Tuesday, September 30, 2025

BlueSky, September 2025, Part 2

It just keeps accelerating. 

The last half of September (here's the first half) started with the continued aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting, leading into his hyperreal funeral celebration. In the middle there was news of Tom Homan's bribe-taking and Trump forcing an indictment of James Comey

Trump threatened multiple cities with invasion, ending with threats to Portland. ICE violence continued in Los Angeles and Chicago. And Ezra Klein tried to get right by talking to Ta-Nehisi Coates, but managed to dig himself in deeper.

Oh and I forgot to mention the whole attempt to cancel Jimmy Kimmel. How did that work out?

Near the end of the month, Trump blabbed at the UN and got stuck on an escalator. And then he and Pete Hegseth ended the month with their unhinged speeches in front of all the Pentagon's top military brass, who sat in silence in response.

Everything below the line is quoted from the attributed account and is in reverse chronological order, except some of the images, which I move up or down for better visual balance.

___

I hope it's clear to everyone now that Trump really is going for it - he's trying to become a dictator. I don't know if he'll succeed, but he's working to install himself as an autocrat unaccountable to voters. And he's weaponizing the military against Americans who oppose him as part of that effort
Aaron Rupar

SCOOP — The White House instructed all federal agency leadership on Tuesday to send out a mandatory message to workers blaming the impending potential government shutdown on House Democrats, The Handbasket was first to learn. Absolutely no modifications to the email were permitted.
Marisa Kabas

Hillary Clinton referred to SOME Trump supporters as”deplorable,” and the political media had a meltdown. Trump refers to all Democrats as anti-American radical communists and “the enemy within,” and it’s no big deal. His reckless and dangerous demonization has been fully normalized.
David Corn

Is calling the half of the country that opposes you "bad people" and vowing to use the military power of the state to crush them "doing politics the right way"? I mean, he is up there saying words, trying to persuade!
David Roberts @volts.wtf

Stop invading our cities! There is no grave widespread emergency that warrants sending the National Guard into our cities. Leave us alone:


WOFAVA

In a sane country with competent leadership, the 50 highest-ranking Democrats would call a press conference to denounce what just happened as a threat to the republic and demand Trump's immediate impeachment and removal from office. I don't know he could make his intentions more clear.
Radley Balko

One of the fun things about reading scifi nowadays is that so many books imagine the consequences of runaway climate change - and while I might not live to see interstellar flight, I’ll certainly be around long enough to see if their climate predictions were right!
Alex @mplsalex.bsky.social

“No more climate change worship... We are done with that shit.” Hegseth announces he's going to ignore 40+ years of US defense and intelligence assessments on the real threat of climate change for international security and military operations and bases.
Peter Gleick

I continue to think that one of the reasons this country is falling apart is the wholesale abandonment of public virtue as a broadly shared aspiration. Or even something people should be embarrassed about if they don’t have it.
Ned Resnikoff

we had a brief cultural moment where people had somewhat unrealistic and overreaching standards for performances of morality from public figures, but I much preferred it to this one where public figures are just proudly pieces of shit.
William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social

Reminder: the point of the massive, lavishly funded, decades-long campaign by the right to take over media was not to make the public love Republicans, it was to make the public hate Democrats, so that no matter what Republicans did, it would be forgiven. They know: it won't matter if majorities "disapprove" of Trump on polls. They still believe all the same toxic shit about Democrats. There's nothing a Tough Guy can do bad enough to make it worth voting for a bunch of queers and immigrants and professors. They built themselves immunity. We all stood by and let them.
David Roberts @volts.wtf

NYT/Siena poll confirms what most other polls have shown of late — the country has rejected his "strongman" authoritarian tactics, and he is deeply unpopular:


Simon Rosenberg @simonwdc.bsky.social

every study basically concludes this: 'Hybrid and electric cars are very silent at speeds below 20 km/h (12 mph). At higher speeds, the difference in noise emission with conventional cars vanishes rapidly. This is because tyre-road noise is the dominant noise source at speeds above 30 km/h (18 mph). if you read my book you'd already know this: cities aren't loud - cars are loud. SUVs are louder. and yes that includes EVs. want quieter cities?
replace diesel trucks w/ EVs
replace delivery vans w/ e-cargo bikes
low-traffic neighborhoods and modal filters everywhere
Mike Eliason @holz-bau.bsky.social

The reason for military rules of engagement and adhering to laws of armed combat is not “political correctness,” it’s better strategy, serves long-term national interest, and is a way to make an awful part of the human experience a little less awful, based on lessons learned from centuries of blood.
Nicholas Grossman

The revolution won’t be televised but the treason sure is
Chris Kluwe @chriswarcraft.bsky.social

Reminder that support for war crimes on TV was Hegseth's only qualification for the job; it's the only reason Trump knew he existed. Secretary of War Crimes is the job he was auditioning for during his career as a drunken talking head on Fox. Trump’s approval in the swing states is abysmal:
Jacob T. Levy


G Elliott Morris

And after 40 minutes of cringe-Thunderous applause from the generals! Just kidding. Total silence.
The Tennessee Holler

the president of the united states wants to use the american military to kill american citizens on american soil. that's the whole story! regular reminder that "he wants" ≠ "he will. "like, the fact that they felt this spectacle was necessary is itself evidence that they don't have the military support that they want
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

17 people are dead from US strikes in the Caribbean this month and we still don't really know who they are and so far the president and VP have made jokes about scared fishermen.
Nicholas Slayton

Just a reminder of one of the people Drinky the Drunk Guy fired. The difference between a lifetime of service and the world's stupidest, sweatiest motivational speaker:


norbizness

If I had an opportunity to address all the brass in this room, I would probably give them a polite reminder that the doctrine of immunity for official acts does not apply to military officers who carry out illegal orders.
Ned Resnikoff

basically everything about [Hegseth's lecture] is wrong and horrifying but I'm stuck on the absolute fucking chutzpah you'd need to lecture professional military personnel like this after you personally texted wildly classified war plans to the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic
Leah Greenberg

It’s all fun and games until Antarctica falls apart:


Alex Steffen

Now might be a good time for Democrats to remind people that when they return to power they will not hesitate to prosecute people who murder civilians.
Jamal Greene

they really think wars are gonna be won by which side can do the most pushups and not which side can convince the other to eat itself from within
Andrew Lawrence

the president of the united states wants to use the american military to kill american citizens on american soil. that's the whole story!
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

A thing about this is that it's literal treason
Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social

Surely, SURELY, suggesting training your military ON YOUR OWN CIVILIANS is a red line? Yes? *taps earpiece* No???
Dr. Jessie Christiansen @aussiastronomer.bsky.social

The Secretary of Defense who only got the job because the president saw him on the teevee is complaining about military leaders who were promoted "for the wrong reasons"
Kevin M. Kruse

Wild that a drunk white dude gets to give an important speech on the importance of being violent and mediocre just because people confuse seeing one minority on the street with the apocalypse
Kashana

Since the Ezra and Ta-Nehisi discussion is still happening: the main point I think most are missing is that Klein is saying the role of the journalist-intellectual is to do strategic politics, whereas Coates says the role of the journalist-intellectual is to tell the truth
Jake Grumbach

Hegseth spoke at length about the military focusing on lethality in its operations. Trump spoke at length about the military being used to quell domestic dissent. Put those things together, and that’s the takeaway.
Leah McElrath

As of today, Trump is actively relying on the military to be as quiescent as Congress and SCOTUS. It may not be a bad bet, but it feels like a reckless one. Trump is, as has been noted recently, moving a lot faster than most of us expected. He's also, crucially, moving a lot faster than necessary, and that speed carries risks for his project. This is not an administration that is methodically consolidating power.
Angus Johnston

Imagine 800 of the highest ranked career military individuals being forced to listen to a 5-time draft dodging egomaniac tell them how great he is....
Visible Music

"OpenAI spent more on marketing and equity options for its employees than it made in revenue in the first half of 2025."
FT Alphaville @alphaville.ft.com

There are more students at The Ohio State University than there are coal miners. Where are the fawning efforts to win them over. There are more lawyers than UAW members. (Although there are more SEIU members, but they never seem to get counted as real working class Americans)
Kotu @kingoftheu.bsky.social


Julie Taylor @snarkymimi.bsky.social

Stephen Miller, a man no one elected, is behind the Venezuelan boat strikes which have killed 17 people. He should not be making military decisions. He should not be executing strikes that take lives. Only silver lining? He has no immunity. He can (and should) be prosecuted for his crimes.
Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social

u know i just assumed the first boat murder was an accident but now it all makes perfect terrible sociopathic sense
darth™️

The number of cancelations Disney saw in the week after suspending Kimmel was 436% above baseline subscriber churn.
Marisa Kabas

So…let me see if I have this right. The federal government is gonna shut down in 30hrs, and the party that controls the ENTIRE federal government is trying to blame the party that controls NONE of the federal government for the looming shutdown?
Joe Walsh @walshfreedom.bsky.social

Trump's tax plan gave away a tax deduction for private jets and cut people's healthcare. Priorities can't get clearer than that.
Americans for Tax Fairness

Imagine you're a career military general being summoned for a pentagon strategy lecture by a former game show host and a former weekend talk show host.
Randi Mayem Singer

It certainly appears the United States murdered an innocent fisherman who was a husband and father to four children, claimed he was a "narco-terrorist," posted a video of the execution, and then made jokes about it:


MeidasTouch

Things are not past my worst case scenario, and I fully expect that the worst is yet to come. Much of our ultimate trajectory will depend on decisions within the military.
Leah McElrath

My thesis is that no matter how doomer you were in Nov. 2024, we're probably past your worst-case scenario for the first 9 months of this administration. It's very strange for me to realize I wasn't pessimistic enough.
Jonathan V. Last @jvl.bsky.social

