I want to get this October Twitter round-up posted while it's still November 1, so like last month, I'm going to run it in reverse chronological order without grouping by topic.
But reading through all of it, I see that the topics include all my usuals, plus these particular ones from the month: voter suppression in the 2020 election, Republican Court-packing/Amy Coney Barrett nomination, the second presidential debate, the planned abduction of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, the vice-presidential debate, and Mafia Mulligan "recovering" from COVID. And remember, I posted a few threads earlier in the month already because I just couldn't wait (on rebalancing the courts and misogyny and white supremacy).
Here we go.
"To those who do not know that the world is on fire, I have nothing to say." –Brecht
Ilya Kaminsky
As a civil rights historian, it’s been an interesting day watching scenes of a mob chasing a bus in one southern state and a sheriff pepper spraying peaceful marchers in another.
Kevin M. Kruse
Halloween is a day when white people finally get asked "What are you?"
Hari Kondabolu
The choice isn’t just between candidates. It’s between a society where facts and laws matter and human beings have basic dignity or a purposefully decaying country where fascists keep us imprisoned in conspiracy theories and petty, murderous feuds while plundering everything.
Jared Yates Sexton
Guess I’ll get a dog when the vaccine is here and people realize they don’t want their quarantine pet anymore.
Kristen Schaal
An actual picture of Schrodinger's cat:
unix-ninja
Ballot envelopes postmarked by Election Day are necessarily in the government's possession when voting stops. The growing'movement among GOP-appointed judges not to count them is akin to throwing out ballots collected at polling places because they weren’t driven to HQ quickly enough.
@nycsouthpaw
Just in case there was any lingering confusion — voting stops on Election Day every year. But counting has always stretched on for days after. No state certifies their results on election night.
Ginger Gibson
Covid or no covid, cruise ships are floating islands of obscene inequality, filling the oceans with shit and the sky with diesel exhaust, and should be preserved only as drifting penal colonies for oil executives.
Ben Ehrenreich
I feel like someone should be able to do something about the president traveling the country spreading plague. Also that as a plot point in a book, it would not be believable.
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
FACTS about counting votes:
-Ballots are counted after Election Day in every single state
-No state certifies a winner on Election night
-In 18 states ballots can arrive after Election Day per state law
-In 29 states military ballots can be received after Election Day
-The president has no control over how votes are counted
-Election results are certified at the state and local level
-The president has no authority to prematurely declare himself the winner of the election
Ari Berman
NYC has almost as many traffic deaths as homicides, but there’s no formal institutional support for the victims. Families get informed about the deaths of their loved ones by these insensitive police that don’t have good training for this and see it as routine, boring work. And they get retraumatized.
Angie Schmitt
As I watch as conservatives by and large shrug their shoulders or simply ignore the mass death around us, I'm starting to get this weird, nagging suspicion that the 10 investigations over 4 years into the deaths of 4 Americans in Benghazi was maybe not undertaken in good faith.
Chris Hayes
A Harley Davidson e-bike. If you'd have said this 5 years ago, people would've stared at you:
Kees van der Leun @Sustainable2050
What exactly do Black conservatives do for their communities? I am curious. Because every Black liberal I know at least donates and volunteers even if they are not totally my personal cup of tea. Besides looked haggard and backing bad policy, what are Black conservatives doing?
Mikki Kendall @Karnythia
Ayn Rand really got away with convincing 50 years of pompous-but-intellectually-insecure high school students that a lack of compassion was the same thing as intelligence
Dana Schwartz
“USDOT and NHTSA have the authority and resources to make streets safer. What they don’t have is the political courage to do it.”
Angie Schmitt
Democrats: Care for everyone.
Republicans: Burn the democrat cities
Democrats: Everyone should have health care
Republicans: Only white people should have medicaid push everyone else off
Democrats: Count every vote even those against us
Republicans: You guys sure are saps huh
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
Seeing lots of *aha!* tweets about France and Germany keeping schools open during new lock down. But they're also providing massive subsidies businesses and workers stay afloat while closed. US is going in a different direction...
Jennifer Berkshire
Racism is just fascism that hasn’t gotten to YOU yet.
Dan Martineau
I’ve got this crazy idea. Stick with me for a moment. People vote before a deadline. And then we count all those votes to see who won. Back in my day we called that American democracy. I guess today it’s socialism?
Dan Rather
All of the Federalist Society people who told me I was overreacting in 2013 after John Roberts destroyed voting rights in Shelby County v. Holder really owe me an apology. They won't because they knew I was right in '13. They're dishonest and don't apologize to black people anyway.
Elie Mystal
You think “all politicians are corrupt” cynicism makes you wise, but it just makes you a mark. Your belief is false—some politicians are very corrupt, some modestly corrupt, some squeaky clean—and your false belief leads you to accept big corruption as normal when you shouldn’t.
Nicholas Grossman
The problem with whiny, unhappy men who think dominating other people and imposing cruelty on the weak will make them happy is that they won't just be miserable in obscurity. They are devoted to taking power and making others miserable. If the last few generations of men had just hugged their sons more, we'd be in such a better place. Hug your sons, guys. Tell them you love them. Make the future better.
David Roberts
Renewables will dominate because of plunging costs. Gas is a bridge to nowhere, both for the climate and for investors:
Ramez Naam
Under Trump, audits of the 24,000 richest Americans have fallen to just shy of zero -- literally. Working poor averaging $12,600 are now 9x more likely to be audited than those averaging $30m/year of income, official data shows.
David Cay Johnston
Climate change isn't a technical problem, it's a social one. Wealthy and powerful men have incentivized the system to enable their wealth and power to increase at the expense of *our planet's entire biosphere and billions of people*. The answer to the climate emergency is demanding radical changes to an unjust system, not spraying chemicals in the sky.
Eric Holthaus
I am staunchly anti-horror movie. I do not want to be afraid for recreational purposes. I understand this is a minority position but here I stand regardless.
Jane Coaston @cjane87
Every single vote for a republican, at any level of government, is a vote against democracy. From sea to shining sea the party has no plan to persuade voters, only to fight against people being allowed to vote.
