Audrey Stienon

If an authoritarian gains control of the capital city, it becomes much harder to stop him overall.

Everyone who wants to stop Trump needs to help stop this.

By taking control of DC from its residents, Trump is taking control of the capital—with all its power and symbolism—from the American people.

DC’s fight is everyone’s fight. Folks who actually have a voice in Congress need to speak out now. What comes for DC will come for everyone next.

It is not hyperbole to call this tyranny

HHS Has Revived a Failed Program to Scrape Americans’ Data and Track Autism, Senate Suggests Last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee released a report on the country’s...

Something that flew under my radar: @joshkovensky.bsky.social reports how the NIH is reviving a project vacuum up information from phone providers, wearable device companies, health insurers, medical records keepers, and government agencies to study autism. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/hhs-has...

RFK Jr.'s vaccine pullback stokes fears of lost medical breakthroughs Scientists, including some who served in Trump's first administration, warn America's global lead is slipping away.

Good News for China: Scientists, including some who serve in Trump's first administration, warn that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. might cause America's edge in scientific innovation slip away. www.axios.com/2025/08/10/r...

A recent comment by an older colleague encapsulated it for me:

Before Reagan, the US government viewed the nation as the beneficiary of higher education. Reagan reframed it as the *individual* being its beneficiary. And so the costs shifted accordingly.

40+ years later, here we are.

Trump is destroying a Iot. What is stuff that we need to build back as it was, and what should be reimagined anew?

By taking control of DC from its residents, Trump is taking control of the capital—with all its power and symbolism—from the American people.

DC’s fight is everyone’s fight. Folks who actually have a voice in Congress need to speak out now. What comes for DC will come for everyone next.

Undocumented immigrants aren’t showing up to work because they face a double threat:

📌 ICE could roll up to the job site, because it’s easier to target hardworking people than go after real criminals.

📌 When the work’s done, some employers refuse to pay and threaten to call ICE.

Mumford also foresaw a future of autonomous vehicles, warning that “the end product is an encapsulated life.”

🚨Federal agents swarmed DC last night (8/9) again. Feds from multiple agencies, including the DEA, FBI, HSI (ICE), ATF, Marshals, and Border Patrol, were seen at:
- Benning Road
- Bloomingdale/ LeDroit Park
- Deanwood
- Dupont Circle
- Georgetown
- Navy Yard
- Shaw
- The Wharf

Guess Who’s Eligible for Student Loan Forgiveness: New ICE Agents Thanks to the Supreme Court and the Trump administration, student loan forgiveness is out of reach for many — unless you work for ICE.

“This just shows the lengths that the Trump administration will go to to weaponize Public Service Loan Forgiveness and debt more broadly to achieve their fascist objectives.”

Something that I have been thinking about with attribution of "PhD level intelligence" or "PhD level expertise" to a machine is that it reflects an increasing trend among these AI bros and their sycophants to want the products of highly skilled training without actually doing any of the work.

The biggest divide is not between “right” and “left."

It’s between democracy and oligarchy.

The billionaires who control our economy and democracy seek to divide us.

They want us to turn on each other so we don't look up and see that they have all the wealth and power.

Veterans’ Care at Risk Under Trump as Hundreds of Doctors and Nurses Reject Working at VA Hospitals Amid concerns about the stability of the agency, records show nearly 40% of the doctors offered jobs at the VA from January through March of this year turned them down — quadruple the rate of rejectio...

NEW: Amid concerns about the stability of the agency, records show nearly 40% of the doctors offered jobs at the VA from January through March of this year turned them down — quadruple the rate of rejections for the same period a year earlier.

Trump’s Assault on Social Services Is Taking Aim at New York’s Elderly Poverty rates among New York’s aging population are rising as the federal government pares back support for longstanding social service programs.

“I fear it may be the tip of the iceberg.”

Trump’s “anti-government waste” agenda is impacting New York’s seniors, in a state where already the number of seniors in poverty has surged by 50 percent over the last decade.

