Phil Vickman

Partner Marketing @SHI_Intl Tech channel sales and marketing pro. Bass guitar player. I share interesting digital stuff.

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: YES! New polling reveals that Democrat James Talarico has pulled ahead of MAGA freak Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate race.

Republicans are officially in full-blown panic mode...

According to a survey conducted by the Texas Pulse, 47% of respondents said that they would vote for Talarico while 44% said they'd vote for Paxton. 2% said they'd support a different candidate. Given the fact that Texas is touted as a bastion of conservative sentiment, this is a remarkable lead for Talarico.

And Paxton is a remarkably bad candidate, even by the subterranean standards of the Trump era. He was impeached by his own party for taking bribes as state attorney general. In addition to being a literal crook, he's an immoral philanderer and his wife divorced him for adultery. He previously said that the horrific Uvalde school shooting — during which 21 people died and 18 others were injured — was just "part of God's plan."

“Call me old-fashioned, but a man takes responsibility,” Talarico, taking aim at his opponent. “He upholds his commitments to his family and his neighbors, and he does what’s right even when no one is watching.”

Meanwhile, Talarico himself is a devout Christian with a sterling record of standing up for working class people as a member of the Texas House of Representatives. He represents the sane, upstanding choice compared to Paxton's blatant criminality.

It's clear that Republicans are floundering here. Lacking any legitimate avenue of attack against Talarico, they've resorted to falsely claiming that he's "transgender," insulting his masculinity, and spreading AI videos depicting him saying things that he's never said. They have nothing to run on and Texans will see right through their pathetic smear campaign.

Please ❤️ and share if you're rooting for James Talarico!

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: HELL YES! Vietnam veterans hit Trump with a massive lawsuit to stop his hideous and “disrespectful” Triumph Arch from being erected in D.C.

They didn't mince words about that draft-dodging coward...

"We know how authoritarian dictatorships work. There's no rule of law, there's no consent of the governed, and there's monuments for the leaders there," said veteran and retired diplomat Jon Gundersen.

"I think what we're doing is being loyal to the country. And loyalty can be measured in different ways," Gundersen added. He's suing the Trump administration along with veterans Shaun Byrnes and Michael Lemmon. Their lawsuit is joined by the ethics watchdog group Public Citizen.

The arch, which Trump has admitted is being built to honor himself, is slated to go up between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, our country's most hallowed resting place. At over twice the size of the Lincoln Memorial, the 250-foot-tall eye sore would cut off a clear view between the memorial and cemetery — inserting Trump's ego smack dab in the middle of our national soul.

"It's more about the duty I feel towards my colleagues and friends who did not come home to stand up against this project, regardless of who's in charge," said Byrnes. "I think it's just disrespectful to those that I served with who didn't come back, and then, of course, to all those who are lying in Arlington National Cemetery."

He explained that he has always hoped to be buried at Arlington when he dies but if Trump's arch goes up he'll be forced to "reconsider" his options.

The lawsuit argues that not only is Trump's vanity project arch illegal because he failed to obtain congressional approval, but it's also a disastrous design decision because it disrupts the intended sightline between the cemetery, which lies on land seized from Robert E. Lee, and the Lincoln Memorial, which was erected in the wake of the Civil War.

Tellingly, the administration has yet to unveil a price tag for the arch. While Trump previously claimed that it would be fund by private donations (meaning corrupt pay-to-play bribes) he also said the same thing about his ballroom and is now seeking $1 billion to build that.

“Even if you took private donations, is that how we want to build monuments?” said Gundersen. “To the oligarchs who give money for favors?"

More to the point, what "triumph" is Trump celebrating? His Iran War is a world-historic debacle that will almost certainly end with Iran in direct control of the Strait Hormuz, cementing themselves as a preeminent world power. On the domestic front, it has been one defeat after another for the United States. Trump gutted Medicaid, destroyed our education and scientific research systems, and devastated our economy with harebrained tariffs and costly military adventurism overseas.

The only Trump-related triumph will belong to the American people when we finally kick him and his entire party out of power.

Please ❤️ and share if you oppose Trump's arch!

