Paul Phillips

Government & Politics, history lover, progressive, Buddhist

[Jon Cooper 🇺🇸 @joncoopertweets]

👇👇👇👇

[CathyNotToday2 🌿 @Cathy2NotToday]

I sing in a Chorus and a member had her 20 something cousin from Hungary get the proper paperwork for temporary VISA so she could help with babysitting her children

She went home in compliance with timeframe she was allotted ….stayed in Hungary for required time and then came back

She tried to re-enter through Miami & was detained —- they went through her belongings, was QUESTIONED for hours ….. then they went thru her phone where they saw anti Trump posts….. she was quickly deported

People have no idea whats going on in “America ”

[The Halfway Post @HalfwayPost]

BREAKING: Legal scholars say Trump’s ICE deportation policies can be used by a Democratic president to arrest Elon Musk on the street by masked agents in an unmarked van, hold him in a concentration camp for weeks, confiscate all his money, and deport him to Sudan.

[Really American 🇺🇸 @ReallyAmerican1]

Pete Buttigieg: “We’re not asking you to turn around and become a card-carrying Democrat, we’re asking you to consider voting the issues that you care about. I’m asking you to support whoever’s gonna be for expanding healthcare and against tax cuts for giant corporations. That happens to be Democrats. I’m not asking you to pick a tribe, I’m asking you to pick a direction for the country”

[Christopher Webb @cwebbonline]

Xavier Becerra has a message for naturalized American citizens: YOU ARE NOT A SECOND-CLASS CITIZEN. VOTE.

“What the Trump administration is telling us, is that they believe that they can intimidate U.S. citizen voters.”

Becerra’s message is clear: If you became an American citizen through naturalization, your vote counts exactly the same as every other American citizen’s.

Don’t let anyone intimidate you out of using it.

[Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum]

While US envoys talk about helping Putin achieve his aspirations....

[The Shallow State @OurShallowState]

I wanted to speak - for the first time in detail - about NARCISSISTIC CONTRARIANISM.
This is a trait Trump has shown with greater frequency in recent days. It's led some analysts to surmise that Trump is acting as if he wants to lose the midterms. Here's what it REALLY is:
A narcissist contrarian is someone who takes the opposite side of obvious or even popular issues, opposing prevailing views. They do this reflexively, because they are feeling enfeebled or attacked.
When the story of the excessive time at sea by military personnel aboard the USS Lincoln was driving public ridicule, Trump characterized their time at sea as "not long enough." Why would he possibly say that? When a bad inflation report broke, Trump was quoted as saying "I love inflation." Really? He's said the same thing recently about "data centers," a sensitive topic across the political spectrum. And any time he is accused of too much focus on the WH ballroom, a broadly unpopular issue, his response is to speak glowingly and lavishly about it even more.
The key thing to realize here is that a narcissistic contrarian doesn't oppose prevailing views because they've thought something through. On the "contrary."
They do it because disagreement serves their battered ego, signals grandiosity through them knowing better, and attracts attention, which is a narcissist's nutrition.
Psychologists speak to 8 core traits leading a narcissist to become excessively contrarian which are:
1. A grandiose self-image that has taken a battering.
2. An innate resistance to compromise.
3. Binary thinking - if one is right, the other is wrong.
4. Deep insecurity masked by professing superiority.
5. The need for self-preservation - to appear smarter - now, to reverse the trend where they appear old or ill.
6. Deep feelings of innate distrust - assuming bad intent even where none exists; paranoia.
7. The need to re-exert autonomy - show they can and will do what they want, to dominate a news cycle.
8. The need to prevail in a big current power struggle.
Let me help you go through that list: CHECK, CHECK, CHECK, CHECK, CHECK, CHECK, CHECK, and CHECK.
So - to summarize - when Trump takes a position or makes a statement that goes against conventional wisdom, it's not only because he's ignorant, stubborn, or an idiot - it's because he's losing, desperate, and narcissistically damaged - and suggesting or adopting a contrary viewpoint is his way of trying to cope, reverse bad trends, and nurse his narcissistic injury.

[Seth Abramson @SethAbramson]

Today Donald Trump threatened to *deliberately tank* our economy *even more* than his forever war in Iran already has if the Fed doesn’t agree to unwisely—but in a way politically convenient to him—adjust interest rates

He is a vile and treacherous madman https://t.co/5QqIJlT69T

[VoteVets @votevets]

It's happening. The “Arc De Trump” will begin construction within two weeks. The proposed Arch will be built on a 20-hour-a-day schedule for the next two to three years in the center of Memorial Circle, directly blocking the historic sightline between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, where more than 400,000 service members and their families rest.

A group of Vietnam veterans is suing to stop it, but Trump is moving dirt anyway. Arlington is hallowed ground, not a backdrop for one man's ego.

[Sahil Kapur @sahilkapur]

NEW: Democrats vow aggressive investigations into Trump ‘corruption’ and ‘grift’ if they win the House

ROBERT GARCIA, in line for Oversight gavel, tells me he has 5 buckets:

“No. 1 is going to be Trump family corruption” and going after gov’t “grift.”

2) Epstein files, 3) Trump immigration agenda, 4) “corporate corruption” including health care industry, 5) RFK and HHS.

JAMIE RASKIN, in line for Judiciary gavel, is eying probes into pay-to-play for pardons, foreign interests buying influence via gifts, Trump’s crypto empire, Paramount/Warner merger, use of FCC/antitrust for political ends plus Apple/Google. Among others.

He says both committees would look into Trump: “There’s enough Trump family corruption to go around.”

https://t.co/5GBOYxmQCB

[Dittie @DittiePE]

The Pentagon secretly put three MAGA influencers on the government payroll.

