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Every Effing Day

@everyeffingday.bsky.social
432 followers 447 following 1.2K posts

I write about the things the Trump Administration does to undermine democracy and human rights every effing day. everyfingday.substack.com

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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 12h
Four stories on immigration crossed my screen yesterday, none related to the others, exactly, but together giving a picture of a system that is trying to optimize for efficiency over decency. It is mass deportation in the process of being industrialized. everyfingday.substack.com/p/four-stran...
everyfingday.substack.com
Four strands of a rope
A few things that caught my eye in the waiting room yesterday, and what they collectively mean.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 14h
Mass deportations have been on my mind of late. Four stories came together for me yesterday, not because I have anything profound to say, but because collectively, they show how the system really works.
everyfingday.substack.com
Four strands of a rope
A few things that caught my eye in the waiting room yesterday, and what they collectively mean.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Two weeks ago, up to a third of the people in ICE detention were quietly erased from its public database. Why? everyfingday.substack.com/p/disappeare...
everyfingday.substack.com
Disappeared
ICE is outraged to be accused of disappearing detainees. But what else to call a system that erases records and sends people to prisons oceans away from home?
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Mass deportations reflect not so much anti-immigrant anger, as much as one facet of a deeper anxiety among some white Americans about their decline as a percentage of the population. If that’s right, the attack is best seen as part of a larger strategy to maintain a kind of racial oligarchy.
everyfingday.substack.com
“You Will Not Replace Us”
How mass deportations are about much more than immigrants.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
When the state does something evil and there are no consequences, that action is sanctioned and becomes policy. 22 years ago, we sent an innocent man to be tortured in a country that was not his own. This year, we have done similar things 25,000 times. everyfingday.substack.com/p/remigratio...
everyfingday.substack.com
Remigration and Rendition
One of the worst elements of the mass deportations has roots in the War on Terror – and the Clinton Administration before it
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The election is in six weeks. I never would have thought a court would do something this irresponsible. Impeach Roberts. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/u...
nytimes.com
Supreme Court Allows Federal Voter Identification Tool Ahead of Midterms
Critics of the Trump administration system to monitor the citizenship status of voters had raised alarms about privacy and improper voter purges.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The idea of the Thucyidides Trap of Graham Allison has always kind of irritated me. The lesson from the Athenian historian really shouldn’t be that, when you have a rising power and a declining one, war is inevitable. It should be that power brings hubris, and hubris makes even smart people stupid.
everyfingday.substack.com
Thucydides Traps
Xi’s reference to the Peloponnesian War was cheeky, but also a bit creepy. Are we missing the Athenian’s point?
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Even the lowest low budget horror flick can have a genuine fright or two. Donald Trump is no exception. everyfingday.substack.com/p/dr-trumps-...
everyfingday.substack.com
Dr. Trump’s House of Threats
Full of startling ignorance and absurd bluster, Trump’s speech was a low-budget thriller with a hint of real horror.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The image of Trump speaking inaudibly to Newsmax and the few other journalists not boycotting the White House is yet another example of how Trump and those in his orbit fail to understand that the vast power the presidency holds does not mean that the rest of us have none at all.
everyfingday.substack.com
Radio Silence
As Trump speaks inaudibly into the wind, the absurdity and hubris is almost too much.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
There has been a growing sense of alarm about Russian incursions into NATO airspace. It might be to destroy supply lines to Ukraine, or to test NATO defenses and resolve. My guess is that it is some of all of that, but more than that, an attempt to foster political disarray.
everyfingday.substack.com
Incursions
Putin appears to be testing NATO defenses with increasing aggressiveness. Is it a sign of strength, or of weakness?
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Will artificial intelligence destroy humanity? Probably not, because that is a poorly constructed sentence. Will humanity destroy itself with AI? Yeah, maybe. everyfingday.substack.com/p/meet-the-n...
everyfingday.substack.com
Meet the No-Boss
Why AI doesn’t, and does, worry me.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Grants and other funds cancelled or frozen by the Administration amount to ten percent of all federal discretionary funding. The cost is enormous - to the states, to the future, and to GOP candidates who cannot run on bringing home the bacon. Why? everyfingday.substack.com/p/boss-tweed...
everyfingday.substack.com
Boss Tweedledum
The Trump Administration is withholding federal funds at an unprecedented rate. Has the man never heard of pork barrel largesse?
