Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 13/09/2025Set aside Sen. Mike Lee's storm of lies and incitement here. Lee literally made jokes on Twitter about the fmr Speaker of the Minnesota state house being murdered in her home by a right wing extremist. Hard to imagine any more twisted and malicious person in public life. 507105412450
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 11/09/2025Feels like it might be another duck therapy day 150
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 11/09/2025I never know how to respond to people who think gun control is too hard but curing the evil in men’s hearts is totally doable 040
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 30/08/2025Oh good. A much easier problem. They’ll probably fix THE HUMAN HEART(!?). 030
Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.Barack Obama @barackobama.bsky.social · 28/08/2025This interview, which is also available to listen to as a podcast, provides a useful overview of some of the dangerous trends we’ve been seeing in recent months regarding federalization and militarization of state and local police functions.nytimes.comOpinion | Trump Is Building His Own Paramilitary Force 835172096700
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 25/08/2025They’re doing this to this guy while rolling out red carpets for Putin. There are no principles. 010
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 23/08/2025I predict that Chicago will not go for this, which means he’ll get exactly the manufactured conflict he wants. 010
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 18/08/2025My god he’d be a totally unbelievable bad guy in a novel 000
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 17/08/2025If I had to live off of what I’m able to grow here I’d need a whole lot more zucchini recipes 010
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 16/08/2025Imagine taking fair election advice from Vladimir Putin. We’re so cooked. 120
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 10/08/2025My chickens won’t eat these hornworms or the Japanese beetles I bring them. Seriously, the least competent chickens in all chickendom. 110
Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 06/08/2025I feel like every single day I need to post a reminder: if you ask an LLM about itself it DOES NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ITS INNER WORKINGS and WILL NOT TELL YOU ANYTHING ACTUALLY ABOUT ITSELF. It just (as it always does) will make up some plausible sounding answer. 834493958
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 29/07/2025One of the most interesting things about where I live is how much farmers talk about climate change. They all love Trump (the number of cars I’ve seen with Trump’s face on car wraps would shock you) but they know climate change is real better than anybody (80% of them). It’s fascinating to watch. 111
Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 29/07/2025Faculty who wrote to defend their president and object to a DOJ investigation of their university...are now being investigated by the DOJ. The most banal defense of free speech and academic freedom will trigger the full wrath of the US government now. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/u...nytimes.comFaculty Support of George Mason’s President Draws Federal Investigation 9838221662
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 29/07/2025I guess I understand the math argument but you’d think higher ed would be more thoughtful than doing simple arithmetic 000
Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.Ryan Marino, MD @ryanmarino.bsky.social · 27/07/2025The NIH’s 2024 budget of just under $37B generated $95B in economic activity in 2024 alone. 99.4% of new pharmaceuticals approved from 2010-2019 came from NIH-funded research. I’m hard pressed to think of anything that generates as much direct economic benefit as our NIH did before they destroyed it 812593945
Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.davidrlurie @davidrlurie.com · 25/07/2025Legal note: Sending a letter does not establish a contract. 1161443233
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 23/07/2025Aldous Huxley demands royalties from Marvel after they use his movie theater ideas 000
Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 22/07/2025A reminder that our profession is not just big firms, and that countless lawyers are stepping up in this critical moment. GIFT LINK www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/u...nytimes.comBig Law Firms Bowed to Trump. A Corps of ‘Little Guys’ Jumped in to Fight Him. 13795146
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 22/07/2025If she lies and says what the admin wants to hear, she’ll earn a get out of jail free card. The incentives are too obvious and the players too corrupt to think any truth will come out of this. I’m surprised she hasn’t already played this card. 000
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 18/07/2025media.tenor.coma bald man is sitting in a chair with his mouth open and making a funny face .ALT: a bald man is sitting in a chair with his mouth open and making a funny face . 010
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 16/07/2025“You can’t invent the ship without inventing the shipwreck except this wreck destroys the human world it’s fine because progress.” 010
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 16/07/2025When he said Epstein is no biggie compared to the really important things he’s dealing with, this is what he meant. 000
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 16/07/2025How does he get us all to move on from the Epstein story? Shockingly, talking about Rosie O’Donnell didn’t work, so let’s try crashing the economy. 000
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 16/07/2025LOL. The biggest story going on in the minds of Fox viewers is Epstein, and there is literally not one story about Epstein on Fox’s website. Apparently they got the propa-memo. 020
Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 14/07/2025Since April 4, #SCOTUS has issued 15 rulings on 17 emergency applications filed by Trump (three birthright citizenship apps were consolidated). It has granted relief to Trump ... in all 15 rulings. It has written majority opinions in only 3. Today's order is the 7th with no explanation *at all.* 30458602797
