buc.ci is a Fediverse instance that uses the ActivityPub protocol. In other words, users at this host can communicate with people that use software like Mastodon, Pleroma, Friendica, etc. all around the world.
This server runs the snac software and there is no automatic sign-up process.
Washington’s program offering no-interest home loans to residents harmed by historical discrimination has landed in the Trump administration’s crosshairs.
https://www.kuow.org/stories/feds-launch-probe-into-washington-program-to-redress-housing-discrimination
#KUOW #News #Politics
Live von der großen Demo auf dem Hamburger Rathausmarkt gegen sexualisierte Gewalt gegen Frauen.
#hamburg #Politik #politics #collien #demo #frauenrechte #feminismus #feminism
No Kings is this Saturday! The #SanJose protest is at Saint James Park - but there's ones all over the country!
A night of settler terror in the Jordan Valley
https://www.972mag.com/wp-content/themes/rgb/newsletter.php?page_id=8§ion_id=191066&utm_source=972+Magazine+Newsletter&utm_campaign=79b486ce10-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_12_2022_11_20_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1fe821d25-79b486ce10-1401528606
from +972’s Sunday Recap
#972Magazine [published in #Israel]
March 22, 2026
In the middle of the night on March 12, #Israeli settlers raided the #Palestinian herding community of Khirbet Humsa in the northern #JordanValley. Oren Ziv (Local Call) reported on the attack, where settlers tied up and beat protective presence activists and Palestinian residents, sexually assaulting one man — an unusually severe assault amid escalating violence and displacement in the region.
Also:
- ‘I thought we were going to be raped’: A night of settler terror in the Jordan Valley
- Exposed from above, silenced from within: Palestinians in wartime Israel
- From Sde Teiman, the truth about Israel’s military justice system has been set free
- Israel lambasted this Ramadan TV drama. Reception in #Gaza has been mixed
#SanctionIsrael
#FreePalestine
#EqualRightsForAllFromTheRiverToTheSeaIsNotAntisemitic
#news #politics #Palestine
It's still technically Thursday, so my weekly "Lets talk tech Thursday" newsletter is not lying! This week I talk about Palantir and their increasing foothold in UK life. Also, AI music fraud, trial social media bans, and for something a little more light-hearted, what happened when two devs released different games with the same name.
If any of that sounds interesting, I'd be honoured if you have it a read: https://buttondown.com/willrc/archive/lets-talk-tech-thursday-23/
B.C. Conservative MLA Hon Chan facing assault charges, kicked out of caucus
The MLA for Richmond Centre has been charged with assault, assault by choking and uttering threats, the B.C. Prosecution Service announced Thursday.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-conservative-mla-facing-criminal-charges-kicked-out-of-caucus-9.7143357?cmp=rss
Our top story: “For months, I’ve been documenting the Department of Homeland Security and their masked contractors installing buoys in the Rio Grande.”
https://www.texasobserver.org/trump-border-wall-rio-grande-valley/
#DHS #politics #USpol #border #immigration #news #Texas #SouthTexas
The case represents the feds first use of material support for terrorism charges against alleged #Antifa members. Experts say the outcome will give the #Trump administration the green light to take a more aggressive stance against left-wing activity and further politicize the use of domestic terrorism laws. https://www.texasobserver.org/prairieland-antifa-verdict-threatens-anti-trump-resistance/
#politics #law #Trump #antifa #terrorism #USpol #news #NorthTexas #Texas #ICE
RE: https://masto.ai/@rbreich/116296367375824562
Comparing the middle class of the 1970s to the middle class of today shows how massively wealth has moved from the populace to the ultra-wealthy.
But we don't teach US History in school like we should. #Politics #TrumpIsAFascist #TrumpIsAGrifter
#Brexit isn’t working: Mayor of London calls for #BrexitBritain to rejoin EU
https://youtu.be/cuXi2YlNUbU?si=HLC3z1FLcPpJhvkY
#SadiqKhan #MayorOfLondon #London #Brexit #BrexitBritain #BrexitBrokeBritain #BrexitLies #UK #Politics #UKPolitics
#UKPol #EU #RejoinEU #NorthHerts #Hitchin #Letchworth #Baldock #Royston
Them: why is there so much news about helium coming through the Strait of Hormuz? Party balloons are that important? 🎈🤨
Me: helium is used while operating MRI machines, and during the manufacturing process for semiconductors. To name just two big examples of many. 🏥💻
Them: …
Live updates: #Trump tells #Iran to ‘get serious soon’ on negotiations after Tehran dismisses ceasefire plan [contains 22 excellent photos]
https://apnews.com/live/iran-war-israel-trump-03-26-2026
from #AssociatedPress #APNews
March 26, 2026
#NoWarWithIran
#IsraelOutOfLebanon
#news #politics #Israel #Lebanon #US #USpol
Donald Trump’s top housing official Bill Pulte issued two new criminal referrals for New York Attorney General Letitia James on Wednesday, attempting to revive the administration’s ongoing legal pursuit of one of his political opponents.
According to a person familiar with the matter, Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, issued two referrals to the Justice Department, one to the US Attorney for Northern District of Illinois and another to the US Attorney for Southern District of Florida.
If federal prosecutors were to pursue a new set of charges based on Pulte’s recommendation now, the case may look substantially like the Trump Justice Department’s failed fraud case last year against James in the Eastern District of Virginia.
President Donald Trump already has signed more executive orderssince January 2025 than during his entire first term—and more than many presidents signed during their tenures in office. But one order has gone far beyond the others in reshaping the ecosystem of information the government and so many others, rely on. “EO14168 has been overwhelmingly responsible […]
WIRED - The Latest in Technology, Science, Culture and Business » 🌐
@wired.com@web.brid.gy
In a letter sent Thursday morning, Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley press the Energy Information Agency to mandate annual electricity disclosure for data centers.
Not for the first time,Nige and his band of wankers walk out of parliament after being mocked and told a few truths by Starmer. They don’t want to work, they don’t want to debate or try to help the nation. They want to be on the tele and grab the money. They are a bunch of con men playing politics- each one of them a charlatan and a bullshitter. Reform are rest home for failed tories funded by dodgy tax dodging billionaires, who live overseas. Just like Richard tice does. The councils they run are falling apart, they have a massive and ridiculous turn over of councillors because they are clowns with one agenda and not as promised business people with experience
#brexit #tory #tories #toryscum #politics #ukpolitics #bbc #news #EU #Labour #keirstarmer #Starmer #labourparty #RejoinEU #ReformUK #farage #nigelfarage #immigration #farageisalyingsackshit #ReformAreUseless #farageisatraitor
After Philip Rycroft's review of foreign interference in UK elections the Govt. has immediately capped donations by non-resident UK citizens to £100k per year & have temporarily banned *all* donations in crypto-currencies.
