iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Me chatting up strangers at an event: Look at me being so social and friendly and warm, what a joy I must seem! My face talking to strangers at an event:

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Anat Shenker-Osorio @anatosaurus.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

What would be worse: Dems losing the midterms or winning them and concluding their current approach is sufficient? My latest with @derekjesq.bsky.social anatosaurus.substack.com/p/turn-out-f...

anatosaurus.substack.com

Turn Out for What?

The Midterm Question We Need to Be Asking

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

The ballot box still matters. But the ballot box alone won’t save us. Happening now at #NN26: @anatosaurus.bsky.social, @tarabuss.bsky.social, Fenika Miller and Scot Nakagawa on elections under authoritarianism and what it takes to defend our freedoms as MAGA rewrites the rules to hold onto power.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Happening now in a packed room at @netrootsnation.bsky.social: “Wins Are Replicable: From Mamdani to Minnesota to Middle America” with @anatosaurus.bsky.social, @jlemonsk.bsky.social, @heyansa.bsky.social and Gabriella Zutrau

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Black voter participation soared right after the VRA passed in 1965. But not until 1992, after Congress strengthened the VRA to require majority-minority districts, did we start getting closer to proportional Black representation in Congress. Because Black votes finally counted more in the South.

Black representation in the US House, Confederacy vs. rest of the US: chart showing a brief surge during Reconstruction, then almost none during Jim Crow, then a big surge after the VRA (mostly in the rest of the US, not the Confederacy), then a big surge all over the US, especially the Confederacy. Only in the last 10 years has Black representation in the House grown to about the same proportion as the US black population.

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Get Free @getfree-mvmt.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

BREAKING: The Supreme Court’s MAGA Justices just green-lit discrimination against Black voters. By taking away key protections from the Voting Rights Act, the white supremacist faction is imposing Jim Crow 2.0 so they can control our elections and seize more power. apnews.com/live/voting-...

apnews.com

Live updates: Supreme Court weakens key tool of voting rights law in Louisiana case

The Supreme Court has weakened a key tool of the Voting Rights Act that has helped root out racial discrimination in voting since 1965. The case concerns a district in Louisiana.

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Ida Bae Wells @nhannahjones.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

We must understand that the Voting Rights Act was not merely about ensuring Black Americans rights, it was about democratizing America. This ruling is not just a decimation of Black rights and Black Americans’ ability to have representation, it is a fatal blow to multiracial democracy.

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Tara Buss @tarabuss.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

MAGA justices on the Supreme Court are doing everything in their power to help bring back Jim Crow. And many, many Americans understand that's exactly what the Callais does. www.filesforprogress.org/datasets/202...

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Anat Shenker-Osorio @anatosaurus.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

The Roberts Court majority may be pretending they don't know the Voting Rights Act is what ended Jim Crow and their decision to gut it is license to take us back ("again") to stealing power from Black voters, but Americans do:

60% of voters believe that it's likely that if Supreme Court strikes down the Voting Rights Act, (Callais decision), "politicians redraw districts strictly to protect their own political party, at the direct expense of minority voters."

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

This conversation is worth a re-watch in light of the Callais decision.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

A vitally important discussion with @andreapitzer.bsky.social and @anatosaurus.bsky.social. There are many ways concentration camp systems can end — but they never end on their own. We have to ask ourselves what we will tell our grandchildren we did to stop this.

weekendreading.net

Call Trump's Concentration Camps What They Are

Andrea Pitzer on the history we cannot allow to repeat itself.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Now seems like a good time to remind everyone that the only way to destroy an entire civilization overnight is with nuclear weapons, and Donald Trump has the absolute power as President to follow through on that threat. It could take as little as 5 minutes. Here's how it would go down:

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

If the President opens the briefcase and gives the order, no one can stop him. At this point, impeaching and removing Trump from office is the ONLY way to prevent this nightmare scenario from happening.

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Scott Cory @jscottcory.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Accurate, and terrifying. The system presumes that an incompetent or incapacitated President would be removed from power through either impeachment or the 25th amendment, neither of which is fit for purpose in the current circumstance. Thanks for compiling and clarifying, @derekjesq.bsky.social

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

This is the vast, terrible power we bestowed on Donald Trump. At the heart of our democracy is an undemocratic nuclear monarchy that holds the whole world hostage to one man's decision-making. Everything rests on the President's sound mind, good judgment, and emotional stability.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

I don’t blame you for refusing to believe. I probably wouldn't believe it myself had I not learned this directly from nuclear command-and-control experts, veteran launch officers, and the 4-star general who commanded all US nuclear forces. This is real. This is how it works.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Bear in mind these weapons are 10-20x more destructive than the bombs America dropped on Japan, and travel at 22x the speed of sound. They'll obliterate target cities in 30 minutes or less. Millions of innocent people will be dead faster than the President can order a pizza.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

When the switches are flipped, the nuclear weapons will launch instantly. The whole process, from the President opening the briefcase to civilization-destroying missiles climbing into the sky, can take as little as 5 minutes. There are no take-backs. No way to stop or cancel a launched missile.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

To block the launch, 4 of 5 crews would need refuse to obey what seems like a legitimate order from their Commander-in-Chief, without the benefit of any outside contact or additional information. If that mutiny is where you pin your hopes for all of human civilization, good fucking luck with that.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

