To be precise, an episode of Muppet Babies.

what I'm girding myself for is the Supreme Court to now say 'ooh it's awfully close to an election to switch things up so we're gonna have to block that ruling!' under the "Purcell Principle," it's always too late to block racism, but never too late to be racist ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics...

The fact that this could be an Alabama judge (we just don’t know) is giving me heartburn.

from the moment it was founded activists and human rights watchdogs have warned that DHS was constructed to be an almost unaccountable private paramilitary force at the president's sole disposal.

And take some notes from the South on how to do it, for the love of all that is holy

This is so heartbreaking.

Many of the rural communities where I grew up are majority Black. This is the case throughout plenty of the South. Ain't it just amazing that's somehow never where the focus is when pundits, consultants and hacks wax rhapsodic about "rural voters" and "rural areas."

As I've been saying in the comments, all roads lead back to the decision to unban the anti-trans journalist Jesse Singal, despite his inviting all his followers to join Bluesky to antagonize "the worst people on the internet" (wink) and make Bluesky safe for "normal people" (wink wink).

Even I didn’t expect the governor to announce today that a special redistricting session will start on Monday.

Alabama is wasting no time trying to get back into the gerrymandering business.

Spread calm. The most useful and experienced demonstrators yell "walk!" to stop crowds from running in fear. The most useful and experienced people try to spread calm. It doesn't get the clicks, but it doesn't immobilize people's thinking either.

A farm

I’m at the combination Comedy Central Roast of Adolf Hitler / Reichstag Fire

We are in hell.

With printed media, you can just store it in a warehouse. When some company says "we never said that," you can go to the archives, fetch a newspaper, and that ends the argument. When the companies on their websites change stories, there is no archive outside the Internet Archive.

all these universities kept axing medieval history departments as if they thought tyrants beefing with the Pope was going to stop being relevant

It’s like Trump University but for the pope.

Friends, again with respect because this is a complex issue: children born to citizens of tribal governments do not have constitutional birthright citizenship under many, if not most forms of constitutional argument and authority (incl. Supreme Court precedent relied upon in this case)./1

Will just note that the grocery tax holiday envisioned here would take place in May and June. That the Alabama primary is May 19 and state primary runoffs are June 16 is a coincidence, no doubt.

It's always hilarious when a petitioner runs into this version of Gorsuch

Today in things your Alabama Senators spent their time on. “The bill passed 27-6 after Senate Republicans limited debate with a cloture petition. Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth, the presiding officer of the chamber and a Republican, refused to recognize Democrats who wanted to speak on the bill.”

I was hoping somehow someway I could watch Italy play in Atlanta. I should’ve known better than to have hope in Italy making it to the World Cup. forza azzurri 😭

I was in Italy visiting family when they won the 2006 World Cup. Absolute incredible memory and everything since has been crushing disappointment.

i just think there's something deeply misguided about deciding the villains today are trans people who weren't polite & understanding enough to a cis guy reporting on yet another institutional threat to their existence. context collapse is a problem! so consider the context of trans people's anger.

there's absolutely no benefit to screenshoting and blasting small trans accounts to your giant follower bases. every single time, this leads to harassment or even worse of the trans people in question, which makes your concerns of harassment seem unfounded. you're the public figure, not them!

the uwu-ification of journalists has to stop. if you're a journalist, cis or trans, and talk about trans rights, sometimes trans people will criticize you. sometimes they will be mean out of anger. if you really think they're being unfair, block them. but why screenshot them and send harassment?

Flashback: If Sen. Smitherman hadn't filibustered in 2024, a bill criminalizing librarians would have been introduced and probably passed: www.al.com/news/2024/05...

Meanwhile the House is currently filibustering-but-not-filibustering because reps are mad about senate rules that allow senators to speak for significantly longer on bills than reps get to speak. In effect, a few senators can speak for multiple hours every day, which significantly slows down bills

I struggle to think of a worse way this case could go. I’m struggling to put into words how much blood, sweat, and tears went in to Louisiana to get representative congressional districts in the first place.

Or, at least, strong odds that he received the *initial* assignment in Callais. It's at least possible that he could lose/could have lost it; indeed, we're pretty sure this happened two terms ago in Gonzalez v. Trevino. But as if anyone needs further ominous signs about what's coming in Callais...

I’m sitting in the press room at the Alabama State House on this our most holy day of TDOV, as an out trans person mind you… and the second thing I see on this app is about Noem’s bimbo husband. What is even happening.

Mira was so important to our community. Also if you’re trans femme or love a trans femme you owe it to yourself to read the zine Fucking Trans Women. It’s an incredible repository of knowledge, beautifully written and illustrated.

For what it’s worth a lot of the people (normies) we spoke to today in St. Paul explicitly connected what trump has done to them and Minnesota with what the administration is doing to Iranians today

This is the second legislative day this week the Senate Dems have brought everything to a screeching halt. The best part is none of us really know what they’ve been filibustering about.

My column this week. The "Power To The People Act" is being sold as a way to give Alabamians a bigger say in addressing the state's higher power bills. In fact, the bill would flood the PSC with political appointees, likely nullifying elections that might result in a pro-transparency commission.

It's fractal. Do you disrupt domination & supremacy patterns wherever you find them (even, maybe especially) in your own heart/mind? Do you strengthen mutuality & interdependence wherever you can? The little moments build strength, wisdsom, & pattern recognition for the bigger ones, in my experience

Also, these people aren’t just betting on outcomes. They’re actually driving them. The Army wrote about using Polymarket data as an important input to their analysis and decision-making process. mipb.ikn.army.mil/issues/jul-d...

world-altering decisions are being made by a cabal of gambling addicts hell bent on self enrichment no matter the cost to humanity, we should look into that.

Fun fact, US passports did not have a gender marker until 1977, when a rising trend in unisex fashion started freaking the government out.

They won't start with banning birth control. First they'll lie about it. Then dictate who can prescribe it, use it, fund it, in what forms, and for how long. Suddenly, your doctor won't call you back. I know this is what they'll do because it's what they're doing to transgender healthcare right now.

In competitive authoritarianism (US right now) there's often a "loyal opposition" that's essential to the regime. They are so wedded to "decorum," they go along with rites & rituals that help regime prop up veneer of normalcy, undermining clear view of regimes actions & aims.

Local DMV man forced to face the consequences of his actions.

If Alito writes the Callais opinion it will be such an unmitigated disaster. I don’t exactly have high hopes for how Callais is going to play out, but an Alito decision in a key redistricting/voting rights case has got to be a level of hell.

The framing in this piece is the difference between understanding “Epstein was one super evil guy” and “this is a systemic issue that protects powerful and wealthy abusers”. Which then of course beggars the question: how do we dismantle it?

Jumaane Williams posted last night that he was gonna make this video so I had been waiting for it — thanks to @erinbiba.bsky.social for flagging just now. Williams speaks from a place of deep consideration for everyone involved and it shows in the way he discusses the impact and solutions.

After I heard about the incident a few hours ago, I spent some time reading about N-word tics and intrusive thoughts and what I came away with was a feeling of deepened anger about the way white supremacist society has associated “Black person” with this word so it’s there, in people’s brains

I can't get over this number: in 2007, there were 360,000 newspaper jobs. Now, there are 80,000. "My local paper sucked!" Sure. What sucks even more? The void. "I get all my news from the Guardian!" No, the Guardian doesn't report on your town council, your school board, local cops.

John Roberts's legacy is spending literally decades putting a genteel face on a movement to replace representative democracy with sloppy authoritarianism, and his reward is getting absolutely stomped out in the White House briefing room. Pathetic. Good riddance.