A lot of people think that every international student admitted means one fewer spot for domestic students, when the opposite is more likely true - the tuition revenue international students bring allows public universities to provide substantial discounts to domestic students, improving access.
Dave Vanness @djvanness.bsky.social

Says a lot about the state of popular science reporting that some techbro doofus can pretend he's going to be immortal and that will grab more headlines than "Hey we have a gene therapy that slows the advance of Huntington's by 75%," or "We gengineered a pothos into a living air purifier."
Iron Spike

there are almost certainly more people — more blue collar laborers, specifically — involved in the cultivation and production of chardonnay grapes and wine than in coal
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

If William Rehnquist were in his 20s today, he would 100 percent be an aggressively online Groyper who declines to join his law school's FedSoc chapter because it's "a little too woke"
Jay Willis

Back to back “free speech” headlines this afternoon:


Radley Balko

79-year-old US citizen and business owner in Van Nuys, California, was slammed to the ground *twice* by masked ICE agents. He was just asking for his employees to be allowed to retrieve papers proving they're legal immigrants. He suffered multiple rib fractures and a head injury with possible brain damage.
Fiona "Fi" Webster @fiona-webster22.bsky.social

Justice Kavanaugh: “If the person is a U. S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter.”
Joanna Schwartz @jcschwartzprof.bsky.social

Great time to be a fentanyl dealer because all the guys who are supposed to investigate and prosecute you are going after doordash drivers and moms instead
Hemry, Local Bartender

Ezra Klein cites Hillary’s ‘deplorables’ comment as an example of [Democratic condescension] but she went out of her way to say many of Trump’s supporters are good people! She was trying to separate voters with legitimate concerns from 4chan psychos and right wing media turned it into a gaffe. She was doing what he wants! I’m a journalist, not a politician. I plan to continue pointing out that the entire conservative movement is obsessed with phantom problems and conspiracy theories. I think this is an extremely salient fact that voters should know. Is that effective campaign messaging? I don’t know and I don’t care. It’s true. It’s my job to discover and say things that are true. The radicalization of the American right is *the* political story of my lifetime and the public should know about it. Politicians can do what they like with that.
Michael Hobbes

The President treats the National Guard like they are rent-a-cops who don’t have anything better to do.
Patrick Chovanec


darren32359.bsky.social

Stephen Miller is a school shooter who took control of a country instead
Mordred was Right @jessemackinnon.com

I feel naive just writing this, but a president threatening to withhold funding to a city unless it elects his preferred candidate for mayor seems like the sort of thing that shouldn't be legal.
Radley Balko

Coates says Black Americans have stories about relatives who were lynched or had to flee and that a life free of political violence is not in reach in his time.
Klein: "Sometimes I think that having a historical scope that wide can make the present too deterministic."
They lynched a kid last week.
C. L. Polk

I am (1) generation from that. The only reason I have relatives in Philly is 100% because my grandaddy’s brother whistled at a white woman. He fled Alabama hopping a train and didn't get off until Philly for fear of getting lynched. And instead the Klan nearly lynched our family in retaliation for *that!*
Jonathan H. Gray: “Professor of Goofballery” @jongraywb.bsky.social

Truly, [the Michigan mass-shooter at the Morman church's] politics are a mystery and we will never learn the secrets that motivated this lone wolf killer with absolutely no connections to anyone else, certainly not in politics. Now, who wants to talk about improving mental health? No, not by funding programs, silly. Just talk about it. Again:

Kevin M. Kruse

The $20 billion taxpayer-funded rescue package for Argentina, announced last week by the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, delivers an enormous windfall to hedge fund billionaire Rob Citrone. Citrone has a longstanding personal and professional relationship with Bessent.
Judd Legum

Ezra Klein is the perfect embodiment of the white moderate MLK warned us about
@sgbuggs.bsky.social

Filling classrooms with computers didn't have the huge and positive impact on learning that was promised. Filling them with tablets hasn't done it either. I know this might sound absurd to many (especially politicians) but what if we filled them with highly skilled and properly supported educators?
James McEnaney

Say it often, say it loud: "Overall, research has not supported the common-sense presumption that digital approaches to schooling are better than non-digital alternatives. At the broadest level, widespread computer use in education has been found to be associated with lower student achievement."
Anne Lutz Fernandez

Just five media companies control 90% of our media market. But it’s not just media. In 75% of U.S. industries, fewer companies now control more of their markets than they did 20 years ago – leaving us vulnerable to higher prices and lower wages.
Robert Reich

“In 2023, cars and their drivers killed 8,820 American pedestrians and bicyclists — 7,314 pedestrians and 1,166 cyclists. They injured another 136,281, an increase of over 5,300 injuries from 2022.” Put the responsibility where it belongs.
Brent Toderian

The $170 billion in funding going to Miller’s agenda could build more than 7,000 new elementary schools, pay for more than 1.5 million young Americans to attend an in-state public college for four years, or fund the Head Start program for nearly 14 years.
Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social

New Yorker cartoons don’t miss:


Miranda Yaver

One thing I've learned from the Internet is that a lie needs 0% proof to be believed, but the truth requires thousands of pages of proof and still won't be believed.
Mrs. Betty Bowers

CEO pay is up 1,094% since 1978, while worker pay is up just 26%. Why do we always hear "we can't afford to pay our workers more" but never "we can't afford to pay our CEO more"?
Robert Reich

separate from everything, the idea that 2020 was a squeaker but 2024 represents a historical mandate will simply be the death of me
Quinta Jurecic

By investing huge amounts of money on car infrastructure and underinvesting in everything else, the government is basically creating another tax: you need a car to participate in society. It’s another cost that the government forces you to incur due to its transportation and land use decisions
Alessandro Rigolon @alerigolon.bsky.social

Amid an ongoing wave of conspiracy theories and bogus claims about Jan 6, I’ll note this from our reporting: Rioters made all kinds of claims and defenses in court … and jurors convicted 100% of the defendants who went to trial. 100%
Scott MacFarlane @macfarlanenews.bsky.social

I keep seeing people say immigrants don't contribute to society, but most stories I see about ICE arrests all seem to take place at the immigrant's job.
The Alternate Historian

Dear parents, one of the best things that happened in the last few centuries was the declining child mortality rate around the world:


Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600.bsky.social

The only way to see the US as a historically white country is if you pretend Indigenous Americans don't exist and you ignore the fact that African Americans have been in this country longer than most of its white people. The way US history is taught from k-12 affirms the lie of white supremacy.
Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com

A buddy (career NASA scientist) recently retired after he was told 25% of his performance revue would be based on how publically he supported Trump. He refused to “bend the knee”.
Keep that in mind now when you hear something from NASA. It’s from someone who agreed to say anything to keep their job.
justaj0e.bsky.social

Living in an environment of reality inversion is quite stressful.
Leah McElrath

Any driver who has a problem with traffic cameras wants to put other people in danger without having to suffer any monetary consequences for their recklessness. It's really that simple.
Mary Gillis

The primary reason TPUSA succeeded, thrived, and delivered significant political power is because wealthy ideologues patiently invested a huge sum of money for many years to give it time to establish a market presence. A smart and correct strategy with huge pay-off!
JLRay

This dataset gives you data on student earnings 5 years after graduation. Shows that bioscientists make less than historians, geographers, or even politics. Something to think on when people are saying that kids should do real STEM subjects, and not silly humanities.
Ian Sudbery

Already with the guilt:


Lee Randall

Imagine living in a country as diverse as this one and hating it. Weird stuff. We don’t talk enough about how racists and authoritarians are the ones who actually genuinely hate this country.
Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social

“The president should be removed from office because he is plainly insane.” I mean, there is no war in Portland. There just isn’t. You can’t and won’t avoid reporting this story. But you’ll still find a way to try to report it in a way that gives him the benefit of the doubt. And that’s wrong.
David Waldman @kagrox.bsky.social

the authoritarian tech bro cult wishes to subjugate humanity - the good news is that these are pathetic creeps and we can beat them
Faine Greenwood

A lot of Trump voters like to imagine that they were "abandoned" by Democrats. It means they don't have to feel responsible for their actions.
The Alternate Historian

Fascinating study. 1 in 10 adults rarely or never drive a car. Factor in children and the percentage of non-driving Americans is much higher. Cities and towns need to account for their mobility needs too.
The War on Cars

While the senile old man rides in carriages around castles, builds his ballroom, puts gold on everything, plans parades, attends a variety of sporting events, threatens people, and reads the scripts put in front of him, this psychopath is the one actually running the country:


Ron Filipkowski

It is a massive mistake to imagine the right is pushing "free market" economics. They are pushing policies that give all the money to the rich, they couldn't care less about the free market
Dean Baker

Universities are moving rapidly to comply with laws that don't exist.
Bryan Edward Stone @bestonetx.bsky.social

While Stephen Miller claims that Democrats calling him a fascist constitutes incitement, there are hundreds of examples of Miller publicly calling Democrats fascists.
Ron Filipkowski

It's weird — but now in Oslo, there's so many EVs that you notice the noise and the smell from individual ICE cars, and you realise how much we've been normalising it for ever.  You can smell them half a street away. And inside parking lots are just *quiet*.
Ben Sanderson

it is just a straightforward statement of fact to say that the trump administration sees any black student at an elite institution as one too many
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

Fascists wield hypocrisy as a shield and absurdity as a cudgel:


Karl (sad trombone noise enthusiast) @brainnotonyet.bsky.social

Lots of folks want to have a gotcha, "did you know: America has always had corruption!" No shit. But did you know: a huge reason millions of people came to this country was because it was *better* at things like the rule of law and not being openly corrupt. For real.
Anil Dash

what anil said. also, two things are true:
1. america has a horrific, brutal facist and authoritarian tradition which has prepared for this moment;
2. that is not the only american tradition, and pretending it is helps the fascists.
Noah Berlatsky

Blue cities should tear up the roads in front of ICE facilities and then start decades of community engagement and input sessions to rebuild them. Let's harness our core competencies.
Stan Oklobdzija

Democrats should never vote to fund a government that's waging war on its own citizens and firing officials *because* they insist on following court orders instead of breaking the law. Let Senate Republicans nuke the filibuster. None of this is normal and it shouldn't be treated as such.
Aaron Rupar

Trump just ordered the military into Portland, and he’s giving them the green light to use lethal force on American citizens. Authoritarianism is an abstract concept but Trump is making its impacts real and tangible. Let’s be real about it: This is the beginning of dictatorship in America.
Kat Abughazaleh

Nobody cares about the victims in the Dallas ICE shooting apparently. The first I've heard about one of them was on CNN today. He's fighting for his life in the hospital --- he was brought to the US when he was 13. He's 33 now. No criminal record.
digby @digby56.bsky.social

I just don't know what to say anymore. The administration is redefining (illegally, but what’s new) “illegal” — most Americans have no clue about anything regarding citizenship, and don’t that people might have court check ins as part of their ongoing asylum/green card/whatever cases. Interaction with courts = criminal = “illegal”
Sara @saralovesyou.bsky.social

War ravaged Portland:


Ben Werdmuller @ben.werd.social.ap.brid.gy

Elon Musk, a white South African, will end up causing more misery across the African continent than anyone else in recent history
Don Moynihan

gotta say, it’s not great that the belief that portland is an antifa gomorrah which must be destroyed has become a load-bearing tenet of conservative ideology
GOLIKEHELLMACHINE

The wounded knee thing is really Trumpism distilled to its essence. It’s not enough to be able crush people who can’t fully defend themselves, it’s not enough to actually crush them, you also have to love and admire those who do the crushing otherwise the Trumpists’ delicate feelings are injured
Adam Serwer

The Heritage Foundation is the real terrorist organization. Project 2025 is terror.
Elizabeth Alice Croydon @misslizzy.bsky.social

Trump is ordering the military to use “full force” against an American city, while the Supreme Court declares him the Sun King and Congress hides under a pile of coats. The checks and balances only work when the institutions aren’t run by utter cowards and the complicit
Kevin M. Kruse

Here’s a photo of my cat trying to catch a bubble. You’re welcome:


BEAVE @beaveinflow.bsky.social

The Right is twisting the government into a violent weapon of oppression while their allies and cronies take over the media. It’s getting worse by the day. If you haven’t already start talking to the people around you about collective action. It’s the only way forward and we have a window here.
Jared Yates Sexton

Yesterday it became clear to me that car supremacy is hand in glove with political authoritarianism. People who worship personal trucks and SUVs, fight for parking over people, support highway expansion in cities and love cornfield sprawl are members of a dangerous domination culture. Bet you anything the people I'm describing also love mixed martial arts, patriarchal family structures, American football, guns, aftermarket vehicle explosive noise makers, fireworks, country clubs, golf, corporate culture, booze, jet skis, wave boats, and athleisure.
Speed limit 20 @marymm.bsky.social

On this day in 1958, after violent resistance to integrating Little Rock Central High School, white residents voted to close public schools rather than integrate:


Equal Justice Initiative

The United States has always been a democracy for some and a brutal authoritarian regime for others, and the effort to expand it to democracy for all has led to a 70+ year backlash culminating in SCOTUS claiming that kings are totes cool and also judges are the ones to coronate them
Kaitlin Is Just Getting Started @gothamgirlblue.com

Looks like the only manufacturing sector returning to America is manufactured outrage.
David Tan @mangrovepitta.bsky.social

*Reminder that 3C warming above preindustrial global temp averages means billions die.Polling USA
Adam McKay @ghostpanther.bsky.social

"Would you say the US is in a political crisis?"
Yes: 79%
No: 18%
Quinnipiac / Sept 21, 2025
@usapolling.bsky.social

We currently have a Supreme Court that seriously claims (with no explanation) that the current occupant of the Presidency suffers irreparable harm by having to follow existing law, the constitutionality of which has never before been in doubt or even questioned.
Joe Dunman

For MAGA:
Knee on the ground = fireable offence
Knee on someone’s neck = hero
David Ho

Per capita CO₂ emissions have declined in every state in America. Between 2005 and 2023, energy-related CO₂ emissions per person declined in all 50 US states. The nationwide average drop was 29%, a major structural change in the world’s second-largest emitter:


Ada Palmer

"We are not authoritarian fascists and we will arrest and brutalized anyone who says otherwise."
Nick Walker Hirsch @dreamseadrifter.bsky.social

One of the constant strands in the history of the university, dating back to its medieval origins, is the attempt of authorities — especially religious authorities but not exclusively - to control what can and cannot be taught.
David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social

JD Vance is now using the term "blood libel" to describe criticism of ICE, saying, "The Democrats and the media — because they so hate the idea of a real border — are engaging in a kind of blood libel against ICE agents." Somewhere, our ancestors wept.
Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social

Gonna lay down a marker here: if they do in fact rule for Trump here, it will be properly considered Dred Scott II, and will in an important sense mark the end of the Union. The Citizenship Clause is the linchpin of the entire Second Republic Constitution. You nullify that, the entire thing crumbles in an instant.
Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social

They want you to be uninformed, sick, and poor because ignorant, exhausted, impoverished people are easier to control. Every one of their policies supports these goals.
opal @defnotadino.bsky.social

A pattern is developing where everyone who fights back against a Trump attack inevitably wins with their reputation much better than before, and everyone who caves to him looks like shit and has Trump coming back for more a month later.
Ron Filipkowski

Support for law enforcement and border control are not “foundational American principles.”
Pope Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social

india taj mahal, around the world in 18 holes, lake placid, new york, 2002:


old roadside pics @roadside.xor.blue

Why do headlines say "norms shattered" when what is meant is "laws broken" or "Constitution violated"?
Timothy Snyder

The US conservative movement has organized and funded a massive anti-wind power campaign, based on lies and bullying. Researchers at Brown University have been investigating and revealing that campaign. Now cons are pressuring the university to shut the investigators down. This is, of course, one of the characteristic features of fascism: they are allowed to lie and impose violence. You are not allowed to complain about it. You are not even allowed to say it out loud or write it down!
David Roberts @volts.wtf

Even low-information voters should get that it’s not normal for a President to make billions of dollars  as soon as they’re in power.
Schooley

Staggering amounts of money. “An MIT report found 95% of organizations surveyed are getting no return on their AI product investments.”
Scott @fishecon.bsky.social

Only an administration intent on committing war crimes in the present and future would stoop to calling Wounded Knee a "battle" rather than what it truly was: a massacre of over 250 Lakotas, mainly women, children, and the elderly.
Karl Jacoby

Alpha male ICE officers specialize in neutralizing the clear and present danger of unarmed women begging for the status of their detained children by throwing them violently to the ground.
Mark Thompson @sonofathomp.bsky.social

Trump just signed a terrifying order classifying anyone challenging his regime or espousing anti-MAGA worldviews as “domestic terrorists.” It directs National Joint Terrorism Task Force, DOJ and Treasury to investigate and prosecute individuals/nonprofits/funders and freeze assets.
Senator Scott Wiener

Reminder that the word "street" predates cars:

Qagggy!

When Joint Terrorism Task Forces were first set up, people predicted they could eventually be used by an authoritarian government to go after political enemies. And now they are. Democratic-controlled states and cities have to pull their law enforcement officers from these joint task forces. I don’t know how much clearer it can be that you cannot continue collaborating with Trump’s federal government when this is what they’re doing.
Peter Sterne

Aug. 26: Stephen Miller says "the Democrat Party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization."
Sept. 25: Miller put in charge of coordinating a federal campaign to prosecute "domestic terrorist organizations."
Peter Baker

Fascism is extremism. Anti-fascism is not. We’re living in a period of reality inversion and moral inversion.
Leah McElrath

For #ThingThursday this week and the next few weeks, I'd like to highlight some items in my Reddy Kilowatt collection. First up is the genesis of my collection, the tie clip and lapel pins that I inherited from my Grandpa Ed. He was an electrician and a huge Reddy fan. These are circa 1940-1960-ish:


amanjo

They’re literally giving prosecutors the names of people and organizations, and telling them to go find crimes. It’s clear from the NYT that the directive came from Trump. This is a direct consequence of Roberts explicitly immunizing weaponization of DOJ in Trump v. US.
Radley Balko

NEW: Fermi America, an energy startup run by former Texas governor Rick Perry, wants to open a nuclear-powered AI data center in drought-prone farmland. "We can’t pay our bills or feed our kids with false promises of a glittering AI future," says Texas business owner Kendra Kay
Institute for Policy Studies

“The Ogallala Aquifer, which waters all of our farms, has seen drops of over 300 feet over the last 50 years, and the Texas Panhandle already suffers from droughts. We don’t have enough water for ranchers and farmers, much less a nuclear plant and an AI data center.”
Sanho Tree

Tylenol causes autism and a broken escalator is a terrorist attack. It is only Thursday.
Molly Knight

If a government tells you that you can’t call it authoritarian, it’s authoritarian.
Pope Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social

Look at these outrageous pink goofy little guys!


crafty gem @craftyanddevious.bsky.social

People occasionally talk about the streetcar conspiracy, but nobody ever really talks about how so thoroughly the private car has become an immovable pillar of American society through decades of propaganda that very few people can imagine society being constructed differently
@kuwagata.bsky.social

If we paid for the drug development upfront, and got rid of the government-granted patent monopolies, we could save TRILLIONS over the next decade. It's ABUNDANCE, AFFORDABILITY, but our policy elites insist they are too stupid to understand
Dean Baker

Yes, it's Watergate every day, but let's be clear. Watergate was a middle school prank compared to the unprecedented corruption and constitutional crimes now happening Every Day. We left Watergate-level crimes 300 miles back on the interstate.
Mark Copelovitch

Contrary to Donald Trump's demented UN rant, clean energy is the cheapest form of energy. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is on the payroll of the fossil fuel industry or looking for a job in the Trump administration
Dean Baker

A roman citizen was more mobile than an American today. A person born in gaul, goes to Greece for education, then gets a job delivering grain from North Africa to Italy was not uncommon
Guy Incognito @kandoh.bsky.social

When I say the US has bet its post-pandemic economy on AI while China has bet its on green energy, this is what I mean: Here, AI related companies account for 75% of S&P 500 returns since ChatGPT's launch. In China, green tech accounts for one quarter of GDP growth.
David Wallace-Wells

Why does every coffee maker have to look like Darth Vader?


