13 one-minute videos: Worst of the worst of the Trump presidency

Thirteen 1-minute videos documenting the worst of the worst from Donald Trump’s disastrous presidency. Challenge your fellow Americans to look back and remember how bad it really was. If you can’t make it through 13 minutes, how will you make it through another 4 years? #wecantgoback #VOTE

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— David Slack Pumpkins (@slack2thefuture.bsky.social) October 31, 2024 at 12:44 PM

Here's the YouTube playlist.

This was not good either.

A screenshot of this is going around far-right Twitter and I assumed it was a joke but had to check for myself. It's real.

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— Matt Novak (@paleofuture.bsky.social) November 2, 2024 at 12:11 PM

Some art I spotted on Bluesky

A candle mari

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— Skulls and Sheets (@skullsandsheets.bsky.social) October 15, 2024 at 2:04 PM

Durme, Durme

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— Caleb (@littlestpersimmon.bsky.social) October 28, 2024 at 2:52 PM

Tending to a Memory

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— Ben McEntee (@benmce.bsky.social) October 28, 2024 at 12:32 PM

U.S. presidential elections are coin flips

With some exceptions like 1996 and 2008, U.S. presidential elections are coin flips. We just do not know. The fact that neither pulls ahead doesn't mean that either candidate is running ineffectively.

“why is the election a coin flip” every single presidential election since 2000 — basically other than 2008 — has been essentially a coin flip in the polls. if you ignore ‘08, the last time the outcome was essentially known in advance was in *1996*

— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) October 27, 2024 at 11:41 AM

This election, though, is indeed especially close. CNN’s senior political data reporter Harry Enten said in October: "Based upon the polls at this point, we are heading into the election with the closest polls in the Electoral College that we have ever seen at least over the last 50 years."

there is this belief that it should be easy to win a presidential election against a clearly unfit opponent and that if you haven’t opened up a big lead in polls, it’s because you’re running a bad campaign. i’m here to tell you that there is just nothing to support this supposition.

— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) October 27, 2024 at 11:48 AM

My opinion: Rather than blaming the Black candidate for not outperforming the racist candidate in public opinion, please blame the racist candidate for his racism. It's far more productive.

Who will stand up to Trump's bullying?

GOP leaders won't stand up to Trump's bullying of them

"So, if you ever want to get things to get better, then, at some point, you have to pick a spot to take a stand. And a week out from probably the most contentious, the most divisive, and the most important election of all of our lifetimes, that would be a really great spot to take that stand."
Episode 159 - Standing Up to the Bully
In this episode, I try to get to the bottom of why more GOP and conservative people aren't speaking out about the very real danger of what a second Donald Trump presidency would do to this country.
Griff Sombke
Oct 28, 2024
26:48–27:15

...but if he loses the election, he may go to prison (and then he couldn't directly threaten anyone?)

Agreed, and the jail part is crucial. If Trump doesn't win, he has to stay politically relevant to stay out of prison -- that's why he's running now, that's why he'll keep running until he stops breathing.

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— Filipe Campante (@filipecampante.bsky.social) October 7, 2024 at 8:47 AM

See my article: Trump is running to stay out of prison - Oct 25, 2024 - 5-min read

Stand up to fascism. Just do it

"Let’s take the last big challenge of this century, fascism. How to solve it? Well, how did we do it last time? We passed hate speech laws and made it illegal to belong to fascist organizations and made an International Criminal Court. All of that took decades, by the way — the ICC wasn’t set up until the 90s. If we wanted to take our fascists on, we would simply have to begin by using these institutions. America is a case study in getting it wrong. It never signed up to the ICC — and so today, genocide is being committed in concentration camps. Hardly a suprise that you end up run by fascists when you won’t sign up to laws outlawing them, duh."
Umair Haque, The Age of Needless Catastrophe, Eudaimonia and Co, September 5, 2021

Countdown to the election

Please vote.

"Trump is a bully you can topple with your little finger," says Timothy Snyder. "Or at least with the hand that casts the vote."

