Matt
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mattferrel.bsky.social
Matt
@mattferrel.bsky.social
Political news junkie. Blocks doomers, bigots, & engagement farmers following > 10k on sight. No patience for non-voters or far left who blame Dems instead of GOP for our problems.
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Reposted by Matt
A Dishonorable Strike
Indulging all assumptions in favor of the administration’s boat strikes, killing helpless men is murder

www.execfunctions.org/p/a-dishonor...
A Dishonorable Strike
Indulging all assumptions in favor of the administration’s boat strikes, killing helpless men is murder
www.execfunctions.org
November 29, 2025 at 4:26 AM
Reposted by Matt
Demolishing the East Wing of the White House before finalizing plans for what will be built above its ruins is a near-perfect metaphor for Trump's approach to economic policy. The only difference is the wrecking crew doesn’t claim the rubble is evidence of unprecedented growth.
November 29, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by Matt
The Boston Globe identified the companies in Massachusetts that employ the most SNAP recipients. A key stat: "In Massachusetts, 74% of working-age recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are employed, half of them full-time."

Full article: www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/28/m...
November 29, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Reposted by Matt
It’s wrong to lump all top Trump people in one category. There are differences among them. But they do seem to fall into three (sometimes overlapping) categories:

• Ordinary criminals (grift and corruption).

• Sex criminals.

• War criminals.
November 29, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Reposted by Matt
This is essentially Vinay Prasad, who has an MD, declaring his intent to use the government to torture children to dead via preventable disease by knowingly withholding the cure.

To call this despicable is an understatement.
Vinay Prasad of the FDA claims that he has proof that 10 children died from COVID19 vaccines, so the FDA will now target flu shots, look at whether people should receive multiple vaccines at the same time, and make the vaccine approval process significantly more difficult.
FDA to impose strict new vaccine requirements, claiming child covid shot deaths
Vinay Prasad, the nation’s top vaccine regulator, said his team concluded that coronavirus shots were linked to children’s deaths, necessitating a new approach.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 29, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Reposted by Matt
Team Trump justifies his endless parade of lawless actions as what Americans voted for but it clearly is not. He’s minus 25 and people hate everything he’s doing. There’s no support for any of this, let alone in the illegal manner it’s being imposed.
November 29, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by Matt
The president has illegally declared war to stop fentanyl trafficking from a country that does not traffic that drug, claiming its leader is trafficking drugs himself, the day after pardoning a former leader of a country who is a convicted drug trafficker.
Just to level set
November 29, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Reposted by Matt
people are starting to leak. republicans who are either planning to retire or don’t have to face voters again until after trump’s term is over are starting to talk about trump in public the way they’ve spent the last decade talking about him in private. 2006 vibes increasing.
November 29, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Matt
Let’s be clear: these are extrajudicial killings. “Kill them all” Hegseth needs to be held accountable.

What’s more, Trump promised the American people no new wars but is now manufacturing this conflict & lying about his motives.

This warmongering has got to stop.
Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order to kill all crew members in the Sept. 2 strike on a suspected drug boat. Navy SEALs fired a second missile.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 29, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Reposted by Matt
1984 is over-cited, but the best word for this is doublethink. MAGA has tons of it.

Trump is a strong leader no one would cross and a poor victim who deserves sympathy.

He brought crime down and crime is out of control.

The Epstein Files are fake to hurt Trump and have nothing negative about him.
This is the crux of the MAGA strategy: make contradictory claims and hope no one notices. Either the files are fake, or they’re harmless — they can’t logically be both.
New in PN: MAGA's Epstein gaslighting is unsustainable

"The Epstein files are a 'hoax,' Trump says — a lie made up by Dems to make him look bad. Yet somehow, at the same time, there’s nothing in them that could make him look bad — b/c if there was, Biden would have released them. So which is it?"
November 29, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Reposted by Matt
Wow: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon seems to think that companies involved with Trump's ballroom project could be criminally prosecuted. thehill.com/business/559...
November 29, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by Matt
This is much more significant than a naval blockade. It violates a Venezuela's sovereign airspace. A commercial no-fly zone instituted by the US is an invasion and declaration of war.
Might be kicking off.
November 29, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Reposted by Matt
Like 30% of the country is absolutely enraged because they thought they were going to be able to be utter shitbirds without anyone being allowed to call them shitbirds, but here we are, calling them shitbirds.
November 29, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Reposted by Matt
There are specific reasons Trumpists want war on Venezuela, but there‘s a generic one: they crave power to make war on anyone, any time, for completely fabricated reasons, and then to use the guise of war to increase violence and repression everywhere, including home.

