The Horrified Onlooker

Republicans reprise anti-transgender ‘Kamala is for they/them’ ads for the midterms | CNN Politics Shortly after former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced his plans to run for Senate, a group backing Republicans released an ad with an echo of last year’s presidential campaign.

10 Aug 25 -- It's baaaccCK. 2024 "Kamala's for they/them" ads making a come-back w/ Rep's running in midterms. One sample: "Man-to-man defense isn’t woke enough for Ossoff–he’s playing for they/them. Call and tell Sen. Ossoff, stop dunking on defenseless girls." Really?!? @rikiwilchins.bsky.social

i didn't get into it in my essay on this speech, but beyond the basic incoherence of vance's assorted grievances, i'm struck by how ungrateful *he* is, a man who owes his fame and fortune to the open, cosmopolitan society he is trying to destroy for the sake of power

Reality: that “extra revenue” is higher costs paid by regular American consumers & businesses, and the “tax relief” is going to the rich not you.

JD is pissing 💦 on your head and telling you it’s raining — and @marshablackburn is using this line also as she runs for governor.

An administration that hates the troops.

Trump and Republicans’ Big Bad Betrayal will cause 22 MILLION families to lose some or all of their SNAP benefits.

They’re literally taking food away from the hungry, just so billionaires can get a tax break.

WOW. The Trump admin is rewriting reality, erasing accountability for any nation with close ties to Trump — including Russia, El Salvador, and Israel.

The El Salvador report changes are egregious, totally erasing well-documented abuses. And the impact will be severe. Quick 🧵.

Nowadays everything is labeled family separation, but this is legitimate. ICE needs cooperation to deport families on commercial flights. @haleaziz.bsky.social found that if families fail to cooperate (ex due to fear of persecution), ICE separates them.

Taking kids to incentivize deportation.

The trans panic is maddening, because trans people are expected to defend ourselves with logic science and any sign of emotion is a failure.

And yet the anti-trans campaign is nothing but appeals to emotion unburdened by facts, precedent, or empathy.

Andry José Hernández Romero is no longer in a foreign gulag. But does that alone constitute justice? And what about the hundreds of others we sent? www.thebulwark.com/p/what-do-we...

"Friends in the FBI have told me that many of their limited resources are being shifted from their primary functions to support immigration roundup requirements, further exacerbating a reduction in manpower in key protective areas."

—important point in this piece by @markhertling.bsky.social

US constitution

This is the US Constitution page @ the Library of Congress

Sections 9 and 10 have been removed

9 includes habeas corpus, the courts' review of unlawful detention & imprisonment

This gov't can't change the Constitution w/ sneaky editing, but it's a new low: constitution.congress.gov/constitution/

The AI powered Library Search That Refused to Search From Clarivate's Summon to Primo Research Assistant, content‑moderation layers meant mostly for chatbots are "quietly" blocking controversial topics from being searched

[Blogged] The AI powered Library Search That Refused to Search - From Clarivate's Summon to Primo Research Assistant, content‑moderation layers meant mostly for chatbots are "quietly" blocking controversial topics from being searched
aarontay.substack.com/p/the-ai-pow... - milking this again

Let's get together to get our story straight is something criminals say

In Anti-Incumbent Rout, Progressive Candidates Lead In All Local Races - PubliCola By Erica C. Barnett and Andrew Engelson Call it the “Fuck Trump” effect. That, at least, was the most common…

In Anti-Incumbent Rout, Progressive Candidates Lead In All Local Races

publicola.com/2025/08/05/i...

Sugarcane burning is a plague on these Black Floridians “I like to call it 'structured' racism.”

Today I learned that when sugarcane farmers burn their fields, a “black snow” falls for months on communities downwind. Under FL law, burns are prohibited when the wind is blowing into wealthy, white neighborhoods. They’re only allowed when it’s blowing into poor, majority black areas.