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I was called for jury duty for the first time in twenty years, when I contributed to the verdict in a trial that continues to haunt me. I was not selected this time, but the process helped me see how the process is misaligned with human psychology. everyfingday.substack.com/p/homo-jurid...
everyfingday.substack.com
Homo Juridicus
Like “Homo Economicus,” the idealized rational actor of economic theory, the ideal juror that the legal system has constructed probably does not exist.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
So far in 2026, the government has attempted to strip citizenship from something like 14 times as many people as average for any full year. Someone else beat Trump though: Daniel Ortega did 220 in 2023. And one of them was just picked up by ICE. everyfingday.substack.com/p/exiled?r=5...
everyfingday.substack.com
Exiled
The Administration’s push to strip citizenship echoes that of another corrupt, aging dictator whose handiwork was also in the news.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
“The EPA will not operate as a science-based regulatory agency. But, depending on what happens with the information it gathers on drinking water, political regulation may be its new beat.” everyfingday.substack.com/p/weaponized...
everyfingday.substack.com
Weaponized Environmentalism and Degraded Science
It was a bad week for science at the Environmental Protection Agency.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Amodei said it. Musk and Altman said it. Donald Trump called them (not in so many words) the new nattering nabobs of negativism. The American right is unable to see its way to regulating AI because 60 years of neoliberal cultural hegemony has made the idea unthinkable.
everyfingday.substack.com
An Uncommon Tragedy
Why nobody in authority will do anything about the risks of Artificial Intelligence
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Sartre dismissed the status of antisemitism as protected speech by noting that "it is first a passion." What does that mean, what kind of distinction does it draw, and can it speak to how we might put bounds on the hateful rhetoric of our time? everyfingday.substack.com/p/hate-and-t...
everyfingday.substack.com
Hate and the Hated
Which comes first? Some thoughts on human nature and the predicament of Trump.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Sartre dismissed the status of antisemitism as protected speech by noting that "it is first a passion." What does that mean, what kind of distinction does it draw, and can it speak to how we might put bounds on the hateful rhetoric of our time? everyfingday.substack.com/p/hate-and-t...
everyfingday.substack.com
Hate and the Hated
Which comes first? Some thoughts on human nature and the predicament of Trump.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
This picture illustrates why Donald Trump as merely a cosplay tyrant: a competent dictator knows there is power everywhere around him, but again and again, Trump walks in to every situation believing he holds all the cards. By the looks of him, he had his ass handed to him again.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I used to say that cold sesame noodles are like a PB&J for adults. Trump’s speeches at “Trumpapalooza” were like a grown-up game of “I’ve got your nose!” everyfingday.substack.com/p/for-which-...
everyfingday.substack.com
For Which it Stands
Is MAGA really a game of make-believe?
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I would have passed under the World Trade Center with a couple of minutes of the first plane striking, on the A Train to my job on 3rd Street and Broadway. I did not feel anything, but it changed the direction I was going in, and that the country is going in, and brought us, unfortunately, to today.
everyfingday.substack.com
Rights and Two Wrongs
“Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.“ – Martin Luther King, 1963
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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Nailed it
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
If anyone should be too ashamed to participate in the solemn commemoration of September 11, it's this many, who turned national mourning into an opportunity to be the hate-soaked, Scotch-pickled voice of rising Islamophobia. Go fuck yourself, Rudy.
everyfingday.substack.com
Hizzdizzoner
A few of the reasons that Rudy Giuliani is responsible for ruining our nation
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
The Administration is making hay over preventing mail-in ballots, and we are all prepared for shenanigans in the lead-up to the election. But maybe, it’s not before but after the election that things will get dangerous. everyfingday.substack.com/p/the-jaws-o...
everyfingday.substack.com
The Jaws of Defeat
Everybody is talking about what Trump might do to rig things before the election. Perhaps its after the election that we should worry about.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
A far-right party wins in Germany, running an anti-immigrant platform and, apparently, one opposed to voting by mail. So, situation normal... everyfingday.substack.com/p/no-alterna...
everyfingday.substack.com
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
I don't have the answers, but before this is all over, we will need to find them. everyfingday.substack.com/p/what-will-...
everyfingday.substack.com
What will it take to regain the world’s trust?
