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connorstedman.bsky.social
Land, ag, climate, systems thinking, history. A Holocene, if you can keep it.
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This is a delightful watch.

We all know the nazi salute is terrible. The salute launched the Tesla Takedown protests. But since then Musk is responsible for mass murder. That needs to be stressed so that people know what they're facing and can form a meaningful opposition. It isn't mentioned because it's unpalatable.

Seems reasonable in an era where people are snatched off the streets and immediately flown to a foreign hell hole prison to serve a life sentence without ever appearing before a judge or having an opportunity to appeal.

Mayor Wu has the courage to say it like it is: federal law enforcement are acting like the secret police of the societies we once thought the antithesis of America.

Yes. This is something I think any serious small r republican needs to grapple with. There needs to be, dare I say, a total usurpation of the current political dynamic in which the political elite is just insulated from virtually all legal consequences. The end-result of impunity is fascism.

Spot on.

Really good Gender thread here.

The Owens Valley is a special, beautiful place that has survived in spite of our best efforts to destroy it. A Canadian mining company wants to begin exploration for an open pit gold mine just off the 395. BLM is accepting public comment til 6/16. Please speak out. eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui...

Very much this. Things have actually gone pretty well in the courts, all things considering. I am worried about the "big beautiful bill" being a sign of a congress that isn't just passive, but actively enabling Trump. But what I'm *really* worried about is the stuff Jonathan talks about.

The Wikipedia paradox: nothing you can read about on Wikipedia is as interesting as the fact that Wikipedia exists

SCOOP: Elon Musk will not be fully exiting DOGE. In fact, federal workers from at least six agencies tell WIRED that DOGE-style work is escalating in their departments, and President Trump himself said in a press conference today that “Elon's really not leaving.”

"The strength of the US dollar comes partly from its institutional integrity: the rule of law, independence of central banking and policy that’s predictable. These are the components that create the dollar as the reserve currency. The last three months have called that into question."

Great, interesting thread here.

As I've said before, what we're dealing with fundamentally here, and have been dealing with for some time, is evil. Our political norms and political media prohibit talking about a mainstream political faction this way. But it is the truth. It needs to be known and it needs to be said.

Clear distillation of the moral failings of Trumpism by Brooks. "a giant effort to narrow the circle of concern to people just like us" www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/o...

“If you heard the conversations U.S.A.I.D. staff had with the DOGE people, there is no word in any language that captures the level of obliviousness about what U.S.A.I.D. actually did,” said Samantha Power.

There’s no practical or ethical way to “debate” the rights of minority Group A when that same group is *currently under attack* from state and federal governments, legions of trolls, a vast propaganda media ecosystem, hostile billionaires, militias, bigots, grifters, and stochastic terrorism

Serious thread here.

Diamonds and Rust by Joan Baez (Category is, favorite song *about* another band or artist)

And now, to soothe your timeline, a patch of Illinois tallgrass prairie.

I've said it once and I'll say 1000 more times: Donald Trump is in a mutualistic relationship with social decay, and acts as both a driver of it and a symptom of it.

A massive lane open for some ambitious anti corruption democrats

"The brazenness of the self-enrichment resembles nothing seen in any earlier White House. This is American corruption on the scale of a post-Soviet republic or a postcolonial African dictatorship." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

The Heist By @davidfrum.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

DS9 TNG TOS s1-2 VOY ENT PIC/DIS s1’s . . . TOS s3 PIC/DIS s2+’s (Have not seen enough of SNW/LOW yet to rank)

To all the geniuses arguing that Dems need to go Trump-lite to win in 2026 and 2028, please remember Trump will never again be a candidate for office. The next presidential race will be against someone else. He’s a lame duck. He doesn’t want you to think so but time and the law say he is.

yes. they literally blame higher education for a social order that doesn’t give unquestioned deference to people like themselves

Hot take: current unsuccessful attempts at privatized space flight are a flavor of moon landing denialism. Not denialism that we went there, but of how. The idea that we can get the same results with cost-saving privatization propped up by media propaganda is itself a form of conspiracist thinking

in another universe, “they crashed the economy and got rich off it” would be a very compelling rallying cry for an opposition party

Now here's the trick: how do we sell Democratic leadership on this? The answer, IMO, is that one of the leading Democratic candidates, Pritzker or someone like him, has to adopt a radical anti-corruption platform and ramp up the rhetoric, building momentum to the point that the party can't say no.

Liberalism is a fighting faith. Fight for your free liberal democracy. So many already died to create it.

This is the year Trudeau reaches full on escape velocity and puts together the work that wins him the Pulitzer. Just spitting complete fire, strip after strip after strip.