Here, have some birds perched on appropriate/delightful signage. You're welcome. 🧵 ⤵️ 1. Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus) by tysmith on iNaturalist

Sunday reading: I wrote about the aggrieved extremist who is currently firing thousands of federal workers and ravaging state capacity based on conspiratorial nonsense - and about mainstream media’s infuriating tendency to sanitize Russell Vought and the regime he serves. This week’s piece:

Calling it now that his cis defenders will use this to bludgeon us as a reason why we should vote for him while ignoring that he vetoed one of the most critical bills to trans people.

Interstellar is so close to being great but what the heck are some of these plot devices. It's never made clear what solving gravity is meant to accomplish for building a habitable space station, nor is it clear why moving people off Earth is necessary if we can just grow crops in space stations!

They continue to eviscerate the public health machinery that has quietly kept Americans, and others around the world, safe and healthy for decades.

What an emblem of the billionaire class—descending on a peaceful city in a private jet on the horn to NYT asking for the place to be invaded by federal authorities because the rent-a-cops you employ for a week to harass a few junkies outside the convention center cost too much.

I don’t know who needs to hear this but the CDC is being eviscerated right now. America is not going to have any kind of outbreak response capacity after tonight. Americans’ health data is no longer secure. Say goodbye to federal public health in any capacity. It’s a disaster. We won’t recover.

Me trying to be a birder

Within a 24-hour span I got a short story rejected by a fiction magazine and positive reviewer comments recommending publication (pending revisions) for my scientific paper. What a whirlwind.

Me, on my second day at the University of Exeter, explaining why I didn't do most of the administrative tasks I was supposed to on my first day:

my semi regular reminder to all of us who love to cite Mr Roger’s “look for the helpers” in times of stress like when folks are being abducted by secret police that that was advice for children to feel safe in times of crisis or need or fear YOU are not the looker now YOU are the helper

This video of Chicagoans intervening to save a man from being abducted off the streets by ICE is making the rounds on Instagram. Community action works. Source: www.instagram.com/reel/DPZL2AL...

What I hear from multiple sources in the Scottish Government is that it feels defeated by the limitless spending power of the transphobes who, of course, are explicitly or implicitly underwritten by JK Rowling's vast fortune.

I'm moving to Exeter soon, and sad that I am not already there to join this. Sending solidarity in spirit 💖🏳️‍🌈✊🏳️‍⚧️

The ability to milk money out of a social media platform with mostly bots for users is a bubble that will burst before BlueSky has a chance to join in, so maaaaybe you should be trying to keep human users interested? No? Tech bros don't know what bubbles are and think line always goes up? Okaaay...

if the state of journalism and its capture by the right wing also has you in despair, a real, tangible thing you can do to push back is support/subscribe to worker-owned indie news media!! @coyotemedia.org (bay area) @51st.news (dc) @racketmn.com (mn) @autonomynews.co @505omatic.bsky.social (nm)

why is sentence two in every story not "congress has not authorized the use of military force"

I dunno why but my proximity to pipes seems to just inherently cause problems. I've had numerous leaks in my flat since moving in, the latest of which only began after water in the whole building was shut off for maintenance. Everyone else had no water but I? I had *too much* water

It's not just bribery. He's now using personal litigation, backed by state extortion, to extract "settlements" which he then puts into an account he created to spend on government work, all entirely outside of Congress taxing or appropriating. It's full Charles I illegal taxation and spending.

It fundamentally does not matter if every few months Starmer says "racism is bad" if he is constantly turning around to say "but actually I think racists are 100% right and we're going to make asylum and migration harder for no reason." www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Not one single solitary goddamned thing that happens in The Dark Knight makes sense. This is an absolute nonsense movie. it looks gorgeous, the soundtrack's brilliant, Ledger is astounding, but the plot is very lazy. It is by no means any more "realistic" or "grounded" than any MCU film.

On Friday 18 blue state attorneys general BLASTED the Federal Trade Commission, telling it to back off trans youth healthcare and warning of an insidious attempt to reshape the regulation of medicine in the US. And nobody covered it. www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...

I should also add this for ppl who are rightfully put off by "atheism" discourse: it's not just about atheists. Trump has directed the FBI et al to target leftists for thought crimes. I talk about sociological research on how that went in the 1960s during "Cointelpro" and how this is so much worse 🧪

In Chunk we trust 🫡 Happy to see 32 Chunk win his first #FatBearWeek this year. He's been around a while. Though it's also exciting tracking the upcoming generation of younger bears coming up and making plays for the title of Fat Bear Champion. www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8bQ...

