D.J. Grothe

An old Bible college pal recently challenged me to explain how life can have any meaning whatsoever if God does not exist. This is my answer. (And nope, I did not give her a link to an old YouTube video of me talking, but it’s the same answer essentially) youtu.be/dAKa4Cxxzq4?si…

The most specific detail from Wednesday's hearing is the one a judge supplied from the bench. A federal appeals judge asked DOJ why its Office of Legal Counsel published a memo claiming DOJ had authority to demand voter rolls - the night before oral arguments in the active appellate case challenging that authority. "Why would there be an OLC opinion, after all the lawsuits have been filed, and we're at the point where the Court of Appeals, why would there be an opinion at that point in time, as opposed to before everything takes place?" This is the DOJ citing the DOJ's opinion that the court should rule for the DOJ. A panel including a Trump appointee found this notable enough to question directly from the bench. The trial court judge who originally ruled against DOJ in Michigan was also a Trump appointee. DOJ has now lost six of these voter roll cases. It is suing 30 states plus D.C. for unredacted registration records including Social Security numbers and dates of birth - to feed into a DHS database searching for noncitizen voting in support of Trump's unfounded claims of widespread illegal voting. The DOJ's legal theory rests on interpreting "come into possession" to include records the officials themselves created. The panel: "If you bake a cake, you don't say, 'I came into possession of it.'"

WATCH — @JessicaTarlov: “The idea of the Trump administration running interventions into fraud is so utterly laughable when you look at how much they are profiting off of their positions.” 💯 The most corrupt regime in history.

Donald Trump pardoned over 70 allies and donors convicted in fraud cases, and wiped out over $1 billion in restitution, fines, and debts owed by those he pardoned.

The Supreme Court of the United States has now joined the Supreme Court of Virginia in choosing to nullify an election and the votes of more than three million Virginians. These Virginians made their voices heard — casting their ballots in good faith to push back against a President who said he’s “entitled” to more seats in Congress before voters go to the polls. As Governor, I will make sure voters know when and how to cast their votes this year. Because our votes are how we choose the representation we deserve.

Trump helped turn the Strait of Hormuz into a global crisis—and now he’s looking to China to help bail us out. Think about how that makes us look to the rest of the world.

"... there's nothing insightful to say about a politician contriving a way to pay himself and his friends out of the public till. It is what it is. It bothers you, or it doesn't." By Nick Catoggio. Bracingly framed. thedispatch.com/newsletter/boi…

Bush v. Gore would like a word, NYT SCOTUS conservatives will step in *instantaneously* if a state supreme court goes even a hair too left for them

The Trump administration’s new counter-terrorism plan is short—just 16 pages, including covers and pictures—and light on detail. Described as “apolitical”, the document is anything but economist.com/united-states/…

What version of hell is this where the National Academy of Sciences is being lectured by Lauren Boebert about what constitutes “gold standard” practices?

52 years ago, Richard Nixon was forced out of office for crimes that now look almost quaint. Today, the same behavior would barely register as a warm-up act for Donald Trump. The bar didn’t just get lowered. It got buried. I sat down with former venture capitalist, innovation and civil society advocate Ted Dintersmith to talk about how America went from Watergate ending a presidency to watching a terminal liar turn scandal into strategy. And why pretending this is normal may be the most dangerous lie of all.

Unless the Court is expanded/reformed, no Democratic victories will ever matter. It must be part of any campaign platform.

Scott MacFarlane slams the legacy media over its handling of January 6 coverage MacFarlane: I’ve said before, and I’ll say again, that legacy media owns some of the blame for the lying about January 6th—platforming demonstrably false information, lies about the Capitol insurrection, giving Trump an unchallenged platform at times to say the 2020 election is rigged, to say the January 6th rioters were political patriots or heroes, and to allow his surrogates to do the same. The Republicans here in Washington at the Capitol down the road—they’re silent generally about January 6th. They won’t defend it declaratively. Most of them won’t. They know it’s wrong. They were hiding for their lives or running for their lives that day. They know it was wrong; they just don’t say anything about it. They let the malignant lies go unchecked. Legacy media has done the same. They have not counterpunched effectively or efficiently against the lies about January 6th. They own some blame for the idea that $1.7 billion in taxpayer money would pay off January 6 rioters. It really is a malignant lie that didn’t get counterpunched effectively. There were a few of us—really talented reporters—and me who covered the January 6 prosecutions, who were in the courtrooms for those hearings. Sometimes there was only a few of us. Sometimes I was alone in the room, and that was negligence by mainstream media, who should have marshaled more resources, more time, more manpower, more energy toward covering the largest criminal prosecution in American history—the 1,500-plus January 6 cases. Just guys like me scrapping in the courtroom, running outside on our phones to tell you what happened. The legacy linear media let the story die. They let it atrophy. They allowed the space and the void for Trump to step in and try to rewrite it, to craft a different narrative, to flat-out lie. They left that space by underresourcing January 6th reporting. It’s really a cardinal sin to not put more time, money, and manpower into covering what I think was the defining criminal case of modern American democracy—and the first attack on the U.S. Capitol since the early 1800s.

Trump may establish a $1.7 billion fund using taxpayer money to compensate his allies and others investigated by the Justice Department under Biden, possibly including those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. @GlennThrush @aduehren @alanfeuer nytimes.com/2026/05/15/us/…

Stupid MAGA voters. They should have bought Nvidia stock just days before Trump gave them permission to sell advanced chips to China. The way Trump did. huffpost.com/entry/trump-st…

I wrote here Thursday morning, early on in the summit, of Trump’s kowtowing to Beijing. Even I didn’t expect the thoroughness of the groveling and capitulation that we ended up seeing, especially on Taiwan. thebulwark.com/p/donad-trump-…

Trump: “President Xi said America is a nation in decline. And I said, ‘You’re right.’” No American president should ever say this. Disgraceful.

Financial disclosures for US President Donald Trump showed hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of transactions involving securities in major American companies including Nvidia, Palantir, Paramount and Boeing in the first three months of 2026. ft.trib.al/nauttka

Some A+ sane washing by the Paper of Record. I mean, Trump went to China, came back with his dick in his hand and nothing else but b/c he's graded on a curve that would make a kindergarten teacher blush, you get this ...

Chinese hegemony once looked impossible. But weakened U.S. alliances may no longer prevent Beijing’s dominance. foreignpolicy.com/2026/05/12/chi…

Part 1 - Trump in 2024 during the campaign when asked if he will be able to get Xi to release Jimmy Lai from prison if elected: “100% I’Il get him out. He’ll be easy to get out.” Part 2 - Today: “I brought up Jimmy Lai. I would say the response to that was, um, not positive.”