Alan Elrod

On today’s #DogShirtTV, @benjaminwittes.lawfaremedia.org & @hollybfletcher.bsky.social welcome Alan Elrod @aselrod.bsky.social to discuss deployment of the #NationalGuard in US cities, the difference between grassroots & elite political participation, & the importance of just showing up.

“No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”

Just go ahead and delete article 1 entirely while you’re at it.

lol an evil version of The Dude is a great image

I think Bondi’s behavior was absurd and that she’s nakedly corrupt and authoritarian, but I do think she’s competent. I wouldn’t rate her as the most dangerous but would rate her as competent

Pam Bondi has not contributed a single good thing to American life in her entire career

It strikes me as highly plausible that Pam Bondi should be in jail.

And I hope that that happens someday.

'as the descendant of early homo sapiens, my family understands what it is to struggle'

an underrated part of the Bari Weiss story is that her wife is a California heiress to two different family dynasties.

www.latimes.com/business/sto...

In a well-functioning liberal society with any semblance of self-respect, Bondi would be png in every law firm and office in the country.

What a contemptible joke it is that she is our AG.

YouTube video by The Bulwark Stephen Miller’s Posts Are Getting UNHINGED

This is what I'm talking about- Stephen Miller doesn't sound like a confident authoritarian but a hysteric shouting about inanities
@radiofreetom.bsky.social @aselrod.bsky.social @jamellebouie.net
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTmW...

Yes!

There's this claim that Memphis is a deadly warzone but I *live here.* I walk around freely with no fear even (especially) late at night. I've been the victim of property crime twice, and both times were in the suburbs (Bartlett and Cordova).

The "inner-city war zones" do. Not. Exist.

All of Boston will have an opinion about this

fellas is it gay to live in a city

Iconic “YOU HAVE NO FRAME OF REFERENCE” scene from The Big Lebowski

We are Donny

lol true

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Thread

I don’t mean this in an “up is down” sense, though certainly that’s applicable.

I’m trying to say we are off book in some ways, to use a chess term.

I think that’s true in some cases, even many cases.

But I also think a lot of the media is just not putting the picture together and is itself trapped in a fantasy version of the country.

Part of that fantasy is that things aren’t as bad as they are.

I worry that very few of us have a model for reality right now that really fits what’s happening, myself included.

Some of that is ideological (good and bad) or wishful thinking (natural). But it’s also that things are shifting all the time, and there’s no perfect map for where we are.

Things are getting worse. Lower courts are holding the line in many cases but the Supreme Court is not—on top of that, it’s a stinking bog of corruption and compromised legitimacy.

People are still being denied rights. The Constitution is not in effect. And the GOP is aiming to rig 2026.

On the flip side of this, I’m also concerned that some on the pro-democracy side are imagining an America that—more tragically—also does not exist.

Trump has not won, and he can be beaten. Authoritarianism isn’t consolidated. But we are also in a very different place than 2020 or 2024.

perhaps the biggest story TFPever ran was a catastrophically shoddy argument that George Floyd ackshully died of an overdose. When confronted with irrefutable evidence that the piece was simply wrong, Weiss didn’t take it down, she asked her critic, @radleybalko.bsky.social, to come on a podcast.

Wise words

These two things are of a piece, even if the motivations and details differ.

Trump’s justification for his authoritarian crackdown is an America that doesn’t exist.

@lizzieohreally.bsky.social

“.. On closer inspection, however, it turned out that the image was not a photograph of a real event in Portland, but instead a fabrication created by combining two photographs of scenes that unfolded in South America nearly a decade apart ..”

@theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

This picture is from 1992 in LA and using it in this post and story shows terrible news judgment.

The Supreme Court’s First Blockbuster Case This Term Looks Pretty Fake On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Chiles v. Salazar, a case that seeks to undo a major triumph of the LGBTQ+ movement.

I'm sorry but how does this person have standing to challenge Colorado's ban on LGBTQ conversion therapy when she has explicitly disclaimed any desire to change a patient's sexual orientation or gender identity? How is this a real case? slate.com/news-and-pol...

When in Doubt, Blame the Immigrants No. You’re not experiencing déjà vu. The current Republican government shutdown talking point is the same one they’ve trotted out before.

"Asked yesterday whether he would consider pardoning Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell—who has been publicly petitioning him for a pardon for months—Trump didn’t rule it out. 'I’ll look at it.'”

www.thebulwark.com/p/when-in-do...