Anthony Pignataro

Anthony Pignataro

@apignataro.bsky.social

Editor/reporter at the co-op @lbwatchdog.bsky.social. Former MauiTime (RIP) editor. Former OC Weekly (RIP) reporter. My new novel The B Girls and new memoir Remembering Lahaina are now available. He/him.

688 followers358 following1K posts

Anthony Pignataro reposted

Fun fact: Bibi's main foe in the Israeli elections tomorrow, Gadi Eisenkot, invented the "Dahiya doctrine": flattening "every village from which shots will be fired in the direction of Israel. We will wield disproportionate power and cause immense damage and destruction."

Anthony Pignataro reposted

the markets have essentially become a gauge for how much corruption the government in power is going to let the business class get away with

Roy Edroso@edroso.bsky.social

Suck ass, The Economist

Anthony Pignataro reposted

Look, I know all the reasons we got here, but we really need to start seriously thinking about what we do in a world where The Markets punish whole countries for voting for decency, compassion, and fairness. We must stop pretending the capitalist machine is an objective, value neutral force.

Lewis Wade 🗃️@wadehistory.bsky.social

It's very, very telling, I think, that the markets are so concerned about the pro-democracy incumbent winning

Anthony Pignataro reposted

Most of our presidents were rapists or abusers of some sort. We should probably sit with that in a more meaningful way than we do.

Anthony Pignataro reposted

Replying to @moiradonegan.bsky.social

That’s also why Vivek isn’t exactly lying when he says he didn’t mean to say Acton lied about being raped as a child. He doesn’t think she lied; he thinks that being raped disqualifies her from office, because she belongs to the class of people power is wielded against, not the class that wields it.

Anthony Pignataro reposted

I don’t think this is exactly what’s going on, or all that’s going on. It’s not that Republicans are constructing an elaborate psychological defense against evidence that Trump is a rapist. It’s that they like that he’s a rapist, and they like rape: it enacts the power of the strong over the weak.

Julian Sanchez@normative.bsky.social

The vile attacks on Amy Acton need to be seen in the context of a party that *needs* people to believe women fabricating sexual assaults is common as rainwater. Because it’s pretty much the only way to evade the conclusion that the president is a rapist.

Anthony Pignataro reposted

This is yet more of the shit that traps people into a cycle of epistemic & hermeneutic injustice and deception— frameworks where people don't know what they think they know and can't trust the mechanisms that are supposed to help them gain knowledge. Not only that, but now they have false CERTAINTY…

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Anthony Pignataro reposted

Replying to @beyerstein.bsky.social

Rewrite every headline about an AI doing something illegal as the owners of the AI doing something illegal. Strict liability could end this madness.

Anthony Pignataro reposted

Anthony Pignataro reposted

I lived in California for a few years and I used to bug my coworkers to walk places because driving was so ingrained in their brains. Also I wish Trump told the thousands of people I was bumper to bumper with every morning on the 405 that actually they hate cars.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Larry Kudlow, interviewing Trump, claims that Californians "hate cars"

Anthony Pignataro reposted

When the Dems return to power. they must say no to impunity.We need a moral and legalreckoning.

Larry Glickman@larryglickman.bsky.social

Trump must be punished for his consistent pattern of lying about elections. The impunity has to end. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/24/u...

Anthony Pignataro reposted

Support local indie journalism at @lbwatchdog.com

Long Beach Watchdog@lbwatchdog.com

Here’s how you can help spay and neuter cats in Long Beach and win tickets to Le Chic Chat Soiree, the fancy feline fete and fundraiser hosted by Helen Sanders Cat Protection and Welfare Society. Read more from @lastwhomstanding.bsky.social on the Watchdog. lbwatchdog.com/win-two-free...

Anthony Pignataro reposted

I need people to understand this selective good ole boy justice — the kind that protects abusers, rewards impunity, and openly flouts rule of law and equal protection under it — is Jim Crow shit, practically speaking. It's how Jim Crow terrorism FLOURISHED. Trump broadened the acceptable targets.

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Anthony Pignataro reposted

Pro-ICE conservative blogger Samuel Sey, a prominent figure on the evangelical right, has himself been arrested and held for potential ICE deportation.