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
In the coming days, it’s going to be incredibly important for my media colleagues to refer to tactics of election stealing as just that, and not as a political strategy for winning.
Anand Giridharadas
1927 farming advice:
Noah J. Sabich
2000 was still the most important election of my lifetime, a hinge on when so many things turned, pathways into futures forever closed to us. Just thinking about Bush v Gore, as one piece, opening the door to a new way right-wing judges could preserve white minority rule. But also allowing 9/11 to happen (which Gore might have done too!), and invading Iraq (which he would not have done). And at least C02 cap and trade.
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
To demand I support a woman just because she’s a woman, with no regard to whether she upholds/works to destroy patriarchy, is to reduce feminism to a Sorority of Pinky Swears -a mockery of feminism that benefits those who benefit from patriarchy: white women like
Mona Eltahawy
New longitudinal study: The more that parents pressured their toddlers to solve a puzzle correctly (a measure of "achievement-oriented controlling behavior"), the more that these kids reacted to failure with helplessness ... 3+ years later!
Alfie Kohn
In case you know someone who’s still undecided yet. #VOTE:
Eric Feigl-Ding
Since the liberal position on voter suppression is it’s bad and the emerging conservative position seems to be that it doesn’t work, how about we compromise and don’t do it?
Matthew Yglesias
Cleveland’s newspaper was basically closed down this year. Now we have basically no one covering education for a city of 400,000 with its public school system entirely remote.
Angie Schmitt
The Republican Party cheated. They cheated because they're scared they can’t win through the democratic process. They're scared they can’t win when the American people decide the outcome. They're scared they can’t win when elections matter. And they're right.
Elizabeth Warren
You cannot be a first and second amendment maximalist. The positions conflict. If you stand in front of me with a weapon, then my speech will be limited by your threat.
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
The idea that open-carrying a weapon in a crucial public space is just a free-floating right that comes with no implied threat is very obviously insane.
Chris Hayes
One of the reasons planners get so excited about curbless design is that curbs are for cars. When a design is absent them, odds are it was designed with people in mind, first:
Jennifer Keesmaat
It's wild to get 4 years into someone's presidency and still be unsure whether they fully grasp object permanence.
@ItsTheBrandi
my broad view is this: for however much responsibility a victim has, it is also the case that we train police officers and give them generous pay and benefits with the expectation that they take on some amount of danger and maintain the peace with lethal force as a last recourse. what exactly is the point in the training and the benefits if police officers will, instead, resort to lethal force at the first sign of any danger to themselves. why must ordinary citizens possess forbearance and control but police can follow their fears with question?
@jbouie
It's not the climate collapse that will kill us, but the mass deaths from war and starvation in the social collapse that precedes it. If we do not act to prevent climate carnage, we choose it with every breath.
Extinction Rebellion
Across the pivotal northern swing states the GOP position is:
— You can’t start counting ballots when they arrive to provide an early count
— Quick results are so important that you can’t let late-arriving ballots be counted
Sit with that for a while.
Matthew Yglesias
Court expansion is entirely within the rules of the Senate and the Constitution of the United States. In fact, court expansion is the preferred constitutional maneuver for a democratically elected Congress to influence a court that no longer responds to popular majorities.
Elie Mystal
I was recently telling a friend about a concept using shipping containers for bike parking. The space for one large sedan could easily accommodate covered parking for 10 or more bikes:
@CourtneyCyclez
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was confirmed 96-3. Amy Coney Barrett only got 52 votes — including 2 from unelected Republican Senators.
Kaivan Shroff
Number of Canadians working in oil and gas: about 68,000.
Number of Canadians working in renewable energy: about 300,000.
Dr. Genevieve Guenther
The Supreme Court is an inherently anti-democratic institution; the last line of defense for the ruling class. The fact that a single lifetime appointment made by Trump threatens gay marriage and abortion rights is proof that we need a whole new system.
La Riva 2020
Time to start thinking of public transportation as a basic right of citizenship rather than a fitfully, insufficiently provided second fiddle to cars.
David Roberts
Every time you see a person riding their bike on a sidewalk, recognize it for what it is: failure by the local government to build streets that are safe enough for people of all ages and abilities.
John J. Bauters
Hard to believe how quickly “forced hysterectomies” disappeared from the news cycle.
josie duffy rice
The Republican Party needs to go away. None of their espoused principles are real. They’re not fiscally or socially conservative, they’re not pro-life or pro-troop or pro-small government. Their only real principle is a raw, unprincipled pursuit of power at all cost.
Jared Yates Sexton
Originalism is racist. Originalism is sexist. Originalism is homophobic. Originalism is just a fancy word for discrimination.
Ed Markey @SenMarkey
Douglas Mackinnon @drmuig
the iconic trump supporter isn't working class. He's a middle-aged guy in a small town who didn't go to college, inherited the family business, and is substantially wealthier than his neighbors.
Noah Berlatsky
Jeff Bezos makes $3,715 per second. In the time it takes me to write and send this tweet, he will have accumulated more wealth than the average Black household has in 70 years. And Amazon pays no taxes
@telushk
FACT: Trump has spent significantly more time thinking about how to dig up dirt on Hunter Biden than thinking about how to deal with COVID
Judd Legum
McConnell correctly frames Barrett’s confirmation as a GOP policy achievement, since she will implement Republican policies that are too unpopular to pass democratically. Democrats can either expand the court or concede defeat for decades.
Mark Joseph Stern
I analyzed 30 news articles about Trump and Biden's climate policy exchange at the last debate. All 30 discussed how Biden's climate policy could harm the oil industry. Only five discussed how Trump's climate policy (nothing) could harm all of us.
Emily Atkin @emorwee
It's hilarious how much conservatives have invested in the idea that this porcelain-fragile pissbaby is the very alphaest male
Scott Lemieux
Why is it ok for reporters to ask Democrats if they have a socialist agenda and it isn’t ok to ask GOP if they have a fascist agenda?