"Recognize [you] are going to be targeted. Recognize [the] game has changed. Recognize that the fact that you are a person of conscience that believes in equality, that believes in the fundamental freedom and the rights of dispossessed groups, you are a target." www.forever-wars.com/an-fbi-count...

"Public scholarship should not be reserved for celebrity intellectuals or tenured faculty at elite institutions. It's designed for anyone who wants to share their academic work and engage with the public" boom!

There are still elections wherein two worthy candidates are on the ballot. I admit, this is a tough choice, but for #FatBearWeek 2025, I am endorsing 32 Chunk. An elderly but still very chunky boi who I believe deserves your support. explore.org/fat-bear-week

Hey remember when the CDC dropped 6 of the 8 foodborne illnesses from the nationwide monitoring system in July and one of them was listeria? Mentioning for no particular reason www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

These scripts are GREAT and these calls are EASY and ESSENTIAL. Call your senators and reps today and tell them to vote against ANY bill that contains cuts to trans health care. #DidThisToday

My hottest take is that no matter what sub-genre of fantasy one's writing— High, space, dark, any of it— characters should speak normal. They should speak like the author would speak in their day-to-day life. Just speak normal! No forced exposition, no purple prose, no pseudo-iambic half-pentameter

This really shows how this entire panic is uncut sexism. The premise of Rogan's argument is that he, a random man who has no understanding of science, knows more about pregnancy health than women who are literally seeing a doctor once a month. www.aol.com/news/joe-rog...

there is clearly some consultant telling them to do this because after indicting the former FBI Director because the president demanded it and illegally ordering troops to occupy another U.S. city my own member of Congress sent a text out about protecting our healthcare

Unreal. The casual reader of this @nytimes.com hed and subhed will have no inkling whatsoever that Trump's "characterization" is wildly false and that it's a bad faith *pretext.* Time to get better at conveying the fundamentally pretextual nature of these authoritarian decrees already.

Disbanding ICE and prosecuting everyone who led and worked for it is, in fact, the moderate position.

Only an administration intent on committing war crimes in the present and future would stoop to calling Wounded Knee a "battle" rather than what it truly was: a massacre of over 250 Lakotas, mainly women, children, and the elderly. 1/

Since some people think today is the rapture, here's your reminder that "The Rapture" is a very fringe belief of primarily American evangelical protestants. It's popularity in pop culture belies its rejection by the majority of Christian leaders and theologians.

This is how they’re gonna strip voting rights for women

Truly, I cannot emphasize enough how much the artificial distinction between binary and nonbinary trans people is enforced on trans communities by cis people, and how much that artificial distinction is used to kill us and "justify" our deaths.

the sheer fucking gall of Dem politicians who now – in September 2025, as the Trump admin is taking away trans ppl's healthcare & passports & baselessly labeling us as "terrorists" – express their "concerns" about trans ppl & sports. they are trying to eradicate us! maybe be "concerned" about that!

NOTUS: Dem House Rep Steven Horsford: “They called the local sheriff; they showed up and were going to arrest me. These are the same people that I’m supposed to call to coordinate security or to do support when I have a town hall.” www.notus.org/democrats/me...

Some of the most important things you can do to resist Trump's authoritarianism include: Join a union. Plan a strike. Support other unions and their respective strikes.

With the news cycle focused on ABC's suspension of Jimmy Kimmel, a journalist with a valid US work permit and pending green card application is about to be deported for the crime of reporting www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

This is all part of the plan that was drafted before Trump took office. Maybe we should be talking about the "police-ification of the military" in addition to the militarizing of the police. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/u...

As you cancel streaming services, here is a casual reminder that only 16% of Americans read for pleasure anymore, and your local library has hundreds or thousands of books you haven't read. They would love to see you stop by and renew your library card.

Every headline talking about Kimmel being suspended for his “Kirk comments” is journalistic malpractice. He was suspended for comments about MAGA opportunists exploiting Kirk’s death, after the FCC chair issued a Mafioso threat.

This was from banning trans girls from girls sports. Just so you understand the reality of what's going on here.

NEWS --> Anna Gomez, the lone Dem on the FCC, tells me the Trump admin's pressure to oust Jimmy Kimmel may be unlawful as well as unconstitutional. FCC chair Brendan Carr may be committing censorship in violation of federal law. That and much more in my new piece: newrepublic.com/article/2006...

The "student politics" thing really comes down to the fact that for most of our political and media class, the last time they had to deal with a left winger challenging them was when they were doing student politics themselves.

this just doesn't cut it. kimmel didn't merely "face some criticism," the head of the FCC publicly demanded that he be punished! and ABC obliged! it's a total dereliction not to make that clear in your headline www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/b...