15 votes

Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of May 18

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Tags: politics.usa, usa, recurring.weekly

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

19 comments

  1. [2]
    CannibalisticApple
    Link
    Tulsi Gabbard has resigned as director of national intelligence, citing her husband's health. Her husband has been diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. This might be the most valid reason...

    Tulsi Gabbard has resigned as director of national intelligence, citing her husband's health.

    Her husband has been diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. This might be the most valid reason I've seen for a resignation from either of Trump's terms.

    12 votes
    1. shijie
      Link Parent
      Whatever happened with that whistleblower? Also how is Trump mad at these people’s incompetence? Literally everyone he’s hired has been to be incompetent

      Whatever happened with that whistleblower? Also how is Trump mad at these people’s incompetence? Literally everyone he’s hired has been to be incompetent

  2. [4]
    psi
    Link
    "The Strangest Thing Donald Trump Has Said in Some Time." The Atlantic. And so on and so on. Honestly the lame excuses are almost worse than not attending.

    "The Strangest Thing Donald Trump Has Said in Some Time." The Atlantic.

    Donald Trump’s most amusing habit is meting out casual abuse to his sycophants. His recent answer to a question about the wedding of Donald Trump Jr. may, depending on how deserving one deems Trump’s eldest son of mistreatment—poor Don Jr. was, after all, born into the Trump life—qualify as his most hilarious riff ever.

    The scene is the Oval Office, today, midday. Trump is asked by a reporter whether he plans to attend Don Jr.’s wedding to the Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson this weekend. Here is the president’s full response:

    Uh, he’d like me to go, but it’s gonna be just a small, little, private affair, and I’m gonna try and make it. I’m in the midst—I said, ‘You know, this is not good timing for me. I have a thing called Iran and other things.’ Uh, that’s one I can't win on. If I do attend, I get killed. If I don’t attend, I get killed by the fake news, of course, I’m talking about. No, but he’s, uh, got a very, uh, person who I’ve known for a long time, and hopefully they’re going to have a great marriage.

    Now let us analyze.

    [...] He first floats the explanation that it will be “just a small, little, private affair,” as if there may not be space in the party for him, the father of the groom—who, we have already established, wants him to attend.

    Trump then pivots to a new excuse: He is waging war with Iran. This conflict, although serious, has not prevented the president from engaging in activities such as marathon social-media-posting sessions, regular golf outings, and an event two weeks ago to promote a future UFC bout at the White House. [...]

    And so on and so on. Honestly the lame excuses are almost worse than not attending.

    8 votes
    1. hobbes64
      Link Parent
      I also read this story and thought it was kind of interesting. Not that I care at all about what the Trump family does in their personal time. Well, other than all the crime and grifting. I mean I...

      I also read this story and thought it was kind of interesting.

      Not that I care at all about what the Trump family does in their personal time. Well, other than all the crime and grifting. I mean I don't care who they marry or whether they hate each other or whatever.

      The interesting part is that there is never a sentence that comes out of Trump's mouth that's the truth. Except when he says the quiet part out loud about some horrible criminal thing.

      He's such a bullshitter, such a liar, and such a generally unpleasant person that there is no way to get a simple factual statement out of his face. We have decades of experience with his behavior, and still the press bothers asking him things and he still has supporters who seem to care about the answer. I wouldn't even ask him about today's date, he'd give the wrong answer while standing in front of a calendar.

      The special kind of stupid question is one it may be construed that he has some responsibility for something. He likes to pretend that he has no agency. And then a few minutes later he claims that he has the power to do whatever he wants.
      A recent example: He was asked about this $1.7 billion he's stealing in the settlement for his lawsuit against the government. He said he didn't know anything about it. Then the next day he said that he could take way more if he wanted.

      10 votes
    2. nic
      Link Parent
      His son needs to "financially incentivize" him to attend. It shouldn't take much. I mean, how much did China offer to get Trump to come out against Taiwan? Peanuts!

      His son needs to "financially incentivize" him to attend.

      It shouldn't take much.

      I mean, how much did China offer to get Trump to come out against Taiwan? Peanuts!