They are lawless bestial scum.
November 29, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Reposted by Matt
Creating a military conflict with Venezuela gives this administration a legal "hook" to invoke the Alien Enemies Act. In other words, the foreign war is being manufactured in order to facilitate court deference for its domestic mass deportation policy. It's a Stephen Miller Special.
November 29, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Reposted by Matt
Thing is, we DID hear about it at his confirmation hearing.

Every single senator who voted to confirm Hegseth knew he held these views about the laws of war.

They voted to confirm him anyway.
Everyone should read this terrifying thread about Hegseth’s published views wrt war crimes. It’s pretty fucking radical …. We needed to hear about this in his confirmation hearing.
A chapter in Hegseth’s book is literally titled “More Lethality, Less Lawyers.”

It’s almost as if there were signs!
November 29, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Reposted by Matt
a few candidates have talked about this but any Dem planning to run in 2028 should make it explicit: the next DOJ will, in fact, go after you if you’re funding this awful ballroom, or any other pay to play deals you make with this administration
Dimon on why JPMorgan Chase is not funding WH Ballroom:
We have an issue, which is anything we do, since we do a lot of contracts with governments here and around the world, we have to be very careful how anything is perceived, and also how the next DOJ is going to deal with it.
November 29, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Reposted by Matt
Former US military lawyers speak out:

"The Former JAGs Working Group unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both."

Statement on Media Reports of Pentagon “No Quarter” Orders in Caribbean Boat Strikes

1/2
November 29, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Reposted by Matt
The NYT definitely made a choice not to add “without evidence” to this headline.
F.D.A. Attributes 10 Children’s Deaths to Covid Vaccines
www.nytimes.com
November 29, 2025 at 5:20 AM
Reposted by Matt
I know you already know, but for other folks who don't, Goldsmith was previously head of OLC, is a genuinely brilliant mind on executive authority and separation of powers, and is usually very cautious about making claims this unqualified and direct. That he is saying it so starkly is v significant
November 29, 2025 at 5:54 AM
Reposted by Matt
Imagine getting ready for your daughter to come home from her freshman year of college for Thanksgiving, and the day of departure she goes MIA, and then 48 nightmarish hours later she calls you to tell her that ICE goons kidnapped her and shipped her to Honduras www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/25/m...
November 29, 2025 at 2:24 AM
Reposted by Matt
I’m starting to get the sense that it was a bad idea to put a deeply insecure, sexual assaulting Fox News host with a drinking problem and a crusader tattoo who said he was into war crimes in charge of the military.
November 29, 2025 at 2:46 AM
Reposted by Matt
Harvard Law School’s Jack Goldsmith:

“In short, if the Post’s facts are correct, it appears that Special Operations Forces committed murder when the ‘two men were blown apart in the water, as the Post put it.’”

open.substack.com/pub/executiv...
November 29, 2025 at 4:25 AM
Reposted by Matt
Hegseth wasn't chosen as merely a Fox News buffoon who then bumbles his way into war crimes out of machismo incompetence. He was chosen specifically because he is, and has been for a long time, a proud, open, and explicit advocate of war crimes as a good thing we should do.
A chapter in Hegseth’s book is literally titled “More Lethality, Less Lawyers.”

It’s almost as if there were signs!
November 29, 2025 at 5:15 AM
Reposted by Matt
Todd doesn't do hyperbole and he is correct here.
Hell of a way to tee up America’s 250th year.
November 29, 2025 at 12:56 AM