Wildlife ecology & public relations | sustainability | ☮️ ❤️⚖️ 🌼 🌎 | Parkinson's sucks | anti-fascist | She/her | Views mine.
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"From the tense exchanges during the hearing, it was apparent that senators from both parties have realized that Kennedy is living in a world defined by activists who crusade against vaccines and, for that matter, the entire enterprise of public health science."
🚨The CMS WISeR rule is an ASSAULT on Medicare. Dr. Oz has been salivating to PRIVATIZE Traditional Medicare for years and now he may get his chance. We must ALL speak up! Prior Authorizations & AI decision making will DELAY & DENY care. Please read.⬇️ healthcareuncovered.substack.com/p/cms-is-try...
When I read that AI will be used to decide approvals under Medicare, & that payment to the companies will be based on denials(!), my first thought was that instead of CEOs being Luigi’d, AI data centers will be Kaczynski’d. (I’m not advocating violence, it’s just what came to mind.)
Yesterday I came across an email about something with a deadline of 9/11. No problem, I thought. Plenty of time. Friends… I can’t find that email anywhere today and I can’t remember what it was about so my search has been unsuccessful. 😬 Hope it wasn’t too important. 😆
RFK Jr. wants to "make America healthy again." So he's doing that by dismantling federal health agencies and firing civil servants who inspect our food, track infectious diseases, and research life-saving treatments and vaccines. Do I have this right?
Support for vaccinating kids against infectious diseases dropped from 81% in 1991 to 51% last year We are getting dumber as a society
Mayor Bowser, "shared priorities" with this administration means having masked agents disappear our neighbors in the middle of the night. It means soldiers with assault rifles in our neighborhoods. It means arresting children. These are the priorities of a dictator. DC does not share them.
The thing about living in a human society is you either decide that everyone (except those for whom it would be medically dangerous) has to take VACCINES into their bodies or everyone (with no exceptions at all) has to take VIRULENT PATHOGENS in from those around them and, look, the first is better.
I'm aware that the President likes to go on television and beg me to call him to ask for troops. I find it strange, as Chicago doesn't want troops. I also have experience asking him for assistance – just to have the rug pulled up from underneath me when execution meets reality.
Even if Pritzker fails, this is the right thing to do.
I’ve been eating so much gazpacho. 😊
Absolutely! Who needs experts?!?! Having heart problems? Ask your 5th grader. Cancer? Maybe your gardener has some tips. Coughing up green-brown mucus? No problem. The factory says not to worry about the thick smoke. It’s fine. There’s a website that says mint tea will make you right as rain.
When Klansmen dynamited the 16th Street Baptist Church and killed four girls, the blast knocked out the face of Christ from one of the stained glass windows. TIME ran the image on their cover. Of course, that was way back when we still cared about our kids being killed. Ancient history now.
WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK
A good opportunity to repeat one of my favorite points: the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy would overwhelmingly pay for itself *purely through reduced air & water pollution*, even if climate change didn't exist.
My name is Captain Dylan Blaha, and this message is for members of the National Guard across the USA. I've served in the Illinois Army National Guard for over 12 years, including a deployment to Afghanistan and three years on active duty in Europe. What's going on right now is not normal.
Amen sister!
If I win a giant lottery this is part of what I wanna do with my winnings. Solar for everyone who wants it.
And it’s been a case study of *excellence* & doing right in every business class I’ve ever taken.
The profs might hate it tho. ROFL
Banning a vaccine for a pandemic disease that killed millions is real shithead behavior.
There’s an article in the Wall Street Journal about a jellyfish museum in Kiev that you should definitely read. It’s a big smile. 😊 Authors Alistair MacDonald & Isabel Coles. I didn’t link it here because I saw it in Apple News and that link doesn’t work for ppl outside their app.
I think it’s amazing and you should be super proud! 🎉 Still haven’t ruled out getting mine after I retire. 😊 Until then it’s MSx2 which isn’t too shabby.
