John Slocum
@jslocum.bsky.social
Executive Director, Refugee Council USA. Nonresident Senior Fellow, Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs. For now, also on X as @JohnSlocum2. Posts are my own.
This really is beyond the pale. Trump on Khashoggi's brutal murder: “You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you liked him or didn’t like him, things happen." www.cnn.com/2025/11/18/p...
Trump claims slain journalist Khashoggi was ‘extremely controversial,’ defends Saudi crown prince | CNN Politics
President Donald Trump on Tuesday dismissed a question about the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, claiming that the Saudi dissident journalist was “extremely controversial” and that raising the subject...
www.cnn.com
November 18, 2025 at 8:08 PM
This really is beyond the pale. Trump on Khashoggi's brutal murder: “You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you liked him or didn’t like him, things happen." www.cnn.com/2025/11/18/p...
This is what the Trump/Miller/Homan/Bovino blitz has brought us: neither good-faith immigration policy nor public safety, but a long series of abusive actions by armed, masked thugs. Every child in that daycare has been traumatized by this incident. Such horrors are happening every day in Chicago.
Federal agents pulling a woman out of Rayito Del Sol, a daycare by Lane Tech high school
November 5, 2025 at 4:51 PM
This is what the Trump/Miller/Homan/Bovino blitz has brought us: neither good-faith immigration policy nor public safety, but a long series of abusive actions by armed, masked thugs. Every child in that daycare has been traumatized by this incident. Such horrors are happening every day in Chicago.
The cesspool that is Twitter/X is extra cesspooly tonight.
November 5, 2025 at 3:13 AM
The cesspool that is Twitter/X is extra cesspooly tonight.
".Among other things, the company would have to deploy one million humanlike robots and boost its stock market value to $8.5 trillion from $1.4 trillion today.Control of Tesla Is at Stake in Vote on Elon Musk’s Pay Plan" www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/b...
Control of Tesla Is at Stake in Vote on Elon Musk’s Pay Plan
www.nytimes.com
November 4, 2025 at 4:50 PM
".Among other things, the company would have to deploy one million humanlike robots and boost its stock market value to $8.5 trillion from $1.4 trillion today.Control of Tesla Is at Stake in Vote on Elon Musk’s Pay Plan" www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/b...
Reposted by John Slocum
The United States was the leading destination for top scientists from all over the world.
That is ending. Politicians ended it. It will cripple our future competitiveness.
And it’s such a bitter tragedy. Almost no Americans, Conservative or Liberal, grasp what is now being stolen from them.
That is ending. Politicians ended it. It will cripple our future competitiveness.
And it’s such a bitter tragedy. Almost no Americans, Conservative or Liberal, grasp what is now being stolen from them.
Top researchers consider leaving U.S. amid funding cuts: 'The science world is ending'
YouTube video by PBS NewsHour
youtu.be
November 1, 2025 at 3:44 AM
The United States was the leading destination for top scientists from all over the world.
That is ending. Politicians ended it. It will cripple our future competitiveness.
And it’s such a bitter tragedy. Almost no Americans, Conservative or Liberal, grasp what is now being stolen from them.
That is ending. Politicians ended it. It will cripple our future competitiveness.
And it’s such a bitter tragedy. Almost no Americans, Conservative or Liberal, grasp what is now being stolen from them.
The FY26 Presidential Determination(aka refugee admissions ceiling), is to be officially published tomorrow WITHOUT legally mandated consultations with Congress having taken place.
RCUSA is outraged by the White House’s Presidential Determination on refugee admissions for Fiscal Year 2026, which sets the refugee admissions goal at a devastatingly low 7,500 – the lowest ever set in the 45-year history of the USRAP
See RCUSA's full statement here: rcusa.org/news-and-med...
See RCUSA's full statement here: rcusa.org/news-and-med...
October 30, 2025 at 5:56 PM
The FY26 Presidential Determination(aka refugee admissions ceiling), is to be officially published tomorrow WITHOUT legally mandated consultations with Congress having taken place.
Given Trump's announced intention to resume testing of nuclear weapons, I urge folks to seek out informed commentary and follow the authoritative @thebulletin.org (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) - which as of January 28 had already set its famed "Doomsday Clock" at 89 seconds to midnight.
