Dan Sinker

I make stuff. Currently Says Who and Rebel Spirit podcasts & writing at my website. Formerly Punk Planet (RIP), impeachment dot fyi, OpenNews, and much more. Always something new coming soon.

web: https://dansinker.com
blog: https://dansinker.com/blog/
instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dansinker/
twitter: https://twitter.com/dansinker

Public Key

npub1typudxl8yw5xek4dd0yv64kdvh45ryppserfr6fwr3ey7xz4v0jq06jqpl

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs9jq7xn0nj82rvm2kkhjxd2mxkt66pjqscv353ayhpcuj0rp2k8eqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dshhkgt8

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1typudxl8yw5xek4dd0yv64kdvh45ryppserfr6fwr3ey7xz4v0jq06jqpl

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Last Notes

2026-05-01 13:14:07 UTC

Happy May Day from Chicago.
https://cdn.hosted.spacebear.ee/sb-a8d44812c4a854da6bbc66be265b858e/media_attachments/files/116/499/496/759/492/500/original/fa14c0af12e88c42.png

2026-04-17 14:22:43 UTC

One side obsession from my research into the 1920s is the extensive network of ELECTRIC trains that used to connect cities and towns across the central Midwest called the Interurban. We had this more than a hundred years ago. The things we had and the things we lost.
https://cdn.hosted.spacebear.ee/sb-a8d44812c4a854da6bbc66be265b858e/media_attachments/files/116/420/494/153/170/130/original/8345d0a3dca46406.png

2026-03-09 01:32:41 UTC

Tomorrow! Chicago! Come hang out with me and Joe. @ 12:30 Columbia College 618 S Michigan 3rd floor. Will be wild. https://allium.colum.edu/readings-and-events/storytelling-week-featuring-joe-meno-and-dan-sinker

2026-03-03 20:20:11 UTC

“We accidentally killed all the folks we’d want to lead Iran” is 100% the girlfriend-in-Canada for not actually having a succession plan.

2026-02-27 00:14:05 UTC

The best thing you can do in light of the Ellison takeover of Warner Brothers invest your time, energy, and money in supporting independent creators and independent distribution networks and independent venues. It is absolutely crucial to make independence a viable option.

2026-02-26 20:24:23 UTC

Teeth are the stupidest bone. Just give me a baleen and let me slurp krill or something.

2026-02-21 00:02:43 UTC

Just had to scrap a whole blog post highlighting a bunch of rad signpainters because Instagram doesn’t allow inline playback of reels, instead the “embed” function is basically just a gigantic box with a link back to Instagram. We used to have a functional web and we gave it all away for nothing.

2026-02-09 20:05:53 UTC

It’s endlessly funny to me that the one guy these folks have is Kid Rock. That’s it. That’s the whole bench.

2026-02-06 00:23:57 UTC

The whistle goblins shipped 100,000 whistles in the first four days of February. And today? The fifth day? 37,000 more. This is perhaps the most inspiring act of collective action I’ve ever been lucky enough to be a part of.
Help by buying filament: https://linktr.ee/WhistleWishlists

2025-12-05 05:10:38 UTC

They renamed the entire company around this.
https://cdn.hosted.spacebear.ee/sb-a8d44812c4a854da6bbc66be265b858e/media_attachments/files/115/665/235/973/873/284/original/941f050ae73539fd.png

2025-11-12 17:27:24 UTC

Got turned down on a piece about ICE in Chicago for an international news org because they believed I couldn’t be objective about my neighbors getting kidnapped. And well, guilty as charged I guess.

2025-11-07 16:35:18 UTC

The most heartening thing about right now is the propensity of my neighbors to run towards trouble

2025-11-07 15:31:56 UTC

Happy Four Seasons Total Landscaping Day to all who celebrate.