On the plus side, he has the benefit of being able to afford excellent personal security.
This is freaking cool. 🇺🇦
I am sounding the alarm on the real crisis we face today. Donald Trump’s overreach is what our founders warned against – it is unprecedented, unwarranted, and un-American. There’s no emergency here that calls for military intervention.
CALLING ALL VETERANS IN THE DMV (the District, Maryland, and Virginia)!!! Pack a rucksack and get down to Union Station. Prepare to stay a while if you can. Please spread the word.
The prolonged public torturing of a single man because the state cannot admit to its errors is not something that occurs in a free country
Every Dem harping about kitchen table issues could be walking through a grocery store with reporters, pointing at the prices, and saying “Damn, look what Trump did.” Easy layup! AND YET.
This isn’t about republicans vs. democrats anymore. Party lines hold little meaning. It’s about whether we continue to exist as a constitutional republic or completely devolve into an autocracy. Every American should be outraged in their bones about what’s going on.
Hail to the bus driver, Bus driver, bus driver, Hail to the bus driver, Bus driver-man. He screams and he cusses At ICE like we mustes Hail to the bus driver, Bus driver-man. Come on, help a good man out:
One of the things I most* dislike about my husband having advanced Parkinson’s is that garbage night is my job now. 😞 (*There are many more substantial things I dislike, such as the fact that he has chronic pain and his body doesn’t move anymore, but tonight’s garbage night & I’m whining …)
Will someone Dems listen to please tell them: STOP re-enforcing Trump's fake crime framing! Sending troops to Blue cities is NOT about crime. Duh? Trump is a convicted felon who pardoned violent J6 assailants. If Dems can't spin that to expose his authoritarian power grab then what good are they?
It’s fantastic and was only a matter of time. 🙂
this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like
As someone who knows Governor Lisa Cook, has written about her extensive experience and impact on the #economics profession, I am down to talk to reporters about why this attack, masked as concern, is not only racist and sexist #TheDoubleTax, but also potentially harmful on a GLOBAL scale.
In this episode of Boom! Lawyered Summer Session, @angryblacklady.bsky.social and @hegemommy.bsky.social dig into the Republican efforts to strip federal funding from @ppfa.org clinics and explain how it fits with their larger attacks on health care and Medicaid
Can we every day have someone in the MSM covering the TX voting map change point out that if Republican policies were as popular as DJT says, they wouldn’t need a midterm gerrymander?
Do you know how insane and infuriating it is to live in a country where one party claims, with media and public support, the mantle of being the ‘tough on crime’ party while its leader openly calls for convicted criminals to be released from prison ‘or else’?
Reminder that in 2021, Senate Republicans filibustered a bill by Democrats that would have banned partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts.
Even before Dobbs, Black women & others were 3X more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women. Over two million women and others were forced to give birth because of the Hyde Amendment-- and that doesn't count those who died as a result of denied abortion care.
We are very far off the cliff, folks. 🇺🇸
They’re whitewashing our history in books and museums …recruiting Nazis into ICE. …deploying the military into our cities. …shielding the pedophiles and predators in their ranks. …stealing your data, social security & Medicaid. Because some of you couldn’t handle pronouns.
Today: "For the first time in 30 years, the American Academy of Pediatrics...is substantially diverging from U.S. government vaccine recommendations." 🔹️"The AAP is strongly recommending COVID-19 shots for children ages 6 months to 2 years. Shots also... 1/3 www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdi...
Yes, please. 🙂
I feel this. We’ll trudge thru.
Boy math is wanting zero abortions but wearing zero condoms
What can we do besides write and call Sens and Reps? Is there legal action happening? Are your members REFUSING TO COMPLY since it’s an ILLEGAL ORDER?!
I’m ready! Let’s do this!
