Sign in

Ben Panko

@btpanko.bsky.social
1K followers 3.3K following 60 posts

Chicagoan. Writer. #RVA native, Pittsburgh expat. Politics and Star Wars nerd, leftist, crazy cat guy. Same username on 🧵 and the other site. He/him.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Ben Panko
rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
023932
Reposted by Ben Panko
jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 17/02/2026
i think jesse jackson was one of the most important american political figures of the post-war era and i think that his 1984 and 1988 campaigns for the democratic nomination still have a great deal to teach about forging a path to a more egalitarian world. RIP.
149122461620
Reposted by Ben Panko
Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
The maga divide summarized: does the gutter racism that is the mortar of our coalition apply to Jews or not? And if it doesn’t do we mean that or are we just pretending for the moment?
321851377
Reposted by Ben Panko
Alex Shephard @alexshephard.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
One explanation for Bari killing the story is that she did so as a public act of fealty to the administration. But another is that, as an inexperienced journalist, she doesn’t understand that a refusal to go on the record is a kind of comment in and of itself
1513112392
Reposted by Ben Panko
rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
it is just incredible how far bari weiss got without ever having an audience other than the rich men she flatters
659146
Reposted by Ben Panko
jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 20/12/2025
not that the present economic picture is rosy, but i do think that popular culture — and specifically nostalgia bait television — is a big part of the reason that our public memory of the 1970s, 1980s and even 1990s seems to miss the real economic pain that marked each of those decades.
33181961005
Reposted by Ben Panko
Hamilton Nolan @hamiltonnolan.bsky.social · 20/12/2025
Woman comes to US at age 6. Graduates nursing school. Work permit. No criminal record. Snatched and imprisoned by ICE for 6 months now. About to be forced back to Honduras. A life destroyed and one less nurse. Merry Christmas. www.nola.com/news/educati...
18676463318
Reposted by Ben Panko
Bill @bill-of-lefts.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
Think about how Marjorie Taylor Greene was actually dumb enough to believe that the Epstein files mattered to Trump, and her disillusionment. There were people dumb enough to believe that the right-wing “free speech movement” was actually about free speech.
438864
Reposted by Ben Panko
Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
I think it’s pretty likely Bari Weiss quits far sooner than anyone expects because if there’s anything we learned from her tenure at the New York Times it’s that this lady hates working, absolutely despises it, and she probably had to send like four emails today
966142624
Reposted by Ben Panko
Heather Cherone @heathercherone.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
There are five hundred and ten (510) days until the next mayoral election in Chicago, set for Feb. 23, 2027.
47115
Reposted by Ben Panko
Dave Weigel @daveweigel.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
My fav quote in here is from Sen. Gallego:
18615110
Reposted by Ben Panko
mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
Like gravity is a theory
301745242
Reposted by Ben Panko
Melissa Ryan @melissaryan.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
I always pay attention to what stories People Magazine and other consumer media outlets cover. That's how you can tell that something has broken through the usual political and news bubbles. This horrific Chicago story has broken through. people.com/ice-agents-o...
people.com
ICE Agents Rappel from Helicopter in Overnight Chicago Raid, Dragging Kids from Beds to U-Hauls
Overnight on Tuesday, Sept. 30, federal agents from different agencies raided an apartment building on the South Side of Chicago, pulling men, women and children — some of them allegedly naked — from ...
361133845693
Reposted by Ben Panko
Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
so the US government just forced a tech company to delete an app it doesn’t like, which is totally normal stuff www.404media.co/iceblock-own...
404media.co
ICEBlock Owner After Apple Removes App: ‘We Are Determined to Fight This’
Apple removed ICEBlock reportedly after direct pressure from Department of Justice officials. “I am incredibly disappointed by Apple's actions today. Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never t...
731163726930
Ben Panko @btpanko.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
Close enough, welcome back Spiro Agnew
020
Reposted by Ben Panko
Sharon 🪳🌹 @sharonk.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
i genuinely do think a big part of triangulation discourse is people avoiding that inflation was the biggest pain point for swing voters
1028329
Reposted by Ben Panko
Matt @tiredgenerally.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
i really have not seen yglesias et al reckon with the fact that kamala ran exactly the campaign they would have suggested and lost.
