Patrick Fessenbecker
@pfessenbecker.bsky.social
Teaching writing and ethics to engineers, writing a book on George Eliot.
Pinned
So I write a weekly newsletter for our indivisible chapter, and each week I profile a left journalist operation. If you’re struggling to build an audience for your thing and think you can speak to a lefty ex-hippie inner-ring Madison suburb that’s very into good apples, get in touch.
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
I think it’s important not to expect material gains from a shutdown. At the same time, there are political factors that are not material.
For instance, a shutdown over ICE murdering Americans keeps that in the news. It also serves to demonstrate that Democrats are seriously opposed on this issue.
For instance, a shutdown over ICE murdering Americans keeps that in the news. It also serves to demonstrate that Democrats are seriously opposed on this issue.
A shutdown does nothing of substance because DHS already has some frontloaded approps from reconciliation, DHS ops continue in a lapse in appropriations, and in any case DHS employees are gonna be willing to do their "work" for free much longer than civs at DoD/HHS/Labor/Ed/State/HUD/Trans
January 25, 2026 at 1:28 AM
I think it’s important not to expect material gains from a shutdown. At the same time, there are political factors that are not material.
For instance, a shutdown over ICE murdering Americans keeps that in the news. It also serves to demonstrate that Democrats are seriously opposed on this issue.
For instance, a shutdown over ICE murdering Americans keeps that in the news. It also serves to demonstrate that Democrats are seriously opposed on this issue.
in the process of rediscovering moral philosophy that America is going through, I think we’ve just encountered the unity of the virtues: Alex Pretti was brave because he was kind, and the ICE agents are cruel because they’re cowardly.
January 25, 2026 at 2:35 AM
in the process of rediscovering moral philosophy that America is going through, I think we’ve just encountered the unity of the virtues: Alex Pretti was brave because he was kind, and the ICE agents are cruel because they’re cowardly.
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
Alex Pretti grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he played football, baseball and ran track for Preble High School. He was a Boy Scout and sang in the Green Bay Boy Choir.
apnews.com/article/immi...
apnews.com/article/immi...
The man killed by a US Border Patrol officer in Minneapolis was an ICU nurse, family says
Family members say the man who was killed by a federal officer in Minneapolis was an intensive care nurse at a U.S.
apnews.com
January 25, 2026 at 12:57 AM
Alex Pretti grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he played football, baseball and ran track for Preble High School. He was a Boy Scout and sang in the Green Bay Boy Choir.
apnews.com/article/immi...
apnews.com/article/immi...
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
ICE and DHS are out of control and making our communities less safe.
I will not support funding for DHS without clear accountability and stronger controls over the agency.
It is time for the Senate to do its job and rein in this lawlessness.
I will not support funding for DHS without clear accountability and stronger controls over the agency.
It is time for the Senate to do its job and rein in this lawlessness.
January 24, 2026 at 10:39 PM
ICE and DHS are out of control and making our communities less safe.
I will not support funding for DHS without clear accountability and stronger controls over the agency.
It is time for the Senate to do its job and rein in this lawlessness.
I will not support funding for DHS without clear accountability and stronger controls over the agency.
It is time for the Senate to do its job and rein in this lawlessness.
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
Conor Lamb apology form damn
Copies of these should be put up immediately on state/city property with this added: “The enslaved people memorialized here mean more to us than the president who tried to erase them. It is our patriotic duty to read every word on these signs.”
I took this photo in November because I was both surprised to see it still up and feared it would be taken down at any moment.
January 24, 2026 at 2:34 PM
Conor Lamb apology form damn
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
I will note that a lot of the accounts advocating violence in Stancil's mentions have no more than a few dozen posts and are either new accounts or dormant accounts that recently started posting again.
I don't want to amplify this account but I do want to point out that actually Gandhi's nonviolence worked out pretty well
January 24, 2026 at 8:30 PM
I will note that a lot of the accounts advocating violence in Stancil's mentions have no more than a few dozen posts and are either new accounts or dormant accounts that recently started posting again.
sometimes I think this website could use some tips on how to talk with Trump voters in a way that’s useful, and I’ve had a little luck with this strategy:
If this were your policy goal, would you go about it this way? If not, why is the administration doing it?
