every single goddamn time

Sounds like some people at the FAA saved a lot of lives today. Calling for a ten-day closure was astute. It meant this incident was not going to be swept under the rug. @apnews.com has six bylines on this story with several listed as contributors. Thanks, AP!

“In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim… the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.” - 1984, George Orwell

A high-speed car chase involving a federal agent in St. Paul ended with a multi-vehicle crash and injuries to the fleeing driver, who was taken away in an ambulance. bit.ly/4kvJo0M 📸: Leila Navidi

Just as a point of clarification, the photo is from St. Paul which often gets ignored in the national coverage but is being hit just as hard by ICE goons.

Credit: "Observers record federal agents at the scene after a multi-vehicle crash following an apparent pursuit by a federal agent near the intersection of Selby and Western avenues in St. Paul. (Leila Navidi/The Minnesota Star Tribune)" For the pictures above, not the one the link pops up here.

Bless this lady, bless them all

Every photo from Minneapolis looks like this. Cops decked out with guns and full tac gear facing off against people in bathrobes, parkas, and sweatpants armed only with whistles and cell phones. Yet every verified MAGA chode on X dutifully calls it a riot or violent insurrection.

So, like, are the QAnon folks reacting at all to discovering that Trump’s inner circle is basically just Jeffrey Epstein’s rolodex, or have they found some delusional way to explain it all away? (The question is largely rhetorical.)

Wisconsin's upcoming governor's race has big implications for trans rights. The state senate today passed a set of anti-trans bills that Governor Evers is likely to veto. But if the Evers, who's retiring, is replaced by a Republican, they're sure to come up again. spectrumnews1.com/wi/milwaukee...

"Reading is a way for me to make sure my truth & love sensors are still working." — George Saunders #WIBookFest

THE UGANDAN GOVERNMENT CUT OFF HIS FINGERS. He got asylum here. The lawlessness and racism and cruelty of DHS cannot be reformed. It must be abolished whole cloth. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

I also talk more about a problem I’d first described in “replication crisis”: “MSN’s news portal is automatically piped to every Windows computer on the planet simultaneously, with news alerts on start menus and push notifications displaying extremist websites alongside the Associated Press.”

Original thread below:

When Trump latched onto the phrase "gender ideology" in his EOs, it stood out as overtly eliminationist language. But popularized originally as an anti-feminism slogan by the Vatican, it became endemic in the UK in the past decade and has become arguably the most visible explicitly anti-trans term.

Unlike 1 & 2, which focused on the US, here I talk about how the UK and US feed off of each other, shifting language and upping the ante with increasingly absurd, even libelous claims. The UK even became a purveyor of a conspiracy theory claiming the *Trump administration* was hiding "trans crimes."

Part 3: "The astronomical rise in stories about trans people that I’d collected over the previous year told a different story. This massive, messy dataset was brimming with increasingly vile headlines that only seemed to metastasize with time. ... two years later we know how the story turns out."

While Fox News reigns as the primary purveyor of commercial anti-trans hate speech online, the disparate coverage of trans people in conservative outlets is more obvious looking at the UK. The BBC doesn't even come close to the top 3, all of which are virulently anti-trans.

Brad Lander: To build a just and safe future for Israelis and Palestinians, and to move toward a US foreign policy that aligns with our principles and our interests, it’s time to block the bombs. https://bit.ly/3LZNZfe

so much of the dirtbag left just turned out to be a revolt against republican virtue. really just virtue in general, which explains red scare

You might remember the superbowl MAHA ad featuring Mike Tyson. Go to the page, which clearly labeled as a US government website, and you are encouraged to use Grok.

A federal government MAHA website, advertised during the superbowl, is directing users to Grok to "get real answers about real food"? (Via @almsnatalie.bsky.social) www.nextgov.com/digital-gove...

Bloomington Police just announced they've arrested a Department of Defense employee in a sex trafficking sting. The police chief said his job is to do background checks and security clearance checks on ICE agents.

Also most of the new programs/agencies/whatever were supposed to be called Make America __ Again so like this is all branding.

I think most of these didn’t go through, at least for the part of the government I’m looking at, but I hate being governed by stupid people.

I’m going back through the presidential budget request for FY 2026 and another thing that stands out is how often the administration wanted to eliminate funding for preexisting agencies/programs and redirect it to new ones that would do the same thing but worse.

this is a big deal. seems very unlikely they'll somehow pass it over a filibuster when their own caucus isn't united. www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...

Giancarlo Guerrero said he had nine days notice to join the top-secret musical lineup, which featured powerhouse vocalists Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin.

Plus they all proclaim to be Christian, judgement day is going to be lit.

The endless whining about not being placed at the center of the universe at all times is self-degrading.

You are allowed to say, "this performance was not to my personal taste, a thing that sometimes happens in a free society," and move on with your life.

If you're a faction that can consolidate political power, control over the state, far in excess of your numbers and thus influence across nearly every other aspect of society, then no pretense of being the "smaller government" party will last. You're gonna go authoritarian, exactly as they have.

Being furious about the Super Bowl halftime show isn't a "half the country" thing, the NFL wouldn't have done it if it was. It's a "loud noisy minority who also vote in GOP primaries" thing, and our electoral system gives those people insanely more power than their actual numbers merit.

They can't tolerate this because their political power, largely built on minority rule dynamics as it is, always outstrips their cultural and even economic market power. But they have the government hammer, so everything looks like a nail.

This is literally what CURRENT LAW requires. It’s in the Constitution! www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

i lost a dog, a service dog actually, who died, due to an accident, and this still turned my stomach people who are worried about losing a dog should get a real gps tracking collar, not a unified against-their-wishes surveillance state

Much like police abuses, an in-your-face audio-visual demonstration cuts through the denial/avoidance low-info types rely on to soothe cognitive dissonance

I think a lot of people who are only semi-aware of the news thought that "it can spy on you and your neighbors" was a conspiracy theory or worst-case speculation and then the ad is like oh yeah, it does that all the time

It’s particularly dystopian when you’re walking into a newly developed part of the neighborhood, and that little whistle and warning turns into a chorus as you walk by every door...

Geez not only do I really like this mayor, I really like his graphic design team too.

People on Reddit are getting Amazon to refund their Ring products because of their partnership with Flock and that creepy Super Bowl ad www.reddit.com/r/FlockSurve...

Pretty sure this is the first (and probably only) time I’m on a podcast. ☺️

Well, it *is* a bird feeder…

Hey, I know that guy. Can't resist a songbird snack, although could you atleast try to aim for a few of the moles ripping the shit out of my wildflowers?

2 weeks ago, the El Paso Medical Examiner ruled the death of a Cuban ICE detainee a homicide. This time, when a 32-year-old Nicaraguan man died, ICE bypassed the county medical examiner in favor of a military facility. They won’t publicly release a ruling. www.texastribune.org/2026/02/03/t...

“An adult bears a clear responsibility to exercise restraint, especially in the presence of children,” Becerra wrote. “Violence or intimidation directed at a minor — particularly during a lawful, peaceful demonstration — has no place in a constitutional republic.”

My latest at @thebarbedwire.com ... I spent weeks interviewing current and former students, faculty, nonprofits and others about the way queer campus life has suffered over the past 2 years and how, in some cases, community members have stepped up to help.

We’ve been following Leqaa Kordia’s case for some time, and the updates has been growing worse. Lawmakers were not allowed to visit her last month. Now her lawyers cannot find her.

"As of Monday, Kordia has been detained for more than 325 days."