Blake Case

There’s an excellent piece in today’s @nytimes.com about 1984, about regimes in which fictions are peddled as facts, and access to actual facts is banned.

Was reading that piece and then saw this and, I dunno, they struck me as connected.

“Books won’t stay banned. They won’t burn. Ideas won’t go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost.”

— A. Whitney Griswold

Wayne County community rally amid ICE raid at restaurant Newswatch 16's Emily Kress spoke with people in the Honesdale community who are shaken after watching three restaurant employees get detained.

""It's really hard to fathom that the guy making my pizza for 25 years is a gangster and a terrorist, and the person who shows up in an unmarked car wearing a mask and body armor comes to take him away is somehow the good guy," said Simon..."

www.wnep.com/article/news...

Missouri Republicans shut down Senate debate to pass abortion ban, repeal sick leave law • Missouri Independent Missouri Senate Republicans shut down a Democratic filibuster to overturn the abortion rights amendment passed by voters in November.

Last November, voters in Missouri overwhelmingly approved two ballot initiatives to protect abortion access and to require paid sick leave for workers. The Missouri GOP just killed both initiatives and stripped the new rights away from citizens. missouriindependent.com/2025/05/14/m...

They claim they can snatch people up, put them on planes, and deport them to a country run by an authoritarian, where those people will be forced to work slave labor at an inhumane prison. All without due process, and in defiance of federal courts.

The hypotheticals are over. This is the nightmare.

"dei medal" you might as well just put "n*gger medal" because that's what they mean to say

Julianne Nicholson in that second episode of Paradise with her son…. My GOD. Emmy. Immediately.

Ten years ago if you had written a dystopian SF story in which the person in charge of U.S. public health did a press event at a fast food joint to say that fried food is good but measles vaccines cause measles the ghost of Philip K. Dick would have said that you were being too bleak and unrealistic

LOL this is rich

Robert Clark, History-Making Black Mississippi Lawmaker, Dies Robert Clark, the first Black lawmaker to serve in the Mississippi Capitol since the end of Reconstruction, has died. He served from 1968 to 2004.

Robert G. Clark, who became Mississippi's first Black state lawmaker since 1894 when he won office in 1967, has died. He was 96.

When he took office, none of the white Democrats who dominated would sit with him. By 1992, he was House Speaker Pro Tem.
www.mississippifreepress.org/robert-clark...

Paul Tazewell!!!! Did you know that he now only lacks a Grammy to achieve the EGOT? He won the Tony Award for costuming Hamilton, an Emmy for costuming The Wiz Live! and now an Oscar for Wicked. Sheesh.

Fixed it!

How much Elon Musk makes from the government a day: $8 million.

How much a senior on Social Security gets a day: $65

Guess which budget Musk and Trump want to cut?

no funding if it seems like the research MIGHT involve a woman or a nonwhite person

Republicans want to sabotage America’s most important tax credit for workers | Opinion Katie Porter: “Single working parents ought to get the same tax credits. Yet, Republicans propose to remove even this modest boost.”

@katieporteroc.bsky.social knows the score: 50 years of #EITC and 10 years of #CalEITC, #YCTC, & #FYTC have put billions into the pockets of families, workers, & foster youth. As we mark these anniversaries, let’s recommit to investing in working families.

➡️ January 20: FAA director fired
➡️ January 21: Air Traffic Controller hiring frozen
➡️ January 22: Aviation Safety Advisory Committee disbanded
➡️ January 28: Buyout/retirement demand sent to existing employees
➡️ January 29: First American mid-air collision in 16 years

Making America Great Again!

We made it to day 8 before they started talking about their plans for concentration camps. Day 8.

Sick of dealing with TurboTax and Intuit and all the "FREE" filing tax filing tools that end up wanting to charge you money at the end? See if you're eligible for Direct File instead! It's ACTUALLY free and cuts out the middlemen tax preparers. directfile.irs.gov

Trump's fake crime wave On January 19, during a rally held in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump claimed that “crime has gone through the roof” and that it “was up like 40%.” He claimed that violent crime is especially...

1. Trump's immigration crackdown is premised on the idea that the US is experiencing a massive surge in violent crime

According to Trump the crime wave is especially severe in cities

THIS IS A LIE

New data shows crime is LOWER than when Trump left office in 2020, and below pre-pandemic levels

U.S. Supreme Court Leaves Crow-Era Voting Ban in Place The Supreme Court on Monday left in place Mississippi's Jim Crow-era practice of removing voting rights from people convicted of certain felonies.

In the age of the felon president, Mississippi still takes voting rights away from 50,000 mostly Black residents convicted of certain crimes based on an 1890 Jim Crow law.

A framer of the law said it was designed to "eliminate the n**ger from politics."

The Supreme Court just allowed it to stand.

“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”

Diary of Anne Frank
January 13, 1943

President Trump Pardons 23 People Who Harassed and Attacked Abortion Patients and Clinics | Center for Reproductive Rights Those pardoned physically blocked patients from entering health care facilities, stole fetal tissue from clinics, and injured patients and health care workers. Those pardoned physically blocked patien...

"Law and Order"
reproductiverights.org/trump-pardon...

Traditional New Orleans architecture under the snow. #sneauxday

One of these things is not like the others.

NEW: Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, the IRS has recovered $4.7 billion in back taxes, including *$1.3 BILLION* from ultra-wealthy tax cheats.

GOP states are embracing vouchers. Wealthy parents are benefitting. Most of the beneficiaries are incoming kindergarteners or students already enrolled in private schools.

As voucher programs expand, they worsen. In states with universal voucher programs, more of the public monies go to students already in private school and to wealthier families.

we're cooked

i think it is important to clarify that this — the exclusionary distribution of benefits on some sort of ethnic or national basis — isn’t socialism. it’s, you know, something else.

What really happened after California raised its minimum wage to $20 for fast food workers What would happen to the fast food industry if it had to pay its workers something closer to a living wage?

1. In April 2024, California raised the minimum wage for fast food chains to $20/hour

The industry claimed it would be devastating & require significant job cuts and prices increases

Here is what really happened: workers got a raise, prices went modestly, and the industry continued to add jobs