Ben Meiselas @meiselasb.bsky.social

Bernie Sanders led another massive rally in Warren, Michigan on Saturday after his packed Kenosha rally on Friday. He is filling venues with more people than Trump during the campaign. Corporate media refuses to cover it. We cover the full speeches. Here is in Michigan

FTA:

As Trump fires inspectors general, dissolves independent offices, obliterates whistleblower protections, and dismantles the remaining accountability checks in the executive branch " and as he and Elon Musk engage in brazen, public, shameless corruption and push to obliterate Congress' Article I powers " the Democratic strategy appears to be to wait until the Republicans try to cut Medicare or Social Security to really get mad " as if what's happening now isn't dissimilar from the same boring budget fights we see every year.

No Democrat has asked me for my advice, nor would they. But I'm going to venture outside my lane to offer some anyway: Stop acting like any of this is normal. Donald Trump isn't Mitt Romney or John McCain. He isn't even Dick Cheney. He's Victor Orban, and aspires to be Vladimir Putin.

So here are concrete things Democrats should do to better meet the moment.

*OH SORRY: Drudge REPORT!

Yikes, look at these headline from the Drudge Retort today about the economy:

It's noteworthy that GSAi was in development before Musk and company showed up. In fact, the GSA had been working with a number of agencies to develop chatbot-like interfaces, per Wired. The Department of Treasury and the Department of Health and Human Services were both in talks to deploy chatbots both internally and for outward-facing platforms, and the Department of Education was also working with the GSA on a chatbot project designed for "support purposes" within the agency.

Those chatbots had not been deployed on account of being "janky," per one employee. So, of course, DOGE just went ahead and rolled that thing out to people. Also, it seemed like the intention of those projects were to build a tool that could help facilitate employee work, not replace thousands of staff who were abruptly cut. In the case of the GSA, it's likely that at least some of the people let go are the very ones who were building the GSAi tool that is now being deployed in their wake. Something tells me their skills are more useful than a chatbot that can draft an email.

Philip Bump @pbump.com

Setting aside the incredibly dangerous and fascist aspect of this, is there actual evidence that Khalil was a "Hamas supporter"? Or is the standard for a green-card holder being sent to a secret location and possibly deported just "critical of Israel"?

Trump to taxpaerys: Cost-savings for thee but not for me.

The Palm Beach bill, high as it is, pales against the federal costs of indulging the commander-in-chief's wanderlust. That's included his multimillion-dollar trip to the Super Bowl in New Orleans last month, and an appearance at Nascar's Daytona 500 weeks later, which critics saw as little more than an extravagant and expensive photo op.

Whenever he wishes to roam, the presidential airliner Air Force One is fueled up and fully staffed, racking up an hourly operational cost approaching $200,000, according to a 2022 air force assessment.

With a roughly two-hour flight time from Washington DC, each visit to and from Palm Beach international airport costs taxpayers about a million dollars just in travel, once an additional cargo flight carrying the presidential motorcade is factored in, as well as ferrying Trump from the White House to Joint Base Andrews on the Marine One helicopter.

The most recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, meanwhile, calculated in 2019 that federal agencies spent an average of $13.6m on each of four Trump odysseys to Mar-a-Lago that it audited during his first term in office, with a chunk of that money going straight into Trump's pocket.

Any Pro-Palestinian voter who didn't vote for Harris and/or who voted for Trump should have seen this coming.

FTA:

The department's plans to perform these tests was first reported by Bloomberg Government.

After the publication of this article, DHS said in a statement: "The Department of Homeland Security is a national security agency. We can, should, and will polygraph personnel."

Border czar Tom Homan and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have blamed lower-than-expected ICE arrest numbers on recent leaks revealing the cities where it planned to conduct operations.

Updates:

Prem Thakker
@premthakker.bsky.social

UPDATE--Mahmoud's attorney says they do NOT know where he is.
They were first told he was sent to an ICE facility in Elizabeth, NJ. But when his 8-month-pregnant wife [who is a US citizen] tried to visit him, she was told he's not there.
They've received reports he may be sent as far away as Louisiana.

Prem Thakker @premthakker.bsky.social

UPDATE--Secretary of State Marco Rubio has now commented on the Trump admin's detaining & attempted green card revocation of a Columbia Gaza encampment student negotiator:
"We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported."

Based on not knowing Los Angeles is in California, I'd wager 1DumbLump doesn't either.
#11 | Posted by ClownShack

I can't recall if he is one of the MAGA voters who doesn't know much about NY and doesn't care what happens here because it's a "blue" state.

I'm not up on the goings on in CA, but the author of the piece I linked to is:

#5 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS

That was exactly my thought and with that reference: Musk sees dead people eveywhere--on the Social Security rolls and behind the people protesting against him.

