A new survey from @knightfoundation.org and @ssrsresearch.bsky.social reveals a disquieting decline in how free Americans feel to use the freedoms protected by the #FirstAmendment without government interference or punishment. 🧵

Knight Foundation-SSRS Poll: Americans Feel Free Expression is Eroding - Knight Foundation

For more than two decades, Knight Foundation has commissioned research to better understand Americans’ lived experience with the First Amendment and free expression. As the country marks its 250th ann...

knightfoundation.org

Don't miss this vile story: MAGA is raging at DHS chief Markwayne Mullin for admitting migrant farmworkers can beneft our economy. This means his devotion to ethnic cleansing is in doubt. He must be excommunicated! I wrote about the collapse of MAGA mythology here: newrepublic.com/article/2138...

I won't mince my words from what I saw and heard at the ICE detention center at Dilley. Today in America, babies and toddlers are imprisoned. These are real people navigating profound trauma and their basic human rights are violated daily.

So, what happens if I'm a parent and I know that my kid needs highly paid teachers, a library full of books with diverse characters, trans-inclusive bathrooms and extracurriculars, and a curriculum unpacking topics like systemic racism, colonial oppression, economic inequality, and climate change?

People who are suddenly deported to countries they haven’t been to for years — or, in some cases, have NEVER been to — are incredibly vulnerable. We are going to be reading stories like this for years. God have mercy on their three little girls.

Adam Sawyer@adamjst.bsky.social · last wk.

“If immigration hadn't picked up my brother, my sister-in-law would still be alive, and the children wouldn't be going through this sorrow,” he said. “Unfortunately, immigration — the [U.S.] government — doesn't see that. It makes no difference to them.” www.stlpr.org/law-order/20...

Today would be such a good day for it to happen. (And in the most indisputably undignified way possible.)

Legal experts agree: It's time for Supreme Court term limits. Staggered 18-year terms would ensure regular turnover on the bench while preserving judicial independence.

Written in 2019. The future is now.

it feels shallow and reductive to say that trump is the cause of why things feel so terrible, but it isn’t, he really is that bad, he really has made everyone’s life worse, he is bad vibes personified and he’s been an uninvited part of our lives for ten fucking years

GOLIKEHELLMACHINE@golikehellmachine.com · 2w ago

i think this is (mostly) true but that it varies wildly across age groups, but it’s *most* true for age groups who are most likely to be very active on social media sites

When I worked in WaPo Opinions in 2017-2018, senior editors specifically told junior editors not to factcheck Marc Thiessen and other MAGA columnists, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to publish anything by them at all, and “we need them for intellectual diversity.”

John Carl Baker@johncarlbaker.bsky.social · 9mo ago

It’s very telling that opening your publication to MAGA “thought” requires a massive downgrade in quality control.

This particular criminalization of parental poverty, used to disproportionately pathologize Black women and steal their children, is called Jane Crow. And it's proliferating because of deliberately cruel, punitive administrative policies like what's happening to SNAP and Medicaid.

Anxious Rage@anxiousrage.blacksky.app · 2w ago

When families can’t eat, on top of everything else, the risk increases of the state stepping in to remove their children because of “neglect”

🔥DR. @abdulelsayed.bsky.social : “ICE has nothing to do with immigration. ICE is about normalizing paramilitary force on our streets, weaponizing the idea of immigration against the Constitution. ICE cannot be reformed, retrained… ICE has to be ABOLISHED.” (And held accountable)

The Trump administration has spent the last year systematically slashing and reassigning staff responsible for detecting and disrupting foreign disinformation operations in U.S. elections. bit.ly/4pmBCJb

Trump Administration Cuts Make Elections More Vulnerable to Foreign Influence and Disinformation

The depletion of staff and resources at various agencies leaves the government underprepared to respond to attempts to influence elections by China, Russia, and others.

brennancenter.org

Shorter Mayor Wilson: Seattle Is Thriving™

Seattle, the World Cup brought possibility. Let's build on it | Op-Ed, Mayor Katie Wilson

Seattle’s World Cup revealed something else, something many of us knew, despite the persistent voices pushing narratives of decline. Seattle is a great city.

seattletimes.com

Former MT Governor & AG, Steve Bullock, led the efforts challenging the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision. ATP v Bullock is the only case to reach the S.C., directly challenging Citizens United, in this 250 minute from @hcrichardson.bsky.social& team. youtu.be/oZnbhWrMtkE?...

