June 2023: what a month of awfulness.
Canada was on fire, sending smoke to choke everyone else as the winds shifted. Heat built beyond normal ranges in multiple places, killing people, and the oceans warmed to unknown levels. Information came out about Trump's classified document storage practices in bathrooms and ballrooms. The Supreme Court corruption scandal continued, with news of Samuel Alito's billionaire-funded fishing trip to Alaska by private jet.
Our minds and eyes were assaulted with way too much stuff about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., including a brouhaha over a challenge to debate his anti-vaccine views on the Joe Rogan Show. Some billionaires and one of their sons were killed trying to view the ruins of the Titanic, dominating the news and recovery efforts for days, while refugee migrants on ships died in the Mediterranean and got almost no help or coverage. The month ended with a slew of (mostly painfully bad) Supreme Court decisions, especially back-to-back on the last two days. Those decisions ended Affirmative Action at colleges, allowed discrimination against LGBT people in "expressive" businesses, and overruled college debt forgiveness, among other things.
Everything below the line is quoted from the attributed Twitter account, and is shown in reverse chronological order, except some of the images, which I sometimes move ups or down in the order for better visual balance.
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"If we go beyond 2°C it’s very likely that we have caused so many tipping points that you have probably added another degree just through self-reinforcing changes. The moment that the Earth system flips over from being self-cooling — which it still is — to self-warming, that is the moment that we lose control." –Prof. Johan Rockstrom
David Roberts @drvolts
Thinking about Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. And Justice Sonia Sotomayor. All your life, you wanna be a part of positive change. You work your way to most powerful room in theland, in spite of margins you're on, in spite of the scars from all the glass ceilings you've shattered. And you end up sitting next to Clarence Thomas, the walking embodiment of self-hate and soul rot. And Brett Kavanaugh, a rapist and the prototype of caucasity and mediocrity. And Amy Coney Barrett, whose picture should be next to the word "Karen" in the dictionary. You sit there as Ketanji and Sonia: Black woman and Latina woman, unable to stop your colleagues from doing lasting damage to country you've worked so hard for. You've done your part. Yet, this still happens. And you have to breathe the same air as these enemies of progress.
Luvvie
I honestly don’t give an F if some bigot doesn’t wanna make a gay wedding website in 2023 but it is kind of a tell that there’s never a lawsuit about a Catholic baker who won’t do a cake for a straight couples third wedding because the pope didn’t annul it.
Tim Miller @Timodc
CHRISTIANS: The majority group has the RIGHT to treat the minority groups like shit!!!!!!1
ALSO CHRISTIANS: *rapidly becoming a minority group*
God @almightygod
John Roberts comparing loan forgiveness [in his court decision] to French Revolution's eating the rich. I almost can't believe my eyes.
Anthony Michael Kreis
A meta-analysis of nine different models concludes that Inflation Reduction Act will reduce US greenhouse gas emissions between 43 and 48% below 2005 levels by 2035. Such an epochal turning point, understood and appreciated by so few voters.
David Roberts @drvolts
I can't believe there are Christian pastors who wonder why young people want nothing to do with religion anymore.
Hemant Mehta
That the US claims to be a Christian nation *and* has been bamboozled into hating and hyper-policing the POOR while worshipping the RICH is one of the great modern scams
Paul Thomas @plthomasEdD
In all seriousness, social progress terrifies people who realize they have slightly less power and influence than they are used to. They will do anything to undo progress and put the people they deem inferior back in their place. Bad news for them is we aren’t going anywhere.
roxane gay
For the first time in U.S. history one quarter of the nation's 40-year-olds have never been married:
Richard Fry @r_fry1
At a certain point we have to stop granting any legitimacy to this Supreme Court… Any government where 6 individuals can unilaterally strip millions of people of their constitutionally protected civil rights is a government that should not exist. It’s not that complicated to me
Bree Newsome Bass
Should have packed the court in ’21 as soon as everyone was sworn in. We're letting 6 unelected justices (mostly appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote) destroy decades of progress, opinion by opinion
Avocadoplex
Unbelievable that this overweening Court, which thinks itself some kind of untouchable superlegislature issuing policy decisions from on high, is ALSO absolutely immersed in some of the most egregious corruption we've ever seen in the judicial branch.
Will Stancil
Fifty-plus years of the modern conservative project, and they've won. Let's be clear about this: they've won. Now, can we please stop giving air time to unserious people and start building a long-haul strategy? It will take just as long to get our rights back.
Caleb Niggles @ThaCalebDume
It's telling that a "victory" for Christians at the Supreme Court never means more assistance to the poor or marginalized. It means they get to shove their religion in other people's faces or discriminate against groups they hate.
Hemant Mehta
A little weird tho that a private business CAN choose to DENY a customer because he/she is a member of a protected class, but a private university CANNOT choose to ACCEPT a customer because he/she is a member of a protected class.
David S. Bernstein
The Supreme Court decided against gay rights in a case that didn't involve any gay people and against debt forgiveness in a case where the lenders were fine with the issue. They're not acting like judges, they're acting like an unelected superlegislature that can't be checked.
