Heather

If you want to understand history - real history - ChatGPT and other LLM AI are NOT reliable sources. [Subscribe over on Substack - free or paid - to support our writing, and to ensure you never miss our history newsletters!] substack.com/@beforewewer...

Of course they know this, and they have no magical plan to do all the core functions but this time Efficiently(TM). The plan is to break things, so government can’t help you anymore. So yes, absolutely you should worry about your financial aid being affected. It appears to me that is the intention.

As Trump tries to dismantle the Department of Education, remember that his plan to cut the corporate tax rate to 15% would give the 100 largest corporations a tax cut larger than the entire department's K-12 budget. Really think about how twisted this all is.

Bernie Sanders is holding MASSIVE rallies in packed venues, bigger crowds than Trump was getting, and legacy media is practically silent. Bernie is talking to workers rather than hanging out with socialites with mediocre plastic surgery at Mar-a-Lago, and it's just not interesting to corporate media

JD Vance claimed on X that “Slava Ukraini” protesters followed him & shouted at his daughter. Guess he didn’t realize it was caught on camera. No one yelled at his kid, and they didn’t follow them. Vance & Musk need to quit using children as shields. The public isn’t backing down—we want answers.

The perfect metaphor for what the Supreme Court did to this country with Citizens United v. FEC.

Some Democratic member of Congress should propose a bill saying that a POTUS may golf at government expense no more than, say, once every 14 days, and must reimburse the Treasury for anything beyond that.

The median household income would be DOUBLE what it is today if income inequality had remained the same as it was in 1975. Read that again. Decades of trickle-down tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations did that. And Donald Trump wants to do it again.

I’d like to hear from voters of any race who were evacuated from polling places due to bomb threats and never voted.

At least 20 Ukrainian civilians have been killed just this night by Russian missiles and drones. Hundreds of soldiers were killed on the frontline in recent days. These are the first results of the US suspension of military aid and intelligence to Ukraine: more deaths time.com/7265679/sate...

A couple of golf outings could pay for over 300 federal jobs for an entire year.

“By firing us, you’re going to cut down on how much revenue the country brings in,” said an axed IRS specialist who’d been brought in to audit complex tax returns filed by large corporations and wealthy individuals. “This was not about saving money.” By @andykroll.bsky.social

you’re fired. wait you’re rehired. email us a list of things you’ve done today wait forget it you’re fired again. come back your job was important. you’re fired. or hired. come in to the office. wait the office has no computers go home. we are the department of government efficiency.

Enough about the price of eggs, from everyone. Cut the shit. The economy isn’t broken. It’s working exactly as they designed it—to keep you desperate, distracted, and exhausted while they cash in.

This is what @hcrichardson.bsky.social suggested today: Ask another politician to run a town hall if your “elected” scaredy cat GOP Reps are too afraid to.

when Elon Musk started recruiting for DOGE last November, he said the work would be “tedious” and “compensation is zero" now it turns out some DOGE operatives are earning six-figure salaries, one as high as $195,200, as much as a civil servant can legally make www.wired.com/story/doge-g...

"No Other Land," the Palestinian-Israeli made film showing the destruction of the occupied West Bank's Masafer Yatta by Israeli soldiers, just won the Oscar for Best Documentary. It can't get a distributor in the US. Which tells you everything about censorship in the US.

Hope to see you there

The last time Missouri took control of St. Louis’ police force, the Civil War was underway and the state’s secessionist-leaning leaders were trying to protect slavery and prevent officers from taking up arms against the Confederacy. By @jeremykohler.bsky.social

What we’re witnessing in America is what happens when disordered discourse captures a political party, then the state itself. The Republican Party was the first to fall - abandoning truth for conspiracy, ideology for grievance, and policy for performative outrage.

@lizcheney.bsky.social : "History will remember this day--when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for."

Look at this leader. Lift her up.

This vote was to start the process of the cuts. It WILL come back for a final vote. There are some chances to slow or potentially stop it. Need constant pressure on GOP Focus on GOP swing seats & key committees. Energy & Commerce is where the Medicaid fight will go down. Ways&Means for tax fight.

Rather than reject climate science like many on the right, some have followed the path laid out by environmentalist and white nationalist John Tanton, using concerns about population growth and scarce resources to rationalize their hateful agendas. (Published Oct. 2024)

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA): “A program is not waste just because it doesn’t help the richest man in the world. It is not fraud just because he doesn’t like it."

When incompetence and mastery of bull-shitting conjoin the results are breathtaking.

Is Donald Trump going to respond to Musk’s email and report on what he did last week? To help, I’ve gone ahead and done it for him. A thread:

Are there any Republicans left who are uncomfortable with the idea of being on the same side as the fascists and Putin vs. the democratic free world? If so, they better speak up now or live forever in infamy.

> @ironstache.bsky.social

In today's long-form essay, we look at the way in which USA citizens have spent decades, centuries, in blissful ignorance or denial of their country's true history. beforewewerewhite.substack.com/p/schuldgefu...

Such a long week I haven't circulated my own work! Minnesota lawmakers are taking up thorny question of creating minimum safety & quality standards for a questionable autism 'therapy' that appeals more to private equity than to #actuallyautistic people. @autistictyping.bsky.social has thoughts.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate Minority Leader, has launched a new online portal for individuals to report corruption, abuses of power, and threats to public safety, with the legal protections afforded to whistleblowers.

So does this mean Trump is running a black site at Guantanamo? If not, what is this? www.nytimes.com/2025/02/09/u...

And it looks like it’s official. Trump is ignoring court orders. The rubicon has been crossed.

USAID’s inspector general—presumably operating from a remote base in the mountains—has just released a report on the staggering effect of the Trump Administration’s assault on the agency. oig.usaid.gov/sites/defaul...