It's time for the second half of BlueSky for June 2025... and it's long. (Here's the first half of the month.) A lot happened.
At mid-month, we were just coming off of the historic No Kings marches across the country, where at least 5 million people took to the streets. I think it was a lot more than that, but let's stick with what we can prove easily. Regardless of whether it was 5 or 8 or 10 million, the protests got much less coverage in major media than one would have expected given their size. (Thousands took to the street... oooo, thousands!) On the same day, there was Trump's deflating ego parade in Washington, D.C.
Soon after, coverage of the New York City mayoral primary heated up, first because of all the big money and endorsements being tossed to Andrew Cuomo, then because Zohran Mamdani won, then because Mamdani was being attacked for anti-semitism by both Republicans and Democrats (who should know better). In the midst of all that, there were multiple political assassinations and attempted assassinations by a "Christian" terrorist here in Minnesota.
Oh, and Trump went along with Israel's war on Iran, at first dancing around, then ordering bombing, and then claiming facts not in evidence about the effects of the bombing. And the Supreme Court ended its term by gutting trans health care and parental rights, allowing deportations to foreign gulags, and deciding the U.S is 50 micro-nations when it comes to defending the rights we are guaranteed in the Constitution. Among other things!
As the month was drawing to a close, Republicans in the Senate were working to make the House-passed reconciliation bill even worse, gutting not just Medicaid, health research, food supports, and education, but also taxing clean energy (on top of removing all the innovative funding that went to their home districts, passed under Biden). They also want to boost funding for deportations astronomically, because that's clearly what we need: more people being grabbed off the street by masked men and dragged into unmarked vehicles. More concentration camps built in swamps.
The bill will also add gigantically to the deficit, which Republicans claim to care about, while giving tax breaks to corporations and rich people. But they say the Congressional Budget Office (headed by a Republican!) is lying about the deficit increase, of course. Everyone lies but them.
Everything below the line is in reverse chronological order, except some of the less timely images, which I move up or down for better visual balance, and is quoted from the attributed account.
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ICE is doing exactly what we thought they would. The BBB gives them more money to do more terrible stuff:
Molly Jong-Fast
Everything is a “redistribution of wealth” — the only question is which direction it’s heading in. Stop letting them convince you the only valid direction is from the bottom to the top. They’ve been selling that snake oil for decades.
The Tennessee Holler
Thought experiment: why are elected officials who say "I stand with Israel" not asked about, for example, Israeli soldiers firing at people lining up to get food? Why does this notion of extended accountability apply to language and not actual violence?
Don Moynihan
What’s being cut:
– NIH: –$19.5B
– CDC: –$4B
– Cancer research: –$3.1B
– SNAP: –$30B
– Education: –$12B
What’s being funded:
– ICE detention: +$45B
– Tax cuts for the wealthy: +$4.5T over 10 years
This is the trade.
Gerardo Martí
Kimberley Johnson
I can’t stop thinking about how unpopular the Trump regime and its policies are, and how this unpopularity is constantly minimized and glossed over, as if it’s irrelevant that people do not want what they’re selling! That is the first rule of representative government: Give people what they want!
Kaitlin Is Just Getting Started @gothamgirlblue.com
i used to love al franken as much as any one else on the left from around these parts. but people who defend him and say it was a nothing burger either bought the propaganda about his accusers OR don’t know just how many there were
WhinterQueen
ICE *already* can't meet their detainment numbers without rounding up children, veterans, people born in the U.S., people with no criminal records, people at immigration hearings, plus academics and visitors with valid visas. So who do they plan to detain with >10x the budget? The answer is: you.
Max Kennerly
Did anybody tell ... the idiots [who think Democrats told young men not to watch sports] that Donald Trump said he quit playing football in junior high because he didn't like being tackled by black players?
Chuck Mamzic @cardcatcher.bsky.social
Meanwhile, today in Louisville... (picture taken by my spouse):
The Other Side of LifeCongress will pass Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
The Supreme Court will continue to bend the knee.
The Democratic Party will remain useless as they prioritize donors and power over country.
There is only one way this ends:
The people unite—against fascism, against oligarchy, against the system.
50501 New YorkJ.K. Rowling calls for decent people everywhere to photograph strangers in the toilet.
awclark587.bsky.socialThe biggest twist with Harry Potter is that its author is a Death Eater.
Atlas Mugged @pamacious.bsky.socialThe bishops have spent 50 years barely talking about anything other than abortion, and now – SURPRISE, SURPRISE – they find that a majority of Catholics are MAGA Republicans who hate immigrants as much as Trump does.
Mark GordonA paraphrased quote by Lula da Silva: “they can kill the roses, but they can’t stop the coming of Spring.” The global authoritarian movement is ascendant right now. But it won’t be forever. Trumpism, Orbanism, Putinism, etc, will eventually all fall. The Spring will inevitably come.
Joe MarshallThe version of The Big Bad Ugly Bill that just passed the Senate Committee last night is estimated to increase the deficit by $5 TRILLION dollars. That's a trillion MORE than the version passed by the House. Ahhh, America. First to stick it to We, the People.
Allison RosenbergIt's not just elected Democrats, it's also the entire news media. There's really not that many Democrats on the anti-Mamdani beat but curiously virtually all of them are getting prime slots on cable news shows as if they speak for all Democrats. It makes you think!
mtswCover of the day:
Anne TrubekI genuinely cannot believe how many Democrats are spending their energy on destroying Mamdani when the GOP is trying to turn ICE into a full-on secret police by drastically raising their budget.
Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.comThe core budget items [for ICE], $68bn, add up to only slightly less than the ENTIRE defense budget of the United Kingdom, plus the "billions more" elsewhere in the Bill. The UK's defense budget is the fifth-highest in the world. And this is all for storm troopers to dominate the US population.
Dave AndressSeriously. Imagine 13 ICEs. That’s what is being funded. We already have a secret police and the only thing preventing a full blown immigrant Holocaust is the scale.
Grudgie the WhaleRepublicans aren't just trying to fund a secret police force. This is a military branch.
Gwen Snyder is uncivilClimate mitigation and adaptation measures are not costs. They are investments. The true costs occur when mitigation fails and adaptation is too slow so we suffer from continually worsening extreme weather events like heatwaves and floods. Invest now to reduce costs in future.
Ed Hawkinsdems to rurals: “this is real america, not the dirty cities (ew). football, cornfields, county fairs. here’s a trillion dollars”
GOP to rurals: “these degenerate druggy hill people will learn the dignity of work once we defund their schools and hospitals”
rural elections:
[dem] 7%
[rep] 91%
Matt @tiredgenerally.bsky.socialthe culture war and the complete destruction of local news in favor of propaganda outlets has been successful beyond the wildest dreams of its proponents
Micah @rincewind.runMaybe I'm getting old but the shit Al Franken did to multiple women has been an immediately fireable offence for sexual harassment at any mid-sized plus corporation since the 1990s. Franken dead enders are freaks
Rude Law Dog @esghound.comrepublicans operate according to a moral economy where wealthy oligarchs and polluters deserve the collected prosperity of the nation because of their wealth. the job of the rest of us is to toil for their benefit. they sincerely believe in freedom and liberty, but it is fundamentally the freedom of the master to rule over others for their own benefit
jamelle @jamellebouie.netTORONTO HYDRO-ELECTRIC SYSTEM:
photoblair.bsky.socialI'm OK with Democrats going on Fox News to counter misinformation and debate the conservative hosts or moderators. Going on Fox News to slam another Democrat should get you stripped of your committee assignments and DCCC funding.
Aubrey GilleranI DESPERATELY need these fucking people to understand that this relentless “you’re hurting the Jews” rhetoric lobbed at people who aren’t doing that and using “you’re hurting the Jews” as a catch-all for any opinion you disagree with IS ACTUALLY WHAT IS HURTING THE JEWS.
Erin BibaRandom wars, presidential corruption on an unprecedented scale, massive tax cuts for the rich being jammed through while Medicaid is cut, people being kidnapped and deported to torture prisons ... and what freaks out the chattering class? Grocery stores and higher wages for the working class.
David Roberts @volts.wtfActual political assassination two weeks ago by a Trump supporter but the Muslim with reasonable policies is the real threat.
Warhammerchick @celticdragon1.bsky.socialI can't tell if it's because I'm too NYC-focused but does it feel like the news cycle spent more time crashing out on the fact that NYC picked a brown Muslim dude as is primary candidate then it did on a right-wing extremist who shot 2 Minnesota legislators killing one, her husband and dog?
Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.comThere are only three political positions in America today
1) I like the fascism
2) I'll acquiesce to the fascism (reasons for this one vary: cowardice, access, denial, misguidedly thinking that acquiescence is savvy, etc)
3) I oppose the fascism
The rest is details
Nicholas GrossmanBeing a liberal law professor must be kind of terrible, you worked super hard, had really amazing clerkships, published important work and your colleague has had a bunch of no-show jobs funded by conservative dark money and is on the board of the phrenology and administrative law journal.
