Thread. Campaign fundraising state of play. Billionaire donors are still on board with Trump & Republicans, & can pour unlimited funds into this year’s midterms. But individual Democratic candidates (some of them running in party primaries) have done well raising early money. By @stphnfwlr.com
Trump can walk away, in the sense of not paying attention. But he’ll leave the Navy stuck on guard duty on the other side of the world, indefinitely. Or he could give the Iranians what they want and try to spin that as a victory, as he moves into his next crisis — Cuba, maybe, or an ICE surge.
When I first heard this news yesterday, my thought was that Trump was upset by the Hormuz situation and must have demanded Hegseth fire someone. Hegseth had already fired all the blacks and women, so Phelan was the one to go.
The Trump Justice Department, led by a Trump lawyer, attempts to prosecute @splcenter.org, which has often criticized Trump. The charges involve SPLC investigations of white-right groups, many of which love Trump. @philinvestigates.com has gotten to know some of these groups well himself.
bsky.app/profile/frit...
While we're talking percentages, let's talk about the proposed cuts to NASA's science budget.
NASA is currently 0.36% of US federal spending. www.planetary.org/space-policy...
The proposed budget cuts NASA science by 47%.
NASA science is already on a shoestring, and that string is about to break
Maybe this is just another aspect of a personality cult, itself a new thing in American national politics.
Trump is liberated from having to make statements that make logical sense by the knowledge that at least a third of Americans will accept anything he says.
Thread. I have nothing to add to @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social’s summary here of taxpayer dollars being used as a payoff for loyalty ti Trump personally.
I was trying to recall where I’d heard that name.
#BREAKING: Secretary of the Navy John C. Phelan is departing the administration, effective immediately.
The Florida orange crop has collapsed 95 percent in 20 years, headed for a century-low 12 million boxes. 100 percent of the trees are infected with a disease transmitted by an invasive Chinese bug, and deemed "incurable."
Who killed the Florida Orange? slate.com/business/202...
80 year old congressman David Scott has died after serving in the House for 23 years.
He is the fourth Democratic congressperson age 70+ to die in office since 2025.
Few “people in charge” (or the people reporting on the “people in charge,” and certainly not the people they work for) are more than trivially inconvenienced by the Strait of Hormuz blockage. This mutes their voices.
Also muted are tens of millions of Iranians, for whom this war is a disaster.
The Trump Justice Department, led by a Trump lawyer, attempts to prosecute @splcenter.org, which has often criticized Trump. The charges involve SPLC investigations of white-right groups, many of which love Trump. @philinvestigates.com has gotten to know some of these groups well himself.
A group of Ecuadorian fishermen survived a US drone strike, were detained at gunpoint, phones wiped, ship blown up, disappeared to El Salvador, then released without charge. “They knew we were fishermen. Even the Salvadorian authorities said things had been handled very badly.”
Every day, a new infamy.
Republicans campaigned for years against President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. Now they want to honor Afghans who supported the US war effort by shipping them to the Congo or to the Taliban — anywhere but the United States. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...
Well, she’s not wrong.
The relation of politics to popular entertainment may be different now than it was years ago. I seem to see a lot of analogies made in political commentary to movies and TV shows (many of which I have not seen) today, something I don’t remember happening a lot in the last century.
A distant chokepoint just became South Korea's most urgent security problem. The U.S.-South Korean alliance was not built for that.
No, we haven’t. American voters flat forgot about their relatives and neighbors dying by the thousands every day, and went back to Trump.
It’s possible this time will be different. I have hope, but not high confidence.
Thirteen U.S. troops died trying to get these people to safety — Afghan interpreters, soldiers, and the families of our service members. Veterans spent sleepless nights during the chaotic withdrawal fighting to keep them alive. Now our own government is going to abandon them.
Besides, the record suggests that TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) really should be
TOCO (Trump Often Chickens Out) or perhaps
TUCO (Trump Usually Chickens Out).
To be sure of Trump chickening out he must fear consequences: losses to Trump businesses, a stock Market crash, or many US deaths.
Interesting thread, thanks for posting.
What a strange omission. I wonder if NYT also omitted the revenues UAE is getting from gold mined in Darfur.
Wisconsin story. Daniel Bice was a pillar of journalism in Wisconsin, and about the best-sourced political reporter in the state. His passing is untimely and saddening. My deepest condolences to his family and many friends. (Via @francescahongwi.bsky.social)
A snapshot of party fundraising, from @davidrussellmoore.bsky.social at @sludge.bsky.social. Democrats are doing well with direct campaign fundraising, but Republican billionaires give their PACs huge advantages over those aligned with Democrats.
More than 77 million Americans voted for this: a President who started a major war on a whim, and is now in so far over his head he could touch bottom with a pole five miles long. @cnn.com reporting via @lkrozen.bsky.social
Three down. Lori Chavez DeRemer’s misconduct allegedly included: an affair with a member of her security detail; use of staff for personal errands; and a husband & father who both harassed Labor Department employees.
Apart from all that, she was a lousy Labor Secretary & a loyal Trump supporter.
This same conversation has happened with so many other Trump appointees and Republican politicians. They have to avoid saying yes. It might make their leader angry. If their leader is angry, some of the chumps who support him might get angry.
In cold climates, a homeowner can get in a lot of trouble if his contractor guesses about load and undersizes a heat pump. If the contractor guesses and oversizes, the homeowner will face a more expensive install (way more expensive with geothermal) and a less efficient system.