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Mike Whelan, Jr.

@mikewhelanjr.bsky.social
452 followers 272 following 612 posts

I write and garden and love my wife while living in the middle of nowhere. It’s a pretty great gig. Used to lawyer, now I legaltech.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.
Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
Set 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.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
Pritzker. My governor. Thank you.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Feels like it might be another duck therapy day
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
I 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
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
Oh good. A much easier problem. They’ll probably fix THE HUMAN HEART(!?).
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Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.
Barack Obama @barackobama.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
This 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.com
Opinion | Trump Is Building His Own Paramilitary Force
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
They’re doing this to this guy while rolling out red carpets for Putin. There are no principles.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
I predict that Chicago will not go for this, which means he’ll get exactly the manufactured conflict he wants.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
My god he’d be a totally unbelievable bad guy in a novel
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
If I had to live off of what I’m able to grow here I’d need a whole lot more zucchini recipes
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
Imagine taking fair election advice from Vladimir Putin. We’re so cooked.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
My chickens won’t eat these hornworms or the Japanese beetles I bring them. Seriously, the least competent chickens in all chickendom.
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Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.
Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 06/08/2025
I 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.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
One 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.
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Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.
Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
Faculty 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.com
Faculty Support of George Mason’s President Draws Federal Investigation
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
I guess I understand the math argument but you’d think higher ed would be more thoughtful than doing simple arithmetic
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Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.
Ryan Marino, MD @ryanmarino.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
The 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
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Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.
davidrlurie @davidrlurie.com · 25/07/2025
Legal note: Sending a letter does not establish a contract.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
Aldous Huxley demands royalties from Marvel after they use his movie theater ideas
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Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.
Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
A 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.com
Big Law Firms Bowed to Trump. A Corps of ‘Little Guys’ Jumped in to Fight Him.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
If 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.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
media.tenor.com
a 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 .
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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.”
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
When he said Epstein is no biggie compared to the really important things he’s dealing with, this is what he meant.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
How 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.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
LOL. 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.
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Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.
Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
Since 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.*
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
The 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.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
FWIW 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.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
Am I the only one who still sees the word “Bluesky” and thinks “blue-skee”?
media.tenor.com
a 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 .
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
How 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.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
Just crazy how unpopular these policies are and they just keep leaning in with a soft voice, acting like this isn’t monstrous.
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Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.
Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
Trump 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
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
Kinda 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.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Okay, 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?
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
It’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.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
Gardening is a hobby, not a plan
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
Guys this is so incredibly dystopian
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
This widow skimmer is stalking mosquitos from its perch on the tomato trellis
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Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.
Jim Owczarski @jimowczarski.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Khaman 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.com
Khaman Maluach could be Africa's next NBA star. First, he must navigate Trump's visa ban
The NBA wants Duke's Khaman Maluach to be a model for African prospects. But his home country is having visas revoked by Trump administration.
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Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.
Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
Today’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.com
161. The Court's Disastrous Ruling in the Third-Country Removal Case
The 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.
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Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.
The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
CATO: “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...
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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.
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Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.
Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Nippon 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.com
Iconic US Steel now 100% owned by Japan’s Nippon Steel, despite past Trump opposition | CNN Business
Nippon 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.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
The 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.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
Are we the baddies?
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
So 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.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
Uh, Chicago is in the Heartland, and we’re proud of it.
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Reposted by Mike Whelan, Jr.
Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 13/06/2025
Fell 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.
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Mike Whelan, Jr. @mikewhelanjr.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
They’re being so “small government conservative”
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