2025-11-05 17:13:38 UTC

I spent Halloween chasing ghosts. Not kids in costumes, or jumpscares in a haunted house. I spent Halloween chasing ghosts of a different kind: careening from one ICE spotting to another. I wrote an essay about it, and about other ghosts we’re chasing. https://dansinker.com/posts/2025-11-05-ghosts/

2025-11-05 12:43:41 UTC

Text in the night from my kid.
https://cdn.hosted.spacebear.ee/sb-a8d44812c4a854da6bbc66be265b858e/media_attachments/files/115/497/148/123/146/403/original/a0394e706f41701e.png

2025-11-03 00:28:42 UTC

Unfuckwithable.
https://cdn.hosted.spacebear.ee/sb-a8d44812c4a854da6bbc66be265b858e/media_attachments/files/115/482/933/339/399/691/original/2b700a45909c4cb2.jpg

2025-11-02 19:22:41 UTC

Just spent nearly two hours in a line of cars to drop food off for families losing their SNAP benefits. Right now is a literal nightmare but it is incredible to see communities coming together. Everyone understands that the only ones to save us is us.

2025-10-31 18:00:16 UTC

ICE marauding around Evanston all day, snatching people near schools, all schools on soft lockdown, on fucking Halloween. 🖕🖕

2025-10-12 00:12:44 UTC

Full ICE whistle assembly line over here.
https://cdn.hosted.spacebear.ee/sb-a8d44812c4a854da6bbc66be265b858e/media_attachments/files/115/358/299/749/814/392/original/e8ca01ad1e3c942b.jpg

2025-10-11 01:59:23 UTC

I am never ever going to forgive a single one of these motherfuckers.

2025-09-30 14:05:59 UTC

Definitely a choice to demonstrate how much of a weird loser you are in front of the entire upper ranks of the military.

2025-09-30 13:58:12 UTC

Every day I am like well THIS is the craziest thing to have happened so far. And then the next day happens.

2025-09-18 19:52:10 UTC

I have no tolerance or time for masked pieces of shit whose entire mandate is to snatch people standing outside Home Depot in hopes of getting a few bucks for a day’s work.

2025-09-18 00:57:08 UTC

Turns out the fuck-your-feelings crowd has A LOT of feelings.

2025-09-17 01:20:44 UTC

Gifting your child a high-powered rifle is also an ideology. We just refuse to speak of it as such.

2025-08-26 15:38:07 UTC

Sat in the breakfast area of a Hampton Inn today and overheard three silver-haired white women talk about how great it is that Trump is bringing chip manufacturing back to the US.

2025-08-01 19:55:20 UTC

- reply

spent like five hours there. if we weren't all dying of hunger we probably would have stayed longer!!

2025-08-01 19:33:28 UTC

During this hot, difficult summer I took a trip to the largest arcade in the world and fell in love with the art of the video game marquee. So I created a little gallery: https://dansinker.com/posts/2025-08-01-marquees/
https://cdn.hosted.spacebear.ee/sb-a8d44812c4a854da6bbc66be265b858e/media_attachments/files/114/955/173/189/745/999/original/4225f08441c1a3d3.png
https://cdn.hosted.spacebear.ee/sb-a8d44812c4a854da6bbc66be265b858e/media_attachments/files/114/955/174/212/154/669/original/c71b6f19dc90aa21.png
https://cdn.hosted.spacebear.ee/sb-a8d44812c4a854da6bbc66be265b858e/media_attachments/files/114/955/175/539/680/560/original/8b0ac2ea588f4b8b.png
https://cdn.hosted.spacebear.ee/sb-a8d44812c4a854da6bbc66be265b858e/media_attachments/files/114/955/176/936/361/174/original/6f44452041e1ef88.png

2025-07-18 20:23:54 UTC

I wrote a post about visiting the last stamp store in Chicago and living a life that’s fun, but worthless. I really like this one, hope you do too. https://dansinker.com/posts/2025-07-18-stampking/
https://cdn.hosted.spacebear.ee/sb-a8d44812c4a854da6bbc66be265b858e/media_attachments/files/114/876/103/561/996/455/original/2fedb261c33731ae.jpg

2025-07-02 13:14:16 UTC

Since I went to the dentist one (1) week ago, I’ve had a crown fall out and another one crack. My lesson learned is never go to the dentist.

2025-06-16 02:24:03 UTC

One in every 70 Americans was on the streets yesterday and it’s not on the NYT front page 24 hours later.

2025-06-08 13:00:33 UTC

Deploying ICE, the Border Patrol, the LAPD, the LA County Sheriffs, and now the National Guard and maybe the Marines over a small protest at a Home Depot is not the show of force they think it is.

