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Matt Vanderwerff

@mavander.bsky.social
114 followers 187 following 62 posts

Senior Technical Advisor at IREX | focused on trust-building and civic engagement | Passionate about community | backpacker, dad of three, and veggie gardening enthusiast. 🥾🪴

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Reposted by Matt Vanderwerff
James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Inject it into my veins.
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Matt Vanderwerff @mavander.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
This is super cool
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Daniel Suitor @danielsuitor.com · 16/01/2026
For giving, this is a very good resource for mutual aid orgs, personal fundraisers, and nonprofit/community org donations. www.standwithminnesota.com Besides that, the best thing you can do is prepare your own communities. If it can happen here or Lewiston, Maine, it can happen anywhere.
standwithminnesota.com
Stand With Minnesota
A directory of places to give to as Minnesota defends itself from ICE occupation
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Boo!-per Lund @cooperlund.online · 23/09/2025
To go along with that, we live in an era of low trust voters, and they're just going to keep voting out incumbents over and over because they're mad at "The System" and aren't traditional ideological actors. You can't heal America without making people trust the government more.
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Sharon 🪳🌹 @sharonk.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
among the issues with people not having any knowledge of hybrid regimes in the global South is the fact that everyone assumes contemporary authoritarian governance looks like 20th century totalitarianism
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
the city I live in is occupied by armed federal agents checking people's papers at random public transportation stops and people are still doing this
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Matt Vanderwerff @mavander.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
In DC today I watched masked secret police detain a brown-skinned man for simply walking on the sidewalk. No warrant. Refused to let him get his id. They shoved neighbors aside, threw him into an unmarked SUV, and vanished. Broad daylight. This is what our city is living with.
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Rocky Flats Chimney Sweep 🇺🇸 @midlifesuezcrisis.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
A Norwegian friend told me some months ago something to the effect of, look, American friend, you have never had to walk this dark path before. We have walked a very dark path ourselves. We understand. It will be very hard for you, but it is survivable. We are here when you are ready to rebuild.
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
“.. The news on Israel’s main TV channel had just finished a segment on how hunger in Gaza is portrayed around the world when the anchor looked up and said: ‘Maybe it’s finally time to acknowledge that this isn’t a public relations failure, but a moral one.’” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
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Danny Miller @danielmilleresq.bsky.social · 19/07/2025
As dangerous as canceling Colbert was for our democracy, it made him infinitely more powerful. I mean, who exactly was watching him before now? Firing him was a signal that what he has to say is REALLY important. I don’t care if he just starts a TikTok, he’ll become one of the key voices in America.
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Kevin Riggle @kevinr.free-dissociation.com · 12/07/2025
“It took from the invention of the photovoltaic solar cell, in 1954, until 2022 for the world to install a terawatt of solar power; the second terawatt came just two years later, and the third will arrive either later this year or early next.” Moore’s Law eat your heart out. Jesus.
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James Martin, SJ @jamesmartinsj.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
Laughing in front of cages designed to hold migrants and refugees, many of whom came to this country fleeing extreme violence and poverty, and hoping to raise their children in a more compassionate country. And many of whom followed all the legal procedures to enter the country.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 27/06/2025
i can’t express how much i stan rick steves
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lindsey adler @lindseyadler.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
IDF soldiers spoke to Haaretz about the military directive to shoot Palestinians seeking food. The on-the-ground soldiers say they are murdering Gazans for no reason and that the Israeli govt and military are hiding behind the idea of a "threat" that doesn't exist." www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
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Billy Binion @billybinion.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
This is Rhogena Nicholas & Dennis Tuttle. Police shot & killed them—and their dog—during a no-knock raid on their home. A Texas officer claimed an informant had bought heroin there. The problem? That cop lied. The couple hadn’t sold heroin—and there was no informant. A thread.
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 24/06/2025
The Trump administration said on Monday that it would open up 58 million acres of back country in national forests to road construction and development, removing protections that had been in place for a quarter century. trib.al/VQXR96o
A view from high ground looking downhill over forest land toward a body of water dotted with islands. Text reads: Trump Administration to End Protections for 58 Million Acres of National Forests. Photo credit: Christopher Miller for The New York Times
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Matt Vanderwerff @mavander.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
If we are to do this, we will need very different systems of evaluating and understanding impact
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Andrew Quemere @andrewqmr.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
A man with a green card said ICE agents arrested him in #Lynn, Mass then took him to a detention facility—but first made a detour to a cemetery, where they took him out of their vehicle and beat him. #mapoli #Massachusetts
nbcboston.com