Matthew Dowd
[Boogaloo Boi Ivan] Hunter was stopped by police in Austin, TX five days after shooting up the 3rd precinct in Minneapolis [in May]. He had weed and multiple guns (that weren’t his) in the car. Police let him go. Read this and remember George Floyd was lynched for potentially using a counterfeit $20 bill
Erin Maye Quade
Folks keep confusing the need for security and public safety with the need for police forces while refusing to acknowledge all the ways police forces continually prove to be a threat to public safety and security.
Bree Newsome Bass
good government is good. competence and expertise in public service is good. the reagan attack on government as government, as de facto a problem, is part of what's killing Americans right now during this pandemic decades later.
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
Perhaps most importantly—and often overlooked: Gun control is suicide prevention. Most gun deaths are suicides. Not "many." Most. Sixty. Percent. At this point, you could define suicide as the primary purpose for handguns.
@JackFeerick
Car culture is colonialism. Car culture is white supremacy. Car culture is toxic masculinity. Car culture fuels climate breakdown. Car culture is individualism. You cannot untangle or dismantle any of these without simultaneously tackling the others.
@happifydesign
By 2040, an estimated 40% of the American population will live in five states. In the Senate, that means roughly half of the population will be represented by 16 senators; the other half by 84.
Derek Thompson
Photo pretty well sums up Trumps "leadership":
Langdon Winner
Trump's relentless lying was supposed to "work" by getting voters to give up on the very possibility of truth. But in the end, it created clarity. The story has become that only one candidate lies all the time about everything, and the other doesn't.
Greg Sargent @ThePlumLineGS
Every time I see a "thin blue line" flag, all I can think is: "The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature." –US Code, Title 4, para 8-g
@pptsapper
Is America really the world’s wealthiest nation, or is just a nation with a lot of very wealthy people?
Mark Evans @markje4
The Republican Party has rendered itself incapable of handling problems that require collective action in response. Its approaches to the pandemic, climate change, and health care are one and the same: individual responsibility is the way forward. Whoever dies, dies.
Greg Greene
By this point I really shouldn’t have to still say this, but a Hummer is still horrible, deadly and irresponsible even if it’s electric. If you don’t understand why, start going back through my tweets until you do.
Brent Toderian
The USA needs democratic reform and that includes not only ending GOP voter suppression, gerrymandering etc but also the stuff Democratic machines do in New York and other states.
Jeet Heer
In the case of Robert Bork, a big issue was the possibility that he supported rolling back civil rights, especially for black citizens. It would be nice if the media stopped giving credence to the view that opposition to this was an "escalation." Such opposition should be a given. The tanking of Bork is only an escalation if you assume that maintenance of white supremacy is a defensible position. At the time, it was viewed as so *indefensible* that opposition was bipartisan. But, for some reason, people keep uncritically accepting the modern GOP's version.
Mangy Jay
Biden has pledged to end subsidies for oil and gas (as well as coal), which takes us 90% of the way to ending fracking. Fracking cannot survive economically without subsidies.
Robert Howarth @howarth_cornell
Many activists have given up on getting Joe Biden to back the Green New Deal or ban fracking. But if Biden wins November’s election, some still see a chance to influence his climate policy by advocating for who fills his cabinet positions.
InsideClimate News
They are really gonna slam Barrett on the court a couple of days before the election and claim “elections have consequences.” Then when they lose they’ll claim “preserve the norms” and I’m afraid Schumer and Biden will let them get away with it. In the world of “elections have consequences” we need to make sure that remains true in 2021.
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
Boogaloo Bois. Proud Boys. Grand Wizards. Why do all of these Nazi dipshits use names that sound like a 5-year-old made them up?
The Volatile Mermaid @OhNoSheTwitnt
Not to answer a sarcastic tweet genuinely, but: Because they cloak themselves in the plausible deniability of their own absurdity, and it is self-conscious absurdity; they do it to make people pointing out how genuine the threat is seem ridiculous, and to amuse themselves
Talia Lavin @chick_in_kiev
It feels like reality is splintering because consensus reality in the 20th century was predicated on white supremacy and hidden oppression and now that white supremacist rule is in trouble fascists are attempting to reconstitute control by means of more overt oppression.
Jared Yates Sexton
Today's epiphany, 50 years late: Air conditioning destroyed the paperweight industry.
pete hautman
1) you can't rank racism
2) ranking racism only benefits white people
3) allowing white people to decide how racist anything or anyone is DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE AND IT NEVER WILL
Rhiana Gunn-Wright (responding to Mulligan saying he was the least racist person in the room)
This is fascistic voter intimidation on proud display inside a Miami polling location:
Scott Linnen
“Consumers don't have meaningful power. Humans aren't ambulatory wallets. Citizens have power. Join a movement. Nothing you do individually will make an appreciable difference. This is a collective action problem.” —Cory Doctorow
Sven Mastbooms
I would accept Merrick Garland as a concession in exchange for impeaching Kavanaugh and Barrett, but anything short of that, no.
Misha Handman @FrivYeti
Blows my mind that neither Trump or Pence got asked in the 3 debates about why so many of Trump's top aides have ended up arrested or in jail. It's everyone who's been close to Trump - how can this not be something worthy of discussion?
Simon Rosenberg
Why are they calling it a "substantive" debate? Did I miss the part where Trump said anything substantive? Was it when he said he knows more about wind or when he said Biden wants to shrink your windows? Refraining from taking a literal shit on stage isn't substantive.
Michael Ian Black
"Love the sinner, hate the sin" is *civil language* that dehumanizes and marginalizes people; it is very nice hate speech
Paul Thomas
show me a Latino who loves Trump and I’ll show you a lost soul in denial of their roots
@_chrisgarcia
We should be developing a new climate-friendly economic system that eliminates poverty, modernizing our healthcare system and infrastructure and providing needed technology for all our educational institutions. Instead we’re debating whether to wear masks amid an airborne pandemic There’s actually no scenario under which we have a booming economy without a plan to actually address climate change. It’s wild how folks have really made an idol of the economy while refusing to take the actions needed to prevent certain economic disaster.
