BlueSky, December 2025, Part 1

It's always hard to write these starter summaries because I'm immersed in what's happening right now.

This month that's — most immediately — two mass shootings (at Brown University and Bondi Beach in Sydney) and the terrible killing of Rob and Michelle Reiner by their son. But as I recompile what happened in the previous 15 days, it all comes back, and every time I do this, it's a shock how much of it I've half-forgotten, or at least find it seeming longer ago than that. 

This month it includes major Supreme Court news (the Texas gerrymandering case, the FTC case, and the decision to accept the birthright citizenship case), more death and destruction planned from RFK Jr., our foreign policy as an outright betrayal of Europe, building up to war with Venezuela, and just more rampant corruption and degradation all around us. 

Here in the Twin Cities we've been living in the news, with ICE/DHS grabbing our neighbors off the streets and out of buildings, with people standing up to fight back as best they can. In the midst of the first winter-like December we've had in years. 

Everything below the line is quoted from the attributed account, and is in reverse chronological order, except some of the images, which I move up or down for better visual balance.
____

The President can use the R slur, but Head Start programs can’t say “disability.” The President can call female reporters “piggy,” but Head Start programs can’t say “women.”
Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social

The "Duck" in Avenida Place hotel, Barcelona, Spain:


Architecture

I hate that every week there's something stupid like an Everyone Has To Drink Pee Now Bill and the alert sounds to CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES THIS IS NOT A DRILL and you really wish you could just trust them to not go for the pee drinking bill
Down Here For Your Soul @bombsfall.bsky.social

My electrician is a green-card-holder who's been here since he was a kid. He got married to a citizen, applied for citizenship, went to court for the papers and when he got there ICE kidnapped him and he's been locked up for a month. He has a crew of 4-5 guys. "Job-creator."
Joshua Holland

“at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the paramount challenge facing American cities is how to add density to the 50’-wide lots of single-family homes nestled in greenery.”
Bryn Davidson - Lanefab

One way that the reaction to Rob Reiner's murder mirrors Charlie Kirk's is that the best way to eulogize each of them is to quote their words, and in both cases, doing so pisses off conservatives.
Rebecca Watson @skepchick.org

Making up lies about a political opponent is nasty but not completely outside the bounds of normal discourse. Celebrating the death of the guy who directed "When Harry Met Sally," um, is.
Sam Freedman

most of the people fired actually made factual posts about Kirk.
Prisonculture

Donald Trump is a very sick man. He should be removed from office before he does any more harm to the nation.
Jen Mercieca

Good morning. Brazil Christmas stamp, 1967:


Present & Correct

It’s crazy how the “Don’t tread on me!” and “Live free or die” crowd is fine with masked gangs of anonymous armed federal agents hassling, detaining, and assaulting people on the streets “papers please”-style. This feels like the most basic freedom of not living in a fascist police state.
Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social

Interesting single stair report from MN coming out - where they did a whole lot of data analysis and comparative life safety modeling. In short, it adds substance to what we’ve been arguing: Single stair is a lot safer than two stair buildings with long hallways, and much safer than single family.
Bryn Davidson - Lanefab

Life is short and it is precious. A lot of us do not act accordingly.
Prisonculture

q: how did stephen miller, the descendent of eastern european jewish immigrants who fled antisemitic pogroms, become an unreconstructed National Socialist directing a pogromist terror state?
a: suburban whiteness is a hell of a drug:


ben chambers

It is actually better when hatred is subtext rather than text. That’s not something I might’ve said in 2014, but I strongly believe it now. I guess I would’ve said that making hatred into text forces people to see it and then reject it. which now feels very naïve.
David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social

Ahmed al Ahmed, the man who tackled one of the Bondi killers, became an Australian citizen 3 years ago. His deed was "his way of conveying his gratitude for staying in Australia, for being granted citizenship." He took 5 bullets, and fears he'll lose his left arm:


Bill Grueskin

One argument I used to make to my students about why it was important to learn history (and historical thinking) is that someone was always going to be trying to tell you things were natural or had always been this way and that you needed to be able to see that as an exercise of power.
Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social

TV news having trouble triaging an antisemitic mass murder on Chanukah, a mass shooting at one of the nation’s most prestigious universities, and the apparent murder of one of America’s most beloved movie directors
Amanda Katz @katzish.bsky.social

All on the anniversary of Sandy Hook…
Butterfly Gardener @pollinatorlady.bsky.social

This is a real headline on the New York Times website. Support independent media:


Marc Elias

Mass deportation is a stupid and inhumane policy in its own right but I still think it's important to say, this isn't mass deportation. This is the creation of a national police force that can be sent to anywhere Donald Trump orders under the pretense it is about immigration enforcement
Daniel Knowles

antisemitism is a canary in the coal mine. if it’s rising it means your society is failing. i haven’t had my coffee yet but i'm pretty sure i mostly actually do believe this.
elias isquith

Something like 90% of money spent on an automobile leaves the local community. We spend an average of $700k over a lifetime on our cars. Do that math. Ride a bike. Take the bus. Walk.
Elle @biknmusicmama.bsky.social

It’s amazing how much more heat the heat pump makes the second it gets above –14°F outside. At –14 and below it relies heavily on the electric backup, which is way less efficient and doesn’t make as much heat. But hit –13 and boom — it’s off and running again.
Alex @mplsalex.bsky.social

A functioning pluralistic society is what protects Jews, not a garrison state on the other side of the world.
Mikhail Gorbaechev

