Well, we've finished the first month of 2019. The 2020 presidential campaign has begun (#$%@##$), we had an excruciating government shutdown, and all of the usual elements of our trip to hell in a handbasket were fully in evidence on Twitter.
Toward the end of the month, there was lots of talk about billionaires, as Bloomberg and Schultz and (of course) Mulligan eyed the 2020 presidential campaign:
It's hilarious that you can be a billionaire and think to yourself, "hmm... I don't think I have enough — I should be president of america" but then when people ask for basic healthcare it's like, "whoa entitled much?"Meanwhile, Democratic candidates began declaring they were running of the 2020 election and darn if a lot of them are women (who, coincidentally, aren't likeable):
Mike Drucker
If Oprah Winfrey (a self-made billionaire) announced she was running for President, y’all would treat it like a joke. In contrast, Howard Schultz’s campaign is being treated as if it were a serious operation. Why?
@Patrickesque
To me, Howard Schultz is a somewhat standard Liberal Plutocrat, which is basically a rich guy with "ideas" that are, in fact, gussied-up kernels of economic self-interest.
Anand Giridharadas
Why don’t people ever tell billionaires who want to run for President that they need to “work their way up” or that “maybe they should start with city council first”?
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
I don’t believe Howard Schultz should run. I believe he should spend his resources addressing root causes of our broken system, not trying to be a billionaire savior. But whatever he does, I hope he will stop labeling things un-American immediately. No place for that.
Anand Giridharadas
"Billionaire" isn't a qualification. It's the description of a person who is hoarding more resources than they could use in 100 lifetimes while other people are starving. It's the name for a human dragon sleeping on its pile of rubies and gold.
Melissa McEwan @Shakestweetz
Out of curiosity, do you grasp how much a billion dollars is? Let me put it this way: If you earned $3,600 an hour, every hour, every day, even while you slept, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — it would take you almost *32 years* to earn $1 billion. Even when earning ~30 million A YEAR.
Felgraf_Physics
Because really what’s more American than a billionaire white guy deciding he should be in charge of everything after his company took a full day to teach employees not to call the cops on black customers for existing.
feminist next door @emrazz
imagine believing billionaires were a class of people and not just 2,000 specific jerks who could share if they wanted to
Saladin Ahmed
Haven't we had enough influence of billionaires in American politics already? Seeing any of them pretend to be presidential saviors of the nation is by now simply sickening -- de facto grounds for disqualification.
Langdon Winner
It’s insane that a single person can credibly threaten to upset the apple cart of presidential politics just in virtue of being rich. The goal is something like a billionaire’s veto on elections, where if Democrats dare challenge plutocracy too fundamentally they’ll be blocked by a self-funded spoiler.
Matthew Yglesias
That Schultz, who has no policy experience and no national following to speak of, can nab a 60 Minutes profile is basically a textbook example of how wealth begets political power.
Christopher Ingraham
Metaphor isn't qualification. Being an IT worker is no guarantee of being able to "reboot" America. Being a butler is no guarantee of being able to anticipate the nation's needs. Being a pilot is no guarantee of being able to land the country in turbulent times.
Anand Giridharadas
We don’t need a president who wants to run this country like a business. We need someone who can provide leadership and direction toward a better, more humane country.
Jared Yates Sexton
Howard Schultz's 2020 rollout can be described in two words: flat white
Adam Blickstein
No one makes a billion dollars. You TAKE a billion dollars. You take it from your workers (Hi, Jeff, Jim, and Alice!). You plunder it from the environment (What up, Charles and David?). You strip it using patents/protections (Lookin' at you, Bill.)
Stephanie Kelton
Every billionaire is someone who could have paid higher wages or taxes if we chose to require that.
Anand Giridharadas
If Tom Steyer wanted to have the biggest impact with his money, he would invest in the kind of long-term infrastructure development that the Koch brothers have: candidate recruitment and training, a voter file system, ideological education, think tanks and grassroots groups.
@maxberger
There's something amazing about the fact that the predatory rich in the US have created an army of suckers — who aren't and will never be rich - who will argue passionately on their behalf. "We don't want to scare them off! They create our jobs! Thank you sir may I have another!"
David Roberts
The thing I am most scared of in the 2020 election runup is not Bernie or 3rd Party candidates or a wide Democratic field or the GOP — it’s our mainstream media. It’s a white male cesspool of smug bothsiderism and a deliberate lack of self-reflection. They’ll double down on their narratives from 2016.The biggest story of the month had to have been the useless, damaging government shutdown (better called a lock-out) and the wall:
@leftyjennyc
"Likeable" for female politicians seems to be akin to “articulate” for black people — even if people say you possess this quality it only means you’ve passed a test you shouldn’t have had to take in the first place and which has kept most of your peers out of contention.
jelani cobb
Amazing how something this trivial sticks to Warren while Trump's myth of being a self-made millionaire perseveres as a central justification for his presidency.
Andrew L Russ
Female politician:
"Why is she so unlikeable?"
Other female politician:
"How are we supposed to take her seriously?"
You guys aren't slick.
andi zeisler
One major takeaway from the coverage of Elizabeth Warren’s announcement is that the traditional political media sees the Democratic Party’s desire for diversity as “identity politics” and the GOP’s explicit race-based appeal to white men as “nostalgia.”
Dan Pfeiffer
The long-term cost of shutdown is fed government will need to pay more to attract workers understandably reluctant to work for free.The current occupant and our ongoing debacle generally:
Thea Lee
Last 3 Days:
• White man kills 5 women in FL
• White man kills 5 ppl in LA
• White man caught w/plans to mass murder women
• 2 White Men plead guilty to bombing a Mosque and plans to bomb abortion clinic
White House: Give us $7B to stop foreign Brown terrorists.
Qasim Rashid, Esq. @MuslimIQ
When you really look at it and examine this system of pageantry and game theory, it’s not just dehumanizing, it’s unbelievably dangerous to the people affected and poisonous to the health of a society. This is literally killing people and ruining lives. That gamesmanship mentality ensures that each side can declare victory while the actual people who suffered, and continue to suffer despite the reopening, are turned into hostages that can be used as bargaining chips as the political calendar continues. Following the disastrous shutdown so many stories will focus on whether Trump won or lost, but in a functioning society we would be focusing on the personal hardships it caused, the loss of faith, the senseless endangerment in every measure from security to safety.
Jared Yates Sexton
You know what's fun? Talking to your finance director about how long we could make payroll if Medicaid stops paying claims. And whether we're going to have to find a way to cover $45k a month in section 8 payments, too.
