It was a blessedly short month that contained three Democratic debates, two of which were not bad and one that was revolting. It had Michael Bloomberg's unneeded entry into the race (which I partially covered in its own tweet roundup earlier in the month, though more than a few stragglers are included here). Oh, and let's not forget the Iowa and Nevada caucuses and New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries. Plus the usual mayhem of living in Mafia Mulligan's America, including the coronavirus, impeachment, and the destruction of rule of law. Ho-hum.
First, the last few days about the coronavirus and then about our dear leader's exploits this month generally, including the State of the Union (remember that?):
The reason that Republicans think Democrats would lie about the seriousness of a virus to hurt the Republican president is because if a Democrat were president that’s what Republicans would do.There were quite a few about Mafia Mulligan intervening in the Department of Justice (particularly around the Roger Stone case, and oh yeah, remember that impeachment thing?), and its implications:
The Volatile Mermaid @OhNoSheTwitnt
Why does this president repeatedly think that scientific facts are hoaxes? This is the most dangerous president in the modern history of our country. He is putting our people’s lives at risk. He must be defeated.
Bernie Sanders
Y’all let white feminism convince you that this isn’t funny but it is. You are allowed to laugh at power:
Tressie McMillan Cottom
Coronavirus reduced China’s carbon and air pollution emissions 25%, thus world's emissions 6%, during last 3 weeks, compared with 2019. This may have saved 17,000 lives in China from air pollution during that 3 weeks.
Mark Z. Jacobson
Coronavirus exposes all of Trump’s biggest weaknesses:
1. Incompetence
2. Rejection of scientific facts
3. Distrust of expertise
4. Disinterest in long-term planning
5. Embrace of conspiracy theories
6. Paranoia
7. Inability to learn from mistakes
Judd Legum
POTUS CHART FOR TONIGHT:
tommyrulznyc
What is satire anymore? I could do a cartoon about Sean Hannity becoming Secretary of State in a second Trump administration and it would be even odds of it really happening. (I know, reply guys, he wouldn't want to give up the income.)
@tomtomorrow
Trump accusing Sanders of being too pro-Moscow is almost as amazing as Trump accusing Biden of over-promoting under-talented sons. Next he'll attack one of the women candidates for wearing too much makeup and too tight a girdle.
David Frum
Nothing says “Christian” like a man who cages refugee babies attending the National Prayer Breakfast with his third wife who he cheated on after divorcing his 2nd wife who he cheated on and told to have an abortion after divorcing his first wife who he cheated on and raped.
The Volatile Mermaid @OhNoSheTwitnt
holy fucking shit the president of the united states is an unhinged lunatic asshole
Jeff Tiedrich
"No media figure since Bill Buckley has had a more lasting influence on American conservatism than Limbaugh," National Review says. Rush made "conservative" code for racist, sexist, mean, and so unprincipled that GOP now bows to Trump, who spreads Kremlin propaganda and attacks law enforcement.
David Cay Johnston
Rush Limbaugh is a repugnant human being who, in his very repugnance, perfectly captures the spirit of the movement he helped create.
David Roberts
Remember, many of the people who are so vocally offended by Pelosi's theatrical gesture [tearing up the State of the Union speech] watched Trump make fun of a disable person and kept silent.
Daniel Mendelsohn
If I understand this correctly, the president awarded the medal of freedom to a talk radio host with a revoltingly long record of bigotry during the State of the Union — and the civility police are coming for Nancy Pelosi for tearing up paper? Is that right?
Matthew Gertz
A man who called a college student a slut for wanting access to birth control was awarded the highest honor by a man who has openly bragged about assaulting women.
Liz Plank @feministabulous
A pathological liar has a huge rhetorical advantage over rivals who are too timid to call lying by its rightful name
Brent Staples
Woke up, heard Rush got the Presidential Medal of Freedom and was all confused about why Trump would give it to a band. Honestly, though, that makes more sense than giving it to a racist, sexist pig.
Amity Foster
In Obama’s last two years in office, the average family say their income grow by about 5.8%
In the first two years of Trump’s term, that number has shriveled to 2.7%
Capital & Main
donald trump is president of the united states and people are still out here absolutely certain that they know the outcome of any given political choiceThen it was time for a relaxing respite with the Democratic race for president and its candidates:
@jbouie
Presidents have always had the power to pardon their convicted associates and place their accomplices above the law. What’s changed is that today, if the president busts his criminal friends out of jail, cowed mainstream media will describe it as something “critics say” is bad
Will Stancil
The whole justice department is revolting because the president and Attorney General are engaging in open criminal corruption. And everyone's just like "meh." What a time to be alive, right?
Angie Schmitt
Roger Stone, longtime dirty trickster and Trump ally, gets 40 months for lying during probe into Russia’s attack on 2016 election.
Reality Winner, a young veteran honored for her service, got 63 months for warning about Russia’s attack on 2016 election. #FreeRealityWinner
Alexandra Chalupa
In the old days, the slogan was, "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime." Now it's "if you can't do the time, contribute to Donald Trump's campaign."
Dean Baker
Funny that the folks who think that impeachment tries to “undo an election” by citizen-voters don’t have problems when Trump uses his pardon power to “undo a conviction” by citizen-juries. Wait, what? “It’s in the Constitution!” you say? Yes, exactly.
Asha Rangappa
i think that you cannot both be genuinely concerned that trump will refuse to leave the white house if he loses **and** support the billionaire who paid to give himself a third mayoral term and paid some more to change the rules back for his successor
@Vanessa_ABee
Trump is not fighting a deep state. He is building one.
Adam Serwer
I remember basically every conservative either losing their mind or pretending to lose their mind because Bill Clinton was briefly on a plane with the Attorney General.
Chris Hayes
it's lucky for Roger Stone that he was just a wealthy white man convicted of obstruction of justice, perjury and witness tampering, and not, let's say, a black man selling loose cigarettes on a street corner, because there are serious consequences for that
Jeff Tiedrich
Nothing says you’re innocent like taking revenge against every single person who testified against you.
David Cicilline
The Soviet Union lasted for more than 70 years because no one would say the leader of their own party was wrong.
Joshua Tanzer
Everything from this point will be the Trump regime pushing the limits as far as they can possibly go. They will likely begin by attempting to “investigate” and jail political enemies.
Bree Newsome Bass
Killer opening line from Senator Harris: "When the framers wrote the Constitution, they did not think of someone like me as being a United States Senator. But they did envision someone like Donald Trump being president."
Tom McCarthy @TeeMcSee
This is an obvious prediction, but I want to get it on record. The GOP just released Trump from any accountability for trying to cheat in the upcoming election. That's one sign of many that they are going to try to rig the election, in a range of illegal and semi-legal ways.
David Roberts
"Mr. Trump is the only president in the history of Gallup polling who has never had the support of a majority of Americans for even a single day." And he never will.