Anthony Pignataro reposted

scott galloway and jessica tarlov held an event here in town yesterday where “don’t impeach or waste time on investigations because ‘28” was the consensus position of the panel. so yeah, this is something to anticipate.

Schooley@schooley.bsky.social

If Democrats actually win big because people want a check on Trump corruption I expect every move to do so will be covered in the corporate media as being risky to their 2028 position.

As someone who is currently trying to sell a novel I actually enjoyed writing (unusual for me), it’s difficult to read this and conclude anything other than I will have to self-publish, and self-market, any book I write for the foreseeable future.

Anthony Pignataro reposted

MeidasTouch@meidastouch.com

NEW: Vivek Ramaswamy says Amy Acton being a victim of childhood sexual abuse makes her “flawed” while defending his ad featuring her estranged mother. “In politics sometimes it's a tough sport.”

Anthony Pignataro reposted

i really do think that a successful impeachment and removal of hegseth is a live possibility if dems win the senate. he is a genuine disaster.

Laleh Khalili@lalehkhalili.bsky.social

Man, Hegseth's Department of War is even more buffoonish than everything else. Kinda amazed how the US military didn't just have some basic war plans they could activate. Their lack of preparedness is astonishing. meidasnews.com/news/so-much...

Anthony Pignataro reposted

I listen to a lot of MAGA media and it’s really funny much energy they’re putting into getting people into early voting.

Anthony Pignataro reposted

Seizing Elon Musk's assets and trying him for treason would not be the first time in history when enemies of America from among the wealthy saw their fortunes confiscated.

Anthony Pignataro reposted

This is so hilarious, because the left could not possibly keep this a secret without arguing spilling over into public, a thing they would do because this supposed plan is incredibly stupid.

Ron Filipkowski@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social

She is also one of the people who proudly held up one of the Epstein binders she got from Pam Bondi with a big smile for the cameras. This is who gets special access from Trump’s DOJ.

Anthony Pignataro reposted

Fascinating that as even as other Republicans who long ago sold their souls to MAGA still have enough baseline political acumen to see how poisonous this is, Vance is completely oblivious. It isn't just that he has no principles, decency, or moral compass, he's also really fucking bad at politics.

nytimes.comVance Defends Ramaswamy Ad Featuring Acton’s Mother Despite BacklashThe vice president backed an advertisement featuring Democrat Amy Acton’s mother, who has been estranged from Dr. Acton since her stepfather was charged with child rape.

Anthony Pignataro reposted

Do you know how bad the abuse has to be for a judge to remove kids from their birth mother? Just saw Amy Acton’s CNN interview about that Ramaswamy ad and , listen, I lived in NC through the Willie Horton ad era. I’m not precious. This is so disgusting that I wish I believed in hell. I really do.

Anthony Pignataro reposted

Anthony Pignataro reposted

I'm not sure how much more blatant it can get that these guys are looting the federal government and then pointing over there and saying "look what THOSE BLACK PEOPLE ARE GETTING AWAY WITH!!!" bsky.app/profile/atru...

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Stephen Miller claims Somali-Americans in Minnesota are "buying Mercedes, buying BMWs, they buy a nice house, all their kids fly first class all over the world" (This is a lie!)

Anthony Pignataro reposted

They're weirdly pressing two kinds of white supremacist lies at once -- some non-white immigrants are poverty-wracked criminals who are eating our dogs and cats, but other non-white immigrants are rich elites who are buying up mansions and flying first class. Pick a fucking lane, you clowns.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Stephen Miller claims Somali-Americans in Minnesota are "buying Mercedes, buying BMWs, they buy a nice house, all their kids fly first class all over the world" (This is a lie!)

Anthony Pignataro reposted

This keeps happening

Long Beach Watchdog@lbwatchdog.com

On Saturday, US citizen Ricardo Gonzalez was reportedly hit by an unmarked federal vehicle, tased twice by ICE agents and then handcuffed while face down in the gutter screaming that his arm was broken. Read more from @brandonrichardson.bsky.social on the Watchdog. lbwatchdog.com/ice-assaulte...