Joseph P-M
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josephpmathews.bsky.social
Joseph P-M
@josephpmathews.bsky.social
Gay priest, gay married, gay dad. 🏳️‍🌈 He/him. Seattle. Late 30s. Lots of reposts.
It’s really good and helpful and I need a genre fiction book asap. Agent Pendergast you’re going to be on my kindle soon
Repost with current read

(Don’t tell the Calvinists)
February 5, 2026 at 9:45 PM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️
What impact are the US boat strikes having, besides killing >124 people?

- October-December 2024: 7,764 pounds of cocaine seized at the US-Mexico border.
- October-December 2025: 10,593 pounds of cocaine seized.

Cocaine is up 34% year-over-year *despite* the boat strikes.

Data: bit.ly/4bJOeFs
February 5, 2026 at 7:11 PM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
Private concerns are not public acts. If Britt is genuinely troubled about this, at a *bare* minimum she should call for oversight hearings.
“.. I’m sad for our country,” she said. “I don’t think that the escalation that we’ve seen, particularly in Minnesota, I don’t think it is. … ”

She paused for another eight seconds ..

“.. productive.”

@nytimes.com #ALsen
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/u...
February 5, 2026 at 7:32 PM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
if not gestapo why gestapo shaped, etc.
“We need to get better at treating this like a business…like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.” — ICE director Todd Lyons, April 2025
The banality of evil is shocking. An ex-Big Lots warehouse for cheap consumer junk is bought by ICE to ship as many as 7,500 handcuffed human beings, as the Trump regime builds a U.S. gulag archipelago

The unthinkable comes to Pa. coal country. My special report www.inquirer.com/opinion/ice-...
February 5, 2026 at 7:38 PM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
The CIA just stopped publishing their World Factbook and took every page, including the archived copies of previous versions!

This sucks. It was public domain, so I recovered the 2020 edition (the last one published as a zip file) and shared it to GitHub simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/t...
Spotlighting The World Factbook as We Bid a Fond Farewell
Somewhat devastating news today from the CIA: One of CIA’s oldest and most recognizable intelligence publications, The World Factbook, has sunset. There's not even a hint as to why they …
simonwillison.net
February 5, 2026 at 12:25 AM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
Oh.
NEW: Records reviewed by WIRED show DHS’s facial recognition app (Mobile Fortify) isn’t designed to actually "verify" identity—despite DHS claims and its agents relying on its matches to support probable cause in the field.
ICE and CBP’s Face-Recognition App Can’t Actually Verify Who People Are
ICE has used Mobile Fortify to identify immigrants and citizens alike over 100,000 times, by one estimate. It wasn't built to work like that—and only got approved after DHS abandoned its own privacy r...
www.wired.com
February 5, 2026 at 8:46 PM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
I want to reiterate that this shit is nuts. A federal invasion of state-run elections, an intelligence community invasion of federal law enforcement, a White House invasion of a criminal investigation, and a president’s insane treasonable sore loser obsession all rolled up and muddled together.
February 5, 2026 at 9:16 PM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
“Readers added context”
February 5, 2026 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
And I was thinking that, even in this scriptural source, concepts of due process and citizenship in the early empire—Tiberius’s reign—are represented as stronger than they are in America today.
February 5, 2026 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
Paul says of the magistrates “they have beaten us openly, uncondemned Roman citizens, and have cast us into prison” and like the local cops run back to the magistrates and tell them about this. Per the story in Acts, the magistrates are afraid when they hear Paul and Silas are Romans.
February 5, 2026 at 3:22 PM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
This insanity reminded me of the story in Acts 16 where Paul and Silas are mauled and thrown into the Philippian prison, there’s a big earthquake overnight and the jailer has a conversion experience and gets himself baptized etc, but then Paul reproaches the local magistrates…
Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast: "One of my favorite people, President Bukele ... he operates rather large prisons. Very strong prisons."
February 5, 2026 at 3:22 PM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
Getting rid of the immigration court system as currently specified and either creating new Article III immigration courts or giving regular federal judges jurisdiction has to be part of any 2029 reform package.
February 4, 2026 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
Within a month of our President calling all Somalis "garbage," saying "they contribute nothing" that "they come from hell," "I don't want them in our country," the DOJ appears to be creating a separate process for deportation proceedings based on nationality just for Somalis.
February 4, 2026 at 8:05 PM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
“AUSAs are appearing daily for hearings on contempt motions.”
NEW: The top Trump-appointed proseutor in MN says his office is dropping "pressing priorities" to manage crushing immigration workload.

