BlueSky, June 2024

It's a good thing I was really busy in June because it was a doom-scrolling kind of month. It ended with the dismal Presidential debate and the close of the Supreme Court term. It started with the aftermath of Trump's New York conviction and then there was more on the Alitos, flags, and their recorded illiberal thoughts. There's a bit related to the New York City congestion pricing decision. And of course, our continuing descent into fascism.

Everything below the line is in reverse chronological order, except the handful of images I favorited, which I have moved around to distribute them somewhat more evenly.

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Right-wing SCOTUS majority in Grants Pass: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges." But unironically.
Ned Resnikoff

I am as discouraged and upset as everyone else this morning. The debate was a freaking catastrophe. SCOTUS is a rogue branch of government. But also, this feeling reminds me of what it was like every fucking morning of Trump's presidency.
Tom Tomorrow

Seems notable that on the two abortion cases — the two most likely to cause political backlash in November — the court dismissed on standing, a result that quells the anger, but doesn't stop it from taking a more extremist position later.
Radley Balko

the end of Chevron deference is another manifestation of the fact that the Roberts Court doesn’t view itself as part of the constitutional order as much as lording over it
Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social

Reminder that there are five ways to address the current SCOTUS problem.
1. Impeach some justices
2. Impose term limits
3. Expand the courts
4. Pass legislation limiting court prerogatives
5. Keep winning the presidency for the next 16 years or so while periodically also holding the senate.
David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social

Every day since mid-March 2023, the ocean has set a new daily heat record. It's the Joe DiMaggio hitting streak of the Earth system.


Eric Roston

as much as i think that debate was bad for biden i also find myself contemptuous of the assorted libs having a full blown panic attack
b-boy bouiebaisse @jbouie.bsky.social

Both candidates taking a question about affordable childcare and ignoring it to have a dick-measuring contest about who’s the best president is the most USA shit ever.
Aubrey Hirsch

New rule: to comment negatively about immigrants, you have to first disclose why your own family members immigrated to the US seeking a better life, and why people facing much worse shouldn’t have the same opportunity.
Nathan Kalmoe

i personally do not think the court should have this much discretion over the timing of its decisions.
b-boy bouiebaisse @jbouie.bsky.social

the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on corruption is basically at a point where the only thing that counts as a bribe is someone handing a public official a giant bag of money with a dollar sign on it while saying “this is a bribe” out loud. it’s not just that, e.g., Clarence Thomas loves to be bribed. the conservatives really believe that spoils rightfully accrue to the powerful, and that exchanges of money and power are a natural and just part of politics
Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social

"Since Texas’ ban on abortion went into effect, infant deaths in the state increased by nearly 13%, according to a new analysis published on Monday in JAMA Pediatrics. In the rest of the country, infant mortality increased less than 2% over the same period."
Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social

I don’t think we have an inflation problem so much as a private equity/large unchecked corporation problem.
Courtney Milan

I think about this often, how Kavanaugh is just a replacement-level white guy who glided through life, while Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor had to claw their way up at every step to show they were just as good as their white peers, yet they're the ones who have their intelligence and qualifications questioned
Paul Waldman

I think a lot about how Kavanaugh and Gorsuch went to the same prep school in DC, like that prep school has 22% of the *Supreme Court*
Chris in NY @chrisb2.bsky.social

Found myself explaining to a friend how the four academic professorship ranks are Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Full Professor, and the Mervin G. Capitalist Endowed Chair in Peculiarly-Specific Studies.
Ada Palmer

I think my favorite flavor of Trump voter is the person who a) is very upset about high grocery prices and b) is fired up about Trump's plan to deport 50% of the nation's agricultural workforce.
Seth Cotlar

People with no empathy always think they’re smarter than everyone else
Mara Wilson

I think often of a study we learned about in Linguistics 101. They recorded married couples having casual convos every evening and found that women proposed 2x more topics, but the men only picked them up 50% of the time. The women picked up 100% of the topics the men introduced. I love being single.
e.e. yikes

