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emptywheel

@emptywheel.bsky.social
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This is a prolific poster! Showing posts since December 15, 2024.

  1. 1

    The richest man in the world took over $5K out of this guy's bank account, claiming he was dead. The richest man in the world said he was saving money.

    He was not dead.

    I found a ‘dead’ person collecting Social Security in Seattle
    “Dead” Ned Johnson turns out to be very much alive. It took him weeks to convince the system he was breathing and to start clawing his benefits back.
    43,121 17,262
    Mar 15, 2025
  2. 2

    It never got a lot of attention, but Aber put a WHOLE LOT of child predators w/ties to law enforcement in prison.

    www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/f...

    Former US attorney for Eastern District of Virginia Jessica Aber found dead at 43
    Jessica Aber, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA), was found dead Saturday morning, the Alexandria Police Department said. She was 43 years old. The cause and circumstance...
    17,370 6,377
    Mar 22, 2025
  3. 3

    Folks: please be diligent about not disseminating Ann Telnaes' cartoon in a way that she's not getting the clicks on it (until she says differently). Her IP matters now more than ever.

    Make it go viral but make sure she benefits.

    anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-qui...

    Why I'm quitting the Washington Post
    Democracy can't function without a free press
    16,420 6,130
    Jan 4, 2025
  4. 4

    The Afrikaner stunt is the kind of thing that has backfired so far -- it creates legal arguments for other refugees about animus.

    But holy hell he's not hiding the white sheets.

    24,553 5,158
    May 12, 2025
  5. 5

    The woman who shouted "people will die" at Joni Ernst, India May, is a nurse and a librarian who first got involved in politics by going to a town hall about bills aiming to defund libraries.

    Now she's running for state house.

    eu.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/p...

    What does India May want to accomplish in the Iowa House? May said she first got involved in Iowa politics earlier this year when she attended a town hall held by the state legislators in her area, including Thomson. In part, May said she went to oppose a bill that would deny state funding to libraries that are members of the American Library Association and Iowa Library Association, and another that would remove an exemption in Iowa's obscenity law that shields libraries and educational institutions. Neither bill ultimately passed. "I’m a nurse and a librarian, and I went to my first town hall this year to advocate for libraries and realized that there were a lot more pieces of legislation that were harmful on the Iowa level that I didn’t even hear about until it was too late," she said.
    20,529 4,992
    Jun 4, 2025
  6. 6

    Tammy Duckworth is just killing Hegseth.
    Gets him to admit he has never done internationals security arrangements. Doesn't know what SecDef has to do on same.

    She asks him to name ASEAN countries and significance of them. He names a bunch of countries that aren't part of ASEAN.

    23,095 4,562
    Jan 14, 2025
  7. 7

    Remember that several people asked Pam Bondi during confirmation SPECIFICALLY what she would do on matters pertaining to Qatar (which she did not disclose) or GEO (pertinent to the Baraka arrest). She said she'd consult top career lawyer at DOJ abt recusal.

    Then she fired that lawyer.

    13,032 4,558
    May 12, 2025
  8. 8

    I think people aren't describing the Emil Bove corruption adequately.

    He blew off an order from a judge SO THAT he could send hundreds of mostly innocent men to a concentration camp, based on false claims of gang ties.

    11,491 4,395
    Jul 17, 2025
  9. 9

    The war in Iran is illegal under the UN Charter, under War Powers Act, and didn't even comply with National Security Act.

    Top Dems on House and Senate Intel Committees — Jim Himes and Mark Warner, both members of Gang of Eight — were not briefed before the attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, per sources.
    14,160 4,295
    Jun 22, 2025
  10. 10

    Stephen Miller is murdering Venezuelans and Colombians in cold blood bc he believes it helps his propaganda campaign to paint Latinos as dangerous.

    www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

    Stephen Miller views the air strikes as an opportunity to paint immigrants as a dangerous menace, according to one of the White House officials.
    11,408 4,225
    Oct 9, 2025
  11. 11

    Oh, okay. Pam Bondi just fired the Epstein and Maxwell prosecutor, Maureen Comey.

    That'll kill the conspiracy theories.

    15,513 3,724
    Jul 16, 2025
  12. 12

    Posting this story about how Ann Telnaes got censored not least bc it'll disseminate the image Jeff Bezos censored.

    anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-qui...

    Why I'm quitting the Washington Post
    Democracy can't function without a free press
    11,845 3,706
    Jan 4, 2025
  13. 13

    Tarrio is, quite literally, a pardoned terrorist.

    Dom Ervolina @dominicervolina.com
    Marco Rubio hanging out with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio at the "Shield of the Americas" event, in case you were still thinking it had some sort of legitimate purpose
    Marco Rubio hanging out with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio at the "Shield of the Americas" event
    10,062 3,499
    Mar 8, 2026
  14. 14

    Mike Johnson Let a Terrorist Roam the Capitol Yesterday

    www.emptywheel.net/2025/01/23/m...

