BlueSky, December 2024, Part 1

Now that there's no more Twitter round-up, I've decided to break the BlueSky round-up into two pieces, since it's so long.

Today will cover December 1–15, and tomorrow the rest of the month. I'm returning to my usual format of listing the posts in reverse chronological order, so the first one is from December 15 or so, and the last just after November 30.

In addition to all the havoc of the Trump transition news, other major stories were the Hunter Biden pardon, the attempted coup in South Korea and the national response, the Supreme Court hearing on trans youth, and (of course!) the shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO in Manhattan.

As usual, I have moved some of the less timely images up or down in the order for better visual balance. Everything below the line is quoted from the attributed account.

___

The re-legalization of sports betting, and the lack of regulation around it, is probably the most destructive thing to happen to the US since the rise of HMOs.
The Avignon Grinch @tadd.one

I love the drone panic because it's a reminder that despite all our technology and societal advancement we're never more than one unanswered question from reverting to peasants worried we'll make the stars mad
Gillian Branstetter

Car fatalities vs. 9/11 fatalities:


Daniel Moser

The answer to Trump trying to sell off our postal service with a 5-vote margin in the House is, “Go to hell.”
L O L G O P

Anything described as "the future of education" is a scam
Muad'dib Mami @safefordroids.bsky.social

During Trump‘s first term, a fierce liberal resistance led to Democratic Congressional gains in 2018 and a victory in the 2020 presidential election. So it’s natural that Democrats want to adopt a completely different strategy this time.
New York Times Pitchbot

Among Republicans and Independents, approval for Hegseth went *up* after they learned that he's a rapist.
Max Kennerly

Oh so you DON'T want a sex-predator blackout-drunk in charge of the US military? So much for the "tolerant left."
John Fugelsang

Sobering. If you're 60 years old, more than 80% of GHG emissions have occurred in your lifetime. See what % of GHG emissions have occurred in your lifetime below:


Paul Huttner

I think that folks aren't seriously thinking about the implications of young adults who know nothing other than a country which has normalized MAGA politics, God help us all.
Black Aziz Anansi

thinking about 2025 in the year 2000: I hope we have flying cars and take vacations to mars
thinking about 2025 now: I hope we have electricity and the children survive the polio
Janel Comeau @verybadllama.bsky.social

imagine a country so furious about drag performers that it voted for polio
Jeff Tiedrich

It's great to see all the people posting the definitive, irrefutable evidence of the massive health benefits of vaccines. It's pathetic and sad that they have to. What's next, Republicans removing the health warnings on cigarettes? Removing seat belts from automobiles?
Peter Gleick

The Global War on Terror was legitimated through a globalised politics of reaction that has been deliberately stoked and sustained, while domestic politics across the west have been devoted to neutralising, recuperating or violently suppressing any left or progressive alternative energies. As a mode of governance that blends politics and militarism to indistinction, utilised domestically to suppress popular left-wing energies while stoking RW reaction (including its desire for militant political mode), the incorporation of counterinsurgency was destined to produce a Trump, and will produce more.
Gregk Foley

Really finding the despair as I watch everyone — this platform, our officials, regular people — comply with the circular demands of fascism. I can tell you right now something that you already know: It will never be enough. You will never be enough. Stop trying to please people who hate you.
Kaitlin Has Had Enough @gothamgirlblue.com

Here are some nice mushrooms:


lukelukeluke

Bobby’s theory of vaccines is making toddlers die of diseases that were eradicated before the discovery of DNA.
Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social

We tell children the answer to school mass shootings is live shooter drills and bulletproof backpacks and then act surprised when they grow up and their response to gun violence is dark humor. We create a society in which violence is normalized and then engage in performative shock when young people act like violence is normal. We prioritize gun ownership over human life and then profess disbelief when youth celebrate a gunman. They were born into this. We built it.
Leah McElrath

Before choosing bottled water over tap water, remember it takes more than 10X the water that a bottle of water holds to make the plastic bottle and transport the water. And that’s before considering the fuel and GHGs, the 1000 year bottle life, and the RIDICULOUS amount of $ we’re paying for water.
Brent Toderian

The Trump crowd wants to kill FDIC, install tariffs *and* bring back polio? I guess all this time the magical past of American Greatness they’ve been aiming for has been the banner year of 1930. Can’t wait for the soup lines! Wheee!
Kevin M. Kruse

It would be pretty easy for a blue city like Ann Arbor or East Lansing to put a heat pump installation tech on payroll (or get existing staff trained) and offer at-cost installs for a year. Homeowner buys the equipment and pays a flat fee posted on the city website. No surprises!
Matt Penniman

A new IEA report finds that Africa could easily cover all of its electricity needs using geothermal energy alone. The continent has 115TW of technical potential in geothermal.
Nick Hedley

This is still one of my favorite photographs of all time:


Rebecca Brückmann @historleans.bsky.social

"Removing the crash-disclosure provision would particularly benefit Tesla, which has reported most of the crashes – more than 1,500 – to federal safety regulators under the program." [Reuters: Trump transition wants to scrap crash reporting requirement opposed by Tesla]
The War on Cars

trump will be the next reagan in the sense that in 30 years every time you notice some horrible defect in society you'll do some quick research and trace it back to trump
Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social

Sometimes it's hard not to feel like our politics have been captured by a death cult:


Dr. Genevieve Guenther @doctorvive.bsky.social

Gender panics.
Eugenics-lite anti-vax campaigns.
Populist appeals.
Anti-immigrant animus.
The 1920s is back, baby!
Anthony Michael Kreis

This. (And thank you for this powerful reminder Mike Luckovich):

As an Indian, my contempt for (rich white) anti-vaxxers in the west is so deep I often cannot quite find the words to express my contempt. I grew up seeing polio-disabled children and adults crawling over rubble and roads in India. My father worked for the Pulse Polio program. What is happening?
Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social


JoJoFromJerz

If I hear one more person say that traffic calming and stop signs cause more co2, I’m going to burst into flames. That would also release more co2.
Maris Zivarts @emveezee.bsky.social