Aaron @BobbyBigWheel
I don't know what to tell you guys. We have to expand the Court. If we don't expand the Court, no liberal policy will be allowed to exist for the rest of our lives. That's why Republicans stole the court, that's why rich people pay for justices. Govern yourselves accordingly.
Elie Mystal
“I never personally owned slaves.” …But you defend the legacy of slave owners, hoard the wealth and land stolen from Black and Indigenous people and oppose any efforts to dismantle structural racism. How exactly are you different?
Bree Newsome Bass
mike luckovich @mluckovichajc
Let’s talk about Black physicians (5% of all physicians). We have statistically lower MCAT and Step scores. However, Black physicians taking care of Black patients decreases mortality. If we let less Black applicants into medical school, more patients will die. Period.
Kamali Thompson, MD, MBA
Just finished my behind-the-wheel test and got my driver's license. No wonder 40,000 Americans die from auto accidents a year. That test was pathetic, a five-year-old could roll the car around the block. And you only have to test once in your life? Jesus christ.
Darrell Owens @IDoTheThinking
Fact: Minneapolis opened the first bridge across the Mississippi River, anywhere along its length. So to honor our nation's birthday, Minneapolis is closing a bridge over the river at 10pm for the better part of a week.
Chris Steller
To paraphrase David Roberts @drvolts, the central conflict in American politics is between those who think America is defined by a set of ideas (to which anyone can belong) and those who think America is a people (of specific ethnic, religious and racial origin).
Omar Wasow
Fun that we're watching SCOTUS slowly dismantle the modern liberal state and we have decades more of it to look forward to and the only thing Democrats seem capable of doing about it is wringing their hands and writing angry tweets.
David Roberts @drvolts
At this point Biden could be pulling a weekend at Bernie’s and I’ll still vote for that dude. A one term right wing President literally destroyed 60 years of progress in this nation. We’re one Supreme Court vote away from going full Jim Crow.
@MissNikkiStar
Our cities aren’t “crowded” or “full,” they’ve just dedicated half their space to car storage.
Strong Towns
Roberts' civil rights jurisprudence--and that of the conservative legal movement more generally--is full of 'helping is the same as hurting' headassery, it's despicable, and it needs to be stamped out in entirety.
@AudreLawdAMercy
Before you begin your thinkpiece, the Supreme Court DID NOT strike down Affirmative Action. Admission preferences for legacies, donors, employee families and special recommendations are still allowed. The Court struck down Affirmative Action for everyone except WHITE PEOPLE
Michael Harriot
In one paragraph, Justice Sotomayor says it all: "Ignoring race will not equalize a society that is racially unequal."
Deepa Iyer
"Drivers, cyclists and pedestrians maimed and slaughtered at rates that would be an emergency in any other rich country. Instead of doing anything, government, paralyzed by bureaucratic inertia and comically in bed with vehicle industries, twiddles its thumbs."
William Lindeke
What a map. Welcome to the new pyrocene?
Ryan Stauffer @ryans_wx
Having a harder time wrapping my mind around the routine warnings to not breathe outside air than the pandemic warnings to not share indoor air. All I can say is, cue the real estate boom for big houses with enclosed climate-controlled yards.
Wedge LIVE!™
During the first third of the twentieth century, Germany had by far the greatest research universities in the world. The Nazis destroyed them in 1933, and 90 years later, they have yet to recover: only one German research university today ranks among the global top 50.
Nils Gilman
"Wrong track" is fast becoming a meaningless indicator of voting intention.
TrumpsTaxes
I've been working on air quality and climate change for a long time, and even I have been shaken by just how quickly things have gotten this bad in the past couple of years. I never thought I would see wildfire smoke push AQI levels over 300 in Cleveland.
@twkovach
There’s nothing in car commuting comparable to falling into a friendly conversation with a fellow bike commuter. In a car every other driver is a rival for “your” space. On a bike, you’re sharing the journey together.
John Lloyd @boyonabike62
You think a person on a bike rolling through a stop sign angers a driver? Try coming to a complete stop, looking in all directions, then proceeding with caution.
Tom Flood
"If we had the pedestrian-fatality rate of a country like France, we could save 5,000 lives a year. That is an incredible opportunity to improve our country" –Yonah Freemark
Aaron Mendelson
@DustinFinn
We've seen photos of literal Nazis holding public protests in Florida, so of course Rick Scott is here to say: "I’m warning socialists and communists not to travel to Florida. They are not welcome in the Sunshine State."
Kevin M. Kruse
BREAKING: Stephen Miller, one of Trump's top immigration advisors, advocated using U.S. drones in 2018 to BLOW UP migrant boats full of unarmed civilians, according to an upcoming book by a former Trump Department of Homeland Security appointee.
Jon Cooper
Rising corporate profits were the largest contributor to Europe’s inflation over the past two years as companies increased prices by more than the spiking costs of imported energy.
@IMFNews
It's so interesting to see Democrats enact all these policies that disproportionately benefit deep-red rural communities. A striking contrast to Republicans' unceasing attacks on cities and urban residents.
