Reposted by Rob CoynerLauren Dobson-Hughes @ldobsonhughes.bsky.social · 24/06/2026Musk says not a single person has died due to him axing USAID. Sadly, part of my job involves tracking aid spending. So here’s a thread with just some of the people who lost their lives because of USAID cuts 196133276753
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 04/05/2026I am loving the chaos of the eastern conference in the first round of the playoffs. 000
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 03/04/2026When I see a New York Times book critic discuss how a poet who hates poetry is attempting to resurrect the novel, i just have to wonder how they each find their own navels so interesting. 000
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 18/03/2026One and likely only time I’ll be excited to see that goon hit one out of the park. 000
Reposted by Rob CoynerLast Week Tonight with John Oliver @lastweektonight.com · 09/03/2026Here’s last night’s story about USAID, why the Trump Administration has gutted it, who is being impacted, and how many nice things John can say about George W. Bush. It’s more than zero! By a very narrow margin, it is more than zero. youtu.be/tU8S13xYJNMyoutu.beUSAID: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)YouTube video by LastWeekTonight 19661248
Reposted by Rob CoynerSean T. Collins @seantcollins.com · 09/02/2026I'm hardly the first person to note this, but it's enormously instructive that our President and his followers saw the message "THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE" and understood it, correctly, as an attack on them 102248635815
Reposted by Rob CoynerAlejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 09/02/2026This is a love letter to Reggaeton featuring some of the biggest songs in the genre, Dale Don Dale by Don Omar and Gasolina by Daddy Yankee. These songs came out 20 years ago and made Reggaeton internationally famous. 584049
Reposted by Rob CoynerAdam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 31/01/2026www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...newyorker.comWhat ICE Should Have Learned from the Fugitive Slave ActAmericans took to the streets to defend their neighbors in the nineteenth century, too. 526396
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 01/02/2026This has aged well: “There’s no surprises….What happened last night was blue states and blue cities voted blue. We all saw that coming.” Can’t wait to hear this morning’s spin. 000
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 26/01/2026“You cannot take what you have not given, and you must give yourself. You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” -Ursula K. Le Guin, the Dispossessed 000
Reposted by Rob CoynerTooey @sueric.bsky.social · 25/01/2026Kash Patel today: "You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want." Really? 24548431652
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 25/01/2026Lack of training is not the issue.youtu.beHow ICE is using far-right subculture to recruitYouTube video by CBC News: The National 000
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 25/01/2026“The end of the world isn’t as quick as everyone imagines; there’s time to learn. Yet there are no instructions.” -Victoria Amelina 001
Reposted by Rob CoynerMark Gongloff @markgongloff.bsky.social · 24/01/2026We’re supposed to believe this is a domestic terrorist attacking ICE with a gun 26198863892
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 22/12/2025“I'll show you light now. It burns bright forever. No more blue tomorrows. You on high now, love.” 000
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 21/12/2025Even if they are somewhat repetitive, I have to own up to how I have given myself over to the fully realized world James Cameron has created in Avatar. Would that the architects of AI could learn from him how to use technology to imagine new worlds rather than reduce our own to a set of algorithms. 000
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 09/12/2025Is the point of Axios to credulously regurgitate bank and tech executive groupthink without even the most basic level of skeptical analysis? It feels like little more than a PR firm for entrenched interests at this point. Or, worse, a pass through for their quotes and press releases. 010
Reposted by Rob CoynerThe Doctor (Commissions open) @lucidillusions.in · 22/03/2024Sounds legit...(ish) 🧪Meme 520746
Reposted by Rob CoynerCrooked Marquee @crooked-marquee.bsky.social · 22/11/2025‘Sweet Smell of Success’ is “a bleak and unsparing depiction of obeisance before power in a morally bankrupt culture,” @splicedpersonality.bsky.social writes: crookedmarquee.com/classic-corn... 1732640
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 20/11/2025“I don’t think this government will stop…Violating due process this time means they will violate it again and again and again.” youtu.be/e4X0hI40a8A?...youtu.beInside ICE Detention: Stripped, Shackled, StarvedYouTube video by New York Times Opinion 000
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 20/11/2025“One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” Omar El Akkad’s forceful rebuke to those who cynically preach patience and good intentions while doing nothing but look away and make excuses, has deservedly won the Nat’l Book Award. W/o a doubt it is the hard shove I needed in this moment. 000
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 19/11/2025Was lucky enough to attend an advance screening of Hamnet and in a year of standout lead actress performances, Jessie Buckley is in a league of her own. She won and broke our hearts with the love, joy, and grief she brought to this film. 020
Reposted by Rob CoynerJonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 18/11/2025"The international community, in particular the US and other western governments, allowed all of this to happen. This is what genocide looks like in the 21st century: not only in scale or method, but in how it’s normalized. " www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...theguardian.comIsrael needs to face accountability for our genocide. And so does the US | Yuli NovakThe international community allowed all of this to happen. We must not look away or move on 2318
Reposted by Rob CoynerKaren Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · 18/11/2025So Harvard is keeping this guy, but Claudine Gay had to step down over ginned up plagiarism accusations and bad-faith accusations of anti-Semitism. Got it. 20275342010