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear just DESTROYED Trump's entire economic performance in only 60 seconds — and he's 100% right.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear just did an interview where he delivered the most brutally efficient takedown of Trump's economic record you'll hear from any Democrat in office right now — and he did it simply by taking Trump at his word.

"The president finally said something that was true," Beshear said. "He said he does not care about the financial situation of the American people. And you know what? The way he governs shows it."’

That's the whole ballgame right there.

"The Trump economy is a failure," Beshear said flatly. And he then proved it point by point.

Trump's tariffs? "Americans have paid 90% of them. It's been a tax by the president that has made everything cost more." Not China. Not foreign manufacturers. You — every time you buy groceries, clothes, or appliances.

Then there's the war with Iran — a conflict Beshear notes that Trump "alone chose to go into" — which "has skyrocketed the price of not just gasoline, but diesel, making everything more expensive. Every good we ship across the country now costs more." That's not abstract economic theory. That's every truck on every highway carrying every product to every store in America.

"Going to see your family if you got to take a plane trip costs a lot more," Beshear continued. And when Americans desperately need relief on housing costs, Trump won't lift a finger — because, as Beshear points out, Trump says "we're not working hard enough."

And when parents worry about affording basic goods for their kids? Trump's answer, per Beshear, is that "our kids have too many toys."

This is the man Republicans told us was a business genius. The dealmaker. The guy who promised to make everything cheaper on day one.

Beshear's closing line says it all: "At least he said something true. He doesn't care about the American people."

Democrats should be saying exactly this, in exactly these terms, every single day between now and November.

Please like and share hare this everywhere to spread Gov. Beshear's insight.

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

Trump called ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott a bitch, and I think we’re long past the point where anyone with a functioning conscience should be expected to shrug and mutter, “Well, that’s just Trump being Trump.” No. That phrase has done enough damage already. It’s the anesthetic we’ve used to numb ourselves to behavior that would have politically incinerated any other president in modern American history. Two professional lip readers independently confirmed what the video appeared to show: as Trump walked away from the press gaggle at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, he muttered, “She’s a bitch,” in Rachel Scott’s direction. The White House, naturally, offered no clarification. No apology. No denial worth taking seriously. Just the usual strategic silence that follows whenever this man says the quiet part out loud and hopes the outrage cycle burns itself out by dinner.
And what exactly provoked His Fragile Majesty this time? Journalism. Rachel Scott did her job. She asked an entirely legitimate question about why this administration appears preoccupied with beautification vanity projects while Americans are dealing with spiking gas prices against the backdrop of yet another Trump-fueled geopolitical mess in Iran. A straightforward question. The kind reporters are supposed to ask. Trump’s response was the usual slurry of grievance and invented drama, claiming Scott “probably don’t see dirt,” insisting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool had been some sort of national biohazard requiring “11 or 12 truckloads of garbage” to be hauled away, as though the place had been abandoned since the Eisenhower administration. That’s nonsense. The reflecting pool undergoes regular maintenance, including draining and cleaning, as part of standard federal upkeep. But facts have always been optional when Trump needs a dramatic set piece for his performance of wounded masculinity.
This is not just about one ugly muttered insult. This is about a man with a long, unmistakable record of directing particular venom toward Black women who dare challenge him publicly. Maxine Waters? “Low IQ.” Kamala Harris? “Low IQ.” April Ryan. Yamiche Alcindor. Abby Phillip. And now Rachel Scott. The pattern is not subtle enough to require forensic analysis. When Black women do their jobs with intelligence, composure, and precision in Trump’s orbit, he does not engage on substance. He lashes out. He demeans. He attempts to diminish. It’s the behavioral vocabulary of a man who sees confident women, particularly Black women, not as professionals doing their jobs, but as threats to be put back in their place.
And here’s the truly pathetic part: Black women are statistically among the most educated demographics in this country, which makes Trump’s lazy insult repertoire not just racist and misogynistic, but spectacularly ignorant. The man who confuses confidence with insolence and accountability with disrespect continues to reveal exactly who he is, and yet somehow we are still asked, by some corners of this exhausted country, to treat each new offense like an isolated misunderstanding instead of what it plainly is: a character flaw so deeply embedded it has become governing style.
No. We are done normalizing this.
This is not “Trump being Trump.”
This is a president of the United States behaving like a bitter, insecure bully every time an intelligent woman refuses to play decorative furniture in his presence. And yes, that matters.
—Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: YES! Pope Leo XIV claps back after Trump accused him of "endangering a lot of Catholics" with a brilliant response that has MAGA world screeching.