Mark Joseph Stern @mjs_DC
it doesn't matter if you consider it a fetus or a baby
it doesn't matter if you think life starts at conception or birth
it doesn't matter if you think fetuses have constitutional rights or not
no human in this country is entitled to the organ functions of an unwilling person
lady elizabeth @lizabethdevon
I really wish stories about SCOTUS's grotesque and growing corruption made clear that it has happened *as more conservatives are put on the court*. This problem is an outgrowth of US conservatism, not "court culture" or whatever abstraction. The same happens to any institution, public or private, when modern US conservatives gain control. It's not a f'ing coincidence.
David Roberts @drvolts
I'll say it again: Fare-free transit won't shrink the number of cars in your city, and it won't reduce emissions. If you want to encourage more people to ride, focus on making service faster, more abundant, and more reliable.
David Zipper
I think about billionaires a lot (kinda my job?) so let me say this: Most every billionaire on the planet would happily kill you for an extra few points on their investment. This isn't theoretical, it literally happens. They literally make decisions they know will kill people.
Mo Weeks @mo87mo87
The importance of traditional masculinity to the blue collar white realignment to the GOP is huge. They see a kooky guy [like RFK] who’s all roided up and they think REAL MAN. So far removed from white collar culture. Another universe.
Mike Mitchell @MikeMitchNH
I think RFK Jr. is badly mistaken, but that is beside the point. If he believes his claims about the pharmaceutical industry pushing harmful vaccines, why doesn't he support taking away their patent monopolies? if we take away the money, they wouldn't do it.
Dean Baker
Experts: Here's 15 different ways to deal with misinformation and conspiracy theories that engages those curious about them without spreading them. We've been working on this for decades.
Ross Douthat: Pah. I'm not reading that. I'm a conservative intellectual! I just make shit up.
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
Confidence, borne of ignorance, is one of the hallmarks of the public figures of our age.
Charles C. Mann [commenting on yet another stupid pronouncement by Elon Musk]
Listening to my kids in the other room…
3yo: “What’s a wind turbine?”
6yo: “It’s something that catches the wind and turns it into electricity.”
3yo: “Oh cool.”
6yo: “Isn’t that incredible?”
3yo: “Yeah, it is!”
I swear I did not make this up. My heart bursts!
David Turnbull
The peppermint moth. (Photo Matthew Kritzer):
Weird Animals
“Every billionaire is … a factory for producing policy failures at scale.”
Fenrir @SCROTUSinChief
Clarence Thomas Is What He Wrongly Accuses Black Folks of Being. Thomas has elevated “personal responsibility” into a prerequisite for citizenship. Yet he fails his own test.
thenation.com
This is very true about Clarence Thomas, but it's also more broadly true: reactionaries who talk about "personal responsibility" always mean "poor people deserve no help." They are *never* referring to their own behavior.
David Roberts @drvolts
modern town planning focuses too much on regulating private space (that people can often sort out themselves), and too little on providing public amenities (that the market will tend to under supply). This results in expensive houses and lacklustre streets, for example.
@StuartBDonovan
NHTSA study: car crashes cost Americans $340B, or $1,035 per person, plus an additional $1.37 Trillion (with a T) due to loss of life and serious injury. Every year.
John Lloyd @boyonabike62
I love that more people in the U.S. are beginning to realize that we're not so much a country as a publicly owned, vertically integrated car manufacturer/highway construction firm with a side line in defense contracting and Medicare
Matthew Lewis @mateosfo
I-95 will be driveable after 12 days of work. When I called 311 to report an open fire hydrant on my block, the city told me it would take 30 days.
Erica Palan @errrica
Teamsters and Urbanists should join forces to reduce the size of grocery delivery trucks allowed on city streets:
@Qagggy
The ugly truth is that the corruption of the Supreme Court is so obvious it demands investigations and impeachment attempts. But inaction reveals something damning: the illusion of legitimacy is more important to the powerful than protecting our rights.
Jared Yates Sexton
Americans are soooo loud. Here in France, nobody talks on trains or subways, in the airport people speak in hushed tones, and even the little kids are pretty quiet. Helps that the transit itself is whisper silent and that every establishment isn’t playing music, no TVs.
Clara Jeffery
Good news for economy class air travelers: When boarding, if you see an empty seat in first class, you can now take it because, according to a Supreme Court justice, if it’s empty, it’s free.
The Hoarse Whisperer
If you have a gun to protect your family, you are, as a matter of cold hard statistics, endangering your family and everyone you know.
A.R. Moxon @JuliusGoat
I'm not sure it's widely understood that we basically know how to decarbonize everything in the energy system now. There are areas and sectors where the solutions remain quite expensive, but we know how to bring down costs over time. Jets, ships, steel, concrete -- all known.
David Roberts @drvolts
I have been queer and out long enough to remember this vividly: straight people objecting to being called “straight.” The majority only wants to name the minority, never to be named by them, because that means the minority group also has agency (the real thing they don’t want).
