Patrick Harrigan

Wisconsin lawyer, dad. Opinions are mine, RT's aren't endorsements.

[Ladd Wiley @wiley_ladd]

The Trump administration is forging ahead with a controversial plan to collect the medical records of millions of federal workers and retirees, as well as their family members. https://t.co/J37sTae53Q

[Rep. Jim McGovern @RepMcGovern]

Trump says Democrats forgot to rig the election in 2016, successfully rigged it while *he* was president in 2020, then forgot how to rig it again in 2024. So the only election Democrats supposedly stole was the one he himself controlled.

You have to be a special kind of stupid to believe this bullshit.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

In Germany, a talented 14-year-old earns his club money. In America, his parents pay the club $15,000 a year.

That single inversion explains why "we will not" is the most accurate line ever written about US soccer.

FIFA built a global system for this. Training compensation and solidarity payments send a cut of every transfer fee back to the clubs that developed the player, from age 12 onward. Develop one future pro and your academy gets paid for a decade. Barcelona's La Masia, Ajax, every Bundesliga academy runs on this logic. The kid is the asset.

US Soccer refuses to enforce those rules. When Seattle's Crossfire Premier claimed its $60,000 share of DeAndre Yedlin's transfer to Tottenham, it got nothing. Claims on the Dempsey and Bradley transfers died partly because the federation couldn't even produce the youth training records.

So American clubs earn zero dollars when a kid turns pro. They earn when a kid enrolls. Which makes the parent the customer, and the product is whatever keeps the parent writing checks: travel tournaments, hotel weekends, $500 showcase events, private training at $100 an hour. Elite pathways run $8,000 to $20,000 a year. A comparable academy spot in Italy costs about 120 euros.

Follow the incentive one level deeper and it gets darker. A club dependent on fees can't cut its weakest paying players, so rosters optimize for retention over development. The scouting pool shrinks to families who can afford the cliff, which appears around age 11, exactly when development matters most. The country runs a talent filter sorted by household income instead of ability.

Every four years someone proposes fixing this. The proposal always requires the people profiting from the $15,000 model to vote themselves out of business.

They will not.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

This is so insanely corrupt, I can’t even believe it.

More than half the donors to Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom just won over $50 billion in new federal contracts in six months.

And here’s the part that should make your blood boil.

Sixteen of these 27 donors were facing federal enforcement actions, antitrust reviews, labor cases, securities charges. Many of those cases have been quietly dropped or scaled back since Trump took office. You write a check, your legal problems disappear. That’s not a coincidence.

The White House won’t even release the full donor list. They’re hiding it on purpose, because daylight is the one thing pay-to-play can’t survive. A federal judge already ruled ballroom construction has to stop until Congress authorizes it.

Government is supposed to serve the people, not auction itself off to the highest bidder. When access goes to whoever pays the most, working families always end up paying the price.

We either end the corruption, or the corruption will end us.

https://t.co/4MGFzSseFl

[Team Ossoff @TeamOssoff]

Ossoff: Last September, the President of Kazakhstan calls Donald Trump and says he wants to grant tungsten mining rights to an American company. And the very next month, Eric and Don Jr. get a stake in the American company pursuing the mining deal.

Six days later, six days after Prince Eric and Prince Don get their stake, Kazakhstan announces this company will get, “The largest known undeveloped tungsten resource in the world.” A few more weeks go by, and then the U.S. government, run by their father, sets aside 1.6 billion of your tax dollars to fund and finance their mining project. In Kazakhstan.

All this while you pay more for gas, for groceries, for health care, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

[Senator Dick Durbin @SenatorDurbin]

Just one week after tobacco giant Reynolds donated $5 million to MAGA Inc. and dined with Trump at his golf club, President Trump directed FDA to authorize the sale of flavored vapes.

This corruption is poisoning our kids and unleashing a new wave of addiction on America.

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

BREAKING: 35 Former federal judges have just filed a motion in Florida asking the court to *re-open* Trump's $10 billion lawsuit vs. his I.R.S.

The motion states: "This court was deceived"

[Ben Rhodes @brhodes]

In the best case scenario, Trump struck a deal to reopen a Strait that was open before the pointless war he started, with the IRGC demonstrating its control over the Strait and potentially extracting fees plus sanctions relief. Thousands of innocents - including hundreds of children - dead in Lebanon and Iran for no reason. U.S. troops killed and wounded. U.S. embassies and bases in the Middle East badly damaged. U.S. standing in the world obliterated. U.S. munitions badly depleted. Hundreds of billions spent. Prices up everywhere. More global economic fallout to come. Putin strengthened and enriched. Just a catastrophic situation even in the best of circumstances. A profoundly shameful episode in American history no matter what happens next.

[Patrick Harrigan @pchlaw]

Grifters gonna grift.

[Lorraine E-Van-Off @LorraineEvanoff]

Fucking outrageous. And highly illegal.

