Chuck Darwin

Social and economic justice, technology and tennis.  I'll have what @jbf1755 is having. 
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Last Notes

2025-05-21 05:52:56

The head lawyer of a human rights group representing the families of Venezuelan immigrants imprisoned in El Salvador after being deported from the United States -- has been arrested.
Ruth López, an outspoken critic of President Nayib Bukele, was detained late on Sunday under an order from the prosecutor’s office
which accused her of “embezzlement” when she worked for an electoral court a decade ago,
the human rights group Cristosal said in a statement.
The prosecutor’s office confirmed the arrest in a post on X.
López runs Cristosal’s anti-corruption and justice division
and has been a vocal critic of Bukele’s sweeping arrests of 85,000 mostly young men without due process under the state of exception that began in 2022.
Neither López’s family nor her legal team knew where she was taken after police removed her from her home shortly before midnight on Sunday.
“The authorities’ refusal to disclose her location or to allow access to her legal representatives is a blatant violation of due process, the right to legal defence and international standards of judicial protection,” Cristosal said in a statement.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/19/el-salvador-lawyer-arrested-deported-venezuelans?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2025-05-14 04:38:34

As Trump Courts Gifts and Dangles Access, Congress Sits on the Sidelines
Republicans on Capitol Hill seem unlikely to challenge President Trump as he pushes ethics guardrails around profiting from the presidency to the breaking point.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/us/politics/congress-republican-reaction-trump-qatar-plane.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

2025-05-14 00:12:13

Councilman Khrystian King
of the Worcester City Council
had the guts to speak encouragement to protesters tonight
https://bsky.app/profile/realcraigdmorrison.bsky.social/post/3lp3md2gwy22r

2025-05-09 16:31:48

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is lying about his pick for surgeon general’s qualifications.
During an appearance on Fox News Thursday night, Kennedy attempted to defend his choice of #Casey #Means,
a wellness influencer and author who has no active medical license and never completed her physician residency.
But, as is typical for the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, in lieu of evidence, Kennedy just made stuff up.
“She was the top of her med—the very top of her medical class at Stanford,” Kennedy said.
“She is in every—during her residency, she won every award that she could win. She walked away from traditional medicine because she was not curing patients. She couldn’t get anybody within her profession to look at the nutrition contributions to illness,” Kennedy said.
But it would’ve been impossible for Means to be at the top of her class at the Stanford School of Medicine,
because students aren’t actually ranked there.
A spokesperson from the school told CNN’s Daniel Dale that medical students are graded on a pass-fail system.
Kennedy’s claim that Means quit her residency to walk away from traditional medicine is also untrue.
Dr. Paul Flint, a former chair of otolaryngology/head and neck surgery at Oregon Health and Science University who helped oversee Means during her residency program, provided a completely different explanation for why she had walked away from her five-year residency program after four and a half years.
“She wasn’t even sure she wanted to be in medicine. She wanted to do something different. She wanted to resign,” Flint told The Los Angeles Times.
Means was under so much anxiety that she was given three months paid time off.
“She did that, came back and decided she wanted to leave the program.
She did not like that level of stress,” Flint said.
Flint said there was “a lot of anxiety around” being a surgeon. “You become much more responsible the more senior you get,” he explained.
Now, Means may become the surgeon general, the highest ranking doctor in the country.
Or in her case, the highest ranking non-practicing “doctor.”
Kennedy argued in a post on X Thursday that Means’s lack of qualifications were exactly what made her such a great fit with his Make America Healthy Again agenda.
No, seriously.
“The attacks that Casey is unqualified because she left the medical system completely miss the point of what we are trying to accomplish with MAHA.
Casey is the perfect choice for Surgeon General precisely because she left the traditional medical system
—not in spite of it,” he wrote.
https://newrepublic.com/post/195057/robert-f-kennedy-jr-lying-new-surgeon-general-nominee

2025-05-07 18:28:29

Kari Lake, the Trumpian special adviser to the body that oversees government-funded Voice of America announced on X that
One America News (OAN), (which was sued by voting machine companies for promoting claims of election fraud)
will provide “newsfeed and video service” to VoA.
“Every day I look for ways to save American taxpayers money. Bringing in OAN as a video/news source does both,” Lake said.
“OAN is one of the few family-owned American media networks left in the United States. We are grateful for their generosity.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/may/07/donald-trump-joe-biden-us-president-latest-politics-live-news?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-681b99148f082cdfc1daa190#block-681b99148f082cdfc1daa190

2025-04-26 04:01:27

A Coast Guard Academy graduate posted this. They are reporting that ICE entered base housing and took a USCG spouse.
I can’t confirm this but I’m calling for answers from the Coast Guard and Congress. This is unacceptable
https://bsky.app/profile/fpwellman.bsky.social/post/3lnlwn3tls222

2025-04-26 03:58:18

The Trump administration took a two-year-old U.S. citizen into custody,
along with her mother and sister,
and deported the child to Honduras with little to no individualized process,
prompting sharp concern from a conservative federal judge on Friday.
The Justice Department does not appear to dispute the underlying facts, given its position in a filing faxed to the court about 3:45 a.m. CT Friday in response to a habeas petition filed on behalf of the child, referred to as V.M.L., on Thursday evening.
Instead, the Justice Department’s entire argument was simply that,
once in custody and told she was going to be deported,
V.M.L.’s mother, Jenny Carolina Lopez Villela, wrote a note stating that she would bring her two-year-old daughter with her to Honduras.
As the habeas petition made clear, however, many federal officials knew that both V.M.L.’s father, Adiel Mendez Sagastume, and provisional custodian, Trish Mack, were desperately trying to get in touch with Jenny and/or get V.M.L. released to them throughout the 70 hours between when the two of them and Jenny’s other child were taken into custody and flown to Texas before Friday’s flight to Honduras.
On Friday, in the wake of all of this information, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty issued an order setting a hearing “[i]n the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.”
https://www.lawdork.com/p/trump-deports-two-year-old-us-citizen

2025-04-24 01:29:26

A wildfire in New Jersey exploded to 13,250 acres after igniting Tuesday in Ocean County
and threatening more than 1,000 structures, shutting down a major highway and causing thousands of people to flee the flames.
By Wednesday afternoon, officials said firefighters were gaining the upper hand on the blaze.
The #JonesRoad Wildfire was 50% contained as of 7 p.m. ET, according to New Jersey Forest Fire Service officials.
Shawn LaTourette, New Jersey's commissioner of Environmental Protection, said fire officials expect the blaze to grow and that it could turn out to be the largest wildfire in New Jersey in 20 years.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wildfire-new-jersey-explodes-8500-acres-residents-evacuated/story?id=121075913

2025-04-20 16:27:02

Donald Trump is registering the worst economic approval numbers of his presidential career
amid broad discontent over his handling of tariffs,
inflation and government spending,
according to the latest CNBC All-America Economic Survey
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/19/trumps-approval-rating-on-economy-drops-to-lowest-of-his-presidential-careerat-.html

2025-04-20 16:20:58

Conner Sen:
Markets were hoping for tax cuts and deregulation,
but what we got out of the gate were spending cuts and fiscal uncertainty created by DOGE,
and then a level of tariffs much higher than anyone expected.
The tariff announcement has shocked consumer and business confidence,
and the high expectations the investor and business community had in the administration have been dashed.
The trust has been shattered.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/opinion/trump-economy-recession-uncertainty.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

2025-04-17 02:21:25

'We’re on a knife edge’:
Alex Gibney warns about the dangers of dark money
In two HBO documentaries, the acclaimed film-maker shines a light on corrupt political spending in America
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/apr/15/alex-gibney-dark-money-documentaries-hbo

2025-04-17 02:17:04

BREAKING: 9000 Americans in Missoula to See Bernie Sanders this afternoon.
“People are tired of a corrupt political system that allows billionaires to buy elections.
And they’re ready to fight back.”
- Bernie
https://bsky.app/profile/siddhimeena.bsky.social/post/3lmxskc34j22c

2025-04-12 22:29:58

- reply

AOC starts at 4:21
(After Neal Young)

2025-04-12 22:02:56

FIGHT THE OLIGARCHY WITH BERNIE AND AOC:
LOS ANGELES
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=61aaIYMN1mA

2025-04-12 21:47:08

Bracketing the issue of willingness to comply.
President Trump has hereby admitted he has the capacity to bring Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador.
That's the ballgame in current litigation.
I assume plaintiffs will cite this statement to Judge Xinis.
-- via Ryan Goodman
https://bsky.app/profile/rgoodlaw.bsky.social/post/3lmli2rx2xs2h

