Seth D. Michaels
@sethdmichaels.bsky.social
Bert of the Intellect, Ernie of the Will DC based, comms at @ucs.org (all opinions mine), @emtrap.bsky.social enthusiast, ambivalently Online, generally polite, still People Magazine's Seth D-est Man Alive. please don't argue in my notifications
I guess this is one way to keep young people interested in working for Republicans. "So, yeah, benefits include 401k, FSA, a full pardon, and dental."
The Washington Sun@washingtonsun.com · 21h agoNew: White House attorneys are evaluating whether to issue mass pardons to junior staffers. https://www.washingtonsun.com/whitehouse/white-house-weighing-mass-pardons-for-junior-staff
after statehood we'll have to rename the airport after someone who isn't awful and while duke ellington is probably the most sensible pick i think "fugazi international" really rolls off the tongue
This from @melissaryan.bsky.social seems like a solid theory about what the Ramaswamy campaign thinks it's doing here.
Was this Ad Focus Grouped?
My theory on why Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign is running such a vile campaign commercial
altrightdelete.news
The legal argument is an effort to define gender dysphoria as disqualifying for any position of power, authority, or public trust. Nancy Mace has a bill right now to expand the military ban to thousands more federal positions as mundane as air traffic control.
In fact, I think thoroughly understanding your own stake in the rights of minority groups you don't share membership in is a firmer basis for solidarity than "it's the right thing to do." Don't defend me as a charity case. Defend me as a cousin.
have pondered this for a bit, and I think my best (too short) answer is "the current GOP is pretty much exclusively run by people who think most victims of sex abuse are liars"
ghost malone ergo propter bones@proptermalone.bsky.social · 3d agothis seems like so obviously a terrible thing for Rs to tie themselves to i have to wonder what's up
100%. in the Trumpist/white supremacist/Christian nationalist telling, dad is the dictator of the family, the boss is the dictator of the workplace, the President is the dictator of everybody, & at every point the top position in the hierarchy is properly held by the richest, whitest, male-st person
@zneeley25.bsky.social · 3d agoI think one reason conservatives freak out so much at any theory that identifies hierarchies is that they base every single relationship on hierarchy
This week, NIH advisors rebuked RFK for harming #NIH and US science. Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported it. Then RFK posted calling her sources anonymous or corrupt. I'll say this hoping it does good: I'm an NIH scientist, I'm not anonymous, and RFK Jr is destroying NIH. More in attachment:
It rules how often the person with literally the greatest access to information in human history stands in front of the press, shrugs, and says something like "I've never even heard of [guy I hired or thing I did]"
really good! excellent deployment of both the fash salute and his dumb little dances
Team Talarico@teamtalaricohq.bsky.social · 3d agoNEW AD: Have you seen these anti-Talarico attack ads? Elon Musk paid for nearly all of them. The world's first trillionaire knows if he drags the most corrupt politician in Texas across the finish line, Ken Paxton will owe him everything. Elon Musk: Texas is not for sale.
This is what the Republican Party unambiguously is; whether you choose to support it is up to you
George Pearkes@peark.es · 3d agoTrump doubles down on the Vivek ad
The GOP's misogyny has seldom damaged the brand the way it ought to. The starkness of accusing a woman of having lied at age 12 about being raped - maybe that's too much for as many voters as the earnest believe on here. I genuinely hope so.
We must upend the durable damaging hoax of "makers" & "takers," wherein rich people are made out of awesome & we must never hamper them because they are our wellbeing. The roles are reversed - they take the wealth we create & purchase politicians to do their bidding.
Robert Reich@rbreich.bsky.social · 5d agoIt's time to defund Elon. robertreich.substack.com/p/defund-musk
agree with Kyle, but i'd add: yard signs are *primarily* for relationship-building with volunteers and supporters, because they like having a yard sign and feeling like they're part of the team, and that's good in itself!
