Acquired Expertise 🌌✒️💫

An image representing a certain young moosepuppy I once knew who lived before the age of digital everything.

Trump says protesters at his rallies are paid $250 by Soros

Everyone is dunking on Jennifer Welch for saying that Joe Biden paved the way to fascism, but I would like to dunk on her for pontificating about the Jan 6 Capitol attack and how one must be "crystal clear about what happened", while having done no homework and having understood nothing.

NEW, from Bloomberg News: “Elon Musk has now given more than $445 million in the current election cycle.”

In 2024, President Trump unveiled his signature “no tax on tips" proposal at this Las Vegas restaurant. Two years later, its owner tells CNN’s Kyung Lah he is dipping into his savings to stay afloat, and his workers are struggling to pay their bills.

Mexico is prosecuting former Chihuahua attorney general César Jáuregui for treason after a fatal drug raid exposed CIA personnel operating with state police without federal authorization. Evidence traces their involvement back to October 2025.

NEW: A federal judge has now ruled that former SDNY prosecutor, Maurene Comey, was UNLAWFULLY fired by the Trump DOJ. He orders her retroactive reinstatement and back pay. Comey alleged in her lawsuit that she was fired for politically motivated reasons. www.cnbc.com/2026/10/26/m...

I’ve been seeing in the local news up here that hundreds of people on Sonoma county have not received their ballots. 420 ballots are missing according to the post office, and that’s just what they know.The Press Democrat is running a story about this on Friday.

For Serbians, ousting the Russian-backed Vucic regime after its decade of looting the country is serious business, so serious that some come directly from their own wedding to cast ballots.

I did not intend to take anything away from the student protesters in Serbia - who were brave...and *organized.* But far more important is that the protests were accompanied by grassroots organizing and *voting in large numbers* Brazil, Hungary, Poland, Serbia... Voting, in a coalition. #Lessons

The oil prices only know one way and this is up. They have climbed continuously in October. Trump’s announcement regarding the minuscule Russian promise has not even dented that, predictably. The Strait of Hormuz is severely disrupted and the Iranian regime plays Trump like a fiddle.

American capitalism killed American democracy. Fail to admit that and it doesn't matter what election results may bring because we won't be able to fix the real issues that are hurting us as a country. davidrothkopf.substack.com/p/america-is...

“SHOVE THAT BALLROOM UP YOUR FAT ASS!”

MAGA having a normal one over on the Twitter machine

Republicans are being forced to fight for their survival. And Jeffries isn’t just talking about taking back the House, he’s putting Republicans on notice: Their voter suppression playbook won’t save them from the electoral reckoning headed their way. That’s how big this blue wave could get. 🔥

🚨 FULTON COUNTY, GEORGIA VOTERS! More than 7K voters had their registrations flagged over questions about their residential addresses, & the ACLU is raising serious concerns about errors. Check your voter status NOW. If it says “Challenged,” contact Fulton County Elections.

The one behind the fake mailers. www.wfaa.com/article/news...

Al Gbra.

I hope archbishop Golka has enjoyed his new career in politics. I have the feeling it will be quite short-lived.

🚨 BREAKING: Travis County judge granted Gina Hinojosa's request to inspect Greg Abbott's unredacted Musk emails. Judge Mauzy set Thursday 10 AM as the DEADLINE for Abbott to let her see them. Abbott tried to keep them hidden, calling them "intimate and embarrassing."

@radiofreetom.bsky.social In the event you haven’t read this already…

The pattern of his conduct was well established more than a decade prior to this.

NEW: "Donald Trump was an active participant in Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women during the mid-to-late 1990s," per new House Judiciary Dem report. Report has new allegation that Trump raped a 24-year-old and then promised the victim a visa & NYU admission, demanding she stay quiet.

My heart is heavy. Walter Koenig, our Ensign Pavel Chekov, passed away early today. Walter and I met on the bridge of the Enterprise in the 1960s, and we stayed friends for nearly six decades. When Brad and I married in 2008, Walter stood beside us as our best man.

A24 spent three years secretly filming convicted Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes in “You Can See Everything,” scoring the biggest non-music documentary debut in decades. 🔗 on.wsj.com/4yBb4qx

Trump has exempted 202 facilities in 39 states and Puerto Rico from clean-air regulations that were going into effect, including some of the worst industrial polluters. About 3.3 million people live near such a facility. Eric Lipton @maxinejoselow.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/10/24/c...

I’d rather we put you abd people who think and crime like you in prison for the rest of your natural lives, George.

THREAD 4: The Virginia Medical Sterilizer Early this year, we also identified a plant owned by Sterilization Services of Virginia, not far from Richmond Va. My colleague @maxinejoselow.bsky.social in APRIL 2026 did her own FOIAs for state inspection records. What we got back was startling.

THREAD 1: The Nuclear Option. Using Presidential Power to Wipe Out EPA Toxics Rules For decades now, Clean Air Act has allowed the president to issue a so-called presidential exemption to at least temporarily suspect a rule intended to protect public health/air quality. I found this from 1973

SHOW ME THE DOCUMENTS>>>>> We did something sort of crazy at The NYT this year, as we look for ways to dig into what has happened at the Environmental Protection Agency since Trump returned to the White House. We collected more than 466,200 pages of federal and state documents.....

You see how stupid this sounds, MAGA? Stop worrying about how everyone else lives their lives and focus harder on not being a piece of shit.

It's insane that the campaign against El-Sayed is basically that he has some secret relationship with the people that the president's family has a secret relationship with.

The Heritage Foundation adviser who recruited 12 bishops to pray over Trump in the Oval Office claimed a Ph.D. from an Italian university that doesn’t grant doctorates. His listed bachelor’s school is a high school. A Vatican official called the meeting an insult to Pope Leo XIV.

Brazil was of two huge election results today—alongside the defeat of the nationalist, authoritarian leader of Serbia: "the slate of candidates selected by protesting students had won at least 135 seats in Serbia’s 250-member legislature" www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/w...

Lula has been reelected president, Brazilian media has now called. An extraordinary comeback for the left-wing politician who trailed by 2 points in round 1 but managed to hold off Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president's son.

WOOOHOOOO!! Serbia, now Brazil. Next? USA and Israel!

Kansas Dem Sen. nominee Adam Hamilton on trans rights: “I don’t think we should take a small group of people and bully them, pick on them, and hurt them. I understand one thing really clearly when it comes to transgender people, and that is Jesus told me I was to love my neighbor as I love myself”

He is just SO good at this: www.mediaite.com/media/news/o...

President Obama: "As a former president, I can tell you sometimes factors beyond a president's control end up foiling the best-laid plans." "That is not the case here. In this case, this administration's actions are directly responsible for rising costs."

JB Pritzker Speaks Truth To RepubliKKKans.......

Seating the new Congress is a bigger problem in the House than the Senate, too. Senate is a continuing body, two thirds aren't up. It doesn't have the same bootstrapping itself into existence issues the House has. Among those two thirds, it's 34D-31R even if somehow zero 2026 winners were seated.