Joe Spencer

Just gonna say, we are all #LowerEd now and it was never ever a doubt.

Tired of dystopian sci-fi? You might like Solarpunk. A recent literary genre imagines what happens when our climate changes—and so do we.

Sci-fi has always provided heady alternatives to everyday realities. But for the past few decades, a big chunk of sci-fi has gravitated toward dystopia, which, while valuable, can grow wearisome.

@clivethompson.bsky.social offers an exciting new literary genre to counter our despair.

Almost 250 years after we broke with George III, the question must now be faced: Are we a monarchy or a nation of laws? https://robertreich.substack.com/p/fascist-dictator-or-16th-century

Both today

Screenshot of a CNN segment shared by Acyn. A split-screen shows commentator Lydia Moynihan on the left and Kevin O’Leary on the right during a heated exchange. The chyron reads, “Obama: Dems need to avoid scolding and ‘virtue-signaling.’” The post quotes O’Leary referencing China and concentration camps, and McGowan responding about West Virginia.

I spent my childhood inside of American concentration camps. I know one when I see one. And that is what ICE is building.

The New School Cancelled Their Class on Global Soccer and World Politics. We Are Going To Teach it Anyway. When institutions abandon critical thinking, we build our own classrooms.

NEW:

One of the most progressive institutions in the U.S., The New School, has begun destroying its humanities departments.

They have cancelled one of their most popular classes, "Global Soccer and World Politics."

We are going to teach it anyway.

karenattiah.substack.com/p/the-new-sc...

ted bundy ass tactics by the gestapo

Someone has sure already made this observation but the fact they can convert all those empty warehouses into prison camps means they could have converted them into housing, community centers, job training centers or, hell, libraries or schools all along. It’s always a matter of will not resources.

So good

Never say that we haven't been told what's coming.

This is a pogrom

Friends from Minneapolis reporting to me that things are at the point where folks are being hidden in other people's houses and we are in the "again" part of "never again" which the "never" was supposed to preclude

we need to talk about that Ring Super Bowl ad

New York Times headline: Libertarians: We Told You So With an image of a big black boot stomping a snake

this is a subject that's near and dear to my heart

1. no you didn't, you retconning fucks

2. your decades of anti-governance "free market" "government never functions" propaganda paved the way for the complete authoritarian decimation of labor, consumer, environmental protections

elpasomatters.org/2026/02/09/t...

“I’m mad I can’t understand Bad Bunny’s lyrics because they’re not in English”

my brother millions of metalheads around the world have been happily listening to incomprehensible Finnish shrieks and Japanese death grunts since we were teens, you’re just boring and racist

Me holding copy of the book

You’ve seen the halftime show … now read my friend Petra’s new book from @dukepress.bsky.social about how Bad Bunny became the global voice of Puerto Rican resistance! 👏🏽👏🏽

www.dukeupress.edu/p-fkn-r

halftime show

what a shot

Call it what it is, @nbcnews.com. Concentration camp.
Every time.

The OED defines a concentration camp as “a camp in which large numbers of people, esp. political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities.”
👀

State Department will delete X posts from before Trump returned to office The policy change orders the removal of any post made by official State Department accounts on X before President Trump returned to office in 2025.

The removal of State Department X posts from public view appears to be less about ideological differences with past statements and more about control of future messaging.

Revealed: How Substack makes money from hosting Nazi newsletters Exclusive: Site takes a cut of subscriptions to content that promotes far-right ideology, white supremacy and antisemitism

Within two hours of subscribing to NatSocToday for the purposes of this investigation, the Substack algorithm directed the Guardian’s account to 21 other profiles featuring similar content.

Some of these accounts regularly share and like each other’s posts. Many have thousands of followers.

GM: Charisma check.

Mamdani: [rolls natural 20]

GM: that’s a d6 how did you

Mamdani: [direct to camera] Did you know you can check out board games at your local public library? 😊

People: 8-Month-Old Baby Goes Viral After Hairdresser Mom Gave Her a 'Fresh' Set of 22 Inch Extensions (Exclusive)

Baby with 22inch hair extensions

This photo is funnier than it has any business being

people.com/hairdresser-...

very weird “I am Spartacus” thing happening right now with the worst people on earth

Ihssane Leckey will challenge Auchincloss in second bid for 4th District seat Massachusetts Congressman Jake Auchincloss will have a challenger on the ballot this year for the first time since he took office in 2021.

Ihssane Leckey, a former financial regulator, announced Tuesday she plans to run against Jake Auchincloss in Massachusetts' 4th Congressional District.

There are no words to capture how much I detest RFK Jr.

hey also

as somebody who wrote a book on moral panics

the thing about the Epstein case is that

unlike satanists in daycares

Epstein was real and that abuse actually happened

the Epstein mess is a morality *play*

ie a story about what happens when wealth and power and influence go unchecked

If you're thinking about Washington Post, "well, to hell with them, they did it to themselves," then count yourself on the side of management. Because, no, labor didn't do this to themselves, didn't grind the paper down, yank it right, & rip out its spine. That's capital. Now we'll all suffer.

Democracy Dies

-Jeff Bezos 2/4/2026

Pinned lizzie johnson @lizziejohnsonnn · Aug 19, 2021 Almost three years ago, my editor called me early one November morning. A wildfire had sparked near a town called Paradise, he said. Could I go? (1/13) 0:02 / 0:10 lizzie johnson @lizziejohnsonnn · 47m I was just laid off by The Washington Post in the middle of a warzone. I have no words. I'm devastated. Quote lizzie johnson @lizziejohnsonnn · Jan 25 Waking up without power, heat, or running water. (Again.) But the work here in Kyiv continues. Warming up in the car, writing in pencil — pen ink freezes — by headlamp.

A publisher who lays off a reporter whose pen is freezing because she's covering a frigid war zone while dodging missiles is not an editor you want to work for, in a more perfect world