Joé McKen
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joemcken.net
Joé McKen
@joemcken.net
Personal account · Freelance composer in Québec, Canada · Progressive godless civil-libertarian · He/him · Seize the day, but not today, I’m tired · Music account: @music.joemcken.net

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Reposted by Joé McKen
Current U.S. Ambassador to Malaysia, btw.
Of all the things in the history of the world that definitely did not happen - this is the pinnacle.
February 3, 2026 at 2:14 AM
@kenwhite.bsky.social I don’t know for a fact that this reply to your post on The UnPopulist is by Greg Lukianoff … but man does it give me the same vibe of “wtf is this terrible reasoning” that I’ve gotten the last couple times I saw his writing on the subject.
February 3, 2026 at 1:43 AM
Reposted by Joé McKen
In part because the Trump administration is directly dismantling Biden's efforts to get affordable broadband everywhere (as @karlbode.com keeps reporting on).
There are many horrible things to note here but I'm going to pull out just one:

How will people in rural areas access these farkakte A.i.-based avatars WHEN THEY STILL CAN'T GET BROADBAND.
Dr Oz on rural healthcare: "There's no question about it, whether you want it or not -- the best way to help some of these communities is gonna be AI-based avatars"
February 3, 2026 at 1:04 AM
Reposted by Joé McKen
I spent all that time satirizing it and Bari Weiss just says it
February 3, 2026 at 1:02 AM
Reposted by Joé McKen
Judge Reyes’s conclusion: “There is an old adage among lawyers. If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither, pound the table. … Having neither and bringing the adage into the 21st century, [Noem] pounds X (f/k/a Twitter).”
February 3, 2026 at 12:49 AM
This is about as polite as someone can be whilst plainly calling a government official a massive bigoted piece of shit.
BREAKING: Judge Ana Reyes, in DC, issues a stay of DHS Sec. Noem’s decision to end Haiti’s temporary protected status (TPS) designation, a decision that was to go into effect on Tuesday and could have ended legal status for up to 350,000 people overnight. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
February 3, 2026 at 12:59 AM
Reposted by Joé McKen
BREAKING: Judge Ana Reyes, in DC, issues a stay of DHS Sec. Noem’s decision to end Haiti’s temporary protected status (TPS) designation, a decision that was to go into effect on Tuesday and could have ended legal status for up to 350,000 people overnight. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
February 3, 2026 at 12:42 AM
Reposted by Joé McKen
I think Ms. Bondi is increasingly aware that if she doesn’t get a pardon she will die in prison, and her pardon depends entirely on the goodwill of someone who’s entirely capable of screaming “why should I do anything for you when you wouldn’t put Peekaboo James in jail like I told you to”
February 2, 2026 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Joé McKen
If you campaigned for the presidency on a promise to destroy these assholes, you would win a landslide the size of FDR in 1936, when he campaigned on a promise to destroy these assholes.
Yes, Peter decided that the continued existence of our democracies isn't compatible with his desired level of personal freedom.

An absolute enemy of humanity.
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 AM
Reposted by Joé McKen
death by preventable disease is an inevitable and even desired outcome of concentration camps. in every era of concentration camps people have died of typhus, which is a disease of privation and enforced crowding. this illness is intentionally inflicted
February 2, 2026 at 4:52 AM
Reposted by Joé McKen
Every now and then we get a reminder that in addition to stealing from their own supporters, MAGA leaders really don’t care if their supporters live or die.
Dr Oz on rural healthcare: "There's no question about it, whether you want it or not -- the best way to help some of these communities is gonna be AI-based avatars"
February 2, 2026 at 8:59 PM
Reposted by Joé McKen
Professional athletes are being advised not to leave the hotel or go anywhere without their passports while visiting Minnesota.

This is not a country that can safely host international events like the World Cup.

Boycotting is not even a political question anymore. It is a basic issue of safety.
The Montreal Canadiens are playing the Minnesota Wild in Minneapolis tonight. The players have been recommended to stay in/eat at the hotel, take the team bus to the arena, and carry passports.

Perhaps we shouldn't be hosting the World Cup and the Olympics...
February 2, 2026 at 6:15 PM
Reposted by Joé McKen
If you are defining law for a country of 350 million people, you don't get to do it in secrecy.

I feel like this shouldn't be a big ask but...
i am very much of the view that undermining the court’s secrecy is a necessary part of remaking it into something like an actual court (and not some guardian council) www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/u...
How the Supreme Court Secretly Made Itself Even More Secretive
www.nytimes.com
February 2, 2026 at 8:32 PM
Reposted by Joé McKen
I was sitting in a hipster coffee shop this morning, it was packed with liberal whispering to each other what a timeless masterpiece Melania movie is.
Kayleigh: My mom went to see Melania. She said the theater was packed, it was standing room only. People were cheering through it, they were excited. It was interactive—people interplaying with the film. She said it was just electric.
February 2, 2026 at 8:06 PM
Reposted by Joé McKen
I don’t think I can say this forcefully enough: hundreds of thousands of Haitians will lose status tomorrow with racist ending of their TPS & are spending today refreshing their feeds for a court order that could literally save thier lives.

This is nothing short of psychosocial torture.
February 2, 2026 at 7:29 PM
Reposted by Joé McKen
February 2, 2026 at 6:26 PM
I for one am shocked to find out that Nancy Mace is a cartoonish disaster of a human in private. After all, she always seems so graceful and reasonable in public.
February 2, 2026 at 11:45 PM
Reposted by Joé McKen
If my math is right 20% of the office has now resigned, including the previous group of resignations. That’s debilitating.

www.startribune.com/ice-raids-mi...
Live: Eight more federal prosecutors set to leave the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office
The recent wave of departures follows the mass exodus of six veteran prosecutors last month who quit in protest of recent directives from the U.S. Department of Justice.
www.startribune.com
February 2, 2026 at 11:42 PM
Reposted by Joé McKen
(Nixon voice) my God
February 2, 2026 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Joé McKen
I'm old enough to remember when vowing to sue someone for cracking a joke about you was considered, fairly definitively, to be Loser Behavior.
President Trump is threatening to sue Trevor Noah over a joke at last night's Grammy Awards, saying that Noah's crack claiming he visited Jeffrey Epstein's island was "false and defamatory."
Trump threatens to sue Trevor Noah over joke about Epstein's island
President Donald Trump called the joke, which Noah made at last night's Grammy Awards, "false and defamatory," again insisting he has never visited Jeffrey Epstein's island.
www.nbcnews.com
February 2, 2026 at 4:49 PM
Reposted by Joé McKen
Although the article unequivocally shows the Illini Republicans are bigoted edgelords, it also demonstrates they are weak cowards, unwilling to support their words and scuttling like cockroaches when light is shone on them.
February 2, 2026 at 4:04 PM
Reposted by Joé McKen
This is genuinely alarming. My guess is that this is a petulant attempt to stop the leaks that created a huge media circus for the Court more than once now.

Of course, it's unlikely to actually have any effect, b/c they already understood their work to be confidential and leaked anyway.
Jodi Kantor in the NY Times reports that the Chief Justice requested Court employees sign nondisclosure agreements in November 2024 - moving to formal contracts requiring silence/confidentiality after Trump was reelected: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/u...
February 2, 2026 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Joé McKen
Doesn't seem like this should be his job
February 1, 2026 at 11:19 PM
Reposted by Joé McKen
I think it's funny that this interview gave Chotiner a chance to reference this thing he tweeted about 4 years ago
February 2, 2026 at 3:04 PM
Reposted by Joé McKen
like this is absurd, get over yourselves
February 2, 2026 at 1:57 PM