“The urban environment communicates a message to the user: are you only tolerated? Or are you invited? Creating an inviting environment for pedestrians and cyclists provokes the kind of behaviour we are looking for. A place where they feel welcome, and the most important user of the public space.”
Melissa & Chris Bruntlett @modacitylife.com

It seems rather hypocritical to say you want to end birthright citizenship when you’re basically allowing someone born in South Africa to be your co-president.
Andrew Weinstein

The Federal Department of Education does not create or impose curriculum. That’s done at the state and local level. The Dept of Ed does enforce anti-discrimination policies and therein lies the problem for Republicans.
Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.social

i am convinced that these people are death worshippers who want to spread as much disease and sickness as possible (i also think this is all tied up in eugenic beliefs about the “survival of the fittest”
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

We have always relied on the oil and gas industry to self-report methane emissions. Now we have independent ways to of measuring those emissions and it turns out they were lying about the emissions. By a lot. The blue lines are actual measurements. The pink are industry numbers:


Justin Mikulka

It might seem paradoxical to think that sociopathic narcissists could have a homing beacon that seeks out and locks in on other sociopathic narcissists. But the evidence increasingly suggests that they’re drawn to one another, to hunt in packs.
Stuart Semmel @semmiotic.bsky.social

NEW: For the 3rd year in a row, Elon Musk’s foundation gave away less than it was supposed to. In 2023, it gave away $421 million less than the minimum required for a charity of its size, new filings show.
David Fahrenthold

The American Medical Association surveyed doctors about insurance “prior authorizations” and found:
41 prior authorizations per doctor per week
13 hours spent per week on prior authorizations
24% reported hospitalizations due to delays from prior authorizations
8% reported disability/deaths due to delays from prior authorizations
Ryan Marino, MD

Whether it’s Bill Clinton speaking with Loretta Lynch for five minutes on the tarmac or Donald Trump firing one FBI director for investigating him and then firing his replacement a few years later for investigating him, both sides have politicized the DOJ
New York Times Pitchbot

generally I'm anti-murder but honestly if I have to read one more essay preaching at me about how this healthcare executive's life was more sacred than any of the other thousands killed in America every month I may alter my position. I do not think that the broken and angry man who did this is a hero or should be celebrated, but this is a country that celebrates murders on a regular basis, which just reelected a man who pardoned serial killers because they were in uniform at the time.
BeijingPalmer

I think it’s firmly established mass death isn’t an electoral issue if you have an R after your name. In fact George W Bush didn’t really go down in flames until his incompetence messed with people’s money
rhinoman.bsky.social

A flashing roadside in Seattle this morning (via komonews on X):


Leah McElrath

Keeping people homeless is more expensive than housing. Is it possible the wealthy don’t know that? No. So why do it? Because fear of homelessness keeps us working.
Andrés E. @archdruidandres.bsky.social

People are hungry for someone to root for against the huge, implacable systems they hate, and unless they’ve thrown in with Donald Trump and Elon Musk, they really don’t have many options. The idolization of Mangione is a dark sign of just how yawning the void is.
Jenka

The official portraits of the 17 House Republicans elected to chair committees in the 119th Congress:


Aaron Fritschner

No women will lead a House committee for the first time in two decades after House Republicans revealed their list of committee leaders for the 119th Congress. No people of color were selected, either.
Shannon Watts

We weren’t meant to thrive in a fast-paced work environment we were meant to collect berries in the summertime and lie down for a whole day after mistaking the bad orange mushroom for the good orange mushroom
lukelukeluke

Teachers have to worry about being fired over books, school shootings and now potentially ICE raids all while being overworked, undervalued and underpaid. Don't ever ask why there's a teacher shortage again.
Dr. Tracy @tracyrenee70.bsky.social

Over the last 30 years, after-tax corporate profits have grown 8-fold, while personal incomes have grown by half as much — this unequal distribution of prosperity will only leave more and more Americans unhappy:


Steve Rattner

I truly believe that car dependency and sprawl help create the sort of superfluous, alienated public that Hannah Arendt wrote about in Origins of Totalitarianism
Ned Resnikoff

There aren’t enough hours in the day for me to show you how many of the people arguing against birthright citizenship would not be citizens if not for birthright citizenship.
Jennifer Mendelsohn

The recovery from 2008 would have been far stronger if the low interest rate environment had led to a surge in construction (as happened in the UK in the 1930s)
CoKeynesian

Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (hopefully!) squandered on cheap taxis and food delivery.
Amy @amyliz.bsky.social

When we are:


Alex Steffen

"Violence is never the answer" is such a dumb thing to say. Obviously, sometimes, violence is the appropriate answer. Prioritizing civility over justice is great for the people in power.
Toure

Race is the pathway for justifying almost any action for those on the right. DEI, CRT, “woke-ness” allows them to use racism w/o saying race. And why does it work? B/c the deeply engrained narratives of white supremacy in this country provide fertile ground for Americans to accept these arguments.
@SIfill

I honestly believe the reason Musk and Trump keep shitting on Trudeau is because he's a handsome SOB and they look like bargain basement actors cast by a film student to be in his David Lynch-inspired short.
Mary Gillis

The Guidelines for Safer Pedestrian Crossings project collected data from more than 3,300 crossing events at 18 intersections in Minnesota. The results? Cars traveling faster than 25mph essentially never yield to pedestrians.
BikeMN

Weird:


Nick Knudsen

Remember it’s not normal for an FBI director - appointed by the president-elect himself to serve a 10-year term 7 years ago - to resign in this way, and it’s normal to nominate someone as unqualified as Patel to replace him. None of this is normal - and should not be normalized by the news media!
Mehdi Hasan

'Thou shalt not kill' also means 'thou shalt not let profit margins decide who lives and who dies.'
God @godpod.bsky.social

Barack Obama gave workers economic relief through changes to their payroll tax deductions and other obscure things like that. George W. Bush sent them a check for $300 with his fucking signature on them.Which one do you think voters noticed? The greatest failure of the modern Democratic Party is the apparent belief that basic elements of politics — selling your policies to voters and reminding them what you did for them — is somehow tacky and beneath them.
David Roberts @volts.wtf

feels like there has been more discussion about healthcare in the last week than there was during the entire election
David Mack @davidmackau.bsky.social


