This Monday vibe is brought to you by ambient anxiety™️. Ambient anxiety: when you can’t choose what global and local acts of state terror and incongruously mundane activities give you existential dread, choose them all, with ambient anxiety.

To everyone who needs to hear it: Trans folks have been saying this is coming for years, now. Anti-trans actors weren’t shy about their goals. We know our history and we know the next steps in the authoritarian shuffle. Please listen to trans folks.

A nation of newspapers and newspapermen indeed. I guess "objectivity" is when you're such a smug and effortless propegandist you don't even notice how deeply sick you've become.

As of tonight, licenses of trans people across Kansas are being invalidated en masse, enabling the overnight criminalization of an entire group of people for going about our lives. It’s often said you never know when you’re living through history, so let me assure you: that’s what’s happening now.

it took an expensive, coordinated effort & a lot of people saying “this doesn’t matter” to get from a bathroom ban costing one state $400 million & a gubernatorial race to “trans people must turn in their documents which become invalid in a few hours or face fines & potential jail time” in 10 years.

it's 2016: north carolina introduces a bill to ban trans people from using bathrooms safely. there's a national outcry; companies withdraw business up to and including the NCAA cancelling a publicized game. the bill fails. it's 2026: kansas passes a law nullifying trans people's licenses. crickets.

BREAKING: The Department of Education has ended its directive that attempted to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in schools nationwide. This is a victory for academic freedom and education equity.

Read this sentence slowly: “Gov. Gavin Newsom, crypto executives and business leaders are ramping up efforts this week to stop the proposed wealth tax...” gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/u...

When you’re a UK trans woman, you roll invisible dice every day before work. All sixes, and a coworker with billionaire money will take your employer to court over you, you will be on the news, and when you leave the country, men with abuse allegations against them will call it a victory for women.

Today, we launched “Cancer in Confinement,” a series exploring why cancer is often deadlier inside U.S. prisons than in the free world. This is the big project I mentioned yesterday. I hope you will read and share.

Memo: Meta plans to add facial recognition to its smart glasses in 2026, saying the political tumult in the US would distract critics from the feature's release (New York Times) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

This is a very good summary of the SAVE act.

The Trump administration is planning to terminate $600M of CDC grants to CA, CO, MN, and IL. We're publishing the full list. They are using vulnerable communities as a weapon to dismantle public health, targeting partisan enemies, and manipulating media. 🧵 1/5 grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0...

I have incarcerated comrades & loved ones who are enduring the daily torture of US prisons. They also continue to make art. They often don't have the proper supplies and yet they make it knowing that it will never make it out to anyone else. But they continue to make art nonetheless. Keep making art

Illinois Republican State Sen. Andrew Chesney wants to use his SB 3842 bill to declare all trans folks legally mentally ill. legiscan.com/IL/bill/SB38...

This is just a reminder that it is totally valid if you opened a browser window, a text message, or a feed today and felt overwhelmed and depressed. It’s okay to not be okay. The hypernormalization of the moment is effed. Take care of yourselves and each other.

This hit so fucking hard today.

M Gessen: In case anyone still thinks they are immune, No one is safe. #Minneapolis Gift article from The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/o...

I will not argue with strangers on the internet during my lunch break. I will not argue with strangers on the internet during my lunch break. I will not argue with strangers on the internet during my lunch break. I will not argue with strangers on the internet during my lunch break. …

Marco Rubio is reportedly saying Maduro will stand trial in US courts. Which means it’s now the US administration’s position that US courts can hold foreign presidents, but not the US president, accountable for crimes.

Being an American feels like getting on a school bus and then your bus driver decides to do a drive by

We seem to be bombing Caracas. There are 3 million people in Caracas. This is an unprovoked attack. This is a war crime. This is criminal. We are the bad guys.

“Staff discussions on ad implementation have ranged from prioritizing sponsored content in the chatbot’s answers to adding a sidebar that shows ads related to the user's query.”

Thanks for sharing this document, @rweingarten.bsky.social. I read it, and I believe it's inexcusably inadequate and will not prepare teachers or schools to confront the very real dangers of the "A.i." products pushed by your partners, including OpenAI. A few thoughts for your consideration...

If anyone needs hopeful stuff, here is a modest dose: www.instagram.com/pocket_pubs/... Edited by Mia Arias Tsang and published via @pocket_pubs insta, with art and layout from Grace Cope (@grapecope insta). I wrote the words. Purchase info here - www.instagram.com/pocket_pubs/...