The hosts at MSNBC like @chrislhayes.bsky.social and @maddow.msnbc.com are being led out like lambs slaughter and I wish they'd speak out more on what is being done to kill progressive news in the US by the oligarchs.
“With less they beat slavery. With less they beat Jim Crow… Harriet Tubman didn’t have email, Twitter, Texts, TikTok…”
Just an occupying force going around vandalizing my neighborhood to remove speech they don't like. This is thuggish and counterproductive to any law enforcement goal they may pretend to have. It just highlights that unprofessional goons are occupying DC.
Many Democrats still aren’t speaking out full throatedly against concentration camps & deportations. They are still operating off their original failed assumption that appearing “tough” on immigration will win them support. It’s how they got us here. They need to understand that and reverse course.
Do DJT and the republican governors think DC is like, an “Escape from NY” kinda scenario? WTF ppl. It is not an inherently dangerous place.
This is devastating, and part of a larger move to entirely push science out of NASA's mission. It is horrific betrayal of so much work, not to mention the fact that it violates NASA's charter.
😢
Puppet.
Sure, I can see that it might take mental and physical conditioning to be able to do agricultural work, but what if we also make their conditions better and pay more?! Regardless of who is doing the picking!
I’m going to keep saying this- You don’t fight fascism with fascism light. We don’t fight fascism by sacrificing Gaza, trans folks, unhoused people, migrants, etc. We fight fascism by building a strong coalition INCLUDING everyone and fighting for a better world for EVERYONE. There’s no other way
Very bad news from Costco. One of the groups orchestrating this pressure campaign is Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian Nationalist law firm that is hellbent on reshaping US society. The ADF coalition "now turns its focus to CVS and Walgreens."
Kind of feel like it should be bigger national news that the poorest major city in the country is being forced to accept devastating service cuts to our public transit system because PA Republicans actively hate Philly and want to cause us pain
funny story, I signed up for personal training at a local gym and was assigned a former NFL linebacker as a trainer giant man, covered in tattoos, big muscles, loud voice I am someone who just… doesn’t have a particularly well-assembled body
The price of vegetables rose 38.9% in July.
So tired. 😡
The thing is, it doesn’t have to be prolonged. In this country, a few single day or rolling strikes would shake a bunch of ppl awake. The larger unions can & should take the lead. Their workers can usually go a day.
I want everyone who reads this to drop what they’re doing and go check if you’re still registered to vote. I also want you to put a weekly reminder to go check if you’re registered. Republicans are trying to remove Dems from the voter rolls across the country, 1/
So … a ruling that Trump can toss union contract & change federal employee status on a whim, & I’m hearing NO chatter about a supportive labor strike by the other large unions?! AFCSME? AFL-CIO? Teamsters? Teachers? Auto Union? Hello? Come on ppl! If we don’t show labor strength now, we’re fucked.
The Trump regime wants to make it illegal to oppose them politically. They want to end freedom of speech and stop having competitive elections in which they can lose power. This is what fascism looks like.
I didn’t know there was one but now that I do, I too am looking forward to it.
Hahaha the local Prescribed Burn Association is inactive due to lack of funding. FETCH ME A BILLIONAIRE WITH A HARD ON FOR RESTORING WESTERN RANGELANDS AND MANAGING FIRE RISK THROUGH TRADITIONAL METHODS
The more ppl that participate, the harder it is to convince the admin that they actually can’t do this shit.
It’s been a few years but when I lived in DC & worked by Union Stn many of the ppl in the encampment there actually worked in Union Stn. They just couldn’t afford housing. What are they gonna do for those ppl?!
I take it back. One is a polar bear silhouette. Still no black bears. At least not among the free stuff. I’m not deterred tho! Maybe I’ll just edit out this shoulder hump…
I'm Jewish and I think about antisemitism all the time. I can't tell you how fucking weird it is that Homeland Security posting literal neo-Nazi propaganda generates less discussion about the threat to Jews than a mayoral candidate who believes Palestinians are human beings.
