Mark Clear
markclear.com
Mark Clear
@markclear.com
Current: Development Dir. @Isthmusmadison.bsky.social. Voting superfan. Prev: President of Madison (WI) City Council, entrepreneur, radio nerd, paper boy
I was halfway through watching the Report My Government Doesn't Want Me To See™ when it disappeared. It's been a good (and by that I mean bad) few days for censorship.
December 23, 2025 at 1:05 AM
Victim shaming now extends to typefaces
It has been a key player in a corruption scandal and regularly engenders heated debates online and in professional circles. This week, it was in the cross hairs of the State Department.

Yes, we’re talking about Calibri. Yes, the typeface.

Yes, we’re talking about Calibri. Yes, the typeface.
Calibri’s Run-In With Rubio Wasn’t the Font’s First Controversy
The typeface, the target of the State Department’s typographical about-face, has been entangled in politics before.
nyti.ms
December 11, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Please support the *nonprofit* journalism that keeps you in touch with your community at isthmus.com/support
December 2, 2025 at 11:14 PM
Big if true
PUNCHBOWL: “.. GOP members messaged us over the weekend saying that they, too, are considering retiring in the middle of the term. Here’s one particularly exercised senior House Republican:

@punchbowlnews.bsky.social
November 24, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Reposted by Mark Clear
Before the midterms of 1866, President Andrew Johnson called his congressional opponents traitors and said they should be hanged.

Voters were so profoundly moved by his words... that they gave his opponents a supermajority in Congress, and the nation got the Fourteenth Amendment.
November 20, 2025 at 3:33 PM
We are all the East Wing
October 22, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Reposted by Mark Clear
Vienna data center could use 2.5x the energy consumption of Dane County, says official

@isthmusmadison.bsky.social

isthmus.com/news/vienna-...
Vienna data center could use 2.5x the energy consumption of Dane County, says official
A proposed data center 30 minutes north of Madison could have substantial environmental impacts on Dane County.
isthmus.com
October 21, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Reposted by Mark Clear
Purdue Exponent printed a special issue supporting the IDS and distributed it on the Bloomington campus this afternoon! @nicollewallace.bsky.social @maddow.msnbc.com @lawrenceodonnell.msnbc.com @aliciamenendez.bsky.social
October 17, 2025 at 9:41 PM
Reposted by Mark Clear
Purdue to the rescue of IU student newspaper, whose institution was attempting censorship. Details in alt!
October 18, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Reposted by Mark Clear
I think this moment of people feeling nervous about something and doing it anyway could prove quite liberating and profound
My mother-in-law was nervous about wearing her #NoKings gear to the airport for her flight this morning, but she got *lots* of compliments. Even the TSA agent told her, "I like your shirt."
October 18, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Reposted by Mark Clear
SCOOP/UPDATE — The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) instructed *all* federal agencies to send out the shutdown email with NO modifications permitted, a federal source confirmed. Leadership received these orders via email at 1:30pm ET and then reinforced on a 3pm intra-agency call.
BREAKING — Employees at multiple government agencies have received an email from their leadership with text clearly dictated by The White House regarding a potential government shutdown.

So far HHS, Interior, and Social Security have gotten this message, the text of which was shared with me:
September 30, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Reposted by Mark Clear
SCOOP / UPDATE — Disney saw more than 1.7 million total paid streaming cancelations during the period 9/17-9/23, a Disney source confirms to me. The total includes Disney+, Hulu and ESPN.
NEW — I wrote about my confirmed scoop from last night that Disney hastened Kimmel's return because of a planned Disney+ streaming price increase announcement coming on Tuesday:
Kimmel reinstatement preempted Disney+ price increase
The Handbasket reported first Monday evening on Bluesky
www.thehandbasket.co
September 29, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Reposted by Mark Clear
SCOOP — Part of the reason Disney/ABC may have rushed to sort things out with Kimmel is because tomorrow they have a planned price increase for Disney+ streaming, a Disney source tells me. With subscriptions hemorrhaging since last week, they couldn’t risk losing more users with this announcement.
September 22, 2025 at 10:20 PM
Reposted by Mark Clear
The union representing the musicians from Jimmy Kimmel’s band releases a statement calling the FCC’s pressure on Disney “state censorship.”
September 18, 2025 at 1:59 AM
Reposted by Mark Clear
On social media Wednesday night, after Kimmel’s suspension was announced, The Onion’s Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social wrote: “[it’s] Becoming increasingly clear we’re gonna have to build a parallel infrastructure for all the media we really love.”
Who’s after Kimmel?
Corporate-owned media is bending the knee to our dim-witted dictator
www.thealtmedia.com
September 18, 2025 at 12:43 AM
Just canceled my Disney+ subscription.
September 18, 2025 at 1:08 AM
Reposted by Mark Clear
A free and democratic society cannot silence comedians because the President doesn’t like what they say.

This is an attack on free speech and cannot be allowed to stand.

All elected officials need to speak up and push back on this undemocratic act.
September 17, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Reposted by Mark Clear
Not really an overstatement to say that the test of a free society is whether or not comedians can make fun of the country's leader on TV without repurcussions.
July 18, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by Mark Clear
Massachusetts is one of the best places I have lived. And this is great.
AXIOS: “.. Massachusetts is the first state to mandate insurance coverage of vaccines even if the federal government stops requiring it.”

@axios.com
www.axios.com/2025/09/04/m...
September 4, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Reposted by Mark Clear
You've got to remember that even though RFK Jr looks like an idiot and sounds like an idiot, he is, in fact, an idiot.
SEN. CASSIDY (R) : “Do you agree Trump deserves the Nobel Prize for Operation Warp speed?”

RFK JR.: “Absolutely.”

SEN. CASSIDY: “But you just told Senator Bennet the COVID vaccine killed more people than COVID.”

RFK JR.: “….”😬 🤷🏻‍♂️
September 4, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Great story by @maggiedough.bsky.social of (Springfield) Illinois Times on the resurgence of alternative newspapers, filling the void left by the departure of so many daily papers. Thanks for highlighting @isthmusmadison.bsky.social!
August 29, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Mark Clear
New— Nazis with giant swastika flags marched in downtown Indianapolis on Saturday with two police escorts. They shouted “white power” and said to the woman who took this video (reshared here with her permission) “fuck you, n***** bitch.”

Police did not intervene. I cannot find local news coverage.
August 18, 2025 at 3:25 AM
The closest George Webb to Madison is on Wisconsin Avenue in Oconomowoc. Posting this info for no reason whatsoever. #Brewers #12inarow
August 13, 2025 at 9:19 PM
Reposted by Mark Clear
Is Kaul’s blizzard of anti-Trump legal actions likely to hurt or help him, if he runs for governor or re-election next year?

Steven Walters weighs in:

isthmus.com/news/news/ka...
Kaul’s Trump fights will be campaign issue
The Wisconsin Department of Justice, under Attorney General Josh Kaul, has signed on to 29 national lawsuits challenging actions by the Trump administration.
isthmus.com
August 5, 2025 at 1:54 PM