Impeachment hearings were a major part of the month in November 2019. So that's at the top, plus other tweets about the current occupant and his flailing path of destruction. I think I must rename him Mafia Mulligan.
Haley and Perry say Trump is the chosen one because God doesn’t make mistakes. This is the same heresy that said slavery and Jim Crow were God’s will. If whatever happens is predestined by God, then ppl don’t have to be responsible for their actions. It’s dangerous to neglect free will.That's separate from policy issues and appointments of the current administration (unless covered under their own headings below, such as immigration), and the president in general:
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II
Presidential corruption is dangerous. Legislators aiding it threatens the republic itself. If they were gambling on their side being in charge when the republic effectively ends, they'd be doing what they're doing now. This isn't left v. right; it's democracy v. authoritarianism.
Walter Shaub
“[Trump’s] boundless benefit of the doubt for the Rob Porters and Roy Moores of the world, combined with off-with-their-heads capriciousness for immigrants … is not a contradiction. It is the expression of a consistent worldview.” – Chris Hayes
Greg Greene
Devin Nunes defended protestors who yelled the n-word at John Lewis: "I think people have every right to say what they want." Reminder: Nunes is suing a cow on Twitter for hurting his feelings.
Edward Hardy
Politics shouldn’t be business. Never should have been. Until we refocus politics toward solutions versus profit for individuals, we’re going to watch corruption grow until it’s synonymous with government. We’re at a crossroads and there’s no time to lose.
Jared Yates Sexton
A fun fact about Republicans embracing the idiotic Crowdstrike conspiracy theory is that the Republican National Senatorial Campaign and Republican National Congregssional Campaign both use Crowdstrike. Have paid more than $175,000 since 2017, per FEC filings.
Kevin Collier
They attack Alex Vindman and defend Stephen Miller. That’s the Republican Party.
Adam Parkhomenko
The person enjoying this era in American politics most? Putin. Electing Donald Trump was a stretch goal. The hoped-for outcome was sowing chaos in American politics, and doubt in America's political system. Turns out he got all three.
Ezra Klein
President Trump won the 2016 election by accepting clandestine foreign help. He was caught trying to win the 2020 election by extorting clandestine foreign help. If unchecked, he will do it again. He's likely doing it right now.
David Frum
If you're white and well-off and don't belong to one of the groups Nazis target for violence, it's easy to blithely discuss impeachment and "how it plays out" in politics without recognizing that you're witnessing a fascist takeover led by people who already have camps built. They're just gonna keep normalizing y'all to violence until you're at a point where you look away when they come to drag your neighbor away for being disloyal
Bree Newsome Bass
Biden announced his candidacy on April 25th. The very next week, Trump spoke with Putin on the phone for a long time and Giuliani's activities in Ukraine expanded from the Ukraine/Hillary conspiracy BS to the corrupt Bidens BS. Amazing coincidence!
Garry Kasparov
Pundits say we can't go too far left or we'll end up with Trump but no one questions if the Republicans are going too far right when the majority of Americans have never supported Trump and want him impeached. It's a scam. They just prefer racism to progressivism
Bree Newsome Bass
Not the first to observe this, but these hearings are pulling back the curtain on the deep state to reveal ... serious, smart and deeply patriotic public servants. We should be thankful that government service attracts people of such high caliber.
Jonathan Cohn
Siri, show me the Venn diagram of people who burned their Nikes because Colin Kaepernick disrespected the military and people smearing Lt. Colonel Vindman.
Jennifer Mendelsohn
Watching Trump’s conservative Twitter supporters publicly mock a war veteran with a Purple Heart, because he’s grateful that his family emigrated to the US to escape Soviet communism. Trumpism is a hell of a drug.
Radley Balko
Right now a guy who was born rich, dodged the draft, cheated on wives, had to pay a $2M fine for misuse of his foundation & a $25M settlement for FRAUD over his FAKE university is saying that decorated war vets w a lifetime of public service are lying and HE is telling the truth.
Mikel Jollett
It's incredible that Republicans allotted themselves YEARS to investigate a *non-scandal* tragedy (Benghazi) but that Democrats are only affording themselves WEEKS to work through a complex web of impeachable and criminal offenses arising from the *biggest scandal in our history*
Seth Abramson
I have covered many cults. Some end with a bang, others with whimper. But they invariably end. The question is how much damage they leave in their wake.
Dan Rather
The rule of law is the radical idea that every person, regardless of who they are, is subject to the same rules. That's what I'm interested in, not whatever Barr is taking about.
Zephyr Teachout
If you've ever wondered why America's government hasn't crumbled under the weight of Trump's incompetence, it's because we have public servants like Marie Yovanovitch, George Kent, and William Taylor. People like them make America great. Not reality TV stars like Donald Trump.
Nate Lerner
“Everywhere She Went Turned Bad,” Says Man with Six Bankruptcies. “She started off in Somalia, how did that go?” tweeted the man, who paid twenty-five million dollars to settle fraud charges against a fake university bearing his name. —The New Yorker
Diane Ravitch
Just a reminder that this iteration of the Republican Party isn’t very good at any of this, or anything really, and was elected because unethical gerrymandering and propagandistic media created a fertile environment for untalented people to profit off nonsensical paranoia.
Jared Yates Sexton
Man, if I was Marie Yovanovitch [being attacked by Trump on Twitter while testifying], I think I would be crying. Not out of weakness, or fear, but that frustration of being attacked when you know you've done your job. It's a feeling so many women live in all the damn time and it's just so awful.
Amity Foster
the Impeachment Hearings is like watching Wheel of Fortune where the puzzle is completely solved but contestants keep guessing letters
Matt Oswalt
Trump's entire presidency is a chilling effect on our entire government. Participate in democracy? Awesome, but also know that the President might threaten you on social media for the world to see.
Amity Foster
You know what we used to call "unelected career bureaucrats?" Experts.
Robert Moffitt @justplainbob
Has any GOP member explained why — if as Jim Jordan says Ukraine is “one of the three most corrupt countries on the planet” — Trump trusted them to investigate two U.S. citizens for...corruption?
Asha Rangappa
We used to have divine right of kings. Now some seem to think there’s a divine right of billionaires
Alexis Goldstein
Trump was not "democratically elected" - he lost by 2.9 million votes. He was "constitutionally elected," by an 18th century constitutional design that includes a ban on foreign bribes to the president and that offers impeachment and removal as a remedy for bribe-seeking
David Frum
Every time Jim Jordan speaks all I can think about is all the kids he didn’t listen to when he was allowing them to be molested.
Brad Betts @870South
In order to support Trump here, in order to dismiss this testimony and these obvious facts, you have to believe that Democrats and Republicans are conspiring to undermine the presidency when they haven't agreed on a piece of legislation in twenty years.
Jared Yates Sexton
In this august impeachment hearing, not at all reassuring that one of the first phrases out of Devin Nunes' mouth is the "corrupt media." Tragic and troubling to see that many Republicans have so little respect for the truth or robust freedom of the press.
Steven Greenhouse
One ambassador, who bought his way into his post by donating $1 million to the president’s inauguration, telling another ambassador she might save her job if she tweets praise of the president to stroke his ego. This is some real banana republic stuff.
Brian Klaas
The funniest thing about this whole situation is that Trump could’ve just lived the rest of his life as a private citizen being rich and cheating on his wives if he weren’t so desperately jealous of the first black president.The 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, the topics they are discussing, and their November debate:
The Volatile Mermaid @OhNoSheTwitnt
Republicans continue to blithely violate the Bernstein Rule: **If you voted for the tax cut, you can't complain about the deficit.**
Jared Bernstein
Hillary had a bad cold and the media was fitting her for a coffin. Trump is rushed to Walter Reed on a Saturday, transparently lies about why, then cancels all his events by 9am on Sunday and no one's talking about his health. This is what institutional misogyny looks like.
@stealthygeek
Under President Trump, capital investment has now grown more slowly *after* tax cuts than before.
Jim Tankersley
Remember when the argument was that he *really wanted* to release his taxes and was being prevented by the IRS audit?
jelani cobb
Today the Senate confirmed Steven Menashi to a lifetime federal judgeship. Menashi:
- Helped Stephen Miller craft the family separation policy
- Wrote offensive remarks about women, Muslims, and the LGBTQ community
- Has never even tried a case
Even for Republicans, this is low.
Robert Reich
The trump administration has been incredibly successful at accusing others of crimes it’s actually committing.
Molly Jong-Fast
Trump recently admitted to stealing money from a veterans charity. Why isn't this story filling the airwaves on Veterans Day weekend?