This pope always knows exactly what to say...

“Well, the pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and I don’t think that’s very good,” Trump told right-wing commentator Hugh Hewitt. “I think he’s endangering a lot of Catholics, and a lot of people, but I guess if it’s up to the pope, he thinks it’s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

As has been explained and repeated in countless publications at this point, Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons. Our own intelligence agencies concluded as much and Ayatollah Khamenei — who Trump assassinated — maintained a religious ban against such armaments. Ironically, now that the United States has attacked, Iran has a greater incentive than ever to pursue nukes.

What's more, Trump is the one who endangered Catholics, and indeed everyone on this planet, by starting an illegal war on behalf of Israel that could easily escalate into a new world war.

While Pope Leo didn't mention Trump by name, a tactic often used by former President Barack Obama, it was clear who he was responding to.

“I have already spoken from the first moment ‘peace be with you.’ The mission of the Church is to preach the Gospel, to preach peace. If anyone wants to criticize me for proclaiming the Gospel, let them do so truthfully," Leo told reporters in Italian. “The Church has spoken out against all nuclear weapons for years, so there is no doubt about that."

Of course Pope Leo doesn't want Iran to have nuclear weapons because the Catholic Church doesn't want anyone to have them. At the same time, he won't support a bloody, genocidal war of aggression being waged against innocent women and children to prevent weapons that were never being built in the first place.

Trump's fixation on Leo stems from a frustration with his own powerlessness to stop the Vatican from criticizing this war. He's used to Evangelical Republicans who claim to believe in Jesus but in practice believe in nothing beyond raw power. Now that he's going up against a real Christian, he doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Please ❤️ and share if you stand with Pope Leo!

[Phil Vickman @PhilVee7]

Hegseth thinks he’s fucking Thanos

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: Rep. Jamie Raskin introduces EXPLOSIVE bill to evaluate Trump under 25th Amendment authority — and 50 Democrats immediately sign on as co-sponsors Jamie Raskin has had enough of having a completely demented madman as president. So he's decided to do something about it — with 50 colleagues standing behind him.

The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee introduced legislation Tuesday to establish a "Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office" — a 17-member body authorized under Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to determine whether Donald Trump is mentally and physically capable of serving as president.
The evidence Raskin cited in introducing the bill reads like a highlight reel of a presidency in freefall. Trump threatened to destroy "a whole civilization" over a shipping deadline he posted on Truth Social. He published an image of himself as Jesus Christ — then claimed he was portraying himself as a doctor. He attacked Pope Leo, the first American pope in history. He launched an unauthorized war in Iran without a congressional vote, in violation of the War Powers Act. He nearly blurted out classified troop numbers at a press conference before his own Joint Chiefs chair had to stop him. He set four consecutive deadlines against Iran and backed down from every single one.

"Public trust in Donald Trump's ability to meet the duties of his office has dropped to unprecedented lows," Raskin said. "We are at a dangerous precipice, and it is now a matter of national security for Congress to fulfill its responsibilities under the 25th Amendment."

Let's be honest about the math. The 25th Amendment has never been used to end a presidency. It would require JD Vance and a majority of Trump's own cabinet to declare him unfit — the same cabinet that paid $35 million to buy their jobs and has spent months nodding along to everything Trump says. Then, if Trump disputed it — which he would, loudly, on Truth Social, probably while posting another Jesus picture — two-thirds of both chambers of Congress would have to agree. That's a higher bar than impeachment.

Raskin knows this bill won't remove Trump tomorrow. That's not entirely the point. The point is to force a conversation that the White House desperately does not want to have — about a 79-year-old man who is threatening civilizational annihilation on social media, comparing himself to Jesus, ignoring his own generals, hiding war casualties, and calling his diplomatic strategy "J.D. and Steve and Jared."

