Ben Thomas

…in case we had remaining questions about this admin’s ethics…

Ossoff: "Among today's false prophets are the election deniers who indulge this president's obsession with overturning the 2020 election. Hear me when I say this -- they tell a lie so absurd, and therefore so debasing, that the act of telling it proves the teller's total and humiliating submission."

Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted child sex trafficker, gets gardening time, sports, therapy dogs, and spa products in prison.

Migrant children in custody are sleeping on concrete floors without enough food or clean water.

Our priorities are so fucked.

These people are either stupid or believe you are, probably both

When someone repeatedly lies to us, we shouldn’t believe him

Analysis: Trump’s damage is done. Democrats – and Europe – are struggling to define what’s next | CNN Politics Democratic presidential hopefuls descended on the Munich Security Conference over the weekend as they might normally flood Des Moines, Iowa, or Manchester, New Hampshire. They found a Europe that’s al...

This time, CNN actually gets it right. No matter what happens in the mid-terms or in 2028, the era that saw the United States as the leader of the free world has ended. We have gone from beacon of hope to pariah, from advocate for democracy to fellow traveler with despots.

This is Trump's America.

We are responsible for this

We elected fools to enrich themselves and destroy us.

FBI Interviewed Trump Accuser, Epstein Files Show Trump was credibly accused of sexual assault in the Epstein files. It's unclear what became of the DOJ's investigation.

Trump was credibly accused of sexual assault in the Epstein files. It's unclear what became of the DOJ's investigation.

Devastated to learn that Univ of Texas at Austin is closing the American Studies dept. The years I spent there earning my PhD were formative, making me the teacher, thinker, and writer I am today. I've passed on what I learned at UT to thousands of students over the past 20 years. Just awful.

Tom Homan went on TV and boasted about the number of children they have arrested and detained.

Widen Your Lens Looking Ahead to November 2026

“These sorts of events are common in the rest of the world…At some point, the conversation is not about whether the proto-autocrat can legally do something. It’s whether those around him allow him to try, and whether the opposition has the means to stop it.”

open.substack.com/pub/rorytrue...

Call US Senators and tell them to vote against the SAVE Act. It has already passed the US House. In its current form, it means that 100 years after women earned the right to vote, we are facing down the implementation of a 21st century poll tax for women.

Obama: "The rogue behavior of agents of the federal government is deeply concerning and dangerous ... the sort of behavior that we've seen in authoritarian countries and we've seen in dictatorships, but we have not seen in America."

and have abandoned nearly the entire Bill of Rights to enable ICE

A dark interior corridor inside a brick prisoner barrack at the site of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Three-level bunks line both sides of the narrow passage, and a small window at the far end lets in faint light.

📷 Inside a brick barracks for prisoners of Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/rosswhyphoto

▶ Watch a short video about the barracks for prisoners at Auschwitz II-Birkenau: https://youtu.be/m0PGSIoCgKY

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT STORY BRITAIN & NATO CANNOT HIDE FROM

I was very aware of this but the embargo was only lifted Friday and it has huge implications.
A real life war game where a new Ukrainian brigade took on a British one ended up with the British wiped out ‘in extraordinary quick time’.
The

aside from everything else saying this in a country whose population was nearly halved during the 30 years war following the reformation is a decision, and tells you a lot about how genuine these people's appeals to history are

their fight is for an phantasm, though we already knew that

As a former public defender who represented thousands of people, I can’t stop thinking about the contrast the Epstein files raise.

I watched 1000s face swift, devastating punishment for far less serious conduct — poor, marginalized, & presumed dangerous from the start.

U.S. Deports Nine Migrants in Secret, Ignoring Legal Protections

“In a secret deportation arrangement, the Trump administration flew nine people, nearly all of whom had been granted U.S. court protections from being sent back to their home countries, to the African nation of Cameroon in January…
The United States has not made any public deal with Cameroon.”

Sadly, ICE learned what not to do in Minnesota… they have not left… but are spreading out in disguise tricking and nabbing people before we can respond. We need a new plan….

Trump tells soldiers to vote GOP in campaign-style rally at Fort Bragg Army policy prohibits partisan displays, and most service members refrained from cheering.

Trump can fly to Bragg, give a campaign rally in front of uniformed troops, and tell them how to vote—and that’s just “patriotic.” But 6 veterans in Congress remind the same troops they must refuse illegal orders, and his DOJ tries to brand it sedition. It’s authoritarian hypocrisy.

The Kids Trump Sent to ICE’s Dilley Detention Center ProPublica went inside the immigrant detention center for families in Dilley, Texas. Children held there told us about the anguish of being ripped from their lives in the United States and the fear of...

12-year-old Ender wrote that when she felt sick at Dilley, the doctor would only say to drink more water.

“The worst thing is that it seems like the water is what makes people sick here,” she wrote in her letter.

By @micarosenberg.bsky.social

Geolocating Trump's Gulag Archipelago DetentionReports.com now includes an interactive map of all 237 ICE detention facilities, comparative scatter plots, & publicly available contracts archive. Designed to support empirical research and institutional accountability.

The ICE surge in Minnesota cost $280M of our tax money, to detain 4k people of whom only 30 were accused of violent crimes, plus another 530 with minor traffic violations.

$9 million per capture of the "worst of the worst". Plus two civilian deaths. Trump is REALLY BAD at this.

Ofelia Torres, the teenage Chicago Public Schools student whose fight against cancer while her father was detained by ICE came to represent the federal government's overreach during Operation Midway Blitz, has died. Brave young woman. I will never forget her. RIP.

NEW
DOJ just sent Congress a letter explaining why it redacted parts of the Epstein files. The six-page memo also includes a list of “government officials and politically exposed persons” named in the material.

I did this but in a military aircraft with no windows in the cargo bay. Glad to finally see what I missed.

Donald Trump has produced the lowest GDP growth of any President in the last 80 years.

I wonder if any of the Lakers’ rising talent are immigrants…