The second half of February 2026 had way too much bad news about artificial intelligence. (Here's the link to Part 1 of the month). The paramilitary occupation of the Twin Cities continued, as DHS continued its shadow boxing with us, and Trump/Vance tightened the financial screws on Minnesota.
The Olympics ended in Milan, with embarrassment for the the men's hockey team, as they partied with the corrupt Kash Patel, who was there on the taxpayers' dime, and then they went to the White House for burgers and sat through the State of the Union. Oh, the State of the Union — that happened, too.
By the way, Republicans didn't manage to pass the vote-suppressing SAVE Act, and DHS is still partially shut down for lack of funding. Neither of which is commented on here since they're non-actions! But yay for those. And more came out of the Epstein files (though still not enough), and men in other countries were beginning to be held responsible for their part. Oh, and the tariff case was decided against Trump. Some good news, as things go these days.
Kansas moved into a new level of extremity of eliminating trans people from existence, and there was more billionaire consolidation of media, with the Ellisons on the move to acquire Warner Brothers and its properties.
Then just as the month was ending (this morning), those who predicted the Trump regime would make good on its threats to bomb Iran were proved right. As I write this, Ayatollah Ali Khameini may or may not be dead, along with 80+ school girls and who knows how many other people.
Everything below the line is quoted from the attributed account, and is in reverse chronological order, except some of the timeless images, which I move up or down for better visual balance.
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"How can you oppose war when Khamenei was evil?" Simple. If you killed Donald Trump by nuking Washington DC, I would not mourn Trump but I'd still say you're an evil war criminal who belongs in the Hague. It's really not hard.
Sheryl Weikal says Prosecute ICE @leftistlawyer.com
Imagine being a US Senator, going on TV, and not knowing the difference between Khomeini (who died in 1989) and Khamenei.
Patrick Chovanec
Henrietta Lacks is the reason we dont get polio anymore.
Henrietta Lacks is the reason in-vitro works
Henrietta Lacks is the reason there's an HPV vaccine, gene mapping, we know how cancer cells divide, AIDs is no longer a death sentence.
Henrietta Lacks cells were stolen from her
Ida B Wells' Winchester Rifle @dytsras.bsky.social
A message from the Wonderwall:
Minnesota United FC @mnufc.com
By the way when you see reports about how Israelis are going to bomb shelters, you should keep in mind that the vast majority of Palestinian *citizens* of Israel (in the 1948 territories, not the oPT) do not have a single bomb shelter nearby due to the apartheid system Israel has implemented.
Emissary Of Night @diplomatofnight.com
If Trump really wants to destroy Iran he should go be its president for a few months.
@sundaedivine.lol
Lorraine Schneider, 1967:
Jess Morrissette @decafjedi.com
there are a lot of people working in the government right now who want to intentionally trigger an apocalypse to create the conditions for the return of jesus christ and I know how crazy that sounds but its absolutely true
Andrew Lawrence
Thinking a lot about the families who lost people advocating for a future during the Iranian protests who are also now losing more of their future while the US and Israel bomb elementary schools.
Second Great Bisexual Awakening @suesswassersee.bsky.social
Running your war from a private club for millionaires — ahead of a $1 million-a-plate dinner — is a choice.
Carl Quintanilla
Fun fact: the dining room at Mar-a-Lago, built in the mid-1920s, was dubbed "the Mussolini room" by its designer because it was intentionally modeled after Rome's Chigi Palace that was occupied at the time by Il Duce.
Seth Cotlar
One of the moms of the families I’ve been delivering groceries to asked today if I’d be willing to accept something from her. And she came back with this beautiful flan she’d made to say thank you for helping us. I am crying. People are too kind. This is who our government is forcing into hiding:
Norm Charlatan
What if I'd told you in, say, 2010, in the wake of the Iraq War and the subsequent political upheaval: "yeah, not only will we not learn our lesson, not only will none of the people who perpetrated this crime be punished ... we're going to do it all over again! Less than 20 years later!"
David Roberts @volts.wtf
War on the streets of Minneapolis was unpopular. What about Tehran??
Adam Miller @ajm6792.bsky.social
Every data center is a war machine
Gillian Branstetter
This will be truly the most pointless air campaign in history. Iran is broken. Their security services, energy sector and air defenses were heavy degraded last summer. They face devastating water shortages and social unrest. Bombing them will only help create the Persian version of ISIS.
Sean McKnight @ynot1989.bsky.social
things every single republican president of your lifetime has done:
- started a war in the middle east
- completely destroyed the economy
Andrew Lawrence
Every time Trump starts another war, people go: "oh these pro-peace Trump voters look so dumb" but they really dont. I know its hard for some liberals to understand but people, even normal people, just lie. Not one Trump voter thought he was the anti-war candidate. Notta one. You'll often hear Trump voters claim they dont like the man but they agree with his policies. This is a lie. Its the exact opposite. People like Trump as a person, they like the horrible shit he says and does, and then they'll wrap their own politics around him. Lying to themselves and to associates
Darrell Owens @idothethinking.bsky.social
Annette annettebeebe.bsky.social
The timing of the initial strikes is unusual. Often you see these types of operations launched in the pre-dawn hours at the target site partly to limit civilian casualties. This operation began at the beginning of a work and school day, with millions of adult civilians and children in harms way. Tehran is a city of nine million people, with 17 million in the larger metropolitan area. Saturday is the first day of the week for Iranians. Millions of people are at work, and children are in school.
