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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 3h

In a very real and practical sense, the elimination of USAID occurred because a) civil servants who followed the law were pushed out, b) unaccountable amoral people were given power, and c) SCOTUS let it all happen.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-death-...

In addition to mass firing of public servants, Musk's team executed a takeover of the Treasury payment system. David Lebryk, the civil servant who was acting Treasury Secretary, pushed back against the Musk official, Tom Krause, who demanded control over the payment system and specifically to pause USAID payments. Lebryk informed Krause that Treasury could not legally stop payments, and recommended to work through USAID instead. Krause then threatened Lebryk: “I would also recommend you consider an equal alternative liability.” By the next week Lebryk announced his retirement, and Musk announced he was shutting down the agency.

It was later revealed that the other DOGE official who had sought to take control of Treasury spending, Marko Elez, was a self-avowed racist with a record of making disparaging remarks about foreigners, including “I would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth.” After he resigned, Musk led a successful campaign to bring Elez back into government, even as he pushed out those doing actual life-saving work.

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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 3h

it should be a tell about what's happening in the media now that most mainstream commentators seem openly frustrated that polling does not blame democrats for the shutdown

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Kat Abughazaleh @katmabu.bsky.social · 1h

I can’t believe I have to say this, but historically, masked men who kidnap families in the middle of the night are usually not the good guys.

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Unofficial CTV News Mirror @ctvnews-mirror.bsky.social · 1h

New images of mysterious interstellar object 3I/Atlas released by Europe’s space agency

New images of the interstellar object 3I/Atlas have been released by the European Space Agency.

www.ctvnews.ca

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VestigialLars @vestigiallars.bsky.social · 1h

That's Decarlos Brown, the suspect in the Charlotte train stabbing that was the boogeyman of the week for MAGA recently.

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kate conger @kateconger.com · 1h

Jonathan Rinderknecht, a white man, was charged with starting the Palisades Fire. But on X, the company's news summary tab shows a photo of a black man.

Screenshot depicting posts on X, one showing the suspect accused of starting the Palisades Fire, a white man. The X news tab reports on the suspect's arrest, but shows a photo of a black man instead.

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Matthew Gertz @mattgertz.bsky.social · 1d

Most Americans think Jan. 6 was quite bad; unfortunately that group does not include the president, the top federal law enforcement officials, virtually all GOP politicians, and the media megaphone supporting them all.
www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/why...

Why the right-wing media apparatus is suddenly yelling about Jack Smith supposedly spying on GOP senators

www.mediamatters.org

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Guy Trivago @convolutedname.bsky.social · 1h

it is easier to make this argument now that we see what happens when free trade is undone, but you do you

Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 2h

Basically this was the entire logic fo neoliberalism and globalization - yes lots of job destruction, but prices falling on all kinds of goods and new jobs in new areas. It was taken as gospel that all of it was a net benefit, but that's a bit harder argument to make these days.

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 1h

Maybe it's because I'm a parent, but avoidable harm to kids really gets to me. My kids can be difficult when they don't get an afternoon snack at the usual time. I'm sure various parents and teachers can say the same. Watching a kid starve to death? And the US govt did it on purpose?
Unconscionable.

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 4h

The elimination of USAID is a moral atrocity and all involved made a choice to enable, and then lie about, ending the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

MAE SOT, Thailand (AP) - Mohammed Taher clutched the lifeless body of his 2-year-old son and wept. Ever since his family's food rations stopped arriving at their internment camp in Myanmar in April, the father had watched helplessly as his once-vibrant baby boy weakened, suffering from diarrhea and begging for food.
On May 21, exactly two weeks after Taher's little boy died, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat before Congress and declared: "No one has died" because of his government's decision to gut its foreign aid program. Rubio also insisted: "No children are dying on my watch."
That, Taher says, "is a lie."

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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 1h

you may remember that in 2016 the media was very concerned with proper security standards

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 2h

FBI agents assigned to Musk concluded he was systematically avoiding conduct standards imposed on those holding high-level clearances. FBI management concluded it could do nothing about this because of Musk's ties to Trump and the GOP.

Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 2h

JUST IN: A federal judge has granted the New York Times’ demand for a list of Elon Musk’s security clearances. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

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Anne Caprara @annecaprara.bsky.social · 6h

Greg has correctly articulated our theory of the case - and accurately laid out the one battleground on which Governors and other electeds can successfully fight the feds, other than the courts (and there is delicate strategy there as well that I’m not sure everyone fully appreciates.)

Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 6h

JB Pritzker and Gavin Newsom are doing something new and important: They understand Stephen Miller's theory of fascist power politics, and they've developed a theory on how to combat it. More Dems need to reckon with Miller's understanding of the moment.

New from me:
newrepublic.com/article/2014...

