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Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

4.9K followers 870 following 950 posts

D.C.-based criminal justice writer and socio-cultural critic who spends a lot of time at the library.

Hoosier by birth and college education.

Some would call me a libertarian. I would not.

https://theblanksslate.substack.com/

Signal: @jpblanks.36

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Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

King Charles with the new track ‘Not Like We’

On royal communications letterhead with today’s date:

A STATEMENT FROM BUCKINGHAM PALACE

His Majesty has today initiated a formal process to remove the Style, Titles and Honours of Prince Andrew.

Prince Andrew will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. His lease on Royal Lodge has, to date, provided him with legal protection to continue in residence. Formal notice has now been served to surrender the lease and he will move to alternative private accommodation. These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him.

Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.

ENDS

October 30, 2025 at 7:47 PM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

A German academic recounted this after the war, recorded in Milton Meyer’s “They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45”

If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately come after the first and smallest, thousands—yes, millions—would have been sufficiently shocked if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the “German firm” stickers on the windows of the non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course, this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C, and so on to Step D. And one day, too late, your principles—if you were ever sensible of them—all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident—in my case, my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying “Jew swine!”—collapses as it all at once, and you see that everything, everything has changed, and changed completely under your nose.

The world you live in, your nation, your people, is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there: all untouched, all reassuring: the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now, you live in a world of hate and fear. And the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves. When everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system that rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself, it was compelled to go all the way.

October 7, 2025 at 4:03 PM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

There’s a part of me that wishes the rest of the world would also abandon all sense of propriety and decorum and heckle the fuck out of Trump because he’d go apoplectic.

Reuters push notification that reads: Watch Live: President Trump addresses the UN General Assembly in New York.

September 23, 2025 at 2:15 PM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

Going to just pretend all the little flags in front of the Labor Dept are for victims of the Pinkertons.

A snapshot taken from my rideshare that shows the banner of Trump’s face that reads America 250: American workers FIRST hanging off the front of the U.S. Department of Labor building. In the foreground is large patch of grass covered in small American flags, as one might see in a cemetery or at a memorial.

September 3, 2025 at 7:47 PM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

Just sent the following email to D.C. Mayor Bowser. #freeDC

$Mayor Bowser and staff: I have been a D.C. resident since late 2016, where I own a home with my wife. When I first moved to the area, I lived in Virginia, both for financial and representation reasons. To move into the District is to understand that one is sacrificing representation in Congress, not to mention the higher taxes than some of the surrounding areas. But until recently, D.C. has been worth it. But with the abject capitulation to federal law enforcement yesterday, you negated any meaningful argument for your office's existence. As others have noted and as I've written in The Bulwark, unnecessary submission is among Trump's greatest powers, and rather than fight with the help of the law—where Trump has suffered loss after loss—you surrendered any moral or practical claim to represent the District, to protect its residents, or to provide a plausible argument for self-governance. Fighting back would not have been risk or cost free, but it would have been worth it. Your decision to cave came as a shock, as you could have rallied the often fractious District behind you, but you instead took the sucker's way out. I and many thousands of my fellow District residents shudder for what more is to come—as it invariably does with Trump—that your shortsighted cowardice has hastened. You should officially resign, as you have abandoned your responsibility already. Sincerely, Jonathan Blanks Washington, D.C.$

September 3, 2025 at 2:55 PM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

Don’t serve coleslaw. It’s an abomination. QED

A screenshot of my inbox: from James Kenji Lopez-Alt “How to Stop Serving Watery Coleslaw!”

August 22, 2025 at 10:54 AM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

DEA and USPP up and down H St corridor.

H St feels less vibrant than usual, it’s unpleasant.

Two vehicles—one marked U.S. Park Police and one unmarked but filled with federal agents— pull over a car on H st NE

One of two groups of DEA agents patrolling H st NE by 14th St NE

August 20, 2025 at 6:19 PM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

My latest for the Bulwark explains how Trump’s tough on crime posture is a damnable lie. www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-pro-...

