I decided to mix it up and post the first half of BlueSky for June now. There's so much happening right now, and it will be stale in two weeks.
We ended the time period with the right-wing assassinations and attempted assassinations here in Minnesota, as well as the No Kings protests, Trump's listless birthday parade, and the on-going ICE raids in Los Angeles, including Kristi Noem's declaration of federal preemption. Before that, there was the blow up between Trump and Musk and minor things like Joni Ernst declaring we're all going to die anyway, so why does it matter.
And it's spring, so there are lots of flowers.
Everything is in reverse chronological order, except some of the images, which I move up or down for better visual balance. Everything below the line is quoted from the attributed account.
__
The radicalization of the American right is THE story of US politics over the last four decades and political reporters are still not allowed to talk about it
Michael Hobbes
People will tell you that they view property destruction as equivalent to violence against a person, but that's not true. They think property destruction is worse:
Laura Jedeed
political press is doing a real disservice by basically not reporting the nuances of public opinion on deportations, and creating the appearance that most americans support the stephen miller-style gestapo tactics
jamelle @jamellebouie.net
Should we deport people who have lived here for many years without committing any crimes? 61% no, 24% yes.
Should we should deport people as quickly as possible even if it means more mistakes, or do our best to make no mistakes even if it takes longer? Quickly: 19%, Minimize mistakes: 74%
Adam Bonin
Interesting. Polls are showing American voters don’t like the idea of being under military occupation by a wildly angry game show host for no reason
Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social
Poppy beauty at Regent's Park, London:
Laura Jedeed
I've said this before, but so-called ideological diversity only runs rightward, and it never means arguing about economics or something. I already know the conservative position on, for instance, my existence. I'm not going to snap out of being trans because seventeen more people call me a man.
Emily St. James
When the Wall Street Journal hires a Marxist columnist I’ll listen to them about ideological diversity.
David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social
The Minnesota murderer seems to be Erik Prince without the trust fund. A Christian missionary/anti-communist paramilitary type reminiscent of any number of Christian anti-communists from the Cold War era who would travel the world killing and/or converting people for Christ.
Seth Cotlar
If you murder people you disagree with, I think it’s safe to say you haven’t “met Jesus.”
@pattho.bsky.social
Upon reflection, I’m glad I live in a nation where the military isn’t great at marching for rulers. Let’s try to keep it that way
Bill McKibben
Today’s senseless violence in Minnesota was Christian terrorism, plain and simple. Do not obfuscate that fact or brush it away—sit with it
Chrissy Stroop @www.bugbeardispatch.com
This is all you need to see. Also - multiply the top picture by over 2,000 photos:
Troublemakers Alliance @tmalliancemn.bsky.social
Republicans get scratched a bit in "assassination attempts," while Democrats are killed in "targeted attacks." Right.
cleopete
It’s a shame the Don’t Tread On Me flag was appropriated by the pro treading on me community because it’s a pretty badass flag and I am tired of being tread upon.
@irhottakes.bsky.social
As someone from the South, I am struck by how MAGA's delusion about January 6 parallels Southerner's nostalgia for the Civil War. Completely disconnected from reality.
PL Thomas EdD
I no longer view the crisis before us as a GOP vs. Democrat issue, and I haven't for a long time. This is a profound issue of choosing to fight supremacist politics, of necropolitics-- of whether you believe it's worth protecting people's right to live with a measure of dignity and respect, period
Karen Attiah
So the only No Kings rally in California that the police had problems was the one with where policeman were stationed in riot gear? Seems the riot police is the issue.
Javier @machomanla.bsky.social
TBH it's just profoundly fucked that the internet has created a coordination mechanism for the low social trust silent majority and now like a huge chunk of the population trust a large constructed kinship network of far right populists worldwide than reality itself
@hikoukihikouki9.bsky.social
The comparison today couldn't be clearer: There's no energy for fascism. They have to sell it so hard because it's got no juice. We have the momentum. Together, we have the power. Congratulations #nokings. Now join us June 28 to wish Elon a very unhappy birthday.
TeslaTakedown
Quite amazing that Trump has managed to make the most powerful military machine in the world look kind of pathetic. A tank driving slowly down a street turns out not to be all that interesting. And tanks 2–50 don't really add much to the spectacle. It's like no one really thought this through.
Bill McKibben
The parade is neither a roaring call to patriotism or tyrannical show of might. It's something much worse — boring
Gillian Branstetter
This loser parade is what is finally going to get Hegseth canned
Dylan Miracle
A former floral shop terrazzo floor:
ChicagoVintageTileFloors
Here at NYC's No Kings protest. And it's striking how ... normie everyone is. Just average folks, sick of this shit.
Noah Shachtman
every protest i've been to. we are the normies, y'all.
Greg Pak
Really hard to overstate the extent to which opposition to the current administration is the default position of normal people. They’re handing out kazoos. There’s bubble machines.
Butt Praxis
MAGA is unAmerican.
Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.social
I love that a politician can say something like “I believe mice naturally spawn out of grain” and the news will now just treat that as a legitimate line of thought
Mike Drucker
The media have memory-holed Tim McVeigh’s white supremacism and conspiracism but the biggest memory hole at all was that he was a gun rights activist.
Lindsay Beyerstein
there are a lot of good people in this country. we will win
Micah @rincewind.run
the way the far right is blatantly lying and trying to blame the assassination of democrats on democrats is one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen
Sam @samd.bsky.social
Calendula:
amohr
assassins dress like cops because that’s who’s allowed to murder people in broad daylight
regular meghan @ruemcclammyhand.bsky.social
No one is in danger from undocumented immigrants. EVERYONE is endangered by the fascist Right in this country and that means the GOP.
Prisonculture
It’s not just that they normalize political violence. They also accuse the left of engaging in mostly imaginary violence, which gives unhinged right-wingers justification to “retaliate.”
Joshua Holland
And the democrats have joined in completely, chanting “peaceful protest” as though the default is some form of unpeace, declaring blocking roads or deportations to be “violence,” and treating Waymo as the victim.
Adil @adilredivy.bsky.social
assassinations, handcuffing a senator at press conference, marines detaining a civilian, and a military parade for the president’s birthday. rough week for democracy.
molly conger @socialistdogmom.bsky.social
It’s amazing that NBC created a reality show around a fake billionaire firing people who is the worst person in the world at hiring competent and qualified people.
Ron Filipkowski
Everyone feel safer now?
Gerald Butts
You know what goes hand-in-hand with violent crackdowns? Gaslighting. They will beat you and tell you that you are crazy for saying that you just got beaten. Propaganda is not free speech; it's what authorities use to mask their violence. It is, in fact, part of the violence.
Annalee Newitz
Israeli government sources attempting the “Unlike our cruel foes, we only strike MILITARY targets” line after the past year and a half is frankly somewhat shocking to hear
Will Stancil
Borrowed from a unknown protestor:
Moxilla @modmoxgoods.bsky.social
I think something in emergence is the new conservative template for gender roles and what constitutes a family. A part of that template is the idea that you run your family like a small cult of personality.
utopia deferred
I know it's been said but I keep getting re-infuriated about RFK Jr doing his thing, like we had this vaccines thing *settled*, they rule and they were working and all we had to do was NOT put the worst possible person in charge of the country's public health apparatus.
Dave Levitan
A hundred years from now, people are going to mistakenly think that “trumped up” became a phrase because of how much this guy and his goons lie.
CJ Moose
Mainstream narrative:
Tom Flood
As you watch a cabinet member admit that the military is being sent to Los Angeles to unseat the democratically elected government there, please remember that the Star Tribune didn't have the courage to take a position on who should be president last November.
Bob Collins @mylittlebloggie.bsky.social
Mass deportation = Eugenics
Eliminating science from Dept of Health = Eugenics
Eliminating vaccines = Eugenics
Cutting Medicaid = Eugenics
Cutting Social Security = Eugenics
Eliminating medical research = Eugenics
Targeting LGBTQ = Eugenics
Scrubbing contributions by minorities = Eugenics
EUGENICS
MS Kohut
The very quintessence of conservative leadership: Scared People Scaring People
David Roberts @volts.wtf
It is bizarre the way people with guns, bulletproof vests, riot shields, tanks, and other military gear act like rocks are an equal threat. It’s madness! If you are scared of rocks and think the punishment for having them thrown at you should be death, you shouldn’t be in law enforcement!
Roxane Gay
The thought also occurs that perhaps if storm-troopers with guns, bulletproof vests, riot shields, tanks, and other military gear weren't hunting people in the streets and fields like vermin, perhaps people wouldn't feel the need to throw rocks at the storm-troopers.
Dr. WTF @badatom.org
My team and I at the Crowd Counting Consortium have a new piece out. In it, we show that through May 2025, the size and scale of anti-Trump protests have dwarfed those in 2017:
Erica Chenoweth
ICE is an unaccountable, lawless gang that preys on vulnerable communities. What we’ve seen in the last few months shows just how destructive and inhumane they can be, given the right psychopath in charge. They’ve become stormtroopers.
@christianrincon.com
More Americans voted for Senator Alex Padilla than for 48 of the 53 red state GOP U.S. Senators combined.
OuterBoroPrincess
Also cannot be emphasized enough: Barack Obama successfully negotiated the shutdown of Iran's nuclear program. It exists today because Trump deliberately tore up that agreement. The deaths happening right now can be laid at his door.
Joe Katz
Just heard it’s gonna cost $60M to repair the streets after the tanks roll through DC for Trump’s military parade BS birthday — on top of the $45M to throw the fucked up event itself!!!
Morgan J Freeman
Billy Long's sole qualification to run the IRS is that, in 2023–24, he ran a large-scale tax fraud operation. I am not making this up.
Waldo Jaquith
Rare earth metals are not rare.
Baby back ribs are not from babies.