@lewismd13
Your nightly reminder that the guy who says he cares about border security more than anything else in the world has enthusiastically kept the agency in charge of border security shut down for 34 days.
Chris Murphy
Republicans have unified control of government for 2 years but don't even come close to passing a border wall, one of Trump's signature priorities. Then they badly lose a midterm in which Trump's attempts to demonize immigrants fail. As Dems are about to take over the House, Trump shuts down the government to demand a border wall. He later claims he has a mandate for the wall, stemming from the 2016 election, despite the midterm results and polls showing both the wall and the shutdown are highly unpopular.
Nate Silver
Donald Trump succeeded in his promise to run the government like his businesses - bankrupt them, shut them down, and not pay its workers.
Jerome Haig
It’s amazing that the same ideological camp who believe that taxing rich people is theft think making working class people work for free is volunteerism.
Joy Reid
A simple fact: there's no evidence whatsoever that Trump wants the U.S. government open. Ever. Nothing he has done in the last two months is something you would do if you wanted the government you preside over to exist as an ongoing operation. He's spitting on his Oath of Office.
Seth Abramson
Any story or comment on the government shutdown is misleading if it doesn’t mention that the border wall will never actually be built, that the wall is impossible to build, and that experts agree if it were to be built, and it won’t and it can’t, it wouldn’t even work.
Jared Yates Sexton
According to Lindsey Graham, the President failing to condemn neo-nazis, forcing thousands of federal workers to go to food pantries,and risking all their credit scores is whatever, but not letting the President march down the House Floor until we pay people first is “a new low.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
More than a month into the Trump Shutdown, millions are in financial distress, the FBI is hobbled, the IRS is understaffed, air traffic controllers are overtired from working a second job, but Oleg Deripaska is hundreds of millions richer and China just gave Ivanka 5 new trademarks.
The Daily Edge
GOP doesn't care about public disapproval as a result of the shutdown, and aren't concerned about being voted out as a result of disapproval. This means that (yet again) people need to examine election integrity. GOP are acting like a party which believes people have no leverage.
Sarah Kendzior
It is so strange to me that much of the press is framing the shutdown as a stand off between two sides who need to compromise when only one of those sides is actually demanding anything and the other has already voted to reopen the government with no strings attached.
@jbouie
modern conservatism is thinking taxes are slavery but making people work for free to collect them is not
@supersloth
If we've learned anything from the current shutdown and the Malheur occupation, it's that the idea that unregulated private citizens can be better stewards of public land is complete and utter bullshit.
Andrew Thaler
Of all the problems facing our country right now it's good that we are focused on the most pressing urgent one of them all ::double checks notes:: building a giant wall to keep out people of color.
Tom Tomorrow
Ok freeze Robert Mercers assets. He owes $7B in taxes. Use his money and build a wall. Then jail him for tax evasion.
@southofwyoming
For those folks who "want their country back," are they saddened by the decline in violent crime?
Lance Cameron
Trump cites three murders by illegal immigrants and declares a national crisis. Over 1.5 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer in 2019 and 1 out of 5 of them don't have health coverage and he couldn't care less.
Devin Duke
If I could condense the nearly six-hundred-year-old history of racist ideas down to three words, they would be animals, humans, and walls. We were animals. They were humans. The “humans” build “walls” to protect themselves from the “animals.”
Ibram X. Kendi
Mugger: Give me $2 million.
Jogger: I don't have $2 million.
Mugger: *shoots jogger*
AP Fact Check: It takes two to tango.
Dave Hogg
FAKE emergency:
-Southern border crisis
REAL emergencies:
-Climate crisis
-Rising CO2
-Fossil fuel industry dominance
-War on facts
-Migrant children in cages
-Gun violence
-Unpaid federal workers
-National debt
-Healthcare costs
Christine Arena
For generations now the GOP has manufactured one moral or security crisis after another to scare voters. It’s all but halted progress and has cost so many lives.
Jared Yates Sexton
Today Trump claimed he will seize large swaths of land from private citizens at gunpoint and declare a “state of emergency” to build a wall without Congressional approval. In the face of tyranny, Republicans are outraged ... by a freshman Member of Congress using profanity.
Renato Mariotti
The GOP saying Democrats don’t care about border security because they won’t pay for the wall is like grandpa saying you don’t care about grandma’s health because you won’t let him use her insulin money to pay for a witch doctor to treat her diabetes
Andy Richter
If you'd told me in high school social studies class circa 1976 the America 2019 would be like the fall of the Roman Empire, I wouldn't have believed you. Nuclear war, maybe, but not this.Immigration (separate from the wall) was pretty quiet:
Pat Thompson @pattho
The damage [Trump] and his administration cause will last for decades. He's a sociopath backed by a transnational crime syndicate. Every day they spend in the highest echelons of power with access to intel and arms puts the world at risk. It's way beyond partisanship or bad policies.
Sarah Kendzior
Call me crazy but, as genuinely awful as Maduro is, I don't have a ton of faith that Donald Trump, Elliott Abrams (!) and John Bolton playing a very aggressive cold-war style hand are going to make life better for Venezuelans.
Chris Hayes
It’s amazing to watch trumpites become absolutely livid over the common humiliations of criminal justice in America, but *exclusively* when they’re applied to rich white guys who work for trump
Adam Serwer
I’m not an expert by any means but my understanding of Latin American history is US-backed coups always lead to the emergence of stable democracy and the reason Venezuela doesn’t have that is we’ve never tried one there before.
Matthew Yglesias
Recall that during the Obama administration we were constantly told he could not address racism or other issues impacting African-Americans because he had to be the "president of all Americans." Now the media narrative is often about what Trump must do to please his base, rest of us be damned.
Bree Newsome Bass
Not every president has the political genius to drive home to every last voter in America that his most feared political opponent wanted to meet troops in a war zone that he himself had been too frightened to visit
David Frum
NEW: T-Mobile inked a merger that needs Trump Admin’s OK. Next day: Nine T-Mobile execs had reservations about Trump hotel
David Fahrenthold
a big part of why trump happened is the mainstream media being "bored" with normal politicians, especially democrats. people like obama and clinton "bored" them because they were focused on policy and important stuff. same reason they loved palin so much.
Oliver Willis
Something to keep in mind, not only was Kellyanne Conway strategist for “legitimate rape” candidate Todd Akin, she also was a paid consultant/strategist to racist congressman Steve King.
Matthew Dowd
Reminder that Steve Mnuchin is one of few people to profit massively off the Madoff Ponzi scheme. They will crash the economy to make money off it. It's what they do. It's what Trump did and what his idol Carl Icahn did. Loot and redistribute.