Leah McElrath
This seems like a bad time to have all the FBI's anti-terrorism guys out helping ICE chase undocumented grandmas.
Patrick Chovanec
would be third time in a row they used peace negotiations as cover for a upcoming strike
ae @aelkus.bsky.social
The US and Israel are bombing Iran. Anyone reporting it as “preventive” is engaging in propaganda, by definition. There is no interpretation of what’s happening as anything else than a crime. You don’t have to like the Iranian regime to understand why this is bad.
elia ayoub
I've come to think of the difference between millionaires and billionaires as a few million means autonomy or power over yourself. But billions means power over other people. Maybe a lot of other people.
Zane Selvans
This is what they’re going with for their regime-change war:
MeidasTouch
It’s great to live in a country where the insecure 12-year-olds and the Waffen SS jerkoff wannabe’s alternate power on a day to day basis.
John Rogers
I think if I'd gotten away with attempting a coup, suffered no consequences for it, then won an election four years later, got away with executing citizens in the streets and foreigners in boats, and successfully abducted a head of state, I too might think I could just bomb my way to regime change
Kelsey Atherton
The world could be such a nice place if we allowed it. It's all so goddamn unnecessary. There's no need for any of it. It's so beautiful here. It should be so cool to be alive
Laura Jedeed
Well, it was either world war three or letting black people have jobs, so I see why people just went with the world war
Kashana
Never gets old:
James Fallows
if the media had any integrity — and it doesn’t anymore — they’d be pointing out on a loop that Obama made a deal with Iran, Trump cancelled it because Obama is Black, and then Trump started a war on the pretense there is no deal
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
Oh my god I just want a fucking bus that goes north every 15 minutes from my house. Stop spending all my fucking money on missiles you fucking pedophiles. This fucking country.
Tom Basgen, Mr. Saint Paul
Only 2 months into 2026 and the president has achieved so much. Waging war on Venezuela, Minnesota, and Iran, while covering up his alleged role in a child rape syndicate, is a lot.
Wedge LIVE!™
Hegseth just shot down a DHS drone with a laser because he thought it belonged to a Mexican cartel, but let’s let him preside over a radical shift to unrestrained AI on our most advanced weapons systems. What could go wrong?
Ron Filipkowski
Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.social
You sound like an unhinged person if you in plain words describe what’s happening, but the Trump admin demanded Anthropic’s AI be able to kill things for it without human approval and also do mass surveillance. Anthropic said no, and now the admin is trying to destroy the company in retaliation.
Bobby Kogan
A.I. is the greatest enshittification engine ever created by humankind.
Qagggy!
One family to control CBS, CNN, HBO, and TikTok.
Howard French
We have lost a decade of our life to an evil idiot…a dolt. A moron. One of the most racist and dumbest humans on the planet. 10 years.
Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.social
In 1974 we had a term for the withholding or unwarranted redaction of files demanded by Congress: “obstruction of justice.”
Peter Norton
Reposting this: If Pam Bondi wants to arrest people protesting in places
of worship, I suggest she investigate these two well-known agitators:
Robert Moffitt @justplainbob.bsky.social
BREAKING: We're suing Kansas for a law that invalidates transgender people's updated driver's licenses and authorizes anyone to sue anyone they suspect of being trans for using the "wrong" bathroom.
ACLU
in a free market, X would be dead and Elon Musk would not be able to open a credit card. This is not a free market, and the people who tried to organize a boycott against a bad website got sued out of existence.
sarah jeong
Today I learned that saying "you bet" is exactly of the same vintage as "I'm your huckleberry," yet only one is seen as just normal American English
Mike Fragassi @refrag.bsky.social
Turns out, if you give the Republicans an inch, they'll take all your civil rights. Stop hoping one last concession or compromise will finally stop them.
Peter Gleick
A thing I strongly believe, but that was only obvious in retrospect, was that drive-time talk radio was the most valuable propaganda platform in history and a big reason we got into this mess we're in now was because conservatives dominated it in the 1990s and 2000s. (the reason it was so valuable is that the cognitive load of driving, especially driving in congestion, lowers people's defenses and makes them more susceptible to dubious but emotionally satisfying claims, combined with the ephemeral nature of live radio)
mtsw
I've been carrying this picture around for eight years and I still don't understand what it's trying to warn me about:
Thorn @coelliptic.bsky.social
If the last ten years have taught you anything, it should be "the fact that the world seems to be ending does not in fact mean you can stop going to work or doing laundry." You don't get to opt out. There's only so much wilderness you could disappear into. "Collapse" isn't an event, it's a pattern. It only makes sense as a single thing in hindsight, trying to break history into discrete eras. If the United States Government 'collapses,' that's a sixty-year process with successor states, rump states, and breakaway states.
Nome
Columbia’s President licked the boots of the authoritarian thugs and they just kicked her institution in the face, as anyone who knows anything about authoritarian thugs was trying to tell her they would do.
Colin Woodard
Labour's swing toward racism is perhaps the biggest unforced error in British political history; burnt their base to ashes and won them not a single vote on the right.
BeijingPalmer
Why has climate action has fallen off the political agenda? Not because people don’t care! According to
Yale Climate Communications, Americans are as concerned now as they were in 2019. No. Decisionmakers are retreating because the right wing is going after them full bore & they are folding.