"Trump has grifted his entire life. Now he’s just taking it.

The State Department transferred $1.25 billion in foreign aid to Trump’s Board of Peace, pulling $1 billion from international disaster assistance, $200 million from peacekeeping operations, and $50 million from international organizations.

Money that Congress authorized for hurricanes and refugees, moved without a congressional vote, into a fund that Trump created by executive order and controls personally. When reporters asked the State Department about it, a spokesperson said they had nothing to announce at this time.

The Board of Peace has one defining characteristic. Trump controls it forever. He named himself chairman for life. No audits. No transparency requirements. No conflict of interest rules.

Countries pay $1 billion into a fund he runs to get a seat at the table. It has transferred nothing to Gaza, disclosed nothing about its spending, and received $1.25 billion of your disaster relief money without a word of explanation.

When he leaves the White House he keeps the fund. That is not a loophole. That is the design."

He’s Not Grifting Anymore. He’s Just Taking It. https://t.co/eYb5g4g9bR

[Ryan Crosswell @Ryan_Crosswell]

I was a federal prosecutor for ten years. Going after corruption was the job. And I’ve never seen anything as openly corrupt as this.

[Senator Mark Kelly @SenMarkKelly]

“No quarter” isn’t some wanna be tough guy line - it means something. An order to give no quarter would mean to take no prisoners and kill them instead. That would violate the law of armed conflict. It would be an illegal order. It would also put American service members at greater risk. Pete Hegseth should know better than to throw around terms like this.

[Jesus Freakin Congress @TheJFreakinC]

🚨BREAKING: DHS agents are now illegally arresting U.S. citizens at airports… and trafficking them across state lines.

A 28-year-old U.S. citizen, Sunny Naqvi, was detained by DHS, for 43 hours, after landing at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.

She wasn’t charged with a crime, and she wasn’t accused of doing anything illegal…

Agents reportedly detained her over what they called a “curious travel history.”

Even though Sunny was born in Illinois…they still disappeared her.

After being held for about 30 hours inside the airport, agents secretly moved Sunny to an ICE detention facility in Broadview, Illinois.

While this was happening, federal agents repeatedly told her family she was NOT in custody, even though her phone location showed she was inside the facility.

Then it gets worse.

According to witnesses, agents asked for Sunny’s phone number so they could “look for her phone.”

Minutes later, the phone was opened, her messages were read, and the device was shut off, cutting off the family’s ability to track her.

After that, agents transported the U.S. citizen across state lines, to another detention facility in Dodge County, Wisconsin.

And then she was eventually released early Saturday morning… in a random state, alone.

Her phone was dead, and she had no transportation.

So, a U.S. citizen detained by the federal government had to hitchhike to a hotel, just to be able to reunite with her family.

And this is what people need to understand…

When federal agents can detain U.S. citizens without charges… lie to families about their custody, search personal phones, and secretly transport people across state lines…

That puts every single American in danger.

Because they can do it to anyone.

[The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln]

Operation Epstein Fury

[Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump]

Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin – watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.

[Patrick Harrigan @pchlaw]

Great read. It’s a brave new world.

[Matt Shumer @mattshumer_]

https://t.co/ivXRKXJvQg

[Patrick Harrigan @pchlaw]

The level of corruption in the Trump administration is beyond belief.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

This is truly absurd. A sitting president is demanding $10 BILLION of taxpayer money from the government he runs, because a rogue employee went to prison for leaking documents that exposed years of shady finances.

The leaker is already serving five years.

The misconduct was punished.

But that’s not enough for Trump. Now he wants a massive windfall, all while claiming the reporting was “fake,” even though multiple experts have flagged serious inconsistencies.

This is about rewriting history, intimidating journalists, and cashing in on grievance.

In any normal administration, this would be a MASSIVE scandal. But in Donald Trump’s America, it’s just another week. https://t.co/yLWG4HS2gA

[Patrick Harrigan @pchlaw]

@covie_93 The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. - 1984

[Blinkin @blinkinriley]

Hey, "Don't Tread on Me" guys, this is the treading part.

[Patrick Harrigan @pchlaw]

Very proud of Epic and our courageous healthcare provider customers who are stepping up to defend patient privacy,. Living our Commandment No. 8: Have courage. What you put up with is what you stand for.

[Epic @HeyEpic]

Today, we and several healthcare providers took legal action to protect your health records from misuse.

Modern data exchanges can help you and your doctor understand your health. Some companies saw something else: a way to profit from your private records.https://t.co/nmBRoxG6WJ

[Shannon Watts @shannonrwatts]

The right wants us to believe that a teen who showed up at a Wisconsin rally with an AR-15 and shot three people is a peacekeeper who deserves to be celebrated, but an unarmed mom driving away from a Minnesota rally was a domestic terrorist who deserved to die.