Bree Newsome Bass
Researchers have found that almost all road-users break the law, BUT: motorists break road rules to save TIME while cyclists do so to save their lives.
@DrivingReal
i will remind everyone that the one instance of american authoritarianism — the one party terror state that was the jim crow south — was built on minority rule and a commitment to “liberty” over democracy.
@jbouie
It trips me up to occasionally remember how little forest cover Europe has relative to the US:
Nolan Gray
Amy Coney Barrett is a bad judge who makes bad judgements that hurt people. If you spend a lot of time talking about her but don't center that fact please reexamine your priorities.
Tommaso Sciortino
If Republicans want Democrats to come together and work in good faith bipartisan fashion ... you go first motherfuckers.
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
Joe Biden's relationship with his son is the antithesis of toxic masculinity and the Republicans hate it and that makes perfect sense. All is in order.
WhiteNonsenseRoundup
Decarbonization is a huge project that will require sustained Democratic majorities. The way Dems got those for the New Deal was in no small part by actively making lots of people's lives better, in ways they could see, feel and broadcast. Climate policies have to do the same thing
Kate Aronoff
Polls often say Americans trust Republicans with the economy, but every Republican majority for 40 years has made the economy worse for poor and middle class people.
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II
If you did a Venn diagram of the people who say we shouldn’t give money to overseas aid because we should look after people in the UK and the people who say the poor in the UK should feed themselves, it would be a perfect circle.
Howard Walker
When people talk about "faster buses" as the goal, rather than having transit that's more expedient than cars, they very often solve the wrong problem in the wrong ways.
@happifydesign
One thing that irritates me about the school-opening conversation is that many seem to assume that there could possibly be a good outcome for kids and we just need to identify what it is. Once the pandemic hit, there was never going to be a good outcome. Only less bad ones.
Mangy Jay
Not an original insight, but: California NIMBYism is especially bizarre when you realize that like 80% of what's being "protected" looks like this:
Nolan Gray
White people as a whole like to vote for Democrats in crisis and vote for Republicans in times of plenty. It’s almost like they know whose better at governing but pretend they don’t.
Monjula Ray (she/her) @queerBengali
So which group of billionaires is funding all these anti-critical race theory initiatives in multiple countries when the planet is on fire?
Ebony Elizabeth Thomas @Ebonyteach
Hello. White privilege = white people not having to deal with the systemic racial discrimination/violence. How is this controversial?
Pran Patel
Donald Trump has not visited any of the 54 countries in Africa as President (via BBC), the first US chief executive not to visit the continent since Reagan.
(((Charles Fishman)))
“wE arE VERy sErIoUs abOUt sTOPPInG HUmAn TRaFfICkinG,” says the administration that revealed to a court today that its policies had orphaned 545 more kids.
Greg Greene
Fun fact: As a six-year-old, Tom Lehrer went to summer camp with Stephen Sondheim.
@Hugo_Book_Club
If we 1) elect biden and 2) flip the senate then 3) we can fix what's broken, the GOP will not be able to stop us from saving American democracy and helping those in need. but squishy Democrats might be able to stop us. That's where the work is going to be.
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
[a mother is breastfeeding in a public space, literally nourishing a human life]
OH DEAR GOD THAT'S DISGUSTING COVER YOURSELF
[a prominent journalist masturbates on a work Zoom]
...this is not the time for judgment or finger-pointing. Who among us hasn't...don't be a prude...!
@PiaGlenn
Just a reminder that we spend massive amounts of money to clear our huge road infrastructure of snow just so cars can get around as fast as possible every winter and nobody questions the cost...
Brandon Lust @AmericanFietser
New cars come with speed governors! Instead of requiring them to be used, we pay these (often) unstable men like $150k a year including pensions and equipment to conduct these random, dangerous stops. It's just THE stupidest way to handle what is legit a dangerous behavior.
Angie Schmitt
This 2020 depression is the most unequal in its social impact in US history. Capitalism, like earlier systems, will most likely collapse/implode because of intolerable social inequalities.
Richard D. Wolff
I’ll be happy if the next 6–12 weeks are the darkest of the entire pandemic.
@pattho (reacting to Dr. Michael Osterholm's pronouncement that “the next 6 to 12 weeks are going to be the darkest of the entire pandemic”)
New York City could split up into 14 pieces, each of which would declare statehood. We would have 28 senators. Each of these new states would still have more people than Wyoming.
Mark D. Levine
“People will use the infrastructure that you give them and because we’ve built cities for cars, everyone wants to drive. But if we were to start building cities for people to walk in, people will change their behaviour and will live longer and happier lives.”
Renee de St. Croix
I think about this often:
Noah Cowan
Home improvement shows used to be gentle-daddy Bob Vila quietly sanding down a door. Now it’s married couples screaming towards divorce while they flip a bungalow in Sherman Oaks.
Janine Brito
Trump voters are unable to explain why they like Trump (without saying untrue things) because it’s a cult. They like him personally. They like how he makes people outside the cult mad. These are not governing principles.
Touré
The burned western US forests most likely won’t regenerate as forests but rather as chaparral scrublands because the warming climate won’t be sustainable for forests.
Prof. Jason Box @climate_ice
When anyone laments how “our country’s so polarized right now” I just wanna say - That’s because the Republican party’s openly supporting white supremacists and I don’t think we need to “meet them halfway” to that!
Janine Brito
How The Discourse works: Democrats have a public discussion about maybe someday considering doing court expansion and get savaged by Republicans, and thus the press, for norm violation. Republicans just go ahead and sabotage the Census for political gain to virtually no debate.
Matthew Gertz
1 out of every 1000 Black Americans has died of coronavirus btw. Not 1 out of 1000 who gets it, 1 out of every 1000 total
@ClayHartedGhoul
Humans built the pyramids but can't figure out how to make last mile deliveries without a 7.5-ton lorry.