Sarah Kendzior
FACT: During his entire presidential campaign, Trump was actively pursuing building a tower in Moscow while publicly claiming he had absolutely no business in Russia. And the Russians knew it.
Judd Legum
Remember when a president was forced to resign because his re-election committee got carried away and broke into a filing cabinet? That was adorable.
Bess Kalb
There are so many people keeping their heads down now -- when they could actually make a f'ing difference -- who will emerge when Trump is gone to rend garments, feign introspection, and rediscover the "true conservatism" of sanctimonious plutocracy. Feh. Feh, I tell you.
David Roberts
Important to recognize: Trump is unpopular and the far right is unpopular. Their ideas seem more prevalent than they are because of the class nature of those ideas, and because of media sensationalism.
Kate Griffiths
Kind of astonishing to see both the US and UK governments light their own houses on fire based on some vague paranoid fear that someone else might want to come in
Katie Mack
Trump is very obviously flailing and lost and losing. Doesn’t mean he’ll lose: His shamelessness and narcissism uniquely equips him to endure humiliation longer than almost anyone. But let’s be clear about the politics at this moment.
Chris Hayes
Here is the brutal reality: because Barack Obama did not disparage, degrade or threaten TV networks, or call them the enemy of the people, they were perfectly content to deny him airtime for his immigration address. Because Trump did all of those things, they were intimidated. Oy
Norman Ornstein (commenting on the networks' decision to air Trump's vapid Oval Office speech)
When you look at American history it’s a tide that shifts between crisis and stability. In moments of stability progress comes to forefront, but by artificially creating crises the GOP has effectively stayed the moments of reflection and instituted war-time austerity.
Jared Yates Sexton
It’s really something how we’ve all become inured to having a president who literally cannot utter a single coherent and truthful sentence
@speechboy71
Sometimes I think about how there are probably unbelievable scandals and abuses of power we won’t hear about until after this administration is gone and it’s too much.
Jared Yates Sexton
Paul Ryan leaves office with a 12% approval rating. I’d call that “unlikeable,” but you won’t find a single mainstream media article discussing that even once over the past decade.
Kaivan Shroff
Verified History is going to be incredibly unkind to Paul Ryan, who’ll be judged for his cruelty and capitulation to Trump. He’ll be the face of a Republican Party that sold out completely and still failed to achieve.
Jared Yates Sexton
The lesson across the world is clear: fix the corruption, or you get anti-corruption populists (like Trump, Bolsonaro (Brazil), Orbán (Hungary), Kaczyński (Poland)). Incentive enough?
Lessig
The reason Trump gets along so well with Christian Right leaders is that he is a con man and they are also con men.
Ian Millhiser
Folks who scream "Assimilate!" always mean "I wish you were white!" Children of immigrants have a 100% assimilation rate. They will change your country, and your own kids will assimilate to it, too. Just like you grew up eating pizza and not rutabaga. America, bitch.Who could forget the MAGA boy confrontation with Native American veteran Nathan Phillips at the Lincoln Memorial and its aftermath:
Slava Malamud
Instead of assimilation, maybe new immigrants should do what the first immigrants to this land did and KILL EVERYONE WITHOUT CONSCIENCE.
Hari Kondabolu
the key to understanding the power of immigration among conservatives is that it's an issue which lets them express coded racist sentiments and hatred of minorities in a way that's validated by the mainstream press rather than excoriated.
Michael T Sweeney
"he's just a boy, he's stupid, he didn't know it was racist so he can't be held accountable" eventually becomes "he's an old man, he's from another time, we just have to wait for his ideas to die out and not hold him accountable in the meantime"Which relates more widely to racism, white supremacy, and police brutality:
@kokobutterfly0
Part of the thing about putting black paint all over your face is that whatever your intentions are, other people are going to see it and think "Wow. Blackface. Gross." And if you know that, and you do it anyway, because you're okay with that response? Guess what? It's blackface.
Angus Johnston @studentactivism
I watched every videos I can find, and none of them make those kids seem any less racist or antagonistic toward native people and women. Hell of a PR firm though.
Science Mike @mikemchargue
Donald Trump came in defense of the MAGA kids faster than offering condolences to the Parkland students who survived a mass shooting.
Tony Posnanski
I feel like in the hubbub of who started what and why a kid made a mean face we aren’t talking about the fact that a private religious school schlepped students across the country to protest choice and if the GOP had their way, our tax dollars would provide vouchers for that.
carin mrotz
If you’re still wearing a maga hat after Charlottesville, and baby cages, and Muslim ban, and trans military ban, and using “Pocahontas” as an insult...then yea, people are going to assume some things about you
Andrew Lawrence
The idea that white kids should be excused for mocking an Omaha elder because a totally different group of people from a different minority were yelling at them is the most white supremacist idea of the year so far.
@KatzOnEarth
It’s almost as if any Native presence is a threat to the legitimacy of what is currently known as the United States. It’s so strange to me (this happened during #NoDAPL too) how white folks can see the same photos and videos I do of peaceful Native actions and read violence.
Dr. Adrienne Keene @NativeApprops
Native Americans aren’t community service projects.
Lakota Law Project
weird how the president's signature hat became the racism uniform
Simon Maloy
It's never not gonna be wild to me how fast white folks will forgive other white folks for racism, as if the forgiveness was theirs to offer in the first place.
@andraydomise
How racially charged does something have to be before it qualifies as racist? Does it have to be more than 50% racially charged or something? Is it a battery?There were lots of tweets about new Congress members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (whether dancing or talking about marginal tax rates) and Rashida Tlaib (who wants to impeach Trump and doesn't care how she says so):
Bree Newsome Bass
If you don’t understand why identity matters in politics it’s probably because politics already represents your identity.
feminist next door @emrazz
you know who else didn't do a great job assimilating? anyone flying the confederate flag in the united states of america.
Molly Priddy
In Illinois, 62 percent of black households rent, compared with 27 percent of white households. So apartment bans -- single family only zoning (common in the suburbs) -- serve as a tool of racial exclusion.
Angie Schmitt
So please stop saying: "Well my black or brown friend at work doesn't think I'm racist." She does. She just talks about you behind your back and does what she has to do to survive at work. White ladies: You know how you trash talk your husbands behind their backs but then go and do what you need to do to survive at home. Same thing happens with women of color when dealing with you.
saira rao
The central issue folks don't want to confront in ending racism is the reality that white American identity in particular has always been organized around the exclusion of others and serves no functional purpose outside of that. It is a culture of theft, slavery and genocide
Bree Newsome Bass
Being a citizen of a Native community has nothing to do with DNA (or blood), although it feels like it should + other stuff. Being Indigenous has something to do with DNA + something else(?) Being “American Indian” has everything to do with a relationship with the US government.
