Luvsalex@bsky.social

Woman freed a peacock 🦚 with a trapped leg, and it became her bestie.

🦚💖👧🏽

#rescue #care #friendship

Here's your periodic reminder that political centrism is nonsense. There is no middle ground between democracy and oligarchy.

Taco, taco taco 🌮💩🤡🍄

"Weakness masquerading as strength"
-CA Gov Gavin Newsom

“I promise you, it would have been a war crime.” that’s what Alejandro Barranco told me what would have happened if he treated a detainee when he was deployed to Afghanistan with the Marines like federal agents treated his father.

Mic drop.

The whole core premise of the "Gender Critical" nonsense about toilets is just so obviously rubbish. Ok so there's a trans person using the toilet next to you... so? Get a fucking life

one more election thing this morning: because New York is large, people might lose sight of the Mamdani victory being local politics. but it is, and it points up the potential of local politics to reshape direction, to inspire broadly, to change the story

Pope Leo to Seminarians: “In a world where there is often ingratitude and thirst for power, and the logic of waste seems to prevail, you are called to be witnesses of the gratitude of Christ, of the joy and happiness, of the tenderness and mercy of his Heart.”

😂😂😂

Trump knocks down barriers around personal data, raising alarm The Trump administration is shattering norms around the handling of Americans’ personal, and sometimes private, information —  dismantling barriers  around data in the name of government efficiency and rooting out fraud.  Privacy experts say the moves bring the country closer to a surveillance state, increase the government’s vulnerability to cyber-attacks and risk pushing people away from public services.  The Department of Government Efficiency ( DOGE ) has sought — and almost always received — access to social security numbers, addresses, medical histories, tax histories, welfare benefits, bank accounts, immigration statuses and federal employee databases.  These moves have shattered walls that have long kept data within the agencies that collect it.  John Ackerly, a former technology policy adviser under former President George W. Bush and founder of data security firm Virtru, said government agencies need to strike a balance in handling data.  “Foundationally, more information being shared more widely can provide greater insight,” he said. “Bureaucracy shuts down access to information,” he added. “But that does not mean that there should be unfettered access.” Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) see the risk of abuse as outweighing any potential gains.  “We should be limiting federal agencies to access data about us only to the extent they need to perform their duties for the American people,” said Cody Venzke, senior policy counsel on surveillance, privacy and technology at the ACLU . “There's no reason why these data silos need to be broken down,” he added.  Despite outrage from Democrats and some pushback from the courts, the Trump administration has charged ahead.  “President Trump signed an executive order keeping his promise to eliminate information silos and streamline data collection across all agencies to increase government efficiency and save hard-earned taxpayer dollars,” Taylor Rogers, a White House assistant press secretary, said in a statement.  Walls drop around data sharing   Trump’s  executive order  in late March gave agency heads 30 days to rescind or modify guidance that served as a barrier to inter-agency sharing of non-classified information. That included federally funded state program data such as Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and block grants. On May 6, the   U.S. Department of Agriculture  asked states to hand over the data of   42 million  people receiving SNAP benefits, including their names, dates of birth, social security numbers and addresses. This request is currently paused amid legal challenges.  Data sharing has also been a divisive part of Trump’s hardline immigration agenda.  On  June 13 , the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services handed over personal data of millions of Medicaid enrollees in sanctuary states and cities — including California, Washington state, Illinois and Washington, D.C. — to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), in a statement at the time, called the move “potentially unlawful, particularly given numerous headlines highlighting potential improper federal use of personal information and federal actions to target the personal information of Americans.” The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and DHS also struck a deal in April that enables the IRS to share the current addresses of migrants who have been ordered removed from the country within the past 90 days. In May, a  judge gave  the deal a green light.  “To summarize, the IRS must disclose limited taxpayer identity information (e.g., the taxpayer’s name and address) to assist another agency in criminal investigations and proceedings, if the agency has satisfied the statutory prerequisites in its written request,” U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich wrote, ruling on a lawsuit filed by four immigration organizations. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has also begun to  increase its social media surveillance , particularly of posts they deem “anti-American,” according to the  Associated Press .  In another win for the administration, the Supreme Court on  June 6  overturned a lower court injunction that temporarily limited DOGE’s access to highly personal Social Security Administration (SSA) data. The decision was unsigned, decided in a 6-3 split along party lines. This overturns decades of precedent on the Privacy Act of 1974, which requires written consent from an individual to share identifiable information. The liberal judges dissented, arguing DOGE failed to justify its need to access SSA data. The SSA stores data on social security numbers, bank accounts, retirement benefits, work authorization status, income histories, medical records and more. In 2025, it served  69 million people.  Fears of overreach, cyber vulnerability and declining trust  Critics of the Trump administration’s expanded data sharing say the moves present a range of risks, from government overreach to higher stakes for cyber defense and pushing people away from accessing public services.  Noah Chauvin, an assistant law professor at Widener University, said the elimination of data silos will bring an “enormous” amount of information under one umbrella, raising concerns about who can access it, and for what purposes.  “When the government has unchecked surveillance powers, they inevitably are abused to target people who have disfavorable political views or are otherwise disliked by people holding power,” he said. The  New York Times  reported that Palantir, a data analytics and AI firm founded by Alex Karp and Peter Thiel, has been contracted to centralize and organize data, exacerbating concerns about who gets access to these troves of personal information. Palantir issued a  rebuttal  to these allegations, saying they are dedicated to “privacy and civil liberties.”   A single, centralized repository of personal data could also be a goldmine for hackers, either within the country or from adversaries like China and Russia. In 2023, federal agencies were targeted by roughly 32,000 cyberattacks, according to the  Office of Management and Budget .  “The issue ultimately is that the federal government, in plain defense, has to win every time,” said Venzke of the ACLU. “A hacker, especially with a single centralized database, only needs to win one time.”  Some immigrant rights and privacy experts are also concerned that fears around the privacy of sensitive information will discourage people from using government services or engaging with public officials, whether that means calling the police, seeking healthcare or filing taxes.  Cristobal Cavazos, executive director of Immigrant Solidarity DuPage, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said these moves were creating a “framework of fear.” “These databases have all your information, right? ‘We're watching you. We're monitoring you. We're Big Brother,’” he said.  The historical practice of keeping sensitive information segregated between federal agencies has also helped encourage civil functions like tax compliance, according to Glenn Gerstell, former general counsel for the National Security Agency.  “One of the reasons we have fairly high compliance with our tax rules is that people feel that their tax data, their salary, their deductions, you could learn a lot about someone from their medical deductions, their personal expenses, etc, is kept private by the IRS,” he said.  “If that feeling of privacy and sanctity is eroded, that's going to hurt tax collections," Gerstell said. "Could be self-defeating.”  Ackerly, the former Bush adviser, acknowledges potential privacy abuses, but said a rethink is overdue on how data-sharing can help root out fraud, reduce spending and boost efficiency in government. “I do think that there needs to be a fresh look at how these agencies are performing services to Americans and at the end of the day data is what can help to unpack that,” he said.

