These people are certifiably insane. To be clear, they don't have the votes. It takes a two-thirds majority for an amendment to clear in both the House and the Senate. That's 287 House members and 66 Senate members. There are 220 Republicans in the House, and I strongly doubt all of them would vote for this to pass. Likewise, there are only 53 Republicans in the Senate. This will die at the first hurdle. If, by some wild what-the-fuck it managed to get through--which to be clear cannot mathematically happen right now, because no Democrat will vote for this--it would also have to get three-quarters of states to vote for it. That means if thirteen states say no, it fails. And they've tied this specifically to Trump, which means even some red states will say no because he's become such poison only four days into his term. But just the fact they're trying it should alarm you. VOTE THE BASTARDS OUT IN 2026.

there's going to be a lot of crap thrown out there (for posturing, to suck up to trump, etc). and yeah, it's terrifying. but we're going to just hurt ourselves panicking about every single thing.

GovTrack is a place where you can not only see the bills that are being introduced, but if you click into a specific bill it shows the estimated percentage of it passing. Some of these bills have a 1% chance of passing. As Celeste Pewter (a former dem staffer and really knowledgeable about this stuff) we don't need to waste energy panicking or calling representatives on every bill that's introduced, especially ones that have that low a chance of passing. Also Celeste is a great person to follow - she is on bluesky (and other platforms), and posts scripts for calls to congress people on specific bills, cabinet nominees, etc.

So uhhhh. This isn’t good.

For context, NIH study sections review and approve grant and fellowship funding for federally funded health and medicine research—aka, most of the health research that’s done in the United States. This includes research funds as well as salaries and funding for student researchers/pre and post docs at most US universities.

If you’re American, PLEASE contact your representatives about this. This has the potential for a devastating impact on health research not just for the US, but for the entire world. I expect we’ll have more information in the morning, but for now, I’d just urge them to do whatever they can to get this reversed ASAP.

© pet_foolery

hmmm so many thoughts.

This is a livestock guardian dog. It looks like a pyraneese mountain dog, one of the most well known and best guardians.

It's giving very Star Trek Quark:

Is the dog "one of the good ones" or merely one of the lucky ones? What's the line between the two? If lack of luck and hardship are what make you deserving of callousness and disregard, do we not then create the monsters we claim are inherently despicable? Using luck of birth and how others treat you to decide who YOU are?

Bit of a self fulfilling prophecy, innit? We slap the label on and act like it was meant to be there. Deny help until you prove you're worthy of it, as that choice isn't the root cause.

Can you be happy that you personally are safe? Sure. Should you use your happiness and your safety to justify the suffering of those around you? To be the cause of it?

The wolf died of the cold and never approached. As if it sat there, denying itself life, because of people who hated it, who would NEVER consider helping it. The sheep don't acknowledge its existence except when it attacks, except to wish it the same harm they believe it intends them.

The dog is a carnivore too. It still eats meat, probably eats sheep. The difference between the dog and the wolf is that the dog doesn't hunt for itself; the end result is still the same. Does someone else killing for you instead of you doing it yourself put enough distance between you and the act to matter, to determine who you are and how you deserve to be treated?

The sheep are herbivores, incapable of protecting themselves--that's the whole reason for the existence of the dog. The sheep need the dog, but despise what it is, think themselves above it. It exists to serve them. It literally stands between the sheep and the wild.

The sheep don't see the dog eat, and that's all the difference to them. The sheep don't know they probably ARE food for the dog, via Master.

Both the dog and the wolf are obscured by snow, blending into the environment. Only one's far more deep than the other, more sunken. The dog knows that could easily be him, but for the grace of luck. He's grouped with the sheep but he's not one of them, never was, and never will be.

