Tom Nichols about Trump’s corrupt dealings: “There are still people who believe that somehow he’s doing this trying to help alleviate their economic distress. When, in fact, he is the source of their economic distress.”
@radiofreetom.bsky.social
New from me:
Some of Donald Trump’s favorite world leaders have been scoundrels, bullies, and dictators. The China summit showed, yet again, that such men can both intimidate and flatter Trump into taking their side, even against the United States.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
"Black people in America did worse economically in 2025 than at any time since the Federal Reserve began its financial wellbeing survey in 2013 ... More notable is the gap between Black people and, in some cases, every other racial and ethnic group recorded." talkingpointsmemo.com/news/black-p...
Donald Trump’s aides have kept him in the dark on important conversations—and “the ramifications for democratic accountability are serious,” @dgraham.bsky.social argues in The Atlantic Daily:
If the Supreme Court does upend the ability of individual states to set their own mail-in balloting rules, we’re going to have to engage in a massive, full-scale effort to educate voters in every state about the new deadlines.
Especially in Alaska.
www.politico.com/news/2026/04...
The biggest story in the world right now is that the president of the United States is a demented old man who takes pleasure in torturing and killing people and is committing crimes with impunity. And yet most legacy media outlets are too cowardly to tell it like it is.
"Trump has wielded US foreign policy principally to increase his own wealth, bolster his status, and personally benefit a small circle of his family members, friends, and loyalists." www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...
“Illiberal governments tend to live or die by their ability to sustain corruption. They rely for support on a network of oligarchs, who in turn are tied to the administration’s success. It happened in Hungary, Turkey, Russia and increasingly, it is happening here.”
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/o...
"Voter rolls...contain names, addresses, party affiliations[], and voting histories...In the wrong hands, they become instruments for advancing allegations of fraud or irregularity."
The Four Ways Trump Plans to Delegitimize this Fall’s Elections newrepublic.com/article/2066... via @newrepublic.com
Shot: Colbert explaining to his audience last night that the Trump administration ordered him not to air an interview with Texas Democrat and Senate candidate James Talarico - or even mention his name. (Scroll to 1:30) youtu.be/oh7DPSP65JA
Chaser: the 15 minute interview Colbert did with Talarico and posted to YouTube. (The FCC should really know who Barbra Streisand is by now.)
youtu.be/oiTJ7Pz_59A
“I don’t want to be in this place I want to go to my school.”
- 7 year old imprisoned by ICE for 70 days in a concentration camp in Texas.
Today, after @propublica.org published this story, the camp was raided to confiscate letters from the children.
www.propublica.org/article/ice-...
NYT: Trump secretly deported 9 migrants despite court orders to not remove them to their home nations. So, he sent them to prison in Cameroon: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/14/w...
A Reuters photographer captured this image of a page from Pam Bondi's "burn book," which she used to counter any questions from Democratic lawmakers during an unhinged hearing today.
It looks like the DOJ monitored members of Congress’s searches of the unredacted Epstein files.
Just wow.
NEW: “CBS Evening News” producer Alicia Hastey sends a bombshell farewell note:
Stories are “evaluated not just on their journalistic merit but on whether they conform to a shifting set of ideological expectations.”
There are a growing number of reports of agents impersonating construction workers, delivery drivers & anti-ICE activists, heightening fears in the state.
That's deceptive & unconstitutional, because they use trickery to get around warrant & consent protections.
The latest file drop shows attorneys who represented Epstein survivors communicated with Epstein and his associates going back over a decade. I’ve been sick over it, but it’s true.
Ossoff: We were told that MAGA was for working-class Americans. But this is a government of, by, and for the ultra-rich. It’s the wealthiest Cabinet ever. This is the Epstein class. They are the elites they pretend to hate.