A launch key is inserted and then 3 cooperative launch switches are flipped by 2 officers. (The “2-man rule” you may have heard of is at the bottom of the chain, not the top.) Each crew flipping their switches generates a “vote” to launch. 5 crews = 5 votes. It takes 2 votes to launch the missiles.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Five launch crews with 2 officers each, spread miles apart underground and overseeing 50-missile squadrons, receive these orders. The 20-something-year-old officers open their safes and make sure the War Room's codes match. If they do, they unlock the missiles and target them.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

The order then speeds through the system, encrypted in a message half the length of a tweet. This happens FAST. By the time it reaches its destination — launch officers in underground silos — only a few minutes will have passed since the President first opened the briefcase.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

A verified order has the presumption of legality; the pressure to obey is extraordinary. Executing officers in the chain of command have no legal/procedural grounds to defy it, no matter how inappropriate it seems. If the President's identity is confirmed, the order is considered legit. Full stop.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Once given, the order must be verified. This is the only “check” in the process. The War Room officer reads a challenge code, and the President reads the matching response on a little card he carries with him. Then, like magic, the order is imbued with the full power of the presidency.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

This is where folks assume top brass has to agree. Nope, sorry! This is a "consultation" only to the extent that the President wants advice. He can end all discussion immediately. Of course, folks can refuse and resign. But a disobedient officer in the War Room will be instantly replaced.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

The officer in charge of the National Military Commander Center (they sometimes call it the “War Room”), who may not be any more senior than a colonel, will be on the other end of the line. A small group of senior advisors or commanders may or may not be patched in, depending on their availability.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Everywhere Trump goes, a locked briefcase follows. Inside it is everything he needs to launch weapons that can destroy entire nations. At any moment he can open it up, flip through a black book of targets, pick up the phone, and tell the Pentagon which genocidal war crime on the menu he likes best.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Folks always insist this can't be how it works. They need to believe that someone — the Defense Secretary, the Joint Chiefs, or a general, somewhere, surely — has to sign off on it. Because the facts sound simply too unbelievable to be real. Allow me to burst that precious bubble.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

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David Rothkopf @djrothkopf.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

In other words: We're totally down with the war criminal but condemn those who get hung up by things like the law, ethics and morality.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

The writing this season is getting a little too heavy-handed.

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lowtax speedrun enjoyer @rickywlmsbong.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

bibi is just descriptively correct and the next dem needs to just sever all ties with israel. defense, trade, all of it. even thinking on utterly cynical grounds: israeli political leadership and overall politics is overtly opposed to the american left-of-center project

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

It is simultaneously true that Trump had (in the two elections he won) positioned himself as opposed to the wars of his predecessors while advocating for warcrimes, and we're again seeing that play out: violence without aims or rules in service of generating spectacle that plays well on TV & posts.

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Josh Gondelman @joshgondelman.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

"American innovation" now refers to making a kind of atrocity cronut by combining insider trading with war crimes.

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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Kenneth Roth: It is a perilous world when the fate of entire countries rests on the whims of the likes of Trump and Netanyahu. I would love to see the Islamic Republic end, but not at the expense of a world where our destiny is dictated by the men with the biggest guns.

theguardian.com

Trump and Netanyahu’s attack on Iran is an illegal act of aggression | Kenneth Roth

Their actions are no different from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine or Rwandan president Paul Kagame’s invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo

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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

The facts suggest two interpretive frameworks for Iran: a foreign war as a mechanism to destroy democracy at home; and a foreign war as an element of personal corruption by the president of the U.S. Join my live conversation with @phillipspobrien.bsky.social, 12:00pm ET, snyder.substack.com

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

If only someone could have predicted this.

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 11/02/2026

Likely-historic photo by NBC News of all the Epstein victims asked to raise their hands if they've not yet been asked to meet with the DOJ as Bondi testifies in foreground

photo of Pam Bondi testifying in the foreground as a group of 7 women and 1 men raise their hands

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Patrick De Klotz @patdeklotz.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

We are murdering people and it is basically just background noise at this point. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/u...

nytimes.com

U.S. Boat Strike Kills 2 in Pacific, With One Survivor

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Elliott Payne @elliottpayne.org · 09/02/2026

Another classic post-Homan day where around school dismissal time we get a flurry of ICE vehicles all across our neighborhoods. Today one vehicle led an observer to their own home and pointed at it. This is a sick game to them, but we won’t be intimidated and we won’t stop until DHS is abolished.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

“God bless America” 🇵🇷🇲🇽🇧🇿🇬🇹🇭🇳🇸🇻🇳🇮🇨🇷🇵🇦🇦🇬🇧🇸🇧🇧🇨🇺🇩🇲🇩🇴🇬🇩🇭🇹🇯🇲🇰🇳🇱🇨🇻🇨🇹🇹🇦🇷🇧🇴🇧🇷🇨🇱🇨🇴🇪🇨🇬🇾🇵🇾🇵🇪🇸🇷🇺🇾🇻🇪🇺🇸🇨🇦

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

The Venn diagram of people who want their own halftime show and people who want their own water fountain is a circle.

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Derek Johnson @derekjesq.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

The Venn diagram of people who want their own halftime show and people who want their own water fountain is a circle.

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