July 7, 2025
Humor; Storytelling; Democracy; Governance; Civics; Supreme Court; Polarization; Corruption; Authoritarianism; Science; Potpourri
Humor
Storytelling
Democracy
Governance
Civics
Supreme Court
Polarization
Corruption
Authoritarianism
Science
Potpourri
“Look at it this way. If it weren’t a little difficult, it wouldn’t be a bucket list item.”
That’s what my brother said midway through a 3-day hike in the Swiss Alps. The Swiss Alps are relatively young, much younger than the relatively rounded Appalachians. That means the trails navigate some very steep terrain. In a few places it’s steep enough that they have installed chains for hikers to hold onto, and there were a few other places I wish they had done so. It’s called Type 2 fun – enjoyable in retrospect, but not necessarily in the moment.
The huts, however, are luxurious, a common sight in European mountains but relatively rare in the US, although the Appalachian Mountain Club has several in New England. One hut had bunk beds, kitchenware and a stove for hikers to use. Another had hot meals, beer, wine, electricity, and a shower.
Anyways this post is a little shorter because I was bingeing on nature.
Humor
https://x.com/DrNeilStone/status/1938831780879925409
Yes I can see why people like RFK Jr are skeptical about vaccines and asking questions
I mean it's really hard to tell if they work or not
A real head scratcher
On a serious note, my understanding is that antivaxxers mostly focus on alleged side effects.
My fellow Americans: When you pay taxes, which would you rather support? Cancer research, or getting one guy a really big boat? Don’t answer that. We have answered it for you, with the Big, Beautiful Bill.
https://theonion.com/congress-passes-blank-bill-for-trump-to-write-whatever-law-he-wants/
Congress Passes Blank Bill For Trump To Write Whatever Law He Wants
https://bsky.app/profile/rubenbolling.bsky.social/post/3lsy7gk4sxc2d
Being able to discern between an ICE agent and a criminal kidnapper within seconds of initial interaction is absolutely essential.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:gpnca5cprqfxcz3i3jjlmi35/post/3lss
Sometimes you can find resistance in the most unlikely of places.
Note there’s no date on it. So: Which president are they saying is an idiot?
https://bsky.app/profile/nytpitchbot.bsky.social/post/3ltchgglzcs26
Whether it's Republicans behaving like autocrats or Democrats pointing out that Republicans are behaving like autocrats, both parties have contributed to the sense that America is backsliding into autocracy.
https://bsky.app/profile/nytpitchbot.bsky.social/post/3lt55cqk2uc2n
Whether it’s Joe Biden mistakenly calling the president of Egypt the president of Mexico or Donald Trump mistakenly arresting the wrong people and sending them to foreign gulags, both sides have made newsworthy errors.
https://bsky.app/profile/nytpitchbot.bsky.social/post/3lswev27cfk2w
Opinion | Yes, I voted for Trump’s megabill despite knowing it will harm my constituents. But if I hadn’t, I’d be primaried by someone who’d vote just like me but not give anti-Trump comments on background to The Times.
https://bsky.app/profile/nytpitchbot.bsky.social/post/3lstd6t7ko22a
Opinion | If Democrats cannot stop Trump from defunding life-saving medical trials, they will have blood on their hands.
https://bsky.app/profile/nytpitchbot.bsky.social/post/3lsmerroms22k
Opinion | Stop fretting about today’s Supreme Court ruling vastly expanding Trump’s executive power. If critics want to reverse it, they can just bring a similar case when a Democrat is president.
https://bsky.app/profile/nytpitchbot.bsky.social/post/3lskltoye5k2c
Los Angeles residents say their city is safe and functioning normally. But this AI-generated video based on footage from Haiti tells a different story.
Storytelling
https://snapjudgment.org/episode/super-bowl-rick/
He’s slick, slippery, sweet-talking his way past the guards and straight into a superfan’s dream. He’s the stuff of legends, he’s Super Bowl Rick. And meet his counterpart… Tom Garvey. The man who lived inside the walls of his favorite stadium, Phantom-of-the-Opera style. It’s Pittsburgh vs Philly in an epic sports story-off.