The White House response to Raskin's earlier request for a cognitive evaluation was: "Lightweight Jamie Raskin is a stupid person's idea of a smart person." Which is obviously not the response everyone would like to see: "The president will be happy to take a cognitive test."

Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Marlin Stutzman of Indiana reassured everyone that Trump is "one of the greatest presidents our nation has ever seen" and is "making the entire planet safer" — this being the same planet where Austria, Italy, and Spain have closed their airspace to American warplanes, and allies believe America has "lost its mind."

Fifty Democratic co-sponsors. A formal bill. A 72-hour medical examination requirement. And a president who responded to questions about his mental fitness by posting a picture of himself as Jesus.

Who still thinks we don’t need a commission like Raskin and his co-sponsors have proposed?

Please like and share this article if you think the American people deserve to know whether the man with the nuclear codes is truly mentally fit to have them.

[Phil Vickman @PhilVee7]

Well said

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

Too on point not to share, “Aussie reply to Trump rant about NATO not being there for us.

Mate. You run a country with 600,000 homeless people sleeping on the street tonight. A country where 40% of adults can't cover a $400 emergency without borrowing money. A country where insulin costs more than a car payment and people are rationing it to survive. A country where medical debt is the number 1 cause of bankruptcy. A country where women are dying in hospital car parks because doctors are too scared of abortion laws to treat a miscarriage.
You lock up more of your own citizens than any nation on earth. More than China. More than Russia. More than North Korea. The land of the free has 2 million people in cages, and a quarter of them haven't even been convicted of anything. They're just too poor to make bail.
Your life expectancy is going backwards. You're the only developed nation where that's happening. Your infant mortality rate is worse than Cuba's. Your kids do active shooter drills between maths and English while you sell the gunmaker's stock to your mates.
Your minimum wage hasn't moved in 15 years. You've got teachers working 2 jobs and veterans sleeping under bridges and you just spent a trillion dollars flattening a country that didn't attack you.
And you’ve got a convicted felon, adjudicating raping, paedophile protecting, porn star shagging insurrectionist running the biggest dumpster fire war campaign since the Taliban thanked you very much for losing again.
And you're calling Greenland poorly run?
Greenland has universal healthcare. Free education. One of the lowest incarceration rates in the world. Nobody goes bankrupt there because they got sick. Nobody dies in a waiting room because their insurance said no.
"NATO wasn't there when we needed them." When exactly was that, champ? September 11? Because NATO invoked Article 5 for the first and only time in history FOR YOU. Soldiers from dozens of countries deployed, fought, bled, and died in Afghanistan FOR YOU. Australia wasn't even in NATO and we still showed up. For 20 years.
And you pulled out at 2am without telling anyone and left them to deal with the mess.
So maybe before you start calling other countries poorly run, have a look at your own backyard, you spray-tanned aluminium siding salesman. The only thing poorly run in this picture is your fucking mouth. Credit (borrowed from) Jim Scroggins - original author 📷 unknown”

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: A former White House doctor calls for Trump to undergo an immediate "medical evaluation" after a disturbing new Truth Social post supercharged concerns about his mental collapse.

The dementia is getting worse by the day...

"Earlier in the week the president threatened to kill an entire civilization. Now he posts a video of a woman being beaten to death," Dr. Jonathan Reiner, who was Vice President Dick Cheney's cardiologist, wrote on X.

"To put it mildly, that’s concerning behavior. If he was a member of your family you would urge him to see a doctor. He should have a medical evaluation," he added.

Trump posted a video to Truth Social yesterday showing a woman being brutally beaten to death outside of a gas station. He used the clip to rant about "illegal criminal aliens" and blamed "Radical Democrats" and "Crooked Joe Biden" for the horrific incident.

It was a disgusting politicization of a woman's death that underscored just how callused Trump is towards any loss of life. No previous president would have ever considered posting a snuff film for the whole world to see, but there's no low to which Trump will not sink amidst his plummeting approval ratings.

"Please say a prayer for this innocent woman’s family," Trump wrote, as if he cares one bit about the deceased's loved ones. He amplified their pain a thousandfold just by sharing the footage.

