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Heidi Jon Schmidt

@heidijon.bsky.social
1K followers 1.8K following 1.4K posts

Author, Democrat, mom New York Times, The Atlantic, Boston Globe Mag, etc. hjs24pearl.substack.com heidijonschmidt.com

PostsRepliesMedia
Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
They’ve glossed over murders, wars, concentration camps, influence peddling in the billions…. now he’s come for them and what if they do stand up? Who will help them?
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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The BK of the Kennedy Center is a case in point. And a metonym for the entire country. From details to macro Trump is destroying everything, partly out of spite, partly out of incompetence.
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
In the 2018 midterms, one of the big issues on the right was "civility in politics" bsky.app/profile/oluf...
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
It’s all identity politics, but since it’s largely white identity politics it’s fine and doesn’t count. It’s not something communist like police shouldn’t be able to get away with murder bsky.app/profile/chri...
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
But let’s not poke around in the Russian influence muck. There are, like, dead bodies under there and it’s so messy.
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David Rothschild @davmicrot.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
2016: Russia cyberattacks US to help elect Trump; Republicans gut anti-Russian policy from their platform; Campaign Manager Manafort floats policies to breakup Ukraine while sharing internal campaign data with Russian asset (shared with FBI agent investigating Trump's ties to Russia)
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Mark Jacob @markjacob.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I wonder if the NY Times has a Euphemism Desk to soften its stories. Trump lawlessness is an “expansive interpretation of presidential power”? A Trump-UAE crypto scheme “blurred the line between foreign policy and private enterprise.” This thread imagines history as written by NYT’s Euphemism Desk.🧵
NYT newsroom in the 1940s
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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
This is a VERY weird post from @maxtani.bsky.social, which may say as much about Semafor as it does about Bessent.
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Olga Nesterova @onestpress.onestnetwork.com · 13/09/2026
Trump in Ireland: “Zelenskyy has to do one thing, he has to stop hitting the oil refineries in Russia. That’s hurting the world.” ..I just watched how people ran out of trains and hid in the bushes as the drones were targeting Ukrainian trains overnight. No, nobody will stop until Putin stops.
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
hjs24pearl.substack.com/p/consider-t...
hjs24pearl.substack.com
Consider the Clothesline
Women in the CIA and the FBI warned of the terrorism coming on 9/11/2001. 25 years later, misogyny and the attendant devaluation of empathy and connection are still endangering us all.
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Jen Rubin @jenrubin.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
ESSENTIAL reading and frightful :
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Ariella Elm @ariellaelm.com · 12/09/2026
Shana Tova to all my fellow Jews. Let’s make this year the year we flip the house and the Senate, and state and local governments around the country! That would make it a sweet new year. Happy 5787! 🍎🍏🍯
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Norm Ornstein @normornstein.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
So emblematic of today’s Republican Party www.aol.com/articles/con...
aol.com
Convicted sex offender offered opening prayer at rally for GOP Senate nominee in North Carolina - AOL
A North Carolina pastor who led the opening prayer at a recent campaign stop for Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley is a registered sex offender, twice sentenced to prison
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Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
If you follow me and want to help, I only have one request. Spread the word about the threats to democracy and how we can fight back. Tell everyone to subscribe to Democracy Docket and share its content. demdock.com/4w6emld
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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I LOVED @skyeperryman.bsky.social’s new book. It’s energizing and hopeful, and my favorite chapter is a vital antidote to SCOTUS doom-and-gloom. Skye is one of the key players in the legal battle against Trump 2.0 and she has a lot to teach us about how to fight and win when all feels lost.
Lucy the hound with Skye’s book
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Mark Jacob @markjacob.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Heavy lifting by Dan Froomkin makes for light reading here. Really good job of sorting out media coverage of Trump's $5,000 gimmick.
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Bolts @boltsmag.org · 10/09/2026
A call center is employing prisoners to make political calls for a conservative super PAC, Oklahoma Watch reports:
oklahomawatch.org
Who’s Calling? - Oklahoma Watch
Oklahoma prison inmates are working in call centers placing political calls and insurance telemarketing on behalf of outside companies, earning $2 an hour while a Virginia super PAC paid nearly $600,000 to the vendor for calls supporting conservative candidates — including calls made during Oklahoma's primary election season.
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I believe Pope Leo’s gentle worldwide power may be key to our survival. I’m a lifelong atheist which means I know where to look for hope. I am watching his every move and its effect.
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NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
A possible romantic relationship between a president and one of his aides isn’t something the public needs to know about. by Ken Starr and Newt Gingrich
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Anat Shenker-Osorio @anatosaurus.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Turns out doing the right thing is right. By which I mean correct. Kudos @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social for the critical work cited here. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
theguardian.com
US firms that kept DEI policies despite ‘go woke, go broke’ threats thrived
Exclusive: Companies that kept policies did just as well financially, even after Trump’s executive order, as those that didn’t
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Mark Jacob @markjacob.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Rep. Ralph Norman, who’s in a Senate runoff with Lindsey Graham’s sister Darline, secretly urged a military-backed coup in 2021 to keep Trump in power. But the NY Times thinks it’s no big deal. In its last 92 stories mentioning Norman over 3 years and 7 months, it hasn’t stated that fact once. 1/7🧵
Pix of Norman
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Thank you
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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
@gregjaffe.bsky.social @crow.house.gov Given the story about people jumping off the USS Lincoln, can you explain what the CNO does, please?
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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
MoJo ties the disasters in Gaza, Ukraine, and Iran to Kushner's corruption. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Dmitriev is now steeped in negotiations to end the fighting in Ukraine on Russia’s terms, with his old pal Kushner representing the United States. The Kremlin is dangling potential deals for US invest­ors that are reportedly worth trillions of dollars, if only America would lift its sanctions and welcome Russia back in from the cold. Kushner, meanwhile, has proved willing to peddle pro-Kremlin talking points time and again. In late 2025, he and special envoy Witkoff—whose family and the Trumps co-founded World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm in which a top UAE official would later purchase a 49 percent stake—publicized a “peace plan” for Ukraine. But its provisions, from capping Ukraine’s military to forcing Kyiv to cede territory that Russia hadn’t even conquered, were conspicuously pro-Moscow.

