Imagine, in terms of the kinds of things being cut in proposed House and Senate GOP budget bills, what we could pay for already (accepting ludicrous premises) if we just weren’t flying all those KC-135s and C-17s constantly at $20k+/hour/plane re: Israel/Iran. Or you know, the fucking parade.
Posts in: Journal
If you told me 30 years ago that an adult me, not a lawyer, would listen to Supreme Court oral arguments “for fun,” I’d have spit my Mountain Dew in your face.
Did a filibuster happen if no one being opposed had to bat an eyelid?
Some thoughts on Senator Cory Booker’s filibuster effort overnight and into this morning
I've been quiet here (not so much directly on Bluesky). I hope I can say it is because I have been busy in worthwhile efforts.
We’re getting snowed but I don’t mean the weather.
Tuesday’s rally outside the Treasury Department building, along 15th Street NW between F and G.
Yesterday outside the Department of Labor
The blowback is going to come in all forms
A neighbor, whose org is largely funded by USAID, shared that they laid-off 70% of their staff and they who remain are there to close-up shop. The web site is reduced to a splash page. They helped farmers farm better and more sustainably, adopting new technology and adapting to new environments, enabled locally-controlled economic development and community banking, implemented clean water and sanitation programs, and facilitated medical services capacity building.
USAID shutdown reportedly styming anti-human trafficking direct service efforts
I worked for nearly a decade with the organization that currently runs the National Human Trafficking Hotline. I do not know the current specific details, but I believe it and am saddened by this news. I and my team supported some efforts to engage with some of the international partners alluded to if not mentioned in this reporting. I have all kinds of feelings about the space (and Polaris's unfortunate support for some very flawed legislation in the US), and I do not have an uncritical view of USAID, but it pains me to understand the many ways people just trying to help people are being crippled, seized-up and disrupted.
I’ve kind of been at a loss, frozen and watching the horror show. Keeping a link log of the wretched developments but not publishing it. So far there are just my trite-and-sometimes cathartic reactions on social spaces. Not sure I have anything useful to add. Girding myself.