Trump’s big beautiful police state is here: The unprecedented expansion of the immigration enforcement budget will pave the way for more policing and repression in the US. aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/7/

"An 82-year-old man in Pennsylvania was secretly deported to Guatemala after visiting an immigration office last month to replace his lost green card, according to his family, who have not heard from him since and were initially told he was dead.

"According to Morning Call, which first reported the story, longtime Allentown resident Luis Leon – who was granted political asylum in the US in 1987 after being tortured under the regime of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet – lost his wallet containing the physical card that confirmed his legal residency. So he and wife booked an appointment to get it replaced.

"When he arrived at the office on 20 June, however, he was handcuffed by two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers, who led him away from his wife without explanation, she said. She herself was kept in the building for 10 hours until relatives picked her up."

theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j

" … if you think electric bikes are the biggest threat on our roads, just wait until you hear about the slightly more common, slightly more deadly vehicle we’ve been quietly tolerating for the last hundred years.

"They’re called cars. And unlike e-bikes, they actually kill people. A lot of people. Over 40,000 people die in car crashes in the US every year. Thousands more are permanently injured. Entire neighborhoods are carved up by high-speed traffic. Kids can’t walk to school safely. But don’t worry – someone saw a teenager run a stop sign on an e-bike, so the real crisis must be those darn batteries on two wheels."

electrek.co/2025/07/20/if-you-

Gloria Stuart. She played the older Rose in Titanic. That was a few years after this photo.

tumblr.com/mostlysignssomeport

I have discovered Skymoth, which automatically crossposts Mastodon posts to Bluesky. My inexorable plan for global domination progresses! skymoth.app

I have discovered Skymoth, which automatically crossposts Mastodon posts to Bluesky. My inexorable...

I have discovered Skymoth, which automatically crossposts Mastodon posts to Bluesky. My inexorable plan for global domination progresses!

beemovieerotica:

Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show perfom "Sylvia's Mother." This pretty, sad song is apparently a classic. I never even heard of it until a few days ago when it came up on an episode of Gilbert Gottfried's podcast. youtu.be/7LXpnNKNxJI?si=zjJ-WD

I’m using Perplexity as my default search after reading this review by @sjvn. I still prefer ChatGPT as a writing and brainstorming assistant. zdnet.com/article/5-reasons-wh

I’m using Perplexity as my default search after reading this review by a friend. I still prefer…

I’m using Perplexity as my default search after reading this review by a friend. I still prefer ChatGPT as a writing and brainstorming assistant.

5 reasons why I still prefer Perplexity over every other AI chatbot

Partial aerial view of the 400-500,000 attendees of the Woodstock Music Festival in Bethel, NY. (1969)

tumblr.com/jimstares/789103340

Trump’s conspiratorial base are hugely and reliably animated by stories about impunity for elite sex…

Trump’s conspiratorial base are hugely and reliably animated by stories about impunity for elite sex predators. As well they should be! Elite sex predators get away with all kinds of crimes – not just Epstein, but the whole universe of powerful men, from Harvey Weinstein to Donald Trump, who systematically abused women for decades and got away with it – bragged about it, even!

But despite these very real abusers, the conspiracists in the Trump base are mostly concerned with imaginary abusers – Qanon’s shadowy cabal of adrenochrome-guzzling pedophiles, tirelessly freighting trafficked children from one nonexistent pizza parlor basement to the next, packed inside of very mid Wayfair home furnishings….

— Cory Doctorow, Conspiratorialism and neoliberalism

“ … we have a socioeconomic system that concentrates nation-state level wealth and power in the…

Billionaires Destroyed American News Media On Purpose

“ … we have a socioeconomic system that concentrates nation-state level wealth and power in the hands of a few individuals, with virtually no checks on what they can choose to do with it.”

" ... we have a socioeconomic system that concentrates nation-state level wealth and power in the hands of a few individuals, with virtually no checks on what they can choose to do with it." todayintabs.com/p/billionaires

"Indeed, one of the strangest things about the Epstein case is that it's the rare instance in which right-wing conspiratorialists care about actual people, rather than imaginary ones."

pluralistic.net/2025/07/19/sys

@pluralistic Care about actual people? Not really. I hear a lot of talk about the list and who's on it, not much about the victims and making life better for them. That's true for both MAGA and anti-Trump voices.

"Trump's conspiratorial base are hugely and reliably animated by stories about impunity for elite sex predators. As well they should be! Elite sex predators get away with all kinds of crimes -- not just Epstein, but the whole universe of powerful men, from Harvey Weinstein to Donald Trump, who systematically abused women for decades and got away with it -- bragged about it, even!

"But despite these very real abusers, the conspiracists in the Trump base are mostly concerned with _imaginary_ abusers -- Qanon's shadowy cabal of adrenochrome-guzzling pedophiles, tirelessly freighting trafficked children from one nonexistent pizza parlor basement to the next, packed inside of very mid Wayfair home furnishings.… "

— @pluralistic
pluralistic.net/2025/07/19/sys