The second Trump era has, if nothing else, been a good illustration of the idea that the people at the top echelons of society, in finance, law, higher education, politics, etc., are often the most credulous fools you can imagine.

Kevin Elliott@kjephd.bsky.social · yesterday

Look, they're not gonna stop doing it until it stops working

it's because american sports culture is completely colonized by money. parents spend insane amounts of it because the kid either goes pro and turns into a lottery ticket, or uses it to get into "a good college". why would you be nice about people "scamming" you out of your investment

Marisa Kabas@marisakabas.bsky.social · 2d ago

the obsession with trans women in sports is, apart from the abject bigotry, a symptom of how we take amateur sports participation way too seriously in this country.

Apparently DEI was the only thing standing between us and death lettuce

Reuters@reuters.com · 2d ago

Michigan reports two deaths in ongoing cyclosporiasis outbreak reut.rs/4w4bd4E

Funny, GOP is adamant that race not be a consideration in the college admissions process, but hiring based on political ideology over merit is totally fine.

Please stop saying “lockdowns.” There were never true lockdowns in the US, and it fuels far right narratives to repeat this inaccurate statement. You can say closures, you can say restrictions, or better, you can say public health measures which saved many lives.

Dr. Lucky Tran@luckytran.com · 6d ago

People still complain about “lockdowns” but we had none in the US. We had stay-at-home orders, where although businesses were closed, you could still go outside whenever you wanted. Other countries had far stricter rules, and yet have been much more accepting of them as they saved many more lives.

Appropriate air quotes because the most infuriating part about Americans debating "lockdown" is that it simply never happened. Having to pick up your Applebees and eat it on the sectional does not count. There wasn't even a brief moment where "everything" was closed. That's not real.

Melissa Gira Grant@melissagiragrant.com · 3d ago

if you hated covid "lockdowns" try long covid

The best thing that could happen out of this politically sitch is a movement towards public transport and walkable towns. I don’t know if we have leaders who can equate affordability to public services.

Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 3d ago

www.nytimes.com/2026/07/15/m...

#Trumpflation price rises since the start of the year. Rice: +45% Cotton: +27% Wheat: +25% Wool: +21% Rubber: +20% Cheese: +16% Tea: +15% Sunflower oil: +15% Palm oil: +15% Lumber: +14% Soybeans: +13% (The Spectator Index)

This feels like a great opportunity to talk about 'regurgitalites'. Coprolites are poop fossils, regurgitalites are vomit fossils. Both can contain useful details about digestion in dinosaurs. In the case of predators, sometimes we find new species (or at least pieces of them) IN the vomit.

Luke Knox@lukeknox.me · 5d ago

this is my new favorite diagram

I don’t think Trump would do anything about a 9/11

Lindsay Beyerstein@beyerstein.bsky.social · 5d ago

I can't stress enough what a crisis this is. Trump's own intelligence agencies concluded that Iran attacked Minnesota's critical infrastructure and Trump is saying that it's Minnesota's own fault and denying it was Iran. The federal government won't defend blue states in a literal war.

I feel seen

This is why they’re going after Dr Fauci: he impeded grifters

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last wk.

Peter Navarro: "I had a million doses of hydroxychloroquine in warehouses as the defense policy coordinator that I was trying to distribute to hospitals. And Fauci got the FDA stop me from doing that."

If you can bet on wildfires on Polymarket, you are now financially incentivised to start fires. This is the endgame. We are fucked.

Blue MAGA isn't just anonymous liberals online. Democrats in the bluest of states are putting surveillance and censorship systems in place which will do nothing to keep kids safe, but instead will keep them secluded, scared, ignorant and hopeless. gothamist.com/news/ny-soci...

NY social media users face age authentication requirement starting in January

Apps are barred from sending notifications to minors between midnight and 6 a.m.

gothamist.com

It’s completely nuts that Trump won by less than 2M votes with near universal media help and worldwide rage at incumbents and the media treated this like a permanent sea change towards MAGA and now less than 2 years later he’s the least popular President in history and there’s no media reckoning

I believe there is no greater generational constant in USA than the high profile snake oil salesman. I bet historians can document trajectory changes in USA purely based on phenomena & gold rushes engineered by snake oil salesmen. ‘I invented a genie’ guy may be their crowning achievement though.

Dare Obasanjo@carnage4life.bsky.social · last wk.