Trump knocks down barriers around personal data, raising alarm

It's an excellent read!
Hope you're keeping cool. Please check on your neighbours.

Before Robert F. Prevost was the pope, he thanked Gov. Pat Quinn for ending the death penalty Catholic organizations had lobbied Pat Quinn to end the death penalty. The former governor was not previously aware of Prevost’s message to him.

Documents obtained by WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times through a public records request show that in 2011 the Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV sent his gratitude to then-Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn for abolishing the death penalty in Illinois. chicago.suntimes.com/politics/202...

A couple of years ago, I heard an owl 'hooting'. It sounded close, so I looked out my window even though it was dark.
Sitting on the wire, underneath the streetlight were 2 huge owls sitting side by side. It was early spring. Male and female?
What an honour to have seen them!

Whistleblower complaint alleges top DOJ official Emil Bove said he was willing to violate court orders Top DOJ official Emil Bove allegedly suggested the Trump administration should defy judicial orders regarding its immigration crackdown, a whistleblower complaint claims.

abcnews.go.com/US/whistlebl...
This dude cannot become a judge!! He hates the law! I called my senators a lot about Emil! You should too! 202.224.3121

ICE holding a record 59,000 immigrant detainees, nearly half with no criminal record, internal data show U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is holding around 59,000 detainees in facilities across the country, likely setting a record high, according to internal government data obtained by CBS News.

🚨ICE is detaining a record 59,000 people, an increase of 10,000 people in a single month — with detention centers massively overcrowded and people being forced into squalid conditions as the admin pushes to hit Stephen Miller's dangerous quotas of 3,000 arrests a day. www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-rec...

Brad Lander in 2028 to replace Chuck Schumer. It has to happen. (With AOC running for POTUS, maybe)

I followed you today based on this beautiful photograph. Please keep posting photos, and I'll keep appreciating!

Hey, do you know what you call a guy who never admits a mistake, who becomes President of the United States by never admitting a mistake, who then convinces his entire presidential administration to never admit—let alone correct—any mistake, leading to innocents getting life sentences?

A sociopath.

I don’t think a better headline could have been written about what happened yesterday.

www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

“I was just following orders” was not a defense at Nuremberg. And it won’t be a defense in the future here.

🚀🚀

I cannot convey enough how grateful I am to the millions of you all supporting us with your time, resources, and energy.

Your support has allowed us to rally people together at record scale to organize their communities.

All with an average donation of $21.

THANK YOU & Pa’lante 🙏🏽♥️

5 Calls Spend 5 minutes. Make 5 calls. Make your voice heard.

Make a difference. There is no cavalry coming to save us...
5calls.org

Trump & Musk want to defund Social Security to create tax breaks for billionaires.

They aren’t just cutting your hard-earned benefits—they're making them harder to access by eliminating staff, field offices, & phone lines.

On Social Security Day of Action, we’re fighting back against these cuts.

American Health Care Will Suffer Under Trump’s Tariffs Trump’s tariffs could be devastating for America’s health care system. Consumers will pay the ultimate price.

Astronomical costs to be added to healthcare because of the tariffs:
- <1% of gloves produced domestically
- est 🔼 of 20 to 30 % in the costs of MRIs & CTs
- finished medications ready for use, a substantial percentage are from overseas: India 48%, China 13%, & Europe 7%.
time.com/7275808/trum...

Fascism is here in the US now. Thanks to all those who voted for Trump.