Also, up is down, black is white, in is out...
Random links & shenanigans. Writer/filmmaker. Citizen. Really tired of living in interesting times.
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Also, up is down, black is white, in is out...
Florida Gov. DeSantis spent $218 million of his state's tax money on that detention center, Alligator Alcatraz, & now will spend another $20 million closing it down. Just flushed all that money down the toilet. Republicans can't govern.
Locking down your phone, being mindful of what you're wearing, and coming up with plans to communicate with others are all key steps to take before attending a protest. ssd.eff.org/module/atte...
Buckle up.
This whole thing is great but the highlighted bit made me laugh out loud. 😂 Marlon on Snoop:
RADDATZ: One of the things they are trying to do in DC with the National Guard is have them back up local law enforcement WES MOORE: They are picking up trash
Gov. Healy is MA, not NH. NH is the only New England state that's not part of the coalition forming in the NE. Even GOP VT-Gov is on board.
Who voted for war with Venezuela?
We also have some limited ability to influence how unified the pro-democracy coalition is. Remember, competitive authoritarian regimes rely on divide-and-rule tactics. The sooner the opposition unifies, the better the odds of dislodging autocratic rulers.
Taking one or both chamber may be enough to slow down, let alone stop, the consolidation of authoritarianism. But if GOP holds... then, all else equal, democracy is fucked. It'll also really matters that Ds do well at the state level. The fewer states that are laboratories of autocracy, the better.
3) GOP states will also ratchet up voter suppression, with help from the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court. Expect some *very* aggressive efforts. We won't be able to stop them. But there is a non-zero chance that they miscalculate and drive angry voters to the polls.
I have bad news and worse news. The bad news: the more consolidated the authoritarian regime becomes, the harder it is to dislodge it. The opposition in Hungary finally got its act together in 2022, and formed a coalition that included far-right and far-left parties.
This is very awkward, but someone is impersonating me using the email karenkhowriter@gmail.com, contacting artists and asking them for money. Several artists have forwarded examples of the emails.
Journalists used to be interested in facts. They used to research things to the core in an effort to have the information they wrote about be indisputable. Now they just write for clicks, and hope for forgiveness later.
I’m absolutely begging reporters to stop suggesting that Lisa Cook stated that she would use both properties as a principal residence on her mortgage APPLICATIONS Mortgage APPLICATIONS and mortgage AGREEMENTS are not the same thing We have no idea what she represented on the APPLICATIONS
Welch: As someone who lives in a red state, let me just tell you what MAGA supermajorities get you. We're 50th in education. The worst in the whole country for women to live. We're poorer, worst health care. And if you look at the bottom ten states, they are all MAGA supermajorities.
We got here because we never hold anybody accountable for their bullshit. Every time we said we’re gonna forget about it so that we can “move forward” we gave these fascist a greenlight.
If what we hope will happen ever happens, we'll watch as many, many people in the world of politics, overnight, go on to pretend they were always against what preceded it. This era has been a highly effective acid test for character. Take notes now, so that you don't forget in the future.
“You cannot argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience” -Mark Twain This is why the medical experts are leaving the CDC.
The absence of a narcissist will heal you in so many ways.
Live your life such that everyone doesn’t spend ten solid years planning the rager they’re going to throw when you die.
www.advocate.com/politics/dem...
I know y’all who are sympathetic but don’t live here see the videos and realize there are a lot of police/military but it’s still just so hard to convey from afar just how Much police it is sometimes
Our downfall came when government became just a fig leaf over corporate interests.
Texas will see energy prices soar as supply/demand does its work, and as more expensive fossil plants get called up to fill in for lost clean energy.
"It's further eroding...the credibility of those who are in leadership positions in our military, that they would allow full military honors to someone who lost their life while committing the act of sedition." Michael Fanone discusses Ashli Babbitt with JVL:
Good.
Yeah, but to understand the full story, you need to follow the money. They didn’t set fire to $218M, they transferred from the state coffers into private ones. Their buddies. Their backers. Themselves. It’s not a failed detention center, it’s a fully successful puddle of corruption.
No More Unions Allowed At NASA. Happy Labor Day. nasawatch.com/personnel-ne... #NASA @NASA
Even before there was AI slop, music got homogenized with ubiquitous samples for drums, keyboards and guitars...and drove actual musicians out of business.
www.thenation.com/article/envi...
Hope so. djt didn't write the smash & grab playbook & his cronies in place - in gov, in business, on SCOTUS - are down to keep pushing it. It's been the project of decades to make this democracy more responsive to money than to the people. It won't unwind with one exit, although that's a good start.
🪬🧿 There is no amount of money, oil, or gold in the world that is worth more than having bees, trees, and clean water.
What if we established a tax-exempt Church of Democracy and sued the government for infringing on our religious freedoms when it does authoritarian stuff?
MOST TRUMP TARIFFS ARE NOT LEGAL, U.S. APPEALS COURT RULES
Inhuman. “I don’t have any choice” is a lie.