If this were your policy goal, would you go about it this way? If not, why is the administration doing it?
Even if there were a widespread welfare fraud problem among Somali migrants lawfully present in Minnesota, you wouldn't send ICE in to deal with it.
You send ICE in to terrorize a population, to portray a handful of allegations as a foreign invading force, to carry out a pogrom.
5/
You send ICE in to terrorize a population, to portray a handful of allegations as a foreign invading force, to carry out a pogrom.
5/
January 24, 2026 at 8:29 PM
sometimes I think this website could use some tips on how to talk with Trump voters in a way that’s useful, and I’ve had a little luck with this strategy:
If this were your policy goal, would you go about it this way? If not, why is the administration doing it?
If this were your policy goal, would you go about it this way? If not, why is the administration doing it?
Yeah. it was the NBA that decided COVID was real, it can be them that decides enough is enough.
It’s time.
I want the see Steve Kerr’s Warriors and Minneapolis’ Timberwolves agree that they simply cannot play this game tonight.
A strike in solidarity with the besieged city and its murdered and abducted residents.
I want the see Steve Kerr’s Warriors and Minneapolis’ Timberwolves agree that they simply cannot play this game tonight.
A strike in solidarity with the besieged city and its murdered and abducted residents.
January 24, 2026 at 6:44 PM
Yeah. it was the NBA that decided COVID was real, it can be them that decides enough is enough.
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
It’s no comfort, but the official DHS line being “he can be killed by masked agents of the state because he had a legal gun” is such an interesting new frontier in how Trump has made the conservative movement very publicly and embarrassingly abandon every principal it once claimed.
January 24, 2026 at 6:40 PM
It’s no comfort, but the official DHS line being “he can be killed by masked agents of the state because he had a legal gun” is such an interesting new frontier in how Trump has made the conservative movement very publicly and embarrassingly abandon every principal it once claimed.
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
“Everyone should be allowed to carry a gun for their safety but the government can murder you in the street if you have a gun” is an incredible endpoint for the conservative moment
January 24, 2026 at 5:48 PM
“Everyone should be allowed to carry a gun for their safety but the government can murder you in the street if you have a gun” is an incredible endpoint for the conservative moment
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
I don't have an opinion on the race, but it seems very clear that the GOP has (correctly) surmised that the best way to take out a Dem is to ensure every primary has one Bernie analogue and one Hillary analogue.
If this is your take, why do you think the NRSC polled to nudge Crockett (who was not planning to run) into the race? Is the assumption that Rs are wrong, like Clinton was wrong about Trump, and Crockett is the stronger candidate?
Highly embarrassing (though completely predictable) that Michelle Goldberg and the NYT would get behind the white dude DNC candidate who is funded by billionaires, supports charter schools, and who broke quorum to rush back to collab with Republicans a few years back, over an outspoken progressive
January 23, 2026 at 6:58 PM
I don't have an opinion on the race, but it seems very clear that the GOP has (correctly) surmised that the best way to take out a Dem is to ensure every primary has one Bernie analogue and one Hillary analogue.
The first group to use this as a cover for a new album of religious protest/Christmas winter music will make one billion dollars.
January 23, 2026 at 7:46 PM
The first group to use this as a cover for a new album of religious protest/Christmas winter music will make one billion dollars.
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
doom is cope, everybody's saying it
Please don’t approvingly share absolute horseshit like this written by someone who is deeply miserable and wants you to be miserable too.
Please read and share this. It shapes all my thinking about the future of the US right now, and it explains why Trump and the GOP are behaving the way they do.
There is a near zero chance a Democrat will be sworn in as President in 2029, no matter how people vote.
bylinetimes.com/2026/01/22/t...
There is a near zero chance a Democrat will be sworn in as President in 2029, no matter how people vote.
bylinetimes.com/2026/01/22/t...
January 23, 2026 at 1:51 PM
doom is cope, everybody's saying it
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
Had completely missed this yesterday but it's an excellent example of the fact that they are MUCH weaker than anyone has behaved for the past year.
