💎StuD.S

👩‍❤️‍👨; 🐊🏈 ; 👓📖; 🏴‍☠️🏈; 🐈x4; 🏋🏼; 📈🤓; 🍺🍸annnd just 😎 with a healthy dose of 🥸❗️

[Peter Zeihan @PeterZeihan]

Typically, this would have been detected early on by agricultural monitoring and disease-detection programs, but those are now gone due to cuts made by DOGE and the Trump Administration.

#usbeef #screwworm #texas

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

Today’s Supreme Court decision effectively guts a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act, freeing state legislatures to gerrymander legislative districts to systematically dilute and weaken the voting power of racial minorities - so long as they do it under the guise of “partisanship” rather than explicit “racial bias.” And it serves as just one more example of how a majority of the current Court seems intent on abandoning its vital role in ensuring equal participation in our democracy and protecting the rights of minority groups against majority overreach.

The good news is that such setbacks can be overcome. But that will only happen if citizens across the country who cherish our democratic ideals continue to mobilize and vote in record numbers - not just in the upcoming midterms or in high profile races, but in every election and every level.

[Florida Gators Men’s Basketball @GatorsMBK]

Moments of March.

[Scarlett’s Movie Musings @ScarletCinema]

“But, as you see, it's a beautiful day, the Strait of Hormuz is open and people are having a wonderful time!”

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

I used to wonder how it was possible that Trump could have won in 2016, and then again in 2024, given how emotionally toxic and depraved he is.
I don’t wonder anymore. I think he won for that exact reason. Because he carried at least one broken shard to reflect the broken shards in millions of others.
If you’re a racist, you found your guy. If you’re a misogynist, you found your guy. If money is your only religion, you found your guy. If your heart is armored shut, you found your guy. If you mock the disabled, you found your guy. If intelligence makes you insecure, you found your guy. If you’re a sexual predator, you found your guy. If you trade in humiliation and conspiracy and filth, you found your guy.
If you’ve never done a single hour of emotional inventory, you found your guy. If you cheat, stiff contractors, bankrupt your obligations, and call it savvy, you found your guy. If you lie as easily as you breathe, you found your guy. If cruelty feels like strength, you found your guy. If white grievance is your comfort food, you found your guy. If your ego is a black hole no title can fill, you found your guy. If warmongering fuels your ego, you found your guy, If empathy feels like weakness and dominance feels like oxygen, you found your guy.
If he’d only carried one or two of these pathologies, he might have been dismissed as just another loud, damaged man. But he carried a buffet of them. That was the appeal. Millions could locate themselves somewhere in the wreckage. They didn’t have to agree with all of it. They just had to recognize a piece of themselves in it.
It was never really about him. It was about the validation. The absolution. The permission. He didn’t invent the resentment; he amplified it. He didn’t create the cruelty; he normalized it. He gave millions the intoxicating relief of hearing their ugliest impulses echoed back at rally volume.
Trump is a symptom. The deeper illness is collective. If there’s one sentence that defines his power, it’s this: “He says the things I’m thinking.”
And that’s the part that should chill us.
Because what does it say about us that so many were thinking those things? That tens of millions of Americans harbored resentments so deep, so seething, that they were simply waiting for a demagogue to baptize them as virtue? That after decades of supposed progress on race, gender, and equality, so many white men felt so threatened, so displaced, so furious, that cruelty became a political platform?
Maybe we were living in a fool’s paradise, mistaking silence for healing, politeness for progress.
Now the mask is off. Now we know.
And knowing is a far more dangerous place to stand.
– Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition.

[Caitlin Kalinowski @kalinowski007]

I resigned from OpenAI. I care deeply about the Robotics team and the work we built together. This wasn’t an easy call. AI has an important role in national security. But surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorization are lines that deserved more deliberation than they got. This was about principle, not people. I have deep respect for Sam and the team, and I’m proud of what we built together.

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

TED CRUZ: “How about we all come together and stop attacking pedophiles.”

[Cartoon Videos @cartoon_vide0s]

The lightsaber 😂 😂

[Noctara @rumilyrics]

What a privilege to be tired from work you once begged the universe for. what a privilege to feel overwhelmed by growth you used to dream about. what a privilege to be challenged by a life you created on purpose. What a privilege to outgrow things you used to settle for.

[💎StuD.S @SchottStuart]

@JoeBiden @gtconway3d Burn

[Jon Sumrall @CoachJonSumrall]

🐊

[AFRICAN & BLACK HISTORY @AfricanArchives]

On this day in 1865, the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution is ratified, abolishing slavery.

This picture is 25 years after the end of slavery.

How Slavery continued after the 13th amendment ‘abolished slavery’

A THREAD

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

BREAKING: Doug Krugman served for 24 years in the United States Marine Corps. He resigned because of Trump and then wrote this:

On Sept. 30, at an unprecedented gathering of senior military leadership, President Donald Trump said, “If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room — of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future.” I wasn’t invited to be in the room that day, and I had decided months earlier that I had to leave. By coincidence, Sept. 30 was my last day as a colonel in the United States Marine Corps. I gave up my career out of concern for our country’s future.

United States military officers take an oath to defend the Constitution without mental reservation or purpose of evasion. I swore or repeated that oath under five presidents, starting with former president Bill Clinton. I risked my life for it, serving as an infantry officer in two wars. I watched Marines die for it.

