Profile avatar
valastrius.bsky.social
BRD specializing in ska and cackles, most often in the direction of Crumbling Muscovy.
1,146 posts 162 followers 145 following
Prolific Poster
Conversation Starter
Posts 39 Comments 11

this is such an important point. i do not think that the typical american understands that for most of their lives, someone like james madison or george washington or thomas jefferson was *surrounded* by black people.

submitted 5 hours ago • 49 comments

can’t overstate how shoddy the actual work is. “the framers didn’t think black people counted in the constitutional order” falls apart with a single question: “well what did they think about all the free blacks that most of them lived around, encountered, and even hired for work?”

submitted 6 hours ago • 73 comments

A big point in my Founders in American memory class is that the visual culture of the 19th century whitewashed the era of the revolution out of recognition. I ask students if there were Black soldiers at Yorktown and if anything they describe back the Trumbull painting.

submitted 5 hours ago • 4 comments

They could just be moving into position so Trump can give a flashy order but that in and of itself means things are very real

submitted 2 hours ago • 3 comments

it is very bad for this country that stephen miller has, more than anyone else in trumpworld, figured out how to flatter his boss into doing exactly what he wants without ever losing favor

submitted 2 hours ago • 20 comments

it is funny how many people affiliated with the secret police have had to say "stop making fun of the secret police, the guy in the tac vest that covers him like a training bra is a hero, he tracked down and subdued two hospice orderlies using only the W-2 forms they file annually"

submitted 14 hours ago • 59 comments

👀 Scoop: Trump and Republicans want USPS to sell off its brand new EVs and chargers. That would mean literally **ripping up post office parking lots** to auction off assets with no private-sector value. It’s buried in the Senate’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

submitted 5 hours ago • 162 comments

We must resist this! No military in our streets, period!

submitted 3 hours ago • 1 comment

Its nice the kids get to experience their own 2003 style build-up to an unjust war like we did.

submitted 8 hours ago • 31 comments

Not visible are ~20 Moogles whose opacity before the eyes of God, as set down in the Black Covenant, keep this Sin Palantir running smoothly.

submitted 11 hours ago • 1 comment

this is deliberate, it’s not vance being clumsily racist and vance served with him for two years, he’s deliberately invoking josé padilla because he’s a troll piece of shit

submitted 19 hours ago • 100 comments

The oath of the ally. "Wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you dwell, I will dwell. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die."

submitted 11 hours ago • 0 comments

submitted 12 hours ago • 0 comments

The chapter of RFK’s most recent book - that he wrote to defend his belief that COVID was actually a weapon designed to target white people and spare certain groups like Jewish people - in which he talks about how he does not believe germs actually cause disease is called “The White Man’s Burden.”

submitted 16 hours ago • 33 comments

Endemic to management.

submitted 14 hours ago • 0 comments

Thinking about this, is I think there is specifically an impulse we see everywhere, where people "earn" a position of social trust and influence and then lose their minds at the thought of actually having any responsibility besides doing what they want with it or to do anything with it at all

submitted 14 hours ago • 5 comments

submitted 2 days ago • 6 comments

Blue #4, by Georgia O'Keeffe, 1916, 📸 by Mitchell Leff

submitted 15 hours ago • 11 comments

just got railed by five wolves simultaneously so this Saturday is starting off fantastic

submitted 15 hours ago • 1 comment

Mike Johnson advocating for kidnapping children. Any Dem worth a shit will make it clear that anyone can buy a gaiter and a fake ICE vest. And he's saying go willingly with them. There is no reason a federal employee shouldn't have to show their face. And this should be an easy one to win.

submitted 14 days ago • 70 comments

honestly this was very predictable if you could a) accurately recall the political consequences of the 2020 protests and b) take public opinion as it actually existed in 2025. impossible difficulty for a non-trivial portion of the professional political commentary class

submitted 22 hours ago • 79 comments

everything that has happened since 2016 is suggestive that even curricula like this did not go far enough

submitted 1 day ago • 8 comments

submitted 1 day ago • 12 comments

This is why any criticism that something is a political stunt right now is a billion ton pile of bullshit. Fuck! Get on the news. Get in print. Get on a fucking billboard. Do ANYTHING to get in front of people and say that this administration is a bunch of evil, stupid, lying criminals.

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

The Nat Sec Blob's propensity to excoriate someone for their stupid fucking takes is unrelated to the validity of such takes but directly related to the impact/perceived impact of a letter of recommendation from that person and the likelihood a Blob Member might receive said letter. See: Petraeus

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

In national elections, liberals like me ask leftists to be coalition partners — hold their noses and vote for a candidate they don't love to beat someone truly terrible. In New York, the shoe is on the other foot. And we should be clear that we're willing to do what we ask of our partners.

submitted 1 day ago • 125 comments

people are often surprised by how low-tech the global sin monitoring system looks, but that’s because like a critical infrastructure system it prioritizes reliability with durable proven technologies above all else.

submitted 1 day ago • 17 comments

got reminded of this

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

omg necron congratulations on your transition!

submitted 21 hours ago • 4 comments

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

Another the thing that makes today so much different than 2008 or 2020 is that there isn't a pressure relief valve in sight, so it's just gonna keep building and building

submitted 18 hours ago • 7 comments

from the NYT using Chris Rufo as their front-page editor to CEOs' insane crusade for RTO, to the readmission of almost every rapist unearthed by MeToo, to Democratic elites vicious turn against BLM, the cause of 2025 was the desperation of liberal elites to put their own throats under Trump's boot.

submitted 17 hours ago • 7 comments

They are the very worst among us.

submitted 17 hours ago • 28 comments

The thing about the Khalil case is that it's very very good that he's free now but you can't have it take three months between "the government kidnaps you off the street for no basis reason whatsoever" and "a judge makes them let you go." You just can't.

submitted 18 hours ago • 201 comments

Our goal for the 2028 Primaries is to march the senior leadership of the Party out of their offices while a fife and drum corps plays "The World Turned Upside Down"

submitted 17 hours ago • 0 comments

It's actually really easy to forget but Biden up until February 2020 or so was not considered the most viable alternative to Bernie and there was a widespread scramble by centrist mayors and members of the House to find their guy— and a lot of them landed on Michael Bloomberg!

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

Eventually, someone - an ICE agent, a person about to be snatched and disappeared, a protestor, a local cop - is going to do something that can’t be taken back. It’s a fucking miracle that didn’t happen in 2020, and we’re running out of luck.

submitted 1 day ago • 15 comments

The conservative movement is lying about basically every empirical "debate" of our time, from climate change to voter fraud to vaccines. Why is it so impossible for reactionary centrists to contemplate the possibility they're lying about trans healthcare too?

submitted 1 day ago • 85 comments

Yes but they’re not just lying about vaccines though, they are LYING ABOUT COVID. If you are not masking everywhere you can right now during an active and ongoing pandemic you have bought into those lies, just as others have bought into climate denialism lies etc.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment