kareneice.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

How did fascism become "unthinkable" & "unseeable" in US political culture? I've been reading the thick FBI files of a Cold War era US fascist named Kenneth Goff. Scores of people wrote to the FBI expressing concern about Goff's activities, but every single one of them said "I think he's a commie."

submitted 5 hours ago • 7 comments

Notice the sexually-charged language that makes anything trans people do, no matter how innocuous, obscene simply by nature of it being done by a trans person. Reactionaries project their psychosexual hang-ups onto trans people and call us perverse for their blatant, open sexual harassment of us.

submitted 3 hours ago • 13 comments

Every time someone responds to an obviously normative-aspirational claim ("this not who we are", "this is not America", etc) with some I'm-very-radical descriptive rebuttal ("er actually America has always done <similar bad stuff>") an angel dies. Like, no joke, dead. Direct causal result of this.

submitted 3 hours ago • 60 comments

Excellent point. The Framers thought my German ancestors were an unassailable horde and just a century ago the Klansmen making these same racist arguments would’ve insisted a Polish surname like “Damsky” was still beyond the pale. “Originalists” tend to gloss over that pesky fact.

submitted 1 day ago • 29 comments

It's likely this won the award out of a fatuous anti-woke "oh it's so brave and counter-cultural," which is a very stupid reason to give an award, but par for the course for the "anti-woke is our entire personality" crew.

submitted 2 hours ago • 23 comments

Starting to think these folks aren’t the “free thinkers” they think they are

submitted 5 hours ago • 980 comments

"Allowing unidentified and unverified actors to engage in forceful detentions is not only reckless -- it is dangerous and corrosive to the rule of law."

submitted 4 hours ago • 6 comments

G*d's work

submitted 4 hours ago • 1 comment

This is absolutely insane shit to write down and publish. The left scared her. This might beat allll the other NYT headlines. Truly spectacular. The GOP banned abortion, the GOP said they would prosecute doctors providing abortions, the 6 Republican appointed SCOTUS judges overturned Roe.

submitted 6 hours ago • 106 comments

One of the funnier running subplots of the Trump era is that he hasn't won a Nobel Peace Prize, and it really eats at him.

submitted 2 days ago • 245 comments

Worth noting that back in the 1920s many localities were filled with mask wearing vigilantes, many of whom were also police officers, who sought to rid the nation of foreign “contaminants.” That group was the Klan and they targeted Catholics, Jews, Black people, and Mexicans.

submitted 2 days ago • 19 comments

If you’ve got a badge and a gun but think your actions are shameful enough to need a mask, you should quit.

submitted 2 days ago • 1408 comments

Kansas City played an important role in the early gay rights movement, even predating Stonewall. Here's how you can honor LGBTQ+ history in Kansas City this Pride Month. (Originally published in 2022) https://loom.ly/4C3M__M

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Yes, please. 😁

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

And a jury.

submitted 2 days ago • 6 comments

One thing you will never think after reading a great book or listening to a great album or seeing a great piece of art is, “I’m really glad this person remained cautious while they were making this and guarded against being perceived as weird.”

submitted 2 days ago • 21 comments

The lawyer in the office next to me: "I wish Scalia was still alive just to see him have to try to rebut this."

submitted 2 days ago • 4 comments

The National Association of Christian Lawmakers had a conference early this month at Liberty University. One of the speakers, Braeden Sorbo, has a history of racist and antisemitic rhetoric. angrywhitemen.org/2025/06/19/m...

submitted 3 days ago • 18 comments

Take it from me, a guy who went from a divisive political asshole to a proud, woke Democrat in just 15yrs, redemption is way better than retribution. Trump is all about retribution. Fuck that. We need a politics of redemption. Today’s Substack. Here.👇 open.substack.com/pub/socialco...

submitted 2 days ago • 24 comments

It is true that sometimes New York City is frightening. For example today these men were loitering in the hallway of the 12th floor of the federal building.

submitted 2 days ago • 103 comments

One thing I have a hard time squaring is that the trait I most admire in a writer/thinker/journalist is curiosity, and absolute lack of curiosity seems to be the trait most rewarded by the Marketplace of Ideas (the money one and the attention one)

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Whoa. Spicy footnote from Justice Jackson, dissenting in the ADA case. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...

submitted 2 days ago • 73 comments

If you’ve never seen one before, this is a strawberry finch.

submitted 2 days ago • 965 comments

So the left has now reached the "welfare queens" portion of the horseshoe. "I want you to starve to death so you learn how much empathy I have for..." shut the fuck up.