Voters will see that Kamala Harris is not just elected, but sworn in

Yesterday, Anat Shenker-Osorio gave five pairs of “dos and don’ts” for the Harris–Walz campaign: Five things Harris — and you — can do to close the deal. It’s a post on The Ink, to which I subscribe.

Here's one, which I've condensed:

“Run like you’re leading the winning team” and don’t “act like underdogs”

Say that voters will turn out and that we’ll get Kamala Harris sworn into office.

"The campaign can’t just be saying, 'Harris is going to win,' as if the win fairy was going to come down from the heavens…What we need to be saying…is that voters are turning out in record numbers to swear in Kamala Harris…We say 'swear in' and not 'elect' because we gotta get this ball all the way down the field…through January 6th, and all of the rest of it."

If you grant Trump the narrative that he’s winning and that Harris is the underdog, he’ll draw on that narrative when he disputes a Harris victory.

Local elections are important too

I voted early today - a thing that is only possible in NY in 2024 bc Run for Something helped flip the NY state senate back in 2018, one of countless examples on how winning the big elections (🤞🤞) is only possible bc we’ve been winning the small elections for the last 8 years.

— Amanda Litman (@amandalitman.bsky.social) October 27, 2024 at 3:05 PM

Read more about the election on Authors4Harris.

Speaking of swearing in: Why do politicians 'swear in to office' on a Bible?

Two new climate books

"Isn’t it healthy to be concerned, as long as it is not debilitating? Isn’t it part of a process towards seeking change?" — Jonathan Watts, Would abandoning false hope help us to tackle the climate crisis?, The Guardian, Oct 24, 2024

Recommendations:

"Many congratulations to Bryan Alexander, whose book “Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis” won the Frederic W. Ness Book Award from the American Association of Colleges and Universities.

Another notable new book comes from attorney Jared Sullivan; it covers the legal drama that ensued when a giant coal ash dam let loose in Tennessee, unleashing a toxic fifty-foot high tsunami."

— Bill McKibben, Notes from the doors: Our democracy lurches toward a moment unlike any other, The Crucial Years, Oct 24, 2024

The transition to renewable energy is hanging on Harris being elected

From HEATED:

"Here’s the good(-ish) news: as long as Trump doesn’t touch tax credits for wind, solar, and battery storage, the analysis says his presidency should only have a “limited” negative impact on the energy transition: 25 gigawatts (GW) fewer renewables than under a business-as-usual scenario by 2040.

But here’s the bad news: if Trump does repeal those tax credits—as both he and Project 2025 have proposed—the analysis says a “significant slowdown in the pace of the energy transition” would occur.

Specifically, a Trump presidency could hinder solar, wind, and battery deployment by 212 GW by 2040 if tax credits are ended next year, according to the report.

212 GW is, for context, a huge amount of renewable energy development to lose out on. It is enough to power 159 million homes—more than all the homes in the U.S."

— Emily Atkin and Arielle Samuelson, How bad could Trump be for renewables? A previously unreported study predicts a massive decrease in solar, wind, and battery development if Trump adopts just one proposal in Project 2025., HEATED, Oct 24, 2024

Read my article: Project 2025 won't listen to climate scientists, August 12, 2024 - 8 min read on Medium

Project 2025 Annotation: A Summary. "EDGI’s Environmental Historians Action Collaborative working group annotated select sections of Project 2025, placing its environmental messages and proposals within their larger political and historical contexts."

The climate stakes of the Harris-Trump election From public health to public lands, here are 15 ways the next president could affect the climate and your life, Grist Staff, October 26, 2024

We've got a polycrisis in the Permian. Air pollution, climate pollution and water pollution. All directly related to oil production. We were assured this would never happen. "In theory, injection wells fill confined formations, and their contents never escape." The theories aren't holding up.

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— Oilfield Witness (@oilfieldwitness.bsky.social) October 29, 2024 at 8:15 AM

The same robust science that tells us that +CO₂ is a growing risk & that stratospheric aerosols *might* reduce some of those risks in the near future, also shows that you can’t simply keep increasing CO₂ for ever and cancel it out. GHGs reduction must still be fast and total.

