Hungary under Orbán was one of the most effective such regimes in the world. Fidesz developed an incredibly sophisticated system for marginalizing the opposition, including controlling 80-90 percent of media.
This @kimlanelaw.bsky.social piece has details. www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/how...
The recent presidential budget request has a 40% increase in military spending and 10% cut to non-military spending, including a 25% cut to the NIH.
It seems worth pointing out that NIH (and other R&D) boosts the economy by 250%, whereas military spending (except R&D) shrinks the economy by 10%.
Nearly 450 hospitals are at risk of shutting down due to Medicaid cuts. Roughly $1 trillion in funding is expected to be cut. Services like mental health and maternal care likely will be affected.
www.healthday.com/health-news/...
Early 20th c political cartoon depicting suffragettes as dowdy middle-aged women
In all seriousness though, elder millennial jokes aside, I think it’s important to resist the media framing of any mainstream resistance to the status quo as just the shrill nonsense of middle-aged women with nothing better to do. This isn’t the first time they’ve run out this playbook.
I've never seen a PCAST so dominated by Silicon Valley venture capitalists (and the worst of the bunch too). What a farce.
>10,000 STEM PhDs have left federal service over the past year (including 30% of the federal colleagues with whom I’ve worked closely). Those still left are holding federal science together with duct tape.
What an extraordinary act of sabotage against the American people.
Let's be clear: banning mifepristone = a national abortion ban.
Mifepristone has been safe, effective and FDA-approved for 20 years.
Extremists won’t stop until abortion is banned everywhere. I'll keep fighting to pass my Women’s Health Protection Act to restore the right to abortion nationwide.
Heroes.
That's right. Worse than Pointless
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/o...
So when thousands of women (and children) were being duplicated--including in non-consensual AI porn--it was no big deal. But it took "only a 15-sec clip" of these two famous white men to draw outrage and fear. Gotcha. Cool cool.
Democracy is when voters choose their leaders. Autocracy is when leaders choose their voters.
North Carolina lawmakers have voted to remove all college campus voting sites. Specifically at the largest HBCU in the US NC A&T. They now have to walk 30 minutes to their nearest polling place. Students are protesting this - pls share and support.
www.tiktok.com/t/ZThx29BJ9/
Neat demonstration of how artificial so-called intelligence is taking us backwards.
"ChatGPT produced content most consistent with the 1960s and DALL-E 3 in the late 1980s and early '90s."
#AI - see @shannonvallor.bsky.social's work for important thinking on this
phys.org/news/2026-02...
1. It was not an accident.
2. It was not a staffer.
3. While the president may have dementia his racism is not due to dementia.
4. He isn’t sorry. He means every racist thought he shares.
5. His base agrees with him.
6. He will do it again.
7. No one in power will hold him accountable.
WATCH as Maine nurses show up at Susan Collins’ office to demand she vote against funding ICE following ICE’s killing of nurse Alex Pretti.
#ICEoffOurStreets
An extraordinary document. Read it.
“Attached to this order is an appendix that identifies 96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases. … ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”
Amazon Web Services hosts massive surveillance systems for both ICE and DHS.
Citizens Bank provides nearly $1 trillion in credit & bonds to private prison companies.
AT&T has a $147 million contract to provide communications services to DHS.
Know who is profiting from ICE’s cruelty.
“There’s no point to calling because my senators already agree with me”
“There’s no point to calling because my senators won’t listen”
These are both false information and you should correct and/or block anyone circulating them. Your calls are tallied and create support and/or real pressure.
YOUR PHONE CALLS TO THE SENATE ARE WORKING. KEEP CALLING.
202–224-3121
Three Democrats who previously broke with the party and voted with the GOP are now saying they will not vote for the bill. That’s enough for the bill to be unpassable right now.
Do it. I beg you. This madness ends a lot faster if billionaires lose money.
MLK was only 39 when he was killed. Growing up, I thought that was old. But I’m 43 now and I’m stunned by the burden he shouldered at such a young age. I’m also a lot more aware of how hard it is, at any age, to carry the hopes and dreams of an oppressed people on your shoulders, as so many do.
BREAKING:
TIM WALZ: "If you see these ICE agents in your neighborhood, take out that phone and hit record."
"Help us create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans, not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecution."
NEW: An analysis of years of previous F.D.A. decisions about the abortion pill mifepristone found that the agency did rigorous reviews, largely followed apolitical scientific recommendations and repeatedly concluded that mifepristone was safe. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/h...
AOC: I want everybody to understand that the cuts to your health care are what’s paying for this. You get screwed over to pay a bunch of thugs in the street that are shooting mothers in the face.
This is why we need to rebuild union power.
Strong unions serve as a countervailing force to runaway corporate power and ensure workers share in the profits their labor creates.
Otherwise, the rich eat up a larger and larger share of the pie — like this:
We remember Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez
In @nytopinion.nytimes.com
“The chaos that ICE and the Trump administration have brought to Minneapolis made this tragedy sadly predictable,” writes Jacob Frey, the city’s mayor.
Parent and pediatrician here.
All vaccines are still available & recommended. Talk to your pediatrician for more info.
Know this: Even as our government shifts its recommendation language, I would never forgo the RSV, hepatitis A & B, or meningitis vaccines for my own kids.
Stand Up For Science: Politicizing the Childhood Vaccine Schedule Will Cost Lives Washington, D.C. — Stand Up For Science strongly condemns Health and Human Services (HHS) Deputy Secretary O’Neill’s reported decision to overhaul the U.S. childhood immunization schedule, yet another dangerous escalation in HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s agenda to politicize children’s health and undermine American public health. First, the “peer” countries cited as models differ in fundamental ways. Many are significantly smaller in population and geography and have universal health care systems with strong primary-care access and follow-up. When it comes to public health, these are critical distinctions. We must meet our health where it is, not where we want it to be.
Second, when a vaccine is already known to be safe and effective, it is unethical to withhold it from children for the sake of “placebo-controlled randomized trials.” For diseases like RSV, hepatitis A and B, dengue, and meningococcal disease (ACWY and B), the ethical standard is to compare schedules against existing protocols, not to deny proven protection. Calling placebo trials the “gold standard” in this context is unscientific and a violation of globally accepted research ethics. We will not mince words. Under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, this change will lead to preventable illness, death, and devastation for American families. Congress must act now to impeach and remove Secretary Kennedy.
Statement from Stand Up For Science: Politicizing the Childhood Vaccine Schedule Will Cost Lives.
"Under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, this change will lead to preventable illness, death, and devastation for American families. Congress must act now to impeach and remove Secretary Kennedy."
Image of the boom Everyday Trauma by Dr. Tracey Shors.
Spotted at the independent bookstore near my mom's house @drtraceyshors.bsky.social
