Mike Patton

Father, engineer, thinker, learner, progressive, iconoclast. Not always in that order.

[Mike Patton @mikepattn]

/2 #chimeseast the mgr told us that they don't charge the grat on alcohol only orders, only food. When I told her next time I would pay for my drinks separately from my food, she told me I was "welcome to eat somewhere else". Is this your attitude, Chimes? Wow.

[Mike Patton @mikepattn]

So I'm eating late, at the bar at #thechimeseast. The woman next to me saw that we were were both charged 20% gratuity, added to our bills & asked to speak to a manager. When a mgr came, she complained, noting that another party didn't get charged. /1

[Sara McGee for Texas HD 132 @SaraForTexLege]

I live in a new development neighborhood. My house was the first house on my street to be completed. For the last 18 months, the rest of the street has been under construction. Yes, the individuals building these houses do not look like I do, nor do they speak the same language as I do.

I have no idea what their citizenship status is, I’ve never cared to ask. All I see are people who are at work from the crack of dawn, until dusk, working hard in the BLISTERING Texas heat just to provide a life for their family, and to build houses for the Texas families who are excited about their new home. Just like every single other American.

I have never once felt nervous, or unsafe. Why - because they are human beings, and not once has a single individual given me a reason to feel nervous or unsafe. They are people, just like all of us.

I will never understand the anti-immigrant hate, and quite honestly - individuals who hold the irrational hatred of other people just because they look different than them - THOSE people are the scum, not the dudes I wave to on my way to work every morning.

[Alex Vindman 🇺🇸 @AVindman]

Resign!!

[Dr. Levi Cowan @TropicalTidbits]

I never publicly comment on political matters because they are usually irrelevant to my work of providing hurricane data and forecasts to people in my personal capacity. Today though, it is highly relevant, and as a member of the meteorological community, I am angry.

Planned or ongoing bulk workforce cuts would irreparably harm the National Weather Service, NOAA, and their scientists who save innumerable lives by warning people in advance of tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, tsunamis, blizzards, and other life-threatening hazards. Many of you reading this may knowingly or unknowingly be alive today because of their work, or know someone who is. As a direct consequence of wounding the NWS and NOAA, the public would be less safe.

My personal mission to bring hurricane science, data, and forecasts to the public would not be possible without the weather observations, doppler radar stations, computer models, hurricane hunter aircraft, and weather satellites provided by NOAA and the NWS. Your favorite weather apps, TV meteorologists, and private weather companies would also be unable to function without this data or the civil servants who live and breathe it to synthesize it into public safety information.

All of these benefits cost each taxpayer the equivalent of a few cups of coffee per year, and surveys show most would be willing to pay much more. The American weather enterprise saves many, many times more money than it costs to run, making it one of the biggest bangs for your buck in the government. The impact of quality weather forecasts and infrastructure on society is multiplied many-fold by preventing economic disruptions, keeping public transportation efficient, and providing lead time to prepare for and mitigate disasters. Most importantly, it saves priceless lives.

Careful, long-term plans to streamline or reorient the weather enterprise in an evolving world are not bad, but *this plan* is insane. A feverish rush to take a cleaver to this workforce is self-destructive and dangerous to Americans who rely on the services they provide. It also cuts off the legs of young, passionate scientists who represent the future of meteorology in the new age of AI and other emerging technologies -- the very people we need in the field right now.

As a part of this community since the age of 8 when I began analyzing hurricanes with dial-up internet, I am heartbroken and concerned by what appears to be planned or already in motion. It also directly impacts my friends and family. I cannot be silent, despite knowing I do myself no favors by speaking out. I ask you to join me in advocating for @NWS and @NOAA if you value their work or the work that I am able to do because of them. There are many ways to make your voice heard.

That's all for now, thanks for reading.

[Mike Patton @mikepattn]

@lisacaligal @PixieBebeX @CollinRugg They were outside

[𝔗𝔯𝔲𝔱𝔥 𝔐𝔞𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔰 @politicsusa46]

I am incandescent with rage right now. I feel sick to the stomach. A US Vice President stood today on the soil of where so many Americans gave their lives to defeat fascism in Europe. He delivered a disgraceful speech that spat on their graves. Not that we should expect any different, given his boss skipped visiting the graves of fallen Americans in Europe for fear of getting his hair wet. The same man who called the same fallen heroes suckers and losers.

As a Brit that loves America and the American people, I am deeply disturbed at the insults delivered by a man who once described Donald Trump as an “idiot" and said he was "reprehensible." Privately, comparing him to Adolf Hitler.

How times have changed. Vance is now part of the most authoritarian administration in American history. An administration actively seeking to deny bodily autonomy to women. An administration pursuing the same mass deportation of immigrants that Europe witnessed in 1930s Germany. Vance is a man that his own president doesn’t even see as his successor.

He came to Europe to vomit his Christo-fascist bile on leaders from the UK and across Europe, in what appears to be a retribution tour designed to assert American power.

