RainSurname
@rainsurname.bsky.social
2.4K followers 1.7K following 30K posts
DC native, long time Portlander, haver of opinions & cats, which I post at @catssurname.bsky.social linktr.ee/RainSurname
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Reposted by RainSurname
theophite.bsky.social
it isn't even profitable. LLMs, sure. they do a bunch of useful things. video models are just rolling coal to piss in the world's information environment.
rainsurname.bsky.social
I ordered a chest freezer from Lowe's on sale. Someone at the store near me sold it without checking for pending online orders.

Another store took over, gave me a new delivery date. Then someone at that store did the same thing.

A week late, they dumped it on my porch 6 hours before the window.
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dieworkwear.bsky.social
It's hard to help Americans left behind because so much of US identity is rooted in individualism. The average American conservative holds all three positions at once:

— Virtue signals about supporting US manufacturing
— Against raising the minimum wage
— Buys foreign imports because they're cheap
HardPass4 on Twitter tweets: "I'm willing to pay more for quality products if they are made in America, by Americans, who are paid a decent income." The tweet shows Norman Rockwell's "Freedom of Speech" painting, which is often used to show the tweeter is expressing a brave opinion. HardPass4 on Twitter tweets: "MINIMUM WAGE JOBS WERE NOT MEANT TO BE A CAREER. Why does no one understand this? Entry level jobs are STEPPING STONES to better jobs. No one wants to work towards that though." HardPass4 on Twitter tweets: "Buy $5 gloves instead of $50 ones. Trust me." The tweet shows a box of "Gorilla Grip" gloves. The label on Gorilla Grip gloves show they're made in China.
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svartflagg.bsky.social
Today in Portland, a fed shooting pepper balls from the roof of the ICE facility was so eager to aim for people’s heads, that after shooting one photographer in the head and another in the upper arm, they accidentally shot a DHS agent in the head. This photo shows the moment of impact;
Riot cops standing a street with less-lethal weapons, and one in a gas mask has a cloud of pepper dust around his helmet.
rainsurname.bsky.social
They never stopped calling Republicans weird.

The media just stopped covering it, & started quoting consultants who didn't like it instead, which was yet another
example of them creating an alternate reality in which Dems listen to milquetoast consultants a lot more than they actually do.
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jeffvandermeer.bsky.social
This heartfelt and meaningful statement by Portland resident and author Cristina Breshears on another social media platform bears reposting here. I don't think the intent is to idealize Portland but to remind all of us what is important and why. (Posted here with permission.)
For nine nights now, the steady thrum of Black Hawk helicopters has circled over Portland. The sound is constant, invasive; a low mechanical beating above our homes. It’s expensive. It’s intimidating. And it’s unnecessary.

Our protests have been largely peaceful. There is no insurrection here. Yet this federalized military presence makes us feel like we are living in a war zone (the very kind of chaos this administration claims to be protecting us from). 

The irony is painful: it is only this occupation that makes Portland feel unsafe.

Each hour of helicopter flight costs taxpayers between $2,000 and $4,000, depending on crew, fuel, and maintenance. Multiply that by multiple aircraft over multiple nights, and you’re looking at hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars burned into the sky. Meanwhile, the Woodstock Food Pantry at All Saints Episcopal Church — which feeds working families, elders, and people with disabilities — has seen its federal funding slashed by 75%. How can we justify pouring public money into intimidation while cutting aid to those who simply need to eat?

This is waste, fraud, and abuse in plain sight:
* Waste of public resources on military theatrics.
* Fraud in the name of “public safety.”
* Abuse of the communities that federal agencies claim to protect.

Portland is a Sanctuary City. A sanctuary city is not a fortress. It’s a promise — a living vow that a community will protect the dignity and safety of everyone who calls it home. It means that local governments and ordinary people alike will refuse to criminalize survival. That schools, clinics, churches, and shelters will remain safe spaces no matter who you are or where you were born. But the term reaches far beyond policy. It’s an ethic of belonging; a refusal to criminalize need, difference, or desperation. 
Sanctuary isn’t weakness. It’s courage. It takes moral strength to meet suffering with care instead of punishment, to believe that our neighbors’ safety is bound up in our own, to insist that safety is not achieved through force but through community, inclusion, and trust. It is living Matthew 25:40 out loud and in deed. It is an act of moral imagination and moral defiance. To hold sanctuary is to say: you belong here.

When we hold space for the most vulnerable — refugees, the unhoused, the undocumented, the disabled, the working poor, the displaced — we become something larger than a collection of individuals. We become a moral body. We do more than offer charity. We offer witness. We declare that the measure of a nation is found not in its towers or tanks, but in its tenderness.