It's a defining feature of the Trump Era: unqualified people in big important jobs who don't want to do them and can't anyway so they spend a lot of time pretending to do it on TV and social media.
Max Kennerly

The person of the year is just outside of the frame, sawing through the girder:


Una McCormack

The British commentariat are to the right of Oswald Mosley and Enoch Powell. They are an existential threat to the UK — they say ‘jump’; the government says ‘how high?’
Nate O

NEW: The Trump administration has argued that Fed board member Lisa Cook may have committed mortgage fraud by declaring more than one primary residence on her loans. We found that Trump once did the very thing he claimed could be a crime.
ProPublica

In 1993, Trump signed a mortgage for a Florida home, pledging it would be his principal residence. Seven weeks later, he attested a neighboring property would also be his principal residence. In reality, he does not seem to have lived in either home.
ProPublica

In the United States today, guns have more rights than any category of people except straight white men:


Tim Murphy @tmurp1953.bsky.social

Home schooling removes what schools provide: a place where children learn and are with one another, a place where adults outside the home can intervene on a child’s behalf, and a transparent, public minimum standard of education.
Justin Parmenter

so far tonight msnbc has interviewed two students from brown university that are also survivors of separate high school shootings. insanity.
Grant @mksongbird.bsky.social

It's been ghastly to see so many academics on here this evening share how they scan their classrooms for ways to keep students safe in case a man with a gun walks in. Sometimes, as an immigrant from a basically gun-free society, I can't believe I've normalized this evil.
Tim Watson

On an episode of his show in March, Nick Fuentes summarized his politics as “Jews are running society, women need to shut the fuck up, Blacks need to be imprisoned for the most part, and we would live in paradise. It’s that simple.” 
Rick Allen @rallennautilus.bsky.social

When men say things like “if you have a womb, you’re a woman,” I just assume they are the same type of guy as Jeffrey Epstein. This never fails me
Kat Tenbarge

Liberals are constantly trying to indoctrinate our young people. You can see the proof in this colorful PragerU video presented by the Young America's Foundation at a Turning Point USA school club meeting.
NY Times Pitchbot

How much of the AI boom is just tech companies converting self-manufactured hype into speculative real estate purchases? They are purchasing and developing thousands of acres of land, which has intrinsic value.
Chris Lombardi @chrisblue.bsky.social

Not fetishizing the old days but there is something to be said about not everything being so immediate all the time. Waiting created anticipation and longevity which I think built a deeper connection vs the immediate and throwaway of many things today.
Tom Flood

for whatever reason, the victims of traffic violence never factor into the calculation. no urgency there. but do something that might affect a suburban lawyer who had a few drinks and then it becomes an “equity” issue. most people, left and right, treat traffic violence like the weather and not a specific policy choice
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

It is literally life and death if you speed:


Stephen Judkins

A lot of people think basically all traffic laws are a fundamentally illegitimate pretext to harass and fine motorists at random, rather than regulations designed to prevent injury and death.
Max Dubler

The United States government is being dismantled and instead of treating this like a goddamn emergency and putting it on all channels all the time like people need to know their house is burning down, Democrats are giving mealy mouthed statements about bipartisanship. But then they want us to care?
Kaitlin Is Just Getting Started @gothamgirlblue.com

We can all play this game of which demographic shouldn’t be allowed to vote since the US right wants women’s right to vote to be banned. The group that has proved themselves the biggest liability is Republican men.
Nikita Gill

There isn't a single problem "solved" by edtech that couldn't be fixed with smaller classes led by well-paid teachers given real academic freedom
Holiday Ryan @ryanboyd.bsky.social

A very small group of billionaires and trillionaires with a lot of power has decided our future will be digital and post-human. And then, we have cities: bright, rainbow-colored dots of humanity, creativity, industry, and culture. I vote for cities.
Cathy Tuttle

Here are the top 10 most popular post-1945 American authors at the Seattle Public Library over the last 20 years:


Melanie Walsh @mellymeldubs.bsky.social

To all of the bozos demanding that bikes be regulated, licensed and taxed, if we taxed on the basis of road wear/damage and danger to human lives, small cars $100, big cars $200-400 SUVs  $300-800  pickup trucks $10,000, larger pickup trucks $60,000, bicycles $.10.
Doug Baer

“It's not my duty as Mayor to make sure you have a parking spot. For me it's the same as if you bought a cow, or a refrigerator, and then asked me where you're going to put them.” –Mayor of Pontevedra, Spain (re-elected 6 times)
Brent Toderian

25 years ago today, SCOTUS elected George W Bush president of the United States by blocking completion of a voting canvass in Florida. A subsequent canvass by the Associated Press showed that Bush's rival, Al Gore, had won the race in Florida — and thus the contest for the presidency—by 700 votes.
Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social

In terms of US politics, Bush v. Gore is the defining event of the century. It set the template: a ruthless right that instinctively seeks power and doesn't give a shit about rule of law...and a bunch of hapless, feckless octogenarian Dems worried about the good opinion of centrist opinion columnists.
David Roberts @volts.wtf

Fact-check: true:


The Tennessee Holler

AI companies: We can't have 50 state AI laws. There has to be just one rulebook for AI
EU: Here you go
AI companies: not like that
Dave Lee

googled something and clicked a link to a website I'd never heard of that looked like a forum, read the discussion and realized the person asking a question and all of the answers were all LLM generated, the entire website was a fake forum pretending to be people asking/answering questions
Kevin Snyder @guns.bsky.social