Most anti phone advice is so inane and regurgitated to me but one thing I’ve been thinking about for days is “social media is okay, but the real danger comes in when you think your phone should be your go to during your limited pockets of leisure” like that’s literally the truest thing ever

It really is true that after a long shift or a hard study session or a tiring workout the first thing I think to do is doom scroll to “reward” myself………. But as much as I try to combat my screen I’ve never truly delved into why my phone should be my go to during my downtime. Like why is it the reward . Why is it not taking a nap. Or getting a treat. Or calling a friend . Or even reading a book. It’s like I do those things w the idea in mind that that’s when I’m “on” but what if they rly should be my downtime rewards instead of phone time

And this comes from someone who does not necessarily think social media is the devil bc I totally understand why people use it and how it makes connecting easier…… but I see older patients all the time and it’s so striking to me how they don’t have attention issues and how their reward system is wired so differently. My 52 year old boss rewards herself for an 8 hour work day by taking a run after work. Like immediately after work. She does have a phone, and she does use it, but it’s not her reward during downtime at all. She does not need a phone break in between things, because those things are what nourish her. And that’s just fascinating to me bc for my generation a peek at their phone is the ultimate reward

LAST THING bc i feel like if this reaches more people they’ll be like ummm reading or talking to a friend arent downtime activities and like okay that’s so fair……. I think the whole point is finding a default downtime activity that feels right for *you* while also not taxing you mentally. Like this is not me saying go full blackout on your phone. Also it’s just true that doom scrolling is not as passive as people think it is (I literally do it too) and your brain is still burning out from taking in so much at once, so investigating if it’s the holy grain “brain off” activity really is valid

whatever happened to just caring about discrimination against people who are different from you. can’t you find it in your heart to give a shit even when it doesn’t affect you personally

Pardon the tag highlight @presidentkamala but:

Did they not learn the effect of abstaining to vote? Which got us where?? When we don’t show up the decisions get made by who???

I don't think they're supposed to do that

You loved Silly String next up is Rage Rope

I love tumblr. Where else can I see an adorable dog in a saddlebag and notice that President Kamala reblogged it, in a heartwarming gesture, from Power Bottom Bruce Springsteen?

I'll be real with y'all, I knew Donald Trump was going to do some henious, bigoted shit the second he sat down in that chair in the oval office, but - and I can't emphasize this enough - I didn't not expect him to immediately repeal the Equal Employment Opportunity Act.

Like I'm still stunned by it. We're back to the 1950's now. We on the left were trying to fight to maintain gains we made the past 10-15 years and trump comes in a sweeps the rug out from all of us. You can now be fired for being for your race, religion, sexuality, sex and gender, disability, or nation of origin.

Employers can now fire you for being black or brown or LGBTQ or blind or in a wheelchair or a woman or literally whatever characistic they want.

I can't convey just how fucked we are. The EEOC is one the most important win in the history of Civil Rights. He did it on MLK Day! That's extra fucked!

Y'all thought their anti DEI or CRT or whatever other acronym they were throwing out there crusade was going to start and end at stuff younger than a high schooler, but no they went after one of the bedrocks of civil rights.

The more I think about it the more my head spins.

I did not know this until now and I’m fucking speechless

Gentle reminder that executive orders take time to be implemented and can be stopped before they are. Many of his previous bullshit was struck down before implementation and the ACLU is already working on getting rid of the tangerine tantrum's bullshit.

Also, the EO doesn't mean that states or even companies with protective policies will get rid of them. That's how a lot of his stuff failed last time. Even the military itself told him to pound sand during his first term when he tried throwing EOs at them.

Be angry. Be scared. But don't let it lead to despair and please don't spread hopelessness when hope is the only weapon we have that they can't take from us without our consent right now.

That man cannot be allowed to turn us into a panicked flock of sheep that he can guide off a cliff.

If the Executive Orders send you into a panic then The Administration's tactics are working.

It's misdirection. Stay focused:

"Detached Readiness" has been my watchword since Monday.

Walk This Way

Fun fact, this was one of the first scenes Wilder wrote. More fun, Brooks was going to cut it. Adamant. Could not be convinced. But he left it in for an early screening just so that Wilder could see it in a theatre and say goodbye to it.

The audience laughed their asses off.

The scene stayed.

I doubt i’m adding anything to this but Imma add in my two cents.

I was raised in a conservative environment. My family wasn’t fanatical or removed from secular life but because of taught prejudice and family trauma, we were more center and even crossed over to the right (I used to parrot that I was “fiscally conservative” because I didn’t have the knowledge I do now and I wanted some way to connect with my more conservative friends and family.)

