DocRennie
docrennie.bsky.social
DocRennie
@docrennie.bsky.social
Rhetorician who (comically? tragically?) has yet to find my voice. Career academic—less the two years I ran away to play among the dolls.

Proud product of Appalachia.

And my handle? Well, that was my PaPa’s nickname for me, for earning my letters.
Pinned
As I learn more about the concentration camp our government has created in the Everglades, it is not 1940s Germany that comes to my mind, but 1860s Georgia: Andersonville, Camp Sumter, the notorious Confederate POW camp.

The atrocities persist.
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reading slaughterhouse 5 for the first time and i was absolutely knocked senseless by this passage, which is so true and relevant that it feels like it was pulled from a history book
October 26, 2025 at 6:01 PM
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He orders extrajudicial killings. He sent troops into our cities. He terrorizes citizens with ICE raids. He raised taxes without congressional approval. He has ruined American farmers and ranchers. He plans to starve the vulnerable. He demolished our house.

Remove him from office.
October 26, 2025 at 5:09 PM
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It has been said before, but it bears repeating: the elderly who’ve worked their entire lives to get $800 a month on Social Security aren’t bankrupting America. It’s tax-evading billionaires like Trump who are bleeding this country dry.
October 25, 2025 at 8:55 PM
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Every day, it seems like we tick a little bit closer to midnight.

Would be great if the GOP Congress would quit sleepwalking through this.
Threatening to arrest governors for seditious conspiracy. Getting dark fast.
October 25, 2025 at 2:19 AM
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October Books: Fictional Witches

This month I am focusing on books that have to do with fictional witches.

#booksky
#bookchallenge

Day 16: The Stone Witch of Florence: A Novel by Anna Rasche
October 16, 2025 at 7:39 AM
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It turns out that, all this time, Rob Schneider has been portraying characters who were *smarter* than he really is.
I was born at the children’s hospital in Washington DC
October 25, 2025 at 2:04 AM
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WH allows criminal bribe anonymity
To be clear:
These donations are bribes, made anonymously to conceal Trump’s corruption.
October 25, 2025 at 2:20 AM
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Periodic reminder that this scheming half-wit Goebbels isn’t even a lawyer.
Stephen Miller on Fox threatens to arrest JB Pritzker for "seditious conspiracy" and says, "to all ICE officers: you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. And anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop or obstruct you is committing a felony."
October 25, 2025 at 3:10 AM
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Here's a gift link to the New York Times' coverage of the initial Tea Party rallies in April 2009 which inspired the media to treat it like a massive movement.

Check out how tiny the crowds were:

Philly: 200
DC: "several hundred"
Boston: 500
Austin: 1,000
Houston: 2,000
Tax Day Is Met With Tea Parties (Published 2009)
www.nytimes.com
October 20, 2025 at 12:55 PM
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Trump regime gleefully adopts "remigrate," a euphemism for ethnic purging peddled by European white nationalists, now DHS's snide jab at migrants amid racist memes and slurs. #StopDeportations
October 17, 2025 at 8:10 AM
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Just received my DNA results and apparently my lineage can be traced back to a pumpkin patch nestled in fog on a cool October day with the sound of crows in the distance.
October 16, 2025 at 1:19 PM
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Bring your frog costumes. Be silly. No violence. Make fun of him. Make everyone laugh at him. Remind him and the world that he's small, petty, and stupid.
October 16, 2025 at 6:23 PM
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This is a professor at Rutgers who teaches a class on the history of anti-fascism. He also teaches about human rights. He has received multiple death threats and been doxed. He is relocating to Europe for his safety. This is where we are in the US now. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
October 7, 2025 at 3:47 PM
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Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE
nyti.ms
October 8, 2025 at 11:29 PM
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I’m starting to think they might not have been serious about wanting to stop fentanyl smuggling and child sex trafficking
“A federal team in El Paso that once pursued child traffickers has been disbanded.

“A task force in Kansas focused on stemming fentanyl has been redirected.

“Highway checkpoints near the border—on roads identified as major drug-trafficking routes—have gone unstaffed”

🎁
www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
Trump’s Immigration Push Diverts U.S. Agents From Drug, Money and Sex-Crime Cases
Federal investigators are resigning, and morale is low, as they juggle complex cases and detain migrants.
www.wsj.com
October 9, 2025 at 10:58 AM
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NO LOYALTY OATHS IN HIGHER ED!

Trump's attacks on our universities are an attempt to consolidate power. This loyalty oath directly undermines our right to academic freedom & goes against every democratic principle our country should uphold.

Please click below, sign, & share.

#DefendHigherEd
University Administrations: Reject Trump's "Loyalty Oath" Compacts
The Trump administration is trying to blackmail schools to let him and his unqualified bureaucrats run our schools. They want to dictate what schools teach, who they admit and hire, what researchers s...
actionnetwork.org
October 7, 2025 at 4:37 PM
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No one signs up for the National Guard thinking, “One day, I’ll invade Oregon.”
October 8, 2025 at 8:49 PM
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A former DOGE staffer developed an AI tool that hallucinated the size of Veterans Affairs contracts.

For example, it concluded that more than a thousand deals were each worth $34 million, when in fact some were for as little as $35,000.

(Published June)
DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to “Munch” Veterans Affairs Contracts
We obtained records showing how a Department of Government Efficiency staffer with no medical experience used artificial intelligence to identify which VA contracts to kill. “AI is absolutely the wron...
www.propublica.org
October 9, 2025 at 3:00 AM
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NEW statement from Dow Jones, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal:

"We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit."
July 19, 2025 at 2:35 AM
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Wishing all the powerful people consolidating wealth, harming the populace, and imprisoning opponents a very happy Bastille Day
July 14, 2025 at 2:53 PM
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July 11, 2025 at 8:42 PM
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July 9, 2025 at 11:58 PM
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Here's my take on the perfect pun.

It must be clever, but not too clever.

If it's not clever, it's stupid, and people think you're stupid.

If it's too clever, people don't get it and they feel stupid.

If it's "right" clever, people get it after a second, and feel clever for doing so.
July 6, 2025 at 3:49 AM
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Congress abdicated its role as a separate and independent branch of government on January 20 while also relinquishing all oversight responsibility, so it’s entirely appropriate for Johnson to show that he has surrendered his gavel to the executive.
July 4, 2025 at 10:13 PM