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 14/11/2025Each of Lynne Ramsay’s films has been an expressionistic gift, bringing out the best of actors—in this case with Jennifer Lawrence’s shattering performance—to show the inner turmoil of characters that words alone so often fail to convey. 000
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 12/11/2025Of course the Republicans would be worse. What the mainstream Democrat seems incapable of accepting is that for an even remotely functioning conscience, there exists a point beyond which relative harm can no longer offset absolute evil. -Omar El Akkad 000
Reposted by Rob CoynerDavid Simon @audacityofdespair.bsky.social · 11/11/2025Is Schumer still the minority leader? Is Durbin still the whip? Is Cortes-Masto still a vice chair? Good Democrats -- rank and file, those committed to restoring party --must tell Act Blue and every candidate with hands out for the coming midterms -- that there's no cash coming without new leaders. 46822204
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 11/11/2025Truly grateful for access to AFI Silver Spring, where they have had several screenings of Seven Samurai this week. While my younger self recognized it as one of the great all-time action epics, the class consciousness of Kurosawa is much more visible to me as I age. 100
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 10/11/2025A significant difference between 2025 and 2017 is that the mask is finally all the way off of those who claimed solidarity for so long. There’s barely even lip service anymore that claims of protecting rights and livelihoods are anything more than broken promises in waiting. 000
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 10/11/2025It’s not accurate to say that Senate Dems got nothing in return for their cowardice. Or, that Democratic voters didn’t get anything either. The politicians got the voter turnout they needed on election day. And in return, they gave us all a knife in the back. 000
Reposted by Rob CoynerAtul Gawande @agawande.bsky.social · 06/11/2025Today @TheNewYorker released our short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” online. It traces the ongoing effects of the sudden shutdown of US foreign aid through the story of one mother in Kenya as she seeks to save her daughter from sickness and starvation. 🎥 1/ www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...newyorker.comThe Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of ThousandsThe short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” tells the story of what goes when aid goes. 12572340
Reposted by Rob CoynerGreg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 05/11/2025The factional grifters will hate this, but the Mamdani-Spanberger-Sherrill axis actually suggests the outlines of a broad, emerging Dem coalition organized around both anti-Trump *and* affordability politics, not a party bitterly divided against itself. 132103842341
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 02/11/2025I may not live in LA anymore but I’m so happy the Dodgers got this series to November, that Rojas got them to November 2, and that Yamamoto carried them over the finish line. 000
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 01/11/2025I love October baseball. November baseball is better. 000
Reposted by Rob CoynerThe Last Mile with USAID @thelastmilewithusaid.substack.com · 31/10/2025How hurricane relief efforts in Jamaica are affected by the end of USAID : Goats and Soda www.npr.org/sections/goa...npr.orgHow will the dismantling of USAID affect U.S. relief efforts in Jamaica?USAID was the lead American agency in disaster response. Now that it's been dismantled, questions are arising about how effective U.S. relief efforts will be in Jamaica after the hurricane. 12716
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 31/10/2025How is it that if I Had Legs I’d Kick You is more unsettling and full of existential dread than any horror film that’s been raved about this year? 000
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 31/10/2025It may not be the ultimate Frankenstein but it does feel like the ultimate Del Toro. Not necessarily the film he was born to make, but clearly the film he has wanted to make his entire life. 000
Reposted by Rob CoynerRick Steves @ricksteves.bsky.social · 15/10/2025🧵: Last June, more than 5 million Americans joined #NoKings rallies across the country, protesting President Trump's authoritarianism. And this Saturday, with your help, it's going to be even bigger and better. 502736736
Reposted by Rob CoynerRick Steves @ricksteves.bsky.social · 10/10/2025Thread: A year ago yesterday was a very happy day for me. I had lost my prostate. It was good riddance, as it was riddled with cancer. I’m now cancer-free — and thankful for the tax-funded technology that saved my life. 321657247
Reposted by Rob CoynerMehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan.bsky.social · 07/10/2025I had a moving, heartbreaking, powerful discussion with 2 Israelis who lost family members to Hamas on Oct. 7th, 2 years ago today, on the power of 'radical forgiveness' & on standing up to the Israeli government that abandoned their family members. Full interview: zeteo.com/p/israel-gaz... 14634121
Reposted by Rob CoynerRick Steves @ricksteves.bsky.social · 07/10/2025Nearly 8% of the people on our planet are farmers who produce more than a third of the world’s food on small plots of land...just an acre or two each. These farmers want to work, produce, feed their families, sell what’s left, and stay on their farms (cont.)youtube.comFarmers Embracing Smart AgricultureYouTube video by Classroom Europe 327252
Reposted by Rob CoynerRick Steves @ricksteves.bsky.social · 02/10/2025Nearly 10% of humanity (~800M people in 2025) struggles to live on less than $3 a day. It’s important for Americans to appreciate that reality — and the growing gap between the extremely poor & the extremely privileged — because, as USAID demonstrated, our nation has the power to change it. 🧵 1/8classroom.ricksteves.comWhat Extreme Poverty Looks LikeTen percent of humanity struggles to live on under $2 a day. That, and the gap between the extremely poor and the more privileged, is important to see. 10849223
Rob Coyner @tobuildafire.bsky.social · 01/10/2025One Battle After Another may have been filmed in 2024 and loosely inspired by a 35-year-old book, but it drives home how much the present moment feels like the bleak absurdity of a Thomas Pynchon novel. 100