Mike Nellis @MikeNellis "I'M NO LONGER CATHOLIC!" Hannity ABANDONS HIS FAITH for Trump NELLIS X.com • +*+

Amazing that in the national divorce the libs are getting the NFL, butter and cooking oil, being attracted to adult women, standup comedy, Bud Light, and now also Catholicism

It’s a brilliant tax because when they say “but the billionaires will leave” you get to say “they already don’t live there”

As wealth concentrates, so does power — the power to influence elections, shape policy, tilt markets and define the terms of public debate.

Taxing billionaires is not radical.

What is radical is allowing a system where extreme wealth exists alongside widespread hardship.

The Democrats' Path Forward: Become the Anti-Corruption Party But to reform the system they first need to reform the Democratic Party.

Here is a brief history of the many authoritarians taken down by anti-corruption movements and an outline for how Democrats can become an anti-corruption party.

This pattern holds a crucial lesson for America’s current moment. As democratic norms erode and elections become increasingly tilted, anti-corruption movements offer what partisan politics cannot: the moral authority to unite society against a rigged system. When traditional opposition fails, these movements succeed because they transcend party lines, mobilizing citizens around a cause larger than any candidate: the fundamental fairness of the system itself. Research shows that in polarized societies, the most effective opposition doesn’t fight on the traditional left-right battlefield where positions are entrenched. Instead, it creates an entirely new axis of conflict.1 Framing the stakes as clean versus corrupt shifts debate from rigid ideological divisions to a universally resonant moral question: are you on the side of the people or a corrupt elite?

Truth is, Orbán is just the latest in long list of authoritarians to be defeated by anti-corruption politics.

A Democratic landslide is possible if they can credibly take up the anti-corruption mantle. But that can’t happen if voters see them as corrupt and beholden to wealthy donors.

Table of Hungarian parliamentary seat projections from various pollsters, published between 22 Feb and 8 Apr 2026. Columns show publication date, polling date, projection source, pollster, and projected seats for each party, ending with majority size. Across every row, Péter Magyar’s Tisza Párt is projected to win a large majority — ranging from 106 to 141 seats — while Orbán’s Fidesz trails badly with between 52 and 87 seats. Most other parties (DK, MSZP, Zöldek, LMP, Mi Hazánk, etc.) are projected to win zero seats, with Mi Hazánk (MH) picking up 4–7. Tisza’s projected majority ranges from 7 to 42 seats. The most recent poll (Medián, 8 Apr 2026) shows the widest gap: Tisza 141, Fidesz 52, for a 42-seat majority.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Another Trump-endorsed foreign party cruising toward electoral disaster.

If Magyar’s Tisza lead holds, Orbán will become the latest authoritarian taken down by an anti-corruption movement.

What authoritarians fear most is an opposition with hands clean enough to credibly promise to clean house.

Introducing Congress Press – Derek Willis Academic and journalist

I first tried to build a collection of congressional press releases starting in 2013. I think I might have finally done it. Introducing Congress Press:

門份 Penn Wharton Budget Model UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA Q Home Estimates Data v Learning v Blog About v Contact v Table 1: FY 2025 Federal Outlays by Age Group Age Group Amount ($ Billions) Share of Total Outlays Share of Age-Assignable Memo: Per Capita Children & Young Adults (<26) $448.9 6.4% 10.3% $4,300 Working-Age Adults (26-64) $1,220.2 17.4% 27.9% $7,300 Retirees (65+) $2,708.6 38.6% 61.9% $43,700 All Ages Residual $2,632.2 37.5% Total $7,010.0 100.0% 100.0% • Notes, sources & data

I’m so glad somebody directly estimated this. It’s even more extreme on a per capita basis. The average American retiree gets more than 10x more public spending than the average young person.

YOU GUYS

WE WROTE A FUCKING BOOK

In the 2024 post-mortems, among the many groups we're told to wring hands were losing (whether to the right or the couch) are younger voters. Well...perhaps the writers of those missives, quick to dismiss this campaign, could take a deeper look.

Pentagon seeks more than $200 billion in budget request for Iran war That figure would far surpass the costs of the U.S. airstrike campaign to date and aims to boost production of critical weapons depleted in the conflict, people familiar with the matter said.

Trump wants $1,600 per household to pay for his "excursion" in Iran www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec... That's equal to 800 Minnesota fraud scandals.

The Democratic Party has a generational pipeline and participation problem, and a 26-year-old running her first campaign did more to address it than the entire party infrastructure.

For context: Abughazaleh ranked second only to AOC on new donors under 30 brought in by House candidates.