Retired Air Force Col. Rob Maness (135K followers), retired Army Col. Kurt Schlichter (620K followers), and retired Army Col. Thomas Anderson, who writes as “Cynical Publius” (320K followers), all had active .civ government email addresses assigned to the office of Anthony Tata, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness — running PR for Hegseth and going after his critics, none of it disclosed to their audiences.

Pentagon spokesman Joel Valdez refused to say whether any of them draw a taxpayer-funded salary, what their actual duties are, or how long the jobs last. This from the department that calls itself “the most transparent Defense Department ever.”

One of these three even has a documented history of lying with a national platform: in 2021, Kurt Schlichter falsely claimed the National School Boards Association wanted parents who protest school policy labeled “domestic terrorists” — AP rated it false. Now he’s inside the Pentagon on an undisclosed assignment, amplifying Hegseth’s message.

And remember, retirement doesn’t erase accountability — this April, this same Pentagon invoked UCMJ Article 133/134 against retired Navy officer Sen. Mark Kelly for criticizing Trump. Same uniform, same rules, opposite treatment: retired officers get threatened with court-martial for criticizing this administration, and quietly put on the payroll for cheerleading it.

Those three retired officers will be disciplined after Hegseth is impeached. And this time it will be the legit.

Hope going against your oath was worth it.

[Paul Phillips @pphillips206]

@infocraving @JeromeAdamsMD “If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism”. There isn’t much clinical utility in most mental health diagnosis

[Paul Phillips @pphillips206]

@ruralmedic87 @JeromeAdamsMD There are actually plenty of people of that age walking around with some degree of autism, most not officially diagnosed or diagnosed with the wrong thing if it was severe enough in childhood. I think “pervasive developmental disorder “ used to catch most of them

[S.V. Dáte @svdate]

So there’s no confusion:

Trump kidnapped the dictator he doesn’t like, installed a dictator who does as she is told, and stole the country’s oil.

Yes, America is doing naked imperialism again.

We have become the bad guys.

[Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @ReichlinMelnick]

The situation in Haiti is terrifying. On Sunday, 150 gunmen swept down on a town to kill, rape, loot, and burn. 22 people were executed in a churchyard. 52 were taken hostage.

Meanwhile, Stephen Miller mockingly says Haiti is safe and ICE is proudly deporting children to danger.

[Scott Lemieux @LemieuxLGM]

This IMO is the better approach than proposing legislation to overturn it. Just find various funny ways of pointing out that this is something that Trump does not have the power to do

[The Tennessee Holler @TheTNHoller]

Not an accident

[Governor Josh Shapiro @GovernorShapiro]

Let's set the record straight because @RobertKennedyJr’s post is inaccurate and misleading and he is making claims that have been debunked repeatedly by actual scientists and doctors.

Secretary Kennedy called me yesterday morning to ask whether Pennsylvania needed any additional support to respond to the measles outbreak. I told him I appreciated the call but that our Administration and the Pennsylvania Department of Health had all the resources we needed to respond, including existing support from professional staff at the CDC and HHS. 

I told him what would be most helpful is if he would join me in encouraging people to get vaccinated and stop spreading misinformation. He then launched into a tirade — talking about fetal tissue and blaming the previous Administration for this problem. He even told me it would be better if we went back to “natural measles.”

Unfortunately at a time where I needed the top “health expert” in the nation to responsibly work with us to deal with this outbreak, he instead chose to go down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and false claims.

To his claim about fetal tissue, that has been thoroughly discredited time after time by real doctors and trusted medical institutions like CHOP. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics has an entire webpage devoted to this.

They write: “Vaccines do not contain fetal cells. Some vaccines involve growing viruses in human cell cultures originally developed from two aborted fetuses in the 1960s. These cell lines are still going, so no new aborted fetuses are ever needed. Purification processes filter the vaccine during production, and no fetal tissue remains.”  

But my conversation with him proved what many of us already knew: 

Secretary Kennedy’s actions to dismantle public health agencies and his language that undermines confidence in vetted medical guidance are contributing to these kinds of outbreaks. 

Just a few years ago, Secretary Kennedy was in Lancaster downplaying the severity of measles and saying that the cure was “chicken soup and vitamin A.”

Before he held his current position, measles was virtually eliminated in the United States. As recently as 2024, there were only 285 cases of measles across the entire country over 12 months. This year, in just 8 months, there are nearly 400 cases of measles across 29 counties in Pennsylvania alone — and nearly 3,000 cases across the country. 

In Pennsylvania, 70 people who have tested positive for measles have been hospitalized this year — and yesterday, our @PAHealthDept announced that two Pennsylvanians who tested positive for measles have died.

According to doctors and medical experts, the MMR vaccine is the best way to protect yourself, your kids, and your community against measles. But we have seen vaccination rates decline on RFK’s watch. 

The correlation is clear: Secretary Kennedy has stoked confusion amongst parents and others — and the result has been less protection from measles and more cases.

As a dad, all I want is to protect our four kids. I know that’s how every parent feels. Parents have the right to make their own decisions about how to keep their kids safe and sort through the noise to figure out which information to trust. 

So what I’d ask of every parent in Pennsylvania: take any information you get about vaccines and talk to a trusted health care provider about it before you make your decision.

The most important conversation that needs to take place now is one that should happen offline, in the real world, between parents, their trusted health care providers, and other medical experts.

[JB Pritzker @JBPritzker]

EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: Trump Tower is renamed to NATALIE TOWER!

[Andy Kim @AndyKimNJ]

I just went to inspect Delaney Hall and heard from detainees that they aren't getting the medical care they need. Many are in pain. A man I spoke with was in tears.

Three people have now died after being held here. Delaney Hall needs to be shut down.
https://t.co/Ou7Rq2Iilv