The Practical Expat
The Practical Expat
@practicalexpat.bsky.social
kakistocracy (noun / ˌkæk.ɪˈstɑː.krə.si/) a government that is ruled by the least suitable, able, or experienced people in a state or country
55 followers68 following80 posts
"When you constantly expect lies but refuse to accept lies (a critical distinction), you become better at finding the truth. Surviving an autocracy means not only believing that the unfathomable is possible, but that it’s probably happening, so you better start planning for what comes next."
“Kentucky,” the Everly Brothers crooned. “You are the dearest land outside of Heaven to me.” I'd ask McConnell which is better, but I doubt he’s spending time in either. sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/ghost-senate
Surely his awful name is still up there. And no one seems bothered to demand proof that it isn’t. It should surprise no one that our national monuments, parks, museums and historically dedicated buildings are meaningless to a sociopath obsessed with himself. 🤷♀️
The board voted to close the Washington, D.C., arts complex's main campus for a $250 million renovation — three months after a federal judge temporarily blocked a similar closure. n.pr/4fVU0Wi
He is certifiable.
Trump: "After meeting with the President of Lebanon, Joseph Aoun, who has done a remarkable job working to transform his Country, I am hereby directing my Administration to allow all US airline carriers to fly directly to Lebanon so that Americans can easily visit this beautiful land ... Enjoy!"
I'm starting to think that the cities should call their bluff and just go ahead and do it. Call it the The Miller Trump Mullin Flight Diversion. You don't have to draw up plans buddy, we did it for you. Go ahead and own the aftermath. And when they beg for the flights to resume, use the leverage.
Markwayne Mullin: "We are currently drawing up plans to say, listen, in these sanctuary cities where the local radical left Democrats aren't allowing us to do our job and enforce federal laws, then we shouldn't be processing international flights into their cities."
“…we are intellectually unprepared for a situation in which the leader simply does not care about either the state or the nation.” “…people such as Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and Pete Hegseth…The fact that such people could be considered, let alone appointed, is a marker of superpower suicide.”
The U.S. has spent billions to lose a war that enriches its oligarchs, impoverishes the citizenry, sabotages its alliances, and strengthens its enemies. Empires have risen and failed before, but to my knowledge no state has ever chosen to kill its own power. snyder.substack.com/p/on-superpo...
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Have been saying this since the beginning!! The people who confirmed all these unserious, ridiculous and intentionally dangerous people - you own the havoc we are in. With an extra badge of shame for Hegseth.
Jeffries on Kash Patel: "We have to stop putting all the blame on the people who nominated this incompetent, toxic, malignant individual. What about the people who confirmed him? It's extraordinary to me that Senate Republican confirmed people like Noem, Bondi, Hegseth, RFK Jr, and Patel."
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BREAKING: Trump Fires Pam Bondi… for Not Being Corrupt Enough. Our authoritarian president wanted Bondi to prosecute his enemies. She tried – and helped cover up the Epstein scandal, too. It wasn’t enough.
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Historic levels of insider trading are occurring here,,,and now.
6:49am: sudden spike in oil futures trading. no news. no announcement. nothing public. 7:05am: trump announces a pause on iran strikes. markets move. someone knew. 16 minutes early. $580 million in contracts. the corruption is staggering.
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I swear, Anne Applebaum is one of the only people who gets it, even when others interview her, they have trouble grasping/accepting/understanding just how vacuous Trump is.
Trump does not think strategically, historically, geographically, or even rationally. He does not connect actions he takes on one day to events that occur weeks later. Allied leaders know that if they help him in the Gulf, he won't be grateful, or even remember www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
I’m sorry but this falls on the conscience of every Senator who voted for his confirmation. An absolute embarrassing moral failure…they knew and yet they did it anyway. Cowards. Every single one of them.
News Analysis: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has made contempt for what he calls “stupid rules of engagement” — limits meant to reduce risks to civilians. Retired commanders argue that the point of such constraints is not just law, morality and honor, but strategic self-interest.
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What do we even do with this. The global economy hangs in the balance and these people are criminally inept
“Planning around preventing this exact scenario — impossible as it has long seemed — has been a bedrock principle of US national security policy for decades,” a former US official who served in Republican and Democratic administrations said. “I’m dumbfounded.” edition.cnn.com/2026/03/12/p...
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"Voter suppression is one of the core tools of authoritarianism. It is how you shift from democracy to autocracy. And for millions of Americans, it’s about to become the norm" www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/202...
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Until Miller’s gone these are just gestural purges to sanitize and consolidate his reign of terror.
BREAKING: The Border Patrol's Greg Bovino has been ousted from his role of "Commander at Large"—and Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski could be next to lose their jobs, sources tell @nickmiroff.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
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Stephen Miller wants the U.S. to exist as isolated, angry, insecure, paranoid and full of grievance because that is his whole life and he knows no other existence and only wishes for everyone to suffer as much as he does from inadequacy. Entirely pathetic.
Stephen Miller is kicking America into full evil empire mode after Venezuela
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Time to stop writing articles about the "security" or "economic" reasons to capture Greenland, they are irrelevant
Not everyone believed me when I wrote that Trump wants Greenland becuase it would make him feel important, but that's what he told the NYT: When asked why he needed to possess the territory, he said: “Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success" www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/u...
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"We can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves.” We are still in it, but I am taking this energy with me all the way to wherever the road leads.
Mamdani: "We can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves. After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him."
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I’m sorry, but who is operating that machinery. Honestly, you go to work and are told, “today we are tearing down the White House.” And you say... Ok?! Fucking hell. We are here because of enablers. Time to stop talking about him. It’s ALL THE ENABLERS tearing the country apart.
a live look at the demolition of the White House's East Wing for Trump's ballroom
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a functional press would, every single day, repeatedly, across numerous paragraphs in every story about him, make it clear that this is indisputably the most corrupt President in U.S. history
Trump: "It's awfully strange to make a decision where I'm paying myself. But I was damaged very greatly and any money I would get I would give to charity."
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Hegseth is putting all of the American generals and admirals from around the world into a single room. Why might Hegseth do such an extraordinary thing? Here I discuss four possible reasons. snyder.substack.com/p/hegseth-pu...
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Once again I ask, what’s it going to take?
DEVELOPING: Advocates are seeking a court order to block the Trump administration’s effort to deport hundreds of unaccompanied minor children to Guatemala. Judge abruptly moved 3 pm hearing up to 12:30 after she was notified that some children “are in the process of being removed" today.
“Trump administration officials intend to remove protections and open to some development more than 58 million acres of national forests across 40 states, including 2 million acres of national forests in Oregon” apple.news/AC1r2TR7fQlG...
“In an instant, this could all explode. You could have American troops firing on American civilians in an American city in a country-defining crisis. What happens then?”
To do a complete totalitarian takeover of a country of 330+m you must incite violence. The purging of military generals and 100% dedication to a lock-step fealty of our mentally unhinged POtUS is laying ground for the military to turn against its citizens.
President Trump directed the National Guard to prepare for deeper involvement in any future civil unrest throughout the United States and called for the creation of a new military unit that is deputized to enforce federal laws, specifically in D.C.
All of this. And Stephen Miller’s name needs to be included in this as well.
Newsom on ICE action outside his presser: "It's pretty sick & pathetic. It's everything you know about Trump's America & the authoritarian tendencies of the president. Wake up, America. You will not have a country if he rigs this election. You will a president running for a third term. Mark my word"
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Think about this for a second. It’s grotesque and dangerous. White House Announces Comprehensive Review of Smithsonian Exhibitions www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/a...