Anxious Pickle

Anxious Pickle

@pdnell.bsky.social

Former public defender, single parent, bicyclist, baker, Jew, Democrat. Don’t like name-calling, but sometimes I do it quietly in the car. Black Lives Matter. 🗽🇺🇸🌎🌻

1.5K followers736 following5.6K posts

They invented algebra, which last time I checked is important in science . . . but whatever.

Don Moynihan@donmoyn.bsky.social

A 2025 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, Omar Yaghi is the son of Palestinian refugees who grew up in Jordan. He just left the US to move to China after raising concerns about rising anti-immigrant sentiment, like the kind shown here. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/china-than...

He did this in his first term. In 2024 he and Vance accused Haitians of eating pets in Ohio. Yet people stayed home. Now a million people are dead in Africa from the end of USAID and 100s of thousands of immigrants have been deported to who knows where. Elections are a binary choice.

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Anxious Pickle reposted

📍 𝐀𝐔𝐑𝐎𝐑𝐀, 𝐂𝐎: A 78-year-old priest was carried out of ICE detention by fellow detainees after staff reportedly refused to let him use a wheelchair beyond the gate. After 13 months in custody, he had lost over 30 pounds and could no longer walk independently. #AbuseOfPowerWatch

cbsnews.com78-year-old priest carried out of Colorado ICE facility by fellow detainees after judge orders releaseA 78-year-old Ugandan priest who spent more than a year in immigration detention was released from an Aurora facility Tuesday.

Anxious Pickle reposted

If Zohran Mamdani or Abdul El-Sayed had used the word “Shylock” as an insult, the ADL would be attacking them by name relentlessly. But Donald Trump used it, so we get a generic condemnation of the word without any specific reference to who actually used it, and with no assumption of intent.

Hillel is apparently paying my kid $150 to attend four sessions on Jewish values and complete related crafts. Since the director of Camp Havaya ruptured her connection to Judaism, I am overjoyed at this prospect.

Jon Ossoff for president. I don't normally think my people should run for president, but . . .

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

OSSOFF: Mike Collins called for killing immigrants by throwing them to their deaths out of helicopters. I'd like to hear if Mike Collins stands by that statement. Do you still believe in the extrajudicial killing of immigrants? MIKE COLLINS: *changes topic*

I had a nightmare last night in which the Democrats only mentioned Carter and completely ignored Biden because it was received wisdom that Biden was terrible and I kept trying to talk to people in the dream and it didn’t work and so like real life. Heartbroken for him.

I'm having one of those moments of simmering rage, where it is so clear to me that this did not have to happen and that people who sat out the election made a deeply immoral choice. I know it's not productive. But it is true.

Oh look — in other countries divul state secrets is treason. Here? Store ‘em in your bathroom and share them with your guests, it’s all fine.

The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com

The former head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service has been arrested on suspicion of “treasonous espionage,” including seeking to hand state secrets to foreign governments, in what could be the agency's worst security breach since the Cold War.

Just -- support @standing-together.bsky.social Ditch the labels. End the occupation. Work for both peoples. Find a way to talk to people about areas of agreement.

Joel S.@joelhs.bsky.social

Then, having accepted that definition of Zionism, you are deemed antisemitic if you do not support maintaining a Jewish voting majority in the state of Israel above enfranchising everyone equally, so expressing the binationalist politics of someone like Martin Buber gets you labeled antisemitic.

Anxious Pickle reposted

Replying to @joelhs.bsky.social

Then, having accepted that definition of Zionism, you are deemed antisemitic if you do not support maintaining a Jewish voting majority in the state of Israel above enfranchising everyone equally, so expressing the binationalist politics of someone like Martin Buber gets you labeled antisemitic.

Also true. Lose the binary, Damniel. Actually, just lose the labels-- they're not helpful. And don't screenshot, it's gross.

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This. (Although I wouldn't use these labels the way Joel is using them -- people who are pro-Netanyahu are not actually pro-Israel, and Zionist means many things, so I don't think I've made anyone "less Zionist," but I hope some are more pragmatic/less eager to blame Palestinians for their plight)

Joel S.@joelhs.bsky.social

Even putting aside what this demands of Jews, it is the opposite of doing good politics. I have personally pushed Jewish members of my family away from pro-Israel and Zionist stances by persuasion, learning, and example. If I had just cut them off, they would have worse politics today.

How long is a jar of red curry paste good for? Because I bought one today and then discovered three in the refrigerator. I suppose I should get myself to H-Mart and start using those wee cans instead.

🙄 Lots of Zionists want a free Palestine. Lose the binary. No one is going anywhere: not Jews and not Palestinians.

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I grew up admiring a hippie granola aesthetic, and it is challenging for me when my kid facetimes me from her dorm and she’s wearing false eyelashes. I mean, I know Michelle Obama wears them but I still wish my kid wouldn’t. #getoveritmom #notthroughorfromme

I have found my synagogue volunteer niche: greeter for the extrovert holidays, because then I can sit downstairs and greet people and not attend the noisy services.

Your periodic reminder that President Biden imposed sanctions and a weapons embargo on the settlements, and that in a Harris presidency there would have been more, but some of you couldn't be bothered to vote for her and now there are so many more dead people incl. Palestinians. Bravo, people.

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#5 reminds me of the time I was leaving my office and a man jammed himself into the same quarter of the revolving door, but facing me, grinning. So creepy.

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I don't do the extrovert holidays: Simchat Torah and Purim. I guess if you're an Orthodox Jewish man in Israel I'd add Lag B'Omer, but that's barely on my radar

maimonides nutz@maimonidesnutz.bsky.social

No one ask me if I will be celebrating Simchat Torah!! I do not drink, I do not dance, I do not hold heavy sacred scrolls with a slow torturous punishment for dropping them…and I CERTAINLY do not do all three at once!!

My uncle died the morning of YK. At his funeral, his son, who is in the Administration, gave a eulogy talking about my uncle‘s service and commitment to excellence— he was a Navy Lt and a school superintendent. He was telling a story in which he was living

his father’s values. But in addition to being incredibly smart and driven, my uncle had boundless empathy. He was warm. He was understanding. And he wasn’t a Republican. He was proud of my cousin but desperately hoping he was a guardrail. My cousin is not like him.

_Now_ my smoke detector battery wants to start its death throes? I'm too short to disable it without involving a chair, clogs, and the Columbia Encyclopedia.

How is this better than what got Seth Williams sent to federal prison for five years?

ProPublica@propublica.org

Our Pulitzer-winning "Friends of the Court" series began with this story that revealed how SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas had, for 20+ years, been treated to undisclosed luxury vacations by real estate titan and GOP megadonor Harlan Crow. (Published April 2023)

Anxious Pickle reposted

Yes. Why did it take two years??

Margaret Sullivan @sulliview.bsky.social

My take on Trump, the press corps and practical solidarity https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/21/white-house-press-corps-boycott?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I know better than to come home from Kol Nidre and go on social media, but I did, and an old friend had posted this for us. Now that I’ve read about the shooting in Toronto i thought I should post.

This is painfully familiar (and before there’s a pile-on, my child is Black).

Hakeem Jefferson@hakeemjefferson.bsky.social

Nikole Hannah-Jones w/ a sobering follow-up on her decision yrs ago to enroll her daughter in a poor, majority-Black public school rather than a wealthier, whiter private school. You leave heartbroken for the kids being failed by this grossly unequal system. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/m...