BlueSky, May 2026 Part 2

My BlueSky post for the second half of May is always a bit longer than the one for the first half. 

It began with continuing comments on Trump's trip to China and his corruption, as well as the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and Southern states' immediate moves to redraw district lines. (I also had a preemptive post on that topic on May 19.)

There were several primary elections that showed the MAGA wing is in full control of the Republican Party. Trump proceeded with plans to destroy the White House grounds and further engarish Washington, D.C. The regime made a deal with itself, via Trump attorney Todd Blanche, to pay insurrectionists $1,776 billion for their misdeeds, and exempt Trump, his family, and his businesses from any past or future IRS audits. (Multiple exclamation points, but I'm too exhausted to type them.)

As the month ended, people were protesting Delaney Hall, an ICE incarceration site in New Jersey, to call attention to the terrible conditions and hunger strike underway there. Local electeds and one U.S. Senator were pepper-sprayed. What began as enforcement by federal forces turned into state police action, as the governor tried to rein in the protests for some appeasing reason.

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

___

Note to media: police arresting peaceful protesters singing “give peace a chance” is not protesters “clashing” with police. It’s the state violating the First Amendment rights of people upset that human beings who did nothing illegal are being held without due process and being fed maggots.
Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News

A Roman wagon was called a Carpentum, which is where we get our word “Carpenter” from.
Build Like a Roman - Podcast

Are we finally ready to talk about how terfs have been helping the far right destroy women’s rights by pushing hyper femininity yet or is it too early for this decades old information too.
Nikita Gill


proffrisch.bsky.social

AI can pry my em-dashes from my cold—and dead—hands.
Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social

Some liberals are OBSESSED with "private" prisons as though the problem is not simply PRISONS. Folks, the vast majority of prisons in the U.S. are PUBLIC NOT PRIVATE. And they are HELL HOLES. OK? I need folks to stop and actually focus on the PROBLEM which is PRISONS AND JAILS.
Prisonculture

JUST DROPPED: For years I thought industrial electrification potential was limited. How wrong I was. Engineering studies point to 90%+.  Long term scenarios support this. Technology is much further ahead than we think. Question is whether policy keeps up.
Jan Rosenow

I feel like it’s the people saying that we need fossil fuels to live well who have the least faith in human ingenuity, actually.
Dr. Genevieve Guenther @doctorvive.bsky.social

in British Columbia, the fine for driving 20km/hr over the speed limit is $138. in Vancouver, the fine for failing to pay bus fare is $173
karen ward @kwardvancouver.bsky.social

Tonight, New Jersey State Police nearly trampled an elderly man playing a cello with their horses and arrested him outside ICE detention facility Delaney Hall. It’s unclear what they hoped to accomplish, as the crowd of people he was playing alongside have not dispersed.
talia ben-ora @taliajane.bsky.social

Thinking about why women might not want to use a product that has forced itself into every software interface to confidently shout things that are wrong:


Pavel @spavel.bsky.social

the stereotypical small town story is of the pitcher who gets away with sexual harassment because they can throw a fastball at 95 mph. the era we are in is ruled by the guy who never made the team but bets on the game, but still somehow loudly gets away with the open sexual harassment. there are definitely male cultural archetype for these guys. for say Tucker Carlson it would be "guy shoved into a locker everyday along with his bowtie" and for Alex Jones it would be "guy who local bouncers have a photo of and warning about"
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

Marilyn Monroe fought for women's rights, opposed racial segregation, and was also investigated for communism, people gotta stop comparing MFs like Sydney Sweeney to her
Skeeter Rabbit @makkkiiio.bsky.social

I'll bet that few people are aware that the FBI opened its file on her in 1955 until she died in 1962. They did so when she started dating Arthur Miller who she eventually married in 1956. Miller was suspected to have communist ties.
Prisonculture

“Researchers found that breathing more air pollution during pregnancy, infancy and early childhood can slow lung development all the way up to early adulthood. The greatest impact was during adolescence, which is the time when lung growth accelerates.” 
Brent Toderian

... back in 1973, Redbook paid $500 for personal accounts of young womens' and mothers' stories. $3700 in 2026 dollars for about 4000 words. 312 hours of 1973's minimum wage. jfc. And now we're supposed to be happy for exposure.
CZEdwards

I’ve been to Tyre. It’s an incredible place. Feels like you’re walking through mythology. Felt so real it felt unreal. All that could be blown away now, and that’s before you consider how many innocent people are being killed:


J Gregort Coffeeheimer @gregianjohnson.bsky.social

Oh by the way, statistically in the United States you're far, FAR more likely to be charged with a crime than to be the victim of one. Just saying.
Sheryl Weikal @leftistlawyer.com

tl,dr; Scientists no longer allowed to use federal funding to publish, attend meetings, or talk to the public. They cannot collaborate internationally. Grants can be cancelled for any reason, at any time, political appointees have a final say over what gets funded, and who gets funded.
Alex Wild

we have the oldest constitution in the world without a major revision or rewrite. constitutional reform is a major part of modern governmental function and the US is a distinct outlier by being unwilling or unable to make major changes. it is a major problem and reason why rule of law is broken here
phoenix @phoenix-rights.bsky.social

In my 2-mile ride back from the library I saw a driver nearly run over a little girl in a crosswalk  and then a guy in a lifted pick-up close passed me before trying to cut me off from passing on his right. Then there were, of course, the multiple people speeding and/or on their phones. Rides like this reinforce just how normalized bad behavior is by drivers, and how you often only really notice it if you're moving through the world outside a car. Drivers notice bad behavior when it's directed at them, but they ignore when their fellow drivers are endangering others.
Gravel Influencer

Meowie Antoinette:


