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

Whenever Vance does shit like this, I'm reminded of the old @tomscocca.bsky.social essay "On Smarm," but it's smarm in its most evil incarnation: a bad-faith appeal to civility on behalf of cruel people.

submitted 4 hours ago • 2 comments

Remember: the televised punishment & humiliation meted out to Zelensky just now could be done to any NATO ally facing similar aggression. The sense of sneering hostility & contempt by Trump & Vance isn’t specific to Ukraine.

submitted 4 hours ago • 110 comments

The #DOGE Takeover Is Worse Than You Think What’s happening to the US government right now is bad. What comes next is worse. #Musk

submitted 4 hours ago • 1 comment

How it started/How it's going

submitted 10 hours ago • 348 comments

The Trump administration terminates funding for polio, HIV, malaria and nutrition programs around the world. “People will die,” said Dr. Catherine Kyobutungi of the African Population and Health Research Center, “but we will never know, because even the programs to count the dead are cut.”

submitted 19 hours ago • 273 comments

Truly baroque levels of unnecessary cruelty

submitted 14 hours ago • 0 comments

One of the people fired from NOAA today is the director of the Ocean Acidification Program. That program also leads the U.S. government's effort on marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR). The destruction of American science is incomprehensible.

submitted 22 hours ago • 171 comments

Instagram 'Error' Turned Reels Into Neverending Scroll of Murder, Gore, and Violence. “Today’s algorithm showed me around 70 murders, 100+ accidents, and around 115 violence videos, is anyone on Instagram noticing it?” via @404media.co #Instagram #SocialMedia

submitted 23 hours ago • 0 comments

'DOGE Said It Cut $232 Million From Social Security Budget. It Was Only About Half a Million. The cut, an anti-trans attack, was the latest example of confusion sown by bold claims that wither under scrutiny.' #DOGE via @theintercept.com

submitted 23 hours ago • 0 comments

'The Hot New Cold War in the Arctic: Norway prepares for “crisis and war”. New strategies—and diplomacy—can help us avoid a nuclear conflict' Via @outrider.org

submitted 23 hours ago • 0 comments

"Democracy isn’t dying in darkness at all. It’s withering right here in plain view." Read @jscros.bsky.social on Jeff Bezos. www.discourseblog.com/p/the-oligar...

submitted 2 days ago • 8 comments

There’s a great quote in THE MARK INSIDE where a 1920’s con man says that the perfect victim is not a stupid man, but a man who’s made his fortune in one specific field, because these men assume they’re brilliant in all other things and believe they can’t be fooled.

submitted 2 days ago • 12 comments

fortunately, the president has a whip smart economic team who are determined to avoid recession and take the necessary corrective action to do s... hahahahaa, lol, lmao

submitted 2 days ago • 18 comments

'What's really behind Elon Musk and DOGE's AI schemes DOGE is feeding workers' emails into an AI to decide if they should keep their jobs. It's a cruel joke in the service of something much worse.' Via @bcmerchant.bsky.social #Musk #Trump #AI #DOGE

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

No one had died of measles in America for ten years, until yesterday. That 2015 death in WA was preceded by a 12y period of no US deaths. www.nbcnews.com/health/healt... HHS Secretary RFK Jr. says it’s “not unusual.” apnews.com/article/meas... It is unusual. www.cdc.gov/measles/data...

submitted 2 days ago • 186 comments

'Elon Musk's inability to listen to others is torching almost everything he touches' Via @garymarcus.bsky.social #AI #Tech #Tesla #Musk

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Americans often imagine Canada as identical to the US but the fact that Gen X in Canada isn’t overwhelmingly fascist should be strong evidence it’s a very different culture.

submitted 2 days ago • 8 comments

Go figure.

submitted 3 days ago • 335 comments

'We Shouldn’t Be Afraid to Call the US What It Really Is: an #Oligarchy. Across the ideological spectrum, anger toward the superrich is a major source of movement energy' Via @thenation.com

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Christ this is depressing... 'Y Combinator Supports AI Startup Dehumanizing Factory Workers Optifye.ai's pitch includes a video where a "boss" yells at a "worker" by calling him a number, and sarcastically saying he's having a bad month.' #tech #AI via @404media.co

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

'Farmers Sue Over Deletion of Climate Data From Government Websites. The data, which disappeared from Agriculture Department sites in recent weeks, was useful to farmers for business planning, the lawsuit said.' #ClimateChange #Trump

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

'The US is now the enemy of the west Washington has decided to abandon both Ukraine and its postwar role in the world' on.ft.com/41xsZ4q

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Remains to be seen if this is one of those “deals” when the other party gets everything they want and trump gets a giant card that says you’re a very smart boy, but if overwhelming desperation forces Ukraine to capitulate to extortion, the Ukrainian people may never recover from this US betrayal.

