Bruce R McF (etc.)
@brucermcf.bsky.social
Obscure development & regional economist, teaching in South Carolina and living in both South Carolina and Tennessee. He/him
Dudes, you got even more digital ink than you every had real ink, because the supply of digital ink is endless.
They should be dripping in it from head to toe, every single one of them.
... 1/2
They should be dripping in it from head to toe, every single one of them.
... 1/2
Amen.
- - -
Mark Jacob: Fascists are at war with journalism. Why aren’t journalists at war with fascism? open.substack.com/pub/stopthep...
- - -
Mark Jacob: Fascists are at war with journalism. Why aren’t journalists at war with fascism? open.substack.com/pub/stopthep...
Fascists are at war with journalism. Why aren’t journalists at war with fascism?
Mainstream media seem willing to drop their duty in order to pick up profits
open.substack.com
January 20, 2026 at 6:31 PM
Dudes, you got even more digital ink than you every had real ink, because the supply of digital ink is endless.
They should be dripping in it from head to toe, every single one of them.
... 1/2
They should be dripping in it from head to toe, every single one of them.
... 1/2
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
Amen.
- - -
Mark Jacob: Fascists are at war with journalism. Why aren’t journalists at war with fascism? open.substack.com/pub/stopthep...
- - -
Mark Jacob: Fascists are at war with journalism. Why aren’t journalists at war with fascism? open.substack.com/pub/stopthep...
Fascists are at war with journalism. Why aren’t journalists at war with fascism?
Mainstream media seem willing to drop their duty in order to pick up profits
open.substack.com
January 20, 2026 at 5:55 PM
Amen.
- - -
Mark Jacob: Fascists are at war with journalism. Why aren’t journalists at war with fascism? open.substack.com/pub/stopthep...
- - -
Mark Jacob: Fascists are at war with journalism. Why aren’t journalists at war with fascism? open.substack.com/pub/stopthep...
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
1. ICE has STOPPED PAYING for medical treatment for its 73,000 detainees
ICE has not paid its bills to 3rd party providers since OCTOBER and the situation will likely persist for MONTHS, a Popular Information investigation reveals
Meanwhile, critically ill ICE detainees are not receiving care
🧵
ICE has not paid its bills to 3rd party providers since OCTOBER and the situation will likely persist for MONTHS, a Popular Information investigation reveals
Meanwhile, critically ill ICE detainees are not receiving care
🧵
ICE has stopped paying for detainee medical treatment
ICE halted payments in October, and the situation will persist for at least several more months
popular.info
January 20, 2026 at 1:42 PM
1. ICE has STOPPED PAYING for medical treatment for its 73,000 detainees
ICE has not paid its bills to 3rd party providers since OCTOBER and the situation will likely persist for MONTHS, a Popular Information investigation reveals
Meanwhile, critically ill ICE detainees are not receiving care
🧵
ICE has not paid its bills to 3rd party providers since OCTOBER and the situation will likely persist for MONTHS, a Popular Information investigation reveals
Meanwhile, critically ill ICE detainees are not receiving care
🧵
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
It makes a lot of sense that this guy could end up being a moral leader on a national scale *because* he can’t be president
Mamdani: "I am in support of abolishing ICE. What we see is an entity that has no interest in fulfilling its stated reason to exist. We're seeing a government agency that is supposed to be enforcing some kind of immigration law, but instead what it's doing is terrorizing people."
January 20, 2026 at 5:55 PM
It makes a lot of sense that this guy could end up being a moral leader on a national scale *because* he can’t be president
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
yes, both centrists & the admin (&, tacility, ice thugs on the ground) bought the 'post-liberal' narrative - that no one *really* believes in it anymore
they thought we'd cower in the face of violence & don't have an answer for liberalism's resilience
newrepublic.com/article/2053...
they thought we'd cower in the face of violence & don't have an answer for liberalism's resilience
newrepublic.com/article/2053...
January 20, 2026 at 5:51 PM
yes, both centrists & the admin (&, tacility, ice thugs on the ground) bought the 'post-liberal' narrative - that no one *really* believes in it anymore
they thought we'd cower in the face of violence & don't have an answer for liberalism's resilience
newrepublic.com/article/2053...
they thought we'd cower in the face of violence & don't have an answer for liberalism's resilience
newrepublic.com/article/2053...