And, while both the Govt. & Rycroft have explicitly stated this was not aimed at any specific political party, Reform UK Ltd's funding closely matches what is being outlawed.... but the Q. is whether is Reform is a Ltd they might sidestep such constraints?
#politics
h/t FT
Make sure people know: DONALD TRUMP says airports will stay fucked until Democrats agree to vote for the Women's Disenfranchisement ("save") Act.
Tell everybody who complains about airports, everyone who complaints about gas prices, anyone who complains about anything: Donald Trump HIMSELF will not let it get fixed UNTIL 21 MILLION WOMEN are disenfranchised.
And that they need to strap in and hold steady, because we cannot let that happen.
#uspol #uspolitics #politics #fascism #FuckTrump #FuckRepublicans #FuckTheGOP #FuckAllOfThem
◽ US Trashes Insider Trading Claim Over $580-Million Bet Before Trump Post! 👀
◽ https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-trashes-insider-trading-claim-over-580-million-bet-before-trump-post-11257985
Following reports of insider trading ahead of US «President» Donald Trump's social media post on Iran, the White House has denied any misuse of information. It also called such claims «baseless» and «without evidence». The clarification came after observers claimed that oil market bets were unusually well-timed!
#ukraine #europe #eu #canada #uk #france #trump #usa #latvia #politics
Dismantling Democracy!
The U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority sounds ready to upend election laws across the country, based on its questions on the first day of arguments in a new case.
#AureFreePress #News #press #headline #GOP #Politics #uspolitics #uspol #Breaking #BreakingNews
More News at @Free_Press
https://share.newsbreak.com/huicsbu0
Kim Jong Un says North Korea "will always be with Moscow."
No word if Trump was in on the phone call love fest....
#AureFreePress #News #press #headline #GOP #Politics #uspolitics #uspol
"This sale brought to you by Donald J. Trump"
- Aure
India buys 60 million barrels of Russian oil for April, Bloomberg reports.
#AureFreePress #News #press #headline #GOP #Politics #uspolitics #uspol #Breaking #BreakingNews #India #oil
More News at @Free_Press
Democrats flip Florida state House district that includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago
#AureFreePress #News #press #headline #GOP #Politics #uspolitics #uspol
https://share.newsbreak.com/huiynzd2
"When your country is led by a nursing home resident of Golden Sunset Nursing Home in Anywhere, Florida..."
- Aure
"I think we are going to end it; I can’t tell you for sure. We have won this war."
- Trump on Iran
#AureFreePress #News #press #headline #Politics #uspolitics #uspol
More News at @Free_Press
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
In January, the Trump administration announced that it had completed its dismantling of yet another Biden-era climate program. This time, the target was the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, which Democrats had injected with almost $400 billion to support ambitious new clean energy projects.
The Biden administration pursued climate policy primarily by having Congress pass massive subsidies for solar power, wind energy, and electric vehicles. But much of the infrastructure needed to push the US further away from fossil fuel dependence—like new nuclear power plants, high-voltage transmission lines, and battery factories—needed more than the tax credits at the core of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to get off the ground. The Loan Programs Office was meant to fill that gap by making prudent loans to ambitious projects that the private sector saw as too risky. With its $400 billion windfall, the once-obscure office became the largest energy lender in the world.
That ambition apparently put the office in the crosshairs of Trump’s secretary of energy, Chris Wright. He said the Biden administration “rushed [loans] out the door in the final months after Election Day,” and said he had rooted out projects that “do not serve the best interest of the American people.”
“I think in some ways, it’s to convince Trump that they’re shutting down loans.”
Wright claimed to have scrubbed or “revised” around 80 percent of the Biden administration’s $100 billion loan portfolio, and he teased plans to advance new loans that would support President Donald Trump’s anti-renewable-energy agenda. He even rechristened the office as the “Energy Dominance Financing” program—a reference to Trump’s catchphrase for his fossil-fuel-friendly energy policy.
The truth, however, bears little resemblance to Wright’s combative rhetoric. Former federal officials and sources who have worked with the Loan Programs Office say that the program has survived the Trump-era purge in something close to its Biden-era form—and that it is still supporting the buildout of clean energy. Wright has vastly overstated his revisions and left untouched projects that will support emissions-free energy at the country’s utilities, including major transmission upgrades and nuclear power plants. (The anonymous sources quoted below requested anonymity to avoid retaliation or because they have ongoing work with the federal government; the Department of Energy declined to answer questions or make Wright and other program leaders available for interviews.)
The quiet about-face by the Trump administration may signal a recognition that carbon-free energy can play a major role in managing the electricity price hikes that have angered voters in recent years.
“It sounds like the Trump administration seems to be responding to the energy affordability politics in a way that is, if not constructive, at least acknowledges that steel needs to get in the ground,” said Advait Arun, a policy analyst at the Center for Public Enterprise, a nonprofit that supports government-led economic development. “There are ways to reframe all these projects for their agenda.”
Here’s how the Loan Programs Office typically works: A utility or startup approaches the Department of Energy proposing to build a new power plant, transmission line, or battery factory. Once the applicant is approved, it borrows money from the US Treasury at a lower rate than it could get from private banks, and the Department of Energy guarantees the loan. If the project falls through, the department pays back the Treasury with the money appropriated by Congress.
This program was first established during George W. Bush’s presidency in 2005, to help spur clean energy development. But under Bush’s successor, President Barack Obama, the Loan Programs Office became a magnet for controversy. That’s because the authority lent around $500 million to the solar cell manufacturer Solyndra, which later collapsed, leading the government to lose almost its entire investment. Republicans seized on the episode as evidence of the program’s failure—despite the fact that the loan authority also financed success stories such as Tesla, and its overall loss rate of 3 percent is much lower than that of many private sector lenders.
The controversy was largely a distant memory by 2022, when Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act gave the office almost $400 billion—around 10 times its initial mandate—in guarantee authority to invest in battery startups, new renewables, and grid upgrades to support a clean energy transition.
But the office was slow to deploy its new authority, and former officials later said it suffered from an excess of post-Solyndra caution and bureaucracy. This led to long negotiations and risk analysis around every individual loan. A report from three former Energy Department staffers later found that the “executive branch machinery…defaulted to caution, process, and reactive strategies.”
It took more than a year for the office to develop a fast-track process for major utility loans, and many deals weren’t completed until after Trump’s 2024 win. The projects that Wright claimed were “rushed out the door” had in fact suffered from too much due diligence, in the eyes of many observers, rather than too little.
When Secretary Wright arrived in DC, he jammed up the program even more. The Loan Programs Office had three different leaders in the first six months of the Trump administration, lost more than half its staff to Elon Musk’s workforce reduction efforts, and halted almost all communication with borrowers.
“They’re sending a signal that they’re only going to approve projects that a New York private equity firm would finance.”
“Moving any application through any milestone would require political appointee approval as part of a new consolidation of decision rights, and approvals were not granted,” said Jen Downing, who served as a senior adviser at the Loan Programs Office under the Biden administration and stayed on for the first few months of the Trump administration, in a letter to Congress last summer.