I wish I knew.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Is the Department of Defense short on bombs? Probably. Is it raiding the public health coffers to shift money and paper over budgetary holes? Maybe. Is the Administration trying to starve American science? Definitely. everyfingday.substack.com/p/depleted-d...
everyfingday.substack.com
Depleted Defenses
The Secretary of War is panicking about how few missiles he has left. But in terms of undermining our security, that is just the tip of the iceberg.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Donald Trump is taking a second bite at the birthright citizenship apple. But here's the devil's bargain he offers: if he isn't allowed to end birthright citizenship by legal fiat, policies he is enacting will make those born here to immigrants less than fully-fledged citizens.
everyfingday.substack.com
Second-class
If the Trump Administration is not allowed to end birthright citizenship, they may just make it intolerable instead.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Midterm elections are two months from today. If the Supreme Court follows it’s own doctrine, the “Purcell Principle,” they will shut down any attempt to change ballot practices for this election. Will they? I think they will. But if I am wrong, John Roberts has crossed the Rubicon.
everyfingday.substack.com
A Rubicon Ruling
The Supreme Court won’t cross over to enable the USPS scheme to foil elections. Will they?
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Marco Rubio once said that the State Department would cut out all grants to NGOs. There are two exceptions: when they have no choice because they decimated their own capacity to deliver aid, and when the groups are faith-based. One such grantee turned them down. And for good reason.
everyfingday.substack.com
Not Today, Satan
Why Franklin Graham turned down $300 million from the State Department
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
There's new reporting suggesting that, after 18 months of threats, the Administration is getting ready to go after nonprofits in earnest - a move that is central to the authoritarian takeover everywhere. Whether it will happen or not is up for grabs.
everyfingday.substack.com
Open Spaces
Out on the horizon, a bigger threat to the nonprofit sector is taking shape
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Reposted by Every Effing Day
Alt National Park Service @altnps.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
The right is notable for its whiny victim complexes, and its bizarre beliefs about what its enemies on the left are up to. The left is angry, and questions the rationality of those on the right. At some point, though, we'll have to reestablish some kind of consensus. Here are the barriers we face.
everyfingday.substack.com
Aggrievement
The right-wing victim complex is one form, but the wider lack of trust permeating politics is indicative of deeper problems
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
What kind of a fool loudly cheers on the mass deportation juggernaut while overstaying his visa? We may all be hypocrites, but it takes a special kind of delusion to go this far. Trying to understand how it came to this seems to me to be a useful exercise in unpacking right-wing exceptionalism.
everyfingday.substack.com
Hubris
Why would a man who is out of status cheer on ICE?
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
It’s humiliating if a bit amusing watching Trump do things like this - rename bodies of water on his own map, try to change the course of a hurricane with a Sharpie, speak, really, any time at all. But when you dig into his attack on Lake Ontario, it explains a lot about the predicament we are in.
everyfingday.substack.com
Trumpenhow Hill
What the Lake Ontario absurdity tells us about the deeper problems in the Oval Office
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
This was a big month for immigration news. Some of it was shocking - like ICE's new electrified gloves. Some of it was good - like the news that a judge was striking down the administration's 75-country visa ban. But a lot of it was quiet, under-the-radar, and deeply destructive.
everyfingday.substack.com
The Loud and the Quiet
It has been a terrible month for immigration news, but much of it has been boring, technical, and under-the-radar
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Around the world, in young democracies, new democracies, and non-democracies, some people are crying out for more authoritarian control. What is it about human beings that makes them sometimes seek out the boot on their neck? everyfingday.substack.com/p/abject-sub...
everyfingday.substack.com
Abject Subjects
What makes people want to accept the authoritarian boot?
