justverbs.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

I’ve unfortunately needed to add more material to my post from yesterday. The re-election of Donald Trump is looking like the biggest act of American self-destruction since the Civil War. Same link, new title and some updates.

submitted 18 days ago • 22 comments

Incredible to think how hard Merrick Garland worked for four years to avoid even the remotest appearance of partisanship or ideological commitments, and literally on her first day as AG Pam Bondi is like "Diversity is now illegal, we will be putting all the libs in prison"

submitted 17 days ago • 237 comments

This is an absolutely remarkable memo — and a betrayal of both the Constitution and the American political tradition. In the US, by explicit contrast with interwar fascist governments, the state is not supposed to be an extension of the personality of the chief executive.

submitted 17 days ago • 215 comments

One of these per week until the midterms. Or get busy and one of these a day

submitted 18 days ago • 33 comments

Extremism experts say a now-familiar playbook to scapegoat transgender people in the wake of high-profile tragedies is part of a political strategy to sow division and expand authoritarian control.

submitted 17 days ago • 163 comments

BREAKING

submitted 17 days ago • 49 comments

I'll keep posting foreign press which doesn't share the American media's aversion to stating a simple truth: Trump is advocating war crimes. www.theguardian.com/law/2025/feb...

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

I wonder if we should be thinking of Musk's seizing of Treasury as an historic cyber-security breach that endangers the entire US and global financial system. Every government and financial institution in the world should be demanding that Treasury arrest the hackers, restore integrity of US govt.

submitted 18 days ago • 135 comments

Why would the White House insist on using an unclassified email to send a list of undercover CIA agents, some of whom were working on extremely sensitive China issues? Sabotage or stupidity?

submitted 18 days ago • 4 comments

The richest man in the world, a billionaire government contractor oligarch who Steve Bannon calls a "truly evil person," wants to control your parents’ Social Security checks, your grandfather’s VA benefits and the flow of cash to federal contractors.

submitted 18 days ago • 279 comments

“You guys are arguing over Taylor Swift tickets over here… this guy took $500m out of the market 48 hours before he was sworn in!” @scaramucci.bsky.social says there is incredibly “no outrage” after President Trump launched a cryptocurrency #Peston

submitted 18 days ago • 8 comments

New York City bankers learned 50 years ago that a Trump deal was worthless. Five years ago, Canada and Mexico made the mistake of trusting Trump's signature on a trade treaty. Now they are learning too. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

submitted 18 days ago • 34 comments

Each legal settlement between media companies and Donald Trump “weakens the democratic freedoms on which these media organizations depend,” writes Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute. “They also damage the media institutions’ prestige and credibility.”

submitted 19 days ago • 24 comments

"Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins if the law be transgressed to another’s harm, and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law... may be opposed as a thief and a robber..." John Locke

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

The point about Trump’s deranged comments about Gaza is that we’re wasting precious seconds talking about Trump’s deranged comments about Gaza and not unelected Elon Musk’s coup to dismantle our government.

submitted 18 days ago • 162 comments

Officers “seized computers, hard drives, files and phones from Begum staff, including Begum female journalists, and took into custody two male employees of the organization who do not hold any senior management position,” the station said in a statement

submitted 18 days ago • 60 comments

Lotta people don’t want to be seen driving the Nazimobiles

submitted 18 days ago • 56 comments

From @cathygellis.bsky.social: "I think a colorable, non-frivolous argument can be made that Elon Musk, and everyone on his DOGE team accessing the federal government’s computer infrastructure, is potentially personally liable for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)."

submitted 19 days ago • 53 comments

Let the protests begin.

submitted 19 days ago • 188 comments

Frost: "Trump fired pretty much every inspectors general in the entire country. And then a little bit later we hear that Elon Musk now has access to the federal payment system with zero oversight. And the question is, what is to stop him from using that information to enrich himself?"