Downing, who left the office last May and is now a partner at a clean tech investing firm, told lawmakers that the new Trump administration leadership spent months examining almost every loan made under Biden, in an apparent search for wrongdoing or poor lending decisions.
Wright did nix a few major loans such as the Grain Belt Express, a wind power transmission line in Missouri opposed by Republican senator Josh Hawley. But former Energy Department staffers said that many of the $30 billion in loans that Wright claimed to have shut down were in fact cancelled by the borrowers themselves, which is typical for risky and complex projects. Many withdrew even before Trump’s election, including a battery recycling plant project that fell apart due to market conditions.
“The number is fake,” said Jigar Shah, who led the Loan Programs Office under Biden. “I think in some ways, it’s to convince Trump that they’re shutting down loans.”
Other Biden-approved projects have survived, like a $1.45 billion loan to a solar panel manufacturer in Georgia called QCells, which has continued without interruption. In the case of a loan for a mine at Nevada’s Thacker Pass, which was supposed to produce lithium for electric vehicle batteries, the department doubled down and took an equity stake in the project, rather than cancelling the loan.
The new leader of the loan office is Greg Beard, a former executive at the private equity firm Apollo who also ran a crypto mining company. Thus far, Beard has only advanced projects that began under Biden. That includes the office’s most recent announcement of a massive $26.5 billion loan to Southern Company, the regional utility that serves Georgia and Alabama. The loan will fund upgrades at the utility’s new nuclear power plant in Georgia, new long-duration batteries that can store solar power, and upgrades to 1,300 miles of transmission lines.
That said, the final version of the loan also substitutes 5 gigawatts of new gas power in place of a solar project that was included under the Biden-era version of the deal, according to former Loan Programs Office officials. But this change isn’t as big a deal as it might sound; the utility was always planning to build both solar and natural gas as part of its response to surging power demand, and it will still build both. The only thing that changed between administrations is which power plants will receive low-cost federal financing. The Trump administration’s three other announced loans are also holdovers from Biden. They have little to do with fossil energy, despite Trump’s repeated promises to revive coal and oil. They include a new transmission line and the restart of another nuclear plant in Pennsylvania.
The last date that the office can make loans is September 30, 2028.
“I do think that it’s in many ways a branding exercise,” said another former Department of Energy official who worked in the loan division.
Beard has said he wants to use the office to “make energy more affordable,” “win AI,” “bolster the grid,” and “get us out from under the China strategy to dominate certain critical minerals.” But it’s unclear how much appetite utilities have for the reconfigured program. The Energy Department has held roadshow meetings with data center developers, courting hyperscalers such as Meta with the promise that they will build nuclear power for data centers on federal land. Beard told CNBC that he has a pipeline of around 80 projects waiting to move forward, but that’s less than half of the 191 projects that were in the pipeline in December of 2024, as Biden prepared to leave office.
Shah said that was in part due to the fact that Beard has applied similar standards to those he maintained in his private sector job at Apollo. Beard has suggested he wants all applicants to provide corporate guarantees for their debt, which makes it hard for many projects to qualify.
“Not only are they sending the signal that they’re canceling loans, but then the other side, they’re sending a signal that they’re only going to approve projects that a New York private equity firm would finance,” said Shah. Sources familiar with the program said that the office has already received at least one major new loan application, which is related to nuclear energy, but it’s still in the early stages. The loan office is also trying to coordinate multiple utilities to purchase nuclear reactor parts in bulk.
Thanks to a change in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the major tax law signed by President Trump last summer, the program can now directly support fossil generation such as natural gas. This federal loan support was illegal under the Biden administration, when projects had to reduce greenhouse gases. But it’s far from clear that Wright and Beard could succeed in repurposing the loan program for pure fossil fuel finance, if that’s their goal. Interest in new coal plants is almost nonexistent, and there is plenty of other capital available for new natural gas generation, including from data center developers themselves. A more likely outcome is that the revamped office will continue to support a handful of deals for “clean firm” energy projects that Trump and Wright find appealing, like nuclear, as well as critical minerals production.
Spokespeople for the Department of Energy and the Energy Dominance Financing office, as the loan program has been renamed, declined to answer questions or make Beard available for an interview.
Experts say that even if the deal flow in the office slows down, there’s still a silver lining for the energy transition. More important than the exact shape of the new loans is the fact that Congress did not slash the program altogether, as it did with other Inflation Reduction Act programs such as the electric-vehicle tax credits and the Environmental Protection Agency’s “green bank.” Still, the long-term future of the program is uncertain. When Republicans in Congress modified the loan office with Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year, they also added an expiration date. Unless lawmakers choose to renew the program, the last date that the office can make loans is September 30, 2028.
Even so, the fact that two presidents with opposite views on climate policy have both made use of the program may bode well for its survival.
“I still think that the program is an important tool,” said a consultant in the energy field who has interacted with the loan office. “The technology areas that the current administration is prioritizing, all of those sort of squarely fit into the boundaries or the authorities that exist.”
finland was planning to move its election platform to amazon web services.
after all the threats from the US and concern about how it will use tech dependence against europe, that plan is on ice.
#tech #europe #finland #elections #politics #digitalsovereignty #amazon
Editor’s note: O’Rourke ended her candidacy on March 23.
On an unseasonably hot October day, a small crowd gathered at Genesis Farm, a 226-acre nonprofit in Blairstown, New Jersey, to help pull up beets before winter set in. It was the farm’s annual harvest festival and for Megan O’Rourke, a former federal climate scientist running for Congress, a natural campaign stop.
O’Rourke, after all, knows her way around a farm: At 46, she’s spent more than half of her life studying, teaching, researching, or otherwise advocating for sustainable agriculture, most recently at a small agency within the Department of Agriculture that supports food and farming research. Or at least it did. After President Donald Trump took office in 2025, taking aim at climate research and unleashing doge, the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture was forced to freeze its funding and suspend accepting new grant applications. She quit NIFA in July and launched her campaign, in part to resist the policies that drove her from government.
At Genesis Farm, seven or eight festivalgoers gathered around O’Rourke. She’d dressed appropriately for the setting, in cuffed black jeans, hiking boots, and a salmon-colored Oxford shirt. Most of the group didn’t seem to know who she was. “You’re running for…” said one attendee, his voice trailing off. “Congress,” she answered warmly, brandishing a business card.
She hopes to unseat Republican Tom Kean Jr., O’Rourke explained, the second-term congressman who she says “inherited” the seat from his ex-governor father. “I emphasize Junior,” she said. She leaned into her wide-ranging résumé, which includes a tenured professorship at Virginia Tech, a congressional fellowship, and eight years as a civil servant. “So this would be your first public office?” a guy wearing a Smithsonian cap asked. “Yeah,” she said, adding with a laugh, “Start big.”
