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Joel Lesko

@sunshowerlearning.bsky.social
1.2K followers 1.4K following 1.8K posts

Filmmaker, producer, DEI educator for belonging 📌 www.sunshowerlearning.com ✍️ www.cultureofbelonging.net 🎥 seeds-movie.com Abolish ICE• #NoKings • DC, Puerto Rico Statehood • Expand SCOTUS • Support Ukraine • Inclusion 🇺🇦🙏🏽🦮🌷

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Joel Lesko @sunshowerlearning.bsky.social · 8h
I just made this video to support Democrats in the midterms. Please share widely. #Midterms #VoteDemocrats If you're with a candidate, I'm happy to customize it for you to use.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 12h
scenes from an authoritarian cult -- Trump signs an EO, and then all of his cronies keep clapping and clapping for him since none of them wants to be the first one to stop
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Joel Lesko @sunshowerlearning.bsky.social · 13h
Sen Kennedy self-owning, "what does the word arrogant mean?" 🤣 What a fraud he is.
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
So is the White House, the Kennedy Center, and for that matter the Supreme Court, Congress, the executive branch, the rule of law, the military, public health, and.... Let's hope for a midterm landslide and thereafter some memory in the electorate of who broke what.
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Jen Taub @jentaub.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Link www.freep.com/story/opinio...
freep.com
Abdul El-Sayed or Mike Rogers? Freep's pick in U.S. Senate race | Endorsement
The Free Press endorsement in Michigan's U.S. Senate race.
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Jacob Soboroff @jacobsoboroff.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
yesterday in Texas I introduced @maddow.bsky.social ahead of a surprise interview with @lbarronlopez.bsky.social about Trump's latest attacks on the free press. we'll bring you their whole conversation *for the first time* this morning on @connectwithjacob.bsky.social. 10AM ET.
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Jeff (Hot Type) Jarvis @jeffjarvis.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
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Ari Berman @ariberman.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This means eligible voters will be wrongly labeled non-citizens due to faulty and unreliable data and be purged from the rolls
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teamhamiltonhq.bsky.social @teamhamiltonhq.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Meischa was Roger Marshall's patient. This is her story.
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Joel Lesko @sunshowerlearning.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
A neutral read of this photo is these two people are walking past cameras w practiced composure. But neutral is the mechanism that lets documented harm pass as ordinary. Way too many are neutral to the harm these two cause. He is a convicted felon. She launders Putin's violence stealing children
Atl text A stern white-haired man in a dark suit stands beside a serious woman; bold text reads “Fear Hated Rage” and “Anger Dominating,” creating a tense political tone. But alt text isn't the whole story, it's Donald and Melania, the mobsters who harm people.
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Charles Keener @charleskeener.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
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🌬Breeze @cool-summer-breeze.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This is the Stolen Neighbors Quilt. Each of the 11,000 squares represents a person taken by ICE in Minnesota.
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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The Financial Times A7 exposé into the Kremlin's ability to permeate Western financial institutions with $7bn in forged financial instruments was the most important financial reporting of the last month. It was not pick up or reported on in US corporate media.
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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 24/09/2026
over at the newsletter I wrote about the comically shitty media coverage of the AI doompocalypse
karlbode.com
Lazy Journalism At The 'End Of The World'
U.S. corporate media long ago gave up on accurately describing abject reality.
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Joel Lesko @sunshowerlearning.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Thomas Edsall's NYT piece centers research that should stop anyone pretending this is a "both sides got more extreme" story. It isn't symmetrical, and the data doesn't support that story. R Party is home for racial grievance, xenophobia, and hostility to non-white. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/22/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Trump Makes Republicans More Racist and Democrats Less So (Gift Article)
The president is recasting the U.S. government as an instrument of prejudice.
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Joel Lesko @sunshowerlearning.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Calling Trump and his minions racists or fascists or authoritarians or hypocrites or scumbags (all of which they are) will not change anything. Shame and embarrassment no longer touch them. We must win power through elections and use it to hold them accountable for their crimes. Power is essential.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 24/09/2026
Thank you! If you'd like to show appreciation for the decade I've been doing this work by buying me a coffee, you can do so here:
buymeacoffee.com
Aaron Rupar
Independent journalist and publisher of the Public Notice newsletter. Your support makes my work possible, including all the clipping I do across my social media channels.
