Jignasa

Luttig: It doesn’t matter what the Supreme Court does from this point forward. For two years, the Supreme Court has authorized the absolute lawlessness and unconstitutional activity of this president.

"I don't know that I've seen before the president of the United States attempt to build a white supremacist army within the government....that is new, and I don't know what else to call it."

Ta-Nehisi Coates joins @timmiller.bsky.social on today's Bulwark Podcast:

A video of Alex Pretti reading out the final salute of an unnamed veteran he cared for until the end of his life in the ICU, posted to Facebook by his son.

"Oh my gosh, it was so nice to see you! Have a lovely day, fuck ICE!"
"Oh you too hon! Stay safe in that traffic, fuck ICE!'

- two older Minnesota ladies, bidding farewell after the protest

Detained by ICE, two women became first responders during agent’s seizure The women say they guided agents through the emergency, later raising concerns about medical protocols, weapons safety and accountability.

Two women trained as first responders were abducted by three ICE agents. One of the agents starts seizing. The other two don’t know what to do. The women jump into action and save the agent’s life, only to be re-handcuffed and processed.

www.startribune.com/detained-by-...

The clergy just keep coming to this anti-ICE protest.

Genuinely unclear where they all will go — it’s packed outside on the sidewalk already.

Jesus.

www.startribune.com/ice-raids-mi...

BREAKING: The UK Government is working with Canada and Australia to launch a coordinated ban on X, per the Telegraph

At last night’s candlelight vigil for Renee Nicole Good, Bishop Rob Hirschfeld of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire announced he had asked the clergy of the diocese to get their affairs in order and to make sure they have their wills written ...,

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson: "There was a time that we could take [the federal government] at their word. That time has long passed. That is why we are calling on ICE to halt all operations in Portland until a full and independent investigation can take place."

If you are a resident of California, the state now has a portal where you can demand deletion of your personal data from 500+ registered data brokers with a single request form, for free.

consumer.drop.privacy.ca.gov

Tunku Varadarajan: Will you ask New Yorkers who voted for you to give Zohran Mamdani a chance? Curtis Sliwa: Absolutely. He won a majority. He has a mandate. The Masters of the Universe, the billionaires, did everything they could to make sure he wasn't the mayor. It didn't work. He's a great organizer. I'll give you an example: Melinda Katz, the current District Attorney for Queens County, New York. She's the mother of my two youngest sons. She was running for DA in 2019. She had the institutional support. Moderate Jewish mother. Loyal Democrat. Queens borough president. Perfect résumé. She's running against Tiffany Caban, who wasn't even in elective office at that time. Very radical. You know, "do away with jails, don't arrest anyone." Tiffany Caban won on election night. But she lost the race on the absentee ballots, but only by about 20 votes. You know who the street organizer was for Tiffany Caban? Zohran Mamdani. So, when they talk about him as a trust fund baby, I say no, no, no, no, no.

You don't like it when people call him a "nepo baby." He's earned his stripes. He had 100,000 volunteers going door-to-door, and I experienced that in some of the neighborhoods where you would never have seen anybody liberal or progressive go. Howard Beach! In conservative Howard Beach, they're going block to block. They were everywhere. 100,000. I call them Zohranistas. This was the secret to his election, not TikTok. It was good, old-fashioned retail politics. Frankly, Cuomo and not Mamdani was the nepo baby in this race. Born on third base. Felt entitled. Knew the political process, but mailed it in. He didn't have the stomach to actually go out and do retail politics. And shame on him. Do you think Mamdani will make a better mayor than Andrew Cuomo might have done?

How would you describe Mamdani's politics? He's not a communist. People call him that. That's ridiculous. He is a democratic socialist. David Dinkins [New York mayor from 1990-93] was a democratic socialist. We've had a long history in New York City of socialism. What's the biggest challenge Mamdani faces as mayor! I don't think the Zohranistas totally understand the fiscal irresponsibility we just went through with the Adams years and how little money there's left. There's not enough money to do all the things that Zohran wants to do.

