This is, without any exaggeration, exactly how Putin and Orbán proceeded — using antisemitism to discredit the idea of civil society and political opposition, and as an excuse to undo the rule of law. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/u...

I don’t think I’ve ever loved anything as much as ICE loves violently attacking women.

A 79-year-old Van Nuys car wash owner — who is a U.S. citizen — has filed a federal civil rights claim seeking $50 million after he says he was violently body slammed and pinned by federal agents during an ICE immigration raid at his business on September 9.

Outrageous.

I just got off a zoom call with the AMAZING @drannieandrews.com who has what it takes to beat Lindsey Graham and get him and his corruption out of the Senate in 2026. Please donate if you can. Thank you @pwdp.bsky.social for organizing! secure.actblue.com/donate/pwdp4...

I remind people once again, flash bangs are super dangerous. They can injure, maim, and kill. NYPD stopped using them in 2003 after they raided a woman's Harlem apartment and literally scared her to death. Whoever was raided today surely wasn't a Pablo Escobar type. ICE shouldn't use flash bangs.

I did not intend this as a fundraiser, but y'all are amazing: Over $10,000 donated in the past day to help Paulina survive. Thank you, thank you, thank you! This was an unexpected surprise for her, and all because that dumb Wired essay got me po'd. I guess it was a blessing in daft disguise.

Routine vaccination for COVID-19 reduces hospitalization and deaths much more than vaccinating only high-risk groups. www.news-medical.net/news/2025092...

It shouldn’t be considered far left to believe in decency & democracy.

NEW: For decades, the DOJ relied on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to foil and forestall attempts to discriminate against minority voters. On Wednesday, the DOJ filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to devastate and vitiate much of what’s left of the landmark civil rights legislation.

“We are there.”

Non-journalists really need to understand how everyone in the industry has been laid off, those who wanted to stay have joined an already massive pool of freelancers, and companies have cut freelance rates to almost nothing. Then they sent all the cash left over to their venture capital CEOs.

Congratulations to @jimmykimmel.com on his triumphant return! Last night he was pitch-perfect. Inspirational, self-reflective, gracious to his haters, championing the 1st Amendment & most importantly: FUNNY. (Shout-out to Robert DeNiro as the mob-boss head of the FCC)😆

So just to be clear: The US is propping up Argentina’s economy, and now Argentina can eliminate its export taxes, so it can sell tons of soybeans to China, so China isn’t forced to buy soybeans from the US, so the US can pay subsidies to keep our farmers solvent. www.reuters.com/world/china/...

9/ I had launch with Paulina Borsook last month in Oakland. Her life is hard, but she still has a lot to say! She's trying to raise funds to get a new version of the book reissued on the Internet Archive. Some of her friends have a running GoFundMe to support her: www.gofundme.com/f/support-fo...

11/ There are still some copies available, but this book deserves a reissue with a introduction by somebody famous.

1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it). But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that

JUST IN: The Trump administration's bid to coerce states to comply with immigration enforcement in order to receive disaster aid is illegal and unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled today. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

The richest man on earth owns X. The second richest man on earth is about to be a major owner of TikTok. The third richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post. See the problem here?

A statue depicting Trump holding hands with Epstein has been removed from the National Mall in Washington, DC, hours after it was erected. A group calling itself “The Secret Handshake” claimed responsibility for the satirical statue that included a plaque that read “In Honor of Friendship Month."

As I was saying…

"You also now must fear one another. Under the new normal, a single student can record a class discussion you participate in, fail to protect your identity, and post it online ... There is no evidence that the university will protect you from this."

"you are the ones with the most to lose. My colleagues & I may have to leave this cherished institution & that would be a great loss for us. But we have already lived lives of consequence and can find other pursuits. You, however, would lose the education you deserve." 🔥 thebatt.com/news/anonymo...

Surprised this is not getting more attention today! 💥 Release the #EpsteinFiles

It’s easy to take democracy for granted. It’s easy to assume that the Constitution is in stone. It’s not. This is a moment when your courage and your activism are most needed.

Why are we taking our latest politics cover to the streets? We wanted you to see what we saw, over many months of covering DOGE, ICE, and the rest of it. Tech leaders got what they wanted—a seat at the table with a would-be king, and a chance to haggle over the rules that govern their businesses.