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— Dan Visioni (@danvisioni.bsky.social) November 3, 2024 at 10:54 AM

OMG, what! [reads first paragraphs] Oooooooohhhhhhhhh www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

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— Ketan Joshi (@ketanjoshi.co) November 3, 2024 at 5:25 PM

🚨 New SHIFT KEY alert 🚨 @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social and @jessejenkins.bsky.social sit down with Secretary Jennifer Granholm to reflect on her years heading up the Department of Energy, and forecast our clean energy future. Listen to the full episode below.

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— Heatmap News (@heatmap.news) December 18, 2024 at 10:20 AM

FFS. We have lost our collective minds. -- "focus on AI data centers that consume at least one gigawatt of electricity, roughly the amount used by a city of 1 million residents" -- "allow construction of dedicated power plants fueled by natural gas at the same sites..." (1/2) wapo.st/4gqvudA

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— Climate Disconnect (@climate-disconnect.bsky.social) December 20, 2024 at 8:18 AM

1% of world's GDP would get us on track to stop the climate crisis

Bill McKibben a couple days ago:

"But here’s the part that kills me. We could get back on track by spending…about one percent of the world’s GDP each year.

When it comes to finance, UNEP said the cost of the transition is relatively affordable. While funding for mitigation needs to be more focused on developing countries, investment globally must increase between $900 billion and $2.1 trillion per year, roughly 1% of the world’s total economic output, to achieve net zero by 2050.

To explain how dumb our delay is, here’s another new study that tries to point out the economic damage that’s beginning to mount, even in rich America

“I think the cost of climate [change] is increasingly a threat to our already very fragile fiscal outlook,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. Factoring in the prospect that the government must spend “tens of billions or hundreds of billions more each year to help mitigate the fallout of climate events,” he added, “the outlook looks even darker.”

One percent of GDP would be the savviest financial planning in the history of the earth."

— Bill McKibben, Notes from the doors: Our democracy lurches toward a moment unlike any other, The Crucial Years, Oct 24, 2024

Wrecking biodiversity is not an accomplishment

Christ. In the midst of a global mass extinction event, over on Twitter/X a thread on how eliminating nature has been one of England's "most impressive national achievements" gets over 12k likes in under 24 hours. Sometimes I feel there's hope. But other times, only utter despair.

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— Eoghan Daltun 🌍 (@irishrainforest.bsky.social) October 26, 2024 at 1:22 PM

I'm sorry, I had to do it to 'em.

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— Grave 🪦 Vetter (@davidrvetter.bsky.social) October 26, 2024 at 2:21 PM

In the following post I linked to the State of Nature report, which is here: stateofnature.org.uk

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— Grave 🪦 Vetter (@davidrvetter.bsky.social) October 26, 2024 at 2:22 PM

Failure to apprehend the world as a unified totality costs 25 trillion a year on.ft.com/4fqVp3y

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— Mack Penner (@mackpenner.bsky.social) December 19, 2024 at 11:49 AM

Trump destroyed the right to abortion. Vote on Nov 5

During Trump's term in office, he appointed the three Supreme Court Justices who promptly went on to overturn the right to abortion.

This is the first election since the MAGA Supreme Court ended Roe—why are we talking about anything else?, Jason Sattler, I Know How Much You Care, Oct 20, 2024 — 5 min read

In 2023 Victoria spent more than 24 hours hemorrhaging into three diapers when Dallas-area hospitals declined to help her. “I know you’re not supposed to have regrets, but I do,” she said, about supporting Trump. “Look what’s happened.”

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— thebarbedwire.bsky.social (@thebarbedwire.bsky.social) October 9, 2024 at 3:55 PM

For years, politicians from all parties complained that this country had too many teenage pregnancies. Now, Republicans are arguing that NOT ENOUGH teenage girls are getting pregnant and that it’s hurting their representation in Congress.

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— Chris F. (@fnytv.bsky.social) October 21, 2024 at 1:46 PM

If he wins a second term, this situation will worsen.