submitted 3 days ago • 3 comments

This morning at Dept of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) HQ in DC as mandatory return to office began, this video played on loop for ~5 mins on screens throughout the building, per agency source. Building staff couldn’t figure out how to turn it off so sent people to every floor to unplug TVs.

submitted 4 days ago • 2160 comments

NEW - Rep. Mark Alford tells fired KC federal workers ‘God has a plan’ at hostile town hall Folks, I've been covering politics for a dozen years in Kansas and Missouri and this is probably the most intense, angry town hall I have ever seen www.kansascity.com/news/politic...

submitted 4 days ago • 525 comments

"America First" as stated DOJ policy is a worrisome development, to put it gently.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Call on UK to lead international action on Egypt at UN Human Rights Council #HumanRights

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

This is a real statement put out by the real (interim) U.S. Attorney for D.C. It’s almost impressive just how much it gets so wrong in so few words.

submitted 4 days ago • 174 comments

Ugh... 'AI Video of Trump Licking Musk's Toes Circulates in Government Building. “LONG LIVE THE REAL KING,” reads the message on the video that was played on more than a dozen screens in the HUD headquarters.' #AI #Trump #Musk #Feet Via @premthakker.bsky.social @zeteo.com

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

This by Edith Pritchett in the Guardian is 🎯

submitted 4 days ago • 3 comments

#r4today

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Fair to say Pete Hegseth is an incompetent liar Yes. Yes, I think it is

submitted 4 days ago • 37 comments

My sense is that this bolder framing may correlate w what we’re seeing at Rep town halls, growing protests, and letters of warning from various associations. Journos’ decisions are made by people who exist in the social world and who thus write headlines based on that changing context.

submitted 5 days ago • 2 comments

This Is in Fact Getting Through to Voters, Somehow, and They Don’t Like It Dismantling basic services at the behest of online Nazis and surrendering Europe to a sworn enemy of international democracy turn out to still be unpopular, actually. slate.com/news-and-pol...

submitted 5 days ago • 5 comments

DOGE is like if Fyre Festival was a government agency.

submitted 5 days ago • 305 comments

"During the meeting, Ukraine was told it faced imminent shutoff of the Starlink service if it did not reach a deal on critical minerals, said the source, who requested anonymity to discuss closed negotiations." Astonishing betrayal of an ally. www.reuters.com/business/us-...

submitted 6 days ago • 151 comments

DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/u...

submitted 6 days ago • 32 comments

We're waking up to a new US/Russia axis. Why Trump clings to Putin. "It’s hard to think of such a rapid transformation in the geopolitical disposition of a superpower in such a short time. The postwar order fell, gradually then suddenly." Via @lewisgoodall.com

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Bad News for Trump as Brutal New Polls Show Him and Elon Musk Sinking As several national polls offer rough news for Donald Trump and Elon Musk, a leading political scientist explains why conditions are ripe for Democrats to run harder against their authoritarian overreach. Via @newrepublic.com

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” A classic quote from Malcolm X, who was assassinated 60 years ago today.

submitted 6 days ago • 590 comments

1/2 UK newspaper The Independent warns that Donald Trump's misinformation about Ukraine and Zelensky threatens democracy and empowers authoritarian regimes. His distorted narratives risk global stability, calling for a strong response from leaders and the media.

submitted 6 days ago • 6 comments

So let's get this straight: The U.S. and Elon are now extorting Ukraine and threatening to turn off their Starlink Internet access unless they give their critical rare earth minerals to the United States? Staggering levels of corruption.

submitted 6 days ago • 1187 comments

this man is on fucking drugs, he is on a lot of them, and every member of the white house press corps and every republican member of congress is deliberately overlooking it

submitted 7 days ago • 94 comments

'Green Berets and Reaper Drones: Trump’s Shadow War in Mexico The U.S. military’s growing footprint south of the border is making the outbreak of violence—and the deployment of more American troops—far more likely' Via @newrepublic.com

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

There is a real and growing popular resistance to Musk, Trump, and DOGE, with wide support, and it's just begun. We joined a Tesla Takedown protest, interviewed some participants, and sat down with @alexwinter.com, who's been a major force in spreading the word. Meanwhile, Tesla's stock is falling.

submitted 7 days ago • 6 comments

Trump may be a repulsive authoritarian who is destroying the entire global security architecture, but what if this is good for some reason? – my latest for the Spectator/Telegraph/Unherd.

submitted 7 days ago • 19 comments

From The Daily's science desk: Scientists move to Bluesky, transitioning away from X and Meta platforms @whysharksmatter.bsky.social @trevorabranch.bsky.social and @carlbergstrom.com share their motivations behind switching platforms. www.dailyuw.com/science/scie...

submitted 7 days ago • 3 comments

People need to understand this: Trump did not leave office willingly the first time. If his health holds up, he will not leave office willingly this time. He is not joking about serving more than two terms.

submitted 7 days ago • 1040 comments