Brian PJ Cronin
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brianpjcronin.bsky.social
Brian PJ Cronin
@brianpjcronin.bsky.social
Environmental Reporter for The Highlands Current: An award-winning, non-profit, independent newspaper in New York's Hudson Valley. (https://highlandscurrent.org/author/bcronin/) Also teaching journalism at Marist University. He/Him.
February 13, 2026 at 4:42 AM
Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin
February 13, 2026 at 2:18 AM
That sign the kid in the middle is holding.

"Y'all don't look for missing kids this hard."
It’s time to abolish ICE. NY can't abide anything less | Opinion
It’s time to get the masked agents off our streets. It’s time to require government officials to follow the constitution. It’s time to abolish ICE.
www.lohud.com
February 13, 2026 at 2:20 AM
Mariah Lopez, a transgender activist, said the rainbow flag’s unauthorized return was in keeping with the history of the monument.

“You know, Stonewall was a riot,” Ms. Lopez said
A group of New York elected officials gathered on Thursday to replace the Pride flag that was removed from the Stonewall National Monument after a directive from the Trump administration.
N.Y.C. Officials Reinstate Pride Flag at Stonewall After Federal Removal
Hundreds of people attended a rally on Thursday to re-raise the flag, setting up a defiant response to the Trump administration’s assault on diversity initiatives.
nyti.ms
February 13, 2026 at 2:08 AM
I mean this fits right in with the whole “greenhouse gas emissions are fine, actually” world view.
RFK Jr: I'm not scared of a germ. I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats.
February 12, 2026 at 9:28 PM
I wrote this several months ago when it became clear they were going to try and repeal the endangerment finding:

“They can’t tell you the climate isn’t getting warmer when you remember having to make sure your children had jackets at Halloween, and now your grandchildren can wear shorts.”
Out There: Touch Grass
The radical act of paying attention
highlandscurrent.org
February 12, 2026 at 9:04 PM
Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin
"...the administration is essentially saying that the vast majority of scientists around the world are wrong and that a hotter planet is not the menace that decades of research shows it to be.

It’s a rejection of fact that had been accepted for decades by presidents of both parties..."

Gift link.
Trump Administration Erases the Government’s Power to Fight Climate Change
www.nytimes.com
February 12, 2026 at 7:56 PM
Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin
The NYT credited a local paper -- the Times Union in Albany, NY -- TWICE in a story today, which is very admirable and may have set a record.

(And kudos to the Times Union for, as the NYT put it, "assiduously" covering these shenanigans.)

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/n...
U.S. Attorney Chosen to Replace Trump Pick Is Quickly Fired by White House
www.nytimes.com
February 12, 2026 at 6:35 PM
On a related note:
February 12, 2026 at 2:49 PM
I just played Kirby Air Riders for the first time and in my first hour of game play I screamed WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING at least six times (complimentary)
February 12, 2026 at 5:10 AM
The laughing reaction emoji on Facebook is one of the more unheralded villains of our wretched era.
February 12, 2026 at 3:13 AM
Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin
Rep. Pat Ryan, whose House district includes Beacon, said on Wednesday (Feb. 11) that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement needed to explain why it rented office space on Union Avenue in New Windsor.
ICE Leases Space in Hudson Valley
Report: Agency has office in New Windsor
buff.ly
February 12, 2026 at 1:45 AM
Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin
Dentist: Have you been flossing?

Me: *deflects by consulting my burn book of dentist insults* Big talk from a guy who looks at tongues all day
February 12, 2026 at 1:14 AM
Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin
Jesus, Andrew Ranken died, too? www.bbc.com/news/article...
The Pogues drummer Andrew Ranken dead at 72
In a statement published online the band said Ranken was the "heartbeat of The Pogues".
www.bbc.com
February 12, 2026 at 12:58 AM
Meanwhile, many libraries that used to offer passport services were recently told by the Federal government they can’t do that anymore. Probably a coincidence!
February 11, 2026 at 11:56 PM
Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin
people rant so much about dems on bsky (i get it) they seem to forget republicans' power in the current administration... www.cnbc.com/2026/02/11/g...
House votes to override Trump's Canada tariffs
Republican House leaders tried, and failed, to pass a measure on Tuesday that would have blocked House disapproval votes on Trump tariffs through July.
www.cnbc.com
February 11, 2026 at 11:34 PM
Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin
Especially bad news for Atlantans, but also bad news for all of us and democracy. As more and more cities become increasingly unreported, ordinary corruption has an ever more open field into which to cohere into local authoritarianisms, rippling out and up.
Even more bad news for Atlanta local journalism: @atlpresscollective.com, which has extensively covered "Cop City", ICE, and Flock cameras, and a finalist for the @inn.org Insight Award for Visual Journalism, announced today that they have run out of cash to stay open beyond the end of March.
More bad news for Atlanta local journalism: Mariann Martin, Co-founder, Operations and Editorial Director of @canopyatl.bsky.social, announced her departure from the newsroom yesterday.

The award-winning nonprofit and Press Forward grantee has not published a single story since Dec. 2025.
February 11, 2026 at 10:26 PM
Tell me you’ve been stiffing the collection plate without telling me you’ve been stiffing the collection plate
February 11, 2026 at 10:19 PM
Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin
The Trump admin has cancelled $561 million in funding for research on cancer.
February 11, 2026 at 5:54 PM
Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin
Oh, I shoulda mentioned - this also comes with a playlist
The past month has brought a flurry of political music on a level unseen since the BLM uprising in 2020. That's because protest songs come out of movements, not - as rock'n'roll myth sometimes has it - movements out of songs. I wrote about that for Slate this week. slate.com/culture/2026...
Liberals Keep Looking for the New Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan. It’s the Wrong Model.
What people misunderstand about protest songs.
slate.com
February 11, 2026 at 4:34 PM
"Water was never a danger. When we breathe, we emit water. We need water to survive and grow. So blowing up the dam opens up an opportunity to flood the city and everyone in it with 5 trillion gallons of clean, beautiful, American water."
Burgum: "CO2 was never a pollutant. When we breathe, we emit CO2. Plants need CO2 to survive and grow. They thrive with more CO2. So the whole endangerment thing opens up an opportunity for the revival of clean, beautiful, American coal."
February 11, 2026 at 3:36 PM
Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin
"Fight against being ass" is a message that more people need to receive, tbh
February 11, 2026 at 12:36 PM
Trump to direct Pentagon to replace M1 Abrams tanks with penny-farthing bicycles in order to revive penny-farthing bicycle industry
February 11, 2026 at 3:26 AM
Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin
The Federal Judicial Center deleted a chapter on climate science from a reference manual for judges. I spoke to one of the authors of the chapter. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/c...
Climate Change Is Erased From a Manual for Federal Judges
www.nytimes.com
February 10, 2026 at 9:22 PM
On one hand, yes, this was last month at a different event and NOT the Olympics but on the other hand I don't care, I have been watching this on a loop and laughing hysterically for ten minutes, this is cinema fr fr
Plans to invade Greenland have just been cancelled after this
February 10, 2026 at 8:10 PM