Uncle Duke @uncleduke1969.bsky.social

James Madison did not predict that Congress would abolish itself and that states would cripple themselves in pursuit of irrational factional interests
Vituperative Erb

“I write with dismay, grief and sorrow for the permanent closure of MIT Libraries Barker, Dewey and Rotch, and termination of library staff in those libraries. For MIT to be closing three of its four major libraries..."
eileen chengyin chow @chowleen.bsky.social

Just 15 years ago Aaron Swartz died as a result of MIT's overzealous regard for the sanctity of their libraries. He'd be turning 40 this year.
Graham Lampa

Greg Bovino, on whose watch two Americans were murdered in the street, is still walking free while our neighbors are being kept in cages and fed maggot-ridden food.
geri katz

SCOOP: The Trump administration is paying millions to quickly cover four enormous bronze horses with extra-thick 23.75 karat gold leaf. The money for the rush job is coming from National Park Service funds. In total, I found ~$100 mil spent on new DC beautification projects.
Anna Kramer

Evidently, Waymo's 5th gen robotics weighs ~1100 lbs per robot. And Waymo doesn't secure their vital docs any better than they test their software:


John Berry @aniccia.bsky.social

Wow guys it's almost like robotaxis like Waymo contribute to the problem of bloated vehicular mass and therefore play a role in ramping up the costs to maintain car infrastructure, which turns into actually entrenching car dependency because a lot of the relevant decision makers can't imagine better
lumberjack wharfie

imagine being president of the united states and getting snubbed by a group popular 40 years ago and best known for lip-syncing and also one of them is dead
Marisa Kabas

my confidence that these people are going to lose is rising and my estimate of the amount of damage they are going to do on the way out, especially as they realize they're losing, is also rising
Micah @rincewind.run

Why do I feel like if government goons pepper-sprayed Lindsey Graham during the Biden administration, it would have come before the comma:


Schooley

We are going to need retroactively enforced anti-corruption legislation. And sooner Democratic lawmakers start announcing it and drawing it up, the sooner some of the corrupt may feel just a little fear and hold back. Similarly, announce that none of Donald Trump’s pardons will be honored, and everyone will be thrown back in jail. Maybe that keeps one DHS killer from pulling a trigger. Saves one life. Now is not the time when you worry about what can and can’t be done – although all of this can be done – now is the time you make the criminals hesitate, however briefly.
David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social

They will need to appropriate minimum several hundred million dollars just to get the white house back to some kind of normality and sweep it for hidden cameras and listening devices and the media will cover the expense as their first scandal
mtsw

Probably shouldn't have let a handful of weird business perverts unwind the cultural miracle of American research universities
Ryan Boyd

Trump sued his own government because someone during his own administration released the tax information about him that he promised himself to release publicly and on camera literally for years without doing so.
Mostly True News

Opossums are so amazing. They’re all of these things and they don’t get ticks!


SafeWaterCleanAir @thisisme7.bsky.social

A President ordering the Justice Department to criminally investigate a woman who won a sexual assault lawsuit against him makes Watergate look like an unpaid parking ticket.
Patrick Chovanec

Our entire economy is being artificially propped up by astrology for men: AI, crypto, sports betting, and prediction markets. It's an economy shaped entirely by male insecurity and lack of impulse control, and we'll all pay the price.
Alisha Grauso

Amazing to see Ken Paxton evaluated as “more conservative” because the nation has gotten used to crime as a conservative value. Not even politics related crimes, just being criminal at heart.
Kim Philby Was Bad

As we were walking downtown this morning my wife said, "I haven't seen a single America 250 display that isn't tacky as hell and clearly made in China." She's right, of course, and it's all very on-brand for this administration.
Gravel Influencer

By simultaneously reading Les Misérables and Vanity Fair I have unintentionally signed myself up for the abject hilarity that is reading literary depictions of the battle of Waterloo from opposing sides: 
Hugo: Napoleon’s Imperial Guard entered the fray when all was already lost, and they marched bravely to their deaths, martyrs all; it was so inspiring that even the English were moved
Thackeray: when the imperial guard saw the English they immediately turned and ran away like little bitches
sharon su @doodlyroses.com

Feeling sassy, made a thing:


Melissa @mhudson-illustration.com

You could pick a cabinet secretary out of a hat, just publicize what they say verbatim every day, and most of America would say "what the fuck is this guy talking about" RFK even moreso, like, why isn't this on the front page of the New York Times every day?
@scoopsstp.bsky.social

Donald Trump told Texas Republicans to turn back a four-term incumbent senator and to vote for a man who is basically a walking Thomas Nast illustration of corruption and the cult members said, yes sir, right away, sir.
Kevin M. Kruse

The farther Trump sinks in polling, the more the entire media apparatus will be trembling, poised, ready to leap at any even remotely plausible "Trump comeback" story. We are currently hip-deep in a "the hippies were right about everything" moment and they fucking *hate* it.
Punished Cat Guy (aka Johnny Bag o’ Snails)
David Roberts @volts.wtf

Did you know that in Texas your landlord can only have a complaint filed against them for your AC not functioning if it is “something that would cause distress or harm to a healthy human being” so if you’re disabled, you’re fucked. Two separate attorneys told me this. In TX where it gets 100°F.
@majima.club

Greetings from Delaney Hall ICE facility:


amanda moore @noturtlesoup17.bsky.social

still think Democrats should make a massive investment in libraries, post office, public universities as a way to jump start civil society and cut unemployment.
Noah Berlatsky

Spain is a cautionary tale that you can have power that is too cheap, food that is too good, wine that is too plentiful, urbanism that is too perfect, people who are too nice.
Qagggy!

