Erik Thurman is illustrating for a better future
@ErikThurman
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Award-winning comics journalist covering social conflict in comics @thenib, @theinterceptbrasil, UNCCT, and +. Illustrates for a better future. ENG/ESP/한국어
Santiago, Chile
Joined July 2013
Hey there! I'm Erik Thurman, lifelong traveler and journalist. I illustrate and write comics about current events in Asia and North/South America, with a focus on education, migration, and human rights. Unapologetic socialist. You can see my website at -
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You can kill schoolchildren, you can kill whistleblowers, you can kill random homeless people, but god forbid you kill a CEO. Things gotta change, we can't do this anymore.
OpenAI whistleblower Suchir Balaji, who accused the company of breaking copyright law, found dead in apparent suicide
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Oh, it's this person again
I guess you can’t be on a Democratic Presidential ticket and also a Jew in 2024.
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I don't use this term lightly but Brianna Wu is an evil person.
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"I forgot how to draw after the last photoshop update" said no artist ever.
if an update to your "tool" wipes away your entire skillset, then it's not "just a tool" or a particularly worthwhile skillset
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Guys, I have a lot of thoughts about coming back to the USA for the first time in practically 15 yrs but HOLY HELL THE COST OF FOOD YOU WEREN'T EXAGGERATING WHY THE HELL ARENT Y'ALL HAVING FOOD RIOTS.
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@Alex01u Glad your takeaway from all of this is the person pointing out the genocide denialist's words is the actual evil person. Parents must be proud what you've become!.
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Guarantee you in 20 years she's going to pretend she never said any of this.
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@JoshuaPotash The fact that this is the same state that committed a massacre on students at Kent State over 50 years ago should not be lost in this photo.
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The whole "congress fantasizes daily about murdering their own citizens" as gone on long enough.
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First, incredible church. Second, it just shows how fake this whole system is when student loan debt is traded around like property for pennies on the dollar yet it's illegal for you to buy your own debt.
The members of Trinity Moravian Church in North Carolina purchased nearly $3.3 million of local residents’ medical debt for just $15,048. Then, they held a debt jubilee ceremony and burned up the debt, canceling it all.
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@SxarletRed Admitting you know the hertz of gendered voices is like admitting you know the age of consent laws of various states/countries.
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This is why they didn't allow any journalists on campus last night. So NYPD could solely control what the public sees the following day.
I would normally never tweet out a propaganda video the NYPD made. But you have to see this hype video they created after attacking college students. They live in such a fascist bubble it’s surreal.
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Well, this website is now useless for journalists, activists, and honestly any advertiser spending money here).
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@xaviersonline If a game's production and workflow is designed to cause misery and health problems to the people working on it, then it shouldn't be made.
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@tani269 "We know how valuable your time is" so we decided to waste everyone's time who applied. Would not be surprised if they then just give the job to a friend because "welp we couldn't find anyone!".
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I'm not going to shut up about this. Fascism has been in the US for years and now we're at the point of eradication talk and I can't stress enough how you need to take to the streets before you can't do it anymore.
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I bet these companies did a cost-benefit analysis with the problems that will arise from these bogus denials and found they still came out on top paying out lawsuits if it meant cutting labor.
This is insane. This woman’s health insurance company is using AI. And it’s denying her claim for her annual physical.
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@endsanctions There are no investigative journalism departments at any major news network (so all major cable news is just commentary, not reportage), and every major news anchor is a millionaire.
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Remember y'all, you can't burn bridges with cowards.
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@surlybassey @korax23 Rolling Stone did an excellent job on this, titled The Business Plot. It was a plot by larger corporations to stop the New Deal by throwing the US into a constitutional crisis and reform the executive branch by use of the military.
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Images like this are someday going to end up in museums under the name of the "2020s Fascist AI Art Movement.".
On this Fourth of July, I want to thank the American people for being true to their birthright, the Spirit of 1776, and wish them a happy and blessed Independence Day. Through thick and thin, for the past nine months, Israel has deeply appreciated vital American support. In
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Biopsy's back. Hell yeah brothers, I'm cancer free.
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There you go. It's a coup. Start normalizing this word.
Pompeo just now: “There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.".
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Pulled directly from their site. If you've ever had any doubt what HR is for, here it is. This is how white collar crime in the workplace happens.
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What every billionaire imagines living through climate collapse in a bunker is like vs. reality
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Would be funny if Riley accidentally helped in the assassin's escape by spreading misinformation.
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The en-shitification of the internet is near-complete. Now Getty Images can't be deemed reliable in journalism when it is presenting real people and events.