S. Bear Bergman
We're going the wrong way. New report estimates the number of people killed by cars while walking is the highest since 1981. Supersizing American roads and vehicles has supersized pedestrian deaths ~89% since 2010. This is a 100% preventable crisis.
Janette Sadik-Khan
What explains this dramatic increase in fatalities after dark? Could it be an increasing number of "gig" drivers without commercial DLs or training, driving their private vehicles more miles at more hours of the day, all days of the week? We need better reporting on this:
@bcmFietser
i'll leave it for you to think about the contrast of corrupt justices who have no time for mistakes that harm ordinary people but insist that they have endless time to correct their own
Jamelle Bouie @jbouie
TERFs and GOP pols spend an awful lot of time thinking about other people's genitalia and THAT'S JUST WEIRD.
Women's March
The first English bribery statute from the 1380s banned judges from taking a "robe, fee, pension, gift, nor reward of any but the King, except reward of meat and drink, which shall be of no great value." The word bribe, according to the prominent seventeenth-century jurist Sir Edward Coke, “commeth of the French word briber, which signifieth to devoure, or eat greedily, applied to the devouring of a corrupt judge.”
Zephyr Teachout
I missed this: during an unprecedented heat wave that has killed dozens of Texans, Gov. Abbott just signed a law that would ... eliminate mandatory water breaks for construction workers.
David Roberts @drvolts
Thinking about that time when Justice Elena Kagan wouldn’t let her high school classmates give her lox and bagels, because it is unethical for justices to accept gifts.
Ian Millhiser
RFK joining Trump and DeSantis at a far right conference is definitely a sign he's a serious contender for the Democratic nomination.
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
The tomato frog of Madagascar puffs up and secretes a thick substance when predators try to eat it. (Photo Maroansetra):
Weird Animals
Two big takeaways from the I-95 collapse in Philly:
1) Even with a critical interstate disrupted, our road network was fine. Traffic grows when you increase lanes and shrinks when you reduce them.
2) The US *can* move lightning-fast to build infrastructure. We choose not to.
David Zipper
Politicians, officials, and national media were predicting months of traffic calamity leading to a supply chain crisis and inflation as a result of the I-95 collapse in Philly. It never happened. Traffic normalized after less than a week.
Aaron W. Gordon
"The US will need solar panels on 10.3M acres...to meet the goal of decarbonizing the economy by 2050." That's less land than we use for ethanol production to supply ~5% of US transport fuel. On most acres solar is 100x more land-efficient than bioenergy.
Richard Waite
Why would any rich person pay all that money to go on a submarine when you could purchase a Supreme Court Justice?
Frank Conniff
It's an obvious point, but it breaks my heart—how could a Justice who engages in this behavior [Alito] have openly heard an argument about what corruption means in American history in a case like Citizens United?
Zephyr Teachout
2008 v. 2023: I don’t think people realize the extent to which parked cars degrade public space:
@Qagggy
5 privileged thrill-seeking men pay £200k to view a sunken boat; navy, air force, coast guard, state air guard rescue, front page news. 500 desperate safety-seeking people pay everything they have to risk a sunken boat; 100 kids dead, no rescue, news silent. Humanity is wrecked.
Emma Smart @smartyfish
Another code red unhealthy air pollution day in Minnesota this summer with worst ozone in 11 years. As MPR news reports: “TRAFFIC is the main source (>50%) of ozone precursors.” Transportation systems have to change if we want clean, healthy air to breathe.
Move Minnesota Action
*Five hundred* people drowned trying to reach Europe last week and it was covered but my god contrasting it to the coverage of this Titanic submarine is just appalling to see, so much more focus, experts on, analysis and interest from the public. Certain lives are so cheap to us
Seána Grant @GrantSana
Unpopular opinion from this English major: air, space, and sea travel should be for the good of all humanity, *not* private enterprise. We're watching a huge tragedy unfold. And for what?
Ebony Elizabeth Thomas @Ebonyteach
Trump doesn't pay his bills. As a result, he's been involved in over 3000 lawsuits. This doesn't happen to honest businesspeople. He's a crook:
Daryl Elliott
So paying 200K to do entirely unnecessary shipwreck tourism will earn the state's resources and global sympathy should things go awry, but fleeing for your life and desperate livelihood merits being left to drown in large. As long as we are clear.
Priyamvada Gopal
'Scotland's biggest offshore wind farm will generate enough energy to power two thirds of homes in Scotland.' Turbines twice the height of Big Ben. 104 turbines constructed, 70 generating power, ten left to build. It’s a long season.
Dr Paul Dorfman
Dubuque:
@mighty_flynn
Let me confirm, being related to a president does not make you a worthwhile candidate.
Ted Roosevelt V
The fact that Republicans are maintaining this national narrative about Democrats being groomers even as roughly a Republican a day is exposed as a sex creep is ... a testament to something. Nothing good.
David Roberts @drvolts
The more the Republicans turn themselves into the party of election-conspiracy grandstanding and antivax paranoia (not to mention the party of losing and losing and losing), the more those business interests are going to come oozing into OUR tent.