🚨 URGENT!!!!!! Congress is trying to ram through 18 massive censorship/surveillance laws TODAY 🚨 CALL THESE REPS NOW and tell them —NO to KOSA —NO to Section 230 reform —NO to age verification laws —NO to the SCREEN Act —NO to digital ID laws (App Store Accountability Act) badinternetbills.com

One of my favorite things is getting to tell friends who are new to NYC that the subway "stand clear of the closing doors please" voice is a trans woman named Bernie Wagenblast and she's amazing.

Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer. He is a computer safety researcher. And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine. In under 1600 words. aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...

Now we know where all that Spotify money is going. Not to the artists - perish the thought. No, the CEO has invested it all in AI weaponry designed to kill humans. I wish this were a joke. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

thank you for all the support; the statement from our union is now live here with some more reporting. now that this is public I can confirm that the majority of today’s layoffs were women of color. there are no longer any Black women working at Teen Vogue.

Reading a lot lately even though I don’t post about it. So here are off the cuff random thoughts about stuff I am reading… I guess? 🧵

I wrote about how "Grokipedia" is a new front on the war against reality itself. It's an attempt by the oligarchic class to seize the means of knowledge production itself and create a weaponized unreality. www.thedissident.news/grokipedia-a...

🚨‼️As of yesterday KOSA is at 64 cosponsors with @vanhollen.senate.gov + @kim.senate.gov - who claim to support LGTBQ+ rights but are clearly okay with supporting legislation that’ll censor us off the internet- newly signed on. You know what to do: www.stopkosa.com

Me as a slush reader: "Dang, I don't need every short story you ever wrote in here, just give me your best couple right now..." Me as a submitter: "Annnd why not, let's throw one more in even though its rougher, that will get us to just meet the maximum number [of words/pages/subs]. Nice."

Hey. Here is something nice. Mini story about how I now look forward to a steady stream of zines coming in the mail! It is a rare source of sustained and intermittent joy that I can expect for months! 🧵

Has your library banned any displays, events, education, talks, or anything else related to Banned Books Week this year? I want to know about it . . . and emphasize you're not alone. Please take and share this short, anonymous survey. tinyurl.com/banning-bbw-25

If you are a supporter and reader of @contingent-mag.bsky.social one of the biggest things you can do to help us at the moment is get this CFP to the NTT folks in your life. The fracturing of social media has made it very difficult to get the word out esp. to adjuncts and VAPs.

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)

Confirmed. I think about it constantly. I also consider: if I stay beyond that point, what good can I still do? To be clear, I think it is entirely possible we pull back from the brink. It just feels increasingly unlikely. Like watching a car crash in slow motion, whispering we can still turn…

Months late, but this is just to say that @torreypeters.bsky.social "Stag Dance" is a damn masterpiece. (I meant the titular novel, but hey, interpret it as the whole book if you like. It's still true.) I read it with the same joy I ate the plums from the icebox. Or whatever.

The stopgap measure being voted on today to try to avoid govt shutdown includes a provision that could strip ALL federal funding from any institution/facility providing access to any form of gender-affirming care, for anyone of any age. Call. We will grow old together.

Don’t automatically assume that your elected officials will do the right thing because we know that half of them won’t and may try to capitulate under pressure. Call your elected officials and be a constant, unceasing pain in their ass. You elected them to work for you not the other way around.

Call your senators and your house rep. Make a stink by being clear that abandoning trans adults and children is a no-go. Cis people, call and be loud for us. We are tired.

Hard to express to those not in the weeds just how much the current state of the immigration detention system is just utter chaos.

My dog headbutted me in the face so hard it cut me and swelled up. Now I have a dramatic multicolored eyelid/face. This happened 26 hours before I fly across the country to lead a series of workshops for my day job. Honestly, feels pretty chill for 2025.

My god, a workout I might actually enjoy.

Heritage Foundation has released an absolutely insane policy proposal to label all trans people as domestic terrorists. It uses completely made up instances of terrorism and made up statistics but facts don't matter to them. They want us all eradicated.

Not that anyone needs me to spell this out (again) but hell, just in case you do, here is explicit evidence that the goal is to isolate, silence, and eradicate trans folks. As folks in the replies below note: trans rights are also YOUR rights. If some lose, we all lose.

I wrote about the firing of Alan Sepinwall, which is awful. And I tied it into what's happening all over in the media, why it's scary & what we can do to help. I used my words, but it's definitely Hulk Mo dialed up to 11, if that's a thing you would like to experience: www.moryan.com/on-the-firin...

Hey, I know books are expensive and money is tight right now. But if there's a brand new book you really wanna read — including my own Lessons in Magic and Disaster — you can help get the book into way more hands by requesting it from your local library! It's easy! Check your library's website.