2025-04-12 21:45:22

Very fair requests by attorneys for Abrego Garcia⬇️
Needed transparency for all the detainees unlawfully sent to El Salvador torture center.
- compel government to produce written documents on agreement with El Salvador
- require government officials to appear as witnesses before district court
-- via Chris Geidner
https://bsky.app/profile/rgoodlaw.bsky.social/post/3lmniik7mac2q

2025-04-12 21:40:11

Turkey said it would become a ‘zero waste’ nation.
Instead, it became a dumping ground for Europe’s rubbish
https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2025/mar/14/turkey-said-it-would-become-a-zero-waste-nation-instead-it-became-a-dumping-ground-for-europes-rubbish-podcast

2025-04-12 16:09:30

Over the past 20 years, Paris has , traded automotive arteries for bike lanes, adding green spaces and eliminating 50,000 parking spaces.
Part of the payoff has been invisible — increased air quality
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2025/04/12/air-pollution-paris-health-cars/

2025-04-09 22:59:21

Donald Trump on Wednesday signed directives targeting two former government officials who criticized him during his first term,
calling one of them a traitor and saying they should be investigated.
One of Trump's directives named #Christopher #Krebs, his former cybersecurity chief, and said any security clearance he has would be revoked.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-signs-orders-targeting-two-ex-officials-who-criticized-him-2025-04-09/

2025-04-07 14:23:29

Congressman Ro Khanna is raising the alarm over mass layoffs in the U.S. economy
resulting from the failed economic policies of Donald Trump,
including over 4,000 factory workers who lost their jobs this week due to firings or plant closures.
On Thursday, automaker Stellantis, citing conditions created by Trump’s tariffs,
announced temporary layoffs for 900 workers, represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW).
“The affected U.S. employees,” reported CNN, “work at five different Midwest plants: in Michigan and Indiana.
In a social media thread on Saturday night, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)
— a lawmaker who has been advocating loudly, including in books and in Congress, for an industrialization policy that would bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States
— posted a litany of other layoffs announced recently as part of the economic devastation and chaos unleashed by Trump
as well as conditions that reveal how vulnerable U.S. workers remain.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-tariffs-mass-layoffs

2025-04-07 14:13:11

Trade war fears put S&P 500 index in ‘bear market’ territory,
as Goldman Sachs raises chances of US recession to 45%
Goldman has lowered its 2025 growth forecast from 1.0% to 0.5%,
due to fears that Donald Trump will raise tariffs by much more than it had expected.
In a note titled “US Daily: Countdown to Recession”,
Goldman also lifted its 12-month recession probability from 35% to 45%,
following “a sharp tightening in financial conditions, foreign consumer boycotts, and a continued spike in policy uncertainty” following Trump’s tariff announcements.
Goldman analysts explain that they had expected the White House to announce a more aggressive tariff at first and then scale it back;
instead, the new tariffs scheduled for 9 April would raise the effective tariff rate by more than expected.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/blog/live/2025/apr/07/global-stock-markets-brace-donald-trump-us-tariffs-business-live-updates-news?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2025-04-06 17:42:26

- reply

@nprofile…ujck
Is Mars warming? NO
BP: Hold My Beer

2025-04-06 01:40:12

#Dennis #Gaitsgory has dedicated the past 30 years to proving the #geometric #Langlands #conjecture.
Over the decades, he and his collaborators have built an extensive body of work, forming the foundation of the new proof.
Although the geometric Langlands program is highly abstract, it forges deep connections between different mathematical structures
and has the potential to drive breakthroughs in theoretical physics, number theory, and even quantum computing.
The #Breakthrough #Prize was established in 2012 by Sergey Brin (Google), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), and others to recognize outstanding researchers for their groundbreaking discoveries.
It is awarded in the fields of life sciences, physics, and mathematics.
In 2016, the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences was awarded to #Svante #Pääbo from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig,
and in 2022, to #Anthony #Hyman from the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden.
https://www.mpg.de/24476145/breakthrough-prize-mathematics-2025?c=2249

2025-04-06 01:29:32

Mahmoud Khalil,
the Columbia University student activist who led campus pro-Palestinian rallies
and is now resisting the Trump administration’s deportation efforts,
has accused the university of laying “the groundwork for my abduction”
and called on the student body to continue demonstrations and protests.
Khalil, a green-card holder who is in custody in Louisiana as his case moves through the courts,
was detained on 8 March.
The Trump administration is seeking to deport him under a provision in federal immigration law that permits the state department to deport non-citizens considered to be a threat to US foreign policy.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/05/mahmoud-khalil-columbia-university?CMP=aus_bsky

2025-04-06 01:27:43

For the past five years, David Liu – a professor at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a biomedical research facility in Massachusetts
– has marked Thanksgiving by handing over his entire annual salary, after taking care of taxes, to the staff and students in his laboratory.
It started as the pandemic broke and Liu heard that students who wanted to cycle instead of taking public transport could not afford bicycles.
Given how hard they worked and how little they were paid, Liu stepped in.
He couldn’t unilaterally raise their incomes, so emailed them Amazon eGift cards.
This ran into problems too, however. “Everyone thought they were being scammed,” he recalls. And so he switched to writing cheques.
As the co-founder of several companies, Liu can make ends meet without his Harvard salary,
and has set up a charitable foundation to further scientific research.
Its coffers are due to swell considerably now that Liu has received the $3m Breakthrough prize for life sciences, which he was presented with on Saturday at the annual awards ceremony in Los Angeles.
The Breakthrough prizes, described by their Silicon Valley founders as the Oscars of science, are awarded annually to scientists and mathematicians chosen by committees of previous winners.
This year, two further life sciences prizes were given for landmark research on multiple sclerosis and GLP-1 agonists, better known as “skinny jabs”.
Other winners on the night were Dennis Gaitsgory, a mathematician in Bonn, for his work on the Langlands program, an ambitious effort to unify disparate concepts in maths,
and more than 13,000 researchers at Cern for testing the modern theory of particle physics.
Liu was chosen for inventing two exceptionally precise gene editing tools, namely base editing and prime editing.
Base editing was first used in a patient at Great Ormond Street in London, where it saved the life of a British teenager with leukaemia.
Scientists have worked on gene editing for more than a decade.
Progress, they hope, will lead to therapeutics that correct the mutations responsible for thousands of genetic diseases.
But the first generation of gene editing tools had limited success:
they were good at disabling faulty genes, but not at correcting them
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/apr/05/david-liu-gene-editing-breakthrough-prize?CMP=aus_bsky

2025-04-05 02:42:02

The plans of Elon Musk to slash Social Security and force mass layoffs will cause tens of thousands more Americans to die while waiting for their disability benefits to be approved,
a new report by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has found.
Right-wing cuts to Social Security have already caused an erosion in services over the past decades,
and in recent years, the number of people who die during the wait time for benefit determinations has risen drastically, to 30,000 people.
But if “shadow president” Musk and President Donald Trump’s plans to cut the Social Security Administration by up to half are fully realized, the wait time could more than double to 412 days — resulting in nearly 67,000 people dying this year alone while waiting for an initial decision on their eligibility for benefits.
https://truthout.org/articles/sanders-67000-will-die-waiting-for-social-security-benefits-due-to-musk-cuts/

2025-04-04 16:37:25

- reply

This is Donald Trump we’re talking about.
He’s far stupider and lazier than you can possibly imagine.
His interests are golf, fucking whores, humiliating his most obsequious supporters, and revenging himself against anyone who has ever insulted him.
That’s it.
There’s isn’t any other there there.