Chris Steller
It took 2 year but Clematis ‘Princess Kate’ has decided to shower us with debut blooms in time for Clematis Thursday:
City Mouse Garden
“ICE” as snatching people from churches now. Never forget they said this
MAN AT CHURCH: “We don’t want this in our property.”
ICE: “The whole country is our property.”
No IDs shown, non-government out of state plates, basic tactical vests that just say police. Who are these men?
Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com
I just wanna say something really plainly that I haven’t seen spelled out like this. There is no such thing as legal immigration anymore. Because they are taking people at their citizenship hearings they are taking people who are doing everything by the book. If you get abducted, when you do everything right, legal immigration does not exist in the US right now
Ariella Elm
We are not heading for a point of no return, we’ve passed it
Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social
I would like to once again say that once they arrested Ras Baraka every elected Dem should have understood what was in store.
Prisonculture
So ironic that Marjorie Taylor Green can repeatedly interrupt a President's State of the Union Address whilst Sen. Padilla is handcuffed for doing the same thing in a cabinet secretary's press conference.
Carter Kinnier
In case you weren't aware, the greater LA metropolitan area is the size of Portugal and contains 80% more people. They cannot constitutionally [take it over militarily], but also, they cannot physically do this.
Courtney Milan
wow I wonder if the cops who lied about the sitting senator even though everything they did was on tape are also being less than honest about the presence of violent agitators at the protests in los angeles. they might even not have told the entire truth about other protests
CHOAM Nomsky @samthielman.com
As a four-decade veteran of the daily journalism business, let me tell you: Every competent political reporter in this country knows that Trump is trying to establish a dictatorship. The industry's shame is that so few journalists will say so, and the ones who do lose their jobs.
Mark Jacob
This is insane and also I hope that seeing a US fucking senator thrown to the ground and cuffed for asking a question will help some of the people who still aren’t getting it to recognize that THE POLICE ARE THE SOURCE OF THE VIOLENCE
Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social
So many white folks from blue states fail to understand that a lot of Black and brown people feel safer in red states where they are the majority and where racism happens in explicit ways, instead of in the "safe" places where white folks pretend racism doesn't exist.
ashley fairbanks @ziibiing.com
Trump voters need to stop cooking their brains on Fox News and Twitter and like actually interact with the rest of the world. Take public transportation into a city. Read a book they normally wouldn't even look at. Heck attend a pride parade just to see what it's all about.
The Alternate Historian
So… the states get to decide on women’s reproductive health, but not what fucking car you can drive there? This is insane.
Alejandro Lozada @lacreid.bsky.social
CARTOON OF THE DAY (From @dccartoonist.bsky.social):
Alejandro Lozada @lacreid.bsky.social
The lack of total outrage at the indictment of Congresswoman McIvey is truly frightening. Hakeem Jeffries ought to be causing high holy hell over this. She is indicted because she is Black. Half of the GOP caucus engaged in sedition and Garland felt arresting a member of congress went too far.
Pam Keith
I'm not sure that Trump and most MAGAs hate science and medicine and facts per se. I think they hate effective government, and science and medicine and facts get in their way of destroying everything in government that actually works. RFK Jr., however, clearly hates science and medicine.
Peter Gleick
The cruelty in today's politics feels horribly corrosive. Bringing up that hard-working immigrant families — undocumented, yes, but not violent criminals — are being ripped apart based on immigration status doesn't bring compassion or even pause, but gleeful cheers.
derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social
Clinton was right when she said "deplorables" and we should stop ceding ground to these people. If someone supports ripping apart innocent families for nothing more than fleeing poverty and death—just like so many who came to American before—they deserve to be called out as heartless and immoral
Eric Panzer
New euphemism for authoritarian lawlessness just dropped:
Greg Sargent
Clinton was specifically referring to people who sent rape and gas chamber threats to politicians when she said that. Dems biggest mistake was not doubling down and asking if the GOP supported that behavior. Instead they capitulated to the framing that Clinton was calling Erma in Iowa “deplorable.”
Ellery @biknmusicmama.bsky.social
Genetic material shed by tumors can be detected in the bloodstream three years before cancer diagnosis, according to a study led by investigators at Johns Hopkins University. That study was made possible with federal funding. Now, many studies like this are canceled.
E. Rosalie
Arresting people for deportment when they arrive for immigration hearings is literally entrapment. When a nation decides that trying lawfully to become a citizen is cause for being arrested, it ceases to be a democracy. It's just a failed state trying to rid itself of those it sees as inferior to a master race by means of ethnic cleansing and structural violence.
The Colvin Study @ajcoog.bsky.social
This is a real thing being posted and circulated by the Department of Homeland Security, referring to undocumented immigrants as “foreign invaders” and urging good Americans to turn them in:
David S. Bernstein
One time, during my client’s asylum hearing he was asked by the govt attorney if he really expected the judge to believe he’d been imprisoned for reading a Pentecostal bible. My client’s response? Well, your country imprisoned me for seeking asylum…so… Fuck you for trivializing this AP.
