Madeline Bergstrom

We wanted to understand how young New York City voters feel about Zohran Mamdani. So we talked to three retired cops at an Outback Steakhouse in Staten Island.

Whether it's young Democrats expressing their support for DEI or young Republicans saying "I love Hitler,' both sides have expressed controversial opinions.

But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had in-vested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death. The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed.

After each six or eight months' work in the mines, which was the time required of each crew to dig enough gold for melting, up to a third of the men died. While the men were sent many miles away to the mines, the wives remained to work the soil, forced into the excruciating job of digging and making thousands of hills for cassava plants. Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides... they ceased to pro-create. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and fam-ished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desper-ation.... In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk ... and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fer-tile... was depopulated... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write....

Please remember that the disgust people have over Christopher Columbus is not based on some modern, 21st century “woke” ideology, but rather on contemporaneous accounts of atrocities that make many modern genocides appear quaint in comparison.

Below, are the accounts of Bartlomé de las Casas.

Good morning! I'm in Uganda to visit family and friends.

But depending on your perspective, don't worry or I'm sorry: I'll be back by the end of the month.

See you soon, NYC.

CBS Canceling ‘Late Show With Stephen Colbert’ After Next Season

The NYT story on the Colbert firing doesn't even mention the fact that CBS is now owned by the right wing billionaire Ellison family, a very close political ally to Trump.

Kind of relevant, yeah?

The law approved late Wednesday applies to those younger than 21 and calls for 15 years in prison for any violators, as well as a $50,000 penalty and the revocation of all licenses and permits of medical staff.

The governor of Puerto Rico has signed a ban on all gender-affirming care under 21, marking an enormous escalation in the war on trans people. Conservatives are banking on using PR as a test case, and those behind this have been clear they oppose GAC at any age.
www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-...

My Dinner With Andreessen Billionaires I have known: Part One of a three-part series

The hilarious thing is that Andreessen is not nostalgic about his hometown at all, says @rickperlstein.Bsky.social. “I’m glad there’s OxyContin and video games to keep those people quiet,” said the man who now calls them “my people.” prospect.org/power/2024-0...

Marc Andreessen went to a goddam state school! Stop bitching about Stanford (about which he’s delusional) and just promote your damn Alma matter! Why is this so hard?? www.liberalcurrents.com/marc-andrees...

FTC Releases Agenda for Workshop on Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices in “Gender-Affirming Care” for Minors The Federal Trade Commission

I don't know which members of the press have time tomorrow, but it seems like having a many people as we can tracking this FTC event about gender affirming care for minors would be a good idea.

www.ftc.gov/news-events/...

Mobile screenshot of a No Kings PAC petition page. At the top is a cartoon crown logo reading “NO KINGS PAC.” The headline urges visitors to “SIGN THE PETITION TO IMPEACH TRUMP,” calling Trump a “TYRANT” and “wannabe KING.” The text claims Democrats have introduced new articles of impeachment and asks users to submit their email address. The design mimics grassroots mobilization but appears geared more toward harvesting emails and generating outrage-driven donations than toward real organizing or impact.

The SCAM PACs are coming out of the woodwork again. And it's just everything wrong in politics. If you see anything from "The No Kings PAC" here are a few things you should know. 🧵

I’m sorry, “yes we sourced a story using stolen personal data about a nonwhite politician brokered by a neonazi BUT the story illuminates the complex nature of racial identity” does not pass the laugh test

An opinion writer is not allowed to criticize the paper on social media for using a Nazi source but the reporter who worked with the Nazi source was free to leave a long social media trail being buddy-buddy with the Nazi in public

it’s absurd that NYT forced him to delete these skeets, which … convey the factual information that Zohran Mamdani is, in fact, a man of South Asian descent who was born and raised in Africa, and that the pseudonymous source of the hacked material is a white supremacist eugenicist.

Laura Loomer‘s tweet: Alligator lives matter. The good news is, alligators are guaranteed at least 65 million meals if we get started now.

The entire Latino population in the U.S. is 65 million. She means all of us.

What Everyone Is Getting Wrong About SCOTUS’s Trans Rights Ruling The Skrmetti decision to uphold a state ban on gender-affirming care for minors was not as sweeping as it seems—nor is the trans rights movement to blame for it.

The nyt is eager to declare victory over trans ppl.
Bullshit. Here’s another take:
“The notion that the trans rights movement was wrong to push this court challenge is both a departure from facts and the story the Christian-right legal movement would prefer be told”

newrepublic.com/article/1972...

