being insufficiently Nazi.

― paper plans (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, August 12, 2026 1:55 PM (fifty-three minutes ago)

I recently learned that this POS likes to go to the free museum we live by, would love to see him there and pick his brain (off the floor).

"brain"

didn’t think there was a Museum of Twats

Flanagan is a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. She could become the first Native American woman to serve in the Senate. Her primary opponent, Angie Craig, was endorsed by Democratic Party leaders, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Craig’s campaign outspent Flanagan by a more than four-to-one margin and benefited from nearly $10 million in dark money spent on her behalf. Craig’s loss marks another defeat for AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which encouraged its members to support her campaign.

https://www.democracynow.org/2026/8/12/headlines/minnesota_progressive_peggy_flanagan_wins_democratic_party_nomination_for_us_senate_seat

the AI assisted anti Flanagan attack ads were inescapable

If you're a criminal — or want to become one — the Trump Administration is your best friend.

Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is issuing a final rule that permanently removes the requirement for U.S. companies and U.S. persons to report beneficial ownership information to FinCEN under the Corporate Transparency Act. The final rule is effective on its publication in the Federal Register. FinCEN today also announced that it will delete previously reported information by U.S. persons—now exempt from the reporting requirements—from the beneficial ownership information database.

“Today’s action is a victory for common sense and American small businesses,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “President Trump promised to cut red tape, and this final rule delivers. Treasury is eliminating a burdensome reporting requirement for millions of law-abiding business owners without compromising our national security.”

The final rule:

• adopts the exemptions set out in the interim final rule issued in March 2025, making the rollback of beneficial ownership reporting by U.S. companies permanent;
• exempts U.S. persons who have obtained FinCEN IDs from any obligation to update or correct the information they originally provided to FinCEN to obtain their FinCEN IDs;
• eliminates the requirement for foreign companies to report U.S. person “company applicants” (i.e., the individuals who helped those foreign companies register to do business in the United States);
• exempts foreign pooled investment vehicles registered in the United States from reporting the beneficial ownership information of a U.S person in control of the investment vehicle; and
• confirms that FinCEN will delete information about any individuals—company applicants, beneficial owners, or recipients of a FinCEN ID—that FinCEN reasonably believes is a U.S. person (e.g., the information is linked to a U.S. passport or U.S. driver’s license).

Under the final rule, foreign entities that are reporting companies will still be required to report beneficial ownership information for foreign individuals.

I have no idea whether to give any credence to these reporters that bikers are leaving the Sturgis rally and heading to Dearborn to protest at a City Council meeting in support of Jake fucking Lang. But right-wing social media is excited about it — lots of comments about having a pig roast in front of city hall. And the Dearborn police chief (who’s Arab-American like most of the town) has put out a video urging residents to stay home that day and not confront anyone.

The unhinged anti-Islamic hate speech is reaching heights it never even got to post-9/11.

xxxp Mary Peltola, also running for US Senate in Alaska, is a Yup'ik native Alaskan

haha fucking Devin Nunes! Fuuuccckinggg lackey choad

He was the CEO of Truth Social. Now he runs a Pismo Beach wine bar
A former Republican member of Congress who was once called Donald Trump’s “stooge” has resurfaced as a wine connoisseur in a quaint coastal California town

my california-allergic self thought pismo beach was a hollywood fictional bullshit wannabe leisure town with an hysterically terrible and comically fake name.

it's near Santa Barbara and I can't imagine having his name on the sign is gonna help much

I much prefer Devin Nunes as a Pismo Beach wine bar dude than giving policy opinions

remember the "Nunes Memo"...? god that seems like a lifetime ago

i’ll drink to that

xp that was. also i’ve never had a negroni, so prepped for it

I don't want Nunes to mix your first Negroni.

remember the "Nunes Memo"...?

No.

it was a laughably brief thing about Russia, the Steele Dossier, FISA, 2016 election interference, Carter Page etc etc.

#ReleaseTheMemo

this all seems like a lifetime ago

Russia Russia Russia

Marcia Marcia Marcia

“it's near Santa Barbara”

SLO

yes that's more accurate

Who will replace Leavitt? Top contenders emerge

I'm lobbying for Steven Cheung, personally

G. Elliott Morris analyzed some Wisconsin polling data and concluded:

Most of the miss in polls in Wisconsin is attributable to faulty demographic targets (too many young people). This inflated Hong’s vote margin by about 10 points.

My best guess is that the race moved 6 points toward Crowley after pollsters released their final surveys.

Non-ignorable non-response within demographic categories likely further inflated Hong’s vote margin by 2 points.

I heard that they may have under-polled urban black folks as well

How much of an electoral disadvantage do we think being a black guy in Wisconsin is? Does he start five points down? Ten?

Mandela Barnes lost the 2022 Senate race (vs. Ron Johnson) by 1%

i'm still in awe that happened, for a swing state we re-elect some of the dumbest fucking people

James Talarico (whose on-camera presence makes my skin crawl; he talks like he's recovering from a stroke) has an ad that I actually like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlHVxUMasu0

lol that's good. It's the kind of shitty little thing that people will actually remember.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/13/us-government-spied-anti-ice-protesters?fbclid=IwZnRzaATsABFwZG9mBWZkaWQWUMe6hgzkJRoPxL0OydpbyWAibkCSbGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR5R712BaulcjZmWGMqD0lFUFz6FOhB-dAJilSd6P8z0SIHdD_u7YABa_g4xLg_aem_6q_BzdHwUVxzXEk8fOJIUg

Internal investigative reports show the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent undercover agents to community meetings in the Twin Cities and New York City, infiltrated Signal chats and obtained financial records of mainstream unions and left-leaning non-profit groups.

We're back to the future with this shit. Hoover infiltrating student communes.

the GWB administration was infiltrating anti-war groups, and muslims have been surveilled for at least 25 years

Obama was also really into mass surveillance, lest we forget.

yep

thx obama

He already knows.

can't wait for the SC to greenlight this in a shadow docket ruling with no explanation

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/14/trump-asks-us-supreme-court-to-allow-400m-ballroom-project-to-proceed

This is interesting: apparently, there's been a two-week battle among Wikipedia editors about the first paragraph of the entry on the US Republican Party, and this is the language that has been settled on:

The Republican Party, also known as the Grand Old Party (GOP), is a right-wing populist and neo-nationalist political party in the United States, sitting on the right-wing to far-right of the political spectrum. Founded in 1854, it emerged as the main rival of the Democratic Party in the 1850s, and the two parties have dominated American politics since then.

The Talk section on the page has gone berserk, as you might expect.

If you’re gonna put that “emerged as the main rival” line there I think it’s important to explain in what context it “emerged” right quick. And how it was modified after its radical period. Maybe the piece does. jmo

suggested edit:

the Republican Party is the party of lincoln

*nods*

apt. lincoln is dead and has rotted away.

Lincoln would have joined The Bulwark as a columnist by now.

wow huge slam on lincoln out of nowhere

He tried so hard and got so far

The Democratic National Committee (yes, the hated DNC) has unanimously adopted a resolution calling for the abolition of ICE.

good on them. now they will only give money and assistance to candidates that will vote to abolish ICE, or do I have that right?

The text of the resolution says they want Democratic members of Congress "to craft legislation abolishing ICE and enacting immigration reform that provides pathways to citizenship, protects workers, and ensures dignity for all impacted people" and "to pursue civil and criminal accountability for any federal agent, attorney, or official who lied under oath, misrepresented evidence, or gave false testimony regarding DHS conduct, and to remove qualified immunity and other protections shielding DHS and ICE personnel and subcontractors who have injured protesters or journalists, fired into moving vehicles, or caused deaths in custody, whether of detained individuals, U.S. citizens, or immigrants regardless of nationality or documentation status.”