Chris Steller

Currently reading a history of the French Revolution. And with everything going on in US political news, I think I'm starting to get it? As in, maybe you do just need these periodic hard resets of all your institutions, even if it means a decade or so of chaos?
M. Nolan Gray

With the Tylenol bullshit I’m reminded that women have always been the scapegoat. Remember, they didn’t burn witches. They burned women. And I have no doubt that some would like to bring that practice back.
Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.social

We live in a personalist legal regime: One of Trump's former defense lawyers (Blanche) excuses a Trump ally taking a bag of cash in return for a promise to abuse his public office, while another (Halligan) was appointed to indict Trump's political enemies on the flimsiest of pretexts
Don Moynihan

It is not our job to determine if resistance is hopeless. It is our duty to render it effective, at all possible points, while we are alive. It is the future that will determine if our efforts were victorious, not the present. To act fully in the present means to never face defeat.
Pride Was A Riot, Sacramento

China announces it will reduce its carbon emissions by 7 to 10% from peak levels (i.e., now) by 2035. This is the first emissions reductions pledge from the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, and a hugely important step forward.
Yonah Freemark


Ellen Hopkins

Trump calls anyone who criticizes him "radical Marxists" and "enemies of the people," but if you point out how masked secret policemen grabbing people off the streets with zero accountability are kind of behaving like Nazis, you're inciting violence. Those are the rules.
Patrick Chovanec

When you have an administration that so constantly, shamelessly, openly lies, pretty soon there’s no faith in any information streams coming from the administration, so there’s no way to convey true information in a way that lands right, which leads to more chaos.
Pope Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social

Can't help but notice that the media breathlessly reporting on the messages that shooters write on their bullets seems to have been followed by a surge of shooters writing messages on bullets
Ari Drennen

Car company: our entry level cars are now like Ferraris!!
Community: can we get a speed bump on our street to help slow down drivers
City: No, it will upset drivers.
That’s the entirety of the safe streets discussion.
Tom Flood

Peter Thiel giving lectures about the antichrist is just another illustration of the fact that the most dangerous thing about billionaires is that they exist in a world where nobody tells them their stupid ideas are stupid and are therefore prone to inflict their stupid ideas on all of us.
Hamilton Nolan

Trump's explosion of rage last night over ABC's reinstatement of Jimmy Kimmel shouldn't be greeted with fear and weepy hand-wringing. It should be seen as a sign that his authoritarian designs are running into very deep resistance and that he's weak and losing on many fronts.
Greg Sargent


jeffreyalexander07.bsky.social

i have seen exactly zero evidence to suggest that peter thiel is anything other than a dumbass who got lucky once
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

It's incredible that the cost of living crisis focuses almost entirely on housing and groceries while totally ignoring the money pit of forced car dependency. It almost seems the media is forbidden from discussing transportation costs. Might have something to do with those ubiquitous car ads.
Bryan @bryanformhals.com

I guess we should thank Donald Trump for making the relationship between fossil fuels and fascism explicit.
George Monbiot

whoa. Every single one of the Sinclair advertising buyers on this list is automotive or automotive-related (insurance). That is one aspect of the power in our society held by car companies that I haven't seen studied enough.
Tara Goddard, PhD

[The escalator kerfuffle at the UN] is the perfect encapsulation of Trumpism — because of its obsession with imagery, the White House crew caused a problem but blamed it on other people, leading to MAGA making threats against the United Nations for their own screw up.
Kevin M. Kruse

Wonderful news. A salutary reminder of the absolute benefits of scientific progress, and the absolute evil of conspiracist bollocks. Huntington's disease successfully treated for first time.
James Harvey @keepof4worlds.bsky.social

Check out this cool elevation map of the contiguous US!

Conrad Hackett

the most important thing to remember when you see eugenicists who don’t believe that autistic people should exist rambling about “the autism epidemic” is not that they’re wrong about the “cause” (although they are absolutely wrong about it); it’s that they are eugenicists
Nicole Chung

Holy crap! Stephen Colbert’s *dad* was an NIH immunologist during the Kennedy Admin?! Who knew?!
Tinman contre la caste @bcmfietser.bsky.social

even for an unhinged presidency this week has been pretty fuckin unhinged tbh
darth™️

The Dear Leader strikes again, lecturing the UN about how climate change is a ‘con.’ Funny how the only con we see is the one behind the podium pretending science is optional.
Extinction Rebellion Global

It is remarkable the degree to which Trump has made it official American government policy that money is a measure of class, excellence and merit, even as he has denigrated expertise and knowledge
Don Moynihan

I find I can’t muster a proper response to either the Tylenol madness or the U.N. appearance. At some point it is just too ridiculous. It would feel insane to offer sane commentary.
Sherrilyn Ifill

A positive thing about Trump's insane, lie-filled, egocentric speech at the UN today is that the more he gives speeches like that, the more the world as a whole will understand he's a raving lunatic.
Peter Gleick

losing track of 1,800 people is kind of a big deal. That's more people than Hamas killed on October 7th. We know Noem and her team are pretty damn incompetent, but this is hard to believe.
Dean Baker

Watching a third of the country beclown and degrade themselves in cultish devotion to this stumbling turnip makes me want to puke.
Pope Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social


Reinventing_again™

'big ass truck abundance' is incompatible with a habitable planet, with safe streets, and with public health
Mike Eliason @holz-bau.bsky.social

Summary of Trump’s speech to the UN today:
1. Your countries all suck.
2. None of you know what you are doing.
3. The US is better at everything.
4. All because of me.
5. I’m right about everything.
6. You should listen to me & do what I say.
7. And give me lots of awards.
Ron Filipkowski

Finally reading the full Gold Card executive order and wow is it wild. The order says that any person who pays $1 million is, by definition, a person of "exceptional business ability" and therefore qualified for an EB-2 visa. Does anything better sum up the Trump ethos than "all rich people are exceptional."?
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

The Supreme Court could say the president’s allegedly illegal actions must be put on hold while the Court reviews it. Instead, they repeatedly say Trump’s abuses must be allowed to go forward while in dispute. That’s entirely a choice. There’s no basis in law. Made the opposite call with Biden.
Nicholas Grossman

One of the narrow roads in the tiny hilltop village of Saint Paul de Vence in France:


Yvonne Redknap

Trump's UN speech was an embarrassing shit show that brought disgrace upon the United States. Congrats, America.
Aaron Rupar

Trump is uniting the world…in the same way that a loud, obnoxious drunk guy on a train car unites all the other passengers. Just endless silent exchanges of looks and head-shaking whispers of “What an asshole.”
Ben Stephens

Trump, pounding shoe: "We will bury ourselves!"
Tom Tomorrow

I’ve seen people wonder if Trump knows he’s lying. What’s important to understand is malignant narcissists lack a core self. As such, whatever narrative serves them in the moment is experienced by them as their truth—and it can change by 180 degrees without their experiencing cognitive dissonance.
Leah McElrath

As far as many people are concerned this is the text of the First Amendment:


Gillian Branstetter

Bothers me when people discuss Left movements in the U.S. w/out underscoring the GENERATIONS of repression, surveillance, violence directed at movements. The "Left" is so disorganized is used as a joke but I hardly ever see those same people saying 'THE LEFT WAS TARGETED AND DISORGANIZED by the STATE'
Prisonculture

the left in the US is so repressed that the rest of the world celebrates labour day on may day because of american labor history but the US does not. the haymarket massacre predates cointelpro by like 70 years
Charlotte @fireantprincess.bsky.social

"The Lefts can't get their act together..." Bitch they've been killing, imprisoning, and targeting leftists and leftist orgs FOR GENERATIONS.
Prisonculture

The Department of Defense has quietly delayed its cleanup of harmful “forever chemicals” at nearly 140 military installations across the U.S., according to a list of sites analyzed by The New York Times.
The New York Times

“We are the hottest country in the world” is a thing Trump just said. To the United Nations.
Leah McElrath

I cannot tell you how grim the AI in higher ed situation is. Many of the students have completely surrendered to letting AI do their homework, badly, I might add. How do you fix this? Truly, what the hell do we do, beyond what grading can address, which isn't a solution?
Roxane Gay

We are producing a generation unable and (somewhat) unwilling to think, read and write without relying on tech controlled by some of the most evil people on the planet to tell them what to think, read and write and they don’t seem to see the dangers of this dependency even if we point it out
Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social

This is happening now:


Akshat Rathi

New research is constantly confirming variations of the same basic fact: bicycling for transportation is an incredible way to fit a little bit of low intensity exercise into your daily routine (oh, and also to save a ton of money, and reduce carbon emissions, and improve your mental health).
Alex Schieferdecker