Richard Stengel
Jesse Jackson: “It seems to me if Bloomberg wants to defeat Trump, he should run against Trump in the Republican primary.”The caucuses, primaries, and coverage thereof:
jeremy scahill
Nonsensical to consider the cost of Bernie's (and Elizabeth's) Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and public investments, without comparing it to the huge cost of NOT tackling climate change, worsening health care, and growing deficit in public investment.
Robert Reich
It's clear to me that Pete isn't running this cycle. He'll take it if we are dumb enough to do it but he is either running for a k street type firm gig or for eight years from now. I low-key resent that we are forced to watch him learn how to ride a bike.
Tressie McMillan Cottom
For folks who think Bloomberg’s saving grace is that he’s “good on climate”...you can’t be good on climate and shitty on race. That’s not a thing.
Mary Annaïse Heglar
Sanders said Fidel Castro did a few good things during his reign. Castro is now dead.
Trump is friends with Putin and friendly with Kim Jong Un. Both Putin and Kim are very much alive.
Hari Kondabolu
My friend's mom once said she didn't trust Elizabeth Warren because she was "too skinny," and all I could think is that it is literally impossible to be a woman.
Ginny Hogan_
Thinking today about how completely moderate Democratic elites have blown this primary cycle. Bernie was not remotely inevitable - but every step of the way they made the wrong decisions. And so, so much of it was because they were blinded by misogyny.
Shannon @TheStagmania
Bloomberg would depress turnout more than any other candidate.
David Rosenthal
Well, Bernie Sanders is now the clear favorite for the Democratic nomination. Lots of things to say about that, but the most important is that he is NOT a left-leaning version of Trump. Even if you disagree with his ideas, he's not a wannabe authoritarian ruler. America under a Sanders presidency would still be America, both because Sanders is an infinitely better man than Trump and because the Democratic Party wouldn't enable abuse of power the way Republicans have
Paul Krugman
Warren is one inch taller than Bloomberg.
She's 5'8."
He's 5'7."
(According to health records released by each candidate.)
Annie Linskey
I want to see these billionaire candidates spending $$$ giving folks rides to the polls, paying for them to get voter ID and funding security forces for when white supremacists act out the day after the election. Everything else is talk. $400M could probably fund nonstop shuttle service to the polls for people who don’t have transportation. If they turnaround and spend all the $$$ on ads but not on strengthening the infrastructure and protecting Black voters, then it’s just the same old thing we see every cycle. But that won’t prevent everyone from blaming Black, young and working poor voters for not turning out. I don’t want to hear *anything* about lack of voter turnout if there isn’t a *significant* increase in spending on voter protection and helping folk access polling sites.
Bree Newsome Bass
I’m a conservative. I disagree with most of the policy advanced by the Democratic candidates. But I’ll support WHOEVER the Democrats nominate because we can survive 4 years of bad policy. We can’t survive 4 more years of Trump’s attack on the very heart and soul of our Democracy.
Joe Walsh @WalshFreedom
In fairness to Bloomberg, objectively, he does a lot of good things with his money and Trump, I don't know, starts steak and tie companies. But both use money to prop up their egos and grab at things they want.
Rebecca Fishbein
My take on what should happen at the convention if no candidate has a majority of the votes is that pretty much everybody's take on that situation is going to be so warped by their candidate preferences as to be basically meaningless. If Bloomberg winds up with 40% of the delegates, Bernie with 38%, and Warren with 15%, most of the Bernie supporters who are currently saying the plurality winner should get the nomination will change their minds. And should!
Angus Johnston @studentactivism
What's funny about Bloomberg is that he's not a strong leader, he's just a rich one. He can put out lots of commercials that say "Mike can get it done." But when he talks, you don't feel like Mike can get it done.
George Lakoff
There is so much to discuss about Bloomberg's quip that perhaps some women "didn't like a joke I told." This is precisely how, so often, sexism and misogyny gets excused -- dismissed as "a joke."
MJ Lee
Can you *imagine* if Black people had the resources to buy as many ads as Bloomberg to repeatedly engage the entire country about structural racism and the steps that should be taken to address these issues? Ads on every channel, every hour, across all platforms.
Samuel Sinyangwe
One issue among many for Bloomberg is that he got rich off a product that no ordinary American has ever encountered, let alone eagerly purchased or felt gratitude for, in their everyday life.
Ross Douthat
If you want to measure the power of money in politics, think about how Bloomberg was elected mayor of New York three times even though he is a small moldy rutabaga
Jon Schwarz
If you're going to ask black people to support a candidate who has THREATENED THEIR LIVES in the past, you best believe I'm going to ask rich white folks to risk being taxed an extra 2 cents on the dollars FIRST. If you're a #NeverTrumper who can't understand that, bite me.
Elie Mystal
Very few bad takes as bad as "Billionaires make good politicians because they can't be influenced by money." Like the cookie monster can't be influenced by cookies because he's the cookie monster.
Sam Barlow
I don’t know who needs to hear this but having billions and billions to give away is a sign that you should have been taxed more.
Anand Giridharadas
The thing about Elizabeth Warren is that it's clear she would be a very good president. That she would be good at being president.
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
The gall of white democrats lecturing minorities who don’t want a man who actively, firsthand, participated in their oppression. Dems haven’t won the white vote in 50 years. White Dems depend on minorities to help them do what white people won’t. We will NOT be lectured!
Charles M. Blow
Fun fact: when Bloomberg endorsed Scott Brown to try to keep Elizabeth Warren out of the Senate, Brown had an A rating from the NRA. People keep telling me I have to respect Bloomberg’s commitment to ending gun violence, but seems it vanishes when his pocketbook is threatened.
Shannon @TheStagmania
1. Donald Trump must lose. That’s all that matters.
2. I’m not a Democrat. It’s not my job to tell Democrats who to nominate. It’s up to Democratic voters.
3. I’ve pledged to support WHOEVER the Democrats nominate.
4. If a conservative like me can pledge that, can’t everyone?
Joe Walsh @WalshFreedom
Somehow Jeffrey Epstein never got stopped and frisked in Bloomberg’s NY.
Chris Hayes
I oppose Bloberg on moral grounds, his past, policy, and character, how he uses power. But those who are arguing that he's electable v Trump arent making sense. I also strongly believe that his strategy of corrupting our primary process is a democratic disaster so massive I don't yet have words for it.
Zephyr Teachout
Criticize Bloomberg all you want but he will be an unstoppable force to defeat Trump as long as no one ever hears him speak publicly or looks up anything he’s ever done
Jess Dweck
Elizabeth Warren returned TWELVE BILLION dollars to consumers through an agency she created and for which she fought tirelessly BEFORE she was even in office. Let me repeat: BEFORE SHE WAS IN OFFICE. YES, imagine what she would do as president.
Jodi Jacobson
Bloomberg said: “Double the class size, with a better teacher, is a good deal for the students.” This is wrong. And dangerous.
Marc Lamont Hill
I honestly feel about Bloomberg the way I felt about Trump, which was basically come on, you can't be serious with this? which, given how things turned out, is not a great sign.