Excluding actual wars, Brexit is one of the greatest own-goals of all time. Britain and Europe had forged something their finest leaders and intellectuals considered an impossible dream: an alliance of shared prosperity. Then Britain tore it up in a fit of nativist dipshittery.
Max Kennerly

the end of chevron deference will mean more instances of justices ruling on technical controversies they do not understand [from two weeks before the SCOTUS decision]
b-boy bouiebaisse @jbouie.bsky.social

Way too little airtime is spent calling the Confederacy losers.
jędrek

Seeing these posters out in the world is pretty moving. especially when placed close to victim blaming signage:


Tom Flood

The two most underrated calamities of the 20th century:
- Robert Moses and the hellish blueprint he spread around the country;
- The Supreme Court decision allowing school segregation as long as the little white havens were given different city names.
Wrycke

Americans have a lot of money! In some important ways: the most money! Our problems are mostly not caused by our people not having money! America's destruction of its cities to replace them with car mandatory suburbs have made housing and transportation are huge drag on quality of life. Suburban sprawl is ludicrously expensive to subsidize and maintain
Michael Tae Sweeney

You people who don't keep a landline telephone are missing a LOT of great offers on roofing
Chris Steller

Joe Biden’s empathy for his fuckup son is one of the single most humanizing things about him and this is incredibly confusing to people who became fascists because their blue-haired nonbinary grandchild told them no one says “Oriental” anymore
Mr. Am I Being Detained @gonebabygone.bsky.social

every time I have to drive up to Connecticut (which I'm officially done with as of yesterday, having finally cleared out storage up there) I'm so fucking grateful to be out of car life. also jfc having to control everything by touchscreen is such a bad idea in a moving death box
Tom Tomorrow

Martha Alito has the same grasp of history as her husband.
talisknets.bsky.social

My ancestry is mostly German and I've never once brought it up to warn my enemies of my coming vengeance.
Kevin M. Kruse

My ancestry is mostly British. Wrong me, and I shall invade your home and liberate all your historical artifacts, along with your spice rack, which I will then summarily ignore.
@lizardky.bsky.social

my kingdom for a Dem party that treats real GOP scandals the way the GOP treats fake Dem scandals
Tony Glosson

The one guy on our block that never shovels his sidewalk got a cybertruck. Checks out.
Stinamo

okay well, once again I am PUTTING OFF THE MUSTARD, but here is a picture Hot Dan the Mustard Man, former French's mascot, which I found on Reddit for your consideration:


@sjgochenour.bsky.social

divorce literally saves lives
Wagatwe Wanjuki

No-fault divorce led to a 20% decline in women’s suicide. I’m struggling to foment a response that isn’t just OMFG. Thank goodness we have no-fault divorce, and holy shit what a condemnation of our culture. The implications are just appalling, all the way through.
Dennis Watson

You want to move a mobile living room through the densest city in North America, a place with generally excellent transit that most people access without bringing 5,000 pounds of metal, glass and plastic with them? You can! All we’re asking is that you pay for the costs you impose on others.
Doug Gordon @brooklynspoke.bsky.social

It should not be impossible to drive a car into a city. It should be harder to drive a car into a city than to live in it without one.
That Yoe You Know @jyoe.bsky.social

Report: "Trump allies plan fascism"
Anti-anti-Trumpers: "Alarmist nonsense"
Trump allies: "No really! We want fascism!"
AAT: "I don't see any plan."
Trump allies: "We have now published the plan"
AAT: "Those people have no influence on Trump"
Trump: "These are the people who influence me!"
AAT: "Institutions will hold"
Trump allies: "Read the plan. We'll destroy the institutions"
AAT: "There will be protests, riots in the streets"
Trump allies: "We'll have the military shoot them"
AAT: "Hyperbole"
Trump: "I really do want to shoot them"
AAT: "Biden forgave student loans!"
Radley Balko