Americans have no idea that the CDC is one of humanity’s greatest creations. The #CDC should be treasured, and we should be enormously proud of it.
A federal judge has ordered Florida to shut down "Alligator Alcatraz," after the state spent a staggering $218M to build the now-vacant detention camp. Closing it will run taxpayers another $20M. An utterly cruel and costly waste.
5 Alarm Fire at SSA. This involves every citizen's data & the regime has handled it incompetently, insecurely, and illegally. SSA's Chief Data Officer resigning involuntarily because he's not allowed to do his oversight job.
Martin O’Malley, former Social Security Administrator, says the DOGE bro upload of SSA to cloud is the biggest data theft in history and could maybe lead to need to mass issue new SSA#s. 🤯 www.msnbc.com/the-last-wor...
I'd love to see head DOJ. He would be fearless putting things in order and in prosecuting justice.
Voters need to hear from EVERY democratic party elected that "We are not a corporate party...We are a party for working families." And if your elected is a Republican GIVE THEM HELL and demand action.
"...democratic electeds and voters [need] to be more direct...There is power in going to a town hall and speaking up." When you speak truth to power, the bullies back down. "WE HAVE TO BE WILLING TO FIGHT!" - Philly @dalarrykrasner.bsky.social is 🔥. www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE_0...
Why you should care about ICE's new powers even if you are a legal citizen. Follow @wired.com for the best reporting on this aspect of the current regime.
“Disaster money is just sitting,” one FEMA employee tells WIRED. “Every single day applicants are asking their FEMA contact ‘where’s my money?’ And we are ordered to just say nothing and redirect.” Must-read by @mollytaft.com
"A mural of the Statue of Liberty in shame" by JDL Street Ar in Lille , Roubaix France 🇫🇷
Hope so. djt didn't write the smash & grab playbook & his cronies in place - in gov, in business, on SCOTUS - are down to keep pushing it. It's been the project of decades to make this democracy more responsive to money than to the people. It won't unwind with one exit, although that's a good start.
Starting now look at where the polling places are planned for Nov ‘26 & get trained as a poll watcher Make noise if too many of the polls are only on the have side of town It’s real easy on the 3rd whatever of the month to slide a lot of municipal BS at people Y’all pay attention & get ready.
This story has it all: aquaculture, Black Flag, Bernie Sanders, Star Trek as policy, John Hodgman, male tears, and a candidate citing Luthen’s monologue from Andor. Meet Graham Platner, the Maine oysterman trying to crack the senate. @grahamformaine.bsky.social newrepublic.com/article/1996...
It is transformational in that it is transforming all our lives, now, without our permission or even howdy do.
"The company says it has already installed 45 out of 65 turbines in the project aimed at providing power for 350,000 homes."
"'This hostile attitude towards Denmark from the Trump administration is shocking,'...One of Denmark's biggest companies has already been caught in the crosshairs of the US government in recent days, following an order to stop the construction of a big wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island."
GWB, the good ol' days.
Scoop: @marcelias.bsky.social's Democracy Docket—which delivers reporting on elections from an unapologetically pro-democracy point of view—has surpassed 50,000 paid subscribers, expanding its newsroom to 20 staffers across two offices. Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/democracy-...
Rally with me on the route!! 🚶🏽♂️#WalkForTransit
The listeria lobby finally found an administration that would take a meeting
#WorldWaterWeek has been truly inspiring. We have taken water for granted for too long. The same applies to #peatlands - they are undervalued, despite their importance to us. Moving forward, we must be water-smart as well as climate-smart in our decision-making for peatlands in Canada and globally.
Up is down, black is white, inside is out. In MAGAland, insurrectionists are heroes.
Ashli Babbitt was an enemy of multiracial democracy. She stood on the same moral footing as the “redeemers” who sabotaged Reconstruction. And she is being celebrated by this administration for precisely that reason. That is where we are.
And also illegal, lest I forget.
And both need to be held accountable for their indiscriminate and not-secure ransacking of American agency databases.
These decisions are made by appointees hand-picked for their sychophancy.
Thousands of DC residents chanting “fuck Jeff Bezos” outside of the P Street Whole Foods
I dunno, seems bad www.nbcnews.com/business/bus...
As Natia Mezvrishvili showed in her Beyond the Ballot Box analysis, Georgia’s elections aren’t stolen on election day. They are stolen years in advance through legal manipulation, surveillance, and institutional capture. 11/16 substack.com/inbox/post/1...
Sound familiar?
I usually know it when I see it. There is a lot of misinfo around public health and this agency in particular, so I couldn't be sure. Carry on. ✌️
They applauded people with the integrity to protest very publicly what is happening, and what you wouldn't even be aware of without their courage.
He's just wanted to see that employment metric slow down to justify the rate cut he's been looking for since getting sworn in - has done all he can to accomplish it, with the help of Big Tech and their insane over-hyping of AI.