30978104
Reposted by Ben Panko
Reconstructionist @unavaleable.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
it is remarkable how they apparently have been scared off blue city/blue state approach
1148494
Reposted by Ben Panko
Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
Just you wait until Bari Weiss hears about this, she and the free speech absolutists at The Free Press are gonna be STEAMED
421552
Reposted by Ben Panko
Jonathan Healey @jonathanhealey.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
Amazing headline.
49805144
Reposted by Ben Panko
rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
right now, the Supreme Court's approvals are upside-down without anyone attacking them.
31199
Reposted by Ben Panko
Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
The root problem with this piece is that the people tweeting Luigi memes not only don't vote for democrats, they don't vote.
717013
Reposted by Ben Panko
jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 08/09/2025
it’s great too that when district courts follow the law as written, one of the chuds on the Supreme Court pops up to scold them for not treating trump like a very special boy
5657661177
Reposted by Ben Panko
Lawrence Hurley @lawrencehurley.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
Three SCOTUS stories before lunch on a Monday when the court isn't even in session perfectly encapsulates how the increasing importance of the shadow docket has completely reoriented how the court operates and what captures the public's attention.
372213632
Reposted by Ben Panko
Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
"Half the population” of greater Los Angeles "now meet the government’s criteria for reasonable suspicion," in the wake of today's 6-3 SCOTUS ruling. www.latimes.com/politics/sto...
latimes.com
Supreme Court upholds 'roving patrols' for immigration arrests in Los Angeles
The Supreme Court says immigration agents may stop and question people they suspect are here illegally based on little more than working at a car wash, speaking Spanish or having brown skin.
20731931518
Reposted by Ben Panko
the abbot of unreason (an archaeologist) @merovingians.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
very easy to overindex vibes here and elsewhere but it really feels like the bottom is going to fall out towards the end of the year
1628124
Reposted by Ben Panko
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
It's not the most important part of the issue but Kavanaugh saying "well they should just sue if they're the victims of excessive force from ICE" when he himself has previously voted to bar lawsuits against federal officers for violations of the 4th Amendment in immigration cases takes chutzpah.
The injunction is silent as to the use
of force. And it is not necessary for the injunction to address
that use-of-force question because the Fourth Amendment’s
reasonableness standard continues to govern the officers’
use of force and to prohibit excessive force.
To the extent that excessive force has been used, the
Fourth Amendment prohibits such action, and remedies
should be available in federal court. I agree with the
dissent on that point. But to reiterate, this injunction
against brief stops for questioning does not address the useof-force issue.
517129184391
Reposted by Ben Panko
Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
There's a increasingly wide gulf between what you might call "local abundance"—which largely consists of liberal and progressive activists and local electeds trying to do YIMBY-type things—and "DC abundance," which hosts conferences where Oren Cass is a speaker for some reason.
16971156
Reposted by Ben Panko
rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
looking good, king!
1742030
Reposted by Ben Panko
Mike Rothschild @rothschildmd.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
Do I think he's dead? No way. Do i think his health could have taken a sharp downward turn? It's possible. And if it did, the White House would furiously cover it up while decisions are made. Anyway, he'll probably be golfing in the morning. But we can have a little fun before that.
3347441
Reposted by Ben Panko
William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
I just saw what he’s posted on here for the first time in a while and while it started off deliberately meant to be offensive now it’s just normal twitter reposts. The Vice fucking president lead a forum raid that failed and is now just a regular poster here lmao.
935835
Reposted by Ben Panko
Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
A fun thing about Star Wars is that every background character not only has an expanded universe book written about them but since Disney declared stuff non-canon every background character now has two distinct histories (legends and new EU) and yes absolutely I need this for the werewolf in the bar
1132619
Reposted by Ben Panko
Firefox @firefox.com · 29/08/2025
if you don't have at least 3 random beverages on your desk and 36+ open tabs with no memory of having opened them, are you even browsing?
2136323
Reposted by Ben Panko
William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
a very bleak development in terms of my view of the world in the last few years has been both ‘the Israeli govt is much worse than I thought and deserves an enormous amount of criticism’ and ‘yeah a lot of people geniunely are just low-grade antisemitic’ both apparently being true.
