every epstein file drop underscores how elite power operates through shared socio-economic networks, regardless of people's ideological differences, populist posturing, or public feuds
“To the administration and the perpetrators responsible, you have awakened the most overworked, abused, under-appreciated, and organized workforce…”
-San Diego vigil for Alex Pretti organized by VA nurses
Alexander Hamilton warned that when a government betrays its people, the right of self-defense remains.
“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is no resource left but the original right of self-defense.”(Federalist Papers, No. 28)
I wrote about this a few years ago
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10....
Critique by creating.
Pls elevate your mind by reading this wonderful piece by @arunadsouza.bsky.social on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951-82) and the making of the expansive new exhibition of and around her work, now at BAMPFA in Berkeley.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/28/a...
David French argued Renee Good's murder is an example of the US having two sytems of law: orderly for friends & belligerent for foes. @victorerikray.bsky.social corrects him: US law has always promised fascism for non-whites & those who stand with them.
groupthreat.com/p/americas-d...
Congresswoman @ayannapressley.bsky.social has been trying to get qualified immunity eliminated her ENTIRE career.
What the fuck is it going to take to get people to listen to her?
Wish people would stop conflating refusal and nationalism.
News Team, Thank you for the notes and texts. I apologize for not reaching out earlier. I learned on Saturday that Bari Weiss spiked our story, INSIDE CECOT, which was supposed to air tonight. We (Ori and I) asked for a call to discuss her decision. She did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity. Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now-after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one. We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story. If the administration's refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we
have effectively handed them a "kill switch" for any reporting they find inconvenient. If the standard for airing a story becomes "the government must agree to be interviewed," then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state. These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless. CBS spiked the Jeffrey Wigand interview due to legal concerns, nearly destroying the credibility of this broadcast. It took years to recover from that "low point." By pulling this story to shield an administration, we are repeating that history, but for political optics rather than legal ones.
We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of "Gold Standard" reputation for a single week of political quiet. I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight. Sharyn
Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:
Fwiw I think the “apologize for being white” thing is very clearly about making sure white people don’t feel an obligation to alleviate past injustices or make society fairer. Ultimately to do that you have to raise taxes and the billionaires holding Vance’s leash don’t want that.
bsky.app/profile/carl...
I fear people don't know what it means to be part of a minoritized group. not being listened to/believed is a universal experience of minoritization
"I actually think that we have to recognize that this is not just a left versus right moment," Patrick Gaspard says. "This is not a Democrats versus Republican moment. If we really do believe that there's an existential threat to our democracy, we gotta look for defectors."
I think that people are saying a lot of things about the pronouncements being made at the Federal level that need context because they are not going to play out evenly at the local level.
“When the German nation was, thanks to the inflation instigated and carried through by Jews, deprived of the entire savings which it had accumulated in years of honest work..when we were divested of the whole of our colonial possessions”
Adolf Hitler, 1939
There’s not much difference
All the centers they’re cutting add up to less than $7 million in spending.
UNC athletics budget is $185.4 million for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
Zohran: "I mean, think about when you fly. We have made it such a difficult experience to go through TSA that there's now a financial incentive to sign up for a separate program that can move you through it quicker. We have monetized the dysfunction."
"We really have to this paradigm shift, where we think of our news media, especially local journalism, the same way that we think of public education, libraries, public parks. There are these public goods that we would never leave entirely up to the market," says @victorpickard.bsky.social.
just five more days of losing light gm bsky
This year has been a clinic in the reality that lots of people with good analysis don't have actual ideas about what people should do.
I'm spending my PhD researching just this question of what careers in tech "for good" or "in the public interest" look like. Just published an op-ed this weekend about one option: go do tech and/or data work for a non-profit! localnewsmatters.org/2025/11/30/b...
Some people have asked what I mean when I talk about the need for anti-corruption reforms. Here are some ideas.
once again referring you to the Very Special Holiday Edition
bsky.app/profile/mari...
The longevity of the Mafia in Italy serves as a warning that, once this style of rule embeds itself in the state, it is “very difficult to extract,” Adam Serwer argues. https://theatln.tc/cmuUQ5Rh
“Housing shortage – Jews to blame," letter sticker, German Reich, 1938
zwangsraeume.berlin/en/context
I'm going to restrict myself to one (two part) comment, which is:
1) the entire range runs from execs making 290x what their workers make to execs making 350x what their workers make, and
2) this should frame everything else such execs encourage you to be mad about
Native tribes on banning Kristi Noem from reservations: ‘She’d be charged with trespassing’ | South Dakota | The Guardian www.theguardian.com/us-news/arti...
