BlueSky, August 2026 Part 2

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

140 Years Ago in Minneapolis

If you're on BlueSky and have any interest in Minneapolis (and sometimes Saint Paul) history, Vince Mpls is a must-follow.

About a week ago, he shared this image of the Minneapolis Industrial Exhibition:

And this description:

Aug 23 1886: Minneapolis Industrial Exposition opens on the East Bank of the Mississippi in Minneapolis, attracting 500,000 visitors in the next 5 weeks. Intended to rival to the Minnesota State Fair over in St Paul, its success was short-lived. By 1903 it was a warehouse, then a ruin, finally torn down in 1945. 

A follow-up comment gave the exact location:

It was on the riverfront just to the left as you crossed the 3rd Avenue bridge from downtown. The "front door" led down to a railroad station on Main Street SE, currently the retaining wall for Lourdes Square townhomes.

He posted this photo to accompany that, showing how the building related to the 3rd Avenue bridge:

It looks as though dome was gone by the time the photo was taken.

By Sea, by Land

Among all the weird maps that Facebook shows me for some reason, I saw this one a few days ago. For some reason the labels are in Swedish, but that's not why I thought it was notable:

Of course, it has the usual problem of the Mercator projection — making Canada and Alaska look a lot larger than they are — but ignoring that, the thing it showed me was that the size of the Mediterranean Sea is similar to the interior of the lower 48 United States. 

It makes it visible that sailing from the eastern shore of the Black Sea, through Constantinople, to Valencia, Spain was approximately the same distance as going from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco. Going through the Straits of Gibraltar, all the way to the western shore of Iberia or Morocco was even farther.

One Less Book

It's State Fair time here in Minnesota. I'm planning to attend on Tuesday, so I should have a report afterwards.

Right now that means my main participation is listening to small prop planes circling the fairgrounds, dragging advertising trailers. As of last year, the planes became an incessant irritation on both weekends, with the second "weekend" including Thursday through Labor Day.

They don't go over the Fair, oh no. They go over the parts of Saint Paul next to it and the adjacent suburb to the north, Falcon Heights, where people live. And as far as I can tell, the Fair's attendees don't notice the planes or the ads, so it's not only a waste of fuel and carbon pollution, it's burning the advertisers' money too. 

Except to make all of the people who live under the planes hate the advertisers and swear they will never use their services. 

So while I have been sitting in my house with the windows closed, I cleaned out some stuff. One thing I'm going to get rid of is a 1934 elementary school geography textbook I acquired at some point. It's a strange thing: I have no idea what grade level it was meant for. There are way too many words for a 1st or 2nd grader, but the kinds of questions it proposes for the child reader sometimes seem like they're meant for a 5-year-old. 

I have a hard time believing any kids, even in the 1930s, read and absorbed the content of this book. 

It did include this charming illustration, however:


Most of the book's images are halftone photos, but there are also a substantial number of line art cuts of animals and plants. I think those were repurposed from other publications, in the case of plants, likely from horticultural works. 

In the days of letterpress printing, you couldn't just do a drawing and scan it to reproduce on a page. Cuts like these were etched into metal and reused over and over again. 

I don't think these serious textbook publishers would have commissioned an illustration of anthropomorphic vegetables, but it's what they found to use that was close enough and it fit their budget. All they could do was add a somewhat disdainful caption, "The artist sees the garden vegetables as people."

The Real Fraud

Here in Minnesota, we're constantly inundated with talk of fraud, fraud, fraud. That's Minnesota Republicans' favorite word, since they think they can beat Democrats over the head with it, including in our current race for the U.S. Senate and governor's office. They encourage national right-wing video propagandists to come here to chase random Somali people, assuming anyone who watches their material will believe that people who look East African must be committing fraud. 

A column by former U.S. attorney and now University of Michigan law professor Barbara McQuade called The "war on fraud" is targeting the wrong crimes (gift link to the Pioneer Press) gets at what drives me up the wall about all of that.

She describes J.D. Vance's Fraud Tracker task force, which will turn Department of Justice resources to crack down on small frauds. In the past, prosecutors could go after large-scale white collar crimes, which of course take longer to pursue and require more resources. Now, the attorneys have to carry at least 25 cases at a time: easy to do if there's only one count per case, but not very likely to allow for long-term, complex cases. 

McQuade says that during her 19 years as a federal prosecutor, for instance, SNAP fraud cases were treated as civil enforcement rather than criminal cases. The dollar amounts involved were in the thousands. Or her office would give the cases to state attorneys general or local DAs. That left her office the resources it needed to deal with cases that required wiretaps, national or international jurisdiction, and grand juries. To deal with, you know, corporations — where the real money was being stolen.

