robert jpb

Just curious about life, culture and politics

[Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @ReichlinMelnick]

The grift here is astounding. The "Trump Kennedy Center" people tried to outright STEAL more than half of a $300,000 bequest to the Washington National Opera made in a donor's will — even though the funds were intended to go solely to WNO. https://t.co/RKg6QTSJVo

[Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @ReichlinMelnick]

The "Trump Kennedy Center" apparently repeatedly ignored the terms of a contract with the Washington National Opera, locked the WNO out from viewing their own financial records, and is now refusing to return$17 million of their own money — and even already spent some of it!

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: Hunter Biden charges into battle to defend Graham Platner against the bad faith smear campaign — and Republicans are furious.

This is an absolute must-read…

“To everyone so eager to cancel someone for a tattoo they got at age 22, a drunk text, a selfie they took in the middle of a mental health crisis: Show us your laptop. Show us your iCloud,” Biden wrote on X.

“Open your entire digital life to your worst enemy. No context. No filter. No explanation. You won’t,” he added.

The tattoo in question was a skull that Platner got done while in the military only to later discover it was associated with Nazism. He promptly got it covered it up by a new, benign tattoo. Platner has also come under fire for past erratic behavior brought on by the PTSD he incurred fighting in wars started by a Republican administration.

“You won’t because you know what I know. Any one of us, frozen at our worst moment, photographed in our lowest hour, looks like a monster,” Hunter continued. “Looks like a stranger. Looks like someone who deserves to be cast out. That is not who we are.”

Hunter, of course, has personal experience with this kind of invasive humiliation because right-wingers gleefully disseminated photographs of him at his lowest, in the grips of drug and alcohol addiction, in an effort to politically harm his father. He is now clean, sober, and living proof that people can change.

“My mom and baby sister were killed in a car accident when I was just a kid. Cancer took my brother Beau, my best friend and my rock,” he wrote. “I battled alcoholism. I battled addiction. I chose the coward’s way out more times than I can count. For years I believed the defining chapters of my life were written by tragedy, loss, and shame.”

“I no longer believe that.”

“Pain can shape us. Loss can humble us. Failures can leave scars that never fully fade. But none of them have the authority to define us.”

“And it sure as hell ain’t the critic that counts. That authority belongs to us alone-the person in the arena. Every setback presents a choice. Play the victim, or cut the bullshit and take ownership for who we become next.”

“Life does not determine our character. It reveals it.”

“Again and again we are asked the same question. When shit happens, what next.”

“We are not defined by what happened to us. We are not defined by the worst photo, the worst text, the worst tattoo, the worst night. We are defined by the person we choose to become. And by the courage to choose that person, every single day.”

“So before you reach for the gavel - show us your laptop.”

“You won’t.”

“The whole world saw mine. And I am still here. Still becoming. Still choosing. Still standing.”

“That is the only definition that matters,” he concluded.

Republicans predictably responded to the thoughtful, empathetic message with their usual psychopathy. The comments are littered with MAGA cultists attacking Hunter for his past drug use and his father’s imagined crimes. But it doesn’t matter, Biden is undeterred. He’s proud of the man he’s become and ready to fight for what’s right.

Please ❤️ and share if you stand with Graham Platner!

[Tymofiy Mylovanov @Mylovanov]

Former MI6 Chief Richard Moore: Without China, Russia would have lost war in Ukraine.

North Korean troops and Iranian drones grab headlines. But what keeps Putin in Ukraine is China — chemicals for artillery shells, components for drones and missiles.

1/

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

Jennifer Welch on Susan Collins: “You are a pedophile enabler, you are pro-billionaire, you are anti-American, you are pro-war, you are anti-economy, you are a pathological liar that has blood on your hands. You support child sex abuse and sexual abuse with your vote of Brett Kavanaugh. We need to support the democratic voices in Maine and their candidate and get this c-u-n-t out of the Senate”

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

BREAKING: CNN Just Highlighted A Pretty Devastating Number.

84% of Americans say the Epstein files reinforce their belief that powerful people are rarely held accountable.

Think about that.

Not 84% of Democrats.

Not 84% of Republicans.

84% of Americans.

The breakdown was even more striking:

- 82% of Republicans
- 80% of Independents
- 90% of Democrats

Prediction markets have reportedly lowered the odds that Todd Blanche becomes Trump's next Attorney General.

The Epstein controversy isn't creating distrust.

It's validating distrust that was already there.

And now it's starting to affect people connected to the administration.

[Tymofiy Mylovanov @Mylovanov]

Historian Antony Beevor: Westerners are horrified by Russia’s attitude to casualties. The old phrase “meat for the cannon” reflects the belief that sheer numbers can crush any enemy.

