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mrbluesky58

@mrbluesky58.bsky.social
232 followers 104 following 1.7K posts

Former academic, semi-retired. Back on this site after a long hiatus to follow some of the very best news sources. And maybe to contribute some joy with animals and nature. And Phillies!

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Reposted by mrbluesky58
The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 25/08/2026
A reckoning is overdue—not just for Trump and his cronies, but for the justices who continue to shamelessly condone his lawlessness.
lnk.thebulwark.com
John Roberts Gives Trump a License to Bulldoze the Law
The chief justice’s order turns the president’s illegal ballroom construction project into a fait accompli.
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Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
This Court is a menace to democracy.
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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Goodness — you rarely go wrong predicting SCOTUS will side with Trump no matter what it is he asks, but that doesn't make it any less remarkable.
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Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
#BREAKING: Over dissents from the three Dem. appointees, #SCOTUS has *granted* the Trump administration’s request to freeze a district court injunction that had blocked the mail-in ballots executive order. But Trump’s EO remains blocked by a different injunction in a different case—at least for now:
supremecourt.gov
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Zeteo @zeteo.com · 22/08/2026
Roy Altman, appointed by Trump, has broadcasted live from his office, appearing on pro-Israel programs to promote his book denying the Gaza genocide. Prem Thakker looks into the judge who says anti-Zionism is antisemitism and keeps taking other judges on trips to Israel: zeteo.com/p/judge-roy-...
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 22/08/2026
There is basically no distinction left between the oil companies & the administration. The casual corruption here is just breathtaking.
eenews.net
A White House official helped an oil company advance its projects. Now she’ll lead its DC office.
Brittany Kelm’s departure from the White House to lead the Washington office of a Houston oil company has raised questions about the close proximity between
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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Democrats should be unafraid in saying that Roberts on the Court is comparable to Mike Johnson in the House and John Thune in the Senate. They're all in thrall to Trump.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
There are going to be Democrats who say we shouldn’t rip it all out — it’s already built, we have other priorities — but removing the visible signs of Trumpism is absolutely necessary.
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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
The vandalism and desecration of the White House isn't just vanity and it's not trivial. It's caesarism, as in literally what Julius Caesar did to the symbolic architecture of civic republicanism. Our national iconography matters and allowing the disfiguring of it to persist is a substantive harm.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
For the last seven months straight, the U.S. government has refused to process immigrant visas for nationals of 75 countries around the world; including visas for spouses of U.S. citizens. Today, a federal judge ruled the policy flagrantly illegal.
Map of the world, with the 75 countries impacted highlighted in yellow. They include countries in South America like Brazil and Venezuela, about half of all African countries, and most Middle Eastern countries.
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Olga Nesterova @onestpress.onestnetwork.com · 22/08/2026
White House is planning to announce “a large new tax on international students who stay to work in the US after graduation”.
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Kate Jackson @katejackson.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
No one had to think super hard about how to make a washing machine useful. A telephone. A vacuum cleaner. So why do our bosses have to constantly challenge us to find something, anything, for which AI might be helpful If your customers don’t find your product useful, that’s a you-problem
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Richard M. Nixon @dicknixon.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Court as currently constituted ruled that President Trump could knock down half the White House and pour your money down a hole. Is that a fair application of the law? Or do we need to reconsider how the Court does business?”
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Olga Nesterova @onestpress.onestnetwork.com · 21/08/2026
WaPo: The number of U.S. service members reported wounded or killed in the Iran war has jumped to 774, after the Pentagon added scores of new troops to the wounded list in the last few days.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
As soon as there‘s a Democrat in the White House again, John Roberts will discover all kinds of new limitations on their presidential powers, but for now, President Make-a-Wish gets whatever his little heart desires
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 21/08/2026
The Trump administration claimed it found more than 250,000 noncitizens in just four states, all led by Democrats. But a ProPublica investigation shows the government's pursuit of illegal voting cases has produced meager results.
propublica.org
Inside Trump’s Failed Hunt for Noncitizen Voters
To prove the president’s claims of illegal voting, the government has harnessed the power of Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of DHS established to combat the worst cross-border crime. So fa...