Trump is now –11 on immigration now despite every single enlightened centrist intellectual saying Dems should not talk about it because surely public opinion can’t ever change!!
@therealbrent.bsky.social

Well I’m not surprised *I* didn’t get raptured, but now I am wondering what kinds of sins my 8-month-old baby has been committing. (is this a good joke or no? i don’t totally understand how the rapture works)
Aubrey Hirsch

A really fucking exhausting thing about this current moment is that any good faith efforts to reform or acknowledge shortcomings of knowledge-producing and sense -making institutions is promptly weaponized by people who want to burn the entire thing down and drown us in avalanche of bullshit. Like the 'replication crisis' is a product of improving scientific rigor and training, of science *improving* overall. And it's used to attack the entire enterprise. It would have been better from the public relations perspective of academia to leave bullshit papers unchallenged. It honestly creates an incentive structure that is the literal opposite of what people legitimately critiquing epistemological biases in academia should want. You do not want people in a defensive crouch worried about nuanced methodological criticisms they make of their colleagues being on Fox News.
William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social

Researchers studying fluoride poisoning in China and India got their research weaponized by wack jobs saying that because fluoride poisoning is bad, fluoride supplements must be bad to put in the water.
@samusishere.bsky.social

This is, I think, the best push alert and makes me wonder why this directness isn’t the norm.]:


Josh Sternberg

My struggle with reform seems that getting lasting, stable reforms under a Democrat that won't get swept under the rug by the judiciary or the next Repubican, will require the Democratic party to win a super majority in Congress and hold a trifecta for 20 years and I can't see how this is possible with our electorate.
JorgeJones

It’s funny how often grifter pseudoscience results in “answers” that blame, punish, and control women, isn’t it?
Salena

Trump hyped a huge autism announcement for months then followed through today with a press conference where his brain leaked out of his ears for an hour while he couldn't pronounce "acetaminophen" and yelled "DON'T TAKE ASPIRIN" over and over. Congratulations, America.
Aaron Rupar

RFK Jr is the worst Kennedy and Ted killed a lady.
Rob @stpaulbikescum.bsky.social

I know antifa isn't a real organization because I don't get 40 texts a week from them asking for donations.
J. Elvis Weinstein

I have taken
the Tylenol
that was in
the medicine cabinet

and which
they think probably
is the reason
you like trains

forgive me
but that’s bullshit
you got autism
from your dad
Janel Comeau @verybadllama.bsky.social

Autistic and neurodivergent people deserve far better than a government looking to prevent their existence, let alone one that will invent fictitious ways to do so that puts everyone in danger
Kat Tenbarge

A bunch of former coke heads telling pregnant women they can't take pain medications.
maryr @merveille.bsky.social


Anthony Michael Kreis

My Pope Leo is taking down Fake Cardinal Dolan for comparing Charlie Jerk to St Paul. The Pope is Italian from Chicago who understands what Christian nationalist did to Catholics. Italian and Irish immigrants. Tarred and feathered, beaten and killed. Watch Gangs of NY. Scorsese knew.
@jfk09.bsky.social

“we didnt have autism in my day” my grandfather had a “clock repair” hobby that involved him taking all the parts out, cleaning and replacing them back in the clock, and then setting them on a table where he could look at them. no one else was allowed to touch them. none of them worked.
AC @wellgoshacs.bsky.social

Two weeks later NYT top headlines continue to focus on a far right speaker who 95% of Americans had never heard of before. Unbelievable
Wes Burdine

Tylenol does not cause autism but *not* taking Tylenol can cause women to be truly miserable during pregnancy so you can see why the GOP is so gung-ho about this line of argument.
Amanda Litman

Pope Leo questioned the disproportionate difference in the incomes of modern CEOs and those of their workers and challenged the extreme wealth of billionaires. “If that is the only thing that has value anymore, then we’re in big trouble,” he said.
RNS

One torc in the collection of the British Museum stands far above the others: the Snettisham Great Torc. Eight topes of twisted gold alloy threads are capped with large ornamented hollow terminals. Found by farmers in a field in Snettisham, Norfolk, in 1950. Iron Age, 150-50 BCE. Photo by me:


Chapps

The backlash to ABC/Disney canceling Kimmel has been swift, and severe. The whole episode underscores something I've been blogging about for a while: A lot of powerful people just don’t realize how unpopular Trump is
G Elliott Morris

“Under a third of American adults are Trump voters, and 53% are Trump disapprovers — with 48% intensely opposed.”
Clara Jeffery

26,000 YouTube views for Sinclair’s Charlie Kirk tribute special. Just for comparison, Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue on any average Wednesday will get between two and four MILLION YouTube views. Right wing culture is fringe stuff. It is not American culture by any stretch.
Steven Rosenthal

The 'kin' of ‘napkin’ means "little." ‘Nap’ comes from ‘nape,' which means “tablecloth.” So a napkin is a little tablecloth. 10/10, no notes.
Merriam-Webster

genuinely crazy to me how unitary executive advocates read the vesting clause as granting a huge scope of essentially royal "inherent" powers. one would think that if the framers intended to give the president royal authority, they would have just said so.
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

Hey Forbes, what kind of bullshit headline is this? Outlandish public corruption made Kushner a billionaire. $2 billion in Middle East money the second he left the White House made him a billionaire:


Joe Walsh @walshfreedom.bsky.social

There's no more fitting tribute to Charlie Kirk than the one they're giving him right now: nominally Christian survivors on the same grift clambering over one another for more publicity, capped by the shambling, lurching embodiment of everything they long to be. You couldn't write anything meaner
Asher Elbein

I half think that even if a billionaire tax leads ultra-wealthy people to flee the country, it's probably still good on net. leaves them less able to buy the political system
ryan cooper

Serious scholars have examined what happens when we change the number of H1-B visas issued. Cities that get more H1-B immigrants subsequently see the wages of natives *rise* substantially. Skilled immigrants bring new ideas, fill labor shortages and  make us all more productive.
Justin Wolfers

I sometimes feel like I was the last/only parent who actively DID NOT want to know where my kid was at every damn second. Weird, I know. BTW he is 23 now and just fine.
Sarah Goodyear

Car culture means parents never learn to let children go anywhere without an adult.
politicsofcars.bsky.social

You’re much closer to becoming disabled or homeless than you are to becoming rich and wealthy. It’s not a moral failing. It’s not something you can “try harder” your way out of. We need robust social supports & safety nets to ensure everyone is properly cared for.
Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social

"Your city will always have exactly as much gridlock as it makes room for."
bettybarcode

While TRUMP cuts healthcare funding, hunger relief, cancer research etc he's looking to give FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO THIS GUY in Argentina!


MAinNC @martyd409.bsky.social

Did u know that the entire Christian TikTok community believes the rapture is happening this week, preparing their homes and everything
Mira of Kyiv @reshetz.bsky.social

If the rapture rids the earth of MAGA then I’m all in favor of it as soon as later this afternoon.
Steen @steenws.bsky.social

Idk man maybe we should stop pretending the people who are gleefully waiting to die have valid opinions on anything in society.
Fats Falafel

It's the suburbanization/infantilization of all of American life. "Cities are scary, I just want to live in my little tract home and eat at my little chains, around people identical to me in an HOA panopticon, only ever leaving home in my car, never encounter a stranger who isn't serving me."
M. Nolan Gray

An epidemic of billionaires. @ft.com@web.brid.gy: When Forbes magazine released its first global billionaires list in 1987, just 140 names appeared on it. The 2025 version featured more than 3,000 people, worth a collective $16 trillion.
Chris Lombardi @chrisblue.bsky.social

Christian persecution in America is best defined by this image: No actual struggle, wearing clothes that cost more than my entire wardrobe, polished cross instead of rugged, and surrounded by crowds of fellow hypocrites cheering on bigotry who believe they're the victims:


Jennifer C. Martin @notreallyjcm.bsky.social

Do we do irreversible medical interventions on trans kids? Oh, yes, we mandate cis puberty on them and force them into conversion therapy if they give any backtalk because our Minister for Health is a literal Christo-fascist Vichy gay slimeball on account of Labour supporting child abuse and deaths.
Cobie Yo @cobieef.bsky.social

Gender affirming care in children is almost always fully reversible, unlike many sports injuries, which can impact long-term health and quality of life. But the obsession with gender affirming care isn't really about protecting kids, is it...
KarBeReal @karbeary.bsky.social

The Charlie Kirk memorial is a combined Evangelical mega-church service and Trump rally. Never has Christian nationalism had such a defining and legitimizing stage. This event amplifies evangelic beliefs as an American value like I've never seen before.
Jennifer N. Victor

When they say "unity," but they mean "capitulate."
Jen Mercieca

Former counselor to RFK Jr’s predecessor:


Eric Columbus

i think one thing people have a hard time grasping is that the central figures of the trump administration are not bad as in "the worst republican blowhard you know," but bad as in "the worst people you have ever heard of." donald trump is a serial rapist whose best friend was a pedophile.
@theophite.bsky.social

Being old, I remember the days when Rush Limbaugh celebrated the deaths of gay men, playing Dionne Warwick singing “I Know I’ll Never Love This Way Again.” Trump gave him the presidential medal of honor.
Mike Karpa

This whole Kirk stuff is getting ridiculous. A national day of mourning, flags lowered, a strange comparison to St Paul, like seriously. Where was the day of mourning and prayers for the kids at Sandy Hook and so many other school shootings?? Frankly it's nauseating and shows America is gone.
Reg Schofield @rws63.bsky.social

we have gone from a world in which we were told not to cite wikipedia because it was unreliable to a world where wikipedia might be the only reliable source left on the internet and we all owe a lot to the pedantic nerds who got us there
Micah @rincewind.run

for all people mock it wikipedia is genuinely one of the wonders of the modern world
Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com

