Rob MacDonald
@rhmacdonald.bsky.social
Editor of Sixth Finch / poet / educator / consultant at Trey Education (he/him) sixthfinch.com treyeducation.com
We're now accepting submissions for this year's chapbook contest. Hope you'll consider sending us your manuscript. More details at sixthfinch.com/submit Big thanks in advance to all of you who use this opportunity to support some worthy nonprofit organizations!
Bust up big corporations and tackle Wall Street’s greed. Get big money out of politics. Strengthen unions and boost wages. Pass Medicare for all, paid leave, universal childcare, and so much more... This is the agenda Democrats need to fight for. It's not enough to simply be anti-Trump.
Ken Klippenstein@kenklippenstein.bsky.social · 4mo agoZOHRAN MAMDANI: "It is sad that for too many Americans when they want to look for ambition in the Democratic Party, they have to turn to a history book."
Effective 2025 federal tax rates paid by these corporations: Alphabet: 8.01% AT&T: 4.6% Meta: 3.57% General Motors: 3.09% Amazon: 1.37% Exxon Mobil: 1.31% Disney: -1.57% CVS Health: -3.88% Income tax rate paid by the typical American: 14.5% This is what a rigged system looks like.
For every $1 the IRS spends auditing the top 1%, it could collect roughly $13. For every $1 the IRS spends auditing the top 0.1%, it could collect $26. Wondering why the Trump regime has cut 25,000 IRS employees in the last year? It's about making it easier for the rich to evade taxes.
After shedding 25,000 employees, IRS chief says his agency now has perfect staffing level
The tax agency’s CEO criticized his predecessors for staffing up without justification, though he noted he has not condu
govexec.com
If you'd like to have me read you a poem from my new book CLOUDWATCHER, in front of a portrait of my dog in full dress regalia, and an utterly inappropriate whisky decanter hidden among the children's books, click away... ("The Revisionist," originally published in Strange Horizons)
Michael Bazzett Reads From Cloudwatcher
YouTube video by Copper Canyon Press
youtube.com
it's incredible that as long as you do the right amount of bigotry you can just rob the country blind and enough people will not care, even though those same people will be filled with incandescent rage if someone uses food stamps to buy a 12 pack of diet coke
STOP. LISTEN. Seriously. Maybe we’ve been going about this all wrong. Maybe this has to be dismantled from the bottom up. This rank corruption. There needs to be a serious IMPEACH NOEM demand. These hearings have made any other choice complicity.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 5mo agoNeguse demolishes Noem (2/2)
A big part of the authoritarian playbook is war. War takes over the news. War blots out criticism. War divides a nation’s people, subjecting those against it to being called unpatriotic. War grants leaders all sorts of emergency powers. War consumes everything else. We mustn’t let this war do so.
After the arrests of powerful men across the world, you might be asking why the US has so much trouble holding its leaders accountable for lawbreaking. Since Nixon, all three branches of government have worked hard to ensure they can break the law with impunity www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
How America Chose Not to Hold the Powerful to Account
Our national project of elite impunity
theatlantic.com
The media should cover this as murder because it is.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 5mo agoJD Vance: "We're announcing today that we have decided to temporarily halt certain amounts of Medicaid funding that is going to the state of Minnesota in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota takes its obligations seriously to be good stewards of the American people's tax money."
Excited to announce that pre-orders are now open for our two newest chapbooks, "line weights" by Shou Jie Eng and "Hinge" by @jgallaher.bsky.social. More details at sixthfinch.com/store
BREAKING: The Department of Education has ended its directive that attempted to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in schools nationwide. This is a victory for academic freedom and education equity.
“Our existing economic system, capitalism, is incapable of addressing the social and ecological crises we face in the 21st century.” www.theguardian.com/environment/...
We can move beyond the capitalist model and save the climate – here are the first three steps | Jason Hickel and Yanis Varoufakis
Capitalism cares about our species’ prospects as much as a wolf cares about a lamb’s. But democratise our economy and a better world is within our grasp, say Jason Hickel and Yanis Varoufakis
theguardian.com
easy slogan for the next democratic presidential candidate is “i will reform the corrupt supreme court and repeal citizens united”
Omar Wasow@owasow.bsky.social · 6mo ago“When Citizens United was decided in 2010, billionaires had spent $18 million on the 2000 election, $13M 2004 and $16M in 2008. Then came the deluge. In 2012 it was $231M, and nearly doubled again in next three election cycles —to $682M in 2016, $1.2 billion in 2020 and $2.6 billion in 2024.” Gift:
If you want to FINALLY watch Scott Bessent get pinned down on specifics about the illegal money laundering operation being conducted by the Trump admin from someone who knows WTF he’s talking about, this clip is your chance. Bessent gets destroyed.
Our founders, though deeply flawed, understood that democracy requires an informed citizenry and a government accountable to it people. That’s why the press is the only profession protected by the Constitution. It’s also why autocrats and oligarchs seek to control and destroy it.
The people closest to the pain should be closest to the power, driving & informing our policymaking. But for too long, big money has polluted our politics. Proud to receive an A+ on Stop Big Money’s Anti-Corruption scorecard because I haven’t lost the plot—& the plot is the people.
“ICE Out”: Tens of Thousands March in Minnesota in General Strike Against Immigration Raids
“ICE Out”: Tens of Thousands March in Minnesota in General Strike Against Immigration Raids
Tens of thousands of Minnesotans braved the bitter cold in Minneapolis on Friday to demand ”ICE out.” The march was organized by faith and labor leaders and was accompanied by calls for an economic bl...
democracynow.org
Across America and the world, people are realizing it’s not possible to appease America’s dictator. The only way to deal with him is to stand up to him — and the only way to stand up to him is by joining together against him. It's time for a massive general strike across the country.
Raskin: "I think the people have Minnesota have shown us with their mass demonstration and general strike the direction that we may need to go in nationally in order to send the message that American society does not accept this authoritarian derailment of the US Constitution."
It's time for a truly massive general strike. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/sunday-thought-enough
Today, Minnesota is shutting down in solidarity. It could be a model for what the nation as a whole does in coming months, to repudiate the Trump dictatorship. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/minnesotas-general-strike-and-americas
Excellent model. Take note, all! We should roll these around the country. Or roll by trade.
Minnesota Labor Leaders Talk Organizing Lessons as Strike Movement Goes National
“Flexibility is important. I also think having initiative and decentralizing the campaign, letting different people put their own sort of stamp on it, is just a normal way movements exist,” says Knuts...
paydayreport.com
Today, working class people across the Minneapolis area are participating in a general strike in response to ICE terrorizing their communities. This is a monumental moment in our history, it’s the first step to change.
A major coalition is launching a general strike in Minnesota tomorrow, aimed at pushing out ICE. It includes: -Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005 -The MN AFL-CIO -SEIU Local 26 -UNITE HERE Local 17 -CWA Local 7250 -Saint Paul and Minneapolis Federations of Educators -Faith leaders And more. 🧵
The choice is impeachment and removal or calamity for the United States. I don't see how anybody watching Trump's speech in Davos can draw any other conclusion. He's a senile madman.