Dr. Genevieve Guenther @doctorvive.bsky.social
We are living through a period where we have mass government layoffs literally causing countless deaths while at the same time DHS has so much money that Noem will have a different luxury jet for every day of the week
Don Moynihan
This is Minneapolis:
Laura G Mitchell
a universal constant among human heuristics seems to be that people always estimate the current Dumb Thing as being As Dumb As Things Can Possibly Get, or at least a gentle escalation away from it. meanwhile history has shown that things can nearly always get a lot dumber than they already are
yaoi gagarin @mel.bzky.team
We genuinely need a revival of virtue in the United States. In my view, that’s almost as critical a project as any other structural reform project necessary in the wake of trumpism. We should become a society that actually values human life such that we would feel shame about this.
John Halloran @profhalloran.bsky.social
Mass horror at the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti has DHS’s budget at stake. And yet in the past week, agents left a blind refugee to die alone. And lied about it. They pretended to be police looking for a missing child, to detain a college kid. And lied about it. What does this tell you?
Prem Thakker
Fun fact, US passports did not have a gender marker until 1977, when a rising trend in unisex fashion started freaking the government out.
Lux Alptraum
We should have lined the Mississippi with hanged slavers in 1865, in an inversion of the Romans’ actions against Spartacus’ rebellion. Everything we’ve been through since then is a consequence of that inaction.
Summer @s-u-m-r.bsky.social
paulpro @mariopro.bsky.social
both joe rogan and megyn kelly — two of the biggest podcasts out there — had guests today who argued that it’s unnatural for women to work outside the home. so that’s how that’s going
Nicole Hemmer @pastpunditry.bsky.social
New Congressional Dem report shows that the GOP's Big Ugly Bill is going to benefit Big Oil to the tune of *$3.5 billion a year*. Kinda makes those campaign contributions look like pocket change, no?
David Roberts @volts.wtf
seems obvious to me that mamdani gets far because of his charm. why do "male self improvement" types always focus on things like looksmaxxing instead of personalitymaxxing or charmmaxxing?
derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social
The richest man owns X.
The second and third richest men control Google.
The fourth richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
The fifth richest man owns The Washington Post.
And now the sixth richest could soon take over both Paramount and Warner Bros.
See the problem here?
Robert Reich
currently teaching a US history course for the first time, constantly reminding students that when they read "race riot" it means "white people riot to kill people of color"
Craig Johnson
This is my whole career actually:
Moira Donegan
This admin is run by terminally online racists who govern based upon conspiracy theories they get from white supremacist message boards.
Victor Ray
Civil rights are a kitchen-table issue.
Cheryl Lynn Eaton
it took an expensive, coordinated effort and a lot of people saying “this doesn’t matter” to get from a North Carolina bathroom ban costing that state $400 million and a gubernatorial race to “trans people must turn in their documents which become invalid in a few hours or face fines and potential jail time” in 10 years.
emily likes cloth @threnody.northsky.social
idea: what if the people with the most power just *helped* other people instead of hurting them. i think that one weird trick could fix a lot of things and we should try it for a few months or even centuries
Doug Mack
Still disappointed that "alleged" doesn't mean "with legs"
Chestbursty @chestrovert.bsky.social
i am glad to be a trans person on hrt. being trans is awesome and incredible and anyone persecuting trans people is hell's own jackass. gender should be a playground not a prison camp with barbed wire around it
Tal Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social
Doctors say that vaccines are the best way to protect children against measles. A guy who eats dogs and snorts cocaine off toilet seats says they should just swim in untreated sewage water instead. For busy parents, it can be hard to know who to trust.
NY Times Pitchbot
This is the first time I realized Europe looks like a scorpion:
Chris Steller
Minnesota right now is both incredibly strong at the neighborhood and community level and absolutely beat to all hell. And kind of broke. People are close to eviction and other people are digging deep to help them. Cutting off Medicaid to this deeply hurting population is so cruel and vengeful.
Jessica Shortall
They really want to break us and use us as example of what happens when you defy them. We can't let them.
Fancy Pants @farnaby.xyz
Do you ever just stop and think about how the federal government is attacking our state physically and financially *because* we were actually living too well by their metrics and the they can’t tolerate the integral part that immigrant and POC Minnesotans play.
NotNowCait
A white woman who is not a doctor and doesn’t believe in science is currently undergoing Senate confirmation hearings to be the US Surgeon General. Black people, don’t EVER let these people tell you that you are a “diversity hire” or don’t deserve the roles you have so richly prepared for & earned.
Gabrielle A. Perry, MPH @geauxgabrielle.bsky.social
This stunt where ICE releases people far from home with no proper clothing and no way home should be treated as attempted homicide. In this case, actual homicide. These cases are not accidental or based on misunderstandings. They are deliberate attempts to inflict bodily harm.
Shower Cat
So many horrors. And NO, training is not the problem. A culture that disdains life - particularly non-white life — is the problem. ICE has to be disbanded. Root and branch.
Ralf W
Whenever I see something like this, I immediately think about the dozens of meetings, pitch decks, proposals, and business plans that led up to this. Creating this was actually a serious *job* for a bunch of people. And it would be fun to meet them at a party. “So, what do you do?”
Dr. Jonathan Foley @globalecoguy.bsky.social
The Supreme Court has decided to hear a major climate case against fossil fuel companies. Alito has not recused himself, despite owning nearly $200,000 in fossil fuel stocks—including in Phillips 66 and ConocoPhillips, which are being sued in cases that would be directly affected by a SCOTUS ruling
Emily Atkin @emorwee.bsky.social
everyone in this fucking administration spends their days sitting around trying to think of new ways to kill more americans
Tom Tomorrow
I feel confident in saying that the Sons of Liberty were routinely more violent than any left of center protest movement the US has witnessed this century.
