Brandon Friedman

My latest today on how strict adherence to the rules is killing Democrats while fascists take cities

corporate media routinely describes Tim Scott as a moderate and celebrates his "relentless optimism"

Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to laziness. As someone who spent a decade in political communications and corporate PR, the straight answer is that either she or her reps reached out to the NYT and offered to provide quotes. And lazy reporters gratefully accepted the offer.

There are only two explanations for the NYT's habit of presenting GOP operatives and donors as true swing voters: 1. Their reporters and editors are somehow incapable of running a simple Google searches, showing just a staggering level of journalistic incompetence 2. They want to the GOP to win

The US is not about to have a free and fair election. The state has put its thumb on the scale to favor the ruling party in multiple ways. It's a mostly free, somewhat unfair election. But still one where the ruling party can be overwhelmed by numbers. Hence the term "competitive authoritarianism."

I think the fact that Marissa Mayer would voluntarily disclose this to a reporter is a pretty good demonstration of how deeply the culture of Silicon Valley has diverged from the rest of humanity

The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.

As I've said, this is either an impeachable offense that Democrats act on or it's a new precedent.

Every country has Republicans

What dials the insanity up to 11 is that it's about BILL MAHER

None of us should forget this. Meta should be subjected to corporate death penalty and permanently broken up into small pieces.

This is extremely anti-semitic!

Waiting for a reporter to ask him why a wide swath of administration officials would need a pardon

It is taking forever. However, I still contend they will attempt to use and normalize the once-common f-word for gay guys first. The Defense Secretary is already struggling to restrain himself.

Just say the N-word already, dawg. This is taking forever.

So many people seem to think the midterms will be a blowout for the Democrats but I suspect they underestimate how much rural Republican farmers who are about to lose everything they have because of Trump want to hear him talk about his gay fantasies on stage every night

This is the creativity I'm looking for

This is literally the end of the rule of law. If a President can pardon people committing crimes on his behalf - and the Supreme Court says he himself can't be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his job - then the government becomes a lawless entity able to violate our rights without limit.

We actually just don’t have a rule of law at the federal level if he does this. And I don’t think any sane reading of the Founding Fathers would indicate they expected the pardon power to be this sweeping.

Mrs. Miller complains that Dems want to [checks her highlighted passage] prosecute those who committed federal crimes

The reports of the Trump regime contemplating massive pardons for junior staffers for committing potential crimes is another reason why rebalancing and restructuring the Roberts MAGA #SCOTUS needs to be in the HR1 in 2029 if the Dems control both the WH & Congress.

The Republican Party has all the values and tactics of a white supremacist prison gang and maybe it's time to stop normalizing them as if they were a modern functioning political party

This dishonorable dipshit should be asked by a reporter if he's familiar with Admiral Michael Boorda, the former top Navy officer who killed himself in 1996 after being outed for this exact same thing. Unlike Flippo, Boorda didn't whine and blame his grandkids. He went out like a samurai.

This is a good thread. Importantly, it's also worth noting that all the improvements people are naming were once fiercely resisted by Republicans. Some examples:

Nationalizing Elon Musk's companies (or anyone's companies) would probably poll poorly right now, so consultants will insist it's a losing issue. But I'm pretty sure if Democrats went all-out on a persuasion campaign, explaining Mamdani-style *why* it's necessary, it would become a winning issue.

Everything is worse: Popular and historic 80-year-old theater in Dallas has been sold to a bathhouse chain with owners in New York

i really do think that a successful impeachment and removal of hegseth is a live possibility if dems win the senate. he is a genuine disaster.

They'll do this to people, given the opportunity

Start treating for-profit media like for-profit schools