A decade ago, analysts were calling Spain a cautionary tale. Too much solar, too fast!
Today, Spain is rapidly on its way to having the cheapest power in Europe.
Maybe this time, solar naysayers will learn... haha, jk, they'll just move the goalposts.
David Roberts @volts.wtf

AI is bad and ruining human knowledge, sorry to those trying to convince us otherwise.
Chris Geidner

Look, it's very simple: you can't build housing in the city, because that's gentrification. You also can't build housing in the country because that's destroying the habitat of the native swamp gopher. Above all you must not build housing in the suburbs because we don't like suburbs.
ex-Lethality Jane

remember that time Zelensky didn’t wear a tie:


Eric Rauchway

If you’re struggling in the heat today, don’t forget to thank the oil companies! Not only did they directly cause this, they’ve also spent the last 40+ years bribing governments not to fix it AND gaslighting us all by telling us it's a non-issue
Dr Charlie Gardner

As we have seen since at least the 1980s, a Democratic party establishment that does not want to change does not feel that it needs to change when it can wait around for the moment when the Republicans bring the country to ruin, then reap the benefits of a popular backlash. "The people" then elect a Republican president who invariably wrecks the economy. They then elect a Democratic president to fix it. While that Dem is busy trying to restore and expand access to the American dream, the Republicans invariably arouse anti-Black hatred and other bigotries to such heights that "the people" believe they are witnessing a crime when a woman does well, as she surely stabbed a man in the back to do so.
The Editorial Board

I really hate that whenever I see "made in the USA" on a product there's a very good chance that it involves prison labor.
nick @vossbrink.bsky.social

Why, yes, I am an entitled cyclist. I need to get places on my bike and feel entitled to NOT DIE while doing it.
Chris H @chris-huggable.bsky.social

The US conservative movement is doing its best to destroy FEMA. Conservatism flourishes when social trust is destroyed. Any instance of us pooling our money to help one another must be eliminated. Everyone must be made to feel that they're on their own.
David Roberts @volts.wtf

The Squamish people of what is now Vancouver were illegally dispossessed of their land 100 years ago. They sued, got the land back, and used their sovereignty to ignore local zoning and build 6,000 new homes over the loud objections of nearby wealthy NIMBYs. Now other tribes are getting in the game:


Max Dubler

Everyone loves land back anti colonialism until they take your undeveloped land to build condos
@deus01.bsky.social

Think of CO₂ removal like a time machine. How far back does planting 100 million trees take us? One mature tree takes up ~25 kg of CO₂/year, so 100 million trees will take up 2.5 MtCO₂. That's a time machine that takes us back ~33 minutes in a year. Nature will not save us from fossil fuel CO₂. This is not an argument against trees. I love trees. This is an argument against our continued burning of fossil fuels, and then thinking that planting trees will absolve us of our sins against the future.
David Ho

Just tried a basic Google search. The result that used to take 1 second, now took 15 seconds to generate an AI response that was full of omissions. They truly ruined their main product. If nothing else, maybe this will push folks to other search engines who would never have considered them before.
Stephen Coles @stewf.com

Remember, if you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan cities for people and places, you get people and places.
Urban Truth Collective

Grading takes so much longer now, not just because of the logistics of AI detecting. It's also slower because it's so demoralizing
Melissa Johnson, PhD @ladyhistorian.bsky.social

Language matters:


Urban Truth Collective

We haven't had to fire any shots [against Cuba] so it's not obvious but a blockade of this magnitude would generally be considered an act of war.  We did not do this in the 1962 missile crisis, we allowed ships not carrying weapons to proceed to Cuba
David Burbach

In the future, students of history will study this time period and wonder if we lost our fucking minds.
Canadian Resistance 

They will not wonder.
Patrick Chovanec

I don't want to understand people who support Trump. I just want them to stay away from me.
@sundaedivine.lol

A world that doesn't suck is possible
unraveled @unraveledpress.com

One of the most alarming facts you learn when you first get into transportation stuff is that the median car trip in a U.S. city is under 3 miles. Given average city traffic speeds of under 20 miles per hour, most of those trips could *easily* be replaced by an e-bike.
Matthew Lewis @mateosfo.bsky.social

Incredible that Amazon is one of the largest companies in the world and we just tolerate them selling counterfeit and stolen goods
mtsw

Not original. If you created this meme, please chime in:


bettybarcode

Anyway it is actually psychotic to be the sort of country that has laws on who can go into what toilet at all
Dark Elf B. R. Ambedkar @dov.bsky.social

We found that Jeff Bezos paid zero taxes in 2007 and 2011. In fact, he reported making so little in 2011 that he even claimed and received a $4,000 tax credit for his children.
ProPublica

Mamdani is going to start an arms race of elected officials actually doing good things for their constituents. It's going to infuriate most Democrats who prefer to tell their voters to fuck off while texting for dollars.
Brandon Friedman

A spinney is a copse with undergrowth. A thicket is a copse made of brambles, but not of bracken. A hummock is a rounded knoll. Tussocks can make hummocks.
Steve Quick

genuinely how did we get to a place where some people think that cooking at home means you have to make 3 restaurant style meals, complete with multiple different side dishes, every single day. bitch just make some spaghetti
brie skull emoji

Found the city’s transportation master plan:


Tom Flood

biggest barrier to AOC winning the presidency is an awful media environment; second biggest is getting sandbagged by operatives / organizations who would rather be in the minority for 4 years because they don't think they'll get White House gigs and access
Aaron Huertas

You know how I know the Feds aren’t serious about Medicaid fraud in MN? They’re not dismantling UnitedHeath Group brick by brick. Put Steve Hemsley’s insider-tradin’, Medicaid-defraudin’ ass in prison, THEN I’ll believe you actually care about this shit.
@therealjoro.bsky.social

The call out to 1776 is also a racist dog whistle. #1776 was a counter meme to the rising popularity of the 1619 project. Everywhere on social media, anyone posting about 1619 was met with #1776 and suddenly every online troll was a historian and critic. 
BostonJoan

“This was a vortex of fraud, and you were at the epicenter." Aimee Bock was sentenced to more than 41 years in prison, convicted of leading the $242 million Feeding our Future fraud scheme. 
@minnesotareformer.com

41 years for only $242 million in fraud... Wonder what $1.776 billion would get someone? 
Jon @jonvw4.bsky.social

The hidden arrow in the FedEx logo is design perfection. Paris Tennis School: Tiens ma bière.