Good! Threaten those fucks, might make some of them think twice. I'm sure Trump is going to pardon the entire agency before he leaves office, but there are still state charges and civil suits.

wow, genuinely and pleasantly surprised

In another small bit of good news, the Senate has recessed without passing the SAVE act; they won't be able to bring it back before midterms.

Somebody on cable news this past week mentioned possibility of declaring national emergency, getting SAVE in there thataway.

Well, that's been the go-to move for Trump's second term. That and Executive Orders that directly conflict with federal statutes and federal case law.

Of course elections are basically or largely run via state law, but no doubt there's a fed law from 1782 or just some newly perceived penumbra around something more current to be invoked---anyway, lots of chance for chaos, baby, and blame it on the commies, get ICE and Jan.6ers in there, with hardcore Trump geezers having heart attacks or/and staying home, Vance refuses to certify, House delivers, who knows.

Trump now mad at South Korea for being mean and threatening to North Korea. Another random geopolitical realignment announced via Truth Social.

Will no one rid us of this turbulent president?

xxp oh yeah, several have also mentioned that Speaker could buy time for Trump and chaos by simply refusing to seat new Dems 'til their elections are thoroughly probed, as he stalled on seating Adelita Grijalva (he said because Congress out of reg session etc., just a coincidence that she'd said she'd vote to release Epstein files).

johnson is depraved enough to try, incompetent enough to bollix it all up

As has been noted, the House has no Speaker at the start of each new session, so Johnson cannot legitimately claim the speakership before the elected body of representatives has been sworn in and seated. Seizing that power before he has been elected speaker by the new session would be tantamount to a coup. ofc, the republicans haven't exactly shied away from coups lately.

There is much darkly funny discussion on Bluesky at the moment of outgoing Rep. Nancy Mace (R-Bugnuts), who is about to begin hosting a YouTube talk show and has soft launched it by posting a bikini photo revealing nine previously unseen tattoos.

Also, I am seeing Dems house minority leader Jeffries rightly getting grief for his weak answers on Meet the Press

Jeffries stop short of committing to holding a vote to abolish ICE if he's House Speaker next January, but says he's "committed to dramatically reforming ICE ... the masks should come off, body cameras should come on, judicial warrants should be required."

Kristen Welker: “Do you support Medicare for All?"

Jeffries: “No."

WELKER: Do democratic socialists belong in the Dem Party?

JEFFRIES: What I can say is I do not support defunding the police, I do not support open borders, I do not support abolishing the Senate. We're focused on actually solving the problems hard-working American taxpayer want us to solve ...

Fuck Jeffries obviously, but I am not sure about hanging everything on the phrase "Medicare for All." The original idea was that it was an easy way to say to people, hey this isn't scary, it's something we already do for literally everyone once you're past a certain age. One problem I see with that is that a lot of people actually don't like Medicare — they are 100 percent happy it exists, but it still sucks, because it's still cabled into our bullshit overwhelmed healthcare system. I'd personally ask, do you support universal health coverage, and if not which people do you think don't deserve it?

Unfortunately they have figured out that you can say you support universal access to health care and usually no one will ask the follow-up question about what the fuck that even means.

Yeah that can just be "well you can go to an emergency room."

I continue to believe that all politicians should regularly be asked, "Tell me which groups of people you believe deserve fewer rights than you, and why."

at this point i’m waiting for the right to insist more forcefully that forcing emergency rooms to treat anyone is a violation of the personal liberties of hospitals corporations and their employees and the freedom of contract.

That doesn't even sound unlikely.

Follow any tracks of conservative logic and they eventually lead to the question: should we just let people die? That answer is often “yes.”

What if it's against the religion of emergency room doctors to touch the poors?

the only reason I don't think that would happen is they'd be killing a great cash cow

Hospitals lose money in emergency rooms in general and uninsured patients in particular.

Blame Noah Wyle

meanwhile, south of the border:

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has announced a sweeping health reform aimed at achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2027, describing the initiative as a “historic step” toward guaranteeing free and equitable access to health services for the entire population.

Beginning January 1, 2027, health services will start to be shared across the three subsystems, initially prioritizing:

* Emergency care
* Continuity of treatment across institutions
* Access to services regardless of insurance affiliation

God, it took Mexico long enough to catch up with us.

However consciously, he's fucking the Repubs' chances in the Midterms, making them as reliant as possible on whatever he does. And having pardoned and pardonable Jan 6ers back in the building will help---if it all works out; if not, they're all screwed---all the more motivation!

well, among the Jan 6ers who didn’t go to jail they all think everyone else there on January 6 was an FBI provacateur

I think about those FBI infiltrators sometimes. Musta been a rilly rilly hard assignment for a cop - to have to pose as a violent conservative.

Like I wonder how many acting classes they needed; did they go full Method?

21 Trump St.

and of course there were lots of current and former cops in the mob

I was sitting at a red light and the gas station price sign across the street went up 20 cents. I’ve never seen gas prices actually increase right before my eyes but I need to hit up some Democratic consultants for a pitch meeting.

highest August average prices ever? Think I saw that somewhere

Really glad they're doing this, as well as the BBC seeking subpoenas for the trump family... give 'em a taste of their own medicine, but with competent counsel

ABC has sued the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), arguing that it is being retaliated against for content-based reasons in a move it warns threatens the independence of the press.

The network filed the lawsuit on Tuesday after being forced to apply early to renew its license to broadcast on the eight local television stations it owns. It is waiting to hear whether the Brendan Carr-led FCC approves its renewal requests, or, more likely, holds a hearing on their merits.

i see prices go up that much that fast and i wonder if the real powers of the economy just want to send a msg to a total self dealing dipshit

looks like polls were way off again in the Democratic senate primary in Florida, but this time they underestimated the progressive candidate

i’d be interested to hear Alfred or Neanderthal’s take. at least the dems aren’t running an ex republican

The winner of that primary is probably gonna lose the general by double digits, but at least it's someone on the left rather than a literal military officer whose only claim to fame was being attacked by Trump. And hey, the party is lining up behind her; they've already issued a statement:

“Angie Nixon has dedicated her career to fighting for Florida. A lifelong native of Jacksonville and a former union organizer, Angie’s dedication to put working families first runs deep — and now, she’s running to take that fight to the Senate,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and DSCC Chair Sen Kristen Gillibrand said in a joint statement. “Ashley Moody’s votes have cost Florida, from her siding with private insurance companies over Floridians to ripping away health care. In November, Florida will have a clear choice at the ballot.”

Uh, David Jolly's leading? Are y'all seeing something different? 0

OH! You mean the Senate race! Yeah, that's an upset. I voted for Nixon.

Silent majority.

don’t blame me I voted for McGovern

nobody I know voted for Nixon (because I live in a different country)

21 Trump St.

― every person shall be spared in whose home a jazz band is in f (President Keyes), Tuesday, 18 August 2026 14:54 (yesterday)

lol

recapping the night:
—Dems flip school board of Sarasota County, FL (a stronghold of M4L).
—Dems flip school board chair seat in Orange County, FL.
—Dems flip at-large city council seat in Jacksonville.
—Dems lead in a red Pennsylvania state House seat (all precincts in, though no AP call).

From Taniel on Bluesky who is the editor of Boltsmag that covers local politics

But as NY Times notes:

Still, Florida structurally favors Republicans, who hold every statewide elected office and supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature. They have also drastically swung voter registration in the state: In 2018, registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans by about 250,000 voters. Today, Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 1.5 million voters

another Taniel note:

Dismal night for Wyoming's far-right in state GOP primaries.

13 representatives in Freedom Caucus lost reelection—that's more than a third of their membership.

