The second half of August 2026 (following the first half, recorded here). You can't tell from what you see in this post, but the U.S. war on Iran continued, as of course did all of the graft and grift of the Trump regime. We learned that deportation has been quietly increasing to its highest levels. Temporary protected status for Haitians ended, and people who should have every right to be here were hauled away in chains.
This was the time when news finally came out about Trump's addiction to his Ivanka-lite aide Natalie Harp, who's with him everywhere all at once and feeds him the worst of social media, sometimes refeeding (or creating?) posts in his name. He also got into another pissing match with Canada and said he was renaming Lake Ontario. Oh, and the effects of climate change keep making themselves clearer all the time.
Closer to home, the Minnesota State Fair started in the last few days, and a few photos from that can't be avoided (more to come from my own visit soon). There's a lot at the Fair about Operation Metro Surge, let's just say, so a few had to make it into the BlueSKy post.
All posts are from the attributed accounts and are in reverse chronological order, except some of the images, which I move up or down for better visual balance.
__
I am gratified that normies are finally beginning to understand how "but it's flagrantly illegal" isn't enough to win a court case by itself in the face of decades of case law progressively narrowing who has standing to sue, but dismayed that it took all this death and destruction to get there.
National Security Counselors @nationalsecuritylaw.org
Every day that passes I'm more convinced that both "woke" and the "anti-woke backlash" were overwhelmingly elite phenomena, a kind of clash of elite cliques that barely brushed up against the lives or consciousness of ordinary (read, largely checked out) voters.
David Roberts @volts.wtf
Why do all politicians now have to speak in front of a wall of people?
Bill McKibben
Underrated crop art, I think:
Indigiqueer Hummingbird @riotousmuse.bsky.social
Hill I'll die on: basketball player Caitlin Clark isn't a generational talent. She's one of the first in what appears to be a long line of incredibly talented players coming out of the NCAA. These players are the results of years of putting resources into girls sports. They will only get better.
Marcy @deadheadgirly.bsky.social
I HATE it when Democrats claim the party is too focused on culture war issues. These are not wars, but rather one-sided offensives by a fascistic Republican party. What the Democrats are engaged in (or should be!) is protecting everyone from this violent onslaught, and that is what they should say.
LunchCounterPunch @theultrasecret.bsky.social
I’m reading Cannery Row. Jesus Christ is it amazing. So great to live in a world where I can be almost 50, have been an avid reader my whole life and have barely scratched the surface of the surface of spectacular books out there.
Rob Delaney
I've been thinking a lot about my dorky little [State Fair] crop art and recognized this morning that the freedom to make whatever you want is the point. That should be preserved at all costs. My technique and accuracy isn't quite so notable as a first-year entrant, but it still felt important for me to make.
musicianapolis @generalmusician.bsky.social
The Lake America thing really drives home that the fundamental divide in this country isn’t left or right, it’s who sees the world and acts like an adult, and who wants to still be a child, throwing tantrums when they don’t get their way. It just happens to map well onto a partisan axis these days.
Cooper Lund
I mentioned the men’s rights movement in passing to my very not-online therapist. Her eyes got enormous and then she said, very carefully, “Do men… not have rights currently?”
Anna Merlan
hmm. a therapist who doesn't know about the 2nd largest mass psychosis of the last decade... I dunno isnt that like a heart surgeon not reading the NEJM
UncleEraserheadBabyBilly @lepcyrus.bsky.social
Goldstein @goldstein.latinsky.app
"I'll only be a second!"
"There's nowhere else to park!"
"Just go around!"
All things that drivers say which minimize what they're doing when they block a bike lane and force a rider into traffic.
Gravel Influencer
Fortunately motorists are universally accepting and understanding when a cyclist tells them...
"I'll only be a second."
"There's nowhere else to ride!"
"Just go around!"
when they are actually using the road as they are legally entitled. After all, anything else would be shockingly hypocritical.