2025-04-04 16:34:48

I heard a guy over dinner repeat the same thing that one of my analysts said as well. There is a real plan in place with the tariffs
Crash the economy, tariffs will end up being deflationary, and get bond yields down so the US can refi at lower rates on the long end of the yield curve. And this will all be done before the mid-terms next year. Oh, and this is Bessent’s master plan.
This is all completely absurd, but this kind of rationalization, which you can find variations on everywhere in the legacy media
as they desperately continue to try to report on what’s happening in this country as just another Normal Story:
THERE IS NO FUCKING PLAN
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/04/there-is-no-plan

2025-04-04 05:10:43

f the U.S. had an opposition party
that opposition party would have a bill
rolling back these tariffs and radically reducing executive discretion over tariffs
already written
and would be targeting individual republican congresspeople
to pressure them into voting for the bill
https://bsky.app/profile/jessicabriedl.bsky.social/post/3llxefmjwtk22

2025-04-04 05:06:02

Only 15 Senators Back Bernie Sanders' Bid to Block Arms to Israel,
as Gaza Deaths Top 50k
The resolutions failed by a larger margin than in similar votes in November, with several Democrats flipping to “no.”
https://truthout.org/articles/only-15-senators-back-sanders-bid-to-block-arms-to-israel-as-gaza-deaths-top-50k/

2025-04-04 04:43:34

- reply

While you’re getting ready,
tell your House rep to vote NO
on H.R. 22, the “SAVE Act,”
which would require voters to show citizenship documents that match their current legal name
-- something millions don’t have.
In Santa Barbara, your rep is
Salud Carbajal 202-225-3601 https://buff.ly/C4rQJxR
https://bsky.app/profile/indivisiblesb.bsky.social/post/3llwisro3pc2z

2025-04-04 04:41:09

Getting ready for our April 5 Hands Off! rally and march on April 5?
The Santa Barbara event is at
De La Guerra Plaza, Saturday 4/5 at 1 p.m.
Find your local event here:
https://buff.ly/8serKJ7.
Got your protest sign and water bottle handy?
Is your phone charged to take lots of pictures?
Good! (more below)
https://bsky.app/profile/indivisiblesb.bsky.social/post/3llwispu5jj2g

2025-04-04 04:29:07

The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed conservative lawyer
#Harmeet #Dhillon,
Donald Trump's choice to lead the Justice Department's
Civil Rights Division,
in a 52-45 vote.
One Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska,
voted no, along with Democrats.
Dhillon will oversee criminal and civil work ranging from
hate crime prosecutions
and voting rights litigation,
to investigating law enforcement agencies for engaging in patterns of discrimination
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-confirms-trump-loyalist-lead-justice-department-civil-rights-unit-2025-04-04/

2025-04-04 04:19:01

Rümeysa Öztürk has now suffered three separate asthma attacks while in DHS custody.
She has not received her required asthma medications—a violation of her fundamental right to medical care.
This is cruelty, it is neglect, and it is a damning moral and legal failure.
https://bsky.app/profile/pressley.house.gov/post/3llx2uqd5j227

2025-03-30 17:03:33

Trump and Musk’s War on Government Will Kill Veterans
As a survivor of suicide and military betrayal,
I know what happens when you rip away the programs that keep us alive
https://onoffense.substack.com/p/trump-and-musks-war-on-government?r=ddl5

2025-03-30 16:32:03

Forbes has a nice, succinct #teslatakedown
https://bsky.app/profile/bananahammer74.bsky.social/post/3lljp22i5gc2z

2025-03-30 16:08:56

What's going on with FBI Director
Kash Patel?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kY0yYTVGk0I

2025-03-30 15:29:29

A new poll finds a plurality believe America has grown ruder since the pandemic.
The finding is no surprise given the commonplace crassness and vulgarity of President Trump
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2025-03-30/america-gotten-ruder-pandemic-poll-trump-politics

2025-03-29 01:25:26

Elon Musk and DOGE don't have to turn over information related to their government cost-cutting operations, at least for now, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday.
A federal judge previously ruled that 14 states suing the federal government can serve written discovery requests on Musk and DOGE.
Musk, DOGE, and Trump turned to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in an attempt to block that order.
A three-judge panel at the appeals court granted an emergency motion for a stay in an order issued yesterday, putting the lower-court ruling on hold pending further orders from the appeals court.
Musk, DOGE, and Trump filed a petition to quash the district court's discovery order at the same time that they filed their emergency motion for a stay.
The appeals court did not rule on the petition to quash the discovery order.
The three-judge panel included judges appointed by George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.
The states suing the US alleged that "President Trump has delegated virtually unchecked authority to Mr. Musk
without proper legal authorization from Congress and without meaningful supervision of his activities."
They sought "planning, implementation, and organizational documents," but no emails, text messages, or other electronic communications.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/03/elon-musk-and-trump-win-fight-to-keep-doges-work-secret/

2025-03-28 02:10:14

SignalGate Is Driving the Most US Downloads of Signal Ever
Scandal surrounding the Trump administration’s Signal group chat has led to a landmark week for the encrypted messaging app’s adoption—its “largest US growth moment by a massive margin.”
https://www.wired.com/story/signalgate-is-driving-the-most-us-downloads-of-signal-ever/

2025-03-28 02:06:12

Resources are LIVE for National P.O. Soapbox Day! 💌📬
Our Toolkit & Workshop Template will illustrate what’s involved and equip you with everything you need to host your own community teach-in.
Sign up! Share! 💌
#HandsOffUSPS #USMailNotForSale #SaveThePostOffice
https://usps-teach-in.carrd.co

2025-03-26 19:10:35

A huge upset victory for Democrats:
Democrat James Malone DEFEATS Republican County Commissioner Josh Parsons
in the special election for Pennsylvania SD-36
— FLIPPING a district Trump carried by 15.4% in the 2024 election.
Also, Pennsylvania Democrats retained their one seat majority in the Pennsylvania State House
⭐️The next big races will be to retain our Democratic majority on the Pennsylvania State #Supreme #Court.
Click here to get to know the candidates and to donate and get involved with the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.
https://www.padems.org/candidates/

2025-03-19 23:23:25

I’m Jo Mendoza, retired U.S. Marine Corps Drill Instructor, single mom, and Democrat running to flip AZ-06 blue in Congress.
I’m about to ask you for $6 so I can flip this seat and the House blue, but first, I’ll lay out the facts.
1️⃣Cook Political Report just shifted my district's rating to a Toss-up, making my opponent one of the *most vulnerable* Republicans in Congress.
2️⃣My opponent won his race by LESS than 3 points, making this one of the *most flippable* red districts in the country.
3️⃣With the GOP’s razor-thin majority, my race could be the one that flips the House blue.
But the D.C. establishment already knows this, and they’re going to spend every penny they have to keep this seat and stay in power.
Well, they’re about to find out what happens when you go up against a team led by a single mom and Marine Corps Drill Instructor- and it won’t be pretty for them.
But, I can’t win this fight without a grassroots team to back me up.
So please, can you join this fight and chip in $6 so I can flip AZ-06 blue?
>> https://mendoza4az.com/gl4VrV

2025-02-25 17:03:45

Even before RFK Jr. was confirmed as Secretary of HHS,
the Trump administration started attacking federal science
by postponing NIH study sections with no warning,
suddenly barring NIH investigators from traveling to give talks or present their research at scientific meetings,
and attempting to slash indirect costs attached to NIH grants to universities with no warning
-- in essence, a massive, immediate, and unexpected budget cut to universities that do a lot of NIH-funded research.
The day after RFK Jr.’s confirmation as HHS Secretary by the Senate, the administration began mass firing NIH employees, jeopardizing intramural research and clinical trials.
There are a lot of ostensibly “pro-vaccine” physicians out there who
-- because they like how RFK Jr. includes an emphasis on “chronic disease” in his dubious “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) slogan
-- have been willing to ignore RFK Jr.’s 20 years of rabid antivaccine activism, in which he has consistently promoted pseudoscience, quackery, misinformation, and conspiracy theories and support him.
They chose to believe RFK Jr.’s claims that he is “not antivaccine,”
or even that he is “pro-vaccine,”
or, even more risibly and unbelievably, that he is “fiercely pro-vaccine,”
the last of which being a claim that he’s made for over a decade.
However, as I like to say, whenever RFK Jr. says he’s “not antivaccine,” he is lying.
Whenever he claims to be “pro-vaccine,” he’s lying even harder.
Finally, when he claims that he “won’t take away anyone’s vaccines,” he’s lying harder still and assuming that his audience has a lot of useful idiots in it who will believe him.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/how-robert-f-kennedy-jr-will-undermine-and-ultimately-destroy-us-vaccination-programs/

