brian f
@misanthropitron.bsky.social
bad at social media, self-promotion, and profile descriptions. pretty good at self-deprecation.
👾game developer
🎸guitar noodler
🐈cat butler
he/him
👾game developer
🎸guitar noodler
🐈cat butler
he/him
Reposted by brian f
I know the US has done a ton of atrocities globally, but it’s really something to get so mad about one *good* thing we were doing that you turn it into a new atrocity. They KILLED MILLIONS OF CHILDREN with a keystroke and a grin, not a second thought. Unimaginable evil. Vought/Musk Hague 2027 Tour
As a direct result of the obscene actions of Russell Vought and Elon Musk in destroying USAID, we can expect “at least 9.4 million additional deaths by 2030, if the current funding trend continues.
About 2.5 million of those deaths are projected to be children under the age of 5.”
About 2.5 million of those deaths are projected to be children under the age of 5.”
One year on from dismantling of USAID, study projects that global aid cuts could lead to 9.4 million deaths by 2030 | CNN
It’s been one year since the Trump administration dismantled the US Agency for International Development (USAID), with aid cuts leading to the closure of HIV clinics in South Africa, the termination o...
www.cnn.com
February 17, 2026 at 4:19 AM
I know the US has done a ton of atrocities globally, but it’s really something to get so mad about one *good* thing we were doing that you turn it into a new atrocity. They KILLED MILLIONS OF CHILDREN with a keystroke and a grin, not a second thought. Unimaginable evil. Vought/Musk Hague 2027 Tour
Reposted by brian f
I don’t really know what I expect in posting this, but maybe some people see it and can learn from it.
I’ll call it “lessons from an unwilling immigration attorney.”
1/
I’ll call it “lessons from an unwilling immigration attorney.”
1/
February 11, 2026 at 9:56 PM
I don’t really know what I expect in posting this, but maybe some people see it and can learn from it.
I’ll call it “lessons from an unwilling immigration attorney.”
1/
I’ll call it “lessons from an unwilling immigration attorney.”
1/
Reposted by brian f
Over the past two weeks I've begun to realize that rich people only started funding chatbots once they could no longer email Jeffrey Epstein
February 5, 2026 at 10:02 PM
Over the past two weeks I've begun to realize that rich people only started funding chatbots once they could no longer email Jeffrey Epstein
Reposted by brian f
Epstein is like the evil Forrest Gump, somehow present and responsible for every terrible thing of the last twenty years.
February 6, 2026 at 4:37 AM
Epstein is like the evil Forrest Gump, somehow present and responsible for every terrible thing of the last twenty years.
Reposted by brian f
Please read this extremely thoughtful & careful post on Tim Walz, Anne Frank, & the US Holocaust Memorial Museum from Martin Shuster, philosopher, Isaac Swift Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies, former Holocaust Memorial Museum Fellow, & scholar of genocide, the Holocaust, & authoritarianism:
![Not unrelatedly, I am noticing that a lot of--oftentimes even well-intentioned--people are spending time trying to delineate exactly which historical referent best captures what's going on now, as if we have to pick only one. There is the now well-circulated meme that says: no, ICE isn't the Gestapo, it's actually American--it's slave catchers. But this is a kind of odd distinction: the Nazis were themselves influenced by the Americans (if you're curious read the excellent book by James Whitman, _Hitler's American Model_). Nazis came here and studied American legal systems and statutes ... and remarkably a group of "liberal" Nazis decided that they couldn't make German laws as *extreme* as American ones (and this "liberal" group in fact won the day; German laws weren't as extreme as many of ours). Equally, Nazi jurists and theorists like Carl Schmitt were deeply influenced by American notions of manifest destiny. So the Nazi and American contexts were already fused. The idea of foreign/domestic is already quite complex in this context. (And this is before we even speak of the many actual Nazis that existed here and the many people who materially supported Hitler and the regime).
