Josh Manning
@joshmanning.bsky.social
13K followers 5K following 9.3K posts
Iraq War vet. Former intelligence community Russia then counterterrorism analyst. Now: middling flak. MI —> MT —> WA. Warren-Occupy core. Social justice warrior. Opinions, quirks mine. Words: LA Times, Foreign Policy, Newsweek. Face: MSNBC, Al Jazeera
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So here is what I think is happening, because I had a front row seat to Mike Flynn doing this sort of thing at DIA … The agencies are collecting intelligence from bad sources or dictating what they want their sources to say so it ends up in raw reporting. They can then weaponize this intel.
I loved early TPM, and there were so many good blogs back then: @lkrozen.bsky.social @jricole.bsky.social
Jane Hamsher
Kevin Drum (RIP)
Reposted by Josh Manning
Reposted by Josh Manning
Seems like if some Nazis were well-connected enough to get into an inaugural ball with the House Speaker, that should cause Republican leaders some concern?

(LOL just playing — they're between being apathetic about Nazism or in alignment with it.)
Q: Are you worried about extremist pro-Hitler sentiment among young Republicans?

JOHNSON: No. I don't know who any of these people are. I've never heard of them. Somebody posted a photo of me standing next to these guys wearing tuxedos. It was at the inauguration, people were coming up for selfies
This is exactly right.
Q: “Most hospitals + people who will lose insurance are in rural areas. If Trump & Republicans are so intent on sticking it to their own voters, why not let them?”

@aoc.bsky.social : “That’s the difference between us & Trump. I don’t care if you voted for me, I want you to have health care.”
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Expert here. The weird thing is I don't expect people to trust me (on my specialty) just because. Expertise is all about knowing the broader context of new results, what's clear & what's not, and most experts are happy to help people through this if they're interested in 'doing their own research'.
RFK Jr: We need to stop trusting the experts... Trusting the experts is not a feature of science or democracy, it's a feature of religion and totalitarianism.
Every. Single. Day. And Congress shrugs. The Supreme Court shrugs. Federal appeals courts shrug. An entire political party shrugs, thinking they will get it all.
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The entire Republican Party strategy for achieving what are comprehensively & wildly unpopular policy objectives now consists entirely of bypassing Article I of the Constitution through wildly illegal abuses of both Article II and Article III.
Whatever you think about CFPB, it was created by Congress (as part of the Dodd-Frank Act) and can only be abolished by Congress, not by the President acting as a dictator.
White House budget director Vought plans to shut down CFPB within months, says it's no longer protecting consumers reut.rs/4qjMIyT
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ABOLISH ICE and EXPAND THE SUPREME COURT should be mainstream Democratic promises and talking points.

But timidity and civility will rule the day and screw the rest of us and this country in the end.
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My only criticism of this: She should have said "lies" not "talking points." We need to do a lot better at calling lies lies.
I know we don’t ban political parties in the U.S. I think there was some pushback against secessionists, but maybe we need to look at what Germany did after WWII. Just a thought.
"We are a decade into Trumpism. These Young Republicans have never known any other type of Republicanism....We’re talking about a full generation of Republicans who *only* understand politics in the context of an authoritarian project."
www.thebulwark.com/p/all-the-pr...
All the Pretty Little Nazis
The shape of things to come.
www.thebulwark.com
This is the Toronto offensive onslaught I remember seeing a lot.
Imagine what he could do as mayor! (And that’s what frightens the opposition so much.)
You know, fascism.
BREAKING via WSJ

The Trump administration is planning sweeping changes in criminal division at the IRS.

Full Story: on.wsj.com/3LbVFtK
The Trump administration is preparing sweeping changes at the Internal Revenue Service that would allow the agency to pursue criminal inquiries of left-leaning groups more easily, according to people familiar with the matter.
A senior IRS official involved in the effort has drawn up a list of potential targets that includes major Democratic donors, some of the people said.
The undertaking aims to install allies of President Trump at the IRS criminal-investigative division, or IRS-CI, to exert firmer control over the unit and weaken the involvement of IRS lawyers in criminal investigations, officials said. The proposed changes could open the door to politically motivated probes and are being driven by Gary Shapley, an adviser to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
First, this dude is pure evil.

Second, when you sack all the employees and don’t let it enforce the laws it’s supposed, of course it fails. (See: point one.)
We were chanting that on the first baseline at that park not but a month and a half ago!
Someone tell him an upper westside cocktail party doesn’t count as a mass movement.