Gaythia Weis @Gaythia@qoto.org

Senator Tester got the PACT Act done two years ago when nobody said he could. Why? Because it was the # 1 priority for Veterans and their families. We need to do the same with Senator Tester's Major Richard Star Act—the top legislative issue for veterans and VSOs. Our combat-injured Vets can't wait. #MTPol #JonTester @JonTester #Montana #PACTAct #MajorRichardStarAct #Veterans #VeteransHealthcare

Texas' anti-voting (if you are suspected of favoring Democrats) law is working as designed, with massive deletions from voting rolls and intimidation of, among others, Latino pro-voting organizations.

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/texas-removes-over-1-million-voters-from-rolls-since-passage-of-anti-voting-law/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/house-raids-texas-democrats-ken-paxton-voting-rights-lulac-rcna168216

“International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) estimates cancer from [PFAS-treated] turnout gear accounted for 66% of firefighter deaths from 2002 to 2019.” 😲

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/23/pfas-firefighter-gear-ban-massachusetts-connecticut

'(...) I do hope that we can find a similar way in future to have a massive real-time review system for pre-prints. And a way for disparate research groups – and junior researchers especially – to build new collaborations outside of expensive, distant conferences. And a way to regularly hear about new ideas and research, with creative communication and visualisation.'
https://kucharski.substack.com/p/why-twitter-was-so-valuable-for-pandemic

Reminder that Page 489 of Project 2025 calls for renaming the Department of Health and Human Services “The Department of Life” and “explicitly rejecting the notion that abortion is health care."

MAGA Republicans are obsessed with controlling other people’s bodies.

Effective tax rates before and after the Trump tax law:

Verizon
Before: 21%
After: 8%

Walmart
Before: 31%
After: 17%

AT&T
Before: 13%
After: 3%

Walt Disney
Before: 26%
After: 8%

FedEx
Before: 18%
After: 1%

This is what a corporate giveaway looks like.

Ken Paxton’s vote suppression goon squad raided an 87-year-old Latina who “said that the officers told her they came because she had filled out a report saying that older residents were not getting mail ballots. “Yes, I did,” she told them. For 35 years, Ms. Martinez has been a member of LULAC, the civil rights group, helping Latino residents stay engaged in politics.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/25/us/texas-latinos-democrats-raids-paxton.html

#fascism #whitesupremacy #Election2024 #texas #paxton #votersuppression

In Afghanistan, the Taliban's Minister of Education has announced that girls' schools are likely to remain closed permanently.

As a Muslim let me be explicitly clear. This is apartheid, vile, & inexcusable.

Prophet Muhammad(sa) declared, "It is incumbent upon every Muslim male & every Muslim female to attain education." His wife Ayesha was a leading scholar & jurist. His final words were "women are your committed partners." Not servants—PARTNERS.

Taliban terrorists are a stain on humanity.

@JoshuaHolland

Walz provides permission for men who hunt, like football etc. to also be caring humans, to be supportive of accomplished women and to feel their feelings.

@knittingknots2
Vance himself declared that he wants a national ban on abortion. He claimed that without a national ban, George Soros could send a jumbo jet to Ohio every day to transport pregnant black women to California for abortions.
I fail to understand why media talking heads did not call him out directly for this statement.

We can't just go after Trump. All Republican leaders are actively harmful to people.

Kristi Noem rejects more than $70 million in federal funds

https://www.rawstory.com/kristi-noem-rejects-more-than-70-million-in-federal-funds/

I don't think I'll ever get over Clarence Thomas ruling on cases related to Jan 6 knowing that his wife was an active participant in the attempted coup.

Or ruling on cases related to govt regulations and a wealth tax knowing he took gifts from billionaires.

It's a disgrace.

Over 60 billionaires have now publicly endorsed Trump, hosted a fundraiser for him, or contributed to Trump aligned PACs.

Why are they rallying behind him? Tax cuts, mostly. But there's more.

The more Trump tears down democracy, the safer the oligarchy becomes.

Be warned.

'Authorities declared Gaza #polio-free in the late 1990s. However, the World Health Organization reported last month that the virus was found in sewage samples from sites in the Gazan cities of Khan Younis and Deir Al-Balah. Two days ago, the WHO confirmed a case of polio in an unvaccinated 10-month-old child in Deir Al-Balah, the first one in Gaza in 25 years, with reports of other suspected cases.'
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2024/08/22/polio-case-confirmed-in-gaza-potential-for-outbreak/

'A unifying thread of evidence across most studies evaluating the risk of long COVID is the finding that the risk increases as the severity of acute infection increases. People who had severe COVID-19 that necessitated hospitalization exhibit a higher risk of long COVID than those with mild COVID-19. However, because most people around the globe had mild COVID-19, they constitute more than 90% of people with long COVID, despite their lower relative risk compared with that of people with severe COVID-19'
#Covid #Covid19 #LongCovid

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03173-6

I've been enjoying Mastadon but have missed the academic side of things--I used to find so many resources for students and faculty on Twitter. I realized that I need to start doing them myself and maybe we'll build a community. So, here I go:
New book for grad students found on JSTOR: Grad School Life: Surviving and Thriving Beyond Coursework and Research, Kory-Westlund, Columbia University Press, https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.lib.vt.edu/stable/10.7312/kory20784

#academicchatter #gradschool #gradstudents #academiclife

I really appreciate this dive by @tomkalei into a fake mathematics journal.

The best part - the list of advisory editors had 7 dead scholars, including John Nash.

https://machteburch.social/@tomkalei/110056575363616449

I would like to thank #RFKJr for proving decisively and unequivocally what many of us have long known: He's an utter fraud, now pissing on the grave of his father. https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-rfk-jr