@LHSummers Why would he want to harm our allies and reward our enemies? Think about it for a while. I’m sure you’ll stumble on the right answer.
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David Pugh
17.6K posts
Third, this will force our allies to retaliate, and I presume they will retaliate in ways that are designed to maximize our economic pain. 4/8
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Aside from the general issues about Trump‘s tariff and his economic nationalism strategy, today’s actions against Canada and Mexico are inexplicable and dangerous. 1/8
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@mattyglesias But compare that with the sheer pleasure of beating up on a smaller neighbour!
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@jonathanchait As always, the explanation is stupid. First, Trump can’t tolerate the idea of not being number one. Exercising power from behind the throne has no appeal. Second, he’s convinced he’s going to live for ever.
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Here's my objection. I think Trump probably could evade the 22nd Amendment by running as VP with a cut-out. But what's his incentive? Why not support Vance or some other loyal Republican successor? politico.com/news/magazine/…
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@PhillipsPOBrien The Germans had an ironic name for opportunists who joined the Nazi Party soon after their assumption of power in January: die Maerzgefallenen (those who fell in March).
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Two things are now clear.
1) If you are not willing to fight for democracy and liberal values now--you never really believed in them.
2) Beware those who flipped to supporting MAGA since the election victory. Their ability to rationalize this is one of the great problems.
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"A Republican representative who is a member of the DOGE Caucus told me personally that there will be cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
These cuts are being proposed to offset the cost of tax handouts for billionaires." - Alex Lawson
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@Biz_Ukraine_Mag Which just demonstrates how little influence Rubio is going to have on American foreign policy. The emptiest of empty suits.
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Maximum pressure: strong messaging on Russia from the top US and EU diplomats
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@GregTSargent Quotas of arrests? Last time I read of that it was in a book about Stalin’s purges.
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Perfect: Trump is angry that deportation numbers aren't high enough, so he's demanding higher daily arrests, WaPo reports. But that'll require require rounding up non-criminals.
Confirms what I suggested below: Manufacturing a perpetual emergency constantly requires new enemies.
.@GregTSargent
Authoritarianism suffers from a contradiction: Justifying illegal powers requires depicting a huge internal threat. But The Leader must always be Powerful and Strong, which means he is eliminating that threat. But then there's no "emergency" anymore. newrepublic.com/article/190696…
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@ariehkovler It’s official. We’re now living in a Coen Brothers movie.
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Interesting phenomenon: Blue Tick MAGA Twitter are insisting that the tariff threat already worked, Colombia caved, Trump backed down and it's all over. None of that is true, but they get to celebrate a non-existent victory while mocking anyone who criticised the tariff move.
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Trump slaps a huge new tax on Starbucks, Keurig, Nestle, Smucker's etc in the shape of a 25% tariff on Colombian coffee, rising to 50% next week. I assume the cafes will have more headroom to absorb it, but the bean sellers will have to pass it on to customers quickly.
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About 40 top Trump + Biden officials last week met to plan for the next pandemic.
They spent an hour on how to be ready for avian flu.
RFK Jr skipped it. He was on Capitol Hill, lobbying senators to vote for him, and sharing vaccine theories.
washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/…
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@whstancil It’s surely just a matter of time before Trump announces that we’re in a new era in which the Constitution is no longer valid.
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Even if the text of the Constitution wasn't unremittingly clear - it is - why is it that Donald Trump, specifically, gets to decide who is a citizen and who is not? There are millions of Americans who CURRENTLY aren't citizens under this theory. We're just gonna ignore that?
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We've been granting people birthright citizenship for centuries. Did Trump's election somehow change the Constitution? Why does someone born Jan. 19 get to be a citizen, but not someone born Jan. 21?
"Oh we read some right-wing academics, and it was all a big whoopsie" - gtfo
Ilan Wurman@ilan_wurman
Maybe the birthright citizenship order will ultimately be held unconstitutional, but I find it highly embarrassing for a judge to say something so unequivocally at a preliminary stage without the slightest acknowledgement that there is an entire literature that disagrees. 1/2
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Reading a dual biography of John Singer Sargent and the large Jewish family that became his favorite subjects. Antisemites pay for their hatred by self-isolation from much of the highest and best of the artistic and literary culture of the past 200 years. jeanstrouse.com/book/family-ro…
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@atrupar They’ll likely “appeal” it by sending a squad of Proud Boys to knock on his door in the middle of the night.
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"Obviously we'll appeal it" -- Trump on a court striking down his birthright citizenship EO
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@Biz_Ukraine_Mag No wokeness in the Russian military! Pete Hegseth will approve. (If he’s sober enough to notice, that is.)
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Russian soldiers have released a video of themselves murdering six unarmed and defenseless Ukrainian POWs. This war crime is the latest in a series of similar killings. It is says much of Russia's sense of impunity that they are enthusiastically recording evidence of their crimes
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@AaronBlake Only a matter of time before Rubio is dumped and replaced by a true believer. Pathetically, he is just trying to hold on for as long as possible before the inevitable happens.
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Rubio, who after J6 said it made U.S. look like an unstable democracy, is asked on NBC what message Trump's pardons sends.
"I'm not going to engage in domestic political debates," he says.
Pressed again, he calls the interview's focus on domestic politics "unfortunate."
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@atrupar The focus shifts to the struggle for power behind the throne. Who is Gloucester? Who is Hastings? Stephen Miller is an obvious Catesby.
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Now that he's a lame duck, the thing I'm noticing about Trump is that his lies are lazier and more incoherent than ever. There's less thought behind his verbal diarrhea. Some of this may be the result of age-related decline. But in any event his showing tonight was abysmal.
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Barely an hour after his inauguration speech, Trump spends a half hour relitigating his grudges against the J6 committee and "lunatic" Liz Cheney. America deserved so much better than this buffoon.
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@svdate Doesn’t sound right. The more violent they were, the more he likes them.
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If only peaceful protesters will get pardons, exactly zero people will be released from jail.
Kyle Cheney@kyledcheney
Speaker Johnson becomes the latest to say there will be limits on Trump’s clemency for Jan. 6 defendants. The people around Trump — Vance, Bondi, Johsnon, Graham — have been pretty on message about this.
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@RealJakeBroe @generalkellogg This guy looks like another one of Trump’s dupes. When the time seems right Trump will drop him and hand over Ukraine to Russia.
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"You look at the troop losses, the equipment losses, and the potential what President Trump can apply is sanctions around the oil industry of Russia. They should be concerned about it." - General Keith Kellogg
@generalkellogg
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