Michael Little
45 stole $2.8M in charity from Veterans, spent it on his campaign, admitted to theft in written court documents, lied on twitter about admitting to theft, is facing 0 prison — and it's already old news. Meanwhile — 700K Americans (50% Black) arrested annually for mere Pot possession
Qasim Rashid, Esq.
How crazy is it that the President of the US was just forced to pay back millions of dollars he stole from charity, and that isn't the #1 story of the day? It isn't even a top 10 story on any of the major news outlets.
Eric Hittinger @ElephantEating
I can't help myself. I continue to be amazed at the Trump kids' audacity in claiming their are self-made and pure. It's Hall-of-Fame shamelessness.
Jesse Eisinger
About 1 out of every 4 appellate court judges in America is now a Trump appointee. Long after Trump and McConnell are gone from this earth, we'll be living with the consequences of their takeover of the American judiciary
Andy Kroll
It’s insane that we’ve had a reality-TV host literally pretending to be president for three years, most federal agencies are gutted and run by his sycophants, and Republicans have let it all happen so they can flood the judiciary with anti-abortion judges and give rich people tax cuts.
Jon Zal
As someone who's disgusted with Trump I desperately want a return to the blissful pre-Trump normalcy that led directly to him
@InternetHippo
When you can’t tell if it’s seasonal depression or Trump-related depression that’s called treasonal depression.
The Volatile Mermaid @OhNoSheTwitnt
Trump has been telling California he's going to cut off federal aid for fighting wildfires ... but telling Putin he'll help with wildfires in Siberia.
David Roberts
Every serious person knows the US coal industry is in terminal decline. So the way to view these rule changes by Trump is, him letting coal executives poison a few more poor people to make a few more bucks on the way out. No point beyond that.
David Roberts
The next time Republicans want to talk about fiscal conservatism just remember how much tax money was spent flying Trump around to one sporting event after another until he could find one that wouldn’t boo him mercilessly.
Jared Yates Sexton
Flashback to July: Trump eagerly offers help to the murderous Russian dictator in fighting wildfires in his country.
Today: Trump threatens to pull federal funding meant to help millions of his own citizens threatened by fire.
Democratic Coalition
The political press reports in the following way every single Presidential cycle:The billionaires, including Bloomberg's newly announced candidacy, are next, including billionaires' reactions to Warren's wealth tax:
1. The GOP base won't let their reps stray 1 centimeter to the Left.
2. The Democratic base MUST MOVE 1 million miles to the RIGHT. Their reps should ignore their demands.
@prisonculture
The only remedy to America‘s “partisan divide“ is for white people to accept demographic changes and learn to share power with people of color. Everything else is bullshit.
Andy Richter
The media treats Democrats as if it’s their job to win over racist white people, and treats the GOP as if it’s their job to win over their base.
Courtney Milan
There are broadly four types of candidates in 2020.
A faux-populist plutocrat in the White House who is gutting the state for plutocrats.
Better-behaved plutocrats who might beat him but preserve plutocracy.
Plutophilic technocrats loved by donors.
Avowed foes of plutocracy.
Anand Giridharadas
this car told me elizabeth warren is shrill:
Dana Schwartz
One of the dumbest criticisms of Elizabeth Warren is that she used to be a Republican. People who used to be Republicans--especially women--are why Democrats have won so many elections since 2017, including #IA03 last year.
@LauraRBelin
Joe Biden is the only candidate who will get on the bully pulpit and say “I don’t care if you’re Puerto Rican or some other type of, a type of, someone from, another kinda guy, alright man we all gotta be here for this what which we’re doing. Together. thank you so much.”
@ByYourLogic
Umm... I don't think Biden was selected as VP because he could draw Black votes but because he would appeal to whites uncomfortable w/ voting for a Black presidential candidate.
Bree Newsome Bass
Klobuchar and Pete should team up and tell us why we can’t have anything. #DemDebate
Alexis Goldstein
Daily reminder that Barack Obama selected Joe Biden as vice president in order to mollify white moderates and because he thought he was too old to mount a future run of his own. Later on, they made a point of keeping him far away from negotiations he was so bad at them.
@JohnCarltonKing
"Mayo Pete" is beautiful in its truth
@mikesonn
Biden is a jumble of memorized statements, not all of which go together.
@helaineolen
It's fine if you dislike Medicare for All, but don't forget that every GOP president for 40 years ran on cutting taxes for the wealthy, the most unpopular policy imaginable. Point is, voters don't decide their vote for president based on who is the most ideologically centrist. They just don't.
Paul Waldman
Pete is the son of an upper middle class academic. Warren is the daughter of a janitor. But Pete gets to be the “Midwesterner” while the women who grew up poor in Oklahoma, went to public school, went to college as a single mom - is “elite” and “uppity.” Cool.
Maria Langholz
The new criticism of Warren is that in a parallel universe where a new Democratic president would have infinite power she would be somewhat less bold than Sanders?
Jacob Anbinder
Joe Biden’s campaign slogan should be: “For everyone who wants to hear Thanksgiving Uncle’s opinions every day, and not only on Thanksgiving.”
Anand Giridharadas
At least once a day I think about how Buttigieg seems smart, has a delightful husband & is the literal embodiment of the truism that women are evaluated based on experience and men are evaluated based on promise. (In 2015, he was elected mayor with 8500 votes. Not by. With.)
Curtis Sittenfeld
Yesterday Pete Buttigieg put out a list of 400 Black South Carolinians that endorse him/his plan.
-A lot of the people are confused because they didn’t endorse.
-42 percent of the list is white.
-They used stock photos from Kenya.
Yet we have heard nothing from his campaign.
Rachel R. Gonzalez
A few days ago someone on here was saying Buttigieg should reveal what he did at McKinsey and someone replied like "would you vote for someone who violated an NDA??" as if that would be disqualifying for them and not awesome. Many Boss-Likers in this party.
'Weird Alex' Pareene
I'm not necessarily a Warren fan, but anyone who can watch Trump and Biden basically YELL at EVERYONE all the time, and then ask if Warren has anger issues has so completely missed the point, there is no point in explaining.
@Andymon1961
OK, lemme get this straight. If Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax had been in place from 1982, Bezos would still have $49B, Gates $14B, Bloomberg $12B. And we'd ALL have child care and health care. Student debt relief. 4X more Fed $ for public schools. Can we vote now?
Brad Lander
Anger on behalf of others is a good thing. It's a form of compassion. When Warren is angry, it's because vulnerable people are being hurt. When she's antagonistic, it's toward billionaires and others abusing power. This anger is righteous, and it's the opposite of spite or hate.
Sarah Kendzior
What's particularly disappointing about Buttigieg's campaign calling Warren unduly combative, knowing how this fuels sexist tropes, is that gay men are frequently defamed in similar ways as dramatic or shrill. As a reminder homophobia is actually misogyny that's been repackaged.
Josh Kruger
A “new” line of attack: she’s a woman, and a woman, also a woman, and often shows signs of being a woman while refusing to not be a woman, and has been known to be a woman, at times blatantly a woman, even running as a woman while being a woman.
Frank Conniff
Warren: big banks are stealing from people and the government needs to make the damn banks pay what they owe.
Biden: alright you poors. Declare bankruptcy if you want, but you’re still paying them damn credit card bills!
Which one is the elitist again?
@csilverandgold
“But Pete Buttigieg went to Harvard!”
Okay, so did Julián Castro.
“But Pete Buttigieg is a Rhodes Scholar!”
Okay, so is Cory Booker.
“But Pete Buttigieg has experience as a Mayor!”
Okay, so does Cory Booker and Julián Castro — and their cities were bigger.
But he’s white. I also wanted to add that it’s more impressive where Julián Castro and Cory Booker got to go to college because they want to public high schools. Pete Buttigieg went to a private high school.
Rachel R. Gonzalez
I’ll say this about Beto: he ended up being better than Pete
@nataliesurely
The next time Biden, Bennet, Buttigieg, Klobuchar or anyone else tries to position themselves as the arbiter of what is and is not "realistic," ask them how they plan to get 60 votes for literally anything they're proposing. There is no "realistic" answer.
Adam Jentleson
I'm not even on team Warren and I find the "she used to be a Republican" shit exhausting. People used to be all kinds of things. We have to make decisions on the basis of what we think *will* happen, and no one believes she would govern like a Republican, so it's an absurd focus.
Puff the Magic Hater @MsKellyMHayes
What's amazing about billionaires complaining about a 2% wealth tax is that middle class families who own a home already pay that, we just call it "property tax." If your wealth is in a $300k home you pay a wealth tax. If your wealth is in billions in stock you pay nothing.There were some about elections generally, including voter suppression and the Electoral College:
Existential Comics
Michael Bloomberg: The worst of both liberal and conservative American economic policy ideas all in one person, how is that possible?
kar nels
Billionaires don’t lead in democracy.