"Abortion bans are neither compassionate nor rooted in evidence. That’s probably why a solid majority of Americans continue to support access and oppose restrictions. Most 'people of faith' believe abortion should be legal, and research has also consistently shown the majority of Americans who obtain an abortion are religiously affiliated. We also know from American Atheists' own U.S. Secular Survey that protecting access to abortion and contraception is a top priority for many nonreligious Americans."
— American Atheists email, October 26, 2024

Talk to your friends/family about the election, especially if you believe they might be persuadable. Don't concede defeat.

It’s a testimony to the masterful use of smear tactics by GOP political operatives. There’s never been any actual evidence of corruption by Kamala Harris. Of course they get a lot of help from Russian bots.

— nojustdan.bsky.social (@nojustdan.bsky.social) October 25, 2024 at 3:13 PM

Check out Authors4Harris

Burning ballots were pulled from inside a smoking ballot box in Vancouver, Washington, this morning, hours after police responded to an arson at a Portland ballot box www.katu.com/news/local/v...

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— Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social) October 28, 2024 at 8:56 AM

🚨 There’s been an update: “Voters who dropped off ballots at that location after ***11 a.m. Saturday*** need to contact the Election Auditor's Office IMMEDIATELY for a new ballot.” #waelex

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— Crystal Fincher (@finchfrii.bsky.social) October 28, 2024 at 11:28 AM

Reupping this little secret today just cuz.

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— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24.bsky.social) October 28, 2024 at 2:24 PM

i think the biggest blindspots among pundits and “savvy” political journalists are abortion and jan. 6. they don’t think they are significant and to some extent they don’t want them to be

— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) October 30, 2024 at 9:54 AM

What those two things have in common is that they were very serious ruptures with the status quo, and contemporary political journalism is built on the notion that nothing really matters or means anything

— Tom Scocca (@tomscocca.bsky.social) October 30, 2024 at 9:58 AM

What terrifies me is that white women might not really be down and will walk into the booth and 54% of them will vote for white supremacy like last time because they believe protecting that is more important than their right to choose.

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— Cheryl Lynn Eaton (@cheryllynneaton.bsky.social) October 30, 2024 at 11:01 AM

Podcast about U.S. election polling

"this is the most important election in climate history" — Bill McKibben, Notes from the doors: Our democracy lurches toward a moment unlike any other, The Crucial Years, Oct 24, 2024

🇺🇸 NEW! US ELECTION POLLING REPORT 📊 @pimlicat.bsky.social talks US polls & pollsters with i's head of digital @lukebailey.bsky.social. What you can & can't trust. Why it's all over the shop. Whether early voting helps clarify. 🏮 open.spotify.com/episode/1OWG... 🍏 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/q...

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— Quiet Riot (@quietriotpod.bsky.social) October 25, 2024 at 4:36 AM

The end of ice

🔒 Paywalled: The Midwest is experiencing a ‘lost winter.’ Here’s what that means.: Snow is absent, ice is dangerously thin, and many cities are experiencing their warmest winter on record
Washington Post, February 14, 2024

Growing up in Massachusetts, the Cambridge Skating Club would flood a depression each winter, & use a 19th century ice planing machine adapted to use a motor instead of horses to smooth the surface for ice skating. They're now looking at whether refrigeration is necessary to enable skating

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— David Sacerdote (@davidsacerdote.bsky.social) October 5, 2024 at 8:33 AM

Here's the PDF of the Nature article in the Bluesky post. The introduction begins:

"Lake ice is a critical component of the cryosphere upon which populations in the northern latitudes rely. Societies derive tangible benefits from ice-covered lakes, including for transportation, fishing for sport and food, recreation and entertainment. Ice roads, for example, provide a critical lifeline to northern and Indigenous communities during winter, as well as support trade and economic activity, including the movement of CAD$500 million in goods per year from the Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road. In addition, ice cover strongly modulates the lakes’ physical characteristics, including temperature, stratification and light, which, in turn, influence under-ice ecology."

Although the freeze-up is well underway for many regions of the #Arctic, this is not the case across the Canadian Archipelago which is clearly a huge outlier in our satellite-era data record... Yikes! Data available from nsidc.org/data/seaice_...

