Notices by Kathy E. Gill 🇺🇦 (kegill@mastodon.social)

“Cutting government personnel by one-fourth would reduce federal spending by about 1 percent.”

Efficiency? Nope. Cruelty for cruelty’s sake.

Reminder: there is a required legal process to fire civil service employees, even those with less than two years. It ain’t being followed.

#uspolitics
#giftLink

https://wapo.st/413b5F0

<<In his ruling on Monday, the judge quoted an opinion from a previous case noting that “persons who make private determinations of the law and refuse to obey an order generally risk criminal contempt even if the order is ultimately ruled incorrect.”>>

It’s the #brokenTimes so don’t expect balance. NOTHING ABOUT ILLEGALITY OF IMPOUNDMENT.

#uspolitics
#giftLink

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/us/trump-unfreezing-federal-grants-judge-ruling.html?unlocked_article_code=1.v04.Z_zK.EWs3AJ1WRI2M&smid=url-share

A second commercial poultry operation in Georgia (broilers) has tested positive for bird flu. Authorities killed all 130,000 birds. Location? Same county as last week.

Reminder: CDC has been muzzled.

https://www.gmtoday.com/business/bird-flu-found-in-second-georgia-commercial-poultry-flock/article_25829768-d915-11ef-8019-b3a3c6223928.html

The Democrats need to Act Like The Opposition. “Oppose everything that is worth opposing and then see how things shake out.”

#USPolitics #Trump #Jan6

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-jan-6-pardons-are-a-huge-liability-for-trump/sharetoken/b9a5a9dc-11ca-49ac-8079-8b77ffef9e35

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.

Day 15

#Books 💙📚
#BookChallenge

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.

Day 5

#Books💙📚
#BookChallenge

“About 5.7 billion people—72 percent of the world’s population—now live under authoritarian rule.”

Read that again. I knew democracy was fragile but not that fragile.

#giftLink
#DoNotObeyInAdvance
#authoritarianism

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2024/12/what-dissidents-can-teach-us-now/680979/?gift=V2Xz1LHbTiPfZ3uourZyW5kBlKtao9dAoTImHzoIT6g&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Heather Cox Richardson shares Obama’s observations about pluralism.

“Since the rise of Donald Trump, the MAGA party has been the one championing identity politics, rejecting American pluralism in favor of centering whiteness…”

https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/december-7-2024?r=5wdm&utm_medium=ios

#USPolitics

More evidence that we are living in The Gilded Age, v 2.0: the response to the murder of United Health Care CEO.

I did not know Mark Twain named the era or that US income inequality now exceeds that time.

#healthcare
#GiftLink
#USPolitics

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/06/opinion/united-health-care-ceo-shooting.html?unlocked_article_code=1.fk4.OKuG.AJp30fCnQ6ke&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Words to live by:

“We should stake our whole existence on our willingness to explore and experience.”

In other words, “our beliefs [‘must’] #change.”

As quoted in Martin Buber : An Intimate Portrait (1971), p. 56

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Buber

#quotation
#quote
#curiosity
#philosophy
#growth

A 2022 YouGov survey suggests that conservative talking points have an ripe if uneducated audience:

“Americans tend to vastly overestimate the size of minority groups.”

— Trans people: 21% but actually 1%
— Black people: 41% but actually 12%
— Jewish people: 30% but actually 2%

https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/41556-americans-misestimate-small-subgroups-population

#USPolitics #Election2024 #demographics #LGBTQ

Five masked White supremacists waving Nazi flags demonstrated outside of a production of the play “The Diary of Anne Frank” this weekend.

It was the third Nazi demonstration in Livingston County, Michigan.

https://michiganadvance.com/2024/11/11/protesters-wave-nazi-flags-outside-performance-of-the-diary-of-anne-frank-in-howell/

#USPolitics #Election2024 #WhatComesAfter

One of the most insightful — and disturbing — essays on last week.

Found on BlueSky.

#USPolitics
#Election2024
#WhatComesAfter

https://cooperlund.medium.com/the-low-trust-election-fb635f995f3c

@katrinakatrinka

So don’t engage.
Mocking is engaging.

Five people with signs isn’t the same thing as a group with a parade permit and history of verbal violence.

@katrinakatrinka

It was only five, thank goodness. I don’t know that “mocking” would be effective.

@katrinakatrinka

Ignoring them makes them feel invisible. Not “safe.” Invisible is the worst. Their goal is chaos.

Again, the 2017 article does not come close to representing what happened here.

Haymarket Books has made 10 key antifascist ebooks #free to download.

“Wherever each of us live, work, and are in community: the time is now to build power and fight back, together.”

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/517-ten-free-ebooks-for-getting-free

#USPolitics
#Election2024
#reading

Truth.

#USPolitics #Election2024 #trump #elon #musk

@sleepy62 @pluralistic Does Canada have an equivalent to our anti-trust law?

The #Biden Administration once again writes rules that turn monopolies into competitive markets. This time: banks.

Switching costs are real. And now quantified for banking.

Reminder: monopolists and oligarchs pay lip service to “competition.” That’s why they are suing to stop this final reg.

From @pluralistic

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/01/bankshot/

Also
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/10/no-matter-what-bank-says-its-your-money-your-data-and-your-choice

#competition
#Election2024
#USPolitics
#finance
#harris