Jacqs @fooyoo2.bsky.social

“Writing a single email with ChatGPT can use as much energy as driving a two-ton electric vehicle half a mile,” Lauren Leffer reports in Audubon.
Andy McGlashen @amcglashen.bsky.social

*taps EXTREMELY large stack of psychological studies*
VIDEO GAMES ARE NOT CORRELATED TO GUN VIOLENCE
BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS CORRELATED TO GUN VIOLENCE
ACCESS TO GUNS
Faye @acobi.bsky.social

“‘…Nancy Mace came to a national foster youth event, told participating youth that it was a safe space—and literally had one of them arrested by Capital police for simply shaking her hand and asking about trans rights,’ said Lisa Dickson, a veteran advocate for foster youth from Ohio…”
Melissa Gira Grant

The very same people who lambasted DEI efforts as a subversion of the meritocracy are happily taking money and jobs [at UNC Chapel Hill] in the name of “viewpoint diversity”
Kevin M. Kruse

Silicon Valley is like: "How about we make search engines useless and replace them with a cutely named robot who makes stuff up? And also creates more pollution to accelerate global warming?" "What do you think? Never mind, we've already done this for you."
Terry McGlynn @hormiga.bsky.social

Cruise is shutting down — GM has pulled its funding. The company now “seeks to focus autonomous vehicle development on personally owned vehicles.” If you care about the future of cities and climate, GM’s plans should send shivers. Fun fact: GM invested $10 billion in Cruise before pulling the plug. That's more than the federal government will invest in public transit this year in CA, CO, CT, DC, IL, MD, MA, MN, NJ, NY, PA, VA and WA — combined.
David Zipper

Almost the entire GOP is putting all their effort to ensuring that a drunk bigot who bankrupted two medium-sized organizations gets put in charge of DOD's $800B budget. This is where the GOP's priorities lay.
emptywheel

d's motel cabin, saltese, montana, 1987:


old roadside pics @roadside.xor.blue

After years of talking to Trump supporters my view of them has become very simple: They want socialist, even sometimes progressive reforms but they want them from someone who makes those reforms feel powerful and masculine and they want to make sure the people they don't like don't benefit from them
Ryan Broderick @ryanhatesthis.bsky.social

A Bay Area food bank's expansion plans are being held up in court by an environmental review lawsuit alleging that the expansion will destroy an "historic parking lot." It's impossible to parody California.
M. Nolan Gray

Jesus gave Christianity its values; St. Paul gave it its prejudices
W.C. Kochheim @wisehack.bsky.social

Like everyone else, I too fantasize about just throwing up my hands and saying 'fuck everything, i'm just going to attend to my and mine's needs' but we fucking LIVE IN A SOCIETY and that's just a silly fantasy. It will not lead to liberation. So we have to do what we can. Each of us.
Prisonculture

Destruction Of Government (by) Elon. That’s what DOGE really means. Say it! A simple lesson on framing.
Gil Durán

i hope i die
warmed
by the life that i tried
to live
— Nikki Giovanni


Quise @marquisedavon.bsky.social

This is what has driven my son up the wall with coverage of the insurance CEO murder — the breathless reporting suggesting that this kind of profession-based violence is brand new. Is it?? Then what do we call bombing abortion clinics and threatening trans healthcare providers??
Louisa @louisathelast.bsky.social

Ag policy does not adequately cover rural spaces. Most folks in rural spaces are not farmers. Rural policies should include public school funding, economic development, infrastructure, and access to healthcare and child care.
Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.social

Millions of people voted for Reagan at a time when they had access to "good information."
Prisonculture

Never thought I'd see this steep global temperature trend when I started in the weather biz 40 years ago. Mind-blowing how we have changed the chemistry and physical response of Earth's atmosphere:


Paul Huttner

I truly believe the vast majority of buildings will have solar panels, co-located batteries, and electric load control tech inside the next 3 decades. We should design the 21st century electric grid around this principle. I don’t think there is a compelling counter argument.
Tim Hade

The % of Latino voters favoring deportation and other anti-immigrant policies jumped as Trump and right-wing media demagogued the issue — and as Democrats retreated and refused to defend immigrants. Leadership sometimes means explaining why good and moral policies are good and moral.
Radley Balko

Just waiting for a scandal involving Elon Musk and the White House cause I know they’re gonna call it Elon Gate
Mary Annaïse Heglar

Thank goodness the killer of a poor schizophrenic black man is free and the killer of a wealthy white death merchant is in custody. It's so interesting who gets to be a hero.
David Klion

Listen — folks who follow a high-control religion (Evangelicals) often vote for high-control lawmakers…authoritarians and strongmen.
Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.social

The hottest year ever, again. h/t @heatmap.news:


Justin Guay @guayjg.bsky.social

The birthright citizenship portion of the US Constitution is totally, inarguably unambiguous. No wiggle room. If the supreme court agrees to throw it out they are explicitly throwing out the entire document and our entire system of government.
Michael Tae Sweeney @mtsw.bsky.social

Leaving a bag of monopoly money near your murder scene and watching the cops fail to find it for three whole days while following an unrelated bike is what being a D&D dungeon master is like
Bela Lugoatse @theilluminati.bsky.social

"Act, or die." –Walter Cronkite, Earth Day, 1970. Never let anyone tell you that they didn't know.
Alex Steffen

World Bank: Poor nations spend more money paying off debts to the countries that impoverished them ($1.4tn) than the amount of money they've asked for to combat climate change ($1.3tn). And remember: the paltry $300bn in finance announced at COP29 comes with strings attached.
Dave Vetter

one reason kids love the hotel stay for team events so much is that they are *typically* free to roam around, check stuff out, and have some independent fun/a little trouble with their friends without parents around — you know the kind of stuff we stole from them in everyday life on their streets.
Tom Flood

