@tomandes.bsky.social talks woth @cwblackwell.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/tandes/p...

Thank you to the terrific @cwblackwell.bsky.social C.W. Blackwell for talking to me about his fantastic story collection, Whatever Kills the Pain, from @rhppress.bsky.social Rock and a Hard Place Press.

Two of my favorite writers talk about Whatever Kills the Pain: @tomandes.bsky.social interviews @cwblackwell.bsky.social tandes.substack.com/p/an-intervi...

Had a chance to talk to the great @tomandes.bsky.social about writing characters, violence, politics, and story endings. Go check it out on his Substack 👇👇👇 open.substack.com/pub/tandes/p...

this is the second "how I use AI as a journalist" piece in the last 24 hours and both are entirely disqualifying for those involved, embarrassing stuff

I think often of a New York Times photo of a little Iraqi girl tending to her parakeets in a bombed house, probably from 20 years ago now. I will think of this man and his sweet dog often now too. People just want to love what they love, care for their little beings, and instead we do this to them

We don’t talk enough about how morally depraved the tech industry turned out to be. Every single ounce of their self-regarding statements of values was an outright lie.

If you’re fortunate enough to have retirement or college savings, you can look at your losses since Feb 28 and have a rough estimate of how much fascism just stole from you to pay for bombs to kill actual human beings who might also have liked to retire or go to college.

We need to call this what it is: a crime against humanity

Behold: the first-ever list of news outlets that have banned generative AI in their reporting. As of today, this is literally information that you cannot find on Google. My goal is to fill the starter pack, so please send over suggestions with supporting evidence! go.bsky.app/8cn1XfT

I’m so psyched to be back in town for this and reading with these amazing folks!

“If [wealthy, powerful people] can get us to accept that the future’s already settled, AI is already here, the end is already here, then we will create that for them. My most daring idea is to refuse.” — @tressiemcphd.bsky.social

“It’s difficult to understand the scale of the problem, but OpenAI itself estimates that more than a million people every week show suicidal intent when chatting with ChatGPT.”

Great catching @tomandes.bsky.social’s show in Santa Cruz tonight 🤘

They’re washing their asses on his and hers bidets while building a gulag and filming authoritarian porno videos using prisoners as props. This is Salò levels of Fascist perversion

Evil.

The contempt I have for Newhouse after what they did to the Times Picayune and other papers is profound. They are bad people who are historically bad for journalism in this country

He literally says in this clip that ICE will keep in Minnesota “quick reaction forces” — a military term — to go after “agitators.” Remember that those on the ground in MPLS have spent more than a week trying to tell everyone that Trump’s prior “deescalation” was a ruse and ICE is still operational

As long as we’re talking about sugar and its history:

A desperate plea sent to me by a Minneapolis resident who's been on the front lines since the beginning of the ICE occupation:

The great Chester Himes and Griot, his beloved blue point Siamese, named "after the magicians in the courts of West African kings." Himes also said that if he stayed away too long, Griot would wreck his studio and chew up his books. #Caturday

"By the end of the two-year period, 94% of participants reported they were housed." A million pilot programs show the same thing: when people are given enough money to afford housing, homelessness ends. Other supports matter, but housing comes first. Not policing. Not moralizing. Homes.

Floored by this story. A man wrote a pollite email to a federal prosecutor objecting to the deportation of an Afghan seeking asylum. DHS responded with an administrative warrant to get the man's info from Google, then visited his home to intimidate him.

The guy who owns Amazon shutting down the books section of the Washington Post is beyond parody

happening this morning in Minneapolis -- ICE agents drawing guns on observers. I reiterate again that it is only a matter of time before DHS kills more innocent people in Minnesota. Congress needs to shut this shit down right now.

Predicting that this week we’ll hear more conciliatory words from the Administration regarding Minnesota (since they’re starting to realize that ICE has become politically toxic) but everyone outside of Minnesota needs to know that nothing on the ground has changed.

If you're in line for Melania tickets, stay in line.

This is the escalation cycle I've been talking about for months, one Homan can't pretend DHS is not part of. DHS adopts aggressive tactics and arrest quotas, the community responds angrily, agents mask up and DHS deploys more, the response gets bigger/angrier, agents get more aggressive, etc...

They aren’t backing down. They’re just threatening people in other cities. Still illegal. Still unconstitutional. Even if they haven’t yet backed it up by shooting someone in the face.

Possibly the only thing I am less excited about than an album of AI-generated music featuring Liza Minelli and Art Garfunkel.

Not a lot has made me feel hopeful lately but this did.

This is really one of the best political podcasts out there. This episode lays out so much history and context for the present situation in Venezuela. It’s clear-eyed about the Maduro government‘s abuses without once letting that justify this ugly new chapter in US imperialism. I learned a lot.

Minneapolis has seen a stunning 1,646% spike in calls from families who can't pay rent because they're afraid to leave their homes to work. This is state violence manufacturing housing precarity in real time. People should not be facing eviction when their city is under occupation.

WHATEVER KILLS THE PAIN: Derringer Award-winning author @cwblackwell.bsky.social mourns an America lost to the shadows, exploring a broken economic system that has given rise to rampant inequality, violence, and darkness. Take it from @hlessig.bsky.social: bit.ly/4runwWU

My gosh. Alex Pretti was notifying neighbors that Trump and Vance's agents were chasing a family. A mob of agents then tackled him and broke his rib. He thought he was going to die. Then the very next week, he came back out to support his neighbors. And a mob of agents killed him.

Something important to understand about ICE thugs in the Twin Cities is that they're harassing innocent kids and parents at bus stops and schools every single day. Even after the Pretti shooting. It's terrorism.

Philip Glass boycotting the Kennedy Center Philip Glass boycotting the Kennedy Center Philip Glass boycotting the Kennedy Center Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass boycotting the Kennedy Center

I don’t think we should make concessions to the Masked Murderers Guild of America. I don’t think we should compromise so the Masked Murderers Guild of America stops using kidnapped kids from schools as bait. I thought this was already illegal. The Masked Murderers Guild of America should not exist.

ICE murdered Renée Good in broad daylight. Less than 3 weeks later, they killed Alex Pretti, shooting him 10 times. Every day, we watch as people are ripped from their cars, their homes, their lives. We can't allow ourselves to look away from this cruelty. Abolish ICE.

It can get lower!

So which politician is calling for the dismantling of the probably illegal database that ice & this government is collecting biometric data of protesters?

Happy Birthday, Dolly! open.substack.com/pub/steady/p... A much needed timeline cleanse from Dan Rather #HappyBirthdayDolly #BlueCrew #SundayVibes

2a absolutists oddly quiet in the face of actual tyranny

Also, may I say that I don’t agree with people saying ICE and CBP need “more training.” They’re doing exactly what this administration has trained them to—impose a reign of fear in blue cities. They don’t need more training. They need to be ripped up root and branch.

RIP Alex Pretti. The nurse was shot dead by federal agents in Minneapolis as he wss filming & protesting agents involved in the Trump ICE deportation effort. Guardian www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Pretti clearly did not brandish his gun. Which means the government is saying he was killed for legally exercising his right to carry. It’s as clear-cut a violation of the Second Amendment as I can possibly imagine. And we’re about to see the bulk of the gun rights crowd defend his murder.

Kyle Rittenhouse was on Infowars the day after the Renee Good shooting saying he had heard on X that Renee was putting cigarettes out on her kids. This wasn't true. This is a government by and for school shooters and their apologists.

A nurse. A researcher. A helper.