Gary Erskine

Note to Democrats: theft of the public's money is what you would call a "kitchen table" issue. If someone broke into my house, took my money, and then gave it to people convicted of crimes, I would not only talk about that at the kitchen table, it would alter the very fabric of my existence.
LunchCounterPunch @theultrasecret.bsky.social

Stephen Miller on Trump's taxpayer-funded insurrectionist slush fund: "This settlement is just a small measure of the justice they are owed"
Aaron Rupar

If Mr. Miller enjoyed just a small measure of the justice he is owed, he'd be in a Salvadoran prison.
Patrick Chovanec

Giving insurrections who beat a cop a billion dollars is particularly infuriating if you live in Minnesota and the feds won’t even investigate the execution of two unarmed bystanders.
We need vengeance for this shit
Wes Burdine

oswego hardware sign, washington street, oswego, illinois, 2003


old roadside pics

one member of Los Angeles County's board of supervisors has more constituents than the U.S. senators of 12 states
Taniel

It's very sad that the United States, with perhaps the best climate science, scientists, and science communicators in the world, has consistently had the very worst climate-denying politicians and governments. Why? Simple: The powerful fossil-fuel industry and the money they shower on policymakers.
Peter Gleick

If releasing your tax returns and the Epstein files would end your presidency, then your presidency must end. It’s that simple.
Andrea Junker @strandjunker.com

Christian Nationalists love neither Christ nor the nation, but they love themselves so much they take those concepts as a vanity, to exalt themselves and make everything for and about them. As a nation, in order to heal we must rebuke everything fake. The self-righteous, unfortunately, demand lies.
The Known Sea

Loving the nation is difficult when you hate 80% of the people in it.
coloneltompeeping.bsky.social

now THAT'S architecture!


Bill Lindeke

It’s actually so funny to see Helen of Troy upset thousands of angry men in 2026 in the exact same way she did back in antiquity.
Nikita Gill

Nothing says you never walk anywhere better than tinted vehicle windows. IYKYK
MaryMM

“The delay in confirming the ebola outbreak was in part because samples were taken to the national lab in Kinshasa, Congo, at the wrong temperature. That task previously would have been managed by U.S.A.I.D.”
Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social

The IRS has agreed to not audit Trump's taxes. In 2024, we found the IRS concluded in a long-running audit that Trump effectively claimed the same massive write-off twice on a failed Chicago tower. That audit could have cost him more than $100 million.
ProPublica

Tonight we went to a class for kids to stay home alone. The educator said, "it's important for kids to practice independence as they grow, because you don't want their first experience with serious responsibility to be behind the wheel of a car" and I'm going to be thinking about that for a while
Moe @verdantwonder.bsky.social

My turmeric ginger is the first to bloom this year


Ilena Gilbert-Mays

Did not expect my rather innocuous "it's nice to interact with your community and not sit on the couch and buy everything online" to get multiple replies of the "actually I hate other people and don't want to see them so I love Amazon and want to marry it" variety but here we are
Aaron Blackshear

Eric Schmidt really said, in his much-booed AI graduation speech, “if someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat, you just get on.” Unbelievable
Joseph Rezek

Also legally changing my last name to Trump so I can stop paying taxes and never be audited again. Just kidding I’d rather starve than be a Trump.
Kai TechnoLust @technolust.bsky.social

Every time we hear about how genAI has pushed another teenager to suicide, another person into committing a mass shooting, or generated CSAM of school girls used to blackmail their schools, remember we were told that what we'd be hearing about is a cure to every cancer, and global poverty itself
Erin Fogg @criminalerin.bsky.social

Me: I've invented the AI-free information resource
Person: You're holding a book. That's a book.
Me: No it's a new thing that I invented
Thor Benson

An ancient Greek silver coin depicting a bee! Minted in Ephesus, 390-380 BC. Photo by Getty Museum:


Alison Fisk

Lots of tech companies are releasing surveillance specs and I’m reminded of the internal Meta memo to put facial recognition in their glasses during a “dynamic political environment” because people will be too focused on other issues to resist. Companies think now is the right time to foist these on us all.
Hypervisible

The bane of those of us with arthritis: American packaging. My dude, I'm not trying to break into Fort Knox. I just want to open a package of frozen turkey burgers.
Peg Kerr

one of my favorite facts about the US coal industry is that it employs less people than Broadway
ceej

The podcast bros said they were supporting Trump for two reasons: He wouldn’t start any wars, and he’d release the Epstein files. Massie lost tonight for two reasons: (a) forcing the release of the Epstein files, and (b) trying to restrain Trump’s war in Iran.
Radley Balko

I’m not sure why this isn’t being mentioned more, but: IRS policy for 50 years has been that the sitting president and VP get audited every year, in an effort to reassure the public they’re not corruptly abusing the office to enrich themselves.
Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social

obsessed with this:


Natalie Alana Ashton

I think the reason I've been a little ambiently mad all day is because January 6th rioters are statistically the most likely group of pedophiles in the world and they clubbed a guy to death and they're going to be rich from the tax money that I give to the country I live in.
Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social