Introducing Generative AI by Getty Images – a new tool that pairs our best-in-class creative content with the latest AI technology for a commercially safe generative AI tool! Trained on Getty Images’ world-class creative content, the tool works seamlessly with our expansive
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@JoshuaPotash The things I -- as probably many reading your post -- truly want to voice about what the appropriate repercussions to Pfizer should be. It is a crime how a company could profit from publicly-funded research to save our lives from a deadly pandemic while blocking access to it.
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Every time I watch a multi-million dollar art auction, it always makes me feel like I walked in on a crime or something.
If you ever wanted to see what too much money looks like, you found it
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Nate Silver wants you to forget that he is a career statistician who famously got every model wrong for the past two presidential elections and is now telling you you should place less trust in experts.
To be less polite, the BA.5 scaremongering was bullshit and you should place less trust in the people who engaged in it going forward.
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@ShricxTian Grandmother's funeral and my dad's dying so definitely not the most fun of visits.
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I haven't really commented on this much because it sounds conspiratorial but, well. Given the greatest transfer of wealth to the rich in human history occurred during the past two years, we can see there is financial incentive for the rich to continue the pandemic.
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@wideofthepost It's crazy that Stancil hasn't mentioned the words "Israel" or "Palestine" in any of his tweets since mid-February -- around the same time he announced he was running for office.
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These are statements issued by authoritarian governments. People need to be shifting their language from just "vote them out in November" to "we must work towards a process to drag these ghouls in front of the ICC for mass human rights violations.".
This letter from Acting Homeland Security Secretary Wolf is extremely alarming. Like 5 alarm fire alarming. Like justifying the Gestapo invading Portland.
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So, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is an expert on HIV/AIDS and knows better. So don't be gaslit and understand this messaging is intentional + a massive escalation into the US' continued backslide into fascism now with public institutions subtly suggesting gay men are pedophiles.
The U.S. has confirmed the first two cases of monkeypox in children, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Friday. Both kids “are traced back to individuals who come from the men-who-have-sex-with-men community, the gay men's community,” she said.
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@JoshuaPotash Unbelievable that this article dropped the same day as this.
Facebook executives are anticipating a former employee whistleblower to accuse the company of contributing to the Capitol riots in Washington in January on CBS's "60 Minutes" Sunday evening.
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I know Greg intends this for people who said defaming stuff online about Piskor, but I can't imagine being a woman in her early 20s who faced abuse from men in the comics industry, reading this, and knowing editors out there who will blacklist you if you speak up about it.
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I feel like articles like this should be put into a time capsule, so that fifty years from now when history is written, historians can see that the professional class fully understood what they were doing and were hoping to evade accountability within their times.
Can’t help but feel that we are losing immense amounts of political ground—and that shameless think pieces are just our adversaries’ symbolic capital
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@litebox_info . if you didn't have rich parents and work in the creative fields, please raise your hand so I can follow you and not feel out of place lol.
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I hate this site so much now. Nate Bear is doing incredibly important climate reporting and I'm seeing hundreds of paid accounts just repeating "nuh uh I can stand the heat it's not bad.". Such a weaponized place for propaganda shouting down experts.
Yesterday parts of the US south experienced wetbulb temperatures up to 94F (34.5C). At these temperatures, no amount of shade or hydration can save you. Without AC, you die. And this is just the beginning.
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@JoshuaPotash . large gatherings (including mass protests) will be prohibited, a state of emergency will be called in numerous countries that suspends democratic norms, and certain people in positions of power will use the crisis to further decay democracy.
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Every one of those countries should cut diplomatic ties with Israel and kick out Israel's ambassadors. What a horrible abuse of power of a host nation.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs summons the ambassadors of France, Japan, South Korea, Malta, Slovenia, and Ecuador to rebuke them for voting in favor of allowing Palestine to have full membership in the United Nations.
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@JoshuaPotash I don't know how to advise, but I also feel a lot of the comments here don't fully appreciate the scale of authoritarianism people were fighting against in 2019 all around the world. In the upcoming months, elections around the world will be postponed. .
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@professor_peon @PrinceRaglan Neon, others have pointed it out in this thread about the necessity for protests to be disruptive. If protests don't inconvenience people, then everybody can and will continue to ignore it.
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@Rizabellepow I don't remember Bernie Sanders being on the ballot. Candidates win and lose elections. Biden is the Democratic candidate.
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@CriticalHitShop I'm just thinking from my time in Chile and South Korea that a meal for $5 costs about $20+ in the USA.
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For these psychopaths, it's more than just the crimes. It's the flaunting of the genocide and the massacres, the getting off performing it in front of others and letting the world know.
BREAKING | Netanyahu gave the orders to wipe out an entire neighborhood in southern Beirut from the UN headquarters in New York.
