Cindy Lea

Knowledge is power…

Senior U.S. official to exit after rift with Musk allies over payment system A top Treasury career staffer is expected to depart. Surrogates of Musk’s DOGE effort had sought access to sensitive payment systems.

The highest-ranking career Treasury official is departing after a clash with Elon Musk surrogates over DOGE’s access to a sensitive Treasury payments system that handles trillions of dollars a year: www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Students at Florida State University can cheer on the Seminoles across multiple sports, but they can no longer learn about the namesake tribe of Indigenous Americans as part of FSU’s general education offerings after the Florida Board of Governors approved sweeping curriculum changes Thursday.

This is quite an opening paragraph about changes that Florida's higher education board made to the list of allowed general education courses. www.insidehighered.com/news/governa...

A Guide to Surviving the Trump Presidency Here are tips to staying sane as we embark on yet another four years of Trump

@danpfeiffer.bsky.social has an excellent Substack guide for us today. Let’s follow this guide and make Trump a lame duck president and save our democracy

open.substack.com/pub/messageb...

The Mango Nuts executive order vibe:

A screenshot of Maggie Smith's "Good Bones" Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.

Poetry Foundation not fucking around with today's poem of the day
www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/89897/...

This is the dream

YouTube video by Takes™ by Jamelle Bouie Donald Trump’s 19th Century Obsession

got a new video up, basically an adaptation of my most recent column youtu.be/d7IwX7Za2KY?...

unfortunately for the administration you cannot assert that a new and novel interpretation of the constitution is law with an executive order AND other constitutional officers have a say here too.

"No one is asking you to break into an FBI office to reveal malfeasance or risk twenty lashes to teach future generations to read. Much smaller, safer actions can still have an effect. It’s up to you what you do, but you can do something."

This is a significant step forward for the #lgbtq community and for the Democratic Party. I’m delighted to be working with our President, @JeremyComeau in launching a group focusing our policy concerns on the national level.

www.nationalstonewall.com

what is your favorite thing you read this week (that was published this week)? points for something longform.

We’ve lost the joy of browsing as a culture. Libraries replacing bookshelves with e-book catalogs. Shelves of random movies at a video rental becoming market-driven “If you liked X, then you might like Y” recs. The internet packages “discovery” as just a widening circle of the familiar.

Glad to see you here

Snow day in Maumelle, Arkansas.

Russian disinfo network “Matryoshka” is migrating to Bluesky as exodus from X continues The Russian disinformation network “Matryoshka” has launched a new campaign on the Bluesky social network. Eliot Higgins, founder of the investigative journalism group Bellingcat, has been one of the ...

The Russian disinformation network “Matryoshka” has launched a new campaign on Bluesky. Eliot Higgins, founder of the investigative journalism group Bellingcat, has been one of the first researchers to detect its activity. So far, four Russian-made fake videos have been identified on the platform.

Supreme Court takes up South Carolina bid to defund Planned Parenthood The state wants to prevent reproductive healthcare groups from receiving federal funds via the Medicaid program because it provides abortions.

Supreme Court can't stay out of the abortion wars:

Today it took up a case from South Carolina that predates the overturning of Roe v Wade & the state's 6-week abortion ban. It's about state's bid to prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving federal Medicaid funds.
www.nbcnews.com/politics/sup...

‘On gawd’ I’m tired, but moving forward and still fighting for democracy. A veteran never quits. Against all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC 💙

AOC losing the leadership position to a 74yo white man illustrates that the democrats have learned absolutely NOTHING from last month's election. Why is it so fucking hard for these Dem boomers to get the fuck out of the way? I'm not even saying retire! Just pass the damn baton already!

The most recent HPV vaccine protects against 90% of strains causing cervical cancer, anal cancer, genital warts, and most strains causing mouth and throat cancer.

My brother and one of my best friends got squamous cell cancer in the throat and mouth due to HPV. If they had received the HPV vaccine as young men (then unavailable), most likely they would never have gotten cancer.

Vaccines work. Don't let these trumpers tell you otherwise.

Judith Butler, philosopher: ‘If you sacrifice a minority like trans people, you are operating within a fascist logic’ A leading figure in feminism and gender studies, the thinker welcomes EL PAÍS in California after being voted one of the most influential minds in the world

A lot of good stuff from Butler here. The questions are embarrassing.

english.elpais.com/culture/2024...

Good point. Those of us we pay to get through the wall should recognize the majority of people cannot afford that.

Public service announcement: when a rep or senator says something, they literally have the same info you do from the same sources.

We always pretended to have special knowledge, but rarely did.

Keep that in mind with the drone hysteria

Life doesn't get boring as you get older, life stays the same but boring stuff gets exciting and exciting stuff gets annoying because it interrupts the boring stuff that's the ciiiircle of liiiife

Sometimes I have trouble remembering things because my brain won’t do what I want it to do, and sometimes I have trouble remembering things because I refused to write it down because I didn’t like the kind of pen that was available and that’s a pretty accurate snapshot of how I roll

No women will lead House committees for first time in 2 decades The 17 standing committees will be dominated by white men when the new Congress is seated on Jan. 3. No people of color were selected, either.

No women will lead a House committee for the first time in two decades after House Republicans revealed their list of committee leaders for the 119th Congress. No people of color were selected, either.

Why Sitting Bull Was Killed by Indian Agency Police at His Cabin on the Standing Rock Reservation Because of his alleged involvement with the Ghost Dance movement, the Lakota leader, who died on this day in 1890, was seen as a threat to the U.S. government's efforts to subdue Indigenous Americans

“Because of his alleged involvement with the Ghost Dance movement, the Lakota leader, who died on this day in 1890, was seen as a threat to the U.S. government’s efforts to subdue Indigenous Americans.”

When Jarrett leaves Collin takes over his pillow.