@CultOfCyclists
If you were to key this car, the full force of the law would come down on your head. If this car ran over your kid, everyone would shrug and forget about it two days later:
Angie Schmitt
We need a dangerous vehicle tax and commensurate insurance rates.
Bill Schultheiss
Pretty annoyed with everyone that seems really personally involved with either side of the schools reopening debate. We need people who are honestly trying to help us understand the situation. The stakes are huge. It’s not just fodder for some ego trip online grudge match. While we're at it giant middle finger to state leadership that provided no clear framework or accountability structure for making these decisions.
Angie Schmitt
Black and Indigenous voice are not missing from curriculum. They were erased. There is a difference.
@MrsRacquelB
Every Republican president has been worse than the last for decades now. The next time I literally don’t know how they’ll get someone worse than trump, but they will.
Monjula Ray (she/her) @queerBengali
People always talk about the sap who brings a knife to a gunfight but they're not nearly as bad off as the mark who brings a bottle of wine because they thought it was a dinner party:
jelani cobb
Electric vehicles remove local air pollution, but likely also remove much environmental guilt... leading to more driving, larger vehicles, and in end, less livable places.
Owen Waygood
It's like they accept the Biden campaign's framing that this is between a monster and a decent person — they just think voters will prefer the monster.
Jeet Heer
The GOP are just the jerks from junior high, gathered together in one big club
Noah Smith @Noahpinion
My opponent, GOP Sen. David Perdue of anti-Semitic attack ad infamy, just mocked Sen. Harris' name as "Kamala-mala-mala-whatever" at a Trump rally. We are so much better than this.
Jon Ossoff, US Senate candidate, GA
Hi I'm a Christian conservative who believes in angels and talking snakes but I need to see more data on climate change
Viktor Winetrout @Cpin42
I hope men are noticing how much the Republicans are trying to make a complicated honest loving forgiving father/son relationship seem like weakness
Andy Richter
They don't hate *being* racist. They just hate being *called* racist.
Jesse Wegman
It's amazing to me how many "climate leaders" are invested in justifying/assuaging guilt for the extremely destructive, completely unsustainable, and high emissions luxury choices and hobbies of themselves and other white people. Like, you're basically trading in indulgences, but what you're doing is less sustainable and more unethical than those ever were in the Catholic church, you know that, right?
@happifydesign
One of my quiet longstanding takes is that this country can never move forward until Reagan is generally understood to be one of our most destructive presidents.
David Klion
I approve this mixed metaphor:
Reagan Arthur
An “originalist” reading of the Constitution would disqualify Judge Barrett, or any woman, from serving on the Supreme Court or from owning property or voting. “Originalism” is a cover for deeply unpopular and un-democratic policies, not some kind of serious judicial philosophy.
Rep. Barbara Lee
One million chestnuts will free up 11,236 acres previously devoted to grain. Unlike grain it can be planted close to homes minimizing supply lines. In addition other things can happen under them: towns, grass, native plants, perennial food, grazing. will never need tillage again. 100 million will free up 1,123,600 acres or 1750 square miles. Or an area 41 miles x 41 miles. It would provide a sixth of us US grain nutrition every year for thousands of years. All that farm land can be restored to native grassland and returned to Native communities.
BuildSoil by planting one million edible chestnuts
As that guy pointed out, police don't go after the armed protestors. Get armed and protest is a terrible message to send to people.
Dino Bjelopoljak @maple_1981
Casinos are permitted to open, but people are warned not to have a few friends over for an indoors dinner or let their kids trick-or-treat. Things that are profitable reopen. But those that aren’t are cast as irresponsible. Is this cognitive dissonance sustainable?
Adam W Gaffney
My opinion on originalism is that the Constitution was written by and for slave owners.
jennifer c lena @WITWhat
I want to talk more publicly about how, at least for me, leadership often feels like you have never done enough and are letting everyone down. Our capitalistic/individualistic American culture is magnified in politics and I think it hurts everyone - movements and individual leaders.
Mitra Jalali
A defining feature of young GOP Senators is exorbitant sanctimony and self-righteousness combined with astounding moral cowardice.
Chris Hayes
This is like a fake headline from a bad pandemic movie:
Chris Steller
Don't wanna be grumpy old guy but: Amy Coney Barrett's views on climate change really don't matter. Her legal opinion is that the vast bulk of the administrative state is unconstitutional, including the parts devoted to mitigating climate change. That's what matters.
David Roberts
The insane thing about the US is that we could get a lot farther by just paying businesses to stay closed and for sick people get stay in a quarantined hotel with unlimited high speed internet. It isn't tyranny that bothers Americans, it's paying the so-called undeserving.
K. Chen @tznkai
So, when you hear moderate Democrats say "we don't have to pack the court, we can just pass a NEW voting rights act" PLEASE KNOW that the first thing a 6-3 Republican court does to a new voting rights act is to strike it down on the same logic it struck down the old one.
Elie Mystal
I really wish we had reasonable campaign finance rules. Like ... you should have to limit your campaign spending to the amount of the average school district budget in your state.
@StPaulBikeScum
So a fetus in the first trimester should be protected by the state but a 1 week old newborn born in a detention center can die of a treatable illness and that’s the parents’ fault because they tried for a better life. Did I get that right? This Christian stuff is confusing to me.
@houndinater
If you #DoTheMath, you'll find that traditional development — even your tiny downtown barbershop or small apartment building — generates more wealth for your community than a shiny new Walmart of Costco.
Strong Towns
Can we talk about how wealthy/lucky you have to be be to have seven kids and an uninterrupted career as a lawyer? They found this one freak case and they’re going to use it to pretend having kids outside a carefully managed timeline/limit isn’t a trap door into poverty most of us
Angie Schmitt
85 to 90 percent of the American population is still susceptible to the coronavirus. Deaths will soar into the 100s of thousands and beyond. Infection ≠ immunity. Herd immunity is the **wrong term.** This is a strategy based on nonconsensual genocide.
Jonathan Metzl
@drschweitzer
To listen to Amy Coney Barrett describe herself as an originalist is an exercise in absurdism because an originalist understanding of the Constitution would not permit her—as a woman—to serve on the Supreme Court, or even to hold her current position.