But Russia has often treated its own people as badly as the enemy. 1/

[Phil Pothen 🇨🇦 he/him @pothen]

At the Toronto Port Authority AGM, waiting for news of whether the Government of Canada will choose to let this jet runway scheming continue, or nip it in the bud. Canada should fill its 5 vacant FEDERAL director positions with people committed to NEVER proposing jets.

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

I wouldn’t be where I am today without the love and support that @MichelleObama has poured into me over the years. Her story — from her South Side roots to the White House and beyond — is a central part of the Obama Presidential Center.

[Emoluments Clause @Emolclause]

#BREAKING: Lawrence: “The House Oversight Committee had testimony from a witness who connected Donald Trump to Jeffrey #Epstein literally…Lesley Groff worked for Jeffrey Epstein for eighteen years beginning in 2001. A year after Lesley Groff started connecting phone calls between Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump, Donald Trump told New York Magazine: ‘I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years, terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.’”😳

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

FRANCIS: Ukrainians remotely destroying Russian troops on the ground like in video game. They're brilliant technological power. They reinvented war, and Putin cannot win. His only advantage was manpower, and that’s being destroyed daily by drones in kill zone on the battlefield.

[TheSteadyState @steadystate2025]

Mullin is lying. He says ICE is taking “the worst of the worst” off the street. The data says otherwise. TRAC found 70% of people in ICE detention had no criminal conviction, and Cato says only 6% booked into detention in 2026 had a violent conviction. This is propaganda, nothing else.

https://t.co/IdXAgjr0xG

https://t.co/j1ERAbfisi

[Christopher Webb @cwebbonline]

This is Ohio, y’all. OHIO!

QUESTION: “If you could talk to President Trump directly right now, what would you tell him?”

OHIO VOTER: “I’d say, fuck you.”

📌 If this is the mood in the state, Sherrod Brown can absolutely win his Senate race.

[Rick Wilson @TheRickWilson]

Are you fucking kidding me?

[Mike Nellis @MikeNellis]

Talarico fires back at Ken Paxton and Ted Cruz for questioning his masculinity: Real men don't lie and cheat their way through life. They don't sell their soul to the highest bidder. Real men serve others, weak men serve themselves.

More of this please!!

[Democratic Wins Media @DemocraticWins]

BREAKING: In a stunning moment, CNN just played a devastating montage highlighting all the times that Donald Trump lied to the American people and told us he was "close to a deal." Nobody should trust his leadership anymore.

[Acyn @Acyn]

Hunter Biden on Graham Platner: I always say to people: show me your phone. Give me access to your iCloud. Let’s go through it and pull everything we can find that’s inappropriate.

And if that’s the standard by which we’re going to judge people, particularly people in elected office, then I don’t think we’re going to have many people in elected office.

And so, as it relates to Graham Platner, I focus on this: I have not heard anything, in any way, that would lead me to believe he is an abusive, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, or racist person.

I have heard this from Graham Platner: that he thinks we should all have free health care.

I have also heard this from Graham Platner: that he thinks we have to radically change our politics.

I have heard this from Graham Platner: that working people are getting fucking screwed.

[Jamie Raskin @jamie_raskin]

Last night my friend @MaxwellFrostFL showed me Donald Trump’s Truth Social posting urging MAGA to expel me from Congress. Apparently Trump doesn’t appreciate our fight against his $1.776 billion slush fund or his outrageous attack against the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Sorry, Mr. President, I’m not going anywhere but back to the front lines of the fight against corruption and authoritarianism.

[Human☮🇺🇸🇺🇦🇺🇸🌊 @4HumanUnity]

Not sure which is a bigger nonsense: wind turbines killing whales, or Iran launching drone swarms across the Atlantic to hit our shores?

Those drones wouldn’t make it a quarter of the way to our East Coast before they run out of juice.

And if they somehow did 10 years in the future, you’re telling me a swarm flies 7,000 miles and nobody detects it until it reaches our shoreline? Complete nonsense.

Even then according to MIT they can suppress the turbine generate interference.

This fear-mongering is straight fossil-fuel industry bullshit, funding politicians to keep polluting.

And what's with Trump clocking out the second Burgum starts talking?

MIT Lincoln Lab demonstrated mitigation techniques can suppress turbine-generated interference
https://t.co/oplwoaUaGg

[Neil Stone @DrNeilStone]

RFK Jr has cut Alzheimers research.

Alzheimers.

One of the most devastating, urgent and increasing health problems we face today.

He's not interested.

He's a nasty piece of work.