Norm CharlatanMore open now, ‘Taiga’ showing off its extraness by glowing in the sunshine:
City Mouse GardenA wise person (prof. katharine Hayhoe) once said that the most important thing we can do to confront climate change is to talk about it. Because in the end, climate change isn’t just a science problem: it’s a human one. Together we can change our path. Lifestyles. Cities.
Gil PenalosaI think much of the tech right’s turn to eugenics can be explained by their psychic refusal to accept that their massive wealth is the product of historical luck (being in Silicon Valley at a time when investment money was cheap and abundant) and an insistence that it was instead a product of inherent supremacy.
Moira Donegan“We have to give your data and creative work to them.”
“Why?”
“Well, they’re billionaires.”
“Ok. Can they buy this data off us?”
“No they can’t afford that.”
WHAT.
Redistribution of wealth is difficult even in a toxically unfair system. And apparently you can’t tax the rich because they get scared and run away. And if they invent a new income stream that depends on your labour, you can’t ask them for payment either. There’s simply no way to get money off them.
Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.socialIt’s pretty startling that it’s become a feature of the Roberts Court that they save the most outrageous and infuriating usurpations of the Constitution for the last day they are in session and then disappear for months onto the planes and boats of the billionaire friends safe from public scrutiny.
Flying Mezerkis @bananapantz.bsky.socialHe did what now?
Clara JefferyThe prosperity gospel is one of the wildest things this country has invented.
Jeremy ChaoI know I’ve said this several dozen times, but right-wing lunatics frankensteined together unrelated Bible verses to create “the antichrist” and a description of what he would look like, and then the guy fucking showed up and they love him.
The Fig Economy @figgityfigs.bsky.socialDEI is not a synonym for under-qualified, and even using it ironically cements the malicious intent of the MAGA movement.
SMS @snydersm.bsky.socialJUST IN: The Supreme Court rules in favor of parents who want to opt out of classes that use books with LGBTQ characters.
NPRJust feels real bad to be told your existence is too controversial to allow children to know about it
Louisa @louisathelast.bsky.socialFor some numbers: undocumented people account for 10% of the construction labor force and Trump's deportations could result in a loss of roughly 720,000 construction workers at a time when the industry is short about 275,000 workers
Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.comOne thing about the current panic and how it’s almost exclusively targeted at LGBTQ people is looking back at growing up and realizing that almost every single instance of either straight up criminality or just being a creep at my school was done by a middle aged male teacher to a female student
@brendelbored.bsky.socialWhat do you call a court that says parents have a constitutional right to prevent their kids from seeing storybooks with gay people at school, but no right to provide their children with access to gender-affirming health care?
Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.socialtheir reaction to Zohran Mamdani's victory is abnormal because THEY are abnormal
D.A. Bullock @bullycreative.bsky.socialI want every ICE agent identified and shunned for the rest of their lives by civil society. I want people to cross the street when they approach. I want restaurants to refuse them service. I want their families to think twice about being seen with them. I want them to die alone and sad.
David Roberts @volts.wtfType lovers, you need this huge collection of old razor blade wrappers in your life:
Present & CorrectA radical Christian just murdered the speaker of a state house but the real worry is the theocratic muslim who said the bus should be cheaper
Shiv Ramdas @nameshiv.bsky.socialif your first reaction to paying higher taxes it to pull out a quarter mil to engage in literal outspoken corruption you probably have too much money ngl
@mel.bzky.teamA rage without name is building in this country and no god will help the monsters savaging our people when the levies holding it back break.
Riverboatjackthe only way* forward is to end the Roberts court.
*absent even more drastic moves, like secession.
David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.socialRepublicans fully intend to engage in industrial scale mass murder of migrants and citizens in less than 12 months. Americans have not processed where this is headed. Tommy Tuberville's "rats" language is no accident. Like most Germans in the 1930's, Americans will wait too long to escape.
Grumpy Zeusyou know shit's serious when NYT is using the actual words to describe what's happening:
Marisa KabasWe are discovering what happens when a society decides to give the absolute dumbest people imaginable way too much power.
Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.socialFor a kid born today — how the hell do they run for president in 49 years or prove their eligibility to hold office if there are 50 different definitions of who holds U.S. citizenship? This is so dumb.
Soraya Nadia McDonaldI really do think this might be the worst Supreme Court of all time, which is saying something for an institution that coexisted with slavery. These motherfuckers are even worse in my opinion because they are *also* out here using antebellum reasoning and pursuing antebellum goals but well post bellum!
Barred and Boujee and NEWLYWED aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.bsky.socialThe energy transition is the largest economic driver opportunity since post-WWII, and we have an opportunity to finally let everyone — not just a few companies — benefit from our energy system. And lawmakers are really fumbling the opportunity.
Isak KvamA decade after the SCOTUS
Obergefell v Hodges ruling declared same-sex marriage a national right in the US, a steady 68% of Americans support it:
Leah McElrathIt’s time to open the books. An investigation needs to be opened into just how much has been spent on the deportations, the detainments, the unknown Stasi. The hotels, per diems. I want to know how much of taxpayer money has been spent to date. How they’re being paid, how much they’re being paid.
Ty Ross @cooltxchick.bsky.socialThe main upshot of today's birthright citizenship ruling (that I'm still making way through) seems to be that each person victimized by an unconstitutional Trump order has to pretty much sue individually.
Trump is free to act unconstitutionally to everybody individually.
ElieNYCAgain. The Supreme Court is illegitimate. And just continuing to go along with all of this, accepting this garbage, pretending that it'll get fixed by a party that showed no desire to reform the Court or codify our rights or protections, will get us nowhere. This is a legitimacy crisis. Period.
Jared Yates Sextonas for the upshot of the [birthright citizenship] decision, the republican court has put the citizen children of non-citizens in a position similar to that of free blacks during the antebellum period. their right to enjoy the privileges and immunities of american citizenship will vary according to state borders
jamelle @jamellebouie.netThe Supreme Court is about to go on an extended summer vacation, after having blown up the docket of every single lower court judge who has been working like a dog to deal with the firehose of illegal orders coming out of this administration.
Aaron Reichlin-MelnickSomething lovely for your timeline! Beautiful blue glass beads from the late Bronze Age. Ploughed up by a farmer in Denmark in 1885, analysis shows the beads were made in Mesopotamia, pointing to long-distance trade in luxury goods some 3,000 years ago. Photo by the National Museum of Denmark:
Alison FiskI want to reiterate that countless conservative judges issued universal injunctions against the Biden administration, and the Supreme Court never halted the practice. Now, barely five months into Trump's second term, the court puts an end to these injunctions. A brazen double standard.
Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.socialThis Supreme Court is not a judicial court, but a royal court. They exist not to apply the laws of this nation fairly for all its citizens but rather to prop up the king and attend to his needs and his needs alone.
Kevin M. Krusethis court says that allowing EPA to regulate carbon emissions is a "major question" that demands congressional debate. but allowing the president to, with a flick of the wrist, end a straightforward constitutional right is something that must be allowed to stand?
jamelle @jamellebouie.netA problem with this decision that goes way beyond the law is that we live in a country where decidedly NON-religious viewpoints are increasingly bolted onto religion. When your church is saying climate change is a lie and vaccines are evil, it's untenable to teach anything under this model
Joe PatriceSo am I reading this court decision correctly? We now have 50 micronations with their own laws interpreting the U.S. Constitution wholly separate from one another? But there's one guy with private law enforcement who is immune from all punishment who can do whatever he wants in those 50 states?
Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.socialI’ve been visiting School Streets all across Paris and the standard approach is to add a center-running greenery lane, usually with full pedestrianization. This example maintains car access on the commercial side but enhances the pedestrian environment on the school side:
Qagggy!*Biden tries to forgive student loans*
SCOTUS: Whoa there, that is, uh, a major question. Which means you can't do it.
*Trump revokes part of the constitution*
SCOTUS: Obviously, we got to give the President the benefit of the doubt on this one.
Don Moynihanit's important to understand that they want to threaten the very essence of public education. the conservative plan – the plot to enslave america – requires them to destroy public education and replace it with private academies for the rich, religious instruction and prison-like schools for the rest
mtswThey want poor children to work, not be educated.
quick13this is just an observation but one way to think of the civil war is that it WAS about states rights, but the right in question was the right of free states to stay free
jamelle @jamellebouie.netYou are all getting trolled by the Supreme Court if you attempt to apply legal reasoning to their decisions. There is no intellectual corpus to grapple with, nothing to learn, no practice pointers to be gleaned. This is a completely ideological court. A court of pure grievance. Nothing else.
Daniel Suitor“Well, that’s shocking but not surprising” is kind of my mantra these days.
Leah McElrathBy the time the 2028 Democratic Party presidential primaries start, expanding the Supreme Court by 30 new members will be the “conservative” position
Kevin M. KruseParis 2019 v. Today: I don’t think people realize how immense Mayor Ann Hidalgo's legacy will be:
Qagggy!News outlets are literally giving more smoke to a candidate for A LOCAL ELECTION who wants to pilot 5 state-owned grocery stores, fix vendor licenses and raise taxes on the rich by 2% then Trump literally doing fascism
Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.comMAGAs: Why won’t Muslims just assimilate to our country!?!