Winner of governor primary beat a Freedom Caucuser plus a Trump-endorsed candidate. SOS primary won by a moderate.

https://www.ms.now/news/trump-aide-natalie-harp-worked-at-the-white-house-without-security-clearance-for-a-year?link_source=ta_bluesky_link&taid=6a86325fc69d29000181a704&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=bluesky

Natalie Harp worked without security clearance for a year because she didn't want to have it checked

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/19/style/jennifer-hegseth.html

“It’s bonkers that a defense secretary would involve his wife in his sensitive official duties, including sharing details of an impending military operation, and face zero consequences,”

The Pentagon has not said if Mrs. Hegseth has a security clearance, although in the past year there have been no reports that she is attending sensitive meetings with foreign leaders. She has still slipped quietly into the Pentagon, including using an elevator from the building’s garage that opens directly into Mr. Hegseth’s office suite. She is in direct contact with members of her husband’s inner circle, among them Ricky Buria, Mr. Hegseth’s chief of staff, and Tami Radabaugh, a close friend of Mrs. Hegseth and a fellow former producer at Fox.

Natalie Harp's brother lives in Nicaragua and makes "lo-fi psychedelic folk" music under the name Spirit Wagon? https://spiritwagon.bandcamp.com/

Maybe that's what she was afraid the security clearance would reveal.

jeezus spit it out man

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

Hegseth is firing and refusing to promote women with his wife by his side making suggestions. After her affair with Hegseth and their later marriage both of them started attending a white nationalist evangelical church.

it’s no big deal, the white evangelicals just tell him and trump that they are heroic bible heroes set to play the largest and most legendary roles of all time at the end of the world, and that’s a really fun thing to cosplay in real time with real power and no accountability

Everything we learn about Trump admin officials and hangers-on is like "Did you know this KKK member cheated on his wife?" Where do you start?

I sent my sister the interview CNN did with Natalie Harp's brother and told her that if I go nuts, please go on CNN and air me out like that

Those leaked letters are something else.

And of course the US Supreme Court just lifted an administrative stay that was stopping Trump from above ground building of his ballroom. There may be an additional hearing but legal scholars say if the Supreme Court wanted to stop things they likely would have upheld the administrative stay today

Supreme Court: The toothpaste is out of the tube already. (shrugs) Eh! So, what can you do? (waves hands helplessly and walks away).

I mean it is *his* house, so...

imagine the shoddy construction by dudes working twenty hour shifts seven days a week, desperately trying to get it raised as quick as humanly possible, probably from plans drawn on a paper plate

…in Sharpie.

kill the messenger

President Trump has demanded a liberal think tank retract a critical report on his National Guard deployments by Friday evening, threatening to file a $5 billion defamation suit if it doesn’t.

In a nine-page letter sent Monday by Trump’s personal attorney, which was reviewed by The Hill, he claimed the Center for American Progress (CAP) “manufactured” that the deployments weren’t improving violent crime.

“Defendants did not merely draw a different academic conclusion; they defamed President Trump by distorting a contested empirical question into a sensational, false, malicious and defamatory accusation that President Trump knowingly lied to the American people,” attorney Alejandro Brito wrote.

...that President Trump knowingly lied to the American people

this is the part that cracks me up, he does it fucking daily

Not sure your reputation is worth 5 billion, Don.

The main point is that Trump's personal fortune allows him to use the courts to harass whoever he pleases, forcing them to bear the upfront costs of defending themselves for as long as Trump can keep his lawsuit alive. ofc, eventually the court can throw out the suit and order that Trump repay those defense costs, but then he can use his limitless lawyer resources to evade that order for further years and years. He knows this. He does it at least once a month. His targets also know this will often sidestep the entire headache by capitulating. Standard operating procedure in trumpworld.

imagine the shoddy construction by dudes working twenty hour shifts seven days a week, desperately trying to get it raised as quick as humanly possible, probably from plans drawn on a paper plate

So you're saying there's a chance that when it's built and he throws a huge party with all his disgusting children, sycophants, and cronies, the roof might fall in and crush them all to death?

He knows this. He does it at least once a month

they were really caught off guard when the BBC said "Okay, we hurt you financially? How about we subpoena your financial records to see how badly?" And then they shifted to "no, no, no, actually I was hurt reputationally so no, we won't show you years of financial records." And basically modified the lawsuit.. now the BBC wants to subpoena his family members but can't get close due to Secret Service

dems flipped an very red district in pa

BUTLER COUNTY, Pa. (WHP) — Pennsylvania democrats are claiming victory in Butler County's special election Tuesday night with a win secured in the State House, a position formerly held by the GOP for nearly 30 years.

...

Historically, the District 12 seat favored President Trump by more than 18%.

https://local21news.com/news/local/pa-democrats-flip-house-seat-in-butler-county-for-first-time-in-over-30-years-trump-daryl-metcalf-brandon-dukes-state-rep

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/black-voters-rip-dems-over-taking-them-granted-el-sayeds-backyard-hush-us-up

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/08/18/democrats-road-retaking-senate-complicated-by-michigan/

Fox and Washington Post happy to try to show that Black Dems and some conservative Jewish Dems in Michigan won't support El Sayed.

El Sayed talked with Obama over the phone after his primary win. If Obama would campaign with him that might help with some

feel like I heard that with zohrani

Fox News Digital spoke with roughly a dozen Black voters on the ground in Detroit most of whom said they believe the Democratic Party has either failed to prioritize their concerns or has taken their support for granted.

very scientific stuff

im sure thats not an uncommon sentiment tbf and el sayed no doubt has some work to do but thats what the campaign is for

as opposed to the republican party who try to appeal to African Americans by not explicitly saying “you’re next”

Time and time again, the polls are wrong, and inevitably the next day someone cites some bullshit poll about why or how the polls were wrong, or might be wrong.

...and we literally just heard that sometimes announced poll results are deliberately made up as a "social experiment."

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-08-17/poll-showing-bass-leading-raman-by-double-digits-was-bogus-company-says

what was the experiment? gullibility?

(oh, I see it was) but that’s a good excuse. every time I make a bad post it’s a social experiment.

Pretty much.

Median Strategies was created as a short term social experiment to examine how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification.

It probably has something to do with online betting.

Though I eagerly await their research paper.

ok the natalie harp love letters are soooo kooky

she does not sound like a mentally healthy person

Lots of confused young people, struggling to cope with an overwhelming world, find peace and solace by "putting their life in the hands of Jesus and letting Him guide the way". She just chose a particularly awful variant of this coping mechanism.

drinking coffee yesterday i overheard 3 18ish suburban bros dropping the weirdest christianist biblical revelations shit for like 5+ mins at the other end of the table— I almost gave advice, but moved along.

anecdotal but true. it’s always out there inguess. i never was around it tho.

Good morning!

House Dem leader Jeffries meets once a year with Jared Kushner per this NY Times article . Jared’s father in law has famously made racist insults to Jeffries .

Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, met privately in recent weeks with Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and top outside adviser, and discussed potential areas of common ground, according to five people with knowledge of the meeting.

The rare engagement was held in a private space in New York City, offered up by a mutual friend of the two men, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting and a third who was briefed on it. They and others were granted anonymity to discuss a meeting about which they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Mr. Trump has called Mr. Jeffries a “thug,” and at a May campaign event referred to him as a “low IQ” person who had inspired him to deride Democrats as the “Dumocrats.” Mr. Jeffries routinely suggests that Mr. Trump is not only extreme but corrupt, vowing that Democrats would “hold the crooks accountable” if they won control.

The private get-together was described by one of the people as a catch-up for Mr. Kushner and Mr. Jeffries. The two men have stayed in touch since they worked together on a criminal justice bill midway through Mr. Trump’s first term.

During the recent meeting, the pair discussed housing, immigration and the high cost of living as potential areas of common ground. Mr. Kushner suggested that Mr. Jeffries should meet with the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, two people with knowledge of the meeting said.