There should be more screaming about all the corruption. And a corruption-watch/tally/list updated daily. Plus projections on DC federal buildings and airplanes trailing banners. Also Trump in jail.
Rebecca Solnit

The EPA just rolled back limits on cancer-causing "forever chemicals" in drinking water — and handed your health to the states. Whether your water is safe now depends on who controls your state legislature. Public health is on the ballot for every state in 2026. 
The States Project

The world’s largest sand battery got through Finland’s harshest winter in years. 2,000 tonnes of sand, heated to 500-600°C by cheap power, feeding district heating in Pornainen. And it worked. Result from one install: oil down 100%, emissions down 70%. Industrial process heat is the real prize.
Jan Rosenow

Some more dinos and friends I forgot to post:


Budgie @spoonybird.bsky.social

Mamdani: I cannot help but think of the words of our 40th president, Ronald Reagan. He famously said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the govt & I'm here to help'" I think nine more terrifying words are actually, "I worked all day and can't feed my family"
Skye @simplyskye.bsky.social

The man who bankrupted a casino has now also managed to produce the first football world cup nobody wants to attend, there has never been anyone else who ever possessed this level of ability at failing
Shiv Ramdas @nameshiv.bsky.social

it's fascinating that in the midst of a historically unpopular presidency driven almost entirely by voluntary choices made by a rapidly declining president with an adversarial relationship with the press, we see a complete dearth of "gop needs to change course" thinkpieces and coverage
jesse @jesseltaylor.bsky.social

It's clear that, like Biden, Trump is experiencing serious cognitive and physical decline over the course of his term of office. It's also clear that his decline over the first year and a half of his term is far more pronounced than Biden's was in the same early stretch of his. To put it another way, we've got more than two years before Trump is as close to the end of his presidency as Biden was on the night of the debate that destroyed his campaign.
Angus Johnston

Stolen photo of a suburban Twin Cities front yard where they have mowed the shape of Minnesota into the creeping charlie:


Chris Steller

“A new analysis suggests that more than 100,000 children have been separated from their parents during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown… The [estimate] of the number of children who are U.S. citizens is more than double the amount that would be expected over the same time period”
Kathleen Bachynski

this has got to be the worst time in american history to make the totally sensible and correct argument that we should pay people in congress more than we do
lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com

WSJ Editorial Board: "Mr. Trump’s revenge campaign has already made the Senate harder to hold. He drove incumbent Thom Tillis into retirement in North Carolina, and Democrats have a strong candidate who is now the favorite.
lizbauch.bsky.social

So much of what Democratic politicians do and say, that makes you go "what the fuck is wrong with them?" is just downstream of the fact that they want a millionaire's money more than they want your vote, because they believe they can buy the latter with the former
Aaron Bady @zunguzungu.bsky.social

Donald Trump is the most corrupt president in American history. It is not close:


Mike Levin

It’s a well-known fact that people on the right side of history famously ban books
Jesse Duquette

Clear and overwhelming evidence that Trump has been buying stock in companies and then promoting them to enrich himself. Even for Trump this is a shocking level of naked, in your face corruption.
Simon Rosenberg

There are so many Americans who would desperately like to believe that if not for dead people getting checks, the federal budget would balance.
Patrick Chovanec

“We have made a technology that creates nothing but will ensure you have no future while we get richer and richer wait why are you boooing?
“No listen it’s ok. You won’t have a job, but also we’re going to use vast amounts of water and power, so you also won’t have a planet and then you won’t need a job. You’re welcome.
"Follow up: why are you all picking up rocks?”
David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social

He does this all the time:


Stacey Burns @wentrogue.bsky.social

I think it would be potentially quite useful if we could just say out loud that wanting to be or have a trad wife is a kink. It's fine to have a kink, but that's what you have. Not a political philosophy, but a sex thing.
Naomi Alderman

"It's hard to believe that it would take two centuries for the Lord to raise up a great man to bring that ballroom finally to stand where it needs to stand." A real thing that was said, without shame, at a Christian prayer rally.
Justin Baragona

Why are all U.S. military strikes now described as "kinetic," which means "relating to or resulting from motion," so it means...absolutely nothing? The gobbledygook is just meant to further numb you to the fact that human beings are getting their heads or arms blown off by bombs from our mad king
Will Bunch

The media when regular people are worried about money: "Honestly you don't need to eat that much bread."
The media when the super rich are worried about money: "We discovered five new tax loopholes
and check out our profile on the guy who wants to deport all Dems to Uruguay."
The Alternate Historian

Daaaaamn london:


Beast of Bourbon @jenleepa.bsky.social

Convinced that the Venn diagram of people saying there is never any excuse for cyclists breaking the law and people saying their car has to be capable of doing 100mph over the speed limit in case they need to avoid an accident is a circle.
Bread and Rosie @rosiemund.bsky.social

One thing I was wrong about: I thought Musk taking over Twitter would be basically similar to any right wing rich guy taking over a media company. To be clear, I don't like right wing rich guys taking over media companies, so I thought that would be bad, but Bezos-at-the-Post level bad sorta thing.
lastpositivist.bsky.social

It’s really telling how the NYT never runs a “this R governor completely fucked up their state and deprived its citizens of their fundamental rights” story. Incompetent nut jobs like Glen Youngkin can only be glazed
pkatlas.bsky.social

I know we're long past the point where this should be shocking anymore, but I still can't get over official government accounts stating that Jesus is "our Savior."
Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social

When a federal agency tasked with protecting all Americans decides to mandate a specific religious worldview, it ceases to protect democracy and begins to threaten it.
Andrew Weinstein

Federal gas tax is 18.4¢/gallon. Average new non-electric/hybrid car is 25.6 mpg. Average driver drives 13,476 miles a year. That means they spend $97 in federal gas tax/year. Congressional leaders want EV owners to pay 50% more a year to the federal government to drive less polluting vehicles.
Yonah Freemark

seems like jared polis thought pardoning Trump election denier Tina Peters would make him look like an enlightened and humane centrist instead of a dumbass
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

Reminder RFK Jr is HHS Secretary because this loser was afraid to cross Trump:


Nick @slothropsmap.bsky.social

it’s honestly so embarrassing that we have to talk about trump’s ballroom in a serious way. someone in his circle didn’t immediately tell him it was the dumbest fucking idea in the whole world and now it’s become our mortifying problem. clown shit.
Marisa Kabas

"Heat pumps just shift gas burning to the power station." Wrong. Even if 100% of electricity came from gas, a heat pump at SCOP 3.8 uses 51% less gas than a boiler. At a terrible SCOP 2.5, still 25% less. David MacKay made this point in 2008. The maths hasn't changed.
Jan Rosenow

Firefighters say setting fires on purpose is one of the best ways to protect against massive wildfires later. But the Trump administration is banning or stalling preventative burning across the U.S.
NPR

Alien: And how did you run out of water?
Earthling: Machines drank it.
Alien: Machines.
Earthling: We had to feed machines the water.
Aliens: So the machines were holding your planet hostage for water.
Earthling: No, we made the thirsty machines. They worked for us.
Alien: End communication.
aric @aghastronaut.com

These are on sidewalks around Northeast. Important reminder: they’re still taking our neighbors:


Mara @mauratwit.bsky.social

MIT announces “the number of grad students will be 20 percent less than it was in 2024 — about 500 fewer students”
Ted Pavlic

What’s happening to science in the US now? In the future?
20% fewer grad students at MIT sums it up well
Our future is fewer scientists, patents, cures, discoveries
Less growth, less progress, less knowledge
Prof Dynarski

Joe: I am a 73 year-old retired mechanic in Forsberg, Nebraska. My 3 biggest problems are Iran's uranium enrichment capability, the casting of Helen in Christopher Nolan's "Odyssey," and the ability of Tennesseeans to check out "Roots" from a library
1000 media outlets: can we please talk at length
Ken Tremendous

The abbreviations for "street" and "saint" are the same for no good reason AND NOBODY'S TALKING ABOUT IT!!!!
Josh Gondelman

Most "science fiction" is actually "engineering fiction"
Paul J. Dauenhauer

she’s in oakland, someone tell interpol:


Erica Joy Astrella

Participating in desecration and amplifying personal vulgarity is a fascist imperative.
LunchCounterPunch @theultrasecret.bsky.social (referring to Kash Patel scuba-diving by Pearl Harbor battleship wreckage)

Trump's tech giants dominate the world because *America* dominates the world. It's not because the world *likes* American tech.... DOGE wiped out the health systems of the global south, now Trump's trade negotiators demand that these countries promise to keep their hands off of US tech in exchange for reinstating a small trickle of the aid they lost.... How do LLMs affect productivity and quality? (Much like leaded petrol. There’s some potential benefit for individual users with literally decades of expertise, provided nobody else uses LLMs. The results are catastrophic when everybody is using them.)
Cory Doctorow

After Plessy v Ferguson it was 58 years before we got a court willing to overturn it. I don’t think Black people who want to vote and women who want to have rights to their bodies and trans people who want to EXIST should have to wait that long because it offends your sense of propriety.
ElieNYC

A terracotta sparrow from Roman Aosta in Northern Italy. Now part of the collections at the Regional Archaeological Museum in Aosta. My own photo:


Kevin Wilbraham @kpw1453.bsky.social

interestingly under callais, the only black lawmakers who could escape constitutional scrutiny are those elected by white voters, which is a pretty clear statement of who gets to be a legitimate political actor
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

The number of conservatives calling the compact Memphis-based TN-09 an "illegal racial gerrymander" has been insane. Whatever Alito wrote, the loud and clear signal was that even if Black people make up a majority of a coherent community, they aren't allowed to vote for their representation.
Aubrey Gilleran

The first guy to ever led his horse to water: WHY ISN’T THIS WORKING
lukelukeluke

Democrats cannot keep treating the judiciary as a sacred institution while Republicans treat it as a captured one.
The New Republic

Finally, Ronald Reagan can rest in peace, knowing that children will no longer have to learn that some white people were the bad guys in that whole slavery thing.
Kevin M. Kruse

I do not like living through this era of Mad Libs history At All:


Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social

i am not that familiar with case citations but before AI was it considered just a 'whoops sorry' if a brief included completely made up citations to support the case
darth™️ @darthbluesky.bsky.social

Trump brought the NVIDIA CEO on his trip to China to lobby Xi Jinping to buy advanced AI chips, even though it would create a U.S. national security threat. It turns out Trump also bought millions in NVIDIA's stock. The President's corruption is a national security disaster.
Elizabeth Warren

Rain

Yay, it's finally really raining!

I didn't think it would, even when we had a minor bit in early afternoon. I didn't check the weather after that, I admit, so I was taken by surprise at about 7:00 p.m. when there was actual rain, and it's still coming down now, steadily. 

This is the kind of rain that soaks in. So hurray for that. It has been several weeks since we had rain, and before that bit of rain (which was a good amount), there was another multi-week gap.

It has been a dryish spring. 

The plants are finally happy.
 

A Moment of Silence that Speaks Volumes

At the Minnesota state Republican convention, currently underway, they held a moment of silence. 

Was it for the elementary-age children who died in the Annunciation School shooting in Minneapolis last summer? No.