Muslims: [Get elected to office]
MAGAs: …Wait not like that
Qasim Rashid, Esq.If Joe Biden had sent a bunch of masked goons to kidnap and deport persecuted Christians who had fled to America for religious freedom, I'm pretty sure Mike Johnson's head would explode Scanners-style.
Kevin M. KruseZohran Mamdani’s plan to tax the rich is a 2% tax on income over $1 million. If you make $1.1 million, you’d pay an extra $2,000. Watching working class conservatives and politicians completely meltdown about this is wild.
Melanie D’Arrigo @darrigomelanie.bsky.social“Some former employees of NOAA who were fired, rehired and fired again this spring say they have received debt notices from the federal government to pay it back for health care coverage. Those workers also say the notices are for coverage they never had.”
David HoFor Gillibrand, “[Intifada] is a serious word. It is a word that has deep meaning.” Just not its
Arabic meaning.
Jesse MyersonWhen people get on about this [meaning of Intifada], how do they feel about the word crusader? Because if you google for it, you can see a ton of “crusade for [something generally accepted as good]” or “human rights crusader.”
Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.socialInvoking my inner Karl Popper: suggesting that your political opponents should be stripped of their citizenship should be the sole—and automatic—basis for losing your citizenship.
M. Nolan GrayI hope everyone on this website thinks very carefully about this graph and then considers whether or not they need to reorder their priorities at all:
Dr. Genevieve Guenther @doctorvive.bsky.socialwhat if what they call "leftist" is just democracy + human dignity
Jen MerciecaYou cannot come close to understanding the role of trans issues in US politics if you do not acknowledge the very basic, fundamental fact that it was the right, not the left, that drove those issues to the top of the public agenda. The right, not the left, has the ability to select the narrow issue framing that is most advantageous to it and, through sheer coordinated will, push that issue framing to the forefront of discourse. If you don't get that you don't get
anything about US politics. It is endlessly wild to me that, in 2025, so many Politics Knowers simply accept what is put in front of them. "Oh, we're talking about teenage trans girls playing sports, ok!" Why? Why are we talking about that and not something else? Who decided we're talking about that, and why? This is just minimal epistemic hygiene and yet so many self-consciously savvy politics types never bother to do it.
David Roberts @volts.wtfThis is remarkable. New Quinnipiac poll finds support for path to legalization for most undocumented immigrants has risen to 64%. Only 31% want most of them deported. That's a 14 point net swing for legalization since Trump took office. On immigration generally, he's at 41–57!
Greg SargentI once had a fight with my publisher's lawyer over what constitutes "fair use." He said reprinting 4 lines of a poem without the poet's explicit permission was too much. But AI gobbling up whole books now counts as "fair use." Something is definitely wrong with US copyright law.
Elizabeth KolbertAbsolutely incredible work on this Zaku by Aksara Ngarmna:
Jamie McKelvieIf this winds up being an Adams-Mamdani contest I can’t wait to see how the
NYT’s DC-based editorial writers execute the pivot from “New York is a sinking hellhole” to “everything’s fine now, let’s not change a thing.”
Tim Carvellit’s wild that you can just watch the president of the united states post through an emotional meltdown.
molly conger @socialistdogmom.bsky.socialDo they really think they can scare us with the word “socialist” when they are literally sending out men in masks with no warrants and no badges to disappear people off American streets? I know what I’m scared of, and it’s not a socialist.
Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.socialThe way people are talking about shit like free buses like it's dekulakization has me more convinced than ever that you could never get the idea of libraries off the ground today
@gonebabygone.bsky.socialOn this day in 1844, the Oregon Territory passed its first of many laws prohibiting free Black people from moving into the area and authorizing violators to be whipped as punishment.
Equal Justice InitiativeSCOTUS allows deportations to "third party countries":
Ann TelnaesVoters: can you pay 50 cents more in taxes to pay for vegetables for children and agree not to defraud the elderly on their electrical bills
Wall Street Guy: OH LIKE THE KILLING FIELDS?!?! LIKE THE KHMER ROUGE?!?!
@brendelbored.bsky.social
Important point about Medicaid cuts, which will cause a whole lot of rural hospitals to close: it doesn't matter how much $$ or insurance you have. If the nearest hospital is over an hour's drive away, that time gap could kill you. Cartoon by R. J. Matson:
Fiona WebsterThis is a travesty and a nightmare. The US was a founder of gavi.org. It lowers global vaccine costs, has vaccinated 1B children, & averted 19M deaths. This pull out will cost 100s of thousands of children's lives a year ‚ and RFK Jr will be personally responsible.
Atul GawandeDifficult to overstate how much blood RFK and Trump will have on their hands in the coming years. Difficult to overstate how many innocent kids will die as a result of the people who cast votes for Trump last November:
Mehdi HasanGavi has helped vaccinate more than 1.1 billion children worldwide. Cutting ties with this organization and spreading misinformation about vaccine safety will kill children, plain and simple.
Randi Weingartenwow Elon and RFK Jr really vying to see who can kill the most people huh
Eric Holthaus
Some people think this is an exaggeration, but I will say that if I were
HHS Secretary and my goal were to kill as many children as possible, it
would be difficult to distinguish the actions I would take from those
that Kennedy has taken.
Edward NirenbergNo one is “replacing” teachers with AI. People are redistributing money to tech companies for AI and replacing permanent salaried workers with contingent, poorly paid ones whose labor is to patch together the system that is being broken by AI.
Sonja Drimmerkind of funny that americans think that once you become mayor, you can just enact sharia law. like zero understanding of the legislative process. just raise your hand and say "ok it's sharia time now"
derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.socialWhen Republican voters learn that the "Big Beautiful Bill" takes from the poor to give to the rich, they oppose it:
Justin WolfersSince May:
Federal district courts have ruled against Trump admin 94% of the time.
Supreme Court has sided with the Trump admin 94% of the time.
A judiciary at war with itself.
Adam BonicaEstablishment Democrats have done more to stop Zohran Mamdani than they have to stop Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Palantir or the Crypto Corruption machine currently swallowing American democracy whole.
Gil DuránWhen I saw this today I said HOLY SHIT:
Brandon Kennedy @bicycleidiot.bsky.socialIf you’re zip-tying grandmas protesting losing health care maybe you’re not the good guys in the story?
The Tennessee HollerThe current administration has more successfully destroyed US science and the scientific enterprise than the hypothetical nuclear weapons program in Iran.
Harmit MalikBit rich complaining about New York being taken over by immigrants when there's a big fucking statue in the harbour that invites everyone to come live there.
Small Robots @smolrobots.bsky.socialI think we need a serious study run on why so many people feel comfortable calling politicians "Daddy":
The Alternate Historiansometimes a kink *should* be shamed
Hal Duncan
The University of Alabama at Birmingham has terminated a privately funded scholarship for high-performing Black medical students in response to threats from the Trump administration.
Equal Justice InitiativeSome of us need to fight within the system, some of us need to create new systems, some us need to tend the wounded, some of us need to stand in the way of harm, and all of us need to support the ones doing the things that is not, right now, our thing to do. Good thing there are a lot of us. The worst thing is to do no thing because you don't know which thing is "right."
Dr. Elizabeth Sawin @bethsawin.bsky.socialfolks are building lists of all the Tesla robotaxi failures, and it's important to remember that we're talking about a fleet of <20 vehicles, over three days, in one the smallest and easiest geofences possible, based on coverage from 100% fanboy influencers. this is like trying out a kiddie pool without a life vest for the first time, and almost drowning every 90 seconds or so
e.w. niedermeyer"it is crucial to observe who played 9/11 Politics against Zohran. Who made a deliberate point of trying to make Jews like me hate and fear Zohran. It was DoorDash, Bloomberg, Ackman, Karp, and the rest. It was capital."
ryan cooperIf ever there has been a time in your life to imagine the world you really want, now is that time.
Dr. Elizabeth Sawin @bethsawin.bsky.social83% of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, think the US should be a world leader in developing clean energy — it’s too bad the GOP bill intentionally rolls back progress on that front:
Steve RattnerLooking forward to a mayor who might finally do something about placard abuse, largely because he doesn't see the city through a windshield. It's seems small, but it's the tip of the iceberg of civic corruption.
Doug Gordon @brooklynspoke.bsky.socialSomething the Mamdani win demonstrates is the extent to which the reigning cadre of ancient, establishment, centrist Dems think it’s more important to be on good terms with their GOP colleagues than it is to represent their own voters, and how thoroughly sick of this literally everyone is.
Foz MeadowsCould we have a moratorium on the phrase “driver lost control”? Jesus is not taking the wheel here. The driver was speeding or passing illegally. Loss of control is just the most passive step in a series of events involving real choices and real consequences.
Qagggy!Centrist dems since Clinton: We should
become the Republican Party. Then we will win!
Voters: Eww. No.
Centrist Dems: Please vote for our legitimization and enablement of the Republican agenda.