The likelihood of any compromises between the White House and Democrats on those issues seems remote.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/23/us/politics/jeffries-kushner-private-meeting.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7lA.-1wf.OT8PvQWKG8GJ&smid=nytcore-ios-share

I was waiting for you to post it.

should be disqualifying for Jeffries

Meeting with a paid lobbyist for Saudi interests.

Exactly .

As someone spelled out on Bluesky, it’s bad that Jeffries can find common ground to meet with Kushner, but not with Mamdani

What's going on in Gary really shows what a lack of interest or ability looks like in government. State government, Federal government, National Guard, FEMA et al., all recognizing a problem but apparently failing to rise to the occasion with any degree of real urgency.

i thought Jeffries did meet with Mamdani a couple times last year, pre-election

this is exactly the kind of corruption point a campaign should beat to death

The Justice Department was preparing to wage a legal battle more than a decade in the making against the world's largest concert promoter. Then President Trump called.

Settle it, the president told a senior DOJ official, the official later told associates.

The intervention was bizarre. The antitrust trial against Live Nation—which also owns Ticketmaster, a combination that draws relentless consumer criticism—was set to begin March 2, just days away. Trump had vowed to crack down on the industry just a year earlier when he signed an executive order targeting ticket-scalping and exploitative pricing in live entertainment. DOJ officials and the company had spent months exchanging settlement proposals but had little to show for it, and some in the government had been pushing to break up the giant.

White House involvement in law-enforcement matters, once taboo, is a regular feature of Trump's second term. But many DOJ officials regarded the political interference in the Live Nation case as extreme even for an administration in which the president has openly pressured law-enforcement officials to pursue perceived enemies and pardoned allies.

Weeks before Trump's call, Live Nation told DOJ officials that the company had brought in a fresh set of lawyers for settlement talks. They were from Sullivan & Cromwell, the New York-based firm that represents Trump in his personal legal troubles.

DOJ officials also learned that Boris Epshteyn, Trump's private legal coordinator, had taken a keen interest in resolving the case, according to people familiar with the matter. The officials didn't know whether he was working for Trump or Live Nation, or both.

https://www.wsj.com/business/media/trump-live-nation-antitrust-doj-f82b2c55

Well you know the people just love ticket master and live nation so much, he had to step in on behalf of the common music fan and make sure they stick around

Pearl Jam could not be reached for comment

of all the things to corruptly settle, lol. i don't think ticketmaster has a single supporter in the entire world, not even the people who work there

even the name is bad

ticketmaster, fuck you!

Xpost - Jeffries per a Politico headline “finally “ met Mamdani in July 2025, and met with him again in August 2025 but I don’t think he has met with him since.

Meanwhile Kushner met with Jeffries recently and the NY Times reported these 2 have stayed in touch since the 1st Trump admin when they worked together on a bipartisan crime bill

El Sayed caves:

https://abdulforsenate.com/2026/08/statement-from-dr-abdul-el-sayed-on-hasan-pikers-comments-regarding-jeremy-moss/

how is that statement a cave?

how is that statement a cave?

only in that it does not condemn Israel. to me this is much less of a 'cave' to Israel than it is an attempt to remain on safe, uncontroversial ground. to that extent it is a failure to provide guidance and leadership on an issue of importance to many Michiganders.

I have no idea who Jeremy Moss is or what Hasan Piker said about him, so that statement just reads like boilerplate to me.

The media and Republicans want the Michigan senate race to be all about Piker statements & linking El Sayed to him, and I think El Sayed mostly has no choice but to issue statements like he did, plus to try to go on the attack on other things regarding his Republican opponent and Trump to try to change the subject. But sadly the media with Republican encouragement would rather try link El Sayed to Piker statements that will scare centrists like that he Piker would "vote for Hamas over Israel every single time," & describing Hamas as "a thousand times better than a fascist settler colonial apartheid state." Piker's statement in response to what Moss allegedly said requires nuance to understand which is too hard for most media and many voters to get.

Jeremy Moss is a Jewish gay Michigan candidate for the House seat in a district with a sizable Jewish population that was held by the AIPAC supported Stevens who ran and lost to El Sayed in the senate primary. Moss says he supports a 2 state solution and dislikes Netenyahu but he hasn't endorsed El Sayed and who now today says the viral video clip of him saying that he is running for office only to ensure that the US supports Israel is fake.

El Sayed went on Fox news tonight and was interviewed by Jesse Watters

WATTERS: “Some of this stuff is just straight-up wacky.”

E Sayed-
: “You know what’s wacky? We have a president who cares more about the drapes in a ballroom than the affordability crisis or the war he got us into.”

he did this to the reflection pool and the East Wing, so why not?

The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts could be demolished if repairs are not carried out, Donald Trump’s administration warned in a court filing on Monday.

Lawyers for the US president said the national arts complex in Washington DC must undergo a $250m renovation or risk facing the wrecking ball.

“Without those efforts, the ⁠Center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down, with a determination to follow on what to ​build on the site, such as a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River that has been proposed, by some, for many years,” they argued.

There was a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River (the steps descending from the Lincoln Memorial). It was made unsuitable by airport traffic.

So yeah sure loads of people will flock to the Josh Groban concert (or whatever) at the Trumphitheater - only to have half of it drowned put by jet noise and Roosevelt Bridge traffic, while mosquitoes eat the patrons for supper.

just shows where his true priorities lie... maybe he can play Nero's fiddle up on the new stage

i do feel like if this guy didn’t die of congestive heart failure, he’d die in a fusillade of bullets. lol what a consistent fucking asshole. he’s not even confident enough for badass tyrant, tho he’s evil enuf to want the title.

I guess the Iranians have openly threatened to assassinate Barron Trump, which I don't have any strong feelings about

Can we not recommend a much older, larger target instead

I have no sway over the mullahs

I guess the Iranians have openly threatened to assassinate Barron Trump, which I don't have any strong feelings about

― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, August 25, 2026 7:51 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

out of all the trumps its pretty funny to pick him, don jr? jared? no its barron fuck barron

like whatever, spare barron until conviction but we have literally seen and heard enough to make a reasonable-beyond-doubt extra-legal judgment about his dad.

which is NOT really enough ever for me, i believe in the law. others may differ, but the law must hold.

yet the law has refused to hold for 40 years against this fucker, while he’s weak-ass tv-gangstered his way to billionaire+ two time president. what are we meant to do?

people: speak. act.

The U.S. Secret Service said it was aware of a video aired on Iranian state media threatening President Trump's youngest son, Barron Trump.

"The U.S. Secret Service is aware of the video and investigates anything that can be perceived as a threat toward our protectees," Nate Herring, a Secret Service spokesperson, told Fox News Digital.

"Out of concern for operational security, we do not discuss matters of protective intelligence," Herring added.

barrons an easy shot because hes so tall he added nothing you can do

see maybe they did an ad saying they're gonna murder Barron (to throw off the Secret Service) but actually it'll be on one of Don Jr's elk hunting adventures

lol Trump is the only person who says that there should be an amphitheater in the place of the Kennedy Center. And it’s pretty obvious he wrote that brief with Natalie

and anyways to really get his goat the Iranians need to threaten the granddaughter he’s been perving on lately

I do not believe the Iranians threatened Barron Trump.

barron trump can jump off a cliff for all i fucking care

xp that goes without saying! it’s probably a misguided attempt to get Americans on board with the Iran war since the alleged threat oh the big guy’s life didn’t move the needle any

maybe they literally meant in Minecraft

isn't barron the only male child in his family he hasn't regularly rolled his damn eyes about?

Barron's taller than he is. He's probably terrified of the kid. (As he should be; Barron Trump has dead, black shark eyes.)

He also listens to Bro podcasts, which means there's a good chance he's murdered some prostitutes.

However consciously, he's fucking the Repubs' chances in the Midterms, making them as reliant as possible on whatever he does. And having pardoned and pardonable Jan 6ers back in the building will help---if it all works out; if not, they're all screwed---all the more motivation!