submitted 19 days ago • 117 comments

@raskin.house.gov: "This is a coup, which is a seizure of state power by unelected actors... In addition to everything that Trump is doing to dismantle every part of gov’t that doesn't profit him personally, we have this additional problem of Elon Musk trying to consolidate state power under him."

submitted 19 days ago • 343 comments

"Musk is a private citizen taking control of established government offices. That is not efficiency; that is a coup." nymag.com/intelligence...

submitted 20 days ago • 271 comments

Senator Elizabeth Warren sent a letter on Monday to the Treasury secretary demanding answers for why the Dept. of Government Efficiency was granted access to the federal payments system, giving Elon Musk's team a powerful tool that could be used to track and potentially limit government spending.

submitted 20 days ago • 285 comments

Good summary of the American coup over the weekend. At the same time it sounded like the takeover was executed by like half a dozen grad engineer dorks working for Musk, I feel like a roomful of South Korean civil servants coulda held them off with just a fire extinguisher and some light bullying.

submitted 21 days ago • 4 comments

Tomorrow and every day this week. OPM DC

submitted 21 days ago • 16 comments

Someone, who used to know better, told me today that it’s patriotic to support the president even if you don’t always agree. This is the excuse being used by many to explain their acquiescence. Actually, this is what a patriot is: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/u...

submitted 21 days ago • 781 comments

submitted 21 days ago • 1032 comments

Musk’s Little Green Men: Meet the college age bros who now decide what the US government funds and what it doesn't. talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/musks...

submitted 21 days ago • 15 comments

Don’t let them make you feel like no one is organizing:

submitted 21 days ago • 6 comments

it is truly despicable that every single Democrat in the Senate voted to approve Rubio

submitted 21 days ago • 6 comments

OPM’s Top Lawyer Is A ‘Raging Misogynist’ With A Plan To Break The Civil Service talkingpointsmemo.com/news/opms-to...

submitted 21 days ago • 14 comments

it is extremely important that we figure out how to get normies to understand that their car sauce got exponsive and toilet paper became a luxury good because trump unilaterally decided canada should be the 51st state, a thing no one asked for and that he cannot make happen even through trade war

submitted 21 days ago • 35 comments

Yes. While there are absolutely things Democrats can and must do to slow, obstruct, etc, GOP hold both House and Senate majorities, severely limiting our options. Johnson and Thune are handing over the own keys and relinquishing their own power. Even for the cynics this should be a shock.

submitted 21 days ago • 4028 comments

Peaceful protest for our immigrants here in San Diego. Huge turn out . Ice parked large capacity buses with bars and wagons that clearly were meant to intimidate. We love our Mexican friends and neighbors in this city. We cannot be silent. #Sandiego #resist @prolibshow.com

submitted 21 days ago • 10 comments

Whatever you do, please don’t log on to X and retweet things about “BigBalls” and the other DOGE staffers who are hijacking the government’s payment systems and citizens’ private data.

submitted 21 days ago • 765 comments

The question isn’t whether Budde was right to speak up. The question is whether the rest of us will have the courage to join her.

submitted 21 days ago • 36 comments

Kash Patel Suddenly Can’t Seem to Remember His Long Record of Extremism "Clearly, Kash Patel is lying. He absolutely does know who I am," said far-right extremist Stew Peters, who had Patel on his show multiple times www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

submitted 21 days ago • 82 comments

It’s a message that MAGA America undoubtedly hears loud and clear: impunity for we, and none for thee.

submitted 21 days ago • 30 comments

Thousands of protesters rallied in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday against President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration and his aggressive deportation policies.

submitted 21 days ago • 35 comments

Low-income Arkansans encounter too many barriers to access nutrition assistance, according to a new report that found about 13% of the state's population relied on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in 2023.

submitted 21 days ago • 15 comments

A U.S. Justice Department investigation found that Russia funneled billions of dollars through American banks to Turkey in 2022, using the Akkuyu nuclear power plant project as cover to evade sanctions, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

submitted 21 days ago • 35 comments