Healthcare CEOs aren't all bad. Without their hard work to screw over the US population, we never would have gotten Breaking Bad.
Brandy Bryant @inkmasterbator.bsky.social

his pen is too small, he looks like he's being raised for veal:


daniel chamberlain @amfmpm.bsky.social

the rich people pushing AI on everything are going to be the same rich people who will brag they can afford to send their kids to a school with human teachers
Mike Drucker

“He can’t end birthright citizenship.” Ok I hear you but I’ll be more confident four years from now if it’s still around; talk then
Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social

i think a lot of you people need to decide whether you think trump is going to be an authoritarian monster or a chaos failson because the two are actually in tension with each other.
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

Convicted felon becomes president, frees other felons, jails the innocent. This is like the plot comic books turn to when they’ve run out of new ideas.
Seth Masket @smotus.bsky.social

Posts about urban biking in Dutch cities are routinely replied to with something like “well, they have the big advantage of being relatively flat.” The Dutch also have the big advantage of not constantly making excuses about why they can’t make clearly smarter decisions.
Brent Toderian

This cartoon is from 1930. It could have been today:


Dr. Jonathan Foley @globalecoguy.bsky.social

Jesus would not have said love thy neighbor if he’d had the Next Door app
Lyz

there's something so twisted about how Republicans have come to absolutely despise the 14th Amendment, something which was the crowning achievement of their party
Reconstructionist @unavaleable.bsky.social

Americans who believe they have good health insurance have never been really sick
Willy Lee (they/them) @advicepig.bsky.social

Please arm yourself with knowledge. Birthright citizenship is not a policy choice it is a constitutional imperative (14th Amendment). It can no more be signed away by Executive Order than the First Amendment.
@SIfill

Thanks to all the atheists out there just doing the right thing without me threatening you with fire and brimstone.
God @godpod.bsky.social

Here are some nice mushrooms:


lukelukeluke

Related to recent discourse™, I've noticed how becoming anti-woke and/or anti-trans produce brain rot across every field of human inquiry. Once a person goes down that route, they become incapable of producing thoughtful / interesting commentary on any issue, even if they had in the past.
Max Kennerly

What is wrong with the young men? They have no friends and are all hopelessly addicted to the internet. The internet is a fascism machine and young dudes are hooked to it 24/7. It's really not all that complicated. It's a worldwide trend.
Denny Carter

I regret to inform you that, relative to GDP, federal discretionary spending is actually pretty low. The federal civil service headcount is lower than it was when Ronald Reagan was President:


James Dallas @ad5nl.bsky.social

Let’s be clear: the entire democratic world thinks the US healthcare system is a joke.
Mehdi Hasan

I dread confident predictions from people who can't place specific countries on a map and who become experts literally overnight.
Prisonculture

When they talk about privatizing veterans’ care and Medicare, they mean allowing companies to provide healthcare for a profit. But how do companies make those profits? By *denying* care to many who need it. Don’t get fooled by the “privatization” label. It means “for profit” and YOU are the cost.
George Takei

Ever wondered why walking around museums is weirdly tiring? At normal speed our legs act like pendulums, swinging forward from the hip and saving us a huge amount of energy. In "museum shuffle" our muscles must do ALL the work of constant readjustment. So cake in the cafe is scientifically justified.
Helen Czerski

I told a new acquaintance this week that sharks are older than trees and I need to update my weird paleo facts because this [next] version utterly rules
Brianna McHorse

Sharks are older than the rings of Saturn. This paper finds that the rings are no older than 400M years. Sharks date back to at least the Late Ordovician Period, 450M years ago.
Ethan Mollick

good enough:


Tom Flood

The idea that government can be run like a business is an anti-democratic con job.  Government is not a business. It cannot refuse to serve people or exit unprofitable markets. It needs to govern for all, not the few. CEOs are only accountable to their boards, while politicians answer to voters.
Helaine Olen

Half of what the US has spent on southern border security the last 20 years would have created an economic miracle in Central America and effectively reduced illegal immigration by two-thirds or more.
peterrb1961.bsky.social

The revelation we are experiencing with the assassination of the insurance exec is that anything is allowed if it creates profit. And I think we’re reaching the breaking point on it.
Kaitlin Has Had Enough @gothamgirlblue.com

Leonard Leo spent $540million packing the Supreme Court. He didn't spend that kind of money to put impartial jurists on the bench. He bought the court. Elon Musk spent $250million getting Trump elected. That's three-quarters of billion dollars for 2 branches of our government. That is America.
Andrew L. Seidel

The more I think about the election, the more I see it less as an endorsement of policy and more as a demand that leadership recognize how broken everything is. Since Trump was the only one doing so, people believed that their rejection of the system and his were the same thing.
Kaitlin Has Had Enough @gothamgirlblue.com

Latest comic: Experts explain why America voted for plague:


Jen Sorensen

To evaluate potential HHS hires, RFK Jr. is having people take a psychological test designed by … Jordan Peterson. Because of course.
Radley Balko

Maybe one of the reasons there are so many unhinged academics is that in order to keep your job, you’re constantly required to tout yourself as a Scholar of World-Historical Significance, even as your office’s ceiling tiles slowly dislodge themselves to fall on your head.
Miriam Posner

In his 1792 tract “The Rights of Man, Part 2,” Thomas Paine proposed a graduated tax in which the top marginal tax rate would be 100%. He pegged that top income at £20,000 per year. That would be roughly $4 million in today’s money.
Seth Cotlar

What drives me nuts about the trans youth "debate" is how much of it consists of people who don't know anything demanding compromises that already exist. Hormones and surgeries for minors receive ABSURD amounts of regulation and scrutiny! Either engage with the facts on this issue or shut up.
Michael Hobbes

Disproportionate cautiousness and regulation *is transphobic*. It’s based on the belief that one cis teen choosing to transition is a tragedy but a dozen trans teens blocked from transitioning is not. In other words: that trans lives don’t matter as much as cis lives. And the sympathy for cis teens and young adults who regret transitioning is always a bit sus to me. Sure, we should always be sympathetic and kind to one another. But I’m not seeing the same sympathy for teens and young adults who go through big cosmetic surgeries then regret it.
Florens Verschelde @fvsch.com