BakeUpMaggie @snowbunny11ataol.bsky.social
New Danish study concludes that traffic noise is killing people: "A 14.9 decibel increase in road traffic noise [outside the home] was associated ... with an 8.1% increased risk of all-cause mortality." Traffic noise was much deadlier than air pollution.
David Zipper
ICE detentions of people with no criminal records are up nearly 900 percent over the same period last year.
Philip Bump
I don’t think it can be overstated that we live nothing like our ancestors *specifically* because of vaccines and food support for poor people. So many children died. So. Many. We actually solved that. Solved it! Amazing. But then we got too removed from it and here we are.
Sara @saralovesyou.bsky.social
Our federal government right now:
@slightwright.bsky.social
I just think anyone upset at the sight of a Mexican flag is clearly upset at the sight of Mexican people and are thus not rational political actors who should get to draw the lines of our discourse
Gillian Branstetter
I was fine with the protests against the king until they threw the tea into the ocean.
ceasar @portocan.bsky.social
They keep talking about punishing protestors as if this country wasn’t FOUNDED BY PROTESTERS WHO ENSHRINED THE RIGHT TO PROTEST, I AM SO TIRED OF HOW STUPID THINGS HAVE BECOME. Also, WHAT THE FUCK WAS JANUARY 6, YOU BRAIN DEAD HYPOCRITE SUCKERS
Andy Richter
Biofuels aren’t worth it
Dr. Jonathan Foley @globalecoguy.bsky.social
I’ve never forgotten this picture from 2016 and how it completely reshaped my understanding of how the media covers protests:
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
The idea that the progressive left used the internet to bully institutions into accepting unpopular, far-left positions is the exact opposite of what has actually happened. The alt-right used the internet for ideological capture and they are now in the White House bragging about it daily
Kat Tenbarge
To the people in power, the only acceptable form of protest is none at all.
Bill Emory @oldmanemory.bsky.social
If you study the successful rebellions and resistance and civil rights movements of the past, you will note that “people who spend their time publicly bumming out everyone around them by emphasizing how totally fucked everything is” do not play a central role, or indeed, any role at all
Faine Greenwood
the southern baptist convention [which just voted to endorse a ban on gay marriage] recently had to sell their headquarters in downtown nashville to pay for all the sex abuse legal fees.
tyler @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social
i think southern baptists should probably consider a ban on being led by child predators
jamelle @jamellebouie.net
"nonviolent resistance is in the big picture and the long term the most effective strategy, but that doesn't mean it must be polite, placid, or please our opponents, not least because nothing ever will and they'll lie and distort no matter what." –Rebecca Solnit
566unicorns.bsky.social
CAKE @thebandcake.bsky.social
So many of our loudest First Amendment enthusiasts have no idea that freedom of assembly is right there in it, on equal footing with freedom of the press or freedom of religion
Tom Scocca
I enjoy how Americans will post an image of a man bravely standing in front of a tank at Tiananmen every year to commemorate the wickedness of violence against protestors and then see a protester get trampled by a cop on horseback on CNN in LA and say “well what did he do wrong to deserve that?”
Cmonmacques
I know I’m naive but I’m just constantly shocked by how much they hate the country they’re running
Dave Levitan
Bluesky shows all users by default all the posts from the accounts they choose to follow in chronological order. Vichy Twitter chooses which posts to show using an algorithm designed by Elon Musk. It's a brainwashing engine.
mtsw
I love New York City, so I say this out of love — there’s something profoundly wrong with any city that would produce “Democrat” contenders as obviously awful as Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo.
Brent Toderian
I will say it again: Trump is occupying Los Angeles. That is the proper word for what he is doing.
Watchdog Progressive
I will be damned if I allow a bunch of Confederate-waving January 6th apologists give the American people a lecture on flag waving. There is ZERO reason to enter an argument about patriotism with people who still worship traitors to America 150+ years later. They. Are. Breaking. The. Law.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @aoc.bsky.social
We’ve leapt over a lot of red lines in the last week. But one I find most worrying is Trump/MAGA/ICE have ceased even pretending to claim some criminal pretext for cracking down on protected speech. It’s just straight up “if you criticize us, you’re getting throttled/arrested/disappeared.”
Radley Balko
CAKE @thebandcake.bsky.social
American society is most comfortable with no protests, ample free parking, expensive housing and no poor people in public spaces. Any disturbance in that equation brings about a hurricane of anxious punditry scolding liberals for causing their discomfort with the situation.
Bryan @bryanformhals.com
"Mainstream media has a duty to inform its audience that Trump/Miller policies are in fact hateful. But it rarely does so. Moran is to be commended for speaking truth to power. Speaking truth to power is, after all, what journalists are supposed to do." –Noah Berlatsky
Aaron Rupar
something i’ve been thinking about lately is the idea that america has
transformed from a nation of citizens to a nation of consumers — and to
really take that seriously, not just as a way to decry materialism. if
you internalize that, i think most of Trump’s mainstream/marginal
support makes sense. a citizen conceives of themselves as part of a
community whose stewardship is their partial responsibility. they think
of themselves as definitionally a small part of a larger whole. a
customer, otoh, sees themselves as an individual in competition with
everyone else. for them, there is no "we."
elias isquith
Trump says anybody who protests the military parade on Sunday will be met with “very heavy force”
Aaron Rupar
Okay so law enforcement IS capable of massing on elementary schools to snatch up children, just not when there’s an active shooter. Got it.