Sanctuary cities are not lawless; they are soulful. They represent the conscience of the nation, a place where the laws of empathy still apply. To make sanctuary is to affirm that the United States is not merely a geographic territory, but a moral experiment: a republic that must constantly choose between fear and compassion, between domination and democracy. 
A nation’s soul is measured not by the might of its military, but by the mercy of its people. When helicopters circle our skies in the name of order, while food pantries struggle to feed the hungry, we are forced to ask: What are we defending, and from whom? The soul of a nation survives only when we make sanctuary for one another. Not through walls or weapons, but through compassion and collective will. If we allow intimidation to replace compassion, we will have traded our conscience for control.

Please know that despite the hum of war machines overhead, the conscience of our city — whimsical, creative, stubbornly kind — can still be heard.

Portland is not the problem. Portland is the reminder. A reminder that a city can still choose to be sanctuary. That a people can still choose to be human.
rainsurname.bsky.social
You seem to be an expert on smug fuckery.
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starshine.bsky.social
Not putting this person on blast who did nothing wrong and sounds like doesn’t want the attention, but this is just pure wrecker shit.
deleted a post of me in a frog suit with my 7-yr old daughter
because a big account reposted, admonishing us for not being
serious enough protestors (or something). I shouldn't have
included my daughter in the image, which was why I deleted it.
But I was stunned by the condescension.
October 12, 2025 at 6:20 PM
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kebrightbill.bsky.social
I'm getting real tired of seeing Tennessee Holler getting reskeeted into my feed, and they need to knock it off with the content thievery
noturtlesoup17.bsky.social
This really fucking sucks!!! I’m not even paid to be here by an outlet, so doing this is just fucking me personally!
rainsurname.bsky.social
Pretty sure the purpose of a lot of these accounts is to provide "leftists are insane" content for MAGAs to amplify.
rainsurname.bsky.social
I was so, so glad that the dump I was in for the first three years of the pandemic had hookups. I got a pair of machines off Craigslist for $100, which paid for themselves so fast.
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tylerboschert.bsky.social
It's very funny that the people saying "hey kids, it's cool and good to shine lasers at aircraft flying over populated areas" today are the same people who said a couple of weeks ago that anyone who gives Indivisible their email address is getting black-bagged for sure.
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faineg.bsky.social
As we all know, real activists who achieve real things talk about doing federal crimes on public social media all the time

(do not trust anyone who talks about how cool doing federal crimes is on public social media)
rainsurname.bsky.social
I have seen the discussions on Reddit. I remain dubious.
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golikehellmachine.com
your tactic of protesting in an inflatable frog suit which gets normal people on your side is far inferior to my tactic of posting about laser blinding helicopter pilots which is both wildly illegal and, were it to succeed, would put basically *everyone* against me
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kevinmkruse.bsky.social
Also, using “thought police” to describe the *critics* of someone who literally launched her career by trying to police the thoughts of her pro-Palestinian professors at Columbia is AMAZING
davelevitan.bsky.social
I know it's basically just bait so whatever but if you use "thought police" unironically you should be forced to sit in a corner without your phone for a full hour
Sally Jenkins post with a link to whatever awful Atlantic piece about Bari Weiss reading "Ratio me. Please. It's a badge of honor. If you don't like a link, go follow some chicken-heart who needs the approval of the thought-police. Caitlin Flanagan of 
@theatlantic.com
 is a tremendous writer and this piece is an excellent read. "
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buddyspell.bsky.social
Fort Worth, Texas.

#WeAreEverywhere
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cwebbonline.com
The WH is laughing at Republicans in Congress, because they know they’re dog walking them.

Trump’s top advisers joke about ruling Congress w/an “iron fist.” Bannon compared the GOP-controlled House to the Russian Duma, a ceremonial rubber stamp.

They’re Trump’s puppets, and everyone knows it.
rainsurname.bsky.social
Some MAGAs came out to counter protest here in Portland.

When someone asked how they could support screaming children being taken away from their parents, they just laughed and said it wasn't their kids.
rainsurname.bsky.social
Pointing lasers up into the sky is bad, actually.

They're trying so hard to pretend the Portland protests are violent that an obviously fake flyer started circulating about a "laser party" to take down the helicopters that are keeping people awake, & a hospital had to stop letting Life Flight land.
rainsurname.bsky.social
The only arcade games I really liked as a teen were Centipede, Frogger, & Q'bert.
rainsurname.bsky.social
I was so bummed to find out that Tubi is part of Fox.