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

submitted 45 minutes ago • 9 comments

Just look at these paragraphs from the AP story. Hegseth called Brown unqualified solely because he's Black. Then they fired him... and replaced him with a white guy so indisputably unqualified that he requires a Presidential waiver. This is what "merit" means to them. apnews.com/article/trum...

submitted 14 hours ago • 402 comments

This is climate arson, yes, but also the entire value proposition of Tesla, the reason for its insane stock price, is that it would end up the Amazon of electric cars: the only real game in town. Killing off non-Tesla electric car infrastructure is a gift to Musk.

submitted 16 hours ago • 432 comments

Yes, it is entirely correct to point out that ICE officers do not have any legal authority to break into somebody’s home unless they get a judicial warrant; which they generally cannot do, because judges only issue warrants for probable cause of crimes, not immigration law violations.

submitted 17 hours ago • 26 comments

Firing all of the JAGs (Judge Advocates General)—the top lawyers in each service branch—is just as bad as, if not worse than, firing (most of) the Joint Chiefs.

submitted 15 hours ago • 142 comments

Usually when states go to court alleging federal coercion in violation of the 10th Amendment there is not a literal video of the President doing it.

submitted 17 hours ago • 124 comments

Remember when John Roberts gutted the Medicaid expansion because he said the offer of medicaid money was too coercive to the states bsky.app/profile/atru...

submitted 19 hours ago • 148 comments

Just as we warned, Brendan Carr is establishing himself as America's top censor, and he's not being shy about it. And a hearty "fuck you" to anyone who insisted Carr was a "free speech warrior."

submitted 1 day ago • 25 comments

i mean, that's a protection racket. what he's describing is a protection racket.

submitted 21 hours ago • 61 comments

Among those Trump and Musk fired at the FAA: - Lawyers who help keep drunk or reckless pilots out of the skies - Air traffic control support staff - Employees who track potential new flying hazards like cranes - Staffers who medically clear pilots to fly www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

submitted 1 day ago • 105 comments

Eliminating accountability for crooked and abusive cops means your priority is protecting crooked and abusive cops instead of the communities they’ve harmed. This is a fascist police state tactic.

submitted 1 day ago • 9 comments

“Experts we spoke to said they could see Democrats making a deal on a lower-stakes bill, like silencer deregulation, if Republicans are holding up something they really want, like public health funding.” Just an insane sentence to read.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Republicans in Congress have sought for years to repeal major gun laws. With a GOP trifecta in Washington, these long-held goals suddenly seem within reach.

submitted 1 day ago • 9 comments

It's great that our unelected co-president is doing child abuse and the media refuses to cover it

submitted 1 day ago • 3 comments

I don't think people really get how these employee purges are just going to break the culture of public organizations for a very long time.

submitted 1 day ago • 104 comments

This is even more unconstitutional than usual. Article I gives Congress the power to establish the post office. It cannot be "dissolve[d]" by the Executive.

submitted 1 day ago • 46 comments

Elon’s busy schedule today is claiming astronauts were left in the ISS for political reasons, getting corrected by an ISS astronaut, throwing a fit where he calls the astronaut a slur, then complaining that we should deorbit the ISS

submitted 1 day ago • 337 comments

This is the intersection point between Muskian arrogance and idiot populism: The conviction that there’s an extremely simple solution for everything that, somehow, nobody else has ever noticed & that you via either genius or “common sense” have uniquely hit upon.

submitted 2 days ago • 14 comments

UPDATE: Nearly 100 migrants, recently deported by the United States to Panama where they had been locked in a hotel, were loaded onto buses Tuesday night and moved to a detention camp on the outskirts of the jungle, several of the migrants said. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/w...

submitted 3 days ago • 59 comments

Democrats can’t sustain this kind of rhetoric without action. At the federal level they need to hold a 24-7 vigil at the Capitol until the coup ends. At the state level they could seize federal assets until court orders are being followed. We’re already outside the regular constitutional order.

submitted 2 days ago • 36 comments

This is embarrassingly stupid. This is literally Senate Dems handing censorship power to Donald Trump and Elon Musk. WTF are they thinking?

submitted 2 days ago • 73 comments

This is a good reminder that anytime you try to find some kind of 4D chess reason for what Musk does, the reality is much likelier that he is a complete idiot who has no idea how the world works, yet he is powerful and rich and wields near complete loyalty from others so he gets what he wants.