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Following the global authoritarian playbook, the Trump Administration is trying to intimidate nonprofits - indicting the Southern Poverty Law Center was the most high-profile effort, but not the only one. The latest? Threatening to sue the Center for American Progress for five beeeeeellion dollars!
everyfingday.substack.com
SLAPP-happy
Donald Trump, in his personal capacity, sues for defamation over a report about the federal government.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
The one thing the government has tried to do by the book is avoid sending people home to torture or extrajudicial killing - they send people to prisons far from home instead. But there are two cases where they opted to flout international law and send people back to abusive regimes. Why?
everyfingday.substack.com
Non-performative Cruelty
Sometimes, they are cruel to scare immigrants. Sometimes, they are cruel as a favor to others. But sometimes, it looks like they are cruel just because.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Three new stories this week about immigrant children, none of them related, but all emphasizing how vulnerable these kids are, and how the Administration may see that as an opportunity to get their deportation numbers up even further. everyfingday.substack.com/p/god-bless-...
everyfingday.substack.com
God Bless the Child
Administration actions suggest that they see the vulnerability of unaccompanied immigrant children as an opportunity.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
With billions of dollars in grants about to be made, the Department of Justice has stopped relying on external experts for review. One way or another, this will end poorly for the department. everyfingday.substack.com/p/taken-for-...
everyfingday.substack.com
Taken for Granted
The Administration continues to make politically-motivated federal grants, seemingly oblivious to how this comes back to haunt them.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
The centripetal and centrifugal forces of society are avarice and altruism - one moves us forward, and one keeps society from falling apart. Keep them in a healthy balance is critical to having a dynamic but not destructive social order. This is not it.
everyfingday.substack.com
Avarice and Altruism
Basic facts about human nature determine what kinds of societies work for us, and which don’t. The one we have today doesn’t.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Donald Trump fawns over Kim Jong Un and snubs our steadfast ally in Seoul. But in the end, whether we stand with South Korea is not really a choice he has. Probably.
everyfingday.substack.com
Empty Promises, Empty Arsenals
Is Trump's backstabbing on the Korean peninsula a reflection of his lack of loyalty to allies, or of the end of the Pax Americana?
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dbnewtondoors.bsky.social @dbnewtondoors.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/202...
pravda.com.ua
Russian businesses transfer hundreds of billions of roubles to treasury at Putin's request
Major Russian businessmen have transferred hundreds of billions of roubles to the federal budget after Russian leader Vladimir Putin called on them to make voluntary contributions to the state treasur...
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Leaving aides as decoys on his plane, calling a new mother every day to come back to work - the one thing that Donald Trump praises but does not reward most is loyalty. everyfingday.substack.com/p/loyalty?r=...
everyfingday.substack.com
Loyalty
The quality that Donald Trump most prizes, and that he most despises.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
The idea of ICE using gloves that deliver a sharp electric shock to control suspects or protestors is horrific. But what horrifies me more, in a sense, is that someone brought these to market, and is selling them around the country, for use even in schools.
everyfingday.substack.com
Outsourcing Atrocities
When government contractors are involved in violating constitutional rights, accountability gets muddy. But it remains possible.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
The new authoritarianism come into its own in post-Soviet states where fatalism and a cynical regard for government predominate. You would think that tricks that were born in such a cultural mix would not transfer well to the sunny, earnest USA. But maybe we have more in common than we might think.
everyfingday.substack.com
судьба, American Style
What post-Soviet Russians and post-New Deal Americans have in common.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Modern social movements have been organized around nonprofits, and modern repression uses regulations to harass and disrupt them. It’s all rather bloodless. But with the latest indictment from the Department of Justice, the new authoritarians are trying once again to inflict personal pain.
everyfingday.substack.com
"Regulatory Repression" Gets Personal
The indictment of a former Southern Poverty Law Center leader signals a new front in the attack on advocacy nonprofits.
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
The scuttlebutt is that as Trump sundowns, Miller is the one likely to step up and take his elbow, steward him through the pantomime of being president. As awful as that sounds, it may be the better bet for democracy. everyfingday.substack.com/p/the-hoarse...
everyfingday.substack.com
The Hoarse Whisperer
After all his shouting, can Stephen Miller find the discretion and subtlety needed for a palace coup?
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Every Effing Day @everyeffingday.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
After a year and a half of antagonizing allies and causing jitters about whether intelligence can be shared with American intelligence agencies, Kash Patel is forging partnerships with China and Russia. All of it bodes ill for our ability to anticipate future threats to the US.
everyfingday.substack.com
Fifth Eye Blind
Can our intelligence-sharing partnerships survive the chaos and animosity the U.S. is causing?
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