Naomi Kritzer
We need to remember the only reason RFK is running as a democrat is because Steve Bannon persuaded him to. Goal = “chaos agent.”
KiKi Kimbro
Recently, I've been interviewed several times about Moms for Liberty and their hostile takeover of our school board and community. Every single time, I'm asked the same question: How has this divisiveness affected your community? My answer is simple: Your premise is wrong. There is no "divisiveness" in our community. There are astroturfed groups, funded by those who aim to destroy public education. I didn't get any more left over the last decade. I have always had the same morals and ethics. Those haven't changed. I check myself rather frequently. What changed is the rise of extremism. Literal Nazis walking the streets in daylight. White supremacists creating policy.
Diana Leygerman @dinachka82
The wealthier you are, the more likely you are to own and drive a car. That’s extremely obvious if you think about it for more than ten second but everyone just ignores that and makes shit up because cycling to work is seen as something only middle class hipsters do. And the poorer you are, more likely you are to get run over or get respiratory diseases linked to air pollution, or be reliant on public transport to get anywhere. Wouldn’t know that by the way middle class journos talk about urban planning!
Martin Concagh
Consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy. I know you want it to be that way because you want us to exist solely to make babies and stay home and raise them for you, but that’s not how it works.
Dr. Jennifer Lincoln | OBGYN
WANTED: first-person shooter-type game where you go around beating up countless guys operating leaf blowers.
William Lindeke
Well, whose church is it then?
Alexander Glass @Glassworks18
Standing in solidarity with survivors of sexual violence in conflict means turning rhetoric into response by:
Listening to survivors.
Holding perpetrators to account.
Ensuring international humanitarian law is upheld at all times.
António Guterres
Workers sue the elite, secretive club Bohemian Grove for wage theft. The private club, which has included Reagan and Nixon among its members, is accused of failing at times to pay minimum wage and failing to pay overtime and provide breaks for 16-hour workdays.
Steven Greenhouse
Any scientist truly afraid of being proven wrong in a public forum absolutely would not make it through graduate school. Do you have any idea what presenting a seminar in front of a department full of senior experts is like? Or a thesis defense?
Katie Mack @AstroKatie
Facts exist. What we’re experiencing is an assault on shared reality. The people who are leading this assault profit from exploiting the scared and the gullible and should not be indulged as good faith actors.
Leah McElrath
The clash between US cities and their suburbs has always been inevitable. Suburbs expect cities to be clean, heavily-policed parking lots for their cars. And for much of last 75 years, cities have obliged. But it was always a land use Ponzi scheme. And it’s reached the end.
Matthew Lewis @mateosfo
It is genuinely terrifying to me how popular and widespread the pre-scientific approach is these days -- the resurgence it's having. Because communities built around slick-talking charismatic figures are *doomed*. It's a recipe for irreconcilable differences that can only be settled by violence: tribe vs. tribe, forever. That's what the right wants, but now it's being joined by this f'd up reactionary-centrist Rogan-style movement and all kinds of people are being sucked in.
David Roberts @drvolts
I know you did a PhD and wrote a book on this complex topic but if you don't debate my horse on stage at the county fair, why should I believe you? my horse can clomp his hoof once for yes and twice for no
Hamilton Nolan
It's clear we're not doing a very good job conveying to kids why science works. Lots of people seems to have the idea that "science" is just some kind of alternative religion, like you're being asked to trust these priests instead of those. But it's *not* blind trust.
David Roberts @drvolts
Luxury cruises are punctured garbage bins on water: In Europe's waters, 218 cruise ships emitted last year as much poisonous sulphur oxides as 1 billion cars. Just 1 of 3 air pollutants from the ships’ smokestacks, to which add all their waste crimes
Assaad Razzouk
All anti-vaxxers have to do to win a debate is to pretend there's a *debate* among anyone who actually knows anything. There isn't. Same with anti-trans bigots. Election stealers. Climate crisis deniers. It's all so easy for them. And so hard for anyone with any decency. Fun.
@LOLGOP
Biden has significantly reduced the use of drones, and has withdrawn US troops form areas of conflict. If this doesn’t generate a political reward - and it hasn’t thus far - little reason for future Presidents to follow suit
Don Moynihan
In just the last week, about as many acres have burned in Canada as burned in California all year in its off-the-charts record-breaking fire season of 2020. The total area burned is now 6 million hectares, about 15 million acres or 23,000 square miles.
David Wallace-Wells [this was posted on June 18]
I think I'm going to stop calling wealthy, industrialized nations "developed countries." If you take the climate threat seriously you realize that industrialization by fossil fuels cannot represent the final phase of human development. Our language should reflect this fact.
Dr. Genevieve Guenther @DoctorVive
Nothing exemplifies a complete failure to understand the point of science like demanding to settle a scientific issue through the medium of emotionally persuasive public shouting
Katie Mack @AstroKatie
Noise can take years of our lives. Quantity and quality. W.H.O. recommends less than 40 dB as average. Do emergency vehicles need such loud levels? Can they be moderated based on level of emergency? Max noise on all vehicles, including motorcycles. Ban gas leave blowers!!