@tomtomorrow
mike bloomberg wanted to fingerprint more than 600,000 nyc public housing residents to, according to him, prove they actually lived there
Matt Binder
Michael Bloomberg has yet to be tested as a candidate. He's getting a lot of attention now, but to win the nomination, he needs to prove he can buy the votes of a wide coalition of Democrats.
Frank Conniff
Michael Bloomberg is a racist, misogynistic, pro-war, anti-Muslim Republican oligarch who represents one of the greatest threats to American democracy. Without his billions, nobody would take him seriously. Do not let him buy his way to the presidency.
Nikhil Goyal
Elizabeth Warren is who you vote for if you like Bernie Sanders’s policy but actually want it enacted.
@GothamGirlBlue
hey what if the media stopped framing every story about Elizabeth Warren like she’s already lost and there’s no point in continuing to have an election just because a tiny slice of the population in two small white states who don’t represent the electorate get to vote first
@clairewillett
Nothing is infuriating me more right now than watching Black folks line up behind Bloomberg. No we don’t need a billionaire businessman to run the government. Public entities should not be run like private entities. Period. And I get pragmatism but this is just dumb. He isn’t really even a Democrat. And he has said awful things about women, fat folks, and his record on supporting daily harassment of Black and Brown men by the NYPD should be disqualifying on its own. And he’s buying his way into the race. Just hell fuck no to him. I believe Black folks are smart. I believe they are politically savvy. But look: you don’t need Trump to beat Trump. Devils don’t beat devils. They join up and do evil together. Only light can drive out darkness. I beg my own folks not to line up behind this dude.
Brittney Cooper
Can we just do an extra-super Tuesday where every registered Democratic in the country casts their ballot on the same day, we have ranked-choice voting, and we call it a day? Because my god this is a terrible way to do it.
Jill Filipovic
NYPD stop-and-frisk has been cut by 98% since its height under Mayor Bloomberg in 2011. A *Ninety-Eight Percent Reduction* and crime in NYC is lower now than it was then. The entire policy was sustained by a disinformation campaign spreading racist lies about black men and crime.
Samuel Sinyangwe
You have to hear some of these boys recount their frisks, the way the cops, a stranger, would often put their hands up between their buttocks, on the street, in search of contraband. How would this not feel like an assault if you were innocent as about 90% of them were? When Trump was caught on tape talking about violating white women, liberals were aghast and called it disqualifying. Now that Bloomberg is on talking about violating innocent black and brown boys on a massive scale, those same liberals say “get over it.” #BlackBodiesMatterToo
Charles M. Blow
Just to be clear: the DNC chairperson just said that while there may concerns about the ability of billionaires to buy the election, the best way to counter that is to vote. It’s statements like this from Tom Perez and others that make me VERY concerned about November.
Alicia Garza
Gonna get a lot of hot takes soon about how Bernie is as much of a threat to liberal democracy as Trump, and it's going to be as ridiculous as it sounds. Disagree with Bernie's policies all you want, he's not asserting the right to imprison his political opposition.
Adam Serwer
Meanwhile, the threat to democracy of an ultracompetent guy with an authoritarian personality and $60 billion trying to just buy himself an entire country will go unremarked.
@JonIsAwesomest
If you're a Democrat who thinks Biden is too weak and Sanders/Warren too liberal to win, you could've had Harris, Booker, or Inslee. Instead, your options are a small-town mayor, a senator with the charisma of a comb, or a former GOP billionaire who wants to tax soda instead of wealth
Stephen Wolf
Democratic nomination narratives are so broken. As of right now, one woman finished 5th in her neighboring state and is 3rd in another state and she’s “surging.” Another woman is 4th in her neighboring state & finished 3rd in another state and she’s “dead.”
David Brauer
Hey everyone who liked Warren best but voted for a man because you think a woman can't get elected: you're the problem
@LouisatheLast
As Justice Byron White said in dissent in Buckley, "as it should be unnecessary to point out, money is not always equivalent to speech."
Zephyr Teachout
The last four Democratic Presidents have been from Southern states: Johnson - Texas, Carter - Georgia, Clinton - Arkansas, and Obama - Hawaii. This says if the Democrats want to win, they should go with the candidate from Oklahoma.
David M. Levinson
If the Demorats nominate a corporate centrist we can still elect more progressives in the senate and congress. And if the president isn’t a lunatic moron we could still end up passing progressive policies. We can’t let a rigged system defeat us no matter what shit they pull.
Martha Kelly
My mom's rankings:
Warren: she's so smart
Steyer: his heart is in the right place
Klobuchar: finally somebody SAID IT to Pete
Bernie: he's done something with the young people
Pete: just platitudes, lack of an actual vision
Biden: living in the past
Yang: one note
#DemDebate
Elie Mystal
Has Donny Deutsch ever HEARD Elizabeth Warren? She’s the opposite of strident. She’s folksy. It is so bizarre what some men hear when intelligent women speak.
Max Weiss @maxthegirl
I’m not sure of the value of caucuses over primaries. They seem to suppress turnout, add complexity, and put pressure on state parties to conduct operations that they are ill-equipped for. Ideally we would use a more straightforward process that includes ranked-choice voting.The Democatic primary debates specifically:
@AndrewYang
One question going forward: in '16 cable and broadcast news felt obliged to hire Trump supporters, put them in all of their talking head segments. When pressed they said they had to reflect the new political reality. So when do they hire all the Sanders supporters?
David Dayen
The 172,000 people that voted in Iowa caucus represent only 12% of registered voters in Iowa and .07% of US electorate. Time to abolish the caucus.
Ari Berman
every political analyst who is still talking about arguments and convincing the public more than voter registration and suppression should be fired. how do ANY of y'all still think this is about making a case rather than about mobilizing tactically against a jury rigged anti-voting machine
Saladin Ahmed
This primary is a test of an interesting question: Can Twitter take down Bloomberg, or can cable news take down Bernie?
Ryan Grim
The number of people who vote in IA and NH will equal roughly .25% of registered voters in US. Before media crowns winners and losers, a whole lot of people still need to weigh in before anything is decided
Ari Berman
Note to my colleagues in the media: Virtually no policies under discussion in this Democratic primary are "radical" or "extreme" in any reasonable sense. They are just different ideas that are successfully humming along in multiple comparable countries.
Anand Giridharadas
trump: works with russia to steal 2016 and tries to force ukraine to help steal 2020
democrats: hey guys sorry for the delay on the results in iowa
media: can democrats be trusted with elections?
@ManlnTheHoody
There are some benefits of caucusing, but those same benefits exist with ranked choice voting. And with the latter, we get a secret ballot. Iowa and all states should move to ranked choice voting, for all elections.
onekade
All y'all tweeting tonight about how caucuses are terrible: this is basically how we handle public input for planning decisions. See the problem?