I can tell you now, even though I was centrist and teetering back then, these ideas WERE extreme. Not extreme in the grand scheme of things, but extreme to someone who had a vastly different perception of reality than I do now. I can say confidently that this isn’t a misunderstanding.

Conservatives and centrists /do/ take this at face value. They aren’t stupid. They know what “extremist leftists” want. They just fundamentally disagree that we should do that.

A lot of leftists make the mistake of thinking it’s flawed logic or reasoning or a lack of education. “It’s so simple. Why don’t they understand that all we want is zyz.”

They do. They just don’t believe that these things are rights. They believe that suffering is choice or sin based. They believe in a meritocracy and that everything that does or doesn’t happen is deserved and is destiny.

If we don’t have air to breathe in 20 years? We must have deserved it. If you can’t go to school or have debt? It’s your fault.

We are operating on fundamentally different core beliefs and that is why we, the people on the left who honestly aren’t asking for much, are extreme. Because our core values dictate that we help others and that the above suffering is needless and truly, not based on moral failing.

People don’t have an easy time changing their core beliefs. That’s why the ultra wealthy who are puppeteering the movement want to keep people isolated from each other and to stop diversity. because when you are continuously subjected to people around you who have different core beliefs, you’re more likely to change.

It’s why conservatives hate “secular life”. They’ve been trained and conditioned to so that their core beliefs of meritocracy stay stable and unchanging. It’s a manufactured cult by billionaires and it truly is difficult to get out if you have no support system. And many people in rural communities do not have that.

I’m slowly learning, as much as I fucking hate to admit it, that we have to use kindness and understanding and an olive branch. We have to literally use the modern deprogramming playbook. Plant a seed of doubt. Ask questions. Offer support and community. And people will break ranks. But they need to know that theres some sort of a safety net when they jump out of the nest.

We need to focus on building community with each other. With people we don’t like. And honestly, I know a lot of people don’t have the spoons for it. I know that it’s not fair that marginalized people have to do so much extra leg work all the damn time. I hate it and it makes me angry. But anger is easy. And anger is going to unfortunately push people further into conservatism because they feel attacked. They don’t have the empathy and capacity to understand why we’re angry and hurt because of them.

It’s the unfortunate reality of having such a widespread cult movement that society has accepted as “normal and acceptable.”

So yeah. It’s gonna suck. I’m gonna have to go deliver my extra garden produce to my conservative neighbors to plant a seed of doubt. “Oh. our transmasc neighbor isn’t a fucking monster? Huh…” Or that’s the hope. It’s not easy and I can’t expect other people to do that. But it’s the reality we’re currently working with.

also Im not checking spelling or grammar on this i’m in bed with a pressure headache and shit. lmao

Offer support and community. And people will break ranks. But they need to know that theres some sort of a safety net when they jump out of the nest.

This. This. This.

Statement going forward: I will continue my tumblr policy of only posting/reblogging news about the current administration and all the bad things going on in the world if it is time-sensitive information, debunking misinformation, or contains actionable ways to help. I will not reblog awful news just to goggle at the horror of it. I will not spread things I have not read or checked. Time-sensitive information, debunking misinformation, or actionable ways to help. And they will always be tagged with “US politics” or “current events”. That’s it.

Fact-checked:

...and only if fact-checked.

We could ALL adopt this policy.

“To protect their copyright, streaming sites do not allow for screenshotting of any kind.”

Hey remember VHS where you bought a box to plug into your tv and you could legally record whatever was playing and then own it for free forever

I cannot emphasize enough that you not only COULD, it was ENCOURAGED. Blank video tapes for recording whatever you wanted were available everywhere and it was hard to miss the record button on the machines. They also deliberately designed stuff like VHS players that you could tell when to start recording things - as a kid I'd tell the player to record the cartoon channel beginning at 6 or 7 and then sleep in and watch the tape later - and then they would tell you how to do it in the owner's manual, this was no secret. You were SUPPOSED TO record shows you wanted to keep or that you wouldn't be home for to watch later.

The essential piece of information missing here is that the people who made the VHS machines and the people who made the TV channels were, and I cannot stress this enough, different people.

