Chris Bolan

We aren’t legacy media but we led the morning with this from @premthakker.bsky.social zeteo.com/p/donald-tru...

"It is a war so bizarre in design, so flawed in execution, so blissfully unencumbered by strategic foresight, that all previous American misadventures in the region appear vaguely commendable by comparison." @radchenko.bsky.social on the Iran war.

Russia has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and human trafficking during its almost five-year invasion of Ukraine, according to a new UN report 👇

A disgusting display of hubris & self-aggrandizement -- especially inappropriate for a solemn place like Arlington Cemetery wapo.st/4sAGTOX

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country." ~Fmr. President Theodore Roosevelt, 1918. Roosevelt was born OTD in 1858. Image: NPS/Sagamore Hill collection.

Where we are as a country: in opposition to the establishment of democracy in Venezuela because it could infringe on the extractive contracts the president’s buddies have arranged with the current regime.

Trump’s presidency is a wealth transfer from the bottom to the top

rallying the racist GOP base

because Jesus was all about guns??????

He is so close to getting it

This isn't really fair to gifted kids who aren't trained teachers and don't know how to teach. It's also not fair to the kids who are struggling and need actual, targeted instruction from an adult who knows how to help kids with learning difficulties.

That this is in THE WASHINGTON POST is almost too much irony to bear.

Though the Trump administration is full of bombast, the US has lost this war with Iran. You want to see why? The region is moving on without the USA. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/26/w...

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.

🧵👇

We fought a war over this. 1 of every 30 Americans died. And then we amended the Constitution to add “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States”

Thought provoking piece 👇 Some dramatic long-term consequences are just beginning to come into view. foreignpolicy.com/2026/10/19/i...

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”

This is true. Qatar is widely believed to be the biggest financial backer of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Denver folks—I’ll be talking about my book and the current Iran war tomorrow @deborahavant.bsky.social

First Musk said he did not disable Starlink for Ukraine. Now he's confessing to disabling it but says he was justified in doing so. Congress, if you can hear me, we need hearings when Dems take over. www.cnn.com/2026/10/25/e...

If still debating whether Donald Trump or Elon Musk willfully crippled Ukraine's missile defense, helping to slay innocent civilians, you are a rube. If the U.S. President had no role, then an oligarch governs national security. If not, the U.S. President serves Russia. Both answers are mortifying.

imagine if a democratic candidate anywhere said something like this about a jewish candidate, would be a ten-alarm fire in every media outlet for days. but the literal president promoting this sort of insane bigotry against a muslim won't even merit a story

A week after ProPublica published an investigation that found $470 million in SNAP benefits were stolen from Americans last year alone, the Trump administration announced a new rule to add microchips, which are more secure, to EBT cards.

Something that's not being said. The REASON why Blanche and Bill Essayli are so defiantly violating the Constitution is bc John Roberts said they can't be prosecuted so long as they're following Trump's illegal orders. Blanche's criminality arises DIRECTLY out of Trump v. US.

we have a gun problem ladies & gentlemen

it seems to me that pardon power cannot be plausibly interpreted as allowing the Executive to disregard the laws of the Congress (and, indeed, the Constitution) unless impeached. There are no rights if the president can order them violated and pardon the violaters.

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.

Grok fact-checks its master 👇🏽 👀

Things you contemplate when your administration is definitely operating within the law.

More than 40 farmers and agricultural industry groups are warning D.C. leaders that the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration is affecting the nation’s food supply, hurting farmers and risking higher grocery prices.

The inevitable result of substituting professional diplomatic expertise with friends & family. A consistent theme in Trump's foreign policy: priortitizing the personal financial benefit of Trump & family over US national security interests.

bsky.app/profile/pitc...

Friday night corruption drop

TikTok investor Jeff Yass avoided paying $1 billion in taxes while largely escaping public scrutiny. He then poured that money into campaigns to cut taxes and support election deniers. From the ProPublica archives:

As discussions of rape have permeated this election season, Trump has remained constant in his loyalties. He described Max Miller as a “good person”; he “felt badly” for the Cornell 7; he called the ad with Acton’s birth mother “very powerful.” He excuses it because he identifies with the accused.

Dude, one of the most easily anticipated consequences of Israel/US military strikes (beyond Iranian efforts to close Hormuz) is an increased Iranian terrorist threat to US interests in the Middle East and beyond.

No obvious legal authority supports a pre-emptive effort to block the certification of Alaska’s Senate election if the Republican incumbent narrowly loses. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/23/u...

did someone order an absolute banger?

Consistent GOP/MAGA theme...limit the right to vote by any means necessary.

omfg "FLRA members also wrote the HHS officials appeared to use generative AI tools to draft its legal brief. They wrote that 22 of the department’s 29 footnotes, and 35 of its 42 ... citations are 'fictitious, erroneous, or irrelevant.'"

To be clear, higher ed ain't the only target. White supremacist administration wants to resegegrate everything--higher ed, the military, government, and on and on.

The deeper reason Trump, Vance, and Ramaswamy are backing the vile rape ad is they think MAGA politics—the cruelty, the depravity, the viciousness—is still ascendant. They think doing this esesentially puts Trump on the ballot. Me and @jimswift.bsky.social on this: newrepublic.com/article/2169...

Elon Musk is spending hundreds of millions to elect Republicans, an unprecedentedly huge amount from one person, and it’s a lot less than the value of contracts his companies got from this government he paid to elect and worked in. Many reports say “his own money,” few note unprecedentedly corrupt.

"Right now, we’re living in Trump’s world, in Vance’s world, in Hegseth’s world. .. This is what a world without empathy looks like. It’s a world of constant othering, of constant rage .. But nothing flourishes in that world." This is very well articulated A fascinating read:

Me: "It cannot be stated often enough or vociferously enough: the Trump Administration is helping Russia to conquer Ukraine. The United States of America has taken the side of an aggressor against its innocent victim. We are helping our actual enemies" www.aei.org/foreign-and-...

The bigger question is how Musk can hold a security clearance or oversee the operations of a company with supersensitive and classified government contracts. Several FBI agents bluntly asked that question. They all got fired or reassigned and their supervisors were unable to answer their questions.

Dr. Amy Acton testified before a Grand Jury at 12 years old about the horrific conditions and abuse her mother and stepfather inflicted on her and her brother. She had more courage at 12 years of age than ALL the Republicans combined had during both of Trump's Impeachments. #VetsAgainstGOP