Politically POMP

The Supreme Court did not end mail-in voting or issue a final ruling approving Trump’s executive order. It said the original lawsuit came too early. Then USPS finalized the rule. In this episode, I unpack the new federal mail-ballot requirements, the lawsuit filed by 24 states and Washington, D.C., and the bigger issue underneath the headlines: How much power should a president and federal agency...

This morning’s AM Brief examines four stories tied together by power and accountability: the pause of a border project in Big Bend National Park, whistleblower allegations about federal antisemitism investigations of universities, the Supreme Court leaving the E. Jean Carroll verdict intact, and ABC’s lawsuit against the FCC. The larger question is not whether government has authority. It does. Th...

This morning’s AM Brief is up. We’re looking at three very different stories, but they all raise the same question: What happens when people in power start treating oversight, legal limits, and dissent as obstacles instead of safeguards? In the occupied West Bank, U.S. officials reportedly pressed Netanyahu to condemn an alleged settler siege that left Palestinian families trapped without water or...

Tonight on Politically POMP, we’re looking past the headline and asking a harder question: When government uses power, who lives with the consequences, and who is held accountable? In this PM Brief: An appeals court allows New York City to resume its rollout of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s luxury second-home, or pied-à-terre, tax while the legal challenge continues. President Trump threatens to sue the...

When systems stop telling the whole truth, ordinary people are left carrying the risk. In today’s Politically POMP AM Brief, we look at four stories that deserve more than a passing headline:Families of sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln are raising urgent concerns about reported mental-health crises during an extended deployment. DHS confirmed the death of José Chajon-Raxon after a medical em...

This week, I’m looking at five stories that may seem unrelated at first, but they all come back to one question:What does accountability mean when powerful institutions control the footage, the narrative, the platform, the legal process, or the terms of peace? In this week’s Brief, I cover:ICE’s body-camera expansion, and who controls whether the public sees the footageNew Jersey’s civil-rights pr...

Three headlines. Three institutions. One big question: Who gets to decide the boundaries of belonging, accountability, and power? In this morning’s Brief , I’m watching: New executive actions targeting birthright citizenship and “birth tourism” Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s opposition to Todd Blanche for attorney general Reported social-media vetting for foreign journalists applying for U.S. visas This is...

Welcome to Day 1 of State Scoreboard August. In this episode, we break down where all 50 states actually rank on education, including the Top 10, Bottom 10, and what the map tells us about power, investment, and long-term outcomes. This month’s series is about looking past the slogans and into the systems shaping everyday life. You can read the entire Substack piece here:🔗 https://www.politically...

If I ever ran for office, my platform wouldn’t start with slogans. It would start with Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Second Bill of Rights, economic rights as the backbone of real freedom, and three modern rights he couldn’t see coming in 1944: digital privacy, climate security, and a real digital democracy. In this episode of Politically POMP, I walk through:– Why I tried to see what it would take...

America is turning 250. On paper, that should be a once‑in‑a‑lifetime civic milestone, a chance to look honestly at 250 years of American history, reckon with what we’ve done, and decide what comes next. Instead, a narcissistic president has turned the semiquincentennial into a MAGA mega‑party with a UFC cage on the White House lawn and a branded state fair on the National Mall. In this episode, I...

Corporate Democrats don’t get a free pass just because Trump exists. In this video, I talk about why, as a democratic socialist, I’m frustrated with the corporate wing of the Democratic Party—even though I still vote blue most of the time. I break down:How both parties quietly protect the same economic status quoThe way Dem leadership and big PACs work to box out DSA and progressive candidatesWhy...

In this video, I break down new allegations that FBI Director Kash Patel used more than $1 million in taxpayer-funded “bonuses” as a personal slush fund for a small circle of loyal agents. I walk through what Rep. Jamie Raskin is claiming, how the alleged payments were structured, and why this matters for anyone worried about an FBI that runs on loyalty instead of law. Then I zoom out to ask the b...