552274403
Reposted by Ben Panko
Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
First they came for the immigrants, and I did not speak out (because the message test performed at a low percentile rank compared to other messages in our testing bank for non college men who opt into online surveys through various consumer reward programs)
111350276
Reposted by Ben Panko
Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 24/08/2025
Today, Philadelphia’s transit system SEPTA is cutting service by 20% & eliminating 32 bus routes, since GOP state legislators failed to agree to fund the agency www.washingtonpost.com/transportati... What’s going to happen? A death spiral: Worse service ➡️ fewer riders ➡️ less revenue ➡️ worse service
The vicious cycle for transit agencies. Source: https://www.urban.org/research/publication/surmounting-fiscal-cliff
8283108
Reposted by Ben Panko
jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 24/08/2025
we see very clearly in public polling that people in california and D.C. hate the deployments and that americans broadly disapprove of them, but here we have an assertion that the smart strategy is to avoid any discussion of the situation in favor of a pivot to, you guessed it, kitchen table issues.
31479401682
Reposted by Ben Panko
+972 Magazine @972mag.com · 21/08/2025
Israeli army database suggests at least 83% of Gaza dead were civilians Classified intelligence from May reveals Israel believed it had killed ~8,900 militants in Gaza, indicating a proportion of civilian slaughter with few parallels in modern warfare. www.972mag.com/israeli-inte...
972mag.com
IDF database suggests 83% of Gaza dead were civilians
Classified intelligence reveals Israel killed 8,900 militants by May, indicating an almost unparalleled proportion of civilian slaughter.
501042659
Reposted by Ben Panko
Mina Kimes @minakimes.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
They say phones only make us miserable but I just got this news alert and laughed for a solid minute so who is to say
Breaking News
1m ago
A close adviser to Mayor Eric Adams was suspended from his campaign after trying to give a journalist cash inside a potato chip bag.
423197352954
Reposted by Ben Panko
Bill McKay @mckay4senate.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
Just got handed a manilla envelope full of chips rather than my usual bribe money from Eric Adams, tf. I wonder where that went.
277086
Reposted by Ben Panko
Dave Weigel @daveweigel.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
One beat I wanted to hit in my DC pieces: Crime was already declining, and not as bad as it looked on Fox, so takeover was obviously going to "work." You already see RW influencers walking tourist streets that were clean last month and thanking Trump for cleaning up. www.semafor.com/article/08/1...
semafor.com
How Trump’s DC takeover divided the city’s Democrats
In Muriel Bowser, the president has found an unlikely partner for his crackdown on crime in the capital.
319036
Reposted by Ben Panko
Olivia Messer @oliviamesser.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
An obvious, natural consequence of outlawing abortions: Forcing women to endure excruciating stillbirths. interactives.dallasnews.com/2025/texas-a...
interactives.dallasnews.com
‘A walking coffin’: Under Texas abortion laws, some women are forced to endure stillbirth
A San Antonio woman had no choice but to continue a pregnancy after her baby stopped growing. He became her third stillbirth.
416663
Reposted by Ben Panko
the abbot of unreason (an archaeologist) @merovingians.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
so just like Joe Biden, Evo Morales doomed his country to fascism, squandering a near miraculous chance to avert it, because he was an old man who just refused to step down gracefully and preserve his legacy
719116
Reposted by Ben Panko
please be nice to patrick @nicetopatrick.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
this is so funny because it also means some rich dipshit didn't bother to buy a few pallets for kindling to make williams feel better
2122
Reposted by Ben Panko
Lostcatdog @lostcatdog.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
Washington Post: “Is fascism bad? The answer may surprise you” Teen Vogue: “Here are three fun tips you can use this summer to disable an armored personnel carrier”
169263606769
Reposted by Ben Panko
Matt @tiredgenerally.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
it’s cool that they did exactly what dems are doing now: strategized around a poll tested moderate who looked great on paper and a charismatic young guy stomped on him. perhaps there’s a lesson in all this, oh well
529319
Reposted by Ben Panko
Nathan Goldwag @goldwagnathan.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
Every time I see FdB these days it's a 50,000 word rant about how the woke goblins of chaos are being destroyed by the paladins of Western Civilization, written in response to an email from HR about respecting pronoun usage.
1345