Greg Fingas

In other words, the backsliding is real and serious. This is perhaps the most unfavorable that the public has been toward trans rights in quite some time. Republicans have successfully and effectively exploited several flashpoint issues, like sports, in order to shift public opinion in their direction, while progressives have been unable to effectively muster persuasive arguments. Some of this may be down to an unwillingness to even entertain a debate, in an unsuccessful effort to maintain a unified front. Progressive activists and organizations have often been confrontational when challenged with dissenting views, leading critics to claim that these tactics left little room for actual debate. The net result, however, is the worst-case scenario for progressives and trans individuals alike, as a previously sympathetic public’s support of trans rights has completely unraveled over the last decade.

The anti-trans side made bomb threats to children's hospitals. They spent a billion dollars messaging this over the last 7 years while the Dems mostly stayed silent or ducked away. But somehow, they always seem to blame trans people for their own persecution.

archive.ph/E2pfS

Trump got worse on public health because bad faith disinformation actors exploited COVID to enact their agenda.

Canada’s Carbon Plan Will Help Oil Patch in Future, Energy Minister Says Canada’s energy minister said the government’s push to build carbon capture technology in the Alberta oil sands ensures the industry is adapting to change even as the US reverses its environmental pol...

This headline should tell you all you need to know about who will benefit the most from carbon capture & storage (CCS/CCUS). CCS is NOT a climate solution, it's just a scheme to funnel more public money to already-profitable oil companies www.bloomberg.com/news/article... #CDNPoli #ABLeg #ABPoli

The Car World Is Going Electric, Without America After $50 billion in squandered investments, will U.S. auto companies finally get serious—or just watch while China wins, asks Michael Dunne.

"There is also an awkward truth Detroit executives will only whisper: Many dealers actively sabotaged EV sales. Car dealerships make most of their money on parts and service. EVs need far less maintenance...For a dealer, every EV sold represents years of lost...income." www.thefp.com/p/the-car-wo...

One way to identify right-wing dominance of the US media environment: This is much more direct, egregious government censorship than the biggest claims of the “Twitter Files”—including ones they made up that had no evidence behind them—and will get a small fraction of the attention and outrage.

Personal computing is also a threat to information control.

The life of a rentier is inherently more stable and less demanding than the producer. Why wouldn't Big Tech welcome a world where every facet of the computer is like Xbox Game Pass? Personal Computing will become a political cause and will have to be fought for by aging millennial and zoomers.

The playbook:

1. Downplay scope 1-2 harms (from burning fossil fuel on site and electricity)

2. Overhype scope 3 potential benefits (by claiming false credit for benefits of non-genAI software)

3. Never mention scope 3 potential harms (e.g. from accelerating mis/disinfo re: climate & elections)

“The rich think they don't have to live in the same world as the rest of us, so they can let it burn and profit on the way down.”

@naomiaklein.bsky.social and @mehdirhasan.bsky.social break down the politics in Epstein’s emails, diving into his relationship with right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel.

The AI bubble RAM crisis is caused for non-existent problems by non-existent money for a non-existent infrastructure to meet non-existent demand to make non-existent business and will utterly destroy real business based on real demand and real infrastructure built with real money for real problems.

99% of "social media" is a literal handful of corporations, given explicit political licence to do as they damn well please, except when it comes to annoying the US extreme right, at which point they get harassed, taken over, or shut down.

Their world, we just live in it, etc.

George Lakoff wrote three or four books about this 🚫🐘

"The Poll Trap📊: Leadership is about leading, not following. Instead of simply echoing polls, Democrats must also guide them. Republicans don't follow polls, Republicans try to change the polls."

Flawed economic models mean climate crisis could crash global economy, experts warn States and financial bodies using modelling that ignores shocks from extreme weather and climate tipping points

“The climate scientists we surveyed were unambiguous: current economic models can’t capture what matters most – the cascading failures and compounding shocks that define climate risk in a warmer world – and could undermine the very foundations of economic growth.”

The point of orgs like Third Way and Searchlight is to make Democrats just as soft on business corruption as Republicans but with a little less racism and misogyny.

