https://accountable.us/accountable-us-statement-on-house-republicans-advancing-dismantling-government-act/

I will likely make a more detailed post about this with resources when I can, but I had to share some basic information on this because it could be important in getting on-the-fence MAGA to question Trump. I have been noticing that Paul Manafort has been very active since his pardon by Trump, so I wanted to look further into what this man does.

Paul Manafort co-founded the lobbying firm Black, Manafort, & Stone (yes, the Roger Stone) in 1980, which was the same year he began a professional relationship with Trump. Since then his specialty is in getting the US to support anti-communist regimes throughout the world, and in coaching dictators on how to get into power and stay there. He gamed the system to where these dictators could pay him using some of the funds sent by the US, allowing those without the financial means to afford his services. Of note, he started lobbying for a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, with the goal of benefiting Putin's government in 2005.

This man has single-handedly spurred the murder and suffering of millions of lives, and he's expressed that he really didn't care as long as he benefitted. He helped catapult lobbying in our country's politics into the monster it is today. He has always been Democracy's greatest threat. I'm confident that without him, Trump wouldn't have been elected in 2016.

https://handsoff2025.com/livestream

Donald Trump's End game plan.

https://youtu.be/VSrEEDQgFc8?si=LVcD-Hb0bA65CbDQ

Hey guys have any of you had a chance to look at the florida election that just happened?

Is to see if there's any of the same patterns that we have noticed acrossedtje country.

w

elon wad focusing g on WI I know but could just be a distraction to keep eyes off FL.

Whether we like it or not, a lot of public opinion seems to exist in comment sections around the web--or at least appear like it with the amount of bots out there. Our side doesn't have those bots, so we have to combat with fact-checking twice as hard. We have to start having the true majority reflect online by responding to their wild comments. I know it's not fun, but it's necessary. So while the people who can be out physically protesting today (THANK YOU) are doing that work, those of us who can be online should try to do some of that work. Think about where replies could be seen the most and especially by less-informed, independent people: IMPORTANT ONE: your local & state politicians on BOTH SIDES' social media comments but especially local you'd be surprised how impactful that can be with so few correcting their BS, news articles, even "entertainment" news articles, AppleNews and MSN or any other default pages computers tend to have, join the NewsBreak app or any other news-commenting apps you can think of, and any other ideas you may have. Aim to comment somewhere outside of your echochamber to be able to break them. Youtube comments especially on their propaganda attempts (look at the trending pages) are a big one.

Can we at the very least start a precedent of fact-checking or standing up against them online? They have more retired or simply non-working folks so they can live online commenting like crazy. The only way we could show the true majority and combat the misinformation and talking points is by doing our part whenever we do come across it. It just takes a few minutes and once other people who actually are informed see your example, they tend to join in.

Also, why don't we do profile picture campaigns or campaigns like the Blackout in 2020 anymore to show the actual support online where most everyone is for sure???

the clip at victory rally has 29 million as well now.

A lot of positive things happened this week! In an attempt to push back on some of the doomerism in here, I was hoping to compile a list of maybe 10-15 good things and ended up with over 50 because I kept finding more and more stuff (and there’s more, I just got tired of listing things lol)

Election results - Susan Crawford won the Wisconsin Supreme Court election by 10 points. The court retains a 4-3 liberal majority, and it shows other republicans that Elon’s involvement may be a liability - Florida special elections for district 1 and district 6—although republicans kept those two seats, the margins were cut in half. They were both about R+30 in November and down to about R+15 this week. Gay Valimont flipped Escambia county, which has been red for decades - Democrat John Laesch beat the republican incumbent in the Aurora, IL mayoral race - Winnebago County, Wisconsin—flipped the county executive seat to a dem - Wisconsin superintendent of instruction—democrat won against a republican backed by DOGE and Moms For Liberty - Dems won every partisan race in DuPage County, IL - Dozens of township elections in IL flipped power to dems, some of which had never before elected a dem

Legal stuff - The Democratic Party is suing the Trump administration over his EO to control elections. Named plaintiffs are Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, the DNC, DGA, DSAA, and DCCC - Democratic officials in 19 states filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over his EO to control elections - WA and OR filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration over the election EO - Judge ruled that Pennsylvania has to count undated and incorrectly dated ballots - Judge ruled that Alabama cannot prosecute anyone for helping women travel to other states for abortion care - The New Civil Liberties Alliance (right wing group) is suing Trump, saying that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act doesn’t give him power to impose tariffs - Judge denies DOJ effort to move Mahmoud Khalil’s case to Louisiana, it stays in New Jersey - Judge ordered Trump admin has to bring back Abrego Garcia from El Salvador - Tufts University filed a declaration in federal court supporting Rumeysa Ozturk’s release (first time a university has done so for a detained international student) - Judge denies DOJ effort to move Rumeysa Ozturk’s case to Louisiana, moves it to Vermont instead

Republicans breaking ranks - 9 House republicans sided with dems to force a vote on proxy voting, causing Mike Johnson to shut down the House and cancel all votes for the rest of the week - Anna Paulina Luna left the Freedom Caucus - 4 Senate republicans voted with dems for a resolution to undo the tariffs on Canada - A bipartisan bill was introduced by Chuck Grassley and Maria Cantwell to require congressional approval for tariffs - Republican representative Don Bacon said he plans to introduce a bill that mirrors the bipartisan Senate bill to reclaim Congress’s authority over tariffs - Rand Paul gave a half hour speech on Trump’s tariffs being an unconstitutional abuse of executive power - Other senators criticizing the tariffs: Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson, John Kennedy, Thom Tillis - Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent may be looking to quit soon - Republican senator James Lankford said it’s “entirely appropriate” for an investigation into Signalgate