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— Zack Labe (@zlabe.bsky.social) October 25, 2024 at 1:36 PM

EU phasing out subsidies for fossil-fuel boilers: Jan 1, 2025

The Commission has issued its first set of guidelines on the EPBD implementation. Crucially, it is on the phase-out of subsidies for fossil-fuel boilers from Jan. 1, 2025. EnergySky energy.ec.europa.eu/news/commiss...

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— Adrian Hiel (@adrianhiel.bsky.social) October 18, 2024 at 9:33 AM

I didn’t realize that EU Member States were even providing such incentives. Have you seen any inventories of these schemes? Would be good to see such a rule also applying to incentives for building insulation. Such schemes should, but none do AFAIK, disallow subsidies for polymer-based insulation.

— Ronald Steenblik (@ronsteenblik.bsky.social) October 19, 2024 at 4:51 AM

We should have guidelines on that in the next two months but it will be entirely up to MS how this is implemented. The Nordics are well advanced on this. BPIE published this excellent report 2 weeks ago: www.bpie.eu/publication/...

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— Adrian Hiel (@adrianhiel.bsky.social) October 19, 2024 at 5:13 AM

You 'can't' run a lottery to persuade people to register to vote

It's illegal, but if you're part of the immunity class, you can do it.

Someone should like hold billionaires accountable.

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— RoyalHoeliness - This Machine Kills Fascists (@royalhoeliness.bsky.social) October 21, 2024 at 7:32 AM

A billionaire blatantly breaking election laws to get his preferred candidate into power is the sort of crime that law enforcement should address immediately, rather than giving it a chance to work first and prosecuting only if it fails.

— Nicholas Grossman (@nicholasgrossman.bsky.social) October 20, 2024 at 7:24 AM

I spoke to people who referred swing state voters to sign a petition of Elon Musk's America PAC, including both Trump supporters and registered Dems. All are still waiting for their $47 payments, and some have not received emails confirming the referrals.

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— 6’3” pool boy bitch 🦩 (@milesklee.bsky.social) October 24, 2024 at 5:49 PM

LA Times, tied to Elon Musk, won't endorse a presidential candidate

Update: As of Monday, Oct 28, 8% of subscribers — about 200,000 — had canceled their Washington Post subscription.

Post editorial board members step down in wake of endorsement decision www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/...

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— Jeff (Gutenberg Parenthesis) Jarvis (@jeffjarvis.bsky.social) October 28, 2024 at 4:02 PM

Previously

Mariel Garza, editorials editor at The Los Angeles Times, has resigned after the paper’s billionaire owner intervened to prevent the paper from publishing an presidential endorsement

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— Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social) October 23, 2024 at 4:28 PM

👀

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— Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social) October 23, 2024 at 7:47 PM

Compare the headline to what’s actually in the story by the end… Dr. Soon-Shiong “…had boasted of having dinner with Mr. Trump after he won the presidency in 2016 and often has approvals pending with the federal Food and Drug Administration.”

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— Matt Novak (@paleofuture.bsky.social) October 26, 2024 at 2:19 PM

ffffffuck this guy www.cjr.org/business_of_...

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— Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social) October 23, 2024 at 5:01 PM

Oh, look, now the Washington Post won't either.

"The decision not to publish was made by The Post’s owner — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos." I worked at the paper for seven years and Bezos never interfered with a thing. This is five-alarm fire stuff. www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/...

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— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel.bsky.social) October 25, 2024 at 12:46 PM

Once the LA Times broke the surface tension, this is cascading.

— Brian Skinner (@thebrianskinner.bsky.social) October 25, 2024 at 12:52 PM

Yep, said this earlier. A permission structure has been created

— Ulf (@adambstrassberg.bsky.social) October 25, 2024 at 12:59 PM

Washington Post editor-at-large Robert Kagan told @maxtani.bsky.social that he has resigned from the newspaper over its decision not to endorse a presidential candidate

— Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social) October 25, 2024 at 1:05 PM

“Alleged collusion between Bezos and Trump, ‘is just the beginning’ and if the former president wins a second term, there will be ‘a lot of self censorship [in the media] and a lot of changing course just to be sure they’re not going to be punished.’” media beholden to billionaires will not last.

