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Canary in the Coal Mine

@vaelis.bsky.social

920 followers 190 following 3.4K posts

GenXer who grew up on PBS in a small town & ended up in Fortune 5s. I have very strong feelings about our failed government, media, tech, fascism .. and video games. Not here for clout, just old and treat this like it’s a BBS 🙂

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Canary in the Coal Mine @vaelis.bsky.social · Feb 26

This is an excellent compilation of resources for folks looking to take action. Thank you Laura for putting it together.

Laura @tutusntinyhats.bsky.social · Feb 23

One of my favorite things about Bluesky (or at least my little corner of it) is that people are always sharing resources for taking action.

So here's a pinned thread collecting those resources, some made by me and some made by others.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 4m

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 · 47m

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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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 13h

I prefer “anti-fascist“ for a host of reasons and this is a nice practical one.

Ify Nwadiwe @ifycomedy.com · 15h

I think we really should stop using antifa and just fully say anti-fascist and get them saying they are against anti fascism. Using antifa is giving them some distance and I genuinely think some of their base don’t even know that’s what it stands for.

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 16h

Republicans feel empowered by their leader's autocratic coup against the Constitution to pursue their most cartoonishly evil agenda items, like literally making it easier to kill seals and whales

abcnews.go.com/Politics/wir...

Republicans try to weaken 50-year-old law protecting whales, seals and polar bears

One of the U.S.’s longest standing pieces of environmental legislation, credited with helping save rare whales from extinction, is the subject of an effort for cutbacks from Republican lawmakers who now feel they have the political will to do so

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Hamilton Nolan @hamiltonnolan.bsky.social · 11h

Has lived in the US since he was NINE MONTHS OLD.

Lynn Becker @cmgiulini.bsky.social · 12h

After spending 43 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, evidence hidden by the prosecution reversed his conviction. Rather than finally enjoying freedom, ICE abducted him for deportation

Depraved.

www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

He was wrongfully imprisoned for 43 years. Moments after being released, ICE took him

Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam now faces deportation.

www.miamiherald.com

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Rich Raho @richraho.bsky.social · 17h

Chicago priest Fr. Larry Dowling describes procession to ICE facility: “No one had the courage to speak directly to us. No one from Homeland Security could stand in the presence of the Monstrance holding the Blessed Sacrament. No wonder. Evil is repelled, recoils in the presence of Christ.”

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Michael E. Carter @deckofcarterhist.bsky.social · 11h

If you think its a coincidence that they are pushing BS autism causes while the DeptEd empties its special education division and ICE had an autistic child in dention without any of their family knowing, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

This is a purposeful attack on our most vulnerable.

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Canary in the Coal Mine @vaelis.bsky.social · 52m

Exactly. I always try to remind people that “antifa” was made up by Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka during Charlottesville and every time we use that word they win. We are spreading their bullshit that makes us sound militant and organized like them. Seems to work, nobody wants to do them a solid.

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Ify Nwadiwe @ifycomedy.com · 15h

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Khashoggi's Ghost @urocklive1.bsky.social · 12h

Just a reminder that Wikipedia is the only remaining reliable source of information that right wing billionaires can't control. (Although they'll never stop trying.)

Please donate to them whenever you can. Even a little bit helps.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

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Canary in the Coal Mine @vaelis.bsky.social · 1h

Yeah, which is why I’ve been fruitlessly, for decades, trying to get everyone around me to challenge the process, to look at the system, to reject the narratives and astroturfed moral panics. People really wanted to believe the civil war and 60s ended bigotry and that was just so wrong.

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Canary in the Coal Mine @vaelis.bsky.social · 1h

Well it’s just a good thing that the president and his doctor and everyone in the administration are such impeccable truth tellers that the media never feels the need to report on anything but what they say. Unlike Biden where it could fund a million articles criticizing how he breathed that day.

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 14h

The mainstream media loves making it seam like dysfunction in Washington is coming from both parties.

Hello?

Much of the GOP no longer accepts the rule of law, or the norms of democracy, or the legitimacy of the opposing party.

Enough of the false equivalence.

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Canary in the Coal Mine @vaelis.bsky.social · 1h

(in “culture war”) they’ve been engaged in destroying the union my entire life and we just .. let them.

