John Chunk-Smith

Kash Patel's comment about the Trump-Elon spat when he was on is noteworthy: "I'm not participating in any of that conversation." A diplomatic statement. But also one in which Patel doesn't come to the defense of Trump. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

The credulity with which people are greeting these "deals" is absurd. These countries just say "We'll invest eleventy trillion dollars in the US!" to give Trump something he can claim as a victory. If 1/100th of it ever happens it'll be a shock. It's all fake.

The GOP wanted to impeach Biden for a fake $5M bribe from Ukraine that was made up by a guy sitting in prison for lying about it, but they’re cool with a $400M plane from Qatar. Do I have that right?

Wow who could have foreseen these difficulties oh that’s right every foreign policy expert not affiliated with MAGA. www.wsj.com/politics/tru...

I can’t help but think that the future of classic American conservatives lies within the Democratic Party. This could be a win-win in that the Democrats could end up with more appeal, more votes, and more seats. Certainly compromises would have to be made by both groups.

What’s sickening is that people like this are able to convince Americans that Trump is making the US a “nation of laws” despite the fact that he is flouting laws on a regular basis. It’s difficult to have a nation based on the rule of law when the president ignores the ones he doesn’t like.

It was always performative outrage.

We’re getting closer. Any day now he’ll say declare that he should be pope. variety.com/2025/digital... #papacy #trump

Two dolls because of one clown.

Last I checked, running a business chaotically is not a good way to run a business. And yet Trump advocates love to proclaim his business savvy as a strength in running government.

A brief reminder: the Soviets also repeatedly said “you just need to give it more time.” #trumponomics #trumpeconomy

Following mass shootings, Democrats demand change. Meanwhile, Republicans say that the heart of the issue is mental health. And yet the leader of their party just slashed $1 billion in grants for student mental health. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/u... #gunviolence #mentalhealth

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/b...

The Trump administration has declared a war on Christmas. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/29/b... #waronchristmas #trump #tariffs

Trump heard "Har-something" and a Black voice so he immediately went into talking about Harlem instead of Harvard lmao

Good Night World

Strange, huh?! 👇

The reason billionaires like McMahon are obsessed with student debt is that creating financial precarity makes people more stressed about losing their job. If you’re worried about your job you’re less likely to quit and find work elsewhere. You’re less likely to ask for a raise. It’s pure class war.

But her emails www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...

How long until Trump declares that the Vatican should consider him for pope?

New in PN: White guy DEI "Pretending that Hegseth got nominated on merit is ridiculous, but it’s a fiction conservatives have all agreed to adopt. To admit he’s not qualified would mean acknowledging that straight white maleness does not automatically confer expertise."

Not only is Trumpworld’s evidence of Abrego Garcia's supposed criminality exceedingly thin; we’ve now learned that the officer who attested to it was later suspended for serious professional misconduct.

Trump admin claims: Thursday: Abrego Garcia is a top MS-13 terrorist Friday: Abrego Garcia killed JFK Saturday: Abrego Garcia is the head of ISIS Sunday: Abrego Garcia piloted all 3 planes on 9/11 Monday: Abrego Garcia ran the Fyre Festival Tuesday: Abrego Garcia beat Riley Gaines at a swim meet

This bodes ill for Americans in general. The Trump administration is showing that it will just fabricate “evidence”. There are enough law enforcement (and law-enforcement adjacent) groups that support him that it’s likely they will provide this “evidence” so as to support Trump’s agenda.

Molly Jong-Fast: “I'm going to respectfully push back on this. This is thought policing 101. This is not okay. They are using anti-antisemitism as a cloak. This is about targeting speech. It has nothing to do with anti-antisemitism and everything to do with authoritarianism.” #HarvardUniversity

🧵 ICE FLIGHTS THREAD - 16 APR 25 Because they want to hide them 😬 Watching 10 aircraft: 8 x GlobalX Airbus 320 2 x Eastern Air Exp Boeing 737 Starting locations: 3 x A320 at La Salle LA 3 x A320 at Harlingen TX 2 x A320 + 1 x B737 at Phoenix 1 x B737 at San Antonio Updates will appear below ⤵️

What Judge Xinis is banking on is that the government does not want to spend two weeks in discovery. Two big things can happen: (1) They just make the call and get him back (2) They spend two weeks creating a public record of their own fuck ups and then get sanctioned

It beggars belief that JD Vance could have such a poor grasp of power. There are many types of power other than military power: social, economic, and cultural just to name a few.

The implication of Marco’s statement is that all a president needs to do is claim that an issue relates to foreign policy and then—magically—there is no need to pay attention to any other laws.

When it comes to targeting immigrants, the administration wants as many numbers as it can get and for those numbers to be as big as possible. They don’t care if the numbers are inflated, quite the opposite. They don’t care about potential value; they care about the immediate value of The Numbers.

UPDATE: Trump seems to say for the first time that U.S. lacks ability to recover those sent to El Salvador if government deports someone erroneously. Says it’s totally up to Bukele. Seems to leave out that he could … ask Bukele to help fix an error. www.politico.com/news/2025/04...

Adolf Hitler's “Mein Kampf” is still on U.S. Naval Academy shelves. “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and “Memorializing the Holocaust” are not. An order by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office led to a purge of books that are critical of racism — but preserved volumes defending white power.

This is an important point. So many small business rely on goods from China and they cannot simply pass on the cost of the tariffs to their customers because the cost increase is so high.