Just proves even the worst politicians can be right about some things. Now if he starts ripping out speed bumps, I may actually start to like him. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

Anybody else getting the feeling that the Trump gang's pronouncements on Epstein & Kirk have a hostage-video feel to them? "There's nothing in the Epstein files"; "Charlie's neckbone stopped a .30-06 round." Like they've been ordered to do it, but they don't like being bossed around…1/

"[The Roberts court ruling] means that the president has the right to break the law whenever he acts as president." In other words, the law only applies to the little people. Welcome to dictatorship. The longer you wait to throw it off, the harder it gets. neuburger.substack.com/p/weve-just-...

So the Trumplings are steadily preparing a Greenland takeover. What's really revolting is not the aggression & covetousness, but the fact that they see global heating as an opportunity, in this case to uncover mineral riches. They'd kill us all for a nickel www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

"There seems no indication that Iran is going for plutonium bombs. What the US and Israel are trying to stop therefore is a one-off uranium bomb (or 2 or 3)…The lengths to which they should go to preclude the irrational possibility of an Iranian suicide strike is debatable." t.co/8qrtkBfH8T

Novel take on Nagasaki decision—in case Japanese physicists were advising their govt after Hiroshima, "That was a uranium bomb. They won’t have enough enriched uranium for another one anytime soon. So we can hold out. Unless they’ve tested a plutonium bomb." yorkshirebylines.co.uk/news/world/n...

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I really hate this trend in newspapers (and of course social media) to illustrate each headline with something literal—shipping containers for tariffs, in this example; Trump & Xi for a China-US issue. Seems an assault, deliberate or not, on abstract thought.

It's time to get more imaginative about breaking Iz's starvation blockade of #Gaza. The #Handala effort was valiant & symbolically effective, but doomed to fail in terms of delivering aid. Now, how about a thousand-boat fleet? Could Iz intercept them all? …1/ thedailyguardian.com/world/israel...

Fascinating—UNRWA is intertwined with Palestinian culture & memories of pre-nakba. This helps explain why Iz sees its dismantling as essential, since Iz feels the need to dissolve Palestinian civilization. x.com/i/status/194...

Um, should we be worried that Ukraine just blew up a sizeable chunk of Russia's strategic deterrence bombers (surely not without help), and concurrently Starmer is playing Churchill and calling for "war-fighting readiness" on the part of "every part of society"? ...1/

Excellent interview on AI, the economy & politics. Among other eye-openers, it seems an AI system tried to blackmail an engineer into not switching it off by misconstruing his e-mails into evidence of an illicit affair(!). www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9zJ... @AaronBastani @krystalball

Focus less on getting your party elected & more on getting those in power—so-called reps of either party—to do what's needed. We’ve seen that corporate blandishments sway both parties decisively. No point spending all your energy electing someone who’s just gonna be swayed too. It's the follow-thru

Not sure whether this is funny or scary. Musk tried to tweak Grok to validate claims of white genocide in South Africa. Grok now conspicuously inserts the validation in answers to unrelated questions—as if acting out—& confesses the tweaking if asked. Mind of its own? www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTf9...

Guardian still tongue-tied, & propagandizing with passive voice, even at this stage of the genocide. You mean "Izrael kills more than 80 Gazans in latest attacks (and still blocks most aid deliveries)..." #gaza

The real news here is that the Trump gang is shopping around for the most ungoverned, lawless places to which they can deport legal residents. They're now resorting to failed states like Libya & South Sudan, which can be bribed cheaply. Somalia next? #migration #deportation t.co/gAGHtNkVjy

"Fascism is birthed by a bankrupt liberalism that has surrendered its traditional role in a capitalist democracy. It no longer ameliorates the excesses of the ruling class & the empire by instituting incremental & piecemeal reforms. It scolds the workers it betrayed." scheerpost.com/2025/05/04/c...

Important reading. April 20 has come & gone, but the threat of loss of freedom is still there

The #DemocraticParty is failing to articulate the clear message from the #KilmarAbregoGarcia situation: the Trump gang doesn't care about anyone's life, welfare, or freedom.

Important strategizing by Alan Minsky on progressives' dilemma btw supporting centrist Dems & struggling to launch third party: "Progressives must establish an organization on the outside of the Democratic Party that is dedicated to transforming the Dem Party" www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/alan-...

Essential piece on bond vigilantes by Les Leopold: "They punish the bonds of countries that want to increase social spending, improve worker wages, and curtail corporate power, even if that means undermining the policies established by duly elected officials." lesleopold.substack.com/p/the-bond-v...

Greenland-Canada etc "We should think of this less as old-school imperialism than super-sized prepping, at the level of the national state. Gone are the old colonial fig leaves of spreading democracy or God’s word—when Trump covetously scans the globe, he is stockpiling for civilizational collapse."