Of course, a worsening lack of self control is a hallmark sign of certain forms of cognitive decline, particularly certain types of dementia. This man is unraveling more and more by the day and yet the Republican Party refuses to take action. He's deeply unfit to lead and his finger is hovering over the nuclear button. We need the 25th Amendment now!

Please ❤️ and share if you support invoking the 25th!

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: CNN boldly stands up to Trump and REFUSES to back down after he attacked their Iran ceasefire reporting as "FRAUD," demanded a retraction, and threatened an investigation.

This is journalistic integrity at its finest...

“The statement in question was obtained by CNN from Iranian officials and reported on multiple Iranian state media outlets. We received the statement from specific official Iranian spokespeople who are known to us," CNN posted on X in response to a post from corrupt FCC Chair Brendan Carr whining about their "fake news" reportng.

The reporting in question quoted Iranian officials as having described the ceasefire as a "great victory" for their nation and a "crushing defeat" for Trump that he agreed to in order to reopen the Straight of Hormuz. The Iranians also (correctly) described the war as "unfair, unlawful, and criminal."

Trump saw the coverage and promptly had a Truth Social meltdown—

"The alleged Statement put out by CNN World News is a FRAUD, as CNN well knows," he wrote. "The false Statement was linked to a Fake News site (from Nigeria) and, of course, immediately picked up by CNN, and blared out as a 'legitimate' headline. The Official Statement by Iran was just released, and posted on TRUTH, below."

"Authorities are looking to determine whether or not a crime was committed on the issuance of the Fake CNN World Statement, or was it a sick rogue player?" he continued. "CNN is being ordered to immediately withdraw this Statement with full apologies for their, as usual, terrible 'reporting.' Results of the investigation will be announced in the near future."

"No one can believe that Fake News CNN put out a knowingly false and dangerous statement pretending it came from the upper levels of the Iranian Government. It didn’t!" he wrote in a followup post. "It was totally made up and posted, as a headline, for purpose of, perhaps, inflaming a very delicate situation. It was a new, trouble making site from Nigeria, and CNN just got caught cheating - A very dangerous thing to do!"

Unlike Trump, CNN is actually interested in the truth. They don't run reports on random, half-researched Nigerian clickbait articles. They have a robust verification process and network of sources that they use to assure their reporting is accurate.

The likeliest explanation here is that CNN struck a nerve while Trump was still trying to paint his ceasefire as some kind of win, when all he actually accomplished was opening a strait that was already open before he launched his war. It's also entirely possible that he's so lazy, so checked out of the negotiations, and so gripped by dementia that he didn't even realize what he'd agreed to.

In any case, we commend CNN for standing strong. Never cave to the fascist bully!

Please ❤️ and share to thank CNN!

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: Trump sends out a deranged late night rant demanding that Fox News FIRE their liberal host Jessica Tarlov because he's angry about her anti-MAGA commentary.

This man is the greatest threat to free speech that America has ever known...

"Tell Shannon Bream of FoxNews that it’s not the Save Act, it’s the Save America Act, a big difference!" Trump posted on Truth Social. "Also, when she insists on having lightweight Democrat Congressmen, such as Jake Auchincloss, on her not very hard hitting show, she should correct them when they spew out Democrat propaganda and lies. She never does! I always close deals, unlike the Dems, and did great with China in every way, also, unlike the Dems!"

The irony of a pathological liar like Trump accusing anyone of lying is clearly lost on the so-called president.

"For Fox executives only, take Jessica Tarlov off the air," he continued. "She is, from her voice, to her lies, and everything else about her, one of the worst 'personalities' on television, a real loser! People cannot stand watching her. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DJT"

The "people who cannot stand watching" Tarlov is really just one person: Donald J. Trump. He hates turning on his comfort propaganda network and being confronted by the truth about his failed presidency. Tarlov has been a fierce critic of his administration and of him personally, all while standing up bravely to her pro-MAGA co-hosts.

Just last week, Tarlov went viral for explaining that the "No Kings" protests were in fact a massive deal, despite what Republicans were insisting, because politically engaged people are far more likely to show up to vote when the midterm elections arrive. During that same segment, she pointed out that Trump's approval ratings are abysmal. Clearly, the man himself is finally fed up with having his feelings hurt.