@BigIndianGyasi
"Whites are as likely to be millionaires as they are to have zero negative net worth. It's just a much more well distributed wealth scenario than Latinos or blacks, who are much more likely to hold no assets than to be millionaires."
Pacific Standard
After 400 years of slavery and racial apartheid systems, it's time to stop framing racism as something that 1) we aren't certain exists 2) can't be objectively identified and named
Bree Newsome Bass
Whites living in predominantly white areas are 50% more likely to die from murder, guns, drugs than diverse areas.
Samuel Sinyangwe
I know this is largely rhetorical, but it connects to the whole "x percent of people can't be racist" thing, the idea that racism is defined in part by its extremism relative to what people think the center is. The power centers, they insist, cannot be racist. Only the fringe.
Linda Holmes
"if lots of americans believe x, x cannot be racist" is one of the foundational axioms of the popular understanding of racism in this country
@theshrillest
'racially tinged' is when a Klan member washes their robes with other red clothes and everything comes out pink
@GeeDee215
"We've become so obsessed with race" says the person who would never buy a ticket to a movie starring a black woman, who has never read a black author, who has never been to a black history museum or taken a black history course
"We've become so obsessed with race" says a person who lives in an all white neighborhood, worships at an all white church, has never had a black teacher, principal, college dean or college president.
"We've become so obsessed with race" says person who will never have their race used against them when applying for a mortgage, asking for a business loan, or even attempting to deposit a large amount of money into their own bank account
Kaitlyn Greenidge @surlybassey
WE, those of us who are the recipients of the hate spewed by Spencer and his ilk, never for a second thought it was non-violent. There is no such thing as non-violent racial supremacy. Wanting to cleanse a race of people is a violent thought even if you say it nicely.
@thedivuh
2019 marks the 400th year since enslaved Africans were brought here, before this was even a country. Black people have only had any semblance of full citizenship for about 50 yrs. I don't think the public always grasps the enormity of state-sanctioned oppression on that timeline.
Clint Smith
Black parents be like: "I beat you so cops won't kill you."
2013: 7 black kids killed by cops, 375 killed by parents
2014: 5 black kids killed by cops, 359 by parents
2015: 5 black kids killed by cops, 368 by parents
2016: 6 black kids killed by cops, 401 by parents
Stacey Patton
This explains so much. So. Much. Like folks who think discrimination against Irish was same as slavery. Folks who oppose affirmative action. Folks who think white people are the most discriminated against. Folks who think our biggest problem is class not race. On and on.
Ida Bae Wells @nhannahjones (responding to a survey that found Americans vastly under-estimate inequality in the U.S., particularly racial disparities)
I can never accept or believe that those who colonized, tortured, killed and forced my ancestors into slavery are now looking out for Africa's best interests and fighting for my rights.
@thandebelequeen
I'm always astounded by children's book writers who will insist on the power of story up to the point where someone suggests stories can perpetuate racism, and then suddenly they are just meaningless trifles. Thank you for all of this.
Anne Ursu
Cable news (CNN, Fox News, MSNBC) covered Rep. Rashida Tlaib's 'impeach the motherfucker' comments 5 times more than they covered Rep. Steve King's embrace of white supremacy. Fox News had *74* times more coverage of Tlaib than King. Cable news is broken.Which segues perfectly into the usual round-up about sexism, misogyny, and toxic masculinity:
Lis Power
amazing to me that we had a week-long controversy over a congresswoman saying “motherf***er” when steve king is just hanging out in congress as an open white supremacist
@jbouie
Imagine being a political columnist who could write about literally any topic you wanted and, given everything going on in American politics these days, you decided to write about how a woman member of Congress used a swear word.
Nate Silver
Lying should be a greater source of shame then cursing
Xeni Jardin
Please don't dance and cuss. It sets a bad example for the babies in our concentration camps.
Brian McFadden
There is lots of footage of Trump cursing, so yes, he is a hypocrite. But if he never used a profanity, and spoke using only the most elegant language, he'd still be a racist monster who puts children in concentration camps.
Frank Conniff
yeah cuz a young dancing woman is way more scary than a sexual predator being nominated to the supreme court or, you know, a misogynist president who grabs pussies.
Lidia Yuknavitch
It is SHOCKING how refreshing and noticeably different from the usual waffly wishy-washy language AOC’s calling out of misogyny and sexist double standards are. Like, you don’t realize how used we’ve all gotten to the blandness of political language until someone abandons it.
Sarah Mackey
what they are doing to AOC is not just designed to shame her. it is designed to shame all young women into thinking they should not/could not run for office—that old videos or pictures or rumors of them would surface, that they could never dress/act/speak unimpeachably enough...
zoe kazan
Please, more Democratic Congress people like AOC, Tlaib. Seems obvious the more they freak out Republicans over cussing or high taxes on rich, they eat up a finite conservative freak cycle and leave them less time to freak about refugee caravans, transgender in bathrooms or corp. regulations
kar nels
Just confirming with the GOP: dancing bad; grabbing by the pussy good?
Jill Filipovic
If you're upset by what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did in high school, wait until you find out about Brett Kavanaugh.
@BrooklynSpoke
If you're female, don't dance while high school if you want to be taken seriously as a politician.
If you're male, be a sexual predator or a pedophile while in office and still be taken seriously as a politician.
-magats, basically
Randi Mayem Singer
[man helps woman’s career]Climate change and sustainable cities:
She slept her way to the top.
[man helps man’s career]
That’s just the way the world works.
[woman helps man’s career]
He became successful completely on his own. A real go-getter. A self-made man.
[woman helps woman’s career]
She only did that because they’re both women. She should’ve helped the most qualified person regardless of gender. She just hates men. STOP VOTING WITH YOUR VAGINAS, LADIES!
The Volatile Mermaid @OhNoSheTwitnt
Men: Not all men sexually harass how DARE you use a generic plural in discussing a widespread problem affecting nearly half of working women!
Also men: My friend told me about his friend’s friend’s coworker who was falsely accused of harassment so I refuse to work with any women
feminist next door @emrazz
Have you ever noticed how women are ostracized for having or enjoying a lot of sex but men will use getting none as a reason to hate us.
feminist next door @emrazz
When channeling voter anger at the status quo is an asset for GOP, especially men, but a liability for Democrats, especially women. Trump in ‘16 and Tea Party candidates in ‘10 and ’14 are credited for being in touch with voter rage. What’s with the double standard?