Citizens United, Narrated by Steve Bullock

YouTube video by Heather Cox Richardson

youtu.be

Every time the behavior of Pete Hegseth generates a headline, I'm reminded of these lines from Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto, which presaged Marinetti's Fascist Manifesto

Eric Columbus@ericcolumbus.bsky.social · 3w ago

Reader, I checked and checked again, and this is Secretary Hegseth’s actual account

RFK Jr. made Cyclospora tracking optional, gutting a CDC program used to detect outbreaks. Now cyclosporiasis has hit 31 states. That's what happens when you dismantle the systems designed to keep us safe. www.npr.org/2026/07/12/n...

What to know about cyclosporiasis, the intestinal illness hitting the U.S.

A surge of cases of the intestinal illness that causes diarrhea and fatigue has been detected in 34 states. Here's how what to do if you suspect you have it and how to avoid infection.

npr.org

A 28-year-old man was killed during an immigration enforcement operation today, marking the third such death in the past seven days. The death occurred on the same day ICE issued a nationwide pause to all agents on most traffic stops. 🎥: Izzy Ramirez

An incredible euphemism here for “the government is doing illegal discrimination”

Invoking the threat to "public safety" to justify state violence against politically disfavored populations is a well worn trope in the historical racially disparate policing of the mobility of people of color who are simply going about their lives. Two recent books on that topic are:

Radley Balko@radleybalko.bsky.social · 3w ago

They aren't claiming the officer feared for his life, but "feared for public safety" when Guerrero attempted to flee. But he was not the target of the warrant. Which means they had no reason to think he was dangerous. Fleeing an immigration stop does not make you a threat to public safety.

I don't use this word lightly, but this is evil.

Sara R. Fagerlie, PhD, CHCP@cancercommunicator.com · 3w ago

"the American Astronomical Society said the endeavor cannot be considered to serve the public interest and would waste taxpayer $ by wrecking the work of federally funded astronomical facilities even as it brought untold risks to people and wildlife" Gift article. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/10/c...

A report on the ground from the ICE shooting in Biddeford that should make every parent in this country lose their minds:

Excited to see this article by criminology scholars in the main newsletter of the American Society of Criminology on the value of teaching my book Copaganda. And a good reminder for teachers: we have free copies of the book for your students if you want to teach it! asc41.org/wp-content/u...

Michael Fanone's take on Lindsey Graham is one of the most powerful I've read:

Memphis is under siege from the federal government. This is hideous.

Second Person in a Week Killed by Federal Task Force in Memphis

Tennessee authorities are investigating both shootings involving agents working with the task force in Memphis.

nytimes.com

This regime cares only about profit, not about people or the environment or the future we leave to our kids.

Monterey Bay Aquarium@montereybayaquarium.org · 4w ago

Today, the federal government finalized a major change to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to remove vital habitat protections for endangered species.

1. RFK Jr. has engaged in an aggressive campaign to discourage the use of antidepressants. He also has an ongoing financial relationship with a Scientology-linked law firm that has spent decades suing antidepressant manufacturers.

RFK Jr., Scientology, and the war on antidepressants

Kennedy has an ongoing financial connection to a Scientology-linked law firm that spent decades suing antidepressant manufacturers.

popular.info

I wrote about the irony of Platner and his campaign trying to convince journalists, commentators and voters that they had outsmarted the trappings of traditional masculinity, only to come crashing down as a result of it:

We didn’t need a rape accusation to know Graham Platner was unfit

Despite months of red flags, his allies insisted he was the vision of positive masculinity the party needed.

thehandbasket.co

Finally, I say there's another response to Vance’s “social cohesion” arguments: Just about everything Trump/MAGA/Vance are doing *weakens* our social bonds. MAGA is a much bigger threat to those bonds than immigrants are. 7/7 newrepublic.com/article/2041...

@sesmith.lol on point as usual. A good time for people to read The Revolution Begins at Home, a book of essays on how IPV shows up in activist communities, & the challenges/possibilities of addressing it, esp when criminal responses are so inadequate or dangerous. www.akpress.org/revolutionst...

s. e. smith@sesmith.lol · 4w ago

Just thinking this morning about how many women are forced to serve up the most intimate and horrible moments of their pasts because people blast through a veritable thicket of red flags in support of a political candidate, and in retaliation, they are smeared and harassed.