2025-02-21 04:28:07

When Elon Musk’s DOGE first started out on its mission of going from department to department haphazardly cutting everything they didn’t understand and firing people at random, most Trumpists cheered.
They imagined themselves pointing and laughing as Federal employees who had been hired to do nothing but sit around being a Black transgender lesbian all day long while collecting millions of taxpayer dollars lost their jobs.
They imagined themselves becoming super rich from all of the money Elon was saving them.
They imagined Trump heroically ending the deficit and paying down our debt and this … affecting their day-to-day lives in some capacity?
They imagined getting to laugh in the faces of all of the smug liberals who just didn’t realize that government didn’t need money and workers to function properly,
or that all of our tax money was being sent to 250-year-old vampires.
So far, that hasn’t happened.
Some have been pretending that it’s been happening, but it hasn’t happened.
What has happened, to cite but a couple examples, is that they’ve accidentally fired people working on avian flu, as well as nuclear weapons specialists,
whom they now need to locate and rehire (despite not knowing how to reach them).
The point of the arbitrary firings was clearly meant to prove that federal workers are so pointless that you could just fire any of them without any regard to what they actually do and things would continue working just fine.
As it turns out, that’s not really true.
Another thing that has happened is that a lot of the people who have been fired have been Trump voters or relatives of Trump voters,
who — like so many Trump-voting relatives and spouses of undocumented immigrants
— thought they would get a pass.
As it turns out, this even includes a friend of Fox’s Jesse Watters
https://www.wonkette.com/p/when-republicans-said-they-wanted

2025-01-25 02:26:31

Trump signs order to reinstate ‘global gag rule’ on abortion aid
Federal rule also known as ‘Mexico City policy’ halts US funds to overseas groups that provide abortion services
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/24/trump-order-abortion?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2025-01-11 17:46:47

Three ways residents in California are able to get help amid the wildfires, according to Ca.gov:
One way is to register for Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) assistance online at DisasterAssistance.gov.
Another way is to apply via the Fema app,
And the third way is to call the Fema helpline at 1-800-621-3362.
Additionally, assistance for small businesses is available through the federal Small Business Administration.
https://www.ca.gov/LAfires/

2025-01-11 17:44:23

California fires live:
LA issues new evacuation order as thickening smoke prompts ‘health emergency’
Palisades and Eaton fires start coming under control as fierce winds ease
-- but forecasters predict another red flag warning for Monday
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/jan/11/california-fires-la-fires-live-updates-latest-news?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2025-01-02 22:04:15

Trump is barred by the 14th Amendment from serving as President
—why aren’t Democrats raising this?!
https://open.substack.com/pub/deanobeidallah/p/trump-is-barred-by-the-14th-amendment?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

2025-01-01 08:11:13

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro filed a complaint with a federal energy regulator against PJM Interconnection on Monday,
arguing that the largest U.S. power grid operator must change its market rules or risk soaring electricity costs.
PJM Interconnection, which runs the electrical grid covering more than 65 million Americans across parts of 13 states from Illinois to New Jersey,
has faced increased public scrutiny since July,
when it said its annual capacity auction would result in record-high payments to power plants in its system.
"It is difficult to escape the conclusion that PJM's capacity market is currently failing," Shapiro, a Democrat, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania said in the complaint filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The complaint argues, in part, that PJM's capacity market price cap is unreasonably high and threatens to add billions of dollars to power bills while failing to substantially increase grid reliability.
If certain market rules remain in place, ratepayers across the PJM region could see as much as a $20.4 billion increase in costs, the complaint said.
In the last annual auction, PJM agreed to pay power generators roughly 900% more than it paid the previous year,
attributing the surging prices to tightening power supplies and rising electricity demand.
At least some of those costs will be paid by homes and businesses in PJM's territory.
"Fundamentally this is a supply/demand problem that is leading to high consumer pricing,
driven primarily by policy choices that are pushing resources off the system,
along with data center and electrification demand growth,”
PJM spokesperson Susan Buehler said.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pennsylvania-governor-complains-regulator-pjms-231137078.html

2024-12-28 20:36:58

To mark exactly a month of pro-European Union protests,
thousands of people formed a human chain in Georgia's capital Tbilisi on Saturday,
demanding new parliamentary elections.
The post-Soviet country has been on edge since the contested parliamentary polls in October,
which saw the ruling Georgian Dream party take over 54% of the vote, according to electoral officials.
Many, including President Salome Zourabichvili, claim that the election had been stolen.
The ongoing demonstrations erupted on November 28
after the Georgian Dream administration decided to postpone the opening of EU integration talks for several years.
Hundreds of people have since been arrested amid a violent clampdown on the protests.
Rights groups allege some of them have been tortured.
https://www.dw.com/en/georgia-pro-eu-protesters-president-form-human-chain/a-71177123

2024-12-27 19:53:07

NBC News’ Evan Bush reported this past weekend that
“the simmering threat of bird flu may be inching closer to boiling over.
This year has been marked by a series of concerning developments in the virus’ spread.”
“Since April, at least 65 people have tested positive for the virus
— the first U.S. cases other than a single infection in 2022,” Bush reported.
“Dairy cow herds in 16 states have been infected this year.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the country’s first severe bird flu infection on (last) Wednesday,
a critically ill patient in Louisiana.
And California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency last week in response to rampant outbreaks in cows and poultry.”
“‘The traffic light is changing from green to amber,’ said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong,
a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who studies infectious diseases,” according to Bush’s reporting.
“‘So many signs are going in the wrong direction"
https://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2024/12/experts-worried-bird-flu-spread-is-reaching-boiling-point/

2024-12-25 21:18:05

Polling shows that the Icelandic public are keener on joining the European Union than ever before,
-- with more Icelanders wanting to join the EU than stay out.
The turnaround happened with Putin’s second invasion of Ukraine in Feb 2022,
but other domestic and international dynamics also come into play.
Things are moving fast,
as Iceland’s new Foreign Minister has just announced
“a referendum on the continuation of Iceland's European Union accession talks
and that this referendum be held no later than 2027”.
You might ask what is meant by a “continuation”.
-- well that’s a whole fascinating historical story which I’ll gladly set out below.
But basically, the last social democratic government started accession talks in 2009,
-- then a conservative-led government came into power and put talks on pause in 2013,
-- then tried to cancel it outright in 2015,
-- but without parliamentary approval.
That led to anger and an open question on whether the accession talks have indeed been cancelled
or are still formally open and ready to be picked up again!
In the meantime, the national polling has gone from being against joining the EU to being for joining the EU , so the time could be ripe for Iceland to finally join.
https://mikegalsworthy.substack.com/p/is-iceland-getting-ready-to-join?r=al8g0&triedRedirect=true

2024-12-24 22:36:45

While much of the surf world’s attention was focused on The Eddie at Waimea Bay on Sunday,
a whole bunch of the world’s best big wave surfers were tackling extremely giant Pe’ahi on Maui.
Worth noting: this was incredibly the fifth straight day of giant Pe’ahi .
Sunday started out with some very large paddle waves with Albee Layer and Wilem Banks taking on some bombs.
But by noon, everything changed.
Tow-only. As big as it gets.
“It was the biggest I’ve ever seen there,” said longtime filmer Adam Carbajal.
Turned into a full tow session.
We called Albee Layer to find out more, but he said,
“Celebrating being alive right now,
I can talk tomorrow.
https://www.surfline.com/surf-news/xxl-eddie-swell-hits-peahi/215299

2024-12-21 19:32:14

- reply

@nprofile…89hz 🙏🏻Tkank You for your well deserved call for #Diversity and #Inclusion

2024-12-21 18:21:36

They seem an unlikely, almost motley, crew of emissaries.
For the Bahamas, there is Herschel Walker, a former NFL star whose fledgling Senate campaign was undone by a string of personal embarrassments but who now is named to be the next US ambassador to the small island nation.
To the plum diplomatic posting of Paris goes Charles Kushner, father of Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and a man the president-elect once pardoned for a felony conviction that the former Republican New Jersey governor Chris Christie, an ex-federal prosecutor, called “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he ever prosecuted.
And to Greece, once a preserve of seasoned career diplomats, goes Kimberly Guilfoyle, until recently the romantic partner of Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, and a woman known more for her rumbustious media profile than her diplomatic acumen.
The trio are among a flurry of ambassadorial nominees rolled out by Trump in recent weeks as he rushes to fill his administration at breakneck speed with envoys who will project his “America First” ideology abroad.
Their lack of credentials has prompted one experienced foreign policy analyst to label them a “diplomatic clown car” – and a deliberate affront to the countries hosting them.
Since last month’s election triumph, the president-elect has nominated ambassadors at a rate not recalled in recent memory – including five in a single day this week.
Some appear conspicuously unschooled in the diplomatic arts; others have business links which experts say risk conflicts of interest.
Unlike most countries, which fill ambassadors’ roles from the ranks of professional diplomats, it is customary for US presidents to reward allies and financial backers with ambassadorial jobs – with prize postings like London and Paris almost always going to friends of the man in the oval office.
But Trump has broken new ground with the sheer volume of ambassadorial nominations – and his lack of consideration of their professional suitability.
“It’s not unusual to see a lot of political appointee ambassadors named early in a presidency,” said Dennis Jett, an international relations professor at Pennsylvania State University and author of a book on the history of US ambassadors.
“But I don’t recall any president-elect announcing bunches of ambassadorships like this guy’s doing. They don’t usually dip down into the ambassadorial ranks until they actually are sitting in the White House.
“The other remarkable thing is how stunningly unqualified everyone is. I don’t see anyone there who I think, ‘Now there’s a highly qualified person.’”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/21/trump-team-cabinet?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2024-12-19 18:58:01