Voters: Blink twice for “yes” — does James Carville have his hand up your butt like a human puppet?
Nissa MitchellCreme de Cassis dahlia, one that made it from last year stored in my basement all winter:
Shannon Walsh @flutterbyflora.bsky.socialThe Ku Klux Klan Acts (passed in 1870 and 1871 to protect 14th amend rights) were particularly focused on masked gunmen who violated the civil rights of Black people. We should remember this history when masked law enforcement officers are deployed in our communities.
The 14th Amendment CenterA fun thing about American politics is that more people voted in New York City in a June primary than live in five states that get two senators.
Alex HalpernImagine if the Democratic Party actually helped Zohran instead of trying to kneecap him at every step. A better party is immediately possible if they stop shoving money into the anti-trans combination Racism Dial/Money Toilet and instead get behind candidates people actually want.
Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.socialPalantir’s founder, Peter Thiel, does not believe in democracy, and he is funding its demise globally in hopes of replacing the democratic world order with authoritarian “network states” run by CEO-dictators. We document his connections to ICE, Project 2025, JD Vance, and fellow techno-fascists.
50501 New YorkIn a functioning democracy, Emil Bove would be closer to contempt proceedings and disbarment than he is to a life-tenured seat on a federal appeals court
Jay WillisThere is no press outlet of any size, in any medium, that would offer this kind of coverage to a Democratic president, no matter the circumstances. There is a massive, explicit agitprop operation on the right, devoted to the power of the conservative faction, and there is no analogue on the left. That is perhaps the most fundamental structural feature of US politics at this point, the reality that shapes everything else, and it goes
almost entirely uncommented. We're in this insane, wildly skewed information environment and no one will fucking talk about it:
David Roberts @volts.wtfIt’s precisely my understanding of antisemitism that leads me to root for Zohran. As Jews, we thrive when everyone thrives. When other minority groups suffer, we also suffer. Few things could make me feel safer as a Jewish American than a Muslim mayor who fights for working people.
Max BergerHave you ever met a MAGA artist? MAGA poet? MAGA comedian? They create nothing. They find nothing poetic. They possess no humor. They are miserable people who try to impose their misery on others.
Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.socialThis is oligarchy. This is obscene. While 60% live paycheck to paycheck & kids go hungry, Jeff Bezos, worth $230 billion, goes to Venice on his $500 million yacht for a $20 million wedding & spends $5 million on a ring while his real tax rate is just 1.1%. End this oligarchy.
Senator Bernie SandersRemember, this new normal — in which gangs of masked armed gunmen are causing chaos in the streets, pulling weapons and assaulting innocent people, and no one can say if they're crooks or cops -- was all sold to Americans as a way to make us feel safer.
Kevin M. KruseI guess I don't actually care that trump said "fuck" on camera because he's a fucking fascist white nationalist rapist diarrhea-guzzler whose list of crimes in 4pt font is longer than I am tall
Matthew R Francis @bowlerhatscience.orgIf you divided the US's wealth evenly, each person would get $471k, or just shy of $942,000 per couple.
Vince ManciniB E A N S:
Li Chen @exocomics.comI know it is easy to get distracted with all the horrors going down every day, but don't forget that yesterday, the bribe-takin' US Supreme Court put its seal of approval on gratuitous human trafficking. These are evil times.
Mrs. Betty Bowersi am simply asking the press to cover the government sending masked thugs to rip people from their crying children and shipping them to a foreign concentration camp with the same ferocity they cover a trans kid playing jv tennis in sheboygan
Andrew LawrenceA strange quote from Peter Thiel that explains a lot: “The one part of the Christian view that I believe more strongly than anything is that death is evil, that it’s wrong and we should not accept it and fight it any way we can.” Seems like a bold misinterpretation of the Eternal Life concept.
Gil DuránMeta will pocket $15 billion from one new tax break in Trump's budget. "By the way, that is more than the federal government spends annually on childcare." –Sen. Elizabeth Warren
THE FARCE dot orgDemocrats teaming up with billionaires to defeat the left is one reason a fascist is in the White House. I'm hoping New York doesn't repeat this history.
Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.socialThe Bove allegations should be treated as something akin to Watergate, or Iran Contra. The administration was attempting to do something they
knew was illegal (anticipating the courts saying as much), and then trying to COVER IT UP. Only here instead of it being run out of the White House or NSC, it’s DOJ
Asha RangappaThe most important part of republican fascism is the demand you must be nice to them:
Joe Kassabian @jkass99.bsky.socialDonald Trump has roughly the same approval ratings as George W Bush in 2007, yet legacy media is still operating from the position of "Trump popular" despite, you know, being hated by most Americans. Donald Trump had higher approval ratings in 2020 at the height of COVID than today. Do you think that is properly reflected in media coverage? There's a very odd, very gross phenomenon taking place as legacy media continues to pretend he's popular when he's very clearly not.
Sean @stholeary.bsky.socialI know it's really unsexy for the narrative but the number-one driver of the turn in American public consciousness against Israel is Israeli behavior.
Emissary Of Night @diplomatofnight.comJust in the last 24 hours:
- SCOTUS affirmed the administration’s right to kidnap people and ship them into slavery. Didn’t even pretend to offer a legal justification.
- By a bipartisan vote, the House effectively gave the president a pass after he illegally usurped congressional war powers.
I don’t know how you’d look at either of these two events and believe the Constitution is still in force.
Ned ResnikoffThere is quite a bit of research and data that shows high temperatures increase aggression. Cops are much more likely to fire their guns when the temperature is higher, for example. There are a million little downstream effects of climate change.
Erin BibaThe convicted felon manufactured a reason to bomb Iran because he saw that Israel was getting good TV coverage of same and wanted in on the action? If that isn’t narcissistic insanity, I don’t know what is.
melomysPandemics, eugenics and fascism go hand in hand. The moment people accepted the narrative that “only the vulnerable” had to worry about covid, they ceded considerable ground to fascists. They effectively “othered” an entire class of people. It may start with the disabled, it won’t end with us.
Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.socialChinese companies installed 93 GW of solar and 27 GW of wind in a single month in May. That's about 230 million solar panels and 5300 wind turbines. That's almost 100 solar panels every second, and a wind turbine every 10 minutes.
Lauri MyllyvirtaTesla is the Grok of robotaxis... a fifth place nothingburger that fanboys insist is absolutely going to catch up with the dominant player, in spite of mountains of evidence that it is years and years behind. main difference is that this wholly unnecessary stock pump will likely kill someone
e.w. niedermeyerThey are literally doing the thing they have been supposedly terrified of for decades:
Daniel KibblesmithWhen your neighborhood gardener faces the prospect of being sent to a Taliban torture chamber in Afghanistan, sold into slavery in Libya or murdered by a gang in Honduras, the moral thing to do is to hide them.
Brandon FriedmanA Harvard study of IDF data finds that there are 377,000 people unaccounted for in Gaza. That estimate is six times the number of people normally cited as killed. Genocide.
Nathan Kalman-LambHow many of these "public lands" they want to sell were stolen in treaty violations or just outright stolen?
quick13according to conservatives on the court, the constitution does not protect your right to your own body but does enable the government to ship you off to a foreign gulag without any hope of return
jamelle @jamellebouie.netWow: ICE has deported at least 70 U.S. citizens.
Prem ThakkerThe Democratic establishment class has done everything short of drowning AOC in the Potomac to avoid energizing younger/leftier voters, and then they fret over youth engagement. I’ve watched it happen my whole life, but especially since 2016, and I’m very tired of it.
Louisa @louisathelast.bsky.socialOne bit of urbanism that caught my imagination and I've always remembered: Design a city that works for women — where women can move freely and independently, without fear — and you will have a city that works for everyone.
David Roberts @volts.wtfEven more true for children. They need safe walkable streets, clean air, not too much noise, and green space.
Anya Kamenetz @anya1anya.bsky.socialIt's not only that I am put off every time I encounter "so unique," but also that it tells me the speaker/writer did not take care to avoid that nonsensical phrase and no editor did either. So they're likely to have been careless in other ways as well.
Chris StellerCover, Dutch sales booklet, Olivetti 82 Diaspron Typewriter. Giovanni Pintori, designer, c. 1965:
Gary HornsethThe Gaza Health Ministry has released an updated list of the more than 55k people
confirmed to have been killed by Israel. The first 21 pages are the names of dead babies. More than 17k of those listed are children.
Leah McElrathSharks have existed for longer than the rings of Saturn.
Anna OrridgeA few posts about
Trump's decision to bomb Iran are here.
In urban planning, density is what prevents loss of nature. If you like nature you need to like density.
Jarrett Walker @humantransit.bsky.socialKind of exhausting to watch white Americans be given test after test on basic decency and fail every time only for the ones who pass to act like they don’t understand how this happened
Kaitlin Is Just Getting Started @gothamgirlblue.comDissent is treated as terrorism, while terrorism is just state policy.
George MonbiotThe cuts to GAO would save an amount equal to roughly 0.006 percent of federal spending and the cuts to the Library of Congress would save an amount equal to about 0.0014 percent of federal spending. I'm sure we blew far more on last night's bombing mission.