― dow, Monday, August 17,

So, what the Supreme Court did is it temporarily allowed Trump’s executive order severely restricting mail voting to go into effect. It said it was too early for states to challenge this. And this leads to a lot of uncertainty going into the midterms, because the Trump executive order would radically restrict vote by mail.

It would instruct the Department of Homeland Security to create lists of voters it deems citizens. These lists are likely to be highly inaccurate, based on the fact that the Department of Homeland Security has already made these egregious claims of voter fraud that have turned out not to be true. And then it says that the Postal Service can only deliver mail ballots based on these DHS lists, and, moreover, it will only deliver mail ballots in states that hand over their voter rolls, which include sensitive personal information, to the federal government.

This is essentially a form of extortion. The Department of Justice is 0 and 23 in federal court trying to force states to hand over their voter rolls, but the Postal Service is saying that “We’re not going to deliver your mail ballot, unless you hand over this information to the Trump administration.” So, it basically radically changes how mail voting would work in the U.S. It radically changes the job of the Postal Service from delivering the mail to essentially determining who gets a mail ballot. And if it ultimately goes into effect, it could disenfranchise millions of voters in November.

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:t6ubj2wlhc34awzcymh3qpur/bafkreic7hjyjdlqudqvjqqlxedekovtbpuxfzvgsi533vjr52zxzehqm5m

this can't hold... can it? we're getting pretty close to the midterms

The US Postal Service (USPS) said on ​Thursday ‌that ‌new ‌requirements for mail-in ‌voting are ​now ⁠in effect as Donald Trump seeks to crack down on the practice. The move is expected to trigger a new round of legal challenges.

The Trump administration has sought to impose new rules requiring state election leaders to submit their voter rolls for inspection as part of a broader bid to increase federal government oversight over voting and elections.

I assume it'll get blocked again by the same judge who blocked it before and then SCOTUS will have to consider it more substantively, and ... ????

Who fuckin knows at this point.

well it's all contingent on states actually providing their voter roles, and many have refused to do so

It's also contingent on the competence of the Trump people charged with looking at the rolls.

good point - their first attempts have wildly overstated irregularities

oh shit.. time to update the maps & globes again

Trump signs order to rename Lake Ontario as 'Lake America'

Donald Trump summoned the press pool to the Oval Office to witness him signing an executive order that directs the Department of the Interior to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America”.

This comes after trade talks between Canada collapsed over the weekend and led to a fray of tariffs between Washington and Ottowa.

Trump claimed the name change was something “I’ve been thinking about for a long time”.

Master chess move there.

Natalie wrote the EO no doubt

Donald Trump summoned the press pool to the Oval Office

And they went, for some reason.

Incredible. The Onion could not make it up.

He's renaming the press pool as the America pool.

The thing that annoys me most about the Lake Ontario name change is that he's not calling it Lake New York. (Also, you want Lake America to be the name of the smallest of the Great Lakes?)

his supporters eat this shit up

psyched for the juicy Wikipedia fights

Lake Inferior more like

a fray of tariffs between Washington and Ottowa.

Damn, did Ottawa get renamed too?

It's just so fucking stupid and I hate that every fucking tech company immediately capitulates to this shit. I still get angry when I see "Gulf of America" on google maps or apple maps of what the fuck ever.

wait until he hears there's an Ontario CA and NY

I know it’s just the way things are, but can you imagine being one of the most powerful people in the world and this is the shit that keeps you up at night?

Lake America, I could be one of your kids

I hate that every fucking tech company immediately capitulates to this shit

Not to repeat points I made 18 months ago, but the tech companies that update their maps are not doing so because they are weak and want to appease Trump or whatever. In the case of the Gulf of Mexico, the result of Trump's order to the Department of Interior was that the Board on Geographic Names updated the official U.S. government name for the gulf, and so the tech companies are simply updating their maps to reflect what is now the official name. Just as Google Maps changed all of the U.S. place names that included the word "Squaw" to reflect the Biden interior department's changing of those names (e.g., the site of the 1960 Winter Olympics is now Olympic Valley). Sometime in the future, the official names may change again, and the tech companies will again follow.

Purify yourself in the waters of Lake America.

ruining the HOMES mnemonic and for what

gonna be in Hamilton next week, maybe i will piss on your lake america

ruining the HOMES mnemonic and for what

― symsymsym, Thursday, August 27, 2026 2:45 PM (one minute ago)

for SHAME

xp you could be the FIRST to piss in both Lake America & the Gulf of America... if you really want it

the SHAME acronym for teaching in schools now is really the chef's kiss

and so the tech companies are simply updating their maps to reflect what is now the official name.

They could also just not do that, couldn't they?

yeah it's a good explanation but fails as a justification when you realize how happy they are to 100% ignore other government rules they don't like. it's a choice to appease him.

ruining the HOMES mnemonic and for what

― symsymsym, Thursday, August 27, 2026 2:45 PM (one minute ago)

for SHAME

― rob, Thursday, August 27, 2026 1:47 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

::applauds::

Lake America is now the official name:
https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/gaz-record/970427

amazing that such a large lake could've gone undiscovered for all these years

I want a president who will change the name of the Mississippi to “Trumpisachudweasel.”

yup i said a real man renames it for himself, this is like lake sde.

And of course like Mexico in the gulf, the name he's erasing is an indigenous one.

Ontario is personal to me because I grew up around Rochester, Lake Ontario is part of the geography of my early life. We used to go to Ontario Beach Park. Also as noted above there's a lot of stuff named Ontario on the U.S. side of the lake, too. The next county south of where I lived in high school is Ontario County.

Just so dumb and embarrassing.

Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario are more suitable for me as an ignorant American because it's easier to figure out where they are. where's the Gulf of Mexico? oh, it's there by Mexico. now where the fuck is the Gulf of America? ???

It feels like one renaming (major, yes) overshadows any other detail about how the new tariffs and changes are going to affect lives directly. It's easier to joke about and easier to weigh in on and makes the rest seem boring.

yeah, if I thought Trump were smarter I would wonder if this kind of shit is intentionally done to distract from the fact that he is terrible at actually running a country

this renaming shit is the stuff he genuinely cares about

just slap AMERICA on everything, christ we are such a dumb country.

America Mountains East, America Mountains West, Mt. America, America River, America River Jr, America River Eric

From America to shining America

These people sure do love Amerigo Vespucci, huh?

The president of Turkmenistan naming the days of the week after himself in the 2000s used to seem too outrageous to be true.

well he's obviously very modest but also is planning to name an aircraft carrier after himself

and if it goes t-trump, it's s-s-s-sunk

ruining the HOMES mnemonic and for what

Trey Gowdy rightly pointing out that it is too close to "HAMAS" now!!

https://vxtwitter.com/acyn/status/2093087605785292936?s=46

this renaming shit is the stuff he genuinely cares about

― Oaf To Joy (Boring, Maryland), Thursday, August 27, 2026 4:09 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

one thing that kinda freaks me out about this whole thing is how becoming president of the most powerful nation on the planet and being the sole executor of the largest nuclear stockpile hasn't changed him one bit. he still acts like he's filming The Apprentice. he hates Rosie O'Donnell more than any of his political rivals. he's hiring people directly from the television. he doesn't give a shit about anyone and doesn't even pretend otherwise. idk there's just something so soulless about this man it gives me the creeps.

I think they must have to beg him to campaign for droopy Republicans, and he only does it so he can get some chuckles and applause from the sweaty masses. He doesn't give a shit about the GOP, especially without him

It has changed him in one significant way, it's made him far richer, as he's been focused on defrauding the country, manipulating the stock market, and raking in massive bribes. That's what he's in it for, and nothing else matters to him.