Howard Eissenstat
Gonna repeat my theory that one reason Trump is so insistent on masks is because if his MAGAts learned the heavily armed men invading their neighborhoods and kidnapping their hourly workers were themselves Latino they would lose their shit.
emptywheel
Genuine question for pro-AI people: what DO you want to do with your life? Because it sounds like you don't actually want to do anything that requires effort, ever, and I think you need to consider that you are clinically depressed.
petite violette
What if more Autism and Neurodivergence funding went for supporting education and accessibility instead of research to "fix" autistics?
quick13
Timeless design! Roman rock crystal gaming die marked one to six like modern dice. 1st–2nd century AD. Photo from the British Museum:
Alison Fisk
They won't start with banning birth control. First they'll lie about it. Then dictate who can prescribe it, use it, fund it, in what forms, and for how long. Suddenly, your doctor won't call you back. I know this is what they'll do because it's what they're doing to transgender healthcare right now.
Gillian Branstetter
BREAKING: In just six weeks, Minnesota workers lost over $100 million in wages due to Operation Metro Surge. This means millions of dollars didn’t make it to Minnesota families and small businesses, a conservative estimate that likely understates the full impact.
North Star Policy Action
If Donald Trump didn’t already exist the press would have invented him, which actually come to think of it that’s exactly what happened.
Craig Harrington @craigipedia.bsky.social
The big difference between the US and Brazilian/Korean case isn't that voters care less about democracy. It's that American elites basically did not care about it after two weeks
Maia @maiamindel.bsky.social
I’ve come to realize people think slurs are just words that hurt our feelings. No. Slurs, particularly the N-word, F-word, antisemitic terms etc. aren’t taboo because of that. It’s because historically when these terms are said they precede or pair with pitchforks, torches, lynchings & gas chambers.
Lupita Nihongo @otsumamiboy.bsky.social
The perspective of this image is *amazing*:
Vic Thorstenson
To be on the receiving end of a slur is to endure oppression; to be told to brush it off is to know that the oppression has been sanctioned.
LunchCounterPunch @theultrasecret.bsky.social
The kerfluffle over the Olympic hockey teams does make one wonder if the rightwing cares quite as much about women's sports as it's been insisting...
Bill McKibben
Every major fascist government rose through coalition with "conservatives" who bet wrong that they could control it. Then fascist faction absorbed or destroyed conservatives, scapegoated Others (gay, trans, Jew, Roma, criminal, commie...), and used manufactured "emergencies" to justify power grabs.
Aaron Sojourner
Appalling: ICE and CBP contracted for $144 million in weaponry and accessories in Trump's first year, per data obtained by Sen Adam Schiff. For ICE it's a fourfold increase, much of it for military-style weapons. A heavily armed secret police force. Trump's urban occupations and violent campaign of mass deportations constitute his Forever War. It has its own arms buildup, its own war profiteers, and (like after 9/11) its own metastasizing public-private bureaucracy, which is growing harder to constrain.
Greg Sargent
During the State of the Union, I'm cooking red beans, red lentil soup, and reading Ursala K LeGuin's The Dispossessed.
Santa Erik Riese
Since this will likely come up in the State of the Union: Yes, US stock markets are up since Trump took office (14%). But in the rest of the world, markets are up WAY more. Cumulative market gains are more than triple ours (43%):
Catherine Rampell
The state of our union is incredibly fucking embarrassing.
Radley Balko
After pointing at Democrats and saying they are "crazy," Trump says, "We’re lucky we have a country, with people like this. Democrats are destroying our country, but we stopped it, just in the nick of time."
Just insanely destructive. Indefensible — but Republicans stood and clapped.
Philip Bump
Donald Trump killed two of my constituents. He is a liar and should be ashamed of himself.
Ilhan Omar
Brian O @proudcanadaveteran.bsky.social
trump going on about corruption and then slandering somali-americans makes my blood boil
jamelle @jamellebouie.net
Democrats need a lesson in the importance of breaking patterns, aka "norms," and how doing so captures attention. Not attending or walking out en masse would break the pattern journalists are used to seeing and become a story. Instead, all we get is two hours of Trump's unfiltered racism.
Doug Gordon @brooklynspoke.bsky.social
I'm not here to preach but I will just remind you that Trump doesn't lie to be believed. He lies to be repeated. So you don't have to help him.
LOLGOP @thefarce.org
Before and after you sell your soul to the devil:
Hoodlum @nothoodlum.bsky.social
At some point we’re going to need to confront this reality. The entire Republican Party is committed to advancing the cause of fascism in the US. Another word for this is treason.
Charles Johnson @charles.littlegreenfootballs.com
Definitely the first State of the Union where the president talked about the military killing unarmed fishermen as a laugh line
Tom Scocca
This week, the adjudicated rapist, serial predator, alleged pedophile and billionaire lawless grifter will try to bamboozle US into believing the state of the union is strong. We all know better! 
Larry Tenney
Serious fiscal conservatism is a group of Minnesota Republicans trying to appropriate taxpayer dollars to erect a statue of Charlie Kirk at a public university none of them attended and that doesn’t even have a Turning Point USA chapter
Carin @mrotzie.bsky.social
You know, Trump often refers to things (including the US) as "hot" and y'all I still haven't figured out what, exactly, he means by that.
