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

So, if I’m reading this correctly, Congress appropriated a bunch of funds for specific purposes. Musk will be throwing that out the window and disregarding the law they enacted. But individual legislators can call a hotline and beg for their pet projects to be spared. That’s how we’re doing it now.

submitted 21 hours ago • 148 comments

Reality check. Thank you, Financial Times.

submitted 9 days ago • 47 comments

Zelensky taking a hard line right now is EXACTLY what the world needs. Call out their lies, hold them accountable, speak in simple terms, and hold strong.

submitted 5 days ago • 33 comments

Kinzinger: Zelenskyy had an opportunity to flee Ukraine when Russia attacked and he stayed. Is there anybody that has any doubt about whether Trump would flee the country if we were attacked.

submitted 5 days ago • 312 comments

Reupping, bc Bret Baier made it a false issue. Trump fired the Inspectors General who can prove his claims about Ukrainian corruption are false. www.emptywheel.net/2025/02/19/t...

submitted 5 days ago • 12 comments

NEW: Trumpworld sources say Stephen Miller is effectively the prime minister, and that he and his wife Katie are the White House's point people on the DOGE takeover. The couple are seen as glorified babysitters; one source describes Elon Musk as a preteen child. This is from @jakelahut.writes.news

submitted 7 days ago • 50 comments

Two months ago @the-independent.com asked me to look forward and predict what 2025 would bring for Ukraine and Europe. I thought I'd check back and see how well those predictions are holding up now we're six weeks into the year.... oh dear. www.independent.co.uk/edition/uk.c...

submitted 19 days ago • 5 comments

Exceptionally timed and highly relevant analysis from Emma-Kate Symons in Conspiracy Watch: “Blumenthal has whitewashed the atrocities of al-Assad’s regime in Syria, dismissing well-documented chemical weapon attacks and other war crimes in his usual style as ‘Western propaganda.’“

submitted 88 days ago • 5 comments

Surprise

submitted 102 days ago • 44 comments

“I have become a distraction” is a serious contender for a future Strong Message Here episode. It means “I’m bang to rights but I will never, ever admit that”

submitted 105 days ago • 23 comments

'Mohamed Al-Fayed’s sexual abuse could have been stopped were it not for legal threats against journalists' Coverage of today's parliamentary debate into SLAPPs - prompted by @tbij.bsky.social's Silenced Stories project www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2024...

submitted 105 days ago • 3 comments

Annual morbidity in the 20th century, before and after vaccines: Measles: Before: 530,000, After: 47 Mumps: Before: 160,000, After: 429 Rubella: Before: 50,000, After: 3 Diphtheria: Before: 20,000, After: 2 Smallpox: Before: 30,000, After: 0 Polio: Before: 16,000, After: 0

submitted 109 days ago • 663 comments

This quashes the ethics investigation, and no report will be released.

submitted 112 days ago • 22 comments

The BBC's Powell & Pressburger season gets underway this Sunday on BBC2 with the TV debut of 'Made In England; The Films of Powell & Pressburger', then continues on BBC4 on Nov. 21...

submitted 113 days ago • 21 comments

"When asked if he believed Gaetz has the character and experience needed to be attorney general, GOP Rep Mike Simpson replied, “Are you shittin me, that you just asked that question? No! But hell, you’ll print that and now I’m going to be investigated”" sakdljfkl omg newrepublic.com/post/188393/...

submitted 113 days ago • 49 comments

Remember when Elon cut half the staff of Twitter and the site just stopped working for a while? Like that, except it's America.

submitted 113 days ago • 2 comments

A Brief History of Men Today Are Too Feminine and Women Too Masculine 🧵

submitted 114 days ago • 63 comments

In 2019, Trump’s Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth said that he never washes his hands and can’t remember washing them once in the past 10 years: “Germs are not a real thing. I can’t see them.”

submitted 113 days ago • 152 comments

So Trump is just going to call this Elon/Vivek thing a new government department when it’s really just a commission to study things and make recommendations? But they couldn’t call it what it is because Elon already had the title picked out and the tee shirts ordered.

submitted 113 days ago • 87 comments

Seeing is believing…#Trump’s pick for Defence Secretary. Just don’t offer to shake his hand.

submitted 113 days ago • 2 comments

Trump choosing a Fox anchor to be Secretary of Defense is my first real "is this a dream?" moment since election day.