Thats whats so maddening about all of this, knowing Trump really doesn't care about any of it. I don't buy the whole idea that he cozies up to Kim Jong Un and Putin and Orban because he wants to rule like them, he does it because they say nice things about him while the rest of the planet hates his guts. Unfortunately the people who are really interested in the Trump-as-dictator idea know you can get him to do anything you want if you just glaze him at every opportunity. Its the most embarrassing part of this whole debacle, the constant dream of oh my god Trump you are so smart, no president has the guts you have, it is the absolute honor of my life to be in your presence, here is a brick of gold, here is a peace prize, nobody in history deserves this more than you. They all know who he is. This is the guy who went to war which we lost immediately and instead of explaining why he did this in the first place just kept talking over and over about acing the test they give dementia patients. Maybe this country really was primed to be taken over by a racist pedophile but the fact that we fell for this fuckin guy, idk how America can ever recover from this

That's what he's in it for, and nothing else matters to him.

Well he ran for a second term for another obvious reason - to escape most of his legal problems and those of the Jan 6 insurrectionists by being president.

I was just in Hamilton yesterday, glad I got to experience the OG lake name once more while I could, RIP big guy.

idk how America can ever recover from this

the default move is to double down and/or pretend it never happened, and just keep saying it never happened, hit back ten times as hard, and proactively sue people using your family's money

breaking news:

Right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos detained by ICE
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj06jgq62v9o

British political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, who has been a vocal supporter of US President Donald Trump, was apparently detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to the agency's records

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

last I saw of him he was hawking Bless Virgin Mary statues on QVC or some shit... deport him!

trump displays what extreeeemely poor character, inherited wealth, and above all, a life almost entirely absent of culpatory consequences gets you.
let’s deliver some.
and my phone spellcheck indicates culpatory is not word, perhaps it has been expunged from the lexicon.

and deliver milo to cecot ahora mismo. fucker.

since there’s no way ICE will ever be abolished or even meaningfully reformed, I think someone needs to make a list of influencers, academics, SV shitheads, etc that the next Dem admin could semi-legally hound out of the country. we deserve a show, too.

Emily Gorcenski
@emily.gorcen.ski
· 22m
On A11, Milo posted my livestream to his facebook page, which resulted in literally thousands of death threats and hate comments.

Nobody deserves to be in ICE detention.

He should be released and then eaten by a bear.

Release the bees

since there’s no way ICE will ever be abolished or even meaningfully reformed, I think someone needs to make a list of influencers, academics, SV shitheads, etc that the next Dem admin could semi-legally hound out of the country. we deserve a show, too.

i only partially joke when I say we should make the fantasy of FEMA camps for conservatives real.

In good news, Trump will be skipping the 9/11 ceremony in NYC because he won't be allowed to give a speech. (No speeches of any kind from anyone.) Instead, he'll be flying off to Ireland to attend a golf tournament at one of his shitty courses.

“since there’s no way ICE will ever be abolished or even meaningfully reformed, I think”

srsly, i like you but stop that

we should make the fantasy of FEMA camps for conservatives real

also the National Firearm Liquidation Corps led by Commander David Hogg

xp could you imagine his speech?
"If I had been president.. 9/11 would never have happened. People come up to me, they say 'Sir, sir - why couldn't you have been president? 9/11 would have never happened!'"

xposts Hunt3r - heard

not lost on me how Charlie Kirk's death spedrun the whole 9/11 thing from "don't you dare mock this or we will come after you" to being sort of a universal punchline, only took about 2 weeks for Kirk though lol

him not attending the NYC memorial - or even the one at the fucking Pentagon - makes so much sense; he probably thinks all those deceased people were suckers

“xposts Hunt3r - heard”

i try not to emoji in ilx but “heart emoji.” sometimes we— we— are almost all we have. but, i guess also we have love for others, decency, truth, respect for order (disputed), and all that junk.

as a law person, i add “law,” but it is the second thing perverted in tyranny. and therefore justly so incriminated, so often.

Calling firsties on Night of the Long Knives comparison to Milo arrest.

ICE plans to spend millions of dollars on Boston Dynamics dog robots. ICE says this is to improve "officer safety." The robots can open doors, pick up objects, have 360 cameras, infrared vision, etc.

delightful

oh no. Oh no. Is it “speedran” or “spedrun?”

how dystopian

Hey remember when those mega MAGA patriots started low-cost gas stations purely out of their wish to help freedom-loving Americans cope with all the WINNING?

How could they be selling gas for less than the going market price, people asked. Are they being propped up by the government, like in Communism? People asked.

Looks like they were able to sell gas for less because they fucking stole it.

https://wapo.st/4qMtzGv

Interesting that the White House is eager to reiterate how much they don't know these guys, aren't involved, etc.

Guys, if your grift is too sleazy even for Trump, you maybe need to tone it down.

lol of course

C’mon what’re you supposed to do when the stuff just falls off a truck.

John Oliver did a good segment on the Sean Duffy show. sorry to spoil it for y'all but it's barely even about road tripping across America, it's straight up a shitty Bravo-style reality show about his family, financed directly by the same organizations he's supposed to be overseeing, and apparently being watched by basically no one.

will say I got a kick out of his wife saying America needs this because we're a "PornHub country" (???), when Duffy clearly got into reality TV in the first place out of sheer horniness

I’ll pass. Real World Boston sucked & that’s the last time I willingly watched that choad on my tv

is this were the clip of them arguing with their daughter about going to college came from? "we're worried you'll get indoctrinated. of course we support you in what you want to do but you will learn things other than what we brainwashed you to believe and we don't like that"

Please let the media resist the urge to interview him.

wrong thread :)

hilarious how dozens of companies bribed this man $1,000,000+ to make this and nobody is watching it. the first episode has 24,000 views on Youtube but it rapidly declines afterwards, the final episode has got only a quarter of that. this despite Duffy using the full power of the US government and FOX News to promote it. for comparison the Daily Show gets about 2 million views on average, 5-6 million if it's Jon Stewart, that in addition to whatever it got on TV, and as far as I know this didn't actually make it to television?

In response to a CNN host Dana Bash panel this morning on Hasan Piker and El Sayed this morning whose 6 minute length took up 15% of the show, Piker tweeted:

it sounds unbelievably stupid but i have become this media cycle’s “trans athletes” or “migrant caravan.” wild how much supposedly liberal outlets let fox news play the role of news desk editor.

odd how none of these outlets will have me on to interrogate my beliefs directly

even odder because Republican candidates never have to answer similar questions about Elon Musk, the man directly funding them and inserting himself into government to kill people. you don't even need to pull out of context clips to make him look like an anti-semite, maybe just show him hitting a Hitler salute on live television?

idk how people here feel about Hasan, most of the things he says make sense to me, yes he's said some dumb shit but he's also talking to a camera so much and obviously not everything is gonna be completely thought through. weird how he's getting held to a much higher standard than the President of the United States, who last I checked called an entire political party scum who are poisioning the blood of our nation??

I am quite happy not giving a shit about him.

Also: it's possible the Sunday shows babbled about Musk in spring and early summer '25, but none of us watch them.

Piker wasn't that interesting when GQ (or maybe Esquire) was profiling him because "he's a hot lefty guy who lifts!" He's even less interesting (because his shelf life is winding down IMO) now that he's the mainstream media's favorite demon (half because his opinions on Israel must not be allowed to stand and half because they envy him his audience and want him destroyed). No one who talks into a webcam for 10 hours a day should be listened to. When he does an interview on someone else's YouTube show or whatever, he's reasonably intelligent and cogent, and I often agree with him, but I honestly can't figure out how he got the audience he has. He seems fundamentally... not that special in any respect.

The only thing I can think of is that he talks in the same way other even more popular non-political streamers do, and we are all too old to enjoy that kind of shit.