When times are tight, do cities cut police or social service budgets more? In a new study, I find revenue loss is associated with shallow, temporary cuts to policing and deep, enduring cuts to social services. Over the past 30 years, and especially since 2008, U.S. cities have been steadily shifting money away from social services like housing and parks and putting it toward policing:


Brenden Beck

one thing that may be even harder to comprehend is how *boring* it is to be a billionaire. humans live by desire, and once virtually nothing is out of reach, life loses all meaning. hence the weird adventurism of Bezos, Musk and their ilk.
Michael Kaplan @differance.bsky.social

Now that we know that Elon spent a quarter billion dollars to get Trump elected, any dive into Why Harris Lost needs to start with "Because the richest man on earth bought the election and our shitty campaign finance laws just let him."
The Rude Pundit

In today's Orwellian "Newspeak," the Department of Government Efficiency is
a) Not a department
b) Not trying to improve the efficiency of government, but instead cripple it.
Peter Gleick

Virtually every question today at the White House Press briefing was about the Hunter pardon, as if that is the thing the American people care about most right now. The DC press is so disconnected from the American public and serves them poorly more often than not.
Ron Filipkowski

If you wanna bring prayer in school but not free lunch, you gotta stop pretending this is about Jesus - he would've fed the kids.
Zod Magus

It's not really about whether you personally like, want or need to drive. It’s about not being DEPENDENT on driving all the time, for everything you do. And it’s about the fact that in cities, if everyone has to move by car, no one moves much at all.
Brent Toderian

TIL that in 1843 the artist George Catlin accompanied 14 Báxoje (Iowa) on a tour of Britain, and they were so horrified by the poverty they saw everywhere that when some clerics asked to talk to them about sending missionairies among the Báxoje their leader Neumonya really let them have it:


Charles C. Mann

What adds to the public's frustration and cynicism is that New York City averages 30 murders a month and no one has ever seen a manhunt on this scale for the killers, and we all know why. The message to the rest of us is that only elites matter and the peasants can F.O.A.D.
JusttheFactsMan

transphobia is a gateway drug to the far right
@gemofamara.com

We have a housing crisis, food costs are too high, and folks can barley afford to pay rent. Yet Republicans in congress scheduled 1 vote today in the House: Communism in Schools. What a waste of time. I voted no.
Rep. Robert Garcia

There is one OBGYN in my district of 33k people. In contrast, there are a half dozen veterinarians.
Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.social

A trans person who attempts suicide but lives to transition can report suicidality. A trans person who completes suicide before transitioning will appear in statistics as cisgender. It's not that hard to understand.
Gillian Branstetter

I took the bus to and from an event this week, dressed in a suit, and I had *three* separate people at stops tell me I looked nice. Take the bus - it’s great for your self esteem!
Alex @mplsalex.bsky.social

Here are some nice mushrooms:


lukelukeluke

all i'm saying is it would've been nice to have this healthcare policy discussion *before* we gave a trifecta to the party that tried to strip coverage from tens of millions of people last time they were in power
Aaron Rupar

As we gawk at the $250M Musk spent to elect Trump, take a guess how long it took him to “earn” it back in the market? It took just 15 minutes. I'm not kidding... 15 minutes. According to Bloomberg, his net worth soared by $8B just today. That’s billionaire math for you — and it’s all of our problem.
Adam Bonica

The fact that Rahm Emanuel still has a prominent voice in the Democratic Party in 2024 is indicative of Democrats' problems. I don't know how to explain to you that a person who actively covered up a police shooting and tried to tank an attempt at universal healthcare [only 2 examples] is terrible.
Prisonculture

Never forget, it doesn’t take much to add some smiles and surprises to your city. Just a civic culture of fun and creativity, or at least a culture of not getting in the way of fun and creativity. Is that YOUR city? More of this:


Brent Toderian

A world where a broad daylight murder is celebrated is bad. A world where commodifying death makes you a titan of industry is much worse.
Tom Basgen, Mr. Saint Paul

Medicaid and Medicare have a 2-3% overhead. For-profit health insurance has a 20% overhead and near unlimited on drug costs. Both provide the exact same doctors and meds. The only difference is for profit had massive markup to pay for CEO bonuses and private jets. We need universal healthcare. Period.
Qasim Rashid, Esq.

Weeks before the inauguration of a man who called for his political opponents to be shot, we must bring decorum and civility back into the public square
Kaitlin Has Had Enough @gothamgirlblue.com

The babies you meet today are likely to be alive in 2100. Taking bold actions, today, to limit the catastrophes they (and their children and grandchildren) will face, then—that isn't some crazy altruistic futurism exercise, it's the most basic test of a functioning civilization.
Alex Steffen

This is the agency Elon Musk and his billionaire buddies want to kill:


Jordan Uhl

the failure of American media is most noticeable in their treatment of Trump's freakshow cabinet as Serious and Important even tho every policy statement is like "we will abolish water because hydration is gay" and "I will save 500 billion dollars by tearing up the interstate highway system"
Father Catbus @hayao.lol

A pension won't help you in a world of collapse. A bunker won't protect you in a world of collapse. The best investment in a safe future is effective action to slow climate breakdown and improve resilience
Dr Charlie Gardner

Saint Paul, MN:


Kyle Nelson

"Beef is probably the most polluting substance you and I will ever have flowing through our homes." –Jonathan Foley
Project Drawdown

Ruthie Wilson Gilmore: "Philanthropy is the private allocation of stolen social wages."
Jeremy @conescu.bsky.social

After being utterly denuded by the first Trump administration, the EPA has finally built itself back up and resumed doing serious enforcement of the law — just in time for the second Trump administration to denude it again.
David Roberts @volts.wtf

We justify our "presumption of innocence" standard by saying it's better to free 100 guilty people than to imprison 1 innocent person. Because prison is so bad. Transphobes seem to think it's better to block 100 unregretted transitions than to let 1 person regret transitioning. Similar reasoning.
Charlie Jane Anders