Yet another person whose voice and perspective I value but who directs everything to substack. Sigh. Considering what these folks generally write about I’m surprised they use substack. Heavier sigh.
Literally every b&w clip art labeled “black bear” is a silhouette of a grizzly. 😬 so annoying
The political strategy of 1) don't resist Trump 2) wait for thermostatic public opinion to just happen 3) don't talk about unconstitutional ICE actions and violations of the 1st Amendment 4) wait for the Supreme Court to solve it really doesn't seem to be working.
The thing we absolutely must drive home to the public is that the Trump administration's immigration policy is being run by committed white supremacists. This is not rhetoric or hyperbole; it is absolutely literally true, and they're increasingly not bothering to hide it.
I love that it's the individual's responsibility to have a less-fulfilling life, and not the corporation's responsibility to not build resource-hoovering AI data centers.
I’m seeing more fungal infections in my flower garden than I used to.
Happy birthday to British-born, American #astrophysicist Margaret Burbidge (1919-2020) who was one of the people instrumental in building our understanding of stellar nucleosynthesis, how nuclei are produced in stars & you and I are all stardust! 🐡🧪👩🏼🔬🔭She was the 1st author of a monumental scientific
I hate how so many look at homelessness and see “crime” instead of poverty, hardship, and often poor health.
YALL. My dear, kind, skilled friend Elana actually designed this disability justice quarter!!! She has designed a number of beautiful coins for the US Mint. Sometimes, the world gives us hope to hold on to, just when you need it most. #DisabilityRepresentation youtu.be/h_GIXuV2u10?...
Just finished a bag of rice and seaweed snacks and THEN I noticed the little disclaimer box that consuming the product might expose me to unhealthy levels of lead, cadmium, and arsenic. 🫠 Why is it even on the shelves? MIMS.
So beautiful there! Enjoy!
I hear that. I wish he hadn’t thrown the sandwich, but I appreciate when people who can get loud do get loud.
Friends in the LEO community in DC, you know this shit is wrong, you swore an oath, and I’m sure you’re feeling sick. Call off ill tomorrow. #Noncooperation
Just saw something about a soldier who was put on involuntary psychiatric leave for speaking up for Palestine. What sane people collectively fail to understand is that there is no due process to having your life destroyed and being imprisoned against your will, if they call you crazy.
Disabled people are not expendable. We’re not stealing your tax dollars. We aren’t lazy. We can’t “try harder” our way out of disability. The Nazis started with disabled people for a reason. They knew no one would fight for us. Want to resist? Engage in disability justice (and wear a mask!)
I know some of you roll your eyes at my comic book references, but more of us need to emulate the actions of SHIELD agent Cameron Klein - “I'm not gonna launch those ships... Captain's orders”.
In the words of Nancy Reagan, “Just say No”. Noncooperation. Noncompliance.
It’s past time for DC to be a state.
When I lived in DC, some homeless folks living in tents by Union Stn worked there full time. Not that DJT cares but their problem was they didn’t earn enough for either a rental or mortgage deposit… which fucking sucks & won’t be solved by sweeping them out. That’ll make them unhoused & unemployed.
A faction of MAGA is currently going after a Medal of Honor recipient for his political beliefs. I’m not even mad about it, just profoundly disappointed. Some things used to transcend politics, but now? Nothing is sacred. It’s gross, and we have to be better than this.
I’m not sure we’ll make it 5y before he needs more care than we can manage if I work FT, and if I don’t work FT I lose my health insurance. So fucking yay, welcome to America where we talk about taking care of our own but don’t actually do it. Yes, I’m feeling a little burnt today, thank you.
Right now we pay for an aide 20h/wk & those hours are for when I’m onsite instead of telework. We don’t qualify for assistance & are lucky we can make it work so far. I’m looking forward to retiring in 5y & being able to use a few hours to sleep in or go to the library instead. Hopefully.