Dave Daveson @davemayhem.bsky.social
This is the entire history of Tesla financial news:
Gore Vidal Sassoon @jimmyjazz1968.bsky.social
I'm an immigration historian. We lack the lexicon to describe this evil. "Deportation" generally means being repatriated to the country you came from. Although there have been 3rd country removals in US history, they are rare, but now ramping up. Also "deportation" means when you're sent back, you are free in the receiving country. These people are not "free" and do not feel free. I'm not a lawyer. There may also be international law violations as the US law violations are contested in court. Theoretical frames for colonization and human trafficking need to be revisited. To scholars of African American & Native histories, few of the atrocities in immigration enforcement today are new. The racial script and similar mechanisms have been used on other groups before to deny them the right to mobility and to stay where they wanted. What's new is scope/scale of gov power.
Anna O. Law @unlawfulentries.bsky.social
Pretty wild that an obscure conspiracy theorist at OAN is now the gatekeeper and filter for what the president is exposed to on the internet as well as what he posts on social media. No wonder his lies have gotten even more bizarre and twisted since Harp became his human printer.
Ron Filipkowski
It’s mind-blowing that we have literal white nationalists in the White House carrying out unfathomably cruel, abusive, white nationalist policies, and the punditariat has spent the last two weeks debating if some people were too intemperate after a Black man was murdered by cops six years ago.
Radley Balko
The median homebuyer age rose to 59 in 2025 from 39 in 2005:
Sean Brodrick
The endless takes demanding "moderation" from Democrats never spell out precisely how this message is supposed to be delivered. "I am pro-trans but not too pro-trans" looks to the left like you are anti-trans and to the right like you are not anti-trans enough.
Michael Hobbes
On the one hand, some people want to make it so that kids and other people aren't crushed to death by cars. On the other hand, some people are upset that they might have to pay attention, slow down or be inconvenienced by about 15 seconds. So you can see how it's a "war on cars."
The War on Cars
If a white person uses the term "woke" I realize that they are either a malicious asshole, maliciously complacent, or reflexively unthinking, and it's only a matter of time before they reveal which one it is. One good way to find out is to explain what "woke" actually means and note the reaction.
A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social
Jesus Christ the right fully AGREES that “woke” means “in favor of social justice for marginalized groups,” that’s why they keep fucking complaining about it, they dislike that! Like it’s the liberals that keep insisting it means blue hair nosering barista politics while everyone on the right is like “woke is when you think ICE shouldn’t kill people”
The Original Scalawag @stuntbirdarmy.bsky.social
I assume what AP means is: "Lies about noncitizen voting are being used by Trump to attack elections his party is set to lose and to set up an authoritarian effort to overturn the results. "If so, they should just say that:
Marc Elias
I get mad when people complain about taxes. Like they don't want to pay their fair share for services that are good and necessary. I'm happy to pay taxes, a lot of them frankly, as long as everyone does it with no loopholes for separate classes.
quick13
I don't need to know anything about any particular Republican candidate, to be honest. Anyone aspiring to be an officeholder in this party in the year 2026 is a villain. We're just talking about gradations of perversity
Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social
Having bought two EVs and a hybrid, I think a big part of America’s sloth in adopt adopting EVs is car dealerships’ management being heavily Republican, and having a business model that relies on repairs that EV‘s don’t need.
Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social
You see a lot of glib analysts repeating the line that "Americans just don't want EVs" without taking into consideration that the US auto buying experience is dominated by a network of extremely ignorant, Republican car dealers dependent on the kind of maintenance that EVs don't need.
David Roberts @volts.wtf
The mainstream media aren’t ready to conclude that Trump is becoming a dictator. By the time they’re ready, they won't say so anyway because it's bad for business to call a dictator a dictator.
Mark Jacob
They misspelled the word stole:
Mrs. Betty Bowers
ICE has arrested more than half a million people since President Trump returned to office, and nearly 40 percent do not have a criminal record. As of Aug. 6, ICE had detained more people without a criminal record this year than in all of 2025.
The Washington Post
Note that only about 5% of ‘those with a criminal record’ have a conviction for violent crime. The remainder involve minor offenses, many of them procedural immigration charges or traffic violations; many of the 60% have only pending cases and the charges against them will end up being dismissed.
