James Comas
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jncomas.bsky.social
James Comas
@jncomas.bsky.social
260 followers 220 following 23 posts
Recently retired professor of This, That, & the Other (i. e. English), Thankful to have grown up with the Beatles, to have seen Captain Beefheart in concert, and to be alive for kdot. Great Pyrenees in former life.
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Reposted by James Comas
adamserwer.bsky.social
The right, along the Roberts Court, is trying to nullify the Reconstruction amendments guaranteeing equality under the law, in order to restore the Antebellum Constitution, which envisions “liberty” as an eternal aristocracy of race and class (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
When the 18th-century writer Samuel Johnson asked why “we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes,” he was identifying no mere contradiction, but liberty as it was imagined by men who owned other human beings as property. Slaveholders such as John Calhoun saw slavery as inseparable from their own freedom, and they worried that the false doctrine of abolitionism would eliminate that freedom away. “Already it has taken possession of the pulpit, of the schools, and, to a considerable extent, of the press; those great instruments by which the mind of the rising generation will be formed,” Calhoun said. (It seems the “woke mind virus” was telling lies about the great and benevolent institution of American slavery as far back as two centuries ago.) Defending slavery, however, required invasive uses of power, such as banning antislavery literature and returning escaped Black people to bondage. Many white Americans in the 19th century began to understand that the “Slave Power” curtailed their freedoms as well. And this is what many people forget: Systems of domination rarely spread their blessings widely. The Redemption-era revocation of Black freedoms didn’t result in prosperity for white people writ large, but a Gilded Age in which the upper classes gained unfathomable wealth and economic crises left millions destitute. The nation may have held on to white supremacy, but it also got low wages, a threadbare welfare state, and a society dominated by the rich. Everyone else was too divided by race and class to challenge them.
December 22, 2025 at 1:11 PM
Reposted by James Comas
sifill.bsky.social
Agree 100% with this.
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 4h
Bernie Sanders: "We need to be thinking seriously about a moratorium on data centers. You gotta slow this process down. It's not good enough for the oligarchs to tell us 'you adapt.' Are they gonna guarantee healthcare to all people? What are they gonna do when there are no jobs? Make housing free?"
December 28, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Reposted by James Comas
jackjenkins.me
In case you missed it: I’ve got a new (warning: somewhat intense) story on @npr.org about all the ways faith leaders have pushed back against the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign this year — including clergy directly confronting ICE agents and police. www.npr.org/2025/12/24/n...
How the clergy has rallied against the Trump administration's immigration policies
Religious leaders have rallied against the Trump administration's detention and deportation of immigrants. Clergy are filing lawsuits, accompanying migrants to court hearings and leading protests.
www.npr.org
December 26, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by James Comas
thefarce.org
Who here has stopped going to Starbucks because the company refuses to EVEN BARGAIN in good faith?

(We now get my daughter's cake pops elsewhere.)
sbworkersunited.org Starbucks Workers United @sbworkersunited.org · 4h
Don't forget: for every union barista on strike, dozens of customers and allies have joined in solidarity by walking picket lines, showing their support online and in-person, and committing to not buy Starbucks. ✊ #NoContractNoCoffee
allies with striking baristas holding picket sign that says "don't cross our picket line, baristas on ULP strike"
December 28, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Reposted by James Comas
royalpratt.bsky.social
64 days in Chicago: The story of Operation Midway Blitz. Our team fanned out to cover the before, during and after of the federal government’s months-long raid on an American city. This is worth your time to understand the United States today
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/28/c...
64 days in Chicago: The story of Operation Midway Blitz
President Donald Trump’s federal immigration enforcement operation led to most surreal autumn in Chicago history. What happened during those 64 days will be remembered for a long time.
www.chicagotribune.com
December 28, 2025 at 2:20 PM
Reposted by James Comas
mbkplus.bsky.social
The guy who put a 19 year old named Big Balls in charge of gutting key government services: “experience matters when lives are at stake”
robertscotthorton.bsky.social Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 19h
Best Twitter riposte of the day
December 28, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Reposted by James Comas
thetnholler.bsky.social
WASH POST: “Corporate bankruptcies surged in 2025, rivaling levels not seen since the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession, as import-dependent businesses absorbed the highest tariffs in decades.” www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
December 28, 2025 at 12:23 AM
Reposted by James Comas
noupside.bsky.social
The lie that Stanford demanded Twitter “censor true stories of vaccine side effects” - a claim that sparked Congressional investigations & lawsuits! - came from Taibbi and his RA Andrew Lowenthal cutting an email in half.

