Mike Riggs

Editing at @rootsofprogress. Heavily invested in tomorrow being better than today.

[Mike Riggs @MikeRiggs]

Three years ago, one of the most socially adept and amiable young people I know was told by an autism therapist that he was on the spectrum because 1) he liked to collect stuff; 2) twiddled his fingers; 3) needed an occasional break from loud spaces. Szasz wept!

[Derek Thompson @DKThomp]

In 2019, there were about 150,000 people working in autism therapy.

Six years later, there were 654,000—more than the number of people who work in mining and logging, or telecommunications, or at the US Postal Service.

[Mike Riggs @MikeRiggs]

@gtmom replied!

[Brooks Otterlake @i_zzzzzz]

I worry that Wembanyama will get caught up in the distractions of New York City, like the Rose Reading Room at the public library or the upcoming conference on participatory futures at The New School

[Mike Riggs @MikeRiggs]

@ByrneHobart Does he have any idea how much 1/2 inch plywood goes for these days?!

[Mike Riggs @MikeRiggs]

@ZaidJilani @SWGoldman You are not wrong! I wasn't aware, but I am adding this to my list for consideration.

[Mike Riggs @MikeRiggs]

@ZaidJilani @SWGoldman Is there a third-row plug-in hybrid?

[Mike Riggs @MikeRiggs]

@SWGoldman We are getting one or the other later this year. The Odyssey is better looking, and the removable third row means you have almost as much hauling space as a pickup truck bed, but my biggest gripe with our Tucson (besides the fact that it's too small) is the crap MPG.

[Mike Riggs @MikeRiggs]

@lymanstoneky Can you have a special school district without special school district property taxes? The parents of Chapel Hill-Carrboro don't want the rest of O.C. in their schools. I think they might fight to keep paying the additional tax!

[Mike Riggs @MikeRiggs]

Central Florida once had so many kids that most schools needed portable classrooms to house them all. Now it's closing entire schools. Insane. ("It's vouchers!" Somewhat, yes, but it's also the baby bust.)

[Mike Riggs @MikeRiggs]

The Orlando MSA is one of the fastest-growing in the U.S.; the population is reportedly getting younger, yet Orange County is closing six elementary schools and one middle school, and every county in the MSA is experiencing declining public school enrollment.

[Kyle 🚄 @KyleTrainEmoji]

PICARD: Data, shields up

DATA: Brilliant! Shields can reduce damage we sustain. Not immunity. Not hubris. Just prudence. It's not precaution—it's strategy.

[camera shakes]

WORF: HULL BREACHES ON NINE DECKS

DATA: Here's what happened: you told me to raise shields, and I didn't

[Dudes Posting Their W’s @DudespostingWs]

Kyle Busch was driving down the road when he noticed the woman in the passenger seat next to him was wearing his hat and her reaction is priceless when she realizes

[gary leff @garyleff]

@MikeRiggs Charlotte is one of the worst airports in the United States, underbuilt for the volume of traffic and underinvestment has been its core strategy for growth by keeping American Airlines costs down.

[Mike Riggs @MikeRiggs]

@garyleff Yeesh! That crowd looks awful. That was not my experience changing planes there in March. (It's also not my home airport, so I probably wasn't qualified to opine on it!)

[Mike Riggs @MikeRiggs]

Traveling abroad as a *New Yorker* is humiliating. Raleigh-Durham International ain't this messy, and Charlotte Douglas International is pristine.

[شرق‌زده sharghzadeh @sharghzadeh]

Traveling abroad as an American is a humiliation ritual of sorts, it's a reminder that everything is better except "muh GDP" and "muh freedoms."

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

Two good ideas here for immigration reform:

[Mike Riggs @MikeRiggs]

The power users on this website represent a very narrow slice of humanity. My non-X male friends are fermenting, grilling, sous-viding. They own multiple meat thermometers. They have strong feelings about inducing the Maillard reaction.

[Mike Riggs @MikeRiggs]

I swear to god, every time I come to this website, half the intellectual elites in my feed are insisting that it's unreasonable, bordering on impossible, to cook anything more sophisticated than pasta. Millennials are the most developmentally arrested generation in history.

[Mike Riggs @MikeRiggs]

There are so many jobs that require strong young bodies, and the physical world will decay before our eyes if that work doesn't get done.

[Mike Riggs @MikeRiggs]

"if the government can jail you for a meme by pretending not to understand obvious political commentary, your rights are only as secure as the good faith of the most authoritarian official in your town."

[Greg Lukianoff @glukianoff]

Larry Bushart spent 37 days in jail for posting a meme on Facebook.

I’ve been doing this work for 25 years, and I can honestly say this is the worst First Amendment case I’ve ever seen.

Not because Larry threatened anyone. He didn’t. Not because he committed violence. He didn’t. Not because this was a close call. It wasn’t.

He posted a political meme — the kind of thing millions of Americans do every day — and local officials decided to treat it like a crime.

And because they had badges, prosecutors, jail cells, and the terrifying machinery of the state behind them, they got away with it for 37 days.

Larry is a retired police officer and National Guard veteran. The meme he shared quoted Donald Trump’s “we have to get over it” comment after a 2024 Iowa school shooting. Whatever you think of Trump, the meme was plainly political commentary. Perry County officials knew what it referred to. They knew it wasn’t a threat against a Tennessee school.

They arrested him anyway.

In the middle of the night.

They set his bond at $2 million.

He lost his job. He missed family milestones. He sat in jail for more than a month before the charges finally collapsed — because, of course, there was no crime here.

Today, @theFIREorg secured a measure of justice: Perry County agreed to pay Larry Bushart $835,000 for violating his constitutional rights.

This case should scare the hell out of people across the political spectrum.

Because if the government can jail you for a meme by pretending not to understand obvious political commentary, your rights are only as secure as the good faith of the most authoritarian official in your town.

That is exactly why we have the First Amendment. Not for speech everyone likes. Not for opinions that flatter the powerful. Not for the bland, safe, committee-approved stuff.

It exists for moments when fear, outrage, politics, and authority all line up and say: “Surely this is the exception.”

No. It isn’t.

I’m incredibly proud of @theFIREorg’s legal team. And I’m even prouder of Larry Bushart for refusing to let the government get away with treating his constitutional rights like a suggestion.

But despite the correct verdict, I'll probably always get angry every time I think of this case.

Let’s make this the last time anyone in America is arrested — let alone thrown in jail — for a meme.

Celebrate your independence. Defend your First Amendment.

https://t.co/7ADQTxeHsL