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Former Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan is weighing a run for higher office as a Democrat. But is the party ready for him?

In a conversation with the “Politically Georgia” podcast airing today, Duncan, an AJC contributing opinion columnist, expressed his ongoing exasperation over the direction of the Republican Party under President Donald Trump. He called the “big, beautiful” bill moving through the Senate this week “an abomination of any sort of conservative values.”

And he expressed frustration with the field running for Georgia governor so far from both parties. That includes two Republicans, Attorney General Chris Carr and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who is expected to announce his campaign later this summer, and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and state Sen. Jason Esteves for the Democrats.

“From the right, I’ve got everybody embracing Donald Trump and that’s just an unacceptable strategy for me for a number of reasons,” he said of the 2026 field. “And on the left, I just personally don’t believe Mayor Bottoms is positioned well to beat a Republican.”

Duncan has been the subject of wide speculation as a potential candidate for governor. Asked if he’s considering a run, he said, “I’ve certainly heard the rumor. And, I’m certainly fielding phone calls from folks across the state that are asking the same question.”

He noted he’s getting calls from people across the political spectrum, but that his days as a GOP candidate are likely over.

“I’m certainly not going to run as a Republican. I’ve given up on them as much as they’ve given up on me,” he said.

The Steam Sale started a few days ago and people have been doing their recommendations. The Adventure Games Podcast has a nice page with their recommendations, Miri Teixeiri has a good recommendation thread on bluesky, but now I want to do one because that’s what blogs are for. As usual, I also think you should consider buying games on Itch.io but they’re not doing a sale right now. I’m also missing a ton of stuff because I can only write so much, so if you enjoy these then keep looking around. Despite the occasional discourse about it being dead, there’s constantly new games coming out and I even wrote a post a few weeks ago about all the releases this year. So in no order really, here’s a list of recommendations that are more focused on recent releases.

from the "Pre-emptively Answered Questions" page

What made you go and do this?

Okay so on Trans Day of Visibility 2025, Checkpoint Gaming published what they called the "definitive list" of trans games throughout history. While it highlighted a great deal of excellent titles featuring trans representation and trans developers from the last decade or so, it could hardly be described as definitive or throughout history. Out of the whole list, only two games were older than 2010, one by a trans woman (M.U.L.E by Danielle Bunten Berry), and one with a prominent trans character (Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door). This honestly cheesed me off big time because we've always been here. of course we have, but articles like this risk implying the transphobic narrative that we're some kind of trendy social contagion invented by Joe Biden to sell more Cloud Atlas tickets or fucking whatever. So I decided fuck it. I'm making my own list. a list of as many games as possible from before 2010 which we know for a fact had a trans person on the dev team. We've probably touched way more games than you think.

Why the 2010 cutoff?

Couple of reasons. First of all, as said above, I was specifically looking for older games and Fifteen Years Ago seems like a good dividing line. It's where the Checkpoint list ran dry.

Also, the later we go the more that larger studios tend to balloon in size to the point where it would get statistically REALLY weird if it was all-cis teams. Like, case in point, did you know that there was at least one trans person on the GTA 5 dev team? (And there is btw. I know someone who knows her). That isn't nessecarily something people would KNOW know, but it's also just not an interesting fact at that kind of scale.. Rockstar North in Scotland alone had over 360 employees at the time of GTA 5's release, and thousands more people worked on the game across ALL of Rockstar's studios. Even if you take the most conservative estimate of what percentage of people are trans, and ignore the fact that a relatively high amount of trans people end up in tech, it would STILL be a hell of a statistical anomaly if absolutely NONE of those thousands of people had at least SOMETHING a bit gendery going on. So yeah it would basically get to the point where you could probably just list Every "AAA" Game.

Is that the page finished then?

Oh HELL no. I've still got to add a whole bunch of screenshots and descriptions and links about the various games. Heck, there's a bunch I've still got to get around to actually playing. ALSO I keep finding out about more games and more trans people. I swear I didn't think this was going to be as long a list as it is. You'd think I'd have learned not to underestimate other trans people by now but here we are.

Hey you missed a game/developer.

Brilliant! I want to know about this. Probably the best way to contact me right now is on the Fediverse so yell at me there about it. You can find me at https://chitter.xyz/@DotMaetrix

The list seems awfully transfem heavy. Aren't there more (or heck, any) trans men that have done videogames?

Probably. Once again, if you know about any, I REALLY want to know. TBH I think one of the side effects of the games industry being a bit of a Boys Club is that a lot of trans developers will have either got their starts while they were still presenting as men, or living stealth as men.

As we all know, Mamdani has proposed making New York City’s bus system free. Writer Matt Bruenig makes the case for Mamdani’s free bus idea on the basis that school bus systems and libraries are already free and he asked for a more of an enlightened debate on the utility of bus fares rather than a hyper-charged culture war. Well, I’m here to do that!