His short-staffed office is doing constant overtime and bouncing between contempt hearings.

The bleak assessment:

www.politico.com/news/2026/02...
February 5, 2026 at 4:05 PM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
Gelernter endorsed Trump 3 times. He's an evolution and climate change skeptic who thinks women should stay home. He was a member of the "race science" Human Biodiversity Inst.

After an unflattering profile in the WP, The Atlantic published an indignant piece calling him a "pioneering polymath."
Yale prof David Gelernter defends his letter urging Epstein to hire "v small goodlooking blonde" student by saying that he was "keep[ing] the potential boss's habits in mind."

This creep shouldn't be allowed anywhere near students.

yaledailynews.com/articles/gel...
February 5, 2026 at 5:03 PM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
The world factbook was an invaluable resource in asylum petitions—a place where the federal government acknowledged in writing that, for example, Tibetans face systematic repression in China. I don’t like to have it vanish.
Add the CIA World Factbook to the long and growing list of disappearing government datasets: www.cia.gov/stories/stor...
February 5, 2026 at 2:42 PM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
February 5, 2026 at 7:04 AM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
I have never, not once, intended to call someone via Instagram.
People who will use their free will to call you on apps that are not the telephone are serial killers.
February 5, 2026 at 7:39 AM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
It really be getting on my nerves too like, why are you as an oligarch not building a library? Shit!
today’s tech barons get compared to the robber barons (I’ve done it myself) but it’s notable how the current generation has responded to the philanthropic and cultural legacy of Carnegie et al with their own campaign of wanton destruction of cultural institutions
February 5, 2026 at 1:58 PM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
The GOP has offered nothing this century except for catastrophic wars. No healthcare plan; no re-industrialization. Now they're losing their only issue, immigration, as people see the violence and havoc that comes with mass deportations.
Wow! What sounded like the entire AEW Dynamite audience in Las Vegas tonight chanted "Fuck ICE! Fuck ICE!" in unison before the main event
February 5, 2026 at 4:25 AM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
i think people should consider the extent to which bannon, a known bullshit artist, knows that you will see this and panic. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
Steve Bannon says ICE will ‘surround the polls’ as Trump doubles down on taking over elections
Trump doubled down on his comments to nationalize voting Tuesday during an Oval Office press conference. “If you think about it, a state is an agent for the federal government in elections,” Trump sai...
www.democracydocket.com
February 5, 2026 at 3:58 AM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
once again: lawyers are morally responsible for their professional decisions. people get really mad about this but … you picked the job. you took the money. you own what you’ve done.
A bizarre number of people have stepped up to defend Julie Le. What you see in that transcript is an attorney who chose to do evil work—deporting people for ICE then moving over to DOJ in early Jan. specifically to fight these habeas petitions—being called to the carpet. She's desperate, not heroic.
If you want to read the transcript of the February 3 hearing where Julie Le had her "this job sucks" meltdown, now you can:

drive.google.com/file/d/1FnY2...
February 5, 2026 at 4:02 AM
Repost with current read

(Don’t tell the Calvinists)
February 5, 2026 at 2:37 AM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
This is like mom hissing WE'RE GOING TO TALK LATER ABOUT WHAT YOU DID to dad in front of the kids
I don’t like this
February 5, 2026 at 12:55 AM
Reposted by Joseph P-M
chat they had to stop the surgery and call the bomb squad to this man’s ass
February 5, 2026 at 12:55 AM