Democracy
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/30/tech/iceblock-app-trump-immigration-crackdown
‘I wanted to do something to fight back’: This iPhone app alerts users to nearby ICE sightings
https://my.lwv.org/ohio/hudson/lwvh-protests-assault-our-democracy
To my grandchildren: I did not stay silent.
https://bsky.app/profile/aph757.bsky.social/post/3lneapmbhr22y
Elect a rapist; expect to get f***ed.
https://bsky.app/profile/janeotn.bsky.social/post/3lrgg2r2ki22i
Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together and impeach this motherf***er
Governance
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1939051424995786839
The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!
Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/30/opinion/transgender-military-ban-resignation.html
I enlisted in the United States Army in 2006 and have been an officer since 2013, serving in a variety of leadership positions. I am proud of my service and I care deeply about the Army. But this month I began the process of resigning in protest of President Trump’s executive order barring transgender people from the military. …
I may not be the sort of person you would expect to oppose a ban on transgender troops. I am a conservative evangelical Christian and a Republican. Though I have deep compassion for people who feel they are in the wrong body, I do not think that transitioning — as opposed to learning to love and accept the body God gave you — is the right thing to do in that predicament. But my views are irrelevant to the issue of transgender troops.
https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-abortion-ban-miscarriage-blood-transfusions
A “Striking” Trend: After Texas Banned Abortion, More Women Nearly Bled to Death During Miscarriage
A new ProPublica data analysis adds to the mounting evidence that abortion bans have made the common experience of first-trimester miscarriage far more dangerous.
https://thedispatch.com/article/trump-iran-deescalation-folly/
Trump Ends the Folly of De-escalation
For too long, American presidents let Iran believe it could act with impunity.
The wisdom of Trump’s approach—forcing Iran to choose between continued isolation and ending its hostility to Israel, the United States, and its Arab neighbors—became apparent to many only after President Joe Biden resurrected a hapless effort to appease Iran that started during the Obama administration. President Biden, in an attempt to restore the flawed Iran nuclear deal from which Trump withdrew in 2018, relaxed enforcement of the Trump administration’s economic sanctions—and as cash flow to Tehran increased, so did Iranian leaders’ confidence that they could use their terrorist proxies to get away with murder. With few exceptions, Iranian proxy attacks against U.S. facilities and personnel went unanswered.
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/ANNALS-25-00716
Enactment of the House [reconciliation] bill advanced in May would increase the number of uninsured persons by 7.6 million and the number of deaths by 16 642 annually, according to a mid-range estimate. These figures exclude harms from lowering provider payments and shrinking benefits, as well as possible repercussions from states increasing taxes or shifting expenditures from other needs to make up for shortfalls in federal Medicaid funding.
https://x.com/YaleSPH/status/1930386347908370779
Enacting a House-passed federal budget reconciliation bill could mean millions of people disenrolled from Medicaid & ACA Marketplace coverage, resulting in as many as 11,300 deaths [annually], according to a new analysis.
Other provisions could mean a total of 51,000 deaths annually.
https://lite.cnn.com/2025/07/02/climate/national-climate-assessment-websites
Congressionally mandated climate reports disappeared from their federal websites
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/21/opinion/waste-musk-trump.html
On the edge of a lush jungle here in West Africa, the heavy metal doors of a warehouse creak open. Inside are boxes piled high with millions of doses of medicines donated by Merck and other pharmaceutical companies for a United States aid program. Yet the medications are gathering dust, and some are approaching their expiration dates and may have to be destroyed, at immense expense.
It’s an excellent example of the waste that President Trump claims was rife in the United States Agency for International Development. (“Absolutely obscene,” as he put it in February.) But this waste of drugs exists only because his administration shut down U.S.A.I.D. and canceled plans to distribute these medicines, even though the pills cost America nothing and are ready to use. …
The Trump administration is also dismantling data collection, making it difficult to count the deaths it is causing. By one American economist’s online dashboard, about 350,000 people worldwide have died so far because of cuts in American aid. My guess is that the figure isn’t so high, partly because it takes time for children to weaken and die, but that the rate of deaths will accelerate. …
To those unmoved by moral arguments, I’d note that President John F. Kennedy created U.S.A.I.D. in 1961 to advance our interests as well as our values. We confront China not only with warships but also with aid programs in Africa that build soft power and international support. The collapse of American aid programs is a gift to Beijing, which has been reaching out to some African countries now in desperate need.
