My Twitter round-ups for May are always shorter than the others because I'm really busy and don't look at it as much as other months. I know I should use May as the model the rest of the time. I'll be working on that as June begins. But even though there are fewer tweets here, the topics are similar.
First, as always these days, there's Trump, including his overseas trip, policy, and every unbelievable thing:
funny hearing these men who are clamoring for a religious inquisition and criminalizing women complain about witch huntsOn the health care bill specifically:
Saladin Ahmed
Trump uses an unsecured phone. Mishandles intel. Surrounded by collusion scandals. Don't let GOP ever tell you they care about security. It's all a game. A big con. Republicans don't help anyone, don't protect anyone. The party literally does nothing but serve its wealthy base.
Jared Yates Sexton
Nothing is more 1970s sci-fi dystopia than Germany no longer trusting America because of science-hating Nazis.
Mike Drucker
Trump thinks all reporters make up sources and stories because that's what he has done and would do.
Mazel Tov Cocktail @AdamSerwer
Ask yourself this question, why are so many people humiliated by Trump & not humiliated by the USA itself as a hegemonic empire?
The Slaves Singing @williamcson
Time and again Trump is far warmer and more solicitous of police states, monarchies and strong-men than democratic leaders.
Christopher Hayes
It takes so much careful brilliance to make the world safe & cooperative. It takes so little careless stupidity to make it perilous & aloof.
Anand Giridharadas
It is insulting to be governed by these morons.
section_sign
Just to reiterate: The president of the U.S. called a foreign leader specifically to praise his policy of extrajudicial executions.
Radley Balko
The reality is the Saudis likely ARE thrilled with Trump. He's transactional, doesn't care about human rights, and bolsters them vs Iran.
@JoyAnnReid
Same day they got that arms deal, the Saudis plopped $100mil into Ivanka's charity. Now, will the GOP cry foul like they did with Hillary?
George Takei
Getting news of POTUS now is like going to the bathroom after eating beets; extremely startling, and then you're like, "oh yeah, right."
Sad Cactus @buckfruitt
I suspect that one of Trump's many legacies will be a reexamination of all the blanket immunities and privileges given to presidents.
Glenn Thrush
The last tweet ever sent will be some random person saying "it's spelled 'I just LAUNCHED the nukes' you idiot"
Matt Novak @paleofuture
We're all on a sinking ship and somehow half of America thinks it'll miraculously turn into a submarine.
Hari Kondabolu
Why are all of the white pundits infantilizing a 70-year-old man? These same folks turn 12-year-old Black children into full-grown adults.
FreeBresha @prisonculture
Here's the key reality Americans have to face: a nation that can elect Donald Trump can't be trusted. That's changing how world sees USA.
Jeet Heer
The President of the United States of America revealed secret Israeli information to the Russians. Imagine telling past Republicans that.
Jared Yates Sexton
Trump's case against Hillary Clinton:
- favors foreign interests over American ones
- engages in corrupt self-dealing
- mishandled classified info
Christopher Hayes
Trump: Hillary doesn't have the stamina to be president!
Also Trump: Do you mind keeping your remarks to 2 min? I get pooped out listening.
Dab Aggin
If Trump stood in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shot somebody, Republicans would just shrug and say he's keeping a campaign promise.
Rex Huppke
Being projected on Trump Hotel in DC right now. #resist:
Tim Hogan
maybe the constitutional requirements for being president should include the marshmallow test
Whet Moser
The difficult reality to be faced here is that POTUS is cognitively impaired in some way. Just watch any interview with him from 10 or 20 years ago. Still an asshole, but clearly much more cognizant, able to formulate sentences.
Tom Tomorrow
Republicans put government on hold for years because they thought Hillary Clinton could have endangered intelligence. Trump just gave it away.
Jared Yates Sexton
Regular reminder that the entire election turned on fake anger that Clinton had mishandled unmarked material at low-level classification.
Brian Beutler
Let this sink in... Donald Trump has an 11-year-old son at home, yet spends every weekend away playing golf... And people look up to him.