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FactPost @factpostnews.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Trump's pick to lead the FDA, Heidi Overton, says the FDA, CDC, and NIH need to be "reformed" to fund more "conservative-based" research instead of peer-reviewed and evidence-backed medical science
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Brian Stelter @brianstelter.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
In a blow to press freedoms within the US military, the Pentagon has forced out several top staffers at Stars & Stripes, the military publication with a long record of editorial independence. Full story: www.cnn.com/2026/08/21/m...
cnn.com
Pentagon fires Stars and Stripes leaders amid Hegseth pressure campaign | CNN Business
In a blow to press freedoms within the US military, the Pentagon has forced out several top staffers at Stars & Stripes, the military publication with a long record of editorial independence.
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Embrace the power. (Cross-posted from @infinitemonkeyshq.bsky.social )
infinitemonkeyshq.substack.com
Stories Shape The World
Writing is not just important work, it’s crucial
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Kim Lane Scheppele @kimlanelaw.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Zero new NSF grants in sociology, anthropology, political science and economics. The agenda of this US govt is to stop documenting the society in which we live while they are destroying it. We will find other ways to track and explain our times and fight to restore our research funding.
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Holly Brewer @earlymodjustice.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
This is Butler county, Pennsylvania, where there was the supposed assassination attempt against Trump in 2024. It’s gone 18 points blue.
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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
BREAKING NYT: A month after the Trump admin declared without evidence that thousands of noncitizens had illegally registered to vote in Nevada, DHS officials were unable to substantiate the claim — finding just 185 potential anomalies, not the 16,000 claimed last month.
nytimes.com
Homeland Security Unable to Prove That Thousands of Noncitizens Registered to Vote in Nevada
The Department of Homeland Security told Nevada election officials that it identified 185 “potential” noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls, not the nearly 16,000 it claimed last month.
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Hari Kunzru @harikunzru.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I did predict, further up the thread, that Cofnas might come to regret poking his little brachycephalic head over the parapet
Nathan Cofnas • @nathancofnas • 2h
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I was just suspended by Ghent University. They will almost certainly fire me.
The decision was made by rector Petra De Sutter, a former leader of the Green Party.
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Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
This is pretty big: Cook Political Report just shifted the Texas *and* Iowa Senate races from Lean Republican to Toss Up:
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David Dark @daviddark.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
"Anyone with a trusted relationship with Harp could learn anything about Donald Trump, could learn the content of all his meetings, all his messages, all his phone calls, could pass him — & pass on, in his name — any kind of untoward message." @emptywheel.bsky.social emptywheel.net/2026/08/19/n...
emptywheel.net
Natalie Harp Is the Unsupervised Gatekeeper to the Man with the Nuclear Buttons - emptywheel
The thing about being a gatekeeper to the most powerful man in the world is no one would know what information you were channeling to whom.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
This is extraordinarily dark: government agents surveilling peaceful protestors and trying to entrap them into breaking the law. It’s a classic measure of an authoritarian state.
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Catherine Tinker @catherinetinker.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Good morning, Moms For Liberty got their shit rocked in Sarasota :)
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Sammy Roth @sammyroth.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
ICE detained a Padres minor league coach and is trying to deport him. MLB declined to comment. So, so cowardly. www.nytimes.com/athletic/752...
nytimes.com
Padres minor-league catching coordinator detained by ICE in Texas
Oswaldo Pirela, the Padres' minor-league catching coordinator, was detained early Sunday at El Paso International Airport.
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
This is just out and it's great (I got to read the UK edition, which came out earlier). The revolution of our time in biology is the recognition of interconnection, symbiosis, and arguably there's a social and imaginative revolution along the same lines....
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Goldstein (still not a pseudonym) @goldstein.latinsky.app · 19/08/2026
thehill.com/opinion/crim...
thehill.com
Baltimore is outpacing the nation on violence reduction — here’s how
The larger lesson of Baltimore’s progress is this: cities do not have to choose between accountability and support.
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Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Trump's covert surveillance of anti-ICE protesters is much worse than we thought. I dug into this and found that DHS agents secretly spied on over a dozen meetings of left-leaning groups, all protected by First Amendment. The details are unnerving. 1/ (new piece) newrepublic.com/article/2144...
newrepublic.com
Trump’s Secret Police Spying on Americans? It’s Darker than We Knew.
Court papers reveal that the Department of Homeland Security’s covert surveillance of anti-ICE groups is much darker than it first appeared. Welcome to Donald Trump’s America.
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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
recapping the night: —Dems flip school board of Sarasota County, FL (a stronghold of M4L). —Dems flip school board chair seat in Orange County, FL. —Dems flip at-large city council seat in Jacksonville. —Dems lead in a red Pennsylvania state House seat (all precincts in, though no AP call).