Alan Allport
There is no such thing as “wokeness” having a harmful effect on this country. That’s pure fabrication; you’re a fool to fall for it, a peddler of bullshit to spread it.
ben chambers
LunchCounterPunch @theultrasecret.bsky.social
i need to vent a little—i know im still young but the racist hate campaign against somalis and haitians is one of the most *obscene* things ive ever witnessed, a spectacle of spite and filth and snuff, of voyeuristic and terroristic glee. just being reminded of it makes me quake with homicidal rage
@benjaminchambers.bsky.social
This Kind of Smart, Walkable, Mixed-use Urbanism Is Illegal to Build in Most American Cities:
Matthew “Bike Guy”
The situation in Haiti is terrifying. On Sunday, 150 gunmen swept down on a town to kill, rape, loot, and burn. 22 people were executed in a churchyard. 52 were taken hostage. Stephen Miller mockingly says Haiti is safe and ICE just sent its second deportation flight this month; with kids on board.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
The Haitians being deported in chains had protected status. They lived here legally. They worked, they paid taxes. They made lives. Raised families. Now we’ve dehumanized them. Ripped away that protection and told them to get out. This is a stain on the soul of this Nation.
Bradley P. Moss @bradmossesq.bsky.social
There's no forgiving this. No living it down. It's a stain on our humanity. When all this is over, the monsters who did this should be pariahs. And the soulless thugs who cheered it on while dehumanizing Haitian immigrants should be reminded of what they did every day of their lives.
Radley Balko
The entire point of civilization is that suffering does not have to be hereditary. Your parents’ misery is not a debt subsequent generations owe them, it is information that tells us where the world failed them, so that we may build one that fails fewer people.
gamera obscura @ohrobin.bsky.social
"...it’s not for nothing that the slogan 'drill, baby, drill' has been popular with Republicans for nearly two decades... it equates oil drilling with sexual penetration, and has helped to inspire the notion among MAGA men that having a car with a poor fuel economy somehow makes them studs." [Quoting a Salon article called The High Cost of MAGA Manhood]
The War on Cars
After FDR cleaned up the mess created by Calvin Coolidge and blamed on Herbert Hoover, Democrats spent decades reminding voters what the two parties had done. In recent generations, that basic act of politicking has been deemed impolite by Democratic leaders. That needs to end.
Kevin M. Kruse
ICE is rounding up immigrants who entered the U.S. on a visa and have no final orders of removal. President Trump-a convicted felon- is targeting immigrants with no criminal record.
Senate Judiciary Democrats
Liam:
Doug Mack
US corporate profits have hit a record high of over $9 trillion the first half of this year, while workers’ slice of the pie has recently sunk to historic lows.
More Perfect Union
“Find out who you are and do it on purpose” –Dolly Parton
Adam Miller @ajm6792.bsky.social
Haitian refugees were here legally. Whether or not that status changes, they should not be treated as criminals.
Patrick Chovanec
I think I am coming to adopt @notalawyer.bsky.social's snobbery. Cosmopolitan urbanite sensibilities are in fact just Better and I am tired of pretending otherwise. The people who think otherwise are simply ignorant and hateful, and it is mainly cowardice that prevents people from saying this.
lastpositivist.bsky.social
the moderate democratic position on Gaza is that if Israel’s opponents do not comport themselves perfectly, if they don’t dance flawlessly through the rhetorical minefields every day, then it’s dead children forever.
Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social
Live report from the Minnesota State Fair, located in the heart of American democracy, where there’s an ICE Out adaptation of Picasso’s Guernica made entirely from crops:
Tim Hirschel-Burns
It's really cool how a guy with 30% approval can just rename of the largest bodies of fresh water and everyone has to go "Time to update the maps I guess." So much freedom, so much bravery.
The Alternate Historian
The insight of Trumpism is that you can just do bad stuff and there's not enough time or ability for good people to you stop doing bad stuff all the time. For the law to work, people have to follow it voluntarily, for the most part. What they miss is this leads to the total dissolution of society.
Lembas Eater @waybread.bsky.social
Like, you have Democratic congresspeople actively attacking Abdul El-Sayed for the crime of being Arabic and anti-killing kids. Meanwhile, the GOP barely blinks at *Swastikas.* The Republican Party as an institution is antisemitic.