They're a death cult.
The decisions of Lisa Cook (Fed) and of Dr. Monarez (CDC) to not just cave to the attempts to remove them is exactly what is needed. According to the NYT today, Robert Kennedy tried to fire Dr Monarez, but as a Senate confirmed appointee she will only go if the President personally instructed her.
There is a massive walk out at the CDC by staff unfolding right now. It is NECESSARY. I stand in solidarity with my CDC colleagues. standing up for science and public health. It is a moral imperative.
Here's my tutorial. Both are great. Draw whatever you want. Fuck green checkmarks, nobody is grading you and professionals get feedback from an art director if their design needs revisions. ✅️ ✅️
I hope Democrats are thinking about this.
One of the firefighters arrested is an Oregonian. My office has been in touch with his lawyer who says he can't locate his client. My office is working to get more information on his whereabouts ASAP.
Has anyone who argues that Democrats lose when they use too much woke jargon and win when they use less woke jargon explained how Democrats won in 2020, the Year of Woke Jargon, but lost in 2024 when they used less woke jargon?
AI gonna reject your knee replacement 'Similar algorithms used by insurers have been the subject of several high-profile lawsuits, which have asserted that the technology allowed the companies to swiftly deny large batches of claims and cut patients off from care in rehabilitation facilities.'
You can't speak coherently about what has to happen in America now if you even allow for the possibility that Trump did not run the most deceitful campaign about what he planned to do as president that contemporary American politics has ever seen. Any attempt to legitimize his actions is grotesque.
In just the first few sentences, Klein misstates a fact critical to his analysis. Trump got reelected by promising to deport violent illegal immigrants using our immigration system. That was a lie. It turned out he had no particular interest in violent illegal immigrants *or* our existing system.
House Democrats should introduce articles of impeachment against RFK Jr. Let Republicans defend his lunacy.
A pro death movement. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Yes. There is nothing Trump is doing that the entire GOP isn’t also doing. The GOP agenda is his agenda. He doesn’t care about Project 2025, but they do and they rally around him because he’s ramming it through for gold trinkets and adulation. But damn it do not let any of them off the hook.
I'm tired of this theater where Donald Trump asks Republicans to do something, they seem to push bank and then cave. The only two factions of the current GOP are proud MAGA and scared MAGA. Anyone who thinks Republicans are acting in good faith is delusional.
Our President keeps insisting prices are going to drop by 1400%, 1000%, or some other number that’s mathematically impossible. That he can’t do simple math isn’t the problem, it’s that he’s lying to America while things are getting more expensive because of his bad choices.
🌊 3D-printing special patterns in seawalls could change them from ocean killers to thriving marine environments. @fiu.bsky.social's Sara Pezeshk explains how these BIOCAP tiles work and why they could be a game changer for coastal cities threatened by rising seas. #ClimateChange #3DPrinting
"it is a bit ironic that the posts’ authors are such a closely guarded secret; Trump’s White House has repeatedly declared itself “the most transparent administration in history,” promising a constant string of disclosures—albeit ones that don’t always pan out. (See Jeffrey Epstein.)"
The 5th Circuit ruled in July that the 1st Amendment right that protected public libraries in the past from book ban zealots no longer holds & taxpayer-funded librarians should not decide which books belong in collections. We must defend libraries & actual free speech (not fake MAGA "free speech").
"the European Commission relies on dodgy accounting and offshore carbon laundering to pretend to hit the lower bound of what its climate scientists advise"
Midterms may or may not be the answer. But at least we'll get a good headcount of the fascist threat we face. So lets respect - and defend - the process. It costs us nothing, and could mean everything. (#2, #13)
There are a bunch of events planned this weekend, and protests scare the sh!t out of him. There were also stunning election wins this week in Iowa and Georgia. Lots of time to win before midterms. www.fiftyfifty.one
We could hobble to the midterms in a semblance of democracy but only with a LOT more resistance on every front. And even then, some amount of Congressional oversight is...what exactly. People need to wrestle with the real stakes. Right now.
If Cracker Barrel sets them off, imagine how they’ll react when they hear I went woke in the New Testament — turning the other cheek, feeding the poor, all that radical stuff.
Starbucks’ CEO made 6,666x more than the company's median employee in 2024. This was the widest CEO-to-Worker pay gap in the entire S&P 500. Remember this before you order your next pumpkin spice latte.
If you are a California voter be on the lookout for anti Prop 50 mailers like this one. I received one of these and It’s a trick that was created by Charles Munger Jr. and a bunch of others. Munger Jr. has spent $10 Million to defeat Prop 50 aka the Election Rigging Response Act.
Well isn’t this lovely. Opera star sings Habanera (from Carmen) in the airport (?) What a terrific voice. #opera I don’t care if they’re staged, we need more profl free public #music and #art.
Vaccines are safe and effective. RFK Jr. isn’t.