Meredith

We are seven months in, and the speed with which vital civic institutions are capitulating to authoritarian demands we once would have regarded as inconceivable in an established liberal democracy is jawdropping. I hadn't thought I was polyannaish about America, but it's really stunning.

Donald Trump bombed Iran tonight, not because they are about to have nuclear weapons (they are not), but because he needed a distraction from his tanking poll numbers and his deeply unpopular "Big Beautiful Bill."

He doesn't care who gets killed, Iranians or Americans, to help HIM.

Did staffing cuts at weather service affect Kentucky’s tornado response? Due to staffing shortages, the National Weather Service in Jackson no longer has overnight staff. But NWS and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear say the office was staffed Friday night and early Saturday.

"Some National Weather Service offices, including Jackson, no longer have overnight staff from midnight to 7AM.

All three Kentucky offices - Jackson, Paducah and Louisville - are short-staffed.

There is no meteorologist in charge at any of the three offices..."

www.kentucky.com/news/state/k...

Whoa! New polling shows that a majority of voters in EVERY SINGLE CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT oppose cuts to Medicaid.

Members of Congress should take note.

☎️ Flood the Capitol switchboard to voice your opposition to the bill from hell. 202-224-3121.

Defend Medicaid!
Defeat Cancer!

Pedro Pascal reshares video which says the U.S. has become a police state
A state where there is no higher authority

Happy tariff capitulation day to all who celebrate.

EXCLUSIVE: We dug up a video of Donald Trump trashing Qatar in 2017 calling them “funders of terrorism.” I’m sure he would hate if this clip changed their mind to give him a $400 million plane - so definitely don’t repost it.

Taking a bribe in a very public way doesn't mean you aren't corrupt, it means your corruption is shameless.

"There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people."
- Commander William Adama, Battlestar Galactica

Then They Came for "Habeas Corpus" Perhaps we should take this both literally and seriously: “Top White House adviser Stephen Miller says 'we're actively looking at' suspending due process for migrants”

Perhaps we should take this both literally and seriously: “Top White House adviser Stephen Miller says 'we're actively looking at' suspending due process for migrants”
open.substack.com/pub/charlies...

this internet was a mistake, but sometimes it’s the best thing ever created

I think we get used to stuff, like the proverbial frog in the pot, and lose track of how absolutely humiliating it is to have a belligerent, altered buffoon representing our nation and spewing gibberish on the world stage. But sitting him next to a normal person brings it home.

Caitlin Clark from the Iowa - Minnesota border "YOU BET"

TEXAS VOTERS PUNISH BOOK BANNERS AT THE POLLS This was a statement election.

My write-up of Saturday night's shellacking of Texas book banners. This was a statement election: Lawmakers, pay attention. substack.com/home/post/p-...

I never thought I’d say this, but thank you Donald Trump.

Jimmy Carter had to get rid of his peanut farm because it might look like he made an unseemly profit from being president. But Donald Trump is being allowed to shake down foreign countries to personally pay him protection money with his cryptocurrency to stave off his insane, illegal tariffs.

Wearing a bright blue suit, texting, and then sleeping at Pope Francis’s funeral. What an embarrassing mess.

❗️Brendan Carr, the Chairman of the FCC who is in charge of regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable in all 50 states is wearing a pin of Trump on his lapel. 👇🏼

Trump Finally Met an Adversary Totally Immune to His Bullshit And it’s not the Supreme Court.

"The bond market is not like the Supreme Court, or Paul Weiss, or Columbia University, or any of the other institutions Trump has conquered, co-opted, or corrupted."

"He cannot scare it into submission. He cannot bribe it."

from @jvl.bsky.social

www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-fina...

So basically he moved the deck chairs around a little.

This seems right, and all of this is WRONG.

In case you're wondering...

it's been 17 days since a reporter was added to a Signal group chat where our government officials were sharing war plans.

And nobody has been fired...

Don't stop talking about SignalGate

Rep. RASKIN: The DOJ tried stopping you from coming today. They sent two armed marshals to your home to intimidate you. Why did you decide to come?

Former DOJ pardon attorney: I don’t want to be complicit in the misuse of Justice Department resources to do political favors.

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon: “This administration is employing the tactics used by authoritarian regimes to crack down on those who defend the rule of law… democracy doesn’t only die in darkness, it also dies with silence or acquiescence.”

Trump’s Latest Executive Order is a Sham—and a Warning From Marc | The greatest threat to Donald Trump’s authoritarian dream is not the courts — it is free and fair elections.

If, as Mario Cuomo once said, “You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose,” then Trump issues executive orders as performance art. Like many of his others, this order is confused, rhetorical and — in places — nonsensical. It asserts facts that are not true and claims authority he does not possess.

Part of why elections in the US are so secure is because they’re run by 10,000 local jurisdictions like mine.

Trying to rig an election is like trying to rob every bank in America at the same time

To rig American elections, you need to federalize them. The President’s new EO is doing just that.

Trump signs order seeking to overhaul US elections, including requiring proof of citizenship President Donald Trump has signed a sweeping executive action to overhaul elections in the United States.

Now Trump wants to make it HARDER to vote if your name doesn’t exactly match on every doc?? That hits married folks who change their names, disaster survivors who lost paperwork, and so many others. This ain’t about security—it’s suppression.

If Dems fail to make Signal leak an incessant story demanding resignations/impeachment, it would be a mirror image of Benghazi, her emails, etc. In face of GOP zone-flooding, Dems cowered instead of calling bullshit; now when GOP says Signal leak is NBD, a failure to push back would be catastrophic.

Just last month, the NSA warned against using Signal for sensitive government discussions because Russian hackers have access to it.

So Steve Witkoff uses Signal for sensitive discussion *while in* Russia?