Sandy Johnston
People will use the IA caucus debacle as proof that state-run processes are inefficient when it’s really proof that private corporations with no transparency have our necks in their jaws in more ways than we can even imagine
Kath Barbadoro
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords doesn't look so bad now
William D. Adler
Can this PLEASE be the nail in the coffin for both caucuses and Iowa being first?
Nathan Hunstad @doctorgonzo
How is it that they make the campaign season 300 years long but demand the vote be counted so quickly that it requires an app? Count the voters and add up the results on paper, you ding-dongs! The media can wait. Accuracy is more important than speed!
Sarah Kendzior
Short version: If you think Iowa has too much influence on what happens subsequently in the nomination process, yesterday was really good news for you—not just for 2024, but for this cycle as well.
Angus Johnston @studentactivism
Was traveling yesterday and just catching up, but ... Iowa feels like a foreshadowing of things to come this year. The general election is going to be enshrouded in misinformation, distrust, active ratfucking.
@tomtomorrow
If you think the Iowa Caucus delays are bad, wait until you hear about what happens in black or brown precincts across the country. We're used to waiting.
Andrew Gillum
If you were starting with a blank sheet of paper, would you design anything remotely like this as a way to pick a president?
David Roberts
These debates don’t measure who’s ready to be president, they measure who’s most ready to go on cable news or the Sunday morning shows and provide clips that drive up ratings. TV news has hijacked our public discourse and reconfigured it into an anxiety, profit machine. The [South Carolina] debate last night was jaw-droppingly awful. But our entire debate system is broken and actually does harm to our country. Emphasis on spectacle and wrestling-style feuds hurts our understanding of important issues and gives clowns like Trump power.The state of the Republican party and its descent into fascism:
Jared Yates Sexton
Charging $1750 to get in the door of the Democratic primary debate [in South Carolina] is such a good metaphor for the party
Kate Aronoff
Man those “city folk” always have something negative to say about the South, but given that NYC has given us both Trump and Bloomberg — Ima need y’all to issue a written apology or chill.
Melissa Harris-Perry
“I don’t think Bloomberg’s bad night [at the Nevada debate] is going to matter given the money he’s spending” is the strongest possible indictment of our system
Adam Miller @ajm6792
"I worked very hard for it" is the worst possible justification for being a billionaire. You know who works very hard? Single mothers working two minimum wage jobs with just-in-time scheduling and a bus commute.
Ezra Klein
Warren should get to claim Mike Bloomberg’s fortune as a bounty after she killed him tonight. She could pay for so much childcare with it.
Ashley Fairbanks @ziibiing
All those Democrats who sold their endorsement to Bloomberg? Time to rethink that decision. Literally everyone on stage right now is better. Pick someone else.
Markos Moulitsas
Moderators love asking Bernie how he’ll pass Medicare for All, never ask Pete how he’s going to pass a constitutional amendment to radically restructure the Supreme Court.
Alex Jacquez
Unpopular opinion. I wish housing, reproductive justice, climate change, police brutality, mass incarceration, unions got at least half of the airtime healthcare has gotten through a year of debate.
Nelini Stamp
Her answer on gun violence honestly sums up so much of how Warren approaches politics: she talks about mass shootings, suicides, the disproportionate impact of gun violence on women and communities of color, links it to gun industry and corruption, and calls for systemic change.
Leah Frances Greenberg
Smart of Klobuchar to bring up criminalization of abortion patients and doctors. Has Pete ever talked about Purvi Patel, a woman in his own state who was prosecuted for self inducing abortion?
Irin Carmon
Here's a thought: if Amy Klobuchar can take Pete Buttigieg to the cleaners, voters might want to contemplate whether he's the right person to tackle Donald Trump. Just a thought.
Helaine Olen
"I am tired of communities of faith being weaponized and being mischaracterized because the only time religious freedom is invoked is in the name of bigotry and discrimination." —AOCRacism, white supremacy, and police brutality:
CAP Faith
Good lord what a miserable affair it must be to be a young Republican.
David Roberts
conservatives believe in "local control" like they believe in cutting deficits
Chris Hayes
The worst thing about the last three or four years isn't a single president or administration. It's learning that half of this country is made up of terrible humans. That's the most deflating, depressing thing about all of this. That it's not just people standing for this dystopian nightmare in an act of complacency; it's a large swath of people actively *supporting* it.
@mollypeonies
I wrote about this extensively in my book THE MAN THEY WANTED ME TO BE. Trumpism is about protecting white, patriarchal supremacy. Look at the hallmarks. Bullying. Authoritarianism. Fighting a “conspiracy” of women, LGBTQ, minorities. It’s a white male crisis.
Jared Yates Sexton
If you are saying, "You can't call them fascists because they are not yet loading people onto cattle trucks," you are telling them that they can do what they like up to the point of cattle trucks. Which is exactly what they want to hear. Please don't do it.
Simon Ubsdell
Just a regular reminder that America’s Evangelical Right was hijacked by a Neo-Confederate, white identity movement in reaction to desegregation and that cult has grown in size and power and now considers Donald Trump its living savior. Oh. And that evangelical cult has been steeped in toxic conspiracy theories that portray America as the battleground between holy whites and satanic forces, including women, the poor, and repressed populations, and they consider Trump the necessary warrior in that battle. That sign is satire, but the premise is still painfully true. If we’re going to make it out of this crisis and find some way forward we have to recognize what we’re dealing with, and the cult of Trumpism isn’t just something that happened without decades of festering:
Jared Yates Sexton
When Democrats move "too far left," the conversation turns to universal healthcare and climate action. But when Republicans move too far right, it turns to white nationalism and unification of Church and State. Why the constant need for false equivalencies? Is it not worth asking if Republicans are moving too far right when: A record number of self-declared white nationalists ran for office as Republicans during the last midterms, naming Trump as their inspiration? I wish never trumpers worried more about their own party going too far right instead of trying to get democrats to join them.
@TheLoveBel0w
There’s a reason men are wearing Trump gear, faux military dress, shirts with aggressive slogans and iconography. They’re absolutely terrified and are trying desperately to convince the world they’re not. It’s classic overcompensation. And this is how fascism takes root.
Jared Yates Sexton
FACTS:
45 doesn’t have the votes to stay in power.
He knows it and EVERYONE on both sides know it too.
His life and freedom depend on not losing the election, as does that of many others in the GOP.
There is ZERO chance they will play fair.
They won’t just try to divide us.
Pam Keith
How did we become more afraid of European style socialism than European style fascism?
Schooley
That feeling when your countermajoritarian dreams are about to come true:
Anthony Michael Kreis
The GOP hasn't considered the Democratic Party legitimate for a generation. Know that, and lots of mysteries are solved.
David Kaib
In my opinion here’s one of the most racist stats ever:Sexism, misogyny, and toxic masculinity:
In 2011, the NYPD stopped and frisked 168,126 black men between the ages of 14 - 24
In 2011, there were only 158,406 black men in NYC between 18-24
Yes, they stop and frisked more black men than actually existed!
