Emily Rose 🌌🕊️🍃

"Did she put on his knowledge with his power /
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?"
🌻
Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.

[agustina vergara cid @agustinavcid]

@ReichlinMelnick @USGAO This is really bad: https://t.co/r4IwmWBUuG

[Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @ReichlinMelnick]

NEW: @USGAO finds serious waste, abusive conditions, and damning misconduct at ICE's Camp East Montana, including filthy cells, no comprehensive health assessments, tens of millions of dollars wasted because of rushed contracts, and even a gun that went lost inside the facility!

[Ryan Goodman @rgoodlaw]

Following the Roberts Court's gutting of the Voting Rights Act -- and Black Americans' representation in Congress, state and local offices around the country.

Just in: DOJ claims the Court opinion supports now gutting racial bias claims in employment.

https://t.co/lYVrOHadKj

[Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1]

BREAKING MS NOW:

ICE has detained over 500 babies and toddlers under Trump.

On an average day, ICE has 25 children aged 3 or younger in custody, according to joint research by MS NOW and The Marshall Project. https://t.co/JNZlfb7afy

[Emily Rose 🌌🕊️🍃 @quixificent]

Since the beginning of Trump's second term, ICE has detained over 500 infants and toddlers.
https://t.co/p5SHVdg2vi

[Austen Ivereigh @austeni]

Peter Thiel said Pope Leo was the antichrist for wanting to regulate A.I. He bought a mansion in Buenos Aires and met Argentine president Javier Milei. Now Milei in FT pitches Argentina as the home of unregulated A.I., creating a new legal framework, the “nonhuman corporation”.

[Yasmina @yasminalombaert]

This is putin casually admitting to what can only be described as a textbook war crime, and he’s doing it with a smug smile on his face.

He literally brags about using Ukraine as a human testing ground.

He openly admits that they didn't fire their "Oreshnik" missile at a military test range. Instead, they fired it at populated areas in Ukraine just because it was "convenient to watch”.

Think about that for a second. He sent explosive warheads into communities, and then sent drones in right after just to count the bodies and measure the craters "down to the millimeter" like it’s some kind of science fair project.

But the scariest part is how he ends it. He casually drops that they are collecting this data so they can figure out how to better use these massive missiles in "urban areas”. That is political speak for densely populated cities filled with civilians, apartment buildings, and schools.
It’s pure, calculated terror.

putin: “After all, we... we used to test such systems at testing ranges. But 'Oreshnik' wasn't tested that way. And this wasn't a combat application. In fact, we haven't had a single combat application of 'Oreshnik' over the territory of Ukraine in the full, so to speak, sense of the word.
And the last one—to be completely honest, I will reveal a major, major state military secret to you. We simply struck a location where it was convenient to observe the results. Well, this concerns Bila Tserkva, and it especially concerns... concerns the DPR [so-called Donetsk People's Republic] area within the perimeter of the main fortified area.
Afterward, our drones flew into that area—the target area we had struck—and simply looked at how the multiple reentry vehicles had landed. They calculated everything down to the millimeter, exactly where everything hit.
For us, this is important in order to make future decisions regarding the full-scale deployment of 'Oreshnik' against designated targets. Including within urban areas.”

[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

[🏴‍☠️Maddox🏴‍☠️ @realmaddox]

This is an insane story. The DOGE whistleblower who said that login attempts were made to the NLRB from Russian IP addresses minutes after DOGE got access had his brake lines cut and photos of him walking his dog from a drone taped to his door after Musk attacked him on Twitter

[WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3]

US and European intelligence services have discovered that China is using job recruiting apps in an attempt to recruit spies within the West, hiring defence contractors and ex government workers on lucrative contracts to work for fake consultancy firms-WSJ

[Tyler McBrien @TylerMcBrien]

NEW: A stunning new project from @lawfare's Katherine Pompilio finds that 97 Jan. 6ers who received clemency for their role in the Capitol riot then got arrested, charged, and/or convicted with subsequent crimes—a number much higher than previously reported.

[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

[Emily Rose 🌌🕊️🍃 @quixificent]

The Trump Administration is reversing a policy that required ICE to report deaths of former detainees that occurred within 30 days of their release. There have been 49 deaths in ICE custody since the start of the second Trump administration.
https://t.co/lTQyui4733

[Billy Binion @billybinion]

This is big. Vindictive prosecution claims almost never succeed.

So many pundits misunderstand this case. Kilmar Abrego Garcia agreed to be deported to Costa Rica nearly a year ago. He could be long gone.

But the government was furious that he refused to plead guilty to this indictment. So the administration reversed course and has spent months trying to punish Abrego Garcia by sending him to various African countries, none of which have agreed to accept him.

If you're angry Abrego Garcia is still here, then you should be angry at the Trump administration, whose actions have kept him in the country out of spite and vindictiveness.

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

This is a radical change to immigration policy, forcing anyone applying for a green card to leave the country indefinitely, forget whether they have American kids, spouse, etc.

The talking point that we do want legal immigration, we just want people to get in line and follow the rules, is BS. This is an attempt to blow up the line, blow up the rules, and make it insanely difficult to immigrate legally.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

This New York Times piece is worth your time. Here’s what is happening, as simply as I can put it.

Back in January, Trump sued the IRS, an agency he controls, demanding $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns a number of years ago.

IRS lawyers did their jobs. They wrote a memo laying out the defenses that could beat the suit, including the fact that Trump filed too late. His own lawyer was in court when the leaker pleaded guilty in October 2023, more than two years before Trump sued.

The Justice Department never showed up to court. Never argued back. Never used the defenses sitting on their desk.

The judge got suspicious and ordered both sides to explain whether they were actually opposing each other or just colluding. The day before that brief was due, Trump dropped the suit.

Same day, his Justice Department announced a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded “anti-weaponization fund.” 

Trump gets a formal apology. The IRS agrees to drop any audits of him and his family, even though a 2024 Times report found a loss in an ongoing audit could cost him over $100 million.

The acting Attorney General, Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, picks the five commissioners who decide who gets paid. Trump can fire any of them. Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are not ruled out.

This is the most corrupt thing I’ve ever seen from an American president.

Where in the hell are my Republican colleagues?

https://t.co/La0nlLuz1r

[Rep. Mike Levin @RepMikeLevin]

🚨Last night in House Appropriations, all Republicans present voted to allow THEMSELVES to get settlements from the January 6th Slush Fund. I am not making this up.

[Mark Mazzetti @MarkMazzettiNYT]

NEW: The regime change plan at the beginning of the Iran War called for installing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's former hard line president known for accelerating the nuclear program and denying the Holocaust, as the country's new. leader.https://t.co/wOIGpeFGY9

[Tyler McBrien @TylerMcBrien]

BLANCHE: "The United States...is hereby FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing...examinations or similar or related reviews" against Trump "or related or affiliated individuals," including family members or related companies and trusts.

[Jessiah @thepondering_]

CNN also reports that this settlement also forces the IRS to end any active audits into Trump, his family, and his businesses

Not only does it further protect POTUS from accountability, but he's expanding this shield to Don Jr. and Eric and Ivanka and Jared and their interests