2025-05-30 12:03:18 UTC

The Times finally reporting what we all could see: Musk was absolutely tripping balls the entire time he destroyed the government. Very polite of them to wait to drop this until he’d left the position.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/us/elon-musk-drugs-children-trump.html
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/114/596/681/970/858/028/original/52e533a0d5f32a56.png

2025-05-24 01:37:24 UTC

We're living through the Who Cares Era, where completely disposable things are shoddily produced for people to mostly ignore, while the government stomps its uncaring boot on our necks. But there's an easy way to fight back: Care.
I wrote about it: https://dansinker.com/posts/2025-05-23-who-cares/

2025-05-10 18:14:51 UTC

Elderly woman sitting next to me on the plane with her screen text cranked up to max sending “DA POPE” to her entire address book.

2025-05-08 17:41:06 UTC

I’m a few years when we’ve got the new Pope and JB’s president we are never gonna shut up ever.

2025-04-28 22:55:24 UTC

Yesterday was like 40 degrees colder than today

2025-04-26 12:15:11 UTC

To mark Independent Bookstore Day today, I wrote about the bookshop that changed my life and why indies are more important than ever. https://dansinker.com/posts/2025-04-26-indie-books/

2025-04-19 17:11:26 UTC

End stage capitalism, but make it food.
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/114/365/738/896/050/959/original/c5c18fcc40499aea.jpg

2025-04-18 01:10:13 UTC

Clone Wars getting real real over here.
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/114/356/296/874/856/169/original/55381350c12dad7f.jpg

2025-04-09 18:53:31 UTC

so how high will he go on China today before folding tomorrow? 200%?

2025-04-09 17:41:23 UTC

I think what any company that wants to make a multi-billion dollar investment in domestic manufacturing that will take years to come to fruition and many more years that that to earn out is looking for is constantly-shifting decisions based on the ever-changing, chaotic whims of a mad king.

2025-04-09 00:01:30 UTC

It’s OK I’m sure we didn’t need coffee, bananas, literally all electronics, or the rule of law anyway.

2025-04-07 22:10:31 UTC

Sure there’s gonna be some short-term pain, but in 20-30 years we’ll have established all the expertise, materials, and infrastructure we need to build and assemble a $25,000 iPhone right here in the USA.

2025-04-03 23:50:54 UTC

I’m not going to read your “how to defeat fascism” post if it’s on Substack, a platform that actively supports fascists.

2025-04-03 00:32:30 UTC

Guess where they got their weird trade deficit math from?
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/114/271/213/734/105/316/original/b6e4eae4beb578d5.png

2025-04-02 02:07:19 UTC

Wisconsin fought and clawed to get out from under the thumb of the Kochs and Uihleins who had bought and paid for gerrymandered Republican dominance for years. And then another rich motherfucker showed up and the whole state said not today.

2025-03-22 23:21:27 UTC

My day job is to help run a search for a fellowship program that has always brought in some of the most amazing, creative, and righteous people I have ever known. And this year the search is being completely overrun with near-identical madlib answers generated with ChatGPT. It’s so disheartening.

2025-03-19 11:25:43 UTC

The narrative of DOGE’s break-in (literally) at the US Institute of Peace is fucking gnarly as hell. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/03/18/doge-institute-of-peace-takeover-musk-trump/
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/114/188/847/747/005/749/original/d8adf877830178ee.png
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/114/188/847/842/191/289/original/3fe72022e820057e.png

2025-03-15 17:56:44 UTC

- reply

Of course I bought it.
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/114/167/733/522/119/100/original/2fa0a3a5f480fc08.jpg

2025-03-15 17:51:29 UTC

You can buy a blind box of my childhood.
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/114/167/715/447/339/898/original/008164dd471cec91.jpg

2025-03-14 22:32:58 UTC

Ran into a celeb while out trying to walk off my rage. Northwestern, pay your foodservice workers.
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/114/163/159/843/948/790/original/c7b114d07675f121.jpg

2025-03-11 20:39:54 UTC

Would be genuinely curious to know if Donald Trump knows how to drive.

2025-03-11 16:07:41 UTC

he should just sign an executive order saying stocks can’t go down and then, voila, problem solved.