Jon Reinish
It's kinda funny how the same people that call us snowflakes for not wanting to be shot in school can be this mad at a razor.
David Hogg (responding to backlash against the Gillette ad about toxic masculinity)
If “hey, be nice and don’t rape” is oppression, my advice to you is: WOWWW DO NOT EVER ACTUALLY BE OPPRESSED BECAUSE YOU FOR SURE COULD NOT HANDLE IT.
Dave Holmes
James Watson, who shared a Nobel for his work on DNA, is being stripped of his honors for his oft-stated white supremacist views. In the early 60s, he was also well known for harassing young women, me once among them. Why do these common forms of assholery so often go together?
Barbara Ehrenreich
“Black women do not have to earn feminism. If anything, feminism should be earning Black women.” –Tressie McMillam Cotton
@natalieisonline
I love the exciting moment at a gender reveal party when you find out if the baby will be a boy or if it’ll be unlikable
Jess Dweck
Hillary wins the popular vote by 3 million votes and everybody tells her to go away.
Romney loses in 2012 by 5 million votes, is handed a senate seat, and one wishy-washy op-ed puts him back on top? White male privilege is alive and well.
@MrFilmkritik
Powerful women are, by definition, never "likable." Female "likability" is all about subservience. There are time-honored ways for male pols to feign niceness. And the bad boy thing also works for men. But nothing works for women because misogyny runs too deep...
Karrie Jacobs
"UCLA students call about 11,000 Uber and Lyft rides that never leave campus every week, raising concerns about the environmental impact of unnecessary trips."Income and wealth inequality, taxing wealth, capitalism, and its alternatives:
Jessica Roberts
What happened when Oslo made its downtown car-free? Residents hated it and demanded the city bring cars back! Ha ha jk no one ever, ever, ever wants cars back once they're gone.
David Roberts
“0.5% of Dutch cyclists wear helmets. They’ve ultimately decided it’s far more important to build this culture of everyday cycling, and to build safe streets, instead of requiring people to protect themselves.” —David Roberts
Modacity
If we raised income taxes in Minnesota by an average of $100, or taxed the top 10% earners an average of $1000 more a year, we could make public transit fares free. Metro transit gets less that $100 mil from fares, and it is by far the largest transit provider.
bill_mk
What if - and hear me out on this - what if we had the ability to produce endless renewable energy right here in the U.S. and all we had to do was not spend all our money on the military
feminist next door @emrazz
One of the stranger things about municipal politics is the strong correlation between not liking the city and not wanting it to change
Adam Miller
Imagine if we turned off cars to prevent drunk people from driving them home from bars. 10,000 people die every year in the U.S. due to impaired drivers.
@transitrunner (responding to news that Austin, Texas, will turn off Bird scooters after midnight to prevent drunk people from using them)
I'm sure this child agrees:
Don Kostelec
In my opinion, the problems Uber and Lyft create for transit agencies would best be solved by adding taxes and fees to Uber and Lyft that help reduce/internalize their large negative social costs. (Congestion, emissions, social stratification, etc.) The thing we shouldn't do is perceive it to mean that transit agencies should be more like Uber and Lyft, as in catering to wealthy people and offering less efficient, higher cost, higher emissions services.
Angie Schmitt
Every time a reporter talks about huge oil reserves without mentioning climate change they are misreporting the story.
Nick @WallaNWalla
Ever notice how hard it is to start a conversation about the end of the world as we’ve known it? Are we all in denial or have we just seen the movie too many times?
Barbara Ehrenreich
In 2020, merely acknowledging the reality of climate change is not enough. Nor is just cheering clean energy. Nor is support for science. We need leaders ready to recognize this planetary crisis, talk about it as a crisis, and demand the headlong zero-carbon revolution we need. In 2020, if bold climate regulations and standards, a huge push for zero-carbon systems and cities (including 100% clean energy) + a major program to rebuild America to face the planetary crisis aren't at the core of candidates' agendas, they're probably not really on their agendas. And if preventing the collapse of civilization and propelling America into a better future aren't at the core of their agenda now, it's worth asking whether they're actually prepared to lead the U.S. through this worsening crisis.
Alex Steffen
This is the best time to be alive in history for a person who believes that it’s the best time to be alive in history and doesn’t mind the planet being uninhabitable relatively soon.
Anand Giridharadas
"Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people, to give them hope. But I don't want your hope," 16-year-old Greta Thunberg said, "I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act [on climate change]."
MPR News
It seems into the weeds, but financing/banking for the climate change fight is critical. Our city, state infrastructure projects double in cost due to interest/bond cost. Public financing can double the good we can do.
kar nels
In Tokyo parking is not allowed in streets and public spaces. Car storage is private. Thats it!
Alexander Ståhle @StockholmCyclo
Highways are fossil fuel infrastructure.
Parking garages are fossil fuel infrastructure.
Gas stations are fossil fuel infrastructure.
It's ... not just pipelines.
No cities can claim to lead on climate without rethinking the role these play.
Streetsblog USA
Single family zoning is fossil fuel infrastructure.
Rob Harrison
All wealth on earth has been generated without paying for the environmental services of the earth, notably the oceans and the atmosphere. That debt is now being called in. There is every reason why major funding for the Energy Transition should come from a wealth tax.
CarbonActionNow!
By the way, #WhateverItTakes is the best hashtag for climate action in 2019 there could possibly be. "Whatever it takes" is definitely what time it is, friends.
Alex Steffen
One of transit’s big advantages is the efficient use of urban space. The parking garage in the background stores 890 cars. The bus route in the foreground carries 6,200 round trips on an average weekday.
Christof Spieler
What important issues would early a.m. TV news cover if car commuters switched to transit? Everything's about driving--weather, traffic reports, live video, commentary.
Mary Morse Marti
Whenever I go to the Mall of America, I am reminded again that people really will walk literally miles in a day if you give them a bunch of options for food, shopping, and entertainment that are all close together and easy to get to. Hmmmm
elizabeth lorraine
Just watched a person w/ limited mobility hobble across a 6-lane street against the light. They were afraid of missing the approaching bus w/ 45 min headways after waiting for the walk sign for over 3 minutes. Our transportation system puts our lives at risk in so many ways.
Erin Brewster
"scooter operators paid around 22 cents per mile to use Portland streets (the per-ride city surcharge was 25 cents and the average ride length was 1.1 miles). Car drivers ... pay a combined state and city gas tax of two cents per mile."
Nathan McNeil
Cars have created a public health crisis for decades (40,000 Americans killed by drivers in 2017) even before we knew of climate change. Yet we can barely utter the phrase “gas tax” without getting into hysterics.