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 14/07/2025The question was never how a malignant narcissist could believe he’d do the impossible while being willfully ignorant and inexperienced, but why his followers believed he could. Again, hard not to blame The Apprentice producers here. Decades of fiction propping this guy up. 000
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 14/07/2025FWIW I think Michael Pollan’s “eat whatever as long as you made it from scratch with real ingredients” is a much more compelling argument than creating all these verboten piles of food. Oz is perpetuating the exact reason Americans don’t eat well, this obsession with specific categories of bad food. 011
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 13/07/2025Am I the only one who still sees the word “Bluesky” and thinks “blue-skee”?media.tenor.coma man wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses is holding a bat in his hand .ALT: a man wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses is holding a bat in his hand . 000
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 13/07/2025How does no one ask which measures they’re using to name him the most successful businessman of the 20th century? I’d say this is just harmless sycophancy that no one believes but people believe it. The Apprentice producers really did the world a disservice. 010
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 13/07/2025Just crazy how unpopular these policies are and they just keep leaning in with a soft voice, acting like this isn’t monstrous. 010
Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 12/07/2025Trump threatens to strip citizenship from a native-born US citizen because he doesn’t like her speech. I hope everyone on Wall Street and Silicon Valley who voted for Trump because he promised lower taxes is proud of themselves 74810217
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 12/07/2025Kinda crazy that every form of media that presents authoritarian governments and oligarchs as the bad guys is seen as an attack on MAGA. They really do tell on themselves. 000
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 11/07/2025Okay, who’s dumber, the people telling James Gunn that Superman shouldn’t be woke or the people telling Star Trek alum that it’s a betrayal of Star Trek for them to be so woke? 320
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 03/07/2025It’s amazing how our media apparatus has no way to process actual bad political forces. Like they won’t cover this, or if they do they’ll either blow up mad or undersell it, and their viewers/readers will dismiss it as crazy, or as “didn’t really mean it,” or also blow up mad. We can’t process. 010
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 30/06/2025This widow skimmer is stalking mosquitos from its perch on the tomato trellis 000
Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.Jim Owczarski @jimowczarski.bsky.social · 26/06/2025Khaman Maluach is living an incredible, and heartbreaking story, as his home country faces visa revocations from the U.S. state department: www.usatoday.com/story/sports...usatoday.comKhaman Maluach could be Africa's next NBA star. First, he must navigate Trump's visa banThe NBA wants Duke's Khaman Maluach to be a model for African prospects. But his home country is having visas revoked by Trump administration. 15312
Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 23/06/2025Today’s unsigned, unexplained #SCOTUS ruling clearing the way for removals of migrants to third countries without any additional process is a disaster—not just on the merits, but because of the government misbehavior that it not only refuses to punish, but effectively rewards. Me, via “One First”:stevevladeck.com161. The Court's Disastrous Ruling in the Third-Country Removal CaseThe majority did not just greenlight an especially odious immigration policy without any explanation; it did so in a case in which the government defied the district court—twice—with no consequence. 55691883426
Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 21/06/2025CATO: “New nonpublic data from ICE indicates the government is primarily detaining individuals with no criminal convictions of any kind… 93% had no violent convictions… 65% no criminal record at all…” @MarshaBlackburn www.cato.org/blog/65-peop... 40282214477
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 19/06/2025“We have to wear masks because people are beating us up and you know people are beating us up because we have to wear masks.” Always the circle for these people. 020
Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 18/06/2025Nippon Steel finalizes its deal to own 100% of US Steel. Which is exactly what both Trump and previously Biden claimed they opposed. One difference: Trump will now personally have veto power over various production/staffing decisions. www.cnn.com/2025/06/18/b...cnn.comIconic US Steel now 100% owned by Japan’s Nippon Steel, despite past Trump opposition | CNN BusinessNippon Steel has finalized its deal to buy 100% of US Steel, the iconic steelmaker that was once the world’s most valuable company and a cornerstone of American industrial might. 2820584
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 17/06/2025The strong need to stand against the strong if the weak are to have any chance. We can’t stand by and watch immigrants dragged away by masked men. This is a risky ask, obviously, but I don’t know how we get to the other side of this without the resistance of the privileged. 010
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 16/06/2025So in one 24 hour period these people made up a whole story with no basis in fact to make the guy on the right look like a guy on the left and then used AI people at a parade to make the president not look weak. The Information Age, indeed. 100
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 16/06/2025Uh, Chicago is in the Heartland, and we’re proud of it. 010
Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 13/06/2025Fell behind on Andor, so am catching up. Watched Episode 9 this evening. You know. The wild one where they arrest a Senator after manufacturing a fake crisis that required the military to put down protestors. So unrealistic. 301851360
Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 13/06/2025They’re being so “small government conservative” 000