October 30, 2025 at 2:12 AM
Given Trump's announced intention to resume testing of nuclear weapons, I urge folks to seek out informed commentary and follow the authoritative @thebulletin.org (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) - which as of January 28 had already set its famed "Doomsday Clock" at 89 seconds to midnight.
Anything the President doesn't like, he calls "fake." That's all that word means when he uses it. It's as simple as that.
October 24, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Anything the President doesn't like, he calls "fake." That's all that word means when he uses it. It's as simple as that.
This is the most willful, unlawful destruction leveled against a federal building since September 11, 2001 . . . and of the White House since August 24, 1814.
October 22, 2025 at 7:59 PM
This is the most willful, unlawful destruction leveled against a federal building since September 11, 2001 . . . and of the White House since August 24, 1814.
Reposted by John Slocum
Democrats should be drawing up legislation right now, this very minute, to bar Trump from helping himself to $230 million in taxpayer funds from DOJ. Challenge Republicans to hold a vote on it. Push this so hard in the media that every GOP Senate and House candidate is pressed to comment on it.
October 21, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Democrats should be drawing up legislation right now, this very minute, to bar Trump from helping himself to $230 million in taxpayer funds from DOJ. Challenge Republicans to hold a vote on it. Push this so hard in the media that every GOP Senate and House candidate is pressed to comment on it.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker at the Chicago No Kings Rally, October 19 2025: "Are we building a society based on human dignity or domination?"
October 19, 2025 at 4:49 AM
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker at the Chicago No Kings Rally, October 19 2025: "Are we building a society based on human dignity or domination?"
The Trump administration is dismantling the US Refugee Admissions Program and lobbying other countries to weaken protections for at-risk refugees and asylum seekers - threatening fundamental global protection principles. My commentary for @global-affairs.bsky.social tinyurl.com/bdzuzayv
How America's Retreat from Refugee Protection Undermines Global Stability
In reshaping its approach to asylum and refugee resettlement, the United States is signaling a departure from the principles it once championed and risking erosion of international norms.
globalaffairs.org
October 17, 2025 at 2:00 PM
The Trump administration is dismantling the US Refugee Admissions Program and lobbying other countries to weaken protections for at-risk refugees and asylum seekers - threatening fundamental global protection principles. My commentary for @global-affairs.bsky.social tinyurl.com/bdzuzayv
Has Bluesky's search function been disabled?
October 8, 2025 at 12:34 PM
Has Bluesky's search function been disabled?
You can substitute “US” for “UK” and add “and brutal, illegal shows of militarized force under the guise of immigration enforcement”
I understand why racists want to conflate illegal with legal immigration, recently-arrived immigrants with long-term residents, UK-born minorities with non-UK born. They know they are a small minority, so they set up a cascade of equivalences to get from immigration control to mass deportation. 1/n
October 5, 2025 at 1:22 PM
You can substitute “US” for “UK” and add “and brutal, illegal shows of militarized force under the guise of immigration enforcement”
The Trump administration has broken faith with the American people, who have welcomed refugees into their communities for decades - and refugees who have been waiting in line for years. A record-low refugee ceiling aligns with this admin’s consistently bad-faith approach to immigrant/refugee issues.
Breaking News: The Trump administration is said to have plans to slash refugee admissions to a record low, with many slots reserved for white South Africans.
Trump Administration Is Said to Plan to Cut Refugee Admissions to a Record Low
Many of the slots would go to white South Africans and others facing “unjust discrimination,” according to people familiar with the matter and documents obtained by The New York Times.
nyti.ms
October 4, 2025 at 1:44 AM
The Trump administration has broken faith with the American people, who have welcomed refugees into their communities for decades - and refugees who have been waiting in line for years. A record-low refugee ceiling aligns with this admin’s consistently bad-faith approach to immigrant/refugee issues.
What a shameful chapter of US history we're experiencing. A harrowing middle-of the-night raid on an entire five-story apartment building in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago. chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...
Massive immigration raid on Chicago apartment building leaves residents reeling: 'I feel defeated'
The Department of Homeland Security said federal agents with Border Patrol, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested 37 people in the raid.
chicago.suntimes.com
October 2, 2025 at 1:53 PM
What a shameful chapter of US history we're experiencing. A harrowing middle-of the-night raid on an entire five-story apartment building in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago. chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...
RIP Jane Goodall, who performed an immeasurable service for humanity by helping us get to know and care for our closest relatives in the web of life.
