Brigid

Quintessential Trump: In 2025, Trump axed the program to combat New World Screwworm, stating that they had "saved" $1.5 million a year. In 2026, the Trump announces a $1 billion emergency program to combat the Screwworm outbreak. $1 billion would have funded the old program for 667 years.

Greta Thunberg: "The President of the United States just said that a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again & no one is reacting. This speaks for itself: what the fuck is anyone even doing at this point? We have normalized genocide, total annihilation of entire people."

Our team at Duke has spent almost a decade studying the transition of middle income countries (MICs) out of aid Transition is of course the goal for all MICs—but we’ve studied what happens when aid donors cut aid suddenly without proper planning SUDDEN cuts cause disease resurgence & mass death 👇

The first concern with measles is, of course, the devastating health impact. But this article does a great job of explaining the economic costs.

www.cidrap.umn.edu/measles/2025...

This Monument Is the Latest Casualty in Trump’s War on Public Lands | Sierra Club

One thing you will never think after reading a great book or listening to a great album or seeing a great piece of art is, “I’m really glad this person remained cautious while they were making this and guarded against being perceived as weird.”

I know it’s difficult right now, but I insist that you seek and enjoy beautiful things, even if it seems frivolous or irresponsible in the face of overwhelming horror. I want you to feed yourself artistically, spiritually, and literally, because you can’t Do The Work when you’re starving.

The DoD now has more money than it knows what to do with. Imagine if we spent that money on healthcare or housing instead. "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.” -MLK

Universal healthcare is hard. Only 31 of the top 32 countries have managed it.

Remember when RFK Jr. unilaterally decided that COVID19 vaccines should no longer be recommended during pregnancy? Well, COVID19 increases the risk of preeclampsia. And it turns out that getting boosted, either before or during pregnancy, significantly reduces the risk of preeclampsia.

BREAKING: Trump admin issues new policy aimed at ending transgender-related care in federal prisons. "It's a really dangerous policy,” an ACLU lawyer representing trans people in federal prison suing the Trump administration tells Law Dork of the new Bureau of Prisons policy.

"Hold on, we actually allow a failsafe" The failsafe: Having a birth certificate, ID, and being willing to sign an affidavit on penalty of perjury. This is what gendered administrative burdens look like. academic.oup.com/jpart/articl...

A judge ruled that groups representing residents of Louisiana’s Cancer Alley can proceed with their landmark lawsuit seeking a pause on toxic industrial plants in two majority‑Black districts

Rep. Angie Craig: "The attacks on Black and brown people in Minnesota have been egregious. At the end of the day, what they wanted out of Minnesota was for us to riot. I think this will go down in American history as one of the greatest examples of peaceful resistance from an entire community."

In terms of what cures are being lost: - Epstein-Barr virus is perhaps the major trigger for multiple sclerosis - herpes simplex virus causes cold sores, genital herpes, infections in babies, deadly meningitis - shingles virus causes an intensely painful disease

Today, the Trump administration repealed the endangerment finding: the ruling that served as the basis for limits on tailpipe emissions and power plant rules. Without it, we’ll be less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change—all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money.

Republicans' so-called "SAVE America Act" would require every American citizen show a 1) Passport or 2) Government ID AND a birth certificate to vote. Millions of Americans don't have a passport or ready access to their birth certificate. This is a voter suppression bill. Plain and simple.

Today we remember Alice Ball, an African American chemist who developed the 1st effective treatment for leprosy prior to antibiotics. After Ball died at 24, a male colleague stole her research. Ball was not recognized until a historian found her original thesis. Feb 28 is Alice Augusta Ball Day

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue

How did they redact abusers but not the victims? And they expect us to believe 40 nude photos went unnoticed? That’s exactly why people think the DOJ did this on purpose, to shame these women for coming forward.

❤️

BREAKING: Bernie Sanders is introducing an amendment to cut ICE’s $75 billion funding increase, and to use those funds to restore the federal cuts to health care.

