Gaythia Weis @Gaythia@qoto.org

The rising Republican movement to defund public libraries https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/5/5/23711417/republicans-want-to-defund-public-libraries-book-bans

Thirteen years ago the Supreme Court decided corporations are people under the First Amendment.

Today, sold-out politicians block progress on all fronts to appease their corporate donors.

Citizens United is among the worst decisions in history. It corrupts our system every day.

'More than 75 members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine demanded on Thursday that the organization explain why it has for years failed to return or repurpose millions of dollars donated by the Sackler family, including some who led Purdue Pharma.'

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/28/health/national-academies-sacklers.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Health

Texas! Patriot Mobile is a Christian extremist organization. Oppose these candidates unless you want to replace public schools w/ Christian indoctrination centers, empty bookshelves, & homeschooling. #Christofascism 1/

@therobburgessshow Libraries are the cathedrals of Western civilization. The Christian nationalists are attacking them just like the medieval church attacked them. Despicable.

Covid was the No. 3 cause of death in America between 2020-2022.

It's receded a lot - but still on pace to be a top-10 cause of death this year.

“There are still people who are getting wicked sick," an infectious-disease doctor at Mass General told me. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/04/16/covid-deaths-per-day/

More evidence the #Marburg outbreak in Equatorial Guinea isn't over: A new case has been confirmed, WHO said Tuesday. The infected person is a health worker.
To date there have been:
— 16 confirmed cases; 11 are dead.
— 23 probable cases; all are dead.
— 5 of the confirmed cases have been health workers.
Equatorial Guinea has consistently tried to play this outbreak down and has tried to convey it is almost over. Wishing filovirus outbreaks away isn't an effective strategy.

Katie Porter calls out Republicans for adding two trillion dollars to the debt in tax cuts for the rich.
Now the GQP wants workers to take cuts in services.

"On 3 separate occasions during the fall and winter, reporters witnessed Norfolk Southern trains blocking intersections leading to an elementary, a middle and a high school for 4, 6 and 7 hours. @ProPublica and InvestigateTV showed footage of kids making the crossing, including an elementary student crawling under a train, to representatives of Norfolk Southern, lawmakers and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, whose remit includes rail safety.

He was shocked."

https://www.propublica.org/article/trains-crossing-blocked-kids-norfolk-southern

A quick history lesson. From 1940-1980:
•Wealthiest paid 70-94% marginal tax
•0 of them went broke from taxation
•0 of them left USA
•All remained exceedingly wealthy
•Manufacturing boomed
•The middle class was 62% of US economy (It's now 40% post 'trickle down scamenomics)
•We had the strongest middle class growth in US History

Let's do that again. Stop protecting billionaires. Start taxing them.
#TaxBillionaires

Ambulances can’t reach patients before they die. Fire trucks can’t get through and house fires blaze. Pedestrians trying to cut through trains have been disfigured, dismembered and killed; a Pennsylvania teenager lost her leg hopping between rail cars as she rushed home to get ready for prom.

In Hammond, the hulking trains of Norfolk Southern regularly force parents, kids and caretakers into an exhausting gamble: How much should they risk to get to school?

https://www.propublica.org/article/trains-crossing-blocked-kids-norfolk-southern

Your politicians call abortion murder but then pay for their mistresses' abortions.

You slander gay and trans people as groomers but refuse to hold the real groomers in your own party accountable.

Pharisees.

You have heard the shrieks of children dying in their classrooms yet make it easier for killers to get guns.

You claim to love Jesus, an immigrant, but pass hateful laws against immigrants.

You are fake.

Texas is better than you - that's why you don't want us to vote. 2/2

Dear Texas Republicans —

I'm a lifelong Catholic but I don't want kids to be forced to pray in their public schools.

Texans don't want their kids to be forced to study the Bible in public schools.

We can go to church to study the Ten Commandments if that's what we want.

We especially don't need a lesson in morality from you hypocrites. 1/2

OMG. A bill that’s passed the Tennessee legislature encourages students to report professors teaching “divisive concepts” (i.e., race) & requires universities to publish 3 years of course grades & to see whether divisive concepts “affected learning outcomes”give students’ entering test scores & graduating GPAs, “disaggregating underserved minority students.” In other words, if minority students’ GPAs are above their entering stats, it must be bc of biased profs #HigherEd https://www.wbir.com/article/news/education/new-bill-would-strengthen-rules-over-what-can-be-taught-in-classrooms

Calling it a gotcha that I "critique Biden policies after voting for him" is what's wrong with US politics today.

Voting for him doesn't mean I can't critique him—it's literally the best reason to be critical. It's called holding electeds accountable. It's how democracy works. And it’s how political parties work when they aren’t cults.

India’s teachers are defending Darwin https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/education/bring-back-darwins-theory-teachers-experts-tell-ncert/articleshow/99676727.cms

After Pandemic Delays, FDA Still Struggling to Inspect Foreign Drug Manufacturers
==

In the wake of recent deaths from bacteria-tainted eyedrops, a ProPublica analysis of FDA data reveals that the agency only inspected 6% of the overseas plants where drugs and their ingredients are produced in 2022.

Compare that to 2019, when the FDA inspected 37% of these facilities.

#FDA #Drugs #Medication #Safety #Manufacturing #Health

https://www.propublica.org/article/fda-drugs-medication-inspections-china-india-manufacturers?utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

The point of destroying Twitter’s verification system isn’t to make money. It’s to destabilize reporting and make it impossible to determine if sources are legitimate.

Denouncing the #plagiarism of our 2018 TSE article using #TorturedPhrases.

Our "statistically significant" results become "factually momentous". "Very low coverage" turns to "incredibly near to the ground coverage".

https://cs.mcgill.ca/~martin/tse2018-plag/

#SeResearchers

Never forget, all it took was 3 children’s deaths and lawn darts were banned.
That’s because the GOP isn’t bought & owned by the National Lawn Dart Association.