African American Policy Forum
Just a reminder: Amy Coney Barrett would never have become an appellate judge if GOP Senate had confirmed President Obama's nominee Myra Selby, a Black woman, to Indiana seat on 7th Circuit in 2016. But GOP blocked Selby, kept seat open and Trump filled it w/Barrett.
@LeslieProll
If you paid $12.99 a month for an Amazon Prime membership, you paid more to Amazon than it paid in federal income taxes over the past 3 years combined—after making nearly $30 billion in profits. Yes. It's time to make corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
Bernie Sanders
I voted. I voted for Biden. And now I'm on a scenario prep call discussing how (should he win) we are going to organize to push his administration towards our goals for a #JustTransition and #ClimateJustice. We're not easing up the pressure.
Dallas Goldtooth
in a country where your ability to live is tied to your ability to earn a wage, an hours long wait to cast a ballot is a de facto poll tax
@jbouie
An honest one-sentence summary of the past 500 years is brutal reading: Tens of millions of Indigenous people around the world have been killed and forcibly removed from their lands in order to make rich and powerful white men even more rich and powerful.
Eric Holthaus
Nearly two thousand workers told OSHA their company punished them for raising coronavirus safety concerns.
Eric Umansky
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but “E Pluribus Unum” does not mean “If it’s not a problem for me, it’s not a problem.”
@syntaxjunkie
“Last week, the Office of Special Counsel determined that Mr. Trump’s Agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue, had improperly used his position to push the president’s re-election by promising more help for farmers.”
Jeneen Interlandi
A year from now it's possible a lot of people on Twitter, including myself, will be arguing that Joe Biden's presidency isn't progressive enough. Can you imagine how wonderful that will be?
Frank Conniff
Dave sneezed. I was going to say “bless your soul” but started to say “bless your heart” and what came out was: “Bless your hole.”
Lindsey Aster Silas
So, this line from Amy Coney Barrett, "But it is not a position I sought out" is an utter, obvious lie. Think of it this way: if somebody offered you a position you "never sought out" would you take it literally over the dying objection of a dead woman? Would you dance on that woman's grave?
Elie Mystal
I pocket acorns as I walk: I can’t help it, it’s just an instinct:
Leif Bersweden
the basic problem for “expanding the court is an unacceptable response to our attempt to cement it as an ideological ally” is that the courts do not exist outside of the system of checks and balances.
@jbouie
Court packing: Since 1969, Democratic presidents have appointed 4 Supreme Court justices, Republicans have appointed 15 (4 of them by presidents who lost the popular vote). McConnell refused even to hold hearing on Obama's nominee.
Robert Reich
The class divide has never been so apparent in media. Many journalists grew up rich, went to $20k a year prep schools, are obsessed with fights over vocabulary, symbols, fringe boogeymen -- ignore crumbling public schools, unsafe streets, rampant poverty as secondary concerns.
Lee Fang
This idea that the building trades aren’t exclusionary that women/poc just aren’t interested in them is the biggest bunch of bullshit I have ever heard in my life. The apprenticeship system is how they exclude basically everyone who isn’t the nephew of an existing plumber.
Angie Schmitt
This absurd hearing is happening today because Amy Coney Barrett is the last hope for a desperate, undemocratically overrepresented party trying to cling to power just a little longer, and impose the agenda of billionaires, giant corporations, and far-right extremists on our country.
Elizabeth Warren
Yes, and: when people tell you they're opposed to "commercial" use in neighborhoods, they are never ever picturing this. More likely a CVS with giant parking lot. It's on planners for failing to communicate this vision, amid lots of abstracted talk of "density" and "mixed use":
Daniel Herriges
This SCOTUS hearing biggest farce I’ve ever seen. Senate GOP blocked Merrick Garland 237 DAYS before election and said voters should choose next justice but now rushing to confirm Amy Coney Barrett 22 days before Nov 3 when over 9 million people already voted
Ari Berman
A student who plagiarized off the web and ran it through software that paraphrases to conceal the theft referred to President Ulysses S. Grant as Ulysses S. Award. Kids, don’t cheat.
@drphillips2001
Easily the most corrupt presidential administration in history; makes Teapot Dome look like a bake sale.
Noah Smith @Noahpinion
JUST IN: Tax records show 200 entities funneled money to Trump properties while reaping benefits from White House
The Hill
I just saw someone refer to mansplaining as 'correctile dysfunction' so please excuse me while I laugh hysterically for 6 hours
@Kyatic
I see that some wag has updated the classic graphical observation about how much street space is available to people by adding some pavement parking:
Jon Owen
Joe Biden is not raising taxes on 82% of Americans but he should.
@IDoTheThinking
Instead of National Coming Out Day could we please do Stop Assuming Everyone Is Straight By Default day and it’s just every day
Sam Berger
“If the US were to match the traffic death rate of Sweden, approximately 26,000 American lives a year would be saved.” –Angie Schmitt. American politicians either don’t know this or know it and don’t care.
Dan Marshall
Someone was using plumber as a synonym for working class today. Do people realize those guys are all small business people that can bill like $150 an hour. Why do we use them as a proxy for working class and not daycare teachers again if it's really about $$$ again? It's also a field that uses an apprenticeship system that keeps it mostly white and male.
Angie Schmitt
The "economy" is ultimately our material relationship with each other and with the rest of the living world. Do we want that relationship to be based on extraction and exploitation? Or do we want it to be based on reciprocity and care?
Jason Hickel
Almost 2 in 3 voters say Trump did not take appropriate precautions to reduce the chances of catching the coronavirus, and 6 in 10 say they do not trust the administration to provide complete and accurate information about his health. 48% trust not at all.
James Hohmann
Many (white) urbanists get on my nerves with the obtuseness about how fareboxes: on transit, bikes, scooters discourage their use. I get you have a good job and paying $2.50 for a 8 block bus trip or a bike ride doesn't seem like an advert for a car but for normal people it does.