90% were innocent
michaelharriot
In my job I swim around in land use terminology all day. Zoning, variance, setback, easement, add 50+ words here. All words for state/others to regulate land ultimately stolen from 1st Nations/indigenous/N. Ams. It's Stolen Land Use terminology! Stolen wealth. How can we reframe.
Mitra Jalali
A new study finds that black baristas who work for Starbucks at airports make a median wage of $11.15 an hour, $1.85 less than white baristas.
Steven Greenhouse
So often I hear white allies talk about how frustrating it is to organize white people. Even going so far as to say they “hate white people”. Yooooooooo that’s the work tho! It would not be a good use of anyone’s time for me to try and have a conversation with your maga uncle.
Cacje @CJ_Hende
Man behind counter at sandwich shop: "Where are you from?"
Me: "Michigan."
Him: "No I mean ethnically."
Me: "I know what you meant."
Still felt awkward enough to answer the question, but proud that I've finally reached at least that level of sass to this constant question.
Mona El-Hout
it means "Why aren't you white?"
Gene Demby
"While white and black officers use gun force at similar rates in white and racially mixed neighborhoods, white officers are five times as likely to use gun force in predominantly black neighborhoods"
Martha Gimbel [link to research in the original]
As a “black writer” for a “black site” who writes about “black issues, the “black community” and “black voters,” I’ve found that one of the worst things you can do is refer to white people as “white people.” White people hate that. I call it “the privilege of individuality.”
michaelharriot
We've got white adults without resilience or emotion regulation enough to make it through one serious conversation about racism without breaking down or lashing out insisting that what youth of color need is not racial justice, but resilience and emotion regulation.
Paul Gorski - Equity Literacy Institute
I used to think a big part of my job was explaining black people to white people. Now I realize that a big part of my job is explaining white people to white people.
Elie Mystal
I’m always amazed by how medical textbooks will drop a:
“Black people are more likely to develop...”
“African-Americans have the highest rates of...”
With no mention whatsoever of the systemic factors that contribute to the disparate outcomes we observe. It’s dangerous, and feeds into the narrative that Black people are inherently “broken” and forgoes an opportunity to put the onus on true culprit of these inequities: racism. Let’s stop dropping numbers with no explanation in 2020. It’s unjust. Our communities deserve better.
LaShyra “Lash” Nolen
College swim team takes bathroom break on the way back from a road trip. Local deputies spot the team’s only black member, tackle him, put a gun to his head, threaten to kill him. They later claim they mistakenly thought he’d taken the bus hostage.
Radley Balko
White people to black people: Get over it! What is “it”?
Slavery
Lynching
The black codes
Jim Crow
Racial covenants
Convict leasing
Emmett Till
George Stinney
The Southern Strategy
Red Summer
The Tulsa Massacre
Mass incarceration
Trayvon
Black Lives Matter
Stop and Frisk
Charles M. Blow
In the Jim Crow South, Negroes who declined to step into the street when encountering whites on the sidewalk were charged with “incivility” that was punishable by death. Trying vote. Demanding a fair wage. Talking back: all of it could get you hanged. I think of this when someone describes calling racism by its rightful name as “incivility”
Brent Staples
The worst celebration of diversity is when we ask people experiencing racism to participate in diversity spectacles while we ignore racism. That kind of celebrating diversity is racism. The best celebration of diversity is an annihilation of racism.
Paul Gorski - Equity Literacy Institute
Too many folks fail to realize black people have, can & will survive Trump's reign of terror. We're masters at this. Look, listen & learn but don't try to scare us with a 2nd Trump term. Slavery, Jim Crow, segregation...my people lived it daily.
@lacadri34
One of the weirder and more puzzling forms of conservative projection is their deep conviction that all men want to be callous, insensitive assholes, and are only restrained from doing so by political correctness. And, beyond that, that men *ought* to be free to be callous, insensitive assholes, that it is their right, and that the PC restraints they struggle under are an unjust burden.The climate crisis and renewable energy:
David Roberts
Women have equaled and outperformed men in almost every sphere. It is time to stop trying to change women, and start changing the systems that prevent them from achieving their potential.
António Guterres
Fantastic New York Times Weinstein graphic (h/t Fipi Lele):
Cory Doctorow
the neat trick about sexism: if you step up, people will blame you for being assertive. if you step back, they'll blame you for being meek
Leah Frances Greenberg
I think it would be pretty fresh if I could just open up a slot in my gut and just clean my uterus out like a lint trap every month, but apparently saying that isn’t “fun elevator chit chat.”
Eliza Skinner
I don't think young people need us older generations to feel hopeful when it comes to climate change. That's kind of irrelevant. What I think they need to know is that we will never stop working, we are willing to change, we love them and we are listening.Sustainable transportation and livable cities:
Dr. Elizabeth Sawin
Not doing a Green New Deal because you're worried about federal debt is like speeding over the cliff-edge because you're worried about wear and tear on your brake pads.
Cory Doctorow
Remember that part of the Green New Deal that is about healthcare for all to allow the workforce to flexibly move into jobs in the emerging clean economy?
Dr. Elizabeth Sawin
Livestock contributed to ~23% of the total warming of 0.81°C from all sources from 1850 to 2010, despite agriculture directly contributing only 10–12% of global GHG emissions. The effects of CH4 only last decades, but only decay if we stop emitting it!
@Peters_Glen
Preventing catastrophic climate breakdown means not only cancelling future fossil fuel infrastructure (such as a third runway at #Heathrow), but also retiring existing ff infrastructure. It is time to bring the fossil age to an end.
George Monbiot
If you're around 30, throughout your lifetime you will witness humanity either choosing course-correction and self-preservation in the face of climate change, or getting stuck on the path to self-destruction. In fact, you're not a passive observer. You will have a role to play.
François Chollet
Does anyone else see that these sorts of whiz-bang ecomodernist "solutions" [like planting forests on buildings] aren't solutions at all but just cute distractions from the hard work we need to do pronto the crux of which amounts to
1 use less energy
2 no more fossil fuel
Peter Kalmus
The good news: thousands of major institutions are now wrestling with the climate emergency.
The bad news: most of them are understanding it in frameworks that are 10 to 25 years out of date.
Each lost day changes the nature of the emergency we face, not just its magnitude.
Alex Steffen
The phrase "realistically, we're not going to stop [insert optional high-carbon activity here]" is doing a lot of unexamined and counterproductive ideological work.
Dr. Genevieve Guenther
When we think about the climate emergency, we tend to underestimate the roles of low-level selfishness and widespread incompetence.
Alex Steffen
As soon as people stop framing climate change as two binary states —we’re doomed, or not doomed—and start framing our response as a matter of harm reduction, we’ll actually start making some damned progress.
Dr. Jacquelyn Gill
The only thing that can ultimately stop climate breakdown is to completely stop burning fossil fuels. Everything else is an addict's attempt to distract. Some things are good but far too small (e.g. planting trees and carbon farming). Some do more harm than good (carbon offsets).