Jack Jenkins
Agents with the FBI's elite evidence response team were delayed in reaching the scene of a mass shooting at Brown U. in December because there was no FBI plane available. Kash Patel was in south Florida at the time with one of the FBI's two available jets.
Kyle Griffin
A whistleblower just disclosed that FBI experts were delayed by AT LEAST A DAY in deploying to investigate Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Why? There was an FBI plane and pilot shortage… because Kash Patel was using them for personal flights.
Senate Judiciary Democrats
All my life, Democrats have bent over backwards to run scrupulously scandal-free administrations, while Republicans have wallowed publicly and unapologetically in crime and corruption ... and Democrats have gotten zero advantage for it. Zilch.
David Roberts @volts.wtf
I've been through the desert on a...
Rob Freeman
Can someone explain to me what is going on with newspaper editors that they've decided as a class that they hate trans people? This is the oddest class solidarity (?) I've ever seen.
John David Pressman @jdp.extropian.net
My personal theory is that it's mostly a proxy issue for generational warfare against their interns and grandchildren.
Nathan Goldwag
The cops control municipal government and have essentially done so since the 70s. Once you understand this, everything else gets clearer.
Prisonculture
not to fall into the "our masked secret police need better training!" trap, but maybe pass/fail isn't the best way to score programs like "how to use pepper spray," "how to beat people with your baton," and "Active Threat Response"
Matt Cameron
If you are serious about "never again" then remember: it's not about standing up to a line of tanks when the camps are already running. It's about standing up to social and professional pressure when the whole thing is just getting started, when it's not yet cool to do so. That's bravery that matters.
David Roberts @volts.wtf
Too many people center guilt when thinking about the act of apologizing, rather than the collective recognition and relief of burden and harm.
LunchCounterPunch @theultrasecret.bsky.social
And yet... 39% still support him. These polls either don't make sense together or these people are irrational... or both:
@pattho.bsky.social
Under what authority would Jared Kushner be advising anybody about going to war with Iran? This is beyond outrageous.
Tinman contre la caste @bcmfietser.bsky.social
Voting for DHS funding is an admission that you think we need some baseline capacity of human storage facilities. It is as morally abhorrent as one can get.
LunchCounterPunch @theultrasecret.bsky.social
love when democrats talk about kitchen table issues as if trans people and immigrants don’t have kitchen tables
Kat Abughazaleh
The Ford Pinto had a death rate of 85 people for 10 million cars sold. The Cybertruck hasn't sold 10 million, but the fatality rate so far maths out to 1,452 people killed per 10 million sold. The Cybertruck may be the deadliest road car, for the occupants, ever sold.
Elf M. Sternberg
these people treat being called racist like it is a slur, and treat slurs like they're mere differences of opinion
jamelle @jamellebouie.net
The Defense Department said that it blew up a boat in the Caribbean Sea on Monday, killing three people. The strike raised the death toll in the U.S. campaign against people it accuses, without providing evidence, of smuggling drugs at sea to at least 150.
The New York Times
Researchers consistently show that automatic enforcement reduces traffic violations — and that most people want more of it. A big reason people think cameras are less popular than they really are: Journalism that exaggerates controversy.
David Zipper
Every now and then, I remember that JD Vance smashed the "like" button after reading this tweet, then went back and unliked it five years later when he ran for the Senate:
Radley Balko
AI is the new academic wife.
Jess Calarco
What you idiot commies don’t understand is that if we tax rich people they will JUST LEAVE, depriving our nation of tax cheats, political bribery, and national acts of perversion
Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social
"The widespread practice of allowing cars to ‘turn right on red’ at intersections is unthinkable in cities that want to invite people to walk and bicycle.” It is banned in the Netherlands. —Jan Gehl
Frank Murphy @thesidewalkballet.bsky.social
Is the president mocking the U.S. women’s hockey team on a celebratory call with the men’s team going to attract even an iota of the sustained handwringing that the idea of trans athletes disadvantaging women’s sports has gotten
Kat Tenbarge
“The climate scientists we surveyed were unambiguous: current economic models can’t capture what matters most – the cascading failures and compounding shocks that define climate risk in a warmer world – and could undermine the very foundations of economic growth.” Should be the top story everyday.
Brent Toderian
Almost 250 years after we broke with George III, the question must now be faced: Are we a monarchy or a nation of laws? [Cartoon by Bill Bramhall]:
Robert Reich
if I was God, I'd be pretty pissed at religious Christians denying evolution, like, imagine you design one of the universe's most effective self correction and improvement systems and people were like, "nuh-huh!"
Dragon Cobolt
in many ways for the health of our democracies we might do better to keep social media as a thing you can only access if you’re *not* allowed to vote. that is a provocation ofc. but I present it as an alternative to “if this is bad for adults it must ipso facto be worse for children to have it”.
Naomi Alderman
Imagine being a billionaire and President of the United States and still having childish delusions of grandeur.
Name Withheld @namewithheldny.bsky.social
No amount of potential "good" from AI is worth having this kind of slop in the world.
Michael Gatton
Arthur Schomburg identified as Afroborinqueño. Using recovery historiography, he collected materials to counter racist narratives. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library is his legacy. Mamdani was sworn in on Schomburg's Koran:
jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social
Every news story is now “State Senator Randy Pervert (R-Springfield) was indicted on 8 counts of lewd behavior with a child under 12 and has been put on paid leave from his two jobs as Border Patrol liaison and youth pastor at First Presbyterian (PCA) where parishioners say they were ‘blindsided.’”