Hunter Dunn @hunterisntdunn.bsky.social
When are major media going to write stories about the president’s obvious mental illness? The failure to do so is journalism malpractice.
Mark Jacob
They’ve removed it from their website, but it still shows up on Google searches. Target. Really driving home which side they’re on:
Mara Abolish I.C.E. @mauratwit.bsky.social
There are 2 positions on housing.
YIMBYs believe we should build enough housing for everyone.
NIMBYs believe we should only build housing for people who *really deserve it* and that they should get to pick and choose who gets to live in their neighborhood.
Max Dubler
I spoke about being queer in a religious upbringing to 200 Scottish teens at book event this afternoon. Had seven (yes, seven) queer students and two trans students come out to me quietly in the signing queue afterwards, one of them in tears. I will never forgive those who make their lives so hard.
Patrick Ness
ICE has fallen out of the headlines but July marked the largest number of migrant detentions ever on record. Five migrants have died in ICE custody in the last two months. It's also currently impossible to legally migrate to this country, as 100% of visa applications have been paused.
W.E.D.em Boyz @leftistwonk.bsky.social
This is a machine to ethnically cleanse the country - and anyone who pretends otherwise is kidding themselves:
John Carl Baker
Nor will it end at ethnic cleansing. A machine built to eat people will keep eating people. Those who run it will always find a new category of unwanted humans.
A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social
Have you seen any reporting on how solar power generation in the USA is 5 times higher than it was in 2020 in mainstream outlets? If not, why do you think this is not being widely covered the same way other large technological changes are?
mtsw
Genuinely abundant, cheap, accessible energy has vastly more liberatory potential than AI, for vastly more people — especially more poor people. Which, I guess, is your answer.
David Roberts @volts.wtf
People are so concerned about women’s safety in sports when in reality marriage is much more dangerous.
It's me, SK @hotboredom.bsky.social
I'm old enough to remember when one IPCC statement about Himalayan glaciers "disappearing" by 2035 was some major scandal. Meanwhile, today the Nepal glacial flood disaster. Yes, that's climate change; i.e. us dumping CO₂ into the atmospheric sewer. Hundreds dead.
Gernot Wagner
Here are some nice mushrooms:
lukelukeluke
Up next, is the Democratic Party moving too far to the left? On that topic we’ll be joined by three GOP strategists responsible for the most racist ads you’ve ever seen, a stooge who served jail time for committing crimes on behalf of Donald Trump, and the president’s second cousin. Stay tuned.
Jared Yates Sexton
ICE activity is a national emergency, so I don’t want to hear anything from Democrats beyond how to stop this nightmare (seriously, paid criminals are in the streets kidnapping innocent people), what is going to be done to punish these goons, and what reparations await the victims of this fascist regime.
LunchCounterPunch @theultrasecret.bsky.social
Two paths diverged in the woods and America took the psychopath.
@sundaedivine.lol
As Brian Beutler argued, the next Democratic president should send bulldozers to the Supreme Court and tell them they have 15 minutes to decide if the Unitary Executive Theory is real.
Craig Harrington @craigipedia.bsky.social
"Pardon me, have you any walnuts?"
Vic Thorstenson
The case for bike helmets is very similar to the case for requiring all motorists to wear car-seat-style 5 point restraints (as motorsports drivers do!) instead of conventional seatbelts. that would also save lives! but no one ever seriously proposes that and i think it's worth interrogating why the thing that would increase safety while putting a significant burden on cyclists is considered common-sense while the thing that would do the same for drivers is considered an absurd non-starter. way more motorists die every year than cyclists! also, guys, if you think riding a bicycle without a helmet is unacceptably dangerous, then you should logically also be in favor of a full ban on all motorcycle usage. riding a motorcycle with a helmet is *far* more dangerous than cycling without a helmet!
mtsw
I'd add to this that there are also studies showing that *drivers* engage in riskier (for cyclists) behaviour around helmeted cyclists than unhelmeted. The subconscious "they have a helmet, it's their problem" mentality results in more dangerous close passes etc...