This demand that Tarlov be fired is just the latest attack on the First Amendment from a president who has made a habit of it. He regularly tries to get late night hosts fired for criticizing him — and succeeded in doing so when Stephen Colbert's show was canceled — and his FCC Chair Brendan Carr has proven himself to be a partisan attack dog willing to abuse his regulatory powers to target his boss's political enemies.

We cannot remain silent. The time to speak out in defense of Jessica Tarlov is now!

Please ❤️ and share if you stand with Jessica Tarlov!

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: Here is what some active-duty Marines are calling Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon — and it doesn’t make him look good.

Pete Hegseth wanted to be called the "Secretary of War," instead of Secretary of Defense. Now, his own troops have a different title in mind.

Rep. Seth Moulton — a Marine combat veteran who actually served in Iraq, unlike the Fox News host currently running the Pentagon — dropped a bombshell this week that should stop every American cold: "I know active-duty Marines who now refer to Pete Hegseth's department as the Department of War Crimes."

These aren’t former officials, nor political opponents. These are active-duty Marines, the people Hegseth commands. These are the people who have watched him operate up close. They are calling their own department the Department of War Crimes — and according to Moulton, they're doing it because of what they've been ordered to do.

The nickname is a savage mashup of Hegseth's own self-aggrandizing rebrand of the Department of Defense as the "Department of War" — because nothing says serious military leadership like cosplay branding — and the growing mountain of evidence that his tenure has been defined by actions that legal experts are calling war crimes.

The list is staggering: Airstrikes in Yemen that allegedly hit residential buildings, killing at least 224 civilians. Strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities of questionable legality under both domestic and international law. An alleged no-survivors attack order issued against vessels in the Caribbean. A lightning invasion of Venezuela launched without congressional authorization. And now Trump's announced intention to target Iranian civilian energy infrastructure — the same playbook, Moulton noted pointedly, that the United States spent years condemning Vladimir Putin for using in Ukraine.

"It's meant to hurt civilians," Moulton said. "This is the same stuff we criticized Vladimir Putin for doing in Ukraine."

Over a thousand civilians have been killed in the Iran war. More than a hundred of them were children, killed when a missile — believed to be American — struck a school.

Hegseth's spokesperson responded to questions about war crimes by quoting the man himself: "They target civilians. We do not, and I can tell you this administration and this Pentagon focuses on that very, very closely."

A school full of children would beg to differ. If they could.

And "Department of War Crimes" isn't even the only nickname Hegseth has earned in the building. Pentagon staffers have also taken to calling him "Dumb McNamara" — a reference to Vietnam-era Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who sent tens of thousands of Americans to die in a war he privately knew was unwinnable.

The comparison is not a compliment. McNamara, for all his catastrophic failures, was at least regarded as intellectually serious. Hegseth, the Fox & Friends Weekend host who needed a Vice Presidential tiebreaker to get confirmed, is regarded as having McNamara's appetite for escalation without the analytical credentials.

Same body count. Fewer brain cells.

This is the man running America's military. This is the man who has fired over a dozen decorated generals and replaced them with loyalists and personal aides. This is the man whose troops — the ones actually carrying out his orders — have given his department a name that should haunt every single person who confirmed him.

Please like and share this post if you believe "Department of War Crimes" should never be how America's military is described accurately — and certainly not by its own Marines.

[Stephanie Rader 🏳️‍🌈✡️💙🌈 @StephanieRade18]

@mark_slapinski @TPBlue4 He is so insanely jealous of Obama

[Mike Nellis @MikeNellis]

Charles Barkley risked getting fired on CBS last night, calling out Trump for attacking immigrants: “The way some of these immigrants are getting treated in our country right now is a travesty and a disgrace. What we’re doing to some of these amazing immigrants is really unfortunate and really sad.”

[Phil Vickman @PhilVee7]

Fantastic piece. I will still fly my flag on July 4th, for what was and will be, not for what is.

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

Robert Mueller died last night.

He was 81 years old. He had a wife who loved him for sixty years. He had two daughters, one of whom he met for the first time in Hawaii, in 1969, on a few hours of military leave, before he got back on the plane and returned to Vietnam. He had grandchildren. He had a faith he practiced quietly, without performance. He had, in the way of men who have seen real things and survived them, a quality that is increasingly rare and increasingly mocked in the country he spent his life serving.

