reasonmatters.bsky.social

Hoist by our own petard.

It would be an unambiguous gain for society if the Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, Manhattan Institute, Turning Point, GOP, Musk, and the rest of these confederate vampires were sued into oblivion and had their assets forcibly seized and then ground into the dust

Kavanaugh stops in action: ICE tackled a non-verbal kid near his school, left him with injuries requiring surgery, and then left the scene when they realized he wasn't the person they were looking for www.independent.com/2026/10/23/i...

The central issue in the US election and elections worldwide is corruption writ large-a system that only works to serve the rich at the expense of everyone else, a system in which politicians and the rich are in bed together and yet screwing the rest of us. Affordability and corruption are the same.

A Swedish study of over 1.2 million adults found that non-hospitalised people with diagnosed long COVID had a 14% higher risk of developing high blood pressure than those without long COVID. Researchers highlight the importance of cardiovascular follow-up and regular blood pressure monitoring.

US government officials paid by our tax dollars manipulated US policy to interfere in Brazil's election, to punish Lula and push Flavio Bolsonaro to power: insurrectionists supporting other insurrectionists. But they failed. archive.is/7C52g

In Serbia, MAGA influencers from the US were dispatched to Serbia to whip up enthusiasm for the hard-right Alexsandar Vucic who had held power for 12 years. They failed too and the students' movement won.

Two fantastic, unexpected victories today for democracy and over Trump's anti-democratic cabal. In Brazil, Trump openly colluded with the fascist Flavio Bolsonaro, son of the jailed ex-president who tried a Jan 6-like coup in 2022 after he lost to Lula. But Lula has again defeated the Bolsonaros.

This is true. Qatar is widely believed to be the biggest financial backer of the Muslim Brotherhood.

SUCK IT, FASCISTS!🎉🥳🍾 “Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president, has staged a dramatic election fightback, defeating his far-right opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro, to claim a historic 4th term. With nearly 99% of votes counted the 80-year-old received 51.75% of the vote to his rival’s 48.25%.”

“As Trump funds influencers to manipulate the Brazilian election, he is getting help in his quest from Elon Musk, who is blocking accounts that post critiques of the Bolsonaro-Trump alliance. This week, the National Conference of Bishops of Brasil lost access to its X account.“

He claims here that other states have a law saying "somebody with the same name can't run." That is false. In no state is that the law, and it would be unconstitutional. You can have rules about how the ballot is disambiguated, you can't say nobody else with a similar name is allowed to run at all.

The George H.W. Bush administration did implicitly threaten to shoot down Israeli warplanes to deter Israel from retaliating against Iraq in 1991. And it worked.

Huge co-sign from Trump on Ramaswamy's shockingly vile ad just now. It has to feel amazing, if you're running as an abusive predator, to get this kind of endorsement from the number one abusive predator in the game.

What the Attorney General of the United States seems to not understand, but the people who matter do, is that Congress hasn’t given DOJ any authority to block states from certifying the election. This isn’t a thing. And we don’t have to pretend it’s a thing just because he says it’s a thing.

Texas is not a red state. Texas is a voter suppression state.

Voter suppression in Texas is working exactly as it was designed to work. Republicans closed 92 voting locations in the state's largest swing county and now voters are waiting in line two hours to vote.

The anti-free-speech head of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, is threatening to punish news outlets that publish polls showing Trump's deep unpopularity. We are sliding into a dictatorship, and it would be helpful if major media would do their duty and warn the public.

I can finally tell you all about this project that has consumed my life. I am so excited to announce this searchable dark money database aimed at exposing political influence networks. This is just the first phase of the project too. We have big plans.

My heart breaks for Zelensky and the Ukrainian people. They are fighting so bravely to save their country and here comes musk with his bullshit

🔥 MEMPHIS: “Pause the data centers so we can get this right! Lives are at stake and blood is on your hands.” Tikeila Rucker unloaded 🗣️ on the Council as they failed to pass an 18 month moratorium despite overwhelming support for one (6-6) @justinjpearson.bsky.social @keshaunpearson.bsky.social

This is the sleaziest most disgusting act we’ve ever seen a politician make, and it’s not even from Ken Paxton’s campaign.

Prof. Giuseppe Pezzotti's team at Japan's Kansai Medical University discovered that Raman spectroscopy can distinguish 20 SARS-CoV-2 variants by detecting unique molecular fingerprints in their RNA, called "Raman barcodes". This could enable rapid variant screening without full genetic sequencing.

I'm a big supporter of accountability & I really want Dems to pursue it, but I just want everyone -- pols & ordinary Dem voters -- to be prepared for the scale of the pushback against it. It's going to be immense. It will take intense focus & commitment to really follow through on it.

What's striking is the array of grifters happy to stand behind the president and pretend he's sane. Awful people.

This is fucked. Really bleak how entrenched this is becoming.

This anti-democratic bullshit has been the norm for Republicans. If a Democrat wins a red state, the legislature strips him of all his power. No Dem-controlled lege has ever done this to an R who won statewide.

No mention of @marisakabas.bsky.social discovering his identity. No credit for her investigative work at all.

i have said this before but “It is not permissible under the 14th Amendment for the state to alleviate racial inequality” is basically a version of Plessy v. Ferguson, which held that the 14th Amendment was not meant to equalize social relations. bsky.app/profile/mike...

the other thing is that conservatives resolutely do not see the purpose of education as providing social mobility but as reifying and deepening existing inequalities of status. they are as hostile to low income students getting admission to elite institutions as they are black ones.

bsky.app/profile/theb...

"An estimated 137 million people lived in areas of the US affected by a disaster in 2024 alone... 54% of people [FEMA survey, 2023] said they or their family members had experienced the effects of a disaster." Trump's refusal to provide disaster aid is creating a long-term strategic liability.

"What’s different about Perez’s case is that U.S. military personnel appeared to be working with ICE to identify a potential target and use a long-standing military-recruitment tool—the promise of legal status for loved ones—to facilitate an arrest."

Must-read 🧵. The Dept of Ed aims to dismantle public schooling entirely; state-level voucher programs are key to the plan. As my forthcoming book shows, the “school choice” models described below put religious liberty and consumer choice claims to segregationist ends, enshittifying ed for all.

End U.S. military funding to Israel now, or place stringent conditions on it. The country has gone off its rocker. Simultaneous genocide and ethnic cleansing supported by a majority or near majority of the country's population. Americans have eyes and ears, they know what they are seeing.

SNAP enrollment has fallen to a 17-year low, with 5 million fewer recipients, including 2 million children. @crampell.bsky.social explains how cuts to food assistance helped pay for tax breaks: “This is literally about starving the poor to fatten the rich.”

☠️☠️☠️

Republicans are eager to campaign on Trump's big "beautiful" 2025 bill But these headlines on the front pages in battleground Ohio aren't helping the cause .....

If you recognize Kliger's name, it is probably in this context: he manually shut down life-saving aid from USAID. In between his DOGE work and starting his defense start-up he was appointed to the DOD as - brace yourselves - chief data officer. bsky.app/profile/donm...

The way in which DOGE fucked up the IRS - *massive leadership turnover *1 in 4 employees gone, more in tax enforcement *loss in trust of the public *employees fearful of reporting wrongdoing - all of that remains, increasing deficits & reducing performance. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/things-rea...

6. DOGE lied and the government lied to the press and in court about what was going when it came to the stealing of data (l). As @vanessawilliamson.bsky.social wrote in her review of the state of the IRS, more than 90% of the data was improperly shared. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/things-rea...