I helped start a group called East Bay Transit Riders Union in 2020. Socialists members quickly realized that the organizers were all YIMBY liberals so they made their own socialist version: People’s Transit Alliance (PTA). While EBTRU focused more on technocratic things like bus lanes and service, PTA prioritized organizing with the transit workers union and popularizing free fares. In my article on this divide, I wimped out on taking a direct position, mainly because it felt like a culture war issue and those are boring.

So I’m going to take a position here: free bus fares is not the optimal approach to easing low-income rider burdens, but it’s a well-intended idea and would have mostly positive benefits if implemented. I don’t think Mamdani is actually concerned with the optimal decision for transit agencies but rather the politically optimal decision to build his movement — and that’s not bad.

Over the past year, we’ve completely rebuilt the Namesake app. It has a new design, more accessible forms, improved security, and is now open source. This new app builds a foundation for us to support name changes in many more locations and for different types of activities. You can sign up today.

To enact his ambitious agenda to make the city more affordable, [Mamdani] would need to strike a better relationship with his former colleagues in Albany than Walker did.

Two of the three key planks in his platform — making buses free to ride and providing universal free child care — would require action from the governor and state legislature, including raising taxes by billions of dollars. (The third, freezing the rent on rent-stabilized apartments, can be accomplished at the city level.)

His five years in the legislature may serve him well in navigating Albany politics. He’s built alliances with legislators, especially fellow progressives, and seen the state capitol’s byzantine budget process up close.

“The budget process is almost a living, breathing thing,” said Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris, a frequent ally of Mamdani’s. “There’s a long line of mayors who thought they knew how to handle state government who have failed at doing so … I think he knows how to do it better than other mayors who have come before.”

The biggest thing Mamdani needs from Albany is money. His plan rests on the state’s willingness to raise $9 billion in taxes on corporations and high-earners.

Gianaris noted that in recent years, both houses of the legislature have supported raising taxes on the wealthy. “So there’s two out of the three players already on board with the broad strokes of that proposal,” he said.

Governor Kathy Hochul, on the other hand, has firmly opposed tax increases, recently saying, “I don’t want to lose any more people to Palm Beach.”

Not all legislators are on board, either.

“I’m not a fan of any of his tax proposals,” Weprin said. “I think they’re unrealistic and would have a very tough time getting approval in Albany.”

Mamdani will also need Albany’s backing to enact his promise to make buses fast and free. The Metropolitan Transit Authority is controlled by the state, not the city; its yearlong experiment with fare-free buses, approved in the 2023 state budget, was one of Mamdani’s signature legislative victories. But his colleagues declined to renew the program in 2024, and MTA chair Janno Lieber has been critical of the effort since it ended.

“We tried [Mamdani’s] idea of free buses on different lines,” he told radio host Brian Lehrer in April. “Most of the additional ridership [that] was identified cannibalized other lines. You’re taking people who are paying on other lines, and they were just getting a free ride.”

Lieber has also said that the free buses sent the “wrong message” at a time when the MTA has prioritized cracking down on fare evasion. He has said he prefers to reduce fares for low-income people through a more targeted approach.

Esther Fallick wants her comedy to be an escape from the horrors. But that escape has a purpose: to make it easier to face these times for what they are. By poking fun at something that can feel so heavy, like the president pitting his administration against transgender people, Fallick wants to find ways to bring people together and laugh off the darkness creeping in on everyday life.

“We could be having a little more fun as a community, as a country. I just feel like so much of what we’re talking about as trans people right now is so dire. There’s reason for that, but I just wanted a space to be intentionally silly,” she said. Intentions aside, she still spent the first episode of her podcast — aptly titled, “Having Fun” — joking about fleeing anti-trans violence in America with fellow comedian Ella Yurman. The gallows humor is inescapable.

Her weekly variety show in Brooklyn, titled “While We’re Here,” is also a dark joke: We’re only here, alive and on this planet, for so long. And life is only getting harder. So what should we do in the meantime? Fallick suggests laughter, to start, followed by music, reading and teach-ins on topics ranging from transmisogyny — how trans women are hurt by both misogyny and transphobia — to demilitarizing New York City’s police force, especially in Brooklyn.

You may hear the phrase “electronic music” and think of superstar dubstep DJs in funny helmets at beachside celebrity parties. Alternatively, you may think of the mercurial compositions of Karlheinz Stockhausen, the musique concrete of Pierre Henry, or the otherworldly experimentalism of François Bayle. If you’re in that latter camp of music nerd, then this post may bring you very glad tidings indeed. Ubuweb—that stalwart repository of all things 20th-century avant-garde—now hosts an extraordinary compilation: the 476-song History of Electronic/Electroacoustic Music, originally a 62 CD set. (Hear below Stockhausen’s “Kontact,” Henry’s “Astrologie,” and Bayle’s spare “Theatre d’Ombres” further down.)