Matt Stout
Jan. 13, 1974 New York Times dispatch from Alabama finds hostility to Watergate inquiry, a scandal "invented by the news media."
Jonathan Darman
We literally had a President of the United States resign for what Trump publicly admits to doing. How do Republicans accept this as OK?
Matt McDermott
Trump is the most inept super-villain. He's just put up a huge neon sign flashing 'GUILTY' beside the White House.
Billy Bragg
To recap, Trump has now fired both FBI director investigating him and US Attorney with jurisdiction over his NY-based activities.
John Harwood
Employees fired by Trump:
Sally Yates
Preet Bharara
James Comey
Employees investigating Trump:
Sally Yates
Preet Bharara
James Comey
Maggie Jordan
I'd love to think about remodeling or rebuilding the nation and world, but we're kinda facing existential threats. Perhaps even extinction. It would have been easier to push the nation left if we were starting from the center. I keep hearing 45 will make people wake up. (The far left said that about George W. Bush, too.) I'm dubious. That rationale means some are expendable. Yes, there were people who died under Obama, and under all imperial presidencies. Yes, we cared then, too -- Black Lives Matter began in *his* 2nd term. But these false equivalencies are more than annoying; they're just lies. Clinton and Obama were disappointing. But the same as George W. Bush and Trump? Let's play this game while I wait on this delayed meeting: suppose Bush Sr. won a second term. Would there have been no Crime Bill? How about a McCain or a Romney presidency? Better for the people? Did we really make huge mistakes by capitulating to establishment Democrats? Should we just let the GOP fulfill their dreams of being the sole party in the United States, because then, the people will finally wake up? Nah. I think what'll happen is that more of us will be in prison, more of us will get sick, there'll be more violence and more of us will die. But hey. We're trying it your way. Let's see what happens.
Ebony Elizabeth
Who would have thought that the theocracy would come with such a feckless, stupid leader?
ProfB @AntheaButler
Sophisticated US leadership is the sine qua non of a stable world order. However, we lack the former while the latter is getting worse.
Zbigniew Brzezinski [his final tweet]
A contemporary described Jackson "prowling like a tiger inside the cage of his ignorance," so Trump has a basis for his self-identification.
David Frum
I don't think Andrew Jackson is a person to 45. He's an amorphous idea, a mannequin of history he uses to rationalize his own belligerence.
jelani cobb
There is no problem that Trump does not think can be solved by a sufficiently "strong" leader. It's terrifying.
Grant Bosse
Paul Ryan looks like a muppet they introduce to explain sociopathy to Big Bird.On Jared Kushner and the Russian "back-channel":
i hate u henry Tudor @jon_snow_420
Without Canada's universal national healthcare, I wouldn't have been able to have a career as a novelist. Nor, actually, would I be alive.
William Gibson
For every $1 Trumpcare spends on people with pre-existing conditions, it spends $29 on tax breaks for the wealthy.
@igorvolsky
If USA spent same percentage of GDP on health care as Australia, we'd have an extra ~$1 trillion a year to spend on other things.
Steven Dennis
Honestly don't understand how it's legal for Congress to exempt themselves from legislation that they pass. That seems totally nuts.
emily nussbaum
[The b]ill is devastating in own right, but also ominous. You don't pass something this unpopular thinking there will be free and fair elections.
Sarah Kendzior
The AHCA makes every measure of US health and health care worse by shifting ~$1 trillion from bottom 40% to top 2%. It is unconscionable.
Atul Gawande
Voting to take away healthcare from 24 million without reading bill, CBO score or hearings glaring example of how GOP subverting democracy.
Ari Berman
my favorite part of 2017 is where every two days we all have to call our reps begging to maintain basic government functions
Mark @haircut_hippie
Obamacare had 79 House committee hearings/markups. This bill: zero. Zero.
Josh Greenman
Conservatives: Abortion is murder! Every life is precious!
Also conservatives: Fuck your sick baby that's not my problem go get a 3rd job.
OhNoSheTwitnt
I love how "moderate Republican" now means "leans yes on a bill he knows will literally kill his constituents."
sean. @SeanMcElwee
What's the big problem? All Benedict Arnold wanted was a fruitful "back channel" to the British crown, right?It seemed there were a lot of tweets ruminating on what passes for political discourse these days, the nature of conservatism, and the direction of the Democratic Party:
Langdon Winner
Kushner using a Russian embassy SCIF to send Russia-encrypted messages to Putin--something NEVER BEFORE DONE--is *not* a damn "backchannel."
Seth Abramson
Betcha the folks at Jared Jewelers really, really hate #JaredKushner right now.
Robert O. Simonson
Finally realized that what Jared Kushner reminds me of is some random background Imperial officer in Star Wars.
Jamelle Bouie
Democrats should ABSOLUTELY be arguing amongst themselves right now. People disagree. Those should be aired out and struggled over.The last part of the month saw the murder of two men in Portland and a student in Maryland by white supremacists. So there are tweets on those acts, and the related topic of Islamophobia:
FreeBresha @prisonculture
"Cucks" and "snowflakes" are the two most glorious examples of mass public projection probably ever.
@ramsincanon
Ah, the perennial question: What are "conservatives" conserving? What are they conserving? A provisional answer: The wealth of the rich & resentments of the suckers. Always a nice combo.
Langdon Winner
"locker room talk"
"recess monitor"
"lunch money"
conservatives have an unhealthy tendency to make everything into be a high school parable
@KevinWGlass
Just feel so numb looking at how these narratives about who "deserves" healthcare or food or shelter get more and more entrenched.
Namira Islam
I feel like every article on the Koch brothers should note that as small children they had a Nazi governess who made them shit on command.
Jessica Pressler
The left argues more than the right for the same reason that architects have more opinions about buildings than arsonists do.
@premiumponcho
When Trump's faux-populism finally leaves us, will there be a new, inclusive, responsible populism to replace it amid this "age of anger"?
Anand Giridharadas
Among the many remarkable facts of American politics today: For the first time since at least the 1960s, the left owns genuine patriotism.
Anand Giridharadas
Hillary lost for a lot of reasons, but Democrats are best advised to fixate on the problems they can fix next time.
Josh Barro
I think the "good ideas will always win" and the "listen to bad ideas to beat them" free-speech defenses are fundamentally dishonest. Seems more accurate to say "free speech is necessary for minority rights, but the bigots are still playing with a loaded deck, sorry." With that honesty would come some necessary clarity about the aims and ends of this (and other) free speech panics aimed at minorities.
Vann R. Newkirk II @fivefifths
Relevant context: You're more than 7X as likely to be killed by a right-wing extremist than by Muslim terrorists.Here's a new category: comments on media in the age of the Turnip:
Caroline O. @RVAwonk
Perspective: white men 100% have an obligation to contend with/diffuse white male hate. The Portland heroes took on that burden. #PortlandHeroes
BigIndianGyasi
Reminder that you're seven times more likely in America to be killed because you are Muslim than you are by a Muslim.
Reza Aslan
Real men do everything they can to avoid hurting others and themselves. Self-restraint and wisdom are not weak, they are powerful.
@MikeRiggs
Is there still any debate that something hideous and venal has been dragged out into the open in America? At some point we need to face it.
@JoyAnnReid
Criticizing religion, including Islam, is welcome. Defaming and slandering rooted in bigotry is not right. You still have freedom to do it.
Linda Sarsour
I don't know why we expected good journalism from people who drop everything to play themselves in every movie with an alien invasion in it.Education:
Siobhan Thompson
Macron is lucky that in France, unlike US & UK, there is no Murdoch/Fox empire constantly tugging the nation to the right w/ its propaganda.
Steven Greenhouse
Network news spent 3x as much time on Clinton's emails vs. all policy issues. That's why Comey letter and Russian hacking had such an impact:
Ari Berman
it's a broken model. Find the best writers/thinkers for each topic. Readers are poorly served by columnists who feign expertise.
Victoria White (commenting on the newest New York Times columnist)
"our goal is to present a diverse array of ideas. here's 5 rich white people who will write for us every week" – every op-ed editor/section.
Wesley Lowery
You can say a million things about initiatives etc. etc. regaining trust in news etc. but seriously. Local news needs to be funded. Funded.
Zeynep Tufekci
When you give feedback while students are working on it... It's a learning opportunity. After the due date, feedback is punitive.Sexism and women:
Alice Keeler
If unconditional love and genuine enthusiasm are present, praise isn’t necessary. If they’re absent, praise won’t help.
Alfie Kohn
I think the amount of parent support provided to wealthy schools versus poor schools is overlooked. The economic freedom to leave work whenever you feel like it, or one parent doesn't even have to work provides for an unequal education.
Prairie Czar @matt_c_garrett
Privatizing schools to “show what works” is a bullshit move when we already know what works, but aren’t allowed to do it.
Buffy the Psych Prof @DrPsyBuffy
As long as you think that school is a child's job, you will continue to complain about kids not doing their work.
@Sisyphus38
Pro Writer Tip #1. How to describe:Racism, racist policing, and related topics:
A) Female Protagonist--"beautiful but doesn't know it"
B) Female Antagonist--"beautiful, and knows it"
Warren Leight
The important point is that there is more variation w/in sexes than between sexes. Innate or constructed is secondary.
Rita
Critical point from this study: actual grades didn't predict retention among female undergrads. Belonging did.
Ed Yong (commenting on a study that found women mentors made a difference in engineering)
It seems a good time to point out that the birth control pill has been an important factor in US economic growth.
Betsey Stevenson
If you're white and don't mind me talking about "white people," it's because you know it's not about you. If you get mad, it's because it's about you.Environment and sustainable cities:
Hari Kondabolu
When I was a kid down there we spent 6 mos on Alabama history and the same – six months – on world history. The whole world = 1 state. Just sayin.
N. K. Jemisin (responding to new that Alabama’s governor signed a bill banning cities from removing Confederate monuments)
Children of color deserve to be children.
Period.
Poverty, discrimination oppression mean our children worry about adult problems. All the time.
Brittany Packnett @MsPackyetti
That racism is complicated means more, not fewer, people are complicit.
Paul Thomas
If anything has been good about the past few months, it's how clarifying this has all been for black folks. We now know we weren’t crazy.
Joel D. Anderson
White men get funded on potential. White women get funded on proof. Black women don't get funded.
Cindy Gallop
Our presence doesn't mean your absence. Our existence doesn't mean your erasure. To think otherwise is just nonsense.
@Ebonyteach
We, white people, love stories of the gentle black person showing us the way. We want our hand held. We want the guilt to go away. We, white people, seem to prioritize making that guilt go away over addressing the immediate threats faced by folks of color. We, white people, seem to expect folks of color to tolerate violence and harassment and trauma while whites “seek” obvious answers. And we do this while romanticizing our own past of white Americans fighting back, in blood, against the British, for “freedom.”
Charles Clymer
A person's struggle against systemic biases, denial of liberty and lynching is not "disagreement." Racism is not an "agree to disagree" issue.
Be A King @BerniceKing
The idea that removing a monument is a "denial of history" fails to consider how the monument itself was built to *be* revisionist history.
Clint Smith
America's pre-existing condition is white supremacy
Xeni Jardin
Flipped and switched – perspectives on race (photos from O Magazine):
Jae @jaeralde
When people say "racism is about ignorance," they think that we converse our way out of it. No. Racism is about power.
Gene Demby
Black Lives Matter is only polarizing to people who don't understand the injustices against blacks for no reason.
Petty-Trician @flourishbae
I wonder if the white folks offended that they are being judged by the actions of a few (GOP/53%) finally understand how minorities feel.
yvette nicole brown
The hilarious thing is that they're arguing the same thing. "Don't talk about race! The real problem is [shit that's inextricable from race]."
N. K. Jemisin
Police regularly lie about killing and beating black people basically as policy. Taking them at their word is choosing an agenda.
Vann R. Newkirk II @fivefifths
Alternate reality that elected Trump: “Experience a lot of discrimination” according to Republicans: Blacks 27%; Whites 43%; Christians 48%.
