Chris Petersen

Aren't you embarrassed?

[Andy Masley @AndyMasley]

The 2020 election denial stuff is just the most freaky disgusting shit and at the very least it's good we're getting public humiliation rituals of the people doing it

[David French @DavidAFrench]

And to add to the injustice and absurdity, Trump is likely to pardon everyone involved, including himself. And we've barely even begun to talk about the national security implications of Trump's international graft.

[Project Liberal @ProjectLiberal]

RFK Jr. was recorded pressuring a libertarian candidate in Iowa to quit his race, dangling a federal job and citing himself as a White House liaison. The Hatch Act exists to stop exactly this.

Any other administration would be opening a criminal investigation.

[Chris Petersen @rychrispeter]

This party is so shameful to America and beyond repair. It's broken from the bottom up.

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

RAJU: But what evidence is there to prove the California election is rigged?

MIKE JOHNSON: Look, some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream it's impossible to prove. But I think everybody knows instinctively that something is wrong here.

[Tommy Vietor @TVietor08]

Hmmm wonder if that’s because there’s a massive right wing disinformation campaign to spread this bullshit

[Tim Miller @Timodc]

A truly despicable, corrupt, un-American, rapist, wanna-be-authoritarian “man” is running the country and everyone enabling him should be ashamed.

[Jake Justice @jakecobb]

Keep posting this so people don’t forget how truly bad this event was.

Don’t let people gaslight you into thinking it was peaceful and worthy of 1500+ pardons and slush fund payoffs.

[The New York Times @nytimes]

In @nytopinion

“Americans should be cleareyed about what the president is doing. He is taking their money and showering it on criminals,” the editorial board writes. https://t.co/90p0oikL6f

[Greg Lukianoff @glukianoff]

Larry Bushart spent 37 days in jail for posting a meme on Facebook.

I’ve been doing this work for 25 years, and I can honestly say this is the worst First Amendment case I’ve ever seen.

Not because Larry threatened anyone. He didn’t. Not because he committed violence. He didn’t. Not because this was a close call. It wasn’t.

He posted a political meme — the kind of thing millions of Americans do every day — and local officials decided to treat it like a crime.

And because they had badges, prosecutors, jail cells, and the terrifying machinery of the state behind them, they got away with it for 37 days.

Larry is a retired police officer and National Guard veteran. The meme he shared quoted Donald Trump’s “we have to get over it” comment after a 2024 Iowa school shooting. Whatever you think of Trump, the meme was plainly political commentary. Perry County officials knew what it referred to. They knew it wasn’t a threat against a Tennessee school.

They arrested him anyway.

In the middle of the night.

They set his bond at $2 million.

He lost his job. He missed family milestones. He sat in jail for more than a month before the charges finally collapsed — because, of course, there was no crime here.

Today, @theFIREorg secured a measure of justice: Perry County agreed to pay Larry Bushart $835,000 for violating his constitutional rights.

This case should scare the hell out of people across the political spectrum.

Because if the government can jail you for a meme by pretending not to understand obvious political commentary, your rights are only as secure as the good faith of the most authoritarian official in your town.

That is exactly why we have the First Amendment. Not for speech everyone likes. Not for opinions that flatter the powerful. Not for the bland, safe, committee-approved stuff.

It exists for moments when fear, outrage, politics, and authority all line up and say: “Surely this is the exception.”

No. It isn’t.

I’m incredibly proud of @theFIREorg’s legal team. And I’m even prouder of Larry Bushart for refusing to let the government get away with treating his constitutional rights like a suggestion.

But despite the correct verdict, I'll probably always get angry every time I think of this case.

Let’s make this the last time anyone in America is arrested — let alone thrown in jail — for a meme.

Celebrate your independence. Defend your First Amendment.

https://t.co/7ADQTxeHsL

[Jonah Goldberg @JonahDispatch]

The Trump slush fund is a clear cut impeachable offense. https://t.co/nUveUBkApa

[Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @ReichlinMelnick]

This is a THEFT far worse than Watergate. There is no other word for it. They are stealing $1.78 BILLION dollars to pay Trump‘s allies, despite knowing that these people are not legally entitled to any money and be laughed out of court if they filed a lawsuit for money damages.

