Megan Robertson

15 Gifts You Can Make, Buy Locally, or Find in a Drawer, So You Don’t Have to Give Money to Billionaires This Holiday Season We’re done passing meaningless tokens back and forth to fill some arbitrary holiday obligation.

1 5 gift ideas that won't make the billionaires richer:

In social movement studies, we talk about how marches and protests expand the threshold of acceptable risk so that people take more and bigger social risks IN PUBLIC, EN MASSE. This is extremely important for the bourgeois white folks holding signs and building social rapport.

NPR: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reposts video of pastors saying women shouldn't vote

You know how people called women hysterical for predicting the right wing would take down Roe v. Wade (which they've done) and then attack access to birth control (which they're doing)?

Hear me when I say that women's very right to vote is next.

www.npr.org/2025/08/09/n...

We need to teach people the difference between being uncomfortable and being unsafe. Because the discomfort of the safest people is endangering the most vulnerable, all day every day.

Photograph of Tom Lehrer

Oh no. Tom Lehrer gone. At his great age, it’s not a tragedy, I know, but it just does feel bad not having his genius in the world.

I see grocery/takeout shaming discourse going around again, so this is your periodic historian reminder that cooking from scratch daily while working has never been sustainable, and for millennia everyone either relied on takeout & restaurants or ate in huge households w/ big dorm-like group dining.

Graphic with text "The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law 35 years ago today." Above the text is a photo of two people in wheel chairs and two people standing behind them next to a desk where former president H.W. Bush is signing a piece of paper.

The ADA was signed into law 35 years ago today, and remains the most comprehensive civil rights law protecting people with disabilities.

This anniversary comes at a time when the health and dignity of disabled people are under attack by the Trump administration.

Man Afraid to Ride Subway Named Head of NASA Trump has tapped Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy as NASA administrator.

A lesson on how to write a headline.

US adults want the government to focus on child care costs, not birth rates, AP-NORC poll finds A new AP-NORC poll finds most Americans do not want the government to focus on increasing birth rates, despite efforts by the Trump administration to make this a priority.

While the Trump administration explores ways to encourage Americans to have more babies and reverse the United States’ falling birth rate, a new poll finds that relatively few U.S. adults see this as a priority or share the White House’s concerns.

This is what’s on CNN right now, an hour after Republicans passed a bill stripping healthcare from 17 million Americans, gutting food assistance to the tune of $300 billion, and exploding the deficit by $4 trillion.

Can we start talking about the war on children?

KEXP hosts 27-hour marathon broadcast for public media - Current KEXP's community turned out to show support for the station and public media.

I am proud to be a fanatical member of the #KEXP community.

“I almost am overjoyed that this happened, because it showed what we could do as a staff and as a community when everything seemed impossible,” @djjohnrichards.bsky.social

current.org/2025/06/slee... #PublicMedia #Radio #Leadership

If you’re zip-tying grandmas protesting losing health care maybe you’re not the good guys in the story?

Just in case anyone is looking for it:

Considering History: How Individual Ideas and Policies Built America’s Most Exclusionary Era | The Saturday Evening Post A climate of exclusion doesn’t happen in a vacuum; decades of racist views and policies shaped America’s attitudes toward immigrants throughout the 20th century.

I’m really proud of my new @satevepost.bsky.social Considering History column, & I hope you’ll read & share as we have much to learn from how the early 20C built to the (previously) most exclusionary period in our history. 🗃️ @hcrichardson.bsky.social

www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2025/06/cons...

the lesson of this isn't that tucker carlson is actually good but that you should ask these people basic factual questions instead of bullshit about politics

There it is. The first ever Heat Advisory issued in Alaska. This is the first year it has been an option. @alaskawx.bsky.social

Listen to this great American. This nation is privileged to have a man of this character in the United States Senate. Thank you @padilla.senate.gov. We stand with you.

Aside from the questionable conclusion of this answer, which is both stupid and dangerous, Mike Johnson was literally a constitutional lawyer before becoming a lawmaker.

Your reminder that Humboldt Fog cheese, Humboldt County, CA, the Humboldt penguin (Spheniscus humboldti),and the Humboldt Current that allows wine grapes to grow in Chile are all named for an 18th C gay scientist whose love letters were all burned and who left his entire estate to his “valet.” 🏳️‍🌈

@nataliehval.bsky.social !!

A win! A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to eliminate Job Corps a Department of Labor program that provides job training to young people entering the workforce.

Teachers Are Not OK AI, ChatGPT, and LLMs "have absolutely blown up what I try to accomplish with my teaching."

“GenAI can simulate all of the steps: it can summarize readings, pull out key concepts, draft text, and even generate ideas for discussion. But that would be like going to the gym and asking a robot to lift weights for you.”

This is happening in Florida.

The new GOP slogan (thank you, Joni Ernst.)

C.D.C. Contradicts Kennedy and Keeps Advice That Children May Get Covid Shots

! The CDC is keeping COVID vaccines on the recommended immunization schedule for kids, contradicting RFK Jr.'s announcement that he was taking it off.

But CDC's guidance for pregnant women -- who are at high risk for scary stuff if not vaccinated -- is "no guidance." www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/h...

How to Stay Covid Safe When in Hospital A guide to navigating the risk of hospital acquired Covid - as well as how to manage overall risk of nosocomial infections and hospital derived complications.

The latest Covid variant (razor blade throat) seems to have increased transmissibility resulting in more people ending up in hospital.

Most healthcare systems haven’t adopted clean air standards or mandatory respirator use.

Hospital acquired COVID has a 10% fatality rate

My guide to avoiding it

Oh

Agents zip-tie kids in new immigration crackdown in Texas At least three children were taken into custody and zip-tied at the San Antonio Immigration Court.

In San Antonio today, plainclothes ICE officers (not masked this time) arrested, handcuffed, and zip-tied a family of five (yes, ALL of them, including the little children) coming out of their immigration court hearing — which ICE had just had dismissed.

www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/a...