I would like to share something. A year ago, Trump won and I was furious and scared so I sent a text to a few of local women I knew and asked them to join me at a meeting and invite like-minded women they knew. A few showed up, then a few more. We became a group called The Salon and we meet monthly

I love this movie bc when you're five it's a cute story about a mouse reuniting with his family, and when you're an adult it's "HOLY SHIT this movie is about pogroms and immigration and enfranchisement and the labor movement and electoral corruption and tenements and industrializiation and AHHHHH"

Today's newsletter is about the awful and extremely political decision to gut Teen Vogue for parts www.readtpa.com/p/teen-vogue...

Under Trump, the draconian future of homelessness policy is coming into focus: mass internment. Utah is building a 16-acre site to detain up to 1,300 homeless people inside locked "accountability centers." This is profoundly alarming. Vital reporting from @ellenbarry.bsky.social and Jason DeParle:

Good reminder to liberally use one of Bluesky’s best features, the nuclear block. Don’t get baited just move on.

It is important to see this sort of straight talking, precisely because of the executive order last week that conflated criticism of the government with terrorism.

TikTok will be co-owned by China and Trump allies, Paramount was sold to a pro-Trump billionaire who's also set to buy Warner Bros, X is owned by an apartheid-bred fascist, WaPo and Meta are owned by Trump-cowering billionaires, and Murdoch owns the Fox empire. Here's why media has a liberal bias.

One of the strangest things conservatives try to pull is creating this fake character of a Democrat/liberal who abandoned the party/leftist ethos and went to the right, because of how the left behaves. Such folks don't exist, so they have to invent them.

The remarks weren’t “about Charlie Kirk,” they were about how this administration is using Kirk’s death as an excuse to shut down critics … and they responded by proving him completely correct.

Becoming increasingly clear we’re gonna have to build a parallel infrastructure for all the media we really love. The reason all of this is happening under the color of law is hyperconsolidation, dissent being traded straight up for merger approval, or fear of harassment.

When you cancel your Disney, Hulu, ESPN, etc. subscriptions, you will likely find “Other” as one of the options to provide a reason. Upon clicking that, it opens a field where you can expound. I typed “Kimmel” <submit> Our money. Our choice. Our voice.

Sally, are you not familiar with the concept of rhetorical violence?

Just thinking about how the right made up an entirely fictional left wing character that resulted in so many bomb threats and the like and nobody will face consequences. But people on the left who accurately clocked the victim’s life work lost jobs.

If you're still not sure who the baddies are, they're ones who fire rounds at disabled women.

The world is not a stage, it's a middle school cafeteria.

once again I must tap my own sign

This is such a perfectly condensed little parable of the horrors of the bullshit machines: a completely ignorant and illiterate shibboleth against standard punctuation, born from nothing and threatening to take over in no time—meme as prion chewing holes in the brains of a generation

If this was true, then wouldn’t this indicate a profound failure of “social networks” ostensibly designed to promote friendship and connection? A confession that “we made billions while being remarkably awful at our stated purpose, and only made things so much worse”? Galactic self own.

The whole “Is he serious?” debate is poison. It’s a politician’s job to talk seriously to us. It’s our job to take them seriously, and to judge accordingly. If you want fun play Minecraft.

I am exhausted with people who can't admit when they were wrong--whether they misspoke or made a misstep. I am exhausted by the doubling down and the unwillingness to change. The idea that altering your course if it's not working is "flipflopping" is a fucking plague on politics.

This, from a woman in Oklahoma talking to her local news station, is better than the vast majority of political speeches you'll hear today.

Read this thread. Especially if you aren’t an artist.

What do you mean, I *am* smiling

Y’all, Amazon is bad for writers, bad for publishers, bad for customers, bad for workers. bad for democracy. Would be wonderful if we could break its stranglehold.

Anybody else getting random emails from the Canadian Conservative party asking them to sign up as a voter abroad? Cause, you know, I'm an American...

XG SLAYED. They deserve to be huge

Stuck it out into the late night to watch XG perform at Coachella (thank you, terrific YouTube feed). The girls killed it. Minimal staging compared to some of the other acts, and better for it. Second half was backloaded with my favorite tracks. Highlights: New Dance, Shooting Star, Woke Up, IYKYK.

