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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸

@adam-ross.bsky.social
1.8K followers 581 following 2K posts

Reformed attorney + storyteller featured on The Moth podcast. Exploring politics, culture, and our very strange times as a beleaguered Fair Witness. —Adam Ross Stories at youtube.adamross.me

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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
How convenient that an American president who has long expressed interest in withdrawing U.S. forces from Europe now has an excuse to do exactly that.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
“Execution survivor.” Words you never want to see together in a headline.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
There’s a lot going on in the world, but right now it’s a perfect fall evening in the PNW—courtesy of “Eternité” by Croquet Club and Mother Nature.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Yes, we have no cookies.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Mountain’s out, as we’re required to say in the PNW. (But really, why wouldn’t you?)
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Not to brag—but I knew there was some fascist shit coming when Ronald Reagan started testing our physical fitness in elementary school.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Aaaand scene. 🎭 apnews.com/article/trum...
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Happy Pride, Portland! 🌈
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
In 1996, I ran for office as a gay Republican. It did not go as expected. I just posted a story that I told at The Moth about what I discovered in that race here: youtu.be/NXpO0Pfh3to
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
My husband knows I’ve been feeling a little down thanks to our Pacific Northwest winter—not to mention the steady rise of fascism in America. So he made this chicken pot pie and it’s just what the seasonal-affective-disorder doctor ordered. That said, I remain very concerned about the fascism. 🥺
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
Since the average American won’t live 50 more years after 25, who exactly are these mortgages for? P.S. Even if 50-year mortgages become “conforming,” the monthly payment on a $500k loan at 6.75% is only about $200 lower than a 30-year at 6.5%—but you’d pay roughly double the interest over time.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
And Johnson didn’t even need a Reichstag fire to clear the building.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
Undeclared martial law in three screenshots. P.S. We’ve already gotten used to it. 🥺
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 11/10/2025
What the f’ is seeing a movie in 4D? You mean they aren’t going to play every frame simultaneously?!
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 11/10/2025
As I’d worried, Republicans let Democrats filibuster their own budget bill on purpose… setting them up to take the blame for everything that followed, including the layoffs Republicans already had planned. Not everyone will believe the GOP’s narrative here. But the optics are clear.
Screenshot of a HuffPost article titled, “Republicans Allow Democrats To Filibuster GOP’s Own Funding Bill As Shutdown Nears.” The subheadline reads, “Senate Republicans made the move to shift blame to Democrats if the government shuts down.” Below the headline is a photo of the U.S. Capitol dome. The first paragraph begins, “In a highly unusual move, Senate Republicans voted Thursday to let Democrats block their own short-term government funding bill — a maneuver widely seen as an effort to blame Democrats for an impending shutdown.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/shutdown-filibuster-republicans_n_68e9013be4b0972b775995fa
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
Hey, if it feels good… right?
A meme with white text over a plain black background that reads: “Rescue Porn:
Memes, posts, or essays that suggest Trump or his authoritarian takeover will be stopped by the latest gaffe, whistleblower, or smoking gun.”
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
MAGA Brownshirts showing up at Portland’s ICE protest last night chanting about Kirk’s death marks a significant but predictable turn in the scripted Project 2025 meta-narrative—one that I’m afraid will play out in Blue cities across America in the weeks and months ahead.
Screenshot of live updates from the Citizen app taken at 10:21 pm PT on 2025/10/5 showing escalating protests in Portland outside the Department of Homeland Security and ICE offices. The top update reports ICE agents on a roof firing six pepper rounds toward protesters after some crossed the property line. Another update describes multiple protest groups clashing—one shouting anti-Antifa slogans, another chanting “I am Charlie” and “Whose streets? Our streets!” The image footer reads “via Citizen app.”
https://go.citizen.com/ZnOYTD6KeXb
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
Trump didn’t even need to appeal yesterday’s order blocking his federalization of the Oregon National Guard. He just grabbed them from California. He’s got 50 states to freely choose from, but he picked California to rub it in.
apnews.com
California governor says Trump is sending 300 California National Guard members to Oregon
California Gov. Gavin Newsom says the Trump administration is sending 300 California National Guard members to Oregon.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
As NPR found in Memphis, many well-meaning Americans wouldn’t mind “a touch” of fascism to clean up their streets. An NPR/PBS News/Marist poll earlier this week found 52% support Trump deploying the National Guard in cities to fight crime. But fascism never stops at just “a touch.”