    Mike Johnson Let a Terrorist Roam the Capitol Yesterday - emptywheel
    Mike Johnson let seditionist and terrorist Stewart Rhodes -- whose judgment was commuted but not pardoned -- wander around the scene of the crime yesterday, all while complaining that Bishop Budde's c...
    8,146 3,432
    Jan 23, 2025
  15. 15

    Judge Alsup is not amused by reports that people he ordered reinstated were put on admin leave.

    storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

    The Court has read news reports that, in at least one agency, probationary employees are being rehired but then placed on administrative leave en masse. This is not allowed by the preliminary injunction, for it would not restore the services the preliminary injunction intends to restore. Defendants shall state the extent to which any rehired probationary employees are being placed on administrative leave by MARCH 18, 2025, AT NOON.
    11,949 3,413
    Mar 18, 2025
  16. 16

    I made a little picture to help explain to the MAGAts why Pete Hegseth's utter ignorance about ASEAN actually matters, especially for a guy who says he wants to roll back Chinese influence.

    A map of the South China Sea and surrounding countries, which are marked as ASEAN members. There's a circle on the sea with the label, "Fight with China."
    11,839 3,256
    Jan 15, 2025
  17. 17

    The story that Elon Musk committed voter fraud has gotten next to no coverage -- one of those things you can't make come up on a Google search.

    But I think it's time for Dems to go on offensive abt right wing coddling of this immigrant interfering in our elections.

    newrepublic.com/post/206857/...

    Turns Out There Was Voter Fraud in Georgia—by Elon Musk
    The state board of elections found Musk’s PAC sent prefilled ballot applications.
    6,584 3,207
    Feb 20, 2026
  18. 18

    Here's Marco Rubio scolding Hillary about her email server, 10 years before texting Atlantic's EIC war plans on a disappearing Signal list.

    www.youtube.com/watch?featur...

    Marco Talks Russia and Syria on the Kelly File | Marco Rubio for President
    YouTube video by Marco Rubio
    10,785 3,176
    Mar 24, 2025
  19. 19

    This is a VERY well crafted lawsuit.
    1) Plaintiff is natural born.
    2) He was detained 2X in a fast-growing part of Alabama, not in a city that Brett Kavanaugh could be easily duped into believing was all migrants.
    3) Unwarranted detentions were on private property.
    4) He showed Real ID both times.

    Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social
    JUST IN: A U.S. citizen from Alabama who has been detained twice by ICE while working at a construction site, has filed a class action suit claiming ICE's broad warrantless arrest powers violate the constitution. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
    10,338 3,055
    Oct 1, 2025
  20. 20

    Guess who was right in the thick of the assault on @padilla.senate.gov?

    Corey Lewandowski. (He may have been the guy instructing that there's no recording at a press conference and seems to have realized how badly they fucked up.)

    A screencap from a video posted by Peter Hamby. It shows that a cop taking the cuffs on Senator Padilla, with Lewandowski, wearing a black jacket with what might be a Homeland Security logo, watching.
    8,288 2,989
    Jun 13, 2025
  21. 21

    @juddlegum.bsky.social's MuskWatch rolls out the DOGE tracker, showing that $96B of DOGE's claimed savings are bullshit.

    doge.muskwatch.com

    A table comparing what DOGE claims it has saved ($105B) what its itemized savings add up to ($29.9B) and what it really has saved ($8.6B). It includes an entry of how much it overstates savings ($96.4B) and has itemizations below that.
    6,539 2,743
    Mar 12, 2025
  22. 22

    Guys, I know you all still cling to conspiracy theories about Merrick Garland bc ... well, you watch too many TV lawyers who knew fuckall about the investigation.

    But this is a fact. A trial was scheduled to happen 3 years after Jan6, just like Bolsonaro got.

    Who killed it? John Roberts.

    9,524 2,652
    Sep 11, 2025
  23. 23

    As many as 100 victims will show up to today's Epstein victim press conference.

    www.miamiherald.com/news/politic...

    As many as 100 Epstein victims will attend Washington rally Wednesday
    The rally comes as lawmakers Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) want a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to force Attorney General Pam Bondi to release Epstein files.
    8,247 2,621
    Sep 3, 2025
  24. 24

    Some questions that Mike Waltz and the others must answer:
    1) How did he preserve the thread and others for PRA
    2) What phones were everyone using
    3) What kind of security do those phones have
    4) WHERE were they using those phones
    5) What else is on the phones
    6) Why was Joe Kent included

    10,202 2,506
    Mar 24, 2025
  25. 25

    I've read most of the analyses of the DOGE 2025 "receipts" site. This, from NPR, is the best I've read so far. Some of what they claim to have cut haven't been cut, other "cuts" will incur costs down the road.

    NPR says DOGE has made $2B of cuts, not $55B.

    www.npr.org/2025/02/19/n...

    DOGE released data about federal contract savings. It doesn't add up
    A new government tracker claims DOGE has saved billions from ending federal contracts. But an NPR analysis of the data finds the claimed savings don't add up.
    6,217 2,463
    Feb 20, 2025