Peter Kalmus
I would argue that the human race is *not* committing mass suicide, but rather that some people are killing other people for money and power, right under the noses of most people, who don't realize quite what's happening.
Dr. Genevieve Guenther
No neutral land use, infrastructure, energy decisions now: they're either moving us forward or they're high-CO2 stranded assets in the making
Alex Steffen
A new study has found that natural sources can't explain the surge of methane in the atmosphere in recent decades. "This strengthens suspicions that fossil fuel companies are not fully accounting for their impact on the climate."
Eric Holthaus
To get a sense for how backwards we are on climate policy, consider the fact that people are literally *rewarded* for frequent flying rather than disincentivized from doing so. It's extraordinary.
Jason Hickel
I always wonder why restoration ecologists basically never talk about or to people whose management and culture maintained the “original” ecosystem(s) that they’re trying to restore. If your restoration ecology isn’t centered on Indigenous empowerment, is it really restorative?
Dr. Katherine Crocker
"Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door... To hope is to give yourself to the future” –Rebecca Solnit:
Extinction Rebellion
I just published WHY I AM AN ECO-FEMINIST: being an eco-feminist related to using the feminist approach in understanding ecological issues. In every environmental issue, there is always women crisis or equally women crisis leads to environmental crisis. Instability and increased poverty make women and girls particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse which is one of the reasons that climate change is a feminist issue.
Oladosu Adenike @the_ecofeminist
The next time some Republican says that the GOP is planning to tackle climate change with "innovation," I give you permission to wave Trump's budget, which *withdraws* R&D funding, right in their lying face.
Dr. Genevieve Guenther
The international travel of fashion brands and buyers to attend the seasonal circuit of runway shows emits 241,000 tons of CO2 a year, equivalent to the annual emissions of a small country. It's inequities like this that the "aviation is only 2% of emissions" statistic obscures.
Dr. Genevieve Guenther
A WPA for climate reporting, exploration and storytelling.
Alex Steffen
'Each passenger on a non-stop return flight from London to New York accounts for about 3 tons of CO2, as much carbon as is emitted by heating an average family home in the UK for an entire year.'
@benking01
how about calling fossil capitalism "dinosaur economics"?
Dr. Genevieve Guenther
I worry “The New Green Deal” wont happen since there are still people trying to reverse “The New Deal.”
Hari Kondabolu
When discussing climate change, we often get hung up on debating different scenarios, targets, and deadlines. Sure. But let’s not forget the most important lesson:
- disruptive climate change is already here
- the warmer it gets, the worse things get
Dr. Jonathan Foley @GlobalEcoGuy
If it seems like we are collectively in a steady march in a direction that looks worse and worse day by day, remember that change rarely goes in one direction for long. (Though 'not long' can be too long, and much loss and suffering can happen in that time).
Dr. Elizabeth Sawin
My 11 year just nearly had a heart attack when he saw the exit polls in Iowa saying health care was the number one issue. “Not climate change?” he moans. “It’s like the the house is on fire and all people care about is doing renovations.”
Chris Murphy
Anyone who advocates concentrating rental housing on big, noisy, dangerous stroads to "protect neighborhoods" should be asked whether they'd be willing to live on said stroad themselves. This approach = "Neighborhoods" for me but not for thee.Health care:
Daniel Herriges
The value of highway spending on the economy has been less than if the highway trust fund was simply saved and generated interest for nearly 20 years (by FHWA's own research):
patrick kennedy @WalkableDFW
Roughly 42 percent of the miles driven by ride-hailing vehicles are trips where only the driver is onboard. That’s a problem for traffic and the climate, a new @UCSUSA report concludes.
InsideClimate News
Wait, hear me out... If transportation is the #1 source of carbon emissions, and commute time is the #1 factor in predicting economic mobility, and long commute times are extended by sprawl / urban housing shortage... Maybe these are all the same issue of how we share land
Flag of Mexico @daguilarcanabal
Kid: Why won't adults do anything about climate change?
Kid (later): Will you pick me up from school?
Me: It's a beautiful day. Why don't you walk. (It's 8 blocks.)
Kid: You're the worst parent ever. No other kid has to walk.
Sadly, on the last point, she's nearly 100% right.
Charles Marohn
5 years ago, Uber insisted that it would reduce traffic. Instead, Uber drivers cruise without passengers 40% of the time. Studies show Uber and Lyft have pulled people away from public transit and walking, adding to the overall amount of driving.
Brent Toderian
bUt PuBLic TrAnSiT sHoUlD mAKe a PrOFiT:
@aiellobytrain
One really under-appreciated fact of US transportation policy is that it evolved as a response to WW2. The mandate of the USDOT was to ensure roads could accommodate military action. Which is maybe part of why cars are becoming more and more like tanks.
Isabella Chu @bellachu10
When you're an urbanist visiting a friend who drives everywhere... We went to downtown Raleigh last night and circled around looking for parking for 15 mins. My friend: "Parking is a problem here." Me: In my head "Your auto centric lifestyle is a problem."
Jerome Alexander Horne
Person who cares if pedestrians live or die = “activist”
Person whose only concern in life is parking = “community member”
Momifornia
in one's mind, cars get you places faster than they actually do.
Tony Fisk @arfisk
I wish Bloomberg would have taken all this money and put it into his traffic safety philanthropies instead. Huge need, completely under-resourced, he's one of the few big funders in the arena. Instead he's like lighting money on fire. But worse.
Angie Schmitt
The decade-long rise of SUVs on our roads is a leading contributor to the rise in pedestrian death rates. But how can Americans afford all these big, expensive cars? The answer: a 75% increase in auto loan debt in just ten years.
Streetsblog USA
Reminder to pedestrians: “Road safety is a shared responsibility.”™
Martyn Schmoll
Car crashes are the number 1 reason parents bury their children in the United States. Lot of my mom friends will cruise around in their car to get their kids to nap. Makes me think people just think of their cars as another appliance like a washing machine. Not something that could kill or injure them at almost any time. But moms I think, like everyone, have just become super inured to the risks. Rationally, 30 mile aimless car rides are more likely to injure children than BPA in bottles, or whatever.
Angie Schmitt
A 13-year study of a dozen cities found that protected bikelanes led to a drastic decline in fatalities for all users of the road. As for painted bikelanes? No safety improvement at all. And for sharrows, it’s safer to NOT have them.
Brent Toderian
“We have to kill some amount of people to preserve our commute times” is bad policy, but somehow still good politics.
Zachary Wefel
Every Sunday in Bogota they close half the roads for cycling and pedestrians. Cafes are full, local businesses kill it, and the whole city plays outside.
Phil Gaimon
Cars, overblown sporting event, jingoism, petroleum, corporate influence in politics. This tweet really captures America in 2020:
Kevin Gallatin
Centuries from now when people look back, the bygone era of mass automobile mobility may appear like a small 150-year blip in the timeline of civilization. But the legacy of destruction will be global scale and enduring.