There’s no doubt her race has big stakes. While the district narrowly went for Trump in 2024, with control of the House up for grabs, Kean is considered to be among the country’s most vulnerable Republicans, and there’s no shortage of Democrats gunning for him. As of March, at least eight had joined the contest, including a former Navy pilot, a marketing entrepreneur, an icu doctor, and a Biden-era Small Business Administration leader, who will first face each other in June. “It’s a bit of a crowded primary,” O’Rourke told the group.
O’Rourke says science—hustling for grants, spreading ideas—is not all that different from campaigning.
However things go, O’Rourke’s candidacy reflects a shift in how scientists are pushing back against Trump. Since he returned to the White House, researchers—traditionally a politics-averse group—have organized “Stand Up for Science” protests, published letters of dissent from within agencies, rescued datasets erased by the administration, and carried on research that would have been abandoned. If elected, O’Rourke would be among the first women in Congress with a scientific PhD, but she is hardly the only scientist running in 2026. In December, 314 Action, a fund that backs Democratic candidates with science backgrounds, announced it was already working with nearly 100 campaigns—more than double what it says is typical.
This shift, O’Rourke believes, is in part a response to Trump’s “assault” on science, which caused “a shock to the system.” “I think it took us a little while, including me, to even start thinking about becoming an activist, because we haven’t had to,” she says, adding that scientists are now figuring out “what should we do and how do we get organized?”
Growing up, O’Rourke was fascinated by food and where it came from. As the “poor kid” in class, she and her family relied on their church’s food pantry. Her father’s mental health issues and her mom’s long hours meant she and her three siblings typically had to fend for themselves, eating things like dry oatmeal, bread slices rolled up into a ball, or hot chocolate mix poured into a glass of milk. “It wasn’t that we went hungry, per se,” she tells me, “but nobody was feeding us.” She also loved the outdoors. Nearby her childhood house in Blairstown, in a forested wilderness now held by the Nature Conservancy that her family nicknamed “Dinosaur Mountain,” O’Rourke and her brother skipped rocks, fished, and picked berries to supplement their lunches.
Agriculture blended her interests in food and the natural world. As a master’s student in sustainable agriculture at Iowa State University, adviser Ricardo Salvador recalls, O’Rourke was a quiet, steady presence. “Whenever she did engage,” he says, “you could tell that she had been observing, that she had been thinking, asking questions.” She went on to earn a PhD in agricultural ecology from Cornell University, researching insect pest population dynamics on nearby farms while running a small fruit and vegetable farm and raising three children with her husband, Aaron Rust, whom she met as an undergraduate at Brigham Young University. After working as a climate change adviser at the usda’s Foreign Agricultural Service and an environment adviser at the now-dismantled US Agency for International Development, she landed a job at NIFA at the tail end of Trump’s first term. There, she oversaw the allocation of more than $170 million in agriculture research funds related to climate science.
After Inauguration Day in 2025, things turned south. She’d worked under three administrations, but Trump 2.0 and its executive orders targeting climate science were “just so beyond what I’d experienced,” O’Rourke says. At NIFA, she recalls, DOGE and other Trump-friendly bureaucrats hunted out work they deemed counter to the administration’s priorities. The agency’s animal reproduction portfolio was flagged, O’Rourke suspects, over the word “reproduction” and its possible proximity to sex and abortion. Her publications on climate change were deleted from the usda’s website, and her projects funded by the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act were terminated. At one point, with so much canceled, including all meetings related to the National Climate Assessment, Rust recalls O’Rourke looked at her calendar and found it empty. O’Rourke had read that her congressional district in the state’s northwestern reaches, New Jersey’s 7th, was among those Democrats hoped to flip. Considering a run, she did what any academic would do: study. She took trainings from the Democratic National Committee and Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics. And she resigned from NIFA.
Her calendar is no longer empty. The day I visited the harvest festival, she’d had at least two other events, including a local Democrats meeting. (To save time, she keeps a hairbrush and granola bars in her Prius.) “I work harder at this than I have ever probably worked at anything,” she says, “and I’ll compare that to getting my PhD with three little kids [while] running a farm.” She’s earned key endorsements from science-minded Democrats like Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree, an organic farmer, and former New Jersey Rep. Rush Holt, a plasma physicist. In February, more than 200 scientists across the country publicly announced their support. But so far, that hasn’t led to a windfall in financial support. While she reportedly raised $175,000 on her first day as a candidate, by March, O’Rourke had brought that to only $459,000—significantly less than her better-heeled primary opponents.
In biology, there’s a concept of an ecological niche—how organisms precisely fit into their environment. If the same idea applies in politics, O’Rourke occupies a distinct niche in the Democratic Party: She’s an active member of her Mormon church, a mother, and—as she’d say herself—more of a listener than a talker. When I asked her about political role models, she mentioned Washington state Blue Dog Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (a “rural Democrat,” “working-class,” and “willing to reach out across the aisle,” O’Rourke says), as well as New Mexico Rep. Melanie Stansbury (who also earned a Cornell graduate degree) and New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim (like her, “dorky”)—two lawmakers who’ve been members of the party’s progressive caucus.
If she feels out of place as a scientist in politics, she doesn’t show it. Back at Genesis Farm, she got into the weeds with a farmer on cover crops and seed phenotypes while admiring two species of bees buzz through sunflowers. “I heard you talking about pollinator conservation,” an attendee wearing a flannel and no undershirt said to O’Rourke, asking if there were anything the government could do to encourage pollinator-friendly gardening. On the way out, they posed for a photo.
O’Rourke says doing science—hustling for grants, running a lab, and spreading ideas—is not all that different from campaigning. And, she suggests, more scientists should join her. “I never really wanted to be a politician,” she told me toward the end of my visit. “This is not what I thought I would do with my life.” But “now is the time that our country needs people to step up.”
“Fossil fuel folks in the White House [are] pushing an agenda where we will shut down alternatives like wind farms and solar buildout and start a war that will benefit American companies. A few do well. The rest of us around the world, not just Americans, are suffering because we are so dependent on this.” https://www.texasobserver.org/houston-oil-conference-protest-iran-war/
#FossilFuels #Iran #Trump #politics #USpol #news #energy #ClimateChange #war
Newt Gingrich endorses Bobby Charles for Maine governor
AUGUSTA — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has endorsed Republican Bobby Charles, one of eight candidates in the GOP…
#Politics #APPAroundMaine #APPIntheCommunity #AroundMaine-MoreMaineNews #Maine #PublishtoFacebookME #PublishtoXThreadsME #SusanCover
https://www.europesays.com/2869681/
https://www.europesays.com/2869681/ Newt Gingrich endorses Bobby Charles for Maine governor #APPAroundMaine #APPInTheCommunity #AroundMaineMoreMaineNews #Maine #Politics #PublishToFacebookME #PublishToXThreadsME #SusanCover
https://www.europesays.com/us/678687/ Senators consider deal to fund Homeland Security but not ICE enforcement #AirportSecurity #AngusKing #ChristopherCoons #Congress #DistrictOfColumbia #DonaldTrump #GeneralNews #GovernmentAndPolitics #Immigration #JohnThune #KatieBritt #KristiNoem #Maine #MarkwayneMullin #Minneapolis #MinnesotaICECrackdown #News #oklahoma #PeterWelch #Politics #USDepartmentOfHomelandSecurity #USImmigrationAndCustomsEnforcement #USNews #UnitedStates #UnitedStates #US #WashingtonNews
A construction contract was awarded March 18, using money from the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” to build wall through the National Butterfly Center and the Santa Ana refuge, among other once-protected sites.