No commander in chief is perfect. President Clinton’s moral failures are well known. President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq might be one of the worst errors in U.S. history. All recent presidents share responsibility for our failure in Afghanistan. I continued to serve despite all that because I believed the Constitution brought the country more success than failure, and I believed our presidents took their oaths to it seriously.
With President Trump, I no longer believe that. During his first term, his actions became increasingly difficult for me to justify, culminating with the Jan. 6 attack on Congress as it tried to execute its duties. I hoped he had learned from those errors, but it only took a few days of his second term for me to realize he had not. I could not swear without reservation to follow a commander in chief who seemed so willing to disregard the Constitution.

My departure was not about policy disagreements, which exist in every administration. President Trump won in 2024 and has the right to implement his policies within the law.

My first reservations were about promises and actions that I thought were morally wrong even if they were possibly legal. The Constitution gives the president the power to pardon, but pardoning roughly 1,600 of those who tried to violently overthrow the results of an election didn’t help defend the Constitution. Likewise, I didn’t see it as moral to deny refuge to Afghans who risked their lives to support us, which he did on Jan. 22. Ignoring reality to take advantage of vague laws to assume emergency powers is also immoral. For those who believe in honoring their word, breaking promises our country has made — including some trade agreements President Trump made himself — is not moral. These are not the kinds of actions that I’m willing to risk my life to defend.

Worse than immorality, however, has been President Trump’s willingness to disregard the law and Constitution to achieve his goals. When asked in May about the Fifth Amendment requirements for due process and if he needed to uphold the Constitution as president, the first words out of his mouth were “I don’t know.”

This month, National Guard officers received orders from the defense secretary that their governors opposed. A federal judge intervened, citing the lack of apparent emergency and the 10th Amendment. Those commanders and units were stuck between competing orders with no clear answer. When the president’s orders push or cross legal limits and put commanders in these situations, cohesion within our military is at risk.
President Trump’s description of Portland as a “war zone” is as fantastical as his belief that the June protests in a few blocks of Los Angeles would somehow “obliterate” the massive city of nearly 4 million. In both cases, his words had little connection to reality. Every dubious basis he gives for an order creates more room for doubt, more room for reservations and more threats to our unity.

The president said to military leadership on Sept. 30 of fighting domestic enemies: “And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war too. It’s a war from within.” It wasn’t clear if he was referring to actual crime or to political criticism of him. In either case, military force is not the answer.

Some of his voters likely dismiss President Trump’s seeming disregard for the Constitution — such as him saying that criticizing the president should be illegal, despite the First Amendment — as him exaggerating. Others apparently don’t care, believing that achieving their ends justifies any means. This president acts as though one election makes 236 years of constitutional order irrelevant. Instead of trying to work within the Constitution, or to amend it, President Trump is testing how far he can ignore it. If voters and legislators cannot close the gaps in our laws to clarify the limits to presidential power, those who serve our government will continue to struggle. The next president — of either party — may continue us down this path toward collapse.

I do not claim to speak for any other person or institution. I respect those who still serve, many of whom have service contracts and can’t simply retire like I did. But if they have doubts about their orders, they are not alone. They should be confident in questioning possibly immoral or illegal orders, remembering they are responsible for their own actions, and knowing others are asking the same questions.

I voluntarily gave up my rank as the president suggested, but the future of our country is more important than any individual’s career, wealth or power. I have no regrets about my decision. I have given up the service I loved for the freedom to do the right thing, the freedom to speak my mind and the freedom to speak in defense of our country.

[The Bulwark @BulwarkOnline]

Sen. Adam Schiff: "You were asked whether you consulted with career ethics lawyers, as you promised you would do during your nomination hearing, when you approved the president recovering a $400 million gift from the Qataris. You refused to answer that question. You were asked what role you played in asking that Trump's name be flagged in any of the Epstein documents...You refused to answer that question. You were asked whether Tom Homan kept the $50,000 bribe money. You refused to answer that question. You were asked whether Homan paid taxes on the $50,000 bribe. You refused to answer that question. You were asked if prosecutors found insufficient evidence to charge James Comey. You refused to answer that question. You were asked how military strikes on boats in the Caribbean are legal. You refused to answer that question. You were asked if you discussed indicting James Comey with the president. You refused to answer that question...You were asked whether you support a restoration fund for violent insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol. You refused to answer that question. You were asked whether you were firing career prosecutors just because they worked on January 6 investigations. You refused to answer that question. You were asked whether you believe government officials like immigration officials have to abide by court. You refused to answer that question."

[Florida Gators 🐊🔥 @gatorsszn]

TIM TEBOW TAKES OFF HIS SHIRT AND PICKS FLORIDA 🐊

“Only Gators get out alive” 🔥

[Steven Pinker @sapinker]

"Speech has consequences" is obviously true (why else would anyone say anything about anything?) but this banality has been distorted into an excuse to censor, punish, and silence, first in left-wing cancel culture, & now, more dangerously, in the government-backed right-wing version. Excellent analysis by PEN Pres. & free speech advocate Suzanne Nossel. https://t.co/TlRFqEyPOV

[Wonder of Science @wonderofscience]

A mesmerizing time-lapse of the Sun in ultraviolet light, captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft over the course of a month.

[Head to Head @AJHeadtoHead]

Is it fair to call Donald Trump a fascist?

Mick Mulvaney and @gtconway3d debate the president’s rejection of the 2020 election and authoritarian in his second term on Head to Head with @mehdirhasan.

Full episode ▶️ https://t.co/zWaw1frGma

[Cheddar Flow @CheddarFlow]

This could literally pass as a scene straight from The Office