Gil Penalosa
Is there anyone less trustworthy than a toddler with a garden hose?
Nathaniel Hood
The number 1 way to make transit safer is to ensure many people are riding it 24/7.
Darrell Owens @IDoTheThinking
Audre Lorde, 1987, from Robert Giard Photographs:
Beinecke Library
GOP: We want a balanced budget!
So repeal Trump’s $2.1T billionaire tax cuts?
• GOP: NO!
End corporate welfare?
• GOP: NO!
Audit bloated military budget?
• GOP: NO!
How will you balance the budget?
GOP: Ban free school lunch
(Not even exaggerating)
Qasim Rashid, Esq.
“About 10.5% of all energy in Montana is used just to mine, transport and refine fossil fuels. We don’t need to do that when we have clean renewable energy like wind, water and solar. Wind comes right to the [turbine]; solar comes right to the rooftop.” @youthvgov @350Montana
Mark Z. Jacobson
“Montana has so much renewable energy potential, it’s incredible." The only reasons Montana hasn’t adopted fully renewable portfolio is lack of policies and a legacy of investment in fossils. "Transition would result in cheaper, less polluting energy."
Mark Z. Jacobson
The "migration crisis" is overwhelmingly about the Western ruling classes making other countries increasingly uninhabitable and then militarizing their borders against the dispossessed.
Jason Hickel
Reminder that we need shelters open for days like these as much as for days when it’s cold:
Jordan van der Hagen @TheJvandy
Every one of the GOP's tentpole issues is wildly unpopular: expanding access to assault rifles, banning immigration, lowering taxes on the rich, cutting social programs, forcing pregnant people to bear unwanted children, etc.
Cory Doctorow
71% of the country supports gay marriage, and there are 2000 (two thousand) trans kids in the entire country. Not like this year, ever. Period. In all of the years. There are 30 "trans athletes in school sports". Thirty. In the entire country. They're not a party, they're a cult.
@Hexpatriot
The fossil fuel economy requires 535x more mining than the clean energy economy succeeding it
That's 535 times more mining
535 times more mining
535 times more mining
535 times more mining
535 times more mining
[repeating for oil trolls and for the people at the back]
Assaad Razzouk
What’s wrong with “race holidays?” July 4th celebrates when WHITE PEOPLE gained independence. Columbus Day celebrates when WHITE PEOPLE “discovered” the New World. Juneteenth celebrates the end of the race-based, forced labor system WHITE PEOPLE created. “White” is a race.
Michael Harriot
"An average car emits 243.8 grams of CO2 per person per km travelled, while a Tesla Model S charged on the state's grid emits 209.1. An e-bike emits just 6 grams!" Making e-bikes accessible & affordable urgently needs to be a government priority
Alison McCormack
apparently a lot of cis women need to hear this, but a world where our faces, bodies, hair, breasts, clothing and voice are constantly scrutinized as "not feminine enough" is infinitely more dangerous than a world where trans women might also be in the bathroom and need to pee
Janel Comeau @VeryBadLlama
Everything is happening. While climate scientists have been talking about North Atlantic sea surface temperatures these last few days, what's going on with sea ice in Antarctica is even more extreme, nearly 2.4 million km² below the 1991-2020 mean, with a big jump down today:
Prof. Eliot Jacobson
I hope to God I am wrong, but to me, it is looking increasingly as if we have reached some sort of tipping point, with the global temperature, sea-surface temperature, ice loss, and other parameters, all going through the roof.
@ProfBillMcGuire
The world is literally burning, and we're still choking down corporate news coverage of anything and everything but the climate crisis and who is behind it.
Yellow Dot Studios @weareyellowdot
Remember when Australia burnt and everyone said this is the turning point.
Then USA burnt and that was the turning point.
Now Canada is burning and this is the turning point.
So when are we going to turn?
@Shrop_Allotment
turns out AI models collapse quickly once the AI trains on data created by other AIs instead of original data by humans. three things follow from this:
i) AIs must continue mining human content in order to function, thus can't substitute for human labor
venturebeat.com
The AI feedback loop: Researchers warn of ‘model collapse’ as AI trains on AI-generated content
As a generative AI training model is exposed to more AI-generated data, it performs worse, producing more errors, leading to model collapse.
Terence Renaud
It's incredible that covid-era Medicaid expansions (2020-2023) led to a greater net increase in insurance coverage than the entire ACA implementation (2013-2017)
James Medlock
Good context for this is that Medicaid expansion, even partial, was responsible for at least half and up to 75% of insurance gains 2010–2018. If you want people to get insurance, give them insurance, not consumer options!
@crulge
you know what:
scott poulson-bryant @SPBPHD
We have tremendous state capacity to build things powerful people actually want built. I-95 will be fixed within a year at most. We renovate working airports and build huge stadiums pretty quickly. Tying up public and active transit infrastructure in red tape is a policy choice.
Max Dubler
The degree to which Mexican immigration has economically, culturally, and spiritually revitalized Midwestern cities cannot be overstated.
Adrian @blagojevism
Brandolini's Law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, was coined in 2013, which is not to say the phenomenon dates from then: "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it."