submitted 113 days ago • 917 comments

Picking a lightweight Fox News host for SECDEF is an unserious choice by an unserious man. I worked for a SECDEF. They confront mind-bogglingly complex and multivariate problems that good hair and prompter-reading don't cover.

submitted 113 days ago • 174 comments

Of all the arguments against the inheritance tax reforms, the vogueish idea that self-sufficiency in food is a national-security concern is the silliest

submitted 114 days ago • 6 comments

Appointing Stephen Miller in a central role is an unsurprising signal that Trump is serious about putting political capital & resources into his mass deportation policy

submitted 115 days ago • 2 comments

Trump grasps that many of his supporters feel like losers but believe it is their birthright to feel like winners. His political talent, like that of other populist demagogues, is giving them other categories of people to look down on. open.substack.com/pub/jamesblo...

submitted 120 days ago • 3 comments

This buys HE some time, but the whole funding model needs a rethink. That should include restoring the "cap" for individual unis, proper maintenance grants (so students can be students), & an end to soaring interest rates that drive up debt long after students graduate. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

submitted 122 days ago • 7 comments

The NHS will pay the King’s duchy £11m over 15 yrs to rent a warehouse for ambulances MoJ pays William’s duchy £1.5m a yr to use Dartmoor prison The army pays to train on Dartmoor, the navy to moor & refuel its fleet Charges are levied on Liverpool container port, the Mersey ferry —& a sewage pipe

submitted 124 days ago • 53 comments

don’t feel like it’s a really high level skill to be able to identify the correct fonts and character spacing of popular news sites. Or indeed to be able to use Google

submitted 124 days ago • 5 comments

What's even more fucked once you read the full story is that the doctor insisted on an extra ultrasound AFTER the fetus was already declared dead while the mother was on the brink of death because they wanted documentation to cover their asses in case of a lawsuit. Heinous beyond words.

submitted 125 days ago • 78 comments

Rumors and conspiracy theories are interfering with the Helene recovery efforts in western North Carolina. We got the receipts @bloomberg.com. We also looked at what it alls means for disaster response going forward. (Here's a hint: Not good.) Gift link: www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

submitted 127 days ago • 4 comments

Robert Jenrick's comments on Southport are incredibly lazy and dangerous, especially from a former solicitor running to lead the Conservative Party He got the charges wrong then launched into "cover-up" dogwhistle while surely knowing how the law limits what information can be released before trial

submitted 128 days ago • 7 comments

It would be really useful if someone asked him if he had greenlit genocide so his son-in-law could build a beach resort where Gaza used to be.

submitted 134 days ago • 15 comments

Why are the BBC and other broadcasters giving so much coverage to a complete non-story about Labour and the Democrats, just because Donald Trump would like them to? bylinetimes.com/2024/10/23/d...

submitted 134 days ago • 32 comments

If you think party activists volunteering in another country is a bigger story than a former Chief of Staff saying a candidate would rule like a dictator then you simply don't understand politics.

submitted 134 days ago • 5 comments

How did Britain vote in 2024 by supermarket, I hear you ask?

submitted 135 days ago • 61 comments

Co-op is the home of rejoiners, while Iceland shoppers still are firm Brexit believers.

submitted 135 days ago • 21 comments

Finally, I found another Brexit benefit. Tommy Robinson left the UK 82 days ago, and as a result of the loss of his free movement, he has to return within 90 days.

submitted 137 days ago • 36 comments

Complaints about Bluesky being a "left wing enclave" can be safely ignored because they fail to account for the fact that Twitter now privileges and amplifies right wing extremism and no one is obligated to put up with that as a condition of using social media

submitted 138 days ago • 175 comments

This guy is such a knucklehead, just chomping down on shit on his garbage feed and spitting it back out. Trump won most places that used Dominion machines. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

submitted 139 days ago • 17 comments

"Billionaire Elon Musk promoted debunked conspiracy theories about election fraud Thursday at the first of a series of planned campaign events across Pennsylvania meant to rally support for former President Donald Trump’s campaign." www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne...

submitted 139 days ago • 59 comments

This women’s town hall with Trump on Fox is surreal. People ask him questions about social security or child tax credits and he just talks about (so far) Venezuelan tar, donut machines, his favourite graph and how he really didn’t need the hassle of running for president.

submitted 141 days ago • 3 comments

The Tory leadership contest is now between one candidate who MPs fear doesn't mean what he says and another who MPs worry, does.

submitted 148 days ago • 6 comments