Riley
@jbomukti.bsky.social
"what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals" — Kurt Vonnegut
Let us not mince words. The president of the United States is an evil man, dragging his country and the rest of the world into wickedness and misery.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last mo.Trump on pillaging Venezuela's natural resource: "We're making a lot too. And I think we're entitled to that. It was a one day war."
ICE is engaged in a very large escalation nationwide, with the agency claiming to be hitting record arrest numbers amid the return of quotas. This has gotten very little attention from the media because ICE learned lessons from the chaotic disasters of Kristi Noem’s tenure. Keep a watch.
WA Whistles@wawhistles.bsky.social · 2mo agoICE is surging in the Seattle area. (Map shows activity in the last week) Do you have your whistle with you?
Good. Alaskans have already demonstrated that they know how to spell.
The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · 2mo agoAlaskans will have to try to differentiate between two candidates with the same name after the state’s Supreme Court ruled that both Sen. Dan S. Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Republican candidate Dan J. Sullivan must be included on the Senate ballot this year.
On the off-chance that some day I decipher an ancient script, I promise not to git-filter-repo the evidence of how I reached my conclusions.
"The Emperor's New Clothes" is a key document for understanding this period of US History. No matter how many times Trump shows his ass, the courtiers at the Times and elsewhere empty the thesaurus to describe the stitching of his breeches.
Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News@froomkin.bsky.social · 2mo agoSanger writes as if Trump was not deranged. But the quotes! Trump tells him if Iran balks he might make the United States “the guardian of the Middle East” in return for 20 percent of the region’s revenues. Insanity, normalized. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/14/u...
Blowing off legal deadlines and obfuscating has generally worked for the administration. Many of the Epstein Files are still behind a tarp.
Acyn@acyn.bsky.social · 2mo agoWorkers are adding a curtain obstructing the view of the removal of Donald Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center
He was roundly booed at Madison Square Garden, but insists he heard "mostly cheers". This is how he wants to count votes.
Larry Glickman@larryglickman.bsky.social · 3mo agoIt's not new but it continues to be remarkably dangerous that the president routinely lies about various elections, past and present. And it is absolutely corrosive that refusing to condemn these lies--or even endorsing them--has become a GOP litmus test. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/08/u...
Bluesky is a very good thing. Would it be better if it were bigger? Sure. But it can't be helped that the way power is structured in the world allowed a particularly awful person to take over the place that was bigger and remake it in his own image.
All referees should refuse to officiate at the World Cup until he's reinstated.
Tariq Panja@tariqpanja.bsky.social · 3mo agoFIFA has now confirmed that Artan will no longer be able to officiate at the World Cup, which like for players, is the biggest moment in the lives of referees. FIFA has said it is nothing to do with them, but a decision made by US authorities and that the decision is not likely to be changed.
"A house divided against itself cannot stand." "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." "We are the ones we've been waiting for." "A lot of people don't know 'dumb' has a B."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3mo agoTrump: "A lot of people don't know 'dumb' has a B"
It's an indictment of our times that one man with no expertise at all, only an emotionally-seated fixation, is empowered to drive policy. Utter madness.
The UnPopulist@theunpopulist.net · 5mo agoKennedy canceled $500 million in mRNA research and announced no new mRNA projects will ever be initiated—killing the technology that produced the fastest vaccine rollout in human history.
In this Ohio diner, the parliamentarian still means George Clinton. But they do know this: if Trump builds his ballroom illegally, Congressional Democrats should just tear the roof off the sucker.
Seeing this, I wonder if Bezos has brought door desking to the Post.
Gillian Brockell@gillianbrockell.com · 4mo agocan't imagine why this wapo opinions video isn't doing well on youtube! (one of them tells us he went to harvard within the first 30 seconds, i shit you not)
This is a cut and dried emperor's new clothes moment. That there is no attendant drumbeat to remove this man from office reveals the corruption and inanity of the political establishment and its courtiers who pass for journalists.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 4mo agoTrump: "I took three cognitive tests. Aced all of them, by the way. I'm the only president to take a cognitive test. I don't think Obama could pass it. The first question is very easy -- it's a lion, a giraffe, a bear, and a shark. They say, 'Which one is the bear?'"
One of the most clarifying passages I've ever read on what "polarization" actually means in the U.S."