We can complicate this picture more by noting that Nazism itself, even apart from these American influences, wasn't something that sprouted up out of thin air: it, too, had a(n experimental) history. Many of its barbaric practices and aims were developed and tested on colonial and imperial victims (as I have written elsewhere: there is a direct line from Shark Island concentration camp [called frequently simply "Death Island" where the Germans committed genocide against the Herero and Nama people] to the entire Nazi camp system). Thinkers like Hannah Arendt and Aimé Césaire drew our attention to this already in the middle of the last century.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ybkylffhwhn2an2ic2lxh76k/bafkreifucubotcz54scclzmnpxlnv6x5olf2zb6ow5xufzdyqbflhuzcn4@jpeg)
January 30, 2026 at 1:24 AM
Please read this extremely thoughtful & careful post on Tim Walz, Anne Frank, & the US Holocaust Memorial Museum from Martin Shuster, philosopher, Isaac Swift Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies, former Holocaust Memorial Museum Fellow, & scholar of genocide, the Holocaust, & authoritarianism:
Reposted by brian f
A national general strike is needed not just to protest the violence, but to acknowledge the absurdity that we’re all just supposed to carry on with our stupid little daily lives amidst the ambient terrorism of an unchecked state militia executing innocent people in the streets of our country.
January 24, 2026 at 8:33 PM
A national general strike is needed not just to protest the violence, but to acknowledge the absurdity that we’re all just supposed to carry on with our stupid little daily lives amidst the ambient terrorism of an unchecked state militia executing innocent people in the streets of our country.
Reposted by brian f
He died exercising his First Amendment rights. He was a lawful gun owner. Anyone with eyes can see he was holding nothing more than a phone. He was executed while restrained by five men. These are crimes against humanity.
Alex from our time working together, while he was in nursing school. Later, he moved to ICU, working as a nurse to support critically ill Veterans. He had such a great attitude. We’d chat between patients about trying to get in a mountain bike ride together. Will never happen now
January 24, 2026 at 7:47 PM
He died exercising his First Amendment rights. He was a lawful gun owner. Anyone with eyes can see he was holding nothing more than a phone. He was executed while restrained by five men. These are crimes against humanity.
Reposted by brian f
tired of everything being so terrible, and also of everything being so stupid
January 15, 2026 at 9:43 PM
tired of everything being so terrible, and also of everything being so stupid
This is truly embarrassing, CNN
The woman killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis last week served on the board of her son’s school, which linked to documents encouraging parents to monitor ICE and directing them to training. https://cnn.it/49yoNEa
January 14, 2026 at 4:13 AM
This is truly embarrassing, CNN
Reposted by brian f
Reposted by brian f
fuck this monstrous, degenerate administration and every asshole who voted for them. fuck them into the sun.
January 8, 2026 at 2:48 AM
fuck this monstrous, degenerate administration and every asshole who voted for them. fuck them into the sun.
Reposted by brian f
And we all just have to keep clocking in, keep paying the bills, keep paying our taxes, keep checking our credit scores, keep marching along funding the machinations of a fascist state just to keep the lights on 🙃
January 7, 2026 at 11:09 PM
And we all just have to keep clocking in, keep paying the bills, keep paying our taxes, keep checking our credit scores, keep marching along funding the machinations of a fascist state just to keep the lights on 🙃
Reposted by brian f
NEWS: In a heartbreaking video, after ICE shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, a woman who was in the same SUV cries out: “They killed my wife. I don’t know what to do."
“We stopped to videotape, and they shot her in the head,” the distraught woman sobs.
www.advocate.com/news/minneso...
“We stopped to videotape, and they shot her in the head,” the distraught woman sobs.
www.advocate.com/news/minneso...
Distraught woman says ICE killed her wife in video after deadly Minneapolis shooting
“They killed my wife,” the distraught woman says, adding, “They shot her in the head.”
www.advocate.com
January 7, 2026 at 8:55 PM
NEWS: In a heartbreaking video, after ICE shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, a woman who was in the same SUV cries out: “They killed my wife. I don’t know what to do."