Truly insane

Minnesota National Guard members have arrived at a federal building and were directed to distribute donuts, coffee, and hot chocolate to anti-ICE protesters. Guard members were issued reflective vests so they would not be mistaken for federal agents.

Walz: What side do you want to be on? The side of an all powerful federal government that can kill, injure, menace and kidnap its citizens off the streets or on the side of a nurse at the V.A. who died bearing witness to such government

Here’s TMZ with a headline every outlet that cares about the truth should have. www.tmz.com/2026/01/24/n...

Rest in Peace Alex Jeffrey Pretti🙏🏾 The VA ICU Nurses send him off right 💔

We’re airing a new campaign ad, starting tomorrow. Here it is:

The killing of Alex Pretti is a heartbreaking tragedy. It should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault.

The Minneapolis protester fatally shot by a federal officer was 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti, his parents say.

"They say they're coming to save us from some evil? They're talking about our neighbors who take care of us ... Alex was murdered while he was helping. Mr Rogers said look for the helpers, & right now the helpers have a target on our forehead ... Mr Rogers would be here right now too, so I'm here."

nine years old

ARE YOU A NON-MINNESOTAN WHO WANTS IDEAS OF STUFF TO DO TO HELP MINNESOTA RESIST FASCIST TYRANNY? Have I got a blog post for you! With additional advice for how to get ready in case tyranny shows up at YOUR doorstep next! naomikritzer.com/2026/01/21/h...

Do not comply with illegal orders. You have a right to film police and federal agents on public property. You have a right to assemble on public property without permits (in most areas), but also fuck getting permits for the rest. Don't stop recording. Don't stop watching.

So RFK and friends have basically reverted us back to the food pyramid, a thing we haven't used in 30 years because it wasn't backed by science. Also, based on their recommendations, I see a lot of gout and tyramine-driven disease (including hypertension)

Michael Fanone, one of the heroes of January 6th, writing this morning on Minnesota: "The kind of senseless, tragic killing we’ve just witnessed in Minneapolis is a predictable outcome of the current drive to take over communities, assert government power, and intimidate locals into submission."

AOC: This has now become what we feared most about ICE for a long time—that it would be used as an anti-civilian force with no accountability. At the end of the day, what we saw today was a murder, and murders in cold blood need to be prosecuted.

Raju: The Speaker and others have said that this driver was weaponizing her vehicle. AOC: Their editorializing of this event to justify a public murder is disgusting. It is horrifying. Watch it for yourself and make that assessment for yourself on which of these leaders are lying to you.

Who wants to guess which states? 🙄 www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-man...

In America, where irony is dead, a hotel chain uses a policy denying shelter to local people, for fear of accidentally housing homeless persons… To deny a reservation to the author of a much-lauded book on how American economic unfairness forces working people into homelessness.

I think tied up in this may also be an expectation of (let's call it) epistemological labor, in which women (or those in feminine-coded disciplines) are expected to cater to and make their work accessible and friendly to men. it's "you should smile more" but in academic writing.

Spotify has laid off thousands in recent years, while reportedly paying artists $0.003 per stream. Spotify profits rose 28% in Q3. Its CEO is worth $9.8 billion. It's making money off ICE recruitment ads. Don't you think it's time put a wrap on corporate greed and exploitation?

To recap this week: •Trump fires 8 immigration judges •DHS tweets "remigration now,"—an actual Nazi policy •DHS defies court order & deports a 19-year-old college student •Trump regime removes report on Missing & Murdered Indigenous women, calling it "DEI" This is an overt policy of white supremacy

"the issue isn’t that we need more 'boy-friendly' reforms. It’s that boys are socialized to compete only with boys and to read girls’ success as illegitimate or emasculating. The result is dissonance, resentment, and disengagement for boys—and hostile climates for girls." time.com/7335723/auto...