A last question. All through our interview you pronounced Mamdani as "Mandami," transposing the "m" and the "n" in his name. Are you aware of the mispronunciation? Many people, Cuomo included, mangle his name. In the debate, Zohran brought that to my attention, my mispronunciation. I didn't do it on purpose. There's no disrespect. I have a hard time with it. It took people about 10 years to pronounce my last name correctly: "Sleewah.'" They pronounced it Silva, Saliva, Slywah. In the streets, we would have given Zohran a nickname, like I did for all the Guardian Angels. "Z Man" would have been perfect for him. That would have been his handle. Mr. Varadarajan, a Journal contributor, is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and at NYU Law School's Classical Liberal Institute.

this is the most incredible interview i’ve ever read. the aei guy tries so hard to get sliwa to trash mamdani and he simply won’t. he also brings up flaco (rip) unprompted.

www.wsj.com/opinion/free...

Mamdani's Executive Order Number 1, as described in the post.

I was wondering what Mamdani's first executive order would be, and I'm not disappointed by this.

He has wiped off the books EVERY Eric Adams executive order issued on or after September 26, 2024, the day Adams was indicted on federal bribery charges.

Mamdani: For too long, those fluent in the good grammar of civility have deployed decorum to mask agendas of cruelty

Exclusive | As Signs of Aging Emerge, Trump Responds With Defiance In an interview, President Trump—the oldest man to assume the office—said he has eschewed some advice from his doctors and regrets getting advanced imaging.

Oh my goodness, this Wall Street Journal piece about Trump's ailing health that includes an interview with him (gift link). There are a number of ridiculous details in it and I'll put a few of them in this thread. (1/6)

Bernie Sanders publicly swears in Zohran Mamdani as NYC mayor

60 Minutes, dead at 57. The murder weapon was Bari Weiss.

News Team, Thank you for the notes and texts. I apologize for not reaching out earlier. I learned on Saturday that Bari Weiss spiked our story, INSIDE CECOT, which was supposed to air tonight. We (Ori and I) asked for a call to discuss her decision. She did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity. Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now-after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one. We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story. If the administration's refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we

have effectively handed them a "kill switch" for any reporting they find inconvenient. If the standard for airing a story becomes "the government must agree to be interviewed," then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state. These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless. CBS spiked the Jeffrey Wigand interview due to legal concerns, nearly destroying the credibility of this broadcast. It took years to recover from that "low point." By pulling this story to shield an administration, we are repeating that history, but for political optics rather than legal ones.

We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of "Gold Standard" reputation for a single week of political quiet. I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight. Sharyn

Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

Opinion | Obama Supported It. The Left in Canada and Norway Does. Why Don’t Democrats?

This Yglesias piece in the NYT is horrifically bad. Almost every "fact" it cites is provably false. At best it is cocktail party banter from a pundit who knows nothing of energy. At worst, it was cut/paste from oil industry talking points. So, a rebuttal: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/o...

😢

Trump Administration Aims to Strip More Foreign-Born Americans of Citizenship

What this will mean, in practice, that if you are deemed an enemy of the administration, they will pore through your citizenship application paperwork looking for some reason to retroactively disqualify you.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/u...

Wow, hard to imagine a world where rich people have access to the most expensive doctors and hospitals while the average person doesn't. Let's hope that Americans never have to worry about that happening.

This entire grift relies on convincing people that they don't know how to do the things they have always known how to do, and ironically, if it works, we will, in a very short amount of time, forget how to do all the things we have always known how to do.

This would be fucking hilarious if it wasn’t such a depressing sign of how deep in the sewer we are.

“OK, you can gerrymander to cheat in elections, but only if it hurts nonwhite voters.”

- US Supreme Court

supreme court to decide whether part of constitution is part of constitution

… and he SERVED ✨

Every legal story now is either

Ancient Circuit Judge Delivers Crystal Clear 100 Page Rebuke To Trumpist Overreach

or

In Unsigned Shadow Docket Decision, 6-3 Majority Declares Trump Can Hunt People For Sport

Senator Kelly is correct.

Plus a Public Service Announcement:

KEY section of Department of Defense's Law of War Manual is 18.3.2.1.

The VERY rule on the "requirement" to refuse illegal orders gives as its paradigmatic example of what is "clearly illegal:
"orders to fire upon the shipwrecked."

In case you’re wondering why Pete Hegseth is freaking out about a congressional video reminding the military not to participate in illegal orders: