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Kelsey Atherton

@atherton.bsky.social

29K followers 960 following 14K posts

War, robots, & bad futures but imagining better. I edit @cipolicy.bsky.social's International Policy Journal, opinions my own. Unitarian Universalist. He/him. Husband to @alymay.bsky.social & father of 2. Front takes towards enemies.

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 28d

Flake Music

You're nine years, a second dog,
two cats, and two kids into what you thought would be a temporary return to straighten things out for a little bit. Online lets you feign cosmopolitanism as your material life is increasingly provincial. When you land here, you've already returned.

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 4h

Did not let the misery of the PlutoTV experience detract from this and it's a testament to the craft that while the movie was easily over an hour longer with them, I didn't feel pulled out of except during the ad breaks, and got pulled back in instantly every
return. boxd.it/blpfYx

A ★★★★ review of The Godfather (1972)

Used to be you could have faces in a movie, real messy slabs of em, guys who looked halfway between movie stars and Dick Tracy villians.

boxd.it

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 9h

anyway I have now seen .5 more Diane Keaton movies than I had yesterday

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 9h

8.5 minutes of movie and then 2.25 minutes of ads, PlutoTV is so stupid

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 9h

It's what you do in Harvest Mood

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Reposted by Kelsey Atherton

sarah jeong @sarahjeong.bsky.social · 9h

www.theverge.com/policy/79204...

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 11h

Someday may Charles Murray and Andrew Sullivan suffer for the harm they have caused

Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 11h

Eugenics, all the way down www.usatoday.com/story/news/e...

Education Department wipes out special ed office in shutdown layoffs, union says

The Education Department laid off nearly everyone at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.

www.usatoday.com

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 12h

Gawrsh

Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 12h

it's v good

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 13h

When the biblical David composed a song, he was something of a slinger-songwriter

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 13h

Richard Busy's Scarry World

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 14h

It's "Ego Death At A Bachlorette Party," and he's listening to it on Apple Music, not Spotify, fyi.

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 14h

36 Year Old Wearing Corded Headphones On Bus Can't Wait To Tell You What Album He's Listening To Instead Of "The Life Of A Showgirl."

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 17h

I say this not to valorize the founders or exempt any of the past and ongoing harms of the US but to simply note that the constitutional order is failing despite being structured specifically to avoid this exact problem, now broken by two whole branches of Salacious Crumbs en thrall to a Jabba.

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 17h

It's of course against the constitution but given that the entire national Republican party views their lives and careers as subservient to the goal of permanent Trumpist rule, barring external pressure there's not a clear mechanism at the top level to stop it. Fight is in lower courts, states

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 17h

This is fundamentally a live tension in American government, unless the same party controls Congress and the Supreme Court and the Presidency and all agree that the President should rule us like a king, with the rest as merely ornamentation. This is Voughts Leviathan.

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 17h

The English Revolution was in no small part sparked by King Charles I routing around parliament to find everything he wanted through non/legislative means, despite that being why Parliament exists. Over a century later, American colonists aware of this explicitly gave their Congress power to stop it

Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 18h

Unconstitutionally taking money that the law says must be spent on one purpose & using it for something else—when it's to establish personalist control over the FUCKING MILITARY—is about as dangerous a constitutional crisis/failure as you can imagine

Via: www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

The Office of Management and Budget sent a notification to Congress about their intent to use research and development funds to pay members of the military, two sources with direct knowledge tell NBC News.

A spokesperson for the OMB confirmed to NBC News that it plans to use the research and development funds and that there are two years' worth of funds available within the Department of Defense.

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Reposted by Kelsey Atherton

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 17h

worth reading vought's 2022 essay where he lays this out, focusing on his complaint that congress can shape policy against the wishes of the president americanmind.org/salvo/renewi...

Renewing American Purpose

Statesmanship in a post-Constitutional moment

americanmind.org

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Reposted by Kelsey Atherton

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 17h

vought's view is that the president is an elected dictator and lo and behold he is seizing outright the power of the purse

Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 18h

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 17h

In This Temple as in the Hearts of Man for Whom He Saved the Earth, The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!

Scare-ic Hirsch @ehirsch.bsky.social · 18h

It’s kind of crazy to me that Sufjan Stevens hasn’t put out a statement about the troops occupying Illinois

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Reposted by Kelsey Atherton

Joshua Eaton @joshuaeaton.bsky.social · 18h

The priest on the right is holding a monstrance. It’s used to display a piece of communion bread — which Catholics believe becomes the literal body of Christ when it’s consecrated — for worship.

A monstrance is normally only used in *very* solemn ceremonies.

amanda moore 🐢 @noturtlesoup17.bsky.social · 22h

Outside of the Broadview ICE facility, a state trooper tells the delegation attempting to have communion with detainees that ICE has denied their request.

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 20h

Picked this up at a childrens book fair, should I mail it to the HHS secretary

LET'S-READ-AND-FIND - OUT SCIENCE®
GERMS
READING
RAINBOW
Воок
MAKE ME SICK!
BY MELVIN BERGER • ILLUSTRATED BY MARYLIN HAFNER

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 20h

Every ICE agent is a monstrous goon familiar to all of history and every neighbor protecting neighbors from ICE is braver than the troops chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Neighbor shielded 7-year-old during South Shore federal raid: ‘I didn’t want them to take her’

During the Sept. 30 raid, one tenant protected a terrified girl and her mom. Remnants at the complex, including a detailed map of all the units, offer clues to what authorities may have known before t...

chicago.suntimes.com

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Reposted by Kelsey Atherton

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 23h

The ease with which officials lie in 2025 is honestly terrifying

rost
Tricia McLaughlin @TriciaOhio
X.com
She was arrested for throwing objects at law enforcement.
Heartland Signal v
@HeartlandSignal • 22h
BREAKING: Masked Border Patrol agents aggressively arrested WGN video producer Debbie Brockman in Lincoln Square Friday morning, supposedly for "obstructing justice." (Video via Josh Thomas on Facebook)

€ 67°
CHICAGO'S VERY OWN
WGN9
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Learn More
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NOW PLAYING
WGN employee detained amid ICE activity on Chicago's North Side, ...
(847) 777-4777
www.greenattic.com
CHICAGO (WGN) - A WGN creative services department employee was detained by two Border Patrol officers and later released after federal agents
swarmed a busy intersection on Chicago's North Side Friday morning, at the height of rush hour.
WGN is not naming the employee, as station policy requires blurring faces and not identifying those who have not been charged with a crime.
Witnesses on site who captured the incident on video spoke to WGN about the moments leading up to the staffer's detainment.
NORTHWELL GREENWICH
VILLAGE HOSPITAL
SEE WHAT'S NEW
Northwell"
Greenwich Village
Hospital
@ wgntv.com

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 23h

I mean this as loudly as I can say it: every tamale vendor is 10,000 times more important, as a person but also for society and safety and security, than every ICE agent.

www.gofundme.com/f/help-my-au...

Donate to Help My Aunt Rebuild Her Life After Being Taken by ICE, organized by marilyn perez

We just found out through social media that my aunt — who sells t… marilyn perez needs your support for Help My Aunt Rebuild Her Life After Being Taken by ICE

www.gofundme.com

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