New from Michael Gonzalez, copublished with The Border Chronicle: https://www.texasobserver.org/trump-border-wall-rio-grande-valley/
#border #Texas #politics #USpol #immigration #Trump #news #SouthTexas
We’re protesting against desperate foes. We need to become just as desperate.
No Kings Rally Returns March 28
https://warnercrocker.com/2026/03/10/no-kings-rally-returns-march-28/
Elon Musk took over Twitter and turned it into the anti-woke, fascist-amplifying X.
There’s been debate about whether to stay since he bought it. But seeing how it’s evolved and the recent Grok deepfake scandal, there’s no good argument to stay.
I stopped posting there. You should too.
Epstein War? Insolvency War.
Current US debt, but from a personal perspective:
"...federal finances look like a household budget in freefall.
That household earns $52,446 and spends $73,378 — running a $20,932 annual deficit. Its total liabilities and unfunded promises amount to $1,361,788 against just $60,554 in assets, leaving it $1.3 million in the hole. Uncle Sam, by any accounting standard, is insolvent."
https://fortune.com/2026/03/23/us-government-insolvent-fiscal-crisis-fix/
1/4
SMH:
Trump has no idea what he’s doing. Now his hubris has put the world on edge
Great powers are prone to great delusions...Putin thought he’d defeat Ukraine in three days...The war is now in its fifth year...
Trump allowed a little extra time for his planned war on Iran. He was confident of defeating the Islamic Republic in four days, according to a credible expert. It’s now halfway through its fourth week.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle-east/trump-has-no-idea-what-he-s-doing-now-his-hubris-has-put-the-world-on-edge-20260323-p5rnzt.html
Make sure people know: DONALD TRUMP says airports will stay fucked until Democrats agree to vote for the Women’s Disenfranchisement (“save”) Act.
Everybody who complains about airports, everyone who complaints about gas prices, anyone who complains about anything: Donald Trump HIMSELF will not let it get fixed UNTIL 21 MILLION WOMEN are disenfranchised through his mass disenfranchisement act.
I don’t give a fuck if Fox says it’s not like that, it fucking well is. “RealID” doesn’t count. Name change documents don’t count. Marriage certificates don’t count. Changed your name when you got married? Well, if you didn’t also change your birth certificate or spend a couple of hundred dollars and many hours to get a passport, NO VOTING FOR YOU, BITCH.
Which is exactly how they want it. Way too much of “centrist” media is reporting this as a general effect, but it’s not. It’s targeting women (and trans people) and that’s how they want it, because they don’t want women to vote at all, and they’ve said so a lot since 2020. In the open. In words.
So they need to strap in and hold steady, because we absolutely cannot let that happen.
Donald Trump and the entire Republican Party want only elections if they are guaranteed to win.
Anybody whinges about airports, anybody complaints about gas, remind them: that’s what Donald Trump wants, because he wants to say in power forever.
#fascism #politics #uspol #uspolitics
#fascism #politics #uspol #uspoliticsNo more #AI influence on the #political system! https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/opinion/crypto-ai-politics.html Let alone #human #cognition and #writing my take here https://nkozphoto.com/index.php/2026/03/09/writing-critical-thinking-and-ai-where-are-we-headed/ #politics #democracy #education #corruption #tech #chatbots #students #intellectual #philosophy #publishing #nonfiction #fiction
... und wann begreifen die #CDU Wähler dass die #Union nix für Arbeitnehmer übrig hat???
P.s. erst wird Care Arbeit als Luxusfreizeit benannt und nun streicht man die Krankenversicherung dieser Frauen - Arbeitsanreiz 🤮
Aber wählt ruhig weiter das zweit übelste für Euch.
.... und zur SPD fällt mir nur ein, ihr verkauft gerade Eure Seele - so kommt ihr nicht aus Eurem Tief raus.
“The Trump administration and the media had demonized Antifa all through the first Trump term, and even more aggressively in the second. This concept of terrorism tends to become politicized, particularly when government officials intentionally politicize it.”
https://www.texasobserver.org/prairieland-antifa-verdict-threatens-anti-trump-resistance/
#antifa #law #Trump #fascism #politics #USpol #Texas #news #NorthTexas
CALLING TRUMP'S BLUFF!
Trump says he'll likely hold phone talks with Iran today and claims they both want to make a deal.
HOWEVER......
Iranian Foreign Minister says there are no talks with the United States, claims President Trump's statements are an attempt to lower energy prices and buy time for military plans.
#AureFreePress #News #press #headline #GOP #Politics #uspolitics #uspol #iranwar
More at @Free_Press
Trump Cornered
Caught With No Exit Plan
Will Fabricate Lie For War 'Out'
Trump says 'regime change' underway in Iran
#AureFreePress #News #press #headline #GOP #Politics #uspolitics #uspol #wariniran #BreakingNews #Breaking
BREAKING NEWS 🚨
Trump Cops Wander Airports
Trump's ICE Agents are unmasked and wandering the nation's airports Monday.
Due to the lack of TSA screening staff because of the partial government shutdown, Trump makes matters worse by putting armed ICE Agents in airports.
The US starting to look a lot like Russia!
#AureFreePress #News #press #headline #GOP #Politics #uspolitics #uspol #Breaking #BreakingNews
You know what’s fun? Calling the Freeport, Maine, police & asking them to stop the house-shakingly loud gunfire from someone who is in & out of jail, and having the officer on duty take the side of the gunman and brush you off. And receiving email from the police chief that all but ridicules you for being frightened by—this is a direct quote from a government account by a public official—“the mere sound of gunfire.” Tourist town Freeport, Maine, folks. #Politics #Guns #Maine #Police #US #USpol
Lest we forget - The woke leftist try to cancel Easter every year - They’re Easter eggs not chocolate eggs !!!!!….
#brexit #tory #tories #toryscum #politics #ukpolitics #bbc #news #EU #Labour #keirstarmer #Starmer #labourparty #RejoinEU #ReformUK #farage #nigelfarage #immigration #farageisalyingsackshit #ReformAreUseless #farageisaracist #farageisatraitor
All mainstream media outlets have bent the knee and now are worthless gaslighting, garbage factories. Go to #MeidasTouch and friends. No bull$#!t ! #Politics
The Epstein Class is still trying to hide while their errand boy Trump bombs Iran.