October 1, 2025 at 6:09 PM
RIP Jane Goodall, who performed an immeasurable service for humanity by helping us get to know and care for our closest relatives in the web of life.
Here’s to the leader of antifa
September 19, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Here’s to the leader of antifa
The President seems intent on cutting both drug prices and free-speech protections by 1000%
September 19, 2025 at 1:34 PM
The President seems intent on cutting both drug prices and free-speech protections by 1000%
Anyone who thinks that throwing trans people under the bus provides an offramp from the Niemöller escalation (i.e., "first they came for . . . " ) needs to think hard about the implications of the utterly dehumanizing rhetoric coming from these and other elected officials.
Reps Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Ronny Jackson (R-TX) call for an official federal eugenics program which will identify and imprison all trans people, much on the lines of the NSDAP's Action T4. www.yahoo.com/news/article...
Republican lawmakers Nancy Mace and Ronny Jackson call for transgender people to be institutionalized
GOP U.S. Reps. Nancy Mace and Ronny Jackson both called for the institutionalization of transgender people on Tuesday.
www.yahoo.com
September 19, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Anyone who thinks that throwing trans people under the bus provides an offramp from the Niemöller escalation (i.e., "first they came for . . . " ) needs to think hard about the implications of the utterly dehumanizing rhetoric coming from these and other elected officials.
Reposted by John Slocum
Ben Shapiro's new book "is a perfect encapsulation of Brandolini’s law that the energy required to refute bullshit is orders of magnitude greater than what it takes to produce it."
Absolutely savage takedown of Shapiro from
@mattpolprof.bsky.social:
www.currentaffairs.org/news/ben-sha...
Absolutely savage takedown of Shapiro from
@mattpolprof.bsky.social:
www.currentaffairs.org/news/ben-sha...
Ben Shapiro’s Latest Book Adopts a Horrifying “Creators vs. Parasites” Worldview
Supposedly, the world is divided into good, noble “lions” and evil, grasping “scavengers.” Guess which one Ben thinks he is?
www.currentaffairs.org
September 19, 2025 at 11:29 AM
Ben Shapiro's new book "is a perfect encapsulation of Brandolini’s law that the energy required to refute bullshit is orders of magnitude greater than what it takes to produce it."
Absolutely savage takedown of Shapiro from
@mattpolprof.bsky.social:
www.currentaffairs.org/news/ben-sha...
Absolutely savage takedown of Shapiro from
@mattpolprof.bsky.social:
www.currentaffairs.org/news/ben-sha...
Reposted by John Slocum
I know this isn’t typically how this works, but we’re in a big mess of Not Usually How This Works and I gotta think it’d at least be fun for a bunch of countries and corporations to insist on Stephen Miller’s firing as a precondition for further business investment.
according to an immigration attorney representing several arrested workers, ICE agents chose to arrest the Korean workers to fulfill the quota of 3,000 daily immigrant arrests set by Stephen Miller www.forbes.com/sites/stuart...
Stephen Miller’s Quota Likely Drove Korean Arrests In Immigration Raid
When ICE agents arrested over 300 Korean workers at a Georgia battery plant, a daily immigrant arrest quota was likely on their minds.
www.forbes.com
September 17, 2025 at 11:49 AM
I know this isn’t typically how this works, but we’re in a big mess of Not Usually How This Works and I gotta think it’d at least be fun for a bunch of countries and corporations to insist on Stephen Miller’s firing as a precondition for further business investment.
Hey Florida: infectious disease reads your vaccine libertarianism as a green light.
September 5, 2025 at 11:30 PM
Hey Florida: infectious disease reads your vaccine libertarianism as a green light.
We can have a functioning CDC or we can have RFK Jr.
I'm not sure we can have both.
I'm not sure we can have both.
August 29, 2025 at 3:33 AM
We can have a functioning CDC or we can have RFK Jr.
I'm not sure we can have both.
I'm not sure we can have both.
When authoritarians wish to destroy a people, they first deny their humanity. Trump today stated "Trans people do not exist," thus signaling they are fair game for persecution. Scapegoating and vilifying one group after another, as this administration does, is straight out of the fascist playbook.
August 28, 2025 at 9:57 PM
When authoritarians wish to destroy a people, they first deny their humanity. Trump today stated "Trans people do not exist," thus signaling they are fair game for persecution. Scapegoating and vilifying one group after another, as this administration does, is straight out of the fascist playbook.