@rpg-volley.bsky.social
Thou shalt not force good horses to trample peaceful protesters and pretend thou art the good guys.
God @thegodpodcast.com
The idea we should behave in such a way that the Trumpists will not portray us as dangerous/ lawless/ violent is a silly idea, because they always portray us that way and no amount of curtseys and rolling over and playing dead will change that. So people might as well speak up and stand strong. Trump has been demonizing Latinos since he showed up on the political scene. The idea that there's some behavior we can indulge in that will cause them to endeavor to live in harmony and tell the truth is a foolish idea.
Rebecca Solnit
Trump is spending $134 million to needlessly deploy troops to LA and $45 million to throw himself a birthday military parade — he seems to think the US military is a toy for his amusement, funded by American taxpayers.
Steve Rattner
For no particular reason I want to point out if Carrie Nation had just sent strongly worded letters to bars we’d have no idea who she was
Historical Marker Ahead
The media is going to BOTH SIDES us right into martial law:
scarylawyerguy.bsky.social
Look, I'm a well-off middle-age cis white guy with four law degrees, three in commercial law fields. At this point, even I can see that key institutions have failed at the moment they were most needed because we have permitted the development of a largely unregulated and untaxed oligarch class.
The Questionable Authority
Notice how while ICE arrests people without a warrant, invades homes without a warrant, and disappears people into death camps — NRA is silent. Know why? Because NRA was never about firearm protection — but about white supremacy protection. As long as ICE targets mostly Black and brown people, NRA is happy.
Qasim Rashid, Esq.
If I learned anything from the Minneapolis uprising in 2020, it’s that you can’t trust the news to learn what is taking place. Big news folks take their talking points from police and elected officials who have the power, means, and desire to spin the story their way. Don’t fall for it.
christy marsden
“It’s too early to declare a constitutional crisis…” Is it, though?
Thomas @thomaslstrickland.bsky.social
This is a demographic engineering project. They don’t care that this is all made up bullshit. They want a nation of tiered citizenship based on race, religion and ideology
Adam Serwer
If you think climate change has gotten worse during your lifetime, you're right and there's a good reason. If you're Gen X like me, more than 3/4 of fossil fuel CO₂ emissions have occurred in your lifetime. Even if you're a Millennial, it's at least half:
David Ho
The irony of podcasters and media personalities accusing immigrants from the “third world” of not doing useful work.
Adam Serwer
A rule of thumb that will rarely lead you astray in this country is to assume that a riot was started by the people who showed up armed and dressed for a riot.
Ed Burmila
The fact that a hyphenated American isn't any less American than anybody else is literally the best thing about this stupid-ass country, the thing that most clearly makes it a redeemable project.
Leonid Baezhnev @rev-avocado.bsky.social
"Nobody’s going to spit on our police officers," says Trump, who four months ago pardoned people who beat police officers with pipes, flagpoles, baseball bats and 2-by-4s at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Peter Baker
The real enemy of this administration is cosmopolitanism. Whether in Los Angeles or South Africa, multiracial pluralistic democracy is a threat to them because it means their “us or them” model of the world is wrong. So they stir up trouble on purpose and gleefully lie.
Bill McKay @mckay4senate.bsky.social
[Here's my earlier post about the ICE raids in Los Angeles — before Kristi Noem's attack on Senator Padilla.]
I've shifted my thinking re: sustainability and systems from 'how can we minimize harm' to 'how can we maximize ecological good' and it is SO cool to think about pollinators + solar this way. You're telling me we can build cheap, clean energy AND improve biodiversity at the same time?!
Isak Kvam
Regular liberal people must come to understand that there is no way you can appease Nazis and especially that there is no way that you can shrink yourself so they won't hurt you. Their main goal is to hurt you.
Prisonculture
Spanking does not produce good behavior. Authoritarian violence -- and make no mistake, that's what it is when you hit your kid, even if you tell yourself it's "just a swat" -- produces little authoritarians, full of fear and suppressed anger.
David Roberts @volts.wtf
I dipped my parents' toothbrushes in the toilet after they hit me, and I don't think "I turned out fine." Ironically, people who say that need the most help. I refuse to use the word spanking, because it minimizes the fact that you are assaulting children. I can't imagine hitting my daughter.
Rachel @rachelmachel.bsky.social
on January 6th, while attempting to overthrow an election, multiple rioters wore Nazi paraphernalia. they declared their intent to murder elected officials. the right stood steadfastly behind them and are now more powerful than ever. you can stand behind someone waving a Mexican flag.
Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social
Someone telling you you’re in an “ideological bubble” is either trying to convince you to join their monetized content bubble is was dumb enough to believe that sales pitch themselves. The idea that people in this country have an ideology of any form is so laughable. We don’t even have religion! We invented Evangelicalism to strip any kind of obligation out of Christianity. We have the packaging of religion. The packaging of ideology.
Tom Basgen, Mr. Saint Paul
Democratic Party leaders' version of the old expression "There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them" is "There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can stop them."
Geoff Johnson
We've seen highly controlled, highly choreographed moments of protest in recent months. That's something completely different than a whole bunch of people getting fed up and moving in the way that folks have been moving in California. It’s like yelling at water about the proper way to boil.
Puff the Magic Hater @mskellymhayes.bsky.social
The news emphasizes low-level theft instead of corporate crime, pollution, and other predatory behavior.
Truthout
There are like five conservative social media apps, including one run by the president of the United States, and it’s weird how we never get a Washington Post editorial about how divisive and unwelcoming they are.
dell cameron
"BlueSky is dying"
"Gen A I is inevitable"
"The regime cannot be stopped"
You don't typically need to repeat something if it's true; you repeat it when you're selling something, whether that's a product or a belief.
Hailey Piper
Right: Let's do genocide
Left: Let's not do genocide
Center: Guys, you're gonna have to compromise, let's just do /some/ genocide
Right: I can live with that
Left: No to genocide
Center: See, this is why no one likes the left, you guys are the real extremists, smh
Puck Arks
On Thursday I biked to a training, and (for reasons) it came up loudly in front of the group. The next day another woman also biked, saying she did cause I had. We then biked halfway home together. Be the change you want to see!
Catherine @catlikesbridges.bsky.social
Statistically “America” is its cities. But we’re stuck with an 18th century political architecture that gives votes to cornfields and thus makes it politically viable to treat them as some kind of weird tumor.
Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social
not the main issue here but i'd really appreciate it if democratic politicians spoke out in support of big-city life and culture with the same energy and reverence that all politicians have for small towns. los angeles is "real america" and so are all the other big cities the president hates
Doug Mack
My advice to those who don't want things shoved down their throats is to keep their mouths shut.
Bob-Parker54
Still waiting for the article that’s like “these right wing militia members are in a bubble and it would be healthier if they exposed themselves to left wing ideas”
Kashana
For the first time in the US, more babies are now born to moms 40–44 than under 20. This marks 2 historical shifts for the US, plummeting teen pregnancy and gradually rising fertility for older women:
Eric Finnigan
The conditions that have led to what’s happening in the US today exist in democracies around the world. They are an inevitable outcome of our collective failure to adapt to fundamental changes in the information ecosystem on which our democracies were originally built.
Eliot Higgins
On this day in 1958, St. Petersburg, Florida, ordered the closure of a public indoor swimming pool because a Black 19-year-old named David Isom used the facility.
Equal Justice Initiative
We keep hearing the Trump-Musk saga reveals the split between tech oligarchs and MAGA. But they're largely in sync on crucial matters involving egalitarianism and the state. Trump/Musk mainly differ over how badly to screw the poor. Trump and Musk agree on the fundamentals:
*Both see the US state as something to capture for megalomaniacal self-dealing
*Both agree the US state should abandon the global poor to face unimaginable suffering
*Both want the state to dramatically roll back help for working people and the poor
Greg Sargent
With Musk gone, it’s time to start irritating Trump with “Stephen Miller is the person actually running the country.” Miller has survived longer than anyone in Trump’s orbit, so he’s clearly learned how to stroke Trump’s ego. But it can’t hurt to try.
Radley Balko
Imagine if President Biden, from the White House, had publicly threatened to level “very serious consequences” against the richest man alive if he *dared* to give any money to the Republican Party. It would be a scandal that would last years. That is what Trump just did with respect to Elon Musk.
Seth Abramson
A lot of folks need to pause and speak gently to themselves. Admit to yourself, "I'm afraid right now." Sit with that for a moment, understand what reflexes it's triggering, and that those impulses don't necessarily apply meaningfully to anything that's happening.
Puff the Magic Hater @mskellymhayes.bsky.social
The party that subjected Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Michael Byrd, Ruby Freeman, Shaye Moss, Ashley Thomas and countless other public servants to death threats demand that you to stop posting the names of the ICE agents who are snatching innocent people off the street and disappearing them.
Radley Balko
Andrew Cuomo hasn't lived in the city since 1990 and only just moved here at the end of 2024 into his daughter's apartment for his vanity run for mayor. Anyone arguing that he's a New Yorker is deliberately obfuscating.
Doug Gordon @brooklynspoke.bsky.social
One of the wildest things about reactionary psychology is that they seem *genuinely hurt and dismayed* when people react badly to their violent, stupid behavior.
David Roberts @volts.wtf
Here's a fun map of urbanization by state! Wow, look at all those people who live in cities! Only West Virginia, Mississippi, Maine, and Vermont aren't majority urbanized. That's 8 out of 10 Americans who live in an urban area!
