Cruncher Muncher

A real bona fide Twitter tweeter

[Adam Klasfeld @KlasfeldReports]

A shockingly close call on how to read plain English in the first sentence of a constitutional amendment.

[Eric Lee @EricLeeAtty]

SCOTUS came within 2 votes of allowing the president to effectively overturn the 14th Amendment. Anything less than 9-0 on birthright citizenship would have been a scandal in earlier period. A significant decision today, but far, far too close a vote.

[David Sirota @davidsirota]

21% of Americans are Boomers, but 61% of U.S. Senators are Boomers.

21% of Americans are Millenials, but just 5% of U.S. Senators are Millenials.

This is part of the democracy crisis — and part of why so many feel so alienated and unrepresented.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Let me tell you what just got reported, because you will not believe it until you see it laid out.

The Trump administration cut a billion-dollar tungsten deal with Kazakhstan. Tungsten is the metal we need for missile warheads, fighter jets, and computer chips. Trump himself got on the phone to close it. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick worked it from the inside, sending letters, leaning on the Kazakh president, lining up as much as $1.6 billion in federal financing.

Within weeks of those negotiations, investors tied to a firm partly owned by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump took a 20% stake in an entity connected to the very same Kazakhstan project their father was negotiating. Around that same time, Cantor Fitzgerald, the firm run by Lutnick’s own sons, raised $210 million for a partner in the deal and pocketed the fees.

The fathers set the policy. The sons cashed in.

Six days after the Trump sons and their partners moved their money, Lutnick signed the final deal.

The reporting found one or both families have financial ties to at least 14 companies working with the government on critical mining deals.

The total federal funding flowing toward those companies tops $8.9 billion.

This is your tax money.

It is supposed to secure our supply chains and protect our troops, not pad the portfolios of the President’s children and the Commerce Secretary’s children.

This is the most corrupt administration in American history. It is not close.

We must keep digging, and keep asking the questions they do not want asked. Republicans in Congress are unwilling to lift a finger. Mike Johnson is running a protection racket.

Either we will end the corruption, or the corruption will be the end of us.

https://t.co/yFOl7zvOhC

[Krystal Ball @krystalball]

Pretty revealing that what galvanized “centrist” Dems was losing to a couple DSA candidates not for example, losing to a bunch of corrupt fascists who want to end Democracy.

[Adam Johnson @adamjohnsonCHI]

“People who actively support genocide (per Amnesty, UN. HRW, IAGS) should suffer social consequences” is a reasonable political stance, not a form of bigotry. Ideologies are not a protected class and hopefully, in the coming years, this type of social sanction will be more common

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

One headline can tell you so much about propaganda.

The BBC can easily report that Crimea is "occupied", but not Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, etc.

That's just one way they frame conflicts and cue readers to feel a certain way about things.

[Tamer Nahed @Tamer_Alnoaizy]

A very dangerous new nightmare we are living in Gaza City, and no one in the world is paying attention to it.

Days ago, the Israeli army installed huge military cranes, each about 30 meters tall, on the eastern areas it controls. These cranes are equipped with machine guns and cameras, and they fire randomly and almost continuously at tents, streets, and exposed neighborhoods.

Gaza City is extremely narrow, only 10 kilometers wide. A single crane at that height is enough to expose the entire city from east to west. Every street, every square, every tent, every house has become completely exposed. There is no place to hide, and not a single moment of safety.

In just the past two days, three people were killed by fire from these cranes. One of them was sitting quietly with his father in a small café, trying to breathe for a few minutes. Hours later, a 5year old girl was killed while playing near her home.

These cranes have turned the entire city into an open field. The latest military technologies are directed at civilians. We have become an open testing ground for their new weapons. The horror is not just in the sound… it is the constant feeling of being an exposed target at all times, where even children cannot run in the street without fear.

[ChrisO_wiki @ChrisO_wiki]

Two years (and more importantly one election) apart

[Luke Miani @LukeMiani]

> save $15M a year by cutting a screwworm monitoring program

> screwworm outbreak almost immediately

> $1B to combat it

Government efficiency

[J. Dale Shoemaker @JDale_Shoemaker]

It’s happened again:

A migrant was released from jail (charges dropped) and picked up by ICE.

ICE decides not to deport.

ICE drops migrant off far from home.

Migrant dies in the cold.

Manner of death: Homicide.

Nearly identical to Buffalo case.

https://t.co/hHCcIGQfIK

[Suzie rizzio @Suzierizzo1]

This Administration has removed the achievements of the Air Force’s first female Thunderbird pilot Retired Colonel Nicole Malachowski. The removal of these articles have sparked criticism because her place in Air Force history is not a Political slogan it’s well documented.

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

What a weird way of saying ISRAEL KILLED Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil.

[Emma Vigeland @EmmaVigeland]

Another reminder that there are hundreds of thousands of Palestinians unaccounted for, presumed dead, under rubble in the Gaza Strip. Gaza is an open-air extermination camp and Israel is attempting to kill those remaining via starvation, disease, airstrikes, and/or lack of care.

[Dilan Esper @dilanesper]

A reminder that the USAID shutdown was a gross violation of the Constitution, and was permitted by the Supreme Court on the shadow docket for no valid reason at all (literally almost no serious scholars think POTUS can shut down a program funded by Congress).

[unusual_whales @unusual_whales]

Corporate donors to President Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom project have received more than $50 billion in new or expanded government contracts in the six months since demolition of the East Wing began, per Public Citizen.

[davidtuller @davidtuller1]

In a 7,600-word piece in @WIRED on unhinged patients having essentially blocked research into mind-body stuff, @AlanLevinovitz failed to mention two major clinical trials. Can someone explain to me how that happened? What will Wired do about it? Is it bias, incompetence, or both?

[Tamer Nahed @Tamer_Alnoaizy]

Gaza is taking its last breaths, and the situation we have reached is extremely dangerous.

Temperatures are rising to suffocating levels, and the tents where hundreds of thousands live have turned into ovens made of fabric and plastic. There is no electricity, no air conditioning, no fans, no cold water. People try to sleep, but heat, hunger, and fear make sleep seem like an impossible dream.

Clean water is scarce, cleaning supplies are almost nonexistent, and essential medicines are unavailable. Skin diseases are spreading in a terrifying way among children and adults, while garbage piles up and sewage mixes with displacement areas, spreading even more suffering.

Long lines form for food, yet many return empty handed. Aid is decreasing, and most relief centers have stopped or are no longer able to meet even the minimum needs.

At night, rats, insects, snakes, and scorpions crawl into the tents, while during the day people face unbearable heat and endless hunger. There is no safety, no privacy, and nowhere to go. Meanwhile, killings and destruction continue daily, while Gaza’s space shrinks day by day, forcing people into smaller and more overcrowded areas.

This is not life. This is not displacement. This is a complete collapse of everything that allows human beings to live with dignity.

What more is the world waiting for? How many children must go hungry? How many patients must die before the world acts? Do not stay silent. Speak about Gaza. Share what is happening.

[one dozen rats at a keyboard @PanasonicDX4500]

I know it’s become pretty cliche and cringey to talk about at this point but if you’re under like 25 I cannot stress enough how one time Obama wore a tan suit and people spent a week arguing over whether or not it was demeaning to the Oval Office and they were serious about it.