Tom Homan, who Donald Trump has tapped as his incoming administration’s
“border czar,”
said Wednesday night that plans are underway to
deport undocumented immigrants at large scale
and that he’ll need funding from Congress to do so.
In an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, he said he will need
a minimum of 100,000 beds to detain undocumented immigrants
– more than doubling the 40,000 detention beds ICE is currently funded for
– and needs more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents
to carry out the president-elect’s mass deportation plans.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/18/politics/border-czar-homan-trump-deportation-plans/index.html

2024-12-08 19:39:46

President Iohannis, who hails from another center-right party, received evidence from the secret intelligence services indicating that both state and nonstate actors had interfered in the election, and named Russia as responsible for a series of aggressive hybrid attacks. The United States upheld findings of Russian involvement.
Acting on the intelligence, Iohannis declassified secret files that alleged Georgescu had unlawfully benefited from extensive electoral promotion during periods when campaigning was prohibited. The documents alleged his campaign had received foreign financial support, despite the fact he declared he’d spent nothing on it.
The Constitutional Court was inundated by a surge of requests to annul the election in light of the declassified intelligence reports. On Friday afternoon, the court agreed.
The information “that this campaign was illegally supported from outside Romania” brought Iohannis to the conclusion that “We are dealing with a matter of national security,” the president said in a televised address Friday evening.
Inside Romania, this election was seen as a battle between East and West. In a country where memories of brutal Communist dictatorship are still vivid, the choice for many voters felt existential.
The pro-EU Lasconi enjoyed support from the centrist traditional parties, while Georgescu was backed by three far-right groups, two of which have recently entered parliament.
https://www.politico.eu/article/romania-politics-election-calin-georgescu-elena-lasconi-what-the-hell-is-going-on/

2024-12-08 19:35:15

Apple is set to release iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing more AI integration.
There are new non-AI related feature controls as well, such as sharing AirTag location data with trusted Airline or friends
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/12/06/new-things-your-iphone-can-do-in-ios-18-2/

2024-11-22 19:49:35

- reply

@nprofile…mpj6
Matilija Poppy 💖
https://www.gardenia.net/plant/romneya-coulteri-matilija-poppy

2024-11-22 19:39:55

What color is my blue?
https://ismy.blue/

2024-11-17 18:10:46

The two finalists to become Trump’s Treasury Secretary
— the person will have a major hand in cutting taxes for the wealthy and raising tariffs so everyone pays more
— are #Howard #Lutnick, who’s CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and Trump’s co-transition chair,
and #Steven #Bessent, the founder of the investment firm Key Square Capital Management.
Lutnick had been in the lead but a few days ago, according to the The Wall Street Journal, he heard from Trump’s allies that he might not get the nod.
So Lutnick turned for help to #Elon #Musk, who now calls himself Trump’s “First Buddy.”
Bessent’s supporters also reached out to Musk to endorse Bessent, which tells you alot about the palace intrigue going on now in Mar-a-Lago, and how much power Musk is now wielding.
Yesterday, Musk, posted on his X that Lutnick would be a better choice for treasury secretary than Bessent:
“My view fwiw is that Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas @howardlutnick will actually enact change. Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change one way or another.”
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trumps-first-buddy-is-in-deep-shit

2024-11-17 18:04:40

Multiple current and former senior Justice Department and FBI officials have begun reaching out to lawyers
🆘 in anticipation of being criminally investigated by the Trump administration.
Following Trump’s election victory, many DOJ officials and career staffers were already nervous about the possibility that they would be targeted by Trump loyalists, particularly members of Congress.
💥But the selection of former Rep. Matt #Gaetz, a firebrand Trump ally who was the subject of a recent FBI investigation, to lead the department 🔥has sharply increased the sense of alarm, the sources said
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/doj-fbi-officials-reach-lawyers-potential-trump-revenge-prosecutions-l-rcna179737

2024-11-17 18:01:03

As part of the process to land a job in Donald Trump's second administration, hopeful applicants are being asked to provide standard resumes
-- and also include documentation on efforts they made to support him in the past.
According to a report from Politico, the president-elect has had a large pool of candidates to choose from as he started doling out prestigious positions in his next administration
-- with many of them having been runner-ups to incoming Vice President J.D. Vance.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-cabinet-appointees/

2024-11-16 03:34:18

President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team was in the middle of announcing new Cabinet picks this week
when they were informed of a sexual assault allegation about one of his previous selections,
Pete Hegseth,
stunning several members of Trump’s team who have since raised questions about the viability of his nomination,
according to two people close to the situation
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/15/politics/trump-transition-hegseth-allegations

2024-11-14 20:18:23

Net Job Creation (in Millions)
1.9 Bushes & Trump
50.0 Clinton, Obama, Biden
By: Simon Rosenberg/Hopium Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics 10/4/24
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/113/483/145/116/577/911/original/e34e060a3e271b5d.jpeg

2024-11-13 00:33:48

• A Dutch court on Tuesday dismissed a landmark climate ruling against Shell, after the oil giant was ordered to drastically reduce its global carbon emissions back in 2021.
• The outcome marks the latest twist in a precedent-setting case that could have far-reaching implications for the future of climate litigation.
• In May 2021, The Hague district court ruled that Shell must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 45% from 2019 levels by 2030.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/12/shell-wins-appeal-against-dutch-climate-ruling-to-slash-emissions.html

2024-11-12 16:07:26

Welcome to the ZEG Tbilisi Storytelling Festival,
organized by Coda Story and Impact Hub Tbilisi.
ZEG is the Georgian word for ‘the day after tomorrow,’
and that’s what the festival is all about:
finding and telling the stories that matter for the day after tomorrow.
Immerse yourself in three days of interactive masterclasses, in-conversation sessions, innovative workshops, networking, and performances
on June 13-15, 2025
in Tbilisi, Georgia.
https://www.zegfest.com/

2024-11-11 00:12:15

- reply

@npub1zdp…vqv8
Tom Scott imagined a scenario where everyone else in the universe was afraid of humans. It’s fantastic.
The premise of the video,
Danger: Humans,
is simple, it’s a PSA from the Interstellar Safety Council notifying alien races how terrifyingly dangerous and awful humans can be.
tomscott.com

2024-11-10 22:42:28

10,000 people should not lose their jobs because children wore masks at the start of the pandemic, but the sad truth is, they might.
Although Dr. #Vinay #Prasad depicted himself as a sober medical scholar, his rageful comments are intentionally crafted to provoke his audience.
His appeals to raw emotion were very effective. Here are some of the replies to Dr. Prasad’s post:
▪ Closing schools… injecting experimental products in children.. They need to be arrested first. Then, you can fire them.
▪ My presumption based on these agencies’ decisions so far is that they are filled top to bottom with politically possessed, self righteous, Quacks. I’d love at least 2/3 of them gone! I bet 90% of the real work is probably done by 10% of the employees there.
▪ Masking toddlers was state sanctioned child abuse. The risk benefit analysis is obvious risk, implausible benefit.
▪ Only 1/4?? I’d close the place down & rehire based on their progress during COVID..ie did they challenge/speak out, if so then yes you’re on track to having smart people in situ who also have integrity. You can’t put a price on that!
▪ I agree . . . we need a decisive leader at CDC who is willing to hold the institution, and its people, accountable for that colossal failure in judgment.
▪ Fire anyone who obscured the reality of Antigenic Sin, innate/adaptive immunity, risk stratification and mRNA safety signals. Reinstate everyone with backpay who were fired due to the unethical, unconstitutional injection mandate.
▪ I hope you can contribute in an official role to Make Science Great Again!
These spiteful calls for revenge were a normal, everyday occurrence on the social media feeds of We Want Them Infected doctors.
This is what they were aiming for. These people won’t cooperate when the next pandemic hits.
Dr. Prasad has traveled a long distance in a short time, though he is just one of many doctors calling for drastic actions against scientists.
Dr. #Richard #Ebright, a so-called “biosafety” advocate who teams up with anti-vaccine advocates of herd immunity through mass infection, is also calling for scientists to be jailed.
His partner Dr. #Bryce #Nickels hopes to enjoy the spectacle of even more Congressional investigations.
Dr. Ebright has testified there before. He is politically connected.
These hearings are highly problematic, as Dr. Allison Neitzel explained in her article Don’t Let House Republicans Rewrite Trump’s Pandemic History.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/lying/

2024-11-10 22:08:47

University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering
Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering Chair
Professor Paul Ronney recently won awards at this year's United States Equestrian Federation's Vaulting
Championship.
Equestrian vaulting is gymnastic performance on horseback, shown here with Prof. Ronney on his trusty steed "Hercules."
https://www.instagram.com/p/DCAnZ3iSihf/?igsh=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng==

2024-11-10 21:56:30

#mountainfire #venturacounty #california
https://www.instagram.com/p/DCHamvjv5xt/?igsh=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng==

2024-11-10 21:48:54

This was an election between science and ignorance of science — and the ignorant side
— which serves special interest groups like the fossil fuel industry
— has prevailed.
Perhaps the most conspicuous instance of this is climate change.
Trump himself denies that burning fossil fuels releases greenhouse gasses that heat the atmosphere and ocean.
His proxies, like Tucker Carlson and JD Vance, have respectively blamed abortion for causing freak hurricanes or have dismissed climate science as “weird.”
Last month, climate scientists told Salon they were concerned about the future of the planet if Trump prevailed precisely because of his hostility to climate science and (perhaps not coincidentally) his coziness with fossil fuel companies.
https://www.salon.com/2024/11/08/win-is-a-victory-for-the-petrostate-and-a-major-loss-for-climate-action-experts-say/

2024-11-10 21:27:03

#Mike #Davis, the man who many expect to be Donald Trump’s attorney general, appeared on Benny Johnson’s podcast The Benny Show on Thursday to outline who exactly is on the president-elect’s hit list.
Davis told Johnson he has five lists ready to go, but appeared to name only four.
“I will rain hell on Washington D.C.,” he said.
“I have five lists ready to go and they’re growing.
List number one—we’re gonna fire. We’re gonna fire a lot of people in the executive branch of the deep state.
Number two—we’re gonna indict. We’re gonna indict Joe Biden and Hunter Biden and James Biden and every other scumball sleazeball Biden, except for the 5-year-old granddaughter who they refused to acknowledge for five years until political pressure got to Joe Biden.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-likely-ag-mike-davis-were-going-to-put-kids-in-cages/

2024-11-10 21:08:25

Vote counters in Los Angeles County received a bomb threat Saturday -- one day after similar threats were directed at their counterparts in Riverside and Orange counties.
The Norwalk headquarters of the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk received a bomb threat via email, according to officials.
Authorities said that an investigation conducted at the office and Ballot Processing Center revealed no credible threats.
"We take all such threats seriously and are working closely with the FBI, state authorities and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department to ensure the safety of our staff and community and maintain uninterrupted operations,'' said Dean Logan of the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's office
https://abc7.com/post/election-office-ballot-processing-center-los-angeles-county-receives-latest-series-bomb-threats/15532139/

2024-11-10 20:54:07

The metal tip at the end of your tape measure is a little bit loose for a reason.
The first inch of the tape is short by 1/16 of an inch.
This isn’t an error -- it’s meant to provide you with accurate readings whether you’re measuring the inside or outside edge of a surface.
This feature is known as “true zero”.
The metal tip is exactly 1/16 of an inch thick.
If you’re measuring the outside of a surface and hook your metal end on the edge, that metal piece will shift out and create a gap, so that you aren’t counting it in your measurement.
And if you need to measure the inside of a surface – like in a window frame, you want to count the thickness of the metal piece in your calculations.
Thus, the metal piece will shift back to fill the gap.
Always take care to pull or push your tape so that it’s taut to take advantage of the true zero feature.
https://social.vmbrasseur.com/@vmbrasseur/113460358497602611

2024-11-10 18:14:45

Democrat George Whitesides takes lead over Republican incumbent Mike Garcia in SoCal House race
https://abc7.com/post/democrat-george-whitesides-takes-lead-republican-incumbent-mike-garcia-27th-district/15534298/

2024-11-10 18:03:57

In hindsight, 2016 was the beginning of the beginning --- 2024 is the end of that beginning and the start of something much, much worse.
It began as a tear in the information space,
a dawning realisation that the world as we knew it
– stable, fixed by facts, balustraded by evidence
– was now a rip in the fabric of reality.
And the turbulence that Trump is about to unleash
– alongside pain and cruelty and hardship
– is possible because that’s where we already live:
in information chaos.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/11/a-new-era-dawns-americas-tech-bros-now-strut-their-stuff-in-the-corridors-of-power

2024-11-10 06:55:20

November 12, 2024, marks the new year for Mars, when the calendar turns the page from 37 to 38.
Why would anyone pick November 12 as New Year’s Day for Mars?
And why does our official reckoning of Martian time set the eons-old Red Planet only in its 38th year?
The answer involves a combination of natural cycles and the human need to impose order via somewhat arbitrary timekeeping—pretty much like on Earth.
Here on our home planet, most countries use the Gregorian calendar to keep track of the year.
This was first adopted in 1582 (although it took quite some time to spread around the world) and is your standard 12-month calendar—365 days every year, with a bonus day added on every fourth year (a “leap” year).
The Gregorian calendar starts on January 1 as a holdover from its predecessor, the Roman Empire’s Julian calendar; to honor the god Janus, Julius Caesar proclaimed that day to be the year’s first.
I might wish we marked the first day of the year using a date of some astronomical significance.
The problem there is Earth stubbornly refuses to play nice with any sort of organized calendar.
For example, our planet’s path around the sun is an ellipse, or oval shape. That means there is a point in time when it gets closest to the sun, which we call perihelion.
That seems like a natural date for the start of a new year.
But Earth’s orbital shape changes subtly every year because of the gravitational influence of the other planets, altering the exact time of perihelion.
Another tweak to perihelion’s timing comes from Earth’s moon, which tugs on our planet to make it wobble a bit as we co-orbit the sun.
These make perihelion an unworkably complicated way to start a calendar, even though perihelion also happens to occur in January.
(Aphelion—when Earth is farthest from the sun—occurs in July.)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/happy-martian-new-year/

2024-11-09 22:58:53

Sen. Dave Min leads Republican Scott Baugh by 1,078 votes in Southern California’s closest congressional race, according to figures released by the Orange County Registrar of Voters.
What You Need To Know
• Min, D-Irvine, trailed by 616 votes entering Friday’s resumption of the vote count, then took a 50.19%-49.81% lead at the completion of the day’s count
•
• Baugh, a former assemblyman, held a 1,133-vote lead on Wednesday in the race for the 47th Congressional District seat vacated by Rep. Katie Porter, D-Irvine, to unsuccessfully run for the Senate seat previously held by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein
•
• Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, saw his lead in northern Los Angeles County’s 27th Congressional District race shrink from 3,240 votes Thursday to 973 Friday over Democrat George Whitesides, a former NASA chief of staff
https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/southern-california/politics/2024/11/08/47th-congressional-district-election

2024-11-09 19:26:09

Trump and his allies don't even hide how much they think his voters are ignorant and deluded.
Even back in 2016, Trump was raving about how he loves "the poorly educated."
When it looked like Project 2025 might hurt him politically, Trump, shameless as usual, said he knew nothing about it.
The architect of it, Russ Vought, admitted to an undercover reporter that Trump is just "running against the brand,"
but that he fully intended to use it as his policy agenda.
After Trump's win was secure, his top lieutenant, Steve Bannon, giddy from his recent release from prison, gloated about this on his "War Room" podcast, by promoting a tweet by Matt Walsh:
"Now that the election is over, I think we can finally say that, yeah, actually, Project 2025 is the agenda."
https://www.salon.com/2024/11/08/americas-political-discordance-the-want-progressivism/