Democratic Representative Dan Goldman revealed an unredacted document from the Epstein files on the House floor Wednesday, saying that it directly contradicts Donald Trump’s account of his relationship with the billionaire sex offender. https://newrepublic.com/post/207950/democratic-congrssman-goldman-epstein-file-trump-epstein-mar-a-lago
◽ Pay for peace!... or pay for war! Dump's Iran ultimatum. 🇺🇸 🇮🇷 🇮🇱 👀
◽ https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/pay-for-peace-or-pay-for-war-trump-s-iran-1774091806.html
Donald Trump is demanding trillions of dollars from Gulf Arab states - depending on whether they want the war with Iran to continue or end. The US president reportedly gave Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries two options: $5 trillion if they want the war with Iran to continue - $2.5 trillion if they want it to stop. 💰 💰 💀
#ukraine #europe #eu #canada #uk #france #trump #usa #latvia #politics
Sometime In the 1830’s the Conservative Party was formed, the day after, sometime in the 1830’s the media in the UK was surprised and shocked that the Tory party was full of fucking racists. Incredibly nearly 200 years later the UK media are still shocked by this ……
#brexit #tory #tories #toryscum #politics #ukpolitics #bbc #news #EU #Labour #keirstarmer #Starmer #labourparty #RejoinEU #ReformUK #farage #nigelfarage #immigration #farageisalyingsackshit #ReformAreUseless #farageisaracist #farageisatraitor
As Rachel Reeves (finally) swings behind an explicit statement that Brexit has cost the UK around 8% of GDP, we might as what that looks like:
It equals around £224bn a year (in 2025), which given the UK's tax burden of around 35% is £78bn in lost tax revenue a year.
So if you wondering why the public sector is under-funded, while a continuing austerity logic is always in play, this lost tax income for the state is also contributing to budget shortfalls.
The problem those arguing for a 'revival' of Centerism have (this morning Phillip Collins/Observer) is that they draw centrism wide enough to draw in Blairs' Labour & Cameron's Tories.
If that's the liberal centre then its been in power for decades & got us to the stagnating, unequal, failing juncture we have reached.... why would anyone think they now have the answers (other than their feeling of entitlement to govern?) as the are worried less by Reform than the Greens?
For those unfamiliar with Cascadian politics, the Tri-Cities are as red as you get outside Spokane Valley Christofascism. Their paper being done with this shit matters.
Indiscriminate ICE arrests devastate WA farms, churches and families | Editorial
By Tri-City Herald Editorial Board
March 21, 2026
As spring arrives in Eastern Washington, farmers need workers to prepare their fields and orchards. It is getting harder to find those workers, however, because federal immigration enforcers have made the region a hot spot for arrests and deportations. These enforcement actions disrupt lives and communities with little regard for the disastrous consequences.
"And STILL, Trump is Putin's lap dog; what does Putin have over him?"
- Hope
Russian FM Lavrov says the United States has "officially declared" it only cares about its own well-being
"They are no longer hiding the fact that this is for oil."
#AureFreePress #News #press #headline #GOP #Politics #uspolitics #uspol
More at @Free_Press
On TikTok, a new group of folk musicians are taking the genre back to its political roots
Their lyrics are pointed, specific and reference big political events that happened just days ago. Protest music experts say the responsiveness to the current moment has helped these artists catch fire online but say they'll need to move their message into the real world if they want it to stick.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/new-folk-protest-music-9.7135014?cmp=rss
Want to know why most people don't think the UK economy is working for them?
That real household income has been stagnant for a decade might have something to do with it...
(And don't forget these real levels have taken inflation into account *but* such adjustment doesn't include house prices which continue to climb as a multiple of wages, making one aspect of economic life seem less & less affordable).
This is why Zack Polanski's message on the economy has traction!
#RobertMueller #trump #pos #politics
What a miserable piece of shit . There is going to be a big celebration what it is his turn .
Ontario premier Doug Ford to ban selling resale tickets for more than the original price. You know what they say about broken clocks
#Enshitification! #Monopolies! #Capitalism! #Yay!
Exposing bad telecom customer service | Marketplace
"the system is designed to frustrate as many people as possible, so part of the design is people give up"
Just in case you thought Labour's restriction on protests was limited to its proscription of Palestine Action, now Animal Aid has identified aspects of last month's amendment to the Public Order Act that make demonstrations against animal testing facilities almost impossible.
Not only is this illiberal it also shows a woeful lack of understanding of how any future Govt. might use such undemocratic measures (not that Labour seems that interested in democracy).
#politics
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/20/charity-challenges-law-change-restricting-protest-at-animal-testing-sites
Let's take a look at the Real Clear Politics polling averages for the US Senate election in Maine.
https://www.realclearpolling.com/elections/senate/2026/maine
23/x
You can find the date for the primary election in your state through the website below.
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/2026-state-primary-election-dates
1/x
You can support my coverage of the 2026 elections on Patreon.
https://www.patreon.com/cw/MeticulousMusings
10/x
The rage-bait candidate who wants to govern Florida
James Fishback espouses openly racist and antisemitic views. Young GOP voters are paying attention.
Archive: ia: https://s.faithcollapsing.com/3pgyk
https://www.vox.com/podcasts/483040/james-fishback-florida-governor-groyper-fuentes-racist-antisemitic#explained-podcast #podcasts #politics #today
We’re protesting against desperate foes. We need to become just as desperate.
No Kings Protests Return March 28
#NoKings #Politics
https://warnercrocker.com/2026/03/10/no-kings-rally-returns-march-28/
US Senate again refuses to limit Trump’s war in Iran
U.S. Senate Republicans and one Democrat blocked another War Powers Resolution Wednesday night to stop President Donald Trump from further military action in Iran without authorization from Con...
https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2026/03/19/repub/us-senate-again-refuses-to-limit-trumps-war-in-iran/#congress-iran-war #dc-bureau #economy #foreign-policy #iran-war #iran-war-powers-resolution #politics-&-gov #the-u.s.-constitution #trump-iran-war #u.s.-military #us-senate-iran-war-powers-resolution
While this analysis from two researchers at RAND Europe offers a reasonable over-view of the range of (structural) factors that continue to pattern the gender pay gap, with its emphasis of confidence & financial literacy also (as with so much 'liberal feminism') this seems to be dressing up blaming the victims as a call for action.
Lets be clear; there is a gender pay gap because men have ensured they are paid more....
Supporters of Labour who hope an Angela Rayner led party would 'return' to the party's Left roots, might pause & wonder if like Keir Starmer there will be a lot of promises of a Leftward shift (such as Starmer promised when defeating Jeremy Corbyn for the party leadership) only to be subsequently abandoned as 'unrealistic' or 'impractical'.