@hanjangho76
Michael Bloomberg suddenly needs to run for president:
Matt Bors
Jesus, now Bloomberg is in my Facebook feed, too. Go away, Scrooge McDuck.
Robert Moffitt @justplainbob
Mike Bloomberg’s $34M ad buy is the equivalent of the typical American writing a check for $39 bucks. I’ll say that again. Mike Bloomberg spending $34M of his own money on politics is like the median American family spending $39 on a movie night.
Tony Dokoupil
Ah, to have the confidence of an older white male billionaire who just jumps into a space where he is clearly not welcome.
Amity Foster
Billionaire candidates act like not taking a salary is in some way benevolent when the fact that they don’t need to work for like 12 whole lifetimes is the whole problem and reason enough to vote against them.
Victor Ray
My instinct is to disparage Bloomberg, but many voters are fed up with the diverse lineup of smart democratic candidates with bold and compassionate policy proposals and are looking for someone to leave them completely uninspired.
Frank Conniff
The billionaires don’t have solutions for our struggles in 21st century
Syreeta McFadden
I don't give a single fuck if a billionaire's kid goes to college for free because we made his dad pay for a ten or twenty thousand of us to go, shut the fuck up
@JediofGallifrey
If I were a kajillionaire, I'd ... run for president. Ha ha, jk, that would be f'ing stupid! Instead, I'd put about $100 million toward a focused, all-hands-on-deck effort to drive down the cost of electrolyzing hydrogen using renewable energy. Cheap hydrogen would help in so many ways.
David Roberts
america’s billionaires are basically saying they want veto power over the republic and that is case enough for expropriating their wealth
@jbouie
Billionaire Delusion Syndrome: "People don't just want my money; they want me!" Bloomberg Steyer Howard Schultz "So why would I fund a credible Democratic challenger when I can launch a vanity campaign? And my well-compensated yes men all say yes!"
Alfie Kohn
The only reason we’re talking about Mike Bloomberg is because he has enough money to buy an election, because in America, people can buy elections. Time for real campaign finance reform.
Abdul El-Sayed
Michael Bloomberg, at 77, is five months younger than Bernie Sanders and nine months older than Joe Biden. This is such a weird country.
Angus Johnston @studentactivism
Mike Bloomberg is going nowhere, but like Tom Steyer, he will educate us on not just how much money these plutocrats have to burn, but also that they’d rather burn their money than have society use it to better all of its members.
Sam Seder
Exclusive first look at Mike Bloomberg’s campaign badge:
Anand Giridharadas
White media telling you Bloomberg is progressive “except for taxes” is white media forgetting that Bloomberg believes that police harassing black people is good policy. Honestly folks, have a conversation with somebody black sometime.
Elie Mystal
Bloomberg hates the idea of paying more in taxes that would benefit millions of other Americans. He’s fine with the idea of throwing tens of millions of dollars into a garbage bin by running for President. Billionaire bullshit at its finest.
Victor LaValle
Challenge to the media: for every interview with a billionaire who would pay more in taxes under a Democrat, interview a family who would lose food stamps if Trump’s proposals go through.
Michael Linden
The fact that each random billionaire’s thoughts on Elizabeth Warren is a news story is itself a powerful demonstration of the disproportionate political influence of the very rich.
Matthew Yglesias
For centuries wealthy white folks have stoked competition between poor whites and black folks/immigrants/POC so they wouldn't work together to advocate for more. Now poor whites are seeing their entitlement slipping and are fighting to protect it And we've been here before. Always seemed very weird to me that Bonnie & Clyde were so revered, as were other mobsters. They literally murdered folks, but they were seen as folk heroes. How badly do you have to crap on people for them to say "welp, those people deserved it." I still think we've had a cultural thing with an education divide, and it's basically the lottery mentality. On one level, they know they're screwed, but the lottery is the only way out. The myth of the American Dream is that: anyone can be rich. Trump is that writ large. Which, to me, explains so many folks siding with billionaires. If it's outlawed, their hope is gone. Regular guy becomes president. Drop out becomes a billionaire. It keeps the hope alive.
madopal @chownlife
i don’t think people fully understand how much 1 billion is. if your salary was 100k w no tax it would take you 10 years to become a millionaire but 10,000 years to reach a billion. it is unethical for one person to be hoarding this much money when others cannot eat.
@lojeli
The most successful brainwashing I’ve ever witnessed is this idea that anyone can become a billionaire. Like some of you guys honestly believe you too will someday get there so refuse to tax the ultra rich
@ZuvaSeven
Stacey Abrams is doing more than any millionaire or billionaire to win the White House, even for your fave, and she's doing it without running.
andré m. carrington, Ph.D.
Your random election data stat(s) of the day: 2,644,532 people have registered to vote in Texas since Election Day '16. 1,660,173 of those new voters are people of color and/or under the age of 25. Trump carried the state by 807,179 votes.Then, as always, there were my usual topics, starting with racism and white supremacy:
Tom Bonier
When we continue to use a middling, white state as a bellwether for the rest of the country we’re going to get middling, white candidates, and that is exactly what white men have intended and banked on for centuries.
@mollypeonies
Donald Trump lost the popular vote by 2.9 million votes
Democratic House candidates won it by 9.7 million votes in 2018
You tell me who has more of a mandate
Ari Berman
Broke: writing off the South, saying it can never turn blue, diverting all resources to “winnable” states.
Woke: Understanding the South, one of the most diverse places in the nation, is already blue and only looks red because of voter suppression and gerrymandering.
Robyn Hammontree
I hate to admit it, but the world would be a better place right now if more young people voted and more folks my age didn't.
Robert Moffitt @justplainbob
We don’t just have to win the electoral college, we have to win in spite of racist policies that unfairly suppress our base, and in spite of whatever illegal foreign help he solicits. The deck is stacked against us and we have to fight back with every body we can find. VOTE.
jess mcintosh
Tens of thousands of files from the Republican Party's gerrymandering mastermind are no longer confidential after this court order (some remain confidential). The late Hofeller once said, "I define redistricting as the only legalized form of vote-stealing left in the US today."
Stephen Wolf @PoliticsWolf
if the national polls and the state polls are roughly correct then trump could lose the popular vote by something like 7 or 8 percent — something like 10 million votes in 2016 numbers — and still eke out an electoral college victory. at that point you could safely say that the only voters who actually matter in the US are non-college whites in a handful of states
@jbouie
The world’s easiest political prediction is that if a Democrat wins in 2020, the deficit will return as a major political crisis.
Jesse Eisinger
When a white American can speak more than one language: “Wow, they are so smart!”Sexism, misogyny, and toxic masculinity:
When an immigrant or Person of Color can speak more than one language: “Speak English!”
The difference is racism.
Rachel R. Gonzalez
It’s so clear that the way people engage “anti-blackness” as a concept is simply as “racism towards Black people” as opposed to an ontological framework through which we can understand how societies are *organised* around Black people always living in close proximity to death I’m seeing an uptick in people describing various racialised prejudices as “anti-“ whilst trying to use the same ontological framing of how anti-blackness functions. It... doesn’t work like that.
@divanificent
When nonblack people say something has been "normalized" it usually just means they're remembering when *they* encountered it for the first time.
@_Melissa_Nadine
Stop saying democracy is a non-partisan issue. It absolutely is a partisan issue because long before Trump rose to power, the GOP was already engaged in the racist architecting of a plan to disenfranchise nonwhite voters and undermine the democratic process.
Bree Newsome Bass
Hey Agents and Managers, stop telling your white clients they can’t get work because Hollywood is looking for “diversity.” White people still make up the vast majority of the industry, both behind and in front of the screen. Maybe “white mediocrity” isn’t always enough anymore.
Hari Kondabolu
Harvard’s Khalil Gibran Muhammad wrote that a major reason police forces didn’t integrate was because the white public wouldn’t abide a white person being questioned or handcuffed by Black officers. When they did begin accepting Black cops, those cops were only assigned to Back communities.(Conversely, becoming cops was a major avenue for white ethnics — like Italian- and Irish-Americans — to assimilate into public life and the broader landscape of American whiteness.)
@GeeDee215
In Wisconsin, more than half of the African-American neighborhoods in the state are actually jails.
The Crisis Magazine
We built the suburbs because black people started buying houses and now 70 years on we're just killing and immiserating ourselves with highways so you can buy a 4,000 sq ft house in Minnetonka and have a guest room that's always covered in dust and knick knacks.
@TomBasgen
Fred Hampton's mother used to babysit Emmett Till. I'm gonna be thinking about that for a long time.