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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
There's a very close special election in Pennsylvania right now. It's for a state House district that Trump carried by 18%. The GOP nominee is up by just *20* votes (with 87% reporting).
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Musicology Duck @musicologyduck.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
hear that max miller 19thnews.org/2026/08/cory...
19thnews.org
Florida voters reject Cory Mills’ reelection bid amid dating violence allegations
Mills will become the fourth congressman this year to lose his seat after being accused of misconduct against women.
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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
FLIP: Democrats have flipped an at-large seat on the city council of Jacksonville, Florida's most populous city. Moné Holder will join the council, after winning this special election with a comfortable lead.
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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
FLIP IN FLORIDA: The Democratic-backed slate has flipped the school board of Sarasota County. This is a county of 400K that went for Trump by 18%. It's also where Bridget Ziegler has been on the school board. Dem-backed candidates just flipped 2 seats, adding to the 2 they already had (out of 5).
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Spencer Ackerman @attackerman.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
ICE and CBP are full of rapists and child predators. A new report details it in horrific detail.
forever-wars.com
The Sex Criminals and Child Abusers of ICE and CBP
Rape. Domestic violence. Epstein friendship. It's all tolerated by our valiant homeland-security apparatus. PLUS: COINTELPRO 2026
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Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
JUST IN: Judge Laura Provinzino (Biden/MN) orders in camera review of all grand jury records in MN church protest case. Doc: www.documentcloud.org/documents/28...
documentcloud.org
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Michael E. Mann @michaelemann.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
You don't say... www.ms.now/news/frame-u...
ms.now
Whistleblower says probes into antisemitism at colleges were ploys to harass and strip millions
A former Justice Department lawyer says the Trump investigations squeezed Ivy League universities for millions before they were even concluded. A top Democrat is demanding answers.
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Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Working on a dissertation in American political behavior and need money for survey research? Apply for a grant worth up to $15,000 from the Rapoport Family Foundation. They’re planning on awarding up to 15 grants this cycle. Deadline Oct. 21. www.rapoportfamilyfoundation.com/phdgrant
rapoportfamilyfoundation.com
Rapoport Doctoral Dissertation Grants
Supporting projects for PhD students doing political science research, democracy and social justice.
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
'as reading declines and more people turn to videos for political information, the literate culture that sustained sophisticated argument and rational debate is crumbling.' Worth contextualising with 18th-c upper-class horror at the advent of reading by working-class readers (esp. women). 1/2
thetimes.com
The death of reading puts the world in a perilous place
Books and newspapers are increasingly giving way to social media content as the habit of reading fades. This isn’t just dumbing down, it’s a threat to democracy
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Hoodlum 🇺🇸 @nothoodlum.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
This is a very dangerous lunatic. RFK Jr: “The polio vaccine "killed many, many more people" than polio ever did.”
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
“.. The number of people worth at least $100 million whom the Republican president has appointed to his administration is more than four times the combined total under the three previous presidents ..” @apnews.com apnews.com/article/trum...
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 18/08/2026
Ossoff: "I have zero interest in running for president in 2028, and frankly zero interest in the 2028 fantasy football right now ... these midterms are the whole ballgame ... I don't know that we have a free and fair election in 2028 unless we restore checks and balances in these 2026 midterms."
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
The fact that CNN is getting all these leaks about major issues with the fleet tells me someone in the Navy is not happy with how things are going. 3/3
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mrbluesky58 @mrbluesky58.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Has @marcelias.bsky.social responded to this yet??
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Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 17/08/2026
I love that everybody longingly wishes Zohran could be mayor of their city or in the White House, but trust me, there are many more Zohran’s out there in every community all over the US. So stop daydreaming and start organizing to defeat billionaire backed candidates in elections.
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Will Bunch @willbunch.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
The incredible reaction to Jon Ossoff saying just one word about our emperor's new clothes -- "Natalie" -- shows what Democrats can do if they just speak the truth about what all of us can see with our own eyes
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Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I wrote this because most journalists facing this pressure can’t. The paper we count on to check authoritarianism spiked an investigation into the Democratic Party because the party’s lawyers threatened to sue. Holding authoritarians accountable starts with holding your own side accountable.
data4democracy.substack.com
With Fear and Favor
Institutions don’t have courage. They have incentives.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 17/08/2026
Enten: "Hispanic men on Trump -- in 2024 he won by 10 points. Look now where his net approval is -- minus 41 points! That is a 51 point switcheroo against the president ... these numbers are bonkers."
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