Alfie Kohn
(Mary Waters on first-generation immigrants and African-Americans and outcomes):
Gene Demby
The great unspoken of white racism/misogyny is that racists/misogynists recognize they are not superior and thus fear equity, meritocracy.
Paul Thomas
Basically every complaint about "lazy government workers" is a complaint involving a racist caricature of a black woman
Clear Cola Rick @CrystalPepsi
On the whole, Black people don't use Christianity to achieve real liberation, but to ineffectively numb serial trauma and pain.
Stacey Patton
Somebody was JUST in my mentions this weekend arguing that institutional racism can't be that bad because African immigrants do well.
The Dubai Datebook @_ShamGod
"This is pandering" says the straight white guy, the single most pandered-to demographic in modern history.
Ben Paddon
Baby Boomers vs. Millennials will seem really trite compared to how much these yet-to-be-named generations will hate all of us.And now, the best of the rest:
Joel D. Anderson
Even if cars cost $1, most of the world cannot tear down 90% of their cities to build roads/parking for everyone to drive. So what's Plan B? Roads don't pay taxes.
Rik Adamski
trutherbotorange
"I want to be able to drive on everyone else's streets but no one can drive on mine." 99% of St. Paul.
la flaneuse
If you can't see, STOP your vehicle. Don't just keep going and hope nothing is in your way. What if you hit a kid? Or a cyclist?
Father Sonn @mikesonn
People *instinctually* like good downtowns, because they derive from place-making technology that developed to serve human needs, incl. pleasure.
Rik Adamski
Crime isn't "supposed" to happen anywhere. Drivers, including you, should drive reasonably on every street, not just yours.
la flaneuse
Petrol is only a part of the damage cars cause. They also cause resource waste as consumer products, sprawl, and growth. The purpose of #freetransit is to break the car monopoly and expose its subsidy. Then go from buses to bikes and walking.
Free Public Transit
"We've become unhealthy by way of a progressive cultural distaste for discomfort, exacerbated by poor civic design."
Brent Toderian
Why do many people oppose new development? One major reason: our society has essentially forgotten how to build quality places for decades.
Rik Adamski
Olly the taxi driver with the common sense response to that terrible Strib bike commentary today:
TAXI DRIVER
Biking in Mpls
Promoting car dominance in the name of seniors and the disabled is morally corrupt.
Father Sonn @mikesonn
Suburbanizing the US required creating a replicable default operating system. Now it's deeply imbedded but doesn't serve current needs.
Rik Adamski
Imagine the fantastic things we could do in our cities if our first reaction to everything wasn't "what about traffic and parking?"
Reuben @reubencollins
Q: Why do bicyclists want accommodation on your local busy road?
A: For literally the exact same reasons that drivers use it so much.
Alex Schieferdecker
In impoverished neighborhoods, calm streets and generous sidewalks are at least as important as decent roads.
Rik Adamski
And even if they aren't in the car with you (which is most of the time), it's your right to have that empty seat there just in case. We have every right to sit in a 5-8 person car and slowly search for parking, but the hell you bicyclists should ever ride side by side.
Bob Gunderson
A real social function of racism was enabling slaveowners to wake up every morning and go to sleep every night without killing themselves.
@studentactivism
Personally, I'm a boomer who thinks millennials should be in charge now:
Pat Thompson @pattho
How long can we keep making it virtually illegal to build communities where non-drivers can be independent, before it becomes an #ADA issue?
Rik Adamski
Why sprawling cities are broke: low density dev't has higher up front costs and on-going costs, + less tax revenue.
jennifer keesmaat
Wanted: A plug-in that replaces "Distracted Pedestrian” with "8-year-old" or "80-year-old" or "Blind person.” Still feel like blaming the victim?
Kelcie Ralph
We've hollowed out our cities to store cars.
Jennifer Hurley
Police are necessary to deal with people who understand nothing but brute force, but insufficient if law and order is not enforced informally.
Rik Adamski
Automobiles were never an appropriate technology for cities of North America. As a form of mass transport for the world, they're a disaster.