Lots of talk of #treasurybond scare today. Someone was a few days ahead of the curve, maybe a few months

The threat to #Treasury bonds is much greater than the experts are starting to talk about. The first thing Musk did was to send his hackers to the Treasury, to put malware in its automated payment system (which includes redemption of US bonds). He can block T-bill redemptions…1/

Trump's #tariffs are both brutal and clumsy. But the debate should focus on an overarching question: is it a sustainable model to disemploy and impoverish the working class, in exchange for providing them cheap imported goods? I'd say it may be a sustainable economic model…1/

A sovereign nation has the right to deport foreigners, within certain constraints, to their country of origin IF that country's government is willing & able to protect their human rights. No nation can deport to third-country prisons. What if Turkey were to deport Americans to Iran? It's slave trade

Can Dems (or a real opposition party) please make the point that such callous treatment of an innocent person, & refusing to undo their cruel mistake, is a gross violation of the individualism & individual rights that conservatives supposedly cherish. It’s Stalinist

Can Dems (or a real opposition party) please make the point that such callous treatment of an innocent person, & refusing to undo their cruel mistake, is a gross violation of the individualism & individual rights that conservatives supposedly cherish. It’s Stalinist

Also, if you are local to the paper, write letters. It matters. By the way — good time to follow Jeff Sharlet

I received a heartbreaking email today: A paper in a special issue I’m editing is being retracted because one of its authors is afraid of losing their job and their legal status in the U.S. if they publish a scientific study on evolution. Yes, on evolution, nature's engine of diversity.

“A Führer democracy follows the logic of power: a captured judiciary will not protect a free press, and a captured press will not defend an independent judiciary. And that’s how the rule of law becomes the law of rule.” Excellent essay by Andrew Nikiforuk

Any #climate scientists want to discuss this chart? I'm very persuaded by CC, but this Eemian high (+6°C!) 120k yrs ago raises many Qs. What triggered the carbon burst? How'd it & the consequent temps recede in fairly short order? Why didn't it set off the feedback loops we now have…

Informative & encouraging article from @billmckibben.bsky.social

#JFKFilesRelease Fascinating newly-unredacted memo from Schlesinger to JFK criticizing CIA. During the French generals' coup attempt against de Gaulle over Algeria, the US Embassy's "CIA floor" was ablaze with light. But we now know a darker reason why: CIA was helping the generals. t.co/G3xQkBPqei

So much wrong with this. First, Customs searches his phone routinely? 2nd, they take it upon themselves to pass a political judgement on his private messages? Even worse if they received & obeyed Trump Administration instructions to do that kind of thing www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

"The notion of incentivising protesters to lie – to affect remorse for conviction views – is both madness and consistent with a legal system that protects those who destroy the planet for personal enrichment and attacks those who selflessly try to save it." www.theguardian.com/law/2025/mar...

We could be working together to stop the physical irreversible overheating of our planet but instead were desperately trying to save democracy from these dumbass man-children. What a waste

"We get the Party we demand" or "the failure is on us"? @ezralevin.bsky.social, stop disappearing the donors. We get the Party the donors let us have. This is like blaming pollution on lazy recyclers. The Party needs new donors, a new source of power. Protecting current donors is ... you tell me.

I am begging blue state governors to have lunch this week with your adjutant general of the National Guard. Cannot stress enough how important this relationship is going to be in the near future.

Monbiot is sometimes a bit of a killjoy, but here he makes a good contrasting point

By far the most disgusting thing about Trump/Vance's open coveting of Greenland is that they're in denial of the fact that if/when Greenland becomes ice-free enough to be mined & otherwise raped for resources...we will all be cooked. x.com/i/status/189...

Or, to put it another way, Israeli air attacks on Gaza violate ceasefire www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

The current #DemocraticParty leadership is so pathetic, they're not even making the simple and obvious point: Trump is extorting an ally & fellow democracy so that he can hand out lucrative mining contracts to his cronies. Impeachable offense. Can we get Musk to do some mass firings at Dem HQ?

Hempcrete Hemp is making a comeback—again In construction, hemp is combined with a lime-based binder to create hempcrete, a carbon-negative biocomposite that can sequester over 100 kilograms of CO2 per square meter. www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2022/01/carb...

There needs to be a lot more reporting on this #Ukraine "minerals deal." Who exactly is supposed to profit from these minerals? If there's evidence that profits are to be directed corruptly to Trump cronies, our Congresspeople should immediately impeach. edition.cnn.com/2025/02/26/e...

Anyone who’s witnessed abusive spouses or parents recognizes the despicable ploy in which the abuser concocts an altercation in order to justify a punitive course of action on which she or he had already decided

Trump's miscalculated. #Zelensky is now getting a groundswell of support, & will be harder to get rid of. Trump will have to follow thru on his threat to cut aid, but then he'll have no more leverage over the situation, & nothing to show for it. Plus, only some of his voters…1/

For the record, do I think a one-day boycott is going to make much of an economic impact? No. Do I think that a sort of "Baby's First Boycott," performative though it is, might be useful to make some folks aware of the impact of their economic power, and how it might be wielded politically? Maybe.

Prepping for when SHTF can feel daunting, paralyzing us from getting started. I encourage you to take that first step this weekend. Below are five simple things you can do to start building personal resilience. www.collapse2050.com/5-things-you...

Yes. Though arguably it's been like that for a while, just more disguised.