HOLY COW! Florida Gov. Ron DeSastrous diverted $36M in child welfare and medical funds to pay for consultants and ads to defeat an abortion rights amendment and one for legal weed. Much of the state $$$ was intended to assist the needy. "The records the Times/Herald have been able to obtain show that to pay for ads, DeSantis officials repeatedly tapped into money meant to help vulnerable Floridians. The money came from federal grants...By spending public money on a political effort, several agencies bent the rules." [Quoting the Tampa Bay Times]
Craig Pittman @craigtimes.bsky.social

"Heritage Foundation" on your USA resume today is like "National Socialist Party" on your resume in 1942 Germany.
Harry Tuttle @howievermont.bsky.social

This entire CBS News article is positive about Trump Gold Cards. It contains positive quotes about it from Trump, Lutnick and a CEO. It contains no quotes from the many critics of the program. This is sandwiched between 6 posts about Erika Kirk. CBS is lost:


Ron Filipkowski

Trump backs electric air taxis (which have minimal positive impact and only billionaires could afford for at least the next decade), but kills support for electric cars.
Jon T @jcttraveler.bsky.social

It's odd how people feel so strongly about putting solar panels on good agricultural land, but think nothing of all the land set aside so rich people can graze their horses, play golf, and shoot pheasants. Almost like they've been sold a narrative
Dr Charlie Gardner

My hottest take is that letting cops park in red zones for mundane errands and coffee breaks; I think “you can break the law at your discretion as a job perk” is the small domino that ends in the large domino of “shooting protesters in the face with rubber bullets”
Rick Caruso’s Private Fire Crew @amandasmith.bsky.social

Republicans gave $132 billion in tax breaks to the top 1% in 2027. With that money, we could have extended ACA tax credits for over 20 million people next year and still have $100 billion left over.
Elizabeth Warren

The world is full of drivers who pass you so they can wait at the traffic light directly in front of you instead of directly behind you.
David Ho

Gas stations are among the worst, as a class, for clearing sidewalks.  Why should they care, their customers drive in:


James Umbanhowar

one thing that doesn’t get enough coverage or comment with regards to this administration is it how much it hates the actually existing united states
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

so many of our current problems stem from americans not being able to comprehend that a guy they know from tv might actually be stupid
ceej @ceej.online

Their closing message to Indiana: change your maps to artificially benefit the President's political party or 'roads will not be paved' as punishment. They are openly saying this. Who would want to live in a country that works like that?
Pete Buttigieg

NATO chief Rutte: "Russia has brought war back to Europe, and we must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents and great-grandparents endured." 
The Tennessee Holler

Indianapolis Star, November 22, 1918:


root@eruditorum.œrg @root2702.bsky.social

Embedded journalists are compromised journalists.
David Brauer

They keep talking about these nonprofits that bilked funds but they conveniently forget about how United Healthcare did virtually the exact same thing.
quick13

South African tells Stephen Miller's wife that he doesn't want immigrants to vote. otherwise US will become "communist hellhole."
Clara Jeffery

The titular wokeness being rolled back is the Civil Rights Act of 1964:


Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.bsky.social

When you hire a white man because they’re a white man that’s not identity politics. Identity politics is when you get hired and you’re not a white man. The anti-wokeness hysteria was always a backlash to integration of white collar jobs 
Adam Serwer

Hi hello the Venezuela stuff is entirely about oil, both in Venezuela and in Guyana (where Venezuela is laying claim to the oil in what is now Exxon’s largest oilfield, which Chevron has also bought into). It is the bidding of US oil majors and it’s not remotely subtle.
Amy Westervelt

In the world we live in today, that is 1.3C warmer due to our continued burning of fossil fuels, the extreme rainfall leading to disastrous flooding in many parts of Asia is up to 50 to 160% more intense 
Prof Friederike Otto

Sometimes I think white people's obsession with rewhitening media is a form of self-soothing, like sucking your thumb. if all the lantern jawed manly white men and submissive blonde thin women return, things will be okay again and the world won’t be so scary again. Sometimes it’s just racism.
Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social

If you make a billion dollars — or $500 million or even $100 million dollars — and you keep trying to make more, then there is something seriously wrong with you. It's a mental illness akin to hoarding or drug addiction.
Brandon Friedman

red robin diner sign, johnson city, new york, 1988:


old roadside pics

I think about this quote from George Monbiot a lot: “The idea that some people may freely poison others is one of the most astonishing but least contested aspects of modern life.”
David Ho

An “Every Accusation Is a Confession” for the ages: Last night Trump accused all Somalis of being pirates who steal boats. Today he’s a pirate stealing boats.
Gillian Brockell

Immigrants ‘plucked out of line’ at citizenship ceremony at Faneuil Hall “the cradle of liberty.” If you ever claimed you want immigrants to do it the right way, this should outrage you. On the other hand, If you think this was okay, you need to come to terms with your white nationalist views.
Christopher Webb

This is such a special moment for families, when they finally take the oath to become a U.S. citizen. Grabbing people and disappearing them is horrendous, but this - this is especially sickening.
Patrick Chovanec

Every time he opens his mouth, he reminds us he's a sad little boy who's easily bribed with shiny trinkets and gold stars.
Kevin M. Kruse

I think “speak to your fake dead relative” might be the most evil application of “AI” i’ve seen so far
Adam Serwer

all i'm saying is that there were better options:


Microplastics Sommelier @leastactionhero.bsky.social

Admit it: if you were writing a fictional account of a daft, mad authoritarian president, you wouldn't put in there that he *brags about passing basic cognitive tests meant to screen for dementia*. It's simply not realistic! Reality is simply not that absurd!
David Roberts @volts.wtf

