"Russian horse breeders are reporting a surge in sales because a steed is now cheaper to maintain than a car." billmckibben.substack.com/p/oil-as-ach...

I once wrote Dante had Beatrice; Orwell had Stalin; for political writers their muses are not the good things. Wrote this in one sitting today.

My two best friends on BlueSky.

Jesus definitely did not say rape is no big deal. (Also pretty sure none of the women in the senate are rapists.) So tired of the whataboutery and excuse-mongering.

Abusers sabotage their own agenda and betray those who share it while placing the burden on victims to come forward and be punished, blamed, shamed, disbelieved, or not come forward and suffer in silence and let an abuser hold power. Abusers demonstrate radical selfishness.

Rape is a crime against democracy in the most immediate sense of equality between individuals and the premise that we’re all endowed with certain inalienable rights.

‘Once you acknowledge that most of the Americas were inhabited long before 1492, everything changes, starting with the idea that nature in its ideal state is what they used to call virgin wilderness, in which people don’t belong.’ @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

This opening of the 1619 Project has long been the most ringing sentence for me about this country, its founding, and its founding document. Its truth could apply to everyone who sought to broaden and deepen equality and rights.

New in PN: Declaring War on The Declaration "The one connective thread that bound together the revolutionary patriots was their opposition to, and fear of, absolute and unchecked rule perpetuated by autocrats."

Asking how people can partake in joyful acts during a period of immense suffering leads me to believe this is your first time at the suffering rodeo.

Never mind 1776, here's the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.

America’s Independence Day Parade in downtown DC (July 4, 10:30AM) has been CANCELED by organizers due to Extreme Heat Warning. Heat index 110-115F. #Climate

I'll summarize this: Mamdani asked NYers to keep air conditioning at 78 degrees. A wave criticism hit online. A MSNBC broadcast pointed out the US Department of Energy recommends that 78 degree figure. Immediately after, the US Department of Energy deleted 6,000 web pages related to energy saving.

The NARA San Francisco office is *the* place to study histories of US immigration and western histories of all sorts. Its staff are extraordinarily valuable for researchers, historians, and citizens who visit daily to learn more about these topics. This is terrible. www.kqed.org/news/1208890...

This is the secret main essential true 250th anniversary event: the brave voice of democracy and justice; the brutal forces of silencing; it's all here.

The US Presbyterian Church has just voted to divest from Palantir & GE Aerospace; recognize the genocide in Gaza; and call for an arms embargo and boycott of genocide-complicit Israeli companies. Cites Palantir & GE's tech being used by human rights violators like ICE, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.

Yesterday was a two-essay-release day! This one, at my newsletter, reframing an earlier essay on the film Giant, which is about racial and gender equality, in the light of the 14th Amendment stuff going on and....

Recommended IN FINNISH! Hungarians! Basque speakers! Do not be left behind!

I wrote an essay for the nation's 250th, refusing, first of all, any definition that we are all one thing or another. Mamdani, Good, Pretty, Bad Bunny, and Liu have star turns further on in the piece.

We are in the golden age of schadenfreude.

Man responsible for disgusting butchering of humans complains about alleged* butchering of words. *The yard signs don't seem to be related at all to the Big Theological Word this butcher wants to say.

The Supreme Court today addressed one of the most pressing threats to the nation today: banning this high school sophomore from playing school sports with her friends 🫡🫠🙃

I am stunned that the constitutional question was so close. I thought it would be 6–3 or 7–2. It is profoundly disturbing that four justices would allow either the president or Congress to rewrite the plain text of the 14th Amendment. This is obviously a good outcome, but the margin is alarming.

Michael Cembalest is out with his annual energy report for JP Morgan and it's full of fascinating stuff, but this graph jumps out: Trump is succeeding in stifling America's clean energy boom. Absolutely ceding the field to China.

The real Disclosure Day, and it's glorious. Watch it.

"For days, officials across France have scrambled to cope with the searing heat, shutting down three nuclear reactors after the surrounding cooling waters became too hot..." So much for nuclear as a climate solution.....

Imagine if hundreds of people died in hurricane or floods smashing through Europe Heatwaves have already killed that many ppl. They are a silent killer in that they dont generate outrage or fear. Hope this by @economist.com helps save lives as Europeans wake up to danger bsky.app/profile/eate...

I now fervently believe this. Relatedly, I think celebrating good news and embracing joy are equally radical. You have to remember what you’re fighting for. We cannot sustainably organize around sorrow.

Update: lol

Just here to say ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Renee Good as she was driving away. Sue me.

if I were a Sensible Investor I would be staying tf away from any oil or gas infrastructure of any kind

A revolting habit of patriarchy's upholders is insisting all women are there to be judged as pleasing or not pleasing their sad little libidos. And really it's not even about that: it's about displaying to other upholders that they are the anointed judges and not the judged. But judge him. Harshly.

Crime should pay, what's the big deal?, says criminal.

Trump has decimated the government’s ability to detect and counter foreign influence actions aimed at the US from Russia and elsewhere. But he has provided around-the-clock security for the Reflecting Pool to protect it from nonexistent vandals. That’s a good summary of his presidency.

It's weird the way the Democratic alleged leadership (Jeffries too) think that the party is a club with rules rather than something the voters choose. It's....undemocratic. But also didn't the voters choose these people because of their policies, not just because of Mandani?

“While Epstein abused victims directly, the Tates were most impactful for how, their accusers say, they taught countless other males to abuse, exploit and dehumanize females.” @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

He's keeping tabs on a bunch of races across the country, in many of which progressive/left newcomers are winning races against moderate/centrist incumbents.

This is Leah's account of how she worked on creating and passing the Inflation Reduction Act (which is not nearly as dead and gone as people think; stay tuned for more from her on that).

"The only lasting truth / Is Change." On thys daye yn 1947, Octavia E. Butler was born in Pasadena, California, USA. Her giftes to literature, the art of science fictioun, and the worlde of ideas are immeasurable. Her worke prepared us for thys tyme. www.womenshistory.org/education-re...

Khanna cited a reliable source in good faith and does Elon really want to put his own mega-infanticide/homicide on trial?

The case for Ed Miliband as Chancellor.

Someone please mash up Narcissus and the Portrait of Dorian Gray into the tale a demented man who thought to see his own magnificence reflected in, well, a Reflecting Pool and instead saw failure and algae and decay.

"But then on top of that, the U.S. is—we are basically alone. Everyone else is marching towards an energy transition, and we’re trying to go back to coal."

It is always a nice day to revisit this @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social essay frompoverty.oxfam.org.uk/rebecca-soln...

Donald Trump's birthday week pileup of defeats! Citizen victories over data centers and gerrymandering! Genteel Trump slagging from Barack himself! Terrible reviews for JD the Bad Catholic! And Mamdani wraps it all up with a victory speech! Get it all at:

This conflation of tall with long has been ridiculous since before the algae came marching in. If you want to compare things for length, a reflecting pool doesn't look that extensive compared to, say, the transcontinental railroad or interstate highway system earlier presidents presided over.

As the inevitable gravitational forces of truth, reason and mortality drag Trump to the ground, Solnit makes it make sense... "he found out you can seize a building but not an audience..." and in so doing strengthens us all for the fight ahead. www.meditationsinanemergency.com/winners-and-...

Mona Khalil, Lebanon’s most well-known sea turtle conservationist, died of her wounds today after being injured by an Israeli strike I feel sick

Truth to power. Specifically power this pathological liar should not have. All anyone needs to remember is that Vance is heavily involved in protecting Trump from what's in the Epstein files about him.