How Russia's 2016 Attack Led Trump to Destroy US Hegemony
Ball of Thread
The 2016 attack by Russia on the 2016 election helped US abandon rational discourse, created deep polarization, and continues to harm the US Deep State. Get the whole story: Support emptywheel:
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A Shutdown Must Be Tied to a Strategy to Fight Fascism
Ball of Thread
While much of the left is pushing for a shutdown later this month, almost none are talking about how a shutdown ties to any articulable strategy to fight fascism. Indeed, the hope it will be an "attentional" event simply outsources the agency of fixing the Democrats' attentional problems generally. Watch this episode: Read more: Support emptywheel:
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A Tale of Two Governors
Ball of Thread
JB Pritzker and Gavin Newsom both gave press conferences showing that Trump's attempts to invade their states is about authoritarianism, not law enforcement. But Newsom's effort more successfully exposed Trump's authoritarian spectacle. Read more: Support emptywheel:
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Big Balls Has Unfettered Access to Our Social Security Data
Ball of Thread
In June, Republicans on the Supreme Court lifted a stay, giving DOGE access to all Americans' Social Security records. Then, DOGE gave Ed "Big Balls" Coristine -- a guy with ties to criminal hackers -- access to that. Read more: Support emptywheel:
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The Conspiracy Theory that Got NSA's Top Math Whiz Purged
Ball of Thread
Tulsi Gabbard just stripped the security clearances of 37 intelligence officials, including one of the NSA's top math whizzes. Her excuse for doing so stems from conspiracy theories invented by a disgruntled whistleblower. Watch this: Read more: Support emptywheel:
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Stop Looking for a F@%king Pee Tape!
Ball of Thread
We know why Vladimir Putin has leverage over Trump, and it's not the goddamned pee tape. Trump has survived for the last eight years--not just the Russian investigation, but his first impeachment, his second impeachment, January 6, stealing classified documents--by claiming every push for accountability was just a hoax by Hillary Clinton. Russia Russia Russia. But Putin has proof that Trump knows Hillary didn't frame him--instead, Russian spies framed her. And if he released that, it would destroy the very means by which Trump has avoided accountability for eight years.
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How a Batshit Letter May Help Trump Bankrupt America
Ball of Thread
Solicitor General John Sauer wrote a batshit letter to the appeals court reviewing Trump's tariffs. It's little more than Trump's Truth Social posts slapped on a page -- not even on DOJ letterhead! But here's why it might work with SCOTUS. Read more: Support emptywheel:
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John Durham's Show Trials: A Preview of Coming Attractions
Ball of Thread
The ways in which John Durham sustained his prosecutions of Michael Sussmann and Igor Danchenko even after concluding that the theory of his case was actually Russian disinformation provide a good sense of how Pam Bondi plans to do it going forward. Read more: Support emptywheel:
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The Secrets Trump's Spies Share with Putin's Spies
Ball of Thread
Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and John Ratcliffe share a secret with Vladimir Putin's spies: There's an email redacted in the classified Durham appendix that makes it clear that Hillary Clinton didn't frame Trump, Russian spies framed Hillary. Read more: Suport Marcy and emptywheel:
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John Durham's Crime
Ball of Thread
Back in 2021, John Durham discovered that both prongs of his investigation into Hillary Clinton -- that Hillary Clinton had a plan to smear Donald Trump, and that the FBI got notice of that -- were false. He also had to have known that Kash Patel and John Ratcliffe misrepresented what spooks have found. But he continued to investigate for another two years anyway, committing precisely the crime he set out to investigate. Read more: https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/08/03/john-ratcliffe-and-kash-patel-and-durham-himself-committed-the-crime-john-durham-was-hunting/
info_outlineAfter Bill Barr buried the Mueller Report and went to work suffocating the remaining prosecutions in the Russia investigation, Donald Trump and his “lawyer,“ Rudy Giuliani, shifted their main narrative focus from Hillary Clinton to Hunter Biden—also with the help of Bill Barr.
The first flailing attempts to smear Joe Biden with his son’s connections to a corrupt Ukrainian business resulted in Donald Trump’s impeachment and the arrests of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. But MAGA hit paydirt with the “discovery” of Hunter Biden’s “laptop,” which first appeared mysteriously right around the time of Trump’s first trial in the US Senate and then reappeared the following year, just in time to be the election year October Surprise.
At first, the laptop, with its endless supply of digital proof of the depravity to which Hunter Biden had descended before he got sober the year before, didn’t work out the way John Podesta’s emails had. At first, journalists actually demanded proof the files were authentic and also tested whether they proved what Rudy Giuliani or NY Post claimed they did.
But over the years, egged on by Fox News and enticed by the promise of easy sensation, they came to chase the dick pics because they were there, just as Murdoch’s propagandists had done.
And the process by which icky dick pics came to stand in for unsubstantiated claims that Joe Biden was corrupt sucked all the air out of DC reporting for years … and laid the groundwork for Trump’s reelection.
For the first time, Marcy Wheeler ties together the story of what is actually known about Hunter’s laptop(s) and hard drives and the baffling characters who got their hands on them. She explains how the shameless leaking of the private data of the son of a former vice president and future president to his father’s political opponents was never really treated as a crime. She also exposes how Trump’s plot succeeded in sucking all the air out of Joe Biden’s presidency and fueled problematic political prosecutions that haunt America and still twist our discourse today.
This Ball of Thread also attempts to do what almost no one has. It shows how the press joined in an effort to dehumanize Joe Biden’s kid and, in the process, abdicated their primary job.