Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
@devilstower.bsky.social
19K followers 410 following 2.4K posts
Author, journalist, old guy. Science, climate, space, transportation, energy, and how human selection drives the evolution of all of the above. www.unchartedblue.com
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devilstower.bsky.social
If you could “never write a book without using ChatGPT,” I have news for you. You still can’t write a book.
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
devilstower.bsky.social
Parting shot taken from my driveway.
Bald Eagle at top of dead tree.
devilstower.bsky.social
Heading out for a 240 mile hike with very few spots where there will be phone service. Everyone take care. Please know I’ll be staging a 1 man protest on the 18th.
devilstower.bsky.social
If you’re selling me something that’s supposed to be healthy, but it comes packed in single-use plastic … I’m not buying.
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
wihorne.bsky.social
All jokes aside, this is an incredible piece of analysis & the way it concludes by motioning to the growing phenomenon of RW billionaires buying & destroying anything that challenges their regime of unchecked profit & power should serve as a wake-up call to those of us still missing the thread.
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
mmasnick.bsky.social
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver this week is a complete takedown of Bari Weiss... and it's thorough and devastating.

And a bit of interesting timing, given that Weiss's new boss, David Ellison (who is talked about in the episode) is trying to buy HBO, where Oliver's show is...
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
devilstower.bsky.social
AI doesn’t need Terminators or nuclear bombs to destroy us. It only needs to degrade our ability to discern reality to the point where critical decisions are made on false information. So … congrats AI edgelords. Just what you wanted.
devilstower.bsky.social
Since every traffic stop on the show seems to involve multiple machine guns, it’s hard to give them a lot of credit. And what’s really frustrating is that the best episodes of the show don’t rely on hyper violence to create “drama.”
devilstower.bsky.social
The Rookie is my favorite for absolute excess. More bullets fired per episode than any real officer has seen in a career.
devilstower.bsky.social
Anyone thinking that police are the answer to authoritarian overreach is looking the wrong way. Police love authoritarian governments. They always have. Authoritarians free them of oversight, scoff at human rights, don’t care about the rules. It’s all Order, no Law.

And we are so ready.
devilstower.bsky.social
And we’ve become so accustomed to the police walking away from excessive violence (or paying off victims with our tax dollars) that scenes of women and children being savagely beaten at traffic stops are commonplace. …
devilstower.bsky.social
We have so militarized the police, that determining whether the armored, gas-masked man aiming an AR-15 at protesters is military, ICE, state, or local police is a challenge even for those present. …
devilstower.bsky.social
We’ve also become blind to the difference between policing and the military. Not only are even small town police forces equipped to fight a war, TV police regularly engage in military activity, even to the point of shooting down aircraft or engaging in raids overseas. …
devilstower.bsky.social
We have all become inured to seeing TV police plant evidence on a suspected drug dealer, beat a suspected sex offender, or murder a suspected murderer, and being told they did the right thing. Because if the police do it, it’s okay. Besides, these were all bad guys. …
devilstower.bsky.social
No nation in this history of the world has even been better prepared for becoming a police state. For years, half of all scripted dramas on American television have been about police or military police. And police are the heroes of every one. …
America has a police problem.
In a police state, political power, policing authority, and military action have no clear boundaries.
www.unchartedblue.com
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
gregsargent.bsky.social
There's a huge gap between what MAGA media is depicting in Portland and what local journos are reporting. The term "provocateurs" is a euphemism. It implies they're doing plucky political theater designed to needle and provoke as opposed to manipulate and deceive. 4/

newrepublic.com/article/2016...
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
gregsargent.bsky.social
NYT piece calls these MAGA types "provocateurs." It describes "dueling versions of reality." Both are common MSM tropes.

But these are not provocateurs. They're propagandists. Only one side is employing deliberate deceptions on a vast scale for instrumental ends. 3/

newrepublic.com/article/2016...
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
thetnholler.bsky.social
‼️ CHATTANOOGA - Public school kids outperform voucher kids AGAIN

As @GovBillLee steers more and more taxpayer funds away from public schools to private (mostly Christian) schools for wealthy families who are already there.

More: www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/oc...
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
mcopelov.bsky.social
Unprecedented grift & corruption, happening daily right in front of us
dcollier74.bsky.social
Man what a lucky guess.........
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
katelynburns.com
Donald Trump was president on January 6
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
danteatkins.bsky.social
The case against Comey is beyond weak. The case against James is worse. It is based on a lie, and they know they're lying because exculpatory evidence that contradicts the indictment had already been presented to a grand jury in another jurisdiction. Everyone involved with this needs to be disbarred
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
brendannyhan.bsky.social
If you're going to write headlines like this, why even have newspapers?
kenwhite.bsky.social
Should the New York Times be sold to Pennysaver and its editors sent to work in Amazon warehouses? It depends on who you ask.
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
robertscotthorton.bsky.social
Trump said he deserved a cut for brokering the TikTok deal, and at once there was agreement that his son Baron would have a top executive slot... though he hasn't asked for it, and has no apparent qualifications to hold it. This is how Trump 2.0 works. www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025...
Barron Trump tipped for top TikTok job
US president’s 19-year-old son could be appointed to the app’s board
www.telegraph.co.uk