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— Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social) October 26, 2024 at 7:56 PM

from friends in WaPo newsroom, they lost enough subscriptions yday for it to be immediately noticeable and discussed and have an impact on a visibly panicky management.

— BeijingPalmer (@beijingpalmer.bsky.social) October 26, 2024 at 12:49 PM

Take note of the absences, and never forget who or what they are. bsky.app/profile/mari...

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— Adam Serwer (@adamserwer.bsky.social) October 25, 2024 at 6:51 PM

more have added their names since it was first published

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— Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social) October 25, 2024 at 7:10 PM

Billionaire Newspaper Owners Crush Editorial Endorsements, Dave Levitan, Splinter, October 25, 2024

The Washington Post opinion editor approved a Harris endorsement. A week later, Jeff Bezos killed it. By Sewell Chan, Columbia Journalism Review, October 25, 2024

NPR:

Some questions about the timing www.cjr.org/political_pr...

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— Sarah Posner (@sarahposner.bsky.social) October 25, 2024 at 1:46 PM

Does it matter?

People are going to spin this as "I can't believe you rubes think the WaPo endorsement would have moved any votes" but it's not about the poll results, it's about elite institutions doing the bare minimum to stave off authoritarianism.

— Michael Hobbes (@michaelhobbes.bsky.social) October 25, 2024 at 1:42 PM

i think what’s so scary about the owners of major media outlets exerting control over presidential endorsements is that we’re seeing the wrath of billionaire control materializing in a fully tangible way

— Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social) October 24, 2024 at 9:55 PM

At the very least, if you decide to cancel your WaPo and/or LA Times subscriptions, please I am begging you to transfer that money to other publications that you feel deserve the support. Don’t just remove it completely from all journalism. If we want a free press we have to invest in it.

— Erin Biba (@erinbiba.bsky.social) October 25, 2024 at 1:57 PM

The Washington Post and LA Times refused to endorse a candidate. Why? There’s no way to see this decision other than as an appalling display of cowardice and a dereliction of their public duty. Margaret Sullivan, Guardian, 25 Oct 2024

"I’ve worked at two newspapers owned by billionaires. Warren Buffett owned The Buffalo News, my hometown daily where I began as a summer intern in 1980 and became the paper’s first woman editor in chief in 1999. To his credit, Buffett never interfered in the editorial policy of the paper; he certainly never killed an editorial, as billionaire owners did this week at the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post."
— Margaret Sullivan, We needed courage. We got cowardice. My thoughts on billionaires who own newspapers and betray the public interest. Substack, Oct 26, 2024

Feel bad for angry WaPost & LA Times readers here. With billionare owners, it's damned if you do and don't. Even the wealthy moguls & conglomerates running our dying industry only succeed in postponing, but not halting, mass layoffs and shutdowns. Sadly, expect more disappontment to come your way.

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— Zecharias Zelalem (@zekuzelalem.bsky.social) October 26, 2024 at 2:53 AM

Just want to remind folks that at the eve of a potential authoritarian regime, a host of universities pledged to give up their voice of moral authority in the name of “institutional neutrality”

— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn.bsky.social) October 25, 2024 at 7:58 PM

Just to underline the moral cowardice of “independence” - this is the value the Post editor invoked to justify not opposing an authoritarian l www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

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— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn.bsky.social) October 25, 2024 at 8:34 PM

Billionaires and Big Tech CEOs are making a mistake cozying up to Trump. I wrote about why: www.platformer.news/tech-ceos-tr...

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— Casey Newton (@caseynewton.bsky.social) October 28, 2024 at 7:32 PM

This is, unfortunately, real — Danielle Allen of Harvard, who has thought a lot about ethics and democracy

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— Amanda Katz (@katzish.bsky.social) October 28, 2024 at 6:52 PM

The Seattle Times has no fucks left to give. “As one of the country’s very few family-owned and -operated metro newspapers left, The Seattle Times is also apparently one of the few whose editorial board is willing to endorse presidential candidates.” www.seattletimes.com/opinion/hell...