Sheer chutzpah over here.

open.substack.com/pub/reneedir...
The Many Lies of Andrew Lowenthal
Pulling receipts: what a cropped email & sworn declaration reveal in the ongoing saga of a smear campaign
open.substack.com
December 27, 2025 at 11:38 PM
Reposted by James Comas
bgrueskin.bsky.social
The Washpost edit board calls Trump’s bombing in Nigeria “a welcome change in a part of the world that has always been little more than an afterthought for the president” — and has zero mention of the thousands in Africa facing starvation because of USAID cuts

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
Opinion | Why West Africa is worth worrying about
Strikes on ISIS targets in Nigeria are welcome but insufficient.
www.washingtonpost.com
December 27, 2025 at 11:52 PM
Reposted by James Comas
parkermolloy.com
This is an absolutely brutal journalism prediction for 2026. And it might be right.
December 25, 2025 at 1:35 AM
Reposted by James Comas
captmarkkelly.bsky.social
On Christmas Eve 1968, in Lunar orbit, the Apollo 8 crew took this photo: “Earthrise."

I'll never forget how inspiring the Apollo missions were to my brother and me as kids. They showed us what our country and humanity can accomplish when we work together toward a common goal.
December 24, 2025 at 10:22 PM
Reposted by James Comas
sparkster2600.bsky.social
Reposting this with alt text.

Delete your Twitter. Now.
For You "Elon Saved Free Speech" White Knight Assholes: Read the New Terms of Service Released Today X just updated their Terms of Service effective January 15, 2026. Here's what you agreed to: AI TRAINING RIGHTS GRAB: Everything you post becomes training data for their Al models. Every thought, opinion, creative work. You're building their models for free. No compensation. No opt out. PERPETUAL CONTENT LICENSE: They get a worldwide, royalty-free license to use, copy, modify, and distribute your content "for any purpose" in "any media now known or later developed." Forever. They can sell it. Give it to governments. Anything. FORCED JURISDICTION: All disputes must be filed in Tarrant County, Texas. You waive the right to join class actions. If they wrong millions of users, you sue alone in THEIR court. ARBITRARY TERMINATION: They can delete your account "for any other reason or no reason at our convenience." Years of content, connections, reputation. Gone. Zero due process. $15,000 LIQUIDATED DAMAGES: Access more than 1 million posts in 24 hours and you owe $15,000. Per million. Journalists and researchers investigating the platform face financial ruin. GOVERNMENT DISCLOSURE: They reserve the right to hand your DMs, drafts, and entire history to governments based on what they "reasonably believe" is necessary. ANTI-JAILBREAK CLAUSE: Testing their Al systems, exposing censorship mechanisms, or security research is now explicitly a Terms violation. They added "prompt engineering or injection" to prohibited conduct.
December 17, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Reposted by James Comas
danadelany.bsky.social
It was incredibly moving to walk among the Warner’s Archives. You wouldn’t believe the riches! Thank you @tcmtv.bsky.social and @eddiemuller.bsky.social for this rare treat. I’ll talk Barbara Stanwyck any day.
Looking Back at Barbara Stanwyck’s Career (Clip) | The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of | TCM
YouTube video by Turner Classic Movies
youtu.be
November 9, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Reposted by James Comas
jentaub.bsky.social
Important
leahgreenberg.bsky.social Leah Greenberg ❌👑 @leahgreenberg.bsky.social · 5d
Hi folks. Just to be clear, a date has not yet been announced for the next No Kings. If a PAC you’ve never heard of asks for donations to “organize” it, please block and report them
December 23, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Reposted by James Comas
willmckinley.bsky.social
The most damning excerpt from the 60 MINUTES segment pulled by CBS.

This is what they don't want you to see. #60Minutes
December 23, 2025 at 2:07 AM
Reposted by James Comas
renegadecut.bsky.social
60 minutes CECOT segment. Recorded through my browser. HD quality. Not phone. Spread it around. If you're press, it's yours. Go nuts.