@anton612
In a world where people have to deal with racism, inequality, and resurgent fascism, the notion that climate science is uniquely depressing is... weird
Kate Marvel
"I’m not going to tell you your choice is fundamentally wrong. I’m going to point out that your choice is being subsidized by me, who’s paying more taxes and using less infrastructure." –Brent Toderian
@_The_Clearing
Just a daily reminder that we are hurtling towards an ecological apocalypse that could be addressed by government and corporations if they chose but they would much rather squeeze another few dollars out of this broken economy and then see if colonizing mars could save them
Kaitlyn Greenidge @surlybassey
Davos: Climate change is the biggest and most urgent threat to the global economy and time is running out for us to take bold action to prevent humanity's destruction.
Also Davos: That Bolsonaro guy sounds great, we could probably make a killing by investing there.
Eric Holthaus
In Butte, Montana the bus system is free. We are a consolidated city/county with less than 34k citizens. If we can afford it so can others.
Kate Martin @K810Mt
Transportation continues to pollute heavily in Minnesota. The hierarchy of responses should be 1) non-motorized 2) shared/mass 3) electric. If you dare tell me otherwise you must show your work on the board.
Mary Morse Marti
Climate change is the most urgent, most important threat we face. There can be no economy on a dead planet.
Eric Holthaus
This is completely stupid. We have ~twice as many people getting killed every year walking somewhere than we do dying in fires in America. We have thousands and thousands of firefighters. But basically no one getting paid to protect pedestrians.
Angie Schmitt
I think it is worth repeating it... "People will drive, even when they know they will be stuck in traffic they will drive. They won't drive if they know they won't have a place to park. That shows you the power of parking." –BrentToderian
Julio Arauz
Opposition to bike lanes and road narrowing might drop if we had speeding cameras. How much of bike lane opposition is really just “I want to drive really fast but can’t say that directly”?
Zachary Wefel
I have shared this before, but given the prevalence of the “you scientists are just in it for the money” meme, this is worth highlighting again. There is a name for this type of argument; it is called PROJECTING.
Katharine Hayhoe
Dear everyone: there is no functional difference between "I don't think climate change is happening," and "I don't think it's caused by humans," and "I believe climate change is real and caused by humans but I oppose government action to address it." There is similarly no functional difference between supporting government action to fight climate change in theory but opposing any particular policy that does that, and opposing all government action to fight climate change.
Robin Garwood
Let's commit to never let the lazy attack that “public transit is subsidized” go unchallenged. Transit IS publicly paid for, as public services are, but with an impressive resulting return on investment, and actual public cost savings. It’s driving that’s massivel subsidized.
Brent Toderian
The whole idea that bold, rapid climate action comes with dire costs is only barely kind-of true if we:
a) refuse to count the catastrophic costs of inaction;
b) treat young people's futures as worthless;
c) ignore the huge prosperity gains to be won building a better economy.
Alex Steffen
lol at everyone thinking we have 2 years to spend debating the stupid personality differences among presidential candidates instead of figuring out how to decarbonize the economy as quickly as humanly possible
Kate Aronoff
People take public transportation for all kinds of reasons. But here's one you don't hear often: it's *literally* 10 times safer than driving.
Strong Towns
I sorta get why environmental agencies don't want to touch this transportation stuff. When you start talking about the problems that result from normal stuff like the use of Uber and Lyft, and SUVs and a lot of other normal stuff, people feel attacked.
Angie Schmitt
According to Senator Whitehouse, 60 of the 70 billion dollars spent by conservative interests to keep the U.S. Senate in Republican hands was connected to fossil fuel interests. They bought the U.S. Senate to block climate action.
Michael E. Mann
Focusing our attention on the losses suffered by those who own, manage or work in high-carbon industries — while ignoring the catastrophic harm those owners, managers and workers have done and continue to do to others — is a form of climate denialism.
Alex Steffen
There are 8 utility-scale coal-fired power plants in Colorado, providing about 40% of the state’s electricity. New research shows that the state could save $2.5 billion through 2040 by rapidly shutting them down.
David Roberts
"I'm really worried that electric scooters are making our streets unsafe":
Peter Flax
“A study from the University of California, San Diego found every life saved in a large vehicle came at the expense of 4.3 dead pedestrians, motorcyclists and car drivers.”
Martyn Schmoll
If we ever figured out how to make people worry about climate change as much as they worry about being called racist then maybe we could save our planet.
Clint Smith
There is enough land for lots of solar. There are enough golf courses in the US for about 370GW, ffs.
Jenny Chase @solar_chase
Every negative comment about every proposed policy to fight climate change: "I support your goals and we all really care about the environment, I just oppose [whatever concrete intervention being discussed that will have a direct impact of any kind on me]."
Robin Garwood
Marie Kondo but she helps cities get rid of cars.
Bicycle Lobby
In 2019, we should only accept government + corporate proclamations of lofty climate goals (e.g., "zero carbon by 2050") if those goals are launched with sets of action steps that can get us real, measurable + increasing cuts by 2020, 2025 and 2030. Cuts now, not plans for later
Alex Steffen
This is a car anyone in America is allowed to drive at any time on any street, The hood is ~5 feet above the ground, meaning drivers are unable to see any child (or for that matter many adults and elderly folks) walking in front it. Is this what we want?
@TheInfiniteSky
"Cities are meant to stop traffic. That is their point. That is why they are there. That is why traders put outposts there, merchants put shops there, hoteliers erect inns there. Rationally one wants to have traffic *stop* there, not go *through*." —Kirkpatrick Sale
Taras Grescoe
So when I see people who express admiration for something like the abolition of slavery, but who turn around and say that something like The Green New Deal is unrealistic, it seems to demonstrate a lack of understanding of how meaningful social change has ever happened in the country.
Clint Smith
Cyclists with iPods (headphones) hear the same as motorists in cars with the windows up listening to nothing.
SharkDancing
The plan:
Keep subsidising fossil fuels
Keep cutting down trees
Keep wiping out insects
Keep eating meat dairy and fish
Keep resource wars
Keep patriarchy
Keep money in politics
Keep a eurocentric view
Keep tax evasion/avoidance
Keep growth
Invest in new technologies
Go extinct
@ClimateBen
The movement to end parking minimums is gaining momentum. And for good reason: requiring excessive parking can keep an otherwise-great place from flourishing.
Strong Towns
Have you ever noticed that free market conservative think tank noobs love free lanes for cars because their real ideology is rich white guy identity politics and highways are crucial to allowing them to avoid "others" at all times?
