“On Wednesday morning, the Justice Department went to court to advance an argument that, if accepted, would all but erase the existence of transgender people in the law.” Read my report at Law Dork:

It’s remarkable how a candidate who sounded like he had a voice and some moral clarity instantly becomes a spineless loser once the consultants start telling him, “Listen up, chucklefuck: you’re in the general now. You need to TACK TO THE CENTER and know that trans issues are OUR ULTIMATE WEAKNESS.”

When you don't remember this (as i often don't) edmund just seems like a dick. When you do remember it, he seems like a sad scared kid being manipulated while living in a time of hardship and lowkey terror he can't really comprehend. Which he was.

Once upon a sweet old time, it was utterly impossible to imagine such a political crisis in the United States. But now?A coup d’état is getting less and less hypothetical by the week. Published February 2026. trib.al/3CekvTb

He is. Ken Paxton was an early adopter of anti-trans pushes in the U.S. all the way back in 2022, primarily as a way to try and keep his own ass out of prison and to detract from his well-known felony fraud charges. Transphobia has been his political life-saver. He does it because it works.

"Unnoticed" is the wrong word. NPR itself has reported on this association for over a decade. GamerGate and its relation to both the resurgent far right and misogyny was a known factor to the press even in 2016. Try "Intentionally Obfuscated with complicity from media elite."

This is a really important piece from @joyurcaba.bsky.social. Most people think that the government's restrictions on health care for trans people was limited to minors (which has been the government's messaging). It's not, and people need to know about it.

In our new field experiment canvassers went door to door in Virginia to talk to folks about the scientific consensus on climate. We find: (1) Communicating consensus increased belief in climate (2) Depolarized partisans A lot has happened since, but some hope.. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

The paper in question: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

"Please provide a justification for the foreign collaboration." Science.

Literally everyone over the age of 25 knows it wasn't because we remember when it was founded and we know it was explicitly founded to violate the constitution. That's literally the reason it exists. Explicitly.

Not only is this detachment and lack of solidarity gross and antithetical to justice, it's also dumb. Like, really dumb. In the academy, you're only as safe as the least safe person working there, and if folks in comp sci can get away with brazen misogyny, anyone can.

You need to understand the money and bullying involved — no other field of these discussed is so degrading to women. Some ideas here by me but lots of resources all over the other subthreads too. Some really important books. bsky.app/profile/oliv...

some unpackings and demolishings of this rhetoric here, if useful! bsky.app/profile/oliv...

You always hear how America is the only country that does tips. Im some countries. it's even considered an insult. It's truly an American phenomenon only. Born out of slavery. Anyway...so how didnt tipping become ensconced into American society at large? You can thank President FDR

Tipping exists because of this man....George Pullman. He revolutionized transportation by inventing "the sleeping car," which is essentially the "1st class" of train travel. But the true innovation was who he chose to hire

Every other week, I see a viral post about "tipping" and visceral responses as to why it's not required and "it's not my job to pay you" regardless of the bill. And again I keep saying.. we're having the wrong conversation. You're punishing poor people to make an under educated point

like, the most high profile uses of ai are not, "this will make your life better". It's all, "here's one cool trick you can use to cheat everyone else and steal their shit."

To Yes-And this, I must point out that the modern antivax movement originated from parents that didn't like their weird kids (most of whom weren't even autistic) and wanted someone to blame for it because they hated their kids and wanted "better" ones, and felt entitled to compensation.

Jonathan gets it right. Podcast Jay is now Lockdown Jay. bsky.app/profile/joho...

I would also point out that one thing beyond this is that not only do they think entirely of the world in terms of porn categories and sex, they think everyone else does, too. That's how they think of ALL expressions of transness or gayness or interracial contact as pornographic.

I'm gonna say it: they know, they just pretend otherwise. This graph is from 2014. This has been documented for decades. Hell, a polygon article about the video game crash in the 80s notes that masculinizing tech as a marketing strategy helped drive this: www.polygon.com/features/201...

The fact that our entire political, business, and media sectors decided regularly having headlines like this was, and should be, normal in exchange for not paying taxes and not talking about racism and misogyny is damning.