2024-11-09 18:49:17

Until the next midterm elections
—which will take place—we find ourselves somewhat at the mercy of Trump’s will.
A successful opposition, in such circumstances, will require unusual measures of courage, imagination, adaptability, disruptiveness.
New tactics will have to be employed.
New people will have to be given leadership positions.
Blue state authorities will have to coordinate with one another to protect vulnerable Americans.
To make this happen, the DNC should finally do what it should have done years ago:
set up a political operations unit to devise and coordinate anti-GOP actions nationwide.
(Fox News performs this function, and others, for the GOP.)
Most importantly, the Democratic Party will have to reinvent itself in a way that restores its credibility and its relevance.
The most critical job of Democrats is to fill their supporters with hope:
a hopeless population is more vulnerable to autocracy.
This requires them to consult with their base about how to fight Trump;
and then to fight.
Their basic strategy must be twofold:
first, do everything in their power and influence to oppose, slow down, and attach political costs to the Trump agenda.
They must show exemplary fortitude and courage.
(Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, has already indicated that he will not step down if requested to do so by Trump.)
Second, start planning and campaigning for the midterms now.
The House and Senate will be winnable.
Tactically, all bets should be off.
If Democrats have to activate thousands of bots and hire thousands of trolls to penetrate Trumpist propaganda platforms they should do that.
If they have to induce Senator Susan Collins to caucus or side with them, they should offer her every inducement.
(Collins is up for reelection in 2026. If she stands down, a Democrat will likely succeed her.)
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2024/11/09/all-bets-are-off-joseph-oneill/

2024-11-09 18:29:59

Although he may not have a cabinet-appointed position,
#Elin #Musk will have a broad portfolio in the new administration for as long as his relations with Trump remain positive.
This gives Musk extraordinary power over a number of areas -- including spaceflight.
Already this week, he has been soliciting ideas and input from colleagues.
The New York Times reported that Musk has advised Trump to hire key employees from SpaceX into his administration -- including at the Department of Defense.
🆘This reflects the huge conflict of interest that Musk will face when it comes to space policy.
His actions could significantly benefit SpaceX, of which he is the majority owner and has the final say in major decisions.
It will be a hugely weird dynamic. Musk is unquestionably in a position for ❌self-dealing.
Normally, such conflicts of interest would be frowned on within a government,
but Trump has already shown a brazen disregard for norms, and there's no reason to believe that will change during his second go at the presidency.
⚠️One way around this could be to give Musk a "special adviser" tag, which could mean he would not have to comply with federal conflict-of-interest laws.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/11/space-policy-is-about-to-get-pretty-wild-yall/

2024-11-09 17:32:21

JD Vance has suggested that American support for NATO should be predicated on the European Union not regulating Elon Musk and his X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter.
The Republican vice presidential nominee and Ohio senator claimed in an interview with YouTuber Shawn Ryan that a top EU official had threatened to arrest the billionaire if he allowed former President Donald Trump back on X.
“The leader, I forget exactly which official it was within the European Union, but sent Elon this threatening letter that basically said, ‘We’re going to arrest you if you platform Donald Trump,’ who, by the way, is the likely next president of the United States,” Vance said in the interview published last week.
Trump’s running mate then suggested that US support for NATO should be used as a cudgel to get the Europeans in line.
“So what America should be saying is, if NATO wants us to continue supporting them and NATO wants us to continue to be a good participant in this military alliance, why don’t you respect American values and respect free speech?” Vance asked.
“It’s insane that we would support a military alliance if that military alliance isn’t going to be pro-free speech. I think we can do both. But we’ve got to say American power comes with certain strings attached. One of those is respect free speech, especially in our European allies.”
Musk has been accused of banning several journalists since taking over Twitter, now X.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/jd-vance-elon-musk-x-twitter-donald-trump-b2614525.html

2024-11-09 17:24:56

It has often been said that Donald Trump was running for president to keep himself out of prison.
Mission accomplished.
But the fact that Trump wasn’t behind bars long ago,
that he didn’t suffer any consequences for his criming and now likely never will,
can be laid squarely at the feet of one man:
Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Garland dragged his feet on prosecuting Trump for election interference and pilfering classified documents,
making it easy for him to run out the clock.
Coming in on the heels of a literal insurrection,
Garland was a bad fit for his job from the jump.
He made clear early on that he didn’t see addressing issues from the Trump era as a priority,
declaring that he would not look backward.
Garland is an institutionalist,
leading him to see his real job as protecting the Department of Justice
rather than imposing any consequences on Bill Barr and others who turned the DOJ into a corrupt playground.
Someone who saw the abstract notion of an institution as more important than actual people and actual wrongdoing was never going to be the person who aggressively pursued an ex-president whose crimes were always in full view,
which was what the country desperately needed back in 2021.
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/merrick-garland-failures-explained

2024-11-09 03:52:05

I’m angry about what happened and how predictable it all was.
I feel like Randall Mindy in our film Don’t Look Up
— specifically in the scene where he’s just scream-weeping up at the sky, saying he tried to warn everyone.
And I’m enraged by those still purporting to be surprised, whether it’s cable TV-addled liberals personifying the proverb about blindness, or pundits and politicos who embody the famous Upton Sinclair aphorism.
But perhaps there’s a silver lining here.
Maybe the shellacking will prompt an awakening. Maybe everyone will finally tune out the pundits still claiming Democrats ran a “flawless” campaign.
And maybe people will finally acknowledge, accept, and internalize realities that were obvious so long ago.
And maybe from there, things can improve.
What follows here are some big questions so many people have been asking me, and my preliminary answers.
Think of it as a FAQ about what just happened — a proverbial handbook for the politically deceased.
The questions I’ll cover are listed below — click a topic to jump forward or scroll through:
• What is the Democratic Party’s theory of winning elections?
• Why do Democrats seem unwilling to focus on persuading working-class voters?
• Why have working-class voters been fleeing the Democratic Party for years?
• How does all this relate to the Democratic Party’s internal fights over the last few years?
• But aren’t Democrats being smart by trying to be a big-tent party?
• What were Republicans’ most effective tactics to court working-class voters?
• Why weren’t Democrats able to sell working-class voters on their economic record?
• Why did Americans decide to vote against “saving democracy?”
• What could Democrats have done to win the election?
• How did both parties approach the media during the election?
• What do we do now?
https://www.levernews.com/handbook-for-the-politically-deceased/

2024-11-09 03:33:37

Donald Trump courted union voters during his successful 2024 presidential bid,
and now Bloomberg reports that his incoming administration is poised to deliver a "#body #blow" to organized labor that has enjoyed a significant renaissance under President Joe Biden's administration.
While Biden's administration has helped multiple unions score big new contracts and organizing victories,
as well as eliminating noncompete clauses that hold workers back,
Trump's last National Labor Relations Board was far more hostile to organized labor and his next one could be even more so.
"The last time Trump ran the government, however, he filled key enforcement roles with management-side attorneys who pushed for companies to have more control over workers’ tips,
more time to run anti-union campaigns
and more discretion over who gets paid overtime,"
writes Bloomberg, before adding,
"Now that he’s had some practice, he’s likely to do more, faster."
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-unions-body-blow/

2024-11-09 03:21:07

The union movement needs to take up the banner of anti-fascism.
And that will mean that there will be some unions and some union leaders that are going to try to take a pass.
But that’s what we have to do.
One of the projects I’m involved in is something called Standing for Democracy.
One of our objectives is to fight to make the union movement an anti-fascist movement.
I think all good progressives and leftists that are active in the trade union movement need to take up that banner.
There is a global alignment of unions and union federations that’s emerged over the last 18 months that’s quite explicitly anti-fascist.
We need to be part of that.
https://www.standing4democracy.org/

2024-11-09 02:46:40

Trump allies push to punish Jack Smith in first test of retribution vow
Even as Jack Smith moved to wind down his federal election interference case against Donald Trump on Friday, House Republicans took an initial step toward investigating the special counsel, setting up an early test of how the president-elect’s calls for retribution will play out.
 House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Georgia) asked Smith’s office to preserve all records of the historic classified document and election interference probes,
a routine first step in congressional inquiries, law enforcement investigations and litigation.
Elon Musk, the X owner who spent more than $100 million boosting Trump’s campaign, responded to the House Republicans’ letter by posting,
“Jack Smith’s abuse of the justice system cannot go unpunished.”
 Trump vowed repeatedly on the campaign trail to stop Smith’s prosecutions and use a return to power to turn federal law enforcement against President Joe Biden and other critics,
Democrats and former advisers.
He argued without evidence that the federal indictments he faced were politically motivated.
In the final weeks of the campaign, Trump said he would quickly remove Smith and suggested deporting him.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/11/08/trump-dc-criminal-case-suspend-deadlines/