2025-03-09 22:09:58 UTC

Imagine being the richest person in the world and needing your mother to come to your defense.

2025-03-05 22:35:50 UTC

Think we’ve forgotten about the time that Elon was booed so badly by fans of Dave Chapelle (of all people) that he locked himself in his office and Twitter employees considered calling the cops to do a wellness check.
What I’m saying is we can go harder.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/11/08/elon-musk-almost-needed-sfpd-wellness-check-after-breakdown-getting-booed-at-dave-chappelle-show/
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/114/112/210/497/737/426/original/bdc15eb212bb3cd4.png

2025-03-03 01:42:47 UTC

These motherfuckers are so insulated in their weird little world that JD Vance thought that going skiing in Vermont was gonna work out for him.

2025-02-25 23:51:34 UTC

Gutting out Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy is such absolute ghoul shit.

2025-02-24 01:07:03 UTC

In light of everything happening, I wrote about how the KKK in the 1920s felt unstoppable, about the people that fought against them anyway, and about how fascism always fails. https://dansinker.com/posts/2025-02-23-dale/
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/114/056/182/023/955/070/original/eb66a0a57d148c5b.png

2025-02-23 17:56:49 UTC

The problem with trying to write right now is you’ve got to slog through hours of existential dread first.
I mean I guess that’s the problem with everything right now.

2025-02-21 14:47:39 UTC

I know white house reporters are currently cowering for access, but it would be nice for someone to ask about Elon’s continued and ever-more-public drug abuse in the context of its threat to national security.

2025-02-14 12:29:40 UTC

The little doge rats continue to be stymied by basic web tech. https://www.theverge.com/news/612865/doge-government-website-database-security-open
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/114/002/243/054/376/533/original/a4c01ca940837e92.png

2025-02-11 00:09:57 UTC

Well, my fascism coal mine canary just died.
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/113/982/347/366/287/960/original/a3ed719368b83b99.png

2025-01-31 00:43:18 UTC

I am begging you: if you are writing a thread of more than a couple posts, get a blog. I don’t mean this in a mean way. I mean: allow this thought to continue to exist, outside of this platform, in an actually coherent, readable format that sticks around for longer than 20 minutes. You deserve it!

2025-01-28 16:35:50 UTC

Bookshop, the anti-amazon that gives $$ to local bookstores with every sale, now has ebooks. That’s a big deal: https://bookshop.org/info/ebooks

2025-01-28 03:15:46 UTC

The other week I spoke at 20x2 about newspaperman George Dale who fought the Klan in the 1920s, at huge personal cost, and how our path forward involves being more like him than the folks bending the knee right now. https://youtu.be/eYokyfkVROY?t=118

2025-01-20 19:15:50 UTC

My St Pauli ANTIFASCIST hoodie is all I’ll be wearing for the next while k thanks.
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/113/862/282/425/908/542/original/7f57bad92b9c5dae.jpg

2025-01-19 22:07:38 UTC

I just keep writing pithy little posts and deleting them and then writing new little jokes and deleting them and then just staring into the middle distance for a while and then trying again
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/113/857/295/639/519/906/original/8cd8785162e54544.png

2025-01-19 20:00:43 UTC

As a parent of a Gen Z kid, I can tell you that their whole entire lives they’ve seen the government put them last. Guns, covid, student loans, cost-of-living, it’s always their gen that has gotten fucked.
This TikTok ban vividly reinforces what they already know.

2025-01-19 13:08:34 UTC

The best time to start building a little spot for yourself on the internet independent of platforms was yesterday. The second best time is right fucking now.

2025-01-08 04:45:29 UTC

Hope the LA Times is being sure to print the fire’s point of view too.

2025-01-07 17:20:04 UTC

- reply

but there are a lot of people I wouldn't call "average" that are far too invested in Substack and Instagram and all the rest that should begin to mitigate their exposure.

2025-01-07 17:18:56 UTC

- reply

the average person 100% doesn't care.

2025-01-03 14:45:06 UTC

The first small step in making a better internet for each other is starting to establish a presence there that isn’t owned by a platform. Separate your self from Meta and Twitter and Substack and own your presence. Is it as easy? No, but it’s worth it.