CHOAM: Spaceknight @samthielman.com
I can't get over this number: in 2007, there were 360,000 newspaper jobs. Now, there are 80,000. "My local paper sucked!" Sure. What sucks even more? The void. "I get all my news from the Guardian!" No, the Guardian doesn't report on your town council, your school board, local cops.
Jeff Sharlet
The response to Trump’s escalation of illegal tariffs in defiance of the US Constitution and SCOTUS, in addition to a global boycott of US products, services and tourism, should be the expelling of US diplomats from all attacked nations, and the initiation of global sanctions, until he is removed.
Brent Toderian
March 22, 1933: Germany announces the opening of Dachau concentration camp in a former munitions factory, with the purpose of "rehabilitating political detainees." Its initial capacity was 5000 prisoners. The new US DHS prison warehouses are designed to hold 20 times as many.
Vince Mpls
as far as i can tell “bio hacking” is just a goofy term for giving yourself some combination of an eating disorder and a drug addiction
jamelle @jamellebouie.net
The United States Capitol is under military occupation and the Department of Justice tasked with prosecution of political enemies just hung a banner of the dictator's face on its door while a nationwide concentration camp build-out is escalating. We're under-reacting. Not the opposite.
Sean Solo @spqesq.bsky.social
Mark @njdoc.bsky.social
I just want to live in a country where the leader can’t enrich themselves with our tax dollars, the government does what the people want, and the wealthy have to follow the laws. You know, like a democracy.
Max Berger
This is your regular reminder that whenever you watch a medical drama and a chaplain character just, like, never appears, that's weird. Chaplains are a constant presence in hospitals. They're considered part of the care team, and it's super odd that (most) medical shows pretend that isn't the case. (I will note that while doctors absolutely have a ton of heartfelt encounters with patients, in practice, a significant number of the emotionally impactful conversations between patients and doctors on health dramas actually would be handed off by a doctor to a chaplain)
Jack Jenkins
Yachts are rich people's carbon bombs. Yachts are a policy failure. We should put a 100% luxury tax on yachts, and put the money into green infrastructure that cuts carbon pollution and protects coastal communities from floods.
Daniel Aldana Cohen
Trump started attacking the world with his obviously illegal and stupid tariffs a YEAR ago. Although it’s good SCOTUS has decisively confirmed them to be illegal, it took everyone involved ENTIRELY too long to do their jobs. The damage done to so many nations, and to US citizens, just can’t be calculated.
Brent Toderian
The literal face of fascism:
AOCincinnatus
"Nazis were just regular people" is not a statement meant to evoke empathy or to excuse their crimes. It is a statement of warning. The capacity to be part of and perpetrate atrocities is not limited to "monsters," it is wholly human. It is what we must always be aware of.
Nev™ @nev4da.bsky.social
'The man who seeks to arouse prejudice among workingmen is not their friend. He who advises the white wage-worker to look down upon the black wage-worker is the enemy of both.' –Eugene Debs
Sardonicus
Lutnick’s son has literally been “shorting” the tariffs.. buying companies rights to clawback tariffs from the government in this exact eventuality…
Michel Nivard
Just keeping track of all the stuff that's gonna have to be prosecuted later is exhausting
Sarah Taber
It’s amazing that everyone at the New York Times can have a degree from Harvard AND be born yesterday.
Wes Burdine
One year in: A giant banner featuring Trump's face stares out from the Department of Justice as the National Guard troops he deployed to the nation's capital conduct their patrols:
Radley Balko
Is there any time, place, or context in which a government hanging enormous banners of the Leader’s face was not a sign of a diseased and authoritarian society? Because I certainly can’t think of one.
Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social
Biden would’ve been instantly impeached in a bipartisan vote if he put his face on the freakin’ Department of Justice building
Aaron Rupar
The Cybertruck: worse selling than the Edsel, more dangerous than the Pinto, uglier than a Pontiac Aztec. Quite an accomplishment
hanfinity
Take money from the cops. Give it to the people. Flood the city with supports. House the unhoused without barriers. Fund schools, libraries, community clinics, and rec center programs. Boom: crime rates plummet, businesses relocate here, health improves, JOY EXISTS. Also, fuck your data centers.
Pete, the Antifascist Nisse @nanou2.bsky.social
As the world reels from the president's rant and threats of additional tariff chaos, I'd just like to remind the UK that they recently arrested someone who could probably bring down this entire house of cards with very little incentive.
Kevin M. Kruse
Kurt Vonnegut stop being so applicable to all time periods of American life, you can’t do that Kurt Vonnegut, your insights are too evergreen Kurt Vonnegut:
Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social
You can still shoot a person on 5th avenue as long as it is not a corporate person
Stephen Nuñez @socio-steve.bsky.social
I love Michael J. Fox, but I agree on the damage from fictional characters like Alex P. Keaton promoted as role models rather than comedic foils. My brother pretty successfully emulated him, and it’s why we don’t talk politics.
Tina Melquist
They say Donald Trump is vain. But it takes some special kind of humility to crowd your office with portraits and busts of historical figures who would loathe you and be disgusted by you. I’m not sure I could do it.
Peter Norton
“Almost half of young Republicans surveyed see Jews as a threat to the American way of life.” Yep, antisemitism is totally a both-sides issue. Right? Right??
