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david-helps.bsky.social
david helps
@david-helps.bsky.social
historian & postdoc, USC • writing a people’s history of global LA • Great Lakes supremacist • he/they • https://www.david-helps.com/writing
Reposted by david helps
Transphobia is a luxury belief. Yes, ordinary people are often ambiently transphobic, but they have bigger things to worry about. The true believers are wealthy, powerful, influential, and face no real hardship that would force them to prioritize issues that affect them.
They genuinely don't have anything better to do. These are not people capable of great things. That she was so capable, that trans people can attain successes they must win with lies & slander, gnaws at them. Even when they win, for them it has no savor
npr.org NPR @npr.org · 4d
Admiral Rachel Levine was the first transgender person to be confirmed by the Senate to serve in the federal government. Her official portrait at HHS headquarters has been altered. n.pr/48HypvT
December 5, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Reposted by david helps
On Black Friday, Starbucks workers expanded their ULP strike to 85+ cities.

Now, just 6 days later, the strike is growing AGAIN.

Hundreds of baristas are joining the Red Cup Rebellion today, alongside thousands already striking in 105+ cities!
December 4, 2025 at 11:50 AM
Reposted by david helps
These are good moments to remember that the CEOs of all the biggest companies in America are happy to go to White House dinners and slap this guy’s back. They do not care about this. Remember this, years from now, when they want you to forget.
Trump: "It’s a hellhole right now. And those Somalians should be out of here. They've destroyed our country. And all they do is complain, complain, complain. You have her. She’s always talking about the Constitution provides me with – go back to your own country and figure out your constitution."
December 4, 2025 at 12:13 AM
Reposted by david helps
Loved this little movie theater in my old neighborhood in Chicago and this is such great news: blockclubchicago.org/2025/12/01/r... - I saw soooo many movies here.
Rogers Park's New 400 Theaters Is Reopening As New Operator Revives 113-Year-Old Movie House
The operator of three historical movie theaters in Michigan has leased the shuttered Rogers Park theater, which was the city's oldest continually running movie theater when it closed in 2023.
blockclubchicago.org
December 3, 2025 at 1:21 AM
Reposted by david helps
There’s just nothing left of a university’s mission if instructors can be disciplined and fired for teaching the current state of knowledge in their fields, the degrees they issue are worth precisely the value of the paper they’re printed on and not a jot more
December 1, 2025 at 12:42 AM
Reposted by david helps
Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol isn't listening to his workers.

So we went directly to his luxury California office.

#NoContractNoCoffee
November 25, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Reposted by david helps
Oh, I don’t know. Our rivers no longer catch on fire and our air is far less poisonous than it used to be, even in smog bowls like Los Angeles. And I think those are good things.
If there’s no shale gas then there’s no shale gas, but I still think environmentalism is basically bad and politicians should focus more on material prosperity.
November 19, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Reposted by david helps
The emails were sent in 2018/2019, more than a decade after Epstein was first prosecuted, and during renewed accusations, right up until the day he was arrested again.
November 17, 2025 at 2:35 AM
Reposted by david helps
A Border Patrol agent accused of drunkenly fighting with Long Beach police overdosed weeks after his arrest, according to his lawyer. New body-camera footage shows what he told the cops who'd wrestled him into custody: lbpost.com/news/isaiah-hodgson-drunk-border-patrol-arrest-long-beach-overdose/
November 13, 2025 at 11:42 PM
Reposted by david helps
Today, Starbucks workers in 40+ cities began a historic ULP strike. But we’re NOT finished.

We're prepared to escalate with more stores striking if we don’t see substantial progress toward finalizing contracts that address pay, hours/staffing, and the resolution of 100s of ULPs.
November 14, 2025 at 1:18 AM
Reposted by david helps
genuinely very few things more satisfying than reading the kinds of emails rich and famous people send each other
November 13, 2025 at 3:47 AM
Reposted by david helps
A story! Most of the 7 hours of canvassing I did today was educating people about when they could vote and celebrating the people voting for Zohran (yay to our amazing pep squad! we had a cow bell! we got cars honking for voters! so much fun!). But most meaningful was...
November 3, 2025 at 12:43 AM
Reposted by david helps
They better not go and shake that man’s hand while he’s kidnapping folks from the community that made them
November 2, 2025 at 4:19 AM
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tonight decides whether Ernie will be the most common first name in canadian elementary schools a few years from now
November 2, 2025 at 2:23 AM
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True meaning of Transness
July 22, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Reposted by david helps
@umich.edu faculty call for an honorary degree for Trump

“We have proven that we have no hard moral principles and no hill on which we will die.”

www.michigandaily.com/opinion/op-e...
Why Trump would be perfect for an honorary U-M doctoral degree
Awarding Trump an honorary doctoral degree would be an opportunity to recognize the long way the University has walked in less than two years. U-M juniors may still remember times when the campus code...
www.michigandaily.com
October 24, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Reposted by david helps
In 1975, after decades of illegally surveilling & sabotaging left-wing movements in the US (and assassinating people abroad) the Senate painstaking wrote out the government's playbook for destroying movements.

In January, the first commercial and streamlined version of this report hits bookstores.
The Church Committee Report
After fifty years, this shocking report—released in a single, readable volume for the first time—is still the most accurate account of US government spying on its own citizens., The Church...
wwnorton.com
October 21, 2025 at 1:44 AM
Reposted by david helps
the Muppets have been real quiet since the Louvre heist
October 19, 2025 at 10:19 PM
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“JUSTICE FOR SILVERIO VILLEGAS GONZÁLEZ

MURDERED BY ICE

SEPT 12, Franklin Park”
October 18, 2025 at 6:33 PM
Reposted by david helps
to this i would add a good amount of self-loathing stemming from a belief that liberal political views are somehow “inauthentic” or an affectation of “elites”
I agree with whoever said a rather under-appreciated dynamic is the extent to which Professional Politics Opinion Havers flat out just find the left interpersonally irritating in a way they do not find the right so, and I think a lot of the talk of a vibe shift was wish-casting their irritants away.
October 18, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Reposted by david helps
Upcoming Courtwatch LA training for immigration courts--an important role in community defense. Court watchers, like cop watchers, show that the community is actively participating in its own safety, and in holding the justice system accountable. 

bit.ly/imm-training-116
October 15, 2025 at 7:48 PM
Reposted by david helps
Stories of failed arrests due to community response are inspiring. There's been great legal work to free people, too. But this stuff is mostly a brief flash of unmarked cars, and then somebody's gone. Over and over again. No matter how many people are eager to help and want better than this.
October 14, 2025 at 3:13 AM
Reposted by david helps
FUCK THE YANKEES!
True meaning of Transness
October 9, 2025 at 2:34 AM
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The admiration, the bat flip, the zoom to Fried 🫡
October 5, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Reposted by david helps
I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win
This video of Chicagoans intervening to save a man from being abducted off the streets by ICE is making the rounds on Instagram.

Community action works.

Source: www.instagram.com/reel/DPZL2AL...
October 5, 2025 at 6:02 PM