Dean BakerOur national parks should be car-free spaces, with free shuttles and bike rentals to get around the parks. Allowing cars into the parks has degraded the very reason why the national parks are so special.
Climate and TransitDahlia Firepot. This is a new one for me. I love it:
Shannon Walsh @flutterbyflora.bsky.socialI can't wait for our "originalist" Supreme Court justices, who discovered the secret "presidential immunity clause," to tell us that "the power to declare war" doesn't actually mean the power to declare war.
Dean BakerHe just dropped $280,000,000 worth of artillery in a war that’s not ours, but our grandparents have to live on Ramen noodles because America can’t afford Meals on Wheels anymore. Make it make sense.
Nash Is Here for Itdriving through all these small towns in Northern Wisconsin, it’s clear that 90% of their restaurants are owned by immigrants. these lil downtowns would be dead without them. i really do not understand how these white folks can vote for and support this admin. these are your neighbors.
Ms. K tweets @whatmsksaid.bsky.socialwe actually don’t have to listen to the people who are cheerleading war who were also cheerleading war 20+ years. we’re the adults in the room now and we have the power to say fuck no to shitty ideas.
Marisa Kabas100% of Black people self-censor at work. It's a job site not your personal safe space, snowflake:
Arif "Felonious Munk" ShahidEvery 5 years, the US wants to bomb a country to “save its women,” while stripping away rights from women across the US
Remi KanaziMad king shit day after day. It would take so few people in Washington to stop this.
Doug Gordon @brooklynspoke.bsky.socialThe United States never has enough money to keep people alive at home but always has enough money to kill people overseas.
Mrs. Betty BowersHonest question: If the military knew that bombing Iran without congressional authorization was unconstitutional, why did they do it? Could they have refused? What if Trump ordered them to bomb an American city? Who will stop the mad king?
David HoSomeone has gone through and actually run the numbers on molestation crimes against children. The politicians who commit these crimes are overwhelmingly Republican. 67% of politicians convicted between February 10, 2023 and May 23, 2024 nationwide were Republicans. And contrary to right wing mythology, children are far more likely to be victims of a religious leader than a trans person or drag queen. 846 cases reported by religious figures. 1 drag queen. 5 trans people. It's worth noting that Republican-dominated states are the only states in the US with both: 1) lowered age of consent laws, and 2) lowered marriage age laws. The Republican state of Kansas has a consent age of 15 and a marriage age of 16. Mississippi has a 16 consent age and no marriage minimum.
Matthew SheffieldIf they’re Christian, they’re “devout.” If they’re Muslim, they’re “radical.”
Lily Linke
Gracie12 @gracienlucy.bsky.socialThe public was 100% ready for trans rights just a few years ago. What we’re seeing now is a massive shift in public opinion after a coordinated and expensive propaganda blitz, one that Dems happily ignored. Trans rights aren’t new. We had them for years and everything was cool.
Crystal Frasier @amazonchique.bsky.socialOil is violence against the earth and the violence of war and the brutal geopolitics in pursuit and defense of the dirty stuff. Climate activism is peace activism.
Rebecca SolnitMagnolia trees are so old (as a species) that they had to be pollinated by beetles because bees didn't exist yet. And they grow on almost every continent, so they must have spread widely when the continents were connected. So the magnolia tree in my backyard has relatives all over the planet.
Karen M. PoremskiMorning reminder that "sex pest" is at most a way to describe that annoying desperate guy who hits on every new girl in the DnD group or your ex who keeps texting "u up?" It's not an appropriate way to describe someone accused of rape, sexual assault, or harassing and retaliating against employees.
Sarah @sosomanysarahs.bsky.socialSo, most social media makes us polarized, mean, and divided… And, now, we find that ChatGPT and generative AI makes us dumb… So, this whole “technology is going to make our lives better” thing is working out great, right?
Dr. Jonathan Foley @globalecoguy.bsky.socialTile, made in Iran in the 17th century:
Dianne ShermanWar is the worst thing humans do and those who encourage it are the worst people among us.
Tom Basgen, Mr. Saint PaulThe President is slashing government services, sending troops into US cities to abduct people, illegally bombing Iran, and the Democratic Party is mobilizing its full might to … stop New York City from electing a mildly left-leaning mayor.
Andy Hoberek @thathoberekguy.bsky.socialEmissions are not distributed equally. Just 5% of power plants generate 75% of power sector emissions; 12% of people consume half the beef produced; 2% of aviation emissions come from the 0.003% who are (private jet users; etc. What a great opportunity for targeted reductions!
Katharine HayhoeEvery time JD Vance talks I can understand why his mom picked the pills over him.
M @mikeschmike.bsky.socialobama punished the bush era war criminals and election thieves instead of reauthorized "the patriot act"
old babyTrump was humiliated last weekend [with his failed birthday parade]. This weekend he bombed someone. My guess is there is a relationship between those two events.
Jen MerciecaYounger people will be shocked to hear this, but way back when I grew up, anytime you saw a movie where some government official stopped someone on the street and demanded to see their identification papers, that was supposed to let you know they were the
bad guys.
Kevin M. Kruse“Tesla's so-called self-driving software won't stop for a school bus or a kid running from behind said bus, but despite that, the automaker is moving forward with plans to introduce robotaxis, saying it's totally safe.” This one turned onto train tracks…
Brent ToderianDonald Trump, a weak and dangerously reckless president, has put the United States on a path to a war in the Middle East that the country does not want, the law does not allow, and our security does not demand.
Sen. Chris MurphyMore
previous posts about bombing Iran are here.
Congress died the moment they allowed 147 insurrectionists to remain in office instead of expelling them and charging them with sedition. That’s just my opinion.
Ricky Davilai was a grant writer for a food bank. again, as much as what people saw the most was holiday food drives and gala events and private donors from silicon valley getting their asses kissed in the local paper. most of our funding came from the USDA.
Raven ofI don’t know much with certainty but I know the rapture isn’t real. People should stop trying to make it happen.
David Ho"Alleged Christian, devout assassin" more like:
Larry Rubinow @elrubino.bsky.socialReally feel like the NYC mayor’s race shows that there is no such thing as a progressive establishment, and there is, in fact, an anti-progressive establishment that runs all the way from Murdoch to Clinton
Don MoynihanNobody wants lots of people driving on their street and
Nobody wants people speeding on their street.
Yet we continue to prioritize the quick movement of cars.
Tom FloodA common online interaction in my town is: People complain about speeding in their neighborhood. I suggest traffic calming. The residents become apoplectic that
they might also have to slow down.
Gravel InfluencerEverything Shitty Everywhere All At Once
@ladyjimrockford.bsky.socialHere is how climate change has impacted Minneapolis, Minnesota. Definitely our winters are warmer, spring comes earlier, and it hits 90° over 10/year — which is a lot!! We also have more droughts, and our skies are often white from all the fires in Canada.
Christine_MplsMinnesota blackout vanity license plate, seen on the interstate: POLLUTE
Chris StellerMy only working explanatory hypothesis right now is that billionaires and authoritarians
literally thrive on human misery; that if people aren't suffering then all their money and power don't actually sustain them, and that cruelty and sheer horror are the only things that flow through their veins.
@wolvendamien.bsky.socialoof:
Anthony Michael KreisSomething that I try to emphasize to my students: "What does freedom actually mean" is not a 21st century issue, anachronistically read backwards into the 18th century. The US, French, and Haitian Revolutions happened at more or less the same time, with an overlapping cast of characters. Lafayette was not just asking this question because he could see slaves in front of him but also because he was part of a global intellectual and political movement in opposition to slavery. George Washington was not unaware of this, he was simply on the opposing side of that particular struggle. Part of the reason people don't want the history of this period taught or understood is to make this illegible to people. It's easy to swallow thought ending cliches about which venerated figure was a "man of their times" if you remain studiously unaware of what their times actually were.
Olúfẹ́mi O. TáíwòUsing public land for homes isn't inherently bad since declining military bases and USPS real estate are near cities and could become mixed-use housing owned or leased by the government. But Mike Lee wants suburban sprawl on land nowhere near where people work
Darrell Owens @idothethinking.bsky.socialLet me get this straight. Students who criticize any of Israel's policies get tagged as "antisemites" and the federal government cancels billions of dollars in vitally important research if they're not expelled. In the meantime, an actual Nazi gets a prize for an essay at U. of Florida law school.
Timothy BurkeScoop: Trump and Republicans want USPS to sell off its brand new EVs and chargers. That would mean literally **ripping up post office parking lots** to auction off assets with no private-sector value. It’s buried in the Senate’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
Jacob BogageI believe this is what we call government waste, something I thought DOGE was supposed to stop. But I guess this is really about “owning the libs.”
elesw19.bsky.socialthe reason the Postal Service trucks look “silly” is that they have large windshields and a low hood, which increases visibility and reduces risk to pedestrians. trucks like this should look normal and F-150s should be the silly ones
@samd.bsky.socialThere are three reasons [for the Postal Service to sell off its new electric trucks] and both are evil but none are "dumb."
