it's easy to blame rubes in flyover country for the nation's current predicament, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of it is down to years and years of elite moral and epistemic derangement, elite cowardice, and elite failure to overcome the collective action problem

On this day in 1848, James Marshall found gold at Sutter’s Mill, California – northeast of the present-day state capital of Sacramento. The gold rush that followed affected everything: from American wealth and westward development to literature. #GoldRush #History #OTD

ICE and CBP agents need to understand they're going to be wearing those masks for the rest of their lives.

It's never that they are wrong. It's that protestors are paid, or the judge is married to someone with an opposing viewpoint, or the polls are fixed. For a party that wants everyone to "man up" and "be alphas," they are quite a group of little whiny bitch babies.

Counterpoint: we should set Scott Bessent adrift on an ice floe www.politico.com/news/2026/01...

Just want to make sure that people understand, this guy isn't saying this because he's ignorant or stupid, he's saying it because he does not believe we should live in a free society. That is the entire Republican Party. They do not believe in living in a free society.

"“Hope has two daughters,” wrote St. Augustine of Hippo. “Their names are Anger and Courage.” Hope is a mother, it seems. And she is introducing DHS to her kids." @gwensnyder.bsky.social

Eden and Keith were looking forward to Senior Prom. Until masked government thugs violently detained and disappeared Eden and her father in broad daylight. When the American Dream became an American Nightmare. #writing #booktok #booksky #fiction

Thesis: ICE is un-American and the Minneapolis protestors are real Americans. Antithesis: Ackshually ICE is operating in a long American tradition of racist terror. Synthesis: Minneapolis is now the epicenter of a clash between two distinct but historically grounded American political traditions.

"Appeasing a bully doesn’t work, especially when, as anyone watching Trump’s Davos rant could see, that bully is experiencing rapid cognitive decline. But standing up to him does work." www.rawstory.com/trump-davos-...

Author of the Year: 2013 The most significant author who died in 2013. Doris Lessing (1919-2013) #Booksky #Dorislessing #Goldennotebook #Nobelprize

TODAY, Friday January 23rd, 2026: We are ALL residents of Minnesota. We ALL want #ICE_OutForGOOD 🚫 🧊 Also: #ICE_OUT4ReneeGood 💔

Tory MP Simon Hoare has given a very vivid quote about Donald Trump's comments on Nato allies, which could actually be used in many contexts about the US president: "Frankly Trump makes my flesh creep and my stomach turn. Where are his advisors? Where is his nurse? Where is his sense of shame?"

COLBERT, on the so-called “Board of Peace”: “.. Paying a billion dollars to obey Donald Trump seems a little steep. After all, CBS got to do it for just 16 million." @latenightercom.bsky.social #$PSKY

Any member of Congress who votes on a piece of legislation that directly or indirectly gives money to ICE at this point is a traitor as far as I'm concerned. They immediately go on the traitor list permanently if they cast that vote. I'm sorry. That's just how it works.

Make him rebuild the East Wing back to precisely how it was before he came into office. Down to the last brick.

A man who masters himself is never at the mercy of the world.

It’s infuriating to see people talk about injustices Americans have visited upon other Americans in language that designates the aggressors American and the victims Other. If you can’t love the marginalized more than you hate the people harming them, you’re not helping, you just like being mad.

"When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." www.liberalcurrents.com/unfit-to-be-...

Twin Cities Food Justice is partnering with local schools to donate 1,000 food bags to families.

No thanks. This came from Romania.

Meanwhile, compliments of the actual writer who brought you Sinners;

elect a man who once bankrupted a casino and you too can achieve this outcome for the low low price of your civil liberties

ICE not allowing agents to have unsupervised copies of ICE policies or to take any notes is an admission by ICE that it knows the policies are illegal.

Liam’s mom dressed him in all those layers to keep her little boy warm and safe in this frigid weather, packed his book-bag w/ everything he’d need for a good day at school, and then our govt stole him out of their driveway. Used her little boy as bait. These people are monsters.

the Access of Evil (not a typo)

Trump sycophants say he's only joking when things Trump says land with a thud where even his base groans about it. Trump doesn't joke. He tests to see what lines work and see how far he can stretch his powers. share.newsbreak.com/gwrwdoyp

AuthorOftheYear: 2014 The most significant author who died in 2014. Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014) #Booksky #Gabrielgarciamarquez #Nobelprize

I really hate the term "sanewashing" in part because I think what mainstream news outlets really do is something different, which is take Trump statements that intentionally have several contradictory meanings and broadcast the most optimistic one

Here’s a short poem about the power of poetry to change the world.

AuthorOftheYear: 2015 The most significant author who died in 2015. E. L. Doctorow (1931-2015) #Booksky #Authoftheyear #Eldoctorow #thewaterworks #Americannovelists

Fascinating to watch Bessent shred what lingering credibility he retained as a semi-grown-up in the Trump administration. The most powerful reason to sell the dollar is that this compromised cretin is in charge

“ICE isn’t the Gestapo. The Gestapo was…” (proceeds to describe qualities that apply to what ICE is currently doing)

What a pathetic country that we have to mobilize to feed our neighbors so they don't get kidnapped by armed government thugs.

somewhat fascinated by the conclusion which gets into One Battle After Another

Daughter just sent me this from Falmouth #NorthernLights

Gorgeous winter light in Edinburgh yesterday #bruntsfield #edinburgh #architecture

Just thinking 'bout how there's a new @paultremblay.bsky.social novel on the way. As one does.

I think one of my only goals for 2026 is to focus less on what I don't like and more on what I do. The world is an icky place as it is and I'd rather find all of the things that make me happy instead of the things that don't.

ICE are the recycled J6 domestic terrorists with badges and guns.

"Sheer insanity now rules America. We have gone mad, and the consequence is that sanity now feels itself like a disorder." www.liberalcurrents.com/youre-not-cr...

Ferrari Introduces The 12Cilindri, Blending Heritage And Innovation

"Regular liberals seem to be radicalizing. The Democratic primary base very much wants their leaders to fight. This is not a few fringe academics, but vast swaths of American society." www.liberalcurrents.com/liberalism-d...

Friends, go write the books that will be the change.

I feel like we’re living in a dystopian novel so dystopian that even if Huxley, Orwell and Bradbury had collaborated on a book, the three of them together couldn’t have dreamt this shit up.

The problem with being a fan of classic literature is that you end up knowing so many fantastic words that basically never come up in everyday conversation. Do you have any idea how rare it is to get the chance to drop an "illimitable"?

Stephen Miller Reminds Picky-Eater Son That There Starving Kids In Basement https://theonion.com/stephen-miller-reminds-picky-eater-son-that-there-starving-kids-in-basement/