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Since Twitter crashing is now imminent, just a reminder that it was revealed a month ago in a court that Elon's ex-wife wanted him to buy Twitter and delete it to stop "wokeism." Just so nobody doubts Musk's intentions with destroying this site.
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Actions of a dying empire led by bad people.
BREAKING| US congress passes landmark bill, aimed at sanctioning the International Criminal Court (ICC) for pursuing arrest warrants for Israeli officials.
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Journalism is just rich people having conversations with each other behind paywalls and hoping the public doesn't notice.
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@litebox_info I find that almost every single person in this field, if you talk to them long enough, you discover they have a secret well-off relative that helped them subsidize their career for the first several years. I always feel like wait, am I alone because I didn't have that?.
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Credit to @JoshuaPHilll for the screengrabs
Going to call this out now, but every single publication and network tonight will try to avoid naming the reason why he self-immolated and pretend it was a random act. Or worse, they'll try to paint both sides with plausible deniability that the action was maybe anti-Semitic.
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Smerconish used to work for the George H Bush administration. Just throwing that out there and how much value people should take based on a poll off his personal website.
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My guy, the US just sanctioned the ICC yesterday for issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu for committing genocide in Gaza. That's not the anti-fascist side.
vote for Joe Biden so that when we commemorate the 85th anniversary of D-Day, we're still on the anti-fascist side.
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As long as I live, I'll never stop repeating that the Biden administration was a transitional government to fascism.
Donald Trump wants revenge. And he might get a major assist from Democrats in making that happen. On Tuesday, Congress is poised to approve a powerful new tool that Trump could use to crush his political enemies. Scoop by me, via @theintercept
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@CANCEL_SAM @TheEconomist @WideAsleepNima @adamjohnsonNYC Thanks for the link on this. During Operation Hurricane 2.0 in Latin America just a few months ago, The Economist played itself as straight up propaganda advocating for the multiple coups the US was/still is launching in the area.
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@SxarletRed I mean we saw this literally played out with the pandemic and getting people back to work under this administration. Biden will gladly sacrifice large numbers of people for his own political goals.
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Snoop & Eminem making a bad 90s Gorillaz-style music video to sell a literal pyramid scheme is why we don't have rivers anymore.
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People gather in support of Gustavo Gatica and his family. Yesterday, he was completely blinded when police shot him in the face. No major media journalists here to report the incident.
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Thirty years from now, AOC will occupy the same position that Pelosi does now in the democratic party. And I mean that in the most unflattering way possible.
AOC: When I'm talking to people in rooms, I'm hearing "my donor this, my donor that" not "my voters this, my voters that." . I could give two damns what a bunch of rich people think. What I care about is what the working class thinks and what people not on social media think.
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This is so disqualifying of a university and the safety of their students.
It is now confirmed that Ohio State lied to its students and the world about snipers with guns trained on students.
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@JoshuaPotash There is nothing organic about today's protests. You don't randomly be carrying an IED on you when you go out to march. This was premeditated.
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@Grahamophones As someone who illustrates graphic novels FT along with other projects, it is literally. impossible. to turn around an entire book within a year's time without it looking like garbage. If a publisher is asking that, they better be offering $50k a year with full health benefits.
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@CAComixPod I'm so angry at this moment. Liberals using the propaganda machine to poke fun at propaganda, only to have said propaganda spread among social networks and believed as fact.
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@byKatePrior @sophietcohen Money laundering in the form of six-figure book advances to politicians.
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We need to be honest with ourselves -- the Democrats are throwing the election.
NEW -- Smaller events, not letting the press and the public know about events ahead of time, an outside firm to vet attendees: How Biden aides are trying to shield the president from protests. by @albamonica @carolelee @PeterAlexander @elysepg.
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Just skimming the quote tweets but it's looking like most are paying $450-750/mo, 5%-7% interest rate. Nobody has that unless you're rich. In which case you never had to take out student loan debt.
Today, after a pause on federal student loans that spanned nearly 1,300 days, the Biden administration voluntarily turned them back on. No court order. Not coupled with cancelation. Just going right back to the crisis we had before COVID. Quote tweet with your interest/payment.
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@Grahamophones Emphasis on full health benefits because you WILL run into chronic health issues that will last a lifetime if you're an artist trying to push that work out like that within a year.
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The establishment is /terrified/ of things spiraling out of their control. It's why they're working so hard to suppress these protests.
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Chappell Roan said the most reasonable thing -- politicians should earn votes and not commit genocide -- and the online organized campaign to slander her and call her an antisemite and a fake member of the LGBTQ+ community confirms blue MAGA is a cult. She is 100% right.
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If your work was turned down by Fantagraphics, know this is what their editors acquired instead. If your work wasn't nominated for an Eisner, know this is what got four nominations instead. Please, don't ever let comics gaslight you to feel your work isn't good enough again.