@eveewing
Just read the following shocking statistic: Of the 13,000 philosophers in the USA, only 55 of them are women of colour (30% of which are PhD students). There is no wisdom to be gleaned in silos of privilege, in perspectival monocultures.
@samraearle
A better question than "why didn't Natives build wheels?" is "why did Europeans spend decades blocking, damming, and covering their natural roadways instead of just discovering kayaks and canoes?"
dandan the transient
Reminder: There is no language careful enough to protect a Black Muslim woman from bad-faith attacks from the Right
@telushk
We need to stop making 'imagine if this happened to [group we're not in]' comparisons in our activism. Because it probably IS happening, and we're alienating people at the intersection of those identities. We don't have to compare oppressions for our pain to be valid.
Erin Ekins @QueerlyAutistic
Could Texas be any more intentional? Houston voters elect 19 Black women to judgeships. GOP then introduces bill to replace judicial elections w/governor-appointed judges. Kicker: Bill would end elections only in counties w/500,000+ people, targeting urban areas like Houston.
Leslie Proll
White man tortures and enslaves intellectually disabled Black man: 10 years prison
Black man commits non-violent pot offense: Life in prison without possibility of parole
The American legal system is working exactly as intended to uphold prison slavery. We demand reform now
Qasim Rashid, Esq.
If you live in a mostly white town, there’s a good chance it didn’t become mostly white by accident. There’s a name for places like that: sundown towns. There are hundreds in Illinois.
ProPublica Illinois
White folks sure do like to vilify black folks. We (white folks) really need to stop that shit.
@robdaemon
“Nobody's talking about it” is code for "Indigenous people are talking about it and not being listened to":
The Decolonial Atlas
"Black women will always be too loud for a world that never intended on listening to them." –@WrittenByHannaThe climate crisis and renewable energy:
Aurora Perrineau
36% of students on my mom's campus are food insecure. There's a(n untenured, female) prof who pays out of pocket to keep granola bars, oatmeal & ramen stocked for them, & a (tenured, male) one who comes in 3x/week, grabs some & leaves. These things, as Eliot said, are a parable.
@fivefteditrix
Stop blaming women for choosing men who turn out to be shitty and start telling men not to be shitty. It’s not like they wear a warning label.
feminist next door @emrazz
There is nothing worse than being in a room with a man who thinks he is smarter than you. Which for women, happens all the time. It's not just about talking over/mansplaining. That's a behavior. Thinking you are smarter than women--that's an ingrained belief. And it's fucked. You can try to alter your behavior and listen more. But it's your sexist mindset that needs dismantling. Yours and nearly every man you know.
@mollypeonies
@bornready1977
Save all that gender reveal party money and energy and just use it for a real shindig when your kid comes out of the closet.
Sam Sanders
“It doesn’t do any good to hire women journalists and journalists of color and then expect them to do the same journalism that white male journalists do.” –Nikole Hannah Jones
Annalisa Merelli @missanabeem
I seem to have stepped into a nest of men who start twitching and frothing when one points out the negative effects of patriarchy. What a privilege to be able to deny the obvious. Thankfully there’s “mute conversation”. No time or energy to spend telling these people off.
Nnedi Okorafor, PhD
White men have produced most of the great art and literature, not because whiteness or maleness are superior, but because western civilization was largely the product of white men and only moved toward liberalization and inclusion slowly.
Jeremy Boreing
White men did not produce great art and literature, white men produced art and literature that spoke to other white men, so they all just collectively agreed amongst themselves that it was great. A lot of it ain't that great.
Stevie Mat
Seriously, how badly must you intend to stubbornly and irresponsibly mess up our planet for current and future generations, for you to think that Mars... MARS!...should be our fall-back position?Livable cities and sustainable transportation:
Brent Toderian
We can thank antibiotics and toilets for longer lifespans. The idea longevity requires fossil fuels is a sick lie.
Dr. Genevieve Guenther
I don't even know what to write anymore. The Climate Emergency is already stupidly obvious but most humans are still on the denial spectrum, with this idiot president on one end and techno-optimists on the other.
Peter Kalmus
Stopping climate change is only expensive compared to an imaginary world where climate change doesn't exist. It's *incredibly cheap* compared to the actual cost of a 3 degree warmer world.
Ezra Klein
Who the heck knows how fast we could bend the emissions curve if we stopped doing nothing and started doing something?
@noahqk
We hear a lot about strategies for "climate risk management" these days. Here's mine: stop burning fossil fuels.
Michael E. Mann
It's a wicked and viciously circular problem. We live in a system where change can only be implemented by those at the top of the hierarchy, and they are the ones who have most to lose by slashing emissions, and creating a sustainable society.
Stephen Barlow @SteB777
Among the other things we should add to Bush II's legacy: shutting down climate action when even incremental progress could have made a HUGE long-term difference.
David Roberts
New UNEP Emissions Gap Report shows that current commitments are far from sufficient to meet Paris goals, and limiting warming to 1.5C is quickly "slipping out of reach" as emissions continue to increase.
Zeke Hausfather @hausfath
Dear Fossil Fuel Suppliers,
Your survival compounds and private islands will not protect you from global warming. Also, you’re not going to make it to Mars. And, even if you did, it’s really not a great place to raise kids. Help us save the earth or else.
Sincerely, Humanity
Leah McElrath
In America we've been conditioned for generations to expect a lifestyle that demands multiple earths to sustain. getting back to the default way of doing things is a radical change
Dr. Dan Killam
It will be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to address the Climate Emergency without fundamentally changing the dominance of two things — the single occupancy vehicle, and the single detached home. Declaring a Climate Emergency and then saying you’re not willing to fundamentally rethink density and transportation is kind of like calling 911 because your house is on fire, but saying you’re not willing to leave because your bed is comfy.
Brent Toderian
Researchers compare two cutting-edge carbon sequestration techs (carbon capture and uh, trees) and find trees "are less expensive per ton of CO2 stored and have a longer history of success, stronger near-term viability, more robust co-benefits, and fewer risks than carbon capture."
David Roberts
Americans are extremely confused in thinking that massively disruptive climate actions and responses are a question of if, rather than a matter of when.
Alex Steffen
"The world is on track to produce about 50% more fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 2°C and 120% more than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C."
David Roberts
Oxford Dictionaries declares 'climate emergency' the word of 2019
Rob Hopkins
A good grasp of scale will radicalize anyone in today's world.
Alex Steffen
Step 1) we frack for a ton of gas we don't need
Step 2) the excess supply leads to a ton of new plastics factories
Step 3) tons of people who live along Cancer Alley get to die from breathing the air
Bill McKibben
"Whether recognized or not, the United States’ climate policy is also its foreign policy. Either it can keep setting the world on fire, or do everything in its power to put it out."
Extinction Rebellion Twin Cities responding to a tweet about the Bolivian coup and lithium mining for batteries in that country
A stunning fact about cement: "If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest [CO2] emitter in the world - behind China and the US." Third largest global emitter!
William Brangham
I always have to remind myself that working on climate change is the right thing to do and ultimately it doesn't matter how much of a difference I make. If I start yearning for a particular outcome I am lost. I mean other people's lives matter completely -- and that's the reason to do the work -- but somehow I still feel like I need to eschew consequentialism in order to be able to carry on.
Dr. Genevieve Guenther
A few ways climate language has been corrupted:
Global warming -> climate change
Fossil fuels -> greenhouse gases
Fossil fuels -> human activity
Fossil fuels -> energy
Replacing fossil fuels -> climate change mitigation
Replacing fossil fuels -> emission reductions
Benjamin Franta
Never forget that the U.S. is responsible for 25% of climate change with only 4% of world population. This is why climate change is a justice issue. This is why it is our responsibility to lead the way into radical change. We will be (rightly) held accountable if we don’t:
Eric Holthaus
Did you know that the oil we consume in the EU contains 20 times more energy than what we eat?In the US it's even 40 times more. Biofuels are not the answer to our oil addiction.
AukeHoekstra
Wow. Turns out, since 1989 the most active group in opposing climate action has been: the freight rail industry. "The rail industry engaged in short term thinking with its support of climate denial" in an effort to keep lucrative coal shipping contracts. This is huge.
Eric Holthaus
"They say a rising tide lifts all boats. But in reality, a rising tide drowns dinghies before it drowns yachts. If we’re going to survive the climate crisis together, we need to recognize — and combat — its effects on poor American communities."
Extinction Rebellion Twin Cities
The right’s shift from climate science denialism to blood and soil climate nationalism is going to happen so fast it’ll give the political press corps whiplash.