@IDoTheThinking
Just to be clear about why Rs oppose government relief in an emergency. It's not because they think it won't work; it's because they're afraid that it *will* work, and help legitimize other government action to help Americans
Paul Krugman
I support the unarmed ambassadors to counter hiring BART cops but think: BART is essentially paying for foot traffic. If stations had shops rather than soulless parking lots and dead concourses, the activity would discourage attacks, harassment and make riders feel safer w/o cops
@IDoTheThinking
@FacesPics
There's a reason librarians have fought tooth and nail to make it so the government can't demand a list of everyone who has taken out a specific book. Meanwhile Google just handing over people's IP addresses to the Feds
Evan Greer
The same folks who say America is the freest, richest, best, most advanced place on earth are the same ones who say it can’t afford to feed, house, and educate its citizens for free
@Hannah_illo
The last 80 years of American political history summarized: the anti-communism part worked, but not the anti-fascism. Oh well, nobody's perfect.
Langdon Winner
I’ve often thought before that traffic violence is basically Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” playing out in real life. Random baseline violence that no one seems willing to change or even acknowledge.
Dan Marshall
There’s a lot of talk these days about newsroom diversity. I wish I could stop thinking about it, but I can’t. And I’m realizing what some folks want isn’t diversity of thought — it’s a room full of faces to reaffirm the way they’ve been doing things.
Asma Khalid
Cannot for the life of me understand why Democrats still parrot the idea that fracking is a booming economic powerhouse instead of an unprofitable house of glass built on lies and cheap debt that's imploding in real time and laying off tens of thousands of people in the process
Kate Aronoff
Your regular reminder that a corgi crossed with any other breed just ends up looking like a corgi disguised as the other dog:
@soapachu
Left-wing men do not take the sexism their female peers face routinely seriously. It is obvious. And are too often a party to it.
Angie Schmitt
Whenever a politician talks about achieving liberty and prosperity without democracy, get ready to take to the streets.
Garry Kasparov
US media has been providing white RW terrorists with an air of legitimacy by referring to them as "militia" even "activists" for as long as I can remember. Trump isn't the only one enabling and empowering them.
@BethLynch2020
“She got what was coming to her.” That’s the president of the United State’s reaction to a bunch of white supremacist domestic terrorists planning to kidnap and likely kill a woman politician. “It’s her fault.” Fuck this racist, sexist, bigoted president and anyone who supports him.
Danielle Campoamor
I can't think of a more paradigmatic example of motivated reasoning that the right deciding that the glib phrase "republic not a democracy" justifies wildly disproportionate political representation for rural white people.
David Roberts
Women get interrupted, ignored and disrespected a lot and it sucks. But white women can't understand fully what Harris experienced and we need to be careful not to think we do. We can identify with a portion of her struggle, but we can never fully feel/internalize the totality of it.
Brittany Johnstone @SchoolPsychMsB
If you’re still an undecided voter I want to see the last 10 decisions you’ve made about ANYTHING ...
Chris Redd @Reddsaidit
"radical environmental agenda" = I hope this planet will exist and be habitable in 50 years
Emma Gray @emmaladyrose
Joe Biden doesn't need to ban fracking, he just needs to stop bailing it out. Thank you and good night!
Amy Westervelt
Let this debate seal the deal for you. It’s time to stop treating the Republican Party as a potential partner in solving the climate crisis, and start seeing it as the immovable obstacle it’s always been.
Emily Atkin @emorwee
Pence spent a long time claiming that systemic racism didn't exist, calling it an "insult" to law enforcement. Then he repeatedly cited stats about systemic racism in the California justice system in order to criticize Harris.
Molly Hensley-Clancy
@postsecret
my uncle said he wouldn’t discuss trump with me unless I said one good thing he’s done so I said he’s normalizing makeup for men and it didn’t go as I planned
@danielsogay
Big Pharma company Gilead is charging $3,000 for a coronavirus drug that costs them less than $10 to produce. If that’s not looting, I don’t know what is.
Robert Reich
Why did SUVs happen? Marketing and advertising. It is grim that those sectors have never been looked at from sustainability.
Aarne Granlund
The best case scenario is that in january Biden takes over with an economy in shambles, mass unemployment, unchecked pandemic, right-wing courts determined to veto all legislation, and republicans demanding Hillary Clinton be indicted.
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
Never mind not being able to empathize with people who are Not Them, [the Right] can't even imagine that there *are* people who are Not Them. They assume because they're shitty people and hyper-partisan, we must be the exact same but for the other team. Along similar lines, a right-wing Christian once accused me, as an atheist, of doing whatever Richard Dawkins told me to. I didn't even know who that was at the time, but it was clear they assumed atheists all read a book, follow a leader, go to meetings as if it were a religion.
@Mikevago
It seems like a good time to remind everyone that Trump paid for Turnberry with $200 million in cash, and we still don't know where that money came from. Anyway, have a nice day!
@_ElizabethMay
Almost everyone in US politics acknowledges that if
1) more people voted, or
2) voters were fully informed about the policy priorities of both parties ...
... Democrats would win every election. One party *relies on failures of democracy* and we're all just like, ok, sure.
David Roberts
All the insanity, incompetence and cruelty of the Trump response to Covid has been identical to the entire Republican party's response to climate change for 20 years.
Chris Hayes
Kind of hard not to notice how the two Republican Presidencies since 2000 have ended in complete and utter disaster: economic catastrophe and thousands upon thousands of Americans needlessly dead.
Marcus H. Johnson
Conservatives will always treat the legal exercise of power by Democrats as if it were coup. Ignore them.
Elect Biden
Flip the Senate
Fix what’s broken
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
In 1894, the NYT called Ida B. Wells a "slanderous and nasty-minded mulattress" for daring to tell the truth about lynching. 100 years later she earned the Pulitzer Prize. These efforts to discredit my work simply put me in a long tradition of Black women who failed to know their places.
