The Factbook survived the Cold War and became a hit online. It mixed quirky cultural notes and trivia with maps, data, and photos taken by CIA officers. But it was discontinued this week.

this is why i'm not subscribing to your fucking substack.

Writing this story made me happy in a dark time. I talked to half a dozen people who started queer bookstores in their communities, and what I heard gave me hope. These aren't just bookstores — they're a lifeline for people who have no place else to go.

His enemies spend a lot of time attacking that Mamdani’s a “social democrat.” What makes him special, I think, is that he’s an authentically moral person with empathy. That’s sadly rare in politics these days.

The median amount a U.S. worker has in savings is $955.

Once again, it turns out “fully autonomous” means “a guy in the Philippines.”

We just published database: @aclu.org plaintiffs' sworn declarations of ICE enforcement actions in Minnesota Devastating Racial profiling-arrests-headlock-handcuffs-shackles Mostly US citizens A big lesson here for Justice Kavanaugh. I believe he'll get it www.justsecurity.org/130745/minne... 🧵

Agrivoltaics: "not just a land-sharing concept, but a systems-level solution to some of the world’s most pressing challenges.”

Happening now in Silicon Valley: marchers have surrounded the Palantir building and are holding a prayer vigil for victims of ICE, while video of ICE and Palantir crimes is projected on the building. #abolishice #iceout #palantir #paloalto

Barbara Kruger for the win, again.

What Bannon is proposing is illegal. Brennan Center: “It is illegal to deploy federal troops or armed federal law enforcement to any polling place. In fact, it is a federal crime for anyone in the U.S. military to interfere in elections in any way.” www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

I suspect it's because they think all video will be replaced by AI in the next couple years

Heads are going to explode 💥 Cato Institute just nuked the lie. Immigrants have cut U.S. deficits by $14.5 TRILLION since 1994, slashing the national debt by a third. All that “immigrants are bleeding us dry” noise? Absolute bullshit. 1/3

"The annual traffic fatality rate per 100k people increased by more than 33% across the 100 largest US cities but less than 5% in all other parts of the country [between 2008-12 and 2018-22]." findingspress.org/article/1559...

Jenny Holzer, "Self-Portrait: Living," 1981, from Uffizi Gallery collection www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/...

Today, the Portland Police Bureau released its quarterly report on the number and racial profile of traffic stops. In 2025 Q4, Portland police stopped 5,028 drivers, the fewest of any quarter this year. 47% were drivers of color.

IMPORTANT: In 2023, the Youth Experiencing Homelessness Program began providing 120 youth ages 18-24 experiencing homelessness with $1,000 monthly until 2025. By the end of the two-year period, 94% of participants reported they were housed. The right thing to do, AND a smart financial investment.

The US immigrant population generated more in taxes than they received in benefits from all levels of government every year from 1994 to 2023. The Cato study provides the first-ever 30-year analysis of the fiscal effects of immigration on government budgets. https://ow.ly/jy8a50Y8kM3

Donald Trump has been telling us that if he doesn't like the outcome of the elections he will seize ballots. He wants Republicans to take control of voting. He wants to take over elections in Democratic states. People should be concerned and we all need to be ready.

The front page Hachette Book Group website, which just announced it will publish Sam Alito's book this fall, is all about condemning bans on kids' books that discuss LGBTQ identity—the same books that Alito's majority opinion in Mahmoud v Taylor is scrubbing from classrooms across the country

Periodic reminder: When someone shares news with "BREAKING" and they aren't a journalist and don't link to a news story, it's probably not the best source for people to be resharing. It might be trying to get rage reposts, even! Better to find a news article that is accurately describing facts.

Trump is working hard to set/reinforce a frame that connects immigration, financial fraud, & election fraud. He and the right wing propaganda machine will keep producing “evidence” to fit this frame, then use it to justify attempts to suppress voters, kick voters off rolls, and delegitimize results.

23 warehouse sites are being considered by the DHS to imprison as many as 80,000 people if converted into immigration jails — or more if the administration fails to implement safe living standards.