Graph of lead levels in hair by decade, y-axis is lead levels on a logarithmic scale, x axis is decade (not logarithmic). From 1940s to 1970s lead levels in hair were in the 40-50ppm range, in the 1980s lead levels started declining, by 2020 they were less than 1ppm.

Lead in human hair has gone down almost 100-fold since EPA was established. EPA standards for removing lead from gasoline, for pollution from lead smelters, and for other products, keeps us all healthier. @pnas.org

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

definitely seems like you're safer from any kind of punishment for being in the Epstein Files than for, say, just to pick two examples totally at random, attending a college protest for Gaza or tweeting that you weren't very sad Charlie Kirk died

"If we have to follow the law and constitution we won't be allowed to break the law and violate the constitution" says man sworn to uphold the constitution.

Ottawa has the worst job market in Canada, faring worse than cities with tariff-hit industries Economists say the fallout will only deepen as federal cuts to spending and the civil service begin to ramp up

It's funny how the "Return to office" mandate was in large part due to the idea that it would improve the bottom line for downtown Ottawa businesses. Meanwhile, the public service cuts have had a profound ripple effect on the city as a whole.

Exclusive: White House uses USAID funds for budget director Vought's security, documents show The White House budget office is using millions of dollars from the former U.S. foreign aid agency to pay for the security detail of Russell Vought, President Donald Trump's budget chief and an archit...

The Project 2025 author is using millions of dollars in USAID money for his own security detail.

It is estimated that 762,000 people have *already died* as a result of Elon Musk and Russell Vought’s obscene murder of USAID, including more than 500,000 children.

Vought is a mass murderer.

YouTube video by Resistance History with Tad Stoermer "Suicidal Empathy": The War Over Who Matters Is as Old as America

“Your ability to care about other people is a threat to the world they want to build.”

“they” here are people and politicians telling us who does and doesn’t matter, often using the term “suicidal empathy”

Via @tadstoermer.bsky.social

The World Is Going Solar. Where’s Canada? Canada is far less disadvantaged by our northern geography than is commonly believed.

Virtually every credible scenario for Canada’s electricity future implies wind and solar must supply the significant majority of new demand growth. The question is whether Canada will begin to treat solar power as a core strategic asset or continue to regard it as marginal. buff.ly/tPy0t01

The backlash against Trump is showing up in hard data, not just polls New data on protest activity shows organized anti-Trump actions are 4x the size they were in the president's first term. Your weekly political data roundup for February 15, 2026.

New hard data show the same pattern of intense anti-Trump backlash that polls do. Protests against Trump are happening at 4x the rate as 2017-18, and special election swings offer more data on the same point

www.gelliottmorris.com/p/trump-back...

It's very simple. Carney is cutting public sector jobs that contribute to public services and instead pushing private sector jobs in destructive industries like weapons and fossil fuels for the benefit of corporate profits. That is straight up conservative economic policy.

At this point, Canadians who still support Donald Trump over Canada are traitors. Yes, you can use the word.

Exclusive: Pentagon warns Anthropic will "pay a price" as feud escalates The Pentagon may label Anthropic a "supply chain risk," forcing all its vendors to sever ties.

We live in an autocratic oligarchic hellhole.

The Pentagon is basically saying that if Anthropic doesn't drop its demands over restricting the use of AI in autonomous drone targeting and surveillance of Americans, it will essentially destroy the company.

"Just making s**t up" — David Roberts sounds off on the EPA "To say members of Congress didn’t anticipate a specific pollutant is just f**king comical."

“If you can get the Supreme Court to rule that carbon is not a danger to public health, it will mark the point at which they have abandoned all pretense, because that’s just a flat out lie. Are they brazen enough? Does John Roberts feel invulnerable enough?“

@volts.wtf to @thorbenson.bsky.social

funny thing about hyper extreme wealth concentration is that you can therefore put an increasingly large dent in it by seizing less than 20 fortunes bsky.app/profile/gabr...

We have two dominant visions for digital tech: one from major corporations that maximizes profit at any cost, and another based on cyberlibertarian ideals that assumes you must code to participate in society.

We need another: where the public sector builds and funds tech for the broad public good.