Nameless, Faceless, Bureaucrat

Turns out that my 9-year-old can name more countries in NATO than I can…it wasn’t even close.

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

It is important to resist the commodification of basic human needs. Food, water and healthcare cannot be subordinated to market considerations or geopolitical interests. Access to adequate food is a fundamental human right grounded in the dignity of every person. Meeting this need not only alleviates suffering but also addresses underlying causes of geopolitical instability. Indeed, food security is an essential component of global and integral security. https://t.co/DgkM9RegJ7

[‏ً @omgsidewalks]

Different salaries should ONLY affect how luxurious your life is and NOT your food quality or ability to afford rent. If you work 40 hours at any job, your income SHOULD be enough to live in the town you work in.

Thinking otherwise is an abysmal indicator of your humanity.

[History With Jacob @HistoryWJacob]

In 1884, Ulysses S. Grant was dying of throat cancer and was dead broke.

His money was wiped out by a swindler who stole his fortune.

Desperate to leave something for his wife, he agreed to write his Civil War memoirs and was close to signing a contract for a meager 10% royalty.

Mark Twain stepped in, called the deal robbery and offered Grant 70% of the profits through his own publishing company.

Grant raced death to finish the book, completing it just days before he died in July 1885.

It became one of the greatest memoirs ever written.

The royalties left his widow nearly half a million dollars, about $16 million today, and the book has never gone out of print.

[Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance]

One of my favorite lines in the complaint: “At a meeting of the Shoals Republican Club on August 3, 2019, Tuberville candidly conceded that he ‘has property’ in Alabama but is not an ‘everyday resident of Alabama,’ describing himself as a ‘carpetbagger.’”

[MAGA Cult Slayer🦅🇺🇸 @MAGACult2]

Happy 250! Thousands of rednecks on the front lawn in front of a fight… What could possibly go wrong?

[bug girl @buggirl]

in nature if a monkey hoarded 1 trillion bananas the other monkeys would beat that monkey to death and take his bananas

[𐌁𐌉Ᏽ 𐌕𐌉𐌌𐌉 @OrevaZSN]

There’s literally a children’s board game whose whole premise is showing how free market capitalism ends with one person owning everything while everyone else goes bankrupt.

[Lunwi @lunwi75]

Remember when Musk challenged the World Food Program to explain how he could solve world hunger with just $6 billion, they did, and he just completely ignored them?

[Josh Reynolds @JoshReynolds24]

I still am struggling to wrap my head around the fact this is actually happening…

Don’t care what your political views are, EVERYONE should be absolutely embarrassed & ashamed that this is happening at the Lincoln Memorial & White House. What a joke.

[Aaron Regunberg @AaronRegunberg]

What's most infuriating about the Musk trillionaire shit is that his enterprise is built almost exclusively on gov contracts. It's not just that he's expropriating our wealth in an abstract way -- his fortune is built on the tax dollars we pay, that he then obtains through graft.

[Frank Luntz @FrankLuntz]

Last month, solar power generated 12.8% of electricity in the U.S. while coal was responsible for 12.2%.

It’s the first time in history that solar accounted for more energy than coal. 🔋 https://t.co/yMxwOduobq

[𐌁𐌉Ᏽ 𐌕𐌉𐌌𐌉 @OrevaZSN]

I saw a post on Reddit that said that “The underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from the skilled the ability to access wealth.” And I don’t think I’ve ever seen AI described so incisively.

[Clash Report @clashreport]

Hunter Biden on his father pardoning him:

He chose me over his legacy, because no matter what you say, that's going to be one of the first things written about him.

He chose me over his political legacy.

And that's how much my dad loves me.

[Bill Kristol @BillKristol]

The inflation rate in Biden's last month in office was 2.9%. Trump (supported by a Republican Congress) has driven it up to 4.2%.

Thank you, voters, for your attention to this matter.

https://t.co/2BWtpX5aEf

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

Graham Platner: “This is what everyone wants to make the campaign about so we do not talk about the struggles of working Mainers. We do not talk about the fact I know someone in my hometown here who works three jobs and pays over 60% of her monthly income in rent. I think that matters a lot more than the details of my relationship before I ran for the US Senate. They continue to make this race about me and what they fail to understand is it’s not about me at all. It’s about us, it’s about Maine, it’s about the working people of this state”

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

Things the recovery industry will not tell you:

1. The drug worked. That is why people use it. Not weakness. Not moral failure.
A neurological event so complete and persuasive that any honest account of addiction has to start there.
The problem is not that the drug fails. The problem is that what it does is unrepeatable, and you will burn your entire life to the ground trying to get back to a place that no longer exists.

2. Shame is not guilt. Guilt says I did something bad. Shame says I am something bad. Guilt is appropriate. Shame is a cell with no windows. Most people use the words interchangeably. That mistake is lethal.

3. You cannot shame someone who has already named the thing you are holding over them. Say it first. Say it in plain light. The weapon drops.

4. Guilt can coexist with self-respect. Shame cannot. You can hold the damage and the dignity at the same time. I know because I live there.

5. Radical honesty does not give you back who you were. It hands you the clean slate of who you always wanted to be. The mask comes off. The cartoon other people drew of you stays on the page.

6. Nobody gets clean on a winning streak.

7. You have to be almost self-delusional in your forgiveness of yourself. (Go watch Chase Hughes)

8. The greatest sin was not the chaos. It was the absence. Being unavailable to the people who needed you.

9. Sustainable recovery starts with one thing: honesty with yourself. If you love an addict and want to help, that is the only door in.

10. I am only an expert on my recovery. Nobody is an expert on anyone else’s.

[𐌁𐌉Ᏽ 𐌕𐌉𐌌𐌉 @OrevaZSN]

Being part of a generation that was told “Wikipedia is not a source” makes it genuinely baffling to me that jobs are now telling people to just use ChatGPT for everything.

[GovExec @GovExec]

Federal retirement claims are piling up again, and the data is starting to show it in processing times and workload strain. If you are planning your exit, the timing and paperwork matter more than ever, especially as OPM works through record volume. https://t.co/8Dnrr3E9hS

[MayoIsSpicyy @Mayoisspicyy]

FACT: Trump cut funding to stop the spread of screwworms. Then he signed an executive order allowing 100,000 metric tons of beef from Argentina into the U.S. per year. America eradicated screwworms in 1966, while Argentina has been struggling with them for well over a century.