vlpb.bsky.social

The families of the US service members killed in the Middle East will be happy to hear that the Trump Crime Family is making money off of their children's deaths.

If we can afford tax breaks for the richest people in this country, don't tell me we can't afford to pay public school teachers and support staff a living wage.

Another story impossible to imagine in any other administration: the president's son goes hunting with a Russian criminal who is part of Putin's security entourage

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.

Ohio, let's do what we can to elect @amyactonoh.bsky.social as your next Governor and @sherrodbrownoh.bsky.social as your next U.S. Senator! They’ve dedicated their lives to fighting on behalf of all Ohioans.

More than 200 complaints regarding sexual violence at schools have been filed with the Education Department since the start of Trump’s second term. The department has investigated only 29 of these, finding fault with a school district only once.

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...

This was just his amuse-bouche

Early into Trump’s second term, political appointees at DHS made an unusual request of its agency focused on cybersecurity: Secretly acquire a voting machine and hack it. The agency was directed not to alert the voting machine company if it uncovered flaws, contrary to its standard practices.

This is infuriating and heartbreaking. Please watch and share.

NEW - DHS appointees made an unusual request of CISA, its agency that protects election systems: Secretly acquire a voting machine and hack it. Though not acted on, the request shows how the Trump administration has tried to use CISA for its own ends.

October 18, 2026

Former president Barack Obama denounced the Trump administration’s investigation of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), saying that any use of federal power to punish a critic of the president violates democratic principles. https://wapo.st/3U5iIeM

Trump-friendly oligarchs are buying up major media with the regime's help. They control CNN, CBS, Fox, TikTok, Meta, X and major local TV chains. Yet Mike Johnson is still claiming liberal bias. The real media conspiracy is the corporate consensus to normalize Johnson and other right-wing radicals.

Wholesale inflation rose more quickly than expected last month on a big jump in fuel costs, a sign that stubbornly rising prices remain an economic challenge for consumers and a political problem for Republicans in the midterms.

Costs are too high. Wages are too low. And Trump is focused on raising up monuments and building ballrooms to stroke his own ego. It's a "Golden Age" for no one but him.

“many of his former DOGE foot soldiers have leveraged their government stints to fuel private-sector ambitions: building companies that tap government largesse or that deploy knowledge they garnered during their brief tenures in Washington.” It’s the accountability, stupid. cc: Democrats

Our analysis found that from 2020 to 2025, the rate of deaths involving ectopic pregnancies nearly doubled compared with the previous six-year period. The uptick was steeper in states with abortion bans.

Q: You said Russia and Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire, but both sides said they have not agreed to that TRUMP: Well they agreed, you know why? Because I said 'you agree.' That's why.

The world the tech bros are building. A Virginia data center ran backup diesel generators full blast for 24 hours, creating a giant cloud of toxic smoke that choked its human neighbors. The government claimed there was nothing they could do. www.gadgetreview.com/virginia-dat...

Jon Husted took more than $115,000 from Jeffrey Epstein's longtime financial backer Les Wexner, including a maximum donation last year. Then he voted against releasing the Epstein files. @timmiller.bsky.social digs into the Ohio senator's troubling ties to Wexner.

The Trump administration announced on Friday that it was imposing severe financial sanctions on the International Criminal Court, its latest effort to undermine the global body that seeks to prosecute those accused of war crimes, genocide and other murderous criminal acts.

“…most commonly carried out in a handful of countries including Iran, North Korea and the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan. “releasing video of executions is most often associated with extremist militant groups like the Islamic State...” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/u...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the firing-squad execution of Nidal Hasan, a former Army major who killed 13 people in a mass shooting in 2009, would be visible to the public

3/ 100+ Americans have been held after agents questioned their citizenship. Nearly all of them were people of color. They say they were profiled — detained because of their skin color, accents or jobs. “ICE isn’t looking for criminals. They’re looking for Latinos,” one said.

Ezra Klein: “What is, to you, the ‘rage economy’?” James Talarico: “The billionaires own the algorithms and the news networks. They have created for-profit platforms that divide us on an hourly basis — by party, by race, by gender, by religion. They elevate the most extreme voices."

SLF PAC, a Republican group, has a new ad attacking Sherrod Brown. The problem, as reported by Cleveland's ABC5, is it's factually dubious. Jim Swift reacts to the latest sign of Ohio Republican's desperation:

Ossoff: The money that they took from you when they slashed Medicaid and defunded hospitals and nursing homes—They’re taking that money to buy corrupt, taxpayer-funded political ads on national television to try to promote the failed and broken president…

“This is not the time to sort of gripe about all the little things,” said Vice President JD Vance on Thursday about the coming mid-term election season, despite the fact that a recent AP-NORC Center poll from late September found 73% of Americans think the country is on the wrong track.

The hell is going on with his legs?

For a long time I've wanted a sense of how trump has or hasn't interacted with chatbots (we know he posts a lot of slop sure). And this TIME anecdote about Grok arguably leading Trump into war is just extremely bracing

And he didn't do it alone.

Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) declined to answer repeated questions from one of his ex-wife’s lawyers about whether he pushed a girl down a staircase during high school.

Trump: "They came up with the word 'affordability' ... it's phony" (Note that the crowd isn't into Trump's affordability denialism at all)

They'll police themselves

OpenAI terminated three safety researchers who allegedly shared confidential information with an outside AI-safety group, The Wall Street Journal reported.

We fight for democracy by showing up, not just where winning is easy, but where someone has been told not to even bother. I ran in one of those places, and I lost, but the next Democrat won’t have to start from scratch. Now imagine doing that in every district. open.substack.com/pub/jesspipe...

1. How has MAGA Inc. raised an unprecedented amount of money? Let’s review:

NEWS: Classified U.S. intelligence assessments have determined that the Kremlin has again authorized a digital influence campaign to peddle content across social media in hopes of seeding or amplifying domestic divisions around the election season, U.S. officials said www.nytimes.com/2026/09/18/u...

I want to talk to you about an article @wired.com's @telliotter.bsky.social published yesterday that should be getting a LOT more attention than it currently is -- It's all about how the US Census Bureau is overrun with staffers from a notable MAGA think tank.

Back to the Census Bureau and why ... the AFPI should care about getting its members in there. So last week, @wired.com's @telliotter.bsky.social and @davidgilbert.bsky.social looked at a Census report on noncitizen voting. This report had been touted by Trump.

CBO's $38 billion Iran war figure doesn't include base repairs, because the Pentagon refused to give it any information. Munitions replacement alone is $21.7 billion. CBO expects the war to add roughly half a point of inflation into early 2027.

The owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory self-regulated.

Q: Did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ? TRUMP: I did post it and I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do Red Cross. Only the fake news could come up with that one.

Ossoff: "Trump apparently promised pardons for entire WH staff, which is what you do when you run it like a casino. Maybe the West Wing is too busy placing bets on the war to care, but American are getting hurt...in Trump’s America the well-connected get stock tips & everybody else makes sacrifices"

On multiple fronts, the administration is weaponizing the power of law enforcement, from the FBI to ICE to the DOJ, to target blue states and counties and coerce them into taking actions that benefit the administration and punish those who don’t comply.