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Joshua Erlich

@joshuaerlich.bsky.social

51K followers 1.9K following 16K posts

civil rights lawyer, exhausted DM for Signal info

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · Jan 29

seen some folks asking about lawyers who help federal employees so:

1. obviously, you can call us. we'll try to fit you in considering ~everything~

2. go to MWELA.org. that's the plaintiff's employment bar association in the DMV. go to NELA.org nationally. search for lawyers who do federal work.

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 3h

Ben knows he can never be a Christmas Adventurer and nothing will ever hurt him more than that

David Kuhne @davidkuhne.bsky.social · 3h

Ben Shapiro: “The basic suggestion is a conspiracy theory in which the United States is run by white supremacist Christian nationalists” um yeah, Ben, it kinda is.

Gregk Foley @gregk.co.uk · 8h

I am so sick of living in a world where certain groups insist art & culture be re-oriented to serve their tastes and whims when their own pitiful inability or unwillingness to critically engage with and contemplate creativity clearly demonstrate that art & culture are too good for them.

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 3h

the lesson of these stories is always that we should RETVRN to a time when people had, you know, human friends

C. Buckthorn @cbuckthorn.bsky.social · 8h

This is amazing. I laughed out loud www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

As 32-year-old Rich points out, though, "it's not like using ChatGPT guarantees success".
When he met someone in a bar one Friday night and swapped social media handles, he asked AI what his next move should be.
ChatGPT discerned that sending an initial message on Monday midmorning would set the right pace. "Then it gave me some options for what the message could be," says Rich.
"Keep it light, warm, and low-stakes so it reads as genuine interest without urgency," the bot advised. "Something like: Hey Sarah, still laughing about [tiny shared moment/reference if you've got one] - good to meet you!" Rich went back and forth with ChatGPT until he felt they'd hit upon exactly the right message ("Hey Sarah, it was lovely to meet you") but sadly she never replied, he says. "It's been two weeks now."

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 3h

never would have guessed that our secret weapon in the TERF Wars would be mold infestations but our ally strikes again.

mold, orcas, frog wizards: that’s a popular front baby

Joshua "The Crypt" Keep(er) @jekeep.bsky.social · 4h

The far-right mouthpiece who told young men to clean up their place while in front of his very clearly messy home, now has contracted an illness from all the mold in his home.

If you wrote such a fascist character in a story it would be deemed a silly caricature.

Jordan Peterson diagnosed with chronic condition after exposure to mold

Peterson's daughter said her father has a "genetic predisposition that causes the immune system to have an inability to identify and detoxify mold."

www.newsweek.com

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 3h

I genuinely think that if you’re a villain, you presume other villains are anti heroes

Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 3h

who up writhing and gnawing?

Pretzelcoatl @slinkingflorist.bsky.social · 3h

You ever feel like it was wrong to evolve past worms, and the only two things we should be doing are writhing and gnawing?

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 3h

‘Ozymandias is an antihero’ is n incredible read of Watchmen.

[intense padme meme] in what way is he heroic, Peter?

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 4h

thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

He describes the plot of Watchmen, a 1986 graphic novel involving superheroes grappling with moral questions about humanity against the backdrop of impending nuclear war:

The antihero Ozymandias, the antichrist-type figure, is sort of an early-modern person. He believes this will be a timeless and eternal solution – eternal world peace. Moore is sort of a late-modern. In early modernity, you have ideal solutions, ‘perfect’ solutions to calculus. In late modernity, things are sort of probabilistic. And at some point, he asks Dr Manhattan whether the world government is going to last. And he says that ‘nothing lasts forever.’ So you embrace the antichrist and it still doesn’t work.

Thiel later finds biblical meaning in the manga One Piece, discussing how he believes it represents a future where an antichrist-like one-world government has repressed science. He believes that the hero, Monkey D Luffy, represents a Christlike figure.

In One Piece, you are set in a fantasy world, again sort of an alternate earth, but it’s 800 years into the reign of this one-world state. Which, as the story unfolds, gradually gets darker and darker. You sort of realize, in my interpretation, who runs the world and it’s something like the antichrist. There’s Luffy, a pirate who wears a red straw hat, sort of like Christ’s crown of thorns. And then towards the end of the story, transforms into a figure who resembles Christ in Revelation.