“We stopped to videotape, and they shot her in the head,” the distraught woman sobs.
www.advocate.com/news/minneso...
“We stopped to videotape, and they shot her in the head,” the distraught woman sobs.
www.advocate.com/news/minneso...
Reposted by brian f
Since yesterday, many people have DM’d to say that they were strongly affected by my essay & wished they could share it.
So I've revised, expanded, & posted it for free on both Substack & Patreon.
Please feel free to share.
www.patreon.com/posts/this-i...
catvalente.substack.com/p/this-is-wh...
So I've revised, expanded, & posted it for free on both Substack & Patreon.
Please feel free to share.
www.patreon.com/posts/this-i...
catvalente.substack.com/p/this-is-wh...
December 19, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Since yesterday, many people have DM’d to say that they were strongly affected by my essay & wished they could share it.
So I've revised, expanded, & posted it for free on both Substack & Patreon.
Please feel free to share.
www.patreon.com/posts/this-i...
catvalente.substack.com/p/this-is-wh...
So I've revised, expanded, & posted it for free on both Substack & Patreon.
Please feel free to share.
www.patreon.com/posts/this-i...
catvalente.substack.com/p/this-is-wh...
Reposted by brian f
It is wild that Charlie Kirk of all things is becoming *the* litmus test.
Even just talking about the event publicly without a sufficient supply of sackcloth and ashes is cast as "promoting political violence." I haven't seen this kind of mandatory performance of allegiance and piety since 9/11.
Even just talking about the event publicly without a sufficient supply of sackcloth and ashes is cast as "promoting political violence." I haven't seen this kind of mandatory performance of allegiance and piety since 9/11.
September 18, 2025 at 7:08 AM
It is wild that Charlie Kirk of all things is becoming *the* litmus test.
Even just talking about the event publicly without a sufficient supply of sackcloth and ashes is cast as "promoting political violence." I haven't seen this kind of mandatory performance of allegiance and piety since 9/11.
Even just talking about the event publicly without a sufficient supply of sackcloth and ashes is cast as "promoting political violence." I haven't seen this kind of mandatory performance of allegiance and piety since 9/11.
Reposted by brian f
Tonight’s dumb napkin cartoon…
August 12, 2025 at 1:28 AM
Tonight’s dumb napkin cartoon…
Reposted by brian f
I guess we’re okay with this.
(Feel free to RT this over the next few days, weeks, years, forever)
(Feel free to RT this over the next few days, weeks, years, forever)
August 11, 2025 at 3:24 PM
I guess we’re okay with this.
(Feel free to RT this over the next few days, weeks, years, forever)
(Feel free to RT this over the next few days, weeks, years, forever)
Reposted by brian f
"The reason you should care about this is not that it could happen to you but that it is already happening to others. It is happening to people who, we claim, have rights just because we are human. It is happening to me, personally."
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/o...
Opinion | There’s a Name for What Trump Is Doing to Trans People: Denationalizing (Gift Article)
The message is that we are a threat to the nation. The subtext is that we are not of this nation.
www.nytimes.com
March 17, 2025 at 4:41 PM
"The reason you should care about this is not that it could happen to you but that it is already happening to others. It is happening to people who, we claim, have rights just because we are human. It is happening to me, personally."
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/o...
can i come over and look at you like this
February 9, 2025 at 5:16 PM
can i come over and look at you like this
go egrets or whatever
February 9, 2025 at 5:15 PM
go egrets or whatever
Reposted by brian f
Are the next 4 years really going to be logging on everyday to sentences like "a 19 year old doge intern called Big Balls has your social security number" because I'm already at capacity for this sort of thing
February 3, 2025 at 4:29 AM
Are the next 4 years really going to be logging on everyday to sentences like "a 19 year old doge intern called Big Balls has your social security number" because I'm already at capacity for this sort of thing
Reposted by brian f
so it's just gonna be a constant sick feeling of dread, got it
January 27, 2025 at 4:27 PM
so it's just gonna be a constant sick feeling of dread, got it