Judd Legum
@juddlegum.bsky.social

Musk is blaming "Herbert Sandler," among others, for secretly financing the protests and Tesla dealerships over the last few weeks.

Sandler died in 2019.

I'll also note that ActBlue operates as a payment processor. None of these people have really funded ActBlue, although they have supported organizations that use ActBlue.

Patricia Bauman is also dead

An investigation has found 5 ActBlue-funded groups responsible for Tesla "protests": Troublemakers, Disruption Project, Rise & Resist, Indivisible Project and Democratic Socialists of America.

ActBlue funders include George Soros, Reid Hoffman, Herbert Sandler, Patricia Bauman, and Leah Hunt-Hendrix.

Aren't a couple of the people Musk lists dead?

FTA:

Let's be clear: These cities will be controlled entirely by tech billionaires and corporations, operating outside of U.S. laws. As this story comes into focus, there is no reason why anyone should accept the Orwellian term "freedom city" to describe zones that will actually be devoid of the laws, rights, freedoms and protections of normal American law. The term is an overt political manipulation that should be rejected by media outlets going forward, as it serves only the interest of propaganda.

FTA:

Khalil, who is Palestinian, served as a lead negotiator amid the campus's Gaza solidarity encampment last spring. He had appeared in several media interviews, in the past telling outlets he had a student visa. Advocates say he had gotten his green card since.

The escalation comes amid several reports of ICE presence on the school's campus this week. It also comes after a massive escalation by the Trump-Vance administration to crack down on speech. This week, Trump announced his intentions to jail, imprison, or deport students involved in protests. Then, reporting revealed that his State department was planning to use Artificial Intelligence to monitor online activity, and revoke visas for whomever they deem to be "pro-Hamas."

On Friday, the Trump administration cut $400 million in grants to Columbia, claiming it has failed to take steps to address antisemitism, despite it having one of the most militant responses to student protestors.

Paywall
#6 | Posted by cbob

Try the link I posted here. Different news site but same info:

Some Dems are stepping up

@aoc.bsky.social: "Listen, if your representative is not doing a town hall, give me a ring... I'll say it right here, right now: if a deep red Republican district wants to have an honest conversation, even if it's with someone they disagree with, I'm willing to do that."

More reasons for modest optimism

FTA:

I no longer pay attention to the politicians, media personalities, political operatives, and pundits who are treating what's happening as a variation on normal partisan politics. They're tiresome and wrong.

Instead, I'm seeking out voices who understand the stakes, who give me reasons for hope and practical ideas for what you and I can do.

Sounds like this article was about women who expect him to vote like her and share her values.
Either way, if a couple can't handle having different political viewpoints and can't seem to resist arguing about it, they're both better off finding someone else.
#7 | Posted by BillJohnson

These are women who are leaving men over his political views.
These are women who are breaking up over politics and that is the discussion...
It's her who can't get past his beliefs in this case.
#12 | Posted by BillJohnson

Sometimes incompatible political beliefs are an indication of incompatible values. That's the conclusion I think these women who want to leave their husbands have come to. I am reminded of a line from You've Got Mail: "It's not personal, it's just business." It seems to me that a lot of people are still trying to tell themselves, "It's not personal, it's just politics." But for many other people politics under Trump isn't business as usual and is indeed very personal. Here's the scene late in the movie when Meg Ryan's character confronts the Tom Hanks' character on his earlier comment about business:

Proof Trump doesn't care about the price of eggs:

"Shut up about egg prices"

Hudson said the cuts pushed by the Department of Government Efficiency are resonating with voters. . . .Hudson said Republicans are confident their budget-cutting is "on the side of the angels."

The goal is privatizing the federal government. Voters don't support that:

Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made it clear that the Trump administration's goal is to slash the federal government and to privatize its current services. As the stock market has dropped and economists have warned of a dramatic slowdown in the economy, he told CNBC "There's going to be a natural adjustment as we move away from public spending to private spending. The market and the economy have just become hooked, we've become addicted to this government spending, and there's going to be a detox period."

The administration's dramatic--and likely illegal and unconstitutional--cuts are infuriating Americans who did not expect Trump to reorder the American government so completely. While billionaire Elon Musk and President Donald Trump repeatedly say they are cutting only "waste, fraud, and abuse" from the government, that insistence appears to be rhetorical rather than backed by fact. And yesterday, new cuts appeared to continue the gutting of government services that generally appear to be important to Americans' health, safety, and economic security.

At the current rate of progress, they will never be eliminated.
#38 | Posted by REDIAL

Are they waiting for closer to the 2026 midterms or just waiting till Musk is done killing off, metaphorically speaking, the federal work force?