Civics
https://www.educatingforamericandemocracy.org/
We have created a roadmap for excellence in history and civics.
https://www.joinmoreperfect.us/goals/universal-civic-learning
Every child and adult in the United States, regardless of location or demographics, should develop a deep understanding of—and appreciation for—our constitutional democracy. Their learning should be grounded in an understanding of how to discern high quality information. These learners of all ages are the stewards of our country’s political traditions, deliberative culture, public institutions and sense of mutual obligation.
Supreme Court
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/28/opinion/supreme-court-ketanji-jackson.html
As far as I can tell from the outside, none of the nationwide injunctions issued under Biden seemed to test the court’s patience. The conservative majority seemed content to allow district courts to operate as normal. It is only now, under President Trump, that the conservatives have had a change of mind. And they’ve done so in the context of an executive order that exemplifies this president’s lawlessness and open contempt for the Constitution.
This Court endorses the radical proposition that the President is harmed, irreparably, whenever he cannot do something he wants to do, even if what he wants to do is break the law.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-297_4f14.pdf
Yet, in the majority’s eyes, reading aloud Uncle Bobby’s Wedding is just “[l]ike the compulsory high school education considered in Yoder.” That assertion is remarkable. Reading a storybook that portrays a family as happy at the news of their gay son’s engagement, the majority claims, is equivalent to a law that threatened the very “survival of [the] Amish communit[y]” in the United States. To read that sentence is to refute it.
Polarization
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/toxic-empathy-weakness/683355/
The Conservative Attack on Empathy
Sometimes emotions are the voice of one’s conscience, and shouldn’t be ignored.
Labeling those emotions as fruits of toxic empathy is a strategy for dealing with them: It resolves the tension between what one feels and what one thinks by dismissing one’s feelings as misguided. This approach glibly ignores the possibility that such emotions are in fact the voice of one’s conscience, and takes for granted that ignoring one’s sympathies for other people is a good Christian habit of mind.
https://x.com/whstancil/status/1940134290433757249
it must be understood that the concentration camps exist to serve as pornography for Trump's sadistic base
Corruption
https://thedispatch.com/article/farmers-bailout-trade-war-trump/
Don’t Bail Out the Farmers
Elections have consequences.
We are all seeing how tariffs damage economies by raising prices, distorting markets, and encouraging foreign retaliation against our export industries. What we see less of is the swamp-infested cronyism that tariffs encourage: When tariffs are enacted, as with the 2018 steel and aluminum tariffs, lobbyists rush to seek exemptions for individual businesses.
By my colleague Judge Glock’s count, those 2018 tariffs prompted 425,000 requests for exemptions, 200,000 of which have been approved based largely on political donations and connections. These individual business carve-outs, however, pale in comparison to the budget-busting tariff bailouts likely headed back to the farmers of deep-red America.
In short, farm country voted overwhelmingly to unleash a new trade war. And now these same farmers and their political leaders want taxpayers to finance another round of bailouts to protect them from the consequences of their own votes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp-h4PGj6ks
Interesting argument: do the settlements of Trump’s lawsuits amount to using the legal system to launder bribes?
Authoritarianism
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/07/02/ice-raids-arrests-masks-warrants-kids/
What is and isn’t legal when ICE officers make an immigration arrest
Videos showing masked officers whisking people into unmarked cars have sparked outcry. A look at ICE’s powers as Congress prepares to give the agency a giant infusion of cash.
Can federal officers make immigration arrests without a warrant?
Can ICE officers make arrests at a private business or home?
Do ICE officers have to identify themselves?
Can federal officers making immigration arrests wear masks over their faces?
Can ICE detain a person who is applying for legal status or given a temporary one?
Does ICE have to share where someone is being held?
Can ICE detain children?
Can ICE officers use force in making an arrest?
Science
https://www.standupforscience.net/epa-declaration
Declaration of dissent by EPA employees.
Potpourri
https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/the-enigma-of-peter-thiel
It’s almost absurd how much pains [Peter Thiel] takes to say “I’m into evil!” and no one pays attention.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9764814-69-when-you-re-going-through-hell-keep-going-whether-i
When You’re Going Through Hell, Keep Going