1. They will do literally anything to show off their power and make people feel helpless.
2. They don't want people seeing and using the superior product that hurts oil.
3. It will cost the postal service money.
David Weiskopf @dave.bzky.teamMid century sun trademarks. Happy Solstice!
Present & CorrectMy relatives in East L.A. — born in the U.S.A. — are afraid to go outside because masked men with guns are randomly snatching people off the street. This is a government terrorism campaign against its own people.
Gil DuránA lesson of WWII and the Nuremberg trials is that in fact there is little moral distinction between inspiring and promoting genocide and being the one to actually pull the trigger.
Aaron Reichlin-MelnickI don’t think it’s widely appreciated how much the insular circles of the extremely online have fostered a generation of extremely smart people talking about completely fictional futures based on various plausible but unhinged fan fictions about how the world works.
Christopher MimsThe Internet was commonly referred to as the "information superhighway" as it connected folks to search and find information instantly. Much like real highways, the Internet is subject to vulnerabilities (pollution, decay, hazardous construction, etc.). At some point we need to discuss regulation
David R. DillonA huge part of becoming a subject-matter expert is learning how much there is to know about your topic and how little you actually know about it. That's definitely not the feeling you get when you "do your own research."
Jen MerciecaIt's no coincidence that the person who threatened to become a dictator on day one is imposing military occupations on American cities.
Daniel Chomsky
Johannes GrenzfurthnerPeople say it was the election of Obama, but ending slavery is truly what broke white peoples' brains.
WhimsicalSquirrelIn Florida, “free speech” and “institutional neutrality” mean that a Nazi arguing that nonwhites have no rights wins a prize while a course with “race” in the title is censored for violated the law. Congratulations to all the credulous centrists who helped this along.
Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social40,000 people die on subways every year in the US!... No wait, that's cars!
@tempestarubida.bsky.socialPeople who don't like "big words" lack curiosity. If someone uses a word I don't know, I will ask them, "double back. What does that mean?" If I'm alone and encounter a new term, I look it up and read the definition.
Dr. Allison Wiltz @allyfromnola.bsky.socialFun how it's always "selfish" for cyclists to use roads if that might slow drivers somewhat but not selfish for drivers to make roads functionally unusable for cyclists.
Bread and Rosie @rosiemund.bsky.social
paulpro @mariopro.bsky.socialNY Times pitch: 10,000-word article investigating why so many cisgender journalists are so obsessed with the bodies of transgender people — and why do so many cisgender journalists seem so “aggressive” in their relentless pursuit of answering the question: Why do transgender people have to exist?
Teddy Wilson @reportbywilson.bsky.socialI can’t remember an administration that’s done so many illegal things in such a short time.
David HoWhen people support Andrew Cuomo, what they’re saying implicitly is that they don’t care about the women he’s already sexually harassed and retaliated against and they won’t care if he does it again. It’s a political stance that enables discrimination against women in government
Kat TenbargeThe absolute full-court press from media + elites on behalf of Cuomo demonstrates yet again that when they want to make something a story‚ not just "cover it," but pound on it until it sinks in as a public narrative ‚ they know exactly how.
David Roberts @volts.wtfNo Kings coverage was better by smaller outlets while editors of influential news outlets like
NYTimes / WSJ / WaPo continue to downplay and dampen coverage of the pro-democracy movement and demonstrations like No Kings.
The Media and Democracy ProjectNothing is off the table for this regime. Armed and masked men are kidnapping people off American streets. We are living in a lawless and scary country.
Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.socialDaily bunny no. 2991 waiting for the other shoe to drop:
Will QuinnIf he wins, people are not prepared for just how unpopular Andrew Cuomo will be and how quickly it will happen. There's going to be a lot of buyer's remorse, not among the billionaire class, but among regular people who weren't paying attention. Kinda like what happened with Trump!
Doug Gordon @brooklynspoke.bsky.socialThe conservative movement is lying about basically every empirical "debate" of our time, from climate change to voter fraud to vaccines. Why is it so impossible for reactionary centrists to contemplate the possibility they're lying about trans healthcare too?
Michael HobbesSCOOP: Trump’s tax bill includes a little-noticed line that spends $200 billion on a tax break that rewards private equity firms for taking over small businesses and then loading them up with debt, slashing employee pay, mass firing workers, and driving them into bankruptcy.
David SirotaFor decades the early buyers of renewable electricity paid higher bills because the technology was still developing and more expensive. Now that renewables are cheaper, it's a scandal that our bills are kept artificially high by the costs of fossil generation
Dr Charlie GardnerIt’s interesting, even as MSM crumbles, how the MSM mafia persists. Self-designated cool kids clubs die hard.
Robert SimonsonThe US denied a visa to a French lawmaker who is critical of Trump policies. Can you imagine how much the GOP would never shut up if the French denied a visa to one of them?
Clara JefferyThe South wasn't a society with slavery, it was a slave society. It was integral to the way of life of everybody who lived there. That's what they fought to preserve, even if they'd never directly had possession of a slave.
WalkingTaakoVarious theories of "the South's model of chattel slavery was unsustainable and therefore the Civil War was unnecessary" have floated since before the Civil War itself and it represents one of the most studied topics in Economic History as a profession. Nobody but cranks and confederates believe this.
utopia deferredMost regular people have no idea how restrictive zoning is in most North American cities. Yes, we try to separate people from destinations. We mandate arbitrary amounts of parking. We treat any housing denser than a single-family home as an aberration that needs to be carefully managed.
Oh The Urbanity!This was a real post from 47 on Juneteenth:
George TakeiWhat better way to observe the end of slavery than a rich old white man yelling to work harder.
SchooleyAnd probably yelling it from the golf course
Hannibal ChauDonald Trump, who is rated as the worst president in American history, hates that fact. He's trying to "leave his mark" on the White House, so he will never be forgotten. It's Trump's White House now. y'all get that he did the flag poles because he was born on Flag Day, right? The smallest man who ever lived.
Jen MerciecaHe put himself on the First Lady wall lol
RazzballThe International Olympic Committee needs to pull the games. If they had any honor USOC works request it. This stands to be an even greater disgrace than the Nazi games. At least Jesse Owens got to run…
surlyurbanist.bsky.socialYou know your country has screwed up priorities when it pretends it doesn't have the money to prevent LGBTQ teen suicides but it *does* have the funds to subsidize the wealthiest man in the world's engineering incompetence.
Mrs. Betty Bowers"Build as much clean energy as possible as fast as possible" should be our No. 1 national priority in the coming decade. All our national resources should be bent to the task. The president should talk about it every week in a national address. It should be the moon shot X100.
David Roberts @volts.wtfEveryone I've ever connected to on LinkedIn (and myself) was put out of work in the last 3 months lol. Idk what the official figures are but easily 100s of thousands globally, at least 10s of thousands in US.
Travis @someforeignfield.bsky.socialit is hard to convey in words how bad the bloodbath has been for professionals working in the "not evil" sectors
Faine GreenwoodThe at-home assassination of a state lawmaker should be getting a bigger reaction from the President than someone throwing a rock at a Tesla dealership.
God @thegodpodcast.comWe’re wasting the remaining carbon budget on war and AI.
David HoWhole section of the Federal Government now spends its time masked, out-of-uniform, and unidentifiable, variously snatching people from courthouses, handcuffing elected officials, and driving around LA trying find the best location to provoke a riot for TV coverage purposes.
Kieran Healy‘Blue Hobbit’ thistle starting to bloom in my garden:
melomys“Things aren’t just getting worse. They’re getting worse faster,” says @hausfath.bsky.social. Kinda seems like a bad time for the US to scrap all its clean energy policy and double down on fossil fuels.
David Roberts @volts.wtfI think a lot of people's fears of urban life are fed by the luxury belief that violence is about stranger danger and dark alleyways when it's more often about family and poverty. Any woman could get on the rankest subway car at 1 a.m. and statistically be safer than they are at home
Gillian BranstetterThere were many attempts to find a peaceful resolution before the Civil War and some were very generous to the slavers. The prob was they refused to compromise on restricting the expansion of slavery into the territories. There might have been non-violent options, but the South wasn't interested.
The Alternate HistorianThe law in its infinite wisdom bans trans and cis people alike from being trans
Gillian Branstetterlord grant me the confidence of someone who believes that the coming of the machine god is nigh, but also self-identifies as a "rationalist"
e.w. niedermeyerAn understudied part of Democratic Party dysfunction compared to the GOP is that any conservative who can count without their fingers has 1,000 good paying jobs waiting while as a liberal, you need a PhD and rich, connected parents to get an unpaid internship.
Stan OklobdzijaLook people, no matter how much we destroy the Earth by polluting it with CO₂, microplastics, PFAS, etc. everywhere, and even if AMOC shuts down and both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melt, the Earth will still be infinitely more habitable than Mars. Mars is a shithole and we're not going.