Was it for the member of the Minnesota Legislature and her husband who were murdered last spring? No.

Was it for the state resident, serving in the U.S. military, who was killed in Iran in the first days of the war there? No.

You can't even guess who it was for. 

.

.

.

.

.

It was for Derek Chauvin, who murdered George Floyd six years ago this week, who is alive and I assume well, and serving his sentence for the crimes he committed. 

They all stood there in silence, honoring a convicted murderer whose actions were so reprehensible that even some cops denounced them. (The fact that it is only some cops is part of why we are where we are at now.)

Which reminds me: I was reviewing my posts from the week after Chauvin murdered George Floyd, and I went back to my post from the day before the murder. That was May 25, 2020. 

It's a very strange thing to read now, given all that has happened since January 6, 2021:

A thought from Joyce Alene, a former U.S. Attorney and current law professor:

"I never thought I’d live in a country where I’d have to seriously worry about the President pervasively cheating to steal an election or refusing to participate in a smooth transition of power if he lost."

I've thought about the transfer of power on Inauguration Day sometimes and wondered what it would be like if the sitting president didn't relinquish power, marveling at how easily our leaders of different parties turned over control from one to the other.

I wasn't taking it for granted because I did notice it. But at the same time, I was assuming it was how things worked in this country.

We'll see if it continues. 

Republicans in Minnesota held a moment of silence for Derek Chauvin.

What If Lee Won at Gettysburg?

I toy with alternate history a little bit, though usually in 20th century settings. And I know I'm just a piker compared to people who take it seriously. 

The Alternate Historian account on BlueSky asked, a few days ago, "Which historical individual's reputation in alternate history (whether good or bad) is not well deserved?"

One of the answers he got was something I've never thought of before. It came from Sean McKnight @ynot1989.bsky.social:

Robert E. Lee, and it's not even a contest. The man's treated like a noble patrician and military mastermind in actual history, and I am aware of precisely zero works of alternate history that treat him as the myopic military commander, and profoundly evil slaver he actually was.

The best thing that ever happened to Lee was losing Gettysburg. If by some miracle he'd gotten over his own bullshit and won that battle, the victory would have almost certainly led to the total destruction of the ANV during their planned assault on DC.

His army had expended most of their artillery during Gettysburg. They would have gotten swamped at Washington, which was a fortress by the summer of 1863. Defeat would be obvious, but Lee's ego was so inflated before Gettysburg that after, he probably would believe God would provide him cannons.

He'd do a typical dramatic charge, hoping for a dramatic final battle to decide the war, and end up getting obliterated. If he wasn't killed by the Union counterattack, calls to hang him would be deafening.

Lincoln would face enormous pressure to take a harder stance against the Confederates, which with the ANV taken off the board would carry fewer risks.

Lee would be remembered in the North as the greatest traitor in the country's history, and in the South as the man who lost the war.

The destruction of the ANV would also likely mean the death or capture of some of the South's other mythologized leaders. Ewell, A.P. Hill, Longstreet, Jubal Early, J.E.B. Stuart, and Pickett would likely be captured or killed, and their post war reputations would suffer.

Huh. I never thought I should have rooted for Lee to win at Gettysburg, but it sounds like I should have. Then maybe the South would have both lost the war and the time after it, instead of winning Reconstruction.

Stuff

For those of us who have had the responsibility of clearing out our parents' homes, whether before or after their deaths — and for anyone who hasn't begun to think about it yet, for themselves or for a parent — this essay by David Weiss is worth your time.

It's called Trashing My Dad (or What's Left of Him). 

Oh, the Suffering Afrikaners

After yesterday's story about the tiny number of asylum cases that are found in favor of applicants by Trump regime judges, it was extra bad to see a version of this AP story in today's Star Tribune.

The headline is "Trump administration plans to admit more white South Africans as refugees this year," and the lede sentence reads, "The Trump administration plans to admit up to 10,000 more white South African refugees into the United States in the coming months, arguing that their status as Afrikaners has left them open to discrimination and persecution at home."

Are they threatened with death and sexual violence like the Central American woman described by Steven Thal in yesterday's Star Tribune op-ed? Only in Stephen Miller's racist imagination. Are they threatened by their families with death for being adopted and somehow disgracing their clan, like the young Somali man whose story in MinnPost I belatedly appended to yesterday's post? Of course not.

The version of the AP story that ran in the Star Tribune does not carry the AP byline, and ended with two paragraphs that are not in the AP story online:


Yeah, because having your history erased from school textbooks is clearly persecution that deserves a response from governments around the world. Maybe compensation! And any country that does that to some of its people should definitely stop doing it. 

How do people like Christopher Landau, who work for the Trump regime, manage to say things like this without their heads spinning right off?

Relocating 17,500 white South Africans to get them established here will cost U.S. taxpayers $100 million, according to AP. Which is only about $5,700 per person, so I'm not sure I trust that figure. It seems kind of low. 

Asylum Has a Purpose, and It's Not for White South Africans

Steven Thal, a local immigration attorney, wrote in today's Star Tribune about his experience over 43 years representing people with asylum claims, and what has changed during the second Trump regime. (Gift link: Immigrants vs. the deportation machine: This is America today.) He particularly emphasized the fact that domestic violence and gang violence are no longer considered grounds for asylum. Since 2025, sex or gender is not considered a "particular social group."

On top of that, Thal pointed to Trump's appointment of judges whose purpose is to carry out deportation, rather than fairly hear cases of asylum. 100 immigration judges have been fired or "pushed out," replaced by 140 sworn to uphold the Trump method:

These new appointees, termed “deportation judges” by the Department of Justice, are characterized by a lack of immigration law experience and by a focus on enforcement.