I’ll be calling my senator about this. Anybody who claims to care about the health & well-being of Americans, & the US being at the forefront of innovation, should support this research. I especially encourage any constituent of Bill Cassidy, an MD who voted to confirm RFKJ, to make your views known

This is breaking in the sense that I reported it back in February

Happy 40th Birthday to “Running Up That Hill,” released today in 1985.

Interesting interview, with links to the CAPTAIN project, worthy of reading and to keep - the influence of these anti-trans efforts through lies and pseudo-science is far-reaching.

This is a fantastic interview. I wanted to both boost it and to link to the research report it's talking about, so people can see for themselves, because the CAPTAIN project has every hallmark of being a landmark report.

And the CAPTAIN pulls no punches. 💪👊🏳️‍⚧️

www.splcenter.org/resources/re...

I never get tired of reminding people that famous celebrity Donald Trump's very first appearance in the New York Times was when the Nixon Justice Department sued him and his father for refusing to rent to black families.

IT NEEDS TO BE SHOUTED FROM THE ROOFTOPS THAT MAGA HAD A DELIBERATE SOCIAL ENGINEERING PLAN TO DEPORT LATINO FARMWORKERS AND FORCE BLACK PEOPLE TO DO FARM WORK BY GETTING RID OF SOCIAL WELFARE PROGRAMS

You are absolutely correct. This is awful very concerning development.

= WSJ OPINION Ms. Clark's targeting may reflect a culture of disparate treatment, and the evidence provides reasonable cause for a federal probe into potential civil-rights violations. This would mirror the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation into Dearica Hamby's pregnancy discrimination claims against the WNBA and her team. Congress and the Labor and Justice departments would be justified in examining the facts. At Harvard and Columbia during antisemitic protests, institutional leaders played down threats and failed to protect students. Congress and the Trump administration demanded answers. Columbia's recent $221 million settlement for civil-rights violations shows the effect of such scrutiny.

Conservatives care about women’s sports in exactly two scenarios: Riley Gaines getting her ass beat, and seeing refs miss a jersey pull while Caitlin Clark is running around a screen

A “Striking” Trend: After Texas Banned Abortion, More Women Nearly Bled to Death During Miscarriage A new ProPublica data analysis adds to the mounting evidence that abortion bans have made the common experience of first-trimester miscarriage far more dangerous.

More women have nearly bled to death during miscarriage under Texas’ abortion ban.

Experts say the trend paints a troubling picture of the harms of unnecessary delays in care.

“This is striking,” one doctor said. “The trend is very clear.”

Statue of Confederate General Albert Pike to be reinstalled in Washington A statue of Confederate General Albert Pike, which was overturned in 2020 during the "Black Lives Matter" protests after George Floyd's murder, will be reinstalled in Washington, the National Park Service said on Monday.

2nd President of the Confederacy, Donald J. Trump

How Kash Patel Was Duped Trump’s lickspittle FBI director fell for obviously fake Russian documents. So much for Wizard Kashs’s “smoking gun.”

It turns out Wizard Kash’s “smoking gun” is not only ridiculously fake (as Durham concluded), it actually blows a massive hole in the Trump/Patel “Russia hoax” theory.

Real Change confirmed today that two of our vendors have been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This action is a direct attack on a protected community and poses a chilling threat to the safety and well-being of all individuals experiencing homelessness and poverty.

Americans Say No As Terrified ICE Agents Flee from Angry Citizens "It's gonna be like this every f*cking day you're coming. Every day, anytime you try to kidnap people, we are gonna be here!" a rapid responder yelled at fleeing ICE agents in Kansas.

"Did you not realize what this would be, being f*cking Gestapo? Quit your job. It's gonna be like this every f*cking day you're coming...anytime you try to kidnap people, we are gonna be here!” A rapid responder yelled at fleeing ICE agents in #Kansas. www.thedailypoliticususa.com/p/americans-...

Bracketing the big bucket of gender here, "LARPs of dead cultures" has been the essence of tourism since at least ancient Romans going to Egypt to gawk at the pyramids.