Like, of course Disney didn't used to want you to record their stuff for free and watch it forever. When VHS home recording came out, the companies that invented it were...sued! Of course they were!

It's just that the TV companies lost the lawsuit. It was deemed that once the signal got to your house legally you could do whatever the hell you wanted with it as long as it was for personal noncommercial use. It would have probably gone differently if the TV companies had the ability to detect whether you were recording them and then shut the signal off.

Like, I am 100 percent on the side of "you should be able to keep and own stuff permanently, I just also think there's a limit to how much breathless mythmaking about the halcyon days of the early nineties I can handle before it starts drifting into low-key misinformation.

The Chrome browser exists to show you ads and track where you go so that Google can show you more ads. Please stop using Chrome. Firefox is open source, and while Mozilla is not perfect, it isn’t actively fucking evil the way Google is. It has a bazillion plugins, including various (FREE!) ad block plugins (I recommend uBlock Origins, which will even block YouTube ads – you can watch videos without interruptions again!). It will also function very effectively with a lot more tabs open than Chrome. I’ve got around 800 tabs open right now (not loaded, of course, except for maybe 2 dozen; it’s been a heavy browsing day), and my wife has between 2k and 3k at any time.

We are in the New Browser Wars. This time there’s a helluva lot of money up for grabs, because a lot of it is about running those ads. Monopolies are bad for consumers.

Just go download Firefox.

Firefox plugins I 100% recommend if you don’t want to be tracked (and want to cost corporations money)

AdNauseam is an adblocker that generates false clicks on the ads it blocks, which costs the corporations that pay for them money.

Privacy Possum messes with the tracking data collected about you, rendering it essentially useless

TrackMeNot generates random search terms across sites, meaning that any data collected about things you actually search is buried in a sea of random bullshit. Makes it very hard for people to figure out what you’re actually doing. You can block terms in the options, which means it won’t search for anything incriminating on your behalf (I think the word bomb is blocked by default)

WhatCampaign replaces tracking analytics used in website code with data that can’t be used to track you. I’m pretty sure it replaces it with “fuck off” by default.

I’m not adding links because tumblr will not show this up if I do, but you can search these on the Firefox addons site and they’ll come up.

I cannot stress this enough. Get Firefox.

YOU CAN WATCH YOUTUBE WITHOUT ADS AGAIN.

and every other streaming site that makes you pay extra for no ads! Even Twitch! I haven’t seen an ad in so long they literally jumpscare me when I run into them in the wild.

Does Microsoft Edge track too?

Yes. Microsoft tracks all your shit.

Maybe stop dating in general if you feel the need to break things your partners enjoy

I'll never understand the people who date someone with a specific hobby that they hate.

Like, if I hated gardening enough to pull my wife's plants, why the fuck would I date a gardener?

I have a theory about this: A number of people think hobbies (some hobbies more than others) are what people (certain kinds of people especially, but could be anyone) do to fill the space that will eventually be occupied by a romantic partner. So they don't care about the hobby, because they expect to supplant it

I hate that that makes sense.

Or, to put it another way: "Why are you paying attention to that other thing when you should be paying attention to me?"

Also, a great many people will put their hobbies in the background when they are dating someone new. The hobby takes up less time, because the majority of their leisure time is going into "build a relationship."

Once that's done - once the two (or more) people have sorted out their interests, their favorite foods, what kind of movies they want to enjoy together, what they'd like to do for birthdays and holidays, what sexual activities they enjoy (if that's relevant), and some vague sense of a future (are they kinda expecting to part ways in two years when one of them graduates college and moves back to the other side of the country? Are they looking at permanence? are they friends-with-benefits that expect to last for years without any commitments outside of the time they've scheduled together?) - once they have set the rough shape of the relationship, many people bring their favorite hobbies back into their life more fully.

And a whole lot of people thought that initial rush of "gonna spend ALL my time focused on you" was going to last forever, and they get offended at whatever target they can blame for changing it.

I won't say "nobody does the treat-partner-like-new-relationship forever" thing, but... it's rare. It's really really rare. As in, I am Not Young and I have seen many many relationships and many kinds of relationships, and I have never seen it.

That doesn't mean everyone gets bored with their partners. Ideally, they get comfortable. And comfortable means not having to put all their energy into thinking about the relationship.