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
Portland’s naked bike ride protest could spotlight the deployment of National Guard troops into Blue cities. But it could also create viral videos of federal agents dragging naked “Antifa” protesters off their bikes for the administration to blast on Fox News and Truth Social. Stay tuned!
koin.com
Emergency naked bike ride planned amid Portland troop deployment
After President Donald Trump announced plans to deploy the Oregon National Guard to Portland, the Portland World Naked Bike Ride said Wednesday the group is planning an emergency ride in protest.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
Could there be a more fitting image of religion in America today than a man carry the burden of the cross on wheels? At least I now understand why they’re called “holy rollers”.
A man in a navy suit walks across a stadium floor while carrying a large wooden cross on wheels. The stadium is packed with people and banners for the Arizona Cardinals football team and an American flag hang overhead. A large screen shows a singer performing, and a giant poster of Charlie Kirk is displayed in the background.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
The moment in the group message thread when you forgot “The Rapture” is playing at the music festival. Anyways, everyone meet up at the chicken tomorrow! 🐓
A text message exchange. First message (gray bubble with the sender’s name redacted): “Headed to the chicken to collect people for the rapture.” Second message (green bubble): “The rapture is not until Tuesday!” A blue “HA HA” reaction appears above the green message.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
Me: “How’s the battery life?” Apple: “Oh, it’s the same.”
Meme with caption “Meet our thinnest phone ever!!” followed by “The phone:”. The image shows a bright orange iPhone with an exaggeratedly bulky rectangular camera block sticking out from the top, making the phone look thin but absurdly awkward.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
Of all people, you’d think farmers would understand that we reap what we sow. 🤷🏼‍♀️
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
I have a feeling Vance won’t be telling Kirk’s viewers to “stand back and stand by.”
Screenshot of a post on X by JD Vance (@JDVance). The post reads: “Tomorrow, I will have the honor of hosting the Charlie Kirk Show. Please join me as I pay tribute to my friend. 12:00PM ET.” The URL for Kirk’s show has been redacted.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
I have a feeling Vance won’t be telling Kirk’s viewers to “stand back and stand by.”
Screenshot of a post on X by JD Vance (@JDVance). The post reads: “Tomorrow, I will have the honor of hosting the Charlie Kirk Show. Please join me as I pay tribute to my friend. 12:00PM ET.” The URL for Kirk’s show has been redacted.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
Here it comes for the Blue cities in Red states.
abcnews.go.com
Trump says he'll send National Guard to 'deeply troubled' Memphis
President Trump announced in that the federal government is planning to surge federal forces, National Guard and even "the military, too," if needed into Memphis.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
The tragic irony of Kent State in 1970 is that the Vietnam War might’ve ended years earlier if Nixon had not been reelected in 1968. But he won after the far Left sat out the election or voted third-party in protest, insisting the Democrat wasn’t anti-war enough. Sound familiar?
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
The fishermen’s families are probably still unaware of their fates. Meanwhile, the soldiers who did this have been back home, sitting at IHOPs and at Chili’s beside diners unaware of their crimes. www.facebook.com/share/p/1Ewi...
Screenshot of a Facebook post by historian Heather Cox Richardson. The excerpted essay text reads: “In the New York Times, they reported that in early 2019, Trump okayed a Navy SEAL mission to plant an electronic device in North Korea. The plan went awry when their activity near the shore attracted a civilian fishing boat with two or three men diving for shellfish. The SEALs killed the men on the boat, punctured their lungs with knives so the bodies would sink, abandoned the mission, and returned to base.”

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CNpgYThce/
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
Toy soldiers, in more ways than one.
A meme showing four classic green plastic army men toys, but instead of holding guns, they are holding lawn tools: a lawnmower, a rake, a broom, and a push sweeper. They stand on a green base in front of a fence and bushes. The caption above reads: “With Christmas only a short time away, toymakers are working hard to commemorate the Battle of DC.”
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
A literal cracker barrel.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
With Trump deploying Project 2025 troops to Blue cities across America, today’s a good day to remember Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Overnight, a modern middle-class society fell under the thumb (and gun) of a militant theocracy. Almost fifty years later, they’re still under it.