No other institution has fulfilled the promise of the early Internet so fully or resisted enshittification for so long.
Max Phillips @signaltype.bsky.social

Just 2 gun rights advocates sitting behind a wall of bulletproof glass while enjoying a memorial for a gun rights advocate who got murdered by a gun:


Benn Jordan

The fossil fuel industry is behind most of the climate disinformation you see and hear today. Charlie Kirk was no exception.
Emily Atkin @emorwee.bsky.social

Remember when Republicans spent years complaining about the fact that some people mentioned politics at Paul Wellstone's memorial service?
Ben Alpers

I have never seen a festival of hate like what is happening in Arizona today. Every speaker sounds like they want to genocide more than half of America
Seth Abramson

As CNN offers daylong saturation coverage of the podcaster’s funeral, I went back and checked to see how CNN covered Melissa Hortman’s memorial on 6/28, where Walz spoke and Biden/Harris attended. It got about four minutes during the hours it was happening—less than Jeff Bezos’s wedding that day.
TVMoJoe

They don’t seem very sad that Charlie Kirk died:


Laura Bassett

Even I — an atheist — am offended by the blasphemy of this event.
Dale (aka Lichtenbergian) @thatdale.bsky.social

Probably cuz it's not a funeral. It's a Nazi rally.
Guinea @guineaprince.bsky.social

In 1983, 90% of U.S. media was owned by 50 companies. By 2012, that number was 6. Today, it's just 5. Decades of media consolidation made it "a lot easier for authoritarian government to exercise control," consumer advocate Gigi Sohn says.
James Downie

“Fascism” isn’t a slur for politics we don’t like. It’s a precise word with precise meaning. And in the face of what’s happening right now in America, it’s the most honest one we have.
Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social

It really is like Nixon live blogging Watergate and the journalism establishment saying eh, what can you do
Denny Carter

Social conservatives will likely lose tactically in that I imagine they will mostly not win fights on things like banning gay marriage. But they will in a sense win strategically, in that they will dictate the fights that are picked and the terrain they are fought on.
William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social

There have been three presidency-defining scandals inside Trump's Department of Justice just in the last 48 hours. The Republican Party truly is a crime syndicate wrapped in a flag.
Hunter @hunterub.bsky.social


Eric Columbus

This could be “the largest public corruption scandal in the history of the United States" — amounting to a $2B bribe from an Emirati royal and the sale of the world’s most valuable artificial intelligence chips to the UAE, despite national security concern. Our brains are not wired to comprehend presidential corruption on this scale. Nor is our government, I fear, equipped to address a financial scandal as enormous as the one.
The New Republic

It’s not a crime to be in this country as an undocumented person. It’s a civil violation. But you know what is a crime? Taking a bribe from undercover agents in exchange for the promise of government contracts WHEN YOU’RE THE FCKING BORDER CZAR.
Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin @ecmclaughlin.bsky.social

Sure, my rights are being stripped one by one, the economy is getting destroyed, the President is murdering people on the open seas and making broadcast decisions for all the major networks, but at least I don't have to worry about peeing in a stall next to a trans person. –MAGA
Machine Pun Kelly @kellyscaletta.bsky.social

I’m worried it can still get stupider
Molly Jong-Fast

One time, the Missouri Ethics Committee investigated me over a $30 donation…


Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.social

There is no world in which it is normal for the president to publicly call upon his attorney general to hurry up and prosecute his political foes. It’s like the Watergate tapes but posted on social media. Let’s get a grip on what’s happening here.
Aaron Rupar

genuinely believe that a large number of political, economic and media elites do not realize that nearly half the voting public did not vote for trump
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

attempting to describe the vibes of the moment. have yet to do better than: "imagine watching a documentary reenacting the burning of the Library of Alexandria set to the soundtrack of 'Yakety Sax'"
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

Trump Says Critical Coverage of Him Is ‘Really Illegal.’ It remained unclear why the president believed negative news coverage, which all of his predecessors have faced and is protected by the Constitution, would be against the law.
Jen Mercieca

We are simultaneously selling US citizenship to the highest bidder and extorting companies that need to hire anyone else. Great.
Patrick Chovanec

It's important to remember when GOP Reps and Sens are yelling about the 'violent left' that they routinely tell reporters and colleagues how they're afraid to do this or that because their own supporters routinely threaten violence agains them.
Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social

Truly outrageous. Erasing the evidence of mounting suffering won't make it go away. It's just a matter of time before he cancels the annual homeless count:

Brian Goldstone

entire press has gotten bullied into treating charlie kirk as if he was one of the most important americans alive and not a modestly popular podcaster
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

The debate around what is or isn’t “cancel culture” really just obscures a simple truth that it’s BAD to be massively racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic and it’s GOOD to speak out against injustice. Some things are good and some things are bad and it’s okay to say which you think are which.
Josh Gondelman

John Roberts's "there's no such thing as corruption" and "the president has the right to use the DOJ as his personal law firm" jurisprudence is really working out well for us.
Radley Balko

ATTENTION CITIZENS! Have you obtained your mandatory "I ❤️ CHARLIE KIRK" facial tattoo? You have one (1) week to comply with this celebration of Free Speech or else you will be renditioned to one of President Trump's Platinum Level Resort and Reeducation Camps
Kevin M. Kruse

Every statistic about how bad the economy is getting is going to be buried or cooked by the end of the year. Quarterly earnings reports shifting to semi-annual earnings will ensure private companies don’t inject reality too often by talking about declining sales, etc.
Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social

Incredible image. Also incredible that the  vast majority of white Christians in this country align with the men in camo:


Radley Balko

Step 1: Cut funding for food stamps
Step 2: Stop measuring hunger
Step 3: There's no evidence cuts to food stamps led to a rise in hunger
Justin Wolfers

In the months since Mr. Trump took office ...  administration officials have declared their support for right-wing parties in nearly every country in Europe, including Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia and Spain.
GirlGone427

You cannot understand US politics without understanding racism. It's impossible.
Prisonculture

What’s more astonishing: 1) that the president clearly believes, and repeatedly suggests, that asylum seekers are people from mental asylums, or 2) that no journalist has ever challenged him on this and no mainstream media outlets have done any deep dives on this story?
Mehdi Hasan

I would love for a single democrat to reckon with the fact that conservatives are not in fact motivated by reasonable concerns. They are — just as they were with ‘concerns’ over blacks and gays and numerous other minorities over the last five decades — motivated by bigotry.
Michael Hobbes

I truly don't understand how democratic leadership think they are going to move forward after voting to honor a white nationalist who essentially called Black women — the base of the party — stupid. It's insulting. I find it personally insulting.
Imani Gandy @angryblacklady.bsky.social

Good point:


The Tennessee Holler

The one good thing about this “run America like a business” nightmare is that more people are beginning to realize how corrupt and craven many businesses truly are. Take notes. Never forget how they abandoned us. Don’t forgive their complicity.
Just Jack @just-jack-1.bsky.social

Is everything a racket with these people. Trump Adds $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee and Rolls Out $1 Million ‘Gold Card’ –The Wall Street Journal
William Rodgers Jr

Americans 'popularity contested' themselves into fascism.
jentrification

"More professors in the United States have been fired for controversial views in the past week than any other week in all of American history."
Laura Sell

The thing is, I just really fucking hate bullies, and what's getting me down is that I thought other people did too.
David Roberts @volts.wtf

Look at photos of US troops in Fallujah. They're armed like these ICE agents in Chicago. But none of them are wearing the cowardly face masks of today's ICE thugs. Like the one throwing a young, female Congressional candidate to the ground:


James Fallows

AP-NORC poll | 9/11-9/15
President Trump approval
Disapprove 60% (+7)
Approve 39% (-6)
(shift since last poll)
Poll Tracker

Oh God, oh God, YES. It's okay to not feel like some kind of loser just because you choose a little more mechanical support! That's why people ride bikes in the first place instead of running everywhere, remember? I [heart] e-bikes and you should, too.
Speed limit 20 @marymm.bsky.social

"President got a late night TV show canceled" seems like one of those stories that penetrates the public consciousnesses better than stuff like "president threatens the independence of the Federal Reserve"
Bobby Big Wheel @kleinman.bsky.social

It’s true — by designating ANTIFA as the enemy, including all Democrats and leftists and Trump critics and people of color and women — Trump is admitting that he is a Fascist dictator who will crack down upon any and all opposition:


Arabella @arabellaspireship.bsky.social

Some Good News, everybody! "Nonprofit environmental organization the Ocean Cleanup has announced that it's on track to eliminate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by 2034"
Big Demon Energy @mayawest.online

funniest part about the right having to pretend kimmel got sidelined because he “lied” while having to pretend the entire rightwing media apparatus doesn’t exist
onion person @junlper.beer

looking forward to the 6-3 supreme court decision that finds the first amendment was only ever meant to allow for criticism of king george specifically
the chaste gnome of real berlin @mel.bzky.team

The Telecom Act of 1996 reduced the FCC regulations on cross ownership, leading directly to this rapid consolidation.
More Perfect Union

Headline: Trump says he didn't want London mayor at state banquet because he's a brown muslim man.
David Ho

Charlie Kirk was a professional troll, heavily paid by oligarchs. That our mainstream media gives people zero clue about this in the last week is a serious indictment of them
Gutt Levy @stomachtax.bsky.social

If the far right isn’t violent, why do they celebrate the Proud Boys? These are unpatriotic thugs deployed to intimidate and harass those who love democracy. Now this criminal gang of unruly hooligans is rebranding as Cancel Culture enforcers.
Wayne Besen