submitted 2 days ago • 3 comments

We are facing a serious threat to democracy, law, and liberty. The abuse of prosecutorial power to intimidate, investigate, and detain political opponents is upon us. It is a constitutional crisis. I will keep speaking out until public outrage overflows. I just hope it’s not too little, too late.

submitted 2 days ago • 665 comments

I accidentally closed a browser yesterday with 72 VERY IMPORTANT TABS that have been following me around like Jacob Marley and somehow my history is not recoverable. Reader, I let them go, and have lived to tell the tale.

submitted 2 days ago • 30 comments

Important context to the Supreme Court ruling is that Tennessee only has one gender clinic for kids and it performs 5 top surgeries per year. This entire "debate" is about a phenomenon — large numbers of kids being rushed into hormones and surgeries — that doesn't exist. apnews.com/article/heal...

submitted 3 days ago • 40 comments

Etymology fact of the week: "calque" is a loanword, while "loanword" is a calque. #etymology #language #linguistics

submitted 167 days ago • 7 comments

Having a bit of a hard time with the concept that if a guy in a police uniform who has a police vehicle shows up I should lock the doors and call 911, but if a guy in a ski mask with an hGH gut appears to be kidnapping my neighbor, I shouldn’t ask who he is if I don’t want federal charges.

submitted 5 days ago • 542 comments

🎼 The Finding Out is the Har…dest…Part 🎶

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

I love the idea that telling people to listen to Boygenius or Take Five by Dave Brubeck or whatever each year isn't overexposure or dilution, but speaking out regularly about our descent into fascism would be. He just doesn't feel like it. Probably doubts he has much to say. He's probably right.

submitted 2 days ago • 21 comments

“The fundamental civic unit in this nation is neighbor.” - @jelaniya.bsky.social 🇺🇸

submitted 2 days ago • 72 comments

She inhaled trace amounts of empathy and her body went into anaphylactic shock.

submitted 5 days ago • 309 comments

New research from MIT found that those who used ChatGPT can’t remember any of the content of their essays. Key takeaway: the product doesn’t suffer, but the process does. And when it comes to essays, the process is how they learn. arxiv.org/pdf/2506.088...

submitted 4 days ago • 210 comments

From Jesus to Juneteenth, we see that authentic liberation is not accomplished by some distant proclamation, but by neighbors who are up close, standing in solidarity with the oppressed, staring down the demons of injustice face to face.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Not gonna lie: I’m a little weirded out by the people who seem extra shocked and horrified that the guy who shot four politicians also killed a dog. Like, yes, dogs are wonderful, only a monster kills dogs for no reason. But did all the murders not already establish who this guy is?

submitted 3 days ago • 18 comments

It's way down on the list of horrors, but National Parks having to post signs asking visitors to report anything there that provides "information that [is] negative about either past or living Americans" is utterly pathetic. The past isn't all positive, kids. I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings.

submitted 4 days ago • 65 comments

Breaking: The Trevor Project received a stop-work order last night on its contract with the national 988 suicide prevention hotline. The Trump administration is eliminating the option for LGBTQ callers to the hotline to press 3 and connect with someone who specializes in LGBTQ mental health.

submitted 4 days ago • 261 comments

“you’re going to die because of this” is not a thing i’d ever say to a trans kid, whose life is hard enough as is. i didn’t get the care i needed. i survived. “some trans kids will die because of this” is a thing a lot of cis people need to hear. the ones whose “reasonable concerns” led here.

submitted 3 days ago • 7 comments

We really need to stop talking about this as some kind of looming threat rather than a process well underway. It’s not “close.” You have arrived at your destination. The order has been delivered.

submitted 3 days ago • 316 comments

If international relations teaches us anything, if there's a practical takeaway from decades of research, it's this: The confusion and fear generated by uncertainty in militarily-heightened moments is where a lot of bad happens, and responsible leaders should reduce uncertainty where they can.

submitted 3 days ago • 32 comments

Just some creepy armed Mad Max guys trying to gain entry to Dodgers Stadium. ICE says it wasn’t them. DHS says they were Border Patrol. But honestly who the hell knows? They’ve given permission for any psycho to put on a ski mask, point a gun, grab people & throw them into an unmarked vehicle.

submitted 3 days ago • 3209 comments

You cannot have fascism without militarism. It’s a violence cult, and that violence goes outward as well as inward. This is a regime that celebrates the violent domination of people of color and treats insurrectionists as martyrs. Of course it’s going to war.

submitted 3 days ago • 21 comments

going to keep saying: a society that would like to maintain its basic functions has really got to discourage baldfaced lying, especially by people in positions of authority

submitted 3 days ago • 63 comments

I bet they got in a lot of trouble together. 😊 Photo from my collection, no date/info.

submitted 4 days ago • 37 comments