Alexander Kaufman
Anyone who thinks a carbon tax, or even a gas tax, will substantially reduce emissions needs to explain this:
David Roberts
If saving future generations would require you to reduce your consumption level below current European average and to vote for candidates willing to decarbonise our societies, would you do it?
Esko Pettay
Santiago, Chile: We will not return to normality, because normality was the problem:
Extinction Rebellion Twin Cities
Countries setting emissions reductions goals are like people who say that they want to write a book. Countries changing incentives, regulations, and investments to favor low-carbon projects are like people who sit down at their writing desks every morning.
Dr. Elizabeth Sawin
It’s too late to stop climate change. It’s not too late to stop it getting worse.
Kate Marvel
Saying it’s too late for Planet Earth is not only factually wrong (there are no credible studies suggesting this, for people or wildlife), but it also means you’re saying it’s okay that we do more harm. It’s okay to be depressed. It’s not okay to advocate for depression’s lies.
Dr. Jacquelyn Gill
77% of younger Republicans said that climate change is a serious threat, one percentage point more than Democrats in the same age range.
Kees van der Leun @Sustainable2050
The reason we’re behind on climate change is that you can’t act on it effectively without also rethinking American individualism & dismantling systems of oppression—white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy. That’s why so many in power fight action. It’s not love of oil, it’s love of power.
@amywestervelt
We have zero years left to completely reduce emissions in the industrialised world. We are dozens of years late. By all means use a 2030 target to shit on the government's 2050 target but please know that zero by 2030 is far too little far too late. This isn't an attack just true
nathan thanki
We need to prevent 50 births in the global south so my future son Geoffrey can exist it’s not fair the poors get to have all the children!
@jbattin
We need to as a result of climate change think big about transit. Let's aim to double transit ridership. I think some politicians could get behind that maybe. The federal investment required would be way less than the tax cuts we just passed. And I think it'd be popular.
Angie Schmitt
If your candidate isn’t aware of what’s actually happening with climate breakdown, they’re not realistic enough to take seriously. Full stop. We need realism and leadership, not denialism/incrementalism from someone living in a fantasy world. Please, “centrist” progressive friends. We can’t afford the naïveté of a candidate who doesn’t grasp our basic physical reality.
@happifydesign
Did you know that part of how road design works is assigning a monetary cost to delay, by assuming a certain hourly wage each driver is missing if they're waiting two second at a red light? And this is used to justify deadly design because this point system applies to lives?Health care:
@happifydesign
Name another product that 1) is known to be deadly, 2) is designed to be deadly, 3) is advertised in ways that encourage deadly behaviors, 4) kills more humans under 40 than anything, and 5) faces literally no consequences from regulators. Cars occupy a very unique product space
@mateosfo
Sorry kid, didn’t see you there without an armband:
Tom Flood
"Safety is a shared responsibility."
Pedestrians: Make eye contact.
People on bikes: Forever look like an out-of-season jack-o-lantern.
Motorists: Carry on. The city has street lamps so your headlights are optional. You're (probably) licensed so we trust you.
@Neomischa
Not only must we clear a lane so the most dangerous, luxurious, space-hogging vehicles can function, we must clear the lane next to it so they can sit for free while not being used. We don't have money for transit, sorry
@SatiatedBike
Oh, you want safe bike lanes? Well where were you at the March 3, 2011 4:00 pm open house meeting?
@ban_SUVs
streets should be designed like there always is snow on the ground: slow turns, narrow lanes. and all that extra space can be used for trees and snow storage.
@Neomischa
fuck the billionaires and their vanity space programs and stupid Lego cars. Tax the crap out of them and use it for free public transit.
@RobotLyra
One hundred years ago, the United States had a public transportation system that was the envy of the world. Today, outside a few major urban centers, it's barely on life support.
CityLab
"Fines are higher for biking on the sidewalk than blocking the pedestrian right-of-way with a car or truck..."
William Lindeke
Unpopular opinion. All the innovation of Tesla does not solve the inefficiency of typically moving single humans in increasingly larger vehicles.
@ericlin
Awake because I woke up thinking about how dozens of horrible commenters on local news sites wrote that people on bikes basically deserve to die because sometimes bikers run red lights. We have to share the road with these maniacs, who btw love to run red lights in their SUVs.
Lindsey Aster Silas
75% of truck owners use their truck for towing once a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70% of truck owners go off-road once a year or less. And a full 35% of truck owners use their truck for hauling — putting something in the bed - once a year or less.
@ATLPrinceOWales
It’s almost like we should get rid of the express bus fare, and charge suburban commuters for the parking spot instead.
@MatthewSteele
Trees and cars have an opposite effect upon the quality of a street:
Queen Anne Greenways
Pretty weird how when a person dies in a car crash you don’t see a bunch of cyclists jumping in the comments to be like, “I’d feel more sympathy if I saw drivers make a full stop at a stop sign just once.” Driving makes normal people absolutely sociopathic.
@TimothyMPate
It's honestly the most American thing ever to take a city that's not even that dense like the SF Bay Area, and tell everyone "it's full, go to some bumfuck town that's dying and live there". Everyone who does this 150% has a refugees welcome and immigrants are safe here sign too. Its the same stupid politics at the national level, IDGAF. When Trump and Right-Wingers say "America is full" despite the nation clearly having little population density compared to Europe, it's so stupid. I dont care if motivations are different, results are the same.
@IDoTheThinking
The amazing thing about this graph isn’t really that today more bikes than cars enter Copenhagen every day. The astounding thing is to realize that in 1970 Copenhagen was just like any other car-oriented city, and over 50 years has tenaciously pursued becoming what it is today:
Jennifer Keesmaat
Imagine if the $16 billion investors spent propping up this massive unprofitable cab company (Uber) went to figuring out how to lower transport emissions instead. Or really anything else.
Angie Schmitt
Cars are manbaby toys. Toys that kill. To stop cars, we need to stop toxic masculinity.
@mikesonn
Cars are a proxy for power. People in power have always accepted the death of the less-powerful as a side effect of maintaining power.
Katie Matchett @SidewalkStarts
Why should pedestrians go way out of their way to access crosswalks drivers don't respect? And why would they when there is zero effort to educate them or penalize wrongdoing? The whole pact here has broken down. But everyone who matters just pretends it works.
Angie Schmitt
The embodied energy of manufacture isn't much different from internal combustion vehicles to electric vehicles. We can't expect the car industry to solve the climate crisis for us. We need to restructure our transport system - comprehensive, free public transport and streets suitable for walking and cycling.
John Chivall
Rightists: IQ is really, really, really important. Like, really. IQ is everything, basically.
Scientists: Air pollution reduces IQ. A LOT.
Rightists: Also, let's kill environmental regulations and allow more air pollution.
Noah Smith
It's tricky with the fog, but I count 31 bicyclists and 29 cars in this photo. Great illustration of something we already knew: Bike lanes look "empty" because bikes are efficient uses of space. Car lanes look "full" because cars are space-hogging wastrels:
@BrianBicycles
How many bus shelters could we have built in Cleveland with the $1.2 million we spent "studying" the Hyperloop? At $10k each, the answer is 120. We could have helped literally hundreds of people standing in rain and snow.
Angie Schmitt
Single family homes drive the demand for utility, road and highway subsidies. If you’re upset about fracking, fossil fuels, ecosystem destruction, and climate change, you’re against single family homes. Fight the cause, not the symptoms.
Phil Ritz
“I like cycling but it just isn’t practical!!”*
*takes 2-ton metal box containing sofa and 2 armchairs to get a pint of milk from a shop half a mile away*
Stuart Helmer
Wired: Electric vehicles are cheaper to own and operate than gasoline cars
Inspired: Bikes + public transit + renting a car for long road trips is cheaper than owning any car, plus it comes with a bonus built-in hatred that every city is built for death machines
Eric Holthaus
Something I learned the other day that is useful info to anyone contemplating a new car: Electric cars have vastly lower maintenance costs. Huge parts of a gas car that often and expensively go wrong just...do not exist.
Clara Jeffery
Of all the bad faith arguments made against making space for cycling, three in particular persist:
Our terrain isn’t flat enough
Our weather isn’t nice enough
Our streets aren’t wide enough
Were any of these valid, Los Angeles would be the bicycle capital of the world.
@modacitylife
$50K: One mile of a new bike lane
$1M: One mile of a repaved car lane
$1B: Two new freeway interchanges
Luke Klipp
"Six percent of pedestrians were injured while on a sidewalk [a study found]. Of those injured on the street, 44 percent used a crosswalk, with the signal."