He had integrity.

And tonight the President of the United States said good!

I have been sitting with that word for hours now. Good. One syllable. The thing you say when the coffee is hot or the traffic is moving. The thing a man who has never had to bury anyone, never had to sit in the specific silence of a room where someone is newly absent, reaches for when he wants the world to know he is satisfied. Good. The daughters are crying and the wife is alone in the house and good.

I want to speak directly to the Americans reading this. Not the political Americans. Just the human ones. The ones who have lost a father. The ones who know what it is to be in that first hour, when you keep forgetting and then remembering again, when ordinary objects become unbearable, when the world outside the window seems obscene in its indifference. I want to ask you, simply, to hold that feeling for a moment, and then to understand that the man you elected looked at it and typed a single word.

Good.

This is not a country having a bad day. I need you to understand that. Countries have bad days. Elections go wrong. Leaders disappoint. Institutions bend. But there is a different thing, a rarer and more terrible thing, that happens when the moral center of a place simply gives way. Not dramatically. Not with a single catastrophic event. But quietly, in increments, until one evening a president celebrates the death of an old man whose family is still warm with grief, and enough people find it acceptable that it becomes the weather. Just the weather.

That is what is happening. That is what has happened.

The world knows. From Tokyo to Oslo, from London to Buenos Aires, people are not angry at America tonight. Anger would mean there was still something to fight for, some remaining faith to be betrayed. What I see, in the reactions from everywhere that is not here, is something older and sadder than anger. It is the look people get when they have waited a long time for someone they love to find their way back, and have finally understood that they are not coming.

America is being grieved. Past tense, almost. The idea of it. The thing it represented to people who had nothing else to believe in, who came here with everything they owned in a single bag because they had heard, somehow, across an ocean, that this was the place where decency was written into the walls. That idea is not resting. It is not suspended. It is being buried, in real time, with 7,450 likes before dinner.

And the church said nothing.

Seventy million people have decided that this man, this specific man who has cheated everyone he has ever made a promise to, who has mocked the disabled and the dead and the grieving, who celebrated tonight while a family wept, is an instrument of God. The pastors who made that bargain did not just trade away their credibility. They traded away the thing that made them worth listening to in the first place. The cross they carry now is a costume. The faith they preach is a loyalty oath with scripture attached. When the history of American Christianity is written, this will be the chapter they skip at seminary.

Now I want to talk about the men who stand next to him.

Because this is the part that actually breaks my heart.

JD Vance is not a bad man. I have to say that, because it is true, and because the truth matters even now, especially now. Marco Rubio is not a bad man. Lindsey Graham is not a bad man. They are idiots, but not bad, as in BAD! These are men with mothers who raised them and children who love them and friends who remember who they were before all of this. They are not monsters. Monsters are simple. Monsters do not cost you anything emotionally because there is nothing in them to mourn.

These men are something more painful than monsters.

They are men who knew better, and know better still, and will get up tomorrow and do it again.

Every small compromise they made had a reason. Every moment they looked the other way had a justification that sounded, at the time, almost reasonable. And now they have arrived here, at a place where a president celebrates the death of an old man and they will find a way, on television, to say nothing that means anything, and they will go home to houses where children who carry their name are waiting, and they will say goodnight, and they will say nothing.

Their oldest friends are watching. The ones who knew Rubio when he still believed in something. Who knew Graham when he said, out loud, on the record, that this exact man would destroy the Republican Party and deserve it. Who sat next to Vance and thought here is someone worth knowing. Those friends are not angry tonight. They moved through anger a long time ago. What they feel now is the quiet, irrecoverable sadness of watching someone disappear while still being present. Of watching a person they loved choose, again and again, to become less.

That is what cowardice costs. Not the coward. The people who loved him.

And in the comments tonight, the followers celebrate. People who ten years ago brought casseroles to grieving neighbours. Who stood in the rain at gravesides and meant the words they said. Who told their children that we do not speak ill of the dead because the dead were someone's beloved. Those people are tonight typing gleeful things about a man whose daughters are not yet done crying. And they feel clean doing it. Righteous. Because somewhere along the way the thing they were given in exchange for their decency was the feeling of belonging to something, and that feeling is very hard to give up even when you can no longer remember what you gave for it.