Meeting in solidarity with Haitians in Springfield, Ohio now - over 600 people and still growing.

Requiring Americans to prove their citizenship to register to vote would exclude millions of citizens from the political process. bit.ly/4cikrkp

Speaker Mike Johnson all over the news this morning saying that him and trump WANT ICE AGENTS TO HAVE BODY CAMERAS Because of course they do. They want to expand ICE surveillance capabilities to centralize their authoritarian power. Any Democrat who calls this "reform" is a liar or a fool.

Demonetize social media

PORTLAND MAYOR WILSON: “.. To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave. … you have lost all legitimacy and replaced it with shame.” @politico.com www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

A huge 89% majority of global people [56% even in the United States] want stronger action to fight the #ClimateCrisis, but mistakenly believe they’re in a minority. The “silent majority” for #ClimateAction needs to get loud. People want action. Smart cities need to go much further, much faster.

Yesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning. Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack.

If the concern is AI bots scraping the wayback machine’s archive, just ban those bots!

Using a two stroke gas leafblower for 30 minutes generates as many non-methane hydrocarbon emissions as driving a Ford F-150 Raptor for 5,108 km - it’s a scandal two stroke engines are still legal to use in cities given there are clean and safe battery electric alternatives

Weaponizing civil rights law against the very groups it was written to protect is a hallmark of neofascism. It’s meant to punish. And also declare loudly that they are above the law and will interpret it to mean whatever they want. This, in a nutshell, is why policy won’t stop fascism.

Believe your eyes, not the lies. Via @adamzyglis.bsky.social

The Minnesota Star Tribune has identified 17 instances of federal officials violating judicial orders related to people detained in Minnesota.

Women who refuse to submit to male authority, refuse God-given heterosexual relationships, or reject their ‘natural’ roles as reproducers of the nation are seen as the enemy. This is why, after an ICE agent shot Renee Nicole Good, he lobbed the phrase “fucking bitch” as she was dying.

Here's the Heritage Foundation all-in on repealing Section 230 so that litigious Christian nationalists can dictate the speech rules for the entire Internet It's so embarrassing so many Dems are falling for this www.teenvogue.com/story/some-d...

Schumer calls for Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller to be removed from their jobs.

UW epidemiologist Anjum Hajat warns that long-term exposure to air pollution can harm health as South Seattle residents appeal a permit allowing a cement plant to burn more tires. “The goal is to keep it as low as possible.”

"CBP stays at the border" might sound like a win, but keep in mind that this is what "the border" means to them www.aclumaine.org/know-your-ri...

Oh. Found the LRAD. In Minneapolis. Being used on Americans. By their own militarized state police forces. That we all pay for. www.reddit.com/r/NextGenReb...

The biggest risk in this moment is something sociologists call “symbolic compliance.” That’s when an institution that is violating civil rights gives the public just enough symbolic victories that accountability efforts lose steam before there has been any meaningful change.

We have to see the logic of the killings as well as the killings themselves. The horror is a truth in itself. But it is also a sign of a political logic, one known from the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century. snyder.substack.com/p/lies-and-l...

The US Holocaust Museum being more outraged by Tim Walz saying that, like Anne Frank, children today are in hiding from armed agents of the state, than they are about the fact that children are in hiding from armed agents of the state, is why Holocaust remembrance culture is in crisis.

This hit so fucking hard today.

Here's how to identify some crowd control munitions, canisters of which federal agents have left on the ground after deploying them against people in Minnesota. bit.ly/3YWp1jE Graphic by Mark Boswell/The Minnesota Star Tribune

Black women started 2025 with an unemployment rate of 5.4 percent. They ended it at 7.3 percent — the highest rate in four years. Black women’s unemployment is now equivalent to White women’s rate during the bleakest moments of the Great Recession. https://bit.ly/45uZOk3

to the extent that there is a “carrot” to trumpism it is the same carrot that slaveholders offered to lower class white men: “you can be an overseer”