Sarang Shah
Aggrieved whites pretending they only lost out because of "unfair advantages" to minorities is an old script. The Bakke ruling against racial quotas came after Allan Bakke was rejected by 12 different med schools. He sued the *one* that had a racial quota, arguing that and that alone kept him out.
Kevin M. Kruse
Two babies have died from whooping cough in Kentucky. Neither they nor their parents had been vaccinated. The current whooping cough outbreak in the U.S. hasn’t grabbed the media spotlight as much as measles has, but it’s important to update your vaccination if you’re going to be around babies.
Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD
what sucks about "Abundance" discourse is that the movement is a trojan horse - a way to smuggle bad ideas about tech, anti-labor, crypto etc into Dem politics by wrapping them inside normal and fine ideas about housing, green energy, transit etc.
mtsw
The Republican Party has fully embraced fascism and destroyed American democracy. But some Democrats still say Latinx. I have never felt more politically homeless.
NY Times Pitchbot
New from ProPublica: A DOGE staffer developed an AI tool to review Veterans Affairs contracts. But there was a slight hitch. It hallucinated the size of those deals. For example, it concluded that more than a thousand contracts were each worth $34M, when in fact some were for as little as $35,000.
Chris Morran @themorrancave.bsky.social
Here are some nice mushrooms:
lukelukeluke
If all DOGE left government today, how long would it take to make everything right again? They can’t do simple math, their coding must be a mess.
JAN13
It would take many years, it's not just the stuff they admit to doing that you need to be worried about, it's everything ELSE... Considering they did stuff like install uncertified hardware in sensitive environments with none of the normal cyber security checks a lot of stuff is going to need complete rebuilds.
darkglade.bsky.social
In amongst all the excitement I fear many have missed this outstanding bit of trolling by Friedrich Merz. The Chancellor gifted Trump a gilded framed copy of his grandfather’s German birth certificate... reminding Americans that Trump is both the child and grandchild of migrants.
Otto English
So then Elon goes "Kill the Bill!" and Trump goes "Elon has TDS!" so Elon goes "I'm the reason Trump won!" so Trump goes "we waste billions on Elon!" so Elon goes "Epstein!" and a corpulent flunkie goes "Deport Elon!" and Elon goes "Impeach!" And THAT'S why women are too emotional to be President.
Jane of the North
This seems like a great day to remind Bluesky that Stephen Miller lived four doors down from me freshman year. And our student council person asked him (and everyone) to sign a birthday card for our dorm’s janitor. And he threw a tantrum and wrote an op-ed about not socializing with “the help.”
David Shiffman, Ph.D. @whysharksmatter.bsky.social
Before Trump (or more like Bush), Miller probably would just have a job at National Review Online saying horrible vicious things to entertain all his fellow sadists. Now he gets to literally torture people.
Ozma @rowyourbot.bsky.social
I think my favourite slide from the whole #retrofitcanada25 conference today was this one from Jay Olson, showing how just giving up the fucking car is almost three times as good as going vegan or buying a heat pump:
Lloyd Alter
Elon threatening to just leave people on the ISS is making a pretty good case for why you nationalize your space program!
Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social
Elon Musk, the genius visionary who could not predict that the guy who has betrayed every person he has ever met would betray him
Michael Hobbes
it should not be lost that elon personally bankrolled about 20% of the total for republican super pacs raised in 2024 lmao
Starshine
Trump's buffoonery aside, I think a lot of Americans can't process that multiple generations of Germans renounce and revile past actions rather than treat them as an aspect of their culture that must be maintained.
Don Moynihan
I was talking about this with my students yesterday—throughout Western Europe, Nazism is treated in public spaces and memorials as a nightmare, as horror that must never be repeated. If slavery and Jim Crow received the same commemoration in the US, we'd be a very different country.
Angus Johnston
Civil engineering—a pseudoscience—turned every American street into a dangerous, high-speed freeway, producing a public realm in which children take one wrong step and die, and then want to blame parents for their dead children. Hell of a grift.
M. Nolan Gray
Some peonies for you:
Karin Hedetniemi
worth remembering that when Trump announced a travel ban in 2017, people literally went to airports to protest. Eight years later, Trump announces a new one and it's not even front page news. We're the frogs and the water is getting awfully hot.
Aaron Rupar
Dear America: stop saying you want the country to be run like a business. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Joy-Ann Reid
Unsurprising but important finding: Neighborhoods easily traversed by bike or on foot have lower car ownership and less PM2.5 pollution.
