sasmit5.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

The arc from “freedom fries” to “hitler fries” is a good encapsulation of how American conservatism has evolved in my lifetime

submitted 2 days ago • 162 comments

NEW: The actions of Trump and Vance in recent weeks highlight something under-appreciated. The American right is now ideologically closer to countries like Russia, Turkey and in some senses China, than to the rest of the west (even the conservative west). My column: www.ft.com/content/3046...

submitted 2 days ago • 125 comments

Fucking brilliant. Howling with laughter. Also agony. But laughter too.

submitted 6 days ago • 2 comments

SCOOP: Business leaders are paying as much as $5,000,000 to meet one-on-one with President Donald Trump at his Florida compound, sources tell WIRED, while others are paying $1,000,000 apiece to dine with him in a group setting.

submitted 5 days ago • 1106 comments

The former head of the Social Security Administration says he expects the agency to miss on some payments over the next three months, interrupting some people's benefits, for the first time in Social Security's history of eight decades: www.cnbc.com/2025/03/01/d...

submitted 6 days ago • 356 comments

The Army deleted my “Why I served” video where I talked about how I decided I wanted to attend West Point/join the Army after one of the cadets my family used to sponsor died in combat. Probably deleted because she was the first black woman to be CSM at West Point.

submitted 6 days ago • 176 comments

ProPublica looked into science grants that Ted Cruz's team flagged as "radical" and "neo-Marxist" and, uh. This would be good comedy if it didn't matter so much www.propublica.org/article/ted-...

submitted 7 days ago • 222 comments

No one wants a paper trail because spending funds Congress has not appropriated is colloquially known as “stealing from the US Treasury.”

submitted 7 days ago • 160 comments

If the primary purpose of society is deemed to be profit, then slave prisons are the natural conclusion, because cost will be inevitably be seen as the greatest evil and no cost is greater than labor. Therefore cheap labor will be held to be virtue, and free labor the greatest good possible.

submitted 8 days ago • 8 comments

I find it weirdly encouraging that this post I wrote last year about J.D. Vance being a fascist has gotten a MASSIVE uptick in hits via search results in the past few days. craigcalcaterra.com/blog/j-d-van...

submitted 8 days ago • 6 comments

Undocumented students and teachers are preparing for potential arrests.

submitted 8 days ago • 3 comments

There has been a lot of chatter today about Zelenskyy's meeting with Trump, some regarding this moment when White House correspondent Brian Glenn asked if the Ukrainian president plans to wear a suit. I want to address idea in this thread. 🧵

submitted 9 days ago • 495 comments

A generation of scientists could be lost through the axing of various programs designed to help young people find a path into basic and applied research. www.science.org/content/arti...

submitted 9 days ago • 30 comments

The point of the Guantanamo camp was never that some immigrants were too dangerous to remain stateside. It was to give the impression that such dangerous immigrants existed and had been detained — which is exactly how Guantanamo was used after 2001.

submitted 12 days ago • 30 comments

New — HHS just got another email with guidance stating that they aren’t required to respond to the 5 bullets email, but if they do they should follow specific guidelines including: “Assume that what you write will be read by malign foreign actors and tailor your response accordingly.”

submitted 13 days ago • 298 comments

Fired federal workers share the crucial jobs no longer being done Six people describe what they were doing to benefit public health, safety and the environment www.sciencenews.org/article/fire...

submitted 15 days ago • 132 comments

…

submitted 16 days ago • 30 comments

A specific thing I'd like to see: our leaders going beyond pointing out the illegality/destruction of what Musk is doing -- which is, of course, necessary -- and making the affirmative case FOR government. I talk about that at length in today's newsletter. www.cupofcoffeenews.com/cup-of-coffe...

submitted 16 days ago • 7 comments

Cuts to research funding and the anti-science tenor of government policies are already prompting universities to cut back on post-graduate admissions. www.statnews.com/2025/02/19/t...