Spanning the years 1937–2001, the collection should especially appeal to those with an avant-garde or musicological bent. In fact, the original uploader of this archive of experimental sound, Caio Barros, put these tracks online in 2009 while a student of composition at Brazil’s State University of São Paulo. Barros’ “initiative,” as he writes at Ubuweb, “became some sort of legend” among musicophiles in the know.

Berlin-based advocates are one step closer to creating a car-free zone in their city that's bigger than the entirety of Manhattan.

A decision on Wednesday by the Berlin Constitutional Court allows a long-stalled initiative by the advocacy group Volksentscheid Berlin Autofrei ("Ballot Measure for an Auto-Free Berlin) to continue gathering signatures for a referendum to create a zone in the center of the German capital that would be free of almost all private automobiles.

The group's efforts had already reached the initial, 50,000-signature threshold before a series of procedural impediments threw a wrench in their effort. Wednesday's court decision pushes the long-delayed process forward, beginning with a debate at the Berlin House of Representatives, followed by another round of signature collection that would allow the referendum to take place in 2026, the group said.

The "ban" would still allow up to 12 uses of a private automobile per year per person. It would also include exceptions for rental vehicles, people with disabilities, and service vehicles like delivery vans and garbage trucks.

With the backing of DSA, Somerville City Councilor-at-Large and democratic socialist Willie Burnley Jr. is challenging two-term incumbent Mayor Katjana Ballantyne.

Burnley’s campaign comes as Zohran Mamdani’s upset in the New York City mayoral race stunned the world. Mamdani made international headlines on June 24th by defeating a powerful ex-Governor born into a political dynasty and backed by the entire Democratic Party establishment.

Mamdani and Burnley are DSA-endorsed members of their local chapters, and their political styles are similar. They are both self-described organizers. Both have employed creative campaign techniques and developed robust field operations on a scale that addresses the needs of two very different cities, while tackling broadly felt working-class issues. For Zohran, it was freezing the rent, making buses fast and free, and universal childcare. For Burnley, it’s affordable social housing, uplifting union rights and tenants’ rights, and increasing resources for K-12 students. The campaign has hosted creative events like a cannabis-infused fundraiser, and its volunteers are already knocking on doors five days a week.

Working Mass spoke with Willie over video call to ask him about his background, his historic campaign, his work on Somerville City Council so far, and – of course – his views on what is most important for Somerville’s future.

In the 1990s, a small cir­cle of inter­sex peo­ple came to know one anoth­er. They met face-to-face and con­nect­ed over the inter­net (then a nov­el­ty). As they shared life expe­ri­ences, med­ical records, and per­spec­tives on the injuries and neglect they endured, a con­sen­sus quick­ly arose. They found shared strug­gles, caused not sole­ly by wide­spread igno­rance of ordi­nary human vari­ance in repro­duc­tive devel­op­ment, but also by the ways they were known over.

At worst, this know­ing over meant surg­eries and oth­er treat­ments car­ried out with lit­tle regard for their con­sent, then usu­al­ly con­cealed from them. Med­ical jar­gon and vague euphemism had been lay­ered along with scar tis­sue. The truth of their treat­ments was left impos­si­ble for inter­sex peo­ple to reach indi­vid­u­al­ly — but was eas­i­ly recog­nised when they gath­ered. Then, they could intu­itive­ly grasp the shared wound­ing and neglect that pre­vi­ous­ly iso­lat­ed inter­sex peo­ple (that had caused them to know them­selves only as med­ical freaks — best off cor­rect­ed and hid­den away — and not as their own cat­e­go­ry of human, who might under­stand themselves).

Inter­sex advo­cates first focused on dia­logue, both inter­nal and exter­nal, by rais­ing con­scious­ness at small com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings and on pur­pose-made web forums and devel­op­ing con­nec­tions with allies in fem­i­nist schol­ar­ship and the LGBTQ+ move­ment. Inter­sex advo­ca­cy of this era had an unmis­tak­able imprint of both the fem­i­nist and les­bian and gay move­ments. Inter­sex peo­ple drew slo­gans, strate­gies, insights, and approach­es from ear­li­er twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry coun­ter­cul­ture – and merg­ing with the pre­vail­ing provoca­tive style of ​’90s queer campaigners.

After just three years of under­ground con­scious­ness-rais­ing organ­i­sa­tion, inter­sex advo­ca­cy took to the streets (first in Boston in 1996, then quick­ly world­wide). Their first protest fea­tured signs read­ing ​“SILENCE = DEATH”. Just two inter­sex demon­stra­tors were flanked by trans­sex­u­als, hold­ing a flam­boy­ant pick­et to con­front doc­tors with ​“feed­back” from those who they’d harmed. From 1996 to today, advo­cates began con­fronting the pro­fes­sion­als respon­si­ble for the harms done to inter­sex chil­dren, with the hope that future gen­er­a­tions could be spared the devel­op­men­tal injuries that so many in the move­ment had endured.