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Gouda Sofia

@updrafter.bsky.social

6.1K followers 19K following 5.6K posts

Free Palestine! 🍉 🇵🇸 Slava Ukraine! 🌻 🇺🇦, NAFO, Yooper, Stoopall League of America, He/Him, BLM, Amplifier It’s a lot. Me. You. This. All of it. Too much really. Ok, if you insist! You have been warned. Giddy Up Little Doggies! Let us away!

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Gouda Sofia @updrafter.bsky.social · Jan 5

If you or someone you know needs an abortion, call 1-800-230-Plan or go to AbortionFinder.org

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SAINT JAVELIN @saintjavelin.bsky.social · 2h

🔥Ukrainian SOF and SBU struck deep in occupied Crimea, hitting Feodosia’s oil terminal and several power stations.

At least five tanks at the Feodosia oil terminal are burning. The “Kafa” substation, part of Russia’s energy bridge to Crimea, took heavy damage to transformers and control systems.

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 13h

It's hard to help Americans left behind because so much of US identity is rooted in individualism. The average American conservative holds all three positions at once:

— Virtue signals about supporting US manufacturing
— Against raising the minimum wage
— Buys foreign imports because they're cheap

HardPass4 on Twitter tweets: "I'm willing to pay more for quality products if they are made in America, by Americans, who are paid a decent income." The tweet shows Norman Rockwell's "Freedom of Speech" painting, which is often used to show the tweeter is expressing a brave opinion.

HardPass4 on Twitter tweets: "MINIMUM WAGE JOBS WERE NOT MEANT TO BE A CAREER. Why does no one understand this? Entry level jobs are STEPPING STONES to better jobs. No one wants to work towards that though."

HardPass4 on Twitter tweets: "Buy $5 gloves instead of $50 ones. Trust me." The tweet shows a box of "Gorilla Grip" gloves.

The label on Gorilla Grip gloves show they're made in China.

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 13h

Ultimately, the death of US manufacturing is about this attitude. It's easy to say "buy american or stfu" because virtue signaling is free. But it's hard to actually sustain a business because many Americans simply don't want to pay what it costs to produce things ethically in this country

Someone on Twitter replies to me: "meh. buy american or stfu."

Two hours later, in a separate thread, the write: "$30 for a single button-up is ridiculous unless it is decent quality silk."

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 13h

This two-parter below is exactly why it's hard to make clothes in the United States.

Let's look at how much it costs to produce a button-up shirt in the US. 🧵

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National Security Counselors 🕵 @nationalsecuritylaw.org · 13h

Can't wait to see the QI motion on this. "There's no way this brave law enforcement officer could have known that it was wrong to open a door holding a dog and then shoot the dog."

Leia🇨🇴🇺🇸 @theswprincess.bsky.social · 15h

CBP agents knocked on an El Paso home at 7:15 a.m.

The owner asked to secure his Rottweiler, Chop, in the bathroom.

While he got his ID, agents opened the door and shot Chop.

The family tried to save him as he bled out on the kitchen floor.

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 13h

TRUMP: Boy, she asks a lot of questions. Who are you with?

BURNS: Politico. Dasha Burns, sir

TRUMP: Dasha, Politico, ugh. Politico has gone bad. They've been so wrong about everything. Let's get somebody else to ask some questions. You mind? Politico is fake news.

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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 13h

Pope Leo: “With your patient and rigorous work, you can act as a barrier against those who, through the ancient art of lying, seek to create divisions in order to rule by dividing,” he said. “You can be a bulwark of civility against the quicksand of approximation and post-truth...”

Pope urges news agencies to stand as bulwark against lies, manipulation and post-truths

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the “ancient art of lying” and manipulation.

apnews.com

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Gouda Sofia @updrafter.bsky.social · 13h

“The finest baby frog, dew picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and then frozen in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream framboise envelope and lovingly frosted with glucose.”

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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 13h

Expect your year on year electricity bill to double every year now. This is largely (1) because of the techbros and their AI projects, absorbing existing capacity and (2) Trump is aggressively cancelling and blocking alternative energy add ons like solar and wind so reasons that make no sense.

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A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social · 13h

Not gonna link the troll but Bari Weiss clearly represents “thought police” more than 100,000 Bluesky leftists scolding you for writing a defense of Weiss ever will, and ignoring that reality is clearly designed to curry the favor of thought police. You’re not a free thinker, you’re the boot licker.

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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 20h

The MSCI China index has surged 35 per cent this year, compared with a 14 per cent gain in the MSCI World index of developed market stocks, the largest margin of outperformance since 2017.