Every safety regulation was written in blood, frequently with a body count higher than one, and it’s not political to put the blame on people who want to “move fast and break things” when they start breaking human lives.

one way cynicism breeds catastrophe is the belief held both by those who take part in and passively observe the perpetration of evil that true consequences and genuine pain will never follow - “things will mostly stay the same”

Please amplify: “People with disabilities proudly serve our nation through government service in every federal department and agency. Disabled employees, like non-disabled employees, are hired because they meet the qualifications needed to do the job.”

Today I feel nothing but grief and rage, and it is exhausting

i think it is important to say that the open and explicit racism of the president and the vice president isn’t just uncouth or “controversial” but a direct attack on tens of millions of americans and a dereliction of their duty to represent the entire country

The problem with being sarcastic in 2025 is that every preposterous analogy you propose has already happened.

Concentration camps preceded extermination camps by several years. They began in Germany just as administratively, just as innocuously, as this. It's important to understand the historical track we are on.

so the thing is just because someone is not posting about every horror, does not mean they aren't paying attention or being active in opposition, and I do hope people can learn to read for other signs of resistance rather than demand people create a 24/7 feed of screaming it's actually not helpful

There's a (true) joke about Black Metal fans having to look up every new band just to double-check they aren't Nazis before they buy their stuff or go to their gig, but I'm increasingly feeling that 'don't support Nazis' is a kind of basic-level skill more people need to learn and apply more widely

“Too much like educational…” sums it up pretty effectively

Russian disinfo network “Matryoshka” is migrating to Bluesky as exodus from X continues. You may notice them as posters who are smearing Chrystia Freeland, pushing anti-Ukrainian narratives, Germany's election, anti-EU rhetoric, anti-NATO rhetoric, etc. Their numbers are still low, so stay vigilant

If I could hand one directive to the Democratic Party for the next four years, it would be this: People will vote for you if you fight, even if you lose. People will not vote for you if you do not fight.

Last day of @solarisbooks.bsky.social Start A Series Sale! Get my empire-and-epic-fantasy-deconstructin’ swords and super science novel SAVAGE COMPANY for just 0.99! Book two in the series, SAVAGE BOUNTY, is coming May 25! Cover drop soon! Please share this! geni.us/Solarissale

propaganda doesn't need to be profitable, just effective

A shot in the dark: Last year I was laid off from my game job. The last games I worked on were DOTA2 for Valve and Contra for WayForward. If anyone here works in games and knows of any art openings, please reach out/repost! I’ve got 10+ yrs of experience. Check out my work: www.caitlinyarsky.com

This made me bolt up and go “OF COURSE.” In AI, I believe this is known as “model collapse”

When I had my 2020 post-auction radicalization (ie: for a month twitter wasn't stressing me out then it started again) the very first thing I committed to doing was trying VERY VERY hard not to post something just because I was mad. if I couldn't name how posting would HELP? I didn't.

I’m on… puffball. Also thanks to this app, I’ve learned I’m blocked by 12 users (so low? must be slacking) and on a list called “Copyright Cops”. Apparently that’s for people who are pro-copyright? Don’t remember even talking about that. But, yes, I am pro-copyright. Thanks for noticing.

Heads up, folks! @solarisbooks.bsky.social wants you to start reading a novel series that is continuing in 2025, and that includes my Savage Rebellion trilogy! They’ve put the first book, SAVAGE COMPANY, on sale for just 0.99 til the 18th! Go get it and please share this! geni.us/Solarissale

Eary during lockdown, I was on a group zoom call with someone who'd worked on American Gods. I mentioned I was a big NG fan, asked what it was like to work with him. They gave me a long stare, and asked if I wanted the honest answer. I did. "He's a dick," they said, "not a good guy at all."

Impossibly difficult but crucial reading. Shapiro does not allow the horrific subject matter to hide behind vague, dismissible, softened anecdotes. The reader must face the specifics of Gaiman's heinousness, and grapple with each new trauma, thoroughly contextualized. Disturbing but important work.