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
At this committee meeting now, Councilmember Pete von Reichbauer is complaining that a briefing underway on FIFA World Cup planning is "Seattle-centric."
As best I can tell, tomorrow morning's meeting of the King County Council's transportation committee is the first time since at least 2002 (likely much longer) that this committee — in charge of King County Metro — has not had a member on it whose district includes the City of Seattle.
January 20, 2026 at 5:55 PM
At this committee meeting now, Councilmember Pete von Reichbauer is complaining that a briefing underway on FIFA World Cup planning is "Seattle-centric."
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
“ICE isn’t the Gestapo. The Gestapo was…” (proceeds to describe qualities that apply to what ICE is currently doing)
January 20, 2026 at 5:45 PM
“ICE isn’t the Gestapo. The Gestapo was…” (proceeds to describe qualities that apply to what ICE is currently doing)
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
Brooklyn Park police chief Mark Bruley: "We're hearing people being stopped with no cause & being demanded to show paperwork to determine if they're here legally. We started hearing from our police officers the same complaints. Every one of these individuals is a person of color... it has to stop"
January 20, 2026 at 5:31 PM
Brooklyn Park police chief Mark Bruley: "We're hearing people being stopped with no cause & being demanded to show paperwork to determine if they're here legally. We started hearing from our police officers the same complaints. Every one of these individuals is a person of color... it has to stop"
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
To be clear: Trump is obsessed with his own neediness. He openly said ass much to the NYT.
Advice has nothing to do with it. If he got advice to do otherwise, he'd fire the adviser.
Advice has nothing to do with it. If he got advice to do otherwise, he'd fire the adviser.
Tillis: "To be clear -- I'm not critical of the president. I'm critical of the bad advice he's getting on Greenland."
January 20, 2026 at 5:42 PM
To be clear: Trump is obsessed with his own neediness. He openly said ass much to the NYT.
Advice has nothing to do with it. If he got advice to do otherwise, he'd fire the adviser.
Advice has nothing to do with it. If he got advice to do otherwise, he'd fire the adviser.
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
Anti e-bike activists want to take away the only safe bike route across much of Manhattan by banning e-bikes from Central Park's car-free loop.
Instead, NYC needs to give all cyclists more safe routes by building protected bike infrastructure around Central Park. youtube.com/shorts/3XOv7...
Instead, NYC needs to give all cyclists more safe routes by building protected bike infrastructure around Central Park. youtube.com/shorts/3XOv7...
Could e-bikes be banned from Central Park? #nyc #ebike #bike #cycling #centralpark
YouTube video by Streetsblog NYC
youtube.com
January 20, 2026 at 1:21 PM
Anti e-bike activists want to take away the only safe bike route across much of Manhattan by banning e-bikes from Central Park's car-free loop.
Instead, NYC needs to give all cyclists more safe routes by building protected bike infrastructure around Central Park. youtube.com/shorts/3XOv7...
Instead, NYC needs to give all cyclists more safe routes by building protected bike infrastructure around Central Park. youtube.com/shorts/3XOv7...
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
Trump has pardoned every fraudster he could find. We’re supposed to believe you’re literally killing people to find more?
January 20, 2026 at 1:38 PM
Trump has pardoned every fraudster he could find. We’re supposed to believe you’re literally killing people to find more?
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
You’re asking people to believe you shot a lady in the face so you could drive to a fraud investigation faster?
Rep. Claudia Tenney on Minnesota: "That's the whole point of all these protests -- continuing to gin them up to distract everyone from the tremendous fraud, abuse, and waste that we've seen in Minnesota uncovered by Nick Shirley."
January 20, 2026 at 1:25 PM
You’re asking people to believe you shot a lady in the face so you could drive to a fraud investigation faster?
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
We are abandoning Europe because they won’t give us Greenland to protect it from Russia, who is our new partner and ally.
January 20, 2026 at 1:44 PM
We are abandoning Europe because they won’t give us Greenland to protect it from Russia, who is our new partner and ally.
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
Thank goodness the New York Post is doggedly getting the perspectives of the most important people in the city: People who don't live here. nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/01/20/t...
