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Mark Blondin

@markblondin.com
258 followers 287 following 29 posts

Writes Material Witness — political economy, media, and what happens to people when the numbers don't add up. Bylines: Longreads, The Humanist, HuffPost. Lives in Vila do Conde, Portugal. materialwitness.markblondin.com

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Reposted by Mark Blondin
Angie Nixon @angieforfl.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Come get the facts, ask questions, and hear directly from people who know the system inside and out. 🗓️ Mon. Sep. 28 @ 10:00AM 📍 Delray Beach, FL Sign up: TINYURL.COM/ANGIE4SOCIALSECURITY #AngieForFlorida #SocialSecurity #DelrayBeach #PalmBeachCounty
tinyurl.com
Social Security Town Hall with Rep. Angie Nixon and Former SSA Commissioner Martin O'Malley · Angie for Florida
You paid into Social Security with every paycheck. It's your earned benefit, and it's under attack. Join Social Security Works PAC and the Alliance for Retired Americans for a conversation with Angie…
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Reposted by Mark Blondin
Angie Nixon @angieforfl.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
CBSMiami obtained the grand jury report, and jurors concluded $10 million in taxpayer money was misappropriated as part of a “sophisticated scheme to fund political activities.” Ashley Moody knew about the plan and authorized the settlement. #AngieForFlorida #HopeFlorida
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 25/09/2026
The Petoskey News-Review's editorial board wrote this on October 7, 1996. They saw the potential.
Petoskey News-Review editorial board opinion piece dated October 7, 1996.
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 24/09/2026
Petoskey New-Review editorial on Oct 7. 1996. Read the full story at Longreads. longreads.com/2026/09/22/f...
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 24/09/2026
In 2012 we rented a beach house in Crucita, Ecuador. Within weeks the beach in front of it was a sardine-processing plant. Open-air sheds, no refrigeration, crews standing in water at high tide, children working. The cleaned fish went to canneries 40 miles up the coast.
Fishing boats staged off the coast of Crucita. The story is, "Sardines on the Beach in Crucita."
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 24/09/2026
In 1997 we found a call for abstracts, got accepted, and presented our road trip to 400 educators at a U.S. Department of Education conference in Chicago. We thought we were describing the future of education. We were describing a year that couldn't happen now. longreads.com/2026/09/22/f...
longreads.com
Still On Its Way to Cleveland - Longreads
Nine months, 25,000 miles, one phone cord, and the kindness of strangers.
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 23/09/2026
We had renters coming in and Buddy was part of the deal. They backed out at the last minute; we couldn't find replacements.
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 23/09/2026
Hi Iris, Thank you for your comment. There were at least two main kinds of people we encountered when we told our story. Early adopters who were soaking it up, and those who were perplexed by the story we presented. You could see the glaze in their eyes :-)
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 23/09/2026
We asked the staff at the JFK Presidential Library if we could park the motorhome in their lot overnight. They said yes, then locked the gate behind us for the night. Nobody had a policy for that. Someone had a key and decided yes. longreads.com/2026/09/22/f...
longreads.com
Still On Its Way to Cleveland - Longreads
Nine months, 25,000 miles, one phone cord, and the kindness of strangers.
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 22/09/2026
Buddy, our golden retriever, was not part of the original plan. He got his own web page anyway. blondins.com/family/buddy/
blondins.com
buddy
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 22/09/2026
October 4, 1996. We left Boyne City, Michigan, in a 34-foot motorhome with three kids, a golden retriever, and a desktop computer bolted to the floor. Five miles later it died. Betsy and I wrote about the next nine months for @longreads.
longreads.com
Still On Its Way to Cleveland - Longreads
Nine months, 25,000 miles, one phone cord, and the kindness of strangers.
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 18/09/2026
Gibraltar, 2011. A Barbary ape climbed through the car window, took the fruit salad out of my wife's hands, gave her a glare, and left the way he came. I was outside the car, taking a photograph. The photograph is blurry. open.substack.com/pub/mindelo/...
open.substack.com
Woman Brutalized by Barbary Ape
(Husband Watched)
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 03/08/2026
Is it fair to say: NYC hospitals faced an unprecedented influx of patients during the initial phase of Covid. Some hospitals were under severe strain. But the city's healthcare system did not exceed its expanded emergency surge capacity.
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 02/08/2026
Stanley Ann Dunham was an anthropologist specializing in the economic development of rural Indonesia. Dunham developed microcredit models funded by USAID and the World Bank. In 1971, when Obama was 10 years old, Dunham sent Obama back to Hawaii from Indonesia to live with his grandmother.
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 02/08/2026
"Six years after COVID ripped this nation apart, we still don’t know what the truth is...To be sure, in 1,100 pages, there are medical sections as well. But it’s the self-love that makes the biggest impression...He’s rich. He’s certainly famous...loves it." He knows. eu.freep.com/story/sports...
eu.freep.com
Mitch Albom: Fauci hearing shows what's changed and what we don't know
Six years after COVID ripped this nation apart, we still don’t know what the truth is. Fauci's diary doesn't help.
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 01/08/2026
You don't have any concerns about: * NIAID funded EcoHealth Alliance? * That possible conflict of interest for Fauci * The congressional investigations, FOIA-released emails, inspector general findings, and executive-branch document releases that have raised additional questions? Nothing?
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 31/07/2026
South Bend (pop 100K). Indiana, think Mike Pence. #MayoPete 's parents--both professors at Notre Dame. They got him elected mayor with a few thousand votes in a Democratic city. Easy-peasy. Out of Harvard, he chose the notorious McKinsey cartel. Enough said. He can't buy a vote beyond his base.
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 31/07/2026
He was never a national candidate. That's why he earned the moniker #MayoPete. He's not even close in 2028. Rolling Stone is doing drugs again.
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 31/07/2026
It was the Democratic primary. Buttigieg did well-- the MSM did not want Sanders-- in the white states of Iowa & NH. When he got to SC he failed miserably. Currently: Harris 29% Newsom 16.7% Beyond the top two, Buttigieg and AOC at 12.6% and 10.1% Not: "Most Popular" politically #MayoPete.
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 31/07/2026
Does Rolling Stone remember 2020? Most popular? Buttigieg? Maybe it's the Onion. Buttigieg finished 4th in S.C. with 8.20% of the vote and zero delegates. Exit polls showed he received only 2% of the Black vote. Given his South Bend (pop 100K) experience, he went on to be Sec. of Transportation.
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 30/07/2026
I was a manager at Coca-Cola until 1995. I sat through the diversity training. Four years after I left, the company settled the largest race discrimination case in US history. The court-ordered remedy was more training. Where DEI actually came from: materialwitness.markblondin.com/p/a-fraud-th...
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 29/07/2026
Most Democrats can read that poll. Check the demographics.
Economist/youGov poll showing results for: Do you think Israel is commiting genocide against the Palestinian civilians?
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 29/07/2026
Let's be clear. Lindsey Graham was a horrible human being.
Quote by Oscar Wilde, " Some men improve the world only by leaving it."
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 27/07/2026
Breaking Points interview with Kshama Sawant just dropped. Sawant is crazy smart. Her explanation of why her strategy differs from DSA is clear. Kshama Sawant is an American politician, economist, and socialist. She served on the Seattle City Council from 2014 to 2024 www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMcz...
youtube.com
Kshama Sawant: My Independent Socialist Campaign Will Defeat Adam Smith
YouTube video by Breaking Points
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 27/07/2026
In March, New Zealand released its Phase 2 official COVID-19 report. It wasn't flattering. The MSM buried the story. The contrast to 2020-21, is stark. Then it was a sustained chorus around this: “one of the best health outcomes in the world” materialwitness.markblondin.com/p/the-model-...
materialwitness.markblondin.com
The Model That Journalism Built.
How the COVID consensus machine enshrined New Zealand's pandemic response, suppressed the dissent, and went quiet when the facts arrived.
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 18/07/2026
Portugal decriminalized every drug known to pharmacology in 2001. This is the story of a grown man weighing a trip across an international border to a cannabis club named after a Catholic prayer. "Portugal Decriminalized Drugs, But I Can’t Buy a Gummy" materialwitness.markblondin.com/p/portugal-d...
materialwitness.markblondin.com
Portugal Decriminalized Drugs, But I Can’t Buy a Gummy
Let’s get the headline out of the way.
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 17/07/2026
King, Tubman, Keller, Parks, Juneteenth. Each made a material demand while it was still dangerous to make it. Each got replaced by a fable — the dream, the legend, the miracle, the tired seamstress, the ice cream. New essay: materialwitness.markblondin.com/p/once-you-s...
materialwitness.markblondin.com
Once You See It
A pattern in five parts, from a Memphis balcony to a Walmart freezer aisle.
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 17/07/2026
Church Committee, Gore/Liberman, Graham/McCain, Iraq, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, Libya, Honduras (2009), Ukraine, Iran. Wealth inequality, for-profit health care, mass incarceration, neoliberalism, 2008 Bailout,... Let's not dwell on Trump. It's a systemic problem.
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 16/07/2026
In Europe, eggs are not kept cold-- no need.
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 16/07/2026
Nixon started the "War on Drugs" in 1971. By 2023, total cost was ~ $1 trillion. The Global Commission on Drug Policy and the UN high commissioner for human rights, declared it a failure. The "War" created mass incarceration, targeting Black and Hispanic communities. Criminals thrived. #Predictable
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Mark Blondin @markblondin.com · 15/07/2026
New home for Material Witness. The throughline: the penalty for being right before permission — how a sanctioned account gets manufactured, dissenters get marginalized, and the consensus quietly unwinds with no reckoning. materialwitness.markblondin.com/p/portugal-d...
materialwitness.markblondin.com
Portugal Decriminalized Drugs, But I Can’t Buy a Gummy
Let’s get the headline out of the way.
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