Dems doing stuff - CORY BOOKER 👏 broke the record for longest Senate speech, knocking segregationist Strom Thurmond out of the top spot. He read letters from constituents, bringing their voices to the Senate floor, and talked about all the horrible things the Trump administration is doing, getting it all on record - Ruben Gallego is putting a block on all VA nominees until they reverse their gutting of the VA - Adam Schiff is putting an indefinite hold on Ed Martin’s nomination - Senate democrats created a Social Security war room - Adam Schiff announced that dems (led by him and Jamie Raskin) will hold a shadow hearing to question ousted DOJ officials on Monday - Georgia democrats staged a walkout in protest of anti-trans bills - Gavin Newsom is pursuing trade agreements with other countries to spare California from retaliatory tariffs - Obama spoke out against Trump - DNC Chair Ken Martin launched “People’s Cabinet”—experts in different policy areas to cut through Trump’s lies and speak directly to the people

New bills - Andy Kim, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff introduced a bill to require security training for those with high level security clearance - Mikie Sherrill introduced a bill to require Elon and his team to pass a drug test in order to continue government work - Sarah Jacobs introduced a bill to defund DOGE

Elon’s L’s - Trump told his inner circle that Elon’s on his way out soon - Tesla sales fell 13% in Q1 - Tesla stock is down 43.5% since inauguration - The EU is preparing penalties of $1B against X for failure to combat illicit content and disinformation - EU officials are building a case that X’s failure to moderate content has made it a “hub of illegal hate speech, disinformation and other material that is viewed as undercutting democracy across the 27-nation bloc”

Misc - The Pentagon is launching an investigation into Hegseth for Signalgate after receiving a joint letter from the chair and ranking member of the senate armed services committee (Republican Roger Wicker and Democrat Jack Reed) - The White House cancelled all tours on 4/5 in anticipation of protests - RFK stated that HHS will be reinstating programs and employees that were cut by mistake - San Francisco to begin issuing speeding tickets based on income. Low income people are eligible for further discounts or to pay it off via community service - LA city council unanimously passed a motion for a study of independent Know-Your-Rights training, paid time off, and fair scheduling for the CA Fast Food Workers Union - GOP pollster Frank Lutz praised Cory Booker’s speech and said it puts him in a leading position for 2028. He also said if you ask senate democrats right now who they’d want as party leader, they’d choose Booker over Schumer

Other resistance - Thousands of people went to the Capitol in Utah for trans day of visibility and unfurled the world’s largest trans flag, in response to Utah outlawing pride flags in schools and government buildings - Students at the University of Minnesota held a protest to demand their school become a sanctuary campus - Two more associates left Skadden over the firm’s capitulation to Trump, their resignation letters are public - Celebrities and fashion houses put together a trans-led runway show as a fundraiser for the Trans Justice Funding Project

ELI5

North Carolina Maga Republikkkans are cheating.

I'm going to lead this and state off the bat that yes, there are a lot of MAGA people who really are genuinely convinced that tariffs are great, Trump is great no matter what, and they're absolutely sincere about that, to the end.

However,

When I see these anecdotes about people talking to conservatives and they absolutely are convinced about dumb shit, yes, a lot of them really are like I said above, but a huge part of conservative social culture is saving face. Lying about dumb shit to save face is completely and totally acceptable in conservative social culture. ESPECIALLY in a group of other people.

A lot of progressive people will take what they say at face value, like "Well they said they love Trump literally no matter what so it must be true!" Yes, that is indeed true for a lot of them, but there's a sizeable amount that are lying about the depth of their support, but they're all in and they HAVE to maintain that appearance. If they have any doubts about their loyalty to MAGA, or the efficacy of Trump's policies, or how much they have to give up, etc etc, the absolute last person a lot of them are going to express their doubts and be honest is to is Mega Liberal Person.

If it's a question of the social impact, a lot of conservative people (and by extension MAGA people) would literally rather die than admit that they're wrong or you're right. They have to convince themselves to maintain their ego, otherwise it would totally collapse and they'd completely crash out. Have you ever seen a person like this really cornered into telling the truth, Wonder Woman lasso style? It is not pretty.

I don't have a formula to deduce who's really not lying about the depth of their support and who's simply saving face, but honestly it really doesn't matter. Just don't necessarily take them at their word, for whatever that's worth.

Et al; if a conservative person knows you're liberal/leftist/democrat/progressive, you can count on them to never be honest with you about their possible dissatisfaction with Trump, ever. Your best bet is to ask a third mutual friend who that conservative believes shares their views.

The North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled in a 2-1 decision that over 60,000 votes cast in last year’s closely contested state Supreme Court race must be verified and recounted. The ruling comes after Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin, who lost the race, challenged the eligibility of tens of thousands of 2024 voters. Those voters will now have 15 days to verify their eligibility, potentially changing the outcome of the election.

Source: Alt National Park Service on Facebook