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@PiensaPrensa A las 14:00 horas, entre Metro Tobalaba y Metro Pedro de Valdivia en Providencia, durante veinte minutos viajaron 19 micros hacia el este. Casi todo completamente vacío. Es obvio que algunos sectores están recibiendo más locomoción que otros.
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@SxarletRed Weird how the AP News dropped that piece a day after this came out.
Bombshell: First test results for dioxins at the site of Norfolk's Ohio train disaster show the deadly chemical at levels 14x higher than what other states consider legal. The EPA refuses to test for these carcinogens -- yet claims the area is safe. The people know better.
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@birdyhoodie Rejections rarely have to do with the merit of you or your work. I think back to over 1k rejections on my graphic memoir work despite working a very successful career as a professional illustrator and journalist and so little of what gets acquired has to do about the writing.
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Same type of language that Argentinian President Milei, with Heritage Foundation backing, used in Argentina when he was elected. He's since crashed the economy, bolstered the police state, and ransacked various ministries.
Elon Musk says we must accept "temporary hardship" once Trump is elected.
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@ms_creilly The pub contacted me six months later after they rejected my pitch and said they were still so *inspired* by the horrific deaths of my two students that, although not able to publish my research, wanted my permission to make a children's book with my 2 kids' death fictionalized.
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I feel so embarrassed that a couple of years ago, I brushed Marianne Williamson off as "that crystal lady" to a friend without knowing better. Williamson is an incredible candidate with the passion, conviction, and moral compass to lead a nation.
Think about her however you want but don’t erase what she gave to people while on her own journey. This is an honest person and that’s enough for me.
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I actually okay with this. HR's role is to prevent lawsuits aimed at the company and to suppress unionizing efforts by employees. They aren't workers and are part of the non-labor, administrative class. By all means, skimp out on paying them and see where this takes you.
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@tani269 Nooooo Tanisha, you deserve better than this mess. Your work is so incredible and to have it cancelled is infuriating.
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@Tallychyck There is systemic labor abuse in our industries including little job security and exploitative crunch time. Pulling all-nighters should be something that shunned, not celebrated, and art schools that do the latter to their students only normalize this abuse.
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To be fair, Leana Wen also hates your children and wants them to die, too.
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Guys, don't talk like this. The poor and marginalized -- in Texas and elsewhere -- are just as deserving of democracy as you and I and they don't need others surrendering them to authoritarians that vow to violate their human rights.
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For those that don't know, Art Center (@artcenteredu) is considered one of the most prestigious private art schools in the US. Their statement is completely disqualifying as an institute of higher learning as they are advocating the mass exploitation and theft of their students.
Artists and creatives in all industries are rising up to ensure current and future generations aren’t exploited by generative AI and that we have healthy industries to live from. @artcenteredu: students can have a little exploitative tech, as a treat.
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@spacetwinks The new government also opened a tribunal to investigate the human rights abuses of the previous administration just hours after Boric took office. The first court hearing is in mid-May. It's refreshing to see what a serious government looks like.
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@9mmballpoint Even if half the 100k people who liked that tweet knew someone who died during the pandemic, I can't imagine being the type of person typing a relative/friend/acquittance's death mildly annoyed them. Really antisocial behavior.
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I know this has been memory-holed but in 2018, Trump backed Pelosi as Speaker of the House and urged Republicans to support her. I feel that relationship should be scrutinized more often esp with Pelosi's recent attacks to the Dem base re: Palestine.
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@SxarletRed Thinking about this:
Florida Democrats were dancing with Republicans after a legislative session that banned abortions, attacked trans people, destroyed immigrants rights, and cut back protections for union members and tenants.
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@darth Surprise: you don't actually have to hear from the guy holding a gun around children at a school bus stop.
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@ms_creilly I once had a major pub reject a pitch investigating the Filipino govt's charter school scheme that displaced 0.5m students in the early 2010s and ended up with two of my students getting killed in the floodwaters near my school who dropped out to earn money for their families.
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Man actually named Dick Cheney joining the democrats as proof they beat fascism.
hate to be That Guy, but Resistance Liberalism is probably the most successful anti-fascist campaign in America since the 1940s. Yes it doesn't follow the normal mold of also being a Left-Wing movement, but it is, fundamentally, an anti-fascist movement.
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There are a lot of careerists having absolute meltdowns in the quote tweets.
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No more. Send the next arrest warrants for Biden and his adminstrstion. No more talk about any election. The floor starts with Biden never leaving a jail cell.
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Going to call this out now, but every single publication and network tonight will try to avoid naming the reason why he self-immolated and pretend it was a random act. Or worse, they'll try to paint both sides with plausible deniability that the action was maybe anti-Semitic.
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