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Joel Lesko @sunshowerlearning.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Bummer #MSNOW app sucks. I ponied up for a one-year subscription and am 100% disappointed. You have to wade through stuff to get to the live feed, it keeps buffering, when you watch a show afterwards, you can't jump forward and back 15 seconds. Weak @msnowreports.bsky.social @msnowevents.bsky.social
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Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News @froomkin.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
He thinks a “deficit” means we send money to other countries for nothing. He thinks “tariffs” are a tax on the target country when they’re actually a tax paid by Americans. Why? Because he’s an idiot. presswatchers.org/2026/09/dona...
presswatchers.org
Donald Trump is an idiot, and the mainstream press is covering up for him | Press Watch
He does incredibly stupid things and doesn’t understand basic concepts, for starters
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 22/09/2026
Sen. Susan Collins helped steer millions in federal defense contracts to Navatek, whose CEO illegally funneled thousands of dollars to her campaign. The FBI sought to launch a probe and was eyeing Collins and other lawmakers. Then Trump gutted the unit in charge. THREAD 🧵
Martin Kao, CEO of defense contractor Navatek, poses next to Sen. Susan Collins for a photo. Collins is holding a model of a boat in her hands. Behind them is a large sign with the Navatek logo.
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Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News @froomkin.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Gripping, raw, and important story by Nikole Hannah-Jones about one of the most troubling and intractable problems in our society. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/m...
nytimes.com
In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own? (Gift Article)
A decade ago, I made a decision about my daughter’s education that I hoped would challenge New York City’s separate and unequal school system. Now 16, she thinks I made the wrong choice.
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Joel Lesko @sunshowerlearning.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I'd never heard of the Common Rule, or as John calls it, the “Please don’t turn vulnerable humans into experimental lab rats” rule. "Scientific progress without ethical limits can become scientific barbarism" Trump-RFK fascists modernize by making vulnerable people experimental subjects = eugenics
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John Fugelsang @johnfugelsang.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Imagine looking at a monument to a slain president and announcing: "You know what this needs? My first and last name, in enormous letters, before the slain president it was named for. My name comes first."
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
More and more, people are calling them the party of pedophile protectors
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Joel Lesko @sunshowerlearning.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Let's spread this warning far and wide, on and especially outside Bluesky.
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Joel Lesko @sunshowerlearning.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The NYT on why scandals don't stick frames everything through polarization, which does a lot of cover work. UNC prof McGregor @shannimcg.bsky.social says "polarization" is a power-neutral diagnosis that makes right-wing radicalization www.nytimes.com/2026/09/14/w... newrepublic.com/article/2153...
newrepublic.com
Transcript: America’s Big Political Problem Isn’t Polarization
Academics and journalists do the far right favors when they describe American politics as polarized and desperately seek to seem neutral, says professor Shannon McGregor.
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Roger Parloff @rparloff.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Don Jr's extravagant 3-day wedding was bankrolled by Russian oligarch and Putin crony Umar Kremlev, per @propublica.org www.propublica.org/article/dona...
propublica.org
Donald Trump Jr.’s Wedding Bankrolled by Putin-Linked Russian Oligarch
The oligarch, Umar Kremlev, spent hundreds of thousands on expenses like renting out a private island. He appears to have met Trump Jr. only recently, but he attended the intimate wedding with a large...
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Joel Lesko @sunshowerlearning.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
America in Jeopardy! Senators Expose Trump’s Corruption. And the categories are: slush funds, selling pardons, crypto, corruption, profiting off the presidency, foreign influence. Sen Jeff @merkley.senate.gov "it's fun and it's deadly serious" www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw-G...
youtube.com
America in Jeopardy - Merkley, Warren, Van Hollen, and Smith Expose Trump’s Corruption
YouTube video by Senator Jeff Merkley
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 13/09/2026
the way to understand a piece like this from schmitz is that he lives in an urban, cosmopolitan millieu and the popularity of country music is a novelty to him. and so to explain it, he has to fit it into his volkish conception of america, whether or not that makes any actual sense.