Angie Schmitt
The greatest achievement by climate change deniers has been fooling the science communication community into wasting much time, effort and resources on an unmovable fringe constituency--time, effort and resources that would have better been spent bringing along the "confused middle" and concerned.
Michael E. Mann
Quick and dirty analysis, but the U.S. has about 18,000 miles of urban interstate freeway, most of which was built in the '50s and '60s. Really wish we weren't on autopilot to spend hundreds of billions to reproduce the planet-killing status quo
@scttdvd
Some people because of physical limitations or age can't drive cars. But that didn't stop us from building a transportation system that caters to them almost exclusively.
Angie Schmitt
We spend millions trying to shave seconds off a car commute time but think nothing of making people wait two minutes to cross the street at a light as a pedestrian.
Joe Nickol
Producing 225 grams of beef (one burger) causes as much greenhouse gas to be emitted as driving 55 gasoline-powered cars for 1 mile #reasons2bveg
@Melru_p
I'll never forget something Frances Fox Piven once said to me. In the U.S., elites/policymakers think that rich and poor are different species with different ways of being: the first respond only to incentives and promise, the second only to threats and punishment.Education:
corey robin
According to the prevailing ideology in the American business world, if an already profitable company can increase its annual profits by $0.01 by laying off thousands of workers, it is not only permissible but *obligatory* to do the layoffs.
Matthew Yglesias
We have long been gaslit on what taxes are. It's not a confiscation of resources. It's a fee for making use of the republic. You're free to take whatever deal the republic offers at any given moment in time -- or decide that it's not for you. And let's test the poker faces of those who say they would leave, taking precious capital with them. If you find such taxes too high, by all means emigrate. America has brighter prospects without you than you have without America. My humble amendment to plans by Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to restore higher taxes on the rich: These taxes are really tolls for making use of a great country. If you can prove you've never benefited from its roads, teachers, troops, laws, airports, and more, you are exempt.
Anand Giridharadas
Media: why is AOC so popular?
People: her politics are popular
Media: social media?
People: no, her politics of unafraid socialism
Media: it’s cuz she young n hot
People: s o c i a l i s m
Media: we may never know
matthew miles goodrich
I will say it again till I have no words:
Generosity is not a substitute for justice.
Making a difference does not erase your sins in making a killing.
Doing a little good doesn’t excuse doing tremendous harm.
A side hustle of virtue does not compensate for workaday cruelty.
Anand Giridharadas
I propose a new law that anyone who publicly talks about US taxes in a way that does not incorporate the reality of marginal tax rates is then subsequently taxed wholly at the maximum rate for their income. Since they apparently believe that's the way it works anyway.
John Scalzi
You've got to hand it to capitalism, convincing everyone that "freedom" meant obeying your boss or starving was a pretty incredible achievement.
Existential Comics
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is succeeding because she's realized people are tired of fighting over inches of territory and that the only way to create giant change is to acknowledge that giant change is possible.
Jared Yates Sexton
Marginal federal tax rates don't tell us what people actually pay, or what's happening with state + local income taxes. For that, we need to look at *effective* tax rates. If we do, we see US has a mildly progressive individual income tax for bottom 90%, and a flat tax for the rich:
Stephen Pimpare
If you believe in the right of a nation in distress to conscript young people as soldiers, some inevitably losing limb or life in defense of the nation, then the idea that we can’t tax the wealthy up to 100 percent is ludicrous. The system survives only as long as we comply.
@hawksrob
Hennepin County jail survey. 88% can't afford bail. 71% facing a non-violent charge. Majority making less than $20k.
@WedgeLIVE
Republicans want you to be more freaked out by the freak possibility that you might have to pay a 70% tax on income over $10 million than the certitude that someone you love will go broke from cancer.
LOLGOP
The federal government is supposed to pay 40% of special education costs. Currently, they pay just 8% -- leaving Minnesota with an $800 million (and growing) funding gap that is devastating districts big and small. This must change. #mnlegHealth care:
Education Minnesota
James Loewen reminds us that high school history is often more about instilling blind patriotism than teaching critical analysis. Even the textbooks have titles like "Land of Promise" or "Rise of the American Nation." Whereas chemistry texts are rarely called "Rise of the Molecule."
Alfie Kohn
Think of all the BS the rationalization “we need to prepare kids for adult life” protects in school: Following rules, doing things ya don’t want to do, being bored, hating your job and more.
@Sisyphus38
“Why is it clear to us that it's degrading and objectifying to measure and rank a girl’s physical body on a numeric scale, but we think it’s perfectly okay to measure and rank her mind that way?” –Carol Black
Alfie Kohn
“Data” has to be one of the worst things to happen to education, turning kids into a commodity, and essentially devaluing them as people. So many bad decisions/programs are made in the name of “improving data”
@MrsKBruck
There's a difference between wanting to read any given text out of genuine curiosity and not wanting to be someone who did not learn how to read because of a fear to be left behind, to be excluded, or even to be mistreated.
Isabel Rodríguez @ecomentario
Today I learned that Nat King Cole, Redd Foxx, Dinah Washington, and Bo Diddley all had the same high school music teacher - Mr. Walter Dyett. Astonishing the impact one educator can have.
Saladin Ahmed
At 18 they can take out student loans, live on their own away from home, and enlist in the military. At 17 we can't trust them to go to the bathroom without asking.
Nick Covington
It's important to emphasize that medicare for all has a much lower per-insured-person cost than our current system and any other alternatives being proposed, meaning if you do not think we can afford it, you also think we cannot afford to insure everyoneAnd finally, there's the best of the rest:
Matt Bruenig
When billionaires say, “We could never afford Medicare for all,” they really mean, “Don’t take more of my money [so poor people don’t die].” We’re the richest country in history and dozens of other countries already have single payer health care.
@maxberger
There’s a whole genre of Reddit posts where teens ask how to get vaccinated without their parents consenting. Just. Just so you know, that’s a thing.
Andrea Phillips
Two very bad ideas:
1) Tying schools to real estate
2) Tying health insurance to employment
Emily Hamilton
Graffiti is best when it has a sense of humor:
@mighty_flynn
"bridging the conservative/liberal divide so we won't be conservative or liberal anymore, we'll all just agree and be proud americans" is not only a dumb fantasy, but a bad one. poor people can't afford their insulin while you LARP postwar consensus lol
Elizabeth Bruenig
When privileged people follow marginalized people they/we should be aware of their/our privilege. Social media gives us the unique opportunity to see into communities we don't belong to. That doesn't mean that what is being tweeted is FOR us. What's interesting is that I have other twitter accounts for specific hobbies and then this account that's mostly for disability (and writing) related stuff and the way strangers interact with me is so different here. People are far more demanding to Brooke Winters than they are to my other accounts. And I don't think it's a coincidence. If you tweet about your experience of being marginalized people expect you to educate them and they expect you to be grateful for the chance to do so.
