Sam Gerb

Thanks for sharing Dr. Ruth:

Appears I was blocked by @incognitosystem.bsky.social as I was writing this retraction. So I thought I'd just post it here.

When did politicians misleading voters become a punishable offense? I thought is was largely a necessity to get elected.

Hard to believe the video is real. It is. My primary objection to Trump...among many...is his pursuit of increasingly unchecked executive power. This is relatively inconsequential, but perhaps revealing: another instance of personal whim becoming official action with fewer meaningful constraints.

I'm flipping between X and Bsky. The contrast I observe suggests extremes on both sides live in a algorithmically-aided, confirmation-biased bubble...one that has each convinced they represent a majority of the country.

So sad to be blocked just as a decent civil debate begins.

The uncomfortable part is that every healthcare system denies some care. Profit can distort those decisions, but eliminating profit doesn’t eliminate scarcity, rationing, or preventable deaths. The real argument is over who makes those decisions, by what rules, and with what accountability.

To anybody who, like me, thinks power, control, and greed are inevitable forces...why not just try to harness their energy for good?

Who informs Trump? www.reuters.com/business/ene... x.com/Acyn/status/...

Sad when a meme appearing to cut through all the BS is wrong: The 1973 Act didn't invent for-profit health insurance. It passed Congress with bipartisan support. Insurers tracked by NAIC lost money underwriting in 2024 & 2025...remaining profitable b/c investment income offset insurance losses.

I feel this way too. But privacy-conscious shopping only works when consumers can tell the difference, competitors are allowed to exist, and declining the app does not mean declining the service.

Assuming a congressional majority was indifferent...or also profiting...how rich could a U.S. president become if it were clear that virtually any exercise of presidential influence was negotiable? The level of impropriety & impact vary but do any of these seem like something we should normalize?

I like the thought. But when the stakes extend beyond national pride in a sports team, so do the diplomatic, economic, and political challenges required to “get along just fine.” That doesn’t mean leaders always get it right. It just means international cooperation is rarely an organic love-in.

IDK...I think some memes on the left seem to misunderstand wide swaths of America and oversimplify the varied root causes of the MAGA movement. This is one example.

That meme is a stretch↙️. The funding cuts didn’t create the parasites; most were circulating in the food supply long before the cuts. What the cuts did was make government less capable of detecting the source early and containing an outbreak. And blaming “the government” is especially backward↘️…

This is not just about one person being gross. Maybe Trump rebranding “Defense” as “War” was just a slogan. But the culture underneath matters. War reliably magnifies civilian abuse, sexual violence, displacement, and trauma...esp. for women & children. www.unwomen.org/sites/defaul...

CNN montage of Trump claiming for months that Iran wants to make a deal

It's sad we keep putting those who appear to have age-related decline in office. But I can handle an inarticulate President. What I can't handle is a grifter who appears so intent on unchecked executive power...a change that will be difficult to reverse. www.statnews.com/2017/05/23/d...

As of June 4, nearly 60 have died in 'ICE-custody' or during 'Immigration-enforcement operations' in Trump’s 2nd term. IMO, pressure for independent investigation on all is more important than premature claims of "murder". A summary of the 8 AP classified as Enforcement-operation fatalities:

AI has ruined things like this. I'm not saying this is AI generated, not at all. I'm not even trying to suggest it is or might be. But a year ago I would have looked and thought this is so cool and enjoyed it. Now, every time I see something like this I wonder is that AI? And that just sucks.

I found this interesting...making engineered homebuilding materials from grass instead of softwood forest products: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tufN...

I'm not sure this is my favorite form of humor...but ownership by The Onion seems to have greatly improved the quality of the content on InfoWars:

That looks like a heart. But based on the apparent removal site, it really seems more probably a spleen...an organ that is not required for survival. So there's that.

Trying to understand how people can justify supporting this guy as the President of the United States...