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Lindsay Beyerstein @beyerstein.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Trump's annual facial droop at the 9/11 ceremony, explained.
youtube.com
Why does Trump’s lip droop??
YouTube video by Hilary M.A. CCC-SLP
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MO-KAN HASH @mokanhash.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
youtube.com/watch?v=WLDE...
youtube.com
Jimmy Kimmel’s Interview with James Talarico That the FCC Doesn’t Want You To See
YouTube video by Jimmy Kimmel Live
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Joel Lesko @sunshowerlearning.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The press corps' silence is the story inside the story. The President used his body as a weapon against a Black woman journalist who asked an accountability question. The reporter next to her could've held the line and let her continue, or ask again. He didn't. #RachelScott #JournalismSolidarity
ANDREW HARNIK VIA GETTY IMAGES
Donald Trump, in a dark suit and red tie, speaks aggressively to a female reporter, calling her the worst to intimidate her on the tarmac before boarding Air Force One after attending the Republican Midterm Convention on Sept. 10, in Dallas, Texas. 
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Joel Lesko @sunshowerlearning.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
#NoKings Ashland Oregon Join us on October 17th at 10 am at the Ashland Plaza Downtown. Please spread the word and share this far and wide. www.mobilize.us/nokings/even...
mobilize.us
No Kings Ashland Oregon - Vote Early. Stand up for voting rights · No Kings
Let’s all come together at the Ashland Downtown Plaza to inspire our community to show up and vote. We will also be standing together to reject the idea that power belongs to one man, to billionaire...
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
A quarter century ago, 2,600 people lost their lives in Manhattan, and then several million people lost their story. They were only defeated when their resilience was stolen from them by clichés, by the invisibility of what they accomplished that extraordinary morning, and by the word "terrorism"..
The Real 9/11: Citizens Succeeded, Institutions Failed

I wrote this for the eighth anniversary of 9/11, drawing on my 2009 book A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster; it felt right to revise and reissue for this twenty-fifth anniversary.
A quarter century ago, 2,600 people lost their lives in Manhattan, and then several million people lost their story. The al-Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers did not defeat New Yorkers. It destroyed the buildings, contaminated the region, killed thousands, and disrupted the global economy, but it most assuredly did not conquer the citizenry. They were only defeated when their resilience was stolen from them by clichés, by the invisibility of what they accomplished that extraordinary morning, and by the very word "terrorism," which suggests that they, or we, were all terrified. The distortion, even obliteration, of what actually happened was a necessary precursor to launching the obscene response that culminated in a war on Iraq, a war we lost, and the loss of civil liberties and democratic principles that went with it. 

Only We Can Terrorize Ourselves
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Guardian: This week, the Trump administration released a new bombshell. In outlining how it will govern the 2030 decennial census, the Census Bureau has indicated that it plans to stop collecting data about race and only count a subset of the population, contrary to what the constitution requires.
This week, the Trump administration released a new bombshell. In outlining how it will govern the 2030 decennial census, the Census Bureau has indicated that it plans to stop collecting data about race and only count a subset of the population, contrary to what the constitution requires. This is part of the “residence rules” that the Census Bureau produces in the middle of the decade to finalize its operational plan. While purportedly intended to make the census “colorblind” and to protect the privacy of respondents, these proposed changes to the residence rules will ensure that anti-discrimination laws – such as the Voting Rights Act – that are anchored to the census data can’t be enforced
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southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Neither Trump nor his wife are in attendance at this year’s ceremony, notwithstanding the AP photo editor’s bullshit.
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Joel Lesko @sunshowerlearning.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
This is such a good piece from @andreapitzer.bsky.social "about the arc of how fascist ideology winds up with popular support, how anti-immigrant disinformation gets created and spread, and what it means about how we can stand up" degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/the-global...
degenerateart.beehiiv.com
The global fascist reboot trap
The US and Europe, over and over, leave room for fascism to rise again.
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Gothamist @gothamist.com · 08/09/2026
Mayor Mamdani releases 170K documents related to post-9/11 air quality gothamist.com/news/mayor-m...
gothamist.com
Mayor Mamdani releases 170K documents related to post-9/11 air quality
The Mamdani administration said the public was misled about health risks after the attacks.
