me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
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American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
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@mattblaze@federate.social
A non-trivial minority of Americans believe that protest is always illegitimate, and that police use of force against protestors is inherently justified. This is a failure of civics education, but it'
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me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
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Jan 25, 2026
@mattblaze@federate.social
I suspect there's a strong correlation between opposing the democratic right to protest and a perceived personal benefit from the current status quo.
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Current snow forecast for DC is for up to about 20" over the weekend, which is double the level at which cannibalism becomes temporarily legal under local law.
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me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
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Jan 22, 2026
@mattblaze@federate.social
Ahh, that explains the bread, milk and eggs everyone's stockpiling in anticipation. Gotta be prepared to make meatloaf out of your favorite neighbor 🤗
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This is objectively 25A territory. He doesn’t know that the Norwegian government doesn’t select the Nobel Peace Prize winner or that Norway and Denmark are different countries. https://www.nytimes.com
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me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
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Jan 19, 2026
@mattblaze@federate.social
He knows. He's blaming the Norwegian government for not controlling or punishing the Nobel committee.
Like any abuser, he'll find external factors to blame for his own abhorrent behavior. And in this case, the claimed link is somewhat direct in that he is preparing to invade Europe, which is very much a concern for Norway.
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@heidilifeldman@mastodon.social I remember not long ago we were all debating where the line is where we can say we're having a constitutional crisis, and then one day it was already so obvious that we
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@heidilifeldman@mastodon.social
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@heidilifeldman@mastodon.social
@mattblaze@federate.social Personally, I now say we are in a civil war.
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@mattblaze@federate.social
@heidilifeldman@mastodon.social That does seem to be the question. Or whatever it is when the government wages war against its citizens.
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me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
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Jan 17, 2026
@mattblaze@federate.social @heidilifeldman@mastodon.social
It's political and ethnic cleansing in pursuit of a constitutional self-coup.
The state terrorism is ramping up to dissuade the organized resistance requisite for this to be a civil war.
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@srvanderplas@datavis.social @me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org Indeed. The majority of the work of the Justice Department is the day-to-day, relatively apolitical turning of the gears of government. Whatever
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me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
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Jan 15, 2026
@mattblaze@federate.social @srvanderplas@datavis.social
There's room for a substantial gap between the largely incompetent MAGA true believers and the professionals who aren't particularly bothered by enabling them, as long as they can maintain their profession and reputation in the process.
Some non-MAGAs bailing out now may indeed be earnest in seeking to do the right thing, or even hoped to be the inside-guy who could leak or take action at the opportune time (somehow without getting disbarred in the process). But odds are they're just indifferent to the evils being perpetrated by their agency, until they're ordered to do something which will have personal and professional consequences for themselves.
Exceeding personal moral boundaries would have people leaving in trickles as different people have different boundaries. A mass exodus suggests a shared threshold has been reached, and that would most likely involve being ordered to do something either illegal or in serious violation of legal ethics as regulated by their bar association.
Of course I hope that they're all resigning because they're fundamentally decent human beings, and will eventually make statements to that effect. But at this point the clearest signal from their mass resignation is simply that the DOJ is attempting to use its powers to engage in unambiguously illegal, unjust, and unethical actions.
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In case it somehow wasn't already obvious how completely repellent the administration's legal harassment of Becca Good (Renee Good's widow) is, *six* senior career prosecutors in the local US Attorney
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me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
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Jan 13, 2026
@mattblaze@federate.social
If they've been fine with things thus far, the distinction now may be that their job would involve conduct likely to get them personally charged and/or disbarred at some point.
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Gramercy Park, NYC, 2020. All the pixels, which you can only look at from outside the gate, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/49594943761 #photography
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Captured with Phase One XT IQ4-150 and the Rodenstock 23mm/5.6 HR-Digraron, a sharp ultrawide angle that accommodated just enough shift movement to compose this frame. Captured from the now-shuttered
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@mattblaze@federate.social
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@mattblaze@federate.social
Gramercy Park, which sits between Lexington Avenue and Irving Place between 20th and 21st Streets in Manhattan, is a locked private park. At the center of the park is a statute of Edwin Booth, a 19th
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me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
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Jan 09, 2026
@mattblaze@federate.social
It's a real shame to waste all that space by excluding everyone from it so that a few people can have it to themselves on the rare occasion that they want it.
If I were one of those people with exclusive access, I'd feel like a massive asshole 😂
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Very interesting summary of the alleged J6 pipe bomber's interrogation in this filing: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.287328/gov.uscourts.dcd.287328.17.0.pdf A couple observa
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- The photos of the pipe bombs are exactly what you think pipe bombs would look like, complete with wires coming out of them and a kitchen timer. They were just out in the open, and they don't appear
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- Again, when they say "you're under arrest for planting bombs", this is a situation where you DEFINITELY want a lawyer. - They don't say how powerful the bombs would have been (assuming they weren't
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me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
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Dec 30, 2025
@mattblaze@federate.social
They've had the cellphone data the entire time, and were undoubtedly using it broadly with Jan 6th investigations. But there's likely a combination of legal issues with using it as the primary basis for arrests, and/or an interest in seeing who the suspect was interacting with, especially when he doesn't seem to have the relevant skills to be making bombs or an obvious motivation for it (prior to spilling his guts).
So not so much a matter of getting away with it for five years, but rather a watch and wait approach from the feds until Trump & co decided it's time to swoop in and take credit.
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It's now being widely reported that the suspect appears to have taken his own life in a storage unit. He was a Brown student originally from Portugal (where the professor was also from), but no motive
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Suspect had been a PhD student in physics at Brown in the early 2000's, but did not graduate. Unclear if he had any personal connection with the MIT physics professor (who was about the same age as th
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Reportedly both the professor and the suspect attended the same undergraduate university, at the same time, in Lisbon. But Prof. Loureiro went on to get his PhD at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, wh
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me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
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Dec 19, 2025
@mattblaze@federate.social
He may have blamed Brown and his former classmate for his own academic failures. And somehow thought he'd level the score by murdering the former classmate and some random teenagers 🙄
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The weirdest thing about Trump's disgusting, narcissistic, and utterly baseless response to the Reiner's murder (which I won't repeat or link to here; you can find it if you want) is that he seems to
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me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
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Dec 15, 2025
@mattblaze@federate.social
Sounds like he's ready to shift into "time to kill the libs because they deserve it" mode.
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@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org @ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org Unfortunately, can’t exactly walk over there after lunch to check.
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me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
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Dec 14, 2025
@mattblaze@federate.social @ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org
I'm probably closer anyhow. Shall I summon the sherpas and fire up the plucky expedition?
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Just learned that the great Tom Stoppard, author of many of my favorite plays, has died. I met him once, when I found myself sitting next to him in the audience at the Donmar Warehouse. I was so stars
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me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
me_valentijn
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
Prior account: https:// mastodon.social/@me_valentijn American living in the Netherlands over a decade now. Disabled due to post-viral illness nearly as long, mostly bedbound the past 5 years.
m.ai6yr.org
@me_valentijn@m.ai6yr.org
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Nov 29, 2025
@mattblaze@federate.social
We read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in high school. Never saw it 😁
I loved Empire of the Sun when I was a kid, should try rewatching it now. And somehow found Shakespeare in Love very enjoyable, despite generally loathing romantic movies.
Never would have recognized his name though, without looking him up now.
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