“What we need to explain to the world: Number one, we are close to creating a genie that can grant any wish. Number two, we are going to make sure that our first wishes broadly benefit humanity” - Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI — This is definitely the opposite of Anthropic’s AI kills all jobs pitch.

Burning books in order to better burn the environment, total civilizational death drive

Eli Valley@elivalley.bsky.social · last wk.

Dystopia www.news.com.au/technology/o...

Part of the dynamic here is a knee jerk reaction to poor people being able to browse and shop like everyone else in a way they’re familiar with imo

mtsw@mtsw.bsky.social · last wk.

Weird how much discourse around the Mamdani grocery stores ignores the existence of the Green Cart intiative (launched under Bloomberg) that provides subsidized fruit and vegetable stands across the city under the exact same logic as the grocery stores

Fixing what Republicans break is better than nothing. But making Republicans regret breaking things should be the lodestar of the entire Democratic Party at this point. This gluttony for punishment is demoralizing. www.offmessage.net/p/obamacare-...

ICE literally went into a national forest and arrested people who were swimming, etc. www.charlotteobserver.com/news/state/n...

ICE agents target NC’s Pisgah National Forest and make multiple arrests, feds say

Immigration and Customs Enforcement extends its reach to western North Carolina’s wilderness areas and makes 13 arrests in Pisgah National Forest, feds say.

charlotteobserver.com

The FBI has ADMITTED it has the Epstein Files redaction TRAINING VIDEOS that an anonymous FBI source told me about last year. TODD BLANCHE was required to release these under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. TODD BLANCHE is unfit to serve as Attorney General. VOTE NO. @judiciarydems.senate.gov

so I just want to emphasize something here that non-media people might not pick up on: Marisa is an independent journalist and is taking on the risk of being sued by Moraff here without any institutional backing. That's admirable bravery - and also means being very, very certain of the facts.

Marisa Kabas@marisakabas.bsky.social · last wk.

Exclusive from me — Daniel Moraff, one of the political operatives behind Graham Platner's rise and fall, has been accused of sexual assault. Full story here:

Buttigieg's consistently soft handling of Tesla and SpaceX -- and thus, of Elon Musk -- is a big old flashing vulnerability if any one of his political rivals want to land an nasty and entirely justified hit on him going forward

Rude Law Dog@esghound.com · last wk.

I cannot emphasize enough how fucked up SpaceX's Texas site is and the Biden administration (specifically the FAA under Pete Buttigieg) gaslit everyone who pointed out this was de facto eminent domain (w no compensation) of protected wildlife habitat

Your reminder that fairy tales are full of stepmothers because women once routinely died in childbirth, from postpartum sepsis, or from other infectious diseases and left behind housefuls of motherless children. Stable nuclear families are made possible by vaccines, antibiotics, and safe abortions.

Catherine Frieman@cjfrieman.bsky.social · 2mo ago

One reason i think everyone should take an archaeology class is to internalise with tangible examples that there is no pure, natural past utopia and that antibiotics and vaccines are what stand between us and a 50% child mortality rate and scores of women dying needlessly during pregn and birth

Yes, they focus on AI, but there is no respect for basic research, which has historically driven innovation in the US. Basic research is inefficient, creative, serendipitous. Industry won't fund it. Here, they are imagining innovation as purely market-oriented, not necessarily novel.

Turns out that food companies were only checking their food because the government told them to, which is exactly why we need government regulations.

While Mattel was celebrating their partnership with OpenAI, they donated ONLY 5000$ to Roger Sweet, the creator of He-Man’s gofundme when the goal was 50k. Roger Sweet would eventually pass away. Mind you, they’re promoting the He-Man movie while this is all happening. bsky.app/profile/dexe...

Dexerto@dexerto.bsky.social · 3mo ago

He-Man creator Roger Sweet has died at the age of 91 following a battle with dementia

Ohhh - this is so up my alley right now.

The Great Simplification@tgspodcast.bsky.social · last wk.

A growing chorus of psychologists, contemplatives, and systems thinkers argue that most of us, and most of our institutions, are running an outdated psychological and spiritual “operating system,” one never built for the converging ecological, economic, and cultural crises we face.

When your commitment to eugenics is such you literally start using the racing horse medicine

Kathleen Bachynski@bachynski.bsky.social · 2w ago

“The committee ended the day by voting in favor of injectable TB-500, a peptide that, according to the F.D.A., was initially developed as a veterinary drug to boost performance in horse or greyhound racing.” IT HAS NOT PREVIOUSLY BEEN STUDIED IN HUMANS. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.