Elise Bjørkan Viksaas

Still dreaming of the day when daycare is fully funded - and the Pentagon is running bake sales to cover its needs.

Explore Financial Disclosures From President Trump and 1,500 of His Appointees - ProPublica Use this database to explore potential conflicts of interest for President Donald Trump and his team. The documents disclose positions officials have held outside government, their assets and their de...

NEW: Over the past year, we've been collecting thousands of financial disclosure documents from across the Trump administration. Now we're making them searchable. Look up names, assets, former employers across 1,500+ Trump appointees and 3,000+ ethics documents.

I’ve spent years, decades, obsessing over the Bush Administration’s Iraq WMD lies, writing about them, debunking them.

I can think of no lie about Iraq WMDs told by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al that comes even close to the enormity and absurdity of this lie from Donald Trump.

The video of a United States Senator joining the violent removal of U.S. marine from a hearing and hideously breaking his arm in a door is an example of what has been unleashed in this country. They’re tapping in to get in on the violence.
And then he bragged about it on X later.

Historian here history first time as tragedy the second time as farce.

In 1966 the New Jersey Young Republicans gleefully sang racist and antisemitic songs at their gatherings. The lyrics to one went “Riding the Reich in my Mercedes Benz, shooting every kike, saving all my friends." Hartford Courant, 13 February 1966.

British female athletes asked to pay for own £185 sex tests World Athletics requires women to complete test to enter competition but has removed financial support and UK Athletics is making athletes cover cost

👇Well that certainly should help further women's sports..../s😥

www.thetimes.com/article/3b2b...

Kristi Noem misattributing a paraphrase of Rudyard Kipling to George Orwell really does sum it all up huh

very aspect of life in this country is designed so that people do not form bonds or relationships with other people, it's wild to watch in action. Never seen divide and conquer applied this rigorously to a domestic population that is not under foreign occupation

Very strong statement from the First Lady of Iraq:

The Iranian ship was unarmed. Invited to be part of a naval exercise where the US was supposed to participate. The US pulled out. Sank the ship. Refused to rescue drowning survivors.

👇Jesus.... 😰

I don't know if this is true. I have not seen it anywhere else. But it could be.

🧵🧵🧵 Here's a thread with examples of the unfitness of Markwayne Mullin, Trump's choice to succeed Kristi Noem as Homeland Security secretary. 🧵🧵🧵

There's a definite possibility that AI incorrectly targeted a school for a missile strike and killed 160 children

🧶Knitters are dressing the over 120 public sculptures of naked women.

484 monuments in Denmark depict historically significant men. Women, only 43.

But: over 120 public sculptures are female nudes.

Dressing them draws creative attention to the discrepancy.

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/a...

The American King Goes to War This is not what the Founders intended.

The constitution's design does not grant the president a kinglike ability to take the country to war by himself, lest he do so for self-serving reasons. That is the entire purpose of dividing that authority between POTUS and Congress. Guess what just happened? www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Trump Brings America Closer to a Quagmire in Iran with No Clear End in Mind Trump’s second-term foreign policy is “strikes without strategy,” a fixation on military operations conducted in the absence of a longer-term idea.

Trump Brings America Closer to a Quagmire in Iran with No Clear End in Mind " If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there, and it will likely lead you astray" .. smart, smart analysis open.substack.com/pub/contrari...

I admit to skimming @stephenrodrick.bsky.social ‘s article online. But as with most things, in print it’s even more meaningful and impossible to put down. It’s a must-read,funny,honest, and painful tribute to a dedicated public servant murdered because she cared. www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

The public and commentators need to stop thinking about "wars for oil" as about securing oil for the U.S., it's been decades since that was a motivator. "Wars for oil" are instead about securing oil for oil companies, securing a fossil fueled global economy, and denying oil's wealth to "enemies."

Also “used slurs to talk about Jewish and gay people and mused about Hitler’s politics.”

Pete Hegseth Treats Fallen American Soldiers as a PR Problem His use of the Iran war dead to attack the media was disgraceful.

Still agog at this (beyond my baseline agog) www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

This morning @status.news produces a long list of his attacks on press freedom before asking:

"Should the WHCA treat Trump as just another president participating in a century-old Washington tradition—or as someone who blatantly attacks First Amendment freedoms at every turn?"

Read to remember...

Great read from @aselrod.bsky.social on Trump lingering lovingly over descriptions of violence and death.

"This obsession with the body—and particularly with the body as the subject of serious injury, even death—is a hallmark of right-wing politics in America."

The lifeblood of MAGA is sadism.

As the circumstances surrounding the US sinking of the Iranian ship become clearer, it seems the White House position is that we are now at liberty to kill any uniformed Iranian forces, even if unarmed, at great distance from the theater of operations and posing no threat. 1/2

Eight Times the U.S. Has Betrayed the Kurds Nothing in this world is certain except death, taxes, and America betraying the Kurds.

Everything always works out just great for the Kurds. theintercept.com/2019/10/07/k...

among other things, it's very very funny to imagine Trump having granular knowledge and strong opinions about various obscure Iranian regime figures possibly in the running.

I, too, think tens of thousands of people should go to prison because sometimes I smell something I don't like

online MAGA men are falling for the AI creation "Jessica Foster," who is a combination US Army adviser to Trump and foot fetish model. The character already has nearly a million Instagram followers.

If Donald asks Zelensky for anti drone systems, he better wear a suit, ask nicely and say thank you.