mbdowney

The average SNAP benefit per month is $177 a person.

The average ACA benefit per month is up to $550 a person.

People want us to hold the line for a reason. This is not a matter of appealing to a base. It’s about people’s lives.

And working people want leaders whose word means something to them.

The GOP claim that Democrats are responsible for the shutdown keeps being undermined by Trump, who is demanding they unilaterally end it by abolishing the filibuster. Trump says Republicans are being killed and he’s not wrong. They control the federal government.

Elon Musk has been having an existential crisis wrapped in a panic attack uninterrupted for multiple years. It's crazy how money can insulate you from meaningful criticism and consequences, but also from anyone caring about or helping you. This is the loneliest man alive. Ha ha. The little bitch.

Have also discovered that a one week trip to London is just long enough to not be on LA time, but also not quite get on London time.

It's because your soul takes a bit of time to catch back up with your body. That's the "lagged" feeling.

Or at least that's how Cayce Pollard explains it. (h/t William Gibson...)

Layoffs are reaching their highest levels since the pandemic, but America's corporate elite have never been doing better.

Is it any wonder why so many think the system is rigged?

The world would be immensely better if more religions and their believers had even a tenth of the dedication the Sikhs do to doing good for people with no gatekeeping or expectations of anything other than "you are a fellow human in need and we can help you"

NYT: The tax cuts come amid “steep cuts to health care for the elderly and food stamps for the poorest Americans.”

@nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/b...

Mamdani's line that billionaires spent more to oppose his candidacy than he proposed to tax them really says it all.

Like a company that shuts down a profitable location as soon as it unionizes. The principle of maintaining control is more important.

if you believe fully autonomous robot butlers are just over the horizon you are actually one of the dumbest motherfuckers alive and we should take your money from you so we can put it towards something worthwhile

It's important to remember that while the degree to which James Watson deliberately stole from Rosalind Franklin is still in dispute, he also shit on her in his memoir for no apparent reason other than to save face and then spent the last two decades of his life pushing bullshit race science.

James Watson was an extreme misogynist and racist who stole Rosalind Franklin’s DNA research. Full Stop.

I understand why we shut down American airspace for a few days after 9-11 to avoid a repeat attack but imagine shutting down American airspace to avoid releasing the Epstein files.

This has me thinking about a mahogany box lined in ruffled cream satin.

Covid is still here because we chose not to do enough.

The climate is changing because we chose not to do enough.

And democracy? We can’t afford to just wait and see.

I know the skies used to be filled with birds that are now extinct.

I know that change can happen and that it is usually permanent. That is the real status quo.

What we do matters. It’s counter intuitive but often inaction leads to change and it takes effort and energy to maintain stasis.

Something I’ve noticed is there seems to be a sort of pervasive assumption that the status quo has gravity. That there’s a natural, comfortable way things should be and that deviations from the normal state of the world will correct themselves in time.

But as a paleontologist, I know this is false.

The fact a *single* Amazon full-time employee requires SNAP benefits should be a crime. The fact Amazon is the largest employer of SNAP recipients is a disgrace. Jeff Bezos shouldnt be that rich; he should be in jail.

Or a Butlerian jihad? ;-)

One of my oceanography profs (40 years ago; I'm old) was deeply involved in the initial research on manganese nodules.

Thought it was sort of interesting at the time. I have since - radically - changed my mind...

Tesla shareholders approved Elon Musk's $1 trillion pay package.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, can't afford to feed their families, and struggle with cuts to the safety net made to finance tax cuts for the super-rich.

American capitalism is off the rails.

"The Trump administration is asking a federal appeals court to pause a judge’s order that requires the government to fully cover food stamp benefits for tens of millions of Americans in November."

Read that back.

The cruelty of this regime is on full display.

I can at least understand the argument that over the long term, these programs encourage dependency, are counterproductive, etc.

What I can’t fathom is, “We think people who were depending on getting food this month — and their children — should go hungry.”

In Trump's first term, he was directly responsible for 25% OF ALL US DEBT acquired – going back to the beginning of the country. In the last 9.5 months, he's added another $4 Trillion to the national debt.

Scream this at every Republican who claims they're the party of fiscal responsibility.

Hi, I’m God.

Jesus and I agree that starving the poor so you can build yourself golden bathrooms and golden ballrooms is evil. Anyone who does that shall burn for eternity. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Thanks,

God

Last Saturday my little community raised $10,000 for Feeding America, which they turn into 100,000 meals. I run a meme account and have done more for the hungry in this country than the president, who is intentionally starving women and children for no reason.

Dismantling of US federal agencies will ‘destroy science’ From NASA to the National Institutes of Health, federal agencies conduct research that universities cannot. Agency scientists speak out about the irreplaceable facilities, institutional knowledge and ...

Reporter @virginiagewin.bsky.social interviewed 19 current and former US federal agency scientists about the science being dismantled at EPA, NOAA, NASA, CDC, NIH, & USGS.

They say it's making America unprepared for environmental and public health crises.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

There is not one face of the Democratic Party. Tonight proved there are many faces, but each with a commitment to fight back against the reckless failure of the Trump regime and actually serve people.

Thank goodness.

You know what tonight proves more than anything else? Local elections matter.

Local. Elections. Matter.

Big things are happening…