Inside Stephen Miller’s Secret Plan to Normalize Trump’s Dictator Rule

He wants to supercharge searing civil tensions to get low-information voters to embrace their inner authoritarian. Exactly two Democrats appear to fully grasp this.

newrepublic.com

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Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 1h

"We need to remind ourselves, constantly, that in the median experience of tyranny, life is largely unchanged. ...If we wait until the abuses become severe and widespread enough to register in our standard analytic tools, it will be too late."

www.offmessage.net/p/the-median...

The Median Experience Of Tyranny

If the politics of tyranny were self-discrediting, we wouldn't need mantras like "never again."

www.offmessage.net

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illbleed for sego dreancas @impemboganecue.bsky.social · 2h

You can throw trans people on the pyre but the gods will not bless your harvest

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illbleed for sego dreancas @impemboganecue.bsky.social · 2h

Our political system charges us to fund a government that does absolutely nothing for anybody except a handful of ultrawealthy people who all come off like they've been lobotomized when they speak

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illbleed for sego dreancas @impemboganecue.bsky.social · 2h

The thing about "kitchen table issues" is both parties are fucking up badly on that end too

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alexis simpson @amutepiggy.bsky.social · 1h

HARD AGREE

deeper in this thread you will see someone trying to pull the "I hate to say it but the majority of the country is not going to die on the hill of trans rights" nonsense. ok well fuck you, i WILL die on this hill. Eaton is saying it nicely. i will be mean about this

Cheryl Lynn Eaton @cheryllynneaton.bsky.social · 2h

Trans rights are civil rights. If you aren't willing to die on the hill of trans rights, then you aren't willing to die on the hill of Black rights. Of Jewish rights. Of disabled rights. Of gay rights. Of anyone's rights. Human rights.

the tallest stone @talleststone.bsky.social · 4h

I hate to say it but the majority of the country is not going to die on the hill of trans rights. We can’t protect ANY groups if we can’t win a national election, so purity tests only serve to make specific groups feel triumphant. That’s not “erasing” them; it’s long-horizon strategy.

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 1h

Wow this rundown is wild:
"A billionaire asking her fans to buy several editions of the same exact mediocre album is a little hard to stomach."
defector.com/taylor-swift...

No Good Art Comes From Greed | Defector

The packages arrived square and thin and carefully wrapped on Saturday afternoon. There were three of them, but only one was mine. If I could have rejected my package, sent it back from whence it came...

defector.com

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Johnny Weedseed @sascrotch.bsky.social · 1h

They are all running campaigns like it’s 2012. Obama reelection by running on nothing is the North Star of the DNC.

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jeff computers @helldude.bsky.social · 1h

i wonder if a sufficient number of viable democrats have it in them to effectively counter a narrative of "i am tanking the economy, firing everyone i can, and sending soldiers to push you around if i dont like the way you think, and also lee greenwood is the only music allowed"

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Matthew Gertz @mattgertz.bsky.social · 1h

The MAGA right’s cynical effort to rewrite the history of January 6 reached a new but seemingly inevitable low this week. www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/cal...

Calls for retaliatory prosecutions are the next phase in the right’s rewriting of January 6

www.mediamatters.org

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Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social · 7h

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

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Dave Infante @dinfontay.com · 1h

(inside the crypto torture townhouse) wth this sucks. i hate the crypto torture townhouse
(outside the crypto torture townhouse) ok now that i think about it, the crypto torture townhouse has a sort of “je ne sais quoi”

People Are Already Lining Up to Rent the Crypto Torture Townhouse

“People still see the value of it, clearly. They’re happy to pay.”

www.curbed.com

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Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 3h

The most important political thread of our time.

Patrick Cosmos @veryimportant.lawyer · Sep 8

working on a new unified theory of american reality i'm calling "everyone is twelve now"

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Jake Hamby @jakehamby.bsky.social · 15m

This is just being hateful for hate's sake.

Watermark Out News @watermarkoutnews.bsky.social · 1h

Workers began tearing up the rainbow-colored pavers Oct. 5, two days after the city learned it had lost its appeal against the Florida Department of Transportation's removal order. The crosswalk, installed in 2018, was intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.

Florida removes Miami Beach rainbow crosswalk after city loses appeal - Watermark Out News

The Florida Department of Transportation has removed a rainbow-colored crosswalk in Miami Beach after a statewide ban on asphalt art.

watermarkonline.com

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Hogula 🧛🏻‍♂️🐷🎃 @jessemackinnon.com · 1h

Something that stands out isn’t “big” per se, but I really do miss 2010-2014 era Facebook, where it was a convenient way to interact with friends who had moved away and follow their lives, see pictures of their kids… I’d take a retro Instagram too. Anything before Zuck wrecked both apps.

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 13h

Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?

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