Regarding Hunter Biden’s pardon, the divide between many Black thinkers (“the pardon was good and necessary,” “a pragmatic act of justice”) and white commentators (“harmful to the rule of law,” “but the norms!” ) is something that merits deep reflection.
Cristian Farias

doo drop inn sign, muskegon, michigan, 1980:


old roadside pics @roadside.xor.blue

Lot of white folks believe in a higher power of norms and a lot of black folks know that norms meant state sanctioned violence for much of us history
LurkyMcLurk

Contractor$ cost a minimum of 10% more than civil servants. Anything proposed by made up DOGE will decrease efficiency and INCREASE costs to the taxpayer. Feds do a legion of positive things for taxpayers every day for less than contractors.
cigarsavorkev.bsky.social

A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is just the U.S. health insurance industry doing its job.
Racket @racketmn.bsky.social

Roughly 16,666 minor kids get married a year vs 3,681 trans kids on HRT annually on average, with that second number being even smaller now due to the number of statewide healthcare bans that have been enacted over the last 3 years. It's a huge huge HUGE difference
Erin Fogg @criminalerin.bsky.social

Musk said reports that he was going to spend $45 million per month over the last three months of the campaign to support Trump were “not true.” He actually spent nearly twice that amount.
Judd Legum

If the IRS keeps going after the wealthy tax cheats abusing just this one loophole, that’ll save $100 billion over the next decade. Republicans want to defund the IRS and put a commissioner in place who will go after you — not the billionaires skirting taxes.
Elizabeth Warren

Imagine what the world would be like if news media told the stories of individuals who died from being denied health care.
Wes Burdine


Ebony M @ebonyabsolutely.bsky.social

The world’s oldest known wild bird, a 74-year-old Laysan albatross named Wisdom, is expected to welcome another baby chick in the coming months, astonishing scientists who have been tracking her since 1956.
The New York Times

The timing is strange: following a number years of publicly celebrated murderers -- Daniel Penny, Kyle Rittenhouse, varied and sundry police officers -- people get their Shadenfreude on over a killed health insurance exec and all of a sudden society is terribly coarsened.
Brent Cox @titivil.bsky.social

After I moved to Canada a couple of years ago I realized that I was no longer constantly running a massive stress routine in the background of my mind worrying about health care and guns. It was weirdly noticeable only when it stopped.
Katie Mack @astrokatie.com

Ah, Bitcoin. For people who think the end of civilisation is imminent, but afterwards they'll still have broadband.
Dave Andress

my son: i like how cheetos don’t pretend to be anything other than terrible for you
Sweetie @sixfeetofcandy.bsky.social

What Republicans did with “woke,” Dems need to do with scams. They could even call it a war on scams. The GOP is just the party of fucking disgusting scammers now, and everybody hates scammers
The Wet Tank Tops

Too bad some tech dummy already used it for a database company because Oracle would have been the best name for an AI company
Kar Nels

America, the land of opportunity, now has food deserts, news deserts, and maternity ward deserts.
Josh Sternberg

One of my long-held theories is that a bike actually provides the freedom of movement and exhilaration that a car promises in a city at a fraction of the cost and the dissonance there drives the people in cars *completely fucking insane*
Cooper Lund

It is amazing what we all put up with because we are too busy, grief-stricken, or poor, to push back.
Betsey O’Boyle

I'm a historian and have done some work on genocide in both specific and comparative contexts, though it is certainly not the main thrust of my work. I think one could reasonably debate the applicability of "genocide" to Gaza in the Winter of 23 - 24. There isn't a debate in the Winter of 24 -25.
Howard Eissenstat

Nobody lives here:


Conrad Hackett

something that is especially clear if you have studied colonialism a bit: a load-bearing aspect of maintaining even a semblance of democracy (or defending a sitting autocracy from democracy) is having a military that is unwilling to kill its own citizens
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

The US — the nation that has caused about 2x more climate change than any other nation; the nation most capable of acting on climate and helping others do the same — is arguing against international law that would hold nations accountable for the harms they have caused by changing the climate.
Kevin J. Kircher

All billionaires are creatures of the state, none would be billionaires without myriad interwoven government policies which maintain that status and provide it advantages. Most in that position try to exploit the status and to exacerbate the collateral harms of those policies. That's bad.
Max Kennerly

billionaires are one of the most destructive forces on the planet and a smart democratic party would build an agenda around legislating them out of existence
Nicole Hemmer @pastpunditry.bsky.social

Why should we work with two billionaires that are hell bent on destroying public benefits and healthcare. Democrats need to oppose their efforts with everything we got. There is no room for partnership.
Rep. Robert Garcia

I don’t think I have much call to decide who should die at any given moment, but I am fascinated by how we decide what kinds of killings count as murder and which don’t. This healthcare ceo is hard to talk about because how much death can you cause indirectly before you’re a murderer who got murdered? How do you convince yourself it doesn’t count if you kill people with policy instead of a gun? What do you have to believe about life and systems and human worthiness?
Ashley C. Ford @smashfizzle.bsky.social

every commenter on the internet who complains about bike lanes once saw a cyclist pedal through a red light and now uses it as justification for why they should be allowed to run over anyone else on the road
lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com

The idea that we don’t actually have to have a permanent “bottom” to society, that we can afford to support the well-being of everyone except those who proactively cut themselves out of social insurance, is an anathema to white people who have been winners so long, anything less is losing. And just to be clear, at every level, white people are winning compared to the alternative and *they know it with every fiber of their existence.* For any problem you’ve been through, y’all know it would have been so much worse if you were Black, with Black parents and grandparents. Don’t lie.
Kaitlin Has Had Enough @gothamgirlblue.com

The next few years will be one crypto scam after another. And the crypto industry will be more hated than the health insurance industry ... and possibly more hated than any other capitalist scam in the history of the world.
Gil Durán

"It will be my objective to phase out Social Security, to pull it out by the roots." –Elon Musk
Cheri Jacobus

Students should study the humanities not because it makes them better workers but because it rips you open and breaks your brain and changes everything you thought you knew. I *promise* you this. I *promise* it has this ability, no matter how smart you think you are. I have seen it countless times.
Miriam Posner