Doug Gordon @BrooklynSpoke (from a New York Times story)
"No one goes outside several months a year" is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
@mikesonn
just a reminder that right now the US spend 4 times more on homeowner subsidies than affordable housing
Diana Budds
If we just put a cost to accidents (death, injury, property damage) largely the result of drivers going way fast than they should and a cost to the amount of real estate, land car lanes take up, and a cost to pollution, it would clear things up real fast.
kar nels
If you had to pick one reason why traffic in every US city has gotten so bad, I think this chart makes it pretty clear. It isn't bike lanes or road diets...it's too many cars. (Stats per US DOT and Census Bureaus):
Peter Flax
driving in the snow sucks and also everyone is bad at it. IDEA: big shared vehicles with professional drivers.
@73_Carondelet
"Our cars are so nice, they don't make black ice" would be a great slogan for EV sales up here.
Robert Moffitt @justplainbob
At my nephew’s birthday party and most of his toys are cars. Making a list of urbanist transportation toys for kids: busses and trains obviously, fire trucks, trikes, construction vehicles.
Lindsey Aster Silas
Hey gang, I have a confession to make: A few days ago I "blew through" a stop sign at the same time another bicyclist "blew through" one at the perpendicular. We made eye contact, I began to coast and with a nod of my head the other one sped up. Miraculously no one was injured. It just reminded me everything in a roadway is actually car infrastructure and Victim Blaming is a sin, because people walking and rolling and not in metal boxes are inherently vulnerable and aware of their surroundings, and no one wants to get hurt or hurt others.
@Neomischa
A 13-year study of a dozen cities found that protected bike-lanes led to a drastic decline in fatalities for all users of the road. As for painted bike-lanes? No safety improvement at all. And for sharrows, it’s safer to NOT have them.
Brent Toderian
U.S. law literally requires Amtrak to operate a national passenger rail service. But we haven't made the investments to make it competitive with other modes, mostly. Not surprising it is not a big cash cow. The whole infrastructure is treated as an essentially loss leader to IMPORTANT STUFF though, so it's not even worth mentioning. Republicans who pretend to be so UPSET that Amtrak doesn't "turn a profit" ALL line up every year for subsidies for rural airports. "Essential air services"
Angie Schmitt
The @newyorkpost laments the loss of a whopping 0.2% of the city's parking spots.
But let's remember that there is no such thing as "losing" parking spots. There is only gaining urban space in the name of modernization.
Mikael Colville-Andersen
It's been a second since I've bought a car but - vehicle registration is $10. When people yell about bikes not paying registration they're talking about TEN FUCKING DOLLARS. THAT IS ONE TIME AND AGAIN TEN DOLLARS. THEY THINK THAT IS WHAT PAYS FOR ROADS. $10. I can't even
Risa Hustad
There is a huge difference between caring about riders' and drivers' safety on transit, and using it as a dog whistle during an election year and legislative session.
Amity Foster
We build $350 million stadiums that are used 8 times per year by people who can afford expensive tickets to watch millionaires play.
We build $350,000 bikeways so people who can't afford a car can get around cities, and people complain that they won't be used 365 days per year.
Jason Segedy
"it's not like uber programmed the car to run over pedestrians." no they did. they did do that. as soon as they made the car accelerate, they did that, because the **default state** of a moving car is to run things over indiscriminately. then they did not sufficiently UNdo it.
@eevee
Cyclists: can we have a bike lane, please?
City: that will take years of study and “community meetings.”
Uber: we’re beta testing self-driving cars that might kill people.
City: go right ahead!
John Lloyd @boyonabike62
In a sense, delaying a full bus for a minute and delaying a half-mile-long line of single-occupant cars for a minute is the same
Scott Shaffer
Fixing this broken paradigm — one which is bankrupting us AND literally killing us — means we have to think about transportation and land use as a system. Bring destinations closer together, let cities thicken up organically, and #SlowTheCars at the same time.
Strong Towns
I don't think it's a good thing to campaign on the impossible promise that you will solve congestion by "fixing" roads. If people want large single-family homes with yards and no scary poor people around, they get long commutes. Tough shit.
David Roberts
Ways employers offload transportation costs onto employees:
#1. Requiring a car for job but not providing it.
#2. Locating in sprawl. Lower land costs for them = higher transportation costs for employees.
Xiye Bastida
I don't think we realize what we gave up for cars. A lovely street in Chester, England with a bunch of medieval timbered buildings housing a wide range of shops. 15th Avenue West in Seattle, Washington. Just a fucked up place with cars and gas stations.
Queen Anne Greenways
Car-dependent people whine constantly about how miserable they are but somehow still assume 100% that they've made the most comfortable/easiest choice. Cars are terrible if you, like me, are lazy, like being comfortable, want independence/ease of movement, and hate being cold.
@happifydesign
I honestly don’t understand how one comfortably gets around the city in a car. Biking makes so much more sense and is way easier and more pleasant.
Lindsey Aster Silas
Most of the time when you hear someone say something bold, creative & necessary in city-building “is impossible,” it really isn’t. They just don’t really want to do it.
Brent Toderian
It would cost money to buy more buses and trains if we made a dramatic ban cars change. I hate using this as an example, but we planned, funded, and rebuilt the 35W bridge in one year after it collapsed. We CAN fund transit immediately for the climate/traffic death crisis
@ban_SUVs
Just a reminder that every time a lawmaker proposes further criminalization of transit riders, you must remind 5 friends that TRANSIT SHOULD BE FREE. I don’t make the rules.
@ella_enroute
Just cuz I'm trying to kill you by preventing you from having healthcare and take away your right to bodily autonomy by stealing Supreme Court seats among other things, doesn't mean you need to be angry. You should be civil as I kill you.Education:
@prisonculture
To oppose universal healthcare is to basically say we're going to continue allowing a certain % of the population to die unnecessarily for no reason other than protecting profit margins of the private health industry. We're paying more for less for no reason.
Bree Newsome Bass
Again, if we put the estimated number of uninsured Americans next to each healthcare proposal in the surveys, do y’all really think M4A would still be twenty points underwater? Do you? Seriously, ask yourself.
@csilverandgold
The craziest thing about the American healthcare is that we have a government-run healthcare system, which costs about 80% what national single payer in other countries costs for far far fewer people, and then a stupendously expensive private system on top of it.
Chris Hayes
Let’s stop the obfuscation that “choice” in education and medical care is a right. It does not ensure equity or democracy. Maintaining for-profit options and differential access ensures privileges for a few at the expense of the many.
Arthur H. Camins
One way to pay for Medicare for All would be to avoid criminal wars of choice.
Jeet Heer
remember when there used to be all these articles about how people in europe live longer than americans because they drink red wine and eat more olive oil or bullshit like that? turns out it was universal healthcare the whole time
@argumentwinner
1978: taxes + health insurance premiums = 28% of income for the bottom 50%
2018: taxes + health insurance premiums = 34% of income for the bottom 50%
Gabriel Zucman (source in the original)
I can’t overstate this enough: guaranteeing healthcare for all Americans would be the most liberating thing to happen in the US since the Civil Rights Movement. Imagine being able to quit your job to pursue your dreams, & not have to worry about healthcare! The left needs to capture the language of liberty on this issue
Patrick Fenelon
Awful new @Gallup stat: More than 13% of American adults -- or about 34 million people -- report knowing of at least one friend or family member in the past five years who died because they couldn’t afford healthcare
Sarah Boxer
Personally, I'll never forget receiving my student debt loan forgiveness letter after teaching at public universities for eleven years. The letter said I'd made 0 qualified payments. I literally fell to my knees in the driveway. Just a devastating thing. If the student loan debt crisis proves anything, however, it's that this government has been bought and sold by the wealthy and turned completely against the business of the people. Something like this would have never happened had our interests been served.Immigration, including Stephen Miller:
Jared Yates Sexton
A public university education should be free, high quality, and staffed by full time faculty with job security. This is my vision for better American higher ed future.
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
the argument that free college also makes it free for rich people is very funny objectively. hmm well, we COULD give everyone $60,000, but if we did that, sure, you'd get $60,000, but the guy who we taxed $6,000,000 to fund this will ALSO get $60,000
tinybaby
My first teaching job (with a BS) in 1996 = $25,800. Adjusted for inflation = $42,300. The contract I just signed with a MS and national board certification = $42,000. I make less today than my first year teaching.
Jane Elgin
It seems to me honestly quite stunning that people are willing to act as if tuition-free college is some kind of novelty when it was the norm for our state university system for more than a century.
Eric Rauchway
Review of research on grades, with special emphasis on university science classes: "At best, grading motivates high-achieving students to continue getting high grades - regardless of whether that goal happens to overlap with learning." And "at worst"? Don't ask...
Alfie Kohn
Anytime you see matching T-shirts at a charter rally, you can be sure that the “protest” is not spontaneous but was organized and paid for by a hedge fund manager or the Waltons.
Diane Ravitch
In first 13 days of school, I was expected to administer 3 different mandated exams. Instead of spending those first few weeks getting to know my students' names, interests and personalities. 110 hrs & 13% school year is dedicated to high-stakes tests. When testing trumps teaching, the students suffer.
leonie haimson
Last year, I switched from asking students, “Any questions?” to “What questions do you have for me?” And it’s made a world of difference. It’s got me wondering: what simple shifts in phrasing, wording, or questioning has helped your teaching?
Dr. Jacqueline Antonovich
Our federal tax dollars could have been going to reducing college debt, prenatal care, or even reducing violent crime. But folks wanted to set up a fake university to trap immigrants who dreamed of a better life in our country. These folks are doing justice wrong.Income inequality, wage theft, and better ways to organize an economy:
Phillip Atiba Goff
The travel ban.
Family separation.
Caging children.
Asylum limits.
Blocking refugees.
Ending TPS & DACA.
Xenophobic rhetoric.
Demonizing Latinos.
This is all Stephen Miller.
This is what happens when a white nationalist oversees federal policy.
Hispanic Caucus
Just a reminder that last week it was revealed that one of Trump's top advisers, Stephen Miller, bases his policy views on white nationalist websites and in response the White House did NOTHING
Judd Legum
There are over 500,000 undocumented immigrants from Europe in the U.S. Do we see:
- ICE ripping their families apart? Nope.
- Putting them in cages? Nope.
- Trump complaining about them? Never.
Any doubt why these predominantly white immigrants aren't targeted/mentioned? None.
Justin Horwitz
Homosexuality and abortion are called “unnatural” and “against God’s Will,” but land borders for imaginary nations created by man are cool? Ok.
Hari Kondabolu
We are in truly dangerous times when someone like Stephen Miller holds so many levers of power and it's not treated like the crisis that it is.
Sasha Samberg-Champion
If Stephen Miller is the one of the few aides from 2016 who Trump hasn’t fired, it’s not because he’s particularly smart or loyal. He’s just driven by an uncompromising commitment to white supremacy, which, along with rape and grifting, happens to be one of Trump’s core values.
Ben Ehrenreich
The president sends toddlers -- whose little legs barely reach the seat's edge, who've been ripped from their parents' arms, who don't know where they are or what people are saying -- into court to "represent themselves." We don't want to hear from the GOP about "due process."
Elizabeth de la Vega
A mother appeared in court with her eight-year-old son and tearfully told the judge her husband couldn’t be there because he disappeared in Mexico and has been missing for months. DHS asked that he be ordered deported for not appearing at his hearing.
Rebecca Gendelman
Masters needed slaves to believe society needed masters.And finally, there are the best of the rest:
Feudal lords needed serfs to believe they needed lords.
Capitalist employers need employees to believe they need bosses.
Don't be fooled. #HowCapitalismWorks
Richard D. Wolff
When you cut taxes on the rich, the rich get richer and the gains don’t trickle down. When you invest in the American people, the middle class expands and the economy grows. It’s that simple.
Robert Reich
the US is a nice place to be a customer and a very bad place to be anything else
@ambientGillian
THE SEVEN SECRETS OF HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE
1. Private school
2. Legacy Ivy admission
3. Nepotism hire
4. Seed capital from family
5. Club memberships
6. Personal assistant, nanny, ghost writer
7. Journalists who ask, "What's your secret?" and uncritically publish the answer
Sandra Newman
It strikes me that latent in the right wing argument that 'providing welfare makes people lazy' is a eugenic argument. Because none of those people say, 'allowing the rich to hand their wealth to their children makes those baby plutes lazy.'
@doctorow
The term “financial literacy” is a rhetorical gimmick by capitalists to frame poverty as the failure of the individual “illiterate” rather than as the planned outcome of a social order that requires a class of desperate laborers paid only enough to survive their physical prime.
@proustmalone
Fraction of all US wealth owned by Boomers & Gen-Xers when the average member of each was age 35:
Boomers, 1989: 21%
GenX, 2008: 8%
The average Millennial turns 35 in 2023. Right now they own 3%.
There will surely be political implications.
Kurt Andersen (link in the original)
It's been centuries since there was a famine that was actually due to natural causes. They're political. They're caused by privilege & artificial deprivation.
Dr Sarah Taber
People don't talk enough about how philanthropy is just rich people demanding you publicly thank them in the media for what they could have done quietly if they just paid their fucking taxes.
@JordanUhl
75-year-olds needing to work is a policy failure.
James Medlock (responding to a Yahoo Finance story)
Every single Amazon warehouse worker making minimum wage will pay more in taxes this year than the company they work for.
Katelyn Burns @transscribe
A 2018 article estimates the wealth of the 7 Walton heirs at $163 billion. A 2017 article says that poorly paid Wal-Mart employees cost the government $6 billion a year. So pay the employees an extra $12 billion in salaries and pay $10 bil more in taxes. This hurts them? How?
Annie Gabston-Howell
Maybe - just maybe - it isn't that the ruling class possesses the most reason so much as they possess an arsenal of weaponry, control of the economy and have the ability to inflict violence upon workers...
Bree Newsome Bass
This morning on On the Media Matthew Stoller gave an amazing interview about how once we understand monopoly as a form of theft--Gates, for instance, earning monopoly money that he had no right to--then we can see his philanthropy the way we'd see the generosity of a bank robber.
Zephyr Teachout
For all the talk about "extraordinaire elite generosity," it's important to keep in mind the reality of US billionaires philanthropy:
Forbes 400 total wealth: ~$2.5 trillion
Annual charitable giving by the top 400: ~$10 billion
= 0.4% of their wealth. Like a tiny wealth tax
Gabriel Zucman
Wage theft doesn’t just happen when you don’t receive a paycheck. Sometimes your paycheck isn’t in the right amount. Sometimes you’re called an independent contractor when you’re really an employee. Sometimes they tell you you’re salary, but the law says you should be hourly.
Sarah Ingles
If hard work = wealth, all of our mamas would be rich. I’m waiting for you all to understand that.
@Miss_Talie
Hey, there are more billionaires per capita in Norway & Sweden than the US. But they have more progressive taxes and lower military costs, so they can afford better health care, education, etc. It looks like you can tax billionaires more without wiping them out altogether.
Dr. Jonathan Foley @GlobalEcoGuy
In 2000, the United States has 1,100 census tracts in persistent decline. Today, we have nearly 3,300 census tracts in persistent decline.
Dan Baisden @midwestplanner
The fortunes of billionaires represent the congealed value of human labour (e.g., the Walton family), extraction from nature (e.g., the Koch brothers), privatization of public goods (e.g., Richard Branson), and monopoly rent-seeking (e.g., Bill Gates).
Jason Hickel
One of the great mysteries of modern economics, returns to shareholders have been unusually low in the period when companies are supposedly maximizing returns to shareholders.
Dean Baker
now that dunking on Gates is a thing can we talk about the fact that he used his billions as leverage to effectively take over health policy for Africa and large parts of Asia and education policy in the US and no one ever voted for him and he’s accountable to literally no one.
Adam H. Johnson
“[Charity] is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible.” –Oscar Wilde
Linda Sarsour
Student misspells "employee" as "exployee", which I immediately read as "exploitee".
David M. Levinson @trnsprtst
We now have solid evidence that low-income families experience higher rates of inflation than high-income families; it's an effect of inequality, and also makes the lived experience of inequality far worse.
Annie Lowrey
We're told that humans are naturally selfish and competitive, and that capitalism is therefore the inevitable product of human nature. But the opposite is true. We're wired for fairness and cooperation. Capitalism pushes us to behave against the grain of our intrinsic values.
Jason Hickel
Just a casual reminder that 60% of all wealth in America is inherited. “Pull yourself up by the bootstraps” is a sham.
Robert Reich
The 'billionaires shouldn't exist' hullabaloo is very revealing. It's assumed to be some kind of radical leftist position. Actually, it's a pretty plausible position for liberals too. You're very unlikely to accumulate that kind of wealth in a competitive market. It's likely to be the result of either: 1) a monopoly market 2) intellectual property (certainly uncompetitive, likely imperfect; we need incentives, but very difficult to say the returns are the 'correct' amount) 3) inherited wealth 4) asset former nationalised industries. For what it's worth, I'm not hugely keen on the turn of phrase. I think "a healthy economy isn't one that produces billionaires" is perhaps better.
Will Bott
How did we pay for WWII which occurred right after The Great Depression? If we could figure that out, we can do what’s necessary to pay for a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and dignified public housing among many other things. They are lying to us!
