Gaythia Weis @Gaythia@qoto.org

Years ago, I attended a meeting about the future of democracy at Harlan Crow’s “house” (which was staged as a museum). I left deeply shaken by the Nazi memorabilia on display. Apparently I wasn’t alone. https://www.washingtonian.com/2023/04/07/clarence-thomass-billionaire-benefactor-collects-hitler-artifacts/

Indeed Crow’s house had statues of fallen dictators. I was told that these items were war trophies to commemorate how the “good guys” won. But no museum curator I know would glorify such artifacts that way. Hitler’s painting was signed, just hanging on the wall as art.

May 2022: Winter ticks wiped out nearly 90% of the moose calves scientists tracked in part of Maine last year

by Kevin Miller and Esta Pratt-Kielley, Maine Public Radio

"“The winters have shortened and the falls are longer, which means longer time for those ticks to quest and actively seek their host, which means (moose) have accumulated much more on them,” said Siren, who has worked closely with Kantar and his counterparts in New Hampshire."

#Maine #NewHampshire #Moose #Ticks #ClimateChange #ClimateBreakdown #ClimateCatastrophe #ClimateCrisis #NewEngland

Read more: https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/05/18/moose-tick-deaths-climate-change

Ultimately, the challenge is to pay attention to the underlying reactionary political project, to the multi-level attempts to entrench traditional hierarchies of race, gender, religion, and wealth, to the increasingly authoritarian measures to prevent multiracial, pluralistic democracy.

I’ve posted about the Great Unconformity several times now (and you still must capitalize it), and had the chance to see when visiting the Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area in Las Vegas.

After almost 5 years, I didn’t trust I’d be able to find it again. I decided to search Google maps and sure enough, there it was. Thank you to the wonderful person who put it on the map, and thank you Google for adding it! See the location below.

In the last picture it is in the rocks near the left of the picture where the trail can be seen and the metal sign is standing (zoom in). They are the same rocks layers known as the Great Unconformity at the bottom of the Grand Canyon in an easily accessible part of Las Vegas. You’re welcome.

The Great Unconformity
https://maps.app.goo.gl/THA4SbtdXtqvVotVA?g_st=ic

Refresher:
Tapeats Sandstone - 525 million years old
Vishnu Schist - 1.7 billion years old
Time Gap of 1.2 billion years = The Great Unconformity

This absurd analysis would require throwing out *most* FDA drug approvals. Few drugs ever have a requirement that providers report all adverse events.

That the FDA required it for mifepristone shows how they were *stricter* with mifepristone approval than the law requires.

So how did the anti-choice plaintiffs have standing to challenge the FDA's approval of #mifepristone , a drug they don't use and didn't suffer any harm from?

Because the judge, a man appointed by Trump, decided he knew what was best for all women. Some excerpts.

Full opinion here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jnm4r233xat6tv4/ND%20Tex%20FDA%20decision.pdf?dl=0

Reinfection, immune evasion, and protection of residents in #LTC

This thread looks at multiple studies that help reveal why #SARS2 can #reinfect hosts and evade #immune response, #vaccine waning, and what protects residents in #Ontario #longtermcare and #retirement homes. 🧵 1/

The one page easier to share version of this thread can be found at: https://pingthread.com/thread/1644664310172467201

COVID-19: Stats, Guides, Articles, Calculators

COVID-19 guides, useful info, stats, calculators & 600+ scientific articles: http://covid.gilchrist.ca

Ottawa, Canada weekly stats: http://covid.gilchrist.ca/Ottawa.html

Ontario, Canada weekly stats: http://covid.gilchrist.ca/Ontario.html

Calculate the Amount of Shared Air in an Indoor Space using CO2 Levels: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iGpS3zacl79GuPduH7QHjBWQisT8nHlxFLgXPE1Xh0U/edit?usp=sharing

Young people are running away from the Republican Party.

Because they oppose the rule of gun cultists and reject the reactionary vision of a world in which they would have far fewer rights than what their parents enjoyed?

Nah. Gotta be the “liberal indoctrination.”

Repeat after me: Wages aren’t pushing up prices. Corporate profits are pushing up prices.

Instead of relying on the Fed to raise interest rates, which could slow the economy toward a recession, Congress and President Biden should be taking aim at corporate price gouging.

"People in Arkansas should not have to hand over their driver’s license just to access free websites,” EFF’s @jgkelley told
AP. “The law essentially stops people in the state from accessing vast parts of the web unless the government approves it.” https://apnews.com/article/arkansas-huckabee-sanders-utah-facebook-social-media-a1ebf8a0ed919a2d1ed3414af65fd4cb

For years, our "Gutting the IRS" series looked at the decades-long campaign to defund the IRS and leave it understaffed.

Our ongoing "Secret IRS Files" series then used actual tax information from America's wealthiest to show the various ways in which the ultrarich have avoided huge tax bills.

Now a newly funded IRS has released a 10-year plan that includes a renewed effort to pursue wealthy tax dodgers:

#IRS #Taxes #Wealth #Tax

https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-strategic-plan-wealth-tax-dodgers?utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

Peter Thiel, 2009: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

Presumably he was referring to the freedom of oligarchs like himself to be unconstrained by taxes and regulations.

In this narrow sense, he’s correct: Oligarchy is incompatible with democracy.

I get the argument that this is politically disastrous for the Tennessee GOP: A pyrrhic victory at best, elevating Democratic politicians to national stardom. But I find little solace in that. This is so dangerous - the Republican Party fully in the hands of anti-democratic extremists.

Why did inequalities of income and wealth begin to widen so dramatically in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and continue widening since? We'll start to explore that very question in Class 1 of my Wealth and Poverty course, now available to the public. https://tinyurl.com/4kwcjfh4

Exxon in the classroom: how big oil money influences US universities https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/mar/27/fossil-fuel-firms-us-universities-colonize-academia

Must watch 👇🏼 ✊🏼

Rep. Justin Jones' full speech:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5065426/user-clip-rep-justin-jones-speech

#Tennessee #GunProtest #politics #fascism #racism

On today's expulsion of the two Black representatives, but not the white rep, Elie Mystal summed it up pretty darn well: "Tennessee has now given the entire country an object lesson in critical race theory better than any AP history course ever could have. Everybody sees it now. Everybody knows it now. Everybody gets exactly what is going on."
#Racism #SystemicRacism #WhiteSupremacyInAction

Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was directly involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Just thought I should remind everyone of that today.