TBD2

Here for cats and to stand up for democracy, call out idiots. Never Trump or anyone who likes him. You've been warned. Elon sucks. Mastodon rules. On Bsky too.

[TBD2 @frickdrump]

Btw, I created this new account because my almost 20-yo account was instantly suspended by Elmo Muck for saying I was going to bring tomatoes to Trump's perp walk

Fuck Trump to hell
Fuck Elon Musk further

[Jeremy Konyndyk @JeremyKonyndyk]

DOGE didn't make a dent in the deficit, but it did bring back screwworm and enable a historically large new Ebola outbreak, so it's not like they didn't achieve *anything*

[Sarah Ironside 💙 @SarahIronside6]

Hey, Lisa Murkowski, was selling your soul and selling out Alaska worth it?

[Guy Benson @guypbenson]

This is Todd “Let’s Roll” Beamer, who died heroically while trying to retake United Flight 93 from Al Qaeda terrorists on 9/11. His final resting place, is in Cranbury, NJ — where he was living with his wife and children before his murder. Cranbury is located in NJ-12, where the new Democratic nominee for Congress is Adam Hamawy.

Hamawy was a close associate and translator to Omar Abdel-Rahman, aka the ‘Blind Sheikh,’ an arch terrorist convicted of masterminding multiple plots against targets in NYC — including the World Trade Center. Hamawy testified at Adbel-Rahman’s trial, as a defense witness.

It has also been reported that Hamawy traveled to Bosnia to volunteer at an organization that was later unmasked as an Al Qaeda front group.

One of Hamawy’s loudest and most high-profile supporters and endorsers has openly declared that America deserved the 9/11 attacks.

Hamawy is now the prohibitive frontrunner to represent Todd Beamer’s district in the United States Congress.

[Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance]

There is nothing left of the Justice Department I worked at.

[Bill Kristol @BillKristol]

“By rejecting amendments to kill the slush fund legislatively—and not even attempting to block the immunity order—Republican senators essentially accepted that Trump has once again put himself above the law.”

https://t.co/vnPCVGjfi9

[Miles Taylor @MilesTaylorUSA]

Yesterday Donald Trump tripled the size of his personal political army inside the government. Illegally. And almost no one noticed.

Here's what happened:

He signed an order converting ~8,000 of the most senior career officials in government into employees he can fire for any reason, or no reason at all.

These aren't rando's. They're the directors, chiefs of staff, and the people who write the rules or decide who gets federal money, i.e. the lieutenants right below his political appointees.

Until yesterday, they answered to the law. Now they answer to him.

A president normally gets ~4,000 political appointees. People he can bring into government and fire at will. I was one of them at DHS. You serve at his pleasure, full stop -- so if you're gonna speak truth to power, you're prepared to quit (or get fired if he doesn't like it).

The rest of the federal government is PROTECTED from firing if they tell the truth.

But Trump just stripped those protections. Adding 8,000 more people to his personal army. Overnight. Without asking Congress.

With the stroke of a pen, those people now serve at the pleasure of the president. They're "his" people, whether they like it or not.

And the chilling effect is real. An official who can be fired this afternoon for "subversion of presidential directives" (the order's own words) doesn't need to be hand-picked to know what's expected of him or her.

The threat does all the work.

By the way, this order is illegal. The law only lets Trump reclassify jobs when "necessary" in exceptional circumstances. And this blows an 8,000-person hole in the merit hiring / firing system created by Congress.

Without permission, Trump has created a whole new category of stormtroopers inside the Executive Branch.

If this doesn't get challenged in court, you're going to see the U.S. government become a very different place.

Here's the full story: https://t.co/mJzrvzhxGR

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

Academic Freedom Is a National Security Imperative

By Captain Roger Herbert, U.S. Navy (Ret)

https://t.co/o7kpPxbJLF

[Marc E. Elias @marceelias]

In “The Waste Land,” T.S. Eliot describes April as “the cruelest month.” With all due respect, the renowned poet was clearly not a lawyer awaiting Supreme Court decisions that may define democracy for a generation. https://t.co/WKWGn1CznF

[Nicholas Wu @nicholaswu12]

new - Dems are saying Bill Pulte's naming as acting DNI makes renewing FISA 702 harder

“The very nature of our collection is now going to be put in the hands of somebody who has a history of seeking out private information for political gain," Sen. Chris Murphy told me

[Bill Kristol @BillKristol]

"[Hegseth is] substitut[ing] personal judgment for the military’s promotion system...a process specifically designed to insulate professional military advancement from politics while preserving appropriate civilian oversight."

https://t.co/bjBGpIfw4d

[USA TODAY @USATODAY]

Opinion: Trump has proven time and again that he has no code of ethics; he only has himself and the lengths he’ll go to protect his ego. https://t.co/rA7FzfzwCH

[Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance]

“Republican friendly” is just a sanitized way of saying racist here https://t.co/2n53dwOofQ

[Tommy Vietor @TVietor08]

Literally the only explanation for why Trump would install Pulte in this position is to have him use the resources and authorities of the US intelligence community against his political enemies. Democrats should fight this tooth and nail starting with Section 702 reauthorization

[David Frum @davidfrum]

This is just crime

[AccuWeather @accuweather]

It's Saharan dust season in the Atlantic, the time of year when dust clouds from the Sahara Desert are carried westward across the Atlantic to affect the United States. Some of the dust could reach parts of Texas and Louisiana by the weekend.

[Marc E. Elias @marceelias]

🚨BREAKING: All I can say is this is fucking so cynical I have no words. https://t.co/y3fgOAbLRJ

[Reuters @Reuters]

US Senate confirms Trump judicial nominee deemed 'not qualified' by ABA https://t.co/WzwQ05uevy https://t.co/WzwQ05uevy

[Chris “Law Dork” Geidner @chrisgeidner]

This is truly one of the worst things the court has done — both in terms of legitimacy and in terms of the law — since I have been covering the court.

[POLITICO @politico]

2 researchers charged with smuggling mpox into the US https://t.co/8FCuGi8Ssb

[David Frum @davidfrum]

Trump was handed the opportunity to preside over a feel-good moment of national unity on July 4, 2026. All he had to do was for once in his life, not act like an egomaniacal lunatic. Instead, he's made a complete fiasco of the nation's 250th birthday. My latest https://t.co/77WQanV3kI