Julian Sanchez
@normative.bsky.social
44K followers 690 following 4.6K posts
He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them. juliansanchez.com
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Reposted by Julian Sanchez
jvl.bsky.social
As alarmed as people may be, they aren't alarmed enough. Trump just escalated this crisis from a fight between the federal government and a state, to a situation where one state is deploying armed forces to impose its will on another state. www.thebulwark.com/p/emergency-...
Emergency Triad: The Chicago Rubicon and What Comes Next
We aren’t at the worst-case scenario yet. But if you squint, you can see it looming out there, just over the horizon.
www.thebulwark.com
Reposted by Julian Sanchez
Reposted by Julian Sanchez
thetnholler.bsky.social
WATCH: Trump’s lawless Ice goons shoot an unarmed priest in the head with a pepper ball. Completely out of control.
Reposted by Julian Sanchez
atherton.bsky.social
this is literally stuff King Charles did, like not only did the American colonists have a revolution to not have this happen, but they did so in the wake of the English revolution, which was about not having stuff like this happen
peark.es
Well that's not how appropriations work at all

*WHITE HOUSE TO TRANSFER TARIFF REVENUE TO FUND WIC: LEAVITT
Reposted by Julian Sanchez
kevinmkruse.bsky.social
"Look, the President clearly has some kind of dementia" should be how Democrats begin every single comment to reporters these days.
ericmgarcia.bsky.social
Ruben Gallego on whether Trump is talking to Democrats:

“Look, the President clearly has some kind of dementia, so I think there's a he's probably talking to himself, or think he's talking to a Democrat, but I sincerely doubt that that's actually he's actually physically talking to a Democrat.“
Reposted by Julian Sanchez
Reposted by Julian Sanchez
nycsouthpaw.bsky.social
I’m a career prosecutor who took a $25,000 check from an affiliated entity of Donald Trump’s while investigating Trump University and later left my lobbying firm to become Donald Trump’s personal impeachment lawyer, White House aide, and Attorney General. So don’t you DARE question my integrity.
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."
normative.bsky.social
It would be super cool if when they said this stuff, the interviewer pointed out that we don’t actually have to speculate. We have polling, and it says residents oppose these deployments by HUGE margins.
atrupar.com
Rep. Riley Moore: "I think the actual residents of Washington DC are very happy with the outcome. And I think the actual residents of Chicago and our other great cities here in America would actually like to have safe streets and not people murdered every night."
normative.bsky.social
There is a weird sense in which I think Trump has benefitted from being so open about his corruption and totalitarian aspirations. People think scandalous stuff has to be dragged out into the daylight. If he's doing it openly, can it really be that bad? (Yes, as it turns out.)
whstancil.bsky.social
The thing about Iran-Contra and Watergate was that they WEREN’T flagrant: they had to be exposed.Trump literally does stuff five times worse than Watergate every day, and then tweets an openly neo-Nazi meme about it from the official White House account. It’s a difference in kind, not just degree.
emceehammerpants.bsky.social
I dunno, man. Iran-Contra and Watergate were pretty flagrant. I have a hard time believing they haven’t been heading down this road where the executive is all-powerful and power is the end, not the means, for a long, long time. Whether that alone qualifies as fascist I don’t know for sure.
Reposted by Julian Sanchez
sbagen.bsky.social
Feel free to attribute the following to a former OMB General Counsel: The supposed "new legal analysis" is, to use a technical legal term, horseshit. What the law actually says is that when Congress enacts a law ending a lapse, furloughed employees get paid at the earliest date possible. Period.
atrupar.com
Johnson: "It's true that in previous shutdowns, many or most furloughed employees have been paid for the time they were furloughed, but there is new legal analysis - I don't know the details, I just saw a headline - but there are some legal analysts saying that might not be appropriate or necessary"
normative.bsky.social
What the folks who no longer trust mainstream news fundamentally want is to be lied to, and not just on the editorial page. You will never win them back as long as you're doing serious journalism. I wish this wasn't the case, but for the moment it sure seems to be.
normative.bsky.social
I sympathize a little with the willful obtuseness of editorial on this point, because it really is untenable (for democracy as much as their bottom line) to have half the country not trusting legitimate news. But there's no amount of lowered standards for op-eds that's going to fix it.
nicholasgrossman.bsky.social
I keep waiting for the powers that be in media to grasp the concept of bad faith, realize how often "restore trust in news" and similar statements mean "stop doing journalism, lie more in ways I like," come from people ideologically committed to destroying trust in news, and can never be satisfied.
karlbode.com
I too am keen to "restore trust in news" by turning a major broadcast network into a 24/7 slurry of right wing culture war propaganda and engagement trolling
Reposted by Julian Sanchez
nicholasgrossman.bsky.social
I keep waiting for the powers that be in media to grasp the concept of bad faith, realize how often "restore trust in news" and similar statements mean "stop doing journalism, lie more in ways I like," come from people ideologically committed to destroying trust in news, and can never be satisfied.
karlbode.com
I too am keen to "restore trust in news" by turning a major broadcast network into a 24/7 slurry of right wing culture war propaganda and engagement trolling
maxtani.bsky.social
Bari Weiss introduced herself to CBS News staff today on the network's 9AM call, saying she wants to "win," which requires restoring trust to CBS. She also said she was excited for staff to get to know the Free Press, and ended her remarks by saying: "Let's do the fucking news."
normative.bsky.social
On the bright side, at this rate you won't have to pay them for very long.
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.
normative.bsky.social
I wonder if history has any lessons about what happens when large concentrations of armed soldiery stop getting paid.
ianboudreau.com
Okay so you have the National Guard deployed to several American cities and plan on sending them to more, so is the plan to actually not pay these people and just find out what happens?
fintwitter.bsky.social
US House Speaker Johnson: Some legal analysts don't believe in shutdown backpay.
normative.bsky.social
This would be insanely stupid even if it were legal. "Come work for the federal government, where you randomly won't be paid whenever Congress is dysfunctional." What a recruiting poster.
atrupar.com
Johnson: "It's true that in previous shutdowns, many or most furloughed employees have been paid for the time they were furloughed, but there is new legal analysis - I don't know the details, I just saw a headline - but there are some legal analysts saying that might not be appropriate or necessary"
Reposted by Julian Sanchez
johnpfaff.bsky.social
“I just saw a headline.”

