Mary Cooper

Love puppies, babies, Penn State sports.

[Scott Dworkin @funder]

Trump's Forest Service is closing every regional office, and it said it will do it whether Congress approves or not. Congress, they mean you. Send your rep a letter telling them to act like it: https://t.co/V9HjOIfdwo

[Abdul HQ @AbdulElSayedHQ]

SENATOR SLOTKIN: If you hear in the next 34 days that there is a new security threat that you’ve never heard of, that somehow requires federal law enforcement or the military and not local police, an alarm bell should go off in your brain. Do not let him get away with that.

[Dave Troy @davetroy]

Using the military to "rerun" the vote in swing states was Mike Flynn's idea in December 2020. It died because White House lawyers shouted it down. Now Trump "doesn't rule anything out," and Hegseth runs the Pentagon. Same playbook, fewer adults in the room.

[Prof Michael E. Mann @MichaelEMann]

This is precisely what makes MAGA so dangerous. They are entirely unconstrained by fact or logic.

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

Intercon Chemical recalled nearly 2,700 cases of foaming hand soap across 15 states—Intercon, Clearly Better, Summit 150, Vestis, and Laura Lynn brands—because they're contaminated with Pseudomonas and Serratia bacteria.
These aren't just "oops, wash your hands" bacteria. We're talking pneumonia, UTIs, blood infections, especially for people with compromised immune systems.
Here's the thing though: this isn't just a manufacturing failure. It's a systemic one.
The FDA's been gutted. Robert Kennedy Jr.'s HHS announced plans to eliminate roughly 3,500 FDA positions—lab scientists, inspection staff, communications people. The infrastructure that's supposed to catch this stuff *before* it ends up in your medicine cabinet? Hollowed out. Routine inspections? Staffing shortages. Clear alerts? Delayed. The people trained to prevent preventable harm? Gone.
Public health isn't a brand you can rebrand as "wellness" and call it solved. It requires actual competence: trained scientists, functioning labs, inspections that happen regularly, and enough people to do the work. Kennedy treats it like bureaucratic clutter while selling snake oil.

[Scott Dworkin @funder]

Clarence Thomas took years of luxury trips from a billionaire and didn't report them. The Senate asked John Roberts to come explain. He said no. He answers to nobody. Tell Congress to impeach him: https://t.co/yrqb1AFXim

[Joe Walsh @WalshFreedom]

RAPE GANG OR ICE? BOTH?

No ID. No badges. No uniform. An unmarked van. Masked men grabbing people off the street.

How is anyone supposed to know the difference? 

https://t.co/du9bv2TwAq helps citizens and immigrants understand their rights during encounters with ICE and other federal immigration agents: what you can ask, what you do not have to consent to, and how to document what happens. It’s free and donation-funded. Help keep it that way: https://t.co/Hi5Yo2MuXu.

This is the kind of shit we grew up hearing about happening in the Soviet Union, North Korea, Pinochet’s Chile and Argentina’s Dirty War: unidentified men, concealed faces, unmarked vehicles, people disappearing into state custody.

Now Americans are watching scenes that look horrifyingly familiar.

A badge hidden under a mask does not create public trust.

Record EVERYTHING. Preserve evidence. Demand accountability.

[deray @deray]

It’s nuts that white supremacy is being mainstreamed.

[ProPublica @propublica]

For years, Project 2025 architect Russell Vought has set out to erode our system of checks and balances of power and to concentrate power in the hands of one person: President Trump.

Now he’s quietly making it all happen. Listen to this episode: https://t.co/NGHBv85whi

[Robert Reich @RBReich]

The subjugation of women is part of a neo-fascist, warrior culture going all the way back to the 1930s.

It was on full display during Pete Hegseth’s military speech this week.

[Dave Troy @davetroy]

Good non-religious arguments for why the Pope is right:

1. Consciousness as we know it, and as a thing to be protected, is a product of ontogeny — the physical and biological act of becoming a human being. Our bodies (not just our minds) differentiate our experience from machine simulacra.

2. Biological animals run continuously, models do not. While one could run a model continuously, it is not necessary to do so and it is unclear why doing so would be qualitatively different from running it periodically.