From history of bad takes, 2015:


Jen Mercieca

ah they all just think being personally unpopular is the same as being oppressed lmao
Trung Le Nguyen @trungles.com

I've broken down my dishwasher's cycle into 6 distinct stages:
1. Vrrrrrrrr
2. Bllblbbblblbllbb
3. Swssshswshhswsh
4. (Eerie silence, laden with sinister foreboding)
5. Mrrrrrrrrp
6. Done
mindflakes

This is the biggest attack on free speech since the McCarthy era but it also has significantly less popular consensus behind it than the second Red Scare. It's being done on behalf of a minority faction led by the most unpopular president in modern history. Organizing against this can win.
Jeet Heer

I think this comparison is largely right. Yes, it’s a replay of McCarthyism’s ugliest aspects but that was fueled by a widespread sense that the country faced dire external dangers while this is about a deeply unpopular president’s grudges.
Kevin M. Kruse

Please tell me ... have any of these "creators" aka podcasters and revolving convention speakers ever hold a real job where they contributed to society?
@rockymountviews.bsky.social

I just realized I thought Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro were the same person.
Smart Dissent

“Know America. Love America" is the motto of the new America 250 Civics Coalition led by EdSec McMahon, partnered w/ PragerU, Turning Point USA, Heritage Foundation, and Moms for Liberty, among many, many others, to "reignite the spirit of citizenship and national pride."
Nick Covington @covingtonedu.bsky.social

When everyone was clamoring for more civics education over the last couple years, some of us warned that that meant a very different thing to people on the far-right. This is the white nationalist version, a Trojan horse for religion in the schools and for censorship of a full history.
Anne Lutz Fernandez

This is why everything sucks. It's not trans people. It's not immigrants. You are being robbed blind before your eyes and those same people also own all the tech and media networks to tell you that the cause is not them:


The Serfs @theserfstv.bsky.social

I still can't believe a large segment of Red America looks at this pampered crybaby, slathered in orange makeup with his cotton candy combover, doing his little dances to the Village People and going on endlessly about his passion for interior decorating, and thinks "now *that* is an Alpha Male"
Kevin M. Kruse

In the 2010s, this country's elites were thrown onto social platforms with everyone else and could finally read what we all think about them and it caused them so much psychic damage that they decided to destroy both the internet and democracy to make sure nothing like it ever happened again.
Ryan Broderick @ryanhatesthis.bsky.social

Heritage Foundation has released an absolutely insane policy proposal to label all trans people as domestic terrorists. It uses completely made up instances of terrorism and made up statistics but facts don't matter to them. They want us all eradicated.
Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net

Love that we can’t trust weather forecasts anymore it’s so awesome
Blake Maroney @blakenator.bsky.social

The Top 1% of U.S. earners now have more wealth than the entire middle class


Unusual Whales

Look I am just some guy but if it helps anybody to read an alternate take: yes shit is bad and upsetting, but this tantrum by the regime and its corporate allies is not what strength and determination with power looks like. This is weakness and desperation with power.
elder millennial nerd dad @whatsnextmtthw.bsky.social

Every time a city prioritizes non-car travel, pedestrianizes thoroughfares, expands transit, improves bike networks, implements congestion pricing or creates new public spaces, that city becomes better. It’s not a war on cars. It’s an effort to make cities better and more livable.
Senator Scott Wiener

It would be quite fun to use a court illustrator as an alternative to wedding photos.
Present & Correct

Every pundit who took at face value the idea that the Right sincerely cares about free speech, or ideological diversity, or in fact has any principles at all, should be wearing a dunce cap and writing a lengthy mea culpa right now. Not for our catharsis but for public awareness at least
Punish the Villains @internethippo.bsky.social

More Americans are very worried about climate change than are about crime;


Dr. Genevieve Guenther @doctorvive.bsky.social

Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel both getting sacked this year should tell everybody where we truly are. If two beloved rich white guys can’t say what they want to say, we are past emergency level of danger.
Nasreen MacDonald @nasrene41.bsky.social

Make no mistake, everything that’s happening in the United States is being significantly enabled by the right wing oligarch capture of media. Every other country needs to do everything possible to keep that from happening where they are. Including protecting the CBC from Poilievre here in Canada.
Brent Toderian

Lefties are radicalized by financial emergencies or institutional failures. Righties are radicalized by people being mean to them online.
Barry Petchesky

Every now and then I’ll remember some heinous thing that Trump did that has simply become part of our national miasma—like the time during the campaign he told oil and gas companies to bribe him with $1B to get access to the White House
Kaitlin Is Just Getting Started @gothamgirlblue.com

This is the real reason Jimmy Kimmel is being taken off the air. Brian Stelter: "Nexstar already owns lots of TV stations. It wants to merge with Tegna, which owns lots of other stations. In order to do that, it needs Brandon Carr, the FCC Chair's, permission."
Blue Georgia

Rich media, poor democracy.
Jen Mercieca

The very idea of agreeing to a debate about human rights means you accept the premise that human rights are debatable.
Lawrence Allan @writelarrywrite.lawrenceallanwrites.com

Harvey Milk and Medgar Evers...both assassinated for their beliefs...were actual veterans unlike career podcaster Charlie Kirk and Hegseth is actively scraping their names off anything he can.
Zeddy @zeddary.bsky.social

"This isn't who we are," says nation whose history books are a bunch of redactions
Alanna Smith @alannamode.bsky.social

We can no longer speak truth! Forget about speaking truth to power!
spinycactusflower.bsky.social

If you're still pretending that the Republican Party has the slightest interest in democracy, or the Constitution, you're either a complete imbecile or you're working with them.
Paul Gowder

I know most people are intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically aware of “how bad it is.” And at the same time I feel like we are grossly underprepared for just how bad it going to get.
mollypeonies


JustJeanie @jeaniec135.bsky.social

generally speaking, and with the glaring exception of november 2024, the more directly democratic an institution has been, the better it has checked Trump (eg grand and petit juries); the more elite and insular, the less effective (the Senate, the Supreme Court, big business).
Quinta Jurecic

genuinely crazy that this is happening on behalf of charlie kirk of all people
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

a gentle reminder that 'child sexual abuse material' or CSAM is preferred to 'child porn.' it puts the focus on the crime and victim and does not associate it with consensual sexual acts between adults which are part of a (needs to be better) regulated industry
endora bullshit

What America is going through is not unusual in historical terms. Plenty of examples like it today elsewhere in the world. What makes it unusual is the rapid collapse from a set of widely espoused norms and values that centered on liberty. It is the sacking of the shining city on hill that shocks.
Don Moynihan

if Jimmy Kimmel's political humor is too hot for you to handle, I'm not sure "snowflake" even cuts it as a term of derision for the level of fragility you've achieved
e.w. niedermeyer

Is it important that the media can report the news without government censorship? In the United States, 92% say it is important:


Conrad Hackett

Scott Bessent, like Lisa Cook, had two homes listed as primary residences in mortgage documents at the same time. The two homes were each listed as primary residences on the same day in docs signed on his behalf by his lawyer.
Steven T. Dennis

so many dead canaries and we just keep on mining
Michael @fleerultra.bsky.social

in light of the kimmel news, just a reminder that a few days ago a prominent fox news host literally called for killing homeless people. right afterward, someone shot up a couple homeless encampments. that fox news host still has his job.
shauna @goldengateblond.bsky.social

wait, do we need "affordable housing" or do we need public housing? They convinced yall to excise public housing from your brain (the power of anti-Blackness in the American politic) even though public housing exists and is successful, often beautiful, ALL OVER THE WORLD.
D.A. Bullock @bullycreative.bsky.social

Good morning. Beehive Ginger (Zingiber spectabile), a tropical ornamental plant known for its distinctive inflorescence. Buenos días:


Mel @melincostarica.bsky.social

Call me radical, but I think we *don't* need to have polite chats with racists who are spewing conspiracy theories that keep motivating white supremacists to massacre our fellow citizens, and we *don't* need to have bipartisan deals with fascists trying to destroy our democracy and our government.
Kevin M. Kruse

“Debate Me” culture is not organic, endemic, or apolitical. This mode of high jacking discourse is and has been central to a 30-year conservative training program that has produced untold numbers of people to do this for every reason but “civil discourse”
Tressie McMillan Cottom

This. I told a student group that I declined their debate invitation but that I would love to read something together and have a conversation. The response: crickets.
Let's stop debating and try to talk with each other instead.
Mary Dudziak

Not much different than friendship evangelism I was taught in the 80s:  I’m going to be in relationship with you so I might have the opportunity to convert you.
Jim Bonewald

Agree. And creationists were doing this long before the 1990s.
Mike the Mad Biologist and Tsar of All the Antifas

I honestly think the ongoing effort to whitewash Kirk and treat MAGAism like normal conservative politics is disrespectful to those principled conservatives who have publicly broken with MAGA.
Ned Resnikoff

Want to lead America’s military? Beginning in 2027, you won't even need to take the ACT or SAT to get admitted into our service academies. You can just take the Christian Nationalist knockoff exam instead.
Hemant Mehta @friendlyatheist.com

PSA: Thinking this is wrong doesn’t make you a “radical” — thinking it isn’t does:


The Tennessee Holler

This is fascinating, 94% of college students had heard of Charlie Kirk - and 70% of those who heard of him disagreed with him
Bobby Big Wheel @kleinman.bsky.social

something to keep in mind is that everything the right is currently doing to trans people is just what they have wanted for decades to do to gay people; they just can’t get away with doing the latter right now
Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social