@theterroirist.bsky.social
It's always funny to me when I see people trying to blame kids for getting hit by drivers. The reality is that most of the kids I see on bikes are super careful and more aware than adults in cars. That's because children have been raised around cars and know cars are dangerous.
Gravel Influencer
ICYMI: the VPD budget increased by 48% from 2018 to 2024, but the number of traffic tickets they issue has fallen by 59% over that same time period. Why has traffic enforcement evaporated in Vancouver?
Vision Zero Vancouver
Do not normalize children dying from measles. Measles was previously eliminated in the US, thanks to vaccines. When children die from measles, it means that adults have catastrophically failed to protect them because they have rejected basic science.
Dr. Lucky Tran
It always feels like all the wrong people die, but I think it’s because there are far more beloved people than there are bastards.
Trung Le Nguyen @trungles.com
I just want to build a new society built around a common understanding: If you have more money than you could ever spend and you still want more, you are a fundamentally broken human who needs supportive intervention before you are fit to participate in a healthy, functioning community.
Bree @mostlybree.kitrocha.com
Take care everyone. Live your life in such a way that people are genuinely sad when you pass on.
Prisonculture
Dolly Parton with Keith Haring in 1985, incredible woman and supporter of LGBTQ people for decades going back to a time when few others dared:
Tyranny Sparkles
Remember that if you got the Moderna Covid vaccine, you have Dolly Parton to thank, she gave the largest individual contribution toward their research to make it possible.
Amadi Lovelace @amaditalks.bsky.social
The largest and oldest Black studies departments in the country have been closed, but a bunch of people decided the eugenics guy was the crucible for academic freedom.
I Travel Like Sound Dog @chadstanton.blacksky.app
The 1st answer anyone interviewed on Fox News should give is," Don't you work for the News Network that had to pay $750 million for lying?" Just to remind all the viewers where they get their news.
crouse5.bsky.social
do you think Americans understand how essential Canadian potash is for growing stuff or how much they rely on Canadian hydroelectricity and oil yet or no
Karen K. Ho
I feel like the kids who did poorly in science and history class are trying to get revenge on the kids who did well at science and history class and now we’re all going to die
Bill Amend
“Think I give a damn about what this Piker guy is saying when the richest Nazi the world has ever seen is bankrolling the destruction of America via the Republican Party?” — how every Dem should answer questions about Hasan Piker
LunchCounterPunch @theultrasecret.bsky.social
How it’s going:
Renée Graham @rygraham.bsky.social
A reminder that when evangelicals say “parental rights” they mean they want to be allowed to beat their children.
Erin Biba
Why do 8 data centers in Gary, Indiana have power BUT MOST OF THE RESIDENTS HAVEN'T HAD POWER OR WATER IN DAYS.
@andthenisleep.bsky.social
the job of the democratic majority over the next two years, should it materialize, is to make life hell for the white house, not find points of cooperation
jamelle @jamellebouie.net
I have a simple heuristic: if you use the word "cuck" as your ultimate expression of pejoration then you are a fascist
rattatatouille
Another note to Democratic leaders: delivering for the American people demands full spectrum obstruction of Trump’s and the GOP’s agenda (more accurately known as crimes), continuous confrontations, and Congressional investigations. The notion of finding common ground is dead, killed by GOP Nazis.
LunchCounterPunch @theultrasecret.bsky.social
Having a friendly and prosperous country on your border is something societies have hungered for for thousands of years and we've now intentionally fucked that up by antagonizing and disrespecting Canada for no good reason. Just the stupidest fucking own-goal in recent world history.
Craig Calcaterra
Why are people posting videos of robots running faster than Usain Bolt? Cars, trains and planes already do that. That’s kind of what some machines do.
Glennyrodge
It should be bigger news that Natalie Harp reportedly dug up the image that Trump posted of the Obamas as apes.
Greg Sargent
Even worse than MAGA taking their cues from a demented President is MAGA taking their cues from Truth Social posts ostensibly written by him but instead posted by a 35 year old unhinged stalker.