Ida Bae Wells @nhannahjones
Decent chance McConnell suckered Trump into pulling the plug on stimulus. Party is in bust out mode. McC likely sees that Trump is finished, probably senate majority too. Get the Court seat and leave the economy as wrecked as possible to ensure a Biden admin is stillborn.
Josh Marshall
As the First Amendment has actually been interpreted, our country does not have freedom of religion. What it has is the freedom to use Christianity — and no other religion — as an excuse to enforce a conservative political agenda.
Sandra Newman
This is the right framing. Housekeepers at the White House have tested positive. He is endangering low-wage staff for his own vanity. (And everyone he's endangering, from Secret Service agents to housekeepers, paid more in federal taxes than he did).
Brian Klaas
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” —Frank Wilhoit
Norman Ornstein
So Trump drops a big (approx 40x60 feet) expensive political sign in my largely Hispanic neighborhood in Houston TX about a week ago which upset me .... I wake up this morning and this is what the sign looks like now hahahahah:
Rogelio Garcia Lawyer
The network effect with cars is an insidious feedback loop. The more people have cars, the more society is built around them, the worse-off people without them become until not having one because more of a burden than having one.
@nicoleamurray
Occasional reminder from an American historian that "voter registration" originated as a voter suppression tactic
Jake Anbinder
In America, our Presidents have generally avoided strongman balcony scenes — that’s for other countries with authoritarian systems.
Michael Beschloss
The fact that most Left parties buy into growthist narratives is an extraordinary coup on the part of capital. As long as growth is the prime objective, it's tough to argue for anything (labour rights, climate goals, taxes, nationalization) that might pose a barrier to profits. If the left abandons growthist narratives and sets new objectives (human and ecological flourishing), they will find it much easier to argue for the progressive reforms for which we have fought for so long.
Jason Hickel
White people are the most segregated group in America.
David Roberts
Trump concludes his monologue from his hospital suite, where he is being treated for a viscious disease that's killed 213,000 Americans with, "We love what's happening."
Chris Hayes
What annoys me about local housing debates is the people who campaign against allowing any more private housing and then complain all subsidized housing doesnt go strictly to the lowest and no income folks. Make up your mind. Do you want to subsidize the middle class or not?
@IDoTheThinking
Paris mayor:
-No more diesel cars allowed in city in 2024
-No more fossil fuel powered cars allowed in 2030
-Hopes to electrify taxi fleet soon
Yonah Freemark
5% of US air pollution is caused by gas-powered lawn mowers, and using a mower for 1 hour is equivalent to driving a typical car for 350 miles
James Medlock
The New York Times has done more interviews with self-described racists than with victims of COVID or their families
Josh Hinton
Trump not only joyfully played in traffic, he encouraged others to join him and mocked and bullied those who didn't. He and his playmates got hit by a car and we're supposed to weep for them. Pence will be holding rallies next week and Kayleigh is still not wearing a mask.
Yvonne Left @LeftYvonne
i loathe the terms "flyover" or "middle of nowhere." why are they described as such? because there is a lack of settler metropole? everywhere is somewhere. everywhere has important Indigenous places. if you think you're "in the middle of nowhere," you don't know where you are.
Kim TallBear
Declining empires provoke divisions at home as different groups try to minimize their losses at others' expense. If civil wars erupt, empire decline accelerates.
Richard D. Wolff
Toxic masculinity in vehicle form:
Angie Schmitt
My dad, a contractor who has worked in construction his whole life, says that cars are costumes we put on and that pickup trucks are "butch drag."
Angie Schmitt
if you need bookends there is something wrong with your shelving
Steven Poole
I would argue that wishing a fascist a speedy recovery is actually NOT the moral high ground
@Whatapityonyou
How should we measure police use of force? If we just count each incident, we might miss how severe the bad ones are. If we only count excessive force, we miss avoidable cases. Turns out, it really matters how you do it. This is the science that makes accountability possible.
@DrPhilGoff
COVID-19 has been good to America's billionaires: Since March, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, and Elon Musk have seen a 59 percent increase in their total wealth, from $358 billion to $569 billion, according to @IPS_DC
Economic Hardship Reporting Project
Kellyanne Conway was OUT. She was DONE with these people. She came back and, apparently, GOT COVID, because she couldn't resist going to celebrate before RBG was even in the ground the nomination of a justice who wants to take away women's rights and health care.
Elie Mystal
Please don’t lose sight of the fact that the man who is now getting the best healthcare in America has lawyers in court trying to take yours away.
@houndinater
Remember, the biggest reason we DON'T have a coronavirus relief bill right now is because Mitch McConnell wants liability protection for employers who treat their employees the way Donald Trump has treated his staff and donors.
Elie Mystal
The people who said we need to sacrifice grandma to keep bars open are now saying we need to cancel the presidential election until Trump feels better.
David Glasgow @dvglasgow
Who gets sympathy when something bad happens to them and who gets blamed for it is part of how privilege and hierarchy (race, gender, income etc.) function in our society.
Angie Schmitt
Honesty in advertising:
Alex Steffen
Thinking of starting a business that offers medically induced comas
Bill McKibben
Trump says he doesn’t believe in Socialism but he’s about to get tens of thousands of dollars worth of public healthcare that he only paid $750 for
Jason O. Gilbert
It's a pretty sad state of affairs when we have a POTUS who has lied so much to the American people that when he states he has tested positive for a deadly virus, that he has called a Democratic hoax, we can only wonder if he is lying to us again.
@Kerry4taz
Parking spaces are THE most undervalued urban asset in the United States (or anywhere), with the national parking subsidy equal to almost half the US national defence budget, or almost 5 times the national education budget. Via @FastCompany
Brent Toderian
If I told you a society had a "Department of Homeland Security" that caged foreigners and defended an illegally armed white youth for crossing state lines with his right-wing paramilitary and murdering protesters, what society would you guess that was?
Adam Weinstein
If it was possible to stop climate breakdown and heal ecosystems while at the same time ending global poverty and providing a good life for all... but if this required significant reductions to the consumption of the rich and a shift beyond capitalism... would you do it?
Jason Hickel
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