Andy Gaertner

Fewer than 1 in 10 of our Congressional races are considered competitive - in a country that's politically more or less 50-50.

This is madness. And it doesn't have to be this way.

We’ve gotten several messages that the Trump administration has tampered with federal employees’ email systems, making some people’s automatic Out of Office replies blame the government shutdown on the “radical left.” This was done without the employees’ knowledge.

Five corporations control 90% of the US media market.

Airlines merged from 12 major carriers in 1980 to 4 today.

Four giants control 80% of meat processing.

A handful of companies control the pharmaceutical industry.

The evidence of corporate concentration is everywhere.

The tall red mountains of Zion national Park

Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them. -
Assata Shakur

Pic of the day

#photography

Pumpkin harvest time

These are beans that I grew.

Look at this graph.

The share of national income going to the richest 10 percent was lowest (and share to lower 90 percent highest) when union membership was at its highest. As unions have weakened, inequality has widened.

This is why we must build back union power.

Old Soviet joke for today:

A man walks into a newsstand every day, looks around, and leaves.

After a long time of this, the owner says “Can I help you find something?”

“I’m looking for the obituaries.”

“The obituaries are in the back of the newspaper, comrade.”

“Not the one I’m looking for.”

Doesn’t deploy federal troops to stop a Capitol invasion or save children from a Texas flood or clean up debris from a StL tornado.

Deployed federal troops to disperse people in sleeping bags.

Got it.

Bowser: "I think I speak for all Americans -- we don't believe it's legal to use the American military against American citizens on American soil."

Thankful I bought a broom right before these sweeping tariffs

The CEO-to-worker pay ratio at S&P 500 companies last year was 285-to-1. The median employee would have had to start working in the year 1740 to earn what the average CEO received in 2024. Is it any wonder why so many think the system is rigged?

weird how the guy born into obscene wealth, bailed out repeatedly, allowed to fail upwards forever until he fell ass-backwards into the presidency, and then was declared by the Supreme Court to be a Very Special Boy Who Can Crime Forever never stops whining about how everything is rigged against him

The oil industry buys off Congress. No action on climate.

The NRA buys off Congress. No action on guns.

Insurance companies buy off Congress. No action on health care.

The list goes on and on.

Money in politics is the root of our dysfunction.

Russia was never a hoax
The 2020 election wasn’t stolen
Tariffs are a tax on you
Haitians didn’t eat pets
The Epstein files exist

Lol
Release the files!!!

A Trump-appointed judge overturned a Biden-era rule that removed medical debt from credit reports.

The ruling came days after Republicans voted to kick millions of Americans off healthcare – which will likely cause medical debt to skyrocket.

A perfect storm of cruelty.

If the president can revoke people's citizenship, we don't have a country. Simple as.

has the US simply tried detaining the wildfire smoke at the border. have they tried putting a tariff on the fire

Imagine this!

The “Big Beautiful Bill” gives ICE $170 billion to lock people up and build walls, but only $150 billion for the entire US Marines to fight wars, house troops, and support families.

Because nothing says “secure nation” like funding cages over combat.

I do not meet Medicaid requirements, but my healthcare premiums became affordable when Missouri expanded Medicaid.

Medicaid cuts will impact my insurance. It will impact my rural hospital. It will impact my life.

It’s all connected.

Useful phrases for this week:

- No.
- So?
- In my lessons, (insert subject) is always fun.
- He did NOT say that.
- No- not even in the last 10 minutes.
- Education is its own reward.
- I don't care if they did.

If you know, you know.

#edusky

Truly imagine if Mamdani had used the word “Shylock.”

It would have quite literally destroyed his career and every org and leader calling him out would be making this into a month long news cycle.

Trump? Hardly a peep.

When you accept antisemitism from the president, you aren’t fighting it.

Court papers filed Wednesday state that Mr. Abrego Garcia was beaten, deprived of sleep, and subjected to psychological torture during the nearly three months he spent in Salvadoran custody. It is unacceptable to send people to other countries to be tortured!

Same…

“But I voted for it anyhow.”

The Grand Opening of an American Concentration Camp The Republicans are proudly calling it “Alligator Alcatraz.” Let’s call it what it is.

I wrote about the day the president attended the opening of an American concentration camp:

I used to think of vice signaling as a minor point about political communication. now I wonder if we need to develop it as a core aspect of political theory, at least as far as the Americas are concerned

As we’ve reported before, ICE facilities are rife with human rights violations. Now, the Department of Homeland Security is trying to hide them, formally requiring members of Congress and their staff to give seven days’ notice before visiting immigration detention centers.