As a real Left alternative now seems to exist with the Greens (GPEW/SGs) that might be a better bet?
Who'll trust Labour again?
Vivek Ramaswamy said Ohio colleges, universities need to be consolidated: ‘We have too many of them’
Ohio Republican governor candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said he wants to consolidate Ohio colleges and universities.
https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2026/03/19/vivek-ramaswamy-said-ohio-colleges-universities-need-to-be-consolidated-we-have-too-many-of-them/#dr.-amy-acton #higher-education #ohio-amy-acton #ohio-colleges-and-universities #ohio-department-of-higher-education #ohio-governor-race-2026 #ohio-vivek-ramaswamy #ohio-vivek-ramaswamy-2026 #politics-&-gov
Graham Platner’s record would be disqualifying anywhere else. Why are prominent Democrats like Ruben Gallego and Elizabeth Warren embracing him—and what does it say about the party? https://buttondown.com/DanielleSATM/archive/when-character-doesn-t-matter-who-does/
Raw Story:
Wall Street dreads economic catastrophe as Trump guardrails erode: 'What is he doing?'
Wall Street is sounding the alarm as Trump's Iran war threatens to crater an already fragile economy, with financial analysts warning the protective guardrails shielding the U.S. from economic catastrophe are rapidly eroding.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-iran-economy-2676344032/
Both Netanyahu and Trump are convicted felons who ran for re-election so they wouldn’t end up rotting in prison.
Both think that prolonged wars will keep them in power.
The more you know.
#trump #netanyahu #Israel #america #iran #war #politics #news #middleeast #EpsteinFiles
We’re all stupid once in a while but when being stupid becomes a lifestyle then you have a problem.
#MAGA #republicans #gop #trump #iran #middleeast #oil #EpsteinFiles #news #politics
"I'm not a political person on either side," Cook said. "I'm not political."
That... that's not what political means. That's what partisan means.
Tim Cook isn't stupid. He knows what words mean. Saying that, like that, is talking like a politician - lying softly or misleading without stating an obvious falsehood.
It looks like we actually have a historical model for getting permanently rid of racist traitors to the country
https://www.npr.org/2026/03/17/nx-s1-5749436/the-confederates-who-left-the-usa
RS:
Pentagon's eye-popping new request tees up 'major political battle'
The Pentagon said it would need about $200 billion in supplies for the war in Iran, according to The Washington Post. The request is so large that some people in Trump World have a hard time seeing it passing Congress, the report added.
"The funding request is likely to stage a major political battle in Congress, as public support for the effort remains tepid..."
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-iran-2676313233/
Countries which have heavily invested in renewable energy are finding themselves well-positioned to weather Trump's oil shock
Don’t tell me you’re surprised.
The FBI is buying Americans’ location data
#politics #Tech
https://www.theverge.com/news/897145/kash-patel-ron-wyden-fbi-location-data-no-warrant
David Weigel: "AIPAC annoyed Democrats again after the elections were called; AIPAC took credit for the super PACs (which it wouldn’t during campaign) and said the races proved that being pro-Israel was good politics (not a single super PAC ad mentioned Israel, which is now a loser in Democratic Party campaigns)." #politics #extremism
Poh Si Teng Talks Emptying Her Bank Account to Direct ‘American Doctor’: “A Year Into the Gaza #Genocide, I Didn’t Have Any More Words”
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/poh-si-teng-american-doctor-documentary-cph-dox-film-gaza-1236535977/
from #HollywoodReporter
March 17, 2026
Poh Si Teng and her #documentary American Doctor, her feature directorial debut about #doctors working amid the #war in #Gaza, were in focus at the industry conference of the Copenhagen International Documentary #Film Festival.
Asked about her journey to taking on the war in Gaza from a humanitarian perspective in American Doctor, the filmmaker said: “A year into the genocide, I didn’t have any more words. I was very angry. And then came despair. I didn’t know what to do with those emotions.” So she “needed to find something else,” leading her to quit her job and empty her bank account of around $150,000.
Teng found Dr. Mark Perlmutter and his colleagues Dr. Thaer Ahmad and Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, providing emergency care in Gaza, inspiring.
Trump Following Putin's Orders...
US Vice President JD Vance plans a visit to Hungary to support Putin ally Prime Minister Viktor Orban ahead of the April 12 parliamentary elections.
Orban’s Fidesz party is trailing the opposition Tisza party led by Peter Magyar in polls, with the visit timing still uncertain.
Putin running the White House?
#AureFreePress #News #press #headline #GOP #Politics #uspolitics #uspol #Breaking #BreakingNews
More at @Free_Press
Chest bearing aging male leaders of certain countries.
Right, we’re going to retaliate for the retaliation of our previous retaliatory strike in retaliation of your attack due to our retaliation of the retaliation before this one which was in retaliation of the other retaliation that was caused by the retaliation of the original retaliation. Ad infinitum! Stupidity on the world stage. #Politics #World #AusPol #Idiocy
Women shouldn't have to cover up for powerful men.
Read more → https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/03/dolores-huerta-cesar-chavez-rape-statement/
Our top story: In #Trump’s first presidential term, federal judges often blocked administration efforts to roll back environmental protections. But as Trump has increasingly filled the courts with people who share his views, he faces fewer and fewer barriers to gutting environmental protections.
https://www.texasobserver.org/man-v-nature/
#politics #USpol #law #environment #ClimateChange #pollution
A top Trump aide resigned over Iran. Liberals should stay away from him.
Antiwar antisemitism is still antisemitism.
Archive: ia: https://s.faithcollapsing.com/ewt2z
https://www.vox.com/politics/482918/joe-kent-iran-war-resign-trump-antisemitism#donald-trump #iran #politics #world-politics
A music video that could have been shot in the United States today, but was filmed in 2018 in Istanbul.
Scenes of aggressive policing and implied violent demonstrations...fascism afoot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfhuVE-uda4
Turkish blues - a painful love song
Bir Yaralı Kuştum
Song by Gaye Su Akyol ‧ 2018
Keder, feza üstüne
Yayılır elem içimden gökyüzüne
Onu benden çok sevmiş
Paramparça bir hikâye
Ömür ömür üstüne
Yaralar sirayet etmiş her yerime
İzini kaybettim artık
Yarım kaldı bu hikâye
Bir yaralı kuştum
Uçtum uçtum senden uzaklara
Bir yaralı kuştum
Uçtum uçtum senden uzaklara
Acın içimde bıçak
Kesiyor damarlarımdan eski ben'i
Yakalandım sevda çölüne
Su ver yangınıma, heyhat!
