Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House.

Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity.

They are not the same.

I just wish people would leave medical decisions to patients and their doctors.

Halloween gravestone reading “I Did My Own Research” in a yard with two skeleton arms sticking out of the grass.

Happy Halloween

Listening to anything in public? Use headphones!

12-step is a cult and is no better than quitting cold turkey. Medication assisted therapy is the way to go

If you use your phone on speaker in public/a public office space, you are going to Hell.

Same goes for listening to media on public transit without headphones.

If you and your SO argue loudly enough for the other people in your train/plane/apartment building to hear, they get to comment.

The ☝️ goes triple for newcomers to a gentrifying/changing neighborhood with an established community. If you don’t like sound, the countryside is beautiful and quiet.

People who move to densely-populated urban hoods then call the cops on their neighbors for noise (especially during the day) are deeply and toxically entitled at best (nicest way I can say it).

This goes double for people knowingly moving into an apartment next to a restaurant, club, bar.

YouTube video by Indivisible Tutorial: How to cancel your Spotify subscription

FYI if you have a Spotify membership, Indivisible is asking people to cancel until they stop running ICE recruitment ads. Instructions on how to do it here: www.youtube.com/shorts/TKp7c...

Secretary is a lady job, says newly-minted CEO of War Hegseth expected to ring Pentagon bell at close of every operation.

“The Pentagon announced today that former Secretary of Defense/former Secretary of War Pete Hegseth will now hold the title CEO of War, following what officials described as a ‘full-blown tantrum’ during a cabinet meeting. ‘Secretary is a lady job!…’” www.duffelblog.com/ceo-of-war-h...

If I had a shitload of money and wished to hasten the arrival of the Kingdom of God I would simply follow the clearly labeled instructions by housing immigrants, freeing prisoners, and so forth

Don't forget to put the date on whatever you write and print. BE SURE TO INCLUDE THE YEAR! Include the day of the week too. Knowing when something happened seems more important than ever lately.

Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs

- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero

Just. Ask. Them. The. Damn. Question. Again. And. Again.

"You swore an oath to the country & Constitution. The president is breaking the law & violating the Constitution & appears mentally unfit. Why haven't you fulfilled your oath yet by voting for impeachment (implementing the 25th amendment)?"

Folks seem to want names. Is it really hard to figure out who the Speaker of the House, the Senate Majority Leader, the 15 Principal Officers of the Executive Departments, & the 5-10 most "moderate" GOP Senators/Reps are? This isn't complicated. It's just a choice to keep laser-focusing on Democrats

Norms & duct tape. That's all the Republic has turned out to be, because the laws & the Constitution do not enforce themselves. There are about 30 people in Washington who can fix this. We should stop giving them free passes all day every day & laser-focus on getting them to do their damn jobs.

An image of a list of the 27 grievances against King George III in the Declaration of Independence. Donald Trump's regime has committed at least 20 of them in whole or in part, condensed into the list below: 1. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. 2. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation … 3. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing … his invasions on the rights of the people. 4. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; … obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners … 5. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice … 6. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices … 7. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. 8. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. 9. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. 10. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution … giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: 11. For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: 12. For protecting them … from punishment for any Murders which they should commit … 13. For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: 14. For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: 15. For depriving us … of the benefits of Trial by Jury: 16. For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: 17. For … abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: 18. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. 19. He has … destroyed the lives of our people. 20. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us …

The Declaration of Independence specifies 27 grievances with King George III and Britain.

Donald Trump and his regime have committed at least 20 of those same offenses highlighted in yellow.
#NoKings

grinding my way through kotkin's STALIN (vol. 1) and his read on the russian revolution is striking: the state was not overthrown by force. the military situation was not untenable. there was bread, somewhere.

rather, the autocracy self-liquidated as the elites lost confidence in its legitimacy.

It's not about healthcare.
If the shutdown ends, Grijalva has to be sworn in.
If Grijalva is sworn, in the Epstein files are voted for release.
If the Epstein files are released with their content, Trump is done.
If Trump is done, Johnson is done, the Republican Party is done.
It's existential.

Demagogic president seizes money to pay standing army, arrogating to himself legislative power, while his cronies keep Congress out of session is honestly more or less exactly how the Founders thought this would end

I really think we need to reconceptualize this shutdown as the last stand for the rule of law and Art I. Bring it to default if that’s what it takes. If Congress can’t assert the power of the purse, we are in “move to Portugal” territory of screwed.

That’s $5 billion more than the entire annual USAID budget. All to one country. To rescue one friend of the president’s.

Post from WH about Chicago "in chaos," showing scene from another state.

A terrific AFP fact check uses reverse image searches to expose how a White House video took scenes from Florida, Texas, South Carolina and Nebraska and lied that they showed "Chicago is in chaos."
factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

That’s some peak cynicism about trying to “make sure people don’t die ..”

This needs to be prosecuted and there needs to be genuine sentences with time served.

in case you missed it, they accidentally turned off the nation’s health care for a second there

And Trump has had a lifetime’s practice in coercion with dollars. Not paying amounts due; not paying taxes; not paying as punishment. Paying to get draft deferments; paying women; paying for escalator and rally audiences; paying for votes.