Thinking back to how people were "hysterical" for calling trump white supremacist and now he's doing nordic theory on the campaign trail
Adam Serwer

People keep wondering why they're going after Venezuela. It's because they want to do regime change and control its oil, then use a big tract of land there to keep a tax free "network state" that looks like Dubai but operates like Rhodesia. They are saying this out loud! Believe them!
Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social

I tried to find a photo of Christopher Plummer riding a bike, and instead I found this photo of a guy named Chris who's a plumber, which is even better:


Cool Bike Art @coolbikeart1.bsky.social

When people say small town vibe in the context of opposing a housing project, they mean keeping the buildings small, not the concept of getting to know your neighbors. Which is much easier to do in urbanized areas and apartment buildings in general.
Darrell Owens @idothethinking.bsky.social

After NYC installed 2,000 speed cameras, crashes fell 30% and injuries 16%.
David Zipper

So it turns out an ice agent is much more likely to have an arrest record than an immigrant.
Hopeful in AZ @shimanti.bsky.social

They keep asking me to take cognitive tests every couple months because I'm so good at them, they want to see if I can beat my high score
Ian Boudreau

main economic message from the president is that you will be poorer and you will like it
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

"And then the temperature started going down like a rock":


Climatologist49

It truly is astounding how Labor won a crushing victory and then immediately used its newly won power do absolutely nothing except create new fronts in the culture war. Geniunely mindshattering outcome for British libs.
Tim Curry Cultivation Program @nixondick.bsky.social

The toddler is at an age where she has friends, but none of them have developed enough language to have conversations. Instead, they just get really close to each other's faces and smile and laugh at one another. Which I think is the loveliest thing in the whole world.
Saoirse Ní Chiaragáin @miseryvulture.bsky.social

Masked federal agents are storming into neighborhoods, detaining people (regardless of status), assaulting constitutional observers, and pointing live weapons at unarmed civilians - while their lawyers seek to undermine due process. Nothing about this is about safety. And it’s costing us *billions*
Kat Rohn

Folks, there's no 'fixing' the damage being done. Everything moves forward. The damage is permanent. Maybe someday we'll build a BETTER future, but the only way out is THROUGH, not BACK. Power is never surrendered, it's only taken. Nobody with power will give it up, they must be relieved of power.
Bob Alberti @a1batross.bsky.social

You got that right:


Ruth @poofer.bsky.social

One theory I have is that competence, self-control, responsibility, and expertise have all been feminized, leaving “masculinity” with the realm of impulsivity and petulance. So the divide is not really between “femininity” and “masculinity” so much as between adulthood and childishness.
Moira Donegan

Just visited our nearby university library and was fascinated to learn from a librarian that it's true—students are bombarding them with requests for references that do not exist, the product of ChatGPT and its brethren. "It's a goddamned nuisance," she said. "They don't believe it's all made up."
Charles C. Mann

If seeing your planet burning and flooding is more tolerable than seeing a bike lane in your city, you might want to revisit your priorities.
Tom Flood

The inability to have a positive vision of the future is one of the biggest tailwinds the populist Right has at its back, because then politics becomes about RETVRN, and the Right is always going to beat the Left at that game
Double Good Think @onedayinjune.bsky.social

So what’s weird is how the manosphere is essentially a doubling down on all the bad advice and a slow rejection of the good advice — weird, but probably not surprising since the whole business model relies on subscription, so you don’t actually want your subscribers to achieve their goals and cancel
Colin Elves

Shakopee today. A dozen vehicles. 15+ ICE agents. All to apprehend one person who wasn’t even home. This isn’t an effective use of time or resources. This is simply terrorizing a neighborhood and our community. ICE makes us less safe. End Operation Metro Surge:


Brad Tabke

In the first six months of congestion pricing, air pollution within Manhattan's toll zone dropped 25%. Pollution fell across the five boroughs and in the suburbs, too. A clean air win all around.
David Zipper

i’ve taken the whole thing apart and still can’t find the dishwasher safe
James @james.tarnation.lol

The other reporters in the White House press corps are apparently waiting until the president actually takes a swing at one of their female colleagues before they say anything
Kevin M. Kruse

It is newsworthy that the president of the United States is increasingly verbally abusive of women reporters and he should be asked about it.
Adam Parkhomenko

I think one of the biggest reasons it’s happening here is that many people still believe it can’t happen here.
Joshfrai

Biden years will have been the high point for a looooong time. Sucks if you whined about em
Cai @annenotation.bsky.social

Pandemics are a kind of weird natural disaster. They are not predictable (unlike hurricanes in Florida or earthquakes in Japan) and there isn't an evildoer to blame for them. They just happen. This makes it hard for people to fit into a narrative on how the world works, which creates confusion.
@disgolfelysium.bsky.social

Everyone imitates Tolkien all the time except when it comes to the one way it would really matter: making the protagonist of your novel for children a short, fat, 50-year-old man who doesn't want to do anything.
Ranged Touch

also always deeply funny that every sci-fi video game from 1999-2014 was trying to be Aliens, and copied everything except the...working class woman protagonist
Luke Plunkett

Saying Trump is “transactional” is just a gentle way of saying he’s corrupt. Every power he has been trusted with, he treats as a way to extract favors and benefits from anyone he sees as situationally vulnerable.
Patrick Chovanec