Missing The Point
My late best friend's stepdad was an IRS agent for thirty years and he used to say if they gave his department a tiny fraction of what they gave the military we could pay for universal healthcare
The Almighty Tallest @spooknine.bsky.social
ICE's militarization continues. A new procurement forecast lists $2 million for a ROOK. In the manufacturer's words, that is a tracked armored vehicle with a hydraulic ram that breaks through block walls and steel doors, plus a platform that lifts four armed officers to a third floor window:
Project Salt Box
If you just happened to pick this week to start yelling about the importance of academic freedom, I sure hope you did more than watch silently for the past 18 months as the Trump administration assaulted everything from mRNA vaccine research to gender studies to the very idea of having universities.
Carl T. Bergstrom
academic freedom isn’t a standard that sometimes gets broached: for most scholars under 50, it’s fundamentally nonexistent in the west right now. durba mitra was denied tenure at harvard because of among other things the direct lobbying of the US Federal Government against her *entire field of study* on political grounds and it merited nary a single column.
Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social
here is the thing. if you tell me that you believe that race is a biological category and that it is a guide to the objective superiority and inferiority of groups of people, i am not calling you a racist to *insult* you, i am calling you a racist because it best describes your beliefs. these people really want to make "racist" akin to a slur rather than what it is, a straightforward label for a set of beliefs and views. if you don't like the label because you, correctly, associate it with degenerate chuds, then get better beliefs
jamelle @jamellebouie.net
Here's your daily reminder: Trump and Republicans are kicking 15 million Americans off their health care so that people like Mark Zuckerberg can buy another yacht.
Elizabeth Warren @warren.senate.gov
John Roberts is Natalie Harp in a robe. A cringeworthy handmaiden
Jen Rubin
minneapolis is incredible because you could be watching a bunch of hot punks bicycling around on custom freak bikes meanwhile down the road a man dressed as spiderman literally jumps off a building to punch jake lang in the face repeatedly on a giant cross
WOLLY @wollymight.bsky.social
musicianapolis @generalmusician.bsky.social
Since when does the federal government have any say in accrediting institutions of higher education?
pdgpa
Surveillance pricing is just individualized price gouging.
The Green Frog
A vanity trade war with Canada to go with the vanity shooting war with Iran. Great.
Brian Finucane
I don’t think a good definition of “viewpoint diversity” is “you must lower your standards specifically for anti-science, anti-truth, bigots, and fascists — a healthy intellectual community needs those voices and they can’t clear the bar otherwise.”
Nicholas Grossman
I guess we're all supposed to just accept the notion that the right-wingers involved in this debate *actually support* viewpoint diversity, but history suggests that the minute they get power, they will expel or suppress anyone different. The administration is doing it *as we speak*.
David Roberts @volts.wtf
Among other reforms, it cannot stand that the President can sue everyone all the time but never face any lawsuits or criminal charges himself because he’s president.
Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social
I am the great-granddaughter of Irish Catholic immigrants and I resided the year I was two in Peru with visits to the Andes, whence cometh the potato; I have read this book; the right of the people peaceably to assemble and eat this noble tuber shall not be abridged:
Rebecca Solnit
The Trump administration is rounding up thousands of wild horses on public lands and selling them off to slaughterhouses abroad.
FactPost @factpostnews.bsky.social
Point that no one cares about: horses are not native to the Americas. Those horses are feral, not wild. (Source: pretty sure I heard it on a radio program)
Adam Miller @ajm6792.bsky.social
Everything coming out of the White House is propaganda. Think on that for a moment: everything that every American citizen is being told by this administration…is a lie….told for the purpose of manipulating a big part of the nation into grinning…while their pockets are being picked.
Jack Hopkins-The Original @therealjackhopkins.bsky.social
“He does have a tendency to love you with his teeth” is a novel way to entice someone to take home a shelter cat
Stacey Burns @wentrogue.bsky.social
AI is the asbestos we're shoveling into the walls of our civilization and our descendants will be digging it out for generations
Cory Doctorow
Optimist: The cup is half full
Pessimist: The cup is half empty
Stationery Obsessive: That’s not a cup it’s a pen pot
Present & Correct
I hope 2025 & 2026 have adequately prepared everyone for the shitshow that will be 2027:
Strongest El Niño and highest global temperature on record
Energy and affordability crisis from the illegal war
End of 3-year federal science grants awarded in 2024
AI bubble bursting
Continued rise of fascism
David Ho
Big Beautiful Bill:
Adam Kinzinger
U.S. Supreme Court decision to let Trump continue work on his unauthorized ballroom implies that any President can knock down the White House entirely without anyone's review. No precedent. Disgusting. Vile. Trump.