I’d sort of dismissed him as a twitch streamer himbo, but every time I heard him speak at length (Chapo, Josh Citarella’s pod) I was pleasantly surprised and agreed with pretty much everything he says. He’s smarter than all the right wing grifters for sure, and makes a hell is a lot more sense than Pod Johns or Ezra Kleins. And I think a lot of “center-left” people, especially under 40 seem to agree. If were the Democratic Party and actually wanted to win I’d probably be busy making him the Joe Rogan of the Left instead of trying to rehabilitate a genocide

Most streamers don't stream 8 hours a day. Hasan is ALWAYS streaming, it's insane.

Establishment Dems after the 2024 election: We need our own podcasters and influencers!

Establishment Dems in 2026: Not like that!

Like, imagine if the GOP had ever ever ever tried to force their candidates to denounce Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly or Glenn Beck or Ben Shapiro. They mostly can't even bring themselves to denounce Nick Fuentes. And it's worked for them!

I am obv just one guy, but I honestly don’t reall have much of anything except a vague idea of who Piker, Citarella, Chapo people, etc even are. I am not a podcast or Twitch guy, and I never will be. I am glad that some people with good-ish politics might have some sway in the culture, but I honestly don’t think I am an outlier here. That is, I think most people don’t know who the fuck these people are.

I think most people don’t know who the fuck these people are.

They absolutely don't. There was a recent poll where the results were something like:

4% agree with Hasan Piker about Israel
17% disagree with Hasan Piker about Israel
79% have never heard of Hasan Piker

Yep, me either. They have some variety of lefty politics and they've built audiences with it, and that's fine by me. Maybe they say stupid shit sometimes, I don't know, so what. So do I. Vaya con dios.

Piker and Chapo at al aren’t going to enjoy the institutional praise and outright backing of someone who thinks that Gavin Newsome is The Future. But they’re also the “influencers” (as such) that were platforming and supporting Mamdani and the like, while Democrats and lib media were arguing that hey maybe Andrew Cuomo sexually harassing subordinates isn’t that big of a deal. We really do live in Groundhog Day.

et al

I am obv just one guy, but I honestly don’t reall have much of anything except a vague idea of who Piker, Citarella, Chapo people, etc even are. I am not a podcast or Twitch guy, and I never will be.

seriously, i fucking hate all this shit. I don't want to care about it and resent the cultural pressure to have an opinion on it. randos who start podcasts and yammer on youtube.. literally why should I care what they say?

Piker, I've learned, is Cenk Uygur's nephew, which gives me even more reason to not give a fuck.

(I'm aware that the answer to 'why should i care what they say' is 'because many people do' and my answer to that is 'arlkjalsfjaldskfa'_

Honestly I don’t think anyone is asking anyone else to give a fuck. I simply mentioned the way I (a middle age man who doesn’t even really know what twitch is) was able to hear Piker, instead of the way that Dana Bash, Fox nitwits or AIPAC want me to hear about him.

the fact that few people have heard of Piker, let alone heard his opinions directly from his own mouth, make him a great foil for the RW media since they can build him better and stronger as a boogeyman if they get to define him however they please. see also: ACORN as an ur-example of this

I think it’s important to note that it’s not just RW media

Unless you’re considering the liberal, Dem-aligned media right wing, in which case carry on ;)

Hasan is like the anti-Trump and the media can now blather on all day about his dumb crass past statements and not have to do journalism or reading or any actual reporting except what you think about what Hasan said

The default answer for any candidate or politician asked to defend or comment on anything Piker or anyone else says should just be, "I don't know man, go ask him." "Will you go on Hasan's show?" "Sure, he reaches a lot of people. Same reason I'll go on Fox News." Nobody is obligated to play the game of "Will you denounce X person for X thing."

don't know what Hasan's Twitch stream is usually like but I've seen ones where he'll spend an hour on some deep weird internet thing, usually related to mentally unstable Christians, I'm guessing his audience is the same sort of people who would've been big into SomethingAwful 25 years ago

Dana Bash on CNN also talked to White House border czar Tom Homan who was recorded accepting a bag with $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents in September 2024. Bash was fine with Homan insisting that the US is required by law to send Haitians working in the US (under the tsp program) back to gang warfare ridden Haiti, even though the US State Department warns not to go there. Bash didn't bring up Homan's 2024 behavior that the Trump administration has excused

why are you on CNN

Like, it will drive you mad

randos who start podcasts and yammer on youtube.. literally why should I care what they say?

i don’t rly get this. why should anyone care what anyone says? well, i suppose people must have all sorts of reasons. is there some kind of list of television networks or magazines whose contributors you do feel you “should” “care” about? literally why? arlkjalsfjaldskfa

still think sometimes about when the harris campaign refused to accept a rogan interview because rogan wouldn’t agree to conduct it in DC while wearing a silicon replica of tim russert’s death mask, and this boardful of strategic geniuses was posting LOL WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS. personally i’m not too sure who joe rogan is either but i guess he was the guy whose show your political candidate wanted to go on? arlkjalsfjaldskfa

The difference between Hasan and Rogan is that Hasan actually shows up to do events with candidates and instructs his audience to phone back for them. Rogan just nods and agrees with whoever he’s talking to and then forgets what they said.

The only reason Piker is important is because people are desperate for a wedge issue that will help undermine Democrats' chances of winning big in November.

idk how desperate anyone needs to be; everyone knows what the wedge issue is

They know they are losing so they are scraping for anything no matter how trivial.

dlh, what is the wedge issue?

“should we keep doing the holocaust y/n”

I don’t watch any of the Sunday programs any more but for some crazy reason I look at which political items are trending on X and Bluesky on Sundays and what video clips Aaron Rupar posts .

The Piker thing is annoying because 3rd Way Dem lobbying group is spending $15 million against El Sayed, and of course AIPAC is as well

wedge issue is "do you disavow hasan piker?"

if you try to break it down to the issue level (ex.: "we shouldn't be unconditionally supporting Israel"), they'll bring up some random thing piker did or said in the past on a stream, usually clipped to the smallest, most objectionable, quote

if you disavow, they circle back to the starting point about how you don't really disavow him because he criticizes Israel//Jeffries/etc. and all you leftists are the same

would love to see this argument flipped around. do you support the USA blowing up schools with hundreds of children still inside? NO!?? so you hate Americans? you don't think they have the right to exist??? you think they should all DIE!??

"do you think they should DEI?"

The thing they are micro-focusing on is any insinuation that violence against Jewish people in America or other countries is a consequence of Israel's actions. This is what El Sayed apologized for (the post after the Synagogue attack that included "hurt people hurt people") and Piker saying that politicians equating criticism of Israel with criticism of Jews is putting Jewish Americans in danger.

It’s all down to the classic PICK A SIDE aspect of identity politics, wherein the most important aspect is that you can NEVER make anyone feel bad about a past position, because as everyone knows once you choose to cheer on a certain team or lend energy or resources to a cause you’re permanently affiliated forever, much like sports fans.

There’s never any nuance or room to maneuver or, god forbid, grow up - it’s just about fighting for the right to exist, because we all know not all of us can exist, that’s unaffordable in today’s economy.

New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer and various other “centrist “ Dems are spending more time trying to link their negative takes on Piker to Dem senate candidate El Sayed than they are speaking out against Trump , and for Dem candidates who could help give Dems the majority in the House and Senate.

Well, we know what they're afraid of--Zionists being sorted out of the Democratic Party the way Southern racists were in 60s and 70s.

Sounds like a good idea. Ultimately Zionism is a religious extremist movement, makes sense to group them with the rest of the extremists in the extremist party

Zionism lends itself to straight up terrorism, afaic

huh... seems like a nice enough guy to me

“There’s something about Abdul El-Sayed that is very, very evil and on the rise in the United States of America today,” Vance said.