submitted 17 days ago • 2 comments

🗣️ @aoc.bsky.social out fighting for the people & federal workers: “Every day our job is to wake up and say ‘what can I do today?’ — There is no act too small. Every action matters.” 🇺🇸

submitted 18 days ago • 970 comments

The reporters at Texas Observer have been doing incredible investigative work lately, the kind of work that places like the WaPo used to do with a much larger budget before it got bought up and then slowly hollowed out by a billionaire sycophant who'd rather go into space than live in a democracy.

submitted 18 days ago • 15 comments

Normalize calling Republicans Nazis.

submitted 17 days ago • 15 comments

Reread this 2018 article from @sifill.bsky.social and it still holds up of racism being the US' downfall. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/its...

submitted 19 days ago • 2 comments

FDA employees reviewing Elon Musk’s brain implant company Neuralink were fired over the weekend as part of a broader purge of the federal workforce, The cuts included about 20 people in the FDA’s office of neurological and physical medicine devices, several of whom worked on Neuralink

submitted 19 days ago • 8 comments

Want to go visit the national parks this year? Sorry. The reservation system is shut down, EMT personnel are gone, so don't get hurt or lost. No one can clean the bathrooms or cabins, so they'll be closed. Rangers are fired. www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

submitted 20 days ago • 843 comments

Not even six hours apart.

submitted 21 days ago • 1194 comments

Not sure why we’re assuming that gutting disability programs is an accident but I guarantee you this wasn’t a whoopsie of language use, it was a very intentional attack on the disabled.

submitted 20 days ago • 42 comments

The NAACP is re-mixing 1930s-era "don't buy where you can't work" campaigns to confront the neo-segregationists targeting DEI. apnews.com/article/blac...

submitted 21 days ago • 66 comments

“The thing that I can’t get over is that the actual richest man in the world directed my fucking firing. I make $50k a year and work to keep drinking water safe. The richest man in the world decided that was an expense too great for the American taxpayer.”

submitted 22 days ago • 382 comments

Reddit has scores of comment from federal workers grappling with the chaos of the last few weeks. So many of these people are earnest, hardworking, and just want to do good work to help others. r/fednews and r/usajobs are the subreddits I've been reading.

submitted 22 days ago • 20 comments

America was given a choice between a lawless, amoral monster and a qualified, intelligent, joyful woman of color—and it chose the monster. We need to reckon with the reality of what that says about so many of us here. johnpavlovitz.substack.com/p/america-ch...

submitted 22 days ago • 1468 comments

I am really outdone. The Maryland National Guard cannot celebrate Frederick Douglass, the state’s native son and perhaps the greatest American this nation ever produced, because he’s Black and his chosen birthday happened to fall during Black History Month. (Ask me why he had to choose is b-day)

submitted 22 days ago • 77 comments

On January 6th, 1995, my (now ex) wife and I boarded a flight from Heathrow to JFK on a one way ticket. We had two suitcases and about $900 in cash - this was everything we owned and we were moving to the US. We thought it was maybe for 2-3 years. I had visited the US once, for a conference, and

submitted 23 days ago • 17 comments

Putting people with ADHD in a concentration camp is bitterly ironic

submitted 23 days ago • 110 comments

“The Maryland National Guard must decline events which celebrates individuals based all or in part on immutable characteristics,” the memo said. Douglass was an abolitionist, suffragist, orator and author. That’s what we celebrate him. Let’s be clear: This bars celebrating him because he was Black.

submitted 22 days ago • 289 comments

Incompetence in Washington puts every American at risk, no matter how you voted. No one should be happy that the DOGE team - the same folks who randomly published classified U.S. security information online today - wants access to your bank account & Social Security numbers.

submitted 23 days ago • 2686 comments

really astounding abdication from the guys who should be firmly anti polio

submitted 24 days ago • 18 comments

give us lord our daily dystopia (white christian nationalist edition, now with more patriarchy)

submitted 25 days ago • 3 comments

@karenattiah.bsky.social covered this as well in her article too #blacksky www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

submitted 25 days ago • 2 comments