The Trump regime has also gotten rid of cryptocurrency enforcement, when the main use case for crypto is money laundering. They have have cut the DOJ workforce by 20,000. And, of course, Trump has famously pardoned or otherwise given clemency to more than 70 convicted fraudsters, so that tells us how seriously this regime takes fraud.

Two things McQuade lists that I had not heard about: the DOJ dismissed two cases against corporations that had been fully investigated and charged, one of which already had a plea and $1.1 billion fine agreed on. They just dismissed them. Never mind!

All of this tells corporations that they're free to do whatever they want, that "everyone is doing it." 

It's a weird thing, because in Minnesota, all of this corporate fraud gets no attention. (This MinnPost column by a progressive writer is the only thing I've seen that counters it, up until the PiPress reprinted McQuade's column. The Star Tribune constantly beats the fraud drum.) 

The heavy emphasis on fraud by immigrants in Minnesota clearly says it's not everyone doing it, and particularly not corporations... it's only those people. 

Letting the Shooter Go in Texas

Late yesterday, a Trump-appointed judge refused to force Texas Governor Greg Abbott to sign extradition papers for the ICE officer who shot through a door in North Minneapolis back in January, injuring one man and endangering children and other people in the house. 

As I wrote a few days ago, this is an ominous sign of our country's devolution. 

Abbott pretends he is "carefully considering" whether the shooter, Christian Castro, is legally to be considered a fugitive under the Constitution's extradition clause. The judge gave the supposed reasoning that 90 days was not enough for Abbott to figure that question out... even though Abbott said at a press conference that his real reasons are clearly based on animus against Minnesota.

It is established that Castro, the newly released shooter, has discussed moving to Mexico to be with a woman he's romantically involved with, so he's an obvious flight risk. Normally, I would say Minnesota has a better chance of extraditing him from Mexico than Texas, but I guess that has to involve the federal government, so probably not. 

I hope there's still a legal way to compel his return and overrule this stupid decision because unlike the current regime, I'm a fan of keeping this country intact and functional for the betterment of all.

It's Not the NYT's Job to Publish Press Releases for the Trump Regime

I don't subscribe to the New York Times, but I sometimes see their stories reprinted in my local newspapers. 

On Monday, the Pioneer Press reprinted Ana Swanson's coverage of how the U.S.-Canada tariff deal fell apart. The headline, deck, and first 14 paragraphs were a completely one-sided version from the U.S. trade rep's point of view.

In paragraph 15 (which came well after the jump), she wrote, "The Canadian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on [the trade rep's] description..." And then went on to give a vague descriptions of Prime Minister Mark Carney's criticism. 

By the time her story was written, I had read online what the Canadian criticisms were, so it seems likely the New York Times also knew. In paragraph 18, Swanson mentions that the U.S.

asked for concessions that would affect Canada's culture and maintenance of protections for the French language and demanded that Canada take out tariffs against non-U.S. trading partners...

Seems like more detail on those two things could have been offered to balance the 14 paragraphs that started the story.

Yesterday I heard a story on The Daily about how the talks fell apart, which was much more balanced and made clear what was being asked of the Canadians. 

Today, the Star Tribune carried a second New York Times story by Swanson and Matina Stevens-Gridneff, the voice heard on that Daily podcast. It shows just how shallow that first Swanson story was. 

The talks had been going well. Carney had even put a distasteful thing Trump wanted on the table for discussion (completing the Biden-canceled Keystone XL pipeline inside Canada). But then, as we know always happens with the Trump regime, "it was as if 'shadow figures were suddenly in the room' raising topics that had supposedly been settled in previous days." 

The story makes it clear that these late-developing topics and concessions, which the U.S. made clear were required for a successful outcome, were imposed on Canada. This is the opposite of what the first story had implied. Canadian sovereignty was very much on the line: Not only what languages it speaks, but its right to make trade agreements. 

In rushing to a scoop for the Monday story, Swanson misrepresented what happened and created propaganda for the Trump regime. The Pioneer Press helped by reprinting it. 

Whether most people will hear the Canadian side of things and understand that this is no different from any other bunch of lies the Trump regime tells, I cannot say. But we will all feel the effect of price increases if the tariffs happen. 

It's Always Fear

I don't write often enough about the scourge that is RFK Jr. So to make up for that, here's a recommended story called RFK Jr.'s Toxic World, about how he "uses fear of contamination to denigrate modern medicine and advance a project rooted in vulgar eugenics."