David Hocapitalism made the guy who built his empire on self-driving cars that can't and rockets that constantly explode the richest man on earth, but sure tell me again how it's the greatest system ever devised
Catbus @hayao.lolGilead has announced that lenacapavir, the game-changing HIV prevention drug just approved by the FDA will cost $28,218 USD per person per year. Researchers say a generic version could be made for just $25 per person a year. Capitalism kills.
Dr. Lucky TranJapanese Snow Fairy:
Michael O’NeillI remember when Trump said he'd hold a press conference in two weeks to clear up questions about his wife's immigration process – NINE YEARS AGO
Greg PakI am seeing how Chat GPT is ruining students critical thinking and writing skills in real time. It is not the future. It is a tool designed to render the populace helpless, to make people doubt their innate intelligence, and to foster overreliance on technology.
Roxane GayIt’s always wild to me that they talk big game about glorifying the history of the US. What could be more glorious than putting down a rebellion of slavers and reunifying the nation under one flag? Of course, they still side with the slavers, so naturally they don’t see it as a win.
Alexander M. @alexm920.bsky.socialLook, we can't celebrate Juneteenth because it's too divisive. Unlike military bases named for Confederate soldiers, which unite us all.
Dave Weigely'know it's kind of a tell that they think celebrating the end of slavery is DEI
m @keptsimple.bsky.socialright-wingers will often say that America deserves credit for ending slavery rather than blame for having slavery. but then we made a holiday to commemorate the end of slavery and they still got mad, which should tell you what their real objection is.
Peter @notalawyer.bsky.socialChatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all. I suspect the fact that the vast majority of LLM users don’t seem to have received this (really very simple!) message is because the AI companies have a vested interest in us not understanding it. “ChatGPT is smart, it just makes mistakes sometimes” is much more marketable than the truth.
Katie Mack @astrokatie.comThree billion dollars — that's $3,000,000,000.00+ USD — for a meager 64 miles of border wall. According to the Texas Department of Transportation, the state's border with Mexico is 1,254 miles long
T. Greg DoucetteI’ve read several stories in major newspapers about the outrageous attack by Iran on a hospital in Israel. Not one of them mentioned Israel’s missile strikes on hospitals in Gaza. Nothing justifies these attacks by either country. Nothing. But when reporting Israeli outrage, context matters.
Bob Mann @robertmannbooks.comHarriet Tubman quilt by my Mom, Vera P. Hall, who makes quilts celebrating Black people who fought for their own freedom. This seems to be the crowd favorite of the “We Didn’t Wait for Freedom” series:
ProfKFHMy favorite thing I’ve learned today is that during monsoon, all the cats around the Bombay high court come inside and get fed by the judges every day until the rain stops
Anu Li @panikadoc.bsky.socialRight-wing media and the GOP have treated Dems as illegitimate since at least the 1990s. We should have treated it as dangerous rhetoric instead shrugging it off as normal political discourse, and shut it down before it gained traction a long time ago.
Super Mario 50123 @haironfire247.bsky.socialFor those who say “Illegal is illegal.” On this Juneteenth, remember: slavery was once legal. Harboring a fugitive enslaved person? Illegal. Black freedom? Illegal. “Illegal is illegal” has always been used to defend injustice. Legality ≠ morality. Justice calls us higher.
Rev. Benjamin CremerJust a reminder that generative AI is theft of labor and intellectual property, uses vast amounts of energy/ water, provides at best mediocre results (if not outright lies or misinformation), actually affects your ability to think over time (mind duh), and is in general a really fucking bad idea.
Jeff VanderMeerBy far the scariest part of this is that the *rate* at which our planet is warming has increased so quickly. I mean, the last time I checked a few years ago the consensus was that the planet was heating 0.2C / decade.
Dr. Genevieve Guenther @doctorvive.bsky.social
Spencer Deviac is Not My Name @spendiac.bsky.socialIf you're not placing today's ruling against gender-affirming care for trans youth in the context of John Roberts' lifelong campaign to suck the life out of the Fourteenth Amendment, and equality for actual humans more broadly, you're doing it wrong.
Cristian FariasAmazing. Playbook is reporting that Trump is "unfazed" by elements of his base opposing war with Iran, because he can be sure they'll back him in the end no matter what. Trump, who knows "America First" is whatever he says it is, understands MAGA better than anyone else (as I tried to argue below).
Greg SargentThe selling of public lands is going to be one of those moments future generations will look back at us and think "how could they be that greedy and stupid?" And most of it just be a fenced off asset for private equity. It's not for development necessarily, it's just for wealth accumulation
Bryan @bryanformhals.comThis administration really is just a war on a free and open society
Reconstructionist @unavaleable.bsky.socialA sign on the Sabo Bridge in Minneapolis stating all of our feelings about Mike Lee:
Paul Schmelzer @schmelzer.bsky.socialMany liberals and progressives understand the Supreme Court to be a bastion of rights and a bulwark against the excesses of an oppressive majority. But, for most of its history outside the Warren Court, the Supreme Court has been a bastion of oligarchy and white supremacy. This is its normal.
Max BergerThis is the point where the Supreme Court ruled on trans teens getting gender-affirming care.
I posted about it, with some BlueSky posts, at that time.
Michael O’Neill @mjoneill.bsky.socialUSAID was one of the best things we, America, ever did. There is not really room for dispute on this unless your moral calculus is so different as to be alien.
post malone ergo propter malone @proptermalone.bsky.socialWe should be able to buy adderall, testosterone and estrogen OTC at Walmart while buying a gun should require 6–12 months of intensive therapy beforehand and monthly reapproval from your psychiatrist
Erin Fogg @criminalerin.bsky.socialI am once again pitching my romantic comedy:
- two academics start dating
- discover they are each other's terrible reviewer
- hijinks ensue
Working title: Love is Double-Blind
Neil Renic @ncrenic.bsky.socialIKEA is an acronym:
Ingvar
Kamprad (the founder)
Elmtaryd (the farm on which he grew up)
Agunnaryd (the nearby village)
Present & CorrectWas consumed all day at work by the fact that trump tweeted "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!" at Iran, which from any normal president would be hugely consequential and it wasn't even a story because the media has just sort of deformed itself into nihilistic acceptance of the fact that he's insane
Hemry, Local Bartender @bartenderhemry.bsky.socialThe more unpopular and thwarted Trump becomes at home (polling, Congress, the courts), the more he'll look for ways to act as an unstoppable strongman. Stuff like ICE raids, pardons, but No. 1 is his ability to start a war. I always feared this moment would come, but it's sooner than I thought
Will BunchNEW: A source with direct knowledge of the matter says that Trump has been relentlessly trash-talking Minnesota Governor Tim Walz since the horrific news of the assassination of Rep. Melissa Hortman broke. “He’s not letting up,” the source said.
Rolling StoneDon't you dare look away, trump voters and political boot-lickers. This is your legacy, this is how history will remember you.
Dave Haldiman @opposablethumbs.bsky.socialHas there even been a more politically successful riot since Jan 6 (since slavery)
Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.socialThe answer is in ICE's selection of targets:
* Democratic politicians in public
* Immigrants attending court hearings, at work, or at schools
None of those people will be armed. On the flipside, ICE is scrupulously avoiding raids on cartel affiliates, drug dealing sites, etc. They might be armed.
Max KennerlyWesterners have no concept of the horror of war. Generations of mainstream media serving as propaganda mouthpieces, comparing every conflict to WWII, painting deranged good vs evil narratives. Absurd narratives of "freeing" people from oppressive regimes, by murdering them, destroying their homes.
Joshua KeepThe result of the planned sale of public lands will be a Wild West-style land rush, all to fund giveaways to the rich at the expense of veterans, rural communities, Indigenous nations, and every American who cherishes wild places.
Janessa Goldbeck"Heated rhetoric" and "incivility" and the like do not fuel acts of violence. A political party and its leader who explicitly revel in their overt, direct encouragement and support for acts of violence is what fuels acts of violence.
Andy CraigLet's check in and see how summer temperatures have changed during the last 50 years:
Climatologist49If you want some anecdotal evidence of the effects of tariffs, there isn't a single fireworks tent on route 70 between 35 in Minnesota and Siren, Wisconsin.
@velourshirt.bsky.socialThe claims that McIver, Padilla, and Lander were committing assault should make you question every other time LEOs claim assault or resisting arrest, if you weren’t already.
Tim PriceHaving a bit of a hard time with the concept that if a guy in a police uniform who has a police vehicle shows up I should lock the doors and call 911, but if a guy in a ski mask with an hGH gut appears to be kidnapping my neighbor, I shouldn’t ask who he is if I don’t want federal charges.
Tim MarchmanI’m old enough to remember when the Republicans used to rail against “jack-booted thugs.”
David CornThe radicalization of the American right is THE story of US politics over the last four decades and political reporters are still not allowed to talk about it
Michael HobbesAs a 52-year-old, I grew up with domestic right wing terrorist organizations threatening violence daily, and blowing up buildings and killing people periodically, throughout my whole political life: it was the anti-abortion movement. The motherfucker’s bombed the Olympics in Atlanta and it had no impact on the response to domestic right wing terrorism. Every time Democratic governments suggested focusing on domestic rightwing terrorism, they were screamed at for being anti-Christian and reversed course.
