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Mr. America

@skinnerboxusa.bsky.social

430 followers 410 following 6.5K posts

"The Simpsons" is a documentary. Homer is the median American. Formerly SkinnerBoxUSA at the other place. IFBAV.

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Mr. America @skinnerboxusa.bsky.social · Aug 31

We're like a squabbling family whose car broke down in "Hills Have Eyes" country, smoke coming from the hood, and vowing to buy a better brand of spark plugs, or fill the tank with premium gasoline next time.

The engine blew up, son. You either need a new engine or a new car, period.

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Roy Edroso @edroso.bsky.social · 20h

I hustled to get this week's alicublog Friday 'Round-the-Horn up on time so you could read it before ICE kidnaps me at Saturday's No Kings rally. Avenge me, comrades! And while you're at it, enjoy two (2) ROY EDROSO BREAKS IT DOWN freebies! alicublog.blogspot.com/2025/10/frid...

<B>FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: TAKIN' IT TO THE STREETS EDITION.</B>

You still need a drugstore to cure my cough. Getting this Friday ‘Round-the-Horn (which often turns into Saturday ‘Round-the-Horn or even Su...

alicublog.blogspot.com

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Shiv Ramdas Mens Rice Activist @nameshiv.bsky.social · 1d

correct

C.V. Danes @cv-danes.com · 1d

My feeling is that the most important opportunity for the 2026 midterms is not flipping Congress to the Dems, but flipping the Dems to an actual opposition party.

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Your Internet Friend Tom Tomorrow @tomtomorrow.bsky.social · 1d

👀

this thing's gonna break six figures

THANK YOU to everyone who has supported my little project!!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/tom...

Our Long National Nightmare by Tom Tomorrow

Relive the trauma of the last five years through the cartoons of Herblock Award winner and Pulitzer nominee Tom Tomorrow.

www.kickstarter.com

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Mr. America @skinnerboxusa.bsky.social · 17h

The only thing I'm marginally curious about is that photograph, and which nepo-asshole-funder's lake house that was taken at, because that's all *that* was.

Is "Young Republicans" a 501(c)(3) org? Asking for a few million friends out there.

/x

Mr. America @skinnerboxusa.bsky.social · 17h

As always, if you're offended by "lookism" or "fat-shaming" or whatever, fair enough. Walk on by, I guess. Ordinarily I'd agree, but these people have positioned their arguments on racial supremacy and "meritocracy," and....come on, now. Sometimes you have to call a spade an entrenching implement.

Mr. America @skinnerboxusa.bsky.social · 17h

"Deepseek, give me several variations on 'Eric Cartman as an adult.' Make a couple of them female, I guess."

Fuckin' Golden Corral punch-card-lookin' motherfuckers, afaic. 🖕🤡💩

Mr. America @skinnerboxusa.bsky.social · 1d

As a lifelong Californian, I know very little about NYC directly. But as an MBA bidness-weasel, I'm pretty good at estimating who someone's "median customer" is, who they aim their pitch at the most.

All I see w/Cuomo is oligarchs who know who they're renting. No normal or decent person wants him.

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muscular baby jeb lund @mobute.bsky.social · 1d

The law's our yardstick, and it measures well
Or well enough when there are yards to measure.
Measure a wave with it, measure a fire,
Cut sorrow up in inches, weigh content.
You can weigh John Brown's body well enough,
But how and in what balance weigh John Brown?

He had the shepherd's gift, but that was all.
He had no other single gift for life.
Some men are pasture Death turns back to pasture,
Some are fire-opals on that iron wrist,
Some the deep roots of wisdoms not yet born.
John Brown was none of these,
He was a stone,
A stone eroded to a cutting edge
By obstinacy, failure and cold prayers.
Discredited farmer, dubiously involved
In lawsuit after lawsuit, Shubel Morgan
Fantastic bandit of the Kansas border,
Red-handed murderer at Pottawattomie,
Cloudy apostle, whooped along to death
By those who do no violence themselves
But only buy the guns to have it done,
Sincere of course, as all fanatics are,
And with a certain minor-prophet air,
That fooled the world to thinking him half-great
When all he did consistently was fail.

So far one advocate.
But there is this.

Sometimes there comes a crack in Time itself.
Sometimes the earth is torn by something blind.
Sometimes an image that has stood so long
It seems implanted as the polar star
Is moved against an unfathomed force
That suddenly will not have it any more.
Call it the mores, call it God or Fate,
Call it Mansoul or economic law,
That force exists and moves.
And when it moves
It will employ a hard and actual stone
To batter into bits an actual wall
And change the actual scheme of things.
John Brown
Was such a stone--unreasoning as the stone,
Destructive as the stone, and, if you like,
Heroic and devoted as such a stone.
He had no gift for life, no gift to bring
Life but his body and a cutting edge,
But he knew how to die.

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Mr. America @skinnerboxusa.bsky.social · 1d

Every Democratic politician needs to be singing this song in three-part harmony non-stop. Nothing else matters now. Their own lives may quite literally depend on it at this point.
#NoKings
bsky.app/profile/atru...

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Chris Murphy: "This is a country that's falling apart because Trump is in the middle of an authoritarian takeover. We're not on the verge of an authoritarian takeover. We're in the middle of it ... I have no moral obligation to vote for a budget that literally funds the destruction of our democracy"

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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 1d

Kinda seems like whether or not the president has the power to assassinate people with no due process, no input from Congress, no review, no oversight, and with no obligation to provide anyone with any information or evidence other than “trust me” is an important test of our democracy.

Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 1d

News on Trump boat bombings --> Now that SouthCom Commander Alvin Holsey has resigned, likely over the bombings, ranking Armed Services Dem Adam Smith tells me committee Ds will demand Holsey's sworn testimony and press Rs to join them.

Smith spoke to us on the pod:
newrepublic.com/article/2019...

Trump Boat Bombings Take Darker Turn as Top Official Suddenly Resigns

As the head of the military’s Southern Command steps down, Adam Smith, the top Armed Services Committee Democrat, sheds new light on the departure—and on Trump’s appalling secrecy about the bombings.

newrepublic.com

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rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 1d

Okay! This is going to take a while so I had to finish some stuff first, but: Why Da Pope Fucking Up Opus Dei Is A Huge Fucking Deal: a thread

rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 1d

Gimme an hour or two and then I'll explain why this is a "holy fucking shit" moment!

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Mr. America @skinnerboxusa.bsky.social · 1d

"Herded" is doing some extra lifting there; it's not that people are dumb about this stuff, it's that there's a fine line between "routines" and "ruts," and we usually don't know we're in the latter until we're deep in it.

Just weird that NYT needs to do product promo on that. Someone's niece.

/x

Mr. America @skinnerboxusa.bsky.social · 1d

There is -- and I mean is this 100% seriously, and am in fact doing some market / product research on this for a side hustle -- a massive market out there for people who want / need to be basically herded away from their procrastination and inertia and clutter, and develop better routines / habits.

Mr. America @skinnerboxusa.bsky.social · 1d

Lol, this hits me where I live. I push a fair amount of paper, and I'm very much a to-do-list person, so I -- get this -- take a few sheets of waste paper every so often, cut it into quarters, staple it, and ta-da! -- a few weeks' worth of list sheets.

FFS, people. 😤
bsky.app/profile/nyti...

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 2d

This minimalist, paper-based to-do manager can help you focus on completing your important tasks while staying offline. nyti.ms/4h8ijiC

An Ugmonk Analog card standing up in the card holder on a desk beside a keyboard and laptop sitting on a riser.

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A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social · 2d

“We gotta fill our teens with sperm” say two old men who look like handbags made from walrus scrotum.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

RFK Jr: "Today the average teenager in this country has 50% of the sperm count, 50% of the testosterone of a 65 year old man. Our girls are hitting puberty 6 years early ... our parents aren't having children."

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Jessica Ritchey @jmritchey.bsky.social · 1d

If I had explain American history in one sentence, I could do worse than "John Brown was hung for treason, but Robert E. Lee was not."

Jacobin @jacobinmag.bsky.social · 2d

John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry began on this day in 1859.

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Ed Burmila @edburmila.bsky.social · 2d

Tapping

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Richard M. Nixon @dicknixon.bsky.social · 1d

When you name people, there is no turning back.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Pritzker: "Stephen Miller is clearly ordering people to break the law. So he should know that yeah, it may be three years from now that he is held accountable, but I think it's important for them to know that whatever they do now, it's not like we're going to forget."

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Mr. America @skinnerboxusa.bsky.social · 1d

He realized he forgot to win+L his laptop before leaving his office for the press feed. His browser history is probably the stuff of nightmares. 😬

Mr. America @skinnerboxusa.bsky.social · 1d

It's been nearly 15 yrs since I did my master's thesis, but it was on comparing public- and private-sector wellness programs, and boy howdy, did I go down a fuckin' rabbit-hole lined with filthy pelf.

The whole fucking system is nothing but a racket -- and that's WITH Obamacare.

/x

Mr. America @skinnerboxusa.bsky.social · 1d

Like the weather, everyone complains about the cost of health care, but no one ever *does* anything about it -- could it be the unholy cartel of pharma / insurance / HMOs colluding to hoover money out of your pockets and into theirs?

Well fuck, gee, I dunno, doctor, ya think?

Mr. America @skinnerboxusa.bsky.social · 1d

I'll assume it's some pharma drug that was developed in a state-uni lab, licensed to a corp for pennies on the dollar, probably produced for ~10¢/dose, and then jacked into the fucking stratosphere so some spreadsheet diddler can take home an eight-figure annual salary.

Such a fucking scam.

Mr. America @skinnerboxusa.bsky.social · 1d

Another innumerate numpty given a multi-billion-dollar budget to play with and plunder, but I'm actually more interested in *what* was discounted by 96% here.
bsky.app/profile/atru...

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Dr Oz: "You'll notice, President Trump, these are discounted from $242 to $10. I don't know what the math is on that. We can't even calculate it. It's too high to calculate."

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @aoc.bsky.social · 1d

Swearing in isn’t some ceremony. You aren’t a member of Congress until it happens. He knows that.

No phones, no staff, nothing.

I had to escort her into the Capitol on Wed bc Capitol police must treat her as a public visitor until she’s sworn in. And solo visitors aren’t allowed during shutdown!

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Johnson: "Grijalva should be working for her constituents right now. I don't know what she's doing. I keep seeing their political stunt videos. She should be in her office. She should be working or in the district for her constituents" (Grijalva is not in fact a Rep. b/c Johnson refuses to seat her)

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Mr. America @skinnerboxusa.bsky.social · 1d

Obviously, "white replacement theory" aside, any 1st-year sociology student can tell you that fertility rates decline mostly in step with the level of female education -- the farther girls get in school, the fewer children they have.

Kinder, Küche, Kirche for all the tradwives out there.

/x