Jay Rosen
If churches really practiced what they preach, they would convert every single one of their millions of commodious headquarters into housing for the poor and homeless. Instead, they invite you in for an hour every week to give them money.
RobertOSimonson
Radical activism is not about having wild ideas about what's right or moral. It is about making YOURSELF a target of the oppressor in the pursuit of equity. Taking a pay cut because your coworkers are being paid unfair wages. Being violent to highlight anti-violence.
Squidwords Sami Ellis @themoosef
Last night in San Francisco, 9 people were shot. Back when Chesa Boudin was DA, almost every article about crime in the city centered him, as though he were to blame for every incident. Now that he’s been replaced, AND VIOLENT CRIME IS UP, none of these articles mention the DA.
David Menschel @davidminpdx
Whoever came up with “Bed, bath, and beyond a reasonable doubt” deserves some kind of prize.
Pamela Thurschwell @pamthur
Republicans have Two Commandments:
1. They can tell you what to do.
2. You cannot tell them what to do, even to obey the rule of law.
Everything they do is in pursuit of this power. That’s it.
Kristine Kenyon
Everything that pretty much every single Republican calls "the rule of law" is indistinguishable from, for example, the mafia code.
A.R. Moxon @JuliusGoat
Schrödinger's Black Person - simultaneously lazy, shiftless, and careless about education while also taking all of the jobs and college slots other people think they're entitled to. I am so tired of people.
@serioustalk01
Many thanks to Randall Kennedy for this important piece. I fully agree with him that underneath the decades-long attack on affirmative action is “malign resentment at the sight of Black people getting ahead.” This cannot be denied.
Deborah E. McDowell @dem8z
Carbon markets won't solve the climate crisis. They cause land grabs from Indigenous communities, rights violations, and delay real climate action. What we need is urgent emissions cuts, NOW!
Indigenous Environmental Network
Another horrible person died!
David Roberts @drvolts
If you worked very, very hard and earned $5,000 a day, and worked every day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, never spending a dime, you’d still be less than halfway to being a billionaire. Nobody "earns" a billion dollars.
Michael Okuda
A reminder that Reality Winner spent 5 years in prison for leaking one document to warn about MAGA-Russia treason.
Ricky Davila
An important takeaway from the indictment, something we obviously already knew, is that Trump is a world-historical weirdo.
Chris Hayes
“Goes to jail for showing military secrets to Kid Rock” was in retrospect always a very possible outcome of Trump running for President
@canderaid
Wild that entire mainstream media has decided that it would not make a good story to report on richest man in world buying key communication platform and spending all day conversing with right-wing extremists sharing hardcore white supremacist, antisemitic, homophobic content
David Rothschild @DavMicRot
1. New York, 2023
2. San Francisco, 2020
3. Los Angeles, 2020
4. Sydney, 2019
In the past 4 years alone, each city has experienced it's worst day of wildfire smoke in recorded history. The Earth is on fire. Our negligence is killing our planet. We must change our ways:
Edgar McGregor
The Supreme Court didn't so much affirm voting rights as it affirmed that John Roberts gets to decide who has voting rights.
Above the Law @atlblog
The climate crisis has solutions for which we have the technology CURRENTLY and which get better and cheaper all the time. They are expensive solutions. They are vastly cheaper than the costs CURRENTLY now and those costs will only rise.
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
If you think a food is so unhealthy that it should be banned for food stamp recipients, you should support banning it for richer people too. Otherwise, you either support poisoning the middle class, or you're just trying to further control and complicate poor people's lives
James Medlock
"It takes about 100 acres worth of biofuels to generate as much energy as a single acre of solar panels." Just an utterly deranged policy that exists for no other reason than rent-seeking.
Chris Hayes
Most of the soldiers who stormed Normandy are fortunate enough not to be around anymore. If they were, would they even see the country they fought for in the country of today? What’s actually left of it? How did we get here?
@charliekirk11
Gay soldiers fought in WWII. One reason San Francisco and New York City
became gay strongholds after WWII is because a critical mass of soldiers
discovered they were gay while serving in the military and chose not to
return to their small towns.
Leah McElrath
Barrels of oil displaced by EVs. Way over on the right hand side are ebikes, displacing more barrels of oil than all other EVs combined. All of that happening inside a transport system designed to make riding bikes a terrible experience:
BikeBike Inc
Wow, look at the benefits if 145 countries switched to 100% renewable, (besides tackling climate and pollution):
28.4 million new long term jobs
Paid back in 6 years then FREE fuel forever
Freedom from war lunatics who can cut off supply
Instant drop in global energy use by 56%
Alex Morss
Oh dear. We're off on the sex-based rights again. The only sex-based right in Britain is male primogeniture in relation to aristocratic titles. Sex-based rights is an invention of anti-trans activists to avoid having to use the terms human or civil rights when attacking people.
Gyll King
By no means an original observation, but it’s still crazy how few movies involve women doing much of anything at all.
Adam Miller @ajm6792
Can someone explain to me why putting a rainbow in a classroom is “indoctrination,” but the Ten Commandments isn’t?