My man, you are the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE. I wouldn’t accept this level of analysis from my middle-school kids.

Trump wants to bomb Portland bc of bad b-roll footage. Johnson’s about to break laws bc of a, what? Reddit headline?

What are we doing here?
atrupar.com
Johnson: "It's true that in previous shutdowns, many or most furloughed employees have been paid for the time they were furloughed, but there is new legal analysis - I don't know the details, I just saw a headline - but there are some legal analysts saying that might not be appropriate or necessary"
Reposted by Julian Sanchez
heathercherone.bsky.social
Pritzker is also furious: “Should National Governors Association leadership choose to remain silent, Illinois will have no choice but to withdraw from the organization.”
Gov. JB Pritzker’s letter to the National Governors Association
Reposted by Julian Sanchez
jaredlholt.bsky.social
This really makes it sound like a Border Patrol agent tried to kill an anti-ICE activist in Chicago and DHS lied to cover for him
normative.bsky.social
No real beef with the gist of this, but I am so, so sick of tongue-clucking about “division.” We have a president waging a “war within” (his own words!) against domestic urban populations. That had damn well better be divisive.
theatlantic.com
The meme war between Democrats and Republicans while the country endures a government shutdown “feels not fun but just sad, a pointless rhetorical exercise that exacerbates existing divisions,” Will Gottsegen argues in The Atlantic Daily.
The Continuation of Politics by Other Memes
Stale social-media comedy isn’t a substitute for coherent policy.
bit.ly
Reposted by Julian Sanchez
brianbeutler.bsky.social
There is no sense in which the Enabling Act of 1933 would have become an acceptable piece of legislation if it had included a carve-out requiring Hitler to stabilize out-of-pocket health care costs. Same goes for the Enabling Act of 2025. www.offmessage.net/p/the-end-of...
The End Of Non-Sequitur Politics
Let's have more politics about the thing itself.
www.offmessage.net
normative.bsky.social
Yes, when I want to know what the Black community in Chicago is thinking, I always turn to someone who's really got their finger on the pulse: Stephen Miller.
atrupar.com
Stephen Miller: "The Black people in Chicago are thrilled that we're getting the illegal aliens out of their communities who are stealing their housing, jobs, and resources."