For decades the republicans have had the advantage of being so evil that people assume you are lying when you simply describe their publicly held positions.
@trexpushups.bsky.social

The same folks who read the bible and think Jesus wants them to murder people read the Constitution and think the founders wanted a theocratic ethnostate.
Andrew Sobey

Media is being too credulous about Trump's threats to prosecute Dems "for revenge." This implies he's just threatening to do what is being done to him. That's deception: He's vowing evidence-free prosecutions, which is *not* what's happening to him.
Greg Sargent

It’s not a coincidence that authoritarianism is on the rise as education, journalism, and science are under constant, relentless attack. This environment was created by the wealthy and powerful and the direct consequence of a decades long war.
Jared Yates Sexton

It's remarkable how successfully Republicans are turning Jan. 6 into the new Lost Cause. How long until they start erecting monuments to the insurrectionists?
Will Jones

I was living in London when congestion pricing came in and literally everyone loved it: Bus riders got faster rides, drivers spent less time in traffic, everyone else got more funding for transit. Wild that this unanimously popular policy is still 'controversial.'
Michael Hobbes

I think "controversial" has come to = not liked by the Right. Certain books/trans rights/ULEZ/15' city for example.
Joan Hunter Dunn @velfille.bsky.social

A new piloting approach has huge potential to cut cargo ship emissions.
Ada Palmer

Why do journalists make it seem like anger and divisiveness [at public meetings] is just ordinary people acting alone, when we know from books like Dark Money by Jane Mayer that this is almost certainly all organized disruption of smooth, efficient government that benefits us all?
Lou Miranda @newlou.bsky.social

I think a lot of politicians and political reporters think "low info voter" is like someone who isn't following congressional budget negotiations when actual low-info voters are like "guy who thinks the president appoints the NFL commissioner and are mad at him for suspending a player on their team"
Michael Tae Sweeney

I find it fascinating that there are so many people who are driven not by a desire to make things better, but to oppose all change no matter what. It’s like a combination of incuriousness and selfishness; just complete unwillingness to learn or adapt at all. Wild way to be, to be honest.
Alex @mplsalex.bsky.social

I find there's a flavor of climate grief that isn't about climate, but is grief for who I was a few tens of PPM ago, and what I thought people would be able to rise and do.
Dr. Elizabeth Sawin @bethsawin.bsky.social

i am reading analyses of the legal argument made in the manhattan "hush money" case and i have no idea where people are getting the notion that alvin bragg was pushing "a novel legal theory."
b-boy bouiebaisse @jbouie.bsky.social

basically every time the media describes a very rich and powerful person's crime as novel or complex the crime can be very accurately described as "fraud"
Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social

The novel legal theory is that wealthy people should be held accountable.
Dave Bowman @jimnasium.bsky.social

growing strawberries is one of the most exciting plants. Just a stream of treats all june!!!


It’s Ruby

If you want to understand modern-day America, you have to understand that for almost 250 years we have been putting our Founding Fathers™️ on literal pedestals while refusing to acknowledge the fact that if these men were alive today, they would have certainly preordered a Cybertruck.
Chris Kluwe @chriswarcraft.bsky.social

All conservative organizations begin as a movement, become a business, and eventually degenerate into a racket.
Mummified Yeti Hand @jackacid.bsky.social

Just a reminder that while some cities are still debating whether to transform a few blocks of 1 or 2 streets into places for people, this year Montreal is transforming 11 such streets across 7 neighbourhoods, equalling 9+ kms, from car spaces to people places.
Brent Toderian

in seriousness it’s extremely hard for almost everyone to get an op-ed published in a big paper, but the flip side is that it’s way, way too easy for a tiny handful of people
Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social

Martha Ann Alito is funny and feisty and wants to kill all the non-whites. Fun!
cinematic genius @itsmrfungible.bsky.social