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— Laura Anne Gilman (@lauraannegilman.bsky.social) October 29, 2024 at 6:57 PM

Of course:
Donald Trump weaponizes non-endorsements from The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, Hadas Gold, CNN, October 30, 2024

Give the land back to the sea?

A Radical Approach to Flooding in England: Give Land Back to the Sea (unlocked) When a huge tract of land on the Somerset coast was deliberately flooded, the project was slammed as “ridiculous” by a local lawmaker. But the results have been transformative. By Rory Smith. Photographs and Video by Andrew Testa. Reporting from Steart Marshes, in Somerset, southwest England. New York Times. Oct. 22, 2024

B.C. politicians debate reflooding Sumas Prairie: New UBC report says restoring the lake would help with climate adaptation, Cathy Kearney, CBC News, Jun 08, 2024

2024: Anti-trans politics didn't win elections for Canadian Conservatives this time

Erin Reed tells us:

"Blaine Higgs, in an interview with the Canadian Press, defended his record as the first Canadian premier to unilaterally implement anti-trans policies in schools, stating that he “would not change anything” and calling the idea an election winner. His revisions to what is collectively known as Policy 713 required that transgender youth under the age of 16 be forcibly outed to their parents. The policy also mandated that teachers misgender and deadname trans students if they did not have parental consent or were not out to their parents.

* * *

On Tuesday [today, October 22], it became clear that the Progressive Conservative party, the right-leaning party in the province, faced a decisive defeat. In 2020, the party won 27 seats compared to the Liberals' 17, but this year, the Liberals secured 31 seats to the PCs' 16. Not only did Blaine Higgs' party lose power, but the premier also lost his own “safe” seat in Quispamsis, the most conservative district in 2020."

— Erin Reed, Conservative Canadian Premier Blaine Higgs Loses Election After Calling Anti-Trans Stances "A Political Winner", October 22, 2024

Ecological damage in the Caspian Sea

About the Caspian Sea, "a colossal-sized endorheic basin — or a major lake — that is also bounded by five countries, Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan."

"Moving from Tehran to the more northerly lakeside city of Rasht aged 13, Khashayar Javanmardi’s youth was punctuated by weekends and extended holidays on the Iranian coastline of the Caspian Sea. “It was a dreamy place,” the photographer reminisced on a phonecall with CNN. “It was my utopia; everything happened for me at the Caspian.”

Diluting this picturesque vignette, Javanmardi recalled the nuisance of the accompanying gammarus: an amphipod crustacean similar to a freshwater shrimp that would nibble at his feet whenever he ventured into the water. He had always hated them, but as he grew aware of their absence, alarm bells started to ring. “That was the first thing I noticed change,” he said. “Later I read that, due to pollution, they were extinct. They had been food for bigger species…”

Striking photographs document environmental decay on world’s largest lake, by Zoe Whitfield, CNN, October 18, 2024

Some part of me wants a U.S. election care package

But some part of me knows we're very, very far beyond this level of help.

Etsy

Etsy

Etsy

Etsy

Etsy

Etsy

Etsy

Of course that won't work. What we actually have to do is vote. Find useful info: Authors4Harris

AI is disinforming the public about the U.S. election

AI is disinforming the public about the election:

"Last month, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in an assessment that found that AI is helping “improve” rather than “revolutionize” influence operations from Russia and Iran aimed at the elections in November.
The risk of this foreign, AI-generated content depends on the ability of foreign operatives to overcome restrictions built into many AI tools, to develop their own sophisticated AI models, or to “strategically target and disseminate” AI-generated content, an ODNI official told reporters. “Foreign actors are behind in each of these three areas.”"
— Ted Barrett and Sean Lyngaas, Senate intelligence committee chairman concerned about AI-generated content and election interference, CNN, October 15, 2024