Chinese stocks race ahead as reforms take hold

MSCI China has surged 39% this year even as many global fund managers branded the country ‘uninvestable’

www.ft.com

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Tea Pain @teapainusa.bsky.social · 20h

Yeah, like a vet “fixes” a cat.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 20h

Mike Johnson: "Republicans are the party that are fixing healthcare. We just demonstrated that in the one big beautiful bill."

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 21h

Democracy Americana is a publication solely funded by readers. If you find pieces like this one helpful, you can subscribe for free – or, better yet: If you can, consider becoming a paid member. As an independent writer, I fully rely on your help to make this work possible. Thank you!🙏

Democracy Americana

A newsletter on U.S. politics and history - and the ongoing struggle over how much democracy, and for whom, there should be in America

steady.page

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 21h

The Daily’s credulous/willfully ignorant/deliberately misleading portrait of Vought matters because it is indicative of a much broader tendency to normalize the assault on the constitutional order - to sanitize those who are responsible for it and the extremist ideas that are animating them.

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 21h

Vought is at war with large swaths of the population, with the very idea of a society defined by democratic pluralism. If you have correctly identified that this guy is now in a really powerful position, that people like him are in control of the government, how is that not the main story?

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 21h

Vought’s ideology of “radical constitutionalism” captures the defining sensibility on the Trumpist Right: “The Left,” he believes, has command of America, there is nothing left to conserve, nothing short of a radical “counter-revolution” can now save the nation.

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 21h

Vought is not interested in “normal” democratic politics: He seeks to “traumatize” civil servants, use the military to suppress protests, and sees Trump as an agent of God’s will. He is convinced to be fighting a noble war to defend his “real America” of white Christian patriarchal rule.

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 21h

The Daily is committed to sanitizing Vought and ignoring what they regard as unsavory ideology. Because engaging with what is actually animating Vought would make it very hard to uphold the “normal politics” framework that defines much of mainstream political journalism.

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 21h

Sunday reading:

I wrote about the aggrieved extremist who is currently firing thousands of federal workers and ravaging state capacity based on conspiratorial nonsense - and about mainstream media’s infuriating tendency to sanitize Russell Vought and the regime he serves.

This week’s piece:

We need to talk about Russell Vought – But Properly

Why certain mainstream outlets insist on sanitizing Vought as a devout “small government” conservative – and what actually animates his war against pluralistic democracy

steady.page

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 20h

a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 21h

What he’s railing against is a profound shift in culture, status… He’s obsessed with the idea that America is controlled by a leftist “ruling elite” - but “elite” isn’t defined socio-economically or by political power, it means something like: Getting to define “real America” and who gets to belong.

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 20h

WELKER: Are you looking at invoking the Insurrection Act?

VANCE: We have to remember we are talking about this bc crime has gotten out of control

W: Crime is down in both Chicago & Portland

V: Crime is down bc they are so overwhelmed at the local level they are not even keeping stats properly

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Black Aziz Anansi @blackazizanansi.blacksky.app · 20h

The folks who I've been trying to help get access to food and medicine are currently being starved under this administration, confronting them may actually be a good starting point for change.

wakandangriot.bsky.social @wakandangriot.bsky.social · 1d

No. Imagine you’re having family destroyed and starved with U.S. support and then backs are turned on you during during the campaign. Then imagine the people that did so, scolding you. In her book, 107 Days, Harris admits that this was a mistake. I was a strong supporter, but she’s wrong here.

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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 20h

"ANIMAL WRITE LETTER. CORPORATE ASK FOR CALM HR MEMO. ANIMAL DROP TRUTH BOMB. NEWS WEAK. NEWS SHIVER IN FEAR. TOO MUCH THINK. TOO MUCH WOKE. NEWS NEED DRUM SMASH TO FACE. ANIMAL SEE THIS. ANIMAL FEEL THIS."

“AAAGGGHHH!!!” A Memo from Animal, Your New Editor-in-Chief

“[Editor-in-chief of CBS News] Bari Weiss told network staffers in a morning editorial call that she wants to ‘win’ before delivering a rallying cr...

buff.ly

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Gouda Sofia @updrafter.bsky.social · 20h

chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/10...

Federal immigration officers wear masks, no name tags — now some drive cars without license plates

The Sun-Times has documented four unmarked cars carrying federal officers without required plates, offering another way to shield their identities. Federal officials say they’re meeting regulations.

chicago.suntimes.com

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Gouda Sofia @updrafter.bsky.social · 20h

So many teachers crashing out early this year