Brooke Winters
white liberalism in a nutshell is the nextdoor post about a lost dog with ~200 comments, offering help and condolences because of the cold snap, while there is zero discourse about how to help people experiencing homelessness this week
@lieholepiehole
ProPublica built a searchable database of political ads on Facebook where you can also see which demographics are being targeted by those ads. So Facebook changed its code to stop it
Mike Rosenberg
Differences in rates of homicides of cops across states are explained not by differences in crime, but by differences in *gun ownership*. In states with more guns, cops are 3x more likely to be murdered than in states with fewer guns. Fewer guns = safer police.
igorvolsky
Solid community involvement will look very different from today's Roberts Rules and long technical presentations-driven meetings. We should not be required to have Masters Degrees in planning to take part in our communities.
Mary Morse Marti
This is your regular reminder that sometimes freakishly huge waves of up to 200 feet tall form in the ocean and break explosively at random times and science has literally no explanation for it and no extant model of wave behavior can explain it.
lymanstoneky
“Tradition” is code for status quo. Status quo protects hegemony.
@Sisyphus38
one true thing i know: even if you can’t imagine living any other way, someday you’re going to.
Tom Tomorrow
Paper cuts are so painful because at a microscopic level paper is quite rough. A knife makes a straight cut, but paper acts like a saw blade and does more damage to nerve endings. Paper also leaves behind tiny fibres, irritating the wound even more:
@Rainmaker1973
"Bad attitude' is often code for "resists oppression."
âpihtawikosisân
The market doesn’t value journalism because the responsibility of journalism is to search for corruption and wrongdoing inside systems of status quo like the market.
Jared Yates Sexton
The right to roam predates all law. Those who oppose it do so for a plethora of reasons, at the core of which is taking.
Chip Mefford
Counterpoint: If your "things" spark joy, maybe you should reconsider what joy means?
@mollypriesmeyer
It is a natural human impulse to enjoy intoxication. Every human society ever has sought out intoxicants. Every. Single. One. To wage war on it is to wage war on human nature.
Johann Hari
Why is it "kill baby Hitler" rather than "make Hitler's mom fall in love with YOU" or "kidnap Hitler's grandpa and strand him in Nepal just before he meets Hitler's grandma"? People lacking in imagination should not have time machines.
Will Wilkinson
What McConnell calls "a naked attempt to change the rules of American politics to benefit one party" is the best summary of exactly what Republicans have been doing for the past decade
Ari Berman (responding to the Democrat's voting rights bill)
Real life duck-rabbit illusion!
Prof Kate Watkins
It isn't disrespectful to your parents to parent your kids differently.
Ashley C. Ford @iSmashFizzle
Republicans: Suggesting Lindsey Graham might be gay is homophobic.
Also Republicans: Natural disasters happen because God gets angry when 2 men kiss.
Fun fact: Gay isn’t an insult. Neither is Muslim yet the GOP accused Obama of being one because they’re fucking bigots.
The Volatile Mermaid @OhNoSheTwitnt
Conservatives, by and large, are not funny, for the simple reason that they only have one form of joke: "hey, those people trying to change things that we are familiar with ... whatta buncha loonies, amirite?" There are only so many variations of that schtick. Tribalism, fear of the unfamiliar, insistence on clear binaries and hierarchies ... all these things are death for creativity. That, not some grand deep-state conspiracy in Hollywood, is why conservatives are rare in creative fields.
David Roberts
I just can't understand your job asking you to put yourself in a financially precarious situation while not offering any real financial security. A job is not a favor. It's a contract. They're not doing something FOR you by giving you the paycheck you earned.
Ashley C. Ford @iSmashFizzle
i think my true most unpopular opinion that I stand by 100% is that almost all true crime about dead people is exploitative and in poor taste. wanna tell a story about fraud? sure! some stuff about sexual crimes can be valuable. but the dead can’t give consent, leave them alone.
@RubyGraceLevine
Our epidemics of depression, anxiety and addiction are signals. They are telling us something is going terribly wrong with how we live. We need to stop insulting the signals and start listening to them
Johann Hari
On MLK Day, here’s a reminder that the United States has a long way to go in the fight for racial and economic justice:
Ro Khanna
Am always baffled when people portray MLK as weak because he was a pacifist. The nonviolent confrontation of violence takes tremendous courage because you submit yourself defenselessly, and your vulnerability places your life in danger. And yet, he did so without hesitation.
Charles M. Blow
The appropriate response to other people’s suffering is not empathy. The appropriate response is solidarity. Empathy may feel good and virtuous, but solidarity gets something done.
Barbara Ehrenreich
Someone set down some empty water bottles:
Faces in Things
At the heart of conservatism lies the belief that there are those the law should protect but not bind, and those it should bind but not protect. It's "freedom." It's just the "for us, not you," that's left unspoken.
Daniel Morning
Be the radical compassionate justice-seeking eco-minded humanitarian decolonizer you wish to see in the world.
Eric Holthaus
I’ve been called a communist my whole life. It never once made me feel like I should become a communist. But I’m told if you mistakenly label a right wing person a fascist, they will become fascist. That’s a surprising difference between being left wing and being right wing!
Jason Stanley
Watching a pro-austerity Tory MP like IDS praising food banks is like watching an arsonist praising the fire brigade
Johann Hari
When cut or damaged, the blue milk mushroom oozes an indigo-coloured, blood-like substance. (Photo: Dan Molter)
Nature Is Weird
Sometimes people don't quite understand what's so important about the public domain. But if we still had the intellectual property laws of 1978, then about 85% of all mass culture produced in the 1980s would be public domain by now. So, most slasher movies. Most 80s music. Stolen from us.
April Daniels
The ‘back’ in horseback riding is probably unnecessary
Matt Thomas
Pop quiz: what are the full health/mortality/morbidity impact of exposure to prison? No one knows! We admit 600,000-700,000 people to prison per year, and we have NO idea what the health costs are. Drugs impacting fewer people face years of trials, billions in costs. But prison? Meh.
John Pfaff
I don't trust people who say, "My door is always open." WHY DO YOU EVEN HAVE A DOOR??
Gavin J Innes
cishet people are really out here acting like respecting queer people's pronouns is hard when literally every stranger who's ever stopped me on a walk has asked whether my dog is a boy or girl before complimenting him
danny nett
My book will be called “The Life-Changing Magic of Just not Buying the Shit in the First Place.”
@babiejenks
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