      4 votes
    3. chocobean
      Link Parent
      Wouldn't it be even more hilarious if he's not too awful of a man to go, but instead Jr actually barred him?

      Wouldn't it be even more hilarious if he's not too awful of a man to go, but instead Jr actually barred him?

  3. [3]
    hobbes64
    Link
    Judge dismisses human smuggling charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported Tennessee court document

    Judge dismisses human smuggling charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal judge on Friday dismissed a human smuggling case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, finding that the Justice Department’s pursuit of criminal charges was designed to punish him for challenging his mistaken deportation to El Salvador last year.

    The ruling amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of a Justice Department that under President Donald Trump has repeatedly been accused of targeting defendants for political purposes. The Trump administration touted the charges against Abrego Garcia last year at a press conference in which then-Attorney General Pam Bondi declared, “This is what American justice looks like.”

    “The evidence before this court sadly reflects an abuse of prosecuting power,” U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, in Nashville, Tenn., said in his ruling granting Abrego Garcia’s motion to dismiss for “selective or vindictive prosecution.” Without Abrego Garcia’s “successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the government would not have brought this prosecution.”

    Abrego Garcia’s deportation became an embarrassment for Trump officials when they were ordered to return him to the U.S. In his motion to dismiss, Abrego Garcia claimed that both the timing of the criminal charges and inflammatory statements about him by top Trump officials demonstrated that the prosecution was vindictive.

    Tennessee court document

    8 votes
    1. [2]
      DefinitelyNotAFae
      Link Parent
      I don't think he was mistakenly deported. But maybe that's just semantics.

      I don't think he was mistakenly deported. But maybe that's just semantics.

      4 votes
      1. hobbes64
        Link Parent
        Agreed, I noticed that but just gave the API headline in the link text. Headlines about Trump are often inaccurate in this way. They either sanewash his bizarre statements or use weasel words to...

        Agreed, I noticed that but just gave the API headline in the link text.

        Headlines about Trump are often inaccurate in this way. They either sanewash his bizarre statements or use weasel words to avoid offending him. Just one of the horrible ways the press has failed.

        5 votes
  4. [2]
    moocow1452
    (edited )
    Link
    https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/May-20-2026.pdf Democrats have released their 2024 election autopsy. Reviews are mixed, and it looks like the theory of not really having an...

    https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/May-20-2026.pdf

    Democrats have released their 2024 election autopsy. Reviews are mixed, and it looks like the theory of not really having an autopsy is what played out, because it's pretty under baked and rather rough for nearly 200 pages and a year and a half wait.

    6 votes
  5. [4]
    psi
    Link
    "Lawsuit Argues Trump’s $1.8 Billion Fund Excludes Those He Targeted." The New York Times. In my not at all expert opinion, this lawsuit is probably better from a standing perspective than the...

    "Lawsuit Argues Trump’s $1.8 Billion Fund Excludes Those He Targeted." The New York Times.

    A coalition of individuals and groups says it was targeted by an overzealous Justice Department under President Trump in a lawsuit filed on Friday, challenging the $1.8 billion fund the president said would be created for victims of a “weaponized” federal government.

    [...]

    “By its own terms, the anti-weaponization fund is available only to claimants who assert that they were targeted by ‘Democrat’ administrations, even though the current administration has weaponized the awesome power of the federal government against its perceived political opponents like no other administration before it,” the lawsuit said. “Neither the First Amendment nor the equal protection guarantee of our Constitution countenance such blatant partiality.”

    In my not at all expert opinion, this lawsuit is probably better from a standing perspective than the lawsuit brought earlier by DC cops. People like James Comey and Kilmar Abrego Garcia have undoubtedly been victimized by so-called "lawfare", yet they have been arbitrarily excluded from the fund (and since the fund expires a few weeks before the end of Trump's term, the next administration wouldn't be able to repurpose it). The entire arrangement is so gross, though, that I suspect some court somewhere will bend over backwards to find that somebody does have standing, and that no, the President cannot create a nearly unlimited fund to shower convicted criminals with financial rewards. (This is assuming that Congress doesn't just outright block the fund, which is starting to seem like a possibility.)

