Astraia

I’ve never seen an American elected official fight so hard to starve people.

The NYT’s @tonyromm.bsky.social puts it plainly:

“.. he has found new and untested ways to spare certain Americans, like the military, from the pain of the government closure, while claiming he has no power to help others, including low-income individuals ..”

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/02/u...

In Utah, Trump’s Vision for Homelessness Begins to Take Shape

Under Trump, the draconian future of homelessness policy is coming into focus: mass internment. Utah is building a 16-acre site to detain up to 1,300 homeless people inside locked "accountability centers." This is profoundly alarming.

Vital reporting from @ellenbarry.bsky.social and Jason DeParle:

The government is shut down because Trump stooges want to double health insurance costs for struggling Americans.

And now, because Mike Johnson hasn't even had House Republicans show up for work since Sept. 19, many of those Americans are losing food benefits.

Priorities.

YouTube video by Reagan Library President Reagan's Radio Address on Free and Fair Trade on April 25, 1987

So they didn’t like the ad. Let’s just post Reagan’s 5 min speech against tariffs as it appears on YouTube.

Over and over. On all platforms (some of y’all are still on X).

*1981 Sherrilyn horrified by 2025 Sherrilyn saying “let’s post Reagan’s speech.”

youtu.be/5t5QK03KXPc

This would make a great set of postage stamps!

Iridescent hummingbird perched on a branch in left profile, showing a red bill, blue throat, green head, and green wings with golden-orange tail feathers against a soft forest background.

It's not a Bentbill, but the Blue-throated Goldentail is an OK bird, too, I suppose.

At @tapirvalley.bsky.social #CostaRica

#birds #nature #hummingbirds

Why So Many People Are Seduced by ChatGPT What makes OpenAI’s chatbot so dangerous? It’s a fictional character without an author.

OpenAI's chatbot is a fictional character without an author—and that makes ChatGPT dangerous, Vauhini Vara argues:

🐸

Scientists Completed a Toxicity Report on This Forever Chemical. The EPA Hasn’t Released It. Agency scientists found that PFNA could cause developmental, liver and reproductive harms. Their final report was ready in mid-April, according to an internal document reviewed by ProPublica, but the ...

An EPA report found that the forever chemical PFNA interferes with human development and likely causes damage to the liver and male reproductive systems.

The agency has sat on the report for months. “Scientifically, it was done,” said one scientist.

By @fastlerner.bsky.social

Close-up of a perched hummingbird with iridescent green and deep blue-purple feathers, a slightly curved black bill, and a smooth green blurred background.

A young male Crowned Woodnymph this morning at @tapirvalley.bsky.social #CostaRica

#birds #hummingbirds #nature

Jon Foreman - Leaf Spiral. #Landart #Autumn

We’ve gotten several messages that the Trump administration has tampered with federal employees’ email systems, making some people’s automatic Out of Office replies blame the government shutdown on the “radical left.” This was done without the employees’ knowledge.

ICE Agents Rappel from Helicopter in Overnight Chicago Raid, Dragging Kids from Beds to U-Hauls Overnight on Tuesday, Sept. 30, federal agents from different agencies raided an apartment building on the South Side of Chicago, pulling men, women and children — some of them allegedly naked — from ...

I always pay attention to what stories People Magazine and other consumer media outlets cover. That's how you can tell that something has broken through the usual political and news bubbles. This horrific Chicago story has broken through. people.com/ice-agents-o...

Priorities.

www.nbcnews.com/politics/202...

Artwork featuring a silhouette of a hare standing on a round large rock in a rural windswept landscape with slopes and wild sky

Katherine Soutar, contemporary English artist and illustrator, known especially for her interpretation of folk tales and folklore #womensart

#FolkloreThursday

The updated COVID/histamine link thread because people keep tagging me in to explain it and I keep intending to update the post from 2023 (synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/805203.html) and just not having the capacity because of my own health shit so here is a thread I can pin

STEWART: “Comedy doesn’t change the world, but it’s a bellwether— we’re the banana peel in the coal mine… authoritarians are the threat to comedy, music, art, thought… progress.”

Nailed it.

Why is the right so angry? They control the entire government and they’re still miserable f*cks.

Joy Reid nailed it.

Hiding the truth.

Fox News host on mentally ill people who commit crimes: “Just kill them”

Regarding the Fox News crisis in which its morning show host Brian Kilmeade called for mass murder of the homeless

This was early Wednesday morning. This PRECEDED the Utah shooting. This preceded the orgy on the right claiming the left is violent www.mediamatters.org/fox-friends/...

Life becomes easier when you understand that not a single right-wing media source reports the truth.

🎯

Why I Left the Network Those who need therapy often have to pay out of pocket or go without care, even if they have health insurance. Hundreds of mental health providers told us they fled networks because insurers made thei...

Red tape. Low reimbursement rates. Delayed payments.

We heard from more than 500 psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists who each faced a moment when they decided they had to leave their insurance network.

(Published Aug. 2024)

Meme graphic that shows Elizabeth Warren saying to RFK Jr: “You said that if vaccines are working for someone, I’m not going to take them away. Did you hold up a big sign saying you were lying when you said that?”

RFK Jr. said, “If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away.”

Then, he did.

RFK Jr. is a liar.

www.savehhs.org

The mental health benefits of not knowing any history right now must be massive. Moving through your day with total equanimity. What happens next? Who knows? Maybe something good