Matthew Blanton

Just amazing! Tbh the first bird blindness joke had me laughing harder than anything else this year at least!

Attorney for woman shot by Border Patrol claims officer said 'Do something b-----' before shooting Body-camera video appears to contradict the government's claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed. A judge ordered Martinez and a co-defendant released pending trial.

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government’s claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed.
trib.al/9Sxu9IN

Where can we find these data for other districts?

This is a breathtaking abuse of the law and power by the President of the United States.

America is on the brink of martial law.

Do not be silent.

LOL to cow tipping

This is the way

This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will. It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.

If you are getting called out by them by name, honestly great work. Keep it up

South Shore Residents Return To Ransacked Apartments After ICE Raid: 'It Looks Like Hell' A "now renting" sign outside touts granite countertops. Inside, residents are trying to make sense of the raid that made their already neglected building even worse.

ICE is running around Chicago harassing people for not being white.

Just a year ago, that was illegal in the United States and now it’s commonplace.

That’s not making America great again.

I feel this so hard

Efrén Olivares: EE. UU. mintió para expulsar a cientos de niños y adolescentes guatemaltecos | Plaza Pública «Reunificar es una cosa muy distinta a repatriar, a deportar, a expulsar». Las palabras de Efrén Olivares, vicepresidente del Centro Nacional de Leyes de Inmigración (NILC, del inglés), resumen su pre...

"The United States lied in order to expel hundred of Guatemalan children and adolescents." - Good Guatemalan coverage of the outrageous middle-of-the-night attempted deportation of hundreds of kids.

www.plazapublica.com.gt/migracion/in...

"some legal experts have called it a crime to summarily execute civilians" says today's New York Times, continuing their long tradition of whitewashing fascism

Absolute all-timer sentence in today's @nytimes.com

Lollll

Who is actually running the show here?

The agent admits he treats immigrants like "they're animals" and that he tells his kids that they are animals "all the time"

This clear declaration that Trump views the DOJ to be an entity designed to impose his political retribution - alongside the clear evidence that it is already being used in this way - is impeachable.

This is so, so disturbing.

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

We hear a lot about declining religiosity and the rise of the Nones in the United States and Europe. But, what about Latin America? Is secularization happening there, and if so, what form does it take? I explore this in my new open access article in @sociusjournal.bsky.social
tinyurl.com/46njwpem

Venezuela aprueba un “tratado de asociación estratégica” con Rusia en plena crisis militar con Estados Unidos El chavismo también ha exhibido cazas equipados con misiles antibuques

Venezuela aprueba un “tratado de asociación estratégica” con Rusia en plena crisis con EE UU - elpais.com/america/2025...

Thanks Austin for all of your work on this! It's truly incredible. I have a question- while all of the current MOAs are available via ICE, do you know of any centralized resource where I could find past agreements including start/end date? Like Cobb or Harris county, etc? Thanks!

There is one correct answer: D. Followed (far along) by G.

For the rest of your life, you can only eat food from one of these regions. Which do you choose?

For more maps: brilliantmaps.beehiiv.com/s...

👀🔥

⛪ Unaffiliated, but not undevoted

@matthewblanton.bsky.social's new #Socius study challenges common understandings of #secularization, analyzing trends of increased personal religiosity alongside decreased institutional religiosity from 2004-2023 in #LatinAmerica.

Read: doi.org/10.1177/2378...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Read the open-access article here: 📄
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

🌎 Bottom line Latin America complicates the standard secularization story. Secularization isn’t just about becoming less religious—it’s about changing forms of religiosity and religious authority. And that change is far from uniform.

So what’s happening? In the paper, I integrate insights from the neosecularization paradigm and Latin American theories of popular religiosity and lived religion
to help make sense of cases where institutions fade but spirituality remains strong.

Further findings underscore how the Latin American unaffiliated are much more religious than their European or American counterparts: 42% consider religion at least somewhat important in their lives, and 86% believe in God!

Findings show a decoupling: ➡️ Institutional decline is pronounced—more people disafilliating, fewer going to church ➡️ But personal belief is resilient and even growing! This pattern challenges traditional models that treat belief, behavior, and belonging as tightly linked.

I use cross-national survey data from 17 Latin American countries (2004–2023) to track three dimensions of religiosity:
📉 Religious affiliation
📉 Church attendance
📊 Importance of religion in daily life
Spoiler: They don't move together!