Brian Beutler
@brianbeutler.bsky.social
79K followers 290 following 3.1K posts
Off Message, Politix.fm; Formerly: Crooked Media, TNR, TPM; www.offmessage.net/subscribe
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Reposted by Brian Beutler
dlknowles.bsky.social
Good reporting on the South Shore raid from South Side weekly here.

Confirms one thing I was told but didn't put in my own piece because I didn't have a second source and it seemed too insane: border agents segregated arrested residents by race

southsideweekly.com/federal-agen...
Federal Agents Storm South Shore Building, Detaining Families and Children
Families were woken by flashbangs and helicopters as hundreds of federal agents raided their homes. Days later, neighbors are still searching for the missing.
southsideweekly.com
Reposted by Brian Beutler
apnews.com
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted “no one has died” as a result of U.S. foreign aid cuts. In Myanmar, the grieving father of a 2-year-old boy who died after their food rations were cut calls such claims a lie.
Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.
bit.ly
Reposted by Brian Beutler
dburbach.bsky.social
The "antifa army" that Noem stared down 😂😂😂
Reposted by Brian Beutler
carlquintanilla.bsky.social
NVIDIA and OpenAi:

Concerns that their “increasingly complex and interconnected web of business transactions is artificially propping up the trillion-dollar AI boom.“

@bloomberg.com $NVDA 👀
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
Reposted by Brian Beutler
lyndab08.bsky.social
Another incident of federal agents pointing guns at Chicago area residents.
Tweet from @laura_n_rod 

Text: A federal agent points a weapon at a woman who was recording them.

Jess, a U.S. citizen and member of a neighborhood patrol team that documents and shares ICE activity across the city, was filming when the incident occurred earlier today in the Berwyn area.

Photo: shows a federal agent in a truck pointing a gun
Reposted by Brian Beutler
jkavanagh.bsky.social
“WhenTrump is a litigant, [the Supreme Court] pace themselves to advance his interests. When he needed the all clear to run for president as an oath-breaking insurrectionist, the court moved fast. When he needed to run out the clock on his federal criminal indictments it moved slowly.”
brianbeutler.bsky.social
The only solution is to call that out of bounds proactively, jawbone the justices, and then govern under the Trump rules no matter what Roberts et al have to say. They can back down or become irrelevant, the easy way or the hard way, as Brendan Carr might put it. www.offmessage.net/p/the-suprem...
The Supreme Court's Dastardly Plan Makes Court Reform Obligatory
If Democrats can't avoid the trap Republican justices are setting, we'll never recover from the Trump fiasco.
www.offmessage.net
Reposted by Brian Beutler
suzannf.bsky.social
It seems so obvious that this is what will happen and it’s utterly maddening
brianbeutler.bsky.social
The GOP justices are highly intentional operators. Their approach of total solicitousness to Trump on procedural motions, while punting merits rulings for years, will allow them to time rulings to tie Democrats’ hands, if they see partisan winds shifting. www.offmessage.net/p/the-suprem...
Reposted by Brian Beutler
tomscocca.bsky.social
It's not just that they're going to strike down a law against conversion therapy, it's that they're going to do it on behalf of made-up claims from a straw plaintiff who can't honestly show the law affected her at all
tomscocca.bsky.social
One thing about American's widespread distrust and disapproval of the Supreme Court is that mainstream news coverage mostly doesn't dwell on stuff like standing, so people don't even begin to grasp how rigged the Court truly is www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...
Supreme Court Live Updates: Justices Seem Set to Rule Against Colorado’s Ban on Conversion Therapy
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Brian Beutler
When you're that wrong about something that important, that's cause to reevaluate how you conceptualize the world and it's also cause for leaders to step down. American politics is often treated like sports, but in sports GM's and coaches are fired for losses (fairly and unfairly) rather fast.
Reposted by Brian Beutler
murshedz.bsky.social
The MAGA #SCOTUS is enabling "Trump engage in a spree of autocratic vandalism that broadly corrupts" the fed. govt but will likely shut down those "king-like" powers if Ds are positioned to take over.

@brianbeutler.bsky.social ▶️ why GOP operatives in SCOTUS robes have made court reform essential. ↘️
"Thus, over the first months of his second term, the court has settled into a new rhythm: When Trump needs freedom from injunctions and restraining orders imposed by lower courts, the Republican justices race to his rescue, typically without explaining themselves. Then, they hit the brakes, giving him plenty of running room to engage in illegality before issuing decisions on the merits.

This is dirty pool, and the justices aren’t even really trying to conceal it. But I don’t think most Democratic critics of the court have thought through how this approach can be used to give Trump a one-time only pass to break laws and steal spoils that will never apply, under their eventual precedents, to future administrations.

