Chicago this Labor Day… Thousands fighting for what #WorkersDeserve
Former Chicagoan now living in Appalachia. Word nerd and documentary filmmaker. Focused the stories we tell.
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Chicago this Labor Day… Thousands fighting for what #WorkersDeserve
Well done.
Trump’s mysterious disappearance from public raises new questions about Joe Biden’s advanced age
"One cannot live and work in the midst of such pain and misery without absorbing some of the trauma. Katrina still haunts me," David Rae Morris writes.
Wondering what SCOTUS's response will be...
The dog realises when the point has been won and celebrates... 😊 #dog #dogday #bluesky
COVID was Dems' fault because they acknowledged it. Any societal disruption could've been avoided if only we pretended. First time US media and voting public didn't hold the president responsible for a bad thing on his watch. Even as he messed it up on live TV. Nothing I can think of comes close.
In the midst of the Labor Day weekend, the Trump administration continued trying to make Donald Trump’s fascism happen. What I saw in response, though, was heartening — on multiple fronts. Tonight, at Law Dork:
I can't stand that Americans voted for someone interested in performative acts (and usually involving some kind of cruelty) instead of engaging in real work to make things better for all Americans.
Wall St opens lower on tariff uncertainty; focus on data reut.rs/3JGg4qh
Man who campaigned on peace (and demands a Nobel Peace Prize in exchange for lower tariffs) seems vastly more fascinated with war-mongering.
Perfect encapsulation of the Trump administration: The guy suing Harvard for alleged antisemitism is a straight-up Hitler-admiring Nazi. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/02/m...
Hold me back
a society that wants to keep functioning has to disincentivize baldfaced lying, especially by authorities
Ed People hasn't had any professional dance training, but he can definitely bust a move. The social media influencer says the goal of his global dance project is to "bring joy" and "build bridges."
School $$ nerds: Great reporting from @carlibrosseau.bsky.social NC is sending tax money direct to religious schools for capital projects--how unusual is that? @schooldaves.bsky.social @joshcowenmi.bsky.social @zahavastadler.bsky.social @joshuaweishart.bsky.social
If crime were truly the issue, the GOP would be sending in troops to red states with much higher crime rates than Chicago. Chicago isn't even in the top 25 of the US News report from January 2025. Memphis, in red-state Tennessee, tops the list. Repeating propaganda is not news. bit.ly/3VhZ7EW
"it’s hard to imagine anything more emblematic of the Trump Era than what is for all intents and purposes still the Commerce Secretary’s company (yes, yes, arms length hand off to his twenty-something sons) making bets on something Lutnick himself has significant influence over"
We should all be so lucky!
The intensity of national news media's fixation on normalizing the corruption and authoritarianism of Trump and his team is a massive failure of even the most basic journalism ethics.
In @theatlantic.com the former First Lady advocating healthy lunches is just like the hhs head being an anti vaccine quack killing people. Stop the planet I want to get off.
I can't believe an employee of a public university in a system experiencing a budget crisis and hiring freeze makes $10 million a year + perks.
It is awful. All of it is awful. President is inserting the administration into the operations of the nation's universities. This is what authoritarians do.
Holy cow. New this morning from the @bostonglobe.com: “A DOJ lawyer accused Harvard of ‘indifference to antisemitism.’ As a Harvard undergrad he wrote a paper from Hitler’s perspective.” If you're not a subscriber but you know where to look, it's there. I swear I didn't post it.
Elevating incompetence. #Values www.politico.com/news/2021/08...
This was $12 at the beginning of the year
There are a LOT of UNC fans that paid a LOT of money to watch this after donating a LOT of money to get Bill Belichick and his coaches.
“.. There was a period of time, briefly, where the middle-income consumer looked like they were being dragged up by all that was going well in the world. .. Then things fell off a cliff.” @wsj.com www.wsj.com/economy/cons...
Tariffs cause ‘unprecedented’ disruption to global trade rules, WTO chief says reut.rs/4g7ekT2
There are lots of commercials for casinos during baseball games (at least here in the PNW), and even with all their money, all the footage available, all the modern editing techniques, all the time in the world, they can't make a casino look like anything but an absolute cosmic horror to me.
More framing like this, please www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/u...
In his answer, Ben Smith suggests that the idea of "American democracy is under attack" is too abstract to consider. It's a direct and valuable "yes or no" question asked by @oliverdarcy.bsky.social – and Smith instead claims the idea of democracy under attack is too abstract to consider.
I don't know how any leader of a news media outlet can say that we are in an era of "radical transparent" information ecosystem. The question of whether or not our democracy is under attack is a yes or no answer. The answer is "yes." www.stopthepresses.news/p/q-and-a-wi...
It IS a good question and Smith refused to answer it directly. Why is that? You have noted how Trump "nullifies reality." We are in a dark place if Ben Smith of Semafor evades in an answer about democracy being under threat.
" This is not a time to fall back into the reflexive crouch that I so often see where the authoritarian creep by this administration is ignored in favor of some horse race piece on who will be helped politically by the president's action."