Jake Grumbach@jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 4mo agoGiven the argument that ended the VRA, I think it’s time liberals did some self reflection about the now decades long obsession with partisan polarization as the problem, as opposed to authoritarianism, extremism, oligarchy, and racism
I read journalists debating details of WHCA security, and I am reminded of the obsessive attention to tactics in discussions of the American Civil War, which is to say, ostensibly talking about something, but really creating a diversion to avoid addressing what actually matters.
Trying to explain St Augustine to the pope, the former head of the Augustinian order, who wrote his doctoral thesis on Augustine, on his way back from celebrating mass at the Basilica of St Augustine in Annaba, Algeria, overlooking the site where Augustine lived is peak Adult Catholic Convert.
Abby@arobertswrites.com · 4mo agoL to the M to the A to the O
The president rarely has a rival when it comes to Dunning-Kruger, but this may be an exception: Affecting to school the literal Pope on theology as a recent convert. Make him walk to Canossa, father.
Shoe@shoe.bsky.social · 4mo ago"The Pope is incorrect on matters of theology" is excommunication time. H/t @jumulojimbus.bsky.social
Again, no other president in history has been treated by the national political press with such deference and shrugs. It should be wall-to-wall front page, breaking news that the U.S. president is either deliberately attacking the Catholic Church while positioning himself as Jesus, or he is unwell.
Mother advocates for sustainable clothing storage practices
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 5mo agotextbook sanewashing
Republicans are literally incapable of comprehending that the world doesn’t simply follow Trump’s orders the way that Republicans, or American CEOs, or Supreme Court justices do
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6mo agoJD Vance: "There's just no way that Donald Trump is gonna allow this country to get into a multiyear conflict with no end in sight"
“the great story of our time” indeed Piercing thoughts from Michael Wood on the war with Iran michaelwood627.substack.com/p/iran-thoug...
If the savvy set who decry Bluesky as an "echo chamber" were being molded by ex-Twitter's algorithms— they would attribute their ideological drift to absolutely anything but the actual cause.
Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD@elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 6mo agoA new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right. Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement. This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.
The Republican Party has abandoned any semblance of allegiance to the constitution or the people. They could stop this farce today. Even in an overt monarchy, only slobbering sycophants would allow a mad king to loot his subjects like this.
Brad Heath@bradheath.bsky.social · 7mo agoPresident Trump has filed a lawsuit against the IRS, in which he demands that the IRS, which he as president controls, pay him $10 billion. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
I would argue that the case for dismantling ICE has, at this point, virtually nothing to do with larger questions of immigration enforcement and reform, it's just clearly incompatible with a free and democratic society to maintain a secret police force with sweeping and arbitrary authority.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 7mo agoSenator Gallego weighs in as well. Note that at the start of 2025 he was considered a *moderate* on immigration and co-sponsored the Laken Riley Act. Him and many other Dems have been increasingly horrified at what ICE is doing and shifted away from a "more enforcement" focus.
It will be hard for people in the future to understand the stupidity that rules the moment. They will look for reasons, but this is not a time of reason. Those in the positions of greatest influence are malicious and corrupt or in the perennial business of apologizing for power.
Jon Burke🌍@jonburkeuk.bsky.social · 7mo agoAmerican commentators and right wing politicians are expressing shock that countries they have repeatedly threatened with invasion, disrespected on the international stage, and economically bullied are forging new alliances. Sorry guys, but it’s FAFO time.
I know people on Bsky know this but I hope it filters out: The feds are OCCUPYING the Twin Cities. This is a blockade, a siege. They are shutting down economic and civic activity. They are conducting "papers please" stops. They are criminalizing being a bystander/witness. You could be next.
we’re never returning to “normal “ that world is dead and gone we create a new one, or we live in hell
We're so far beyond a constitutional order at this point. The barons of 1215 are having a good laugh at us.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 8mo agoTrump: "I have determined that, for the Good of our Country, especially in these very troubled and dangerous times, our Military Budget for the year 2027 should not be $1 Trillion Dollars, but rather $1.5 Trillion. This will allow us to build the 'Dream Military' that we have long been entitled to."
People who fancy quoting the Melian Dialogue ("the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must") ignore the fact that Thucydides was clearly portraying this as the kind of hubris that squandered Athens' primacy and paved the way for a devastating peer war that it ultimately lost.