John Collins @Logically_JC
The Financial Times (!) cites experts who predict a massive wave of litigation finance climate suits in the next 2-3 years, and notes an increasing tempo of shareholder motions demanding that big oil and mining companies disclose their litigation risks in their investor reports.
Cory Doctorow
NOAA: "The Earth's atmosphere is "continuing a steady climb further into territory not seen in millions of years." We are in a climate emergency.
Eric Holthaus
Remember when the Department of Energy assessed COVID as originating from a lab leak, launching (for like the sixth time) an enormous wave of op-eds about how liberals were too close-minded about the idea? Now DOE says “despite what was reported,” it produced no such report
Will Stancil
Never forget, it doesn’t take much to add some smiles to your city. Just a culture of fun and creativity, or at least a culture of not getting in the way of fun and creativity. Is that YOUR city?
Brent Toderian
“When it comes to biking, women are known as an “indicator species,” meaning the share of women cyclists is an indicator of whether a city is bike-friendly. In Copenhagen, where I spent my early twenties, women cyclists outnumber male cyclists.”
Brent Toderian
Instead of the 117th piece about how bad academic writing is, I'd like to see the 1st about how the constant stream of corporate/marketing vapidity from every hack within sniffing distance of an institutional "leadership" role is eroding everyone's ability to say anything real.
Ted McCormick
58% of Americans say that policing across the nation needs major reforms, and a further 36% want at least some changes to the way the police operates. Only 6% of the country is flying that weird, authoritarian-adjacent "thin blue line" flag. So, when you have Republicans frothing at the mouth about far right fringe issues and increasingly bizarre and obscure grievances born from conspiracy theories with which they brainwash themselves, vast majorities simply tune out, and are accused of "woke Marxist indoctrination." But no. No one was visited by the blue-haired nonbinary Marxist Antifa fairy. We're just tired of right-wing zealots forcing a very moderate 21st century nation with vast wealth to act like a 19th century Dickensian dystopia that quietly slips into a paranoid fascist dictatorship.
@GregAFish
Pope Francis won’t like this: in Kansas it’s the Catholic Church deliberately hurting the poor. Longtime Kansas GOP leader Jim Denning says Archbishop Joseph Naumann single handedly killed expanding Medicaid, which serves the poor. My journalist peers should dig into Catholic Church efforts to hurt the poor under the guise of blocking abortions. American faux Christians celebrate wealth and denigrate the poor, but Catholic teaching follows Biblical duty to serve the poor, alleviate their misery.
David Cay Johnston
It's worth thinking back a year or so, to the time when all the blockchain fraudsters were telling us that they were the answer to all our banking problems. As Cory Doctorow says, they've moved on to "AI", or Big Auto Complete as I prefer to call it.
Jacky Smith @JackySm3344
Stunning stats: Before "2007, people in the US never purchased more than 7M guns in a single year. By the time Barack Obama left office, the US was purchasing almost 17M guns a year." In 2020 US consumers "bought almost 23M guns in a single year."
Dan Munro
The gun rights movement has always been about conservative whites angry about the "tyranny" of the federal government enforcing civil rights in the South and environmental law in the West. They wanted unlimited access to guns to prepare for war against blacks and the government.
Shuan Rose @shmr50
Lazy both-sidesing New York Times reporter glibly states that the bill was opposed by "both far-right and hard-left lawmakers." But this WaPo graphic shows Democratic opposition was more complicated. And wtf is "hard left"? Pathetic work:
Dan Froomkin (PressWatchers.org) @froomkin
We have a wellbeing economy — it's just for the wellbeing of a narrow few. What we need is a wellbeing economy that is for everyone — people, nature, future generations.
Dr. Elizabeth Sawin @bethsawin
Congressional Budget Office confirms that cutting the IRS budget will increase the deficit by reducing revenues more than spending is cut. The tax cut will largely benefit the ultra-wealthy by reducing audits.
Bruce Bartlett
Most Americans do not want to live in a theocracy. They will not vote for it. The Republican move is to try and impose their theocratic agenda while denying it. Our move has to be to speak about it in simple language: Creeps, baddies, fascists.
David M. Perry @Lollardfish
"It is not only against the ignorant commoner with whom I contest: to defend all women comes to be the same as to offend almost all men, since rare is he that is not interested in building up his sex at the expense of the other." –Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, Defensa de la mujer (1726)
Charles C. Mann
"The United States has roughly 120,000 oil-and-gas workers and 40,000 coal miners. The green-energy sector is adding at least that many jobs every year."
David Roberts @drvolts
Big tobacco wasn’t pro cancer but they were pro profit even if it meant cancer deaths. It’s the same with the gun industry just instead of cancer it’s gun deaths.
David Hogg
On average, US residents have a 1 in 12 chance of an ER visit with traumatic brain injury from a motor vehicle in their lifetime.
Alex Linsker
US residents have a greater than 1 in 100 chance of being killed in a car crash over their lifetimes.
Angie Schmitt
Happy Pride, get your drag on:
Looney Tunes
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