More than 1800 detainees are missing after the closure of Alligator Alcatraz. Their families and lawyers can’t find them and they’ve vanished from the ICE database. Feels like this should be a much bigger story www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

It’s likely that this happened to them, in which case, again, this should be much bigger news. We can’t just disappear thousands of people without notifying anyone www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Whether they're blaming vaccines and Tylenol, or selling dubious "remedies," what they're really doing is promoting the perception that families (and especially mothers) can prevent and treat Autism. And thus also the perception that people with Autism and their families don't need social support.

And Nexstar has the same thing. www.nexstar.tv/stations/

Luckily, Sinclair has a helpful database of all their stations, so you can see if they're operating in your area and respond accordingly. sbgi.net/tv-stations/

Shanah Tovah, New York City. Here's to a sweet and hopeful New Year.

OLIVER: “I’d argue @disney & Bob Iger need to stand by @jimmykimmel and his staff — history is also going to remember the cowards who knew better. Giving the bully your lunch money doesn’t make him go away, it just makes him come back hungrier each time.” 🎯

Doxxing isn't free speech, it's political violence. When elected officials use their platforms to harass and intimidate, they normalize the same dehumanization that fuels wars. This is a betrayal of our democracy. Read combat vet Melissa Cordero's op-ed: tucson.com/opinion/colu...

Lyndon B. Johnson's response to satire

"Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that." Looking forward to seeing Jimmy back on the air.

Good hed from @apnews.com

Zohran Mamdani just pulled out of a local ABC town hall over Jimmy Kimmel's suspension. Mamdani says the decision to pull Kimmel off the air sent a message that "the First Amendment is no longer a right that can be counted on."

"If your goal is to cement your power, then it’s rational to pardon your most ardent criminal supporters who have been convicted of carrying out violent acts on your behalf. They will be your civilian army." -- @govpritzker.illinois.gov contrarian.substack.com/p/be-loud-fo...

Some people think ChatGPT has a place writing things like news briefs, stuff written to a specific style and tone and, y'know, kinda boring. So Science did a study. ChatGPT failed. Why? It got stuff wrong. "Also, extensive editing for hyperbole was needed." www.science.org/content/blog...

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." - Theodore Roosevelt

You’re much closer to becoming disabled or homeless than you are to becoming rich and wealthy. It’s not a moral failing. It’s not something you can “try harder” your way out of. We need robust social supports & safety nets to ensure everyone is properly cared for.

Not just Unpopular! He's also the Most Unworthy-Unqualified-Unethical-Uneducated-Unprepared-Undemocratic-Unfortunate-Unhinged-Unjust-Unread-Unappealing-Unconscionable-Untrustworthy-Unscrupulous-Unstable-Unbearable-Unlikable-Unreliable-Unsound & Unctuous President in Modern American History. 🇺🇸 🙄

There is no world in which it is normal for the president to publicly call upon his attorney general to hurry up and prosecute his political foes. It’s like the Watergate tapes but posted on social media. Let’s get a grip on what’s happening here.

As a government information librarian who archives a lot of federal web pages, I strongly recommend this approach. The Internet Archive and similar tools are great, but, as mentioned here, are imperfect tools and there is just too much uncertainty about continued access to federal resources.

🚨BIG NEWS: Republicans just quietly added a line to a defense bill that would empower the Pentagon and Pete Hegseth to deploy armed private mercenaries inside the U.S. at the southern border for the first time in American history.

Robert Redford on Donald Trump: “It is painfully clear we have a president who degrades everything he touches, a person who does not understand (or care?) that his duty is to defend our democracy.

Amid the angst about the state of the media, a reminder that Bolts and our ability to produce the work you love thrives on your support. (And if Bolts is not your cup of tea... find another independent media to support!)

The amount of shit I got for this segment at the time was astronomical, and it was all from people who now stalk CVS employees to get them fired for insufficient online sadness. Cheering on political violence is both evil and not new, an outgrowth of an internet intentionally dismantled years ago.

Apart from the ethical issues involved, the problem with political violence is that it doesn’t work very well. Assassinated potentates and corporate executives just get replaced with others similar to themselves, and the machinery of power keeps moving. www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-gre...