Taras Grescoe
Here's the math: the same space can move up to 1,600 cars/per hour or 25,000 people/per hour. Transit is about efficiency.
jennifer keesmaat
On our current path, climate change may pose an existential threat to civilization in our lifetimes. Try to see the world through that lens.
Eric Holthaus
assuming no carbon removal, to keep below 1.5 C of warming the world must zero out *all* carbon emissions by 2026.
ryan cooper
When the language of patterns was common, illiterate lumberjacks built timeless buildings. After it was lost, even most architects couldn't.
Rik Adamski
Since this country has all 18-year-old males register for selected service, they most certainly need to auto-register all 18-year-olds to vote.
Gramma @NW_FL_MIMI
Comparison is the thief of joy.
Think Different @LifeLimits
We're back to 1965 crime rates. To get back to 1965 incarceration rates we'd have to "cut 80": release 4 out of 5 prisoners.
Mark A.R. Kleiman
Science: Can we do it?
Social Science: What will happen if you do it?
Humanities: Should you do it?
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
Redefining agricultural productivity from "yield per hectare" to "people nourished per hectare": US drops from world leader to below average.
Sam Zipper @ZipperSC
Africa is not poor, we are stealing its wealth.
Nikhil Goyal
design is fundamental, but you can never completely design away asshole
Stephen Miller
African continent subsidizes rest of the world by over $40 billion in one year, according to new research.
Global Justice Now
Those illegal voters Kobach found?
Total = 9, 6 were Republicans.
He disenfranchised 20,000+ LEGAL voters to do it.
Matthew Calcara
I like the guy who says tearing down a Lee statue is anti-American, when Lee literally waged war against America.
Kevin M. Kruse
Little frightened guys:
Faces in Things @FacesPics
This “he was a product of his time” or “she was a product of her circumstances” is both true and unhelpful. It absolves us of the fact that we are ALL products of our times and circumstances and also denies us agency to push against those things. We are not just products. We are catalysts. Agents. We can turn around and perpetuate the same system that created us (most of us do) and/or we can rebel against it. Loving other human beings is not what makes us special. It is what makes us human.
Middle Name Michelle @dmichellebz
IMO cis people should share pronouns not only to make trans folk more comfortable, but to fight the idea that gender is obvious.
eyes up, teeth bared @ragesinggoddess
Folks, speaking as a member of the 1%, neither I or anyone else in my bracket needs tax cuts this fucking much. Please save the nation.
John Scalzi
the reason flying is miserable is because everyone buying tickets wants them to be as cheap as possible
William Lindeke
After people have put in a ton of work on something, your intervention should never be 'when are YOU going to this again?' NO The appropriate intervention is 'I'd love to help make this happen again, how can I do that?' at the very least.
#FreeBresha @prisonculture
my inner nerd loves this map: it finally made sense of London's train stations:
Calum Sherwood
Instead of monitoring presidential approval ratings, polls should look at declining levels of hope and optimism, and all the implications. Nothing has more influence on public trust & behavior than the sense that things will get better and not worse. Dread is deadly.
Christine Arena
3 out of 5 people in jail are not convicted of any crime but are simply too poor to post bail for release.
Clint Smith
If you hear an activist talking about their "building their brand," run. If you hear activists talking about people like consumers, RUN. Organizing and movement work should be the antithesis of a capitalistic model. It should be about helping people, not profiting off them. Capitalism requires something/someone to exploit. "Activism" that uses a capitalistic models require issues, problems, and causes to exploit.
The Slaves Singing @williamcson
Wendell Berry, correct:
"There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places."
Sarah Smarsh
At the end of a long day, let me simply repeat: human rights trump religious rights. Everywhere. All the time. For everyone. Period.
Mary Morse
Ivanka writes in her book about the importance of "cultivating authenticity," a phrase that has given me pause.
Annie Karni
I grew up in a church in which plane crashes and cancer were both god’s punishment for individual sins. A famous Christian singer & his child were killed in a crash and the pastor said his widow’s pro-life work must have not been sincere enough. I say this to note that a lot of sweet people with good intentions turn into cruel monsters super easily to justify the misery of others
Erin Kissane
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