kathrynesings.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

So - I've actually led Ebola outbreak response at USAID. This is bunk from Elon. They have laid off most of the experts, they're bankrupting most of the partner orgs, have withdrawn from WHO, and muzzled CDC. What's left is a fig-leaf effort to cover their asses politically.

submitted 8 hours ago • 382 comments

there are protests everywhere, every week since trump was elected, in most major cities. none of them are covered on the news, so to you, and other outside observers, they never happened.

submitted 19 hours ago • 15 comments

No one had died of measles in America for ten years, until yesterday. That 2015 death in WA was preceded by a 12y period of no US deaths. www.nbcnews.com/health/healt... HHS Secretary RFK Jr. says it’s “not unusual.” apnews.com/article/meas... It is unusual. www.cdc.gov/measles/data...

submitted 11 hours ago • 175 comments

A fun thing to do after watching this is google "US worker productivity vs real wages since 1970"

submitted 14 hours ago • 8 comments

The Republican budget plan: -Cut SNAP by $230 billion -Cut Medicaid by $880 billion -Give $1.1 trillion to the top 1%

submitted 17 hours ago • 36 comments

"We are living in the final days. All virtue has faded from the world. The youths no longer revere the gods but instead spend their days drinking and playing trivial games and our land has grown weak and feckless." - Inscription in a Middle Kingdom Egyptian pyramid.

submitted 16 hours ago • 5 comments

Nothing that has happened since I unsubscribed from WaPo has made me reconsider that decision.

submitted 16 hours ago • 0 comments

I think about how this was happening and how everyone thinks the "just leave trans people alone" position is considered the extreme one now

submitted 16 hours ago • 2 comments

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.

submitted 1 day ago • 1182 comments

it's going to be important, when all of this is said and done, that doge staffers like gavin kliger and luke farritor are held civilly and legally responsible for their actions, because from a moral and justice standpoint, the alternative is unmentionable on this and any website.

submitted 1 day ago • 46 comments

one thing i would not do, were i a member of congress, is radicalize and enrage a large population of people who are in retirement, cannot find a social security office to go into, and have nothing but time on their hands to go sit in my office instead.

submitted 1 day ago • 11 comments

Some “moderate” Republicans flipped & ended up supporting this evil budget resolution. They voted to cut Medicaid & services their constituents depend on. The budget fight isn’t over. But if you are represented by any of these people that voted yes.. make sure they hear from you.

submitted 1 day ago • 176 comments

one way in which my views have shifted pretty strongly is that i've gone from being sort of agnostic about the existence of billionaires to believing that they pose a substantial and serious threat to self-governance and that our policies around both tax and fraud must be updated to reflect the risk

submitted 1 day ago • 35 comments

The question I am really struggling with right now is: What is "law & order" and the entire American constitutional order for if it isn't a Go Directly to Jail card for guys like Donald Trump and Elon Musk for doing exactly what they're doing right now?

submitted 1 day ago • 75 comments

Usually political risk people write stuff about like the threat of armed group attacks or piracy or whatever but it's wild the #1 wild card factor is "we literally don't know what the most powerful empire that is the pillar of the world order is going to randomly decide to do tomorrow"

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

"When they withhold your paycheck, or injure you, or deny you what you have worked for, we are the people that can get it back" Musk is stealing your money and making it easier for your boss to steal from you

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

The long way of saying “The purpose of democracy is to protect the rest of us from deranged rich people, be they kings or oligarchs. Everything else is wainscoting.” But it’s good to see people getting on the train.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Just in one year, just the clean air act, prevented hundreds of thousands of early deaths. The lowest possible estimate of the benefits found that benefits outweigh the costs by 3 to 1. The most likely estimate is 30 to 1. The high estimate is 90 to 1. Ninety. Nine Zero. www.epa.gov/clean-air-ac...

submitted 2 days ago • 15 comments

it’s tiring talking about this every few weeks but if you want to launch your newsletter on substack and share revenue with those guys, that’s your choice. but at this point you know exactly what you’re getting into and everyone else knows, too.

submitted 1 day ago • 39 comments

I can't count how many different ways that Donald Trump is a threat to the entire human race right now, but suffice to say the critical infrastructure that usually responds to this sort of thing is currently being, or in many cases already has been, dismantled and defunded.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

the WHCA having shown that they won't stand in solidarity with their colleagues from AP, the fascist White House knows they can keep pushing. Raptors testing the fences and the fences are off

submitted 1 day ago • 14 comments

The White House Correspondents' Association needs to stop covering the White House. Boycott. Blackout. Get out and cover what this administration DOES not what it says.

submitted 1 day ago • 16 comments

Looks like one of the smaller credit ratings agencies has downgraded the United States from 'positive' to 'neutral' if you're wondering how the whole "threatening to randomly default on debts and cancel contracts" strategy is going

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

Ouch. I'm glad judges are pushing, but at some point they need to get over their habitual deference to the government and handle this as they would most cases, to wit: "Counsel, step outside the courtroom, get on your phone, and bring someone here who can answer my questions. You have one hour."

submitted 1 day ago • 101 comments

"The white house approved the payments but musk's henchmen manually blocked them" doesn't sound like the white house was being dishonest it sounds like a coup d'état

submitted 1 day ago • 9 comments

Musk is a sensitive little orchid and I wish more people would figure out that it’d be really easy to push him over the edge simply by being meaner to him.

submitted 2 days ago • 155 comments

If you have not won an election in a year that starts with a 2, I beg of you: Shut the fuck up.

submitted 1 day ago • 494 comments

This is some highly manufactured consent.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

This is an INCREDIBLY serious story for Washington, DC. There is one prosecutor for DC: the federal/DOJ US Attorney for DC. That's a Trump-appointed position now. The Trump appointee is corrupt, venal, MAGA. Here the DC police wanted to prosecute a crime, and the Trump USAO SAID NO. 1/

submitted 2 days ago • 178 comments

I want to make it clear that no executive order can change federal law and every executive order trump has signed has expressly disclaimed the intent to. The screenshot is from the DEI EO. That’s before you get to courts actually blocking big parts of it. And yet the overcompliance is legion.

submitted 2 days ago • 60 comments

listen, i know this is just like my age catching up with me or whatever but i truly do not understand why anyone would decide to spend their time making life miserable for trans people and queer people and immigrants when they could instead sit down and have a purring kitten or two in their laps

submitted 2 days ago • 12 comments

I do think the Dems have to stop playing 4 dimensional chess though. Even if this is true, it's not different from giving Trump enough rope right now, or outsourcing your outrage to Robert Mueller so it looks nonpartisan. People clearly don't get why you're not fighting for them now.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

I open most of AOC’s emails and I haven’t lived anywhere near her district since 2008. Most of my own rep’s emails get deleted unread.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

There is absolutely nothing Zelensky could say or do that would move Trump one iota away from completely supporting Putin's positions on the war. Zelensky even tried, as he reasonably should have, to play the flattery sucking him up to game. But he correctly saw it wasn't working and never will.

submitted 2 days ago • 28 comments

THERE IS NO AMERICAN CONSTITUENCY FOR AN ALLIANCE WITH RUSSIA. Even the GOP hates it. It’s just that Russia, for reasons we STILL do not know, owns Trump.

submitted 2 days ago • 117 comments

Day 2 and not only is 12YO in the practice room “working on my sick riffs” (aka her assignment for this week), she’s just asked if she can start taking bass lessons, too.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

It's so medically tragic how former presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden all simultaneously lost the power of speech at the exact moment America collapsed into fascism

submitted 3 days ago • 15 comments