I wish Trump would invest in arts programs in underserved Chicago neighborhoods instead of investing in a military invasion of Chicago. These young men from Leo High School in Chicago deserve federal investment in arts programs. youtu.be/rpEjcajZu8c?...
The thing about Covid - NOT ONE COUNTRY knew how to address the pandemic. I remember that in early March 2020, Italy shut down. That was shocking. TRUMP was president during the US lockdown but Biden is blamed. Republicans scream much louder than Democrats and their lies carry very far.
1) Democrats do not care at all for messaging, and thus, the power to frame arguments falls on the GOP. 2) GOP benefits from a vast rightwing media ecosystem that promotes and amplifies their lies. Whatever Democratic messaging there IS gets lost in the noise. Shit is indeed rewarded in America.
Think about it. "Dems were too zealous in trying to prevent the spread of the virus" is, in US politics, a greater disadvantage, a bigger problem, than "Republican lies got hundreds of thousands of Americans killed for no reason." Just a pathetic fucking country. Pathetic.
... it's their targets who must apologize. They're never held responsible for the lies. Never held responsible for getting so many people killed. Never held responsible for anything. It's just the people who care, who try, that we hold responsible, that we shit on & demonize. Never the gibbons.
But it's always like this. Democrats try to do the right thing. They fall short, like humans do. Everyone teams up to shit on them. Republicans don't even bother pretending. They lie, they smear, they destroy lives, they get people killed, & they face NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR IT.
On Labor Day and every day it’s important to recognize that whilst fascist republicans attack blue cities and blue states for their monstrous hateful neo-Nazi goals, red states rely on/leech off of blue states to literally keep their own economies from dying.
White House reporters have all seen Trumps bruised hands. It’s an active choice not to make an issue of it while these same people spent years freaking out about Biden.
😶
And worse - what they are saying and doing are the things initiating the collapse - higher prices, alienating our allies, aligning with authoritarians like Putin (rolling out the red carpet for him!) It's as if we've become the USSR, in terms of lying to the public about everything.
Add in that the MN shooter might have been preventable if FBI and DHS hadn't refocused their domestic terrorism policing, and FBI didn't even MENTION the terrorist attack at CDC.
“I keep seeing these memes where Indians are bragging about taking our tech jobs,” said Ely, 36. “So I said, ‘Oh yeah? Well I’m going to work with these guys that are going to arrest you, slam your face on the pavement and send you home.’” wapo.st/3VrzEJg
Bill Belicheck makes $10 million a year as a North Carolina state employee. He got $100,000 in relocation expenses. He also gets perks including country-club membership. Budgets reveal values and the values of North Carolina seem fixated on things other than public education. bit.ly/47iVSo9
One of my Supreme Court reform takes is they should be completely barred from taking any outside income (incl. publishing deals) and it should be particularly frowned upon, normatively, to be writing books. Memoirs are for writing after you retire, not five years into a lifetime appointment.
ive got no idea what's going on with Trump's health. But the 'biden precedent' is just so glaring and hilarious. half of 2025 has been taken up with elite press shaming of how no one ever talked abt Biden's age which was actually their main topic in 2024. Ok. Set aside that his party literally ...
We don't have open borders. LA would still be here without a military invasion. Chicago is a world-class city that does not need military intervention. Republicans have noted that red-state officials can ask for military help - but not so for blue states. The lies are exhausting.
A useful lens for thinking about how growing inequality has affected American life. A dozen other essays could easily be written as variations on this theme (e.g., how baseball parks used to accommodate many more fans at cheaper prices with fewer frills, etc.).
The problem isn’t refugees on boats. The problem is oligarchs hoarding obscene amounts of wealth while most people fight to stay afloat. Wages aren't tied to inflation, so the working class keeps falling behind no matter how hard they work.
A friend took this at a rally today and I barked laughing.
"...Mr. Musk and his artificial intelligence company, xAI, have tweaked the chatbot to make its answers more conservative on many issues, according to an analysis of thousands of its responses by The New York Times. The shifts appear, in some cases, to reflect Mr. Musk’s political priorities."
🚨Let’s hear it for Columbus, Ohio! 🚨
Somebody in Edgewater isn't happy about the new parking reforms in Chicago. Reducing parking won't help Chicagoans in crowded neighborhoods - Chicago Sun-Times share.google/6IlJQDEexiga...
The context of this makes it even worse. 1) Darcy: What will your new access journalism column achieve? Ben: Access. 2) Darcy: Is democracy under threat? Ben: radically transparent blah blah blah. 3) Darcy: Is Semafor looking for new oligarch funders? Ben: Ask Justin Smith.
Kristi Noem's Non-Stop Slander Invites Congress to Ask Melania about Her Close Ties to Jeffrey Epstein www.emptywheel.net/2025/09/02/k...
Warfighters demonstrating leafality.
Join the more than 430,000 people who have signed up for Democracy Docket. Even better, join the 50,000 who help support the 20 person team by becoming a premium member! Free or premium, if you are not paying attention to the courts you are not paying attention to democracy. hubs.ly/Q03jcjqP0
Christ.
$10 million man starts off the season with an epic loss. www.foxnews.com/sports/bill-...