Kyle Weidleman@weidleman.com · 3d agoI’ve come around to believing that yard signs in a personal front yard has merit—gives permission to vote for or even openly support a candidate (e.g. my mom’s Sherrod Brown sign in what was a heavily Trump-signed neighborhood). Yard signs on street medians or undeveloped corners? Not so much.
Trump “and the allies who bankrolled his mass deportation campaign have built a rogue, out-of-control machine that fires on families, terrorizes children, and turns federal law enforcement against its critics, all without accountability.” americasvoicecnn.substack.com/p/the-trump-...
The Trump Record on Mass Deportation: The Deadly Year Two
Unchecked violence, unaccountable to the rule of law, un-American by any measure of honor and decency. Part two of a two-part series.
americasvoicecnn.substack.com
Always remember: they're trying to estimate something - the actual electorate and their final decisions - that *doesn't exist yet*. It's hard! Bottom line: Pollsters are neither idiots not magicians. As Natalie Jackson says, if you really want to know what will happen just wait a couple of weeks.
thought about this bit out of nowhere this morning so i watched it again extremely solid use of my time www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLEC...
Gary Gulman On How The States Got Their Abbreviations | CONAN on TBS
YouTube video by Team Coco
youtube.com
Another astonishing victory in the ongoing War Against Metaphor. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
Hegseth wanted Eisenhower’s globe for his office. His staff broke it.
Photos obtained by The Post show a gash in the World War II-era artifact that resulted from a botched relocation attempt inside the Pentagon.
washingtonpost.com
here is a photo of John Lewis being beaten to the ground on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday I wonder how that image was captured? Look I know these shitposters are dumb but sometimes that dumb is actually too much to let lie.
Joel S.@joelhs.bsky.social · 3d ago"The Jews who went to Mississippi didn't take selfies and post tweets." Okay, but honestly, if tweets had been a thing in 1961, many of them probably would have done.
"me, personally? i'll proudly be able to say that i spent millions of dollars trying to re-traumatize an abuse survivor"
Philip Bump@pbump.com · 4d agoEven if this were viable as a concept (that there's an afterlife; that it allows conversations with others; that enslavers are going the same place as you), who cares? Oh, are you mad at me, Ben Franklin? Tough shit.
the Trump administration is reducing the efficacy of weather-tracking satellites specifically so they can't be used for climate change-related research: www.cnn.com/2026/10/19/w...
Trump admin cuts to satellites will set back US weather forecasting by a decade | CNN
The Trump administration reduced the number of planned US weather satellites and removed key tools. Experts say it will set our weather forecasts back nearly a decade, especially for extreme weather e...
cnn.com
One of the most salient aspects of today's politics is how everyone imagines a conspiratorial "them" controlling things behind the scenes. Elon Musk is literally powerful enough to affect the course of the Ukraine war, but he's still imagining faceless puppet masters who need to be unmasked.
The DOJ manual cautions against doing this kind of enforcement right before an election. These kinds of cases would normally be dealt with by giving a criminal summons but they're sending armed agents to haul people in in their pajamas. It's a terror campaign.
Federal agents knock on doors to track down possible noncitizen voters ahead of midterms
Armed and in uniform, agents from the Department of Homeland Security have been knocking on doors to ask residents about their immigration status whether they're registered to vote.
cbsnews.com
GOLDEN BOWL vibes This is a joke for like two people
Stephen West@stephenwest.bsky.social · 3d agoheavy handed metaphor alert
we gotta bring back shame, man society doesn’t work real well without consequences for being an enormous piece of shit in public
No Sir, I Don't Like It Cartoon Reaction
Alt: animated gif of the horse from Ren and Stimpy saying “No Sir, I Don't Like It”
static.klipy.com
Dr. Jessie Christiansen@aussiastronomer.bsky.social · 4d ago(People have been reeeeeeally kicking the tires on internet infrastructure over the last week, presumably enabled by AI agents finding vulnerabilities.)