Can we please stop using lynching as a metaphor for criticism?
James Umbanhowar

Remember, 15-minute cities are "forcing a lifestyle":


American Fietser

The global mortality rate for children under 5 is projected to increase in 2025 -- for the first time in decades. Moreover, the projected death rate by 2030 is 16% higher than last year. 
Steve Rattner

I am not live-posting the whole argument here because I want to listen closely to Trump v. Slaughter. But the solicitor general for Trump just said the point here in killing the independence of agencies like the FTC is that executive branch officers must “fear and obey” the president. Wow. Complete with a scowling poster of big brother Trump over their shoulder, I suppose.
Matt Wood @mattfieldwood.bsky.social

Astonishing, America. The MINORITY opinion on our supreme Court is that competent, qualified people should make decisions that require competence. The MAJORITY opinion is that anyone loyal to Trump can do any job.
Boulder Voter Rob

my ideal presidential candidate in 2028 could be described, loosely, as "general sherman but for the supreme court"
Micah @rincewind.run

I feel like I've been struggling to articulate this for years, but I just figured it out: Musicians that can read music/are classically trained are wizards, and musicians that can't read music/learned by ear are sorcerers.
Nissa Mitchell

It's time once again for my annual #treebybike post. This is the 12/19/42 cover of the New Yorker, so one full year after the attack on Pearl Harbor. This would be the first real Christmas alone, or without a family member, for millions in the US. Gas and tire rationing had begun earlier that year"


James Longhurst

Oh, here's a big surprise. The transphobes don't believe in ADHD either.
Jamie McKelvie

some significant part of this is just catch-all fear for “this is not the child I ordered” I think
post malone ergo propter malone @proptermalone.bsky.social

Another round of Sunday shows today where a string of Republican senators and representatives claimed to have no knowledge or awareness of any of the worst things Trump said or did this week.
Ron Filipkowski

I know nothing about 95% of building code standards, but for the couple I have educated myself about, they feature incurious, change-averse, folklore-espousing authority figures blocking rational changes that have been proven safe and effective worldwide
Stephen Judkins

The calls from America this weekend to "abolish the EU" are for one simple reason: the EU is the only thing that can keep European nation-states from becoming Russian or American vassals.
Dave Keating

Uber/Lyft, Airbnb, doordash, and all the other such predatory corporate schemes not only fail to solve problems, they actually exacerbate the problems they claim to fix.
Andy Zahn

For a while, they said if you needed tech help, ask a 10yo. But current 10-20yos didn't have to explore and click around and futz with things to get them to work, so if it's not immediately obvious, they can't do it. Basically if you're 30-50 you're just doing tech support for everyone forever.
Erin @erinsopran.bsky.social

Had to explain to a 20-year-old medical student what "try the link in a different browser" meant. God help us all.
Dr Vanessa @hpsvanessa.bsky.social

a.i.-generated text is the uncanny valley of the written word.
Tom Tomorrow

"Our analysis shows that in the aftermath of extreme weather events, lower-income neighbourhoods are less likely to rebuild and do not return to their pre-disaster state, whereas higher-income areas rebuild and tend to improve...highlighting increasing disparities in their built environments." –Nature
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

Literally a week ago Musk said that falsely labeling people as Nazis "should be treated as incitement to murder." And here he is (falsely) labeling the EU as Nazis.
Mike Masnick

The stories of pregnant women in ICE detention — one shackled while miscarrying, another placed in solitary confinement with a high-risk pregnancy — are not one offs. They're a clear pattern of neglect where ICE ignores its own rules. This cruelty must end.
ACLU

The news from Oklahoma and Nebraska is so depressing. The US public university system is one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century, created to democratize liberal arts education, and it's being destroyed by greedy people who think only the rich are deserving of such learning.
Kevin Bird @stairwaytokevin.bsky.social

The Trump administration has deleted all previous National Climate Assessments from government websites and fired the scientists working on the next report. Now they say they're going to rewrite the previous ones. This is scientific sabotage and a rewriting of history.
Peter Gleick

From the Wall Street Journal's chief foreign correspondent:


Adrian Monck @amonck.bsky.social

Brett Kavanaugh, Yale-educated SCOTUS justice, thinks that arresting dark-skinned Americans for looking "illegal" is perfectly fine. He's wrong and should be impeached for his anti-constitutional beliefs. 
AnneC @annecw.bsky.social

ONE group in the US opposes birthright citizenship: white Christian racists - the US Republican Party. Why are so many people so afraid to simply call out these racists? If one is a US Republican in 2025, then one is a racist and a Nazi.
Our Dystopian America Press

Man i fucking hate how the media's adopted suspected drug smuggling vessel as the term, you are indisputably describing civilians — that’s what makes them drug smugglers!
Starshine

My dad abhors any negative comments about immigrants. Asked him recently why he’s so strong on it: ‘Because we’re always happy to take the rich and clever ones. Which means it’s not about disliking immigrants. It’s about disliking the poor and vulnerable. And that’s a bad human instinct.’
Laura McInerney @missmc.bsky.social

Something that just occurred to me is for all Hegseth's machismo prostrating it's like a classically cowardly thing to kill defenseless men in war. Like by millennia-old standards of honor.
Gillian Branstetter

You have just been visited by Somali Paul Bunyan. In order to receive his blessing, you must share this with your friends and type “Thank you Somali Paul Bunyan for discovering Minnesota!”