The U.S. are to my knowledge the only NATO country to have invoked Article 5 of the NATO charter after 9/11. We, his European allies, met that call with no questions asked. We sent thousands of soldiers to the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq to fight a war on the false premise of Donald Rumsfeld’s ‘known unknowns’. We did this despite millions of our own citizens protesting in the streets of our cities.

Our military stood shoulder to shoulder with his military and we, like many Americans, stood to salute our fallen young men and women returning home day after day. I have tears in my eyes as I write this, thinking of them and their loved ones. Our brave men and women willingly gave their all and far too many made the ultimate sacrifice in support of an American led war.

For the record, 6000 Ukrainian solders server alongside American soldiers in Iraq. This, despite Ukraine not being a member of NATO. In 1994 upon signing the Budapest Memorandum they gave up their nuclear weapons in return for security assurances from the US and the UK. These were then reneged upon in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea. They were told ‘An assurance is not a guarantee’.

Now, despite their friendship and their brave sacrifice on the battlefields of Ukraine, the President of the United States has decided to abandon them and hand a victory to an indicted war criminal, who illegally invaded the sovereign territory of a US ally. An ally who’s soldiers had previously lost their lives supporting America in its war on terror.

SHAME ON HIM. Shame on the man who dodged the draft and never served a day in defense of his nation. He is a coward and I would gladly call him that to his face. To all those Americans on social media currently posting vile insults to those who have always been there for America, I say, democracy is bigger than you, as you sit anonymously behind your phones posting poison.

America might have the most powerful army on the planet, but remember, that same army fled from Saigon after being handed their ass by a bunch of peasant rice farmers, armed with grenades made from discarded US coke cans. Ukraine have been to the Russian army what the Vietnamese were to you and we salute them.

You might want to throw Ukraine under the bus while stealing there mineral deposits, BUT EUROPE WILL NOT ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN. I know for sure that the UK will not abandon the Ukrainian people. Our aid to GDP contribution already exceeds that of the US as does Poland, Germany Finland and others.

The U.S. is no longer a reliable ally and if need be, we will stand with Ukraine without America.

As for your pathetic tariffs, do your worst. You will soon have no friends but thugs and autocrats, so I’m sure Wun Dum Fuc will be right at home.

[Tim Hannan @TimHannan]

Do these people think they are going to get an exception because they are Trumpers? The leopard is not going to put your face back on.

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: Pope Francis unleashes a historic attack on the Trump administration over its cruel treatment of migrants — and takes specific aim at remarks made by J.D. Vance, a Catholic convert.

So-called Christians in the MAGA movement are melting down over this...

The Pope, head of the Catholic Church, issued a rebuke of Donald Trump's mass deportation plan, stating that it removes the migrants of their inherent dignity as people and "will end badly."

Usually one to abstain from commenting directly on the internal politics of individual countries, Francis made his new remarks in a letter addressing U.S. bishops.

In it, he invoked the Bible's Book of Exodus and said that God is "always close, incarnate, migrant and refugee" and pointed out that Jesus Christ was "expelled from his own land" when his family fled to Egypt and had to "take refuge in a society and a culture foreign to his own."

Putting fake Christians to shame, Pope Francis went on to state that Jesus loved "everyone with a universal love" and taught us to see the"dignity of every human being, without exception."

"Thus, all the Christian faithful and people of good will are called upon to consider the legitimacy of norms and public policies in the light of the dignity of the person and his or her fundamental rights, not vice versa," the pope wrote.

He then turned his pen towards addressing the United States directly.

"I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations," wrote Pope Francis.

"The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality," he continued.

"At the same time, one must recognize the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival."

"That said, the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness," wrote the pope.

It was the next part of the letter that has really infuriated MAGA supporters. Recently, Vice President J.D. Vance — who was baptized and confirmed into the Catholic Church in 2019 — attacked the Church's compassionate teachings on immigration.

Proving that he either doesn't understand Catholic theology or would prefer to cherrypick what he likes and doesn't, Vance butchered a medieval concept known as "ordo amoris" or the "order of love."

"As an American leader, but also just as an American citizen, your compassion belongs first to your fellow citizens," Vance told Fox News. "That doesn’t mean you hate people from outside of your own borders, but there’s this old-school [concept] — and I think it’s a very Christian concept, by the way — that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then, after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world."

Of course, the idea that one should love those closest to you doesn't mean that you shouldn't love people from other countries. Vance shamelessly twisted the meaning to suit his party's xenophobic views. St. Augustine, who pioneered the concept that Vance was referencing, certainly didn't advocate for an authoritarian mass migration program.

In his letter, Pope Francis wrote that "Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups," a direct and blunt rebuke of Vance's claims.

"In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings!" the pope continued. "The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation. The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the 'Good Samaritan', that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception."