Collage of photos from 1970s Iran showing young women and men in modern, Western-style clothing—miniskirts, flared pants, blouses, and jackets—socializing in public spaces. They sit on benches, picnic near cars, walk city streets, and gather outside university buildings. The images reflect an urban, middle-class culture of fashion, freedom, and optimism just before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
The thing about the bully pulpit is you should never elect a bully to the pulpit.
pbs.org
Trump warns of ‘harsh measures’ if Colorado clerk convicted of election data-breach scheme isn't freed
Tina Peters was sentenced to nine years behind bars for a data-breach scheme spawned from the rampant false claims about voting machine fraud in the 2020 presidential race.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
It’s sad to think America’s final contribution to world history might be our Confederate Nazis.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
You can see how executive power becomes limitless when discretion is vested by voters in authoritarian hands. With courts most often deferring under “rational basis,” nearly any pretext will do. Nothing is more dangerous to a democracy than a bully at the bully pulpit.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
Are people starting to get how this is going to work yet? It will be the National Guard from the Red states in the Blue states and Blue cites.
reuters.com
Three Republican-led states to deploy National Guard troops to US capital
The state's National Guard received an order to send equipment and personnel to D.C. late on Friday.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
On the heels of whatever was said in private between Trump and Putin about the future of the free world, I hope everybody’s ready for how weird this timeline is about to get. And I mean even weirder than it’s already gotten since Bush was inaugurated in 2001.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
We have many Ukrainian refugees here in Vancouver, WA. I often see their big families on evening walks by the river. I can’t imagine how crushing this must be—knowing they’ll be ICE targets the moment their legal status expires. Where can they even go? 🇺🇦
wsj.com
Ukrainians Who Fled War Are Losing Their Legal Status to Stay in the U.S.
The Trump administration is letting a makeshift Biden-era program lapse.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
Bought a set of great microfiber towels off Amazon in 2022 to wipe my dog’s paws, so I bought the exact same ones as a replacement. An old towel (left) is 30g. A new one (right) is 23g. The worst part is 20k 4-star reviews hide tons of 1-star reviews about how thin they’ve become. #Enshittification
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
“The Supreme Court… affirmed a Mississippi law requiring users to verify their ages before using social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.”
npr.org
Supreme Court allows Mississippi social media law to go into effect
The law requires all users to verify their ages before using common social media sites ranging from Facebook to Nextdoor.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Fun fact: The grandfather of Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, the 19-year-old DOGE computer wiz kid who sells AI Discord bots to Russia on the side, was a KGB spy stationed in DC who defected to the U.S. but then went back to Russia (and was later executed). DOGE is up to way more than saving money. 🇷🇺
independent.co.uk
Elon Musk’s protege ‘Big Balls’ is grandson of executed KGB agent, report says
DOGE staffer Edward Coristine, best known by vulgar nickname, related to late Soviet spy Valery Martynov
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
I’ve warned folks since the day Trump was elected: Only Congress has “standing” to challenge executive overreach in court—like firing federal workers or blocking budgetary spending. With Republicans running Congress, does anyone believe they’ll sue Trump to stop him from doing their dirty work?
cnn.com
Appeals court allows Trump to continue ending foreign aid grants | CNN Politics
Only the legislative branch can sue a presidential administration for making changes to congressionally approved budgets, the federal appeals court in DC ruled after looking at President Donald Trump’...
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
Trump nominating E.J. Antoni as Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner is very Orwell meets The X-Files. God help us. “Antoni is the chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, and his candidacy for the BLS spot had been promoted by former Trump White House advisor Steve Bannon.”
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
What sets American capitalism apart from its Western peers? The wanton avarice.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
Trump nominating E.J. Antoni as Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner is very Orwell meets The X-Files. God help us. “Antoni is the chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, and his candidacy for the BLS spot had been promoted by former Trump White House advisor Steve Bannon.”
cnbc.com
Trump says he's nominating E.J. Antoni as Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner
President Trump, who claimed former BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer manipulated jobs data, said Antoni would release "honest and accurate" numbers.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
The Dark Ages weren't called "dark" because the sun was less bright. It was because the people were.
washingtonpost.com
The anti-sunscreen movement and what to know about its claims
A growing anti-sunscreen movement on social media is causing concern among dermatologists, who warn that avoiding sunscreen increases long-term health risks.
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The Fair Witness 🌈⚖️🇺🇸 @adam-ross.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
In a world of Dean Cain’s, be a George Takei.
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