Relatedly, it’s probably just that everyone has refined and conformed their parasitic relationships to give Trump what he wants - attention and the facade of power and deference - which means Trump is fine giving them what they want that he has no interest in - Project 2025 and actual governance.

Stephen Miller is the archetypical example of this. He publicly and privately fellates Trump, and in return, Trump gives him a blank check to set basically all domestic immigration and law enforcement policy.

In this scenario, Trump’s mental decline isn’t leverage, it’s just another cost of doing business for the craven opportunists who actually make the decisions.

his body is laying down in a parking lot in the hospital.”

So basically, he died from the ICE “custody” likely in a George Floyd style murder, and the murderers likely brought him to a hospital parking lot and dumped his body on the ground to avoid answering any questions.

The Trump voter got the day he voted for, but I certainly don’t take any pleasure. It’s not clear his brother voted for Trump [edit: he’s an asylum-seeker, so presumably not able to vote] and it’s a tragedy either way. I just feel a little more dead inside reading this. I guess there’s a limit to schadenfreude.

Well, I clicked through to the PDF, and every single image was somehow more depressing than the last, including when I returned to the front of the deck after the last image, just a forever downward Escherian spiral. Here’s nearly where it ends, so you know I’m not kidding:

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think this is an outlier poll in many ways from what we’ve been seeing and will remain optimistic that this opt-in polling (however the intro statement alleges it was controlled) biased it towards false neutral metrics. I mean, NYC voters freaking LOVE Mamdani, but the polls here suggest he’s reviled - no doubt because Fox News is much better represented in the polling bloc than to voters who actually matter for Mamdani’s elections.

But really, all I see reading is the equation: consent equals lies multiplied by duration, volume and repetition.

I had to look it up to see what Trump/DHS’s unconstitutional argument will be to ignore this. The “…” omitted sections show pretty clearly what they will say:

Whoever, being an officer of the Army or Navy, or other person in the civil, military, or naval service of the United States, orders, brings, keeps, or has under his authority or control any troops or armed men at any place where a general or special election is held, unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both; and be disqualified from holding any office of honor, profit, or trust under the United States. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/592

“…is held, unless such force is necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States, shall be fined…”

So their first-year-law-school failing DOJ leads will argue that they need ICE there to stop voter fraud, which force is necessary to “repel armed enemies of the United States” since hypothetically the rampant fraudsters could be armed.

Either Trump will just do it without any lawsuit-ripening warning, or if his demented brain reveals his plans early and a suit is filed in time, the Supreme Court will hear the emergency appeal of the inevitable district and appellate findings that it is unconstitutional, and issue a shadow docket ruling that overturns the (ruling upholding the) Constitution without comment or reasoning.

WASHINGTON — Vying to become House speaker in a few months, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries outlined four items on the agenda that he said would enjoy “uniform Democratic support” and advance the party’s goal of “making life more affordable.”

This is why people are frustrated with politicians and Jeffries in particular. No, we don’t want the goal to be to make life “more affordable.” We’re well past “more affordable.” Saving $5 on a $15,000 hospital bill is “more affordable.” No, we want life to be “affordable.” That’s single-payer system. Maybe “more affordable” is the temporary compromise until we finish a clearly defined path to “affordable.” But it’s not a goal.

The mere fact that he’s out here talking about extending tax credits and using weasel words is utterly demoralizing also because it suggests this is the starting position which he’s going to negotiate down from later.

He can’t lead on policy, he’s certainly not following the voters’ stated wishes, so it would be great if he could kindly get out of the way.

Also, highlighting with two different colors makes no sense at all here and makes it very difficult to read. This is the product of an unhinged mind.

Well put. It’s not that there are sanctuary states. It’s that some states are sanctuary for the innocent, and some are sanctuary for the guilty.

Somehow after reading this I just keep vomiting.

Deathbed repentance, Republicans love it. Think it’s their cheat code to sell their souls for money and power and not be damned.