submitted 2 days ago • 29 comments

We are doomed to relive every stupid thing about the 80s. Only this it’s not just the mistakes of the 1980s corporate greed. It’s also the 1880s post reconstruction environment, and the 1780s love of slavery. :(

submitted 2 days ago • 91 comments

A 10% universal tariff on $3.25 trillion of annual US merchandise imports would potentially raise ~$300 billion. Last year, US personal income tax brought in nearly 30x that.

submitted 2 days ago • 124 comments

On this, a note: DOJ filed a document Tuesday in E.D. Va. acknowledging that "the Acting U.S. Digital Service Administrator" is a defendant in a lawsuit. DOJ does not disclaim the existence of such a person, but DOJ also does not name the person or mention that role again in their brief.

submitted 2 days ago • 37 comments

unions are there to stand up agains things that are technically within bosses' rights, like at-will employment and unfair scheduling. dismissing something as acceptable because its "within his right" (if that's even true) is completely disqualifying.

submitted 2 days ago • 3 comments

DJTjr, you say? Hunting rare species? Here's a little story we did from last time around: www.propublica.org/article/trum...

submitted 2 days ago • 43 comments

This is like saying parents saved money by not feeding their kids as much and skipping doctors’ appointments. People were actually using the services he’s killed off, among them veterans.

submitted 3 days ago • 75 comments

This is a concentration camp. They are describing a concentration camp.

submitted 2 days ago • 502 comments

THREAD: Photos of life in Gaza

submitted 2 days ago • 6 comments

Oxfam: Israel has destroyed 1,025 miles of water & sanitation networks, leaving less than 7% of pre-war water levels available in Rafah & North Gaza. Israel has partially or entirely destroyed more than 80% of water/sanitation infrastructure in Gaza, including all 6 main wastewater treatment plants

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

i will become a total shill for whichever politician decides to become the joe mccarthy of rooting out silicon valley ideology and influence

submitted 3 days ago • 676 comments

US Supreme Court rules 6-3 that poisoning your rival is an official act.

submitted 3 days ago • 84 comments

It really is incredible how they are so committed to never saying or doing anything.

submitted 3 days ago • 18 comments

If you wonder how countries slip into dictatorship, it’s like this. Amidst another flurry of news, an official adds at the end that Trump has signed an Executive Order saying that “only the President or Attorney General can speak for the US…as to what the law is.” What?! 👀

submitted 3 days ago • 136 comments

ISRAEL IS DESTROYING GAZA'S WATER SUPPLY 💧 1,025+ miles of water & sanitation networks destroyed 💧 Less than 7% of pre-war water levels remain in Rafah & North Gaza 💧 80%+ of Gaza’s water infrastructure is damaged or destroyed 💧 All 6 main wastewater treatment plants are gone Source: Oxfam

submitted 3 days ago • 3 comments

This is so beyond evil that I don’t even have the words

submitted 3 days ago • 149 comments

We systematically hollowed out our cities, take Bridgeport:

submitted 3 days ago • 4 comments

Not all that familiar with the New Testament, so perhaps some of the good Christians who serve in the Trump administration could explain how this gibes with their deeply held beliefs. Remarkable reporting via a 5-person NYT team. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/w...

submitted 4 days ago • 104 comments

Heartbreaking story. Jocelynn Rojo Carranza, age 11, took her own life after her bullies constantly threatened to call ICE to have her Hispanic parents deported. Her story is one of the many real human consequences of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. youtu.be/vwMGdnM24Cw?...

submitted 4 days ago • 47 comments

DOGE in practice: Disabled Army veteran who has 4 kids and did 3 tours overseas is fired from his job at Bronx VA hospital

submitted 4 days ago • 454 comments

Quite an exchange here between Judge Reyes and DOJ attorney on how "pronoun usage" affects military readiness.

submitted 3 days ago • 628 comments

Things are not developing as I would wish. www.cnn.com/2025/02/18/p...

submitted 3 days ago • 67 comments

Gee, they must have been on the cusp of having their fraud, waste, and corruption exposed. What else could it be #USDemocracy

submitted 4 days ago • 9 comments

Bright passionate people who wanted to dedicate their lives to public service were fired in a mass email over the holiday weekend. This has absolutely nothing to do with efficiency, fraud, waste, or abuse. And your life will be worse because of it.

submitted 4 days ago • 83 comments