Emily Farina
There's a strange irony in the perception that
Railways = Socialist
Motorways = Capitalist
Railways directly recoup their costs as each passenger pays at point of use
Motorways *always* have to be centrally funded and paid by tax unless you install unpopular toll booths
@tompccs
“Sprawl dwellers pay only half the cost of their roads.” That means those NOT living in sprawl pay the other half. “The [Very High] Costs of #Sprawl” - not as cheap as you think, and paid for by ALL of us.
Brent Toderian
It’s wild dude, once you see how shitty car culture makes everything its impossible to not see it everywhere
Jordan Burns @WalkableCityBoy
I should know this but what's to stop some city with a lot of pedestrians (like New York) just banning bull bars by city law? My guess is it would face legal challenge and be decided by the courts but... some vision zero should get on it already.Anyone with the most cursory understanding of how vehicle safety works could tell just by looking at it that it is a disaster where pedestrian safety is concerned. (It concentrates all the force in a small area). Instead we have cities like Portland (FFS) paying EXTRA money to outfit their police SUVs with this garbage. SMH:
Angie Schmitt
Draw me a venn diagram showing the people who come to the planning commission to oppose apartments because of how unrealistically dangerous it is to bike anywhere, and the people who oppose making it safer to bike anywhere.
Wedge LIVE!
Two European cities (Helsinki and Oslo) have zero children, pedestrians and cyclists dying in traffic. All cities that still accept such tragedies should acknowledge that NOT PROTECTING THE VULNERABLE is a political choice. Stop waiting for innovations, act moral!
Cycling Professor @fietsprofessor
Suburban sprawl costs 38% more in upfront public costs & 10% more in ongoing costs than compact development, PLUS has only 1/10th the tax revenue per acre, confirms report summarizing 17 studies. Important #citymakingmath via @CityLab
Brent Toderian
The average British person emitted more CO2 in the first two weeks of this year than the average citizen of Uganda in an entire year. Yet we are told that #ClimateBreakdown is a population issue? We need #ClimateJustice now
Extinction Rebellion
"All you ever talk about is bikes"
Do you have any idea how much y'all talk about 'parking'?
@Ollie_Cycles
It’s awesome when people cite “safety” as a reason for not riding public transit and then get in a car.
Deborah Carver @fightwithknives
The United States does a fantastic job building affordable housing for cars.
Anthony LaMesa
UK will ban the sale of new gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2035. When will the US get around to this?
David Roberts
When a black woman entered a DC metro station without paying a $2.25 fare, transit cops pinned her to the ground, pulled a taser on her, and ripped her shirt. Jeff Bezos got 564 DC parking tickets for $16,800, but nobody’s pulling a taser on him.
Jamison Foser
“Republicans will demonstrate to Minnesotans that we take this crisis seriously and will be putting forward proposals that bolster rider safety on trains and light rail platforms,” Koznick said." You know one of the best ways to really make a transit system safe? FUND IT.
Amity Foster
Let's remember: safety on public transit applies to everyone. Not just white people from the burbs; and if we're gonna have this conversation, we need to be open & honest that the starting ground for 'safety on public transit' usually is based in making white people feel safe.
Amity Foster
Just a reminder that flexible bollards are pointless. Five vehicles in a row that parked *on* them, all giant trucks/SUVs. Oversized vehicles parked on flexible bollards:
@bcmartinson
"Efficient transport looks empty. Inefficient transport looks full"
Urban Planning & Mobility
I recognize that many people haven't thought through the psychology of car ads. But think about this. Car crashes kill about 1.25 million people worldwide a year and injure or disable tens of millions more. Maybe ads celebrating fast reckless driving is just a shitty idea?
Peter Flax
Anti-housing homeowners have a lot to say about affordability requirements on new housing, but never on existing housing. Why not a 10-20% local tax on the profit of home sales to fund affordable construction and acquisition, to match the % we require of new developments?
@ShaneDPhillips
Car drivers are never lectured like bad toddlers like this for stealing parking - and never at $425. And rarely for other behaviour that kills. Public transit is the mode w built in condescension. TTC historically, now Metrolinx is into it:
Shawn Micallef
A city’s priorities are revealed during a subway shutdown. In Toronto, the Yonge line is closed now north of Eglinton, with shuttle buses running on the four-lane road. The buses are not given dedicated space but curb-side parking is retained
Oliver Moore
The first issue reports on a new Yale study finding that one in five Americans would be willing to engage in civil disobedience for the climate, if asked by someone they liked and respected.Immigration and the most recent version of the Muslim ban:
Extinction Rebellion NYC
What America now [given the coronavirus] gets to learn the hard way is that universal health care is not free stuff for other people, it's an attempt to keep your infant child, your elderly parents, your immunocompromised friend from exposure to something that might kill them.
@tomtomorrow
I’m a 50-year-old Canadian. I’ve lived through all kinds of financial circumstances, & gone thru all sorts of health challenges, and even years fairly characterized as “crises.” Never once have I had to think about how I would pay for medical help. How health care should work.
Brent Toderian
Tired: choice in health plan is stupid and overrated because no one is good at shopping for insurance plans
Wired: people are also terrible at shopping for doctors and choice in doctor is way overrated.
@JonWalkerDC
I love how people like Jonathan Chait are like - we are just like England, Sanders is Corbyn! But when it comes to universal health care, it's - no, we are nothing like England. We can never compare the two.
J. Mijin Cha
People want health care not “choice.”
David Kaib
My favorite f— off moment in the new Yale health care study is when they show that we could give all 1.5 million health insurance industry workers 2 years severance pay after we pass Medicare for All and it would literally still be cheaper than what we have now
@avierkant
I have the best Blue Cross plan you can buy in DC and I just paid $660 for an ambulance ride of less than a mile. So yeah, I’m perfectly happy to give up my private insurance.
Spencer Knoll
As a Canadian I can confirm that it’s possible to have free healthcare without beheadings. There is no necessary connection between the two.
Murtaza M. Hussain
WHO???? are these people who want to keep their current private health insurance plan? WHO
Tony Webster
Undocumented immigrants pay more in US taxes than Amazon or Facebook do.Education:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Banning people from entering this country based on their Muslim faith is not protecting religious liberty.
Saying “Islam hates us” is not protecting religious liberty.
Shame on you, Mr. President.
Ilhan Omar
So let me get this straight, Trump argues that we need immigrants who will pull their own weight and won't burden America financially, yet he just banned Nigerians, the group with one of the highest levels of educational attainment in this country, from getting green cards?
@Freeyourmindkid
Just a reminder that the United States still has a Muslim ban. And Trump extended it last week to Nigeria, as well as Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan and Tanzania
Alexis Goldstein
Depressing the way elementary schools feel like they have to differentiate themselves by offering specialties now. Just teach the kids how to read FFS! Even basic education has become this consumer culture thing. Has to make parents feel like they got something others didn't.Wealth inequality, wage theft, and a better way to organize the economy:
Angie Schmitt
If you want to know the truth. Kids LOVE learning. What they despise is “providing evidence that they’re learning.”