In today’s POMP episode, I walk through: – What the JCPOA actually did – What Trump’s new Iran memorandum is setting up – How we went from “worst deal ever” to “historic” without changing the basic trade: nuclear limits in exchange for money and sanctions relief 🔗Substack https://www.politicallypomp.com/ 🔗 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/politically.pomp

On paper, Freedom 250 is supposed to be a birthday party for the United States. On the ground, it’s starting to look a lot more like a Trump birthday party dressed up as a national celebration. And the more you look at the details, the smaller the circle of people this version of “freedom” is really for. Watch, share with your “yell at the news” friend, and if you want more of this kind of breakdo...

If you’ve been feeling that gap between what we were taught in civics and how D.C. actually behaves, this is me walking through it in plain language—what Congress is supposed to do, what it’s actually doing, and how the Epstein transparency mess fits into that bigger pattern. I’m 100% reader‑ and viewer‑funded on purpose, so I don’t have to clear this with a party, donor, or network before I hit “...

What happens when the Jeffrey Epstein files don’t just name billionaires and ex‑prime ministers… but your current president? In this episode, I break down new reporting about how Donald Trump’s team used the White House Situation Room, not for war or national security, but as a PR bunker to manage the fallout from the Epstein files, where his own name appears. We’ll talk about: What the latest rep...

For the last year and a half I’ve tried to explain, calmly, why Christian nationalism and creeping fascism scare me. Today’s Coffee Time is what happens when I stop sanding the edges off. If your faith is about protecting the vulnerable, I hope you’ll sit with this.

So far this week, Trump attacked the Pope and posted AI “Jesus” fan art of himself, Pam Bondi ducked a subpoena on the Epstein files, and two members of Congress resigned over sexual misconduct, while Trump’s own name floods those same files. This Breakdown connects the dots on what that says about rot at the top. Follow Patty's Substack for more https://www.politicallypomp.com/

First, Trump’s spiritual adviser stood at the White House Easter podium and likened his life to Jesus—“no one has paid the price like you… you were betrayed and falsely accused… because He rose, you rose up.” Then came a primetime Iran address where he bragged about “winning big” and threatened to bomb every power plant in Iran, taking the country “back to the Stone Ages” if they don’t give him th...

A quick same‑day reaction to the Supreme Court arguments on Trump’s attempt to narrow birthright citizenship. I walk through what birthright citizenship is, what Trump’s order would do, how Native history is being pulled into this, and why this fight is about more than “immigration paperwork.” It’s about who gets to redefine who counts as American. Full Substack breakdown coming soon.

In this Brief, I answer a question I’ve been getting a lot lately: “Why can’t we just fire Congress when they refuse to do their jobs?” We walk through: Why there’s no “you’re fired” button for Congress Why elections are a weak accountability tool in a gerrymandered, low‑turnout system What I actually mean by digital democracy How we could move toward directly voting on bills in plain language: 🔗...

In this episode of The Brief, I break down three new democracy reports that say the quiet part out loud: under Trump 2.0, American democracy is being dismantled at remarkable speed and pushed toward autocracy. We cover: What the new V‑Dem, Freedom House, and Bright Line Watch reports actually find about U.S. democracy in 2025–26 How fast the U.S. has slid down the global democracy rankings, and wh...

Our system was built to be slow, but what happens when “slow” turns into “stalling” while a deeply unpopular president keeps testing the limits? In this Brief, I talk about: Why checks and balances were designed as brakes How Congress is failing to use its power Why protests like the No Kings march are a democratic pressure valve, not a tantrum New here? I’m Patty, your politics explainer over at...

In 1980, the United States owed under $1 trillion. Today we’re approaching $40 trillion, and according to the Congressional Budget Office, we’ve added $1 trillion in just the last five months, about $50 billion a week in new borrowing. In this episode of The Brief, we break down how it happened in three major waves: 1️⃣ 1980s–90s: tax cuts, Cold War spending, and sky‑high interest rates. 2️⃣ 2000s...

In this episode of Politically POMP, I break down the SAVE Act – the new “election integrity” bill that sounds harmless, but would make it much harder for millions of  eligible  Americans to even get on the voter rolls. We walk through: What the SAVE Act actually does (proof of citizenship + new paperwork hurdles) Why non‑citizen voting is already illegal – and extremely rare How this bill hits wo...