Diane Ravitch
The vandalism and desecration of the White House isn't just vanity and it's not trivial. It's caesarism, as in literally what Julius Caesar did to the symbolic architecture of civic republicanism. Our national iconography matters and allowing the disfiguring of it to persist is a substantive harm.
Andy Craig
New study finds that the rapid growth of electric vehicles in China has prevented over 300,000 premature deaths. Conversely — and this is just math — everything done to prevent the rise of EVs in the US leads to more preventable deaths of Americans. It's not an academic debate.
David Roberts @volts.wtf
As soon as there‘s a Democrat in the White House again, John Roberts will discover all kinds of new limitations on their presidential powers, but for now, President Make-a-Wish gets whatever his little heart desires
Kevin M. Kruse
Natalie Harp is a year older than Martin Luther King Jr. was when he gave his I Have a Dream speech. She has agency and is running the propaganda operation that serves to put people in concentration camps. She does not get a pass because she looks like a dipshit teenager.
Ben Collins
the left was blamed for stagflation in the 70s and has been less trusted on the economy ever since
the right has been catastrophically wrong about climate change, financial deregulation, multiple wars, and immigration control and it's always forgotten by the next election
Toby Buckle @polphilpod.bsky.social
How it's going:
Will Bunch
I know there are lot of people who think voting does nothing to stop fascism, but I do notice that one group who seems to think voting does something to stop fascism are the fascists, who are trying to prevent it as much as possible.
A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social
Zero new National Science Foundation grants in sociology, anthropology, political science and economics. The agenda of this US government is to stop documenting the society in which we live while they are destroying it. We will find other ways to track and explain our times and fight to restore our research funding.
Kim Lane Scheppele @kimlanelaw.bsky.social
I remember media trying to equate Hassan Piker and Nick Fuentes, and one reason that doesn't hold water is the media has been way more dogged in demanding that every Democratic candidate condemn Hassan Piker than they ever have been about demanding that from people who meet w and boost Fuentes.
@mumbly-joe.bsky.social
When your government says it’s planning to open multiple prisons that will house up to 3,000 children, it’s time to demand a new government. There is no context in which this is legitimate or acceptable.
Radley Balko
Could someone please build a tool that automatically deletes any email that has been composed or enhanced using AI? Bonus points if it comes with an autoresponder that says, "This email account only accepts messages written by human beings." My inbox is groaning under the weight of slop.
Kelly Barnhill
‘Scientists stunned by children's lung recovery in ultra low emission zone’:
Vincent Luyendijk
A reminder that our city wants to push new housing construction towards traffic-heavy arterials. Every kid deserves to grow up without fucking asthma.
chaseacross
Most of the country hates Trump and yet [polling shows] close to half of the country would still give his VP or Secretary of State a shot at the White House. Not great.
The Alternate Historian
Whether it’s Hillary Clinton sharing risotto recipes on a private server or Donald Trump spending 24 hours a day with a mentally unstable aide who has no security clearance, both candidates presented grave national security risks.
NY Times Pitchbot
NOAA launches the weather balloons, floats the ocean buoys, flies the satellites, and staffs the forecasters that tell us when storms are coming. That data supports about two-thirds of the economy, roughly $1.3 trillion a year, and it paid us back $73 for every dollar we spent on it.
Mike Levin
The key difference IMO between flock and speed cameras is the former creates new channels for abuse of power whereas the latter automates a law enforcement task in a way that is more equitable. But I do worry that the importance of this distinction is lost on both sides.
Jake Anbinder
Thank you to everyone who, by not voting for Kamala Harris, voted for shit blueberries, glass popsicles, explosive diarrhea lettuce, diseased beef, salmonella eggs, more measles, less scientific research, an endless fucking war, and so much more!
