Sean Hecht

Can we give some props to Dieter Ruhle, who has been absolutely stellar on that organ throughout this entire game?

Imagine what would have happened if Biden or Obama sent masked goons into deep red neighborhoods in Texas or Florida and they started grabbing people off the street and teargassing anyone who objected

Imagine being 17, your little brother by your side, begging to speak to your dad as he’s dragged away. You may never see him again. And this is every day. Soul shattering, nightmarish stuff, never to be forgiven.

approximately seven million people were out in the streets protesting last week. these people need to grow a spine. www.ft.com/content/1377...

Yes. Also, this is a case where we can just ask ourselves whether Douthat could possibly have written a column defending the identical decision by a Democratic president, and the answer is obvious. He was grasping for a way to justify the decision & criticize its critics, and came up with this one.

Absolute immunity from criminal law is non-existent under American law. Even SCOTUS's decision in Trump v US limits presidential immunity to "official acts." States have prosecuted federal officials for violations of state law for over 200 years. 1/

What he means is, of course, impunity. Mot immunity. Let’s work to make sure he’s wrong about the impunity thing, though it seems like in the short run that is what’s happening. guide-humanitarian-law.org/content/arti...

Thread with more analysis here bsky.app/profile/core...

Just to be clear, “federal immunity,” as used here, is not an actual legal thing.

Trying to backfill a coherent and beneficial strategy from their nonsense is like assuming the dead person in the bathtub was a certified toaster scientist and testing to see if they are waterproof

"normies do not care about this thing and so it is no use raising a stink" is imho just an excuse for not doing politics, which is the job of making normies care about something

This seems to be the most damning thing out there—doesn’t seem to leave any doubt at all. bsky.app/profile/purp...

It flies under the radar because it is overwhelmed by the sheer repulsiveness of the physical destruction of the east wing, but there is no way that a president should be allowed to use private money to change public property. It circumvents the power of the purse.

Absolutely wild that this is where we are today.

Ernst to Biden-Harris SBA: Stop Playing Politics, Picking Winners and Losers Read the release on Sen. Ernst's website HERE. WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee Ranking Member Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) blasted the Biden-Harris Small Business...

I’m old enough to remember when Republican electeds said things like “The levers of government should never be used to pick winners and losers based on political priorities.” One example of many www.sbc.senate.gov/public/index...

Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory An intensive international study was coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC

"Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory"

www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

Teen removed from boys basketball tryouts, told to join girls team over birth certificate error The boy's parents say a mix-up at the hospital led to him being mistakenly listed as female on his birth certificate.

Incredible scenes.

www.wdbj7.com/2025/10/19/t...

Trump Said to Demand Justice Dept. Pay Him $230 Million for Past Cases

This is among the most corrupt things a president has ever suggested, and I hope the press treats it that way. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/u...

I was just answering the question you had asked. If you’re not interested in that answer, that’s fine with me.

It’s that it’s precisely a specific tattoo associated with the SS. bsky.app/profile/fain...

(Satire also of the tax politics of California since Prop 13 passed in the 1970s)

1994 California Proposition 187 - Wikipedia

It was prescient in a way, but also a very contemporary satire of the politics of the 1990s. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Ca...

Judge Nelson seems to agree in his concurrence that the power is limitless, FWIW.

Rubio promised to betray U.S. informants to get Trump’s El Salvador prison deal To secure U.S. access to President Nayib Bukele’s notorious CECOT prison, Rubio agreed to turn over several MS-13 leaders central to a long-running Justice Department investigation.

This story is extraordinary even by 2025 standards. Marco Rubio, the nation's top diplomat, made a deal with Bukele and agreed to renege on informant agreements in a years-long DOJ investigation into MS-13, totally undercutting credibility of such agreements.

www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

ZERO arrests at No Kings in NYC. (And the NYPD isn’t notorious for being sympathetic with people anti-Trump.)

This proves what shameless liars Speaker Mike Johnson & Karoline Leavitt are to slander the participants as violent anarchists.

Text from NYT article: Estimating the size of a gathering is an inexact science. There are techniques and best attempts that may approach accuracy, but determining how many people are attending an open event is difficult. And, typically that is not the focus of our reporting. We cover the action, the people, the mood and, yes, the scope. But rather than counting heads, we encourage reporters to describe what they see: "Marchers filled 15 blocks," "jammed the streets" and "packed so tightly at times that they could barely move." Our photo and video teams add a visual layer that lets readers see for themselves.

Text from NYT article: What the White House had initially planned as a celebration of the country's 250th birthday and of the might of the Marines became half of a revealing split-screen: As the likely heir of Mr. Trump's political movement showcased the power of the military over the objections of a state governor, thousands of people across the country protested a president they accused of using his power like a king. [“thousands” highlighted in the post]

How it started, how it’s going

Vance Flexes the Marines’ Might as Thousand Protest Trump’s Agenda VP JD Vance’s trips o a military base in California illustrated rising tensions between the federal government and Democratic leaders

This is quite a hed/subhed.
1) Start with Vance. Use strong action verb. Accept the autocratic premise that the “Marines’ Might” are Vance’s to flex.
2) Mention the protest second and absurdly describe them as in the thousands
3) Treat Trump’s strong man use of the military as a partisan scuffle.

Trump posts AI video showing him literally dumping shit on America

Los Angeles came out in droves. #NoKings

This was 100% the right decision. Now it's up to South Coast AQMD to do what's right advance the strongest actions to protect communities using all tools available.