Perhaps the Republican justices simply think there will never be another transfer of power. But their approach is consistent with another strategic objective, too: allowing Trump to engage in a spree of autocratic vandalism that broadly corrupts the federal government, before shutting down his claims to king-like power in a way that prevents Democrats from quickly fixing things in 2029."
Reposted by Brian Beutler
Reposted by Brian Beutler
whstancil.bsky.social
She’s a seditious, treasonous usurper of America’s tradition of impartial justice and rule of law, and one day she should pay a terrible price for her betrayal of the Constitution and the oath she swore
atrupar.com
PADILLA: Do you believe govt officials are obligated to follow court orders whether they agree with them or not, yes or no?

BONDI: I wish you loved your state of California as much as you hate President Trump

PADILLA: I asked a simple yes or no question
Reposted by Brian Beutler
jfallows.bsky.social
Draw on your own experience:

Is there any situation you've ever been part of, with you or anyone else in the hot seat, in which a person who does NOT have something to hide, reacts the way Bondi does?

I've been on trial juries that concluded "we can't trust that witness," after evasions like this
atrupar.com
NOTABLE -- Pam Bondi refuses to answer direct questions about if the FBI has incriminating photos of Trump with half-naked young women, but instead deflects from them by attacking Sen. Whitehouse
Reposted by Brian Beutler
willbunnett.bsky.social
Indeed, if you're not confronting the out of control corruption of SCOTUS, then what even are you rebuilding?
Reposted by Brian Beutler
dianenyc.bsky.social
One of the most interesting and important reads in a while.
brianbeutler.bsky.social
The only solution is to call that out of bounds proactively, jawbone the justices, and then govern under the Trump rules no matter what Roberts et al have to say. They can back down or become irrelevant, the easy way or the hard way, as Brendan Carr might put it. www.offmessage.net/p/the-suprem...
The Supreme Court's Dastardly Plan Makes Court Reform Obligatory
If Democrats can't avoid the trap Republican justices are setting, we'll never recover from the Trump fiasco.
www.offmessage.net
Reposted by Brian Beutler
daveweigel.bsky.social
This is a @brianbeutler.bsky.social point, I think, but Garland was careful to a fault not to coordinate w Biden, not to jump on Trump cases too fast, etc - even appointed special counsel to probe Hunter.

His reward: Republicans just insisting Biden/Garland coordinated and targeted their enemies.
owillis.bsky.social
Just this morning people told me that it’s not the job of the democrats to set a narrative, meanwhile congressional republicans continue to do just that
jbendery.bsky.social
Hawley also raging about the FBI having "tapped my phone," but that's not what happened here.

The FBI reportedly analyzed data relating to dates and times of some of Hawley's calls during the week of Jan. 6. No wire tapping or looking at content of communications. www.huffpost.com/entry/fbi-me...
Reposted by Brian Beutler
lizzieohreally.bsky.social
This picture is from 1992 in LA and using it in this post and story shows terrible news judgment.
cnn.com
CNN @cnn.com · 1d
"President Donald Trump and his top aides are using the word 'insurrection' more frequently to describe anti-ICE protests in places like Portland," writes Zachary B. Wolf. https://cnn.it/4pWYmzr
brianbeutler.bsky.social
Recommitting to this kind of faux credulous coverage after Trump unilaterally gutted public media is going to make long-run survival much harder. Who’s opening their wallet for this?
npr.org
NPR @npr.org · 1d
President Trump is bucking tradition and legal precedent in pushing to deploy the National Guard to Democratic-led cities like Portland, Oregon, and Chicago due to what he says is rampant crime and to support his crackdown on illegal immigration.
Trump's power to deploy National Guard, explained
President Trump is bucking tradition and legal precedent in pushing to deploy the National Guard to Democratic-led cities like Portland, Oregon, and Chicago due to what he says is rampant crime and to support his crackdown on illegal immigration.
n.pr
Reposted by Brian Beutler
kylegriffin1.bsky.social
New on MSNBC: Trump's new acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan has recruited prosecutors from outside her office to take James Comey to trial, after being unable to find any federal prosecutors in her own office willing to pursue the charges, according to two people familiar with the selections.
Reposted by Brian Beutler
ryanlcooper.com
very first thing I would do is call up European leaders and demand they enforce their own content laws that Elon is blatantly violating. he's straight inciting riots in the UK and Starmer just takes it because he's afraid of alienating the US (and he's chickenshit), so reverse the incentive
brianbeutler.bsky.social
She’s a bad actress (and a bad actor) but ceding the floor to her in this way is just sad.
atrupar.com
Bondi to Blumenthal: "You lied. How dare you? I'm a career prosecutor. Don't you ever challenge my integrity. Do not question my ability to be fair and impartial."
Reposted by Brian Beutler
atrupar.com
NOTABLE -- Pam Bondi refuses to answer direct questions about if the FBI has incriminating photos of Trump with half-naked young women, but instead deflects from them by attacking Sen. Whitehouse
Reposted by Brian Beutler
jaegerbru.bsky.social
Yes, essential. Any post-Trump - let’s call it reconstruction - can be undone with the flick of 6 pens if Ds don’t fix SCOTUS.