Shana @shayz0rz.bsky.social
tourist info office juice stand, seneca falls, new york, 1995:
old roadside pics
Allowing the leering, immoral mind behind “Hot or Not” to amass billions of dollars so he can go on to create spy specs for fascists; I hope we’re learning lessons here.
LunchCounterPunch @theultrasecret.bsky.social
Wait what do you mean Natalie Harp "declined" to get her routine security clearance "multiple times"?
Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social
Today I learned that, when secret service says “you have to have security clearance to work here in the White House next to the president,” you can just say “nah”
CatFrat
Love to be on my bike next to a driver literally *screaming* into their phone. I'm sure this person will be happy to share the road.
Warren Wells, AICP
The right-wing wants liberals dead, or dominated, or enslaved, or forcefully converted. The left-wing wants the right-wing to stop wanting those things, and to have affordable healthcare.
LunchCounterPunch @theultrasecret.bsky.social
David Zipper noted that the US is so uniquely bad at road safety that the OECD now calculates global crash trends without including US data. That prevents America's struggles from overshadowing other countries' progress.
Look Both Ways with David & Wes
MC Squared
most people who say "teach the bible" mean "give my children sectarian religious instruction" not "teach my children the literary and rhetorical importance of the biblical text"
jamelle @jamellebouie.net
one of the biggest problems with the democratic party is that republicans are in charge of it
Gallifreyan Jedi @jediofgallifrey.bsky.social
Shocked to learn that the political party led by pedophiles and dedicated to protecting pedophiles has created a police force filled with pedophiles [ICE and CBP].
Kevin M. Kruse
Money never trickles down, but violent, abusive degeneracy does.
LunchCounterPunch @theultrasecret.bsky.social
Murders in NYC are down nearly 25% this year, and it is never on the cover of The New York Post. What a bunch of frauds.
Ben K. @benjaminkabak.com
Lying, thieving, grifting, law-breaking, constitution-shattering fascist murderers are furious that someone suggested the adjudicated rapist of a president who's been linked to a pedophile sex trafficking ring might be wasting too much time lounging about on his luxury plane with an aide.
Kevin M. Kruse
“.. The number of people worth at least $100 million whom the Republican president has appointed to his administration is more than four times the combined total under the three previous presidents ..”
Carl Quintanilla
Looking for bird references and found this green-headed tanager at a dessert buffet being so sneaky:
rubylith
A silver lining that people (including those on this site) brought up about RFK Jr. was "Well at least he'll clean up the food." Yeah that one didn't pan out after all huh?
The Alternate Historian
EXCLUSIVE: 404 Media placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
404 Media
For my entire life, Republican administrations have blown up the budget and left Democrats to pick up the pieces, over and over. All the while decrying irresponsible democratic spending
Avocadoplex
"AI" has existed in its current form for barely four years and the fact that it's jammed up the cognitive development of an entire generation that fast (and that there's a specific overclass of techofascists who are deeply thrilled about this) is a big damn red flag.
John Scalzi
One thing about speeding that many drivers refuse to accept: In urban and suburban environments, speeding doesn't even get you somewhere significantly faster. You are just getting to your next red light or highway choke point faster. You are endangering other people for almost no upside.
Peter Flax
It's the Shortcut Conundrum. Cutting through residential side streets is a only a shortcut if you drive it at twice the posted speed limit and ignore all the stop signs. Otherwise it takes just as long or longer if you had just stuck to the main route.
historynerd62.bsky.social
How do I explain to small business owners that the menu on the left is one billion times more appealing than the one on the right:
Robert Komaniecki
Fascists fabricate offenses, and then hound the "offenders" relentlessly. There is no stopping, until stopped. So powerful liberals who make note of actual transgressions, and then begin a campaign of forgetting, need to stop doing this, and hound the fascists back.
LunchCounterPunch @theultrasecret.bsky.social
A sad sign of the state of American democracy is that even the Democratic Party thinks the default form of political participation is individuals giving money. Not discussion groups, political education, community organizing.
Asheesh Kapur Siddique