Raised hand ”Mr. Wagner, that’s awesome. Thank you for showing me that.”
“Yep. Do 15 assignments proving to me that you understand it.”
Kyle Wagner @GowagsKyle
For many, the longing to be rich isn’t even a desire for riches *as such* so much as a longing for the psychological security imagined to come from being able to “throw money at a problem” of basic needs - but a different social order wouldn’t require that in the first place.And, finally, the best of the rest:
DREW DANIEL
Is hilarious how capitalists will tell you that capitalism is the system for rugged individuals. Meanwhile your boss expects you to be obedient and grateful, and doesn't give you any real autonomy over your life or work. A hierarchy of servants and masters isn't individuality.
Existential Comics
capitalism isn’t sustainable, community is
Noname Book Club
The US is in denial over how many people are living in poverty.
Our poverty line assumes:
$0 healthcare costs
$0 childcare costs
$0 rent increases
No geographic diff
Even with that lie, 40 million people live in *recognized* poverty. And we have no idea how many are actually poor.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Before financialization, companies saw their role as producing products that made profits; after the "shareholder revolution," the job of companies was to make profits regardless of the products, their quality, or their effect on workers or customers
Cory Doctorow
"What we want is to move from a society of domination to one of participation, from conquest to co-creation, from extraction to regeneration, from harm to healing, and from separation to love." — Charles Eisenstein
Extinction Rebellion
If income distribution ratios in the US had remained unchanged in the decades after 1979, the bottom 80% of American households would each have $11,000 more in annual income today, and the richest 1% would have $750,000 less.
Jason Hickel
remember that "punishable with a fine" just means "legal for the rich"
Adam Smith (responding to a story about Jeff Bezos paying $16,000 in parking tickets)
Your periodic reminder that the word "meritocracy" was coined by a sociologist in a satirical novel that lampooned the circular reasoning of elites: "The system must be fair, otherwise, my power would be unfair!" Over and over, people who adopt "meritocracy" in naive ignorance of its satirical origin re-enact the main plot of that 60-year-old novel, creating nepotistic systems that preserve the power of the mediocrities that lucked into the corner office, and call it all fair play.
Cory Doctorow
Why do we always hear about how Jeff Bezos starting Amazon in a garage but never how his parents invested $300,000 into his fledgling company? Could your parents do that. Do you even have access to a garage? Is this “American Dream” success story real or a myth we tell ourselves?
Kentington Clarke
Who would have guessed that four decades of radical inequality and ruthless concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few would have wrecked the US justice system and put American democracy in stages of terminal decline? (Now you're surprised?)
Langdon Winner
My daughter has very severe learning disabilities but she experiences life on her own level. Her feelings of fun, excitement, joy and happiness are as valid and important as anyone else's. No one should pre-judge what in life is for her. This world is for her as much as for anyone else
Christine McClements
i think the problem with sisyphus is that he did not work hard enough
Gannon Reedy
This is a very old oak that has been pruned back to almost a stump and grown into a wonderful shape, but with big habitat value in the trunk. Severe crown reduction is an important management option for very old trees, manually doing what nature does, if left alone:
Jeremy Barrell
A whatchamacallit in different languages:
7. Thingamajig (English)
6. Chingadera (Spanish)
5. Himstergims (Danish)
4. Naninani (Japanese)
3. Zamazingo (Turkish)
2. Dingsbums (German)
1. Huppeldepup (Dutch)
Adam Sharp
When you die, it’s only for a second and then you wake up in paradise and your body is perfect and you will live forever and never get bored and if you believe this then I have some essential oils to sell you.
almightygod
All you need to know about the Electoral College is that Wyoming has 1 electoral vote per 192,000 people, while California has 1 electoral vote per 727,000 people. If you believe in democracy and can do simple math, you should oppose the Electoral College.
Sergio Siano
And how are we doing? Estimated cost of "the War on Terror," 2001 through 2020: $6.4 trillion
Langdon Winner
I'm really starting to resent NYC. Biggest U.S. city, supposedly so liberal but didn't prosecute crimes of Trump family, so now he's President. Made Bloomberg's racist, shit-on-poor, plans look popular. And car-loving, bike-hating DeBlasio, in our densest city, is their progressive?
kar nels
It's also a myth that there is no crime in authoritarian states, as if they would report it honestly anyway. As the joke went, murder and robbery are illegal because the state doesn't like the competition.
Garry Kasparov
There’s a story behind every warning sign:
You Had One Job
I can't express how bad job hiring processes are. I really don't know that many people and I can make a long list of people who have been rejected for even consideration for the job and then through crazy work arounds, get the job and are highly valued.
kar nels (commenting on an article about how algorithms are used in HR)
The average 1960s issue of Mad Magazine presumed its reader was well-versed in pop culture, global and national politics, American history, contemporary social issues, classical literature, and Broadway melodies. It was routinely dismissed as brain-rotting trash for children.
Ira Brooker
Baby Danny Devito (1947):
@franksfluids
It's so funny that our national narrative is "lazy Americans take voting for granted and don't do it" and not "the US has consistently worked to disenfranchise huge swaths of the population and ignore the will of others so maybe it is understandable ppl don't vote"
Kaitlyn Greenidge @surlybassey
Propagating plants always feels very emotional to me. Like a parallel to my inevitable future as a hardy flower that intentionally creates and raises offspring alone.
Cacje @CJ_Hende
According to the FBI, white-collar crime is estimated to cost the United States more than $300 billion annually. $300 billion a year. By comparison, the FBI estimates that the combined costs of all robbery and theft that occur in a single year have never topped $5 billion.
@girlziplocked
A new species of plant has been discovered in Brazil, and it has the largest leaves of any plant! It’s called Coccoloba gigantifolia and scientists are already working on its conservation as its native range is currently being cleared for development:
Nature Is Weird (Photo by C Ferreira & R Gribel)
It’s funny when progressives protest from outside of the political process they’re reprimanded for not understanding how politics works and urged to get in the game. When they get in the game and begin to change how we do politics they’re condemned for not falling in line.
Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
"In Kansas, state prisons don't allow Angie Thomas' young adult novel, The Hate U Give, or Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye — but they do allow Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf." Book censorship in U.S. prisons is arbitrary, soul-crushing, and self-defeating: Who Should Decide What Books Are Allowed In Prison? (from an NPR story)
Laila Lalami
Now that is great visual design. h/t Fipi Lele:
Cory Doctorow
I know these may not be our biggest problems, but if we’re going for big structural change, I would like to see a unified Democratic government eliminate the retirement pre-funding requirement for the Postal Service, and overhaul the IRS to simplify filing. Related, whenever we next have complete Democratic control of the federal government, I need legislators to fucking go big or go home. Move everything you can, make it hard to undo, and act as if you don’t expect to keep your job. Now or never.
erica mauter
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