Jamaal Bowman
Renaissance Europe was more violent, destructive, & barbaric (not less) than the Middle Ages AND than it’s neighbor civilizations to the east & south. “European Civilization” class should be called “European Barbarism”
Ada Palmer
The common brimstone butterfly (Gonepteryx rhamni) (Photo: @tetxisk):
@StrangeAnimaIs
Pet theory: people use LAW to describe laws they like and REGULATION to describe laws they dont.
Zephyr Teachout
Elon Musk is not Tony Stark.
Elon Musk is Lex Luthor.
And we REALLY need to understand that.
Matthew Calcara
Chick-fil-A said it'll focus its charitable giving on hunger, homelessness, and education, and a bunch of Religious Right groups announced a boycott of the restaurant today for going against their values. On behalf of atheists everywhere: Thank you, Christians.
Hemant Mehta
I don't understand apathy. I don't gut-understand it. I just don't. I get broken systems and lesser of evils and imperfect choices and no good options and no willpower and doing things anyhow, but I don't get not caring. I don't get apathy.
@happifydesign
Horse wearing reconstructed 2500-year-old Scythian horse armor unearthed in the Altai Mountains in Siberia:
@moodvintage
A company is giving its non-smoking employees an extra six days of paid time off per year to make up for smokers’ cigarette breaks
FOX 11 Los Angeles
If you suffered in life and want other people to suffer as you did because "you turned out fine," you did not in fact turn out fine.
@bornready1977
Wanna feel old? Not even lying, a guy brought a White Stripes poster to Antiques Road show.
Chris Steller
Absolutely dying:
Patrick Wyman
my 8yo is not online and has not read your hot takes but today she heard "baby it's cold outside" and indignantly declared, "how is this a Christmas song it's more like a MURDER SONG."
@lyzl
Sanctimony is not strategy.
Alex Steffen
There’s no such thing as flightless birds, just lazy ones.
Tim Carvell
Under Twitter’s new ad rules, environmental groups can’t pay to spread pro-climate policy messages. But Exxon can pay to spread tweets claiming a widespread political conspiracy against it, and touting its pro-climate credentials
Emily Atkin
I fundamentally disagree with the ‘happy endings are predictable/boring’ thing. Because as a queer individual, nothing is more exciting or surprising as seeing people like me get a happy ending. I love happy endings, because to me they are still something precious and new.
@ziggytschutz
Historians don’t want to fight with the public about obvious and essential truths. We want to fight with other historians about obscure and seemingly trivial details. Please let us do that. We’re very tired.
David J. Trowbridge
Every dollar paid to a local journalist produces hundreds in public benefit. They make our gov’t work better and help our communities thrive. Their work is a profound public service—one our communities can’t afford to lose. It’s time they receive the wages and benefits they deserve.
Buffy Wicks
Why is "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" told as a morality story to children, but not "Cassandra, the Woman Who Told the Truth But Was Never Believed" as well?
Heather Antos
My parents used to teach me table manners "for job interviews" and that's hilarious now because it's 2019 and job interviews aren't formal lunches, they're telling a computer you have no emotional needs and then peeing in a cup to prove you know how fast you metabolize weed
Cliff Jerrison @pervocracy
I've been to three craft fairs this weekend and I would be open to a total ban on the shape of Minnesota.
Chris Steller
Dungeon Master: ‘You come to large wooden door.’
Cat: ‘I knock at the door.’
DM: ‘An orc opens it and asks you to come in.’
Cat: ‘I do nothing.’
DM ‘He asks you to come inside again.’
Cat: ‘I do nothing.’
DM: ‘Eventually the orc tires and closes the door.’
Cat: ‘I knock at the door.’
DungeonMaster Ewington
disability activists smashed sidewalk curbs with sledgehammers and sat in front of buses, suffragettes punched cops and burned down buildings, labor activists literally got into gunfights with the government, what makes you think shit happens by being polite to your opponents
@spacetwinks
A reminder that much human endeavor (contribution to public health and well-being, advancement of the arts, protection of the planet, personal happiness among them) can't be readily measured--or become irrelevant when we frame them in terms of "investment."
Anne Lutz Fernandez
Humans are meant to be loved.
Objects are meant to be used.
Things go astray when objects are loved and humans are used.
Ethics in Bricks
Y'all are used to assuming USA is #1 in everything. I don't think folk realize we're falling behind the rest of modern world w/ crumbling infrastructure, epidemic of gun violence, neglected public schools and an outdated health system. America is on a backwards moving train going so far backwards right now, I don't think folks appreciate it. And folk fear the word "progress"
Bree Newsome Bass
It's invasive species party time! I started this piece as a quick reference sheet for myself and now I'm sharing it with all of you!
@chase_prairie
William Davies's "Nervous States: Democracy & the Decline of Reason": a thoughtful book on populism/nationalism & loss of trust in expertise. He says tech entrepreneurs share with fascism "an insistence on fixing problems immediately, eliminating the need for evidence or democratic consent."
Alfie Kohn
Why does the Devil need an “advocate?” Why do you want to be legal aid for Satan?
Hari Kondabolu
Complex systems benefit most from many simple interventions, not a few large ones.
Rik Adamski
I’m going for Inbox Nero, which is where I just set my computer on fire and hum pleasantly.
Paul Fidalgo
Ketchup is made from tomatoes that had too many insect larvae per fruit to be processed as tomato paste.
@CoachBois
in Bolivia's election Morales was declared President by an unelected Supreme Court after losing the popular vote, and his brother, who was a governor of a key province, helped him fix the process. It was only right for there to have been a coup. oh no wait that was Bush in 2000
@zei_squirrel
Knowledge isn’t power. Oh if it were. We know a lot and do nothing. You know what is power? Power.
neerajmehta
Fuck it. This is now just a Rene Magritte meme stan account:
Maggie Koerth
Long story short, do what you can where you can. Do your part. It’s enough. The issue we have is that many ppl aren’t actually doing this, not that you need to do a million things yourself.
@prisonculture
"The world would be better off without humans"
Yet for hundreds of thousands of years humans nourished nature and each other. And so many do it right now.
*This human culture* is omnicidal, true.
But don't turn it into self-loathing.
Change your culture.
Be a human to be proud of
Shaun Chamberlin @DarkOptimism
Best way to honor veterans:
1. Fully fund and expand services for existing veterans, from mental health to housing to job training.
2. Stop making new veterans.
David Roberts
A Santiago graffitist explains structuralism: “We already said no, but the yes is in everything”:
Jarrett Walker @humantransit
I don't like arguments about decadence but there is really nothing more decadent than anti-vaxxers. Only in an incredibly rich, healthy, prosperous society would people become so unfamiliar with disease that they actually choose not to protect their kids from deadly illnesses.
@csilverandgold
When I ask reformers to point me to a historical moment when the systems they want to *redeem* were *intact* and working as they would like, it's always SILENCE because that time never existed... One would think that this would provide a clue that they aren't to be redeemed.
@prisonculture
Conservatives claim to support local control, but they only support it when the local controllers are conservative. There are no principles at work; they just support whatever serves their narrow, immediate, and direct self-interest.
@charlie_mas
Some of y'all care about literal animals more than any marginalized person and it shows.
@twitchyspoonie
A Republican district attorney leads to a 18-21% increase in new prison admissions in 2 years following election; a nonwhite district attorney leads to a 10% decline. no significant effects on local crime or arrest rates
Matt Grossmann
The Venn diagram of people who lose their shit if you don’t use the precise right word for their winter holiday and people who lose their shit when asked to use someone’s correct pronouns is a perfect circle.
@WFKARS
No, you’re meandering and taking pics of beautiful destruction:
@happifydesign
I just introduced Battlestar Galactica (the 2004-2010 version) to my daughter and the first thing she asked me was if she could say “frak.”
Nnedi Okorafor, PhD
In the very near future, people will crave anonymity not fame
@BrainPoetNinja
The boat-billed heron from Mexico (Photo: Alejandro Gonzalez):
@StrangeAnimaIs
Volkswagon's new slogan is "Drive something bigger than yourself" which seems, like, definitionally true of any car?
Chris Hayes
Try to do your best cognizant that you will often fall short. Focus on improvement. You don't have to broadcast your internal work just do it and keep improving.
@prisonculture
The expectation that nonprofits be self-sustaining is deeply insulting and needs to die. We are cleaning up society’s messes. It’s like you volunteer to mop up a spill someone else caused, and people go, “um, how are you going find money to pay for the mop?”
@NonprofitAF
I had a realization the other day...Obama is the best president of my lifetime. That's bleak as hell.
@angela_zagami
“Painted Vases”, printed cotton by Willy Herrmann Studio, 1954:
@doctorow
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