“It’s people who see themselves not as citizens of a combination, fighting for every single person, whether they’re Jewish or Christian, whether they’re white or Black or brown, but see themselves as fighting for one group at the expense of others,” he continued. “And that is how, ladies and gentlemen, you destroy the United States of America."

funny Abdul's entire message is that he is fighting so every single person can afford food and healthcare while your administration is gleefully tearing it out of people's hands

massive projection from vance there

the hyperbole of the rhetoric betrays the real fear these fuckers have that the country is maybe changing a little

Apparently he got big mad and told Rhodes Scholar and Ivy League PhD Abdul El-Sayed that Usha was out of his league.

He’s right, but not in the way he thinks he’s right.

And that is how, ladies and gentlemen, you destroy the United States of America."

September thread title

the hyperbole of the rhetoric betrays the real fear these fuckers have that the country is maybe changing a little

well there's also the fact that these people have mostly delivered the exact opposite of what they were selling in 2024 - the economy is tanking, they buried the Epstein stuff, we're in another Middle Eastern war for no reason at all, even the extreme immigration crackdown is something Americans are quickly souring on. they can't keep going with the "Biden ruined everything" line (though they'll try), nobody gives a shit about the Covid revivalism, they really got nothing but utterly insane bad faith shit like this

they're really doubling down on the 'communism' shit, and it's working... with *their* voters. People who would never vote for a democrat under any circumstances and still adore Trump

You gotta keep feeding the cult. As soon as you stop the house of cards begins to fall.

feels a bit difficult to do another Red Scare given everything that's been going on...like what are they gonna do? put armed, trigger-happy goons on the street? make everything more expensive? staff the entire government with weird pedophiles? enrich themselves at the taxpayers' expense? isolate us from every other country on the planet?

I don't think that Zionism is inherently evil, or that all Zionists are or ever have been evil. There have always been those were evil, either as instigators or who went along to get along, and got into it more as they did go along (thinking of interviews w IDF on the ground). But I've also seen/heard/read talked with Israelis who expressed socialist, anarcho-syndicalist (kibbutizm) etc. POV and were about peaceful co-existence, sane/pragmatic co-operation, although yes that gets fucked with by conscription, though Peace Now started in the army, I think.
Any country founded on immigration practices some displacement at best, and there's always a dark side to that, but I can't say my (non-Jewish, as far as I know) ancestors or anybody else's should have stayed in Europe; there just wouldn't have been room for that eventually---America could have been done better, still could, hopefully---or maybe not, maybe getting the slave states to go along was too much, maybe we should have stayed in the British Empire, let them end slavery, transition to the Commonwealth----maybe the Israelis should have followed the Brits a bit longer---but as is, maybe these are two tragedies, fucked at birth, America and Israel---but still I don't believe everybody who might be fairly described or call themselves Zionists (and this doesn't include all Israeli Jews), can be fairly considered evil. Otherwise, it seems like heading around the dial toward Vance et al.

easy to talk about socialism and anarchism when you are building your kibbutz on land that was illegally expropriated during an ethnic cleansing.

easy to say Zionism isn’t evil when you haven’t watched your people live under crushing apartheid only to be slaughtered so indiscriminately that children walk around holding their siblings’ body parts while settlers kill and intimidate other members of your ethnicity out of their homes, all while committing a vast ecocide by destroying centuries old olive groves

like seriously, get a fucking clue

the US has the twin original sins of native american genocide and transatlantic slavery. i think zionists imagine that their original sin will turn out like the former - a comprehensive demolition that now no longer even ruffles the waters - but that prospect seems remote at best

I think the analogy is very flawed but Native Americans do still have protected lands and tribal leadership, tribal police etc. etc... a kind of 'two-state' solution. (California just passed a new law requiring state agencies to get approval from tribes regarding state properties that are of cultural or religious significance)

Things seem to be going in the opposite direction for Palestinians

Yeah, well, America is a big enough place that you explode nuclear bombs in the middle of it and hardly anyone notices.

And that is how, ladies and gentlemen, you destroy the United States of America."

September thread title

Gets my vote too.

jfc this is what our top military guy is doing. this country is so fucked

https://bsky.app/profile/cmewing.bsky.social/post/3mugdfu7w6s24

And while he's doing that, Army Secretary (and MAGA chud and Vance ally) Dan Driscoll has resigned, apparently out of frustration over the conduct of the Iran war. Rumor is that Hegseth's spokesman Sean Parnell wants the job. Whee.

this whole thing feels like its gonna turn real ugly soon, we are lighting massive amounts of tax dollars on fire and no one can explain why, morale is so bad that soldiers are trying to kill themselves, we just started a trade war with our biggest oil exporter for no reason and the people in charge have no fucking clue what they're doing and are actively getting stupider, which is an incredible feat given they started this war not even knowing what the Strait of Hormuz was

many many xps

El-Sayed saying after the Synagogue attack that "hurt people hurt people" was completely tone-deaf and he needed to apologize for that. I want him to win, but he seems so blustery most of the time and he is a total shit-talker and has an extreme case of main character syndrome. That kind of personality is nails-on-a-chalkboard to me

And President Keyes, Piker didn’t just say that “politicians equating criticism of Israel with criticism of Jews is putting Jewish Americans in danger”.

He said that Jews who tie their identity to Israel can expect violence. It is stated in very reasonable terms but to me seems deeply antisemitic

I guess I'm going to be banished to hell for that post, but I don't care, it's what I think

thought it was strongly implied in the statement that he was referring directly to those tying their identity to a specific thing Israel is doing, but maybe I'm reading it wrong

I think the analogy is very flawed but Native Americans do still have protected lands and tribal leadership, tribal police etc. etc... a kind of 'two-state' solution. (California just passed a new law requiring state agencies to get approval from tribes regarding state properties that are of cultural or religious significance)

Things seem to be going in the opposite direction for Palestinians

― Andy the Grasshopper

I’m reading Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee right now and that analogy is all I can think of. I’m sure it was unintentional but the genocide of the native population was just as cruel and evil if not 100x worse

Unintentional = dismissing the analogy

Right after I posted, I realized it could come across as tone-deaf, and I'm in no way dismissing or diminishing the horrific genocide that happened over the last 400 years in North America.. the place of my birth in Northern California was the site of a really terrible massacre of native women & children in the 19th Century, and I know that I'm still a settler/colonist despite the years

But in the current era, little by little, things *seem* to be improving.. the Klamath River dam removals, the release of Leonard Peltier, small victories here and there over tribal sovereignty and land use, improvements in health, and of course finally recognizing the horrors of residential schools. It's a small start, but it's something. There's still a lot of battles ahead, but I'm glad to see progress. Yet I don't see anything like progress in Israel, it just gets worse and worse.. I guess that's my point, however clumsy

>> El-Sayed saying after the Synagogue attack that "hurt people hurt people" was completely tone-deaf and he needed to apologize for that.

He has already apologized, and more importantly, admitted that he fucked up. I watched a video of him on the Breakfast Club radio show; it's a 90 minute interview but he talks about a lot of things, including that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRB0_JP9T3I

xposts Here’s what Piker said, so people can make up their own minds if it’s anti-semitic:

Piker argued the "connection between Israel and Zionism that is expressed over and over again through a lot of these Jewish institutions is teaching people the idea that Jews are monolithic" — which he called a "very dangerous mode of propaganda."

"And you want to know why? Because people don't f*** with Israel any longer," Piker said. "And if Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone's going to come around and take action, not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews."

Several minutes later, Piker added: "You're running around, basically tying your entire identity to a country that inevitably will be seen as basically Jewish ISIS, and you're saying, as Jews, this is all we care about. You're making antisemitism worse."

Wouldn’t be the way I would say it but that is basically quite similar to a main argument from anti-Zionist Jews— that Israel’s behavior and tying Jewish identity to Israel endangers Jews around the world.

Mods...?

"And that is how, ladies and gentlemen, you destroy the United States of America." U.S. Politics Thread, September 2026