New idea: a liberal media outlet or think tank dedicated to getting Democrats to care less about race, gender, climate, or democracy, and admitting that MAGA kind of has a point. Since no one has thought of this before, it might be— Wait, what? Millions of dollars already appeared in my account.
Nicholas Grossman

“The study found that about 7% of US adults have been present at the scene of a mass shooting in their lifetime, and more than 2% have been injured during one.”
Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social

We are witnessing a swift and sweeping consolidation of media (traditional and social) into the hands of a small number of billionaires who are actively aligned/aligning (both via free will and coercion) with Trump and his right wing political party. This is (I’ll say it) a fascist project.
Kate Starbird

Every year, billions of vehicles worldwide shed an estimated 6 million tonnes of tire fragments. These tiny flakes of plastic, generated by normal driving, account for 28% of microplastics entering the environment globally. Heavy vehicles eg SUVs/EVs especially.
Brent Toderian

DOUBLE RAINBOW! Saint Paul is blessed:


Hooper @hoopermn.bsky.social

None of the new appointees to the CDC vaccine panel have expertise in vaccines. The only difference between these people and Caligula’s horse is that the horse wasn’t an antivaxxer.
Ryan Marino, MD

The amazing thing about Trump is that he says right into the camera on the White House lawn while stone cold sober the sort of stuff Nixon would only scream in solitude at the White House fireplace after a bottle and a half of whiskey.
Seth Cotlar

One thing I’m really struggling with today is the fact that the director of the FBI is a conspiracy theorist who promoted QAnon and called Jan. 6th insurrectionists political prisoners. This is the guy we’re now supposed to give the benefit of the doubt when he’s releasing information.
Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social

Let's all to take a deep breath and understand that we have reached the phase in fascism where if they want to declare you a criminal, you are a criminal. You cannot magically avoid it, or do exactly the right thing to stay off the list. Fascism must always have enemies, and one day you will be one.
Sarah Tuttle @niais.bsky.social

This is what crossings in front of schools should look like. Raised crossing, short crossing distance, 20mph speed limit, close street trees for calming, protected bike lane, two-way road narrows to a pinch point / cars have to slow down and take turns:


Steven Lucy

its kind of insane that we’ve been forced to watch rightwingers openly celebrate and taunt everyone over the death of people like trayvon martin for over a decade now and now they’re trying to grandstand over the one time it’s personally affected them and political project
onion person @junlper.beer

Anyone who remembers Wells Fargo employees opening bogus accounts for their customers in order to meet quota will not be surprised [about what ICE is doing]. Repeatedly, managers rediscover that "you get what you measure" has a "for better and for worse" corollary.
Max Hailperin

It is often said that China and Russia play chess while the US plays checkers. Not so now. Trump plays Monopoly, hoping to erect a hotel on Boardwalk.
jimvoor.bsky.social

I love London so much. So much. Did you know that London has the lowest level of ethnic violence of any city of comparable size in the world? Multiculturalism has in fact worked here. They just don’t want it to be true because we happen to have a Muslim mayor. I am more a Londoner than I am  British and certainly than I feel English. I don’t want to sound weird but: it’s a way of being. To be a Londoner is to love difference  enough that you always find ways to make room for other cultures not just your own. Not to tolerate difference;
to revel in it.
Naomi Alderman

Use of the word "radical" in official congressional e-newsletters, over time, by party:


Lindsey Cormack @dcinbox.bsky.social

I know I’m naive but it is pretty wild that the president of the United States just publicly declares he and the military killed some guys on a boat, multiple times, and the entirety of Congress doesn’t immediately hit a giant red IMPEACH button
Dave Levitan

One of the big lessons of the past 200 years is that political assassins tend to be weird people who don't correspond to even our rational view of who they should be. Even John Wilkes Booth, who has one of the clearest ideological motives, is basically an actor who sits out the entire Civil War playing "Julius Caesar" in Northern cities, then decides he and his friends can reverse the entire outcome of the war in one evening.
Patrick Chovanec

I heard AI and its relationship to the economy recently described as “The wasting is masked because the tumor is growing so fast that the body isn’t losing weight.”
Sisqó Systems Admin @yeenenjoyer.bsky.social

We have some big black-eyed susans outside our bay window and when I wake up I can see the bees sleeping on the flowers
David Brauer

In a capitalist system, the capitalists have to constantly choose between people and capital: should I pay more or profit more? Even if they want to choose people, they must choose capital to compete, or they lose the game. So time and time again, they choose to profit, until there are no people.
50501: The People’s Movement

According to Wikipedia, the number of current and past Hmong American state legislators in Minnesota is ten—11, now, with the election of Xp Lee to the House. Mee Moua was the first in the nation, back in 2002. No other state, including Wisconsin and California, comes close to that representation.
Stacey Burns @wentrogue.bsky.social

Imagine in 2025, after all the times Black women warned literally everyone about everything that’s happening right now, announcing that Black women commentators are just very paranoid. When we have been right???????? This whole time????? About pretty much everything????????????!
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

What we call things reveals a lot about our priorities and biases. Graphic via @reenamahajan.bsky.social:


Brent Toderian

Gifting your child a high-powered rifle is also an ideology. We just refuse to speak of it as such.
dan sinker

coates has turned out to be one of a vanishingly small number of people who both have something to lose and are willing to put it on the line to say what are clearly truthful if dangerous things. im impressed
jeff computers @helldude.bsky.social

The only actual transgender person in this story seems to have helped turn the shooter in to the police. That ought to count for something, but you know it won’t.
Patrick Chovanec

Fun fact: If ANYONE received the kind of threats of political violence and vitriol that Ilhan Omar receives EVERY-SINGLE-DAY they would run away to a private island with a wall of security guards. They have no idea what she faces because of them. Yet she works, successfully for Minneapolis
quick13

I just wish all the people who oppose traffic calming could understand how much joy and confidence children can get when they are able to safely walk and bike places.
brooke bikes mke

As much as the first gilded age sucked, at least they built libraries and parks and schools (actual schools not Praeger U) and shit.
Willow @rockshrimp.bsky.social

here’s the thing: those rich dudes lived WAY closer temporally to the French Revolution than our rich dudes. like, they were aware that if you piss off the peasants TOO much, money doesn’t matter to a guillotine. I don’t think they were better people than our billionaires, they just remembered fear
Jessica Price @delafina777.bsky.social

We're watching them work themselves up to a nationwide pogrom and all we can do is comment sardonically.
David Roberts @volts.wtf

boardwalk nut hut store, wildwood, new jersey, 1978:


old roadside pics @roadside.xor.blue

One pretty foolproof way to know your government is fascist is when your government tries to punish you for calling it fascist.
Radley Balko

He's alive, so I guess we're still legally permitted to point out that Ben Shapiro is a glib, nasty dipshit whose success is a testament to the abysmal intellectual standards on the right.
David Roberts @volts.wtf

Human beings are not cognitively or psychologically equipped to safely and responsibly operate cars. The fact we have normalized it is truly wild.
Nissa Mitchell

A big problem with US conservatives is that they view people disagreeing with them as an attack — but they view them actually attacking people as “a disagreement.”
David Slack @slack2thefuture.bsky.social

Journalists should boycott White House press briefings if they're going to be threatened with lawsuits or retaliation for asking a question.
Patrick Chovanec

The entire point of the First Amendment is that you be able to call the President a fucking asshole. Especially when he *is* a fucking asshole, but even if he weren't a fucking asshole, you should still be able to call him a fucking asshole.
Hal 10000

I’m old enough to remember when presidents didn’t bring lawsuits (ie solicitations for bribes) for many different reasons, including that doing so would damaging to their reputation as anything published about them
Adam Miller @ajm6792.bsky.social

I like when you register for a website and then it takes you to a login page instead of just signing you in. That’s right, good point, I might not have wanted to log in right now. Maybe I signed up today so I could log in sometime, some other day.
Ken Jennings

good morning everynyan:


@mel.bzky.team

As I was saying the other day, it's difficult to conceive of anything deserving the name "freedom of speech" that does not, at its core, include the right to insult people
Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social

Once again it’s not that conservatives deny the existence of racism, they merely deny the existence of racism against minorities. Every single social justice concept — safe spaces, intersectionality, microaggressions, representation — is embraced by the right when they talk about men or whites or straights.
Michael Hobbes

Just heard the sentence: "This painting begs questions." Philosophers and lawyers have officially lost the battle over the meaning of "begging the question."
Ethan Landes

free speech: chilled
foreign relations: collapsing
employment: anemic
prices: rising
the stock market: wheeeeee
Micah @rincewind.run

Suddenly "hate speech" is bad. Suddenly "dehumanizing" people is bad. Suddenly "cancel culture" is good. Suddenly words have consequences. The modern American right in 2025, folks.
Mehdi Hasan

94% of Parisians live within a 5-minute walk of a bakery. My kingdom for urbanism this good in the US.
Dustin Black @engineerdustin.bsky.social

A thought I keep returning to — and that’s underscored by today’s news — is that a legacy publication or a deep-pocketed investor could hire an astonishing array of talent right now and make the best newspaper in America overnight.
Tim Carvell

This one will be in the 2025 year in review features this December for sure:


David Gorski, MD, PhD

New York Times actively worked to get Trump elected twice, and all they got in return was a $15b lawsuit.
A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social

There are already calls for the Bluesky app to be dropped by Apple, Google, and others. Because “free speech absolutism” or something.
Patrick Chovanec

Teacher: Charlie Kirk was bad
Kirkists: BLOW UP THE SCHOOL
Politicians: you leftists have to reject violence
Taylor Noakes

“The Violence Prevention Project at Hamline University found the overwhelming majority of mass shootings with four+ people wounded in public were carried out by men. Just 2% in last decade were carried out by women and less than 1% were by transgender people”
Omar Wasow

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