Sweet dreams.
Books! One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, Icebound: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World, & a Nabokov bio. Now working on Snowblind: Death on the Polar Ice. Former karateka & record store clerk. Newsletter & podcast: andreapitzer.com.
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Sweet dreams.
Could be soon, could be years, but there will come a time when the DiedSuddenly hashtag is gonna be lit on here.
ditto with The Handbasket. without “blueskyism” i would not have a successful independent journalism outlet. turns out you don’t need to battle nazis to reach people.
Getting yelled at on the internet is not what turns people into fascists.
Had not realized that Obama was secretly Richard Hanania.
Mind you, I like a lot of things about this platform! I bought a t-shirt to support it. I would pay for a subscription to it! But I'm not going to lose sleep over how many daily posters it has or listen to arguments from reactionary pundits saying it's too woke.
I know lots of us are at maximum subscription capacity, but I can’t recommend Craig’s indispensable baseball newsletter enough. Smart, thoughtful and funny and populated by a terrific community of glorious dorks like me
Just riffing on this morning's edition of the "Bluesky is dying" discourse.
In this year of our suffering 2025, it's a mistake to rely on any single social media platform to remain robust or be financially sound indefinitely. And your individual behavior is unlikely to change anything on those fronts. So enjoy whatever you like here for as long as it lasts.
Get out today, if you can! There are hundreds of Labor Day events where you can stand up for workers and against the cruelty and destruction of this billionaire-consumed regime. www.mobilize.us/aflcio/map/...
So glad to see him reelected, and y'know *in* office since they literally changed the locks on him I wrote about this town last year bc there was a lawsuit to make it have elections, which coincidentally stopped around when the Voting Rights Act was passed 🙃 ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics...
Looks like my mean jokes about pundits are killing Bluesky. Sorry, everybody.
That's lovely. We did an episode on subversive humor last December that had almost the same title!
Residents are finding all sorts of ways to fight ICE: They're recording and reporting. They're wheatpasting and sharing know-your-rights materials. And they're stepping up to care for each other, from delivering groceries to walking kids to school. 51st.news/dc-residents...
A newspaper
This is what happens when you obliterate the presumption of regularity. Endless homework assignments because the court can't trust the government to follow orders in good faith.
"We will fight them at the 7-11, we will fight them at the Dunkin' Donuts, we will fight them at the Subway."
So make dumb jokes. Unfurl ancient "Paul is dead" memes. Let the president know millions loathe him. Look for cryptic portents scorched into your breakfast toast. Start saving to book Yankee Stadium for a party, or to fund a cross-country trip on a tricycle carrying a banner that says WHEW. Go wild.
There are so many guys on sidewalks here in NYC who could give you four-day talks on the Antichrist for far less money.
Having lived through a decade of harrowing events as a child, I'll say it's *good* to imagine the day you'll move beyond the reach of a cruel person—even if that moment won't fix everything. They want to convince you of your powerlessness, but that's not how this story ends.
This was incredible, important lawyering from National Immigration Law Center (@nilc.org) over the past 24 hours. Here's their case page: www.nilc.org/litigation/l... Here was the statement from Efrén Olivares, NILC VP of litigation, from earlier today regarding the TRO:
Thank you! I hadn't seen this. Her spiritual interpretations of plants didn't really speak to me, so the abstract mappings related to them interested me less. But there was an odd sensibility to the representational work that I liked.
Forgot to show you some of the work of Swedish painter Hilma af Klint, whose show I saw at MoMA earlier this month. (You can read more about the exhibition here: www.moma.org/calendar/exh...)
NEW: During an emergency hearing on Sunday afternoon, Judge Sparkle Sooknanan temporarily blocked the Trump administration's plans to deport hundreds of unaccompanied Guatemalan children. Read my live coverage of the hearing on @lawfaremedia.org: www.lawfaremedia.org/article/emer...
DEVELOPING: Advocates are seeking a court order to block the Trump administration’s effort to deport hundreds of unaccompanied minor children to Guatemala. Judge abruptly moved 3 pm hearing up to 12:30 after she was notified that some children “are in the process of being removed" today.
Saw three military police walking around Georgetown, but also overheard a group of four women talking about how they would break their abstinence from alcohol only when he dies, so you know
Leave it to this lovely weirdo to write a great pop song and then dismantle it completely. All you ever say.
There may no hope for tens of millions of Trump's true believers, but there are tens of millions more who can be shamed. (And a few million more who somehow have no idea what's going on at all.)
People who might be comfortable with their neighbors quietly disappearing aren't always comfortable when the grotesque human rights abuses involved are made public. They don't like to imagine themselves as the bad people you make them seem like when you point out what's happening. So keep doing it.