Text: But, despite rhetoric to the contrary, Trump has deprioritized federal crime enforcement practically since Inauguration Day. In January, the administration gutted D.C.’s U.S. Attorney’s Office—which is responsible for prosecuting most felonies in the district—because career attorneys had the temerity to investigate and prosecute January 6th insurrectionists. And Trump, notoriously, pardoned or commuted the sentences of hundreds of violent criminals who participated in the riot, who—as it happens—were attacking MPD officers alongside the U.S. Capitol Police. In March, the administration retasked thousands of Homeland Security and other law enforcement personnel from major criminal investigations to immigration enforcement. In May, hundreds of FBI agents were reassigned to help meet the goal of tripling immigration arrests, leading some agents to worry about threats to national security and counterespionage work. Stephen Miller reportedly dressed down ICE and DHS staff for focusing on criminals, asking, “What do you mean you’re going after criminals? . . . Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?”

August 18, 2025 at 12:10 PM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

Another formidable ambassador of Black cool

A picture of a young, backpack wearing Kenny G, smiling and pointing at iconic jazz legend Miles Davis, who looks at Kenny with deep dismay and concern, as if he thinks something is wrong with the excited soprano saxophonist.

July 27, 2025 at 3:12 AM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

It is the benighted ignorance of white moderate gatekeepers that allows men like this to earn sinecures commenting on cultures they don’t understand.

Atlantic headline: A Requiem for Puff Daddy

Subhed: When I was growing up: the now-disgraced mogul was the most formidable ambassador of _Black cool._ [ed note: No the fuck he wasn’t]

Byline: by Thomas Chatterton Williams

July 27, 2025 at 12:57 AM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

Uh, yes. That’s what the doors and windows are for.

From a New York Times email I received:

There is a photo of a man standing in a large open doorway opposite another giant door or window on the opposite wall that is similarly open.

The text above the photo reads: “Inspired by homes open to their natural settings, the architect Piers Taylor designed a house on the Greek island of Corfu with doors and windows that don’t close.”

The text below the photo reads “The result is a home that is impossible to close off from the elements.”

While I concede I’m operating on an N of two, men named Piers don’t seem to be the sharpest fellows on earth.

July 16, 2025 at 10:22 PM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

Hadn't checked Clearsky in awhile and this is definitely my favorite list to be included on:

June 26, 2025 at 6:22 PM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

Hello, I am Anthony, a regular human recruiter and I am interested in your wares…

The text of an email I received: “Hello ,

I came across Jonathan Blanks online and wanted to reach out because we're working with other writers that are offering policing policies and accountability.

‍I’m currently working with a few writers on campaigns that are getting their sales teams meetings with warm leads every month. We’re targeting people who need policing policies and accountability using personalized email sequences. ‍

If I could help you connect with potential clients like this, would that be helpful to you?‍

Looking forward to connecting,”

Jim the Vampire (Mark Hamill) arrives to seek revenge on Lazlo Cravensworth on the absurdly funny What We Do in the Shadows television show.

I’m not going to explain the rest of the reference but it’s one of the most hilarious episodes of television I’ve ever seen.

June 24, 2025 at 2:25 AM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

What a time to be alive

Reuters push notification: “Pakistan condemns Trump’s bombing of Iran, a day after nominating him for Peace Prize”

June 22, 2025 at 7:31 PM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

I used my final essay in the Boaz tribute to challenge those who profess to care so much about freedom to apply those principles in the context in which we all live, not just in their preferred theoretical and rhetorical constructs. oll.libertyfund.org/publications...

Excerpted text: “There are those who spend much of their energy celebrating the triumphs of capitalism and its role in reducing poverty, hunger, and disease around the world. Bestselling books and high-paying lecture circuits feature feel-good reminders of how good we have it. And there is certainly a role for this recognition, because simple examples of real progress and success make freeing policies easier to promote and defend.

Too often, though, these examples help downplay criticisms of the status quo today. Advocates for those who have not yet fully reaped material benefits or who face other challenges can be greeted with a smiling complacency and a dismissal of their legitimate grievances.

I’ve read, listened to, and even edited libertarians who complain that certain Black writers are too negative about the freedoms America provides, as if libertarians—of all people—should be the one to tell others when they’ve enjoyed enough freedom.”

June 17, 2025 at 5:07 PM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

My final post in the tribute to David Boaz went live today.

oll.libertyfund.org/publications...