In 2018, the NYT reported that Trump became a millionaire at age 8 thanks to his daddy's tax fraud scheme. That fact would completely undermine his entire public image but it was maybe a two-day story because Dems and left-leaning pundits and the like basically never talked about it again.
Joshua Holland

journalists really should have a gilded age/progressive era historian on speed dial for the next few years. it will help a lot!
Nicole Hemmer @pastpunditry.bsky.social

I feel like people should be asking Senate Republicans why THEY would hire Hegseth when the Koch Brothers already decided he was incompetent.
emptywheel

10 fucking years of Republicans complaining about “trigger warnings” and now LA Times readers will be warned beforehand if a story is too mean to Mr Trump
Jason O. Gilbert

Biden's administration, like Obama's — and sharply unlike Bush's or Trump's — was ethically unimpeachable. Zero indictments, zero convictions. And Biden, like Obama, got *zero* political credit for it, mainly b/c the media wouldn't tell the story. Everyone demands that Dems obey the norms, follow the rules, be civil, even when the other side isn't. But they also refuse to give Dems any credit for doing so, or reward them in any way. What a great setup.
David Roberts @volts.wtf


@alienissa.bsky.social

One thing that shaped me was when I was writing my college thesis on health insurance I met with leading economists, lawyers, political scientists, and industry officials and no person could point to a single reason the private health insurance industry existed.
alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social

You can only have two:
- Unchanging physical neighborhood character
- Housing affordability
- Economic prosperity
Max Dubler

Nearly 30% of US drugstores closed in one decade, a study shows, according to AP; Black and Latino neighborhoods hit hardest.
Mark Albert @malbertnews.bsky.social

TBH in terms of domestic shock troops being used to quell anti-MAGA protests, I’m more worried about your local police department than the army
Ned Resnikoff

Squirrels have 50 words for tree but not one word for love
lukelukeluke

I think MAGAs and their oligarch supporters really haven’t fully reasoned through “we’re going to make Americans as poor and desperate as possible to turn them into peasant vassals, but we’re also going to make sure they can still get lots of guns.”
Faine Greenwood

“I’ll stop drinking if you let me run the Pentagon” is maybe the most alcoholic thing anyone has ever said
@gonebabygone.bsky.social

Elbow patch:


N Sims @copyrightlibn.bsky.social

Republican Russia hawks are funny because it’s like buddy, they had an elite team of analysts and spies put their heads together on the best way to hurt our country and they concluded it was your party winning elections.
Starfish Who Can’t Think Something Witty @irhottakes.bsky.social

“Adair, IA, had a population of 794. So it seemed suspicious when its three-person police dept asked regulators to buy 90 machine guns. Federal agents later discovered Adair's police chief…was using his position to acquire weapons and sell them for personal profit.” –CBS News
Nicole Hemmer @pastpunditry.bsky.social

It should really concern us that we have managed to make elected office a frequently horrible job that rational, capable and principled people will commonly not want to do.
Brent Toderian

Thinking about how removed from danger (by which I mean the immediate and long-term consequences of personal and systemic politics) a person must feel for the words "fellow Americans" to conjure a sense of fellowship.
Puff the Magic Hater @mskellymhayes.bsky.social

Health care execs aren’t receiving threats because of “the nature of their work.” They’re receiving threats bc they’re creating barriers to human rights as a core component to the “nature of their work” and their huge profits. Harm and exploitation are choices, not happenstance or the “nature.” If it’s become so normalized that the “nature of the business” is simply to create barriers to the health care everyone deserves, then maybe the NYT should be asking WHY that’s acceptable instead of just throwing out language like “the nature” of their job.
mollypeonies

We all know that nothing helps an alcoholic stop drinking cold turkey like an intensely challenging new job with a national media spotlight and literal life and death consequences.
Kevin M. Kruse

day 3: 'Elevator & Aurora', Feb 2019, hand-hooked wool flannel on linen, 10"x12". Designed and hooked by me as a beginner rug hooking kit for Edmonton Rug Hooking Guild, with wool dyed by my mentor Laurie Wiles:


Deb Merry Am @debmerriam.bsky.social

The detransitioner offers the promise that underneath every trans person is a "real" person in need of saving, where "real" means "heterosexual, procreative, and obedient."
Gillian Branstetter

the clear sign that they just don’t see these [trans] kids as real people is the endless concern over hypotheticals and the indifference to the reality that actual children are more likely to kill themselves because of these bans
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

deeply depressing watching the six unelected rulers of America debate how many of my friends’ rights to take away because none of them believe my friends are real people. trans rights are human rights
Micah @rincewind.run

I don't understand why anyone is acting like this court is legitimate. I don't. Let them try to enforce their fucking rulings. They can't.
Prisonculture

The 'parental rights' movement's greatest hits include refusing to vaccinate their children, homeschooling to shove Christianist values down their children's throats, denying youth abortion access, conversion therapy, and, of course, denying basic human rights to trans kids.
s. e. smith

by far the funniest pro Trump talking point is that other countries respect us when he’s in power
Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social

“Our cities are full" (Both circles are the same area):


Hayden Clarkin @thetransitguy.com

In 1997, a typical CD retailed for $16.99, which is $33.42 in 2024 dollars. In 2024, you can subscribe to Spotify Premium for $11.99/month — $6.10 in 1997 dollars — and get access to every new release and a huge back catalog. This is why your favorite indie artist doesn't make any money on publishing.
Max Dubler

The New Republic joked that Eisenhower’s Cabinet was “eight millionaires and a plumber,” while Trump’s is nine billionaires and Nixon’s Plumbers
Kevin M. Kruse

When political reporters and pundits sneer at 'identity politics,' what they're really saying is "we agree with Republicans that the only people who are allowed to practice identity politics are conservative straight white people."
Daniel Gilmore @gilmored85.bsky.social

The nominee to take over the FBI has publicly published a list of innocent Americans he plans to target if given the power. This is more important than finger wagging about norms and traditions.
Fred Wellman