We CANNOT let this go under the radar: Donald Trump is attacking our veterans — this time by ending VA unions contracts.

This is anti-worker and anti-veteran.

I'll fight it every step of the way.

A government-sanctioned "truth arbiter" will soon arrive at CBS. Their role will be to ensure that journalists do not criticize this Administration or express views that conflict with its agenda.

This is a betrayal—not just of journalistic independence, but of the public trust. 🧵

US Air Force to deny retirement pay to transgender service members being separated from the service The U.S. Air Force has decided to deny early retirement options for transgender service members with 15 to 18 years of service.

This administration’s assault on service members who have served honorably continues. Also, they got the headline wrong, it’s not Trump’s Air Force, it belongs to We the People #williamson4va2

Trump's Air Force denies retirement pay to ex-trans service members | AP News apnews.com/article/air-...

Trump Administration Poised to Cut SSI Benefits for Nearly 400,000 Low-Income Disabled and Older People | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities The average annual savings from these benefit cuts would barely pay for a single day of the massive tax cuts for the wealthy that are part of the Republican megabill enacted in July.

The Trump Administration is preparing to propose a rule to cut Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits and strip eligibility for hundreds of thousands of low-income older people and severely disabled adults and children. 🧵

www.cbpp.org/research/soc...

VA offers yearlong community care authorizations for 30 services - VA News VA extends community care authorizations for eligible standardized types of care for a year.

NEW: The Department of Veterans Affairs is expanding it's privatized health care. This is my area of expertise, so allow me to explain what this means. 1/ news.va.gov/press-room/v...

Your friendly reminder that the District of Columbia is the *only* jurisdiction in the entire country in which there are no local prosecutors accountable to the people who actually live and pay taxes there.

(And that there should be.)

Antitrust advocates call on #FTC to investigate Meta's de facto vertical acquisition of Scale AI

"This investment includes all the anti‑competitive hallmarks typical of Big Tech’s minority stakes in generative AI firms." @sumitecon.bsky.social, NextGen Competition

nextgencomp.tech/letters/recJ...

Text reads, "Fun Fact: Crime in DC is down 7% in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period last year, continuing a downward trend since 2023. Violent crime specifically is down even more — by 25%, according to data from MPD." Source: WJLA. (2025, July 2). "Overall crime in DC continues downward trend in first half of 2025, preliminary data shows." Available at https://bit.ly/3H1tnAN

facts are so neat ✌️

Many home care workers are immigrants. Now, some are afraid to go to work. Last year, 65% of people working for Chicago-area home care agencies weren’t citizens. There are early signs that a federal campaign against immigration is keeping them off the job.

www.wbez.org/immigration/...

I have been back for three days and I have already been pitched three different disability accessibility AI startups or projects.

I’m not reflexively against AI. But I feel like a lot of what’s being pitched is just “what if we didn’t have to pay a human being to interact with those cripples?”

FEMA Employees Reassigned to ICE Probationary employees who had been on paid leave were told to report to ICE within seven days or lose their jobs. It could signal problems with ICE recruitment.

🚨SCOOP:
A "select" number of FEMA probationary employees have been involuntarily reassigned to ICE, effective immediately, to "assist with hiring and vetting." If the employees don't report to ICE within seven days, they are threatened with termination.
prospect.org/labor/2025-0...

so, is it China or Germany or India or who else that’s going to the next century’s biotech / biomedical powerhouse? who’s gonna pick up the mRNA mantle, along with all the others we’re casting off?

Tit-for-tat tactics if you stop escalating once the other side stops.

Democrats need to communicate and commit to a vision for what they are doing this for - a government that fairly includes everyone - or risk fueling democratic erosion by failing to de-escalate when they win power back.

White House Orders NASA to Destroy Important Satellite The White House has instructed NASA employees to destroy two major, climate change-focused satellite missions.

This is functionally equivalent to firing the BLS commissioner futurism.com/white-house-...