Donavon Indovino Cawley

The death of traditional masculine virtues comes from men not willing to cultivate traditional masculine virtues. If you cultivated traditional masculine virtues and spent some time at not-insane right-leaning church of your choice you would be *drowning* in prospects.
K. Chen @tznkai.bsky.social

They don't want traditional masculine virtues, which is something they give; they want traditional masculine rents, which is something they get.
Sara Straw @oneoneder.bsky.social

Elon Musk is pushing a Russian talking point about the dissolution of the European Union on X.(The man agreeing with him is a former president of Russia and current deputy chair of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.)
Leah McElrath

Silicon Valley was a mistake.
Mark Copelovitch

Let yourself be shocked, over and over, by what you’re seeing. Anything else will dull the urgency we need to fight back.
Rep. Leigh Finke

It's the 160th anniversary of the United States' refounding, the ratification of the 13th Amendment.
Jacob T. Levy

Between living in a state of hyper-vigilance, enduring widespread loss, and bearing witness to purposeful cruelty while powerless to stop it, we are all experiencing trauma—even if we as individuals or as members of a vulnerable group are not being targeted directly. Be gentle with yourselves.
Leah McElrath

RIP Frank Gehry: his childhood home in Toronto still exists!


Jesse Hawken

To say this for the 50th time, for anyone who doesn't know: Three young conservative lawyers were part of the GOP "Florida recount" team that led to GWB becoming president, via Bush-v-Gore. They were: John Roberts. Brett Kavanaugh. Amy Coney Barrett. Small world.
James Fallows

worth saying that some portion of the freed slaves were themselves illegal aliens having been brought illegally into the united states by smugglers. if the birthright clause applies to them, it applies to undocumented immigrants
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

looking forward to either a 6-3 decision that trump as God Emperor of the United States can change the constitution by fiat or a 5-4 decision that 14th amendment means what it says with a dissent from thomas that actually the constitution recognizes donald j. trump as sovereign
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

some days you just have to laugh at how unbelievably stupid everything is
Aaron Rupar

I am really old. (Though still younger than all US prez except Obama.) But not *within my lifetime* has a Democratic president appointed a Chief Justice of Supreme Court. The most recent one was almost *eighty* years ago — Fred Vinson, appointed by Harry Truman, in 1946. Before my time.
James Fallows

There are no less than three would-be serial killers in this admin
lamorak.bsky.social

Enter password ok let's make sure its you we texted you a code ok now input a 2nd code from the Authenticator App but first add your account to the app to do so we sent a code to your email which you cant access ok input PIN answer security questions OOPS you tried too many times try again in 24 hrs
Dr. Twink, Ketamine Woman @subtlebeast.bsky.social

He looks like he’s trying to stop his dog from leaving him:


Mike Ginn @shutupmikeginn.bsky.social

I can't stop thinking about the purported drug smugglers being murdered by the US military. The punishment for drug offenses isn't the death penalty. This is just bloodlust and men in suits playing with lives they don't care about. It's truly grotesque and gravely compromises this country.
Roxane Gay

rfk jr wants to kill your kids, it’s really that simple.
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

Mark Zuckerberg’s gamble on the "Metaverse" has lost his company more than $77 billion.
More Perfect Union

It's astounding to contemplate that for tens of millions of Americans, what was traumatic about the COVID-19 pandemic wasn't the millions of illnesses and deaths; it was that they were being told what to do. I'm convinced that that's what this bullshit is about.
...ou faire un vers!

"All is lost" narratives are popular because people generally do not want to take action. Taking action is tiring so if all is lost, you are off the hook. Nothing is more seductive than not having to do anything.
Prisonculture

A heroin addict who writes bad porn poetry says eliminating the Hepatitis B vaccine will make kids healthier.  Medical experts say it will kill thousands of innocent children.  For busy parents, it can be hard to know who to believe.
NY Times Pitchbot

Chicagoans will pay $76 per person this year for police misconduct settlements.
Levi Stahl

kleen kars sign, salt lake city, utah, 1980:


old roadside pics

Why am I not surprised? The National Park Service has made Trump's birthday a free admission day, while deleting MLK Day and Juneteenth.
Marc Reeve @cmraman.geek.org

As I said a couple months ago: Really hard not to see last year quite clearly as a Black woman being nominated for the first time and the response being the return of Jim Crow.
Jonathan Cohn

I give it six months before he’s donning a military uniform and giving four-hour speeches from balconies.
Radley Balko

All media mergers end up hurting writers, actors, directors, and everyone else who works in the industry. Executives, assistants, caterers, teamsters, everyone. Fewer companies means fewer jobs, period.
Ken Tremendous

I think much of the over-parenting we despise stems from the early on fear of the driver. 
If parents weren't terrified of our streets kids would have so much more freedom and independence which might get them comfortable with their children's ability to navigate the world without them.
Tom Flood

The USPS posting a NINE BILLION DOLLAR LOSS!!! sounds terrible. Certainly worse than if you said "USPS costs thirty dollars per person per year" even though that means the same thing and more accurately describes a government service
The Comfy Dude @2house2fly.bsky.social

If anyone cares at all, EV battery recycling is now hitting 99% recovery for important metals. Please remind me again what the recycle rate for fossil fuels is
Rob @robdickinson.bsky.social

Publishing all the other boat murder videos but refusing to release the one of the two survivors being killed is an admission they know exactly how bad it looks. There's no other distinction to draw there, no reason to publish the others while withholding that one.
Andy Craig

It's not going well for the robot delivery services in Chicago:


Sara Sanchez @bcbsara.bsky.social

The Shadow Docket strikes again. For no valid legal reason, Texas citizens will be placed in electoral districts because of their race. This blatant discrimination by the Supreme Court ignores a Republican-controlled lower court decision and shows the gymnastics used to give Trump a victory.
IronMillMan

The Trump Court and its Republican Justices doesn’t give a flying fuck that everyone knows it will reflexively side with Trump. It’s got a job to do — prop up Republicans — and it’s doing it. It’s as simple as that.
David S. Cohen @dsc250.bsky.social

The constitutional right for Republicans to win elections no matter how hostile the electorate is against them
Kaitlin Is Just Getting Started @gothamgirlblue.com

Once again, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution is unconstitutional. 
@adelpreore.bsky.social

The dripping contempt the right-wing SCOTUS majority holds for district judges is truly a sight to behold every time. When they deign to give actual reasons for their shadow docket holdings, it’s “look at the absolute idiots who keep getting everything wrong!”
Chris Hayes

Simply amazing that the Supreme Court declared an end to legal race discrimination in the affirmative action case two years ago and now allows overt racism in both immigration arrests and redistricting. Using race to help minorities? Bad. Using it to discriminate against them? Very, very good.
Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social

if higher ed was really workforce training, “running meetings that don’t suck 101” would be a required class for everyone send tweet
Musicology Duck

Jared Kushner is now a billionaire. It’s almost like his insertion into US government foreign policy is for self-enrichment rather than in the service of the interests of the United States.
Leah McElrath

Imagine having to get an environmental review to plant trees in a street and reduce vehicle access when cars are the #1 emissions source in the state? Just some of the insanity here in Seattle
Push The Needle

A night out in Cedar-Riverside:


Matt DeLong

One thing about the Biden admin. is that, two or three levels down, there were tons of smart, focused, pro-social people doing great things that never rose to the level of a headline. Conversely, an enormous amount of the damage Trumpies are doing never makes the news. Parts of the federal govermment that most people never think about — research orgs, safety regs, low-income programs, etc. — are being degraded and destroyed, with no one to notice or mourn them. But every bit of it erodes the foundations of US power and prosperity, carefully laid over decades.
David Roberts @volts.wtf

"Dems must pivot to energy affordability and also embrace nuclear power" is a take I've read several times just today, and not a single time did the author pause to contemplate the dissonance.
David Roberts @volts.wtf

Ruh roh: New poll finds 37% of people who backed Trump in 2024 say the cost of living is "the worst they can ever remember it being." 
Jen Bendery

Tying our healthcare to our employers was a brilliant move for the billionaires… Not so much for the rest of us.
Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.social

I love how Letitia James is called a "Trump Antagonist" instead of a prosecutor doing her job bringing charges against a criminal
Coach Finstock

"School districts....appear to be overpaying for basic supplies because of Amazon contracts that bind them to dynamic pricing... A school district in Denver would have saved about $1m in 2023 had it been able to... lock in the lowest of the platform’s ... changing prices."
Stacy Mitchell

The top-10 carmakers by market cap make up 75% of global passenger car sales. Tesla makes up less than 2%. The Tesla bubble will be widely documented in history books:


Motorhead @bradmunchen.bsky.social

Grown-assed adults expecting holidays to be like when they were a kid is a great microcosm of the problems we have as a society today. Nostalgia is a toxic impulse. There is no "the way things used to be", you were just younger and less informed and had fewer responsibilities.
Mike Tremblay

Just a reminder: a Waymo in LA literally just drove into a police stand-off. With a passenger. Also. Putting more cars on the road is not how the city of Minneapolis will address climate change by reducing car trips, which is a stated goal of the City's Climate Plan.
amityf

"We're making your car get less miles per gallon" doesn't help Americans with energy bills.
Isak Kvam

I cannot make myself listen to Trump spewing hatred about my neighbors, but just for the record, it's the constitutional right of Americans to complain, and I've never heard a Somali immigrant complain even 1/10th as much as your average old entitled white asshole like the president.
Naomi Kritzer

All super rich guys sound the same now. It’s all “I sleep four hours a night and spend the other twenty hours a day developing a product that’s going to bring us the best widespread poverty anyone’s ever seen.”
Kashana

My earlier post about Trump's anti-Somali rant. 

A reader comments "So the elimination of 30 million girls is now a sad story about how men are lonely?"


Rebecca Solnit

[Reacting to a report that says reuse and return schemes could eliminate plastic pollution in 15 years.] Yes, and this could have been done a long time ago if not for the lobbying of the packaging industry. We don't lack technical solutions, but we lack the power to rein in destructive industries and break their stranglehold over governments and popular narratives
Dr Charlie Gardner

Sorry to anyone who thought Wokeness was annoying but as we now know it's the price we pay for a civilized society
Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social

I genuinely think this is going to be lots of people's unironic take on these years. I think Woke 2 will be a thing, and I don't think this was inevitable but rather the result of very bad strategic choices being made by the right and centrists.
lastpositivist.bsky.social

I hate seeing statements like 'aviation emissions are expected to grow x% by 2050'. We have a global commitment to reduce emissions to net zero by then! Does that mean nothing?
Dr Charlie Gardner

having a hobby outside of politics has made my brain better tbqh. like. it doesnt make me care less. it makes me able to care instead of being numb.
Tal B. Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social

the whole concept of "white genocide" is very funny because unlike a regular genocide where people try to butcher you with machetes or gas your family in white genocide your cousin marries an Indian guy
Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social

Submitted without comment:


Tinman contre la caste @bcmfietser.bsky.social

What does it say about this country that that the kind of open, rank bigotry Trump administration officials regularly express towards black immigrants apparently has no social cost because of the number of Americans who quietly agree or don't care.
Adam Serwer

Ilhan Omar rose from a single-parent immigrant family where her dad drove a taxi to her current position. Trump is the kid of a racist wealthy slum landlord who headed multiple failed businesses. One of these people is the example of failed ambition and it's not her.
What a racist piece of shit.
Nick Pettigrew

Smart republicans (lol I know) would think about what happens when you set a precedent that presidential pardons can be invalidated, and then your former leader's dementia, that was apparent to everyone at the time, is formally diagnosed
Tom Tomorrow

Me: trying to sleep at 3am with insomnia
My brain: OH RECTANGLE JUST MEANS RIGHT ANGLE. BITCH ARE YOU SEEING THIS? CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS SHIT
Me: I'll wreck your angles in a minute if you don't shut up
Nativity Guestival @unfortunatalie.bsky.social

it is crazy that the president is essentially just the project manager for a medium-sized hotel ballroom who tweets things which would yet someone with that actual job fired instantaneously
rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social

"I Remember You" sculpture by Sara Swink. Ceramic, 2011:


Greg Morosoff

"On Tuesday, when asked about Mr. Trump appearing to doze off in the cabinet meeting, his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, pointed to his remarks about the Somalis, which she described as an 'epic moment.'" Regarding racism and bigotry as "epic" is all you really need to know about MAGA.
SFDB

Find yourself someone who loves you the way unearned social hierarchy loves defending itself through moral panics and means testing.
Ryan Randall @ryanpatrickrandall.com

Federal Government Announces Racial Profiling Campaign, Explains It’s Because of the President’s Personal Bigotry
Nicholas Grossman

Don't you find it ironic when someone who has been wealthy their whole life claims "affordability" is a hoax? 
Mad_as_hell (Maddie) @maddie-says.bsky.social

The Atlantic is Fox News but for high SES liberals worried their kids spot at a UC will be taken by some Latino kid from the Central Valley.
Urban Land Rent

Passive aggressive snowplowing:


Chris Steller

I can't get over the fact that they scheduled a televised Cabinet meeting, hyped it as a major event, planned it all out to show how active and in control Trump is ... and then he dozed off in the middle of it. Repeatedly.
Kevin M. Kruse

Elon Musk is a Nazi and if you drive a Tesla you're inside a Hitler mobile
The Serfs @theserfstv.bsky.social

NBC News: At least 11 Indiana Republicans have been targeted with threats or swatting incidents amid Trump's gerrymandering pressure campaign in the state.
Kyle Griffin

I genuinely do not understand why ‘RFK Jr wants to kill thousands of American kids and make millions sick’ isn’t in the news basically every day. Also, why are Republicans OK with killing kids? Is it because they’re so busy covering for pedophiles that they’ve given up on kids entirely? 
Jason Karsh

i'm actually struck by how pete hegseth isn't just a cowardly man but a capital-c Coward. a guy who gets off on abusing and hurting people he thinks are weaker than him and then tries to run and hide when there might be consequences
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

We are not at war with Venezuela, yet. The boats are civilian craft. The U.S. criminal code does not maintain a death penalty for drug smuggling. Due process is required before conviction or sentence. All of the 80 people killed thus far are wanton murders slain under illegal orders. All of them.
David Simon @audacityofdespair.bsky.social

Currently dorking out over this graph about child mortality with my brother. Just mind boggling to take in:


Snowden St.

It's weird that there's this moral panic over using software and smartphones but the same folks have absolutely no concerns about what happens to people addicted to driving. Cars are a technology that's directly responsible for 40K deaths a year.
Bryan @bryanformhals.com

"the issue isn’t that we need more 'boy-friendly' reforms [in schools]. It’s that boys are socialized to compete only with boys and to read girls’ success as illegitimate or emasculating. The result is dissonance, resentment, and disengagement for boys — and hostile climates for girls."
Jess Calarco

Normally the creators of beloved children’s cartoon characters [like Franklin] would not need to disavow the U.S. Secretary of Defense, but ours is a drunken miscreant, a loutish boor with the dignity and nobility of a counterfeit butt-plug
Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social

I'm so tired of measles. I'm also tired of people using needle shots on stories like this. Show what measles looks like.
Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com

Just imagining how much better it would be if ALL news stories about vaccine-preventable illnesses were illustrated with pictures of people with the disease, not pictures of needle injections. If you must show something that people will find scary and unpleasant, make it the disease, not the cure.
Katie Mack @astrokatie.com

Let's check in and see how much December temperatures have changed (trend) over the last 75 years: 


Climatologist49

Wrecking young people's reading, writing and analytical skills during their formative years is an economic imperative for AI companies. For many of us who learned these things without AI, slop can't pass for news or entertainment. Destroying standards is essential to the industry's growth and survival.
Puff the Magic Hater @mskellymhayes.bsky.social

One of the things about trust is that it is efficient. It saves you having to invest a lot of time and effort in verification, and if placed in the right places, saves you a lot of pain. "The diseases will do the education" is what we get when we don't trust.
Don Moynihan

fun fact, being a trans person is very much like being a cyclist in that most people will go out of their way to avoid you but your very existence makes a small subset of people extremely angry and violent!
Emily Darling @radicaldreamer.bsky.social

A nation that allows criminals to be pardoned by the very person who orders their crimes, is a organized crime syndicate masquerading as a nation.
Dr. Jack Brown