Previously

"Artificial intelligence is helping “improve” rather than “revolutionize” influence operations from Russia and Iran aimed at November’s US elections, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in an assessment released Monday.
“The (US intelligence community) considers AI a malign influence accelerant, not yet a revolutionary influence tool,” an ODNI official told reporters."
— Sean Lyngaas, US intel says AI is boosting, but not revolutionizing, foreign efforts to influence the 2024 elections, CNN, September 23, 2024

Please read: By Not Using Gen AI, Am I Burying My Head in the Sand? Yes — and it looks awesome down here. Tucker Lieberman, Sept 25, 2024

I have an "author" responding to a rejection by claiming 1.4 million followers and to have published with me under 6 different pseudonyms. Threatening a campaign of "thousands of negative reviews." The lies go on... and on... Naturally, his story is AI generated. His Amazon novel AI generated too.

— Clarkesworld (@clarkesworldmagazine.com) November 8, 2024 at 12:49 PM

Image of elf ornament from Wikimedia Commons. Taken by Jelene Morris. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Also

In 2010, anti-copyright activist Aaron Swartz hanged himself after being prosecuted to the full extent of the law for making copyrighted academic publications freely available. Today, academic publishers are insisting those copyrights be lifted to feed the corporate AI slop machine.

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— Dan Hassler-Forest (@danhf.bsky.social) December 18, 2024 at 8:25 AM

At a rally, Trump says the other party is "evil", then plays music

Trump calls Democrats "evil," then stands around while a loudspeaker plays Nothing Compares 2 U and November Rain.

Really nothing more to say at this point, nine years into Trumpism, except: Please register to vote if it's not too late, and cast your vote if it's not too early.

Wow -- this was weird. Trump wrapped up his "town hall" in Oaks, Pennsylvania, after just a few questions, and right after he said he would take a few more questions. More music then played while Trump stood around on stage. Deeply bizarre scenes.

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.bsky.social) October 14, 2024 at 7:08 PM

Trump takes the mic again. He says he'll take another question, changes his mind, and calls Democrats "evil. They're evil." He then tells his production crew to play YMCA "nice and loud" and wraps it up. Definitely one of the most bizarre Trump events I can recall.

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.bsky.social) October 14, 2024 at 7:39 PM

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So Trump is still just standing around on stage listening to music. They played Nothing Compares 2 U and now it’s November Rain. Once again, he’s just been standing there for almost half an hour. It’s cheap to ask “what if Biden had done this?” but I think you have to at this point.

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— Spooky Cooper Lund (@cooperlund.bsky.social) October 14, 2024 at 7:30 PM

NPR reported on October 22, 2024 that Trump has made over 100 public threats "to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived opponents."

Community should prioritize needs of victims, and worry about optics later

I had never heard of Ava Tyson before reading this story. This lends some support to Moore's point: trans people aren't collectively responsible for everything any trans person ever does. (Trans people don't even know all the other trans people's names!)

What trans people should do as a community is take reports of abuse seriously and prioritize the needs of victims, regardless of the identity of the aggressor (trans or cis). That behavior is ultimately what reflects well on a community, not the sins (alleged or proven) of someone who shares a trait of most of the members of the community (i.e., being trans).

Many "bad actors [are] making a living out of exploiting horrific allegations," writes Mallory Moore. In "the arena of true crime trauma porn," they put on a show of transforming "real world acts of abuse into a Punch and Judy show." But doing so won't "help anyone, or achieve trans liberation." That's "a strong justification for rejecting this framing and refocusing on the material concerns of victims and survivors."
— Mallory Moore, "No, the allegations against Ava Tyson aren’t a 'problem for the trans community'," Medium, Jul 30, 2024

What makes your community look good, and actually be good, is not that no one in it (individually) ever does anything wrong, but how the community (collectively) addresses the incident.

Do good work first. Worry about optics later.

People who oppose your existence will say what they're going to say anyway. They'll do their worst. They aren't waiting for you to give them a bad-trans-optics excuse to do so.

If you are in crisis, please reach out for help:
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Dial 988
National Domestic Violence Hotline: Call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
Rainbow Youth Project: Call (317) 643-4888
These numbers come from a GLAAD auto-reply email in October 2024.