Doug Thompson

just heartbreaking stuff Alex Pretti's mother calls out ICE and the Trump administration for killing her son and smearing his name, and calls for justice to be done.

Not that long ago, three major lower-court rulings against the executive branch on three unrelated topics would’ve been a busy *month,* and outlets would’ve rushed to write up such a run of adverse rulings. Now, it doesn’t feel unusual when we get three on the same *day.* It’s all … exhausting.

Yes, and that's the other part of it: Protests are effective ways to raise awareness, but then (as Serbia and Hungary show) you have to follow it up with organizing and voting. Marching isn't enough. In this country, we valorize protest - but don't do the other stuff. (I hope this year, I'm wrong.)

This used to be a solved problem.

In one day, two politicians - Bolsonaro in Brazil and Vucic in Serbia - with ties to Trump have lost surprise elections thanks to high turnout. The rise of the international far-right is not inevitable.

Interest could be 2x defense spending by 2036 With mandatory spending rising to 62% of government outlays (Fideilty chart)

Anyone saying "Ukraine has lost the war" is a Russian stooge who is wishcasting and gaslighting. The manipulation aims to justify why Trump and Russia are jointly pressuring Ukraine to capitulate even though the frontline situation doesn't call for it. Russia is NOT advancing!

Congratulations to Kelsi Corkran @kelsi-corkran.bsky.social on today's big D.C. Circuit win, limiting immigration enforcement at places of worship. media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/doc...

The Supreme Court has, over the course of decades, legalized behavior that is poisonous to a functioning democracy, Leo J. Wise, a former Justice Department prosecutor, argues:

Mistake I see in turnout analyses is confusing *voting lines* & *high turnout*. You can have high turnout in a place that planned for it, has tons of locations/staff, & see no lines! Or middling turnout in a place that doesn't care to help, enough to trigger long lines!

We asserted a common law and First Amendment right to the immediate release of Jack Smith's Mar-a-Lago report. It's a good argument but we're having a *lot* of trouble getting the Eleventh Circuit to schedule argument, even though it granted an expedited appeal. I've never seen anything like this.

The easiest way to get a big scoop in journalism is to straight-up steal it from @marisakabas.bsky.social, as we've seen over and over from "respectable" outlets.

I get the impulse but try not to make judgments based on early vote numbers

Highly recommended: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1...

In early 2025, I assumed the Trump regime would delete the Department of Justice’s press releases and other statements related to more than 1,000 Jan. 6 cases. So I downloaded them. We’ve now made them available to the public with a search tool. They can’t erase history. jan6memoryproject.org

I solemnly swear to never buy any product running an ad that interrupts a song in a music recording I'm listening too.

With 20 days till midterms, the American people have made up their minds about their leaders in Washington and their home districts. At this point, polls are just noise — it's now all about which party can get their supporters to go vote. 🗳

Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., just released a statement opposing live-streaming the execution. "Hassan’s goal was to become a martyr. The last thing we should be doing is offering him the public platform to become one ..."

So I just downloaded and ran numbers. Based on the weekly reports of average gas prices in the US, the average (over time) during the Biden Admin was $3.45/gallon. The average during the 2nd Trump Admin, so far has been ... drumroll ... $3.43/gallon.

Zelenskyy: "Prices are rising because of the war in the Middle East, the blocking of Hormuz. Everyone understands it. If we want to speak with people fairly, if we want to be clear, if we want to speak with our nations openly, people have to hear reality. Don't play games with people."

One under-discussed aspect of the vibecession is how interest rates for credit cards, autos, and mortgages all jumped in 2022 with the Fed hikes then never came back down. It's hardly a surprise consumers get bad vibes from that.

Trump’s deal with Putin is illegal. In 2022, the US Congresses passed the Ending Importation of Russian Oil Act, explicitly prohibiting the import of russian energy resources into the United States. Legally, Trump is not allowed to make a deal with Putin.

Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA): "At this point in time in 2022, a little over 200,000 Virginians had voted. At this point in time in 2026, approximately 450,000 Virginians have voted early."

Remarkable: As of now, Latino early vote is outpacing where it was at same time in 2024 in both percentages of vote share and in RAW VOTE TOTALS. That's big. Presidential turnout is usually higher than midterms. I obtained new analysis from Dem firm TargetSmart: newrepublic.com/article/2164...

".. According to the new findings, the portion of families behind on loan payments at the end of 2025 soared from about 12% in the prior survey to nearly 20%, a gain of some 67%."

ICE agents have shot yet another person in the street, this time a man in his car in the Bronx while his small child sat in the backseat. www.reuters.com/world/us/per...

For being a guy hung up on fighting jihadists, Hegseth really doesn't have a clue how actual jihadists think. This is the greatest gift he could give him.

An important distinction.

Pennsylvania surpassed 1,000 measles cases Monday, crossing a grim milestone to rank among the largest U.S. measles outbreak in decades. 🔗 www.inquirer.com/health/penns...

"Among the first to appear before the judge was Angel, a 13-year-old. He had no attorney. “Would you like to request voluntary departure, or should I issue a removal order?” the judge asked “I don’t know,” Angel said, bursting into tears: “I have no one. I have nothing.” www.cnn.com/2026/09/28/p...

I often think about how the rise of the neo-fascist right corresponds to the declining numbers of WW2 vets around to slug them right in the face.

INTERVIEW: Dan Driscoll speaks for the first time since resigning as Secretary of the Army amid the Pentagon’s purge of military leaders. "All the guys who had guts and were willing to speak the truth about what we needed to do, they got rid of." www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Winner of my "reposting this twice" award for today.

The proper role of a well-trained community poll watcher is to remain invisible, watch, and report. It is NOT to intervene or intimidate, under any circumstances.

A quiet Saturday: On Truth Social, Trump urges Sen. Tom Cotton to back down from his opposition to making Daylight Saving Time permanent, and apparently shares the senator's *cell phone number* to get people to urge Cotton to change his mind.

www.nbcnews.com/politics/don...

As leaps of logic go, this was a moon shot: thehill.com/homenews/sen...

This will be one of the most important immigration cases in a generation. The Trump admin claims that a 1996 law mandates the detention of millions of people without any right to a bond hearing; every person who entered illegally, no matter how long in the past. If they win, it's a nightmare.

I went to Geneva a few weeks ago and spoke on a panel about the nature of time for a Geneva Watch Days event. While I was there, on a lark, I entered a competition to most precisely calibrate a Swiss watch. And today I found out that I won! 😃 www.instagram.com/reel/Dd6hUTB...

“.. My take .. is not that we are on the eve of disaster but that important countries are losing room for manoeuvre .. As the late economist Herbert Stein famously said, ‘If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.’” @financialtimes.com www.ft.com/content/a120...

Ground beef prices hit $7.16 per pound in August 2026, a +7.9% jump from 2025. That’s more than double the overall annual inflation rate of +3.4%, and nearly triple the rate for food overall.

More than ¾ of Americans (76%) say the war against Iran has not been worth it. The 2026 elections will be about affordability, and voters see the Iran war as making it worse.

A lot of people On Here seem surprised by the flimsiness of far right attacks. Did any of you follow the Durham investigation? Or Schmitt's lawsuit on Xitter, especially the way he worked a hard drive he claimed was Hunter Biden's laptop into it?

People make this kind of stupid blunder when they want a "gotcha" so badly it affects what they see. A journalist making this mistake this badly would be fired for it and his news organization would be sued.

The bond yield story just keeps getting starker.

Jack Smith: "History teaches that the rule of law is rarely destroyed all at once. It's often weakened by attacks on the institutions and the public servants sworn to uphold it. Since January 2025, we have witnessed precisely such an effort."