Fascism can’t succeed without centrism, because far fewer people will admit to being a fascist than will endorse its policies — especially when they’re allowed to do so with the barest minimum necessary plausible deniability.

Well that's a thorough summary. One of the best articulations of university governance for a public audience that I've seen in a while.

His new name; Bully Burnham.

This, but it's also the part where what she wants, more than anything else, is to be accepted as a rich, cis white lady by the rich, cis, white lady elite. She just happens to be one who wasn't born cis. And as such, she would rather pointlessly degrade herself for them instead of mend bridges.

@rikiwilchins.bsky.social 2026 May Advocate Republicans on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce advanced bill restricting discussions of gender ideology” and “discriminatory equity ideology” --i.e. transgender, race, or DIE -- in American classrooms. www.advocate.com/politics/nat...

On his way out and back into the land of no (vs little) accountability for his action, RFK Jr will put out a bunch of (flawed) "investigations" that will power the anti-vax movement for the next decade.

The sum total of the 21st century political and economic status quo has been to make future generations worse off than those that preceded it, leaving us shocked that young people would seek out ideological alternatives, whether those are rooted in real solutions or triumphalist fiction.

Redrawing congressional maps will not "lead to Jim Crow." No, AL, GA, LA, FL and TN are not trying to create “the new Jim Crow.” This isn’t even “like Jim Crow." Anyone who studied Black history knows what caused the Nadir of race relations: Gerrymandering majority Black districts

basically the whole thing is the result of a conspiracy involving less than 10 bilious transphobes, most of them at The Atlantic or the NYT bsky.app/profile/kiss...

Let me make something clear: this man is so legendarily corrupt, TEXAS REPUBLICANS attempted to impeach him.

Our hearts break with each new emerging detail from the deadly, hate-fueled shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego.

This, right here. Contrary to the conspiracy theories that healthcare institutions "push" gender-affirming care, the truth is that they've always been looking for any and all excuses to terminate it entirely and to refuse care to whoever they can.

Form follows function, which is why a Jewish ethnonationalist irridentist government has completely incorporated antisemitism into its worldview uncritically.

🚨 I'm recruiting a PhD student for a new project on Parties' social group ownership, based in the @vd-researchgroup.bsky.social research group at KU Leuven! Deadline for applying is 26 June, estimated starting date is 1 Oct 2026. All info is here 👉 www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo... Share widely!

To yes and this, I'd go so far as to say corruption has a hard time existing and/or sustaining itself without disinformation and systems in place to support and amplify disinformation. Remove those supports, and corruption has to rely on brute force alone.

There’s a massive immigration operation in Memphis right now, but you may not have heard about it. Why? Community members face retaliation for trying to spread the word out, a lawsuit alleges.

I'm also forced to remind myself that the same people who are whining about birth rates are the folks who pushed abstinence hard and then tried banning sexuality in media. While also opposing child marriage bans. And generally being in the Epstein files. Need I go on or is the implication clear?

being thoughtful really slows down output, you know? curse these horrible woke harpies telling us we have to do our jobs in a way that isn’t selfish, sloppy, and shallow!!

This is because in the economy created by consolidation, private equity, insane and unrealistic lies of infinite growth, and naked hatred of working people, there are no job guarantees. A PhD is legitimately no shield against unemployment. It might even make it more likely. There are no guardrails.

Written by the health "reporter" at the NYT who is constantly questioning every minute detail of youth gender care, seen here writing with praise about conservatives abusing testosterone.

This Reuters article is one of the most sycophantic pieces of pro-war agitprop for an American incursion that I’ve read since the start of the second Iraq invasion, after the GWOT became widely unpopular. The headline: “Trump says Iran war is worth the economic pain. These rural voters agree.”

Birth rate discourse is like “It turns out if you give women more choices, they’re less likely to make ones that make their lives harder.” Which is really helpful in figuring out how we can improve society somewhat. But instead people are like wow giving women more choices was a mistake

this is such a great encapsulation of what the various factions of the reactionary right want. i might add that they envision themselves as slave masters and the rest of us, in one way or another, as their slaves. betterdonkey.substack.com/p/the-vra-wa...