Super-annoyed that I can't make a joke about a body double today because actual conspiracy theorists have ruined the fun for everyone.
Yes, and my dog, a maestro of shit, loves to make performance art. His specialty is finding a broad lawn with a picture window overlooking it.
I really hope this becomes the black eye it deserves to be www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
If he’d been peeing, I would have tried to get a photo! Unfortunately, the evidence was more… substantial. But pulling him away meant I had to wander around more of of their yard gathering shrapnel anyway. So I should have just let him do his work in peace.
Meandering on the morning walk, Area Dog darted into a yard and began to unload right next to a tiny sign of a dog in exactly the same position, with "NO!" stamped underneath it. So I tried to drag him away but succeeded only in scattering the output across the yard.
All joking aside, this video by @andreapitzer.bsky.social is quite good. “Sometimes it can feel overwhelming…and I want to remind you, one day Trump will be gone… and I want to talk to you about not just skittering from crisis to crisis but instead planning for the long run…” 👇👇👇
Huge judgement. Volkswagen ordered to pay R$165 million for using slave labor in the Amazon during the 1970s-80s. reporterbrasil.org.br/2025/08/volk...
We recorded this on Monday and posted it on Thursday. But it still seems timely, in case you're just sitting around this weekend for no reason at all...
Okay, my 101-year-old grandfather is really enjoying the responses he’s gotten here, so I’ve finally convinced him to let me share something he’s been working on for years; a series of sculptures he calls “Trumpinnochios.” Here’s one of his best. I’ll share a few more in this thread.
OMG--"It's me, JD."
I suspect this is precisely correct. My racist family member, who disowned me for being mixed race, also thought it was "hateful" that I wrote about it.
This question is pretty loaded. I suspect Harris voters may be more honest on this point than their counterparts. My racist aunt threw my cousin out of the house for dating a Black guy, but I guarantee you she also would have said it was wrong to cut anyone off for their political views.
What a dumb framing of a federal court declaring Trump's obviously illegal tariffs illegal — positioning *Trump* as the source of stability and obeying the law as the agent of chaos that could screw things up! www.axios.com/2025/08/29/t...
Love, love this.
Anyway, gotta get offline and head to my event. We're already living under fascism so we might as well live into our actual values. We might as well take risks and embrace new ways of being and doing. We should reject the status quo whenever possible. We should reject warmed over garbage.
A dramatic, extremely worrying moment; over 61,000 people held in ICE detention. That is the highest number ever on record in United States history; roughly 6,000 higher than the previous record set under Trump six years ago, and over 21,000 higher than when Trump took office just seven months ago.
Monday is a really good day to let people, like our friends at the CDC who refused to bend a knee to Typhoid Bobby, know that we have their backs. maydaystrong.org
The Friday post is up! With links to this week's episode of "Next Comes What." And why making things in the real world can be helpful in a moment filled with digital fury and third-rate memes.
In a camp that opened just weeks ago with plans for torture by alligators, pythons, and mosquitoes, the humans involved have shown themselves to be crueler than any animal. This place can't close fast enough.
Not sure my family is ready to move with me! :) Or that there would be housing for us there if we tried. But I will surely go back on my own to visit.
I love Longyearbyen.
I have a relative who watched it for years, mostly because their spouse did. This relative began to have private reservations about Trump. When the spouse died, the relative quit watching Fox & now loathes Trump. Definitely not a lefty, but deprogramming happened automatically in the absence of Fox.
I know some about public transport in concentration camp regimes (which sometimes coincide with war), but haven't done specific research on the war-but-not-camps settings. I'll try to think of someone who has...
NEW: Alaska publishes a quarterly list with the names of Indigenous people reported missing — but it still doesn’t issue a list for those who’ve been killed. When a local nonprofit requested that information, the state said no. By @kylehopkinsak.bsky.social of @adn.com
politics is conflictual; a reality you cannot poll, focus group, or message your way out of.
So this guy is the villain from "Dirty Pretty Things"?
yeah, darth, i think i saw this movie
That show and Ministry were definitely the loudest shows I've ever seen.
I was still a teenager at the time! This was when you had to go to the club or to a record store to buy paper tickets, so it's lucky that I heard about the show before it sold out.
Tom Waits on his "Frank's Wild Years" tour at the Warner Theatre in DC (1987) or My Bloody Valentine on their "Loveless" tour at the old 9:30 Club (1989).
I'm sure you're heartbroken that you have no chance with either of those guys...