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Canary in the Coal Mine @vaelis.bsky.social · 1h

Which is why it - like TikTok and the entirety of the MSM - had to be targeted and acquired for perversion into confederate lies & bigoted culture spreading tools.

I wish people had taken the whole “war” label literally and realized it was an information war all along.

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Canary in the Coal Mine @vaelis.bsky.social · 1h

It’s not even an echo chamber. That would suggest that none of us are aware of what the right says, when every single survey ever done shows the left can articulate correctly what the right says, and the right - the only political group actually in an echo chamber at all times - never can.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 16h

vought's view is that the president is an elected dictator and lo and behold he is seizing outright the power of the purse

Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 16h

Unconstitutionally taking money that the law says must be spent on one purpose & using it for something else—when it's to establish personalist control over the FUCKING MILITARY—is about as dangerous a constitutional crisis/failure as you can imagine

Via: www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

The Office of Management and Budget sent a notification to Congress about their intent to use research and development funds to pay members of the military, two sources with direct knowledge tell NBC News.

A spokesperson for the OMB confirmed to NBC News that it plans to use the research and development funds and that there are two years' worth of funds available within the Department of Defense.

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Micah @rincewind.run · 18h

boy the tiktok ban has really turned out to be one of the most singularly stupid things ever passed, huh? as if these people needed more help controlling the entire information environment

what a shitshow

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 1d

Trump said he deserved a cut for brokering the TikTok deal, and at once there was agreement that his son Baron would have a top executive slot... though he hasn't asked for it, and has no apparent qualifications to hold it. This is how Trump 2.0 works. www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025...

Barron Trump tipped for top TikTok job

US president’s 19-year-old son could be appointed to the app’s board

www.telegraph.co.uk

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No More Robots @nomorerobots.io · 2d

Here's how we handle manchildren on the Steam forums at No More Robots:

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Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 19h

“We can give $20 billion to Argentina but we can’t afford the CDC’s measles experts” is a hell of an argument

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Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 20h

We will need Nuremberg-like trials

LongTime🤓FirstTime👨‍💻 @longtimehistory.bsky.social · 23h

ICE secretly kidnap autistic boy during bathroom break—never notify parents.

Mother reported him missing a week ago—turns out ICE had him detained the whole time.

He was helping sell fruit and asked to go to the restroom—by the time she was done helping a customer he was gone.

Houston, Texas

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Leah Litman @leahlitman.bsky.social · 1d

More judges speak to the press (the NYT) about what a disaster the Supreme Court (specifically the shadow docket) has been - “incredibly demoralizing & troubling”; a “judicial crisis”; a “slap in the face to district courts.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/u...

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Lupita Nihongo @otsumamiboy.bsky.social · 20h

Disappointingly On Brand that after industrialization capitalists were presented with a choice between innovation & breakthroughs that would enshrine eternal prosperity or prospectors who voraciously extract & destroy beyond repair in exchange for a rapid but finite payout & they chose the latter.

Ian Carrillo @iansociologo.bsky.social · 1d

Everyday now there is new information detailing just how economically unviable AI is. Data centers will be the new abandoned Walmarts, but on an even larger scale.

futurism.com/future-socie...

AI Data Centers Are an Even Bigger Disaster Than Previously Thought

An investment manager realized he made a crucial mistake — and that his grim prediction about AI investments may not have been cynical enough.

futurism.com

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Canary in the Coal Mine @vaelis.bsky.social · 20h

Which is the larger issue with the D party writ large. They seem to think the media is an accurate representation of their constituents as if this was still 1980 and they are reading one of the multiple outlets that still existed for local and state politics. It absolutely is not.

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George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 @gtconway.bsky.social · 1d

Is it just me, or does it seem the press is actually and completely terrified to report about Donald Trump's physical and mental health the way it would have if anyone else were president?

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Mark Harris @markharris.bsky.social · 22h

Mamdani talking lucidly and passionately about trans rights and history in a video that should frankly shame every politician who has hemmed and hawed and triangulated and said, "Well, but sports..." It's not that hard to tell the truth and stand for what's right. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEvV...

Until It's Done: Sylvia Rivera

YouTube video by Zohran Mamdani for NYC

www.youtube.com

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