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   Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD) (iris@neuromatch.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Feb-2025 10:12:37 JST Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)

   The president wants to "clear out" remaining Palestinians from Gaza and move them to Jordan or Egypt. Pretty much everyone is angry about this.

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     Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD) (iris@neuromatch.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Feb-2025 10:12:31 JST Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)

     in reply to

     Funding freeze was extended to ... I can't even track down what all. All evidence points to them not knowing either when the order was issued. They've since clarified (decided?) that social security, food stamps, and student loans are not affected.

     The memo initiating the freeze was rescinded in a separate 2-sentence memo, but further clarification was released that it rescinds instructions for how to implement the freeze, and not the freeze itself. In other words, further chaos.

     A bunch of states intervened to block implementation of the freeze. This will obviously be a developing situation. Some non-jargon sum-up here (https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/funding-freeze-drama-not-over/) and more comprehensive sum-up here (https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-pause-federal-grants-aid-f9948b9996c0ca971f0065fac85737ce).

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     Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD) (iris@neuromatch.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Feb-2025 10:12:32 JST Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)

     in reply to

     The white house website has finished purging all mention of trans and nonbinary people (aside from the EOs themselves), e.g. from the travel guidance page, which now warns LGB travelers that some other countries don't recognize same-sex marriage.

     They've moved on to NIH, CDC and similar. The entire CDC database of 1.4k datasets is temporarily offline while they "bring it into compliance" with the EO declaring trans people aren't real.

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     Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD) (iris@neuromatch.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Feb-2025 10:12:32 JST Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)

     in reply to

     this thread interrupted to bring you an important message:

     When in doubt, make art.

     or build something, or fix something. Anything constructive to counter the destruction. Keep your spirit alive.

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     Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD) (iris@neuromatch.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Feb-2025 10:12:33 JST Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)

     in reply to

     various news orgs are being evicted from their locations at the pentagon and been replaced by far-right news orgs.

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     Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD) (iris@neuromatch.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Feb-2025 10:12:34 JST Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)

     in reply to

     pocket people, I have realized that writing these things out ONCE, as concisely as possible, serves the purpose of purging them from my brain, so I may be adding to this thread indefinitely.

   • Embed this notice
     Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD) (iris@neuromatch.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Feb-2025 10:12:34 JST Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)

     in reply to

     that's the word I was looking for the other day: retaliation. Musk has got all of his people to lock gov't employees out of their own systems and is collecting hard drives full of database info, mainly on anyone involved in investigating Jan 6th. They've got sensitive personal information on every one of them.

     Also trying to get access to the treasury and all the database info there (unclear if successful) including for the social security, medicare, and similar programs nationwide.

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     Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD) (iris@neuromatch.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Feb-2025 10:12:35 JST Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)

     in reply to

     New acting chair appointed to the equal employment opportunity commission set a top priority of rolling back rights for trans and nonbinary people. (This role covers what's legal in the private sector.) This conflicts with a recent supreme court case but they are newspeaking their way around that.

     Multiple top ranking people fired from the equal employment opportunity commission and the national labor relations board.

   • Embed this notice
     Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD) (iris@neuromatch.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Feb-2025 10:12:36 JST Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)

     in reply to

     The president caught his own top level staff by surprise calling for mass detainment of immigrants at Guantánamo Bay. That's a concentration camp, folks. We already have them at the southern border (have for years) and they're inhumane as fuck. Those typically hold people attempting to cross the border (including those seeking asylum). This escalation means rounding up people already living in the country and packing them in an external high security location. It can't get any plainer.

   • Embed this notice
     Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD) (iris@neuromatch.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Feb-2025 10:12:36 JST Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)

     in reply to

     An Anglican priest gave a Nazi salute as well (apparently this is our thing now, my god). The church revoked his license as soon as they heard about it though.

   • Embed this notice
     Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD) (iris@neuromatch.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Feb-2025 10:12:37 JST Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)

     in reply to

     The president fired the current heads of the coast guard and TSA and all members of an aviation security committee (while leaving the committee technically still in existence) as part of a broader purge addressing "misuse of resources." We've also sworn in a new transportation secretary who promises to reduce regulations on self-driving cars and "restore confidence" in Boeing.

     About an hour ago, a passenger plane landing at Ronald Regan nat'l airport (that's near Washington DC, not Washington state, for anyone confused by the headlines) collided with a military helicopter.

     [update] 67 crew and passengers killed (no survivors). The president has blamed the crash on the dwarfism of the air traffic control operator, who seems to have not made any error -- the helicopter was higher than it was supposed to be and was possibly watching and avoiding the wrong passenger jet.