[Sarah Longwell @SarahLongwell25]

He’s right. The Republican Party isn’t a party of ideas. Or policy. It doesn’t stand for anything. It’s just a bunch of people being blindly loyal to corrupt madman who controls the primary voting base, but is unpopular with the rest of the country.

[Marshall Cohen @MarshallCohen]

Bipartisan blowback for Gov. Polis after granting clemency to 2020 election denier Tina Peters:

Colorado AG Phil Weiser (D): "Mind-boggling and wrong as a matter of basic justice."

Colorado SOS Jena Griswold (D): "An affront to democracy, the people of Colorado, and election officials across the country."

Mesa County DA Dan Rubinstein, who prosecuted Peters (R): A "misguided and misunderstood" decision that "undermined accountability and eroded confidence in the integrity of the system."

Matt Crane (R), for the Colorado election clerks association: “furious, disgusted and deeply disappointed" by the "reckless and dangerous message" this sends.

[Neera Tanden🌻 @neeratanden]

This is theft

[Alex Griswold @HashtagGriswold]

Ed Martin didn’t “ask questions” about their “policies.”

He *demanded* a private Christian school change its *curriculum*, under explicit threat of adverse government action.

Wildly unconstitutional stuff, and he certainly knew it.

[Jessica Riedl 🧀 🇺🇦 @JessicaBRiedl]

- Comey indicted for tweeting a number.
- Trump FCC threatens ABC's broadcast license.
- Trump defacing more govt institutions with his name and picture.
- Trump's kids cashing in on huge govt contracts.

I'm always torn on whether to speak up on the daily drumbeat of Trump's creepy, corrupt, Putin-style authoritarianism.

On the one hand, this has become so standard under Trump, and everyone's opinions on him have long hardened, so why bother? Just keep your head down, post on economic policy (what happened to Econ Twitter?), and don't be distracted by the daily news cycle outrages. That's the standard position in DC policy circles.

On the other hand, isn't this defeatist passivity how authoritarianism thrives? Government actions that would have induced a nationwide backlash 15 years ago are now just the day's background noise. So the bar moves.

It’s a familiar path: Most authoritarian nations moved there gradually yet persistently - the govt commits some outrages, waits for the public to get used to it and stop complaining, and then pushes for the next round. Authoritarian governments count on the population having a short attention span while they steadily boil the frog. But when you think about how far Trump has pushed just in the last 15 months, it’s fair to wonder where we'll be after the next 33 months of his term.

So I’ve been torn - speaking up a lot during the ICE protests, then just focusing on econ for many weeks. I don’t want to bore people who’ve all made up their minds on what is happening in this country - and I've been trying to spend less time on this toxic hellsite for my own mental health.

But I also think us trying to be all cool and above-the-fray is exactly what gives the administration the green light to once again push harder towards corrupt, statist, personality-cult Putinism. I don’t really have an answer here. Although this being Twitter, I’m sure that any possible approach (whether passive, hair-on-fire, or in-between) will inevitably get me yelled at here.

[Paul Sherman @PaulMSherman]

The absurdity of this prosecution is the entire point, by the way. In the same way that nobody believes that Putin's enemies all happen to be clumsy around windows, no serious person can believe this prosecution is legitimate. The point is to show they can do it anyway.

[The New York Times @nytimes]

The FBI began investigating a New York Times reporter after she wrote about the bureau’s director, Kash Patel, using bureau personnel to provide his girlfriend with government security and transportation, according to a person briefed on the matter. https://t.co/nCc4KhrS1h

[Emily Zanotti 🦝 @emzanotti]

Look, none of these guys care about religion in politics, otherwise they'd have an objection to Pete Hegseth claiming he's divinely ordered to send Iran back to the Bronze Age, or whatever. We get it, you don't like the Pope and the president gave you an excuse to be an asshole about it.

[Chris Petersen @rychrispeter]

Vance is truly evil, for this alone...

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Ukraine is victim of an unprovoked invasion by a barbaric totalitarian killing machine. And the VP of the USA says he’s proud not to be helping it. Immoral, callous charlatan. Let’s hope we never hear of him again after 2028.