Q: So I wonder what you think about that, about the phrase “globalize the intifada” and what we've seen as some anti-semitism coming from the left-wing protesters. A: The first thing as you were saying is anti-semitism is a real issue in our city and it's one that can be captured in statistics, the ones that you're citing. It's also one that you will feel in conversations you have with Jewish New Yorkers across the city. And I remember one conversation I had with a friend of mine after the horrific war crime of October 7th. He was telling me that he went for Shabbat services at his temple and he was facing forward when he heard the door open. And he turned back with a chill going up his spine because he didn't know who was coming in. And that's more than a year ago. And then just a few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a Jewish man in Williamsburg who told me that the same door he would keep unlocked for decades is one that he now locks out of a fear of what could happen in his own neighborhood. And I think that this is something that has to be the focus of the next mayoral administration, is not just talking about it, but tackling it. And these are the conversations that have informed our commitment around increasing funding for anti-hate crime programming by 800% in our Department of Community Safety. To the question of language that's being used. I am someone who I would say am less comfortable with the idea of banning the use of certain words and that I think it is more evocative of a Trump style approach to how to lead a country. And-

Q: Does that just make you uncomfortable? Like the phrase globalizing intifada. And like the phrase from the river to the sea, does that make you uncomfortable? Or do you think- A: Okay, those are different. Those are super different. Q: They're not really. A: Those are like different genres. Q: I'm sorry, I'm asking so wrong. Then they're not really different to me. And to some people they are not different. A: I know people for whom those things mean very different things. And to me, ultimately, what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights. And I think what's difficult also is that the very word has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw ghetto uprising into Arabic because it's a word that means struggle. And as a Muslim man who grew up post-911, I'm all too familiar in the way in which Arabic words can be twisted, can be distorted, can be used to justify any kind of meaning. And I think that's where it leaves me with a sense that what we need to do is focus on keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe. And the question of the permissibility of language is something that I haven't ventured.

I feel like I'm losing my mind. Here is the transcript of what Zohran Mamdani actually said about the phrase "globalize the intifada." This is his "refusal to disavow it." This is what has people terrified. Just fucking read it.

Source: podscripts.co/podcasts/the...

Star witness against Kilmar Abrego García was due to be deported. Now he’s being freed. Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes is a three-time felon released early from federal prison to a halfway house in exchange for testifying against Kilmar Abrego García.

The Trump admin has freed Jose Hernandez Reyes because he can testify against Abrego Garcia.

Hernandez, who has been deported 5 times, has also been arrested for:

—DUI w/ a handgun;
—cocaine possession;
—illegally transporting migrants; and
—drunkenly firing a gun.

Free link: wapo.st/40i4Ttt

Opinion | The Supreme Court Fails to See Transgender Teens

In which there are actual people involved. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/o...

This is like the third story put out by the New York Times since Skrmetti rubbing transgender people's faces in it.

The paper got the ruling it asked for.

The owner of Twitter sends out 100 right wing propaganda tweets every single day and the algorithm is set up so that every single person on Twitter has to see every single one of these tweets. Now here’s another piece about Blue Sky’s ideological diversity problem.

We feed you.
They hunt us.

Target Lets Go Pair of Executives Who Had Supported DEI Programs Target Corp., facing financial headwinds and pushback over its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, has dismissed two executives who have backed DEI efforts, including a chief legal and compl...

“Target Corp., facing financial headwinds and pushback over its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, has dismissed two executives who have backed DEI efforts, including a chief legal and compliance officer it hired nine months ago.”

I read the whole report on youth gender medicine out of Utah and found so much more there than the headline, which is that a report commissioned to look into the evidence on youth gender medicine found hormone therapy and puberty blockers are safe and effective.

My take on the consequences of the media's "original sin."
member.democracydocket.com/the-medias-o...

The new restriction will sharply limit access to the Novavax vaccine for people under 65 who are in good health. It may leave Americans who do not have underlying conditions at risk if a more virulent version of the coronavirus were to emerge. It could also limit options for people who want the vaccine for a wide array of reasons, including to protect a vulnerable loved one.

Under 65 years old? No Novovax COVID vaccine for you this year.

As expected, the Republicans have enabled RFK Jr. and his coterie of antivax grifters to take away your right to make your own medical decisions in consultation with your doctor.

Gift Link: www.nytimes.com/2025/05/17/h...

📌 Brown and Black refugees = bad

📌 White Afrikaner refugees = good

If you don’t get what the Trump administration is REALLY up to by now, I’ve got nothing for you.

For me, personally, expressions of concern or support based on my transness aren't as welcome as cis people simply keeping up with the news and having a reasonably current understanding of what's going on.

Target gave $1M to Trump inauguration fund, a first for the company President Donald Trump raised a record amount of cash for his inauguration, including donations from several companies with operations in Minnesota.

there is a decent chance i never spend a single dime at target again in my life www.startribune.com/target-gave-...

Breast cancer diagnoses rose by over 300% between 1973 and 1992.

Was there a breast cancer epidemic?!

NO.

Mammograms were implemented for screening in 1976.

PREVALENCE is a function of being able to correctly diagnose something.

This is also about autism.