Yıkın bu şehri yıkın
Sokağı, sevdamı, hatıramı yıkın
Geceler saklar sırlarımı
Bitmiyor bu yangın
Bir yaralı kuştum
Uçtum uçtum senden uzaklara
Bir yaralı kuştum
Uçtum uçtum senden uzaklara
I Was a Wounded Bird
Song by Gaye Su Akyol ‧ 2018
Sorrow upon sorrow
Anguish spreads from within me up to the sky
He loved her more than he loved me
A story shattered into pieces
A lifetime upon a lifetime
Wounds have spread and seeped into every part of me
I have lost his trail now
This story remains unfinished
I was a wounded bird
I flew and flew, far away from you
I was a wounded bird
I flew and flew, far away from you
Your pain is a knife inside me
Severing the "old me" from my very veins
I have been ensnared in the desert of love
Give water to my burning soul—alas!
Tear down this city, tear it down
Tear down the streets, my love, my memories
The nights keep my secrets hidden
This fire never ends
I was a wounded bird
I flew and flew, far away from you
I was a wounded bird
I flew and flew, far away from you
#Fascism #Politics #USpol #MAGA #Trump #Resist #GeneralStrike #Music #Blues #Turkey #Anatolia #Psychedelic #GayeSuAkyol
New from Dylan Baddour of Inside Climate News: “If we get to the point where we have to declare a Level 1 #Water Emergency, we need to be ready for that and we have no precedent to follow. There’s no manual, there’s no video.” https://www.texasobserver.org/corpus-christi-timeline-disaster-abbott-emergency-orders/
#environment #ClimateChange #Texas #GulfCoast #news #politics #USpol #drought
These measures arguably promote one religion over others, and religion over non-religion, threatening to turn students, families, and teachers who don’t subscribe to Christian-nationalist religiosity into outsiders in their own public schools and communities. https://www.texasobserver.org/a-wall-thats-worth-defending/
Zack Polanski (Green Party of England & Wales) argues that GDP should be downgraded as a measure of political economic success; he is 'much more interested in growing people’s mental health, growing our public services, growing cohesion of our communities'....
While possibly a quixotic aim given the continuing centrality of GDP measure to political discourse, it *does* play to people's distrust of GDP as a plausible measure of their own economic experience(s).
#economics #politics
h/t FT
Meanwhile Blackpool has made it to the last nine in a bid to become UK City of Culture 2029.
Winning would be an opportunity for Blackpool to both galvanise its local cultural sector (and population) but also be a major turnaround in its profile in British political society.
Whether it will win is another issue; but getting this far is great news for the often criticised (large) town.
#Blackpool #CityOfCulture #politics
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly8ly8261po
Meanwhile in Africa.. the one single most important place that the system of #whitesupremacy has trained all of us around the world to ignore:
Former Black Panther Dhoruba Bin Wahad: Iran & History Part One
https://kpfa.org/episode/hard-knock-radio-march-11-2026/
Part 2 🔥
https://kpfa.org/episode/hard-knock-radio-march-12-2026/
#DonaldTrump #EpsteinClass #IsraelFirst
#StraitOfHormuz = #Iran #Sanctions
@blackvoices #Africa
#news #socialmedia #uspol #politics #mastodon #usa #protest @politics @socialmedia #humanrights #war #resistance #gaza #freepalestine
‘American Doctor’ Review: An Unflinching Chronicle of Three Courageous US #Physicians Who Volunteered in Gaza
Director Poh Si Teng followed a trio of doctors who performed surgeries while the war raged on, risking their lives to save others.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/american-doctor-review-gaza-documentary-1236480354/
from #HollywoodReporter
Jan 23, 2026
It’s hard to make a #documentary about the war in #Gaza that does not feel overtly political. And yet director Poh Si Teng’s unflinching new exposé, American #Doctor, is first and foremost a #humanitarian story — one in which #medicine and moral decency take precedence over partisanship.
[...] By its very existence — and in what it reveals about the IDF’s killing, maiming and wounding of #Palestinian civilians over the past few years — the film is a condemnation both of #Netanyahu’s far-right #war machine and the #US government’s steadfast support of it.
#SanctionIsrael
#StopStarvingGaza
#FreePalestine
#Israel #Palestine #MiddleEast #WestAsia
#news #politics #film #cinema
🇨🇺 #Cuba has restored electricity across all provinces as of a few hours ago.
#DonaldTrump #EpsteinClass #IsraelFirst
#StraitOfHormuz = #Iran #Sanctions
#news #socialmedia #uspol #israel #politics #mastodon #usa #protest @politics @socialmedia #humanrights #war #resistance #gaza #economy #freepalestine #tariffs #icc #eu #protest #canada #military #sanctions #latinamerica #China #Russia @law #education #trump #marcorubio #labour #union #labor #un @workersrights
Good news.
Illinois Lt. Gov Juliana Stratton wins Democratic primary for US Senate
#Chicago #Politics
https://apnews.com/article/election-primary-illinois-democrats-senate-house-f9432112c459e87fdbfea0bdbcd4e492
#US -Israeli forces are reported to have bombed 43,000 non-military locations in first two weeks of war on Iran.
#DonaldTrump #EpsteinClass #IsraelFirst
#StraitOfHormuz = #Iran #Sanctions
#news #socialmedia #uspol #politics #mastodon #usa #protest @politics @socialmedia #humanrights #war #resistance #gaza #middleeast #freepalestine #eu #education #IsraelWarCrimes #justice @law #law
#cybersecurity @law #icc
🗨️ #science should investigate what kind of person actually manages to reach a leading political position, and why everyone in office suddenly loses logical thinking and morality - #research #socialscience #biology
#law #warcrimes #crimesAgainstHumanity
#AbuseOfOffice
#US #UK #EU #UN (...)
#politics #illegalactions
#war #waroniran #palestine
#genocide
#propaganda #media #policies
#journalism
📲 Video: R. Medhurst
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcNWJJ8IgUE
‘I’ve had more engaging conversations with trees’: Trans Ohioans get a cold reception from Ohio US rep in D.C. trip
Three rural Ohioans were invited by the ACLU to lobby U.S. Rep. David Joyce and other lawmakers at Capitol Hill.
https://thebuckeyeflame.com/2026/03/17/ohioans-lobby-aclu-david-joyce/#aclu #advocates-for-trans-equality #dave-joyce #david-joyce #democracy-days #kaden-ames #lobby-day #minnesota #politics #washington-d.c. #washington-dc
How f*cked is 2026? The Irish PM is defending the British PM, shutting Trump up in the process. On St. Paddy's Day
In Minneapolis a self-described "nobody lawyer" and "dipshiat with a 7-year-old laptop and a bad attitude" is kicking ICE's asses
Daily Beast:
Trump Goes on Wild Rant as Irish PM Struggles Not to Laugh
Trump reignited one of his favorite grievances, and the Irish prime minister could barely stifle his laughter at the absurdity.
Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin could barely keep a straight face as President Donald Trump launched a rant about one of his signature complaints: windmills.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-goes-on-wild-rant-about-windmills-as-irish-pm-micheal-martin-struggles-not-to-laugh/
#News #Politics #Democracy #Democrats #Trump #Ireland #Environment #ClimateChange