David Zipper
Alex Jones, who spent years ranting about shadowy government mass surveillance technology, is now stanning for Palantir
Drew Harwell
Let's be clear: ICE routinely labels its operations as “criminal investigations” to gain cooperation, even when the targets are largely civil immigration violators. They claim to have "federal warrants," but these aren't signed by a judge. We deserve WARRANT TRANSPARENCY.
mollypeonies
Limestone plaque with the face of an owl. From Egypt, Late Period–Ptolemaic Period, 400–30 BC. Met Museum, photo by me:
Alison Fisk
One of the things that fills me with rage about poor air quality (fires and otherwise) is that the people who contribute to it the least, are the folks who are most impacted. Walk? Bike? Wait for the bus? Sleep outside? All have such tiny climate impacts and lungs full of particulate matter
emly in minneaparis @eeewade.bsky.social
acab doesn't mean "every single cop is a demonic murderer;" it means "being a cop necessitates abandoning your morals at the door bc the institution of policing is so corrupt and oppressive as to be abhorrent to any good person." so saying "well some cops are okay ppl" misses the point entirely.
johnny @gatorpond.bsky.social
[This is where the BlueSky posts about the raid on Lake Street in Minneapolis occurred, which I posted earlier.]
Another dumb gross irony [of the ship renaming] is Harvey Milk served in the Navy and Donald Trump's Navy secretary didn't
Adam Weinstein
A million years ago, this was a national scandal. Today, it is just an everyday occurrence that we all tacitly accept:
Jack Murphy
I forget who I first saw name the problem, but New York City is a place where Republican constituencies—bosses, landlords, developers, financiers—pursue their right-wing self-interest within the Democratic Party, and often even think of themselves as "liberals," and that's who Cuomo services
Tom Scocca
Sick of people who drive (or get chauffeured around) in grotesquely massive SUVs complaining about bikes taking up space.
OB Cycler
Imposter syndrome had a great run, but unfortunately someone found it stabbed to death right in front of the FEMA head who’s unfamiliar with hurricanes
Kashana
It’s weird that RFK types will invent hundreds of conspiracy theories but rarely are like “Americans would be healthier if we didn’t have to drive everywhere and could walk”. That’s the wild thinking you can’t divulge, walking, not that Bigfoot is behind it all.
Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social
"Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” — Hannah Arendt
Peter Gleick
Trump Admin's proposed HUD budget would cut the agency's budget authority by $45 b. It would cut staff by 26%, killing 2300 jobs. HUD proposes eliminating most of its programs—vouchers, public housing, CDBG, etc—and replacing them with a single, smaller state block grant.
Yonah Freemark
Democrats: How do we reach young men?!
Republicans:
Gil Durán
Copaganda is deeply ingrained into our society from a very young age. I joke that ‘ACAB includes Paw Patrol’ but it is absolutely true. “Police are the ‘good guys’” is told to us from birth so heavily that ‘cops are bad’ is literally like saying ‘Up is down’ to them.
John @localcelebrity.bsky.social
Drivers are now legitimately the leading cause of violent death in the US. The primary difference between other murders, and murders/homicides committed by drivers with cars, is, it's legal for drivers to kill people with cars. Kind of have to wonder how many killers didn't just change weapons.
Matthew Lewis @mateosfo.bsky.social
Trump handed the white house keys to a drug addict, polygamist and Nazi.
Li Ren @naliren.bsky.social
(Reuters) – FEMA staff left baffled after the disaster agency's head said during a briefing that he hadn't been aware the US has a hurricane season.
Steve Herman @newsguy.bsky.social
What if wealth wasn’t a driveway full of cars — but the freedom to not need them? Replacing a car with an e-bike can save a household $120,000 over a decade—enough to wipe out debt, fund a college account, or boost retirement savings.
Adam Tranter
what makes neofascism so obscene and galling is that, whereas classical fascism grew out of the calamities of war, disease, immiseration and revolution, neofascism comes out of an era of unprecedented peace, abundance, freedom, and security
ben chambers
Libertarianism in theory: freedom for all
Libertarianism in practice: enjoy the gulags!
Thomas Swords
this obsession with a handful of high status universities is also low key an indication of elite disdain for the institutions that educate most americans who attend colleges and universities
jamelle @jamellebouie.net
New signs are up in my home state to encourage tourism...
Monica @softtail65.bsky.social
Remember when “death panels” was a Republican talking point against expanding health insurance coverage with Obamacare? Now, cutting coverage and actually sending people to their death is a policy position of the Republican Party.
Salena
Connecticut just adopted a MASSIVE pro-housing law that:
- Ends costly parking mandates (1st state east of the Rockies to do so)
- Incentives transit oriented development & fair share
- Allows middle housing in commercial zones
- Allows manufactured homes everywhere
Welcoming Neighbors Network
GOP claimed that COVID contact-tracing was “government overreach.”
They said that background checks violated freedom.
They wanted to ban data collection about gun violence.
But now they have hired Palantir to track us all.
This is the machinery of a surveillance state, run by billionaires.
Dr. Mar @boldnewme.bsky.social
I think if we just started calling raw milk what it really is, poopy milk, people would maybe stop thinking it’s some sorta miracle elixir.
Kory Bing
Thoughtful of Target to release a beige Pride line, planning ahead for the camps!
Vicky ACAB
I think we’re going to need a bigger handbasket.
Bogey @oneyebogey.bsky.social
There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd. It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.
Peter Gleick
The richest Americans are causing 65% of global warming, but it’s Black neighborhoods that are losing homes, livelihoods, and lives.
Capital B
Krassensteins