Mehdi Hasan
George Orwell wrote: "Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.” But they're not. They're definitely not. With your help, we'll defeat the fascists and save our country.
Mark Jacob
I don't know if people not in Minnesota realize it, but we’ve been through such tremendous trauma in the past few months. Melissa Hortman was murdered only 8 months ago. Think of all we’ve endured since then, locally AND nationally! Federal program cuts, murder of public officials, a federal occupation, thousands of our neighbors being kidnapped, our economy being paralyzed, citizens murdered in the street, children afraid to go to school. If you’re able to get out of bed every day, I think you’re doing pretty fucking well
miss andry @defnotadino.bsky.social
Freedom House Ambulance Service led to modern first line emergency medical care:
Mary Garvey Washington @3riverspa.bsky.social
Half of our agricultural land is used for beef that provides 3% of our calories. Nobody likes it when I bang my spoon on my high chair about this but eventually we need to grapple with it.
Michael Grunwald
I honestly think one reason Millennials are so angry about all this is that many of us grew up during the brief period in American history where the official line was that we had won history *because* of our values, and most of us actually internalized that.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
Just a note that two of the three dissenters on the tariff case are known sexual predators. It is really time for the men of my generation to admit they can't be in power anymore if they reveled in those behaviors, even though it seemed allowed at the time.
MaryMM
I appreciate all of these detailed analysis of what’s wrong with the policy, but the crucial thing to keep in mind here is that Donald Trump sincerely, literally does not understand what a tariff is and when that is your starting point, nothing beyond it really matters.
Ed Burmila
I can't think of any immigrant in American history who has assimilated worse than Musk. The guy hates most of the people here and wants to hurt us, has open contempt for our traditions or values, and has spent billions trying to destroy our culture to replace it with that of his foreign childhood.
Max Kennerly
I've been saying it a lot, but these ICE facility deaths line up with what happened in early concentration camps during other regimes: Deaths from poor conditions, disease, or abuse. These deaths are not accidental. They are the direct result of a camp system that is designed to harm those being imprisoned.
Gravel Influencer
Mike Luckovich
we couldn't use government funds to buy coffee (like, folgers ground coffee) when i worked on a CDC outbreak emergency response
public health guy
I think it's important for the "all government people are corrupt crowd" to really hear this. No. No, they're not. This is why I'm excited to see some of the laid-off federal employees start to run for office. Americans need to hear from those who've actually done the work of governing.
Zahava Stadler
I was once having a conversation with a stranger who fell into the "they're all corrupt" mindset. I said that might be the case, but if someone is ripping you off for $10 versus $10,000, that difference matters. And Trump is ripping you of for $10,000, if not $100K." It changed his mind at least!
LunchCounterPunch @theultrasecret.bsky.social
So weird that the guy with the Deus Vult and Jerusalem Cross tattoos turned out not to be a Mideast dove
Matthew Downhour
25 years ago, a bunch of libertarians moved to New Hampshire to take over state government. Jason Osborne, one of those "Free Staters," has since risen to be majority leader in the state house. How is he fighting for "liberty?" By helping Stephen Miller build a 324,000-foot prison for migrants and refugees.
Radley Balko
Can we have a law on "Misconduct in Public Office," where people can be arrested for that please? Imagine how many of this administration could be arrested.
quick13
Wow the exact same amount he was suing the IRS for. He just took it. Not only impeachable but [Redacted] as well:
@shoe.bsky.social
"Yoon claimed he was rooting out “anti-state forces” and alleged election fraud without providing evidence." Sound familiar? Kudos to the South Korea people and their justice system - Yet another country demonstrates that *no one* is above the law. (Take more notes, US)
strea3m.bsky.social
Other countries are arresting people on the Epstein list, America decided to make its most frequent flier its president and is now going to give him a war with Iran as a distraction. This is not a serious country.
Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social
Prince Andrew arrested today. Also today, a life sentence for Yoon Suk Yeol. Bolsonaro jailed for a quarter century in November. The US is rapidly becoming one of the few developed countries *least* likely to uphold the rule of law for its politicians.
David Williams @se7en-driver.bsky.social
So SCOTUS, with its fabricated-out-of-thin-air immunity doctrine, has actually made American presidents less accountable than LITERAL royalty.
Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social
Revised National Parks Webpage Describes Harriet Tubman as Human Trafficker
The Onion
I just for the life of me can't figure out why a large chunk of people are inherently hostile to new technology shaped by companies that actively support an anti-science, anti-humanist mass murder autocracy. "why are you against progress" I yell confidently as my sloppily-implemented algorithms prematurely murder your grandma
Karl Bode
I can’t believe you lefty Luddites hate tech so much that you embrace mRNA vaccines, heat pumps, electric bikes, hybrid work, renewable power (and awesome advancements in storage), space telescopes, and hot/cold running water but reject the planet destroying plagiarism enrich the worst people bots!
David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social
What's this? The Board of Peace is gathering in DC?
Paul Leigh -Some Rascal on the Internet @pleightx.bsky.social
1) If Rubio can claim he's a descendant of "the west," then why can't millions of others descendant from mix of European conquerors and central/south American indigenous peoples (ie migrants)?
2) Cosmopolitanism (the bane of Rubio's vision) is a western inheritance, too!
Greg Sargent
I regularly see people wondering how it's possible that there are so many musicians and writers and film makers and artists from a tiny nation like Iceland. And the answer is really simple: State funding for art education and artists. I literally get a salary from the government to write books.
