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📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦

@phidipdbq.bsky.social

2.7K followers 1.5K following 8.8K posts

Current favorite word: apophenia. Similar to pareidolia, but broader. Richer than Elon Musk: unlike him, I have enough. We know so much, but do so little. I review books: https://johnjmcandrew.substack.com

johnjmcandrew.substack.com

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📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦 @phidipdbq.bsky.social · Sep 8

Tired of learned helplessness? Of watching as services to our neighbors are cut? This piece by Christopher Armitage alerts us that there are things many of us can do RIGHT NOW, even in many red states. This is the long game. We can start it right now. Thanks, @jnshaumeyer.bsky.social, for the link.

John McAndrew (@coddiwomplingbibliophile)

This is kind of amazing. Thanks to my friend Jeff for forwarding. 26 states, and many cities, have citizen initiative processes which have been used to make the GOP majority in those states irrelevan...

substack.com

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Reposted by 📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦

Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 7h

the most delightful version of logging on to see what news you've missed

Dr Ramsdell, whose phone had been on airplane mode when the Nobel committee tried to call him, told the BBC's Newshour Programme that his first response when his wife said, "You've won the Nobel prize" was: "I did not."

To which Ms O'Neill replied that she had 200 text messages that suggested he had.

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📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦 @phidipdbq.bsky.social · 9h

Boy, wait until W speaks out and condemns THIS.

... any day now.

📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦 @phidipdbq.bsky.social · 9h

Wisconsin is gonna be PISSED!

Reposted by 📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦

John Pfaff @johnpfaff.bsky.social · 11h

Um, ICE just coldly shot an unarmed PRIEST in the head w a pepper ball when he (and everyone around him) clearly posed no threat.

For the crime of … complaining about government policy.

Core 1A speech.

With cameras rolling, they’re sniping priests for sport.

Kurt @flglchicago.bsky.social · 12h

Here’s video of the incident

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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 12h

Good reporting on the South Shore raid from South Side weekly here.

Confirms one thing I was told but didn't put in my own piece because I didn't have a second source and it seemed too insane: border agents segregated arrested residents by race

southsideweekly.com/federal-agen...

Federal Agents Storm South Shore Building, Detaining Families and Children

Families were woken by flashbangs and helicopters as hundreds of federal agents raided their homes. Days later, neighbors are still searching for the missing.

southsideweekly.com

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Kurt @flglchicago.bsky.social · 12h

Here’s video of the incident

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📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦 @phidipdbq.bsky.social · 9h

TL;DR – EVERYTHING we do matters.

David Darmofal @daviddarmofal.bsky.social · 10h

None of this was inevitable. If just 1 of these changes had happened, we may have avoided this authoritarianism:
1) LePore doesn’t use the butterfly ballot
2) Elian Gonzalez stays in Cuba
3) Gore picks Graham instead of Lieberman
4) SNL focuses on Bush’s incompetence instead of Gore’s sighing
1/

📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦 @phidipdbq.bsky.social · 9h

Sorry if I'm being dense. But Hinson (my rep: I live in Dubuque) had been the rep for District 1, but I thought it was redrawn, and she then ran for district 2 since 2022.

Just moved to Iowa during the pandemic, but I'd have thought I was keeping better track than this.

Reposted by 📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦

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

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📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦 @phidipdbq.bsky.social · 11h

I assumed that the re-drawing of districts before the last election was due to motivations to gerrymander. Was I mistaken? If not gerrymandering, why were those districts redrawn, if I may ask?

📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦 @phidipdbq.bsky.social · 11h

Stay for the ending, the apt quotation from Shakespeare.

Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 1d

Journalist Edward R. Murrow used his platform on CBS to criticize the witch hunts led by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.

This is what real journalism should do — hold power to account, not capitulate to it.

📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦 @phidipdbq.bsky.social · 11h

I assume that a lot of current military officers read Tom, since he is a former instructor at the US Naval War College (among others). So they will hear this reprimand. I also assume there is a lot of internal conversation, taking place away from public view. Let’s hope they talk about this piece.

📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦 @phidipdbq.bsky.social · 11h

… resulting in the asking price for existing copies of this book going through the roof.

📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦 @phidipdbq.bsky.social · 11h

??
@radiofreetom.bsky.social has over 360K followers on BlueSky. The Atlantic has a million subscribers. And the military can’t make partisan public statements.

I grok your frustration. But loads of people are fighting back offline AND rallying the troops. Join us; we have cookies.🍪

📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦 @phidipdbq.bsky.social · 11h

Meh. Arguments over nomenclature don’t matter. @radiofreetom.bsky.social is using his platform and expertise to sound the alarm, as are those who prefer the term fascism. What matters is that we use the tools we have to fight what’s going on. You never know when your local action will tip the scales

📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦 @phidipdbq.bsky.social · 11h

Tom seems to think it’s pretty late. And he knows Defense Department culture better than any of us.

📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦 @phidipdbq.bsky.social · 11h

Tom talks about this in his article.

📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦 @phidipdbq.bsky.social · 12h

“Senior military leaders should have stepped in to prevent Trump from turning addresses at Fort Bragg and Naval Station Norfolk into political rallies; the silence of the Army and Navy secretaries, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and some top generals and admirals is appalling.”

Tom Nichols @radiofreetom.bsky.social · 14h

If you think I'm not alarmed, read this.

www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

www.theatlantic.com

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📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦 @phidipdbq.bsky.social · 12h

Absolutely. We’ve had enough of this shit. Ever since McConnell refused to consider Obama‘s SCOTUS nomination, the GOP thinks for the rules don’t apply to them. This isn’t even hardball. Dems need to start playing hardball. End gerrymandering, save Medicaid and Obamacare, and maybe we can talk.

David Rothkopf @djrothkopf.bsky.social · 13h

Democrats should not hold another vote on anything until she is sworn in.

Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 13h

Grijalva: The frustration for me is that it seems as if Speaker Johnson is not willing to swear me in because our politics are a little different, or because I’m going to be the 218th signer—he can just continue to drag this along with no end in sight.

That is not a foundation of our democracy.

Reposted by 📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦

Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 13h

“I wish I could be the guy who says, ‘everyone calm down; things have been just as bad before, and we got through it.’ But I can’t be that reasonable-sounding moderate floating above it all. Things are very bad. People should be far more alarmed than they are.”

open.substack.com/pub/michaelw...

The Emerging Shape of American Politics

Dynamism v. Reaction / Open v. Closed

open.substack.com

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📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦 @phidipdbq.bsky.social · 12h

Quote:
One of the chants that has become ubiquitous at these protests at Broadview is, ‘Love your neighbor, love your God, save your soul and quit your job,’” said Black, who pastors at the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago. “Everybody chants that.”

Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 14h

NEW: I spoke to clergy and faith leaders who've joined protests at the Chicago-area ICE facility.

Three say they've been shot with pepper balls, sometimes while praying.

All say ICE is also violating their religious freedom, and one is arguing it in court. religionnews.com/2025/10/07/i...

Religious protesters say ICE threatens religious freedom in Chicago

(RNS) — Despite potential danger, religious leaders and faith activists have been a visible presence at Chicago-area ICE protests, some waving signs with slogans such as ‘Love thy neighbor’ and ‘Who w...

religionnews.com

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Reposted by 📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦

Denise Wheeler @denisedwheeler.bsky.social · 14h

Reuters photographer Jonathan Ernst noticed that Bondi flipped open a file during the Senate hearing and he zoomed in.

Inside were her crib notes for attacking the senators.

The GOP now practicing Cliff's Notes Fascism

In other words, under oath Bondi was purely a performance.

Bondi senate hearing had a folder full of notes for attacking the senators

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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 14h

Update from the war zone in Portland.

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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 14h

Religious protesters say ICE threatens religious freedom in Chicago

religionnews.com

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📚 John McAndrew 🌏🇺🇦 @phidipdbq.bsky.social · 15h

Or an immigrant.