@dearlstephens.bsky.social
Won journalism awards at ancient places called "newspapers" | Author | Columnist Raw Story, Alternet, Elsewhere | Navy Vet | Retired Managing Editor Stars & Stripes | Troublemaker | Animal-lover | https://dearlstephens.substack.com for my latest ...
Amen to that.
I’m telling y’all we could use more of that energy on this side of the pond. Decorum doesn’t work with Republicans who are steamrolling norms and daring Dems to fight back.
📌 Australian Greens Senator Nick McKim accuses his own government of “complicity” in what he calls an “illegal US-led war.”
🇺🇸 It's time to say goodbye to the Battleground State of Wisconsin after 15 years on the frontlines of the fight for our Democracy.
🇺🇸 Many thanks to the sturdy folks up here who are working like hell to restore order to this damn country.
🇺🇸 Now it's onto the Battleground State of N. Carolina.
✊🏼
📌We are ALL owed tariff checks. Why isn’t more being made of this?
The smarmy, upper-crust snot just oozes from this slimy wimp.
I have questions…
Why is the U.S. Treasury secretary doing media rounds about Trump’s war in the first place, then suddenly getting summoned into the Situation Room?
Clearly, Scott Bessent comes back looking shook.
If the war strategy is so solid, why yank him out of a live interview?
🗞️I spent the best 11 yrs. of my journalism career at Stars and Stripes. As an editorially independent newspaper that covers the troops for the troops, it is the most important paper in the U.S. and wholly American at our best.
Those troops are losing their most honest advocate, and are worse for it.
I thought he handled this well.
It's also worth repeating that Black folks are the only dependably patriotic group of people in this country, despite often times ghastly treatment by intellectually lazy people who have no damn idea how easy they have it.
They deserve our respect, and then some ...
Why is it controversial that Talarico earn the votes of Black folks just like any other demographic? Talarico himself says he wants to earn his previous opponent’s supporters “support,” but if you’ve been paying attention to the discourse on social the last week, a lot of folks have issues w/that.
🧵
Whisky Pete can’t keep his story straight.
Pete Hegseth is a damn disgrace to this country.
📌NEW: Trump is making ANOTHER run at finishing off Stars & Stripes, the editorially independent newspaper that has reported on the troops and their families since the Civil War.
This is outrageous, especially during a time of war, when troops deserve a paper they can trust, not WH propaganda.
Well, this was also an "excursion" in Trump's puffy, rat-red eyes:
Trump keeps calling his war on Iran an “excursion,” like it’s a sightseeing trip. You can almost hear the briefing where someone said “incursion,” and he just ran with the wrong word.
The people paid to advise him are either too afraid to step in or are just fine with him looking like a fool.
Trump keeps talking like he can just flip a switch and walk away from this war.
Meanwhile, retaliation has already started, with cyberattacks hitting U.S. companies.
This will be long-lasting even after the bombing stops.
📌Mortgage rates are rising again, along with gas, which means Big Oil, the banks, defense contractors, and Trump and his billionaires are all making tons more money.
Just in case you are wondering what the hell is REALLY going on here.
Trump is basically telling oil companies to go play chicken in a war zone.
Three commercial ships were just hit and any competent president would’ve known the risk before pushing tankers into the Strait of Hormuz.
Instead, we got: “I think they should use the strait.”
📌This abominable war cost taxpayers $11.3 billion in the first six days alone.
This, brought to you by the "no new wars" and "curb govt. spending" party.
We’re going to be living with Trump’s war for years to come.
🚨 Feds warned local police about potential Iranian retaliation on the West Coast.
Officials now say the drone reports may not be credible. That would be reassuring… if this administration hadn’t burned through public trust like gasoline.
You will, Cat.
📌Since returning to our White House, Trump has misplayed every card on his table, and is now turning that table upside down, and treating it like so many bottles of ketchup.
📌He is cornered, failing, and has taken himself hostage. He is capable of anything, because he is a completely incapable man.
oooops
Yep, he's a complete phony -- overcompensating for something.
Not sure what it is ...
As a congressman, Markwayne Mullin made not one but two solo trips to Afghanistan, ignoring State Department warnings so he could play action hero.
He’s a former amateur MMA fighter, not a veteran.
If he’d been captured or injured, American troops would’ve had to risk their lives to bail him out.
📌NOTE: I am reading story after story saying Trump “miscalculated” his war in Iran, which makes the big damn assumption that this utter and complete moron “calculated” ANYTHING in the first place.
Stop acting like a 2-year-old and read what I typed again.
-Thanks
41% is right in line with the 41% who are wrecking this entire world.
Put me in the 54% who don’t approve of Trump’s illegal war.
Who’s with me? 🤚🏽
📌I don't believe we meant to hit that girls elementary school in Iran with a tomahawk missile.
I do believe that when we did, Hegseth and Trump decided to lie about it, somehow making this absolute atrocity even worse, and Americans less safe.
As always.
They hauled this same old, tired-ass trope in Virginia in November, and got walloped by 14.
They got NOTHING to run on.