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The TrumpRussiaGuide 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @trumprussiaties.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Elon Musk is no genius inventor — he’s a ‘stock pumper,’ filmmaker claims www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...
independent.co.uk
Elon Musk is no genius inventor — he’s a ‘stock pumper,’ filmmaker claims
Alex Gibney's new documentary “Musk” premieres this week at the Venice Film Festival
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Cas Mudde @casmudde.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
With some delay, my op-Ed on the dramatic Saxony-Anhalt election. It is high time we focus our political struggle on strengthening democracy, rather than merely weakening the far right. To do this, we must show realism, resilience and restraint.
theguardian.com
The AfD’s win in Germany is a dark day for Europe. Time is running out to stop the far right | Cas Mudde
This party is among the most extreme in Europe. To protect our democracies, liberal parties must urgently change their tactics, says Cas Mudde, author of The Far Right Today
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Amel Ahmed @amel.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Wrote and produced. Chief Justice Roberts, long celebrated as an institutionalist, was always a wolf in sheep’s clothing, hiding behind procedural moves and an unearned reputation even as he has radically expanded executive power while weakening Black political power.
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Joel Lesko @sunshowerlearning.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Important piece in New Republic by King Kenney "What had appreciated, apparently, was my Blackness—the same Black man, suddenly trading at a premium. ... America, in 2020, was in one of its ephemeral periods of racial lucidity." newrepublic.com/article/2149...
newrepublic.com
They Wanted Me for My Blackness. Then the Calls Stopped.
The year 2020 changed everything—or so we thought.
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Jay Rosen @jayrosen.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
At @status.news this weekend I got a word in about the "media frenzy" surrounding Hasan Piker. www.status.news/p/hasan-pike...
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 04/09/2026
elaborating on some points i've made on here youtu.be/goSvMAf2UKQ
youtu.be
There Was No Vibe Shift
YouTube video by Takes™ by Jamelle Bouie
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Has Mike Rogers disavowed Elon Musk yet? Has Ken Paxton disavowed Elon Musk yet? Has Mike Collins disavowed Elon Musk yet? Has Jon Husted disavowed Elon Musk yet? Has Susan Collins disavowed Elon Musk yet? Has Ashley Moody disavowed Elon Musk yet? Has Ashley Hinson disavowed Elon Musk yet?
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Rob Reiner Fan @rob-reiner-fan.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Elon Musk Named in Bombshell Election Meddling Claim The bombshell claim comes from the mother of one of Elon Musk’s (many) children, Ashley St. Clair...“He had told me [before the election] he was going to unleash the ‘anomaly in the matrix"...
thedailybeast.com
Elon Musk Named in Bombshell Election Meddling Claim
We know Musk is powerful. But how much does he influence our elections, exactly?
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Joel Lesko @sunshowerlearning.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
ICE has detained over 6,200 children during Trump's second term, according to Marshall Project. On an average day, approx 226 children are being held. And of those, approx 25 are 3 years and younger At least 500 babies and toddlers have been detained We must never forget this atrocity #AbolishICE
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Joel Lesko @sunshowerlearning.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Hide n seek is one of Nova's favorite games
Nova, an Aussie peeks through green bushes.
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Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock @warnock.senate.gov · 02/09/2026
This is outrageous. We just learned that health insurance prices are set to increase by another 20% in Georgia next year. Donald Trump cut health care and this is the result.
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Joel Lesko @sunshowerlearning.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Arrests by the numbers by journalist Mia Maldonado. The Oregon Capital Chronicle analyzed the data to include arrests from Oct. 1, 2022 to Aug. 6, 2026, to understand what federal immigration enforcement has looked like in Oregon under Trump’s second term. ashland.news/immigration-...
ashland.news
Immigration arrests in Oregon under Trump 2.0 by the numbers - Ashland News - Community-Supported, NonProfit News
Federal immigration agents have arrested more than 700 people in Oregon this year as of early August, according to new data. Those arrests make up about a quarter of the more than 2,500 arrests federa...
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