“If a newspaper’s publisher makes a bunch of decisions that lose money, and then the owner keeps the publisher while firing the staff who puts out the paper—none of this is really about the money, is it?”
open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
Tulsi Gabbard went into the FBI Atlanta field office, assembled the agents working on the Fulton County ballot case, and put Trump on the speaker phone: Trump Had Unusual Call With F.B.I. Agents After Election Center Search www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/u...
The all-stock transaction revolved around a small Chinese firm with less than $6 million in revenues, which went public just six months ago and saw its stock skyrocket over 650%
Warm air masses in the atmosphere rise upward, causing cooler air from neighboring areas, sometimes from the arctic, to rush in. This is how atmospheric heat powers storms. In other words, global warming causes colder, more intense winter storms. www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxo...
I think it is OUTRAGEOUS that people are LEAPING to the conclusion that some our post prominent Americans are child rapists when it is EQUALLY PLAUSIBLE that they are simply indifferent to whether other people are child rapists so long as those other people can offer them access to power.
I made a promise to Alex’s parents to continue to tell his story.
An ICU nurse at the VA, an outdoorsman, a deeply generous, compassionate friend and family member, and a true son of Minnesota. Rest in peace, Alex.
Never stop talking about the Epstein Files, a criminal rapist dictator who is guilty AF is currently hiding them.
Never stop talking about the Epstein Files, a criminal rapist dictator who is guilty AF is currently hiding them.
Never stop talking about the Epstein Files.
Just a brief pause to remember Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh's wildly racist 2025 opinion eviscerating the Fourth Amendment by allowing ICE agents, absent other probable cause or investigative lead, to detain anyone black and brown they see.
The blood of Minneapolis belongs to Kavanaugh, too.
The killing of Alex Pretti is a heartbreaking tragedy. It should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault.
The only ways to "lower the temperature" in the conflict between this administration and the American people is for our government to stop murdering us, stop kidnapping innocent people, stop terrorizing our cities, stop serially violating the law and stop lying about what they are doing.
Remembering how cops tossed Kyle Rittenhouse - who was open carrying a semiautomatic rifle - a bottle of water and told him, “We appreciate you… we really do”
If you’re looking to understand who Alex Pretti was, look no further than this video where he honors a veteran who has passed away.
He was not a domestic terrorist.
He was a good man and a hero.
(video pulled on X)
“So the government didn’t just use masked, armed, unidentified agents of the state to execute a citizen on the street, in broad daylight and in front of dozens of witnesses—it lied about the victim and what happened in the most brazen manner possible.”
www.thebulwark.com/p/emergency-...
“The federal government is no longer bound by law. If agents of the state may kill people in public without being investigated; if they have—again, per VP Vance—“absolute immunity” from prosecution then we are living in an authoritarian regime.”
open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
Imagine this in a trial.
Devastating first-hand witness to Alex Pretti's killing
Declaration filed in federal court:
"I don't know why they shot him. He was only helping. I was five feet from him and they just shot him."
WOW on Pretti's denial of medical treatment
"I informed the ICE agents that I am a physician, and I asked to
assess the victim.
At first, the ICE agents wouldn't let me through. ... But none of the ICE agents who were near the victim were performing CPR, ... None of the agents were helping him."
Worse than Kent State, really than any episode I can think of probably dating back to Reconstruc & earlier b/c
1. continuing, not 1 off.
2. organized, not individual ofcrs losing it
3. literally at hand of federal government, which is
4. immediately lying & circling the wagons to prevent inves.
I just spoke with the White House after another horrific shooting by federal agents this morning. Minnesota has had it. This is sickening.
The President must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now.
Minneapolis protester as he's being brutalized by feds: "You're gonna have to kill me! You're gonna have to kill me! I've done nothing wrong! My name is Matthew James! I'm a US citizen! You're gonna kill me! Is that what you want?" (You can hear his wife screaming)
Alex Pretti was a colleague at the VA. We hired him to recruit for our trial. He became an ICU nurse- I lover working with him. He was a good kind person who lived to help and these fuckers executed him.
White. Hot. Rage.