Uh, they were wildly successful at stealing our social security numbers

You know you have a great political system when you get one “is that congressman alive” scandal per month

This is a really moving and thoughtful interview

AI women don’t complain about equal pay, sexual harassment, or the sexualization of their character, you see. They don’t demand equal pay with their male co-stars or point out when nudity is gratuitous.

It is absolutely absurd that these shenanigans are acceptable from anyone holding public office. It was derelict when Feinstein's staff was propping her up and it's derelict coming from McConnell's office, too. The culture of the Senate needs SIGNIFICANT overhaul. Just shameful and broken.

Sorry, they're my coworkers. I try not to be seen in public with them but here we are.

"We have an authoritarian government, suck it up" is not the dunk you think it is. World Cups are not independent of their context, they mirror the societies where they are hosted. That was true for Brazil, for Russia, for Qatar, and it is true for the US.

im going to be honest I think anne rice was a complicated person and her books are completely bananas but I have increasing respect for her capacity as an artist to indulge in completely monstrous characters and bash them together like eldritch ken dolls with no remorse whatsoever

“We have to now fight to correct the historic record, to have an honest accounting of what happened to our parents and grandparents and their parents, because without an honest accounting, we will not make it to the next step.” Bryan Stevenson, in a great episode about preserving truth over myth

My thing is that literal mobs that shut down streets form at her known locations within minutes, and everything she does is for both her safety and the general public's convenience. Bitch all you want about politics and bad albums, but she is actually right on her travel and logistics choices.

SOMEONE MENTIONED IT. You know the rules. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPCJ...

My upcoming book is absolutely packed to the brim with em dashes—more em dashes than any well-adjusted human being could possibly need or want—and if any of you tries to claim they are the result of some soulless LLM rather than my own unhinged compulsion I will fight you.

seeing more of a particular brand of aggro post lately ("if you weren't a coward you'd be doing xyz thing that would have you dead or in jail" from posters who appear to themselves neither be dead or in jail). could just be feds/bots/trolls trying to entrap people on here but a PSA just in case

A. People in DC did not know those fascists were planning to march. B. They marched for 15 minutes and then turned tail. C. People in DC would have been out there had they known they would be there. D. Do people know how people in DC (who actually live in the city) roll?

Turns out it’s because it is “a famous symbol of environmental advocacy” 🥲

I have such an expertly curated algorithm that I'm seeing posts from Mexican street food restaurants in the US and this is how they're advertising the game tomorrow night. "Good vibes"

Reminder that people at the time recognized the hypocrisy associated with this day: “If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves.” - Thomas Day

National Mall is closed due to coming storm system. People are being told to evacuate and seek shelter immediately.

This is Patriot Front's formula, btw. The whole thing is a membership dues scam, and they sneak their members into various metro areas in the back of U-Hauls to avoid advance detection. They hold a very quick little loser parade and run away as fast as they can in said U-Hauls

There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour. —Frederick Douglass

DC flyovers are starting, as suspected they are looping back over us in Maryland.

80% of people who live in this country live in URBAN AREAS. You would not know this based on how the media and most elected officials act.

This opening of the 1619 Project has long been the most ringing sentence for me about this country, its founding, and its founding document. Its truth could apply to everyone who sought to broaden and deepen equality and rights.

I'll summarize this: Mamdani asked NYers to keep air conditioning at 78 degrees. A wave criticism hit online. A MSNBC broadcast pointed out the US Department of Energy recommends that 78 degree figure. Immediately after, the US Department of Energy deleted 6,000 web pages related to energy saving.

You cannot simultaneously be loyal to a community that includes marginalized people and a government that marginalizes them. I am loyal to the people of the United States. To my community.

The founder we should talk more about is Thomas Paine, who will fuck your shit up every time. Here he is in The Rights of Man just ripping into any ideas of "originalism" and that kind of garbage.

Freedom for Palestinians being erased from their land, their homes, their histories, and their identities.

Freedom for the Black and Brown people surviving, for however long they can, the boot and the belly of American empire.

general PSA for folks in All The Fireworks Air Pollution lands that you may be able to check your local AQI with the map below (Assuming someone near you has one of their sensors contributing data) It's what I use for my environmental allergies map.purpleair.com

Patriot front marching from Union Station right now. White supremacist and neo-fascist organization. Cowards.

I know so many people - mostly trans and/or Jewish - who have already uprooted their lives to get a little more safety and security. I admire their strength. Life is hard enough without considering the possibility that your government wants you dead.

In the past day... NYT: U.S. Officials Believed Israel Was Plotting to Kill Iranian Negotiators Reuters: Researchers say EU lawmaker who investigated surveillance was hacked by Israeli spyware Why does the West continue treating Israel as an ally when Israel treats the West as an adversary?

Remember that season one ep of star trek the next generation where they went to a planet where people wore skimpy outfits and fucked all the time but if you stepped on a certain area of landscaping you got the death penalty

I have tried and tried, and cannot beat @its.small.patatas.ca high score on this game. This game. This game that I myself made

Just here to post this again like I do every year, not only because Douglass was one of the founding philosophers of American liberty but because I am so moved by the kids Frederick Douglass’ descendants deliver “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July”

America keeps trying to get me to go to her birthday party and I’m like no girl u need to go to the hospital

I don't want to hear politicians running on "we need to see each other as neighbors again" bullshit. No I want you to run on expanding the commons and offering actual SPACES in communities where people can gather across differences. That means no rhetoric but ACTUAL $$$ invested.

People who are unfamiliar with the UCMJ may not realize that for an active duty major to do this in uniform, the consequence can be court martial and incarceration. All of it is prohibited, but the wearing of the uniform was an intentional choice, and a likely forfeit of both his career and freedom.

Application to be one of Brett's cousins: 🐍

Thread. I think a lot of my fellow cis people fail to see the "death by a thousand cuts" to trans rights as well as general threats that disproportionately affect trans folks (like free speech issues @evanurquhart.bsky.social talks about). The alarms are sounding. Are we cis folks listening?

"When they say we’re coming for anti-fascists, what they’re calling Antifa is a boogeyman that doesn’t exist. What they’re doing is they’re going after anybody who says no to them," said union electrician & activist Cal Robinet after being indicted with the Minnesota 15 on conspiracy charges.

"We, Drawn and Quarterly, paid Tillie Walden so little money that she still feels like she has to be constantly working even after being an extremely successful cartoonist since she was a teenager. Anyway, please stop being mean to us about failing to do our job as a publisher."

The framing of Cleves as some well-off elite organizing an online hate mob against a poor little queer creator is really dishonest & disappointing to see, given how it erases Cleves' own reality & indeed queerness to basically pit two queer women against each other, whilst dubbing critique 'a mob'

Holy shit, alllll day tomorrow. How many of these will be taking off from Andrews and also circling over the eastern suburbs (aka my house)? Probably all of them.

substack is not a neutral actor

The 4th of July is yours, not mine. The 250th? Yours, not mine. ICE snatched 10K people last week. The feds using zines as evidence to lock up protesters for decades. This gov't lies about this country's history. It lies about, smears, and scapegoats immigrants of color...

millions of fireworks will go off in the next 48 hours. the protest at the center of the Prairieland case last July 4th — a year ago tomorrow — was a noise demo setting off fireworks for the detainees inside the ICE facility. did you know the federal government categorized fireworks as explosives?

Four years ago, a coordinated right-wing smear campaign condemned Monticello for "going woke." Bridget Gillespie was working there at the time, and she gives this revelatory inside account of the harassment staff endured and ultimately how the institution buckled. Amazing piece.