David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.socialMelissa Hortman was a catholic who ensured children got fed and her killer was in a psycho church that demanded violent prayer and guess which one is getting the"Christian" coverage
Shiv Ramdas @nameshiv.bsky.socialThe face of a rescue cat who is loved so much she’s forgotten the time when she wasn’t:
MissyBBBobtailI joke around a lot about parenting but will say one of the most challenging parts of being a dad to teen boys is staying on top of the slick and curated toxic masculinity, misogyny and hate that they get served up on a daily basis. It's slick and so insidious.
Tom FloodIn the five months Trump has held office in his second term, the number of impeachable offenses legal scholars estimate that he has already committed range from three to eight or more.
James @james-j.bsky.socialStrange how any negative framing of auto culture is automatically anti-car and radical yet the billions of dollars spent on reckless car ads and auto first infrastructure isn't framed as anti-pedestrian, anti-bike, anti-transit, anti-person, anti-senior, anti-child or anti-planet.
Tom FloodAll the Republican examples of "violent" rhetoric from Democrats is someone like Tim Walz saying "these people are assholes, you should be rude to them" and all the Republican equivalents are a guy with a top-secret security clearance tweeting "I will personally kill Ilhan Omar with a gun"
@gonebabygone.bsky.socialA reminder that ICE did not exist before 2003 and has not had a Senate-confirmed director since 2017. We existed before it. We can exist without it. But at a minimum Senate Democrats should not allow a single other vote until Republicans are forced to confirm a nominee to lead Trump’s secret police.
Meredith ShinerI guess the resistance isn't dead after all, it's just that the journalists who normally covered it have found other things to do:
The Alternate HistorianIn my experience, right-wingers are vastly less likely to estrange themselves from left-wing relatives, and why would they? They thrive on the victimhood and argumentation that leftists feel obligated (morally and rightly) to engage in, it causes no moral injury to them because morals are not their barometer
Andrea GrimesFACT: The more people choosing to walk, bike and take public transit to get around cities, the better cities work for EVERYONE, including DRIVERS. Anyone claiming that less car dependency is a “war on cars” doesn’t understand how cities (or geometry) work.
Brent Toderiannote how many of the people who say that all Americans shouldn't be punished for Trump will also say it's OK to slaughter all Gazans and Iranians
Matthew R Francis @bowlerhatscience.orgA reality show star and a weekend Fox News host are now tasked with managing a full-fledged war in the Middle East. The death of expertise and experience as things that matter will mean the deaths of thousands or even millions. What guardrails are even left at this point? Too few, if any.
feminist next door @emrazz.bsky.socialThey are creating a shithole country absolutely no one wants to visit or live in…thanks, MAGA.
Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.socialTrump: The pro-asbestos president
Annmarie LockhartMr. Antiwar President has us inches away from a Civil War at home and a nuclear war abroad in defense of an ally that is starting random hot regional wars to detract from its ongoing genocide. I’m sure all of this will just naturally cool off.
Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.socialWe were promised peace through strength and we got wars from incompetence.
Ron FilipkowskiThese are all the countries in Africa that would be part of Trump's travel ban. Insane:
David HoThe left didn’t try to assassinate Trump. Those were his fans.
The left didn’t kill the MN politicians. It was a registered Republican who voted for Trump.
And the left didn’t try to murder cops and only doxxed them in the sense that getting a cop’s name and badge number is “doxxing”
Kevin M. KruseCrazy that Luigi is charged with terrorism but the guy who had a hit list of democrats and shot 4 and killed two isn't
@sasquatch.bsky.socialLEFT: The fake picture of the Department of Defense just posted.
RIGHT: The reality.
So now the military is not just arresting us on street corners illegally but spreading disinformation.
And it's only Monday.
Seth AbramsonIf you are too young to remember the Iraq War, you'll hear "no one protested" and "no one knew they were lying." Millions of people knew they were lying and protested. The press not only did not want a record of mass dissent; they did not want a record of mass knowledge of lies.
Sarah KendziorI think it's sinking in for a lot of people across the country just how deep, how existential, our current crisis is—that the governing system we lived under is being destroyed, and that there's no reason for confidence that we're going to be able to stop it from happening in time.
Angus JohnstonI wonder if people describe Al Qaeda terrorists as "a devout Muslim who opposed American imperialism." Maybe they should have? I don't know because that would be truly fair and balanced. One group is called "Islamofascist" and so on whereas the most extreme groups aren't called "Christofascist".
@elvingjack.bsky.socialCuomo’s car parked (illegally) outside union HQ. I asked a cop nearby if it was parked illegally. He said “yes.” Why? “Because it got two tickets already”:
Josie Stratmanpoliticians who think they are above the law should not be elected
Mike Eliason @holz-bau.bsky.socialThe assassinations in Minnesota highlight a dirty secret hardly ever mentioned in the news: U.S. has 1.1 million private police officers. There is an unprecedented footprint of privately organized violence that is doing all sorts of things most people have no idea about.
alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.socialI don't think I've ever felt more like burning it all down than I have while witnessing the elite project to turn Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander into scary, incompetent monsters while turning an actual incompetent monster, Andrew Cuomo, into a merely complicated fellow who just made an oopsie.
Doug Gordon @brooklynspoke.bsky.socialA fibula (pin for fastening garments) in the shape of a #frog. Animal-shaped fibulae were popular in the northwestern provinces of the Roman empire. It has been suggested that frogs had an apotropaic value (i. e. to avert evil), but there is no evidence for this. Photo from the Morgan Library:
Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.socialI did an event in DC and there was a party for donors etc after. Was talking to 2 people and I said "Things are so bad." They said "No this is how it is. Things swing one way, then another. It's normal." That's when I realized why Dems are toothless. They have no idea what this is. Frogs boiling in water.
Kumail NanjianiOn this day in 1944, George Stinney Jr., a 90-pound, 14-year-old boy, was executed in the electric chair in Columbia, South Carolina. He remains the youngest person executed in the U.S. in the 20th century.
Equal Justice InitiativeDOGE went all in on claiming fraud at Social Security because they couldn't understand basic payments data. When SSA employees explained the errors, DOGE's CIO rejected their findings and demanded the data be given to a 21-year-old former Palantir intern instead.
James DownieThe people who claim we’re in an “echo chamber” are literally trying to imprison everyone who disagrees with them.
The Volatile Mermaid @ohnoshetwitnt.bsky.socialPlease enjoy this photo of our new kitten Bobby and our mostly confused dog Ralph:
Tomas @m0byduck.bsky.socialAny evidence of an undocumented immigrant census boost currently favors Republicans +1 in the Electoral College. I know facts don't matter anymore but immigrants mostly go to southern red states.
Darrell Owens @idothethinking.bsky.socialNo Kings protests were about 15-20 times as large as the April 2009 Tea Party protests, so I'll sit back and wait for 15-20 times as many stories from political pundits explaining that this was a decisive rebuke to the sitting president that Changes Everything.
Kevin M. KruseThe TEA party in 2009: Jobs, not mobs! As they mobbed the capitol. Obama delivered jobs, then they said," Where's your birth certificate?" Republicans are like nailing jello to a tree.
Ron DorlandThe dividing lines have never been clearer and I feel like I'm going to explode every time I see one section of 'the community' decide that, no, actually, we should turn our fire on the person next to us, not the fascist death machine bearing down on us.
Anarchy Goosewhen 4–5M people march peacefully against the current regime it's the story of the year.
NYT cannot bring itself to focus on that reality.
Jen RubinWtf
NYT!? Trump regime goes openly fascist so 4–6 million people (almost 2 out of every 100 people in the whole f*cking country!) join No Kings marches to defend democracy and you print "THOUSANDS"!? The two-page picture spread, which you buried on A20-21, literally shows more people than thousands.
Patrick Reinsborough @giantwhispers.bsky.socialClematis and jasmine:
L WassonOur taxes subsidize rural life. Increasingly, that means less and less for our rural neighbors and more and more into the pockets of developers, landlords, and industrial scoundrels. I want my taxes to help fund Appalachian roads and schools! I don't want to bail out rentier economy failsons.
reed eliotTrump's latest diatribe confirms for me that his pathetic military parade was a massive fail. If it had been successful, he would have at least tried to have it lead on Monday cable news. Instead he is declaring war on blue cities. The military parade was a failure.
PrisoncultureA sane President would see the chaos that he engineered in LA as a mistake to avoid replicating. But for Trump it was simply the opening battle of his authoritarian takeover of major power centers controlled by his political enemies.
Don MoynihanSign of the day… Could someone explain which crimes get you deported and which ones get you elected President? It’s so confusing:
Physicians for a Healthy DemocracyThere is no reason to be concerned about the birthrate other than racism. Humanity as a whole is above replacement levels, and we could stand to reduce the population. Age cohort problems could easily be solved through liberalized immigration. This is literally the stupidest thing to care about.
Adam Kotsko