Horizontal bar chart showing new first-time Gen Z donors (under 30) by campaign, through 2025. Abughazaleh leads with 3,164, followed by the DSCC (1,880), DCCC (734), Jeffries (273), Biss (17), Fine (7), and Schumer (3). Abughazaleh's bar is highlighted in blue; all others are gray.

@katmabu.bsky.social narrowly lost the IL-09 primary last night. But here's a number worth sitting with. Her campaign brought in more first-time Gen Z donors than Jeffries, Schumer, the DSCC, and the DCCC, and her primary opponents combined. This is why campaigns like hers matter.

Pundits are adjusting their beliefs toward the political science, and that’s good

Read a wider range of views from @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social @adambonica.bsky.social @gelliottmorris.com @amandalitman.bsky.social @jenancona.bsky.social @rauchway.bsky.social @juliaserano.bsky.social @lilygeismer.bsky.social @danielle-wiggins.bsky.social @henryburke.bsky.social in our latest forum:

The Democrats' Path Forward: Become the Anti-Corruption Party But to reform the system they first need to reform the Democratic Party.

With a fixture (Clyburn) of both the Dem establishment that keeps losing elections and the party's gerontocracy in the news, worth coming back to this @adambonica.bsky.social piece. A better party is possible. data4democracy.substack.com/p/the-democr...

The only thing popularists fear more than an unpopular idea from the left is a popular one that might actually threaten billionaires.

These plots shows the highest-leverage policies that win back defectors on both the left and right:

- Increase pay for public sector
- Decrease cost of bus and train tickets
- Wealth tax on billionaires

and the winnable left bloc is bigger than the right

It’s not because the public is against it—only 20% of Americans oppose ICC membership. It’s because bipartisan opposition in the Senate makes it a non-starter, leaving the US to sit alongside authoritarian holdout states that don’t want accountability when their leaders start wars.

A functioning opposition party would respond to this moment by committing to join the ICC when they return to power.

Democrats won’t. And it’s for the same reason they failed to hold Trump accountable after Jan 6. Shielding elites from accountability is a depressingly bipartisan project in DC.

An Exceptional Failure of Democratic Accountability: How American Institutions Protected Power While Global Democracies Upheld Justice How Elite Deference Eroded America's Rule of Law, Defying the Global Norm.

Here is the comparative data.

Strongly recommend this excellent piece. It actually understates the US failure: Brazil and S. Korea aren’t outliers. Quite the opposite. Since 2010, 31 democracies have convicted or banned leaders from office. Accountability is the democratic norm. America is the sole outlier.

Opinion | The Iranian Regime Has Committed a Massacre (Gift Article) We surveyed medical workers across 14 cities and 11 provinces in Iran about their experiences treating wounded protesters.

This is devastating, tragic, and powerful reporting. Underneath it all, it’s remarkable to see what Iranians will risk to be free.

A reminder of how much we have left to lose and why it’s worth fighting for—and that once we reclaim our democracy, we’ll have an obligation to help others do the same.

Coups generally succeed on second or third attempts.

(Comparativists know this)

Meet America’s new swing voter: The anti-system voter. (Or: Why Democrats should think through nominating AOC in 2028) A new paper finds anti-system sentiment — not left-right ideology — decided the 2016 and 2024 elections

Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2024 because anti-system voters flocked to him.

Democrats need a strategy for competing with anti-system voters in 2028.

This is, in some ways, a very strong case for nominating someone like AOC over Newsom.

www.gelliottmorris.com/p/meet-ameri...

My undergrads are so damn good. Not in their taste in music so much, but in their dedication to social science and moral commitments. Really tired of how they get unfairly maligned by the punditry.

Instead of Pandering, Democrats Should Try Changing Voters’ Minds How can the party of liberalism make liberal ideas more popular? By creating a more liberal electorate. Yes, it can be done. Here are five ways how.

"Democratic politicians urgently need to adopt the GOP view of public opinion—that it’s movable, and it’s their job to move it." newrepublic.com/article/2058...

This tracks closely with the argument I’ve made about the U.S.: scarcity is litigated, not regulated.

Civil law countries have much more regulation but far fewer lawsuits. The housing crisis isn’t about too many rules; it’s about who can afford to sue over them.

Americans think everyone is corrupt Matthew Yglesias

weird that americans think corruption is rampant, where would they get such a wacky idea

Epstiarchy (n.) — a corrupt system of rule in which oligarchs maintain power through extreme wealth, mutual protection, and the capture or abuse of legal and political institutions; marked by egregious crimes that are widely known yet go unpunished.

Syn: The Epstein Class; Oligarchs of the Island