Natasha L.

Whatever else is in the deal, agreeing to merely have a vote on ACA is a fig leaf. Even if it passes the Senate, it won't in the House, which also makes it an easy yes vote for the Senate Rs who might want to, defusing it as an attack on them.

It is a stupid ask even on Team Schumer's own terms.

The average SNAP benefit per month is $177 a person.

The average ACA benefit per month is up to $550 a person.

People want us to hold the line for a reason. This is not a matter of appealing to a base. It’s about people’s lives.

And working people want leaders whose word means something to them.

FBI fires, unfires, refires agents linked to Jack Smith probe The firings focus on personnel with connections to former special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of Trump and an earlier FBI investigation known as "Arctic Frost."

NEW: FBI fires, unfires, refires employees linked to Arctic Frost and Jack Smith probes.

Inside the clusterfuck:

www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus...

Like a Monty Python skit

1. Russia has a slightly bigger stockpile than the U.S.
2. No one has tested nukes aboveground since 1980.
3. Since 1998 only N. Korea has tested nukes (underground).
4. Obama launched the renovation of the U.S. stockpile. It's not complete; timeline stretches into the 2040s ($ is headed for $2T).

Trump administration limits number of refugees to 7,500 and they're mostly white South Africans The Trump administration is restricting the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. to 7,500 and they will be mostly white South Africans.

BREAKING: The Trump administration is restricting the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. to 7,500 and they will be mostly white South Africans.

Yeah, this is what I wrestle with -- a college freshman today was only nine when Trump first ran for president. They've grown up with him as a baseline, not an aberration.

"I asked ChatGPT" "I asked Grok" ok well I asked Gandalf and he said he has not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a witless worm

Serious question: Why can’t news organization put “illegally” in headlines?!

“Pentagon Illegally Uses $130 Million Donation to Pay Troops” is an entirely obvious and true headline. There’s no scenario where is this legal. There’s no sense in this headline that this is wildly corrupt and wrong.

File this under “essential function.” 🤡

#Shutdown
abcnews.go.com/Politics/liv...

Nothing says “land of the free” like armed agents of the state saying “show me your papers if you want your daughter back” bsky.app/profile/nbcb...

On left

Rubio 2016: "We write to express grave concern about the campaign of extrajudicial killings...by the government of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte under the guise of his so-called 'War on Drugs.'"

On right

Rubio 2025: Praising presidential killing of alleged drug traffickers

Pritzker: "Any rational person who has spent even the most minimal amount of time studying human history has to ask themselves one important question: once they get the citizens of this nation comfortable with the current atrocities committed under the color of law, what comes next?"

As an American with British parents, I love this. Grew up with ribena, but the first time I came across the term "squash" was on a visit to the UK and I was also SO baffled.

I'm calling it the mail loneliness epidemic

States must ax transgender references from sex ed or risk losing funds, Trump admin says The mandate comes just days after the Trump administration terminated funding for a sex education program in California.

The Trump administration directs 40 states, five territories and Washington, D.C. to remove references to transgender people from their sex education programs or risk losing federal funding.

Does Not Rhyme
-through
-cough
-though
-rough
-bough

Does Rhyme
-pony
-bologna

Among all the other things, "The President has screwed things up so badly that the world's other rich countries won't deliver mail to us anymore" really should end it immediately.

Ominous: Trump and Stephen Miller are very clearly working to acclimate Americans to the spectacle of US troops in US cities, to the idea of the military carrying out domestic enforcement on US citizens.

Harrowing stuff from @vermontgmg.bsky.social in this exchange:

newrepublic.com/article/1995...

Japanese American groups blast use of Fort Bliss, former internment camp site, as ICE detention center “The use of national security rhetoric to justify mass incarceration today echoes the same logic that led to their forced removal and incarceration,” one advocate said.

“It was a miscarriage of justice then, and it is a miscarriage of justice now.”

History's not just rhyming

www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-a...

Luttig is communicating vastly more clearly and honestly about Roberts and Scotus than most Democratic officials are. It’s absolutely flabbergasting.

DOGE Targeted Him on Social Media. Then the Taliban Took His Family. Afghan scholar Mohammad Halimi, who fled the Taliban in 2021, had worked to help U.S. diplomats understand his homeland. Then DOGE put his family’s lives at risk by exposing his sensitive work for a U...

NEW: After DOGE outed Mohammad Halimi on social media, Taliban intelligence agents blindfolded and took three of his family members to a remote prison.

They were repeatedly beaten and questioned about Halimi and his recently publicized work for the United States.

AAP's New COVID Shot Recommendations Differ From CDC Advice COVID vaccine recommended for children ages 6 months to 2 years

Today: "For the first time in 30 years, the American Academy of Pediatrics...is substantially diverging from U.S. government vaccine recommendations."

🔹️"The AAP is strongly recommending COVID-19 shots for children ages 6 months to 2 years. Shots also...

1/3

www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdi...

Vladeck: There’s one video showing a DEA officer telling a D.C. resident he couldn’t drink alcohol on his porch—D.C. law says exactly the opposite. It also highlights how these officers aren’t even trained in the laws they’re purportedly enforcing.

👇👇

This is what fascism looks like — masked agents arriving, uninvited, at a governor’s event to intimidate a political rival. The idea that the Border Patrol would accept such a nakedly authoritarian assignment six months into the Trump admin should terrify us.

Autocratic leader, building on racist propaganda, falsehoods about crime data, and an alleged assault on a member of his extralegal office devoted to gutting the budget, moves to have federal armed personnel take direct control of the streets of the capital city.

White House Announces Comprehensive Review of Smithsonian Exhibitions

You can't teach U.S. history without "divisive" narratives. Slavery wasn't "unifying." The Japanese incarceration wasn't "unifying." The anti-immigrant Operation Wetback (real name) wasn't "unifying."
It's history's job to tell the truth, not cover up past racism to pave the way for future racism.

holy shit this is a helluva ad from the Democrat running against Joni Ernst in Iowa. worth every second

A senior administration official, as well as other officials, told Rolling Stone that it is a priority of Trump that these kinds of military deployments -- in times of relative calm -- become normalized in American political culture.

More: rollingstone.com/politics/pol...