The apparent theory here--SPLC was defrauding donors by paying right-wing extremist org informants, and also took completely legal steps for obscuring the money trail for very obvious reasons on this totally legal thing to do--is ludicrous even by the notoriously malleable standard for wire fraud.
My first thought is . . . what exactly is the alleged crime here?
And then I remember -- there doesn't really need to be one.
bsky.app/profile/apne...
For Taco Tuesday I wrote a long post which, buried w/in it, includes a description of 2 acute psychological dilemmas Trump is facing.
1) To win v Iran, Trump has to fight Putin
2) To make a deal, Trump has to admit Obama is smarter than him
Neither is tenable.
emptywheel.net/2026/04/21/t...
The next administration must make clear that any immigrant, refugee, or asylum seeker wrongly deported, exiled, or otherwise mistreated by this administration will be readmitted with an expedited path to citizenship. Send a plane to get them.
We can't undo the damage. But we can do something.
The Justice Dept’s theory of the case— that the group that single-handedly disassembled the Ku Klux Klan defrauded its donors by concealing that it was using paid informant to do that work and more— has about as much merit as the now-dismissed charges against Jim Comey.
This is monstrous. Just profoundly shameful behavior by our government.
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/w...
Very interesting piece.
“An ‘edifice complex’ emerges when individuals in positions of authority, uncertain of their place in history, attempt to pre-empt posterity’s judgment with grandiose construction projects. It reflects insecurity and egomania in equal measure.”
quillette.com/2026/03/26/t...
2025 Politico headline: Trump on Texas redistricting: ‘We are entitled to 5 more seats’
John Gramlich skeet quoting Trump in NYT today: Trump: “I don’t know if you know what gerrymandering is, but it’s not good.”
A sowing/reaping for the ages
Media needs to stop with "critics say" and just quote the actual language of the bill.
HB 249 creates a new category of "seminudity" which can be used to arrest women who aren't nude, but are wearing clothing — leggings, t-shirts without bras — that religious groups feel is too provocative.
Is someone going to tell him that the flu killed more US troops in WWI than any battle did (and that war had chemical weapons so horrific that they were banned afterwards)?
Yet again I remind everyone (as Elizabeth does in her very next tweet) that "foreigners are corrupting our pure blood with weakness & disease" is Fascism 101. Not some variant, not some metaphorically similar thing, not some echo -- the thing itself.
Warsh hearing so far has been kind of frustrating. No one has asked the questions that seem most relevant to me:
1) is Trump's criminal investigation into Powell appropriate?
2) what would you do if Trump threatened retribution against you if he didn't like your actions/Fed policy decisions?
You know who else famously used paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups?
The Justice Department.
Doing this video with a painting of Washington in the background is a level of irony that even he’d probably cross the Delaware again just to get away from
So when it comes to beards and hairstyles, discipline requires strict conformity. When it comes to contracting and spreading a preventable illness that directly affects unit readiness, follow your bliss, man.
surely no army in military history has ever been laid low by disease, a famously uncommon problem among people living in enforced close quarters
I noted yesterday that we would do well to describe what role the actions Trump is performing, rather than assuming he is functioning as President.
Mostly, Trump is an old man retreating into his lifelong hobbies: construction, cons, and corruption. With lots of golf.
It’s critical to note that this clip should be taken as evidence that Trump is (obviously) taking cuts of the funds being used to build his new white house ballroom, the arc, etc
Kevin Warsh just lost me. He argues he's going to be an independent Fed Chair, but refuses to acknowledge that Trump lost the 2020 election. If you can't state simple facts when you're in the political spotlight, you aren't independent. You're a coward.
Putting strict limits on the definition of treason and significant requirements for its proof was one of the smartest things the Founders did.
A deep dive on the history of our Roman-inspired republican symbolism and why Trump's desecrations of it are worse than merely being cringe-inducing.
DO NOT SPREAD THIS FALSEHOOD.
2026, 2027, and 2028 will require all of us to up our media literacy game.
Anonymous non-journalists touting major breaking news stories not reported or even hinted at anywhere else should be immediately blocked, not shared.
This is one of my better essays, I think. If I may say so … just thinking of the cold ten minutes at the cemetery instead of a funeral.
It bears repeating that historically, the #1 thing that keeps people alive in hard times and disasters is “the ability to play well with others”
When I covered Trump's tariffs, I discovered that orange crops have cratered in FL.
This explains all the reasons--disease, climate change, overspraying, finance--why.
slate.com/business/202...
so they had the press secretary fire the labor secretary via tweet but the labor secretary is now like fuck off Oddjob, I'm staying and has lawyered up, just another day in the golden age of America
Some timeline stuff:
— We expect to get InfoWars.com after the judge clears it in a couple of weeks.
— We'll build a world of characters on the site and across social media. Tim Heidecker is in charge, and we have grand designs.
— Visit theonion.info, buy a subscription, help us dominate the world.
The Columbine massacre was on this date in 1999. Instead of energizing our country to get gun violence under control, it kicked off a new normal. One of the best explanations ever of journalism's destructive impact on mass shootings came from Roger Ebert in his review of Gus Van Sant’s “Elephant.”
We know someone in the administration is making bets on the war, but is it possible they're trying to somehow beat the spread as well?
There's a war on for this limited edition tote!
This nightmare cost us so much money. Help us out! Get the tote.
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