Part of Trump’s mass appeal (and of why he’s so dangerous) is that he really seems to share Joe Barstool’s worldview that there are no complex problems: Everything has a simple brute solution, which previous leaders were somehow too stupid or weak to deploy.
the reverse version of those “evolution of man” drawings
Power.
Trumpists lack a theory of mind.
Pretty sure it’s Trump who put American lives at risk.
This press conference truly revealed the depth of Hegseth’s psychopathy.
Brazen hubris and ignorance.
Fascinating indeed—and maybe a little worrisome.
I have never seen a politician more directly copy this speech in my life
@wyden.senate.gov's record of warning that there is deep and constitutionally-serious dirt being done by the intelligence agencies in secret is unblemished. The vaguer he is, the filthier the dirt is. This is the vaguest I've ever seen him
“Since Trump reentered office, the Court has handed the president a series of wins that are literally unjustified, in the sense that the Court did not bother to explain its decisionmaking process.”
Unmarked car, no lights or police insignia. Masked armed men leap out. Victim not in the act of committing any crime. This is not how a serious federal law enforcement agency acts in a free society.
How is this not supposed to be a “right wing paramilitary force loyal to the regime”?
every epstein file drop underscores how elite power operates through shared socio-economic networks, regardless of people's ideological differences, populist posturing, or public feuds
I’m not yet in law school, and agonizing over whether to attend at all, but I’m finding The Dual State brilliant and terrifying when it isn’t altogether over my head. A perhaps necessary counterweight to the James Boyd White book I’d been reading before.
You’re exactly right. “The United States of Amnesia,” according to Gore Vidal.
Until Miller’s gone these are just gestural purges to sanitize and consolidate his reign of terror.
if bovino is out and conservatives are turning on noem then there is a real opportunity to demand that miller resign too.
The biggest risk in this moment is something sociologists call “symbolic compliance.”
That’s when an institution that is violating civil rights gives the public just enough symbolic victories that accountability efforts lose steam before there has been any meaningful change.
I say again, this does not even approach a scintilla of the accountability that is required. These are PR moves.
The killing of Alex Pretti and the grotesque lying was an overreach by the administration. They've paid a price and had to pull back a bit. But it's when there's some disarray that the democratic opposition needs to intensify the offensive, and turn a marginal tactical success into a major victory.
They’re trying to shift the narrative. It won’t work.
Oh yeah they know they lost the issue.
Embedded in all this is the logic of the so-called GWOT turned on American citizens who are exercising their Constitutional rights.
they have no ability to back down and recalibrate AND they lack a theory of mind for their opponents
This witness to Alex Pretti's murder not only refutes the governmen't story, but says she is afraid to go home because federal agents might arrest her. This is what it feels like to live under state terror.
www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
Few have written so well about the human element in Putin’s state terror as M. Gessen. Their diagnosis of the problem here at home should worry every American citizen.
It has never been about "fraud."
It has never been about "crime."
It has never been about "safety."
It has always been about consolidation of authoritarian power.
Statement from Michael and Susan Pretti Parents of Alex Jeffrey Pretti “We are heartbroken but also very angry. Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the ‘hero’ term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He had his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.
Kare 11 local news just read, in full, this statement from Michael and Susan Pretti, the parents of Alex Pretti.
"Please get the truth out about our son."
