There are violent extremists on the left but they are not in charge of the party. You can find them on social media, not in the halls of power. The violent extremists on the right are in congress, on courts, and sitting in the Oval Office.

How often do we assign an entire imagined role—sometimes a villainous one—to a stranger? In @maggiedowns.bsky.social's essay, a group hike on the Inca Trail comes w both thinning air and thinning patience before things take a surprising turn. Read here: buff.ly/jC7Fjma

The air was thin and the effort arduous on the Inca Trail. To make matters worse, another hiker ahead of @maggiedowns.bsky.social seemed to taunt her by carrying two backpacks. Why two? The answer, when revealed, left the author floored, just as it leaves readers breathless: buff.ly/C1ns1TM

@maggiedowns.bsky.social and @zackbornstein.bsky.social I think we need to give this one more shot. Third time’s the charm, right?! We ride at dawn…I’ll bring farro and the kale. Although, maybe we need breakfast tacos and coffee instead this time?

"Finally—finally!—we can reroute those dangerous funds from writing workshops and elementary school jazz ensembles into more important things. Like tax breaks for billionaires. And tanks."

If there’s anything the past 24 hours have taught me, it’s that my group chats are boring

WaPo's Ron Charles, in his Book Club newsletter, on Meta's repeated questions about his plans to review Sarah Wynn-Williams's "Careless People": "In my 27 years of reviewing and editing newspaper books sections, no company has ever done this with me."

It feels like if you shut down four airports by blowing up your science project, you should go to jail?

The US military has removed photos of the B-29 bomber “Enola Gay” — which dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan — apparently because it contains the word “gay,” which violates their new anti-DEI rules.

These ten Democrats should just quit. To censure Green when there have never been consequences for MTG for egregious behavior whereas Green was protesting fascism. We are drowning in shit.

About to get through yet another day by creating fictional people in my head and writing a rom-com about it

JD Vance strikes me as the guy who leaves his shopping cart in a parking space because “it’ll give the workers something to do”

A reminder for these times.

Started to type “it’s so fucked up that” and then I realized I didn’t even know how to finish that sentence right now

2025 vibes at the vet

This is actually good news, frustrating as it is. People are so bad at thinking abstractly about risk, but as soon as a threat becomes real, they’ll act in the best interests of their children. It would be great if the rest of the country could see this and do the same!

Quit buying shit, write poems, live más

"I trust this guy. He’s not like the others. When the government tracks you, that’s tyranny. When a billionaire does it? That’s innovation."

What if, instead of fearing the iron fist of Big Brother, I actually feared the absence of a billionaire’s firm, guiding hand? My latest for McSweeney’s www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/don...

With all the other news, it’s easy to have overlooked this story about the Department of Transportation prioritizing communities with higher marriage and birth rates 🙃 finance.yahoo.com/news/dot-say...

Murphy: "This is a constitutional crisis that we are in today. Let's call it what it is."

What do you suppose our well-regulated militia is doing these days

Being a rapist wasn’t a dealbreaker. Being a convicted felon wasn’t a dealbreaker. Attempting to overturn an election by inciting an insurrection wasn’t a dealbreaker. The racism, the sexism, the inexhaustible idiocy … none of it mattered. But now that money is on the line? Let’s see who flips

The Internet Archive has to date downloaded 500 terabytes of US government websites, which it crawls at the end of every presidential term. The whole archive is fully searchable. This effort's housed by a donation-funded nonprofit, not a branch of the US government. blog.archive.org/2024/05/08/e...

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a declassified World War II-era CIA guide to sabotaging fascism in the workplace has become one of the most popular free ebooks on the internet: www.404media.co/declassified...

A while back I asked folks why they’re joining Bluesky and the most common response I saw was, “I just want a good place to get my news” and, yall, no. Bad. GET YOUR NEWS FROM THE NEWS PBS Newshour is FREE FOR EVERYONE. youtu.be/PMOYN8JWdUk?...

I know a lot of you are asking us or talking about the 12 IGs (Inspector Generals) being fired. They aren't stepping down until it's done correctly. This is how you #Resist

If you don’t have one already, go get a library card.

Putting this here for no particular reason generalstrikeus.com

This is your mission. We take our power back now at the local and state level. Stop waiting for a national hero. It’s you. Get to work.

This morning I received an email from my congressperson praising the inauguration and extolling the 'rule of law' — which I found to be deeply disingenuous mere hours after T pardoned violent insurrectionists. I don’t know if it makes a difference anymore, but I wrote a letter back to his office.

Today begins four more years of me looking at news alerts and groaning, “This fucking guy”

I think this might be the last time I use this mug

AHHHHHHHHHHHH

In honor of the conceivable demise of TIkTok: A Portland, Maine bookstore finds off-color humor cloaked within many book titles, including mine. tinyurl.com/yy2533sx (Thank u @maggiedowns.bsky.social)

Our Tanzanian guide, Godslove, led the way through darkness. “Try it without this,” he said, lifting the heavy backpack from my shoulders, hoisting it onto his own back. —"Summit Night" by @maggiedowns.bsky.social in case you missed it https://www.fiveminutelit.com/summit-night

Client projects 2024 2/ 🧵 Maggie Downs @maggiedowns.bsky.social 50 Things To Do Before You’re 5 (Chronicle, March 2024)

What I really want to know about Hunter Biden's pardon is why the Saudis gave Jared Kushner two billion dollars.

One of my relatives just purchased a dog from a breeder and named it Tucker Carlson — so I have to believe I have slipped into another, far more baffling timeline

🎶 “… later we’ll have some fuckin’ pie and we’ll do some caroling ..” 🎵

Before the awful economic policies begin: What’s a good coffee subscription that would allow me to pay a year in advance?

Hey y’all! Here’s a big mega list of 160+ Black Owned Bookstores all over the U.S. + a few other countries as well! U can filter it by state. I posted about this on the clock app today, but figured I’d share here too! aalbc.com/bookstores/l... Happy Reading! 📚💙 #Booksky #BlackBookSky #BlackSky

For Shepherd, I shared my top three reads of 2024. (But it was reeeeally hard to whittle my list down to just three!) shepherd.com/bboy/2024/f/...

I talked to @maggiedowns.bsky.social at the Wall Street Journal about the importance of “the travel orgasm” www.wsj.com/lifestyle/tr...

Coworker suggested I should drink fewer than 35 cups of coffee a day so I threw him across the room like a javelin