Rates of asylum-granting nationally, he says, have declined from 42% during the Biden administration to 7% (by February 2026). The woman's case Thal describes in the first half of his essay is one that any rational person would think should meet asylum grounds. But no. 

His analysis fits perfectly with an infographic the Star Tribune ran a few days ago, comparing asylum cases in one month in Minnesota, 2024 vs. 2026:


The approval rate under Biden was a not-stellar 13%. Under Trump, it is 0.2%.

It was obvious this would happen when we heard news about the firing of immigration judges, knowing their replacements would be dedicated to the Trump/Miller ideology. But it is still hard seeing it come to fruition. 

And now they want to have people applying for green cards return to their home countries to apply. It's nonsensical obstructionism. 
__

When I posted this, I meant to include a link to this MinnPost story on Minnesota asylum cases, which also ran on Tuesday. As in Thal's commentary, the particular case it focuses on is clearly one that deserves asylum. And check out this graph that accompanies the article:

Minnesota clearly had a preexisting and long-term lower rate of approved asylum cases. Is it from bias against Somalis, or what? I wonder what the reason is. 
 

Good News from the Pope

I like this Pope. 

In the encyclical Leo issued today, he finally — finally — did what the church should have done forever ago, and asked for forgiveness for the Vatican's past role in legitimizing the international slave trade. (AP story here.) Quoting that story:

In 2023, the Vatican formally repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery, but it never formally rescinded, abrogated or rejected the bulls [that] authorized Portuguese sovereigns to conquer Africa and the Americas and enslave non-Christians.... [One] bull also gave the Portuguese permission “to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.” 

Moving forward, unlike some of people we could mention.
 

A Bad Stat, and the Wrong Word

I just finished reading Camille Dungy's 2023 memoir Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden as part of a book group. I recommend it generally.

There was one particular set of facts she relayed late in the book that I didn't know specifically, though it fits with others that are familiar. 

It comes up at a point in late spring or summer of 2020, when Dungy's husband has been on a long bike ride. She tells her friend Tim, who is white, that she tracks her husband's whereabouts with her phone while he's on his rides. 

Their conversation was just a few months after Ahmaud Arbery was murdered by white men while jogging in Georgia, and of course, not long after George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis.

After recounting their conversation, she goes on to write,

A recent national study reveals that Black cyclists are 4.5 times more likely to die in an accident than white cyclists. Law enforcement agents in cities around the country cite Black cyclists at grossly disproportionate rate. Though the population of Tampa, Florida, is only 25 percent Black, Black cyclists accounted for 80 percent of the city's bicycle citations in 2015. In a nine-month span in 2017, Chicago law enforcement agents issue 321 citations to cyclists in Austin, a predominately Black neighborhood, and only 5 in predominately white Lincoln Park (page 235). 

I found a 2022 article about that national study. The higher rate of death for Black cyclists, it turns out, isn't because they ride bikes more than white people. In fact, it's the opposite:

...Black residents logged proportionally fewer miles on foot, bike, or car than most other groups, relative to their share of the population, according to the National Household Travel Survey data from which the stats were sourced.... White cyclists, who are the demographic group most likely to ride exclusively for recreation or sport rather than transportation, logged significantly more miles per capita than cyclists from other demographics...

This 4.5x statistic raises the question that I always ask when things like this arise: when there's clearly either a structural problem at fault (such as the road designs in Black communities vs. white ones) or overt racism of drivers (!)... are those "accidents"? 

Can we stop using that word and start using at least a neutral word instead, like crash? Calling them accidents is adding insult to injury, or in this case, death.

Bologna, 10 Years Ago

It's been a busy, beautiful day here in Minnesota, one where you want to be outside digging in the earth, or maybe going to a book club, and you don't have time to think of a blog post. 

So instead, you spin back through your photos and come up with some from just about 10 years ago, inspired by a friend who mentioned she will be in Bologna for a conference soon.

Here are a few photos of signs I saw in that city that I didn't share at the time:

The Broadview Six

I'm far from the first person to note the MO of Trump and his regime when it comes to violating laws and the constitutional order, but after the many court cases they have lost, including multiple judges decrying their actions, it was the one yesterday against the Broadview Six that has finally put some words in my mouth.

Ken White, a criminal defense attorney and First Amendment litigator who was Twitter-famous as Pope Hat and is now on BlueSky, had a great thread explaining what happened in the Broadview grand jury case. To summarize, the Trump prosecutor improperly vouched for aspects of the case to the grand jury, communicated with grand jury members off the record, redacted parts of transcripts and lied about it, and finally "when grand jurors voted no bill the first time, [prosecutors] asked grand jurors who had 'made up their mind' not to participate in the next ones." Essentially, they shopped for jurors who were most likely to agree to indict.

Given all of that, the judge released the six defendants from all charges, such that they cannot be charged again. The judge will be looking into prosecutorial misconduct.

The thing I want to say about this regime's way of conducting itself is this: They act like a badly brought-up first grader on a playground, one who does what he wants to other kids until he gets called on it and told to stop. And then his only words are "Who says?" and "Make me." 

Like I said, I know I'm not the first one to point out that the regime functions at a low level (or no level) of morality. But it's good to allow yourself to feel the shock of it again once in a while.

Lost & Found

This is from the Lost & Found of a large event held recently here in the Twin Cities:

I took a photo of it because I'm fascinated by the metal logos and namemarks of companies found on old equipment (as I've written about a few times in the past). 

But I'm also sad that a person has lost this hammer and hasn't come to claim it. It seems likely that it has a family story behind it. 

I hope it has a new life with whoever ends up with. I hope they cherish it and use it for another lifetime and hand it on to another generation.