Thiel, along with a researcher and writer at Thiel Capital, explored these ideas at greater length in an essay for the religious journal First Things earlier this month.

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 3h

buy Kelly’s book about correspondence with activists when things are falling apart that she’s been too busy to promote because she’s an activist in a city where things are falling apart

Preorder Read This When Things Fall Apart @mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 1d

My publisher’s been very patient. I’m not doing everything I said I’d do to promote this book (out in a few weeks) because I’m an organizer in a city under federal attack. My days are full and emotionally exhausting. Any help getting the word out means a lot. It's a book people need right now.

Read This When Things Fall Apart by Kelly Hayes | Pilsen Community Books

A bundle of letters to activists and organizers on the frontlines in catastrophic times from Let This Radicalize You co-author Kelly Hayes In social movements, some heartbreaks are all but inevitable.

www.pilsencommunitybooks.com

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 3h

The tendency to view their conduct in terms of bad faith implies there’s a persuasive way out of this. You prove them wrong. You argue until they have to acknowledge you’re right.

but no, that won’t work. you punch nazis. that’s persuasion bby.

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 3h

this isn’t a criticism bc I agree with Greg but I feel like we need a new terminology for this. it’s not really hypocrisy or bad faith. they’re engaged in a project that doesn’t value those concepts.

it’s a fundamentally irrational ideology based on overt displays of power and loyalty tests.

Alan Elrod @aselrod.bsky.social · 21h

“the conventions of political reporting today are poorly suited to capturing this naked use of sheer pretexts and the bottomless bad faith they rely upon.”
@gregsargent.bsky.social is absolutely right. Big, legacy media has got to catch up to reality.

Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 1d

This week, MAGA figures claimed Kristi Noem "stared down" violent antifa protesters in Portland. Turns out they were talking mostly about a guy in a chicken suit.

This episode opens a window into how MAGA propaganda works and MSM failure to handle it. 1/

(new piece)
newrepublic.com/article/2016...

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 4h

imagine the line between “so weird you *must* be on the flight logs” and “weird but too weird for what other weirdos are doing”

I propose that line lives between Earthworm Jim and Malcolm Gladwell.

Jesse Singal Vapes Piss @mumbly-joe.bsky.social · 4h

Bold of u to claim Earthworm Jim would not be

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Cactrot @cactrot.bsky.social · 9h

We have known for a long time that guy with spiky hair, girl with purple hair and glasses and a frog is the ideal group for cataclysmic times.

Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 13h

people in Portland are taking down ICE with what looks like a party from Chrono Trigger

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Reposted by Joshua Erlich

DubbaEwwTeeEff @dubbaewwteeeff.bsky.social · 10h

Excuse me but his name is Fox McCloud and your ignorance of basic details speaks to your credibility as an expert witness.

Also they literally have their own spaceships that they travel in everywhere, it doesn't make sense that they would be in the flight logs of a private plane

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 12h

we don’t call it be Roberts one-step

Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 12h

beautiful

Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 12h

Star Fox yes
Earthworm Jim no
Double Dragon double yes
Battletoads no (except Rash)

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 13h

people in Portland are taking down ICE with what looks like a party from Chrono Trigger

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 13h

🫡

Reposted by Joshua Erlich

Kimmy on the Radio 🎙️📻 @akakimmy.bsky.social · 13h

My fav headline from this year:

Headline from PC Gamer article that reads: "Hideo Kojima says he won't play the MGS 3 remake, mentions he knows loads of ways to kill people, doesn't elaborate, leaves"

By Joshua Wolens published July 31, 2025
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/hideo-kojima-says-he-wont-play-the-mgs-3-remake-mentions-he-knows-loads-of-ways-to-kill-people-doesnt-elaborate-leaves/

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 13h

funny split here bt internet poisoned people who know and people who have no idea

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 13h

once again, wrongfully imprisoning someone for decades should be tried like murder.

arresting that guy when he gets out well, that should be treated like [redacted] and [redacted] until [oh god redact this].

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 13h

me, for 2 seconds: wait, there’s no relation right?

[2 seconds later]

oh that right he was such a drunk asshole that all of his kids changed their names

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 13h

gotta burn this motherfucker down folks

Lynn Becker @cmgiulini.bsky.social · 14h

After spending 43 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, evidence hidden by the prosecution reversed his conviction. Rather than finally enjoying freedom, ICE abducted him for deportation

Depraved.

www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...