2024-11-09 01:39:30

Next year, Trump will be in the White House, Republicans will control the Senate and it’s looking like Republicans will control the House, too.
That leaves Democrats with a very tight window
— the end-of-year lame duck session
— to squeeze out every last drop of their power while Joe Biden is still in the White House and their party still, if barely, controls the Senate.
The most obvious thing they can do is focus on confirming more of Biden’s judges, as these are lifetime posts and these people will be making decisions that affect millions for decades after Trump or Biden is around.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/senate-democrats-lame-duck-biden-judges_n_672e58e2e4b0933e82c9ed15

2024-11-08 23:34:16

Military officials reportedly discuss how to handle illegal orders from Trump
Pentagon officials discuss what to do if Trump were to attempt to deploy the military domestically
– live https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/nov/08/us-election-live-donald-trump-cabinet-house-of-representatives?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2024-11-08 20:02:43

#Neoliberalism
combines free trade, low taxes, and an end to the power of unions.
Neoliberals typically also embrace open borders, as in the world’s most complete neoliberal experiment that’s called the European Union
(which is also in trouble now).
The result of #Reagan’s version of neoliberalism has been that good jobs (over 20 million of them) and even entire factories (over 15,000 of them) moved to low-wage countries,
unions were destroyed,
and wealth exploded at the top while the middle class shrank into near poverty.
In the 2016 primaries, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were the first two candidates for either of the two major parties to call for an end to neoliberalism.
Americans were enchanted by both.
It’s why people from Joe Rogan to Howard Stern were endorsing Bernie Sanders,
and blue-collar workers across the country were taking Trump seriously.
#Bernie’s call to end neoliberalism was complete:
End the offshoring and bring jobs back,
pass Card Check to reinvigorate unions,
and raise taxes on the morbidly rich and profitable corporations.
#Trump’s call was only partial;
while he embraced bringing our jobs and factories back to America,
he wanted to keep the neoliberal “reforms” of low taxes on billionaires
and an end to union representation.
(He went so far as to publicly congratulate Elon Musk on his union-busting/union-preventing activities.)
Sadly, the elders of the Democratic Party had already decided that Hillary Clinton was going to inherit her husband’s neoliberal dynasty so,
⭐️when voters were confronted with Clinton’s defense of neoliberalism versus Trump’s partial attack on it,
they chose the latter.
Something’s better than nothing, they seemed to think.
https://hartmannreport.com/p/left-behind-how-neoliberalisms-legacy-5f0

2024-11-08 19:27:45

- reply

@npub1xk9…xt53
The Execution of the Doge Marino Faliero is an oil painting on canvas completed in 1826 by the French Romantic artist Eugène Delacroix,
inspired by the 1821 play Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice
by Lord Byron,
which in turn was based upon events in the life of the Venetian Doge Marino Faliero (1274–1355).
Today the work is part of the Wallace Collection in London; as of 2021 it is listed as "not on display"

2024-11-08 19:23:52

The No Kings Act:
Presidents "shall not be entitled to any form of immunity"
Sign to pass Schumer's bill to deny Trump immunity and donate at least a dollar
https://txting.co/ewZ5Jr
ECU

2024-11-08 14:59:41

Three states had paid leave on the ballot.
Voters overwhelmingly approved all of them.
In Missouri, Alaska and Nebraska, where voters supported President-elect Donald Trump,
they also voted to expand paid sick leave, proving that
"It's the pocketbook, stupid"
https://19thnews.org/2024/11/missouri-alaska-nebraska-approve-paid-sick-leave/

2024-11-08 14:35:13

Never mind that 23 Nobel Prize–winning economists signed a letter last month affirming that Trump’s economic policies will be a catastrophe for the economy
—something you don’t have to be a Nobel laureate to understand.
Let go of any illusions you still harbor that the prosperity of the world’s richest people depends on a thriving economy.
If anything, the oligarchs stand to do better when the economy (and the country) go to hell.
https://newrepublic.com/article/188156/liberals-dump-musk-leave-twitter

2024-11-07 23:13:35

A text campaign—and obvious hate crime—issued a threat to students of color across the nation, claiming the recipients had been “selected” as “house slaves” and were due to appear at plantations.
One message shared online demanded that its recipient appear at Abingdon Plantation.
“This is mandatory,” the message read.
“Sincerely, Trump administration.”
https://newrepublic.com/post/188159/donald-trump-maga-attacks-women

2024-11-07 22:56:19

• We may have to start running noisy, spectacle filled campaigns in every state every election cycle or expect drop-off, underperformance
• We have to build a far better permanent center-left based media ecosystem to compete with what the right has built. As powerful as the right’s propaganda effort has been, it got more powerful with the addition of Twitter this year and the rightward movement of some legacy media. It will become powerful still when Trump is back in the White House. There is great urgency to this work.
We have a loudness problem on our side that simply must be addressed strategically across the entire party in every state and across the country.
We have to be speaking every day to all parts of our coalition, and not just a handful of swing voters and their concerns in a few battleground states.
For if we don’t do this, our campaigns will end up always playing defense in a right-constructed frame, that, among other things, discourages us from talking about all the good we do as a party
- for right-adjacent groups never believe any of that.
All they know is the "bad" - high inflation, trans, the border, crime - and thus the campaign and data ecosystem tells us not to even try to challenge it. -- It’s too baked in.
Over time this means we never get to make the case for us which is one reason why no one knows all the good Biden-Harris had done.
For right-adjacent swing voters don’t believe it, and thus
even though our economy today is arguably stronger than it has been in 60 years,
we spent the general election talking about the harms of inflation rather than our success in getting to the other side of it and orchestrating a soft landing.
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/early-thoughts-on-the-election-video

2024-11-07 04:55:24

Gun safety groups reasserted their stances in the hours following Trump’s victory being called by the networks.
@MomsDemandAction wrote on X, “Our army of over 10 million supporters are ready to fight like hell against President Trump and his lawmaker allies if they attempt to undo our progress or push legislation that would make us less safe.
With the overwhelming majority of Americans who support strong gun safety laws behind us, we will win.”
Angela Ferrell-Zabala, the group’s executive director, said in a statement they were “crushed” by the election result, but added, “We’re going to continue to organize like our lives depend on it—because they do.”
@EverytownForGunSafety, which was formed following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, described the election result as “devastating.” But in a post on X, they went on to note,
“Make no mistake: Trump’s extremist agenda is a danger for our nation,
but it means we’ll double down on our efforts to protect our communities and continue to make progress, just like we did in 2016.”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/11/6/2283377/-The-fight-is-on-Progressive-groups-gear-up-for-a-second-Trump-term?pm_source=ICYMI&pm_campaign=ICYMI11062024

2024-11-07 04:07:27

The Democrat and former Trump administration official Eugene Vindman has won his House race against the Republican and former army green beret Derrick Anderson in Virginia’s seventh congressional district, representing a key victory for Democrats as they cling to the last glimmers of hope of regaining a majority in the lower chamber.
When the Associated Press called the race at 6.24pm ET on Wednesday, almost 24 hours after polls closed in Virginia, Vindman led Anderson by two points in the seventh district, which stretches from the exurbs of Washington DC to more rural counties in the western and central parts of the state.
With his victory sealed, Vindman will now go on to replace the Democratic congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, who chose to run for governor rather than seek re-election, when the new House is seated in January. Although the seat does not represent a pick-up for Democrats, Vindman’s defeat could have doomed the party’s broader prospects of winning the House, where Republicans currently hold a narrow majority.
Vindman first gained a national profile after he and his brother, Alexander Vindman, played a central role in Donald Trump’s first impeachment. The Vindman brothers, who both held senior roles on Trump’s national security council, were dismissed after raising concerns about the then president’s alleged efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Vindman’s name recognition helped him build a powerful fundraising operation that propelled him to victory in a crowded Democratic primary and ultimately resulted in a win on Wednesday.
Even though his history with Trump boosted Vindman’s prospects as a first-time candidate for political office, he did not mention that record much on the campaign trail, instead focusing on issues like abortion access and the potential overhaul of the civil service if Republicans won full control of Congress.
“I was a military service member, but I empathize with the civil servants that are working hard every day on behalf of the American people, and they’re just doing their jobs and being demonized,” Vindman told the Guardian last month.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/06/eugene-vindman-virginia-house-race?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other