It's streaming on a Canadian website, but there is no telling for how long.

www.filemail.com/d/wkcdttnacp...
Banned 60 Minutes CECOT Segment - Filemail
Get it while it's hot.
www.filemail.com
December 22, 2025 at 11:01 PM
Reposted by James Comas
gilduran.com
Bari Weiss’ CBS is what the tech fascists mean by creating “parallel” journalism.

Create new fake brands (“The Free Press”) or hollow out existing brands and replace with right-wing clones.

Or both!

That’s why I included her in the “Mirror World Mafia” last year.
From Gil Duran's New Republic story: So, there’s no debate about whether this ideology exists. The question is what to call it, and how to describe its political orientation. For clarity, it helps to briefly examine some of the intertwined characters trying to circle-jerk this parallel world into being. Let’s start with Bowles. Her celebrated article echoed the arguments in Michael Shellenberger’s “San Fransicko: How Progressives Ruin Cities” book and even featured the exact same anti-S.F. critics. Shellenberger, a former leftist P.R. expert who worked for socialist Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez before pivoting to right-wing causes, now serves as chair of politics, censorship and free speech at the newly formed University of Austin. This effort at a parallel academic institution was co-founded by The New York Times’ former conservative columnist Bari Weiss, Bowles’s wife. In 2022, after Musk put Weiss in charge of writing “The Twitter Files,” she recruited Shellenberger to help. Shellenberger, who now poses as a journalist (with an incisive interest in demonizing fact-checkers and renewable energy), has become a Musk favorite. His error-riddled and conspiratorial writings—parallel journalism, a.k.a. disinformation—regularly go viral on X, earning him regular appearances in right-wing outlets like Fox, News Nation, the One America News Network, and the Epoch Times.
December 22, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Reposted by James Comas
timcarvell.bsky.social
Now seems like a swell time to point out that Frontline just released this excellent 11-minute mini-documentary about what happened inside CECOT.
Surviving CECOT (full documentary) | Deported to a Maximum-Security Prison | FRONTLINE + ProPublica
YouTube video by FRONTLINE PBS | Official
m.youtube.com
December 21, 2025 at 10:26 PM
Reposted by James Comas
muellershewrote.com
WOW. They're not going to air their special on CECOT. I'd like to know who made this decision, and whether the federal government had a hand in it.
60minutes.bsky.social 60 Minutes @60minutes.bsky.social · 6d
An Editor’s Note from 60 Minutes
The broadcast lineup for tonight’s edition of 60 Minutes has been updated. Our report “Inside CECOT” will air in a future broadcast.
December 21, 2025 at 10:22 PM
Reposted by James Comas
muellershewrote.com
You can also contact me via Signal. I will keep you anonymous. muellershewrote.23
acyn.bsky.social Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 7d
Garcia: If you are a whistleblower at the FBI, at the DOJ, if you worked hard to put the files together and are seeing your work now being hidden by your own DOJ, contact the oversight committee. We have whistleblower protections.
December 21, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Reposted by James Comas
sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com
people who are new to academia tend to find its obsession with sources and citations a brake on their "i'm just trying to be CREATIVE, man" mindset. but it turns out the relentless obsession with accuracy, citation, and *provenance* is a load-bearing pillar of the whole enterprise
https://xkcd.com/2347/
December 21, 2025 at 6:59 PM
Reposted by James Comas
dawnxianamoon.bsky.social
Chicago is having none of this administration's BS.
Sign at the Weiners Circle: "F k T mp we can redact too."
December 20, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Reposted by James Comas
gottalaff.bsky.social
FTW
December 20, 2025 at 8:56 PM
Reposted by James Comas
maxboot.bsky.social
Fascinating insights from @wsj.com re how Putin has manipulated Trump and Witkoff. U.S. billionaires who know nothing of Russia are easy marks for the wily former KGB officer. www.wsj.com/world/putin-...
December 20, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Reposted by James Comas
gottalaff.bsky.social
👀
meidastouch.com MeidasTouch @meidastouch.com · 8d
The White House has been caught.

The administration inserted a photo of Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, and Diana Ross into the Epstein files and falsely implied it showed them with victims.

In reality, it’s a publicly available fundraiser photo featuring Jackson and Ross’s own children.
December 20, 2025 at 2:46 PM