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

SCOTUS may be happy to obliterate the independence of agencies that protect workers & consumers — but may not be so blithe about opening up the Fed to a partisan takeover, likely sparking global instability. At least, that's what experts hope, as the right inches closer to an all-powerful presidency

submitted 23 hours ago • 3 comments

Presidents with trifectas, recognizing how fleeting that control is, usually rush to shepherd through their priorities: ACA + stimulus for Obama, tax cuts for Trump, COVID relief + chunks of BBB for Biden. You could be forgiven for forgetting that Trump has one now, so uninterested is he in using it

submitted 2 days ago • 15 comments

Trump and those in his orbit seem to be softening the ground to ignore a judge’s ruling, which would spark a constitutional crisis. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/judge-t...

submitted 15 days ago • 19 comments

TPM's own @kateriga.bsky.social appeared on @thebeat.msnbc.com this evening to discuss Trump's rhetoric vs. reality.

submitted 20 days ago • 10 comments

“No one voted for Elon Musk and now he has power, evidently, that neither Congress nor the President has,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told me incredulously. “And it’s all happening in plain view.”

submitted 21 days ago • 5 comments

Schatz to me on GOP acceptance of Musk's power grab: “I think they’re quietly concerned, but at some point they’re gonna have to assert themselves — a lot of people spent a lot of money & a lot of time becoming US senators and I, for one, wouldn’t want to forfeit all the power that I just earned"

submitted 21 days ago • 20 comments

I asked Senate Republicans if they're at all bothered by Musk seizing their spending powers. “He may be wading into areas that will be congressional authority, period,” Sen. Tillis (R-NC) acknowledged to me, before insisting that some unknown force will stop Musk from exercising that authority.

submitted 21 days ago • 16 comments

Schumer announces that the new legislation to keep musk & co from the Treasury payment system is called “stop the steal” - unveils at a joint presser with Jeffries to show Dems’ unity as they coalesce again musk as big antagonist

submitted 21 days ago • 24 comments

Schatz: "This is not some minor transgression, this is an illegal act. They stormed into buildings, they shut down agencies illegally."

submitted 22 days ago • 6 comments

Schatz to reporters before his remarks on Musk's breaching the Treasury payment system: "Imagine yourself a foreign correspondent. How would you cover this if this were in South America or Central America or Sub-Saharan Africa? How would the coverage change?"

submitted 22 days ago • 13 comments

Wyden on Musk's gaining access (via a pliable Secretary Bessent) to the Treasury's federal payment system: "They are seizing the tools they need for a coup"

submitted 22 days ago • 48 comments

Eek - Patel just asked Grassley to bail him out, asking whether Klobuchar is allowed to take extra time. That was just a litany of his damning comments that he struggled to rebut

submitted 27 days ago • 2 comments

"I don't have it in front of me" — this is Patel's recurring response to Klobuchar citing his old tweets/comments on podcasts. Upside of spreading yourself all over right-wing media: you might get to be Trump's FBI director. Downside: tons of meat in your own words for oppo researchers

submitted 27 days ago • 6 comments

Pro-Patel people in the crowd getting agitated for the first time at Whitehouse's forceful questioning - bringing up Patel's own quotes about going after government officials/media, his repost of an AI video of himself taking a chainsaw to Biden, Buttigieg and others.

submitted 27 days ago • 4 comments

Patel breaks with Trump on blanket Jan. 6 pardons - “I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement.”

submitted 27 days ago • 12 comments

Hello from the Kash Patel hearing room. Grassley is starting with assorted grievances about the FBI, with some specific shitting on Chris Wray (Patel will like that - he sued Wray in 2017). So far in these early minutes, room pretty sedate — worlds away from the excitement in the Hegseth room

submitted 27 days ago • 2 comments

As Durbin illustrated in new comments Tuesday evening, Senate Democrats keep falling into the same trap where they blunt their attacks to avoid alienating Republicans who were never going to defect anyway.

submitted 35 days ago • 52 comments

"This administration is just loaded with people who want to practice medicine," Durbin quips on Kash Patel hawking supplements. Durbin is a no on Patel after meeting with him. I asked him if Republicans had qualms about Patel - he said "yes at first" (1/2)

submitted 35 days ago • 7 comments

just had to hear alito utter the phrase "girlie magazine," where's my hazard pay

submitted 42 days ago • 4 comments

Hegseth won't say if episodes of his public drunkenness are true or false — responding to them all with "anonymous smears."

submitted 43 days ago • 4 comments

Markwayne Mullin, Republican from Oklahoma, says Hegseth is fine because senators routinely turn up to votes drunk. Oh!

submitted 43 days ago • 15 comments

Warren quips "I've heard of deathbed conversions but this is the first time I've heard of a confirmation conversion." Adds that if it only took 32 days to change his views, what's to stop him from changing back 32 days after confirmation?

submitted 43 days ago • 5 comments

Warren on women in combat comments: "What extraordinary event happened in that 32-day period that made you change the core values you had expressed in the preceding 12 years?"

submitted 43 days ago • 3 comments

Kaine the first to touch Hegseth's infidelity. He's nailing down Hegseth fathering a child out of wedlock around the time of the alleged sexual assault. Hegseth won't agree that a confirmed sexual assault charge would be disqualifying for the Sec Def job.