Excepted text: “I’ve written before about how my grandfather James, born in the late 1800s in Mississippi, owned a revolver to protect his family from the Indiana Klan, who controlled much of the state in the early 20th century. My father grew up in the Great Depression and was buried with military honors for serving in the years immediately following World War II, part of which he spent in Jim Crow New Orleans. While my father lived into his early 80s, the U.S. government had only affirmed its recognition and protection of his right to vote under the 15th Amendment when he was 37 years old. In my own life, growing up in the 1980s, my first elementary school was a magnet program created, in part, to continue desegregating schools in my northern Indiana hometown, almost 30 years after Brown v. Board of Education.

To me and many Americans like me, the expansion and protection of freedom has a more visceral meaning than the “liberty” that is too often a political prop for conservative policy preferences. Put simply, I do not take my liberty for granted because my family hasn’t had it very long.”

June 17, 2025 at 1:20 PM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

Completely predictable theblanksslate.substack.com/p/something-...

excerpted text from the link to my substack post Rather than target certain books, legislators use vague definitions or subjective standards to criminalize or otherwise threaten libraries and their employees for lending books. This has led to school libraries in Florida to pull books off the shelves for official review to protect its teachers and librarians from criminal exposure. While not technically a book ban, it certainly a chilling effect that greatly incentivizes schools and libraries to err on the side of caution. " (links omitted)

June 12, 2025 at 1:19 PM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

My latest essay at LF laments the moral compromises that make Trumpism possible oll.libertyfund.org/publications...

excerpted text (sans links): "A marginal improvement in, say, school choice, is not worth the cost of the rule of law. Likewise, committed liberals cannot justify “liberty and justice for all…except trans people.” America cannot be both a beacon of freedom and a country that closes its trade, its aid, and its borders to those fighting for fleeing oppression around the world. Liberal principles and commitments must extend beyond our specific policy areas."

June 9, 2025 at 1:47 PM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

My second LF essay is up this morning.

I explain how self-professed libertarians and their policy institutions have largely failed in the current moment. oll.libertyfund.org/publications...

Excerpted text: “In this political moment in which the presidential administration is assaulting civil society in almost every facet of policy, law, and media, there are too few classical liberal voices and institutions who are willing to talk—loudly and openly—about its threats to everything we have written and said we believe. Institutional liberals will talk about the foolishness of tariffs or the importance of markets broadly, but freedom—and our liberal system—remain afterthoughts in most of the commentary.”

June 9, 2025 at 11:42 AM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

It’s a Faustian bargain for traditional conservatives and they know it.

Excepted text (links omitted): “For years, commentators have talked about how Trump reshaped the Republican Party in the populist mold. Indeed, Trumpism has seen Republicans abandon many of their publicly held commitments. The GOP says it champions fiscal discipline while growing the debt at every opportunity. It talks about individual merit while endorsing discrimination against groups based on gender, race, national origin, and sexual orientation. It blathers about free speech while using state power to engage in the most sweeping national-censorship campaign since the Red Scare. Republicans warn us about the “weaponization” of the legal system while seeking to prosecute critics for political crimes and deporting apparently innocent people to Gulags without a shred of due process. The GOP venerates Christianity while engaging in the kind of performative cruelty early Christians associated with paganism. It preaches family values while destroying families it refuses to recognize as such.”

June 8, 2025 at 5:44 PM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

Specifically, the ahistoricism diminishes—if not flat out erases—the conflicts that have made America a beacon of freedom around the world.

Indeed, MAGA’s identitarian Christian nationalism is anathema to any reasonable concept of freedom.

Excerpted Text:”But the current presidential administration is making a point to whitewash the past, to sanitize the evils of slavery, segregation, subjugation, and oppression, in the name of “making America great again.” Removing the achievements of Black veterans like Jackie Robinson and the Navajo Codetalkers from Defense Department websites demeans Americans who served the country honorably, despite their mistreatment.

These brave men and many others are now widely recognized as role models for future generations: Americans who believed in the promise of America despite so much evidence in their own lives.”

June 6, 2025 at 1:43 PM

Jonathan Blanks

@blanksslate.bsky.social

It is usually a bad bet to underestimate the depths to which they will go, but they are also lazy.

NB: the only areas they are polling above water in policy is crime and immigration, so leaning in rhetorically while doing eff-all about it is a winner for them.