2025-01-01 13:17:14 UTC

Waking up to carnage: an American story.

2024-12-26 14:56:10 UTC

Boxing day death fog out here

2024-12-18 22:17:46 UTC

Absolutely love that we have a ketamine-fueled shadow president with infinite money puppetmastering the government via tweet. Just love this for us.

2024-12-05 13:40:22 UTC

This investigation of cops all over the place reselling tens of thousands of guns on the sly over YEARS in basically full knowledge of the feds who won’t prosecute should perhaps be a bigger story? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-selling-restricted-guns-posties/
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/113/600/497/072/467/012/original/1e41a8bfb293ad6e.png

2024-11-30 23:55:06 UTC

I went to write an essay looking back at the the seventh year of Punk Planet, but one of the issues we published that year felt too relevant to RIGHT NOW to keep the essay's focus on the past.
Read "Become the Media: Punk Planet, Year Seven" on my blog: https://dansinker.com//posts/2024-11-30-ppy7/

2024-11-27 16:39:22 UTC

If you are traveling this week, consider listeing to Rebel Spirit. 10 incredible episodes about how change really happens. Hilarious and maddening and really, really good. I mean I helped make it so I’m biased (but it is). https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rebel-spirit/id1752673109

2024-11-24 04:29:48 UTC

Was at the library today. They are just the best spaces: free and open to everyone, no questions or judgement. No wonder the fascists hate them.

2024-11-21 15:21:40 UTC

Current status.
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/113/521/622/951/348/396/original/7beb1fcebac29af2.jpg

2024-11-19 23:51:49 UTC

“We constrain our imaginations when we subordinate our creations to names owned by fascist tycoons,” Anil bringing the absolute fire in his Substack takedown. https://www.anildash.com/2024/11/19/dont-call-it-a-substack/

2024-11-15 09:23:53 UTC

*bangs gavel* insomnia club is called to order.

2024-11-08 17:47:28 UTC

Hey dudes, get that vasectomy.

2024-11-08 15:24:19 UTC

I know it’s only a tiny slice of a shit pie, but locking good reporting behind paywalls for the last decade+ has been a fucking disaster

2024-11-08 02:29:39 UTC

Sat quietly most of the day and researched people who fought the Klan in the 20s and feel more at peace and more ready than I have since everything went south Tuesday night.

2024-10-29 00:06:00 UTC

TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND SUBSCRIPTIONS CANCELLED HOLY SHIT. https://www.npr.org/2024/10/28/nx-s1-5168416/washington-post-bezos-endorsement-president-cancellations-resignations

2024-10-28 01:36:12 UTC

Everyone boosting clips from the MSG rally exactly like they want you to do.

2024-10-26 19:54:22 UTC

The billionaire owners of newspapers are pulling endorsements because they want the government contracts for the camps

2024-10-24 02:45:32 UTC

Well that should do it.
https://sb-bnog9i1jtx.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/113/360/105/095/958/001/original/4e481e039da5ae91.png

2024-10-18 11:49:24 UTC

Cold early mornings in the fall over everything.

2024-10-11 16:22:50 UTC

I love Vance's constant refrain that "we are focused on the future" like motherfucker have you met your running mate? He lives his entire life in an imagined vip room he wasn't invited into at the Roxy in 1982.

2024-09-03 12:40:53 UTC

Rebel Spirit, the podcast I've been working on with Akilah Hughes for the last YEAR, is out today! It's the story of Akilah's attempt to change her high school's racist mascot and all the people we meet and history we learn along the way. It's the best reporting project I've ever done and I am so excited that you can finally start this journey TODAY.
Out on all podcast platforms, here's a Spotify link. https://open.spotify.com/episode/2EUTtUFZKe3rJEjFvseVOZ?si=e8JmDYHXRbqKUYuQSBzD4Q

2024-08-30 02:27:41 UTC

Does anyone have a Framework laptop and do you like it?

2024-05-10 23:10:10 UTC

This week I gave a talk at the 11ty International Symposium on Making the Web Real Good. It was about Question Mark, Ohio and about how the web is still a place of endless possibility. I've adapted the talk into a blog post for you.
Read "Building a Town that Doesn't Exist" on my site: https://dansinker.com/posts/2024-05-10-doesntexist/