Lots of action from the D.C. Circuit just now on the foreign aid impoundment case. In a nutshell, the original panel amended its ruling (to narrow it significantly and let some claims go forward); the full Court denied rehearing given the amendment, and the new ruling goes into immediate effect:
I will give Sandwich Guy my lunch money if he carries a sub in a holster and follows federal agents around DC.
Thank you for the kind words, Kay!
@andreapitzer.bsky.social is the author of several excellent books, among them "One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps." Her essay on "When Trump is Gone" is well worth reading. Her newsletter is called "Degenerate Art." degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/when-trump...
No reason a prayer can't be a toast.
"I'll alsso ssay that the pressident is in incredibly good health."
Might be *three* diseases in a trench coat.
(Now that some leaders are out and shaking hands, a few more men are visible. But at first I couldn't find any at all.)
Amazing that what can be seen in this feed is ~99% women.
AP live feed of the CDC walkout in Atlanta. www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ7Q...
I think people really struggle w partially consolidated authoritarianism, either understating our problem or understating our power It's like we're in a liminal fascist space. And not recognizing how far gone we are or thinking we're simply too far gone are both grave errors we can't afford to make
I, too, get these comments a lot, and Chris has expressed exactly how I feel about them.
this by @andreapitzer.bsky.social is quite good
There's no level of "Dear Leader" parody you could perform that he wouldn't see as genuine.
Would be awesome if this parade were just an endless single-file, five-hour line of pool floaties on little wheeled carts, and the sailors had to drag them along like Arctic explorers pulling sledges while someone sits inside and pretends to row. Somehow, I don't think that's what we'll get.
Long before any mass executions, the Nazis spent their first years in power making it almost impossible for Jews to live, work, and exist legally in the Third Reich. For targeted groups in the U.S., life in the U.S. is becoming almost as convoluted. You now get arrested for following the law.
"Sometimes it can feel overwhelming and panicky, like you're just running from crisis to crisis. So today I want to remind you that one day Trump will be gone."
Worth noting that Pritzker not only treated Trump's blatant lies as lies, properly cast it as a violent threat, and denounced any state sending troops for dereliction of duty. He also managed to do all that without telling Democrats they should throw part of their coalition under the bus.
Civility discourse is a war on thinking and writing clearly. None of this is in defense of nuance. What civility pundits want is to be absolved of responsibility for the content of what they say, provided it's expressed in a particular way. Their fight is against judgement itself.
Show hearings and trials are a key marker of a concentration-camp regime. Even in countries with existing detention crises, the conscious step to degrade due process for targeted groups further diminishes the larger legal system while shifting power to emerging quasi-legal and extralegal approaches.
And yet, as Jamelle notes, they don't yet actually have full control over the country. So the cosplay is a way to pretend to a more complete power than they currently possess. It's an attempt to cow the opposition but also a way to inspire followers who are enthusiastic about following a strongman.
Yes, absolutely. Just wrote something similar in a follow-on post.
It's doubly disturbing because those original authoritarian states, brutal as they were at the outset, typically didn't envision the worst abuses they would commit in the end. But the Trump team knows where it all leads and is driving the country in that direction as fast as it can.
I also find this fascinating and have written a little about it. They're cosplaying authoritarianism while doing authoritarianism, actively nostalgic for and recreating twentieth-century police states that had horrific death counts.
blocked a bozo spreading lies just to feel something
Red velvet! The kid’s choice. Came out great, though a little pale, because we didn’t have much red food coloring in the house.
I just realized I didn't frame this well! My hesitance about spending the money in this case is because I no longer want to support the publications, despite decades of doing so. But I guess it's a good strategy for either situation...
This is so kind of you, and I welcome more paid subscribers. I just realized I didn't frame this well! My hesitance about spending the money in this case is because I no longer want to support the publications. But I guess it's a good strategy for either situation...
Made a cake from scratch with the kid tonight, and now I am full of cake.
I think this is generally right, but I do understand why — given the apparent Friday deadline — some resignations today from among those who were going to be fired by the end of the week helped make this a bigger, institution-wide story and not just some manufactured Monarez story by the admin.
Or Chekhov's pun.
Have avoided canceling a couple subscriptions because I sometimes need to write about how media covers the Trump era. Now pondering banding together with friends in a similar situation. Maybe I'll get four or five people to share 1 digital-only subscription, which would at least reduce the $$ spent.
They can issue JOINT health guidance, they can buy up supplies of needed vaccines, etc... [just on the health front]. Hire all of the excellent people who are resigning.
This is insanity. This is the sign of a government that has lost its mind.
He needs a little hat.
Here's a photo of Olga and me from Warsaw in May, when I took her five used laptops and money for motorcycles for the troops to use as delivery and rescue bikes in contested areas.
It will never not be funny again.
But was he slowly beginning to weep?