Hildur Knútsdóttir
Trump's DoJ is engaged in multiple criminal conspiracies at the direction of the president. We know it, the judges know it and the grand juries clearly know it. For how much longer will the courts still operate under the legal fiction that it is the same DoJ as before?
Judah Grunstein
Political movements are often coalitions. It seems that the modern radical right is in many ways a coalition between scam artists and ideological believers, with 'the scam' often being the underlying funding model for both.
Loukas Christodoulou
Yesterday my friend told me about her PHILOSOPHY students all using AI for their assignments and like come the fuck on man you’re in Uni doing the subject thats Thinking about Thinking and u refuse to Think
Rose Schmits
Sorry to get radical but I don’t think it’s my job or yours to embrace, accept, understand — and certainly not to use — the thing being sold to us as AI. I don’t like any part of it, so I won’t. I’m missing out? Good, that’s what I want. You’re worried about me missing out? That’s fuckin weird, man.
Bill Corbett
The Minnesota GOP is proposing a law making "residential protest" a crime, and they want to backdate it to August 2025. This would effectively make thousands of Minnesotans vulnerable to criminal charges, and would probably let Feds say Renee Good and Alex Pretti were engaged in "criminal activity."
KC Momkin
Deeply bizarre to be Scots Irish on both sides and have never, ever heard this “Heritage American” shit before this administration. Not even from my conservative relatives. I was more likely to hear a valorization of outlaw hillbillies than this “Noble inheritors of the fatherland” nonsense.
Urban Land Rent
In a different time there would have been more coverage of the death of Jesse Jackson than that of Charlie Kirk but here we are...
quick13
I spent my childhood inside of American concentration camps. I know one when I see one. And that is what ICE is building.
George Takei
Children have spent more time in prison than the child abusers named in the Epstein Files.
Sean Vanderfluit
Sometimes I think about what would have been possible if we'd stopped Reagan at one term and re-energized the Democratic Party using the principles that actually mean something to Democratic voters. Jackson was the clearest means to that end, but nah, we nominated Walter Mondale and Mike Dukakis.
Sam Bergman @violanorth.bsky.social
Sorry your health insurance costs so much more this year, we needed to make fancy airplanes for illiterate dog-murderers
Ian Boudreau
Zeno's paradox of editing: every time you proofread your work, you'll find half the remaining errors.
Jarrett Walker @humantransit.bsky.social
Writing is thinking. It's not some marginal boring task you can skip. It's the heart of it.
Kevin M. Kruse
Seconded. Oftentimes when I sit down to write after researching and interviewing, I don’t know what exactly I am going to write. The process of writing of discovery. It’s learning which parts go together and which don’t. It’s finding the underlying narrative. Relegating it to a machine won’t do that
Eric Michael Garcia
I think it’s time for Democratic leaders to start saying “if you’re a pilot or ground crew involved in a deportation that was stayed by a judge, you’ll be held criminally liable for human trafficking.” Everyone involved in these flights should have that fear in the back of their minds.
Charles Martin-Shields
the new Republican talking point is that it's insulting to complain about requiring women to show their birth certificate and passport in order to vote because they're smart enough to figure it out
Aaron Rupar
I often think about the fact that if the FBI et al had not killed Fred Hampton, he would be 78 today. Younger than Jesse Jackson was. Must have felt strange to outlive many of your contemporaries by decades.
Prisonculture
I think kids growing up in the Trump era should be told clearly that they are being raised under a regime that espouses white supremacy as if it is a legitimate politics, the same as any other.
Denny Carter
The rare voter fraud incidents that actually exist always end up being someone trying to vote for Trump.
Jonathan Cohn
Complaining about fraud while flying around in a private jet with a bar and private Love Nest cabin is just the sort of leadership I would expect from Krist Noem.
Robert Moffitt @justplainbob.bsky.social
2026 basically:
Richard Kadrey
It was pretty clear that RFK Jr's objective was to destroy the market for vaccines so they would become unavailable, all the while framing it as "personal choice."
Patrick Chovanec
They're really just trying to push the Overton Window into authoritarianism every day, aren't they? You can see them moving the messages out, even if they don't resonate and public opinion doesn't actually move. It's weird.
Jen Mercieca
Right-wing media is never held to any level of accountability because 90% of its audience doesn’t believe it’s right-wing media
Matt Negrin
Kind of funny that random real estate companies refusing to sell their warehouses to ICE are doing more to oppose Trump then alleged "elite" institutions.
The Alternate Historian
I propose an international law that once you become personally responsible for the murder of 1,000 people, be it via direct violence or policy, you are declared a dragon and adventurers can form parties to quest against you.
Piper @the-pied-piper.bsky.social
Did I just hear that Rubio skipped his meeting with Zelenskyy and our allies because he "didn't have time" and then flew to Hungary to meet with Orban? JFC what are we even doing here?
Khashoggi's Ghost @urocklive1.bsky.social
Because of Brexit, the UK GDP is 6–8% lower than it would have been, business investment is 18% lower than in comparable economies, and both employment and productivity are around 4% lower. Can’t wait to see in a decade how Trump has damaged the US economically.
David Ho
So far it looks like Trump, Noem, and operation metro surge drained Minneapolis alone—not yet counting St. Paul, Bloomington, etc.— $203 million. This was a MAGA Trump assault on an American blue city. Nothing more. Start seeing it.
Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl @deardara.bsky.social
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