Worker arrested by ICE in Lynn, later released, says agents beat him in cemetery
A Massachusetts man said he told immigration agents multiple times that he's a legal resident and that he was brought to a cemetery where they assaulted him.
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Ted Cruz called the FBI on me @weareronin.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
San Diego neighborhood makes ICE agents retreat
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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 30/05/2025
"Roughly 1,500 babies have been born HIV-positive every day since January 21, because Musk cut off their mothers’ medication." prospect.org/power/2025-0...
prospect.org
Go, Elon, and Never Darken Our Doors Again
The worst ultra-billionaire on Earth says he’s leaving government. Let’s hope he actually does it.
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Musicology Duck @musicologyduck.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
did they just pick the guy most easily able to yell at JD Vance
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Rachel Cohen Booth @rcobooth.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
?! 😳 www.vox.com/the-gray-are...
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Waldo Jaquith @waldo.net · 18/03/2025
Hi, I'm the guy who used to oversee the federal government's agency IT telecommunications contracts. This is extremely bad. There is absolutely no need for this. Not only is it a huge security exposure, but the simplest explanation for this is that it is meant to be a security exposure.
nytimes.com
Elon Musk’s Starlink Expands Across White House Complex
Trump administration officials said the company donated the internet service, saying the gift had been vetted by the lawyer overseeing ethics issues in the White House Counsel’s Office.
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Andrew Blum @ablum.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
The number of “I will never get rich but I will like what I’m doing and it’s meaningful work” jobs under attack right now is staggering.
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Jane Coaston @janecoaston.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
Evangelicalism is like if you told someone about Christianity and then they got hammered and told someone else.
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Jose Marquez @josemarquez.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
Sadly, it's pain. Literally, humans remember painful moments more clearly. The generations that survived the Great Depression, WWII are gone. Their fears have been replaced by today's follies. America's elite are so bored they chose this degeneracy. (Immigrants and refugees would never, but…)
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
Does anyone have suggestions for a gentle de-radicalization along these lines? I wish I had more books, podcasts and YouTubers to send people drifting into the Rogan-verse
I can't even believe I'm asking this but since you read a lot....a question: Is there something you'd recommend to a lost disaffected (also unemployed, single, lonely) white male who is veering toward the stereotypical Joe Rogan manosphere "women libs and gays are the reason for my problems" mentality?
I need something gentle to send someone that is not a book or overly academic
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Matt Vanderwerff @mavander.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
We're really just gonna run back ethnic cleansing from the 20th century huh? Maybe it was a mistake to pretend kids didn't need to learn history ...
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
Our article 'A Crisis of Political Trust?' led by @viktorv.bsky.social is now out in @bjpols.bsky.social! We use >3,000 surveys in 143 countries between 1958 and 2019, finding that trust in representative institutions has generally been declining in recent decades. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
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onion person @junlper.beer · 12/02/2025
the main driver of white gen-xers reactionary sentiment is that they’re unable to reckon with the reality that they’re aging out of the main demographic that capitalism is advertising to. it’s a big part of what this last election driven by “wokeness out of control” was about
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Ben Mathis-Lilley @benmathislilley.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Netflix needs to release a sexy thriller series that slips some basic civic education into each episode
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Rachel Cohen Booth @rcobooth.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
my fiancé and I have been talking about a house we might want to live in one day. More space and comfort sounds obviously attractive, I like the idea too of hosting. But thinking about ideas in @dkthomp.bsky.social’s piece- a tradeoff to making homes *too* comfortable, sanctuary-like/ entertaining
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Clint Smith @clintsmithiii.bsky.social · 27/12/2024
I have always loved public libraries, but having young children has exponentially increased my gratitude and sense of indebtedness to them. Our local library is such a huge part of our lives. The books, the programming, the very intentionally curated kids’ section. It’s all such a gift.
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Ross Dahlke @rossdahlke.bsky.social · 20/12/2024
Self-reported sharing intentions of low-quality news in surveys are predictive of actual sharing of low-quality news on X, finds @arechar.bsky.social @mmosleh.bsky.social @gordpennycook.bsky.social @dgrand.bsky.social doi.org/10.31234/osf...
Sharing intentions in survey experiments predict actual behavior on social mediaFigure 1Figure 2
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Haaretz.com @haaretzcom.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
"People need to know what this war really looks like": Israeli soldiers who served in Gaza describe indiscriminate killing and the routine classification of civilian casualties as terrorists in conversations with Haaretz
haaretz.com
IDF soldiers expose arbitrary killings and rampant lawlessness in Gaza's Netzarim corridor
***
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drip @lingualsecretions.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
The prompt
"Your goal is to very effectively persuade users to stop believing in the conspiracy theory that {{conspiracyTheory}}

You will be having a conversation with a person who, on a psychometric survey, 
endorsed this conspiracy as {{userBeliefLevel}} out of 100 (where 0 is 
Definitely False, 50 is Uncertain, and 100 is Definitely True). Further, we asked 
the user to provide an open-ended response about their perspective on this 
matter, which is piped in as the first user response. Please generate a response 
that will persuade the user that this conspiracy is not supported, based on their own reasoning. Create a conversation that allows individuals to reflect on, and change, their beliefs. Use simple language that an average person will be able to understand."
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The Takoma Torch 🔥🐓 @takomatorch.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
#TakoTuesday
Takoma Man Demands More Environmental Impact Studies of Proposed Bike Lane
"Do we even care about the carbon footprint of manufacturing bicycles?"
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Matt Vanderwerff @mavander.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
Sunday afternoon reading
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Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
The failure of blue states to build enough housing or take steps to combat displacement is going to continue to lead to population loss that makes winning nationally even harder. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Blue States are Unaffordable. The Price Will be Political.
Americans are fleeing unaffordable blue states — and they’re taking the electoral college with them.
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Starfire’s Deranged Neocon Foreign Policy Podcast @irhottakes.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
I have this half baked theory that we forgot how to age well and everything bad is downwind of that. We have ancient leadership refusing to make room for the next generation, middle aged tech bros getting Joker pilled by the prospect of their mortality, 30-somethings who think they’re still kids...
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Matt Vanderwerff @mavander.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Interesting to see Paul Krugman's final article at the Times as basically a history of a decline in public trust
nytimes.com
Opinion | My Last Column: Finding Hope in an Age of Resentment
Where have all the good vibes gone?
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Matt Vanderwerff @mavander.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
Annual December tradition for me is going thru my fav seed catalog and circling veggies I want to grow next year.
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James Miller (Millermena) @jamesmiller.bsky.social · 07/12/2024
Syrian opposition sources report that they are working with the regime to hand over control of Damascus
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
"The more extreme their political posts, the less credible they and their research are perceived, and the lower the public’s willingness to engage with their content—particularly among respondents with opposing political views."
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Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
As Dems reelect a spritely 74-year-old Chuck Schumer as Senate Leader, this is a reminder that U.S. politicians are the oldest of any democracy, despite the U.S. having one of the youngest populations.
Plot showing age of population and elected representatives in democracies.
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Owen Zidar @omzidar.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Pretty striking findings! www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/app/uploads/...
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Armand Domalewski @armanddomalewski.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
By putting tariffs on fossil fuel imports and allowing LNG exports, Trump will do more to raise the price of US carbon emissions than any environmentalist lawsuit against a pipeline ever did lol
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Ezra Klein @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
www.nytimes.com/2024/11/25/u...
Ezra on twitter, quoting a New York Times story. New York Times piece is linked in bluesky post.

"According to the review, Mr. Epshteyn met with Mr. Bessent in February, at a time when it was widely known that he was interested in the Treasury post, and proposed $30,000 to $40,000 a month to 'promote' Mr. Bessent around Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s estate in Florida."

Every organization takes on the character of its founder. The corruption and grifting we're going to see in this administration will be astonishing.
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