Brutkey

emptywheel
@emptywheel.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy
emptywheel
@emptywheel.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy

How John Durham Buried Evidence He Had Been Doing the Work of Russian Spies ... and then Tulsi Gabbard Buried More

www.emptywheel.net/2025/08/09/h...

How John Durham Buried Evidenc...

emptywheel
@emptywheel.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy

Here's a basic fact about how Trump works.

1) He forces right wingers to support a WILDLY unpopular bill.
2) Which puts their political careers at risk.
3) So they put party over democracy and America itself in an attempt to extend one-party states.

emptywheel
@emptywheel.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy

Steve Witkoff's Russian handler boasts that they're going to take the US next.

A tweet from Kirill Dmitriev, who is now and was in 2017 in charge off offering financial incentives for the US to reverse sanctions and help carve up Ukraine. It describes Alaska as Russian-American. BREAKING: President Trump announces a 🇺🇸🇷🇺 summit with President Putin in Alaska. Born as Russian America—Orthodox roots, forts, fur trade—Alaska echoes those ties & makes the US an Arctic nation. Let’s 🇷🇺🇺🇸 partner on environment, infrastructure & energy in Arctic and beyond
emptywheel
@emptywheel.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy

Probably a good time to make a stink about the fact that Eagle Ed Martin refused to sign a Cory Mills arrest warrant, which allowed Mills to allegedly abuse OTHER women in FL.

www.nbcnews.com/politics/don...

D.C. police say they sent an arrest warrant on Rep. Cory Mills but the U.S. Attorney has not signed it Frank Thorp V and Raquel Coronell Uribe The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., sent an arrest warrant on Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., to interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin’s office on Friday, a spokesperson for MPD told NBC News, but the warrant has not been signed by the federal prosecutor. The case could essentially die at this point, the spokesperson said, meaning it may never result in criminal charges. The status of the warrant was first reported by NBC Washington. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment this evening. Trump appointed Martin to his position on interim basis and has since nominated him to hold it in a permanent capacity. Metropolitan Police said last week they were investigating Mills over a report of an alleged assault at an apartment building. Mills, who was not arrested, denied wrongdoing, saying law enforcement was called for help to “resolve a private matter” at his home and was “confident investigation will clear this matter quickly.” D.C. police say they sent an arrest warrant on Rep. Cory Mills but the U.S. Attorney has not signed it, continued Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said Friday that there is an internal police investigation into how the situation was handled.
emptywheel
@emptywheel.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy

I'm really looking forward to Solicitor General John Sauer arguing that Aileen Cannon's ruling that got Trump out of a stolen document case is wrong.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:t4x2ruk2qmob2b2cx55h4v7r/post/3lvvscrwkyk2j

emptywheel
@emptywheel.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy

Anyway, that's why I'm an impatient asshole w/people lecturing all day, "Democrats and by that I mean electeds not me need to do messaging better this way," bc the way to make that happen is to ... do it. Or magnify other people doing it.

emptywheel
@emptywheel.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy

And this: Dems were hugely successful last year defining Project 2025 (starting, again, from random people w/TikTok followings or celebrities, not the campaign).

I'd say they're successful now, on Epstein, in part bc the QAnon right helped to jumpstart it. But still...

We’ve also seen that this kind of thinking can work when Democrats do it. Last year, both the Democratic presidential campaign and the broader progressive movement took Project 2025 from a viral curiosity and turned it into one of the Trump campaign’s worst negatives. And right now, the party is effectively seizing on the Jeffrey Epstein saga, despite some initial hemming and hawing. Until recently, I ran into no shortage of people in D.C. who said Democrats should move on from the so-called Epstein files to “economic issues” — not recognizing that Epstein is an economic issue. It’s about elites doing terrible things and protecting themselves, a metanarrative that appeals to Americans’ sense that the system isn’t working for them. Social media messaging is as much about implication as it is the blunt statement of fact.
emptywheel
@emptywheel.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy

This whole column, about Dem lack of an online mob to make this go viral, is what I try to explain to people who order MoCs to message better. On the right, viral messaging arises from randos and gets PUSHED UP to electeds.

www.politico.com/news/magazin...

The right understands that virality is as much of a barometer for success as whether an argument is seen as persuasive. Conservatives use the internet as a testing ground for what has heat, and they work it up the ladder. Organic media wags the dog. Campaigns simply add kerosene to what people are already telling them they find resonant. In a world where voters don’t trust institutions, messaging that feels native to their own conversations will be significantly more effective than what’s being pushed to them in ads.
emptywheel
@emptywheel.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy

People like this always want to lecture me about what the official record is.

Then they run away when I ask them basic questions.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:fqeeh3hn5sjovzpfnv7cvybe/post/3lvr7d6mu3s2v

emptywheel
@emptywheel.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy

Perhaps the reason Trump wants to be able to get away with pardoning a woman who stole his spa girls and forced one into sex slavery is bc he wants a world where powerful men can force girls into sex slavery.