Of the many reasons this is a bad answer — the kind of answer I would delight to get in cross-examination because it makes the speaker look shifty and untrustworthy - is that “maintain or rebuild institutions” is not particularly less abstract than “democracy under threat.” It’s just less direct.
ICYMI: ICE detained a mother of 4 last month after she traveled back to the US w/ her passport + valid green card. Her attorney claims she wasn't given any justification for her detainment except a pardoned misdemeanor marijuana conviction from 22 yrs ago www.huffpost.com/entry/ice-de...
Concern over low birth rates was what the theocracy in Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale used to come to power.
"That is why I am infuriated that the Air Force plans to grant military funeral honors to Ashli Babbitt. She did not die defending the Constitution. She died trying to overturn it." Yes, there is a difference.
Somehow our diseased information environment has produced the net outcome that *the pandemic is considered a political problem for Dems*, not the party that lied about it & got people killed at every juncture. The party that tried, but not perfectly, to save lives, is being forced to apologize.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has proposed doing a deal with universities that own patents in return for funding.
NEW: This weekend in Trump's effort to make fascism happen. The Trump administration tried to illegally send children to Guatemala as troops walked aimlessly around Dupont Circle. This evening, at Law Dork:
Michelle Obama: "please I'm begging you feed kids just one (1) vegetable" RFK: "some children deserve to die. there's a healthy way to eat deep fried burgers" Media: "these are the same, to me"
Amen to everything Dan said. Especially how great — and funny — he was on Reservation Dogs. Related: all of Reservation Dogs — one of the very best shows of the last decade — is currently streaming on Hulu.
The world is learning from America's mistakes. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...
TCU tacks on a 33-yard field goal at the end of the half and it's 20-7 Frogs. UNC enjoyed the first six minutes of the Belichick Era. The rest of it looked more or less like most eras in UNC football history.
Bluesky is now among and often *the* highest referer to @motherjones.com. That’s traffic that has been additive. Only Twitter has dipped btw, the rest as fairly steady state (and instagram impressions and video views on all platforms up enormously.)
And this is how you do that.
Is this the *emergency* you had in mind when you took these National Guard troops from their families @GovBillLee?
Platner: No one cares that you pretend to be remorseful as you sell out to lobbyists. Symbolic opposition does not reopen hospitals. Weak condemnations do not bring back Roe V Wade. Maine deserves better than Susan Collins.
From my latest: Emergency-Gate: Focus on Challenging the Premise of Trump’s Power.” open.substack.com/pub/sherrily...
It’s mean. Not funny.
Oliver Darcy @oliverdarcy.bsky.social was curious; so he asked Ben Smith — co-founder of Semafor, and former media columnist at the New York Times — if Smith thought democracy is under threat in the U.S. Good question.
22 year old man whose previous experience is a grocer. The header of counter terrorism. MAGA is Affirmative Action for Mediocre White Men
"Blueskyism" helped the Mississippi Free Press overcome algorithmic suppression on other platforms (Facebook, Threads) and ride out plummeting engagement on Twitter following Musk's X takeover. Thank God we took our eggs out of the X basket when we did.
I tracked down source of a TikTok i saw about horrific car pick up lane in a Tennessee school district. And it is true. Parents arriving by noon to wait in line for hours, doordashing food as they wait, etc. www.wbir.com/article/traf...
He is untruthful.
For being a corrupt, disbarred attorney who spread lies?
This is a lie on an absolutely colossal scale - the figures show that tariff revenue has increased by $20 billion/month - www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... would take over 30 years to reach $8 trillion at this rate
Portland, Maine crowd as Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner takes the stage today.
Here's the response from Paul Bryant, the Black veteran and lawyer whom the govt arrested in part bc he had a legal weapon in DC, to USG attempt to get him detained. It leans heavily into the lack of Body Cam proving he shoulder checked some Guardsmen. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
I am always genuinely curious as to why he never blames rightwing media ecosystem that amplifies the propaganda on the right for anything. For the entirety of my adulthood (and I am not young), there has been a level of hysterical rage from the right that drives news cycles & framing.
Did she appoint him? He originally was appointed by a panel of judges, according to Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Sta...
NEW: All Guatemalan children placed on planes yesterday have indeed been returned to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, @nilc.org lawyers confirm to Judge Sooknanan. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
[CUE MUSIC: “IN THE ARMS OF AN ANGEL” PLAYING SOFTLY] [FADE IN BACKGROUND SOUND: A solemn voice reads names] Nate Silver. Matthew Yglesias. Megan McArdle. Mark Cuban. [FADE IN: SALLY STRUTHERS sits on a stool in a pool of light on a minimalist set. She looks SAD.] /1
Also there's this: drugpolicy.org/news/trumps-...
It's been decades of GOP hysteria and rage unmatched by anything expressed or done by Democrats. The Starr Report was disgusting & expensive & it sucked up all the air for a long time. Ken Starr was later fired from Baylor for overlooking sexual assault charges against football players.
Remembering when GOP spent $50 million to uncover the scandal that came when the Clintons lost money in the Whitewater deal and that the expensive investigation led to a salacious report that uncovered only that B. Clinton lied under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.