Tuesday's Headlines: 'Upstate Resident' Edition - Streetsblog New York City
The New York Post should be embarrassed. But then, it wouldn't be the Post. Plus other news.
nyc.streetsblog.org
January 20, 2026 at 12:38 PM
Thank goodness the New York Post is doggedly getting the perspectives of the most important people in the city: People who don't live here. nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/01/20/t...
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
Greenlandic politician Tillie Martinussen on the sovereignty of Greenlanders, the greed in the US, and how they view their land. Also comments on how the US treated Natives, as a very good reason to not want to be a part of the US.
youtu.be/xs53IESxz80?...
youtu.be/xs53IESxz80?...
‘Big Miscalculation’: Greenlandic Politician Warns Trump Over Bid to Take Arctic Island | APT
YouTube video by APT
youtu.be
January 20, 2026 at 11:45 AM
Greenlandic politician Tillie Martinussen on the sovereignty of Greenlanders, the greed in the US, and how they view their land. Also comments on how the US treated Natives, as a very good reason to not want to be a part of the US.
youtu.be/xs53IESxz80?...
youtu.be/xs53IESxz80?...
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
Yes. My theory of the moment is Miller/Vance thought their view that immigrants threaten social solidarity would be widely shared. But ICE raids are driving native-born Americans to show solidarity with immigrants quite courageously. Now Miller is trying to disrupt that alliance with state violence.
Insightful point here: Even if you take Trump seriously - he does not like the optics - they rested on an assumption that communities would welcome ICE as heroes, rather than showing the type of solidarity that Trump inherently cannot understand.
Trump is privately worried about the "optics" of ICE raids and his advisers are looking for ways to soften them, Axios reports. I'm calling bullshit: The terror and violence cannot be hived off from the broader policy agenda. They are 100% intrinsic to it.
New piece:
newrepublic.com/article/2053...
New piece:
newrepublic.com/article/2053...
January 19, 2026 at 2:52 PM
Yes. My theory of the moment is Miller/Vance thought their view that immigrants threaten social solidarity would be widely shared. But ICE raids are driving native-born Americans to show solidarity with immigrants quite courageously. Now Miller is trying to disrupt that alliance with state violence.
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
Bessent is begging here, because he knows how unprecedented his position is.
He is saying “U.S. foreign policy is random number generator right now, please ignore it because I want to ignore it too.” He looks foolish because his job is to play the fool.
He is saying “U.S. foreign policy is random number generator right now, please ignore it because I want to ignore it too.” He looks foolish because his job is to play the fool.
US Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent:
What I am urging everyone here to do is sit back, take a deep breath, and let things play out. The worst thing countries can do is escalate against the United States.
What I am urging everyone here to do is sit back, take a deep breath, and let things play out. The worst thing countries can do is escalate against the United States.
January 20, 2026 at 12:54 PM
Bessent is begging here, because he knows how unprecedented his position is.
He is saying “U.S. foreign policy is random number generator right now, please ignore it because I want to ignore it too.” He looks foolish because his job is to play the fool.
He is saying “U.S. foreign policy is random number generator right now, please ignore it because I want to ignore it too.” He looks foolish because his job is to play the fool.
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
I wrote about how concentration camp regimes evolve and why it's not too late to stop this, even though we are deep in it now.
Into the abyss
The correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards.
degenerateart.beehiiv.com
January 20, 2026 at 3:37 AM
I wrote about how concentration camp regimes evolve and why it's not too late to stop this, even though we are deep in it now.
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
I'm not saying it's ethical to drop a 79-year old man on a Greenland glacier & fly away while laughing maniacally, I'm just pointing out there's one solution here that would "give" our hypothetical old man _exactly_ what he's asking for, and it might incidentally solve some of our other problems
January 19, 2026 at 11:30 PM
I'm not saying it's ethical to drop a 79-year old man on a Greenland glacier & fly away while laughing maniacally, I'm just pointing out there's one solution here that would "give" our hypothetical old man _exactly_ what he's asking for, and it might incidentally solve some of our other problems
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
We regulate the things we want to restrict and don’t want more of. Makes you wonder why that’s always housing and stuff like e-bikes?