Trump administration drops legal appeal over anti-DEI funding threat to schools and colleges. This leaves in place a federal judge's ruling that the anti-DEI effort violated the First Amendment and federal procedural rules. (Via AP) apnews.com/article/dei-... #ncpol #nced
Trump administration drops legal appeal over anti-DEI funding threat to schools and colleges
The Trump administration is dropping its appeal of a federal court ruling that blocked a campaign against diversity, equity, and inclusion threatening federal funding to the nation’s schools and colle...
apnews.com
January 23, 2026 at 2:03 PM
Had completely missed this yesterday but it's an excellent example of the fact that they are MUCH weaker than anyone has behaved for the past year.
I will only support bus racing if the busses are cats
i will only support greyhound racing if the greyhounds are busses
January 23, 2026 at 1:03 AM
I will only support bus racing if the busses are cats
It should be at least a little embarrassing how much more excited Bluesky gets about debating The True Meaning of America than it does discussing the actual conversational encounters where one might encounter a sense of American identity and tactics one might use to either draw upon or deflate it.
January 22, 2026 at 6:42 PM
It should be at least a little embarrassing how much more excited Bluesky gets about debating The True Meaning of America than it does discussing the actual conversational encounters where one might encounter a sense of American identity and tactics one might use to either draw upon or deflate it.
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
Worst fucking thing about the picture of Liam Ramos is you can immediately clock that he's terrified but trying to be brave in the way that a kid does.
January 22, 2026 at 12:23 AM
Worst fucking thing about the picture of Liam Ramos is you can immediately clock that he's terrified but trying to be brave in the way that a kid does.
it is revealing, I think, that the only democrat electeds who can successfully fuse affordability rhetoric with defense of democracy rhetoric (aoc and mamdani) are also among the view avowed socialists.
January 22, 2026 at 2:37 AM
it is revealing, I think, that the only democrat electeds who can successfully fuse affordability rhetoric with defense of democracy rhetoric (aoc and mamdani) are also among the view avowed socialists.
There's an interesting conversation about how big the deplorables chunk of the Republican coalition actually is. Looks like it's about 23% —
January 21, 2026 at 8:12 PM
There's an interesting conversation about how big the deplorables chunk of the Republican coalition actually is. Looks like it's about 23% —
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
Well, color me gobsmacked, I got an NEH grant! tinyurl.com/3a37thbk
NEH Announces $75.1 Million for 84 Humanities Projects
tinyurl.com
January 16, 2026 at 2:05 AM
Well, color me gobsmacked, I got an NEH grant! tinyurl.com/3a37thbk
whereas subs should be wider and not longer
2. Burgers should be wider, not taller
January 20, 2026 at 6:38 PM
whereas subs should be wider and not longer
This latest bout confirms that the absolute worst intra-left posting duel would be Ganz-Stancil.
The Palo Alto Project, a secret lab in the desolate suburbs of the peninsula to create a machine meta-intelligence that mass produces Stancil/Ganz poasting super soldiers, adept at salient topics for each polity vulnerable to right wing populism worldwide.
January 20, 2026 at 12:41 AM
This latest bout confirms that the absolute worst intra-left posting duel would be Ganz-Stancil.
Very excited to have European leaders join the “superficially mad at legislative leader messaging, but actually mad at Democrats for not winning the 2024 election“ crowd, it’s a big tent.
The incredibly lukewarm Democratic response on Greenland is being noticed in Europe, incidentally.
Chuck Schumer not finding a stronger word than “quixotic” for Trump’s plan to seize Greenland has been name checked to me more than once.
Chuck Schumer not finding a stronger word than “quixotic” for Trump’s plan to seize Greenland has been name checked to me more than once.
But Americans who want to save the alliance with Europe must have no illusions about how bad a condition this transatlantic partnership is in.
January 19, 2026 at 2:34 PM
Very excited to have European leaders join the “superficially mad at legislative leader messaging, but actually mad at Democrats for not winning the 2024 election“ crowd, it’s a big tent.
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
trump only cares when it hits him personally. they should sanction trump directly.
you wanna see results: close his scottish golf course.
you wanna see results: close his scottish golf course.
January 19, 2026 at 5:19 AM
trump only cares when it hits him personally. they should sanction trump directly.
you wanna see results: close his scottish golf course.
you wanna see results: close his scottish golf course.
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
90 day suspension of US tourist visas and this is all over
January 19, 2026 at 5:17 AM
90 day suspension of US tourist visas and this is all over