A Kremlin-friendly push by a US president with a mysterious Putin affinity might be unsurprising, but the details are galling. As investigative journalism site the Insider revealed, Kushner’s peace plan was in no way original. “Many of its most controversial conditions were contained” in a months-old Kremlin document the outlet had obtained. The plan was “at its core a recycled Russian document,” the Insider wrote, with “specific language that appeared almost exactly word-for-word in an earlier text—one drafted solely by Dmitriev.”
[snip]
On September 16, 2025, a UN commission officially declared Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide.

That same day, Forbes declared Kushner a billionaire.
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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Yes. 'Harvard About to Cave' narrative looks ever weaker. 1) Let's hope Yale gets the point, and stops its trembling. (See yaledailynews.com/articles/the... ) 2) Let's hope everybody gets the point. Obeying-in-advance never pays off.
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Schiff is right.. if immigrants are to be treated as criminals, they need to have the same due process rights including legal representation
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 13/08/2026
"Last year, Trump tried to send kids alone to Guatemala in middle of the night, before judges halted him. But if there are no lawyers present, such eleventh hour rescues become impossible. That appears to be the point of the let’s-eliminate-the-competent-lawyers scheme." — @anatosaurus.bsky.social
publicnotice.co
Stephen Miller's secret campaign against helpless kids
That it's happening in the shadows doesn't make it less of a moral blight.
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
I have no faith in trying to work the media. But I see the huge turnout in Wisconsin as a sign that people actually get it—it being fascism and the need to vote for democracy.
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
I feel nauseous
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
It’s a good question if we hope to be able to trust polls.
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Not that it’s on the subject of my post….but AES slipped pretty drastically from his poll highs, as did Hong. So they do make an interesting set.
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
They don’t dare really cover the truly riveting drama: the advance of fascism. So they’re stuck with this lame imitation-sports coverage. Honor and integrity: F Originality: F Grinding away within the narrow parameters set by and for them: B.
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
All of these, and: Drama sells newspapers and these are issues in which most have taken sides, so interest is nearly guaranteed. And they’re afraid, of each other’s scorn I imagine, so no one strays far from the usual themes.
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Much as Janet Mills did in Maine.
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
But it made them feel important!
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Not the first time.
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Another third wouldn’t have noticed anything was wrong and not bothered to vote.
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
This is a very ‘progressive’ tactic: to pick a detail and use it to discredit the whole. With a post, eh. With a candidate, it’s a real weapon to discourage low info voters. ‘Incumbent isn’t perfect! Vote for this person who has no experience at all!’
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Roger Parloff @rparloff.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
20K court rulings on the same pure issue of law. This can't be blamed just on CASA, because there's a statute that bars class injunctions on this category of immigration issue, but clearly this is insane. (Thanks to @kyledcheney.bsky.social , tho, for the amazing coverage.)
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Which keeps you somewhat safer from RFK-backed diseases.
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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
This is the sweet spot of @vermontgmg.bsky.social's expertise: Nixon-on-steroids levels of corruption, intersecting with presidential security.
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Lol that’s what they do. El-Sayed’s victory was treated the same and he was well-funded and running hard the whole time. Biden’s success was too boring for them. Yes, it was part of Trump’s wins, both times, and all the turmoil. A very big part.
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
So lucky. We have to keep Wisconsin after all these years of work.
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Malcolm P. Johnson @admiralmpj.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
This @#$% keeps happening because too many of you on this Social Media site feel comfortable spreading rank Jew Hatred for kicks: www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/p...
nbcsandiego.com
UC San Diego Jewish fraternity vandalized in hate crime, San Diego police says
Authorities are offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to an arrest after a Jewish fraternity house in the University City neighborhood was vandalized with antisemitic and racial slurs, it w...
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Younger than Graham Platner. Honest experience. Able to come from way behind and win. Nitpickers can sit down.
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Mark Hamill @markhamillofficial.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure raping children is an impeachable offense.
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Kate from Kharkiv @kateinkharkiv.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Funny how no one asked russia to halt strikes on Ukrainian civilians.
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Heidi Jon Schmidt @heidijon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
The platforms are the same. The need is simple—retake Congress and hold fascism back. Beyond that, in most cases it’s just weird to care.
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Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
They left Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the decoy plane that was in danger of getting shot down. But they made sure to rescue the lady who does the 3 am posts that show Trump and Jesus storming Iwo Jima together
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