When Trump is gone, they will still be here.

Standing in the silence where the noise used to be. Without the permission the crowd gave them. Without the pastor who told them their cruelty was holy. They will be alone with what they said and what they cheered and what they chose to become, and there will be no one left to tell them it was righteous.

That morning is coming.

Robert Mueller flew across the Pacific on military leave to hold his newborn daughter for a few hours before returning to the war. He came home. He buried his dead with honour. He served presidents of both parties because he understood that the institution was larger than any one man. He told his grandchildren that a lie is the worst thing a person can do, that a reputation once lost cannot be recovered, and he lived that, every day, in the quiet and unglamorous way of people who actually believe what they say.

He was the kind of American the world used to point to when it needed to believe the story was true.

He died last night. His wife is alone in their house in Georgetown. His daughters are learning what the world is without him in it. And somewhere in the particular hush that falls over a family in the first hours of loss, the most powerful man and the biggest loser on earth sent a message to say he was glad.

The world that loved what America was supposed to be is grieving tonight. Not for Robert Mueller only. For the country that produced him and then became this. For the distance between what was promised and what was delivered. For the suspicion, growing quieter and more certain with each passing month, that the America people believed in was always partly a story, and the story is over now, and there is nothing yet to replace it.

That is all it needed to be.

A man died. His family is broken open with grief.

That is all it needed to be.

Instead the President said good.

And the country that once stood for something looked away 🇺🇸

Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

[Phil Vickman @PhilVee7]

Please read this

[David Hume Kennerly @kennerly]

This is an extraordinary piece of writing. I started reading it and couldn’t stop, and neither should you. @Liz_Cheney @KerryKennedyRFK @mikebarnicle @kathleenparker @AdamKinzinger @gtconway3d @NormOrnstein @JohnJHarwood @BeschlossDC @SykesCharlie @ImprovAmbassadr @ccwhip

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: Hillary Clinton DISMANTLES the Republicans during her Jeffrey Epstein deposition to Congress, tell them to ask Trump "under oath" about the "tens of thousands of times he showed up in the Epstein files."

This MAGA scheme backfired immediately...

“You have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump’s actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers,” Clinton said.

She tore into House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer for being such a shameless partisan hack for Trump and said that his committee subpoenaed her "based on its assumption that I have information regarding the investigations into the criminal activities of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Let me be as clear as I can. I do not."

"As I stated in my sworn declaration on January 13, I had no idea about their criminal activities," she said. "I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein. I never flew on his plane or visited his island, homes or offices. I have nothing to add to that."

There is absolutely no indication that the former Secretary of State has any knowledge about Epstein, despite her husband's associations with him. As Democrats have said time and again, we don't care who is implicated in the files. Release them all and let the chips fall where they may.

Clinton urged Comer to make himself “worthy of the trust the American people have given you.”

She further accused Republicans of conducting their sham investigation in such a way that it is clearly "designed to protect one political party and one public official."

"A committee run by elected officials with a commitment to transparency would ensure the full release of all the files," she said.

"Instead, you have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump’s actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers," Clinton continued.

"If this Committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein’s trafficking crimes, it would not rely on press gaggles to get answers from our current president on his involvement; it would ask him directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files,” she added.

There is a simple way to cut through all of this noise and finally get the full truth before the American people. Release the Epstein files and prosecute everyone who is implicated in them. Focusing on the Clintons is the last ditch effort of a White House desperate for a distraction. It won't work.

Please ❤️ and share to demand that Trump be forced to testify next!

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

🚨HOLY COW: In footage Republicans don’t want you to see, Jack Smith confirms Donald Trump was the CAUSE of January 6.

They released it on New Year’s Eve to bury it. Let’s get it everywhere.

[Protect Kamala Harris ✊ @DisavowTrump20]

RETWEET if you stand with Jack Smith against Donald Trump!

[Phil Vickman @PhilVee7]

@MarcoFoster_ @TheRickWilson @ProjectLincoln Word