It’s really telling that the NYT buried a single story about how Kash Patel wants to prosecute Trump’s political opponents underneath 6 Hunter Biden pardon stories.
Santiago Mayer

president tries to seize power in south korea? significant resistance. president tries to seize power in brazil? president is arrested and banned from running again. president tries to seize power in america? the courts grant him total immunity and the voters reelect him with an allied congress
bobby @bobbylewis.bsky.social

office paper cutter:


Chris Steller

The diff is Koreans don't think they're above having to fight for democracy and they understand from recent experience how fragile liberal democracy is. Many South Koreans remember what it's like to live under martial law, incl the middle-aged/older folks who lived through the 1980 Kwangju Massacre
Jane Hong @janehongphd.bsky.social

The interesting times can stop whenever, I’m good I’m ready to be bored for a bit
Kaitlin Has Had Enough @gothamgirlblue.com

The GOP has been pretty consistent that accusing some of rape is harmful to men but rape is no big deal
Adam Miller @ajm6792.bsky.social

the frenzy over the hunter biden pardon is a good reminder that the press knows how to make something a scandal and has decided that nothing trump does is truly deserving of that treatment
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

My wife made this interesting comparison. Joe Biden lied about not pardoning Hunter. That directly affected one person, Hunter. Trump lied about not knowing anything about Project 2025, that affects tens of millions of people. Which will get more media attention?
Dean Baker

Hi. It's not normal for a nominee to be Director of the FBI to have his own personal hit list of people he wants to take revenge on using the power of the federal government. Do not confirm.
Joyce White Vance

Who thinks a cruel drunkard/rapist/Fox News pundit with no experience managing anything should oversee 3 million employees and an annual budget of 780 billion dollars ? Donald J Trump.
nojustdan.bsky.social

I think you could argue a bunch of different takes on the Hunter Biden pardon, clearly! People have! But it seems *INSANE* to have dozens of stories and a fucking live blog on this given everything else that's so much more consequential happening right now.
Clara Jeffery

Before cars, Santa was bad ass:


Dan Marshall

Trump is appointing Charles Kushner as ambassador to France because Trump knows how hard it is for people with a criminal record to get a job.
Dean Baker

A thing everyone has forgotten is that Donald Trump basically sprang Roger Stone from prison so he could help with the coup and it was maybe a one day story.
Chris Hayes

The [New Yorker] piece has tons of devastating details about Hegseth's many, many disqualifying personal traits, but we shouldn't overlook the parts about how he has repeatedly mismanaged every single organization he's led and been driven out of job after job for utter incompetence.
Kevin M. Kruse

This is your semi-regular reminder that an acre of solar produces 100x the energy of an acre of corn for ethanol.
Tamar Haspel

The amount we hand the pharmaceutical industry through government-granted patent monopolies is around 60% of the defense budget.
Dean Baker

Reminder that Ivanka is the only daughter of a president in our nation's history whose father-in-law and father are both convicted felons. She is also the only daughter of a president who goes to sleep every night with a man who profited off the murder of an American based journalist.
Denise Wheeler

Trump is one mood swing away from appointing Barron to the US Supreme Court and y’all are talking bout “we need to respect norms.” WE??????? THE NORMS ARE GONE, GIRL.
Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social

I genuinely don't think I can handle the next four years of New York Times headlines. Kill me now:


Mehdi Hasan

If something is bad in the US, and you have no information on the cause, guessing "Reagan did it" will be right a shocking amount of the time.
Django Wexler

Both Texas and Georgia are destroying evidence of all maternal mortality, blocking proof that women are dying from abortion bans. This story has a lot more going on than you think. Especially since Republicans are lying about the public cases.
Amanda Marcotte

Before the week begins, I feel duty-bound to remind you that Pete Hegseth appears to be the kind of guy who brings roofies to a Republican women's conference.
David Waldman @kagrox.bsky.social

I have long been convinced that the solution to 90% of traffic fatalities and at least 50% of the climate crisis is for men to go to therapy
David Kronig

Whatever your opinion about the Hunter Biden pardon, if it gets more attention than the Kash Patel nomination, it is one more instance of a failure to distinguish between fundamental and trivial threats to the rule of law.
Don Moynihan

I served as a US ambassador and know hundreds of others. Never met one before who hired a prostitute to seduce their brother-in-law or sent a videotape of the encounter to their sister. Or who committed 18 felonies and was pardoned by another in-law. I guess the job qualifications are changing.
Norm Eisen

The Marge Simpson Bollard:


World Bollard Association™️

The solution to poverty is to give money to people who need money. Everything else is just inefficiency in order to salve people’s desire to punish poor people for being poor.
A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social

sometimes it just hits me that most never-been-poor people believe in their heart of hearts that poor people just don’t work very hard, or aren’t very smart. what a world
ashley fairbanks @ziibiing.com

Kash Patel is who you pick for FBI director if what you really want is your own version of the Stasi.
Ned Resnikoff

Vinyl is s petroleum product, which means you can play Blue Öyster Cult's "Godzilla" on an actual dinosaur
Ray @sireviscerate.bsky.social

My favorite is how when Democrats appoint a special counsel, it must always be a Republican to guard against partisan bias. But when Republicans appoint a special counsel, it must also be a Republican to guard against partisan bias!
Radley Balko

We’ve got some Constitutional crises on the horizon, and SCOTUS is stacked against the Constitution.
Leah McElrath

Israel killed 100 people in Gaza today. I listened to NPR this evening, and this wasn’t even reported in passing. There was even a report about an initiative to save endangered wolves somewhere, but no mention of the 100 people who were killed in less than 24 hours.
Jehad Abusalim

Recrudescence. Yep. That about sums it up:


The Sgt Joker

Internalize the fact that FDR was a master propagandist and budgeted messaging into every New Deal project. Despite how it should work, great things do not sell themselves.
Kaitlin Has Had Enough @gothamgirlblue.com

If you commute on an e-bike 20km a day, five days a week, your charging cost would be about $20 – annually.
Barry Davidson @trikebum.bsky.social