    6 votes
    1. [3]
      LukeZaz
      Link Parent
      Good to see more pushback against this, but I'm a little confused at how this specifically requires "targeting" by Democrat institutions, as the lawsuit claims. I checked the settlement doc...

      Good to see more pushback against this, but I'm a little confused at how this specifically requires "targeting" by Democrat institutions, as the lawsuit claims. I checked the settlement doc myself, and the only time the word "Democrat" appears is here (emphasis mine):

      II. RECITALS

      [...]
      C. The conduct alleged in the Case and in the Pending Agency Claims is representative of the sustained use of the levers of government power by Democrat elected officials, political and career federal employees, contractors, and agents in order to target individuals, groups, and entities for improper and unlawful political, personal, and/or ideological reasons ("Lawfare" and "Weaponization"). Other well-known examples of Lawfare and Weaponization include the Biden Administration's abuse of the FACE Act, the Biden Administration's wrongful labeling of certain parents as domestic terrorists, and the IRS's targeting of groups based on improper ideological criteria.

      "Lawfare" and "Weaponization" appear throughout the document, and depending on how this works legally and how it's interpreted, I could see a case for saying that this excludes anyone targeted by Trump's admin by way of including everything I bolded rather than only up to where it says "in order to," but I'm not sure that'd hold? If anyone here's got a better grasp of how this all works than me (easy to do, I'm no lawyer), please chime in.

      Personally, what caught me hard was a bit later in the settlement (4B, for those interested) that determines the headcount and duration of appointment for the committee that oversees the fund. Apparently, anyone in that committee can be removed by Trump completely arbitrarily whenever he wants, thus giving functionally-absolute authority over the fund to the person who benefits most from it. Fucking absurd.

      4 votes
      1. [2]
        psi
        Link Parent
        Of course, the fact that it specifies Democratic elected officials already suggests the settlement is not politically neutral. And depending on how you parse that sentence, you could distribute...

        Of course, the fact that it specifies Democratic elected officials already suggests the settlement is not politically neutral. And depending on how you parse that sentence, you could distribute the adjective Democrat[ic] across the whole list of items, i.e. Democrat[ic] elected officials, Democrat[ic political and career federal employees, etc, which would necessarily mean that people would presumptively preclude victims from suing Republican officials and agents. Obviously such an arrangement cannot be legal.

        Regarding (4B), another complaint is that, despite Congress having power of the purse, only one of the five seats is assigned to Congress, and (as you said) Trump can unilaterally remove anyone at any time, which makes that one token seat functionally useless.

        4 votes
        1. balooga
          Link Parent
          It’s worth pointing out here that “Democrat” used as an adjective in this way is a longstanding pejorative, used only in bad faith by opponents of the Democratic Party.

          It’s worth pointing out here that “Democrat” used as an adjective in this way is a longstanding pejorative, used only in bad faith by opponents of the Democratic Party.

          1 vote
  7. [3]
    skybrian
    Link
    SF Chronicle endorses Katie Porter for California governor https://archive.is/irGhL (They also say Matt Mahan would be a good choice, but it's Porter's picture at the top of the article.)

    SF Chronicle endorses Katie Porter for California governor

    https://archive.is/irGhL

    (They also say Matt Mahan would be a good choice, but it's Porter's picture at the top of the article.)

    1 vote
    1. hobbes64
      Link Parent
      I also prefer Katie Porter and she's a viable candidate so it's not a risky vote, but what a nightmare if California ends up with another Republican Governor.

      Many Democratic voters will no doubt hold their nose and pick either Steyer or Becerra to avoid having two Republicans win California’s “jungle primary.”
      This is indeed cause for concern.

      I also prefer Katie Porter and she's a viable candidate so it's not a risky vote, but what a nightmare if California ends up with another Republican Governor.

      2 votes
    2. nic
      Link Parent
      Having already voted, I find myself much more relaxed about all the political noise.

      Having already voted, I find myself much more relaxed about all the political noise.

      1 vote