The writer has been diagnosed and is being treated for obsessive compulsive disorder, so he's coming at it from that perspective. I found that useful, as a person with an extremely low level of reaction to violations of the moral principal of sanctity (the spot where fear of contamination comes in). 

That means I find it hard to identify with any of the “precious bodily fluids” thinking that underlies anti-vax thinking. Reading someone who can explain the psychology from the inside and still come out on the rational side of things is very helpful.

Plus you get to read phrases like “recrudescent social Darwinism … a bootstrap mentality applied to the mind.” 

One World, One Ocean

Today I am avoiding the news by looking at this projection of the Earth that unifies the oceans instead of focusing on the land masses:

The BlueSky post where I saw it said:

Every map slices the ocean apart to keep the land whole. This one does the opposite: on the Spilhaus projection, every ocean on Earth is one connected body of water, with a year of real satellite-tracked currents flowing across it. Data: NASA OSCAR + NOAA OISST 

The original post, linked above, is a short GIF showing the color-correlated currents shifting over time.
 

A Pagoda with Heels

It's been a while since I wrote about the corporate paternalism of the Endicott Johnson shoe company. Rereading it today*, after these decades of increasing oligarchic retrenchment and tech-overlordism (and our current eugenicist government policy), I felt as though I was looking at another country, or maybe a different planet.

I was prompted to look at what I had written about EJ because of this post I saw on Facebook called Upstate New York Photos:

The historic EJ Workers Pagoda in C. Fred Johnson Park in Johnson City. Constructed in the 1910s as a pump house for EJ shoe factories. Now a restored folk art structure, it features glass, brick, and shoe heels embedded in its walls.

Shoe heels!

I don't think I've ever seen the pagoda in person. I've ridden on the many carousels in the parks in Endicott, Johnson City, and Binghamton, built for the enjoyment of EJ workers, though. 

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* Recommended!

Bumming Around a Bookstore

I've been wondering lately what my cortisol level is like, and admitting to myself that it's probably not good. Reading is an anesthetic. I don't know if it decreases stress in a general way, but it distracts… as long as I'm not reading books about aspects of our current problem.

With that in mind, I was at one of my favorite bookstores today looking for a new book I just heard about. In a way that book's subject is related to the problem, but I think it may be helpful anyway. Unfortunately, it was already sold out, so I had to put it on order.

While I was there, though, I saw this on the shelf:

You never know what you'll see in a bookstore. 

I didn't buy that book, but I've immortalized it in my photo collection.

I also found out there's a new book in Martha Wells's Murderbot series (score!), and I decided to get the final book in Colson Whitehead's Harlem trilogy, which came out this year. I already have the other two books but haven't read them yet. Now I can read them all in a row without having to wait.

So I should be set with more diversion from *all this* for a little while longer. 

No ICE Prison in Minnesota

Appleton, Minnesota, is fairly far west in the state, near the South Dakota border. 

In 1992, the city of about 1,500 built a 500-bed prison, hoping to attract some entity to fill it and create jobs. It was expanded twice, up to 1,600 beds, and was bought in 1997 by CoreCivic, one of the best-known private prison companies.

In 2010, CoreCivic closed the prison after the State of Minnesota had built its own prisons and began sending fewer prisoners. Then in 2023, our state legislature passed a bill banning private prisons. 

Now, the Department of Homeland Security has bought the moribund prison from CoreCivic (I'm sure for a nice profit, especially given its condition), and CoreCivic will get the contract to run the prison, too. Gee, that's great for the company! 

And who will be in the prison? ICE and CBP detainees, of course. 

While some people in Appleton were open to the idea of CoreCivic reopening its prison because it would bring back jobs, they are not as thrilled about the prison being sold to the feds, which takes it off the local tax rolls and deprives the city of 30% of its tax base, according to Minnesota Public Radio. 

Others in the community and the rest of the state are solidly against having an ICE prison in Minnesota, and against this end run around our state law.

Yesterday, two Republican state legislators who represent the area held a town hall in Appleton about the detention facility. (MPR story here.) One of them appeared to be saying he wants the state to step in and compensate Appleton for the lost property tax revenue. (Not!). 

He also made the type of apologist statement a local official might have made in a town near any concentration camp in Germany or Poland:

Anderson said he understands that people have strongly held views on the facility, but “they're not going to stop the national trend of detaining people and deporting folks that are not here legally. So you know, let's work together and make this a positive thing economically for Appleton, even if you don't agree with what's happening there.” 

Republicans. Vote them all out.

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h/t to Minneapolis Rep. Katie Jones, on BlueSky, for this.