Francis warned against deploying "an ideological criterion that distorts social life and imposes the will of the strongest as the criterion of truth."

He went on to urge the bishops in the United States to continue working "closely with migrants and refugees, proclaiming Jesus Christ" and "promoting fundamental human rights."

"God will richly reward all that you do for the protection and defense of those who are considered less valuable, less important or less human!" he added.

Pope Francis then turned his attention to the entire Catholic Church, urging its followers "not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters."

He concluded by calling for all of us to work towards a "a society that is more fraternal, inclusive and respectful of the dignity of all."

In other words, we need to build a world where MAGA is not the law of the land.

Please retweet and ❤️ to thank Pope Francis for standing up to MAGA hatred — and consider joining the growing exodus to Tribel, a new pro-democracy social network that is exploding in popularity because Twitter and Facebook are trying to stop its growth — which is only making Tribel grow even faster. Please follow us on Tribel to get all of our breaking news alerts sent straight to your phone or computer by clicking the following link: https://t.co/HnJzSKj4Hp

[John Pavlovitz Official @johnpavlovitz]

The silence of my friends on the far Left who incessantly beat the, "Kamala is as bad as Trump" drum for months (likely costing her the election), while vilifying those of us trying to keep them from a stance that was going to harm the people of Gaza—is deafening.

[Art Candee 🍿🥤 @ArtCandee]

Nearly every atheist I know has a stronger moral compass than MAGA "Christians."

[Amber @missrobinson]

Kind of comical that the world’s richest man could choose to end world hunger on his own but is instead using his power to shut down the world’s biggest food aid program. Now that’s evil

[Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @AdamKinzinger]

It wasn’t an air traffic control issue stop with the conspiracies and blaming. It’s an accident. Trump should be quiet and all this “you fired someone and it caused this” crowd.

Be adults

[𝔗𝔯𝔲𝔱𝔥 𝔐𝔞𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔰 @politicsusa46]

In 1943, the American government made this film to fight fascism.

Little did they know that it was aimed at preventing the very thing over half of America voted for in November.

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: MAGA world melts down as Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde calls Donald Trump out directly to his face during a sermon at the National Cathedral — urging him to find compassion and mercy.

This is the last thing Trump expected today...

"I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared. There are gay, lesbian, transgender children, Democratic, Republican, independent families — some who fear for their lives," the reverend said as Trump sat in the pews.

She said that millions of Americans "put their trust in you."

"The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals — they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals," she added.

Destroying Republicans lies about migrants, she said that those workers "pay taxes" and are "faithful members" of American churches, mosques, synagogues, and mosques.

Appealing to empathy that Trump lacks, she said that the children of those migrants "fear their parents are going to be taken away."

"Find compassion," she added, urging him to help vulnerable people fleeing from war zones and persecution — a tall ask for a man as demonstrably anti-refugee as Trump.

Please retweet and ❤️ if you think that a real Christian president would heed the reverend's words — and consider joining the growing exodus to Tribel, a new pro-democracy social network that is exploding in popularity because Twitter and Facebook are trying to stop its growth — which is only making Tribel grow even faster. Please follow us on Tribel to get all of our breaking news alerts sent straight to your phone or computer by clicking the following link: https://t.co/HnJzSKj4Hp

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

Four years ago, in the middle of a pandemic, we needed a leader with the character to put politics aside and do what was right. That’s what @JoeBiden did.

At a time when our economy was reeling, he drove what would become the world’s strongest recovery – with 17 million new jobs, historic wage gains, and lower health care costs. He passed landmark legislation to rebuild our nation’s infrastructure and address the threat of climate change. 

I’m grateful to Joe for his leadership, his friendship, and his lifetime of service to this country we love.

[Liz Cheney @Liz_Cheney]

The Special Counsel’s 1/6 Report, made public last night, confirms the unavoidable facts of 1/6 yet again. DOJ’s exhaustive and independent investigation reached the same essential conclusions as the Select Committee. All this DOJ evidence must be preserved. But most important now, as the Senate considers confirming Trump’s Justice Department nominees: if those nominees cooperated with Trump’s deceit to overturn the 2020 election, they cannot now be entrusted with the responsibility to preserve the rule of law and protect our Republic. As our framers knew, our institutions only hold when those in office are not compromised by personal loyalty to a tyrant. So this question is now paramount for Republicans: Will you faithfully perform the duties the framers assigned to you and do what the Constitution requires? Or do you lack the courage?

[Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump]

If anyone tells you that Trump has “changed” and is now more “mature” and “relaxed,” just laugh in their face.

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

Christianity has no place in America. That’s a plain fact!

If this tweet angers you, now you know how peaceful Muslims feel when their faith is attacked.

America was founded on principles of religious freedom and the separation of church and state—not on privileging one religion over another. Respecting all beliefs is what makes us truly American.

[Mike Patton @mikepattn]

@cmdott @KarenOwens001 @GenMhayden I don't think any of us are safe