rahanks.bsky.social

Interesting approach by Mike Rogers to make his loyalty to Elon Musk & the oligarchy an explicit part of his campaign earlier this year. “When you stand with my Senate campaign today, you are directly shielding Elon Musk,” Rogers wrote. www.metrotimes.com/news/mike-ro...

NEW: As expected, on a 2-1 vote, the Ninth Circuit dismisses DOJ's appeal in the US v. California case over DOJ's claims relating to "likely noncitizen" voting. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

The closing argument for the entire Republican party is just outright, unbridled racism. I'm old enough to remember--hell, it wasn't more than 15 years ago--when if you said anything even close to this, you had to resign your seat. Now, it's standard-issue Republicanism.

For the fabulously wealthy, paying taxes is pretty much optional. They can borrow against their vast wealth, which is mostly an untaxed capital gain, without paying taxes. When they die, the capital gain goes to zero. And loopholes exist to bypass the estate tax too.

A 2025 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, Omar Yaghi is the son of Palestinian refugees who grew up in Jordan. He just left the US to move to China after raising concerns about rising anti-immigrant sentiment, like the kind shown here. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/china-than...

ICYMI

Elon Musk has spent more money on American elections in the last two years than George Soros has in his entire life.

Put the fucking Hawks game in the afternoon you losers

In the past, [DOJ] has been "very careful" to make sure election monitors were not perceived as interfering with elections and didn't intimidate voters. DOJ has now abandoned a long-held rule to not allow prosecutors to serve as election monitors.

El-Sayed on Trump's cognitive tests: "I went to medical school...In my neurology unit, I would have to give that MoCA exam...The only people that you give a MoCA test to are people who you worry may have cognitive deficits. By definition, if you're taking one of those tests, something's wrong."

REALITY CHECK Send this to all the clowns saying, “The prices were higher under Obama.”

A gang of mall cops breaking some neurodivergent kid's wrist because he fit a description, then ditching him in pain on the street w/o calling help. After all this, the agents of ICE need to be banned from public employment for life.

Shorter 174 judges to 8th Circuit chief judge: Say, have you noticed that DOJ keeps making frivolous complaints about judges? www.democracydefendersfund.org/news/174-bip...

NEW: Anthropic’s filing appears to partly walk back the co-founders’ pledge to commit 80% of their personal equity holdings in the AI startup to philanthropic causes. Those acts, the filing suggests, are “voluntary, revocable expressions” that “do not constitute binding obligations.”

In August, President Trump announced he had signed the “biggest oil deal in world history.” ProPublica reviewed the deal and found it gives a small group of people largely handpicked by the Trump administration long-term control of the enterprise.

EL-SAYED: I get that the President takes personal offense to my first name. He doesn't mind as much when it's the Saudis who are funding his son-in-law's private equity. Doesn't seem to mind as much when it's the Qataris who are giving them a $400 million private jet…

Dragging this into the light...in light of Brazil.

NEW: At least 18 voting centers in Alaska Native communities have not opened despite early voting having already started in the state last week. “There is no legal excuse for the failure to open these sites,” one state senator wrote to the Alaska elections chief.

One of the greatest scams in the immigration system has been calling these people "judges." They are at-will employees of the President. They have never had a shred of "judicial" independence, and they are not actually judges in any real sense. Sure, they preside over hearings ... for their boss!

chat is it bad when you’re spending the last days of your campaign denying you’re exploiting your opponent’s childhood rape for votes

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

Even if it were super fancy you might not want the white house to look like a restaurant. Or of course a weird demented Saddam Hussein version of said restaurant. because it is not a restaurant and different decor is considered appropriate or not for different types of places.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump DOJ’s has repeatedly insisted it will not tell immigration judges how to rule, as required by law. But after a demand from unidentified “higher-ups,” a veteran judge was ordered to reverse four rulings—then yanked from court mid-hearing. wapo.st/4BuABEM

The U.S. Postal Service has reduced mail pickup at some local facilities, which could affect when your ballot is postmarked. To find out whether your ZIP code is affected, use our lookup tool: www.propublica.org/article/mail...

Obama: 'Drain the swamp' -- the only thing they drained is the Reflecting Pool because some no bid contract got it all messed up. And then they tried to blame it on this 3 time Olympian! You remember that? Said he vandalized it!"

"A preliminary breath test displayed a .254 blood alcohol content, three times the .08 legal limit for driving, and a test taken at the jail displayed a .192 level, the affidavit says. She later pleaded guilty to a count of child endangerment..." www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

no matter how sure you are that these guys have broken a whole bunch of laws, you aren't nearly as certain as they are

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.

The question is: Why did Trump derail peace talks?

A wild story: the CEO of a US energy company whose plans were discussed during the Witkoff-Kushner-Putin negotiations resigns. Why? He learned that his company's main investor is a sanctioned Russian company, not the UAE www.nytimes.com/2026/10/23/u...

The Trump administration and the Venezuelan government have struck a deal to exploit Venezuela’s oil—but their partnership is good for the rich and no one else, @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu reports. theatln.tc/PANSlDZN

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.

NEW ANALYSIS: Since the start of his second term, President Donald Trump’s administration has spent or plans to spend at least $1.6 billion in public funding on vanity projects. https://ampr.gs/4kdyUoM

INTERESTING: Trump's US Attorney in Houston notes he's collaborating with Texas AG Ken Paxton on election law enforcement in the election in which Ken Paxton is running for US Senate.

Well at least he’s not a government contractor

I have not yet read the majority opinion in full, but an unstated principle here is, IMO: if a person can be indefinitely detained on the allegation that they are in the country unlawfully, then a CITIZEN can be indefinitely on the erroneous allegation that they’re an alien

2. The men then started harassing Britt and threw some sort of liquid at her — this is based on the LA Times’ analysis of the video — and she turned around and threw a drink back at them. THIS is what gets someone fired in this administration?

New — I wrote about Vivek Ramaswamy’s weaponization of Amy Acton’s childhood sexual abuse and how it’s only the latest symptom of a Republican party flush with rape apologists, led by an adjudicated rapist:

My "discreet partnership with the CIA" t-shirt has people asking a lot of questions

This is UNBELIEVABLY damning on Jared Kushner but don't lose sight about what this says about Rubio, Ratcliffe and the rest of Trump's senior diplomatic and intel team. www.vanityfair.com/story/jared-...

5. The instinct that lets you look the other way and/or encourage putting Kushner in charge of Middle East negotiations is the same that puts Betancourt in the middle of the theft of Venezuelan oil. www.propublica.org/article/trum...

The worst shit Republicans have done hasn't even really hit yet.

New: Low-info voters, who put Trump in the White House, now look even more anti-Trump than high-info voters, and give Dems bigger margins on the generic ballot. 1 out of 3 Trump voters who can't name the party in charge of Congress now back Dems for 2026. www.gelliottmorris.com/p/poll-low-i...

Q: A new book says Jared Kushner had access to $2 billion from Middle Eastern countri--- TRUMP: It's a false story. It's a totally false story. Totally an incorrect story. It was just fake news. Amazing

Q: You must know now who ordered the Starlink access in Ukraine to be restricted. Who was it? TRUMP: I wouldn't tell you if I did know. How are you with Q: CNN, sir TRUMP: Why would I tell CNN?

These bits are astonishing (or maybe not, since the US has forever thought of its soldiers as cannon fodder):

The illegal voters Scott Presler was trying so desperately to find in Pennsylvania were living in his own home Really is the perfect distillation of the election denial movement