submitted 43 days ago • 7 comments

Hegseth won't say that he wouldn't carry out Trump's order to shoot protesters in the legs, at Hirono's questioning.

submitted 43 days ago • 8 comments

Big moment - Ernst is not grilling Hegseth on women in combat, but asking that he continues to agree that women get opportunities. His confirmation seemed in much greater doubt when she was vocally cool on him - but a right-wing pressure campaign to get her back in line seems to have worked

submitted 43 days ago • 16 comments

Gillibrand to Hegseth: You need to change your views on women in the military to do this job, and I don't know whether you're capable of doing it. Adds that Cotton was giving Hegseth "layups."

submitted 43 days ago • 2 comments

Cotton now jumping in to help Hegseth imply that women can't handle combat roles — using the classic shorthand in this debate of talking about rucksack/equipment weight

submitted 43 days ago • 11 comments

Shaheen quips "I appreciate your 11th-hour conversion" as Hegseth tries to walk back his comments about wanting women to be removed from combat roles. This is the first forceful questioning Hegseth has faced today - heads turned to Ernst and Duckworth, who were stony-faced

submitted 43 days ago • 3 comments

Now seeing Hegseth's response to sexual assault allegation — it's a "smear campaign" in the liberal media, one he predicted bc Trump "endured" the same thing. Trump was found liable for sexual abuse (which the judge said was rape); Hegseth was accused of rape + his mom wrote "abused" "many" women

submitted 43 days ago • 7 comments

We're now in a seemingly coordinated series of protests from self-identified veterans (many in fatigues), interrupting Hegseth's opening statement. Many have focused on Gaza. One woman mentioned that her father died by suicide after his service. They're being dragged/carried out by Capitol police

submitted 43 days ago • 2 comments

Self-identified Vietnam vet escorted out as he stood and yelled that Hegseth is a "misogynist," a "Christian Zionist" and a "supporter of the war in Gaza" during Hegseth's opening statement

submitted 43 days ago • 4 comments

Reed to Hegseth, after saying he's voted for Republican secretaries of defense every time before: You lack the "character, composure and competence" to hold this role

submitted 43 days ago • 4 comments

Both Wicker & Reed to a lesser degree are setting up the 'anonymous' trap here — implying that accusations against Hegseth are less legitimate because they come from anonymous sources (women)...but look what happens when the Hills/Blasey Fords are forced to make accusations under their own names

submitted 43 days ago • 4 comments

Spotted in the Pete supporters crowd: Megyn Kelly, formerly of Fox News, now hosting a talk show on Sirius. Tuberville just came up and had a little moment where he offered her encouragement ('keep up the good fight'-esque)

submitted 43 days ago • 4 comments

Hi from the Hegseth hearing room. Folks in 'veterans for Pete' shirts. Counter-protesters with veterans for peace gear, Code Pink folks holding 'no Hegseth' signs. Some who served with Hegseth chatting near me about how people 'don't care to find out' how great he is. Gonna be quite a day!

submitted 43 days ago • 8 comments

A thought about TikTok args at SCOTUS — highlights the schism in the new GOP under Trump between the tech bro libertarians and the old school China hawks. Gorsuch spoke most for the former, calling the gov't's position "paternalistic." Trump's flip-flop on the ban shows which faction is ascendant

submitted 46 days ago • 1 comment

Republican state officials and legislators in Louisiana argued Tuesday that the state has moved past racial discrimination in voting — and so should be allowed to suppress Black voting power with impunity. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/louisia...

submitted 49 days ago • 11 comments

After two hours, ferocious whipping and a dark-horse defection, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) secured the gavel on the first ballot. Still — electing a speaker is supposed to be the easy part. My dispatch from the frenzied (inadequately heated) halls: talkingpointsmemo.com/news/johnson...

submitted 53 days ago • 5 comments

Rep McGovern (D-MA) to me on House GOP (pre-Norman/Self changing votes): "The bad news is they're dysfunctional. The good news is they're dysfunctional, it means they won't get anything done"

submitted 53 days ago • 2 comments

Stacey Plaskett, delegate from Virgin Islands, calling a vote for the non-voting delegates representing 4 million American citizens (including DC, Puerto Rico, etc)

submitted 53 days ago • 4 comments

Johnson speaker vote FAILS after Norman votes Jim Jordan, no matter how the holdouts vote at the end. Johnson is sitting and looking ahead — this will take more than one round of voting

submitted 54 days ago • 2 comments

With Harris, we're up to 5 GOP holdouts not voting. They could vote at the end — and will have to be careful not to lower the threshold so far that Democrats can outnumber them. So far it's a silent protest from these far-right members, who sat in the chamber stonily when their names were called

submitted 54 days ago • 4 comments

Dems clap as the clerk reads out that Matt Gaetz has sent in a letter saying he won't serve in the new Congress

submitted 54 days ago • 1 comment

Sarah McBride, Congress' first openly trans member has arrived. Many Dems coming to say hi; she's sitting with AOC

submitted 54 days ago • 3 comments

Hello from the House chamber ahead of the speakership vote. Pelosi just limped in to big applause from the Democratic side — the first time I've ever seen her in flats. She's leaning heavily on aides after undergoing hip replacement surgery

submitted 54 days ago • 17 comments