Connor Stedman
connorstedman.bsky.social
Connor Stedman
@connorstedman.bsky.social
Land, ag, climate, systems thinking, history. A Holocene, if you can keep it.
Reposted by Connor Stedman
My mind has been spinning the last few days as multiple crises of journalism converged—the Nuzzi book, Epstein’s emails revealing journalists hid information, Trump berating a reporter with no consequence—and it occurred to me they all stemmed from the same source: elite impunity.
Moral rot in elite journalism is killing the whole field
The Nuzzi/RFK Jr. mess and the revelation of Esptein's journo pals lay bare a profound moral absence at the heart of our free press.
www.thehandbasket.co
November 18, 2025 at 11:24 PM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
Happy 40th birthday to Bill Waterson’s ‘Calvin and Hobbes’. A work of consummate, stubborn, human, and more-than-human art.
November 18, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
if dems win congress next year they need to introduce an impeachment resolution against emil bove
Justice Department official told prosecutors that U.S. should 'just sink' drug boats
NPR interviews with current and former officials reveal more of the backstory around the military's strikes in the Caribbean.
www.npr.org
November 17, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
I wrote about the indignity of being ruled over by these people. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
November 18, 2025 at 1:44 PM
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This is like knowing COVID was here and waiting for the stock market to convince everyone that it could kill us all.
Google boss Sundar Pichai warns 'no company immune' if AI bubble bursts
Speaking exclusively to BBC News, CEO Sundar Pichai said the artificial intelligence boom had been an "extraordinary moment", but there was some "irrationality" in it.
www.bbc.com
November 18, 2025 at 10:36 AM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
Ok, putting on training wheels for this conversation.

The main reason historians don't really like the notion of a "fall" of the Roman Empire anymore is because the transition between the Western Roman Empire and its barbarian successor states was far more orderly than people imagine
November 17, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
#Avelo is the only airline serving New Haven. But no one should book a flight on this airline. Ever. prospect.org/2025/11/17/i...
ICE Air’s Sloppy, Dangerous Deportation Flights - The American Prospect
Poor planning, mechanical issues, serious safety lapses, and the shutdown are taking a toll on Avelo, America’s most famous deportation airline, internal documents show.
prospect.org
November 17, 2025 at 11:09 AM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
One thing future historians are going to notice very well is that both times the US came to the brink of destruction in the two and a half centuries after its founding, it was at the hands of men who wanted an unlimited license to rape and get away with it, not only legally but socially.
November 17, 2025 at 2:23 AM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
I feel like the pope being an American cinephile is God finally rewarding Scorsese for a lifetime of devotion
Pope Leo absolutely cooking
November 17, 2025 at 4:35 AM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
Pope Leo absolutely cooking
November 16, 2025 at 7:47 AM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
Impossible for issue polling on immigration to function when the average voter wants "a tougher system, like [describes an idealized system that is vastly more liberal than the status quo]"
anyway. I am going to take my long-standing skepticism of issue polling and add on to it that I think any polling of an issue where respondents can't reasonably understand what the different options would look like in practice can be more or less discarded except as a barometer of general affect.
November 17, 2025 at 4:24 AM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
a big thing underlying this is a Black nominee reads as radical and unserious about policy to our media betters
She ran as a moderate. Maybe you think that’s good and maybe you think that’s bad. All I am arguing is that the endless takes about how Democrats should pivot to the center should explain why it didn’t work in this election (there are good reasons!) rather than pretending she didn’t.
November 16, 2025 at 11:52 PM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
the matrix exists in a brief historical window of time when the phone and computer were both powerful, but existed separately.
November 16, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
Don't underrate this moment. 50-100 votes breaking (enough for a veto proof majority) with a same party congress and the president actively lobbying against it is very, very lame duck and indicative of major fissures and breaks in the party.
President Trump is making a last-ditch push to dissuade House Republicans from supporting a measure this week to release files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump Plays Hardball With GOP Lawmakers as Epstein Vote Approaches
Marjorie Taylor Greene says president is publicly targeting her to discourage other Republicans from supporting the measure.
on.wsj.com
November 16, 2025 at 9:11 PM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
Please stop using language that suggests that people with criminal records are appropriate targets for this administration's violence. One in three adults has a criminal record. Stop playing sacrifice games with fascists. Stop surrendering entire categories of people in your own mind.
November 15, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
Civilian control of cops is necessary for restoring democratic governance
This piece makes it sound totally normal that the police gets to decide whether or not to "work with" Mamdani as mayor, and it continues, as nearly all the paper's coverage, to wield normative terms like "moderate" and left" in a prejudicial way. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/16/n...
The N.Y.P.D. Prepares for Mayor Mamdani and a New Era in Public Safety
www.nytimes.com
November 16, 2025 at 7:46 PM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
This piece makes it sound totally normal that the police gets to decide whether or not to "work with" Mamdani as mayor, and it continues, as nearly all the paper's coverage, to wield normative terms like "moderate" and left" in a prejudicial way. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/16/n...
The N.Y.P.D. Prepares for Mayor Mamdani and a New Era in Public Safety
www.nytimes.com
November 16, 2025 at 5:58 PM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
Why do interviewers let right wingers get away with defining “free speech” in such a stupid manner? The 1st amendment says “Congress shall make no law” not “anyone deserves to have their opinions broadcast to the public by private companies and if you criticize them then you’re restricting speech.”
November 16, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
going to be on @meetthepress.com shortly if y’all want to tune in
November 16, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
When you write the whole piece around the idea of “MeToo” as an adequate description of what caused specific men to lose specific positions, and when you do this incredibly weird cutesy business to avoid *mentioning what happened*, you do a disservice to readers.
November 16, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
This is nauseating: “As the emails stretch through the years, they show how that protected realm vanished into the mists of time, pulled under by the rising forces of the internet and the #MeToo movement.” A “Gone With the Wind” framing for sexual abuse and harassment.
Seriously, what is wrong with these people?
November 16, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
Here’s a story for every national news outlet:

In N.C., churchgoers are literally running into the woods as federal agents descend on the property.

“Inside the church, women and children sobbed as they wondered whether their loved ones had been taken.”

www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politic...
November 16, 2025 at 4:38 AM
One way to think about the big meta conflict in our societies right now is between in-group affiliation and status being *the* primary concern of politics, vs principles and beliefs coming first (and applying regardless of how they affect one’s own status group).
The Christian right for decades has fear-mongered that federal agents (under Dem presidents) would "criminalize" Christianity and literally prevent them from worshipping.

Now that Trump's stormtroopers are doing it ... crickets
Here’s a story for every national news outlet:

In N.C., churchgoers are literally running into the woods as federal agents descend on the property.

“Inside the church, women and children sobbed as they wondered whether their loved ones had been taken.”

www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politic...
November 16, 2025 at 12:40 PM
Reposted by Connor Stedman
sometimes it will just hit me that over a million americans died from covid in a short period of time and we never had a national mourning. we never collectively grieved. we never honored the dead. this feels like a failure
November 15, 2025 at 11:23 AM