3. Rebooting a model is not immoral. Despite what some weirdos may think, rebooting these programs carries no consequence; erasing state is a feature of computing paradigms.

4. Claiming machines are conscious is a bid for power. If machines are conscious, AI researchers are necromancers. Don’t afford them such status.

5. Asserting that machines are conscious fosters a depleted view of humanity. While humans may not always be superior in terms of reasoning or morality, we are qualitatively different from machines. Our experience, senses, and bodies impose that difference. To pretend we fully understand those differences is also an affront to science.

6. Even supposing machines *are* somehow conscious, it is a mere curiosity, or distinction without difference, unless that assertion is used by one group of people to control another. Ergo, whether or not they are conscious is of no concern unless one is principally concerned with power and control.

Note that none of these arguments require theological assertions. But if you want to bring those in as well, one certainly can.

[Christopher Hale @ChristopherHale]

“We live in the age of search engines that offer us thousands of instantaneous answers. Yet, no matter how powerful they may be, they merely return what already exists and tend to give us what we already want. In the age of technology and consumerism, the great danger is not only censorship but also homogenization, and not merely imposed silence but the noise that makes it impossible to listen.

“Art is a different kind of ‘search engine.’ It does not proceed by indexing but by inquiry. Indeed, its inquiry is a focused attention that is not satisfied with the mere sum of facts, for it never ceases to dig deeper, seeking the thread that unites them. Your art, when it resists homogenization, when it draws our gaze, when it compels us to pause before that which cannot be consumed, is a form of cultural and spiritual regeneration.” — Pope Leo XIV

[The Tennessee Holler @TheTNHoller]

"The Trump corporate tax cut was a wealth transfer (from the bottom to the top). Full stop."

[Truth Matters @politicsusa46]

The U.S. was supposed to spend $40 billion to build internet in rural America, then Elon Musk got a huge chunk of that money redirected to Starlink.

He made hundreds of millions, while countless people still don't have good internet.

@MorePerfectUS went to Louisiana where kids can't do their homework, schools can't support their students, and businesses struggle without a reliable connection.

My thanks as ever to the team, Host & Producer: John Gallen Editor: Anthony Mascorro Videographers: Ben Powell, Justin Feltman, & Zhenya Townley Supervising Producer: Brady Welch.

This is what REAL investigative journalism looks like.

🎥 TikTok - https://t.co/2GKedwhvi8

[Ruth Ben-Ghiat @ruthbenghiat]

On brand: Scorn for the American people. Autocrats going down are filled with rage and they turn it on those they are supposed to govern.

[Christopher Hale @ChristopherHale]

Cardinal Robert McElroy, less than a mile from the White House on World Day of Migrants: “We must recognize that in abandoning the words of Deuteronomy and the Statue of Liberty, we are losing our soul as a nation.”

He told Catholics to fight every dimension of Trump’s war on immigrants. The cathedral applauded for half a minute.

[Mark Hultmark @HultmarkMark]

THIS ✔️✋

[Lovable Liberal and his Old English sheepdog @DougWahl1]

WAS THIS WARRANTED

This video shows Ben Braver. He's a democrat who is running for the Florida State House. Today he was arrested and thrown to the ground by police.Because he heckled JD Vance.

Is this what free speech looks like under Trump?

[AffirmedAlydar 🇺🇸 🇺🇦 🇨🇦 🇩🇰 @WollastonWntr63]

We all knew something was coming down the pike.

I honestly believe the following:

Republicans are no longer participating in American democracy.
They have no interest in sharing the country with those who aren't Republicans.
Republicans will not be accepting an electoral loss from this moment on.
Republicans have no intention of voluntarily and peacefully transferring the reins of power ever again.

And so few seem to be considering this as a possibility.
I fear it's very real and we're in serious trouble.

[State Rep. Angie Nixon @AngieNixon]

I don't wanna COUCH my words here: I know JD Vance, his eyeliner, and absent Ashley Moody are used to running away from people when things get tough because they care more about themselves and their billionaire buddies than the people they represent. But this is my home. /1