"New Jersey is now the only state to require insurance for Class I e-bikes out of 45 states that regulate e-bikes, according to the People For Bikes Coalition"
“This bill restricts low speed e-bike use while not addressing the real problem of high-speed motorized devices" www.nj.com/advice/2026/...
“This bill restricts low speed e-bike use while not addressing the real problem of high-speed motorized devices" www.nj.com/advice/2026/...
Murphy signs controversial e-bike law requiring registration, insurance in New Jersey
Despite opposition, the governor signed the measure in the final hours of his administration.
www.nj.com
January 19, 2026 at 7:48 PM
We regulate the things we want to restrict and don’t want more of. Makes you wonder why that’s always housing and stuff like e-bikes?
One thing that really sucks about this is that it means that Americans are going to have to be smart about the foreign policy of the leaders we pick, ...
... & if we were able to be smart about the foreign policy of the leaders we pick, our current POTUS would never have been a major party nominee.
... & if we were able to be smart about the foreign policy of the leaders we pick, our current POTUS would never have been a major party nominee.
“Americans are neither materially nor psychologically ready for this future. They have grown accustomed to the world operating in a certain way: Largely agreeable and militarily passive European and Asian allies cooperate with the United States on economic and security issues”
America vs. the World
President Trump wants to return to the 19th century’s international order. He will leave America less prosperous—and the whole world less secure.
www.theatlantic.com
January 19, 2026 at 8:21 PM
One thing that really sucks about this is that it means that Americans are going to have to be smart about the foreign policy of the leaders we pick, ...
... & if we were able to be smart about the foreign policy of the leaders we pick, our current POTUS would never have been a major party nominee.
... & if we were able to be smart about the foreign policy of the leaders we pick, our current POTUS would never have been a major party nominee.
From working in a factory that relied heavily on reducing their landfill footprint by sending trash to an incinerator ... a lot of what burns as "trash" is petrochemical in origin and is no more carbon neutral than burning diesel for electricity.
Carbon-free in the sense that it costs nothing to dump carbon into the atmosphere.
State regulators rule that burning trash and wood can be considered 'carbon-free'
Minnesota's utility regulators ruled Thursday that the burning or trash and wood to generate electricity can be considered "carbon-free" sources of power, despite the huge amount of greenhouse gases s...
www.mprnews.org
January 19, 2026 at 8:19 PM
From working in a factory that relied heavily on reducing their landfill footprint by sending trash to an incinerator ... a lot of what burns as "trash" is petrochemical in origin and is no more carbon neutral than burning diesel for electricity.
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
The custom (not law!) of placing a hand on a religious text when making an oath is rooted in the idea that the person adheres to that faith and therefore would never lie with their hand on its main text.
That's why you don't force Muslims to swear on a Bible, or Christians on the Koran.
That's why you don't force Muslims to swear on a Bible, or Christians on the Koran.
Not headline news. No real fuss by Democratic leaders. No calls to censure. No pushback. No questions asked of GOP leadership by the press.
Just totally accepted anti-Muslim bigotry across the board.
Just totally accepted anti-Muslim bigotry across the board.
January 19, 2026 at 7:51 PM
The custom (not law!) of placing a hand on a religious text when making an oath is rooted in the idea that the person adheres to that faith and therefore would never lie with their hand on its main text.
That's why you don't force Muslims to swear on a Bible, or Christians on the Koran.
That's why you don't force Muslims to swear on a Bible, or Christians on the Koran.
Reposted by Bruce R McF (etc.)
There’s some comfort in knowing Miller and Vance got it so wrong and that their degenerate ideas about the world are being rejected by normal people who care about their communities.
Yes. My theory of the moment is Miller/Vance thought their view that immigrants threaten social solidarity would be widely shared. But ICE raids are driving native-born Americans to show solidarity with immigrants quite courageously. Now Miller is trying to disrupt that alliance with state violence.
Insightful point here: Even if you take Trump seriously - he does not like the optics - they rested on an assumption that communities would welcome ICE as heroes, rather than showing the type of solidarity that Trump inherently cannot understand.
January 19, 2026 at 7:25 PM
There’s some comfort in knowing Miller and Vance got it so wrong and that their degenerate ideas about the world are being rejected by normal people who care about their communities.