Sorry, all our steam is being used to build aircraft carrier catapults.

Slower technologies like Starlink. Yup.

It’s giving me a headache, unfortunately.

This year alone, the United States is on track to borrow more than $2 trillion to help pay for its obligations, including spending on the war in Iran and the sweeping tax cuts that Republicans enacted in 2025.

Ignoring the Iran war for a moment, because that’s just hubris and ego, the real systematic theft is Republicans cutting taxes predominantly on the rich, because even their strategy to use that as a wedge to shrink government is itself a bad faith argument. Really, the GOP will never successfully reduce government spending even if they were able to cut entitlements.

Instead, what is happening is that tax cuts are just another transfer of wealth from poor to rich, because when borrowing and money-printing is used to pay debts incurred due to tax-cut-driven shortfalls, that devaluation of dollars obliterates currency savings and “wealth” more severely to those who hold cash rather than investments and property.

The richest people, whose holdings are not in straight US currency, are cushioned against the biggest impacts, which means they own a larger relative percent of post-devaluation wealth.

This story really isn’t more complicated than: psychopaths like power and attention.

She and he have a mutually beneficial symbiosis where she lavishes him with attention and he lavishes her with access to power.

Not exactly novel for Trump.

That’s the problem with people who act in bad faith. You can’t throw it in their face because they know it’s hypocritical and they revel in the fact that they have the power to do it while the other side cannot. If anything, they think acting without ethics or integrity makes them smarter and more deserving to win. That the ends justify the means, and the fact that they’ll use extreme means only confirms their ends are more important.

It describes every Trump-era Republican political actor in memory. McConnell, Trump, Miller, Johnson, McCarthy, etc…

This followed the creation of gerrymandered congressional maps by Florida Republicans that broke Wasserman Schultz’s current seat into five shards. She decided against running in the 22nd district, where she lives, and chose instead to compete in the deep blue 20th, which has been represented by Black Democrats for more than 30 years.

So basically, she picked the most blue district presumably because of better future-election job security. And there’s something so poetic about the fact that she did what she thought was the safest long-term choice, while completely ignoring that that will probably set her up for failure in the short-term. Because the most blue district would demand the most blue candidate, which she is most certainly never going to be.

The primary isn’t decided but I genuinely hope someone so eager to live by ineffectual democratic establishment thinking can also die by it.

But did you hear, I heard Trump, in a show of solidarity, is going to spend two weeks as a grunt on the USS Abraham Lincoln! Yes, he is going to go and eat the same rations as them, and do all the normal 5:30 AM - 10 PM work, and it’s going to be great because it will prove to all the haters that Trump really cares about service members and is truly one of them who would never shirk service! Yep, that’s what I heard!

And if everyone on social media repeats that very real news, then in the very unlikely chance that is untrue, the White House will have to clarify that he has no intention whatsoever of setting foot on the USS Abraham Lincoln because he couldn’t last five minutes living in the abject conditions he’s imposing on service members! Boy, that would be strange, though, considering he’s definitely going to do it. So we should all spread the word!

You know he’s just making it up when everyone says “sir” to him in his stories, but that’s hardly better that this is just his version of how it should have went.

This is absolutely true. But it’s also probably a permanent degradation of our government.

It’s like Mexico. When corruption becomes endemic in the government, because (like Trump) you’ve fired the neutral government career folks and replaced them with political loyalists who don’t care about actually administering the law, then the next election they get replaced, but because they’re now “in play,” they never again survive administration changes.

So there’s a purge every change of administration. And because at least one side is corrupt, don’t be surprised if during the lead-up to the next administration changeover (assuming we can get that far), Trump’s lackeys destroy records across every institution they control, alongside blanket pardons, just to destroy any chance that the incoming administration can function and transition seamlessly.

The result is no more administrative continuity, chaos and a downward spiral of eroding trust in government.

I have a feeling Hegseth’s plan for the entire US military getting testosterone supplements will somehow be overlooked.