(When you move into a new home, you spend the first weeks frantically arranging everything, and the first six months may involve decorating and re-sorting. If that slows down to a crawl, it doesn't mean you've gotten bored with the place and that's why you're playing video games all weekend.)

https://twitter.com/coff33detective/status/1271463582312673281

“make yourselves impossible to ignore. 10,000 signatures on twitter is a lot but 10 unique personal emails is enough to derail an entire council session.”

I was in a city council meeting last week about defunding the police and one of the council members mentioned multiple times that she’d been inundated with calls and emails all that day saying to defund the police.

[ID: Two screenshots of a twitter thread by alex flanigan, anti-fascist @Coff33Detective from June 12, 2020 beginning at 11:25 AM that reads: hi! i work in local government and community management, and i’m here to tell you a secret: it is like, really, really easy to overwhelm the people who work in your local government. especially right now. especially on things they can actionably do or impact.

you may not know this, but i bet your city or town or municipality has a website. i bet that website has some contact forms or email addresses on it. i bet you can use them to put together a message in about 5 minutes! i bet it’s almost as easy as signing a national petition.

which is to say: i’m noticing, like most other people, that the national level discussion on really important and long overdue issues is flagging. but the internet and news cycle is not the only battleground, and you will be pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to—

—fight those battles at home, on your own turf, with much more immediate impact, and they are so, so important.

I am begging you: make my job, and the jobs of people like me, difficult right now. flood us with demands. make yourselves impossible to ignore. 10,000 signatures on twitter is a lot but 10 unique personal emails is enough to derail an entire council session. End ID]

I’ve been a city council observer with the League of Women Voters for nearly a year, and I have witnessed the following:

In my experience, it is incredibly easy to bully local politicians and get some sort of results, especially in small municipalities. If you have something that you want to see happen at the local level, seriously try to contact your local officials and see what you can make happen.

I single-handedly got them to double the number of chickens you are allowed to keep in my former town.

You genuinely don’t even always have to go to a meeting btw. If you have a Facebook, those council members are in your local Facebook groups.Do you know how easy it is to tag your mayor and go “hey what are you gonna do about this?” over everything? Do you know how often that WORKS?

Pay attention to this.

Government From Above looks easy. Command your followers to do shit and they do it, right?

Except when they don’t. Because all of a sudden their neighbors get in their faces.

Then the whole thing comes apart.

It’s easy for people to think Their Boy and their way of thinking has won, beating the Evil Other Side. They think they can then go back to arguing with their HOA and worrying about the price of eggs.

Teach them otherwise!

Turn up at local political meetings and have those people understand that you’re not just going to roll over and let them have their way. Yell at them. (In words bigger than they were equipped to understand, if you feel that’s the way to go.) Give them to understand that they are not right, and you will be back again to get up their ill-prepared noses about this. And again. And again. (Because they’ll never really be ready for opposition. No one’s taught them that. They’re just cannon fodder, poor things. They were never meant to go into battle.)

People hate looking stupid repeatedly in front of other people. You can tire them out. You can make them give up. You can make them feel there’s no point in it.

Don’t talk yourself out of this. The Goddess of Justice must descend from great heights to effect herself into the works of human beings. Don’t talk yourself out of “your turn in the barrel.” (As some humans have been known to call it.) It won’t last that long. Almost none of your opponents have any staying power. (Remember Punched-in-The-Face-Nazi guy? He had a huge online presence. It took one punch to make him dig a hole and crawl in.)

Let the folks you’re opposing understand that you’re going to keep on doing this every time they show up. Let them get the sense that you’re willing to be unreasonable about this. They’ve been thinking they’re the “sane” ones in this discourse. Teach them that they may possibly be incorrect.

Be persistent. Some of them will never have seen persistence in their lives. (As opposed to repeating somebody else’s talking points over and over again, which isn’t the same thing at all.) True persistence requires creativity! Every day, make a new way to come at them. They will never be able to keep up with you.

If enough of us do this… we can take whole legislative structures back: from the bottom up.

Just from being annoying. :)

^^^ This. It works. Bring a friend with you for a buff to your staying power.